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Rabbani's Killer Used Fake Peace Message to Gain Access, Karzai Says
VOA News September 22, 2011
Afghan President Hamid Karzai says the suicide bomber who killed former president Burhannuddin Rabbani used a fake peace message from the Taliban to gain access to the peace broker.
Rabbani, the head of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, was killed Tuesday at his Kabul home when the attacker detonated explosives in his turban. Rabbani was leading efforts to find a political solution to the 10-year Afghan war.
President Karzai said Thursday that the suicide bomber had presented officials with a CD of a purported Taliban peace offer. The president told reporters in Kabul that he had listened to the audio recording before leaving to attend this week's United Nations General Assembly in New York. Karzai cut short his U.S. trip after Rabbani was killed.
The president said one of his advisors, Masoom Stanekzai, gave him the CD. Stanekzai was wounded in Tuesday's attack. Officials say the killer had waited at a guest house in the Afghan capital for four days to see former President Rabbani.
At a separate news conference, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence agency said officials believe Taliban's leadership body, the Quetta Shura, was behind the assassination.
There is conflicting information regarding the claim of responsibility.
A Taliban spokesman told Reuters news agency that the group carried out the attack, but another Taliban spokesman rejected that claim and said the insurgent group would not comment about Rabbani's assassination.
In other news, NATO says a joint Afghan and coalition security force killed a Taliban commander who was the target of an earlier operation in which 30 American troops were killed in a helicopter crash.
The alliance says Qari Tahir was killed in an air strike Tuesday in Afghanistan's central Wardak province.
NATO says Tahir was the Taliban's top leader in Tangi Valley and the target of the August 5 operation, during which the CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down.
The crash also killed seven Afghan troops and an Afghan interpreter.
The insurgents responsible for shooting down the helicopter were killed days later in an airstrike.
NATO says Tahir was responsible for coordinating attacks against Afghan fighters as well as kidnappings for ransom and hijacking of convoy vehicles. The statement says he was also known to use roadside bombs and rockets to intimidate the local population.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Mullen accuses Pakistani government of exporting violence to Afghanistan
By Associated Press, Thursday, September 22, 8:31 PM
WASHINGTON — The top U.S. military officer on Thursday accused Pakistan of “exporting violence” to Afghanistan and said this puts in jeopardy not only the frayed U.S.-Pakistani partnership against terrorism but also the prospects for a successful outcome to the decade-old war in Afghanistan.
In his final congressional testimony before retiring next week, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said success in Afghanistan is threatened not only by the Pakistani government’s support for the Haqqani network and other al-Qaida-aligned extremist groups but also by Afghan government corruption.
“If we continue to draw down forces apace while such public and systemic corruption is left unchecked,” Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “I believe we risk leaving behind a government in which we cannot reasonably expect Afghans to have faith. At best this would lead to localized conflicts inside the country; at worst it could lead to government collapse and civil war.”
Mullen said Pakistan’s government has chosen to “use violent extremism as an instrument of policy,” adding that “by exporting violence, they have eroded their internal security and their position in the region. They have undermined their international credibility and threatened their economic well-being.”
Testifying alongside Mullen, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also decried Pakistani support for the Haqqani network, and he said Pakistani authorities have been told in unequivocal terms that the U.S. will not tolerate a continuation of the group’s cross-border attacks. Panetta said the message was delivered recently by new CIA director David Petraeus in a meeting with the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI.
“They must take steps to prevent the safe haven that the Haqqanis are using,” Panetta said. “We simply cannot allow these kinds of terrorists to be able to go into Afghanistan, attack our forces and then return to Pakistan for safe haven.”
Panetta also said that U.S. and Afghan forces are searching for ways to better defend against spectacular attacks by insurgents, like the assault on the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul last week.
In his first congressional testimony since taking office, Panetta said it is important to limit insurgents’ ability to create the perception that security in the Afghan capital is deteriorating.
Overall, he said, the U.S. and NATO effort to stabilize Afghanistan is “headed in the right direction.”
In recent days administration officials have taken a harsher tone toward Pakistan, accusing Islamabad of maintaining links with the Haqqani network, a band of Islamist fighters that the U.S. says are behind attacks in Afghanistan, including last week’s attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
Mullen, who has met frequently with his Pakistani counterpart, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, over the past few years, said in prepared remarks for the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the Haqqanis have “long enjoyed the support and protection of the Pakistani government” and are “in many ways a strategic arm” of Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. He said the Haqqanis were behind several recent major attacks in Afghanistan, including the embassy attack and a Sept. 10 truck bomb that killed five Afghans and injured 77 U.S. soldiers.
Mullen said earlier this week there is a “proxy connection” between Pakistani intelligence services and the Haqqanis, meaning the militants are secretly doing the Pakistanis’ bidding.
“The Haqqani piece of this has got to be reversed — period,” he told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mullen said he delivered that message to Kayani last week during a meeting in Spain.
The increasingly tough U.S. rhetoric — particularly the accusation of a proxy relationship — reflects a U.S. belief that Pakistani intelligence in recent months has more aggressively facilitated attacks by the Haqqanis on Afghan and American targets inside Afghanistan, one senior military official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said it’s unclear whether Pakistani leaders intend to heed U.S. warnings.
Late last week, Panetta asserted that the U.S. will do whatever necessary to stop the Haqqani network attacks on U.S. forces. He would not say whether that means that the U.S. will take new military action, but there already has been an increase in U.S. drone strikes into Pakistan’s border regions.
Panetta’s remarks were interpreted as a veiled warning that the U.S. may resort again to unilateral action against the insurgents. Such public warnings, however, may only damage anti-terror cooperation between the two nations, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Tehmina Janjua said.
After the U.S. raided Osama bin Laden’s secret compound inside Pakistan in May — without alerting Pakistani authorities in advance — relations deteriorated further. Pakistan suspended a program under which U.S. special operations forces helped train Pakistani forces in counterterrorist tactics. U.S. officials on Wednesday disclosed a compromise deal to slash the number of U.S. military personnel allowed in Pakistan to between 100 and 150, about half of what it had been. The number of special operations trainers would fall from 140 to fewer than 10.
The Haqqani connection in Pakistan, and the haven that Pakistan provides for other Islamic extremist groups, including the Taliban, are major impediments to U.S. success in Afghanistan. Another major worry is corruption inside the Afghan government, as the U.S. and its NATO allies proceed with a plan to hand over full responsibility for security and other functions to the Afghans by the end of 2014. By that date, all U.S. combat forces are to have been withdrawn.
Afghan president pays tribute to late Rabbani's role in peace efforts
KABUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday described the late Burhanudin Rabbani as the "Martyr of Peace" and hailed his efforts in bringing about peace and national reconciliation in the militancy-hit country.
"A terrorist disguised to be messenger of peace from Taliban side targeted chairmen of Peace Council professor Rabbani and martyred him. He sacrificed his life for peace in the country and so, the late professor Rabbani is 'Martyr of Peace' in Afghanistan, " President Karzai told at a press conference after returning home from New York.
A man pretended to be a Taliban messenger entered the house of the chairman of the government-backed peace body, the High Peace Council and a former Afghan President Burhanudin in Kabul Tuesday evening and blew himself up leaving himself and Rabbani dead on the spot.
Four more people sustained injuries, according to officials.
President Karzai who was in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly had canceled his visit and returned home.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have claimed of responsibility.
The burial ceremony of late Rabbani is scheduled to be held amid tight security in Kabul on Friday.
As sign of respect and paying homage to the services of late Rabbani, Afghan government has announced three-day national mourning from Thursday and the national flag would remain half- mast for three days.
Pakistan rejects U.S. allegations against spy agency
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Thursday dismissed U.S. accusations that the country's spy agency is using the al-Qaida- linked Haqqani network for a proxy war in neighboring Afghanistan.
U.S. officials have accused Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI for having links with the Haqqani network, which they blamed for the September 13 attacks on the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul. Five Afghan policemen and 10 civilians were killed in the brazen attack.
Speaking at the regular weekly briefing on Thursday, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua said Pakistan has no cooperation with the Haqqani network and was not fighting any war through the Haqqanis in Afghanistan.
Earlier U.S. officials had claimed that there was mounting evidence that the ISI had been encouraging the Haqqani network to attack targets in Afghanistan.
The U.S. leveled the allegations at a time when the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee passed a bill that makes "all" U.S. financial assistance to the Government of Pakistan privy to conditions of cooperation against the Hqqani network and other terror groups associated with al-Qaida.
According to a press release issued by the committee, the Senate Thursday passed the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations bill for the fiscal year 2012 by a 28-2 vote in favor.
The bill makes available 161.4 million U.S. dollars for State Department operations in Pakistan, but "does not specify amounts for assistance for Pakistan." The committee also voted to provide one billion dollars for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund.
On the assassination of Afghan peace council head, Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani, the Foreign Office spokesperson said with Rabbani's death, the people of Afghanistan had "lost a visionary leader and one of the strongest proponents of peace," while Pakistan had "lost a friend and a true partner for peace."
"The people of Pakistan mourn with the Afghan government this tragic loss. Terrorism and violence only reinforce the resolve of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat and eliminate terrorism and to continue to work for reconciliation and peace in Afghanistan," she said.
A suicide bomber with explosives hidden in his turban killed Rabbani, the head of the Afghan High Peace Council, at his home in Kabul on Tuesday.
Rabbani was the latest victim in a string of high-profile assassinations in Afghanistan and his death is being seen as a major blow to the nascent effort to begin negotiations with the Afghan Taliban.
After Afghan slaying, a sense of helplessness
Washington Post By Ernesto Londoño September 21, 2011
KABUL - As they mourned the slain Afghan leader who had been tasked with reconciling with the Taliban, close friends and associates of Burhanuddin Rabbani expressed anger and hopelessness Wednesday about peace talks they say were doomed from the start.
“We cannot continue to have wishful thinking,” former presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, who was close to Rabbani, said as he drove to the former president’s house to pay his last respects. “We must deal with them forcefully.”
Abdullah called President Hamid Karzai’s attempts to get Taliban leaders to lay down their arms and join the government naive.
