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Pakistan spied on German officers in Afghanistan - report
By Axel Hildebrand | Reuters
BERLIN (Reuters) - Pakistan's secret service spied on German security forces in Afghanistan, raising fears sensitive information could end up in the hands of the Taliban, a German paper reported on Sunday.
Aiming low at Istanbul meeting on Afghanistan
By Daniel Magnowski
KABUL (Reuters) - Western officials are not setting the bar very high for Afghan diplomats who will meet regional counterparts in Istanbul this week, the first of two conferences that will go a long way to shaping the future of international involvement in Afghanistan.
Taliban strike in Kabul shows insurgency’s growing reliance on high-profile attacks in Afghan capital
By Joshua Partlow and Greg Jaffe, The Washington Post Sunday, October 30, 5:43 AM
KABUL — The Taliban attack in Kabul on Saturday that killed at least 12 Americans, a Canadian and four Afghans highlights the insurgents’ growing reliance on high-profile bombings in the capital and targeted assassinations that seem designed to destroy Afghans’ confidence in their struggling government.
U.S. Military Waste A Smoldering Afghan Health Issue
October 28, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Frud Bezhan
Rahim spends most of his day selling merchandise to foreign soldiers out of the ramshackle hut he calls his shop. It's a living -- he earns enough to support his wife and four children -- but like many locals he feels his life in Bagram, north of Kabul, is killing him.
Commonwealth steps up polio fight, Afghanistan war hinders
By Michael Perry
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Commonwealth leaders on Saturday vowed to step up the fight against polio, but said the Afghanistan war was hindering the fight and warned that without total eradication there could be a resurgence of the crippling disease.
Australian PM vows to stay on Afghan course after attack
AFP via Yahoo! News - Oct 29 11:50pm
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard defended her country's involvement in Afghanistan after three troops were shot dead and seven wounded in an attack by a rogue Afghan soldier.
Anger and confusion reign at shootings base
Rafael Epstein, Jeremy Kelly In Kabul The Age Australia October 31, 2011.
SATURDAY was just like every other day at one of the hundreds of small forward operating bases dotted around the south of Afghanistan, as the soldiers from 2nd Royal Australian Regiment stood alongside the Afghan soldiers they were mentoring.
Afghan refugees' return figures down to 60,000 in first 10 months
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency said on Saturday that the number of Afghan refugees returning home has dropped substantially this year, with some 60,000 repatriating from overseas in the first 10 months compared to more than 100,000 over the same period in 2010.
AID POLICY: The politics of humanitarian principle
BERLIN, 28 October 2011 (IRIN) - For decades aid agencies have been tackling troubling ethical dilemmas about where to draw the line when negotiating with armed forces when trying to deliver aid to vulnerable communities. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) discusses some of the ethical dilemmas it has faced over the past 40 years in Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience, promoted at its annual Berlin Humanitarian Congress.
Afghanistan veteran uses art to mourn brother
By Adam Ashton - The (Tacoma, Wash.) News Tribune via AP Saturday Oct 29, 2011 17:07:23 EDT
GIG HARBOR, Wash. — Former Army Sgt. Stephen Ewens paints what he can’t say about the war in Afghanistan. A sniper lining up a shot on a dark night. A shadowy angel clutching a rifle.
In Kabul, Afghanistan’s first bowling alley offers respite from war; window into challenges
By Associated Press, Sunday, October 30, 5:32 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan — In an Afghan capital scarred by years of war, a young Afghan woman has bet $1 million that her countrymen could use a little fun.
Americans increasingly comparing Afghan war to Vietnam
Latest deaths of US troops in an apparent Kabul suicide attack come as support back home for the war reaches a new low
Guardian.co.uk By Paul Harris Saturday 29 October 2011
New York - The latest deaths of 13 Americans in Afghanistan in an apparent suicide bomb attack in Kabul comes at a moment when the US public's attitude to the long war is at an all-time low.
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Pakistan spied on German officers in Afghanistan - report
By Axel Hildebrand | Reuters
BERLIN (Reuters) - Pakistan's secret service spied on German security forces in Afghanistan, raising fears sensitive information could end up in the hands of the Taliban, a German paper reported on Sunday.
Without citing its sources, mass-selling weekly Bild am Sonntag reported that Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency warned its interior ministry that Pakistan had spied on 180 German police officers deployed in Afghanistan to train locals.
The interior ministry told Reuters the BND suspected a German email had been intercepted but could not give confirmation. The ministry added it was not aware of any comprehensive interception of German police data.
Pakistan's interior and foreign ministries and military were unavailable for comment.
Bild am Sonntag said private telephone calls, messages to the ministry, military mission orders and lists of police officer names had been intercepted.
"On the basis of experience we must expect that the Pakistan intelligence agency ISI is continuing to give sensitive military information to the Taliban," Bild cited an unnamed Berlin security expert as saying.
The BND declined to comment on the report.
The United States has long suspected Pakistan, or elements within the ISI, of supporting militant groups in order to increase its influence in Afghanistan, particularly after NATO troops leave in 2014.
Pakistan supported the Afghan Taliban before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. It was one of only three countries to have diplomatic relations with the Islamist group.
Citing security sources, Bild wrote that German police officers in Afghanistan have communicated in the past via non-secure means as they cost less.
"We have opened the floodgates to the enemy," Bild cited a high-ranking Berlin ministry official as saying.
Bild said shortly after the BND warning and before a visit by the German president to Afghanistan, the German police mission was equipped with brand new laptops with the latest software for secure communication.
The interior ministry confirmed the police laptops and broadcasting technology were tested and equipped with new software between September13 and 23. A spokesman said this was a regular I.T.-checkup and was not linked to the spying claim.
