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Report: NATO misleads with 'Afghan-led' label
By HEIDI VOGT | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A new report Wednesday by a Kabul-based think tank accuses international forces of misleading the public by calling military operations "Afghan-led" even in cases where NATO or U.S. forces are the only troops on the ground.
Exclusive: U.S. eyes options to restart Afghan peace talks
By Missy Ryan | Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's administration, seeking to revive stalled Afghan peace talks, may alter plans to transfer Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay prison after its initial proposal fell foul of political opponents at home and the insurgents themselves.
NATO reports 4 troop deaths in Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO says that two service members have been killed in separate attacks in southern Afghanistan, while two others have died of non-battle injuries.
Inside the Rohrabacher-Karzai feud
Foreign Policy By Josh Rogin Tuesday, April 24, 2012
This past weekend, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) was denied entry into Afghanistan due to objections from Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Today, in an interview with The Cable, Rohrabacher recounted the episode, his longstanding feud with Karzai, and the personal intervention of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that kept him from flying to Kabul.
Top Afghan diplomat says leave anti-corruption to us
Reuters By Rob Taylor April 24, 2012
KABUL - Afghanistan's government will push at an upcoming conference of donor countries in Chicago for Afghans to have more control over aid and security assistance spending, with a top diplomat saying Kabul should also spearhead anti-corruption efforts.
NATO general "cautiously optimistic" on Afghan strategy
BRUSSELS, April 25 (Xinhua) -- NATO's top military officer said on Wednesday that the alliance remains "cautiously optimistic" that its strategy in Afghanistan is working in spite of tactical challenges in recent months.
Rabbani Calls on Insurgents to Renounce Violence at Inauguration
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 24 April 2012
The new head of Afghanistan's High Peace Council called on insurgent groups to renounce violence at his inauguration ceremony in Kabul on Tuesday.
Massoud Hossaini's Pulitzer-winning photo: after the world stops looking
However arresting the girl in green is, the idea of staying focused on Afghanistan's progress is unpopular these days
Guardian.co.uk By Mark Fonseca Rendeiro Tuesday 24 April 2012
"Hard-working Afghan photographer wins Pulitzer" – that's the general headline the international press ran with last week as Massoud Hossaini's photograph, the girl in green, won the Pulitzer prize. In the days that followed, the photo would be widely republished; Hossaini himself became the subject of interviews and articles
Governors Divided on Possibility of US Permanent Bases
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Allowing permanent military bases of foreign nations in Afghanistan is a sign of weakness, Balkh Governor told his fellow provincial council officials at a conference in Balkh Tuesday.
Afghans say Taliban district chief killed
April 24, 2012 at 4:25 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 24 (UPI) -- At least four Taliban leaders, including the Washir district chief, were killed in a government operation in Afghanistan's Helmand province, a spokesman said.
Mulcair says no to keeping special forces in Afghanistan post-2014
By The Canadian Press | The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair says there should be no more extensions to Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, underground girls school defies Taliban edict, threats
By Kevin Sieff, Wednesday, April 25, 4:37 AM The Washington Post
SPINA, Afghanistan — Every morning in this mountain village in eastern Afghanistan, four dozen girls sneak through a square opening in a mud-baked wall, defying a Taliban edict.
US must focus on Afghanistan heroin trade
With so many Americans trying heroin each year, Congress and Obama must fund long-term efforts to curb poppy growing and the opium trade in Afghanistan, even after the US ends its combat role. This will also curb opium profits funding the Taliban.
By the Monitor's Editorial Board | Christian Science Monitor
More than 100,000 Americans try heroin for the first time each year, and the number has risen over the past decade. That statistic is often overlooked in the debate over the future of Afghanistan, which is the source of 90 percent of the world’s heroin.
Kabul Toasts the Queen With a Cool Drink, and the Fizz of Diplomacy
By GRAHAM BOWLEY The New York Times April 24, 2012, 4:05 pm
Strains of “God Save the Queen” floated over Kabul on Sunday.
They were coming from behind the fortified blast walls of the British Embassy in the diplomatic quarter of Wazir Akbar Khan, where diplomats, top military brass, members of the Afghan Parliament and police chiefs gathered to celebrate the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.
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Report: NATO misleads with 'Afghan-led' label
By HEIDI VOGT | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A new report Wednesday by a Kabul-based think tank accuses international forces of misleading the public by calling military operations "Afghan-led" even in cases where NATO or U.S. forces are the only troops on the ground.
The charge cuts to the heart of a public perception battle being waged in Afghanistan, where international troops are eager to showcase successes by Afghan forces and to downplay the role played by international soldiers as NATO draws down forces and hands over security to Afghan control.
The United States and other nations that make up the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have already started pulling out troops with the goal of putting Afghans in charge of countrywide security by the end of 2014. The alliance wants to show that Afghans are up to the task so that the country does not descend into civil strife after 10 years of a NATO-led war against Taliban and al-Qaida militants.
"ISAF's desire to present accounts of events as favorably as possible is to be expected, but sometimes this slips into propaganda, half-truths and, occasionally, cover up," said British analyst Kate Clark, the author of the report by the Kabul-based think tank Afghan Analysts Network.
As the drawdown of foreign forces progresses, the international troops are expected to transition more and more into the role of supporting Afghan forces, rather than leading them.
A draft strategic partnership pact agreed by the U.S. and Afghanistan earlier this week said after 2014, U.S. forces will only fight in Afghanistan with the government's approval.
In the transition, one phrase — "Afghan-led" — has become increasingly prevalent in NATO and U.S. news releases describing operations.
The report charges alleges that the term has been so loosely applied that it has, in at least once instance, been used for an assault conducted entirely by U.S. troops.
The report entitled "Death of an Uruzgan Journalist" focuses on the case of Afghan reporter Omaid Khpulwak, who was caught in a TV and radio broadcasting station known as the RTA building in July 2011 when it was attacked by insurgent suicide bombers as part of a larger attack on the southern city of Tarin Kot.
