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Romney says U.S. should not negotiate with Taliban
Reuters By Deborah Charles January 16, 2012
MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina - Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney said on Monday the United States should not negotiate with the Taliban and he criticized the Obama administration for efforts to broker secret talks with the Afghan insurgents.
Afghan Taliban support polio vaccination campaign
By Masoud Popalzai, CNN January 17, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The Taliban will permit a program of polio vaccination in the volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, their spokesman told CNN in an e-mail Tuesday, after consistent pressure over the issue.
Karzai Urges Afghan Militants to Allow Polio Vaccination
VOA News January 17, 2012
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is urging militants to allow health teams to vaccinate children against polio, after his government said the number of cases of the disease in the country had sharply increased.
Afghan pilot said he wanted to ‘kill Americans,’ probe of Kabul shootings finds
By Craig Whitlock, Washington Post - Tue Jan 17, 6:33 pm ET
The attack erupted in one of the best-protected parts of Afghanistan: the military-controlled portion of the Kabul airport. As two dozen people gathered for a routine morning meeting in a conference room, an overweight and aging Afghan helicopter pilot pulled a pistol out of his flight suit and began shooting U.S. Air Force officers in the backs of their heads.
GPE to provide Afghanistan with 55.7 mln USD to promote education
KABUL, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Global Partnership for Education ( GPE) will provide 55.7 million U.S. dollars for the Afghan government to promote education quality in the war-torn country.
Avalanches Kill 14 in Afghanistan
VOA News January 17, 2012
Avalanches have killed at least 14 people in a mountainous region of northeastern Afghanistan.
Afghan Calligrapher Creates World's Biggest Koran
January 17, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
An Afghan calligrapher has created what is being billed as the world’s largest Koran.
The ambitious project has been heralded in Afghanistan as a historic achievement, and potentially eclipses another massive Koran unveiled just two months ago.
Talks Will Fail If Taliban Does Not Accept Constitution: AIHRC
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Abrahimkhil Monday, 16 January 2012
No kinds of peace accords with the Taliban will succeed if the group does not accept the Afghan constitution and if there is no ceasefire, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission says.
Drug baron captured in E. Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- A prominent drug baron was captured in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, the NATO-led ISAF forces said on Tuesday.
UK aid to Afghans will continue despite fraud and heroin
Corruption still rife as opium poppy and heroin production rises, says report But country will not survive without western aid for decades
Guardian.co.uk By Richard Norton-Taylor Monday 16 January 2012
Massive corruption, a huge increase in heroin production, foreign aid pouring in for many years to come. This is the conclusion of a major report by a leading defence and security thinktank. This was not a worst case scenario. Far from it.
Taliban Declares Victory, as Fighting Goes On
New York Times By MATTHEW ROSENBERG January 16, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s one-eyed leader, seems to have taken a page from George W. Bush’s playbook.
Afghanistan 'will take 30 years to develop into proper democratic state'
Afghanistan will take another 30 years to develop into a properly democratic state, Nato's senior civilian representative has said.
Telegraph.co.uk By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent 16 Jan 2012
Sir Simon Gass, a British diplomat, said the country has gone through 30 years of disastrous conflict which has destroyed infrastructure and institutions.
Taliban local leader killed in E Afghanistan
GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- An Afghan Taliban local leader was killed in a search operation in the country's eastern province of Ghazni, a provincial security official said on Tuesday.
Number of British troops in Afghanistan to be reduced
LONDON Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The British government on Tuesday announced hundreds of soldiers would be axed from units which are fighting the war in Afghanistan.
As U.S.-Pakistani relations sink, nations try to figure out ‘a new normal’
Washington Post By Karen DeYoung and Karin Brulliard Tuesday, January 17, 2012
In a call to her Pakistani counterpart this month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated the Obama administration’s counterterrorism “red line”: The United States reserved the right to attack anyone who it determined posed a direct threat to U.S. national security, anywhere in the world.
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Romney says U.S. should not negotiate with Taliban
Reuters By Deborah Charles January 16, 2012
MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina - Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney said on Monday the United States should not negotiate with the Taliban and he criticized the Obama administration for efforts to broker secret talks with the Afghan insurgents.
Romney, who has won the first two Republican contests in the race to pick a nominee to face Democratic President Barack Obama in November, strongly rejected any sort of talks with the Taliban.
"The right course for America is not to negotiate with the Taliban while the Taliban are killing our soldiers," Romney said during a debate of the five Republican presidential hopefuls ahead of Saturday's South Carolina primary. "The right course is to recognize that they are the enemy of the United States."
Romney said Obama had put the United States in a position of "extraordinary weakness" because he had made a decision based on a political calendar on when to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and because he has even publicly announced the date when the United States would completely withdraw from the country.
"We don't negotiate from a position of weakness as we are pulling our troops out," Romney said. "We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban."
Senior U.S. officials told Reuters last month that the United States had been involved in 10 months of secret dialogue with the Taliban. Officials had said the talks had reached a critical juncture and a Taliban prisoner transfer was possible from the Guantanamo Bay military prison into Afghan government custody.
