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Nearly 80 NATO troops wounded in attack in Afghanistan
By Ernesto Londono, The Washington Post Sunday, September 11, 5:51 PM
KABUL — Two Afghan civilians were killed and nearly 80 NATO soldiers were wounded after a truck packed with explosives hidden under firewood rammed into the entrance of a military base in eastern Afghanistan, military officials said Sunday.
The Taliban took responsibility for the attack. In a statement on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the militant group said Afghans became the biggest victims of response to the attacks.
“It will remain a permanent stigma on the face of Western democracy that America and her allies martyred tens of thousands of Muslims under the pretext of this ambiguous and murky event,” the statement said.
The bombing in Wardak Province happened at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, amid heightened alert in Afghanistan over the possibility that extremists would use the anniversary to launch spectacular attacks.
NATO said in a statement Sunday that the explosion damaged the perimeter wall ringing the base and a maintenance facility, but protective barriers around the site “absorbed most of the explosion.” NATO officials said 25 Afghans and 77 foreign soldiers had been treated for “non-life threatening injuries.” The base that came under attack is controlled by U.S. troops.
The attack was carried out in the same province where 30 NATO troops were killed last month when the Chinook transport helicopter they were traveling in was shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul held a commemoration ceremony for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks early Sunday.
“What happened here in Afghanistan and in the United States 10 years ago has joined our two nations forever in a common cause,” Ambassador Ryan Crocker told attendees, according to a summary of his remarks provided by the embassy. “Afghan soil must never again be used by elements that would use terror to attack the people of America, Afghanistan and the international community.”
Special correspondent Sayed Salahuddin contributed to this report.
US troops in Afghanistan mark 9/11
By Katherine Haddon | AFP
US soldiers in Afghanistan paid solemn tribute Sunday to victims of the 9/11 attacks which took place 10 years ago to the day and triggered a war they are still fighting.
From giant bases such as Bagram Airfield north of Kabul to remote and dusty outposts on the frontline, troops paused during their regular duties to remember the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives a decade ago.
But the ceremonies came against a backdrop of violent attacks which highlighted the enduring instability in Afghanistan, ten years after a US-led invasion toppled the Taliban.
In the worst, two Afghan civilians were killed and 77 foreign troops, including at least 50 Americans, were wounded along with some 25 Afghan civilians, by a car bombing at a base in Wardak province, central Afghanistan, Saturday.
Bagram, the giant hub for operations in east Afghanistan, also came under attack late Saturday when five rockets landed on base, killing two Afghan security guards and injuring seven people including three US troops.
During a 9/11 memorial ceremony at the United States embassy in Kabul Sunday, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker acknowledged that many were "tired" of a war in which more than 1,750 of his countrymen have died.
"Some back home have asked why we are still here. It?s been a long fight and people are tired. The reason is simple: Al-Qaeda is not here in Afghanistan, and that is because we are," he said. "Much has been done; many challenges remain".
For military personnel elsewhere, the focus was also remembering those who died on 9/11.
At Bagram, in one of the biggest events, up to 1,000 troops gathered for a ceremony conducted next to a giant slab of metal from the World Trade Center etched with the legend "WTC 9/11/01".
The ceremony started at the exact time when the first plane crashed into the first of the Twin Towers. The 1st Cavalry Division Band played music including God Bless America, while troops said prayers and laid two memorial wreaths.
One of those who took part, Staff Sergeant Robert Stevens, said 9/11 was as important to his generation as the day Pearl Harbour was bombed, prompting the US to enter World War Two.
"I think reminders every year of what happened and those people that died on a day they didn?t know they would be attacked let me know I have to stay hard," he said. "I remember why I?m here and what I need to do."
Another soldier, Specialist Keyonna Chiles, said that 9/11 was "the reason I joined" the military.
"At the time, I was a senior in high school and it was very emotional, devastating. Just the thought of being able to play a part in the protection of our country is what inspired me," she said.
The US invaded Afghanistan a month after the attacks, toppling the Taliban who had sheltered Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.
But the Taliban later revived and are now leading a bloody insurgency.
In a statement issued Saturday, the militant Islamists said Afghans played "no role" in 9/11 but would keep on fighting American and other foreign forces.
So far, the war has cost America $444 billion, while according to Brown University in the US, a total of 33,877 people -- including foreign and Afghan troops, civilians and insurgents -- have died in the conflict.
There are currently around 130,000 NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, 100,000 of them from the US.
Limited withdrawals have started in recent months with 33,000 US troops due to return home by September next year. All foreign combat operations are due to finish by the end of 2014.
Commemorations for 9/11 also took place at other, smaller bases across Afghanistan.
At Forward Operating Base Fenty in the eastern city of Jalalabad, hundreds of troops rose at dawn to attend a ceremony of prayers and remembrance, as the US flag and brigade colours flew at half-mast.
It was followed by a five-kilometre (three-mile) memorial run around the base.
One of those who joined the run, Staff Sergeant Terry Staber, said: "I'll probably work like a regular day but it'll still be in my mind: where I was at, not knowing where my sister was at and this big lump in my throat knowing this is gonna be big... We're gonna be in this for a long time."
Women of D.C. and the women of Afghanistan
By Joan Vennochi The Boston Globe Columnist / September 11, 2011
REMEMBER THE women of Afghanistan.
They are the clearest beneficiaries of the US war against the Taliban, which was launched after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In the decade since the fall of that repressive regime, girls returned to school, women took public office and are no longer forced to wear burkas.
Now, the planned drawdown of US troops threatens fragile gains in a place known for its brutal tradition of female suppression. Common ground is rare in Washington. But, fearing a power vacuum as Afghanistan transitions to its next phase of government, Republican and Democratic women in Congress are pushing the White House to make sure women in Afghanistan have a seat at the negotiating table.
The congressional Afghan Women’s Task Force - which is co-chaired by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Republican of Washington, and Representative Donna Edwards, Democrat of Maryland - wants to make sure that women “play a meaningful role in the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Plan.’’ It’s not just about preserving women’s rights, said Rodgers. Preserving those rights is a way to fight terrorism.
“The terrorists gain power by oppressing women,’’ said Rodgers. “As we stand by women, we are undermining the terrorist stranglehold.’’
Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat of Massachusetts, who is also on the task force, said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will play a leading role when it comes to keeping the faith with Afghan women. Clinton has made it a personal cause, declaring it essential “that women’s rights and women’s opportunities are not sacrificed or trampled on in the reconciliation process.’’ She also promised Afghan women leaders that “we will not abandon you, we will stand with you always.’’
But even with Clinton’s strong backing, Tsongas said, it’s important to keep pressure on the Obama administration. She has taken four trips to Afghanistan with groups of Republican and Democratic women. The snippets of hope and progress seen on those visits linger, she said. During a trip over Mother’s Day weekend, the American delegation met with Afghan women who were training to become helicopter pilots. They visited a school where young girls dream of becoming doctors, teachers, and nurses. They also met with the Afghan minister of health, a woman who is committed to improving health care and living standards for women and children.