“These are the people President Karzai calls ‘dear brothers,’ ” Abdullah said of Karzai’s conciliatory approach to the militants. “The ones who have killed thousands of people.”
Afghan officials said they were all but certain that the Taliban’s leadership or a faction of the group carried out Tuesday’s assassination, the latest high-profile killing in Afghanistan this year — and arguably the one most detrimental to efforts to end the 10-year-old war.
As of Wednesday night, no group had asserted responsibility for the attack. Taliban spokesmen on Wednesday were uncharacteristically hard to reach. A Twitter account that purports to be linked to the Taliban’s media operation posted messages Wednesday saying the group is not ready to weigh in on the killing.
“Since we have not yet completed our investigation into the matter, therefore our stance is that of not elaborating on the issue any further,” the message said.
Abdullah and other Afghan officials said the man who detonated explosives hidden inside a turban as he greeted Rabbani used the name Esmatullah.
Kabul was awash with rumors and speculation about the motive.
Some Afghans said it sent an unmistakable signal that insurgent leaders saw no benefit to negotiating with Karzai’s U.S.-backed government. Others saw a narrower motive, saying that whoever carried out the attack perhaps felt that Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik who led the fight against the Taliban during the civil war in the 1990s, was the wrong man to broker a deal with the Pashtun militant group.
Senior figures of the High Peace Council that Rabbani led hosted the assailant for several days at a guesthouse in Kabul used by the peacemaking body, Afghan officials said.
An account provided by Amanullah Paiman, a former aide to Rabbani, described a sense of optimism about the envoy’s visit.
He said Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, a senior member of the council, had been told by the envoy that he had an important message for Rabanni from the leadership of the extremist group’s leadership council, known as the Quetta Shura. In several phone calls, Stanekzai pressed Rabbani, who was traveling in Iran and Dubai, to head back to Kabul, said Ismail Qasimayar, a member of the peace council.
Afghans close to Rabbani said it was hard to believe that the assailants could have carried out the attack without help from members of Rabbani’s inner circle.
“I am sure that without inside and outside help this incident would not have happened,” Paiman said. “This man was kept in the guesthouse for a week, and nobody paid attention to his movement, turban and acts.”
On Wednesday morning, police closed off a prominent road in downtown Kabul that runs near Rabbani’s street to all but the throng of warlords and politicians who traveled to his residence in sport-utility vehicles with large posses of bodyguards to offer condolences to relatives.
As edgy guards armed with AK-47 assault rifles scanned the crowd, elderly bearded men embraced solemnly. Posters of the slain former president, who led the country from 1992 to 1996, were plastered around the neighborhood.
Ahmad Zaeem, a former assistant to Rabbani, looked ashen as he spoke outside Rabbani’s house.
“There is no place left for people to negotiate,” he said. “They attacked the foundation of peace in the country. There is no room for negotiation.”
While stunned by the audacity of the attack, some Afghans said they deemed the death inconsequential.
“Since the High Peace Council was established, there has been no achievement,” said Bizmillah, an army officer who provided only his first name. “They’re in it for the money.”
Ahmad Wali Massoud, a close friend and political ally of Rabbani’s, said the former president had dim hopes that Karzai’s peace plan could work.
“He made his own effort,” said Massoud, a brother of the renowned commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, who helped drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan and was killed a decade ago in a strikingly similar attack. “But I’m sure he did not believe this could work.”
Massoud said the prospect of a negotiated settlement appears dead.
“I don’t think the enemy is that strong,” said Massoud, who served as ambassador in London during Karzai’s first term in office. “The problem is that the government under Karzai is so weak, so fragile, so corrupt that the terrorists now have the upper hand.”
Special correspondents Sayed Salahuddin and Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
New 'Silk Road' eyed for Afghanistan
AFP – Wed, Sep 21, 2011.
Afghanistan, its neighbors and supporters are launching a drive to boost prosperity and peace by linking the country with markets across South and Central Asia, according to US officials.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will host talks in New York Thursday on what amounts to plans for a "New Silk Road," they said.
Like the ancient Silk Road, Afghanistan would be at the heart of lucrative trade routes between Asia and the West, but it would involve modern highways, rail links and energy pipelines, senior US administration officials told reporters.
They said the New York talks -- which will draw officials from Afghanistan's neighbors and near-neighbors, including China -- will pave the way for meetings in Istanbul on November 2 and in Bonn, Germany, on December 5.
The meetings are designed to promote the "idea that a secure, stable and prosperous Afghanistan will only really be able to exist inside a secure, stable and prosperous region," a senior US official told reporters.
"It's part of a wider effort to help to build up the Afghan private sector, to help create sustainable economic development in Afghanistan, to create this economic integration between South and Central Asia," a second US official said.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to upstage the high-level officials attending the meeting, said the "New Silk Road" builds on projects that are already underway in the region.
One of them includes the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement, which was launched in June this year to reduce the costs and delays in transporting goods between the two often tense neighbors.
The second official said the Afghans and Pakistanis have agreed to try to extend the arrangement to central Asia. "We also hope it could be extended to India as well," the official said.
The officials did not say how the longstanding tension between Pakistan and India would affect the plans, but noted that the Indian and Pakistani commerce secretaries have been engaged for months in trying to increase cross-border trade.
"The ultimate goal is to reduce trade and other barriers so that products from Afghanistan or from any of the Central Asian countries could transit through Pakistan and into India, Bangladesh or even beyond," he said.
"This is really a truly transformative vision because... India is going to be such an important economic actor for the region," he said.
The New Silk Road project also calls for building on progress to extend energy pipelines across Central Asia.
The second official recalled progress the governments of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India have made in building the TAPI pipeline to bring natural gas from Turkmenistan fields to India's energy markets.
"It would bring important transit revenues for Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.
He also cited the example of Uzbekistan, which he said has been "very helpful" working with the Asian Development Bank and others to develop the rail link from its own border to Mazar i-Sharif, in Afghanistan.
Drones: Pakistan Has No Leg To Stand On
September 22, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Bashir Ahmad Gwakh
The recent drone attack that reportedly killed Al-Qaeda leader Abu Hafs al-Shahri in Waziristan is the latest result of a Central Intelligence Agency campaign that began in 2004. Pakistan has protested against U.S. drone attacks, considering them a violation of its sovereignty.
Such protests have been ineffective. Strikes by the pilotless predators have increased since President Barack Obama took office in 2008. The United States considers them so effective that it is seeking a further expansion of drone operations in Pakistan, "The Washington Post" reported.
Many Pakistanis say the drones kill too many civilians and therefore should be stopped. On September 19, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, an adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister, told reporters that in order to build diplomatic pressure against drone attacks, the federal Ministry of Human Rights has decided to bring the issue before the United Nations.
In April, speaking to parliament hours after dual drone strikes killed six suspected militants in Waziristan, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the raids and said the Foreign Ministry had lodged a complaint with the U.S. Embassy, reiterating its stance that such attacks are counterproductive.
Sophisticated, Accurate
However, drones are considered one of the most sophisticated of modern-day weapons -- more precise than regular missiles -- and have the ability to verify targets without risking the lives of pilots. A recent study conducted by the New America Foundation shows that the 270 reported drone strikes in northwestern Pakistan from 2004 to the present day have killed between 1,661 and 2,601 individuals, of whom around 1,368 to 2,130 were described as militants in reliable press accounts. Thus, the civilian casualty rate since 2004, according to this analysis, is approximately 20 percent. The report states further that 35 militant leaders were among the killed insurgents.
This study proves two points.
One, civilian deaths are not as high as Pakistani media, religious leaders, politicians, and other analysts have been claiming. The analysts question the claims of high civilian casualties because no media outlet or organization has ever published the names of those killed, their villages, dates, and the locations of the drone attacks. According to analysts, in a bid to minimize their losses, the insurgents try to conceal the identities of their associates killed in the attacks. They collect their comrades’ bodies and, after burying them, issue statements that all of the victims were innocent residents.
Secondly, Pakistani complaints about drone attacks would carry more weight if the Pakistani government showed more concern over the Haqqani network and Al-Qaeda safe havens in North Waziristan, where most of these drone attacks have occurred. Despite repeated American demands to launch a sincere military operation to eliminate these hideouts, Pakistan has refused to do so.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently said the Haqqani network, blamed for carrying out deadly attacks on coalition and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, will not be tolerated and that Pakistan should eradicate it. However, General Ashfaq Perviz Kayani will continue to resist going after the Haqqanis as they are a long-term asset of Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, the ISI.
Talking with Radio Pakistan, Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, openly said they have evidence of Haqqani ties to the Pakistani government. The bottom line is that Islamabad does not seem to show any flexibility toward changing its strategic stance on these issues. In a situation like this, the only option the United States has is drones.
No Leg To Stand On
The fact that Al-Qaeda leaders (including Osama bin Laden, who was living in the garrison city of Abbottabad just a couple of hours' drive from Islamabad), foreign fighters, and Haqqani-led Afghan Taliban all live in Pakistan damages Pakistani credibility when it asks that drone attacks be stopped in respect of the country’s sovereignty. If American drone strikes violate Pakistani sovereignty, what about all of the foreign militants who not only launch attacks across the border into Afghanistan but are also a huge security threat to the people of Pakistan?
Farhat Taj, a Pashtun doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo and author of the newly published book "Taliban And Anti-Taliban," believes that “the people of Waziristan are suffering a brutal kind of occupation under the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It is in this context that they would welcome anyone -- Americans, Israelis, Indians, or even the devil -- to rid them of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Therefore, they welcome the drone attacks.”
Drone attacks obviously come with costs, but they are the best of a bad set of options.
Bashir Ahmad Gwakh is a broadcaster with RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal. The views expressed in this commentary are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
Ally’s killing shatters Karzai Taliban strategy
Financial Times By Matthew Green September 21, 2011
Islamabad - Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, is facing a fraught search for allies after the murder of one of the giants of the country’s political scene robbed him of a key supporter and threw his strategy for tackling the Taliban into disarray.
