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Insurgents killed in eastern Afghan province: coalition
KABUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Several insurgents were killed in a joint operation carried out by the Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition troops in the Afghanistan's eastern province of Ghazni on Monday, the coalition forces confirmed.
15 insurgents detained in eastern Afghan operations: coalition
KABUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Up to 15 insurgents have been detained by Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition troops in restive eastern Afghan provinces within a 24-hour period of time, the coalition said Monday.
When Afghans Look to Border With Pakistan, They Don’t See a Fixed Line
New York Times By MATTHEW ROSENBERG Memo From Afghanistan October 28, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - It is perhaps a measure of the growing anxiety in Afghanistan that an American envoy’s seemingly innocuous comments about a border first laid down in the 19th century could provoke a week of defiant missives from Afghan officials and fearful murmurings about conspiracies being hatched in Washington and Islamabad.
Afghan boxer to launch first ever professional competition in Kabul
KABUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- World Boxing Union (WBU) champion Hamidullah Rahimi will compete with his African challenger on Tuesday, in the first professional boxing event ever in his war-torn country.
At Afghanistan university, disputed name turns into fighting word
Students tired of the violence in Afghanistan opposes naming Kabul Education University after a former warlord. Their chancellor criticizes their stubbornness.
Los Angeles Times By Ned Parker October 28, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - If they could sit down together, the chancellor and the hotheaded student activist who helped shut down his university might find that they are not so very different.
Has the Time Come for a Kabul Stock Exchange?
TIME By Mujib Mashal Oct. 29, 2012
Kabul - The project seems, at the least, ill-advised: establishing Afghanistan’s first ever stock exchange amid the uncertainties of security and the suffocating presence of official corruption. But that is exactly what two young Afghans want to do. Ahmad Bassam and his partner Sanzar Kakar — both with years of banking experience in the US
Afghan Army Seeks Better Equipment, But Lacks Basic Skills
NPR By Sean Carberry October 28, 2012
One of the most common complaints from Afghan forces and officials is that they don't have the equipment they need to lead the fight in Afghanistan. They routinely call on NATO to provide more cutting-edge hardware for Afghan troops.
Kandahar: Assassination capital of Afghanistan
By Dawood Azami BBC World Service 29 October 2012
Kandahar - The southern Afghan city of Kandahar is accustomed to violence. It is, after all, the birthplace of the Taliban. But a recent wave of assassinations targeting the city's political elite has stunned even the most hardened observers.
In Afghanistan, Don't Forget the Small Stuff
By JADE WU The New York Times October 29, 2012
I spent most of the past year in Afghanistan, where I lived and taught in a rule-of-law program funded by the U.S. government at an American-run Regional Training Center. My R.T.C. housed about 700 men, primarily Afghan police trainees. The international community consisted primarily of American soldiers and civilian contractors
International Airport to Open Soon in Mazar: Officials
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 28 October 2012
Northern Balkh province will inaugurate a number of large infrastructure projects in the near future including an international airport, local officials said this week.
Nangarhar Customs Revenue Grows More Than 20%
TOLOnews.com By Mirwais Sahil Sunday, 28 October 2012
The customs revenue of eastern Nangarhar province increased 22 percent in the first six months of the Persian year compared to the same period last year after a crackdown on graft and the black market.
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Insurgents killed in eastern Afghan province: coalition
KABUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Several insurgents were killed in a joint operation carried out by the Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition troops in the Afghanistan's eastern province of Ghazni on Monday, the coalition forces confirmed.
"An Afghan and coalition security force killed several insurgents during a security operation to arrest a Taliban leader in Ghazni province today," the coalition said in a statement, without disclosing the exact number of the killed.
"As the security force approached the Taliban leader's suspected location, multiple armed insurgents attacked the security force with small-arms fire. The security force returned fire, killing the insurgents," it said.
The joint forces also detained one suspected insurgent and seized a machine gun with large quantities of ammunition, several assault-style rifles, a pistol, and assorted ammunition as a result of the operation in the province 100 km south of Afghan capital Kabul, the statement added.
In addition, the joint force during a separate operation detained a local Taliban leader in Kandahar province, some 450 km south of Kabul.
"The arrested leader is believed to be responsible for high profile attack planning, facilitating weapons use, and leading a group of Taliban fighters within Kandahar province," it said.
The Afghan and coalition forces use the term insurgent referring to the Taliban, however, the Taliban insurgent group, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have yet to make comments.
The Afghan forces and some 100,000 coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militants throughout the country recently but the insurgents in retaliation responded by carrying out suicide attacks and roadside bombings.