U.S. officials had said a transfer of prisoners could be one confidence-building measure critical to making progress on a peace deal between the Taliban and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
But Romney said those negotiations sent the wrong message to the people of Afghanistan.
"Think what it says to the people of Afghanistan ... if they see us, their ally, turning and negotiating with the very people they are going to have to protect their nation from."
If Romney wins the Republican nomination, he will face Obama on Election Day November 6. Obama's record on foreign policy and national security is likely to be one of his strengths, however, because he can point to the killing last year of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as one of his victories.
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Afghan Taliban support polio vaccination campaign
By Masoud Popalzai, CNN January 17, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The Taliban will permit a program of polio vaccination in the volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, their spokesman told CNN in an e-mail Tuesday, after consistent pressure over the issue.
The statement comes a day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on the Taliban and other insurgents to allow the vaccination teams to help save children from a lifetime of paralysis. It marks the Taliban's latest move to garner respectability amid attempts to get peace talks under way in the region.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said insurgents had been instructed to let the vaccinations take place provided aid workers do not use government facilities.
"The polio vaccinators must not use government resources, including vehicles and soldiers, and they should use their own resources so that they impartially execute their program," Mujahid said. He added the Taliban have always backed vaccinations.
The statement to CNN came the same day that the presidential palace appealed to the Taliban to let the vital program take place unhindered. "Despite all the past efforts to vaccinate millions against polio, there are still children suffering from the disease on both sides of the Durand Line," Karzai said. The Durand Line is the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The statement from the palace added: "The president appeals to religious scholars, mullahs and community leaders and elders to cooperate with the immunization teams by persuading the opposition to allow vaccinators to administer polio drops to children against the permanent paralysis."
According to World Health Organization, there are four countries in which the transmission of polio has never been stopped: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. They face a range of challenges, such as insecurity, weak health systems and poor sanitation.
Polio could spread from these "endemic" countries to infect children in other countries with less-than-adequate vaccination, the organization says.
Reports from the Afghan Ministry of Public Health show a threefold rise in the number of polio cases in 2011 compared with that of 2010. A ministry report that covered 2011 showed 80 cases in Afghanistan, 62 of which were in the south of the country, the government statement said.
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Karzai Urges Afghan Militants to Allow Polio Vaccination
VOA News January 17, 2012
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is urging militants to allow health teams to vaccinate children against polio, after his government said the number of cases of the disease in the country had sharply increased.
Mr. Karzai's office said Tuesday that the latest Health Ministry report shows a three-fold rise in the number of polio cases last year compared with 2010.
Of the 80 reported cases last year, the majority were in Afghanistan's restive south.
President Karzai says those who stand in the way of vaccination are “the true enemies of our children's future.”
The Afghan leader also called on religious scholars and community leaders to cooperate with immunization teams.
The appeal comes a week after India marked one year without a new case of polio.
Afghanistan is now one of just three nations where polio remains endemic. The two others are neighboring Pakistan and Nigeria.
Polio, which usually affects children, can cause paralysis, deformities and death.
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Afghan pilot said he wanted to ‘kill Americans,’ probe of Kabul shootings finds
By Craig Whitlock, Washington Post - Tue Jan 17, 6:33 pm ET
The attack erupted in one of the best-protected parts of Afghanistan: the military-controlled portion of the Kabul airport. As two dozen people gathered for a routine morning meeting in a conference room, an overweight and aging Afghan helicopter pilot pulled a pistol out of his flight suit and began shooting U.S. Air Force officers in the backs of their heads.
On Tuesday, after an intensive eight-month investigation, the U.S. Air Force concluded that the shooter, Col. Ahmed Gul, 46, had acted alone in killing eight members of the U.S. Air Force and one American contractor before killing himself. The probe found no evidence that the attack was part of a Taliban conspiracy.
But the 436-page report by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations also found that Gul had become increasingly radicalized in recent years, had attended an extremist mosque in Pakistan and told relatives that he wanted to “kill Americans.” Some Afghan military leaders told U.S. investigators that they were alarmed by his changed views and attitude, yet there was no sign that they did anything to intervene.
The April 27 rampage was the deadliest attack on U.S. Air Force personnel since 1996, when a truck bomb blew up the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S service members.
Most of those who died in the Kabul attack were assigned to training the fledgling Afghan Air Force, and their deaths fanned fears that insurgents had once again infiltrated the ranks of the Afghan military.
The incident underscored the risks and fragility of the Obama administration’s strategy to train and expand Afghan security forces loyal to President Hamid Karzai so they can fill the void left by departing U.S. and NATO troops. While Afghan officials are supposed to screen recruits and have beefed up counterintelligence programs to detect Taliban sympathizers, acts of betrayal have undermined trust between Afghan forces and their coalition trainers.