Khpulwak survived the initial blast but was shot by an American soldier who mistook him for an insurgent, according to a U.S. military investigation report made public by Australia's "The Age" newspaper in January after a Freedom of Information Act request. The investigation also concluded that U.S. troops were the only ones to enter the building and that Afghan forces on the ground did not issue commands to those forces.
But a NATO news release a day after the attack said: "Afghan commandos and a combined team of Afghan national security forces responded unilaterally to insurgent attacks in Tarin Kot."
Clark argues in her report that the messaging put out by the Afghan government and NATO and U.S. forces following the attacks in Uruzgan obfuscated the role of U.S. troops, leading Khpulwak's family and others in Tarin Kot to suspect an intentional cover-up.
A spokesman for U.S. forces said it was still appropriate to call the Uruzgan response "Afghan-led" because Afghan forces were overseeing the entire response that day, which included defending against attackers at the governor's compound and elsewhere in the city.
"The personnel that were at the RTA building were part of an Afghan-led response to the entire attack in Tarin Kot," said Col. Gary Kolb. He said that any operation for which the command element is Afghan would be considered Afghan-led.
"Afghan-led is Afghan-led if we're only providing a level of minimal support and they're the ones making the decisions to do a particular response," Kolb said.
But confusion appears to result from what qualifies as "minimal support." In the case of Tarin Kot, U.S. forces made the decisions on the ground at the RTA building, entered the building and oversaw the operation to find the bombers hiding inside, according to the U.S. military investigation.
It's a linguistic detail that will become increasingly important over the next few years as officials in the U.S. and other NATO countries will have to decide how quickly to remove troops from areas that have been handed over to Afghan control and how many to pull out.
The phrasing created confusion as recently as this month's coordinated attacks on Kabul and three other eastern cities. Kabul city was one of the first areas to transition to Afghan control and NATO commander Gen. John Allen praised Afghan forces for fighting off the insurgents without having to call on international troops.
Of course, that was not the entire picture. The Afghan Crisis Response Unit — the quick reaction police force that led much of the response in the capital — has Norwegian and British special forces soldiers embedded in units. When a Greek and Turkish base came under fire, the NATO forces stationed there fired back, rather than waiting for Afghan forces to mount a defense, according to an AP reporter at the site at the time. And NATO air power was called in to finish off a standoff at two buildings and end the attack, Kolb said.
NATO and Afghan officials say Afghan forces have made great progress toward acting on their own and the response in the Kabul attacks shows that improvement.
"The Afghans did the majority of the operations," Kolb said. "They were the ones doing the lead in the clearing operations, the ones scaling the building."
And Afghan forces are taking charge of many more operations than they were a year ago.
A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry said that including conventional operations, about 60 percent are now Afghan-led. Gen. Dawlat Waziri said that this means Afghans are deciding when and where to strike, but that coalition forces help with air power or ground forces if needed.
"In all the provinces that we have transitioned to Afghan control, we are in the lead," Waziri said. "We have the commanders, we have the units, we are making the plans."
Afghan special operations forces conduct about 5 percent of their operations completely unilaterally, meaning that Afghans conduct them without international intelligence, advice, airpower or other support, said Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, another U.S. forces spokesman. And he noted that joint Afghan-U.S. special operations have been overseen by the Afghan government for months.
"Since December, all U.S. counterterrorism and special forces missions have been Afghan-led," said Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, another U.S. forces spokesman. He did not provide details on exactly what made them so.
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Exclusive: U.S. eyes options to restart Afghan peace talks
By Missy Ryan | Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's administration, seeking to revive stalled Afghan peace talks, may alter plans to transfer Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay prison after its initial proposal fell foul of political opponents at home and the insurgents themselves.
As foreign forces prepare to exit Afghanistan, the White House had hoped to lay the groundwork for peace talks by sending five Taliban prisoners, some seen as among the most threatening detainees at Guantanamo, to Qatar to rejoin other Taliban members opening a political office there.
In return, the Taliban would make its own good-faith gestures, denouncing terrorism and supporting the hoped-for talks with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
While that plan has not been scotched entirely, several sources familiar with preliminary discussions within the U.S. government said the United States may instead, as an initial gesture meant to revive diplomacy, send one of those detainees directly to Afghan government custody.
The sources identified the detainee as a former Taliban regional governor named Khairullah Khairkhwa, who is seen by American officials as less dangerous than other senior Taliban detainees now held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.
No final decision appears to have been made on Khairkhwa's fate.
A senior Obama administration official, while not disputing that Khairkhwa's unilateral transfer had been suggested, cautioned that it was still at a "brainstorming" level. The onus was still on the Taliban to show it is interested in Afghan reconciliation, he said.
"It's most definitely not policy," said the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "At the moment we've made clear what we expect from reconciliation ... and the Taliban understand that, full stop."
More than a year ago, the White House launched what began as a secretive diplomatic bid to coax the Taliban, the Islamist group that ruled Afghanistan until 2001, into peace talks. That campaign has become central to U.S. strategy as officials conclude the Afghan war will not end on the battlefield alone.
It remains far from clear whether the Taliban would embrace sharing power in Afghanistan and whether the militants are cohesive enough to agree on a joint diplomatic approach.
But Washington's strategy, before a May summit of NATO leaders in Chicago, is to build on what officials see as military progress against the Taliban, and encouraging signs from the Afghan and Pakistani governments, to heap pressure on the Islamist group.
"As we head into Chicago obviously we'll continue to highlight each of those (areas) and we'll continue to work with Congress," the U.S. official said.
The Chicago summit is expected to further detail plans for the withdrawal of most of NATO's 130,000 troops there by the end of 2014 and set the course for future ties between Afghanistan and the West.