“The integrity of our effort demands that we not walk away from those gains,’’ said Tsongas.
Rodgers, who was also on the trip, described it as “a different world, like you’re going back in time. One of my takeaways was just how difficult the assignment is. We have to be careful about imposing American ways on the people of Afghanistan.’’
How much clout these female lawmakers have in a town that features only one woman on the all-important budget “super committee’’ is unclear. To what extent the White House can really influence the outcome in Afghanistan is even cloudier.
According to a recent Washington Post article, there’s already a rift between President Hamid Karzai’s High Peace Council - whose 9 women and 60 men are charged with directing Taliban negotiations - and the leaders of Afghanistan’s fledgling women’s movement. That is partly because the Peace Council’s female members have not been allowed to take part in the initial talks - not exactly a good omen.
Americans want out of Afghanistan. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, the number of people saying US troops should be brought home from Afghanistan shot up to 56 percent. A year ago, just 40 percent favored troop withdrawal. But, the majority surveyed by Pew still say the decision to use force in Afghanistan was the right one after 9/11.
America did not fight the Taliban to free the women of Afghanistan. But achieving their freedom and sustaining it honors this country and those who have died for it.
If the Taliban return to power, the Afghan women who bought into the American dream of equal rights have much to fear. Support from their Washington sisters won’t be enough to save them then. Now is the time to push hard for their voices to be heard.
US Ambassador Promises Not to Abandon Afghanistan
VOA News September 10, 2011 Phil Ittner
Kabul - Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States began a new engagement in the Muslim world. One of the key architects of that engagement is the newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker.
Few American statesmen have spent more time on the front line of America's post 9/11 diplomatic efforts than current U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker. He re-opened the U.S embassy in Kabul in 2001 following the fall of the Taliban, later served as ambassador to Pakistan and then to Iraq, where he was partnered with General David Petraeus during the surge of U.S. troops.
He was also in New York on the day of the attacks and carries the memory close to his heart. "It has defined my life and my career from that moment to this. I've spent five years since 9/11 deployed in these countries and I expect to be here for several more. Because I, you know, 3,000 people killed on one New York morning is something none of us ever want to see again," he said.
At first, the U.S. was reluctant to engage in nation-building in Afghanistan, preferring to focus on removing the Taliban from power and hunting down al-Qaida.
But within a few years, it became apparent that without building institutions it left a vacuum in the country that allowed the Taliban to sneak back in from safe havens in Pakistan and destabilize Afghanistan again.
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a former Afghan foreign minister who became an opponent of President Hamid Karzai, says the internatonal community, and the Afghans themselves, have missed an opportunity by not understanding one another better, ignoring the Pakistani safe havens and allowing corruption to grow in the country, notably within the government. "These three factors (have) led to this situation, and 10 years down the road we should have been in a much better situation in terms of Afghan institutions assuming responsibility,shouldering responsibilities," he said.
When the U.S. came to Afghanistan, the policy was to put anti-Taliban warlords on the payroll - turning a blind eye, critics say, to their abuses. which led to an environment of corruption.
Afghanistan is a devastated, impoverished country. Ambassador Crocker has seen firsthand what happens when institutions are either non-existent or removed, and he says that people need to be patient in building up Afghan civil society.
"Institutions take time to build. Particularly in Afghanistan, like in Iraq, you've had not just the removal of a leader, you've had a revolution. All these old structures are gone. So you don't get ministries that function perfectly overnight, or even over a decade. It takes time to develop those. It takes time to develop the rule of law. Which means, whether it is Iraq or it is Afghanistan, you are going to have corruption. It has to be taken seriously," he said.
But with a 2014 timetable set for NATO combat troops to leave Afghanistan, many say the Taliban is under the impression they can just wait out the West. Dr. Abdullah says this is due to the past experience of Soviet forces leaving in haste, and a lack of clarity of message about what will happen after NATO combat troops leave.
"It's a very uphill struggle, with the past experience of the Afghan people, the Soviet withdrew overnight, and the last soldier, the last tank... That is very vivid in the memory of the Afghan people. But, at the same time, the admiinistration, the Afghan administration, confusing it's own people. The range of the views of the Afghans, you will be surprised that it differs from a complete withdrawal, nothing left behind, to permanent bases," he said.
To avoid another vacuum and civil war like the one that broke out following the Soviet withdrawal, the West is working on building up local forces, as they did in Iraq.
And not abandoning Afghanistan again, as well as getting that message across, is a priority for Ambassador Crocker. Because, he says, the consequences are unacceptable.
"To leave before the job is done, to leave before Afghan security forces are capable of providing security throughout the country, risks a return of the Taliban. And that is why, a decade on, we must muster the strategic patience, as a nation and as a people, to do everything we can to make sure that things come right here, and next door in Pakistan, precisely so we never have to endure that kind of attack again," he said.
Like the Ambassador, Many Americans involved say despite the distance of time, the images from 10 years ago remain a driving force in their work in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, tie between 9/11 and the war often gets lost
Nearly half of Afghans are too young to have firsthand recollection of that day, or the invasion that followed. Among older people there is a sense the conflict has moved beyond its original impetus.
Los Angeles Times By Laura King September 11, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan - In the country where the Sept. 11 plot was hatched and its Al Qaeda masterminds found shelter, public knowledge of the link between the devastating events of a decade ago and today's war has grown hazy.
Nearly half of all Afghans are under the age of 15, too young to have a firsthand recollection of that day, or the U.S.-led invasion that began less than a month later. Among older people, even those grateful that the invasion ended Taliban rule, there is a sense that the conflict has moved far beyond its original impetus.
The war is widely regarded now as being driven by many other factors, including foreign self-interest and internal power struggles.
There is also a lingering sense here that Afghans as a whole were unfairly blamed in the attack because their Taliban rulers aided and abetted Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. And most were horrified by the plunge back into violence that accompanied the Taliban's resurgence a few years later.
"At the beginning of the U.S. invasion, we hoped for security and stability," said Abdul Raziq, a 53-year-old real estate agent living in Kabul, the capital. "But 9/11 brought calamity and misfortune to Afghanistan."
Most people also believe that without the Sept. 11 attacks, America and the rest of the international community would have left Afghans to weather harsh Taliban rule on their own.
"If 9/11 hadn't occurred, Afghanistan wouldn't have come to the attention of the world," said Haseebullah, 25, a university student whose family fled to Pakistan after the Taliban took power in the mid-1990s. "The world wouldn't have helped us."
Urban and better-educated people tend to know more about the circumstances of the attacks in the United States and the consequences for Afghanistan. But in poor, rural areas, the link has largely been lost.
A survey last year by a think tank, the International Council on Security and Development, found that fewer than one in 10 respondents in the key southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar were aware that the West's war with the Taliban was triggered by the events of Sept. 11.
