[Afghan News] September 20, 2011

[یاسمینه]

Key Afghan leader Rabbani killed in Kabul bombing
By Ernesto Londono, The Washington Post Tuesday, September 20, 9:00 PM
KABUL — Former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was appointed last year to head a commission trying to broker a peace deal with the Taliban, was killed inside his Kabul home Tuesday afternoon in a suicide bombing, Afghan officials said.
The man who killed Rabbani was brought to his house under the pretext of peace talks, Gen. Abdul Zahir, the director of investigations for Kabul police said in a phone interview. The suicide bomber had hid explosives in his turban, Zahir said.
“A group of people were brought to his room, saying they wanted to discuss the peace process,” Zahir said. “The man hugged Rabbani and blew himself up.”
Zahir said Rabbani’s killer was not searched because he was brought to the residence by senior members of the peace council. He said the council members thought the men, who arrived at the heavily-fortified residence at approximately 6 p.m., were representatives of the Taliban.
Before detonating the explosives, the suicide bomber lowered his head, in a would-be gesture of respect, the general added. “He was killed on the spot,” Zahir said, referring to Rabbani.
Four other people in the room, including Rabbani’s secretary, were also killed in the attack, Zahir said. Security officials said Masoom Stanekzai, a senior advisor to President Hamid Karzai, who was also a key player in the peace talks effort, sustained serious injuries during the attack.
Karzai was in New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly meetings, but cut short the visit to return to Afghanistan following the attack.
The assassination of the influential political leader is a blow to the Afghan government's embattled effort to bring insurgents into the political fold. The United States and other Western leaders have backed the so-far fruitless effort, seeing it as the best opportunity to bring the war to an end after a decade of fighting.
Rabbani, who served as president from 1992 to 1996, fled Kabul when the Taliban seized control of the country. He was one of the key leaders of the Northern Alliance, a coalition of warlords and political factions that fought against the Taliban during the nation’s fierce civil war.
The bombing comes as Karzai and the U.S.-led military coalition in Kabul are struggling to argue that Afghanistan is ready to start assuming greater responsibility for security as NATO troops start pulling out.
Last week, a 20-hour grenade and rocket attack targeted the U.S. embassy and the NATO headquarters in Kabul. U.S. officials said the assault, which included suicide bombings across the city, was likely carried out by the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, a group closely allied with the Taliban that has been linked to several high profile attacks. Rabbani’s house is near the embassy.
Pakistani leaders were among the first Tuesday to condemn the attack on Rabbani. “The Pakistani leadership has conveyed to the brotherly people and government of Afghanistan extreme anger and shock on the terrorist attack,” a statement issued by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yusaf Raza Gilani said.
Haroun Mir, a political analyst in Kabul, said Rabbani’s death would be a huge setback for the peace process.
“This is a big loss for the entire country,” he said in a phone interview. “We don’t know who was behind this assassination. But the message seems to be that at least one group within the Taliban is totally against the peace process. This is a very strong message.”
Rabbani, a Tajik from Badakshan Province, was an unusual choice to lead the peace council, which was seated last September. His ethnicity did not go unnoticed when he was selected to broker talks between Karzai, and ethnic Pashtun, and the Taliban, which also draws its strength from Pashtun committees.
Mir said Karzai likely picked Rabbani because he “wanted to make this a national process and wanted the approval of all factions in the country. He could not make peace only with Pashtun leaders.”
The 68-member High Peace Council has accomplished little. Taliban leaders have said they will not negotiate while foreign troops remain in the country. Council members have complained that the Taliban didn’t take them seriously because the body was seen as largely powerless.
U.S. officials have opened back-channel talks with representatives of Taliban leaders, an effort designed to set conditions for formal talks. But those efforts have appeared to gain little traction, and it is unclear whether they continue.
The U.S. embassy in Kabul, which is blocks away from Rabbani’s house, said diplomats were instructed “to take cover” late Tuesday afternoon as a result of a nearby security incident.
“We are working to account for all embassy personnel and staff,” the statement said.
The Rabbani assassination was reminiscent of the suicide bombing that killed Ahmad Shah Massoud, the revered Afghan commander who led the effort that drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan in 1989. Massoud was killed two days before the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States by suspected al-Qaeda militants who got access to him pretending to be journalists. Their bomb was hidden in a videocamera.
Bashir Bezhan, a politician close to Rabanni, said the fatal meeting had been arranged by Rahmatullah Wahidyar, a former Taliban leader who reconciled with Karzai’s government in 2005.
Wahidyar, a member of the peace council, served as deputy minister for refugees during the Taliban regime in the late 1990’s.
Rabbani arrived in Kabul from Dubai on Tuesday afternoon after peace council members notified him that they had scheduled a meeting that could mark a breakthrough in peace talks, Bezhan said.
Bezhan said Rabbani was told, “You have to come and meet this guy.”
Rabbani landed in Kabul at 3 p.m. and rushed home to prepare for the meeting, Bezan said.
Bezan, who talked to reporters after stepping outside Rabbani’s house, said he was told Wahidyar was among those wounded in the attack.
Officials did not say whether they have found evidence that members of the high peace council could have been complicit.
Special correspondents Javed Hamdard and Sayed Salahuddin contributed to this report