A LONG SHOT, BUT FEW ALTERNATIVES
U.S. efforts to broker the talks were dealt a blow last month when the Taliban suspended its participation and appeared to reject even minimal restrictions for prisoners transferred to Qatar.
From the beginning, a transfer of Taliban prisoners has posed major political risks for Obama in an election year.
U.S. lawmakers from both parties, but particularly Republicans, have warned that prisoners such as Mullah Mohammed Fazl, a "high-risk" detainee and former Taliban military commander alleged to be responsible for the killing of thousands of minority Shi'ite Muslims, might rejoin militant operations.
The transfer proposal has also been divisive within the Obama administration. Because Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, under U.S. law, must personally approve the transfer, Pentagon officials worry their agency will be deemed responsible for any future actions by those detainees.
Partly for those reasons, U.S. negotiators are now focusing on Khairkhwa. Once the Taliban's governor of western Herat province, he was also a Taliban spokesman and interior minister.
The senior U.S. official said Karzai has been asking the United States for years to send Khairkhwa, imprisoned since 2002 at Guantanamo Bay, back to Afghanistan. The Taliban has long demanded release of its prisoners, in part as a good-faith move.
U.S. military assessments that have been made public characterize Khairkhwa as a 'high-risk' detainee and a 'direct' associate of the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
But they also describe him as more of a civilian than a military figure, and he is said to be a friend of Karzai.
Khairkhwa was captured in Pakistan in early 2002, allegedly while seeking to negotiate surrender and integration into the new Afghan government.
"If you were to take all the senior leaders associated with the Taliban since the start of the movement, and try to find the inclusive figures, acceptable to fellow Afghans and competent to work for a political agreement, Khairkhwa would definitely be in the top five," said Michael Semple, a former U.N. official with more than 20 years experience in Afghanistan.
SETBACKS
Afghanistan's High Peace Council, under the leadership of the late former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, had advocated for Khairkhwa's release, saying he might play a positive role in the peace process.
"The cause of Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa is good for peace, and totally acceptable to Karzai," Semple said, in part because Karzai and Khairkhwa both come from the Popalzai tribe.
Last year, a U.S. federal court rejected a challenge to Khairkhwa's detention by his lawyers, and an appeal is now pending.
If a unilateral transfer were approved, Khairkhwa would be moved to Afghan custody in a country other than Qatar, without involvement of the Taliban. It was not immediately clear whether this might mean a transfer directly back to Afghanistan.
The transfer would still require the Obama administration to notify Congress 30 days ahead of time. But the hope is that Khairkhwa's transfer would avoid the furor in Congress that moving the other prisoners might bring.
Efforts to salvage the peace process follow a series of U.S. setbacks in Afghanistan: bloody riots caused by soldiers' burning of the Koran; a staff sergeant's alleged massacre of 17 villagers; and an 18-hour militant assault of Kabul last week.
Still, officials point to statistics charting a drop in 'enemy-initiated attacks' this spring. They were encouraged by recent steps to finalize a deal outlining the U.S.-Afghan relationship, along with statements of support for the peace process by Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.
U.S. officials hope to use all these developments to coax the Taliban's leadership, under pressure from less senior fighters who oppose negotiations, to formally resume talks.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Rob Taylor in KABUL; Editing by Warren Strobel and David Storey)
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NATO reports 4 troop deaths in Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO says that two service members have been killed in separate attacks in southern Afghanistan, while two others have died of non-battle injuries.
The coalition said in statements that one service member was killed by an improvised explosive device Wednesday and another by a similar weapon on Tuesday.
NATO said the two other service members died of non-battle injuries, one in the south on Wednesday and another in the east on Tuesday.
The U.S.-led coalition did not provide their nationalities nor disclose other details.
So far this month, 31 coalition members have died in Afghanistan, bringing the year's toll to 122.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO says that two service members have been killed in separate attacks in southern Afghanistan, while two others have died of non-battle injuries.
The coalition said in statements that one service member was killed by an improvised explosive device Wednesday and another by a similar weapon on Tuesday.
NATO said the two other service members died of non-battle injuries, one in the south on Wednesday and another in the east on Tuesday.
The U.S.-led coalition did not provide their nationalities nor disclose other details.
So far this month, 31 coalition members have died in Afghanistan, bringing the year's toll to 132.
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Inside the Rohrabacher-Karzai feud
Foreign Policy By Josh Rogin Tuesday, April 24, 2012
This past weekend, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) was denied entry into Afghanistan due to objections from Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Today, in an interview with The Cable, Rohrabacher recounted the episode, his longstanding feud with Karzai, and the personal intervention of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that kept him from flying to Kabul.
Last Wednesday, Rohrabacher was added as a last minute addition to the congressional delegation led by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and including Reps. John Carter (R-TX), Michael Burgess (R-TX), Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam), and Michele Bachmann (R-MN). Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) had to drop out at the last minute, so Rohrabacher took the spot. He didn't think there would be a problem.
Following a 13-hour flight to Dubai (Rohrabacher had to fly coach because of the last minute arrangements), he and the rest of the delegation prepared to board a military transport to Kabul. But the military staff on the ground wouldn't let him get on the plane.
"I was informed that the military plane was prohibited from taking off if I was on board," he said. "The State Department had asked the Defense Department not to fly me there."
Rohrabacher, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, didn't need the administration's approval to go to Afghanistan, so he and his staff began searching for commercial flights to Kabul. That's when Clinton called.
"She made the request of me saying that Karzai was personally upset with me and doesn't want me in his country. She said that if I went, there was a real possibility there would be a real crisis on their hands," Rohrabacher said.
Clinton mentioned the recent accidental burning of Qurans on a U.S. military base and the murder of 16 Afghan civilians by a U.S. soldier. She told Rohrabacher that she feared Karzai might provoke another minor crisis in the relationship if the congressman went there, and asked him not to go.