Many Afghans were focused last week on another 10-year anniversary: the assassination in an Al Qaeda plot of a charismatic anti-Taliban militia chieftain, Ahmed Shah Massoud, which took place just two days before the attacks in the United States. Massoud's Northern Alliance went on to play a key role in dislodging the Taliban, but was never again able to rally around a leader of his stature.
In contrast, commemorations of the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 will take place Sunday almost every place in Afghanistan with concentrations of Americans, from remote combat outposts to urban diplomatic installations ringed by blast walls.
The connection to the attacks felt by American troops here is often a profoundly personal one. Anyone who has spent time with combat units has encountered soldiers, sailors and Marines who describe how Sept. 11 spurred them to join the military, even if they were very young at the time.
The 10-year anniversary comes on the heels of the war's deadliest month for U.S. troops, 70 of whom died in August, according to the monitoring website icasualties.org. Overall, by its count, the war in Afghanistan has claimed the lives of 1,762 American service members.
An American troop drawdown is underway, with 10,000 military personnel scheduled to depart by year's end. With other North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations winding down their combat roles as well, Afghan security forces are to take the lead in safeguarding the country by the end of 2014. There is widespread fear here that the Afghan police and army are not up to the task, and there is anxious uncertainty about whether the Taliban will be willing to negotiate.
On Saturday, the Taliban issued a bellicose statement, vowing to consign the U.S. military in Afghanistan to "the dustbin of history."
For many Afghans, the anniversary also underscores long-standing disillusionment with the government of President Hamid Karzai, who was, as is almost universally recalled here, handpicked by the Americans and their allies to take the reins when the Taliban fell.
"Afghans thought the foreigners came to Afghanistan in order to rescue the people from Al Qaeda and terrorists," said Mohammad Karim Chakari, who runs a shoe shop in Kabul. "But the Americans support Karzai when they know he is surrounded by criminals, and they don't tell us why they are doing this."
The Afghan leader, under Western pressure to rein in corruption and mismanagement, has in recent months offered strident public criticism of the war effort, particularly its toll on Afghan civilian lives.
Civilian casualties this year have reached their highest level of the conflict, according to the United Nations and other independent observers. Although insurgents are blamed for the majority of the deaths, the danger of daily life is the factor most often cited by Afghans when they criticize U.S. and other foreign troops.
"In the wake of 9/11, a very totalitarian and repressive regime was toppled," said Sayed Sadat, a government worker. "But on the other hand, people couldn't imagine that their houses would be raided in the night and their children killed by those who came in the name of international peacekeeping."
Nearly all Afghans who lived through the Taliban era, however, say they remain deeply grateful that the movement's hold on their country was broken.
"Sept. 11 was a harrowing event, not just for the United States, but for the entire world," said Mohtarama Amin, a female provincial council member in Nangarhar province, in Afghanistan's east. "But at least some good came from it — not just for women like me, but for all the people of Afghanistan."
Special correspondents Aimal Yaqubi and Hashmat Baktash contributed to this report.
Pakistan is ‘not an ally' in terrorism fight, ex spy chief says
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 10 September 2011
Global terrorism will not end until the international community applies serious pressure on the Pakistani government, Afghanistan's former spy chief said on Saturday.
Amrullah Saleh, former chief of the National Directorate of Security, said Pakistan should not be called an ally in the fight against terrorism. He made the comments at a ceremony to mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Afghan national hero, Ahmad Shah Massoud.
The leader of the change and hope coalition, Dr Abdullah, who was also at the memorial service in the Panjshir, said that Pakistan had not been an honest partner in the fight against terrorism. The wreath-laying was attended by hundreds of thousands of people including numerous top government officials on the day after the 10th anniversary of Massoud's assassination.
"Consistent pressure on Pakistan either through diplomatic approaches or economic pressure is the only way" to end global terrorism, Mr Saleh said.
Dr Abdullah said: "There is no honesty at all. Today Pakistan fights very well against Pakistani Taliban who have turned against him. But it is still supporting the Afghan Taliban."
Massoud was killed by two Arabs posing as journalists two days before the September 11 attacks on the US. The legendary fighter had unsuccessfully tried to warn western leaders about the threat from terrorism.
Pakistan Could Be Vital To 'Afghan-Led' Peace Process
NPR By Julie McCarthy September 10, 2011
An end to the war in Afghanistan is slowly beginning to come into view, 10 years after the Sept. 11 attacks. Few countries have been as deeply affected by the decade of fighting as Pakistan.
Since 2001, Islamist extremism fueled by the Afghan conflict has claimed the lives of 35,000 Pakistanis — 30,000 of them civilians.
For all of their mutual suspicions, the Americans and Pakistanis seem to agree on one thing: Both need a durable peace in Afghanistan. The U.S. needs to staunch a hemorrhage of blood and treasure, and Pakistan to stop extremism from spilling across the border and further radicalizing the country.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua says without peace and stability in Afghanistan, Pakistan's tumultuous decade could go on indefinitely.
"Pakistan wishes to see in the endgame in Afghanistan a peaceful, prosperous, unified, sovereign and independent Afghanistan," she says, "where the people of Afghanistan can determine their destiny according to their wishes. We stand by Afghanistan in an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process."
Despite what sounds like a hands-off policy, Pakistan has a clear preference among the warring parties: the Afghan Taliban. Pakistani intelligence nurtured the Taliban in the 1990s and, analysts say, maintains deep ties with Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Omar and his allies in the Haqqani network. Many of the key militant leaders operate from sanctuaries inside Pakistan.
So, analyst Ayesha Siddiqa says, Pakistan has leverage over the Afghan Taliban that could bring members to peace talks.
"I think the basic thing is that if you are protecting them, if you are keeping them, if you are allowing them on your territory, then there has got to be that kind of influence," she says.
Siddiqa says the endgame for Pakistan is to ensure that it has someone in Kabul, like the Taliban, who shares its religious orthodoxy, "its world view," she says, and can also project Pakistan's image as a "fortress of Islam."
"You know, prop itself up as an alternative Islamic empire, a force to reckon with, a force that the world then has to deal with," Siddiqa says.
Defense analyst Hasan-Askari Rizvi, however, doubts that the Taliban could be easily swayed by Pakistan. He says its leaders felt betrayed after former President Pervez Musharraf signed up for the Bush administration's war on terrorism in the wake of Sept. 11. In addition, he says, the Taliban could dominate Kabul when the war is over, a troublesome prospect for Pakistan.
"Because that means their counterparts in Pakistan will become strong," Rizvi says. "The whole tribal area and Afghanistan will become one Taliban territory, and that is a scary scenario for Pakistan."
Moeed Yusuf, South Asia adviser at the United States Institute of Peace, agrees that Pakistan does not want the Taliban back in power exclusively, but would like to see them return in a power-sharing arrangement.
"The Taliban, the Mullah Omar group and Haqqani network still provide leverage for Pakistan in a reconciliation scenario. This is the friendliest option Pakistan has," Yusuf says.