(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider in Islamabad, Writing by Sarah Marsh in Berlin; Editing by Sophie Hares)
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Aiming low at Istanbul meeting on Afghanistan
By Daniel Magnowski
KABUL (Reuters) - Western officials are not setting the bar very high for Afghan diplomats who will meet regional counterparts in Istanbul this week, the first of two conferences that will go a long way to shaping the future of international involvement in Afghanistan.
Attending the meeting will be U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, plus foreign ministers from France, Germany and Poland, and representatives from NATO and the United Nations.
Turkey's President Abdullah Gul will host a trilateral meeting with Pakistan's President Asif Zardari and Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai Tuesday.
The Afghan government and its foreign backers are preparing for the end of 2014, the deadline for foreign combat troops to return home, even though some foreign troops will remain as trainers and advisers.
Some Afghans fear their own security forces will be unable to cope with the insurgency when the majority of foreign troops go and that their country may fall into another civil war.
Wednesday's Turkish session with the Afghan and Pakistani leaders is meant to agree on a framework for regional security and cooperation. This will include Afghan border nations Pakistan, Iran, China, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, ahead of a wider-ranging meeting in Germany in December.
LOW EXPECTATIONS
Participants already have low expectations.
"If they agree on the roadmap leading toward a meaningful regional security dialogue and application of security-building measures on a regional level, that will be a success by itself," a senior Western official said.
"(There are) low expectations, but if they launch the process, in that respect it will be a success."
Afghanistan, which argues that militancy and drug trafficking are cross-border problems that need cross-border solutions, wanted legally binding security commitments to be made in Istanbul. Kabul has since had to concede that only a non-binding, watered-down agreement will be possible.
"Regional cooperation is crucial not just for achieving long-desired security, stability and prosperity for the people of Afghanistan ... but also in the wider region," said Afghan deputy foreign minister Jawed Ludin, addressing diplomats before closed-door talks in the run-up to the Istanbul meeting.
Regional heavyweight Pakistan would be crucial to any cross-border security initiative. It also harbors modest ambitions.
"We envisage this conference as a platform to express the region's solidarity and support for Afghanistan in its endeavors to establish peace and stability," Pakistani foreign ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua said in a weekly briefing.
A fellow Muslim country and a NATO member, Turkey has had strong historical ties with both countries and has sought to encourage confidence-building measures between them.
Whereas Karzai and Zardari have a personal rapport, the Afghan and Pakistani intelligence services have a long history of mistrust. There have been frequent accusations the Pakistan military has backed Taliban militants in the hope of regaining influence in Kabul once Western forces withdraw.
Pakistani generals have long feared India could obtain more influence in Afghanistan, raising the specter of encirclement.
The Pentagon says insurgents abetted by Pakistan pose the big threat to U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, and several high-profile attacks in Kabul were carried out by the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, based in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Such threats were underscored again Saturday, when a suicide bomber in Kabul killed 13 troops and civilian employees from the NATO-led force, as well as four Afghans -- the deadliest single ground attack against the coalition in 10 years.
The often tense relationship between Washington and Islamabad aside, platitudes from Pakistan about Wednesday's meeting will not change the situation in Afghanistan.
"The Afghans have had to lower their ambitions a bit in the face of some regional objections," a second senior Western official said.
Rather than aim high and fail, those involved in the talks have settled for modest goals that are easier to reach.
"The idea is to leave a senior level group which would meet in a few months and start applying some of the confidence-building measures," the first Western official said.
"It's going to be very difficult because of the very different and conflicting agendas of regional players."
After Istanbul will come the Bonn conference, a December gathering at which donor countries hope to agree on what their commitments will be beyond the end of 2014.
"It's going to be a long-term process," Afghanistan's Ludin said. "We are not going to achieve the aims we all aspire to in one conference alone."
(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony in Islamabad and Simon Cameron-Moore in Istanbul; Editing by Paul Tait and Sophie Hares)
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Taliban strike in Kabul shows insurgency’s growing reliance on high-profile attacks in Afghan capital
By Joshua Partlow and Greg Jaffe, The Washington Post Sunday, October 30, 5:43 AM
KABUL — The Taliban attack in Kabul on Saturday that killed at least 12 Americans, a Canadian and four Afghans highlights the insurgents’ growing reliance on high-profile bombings in the capital and targeted assassinations that seem designed to destroy Afghans’ confidence in their struggling government.
A vehicle laden with explosives swerved into an armored U.S. military bus, resulting in one of the deadliest strikes aimed at Americans in Kabul in the past decade, according to U.S. military and Afghan officials.
The American and Canadian dead included five soldiers and eight civilian contractors. The attack was the latest in a series of spectacular and frequently suicidal assaults in major cities against government and military targets.
In recent weeks, Taliban fighters waged a prolonged gun-and-grenade battle aimed at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and killed a key Afghan peace envoy and former president in a suicide bomb attack.
The shift in Taliban strategy has been driven, in part, by the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops who have pushed insurgent fighters out of their rural havens in the south and made it harder for them to attack front-line U.S. combat forces.
In the wake of Saturday’s attack, U.S. commanders sought to highlight their gains over the past year. Gen. John R. Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said the bombing was designed “to hide the fact that [the Taliban] are losing territory, support and the will to fight.”
But the attacks in the previously safe capital also highlight the Taliban’s resilience at a time when the United States is beginning a gradual drawdown of its forces in the country and trying to press forward with stalled peace talks.
U.S. officials in recent months have held preliminary talks with the Taliban and the affiliated Haqqani network, both of which operate out of sanctuaries in Pakistan.
The American strategy envisions continued military pressure combined with a sustained push to jump-start reconciliation talks and grow Afghanistan’s army and police force. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week described the approach as “fight, talk, build.”