"The secretary of state was asking me in a reasonable way so I said I would comply. If she thinks it's better for our country, I would forgo this trip, but not all trips," he said. "She was afraid that Karzai might try to get some of his people out on the streets and start targeting me, so she didn't need that."
The rest of the delegation went on to Kabul and met with embassy staff and members of the leadership of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, but not with Karzai. Meanwhile, Rohrabacher hung back in the United Arab Emirates and met with the emir of Abu Dhabi, the leader of the UAE military, and the UAE's minister of energy. When the delegation got back to Dubai, the representatives went on the Qatar for additional meetings before arriving back in Washington Tuesday afternoon.
Rohrabacher explained that his feud with Karzai goes back years, if not decades, and is based on Rohrabacher's longstanding and vocal support for a decentralization of power in Afghanistan and removal of U.S. financial and diplomatic support for Karzai, whom he sees as a corrupt and illegitimate leader.
Rohrabacher has been traveling to Afghanistan since the 1980s, when he worked in the Reagan White House. In 1988 he even picked up a machine gun and fought alongside the mujahideen on against the Russians near the Afghan city of Jalalabad. During the reign of the Taliban, Rohrabacher, by then a congressman, traveled to Afghanistan several times to meet with the groups that would eventually come to be known as the Northern Alliance.
The latest action to anger Karzai came when Rohrabacher traveled to an Aspen Institute conference in January with Gohmert, Steve King (R-IA), and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), and met with the Northern Alliance to strategize on the way forward in Afghanistan.
"Serious efforts were made by the U.S. State Department to prevent this exchange of views from taking place," Rohrabacher said in a press release at the time.
It probably hasn't helped relations that Rohrabacher's subcommittee is working on an investigation strategy to bring to light the details of how Karzai and his family have enriched themselves of the last few years.
"Mr. Karzai is a very wealthy man and the tooth fairy didn't leave it under his pillow. If we don't do anything, the Taliban will take over that country and Karzai will disappear and emerge in Csota Rica with suitcases filled with money," he said. "Or even worse, our current government may push Karzai into a coalition government with the Taliban, and that would be a catastrophe and a horrible waste of American lives and resources over the last 10 years."
Rohrabacher said he didn't care much what Karzai thought about him one way or the other and promised to travel to Afghanistan again at a later time. He also claimed that Karzai is trying to prevent any members of the Afghan opposition from having direct contact with members of Congress.
"I think the reason that Karzai singled me out is that when I say something about Afghanistan people take it seriously because of my decades of experience in Afghanistan," he said. "There are few members of Congress who understand how little right Karzai has to the leadership of that government."
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Top Afghan diplomat says leave anti-corruption to us
Reuters By Rob Taylor April 24, 2012
KABUL - Afghanistan's government will push at an upcoming conference of donor countries in Chicago for Afghans to have more control over aid and security assistance spending, with a top diplomat saying Kabul should also spearhead anti-corruption efforts.
The intense focus of other countries on graft in his country in recent years had been "unhelpful", Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin said, while profligate international spending had inflated the cost of the 10-year war and reconstruction.
"I am not saying that corruption is not important. This is perhaps the most sinister enemy from within Afghanistan's democracy and Afghanistan's state-building process," Ludin told journalists at his office in Kabul on Tuesday.
"What I'm saying is it's more effective for us to be able to do it."
Afghanistan is regularly ranked as one of the most corrupt countries by the Berlin-based Transparency International, ranking ahead of only Somalia and North Korea in the graft watchdog's 2011 survey.
Ordinary Afghans complain petty official corruption and bribes permeate everything from the police force to health care and accuse President Hamid Karzai's increasingly unpopular government of turning a blind eye.
Critics of foreign spending have previously backed some Ludin's concerns, pointing to inflated salaries paid to a Afghans working for foreign organisations and warning that the country's aid-reliant economy will be unsustainable long-term, when Western backers leave.
Still, analysts say strong economic growth and effective aid projects will not be possible unless Afghanistan cracks down on corruption.
In late 2010 Afghan depositors pulled millions of dollars out of Kabul Bank, the country's biggest private financial institution, after learning that senior executives had lost $300 million, mostly in failed real estate investments in Dubai.
As Western leaders prepare to meet in Chicago in late May for a summit on future funding and support for the Afghan police and army, with officials seeking pledges of $4.1 billion, Ludin said control of spending should become more "indigenised".
Afghan officials also had a long-term goal to lift caveats agreed at a 2010 donor summit that only 50 percent of aid spending should be chanelled through Afghan institutions and only 80 percent of that be directed towards Afghan budget priorities.
"For the last 10 years ... I think there was a degree of engagement, direct intimate engagement by the international community in Afghanistan's affairs that will probably be undesirable in the future," said Ludin, the main architect of Afghan foreign policy.
As Western countries look to pull most combat troops out of the country by 2014 and donors look to pare aid accounting for more than 80 percent of the budget, the United States and the Afghan government reached agreement on Sunday on a strategic pact covering aid and ties for the next decade.
Work on a separate agreement covering a possible U.S. troop presence in the country from 2014 would also be completed within a year, Ludin said, although it was too early to say if that could include semi-permanent bases or special forces.
While the Afghan government had so far not pushed hard for more Afghan control of spending, including millions of dollars on procurement, the draft of the U.S.-Afghan deal had provisions that spending guidelines could be "shifted" depending on proper anti-corruption measures and accountability.
Ludin said Afghanised spending control would maximise the impact of donor budgets, as NATO and other international organisations such as the United Nations had a tendency to inflate prices as contractors and suppliers sought top dollar.
"This has become a bit of an unhelpful thing," he said. "On the international side it is Afghan bashing for corruption, on the Afghan side there is foreign bashing for corruption. Why don't we just focus on some best practice examples."
Ludin said the United States government should concern itself with what he called the "big bargain", meaning that after the NATO combat exit, Afghanistan would remain a democratic and strategic U.S. ally in an otherwise turbulent region.