Although two Afghan service members were shot and three others injured in the Kabul melee, the Air Force investigation makes it clear that Gul singled out U.S. officers who had mentored their Afghan colleagues and shouted warnings to his countrymen to save themselves. No Afghans died in the attack.
“Good Muslims — please stay away!” Gul shouted from a window of the Air Command and Control Center at the Kabul Airport as Afghan security forces rushed to the scene of the gunshots. “Muslims, don’t come close or you will be killed!”
Gul paused at one point during the shooting and dipped his fingers in blood, the investigation found. Along a hallway, he scrawled “Allah is one” on a wall in Dari, a Persian dialect widely spoken in Afghanistan. On the opposite wall, he painted the words, “Allah in your name.”
He then walked up a flight of stairs, sat on a couch and fatally shot himself in the chest.
Investigators said that Gul killed seven U.S. Air Force officers: Maj. Philip D. Ambard, Maj. Jeffrey O. Ausborn, Maj. David L. Brodeur, Lt. Col. Frank D. Bryant Jr., Maj. Raymond G. Estelle II, Capt. Nathan J. Nylander and Maj. Charles A. Ransom.
Also killed were a non-commissioned officer, Master Sgt. Tara R. Brown, and a private contractor, James McLaughlin Jr., a retired Army lieutenant colonel.
The Americans were armed, but few returned fire, the investigation found. The report said that they had been taken completely by surprise.
In the days after the shooting, U.S. and Afghan officials said that Gul had financial problems, but they struggled to find a motive.
Gul’s brother Hassan Sahibi, a surgeon, also was at a loss. “He never hated foreigners,” Sahibi told The Washington Post in April. “He always served his country.”
U.S. Air Force investigators later uncovered disturbing hints about Gul’s loyalties and state of mind.
One of Gul’s relatives, who was not identified in the redacted report, told investigators that the pilot loved to drink and party when he joined the Afghan Air Force in the early 1980s. But when the Taliban took power a decade later, he became increasingly religious, grew a beard and became a mosque regular.
In 2006, saying he was upset because “foreigners had invaded his country,” Gul moved to Hayatabad, Pakistan, just outside the frontier city of Peshawar, where he lived in housing provided by the Pakistani military, according to the relative.
After 18 months, he returned to Kabul to rejoin the Afghan Air Force. When family members asked him why he was going back, he replied that he wanted “to kill Americans,” according to the relative interviewed by U.S. investigators. The relative said no one in the family took Gul seriously.
In Kabul, Gul was assigned to manage passenger and cargo operations for the Afghan Air Force, but he rarely showed up for work on time and displayed a sour personality, colleagues told U.S. investigators.
An Afghan Air Force colonel who had known Gul for more than 20 years described him as “irresponsible, stubborn and insistent.” He said Gul had become much more religious, attended a mosque headed by an anti-American imam and that his “views were boiling over and extreme to an extent.”
The unidentified Afghan colonel also said he was surprised that Gul was quickly issued a 9mm pistol just four months after reporting for duty in Kabul, which was “not normal.” The colonel speculated that Gul must have had “top cover” from a high-ranking officer in the Ministry of Defense, although he did not specify anyone, according to the report.
Although U.S. and Afghan investigators found no evidence that Gul had a direct connection to the Taliban, his suicide mission did not lack for public sympathy.
According to the investigation and news reports, about 1,500 Afghans turned out for his funeral. Many praised him as a martyr.
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GPE to provide Afghanistan with 55.7 mln USD to promote education
KABUL, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Global Partnership for Education ( GPE) will provide 55.7 million U.S. dollars for the Afghan government to promote education quality in the war-torn country.
Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is an international consortium of countries working to provide financial and technical assistance to education programs in conflict, post-conflict and developing countries.
"It is a significant grant to the Afghan Ministry for Education to receive a grant of 55.7 million U.S. dollars to promote education quality around the country," Afghan Education Minister Farooq Wardak told reporters after inking a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United Nations Children's Fund ( UNICEF) representative in the country Peter Crowley, on Tuesday.
The GPE was established in 2002. Afghanistan joined the entity in 2011, Wardak said. He also added that the grant will be provided to the Ministry for Education within the next three years begins from the current year.
"The GPE program will be directly implemented by the Ministry of Education and would especially focus on 13 provinces mostly in the south and east, with the UNICEF to serve as the supervising body," Wardak said.
He said the strategy devised by the Ministry of Education will cover a range of initiatives, with focus on accelerating girls' attendance to school by working with community leaders, recruiting and training additional female teachers, providing alternative pathways to formal education and ensuring that schools are protected through the efforts of communities themselves.
Wardak also confirmed that more than 400 schools had remained closed due to conflicts and security problems and thus over 200, 000 students have been deprived from getting education.
Schools especially girls' ones have been closed down due to security reasons mostly in the southern provinces where Taliban militants are active over the past few years.
"When a girl is educated, she is empowered with confidence and with access to information on how better to care of herself and her children and more effectively to contribute to the well being of her family and community," said Crowley at the same press briefing.