Mr Karzai paid his respects over the body of former president Burhanuddin Rabbani in the mortuary of a Kabul hospital on Wednesday, mourning the latest in a series of senior advisers to be murdered in the past six months.
The former warlord and Islamic scholar, who had led Mr Karzai’s attempts to reach out to insurgents, was killed when visitors claiming they wanted to discuss his reconciliation drive detonated explosives at a meeting in his home in Kabul on Tuesday, officials said.
The officials said two men who appeared to be former members of the Taliban were behind the attack, but it remained unclear on Wednesday what link there was – if any – to the Taliban’s senior leadership.
The impact of the killing has reverberated across the region, casting a fresh pall of uncertainty over Afghanistan’s future at a moment when the US is embarked on a risky path of withdrawing troops while fighting is still raging.
With the west gradually disengaging, relations with Pakistan – where the Taliban’s commanders live – under strain, and key officials being assassinated almost monthly, the Afghan president has rarely looked more isolated.
“The Karzai government had already lost its trust among the people,” said Wader Safi, an analyst. “Now the death of Mr Rabbani has sapped its strength.”
Since the spring, Mr Karzai has been forced to bury a series of prominent allies, most notably his brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was one of the most influential men in the south until he was shot dead in Kandahar in July.
Mr Rabbani, a leading light in the Northern Alliance of factions who fought the Taliban during years of civil war, played a vital role in shoring up Mr Karzai’s support in the north.
Although Mr Rabbani was a deeply polarising figure, Mr Karzai chose him to head his initiative to bring home insurgent commanders, hoping he would have the stature to transcend entrenched faultlines.
Instead, Mr Rabbani’s death has strengthened hardliners from his ethnic Tajik community who are fiercely opposed Mr Karzai’s pursuit of negotiations with the mainly-Pashtun Taliban.
Atta Mohammed Noor, the powerful governor of the northern Balkh province, issued a stark warning to the Taliban in a video message after Mr Rabbani’s murder. “Be sure that for every drop of his blood, thousands of soldiers and brave men will rise up and come to the battlefield,” he said.
Mr Karzai’s quest for a negotiated settlement is partly a reflection of his waning faith in the west’s ability to turn the tide of the insurgency on the battlefield, though Mr Rabbani’s 11-month outreach appeared to be making scant progress.
His killing has hit Afghanistan’s relations with Pakistan, which will be vital in anchoring any future talks with the Taliban. Mr Karzai had been working to prepare the ground for discussions by seeking a rapprochement with the movement’s patrons in Pakistan’s security agencies.
In spite of some progress in improving the neighbours’ fractious relations in the past year, Mr Karzai had yet to win the kind of co-operation he desired, said Davood Moradian, a former official in the presidency. “The fact is that Pakistan did not deliver,” said Mr Moradian. “He has realised he has been cheated.”
Tensions with Pakistan have increased sharply in the wake of Mr Rabbani’s death, with the former president’s friends quick to point the finger of blame at the Pakistan army’s Inter Services Intelligence agency, which has a long history of backing the Taliban. No evidence of an ISI connection has emerged, but many Afghans see a hidden Pakistani hand in virtually every attack in Kabul.
“There are other well-known leaders on the ISI death list,” said Haji Mohammad Aworang, a former member of parliament who served as a fighter under Mr Rabbani, reflecting a common sentiment among supporters.
Pakistan’s role as a haven for Afghan militants had already come under renewed international scrutiny following an attack on the US embassy and Nato headquarters in Kabul last week.
US officials have been ramping up public pressure on Pakistan to cut ties with the Haqqani network of Taliban-affiliated fighters which they blame for that attack and many others. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that Pakistan was indulging in “proxy war.”
Afghanistan: Rabbani Assassination May Peel Tajiks Away from Kabul
EURASIANET.org By Aunohita Mojumdar September 21, 2011
The assassination of Burhanuddin Rabani will have minimal impact on Afghanistan's peace process. What it will do is weaken President Hamid Karzai’s administration through the alienation of Afghanistan’s influential Tajik minority.
Rabbani, who was killed by a suicide bomber September 20, held the post of the government’s chief peace negotiator. But his more important role was that of Tajik power broker.
Afghan Tajiks, who formed the core of a fighting force known as the Northern Alliance, were bitter enemies of the Taliban during the 1990s. And many Tajiks remain hostile to the mainly Pashtun Taliban to this day. But Rabbani’s involvement meant that other Tajik leaders were constrained in their ability to criticize the peace process.
With Rabbani’s death, former Northern Alliance leaders could well reject the peace process, as well as distance themselves from cooperation with Karzai’s government.
In Kabul, opinions were always mixed over the extent of influence that the Rabbani-led High Peace Council had. Some skeptics argued that the peace process was mainly a cosmetic exercise, with Karzai’s fiercest critics maintaining that the Taliban and other insurgent groups aren't interested in negotiating.
Rabbani’s assassination underlines the insurgents’ unwillingness to bargain, asserted Hussain Yasa, editor of the country’s main English-language daily newspaper, Outlook Afghanistan, and a strident government critic. “The peace process has been a one-way street. They [insurgents] don’t believe in any norm. They have only one goal – they just want to dominate,” he told EurasiaNet.org.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force seems to support Yasa’s view. Describing Rabbani as the “face of the peace initiative,” ISAF Commander John R. Allen called his death “another outrageous indicator that, regardless of what Taliban leadership outside the country say, they do not want peace, but rather war.”
Officials in Kabul attempted to put on a brave face on recent developments: Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai told the BBC that “this is not the first high-profile assassination and it will not be the last.” To emphasize an ongoing commitment to negotiations, President Hamid Karzai cut short a visit to New York, where he was attending the United Nations General Assembly.
But observers now have doubts about the peace process. For one, Karzai will be hard pressed to find a heavyweight replacement to head the peace council. “Who is going to take the lead,” asked Nargis Nehan, director of Equality for Peace and Democracy, a Kabul-based civil society group. “Whoever was heading the Peace Council would have been attacked.”
Karzai’s endorsement last October of Rabbani as chairman of the peace council was a shrewd political move. It gave the impression that the peace talks had support that cut across ethnic lines, allaying concerns that minorities, such as Rabbani’s Tajiks, would be sidelined.
Rabbani’s stature within the Tajik minority -- as a religious scholar, leader and founder of the Jamiat-e Islami, one of the most effective Mujahideen groups that battled the Red Army in the 1980s – was substantial. He provided a counterweight to prominent skeptics, including former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
The Tajik-led Northern Alliance has shown itself to be fractious in recent years. But Rabbani’s death could have a galvanizing effect, unifying Tajiks in opposition to Karzai’s peace initiative. The assassination of such a prominent Tajik “strengthens the argument of people who say, ‘We cannot talk to the Taliban,’” said Martine van Bijlert of the Afghan Analysts Network. “It definitely polarizes the political situation.”
“With this assassination they have touched a high-voltage switch,"said Yasa, the Afghan editor. "It will have short-term and long-term shocks for Afghanistan. ... The Tajik ex-mujahideen faction will find it difficult to absolve [the Taliban] for this assassination.”
Taliban Bomber Waited Days to Give Afghan Peace Envoy Rabbani Lethal Hug
Bloomberg By Eltaf Najafizada and James Rupert Sep 22, 2011
A Taliban suicide bomber waited for days in Kabul to meet and kill Burhanuddin Rabbani, Afghanistan’s top official pursuing talks with the guerrilla movement, a member of the government’s peace body said.
The bomber stayed at the guesthouse of the High Peace Council, which Rabbani chaired, and persuaded council members that he had an important Taliban message to give to Rabbani personally, said Mohammed Ismail Qasemyar. The man then killed Rabbani by detonating a bomb hidden in his turban as he hugged him in greeting, Qasemyar said in a phone interview yesterday.
Rabbani may have been assassinated Sept. 20 by the Jalaluddin Haqqani faction of the Taliban, two U.S. intelligence officials said. The U.S. military chief Mike Mullen said that Pakistan’s main spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, is backing Haqqani’s guerrillas in a sustained war against U.S. forces and Afghan citizens, the first time an American official has made that accusation in public.
The agency, known as ISI, must “disconnect from Haqqani and from this proxy war that they’re fighting,” Mullen said in a speech at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. After years in which U.S. officials declined to speak publicly about Pakistan’s support for Haqqani’s attacks on American forces, Mullen, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other officials have demanded a change from Pakistan since they said it was Haqqani’s group that hit the U.S. Embassy in Kabul with rocket-propelled grenades Sept. 13. Peace Message
One U.S. official cautioned that no hard evidence shows that Haqqani’s organization killed Rabbani and said others might be responsible. That source, and the intelligence officials, spoke on condition of anonymity because the matters are classified.
The man who killed Rabbani arrived in Kabul several days ago “and contacted several peace council officials, telling them he was an important Taliban envoy and had a peace message to deliver only to Rabbani,” Qasemyar said by phone. The envoy was escorted to Rabbani’s home by council officials and security guards deferentially avoided searching his turban as they let him enter, police spokesman Hashmatullah Stanekzai said.
Mullen, who is to retire when his term ends next week, said he met for four hours Sept. 15 with Pakistan’s military chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, demanding that Pakistan end support for Haqqani. He declined to say how Kayani responded.
Pakistan denies backing the Haqqani group, which is based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan district and nearby provinces of eastern Afghanistan.
India Strikes
Mullen Sept. 20 repeated conclusions that have been stated for years by the Indian and Afghan governments, and by independent scholars such as Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid, who has written that ISI uses Islamic militant guerrilla groups to attack its foes in Afghanistan and to strike India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
“The ISI has been doing this, supporting proxies for an extended period of time,” Mullen said. “It is a strategy in the country and I think that strategic approach has to shift in the future.” He then said, “The Haqqani piece of this has got to be reversed -- period.”
