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Afghanistan's Karzai accepts dismissal of top security ministers
By Hamid Shalizi | Reuters – Sun, Aug 5, 2012
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai accepted on Sunday a vote by the country's parliament to dismiss his two top security ministers, but ordered both to remain in their jobs pending replacement, a move aimed at safeguarding fragile stability.
14 Taliban give up fighting in N. Afghanistan
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Over a dozen Taliban militants have laid down arms and joined the peace process in Balkh province 305 km north of capital Kabul on Sunday, head of provincial council Akhtar Mohammad Ibrahim Khil said.
Afghan National Museum Regains Looted Treasures
August 5, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Hundreds of valuable archaeological artefacts looted from Afghanistan were returned to the country's National Museum on August 5 after being recovered with the help of the British Museum.
$ .5 M Transferred to Zakhilwal's Bank Account in July 2010
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 05 August 2012
A new TOLOnews finding shows that $500,000 was deposited into the Minister of Finance's bank account in in July 2010.
Afghan finance minister faces questions over cash transfers to Canada
Friday August 03, 2012 Bruce Campion-Smith Ottawa Bureau Chief Toronto Star
OTTAWA—Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal once said his return to Afghanistan from Canada to serve in the highest echelons of its government was a calling, a chance to give back to the country of his youth.
Some 1,800 insurgents killed in Afghanistan since Jan.
Xinhua By Farid Behbud, Chen Xin Aug. 4, 2012
KABUL - Afghan army, police and the NATO-led coalition forces have been stepping up pressure on the Taliban and other insurgent groups across the insurgency-hit country.
David Cameron warned that Afghanistan pullout could allow al-Qaeda to return
Military commanders have warned the Prime Minister that Afghanistan’s future could be jeopardised with al-Qaeda returning to the country if foreign troops are withdrawn too quickly, senior sources have disclosed.
Telegraph.co.uk By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 04 Aug 2012
David Cameron has been told that the current plan to hand control of the country’s security to the Afghan forces next year may need to be “diluted”.
Can Afghans go it alone?
Associated Press August 05, 2012
NOOR KHIEL, Afghanistan - Among the huge challenges it faces in taking over from the departing U.S. and NATO armies, Afghanistan's new army is up against the myth that its troops aren't Muslims.
Fear Afghans will be lost in translation
Sydney Morning Herald By TOM HYLAND August 5, 2012
The unsung, unarmed and outsourced heroes of Australia's war in Afghanistan – young interpreters – face an uncertain fate as foreign troops prepare to leave.
Six Die in Bagram Attack
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 05 August 2012
As many as six civilians were killed in the Bagram district of northern Parwan province when a civilian bus was ambushed by insurgents early Saturday morning, a security official said.
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Afghanistan's Karzai accepts dismissal of top security ministers
By Hamid Shalizi | Reuters – Sun, Aug 5, 2012
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai accepted on Sunday a vote by the country's parliament to dismiss his two top security ministers, but ordered both to remain in their jobs pending replacement, a move aimed at safeguarding fragile stability.
The fractious parliament voted on Saturday to remove Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi after recent insurgent assassinations of senior officials, as well as cross-border fire incidents blamed on Pakistan, an inflammatory issue for many Afghans.
While the ministers remain in place for now, the uncertainty could complicate NATO plans to hand security responsibilities to Afghan forces before the end of 2014, as both positions are crucial to the 11-year war against insurgents as Western countries draw down their military presence.
Karzai, who chaired a Sunday meeting of Afghanistan's National Security Council, issued a statement thanking the pair for "their hard work and dedication", and saying replacements would be brought in according to the law.
Karzai can keep both ministers in their jobs for months if he chooses, and as he previously has done after parliamentary votes to reject his choices.
Those moves may have alienated lawmakers whose cooperation he needs if he is to crack down on widespread corruption within his unpopular government in order to help guarantee up to $16 billion worth of aid promised by his Western backers.
Karzai's powerful finance minister, Hazarat Omar Zakhilwal, is also vulnerable as a result of accusations aired on Afghan television that he stashed away more than $1 million in overseas banks. An investigation was launched on Saturday by the country's top anti-corruption chief.
