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Taliban commanders say Pakistan intelligence helps them
Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:00am EDT
LONDON (Reuters) - Pakistan's security service provides weapons and training to Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and British troops in Afghanistan, despite official denials, Taliban commanders say, in allegations that could worsen tensions between Pakistan and the United States.
Afghanistan: Pakistan accused of backing Taliban
BBC News By Sam Collyns Series Producer, BBC Two's Secret Pakistan 26 October 2011
Pakistan has been accused of playing a double game, acting as America's ally in public while secretly training and arming its enemy in Afghanistan according to US intelligence.
Afghan officials disclose new areas where Afghan security forces will take charge from NATO
By Associated Press, Wednesday, October 26, 6:47 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan forces could soon take charge of security in all or parts of 17 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces — the second step in a transition that President Hamid Karzai hopes will leave his police and soldiers in control across the nation by the end of 2014, government officials said Wednesday.
Afghan Taliban says will target national assembly
By Mirwais Harooni
KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban will hunt down and punish anyone who takes part in next month's national assembly, where the possibility of long-term U.S. military bases in Afghanistan will be discussed, the group warned in a statement on Wednesday.
Haqqanis will not talk Afghan peace alone: commander
By Jibran Ahmad
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - The Afghan Haqqani insurgent network will not take part individually in any peace talks with the United States and negotiations must be led by the Taliban leadership, a senior commander told Reuters on Tuesday.
EU to keep Afghan presence beyond 2014 - envoy
Reuters Wed Oct 26, 2011
BRUSSELS - The European Union plans to provide assistance and development aid in Afghanistan beyond the complete handover of security responsibility to Afghans, scheduled for 2014, the EU's Afghanistan representative said on Tuesday.
Afghanistan-India pact doesn't concern just Pakistanis; Afghans wonder, too
By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers
KABUL, Afghanistan — At first blush, the wide-ranging "strategic partnership" that Afghanistan signed with India this month would seem only logical: South Asia's economic heavyweight cementing its longstanding political, cultural and trade ties with the region's neediest nation.
For This Yogi, Afghan Peace Plan Needs More Downward Dog
A Former Model Bends Over Backward to Unite Taliban, Coalition in Meditation
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM OCTOBER 26, 2011
KABUL - Retired male supermodel Cameron Alborzian sat down with Maj. Gen. Phil Jones at the U.S.-led coalition headquarters in Kabul this past summer to discuss a novel way to persuade Afghan insurgents to lay down arms.
Opposition Grows To Next Stage Of U.S. Military Presence In Afghanistan
October 25, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Abubakar Siddique
The Afghan government is pushing for a draft agreement for a small, long-term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan -- and one newly formed Afghan political group is pushing back.
Afghanistan Needs $1bn to Fight Drought
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 25 October 2011
The Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development said on Tuesday that more than 7 million people are facing drought and starvation in the country.
Violent incidents kill 6 Afghan civilians, wounds 58
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Militants-linked violent incidents claimed the lives of at least six civilians and injured 58 others since Tuesday in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.
Tanker explodes near U.S. base in Afghanistan, killing 10
From Matiullah Mati, For CNN October 26, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- At least 10 people died and 35 others were injured Wednesday when a tanker filled with tons of fuel and strapped with a mine exploded near a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan, a government official said.
Eight injured as rocket hits house in E Afghanistan
ASSADABAD, Afghanistan, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- A rocket fired by anti-government militants struck a house in Kunar province, 185 km east of capital city Kabul, on Wednesday, injuring eight civilians, an official said.
US embassy clarifies Clinton's Pakistan remarks
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. embassy Tuesday denied remarks attributed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that she has "threatened" Pakistan and implied that the United States intends to take unilateral military action against Pakistan.
Withdrawal From Afghanistan Could Kill the U.S.-Russia 'Reset'
By Joshua Kucera The Atlantic
As the U.S. and NATO plan to leave Afghanistan, Russia faces a security challenge it's not ready for and an alliance with the U.S. that suddenly looks less attractive
Taliban gone, but Bamiyan still fearful
USA TODAY By Aisha Chowdhry, Special for USA TODAY 25/10/2011
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan - The massive Buddhas that were carved into the sandstone cliffs here 15 centuries ago are gone, and so too are those who dynamited them into oblivion.
An oasis of fun in Kabul - a bowling alley
NBC News By Atia Abawi 25/10/2011
Down a dimly lit street, the metal doors are decorated with a sign showing a bowling pin being knocked down by a bowling ball. Inside is an oasis of fun, at least for the Afghan capital.
Alcohol Users Face Lash in Afghan Province
Judges impose Sharia penalties after they were quietly introduced into legislation.
IWPR By Hejratullah Ekhtiyar 25 Oct 11
Afghanistan - Judges in Afghanistan’s southeast Nangarhar province have started sentencing anyone caught drinking alcohol to 80 lashes.
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Taliban commanders say Pakistan intelligence helps them
Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:00am EDT
LONDON (Reuters) - Pakistan's security service provides weapons and training to Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and British troops in Afghanistan, despite official denials, Taliban commanders say, in allegations that could worsen tensions between Pakistan and the United States.
A number of middle-ranking Taliban commanders revealed the extent of Pakistani support in interviews for a BBC Two documentary series, "Secret Pakistan," the first part of which was being broadcast on Wednesday.
A former head of Afghan intelligence also told the program that Afghanistan gave Pakistan's former president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, information in 2006 that Osama bin Laden was hiding in northern Pakistan close to where the former al Qaeda leader was eventually killed by U.S. special forces in May.
Admiral Mike Mullen, then the top U.S. military officer, accused Pakistani intelligence last month of backing violence against U.S. targets including the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
He said the Haqqani network, an Afghan militant group blamed for the September 13 embassy attack, was a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). Pakistan denies the U.S. allegations.
One Taliban commander, Mullah Qaseem, told the BBC the important things for a fighter were supplies and a hiding place.
"Pakistan plays a significant role. First they support us by providing a place to hide which is really important. Secondly they provide us with weapons," he said, according to excerpts provided by the BBC.
Other Taliban commanders described how they and their fighters were, and are, trained in a network of camps on Pakistani soil.
According to a commander using the name Mullah Azizullah, the experts running the training are either members of the ISI or have close links to it.
"They are all the ISI's men. They are the ones who run the training. First they train us about bombs; then they give us practical guidance," he said.
AL QAEDA TALENT SPOTTING
Another Taliban fighter, known as Commander Najib, said al Qaeda trainers also operated in the camps, talent spotting possible suicide bombers.
"I was in the camp for a month ... They were giving us practical training in whatever weapons we specialized in ... Suicide bombers were taken to a different section and were kept apart from us. Those who were taught to be suicide bombers were there," he said.
A former head of Afghan intelligence told the BBC Afghan officials gave Musharraf information in 2006 suggesting bin Laden was hiding in Mansehra, a town just 12 miles from Abbottabad, where bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in May, but that the information was not acted upon.
Amrullah Saleh, head of Afghan intelligence from 2004 to 2010, said Syed Akbar, a Pakistani believed to be smuggling guns to the Taliban, told Afghan intelligence he had escorted bin Laden from one location to another.
"The information we had was suggesting Mansehra was the town where bin Laden was hiding ... It happens after so many years that bin Laden was about 12 miles from that location," he said.
Saleh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai took the evidence to Musharraf who, according to Saleh, reacted angrily.