Saturday’s suicide bombing is likely to bolster critics who have insisted that the prospects of reconciliation with the Taliban remain remote. In testimony Thursday, Clinton acknowledged meeting with a representative of the Haqqani network, which has been behind most of the high-profile Kabul attacks and has links to Pakistan’s intelligence service.
Asked how the network had responded, she said that the answer was “an attack on our embassy.” A week later, a suicide bomber killed former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, the head of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council.
A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, said it is unrealistic to expect that the Taliban would scale back attacks in advance of serious peace negotiations. “What do you expect?” the official said. “They are in a war. We are aggressively trying to kill Taliban and Haqqani [fighters], and they are trying to kill us.”
Frequent convoys in capital
Until recently, violence in Kabul, particularly against U.S. troops, had been rare. American forces do not regularly patrol in the capital, leaving the job to Afghan soldiers and police officers. U.S. soldiers and civilians, however, frequently move between their headquarters and other bases in Kabul.
The suicide bombing Saturday targeted one such convoy, exploding against a large armored bus as it passed the private American University. Shrapnel sprayed across a four-lane highway and reduced the armored bus to smoking wreckage.
The Taliban asserted responsibility for the bombing, claiming that 1,500 pounds of explosives had been used.
The U.S. death toll was the highest in a single incident since Aug. 6, when insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter in Wardak province, killing 30 U.S. Special Operations troops and eight Afghans.
The most recent suicide attack took place not far from Darulaman palace, the bombed-out former kings’ residence that sits on a hill on the city’s western outskirts. The highway is routinely traveled by NATO convoys, and insurgents have targeted them before, as in a May 2010 bombing that killed 18 people, including five U.S. troops.
After the Saturday blast, U.S. and Afghan troops blocked off the road as they cleaned up the wreckage and ferried casualties to hospitals. At least four Afghans died, including one policeman, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. A hospital official in Kabul said eight other people were wounded.
The Associated Press reported that a Canadian soldier was among the five troops killed.
Also Saturday, a man in an Afghan army uniform opened fire at a NATO-Afghan base in the southern province of Uruzgan, killing three Australian troops.
New limits on Americans
The recent Kabul attacks and the deaths of as many as eight U.S. civilians in Saturday’s bombing are likely to lead to new restrictions on the ability of American officials to move around the capital. In contrast to Baghdad, U.S. troops and civilians had been able to move around the city with ease and relatively little security.
The tighter restrictions could make it harder for U.S. officials to mentor an Afghan government that is already plagued by incompetence and corruption.
Kabul is one of seven areas where the United States has transitioned the lead responsibility for security to Afghan army and police forces. As U.S. forces continue to be withdrawn, the number of areas under the control of Afghan security forces will grow. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is expected to announce in Istanbul next week that Afghan forces are prepared to take security control in all or parts of 17 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
U.S. officials brushed off suggestions that attacks such as Saturday’s suicide bombing could slow the move to hand over security responsibility to the Afghans. “Transition is not about peace, harmony and stability,” the senior administration official said. “It is getting to a point where the local security forces can handle the threat with support.”
Jaffe reported from Washington. Staff writer Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
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U.S. Military Waste A Smoldering Afghan Health Issue
October 28, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Frud Bezhan
Rahim spends most of his day selling merchandise to foreign soldiers out of the ramshackle hut he calls his shop. It's a living -- he earns enough to support his wife and four children -- but like many locals he feels his life in Bagram, north of Kabul, is killing him.
"It's the air," Rahim says as he coughs violently and points to the plumes of black and green smoke rising in the distance. "It's making me and my family sick."
Rahim, who provides only his first name, pins the blame squarely on Bagram air base, home to about 30,000 U.S. and coalition forces as well as thousands of foreign and local contractors. Located only a few miles from Bagram city, the base houses a large airstrip, dozens of residential halls, and even a modern shopping mall that boasts a Burger King and a Pizza Hut.
According to Rahim, the source of the smoke is a huge burning pit at the base -- an open dump site the U.S. military uses to dispose of trash at the base. He believes harmful chemicals are released in the burning process, causing various forms of ailments and disease in the areas surrounding the base.
"They're burning TVs, radios, mobile phones, and all sorts of electronics. It doesn't matter how much we have protested, neither the government nor the Americans have listened to our concerns," Rahim says. "They shouldn't do this. Our children are getting sick because the wind is blowing the smoke inside our homes."
Rahim's concerns are shared by other locals. Farhad, who has worked at the air base since 2008, describes the burn pit as the size of "several soccer fields." A bulldozer pushes waste into the pit, located at the outer edge of the base, and it burns 24 hours a day, he says.
"I've witnessed the Americans dumping and then burning electronics like computers and television sets, ...things that are renewed every six months," Farhad says. "The smoke gives off a very bad odor that smells like plastic, which is entering our homes. It is making everyone sick, especially the children. This has been happening ever since the Americans entered Bagram 10 years ago."
Effects Of Pollution
Comparative statistics documenting a rise in cases of illnesses and disease due to exposure to the burning pits are not available. No official study has been carried out, in part due to the lack of proper testing equipment and expertise among health officials in Afghanistan.
But the effects on the local population are readily obvious, according to Dr. Mustafa Siddiqui, a health specialist from Kabul. He says using fuel to burn waste contaminates the air with toxic pollutants such as lead, mercury, and cadmium, and can cause respiratory illnesses, chronic allergies, and various cancers.
"People living near the military base in Bagram are coughing up blood, find it difficult to breathe, and have problems with their kidneys and livers," Dr. Siddiqui says.
Steven Markowitz, professor of environmental sciences at Queens College, City University of New York, says U.S. soldiers returning from Afghanistan are also showing significant increases in respiratory problems. He attributes this to the soldiers being exposed to open burn pits at Bagram and other U.S. military bases.
