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Pakistan Warns Afghanistan After Pact With India
By SEBASTIAN ABBOT Associated Press October 6, 2011
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan warned Afghanistan against anymore regional "point scoring" on Thursday after Kabul signed a pact with Islamabad's archenemy New Delhi that some fear could prompt Pakistan to strengthen its alleged support for Afghan insurgents.
Obama: Pakistan hedges bets with ties to militants
By BRADLEY KLAPPER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Pakistan is "hedging its bets" by maintaining ties to militant groups that trying to undermine the government in neighboring Afghanistan, and acknowledged Thursday that the United States has been unable to persuade Pakistan that the U.S. goals of a stable Afghanistan poses no threat to Pakistan.
Afghan Deal With I.M.F. Will Revive Flow of Aid
By ALISSA J. RUBIN October 6, 2011 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s management of its banking system has improved enough that the International Monetary Fund is ready to renew its credit program with the country, the fund said in a statement on Thursday.
Afghans Protest on Eve of Invasion Anniversary
VOA News October 6, 2011
Hundreds of Afghans protested in the streets of Kabul Thursday, calling for an immediate withdrawal of international forces from the country ahead of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion.
Taliban quagmire to tarnish NATO's image in Afghans' eyes
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led military campaign had overthrown the Taliban regime in Afghanistan within weeks in late 2001, but the noble cause set for, above all to ensure viable security, has yet to be achieved as Taliban-led insurgency is still claiming the lives of Afghans.
Afghanistan's energy war
By Shukria Dellawar and Antonia Juhasz Asia Times Online
Violence escalated daily in Afghanistan with the approach of the 10-year anniversary of the United States invasion on October 7. At the same time, a little-noted energy agenda is moving rapidly forward that may not only deny Afghans the much needed economic benefits their energy resources could provide
7 insurgents killed, 31 detained in Afghanistan: gov't
KABUL, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Security forces have eliminated seven insurgents and captured 31 other suspected insurgents in different parts of the country over the past 24 hours, the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Thursday.
Monument honors U.S. 'horse soldiers' who invaded Afghanistan
By Alex Quade, Special to CNN Thu October 6, 2011
Editor's note: Freelance war correspondent Alex Quade spent nearly 18 months in Iraq and Afghanistan covering U.S. special operations forces on combat missions, including for CNN.
Public support for Afghan war slides: poll
(AFP)
LONDON — The head of Britain's armed forces on Thursday admitted that public support for the Afghanistan campaign was waning as a poll released on the eve of the war's 10th anniversary revealed most Briton wanted an immediate troop withdrawal.
For U.S., a Tricky Path in Dealing With Afghan Insurgents
New York Times By ERIC SCHMITT October 5, 2011
WASHINGTON - President Obama’s national security adviser met secretly in the Persian Gulf last weekend with Pakistan’s top military officer to deliver a tough message: rein in the Haqqani network, a deadly insurgent group in Afghanistan that the United States says has close ties to Pakistan’s main spy agency.
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Pakistan Warns Afghanistan After Pact With India
By SEBASTIAN ABBOT Associated Press October 6, 2011
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan warned Afghanistan against anymore regional "point scoring" on Thursday after Kabul signed a pact with Islamabad's archenemy New Delhi that some fear could prompt Pakistan to strengthen its alleged support for Afghan insurgents.
Pakistan is under increasing American pressure to cut ties with militants that it is widely believed to be holding onto for use as potential partners against Indian influence in Afghanistan once Washington withdraws its combat troops in 2014.
The strategic partnership signed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai on a visit to India on Tuesday added to concerns in Islamabad that New Delhi was increasing its influence on Pakistan's western flank. The deal came at a sensitive time for Islamabad, which is facing renewed accusations by U.S. and Afghan officials of collusion with militants in attacks on Afghan soil.
In Pakistan's first reaction to the deal, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua said "this is no time for point scoring, playing politics or grandstanding."
"At this defining stage when challenges have multiplied, as have the opportunities, it is our expectation that everyone, specially those in position of authority in Afghanistan, will demonstrate requisite maturity and responsibility," she told reporters.
President Karzai tried to assuage concern over the agreement Wednesday, saying it was not intended as an aggressive move against Pakistan. He said the pact simply made official years of close ties between India and Afghanistan's post-Taliban government. New Delhi has given significant amounts of civilian aid to Kabul over the last 10 years to build roads, schools and hospitals.
Karzai's words likely carried little weight in Pakistan, which is sandwiched between Afghanistan to its west and India to its east. Pakistan's army has long viewed policy in Afghanistan through one lens: countering the perceived danger of Indian influence in the country.
"The agreement will heighten Pakistan's insecurities," said Talat Masood, an analyst and former Pakistani general. "Pakistan has always felt that it is being encircled by India from both the eastern and western borders."
An editorial in Pakistan's leading English-language newspaper, Dawn, expressed concern that the pact — the first of its kind between Kabul and any country — could "lead to ill-advised efforts to ramp up Pakistani involvement in Afghanistan."
Pakistan and India have fought three wars and been fierce enemies since the two were carved out of British India in 1947.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have also been rocky, with many Pakistani officials viewing Karzai as too close to India, where he attended university.
To check India's power in Afghanistan, Pakistan has historically supported Islamist militants like the Taliban who it believes are also opposed to India and its majority Hindu population. Islamabad has also allegedly backed militants who have carried out attacks in Kashmir, an area claimed by both Pakistan and India.
