[Afghan News] September 7, 2011

[یاسمینه]

Pakistan 'main threat' to Afghanistan: US senator
AFP
Pakistan is the "main threat" to Afghanistan and its intelligence service is "the biggest danger" to the government in Kabul, a US senator recently returned from the region warned Tuesday.
Republican Senator Mark Kirk, just returned from a two-week stint serving as a US Naval Reserve Intelligence Commander, charged in a speech that the militant Haqqani network is "backed and protected" by Pakistan's powerful spy agency.
"Statements by Pakistani government officials to the contrary are direct lies," Kirk said in a transcript of his address provided by his office.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has long been held to keep contact with militants operating in the wild tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border who plague US-led forces fighting the Afghan war.
"Let me be clear: many Americans died in Afghanistan because of Pakistan's ISI," said the lawmaker, who declared it was time to rethink potentially "counter-productive" US aid to Islamabad.
"Pakistan has become the main threat to Afghanistan. Pakistan's intelligence service is the biggest danger to the Afghan government. It is also a tremendous threat to the lives of American troops," said Kirk.
Affiliated with the Taliban, the Haqqani network is considered the most dangerous enemy of US troops in eastern Afghanistan.
It was founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani and is run by his son, Sirajuddin, both of them already designated "global terrorists" by Washington.
The network has been blamed for some of the deadliest anti-US attacks in Afghanistan, including a suicide attack at a US base in the eastern province of Khost in 2009 that killed seven CIA operatives.
"It has become the most dangerous, lethal and cancerous force in Afghanistan," said Kirk, who declared he had had a change of heart about Pakistan as a result of his service.
"I first served as a reservist in Afghanistan in 2008. I believed that Pakistan was 'complicated,' that 'we have many interests there' and that we must advance 'diplomatically.' I no longer agree with that," he said.
"In such an environment, and with our deficits and debt, aid to Pakistan seems naive at best and counter-productive at worst. I am seriously reconsidering and rethinking how well aid to Pakistan served us," he said.

Afghan Envoy: Taliban Leaders Still A Mystery
by NPR September 7, 2011
As war grinds on in Afghanistan, there is increasing talk about finding a negotiated solution. It's a complicated proposition that would presumably involve the Afghan government, the United States, Pakistan, the Taliban and potentially others as well.
One man who would be a key figure in any negotiation is Umar Daudzai.
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has made Daudzai his ambassador and special envoy to Pakistan.
Morning Edition co-host Renee Montagne met with Daudzai, who said he was pleased that NATO now was in favor of working out a deal with the Taliban. He acknowledged, though, that the Taliban remains a difficult group to figure out.
Umar Daudzai: With Taliban, our information about their structure and about their decision-making mechanism is not good enough. We don't really clearly know how it works within the Taliban, because [it] is not a political entity, it's a purely military entity. Sometimes you hear of somebody being an important commander one day, and the other day he is not. And then someday somebody from nowhere appears and becomes the most important commander. So it's not a clear structure.
Renee Montagne: There's even been cases, rather well-known, of somebody who was, apparently, an impostor, who was taken seriously.
Daudzai: Correct. And that's also an indication that our information about the Taliban structure is not good enough. And the Taliban have no political face, so [even though] we see them as a political entity, they don't have a political address.
Montagne: But is not Mullah Omar, who may be the biggest name in America outside Osama bin Laden, the political face and the leader who is reachable as a real person of the Taliban?
Daudzai: He was their supreme leader when Taliban were in power in Kabul. And now, they do say that he is still the leader, but we don't know. I can't say for sure if all decisions are made by Mullah Omar or if Mullah Omar is chairing a council that's making decisions.
Montagne: But you would seem to be one of the people on this planet who have the best information about the Taliban's structure. Do you have some evidence that he isn't the actual person in control?
Daudzai: You don't see his picture, like you'll see picture of Osama bin Laden speaking. You don't see picture of Mullah Omar speaking. We don't even hear his audio voice.
Montagne: Could he be sick or dead?
Daudzai: My current information is that he is not dead, and he is not sick. But it's a question of to what extent is he making the decisions, alone. The most powerful people in the Taliban structure are the more active, the cruelest of their commanders. The one who causes most damage to the Afghan government and United States, they are the most powerful, when it comes to the power of decision-making.
Montagne: So the cruelest might be the younger and less open to negotiation?
Daudzai: The cruelest and the youngest, that are not exposed to global politics. They may be even more difficult to reconcile, which would be bad news, which is bad news.
Montagne: Well then, that does not seem to be too hopeful for talks if somebody at your level and with your knowledge sees the Taliban as something of a mystery.
Daudzai: When you talk about success, it doesn't only come through a reconciliation process. We have other ways also. We don't only follow the path of reconciliation. We follow the path of regional collaboration, regional coordination with countries in the region, and also we also the military line also. We don't give up on that. So reconciliation is one of the three pillars of our strategy for success.
Montagne: Speaking about the region gets us to Pakistan. Pakistan has never gone after the Afghanistan Taliban leadership that is thought to be in its country, and while they've denied it, there's lots of evidence that that's the case. Where does Pakistan today stand in all of this? Does it have any motivation at this point in time to aid in the reconciliation of the Taliban with the Afghanistan government?
Daudzai: I can only tell you what I have picked up from reading the Pakistani mind. Pakistan wants a friendly government in Afghanistan. We need to convince them that there are other ways to ensure friendliness of an Afghan administration towards Pakistan, without even Taliban. You don't have to bring Taliban to Kabul to make sure that Afghan administration is friendly towards you.
Montagne: What are you saying would be a good reason for doing this?
Daudzai: There are many ways that we discuss with the government of Pakistan. One, we always remind them that five, six years ago there were no Pakistani Taliban. And now there are Pakistani Taliban. And there are Pakistani Taliban because there is conflict in Afghanistan. So we're trying to convince them that prolongation of the conflict will not remain limited to Afghanistan.
Montagne: So it's a danger to Pakistan.
Daudzai: It's a danger to Pakistan. So we are reminding them from that point of view. We are also telling them that we are trying our best to understand your legitimate interests in Afghanistan and your legitimate concerns in Afghanistan, we are trying to understand, which is basically economic, which is access towards Central Asia through Afghanistan, which we share that interest, that's an advantage for us, too. But to say that we have reached the stage that we have convinced them to cooperate with us, to encourage Taliban, to go for reconciliation talks with us, we are not yet there, but I am fairly optimistic that we will get there, inshallah.
Montagne: Is there any reconciliation possible without Pakistan having a big hand in that?
Daudzai: No, it's not possible. And I would rather say, without their genuine and sincere support, we will not achieve any result.