Up to 41 people, including 23 Afghan policemen, were killed and more than 50 others were wounded in a suicide bombing in a mosque, where people were holding Eid-ul-Adha or biggest Muslim festival, in northern Faryab province on Friday morning.
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15 insurgents detained in eastern Afghan operations: coalition
KABUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Up to 15 insurgents have been detained by Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition troops in restive eastern Afghan provinces within a 24-hour period of time, the coalition said Monday.
"Afghan and coalition (forces) detained 15 insurgents and cleared seven improvised explosive devices (IEDs) during operations in eastern Afghanistan throughout the past 24 hours," the coalition's Regional Command-East (RC-East) said in a press release providing daily operational updates.
Fourteen insurgents have been detained in Tagab district of Kapisa province and one was captured in Paktia province, it said, adding the captured men were transferred to military bases for questioning.
The IEDs were found and defused by the joint forces in eastern Khost, Laghman, Nangarhar and Paktia provinces, the release added.
Taliban militants, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have often attacked Afghan and NATO-led forces with IEDs and roadside bombs but the lethal weapons also inflict casualties on civilians.
A total of 18 civilians were killed and 15 others wounded when an IED struck a civilian bus in northern Balkh province on Oct. 19.
The militant group has yet to confirm the capture of their men.
Operations in RC-East are still ongoing, the statement said.
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When Afghans Look to Border With Pakistan, They Don’t See a Fixed Line
New York Times By MATTHEW ROSENBERG Memo From Afghanistan October 28, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - It is perhaps a measure of the growing anxiety in Afghanistan that an American envoy’s seemingly innocuous comments about a border first laid down in the 19th century could provoke a week of defiant missives from Afghan officials and fearful murmurings about conspiracies being hatched in Washington and Islamabad.
Ahmed Barakzai, a Kabul jeweler, summed it up well: With America’s departure looming, Afghans “know they are entering a dangerous time,” he said between bites of fish at a crowded restaurant. The men around him all nodded.
The “issue of the line,” as he called the border, may be minor to the rest of the world. But it “shows us we have friends who we cannot trust,” said Mr. Barakzai, 43. Everyone listening knew he meant America, and they kept nodding.
The border, of course, is no simple boundary: It is the Durand Line, named for the British colonial official who drew it up to separate Imperial Britain’s Indian possessions from Afghanistan — dividing traditionally Pashtun lands between Afghanistan and what would later become Pakistan. To the world at large today, the line, however contentious, is official.
Just don’t say as much to Afghans. Ambassador Marc Grossman, America’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, learned this the hard way last week when asked by an Afghan television reporter whether the United States agreed that “the lands beyond this border, the Durand Line, are the lands of Afghanistan.”
Mr. Grossman’s answer — “the border is the international border” — has been American policy for decades. Afghanistan’s claim to a large chunk of northwestern Pakistan, which it believes the British stole, is taken seriously only in Afghanistan.
So Mr. Grossman moved on, segueing into the need for more regional cooperation — diplomat-speak for better ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
If only it were that easy. Mr. Grossman’s comments quickly became headline news in Afghanistan, and remained so for days. The Foreign Ministry, which knew Mr. Grossman had said nothing new, nonetheless jumped on the comments, calling Washington’s position “irrelevant.”
“The status of the Durand Line is a matter of historic importance for the Afghan people,” it said in a statement.
President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, also expressed pique in a message marking Id al-Adha, the Islamic holiday that began Friday. “May almighty God bring peace, security and unity to Afghanistan, particularly to both sides of the Durand Line,” the spokesman’s office said in a statement.
Mr. Grossman’s comments, delivered at a time when Afghans are particularly apprehensive about their country’s future, hit a tender nerve. Increasingly, and openly, Afghans have been debating the limits of what they can expect from the United States, an ally that is often both reviled here and seen as a needed benefactor and protector.
Compounding the insult, in the Afghan view, is that the United States is taking the side of Pakistan, whose government is seen as harboring or even aiding Taliban and Haqqani militants waging the insurgency in Afghanistan who are sheltered in the territories cut off by the Durand Line.
“For the Afghan side, there was always this expectation that if we involved the U.S. deeper into Afghanistan’s issues, it was going to lead to a solution of the problem with militant extremism from Pakistan,” said Haseeb Humayoon of QARA Consulting, a policy advisory firm in Kabul.
But now, he added, the United States is pulling back, and “the problem remains.”
The sense of dashed expectations is palpable, and hopes are increasingly being replaced with conspiracy theories. Though such theories — mirroring those often heard about the United States on the Pakistani side of the border, if slightly less energetic — have always been whispered here, they are picking up volume as the American withdrawal nears.