Pakistan maintains it severed ties with the Taliban and other militants following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. But Washington and Kabul say otherwise.
The U.S. has recently accused Pakistan's main spy agency, the ISI, of supporting the Haqqani militant network, which is allied with the Taliban and is suspected of carrying out a recent attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The group is believed to be based in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border.
Afghan's interior minister has accused the ISI of being involved in last month's suicide bombing in Kabul that killed former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading the government's U.S-backed effort to talk peace with the Taliban.
Masood, the former general, also expressed concern that Afghanistan's pact with New Delhi could prompt Pakistan to step up support for militant proxies. Washington's growing ties with growing global power India have also made Islamabad suspicious, he said.
"The agreement will further reinforce their feeling that the Americans and the Indians are pursuing a policy toward Afghanistan that is hostile to Pakistan's interests," said Masood.
The Afghan-Indian strategic partnership outlines areas of common concern including trade, economic expansion, education, security and politics. One of its most sensitive provisions stipulates that India will help train and equip Afghanistan's security forces.
India is already helping train more than 100 members of the Afghan national security forces, said an official with the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the coalition was not a signatory to the partnership agreement.
Greater Indian involvement in Afghanistan's security forces would likely spark further concern in Islamabad.
Despite Afghanistan's efforts to strengthen ties with India, analysts and former officials said there were limits to the country's ability to sideline Pakistan, even if it wanted to. One of the most important is geography.
"The imperative of geography is that landlocked Afghanistan will continue to have to look to Pakistan for trade access and related issues for the future," said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani diplomat.
The Afghan government will also need Pakistan to use its militant links to push forward peace talks with the Taliban, even if Islamabad hasn't done much to help so far, said Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani political and defense analyst.
"Moving closer to India is the only strategy available to counter Pakistani pressure," said Rizvi. "But in the long run, Afghanistan can't alienate Pakistan altogether."
Lodhi, the former diplomat, said she hopes Pakistan keeps this bigger picture in mind before making hasty decisions on the security front.
"It should avoid mimicking President Karzai, who thinks pique can serve as policy," she said.
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Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Katy Daigle in New Delhi and Deb Riechmann in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report
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Obama: Pakistan hedges bets with ties to militants
By BRADLEY KLAPPER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Pakistan is "hedging its bets" by maintaining ties to militant groups that trying to undermine the government in neighboring Afghanistan, and acknowledged Thursday that the United States has been unable to persuade Pakistan that the U.S. goals of a stable Afghanistan poses no threat to Pakistan.
Obama did not echo the harsh assessment of his former chief military adviser that Pakistan has directly contributed to a militant attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
Obama said the U.S. would "constantly evaluate" its relationship with Pakistan to see whether it was advancing American interests. Having given Pakistan more than $20 billion in aid since 9/11, Americans are increasingly questioning the value of assistance that has yet to yield a more willing partner in the fight against Islamic extremist groups fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
"I think that they have hedged their bets, in terms of what Afghanistan would look like. And part of hedging their bets is having interactions with some of the unsavory characters who they think might end up regaining power in Afghanistan after coalition forces have left," Obama said.
A few days before leaving his job last month, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen called the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani insurgent network a "veritable arm" of the Pakistani intelligence agency, and alleged direct support for the militants who had mounted a 20-hour rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul the week before.
The United States wants to "transition out of Afghanistan and leave a stable government behind — one that is independent, one that is respectful of human rights, one that is democratic," Obama told a news conference, a reference to the plan to withdraw U.S. and other international forces by 2015. But he added: "Pakistan, I think, has been more ambivalent about some of our goals there."
The president's assessment in many ways reflected long-standing U.S. concerns over perceived Pakistani duplicity in the fight against terrorists and Taliban-linked insurgents. After more than a decade of inconsistent counterterrorism cooperation, and the revelation that Osama bin Laden was living unmolested in a military town near Islamabad, Washington's suspicions have only grown deeper.
"There is no doubt that there's some connections that the Pakistani military and intelligence services have with certain individuals that we find troublesome," Obama said
He said the U.S. was trying to bring the two neighbors closer together, "but we've still got more work to do."
While the U.S. has suspended some military assistance to Pakistan, Obama rejected the idea that the U.S. would withhold humanitarian aid for disasters such as floods "because of poor decisions by their intelligence services."
He conceded that Americans are "not going to feel comfortable with a long-term strategic relationship with Pakistan if we don't think that they're mindful of our interests as well," but stressed that his administration has made great strides in its No. 1 job in Pakistan: fighting al-Qaida.
In elaborating his argument, he avoided any mention of the U.S. operation that killed bin Laden in May, and the Pakistani anger it has prompted, saying only that American successes in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan could not have been possible without Pakistani support.
"On a whole range of issues, they have been an effective partner with us," Obama noted.
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Afghan Deal With I.M.F. Will Revive Flow of Aid
By ALISSA J. RUBIN October 6, 2011 The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s management of its banking system has improved enough that the International Monetary Fund is ready to renew its credit program with the country, the fund said in a statement on Thursday.
The fund announced that it had reached an agreement with the Afghan government to renew its program for three years, giving the country’s financial standing a much-needed boost and ending a long period of uncertainty for international donors and the Afghan government about whether an array of small development projects and salary support programs would be able to proceed.