The dismissal of the veteran Wardak, defense minister for close to eight years, did not cause as much uproar within Karzai's inner circle as that of Mohammadi, an ethnic Tajik and former anti-Soviet mujahideen commander who oversees the police force.
Many of the government's Western supporters believe Mohammadi, who was army chief of staff from 2002 to 2010, has been an effective reformer of the notoriously corrupt police, but after only two years in the job has not had enough time.
"POLITICAL GAME"
Many lawmakers said the pair's dismissal may have been due to genuine failings, or part of maneuvering against Karzai and his political backers ahead of presidential elections in 2014 in which Karzai is constitutionally forbidden from standing.
"It was a political game. I think rocket attacks by Pakistan or other reasons were not good enough to dismiss the interior minister," said Rahman Rahmani, a member of parliament from the northern province of Parwan.
Several MPs and analysts said Mohammadi's removal could widen ethnic divisions between majority Pashtuns and rivals including the Tajiks who formed part of the former Northern Alliance which ousted the Taliban with U.S. military backing in 2001.
Dawood Kalakani, an MP from Kabul, welcomed parliament's decision and said both ministers had been "too inefficient for the job", pointing to worsening internal security and unrelenting border problems with Pakistan.
Wardak, a four-star army general and ethnic Pashtun from eastern Wardak province, is credited by Western diplomats with helping forge the fledgling Afghan National Army into an increasingly effective force against insurgents.
Afghanistan has rushed additional troops and long-range artillery to the mountainous border with Pakistan as tensions continue to rise over cross-border shelling, which Afghan officials blame on Pakistan's military.
Afghanistan has for months accused Pakistan's army of firing hundreds of rockets into the two eastern provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, targeting insurgent havens, but also forcing Afghan villagers to flee their homes.
Pakistan's interior minister on Sunday said elements of the Afghan government were likely to be supporting a senior Pakistani Taliban leader who is fighting to topple the Islamabad government.
(Writing by Rob Taylor; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
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14 Taliban give up fighting in N. Afghanistan
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Over a dozen Taliban militants have laid down arms and joined the peace process in Balkh province 305 km north of capital Kabul on Sunday, head of provincial council Akhtar Mohammad Ibrahim Khil said.
"Fourteen Taliban insurgents gave up fighting and joined the peace process today," Ibrahim Khil told Xinhua.
The former militants were active in Charbolak district, and they also handed over their weapons to authorities, he added.
More than 3000 Taliban fighters have joined the government- backed peace process over the past one year, according to Afghan officials.
However, Taliban outfit fighting the government has rejected the claim as baseless.
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Afghan National Museum Regains Looted Treasures
August 5, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Hundreds of valuable archaeological artefacts looted from Afghanistan were returned to the country's National Museum on August 5 after being recovered with the help of the British Museum.
British Consul General Colin Crorkin said at a ceremony that, "We are here today to celebrate the return of over 800 heritage objects to the National Museum of Afghanistan, covering almost all of the great periods of Afghan culture. The return was assisted by the British Museum and the British Ministry of Defense."
Many of the 843 artefacts were seized as they were being smuggled into Britain.
An estimated 70 percent of the National Museum's contents were stolen during Afghanistan's civil war in the early 1990s.
Based on reporting by AFP and the BBC
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$ .5 M Transferred to Zakhilwal's Bank Account in July 2010
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 05 August 2012
A new TOLOnews finding shows that $500,000 was deposited into the Minister of Finance's bank account in in July 2010.
According to bank accounts given to TOLOnews, $300,000 was deposited into Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal's account by an individual named Mohammad Asghar on July 7, 2010. Several days later, another $200,000 was deposited to Zakhilwal's bank account at Ghazanfar Bank.
Another document shows that, Zakhilwal transferred $250,000 to Bahrain in 2009.
Zakhilwal claims the he earned the money from his private business ventures, and apart from his gains, he collected funds for President Karzai's presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, the Head of Afghanistan's High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption, Azizullah Lodin, said that he doesn't know any government high ranking official to have a private business apart from his government responsibility.
"Does he have any business license? I don't know of any government minister having a private business apart from his official job," Mr. Lodin told a TOLOnews reporter on Saturday.