There is another perennial concern, however: archrival India and its close relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
According to a report jointly complied by the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Islamabad-based Jinnah Institute, Pakistan's policy elite is concerned that India's present engagement in Afghanistan goes beyond development aid and is aimed at influencing the endgame.
"Pakistan now is increasingly reconciled with the idea of Indian development presence, but anything beyond, they're not," Yusuf says, "and I think Washington has underestimated just how important the Indian factor is for Pakistan and how much Pakistan worries about this."
Former Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed Khan says a growing nexus between India and the U.S. has given Delhi an ascendant position in Afghanistan, "which equips it with an enormous nuisance potential against Pakistan security."
There is also concern in Pakistan over the U.S. preserving a security presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014, the deadline to pull out most if not all U.S. combat troops. Javed Hussain, a retired brigadier, says retaining U.S. military bases could scuttle any long-term peace.
"These bases will come under attack. There will be no stability. The al-Qaida will join the Taliban again, and the Americans will be forced on the defensive," Hussain says.
Dealing with the U.S. in an Afghan endgame may be the most difficult issue of all for Pakistan.
The U.S. covert raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad has deepened mutual distrust and raised doubts about whether the two sides could collaborate on a solution in Afghanistan. Yet, Siddiqa says, the closer the U.S. gets to the time of departure, the better positioned Pakistan may be in the endgame, with American misgiving about bin Laden's presence in Pakistan set aside.
"When the American back is to the wall proverbially, and it's eager to find a way out and bring the boys home," she says, "it doesn't make Pakistan irrelevant at all."
Afghanistan struggles to build army as diverse as nation
Afghan and NATO officials have long tried to entice young men in the heavily Pashtun south — the Taliban heartland — to join the Afghan Army. They have seen few results for their efforts.
The New York Times By RAY RIVERA Saturday, September 10, 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 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, 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 U.S. 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 from a year ago.
As the deadline looms 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.
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.
Kandahar and Helmand more than doubled their number of recruits last year from the previous year. However, officials worry that the recent erosion of security in Kandahar City could reverse the gains.
The two provinces are home to nearly 2 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.
"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 sends teams of recruiters into the city and outlying districts every day armed with leaflets and posters.
The increase in U.S. 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, Ghani said.
The recruiters themselves live under constant threat. Last year, a group of men beat a recruiter after he spoke to 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," 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.
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.
Decade after 9/11, Afghans languish in Pakistan
Reuters By Qasim Nauman and Rebecca Conway 10/09/2011
HARIPUR/ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - When Ghulum Nabi's father heard U.S.-backed troops toppled Afghanistan's Taliban after the September 11, 2001, attacks, he rushed to their family home in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan to spread the news.
Perhaps, one day they could all return to a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan supported by a Western superpower.
After 10 years of U.S.-led efforts to pacify one of the world's most turbulent countries, Afghan refugees in Pakistan have little hope for stability in their homeland.
"I grew up here and Pakistan is my country. When my father pushes me to go back to visit, I end up having a fight with him. I'm never going to live there. I want to get Pakistani nationality. This is my home," said Nabi, 22, who runs a crockery shop.
"It doesn't matter if it is America or anyone else trying to watch over Afghanistan. I will still be looking around to see if anyone is pointing a gun at me."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai would welcome a return of the millions of Afghans living in Pakistan.
It would be a vote of confidence in his administration, which faces many problems, from widespread allegations of state corruption, to a resilient Taliban.
SOVIET INVASION TRIGGERED LIFE OF UNCERTAINTY
Many of the refugees are skilled labourers who could boost reconstruction and help revive a weak economy if they return. But it's unlikely to happen.
Most of the refugees in Pakistan arrived after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The conflict that followed consumed their homeland. After the mujahideen warriors defeated the Russians, warlords turned on each other and tore Afghanistan apart.
Many refugees fear a repeat of that chaos as a U.S. troop withdrawal looms.
Some would like to go home but feel they can't. Others regard Pakistan as home despite its many disadvantages. Without proper Pakistani identification cards, Afghans can't open bank accounts or buy or lease property.
Many are openly mistreated by Pakistanis who have little fear of being held to account.
On August 14, the anniversary of Pakistan's independence, Saeed Anwar's landlord showed up with three men armed with AK-47 assault rifles at his clothing shop at a busy bazaar in the city of Haripur, home to 80,000 Afghan refugees who live in camps.
"They threw around my merchandise and said I need to pay them a 300,000 Pakistani rupees ($3,450) advance on the rent. I had already paid the rent," said Anwar, wearing traditional, loose Pakistani trousers.
"I went to the police to register a case. But when they see a dispute between a Pakistani and an Afghan, they automatically assume the Afghan has done something wrong."
Still, many Afghans believe its wiser, and safer, to just accept the frequent humiliation than return to a homeland still shattered, despite a long U.S.-led military campaign against militancy and billions of dollars in Western aid.
Afghans -- from elders who vividly remember the first Soviet gunship helicopters in Afghanistan, to teenagers who have only visited a few times -- work for Pakistanis as welders or carpenters and tailors in Haripur and other cities.
Most of them prefer to run their own small businesses, from food carts to car dealerships. It's the only sense of independence they have in the camps which consist of small cement and mud housing units near a reservoir.
The elders have set up a jirga, or tribal gathering, to settle internal disputes, as is done in much of Afghanistan. Cricket games are the only form of entertainment and leisure activity for most youths.
Two years ago Pakistan agreed to let displaced Afghans stay until the end of 2012, after a resurgence of militant violence along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border hindered repatriation.
Still, people like Sherullah, whose nine children were born in Pakistan, feel vulnerable. What if Pakistan asks them to leave one day?
"There is a lot of confusion. If there's one thing I want, it's for this confusion to go away, for us to know if we will be staying or not," said Sherullah, who was cutting women's clothing in his tailor shop.
"There are many people living here that can afford to build a proper house but don't want to. They think 'what if next year we are told to leave?'. So they continue to live in mud houses."
Aside from 1.7 million officially registered Afghans in Pakistan, there are an additional 800,000 with no documentation.
According to the United Nations, Pakistan is home to the world's largest refugee population, mostly Afghans, who strain the country's troubled economy.
Pakistan would like to repatriate them.
There are, however, few incentives for refugees to head back to Afghanistan. So life in camps may drag on for many years.
Even though the U.S. disengagement is gradual, it brings back painful memories of what was widely seen as American abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet exit in 1989.
Warlords soon took over and bloodshed returned.
Haji Aslam, 65, an elder in one of the camps, has seen conflict in Afghanistan over the last 30 years -- from the battlefields where he fought the Soviets to what he sees today on his television screen.
He is betting on the Taliban to prevail once the Americans leave.
"Even if just 10 Taliban show up, the Afghan government will flee Kabul," said Aslam, a man with a white beard wearing a traditional flat Afghan cap.
"In Pakistan, I am at peace. I know my children are safe."