"He (Musharraf) banged the table and looked at President Karzai and said, 'Am I president of a banana republic? If not, then how can you tell me bin Laden is hiding in a settled area of Pakistan'. I said 'Well, this is the information so you can go and check it.'," said Saleh, who quit last year after disagreeing with Karzai over plans to talk to the Taliban.
The BBC said Pakistan strongly denied the allegations made in the program.
Gen. Athar Abbas, director general of the Inter Services public relations and official spokesman for the Pakistan military, told the BBC: "To say that these militant groups were being supported by the state with the organized camps in these areas ... I think nothing could be further from the truth."
(Reporting by Adrian Croft)
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Afghanistan: Pakistan accused of backing Taliban
BBC News By Sam Collyns Series Producer, BBC Two's Secret Pakistan 26 October 2011
Pakistan has been accused of playing a double game, acting as America's ally in public while secretly training and arming its enemy in Afghanistan according to US intelligence.
In a prison cell on the outskirts of Kabul, the Afghan Intelligence Service is holding a young man who alleges he was recruited earlier this year by Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency, the ISI.
He says he was trained to be a suicide bomber in the Taliban's intensifying military campaign against the Western coalition forces - and preparations for his mission were overseen by an ISI officer in a camp in Pakistan.
After 15 days training, he was sent into Afghanistan.
"There were three of us. We were put into a black vehicle with black windows. The police did not stop the car because it was obviously ISI. No-one dares stop their cars. They told me... you will receive your explosive waistcoat, and then go and explode it." Taliban bases in Pakistan
The man recruited to be a suicide bomber changed his mind at the last minute and was later captured by the Afghan intelligence service.
But his story is consistent with a mass of intelligence which has convinced the Americans that, as they suspected, for the last decade Pakistan has been secretly arming and supporting the Taliban in its attempt to regain control of Afghanistan.
These suspicions started as early as 2002, when the Taliban began launching attacks across the border from their bases in Pakistan, but they became more widely held after 2006 when the Taliban's assault increased in its ferocity, not least against the ill-prepared British forces in Helmand province.
The final turning point in American eyes was the attack on Mumbai when 10 gunmen rampaged through the Indian city, killing 170 people - two weeks after Barack Obama's US presidential election victory in November 2008.
Despite Pakistan claiming it played no part in the attack, the CIA later received intelligence that it said showed the ISI were directly involved in training the Mumbai gunmen.
President Obama ordered a review of all intelligence on the region by a veteran CIA officer, Bruce Riedel.
"Our own intelligence was unequivocal," says Riedel. "In Afghanistan we saw an insurgency that was not only getting passive support from the Pakistani army and the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, but getting active support." Training and supplies
Pakistan has repeatedly denied the claims. But the BBC documentary series Secret Pakistan has spoken to a number of middle-ranking - and still active - Taliban commanders who provide detailed evidence of how the Pakistan ISI has rebuilt, trained and supported the Taleban throughout its war on the US in Afghanistan.
"For a fighter there are two important things - supplies and a place to hide," said one Taliban commander, who fights under the name Mullah Qaseem. "Pakistan plays a significant role. First they support us by providing a place to hide which is really important. Secondly, they provide us with weapons."
Another commander, Najib, says: "Because Obama put more troops into Afghanistan and increased operations here, so Pakistan's support for us increased as well."
He says his militia received a supply truck with "500 landmines with remote controls, 20 rocket-propelled grenade launchers with 2000 to 3000 grenades... AK-47s, machine-guns and rockets". Pakistani military
Evidence of Pakistan's support for the Taliban is also plain to see at the border where insurgents are allowed to cross at will, or even helped to evade US patrols.
And the recent drone attacks in Pakistan have become increasingly effective as intelligence has been withheld from the Pakistanis, claims Mr Riedel.
"At the beginning of the drone operations, we gave Pakistan an advance tip-off of where we were going, and every single time the target wasn't there anymore. You didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to put the dots together."
Osama Bin Laden's capture and killing followed this same model - the Americans acting on their own, to the humiliation of Pakistan. Trust between the two supposed allies has never been lower.
Bin Laden was the reason America had attacked Afghanistan and overthrown the Taliban who had always refused to hand him over. His death has removed a major obstacle to peace.
Peace talks
But those who claim that Pakistan's hidden hand has shaped the conflict fear the same is now true of the negotiations for peace. Last year, in the Pakistani city of Karachi, Mullah Baradar, the Taliban's second-in-command, was captured by the ISI.
Secretly, Baradar had made contact with the Afghan government to discuss a deal that would end the war. He had done so without the ISI's permission and he was detained "to bring him back under control" according to one British diplomat.
More recently, Hawa Nooristani, a member of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, says she was called to a secret meeting.
Waiting for her was a commander from the most lethal faction of the Taliban, the Haqqani network, which first brought suicide bombing to Afghanistan. To her astonishment he said he wanted peace talks.
"He said it was vital Pakistan intelligence knew nothing of the meeting. He said not to disclose it because Pakistan does not want peace with Afghanistan and even now they are training new Taleban units.
"He was also scared that the Pakistanis will arrest him because he lives in Pakistan and he said it would be easy for them to arrest him."
The Afghan government began peace talks with the Taliban but these were abandoned after its chief negotiator, former President Rabbani, was killed by a suicide bomber purporting to be a Taliban envoy.
Any future peace will have to be concluded with Pakistan President Karzai has since declared
To American policy advisers like Bruce Riedel, the message is clear:
"The ISI may not be able to deliver the Taliban to the negotiating table, but they can certainly spoil any negotiations process. So far, there's very little sign, that I've seen, that Pakistan is interested in a political deal."
While denying links to the Taliban, Pakistan insists that it is doing no more than what any country would do in similar circumstances.
"We cannot disregard our long term interest because this is our own area," said General Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for Pakistan's military.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a recent visit to Pakistan: "The Pakistanis have a role to play, they can either be helpful, indifferent or harmful."
But there are those like Mr Riedel who fear that the forces unleashed in 10 years of war may yet come to haunt the whole world:
"There is probably no worse nightmare, for America, for Europe, for the world, in the 21st Century than if Pakistan gets out of control under the influence of extremist Islamic forces, armed with nuclear weapons...The stakes here are huge."
What happens in Pakistan may yet be the most enduring legacy of 9/11 and the hunt for Bin Laden.
Secret Pakistan is on BBC Two at 9pm on Wednesday 26 October and Wednesday 2 November or watch online afterwards (UK only) via BBC iPlayer.
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Afghan officials disclose new areas where Afghan security forces will take charge from NATO
By Associated Press, Wednesday, October 26, 6:47 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan forces could soon take charge of security in all or parts of 17 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces — the second step in a transition that President Hamid Karzai hopes will leave his police and soldiers in control across the nation by the end of 2014, government officials said Wednesday.
Karzai is expected to officially announce the new sites that are to transition from NATO to Afghan control at a Nov. 2 conference in Istanbul. In July, he announced the first seven areas to begin the transition process.
Abdul Khalik Farahi, director of the Afghan department on local governance, announced the 17 provinces at a meeting Wednesday in Kabul as the list was being fine tuned.
The areas are mostly in northern and western Afghanistan — not the south and east, where most of the fighting has been taking place. But there are locations on the list that have seen violence lately or are near to sections of the nation still controlled by the Taliban.
“Afghanistan is passing a historical moment and opening a new page of history,” Farahi said.
Officials with both the Afghan government and the U.S.-led coalition have predicted that once the transition sites are approved by Karzai, 40 percent to 50 percent of the Afghan population will be living in areas where Afghan security forces have or soon will begin taking full responsibility from the coalition.