Afghanistan Free and Fair Election Foundation's Director Jandad Spinghar stressed that "[Zakhilwal] cannot participate in any kind of election campaign unless he quits his government job."
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Afghan finance minister faces questions over cash transfers to Canada
Friday August 03, 2012 Bruce Campion-Smith Ottawa Bureau Chief Toronto Star
OTTAWA—Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal once said his return to Afghanistan from Canada to serve in the highest echelons of its government was a calling, a chance to give back to the country of his youth.
But now Zakhilwal, the country’s finance minister who was educated at Canadian universities, is facing allegations he stashed more than $1 million away in overseas banks, including accounts in Canada.
The country’s anti-corruption czar said this week he will launch a probe into the Zakhilwal’s financial dealings.
The allegations, which Zakhilwal has rebuffed, centre on revelations that he deposited large amounts of money into his account which was then transferred abroad.
Those revelations were made by Afghanistan television channel Tolo, which displayed what it said were copies of Zakhilwal’s bank statements.
They showed cash transfers, including two transfers in the summer of 2007 totalling $150,000 to Canada for a house purchase and another transfer that November for $67,000 to a personal account at the Royal Bank of Canada.
They also purportedly show a 2009 deposit worth $200,000 from the Sofi Landmark Hotel, a hotel located in Kabul.
Separately, the anti-corruption office said between 2007 and 2011, just over $1 million was transferred to his personal accounts, according to a Reuters news report.
In an interview with the television station, Zakhilwal said there was nothing suspicious in his financial transactions. Instead, he said it involved earnings made before he joined the government.
“Before I came to Afghanistan, I was a lecturer of economics in Canada and (as a consultant) I had good sources of income, too, worth $1,500 a day,” he said, according to the news agency’s account of the interview.
Originally from Jalalabad, Zakhilwal got his education in Canada, starting with a BA from the University of Manitoba, then a Masters from Queen’s University in Kingston and a PhD in economics from Ottawa’s Carleton University in 2001.
Zakhilwal was a contract instructor at Carleton University between 2000 and 2002 teaching economics, a university spokesperson said. That position would have paid about $4,056 per semester.
He went on to pen articles for prominent publications like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
With that reputation, he brought a welcome respectability to the halls of the Afghanistan government at a time when it was struggling to stabilize its institutions and calm international concerns about the widespread corruption throughout the economy and bureaucracy.
In a 2007 interview with the Toronto Star, he reflected on the powerful pull of his homeland during his time in Canada.
“There was an enormous part of myself that I did not have. Then suddenly, a door opened. ‘You can come here, live here, and do some good for your country’,” he told reporter Oakland Ross during the interview in his Kabul office.
At the time, Zakhilwal was head of a state-run Afghan Investment Support Agency responsible for attracting foreign investment.
While that seemed a daunting task for such a troubled nation, Zakhilwal said there was “enormous interest.”
“I look back on what I’ve achieved in four years in Afghanistan. I had not achieved that much in my entire life,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Afghan embassy in Ottawa said they were aware of the reports but declined to comment, citing the preliminary nature of the allegations.
“A report published in local TV and we don’t know if it’s correct or not . . . The Afghan government will take seriously these issues,” Khalid Khosraw said Thursday.
The head of the anti-corruption office said the formal investigation would get underway Saturday, the start of the work week in Afghanistan.
Canadian officials said they would help out if asked.
“We understand that the government of Afghanistan is conducting an investigation into these allegations,” a foreign affairs official said.
“Canadian agencies would assist the government of Afghanistan to help resolve this matter if required,” he said.?
With files from Reuters
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Some 1,800 insurgents killed in Afghanistan since Jan.
Xinhua By Farid Behbud, Chen Xin Aug. 4, 2012
KABUL - Afghan army, police and the NATO-led coalition forces have been stepping up pressure on the Taliban and other insurgent groups across the insurgency-hit country.
Records kept by Xinhua, based on the figures released by the country's Interior Ministry, reveals that a total of 1,840 insurgents have been killed and 2,030 others detained by the joint forces from Jan. 1 to Aug. 4.