Mr. Barakzai, the jeweler, speculated that Mr. Grossman’s comments stemmed from a secret deal between Washington and Islamabad to subjugate Afghanistan — a twist on Pakistani paranoia that America’s war in Afghanistan has been nothing more than a pretext to deprive Pakistan of its nuclear arsenal.
Did he believe it? He was not sure, nor were the other men who had joined in the conversation. But they had questions: Is America really leaving? What, then, does Washington want to leave behind? Who are Americans “really listening to?”
Most insisted they were among the Afghans who had welcomed the United States intervention against the Taliban in 2001. They were certainly of the class that had benefited from the resulting American-financed prosperity, which may be meager by Western standards but was unimaginable here only a short time ago.
But now Afghans “do not know what is the real plan of America for our country,” another man said.
Maybe there is no plan? No, they all agreed, not possible: The United States is too powerful to be operating without a plan.
The talk was more than idle kebab shop chitchat. Abdul Hamid Mubariz, a former deputy minister of information and culture who is hardly anyone’s idea of an anti-American firebrand, said similar speculation was rife within government circles as well.
“We don’t know what the Americans are doing to be interfering in the Durand Line issue,” he said. “Is there a hidden agenda behind this? Afghans are feeling betrayed.”
He did not believe in an active conspiracy against Afghanistan. Rather, in his view, American officials, ignorant of the details behind Afghanistan’s claims, “were encouraged and convinced by Pakistan to raise the Durand Line issue and announce it internationally.”
After all, Mr. Mubariz said, Mr. Grossman had stopped in Pakistan before coming to Afghanistan.
No matter the American intent, the conclusion is obvious for Afghans: America “is not to be trusted,” he said. “Now we understand that whatever President Karzai was doing or saying against the West, he was right.”
Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
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Afghan boxer to launch first ever professional competition in Kabul
KABUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- World Boxing Union (WBU) champion Hamidullah Rahimi will compete with his African challenger on Tuesday, in the first professional boxing event ever in his war-torn country.
"World Boxing Union (WBU) champion Hamidullah Rahimi would take on his challenger Rafael Bejaran from the Republic of Dominica in Kabul on October 30," The local Pajhwok Afghan News reported on Monday.
Rahimi won the WBU Championship by defeating his Belarusian rival in Hamburg, Germany in February this year.
"Rahimi, 29, who has lived in Germany for the past 20 years, has been playing boxing for a decade and a half. An Afghan by origin, the pugilist has won 20 of the 21 matches he has played so far," the reports said, adding the event will took place in a giant tent in western edge of Afghan capital Kabul.
It was seen as an important step toward the realization of Rahimi's dream to host the first-ever professional boxing event in Kabul under the banner of "Fight 4 Peace", the report said.
"An athlete hoists his country's flag after a competition without any bloodshed. The upcoming duel will send a strong message of peace to the world. Therefore, I call it a fight for peace," Rahimi was quoted as saying.
"I requested the competition be held in Kabul because I want to change the landscape of athletics in Afghanistan. I also want the world to know that Afghanistan has the best athletes," the Afghan sportsman added.
The Afghan boxer was awarded the WBU gold belt for winning the title.
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At Afghanistan university, disputed name turns into fighting word
Students tired of the violence in Afghanistan opposes naming Kabul Education University after a former warlord. Their chancellor criticizes their stubbornness.
Los Angeles Times By Ned Parker October 28, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - If they could sit down together, the chancellor and the hotheaded student activist who helped shut down his university might find that they are not so very different.
After all, Afghanistan's history has dealt both men harsh blows. But that same history also divides them. The older one, attuned to what was lost in decades of war, seeks stability at all costs; the student, knowing just conflict and chaos, has no patience left for the older generation he blames for the violence.
Now, that history has brought them into conflict, in the form of a late warlord turned peace negotiator whose name now graces what has long been known as Kabul Education University.
In early October, Chancellor Amanullah Hamidzai strolled his campus alone as protests led by student Mohammed Yar and his peers brought the university to its knees. Hamidzai, a harmless-looking figure with his thinning gray hair and wide girth, pondered how to keep the peace.
"If a student is hurt, I don't want to be chancellor of this university," he said. "Before that, I will resign."
As students like Yar called him weak and political leaders ignored his views, he wondered whether he was stupid to come back here from his comfortable life in Maryland. "It was my emotion," Hamidzai said, shaking his head. "I am stuck now. I can't live without this university."