Mullen said the U.S. will take “appropriate action” against further Haqqani attacks on its forces, while declining to offer details. Since January 2008, nearly a quarter of the 254 U.S. missile strikes in Taliban-dominated areas of Pakistan have targeted Haqqani’s guerrillas, according to a database maintained by the Long War Journal, a U.S.-based monitoring group. Old Enemy
Rabbani’s killing will complicate efforts by President Hamid Karzai’s government, the U.S. and Pakistan to start a peace process with the Taliban, said Waheed Mujda, a political analyst at the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies who formerly was a Taliban official. The three governments are competing to shape such talks and any deal that might emerge, Waliullah Rahmani, director of the research group, said in an interview last week.
Karzai appointed Rabbani and the peace council 11 months ago, including former Taliban officials among its members.
Rabbani failed to make progress because he was an old enemy of the Taliban who failed to win their trust, said Mujda, who served in the former Taliban government as a foreign ministry official.
Rabbani’s assassination will complicate peace efforts that are critical to the Obama administration’s efforts to reduce U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan, said Frank J. Cillufo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington. “I don’t see how we can successfully wind down our presence in Afghanistan without being able to point to a credible peace initiative,” he said. Relationship Bankrupt
Also, Pakistan’s unwillingness to combat the Haqqani network reveals the bankruptcy of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship said Cillufo and Christine Fair, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington.
“The litmus test for Pakistan is whether they are willing to sever their ties with proxy groups such as Haqqani,” said Cillufo in a telephone interview. “The U.S. and its coalition partners’ patience is wearing thin.”
“There’s really no alliance there,” said Fair, a specialist on Pakistan. “Our allies are their enemies, and their enemies are our allies. As we go into the endgame in Afghanistan, it’s becoming increasingly clear that our interests are different. The only good thing about that is that as it becomes clear that our military and intelligence relationship is going to pot, it may force us to focus more energy on the civilian side of the relationship.”
11 insurgents killed, 9 injured in Afghanistan's restive south
KABUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police, backed by NATO-led forces, eliminated 11 insurgents in the country's Zabul province, some 340 km south of the capital city Kabul, Interior Ministry said in a statement here on Thursday.
"Afghan National Police (ANP) during a joint military operation with Coalition forces killed 11 insurgents including their commander named Mullah Nabi in Nawbahar district of Zabul province Wednesday night," said the statement.
Nine other armed insurgents were injured and two were captured by ANP during the operation, it said.
"During the raid ANP also discovered and seized two Rocket Propelled-Grenades (RP-Gs) along with 30 rounds, two heavy machine guns, five guns and 30 rounds of motor," said the statement.
In another development, Afghan and NATO security forces completed a two-day cleanup operation against militants in country ' s eastern Kunar province, provincial governor Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi told Xinhua.
"A cleanup operation launched by Afghan police, army and coalition forces against Taliban on Tuesday morning in Chapa Dara and neighboring Manogai district was concluded on Wednesday night, "Wahidi told Xinhua.
He added a total of 23 armed insurgents were killed and seven others were captured by forces during the operation.
The Taliban stepped up their attacks on Afghan and about 140, 000 NATO-led troops stationed in the country since a spring rebel offensive was launched in May this year in the insurgency-hit country.
Afghan officials often use the word "insurgents" for referring to Taliban, however, the insurgent group has yet to make comments.
Taliban local leader killed, 2 NATO drone crashed in E. Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Afghan and NATO-led forces killed a significant Taliban leader in Sayyidabad district of Wardak province, some 35 km west of capital city of Kabul, NATO said Thursday.
"In Sayyidabad district, Wardak province, a combined Afghan and coalition security force killed a significant Taliban leader and one of his associates during a security operation Tuesday," said a statement issued by NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) here.
"A precision air strike killed a significant Taliban leader, Qari Tahir, after the security force located Tahir and an associate in a dry riverbed in Sayyidabad district," it said.
Tahir was the Taliban's top leader in Tangi Valley and was the target of a previous combined operation on Aug. 5, 2011, that resulted in the loss of the CH-47 Chinook last month. He led a group of insurgent fighters throughout the valley and was known to use roadside bombs and rockets to intimidate the local populace, the statement added.
A total of 30 U.S. soldiers, seven Afghan army commandos and an Afghan translator were killed when insurgents shot down the CH47 Chinook in Sayyidabad district on Aug. 5.
Afghan and the ISAF forces have conducted more than 40 security operations in the Sayyidabad district and killed 35 insurgents and detained more than 80 suspected insurgents since beginning this year, according to the statement.
In another development, two NATO drones have crashed in eastern Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, ISAF's Regional Command-East confirmed in a separate statement on Thursday morning.
"Two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) crashed in the Pul-E-Alam District of Logar Province and the Behsud District of Nangarhar Province because of mechanical problems. Both UAVs were recovered and there was little to no enemy activity in the area prior to the crash," the statement said.
The Taliban 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.
Afghan Taliban linked to US chopper crash
AFP September 22, 2011
The NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan says it has killed a Taliban commander who was the target of an operation in which 30 US troops died when their helicopter crashed last month.
Qari Tahir was killed by an air strike on Tuesday in Wardak province, central Afghanistan, the military said.
The US said last month it had killed those behind the helicopter's downing but a senior Afghan government official told AFP that it was Tahir who had lured US forces to the scene by tipping them off about a Taliban meeting.
"A precision air strike killed Taliban leader Qari Tahir after the security force located Tahir and an associate in a dry riverbed in Sayd Abad district," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
"Tahir was the Taliban's top leader in Tangi Valley and was the target of a previous combined operation on August 5, 2011, that resulted in the loss of the CH-47 Chinook last month.
"He led a group of insurgent fighters throughout the valley and was known to use roadside bombs and rockets to intimidate the local populace."
The US helicopter crash killed 38 people including 30 US troops, 25 of whom were special forces.
It was the biggest single loss of life for international forces since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban 10 years ago.
The Afghan official, speaking anonymously to AFP, said the helicopter was shot down and Tahir had set a trap to lure it to the scene.
Days after the crash, General John Allen, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, said those who shot the helicopter down had been killed in a bombing raid by an F-16 fighter jet.
"This does not ease our loss but we must and we will continue to relentlessly pursue the enemy," Allen said at the time.
He said that the fatal operation had been targeting the leadership of an "enemy network" within the remote and hostile Tangi Valley in Wardak, southwest of the capital Kabul.
There are around 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, about 100,000 of them from the United States, fighting a Taliban-led insurgency.
All foreign combat forces are due to leave in staged withdrawals leading up to a deadline at the end of 2014, at which point Afghan security forces will assume responsibility for their country.
A string of recent spectacular attacks in the Afghan capital Kabul has highlighted the strength of the insurgency.
These include Tuesday's assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former president tasked with leading Afghan government efforts to talk peace with the Taliban, by a turban bomber in his home.
Troops Amputations Up Sharply in Afghan War
Associated Press September 21, 2011
WASHINGTON - The counterinsurgency tactic that is sending U.S. soldiers out on foot patrols among the Afghan people, rather than riding in armored vehicles, has contributed to a dramatic increase in arm and leg amputations, genital injuries and the loss of multiple limbs following blast injuries.
These devastating injuries affected unit morale. And they gave rise to talk on the battlefield that some troops had made secret pacts not to help each other survive if they were so severely injured, a new report said Tuesday.
The number of U.S. troops who had amputations rose sharply from 86 in 2009, to 187 in 2010 and 147 so far this year, military officials said Tuesday, releasing the report on catastrophic wounds.
Of those, the number of troops who lost two or three limbs rose from 23 in 2009 to 72 last year to 77 so far this year. Only a dozen or so of all amputations came from Iraq and the rest were from Afghanistan, where militants are pressing the insurgency with roadside bombs, handmade land mines and other explosives.
Officials said genital injuries also have risen significantly, but they did not give specific figures.
The sharp rise in severe injuries came as a buildup of foreign forces expanded the counterinsurgency strategy that seeks to protect civilians, win their support away from insurgents and help build an Afghan government the population will embrace instead. The soldier on foot is at greater risk for severe injuries, Tuesday's report noted, "and the injury severity (in Afghanistan) confirms this."
Military doctors told a Pentagon news conference that their study found that while the severity of injuries was going up, the rates of those killed in action was going down. They attributed the improved survival rate to improved care both immediately on the battlefield - such as applying tourniquets - and in their later care.
The report, completed in June, was ordered early this year by the Army surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, to look into the causes of the steep increase in severe injuries, prevention, protection, treatment and long-term care for the troops. The task force report made 92 recommendations, including some on training, injury analysis, improved blood products and improved care for the injured during transport - some of which have already been implemented.
But officials said they weren't just looking at saving lives, but also saving lifestyles.
"These are life-defining injuries for these warriors and their families, but it is not desperate," said Brig. Gen. Joseph Caravalho Jr., an army doctor and head of the study. "It's not just about saving lives, it's about doing everything military medicine can do to help them lead full and productive lives."
Their care addresses what he called the "emotional and spiritual" aspects of the injuries, which Caravalho noted some of the troops could be living with for the next 60 years or more.
The task force was looking into what the doctors called "dismounted complex blast injuries" - dismounted meaning those suffered by troops on foot and complex in that they produce a pattern of wounds. It involves amputation of at least one leg, severe injury or loss of a second extremity and wounding of the pelvis, abdomen or urinary tract and genitals. The report said that these devastating types of injuries "took their toll on unit morale.
"To some, the resultant burden on their family and loved ones seemed too much to accept, and, anecdotally, some actually developed `do not resuscitate' pacts with their battle buddies in the event of this type of injury," it said.
Two military doctors this year have said publicly that they had heard talk among young Marines that some didn't want to go on living - and had made such agreements - for cases in which they might sustain loss of their genitals. The agreement reportedly was that if they were so injured on the battlefield, their buddy would not apply a tourniquet. One doctor later said he knew of no instance where this actually took place and the other never offered any specifics on the talk that went around in the field.
Asked why he included this in his report, Caravalho said, because the rumor "is plausible and if it's plausible, then that's enough to be concerning to me. ... I want to make sure that we do everything we can to help our young people realize that this is not a desperate, hopeless situation."
He said the military went through similar issues earlier in the war, for instance when troops were getting devastating burns, "and we've given those folks full and productive lives."
