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Before 9/11: The tale of an Afghan 'lion'
Journalist Ed Giradet met the remarkable Ahmed Shah Massoud during the Afghan insurgency against the Red Army. Twenty years later, on the eve of 9/11, he tried to see him one last time.
Christian Science Monitor By John Yemma, Editor September 9, 2011
The closest thing to a good guy that modern Afghanistan has given birth to was Ahmed Shah Massoud, a resourceful guerrilla leader who was both a pious Muslim and an enlightened modernist. Mr. Massoud supported schools for girls, for instance. And though he and his troops committed their share of wartime excesses,
Legend of Afghan hero reveals country's divide
Each September, thousands of people flock to the tiny village of Jangalak, Afghanistan, along the rushing waters of the Panjshir River like pilgrims to a holy shrine, coming to commemorate the death of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the most celebrated hero of the Afghan resistance.
By RAY RIVERA The New York Times
JANGALAK, Afghanistan — Each September, thousands of people flock to this tiny village along the rushing waters of the Panjshir River like pilgrims to a holy shrine, coming to commemorate the death of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the most celebrated hero of the Afghan resistance.
Ahmed Shah Massoud: A Decade After His Murder, Would Afghanistan Be Different Were He Alive?
time.com By Aryn Baker Friday, September 9, 2011
Ten years ago today, the assassination of a militia leader holed up in the north-east corner of Afghanistan garnered little international attention, except perhaps for the Hollywood-worthy way in which he was killed: two suicide terrorists, posing as Belgian documentary journalists, detonated their explosives-packed video camera
In Afghanistan, Assessing A Rebel Leader's Legacy
NPR By Quil Lawrence September 9, 2011
Ten years ago Friday, a team of al-Qaida agents carried out an assassination that was the first step in their plan leading to the Sept. 11 attacks. In the north of Afghanistan, suicide bombers posing as journalists killed Ahmad Shah Massoud, the most famous leader of Afghan resistance against Taliban rule.
Spanta Discusses Afghan-US Strategic Partnership With Clinton
TOLOnews.com Friday, 09 September 2011
President Karzai's National Security Advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday to discuss a new strategic pact between the two nations, the US State Department said.
Taliban Truck Bomb Kills 2 at Base in Afghanistan
September 10, 2011 Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan – A large Taliban truck bomb struck the gate of a NATO combat outpost in eastern Afghanistan Saturday, killing two civilians and injuring others, the coalition said.
The Next Ten Years of Al-Qaeda
The International Interest By Zalmay Khalilzad September 9, 2011
Ten years after 9/11, the United States is safer. Al-Qaeda has been weakened—“an organization in distress” as counterterrorism chief John Brennan recently assessed. Many of its leaders have been killed or captured. The terrorist network is under continuous pressure due to the intelligence and military operations of the United States and its allies
Taliban Vow to Send US to 'Dustbin of History'
VOA News September 10, 2011
The Taliban is lashing out at the United States, calling the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan "a permanent stigma on the face of Western democracy."
The Taliban's Internet Strategy
Commentary September 9, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Bashir Ahmad Gwakh
The Taliban once banned photography, movies, and use of the Internet on the grounds that they were all “un-Islamic.” Now, however, the terrorist group’s perspective has radically changed.
An Afghan Spring
By Shoaib Harris and Najib Sharifi Analysis August 2011 SAGlobalAffairs.com
US involvement in Afghanistan has sparked pro-democratic movements in South Asian region – Iran included.
Seldom covered in the mainstream media, common people in Afghanistan and particularly in neighboring Iran, have had to live through the heavy-handedness of the Islamic republic for more than three decades now. But things are changing drastically.
Luxury hotel symbolizes Afghan fragility
CNN By Nic Robertson, CNN senior international correspondent September 9, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan - Exactly 10 years ago, a brutal civil war was being fought in Afghanistan as rebels advanced on the Taliban in the capital, Kabul.
Analysis: 10 years on, Afghanistan isn't far from where it started
Despite shiny new buildings and fleets of foreign cars, Afghanistan’s problems remain.
Global Post By Jean MacKenzie September 9, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan - When Al Qaeda’s planes hit the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, the world altered for everyone.
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Before 9/11: The tale of an Afghan 'lion'
Journalist Ed Giradet met the remarkable Ahmed Shah Massoud during the Afghan insurgency against the Red Army. Twenty years later, on the eve of 9/11, he tried to see him one last time.
Christian Science Monitor By John Yemma, Editor September 9, 2011
The closest thing to a good guy that modern Afghanistan has given birth to was Ahmed Shah Massoud, a resourceful guerrilla leader who was both a pious Muslim and an enlightened modernist. Mr. Massoud supported schools for girls, for instance. And though he and his troops committed their share of wartime excesses, he took care to protect civilians from getting caught up in the vicious war he was fighting against Soviet military occupation in the 1980s.
Massoud was hospitable, well read, and had a good sense of humor. Although he was a Tajik in a predominantly Pashtun nation, he was a quintessential Afghan in his unwillingness to be mastered. Known as the “Lion of Panjshir,” Massoud spent more than a quarter century fighting one war after another – against the Red Army, rival warlords, and finally the Taliban.
Edward Girardet first met Massoud in the summer of 1981 after trekking deep into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. In the evenings, when he and Ed would sit in a cave and chat as Soviet MIGs pounded the area with bombs, Massoud would talk about everything from Persian poetry to the leadership qualities of George Washington, Ho Chi Minh, and Charles de Gaulle. Often, he would ask searching questions about the meaning of life. His troops admired him; the Soviet military was bedeviled by him.
Ed, who reported for the Monitor for much of his journalistic career, tells the story of Massoud at the beginning of a fascinating new book, “Killing the Cranes: A Reporter’s Journey Through Three Decades of War in Afghanistan.” As a young man in the 1970s, Ed fell in love with the stark beauty of Afghanistan and its proud people. With local guides and guerrilla units, Ed walked hundreds of miles through the mountains in the 1980s and ’90s, searching for news. He was greeted even in the poorest villages with tea and pistachios.
“Every trip to Afghanistan was a step into another world, another time that was real adventure,” Ed recalls. “It was a place of constant challenge from which one would emerge, one hoped, with an inspiring story of simple humanity.”
In the summer of 2001, he decided to track down the Lion again, making his way to a forlorn settlement called Khoja Bahauddin in northern Afghanistan. In a guesthouse, he waited for Massoud with an assortment of aid workers and journalists, including two taciturn Arab TV reporters. A dust storm had blown up, keeping Massoud from arriving. After a week of waiting, Ed ran out of time and had to leave. He would have to see Massoud on another trip.