NATO stops sending detainees to Afghan jails after abuse reports
Washington Post By Ernesto Londono Wednesday, September 7, 2011
KABUL - NATO officials in Afghanistan stopped transferring detainees to Afghan custody in several provinces this week in response to a U.N. investigation that found evidence of systematic torture at some detention centers, the military command said Tuesday night.
The move represents a serious setback for the United States and its allies in Afghanistan at a time when the international community is beginning to pull out troops and shift more responsibility for security to the Afghans.
The findings of a report on detainee abuse, which the U.N. mission here intends to make public in coming days, will probably embolden insurgent groups, which have sought to portray Afghan officials as lackeys of Western crusaders.
Senior NATO officials decided to stop transferring detainees to Afghan custody in several key provinces after human rights investigators with the United Nations briefed them on the findings. The review of detention facilities had been underway for nearly a year.
A NATO official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, called the detainee-transfer suspension “prudent” and said it will be in place until military officials “can verify the observations” in the report.
The U.N. team said it found evidence of widespread torture at five provincial facilities run by the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, and two jails run by police, officials familiar with the findings said.
The NDS-run facilities where NATO has stopped sending detainees are in Khost, Laghman and Kapisa provinces, in the east; Herat, in the west; and Takhar, in the north. Transfers to the NDS’s counterterrorism jail in Kabul also were suspended.
The two affected police jails are in Uruzgan province in the south and Kunduz province in the northeast.
NATO suspended detainee transfers in Kandahar province, the Taliban’s birthplace, last month, also in response to credible allegations of detainee abuse.
The main spokesman for the NDS was out of the country Tuesday, and other officials at the agency declined to comment. NDS officials said they would hold a news conference Wednesday morning.
Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said Tuesday night that senior Afghan officials were recently briefed on the review team’s conclusions.
“We understand they are taking the findings very seriously and are proposing a series of remedial actions,” he said. “Our findings indicate the mistreatment of detainees is not institutional or government policy.”
The BBC, which disclosed the U.N. probe Tuesday night, reported that detainees told investigators that jailers suspended inmates in stress positions, subjected them to electric shocks, threatened them with sexual assault and beat them with rubber hoses.
Under Afghan law, the NDS is supposed to hold suspects for no more than 72 hours, but inmates are commonly kept in the agency’s detention facilities for lengthy periods without being charged.
The United States had hoped to transfer the country’s most high-profile prison, located at Bagram air base, to Afghan control by January 2012, but officials have decided that they cannot responsibly meet that deadline.

Afghans defend treatment of detainees as humane
By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A NATO decision to stop transferring detainees to some Afghan-run detention centers is unjustified and damages the handover of security to local forces, the Afghan government charged on Wednesday.
The British Broadcasting Corp. reported Tuesday that a pending U.N. report alleges that prisoners at some Afghan detention facilities have been beaten and, in some cases, given electric shocks.
As a result, NATO has suspended detainee transfers to a number of questionable facilities until it can verify if the allegations are true, a NATO official told The Associated Press. The official spoke anonymously because the report had not been officially released.
A spokesman for the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said the U.N. had already presented the core of its findings to Afghan authorities.
Interior Minister Besmillah Mohammadi and Rahmatullah Nabil, head of the Afghan intelligence service, described the decision to suspend detainee transfers as politically motivated and aimed at slowing down the transition of security responsibilities to the Afghan government.
Afghanistan is gradually taking over responsibility for the country's security from the U.S.-led military coalition as foreign forces aim to withdraw all their combat troops by the end of 2014.
The Afghan government "believes that any move to halt the transfer of prisoners under any false excuses is a serious blow to the transition process," Mohammadi and Nabil said.
"The Afghan security agencies strongly reject the allegations," Mohammadi said.
Also Wednesday, a French paratrooper was killed by insurgent fire during an operation in the eastern province of Kapisa, the French president's office said in a statement. At least five international service members have been killed so far this month in Afghanistan.