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
VOA News September 22, 2011
Afghan President Hamid Karzai says the suicide bomber who killed former president Burhannuddin Rabbani used a fake peace message from the Taliban to gain access to the peace broker.
Rabbani, the head of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, was killed Tuesday at his Kabul home when the attacker detonated explosives in his turban. Rabbani was leading efforts to find a political solution to the 10-year Afghan war.
President Karzai said Thursday that the suicide bomber had presented officials with a CD of a purported Taliban peace offer. The president told reporters in Kabul that he had listened to the audio recording before leaving to attend this week's United Nations General Assembly in New York. Karzai cut short his U.S. trip after Rabbani was killed.
The president said one of his advisors, Masoom Stanekzai, gave him the CD. Stanekzai was wounded in Tuesday's attack. Officials say the killer had waited at a guest house in the Afghan capital for four days to see former President Rabbani.
At a separate news conference, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence agency said officials believe Taliban's leadership body, the Quetta Shura, was behind the assassination.
There is conflicting information regarding the claim of responsibility.
A Taliban spokesman told Reuters news agency that the group carried out the attack, but another Taliban spokesman rejected that claim and said the insurgent group would not comment about Rabbani's assassination.
In other news, NATO says a joint Afghan and coalition security force killed a Taliban commander who was the target of an earlier operation in which 30 American troops were killed in a helicopter crash.
The alliance says Qari Tahir was killed in an air strike Tuesday in Afghanistan's central Wardak province.
NATO says Tahir was the Taliban's top leader in Tangi Valley and the target of the August 5 operation, during which the CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down.
The crash also killed seven Afghan troops and an Afghan interpreter.
The insurgents responsible for shooting down the helicopter were killed days later in an airstrike.
NATO says Tahir was responsible for coordinating attacks against Afghan fighters as well as kidnappings for ransom and hijacking of convoy vehicles. The statement says he was also known to use roadside bombs and rockets to intimidate the local population.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Mullen accuses Pakistani government of exporting violence to Afghanistan
By Associated Press, Thursday, September 22, 8:31 PM
WASHINGTON — The top U.S. military officer on Thursday accused Pakistan of “exporting violence” to Afghanistan and said this puts in jeopardy not only the frayed U.S.-Pakistani partnership against terrorism but also the prospects for a successful outcome to the decade-old war in Afghanistan.
In his final congressional testimony before retiring next week, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said success in Afghanistan is threatened not only by the Pakistani government’s support for the Haqqani network and other al-Qaida-aligned extremist groups but also by Afghan government corruption.
“If we continue to draw down forces apace while such public and systemic corruption is left unchecked,” Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “I believe we risk leaving behind a government in which we cannot reasonably expect Afghans to have faith. At best this would lead to localized conflicts inside the country; at worst it could lead to government collapse and civil war.”
Mullen said Pakistan’s government has chosen to “use violent extremism as an instrument of policy,” adding that “by exporting violence, they have eroded their internal security and their position in the region. They have undermined their international credibility and threatened their economic well-being.”
Testifying alongside Mullen, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also decried Pakistani support for the Haqqani network, and he said Pakistani authorities have been told in unequivocal terms that the U.S. will not tolerate a continuation of the group’s cross-border attacks. Panetta said the message was delivered recently by new CIA director David Petraeus in a meeting with the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI.
“They must take steps to prevent the safe haven that the Haqqanis are using,” Panetta said. “We simply cannot allow these kinds of terrorists to be able to go into Afghanistan, attack our forces and then return to Pakistan for safe haven.”
Panetta also said that U.S. and Afghan forces are searching for ways to better defend against spectacular attacks by insurgents, like the assault on the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul last week.
In his first congressional testimony since taking office, Panetta said it is important to limit insurgents’ ability to create the perception that security in the Afghan capital is deteriorating.
Overall, he said, the U.S. and NATO effort to stabilize Afghanistan is “headed in the right direction.”
In recent days administration officials have taken a harsher tone toward Pakistan, accusing Islamabad of maintaining links with the Haqqani network, a band of Islamist fighters that the U.S. says are behind attacks in Afghanistan, including last week’s attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
Mullen, who has met frequently with his Pakistani counterpart, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, over the past few years, said in prepared remarks for the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the Haqqanis have “long enjoyed the support and protection of the Pakistani government” and are “in many ways a strategic arm” of Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. He said the Haqqanis were behind several recent major attacks in Afghanistan, including the embassy attack and a Sept. 10 truck bomb that killed five Afghans and injured 77 U.S. soldiers.
Mullen said earlier this week there is a “proxy connection” between Pakistani intelligence services and the Haqqanis, meaning the militants are secretly doing the Pakistanis’ bidding.
“The Haqqani piece of this has got to be reversed — period,” he told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mullen said he delivered that message to Kayani last week during a meeting in Spain.
The increasingly tough U.S. rhetoric — particularly the accusation of a proxy relationship — reflects a U.S. belief that Pakistani intelligence in recent months has more aggressively facilitated attacks by the Haqqanis on Afghan and American targets inside Afghanistan, one senior military official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said it’s unclear whether Pakistani leaders intend to heed U.S. warnings.
Late last week, Panetta asserted that the U.S. will do whatever necessary to stop the Haqqani network attacks on U.S. forces. He would not say whether that means that the U.S. will take new military action, but there already has been an increase in U.S. drone strikes into Pakistan’s border regions.
Panetta’s remarks were interpreted as a veiled warning that the U.S. may resort again to unilateral action against the insurgents. Such public warnings, however, may only damage anti-terror cooperation between the two nations, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Tehmina Janjua said.
After the U.S. raided Osama bin Laden’s secret compound inside Pakistan in May — without alerting Pakistani authorities in advance — relations deteriorated further. Pakistan suspended a program under which U.S. special operations forces helped train Pakistani forces in counterterrorist tactics. U.S. officials on Wednesday disclosed a compromise deal to slash the number of U.S. military personnel allowed in Pakistan to between 100 and 150, about half of what it had been. The number of special operations trainers would fall from 140 to fewer than 10.
The Haqqani connection in Pakistan, and the haven that Pakistan provides for other Islamic extremist groups, including the Taliban, are major impediments to U.S. success in Afghanistan. Another major worry is corruption inside the Afghan government, as the U.S. and its NATO allies proceed with a plan to hand over full responsibility for security and other functions to the Afghans by the end of 2014. By that date, all U.S. combat forces are to have been withdrawn.
Afghan president pays tribute to late Rabbani's role in peace efforts
KABUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday described the late Burhanudin Rabbani as the "Martyr of Peace" and hailed his efforts in bringing about peace and national reconciliation in the militancy-hit country.
"A terrorist disguised to be messenger of peace from Taliban side targeted chairmen of Peace Council professor Rabbani and martyred him. He sacrificed his life for peace in the country and so, the late professor Rabbani is 'Martyr of Peace' in Afghanistan, " President Karzai told at a press conference after returning home from New York.
A man pretended to be a Taliban messenger entered the house of the chairman of the government-backed peace body, the High Peace Council and a former Afghan President Burhanudin in Kabul Tuesday evening and blew himself up leaving himself and Rabbani dead on the spot.
Four more people sustained injuries, according to officials.
President Karzai who was in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly had canceled his visit and returned home.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have claimed of responsibility.
The burial ceremony of late Rabbani is scheduled to be held amid tight security in Kabul on Friday.
As sign of respect and paying homage to the services of late Rabbani, Afghan government has announced three-day national mourning from Thursday and the national flag would remain half- mast for three days.
Pakistan rejects U.S. allegations against spy agency
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Thursday dismissed U.S. accusations that the country's spy agency is using the al-Qaida- linked Haqqani network for a proxy war in neighboring Afghanistan.
U.S. officials have accused Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI for having links with the Haqqani network, which they blamed for the September 13 attacks on the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul. Five Afghan policemen and 10 civilians were killed in the brazen attack.
Speaking at the regular weekly briefing on Thursday, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua said Pakistan has no cooperation with the Haqqani network and was not fighting any war through the Haqqanis in Afghanistan.
Earlier U.S. officials had claimed that there was mounting evidence that the ISI had been encouraging the Haqqani network to attack targets in Afghanistan.
The U.S. leveled the allegations at a time when the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee passed a bill that makes "all" U.S. financial assistance to the Government of Pakistan privy to conditions of cooperation against the Hqqani network and other terror groups associated with al-Qaida.
According to a press release issued by the committee, the Senate Thursday passed the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations bill for the fiscal year 2012 by a 28-2 vote in favor.
The bill makes available 161.4 million U.S. dollars for State Department operations in Pakistan, but "does not specify amounts for assistance for Pakistan." The committee also voted to provide one billion dollars for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund.
On the assassination of Afghan peace council head, Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani, the Foreign Office spokesperson said with Rabbani's death, the people of Afghanistan had "lost a visionary leader and one of the strongest proponents of peace," while Pakistan had "lost a friend and a true partner for peace."
"The people of Pakistan mourn with the Afghan government this tragic loss. Terrorism and violence only reinforce the resolve of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat and eliminate terrorism and to continue to work for reconciliation and peace in Afghanistan," she said.
A suicide bomber with explosives hidden in his turban killed Rabbani, the head of the Afghan High Peace Council, at his home in Kabul on Tuesday.
Rabbani was the latest victim in a string of high-profile assassinations in Afghanistan and his death is being seen as a major blow to the nascent effort to begin negotiations with the Afghan Taliban.
After Afghan slaying, a sense of helplessness
Washington Post By Ernesto Londoño September 21, 2011
KABUL - As they mourned the slain Afghan leader who had been tasked with reconciling with the Taliban, close friends and associates of Burhanuddin Rabbani expressed anger and hopelessness Wednesday about peace talks they say were doomed from the start.
“We cannot continue to have wishful thinking,” former presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, who was close to Rabbani, said as he drove to the former president’s house to pay his last respects. “We must deal with them forcefully.”
Abdullah called President Hamid Karzai’s attempts to get Taliban leaders to lay down their arms and join the government naive.