Three days later, on Sept. 9, 2001, Massoud was assassinated in a suicide bomb blast. Two days after that, Ed watched TV from his home in Geneva as the twin towers crumbled. The Massoud assassination and the 9/11 attacks, he realized, could not have been a coincidence. He was right. Those two Arabs, it turned out, weren’t journalists. They were agents of Osama bin Laden.
In those few September days 10 years ago, Ed’s romanticism about Afghanistan died. Less than a month later, something he never imagined happened: American troops were in the country. Ten years later, they are still there, fighting an intractable war against elusive, resourceful guerrillas.
9/11 has myriad legacies, both intimate and global – the tears shed, the lives altered, the rebuilding, vigilance, and twists and turns of international affairs over the past decade. The US-led operation in Afghanistan increasingly seems caught in the same kind of murky impasse Moscow was caught in 30 years ago.
I phoned Ed Girardet recently and asked him about the prelude to 9/11 that he had almost been caught up in. “While 9/11 wasn’t waiting for the assassination of Massoud,” he said, the attack on him “was a present the Al Qaeda was giving the Taliban.” Massoud led the Northern Alliance. He wanted a different Afghanistan than the brutal misrule the Taliban imposed. Had he survived, Ed said, perhaps ...
His words trailed off. 9/11 left an ellipsis in millions of lives and entwined the United States and Afghanistan in a way no one, not even an astute observer of Afghanistan, could have predicted.
John Yemma is the editor of The Christian Science Monitor.
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Legend of Afghan hero reveals country's divide
Each September, thousands of people flock to the tiny village of Jangalak, Afghanistan, along the rushing waters of the Panjshir River like pilgrims to a holy shrine, coming to commemorate the death of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the most celebrated hero of the Afghan resistance.
By RAY RIVERA The New York Times
JANGALAK, Afghanistan — Each September, thousands of people flock to this tiny village along the rushing waters of the Panjshir River like pilgrims to a holy shrine, coming to commemorate the death of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the most celebrated hero of the Afghan resistance.
Aging men with war-gnarled limbs march with grandsons in tow up a winding path lined with placards bearing Massoud's portrait: a time-softened image with the beatific quality of a shepherd cradling a lamb. They recite prayers at his black-marble tomb and circle back down in a flowing parade of adoration.
Younger men — too young to have fought alongside him but who grew up on tales of his tactical genius against the Russians and later the Taliban government — spill out of a pickup waving black flags and whooping as if they had won all those battles themselves.
"He was a hero, 100 percent," said Mohammad Aslam, 68, a former mujahedeen fighter, who was among an estimated 50,000 devotees who trekked here for Saturday's event, part of a weeklong series of festivities across parts of the country marking the 10th anniversary of the death of the man they knew as the Lion of Panjshir.
As Americans observe the day 10 years ago when terrorists in hijacked planes attacked New York and the Pentagon, the people of northern Afghanistan remember what for them was a greater tragedy two days earlier on Sept. 9, 2001. It was then that two agents of al-Qaida posing as journalists detonated a bomb hidden in a television camera during an interview with Massoud, killing him instantly.
For his closest aides, who initially tried to keep his death a secret, fearing the truth would sink the besieged Northern Alliance for good, the collapse of the World Trade Center towers was a sign of hope. They instinctively saw a nexus in the two acts — though one has never been proved — and knew the Americans would soon be on their way.
"I sort of woke up out of this shock I had been in since Sept. 9," Abdullah Abdullah, the Northern Alliance's former foreign minister, recalled about hearing the news of the attacks in New York. "It automatically came to my mind that out of this tragedy, there might be an opening."
A decade later, that hope has dwindled for many here. Afghanistan remains deeply divided, threatened by ethnic and regional rivalries that many fear might explode once foreign forces leave. The Taliban continue to assert themselves with suicide attacks and the prodigious use of roadside bombs. Confidence in President Hamid Karzai's corruption-addled government is faltering on multiple fronts.
Many of Massoud's former allies in the north, some of whom have profited mightily in the land grabs and cash giveaways that followed the U.S. invasion, have signaled resistance to Karzai's efforts to negotiate a peace settlement with the Taliban.
"Dig the trenches, bring out the ammunition and let's get ready for the next civil war," one senior Western diplomat said recently, only half in jest.
In the ceaseless turmoil, Massoud's legend has only grown, fostering imaginings of what could have been, if only he had lived.
"The reason I loved him was because he knew how to relate to the people," Aslam, the former fighter, said. "If he were still alive, this would be a strong country now."
But like everything else in Afghanistan, memories of Massoud are tempered by ethnic and geographical divisions. He was declared a national hero in 2002, and Sept. 9 is a national holiday. But his posters, so present in the north, are nowhere to be found in the south.
An ethnic Tajik, Massoud is remembered by many in the Pashtun-dominated south for his days after the Soviet retreat, when he and the Tajik-centric government failed to unify the tempestuous mujahedeen factions that fractured before they could even celebrate their victory over the Communist-backed government of President Mohammad Najibullah.
With Massoud as defense minister and Burhanuddin Rabbani as president, Kabul became the center of a civil war, as formerly united rebel commanders, each with his own militias, shelled one another and battled it out on the streets. In 1993 alone, an estimated 10,000 civilians died, compared with 2,777 last year, the most since U.S. troops arrived in 2001.
The chaos gave rise to the Taliban in the south, who by September 1996 had marched into Kabul, forcing Massoud and his forces to flee back to the Panjshir Valley, the same isolated redoubt high in the Hindu Kush mountains where he had held off the Russians time and again.
"We know that Massoud was a great man," said Hajji Ahmad Khan Muslim, a political analyst and tribal elder in the southern city of Kandahar. "But we have numbers of national heroes in the south. It's not fair that only one person should emerge as a hero."
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Ahmed Shah Massoud: A Decade After His Murder, Would Afghanistan Be Different Were He Alive?
time.com By Aryn Baker Friday, September 9, 2011
Ten years ago today, the assassination of a militia leader holed up in the north-east corner of Afghanistan garnered little international attention, except perhaps for the Hollywood-worthy way in which he was killed: two suicide terrorists, posing as Belgian documentary journalists, detonated their explosives-packed video camera just as the interview started. It was only in the light of the subsequent terror attacks on the United States two days later that the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud ceased to be seen as a random event and was instead linked indelibly to the larger plot. Evidence linking the attack to al-Qaeda is circumstantial (one of the attackers' widow, Belgian Malika el Aroud, was an active propagandist for al-Qaeda in Europe before her arrest in 2008), though it seems likely that the attack was planned by Osama bin Laden, either in anticipation of a retaliatory attack on the Taliban regime by the US, or as a favor to his Afghan host, Mullah Omar. Massoud, a celebrated Mujahidin leader from the anti-Soviet resistance, had been waging a war against Taliban forces for nearly five years.