"If we know American soldiers are being affected, then we know it is quite possible for local laborers on bases and the local population to be affected," Markowitz says.
Few Signs Of Progress
The United States has 100,000 troops and thousands more contractors in Afghanistan, with each producing 4.5 kilograms of waste each day, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Commander Robert Mulac, public affairs officer for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A), says burning pits are the most "expeditious way" of getting rid of the waste.
"The reason for the use of burn pits is that, because of the very large volume of solid waste generated by contingency operations, it is impracticable to landfill the waste without first substantially reducing the volume," Mulac says.
Mulac adds that USFOR-A is implementing measures to reduce the amount of open-air burning, including the installation of low-emission incinerators at Bagram air base.
But Ghulam Mohammad Malikyar, who heads Afghanistan's National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), says military officials at Bagram have not done enough.
"From what we can see and the reports we receive from the ground, it is clear that this issue has not been taken seriously," Malikyar says. "We have recommended that they use recycling and introduce clean incinerators but nothing has come of it. The process toward changing this practice has been very slow."
Malikyar says that he has met with numerous military officials at the International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul and at Bagram air base over the past two years. "We have told them that burning waste in the open is strictly forbidden under Afghan law," he says. "We have told them that the smoke is making people sick and damaging the environment."
Convincing The Military To Change
Afghan laws forbidding burn pits are not applicable to U.S. and other international forces. But according to Malikyar, the lease agreement at Bagram and other foreign bases denies local investigators permission to access and monitor a military facility.
"These conditions are hampering efforts to overhaul the use of burn pits in other military bases and army facilities as well," Malikyar says. "This problem is occurring in military bases around the country. But it is up to foreign officials to implement the changes; we cannot."
NEPA, which regulates, monitors, and enforces environmental laws in the country, first received complaints about the U.S. military's use of fire pits in Bagram at the local level in 2009.
"Previously, there was no problem. The policy in Bagram was to sell outdated equipment to local contractors who would, in turn, sell them as second-hand goods," Malikyar says. "But this practice ended two years ago as more waste piled up.... With waste piling up, the fire pits were used by the military more regularly and now they are burning waste all the time."
In the past two years, NEPA's regional office in Bagram has interviewed dozens of locals who say they are suffering from various respiratory disorders, and eye and nasal problems originating from toxic smoke from Bagram air base.
NEPA's local environment-monitoring office in Bagram forwarded the grievances to Malikyar, who in turn notified U.S. authorities.
Nowhere To Turn
Located throughout Afghanistan, the U.S. military's burn pits have compounded the serious environmental and health issues facing Afghanistan. Many cities in the country already suffer from a lack of sewage and sanitation systems, growing slums, crumbling infrastructure, and rapid population growth.
Constant power cuts and the absence of a national natural-gas grid also mean that many households, including Rahim's in Bagram, use wood, coal, and heating oil for cooking and heating.
For Rahim, protecting the country's deteriorating environment is paramount to creating better health conditions for ordinary Afghans.
Consoling his two sick daughters as they lie on his lap, Rahim says his family is experiencing firsthand the detrimental effects of environmental neglect. He considers leaving for good, but therein lies the catch -- by leaving for a healthier life, he would have to give up his family's livelihood.
RFE/RL Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Homayoon Shinwary contributed to this report
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Commonwealth steps up polio fight, Afghanistan war hinders
By Michael Perry
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Commonwealth leaders on Saturday vowed to step up the fight against polio, but said the Afghanistan war was hindering the fight and warned that without total eradication there could be a resurgence of the crippling disease.
Polio remains in just four countries, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria -- all members of the Commonwealth.
Leaders from Britain, Canada, Australia and Nigeria, and U.S. billionaire Bill Gates, on Saturday pledged tens of millions of dollars in extra funding to wipe out the disease.
"It will be an investment in saving lives," Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said at a joint news conference with the other leaders on the sidelines of a Commonwealth summit.
Global polio infection rates had fallen from a high of 350,000 a year to a current low of 1,000 a year, said Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron.
"We are now within sight of the great goal of eradicating polio. But nearly eradicating is just not good enough. Polio is a highly contagious disease," said Cameron.
"A single person with polio can infect hundreds of people before it is even been identified. If we fail to eradicate polio completely we run the risk that the disease will spread back to the country in which it has been eradicated," he said.
"As long as one child remains at risk all children remain at risk. That is a risk we should not take."
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yasouf Raza Gillani said cross border movements between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and "orthodox and fanatic" militant leaders who refused to allow doctors into their areas, were hindering the fight against polio.
"We are seriously concerned that polio, once eradicated in Pakistan, has resurfaced in the country during the past six to seven years," said Gillani.
In Pakistan recorded 14 new cases in the past week, the highest number of new cases reported in a single week ever. There are currently 132 cases in Pakistan, which has nationwide transmission.
In Nigeria, polio has spread more widely in the past two months than at any time over the last two years
(Reporting by Michael Perry)
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Australian PM vows to stay on Afghan course after attack
AFP via Yahoo! News - Oct 29 11:50pm
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard defended her country's involvement in Afghanistan after three troops were shot dead and seven wounded in an attack by a rogue Afghan soldier.
Speaking in Perth on Sunday, she said the nation's deadliest incident in the conflict since three soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash in 2010 would concern Australians.
"I well and truly understand that when you see losses in Afghanistan, in particular when you see losses of this kind, that it does cause the Australian people to question our deployment in Afghanistan," she said.
Thirty-two Australian troops have been killed so far in the conflict but Gillard said Canberra would not be deterred from its mission of training and mentoring Afghan soldiers in restive Uruzgan province.
"We are there because it's in our national interests to be in Afghanistan," she said, adding that Australia's 1,550 soldiers were making progress and had a defined mission.