"Education saves life when a woman is educated, she is less likely to die during childbirth, more likely to send her children to school and is able fully to contribute to the development of her community and of her country," the UNICEF representative added.
Around 8.4 million Afghan children with over 35 percent of them girls go to school at present while the Ministry for Education has been endeavoring to increase the number to 12 million within the next three years, according to Wardak.
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Avalanches Kill 14 in Afghanistan
VOA News January 17, 2012
Avalanches have killed at least 14 people in a mountainous region of northeastern Afghanistan.
Authorities said Tuesday that heavy snowfall has also blocked roads in Badakhshan province, making many districts inaccessible.
Rescue teams were working to get to stranded residents.
Heavy snowfall and avalanches are common during Afghanistan's harsh winters.
In 2010, avalanches killed more than 150 people near the high-altitude Salang Pass through the Hindu Kush mountains that connects the Afghan capital, Kabul, with the north.
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Afghan Calligrapher Creates World's Biggest Koran
January 17, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
An Afghan calligrapher has created what is being billed as the world’s largest Koran.
The ambitious project has been heralded in Afghanistan as a historic achievement, and potentially eclipses another massive Koran unveiled just two months ago.
Mohammad Sabir Khedri, the master calligrapher behind the Afghan project, spent five years working with nine of his students to complete the Koran, which measures 2.28 meters by 1.55 meters.
Khedri, speaking described the venture to RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan as the most difficult, but rewarding, in his life.
"This idea was a spiritual move to be closer to the path of God," Khedri said. "I have tried with all my heart and soul to reach this goal. Doing the calligraphy for the holy book has been the biggest challenge in my life."
The lavish book, which was certified as the world's largest by the Afghan Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs, blends gold script with millions of tiny colorful points.
The Koran, which cost $500,000 to create, weighs 500 kilograms and its 218 pages of cloth and paper are bound by a leather cover made from the skins of 21 goats.
It was funded by Alhaj Sayed Mansoor Naderi, leader of the minority Shi'ite Ismailis in northern Afghanistan, and printed in Turkey.
The Koran was praised by representatives of many sectors of Afghan society at an unveiling ceremony in Kabul last week.
Fazilhadi Muslimyar, the chairman of the upper house of parliament, hailed the Koran as a historic achievement.
"There is only one Koran and for the largest to be in Afghanistan is due to the hard work of these young people, who have presented it to the Afghan people. Today, Muslims in Afghanistan have shown the world once again that the Koran is of such value that we have spent our own resources to make history for ourselves."
The previous claim to the title of world's largest Koran was in Kazan, the capital of Russia's republic of Tatarstan, where a 2-meter-by-1.5-meter Koran was unveiled in Russia's Tatarstan region.
The Koran in Tatarstan is still the heaviest Koran in the world, weighing in at around 800 kilograms.
based on RFE/RL Radio Free Afghanistan and Reuters reporting
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Talks Will Fail If Taliban Does Not Accept Constitution: AIHRC
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Abrahimkhil Monday, 16 January 2012
No kinds of peace accords with the Taliban will succeed if the group does not accept the Afghan constitution and if there is no ceasefire, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission says.
The commission has expressed concern over the current situation in Afghanistan and emphasised that human rights, justice and respecting the constitution must be at the top of the agenda of the Afghan government and the international community in their talks with the Taliban.
It comes as the Taliban group has recently announced that holding talks with Washington will not mean acceptance of the constitution or the end of war.
The Afghan government has stressed that there should be a ceasefire and the Taliban have to accept the constitution prior to peace talks. But the group has recently said its political office will hold talks, but the militants will continue their fight.
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) is concerned over the Taliban statement and it warns that if there is no ceasefire the Taliban do not respect human rights, talking with the group will only be a waste of time.
"If we cannot create a proper ground for talks and there is no respect for human rights and the constitution, no political process will lead to success and even if there are some achievements, they will be lost soon," Executive Director of AIHRC, Musa Mahmoudi, said.
There have also been concerns over marginalisation of the Afghan government in the talks secretly being held between the United States and the Taliban.
The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, is to come to Kabul to meet with officials and the Afghan High Peace Council is optimistic about the visit.
"The US special envoy will soon come to Kabul to reassure Afghans that the peace process will be led by Afghans," Secretary of the Peace Council, Aminuddin Muzaffari, said.
Experts believe that the Taliban group is taking advantage of the privileges they get including opening an office in Qatar through which they are trying to impose their demands on Washington and Kabul.
Some political analysts warn that double policies about the peace talks can be dangerous for Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Afghan National Front says the Taliban statement against the recent meeting of the National Front members with US lawmakers in Berlin is only propaganda spread by a circle of warmongers.
The spokesman said such statements will have no impact on the National Front's support to the peace process.
The Taliban recently released a statement criticising a meeting of the National Front members with US lawmakers in Berlin and called such meetings adding fuel to the fire of violence in Afghanistan.
"The recent statement released under the name of Taliban does not reflect the views of the groups and we believe it has been released by some suspicious circles," a spokesman for the National Front, Faizullah Zaki, said.