The chancellor's crisis of confidence was unleashed by a surprise decision by President Hamid Karzai to name the university after ethnic Tajik warlord and former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was assassinated a year ago by a Taliban suicide bomber when Rabbani tried to broker peace talks.
Ever the diplomat, the chancellor is careful — he refers to Rabbani as "a controversial figure" — but he understands why his students dislike the late mujahedin leader whose men once shelled Kabul: He is one of the powerful people who helped plunge the country into endless war.
Even though many Tajik students expressed no love for Rabbani, the fact that mostly ethnic Pashtun and Hazara groups were demanding his name be taken down and boycotting classes sparked fights on campus.
In the second week of October, Hamidzai stood in the university courtyard as student activists blocked the campus entrance, Pashtun and Tajik students traded punches, and police hauled off protesters.
Hamidzai then accompanied a group of activists to the Ministry of Higher Education, where a compromise was put forward: Rabbani's name would not be put on diplomas for current four-year students. But the school would be referred to as the Kabul Education University of Rabbani.
"You have to give something to get something," Hamidzai says in a soft phlegmatic voice, dressed in his bright blue-striped suit and tie, like a nightclub promoter from the 1950s. "The students weren't happy, but they accepted it. They went back to class."
At least in part, Hamidzai is amused by the activists, who ducked meeting him in the days after they ended their university shutdown. But he also gets annoyed at the mention of some of them, like Yar, whom he calls "complicated."
Yar, 35, has intense black eyes and seldom smiles. He walks with crutches because of a clubfoot he was born with. When he leans on his crutches to walk, it is almost like he is leaping hurdles.
Other students defer to Yar's serious air. He says it is right for students to return to classes, but he vows they will hold peaceful demonstrations in the future. "We don't want this name for the next generation," he says to nods from his friends.
Yar, a Pashtun literature student, has no tolerance for his elders; he associates them with his country's violence, corruption and ethnic and regional divisions.
"Our chancellor is very weak," he says, calling him a hypocrite for not standing up to Karzai. During the rounds of meetings with government officials, Yar says, he walked up to the chancellor and recommended he resign. The chancellor fired back in a calm voice: "You don't have any wisdom; you don't have any knowledge."
Yar has lived though Afghanistan's darkest period. As a teenager, he watched warlords kill his friends and relatives in his home city of Kandahar. Unable to study literature under the Taliban, he ran a secret library. He wants to believe that his generation will prove different from men such as Karzai, Rabbani or the Taliban fighters.
"I am hopeful for the future of Afghanistan. It is in our hands," he says. "The situation will be what we want it to be."
Afghanistan's painful past also scars the chancellor. At age 4, Hamidzai spent a year in jail after his father led protests against the king in his birthplace, the eastern city of Jalalabad. Much of the chancellor's childhood was spent with his family in internal exile in the country's remote west.
Hamidzai's early trials taught him responsibility and he excelled, becoming a doctor and a professor at the university in Jalalabad and then working for the United Nations. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, he slipped out of the country, not even telling his brother, who was a general and chief of staff in the Defense Ministry.
But he always loved Afghanistan, and in 2004, the Afghan government asked him to return to Jalalabad to rescue his old college. He soon found the dangers that drove him away still very much present. Armed groups, angry at his efforts to shield the campus from politics, tried to assassinate him, including planting a land mine by his home and putting a poisonous snake in his room. Later, he moved on to the university job in Kabul, the capital.
In the nine years since he's been home, Hamidzai has torn a retina and lost sight in his right eye. But he would rather dismiss the rough spells in Kabul with an old Pashtun saying or a joke. He's as coy about his age — "I'm somewhere between 60 and 70" — as any regret he harbors.
Leaning back on a couch, Hamidzai says that when the school year ends in January, he may bow out. The uncertainty of 2014 and the departure of the Americans disturb him; civil war is too real a possibility. Besides, his wife and his son, a software developer in Maryland, worry about him.
Making light of his predicament, he quotes an old saying to describe his return to Afghanistan and his thoughts about leaving.
"Getting into a prostitution house is one shame, and getting out is another shame."
ned.parker@latimes.com
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Has the Time Come for a Kabul Stock Exchange?
TIME By Mujib Mashal Oct. 29, 2012
Kabul - The project seems, at the least, ill-advised: establishing Afghanistan’s first ever stock exchange amid the uncertainties of security and the suffocating presence of official corruption. But that is exactly what two young Afghans want to do. Ahmad Bassam and his partner Sanzar Kakar — both with years of banking experience in the US , with Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, respectively — hope to have a viable bourse operating by 2014, about the same time U.S. troops pull out of the country.