Taliban turban bomber kills Afghan ex-president: police
By Sardar Ahmad AFP
A Taliban suicide bomber with concealed explosives in a turban on Tuesday assassinated former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading government peace efforts, police said.
The bomber struck during a meeting at the Kabul home of Rabbani, who was last year appointed chief of the Afghan High Peace Council that President Hamid Karzai tasked with negotiating with the Taliban.
His death is the most high-profile political assassination since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power and comes just two months after Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was also killed.
The attackers arrived at Rabbani's house with Mohammad Massom Stanikzai, Rabbani's deputy, for a meeting before the turban bomber detonated his explosives, according to one source amid conflicting reports of the incident.
A member of the High Peace Council, Fazel Karim Aymaq, said the men had come with "special messages" from the Taliban and were "very trusted."
Kabul criminal investigations chief Mohammad Zaher said two men "negotiating with Rabbani on behalf of the Taliban" arrived at his house, one with explosives hidden in his turban.
"He approached Rabbani and detonated his explosives. Rabbani was martyred and four others including Massom Stanikzai (his deputy) were injured."
The bomber struck close to the US embassy, making it the the second attack within a week in Kabul's supposedly secure diplomatic zone.
The killing prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to cut short his visit to the United States, his spokesman said, adding he was still expected to meet US President Barack Obama as scheduled before leaving.
An AFP reporter saw an ambulance at the scene and said police had blocked off surrounding roads.
The reporter also heard guards at the house shouting for an ambulance for Rabbani's deputy.
Two of the former president's political allies, who did not want to be named and speaking before police confirmed Rabbani's death, wept as they told AFP he had been killed.
"Yes, he is dead," said one of the two sources by telephone.
The Taliban were not immediately reachable for comment, but the insurgency led by its militia has hit Kabul increasingly hard in recent months.
The Pakistani government swiftly condemned the assassination, describing Rabbani as a "friend" with whom Islamabad was working closely on peace efforts.
"The people of Pakistan stand by their Afghan brothers and sisters in this moment of grief," a joint statement released by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said, just days after the United States accused the Pakistani government of having ties to Taliban faction the Haqqani network.
Among the most high-profile attacks was last week's 20-hour siege of the US embassy and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters which left 14 people dead.
Rabbani was president of Afghanistan from 1992 until the Taliban took power in 1996 and headed a country wracked by civil war.
Karzai's brainchild, the High Peace Council was intended to open a dialogue with insurgents who have been trying to bring down his government since the US-led invasion overthrew their regime.
The 68-member council, hand-picked by the president, was inaugurated on October 7, 2010, amid mounting reports of secret peace talks with Taliban leaders and key insurgent groups.
Delivering his acceptance speech, Rabbani said he was "confident" that peace was possible, according to a statement from the palace.
"I hope we are able to take major steps in bringing peace and fulfil our duties with tireless effort and help from God," he was quoted as saying.
According to Human Rights Watch, Rabbani is among prominent Afghans implicated in war crimes during the brutal fighting that killed or displaced hundreds of thousands of Afghans in the early 1990s.

Rabbani death will not hurt Afghan reconciliation bid: Hague
AFP
The assassination Tuesday of former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani will not hurt Afghanistan's bid for peace and reconciliation, Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
Hague told reporters that he was "appalled" by the attack in Kabul where a Taliban suicide bomber with concealed explosives in a turban assassinated Rabbani, who was leading government peace efforts with the Taliban.
"This is an attack by people who only want to spread violence and bloodshed," Hague said, offering Britain's condolences to Rabbani's family and to relatives of the other victims in the attack.
"He worked tirelessly for peace and a secure future for Afghanistan, and we are confident that this will in no way reduce the determination of the government of Afghanistan to continue to work for peace and reconciliation."
Speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Hague said he would discuss the assassination and reconciliation process with Zalmai Rassoul, the Afghan foreign minister.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who was due in New York, said in a statement he was "absolutely appalled" by the murder of Rabbani.
"He was a respected former President of Afghanistan and played a vital role as the chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council," he said in a statement.
"We met on my last trip to Afghanistan where I was able to hear and see for myself his determination to work for a better Afghanistan. He will be sorely missed but the work of the Peace Council will go on.
"We remain determined to see Afghanistan prosper," Cameron said.

Afghan government minister accused of hampering fight against insurgents
Bismillah Khan Muhammadi's intervention in Kabul siege may have led to British and Afghan casualties, say Isaf officials
Jon Boone in Kabul guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 September 2011
Members of British and Afghan special forces were seriously injured during last week's Kabul siege after Afghanistan's interior minister barged onto the scene at 3am and ordered the "cowards" to rush the final assault, Afghan and international officials say.
Even as fighting raged on the upper floors of a 12-storey condemned building site that insurgents had used to fire missiles at the US embassy, Bismillah Khan Muhammadi, a 50-year-old cabinet minister, marched into the ground floor at around 3am and ordered a new team to be thrown into the fight.
Well-informed sources have painted an extraordinary picture of a senior official who not only remained in the building while fighting continued, but also accused commanders of being cowards and threatened to sack them unless they hurried up. A shocked official from Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said that by bypassing the established chain of command Muhammadi sent the mission into disarray, spoiling what had until that point been a painstaking and careful effort by Afghan forces.
"The troops that he sent in were not properly briefed or prepared, which may well have led to them taking casualties. By taking complete command of the entire operation he undermined all levels of command below him, rendering them ineffective," the official said.
Five Afghan commandos from the reserve unit Muhammadi had ordered into the building were injured as they raced up the building. Another had been wounded earlier in the operation, which took 20 hours to complete.
In addition five British special forces soldiers, most likely from the Special Air Service who were mentoring the Afghans, were wounded by grenades thrown in the abandoned building site. Another Isaf official said the British casualties were taken to a Nato medical facility where at least one man, suffering shrapnel wounds to his chest, was operated on.
The Ministry of Defence refuses to comment on either special forces operations or on injuries sustained by troops, but all the wounded are said to be recovering.
John Allen, the US general in overall command of the international forces, was said to be furious with Muhammadi's interference in the operation, which Isaf officials believe may have added hours to the final outcome, giving insurgents extra time to prepare for the final assault. An Isaf spokesman refused to comment on Allen's view of events, or on details of the operation.
A group of opposition MPs have called for the resignation of Muhammadi and other ministers with security portfolios in the wake of the day-long fight in the capital. In a statement the interior ministry denied the claims of security and diplomatic sources, saying the minister had stayed 600 metres away from the building and respected the chain of command.
It said there was "no reason to clear the area with hurry", adding: "The minister, when sought by the commanders, encouraged them to have patience during the operation and said they should act according to the procedures and training they have received while responding to these attacks."
But a western diplomat said Muhammadi, a former guerrilla leader who fought the Russians in the 1980s, had been "fuming about the amount of time it took to clear everything".
Afghan special forces believed they had no choice but to proceed slowly after booby-trapped bombs had been found on the upper floors. "They couldn't rush up," one official said. "Fighting upstairs is very difficult in a normal building, let alone one that is largely open with massive arcs of fire that the insurgents can shoot from."
In another sign of how well prepared the attackers were, a car filled with remote controlled explosives was left by the entrance of the building in an effort to kill security forces as they arrived. It did not explode, officials believe, because the insurgent with the detonator was killed before he could use it.
At one stage the Afghans planned to try and land troops on the roof with a helicopter but the plan was abandoned after it was decided the risks of the aircraft being shot down were too great.
It was a wise choice as the insurgents had at their disposal hundreds of grenades, rocket propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and an 82mm mortar tube used to fire at the US embassy.
Suspicions have been raised that such a huge quantity of weapons must have been pre-positioned, and two policemen who worked in a checkpoint based in the lower floors of the building have been arrested.
The insurgents, who have been identified by the US as members of the Haqqani Network, were highly proficient in using the weapons, at one point scoring a direct hit on a military vehicle with a rocket propelled grenade from 400 metres.
In another sign of military training, they also had basic first aid skills and equipment which they used to treat a colleague wounded soon after entering the building. His blood trail is still visible on the broken concrete flights of stairs.
During a visit to the site on Sunday an energy bar was still lying on a staircase where it was dropped by an attacker who was prepared for a long and physically draining siege.