Though excited, many governors in the newly listed provinces complained that transition can’t succeed unless they receive more police, soldiers and equipment.
Governor Musa Khan Akbarzada said his provincial capital of Ghazni city was on the list, but not the rest of Ghazni province in eastern Afghanistan.
“There has to be more modern equipment,” said Akbarzada, a man with a long, black beard and black turban. “After the transfer, we need to have modern weapons immediately.”
Abdul Jabar Taqwa, the governor of Takhar in the north who was wounded last year when a suicide bomber killed the governor of a neighboring province, echoed his complaint.
“There is a big need for police and equipment,” he said, standing on the steps of the Afghan Independent Directorate of Local Governance during a break in the meeting. “A lot of appeals for more have been made.”
Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters Wednesday that as soon as the second transition phase begins, the government will start moving more troops and equipment to areas that need them. He also announced that Afghan forces plan a new offensive in upcoming days in Khost, Paktika and Paktia provinces, a stronghold of the Haqqani network affiliated with al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Abdul Karim Barawi, the governor of Nimroz province in the southwest that borders Iran, said more Afghan Border Police were needed and that only 36 percent of the province’s 236-kilometer border with Iran is protected, he said.
The provinces included in the second transition phase are Helmand in the south, Nimroz in the southwest, Ghor and Herat in the west and Day Kundi in central Afghanistan. Also on the list are Balkh, Parwan, Takhar, Badghis, Sar-e-Pul, Samangan and Badakhshan in the north; and Kabul, Ghazni, Wardak, Laghman and Nangarhar in the east.
Transition is expected to take up to a year and a half in each area as NATO forces gradually take on support roles, including training and mentoring, and are redeployed to other areas of the country or sent home.
The areas planned for transition are not insulated from violence.
On Tuesday night, a bomb hidden inside a fuel truck in Parwan province exploded, killing at least five in a relatively quiet part of the nation, officials said. The explosion took place about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the capital, Kabul. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The blast erupted as dozens had gathered around the truck to collect leaking fuel, said Kabir Ahmad, chief of Bagram district.
Khalil Farhangi, the province’s hospital chief, confirmed that three people died at the scene. Kabir Amiri, who oversees all of Kabul’s hospitals, said two others transported to the hospital also died and that 45 people were wounded in the blast.
Local residents claimed more than 10 people were killed. They said other victims’ bodies were quickly removed by relatives.
The U.S.-led coalition said a NATO service member died in an insurgent attack Wednesday in eastern Afghanistan, raising the number killed so far this year to 479.
In the west, Sayed Ahmad Sadat, the intelligence chief for Faryab province, died of injuries sustained when a suicide bomber jumped in front of his vehicle on Oct. 17, deputy governor Abdul Satar Barez said Wednesday.
Sadat fought in the Afghan civil war in the 1990s and was the provincial leader of the political party led by former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Rabbani, the head of the Afghan peace council, was assassinated last month by a suicide bomber posing as peace envoy from the Taliban.
___
Associated Press Writer Tarek el-Tablawy and Massieh Aryan in Kabul contributed to this report.
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Afghan Taliban says will target national assembly
By Mirwais Harooni
KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban will hunt down and punish anyone who takes part in next month's national assembly, where the possibility of long-term U.S. military bases in Afghanistan will be discussed, the group warned in a statement on Wednesday.
The unusually specific threat, in an English-language message from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, said participants will be pursued "all over the country and will face severe repercussions."
It called on Taliban supporters "to target every security guard, person with intention, participant and every caller of this convention."
The four-day gathering, known in Afghanistan as a 'Loya Jirga', will be held in the capital Kabul in late November, where it will bring together more than 2,000 politicians, tribal elders, community leaders, businessmen and civil society representatives from across the country.
The assembly will be a consultative process, and its decisions are not legally binding on the government.
Earlier this month, Taliban vowed to fight until all foreign forces have left Afghanistan.
President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers have agreed that all foreign combat troops would return home by the end of 2014, but the West has promised continued support beyond then in the form of funds and training for Afghan security forces.
Despite the presence of tens of thousands of Western soldiers in Afghanistan, the United Nations and other groups say violence is at its worst since U.S.-led Afghan forces toppled the Taliban from power in late 2001.
NATO-led forces say they have seen a decline over recent months in attacks launched by insurgents against their troops.
Safia Sediqi, a spokeswoman for the grand assembly, said she was unaware of the threat.
"I have not read the statement yet and it's early to comment about it," she said.
(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Yoko Nishikawa)
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Haqqanis will not talk Afghan peace alone: commander
By Jibran Ahmad
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - The Afghan Haqqani insurgent network will not take part individually in any peace talks with the United States and negotiations must be led by the Taliban leadership, a senior commander told Reuters on Tuesday.
"They (the Americans) would not be able to find a possible solution to the Afghan conflict until and unless they hold talks with the Taliban shura," said the Haqqani group commander, referring to the Taliban leadership council.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Islamabad with a heavyweight team of U.S. military and intelligence leaders, urged Pakistan to persuade the Haqqanis to pursue peace.
She also warned that tough action would have to be taken against Afghan and Pakistani militants if they did not cooperate in efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.
The Haqqani commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, viewed her efforts with skepticism.
"This is not the first time the U.S. has approached us for peace talks. The Americans had made several such attempts for talks which we rejected as we are an integral part of the Taliban led by Mullah Mohammad Omar," he said.
"We are united and our goal is to liberate our homeland Afghanistan from the clutches of occupying forces."
Clinton said the United States had held preliminary meetings with the Haqqani network -- arguably the most dangerous Afghan insurgent faction -- and was working with Afghanistan and Pakistan to try to put together a peace process.
Taliban leader Omar has been in hiding since the Taliban were forced from power by U.S.-led forces after refusing to hand over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
(Reporting by Jibran Ahmad; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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EU to keep Afghan presence beyond 2014 - envoy
Reuters Wed Oct 26, 2011
BRUSSELS - The European Union plans to provide assistance and development aid in Afghanistan beyond the complete handover of security responsibility to Afghans, scheduled for 2014, the EU's Afghanistan representative said on Tuesday.
The international community is planning to draw down its military presence in Afghanistan in coming years, with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force now scheduled to hand responsibility for security to Afghan authorities in 2014.
But the drawdown raises the possibility of a security vacuum, as happened when the Soviet Union left in 1989, opening the way to fighting between rival anti-Soviet groups, and eventually giving rise to the Taliban.
EU Special Representative for Afghanistan Vygaudas Usackas said that the EU would maintain a presence after 2014.
"It is very important to reassure the Afghan people and the region that the European Union alongside the international community will retain its presence through political, developmental and training means beyond 2014," he told reporters in Brussels.
"It is also of paramount importance to convey to the European public that we cannot afford the mistakes of the 1989 hands-off policy in Afghanistan and the region."
Usackas was speaking ahead of international conferences -- in Istanbul on Nov. 2 and Bonn on Dec. 5 -- where participants will discuss plans for Afghanistan's future.
Some countries have already announced timetables to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, but the United States, which commands ISAF and contributes about two thirds of its troops, has still not made clear when all its forces will leave.
Three weeks ago, NATO's Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the handover of security responsibility would not mean the alliance's withdrawal, saying that "transition is not departure".
Usackas said he hoped that EUPOL Afghanistan, an EU mission to help Afghans take responsibility for law and order, would continue longer than its current mandate, which runs until the end of 2013.
In the past six months, EUPOL had trained 1,700 policemen, 300 police trainers, 200 prosecutors, 30 defence lawyers and 20 judges, he said. Those numbers are a small fraction of the tens of thousands of police Afghanistan needs trained to meet targets to take over its own security.