In the latest raids on insurgents, the Afghan forces, backed by the NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops, have eliminated nine Taliban insurgents within a 24- hours period ending Saturday morning, the Afghan Interior Ministry said.
"Afghan National Police (ANP), army and the NATO-led coalition forces carried out five clean-up operations in Kabul, Balkh, Paktika and Pakita provinces, killing nine armed Taliban insurgents throughout the past 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.
One armed Taliban insurgent was injured and three others detained by the joint forces, the statement added.
In another development, about 12 insurgents were killed and 23 others detained in operations carried out by the joint forces in eastern Afghan provinces from Thursday evening to Friday evening, the ISAF's Regional Command-East (RC-East) said in a statement issued Saturday.
The joint forces also found weapons and ammunition besides defusing 15 roadside bombs or Improvised Explosive Devices (IED).
"Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces detained 23 insurgents during engagements, 20 in Terezayi district, two in Musa Khel district and one in Khost district in the eastern Khost province," it said.
"A coalition air strike killed eight insurgents in Marawarah district in Kunar province after Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces were engaged in a firefight,"the statement said.
Meanwhile, four other insurgents were killed in the eastern Logar province, according to the statement.
Operations in RC-East are still ongoing, it said.
The Taliban insurgent group, which announced the launching of an annual spring offensive from May 3 against Afghan and NATO forces, has yet to make comments.
However, the Taliban insurgents, who have been waging a fierce insurgency since their regime was toppled in a U.S.-led incursion in late 2001, have responded by massive suicide attacks and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blasts and roadside bombings in the war-ravaged country.
The ALP or Afghan police shot dead three suicide bombers in southern Helmand province Friday afternoon.
"Three suicide bombers wearing woman's clothes and armed with suicide vests and AK-47 guns approached to Dahana police checkposts in Naw Zad district of Helmand province, attempting to launch a terror attack Friday afternoon but police identified the attackers and killed them all," the Interior Ministry said in a statement Saturday.
In another development, the joint forces arrested a Taliban financier in Andar district of eastern Ghazni province Thursday, the ISAF forces confirmed in a separate statement Saturday.
"The detained Taliban financier oversaw the transfer of tens of thousands of Pakistani rupees to fund insurgent activities. He was also directly involved in planning and directing insurgent attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in the province,"
The security force also detained multiple suspected insurgents during the operation, it added.
During a separate operation in Watahpur district in Kunar province, an Afghan and coalition security force engaged a group of heavily armed insurgents with a precision airstrike.
"A post-strike assessment confirmed multiple insurgents had been killed and several of the heavy weapons had been destroyed. The assessment also confirmed the airstrike had not injured any civilians or damaged any civilian property," it added.
However, military operations, insurgent attacks, IED blast have also caused casualties on the side of the security forces.
A total of 272 NATO soldiers have lost their lives since the beginning of this year.
As many as 470 Afghan national police and 165 local police have been killed and 1,246 policemen injured over the past four months, the Interior Ministry Spokesman Seddiq Seddiqi told reporters on July 28. However, there is no official figure about the casualties of the Afghan army.
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David Cameron warned that Afghanistan pullout could allow al-Qaeda to return
Military commanders have warned the Prime Minister that Afghanistan’s future could be jeopardised with al-Qaeda returning to the country if foreign troops are withdrawn too quickly, senior sources have disclosed.
Telegraph.co.uk By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 04 Aug 2012
David Cameron has been told that the current plan to hand control of the country’s security to the Afghan forces next year may need to be “diluted”.
British commanders believe that the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), the Army and police, are not yet fully capable of taking over from international forces.
Under current plans the ANSF are supposed to take over responsibility for security by the middle of 2013 and all International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) troops will be withdrawn from combat operations by the end of 2014.
The timing has been agreed by David Cameron and Barack Obama. It would mean that Britain’s current deployment of 9,000 soldiers would be reduced significantly next year, and that after 2014 only a small number of UK forces would remain in Afghanistan, mostly as advisers to the Afghan military.
But late last month Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, said the timetable could be speeded up, if America judged it safe.
“We haven’t yet decided what the profile of the draw-down is going to be between this autumn and the end of 2014.
"That is something we will look at towards the end of this year when we understand better what our allies in Afghanistan are planning.”