“These are the people President Karzai calls ‘dear brothers,’ ” Abdullah said of Karzai’s conciliatory approach to the militants. “The ones who have killed thousands of people.”
Afghan officials said they were all but certain that the Taliban’s leadership or a faction of the group carried out Tuesday’s assassination, the latest high-profile killing in Afghanistan this year — and arguably the one most detrimental to efforts to end the 10-year-old war.
As of Wednesday night, no group had asserted responsibility for the attack. Taliban spokesmen on Wednesday were uncharacteristically hard to reach. A Twitter account that purports to be linked to the Taliban’s media operation posted messages Wednesday saying the group is not ready to weigh in on the killing.
“Since we have not yet completed our investigation into the matter, therefore our stance is that of not elaborating on the issue any further,” the message said.
Abdullah and other Afghan officials said the man who detonated explosives hidden inside a turban as he greeted Rabbani used the name Esmatullah.
Kabul was awash with rumors and speculation about the motive.
Some Afghans said it sent an unmistakable signal that insurgent leaders saw no benefit to negotiating with Karzai’s U.S.-backed government. Others saw a narrower motive, saying that whoever carried out the attack perhaps felt that Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik who led the fight against the Taliban during the civil war in the 1990s, was the wrong man to broker a deal with the Pashtun militant group.
Senior figures of the High Peace Council that Rabbani led hosted the assailant for several days at a guesthouse in Kabul used by the peacemaking body, Afghan officials said.
An account provided by Amanullah Paiman, a former aide to Rabbani, described a sense of optimism about the envoy’s visit.
He said Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, a senior member of the council, had been told by the envoy that he had an important message for Rabanni from the leadership of the extremist group’s leadership council, known as the Quetta Shura. In several phone calls, Stanekzai pressed Rabbani, who was traveling in Iran and Dubai, to head back to Kabul, said Ismail Qasimayar, a member of the peace council.
Afghans close to Rabbani said it was hard to believe that the assailants could have carried out the attack without help from members of Rabbani’s inner circle.
“I am sure that without inside and outside help this incident would not have happened,” Paiman said. “This man was kept in the guesthouse for a week, and nobody paid attention to his movement, turban and acts.”
On Wednesday morning, police closed off a prominent road in downtown Kabul that runs near Rabbani’s street to all but the throng of warlords and politicians who traveled to his residence in sport-utility vehicles with large posses of bodyguards to offer condolences to relatives.
As edgy guards armed with AK-47 assault rifles scanned the crowd, elderly bearded men embraced solemnly. Posters of the slain former president, who led the country from 1992 to 1996, were plastered around the neighborhood.
Ahmad Zaeem, a former assistant to Rabbani, looked ashen as he spoke outside Rabbani’s house.
“There is no place left for people to negotiate,” he said. “They attacked the foundation of peace in the country. There is no room for negotiation.”
While stunned by the audacity of the attack, some Afghans said they deemed the death inconsequential.
“Since the High Peace Council was established, there has been no achievement,” said Bizmillah, an army officer who provided only his first name. “They’re in it for the money.”
Ahmad Wali Massoud, a close friend and political ally of Rabbani’s, said the former president had dim hopes that Karzai’s peace plan could work.
“He made his own effort,” said Massoud, a brother of the renowned commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, who helped drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan and was killed a decade ago in a strikingly similar attack. “But I’m sure he did not believe this could work.”
Massoud said the prospect of a negotiated settlement appears dead.
“I don’t think the enemy is that strong,” said Massoud, who served as ambassador in London during Karzai’s first term in office. “The problem is that the government under Karzai is so weak, so fragile, so corrupt that the terrorists now have the upper hand.”
Special correspondents Sayed Salahuddin and Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
New 'Silk Road' eyed for Afghanistan
AFP – Wed, Sep 21, 2011.
Afghanistan, its neighbors and supporters are launching a drive to boost prosperity and peace by linking the country with markets across South and Central Asia, according to US officials.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will host talks in New York Thursday on what amounts to plans for a "New Silk Road," they said.
Like the ancient Silk Road, Afghanistan would be at the heart of lucrative trade routes between Asia and the West, but it would involve modern highways, rail links and energy pipelines, senior US administration officials told reporters.
They said the New York talks -- which will draw officials from Afghanistan's neighbors and near-neighbors, including China -- will pave the way for meetings in Istanbul on November 2 and in Bonn, Germany, on December 5.
The meetings are designed to promote the "idea that a secure, stable and prosperous Afghanistan will only really be able to exist inside a secure, stable and prosperous region," a senior US official told reporters.
"It's part of a wider effort to help to build up the Afghan private sector, to help create sustainable economic development in Afghanistan, to create this economic integration between South and Central Asia," a second US official said.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to upstage the high-level officials attending the meeting, said the "New Silk Road" builds on projects that are already underway in the region.
One of them includes the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement, which was launched in June this year to reduce the costs and delays in transporting goods between the two often tense neighbors.
The second official said the Afghans and Pakistanis have agreed to try to extend the arrangement to central Asia. "We also hope it could be extended to India as well," the official said.
The officials did not say how the longstanding tension between Pakistan and India would affect the plans, but noted that the Indian and Pakistani commerce secretaries have been engaged for months in trying to increase cross-border trade.
"The ultimate goal is to reduce trade and other barriers so that products from Afghanistan or from any of the Central Asian countries could transit through Pakistan and into India, Bangladesh or even beyond," he said.
"This is really a truly transformative vision because... India is going to be such an important economic actor for the region," he said.
The New Silk Road project also calls for building on progress to extend energy pipelines across Central Asia.
The second official recalled progress the governments of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India have made in building the TAPI pipeline to bring natural gas from Turkmenistan fields to India's energy markets.
"It would bring important transit revenues for Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.
He also cited the example of Uzbekistan, which he said has been "very helpful" working with the Asian Development Bank and others to develop the rail link from its own border to Mazar i-Sharif, in Afghanistan.
Drones: Pakistan Has No Leg To Stand On
September 22, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty By Bashir Ahmad Gwakh
The recent drone attack that reportedly killed Al-Qaeda leader Abu Hafs al-Shahri in Waziristan is the latest result of a Central Intelligence Agency campaign that began in 2004. Pakistan has protested against U.S. drone attacks, considering them a violation of its sovereignty.
Such protests have been ineffective. Strikes by the pilotless predators have increased since President Barack Obama took office in 2008. The United States considers them so effective that it is seeking a further expansion of drone operations in Pakistan, "The Washington Post" reported.
Many Pakistanis say the drones kill too many civilians and therefore should be stopped. On September 19, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, an adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister, told reporters that in order to build diplomatic pressure against drone attacks, the federal Ministry of Human Rights has decided to bring the issue before the United Nations.
In April, speaking to parliament hours after dual drone strikes killed six suspected militants in Waziristan, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the raids and said the Foreign Ministry had lodged a complaint with the U.S. Embassy, reiterating its stance that such attacks are counterproductive.
Sophisticated, Accurate
However, drones are considered one of the most sophisticated of modern-day weapons -- more precise than regular missiles -- and have the ability to verify targets without risking the lives of pilots. A recent study conducted by the New America Foundation shows that the 270 reported drone strikes in northwestern Pakistan from 2004 to the present day have killed between 1,661 and 2,601 individuals, of whom around 1,368 to 2,130 were described as militants in reliable press accounts. Thus, the civilian casualty rate since 2004, according to this analysis, is approximately 20 percent. The report states further that 35 militant leaders were among the killed insurgents.
This study proves two points.
One, civilian deaths are not as high as Pakistani media, religious leaders, politicians, and other analysts have been claiming. The analysts question the claims of high civilian casualties because no media outlet or organization has ever published the names of those killed, their villages, dates, and the locations of the drone attacks. According to analysts, in a bid to minimize their losses, the insurgents try to conceal the identities of their associates killed in the attacks. They collect their comrades’ bodies and, after burying them, issue statements that all of the victims were innocent residents.
Secondly, Pakistani complaints about drone attacks would carry more weight if the Pakistani government showed more concern over the Haqqani network and Al-Qaeda safe havens in North Waziristan, where most of these drone attacks have occurred. Despite repeated American demands to launch a sincere military operation to eliminate these hideouts, Pakistan has refused to do so.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently said the Haqqani network, blamed for carrying out deadly attacks on coalition and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, will not be tolerated and that Pakistan should eradicate it. However, General Ashfaq Perviz Kayani will continue to resist going after the Haqqanis as they are a long-term asset of Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, the ISI.
Talking with Radio Pakistan, Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, openly said they have evidence of Haqqani ties to the Pakistani government. The bottom line is that Islamabad does not seem to show any flexibility toward changing its strategic stance on these issues. In a situation like this, the only option the United States has is drones.
No Leg To Stand On
The fact that Al-Qaeda leaders (including Osama bin Laden, who was living in the garrison city of Abbottabad just a couple of hours' drive from Islamabad), foreign fighters, and Haqqani-led Afghan Taliban all live in Pakistan damages Pakistani credibility when it asks that drone attacks be stopped in respect of the country’s sovereignty. If American drone strikes violate Pakistani sovereignty, what about all of the foreign militants who not only launch attacks across the border into Afghanistan but are also a huge security threat to the people of Pakistan?
Farhat Taj, a Pashtun doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo and author of the newly published book "Taliban And Anti-Taliban," believes that “the people of Waziristan are suffering a brutal kind of occupation under the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It is in this context that they would welcome anyone -- Americans, Israelis, Indians, or even the devil -- to rid them of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Therefore, they welcome the drone attacks.”
Drone attacks obviously come with costs, but they are the best of a bad set of options.
Bashir Ahmad Gwakh is a broadcaster with RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal. The views expressed in this commentary are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
Ally’s killing shatters Karzai Taliban strategy
Financial Times By Matthew Green September 21, 2011
Islamabad - Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, is facing a fraught search for allies after the murder of one of the giants of the country’s political scene robbed him of a key supporter and threw his strategy for tackling the Taliban into disarray.