Recently key members of the newly formed National Front of Afghanistan, Ahmad Zia Massoud, Haji Mohammad Mohaqeq and General Abdul Rashid Dostum as well as others members of the front had a meeting with US republicans in Berlin and called for a change from presidential system to a parliamentary one in Afghanistan.
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Drug baron captured in E. Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- A prominent drug baron was captured in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, the NATO-led ISAF forces said on Tuesday.
"Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) detained the first and second in command of a prominent narcotics ring operating out of Shinwar district, Nangahar province on 13 January," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a press release.
"The ANSF-led operation with support of Coalition forces (ISAF) detained Haji Bando Gul and his nephew, Sucha Gul, along with eight other individuals suspected of illicit narcotics involvement, " it said, adding "Haji Bando's brother, Baghcho, has been incarcerated in the United States since 2009; Bando has led the network's operations following Baghcho's arrest."
"Sucha Gul has been heavily involved in the importing of precursor chemicals from Pakistan and China for sale to heroin processing laboratories," it said.
The arrests follow President Karzai's Jan. 9 cabinet meeting in which the Afghan President directed the Minister of Interior to take serious measures to bring drug dealers and narcotics networks to justice, it added.
Afghan President Karzai previously recognized the narcotics industry as a destabilizing factor that undermines the moral foundation of the state and contributes to an overall lack of security in Afghan society, according to the press release.
Another recent counter-narcotics operation includes the arrest of Haji Eissa Noorzai on Dec. 12, a mid-level drug trafficker in Zaranj, the provincial capital of southwestern Nimruz Province, responsible for smuggling heroin and providing funding to insurgents, it said.
The insurgency-hit Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw element for making heroin.
According to officials, more than 6,400 tons of opium were produced in central Asian country last year.
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UK aid to Afghans will continue despite fraud and heroin
Corruption still rife as opium poppy and heroin production rises, says report But country will not survive without western aid for decades
Guardian.co.uk By Richard Norton-Taylor Monday 16 January 2012
Massive corruption, a huge increase in heroin production, foreign aid pouring in for many years to come. This is the conclusion of a major report by a leading defence and security thinktank. This was not a worst case scenario. Far from it.
It reflects a view of what the International Institute for Strategic Studies calls "restrained optimism".
These are some of its findings.
The Afghan government will be unable to pay for its projected 400,000-strong security forces until at least 2020, and more like 2025; those security forces are estimated to cost as much as $8bn a year (US now pays 90% of this but has made clear it expects other Nato to cough up in future); opium poppy and heroin in Afghanistan is increasing rapidly - last year poppy growing returned to three previously poppy-free provinces (opium poppies were scarcely grown in Afghanistan before 1979 -it became a force for funding anti-Soviet forces, then when they left in 1989, a main source of income for warlords); the Afghan constitution concentrates huge power in the hands of the president, Hamid Karzai, that bears little or no resemblance to the actual reach of Afghan state institutions, says Toby Dodge, straight-talking academic and one of the report's editors. Karzai presently has $15bn at his disposal to buy loyalty.
However, what Dodge calls a "tenacious, robust, but corrupt ruling oligarchy" is likely to remain in power in Kabul.
That is especially likely to be the case if Afghanistan can continue to rely on western aid. The IISS report may contrast markedly with optimistic accounts of the situation in Afghanistan from US, UK, and Nato officials. However, there is one thing they all agree on - Afghanistan will need, and indeed get substantial financial help from the west for decades to come.
Sir Simon Gass, Nato's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, went as far as to say at a meeting at the Royal United Services Institute in London on Monday, that a US-Afghan "strategic partnership" would be the "cornerstone" of Afghanistan's future security.
Ben Barry, IISS land warfare specialist, offers in the Institute's report one cause for relative optimism - the cut in the number of what he called "infidel boots on the ground" after 2014 would reduce the level of support for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But all bets are off if the US or Israel attacks Iran. Iran would respond by increasing financial and military support for the Taliban and the violent, extremist, Haqqani network based in Pakistan, and generally ferment instability in Afghanistan, warns the IISS.
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Taliban Declares Victory, as Fighting Goes On
New York Times By MATTHEW ROSENBERG January 16, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s one-eyed leader, seems to have taken a page from George W. Bush’s playbook.
Just as the former president declared “mission accomplished” in Iraq years before the war there ended, the Taliban made their own victory declaration this weekend, even though roughly 130,000 coalition troops were still fighting in Afghanistan — and keeping the Afghan government firmly in power.
No matter, suggested the Taliban, which calls itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, in a statement bluntly titled: “Formal Proclamation of Islamic Emirate’s Victory.” The American push to open talks is proof that the insurgents are winning, the Taliban reasoned.
“It is but sheer determination, religious and ideological adherence and unequalled sacrifices displayed by true Afghan Mujahid nation for the last decade that today regional and world powers are after to reach mutual understanding about the country,” the statement said in the Taliban’s typically fractured English.