Pakistan not to blame for Afghan violence: officials
Reuters By Zeeshan Haider Mon Sep 19, 2011
ISLAMABAD - The United States should focus on defeating Muslim militant enemies inside Afghanistan instead of blaming Pakistan for its failure, Pakistani officials said on Monday.
Washington accused Pakistan on Saturday of having links to the Haqqani network, which Washington blames for an attack on the U.S. Embassy and other targets in Kabul, and said the government in Islamabad must cut those ties.
"Whenever big attacks in Kabul or elsewhere in Afghanistan take place this blame game starts," a senior military official, who requested anonymity, told Reuters.
"Instead of blaming us, they should take action against terrorists on their side of the border."
In blunt remarks, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, told Radio Pakistan there was evidence linking the Haqqanis to the Islamabad government.
Washington has long blamed militants sheltering in Pakistan for violence in Afghanistan. Islamabad says its forces are taking high casualties fighting insurgents and bristles at any suggestion it provides support for fighters.
Some 5,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed since the South Asian country joined the U.S. "war on terror" after the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.
The Haqqani network is one of three, and perhaps the most feared, of the Taliban-allied insurgent factions fighting U.S.-led NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.
Insurgents in a bomb-laden truck occupied a building in Kabul last week, raining rockets and gunfire on the U.S. Embassy and other targets in the diplomatic quarter of the Afghan capital, and battled police during a 20 hour siege.
Five Afghan police and 11 civilians were killed.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Pakistan last week the United States would "do everything we can" to defend U.S. forces from Pakistan-based militants staging attacks in Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Pakistan in 3- hours of talks on Sunday to attack the Haqqani network, a senior U.S. official said. [nS1E78H0AI]
The official said the issue of counter-terrorism in general and the Haqqani network in particular were the first and last topics discussed by Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.
"They (the Americans) say militants come from Pakistan but they travel up to Kabul and no one arrests them all the way to Kabul. It is their responsibility (to arrest them there) not ours," said the senior Pakistani military official.
Washington blames militants sheltering in Pakistan for violence in Afghanistan. The discovery of Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani town, where he was killed this year by U.S. commandos, has aggravated tensions between the two countries.
The allies recently spoke of strong counter-terrorism cooperation, suggesting they had put behind them bitterness over the unilateral raid that killed bin Laden.
But Munter indicated ties with Pakistan, which relies on billions of dollars of U.S. aid, were still heavily strained.
"These relations today need a lot of work," he said.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua told Reuters the two sides needed to work toward a "friction-free relationship."
"Any perceptional differences warrant deeper engagement and that is taking place," she said.
Ties between Washington and Islamabad are often uneasy. The Haqqani network is one of the most divisive issues.
"Terrorism and extremism are a much bigger threat to Pakistan than to the United States," said Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States.
(Additional reporting by Qasim Nauman; Writing by Michael Georgy)

Over 40 militants killed in Afghanistan
PARUN, Afghanistan, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Over 40 militants have been killed in an on-going clash in Bargi Matal district of Nuristan province, with Parun as its capital, 180 km east of Kabul, provincial governor Tamim Nuristan said on Tuesday.
"A total of 43 militants have been killed in a clash that broke out since Saturday and is still going on in surrounding areas of Bargi Matal district," governor of Nuristan Tamim Nuristani told Xinhua.
He said an Afghan army soldier was also killed and three policemen were injured in the fighting that occurred in remote Bargi Matal district bordering Pakistan.
Meantime, a purported spokesman of the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid in talks with local media via cell phone from an undisclosed location confirmed the incident, saying some of Taliban fighters have been killed in the fighting in the district and claimed that the Taliban also killed nine Afghan policemen in the attacks to gain the control of Bargi Matal district.
In another development, unknown armed men shot and killed a tribal elder in eastern Logar province on Monday night, provincial police chief Ghulam Sakhi Rogh Lewani confirmed on Tuesday.
"Two armed men assassinated Shah Wali, a tribal elder, in Mohammad Agha district late on Monday when Wali was on his way home," Lewani told Xinhua, adding the police has initiated an investigation to find the culprits behind the assassination.
At least six government officials and tribal elders have been killed by insurgents since September.
The insurgent group has stepped up their attacks on Afghan and NATO-led troops since a spring rebel offensive was launched in May this year in the war-ravaged country.
The Taliban also warned people against supporting government and foreign troops.

Roadside bomb kills Afghan police, wounds another
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- A policeman was killed and another sustained injuries as a roadside bomb struck their van in Kunduz province, 250 km north of capital city Kabul on Tuesday, police said.
"The bomb planted by insurgents on a road in Chardara district went off this morning killing a local police and injuring another," district police chief Ghulam Maihudin told Xinhua.
He blamed Taliban militants for organizing the attack; but the outfit fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops has yet to make comment.
This is the second militants' attack against police in northern provinces of Afghanistan.
In the previous attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of police department in Aqcha district of Jauzjan province 390 km north of capital city Kabul Monday evening killing four people including a police and injured nine others including a police and eight civilians.
Militancy has been on rise since May 1, when Taliban outfit announced to launch spring offensive in the war-battered Afghanistan.

Does the Taliban need a diplomatic voice?
Sept. 19, 2011
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- Giving the Taliban diplomatic influence is a much-needed step in political reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan, a U.S. foreign policy expert said.
A report last week from The Times of London claimed Washington supported a plan for the Taliban to open an official political office in Qatar. The plan, the newspaper said, coincides with efforts to start formal peace talks with the former leaders of Afghanistan.
Xenia Dormandy, a U.S. foreign policy expect at Chatham House, said that while a diplomatic presence for the Taliban wasn't a "final solution" to Afghanistan's political woes, it was a "necessary step," German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports.
"Some kind of legalized office where Taliban representatives can function is a prerequisite to talks getting anywhere," added Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, stressed that any efforts to reach out to certain members of the Taliban was an Afghan initiative.
"The U.S. has certain red lines," she added.
The U.N. Security Council in June voted to split sanctions imposed on al-Qaida and Taliban members. The process is seen as part of an effort to clear moderate elements of the Taliban for reintegration into political life in Afghanistan.