The fund suspended its program more than 13 months ago in large part because of both fraud at Kabul Bank, the nation’s largest private bank, which had caused losses that initially exceeded $900 million, and an overall lack of oversight of the banking system.
“The authorities have made important progress on managing the Kabul Bank crisis that came to the fore in the fall of 2010,” Axel Schimmelpfennig, who leads the fund’s Afghan mission, said in the statement.
“Kabul Bank has been put into receivership, and efforts are under way to recover the embezzled assets from the former shareholders of the bank, which will limit the fiscal costs of the crisis,” Mr. Schimmelpfennig said. He added that overall banking supervision was improving.
“The central bank is also stepping up supervision and ensuring that the banking law and regulations are fully enforced, including on conflict of interest,” he said.
Under the deal, which will extend a modest amount of credit to Afghanistan, the country’s financial system will still have to satisfy the monetary fund that it is working hard to recover the losses from the Kabul Bank debacle. The bank’s receivers and the Finance Ministry are hoping that perhaps as much as 45 percent of the losses can be recouped from the sale of recovered assets, said a person close to the arrangement, who was not authorized to speak to reporters and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The renewal of the program while the Afghan system is still troubled represents something of a compromise between those who wanted the country to prosecute the wrongdoers in the Kabul Bank fraud and others, especially those who back development, who feared that withholding the monetary fund’s imprimatur would deprive the country of access to money for projects that provide jobs and growth.
“There’s a mix of emotions about this,” said a Western diplomat who is knowledgeable about the monetary fund’s program and was not authorized to speak to reporters. The diplomat added, “There has been definite progress, although there is some ways to go on prosecutions.”
The long hiatus in the program has already cost Afghanistan $70 million that is usually distributed through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, which gets its money from donors and then sends it to the Afghan Finance Ministry, which in turn sends it to other ministries that deliver services and build projects.
The program’s renewal will make Afghanistan eligible again for the trust’s money, and will also increase the confidence of donors who view the monetary fund’s agreement as an important signal of the country’s financial soundness. The program involves little in direct payments, but the I.M.F.’s scrutiny of the monetary and banking systems here acts as a bill of health for other donors, including the United States, Britain and the European Union, assuring them that the country is safe to invest in.
Although the bank’s former chairman, Sherkhan Farnood, and its former chief executive, Khalilullah Frozi, have not been tried, they were detained and placed under investigation by the attorney general’s office. They have since been released with the understanding that they will help the receiver recover the assets, although it is unclear whether they are willing or able to provide much help.
The fraud and lax management occurred almost from the start as Mr. Farnood offered shares in the bank to politically well-connected figures, including Mahmoud Karzai, a brother of President Hamid Karzai, and Abdul Haseen Fahim, the brother of First Vice President Muhammad Qasim Fahim. Other politically connected figures as well as relatives of Mr. Fahim’s brother bought shares and were able to obtain loans worth millions of dollars with little in the way of repayment agreements.
Now the receiver is going after the borrowers’ investments in Afghanistan and in Dubai, where a number of borrowers bought property. Some borrowers have signed repayment agreements, but others have refused. In the meantime the bank has been divided into “a good” new bank, with the deposits, performing loans and other assets of the original Kabul Bank, and a “bad bank,” which has hundreds of millions of dollars in bad loans.
The new bank has been financed by Afghanistan’s Central Bank. The Afghan Finance Ministry has issued a promissory note guaranteeing that it will pay back the Central Bank the full amount of the loan to the new Kabul bank, about $800 million, with a combination of recovered assets and tax revenues, according to people close to the bank. The monetary fund had been concerned that the Central Bank’s reserves would be depleted, but the repayment arrangement appears to have satisfied it.
The monetary fund’s agreement with Afghanistan has been approved at the staff level, but must pass muster with the fund’s executive board. That is expected to happen when the board meets in November.
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Afghans Protest on Eve of Invasion Anniversary
VOA News October 6, 2011
Hundreds of Afghans protested in the streets of Kabul Thursday, calling for an immediate withdrawal of international forces from the country ahead of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion.
People gathered in the Afghan capital, carrying placards that condemned the invasion and blamed the United States and its allies for civilian deaths. During the march, some protesters set a U.S. flag on fire.
The demonstration was meant to mark the 10th anniversary of the October 7, 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, which ousted the Taliban regime.
There are currently more than 130,000 international troops in Afghanistan, with the majority from the United States.
International forces have begun handing over security responsibilities to Afghanistan's army and police in a gradual process that will see all foreign combat troops leaving the country by the end of 2014.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he believed the transition process was “on track” and would “not be derailed.”
Insurgents have carried out a number of high-profile attacks and targeted killings since the transition process began earlier this year.
In the latest attack Thursday, militants opened fire on a civilian bus, killing a man and a child and wounding 16 others in southern Helmand province.
On Wednesday, the Afghan intelligence agency announced it had arrested six people in connection with a foiled plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai.
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Taliban quagmire to tarnish NATO's image in Afghans' eyes
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led military campaign had overthrown the Taliban regime in Afghanistan within weeks in late 2001, but the noble cause set for, above all to ensure viable security, has yet to be achieved as Taliban-led insurgency is still claiming the lives of Afghans.
In the very early day of U.S.-led invasion against Taliban reign, commenced on October 7, 2001 and ousted the Taliban regime within weeks, Afghans gave red carpet welcome to U.S. and allied troops.