"I hope that by the Bonn conference, we'll be in the position to state that the European Union will remain engaged in the security sector reform and continue its mission beyond 2014," said Usackas.
(Reporting by Sebastian Moffett)
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Afghanistan-India pact doesn't concern just Pakistanis; Afghans wonder, too
By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers
KABUL, Afghanistan — At first blush, the wide-ranging "strategic partnership" that Afghanistan signed with India this month would seem only logical: South Asia's economic heavyweight cementing its longstanding political, cultural and trade ties with the region's neediest nation.
But this is Afghanistan, and nothing is that simple.
The deal, which included a plan for Indian training of Afghan security forces, immediately angered neighboring Pakistan, India's blood enemy. But many Afghans also were left concerned, wondering whether Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in agreeing to the accord, wasn't merely provoking Pakistan — the country with which Afghanistan shares its longest border, the source of some 80 percent of Afghan consumer goods, the main supply line for U.S.-led NATO forces and the linchpin of efforts to negotiate peace with the Taliban and other Afghan insurgents.
Fears about the India-Afghanistan agreement illustrate the challenges facing Afghanistan and the United States as they seek to end a decade-long war and enlist other countries in the region to help shoulder the burden of Afghan reconstruction and security.
Landlocked not just by Pakistan but also Iran, China and three former Soviet republics, seemingly every diplomatic move carries major potential costs for Afghanistan and the Obama administration, which is drawing down U.S. troops in the hope of ceding full responsibility for security to Afghan forces by 2014.
In a sign of the administration's growing outreach to regional players, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's trip through the region last week included stops in two of the ex-Soviet republics, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
To some Afghan analysts and former officials, Karzai's pact with India, while a good idea on paper, is freighted with risk.
"Afghanistan should not be part of the regional competition between India and Pakistan, the United States and Iran," said Ahmad Saeedi, a former Afghan diplomat in both India and Pakistan. "But after signing this agreement, we've become part of the game. ... The contents are very important and very significant. But it is definitely going to create some problems."
Indian officials say the deal formalizes an increasingly close relationship under which India has contributed $2 billion in aid to Afghanistan over the past decade, mostly for infrastructure projects such as roads, a hydroelectric dam and a new parliament building. The bond annoys Pakistan, particularly when India, which has been the target of several deadly insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, sent paramilitary forces to guard Indian construction workers.
For India, the stakes are huge. It doesn't want Afghanistan to revert to a haven for Muslim extremists who would target Kashmir, the border region disputed by India and Pakistan. As a fast-growing economy, India's also hungry for access via Afghanistan to the vast natural gas reserves of Central Asia.
And experts say New Delhi — which has rarely projected itself on the world stage — wants to bring Afghanistan into its sphere of influence to counteract Pakistan.
"India can't claim to be a regional power, much less a global power, if it can't manage to achieve some modicum of its strategic goals in Afghanistan," said Christine Fair, a South Asia expert at Georgetown University.
"But in terms of its investment, it has the same problems as other countries," she said. "Namely, when the U.S. security umbrella withdraws, how will it be able to continue what it's doing?"
Approximately 20 Indian nationals have died in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. India's embassy in Kabul has been hit twice, including a suicide attack in 2008 that killed two senior diplomats. In May, Afghan intelligence officials accused Pakistan's powerful military-run spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, of hiring hit men to kill the Indian consul general in Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border.
The six-page pact between India and Afghanistan includes a provision about India helping to train and equip Afghan security forces. But Indian officials said that's unlikely to mean Indian soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan — a red line for Pakistan. Training likely would occur in India and involve Afghan police, not soldiers. Still, the effort could founder over language barriers and high levels of illiteracy among the Afghans — problems that also have plagued the U.S.-led effort to build up Afghan forces.
What's more, India's assistance is hampered by its lack of a land border with Afghanistan; currently it sends the bulk of its aid via Iran. And while its aid, Bollywood films and thrice-daily flights between Kabul and New Delhi have bolstered India's standing in the eyes of many Afghans, analysts say that with Karzai increasingly isolated politically, India lacks the deep — some would say insidious — connections to Afghan political groups that Pakistan and Iran have assiduously cultivated.
"What are the political forces in this country that India could rely on?" said Haroun Mir, director of the Afghanistan Center for Research and Policy Studies, an independent think tank in Kabul.
"We know that if tomorrow Pakistanis will block the border and stop the supplies, we will face a humanitarian crisis, especially at the start of winter. How would the U.S. or India be able to support us?" Mir asked.
Indian and Afghan officials said that the agreement — post-Taliban Afghanistan's first such deal with any nation — had been in the works for about a year. But its timing raised eyebrows.
Two weeks before Karzai was to make an official visit to New Delhi, former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, the government's chief envoy to Taliban insurgents, was assassinated in Kabul by a man claiming to carry a peace message from the Taliban leadership based in Quetta, Pakistan. Suspicion immediately fell on Pakistan's ISI spy agency, which is accused of supporting Afghan insurgents, but NATO and Afghan officials have since said they haven't found a direct link to the group.
Still, the killing plunged Afghan-Pakistani relations to a new low. When Karzai and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sealed the pact in New Delhi on Oct. 4, Pakistani officials warned Afghanistan against "grandstanding."
Even a senior Indian diplomat, who wasn't authorized to be quoted by name, acknowledged that the agreement had "bad timing" and brought some "negative consequences."
Janan Mosazai, spokesman for Afghanistan's foreign ministry, played down the concerns, saying the deal was about "allowing Afghanistan to benefit from the strength of India, and nothing more than that."
But a senior Western official said that the message to Pakistan, at a time when it's under mounting pressure from the Obama administration to crack down on Afghan insurgents inside its borders, was unmistakable.
"It reminds Pakistan that if Afghanistan and Pakistan cannot have a relationship which works for both parties, then it's a signal that Pakistan is not the only regional power who may have an interest in Afghanistan," said the official, who requested anonymity to avoid antagonizing Pakistan. "And we will see whether that encourages Pakistan to do the right things to get the relationship on the right track."
Some see an even more fundamental reason for the agreement, one that has little to do with U.S. goals in Afghanistan.
"This is about India trying to step up its regional position," said Fair, of Georgetown. "I don't see it as much more than that."
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For This Yogi, Afghan Peace Plan Needs More Downward Dog
A Former Model Bends Over Backward to Unite Taliban, Coalition in Meditation
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM OCTOBER 26, 2011
KABUL - Retired male supermodel Cameron Alborzian sat down with Maj. Gen. Phil Jones at the U.S.-led coalition headquarters in Kabul this past summer to discuss a novel way to persuade Afghan insurgents to lay down arms.
Best known in his youth as Madonna's smoldering music-video love interest, Mr. Alborzian presented a bold plan to the British general who oversaw the coalition's effort to lure Taliban fighters from the battlefield: Afghan militants should join Western troops in meditation and yoga, embracing a new spirit of brotherly unity.
"The achievement would be: American soldiers meditate, Taliban meditate and, in jails, they meditate together," Mr. Alborzian said. "One is on one side of the bar, the other is on the other side of the bar. You are both in jail—and you can find the peace in it together."
The former model's message of peace may seem kooky. But it has been persuasive enough to get meetings for Mr. Alborzian and his project's Kabul-based representative with senior coalition officers, Afghan ministers and even a onetime insurgent leader.
The project also won a sympathetic hearing from Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a U.S. Navy SEAL and yoga practitioner who until recently oversaw American detention facilities in Afghanistan, and currently serves as deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command.