Once again US Afghan policy is hobbled by divisions
Financial Times By Ahmed Rashid September 19, 2011
Much has rightly been made of the audacious attack on Kabul last week by a group of heavily armed Taliban insurgents, which was clearly aimed at sabotaging peace talks between the Taliban, the Americans and the Afghan government. Rather less attention however has been given to the other pressing issues threatening the talks – the deep divisions within President Barack Obama’s administration over their future, and his apparent failure to exercise control over his officials.
Last week’s 20-hour siege followed August’s attack on the British Council in Kabul, and showed once again that the Taliban can now penetrate Kabul’s “green zone” with ease. In retaliation US Special Forces now mount up to a dozen raids every night, killing and capturing Taliban and civilians in what are often hit-or-miss operations, fuelling Afghan public anger at the Americans.
In these circumstances European governments and the majority of Americans want a speedy troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. But it is not only hardline American generals like David Petraeus, the former commander in Afghanistan, who now heads the CIA, who are dragging their feet. Senior US diplomats are doing so as well. “The Taliban needs to feel more pain before you get to a real readiness to reconcile them,’’ said Ryan Crocker, the prestigious new US ambassador to Kabul who arrived in June.
In a blistering interview with the Wall Street Journal he also said the conflict should continue until more of the Taliban are killed. With such statements he riles Nato and US officials by openly undermining the drive to hold talks.
Gen Petraeus was well known for wanting to continue to fight the Taliban until well into next year, even as Nato troops are being pulled out. Whether his views will carry weight in the more sceptical CIA still has to be seen. However European officials – and some US ones – describe Mr Crocker as the spokesman for a new cabal in the US administration who want to delay talks with the Taliban for the time being and reduce the insurgency first, by killing as many as possible.
“What Crocker is saying is totally destructive to what we have agreed upon,’’ says one senior European official. “His language humiliates the Taliban which is not the way to bring them to the table,’’ says another. European officials are deeply concerned that the attempted dialogue will stall in the wake of such comments.
The ambassador’s statements are reducing the chances that the Taliban will go ahead with their plan to open an office in Qatar, as was expected to happen as the next step towards an agreement. Moreover his fiery statements are exactly what the Taliban irreconcilables want to hear, because they sabotage negotiations that representatives of the mainstream Taliban faction may be having with Kabul and Washington.
“Crocker’s hardline comments play into the hands of the hardline Taliban who want the talks sabotaged anyway,” says the first European official. What is clearly missing is leadership. The State Department team, led by Marc Grossman, has been engaged for some months in talking to the Taliban, but senior officials including even Mr Obama and secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, appear to be doing nothing to discipline their officials. Mr Obama rarely talks about Afghanistan and he barely mentioned it at the tenth anniversary commemorations of the 9/11 attacks in New York last week.
Yet both Mr Obama and Ms Clinton have publicly and vociferously supported the need for talks with the Taliban. Reconciliation is the official name of the new US strategy. Beset as he is by domestic difficulties, in particular on the economy, Mr Obama needs to become more proactive on Afghanistan and seek to drive forward the talks rather than merely to be a “back stop” for them.
Ironically the “hardliners” in Washington have no support from traditional Republicans who want the US troops to come home. There is no presidential candidate among the Republicans who wants to prolong the war. In Europe every government wants a quick exit for its troops. European officials meanwhile fulminate at what they see as chaos in Washington where foreign policy appears to be set by an ambassador – while a president cannot decide which side to back.
The writer is author of Descent into Chaos and The Taliban