Nevertheless, the continued failure of the alliance to curb militancy and ensure lasting peace has been gradually fading in the eyes of Afghans; while over 130,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) with nearly 100,000 of them Americans, are packing to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
Afghans, once welcoming the invasion against Taliban's rule 10 years ago. Nowadays, they have been questioning NATO-led forces credibility in war on terror and their resolve to win it.
SECURITY CHALLENGES:
Taliban-led insurgency has reached its record level since the regime collapsed 10 years ago.
The lethal homemade roadside bombings and deadly suicide attacks, carried out by Taliban militants almost daily claim the lives of Afghans, most are civilians.
Concerns over security have covered all Afghans including the government ranking functionaries and non-governmental agencies.
More than 12,000 Afghan civilians also lost their lives over the past decade, according to Afghan and UN officials.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has also expressed its concern over endless violence in Afghanistan.
"Ten years after the start of a new chapter in Afghanistan's 30- year-old war, Afghans remain caught in the midst of continued armed violence," ICRC, Kabul office said in a statement on Monday.
"Despite improvements in the quality of life for certain sectors of the population over the past decade, the security situation in many areas of the country remains alarming," said Jacques de Maio, the ICRC's head of operations for South Asia in the statement.
The statement admitted that ICRC is concerned about civilians in the line of fire, families displaced with nothing left, the sick and wounded who cannot obtain health care, and health workers harassed while providing care for a desperate population.
According to a report released by the United Nations here in July this year, 1,462 civilians had been killed in the first six months of 2011, 15 percent higher than that of the same period last year. In 2010, according to UN report, 2,777 civilians had lost their lives in militancy and conflicts in Afghanistan.
Getting impetus in militancy is clearly visible in Afghanistan that in the first year of attack on Taliban regime only 12 soldiers, all Americans had lost their lives while so far this year, more than 470 service members of the NATO-led ISAF with 355 of them Americans have been killed.
The fragility of the security situation can be gauged from here that targeted killing organized by anti-government insurgents has over a dozen eliminated high profile government functionaries and pro-government figures including President Hamid Karzai's younger brother Ahmad Wali Karzai and former President Burhanudin Rabbani since beginning this year.
Anti-government insurgents in close contact with al-Qaida, according to Afghan spy agency spokesman Lutfullah Mashal, has even conspired to assassinate President Hamid karzai but the plot had been foiled.
DRUG PRODUCTS:
The post-Taliban Afghanistan in the presence of international community particularly the well-equipped NATO-led troops has topped the poppy growing countries over the past decade.
Afghanistan, according to a report of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) has produced 3,600 tons opium poppy in 2010 against 6,900 tons in 2009.
The post-Taliban Afghanistan, according to the report produces 90 percent of the raw material used in manufacturing heroin in the world.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
In spite of continued militancy, Afghanistan has made tremendous progress in different fields over the past 10 years. More than seven million children including over three million girls go to school today. Some 14 million Afghans have cellular and telephones. Great achievements have been made in the fields of building roads, bridges, hospitals and public and private infrastructures across the country.
PUBLIC OPINION:
However, Afghans are of the view that fragility of security would negatively affect all the achievements have been made over the past decade. "Neither the war on terror nor the fight on drug has yielded the desired outcome as both the evils are still rampant and threatening the whole region and the world at large," editor-in- chief of a local newspaper Nazari Pariani observed while his opinion was sought towards 10th anniversary of U.S. attack on Taliban. "Taliban militants have extended their activities from traditional bases in the south to the relatively peaceful provinces in the north," he said, adding Afghanistan has still been in the first position in producing narcotics in the world.
Hundreds of Afghans held a rally in Kabul on Thursday morning, expressing their frustration over the presence of NATO-led troops in Afghanistan.
Chanting the slogans "Death to U.S." or "Death to Taliban",the protestors described October 7 as black day of U.S. invasion and called for the early pull-out of the troops from Afghanistan.
"On October 7, 2001, the U.S. and allied invaded Afghanistan under the fake banners of "democracy", "war on terror" and "women' s rights". The decade-long occupation of Afghanistan has turned our country into a hell on the earth," said a resolution readout at the end of the peaceful demonstration organized by a political party -- the Solidarity Party of Afghanistan.
"The presence of foreign forces has brought no major change in security sector. Taliban militants terrorize and kill people and the ordinary Afghans are paying the prices for wrong policies taken by foreign forces," a demonstrator and student of a medical college Ahmad Omid said.
"Taliban resistance in the shape of suicide and roadside attacks have changed the outfit from the terrorist network to the political force and that is why the U.S. and Afghan governments have offered dialogue with the former foe," an Afghan analyst Rasouli said in a panel discussion.
So far, according to media reports, U.S. government has held talks with Tayab Agha, a close aide to Taliban elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
"Begging Taliban for talks virtually means submission to terrorists which in fact tarnishes the image of NATO and destroys our hope for better future," an Afghan citizen Rahimullah said to Xinhua.
With such vision and perspective among Afghans, the NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force would further lose its credibility in the eyes of Afghans if they fail to curb Taliban- led militancy, analysts say.