Afghan Army Attracts Few Where Fear Reigns
By RAY RIVERA The New York Times September 6, 2011
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Every morning, jobless young men gather by the hundreds at the busy central square here in this southern city, desperate for whatever work they can find. In other places, this would be an army recruiter’s dream. Not so in Kandahar.
Many of the men here have brothers and cousins in the insurgency, or are former fighters themselves. Others fear what would happen to them or their families if they joined the Afghan Army. “I don’t want to be killed by the Taliban,” Janan, 30, who like many Afghans goes by one name, said on a recent day as he jostled with the crowd under a scorching sun.
Afghan and NATO officials have long struggled to entice young men in the heavily Pashtun south — the Taliban heartland — to join the Afghan Army. Despite years of efforts to increase the enlistment of southern Pashtuns, an analysis of recruitment patterns by The New York Times shows that the number of them joining the army remains relatively minuscule, reflecting a deep and lingering fear of the insurgents, or sympathy for them, as well as doubts about the stability and integrity of the central government in Kabul, the capital.
The influx of tens of thousands of American troops, who have pushed the Taliban back in much of the south, has done little to ease those concerns or to lift recruitment. In some places, the numbers of southern Pashtun recruits are actually shrinking, causing an overall decline of nearly 30 percent in the past five months, compared with the same period a year ago.
With the deadline for the withdrawal of most foreign forces in 2014, the need to enlist more southern Pashtuns is pressing if Afghanistan is to have a national army that resembles the ethnic and geographic makeup of the country. It is no small concern. The absence of southern Pashtuns reinforces the impression here that the army is largely a northern institution — to be used against them — and what Afghan and Western officials worry is a dangerous division of the country.
“If you go and talk to ordinary Afghans in Kandahar, they believe the government will collapse in a week or two,” said Dr. Mahmood Khan, a member of Parliament from Kandahar. “People are still kind of under the spell of the Taliban. They believe it is not only stronger than the government, but that their intelligence is stronger. They can find out very soon if your son or brother is serving in the army.”
The predominantly Pashtun southern and southeastern provinces — Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan, Zabul, Paktika and Ghazni — make up about 17 percent of Afghanistan’s total population, yet they contributed just 1.5 percent of the soldiers recruited since 2009.
Some progress has been made, but merely in percentage terms; Kandahar and Helmand more than doubled their number of recruits last year from the previous year. The raw numbers, however, are discouraging, and Afghan officials worry that the recent erosion of security in Kandahar City could reverse the few gains they have made.
The two provinces are home to nearly two million people. Yet since 2009 they have contributed fewer than 1,200 soldiers to the army, less than 1 percent of the nearly 173,000 enlistees in that period. By comparison, Kunduz, a northern province of about 900,000 people, enlisted more than 16,500 recruits.
Oruzgan, a province of more than 300,000 residents, had 14 recruits all of last year.
Not surprisingly, the vast majority of recruits come from provinces in the north and northeast, where the insurgency is weaker. While the overall representation of Pashtuns, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group, in the army is equitable — they make up about 42 percent of the population and roughly the same percentage of the army — the vast majority come from a few northeastern provinces. More than a third come from Nangarhar Province alone.
Trying to lure more southern Pashtuns, Ministry of Defense officials have made it easier for them to qualify for officer candidate school and have assigned two southern Pashtun generals to the region to focus on recruiting.
“Their job is to reach out to their communities and explain why it’s not only honorable, but it’s the right thing to do to join the army and to send your sons to join the army,” said Maj. Gen. D. Michael Day, the Canadian Army officer in charge of military training for NATO. “Because unless the elders, unless some recognized authority figure says this is what we should be doing, it doesn’t get done.”
An assassination campaign in the south has hampered those efforts. In the past two years, suicide bombers and armed men on motorcycles have struck down dozens of tribal elders sympathetic to the government, high-level officials and even civil servants.
“People are afraid,” said Abdul Ghani, deputy director of the Kandahar army recruiting center. “When we have assassinations and bombings every day like we have now, it really affects recruiting.”
The center, operating out of a lonely cinder-block compound guarded by a machine-gun tower, sends teams of recruiters into the city and outlying districts every day armed with leaflets and posters. The increase in American troops has made it easier for the teams to expand into more villages. Still, about half of the province’s 16 districts remain cut off, Mr. Ghani said.
The recruiters themselves live under constant threat. Last year a group of men beat a recruiter after he spoke to a group of young people in a city bazaar. So far, though, most have been lucky. They have not had the kind of attack like the suicide bombing in March that killed 36 people at recruiting center in Kunduz.
Recruiters must also compete with drug lords: Kandahar and Helmand Provinces are the country’s largest producers of opium, and recruiting, desertion and even violence fluctuate with the poppy harvest.
Where the recruiters have had the most difficulty is in persuading local mullahs, Muslim religious leaders, to join in the effort.
“One word from a mullah is worth a thousand words from me,” Mr. Ghani said. But, he added, the mullahs “are not helping us right now, because they are afraid.”
“They know if they preach for two or three days advocating for us, their heads will be cut off.”
In interviews with several mullahs in and around Kandahar, fear was evident in their voices. Many simply refused to discuss recruiting.
“If I start telling people to send your sons to the Afghan Army, I am sure I’ll be asking for death,” said Mullah Ramazan, who is from Loya Wala north of Kandahar city. “If someone seeks my suggestion whether he should join the army or abandon it, I will not encourage him or discourage him. I will simply say, ‘Do what your heart tells you.’ ”
In Oruzgan, where recruiting has sharply fallen, to 14 last year from 60 enlistments two years ago, plenty of young men have promised to enlist, if only they could do so without anyone in their village knowing about it, said Col. Karimullah Qurbani, director of the army recruiting center there. Unfortunately, he said, recruitment screening rules make that impossible, requiring two village elders to vouch for each recruit.
Until recently, more than 60 percent of the army’s southern Pashtuns came from Nimruz and Farah, two of the most stable provinces in the south. But since March, recruiting in both areas has sharply fallen — by more than 50 percent in Nimruz alone — a symptom, local recruiters say, of the westward movement of insurgents who have been pushed out of Helmand and begun intimidation campaigns against potential recruits in the two provinces.
Last month, insurgents beheaded three villagers in Farah whom they accused of joining the army, said Col. Sayed Mohammed, director of the army recruitment center there. “In fact they had no link with the army,” he said. “They weren’t even with the army. They were ordinary villagers.”
As the numbers have fallen, some top Ministry of Defense officials have begun playing down the importance of strong southern Pashtun representation in the army, while at the same time maintaining that it is a priority.
For now, NATO and Afghan officials have set the goal for the army’s southern Pashtun representation at a modest 4 percent, a reflection of the challenges that lie ahead. Even without them, the army is on pace to meet its goal of 195,000 soldiers by October 2012, NATO officials said.
Still, General Day is hopeful that the security improvements gained in the past eight months will gradually begin paying more dividends in the months ahead as the southern population becomes more tolerant of NATO and Afghan forces.
“One thing our analysis has shown us is no matter how good our recruiting is, the southern Pashtun nation will wait and see,” he said. “They are survivalists.”
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, and Sangar Rahimi and Abdul Waheed Wafa from Kabul, Afghanistan.

6 Afghan army personnel killed, 9 injured: statement
KABUL, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- A total of six soldiers and officers with the Afghan National Army (ANA) have been killed and nine others injured in Taliban-led attacks and roadside bombings in the country over the past 24 hours, said a statement issued by Afghan Defense Ministry on Wednesday.
"During routine patrols, six personnel of ANA had killed and nine others injured as a result of enemies' fire and mine explosions in Kandahar, Badghis and Logar provinces over the past 24 hours," the statement said.
The injured have been evacuated to army hospitals, it further said.
According to the statement, Afghan army, backed by NATO-led forces, during joint cleanup and military operations, have eliminated four insurgents and detained 31 more suspected terrorists in Wadak, Kandahar, Nangarhar, Kunduz, Faryab and Helmand provinces in the same timetable.
The joint forces also seized a motorbike, three radio handsets and a handful of weapons and ammunitions during the same operations.
The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since the militant group announced to launch spring offensive from May 1 against Afghan and NATO-led troops stationed in Afghanistan.
Presently, around 140,000-strong NATO forces with majority of them Americans have been stationed in insurgency-hit central Asian state.