And it has opened doors at Afghan prisons, where the two have taught guards at detention centers to do basic, nonreligious Ayurvedic yoga poses. The pair say they have secretly taught a former Taliban commander how to meditate and soothe his militant mind.
Some analysts say the yoga and meditation approach to ending a decade of war in Afghanistan may be as good as any. "It sounds a bit crazybut who can't be supportive of someone that wants to teach the principles of nonviolence?" said Norine MacDonald, working in Afghanistan as president of the International Council on Security and Development, a nonprofit research group.
The quixotic quest for Afghan peace represents the most improbable venture yet for Mr. Alborzian, a 44-year-old Iranian-born yoga devotee.
Mr. Alborzian first gained international attention in the 1980s as a model for Guess Jeans, Versace, Chanel, Levi's, Vogue and GQ. He became a sensation when Madonna singled him out to appear bare-chested in the 1989 music video for her song "Express Yourself."
As his modeling career hit its peak, he dropped out, studied yoga in India, and then reinvented himself as Yogi Cameron, an enlightened guide who would come to your home and serve as a live-in guru reportedly for up to $30,000 per week.
Mr. Alborzian served as a personal guru for daytime talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres and wrote a self-help book, "The Guru in You."
But it was a chance encounter with Amandine Roche at a May conference attended by the Dalai Lama in Newark, N.J., that led Mr. Alborzian to Afghanistan.
Ms. Roche, a French aid worker who was briefly detained by the Taliban after 9/11, had become disillusioned with development work in Afghanistan and was looking for new solutions. At the conference, she persuaded Mr. Alborzian to become part of her Sola Yoga Project, and they distilled their vision for Afghanistan into a catchy phrase: "Peace and Reconciliation Through the Lotus Position."
The pair crisscrossed Afghanistan in the summer, looking for converts to their cause.
On one stop at the central jail of Bamiyan province, Mr. Alborzian led some prison guards through yoga poses. Most were perplexed by the performance, says prison commander Col. Ghulam Ali Batur—who appeared in a promotional video for the project shouting "Yes, Yoga!" into the camera.
"It was totally a show," he said.
Even so, Mr. Batur said the project could have some value: "Meditation can be effective for the prison staff if it is done right."
At their July meeting with Maj. Gen. Jones, Mr. Alborzian and Ms. Roche also suggested that the coalition military offer yoga classes and meditation sessions to war-weary Taliban coming off the battlefield and looking for ways to return to normal lives. Maj. Gen. Jones has left Afghanistan, and the British Ministry of Defence didn't respond to a request to make him available for comment.
"The general mainly wanted to know how quickly we thought we could train new teachers and how many per year," Mr. Alborzian said of the meeting. "We explained that meditation needs to be experienced rather than discussed as this is not intellectual therapy, but inner spiritual work."
Australian Army Capt. Christopher Hawkins, spokesman for the reintegration program then headed by Maj. Gen. Jones, said the peace-through-yoga proposal has failed to get traction.
"It was good that they came out and presented their ideas," Capt. Hawkins said. "But no action was taken."
Still, Ms. Roche was able to promote the proposal at several encounters with Vice Adm. Harward, who until recently headed Task Force 435, a coalition unit that oversees detention facilities housing Afghan insurgents, including the major center at Bagram.
The vice admiral was sympathetic, Ms. Roche says, and told her that he had mentioned the peace-through-yoga idea to Gen. David Petraeus, then commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Vice Adm. Harward "did think it might be a constructive program," confirmed U.S. Army Maj. T.G. Taylor, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command where the admiral serves. "He is open to evaluating nontraditional ideas."
Vice Adm. Harward's successor at Task Force 435, however, hasn't embraced the plan.
"This yoga discussion is not moving forward," said the Task Force's spokesman, U.S. Navy Capt. Kevin Aandahl.
The challenges facing the initiative were evident one recent afternoon in Kabul, as Ms. Roche sought to teach meditation to 40 restless Afghan teenage boys at a French-run high school.
Many of the boys couldn't sit still as Ms. Roche played a Tibetan singing bowl and instructed the students to keep their eyes closed for several minutes.
One of the kids warned his classmates that Ms. Roche was trying to introduce alien Hindu rites, undermining Afghanistan's Islamic faith.
"We have seen Indians in movies," he said during the 45-minute workshop. "They do the same thing when they worship in front of their idols."
A student named Samiullah was one of several boys whom Ms. Roche asked to leave the meditation circle. "This is useless for us," he said before taking leave to pray with friends on nearby rugs set out by the school. "There are several other things for us to do that give us peace and quiet, like when we pray and recite the Holy Quran on a daily basis." —Ziaulhaq Sultani contributed to this article.
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Opposition Grows To Next Stage Of U.S. Military Presence In Afghanistan
October 25, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Abubakar Siddique
The Afghan government is pushing for a draft agreement for a small, long-term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan -- and one newly formed Afghan political group is pushing back.
The proposed agreement was jointly drafted over the course of many months by representatives of the U.S. and Afghan governments. It is intended to update the current security agreement signed in 2005, and would outline the U.S. military role in Afghanistan after 2014. The draft received a lukewarm endorsement this week from the Afghan Security Council, which told the cabinet that it was satisfied with most of the terms.
Not so for the National United Front, a newly formed alliance of former mujahedin leaders and clerics that took the agreement as a call for protest. In an apparent effort to present the protest as representative of not only religious voices, but of the secular intelligentsia as well, the avenue directly in front of Kabul University was chosen as the site of a rally held on October 24.
Hundreds came out to protest, which organizer Wahid Mozhdah says was aimed at highlighting their belief that a long-term U.S. presence in Afghanistan could only guarantee continued conflict.
Speaking to RFE/RL on October 25, Mozhdah questioned how, if nearly 130,000 international troops currently serving in his country cannot provide security, could a lower number of troops succeed after 2014?
"Experience has shown us that foreign forces cannot bring peace to Afghanistan. We will have peace when we remove the causes of conflict among [Afghan] people," Mozhdah said. "One of the key reasons for fighting here is that we don't trust each other. We need to sit and talk to each other to gain each others trust."
National Dialogue
The opposition to the draft agreement also reached the halls of parliament, where the issue was discussed this week. The next stage for the debate is a loya jirga, or national council, whose date was announced this week and is intended to help determine a course of action.
The traditional gathering, set to begin on November 16, will provide a setting for more than 2,000 Afghan politicians, tribal leaders, clerics, and lawmakers to debate over a four-day period.
The 2005 security agreement signed by Kabul and Washington pledged U.S. cooperation for democracy building, improved governance, and economic and security cooperation. The new agreement focuses on the U.S. military role in the country after 2014, when most NATO combat operations are expected to be over.
Specific details are unavailable, but Afghan officials reportedly say the new agreement would likely give the government greater control over foreign aid and military operations while allowing a long-term U.S. presence in the country.
Afghan officials have also suggested in local media that some of their key demands, such as an end to night raids by foreign forces and mechanisms to protect Afghan civilians, are likely to be part of the final agreement.
In Afghanistan's Interests
These are among the most divisive issues within the Afghan government in its dealings with the United States, according to lawmaker Gul Badshah Majidi. He says that lawmakers on October 24 rejected a 2002 agreement with the International Security Assistance Force that allowed them to freely conduct military operations across Afghanistan. This, he says, indicates opposition to the new strategic agreement, which was also opposed by some lawmakers in recent debates.