“Once the foreign forces withdraw, the country will still need an economy,” Bassam says, explaining his rationale for the stock exchange. “And we want to help bring the structures in place that will get us away from donor dependence.” He and Kakar claim to be in conversation with Nasdaq to bring the U.S. exchange on board as their technology partner.
Foolhardy may be a word to use to describe this quest to build an institution usually associated with the first world into a country so poor it is barely third world — with per capita GDP of $528 in 2010–11 and an economy largely dependent on spending tied to the international military presence. Hundreds of billions of dollars in aid over the past decade, according to officials and analysts, has largely been funneled to quick-impact projects, promoting patchwork and not long-term economic development.
But a stock market could actually be an important step toward rationalizing the way funds and capital flow in Afghanistan. “We have not woken up to the reality to make the economy function,” says Ashraf Ghani, a former Finance Minister in the government of President Hamid Karzai, who describes the current state of the Afghan economy as “an aid-dependent, distributive system,” not a dynamic market economy. “There is still wishful thinking that aid will save us.”
More than just aid, a stock exchange could impose a kind of transparency on the Karzai government’s attempt to privatize state enterprises, much of it the remains of companies set up during the Soviet-backed regime whose final dregs disintegrated after the Taliban took Kabul in 1996. Those enterprises had lost as much as 80% of their value during the years of war, according to a 2002 assessment commissioned by Karzai. “There were very few state-owned enterprises that were of value to the country,” says James Blewett, part of that commission. “The majority of the enterprises were defunct or nonfunctional.” Still, Karzai chose to go ahead with privatization.
Public offerings were not immediately possible, said the 2002 report, because “they usually require the existence of substantial capital-markets infrastructure stock exchanges, legal and regulatory frameworks, and financial market institutions.” The government had no patience — or capacity — for creating those structures, and so most of the enterprises were sold directly to individuals and entities.
That process, however, involved distributing some of the companies to politically connected individuals. Mahmood Karzai, President Karzai’s brother, for example, partnered to buy a large state-owned cement factory. The Afghan Ministry of Mines recently questioned the transparency of the contracting process.
Enter Bassam and Kakar. Their vision is to create a platform for the revival of those enterprises through public ownership. The industries involved are potentially lucrative — mining, transportation and aviation, construction, textiles. “The idea is to create a proper capital market — not just a stock market,” Bassam says. And it is not just the individual investors that they hope to attract to the bourse. The Afghan government has several institutions that must manage their funds for long-term societal reasons. Says Bassam: “We hope to tap into the pension plan, and the investment of retirement plans.”
For Bassam, a Kabul stock market has been a cherished dream. Almost 10 years ago, he was an immigrant in the U.S., having escaped the wars of his country when he was 15. After completing a college degree at the University of Phoenix, he was a candidate for a job at Morgan Stanley when the interviewer asked Bassam what a job at firm would lead him to do. “It would be amazing if I could open the first ever Afghan stock exchange,” Bassam recalls saying.
Bassam got the job. During his seven years at Morgan Stanley and a year at Harvard, where he received his masters in finance, he developed the concept and action for his vision. In 2011, after attempts at getting the project rolling through occasional visits, Bassam decided to move to Afghanistan.
For years, Bassam and Kakar pinned their hopes on donors to help them get started, just like a large part of Afghan businesses are boosted by foreign aid in their early steps. But they found no funders, a sign of reluctance to invest due to the looming uncertainties. Bassam says they then decided to fund the project privately. “We are fully capitalized to start the stock exchange, but we are keeping our options open for fundraising if we decide to expand,” he says.
One big hurdle, however, remains public trust. The Kabul Bank fiasco, in particular, got in the way of moving the stock-market project forward. In that scandal, more than $900 million in deposits disappeared because of insider lending. Lines stretched across blocks of the capital as desperate bank customers tried to get their savings out of the bank. Furthermore, Bassam’s progress was also impeded by a former Afghan central-bank chief who, returning from an Islamic-finance conference overseas, declared that he wanted a “Shari‘a compliant” stock exchange.
Bassam says the steps taken by the World Bank and the Afghan government in the wake of Kabul Bank have, to an extent, restored consumer confidence, but he acknowledges that winning trust will require hard work. “We will win public trust by adhering to highest industry standards and complying with the rules and regulations,” says Bassam. Transparency will be crucial. Says Ghani: “The burden is to win the trust of the people. But if it is done right, the public will trust.”