"My advice is that they should just leave the rest to Afghans themselves to sort out," he said.
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NATO general "cautiously optimistic" on Afghan strategy
BRUSSELS, April 25 (Xinhua) -- NATO's top military officer said on Wednesday that the alliance remains "cautiously optimistic" that its strategy in Afghanistan is working in spite of tactical challenges in recent months.
"Despite a number of tactical challenges in recent times, we remain cautiously optimistic that our plan is on track," said Danish Gen. Knud Bartels, chairman of NATO's military committee.
He said Afghan security forces are increasingly taking the lead and becoming more effective in fighting against Taliban militants.
"We can be cautiously optimistic that we are seeing clear evidence that the comparative advantage lies with the government of Afghanistan, its security forces and its people, and not with the Taliban," he said at the start of a two-day gathering of the chiefs of staff of all 28 NATO countries.
Gen. John Allen, top commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, and U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are also scheduled to speak at the event.
NATO is gradually handing over security responsibilities to Afghan security forces, which will pave the way for its withdrawal of all combat troops from the country by the end of 2014.
Though recent attacks by Taliban militants cast a shadow on the transition process, NATO and U.S. officials insist that they are sticking to the timetable.
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Rabbani Calls on Insurgents to Renounce Violence at Inauguration
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 24 April 2012
The new head of Afghanistan's High Peace Council called on insurgent groups to renounce violence at his inauguration ceremony in Kabul on Tuesday.
Salahuddin Rabbani was officially installed as chairman of the council, which has had no chief since the assassination of its former leader and Salahuddin's father, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in September last year.
Rabbani called on the Afghan people and scholars to support him in bringing peace and stability in the country in his inauguration speech.
He also urged the armed opposition groups to join the Afghan reconciliation program and to renounce violence in order to end the foreign presence in the country.
"If we think about independence and the development of our country, and if we want our country to stand on its own feet, we should renounce violence and choose the way of peace," Rabbani told the ceremony attendees.
"If we do so, there will be no need for the presence of foreign forces in our country."
Afghan First Vice President Fahim Qasim also commented on the efforts at peace in the country, saying that demands from the different political parties were threatening the future peace and security of Afghanistan.
He said with each political party prescribing a solution for Afghanistan, they have failed to address the most important things which should come first like "hospitals and hospital beds".
"Unfortunately, our political demands have reached its peak which has disappointed the people. If each of us prescribes a solution for Afghanistan which is headed towards instability, it only destroys the country," he said.
He also said that Afghans should accept and respect each other or the country will be destroyed.
"Everyone says I am the best but never considers the others. We have to be cautious," he added.
A member of the High Peace Council, Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf, said the armed opposition groups should realise that the desire for peace should not be taken as sign of weakness.
"The opposition should know that we always want peace, but we are not weak," he said at the ceremony.
The High Peace Council was established in 2010 by Afghan president Hamid Karzai in an effort to bring Taliban and other insurgent groups in the negotiating table for a political solution to the ongoing violence.
Former Afghan president and member of Afghan Parliament Burhanuddin Rabbani was appointed as head of the council before he was assassinated in September last year in a suicide attack in his home. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
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Massoud Hossaini's Pulitzer-winning photo: after the world stops looking
However arresting the girl in green is, the idea of staying focused on Afghanistan's progress is unpopular these days
Guardian.co.uk By Mark Fonseca Rendeiro Tuesday 24 April 2012
"Hard-working Afghan photographer wins Pulitzer" – that's the general headline the international press ran with last week as Massoud Hossaini's photograph, the girl in green, won the Pulitzer prize. In the days that followed, the photo would be widely republished; Hossaini himself became the subject of interviews and articles focusing on the events that took place the day he took this powerful photograph, in the immediate aftermath of a suicide bombing during a religious celebration at a holy shrine in Kabul.
Many view this Pulitzer as a welcome change from the usual routine of western journalists being honoured for their work abroad; Massoud's story was presented as a photographer covering a war and a struggle in his own country, in an effort to let the world see what is happening there. I met him last week and he described his thoughts just minutes after being wounded by the explosion: "I was in shock but I also thought I had to cover that moment. To cover that pain and all those scared faces, to show it to the world If I show this, I help those people in some way because the world will know their pain."
As Hossaini is on the receiving end of a flood of well-deserved attention, it might seem like a concern for what is taking place in Afghanistan has been reignited. But what follows the interviews and reprintings of this sad picture? Has the international community really heard the message Hossaini and many like him are try to communicate to their audience? As we post and share "the girl in green" on Facebook walls and tweet links to the picture , are we really receiving the message?
The BBC and AFP are among scores of news sources to have run interviews with Massoud, editing down his words to a compact digestible size. They focused on the horror of experiencing a suicide bombing, the modest bravery of continuing to work despite injury and shock, and his personal mission: to show the world what is happening without pulling any punches or giving in to the calls to hide so-called graphic content. All these themes are important, but they are never followed by an open discussion about finding long-term solutions. But that's just the type of media coverage Hossaini would like to see: "I can't accept that the nations of the world who have peace at home and stable economies don't know what is happening in Afghanistan. It shouldn't be like that. Afghanistan is not on some other planet. We all live together on earth and whatever pain Afghanistan experiences has or will have an impact on the rest of world."
During the World Press Photo award ceremony last week, which was held in the Netherlands, the audience looked on as Hossaini presented a collection of his photos. Most of them were of military activity, suicide bombings, and the struggles of daily life. The audience looked on captivated, offering a round of applause in appreciation of the photographs and the person who took them. Minutes later, they spilled out onto the streets of festive Amsterdam, having drinks and making dinner plans – not that attendees shouldn't do such a thing, but it illustrates our world's strange juxtapositions.
Back in Afghanistan, the drawdown of international co-operation continues. Education and development organisations have reduced their activity in the country, as budgets have dried up and security concerns abound. By 2014 military forces will be withdrawn, a decision people in the US and Europe seem very much in favour of. The feeling is thus: "We've done our part, and it has been declared a lost cause."