Afghanistan's Shrinking Security Forces: A Gaping Hole in Obama's War Strategy
by Tony Karon time.com Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 11:27 pm
The military intervention in Afghanistan that began a month after the 9/11 attacks is the longest war in U.S. history, costing 1,750 American lives (and counting) and upward of $300 billion (and counting). And it's becoming harder to believe Washington's promises that the end is in sight. President Obama will, this year, withdraw 30,000 of the 100,000 troops currently serving in Afghanistan, drawing to an end the surge he initiated soon after coming into office. And, according to Obama's script, in 2014 the U.S. will hand over security control of the country to the Afghan National Army, currently being built at a cost of almost $12 billion a year -- allowing the U.S. to leave behind a residual force of less than 20,000 troops.
All well and good in theory, as long as the Afghan National Army hasn't entirely disappeared by then. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that NATO figures show that the first six months of 2011 saw 24,000 ANA soldiers simply walk off the job. That's one in seven soldiers of the force's 170,000 troops, an alarming rate of desertion that at one point in the summer reached an annualized rate of 35%. And Barbara Slavin at IPS was told by Brig. Gen. Guy "Tom" Cosentino, deputy commanding general for regional support at the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, that last year's attrition rate was 32 percent, and is currently on track to reach a figure of 24% for 2011 -- i.e. one in four soldiers.
The idea that the Afghan security forces will take over the fight against the Taliban when the U.S.-led foreign contingent leaves has always seemed a little fanciful, given their track record in the field until now and the very limited support enjoyed by the Karzai government they would be defending. But if one in four Afghan soldiers is cutting and running thee years before the U.S. is scheduled to depart -- well, let's just say President Obama's Afghanistan strategy is based on assumptions that are, to put it mildly, decidedly optimistic.
Of course, the unspoken but obvious component of the U.S. strategy involves a political settlement: The prospect of the shaky Afghan security forces succeeding where NATO has failed until now in suppressing the Taliban is obviously fanciful. The surge strategy was couched as a plan to inflict sufficient pain on the Taliban in the field to make the insurgents more amenable to the terms of the U.S. and its allies for a negotiated solution. But even that strategy requires making the Taliban feel as if they're losing the war. Right now, despite U.S. forces killing hundreds of Taliban local and mid-level commanders and senior U.S. officers insisting that the insurgency is suffering , the Taliban doesn't seem to agree. Indeed, the insurgency would claim to have had a very good summer. August was the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since the war began, with 66 killed. And despite frequent U.S. military claims about stopping the Taliban's momentum, violence in Afghanistan actually increased by more than 50% during the second year of President Obama's troop surge.
The Taliban may, indeed, be signaling an increased willingness to talk, but strictly on their own terms. Well aware of the growing strain on the U.S. and other cash-strapped NATO countries of maintaining an open-ended commitment to an expeditionary war, it's not hard to see why the Taliban may believe that time, and momentum, is on their side.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar, in his Eid message that closed out the Ramadan fast last month, expressed pleasure at the setbacks his forces had inflicted on the Americans, but at the same time signaled an intent to talk. Indeed, he made clear that talks between the Taliban and the U.S. are already under way, although he stressed those were focused on prisoner exchanges rather than a political settlement to the conflict. Still, longtime Taliban watcher Ahmed Rashid sees Mullah Omar preparing his own side for a political settlement."The talks have dealt with prisoner releases as part of confidence building measures to create the right atmosphere for a wider and more sustained political dialogue," Rashid writes, adding that "By acknowledging that there have been contacts with the Americans, Mullah Omar is sending a clear message to his fighters that future political talks are a possibility, while signaling to the Americans that he may eventually be prepared to broaden the scope of the dialogue and those already participating in it."
But whereas the official U.S. position has always been that the Taliban must accept the Afghan constitution drawn up in the wake of the invasion and integrate itself into the post-invasion political process, Mullah Omar talks of a "real Islamic regime which is acceptable to all people of the country" and in which "all ethnicities will have participation in the regime". Also he promises that the Taliban won't seek to monopolize power as it did after its 1996 takeover. In other words, the Taliban expects to set the terms for a political solution rather than accept those demanded by the United States and its allies.
The question of which side will have to accept more of the other's terms will be determined by the balance of power on the ground. But Taliban leaders are clearly imagining that time, momentum and the limits of their adversary's commitment to the war are working in their favor. Those who hope to see U.S. and NATO forces going home in large numbers by 2014, then, had best hope they can persuade some of those tens of thousands of Afghan National Army deserters to return to their posts.

Afghan war: What some local officials are willing to do for peace
The Christian Science Monitor By Tom A. Peter Tue Sep 6, 2011
Pul-i-Alam, Afghanistan - After spending most of his life as a fighter – first as a mujadhideen during the Soviet invasion and most recently as a general in the Afghan Army during the current war – Atiqullah Ludin is among a growing group of local leaders who say they no longer believe fighting will bring peace.
So Mr. Ludin, who is now the governor of Logar Province, helped launch an effort to end the violence in his increasingly troubled province by starting independent, direct negotiations with insurgents in his area.
“I can’t just watch my people get hurt by the insecurity, so I started these talks,” says Ludin, whose predecessor, Abdullah Wardak was assassinated in 2008 by the Taliban. “I fought with the Taliban a lot [before I was governor], so now I’ve changed my thinking and started working for peace. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
Throughout Afghanistan a number of local government officials like Ludin have begun looking for ways to convince insurgents to put down their guns and support the government. Although they’re not authorized to make any official compromises or deals with the Taliban, officials in Kabul hope this local effort to end violence in the provinces will pave the way for larger talks.
“Since this process of reconciliation has started under the High Peace Council everyone in the provinces, whether a governor or a tribal elder, is advised to help us in this process,” says Haji Musa Hotec, a member of the High Peace Council, which was formed by President Hamid Karzai last year to facilitate negotiations. “They’re just inviting them to join the government and come home."
Situated directly to the south of Kabul, Logar’s proximity to the capital makes it a strategically critical province. If security continues to deteriorate there the ripple effect will likely be felt far beyond its borders.
Since this spring there has been about one beheading per month in Logar, along with a number of other violent attacks. One of the most recent incidents took place a little more than a month ago when insurgents beheaded two people and shot another two inside the provincial capital of Pul-i-Alam.
About two weeks ago, three Afghan soldiers were kidnapped within about a mile of the provincial police headquarters. Two were killed and the third is still being held hostage.
“With this situation here, nobody wants to invest in Logar. People are losing both money and their lives,” says Mohammad Kasim, who runs an electronics repair shop in Pul-i-Alam. “I don’t feel safe in my own house.”
By bringing militants to the table, local officials hope to stop the fighting province by province.
“In my opinion, the one and only way for long-term peace is to sit for negotiations and to listen to the Taliban commanders and accept some of their wants and requests,” says Wahidullah Arghushi, deputy police chief for Logar, adding that he feels this way despite his belief that security forces are now making progress against militants in the area. “If negotiations don’t take place than the situation will remain like this and the fighting will continue, and it will not have any results.”
Some Afghan government officials, however, stress that such an effort won’t be easy. Chief among their concerns is that local efforts like those in Logar expend too much effort for too little in return.
“Pursuing peace through these options is not successful. We’ve always suggested that we should talk to the leadership and those who have command positions in the Taliban, but some others are saying we should start with ordinary Taliban members,” says Mr. Hotec. “This is hard to do because it takes a lot of effort to go after a single Taliban and convince him to come back to the government. One day he will promise to meet and the next day they will disappear, so it turns into a complicated issue.”
Even communicating with high-level insurgents from the Taliban and other groups has proven problematic, as was demonstrated last winter when a Pakistani shopkeeper duped NATO into believing he was a key Taliban leader.
Some residents of Logar also worry that their government’s efforts will be met with little success, as traditional negotiations here require a third party mediator, not just both sides – the government and the insurgency – directly talking to one another.
Government officials in Logar, however, insist that they can make peace in their province despite the central governmentâs struggles talking to the Taliban.
“If the government continues to try to stand against the Taliban with force, this is the truth that we know: The Taliban has control of 70 percent of the provinces in Afghanistan, so this not the way to bring peace,” says Abdul Wali Wakil, head of the Logar Provincial Council. “We hope that we will find a way to make peace in Logar this winter.”