The coalition declined to comment on the Taliban’s statement.
Most American and Afghan officials would surely dispute the Taliban’s logic. But taken as a statement of intent, the Taliban’s declaration offers an instructive glimpse into their thinking. For them, a seat across the table from the Americans – and, if a settlement is reached, a formal role in the Afghan government — may be the victory they’ve been fighting for.
That fight looks set to go on for at least a few more years. The combat role for the American-led coalition is not set to conclude until the end of 2014, and Western officials say they expect trainers and special operations to remain in Afghanistan for years afterward. In the meantime, both the Taliban and the coalition have made it clear they plan to keep fighting, even as they start talking.
Few here believe the Taliban, armed mostly with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs, have any chance of overcoming the foreign and Afghan forces arrayed against them. Even former Taliban officials who now live in Kabul but maintain contact with their former compatriots say the insurgents know an outright victory on the battlefield is a near impossibility in the foreseeable future.
Rather, they say, the Taliban have been fighting for precisely what is now unfolding: the opening of talks as a prelude to the withdrawal of American and allied troops. The Americans, for their part, say they’ve been fighting for the same.
But for the Taliban, the move toward talks nonetheless appears to be a chance to take a rhetorical victory lap and score a few propaganda points with ordinary Afghans, the vast majority of whom are tired of war and more inclined to see the talks as a sign of American weakness and insurgent strength than the other way around.
That is sentiment the Taliban are eager to promote, as evidenced by their statement, which was posted on their official Web site late Sunday in English and Pashto, one of Afghanistan’s major languages. It was the first time the Taliban were known to have declared victory, although they have been predicting it for years. The statement is signed with only the name “Khapalwak,” though the content for the Web site is believed to be approved at the highest levels of the group.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan showed it openly to the world that it is a well-organized political power besides being a military power,” the statement said. “The invading countries of Afghanistan are compelled to review their policies by looking into the military and political determination, unity, organization and unshakeable stance of the Islamic Emirate.”
The Taliban held up the choice of Qatar as the location for the talks, and for an office, soon to be opened, for the insurgents, as added evidence that it was winning the war in Afghanistan.
President Hamid Karzai’s government — often referred to by the insurgents as a “stooge” or “puppet” administration — wanted the office to be in Saudi Arabia or Turkey and only reluctantly agreed to Qatar under pressure from the Americans. “But Qatar having balance relations with all sides and a prestigious status in the Islamic world is the most appropriate place for this kind of office,” the statement said.
There is, however, one issue not addressed in the statement: Are the Taliban sincere about negotiating an end to the war in Afghanistan? Or are they just waiting for 2014, thinking they can eventually overcome Afghan forces once most of the foreign troops are gone?
That may be harder to divine from the insurgents’ self-congratulatory rhetoric. But the Taliban, in their latest statement and the countless others they have put out over the past decade, leave little doubt that their ultimate goal is to again rule Afghanistan. The Islamic Emirate “has ruled the country successfully and preserves the right and might of each and every decision of the country,” the statement said. “It can neither accept external orders nor can it come under any one’s pressure.”
It concludes archly with an admonishment for the United States and its allies: “If the present invaders had chosen a lucid path instead of incursion, they would not have faced such a huge personnel and financial loss in Afghanistan.”
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Afghanistan 'will take 30 years to develop into proper democratic state'
Afghanistan will take another 30 years to develop into a properly democratic state, Nato's senior civilian representative has said.
Telegraph.co.uk By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent 16 Jan 2012
Sir Simon Gass, a British diplomat, said the country has gone through 30 years of disastrous conflict which has destroyed infrastructure and institutions.
"It will take decades to recover from the destruction that was wrought over that period of time," he added.
Referring to a World Bank report about countries emerging from prolonged conflict, Sir Simon said they do not have strong institutions, democratic values, rule of law or lack of corruption.
"Those are not values that can be delivered in a short period of time. Typically they take 30 years or so in countries coming out of conflict," he added.
Sir Simon told the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London that we "should not judge Afghanistan by standards we would not expect of many of Afghanistan's neighbours."
He said money would be needed to support Afghanistan after the end of the Nato mission in 2014 but that he was "cautiously optimistic" it would be forthcoming despite the "economic challenges" in the West.
Reports have suggested more than £6bn a year will be required but Sir Simon said the sums needed will be "very much smaller" than at present.
"Were Afghanistan to slip back into chaos, which I do not predict, the cost to our governments in terms of the increased flow or narcotics and refugees, not to mention the constant instability in one of the most sensitive parts of the world, would be very costly for all of us," he said.
Sir Simon said that 352,000 Afghan Security Forces would be left in place but added that would be a "high water mark" and funding might not remain for that number.
"The transition is unlikely to be easy, there will be days when it is very messy, we will no doubt face setback along the road but I am convinced it is the right direction to go in and I think by the end of 2014, the Afghan security forces will be capable of maintaining security in Afghanistan," he said.