Afghanistan is assumed to be a place from which there are only horror stories to relay. Positive events rarely make it to the international stage, and we don't ask about the areas where life is actually improving. It is this other reality that Hossaini also wishes the world would notice: "It is true that Afghanistan is in a bad situation and there is conflict, but it doesn't mean we don't have good things going on in the country as well Plenty of people, especially in the north and centre of the country, are not busy with war; they're busy with starting businesses, getting scholarships, living life."
We will occasionally stop and look at a photograph, mention it over dinner and maybe give it an award for excellent work. But the idea of staying focused on Afghanistan, despite its problems, doesn't find its way into the public debate any more. Any call for education, infrastructure, or security development initiatives would be condemned immediately; the mere publishing of these words will result in a barrage of angry comments.
But Hossaini has no fear of such condemnation. He lives the reality of today's Afghanistan with the resolve that the world must know, even if it doesn't want to know. He runs towards danger and takes photos when others warn him not to: "I travel throughout Afghanistan, I experience all the different cultures, I talk to people and share ideas to find out what is possible. I want to find a solution for our country. I want to see if there really is a solution for us."
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Governors Divided on Possibility of US Permanent Bases
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Allowing permanent military bases of foreign nations in Afghanistan is a sign of weakness, Balkh Governor told his fellow provincial council officials at a conference in Balkh Tuesday.
However, not all of his counterparts agreed.
Provincial government officials from all over the Afghanistan gathered for a two-day conference in northern Balkh province to discuss issues related to the security transition from the Nato-led troops to Afghan forces, the steps made towards peace, and the role of provincial councils in local governance.
Balkh Governor Atta Mohammed Nur told those who attended that he fully endorsed the Afghan-US Strategic Partnership Agreement but expressed his disagreement on having any permanent US military bases in the country.
While the US-Afghan pact, which was finalised on Sunday, does not agree to having permanent bases, Afghanistan's National Security Adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta told Parliament on Monday that the question of the bases would be revisited a year from the signing of the pact.
Nur said relying on a permanent US presence would damage Afghan sovereignty.
"I am talking as a Afghan. There is no need for permanent bases of the superpower countries," Nur said.
"If a nation accepts the permanent bases of any country it will become poor. When we allow them to make permanent bases, we must look to their pockets, their hands, and their decisions."
Instead of US permanent bases, Nur said the plan must be to reinforce Afghan security forces otherwise the transition process would face serious problems.
However, other provincial councils heads voiced disagreement.
Head of Khost provincial council Daud Shah Mtin Zai said that the military bases were needed "in the present time because otherwise we will face security challenges".
Faryab provincial council deputy Ghulam Sakhi Nawid said: "Undoubtedly, permanent bases of the international community are needed for Afghanistan, but on the one condition that there is total honesty [from the foreign country]."
Nangarhar provincial council member Mohammed Ayub Maleek Baba agreed with the Balkh governor, saying Afghanistan was not ready for permanent bases of a foreign army and that furthermore, such bases were limited.
Nur stressed that for a successful security transition to Afghan forces and lasting stability in Afghanistan, the country should set up a serious commission to identify the vulnerable regions in country and address how best to correct the weaknesses.
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Afghans say Taliban district chief killed
April 24, 2012 at 4:25 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 24 (UPI) -- At least four Taliban leaders, including the Washir district chief, were killed in a government operation in Afghanistan's Helmand province, a spokesman said.
Afghan security forces carried out the operation Monday in the Washir district, Khaama Press reported. Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said 20 militants were killed and 10 injured.
One Afghan soldier was killed Monday in Kandahar and three injured.
Afghan forces seized caches of weapons and ammunition in Kandahar and Khost provinces.
In Helmand province, a U.S. Marine, Staff Sgt. Joseph H. Fankhauser, 30, of Mason, Texas, was killed on Sunday by an improvised explosive device, the U.S. military said.
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Mulcair says no to keeping special forces in Afghanistan post-2014
By The Canadian Press | The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair says there should be no more extensions to Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.
The New Democrat chief was responding to published reports that the Pentagon has asked the Harper government to consider leaving a special forces contingent in the war-ravaged country after the NATO withdrawal in 2014.
The idea would be to continue training Afghan commandos and to possibly keep up the fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants.
A parliamentary motion brought Canada's combat mission in Kandahar to end last summer and the order included special forces operations, which unlike the regular army had been going continuously since 2001.
A small contingent of elite soldiers are part of the 950 trainers Canada has provided to the continuing NATO training mission in Kabul and are scheduled for withdrawal in the spring of 2014.
Mulcair says the Parliament has spoken and the country's role is finished.
He says Prime Minister Stephen Harper is playing with fire by even entertaining such a call from the Americans.
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In Afghanistan, underground girls school defies Taliban edict, threats
By Kevin Sieff, Wednesday, April 25, 4:37 AM The Washington Post
SPINA, Afghanistan — Every morning in this mountain village in eastern Afghanistan, four dozen girls sneak through a square opening in a mud-baked wall, defying a Taliban edict.
A U.S.-funded girls school about a mile away was shuttered by insurgents in 2007, two years after it opened. They warned residents that despite a new government in Kabul and an international aid effort focused on female education, the daughters of Spina were to stay home. For a while, they all did.
Then two brothers, among the few literate men in the village, began quietly teaching math, reading and writing to their female relatives in a living room on the edge of town. They wanted to keep the classes small, they said, to stay off the Taliban’s radar. That turned out to be impossible.
The United States and its allies have spent millions of dollars on female education in the past decade, and Afghan and Western officials have pointed to the issue as one of the most hopeful changes of the post-Taliban era. Female enrollment in public schools has risen from 5,000 under the Taliban to 2.5 million, according to the Afghan Education Ministry.