Official: More Than Half of Afghan Provinces Poppy-Free
September 06, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Poppy cultivation has been eradicated from more than half of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.
That's according to the country's minister for counter-narcotics, Zarar Ahmad Moqbel Osmani, who made his remarks in Kabul at a conference of drug enforcement officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Russia.
Osmani said despite the progress, poppy cultivation remains high in those parts of the country where the Taliban insurgency is at its most deadly.
Taliban-led militants are believed to derive $100-$400 million a year from opium production and drug trafficking.
Afghanistan supplies nearly 80 percent of the world's opium.
Reuters

Civilization conflict, a factor lengthening war in Afghanistan - Afghan experts
by Farid Behbud, Zhang Jianhua
KABUL, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- The so-called civilization clash or conflict could have been a factor in prolonging the decade-long war on terror in post-Taliban country, Afghan experts said in an interview recently with Xinhua, ahead of the upcoming 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
"I think, in general, when the cold war came to an end and with the start of the 1990s, the global politics has moved to an approach of clash and conflict of civilization and that the Huntington theory could be a start to mark that conflict between civilizations," Abdul Qaum Sejade, a political analyst and member of Afghan Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of Parliament, maintained.
"The policy of West on the talk on Islam and reflection of Islam as a religion of terrific and grime could be one part of civilization conflict that Huntington said in his theory. However, the western politicians had tried their best for reservation of this fact and tried to stop this pose," Sejade believed.
The Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.
The War in Afghanistan began on Oct. 7, 2001, under the U.S.- led coalition which included the U.K., several other countries and the then Afghan United Front or Northern Alliance, dubbed " Operation Enduring Freedom" with the stated goal of dismantling the Taliban and al-Qaida terrorist organization based in Afghanistan. The United States also said that it would remove the Taliban regime from power and create a viable democratic government.
However, after 10 years it seems that the war on terror has been challenged after Taliban made a bloody comeback just a couple of years after their regime was toppled.
"As you know, the war on terror begun nearly a decade ago and the 9/11 attack followed the presence of international community, the West and United States in Afghanistan. On that time also many western politicians had talked about a clash between civilizations. "
He mentioned that some western politicians once used the term of Christians' Medieval War to describe the attacks on U.S. interests and the response of the United States.
"We witnessed that the Westerners have often given the same definition for fundamentalism and terrorism over the past decade of war in Afghanistan. And that introduces the whole Islam as a religion of extremism. These examples could demonstrate that there has been a clash or conflict between western and Islam civilizations that could cause more problems in future," he elaborated.
Meanwhile, Erphanullah Erphan, member of Mashrano Jirga or Upper House of Afghan parliament, told Xinhua, "If we have a glance for U.S. military activities here. The behavior of the U.S. and coalition forces over the past decade of war in Afghanistan could reflect that there has been a civilization conflict. For example, the U.S. and coalition forces did not pay attention to Afghans' religious, culture and thoughts, all demonstrate that there was civilization conflict in this part of the world. And that our doubt gets weight that there has been a conflict between Western and Islam civilizations, have been taking place now like never before."
Erphan called on Americans and Afghan government to pay efforts to stop misunderstanding between the two civilizations.
"If they did not bring changes in such actions, doubts about civilization collide would get weight day by day. I hope they should recognize this sensitivity and sensibility. If no change, I think the U.S. and coalition will face the same fate which British and Soviet Union have seen here in past decades," Erphan said.
However, Erphan is unsure about U.S. success in the war on terror.
"Finally, to comment on relation between Afghanistan and other countries, I want to say any relation which goes against the base of our religion, gracious culture and national identity would not be accepted by our people and further cause fraction between civilizations," he asserted.

Overcoming terrorism requires regional cooperation: Afghan expert
by Farid Behbud, Zhang Jianhua
KABUL, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- In order to overcome the threat of terrorism and maintain peace and stability in Afghanistan and in the region, regional cooperation is needed, an Afghan analyst maintained.
"In order to eradicate terrorism in Afghanistan and from this part of the world, we need regional cooperation and so terrorism is not a threat to Afghanistan alone, rather it threats the entire region and the whole world," Haroun Mir, who heads a Kabul-based think tank -- Afghanistan's Center for Research & Policy Studies, told Xinhua in a recent interview here in Afghan capital Kabul.
Mir attached the regional stability to durable security in Afghanistan, saying that a stable Afghanistan would benefit the region and boost economic and trade activities in the whole region.
"If we have a regional cooperation in the war against terrorism, I am pretty convinced that we could overcome this challenge and would be able to defeat terrorists," he said.
"And this requires the cooperation of Pakistan, Iran, China, India, Russia and central Asian countries as well as countries from the Persian Gulf, because lots of financial support for Taliban and other terrorist networks come from very wealthy Gulf countries, and we need cooperation at the regional level and even at the global level," the analyst stressed.
The war in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, under the U.S.- led coalition which included British, several other countries and the then Afghan United Front or Northern Alliance, dubbed " Operation Enduring Freedom" with the stated goal of dismantling the Taliban and al-Qaida terrorist organization based in Afghanistan. The United States also said that it would remove the Taliban regime from power and create a viable democratic government.
Anti-Taliban leader and commander of Northern Alliance Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated in a suicide attack by some Arabs pretending to be journalists on September 9, 2001, and two days later the September 11 attacks on the United States happened.
"I think the United States, after a decade of commitment in Afghanistan, has reached the conclusion that the counter- insurgency strategy has not worked in Afghanistan," Mir said.
Mir noted that U.S. President Barack Obama now decided to drawdown American forces after his decision in late 2009 to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
"And now the United States is devising a new counter-terrorism strategy in Afghanistan which would require few American forces and they are trying to invest on the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF)," he said.
This is the reason why the U.S. and NATO officials are focusing more on the transfer of security to the ANSF by the end of 2014, he added.
Asked whether the current strategy on terror works, he replied, "I think no, the Americans have not been able to defeat the Taliban, because just by killing rank and file Taliban militants it is not enough to defeat them, because the Taliban leadership still possibly enjoys safe havens in Pakistan and Afghanistan- Pakistan border areas," said Mir.
And this is the reason why the Americans have not been able to defeat the Taliban because they started this war with the cooperation of wrong ally, executing a double standard policy which on the one hand sides the U.S. in the war on terror and on the other shelters the Taliban and associate insurgents.
"The situation is also getting worse day by day. We witness another serious attack in Kabul. The Taliban have been able to increase their terrorist attacks in Kabul and other big cities," he said.
He said that despite U.S. military surge in Afghanistan the Taliban have been able to expand their territory and start insurgency in the relatively peaceful northern provinces of Afghanistan.
This year particularly by going after government officials and senior political leaders, the Taliban have assassinated several ranking officials, he added.
The political assassination in Afghanistan is also having a very negative impact on the war against terrorism -- for example the assassination of President Karzai's brother and other important political figures in Afghanistan has certainly undermine stability, Mir believed.
They are trying to weaken the government and their objective is to not allow a smooth transfer of security responsibility from NATO-led forces to the ANSF - and to undermine the Afghan institutions and ultimately the Afghan state, he said.
Commenting on U.S. forces drawdown begun in mid-July this year, Mir said, "The drawdown of American forces will empower the Taliban. It will bolster the Taliban position and I think the Taliban now are convinced that they are not defeated but have been able to resist a mighty force such as the American and NATO forces."