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Afghanistan's energy war
By Shukria Dellawar and Antonia Juhasz Asia Times Online
Violence escalated daily in Afghanistan with the approach of the 10-year anniversary of the United States invasion on October 7. At the same time, a little-noted energy agenda is moving rapidly forward that may not only deny Afghans the much needed economic benefits their energy resources could provide, but may also exacerbate insecurity and instability, ensuring a prolonged US and foreign military presence. It is an agenda remarkably similar to one well underway in Iraq.
Eight years of war in Iraq succeeded in transforming the country's oil industry from a nationalized model, largely closed to American oil companies, into an all but privatized industry open to foreign oil companies. ExxonMobil and BP, among other companies, are today producing oil in Iraq for the first time in over 30 years under some of the most corporate-friendly terms in the world.
However, opposition from Kurdish leaders, Iraqi unions, civil society organizations, and some parliamentarians - who worry that the terms would grant undue benefit to foreign companies, to the detriment of Iraq's economic stability and security - has kept the Iraq Oil and Gas Law, written to lock in this access, from passage.
But while the effort to transform Iraq's oil sector has played out on a fairly public international stage, no such attention has been focused on Afghanistan. Compared with Iraq, Afghanistan's populace remains poorly educated, its civil society and public sector workforce underdeveloped, and its government not only weak and challenged by corruption, but also lacking in both energy sector expertise and infrastructure. Under such circumstances, a radical redesign of the nation's energy development model cannot take place in a manner that ensures fairness, equity, sustainability, or safety.
Suspect intentions
Afghanistan's known hydrocarbons are primarily located in the north. Its approximately 1.6 billion barrels of crude oil and 15.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas are minor in comparison with the resources of its neighbors (Iraq's oil reserves are estimated at 115 billion barrels), but are comparable to those in nations such as Chad and Equatorial Guinea - and may be considerably larger, as there has been no significant exploration in decades.
Unknown to most Afghans, in January 2009 the government implemented a new Hydrocarbon Law that transforms its oil and natural gas sectors from fully state-owned to all but fully privatized. In April 2011, the Afghanistan Ministry of Mines launched the first of what it expects to be "several tenders for Afghanistan's oil and gas resources over the next few years".
As in Iraq, the contracts include production-sharing agreements. These agreements are the oil industry's preferred model, but are roundly rejected by all the top oil-producing countries in the Middle East because they grant extremely long-term contracts (45 years or more, including the exploration phase, under Afghanistan's law) and greater control, ownership, and profits to the companies than other models. They are used for only approximately 12% of the world's oil. The Afghanistan contracts, moreover, would not require foreign companies to invest earnings in the Afghan economy, partner with Afghan companies, or share new technologies.
The Kabul-based non-profit watchdog, Integrity Watch Afghanistan, found the Ministry of Mines severely lacking in the capacity to implement sound oversight, including to protect impacted communities and the environment, and found that this, "combined with reported endemic corruption in Afghanistan", means that the Afghan government will not be able to ensure the good management of these resources.
The Norwegian government recently concluded an analysis of Afghanistan's hydrocarbons, finding that "most Afghans express a high level of suspicion about the motives and intentions of neighboring countries and, increasingly, also of the international community. Further, "[M]any Afghans point out the risk of a lack of political willingness to ensure that such benefits [from hydrocarbon development] will have a fair distribution."
Pipeline politics
Afghanistan is not only an energy producer, it is also a potential "energy conveyer". Negotiations for the creation of a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline are progressing at a rapid rate. Just last month, Afghanistan Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani reported, "The implementation of the TAPI project will begin in 2012 and will be completed in 2014."
The pipeline would carry natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India. It has been an objective of United States and Western energy companies (and their governments) that have invested in the land-locked but energy-rich countries of the Caspian region since the mid-1990s, when companies including California-based Unocal began negotiating with the Taliban. Sanctions imposed on Afghanistan in 1998 made it impossible for US companies to do business there, so negotiations stalled until 2001, when sanctions were lifted.
The George W Bush administration made completion of the TAPI a core part of its Afghanistan war strategy. As then-US assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher said in 2007: "One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan, so it can become a conduit and a hub between South and Central Asia so that energy can flow to the south."
This March, US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake Jr reiterated the importance of the TAPI before a congressional committee, and in July Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while in India urged completion of the TAPI.
In April, upon the Afghan parliament's approval of a TAPI gas pricing agreement, parliamentarian Mohammad Anwar Akbari said that "we will have support of a US company" for its construction. In the past year, Minister of Mines Shahrani has been pushing the benefits of both the pipeline and natural resource development in Afghanistan to private companies in London and New York.
The price for entry
The primary obstacle to construction of the pipeline and to foreign oil companies actively seeking oil production contracts is, and always has been, security. In response, Minister Shahrani announced plans for a 7,000-person Afghan "pipeline security force". Yet across Afghanistan there is enormous skepticism about the present capacity of the Afghan National Army and Police, who are considered no match for the Taliban or local warlords.
Yet, if the pipeline is constructed and US companies begin producing in Afghanistan, its importance to the West will only intensify, as will the desire to keep Afghanistan "open for business". If Afghanistan does not have the internal capacity to provide this "openness" itself, the Untied States and other foreign governments may feel forced to do so on its behalf – utilizing their own troops.
The focus on Afghanistan's entry into the "Great Game" of energy politics must not be only on generating profits or for the interests of external actors, but also on the long-term stability, independence, and strength of Afghanistan. Otherwise, the price for entry may be far higher than Afghans - and Americans - wish to pay.