However Mr Cameron has now been advised that there are significant fears over the quality and ability of Afghan troops, who are supposed to gradually take over control from ISAF (International Security and Assistance Force) soldiers next year.
Concerns over the ANA have been growing, and aired in public before.
But the move to inform Mr Cameron of fears over the ANA’s performance shows just how seriously they are being taken at the highest level by the military - and also that any move to speed up withdrawal would be resisted by senior officers.
The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that the fears relayed by senior officers include:
* the level of desertions. Out of a supposed Afghan Security Force of force around 350,000 troops, 15,000 are currently absent without leave, and as many as 25,000 have in effect been written off as permanent absentees or deserters;
* the growing number of attacks on Western forces. So far this year 30 ISAF troops have been killed by Afghan soldiers and police in 21 separate so-called green on blue attacks, compared to four deaths in 2007/8.
* political loyalty. Earlier this month an entire group of Afghan police deserted and joined the Taliban in the north-west of the country.
* corruption within the Afghan police. The scale on which police are involved in the opium industry and their ability to be bribed is leading to concerns that they cannot be trusted to maintain law and order.
Senior commanders fear that the combination could undermine the exit strategy.
One source said: “The Afghan Army is not going to be ready to take the lead in operations next year, that is certain.
There are very few kandaks [ANA battalions], probably fewer than 10, which can plan, mount and execute operations without NATO’s help.
“We have been on operations with the Afghans, where you have to kick the door down and push them inside the building to clear it. That goes down as an Afghan led operation.
“The plan is for British and US troops to take a back seat role next year but that is not going to happen in reality. The ANA has been able to build capacity but it lacks quality and that’s the worry.”
A Kandak is made up of about 600 men, meaning the Afghans have an effective fighting force which is only a fraction of what is needed.
By the end of 2014, the Afghan Army must reach a level of 240,000 troops, more than twice the size of the British Army, which will give the combined Afghan National Security Forces a total strength of around 352,000.
Crucially, those troops and other members of the security force must also be able to operate entirely independently before ISAF troops leave.
Sources said that the current rate of desertions and concerns over the quality of the soldiers who remain meant that there are grave doubts over that timetable.
One particular concern is that there are desertions not just because soldiers are going home, but because they are changing sides to the Taliban, taking with them arms and expertise gained in training.
In the case of the cadre of 40 police who changed sides in Bagdis, in the north-west of Afghanistan, the whole unit had been created by a United States initiative in 2010 during the peak of the war to help ISAF coalition and Afghan troops prevent the influence and spread of the insurgency.
The British are not alone in their concerns.
General John Allen, the US commander of ISAF, is said to privately believe that the ANA will require military help and assistance beyond the 2014 deadline.
Mr Cameron has been told that the Taliban could regain power in Afghanistan if foreign troops are withdrawn too quickly from the country.
He has also been warned not to accelerate the exit - something which there is pressure to do on a number of fronts.
The Ministry of Defence has calculated that ending combat operations by late 2013, a year earlier than planned, would save £3 billion.
And France has already announced plans to withdraw its troops 12 months earlier than the rest of ISAF, leading to fears that other country’s may follow suit in what would become a rush to the exit.
Defence chiefs, however, have strongly argued against any acceleration and have insisted that British troops must maintain a strong presence in the country until the end of 2014.
The concern is reflected in Washington. America had been planning to withdraw 23,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of September, effectively ending the “surge” which was ordered by President Obama in 2010. It would reduce the American presence from 90,000 to 67,000. In total there are 130,000 ISAF troops.
However Mr Obama is now facing pressure to delay the “surge” troops’ withdrawal until October, because of the deteriorating security situation.
NATO has already agreed that the SAS and US Special Forces will not be included within the current deadlines and will continue to take part in military operations for many more years.
British commanders refuse to say how many men the Taliban has under arms but some estimates suggest that the number could be as high as 35,000 with many more ready to move into Afghanistan from Pakistan after 2014.
The discussions with Mr Cameron this summer came after Gen Sir Peter Wall, the head of the Army, was publicly rebuked by the Prime Minister last year when he suggested that Britain’s withdrawal should be linked to conditions on the ground rather than a political timeline.