(Editing by Michael Georgy and Robert Birsel)
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Ernesto Londono, The Washington Post Sunday, September 11, 5:51 PM
KABUL — Two Afghan civilians were killed and nearly 80 NATO soldiers were wounded after a truck packed with explosives hidden under firewood rammed into the entrance of a military base in eastern Afghanistan, military officials said Sunday.
The Taliban took responsibility for the attack. In a statement on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the militant group said Afghans became the biggest victims of response to the attacks.
“It will remain a permanent stigma on the face of Western democracy that America and her allies martyred tens of thousands of Muslims under the pretext of this ambiguous and murky event,” the statement said.
The bombing in Wardak Province happened at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, amid heightened alert in Afghanistan over the possibility that extremists would use the anniversary to launch spectacular attacks.
NATO said in a statement Sunday that the explosion damaged the perimeter wall ringing the base and a maintenance facility, but protective barriers around the site “absorbed most of the explosion.” NATO officials said 25 Afghans and 77 foreign soldiers had been treated for “non-life threatening injuries.” The base that came under attack is controlled by U.S. troops.
The attack was carried out in the same province where 30 NATO troops were killed last month when the Chinook transport helicopter they were traveling in was shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul held a commemoration ceremony for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks early Sunday.
“What happened here in Afghanistan and in the United States 10 years ago has joined our two nations forever in a common cause,” Ambassador Ryan Crocker told attendees, according to a summary of his remarks provided by the embassy. “Afghan soil must never again be used by elements that would use terror to attack the people of America, Afghanistan and the international community.”
Special correspondent Sayed Salahuddin contributed to this report.
US troops in Afghanistan mark 9/11
By Katherine Haddon | AFP
US soldiers in Afghanistan paid solemn tribute Sunday to victims of the 9/11 attacks which took place 10 years ago to the day and triggered a war they are still fighting.
From giant bases such as Bagram Airfield north of Kabul to remote and dusty outposts on the frontline, troops paused during their regular duties to remember the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives a decade ago.
But the ceremonies came against a backdrop of violent attacks which highlighted the enduring instability in Afghanistan, ten years after a US-led invasion toppled the Taliban.
In the worst, two Afghan civilians were killed and 77 foreign troops, including at least 50 Americans, were wounded along with some 25 Afghan civilians, by a car bombing at a base in Wardak province, central Afghanistan, Saturday.
Bagram, the giant hub for operations in east Afghanistan, also came under attack late Saturday when five rockets landed on base, killing two Afghan security guards and injuring seven people including three US troops.
During a 9/11 memorial ceremony at the United States embassy in Kabul Sunday, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker acknowledged that many were "tired" of a war in which more than 1,750 of his countrymen have died.
"Some back home have asked why we are still here. It?s been a long fight and people are tired. The reason is simple: Al-Qaeda is not here in Afghanistan, and that is because we are," he said. "Much has been done; many challenges remain".
For military personnel elsewhere, the focus was also remembering those who died on 9/11.
At Bagram, in one of the biggest events, up to 1,000 troops gathered for a ceremony conducted next to a giant slab of metal from the World Trade Center etched with the legend "WTC 9/11/01".
The ceremony started at the exact time when the first plane crashed into the first of the Twin Towers. The 1st Cavalry Division Band played music including God Bless America, while troops said prayers and laid two memorial wreaths.
One of those who took part, Staff Sergeant Robert Stevens, said 9/11 was as important to his generation as the day Pearl Harbour was bombed, prompting the US to enter World War Two.
"I think reminders every year of what happened and those people that died on a day they didn?t know they would be attacked let me know I have to stay hard," he said. "I remember why I?m here and what I need to do."
Another soldier, Specialist Keyonna Chiles, said that 9/11 was "the reason I joined" the military.
"At the time, I was a senior in high school and it was very emotional, devastating. Just the thought of being able to play a part in the protection of our country is what inspired me," she said.
The US invaded Afghanistan a month after the attacks, toppling the Taliban who had sheltered Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.
But the Taliban later revived and are now leading a bloody insurgency.
In a statement issued Saturday, the militant Islamists said Afghans played "no role" in 9/11 but would keep on fighting American and other foreign forces.
So far, the war has cost America $444 billion, while according to Brown University in the US, a total of 33,877 people -- including foreign and Afghan troops, civilians and insurgents -- have died in the conflict.
There are currently around 130,000 NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, 100,000 of them from the US.
Limited withdrawals have started in recent months with 33,000 US troops due to return home by September next year. All foreign combat operations are due to finish by the end of 2014.
Commemorations for 9/11 also took place at other, smaller bases across Afghanistan.
At Forward Operating Base Fenty in the eastern city of Jalalabad, hundreds of troops rose at dawn to attend a ceremony of prayers and remembrance, as the US flag and brigade colours flew at half-mast.
It was followed by a five-kilometre (three-mile) memorial run around the base.
One of those who joined the run, Staff Sergeant Terry Staber, said: "I'll probably work like a regular day but it'll still be in my mind: where I was at, not knowing where my sister was at and this big lump in my throat knowing this is gonna be big... We're gonna be in this for a long time."
Women of D.C. and the women of Afghanistan
By Joan Vennochi The Boston Globe Columnist / September 11, 2011
REMEMBER THE women of Afghanistan.
They are the clearest beneficiaries of the US war against the Taliban, which was launched after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In the decade since the fall of that repressive regime, girls returned to school, women took public office and are no longer forced to wear burkas.
Now, the planned drawdown of US troops threatens fragile gains in a place known for its brutal tradition of female suppression. Common ground is rare in Washington. But, fearing a power vacuum as Afghanistan transitions to its next phase of government, Republican and Democratic women in Congress are pushing the White House to make sure women in Afghanistan have a seat at the negotiating table.
The congressional Afghan Women’s Task Force - which is co-chaired by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Republican of Washington, and Representative Donna Edwards, Democrat of Maryland - wants to make sure that women “play a meaningful role in the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Plan.’’ It’s not just about preserving women’s rights, said Rodgers. Preserving those rights is a way to fight terrorism.
“The terrorists gain power by oppressing women,’’ said Rodgers. “As we stand by women, we are undermining the terrorist stranglehold.’’
Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat of Massachusetts, who is also on the task force, said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will play a leading role when it comes to keeping the faith with Afghan women. Clinton has made it a personal cause, declaring it essential “that women’s rights and women’s opportunities are not sacrificed or trampled on in the reconciliation process.’’ She also promised Afghan women leaders that “we will not abandon you, we will stand with you always.’’
But even with Clinton’s strong backing, Tsongas said, it’s important to keep pressure on the Obama administration. She has taken four trips to Afghanistan with groups of Republican and Democratic women. The snippets of hope and progress seen on those visits linger, she said. During a trip over Mother’s Day weekend, the American delegation met with Afghan women who were training to become helicopter pilots. They visited a school where young girls dream of becoming doctors, teachers, and nurses. They also met with the Afghan minister of health, a woman who is committed to improving health care and living standards for women and children.