"We cannot allow our will to be undermined by incidents like this."
The Australian Defence Force is investigating the incident in Kandahar province on Saturday in which an Afghan National Army soldier shot at a parade, killing a corporal, captain and lance corporal.
General Abdul Hameed, commander of 205 Atal corps in the south, said an Afghan soldier with three years' experience had carried out the shooting, in which an Afghan interpreter also died, and was gunned down by foreign soldiers.
Fears of infiltration within the Afghan army ranks have risen as Western backers fund and train a huge expansion of the fledgling national force ahead of the withdrawal of all foreign combat forces scheduled for 2014.
In June, Australian Lance Corporal Andrew Jones was shot dead by a rogue Afghan soldier.
"We have been a nation that has suffered very, very deeply this year with casualties in Afghanistan," Gillard said. "I am unbelievably conscious of that.
"I am also very conscious of the need to see the mission through."
Defence Minister Stephen Smith said Australian forces would not be in Afghanistan "forever" but would not depart now.
"If we were to leave now the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area would again become a breeding ground for international terrorism, and Australians have been on the receiving end of international terrorism," he said.
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Anger and confusion reign at shootings base
Rafael Epstein, Jeremy Kelly In Kabul The Age Australia October 31, 2011.
SATURDAY was just like every other day at one of the hundreds of small forward operating bases dotted around the south of Afghanistan, as the soldiers from 2nd Royal Australian Regiment stood alongside the Afghan soldiers they were mentoring.
They had just broken up from their weekly parade ''after an address from the Afghan commanding officer, just doing their thing'', one source said.
Then, with the soldiers all facing in the same direction, bursts of automatic weapons fire came from behind them. ''Out of the back, this guy just opened fire'', another soldier said.
The gunman, an Afghan National Army lieutenant, was quickly killed as some of the troops, including those who were wounded, spun around and shot back.
So far neither Australian soldiers on the ground nor those in military intelligence know if the attack was the work of the Taliban. ''They're leaning more towards [the belief] the guy just brain-snapped,'' the source said.
A third source at the multinational base in Tarin Kowt described the mood as a mixture of anger, sadness and confusion.
Every time an American, British, Australian or other NATO soldier dies like this, the coalition knows it has a perception problem. How will the public at home support the war when their soldiers are killed by the Afghans being trained to take over?
NATO research has failed to turn up a reason in about a third of similar attacks. That this Afghan lieutenant, a resident of Kabul, had been in the Afghan army for about three years means he probably missed the checks imposed on recent recruits: letters from village elders, background criminal checks, and having pictures taken of their iris and fingerprints, for entry into a biometric data base still controlled by the US.
Every Afghan soldier and policeman is supposed to have been vetted and registered by the end of the year.
Few noticed when the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, told Parliament this month that regular Australian soldiers had begun venturing outside Oruzgan province for the first time, mentoring troops in the neighbouring province of Kandahar.
For some months Australian commanders have been trying to ensure their troops spend most of their mentoring time away from trouble spots. And this base was supposed to be safe.
There have been very few improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and no recent Taliban attacks near Forward Operating Base Pacemaker, which may explain why the 2RAR soldiers at the base were not expecting trouble.
It was the first tour of Afghanistan for the three Australians who were killed. Talk to a soldier and they may say all military deaths are the same. But press them further and they will tell you no one wants to die like this, or by stepping on a booby trap, an IED.
''It's just so sad for these blokes on their first tour. They didn't die fighting,'' one soldier said.
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Afghan refugees' return figures down to 60,000 in first 10 months
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency said on Saturday that the number of Afghan refugees returning home has dropped substantially this year, with some 60,000 repatriating from overseas in the first 10 months compared to more than 100,000 over the same period in 2010.
The returnees included 43,000 from Pakistan, about 17,000 from Iran and less than 100 from other countries, the UNHCR said in a statement in its website on Saturday.
The return figure for Pakistan was 59 per cent lower than last year, but returns from Iran rose from 7,500 a year earlier. UNHCR halts its repatriation programme from Pakistan during the winter.
The lack of livelihood opportunities, and shelter and insecurity are the most frequently cited reasons for not returning. Most Afghan refugees in Pakistan live in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces and originate from insecure, undeveloped areas of Afghanistan.
Pakistan is currently home to 1.7 million Afghan refugees, many of whom have lived in exile for more than a quarter of a century. Half these people were born outside Afghanistan and do not own property there.
The reason for the increase in voluntary assisted returns from Iran appears to be due to economic pressures and the discontinuation of subsidies on basic goods and services by the Iranian government, said the UNHRC.
In total, 5.7 million Afghan refugees have returned alone or with assistance from Pakistan and Iran, representing nearly a quarter of Afghanistan's population.
Despite security problems in parts of the country and economic needs, Afghan refugees are still returning in significant numbers. The government and its partners are working to ensure sustainable reintegration.
But initial findings of a survey launched recently by UNHCR and Afghanistan's Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation indicated that around 40 per cent of the returned Afghans have not yet fully reintegrated into their original communities.
Afghanistan's capacity to absorb additional returns is limited. Some families who returned this year will need additional support to make it through the winter. Many others don't have land, shelter, schools and health care. These families need job opportunities to become self-sufficient.
Nearly three million registered Afghan refugees remain in exile in the region today, including the 1.7 million in Pakistan and one million in Iran. UNHCR is calling for international support to help returnees settle back in their homeland.
The refugee agency, with the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, is developing a multi-year (2012-2014) solutions strategy for Afghan refugees.
This will be presented for endorsement by the international community at a conference in early 2012.