Afghanistan: Lessons in War and Peace-building for US
VOA News September 19, 2011 David Arnold
Washington - Taliban rockets fired earlier this month on the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters from across a Kabul street were a symbolic strike against a 10-year U.S.-led effort to stabilize and rebuild a nation devastated by decades of civil war, a Soviet occupation and a Taliban campaign to reshape Afghans in their own fundamentalist image.
For a decade beginning with the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States and Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. government has led a major and costly effort to offer Afghanistan a greater sense of domestic security, a new style of governance and control of its economic destiny. The Congressional Research Service reports that the combined efforts of the U.S. Department of Defense, the State Department and USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) have cost the U.S. government $444 billion.
Afghanistan is a pioneering attempt to rebuild one of the world’s poorest and most conflicted nations. The U.S. learned some hard but invaluable lessons from its experience in Iraq. And like in Iraq, the U.S. faces a deadline on its presence in Afghanistan as well.
The United States has vowed to remove the final 100,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2014. They have three years left to make a durable state capable of growing a diversified and sustainable economy from a largely rural and traditional society whose major crop is now poppies grown for an illegal international heroin trade. Will Operation Enduring Freedom offer Afghanistan lasting political and economic freedom?
The lion’s share of money spent in Afghanistan and Iraq has gone to fighting a war and creating post-conflict security. However, war costs trumped rebuilding. The costs of domestic reconstruction were only a small piece of the total. Together, the Pentagon, USAID and its parent, the State Department, spent an estimated $50 billion on building key institutions for a once-failed state: an electoral process, an army, police force, schools, health clinics, roads, bridges and power plants. USAID spent $12 billion in funds on development.
However, recent studies now report that some of this money was wasted. “We threw so much money at Iraq and spent so much and wasted a lot,” said Chris Shays, a co-chairman of the Wartime Commission for Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan and former U.S. Congressman from Connecticut. “So, we’re not repeating them in Afghanistan.” The Commission’s report cites expensive flaws in the way the U.S. government issues and manages contracts. The group just submitted a report to Congress identifying about $60 billion in fraud, waste and abuse – and projects that are unsustainable because Afghanistan and Iraq either cannot afford or do not want them.
Despite claims of funds wasted or misspent, some scholars and development experts give the United States high marks for the reconstruction efforts, starting with security.
Building a functioning state in a war zone
“The Afghan army and police are becoming a pretty viable and pretty respectable institution,” said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. “I think, therefore, that there are the makings of a new Afghan state which has some degree of centralized control and power over its own territory.”
However, O’Hanlon hedges his assessment with several substantial caveats for Afghanistan’s future security. “Obviously, it’s a weak state. Obviously, it doesn’t control all of its territory. It’s under threat, it has a lot of corruption and other problems but it does have some of the trappings and prerequisites of a functioning nation state.”
O’Hanlon has been tracking for the past 10 years Afghanistan’s state-building process through a post-conflict lens of state-building expenditures that have been borne predominantly by the Pentagon.
Daniel Serwer of the Middle East Institute is equally concerned about the current vulnerability of the Afghan state. Serwer advocates a larger role for civilian actors working through the State Department and other U.S. federal agencies. “We really didn’t try hard in Afghanistan.” He said development efforts were given short shrift. “For years after the war, there was very little assistance.”
The Commission’s final report and findings from others such as the International Conflict Group (ICG) come at a time when Congress begins an annual examination of funding amounts for the stabilization and development both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The recently retired U.S Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, went on record five years ago arguing, surprisingly to some, that the State Department doesn’t get enough attention when Congress funds such operations. He illustrated the imbalance of funding by telling his audience he could put the entire U.S. Foreign Service on one battleship. He put the number at 6,600 Foreign Service officers.
“One of the most important lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Gates, “is that military success is not sufficient to win: economic development, institution building and the rule of law, promoting internal reconciliation, good governance, providing basic services to the people are essential to success in state building.”
An ICG report calls on the U.S. government to reduce military involvement in humanitarian, development and reconstruction assistance and to improve coordination between civilian and military actors. That point is echoed by others who see advantages in shifting more funds from military to civilian contractors and in some cases, from the Defense to the State Department.
Military as major player
James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation holds that in conflict nations, the military must take the lead. “The right model is when you have a conflict environment and you’re trying to help get something established, the military guys need to be in charge because the overwhelming requirement is security,” said Carafano. “Once you’re out of the conflict stage, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge.”
“There’s no question but that a deployed soldier in Afghanistan who costs over a million dollars a year is far more expensive than civilians,” said Daniel Serwer, the Middle East Institute scholar. Serwer believes that sending in civilians “is not just cheaper but better.” But adds that “This requires a real build-up of the State Department and USAID capacity that we haven’t seen.”
“The United States has relied on its military as a main instrument of its own state building and of its foreign policy for a very long time,” Serwer said. “I think we’re at the point where the extra dollars spent on the military are not as productive as extra dollars spent on the civilian instruments of projecting power.”
The ICG report also recommends the U.S. government shift from their quick-impact military or civilian stabilization programs to partner with Afghanistan’s own National Solidarity Program that promotes Afghan-led community development, places management responsibilities in the hands of more than 20,000 committees that are implementing more that 50,000 projects. That’s exactly what six non-government organizations have been doing with funding from the Gates Foundation, the European Commission, the World Bank and the governments of the Netherlands, Japan and Norway, as well as from USAID.
Experts agree that, in the end, it does not matter which agency takes the lead in post-conflict countries, but how well any manager of U.S. foreign assistance can choose and supervise projects and its contractors. At least, the Wartime Commission holds that view.
“We went into Iraq and Afghanistan unprepared to use contractors, and the military has told us they can’t go to war without contractors,” said Shays, the wartime commission’s co-chair. He was surprised to learn in the committee’s first investigations that at times in the last 10 years, U.S. contractors outnumbered U.S. troops.
‘They are re-building their own country with our support’
The Commission’s report highlights some of troubles the International Conflict Group recently addressed in Afghanistan. Aid disbursed since 2001 “has largely failed to fulfill the international community’s pledges to rebuild Afghanistan,” according to the ICG report. “Poor planning and oversight have affected projects’ effectiveness and sustainability, with local authorities lacking the means to keep projects running, layers of subcontractors reducing the amounts that reach the ground, and aid delivery further undermined by corruption in Kabul and bribes paid to insurgent groups to ensure security for development projects.”
Representatives from several leading non-governmental organizations testified in April at the Wartime Commission hearings in Washington, D.C., that not-for-profits can do a better job in the final three years in Afghanistan and Iraq. Speakers for Mercy Corps, Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) argued that their development model is successful because it is based on experience in dozens of other conflicted countries over more than 20 years. They rely heavily on local communities to propose, implement and monitor projects of their own selection, such as schools, clinics, roads and bridges.
“We take a very low-cost approach, we have a small footprint, most of our staff overseas are the citizens of that nations,” said Anne Richard of the IRC. She said her organization has 400 employees in Afghanistan and 98 percent of them are Afghans. “They are re-building their own country with our support and it can be a tremendously successful enterprise.”
IRC first began working with Afghan refugees in Pakistan many years ago. In Afghanistan, they have partnered with other NGOs in supporting the growth of committee support for schools: teaching parents the value of an education, providing teacher education and getting girls into the classroom. They have partnered with several NGOs investing in development efforts through the National Solidarity Program, whose work had been endorsed by the ICG report.
“It’s true that your NGOs, like Save and Mercy Corps, and others have been in-country and know the culture and depend on the indigenous people to do the work,” Shays told VOA after the hearings.
Shays also said the committee has concerns about how USAID and the NGOs, which do the work in the field, perform due diligence in monitoring the projects. The Commission believes weaknesses in contracting occur in both agencies.
Going to war with contractors
Shays suggested a corollary to the infamous remark by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to a U.S. National Guard unit in Kuwait, “You go to war with the army you have.”
“If you’ve got to go to war with the army you’ve got,” Shays adds, “you’ve also got to go to war with the contractors you’ve got. And you are going to be a little more lenient for the first year or two,” Shays said. “After a few years you shouldn’t be doing the same wasteful things.
“In the first year or two you cut yourself a little slack. But we have been wasting money continually. So we need many reforms and it will take years, but it will save literally billions and billions of dollars," added Shays.