Majidi says that the government needs to launch a robust information campaign to convince Afghans that the new agreement is different from the past agreements. And that it will actually serve Afghanistan's national interests. He says that the issue comes up in discussions with his constituents in southeastern Paktia Province who express pessimism over the deal.
But he says that they often change their views after learning more about the nature of the agreement. "I think the ultimate decision about the agreement will entail a legal framework for the presence of these forces. Their presence is needed in Afghanistan and it will serve Afghanistan's national interests," Majidi says. "The people of Afghanistan are still concerned about the return of the Taliban. They are also worried about an occupation by the Pakistan-based [fundamentalist] militias."
Afghan officials expect to host 2,030 people in the November loya jirga. They plan on briefing participants on the draft agreement before the assembly formally opens on November 16.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently indicated that the draft agreement agreed by the traditional leadership council will be sent to the parliament for final approval.
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Afghanistan Needs $1bn to Fight Drought
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 25 October 2011
The Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development said on Tuesday that more than 7 million people are facing drought and starvation in the country.
The Natural Resources and Environment Committee of Afghan Parliament said that more 90 per cent of rain-fed lands have not had enough rain this year.
Members of Emergency Situations Committee have said that if the situation is not dealt with properly, the country will face migration, regional conflict, animal deaths, and disease.
"I call on the donors and international community [to recognise] that 7.3 per cent of Afghan population is starving," Jarullah Mansoori, Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development, said.
"People have started to eat grass. Please tell us about your exact plan? How much food do we have in each area?" Fauzia Kofi, an MP from Badakhshan province, asked the minister.
The head of the Parliament's natural resources committee, Obaidullah Ramin, confirmed that this coming winter will be a difficult one for those suffering drought.
"Unfortunately, more than 90 per cent of rain-fed lands have been destroyed due to drought," Mr Ramin said.
The Deputy Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development also spoke about the blockage of roads in 23 provinces because of heavy snow fall.
"We have drought in 14 provinces and more than 2.6 per cent of Afghan people are vulnerable," Mohammad Daim Kakar, head of the disaster prevention department, said.
The natural resources committee criticised the preparations of emergency situations committee, calling them insufficient.
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Violent incidents kill 6 Afghan civilians, wounds 58
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Militants-linked violent incidents claimed the lives of at least six civilians and injured 58 others since Tuesday in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.
In a bloody incident, an oil tanker caught fire in Parwan province 55 km north of Afghan capital Kabul Tuesday night leaving at least six people, all civilians dead and injured 50 others, Interior Ministry confirmed in a statement released Wednesday afternoon.
"A magnet bomb planted by enemies on an oil tanker in Parwan province went off at 07:30 p.m. Tuesday in Bagram district as a result six people were killed and 50 others sustained injuries," the statement added.
Five cars and five motorbikes were also burned during the blast, it further said.
Bagram, 50 km north of Afghan capital Kabul is the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
"The explosive device, stuck on the side of the oil tanker, after explosion created a hole enabling the fuel to flow. The villagers gathered around to collect pooling fuel but suddenly a bigger explosion happened leaving several people dead and injured," a villager Wazir Agha, 18 told Xinhua.
The deadly blast took place in Chobakhsh-e-Rubat village at nearby Bagram airbase where U.S. military are stationed.
"At least eight villagers were killed in the blast and scores other were injured," another villager Mohammad Ramish, 20 told Xinhua.
In another violent incident but in the eastern part of the country, the Kunar province, some 185 km east of capital city Kabul, a rocket fired by anti-government militants slammed into a house Wednesday morning wounding eight members of same family, a local official said. "A rocket fired by Taliban rebels hit a house in Watapor district at 09:30 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) today wounding eight innocent civilians including two children and four women," district governor Mohammad Zalmai told Xinhua.
Civilians in Afghanistan often bear the brunt of conflicts in the conflict-ridden country.
A UN report released in July this year indicates 15 percent increase in civilian casualties in the first six months of 2011 against the same period in 2010. "A total of 1,462 Afghan civilians have been killed in the first half of 2011, up 15 percent from the same period in 2010," the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in mid-year report released here in July.
The report attributed 80 percent of the civilian deaths in the first six months to the attack of Taliban insurgents and other armed groups opposing the Afghan government, however, Taliban termed the report as biased and rejected their involvement in killing civilians.
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Tanker explodes near U.S. base in Afghanistan, killing 10
From Matiullah Mati, For CNN October 26, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- At least 10 people died and 35 others were injured Wednesday when a tanker filled with tons of fuel and strapped with a mine exploded near a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan, a government official said.
"The tanker driver wanted to detonate the explosive device inside Bagram Air Base, but before reaching his goal, the explosive device was detonated," said Roshan Khalid, spokeswoman for the governor of Parwan province.
"In a first small explosion, the tanker fuel poured in the street. When the local people gathered to collect the fuel, the second explosion happened."
The tanker was carrying 18 tons of fuel, according to Khalid.
"In the past, Afghan security forces were able to discover and dismantle explosive devices in three tankers which had planned to enter into Bagram Air Base and detonate their explosives there," she said.
The base is the nerve center of American military operations in Afghanistan and is frequently targeted by militants.
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Eight injured as rocket hits house in E Afghanistan
ASSADABAD, Afghanistan, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- A rocket fired by anti-government militants struck a house in Kunar province, 185 km east of capital city Kabul, on Wednesday, injuring eight civilians, an official said.
"A rocket fired by Taliban rebels hit a house in Watapor district at 9:30 a.m. local time today wounding eight innocent civilians including two children and four women," district governor Mohammad Zalmai told Xinhua.
Taliban militants have yet to make comment.
The mountainous Kunar province along the border with Pakistan's tribal area of Bajawar has been the scene of Taliban-linked activities over the past couple of years.
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US embassy clarifies Clinton's Pakistan remarks
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. embassy Tuesday denied remarks attributed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that she has "threatened" Pakistan and implied that the United States intends to take unilateral military action against Pakistan.
Section of Pakistani media reported on Tuesday that Hillary Clinton in her Bloomberg interview in Tajikistan, had threatened Pakistan of military action in Pakistan just days after her Islamabad's trip.
"This is false, the Secretary has consistently made clear in her public statements, including the Bloomberg interview, that the United States stands together with Pakistan and Afghanistan to avoid 'dire consequences' that could result in the region if the three countries do not work together to 'squeeze and shutdown' the terrorist threat on both sides of the border," the U.S. embassy said in a statement.
The embassy also released the full quote of the Secretary's interview on Oct. 22 with Bloomberg News in which she said that she had made it clear that there will be dire consequences for Pakistan as well as Afghanistan if this threat from the terrorist networks is not contained, at the very least, because there's no way that any government in Islamabad can control these groups.
"This is an opportunity, while we are still with 48 nations across the border in Afghanistan, where we have a lot of assets that we can put at their disposal, for us to work to really limit the threat posed by these groups," she said
"I think, following our conversations and the clarity that I believe was created, there's a much greater understanding and appreciation of what we can do together to deal with these mutual threats," Clinton said.
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Withdrawal From Afghanistan Could Kill the U.S.-Russia 'Reset'
By Joshua Kucera The Atlantic
As the U.S. and NATO plan to leave Afghanistan, Russia faces a security challenge it's not ready for and an alliance with the U.S. that suddenly looks less attractive
MOSCOW, Russia -- When the U.S. starts its scheduled troop pullout from Afghanistan in 2014, it will represent the end of America's bloody decade-plus engagement there, and the fading away of Americans' attention to Central Asia. But to Russians, 2014 instead marks a beginning: when Afghanistan becomes their problem again.