"That doesn't meant there won't be violence in places, undoubtedly if there is no political settlement there will be violence, the point is that it will not be of a sort that can threaten the government of Afghanistan."
He said that 2011 was "not a good year for the insurgents" who had failed to take part areas of the south as they had planned.
"They conspicuously failed," he added, "They are a resilient and vigorous enemy, but the momentum they built up a few years ago is no longer there."
But he warned: "Of course there are still a lot of variables in terms of how the campaign will turn out."
Sir Simon admitted that the picture was "very different" in the east of the country "more work" needed to be done there.
The senior diplomat said that a political solution was necessary because there would be no "military knockout blow" to end the insurgency.
But he said there were still doubts about whether the plan, announced by the Taliban last month, to open an office in Qatar in the Middle East, in order to conduct negotiations, would come to fruition.
"This year will be another tough year, undoubtedly. That is why we still need our forces in Afghanistan because there is still more work to be done," he added.
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Taliban local leader killed in E Afghanistan
GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- An Afghan Taliban local leader was killed in a search operation in the country's eastern province of Ghazni, a provincial security official said on Tuesday.
"Based on intelligence, a special unite of Afghan Directorate of Security (NDS) launched a search operation to capture a Taliban local leader in Gilan district of Ghazni province Monday night," head of provincial department of NDS, Amir Shah Sadat, told reporters in provincial capital of Ghanzi city.
He said upon arrival of the forces in a compound in Autala area of Gilan district, a gunfight was broke out leaving the Talian leader namely Malawi Noor Ahmad dead.
He said two other insurgents were also killed in the incident, adding that no civilian or NDS personnel were injured in the raid in the province 125 km south of capital city of Kabul.
He said the deceased insurgent leader was operating in Gilan district and surrounding areas and has been involved in carrying out several attacks against security forces over the past few years.
The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since the militant group announced to launch a rebel offensive from May 2011 against Afghan and NATO-led troops stationed in Afghanistan.
The Taliban militants have not to make comments yet.
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Number of British troops in Afghanistan to be reduced
LONDON Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The British government on Tuesday announced hundreds of soldiers would be axed from units which are fighting the war in Afghanistan.
A total of 4,200 servicemen and women will lose their jobs, including 2,900 in the army, 1,000 in the Royal Navy, and 300 in the Royal Air Force. The move is seen as a bid to fend off a looming budget crisis caused by a 38 billion pound (about 58.4 billion U.S. dollars) overspend in equipment programs.
"Difficult decisions had to be taken to deal with the vast black hole in the Ministry of Defence budget," Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said.
"The redundancy program will not impact adversely on the current operations in Afghanistan," he added.
The opposition Labor Party supported the need for cuts to balance the overall government budget, but raised security fears.
"The most important baseline, however, is national security, and we worry these cuts are wrong-headed and rushed," Shadow Defense Secretary Jim Murphy said.
"We need to know the full military impact of losing such important capability," he stated.
The British army is already small enough that many of its soldiers have fought in the 10,000-strong force which has been in Afghanistan since 2006 and which is likely to remain in place in those numbers until at least the end of this year.
The prospect for some of these soldiers is that they will have finished a tour of duty in a war zone to return home to Britain and face reduced career prospects, or even possibly redundancy.
The cuts will ultimately reduce the army from its current 100,000 by 18,000 to 82,000 by 2020.
The Royal Navy will be reduced by 5,000 to 31,640 over the same period, and the Royal Air Force will fall from a current 36,340 by about 5,000.
The latest round of redundancies follows cuts of 3,000 personnel in September last year. There are also likely to be more, as yet unplanned cuts in personnel following the recasting of economic targets by the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in his autumn economic statement.
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As U.S.-Pakistani relations sink, nations try to figure out ‘a new normal’
Washington Post By Karen DeYoung and Karin Brulliard Tuesday, January 17, 2012
In a call to her Pakistani counterpart this month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated the Obama administration’s counterterrorism “red line”: The United States reserved the right to attack anyone who it determined posed a direct threat to U.S. national security, anywhere in the world.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar responded in kind, telling Clinton that Pakistan’s red line was the violation of its sovereignty. Any unauthorized flight into its airspace, Khar bluntly told Clinton, risked being shot down.
T he conversation, recounted by U.S. officials, was one of the few high-level exchanges between the two governments in
recent months, and it illustrated the depths to which U.S.-Pakistan relations have fallen after an inadvertent November border clash in which a U.S. air assault killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Since then, Pakistan’s border crossings have remained closed to U.S. and NATO supplies in transit to the Afghan war. At Pakistan’s demand, U.S. personnel have evacuated a secret drone airstrip, and the number of American military trainers in the country has been cut to a fraction of previous levels.
Marc Grossman, the administration’s top diplomat in charge of Afghanistan and Pakistan, asked to visit Islamabad during a current trip to the region, but Pakistani officials responded that it was not convenient.