But Afghanistan is rife with places like Spina, where formal efforts to educate women and girls have crumbled. About 2 million Afghan girls do not attend school.
Those who do sometimes face threats. Last week, suspected militants poisoned more than 100 schoolgirls in northern Afghanistan, according to Amanullah Iman, a spokesman for the Education Ministry, who said an investigation into the incident was ongoing. The girls are recovering.
Because of threats, several schools in eastern Afghanistan have been closed in the past few months, reversing what had been a positive trend, said Vidhya Ganesh, the deputy country representative for UNICEF.
The insurgency had already forced the closure of dozens of girls schools beginning in the middle of past decade, when insurgents started to return to Afghanistan. Many of the schools were built and funded by the United States, and many never reopened. In some villages, the schools have gone underground, hidden in living rooms and guesthouses, as they were during the Taliban’s reign.
“It’s risky for the teachers and it’s risky for the students, but these underground schools show the thirst people have for education under the Taliban,” said Shukriya Barakzai, a parliamentarian who ran her own underground school when the Taliban held power in Kabul in the 1990s.
“It doesn’t feel much different from those years,” said one of the brothers in insurgent-infested Spina. “We live in a community very far from democracy and freedom.”
‘Something from nothing’
When the insurgency arrived in this patch of Paktika province in 2005, it did so with great force and little resistance. The absence of Afghan or American security forces meant fighters could wield weapons freely and threaten residents without consequence. The warning to girls went unchallenged.
But word soon spread about the underground girls school — part of a shadow education system developed in places such as Spina to elude the Taliban. The full extent of the system is not known, but American and Afghan officials say such underground networks are not uncommon in places with a large insurgent presence.
First, young students — between 5 and 12 years old — would trickle into the home of the two brothers, who for security reasons insisted that their names not be published. Then, teenagers started arriving, the brothers said, a particularly rare and controversial development in eastern Afghanistan, where females are expected to remain home upon reaching adolescence.
The brothers could hardly believe the turnout, which at once worried and excited them. They named the school after their great uncle, Namizad, a religious scholar.
“The girls just kept coming.” one brother said. “They were so eager, like they were starving.”
When a U.S. army platoon made a rare visit to Spina this month, soldiers saw the school as an example of resilience in the face of a failed development project, a sign of hope in a dismal place. In recent months, according to U.S. officials, the Taliban in Paktika have robbed teachers of their salaries to buy an 82mm mortar and shells.
“I want to thank you for your courage,” U.S. Army Lt. Col. Curtis Taylor told the brothers and their students after ducking through the family’s living room doorway.
The girls at the Namizad School sit on carpets, beginning each class with a recitation from the Koran. A chalkboard rests on the floor. Less than half the class has textbooks, which have made their way from Kabul. As in the rest of Spina, there is no electricity.
“These students are learning something from nothing,” one of the brothers said.
The brothers have pleaded for more resources. They have prayed to remain outside the Taliban’s reach. But the district’s education director claimed he had no money for the education of girls, the brothers said, in an account confirmed by local officials. And the Taliban have crept ever closer.
A few months ago, insurgents posted a letter on the brothers’ door. “We will not allow the education of girls,” it read, calling the practice “un-Islamic.” The letter warned of a violent punishment.
The brothers talked about what to do. Should they end the classes? Should they leave Spina?
The two willowy men in their early 30s have bright eyes and long brown beards and wear flowing white salwar-kameez, the traditional dress here. Their backgrounds are strikingly similar to those of the insurgents who threaten them. Like the Talibs of western Paktika, the brothers were educated in Pakistani madrassas, or religious schools. They, too, were raised to believe in a strict adherence to the Koran, Islam’s holiest book.
“I was so close to joining the Taliban,” one said. “The men haunting us, they are men we know well.”
‘I want to learn everything’
The brothers tried to make the case to the Taliban that they would teach only religious material to their students. They warned their students of the risk of attending classes, and they were surprised again when the girls kept coming. There’s now a morning class for young children and an afternoon class for teenagers. The brothers beam when talking about recent graduates, eight of whom are now trained midwives.
“I liked the other school better. We had desks and books,” said Baranah, 11, who was in first grade when the Taliban closed the U.S.-funded school. “But this place is still good. We still learn here. I want to learn everything.”
The insurgency has not followed through with its threat. The brothers wonder if it ever will — if the Taliban’s recent silence signifies its tacit approval or is merely a prelude to violence.
In some cases, the Afghan government and international organizations have been able to reach compromises with insurgents to keep schools open.
“We’re beginning to find ways to negotiate with anti-government elements,” said UNICEF’s Ganesh.
Some here worry that women’s rights are being sidelined as the United States prepares to leave and the Afghan government attempts to satisfy a hard-line constituency. In March, top religious leaders on the country’s Ulema Council ruled that men are “fundamental” and women “secondary,” barring women from interacting with their male counterparts in schools or the workplace.
In Spina, only boys are educated in the U.S.-funded, one-story yellow building constructed five years ago to educate girls. Most of the windows are broken, and the paint is chipping.
“That place seemed perfect,” one brother said. “But we knew it wouldn’t last long.”
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US must focus on Afghanistan heroin trade
With so many Americans trying heroin each year, Congress and Obama must fund long-term efforts to curb poppy growing and the opium trade in Afghanistan, even after the US ends its combat role. This will also curb opium profits funding the Taliban.
By the Monitor's Editorial Board | Christian Science Monitor
More than 100,000 Americans try heroin for the first time each year, and the number has risen over the past decade. That statistic is often overlooked in the debate over the future of Afghanistan, which is the source of 90 percent of the world’s heroin.
The most lethal export from Afghanistan isn’t terrorism by the Taliban or Al Qaeda, and may never be. It is heroin.