With the U.S. military withdrawal looming, the question of stability is paramount. The international community, says Gautam Mukhopadhyay, India’s ambassador to Kabul, “[has] tried stabilizing Afghanistan militarily. It hasn’t worked. We have tried the political route. There is little progress. Why don’t we try economically — by incentivizing security through small- and big-ticket investments?” In the end, that kind of money could well be the key.
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Afghan Army Seeks Better Equipment, But Lacks Basic Skills
NPR By Sean Carberry October 28, 2012
One of the most common complaints from Afghan forces and officials is that they don't have the equipment they need to lead the fight in Afghanistan. They routinely call on NATO to provide more cutting-edge hardware for Afghan troops.
Certainly, when you see a U.S. soldier standing next to an Afghan one, the difference is striking. U.S. soldiers are often saddled with pounds and pounds of electronics and gadgets, ranging from GPS units to night-vision goggles and radio-jamming devices.
Afghans, on the other hand, generally carry little more than an AK-47 and basic body armor.
But, U.S. troops more often than not say that the Afghans don't need all the high-tech gear.
"Giving them any kind of technology that they're maybe not used to kind of gives them a false sense of reality," says Capt. Kevin Ryan, an intelligence officer with the 1-91 Cavalry based at Forward Operating Base Shank in Logar Province.
He says it would be counterproductive to get Afghan soldiers hooked on technology when they still need to improve their basic soldiering and war-fighting skills, like mission planning, maintain formations and developing human intelligence.
Ryan says that in cases where the Afghans rely on technology, it often hurts them. One example is their use of Symphony systems, jamming technology used to prevent radio-controlled improvised explosive devices from detonating.
"When they know there's a Symphony system within line of sight ... they almost don't look for the obvious signs of an RCIED, and that's typically when they'll get hit by it," Ryan says.
Ultimately, Lt. Col. Whit Wright, the 1-91 Squadron commander, says the Afghan forces have more pressing needs than fancy equipment.
"At the operational level, what they need is a functional means to sustain themselves," Wright says. The questions the Afghans need to address, he says, are: "How are we delivering food, how are we delivering ammunition, how are we delivering things to other parts of the battle space?"
NATO has said for some time that one of the weakest links of the Afghan National Security Forces is logistics. They simply don't have the systems in place to run an army on their own. Part of that is due to their lack of aircraft and pilots — a legitimate need, and one that will take years to address.
But they simply don't have the "tail" in place to support the "tooth" of their operations, and cutting edge weaponry won't fix that.
Wright says that another concern is whether the Afghans have the education and capacity to operate and maintain advanced equipment. He points out they have trouble taking care of the vehicles and other basic gear that they have.
"The maintenance, the operational readiness rates the Afghan fleets are in right now are somewhere below 50 percent, and ... that's crippling," Wright says.
But there is another underlying concern that's been expressed for some time: whether some of the ANSF will sell their equipment to insurgents.
A NATO study that was leaked at the beginning of the year stated that some in the ANSF were selling weapons and equipment to the Taliban, and U.S. officials have long expressed concerns that providing technology such as night vision goggles to the Afghan forces, could ultimately end up equipping Taliban.
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Kandahar: Assassination capital of Afghanistan
By Dawood Azami BBC World Service 29 October 2012
Kandahar - The southern Afghan city of Kandahar is accustomed to violence. It is, after all, the birthplace of the Taliban. But a recent wave of assassinations targeting the city's political elite has stunned even the most hardened observers.
History shows that whoever secures Kandahar, Afghanistan's historic capital, controls the rest of the country.
It is the home province of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and most of the Taliban leadership, including Mullah Mohamad Omar, is from southern Afghanistan. It is seen as the heart of Pashtun civilisation.
But southern Afghanistan is also the country's main theatre of war, where the Taliban insurgency has been at its fiercest.
Generation eliminated
In Kandahar, more than 500 killings of high profile political leaders and influential tribal elders have taken place over the past 10 years, according to figures from various sources including the author's own records.
The most notorious of these killings was that of Aimed Wail Karzai, the president's brother, who was shot dead by his own bodyguard.
But other victims include provincial police chiefs, mayors, district governors, village and religious elders, as well as teachers, doctors and other civilians seen as supporters of the Afghan government and Nato.
There are targeted killings in other parts of the country but analysts believe those carried out in Kandahar could be more than the total number of killings in the rest of Afghanistan combined. These killings have become a weekly, if not daily, occurrence in recent years.
For the people of Kandahar, it feels as if a generation of leaders has been wiped out.
The "assassination" campaign intensified after the US and Nato troop surged south in 2010 in an effort to dislodge the Taliban from the region.