Hundreds March For Losing Afghan Candidates
September 6, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
KABUL -- Hundreds of people have marched in Afghanistan in support of losing candidates who are disputing the results of last year's parliamentary elections, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reports.
The marchers walked for several hours on September 6 along a dangerous highway from Maidan Shahr, the capital of central Wardak Province, to the capital Kabul, many of them chanting slogans for justice over the fraud-marred elections.
Organizers say 5,000 people took part, though officials put the number only in the hundreds.
The second post-Taliban parliamentary elections in September 2010 have been embroiled in disputes and accusations of widespread fraud. Winners and losers in the elections have since held protests inside the assembly and on the streets.
The march on September 6 was led by Daud Sultanzoi, who was among 62 losing candidates who challenged the election results in a special court.
Earlier this summer the court declared them winners, saying 62 lawmakers should be unseated. But the Independent Election Commission last month decided to replace only nine members of the lower house of the Afghan parliament.
Sultanzoi now leads protests by the remaining candidates.
Sultanzoi maintained that the march was peaceful and vowed to turn the sporadic protests into a movement to solve his country's multiple problems.
"We will continue our protest as long as the critical problems of the people are not addressed by delivering good governance, justice and establishing a sustainable independent political system," he said.
"We demand that the president implement the judicial decision. If he fails to do so and continues to strike [political] deals over such decisions, we might demand his resignation."
Separately, supporters of the nine former lawmakers who were forcefully barred from entering the legislature on September 3 have also announced protests.
A group of sitting lawmakers has indicated it will stage a boycott in protest if the nine are kept out of the parliament.
Yet another coalition of losing candidates has also vowed to continue protests. They are calling for the current parliament to be scrapped so that a new legislature can be elected in transparent elections.

Afghan hero Massoud's assassination a prelude to 9/11
(AFP) – September 6, 2011
PANJSHIR, Afghanistan — Ten years after he was killed by Al-Qaeda, Ahmad Shah Massoud is revered by many Afghans as a hero whose murder just two days before 9/11 was designed to eliminate resistance to the Taliban.
His vision of a united Afghanistan is far from realised, but photographs of the French-speaking, poetry-loving, ethnic Tajik leader still cover Kabul, frequently displayed in car windows, shops, guard huts and even on billboards.
The legacy of the "Lion of Panjshir" still holds great sway over parts of the country, and the date of his assassination is now a national holiday, while his tomb is being developed into a $10 million tourist attraction.
A decade ago, Massoud and his Northern Alliance, which controlled parts of the Afghan northeast, led the only remaining resistance to the Taliban, who earned international notoriety by hosting Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Al-Qaeda intended to kill Massoud three weeks earlier, sending two bombers disguised as reporters to request an interview with him, but he made them wait for 22 days before granting the pair a 5-minute interview that proved deadly.
Had he been killed earlier as planned, experts predict the Northern Alliance would have fallen and put the US-led invasion of October 2001 in jeopardy without its crucial Afghan partners.
"The goal was to eliminate all types of resistance before the September 11 attacks," said Afghan analyst Haroon Mir.
"The Afghan resistance would have collapsed if Massoud had been killed earlier and the Taliban could have quickly occupied the entire country. The US military would not have been able to clean up Afghanistan so quickly."
Some experts say Massoud's early death aged 49 was part of an Al-Qaeda plan to ensure Taliban chief Mullah Omar would support them against the US in the wake of the Twin Towers attacks.
Others argue the alliance had already been set, and that Al-Qaeda carried out the killing at Omar's behest as part of a planned offensive against the Northern Alliance, whose fighters joined the post-911 US-led operation.
"All of us at the time assumed there was a link between the attack on Massoud and the attacks on America," said Kate Clark of Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network, who was a BBC reporter at the time.
"It might have been a sweetener for the Taliban for what happened next...
"Whether or not the Taliban leadership knew or were warned about the attacks on America, and I think that's still unclear, I think some of them knew something was going to happen."
It was in his home region of the Panjshir valley that Massoud built his reputation in the 1980s fighting the Soviets with American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funds.
Rusting hulks of Soviet tanks still lie as reminders of his battlefield successes among the plunging valleys and white-water rivers of the Hindu Kush.
After the Afghan communist regime collapsed in 1992, Massoud served in a coalition government as defence minister.
But his reputation was tainted as civil conflict engulfed Kabul in the years that followed, as Massoud's forces engaged in a power struggle with rivals which wreaked devastation on large parts of the once-picturesque capital.
Having earlier quit as defence minister, Massoud pulled his forces out of Kabul in 1996 prompted by the Taliban advance, and earlier covert US financial support for his resistance was no longer forthcoming.
However, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Ghost Wars", journalist Steve Coll says that by 2001, US officials were talking about giving Massoud fresh funds to fight the Taliban, to help the wider struggle against bin Laden.
But he did not survive to see it, and the conjecture over the Taliban's role in his killing by Al Qaeda continues.
The US's 9/11 Commission Report cited evidence that Taliban leader Mullah Omar initially opposed a major Al-Qaeda operation against the US in 2001, although he may later have reconciled himself to it.
It added that a major Taliban offensive against Massoud's Northern Alliance was due to start right after the assassination.
But Al-Qaeda's then military chief was also quoted in the report by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as saying he hoped Massoud's killing would appease the Taliban post-9/11.
Whatever the exact circumstances of his death, Massoud's followers still wonder what part he would have played in the torrid political scene of war-torn Afghanistan today.
Fahim Dashty, who edited a newspaper founded by Massoud and was in the room with him when he was killed, believes the commander would have never accepted the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan for the last 10 years.
"Sometimes I feel happy for him that he is not alive," he said. "If he was alive, he would have found it very difficult to adjust."
Yossef Jannesar, who was one of Massoud's personal cameramen for 17 years, says he represented a united voice for Afghans that is missing today.
"Massoud's aim was a free, united and sovereign Afghanistan," he said. "No-one thinks about that any more, they only think of lining their own pockets."