“The integrity of our effort demands that we not walk away from those gains,’’ said Tsongas.
Rodgers, who was also on the trip, described it as “a different world, like you’re going back in time. One of my takeaways was just how difficult the assignment is. We have to be careful about imposing American ways on the people of Afghanistan.’’
How much clout these female lawmakers have in a town that features only one woman on the all-important budget “super committee’’ is unclear. To what extent the White House can really influence the outcome in Afghanistan is even cloudier.
According to a recent Washington Post article, there’s already a rift between President Hamid Karzai’s High Peace Council - whose 9 women and 60 men are charged with directing Taliban negotiations - and the leaders of Afghanistan’s fledgling women’s movement. That is partly because the Peace Council’s female members have not been allowed to take part in the initial talks - not exactly a good omen.
Americans want out of Afghanistan. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, the number of people saying US troops should be brought home from Afghanistan shot up to 56 percent. A year ago, just 40 percent favored troop withdrawal. But, the majority surveyed by Pew still say the decision to use force in Afghanistan was the right one after 9/11.
America did not fight the Taliban to free the women of Afghanistan. But achieving their freedom and sustaining it honors this country and those who have died for it.
If the Taliban return to power, the Afghan women who bought into the American dream of equal rights have much to fear. Support from their Washington sisters won’t be enough to save them then. Now is the time to push hard for their voices to be heard.
US Ambassador Promises Not to Abandon Afghanistan
VOA News September 10, 2011 Phil Ittner
Kabul - Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States began a new engagement in the Muslim world. One of the key architects of that engagement is the newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker.
Few American statesmen have spent more time on the front line of America's post 9/11 diplomatic efforts than current U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker. He re-opened the U.S embassy in Kabul in 2001 following the fall of the Taliban, later served as ambassador to Pakistan and then to Iraq, where he was partnered with General David Petraeus during the surge of U.S. troops.
He was also in New York on the day of the attacks and carries the memory close to his heart. "It has defined my life and my career from that moment to this. I've spent five years since 9/11 deployed in these countries and I expect to be here for several more. Because I, you know, 3,000 people killed on one New York morning is something none of us ever want to see again," he said.
At first, the U.S. was reluctant to engage in nation-building in Afghanistan, preferring to focus on removing the Taliban from power and hunting down al-Qaida.
But within a few years, it became apparent that without building institutions it left a vacuum in the country that allowed the Taliban to sneak back in from safe havens in Pakistan and destabilize Afghanistan again.
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a former Afghan foreign minister who became an opponent of President Hamid Karzai, says the internatonal community, and the Afghans themselves, have missed an opportunity by not understanding one another better, ignoring the Pakistani safe havens and allowing corruption to grow in the country, notably within the government. "These three factors (have) led to this situation, and 10 years down the road we should have been in a much better situation in terms of Afghan institutions assuming responsibility,shouldering responsibilities," he said.
When the U.S. came to Afghanistan, the policy was to put anti-Taliban warlords on the payroll - turning a blind eye, critics say, to their abuses. which led to an environment of corruption.
Afghanistan is a devastated, impoverished country. Ambassador Crocker has seen firsthand what happens when institutions are either non-existent or removed, and he says that people need to be patient in building up Afghan civil society.
"Institutions take time to build. Particularly in Afghanistan, like in Iraq, you've had not just the removal of a leader, you've had a revolution. All these old structures are gone. So you don't get ministries that function perfectly overnight, or even over a decade. It takes time to develop those. It takes time to develop the rule of law. Which means, whether it is Iraq or it is Afghanistan, you are going to have corruption. It has to be taken seriously," he said.
But with a 2014 timetable set for NATO combat troops to leave Afghanistan, many say the Taliban is under the impression they can just wait out the West. Dr. Abdullah says this is due to the past experience of Soviet forces leaving in haste, and a lack of clarity of message about what will happen after NATO combat troops leave.
"It's a very uphill struggle, with the past experience of the Afghan people, the Soviet withdrew overnight, and the last soldier, the last tank... That is very vivid in the memory of the Afghan people. But, at the same time, the admiinistration, the Afghan administration, confusing it's own people. The range of the views of the Afghans, you will be surprised that it differs from a complete withdrawal, nothing left behind, to permanent bases," he said.
To avoid another vacuum and civil war like the one that broke out following the Soviet withdrawal, the West is working on building up local forces, as they did in Iraq.
And not abandoning Afghanistan again, as well as getting that message across, is a priority for Ambassador Crocker. Because, he says, the consequences are unacceptable.
"To leave before the job is done, to leave before Afghan security forces are capable of providing security throughout the country, risks a return of the Taliban. And that is why, a decade on, we must muster the strategic patience, as a nation and as a people, to do everything we can to make sure that things come right here, and next door in Pakistan, precisely so we never have to endure that kind of attack again," he said.
Like the Ambassador, Many Americans involved say despite the distance of time, the images from 10 years ago remain a driving force in their work in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, tie between 9/11 and the war often gets lost
Nearly half of Afghans are too young to have firsthand recollection of that day, or the invasion that followed. Among older people there is a sense the conflict has moved beyond its original impetus.
Los Angeles Times By Laura King September 11, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan - In the country where the Sept. 11 plot was hatched and its Al Qaeda masterminds found shelter, public knowledge of the link between the devastating events of a decade ago and today's war has grown hazy.
Nearly half of all Afghans are under the age of 15, too young to have a firsthand recollection of that day, or the U.S.-led invasion that began less than a month later. Among older people, even those grateful that the invasion ended Taliban rule, there is a sense that the conflict has moved far beyond its original impetus.
The war is widely regarded now as being driven by many other factors, including foreign self-interest and internal power struggles.
There is also a lingering sense here that Afghans as a whole were unfairly blamed in the attack because their Taliban rulers aided and abetted Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. And most were horrified by the plunge back into violence that accompanied the Taliban's resurgence a few years later.
"At the beginning of the U.S. invasion, we hoped for security and stability," said Abdul Raziq, a 53-year-old real estate agent living in Kabul, the capital. "But 9/11 brought calamity and misfortune to Afghanistan."
Most people also believe that without the Sept. 11 attacks, America and the rest of the international community would have left Afghans to weather harsh Taliban rule on their own.
"If 9/11 hadn't occurred, Afghanistan wouldn't have come to the attention of the world," said Haseebullah, 25, a university student whose family fled to Pakistan after the Taliban took power in the mid-1990s. "The world wouldn't have helped us."
Urban and better-educated people tend to know more about the circumstances of the attacks in the United States and the consequences for Afghanistan. But in poor, rural areas, the link has largely been lost.
A survey last year by a think tank, the International Council on Security and Development, found that fewer than one in 10 respondents in the key southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar were aware that the West's war with the Taliban was triggered by the events of Sept. 11.