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AID POLICY: The politics of humanitarian principle
BERLIN, 28 October 2011 (IRIN) - For decades aid agencies have been tackling troubling ethical dilemmas about where to draw the line when negotiating with armed forces when trying to deliver aid to vulnerable communities. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) discusses some of the ethical dilemmas it has faced over the past 40 years in Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience, promoted at its annual Berlin Humanitarian Congress.
“Humanitarian actors often claim they are above politics but it is simply not true,” said Fabrice Weissman, one of the co-authors of the book, which will be officially launched at the end of November.
“We do still retain our central tenet, which is saving lives,” Weissman added, but we also “seek to puncture a number of myths. We address the big question of when should and shouldn’t MSF be willing to compromise?”
Contributors lay out a wide range of dilemmas, “seeking to analyze the political transactions and balances of power and interests that allow aid activities to move forward, but that are usually masked by the lofty rhetoric of 'humanitarian principles'”.
Financing fighters
The conclusions are often disturbing. “That fighting forces seek to take advantage of aid groups is unavoidable,” Weissman said. “The fact is that unless we provide them with benefits they have no reason to allow us to operate in the areas they seek to control.”
As an example, he mentioned Taliban-held areas of Afghanistan. “The reality there is that the Taliban are claiming responsibility for the goods and services that humanitarian groups are providing, which allows the Taliban to appear to the local populations as being effective governors.”
Another benefit fighting forces get from aid groups is money, exchanged for services such as security. “On many occasions, MSF, like other organizations, uses combatants to ensure the safety of its teams and convoys,” said the author.
Bribes are also part of negotiations, says Rony Brauman, who heads the MSF think-tank Centre de Réflexion Sur l’Action et Les Savoirs Humanitaires, which encourages debate and critical reflection on humanitarian practices. “The question is often not whether to pay them but how much to pay. It must be thought of as an informal tax.”
Also, much of the salary paid to local staff can end up in the coffers of fighting forces. Weismann cited Eritrea, which, during the conflict with Ethiopia in 1998, demanded a 50 percent tax on wages paid by NGOs.
Corruption “integral”
Other fighting groups simply loot aid organizations, and some even have the gall to sell their spoils back to the aid group. “Corruption is an integral part of the worlds in which we operate,” Weissman said.
Some aid organizations have policies to avoid corruption. In 2010, Transparency International published Preventing Corruption in Humanitarian Operations, which lays out what aid organizations should do when faced with corruption dilemmas.
But for MSF, when the aim is to get the job done, corruption may be unavoidable. “Our imperative must always be to save lives but we have concluded that the means by which lives are saved cannot be a moral or ethical issue, and that is a fact that aid groups have tended not to talk about,” Weissman said.
When donors are combatants
The book is part of an MSF series associated with CRASH. A 2004 publication, In the Shadow of "Just Wars", focused on the problems MSF and other organizations had in conflict zones where Western troops were on one side of a conflict while Western donors were funding aid organizations that were supposed to be neutral.
That book includes examples from Iraq to Sierra Leone, where Western forces used humanitarian rhetoric to win the hearts and minds of local populations and often tried to use aid groups as part of these efforts.
The latest MSF publication goes further, discussing problems in places such as Gaza where Western donors try to stop aid groups from working with Hamas, which they consider a terrorist organization, but which is the sole authority that aid groups have to cooperate with if they are to provide services there.
US counter-terrorism laws stipulate that providing support resources to terrorists, even if not for terrorist purposes, could result in criminal prosecution. The impact of these laws on humanitarian action has been discussed in a just-released paper on Counter-terrorism and Humanitarian Action by the Humanitarian Policy Group.
“Combatants are also human beings”
Giving humanitarian assistance directly to armed groups is another topic tackled. “Combatants are also human beings and sometimes they need humanitarian assistance more than civilians,” Weissman said. “When combatants are wounded we no longer consider them combatants.”
Weissman says MSF does draw a line when armed forces use aid organizations to harm civilians. An example he cited is the Democratic Republic of Congo, after the genocide in Rwanda. In 1994, Hutus in Rwanda crossed the border en masse, seeking refuge. At the time, MSF was trying to identify the location of refugee populations around the country so aid organizations were better able to coordinate aid to them. But Tutsi militias operating in DRC used MSF’s information to seek out and attack the Hutu refugees.
The solution was that MSF stopped publicizing the information but he pointed to other examples of forces using aid groups against civilians that were more problematic.
In Sri Lanka in 2009, the government rounded up some 270,000 people it suspected of supporting Tamil rebels and then gave aid groups the job of providing the basic services. “We did not want to be supporting a vast prison for an innocent civilian population which the state was unjustly labelling criminals, but we were also concerned about what would happen to the civilians if we didn’t assist them.”
A lot has been written in recent years about the ways humanitarian agencies can inadvertently fuel injustice and conflict. The problem with the conclusion of many of these publications, said Weissman, is that they call on aid groups to “serve the cause of peace”. That often translated into NGOs cooperating more closely with UN peacekeeping and international donors, he said, which could undermine aid groups’ neutrality.
In the end, the criteria MSF uses to decide whether or not it should continue a particular operation is simple: “We ask ourselves who benefits most from our presence: the fighting forces or the civilians?”
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Afghanistan veteran uses art to mourn brother
By Adam Ashton - The (Tacoma, Wash.) News Tribune via AP Saturday Oct 29, 2011 17:07:23 EDT
GIG HARBOR, Wash. — Former Army Sgt. Stephen Ewens paints what he can’t say about the war in Afghanistan. A sniper lining up a shot on a dark night. A shadowy angel clutching a rifle.
And then there’s the American flag with bleeding red stripes.
“Everyone who’s sacrificed anything for this country knows what I mean” about the bloody flag, Ewens said.
The 26-year-old who lost a brother in Afghanistan five years ago wants to share those images, and more, with veterans.