Afghan army fights to prove its religious credentials
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff September 6, 2011
KABUL - As Afghan army forces constructed a patrol base in a volatile stretch of Helmand province this spring, insurgents turned to one of their most effective weapons against the troops: They told area residents that their new, uniformed neighbors were godless “fake Muslims.”
The battle over Islam has become a crucial front in the war between the Taliban and the country’s growing security forces, prompting the Afghan army to create a strategy for proving that its soldiers are true Muslims.
In Helmand, Afghan commanders swiftly tapped their arsenal. The first step: building a mosque that dwarfs the rest of the base and sounding a call to prayer that echoes outside the city of Lashkar Gah several times a day.
“The message was: ‘We are the true Muslims. Not the Taliban,’ ” said Col. Ataullah Zahir, the top Afghan military official in the area.
Across the country, as the Afghan army prepares to inherit prosecution of the war from its foreign counterparts, one of its most important campaigns is being waged with billboard-size Koran verses and public prayer groups, rather than Kalashnikovs. The campaign represents a bold effort to counter Taliban propaganda and establish the Islamic credentials of the armed forces.
Fighting the battle over religion — often the key to public support in this conservative Islamic nation — is perhaps the Taliban’s strongest suit. If Afghans doubt the spiritual bona fides of their army, the institution stands little chance of gaining popular support.
“The insurgents can’t fight us face to face, but they know how to rally people against us using false information about Islam,” said Gen. Amin Naseeb, head of the Defense Ministry’s Department of Religion and Culture.
Afghan military officials have encountered the tactic across the country, particularly in the south and east, where Taliban members speak at madrassas, or religious schools, and on radio shows about what they say is the impiety of the country’s armed forces. As foreign troops begin to leave the country, the Taliban appears to be shifting the spotlight of its public disparagement campaign away from Western forces and toward Afghanistan’s own soldiers.
‘Religious obligations’
Inside his Kabul office, Naseeb calls in two assistants to unfurl a massive banner showcasing an Afghan soldier accepting a gun from a man in a coalition uniform. Above the image, a verse from the Koran is written in bold letters:
“Protection, patriotism and fighting on the path of freedom for an Islamic country is one of the religious obligations.”
Naseeb wants to print 20,000 copies of the banner and post them across rural Afghanistan. He has courted top religious officials, explaining the Afghan army’s moral cause and the value the force places on adherence to Islam.
In recent years, the army has recruited 50 men known as hafiz — those who have memorized the Koran — in addition to dozens of clerics. Those officials work to ensure that Islamic law is observed within the ranks and that the intensity of the war doesn’t overwhelm soldiers’ religious obligations. The army’s cadre of spiritual leaders, most of whom carry religious texts, not weapons, are also meant to send a message to Afghan civilians, as walking symbols of the military’s faith.
The officials attend meetings with local politicians and tribal elders, visiting mosques outside military bases and reaching out to Afghans who might not be convinced of the army’s religiosity.
Despite some key differences in interpreting the Koran, the army and the insurgents practice similar versions of Islam.
“They read from the same Koran, they believe in the same God, they take part in the same rituals,” said Enayatullah Balegh, a professor of religion at Kabul University.
Western influence, aid
But there are important differences.
For nearly a decade, Afghan soldiers have worn Western-style uniforms and participated in joint patrols with foreign troops. Although the patches on their uniforms read “Allah is great” and “God, duty and country,” establishing their religious commitment has often been a struggle.
U.S. officials, eager to promote Afghan forces as the country’s true protectors, have attempted to aid their partners in that campaign. The Americans fund radio stations, encouraging Afghan military personnel to discuss Islamic matters on the air, as well as security issues. Western forces also promote local shuras, or consultations, where Afghan security officials can take their message to tribal elders.
Nearly every Afghan army base in the country has a mosque like the one in Helmand — buildings that serve as both houses of prayer and public monuments to the force’s religiosity. At the army’s training headquarters, there are three mosques. Units from across the country converge on the sprawling base not only for conventional military training but also for religious instruction from top military clerics.
Last week, Col. Mohammad Arif, the religious liaison for an Afghan battalion based in Kabul, took his soldiers to one of the mosques for midday prayers. Still dressed in fatigues, they dropped their guns and bowed toward Mecca.
“For the Taliban, Islam is about propaganda,” Arif said. “For us, it’s about faith.”