Antonia Juhasz is an oil industry analyst and author of The Tyranny of Oil: the World's Most Powerful Industry - and What We Must Do To Stop It. She is an Associate Fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies and a National Advisory Committee member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Shukria Dellawar, an Afghan American, is an independent researcher and Afghanistan security specialist. Both women were in Afghanistan in August as part of a fact-finding mission.
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7 insurgents killed, 31 detained in Afghanistan: gov't
KABUL, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Security forces have eliminated seven insurgents and captured 31 other suspected insurgents in different parts of the country over the past 24 hours, the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Thursday.
"Afghan National Police (ANP), backed by Afghan army and NATO- led Coalition forces, carried out 15 joint and independent operations in Kabul, Nangarhar, Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, Wardak and Khost province in the last 24 hours killing seven armed insurgents and detaining 31 others," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.
Two more insurgents were injured, the statement said, adding ANP also found and seized a handful of weapons besides defusing seven Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and killing two IED planters around the country over the same period of time.
The Taliban, who launched in May this year spring offensive against Afghan and NATO forces, has yet to make comments.
Separately, Kabul police arrested seven criminals who have been involved in making fake passports and selling drugs in capital city of Kabul besides finding and defusing four anti-vehicle mines in Paghman district west of Kabul city, according to the statement.
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Monument honors U.S. 'horse soldiers' who invaded Afghanistan
By Alex Quade, Special to CNN Thu October 6, 2011
Editor's note: Freelance war correspondent Alex Quade spent nearly 18 months in Iraq and Afghanistan covering U.S. special operations forces on combat missions, including for CNN.
Demossville, Kentucky (CNN) -- The U.S. special operations teams that led the American invasion in Afghanistan a decade ago did something that no American military had done since the last century: ride horses into combat.
"It was like out of the Old Testament," says Lt. Col. Max Bowers, retired Green Beret, who commanded the three horseback teams.
"You expected Cecil B. DeMille to be filming and Charlton Heston to walk out."
Bowers spoke while sitting in the rural Kentucky studio of sculptor Douwe Blumberg, along with three of his former "horse soldiers."
They, along with 30 fellow commandos on horseback, are the inspiration for a new monument that Blumberg is creating, dedicated to the entire U.S. special operations community.
The statue is scheduled to be erected across from the World Trade Center site in New York on November 11, Veterans Day. The artist rounded up these "horse soldiers" to share their personal stories and mission photos as inspiration for the 18-foot, bronze monument.
"It was unbelievable in 2001," Master Sgt. Bart Decker says to Blumberg.
Decker, the team's Air Force Special Operations combat controller, who is now retired, sports a Fu Manchu-style mustache. "We all looked at each other [and said] 'We're witnessing a cavalry charge!' " he said.
Blumberg listens in awe to the elite fighters in his art studio. He says he felt compelled to sculpt the monument after then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld first held up a photo of these special operations forces on horseback in northern Afghanistan during a 2001 news conference.
"The image, I think, typifies the special operations mission of get the job done, however you have to do it, adapt, overcome," the artist tells Bowers and his fellow fighters.
That image has also captured the imagination of Hollywood blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who's making a movie based on the mission as told by Doug Stanton in his New York Times best-selling book, "Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan."
Blumberg learns that the inspirational photo was shot by one of the "killer elite" sitting casually in front of him in his art studio.
The horse soldiers' stories
"If we wanted to move, horses were the only way," said Master Sgt. Chris Spence, the team's communication sergeant, who serves with 5th Special Forces Group. "Nobody will believe this! (So) I take my camera and (shoot) that photo."
Bowers points at that famous photo, explaining to Blumberg: "The Afghans and intelligence officers (CIA) are clotted up in front together, and all our guys are spread out in a wedge behind them."
For most of the Americans, it was their first time on a horse. But, their mission was critical: synchronize tribal warfare against Taliban and al Qaeda enemies by riding with, and advising, rival Northern Alliance warlords.
5 voices on Afghanistan success
The artist touches a bridle and an Afghan saddle the team brought from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which are registered with the Smithsonian Museum. One of the nation's leading equestrian sculptors, Blumberg is fascinated with the little-known details of these special operators' horseback mission in the steep, mountain terrain of Northern Afghanistan.
"Were you worried about the footing of the horse?" the sculptor asks the team.
"Absolutely," replies Decker, the Air Force combat controller. "They were trying to scramble up the rocks, and their hooves, their shoes were sparking. You were worried about sliding off anytime, but you had to keep going."
In the male-dominated Afghan culture, all war horses are stallions; there were no mares. The team tells the artist the stallions were constantly biting, kicking and rearing.
"It was like riding a bobcat," Bowers says.
"That's another big reason we separated, especially at night, when we're walking on that ledge, because you put two horses together, all they wanted to do was fight. You look down at the left side, there's a 500-foot drop-off," Decker adds.
"It was a sheer cliff," explains Sgt. 1st Class Joe Jung, the team's Green Beret medic and sniper, who currently serves at U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
"If someone would have fallen off, we would not have known," Master Sgt. Chris Spence says.
That almost happened to Jung. When his horse slid backward, he jumped off, and the horse landed on him.
"It was the first week. Winded up breaking my back," Jung says quietly.
The sculptor's eyes are wide; his hand rubs his chin. "So, you rode the rest of the mission with a broken back?" Blumberg asks.