He’s determined to put on a show with 10 new paintings. He plans to call it “The Afghanistan Project.”
“I know there are thousands and thousands of better artists than me, but that’s not the point,” Ewens said. “The point is that we both were there,” he added, referring to war veterans. “We both know what it was like, and we want to show that.”
Ewens comes from a Gig Harbor family that sent its four sons to Afghanistan with the Army. He joined in 2006 out of sense of duty to his brother 1st Lt. Forrest Ewens, who was killed with another soldier by an improvised explosive in Afghanistan’s Pech River Valley.
Three of the Ewens brothers were on the battlefield with different units last year.
“I feel that this is now our family’s war,” Stephen Ewens told The News Tribune two years ago as he prepared to go to war with Joint Base Lewis-McChord’s 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. “All four of us will finally be back together sharing the same fight.”
He had a lot of time to think on that Stryker deployment. He was a sniper in the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, who would hide with a three-man team for days at a time watching for signs of insurgents planting bombs to kill American soldiers.
He frequently thought of Forrest and knew he would not find retribution for his brother’s death. Forrest’s killer was arrested and jailed, Ewens said.
“That was frustrating, knowing I’m never going to run into him on one of these hills,” he said.
His deployment started slowly, with a few relatively quiet months in eastern Afghanistan’s Zabul province. He went into the thick of fighting toward the end of 2009 when he joined an Army and Marine offensive against Taliban insurgents in Helmand province.
It was the war’s main battleground following President Obama’s decision to build up a “surge” of American forces to tip the war’s scales.
“That’s where the reins were loosened for us to do our jobs,” Ewens said. “They were loosened for the enemy, too.”
His assignment left him conflicted. At times, he felt his orders were too restrictive, such as when he was told to hold his fire as a man walked with an AK47 toward a group of American soldiers.
He recognized, however, that the restraint the Army showed was part of what distinguishes American soldiers from those of other nations that have sent their militaries to Afghanistan.
“We’re the only country that takes that extra step to make sure we’re doing the right thing,” he said.
Ewens knew he was finished with the Army when the 5th Brigade returned to Lewis last year. He felt he had done his part, and he didn’t want another tour under the same conditions.
But he did not find a clean break. He had trouble sleeping, and would not talk much about what he saw. A therapist suggested he try expressing himself through art. At first, he painted abstract images of stars and mountains. He later focused on images that revealed his military experiences.
They made him feel better, and he found that other veterans appreciated them. Soldiers from his former brigade have contacted him and commissioned paintings that reflect their own lives in Afghanistan.
“It’s been a good, creative outlet for him to express a lot of stuff he’s kept hidden,” said his mother, Carol Pinkerton-Ewens. “He doesn’t talk a lot about his experiences over there.”
Ewens’ life has changed in many other ways since he left the military. His older brother, Capt. Oaken Ewens, continues to serve in the Army. Another brother, Elisha, has ended his military service.
Stephen Ewens has married and had his first son since he came home. He named his boy Forrest James Ewens, after his fallen brother.
Going to Afghanistan didn’t make it any easier for Ewens to accept his brother’s death.
“It’s never fulfilled,” he said.
Forrest will be a character in “The Afghanistan Project.” Ewens has a vision for a painting that would show him holding his son while his brother stands in the background.
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In Kabul, Afghanistan’s first bowling alley offers respite from war; window into challenges
By Associated Press, Sunday, October 30, 5:32 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan — In an Afghan capital scarred by years of war, a young Afghan woman has bet $1 million that her countrymen could use a little fun.
Located just down the street from Kabul’s glitziest mall, is The Strikers, the country’s first bowling alley and owner Meena Rahmani’s gamble on the capital’s newest entertainment venue. But more than a place for family fun in a city largely devoid of options, the 12-lane center stands as a reflection of both the country’s hope for the future and the challenge of securing one even as NATO’s fight against the Taliban enters its 11th year.
“We can never compare a bowling center ... in Afghanistan and one ... in the West,” said Rahmani. “Afghanistan needed a place like this.”
Aside from the cultural significance of such a center in a country largely lacking entertainment choices, building the bowling alley was a massive undertaking. All the equipment is imported, the engineers came from China and the alley is powered by several industrial-sized generators. The entrance to the alley sits behind blast-resistant steel doors guarded by burly men toting AK-47 assault rifles.
“This was a huge project,” said Rahmani, but “we were committed to it.”
Rahmani has gambled $1 million of her own money — secured from the sale of family land — that the center will not only help bored Afghans kill a few hours, but also a place where men, women and families can gather and relax, not burdened by the social, religious and cultural restrictions that govern daily life in the impoverished country.
Inside, several dozen Afghans, most of whom learned to bowl abroad, seem to agree. In the month since it opened, The Strikers has become a hit.
“Here, on our days off, we walk aimlessly in the streets,” said Navid Sediqi, a 29-year-old businessman. He said he used to begin his weekend by logging onto Facebook and chatting with his friends online. After Friday prayers, they would go to picnic areas or parks, and sit and chat.
“This is so much better. Finally, a bit of excitement on our days off,” he said dressed in a pressed, white traditional shalwar kameez.
For most people in this city of about 5 million, there were, for years, few options to while away the hours.
There are kite fights, picnics or paddle-boat rides on a lake on Kabul’s outskirts, as well as football games on dirt pitches that ring Darulaman Palace, the bombed-out seat of former Afghan kings. Some rusty amusement rides have been set up for children, including in a graveyard.
Snooker clubs also have sprouted up around Kabul, but they are largely seen as attracting unsavory characters — people who Sediqi described as “not the kind of open-minded people” one would find at the bowling alley.