Afghan Parliament Still Stymied By Election Dispute
NPR By Quil Lawrence September 19, 2011
Last weekend marked a milestone for Afghanistan's Parliament that should have been cause for celebration: It's been a year since Afghans braved the threat of insurgent violence to go to the polls to pick a new legislature.
But a dispute over election results has smoldered between President Hamid Karzai and lawmakers ever since. And the resulting gridlock has prevented the new Parliament from passing a single notable law, confirming any of the president's ministers, or giving any oversight to the president or his Cabinet.
On a recent day, just outside the security gates at Afghanistan's Parliament in west Kabul, a small group of constituents was crowding around Ramazan Bashardost, a member of Parliament from Kabul. It was old-fashioned representative democracy in action.
Bashardost is a rarity in Afghanistan, with a reputation for direct contact with the public. For years, he pitched a tent across the highway from the Parliament building and welcomed all comers and listened to their woes. He writes down names and says he'll look into specific problems, but Bashardost is candid about the record of Parliament, or Wolesi Jirga, at getting anything done.
"The only thing that the Afghan Wolesi Jirga in one year did, it was their salary. They asked to add 3,100 Afghanis ($72) more to their salary," he says.
Competing Factions
To be fair, it was difficult for Parliament to make significant decisions, since the exact results of the vote are still a matter of controversy. It began with an election day when threats of insurgent violence closed many polling stations.
After authorities spent months tabulating and disqualifying irregular ballots, the results did not favor Karzai's Pashtun ethnic group. Critics say that's why Karzai set up a special tribunal to re-examine the election.
Parliament bristled at what it saw as an overreach by the president. Since then, lawmakers have been too preoccupied with whether they might lose their seats to make any laws.
Most days, a number of Parliament members show up at work, passing through metal detectors and checking their handguns in lockers before entering the small courtyard between the higher and lower houses of the legislature.
The politicians mingling on the commons are mostly divided into two factions over the ongoing election dispute. Karzai's special tribunal originally ruled that 62 legislators should be replaced; that number has now, after debate, come down to just nine.
A group of 70 parliamentarians, calling themselves the Rule of Law coalition, say changing even those nine seats is illegal. Another group — called the reformers — says it's not worth holding up the legislature over just nine seats. But both groups agree their record so far this year is abysmal.
A Government With Only One Branch
Nader Khan Katawazai represents Paktika, in eastern Afghanistan.
"It's gotten to a point where the government calls the Parliament illegitimate and the Parliament calls the executive illegitimate, so it's a deadlock," he says, wearing an enormous green silk turban typical of his Pashtun province.
Katawazai says Parliament has disappointed the public.
"Yes, it's been one year and there's nothing I can really tell you about the Parliament's achievement; we haven't really done anything," he says.
Katawazai says Afghanistan hardly has the time to waste, with many pressing matters that legislators should be taking up.
Western diplomats and the United Nations have put pressure on Karzai to accept the Parliament and get on with business. But Asadullah Sayadati, a parliamentarian from central Daikundi province, says the international community should be doing more to confront what has become a government with only one branch.
"It raises a question, for me personally, what are you doing in Afghanistan? If you're not supporting democracy, if you're not supporting democratic institutions of the country, then why are you here?" he says.
Sayadati hastens to add that he doesn't want the international forces to leave — at least not until Afghanistan's democracy looks a little more stable.

Violence 'Affecting Afghan Children's Mental Health'
September 19, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
KABUL -- Human rights officials in Afghanistan have endorsed earlier findings suggesting that endemic violence is inflicting considerable psychological trauma and distress on children in that country, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reports.
Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission in Kabul told RFE/RL that many Afghan children have witnessed acts of violence, seeing people being killed in bomb attacks or seeing dead bodies on the streets.
A 2009 study by England's Durham University, the first large-scale survey of Afghan children's mental health, reported that one in five children suffers from psychiatric disorders, including anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder.
An RFE/RL correspondent in Kabul's Abdul Haq neighborhood -- the scene of a recent Taliban attack in which six militants launched assaults against Afghan and international forces -- interviewed some children who had witnessed the violence.
"We were in the classroom when we heard gunfire behind our school," said one student. "We all escaped and ran home. A lot of my classmates were crying saying that we were going to die."
"When we were running from the school, I saw a car pull up by the road," Najib, a sixth-grader, told RFE/RL. "A man dressed in women's clothing came out and shot a policeman and then ran into a building."
Hasib, 15, said the attacks caused panic among his classmates, with some still traumatized days later. "Psychologically it hit everybody hard," he said. "Many of us don't eat properly, we have trouble sleeping, and find it hard to concentrate on our studies."
Children have been some of the worst victims of Afghanistan's nearly three decades of war.
According to UNICEF, more than 30 percent of children of elementary-school age are working on the streets in Afghanistan and are often their family's sole breadwinners. That means that millions of children are not going to school.
Child labor in Afghanistan is also rampant, with many impoverished families selling their kids into forced labor, sexual exploitation, and early marriage.
Some of the children -- who can be as young as 3 years old -- are overworked and are suffer from malnutrition and disease.