Just another risky day in Afghanistan
Ben Doherty September 7, 2011 The Age Australia
There is no time for memorials in a country where the bloodshed continues and may well get worse, writes Ben Doherty in Kabul.
THE 10th anniversary of September 11 will pass, for most Afghans, without fanfare or moment.
The day will be marked with ceremonies at foreign missions and military bases. Newspapers will carry editorials and opinion pieces analysing the past and the uncertain way forward. But for the man in the street, it will be a day, dangerous, like any other.
It is not that Afghans don't see the date as one of significance. Here, September 11 is perceived as the event that triggered the country's latest descent into war, but the popular view is that that seminal day is not an event whose consequences have been dealt with.
As the country struggles through a brutal fighting season, marred by increasingly brazen attacks in the capital, as the country's political leaders are assassinated one by one, and as a moribund economy dependent on foreign military and aid money founders ahead of the shock of its withdrawal, there is little to commemorate a decade on from September 11.
Memorials are for after the event, Afghans are still living theirs.
A former translator for the US army, now driving a taxi in Kabul, speaks to the Herald on condition of anonymity. ''If it hadn't been for 9/11 we wouldn't have this war. This is the reason the Americans are in Afghanistan. But our problems are not finished, the Afghan people are still suffering, people are still dying.
''Many more Afghans have died than [people died] on 9/11.''
The driver, an ethnic Pashtun, worked for the US Army in the country's restive south for two years, but, despite the money, the risks grew too great. He has a family who depend on him. ''Now we are poor again, but I feel safer now.''
The US-based Costs of War project estimates between 12,000 and 14,000 Afghan civilians have been killed in the past decade of war, more than 80 per cent of those killed by native insurgents.
But, the driver says, the date that concerns Afghans more than the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the US, or the invasion of Afghanistan 26 days later, is ''sometime'' 2014, when foreign troops withdraw, leaving Afghanistan to fend for itself.
He says he welcomed the overthrow of the Taliban, but that their influence remains. The violence won't subside at ''war's end'' when US and other foreign forces leave.
And like many in Afghanistan, he believes the root of many of his country's problems lie in troubled Pakistan, the neighbour where most of the Taliban leadership live and where, infamously, the September 11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden, was found, hiding in plain sight, in a garrison town in May.
''Pakistan is America's ally,'' the taxi driver sneers contemptuously. ''The US should choose friends more carefully.''
Parwiz Chakari is 23, and manages his family's clothing store Tolo, in central Kabul.
Like many of his generation who have spent the past decade inside Afghanistan and out, he is cynical about the war, its genesis, and the continued presence of foreign troops in his country.
''9/11 happened in America, but it is we [in Afghanistan who] have the problem. ''I ask, 'who is this Taliban, do you see them, do you speak to them?' I don't believe there is Taliban any more; they were here before, but not any more. America says there is Taliban, so they can stay and keep the war [going], but I think they are gone. Many people think like this.''
From his shop front, Mr Parwiz points a couple of hundred metres down the street. There, he explains, a bomb went off about six months ago, killing a half a dozen people, and damaging several stores just like his. The businesses have reopened and are slowly getting back on their feet, but everyone in the area has suffered.
''After an attack in the city, there is a few months bad for business, very slow. It will come back to normal, as long as there are no more bombs.''
But running a shop in Afghanistan is hard, Mr Parwiz says. Between corrupt officials, insurgent attacks and a moribund economy, there is little about which he is positive.
''If the Americans do leave in 2014, the security might go bad, civil wars might start again. That is a fear people have, and that would affect the economy. But I am not sure the Americans will definitely leave.''
But many in Afghanistan are counting on the withdrawal of American troops, and counting down the days.
Noor-Ul Aziz was, until very recently, a senior-ranking Talib, the former ''shadow'' governor of the northern province of Kunduz. He has recently reconciled with the Afghan government, and has been rewarded with a high-paying public service job, a house and full-time security detail, so that vengeful former comrades can't get to him. He says the fight for control of Afghanistan will go on, long beyond the 10th anniversary of September 11, and beyond the troop withdrawal.
''Whatever reason the foreigners had for invading Afghanistan, that was their view, but now no one can protect Afghanistan but Afghans themselves,'' he said. ''An Afghan who has never fought is equal to one foreigner who has trained for 20 years. We have experience. We know this, the world knows this: we fight very well.''
The director of Afghanistan's Centre for Research and Policy Studies, Haroun Mir, says many in Afghanistan see the decade since September 11 as a victory for the forces behind it. ''For the Taliban, these poor, untrained, ill-equipped fighters, they have challenged the most powerful military organisation the world has ever known, and I'm sure, sure they are celebrating it.
''This is justifying all their sacrifices. It is boosting their morale, and … of their supporters. For us, it is a simple event, that NATO will start withdrawing, but for Taliban, this is a great, great achievement.''
Paul McGeough's interview with Pakistani MP Sherry Rehman will be in tomorrow's Herald.

Afghan actors to bring the Bard to London
The cast were due to rehearse on the morning that suicide bombers stormed the British Council compound
The Independent By Charlie Cooper and Rob Sharp Wednesday, 7 September 2011
A troupe of Afghan actors who narrowly avoided death in last month's Taliban assault on the British Council's compound in Kabul are to perform Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre next year.
The company, who in 2005 became the first to perform Shakespeare in Afghanistan since the Soviet era, were due to rehearse their production of The Comedy Of Errors on the morning that suicide bombers and gunmen stormed the compound, killing 12 people. Only a last minute change of schedule saved them from being present during the attack on 19 August.
Next May, they will bring their Farsi-language production of the play to the Globe in London for the Globe Festival – a six-week cycle of Shakespeare plays performed by companies from 37 different countries, in 37 different languages.
"I had asked the cast if they wanted to rehearse in the early hours because it was Ramadan, but they said they didn't. The attack happened at 5.30am, so that decision saved us," said the group's French director, Corinne Jaber. "There would have been too many of us to get into the panic room. That would have been it. The cast told me that, after six years working with them, I am now an Afghan, because I have survived that."
The troupe's rehearsal space was damaged in the attack in the Karte Parwan district of the Afghan capital, which reduced much of the British Council's headquarters to ruins. Preparations for the show in London next year have been stalled, but Ms Jaber insisted that she and the cast had not been discouraged.
"If anything, this attack has strengthened our resolve to take this play to the Globe. Shakespeare is so universal. Terrorists can't stop him," she said. Rehearsals will restart in the UK in the new year.
The Afghan actors, none of whom speak or read English, were first introduced to the Bard by actor and director Corinne Jaber in 2005; staging a production of Love's Labour's Lost in Kabul, believed to be the first performance of a Shakespeare play in Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion of 1979. The play was translated from an existing Farsi-language version into the Afghan Dari dialect.
"The response to Shakespeare in Afghanistan is extraordinary," Ms Jaber said. "Elizabethan England actually corresponds to contemporary Afghanistan, in the way people relate to God and to society, and in particular in the role of women. We have transposed The Comedy Of Errors to Afghanistan. It begins with a father looking for a son, which considering its recent history, was a poig- nant story to set in Kabul."
The British Council, which promotes Britain's cultural and educational relationship with other countries, said it was unlikely to return to the compound where the attack happened due to the extent of the damage and continuing security concerns in the area. They are now operating at the British Embassy in Kabul.
The Afghan Comedy Of Errors is one of dozens of new productions commissioned for a six-month celebration of Shakespeare that will run from April to November 2012, with 70 performances by international theatre companies.

www.afghanistannewscenter.org