Like most everything else in Afghanistan, the alley is a study in contrasts and challenges, not the least of which is that it’s a business started by a young woman in a country where women have traditionally been pushed firmly to the sidelines.
Rahmani, who left Afghanistan in 1992 and spent 15 years in Pakistan with her parents before moving to Canada for graduate studies, said the idea came to her when she visited her home country several years ago and found there was nothing for Afghans to do beyond occasionally going out to eat, going for walks or visiting family.
The alley seemed like a good antidote to the boredom.
But the daily reality of life in the troubled nation is clearly reflected outside the alley’s main door.
In a country where restaurants frequented by wealthier Afghans and Westerners require patrons to check their guns at the door, bowlers get frisked by security before entering the building. It’s not without reason — a nearby shopping mall was hit twice by insurgent attacks since it opened in 2005. Above the second steel door sits a sign all too common in Afghanistan: “No weapons.”
The Strikers is divided into two parts, a restaurant and 12 fully-automated bowling lanes with computer scoring.
The alley, which opened about a month ago, was built from the ground up. The equipment was imported from the United States and the engineers who set it up and trained the local staff came from China.
“Since there had never been bowling in Afghanistan, no one here knew how to set it up,” said Rahmani, while a group of young Afghans sipped Red Bull energy drinks and watched their friend toss a neon bowling ball straight into the gutter.
While men so far make up the bulk of the bowlers, Rahmani said women are increasingly making an appearance, coming with their husbands and families. She sees their presence in the alley as an encouraging sign of changes in the country. If it catches on, she said, she sees expanding to other provinces and starting bowling leagues in the country.
“This place is made for our own nation,” she said, stressing that politics has no role in the push for fun. “It’s just a sports place.”
Kabul’s unreliable electricity network meant she had to install industrial size generators to ensure a steady stream of power. The operating expenses for the first month alone came to $30,000, most of it for utilities.
Those expenses mean that it’s a pass-time for a select few in the capital.
An hour of bowling costs $35, which can be divided between as many as six players to a lane. A cup of coffee costs $5, more than the average local daily wage.
She concedes its unaffordable for most in the country, but says that when expenses and startup costs are so high, she had little choice but to charge such rates. If it catches on, prices could quickly drop.
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Associated Press writer Massieh Aryan contributed.
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Americans increasingly comparing Afghan war to Vietnam
Latest deaths of US troops in an apparent Kabul suicide attack come as support back home for the war reaches a new low
Guardian.co.uk By Paul Harris Saturday 29 October 2011
New York - The latest deaths of 13 Americans in Afghanistan in an apparent suicide bomb attack in Kabul comes at a moment when the US public's attitude to the long war is at an all-time low.
A poll late last week, by CNN and ORC International, revealed that only 34% of Americans now support the war, one percentage point down on the previous all-time low. It found that 63% of Americans are now opposed to the war. The deaths of yet more Americans in a conflict that has already cost the lives of more than 1,700 American soldiers is only likely to see support fall further. Indeed the poll showed that some 58% of Americans say that the conflict is now similar to the Vietnam war.
The war is now a serious problem in Obama's strategy for the 2012 election. For a president who already faces discontent over accusations from the left of the Democratic party that he is too close to the Republicans, the Afghan war represents another area where he is out of step with many on his own side. The same poll showed that some six in ten Republicans still supporting the war, compared to just a quarter of Democrats.
Not that anyone thinks formulating strategy in Afghanistan is easy.
Obama's current plan is focused on a gradual drawdown of the extra 33,000 "surge" troops he sent after overhauling Afghan policy in 2009. Those troops are set to leave by the end of 2012. Last week the Pentagon revealed an assessment saying that goal was "on track" even as it also acknowledged that civilian casualties – mostly caused by the Taliban – had reached record numbers this summer with 450 dying in July alone.
Saturday's deaths fit the pattern of violence described in the latest Pentagon analysis, as they were caused by an isolated attack, not a mass assault. But that will be of little help to policymakers who must seek to show that the drawdown is taking place against an improving security situation, rather than a worsening one.
But playing a double game seems a central part of US strategy in Afghanistan. Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, last week testified to an increasingly restive Congress and reinforced the administration's strategy of pursuing a twin track policy of both talking and fighting with the Taliban and other militant groups. That particularly holds true with the so-called Haqqani group, which was responsible for a recent attack on the US embassy in Kabul.
American officials admit they have pursued talks with the group at the same time as urging Pakistan to increase military pressure on the organisation. Clinton told Congress: "We want to fight, talk and build all at the same time. Part of the reason for that is to test whether these organisations have any willingness to negotiate in good faith. There's evidence going both ways," Clinton said.
In that context Saturday's deaths in Kabul will make little difference to America's Afghan strategy on the ground. The US will continue its seemingly contradictory policy of seeking to withdraw extra troops – even as civilian casualties rise – while also fighting and talking with its enemies at the same time. It is impossible to say definitively how effective that strategy will be. But as pure politics it is perhaps unsurprising that Clinton's defence of the US role met with an increasingly sceptical Congressional reaction.
Nor have the actions of US allies helped. Last weekend Afghan president Hamid Karzai said that his country would back Pakistan if the US and its neighbour ever went to war. The statement was the latest in a series of Karzai remarks that have angered US officials, and they have not gone unnoticed by American politicians looking to score points against US policy. That includes senior Democrats as much as Republicans.
"Karzai's insult to America tells me that it's time for our country to stop pouring our limited taxpayer dollars and losing precious American lives in a country where we aren't even welcome – and even worse, where they have the gall to threaten to side against us," said Democrat Senator Joe Manchin. Clinton defended US policy robustly against that sort of argument in her testimony to Congress. But in the end it is likely that sort of political attitude – especially from within his own party — which is likely to shift Obama's strategic thinking more than any deaths on the ground.
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