Mr Karzai paid his respects over the body of former president Burhanuddin Rabbani in the mortuary of a Kabul hospital on Wednesday, mourning the latest in a series of senior advisers to be murdered in the past six months.
The former warlord and Islamic scholar, who had led Mr Karzai’s attempts to reach out to insurgents, was killed when visitors claiming they wanted to discuss his reconciliation drive detonated explosives at a meeting in his home in Kabul on Tuesday, officials said.
The officials said two men who appeared to be former members of the Taliban were behind the attack, but it remained unclear on Wednesday what link there was – if any – to the Taliban’s senior leadership.
The impact of the killing has reverberated across the region, casting a fresh pall of uncertainty over Afghanistan’s future at a moment when the US is embarked on a risky path of withdrawing troops while fighting is still raging.
With the west gradually disengaging, relations with Pakistan – where the Taliban’s commanders live – under strain, and key officials being assassinated almost monthly, the Afghan president has rarely looked more isolated.
“The Karzai government had already lost its trust among the people,” said Wader Safi, an analyst. “Now the death of Mr Rabbani has sapped its strength.”
Since the spring, Mr Karzai has been forced to bury a series of prominent allies, most notably his brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was one of the most influential men in the south until he was shot dead in Kandahar in July.
Mr Rabbani, a leading light in the Northern Alliance of factions who fought the Taliban during years of civil war, played a vital role in shoring up Mr Karzai’s support in the north.
Although Mr Rabbani was a deeply polarising figure, Mr Karzai chose him to head his initiative to bring home insurgent commanders, hoping he would have the stature to transcend entrenched faultlines.
Instead, Mr Rabbani’s death has strengthened hardliners from his ethnic Tajik community who are fiercely opposed Mr Karzai’s pursuit of negotiations with the mainly-Pashtun Taliban.
Atta Mohammed Noor, the powerful governor of the northern Balkh province, issued a stark warning to the Taliban in a video message after Mr Rabbani’s murder. “Be sure that for every drop of his blood, thousands of soldiers and brave men will rise up and come to the battlefield,” he said.
Mr Karzai’s quest for a negotiated settlement is partly a reflection of his waning faith in the west’s ability to turn the tide of the insurgency on the battlefield, though Mr Rabbani’s 11-month outreach appeared to be making scant progress.
His killing has hit Afghanistan’s relations with Pakistan, which will be vital in anchoring any future talks with the Taliban. Mr Karzai had been working to prepare the ground for discussions by seeking a rapprochement with the movement’s patrons in Pakistan’s security agencies.
In spite of some progress in improving the neighbours’ fractious relations in the past year, Mr Karzai had yet to win the kind of co-operation he desired, said Davood Moradian, a former official in the presidency. “The fact is that Pakistan did not deliver,” said Mr Moradian. “He has realised he has been cheated.”
Tensions with Pakistan have increased sharply in the wake of Mr Rabbani’s death, with the former president’s friends quick to point the finger of blame at the Pakistan army’s Inter Services Intelligence agency, which has a long history of backing the Taliban. No evidence of an ISI connection has emerged, but many Afghans see a hidden Pakistani hand in virtually every attack in Kabul.
“There are other well-known leaders on the ISI death list,” said Haji Mohammad Aworang, a former member of parliament who served as a fighter under Mr Rabbani, reflecting a common sentiment among supporters.
Pakistan’s role as a haven for Afghan militants had already come under renewed international scrutiny following an attack on the US embassy and Nato headquarters in Kabul last week.
US officials have been ramping up public pressure on Pakistan to cut ties with the Haqqani network of Taliban-affiliated fighters which they blame for that attack and many others. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that Pakistan was indulging in “proxy war.”
Afghanistan: Rabbani Assassination May Peel Tajiks Away from Kabul
EURASIANET.org By Aunohita Mojumdar September 21, 2011
The assassination of Burhanuddin Rabani will have minimal impact on Afghanistan's peace process. What it will do is weaken President Hamid Karzai’s administration through the alienation of Afghanistan’s influential Tajik minority.
Rabbani, who was killed by a suicide bomber September 20, held the post of the government’s chief peace negotiator. But his more important role was that of Tajik power broker.
Afghan Tajiks, who formed the core of a fighting force known as the Northern Alliance, were bitter enemies of the Taliban during the 1990s. And many Tajiks remain hostile to the mainly Pashtun Taliban to this day. But Rabbani’s involvement meant that other Tajik leaders were constrained in their ability to criticize the peace process.
With Rabbani’s death, former Northern Alliance leaders could well reject the peace process, as well as distance themselves from cooperation with Karzai’s government.
In Kabul, opinions were always mixed over the extent of influence that the Rabbani-led High Peace Council had. Some skeptics argued that the peace process was mainly a cosmetic exercise, with Karzai’s fiercest critics maintaining that the Taliban and other insurgent groups aren't interested in negotiating.
Rabbani’s assassination underlines the insurgents’ unwillingness to bargain, asserted Hussain Yasa, editor of the country’s main English-language daily newspaper, Outlook Afghanistan, and a strident government critic. “The peace process has been a one-way street. They [insurgents] don’t believe in any norm. They have only one goal – they just want to dominate,” he told EurasiaNet.org.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force seems to support Yasa’s view. Describing Rabbani as the “face of the peace initiative,” ISAF Commander John R. Allen called his death “another outrageous indicator that, regardless of what Taliban leadership outside the country say, they do not want peace, but rather war.”
Officials in Kabul attempted to put on a brave face on recent developments: Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai told the BBC that “this is not the first high-profile assassination and it will not be the last.” To emphasize an ongoing commitment to negotiations, President Hamid Karzai cut short a visit to New York, where he was attending the United Nations General Assembly.
But observers now have doubts about the peace process. For one, Karzai will be hard pressed to find a heavyweight replacement to head the peace council. “Who is going to take the lead,” asked Nargis Nehan, director of Equality for Peace and Democracy, a Kabul-based civil society group. “Whoever was heading the Peace Council would have been attacked.”
Karzai’s endorsement last October of Rabbani as chairman of the peace council was a shrewd political move. It gave the impression that the peace talks had support that cut across ethnic lines, allaying concerns that minorities, such as Rabbani’s Tajiks, would be sidelined.
Rabbani’s stature within the Tajik minority -- as a religious scholar, leader and founder of the Jamiat-e Islami, one of the most effective Mujahideen groups that battled the Red Army in the 1980s – was substantial. He provided a counterweight to prominent skeptics, including former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
The Tajik-led Northern Alliance has shown itself to be fractious in recent years. But Rabbani’s death could have a galvanizing effect, unifying Tajiks in opposition to Karzai’s peace initiative. The assassination of such a prominent Tajik “strengthens the argument of people who say, ‘We cannot talk to the Taliban,’” said Martine van Bijlert of the Afghan Analysts Network. “It definitely polarizes the political situation.”
“With this assassination they have touched a high-voltage switch,"said Yasa, the Afghan editor. "It will have short-term and long-term shocks for Afghanistan. ... The Tajik ex-mujahideen faction will find it difficult to absolve [the Taliban] for this assassination.”
Taliban Bomber Waited Days to Give Afghan Peace Envoy Rabbani Lethal Hug
Bloomberg By Eltaf Najafizada and James Rupert Sep 22, 2011
A Taliban suicide bomber waited for days in Kabul to meet and kill Burhanuddin Rabbani, Afghanistan’s top official pursuing talks with the guerrilla movement, a member of the government’s peace body said.
The bomber stayed at the guesthouse of the High Peace Council, which Rabbani chaired, and persuaded council members that he had an important Taliban message to give to Rabbani personally, said Mohammed Ismail Qasemyar. The man then killed Rabbani by detonating a bomb hidden in his turban as he hugged him in greeting, Qasemyar said in a phone interview yesterday.
Rabbani may have been assassinated Sept. 20 by the Jalaluddin Haqqani faction of the Taliban, two U.S. intelligence officials said. The U.S. military chief Mike Mullen said that Pakistan’s main spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, is backing Haqqani’s guerrillas in a sustained war against U.S. forces and Afghan citizens, the first time an American official has made that accusation in public.
The agency, known as ISI, must “disconnect from Haqqani and from this proxy war that they’re fighting,” Mullen said in a speech at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. After years in which U.S. officials declined to speak publicly about Pakistan’s support for Haqqani’s attacks on American forces, Mullen, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other officials have demanded a change from Pakistan since they said it was Haqqani’s group that hit the U.S. Embassy in Kabul with rocket-propelled grenades Sept. 13. Peace Message
One U.S. official cautioned that no hard evidence shows that Haqqani’s organization killed Rabbani and said others might be responsible. That source, and the intelligence officials, spoke on condition of anonymity because the matters are classified.
The man who killed Rabbani arrived in Kabul several days ago “and contacted several peace council officials, telling them he was an important Taliban envoy and had a peace message to deliver only to Rabbani,” Qasemyar said by phone. The envoy was escorted to Rabbani’s home by council officials and security guards deferentially avoided searching his turban as they let him enter, police spokesman Hashmatullah Stanekzai said.
Mullen, who is to retire when his term ends next week, said he met for four hours Sept. 15 with Pakistan’s military chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, demanding that Pakistan end support for Haqqani. He declined to say how Kayani responded.
Pakistan denies backing the Haqqani group, which is based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan district and nearby provinces of eastern Afghanistan.
India Strikes
Mullen Sept. 20 repeated conclusions that have been stated for years by the Indian and Afghan governments, and by independent scholars such as Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid, who has written that ISI uses Islamic militant guerrilla groups to attack its foes in Afghanistan and to strike India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
“The ISI has been doing this, supporting proxies for an extended period of time,” Mullen said. “It is a strategy in the country and I think that strategic approach has to shift in the future.” He then said, “The Haqqani piece of this has got to be reversed -- period.”