Moscow has been publicly critical of U.S. involvement in Central Asia, calling it an encroachment on their sphere of influence, but that rhetoric hid an inconvenient secret: behind the Kremlin's closed doors, observers here believe, Russians were glad that the U.S. was doing their dirty work. Even after the Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, Moscow continued to station Russian border guards in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan and aided Afghanistan's Northern Alliance. Nevertheless, a low-level but persistent Islamist radical insurgency bedeviled several of the Central Asian states on Russia's southern border.
"It's going to remove some of the glue that made the reset possible, and then there are all sorts of implications"
But, over the past ten years, those insurgencies have dwindled, in part because would-be jihadis from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and elsewhere in the former Soviet republics were drawn to Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight the U.S. and NATO there. Now those fighters are battle-hardened by a decade of fighting against the best military in the world, and with the prospect of the U.S. departure, could be looking for new targets. Russian officials have lately taken to publicly warning of the consequences, and it's hard to blame them.
"Russia should expect the activation of militant activity on the borders of Central Asia after the withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq and Afghanistan," said Colonel-General Vladimir Chirkin, commander of Russia's Central Military District. "Threats can now come creeping to our southern borders."
"We do not want NATO to go and leave us to face the jackals of war after stirring up the anthill. Immediately after the NATO withdrawal, they will expand towards Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and it will become our problem then," said Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro.
"Moscow is afraid, first and foremost because what the U.S. and the coalition were doing is very much in the interest of Russia, keeping the Taliban as far away as possible from Central Asia and Russia," said Andrei Zagorski, an expert on Russia's relations with the West at Moscow's Institute of World Economy and International Relations. And now that the U.S. is leaving, he told me, "Moscow has no viable strategy for this."
The Kremlin's first move has been to beef up the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led political-military bloc consisting of former Soviet states, in the hopes that the group can somehow become a viable collective security organ. In September, it held military drills with 12,000 soldiers from Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
The group's general secretary, Nikolai Bordyuzha, said the drills were aimed at preparing for the 2014 withdrawal. "We are not on the verge of solving the problems in Afghanistan, but on the worsening of them, and quite a qualitatively different situation in the Central Asian region, especially after 2014," he said. "The prognosis is clear: Afghanistan will remain a base for organizing terrorist and extremist activities, we feel."
But it's not clear how Moscow intends the group to work. While the recent CSTO exercises focused on conventional military threats, Moscow has shown little stomach for militarily action outside its own borders. Last year, as unrest in CSTO member-state Kyrgyzstan devolved into horrific ethnic pogroms, the CSTO declined to step in. Some top officials have suggested that they should try to combat popular movements like the Arab Spring, even considering such as options as shutting down Twitter to forestall popular uprisings in Central Asia. But military intervention, it seems, is not on the table. Other officials say the CSTO should act as a security assistance tool, building up the hapless, often corrupt security forces of Central Asia to be able to manage threats from Afghanistan on their own.
There is an alternate theory: that Russia doesn't actually believe the U.S. will ever leave Afghanistan, and is ginning up the threat from Afghanistan in order to intimidate the governments of Central Asia into rallying behind the Kremlin. "There is a danger, but we also might be exaggerating the danger," said Arkady Dubnov, a Russian journalist and expert on Central Asia. "What we're seeing now is PR, preparation for this period [when the U.S. leaves]. This PR is to prepare popular opinion, internal Russian popular opinion, and also Central Asian popular opinion, to accept the inevitability of Russian security measures." By most indications, however, the Kremlin's fear is genuine.
The U.S. pullout also threatens to seriously harm relations between the U.S. and Russia. Perhaps the greatest dividend of the reset has been cooperation on Afghanistan, particularly Russia's permission to ship U.S. military cargo over Russian territory and airspace to Afghanistan. Cooperation on Afghanistan has been win-win, and its importance has cooled heads on both sides -- something that's been particularly important when dealing with contentious issues that might have otherwise provoked bitter feuds, such as missile defense or Iran. That could change once the U.S. leaves.
"It's going to remove some of the glue that made the reset possible, and then there are all sorts of implications," said Mikhail Troitsky, a Russian analyst and co-author of a recent report on U.S.-Russian relations and Russia's near abroad. "If there's no Afghanistan, I think people on both sides will think they can get away with much harsher rhetoric."
With Afghanistan today, Russia has a bargaining chip with the U.S., but that dynamic might be about to change. "Now, we say: 'You have a problem there, we can help.' When the coalition leaves Afghanistan, the situation will be reversed -- Russia will need help," Zagorski said. The U.S., though, on the other side of the ocean, will have a lot less skin in the game than Russia does. Helping Russia will become politically trickier in Washington, too, when it's led (by then, overtly) by the more pugnacious Vladimir Putin.
It's perhaps Central Asia itself that holds the greatest threat for the reset to unravel. While Washington and Moscow have begun preliminary conversations on coordinating the withdrawal, Russia is pushing the U.S. to carry out its policies in Central Asia by engaging directly with the CSTO rather than country-by-country. In other words, if the U.S. wants to deal with Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, it should talk to Moscow. Russia is promoting this as a streamlining measure, making the CSTO a one-stop shop for the U.S. in Central Asia. But many Central Asian countries are extremely likely to resist the efforts to mediate their relations with Washington through Moscow, and the U.S. also will certainly reject such a demand. (The U.S. already has sought to scuttle NATO cooperation with the CSTO, Wikileaks documents have shown.) That could set up a showdown between the two powers over influence in Central Asia. "If Moscow is confronted with increasing direct U.S. and NATO cooperation in Central Asia, without increased cooperation with Russia, and without increased transparency, this is going to be a problem," Zagorski said. Afghanistan, in all sorts of ways, is shaping up to be Russia's new, old problem.
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Taliban gone, but Bamiyan still fearful
USA TODAY By Aisha Chowdhry, Special for USA TODAY 25/10/2011
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan - The massive Buddhas that were carved into the sandstone cliffs here 15 centuries ago are gone, and so too are those who dynamited them into oblivion.
American troops have cleared out the Taliban from this valley. But the people of Bamiyan live in fear that the strict Muslim clerics and their ruthless brand of Islam are not gone for good.
"We need the Americans," says Haji Hussain, 40, the owner of a grocery store who says he was shot by the Taliban. "When they leave, it will be very difficult and the Taliban will come back."
This province in eastern Afghanistan is known for spectacular mountain scenery of the Hindu Kush and deep-blue lakes that change hue as the sun moves over the sky. It is an ancient land that lies on the Silk Road, the trade route that caravans once took from China.
The people here are Hazaras, Shiite Muslims who descend from Mongols and who for years has been discriminated against by the more numerous Sunnis in the south, known as Pashtuns.
It was the Pashtuns who gave birth to the Taliban. Its adherents prevailed in a civil war in 1996 and made news periodically for edicts it said were rooted in Quran: public executions of adulterous women, bans on music, kites, and men marrying 9-year-old girls.
Bamiyan resisted, and close to 600 of its people died at the hands of the Taliban.
But it was not until March of 2001 that the Taliban made world headlines, shocking archeologists and awakening governments to the unique nature of the regime. Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar ordered the destruction of a treasure of the ancient world, the Bamiyan Buddhas, carved in the 6th century by monks who meditated in the caves of what was an early Hindu-Buddhist monastery.
The larger of the two statues at 175 feet was the tallest standing Buddha in existence. Omar deemed them un-Islamic idols, and when machine guns failed to destroy them they were erased by dynamite despite cries from the world community that they be spared.