Fighting is cultural, criminal for Afghan policewomen
USA TODAY By Lianne Gutcher, Special for USA TODAY 19/09/2011
QALAT, Afghanistan - Asked about the rigors of being a female cop in this sparsely populated Afghan province, Fatima Tajik is blunt.
"We want to leave our jobs," Tajik tells her NATO mentor, U.S. Army Maj. Maria Rodriguez. "We are risking our lives for little money: $220 per month. We also have families to take care of. All the women in Zabul hate us. Everyone hates us."
The women in this town where strict Islamic customs pervade all aspects of daily life call the policewomen "*****s" for working alongside Americans and men to whom they are not married, she says. The women get phone calls telling them they will be beheaded if they don't quit the force.
Rodriguez, Female Engagement Team leader and provost marshal of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, acknowledges the death threats and that a bomb had been placed in a teacher's home. But she asks the women to persevere.
"We don't want you to quit," Rodriguez says, promising to talk to her commander about what could be done to help the women feel safer.
The scene reflects the scope of the challenge the Afghan government and NATO forces face here in Zabul province — which abuts the Taliban's traditional homeland of Kandahar province — as they try to modernize daily living and protect Afghans from their former overlords.
The Afghan government and NATO see the female officers corps as crucial to achieving those goals.
There now are about 1,150 women in the Afghan National Police, less than 1% of the force. The Ministry of Interior wants 5,000 police women on the job by 2014.
Women are needed to perform duties that men are forbidden from doing in this tribal society in which ancient Islamic customs were strictly enforced long before radical, militant Taliban clerics took over the country in the 1990s.
For example, policewomen search women at checkpoints and are sent into the female quarters of civilian compounds where insurgents often hide.
To avoid checkpoint searches by male officers, armed male terrorists often cloak themselves in head-to-toe burqas that typically are worn by women.
The Taliban also has used women as suicide bombers. In one case, insurgents handed a bag containing a bomb to an 8-year-old girl and blew her up as she approached a police checkpoint.
"Integrating Afghan women into this (security) process supports our combined efforts to eliminate insurgent activity and eliminate Taliban influence across Afghanistan," says Lt. Col. Wayne Perry, director of media outreach for the International Security Assistance Force, which oversee coalition operations. "These programs, and the woman participating in them, will go a long way in setting the conditions to support the process of transition in Afghanistan."
In the two years ending in December, NATO will spend $20 billion — one-third of Afghanistan's gross domestic product for the same period — training, equipping and developing the Afghan National Security Forces that are supposed to take over for U.S. troops and others by the end of 2014.
Among those forces are the Afghan National Police. It is a notoriously corrupt force, but nonetheless critical to the U.S.-led counterinsurgency strategy, which relies on local police to prevent the Taliban from retaking towns cleared by the military.
That's why retaining women who have stepped forward to become police officers is increasingly important.
After meeting with Rodriguez, the frustrated women police officers, who wear full burqas while on the job in public, decide to stick with the force — for now.
However, many other policewomen have quit under pressures from a community in which fundamental Islam is prevalent.
"If it were true," says Tajik of the slurs against policewomen, "we would have quit, too."
'The police force needs women'
The capital of Zabul province is Qalat, which is Persian for "fortified place."
The city of several thousand people is known for its 19th-century British fortress, and for being among the first places the Taliban resumed power after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that forced the group from Kabul. The province got its first airstrip only five years ago, and it's unpaved.
The Afghan National Army was largely welcomed by locals when it arrived with U.S. special forces, Romanian troops and civilian engineers.
Since then, the number of roadside bombs has declined and some projects to improve transportation and education are moving forward.
Bibi Khala Girls' School, with places for 1,500 pupils, opened about two years ago, and fertilizer and seed is being handed out to farmers to encourage them to replace the poppy crop that is converted to opium and sold with the help of the Taliban for a cut.
But some things are not changing.
When 30 women here completed a 2½-month police training course, they were lauded by their U.S. mentors for the vital role they were going to play in bringing security to the nation.
Then, almost immediately, more than 20 of the new recruits quit amid rumors that the local police chief was abusing some of the women sexually, according to Fatima Tajik.
"It's lies," says Tajik, who has been a policewoman for three years.
Even the suggestion of impropriety here can damage a woman's honor and bring shame on their families.
In Helmand, the province to the south of Zabul, women face a similar dilemma.
A surge of U.S. Marines in Helmand has forced the insurgents to the outskirts. The 16 women now on the police force are supported by the government — but not always by the community.
"Helmand is very conservative province but people understand that the police force needs women — and not just for ensuring security," says Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for Provincial Governor Gulab Mangal.
"It is also better for our culture: If women keep joining the police, then other women will take their lead and start filling key roles in other sectors throughout Afghanistan," he says.
"Islam says women are free to work, and it's good for Afghanistan because they can play key role in reconstructing the war-torn country."
Many influential Afghans disagree with Ahmadi's view.
Nabil Muradi, a mullah and tribal elder from Kabul province to the north, says it is wrong for women to join the security services.
"I have heard, and people believe, that (unmarried) men and women in the army and police have sexual relations with each other," he says. "These women become prostitutes. Afghanistan is an Islamic country and we have to follow the laws of Quran not the laws of westerners."
Some provinces are less resistant to the idea, says Canadian Navy Capt. Angus Topshee, director of Afghan National Police instruction centers at the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan.
"There are lots of variations in attitude to women in the force," Topshee says. "In the Kabul area, there is a lot of receptiveness. But in other parts of the country, it is a complete anathema."
Working in secret
In Zabul's provincial police headquarters, the lack of resources for policewomen and the extent of the community's hostility toward them is clear. The nine women remaining on the provincial force said they have no uniforms and no weapons. They complain about name-calling and slurs for working alongside U.S. troops and men.
Bibi Shireeni Tajak says she will stay on the job despite the risks.
"I was married when I was 11. My husband was 40. I had a baby at 12. I have no education. The Taliban killed two of my brothers by beheading them," she said. "I was stuck at home and I went kind of crazy. I decided to become a policewoman, and I fell in love with the job."
Another policewoman, Bibi Anwara, says her husband divorced her when he learned she had joined the force.
"When I told him I had quit, he remarried me. Now I do the job in secret," she said, proudly producing her police ID card, which she keeps tucked in her bra.
Afghanistan's most senior policewoman, Brigadier Gen. Shafiqa Quraishi, said women will be integral to the future of law enforcement in Afghanistan even though some today are relegated to administrative work and even tea-making.
"There are women in counternarcotics and counterterrorism units, as well as medics and crime-scene investigators," she says, seated at a large desk surrounded by international advisers.
Shafiqa is particularly pleased with the Family Response Unit, which investigates men who abuse their wives and children, and a complaint procedure for women on the force who claim to have been harassed by male co-workers.
"Since Afghanistan is a religious country, most of the men don't want their women to join the police force," she says. "That is why we are focusing our efforts on changing their attitudes so they will let their daughters, mothers and sisters join the police force."
Fawzia Koofi, a member of parliament, agrees: "I know it is not culturally accepted by the people, but our society needs them to make a contribution to improving security."