Their mantra at the time: "So goes Kandahar, so goes Afghanistan"; "If Kandahar falls, so goes Afghanistan".
Operations to clear Taliban fighters were viewed as key tests of the counter-insurgency strategy.
But it is precisely because stability came to parts of the south that the Taliban intensified their strategy of eliminating the elite. "The security situation has improved and further measures are being taken to improve security and governance. And that is why the enemies are trying to target government officials to slow this process," says Tooryalai Wesa, governor of Kandahar province.
Conspiracies and confusion
The Taliban have accepted responsibility for nearly all the assassinations. They have repeatedly threatened to target Afghan officials and "all supporters of foreign invaders who are working for the strengthening of foreign domination".
It is undeniable that the Taliban have gained a psychological advantage and publicity from these targeted killings. Even in this dangerous city long accustomed to violence, this has shocked people.
The killings have rocked the country's political elite and decapitated tribal and ethnic networks considered vital to securing stability.
And the situation has bred suspicion, conspiracies and confusion.
Many local people blame Afghanistan's neighbours, especially Pakistan for the killings - an accusation repeatedly denied by Pakistan and others.
The paranoia is embedded deep in the region's psyche.
"More than 40 countries have troops in Afghanistan and many more have their spy networks focus on Kandahar," said one villager who wished to remain anonymous.
"We don't know who is doing what here and who is behind all this mess."
Criminal gangs, drug traffickers and those with personal feuds and rivalries also seem to be taking advantage of this chaotic situation.
Such killings come against a more general backdrop of violence as roadside bombs planted by the Taliban continue to take lives and civilians are killed as Nato and the Afghan security forces battle militants.
"Each day when I go outside, I am not sure whether I will come home alive by the evening or not," says Abdul Hamid, one Kandahar resident.
But one of the biggest casualties of the killings is the lack of confidence in the city and its infrastructure. Many taking a government job know that their decision could have life or death consequences.
"I have been threatened many times, but I have accepted the risk because I want to serve my people in order to have a better future," says a local official who didn't want to be named.
The Taliban make threatening phone calls and leave "night letters" - notes pinned to doors in the dead of night - warning people to leave their government job.
"I have come from Pakistan where I lived as a refugee and didn't have any job," says one local government employee.
"What shall I do if I leave my job and what will I feed my family and children if I don't have a salary?" he asks.
'Hundreds and ones'
Other local officials have resigned or moved to other parts of the country. A number of senior officials have already escaped attacks. Lower level officials and civilians working for the coalition have also been targeted.
People cannot talk openly for fear of reprisals and are careful to criticise Afghan officials, Americans, the Taliban and neighbouring countries.
Another consequence of the killings is the vanquishing of the knowledge and wisdom of generations as tribal elders and village chiefs are murdered. These are the people central government in Kabul rely upon to hold together a restive population as conflict rages about them.
This has particular resonance because leadership is a very important theme in Afghan culture.
"You may lose a hundred but may not lose the one," says one famous Pashto proverb.
It is a sentiment many Afghans understand - and they fear the consequences for Kandahar as it continues to lose so many of the ones.
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In Afghanistan, Don't Forget the Small Stuff
By JADE WU The New York Times October 29, 2012
I spent most of the past year in Afghanistan, where I lived and taught in a rule-of-law program funded by the U.S. government at an American-run Regional Training Center. My R.T.C. housed about 700 men, primarily Afghan police trainees. The international community consisted primarily of American soldiers and civilian contractors as well as military personnel and civilians from other nations. I was the only foreign woman who lived in the camp.
Very few Afghan women ever came into the R.T.C., which was used primarily for police training. Various other groups such as the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan, DynCorp International and the German military offered other courses, focusing on such topics as forensics, crime scene investigation, law and witness interviews. While these programs were opened to Afghans, male and female, who worked in law, law enforcement or community awareness, few Afghan women ever attended. On a normal day in a class of approximately 40 students, none would be female. On the rare occasions when women did attend, they would usually come in groups of two or four and always sat in the back.
Though these programs were in themselves worthwhile and conducted with good intentions, the accommodations in which they were administered actually undermined one of the most important messages the West is trying to send to the Afghans: the inclusion of women in education. Culturally insensitive actions — no matter how small — speak louder than any speech, grant or program.
I was told by Afghan men that women in their culture did not feel comfortable being seen entering a R.T.C. because it hurt their reputation. Many Afghan men do not want their women leaving home without permission, much less leaving it to acquire an education. Though the women who dared to enter our R.T.C. were given training, the camp facilities and services available to them were severely limited.