"Correct," Jung answers, "Two shots of morphine to relieve the pain, and get back on the horse. I would not allow myself to be the weak link. It's not in my nature, and it's not in any Green Beret's nature."
Jung and the others were each handpicked for this special operation by Bowers, who carried a piece of the World Trade Center during their entire mission advising the rival Northern Alliance warlords.
"There were suspicions about our motives," Bowers says to the artist. "I pulled the bent piece of steel out and showed it to them [and said,] 'This is why we're here: We simply want to ensure that it's not a sanctuary for terrorist forces that have attacked the United States.' "
Blumberg looks through the men's photos of the aftermath of a major battle in Mazar-e Sharif showing bodies and rubble from Air Force bombs. He realizes at that point just how tough the special operations forces' mission was, right after the September 11 attacks.
Afghan man reflects on war, 10 years later
The battlefield is far removed from his studio, littered not with the carnage of war but with the dust and scraps from his sculpture.
After that Mazar-e Sharif battle, as Green Beret medic Jung was treating wounded prisoners at a prison camp, he recalls hearing an odd voice nearby.
"The accent was not there. Something just didn't sound right, it just didn't add up," he says.
He got up and told the American intelligence agents who were questioning other prisoners. A linguistics specialist came over to help Jung treat another patient.
"He was listening to the conversation [and] immediately scooped him up," Jung recalls. "It turned out to be Walker."
It was John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban from California. Blumberg sits forward in his chair. To him, the idea that an American was fighting alongside the men who helped carry out the 9/11 attacks is unthinkable.
Months later, after the Taliban regime had fallen, the special operations teams chose Mazar-e Sharif -- the site of one of their fiercest battles and where CIA officer Mike Spann became the first American killed in action in Afghanistan -- to bury the piece of the World Trade Center that Bowers had carried their entire mission.
"We took this piece of steel, put it in a body bag, folded American colors over it as when we lay our heroes to rest at Arlington," Bowers explains to Blumberg.
"We thought that this piece of the World Trade Center [should] be buried in a spot that was full of al Qaeda terrorists and memorialized."
The monument takes shape
Ten years later, these horse soldiers' stories will be memorialized in Blumberg's monument across from the World Trade Center site.
It will be unveiled during the November 11 Veterans Day parade, with the help of New York City firefighters, police officers, other emergency responders and Port Authority members.
"It will pay tribute to all U.S. special operations forces," Blumberg tells the team. "It will give New Yorkers an opportunity to honor the veterans who, worldwide, acted as New York's 'second responders' directly after the attack."
Members of Wall Street banking firms, who were personally affected by the attack at the World Trade Center, commissioned the artist. They ask to remain anonymous, so the focus stays on the meaning of the monument.
"They are an ad hoc group of grateful Wall Street bankers who personally survived and lost friends and many associates in the 9/11 attacks," Blumberg says. "They, and their community surrounding the World Trade Center, were permanently affected by the event. No public funds are being used."
In a Manhattan office, two of those individual supporters are helping organize this at a grass-roots level. They say that after the attacks, and the years of war that followed, their families and friends across the country asked them: Where could they go to remember the U.S. troops overseas who are trying to tackle potential terrorist threats, every day?
"We wanted to do something for the special operations community and all military service branches, because every day since 9/11, we've had to look at that hole in the ground," one of the private backers says.
A piece of World Trade Center steel may be embedded in the monument's base. The statue will be installed on private property, owned by a supportive firm, close to ground zero.
Back in Kentucky, Blumberg asks the horse soldiers assembled in his studio if they are concerned about whether anti-military groups, or detractors, will criticize the monument as glamorizing warfare.
"It's just not about the soldiers that have fallen, it's about those that were in the towers, those that were on Flight 93, and the Pentagon; the children that lost their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters," medic Jung tells the sculptor. "What everyone needs to know is: There are people out there like this team, like the Green Berets, that are willing to sacrifice at all costs for them."
Spence, the communications sergeant who shot the photo that originally compelled the artist, agrees.
"These are the guys that have your back. These are the guys that are now watching an eternal vigil over ground zero. The falling of these towers launched us off on horseback. Now, we're watching over you, and we have your back. That's what this statue is symbolizing."
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Public support for Afghan war slides: poll
(AFP)
LONDON — The head of Britain's armed forces on Thursday admitted that public support for the Afghanistan campaign was waning as a poll released on the eve of the war's 10th anniversary revealed most Briton wanted an immediate troop withdrawal.
General Sir David Richards, the chief of the defence staff, admitted that the armed forces were losing "the battle of perceptions" among the British public, during an interview with ITV News.
His fears were backed up by a poll carried out for the broadcaster by ComRes which showed that 57 percent of Britons wanted the soldiers brought home immediately.
Britain will withdraw 500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year, leaving 9,000 in the country.
Prime Minister David Cameron has stressed that Britain's commitment to Afghanistan would endure after the last NATO combat troops leave the country at the end of 2014.
However, 71 percent of those polled believe that the war is unwinnable, a rise of 11 percent since the same question was asked in June.
Also, 60 percent said that the cause did not justify the deaths of British soldiers, an issue Richards was keen to address.
The military chief explained that Britain was fighting for its "own rather selfish national security" and that the country would suffer if Afghanistan turned into another Somalia or Yemen.
The public remained sceptical of this line of argument with 62 percent of those polled disagreeing that having British forces in Afghanistan made Britain a safer place.