Mullen said the U.S. will take “appropriate action” against further Haqqani attacks on its forces, while declining to offer details. Since January 2008, nearly a quarter of the 254 U.S. missile strikes in Taliban-dominated areas of Pakistan have targeted Haqqani’s guerrillas, according to a database maintained by the Long War Journal, a U.S.-based monitoring group. Old Enemy
Rabbani’s killing will complicate efforts by President Hamid Karzai’s government, the U.S. and Pakistan to start a peace process with the Taliban, said Waheed Mujda, a political analyst at the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies who formerly was a Taliban official. The three governments are competing to shape such talks and any deal that might emerge, Waliullah Rahmani, director of the research group, said in an interview last week.
Karzai appointed Rabbani and the peace council 11 months ago, including former Taliban officials among its members.
Rabbani failed to make progress because he was an old enemy of the Taliban who failed to win their trust, said Mujda, who served in the former Taliban government as a foreign ministry official.
Rabbani’s assassination will complicate peace efforts that are critical to the Obama administration’s efforts to reduce U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan, said Frank J. Cillufo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington. “I don’t see how we can successfully wind down our presence in Afghanistan without being able to point to a credible peace initiative,” he said. Relationship Bankrupt
Also, Pakistan’s unwillingness to combat the Haqqani network reveals the bankruptcy of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship said Cillufo and Christine Fair, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington.
“The litmus test for Pakistan is whether they are willing to sever their ties with proxy groups such as Haqqani,” said Cillufo in a telephone interview. “The U.S. and its coalition partners’ patience is wearing thin.”
“There’s really no alliance there,” said Fair, a specialist on Pakistan. “Our allies are their enemies, and their enemies are our allies. As we go into the endgame in Afghanistan, it’s becoming increasingly clear that our interests are different. The only good thing about that is that as it becomes clear that our military and intelligence relationship is going to pot, it may force us to focus more energy on the civilian side of the relationship.”
11 insurgents killed, 9 injured in Afghanistan's restive south
KABUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police, backed by NATO-led forces, eliminated 11 insurgents in the country's Zabul province, some 340 km south of the capital city Kabul, Interior Ministry said in a statement here on Thursday.
"Afghan National Police (ANP) during a joint military operation with Coalition forces killed 11 insurgents including their commander named Mullah Nabi in Nawbahar district of Zabul province Wednesday night," said the statement.
Nine other armed insurgents were injured and two were captured by ANP during the operation, it said.
"During the raid ANP also discovered and seized two Rocket Propelled-Grenades (RP-Gs) along with 30 rounds, two heavy machine guns, five guns and 30 rounds of motor," said the statement.
In another development, Afghan and NATO security forces completed a two-day cleanup operation against militants in country ' s eastern Kunar province, provincial governor Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi told Xinhua.
"A cleanup operation launched by Afghan police, army and coalition forces against Taliban on Tuesday morning in Chapa Dara and neighboring Manogai district was concluded on Wednesday night, "Wahidi told Xinhua.
He added a total of 23 armed insurgents were killed and seven others were captured by forces during the operation.
The Taliban stepped up their attacks on Afghan and about 140, 000 NATO-led troops stationed in the country since a spring rebel offensive was launched in May this year in the insurgency-hit country.
Afghan officials often use the word "insurgents" for referring to Taliban, however, the insurgent group has yet to make comments.
Taliban local leader killed, 2 NATO drone crashed in E. Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Afghan and NATO-led forces killed a significant Taliban leader in Sayyidabad district of Wardak province, some 35 km west of capital city of Kabul, NATO said Thursday.
"In Sayyidabad district, Wardak province, a combined Afghan and coalition security force killed a significant Taliban leader and one of his associates during a security operation Tuesday," said a statement issued by NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) here.
"A precision air strike killed a significant Taliban leader, Qari Tahir, after the security force located Tahir and an associate in a dry riverbed in Sayyidabad district," it said.
Tahir was the Taliban's top leader in Tangi Valley and was the target of a previous combined operation on Aug. 5, 2011, that resulted in the loss of the CH-47 Chinook last month. He led a group of insurgent fighters throughout the valley and was known to use roadside bombs and rockets to intimidate the local populace, the statement added.
A total of 30 U.S. soldiers, seven Afghan army commandos and an Afghan translator were killed when insurgents shot down the CH47 Chinook in Sayyidabad district on Aug. 5.
Afghan and the ISAF forces have conducted more than 40 security operations in the Sayyidabad district and killed 35 insurgents and detained more than 80 suspected insurgents since beginning this year, according to the statement.
In another development, two NATO drones have crashed in eastern Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, ISAF's Regional Command-East confirmed in a separate statement on Thursday morning.
"Two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) crashed in the Pul-E-Alam District of Logar Province and the Behsud District of Nangarhar Province because of mechanical problems. Both UAVs were recovered and there was little to no enemy activity in the area prior to the crash," the statement said.
The Taliban 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.
Afghan Taliban linked to US chopper crash
AFP September 22, 2011
The NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan says it has killed a Taliban commander who was the target of an operation in which 30 US troops died when their helicopter crashed last month.
Qari Tahir was killed by an air strike on Tuesday in Wardak province, central Afghanistan, the military said.
The US said last month it had killed those behind the helicopter's downing but a senior Afghan government official told AFP that it was Tahir who had lured US forces to the scene by tipping them off about a Taliban meeting.
"A precision air strike killed Taliban leader Qari Tahir after the security force located Tahir and an associate in a dry riverbed in Sayd Abad district," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
"Tahir was the Taliban's top leader in Tangi Valley and was the target of a previous combined operation on August 5, 2011, that resulted in the loss of the CH-47 Chinook last month.
"He led a group of insurgent fighters throughout the valley and was known to use roadside bombs and rockets to intimidate the local populace."
The US helicopter crash killed 38 people including 30 US troops, 25 of whom were special forces.
It was the biggest single loss of life for international forces since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban 10 years ago.
The Afghan official, speaking anonymously to AFP, said the helicopter was shot down and Tahir had set a trap to lure it to the scene.
Days after the crash, General John Allen, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, said those who shot the helicopter down had been killed in a bombing raid by an F-16 fighter jet.
"This does not ease our loss but we must and we will continue to relentlessly pursue the enemy," Allen said at the time.
He said that the fatal operation had been targeting the leadership of an "enemy network" within the remote and hostile Tangi Valley in Wardak, southwest of the capital Kabul.
There are around 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, about 100,000 of them from the United States, fighting a Taliban-led insurgency.
All foreign combat forces are due to leave in staged withdrawals leading up to a deadline at the end of 2014, at which point Afghan security forces will assume responsibility for their country.
A string of recent spectacular attacks in the Afghan capital Kabul has highlighted the strength of the insurgency.
These include Tuesday's assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former president tasked with leading Afghan government efforts to talk peace with the Taliban, by a turban bomber in his home.
Troops Amputations Up Sharply in Afghan War
Associated Press September 21, 2011
WASHINGTON - The counterinsurgency tactic that is sending U.S. soldiers out on foot patrols among the Afghan people, rather than riding in armored vehicles, has contributed to a dramatic increase in arm and leg amputations, genital injuries and the loss of multiple limbs following blast injuries.
These devastating injuries affected unit morale. And they gave rise to talk on the battlefield that some troops had made secret pacts not to help each other survive if they were so severely injured, a new report said Tuesday.
The number of U.S. troops who had amputations rose sharply from 86 in 2009, to 187 in 2010 and 147 so far this year, military officials said Tuesday, releasing the report on catastrophic wounds.
Of those, the number of troops who lost two or three limbs rose from 23 in 2009 to 72 last year to 77 so far this year. Only a dozen or so of all amputations came from Iraq and the rest were from Afghanistan, where militants are pressing the insurgency with roadside bombs, handmade land mines and other explosives.
Officials said genital injuries also have risen significantly, but they did not give specific figures.
The sharp rise in severe injuries came as a buildup of foreign forces expanded the counterinsurgency strategy that seeks to protect civilians, win their support away from insurgents and help build an Afghan government the population will embrace instead. The soldier on foot is at greater risk for severe injuries, Tuesday's report noted, "and the injury severity (in Afghanistan) confirms this."
Military doctors told a Pentagon news conference that their study found that while the severity of injuries was going up, the rates of those killed in action was going down. They attributed the improved survival rate to improved care both immediately on the battlefield - such as applying tourniquets - and in their later care.
The report, completed in June, was ordered early this year by the Army surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, to look into the causes of the steep increase in severe injuries, prevention, protection, treatment and long-term care for the troops. The task force report made 92 recommendations, including some on training, injury analysis, improved blood products and improved care for the injured during transport - some of which have already been implemented.
But officials said they weren't just looking at saving lives, but also saving lifestyles.
"These are life-defining injuries for these warriors and their families, but it is not desperate," said Brig. Gen. Joseph Caravalho Jr., an army doctor and head of the study. "It's not just about saving lives, it's about doing everything military medicine can do to help them lead full and productive lives."
Their care addresses what he called the "emotional and spiritual" aspects of the injuries, which Caravalho noted some of the troops could be living with for the next 60 years or more.
The task force was looking into what the doctors called "dismounted complex blast injuries" - dismounted meaning those suffered by troops on foot and complex in that they produce a pattern of wounds. It involves amputation of at least one leg, severe injury or loss of a second extremity and wounding of the pelvis, abdomen or urinary tract and genitals. The report said that these devastating types of injuries "took their toll on unit morale.
"To some, the resultant burden on their family and loved ones seemed too much to accept, and, anecdotally, some actually developed `do not resuscitate' pacts with their battle buddies in the event of this type of injury," it said.
Two military doctors this year have said publicly that they had heard talk among young Marines that some didn't want to go on living - and had made such agreements - for cases in which they might sustain loss of their genitals. The agreement reportedly was that if they were so injured on the battlefield, their buddy would not apply a tourniquet. One doctor later said he knew of no instance where this actually took place and the other never offered any specifics on the talk that went around in the field.
Asked why he included this in his report, Caravalho said, because the rumor "is plausible and if it's plausible, then that's enough to be concerning to me. ... I want to make sure that we do everything we can to help our young people realize that this is not a desperate, hopeless situation."
He said the military went through similar issues earlier in the war, for instance when troops were getting devastating burns, "and we've given those folks full and productive lives."
www.afghanistannewscenter.com