An MOD spokesman said: “Transition to an Afghan security lead is now well under way and Afghan forces will soon be responsible for areas covering 75% of the country’s population.
"It is the Afghans who are increasingly taking the lead on operations, deploying in formed units, carrying out their own operations and taking greater responsibility for security both across Afghanistan and in Helmand where UK Forces operate alongside side them.
“UK forces will drawdown by 500 to 9,000 this year and will cease combat operations by the end of 2014 when the Afghans will take the overall lead.
"The Prime Minister has been clear that this drawdown will be a steady and measured process, and not a “cliff edge” reduction. Planning continues to consider the details of how this will be achieved.”
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Can Afghans go it alone?
Associated Press August 05, 2012
NOOR KHIEL, Afghanistan - Among the huge challenges it faces in taking over from the departing U.S. and NATO armies, Afghanistan's new army is up against the myth that its troops aren't Muslims.
Taliban propaganda has sought to plant the notion that because it works with foreign forces, the Afghan National Army must be a heathen one. So when villagers see his soldiers drop to their knees in mid-patrol and recite the daily prayer, they're surprised, says Lt. Col. Abdul Wakil Warzajy, a battalion commander.
"Until they see us praying," he says, "they think that we are like the foreigners — infidels."
An Associated Press reporter and photographer recently spent two weeks with four different units in provinces where the Taliban are strong, and heard of equipment shortages, rifles that jam, and fears that once the U.S. and NATO aircraft are gone, remote and important outposts will become inaccessible and have to close.
And alongside ample evidence that Afghan commanders are working hard to instill discipline and a sense of mission in the new force, there are fears that once foreign troops are gone in 2014, the country will again splinter into militias ruled by warlords.
At 203 Thunder Corps in eastern Afghanistan's Gardez province, soldiers have to leave their weapons at the gate. That's because renegades could attack NATO soldiers and arguments could escalate into firefights.
Abdul Haleem Noori, a colonel in his 60s who remembers the old Afghan army of the 1980s, said training used to last months. Now it's six weeks.
"Today we have no discipline. If a soldier doesn't want to go somewhere, he doesn't," he said. "We should not have been looking for quantity. We should have been looking at the quality of our soldiers, but we had to adhere to the timetable of the foreigners."
U.S. Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces, said about 90 percent of coalition operations now are partnered with Afghan forces, and Afghan forces are in the lead more than 40 percent of the time.
The new force's commando units have been tested in high-profile Taliban attacks in the past year, including one on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, and have won high praise from the Afghan government and the United States. ANA commanders say they are beginning to win the trust of villagers, who prefer the soldiers to police.
The army is likely to number around 200,000 by year's end, but that's not enough.
Col. Asif Khan Saburi, who is in charge of training recruits at 203 Thunder Corps, was concerned for the future.
"We need more time," he said. "It is not the time for the forces to go from here."
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Fear Afghans will be lost in translation
Sydney Morning Herald By TOM HYLAND August 5, 2012
The unsung, unarmed and outsourced heroes of Australia's war in Afghanistan – young interpreters – face an uncertain fate as foreign troops prepare to leave.
At least three of the civilian interpreters have been killed while serving with Australian troops, risking insurgent bullets and bombs for as little as $US700 ($660) a month.
Now, as foreign forces begin withdrawing, they face a heightened risk of retaliation for what the Taliban regards as their collaboration with foreign "infidels".
While some of Australia's allies have created special migration schemes for their interpreters, the federal government has yet to decide on the fate of hundreds of men and their families. The future of the interpreters is "part of a range of matters that are under active consideration as part of transition planning by the Australian government", a spokeswoman for the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, said.
Former interpreters told The Sun-Herald that, as well as the risk they faced while patrolling with Australian troops, they lived with Taliban threats against them and their families. In the field, interpreters usually mask their faces to hide their identity. But they fear being questioned or followed by Taliban "spies" when they travel back to their families on leave or at the end of their contracts.
"They will put my family in danger or will kidnap a member of my family because I am with ISAF," one said, referring to the International Security Assistance Force which includes Australian troops.
While the federal government makes up its mind, any interpreter seeking a visa has to travel to Pakistan, as Australia does not process visa applications in Afghanistan.