The “fundamentals” of mutual interest in destroying al-Qaeda and safely managing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal haven’t changed, said a senior Obama administration official, who, like several sources in this article, discussed sensitive diplomatic matters on the condition of anonymity. But the two countries are groping their way toward what he called “a new normal” — somewhere between the strategic alliance that President Obama once proffered in exchange for Pakistan severing its ties with militants, and a more businesslike arrangement with few illusions.
“It’ll be much more realpolitik,” another U.S. official said. “It’s getting away from the grandiose vision of what could be to focusing on what is.”
A senior Pakistani military official said, “We’ve had some glorious times,” citing past interludes of intelligence and military cooperation in pursuit of Pakistan-based al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
But the military official also spoke emotionally about the deaths of the 24 soldiers in November and said the incident would not soon be forgotten. The same was true of what he said were other insults in 2011, including the shooting deaths of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor in Lahore, the U.S. Special Operations raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani suburb and the assertion by Adm. Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the insurgent Haqqani network was a “veritable arm” of Pakistani intelligence.
Pakistan, the military official said, wants some “significant changes” in the way the two countries do business.
After the November border clash, the Obama administration suspended its regular drone attacks inside Pakistan to avoid further unsettling relations, U.S. officials said. And in a rare display of deference early this month, the CIA informed the Pakistani government that it planned a drone strike against a terrorist target in the North Waziristan tribal region and asked Islamabad’s permission. When Pakistan declined, the strike was canceled, officials said.
But on Jan. 10, barely a week later, the 55-day drone hiatus ended abruptly with a strike that killed four alleged militants in North Waziristan, followed by another strike two days afterward. Although officials said Pakistan was notified in advance, permission was not sought.
Reviewing cooperation
A Pakistani parliamentary committee, with input from feuding military and civilian political factions, is conducting what Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday called “a full review of the terms of cooperation” with the United States and the U.S.-led international coalition in Afghanistan.
“Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are not negotiable,” Gilani said.
A senior Pakistani government official said the committee’s recommendations will probably include a demand for explicit U.S. assurances that there will be no violation of sovereignty — no American boots on the ground, no more unilateral raids, no manned airstrikes. The official said there is likely to be some arrangement on drone attacks, with Pakistan calling for large reductions in their number and geographic scope, and demanding prior notification and approval of every strike.
Any explicit agreement on drones would be a major change from past practice, in which Pakistan has privately agreed to strikes but publicly denounced them.
Pakistan also wants more explicit compensation for U.S. and NATO supplies transiting its ports and roads, perhaps in the form of taxes. And it wants more comprehensive information about CIA operations and personnel. “There are over 1,000 houses in Pakistan that have been hired by the U.S. Embassy, and we don’t know who lives in them,” the Pakistani official said.
Yet in a recent parliamentary briefing, Finance Minister Abdul Hafiz Sheikh cautioned against a complete breakdown of U.S. ties, saying the nation’s economy could not absorb the shock, according to a second Pakistani official.
In addition to receiving nearly $3 billion in annual military and civilian assistance — much of which has been withheld by the Obama administration over the past year of conflict — Pakistan is well aware of the U.S. influence in international financial institutions and other important world forums.
U.S. peace talks with the Taliban are also a top issue for Pakistan, which has provided sanctuary for the Haqqani network, a Taliban ally, as well as the main Taliban leadership as leverage to protect its long-term interests in Afghanistan. Although the Obama administration and the Afghan government have offered the Pakistanis a role in the peace talks, both mistrust their motives.
Role in the Afghan war
In the United States, Obama is under political pressure to show Islamabad who is the global boss. Patience here has grown paper-thin with what is seen as Pakistani double-dealing and intransigence that is getting in the way of efforts to wind down the Afghan war.
An emerging U.S. military narrative, in preparation for internal administration discussions over the pace of troop withdrawal, holds that the U.S.-led coalition cannot quickly consolidate its considerable gains in Afghanistan because of Pakistan. A heavy U.S. footprint needs to be maintained, a senior Pentagon official said, because Pakistan refuses to crack down on the Haqqani network, whose forces regularly attack coalition troops in Afghan border provinces.
Pakistan also has snubbed U.S. efforts to boost the Afghan economy with a gas pipeline that would run from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistani ports. Instead, it has reiterated its plans to proceed with an alternative pipeline from Iran.
Obama administration officials said they will resist responding until Pakistan’s Parliament has finished its review of relations with the United States. “We have views on where we’d like to see this go,” a U.S. official said. But it will “take another week or two . . . for their internal process to come to some kind of formal communication that would be communicated back to us.”
U.S. officials question whether Pakistan has the ability or the desire to shoot down U.S. aircraft, whether armed drones; unarmed, unmanned planes that regularly conduct surveillance over border areas; or manned attack and military transport planes that sometimes stray unintentionally over the border.
They said there have been at least two accidental violations of Pakistani airspace in recent weeks by piloted aircraft in Afghanistan, but both incidents were calmly defused by border coordination centers on the Afghan side.
Brulliard reported from Islamabad. Staff writers Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe, and special correspondent Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad, contributed to this report.
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