Many Afghans were focused last week on another 10-year anniversary: the assassination in an Al Qaeda plot of a charismatic anti-Taliban militia chieftain, Ahmed Shah Massoud, which took place just two days before the attacks in the United States. Massoud's Northern Alliance went on to play a key role in dislodging the Taliban, but was never again able to rally around a leader of his stature.
In contrast, commemorations of the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 will take place Sunday almost every place in Afghanistan with concentrations of Americans, from remote combat outposts to urban diplomatic installations ringed by blast walls.
The connection to the attacks felt by American troops here is often a profoundly personal one. Anyone who has spent time with combat units has encountered soldiers, sailors and Marines who describe how Sept. 11 spurred them to join the military, even if they were very young at the time.
The 10-year anniversary comes on the heels of the war's deadliest month for U.S. troops, 70 of whom died in August, according to the monitoring website icasualties.org. Overall, by its count, the war in Afghanistan has claimed the lives of 1,762 American service members.
An American troop drawdown is underway, with 10,000 military personnel scheduled to depart by year's end. With other North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations winding down their combat roles as well, Afghan security forces are to take the lead in safeguarding the country by the end of 2014. There is widespread fear here that the Afghan police and army are not up to the task, and there is anxious uncertainty about whether the Taliban will be willing to negotiate.
On Saturday, the Taliban issued a bellicose statement, vowing to consign the U.S. military in Afghanistan to "the dustbin of history."
For many Afghans, the anniversary also underscores long-standing disillusionment with the government of President Hamid Karzai, who was, as is almost universally recalled here, handpicked by the Americans and their allies to take the reins when the Taliban fell.
"Afghans thought the foreigners came to Afghanistan in order to rescue the people from Al Qaeda and terrorists," said Mohammad Karim Chakari, who runs a shoe shop in Kabul. "But the Americans support Karzai when they know he is surrounded by criminals, and they don't tell us why they are doing this."
The Afghan leader, under Western pressure to rein in corruption and mismanagement, has in recent months offered strident public criticism of the war effort, particularly its toll on Afghan civilian lives.
Civilian casualties this year have reached their highest level of the conflict, according to the United Nations and other independent observers. Although insurgents are blamed for the majority of the deaths, the danger of daily life is the factor most often cited by Afghans when they criticize U.S. and other foreign troops.
"In the wake of 9/11, a very totalitarian and repressive regime was toppled," said Sayed Sadat, a government worker. "But on the other hand, people couldn't imagine that their houses would be raided in the night and their children killed by those who came in the name of international peacekeeping."
Nearly all Afghans who lived through the Taliban era, however, say they remain deeply grateful that the movement's hold on their country was broken.
"Sept. 11 was a harrowing event, not just for the United States, but for the entire world," said Mohtarama Amin, a female provincial council member in Nangarhar province, in Afghanistan's east. "But at least some good came from it — not just for women like me, but for all the people of Afghanistan."
Special correspondents Aimal Yaqubi and Hashmat Baktash contributed to this report.
Pakistan is ‘not an ally' in terrorism fight, ex spy chief says
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 10 September 2011
Global terrorism will not end until the international community applies serious pressure on the Pakistani government, Afghanistan's former spy chief said on Saturday.
Amrullah Saleh, former chief of the National Directorate of Security, said Pakistan should not be called an ally in the fight against terrorism. He made the comments at a ceremony to mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Afghan national hero, Ahmad Shah Massoud.
The leader of the change and hope coalition, Dr Abdullah, who was also at the memorial service in the Panjshir, said that Pakistan had not been an honest partner in the fight against terrorism. The wreath-laying was attended by hundreds of thousands of people including numerous top government officials on the day after the 10th anniversary of Massoud's assassination.
"Consistent pressure on Pakistan either through diplomatic approaches or economic pressure is the only way" to end global terrorism, Mr Saleh said.
Dr Abdullah said: "There is no honesty at all. Today Pakistan fights very well against Pakistani Taliban who have turned against him. But it is still supporting the Afghan Taliban."
Massoud was killed by two Arabs posing as journalists two days before the September 11 attacks on the US. The legendary fighter had unsuccessfully tried to warn western leaders about the threat from terrorism.
Pakistan Could Be Vital To 'Afghan-Led' Peace Process
NPR By Julie McCarthy September 10, 2011
An end to the war in Afghanistan is slowly beginning to come into view, 10 years after the Sept. 11 attacks. Few countries have been as deeply affected by the decade of fighting as Pakistan.
Since 2001, Islamist extremism fueled by the Afghan conflict has claimed the lives of 35,000 Pakistanis — 30,000 of them civilians.
For all of their mutual suspicions, the Americans and Pakistanis seem to agree on one thing: Both need a durable peace in Afghanistan. The U.S. needs to staunch a hemorrhage of blood and treasure, and Pakistan to stop extremism from spilling across the border and further radicalizing the country.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua says without peace and stability in Afghanistan, Pakistan's tumultuous decade could go on indefinitely.
"Pakistan wishes to see in the endgame in Afghanistan a peaceful, prosperous, unified, sovereign and independent Afghanistan," she says, "where the people of Afghanistan can determine their destiny according to their wishes. We stand by Afghanistan in an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process."
Despite what sounds like a hands-off policy, Pakistan has a clear preference among the warring parties: the Afghan Taliban. Pakistani intelligence nurtured the Taliban in the 1990s and, analysts say, maintains deep ties with Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Omar and his allies in the Haqqani network. Many of the key militant leaders operate from sanctuaries inside Pakistan.
So, analyst Ayesha Siddiqa says, Pakistan has leverage over the Afghan Taliban that could bring members to peace talks.
"I think the basic thing is that if you are protecting them, if you are keeping them, if you are allowing them on your territory, then there has got to be that kind of influence," she says.
Siddiqa says the endgame for Pakistan is to ensure that it has someone in Kabul, like the Taliban, who shares its religious orthodoxy, "its world view," she says, and can also project Pakistan's image as a "fortress of Islam."
"You know, prop itself up as an alternative Islamic empire, a force to reckon with, a force that the world then has to deal with," Siddiqa says.
Defense analyst Hasan-Askari Rizvi, however, doubts that the Taliban could be easily swayed by Pakistan. He says its leaders felt betrayed after former President Pervez Musharraf signed up for the Bush administration's war on terrorism in the wake of Sept. 11. In addition, he says, the Taliban could dominate Kabul when the war is over, a troublesome prospect for Pakistan.
"Because that means their counterparts in Pakistan will become strong," Rizvi says. "The whole tribal area and Afghanistan will become one Taliban territory, and that is a scary scenario for Pakistan."
Moeed Yusuf, South Asia adviser at the United States Institute of Peace, agrees that Pakistan does not want the Taliban back in power exclusively, but would like to see them return in a power-sharing arrangement.
"The Taliban, the Mullah Omar group and Haqqani network still provide leverage for Pakistan in a reconciliation scenario. This is the friendliest option Pakistan has," Yusuf says.