Some 58 percent said they thought that having British forces in Afghanistan actually increased the likelihood of an attack on British soil.
Richards accepted that Afghanistan could again become a safe haven for extremists once NATO troops leave, but that it was unlikely under the current proposals.
"If our plan is successfully implemented ... then there's no reason to think it will deteriorate into that sort of place that your worst imagination is getting at," he argued.
"I think we've got to be clear that we're not talking about creating a Switzerland in that part of the world but we are talking about a country that can look after itself," he added. "I think it is do-able."
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For U.S., a Tricky Path in Dealing With Afghan Insurgents
New York Times By ERIC SCHMITT October 5, 2011
WASHINGTON - President Obama’s national security adviser met secretly in the Persian Gulf last weekend with Pakistan’s top military officer to deliver a tough message: rein in the Haqqani network, a deadly insurgent group in Afghanistan that the United States says has close ties to Pakistan’s main spy agency.
Just a few weeks before, however, American officials held a secret meeting with leaders of the Haqqani network. But then, the purpose was to explore ever so delicately how the group, or at least some of its members, might join talks to end the war in Afghanistan.
The two meetings, held just over a month apart, underscore the Obama administration’s complicated and seemingly contradictory policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan as it struggles to end the decade-old conflict in Afghanistan and salvage a deteriorating security relationship with Pakistan.
The talks with the Haqqani network, which were brokered by the Pakistani spy agency, illustrate the administration’s recognition that military strikes alone will not end the fighting with the Taliban, the Haqqanis and other insurgents in Afghanistan. But the discussions, which one official described as “very preliminary,” yielded no results. And within weeks, senior American officials were blaming Haqqani fighters for a truck bombing at a NATO outpost south of Kabul on Sept. 10, which killed at least five people and wounded 77 coalition soldiers, and a 20-hour assault on the United States Embassy in Ka bul.
The State Department is nearing a decision to designate the entire Haqqani network — and not just its senior leaders — as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization,” which would allow for some of its assets to be frozen and could dissuade donors from supporting the group.
While some military commanders have called for the designation, the administration has held off until now, fearing such a move might alienate the Haqqanis and drive them away from future talks.
In the wake of the attacks, the administration is also increasing pressure on Pakistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, who stepped down last week as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month that Pakistan’s spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, played a direct role in supporting the attacks. He accused the Haqqani network of being “a veritable arm” of the ISI, which Pakistan vehemently denied.
The White House later tempered Admiral Mullen’s comments, but on Wednesday, the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, told reporters that with Pakistan, “we need a broad and deep collaboration on the whole counterterrorism docket, with Haqqani as Job 1.”
She said that Marc Grossman, the administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, would be traveling to Pakistan in the next several days.
Mr. Grossman’s meetings with senior Pakistani leaders will come on the heels of an unpublicized meeting in the United Arab Emirates last weekend between the White House national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon; Mr. Obama’s top adviser on Pakistan, Douglas E. Lute; and Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani army chief of staff. The White House had said that Mr. Donilon took a one-day, over-and-back trip to Saudi Arabia on Saturday.
One senior administration official said that it was “safe to assume that the Haqqani issue came up” at the meetings, and that the American officials stressed to General Kayani the importance of Pakistan’s taking more direct action against members of the Haqqani network, who American officials believe plot attacks like the assault on the American Embassy from a safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
American officials have made veiled threats of increasing the drone strikes by the Central Intelligence Agency or conducting cross-border commando raids into Pakistan if the danger to American and allied forces in Afghanistan is not quelled.
“We’re not going to allow these types of attacks to continue,” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said on Sept. 16, after the Haqqani network was implicated in the armed assault on the American Embassy in Kabul.
Spokesmen for the White House, the State Department and the C.I.A. declined to comment for this article.
Haqqani network leaders have indicated in recent days that they were willing to negotiate, but on their own terms. The group maintains close ties to the Taliban, but often works independently. Some intelligence officials say the attack on the American Embassy was a not-so-subtle reminder that the group will not be on the sidelines of any grand political bargain.
That was the context for the meeting in late August in Dubai among United States officials, a trusted senior family member of the Haqqanis, other militant leaders and a senior ISI interlocutor. The meeting was first reported by ABCNews.com and The Wall Street Journal.
One of the main leaders of the network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, told the BBC in an interview published on Monday that the Haqqanis “have been contacted and are being contacted by intelligence agencies of many Islamic and non-Islamic countries, including the U.S., asking us to leave the sacred jihad and take an important part in the current government.”
According to a high-level Afghan security official who was briefed on the talks, the discussions about what, if any, role members of the Haqqani network might play in an Afghan government ended fruitlessly.
“They didn’t agree on several things, so the meetings were without any outcome,” the Afghan official said. “That’s why we are seeing now all these reactions and attacks going on.”
South Asia specialists pointed to the highly compartmental nature of the political reconciliation talks to explain the seeming contradiction of some American officials’ engaging with groups like the Taliban and the Haqqanis while many others condemn the Haqqanis’ violence.
“There’s a very small group dealing with reconciliation, and they’ve been open-minded about who they talk to,” said Daniel S. Markey, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. “By doing so, they’re in conflict with others in the U.S. government who say the Haqqani network is beyond the pale.”
Souad Mekhennet contributed reporting from Frankfurt.
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