Upon entering the R.T.C., everyone went through a security check, but there was only one female guard available to search women, and she was often not on duty. This made the security check very intimidating and culturally unacceptable to Afghan women. The idea of allowing a strange male security officer to wave a metal detector close to their bodies, or to put his hand inside their handbags, was seen as an invasion of privacy, a breach of socially accepted norms.
Moreover, there were no female public restrooms in the camp. When I inquired about this, I was told that there was a public restroom available that anyone could use, but, in a culture so sensitive about keeping appropriate distances between men and women, I could see right away that it would be inadequate. The Afghan women were reluctant to enter.
Nor did they want to enter the camp dining hall, where they would have to sit among hundreds of leering male police trainees. They preferred to find a secluded place, like an unused classroom, and have meals brought to them.
The West is pouring millions of dollars into gender-equality programs, but we are not paying enough attention to the small stuff. We need to make training compounds in Afghanistan more user-friendly for women, especially those in rural areas. Full-time female security officers need to be hired. Facilities such as restrooms and dining halls need to accommodate the needs of Afghan women.
Most importantly, if we want to encourage local female participation, we need to hire more female international staff. When Afghan women saw me walking around the center, working with men on an equal level, they saw a symbol of what the future can be.
We put money and manpower into these countries. We say we promote gender inclusiveness and equality. Yet we forget the small stuff. We must make every effort to make our programs accommodate local women. The success of these programs and the future of women in Afghanistan depend on it.
Jade Wu is an attorney in Washington. She has worked in several international development projects abroad, including Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on October 30, 2012, in The International Herald Tribune.
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International Airport to Open Soon in Mazar: Officials
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 28 October 2012
Northern Balkh province will inaugurate a number of large infrastructure projects in the near future including an international airport, local officials said this week.
The building of an international airport, a railway, and a 400-bed hospital in the provincial capital Mazar-e-Sharif are underway alongside a number of infrastructure projects funded mostly with money from international donors, the officials said.
The development of the current provincial airport into an international airport is one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the north of Afghanistan with it almost 90 percent complete, deputy governor Muhammad Zahir Wahdat said.
The airport, being overseen by a Turkish company, is being funded with 40 million euros from Germany and 7 million euros from the United Arabic Emirates, he added.
Wahdat said that the projects could not be done without the international donations.
"We want to thank all those who even donate one pen or one notebook, but really we want to thank those who are making the infrastructure and creating sustainable jobs for us because this is the infrastructures which will lead Afghanistan to prosperity," he said.
He also pointed to the importance of the railway to be built in helping transport commercial goods for cheaper rates and improving connections to neighboring Central Asian markets – also a boost to economic prosperity.
"The Asian Development Bank and the Ministry of Public Works must consider three points while they are contracting: speed, quality and at the same time, a cheap price," Wahdat said.
The Asian Development Bank has also shown an interest in funding for the construction of a railway from Naiab Abad- Aqena and a railway from Tajikistan to Mazar-e-Sharif, he added.
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Nangarhar Customs Revenue Grows More Than 20%
TOLOnews.com By Mirwais Sahil Sunday, 28 October 2012
The customs revenue of eastern Nangarhar province increased 22 percent in the first six months of the Persian year compared to the same period last year after a crackdown on graft and the black market.
Despite a reduction in drink imports because of increased domestic production, and problems stemming from transport through Pakistan port, the province's customs revenue still rose 22 percent in the first half (March 22 to September 22) compared to last year's first half, according to head of Nangarhar customs Ehsanullah Kamawal.
Locals officials said the revenue increase was the result of a tougher line on corruption and on goods smuggling from across the border with Pakistan, adding that the increased revenue for the year compared to last year may be as a high as a 50 percent.
"Our trade has dropped almost 80 percent compared to last year but still we have been able to increase our revenue by 20 to 22 percent," Kamawal told TOLOnews.
Meanwhile, amid efforts to ensure customs taxes are paid to eliminate corruption and goods-smuggling, Kamawal said a number of traders who over the years have not paid their customs taxes have been identified and will be dealt with under the law.
"Many smugglers who conducted trade illegally last year, buying goods illegally and avoiding taxes, have been marked and we have made complete files against them. One by one we will catch them and will pay the last year taxes from them towards the government revenue," he said.
According to Kamawal, Turkham port in Nangarhar has the highest amount of trade flow in Afghanistan mainly because of its proximity to Pakistan.
The government is scheduled to build a new equipped building in addition to the existing one for Nangarhar Customs in order to further increase facilities for traders and increase government revenue in the long-term.
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