A French-speaking poet-warrior, known as much for his grasp of military tactics as his ability to quote Sufi-inspired couplets, Massoud was a favorite of Western supporters of the anti-Soviet Jihad. His signature attire—fringed scarf and a beret-like pakhol—has become the uniform of choice among young adventurers visiting Afghanistan for the first time.
He is no less a hero in Afghanistan. A Che Guevara-type figure, Massoud's image can be found plastered on shop windows and car windshields, as much a symbol of pride in Afghanistan's mujahidin past as an allegiance to his anti-Taliban (and pro-Tajik) bent. One of Kabul's biggest intersections is named after him, and September 9, the anniversary of his death, is a national holiday. Massoud's supporters, many of them hailing from his anti-Taliban United Islamic Front, which has now been reconstituted in Western parlance as the Northern Alliance, hold that had he not been killed, Afghanistan would have been in far better shape.
"If Massoud had not been killed, we would have lived in a totally different world," says his friend and advisor, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. "From what I know of him, he would have asked for Western support, but would have said 'no' to boots on the ground. Who knows if the Americans would have listened, but we probably wouldn't be in the situation we are in today."
Nearly ten years after an invasion that has neither a clear cut success nor palatable end in sight, its tempting to indulge in a bout of magical thinking. Would Massoud have been able to defeat the Taliban for good? Would he have been a contender for president, and if so, would he have steered Afghanistan in a different direction than towards the quicksand that we now find ourselves in?
Recent history suggests otherwise.
As head of one of the factions fighting for Kabul during the civil war, Massoud oversaw widespread bombing and destruction. While his men may not have indulged in the brutal carnage and human-rights violations enacted by other factions in the war (factions that eventually went on to ally with him against the Taliban in 1996), he bears much responsibility for Afghanistan's destruction. Yet neither Massoud, nor any other commander involved in the civil war that eventually ushered in the Taliban, ever answered for their acts. Instead, in 2001, they were rewarded.
Had Massoud been alive during the US invasion of Afghanistan, he, like many other military commanders in the Northern Alliance, would likely have been bolstered with suitcases of cash and high tech weapons and sent off to fight the Taliban on America's behalf. That is what war with a light footprint looks like, and, according to Candace Rondeaux, Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group, it was mistake number one in a litany of things we did wrong over the past ten years in Afghanistan. “The [U.S. President George W.] Bush Administration thought that they could do this war on the cheap. They thought they could send in a couple of hundred guys from the CIA and Special Forces, direct their allies in the Northern Alliance to prosecute a war against their long term enemies, and it would be mission accomplished.”
Of course, not all was lost at that point. Using local fighters is nothing new for the United States, and had we then thanked the commanders politely for their time, sent them on their way with a tidy bonus, we might have been O.K. Instead, says Rondeaux, we took sides in an ethnic conflict that had roiled the country for the better part of a decade. “We allowed those same allies, who had an axe to grind against Pashtuns, carte blanche to pursue anyone they saw fit, and we called it an army.” The third mistake was allowing those warlords, many of whom stand accused of grievious human rights abuses, a significant role in the post-Taliban government, despite a national clamor for truth and reconciliation.
From the very beginning, rule of law was subsumed by the more urgent demand for security. That trade-off is at the very root of all that ails Afghanistan today. “If we really wanted to see results,” says Rondeaux, “we would have wanted to see war criminals prosecuted, the law applied fairly and justly, and Afghanistan able to pursue justice for its people.” Instead we cemented the perception that the law belongs to the powerful, the rich and the armed, no matter how egregious their offenses. In effect, we reset the clock to the early 90s, when warlords ran the country and the Taliban triumphed not by military might but popular support for their brand of quick, if brutal, justice.
Though much of the developmental efforts by the international community have centered on democracy-building exercises, foreign military forces have often relied on the services of local strongmen, regardless of their adherence to the law. As a result a new generation of power brokers, fueled by the money and influence that such connections bring, has come to the fore. In a 2004 survey conducted by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, 90 percent of Afghans said that they wanted criminal warlords banned from the government. Instead, Parliament and the administration of President Hamid Karzai granted a blanket amnesty to all mujahidin, further undermining confidence in a government-supported system of justice.
“Even as a liberal I can say that the Taliban time was better,” says Sadiq Niazi, a Soviet-trained technocrat in Afghanistan's oil and gas industry. “Yes, there was dictatorship, and they didn't let girls go to school, but at least there was justice. It doesn't matter if I have to go to mosque five times a day or grow a beard, as long as we have rule of law.” Niazi speaks from a comfortable, middle class apartment in central Kabul. Financially, he says, he is better off now than in 2001, but what's the point, he asks, if someone could murder him tomorrow for his property, and get out of jail with a bribe or political connections? “That is the mistake the Americans made. Instead of supporting the law, they supported warlords.”
It's not just that the international community in Afghanistan supported warlords. Rather, they supported personalities over institutions. A common refrain in post-war Iraq among American officials and military leaders was a wish for an “Iraqi Karzai” — an English-speaking, charismatic leader that looks good on the international stage and could be counted upon to do the West's bidding. But even as frustration with Afghanistan's current president mounts, we still ask, “If not Karzai, then who?” It's the wrong question. That which builds nations and keeps countries strong does not wear striped capes or felt berets. Institution building is not sexy, and it can't be done in one year, or even ten. But had we started on the fundamentals of good governance back in 2001, we might not be wondering today what Afghanistan might have looked like if Massoud had lived.
Aryn Baker is TIME's Middle East Bureau Chief, based in Beirut. Find her on Twitter at @arynebaker. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEWorld.
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In Afghanistan, Assessing A Rebel Leader's Legacy
NPR By Quil Lawrence September 9, 2011
Ten years ago Friday, a team of al-Qaida agents carried out an assassination that was the first step in their plan leading to the Sept. 11 attacks. In the north of Afghanistan, suicide bombers posing as journalists killed Ahmad Shah Massoud, the most famous leader of Afghan resistance against Taliban rule.
Today, posters of Massoud still adorn shops around northern Afghanistan, and admirers held a huge commemoration of him Friday near his home.
But 10 years after his death, Massoud's legacy has been overshadowed by a grueling war that grinds on with no end in sight.
Sorrow In The Valley
If the people of the Panjshir River Valley are the proudest in Afghanistan, it's because of Massoud, known as the "Lion of the Panjshir."
He first made his name as a rebel fighter against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. After the Soviets pulled out, he was a central figure in the Afghan civil war that pitted the rival factions against one another in the 1990s. And then he led the resistance against the Taliban until his death.
"Soviet forces never held this place, and the Taliban never made it here either," says Said Akbar, who fought for Massoud in the 1990s.
Akbar is picnicking on a narrow terrace in the shadow of cliffs that vault up from the Panjshir River, part of the natural defenses that made the valley impossible to conquer. Akbar also credits Massoud's leadership and guerrilla genius.