Afghans unapologetically cheer on dogfights
The blood sport, technically illegal, is lucrative and popular even among government officials. In a culture accustomed to violence, few see it as barbaric.
Los Angeles Times By Mark Magnier September 20, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan - Meyaan Ahamad dips his head into the shed where his prized fighting dog barks ferociously at the end of a chain. The dog, a Kuchi breed, has weightlifter shoulders, a massive head, the heft of a black bear and the growl of a cougar.
If Michael Vick, the American quarterback convicted of participating in an illegal dogfighting operation, were from Afghanistan, he'd probably be a national hero. In this country, canine bouts — literally "dog wars" in Dari — are keenly followed even by celebrities and government ministers.
It's not about the money, said Ahamad, whose family has bred fighters for generations. It's about knowing you've got the biggest, baddest dog around. "You get respect," he said.
Maybe. But the money isn't too shabby either. Winning dogs fetch more than $20,000 and bets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars are made during big fights. "Some people arrive in a Lexus and end up losing it betting," Ahamad said. "They go home bravely, but once inside, they cry."
Kuchis, which take their name from a nomadic tribe, can weigh as much as 175 pounds, their backs as tall as 3 feet. Bred to guard livestock and kill wolves, they're said to be naturally aggressive.
"Iranian and Pakistani dogs are all right," dog owner Abdul Qadir said. "But Kuchis are tougher, just like the Afghan people."
Technically, dogfighting is illegal here. But there's little enforcement given its popularity and how much money and how many powerful people are involved. (The champion fighter in Kabul, named Marshal, is owned by the nation's first vice president, Mohammed Fahim.) A stadium in northern Kabul seats 1,500, with smaller venues found in most neighborhoods.
"Afghans are from a warrior culture," said Marnie Gustavson, an animal lover, Kuchi owner and executive director of Parsa, a civic group helping underprivileged Afghans. "They fight everything — birds, camels, kites. Why would dogs be any different?"
Before fights, Kuchis are taken for long walks on steep mountain paths and fed a special diet believed to enhance their strength and ferocity, owners said, including eggs and sheep's feet.
Most matches take place during the cooler months, October to February, when the dogs are more energetic and their wounds are said to heal faster. Fights can last five to 90 minutes. "It can take two weeks to get them healed and their energy back after a fight," Ahamad said, "and a lot of sheep feet."
Afghans remain unapologetic about this blood sport, contending that the Kuchis are treated better than family and fighting is in their nature. Matches are also more humane than in other countries, they say, because they're halted before the loser is killed, with fights often stopped when the loser bares its teeth.
"I used to beat my dogs to make them tougher," said Ahamad, sporting a neatly trimmed beard and a green vest over his traditional shalwar kameez. "But they'd get so scared. They'd pee when they saw me, so I stopped."
Animal welfare is a rather foreign concept in Afghanistan. There's little history of keeping pets in this country, which traditionally has had barely enough to feed itself, with animals expected to plow, guard or otherwise earn their keep. And many Muslims consider dogs unclean.
Three decades of war has made brutality part of life's daily fabric, analysts said, not to mention the residual effect of years living under the Taliban, which killed dogs and beat their owners (although dog owners said betting on fights continued in secret).
In February, the Taliban detonated bombs twice in Kandahar in and around dogfights, killing 25 people.
"Afghans are angry," Gustavson said. "It's a culture of violence. And someone who beats their dog probably beats their wife."
The ones most concerned with animal welfare here tend to be foreigners, who generally tread lightly.
"We never raise the issue or tell Afghans not to have dogfights," said Pen Farthing, a former British soldier who started Nowzad Dogs, an animal rescue charity operating in Afghanistan, after serving there for seven years. "We'd lose all credibility. Instead, we focus on helping strays."
Farthing started the group, which keeps about 60 dogs at a secret location to avoid Taliban attacks, after breaking up a dogfight in Helmand province and adopting one of the fighters. He has recruited a few Afghan boys to help him feed those awaiting adoption, hoping to improve attitudes among the next generation.
Not all Afghans are fans of dogfights.
"It's not instinct that makes them fight and bleed; they're trained that way," said Ramin Raha, 25, a music student. "Not that I necessarily blame their owners. With no human rights in Afghanistan, how can you expect animal rights?"
Ahamad and Qadir said they each keep two dogs, their best prospect and a second in case the first one loses. After a loss, dogs are often abandoned to avoid the expense of feeding them. Owners say it's a blessing because they're finally free. Animal lovers say it sentences them to a life of subsistence, disease and fighting.
Either way, Ahamad sees little need to change an age-old system he's passionate about.
"Dogfighting in Afghanistan is thousands of years old," he said. "And it will continue for thousands more."

TV Presenter Apologizes To Afghan Warlords -- At Gunpoint
RFE/RL September 19, 2011
KABUL - Nabil Miskinyar, a 60-something journalist, has numerous television appearances under his belt. But none like the one he experienced in Afghanistan last week.
The Afghan-American journalist regularly appears on his California-based Ariana Afghanistan Television and comments on the war-torn country's current affairs and political past.
His hard-hitting monologues -- presented in Dari and often directed at some of the most powerful political figures in Afghanistan today -- attract a modest audience both among the Afghan diaspora and inside the country itself.
During a recent trip to Kabul, it was made clear that Miskinyar's approach has its detractors as well.
Miskinyar claims that on September 12 he was picked up for lunch by four men, including Najibullah Kabuli, owner of the private Emrooz Television channel. The two had set up the appointment through a common friend who had proposed cooperation between their fledgling stations.
Miskinyar says that after a lavish lunch, he was forced at gunpoint to conduct an interview with Emrooz telejournalist Fahim Kohdamani.
"He told me that 'on your television shows, you always criticize and say bad things about the leaders of the national resistance,'" Miskinyar says, ticking down a list of the so-called mujahedin who battled Afghanistan's former Soviet occupiers. "By this, he meant Burhanuddin Rabbani, Ahmad Shah Masud, Abdul Rad Rasul Sayyaf, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Ahmed Zia Massud, Ahmad Wali Masud, and Mohammad Qasim Fahim. What I said in the interview was that 'if I did not say the right things, or if I have attributed false things to these leaders of the resistance, then I apologize to the Afghan people.'"
Scare Tactics
In a press statement on September 16, Miskinyar claims that he was asked to confess that that he was an American agent, a supporter of Pakistan, and anti-Iranian.
He says he had two guns pointed at him at all times.
"Kohdamani told me that I would die and my entire family would be killed if I did not respond as they demanded," Miskinyar writes. "Under intense pressure and in fear of my life, I told them what they wanted me to say while they videotaped an 'interview.'"
Miskinyar says that he was held for seven hours after the interview and was then blindfolded and left on a Kabul street. "Fortunately, I was able to find my way back to my family and leave the country," his statement says.
Allegation Rejected
In the interview, Maskinyar is shown being aggressively questioned about his political views and the opinions expressed during his television shows.
Najibullah Kabuli, the owner of Emrooz television, rejects Miskinyar's allegations. He counters that he himself is a fierce critic of Iran's clerical regime, so it would make no sense for him to force Miskinyar to say good things about the Iranian government.
"I think he arrived here to get money from the leaders that he used to insult [on his TV shows]," Kabuli says. "He thought that he would show to them that he will keep silent in future in return for their payments. And that's why he chose my television for a confessional interview. But afterward he saw that the leaders were not impressed and didn't give him any money. So he accused me to get something or to get fame. I think this speaks about his motives."
written by Abubakar Siddique in Prague based on reporting in Kabul by RFE/RL Radio Free Afghanistan correspondents Mustafa Sarwar and Hameed Mohmand

www.afghanistannewscenter.com