RELATED: Afghanistan Field Guide: Don't wear sunglasses and eight other essential tips
With President Obama now firming up the US role in that country over the next decade, he should make sure that Congress is on board with any long-term plan to support Afghan farmers. They are the ones who must be persuaded to grow high-value crops other than poppies (which yield the opium for making heroin).
Many nations have a stake in Afghanistan’s opium trade. Russia, where an estimated 1 million people are heroin addicts, has the biggest stake. It loses some 30,000 people a year to the drug. It is one reason Moscow is so concerned about the US role in Afghanistan after American combat troops leave in 2014. Much of Europe, where heroin use is also widespread, has an interest, too.
On May 20, NATO nations along with Russia will meet in Chicago to seek an agreement on sharing the costs for supporting Afghanistan after 2014. To coax support from Europe, the United States and Afghanistan signed an initial agreement Sunday that broadly defines their strategic partnership for a decade. Details have not been released, but the pact implies a long-term commitment in both security and development assistance, perhaps as much as $3 billion a year.
The final pact should be explicit and generous in aiding the Afghan campaign against the heroin trade. Such efforts are not just necessary to fight heroin use globally. Afghanistan itself needs to cut off a major source of corruption as well as money for the Taliban and other insurgent groups.
Much of the US and British efforts to curb poppy growing has been hindered by high-level corruption among Afghan officials. After some success in reducing the number of opium-producing provinces over the last decade, cultivation of poppies rose by 7 percent in 2011. One reason may be that the Taliban is encouraging production to extract profits for fighting Afghan forces as the US withdraws.
Simply eradicating a farmer’s poppy crop is a short-term and often self-defeating tactic. It drives many of them into the arms of the Taliban. The US gave up the tactic in 2009, leaving it to Afghan leaders to use.
Four out of 5 Afghans are farmers and, being Muslim, they don’t want to grow such a harmful drug. But poverty – or coercion by the Taliban – forces many to feed the trade. About 10 percent of the Afghan economy depends on opium.
A permanent solution lies in boosting rural incomes, especially through alternative and high-value crops, such as saffron, fruit, and hot peppers. Half the battle is building the roads, bridges, and storage facilities to get such legal produce to markets abroad. In 2009, Afghanistan had its first-ever export of apples, and an Afghan company acquired its own juice-production factory.
One relative success is the so-called Food Zone program in Helmand Province, where farmers have been coaxed into growing wheat instead of poppies. The $56 million spent over the past three years will be hard to replicate in other provinces, however, without strong support from the US and Europe.
MONITOR'S VIEW: Afghan women can't be secondary
The US spent about $4.7 billion on antidrug programs in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2010. That’s a fraction of the amount spent on security. If Afghan forces can provide security for rural areas after 2014, then an international campaign to curb the opium trade may need a similar amount of money.
The cost of cutting off the Afghan heroin flow would be more than paid for by the lives saved among Americans and others tempted to try the drug each year – and maybe saved from any terrorism that the opium trade fuels.
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Kabul Toasts the Queen With a Cool Drink, and the Fizz of Diplomacy
By GRAHAM BOWLEY The New York Times April 24, 2012, 4:05 pm
Strains of “God Save the Queen” floated over Kabul on Sunday.
They were coming from behind the fortified blast walls of the British Embassy in the diplomatic quarter of Wazir Akbar Khan, where diplomats, top military brass, members of the Afghan Parliament and police chiefs gathered to celebrate the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.
About 600 people, probably more, stood shoulder to shoulder on the embassy’s hockey pitch to sip mango juice and gin and tonics beneath a sweeping red, white and blue canopy, like a huge Union Jack.
Security was high — Gurkhas and Afghan guards patrolled the rooftops and gates.
After all, exactly a week earlier, on a similarly fragrant blue spring Sunday afternoon, bullets and rocket-propelled grenades had loudly rained down on this district from one of the three squads of insurgents who had climbed into half-finished tower blocks and launched attacks, paralyzing the city for 18 hours and giving a reminder of just how tenuous the peace is here.
The polite chatter, British accents and colorful patriotism were a reminder of the days when Britain was the big fish in this town, more than a century ago now, and the British imperial representatives were the people to be seen with — rather than the United States diplomats cloistered in the sprawling American Embassy just around the corner.
The Americans had sent one of their deputy ambassadors, the impeccably-dressed Richard G. Olson, who stood tall in the crowd. But Ambassador Ryan Crocker had something else more important on this afternoon – initialing, finally, the long-term strategic partnership agreement, which will shape American commitments to Afghanistan for the next 10 years. Above all, the agreement is supposed to demonstrate that the United States will not simply abandon the country like it did after the Soviets were routed in the 1990s, paving the way for even greater turbulence in this turbulent nation and the rise of the Taliban.
As well as politely toasting the Queen’s 86th birthday, the crowd was welcoming the new British ambassador, Sir Richard Stagg, a venerable gray-haired diplomatic veteran recently arrived from India. President Hamid Karzai had sent flowers. The Afghan minister of commerce and industry, Anwar ul-Haq Ahadi, gave a speech – which surprisingly, for an afternoon drinks party, was not without its tensions.
Afghanistan and Britain had had a long relationship, he said – which was “bound to have its up and downs.”
That helpfully glossed over the bloody episodes of the Anglo-Afghan wars, and drew nervous titters from the crowd.
(Ironically, Wazir Akbar Khan, the neighborhood in which the ceremony was held, was named for one of Afghanistan’s chief independence fighters, who killed more than a few British soldiers in his day.)
The minister moved on to praise British parliamentary democracy, which Afghanistan has proudly adopted. It was, he said, the best in the world.
En masse, the crowd seemed to hold its breath.
Quickly the minister added that of course American presidential democracy was also the best in the world.
Even at a someone else’s garden party, he was quick to recognize who pays most of the bills in Kabul. The United States may be leaving, but its billions in aid could prop up the Afghan economy for years to come.
Follow Graham Bowley on Twitter at @Graham_Bowley.
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