Ten years ago, after the al-Qaida hit squad detonated a bomb it had concealed in a TV camera, rumors spread down the valley.
Malik Jan is another former Massoud follower.
"As soon as I heard that he was injured I knew he was killed," Jan says. "All the trees looked sad, the mountains, the rocks, everything was crying, there was a black could over the mountains for a couple of days."
Jan says tens of thousands of people turned out for the funeral a week after his death. They were afraid of facing the Taliban without Massoud to lead them, but news had begun to reach Afghanistan of the Sept. 11 attacks, and that allowed some to hope that the Taliban's days were numbered.
This weekend, thousands again made the pilgrimage up the Panjshir, to a windy hilltop mausoleum that commands a view over the valley. Women, men and children came, and not just from Massoud's Tajik ethnic group.
"Commander Massoud was fighting for a pluralistic Afghanistan," says Amrullah Saleh, a close adviser to Massoud who later served as the Afghan government's intelligence chief. Saleh believes that Massoud possessed the kind of leadership that is sorely lacking in Kabul today.
"He would have articulated a vision for Afghanistan so the people would have understood the direction of the country. That narrative is no longer, now, in the country. ... It is blurred by the wrong policies of President Karzai. There is confusion, massive confusion," says Saleh.
A Trail Of Blood, Corruption
But some of Massoud's critics say he might have only added to that confusion — as in 1992 when he and other resistance leaders fought a civil war after driving out the Soviet-sponsored government. The criticism of Massoud gets more pointed if you ask around the west Kabul neighborhoods that saw the fury of Massoud's Tajik troops during the civil war.
"Massoud is responsible for the killing here. He did fight the Taliban, but for us his hands are bloody," says Ali Mahmad, who was a young boy when rival ethnic warlords, Massoud among them, fought over Kabul with no regard for civilians.
Mahmad says his father — an ethnic Hazara — didn't come home one day, and bystanders say he was shot after passing a Tajik checkpoint on his bicycle. His family was forced to sell their grocery store to survive. Mahmad is now jobless, while he sees the same warlords from the civil war in positions of wealth and power.
"I hate all of them, because they've never done anything for the national interest, only fill their own pockets," he says.
Massoud's lieutenants have not measured up either, according to Said Akbar, the former foot soldier in Panjshir. In the aftermath of the American invasion, many leaders of Massoud's Northern Alliance appropriated land and houses, and they still retain influence over the army and many government ministries. In particular, current Vice President Muhammad Qasim Fahim became one of the richest, most powerful men in Afghanistan.
"Massoud's home is two blocks away from here," says Akbar, pointing up the winding road along the Panjshir River. "It's not a fancy house. Look at his friends today. Those who fought with him have hundreds of homes in Kabul. It's become a moneymaking business for them."
Akbar is now a captain in the new Afghan army, and he's been fighting the insurgents down in the troubled south — something he sees as a much better way to carry on the legacy of Massoud.
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Spanta Discusses Afghan-US Strategic Partnership With Clinton
TOLOnews.com Friday, 09 September 2011
President Karzai's National Security Advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday to discuss a new strategic pact between the two nations, the US State Department said.
The meeting between the two top officials was focused on "the New Silk Road vision," a strategic agreement that will define the presence of US of forces in Afghanistan long after 2014, Clinton's office said in a statement.
The State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: "The United States does not seek any permanent American military bases in Afghanistan."
"A new Strategic Partnership is intended to provide a transparent political framework for long-term cooperation between the United States and Afghanistan," Nuland said in the statement.
"It will reaffirm our shared commitment to a stable, independent Afghanistan that is not a safe-haven for al-Qaida, as well as U.S. respect for Afghanistan's sovereignty."
Spanta left Kabul for Washington earlier this week to discuss details of US-Afghanistan strategic partnership with senior US officials.
The two officials also discussed a regional cooperation conference to be held in Istanbul in November and an international conference scheduled for December in Bonn, as well as the situation at troubled Kabul Bank.
Presently US forces numbered nearly 100,000 in Afghanistan and based on President Obama's troop exit strategy, 10,000 US troops will be pulled out of the country this year with 22,000 other by the end of 2012.
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Taliban Truck Bomb Kills 2 at Base in Afghanistan
September 10, 2011 Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan – A large Taliban truck bomb struck the gate of a NATO combat outpost in eastern Afghanistan Saturday, killing two civilians and injuring others, the coalition said.
No coalition forces were killed in the attack on Combat Outpost Sayed Abad in Wardak province, a statement said. An Afghan official earlier said there was at least one civilian killed.
NATO said none of the injuries was life threatening. It did not say how many people were injured in the explosion, which came on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States.
"Most of the force of the explosion was absorbed by the protective barrier at the outpost entrance and though there were a significant number of injuries, all are being treated and none is immediately life threatening," NATO said.
The attack was carried out by a Taliban suicide bomber who detonated a large bomb inside a truck carrying firewood, NATO said.
The blast "damaged the compound entrance and was not followed-up by any subsequent attacks. The impact to the compound is readily repairable and operations are continuing," NATO said.
The attack came hours after the Taliban vowed to keep fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan until all American troops leave the country and stressed that their movement had no role in the Sept. 11 attacks.
In a statement emailed to media, the Taliban accused the United States of using the Sept. 11 attacks as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and said the international community was responsible for killing thousands of Afghans during the invasion and ensuing occupation.
"Each year, 9/11 reminds the Afghans of an event in which they had no role whatsoever," the Taliban said. "American colonialism has shed the blood of tens of thousands of miserable and innocent Afghans."
The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, after the Taliban, who then ruled the country, refused to hand over Osama bin Laden.
The late al-Qaida leader was at the time living in Afghanistan, where the terror network had training camps from which it planned attacks against the U.S. and other countries.
"The Afghans have an endless stamina for a long war," the statement said. "Through a countrywide uprising, the Afghans will send the Americans to the dustbin of history like they sent other empires of the past."
The statement was issued by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the official title used by the Taliban when they ruled the country.
Although the Taliban were swiftly driven from power by the U.S.-led coalition, they managed to use the years of the Iraq war -- when America focused its military strength on the conflict against Saddam Hussein -- to regroup, rearm and reorganize.
They began winning back ground lost to the international military coalition until President Barack Obama decided to send in 30,000 more troops last year to help.
Although there have been some coalition gains in the Taliban's traditional southern strongholds, violence has not abated around the country.
The U.S. has begun withdrawing some of its 100,000 troops and will send home 33,000 by the end of next year. The international military coalition has already begun transferring security responsibilities to newly trained Afghan forces with the aim of removing all their soldiers by the end of 2014.