The Department of Defence refuses to say how many interpreters are involved, but it is potentially in the hundreds. In 2008, Australia gave visas to 557 Iraqis when the ADF pulled out of Iraq.
Afghan interpreters share the same risks as soldiers doing a job the Department of Defence describes as "invaluable", yet they do not formally work for the department. Instead, they are hired by private contracting companies, under a $22.4 million Australian budget for interpreters.
The department refuses to release details of the interpreters' employment conditions, saying the issue is a "commercial confidence". It refers all questions to the contracting companies – the United States firm World Wide Language Resources and Serco Australia.
The US company refused to comment. In an email, Gene Battistini, its vice-president of operations, said the company "has a policy not to provide information to media and therefore we cannot assist with your request".
Serco also refused to reveal any details of its interpreters' pay and conditions. "We are committed to treating all staff in a fair and equitable way, and rewarding them appropriately," it said.
The Department of Defence was also unable to say how many interpreters have been killed or wounded while working with Australian forces. A spokesman said the department did not keep a tally of these casualties, although it said they were all recorded in ADF press releases. A search of releases over the past five years reveals references to three interpreters killed by gunfire or bomb blast.
There are also references to 10 interpreters and contractors wounded with Australian troops. This appears not to be a complete tally.
Corporal Mark Donaldson was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in that battle – including rescuing an interpreter, who had been left behind during a Taliban ambush. Corporal Donaldson dashed across 80 metres of open ground while under intense fire, picked up the interpreter, and carried him to relative safety.
The work of interpreters is widely regarded as the riskiest job in Afghanistan. A spokeswoman for ISAF in Kabul told The Sun-Herald that this year alone, 10 interpreters had been killed.
Deciding which interpreters may be eligible for Australian assistance is further complicated by the fact some have worked for various foreign armies.
When the Dutch pulled out in 2010, they encouraged 102 interpreters to transfer to Australian and US forces — an offer most declined, according to Dutch media reports.
A further complication is the fact there are several categories of interpreters. The most vulnerable, and most poorly paid, are young Afghan men hired by contractors and then assigned to foreign forces. Others are US citizens and citizens of third countries.
Local interpreters told The Sun-Herald they earn just $US700 a month — far less, they said, than what Australia pays contracting companies. US citizens are offered salary packages around $US200,000 a year.
Among details the Department of Defence refuses to reveal on the grounds of commercial confidentiality are payments in the event of disability or death. The US and Canada have special visa programs for Afghan interpreters. German officials are scrambling to devise their own scheme to protect between 1600 and 3000 Afghans who have worked with German forces.
A recent report by Spiegel Online said German officials "fear a horror scenario after the troop draw down" between now and 2014.
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Six Die in Bagram Attack
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 05 August 2012
As many as six civilians were killed in the Bagram district of northern Parwan province when a civilian bus was ambushed by insurgents early Saturday morning, a security official said.
The incident occurred around 6 A.M. local time in the Niyaz Dara area of Bagram district, Asadullah Lodin of the 202 Shamshad police zone told TOLOnews.
Another person was injured in the incident, he added.
This comes as three others were injured in a clash between security forces and bodyguards of Amir Khan Dawlatzai, a member of Afghan Parliament in Kabul, a police official said on Saturday.
Another incident in the Shina area of Kabul city on Saturday morning injured three people including one police, one civilian and one of Dawlatzai's bodyguards the Head of Kabul's Police Criminal Investigation Department, Mohammad Zaher, told TOLOnews.
Dawlatzai's bodyguards have been arrested by the Afghan National Security Forces and investigations are underway, Zaher said.
Four, including three civilians and one Afghan National Army soldier, were killed in an insurgent attack on the Kabul-Jalalabad Highway, Kabul provincial spokesman Wafiullah Miyakhil told TOLOnews.
Three others were injured in the incident.
In the south of Afghanistan, three suicide bombers were killed in Helmand province on Saturday, according to a Ministry of Interior statement.
The statement said that the insurgents, armed with Kalashnikovs and wearing burqas, launched an attack on a police checkpoint in the Noorzad district of Helmand province.
All of the insurgents were killed in the engagement.
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