Six months later the Taliban refused another request — to turn over to the USA the architect of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Osama bin Laden. The refusal led to a U.S.-led invasion that dislodged the Taliban from the capital of Kabul but began a war that continues to this day.
More than 100 miles west of Kabul, Bamiyan in July was the first province to be handed to the Afghan security forces by NATO forces.
Today construction abounds in the region, and new stores can be seen in a bustling downtown. A map outside the office of Bamiyan governor, Habiba Sarabi, the only female governor in Afghanistan, displays what Bamiyan might look like one day. It details plans to boost tourism by improving ground and air transport.
Sarabi condemns the destruction of the statues and has been a target of the Taliban, she says. "It was not only the Taliban but other hands behind that too, to destroy the identities of the Bamiyan people," she says.
Life has changed dramatically since the Taliban was forced out by NATO. Schooling is better and more open. There are 125,000 children attending classes and close to half are female. Under the Taliban girls were forbidden from getting an education.
On this day women are seen walking the streets of Bamiyan, books in hand. Hussain Noori, 28, says that is a change from life under the Taliban, which banned women from going outside without a burqa.
"They are not forced to cover themselves," he says. "It is up to them."
Foreign archeologists have flocked here in recent years and have unearthed artifacts that could become a major tourist draw. In 2008, what may be the first known use of oil paint was found in Buddhist images inside some of the thousands of caves here.
Yet the road from Kabul to Bamiyan can be a dangerous route. Better security could make it a caravan route of a different sort, one that brings tourists, income and jobs, Sarabi says.
With U.S. forces scheduled to withdraw by 2014, Afghans here are skeptical of what the future holds. Col. Hafizallah Payman, the local police Regional Training Center commander, insists that if people support the police, the police can protect them. He says the real danger is if foreign nations abandon them financially.
"If financial support stops, people will start to fight each other, there will be a civil war as illiteracy spreads," he says.
Tahir, 18, an interpreter who says his father was killed under the Taliban, says tourism is not good.
"We don't have much tourists now in Bamiyan because not too many people are interested in seeing the destroyed Buddhas, also the security situation is bad," says Tahir, who would give only his first name. "If the Taliban come back, we cannot live over here."
Capt. James DeCann, a U.S. military adviser at the training center, believes that with proper training of the police force, the people here can lead secure lives. But they will have to do it themselves. "At the end of the day, they are going to have to win this fight," he says.
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An oasis of fun in Kabul - a bowling alley
NBC News By Atia Abawi 25/10/2011
Down a dimly lit street, the metal doors are decorated with a sign showing a bowling pin being knocked down by a bowling ball. Inside is an oasis of fun, at least for the Afghan capital.
"The Strikers" bowling alley is the first of its kind in Afghanistan. Opened a few weeks ago, owner Meena Rahmani said it aims to give Afghan youths an outlet for entertainment, something that is rare in this war-stricken country.
"I thought we should have some kind of entertainment place where Afghan youths can at least have a stress-free environment where they can have fun and they can enjoy," she says.
She picked bowling because it offered more than just your normal diversionary excursion.
"I thought something which is a sport and something fun. Plus it can give people an environment where they not only play but they can sit together and socialize with each other," Rahmani explained.
Rahmani is a symbol of achievement herself. A young woman who would have been denied an education during the Taliban and restricted from working a decade ago, she is now the general director of a business she created and operates.
She is already excited to see other women and girls in her establishment. "It’s giving me happiness that I see families, girls [too], they come here and they play!" Rahmani says.
On a recent Saturday night, a group of young men were cheering as they were knocking down pins -- and laughing at their friends' gutter balls.
Some had played this game before in other countries and never believed that they'd be able to play it in their own city. "I'm very excited to have this in our own city because every time we were seeing in movies and in other countries [we knew] that we were missing such an important entertaining item." said 25-year-old IT engineer Abaseen Noorzai.
Noorzai hopes this is the beginning of many changes to come to not just the capital of Kabul but across Afghanistan.
But he admits the $35-an-hour lane charge makes it tough for many Afghans. "Maybe if they reduce the price they will have more customers and many young people who can not afford it, they will come here and play," Noorzai says.
But at least for the few, the fortunate and the somewhat wealthy "The Strikers" bowling alley gives a semblance of normalcy in a country still at war.
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Alcohol Users Face Lash in Afghan Province
Judges impose Sharia penalties after they were quietly introduced into legislation.
IWPR By Hejratullah Ekhtiyar 25 Oct 11
Afghanistan - Judges in Afghanistan’s southeast Nangarhar province have started sentencing anyone caught drinking alcohol to 80 lashes.
When the Taleban movement was in power in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, penalties derived from Islamic law were routinely imposed, such as stoning for adultery and amputation for theft. The post-2001 Afghan judiciary abandoned such methods.
It is still illegal for Afghans to consume alcohol, and a bill passed in 2009 includes provision for corporal punishment as well as fines and imprisonment for offenders. When the law was signed by President Hamed Karzai this June, it went largely unnoticed.
In Nangarhar, however, judges promptly started putting it into practice.
Abdul Qayum, the chief prosecutor in the province, said his office had requested the sentence in ten trials since the legislation came into force, and the effect of lashing offenders had been to cut the number of cases coming before the courts.
“If Islamic principles are implemented for other crimes, too, the level of crime and corruption will fall significantly,” he said.
Maulavi Abdul Aziz Khairkhwah, the head of religious affairs in the provincial administration, took a similarly hard-line stand.
“I can confidently tell you that security will not be established in Afghanistan unless the Sharia system and regulations are enforced,” he said.
Khairkhwah worked as a judge under the Taleban, and claims crime has spiralled under the government he now serves.
“Westerners want to impose their democracy – which includes obscene acts, drinking alcohol and other immoral things – on Afghanistan,” he said. “These things are contrary to Islamic law. There are also individuals in the [administrative] system who grew up in the West and are loyal to it. They are not properly informed about Islamic laws.”
Recalling the old days, he said, “I agree that the Taleban went to extreme lengths, but Islamic regulations were generally enforced.”
Public support for the tough line on alcohol appears widespread.
“It was absolutely necessary to come up with this law,” lawyer Mohebollah Faruqi, said. “Islam has already prescribed the penalties, and legislators do not dare draft laws that go against Sharia.”
The head of the Independent Human Rights Commission in the eastern region, Rafiullah Bedar, said this form of corporal punishment was appropriate as long as the verdict was impartial and the accused was allowed a defence lawyer.
“The International Declaration of Human Rights is just an international document on ethics, not a binding document,” he said. “It allows national governments to envisage punishments for crimes in accordance with religious, national and cultural principles.”
Nangarhar resident Sharifullah told IWPR how police caught him with a bottle of wine in a park, and he then spent two months in prison before receiving 80 lashes.
“The 80 lashes were easier for me than six months in prison would have been,” he said.
Jalalabad resident Zainullah Rahimi said he doubted that such punishments would work as a deterrent as they were not carried out in public.
“I believe six months imprisonment would be better than 80 lashes, because drinkers would be shamed before their families, friends and wider society,” he said.
Sherzad, a political expert and legal advisor to the Afghanistan Civil Society Association, said the authorities may have introduced Islamic penalties to counter the widespread perception that they are kowtowing to the West.
“The government incorporated Sharia into this [anti-alcohol] legislation so as to weaken this negative perception,” he added. “The government cannot apply Sharia penalties for other offences because the foreign forces are still present here. The government doesn’t dare do so as long as they are here. They have a profound influence on our judicial system.”
Hejratullah Ekhtiyar is an IWPR-trained journalist in Nangarhar province.
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