Bin Laden was killed in May in a raid on his house in northwestern Pakistan by helicopter-borne U.S. Navy SEALs.
In another development, NATO and Afghan forces arrested a former inmate at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
A tribal elder said Said Amir Jan was arrested during the same raid in which another former Guantanamo detainee was killed a week ago in the eastern city of Jalalabad. But word of his arrest only emerged Saturday.
Jan, 30, was suspected of being a "low-level member of al-Qaida" before he was sent to Guantanamo in 2003, according to his military file, made public by WikiLeaks.
He was assessed as medium risk in 2005 by military officials and sent back to Afghanistan in 2007.
The man killed in the raid was Sabar Lal Melma. Soldiers shot him after he confronted them with an AK-47.
NATO and Afghan officials have not commented on the identities of anyone arrested in the Sept. 2 raid.
But tribal elder Rohullah Wakil, a friend of the slain man and himself a former Guantanamo detainee, said Saturday that Jan and two other people -- Melma's cousin and a man named Dairan -- were arrested.
NATO raided Melma's house because he was suspected of organizing attacks in eastern Kunar province and funding insurgent operations after he was released from Guantanamo in 2007.
NATO officials described Melma as a key al-Qaida ally.
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The Next Ten Years of Al-Qaeda
The International Interest By Zalmay Khalilzad September 9, 2011
Ten years after 9/11, the United States is safer. Al-Qaeda has been weakened—“an organization in distress” as counterterrorism chief John Brennan recently assessed. Many of its leaders have been killed or captured. The terrorist network is under continuous pressure due to the intelligence and military operations of the United States and its allies—particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Limiting opportunities for recruitment, training and planning in these two countries has increased the cost and difficulty of launching successful attacks against the United States.
For a period after our intervention in Iraq, al-Qaeda benefited from the unpopularity of our actions in many parts of the Arab and Islamic world. The group found a home among Sunni Arabs who initially opposed the new order in Iraq, and al-Qaeda decided to make Iraq the center of its struggle against the United States. The decision backfired. Al-Qaeda operatives—especially the foreign fighters—overreached, mistreating Iraqi Sunnis in its efforts to incite a “civil war within Islam” between the country’s Shiites and Sunnis. U.S. and Iraqi leaders responded effectively to the growing rift between al-Qaeda and Iraqi Sunnis, and proactive diplomacy persuaded key Sunni groups to participate in the political process and become stakeholders in Iraq’s democracy. On the military front, the coalition and its increasingly capable Iraqi partners teamed up with local Sunni forces to weaken al-Qaeda in Iraq dramatically.
As al-Qaeda suffered setbacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, its popularity across the region declined. Despite Washington’s inability to win broad regional support for its policies, support for al-Qaeda in the greater Middle East has fallen considerably. The Arab Spring could consolidate this shift at the ideological level. If the ongoing tumult results in liberal societies responsive to the demands of their polities, al-Qaeda will have a harder time surviving without a political environment conducive to extremism.
Safer, however, does not mean that we are safe. One consequence of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is that much of the al-Qaeda threat has shifted to Pakistan. We have had significant successes there—some with and some without Pakistani cooperation—but confronting what remains of al-Qaeda in Pakistan is complicated. The United States has limited freedom of action and is dependent in many ways on Pakistani security forces. Islamabad’s arrest of several key Al-Qaeda leaders in recent days is positive, but its overall cooperation remains mixed. Al-Qaeda’s leadership still operates in Pakistan, and it maintains strategic and operational ties with key insurgent groups such as the extremists among the Taliban and Haqqani network, which in turn have very close ties to Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). And though it is less of a threat in Iraq, al-Qaeda remains active. So long as it retains the ability to launch regular attacks in Baghdad and surrounding areas, the organization could prove to be a destabil
izing force in the country.
Overall, the future of al-Qaeda depends on five factors:
First, U.S. counterterrorism efforts. American operations around the world have limited the space in which al-Qaeda can plot new attacks. Through improved defenses, better interdiction efforts, and bolstered intelligence and law enforcement capabilities, the United States has hardened itself against new attacks even as the overall number of attempts to hit the country has remained high. The challenge, though, is that al-Qaeda has evolved and adapted as well. The network is shifting to virtual attacks waged by self-starting groups. At the same time, the imperative of old capabilities has not diminished. Al-Qaeda continues to pursue weapons of mass destruction while seeking to regain and expand physical sanctuaries.
Second, the war in Afghanistan. The surge has made important security gains in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But the Taliban remains a threat. Despite progress on many fronts, institutional weakness and corruption within the Afghan government feed the insurgency. Afghan security forces are growing in capability but still rely heavily on the U.S. presence. If the United States draws down precipitously, the Haqqani network and extremist Taliban will fill the vacuum and again provide safe haven for al-Qaeda. If the Taliban-Haqqani network succeeds in taking over a significant part of Afghanistan or in inciting a new Afghan civil war, safe havens for al-Qaeda will expand, and the threat to the U.S. homeland will increase. On the other hand, if Afghanistan is successful it will be a major setback for extremists and terrorists.
Third, relations with Pakistan. Pakistan’s security forces are still playing a double game of providing some tactical support to the United States while fueling the insurgency in Afghanistan. There are three main reasons: Pakistani military leaders remain wedded to a strategy of zero-sum competition with India; the military and intelligence services of Pakistan wield disproportionate influence over the government of Pakistan and its more moderate, albeit corrupt, civilian leadership; and Pakistan is pursuing broader regional interests. It remains unclear whether Islamabad is simply hedging against Indian influence and a potential American withdrawal from Afghanistan, or if it seeks to create an expanding empire through Central and South Asia. The question is whether Pakistani civilian leaders and the United States will be able to shift Pakistani policy and politics in a more stabilizing direction, facilitate an Indo-Pakistani rapprochement and negotiate an Afghan-Pakistani settlement.
Fourth, the future of Iraq. The United States has succeeded in creating a basic political compact and reasonably stable democratic institutions in Iraq. Yet the Iraqi government remains plagued by political stalemate and sectarian agendas. Tehran continues to wield extensive influence over Iraqi politics. These factors account in part for the recent Iraqi decision not to request an adequate long-term U.S. presence in the country. From the point of view of countering al-Qaeda, if the United States leaves now, before Iraq reaches a sustainable level of security and sociopolitical cohesiveness, the prospect of sectarian warfare will increase, thereby providing openings for al-Qaeda. Given Iraq’s geopolitical weight, what happens in Iraq will have a shaping role in the broader Middle East.