There is another perennial concern, however: archrival India and its close relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
According to a report jointly complied by the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Islamabad-based Jinnah Institute, Pakistan's policy elite is concerned that India's present engagement in Afghanistan goes beyond development aid and is aimed at influencing the endgame.
"Pakistan now is increasingly reconciled with the idea of Indian development presence, but anything beyond, they're not," Yusuf says, "and I think Washington has underestimated just how important the Indian factor is for Pakistan and how much Pakistan worries about this."
Former Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed Khan says a growing nexus between India and the U.S. has given Delhi an ascendant position in Afghanistan, "which equips it with an enormous nuisance potential against Pakistan security."
There is also concern in Pakistan over the U.S. preserving a security presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014, the deadline to pull out most if not all U.S. combat troops. Javed Hussain, a retired brigadier, says retaining U.S. military bases could scuttle any long-term peace.
"These bases will come under attack. There will be no stability. The al-Qaida will join the Taliban again, and the Americans will be forced on the defensive," Hussain says.
Dealing with the U.S. in an Afghan endgame may be the most difficult issue of all for Pakistan.
The U.S. covert raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad has deepened mutual distrust and raised doubts about whether the two sides could collaborate on a solution in Afghanistan. Yet, Siddiqa says, the closer the U.S. gets to the time of departure, the better positioned Pakistan may be in the endgame, with American misgiving about bin Laden's presence in Pakistan set aside.
"When the American back is to the wall proverbially, and it's eager to find a way out and bring the boys home," she says, "it doesn't make Pakistan irrelevant at all."
Afghanistan struggles to build army as diverse as nation
Afghan and NATO officials have long tried to entice young men in the heavily Pashtun south — the Taliban heartland — to join the Afghan Army. They have seen few results for their efforts.
The New York Times By RAY RIVERA Saturday, September 10, 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 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, 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 U.S. 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 from a year ago.
As the deadline looms 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.
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.
Kandahar and Helmand more than doubled their number of recruits last year from the previous year. However, officials worry that the recent erosion of security in Kandahar City could reverse the gains.
The two provinces are home to nearly 2 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.
"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 sends teams of recruiters into the city and outlying districts every day armed with leaflets and posters.
The increase in U.S. 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, Ghani said.
The recruiters themselves live under constant threat. Last year, a group of men beat a recruiter after he spoke to 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," 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.
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.
Decade after 9/11, Afghans languish in Pakistan
Reuters By Qasim Nauman and Rebecca Conway 10/09/2011
HARIPUR/ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - When Ghulum Nabi's father heard U.S.-backed troops toppled Afghanistan's Taliban after the September 11, 2001, attacks, he rushed to their family home in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan to spread the news.
Perhaps, one day they could all return to a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan supported by a Western superpower.
After 10 years of U.S.-led efforts to pacify one of the world's most turbulent countries, Afghan refugees in Pakistan have little hope for stability in their homeland.
"I grew up here and Pakistan is my country. When my father pushes me to go back to visit, I end up having a fight with him. I'm never going to live there. I want to get Pakistani nationality. This is my home," said Nabi, 22, who runs a crockery shop.
"It doesn't matter if it is America or anyone else trying to watch over Afghanistan. I will still be looking around to see if anyone is pointing a gun at me."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai would welcome a return of the millions of Afghans living in Pakistan.
It would be a vote of confidence in his administration, which faces many problems, from widespread allegations of state corruption, to a resilient Taliban.
SOVIET INVASION TRIGGERED LIFE OF UNCERTAINTY
Many of the refugees are skilled labourers who could boost reconstruction and help revive a weak economy if they return. But it's unlikely to happen.
Most of the refugees in Pakistan arrived after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The conflict that followed consumed their homeland. After the mujahideen warriors defeated the Russians, warlords turned on each other and tore Afghanistan apart.
Many refugees fear a repeat of that chaos as a U.S. troop withdrawal looms.
Some would like to go home but feel they can't. Others regard Pakistan as home despite its many disadvantages. Without proper Pakistani identification cards, Afghans can't open bank accounts or buy or lease property.
Many are openly mistreated by Pakistanis who have little fear of being held to account.
On August 14, the anniversary of Pakistan's independence, Saeed Anwar's landlord showed up with three men armed with AK-47 assault rifles at his clothing shop at a busy bazaar in the city of Haripur, home to 80,000 Afghan refugees who live in camps.
"They threw around my merchandise and said I need to pay them a 300,000 Pakistani rupees ($3,450) advance on the rent. I had already paid the rent," said Anwar, wearing traditional, loose Pakistani trousers.
"I went to the police to register a case. But when they see a dispute between a Pakistani and an Afghan, they automatically assume the Afghan has done something wrong."
Still, many Afghans believe its wiser, and safer, to just accept the frequent humiliation than return to a homeland still shattered, despite a long U.S.-led military campaign against militancy and billions of dollars in Western aid.
Afghans -- from elders who vividly remember the first Soviet gunship helicopters in Afghanistan, to teenagers who have only visited a few times -- work for Pakistanis as welders or carpenters and tailors in Haripur and other cities.
Most of them prefer to run their own small businesses, from food carts to car dealerships. It's the only sense of independence they have in the camps which consist of small cement and mud housing units near a reservoir.
The elders have set up a jirga, or tribal gathering, to settle internal disputes, as is done in much of Afghanistan. Cricket games are the only form of entertainment and leisure activity for most youths.
Two years ago Pakistan agreed to let displaced Afghans stay until the end of 2012, after a resurgence of militant violence along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border hindered repatriation.
Still, people like Sherullah, whose nine children were born in Pakistan, feel vulnerable. What if Pakistan asks them to leave one day?
"There is a lot of confusion. If there's one thing I want, it's for this confusion to go away, for us to know if we will be staying or not," said Sherullah, who was cutting women's clothing in his tailor shop.
"There are many people living here that can afford to build a proper house but don't want to. They think 'what if next year we are told to leave?'. So they continue to live in mud houses."
Aside from 1.7 million officially registered Afghans in Pakistan, there are an additional 800,000 with no documentation.
According to the United Nations, Pakistan is home to the world's largest refugee population, mostly Afghans, who strain the country's troubled economy.
Pakistan would like to repatriate them.
There are, however, few incentives for refugees to head back to Afghanistan. So life in camps may drag on for many years.
Even though the U.S. disengagement is gradual, it brings back painful memories of what was widely seen as American abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet exit in 1989.
Warlords soon took over and bloodshed returned.
Haji Aslam, 65, an elder in one of the camps, has seen conflict in Afghanistan over the last 30 years -- from the battlefields where he fought the Soviets to what he sees today on his television screen.
He is betting on the Taliban to prevail once the Americans leave.
"Even if just 10 Taliban show up, the Afghan government will flee Kabul," said Aslam, a man with a white beard wearing a traditional flat Afghan cap.
"In Pakistan, I am at peace. I know my children are safe."
(Editing by Michael Georgy and Robert Birsel)
www.afghanistannewscenter.com