Fifth, the Arab Spring. The unrest in the greater Middle East appears to be the consequence of a revolutionary gap between moribund regimes and restive populations. It is an encouraging prospect. Anti-Americanism does not seem to be a principle motivating factor for the youth-led revolts. But the Arab Spring could evolve in ways that benefit al-Qaeda. So far it has been secular dictatorships broadly aligned against al-Qaeda that have proven most vulnerable to internal upheaval. One threat is that Islamist parties with greater ideological and strategic sympathies to al-Qaeda will usurp the revolutions. Perhaps even more dangerous is the risk of chaos and instability creating opportunities for al Qaeda.
The United States may be safer. Safer, however, does not mean that we are safe. Al-Qaeda has suffered many setbacks, but from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arab Spring and Iraq, nothing is set in stone.
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Taliban Vow to Send US to 'Dustbin of History'
VOA News September 10, 2011
The Taliban is lashing out at the United States, calling the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan "a permanent stigma on the face of Western democracy."
Saturday's statement from the Taliban also warns the U.S. that the Afghan people have an "endless stamina for war" and says the Taliban will send America to "the dustbin of history."
The Taliban statement comes one day before the U.S. marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
The statement accuses the U.S. of using the attacks as a pretext to martyr innocent Muslims.
The Taliban gave al-Qaida a safe haven in Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks, allowing the terrorist group to set up training camps for would-be terrorists, and refused to hand over bin Laden to the U.S.
U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan, then under Taliban control, in early October 2001, the start of an effort to track down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Ground forces soon followed.
That effort ousted the Taliban from power and helped weaken al-Qaida, forcing Osama bin Laden and other top commanders into hiding.
U.S. special forces tracked down Osama bin Laden, killing him this past May in neighboring Pakistan.
U.S. forces remain in Afghanistan, but the U.S. is expected to complete a withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan in 2014.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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The Taliban's Internet Strategy
Commentary September 9, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Bashir Ahmad Gwakh
The Taliban once banned photography, movies, and use of the Internet on the grounds that they were all “un-Islamic.” Now, however, the terrorist group’s perspective has radically changed.
Throughout the duration of their government (1996-2001), which was toppled after the 9/11 attacks, social media did not exist.
There was not even a mobile-phone service. Nonetheless, over the past decade, the Taliban has dramatically groomed its public-relations skills.
It possesses several Internet domains, which host official content and have backup domains in case of an attack on the main website. Taliban members also use email on a daily basis to communicate with journalists.
Despite persistently launching attacks on officials and killing civilians, the Taliban has yet to have a decisive military success.
However, it has been trying hard to compensate for its military losses with effective propaganda warfare. The militant group cannot deny the potential of such media as tools of propaganda and recruitment.
Aiming At The Heart Not The Body
"Wars today cannot be won without media," said Abdul Sattar Maiwandi, the web editor of a Taliban website, about the importance of media in the battlefield during an interview for Al-Emarah, the Taliban’s official website.
"Media aim at the heart rather than the body, [and] if the heart is defeated, the battle is won," he added, sounding just like an experienced public-relations professional.
The Taliban has even established an official "media committee" to oversee the effort, according to Maiwandi. He says a professional production studio called Al-Shahamat has been set up to produce videos.
From there, the films are distributed on Taliban websites, passed from mobile phone to mobile phone, and reach broader audiences through other outlets, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
The Taliban has numerous accounts on Twitter, but the most active is @alemarahweb. This is the official Taliban account, which also has a link to its official website.
It is apparently run by someone with the name Mustafa Ahmadi, @alemarahweb, who initially started tweeting in Pashto and began using English last year.
The latest tweet posted from the account while this commentary was being written had the following wording: "5 puppets killed in Awba district: HERAT, Sep. 06 - At 10:00 pm last night…"
This was linked to a short article on the Taliban's website, which is named after the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan."
A Dissemination Tool
As of the morning on which this article was being prepared, 5,487 people were following the account -- and that number was quickly rising. There were also nearly 1,700 tweets.
The account follows four other Twitter feeds; including @alsomood, which is another Taliban twitter account focusing on Arabic tweets.
It does not interact with its followers and is mainly used as one-way dissemination tool.
Ahmadi, who seems to be the Islamist group’s social media expert, has a Facebook account where he provides links to videos of suicide bombings and guerilla attacks on Afghan and coalition forces.
His twitter account, @alemarahweb, is linked to his Facebook account and therefore regularly updates more than 450 friends and the public.
His Facebook settings seem to be public so that anyone, even those who are not members of Facebook, can see his activities.
Mustafa Ahmadi is also the administrator of a fan page for Mullah Muhammad Omar Mujahid, the Taliban’s Supreme Leader. As of September 6, 196 people "liked" him.
In addition to helping them reach foreign financers and sympathizers (whom it can incite all over the world to carry out terror attacks), social media networks also serve as the Taliban’s communication centers.
The insurgents may not be able to contact each other directly, so these websites can be used to communicate with followers and sister groups in other corners of the world, and vice versa.
Although the Taliban has numerous blogs and websites, two of their official websites Al-Emarah.net and Shahamat.info (mostly videos) are their main official tools of propaganda.
Primary Target Group Is Foreigners
Along with pictures and videos, they provide text materials in Arabic, Pashto, Dari, Persian, Urdu and English.
As not many people have access to the Internet in Afghanistan, the primary target group is foreigners.
The Taliban reaches Afghans through pamphlets, brochures, mobile radio, audio and video CDs, magazines and religious sympathizers.
Just like all propaganda information coming from the Taliban, their tweets and Facebook statuses are full of exaggeration.
The insurgency is gaining support not only among the Afghan people but sympathizers abroad.
The Brussels-based International Crisis Group pointed out long ago in a 2008 report that "using the full range of media, [the Taliban] is successfully tapping into strains of Afghan nationalism and exploiting policy failures by the Kabul government and its international backers.”
To some extent, the Taliban has been successful in portraying President Hamid Karzai's government as one run by corrupt, former warlords who care little for their people, and showing that it has little reach outside the capital.
Propaganda At A Miniscule Cost
The Taliban benefits from spreading these stories, at miniscule cost compared to the billions of dollars spent by the United States and its allies on development projects.
Some analysts believe the Afghan government and the international community have deliberately allowed the Taliban to communicate freely because they want to gather intelligence about the group.
Even if this notion were true, the United States and its Western allies should not risk their reputation among Afghans.
When speech incites violence and murder it must be stopped. At the same time, Afghan officials need to communicate more freely: they must reach out to the media in an open and timely manner.
If there is a terrorist incident or assassination attempt, the authorities should be the first to issue a press release, not the Taliban.
Usually, the media becomes aware of attacks via the Taliban and not through Afghan or NATO officials.
Through its Twitter account, the International Security Assistance Force mostly tweets about the training of Afghan police, or soldiers distributing candies and pencils among Afghan children.
They rarely address their own casualties and when they do it’s often too late. This gives an opportunity for insurgents to step up, fill in the blanks and reach the public first with their side of the story.
I recently asked an official at Afghanistan’s Ministry of Information and Technology why this was so.
“It is up to people how to use the means of communication," he answered. "Everybody can share his heart's secret or anything he wants. It does not come under any law.”
Neither Afghan officials nor U.S.-led coalition forces seem to be interested in blocking the Taliban’s incitement to murder and dissemination of hate across the web.
While freedom of speech is obviously a democratic value for which the West is fighting in Afghanistan, attacking Taliban propaganda head-on should be just another front in a multipronged war.
Bashir Ahmad Gwakh is a broadcaster with RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal. The views expressed in this commentary are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL.
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An Afghan Spring
By Shoaib Harris and Najib Sharifi Analysis August 2011 SAGlobalAffairs.com
US involvement in Afghanistan has sparked pro-democratic movements in South Asian region – Iran included.
Seldom covered in the mainstream media, common people in Afghanistan and particularly in neighboring Iran, have had to live through the heavy-handedness of the Islamic republic for more than three decades now. But things are changing drastically.
Only a few months following the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime by the US and former Northern Alliance forces in November 2001, sudden democratic changes, prominently the Emergency Loya Jerga (Grand Assembly), which elected Hamid Karzai as the interim president of Afghanistan, reinvigorated the democracy spirit in the entire region. What many people forget to notice is the fact that there was a woman among the three candidates who ran for office in this traditional gathering. What a feat for democracy!
The Iranians following developments in Afghanistan closely noticed that it took their poorer and more conservative neighbor – Afghanistan - only a few months to transition from the hard line Taliban Emirate where a woman was not even allowed to venture out of home without male company to that where a woman could openly run for office.
In contrast, presidential hopefuls in Iran need the approval of Shurai Negahban (the Guardian Council) – composed of hard line Jurists – that makes it practically impossible for reformist non-ideological and female candidates to have a shot at presidency.
The US parallel strategy of fighting terror and promoting democracy sent encouraging signals to pro-democratic circles throughout the region –from Iran to Central Asian republics. The flourishing of democratic institutions in Afghanistan initiated an inspiring wave of change that engulfed the neighborhood. Freedom of Expression, the media boom and the passage of the new constitution, which reserves twenty five percent of the parliament seats to women, brought a wave that ran against the interests of closed non-representative regimes in neighboring states.
Afghanistan became a sanctuary for Iranian journalists and civil society activists who were subjected to persecution at the hands of the ruling regime. In neighboring Central Asian republics, the civil society began to urge harder for openness as Central Asian journalists started pouring into Afghanistan to learn how the Afghan media managed to jump from one state-run media outlet, solely employed as the propaganda machinery of the ruling regime, to hundreds of outlets assiduously watchful and critical of government’s actions. These are significant gains that often get eclipsed by the talk of drawdown of the international forces and focus on the failures of the Afghan government to deliver on all fronts.
Nonetheless, it is irrefutable – as the Obama Administration has consistently acknowledged – these gains are still shaky and reversible. But in order to sustain and consolidate them, it is for the United States to provide an assurance of its long-term military presence in the country. The US military presence in Afghanistan is likely to provide a psychological bulwark for the prodemocracy currents in neighboring countries against the Gaddafi-style genocidal threats or massive crackdown by the ruling regimes.
If the US – like the Soviet Union a few decades back –gives the impression of leaving in haste and for good, not only can Afghanistan risk losing its decade-long democratic achievements, but also the neighborhood’s pro-democracy currents will start doubting the centrality of freedom, democracy and human rights to US foreign policy. This is likely to turn the tide against the popular democratic aspirations at a time when the Arab awakening has provided a unique window of opportunity for the entire region to rid itself of totalitarian regimes.
The United States needs to factor the strategic significance of Afghanistan, its democratic achievements, and the degree that developments in Afghanistan can have an impact over a neighborhood struggling under repressive regimes.
Given that United States has shed blood and resources in Afghanistan for a cause that has just started bearing fruit, caution is required not to render it meaningless now - by giving the impression of weakness in commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights. A retreat on values will not only tarnish the prestige of the US on an international level but it will also encourage despotic regimes like that of Iran to continue justifying its heavy-handedness by dwelling on the failure of the US efforts in helping build a viable democracy in Afghanistan.
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Luxury hotel symbolizes Afghan fragility
CNN By Nic Robertson, CNN senior international correspondent September 9, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan - Exactly 10 years ago, a brutal civil war was being fought in Afghanistan as rebels advanced on the Taliban in the capital, Kabul.
From the former five-star Intercontinental Hotel -- a luxury hotel without TVs which were banned by the Taliban -- we watched as the rebels launched a daring raid on the airport.
We could see the rockets flying in and flames coming from the fuel dumps and damaged aircraft. A few hours later we heard about the attacks in the United States.
The Intercontinental was where we watched the civil war, and where we were on 9/11 though the TV ban meant bizarrely we could not watch those events, and it was where the Taliban foreign minister denied Osama bin Laden's involvement. This year it came under attack from the Taliban.
It's in the heart of Kabul and could symbolize the fragility of progress.
A few months ago the Taliban were able to storm the Intercontinental and put up a three-hour gun battle that eventually involved NATO coming in to quell.
That's part of the story here. There's the appearance of security but the Taliban can mount complex attacks.
The security we see is a veneer and that's in the capital. Meanwhile the rest of the country is open to violence and Taliban intimidation.
In Kabul now, you can walk the streets but you can't set a pattern without opening up the risk of kidnap.
For Afghans, the city is relatively safe. People blame the police for a lot of bribery at the various checkpoints.
But the city has improved. It's much greener because the irrigation systems have been repaired and that makes the city look and feel brighter.
Under the Taliban so much had been destroyed and it was always dusty. Now there are new hotels being built and lots of brand new glass in the windows.
The city looks and feels much better than it did but that does not make the place secure and right now the city is on very, very high alert.
There are more checkpoints and the searches are much more thorough. Everyone is aware the Taliban can launch complex attacks, like the one on the Intercontinental, and the anniversary of 9/11 would be a prime time for them.
Any moment when they can launch an attack that makes them look bigger or stronger than they are, they will exploit because of the worldwide headlines it would generate.
The thing about being in Kabul on 9/11 is we could not see any of the images because the Taliban had banned TV.
We could only visualize it through what others were telling us. I was on the phone to my wife when the second plane hit the World Trade Center and at that moment I knew it was terrorism and most likely Osama bin Laden.
He was the only one launching these 'spectacular' attacks against the U.S. that we had seen previously with the USS Cole and the embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
Back then, eventually the Taliban said it was not safe for us. Under Afghan culture when they invite you into the country they protect you. This was their way of saying we needed to leave.
It was only when we were kicked out of the country about 10 days later that I got to see the damage from 9 /11 for the first time.
One of the hardest lessons over the past decade is the failure of the international community to step up.
It's frustrating that the window of opportunity that was there at the beginning was missed -- when all the Afghans wanted was weapons and warlords to be removed and disarmed so that they could have a normal life.
But the commitment that the international community gave was only sufficient only for its own needs - enough troops only to chase out al Qaeda -- and did not address the fundamental problem of Afghans.
Then the humanitarian money over the following years did not measure up to the task and the Taliban took advantage of that and exploited it.
It's also frustrating to realize -- without trying to heap all the blame on one person -- the failings or weaknesses of President Hamid Karzai have limited what can be achieved in the country.
When I first interviewed him he said the right things -- he wanted peace and stability for the whole country -- but he has failed to deliver, ran a corrupt regime and been accused by many of lying.
One of the big political issues now is to get agreement on the number of U.S. forces that can be based in Afghanistan. That will set in stone the future relationship between the two countries.
I don't think anyone expects good security in the near-term. There are no quick fix solutions to the fight with the Taliban.
There is a sense among Western officials that the Taliban is getting worn down and worn out but that is not what the Taliban says. They say they are ready to fight until the occupying force, NATO, leaves the country.
The scene is being set for a continuation of what we have already seen and as coalition forces draw down the Taliban will take any advantage.
On a personal level when there were the 7/7 attacks in London 2005 I was in the U.S. and it made me very concerned about my family and I felt the same in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
I spend a lot of time examining the al Qaeda threat, and while I am happy that I put it in perspective and don't overblow it in my own my mind, I am very aware of what that threat could be.
So if there is a heightened threat warning I would advise my friends and family to be cautious.
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Analysis: 10 years on, Afghanistan isn't far from where it started
Despite shiny new buildings and fleets of foreign cars, Afghanistan’s problems remain.
Global Post By Jean MacKenzie September 9, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan - When Al Qaeda’s planes hit the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, the world altered for everyone.
But no two countries have been more affected by the shift than the United States and Afghanistan, who are tied together in a war whose outcome, a decade after the initial invasion, is still very much in doubt.
The United States has changed as a result of 9/11; the sense of superpower invulnerability is gone, perhaps forever.
Afghanistan, too, has undergone a change, but a more physical one. The dusty, hardscrabble capital I first saw in 2004 has been spruced up considerably: high-rise buildings of green and blue glass dominate the center of the city. Apartments and houses are sprouting like mushrooms on the outskirts. Shiny new cars clog the streets, and thousands of well-heeled foreigners are pumping millions of dollars into what was once a cash-starved economy.
But that’s not all. There are the thousands of dead in districts around the country, killed by Taliban explosives, caught in crossfire between the insurgents and foreign troops, shot by U.S. Special Forces in night raids or bombed in misdirected airstrikes.
The Taliban control large swaths of territory, and formerly safe provinces like Parwan and Baghlan are now largely no-go areas. The gains that NATO has made in clearing aside the Taliban are too frequently pushed back as soon as the troops move on.
Most Afghans consider security to be their number-one problem. If travel, school, and work are impossible, not much else matters.
In those first heady days after the fall of the Taliban, anything seemed possible.
Many people initially welcomed the foreign troops. The brutal, joyless Taliban regime was gone. Children could fly kites, teenagers could play music. Chess was once again a beloved pastime, and women began to venture out of their homes on their own.
The sewers were blocked with hair as men lined up at barbershops to shave the long beards required by the Taliban.
“Everyone had two-toned faces,” said Nasim, a young doctor who was just 19 when the Taliban fell. He laughed. “They were all tanned from their noses up, but their chins were pale from being covered with hair for so long.”
I arrived at the height of the optimism, in late 2004, right after the first direct presidential elections the country had ever held. Despite their threats, the Taliban had failed to disrupt the process. Voting was more or less transparent, despite scattered reports of quick-wash “indelible” ink and disappearing ballot boxes.
Hamid Karzai won by a landslide, and the country was proud of its achievement.
Looking back, those days seem idyllic, filled with hope and expectation.
It is a different world now.
Much has changed for the better. Hundreds of young people have been educated abroad. Millions of children, including girls, are now in school. Almost everyone has a cell phone, and internet-access is spreading.
It would be difficult to think of Afghanistan ever again being quite as isolated as it was during the 1990s, when a mere trickle of information made its way to the outside world.
But the past five years have seen an erosion of hope that has left many Afghans cynical and bitter.
The fledgling banking system, once a source of pride, has been marred by scandal: the $900-million Kabul Bank grabathon eroded what little faith and respect people still had in their government.
The 2009 presidential poll saw blatant vote-rigging and a failure of the international community to adequately monitor the process. The Parliamentary ballot a year later was no better, and set in motion a Constitutional crisis that is still causing waves.
The country is mired in a seemingly endless war, run by a hopelessly corrupt government and deeply conflicted about the presence of international troops.
The Taliban cannot chase the foreigners out, but the combined weight of 48 countries hasn’t been able to crush the insurgency.
Most agree that a political solution is necessary, but many still oppose negotiations with the Taliban.
Night raids and aggressive military operations continue, with the justification that the insurgents must be forced to the negotiating table by the sure prospect of defeat. Anyone who thinks this is possible has never spent much time with Afghans.
A new conference planned for December in Bonn, Germany, seems destined to repeat the mistakes of the first one. Those who were there at the time, such as the U.N.’s Lakhdar Brahimi, have said that not inviting the Taliban sowed the seeds of future problems. But Washington’s newly installed ambassador to Kabul, Ryan Crocker, has already said there is no place for the Taliban in Bonn.
Once the international forces pull out, it’s hard to see how the changes in Afghanistan will last. When the first U.S. troops got on the airplane home, property prices in Kabul began to plummet.
The sleek restaurants, supermarkets, taxi services, and other businesses that have sprung up to cater to foreigners and the newly prosperous will likely be forced to close, leaving thousands of Afghans unemployed.
The hundreds of young people who have been educated in the West will doubtless do what the previous generation did: they will use their education to land lucrative jobs in Geneva or New York.
Many of Afghanistan’s top officials have foreign passports and family tucked away in various Western countries. It will not be a difficult transition for them.
Ethnic tensions and regional disputes that have never been resolved are once again coming to the fore. It is all too likely that the militias now being equipped and trained by U.S. Special Forces will turn their weapons on each other, as they did in the 1990s.
According to many observers, both Afghan and international, Afghanistan is headed for another civil war — a proxy battle with the United States and its allies funneling weapons and cash to one side, and regional powers like Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia each backing their favorite horses.
Ten years after 9/11, with hundreds of billions of dollars spent, thousands of lives lost and immense goodwill squandered, Afghanistan seems to be going backwards.
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