[Afghan News] November 16, 2011

[یاسمینه]

Karzai says Afghanistan needs future pact with US but says night raids must end
By Associated Press, November 16
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan President Hamid Karzai asked the nation’s elders Wednesday to back negotiations for a new security pact with the United States, assuring them that he would demand an end to unpopular night raids in which troops swoop down from helicopters and search Afghan homes.
He struck patriotic themes at a national assembly where he outlined his conditions for an agreement that would govern America’s military presence in Afghanistan after 2014. By that time, U.S. and other foreign combat troops are supposed to have left or taken on military support roles.
Karzai is walking a tightrope. Although he routinely plays to anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan by denouncing the U.S., he needs America’s military and financial strength to back his weak government as it battles the Taliban insurgency.
Karzai acknowledged that Pakistan, Iran, Russia and other regional powers have expressed concern at the idea of permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan. But he said Afghanistan would let U.S. forces stay because America is sending aid and training Afghan security forces.
In exchange, he said night raids should end and that the Afghan government, not Americans, should be put in charge of detainees.
“We want a strategic partnership but we have conditions for it,” Karzai told 2,200 Afghan leaders at the opening of a grand council, or “loya jirga.”
Karzai doesn’t need the elders’ permission to broker a pact with the U.S. He wants their stamp of approval to strengthen his negotiating position.
A partnership document is meant, in part, to give Afghans confidence that the United States will not abandon them after 2014.
So far, Karzai’s terms have been unacceptable to American officials, according to those familiar with the ongoing discussions. But an accord would give the U.S. a legal framework to continue training missions, counter-narcotics work and counterterrorism operations to kill and capture suspected insurgents and terrorists.
Much of the counterterrorism work is done on night raids — quick-strike operations that the U.S. will rely more heavily upon as the foreign troops’ footprint shrinks during the next few years.
Karzai says troops on night raids treat too many civilians as if they were insurgents and violate privacy in an intensely conservative society. Afghan citizens cannot feel secure if they think armed troops might burst into their homes in the middle of the night, he says.
The U.S.-led coalition has given no indication that it is willing to stop the raids. It says night operations are conducted with Afghan security forces and are an effective way to keep pressure on militants. The coalition estimates that an average of 12 operations are conducted every night in Afghanistan.
“Night operations are among the safest of all military operations, with over 85 percent of missions being conducted without a single shot being fired,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings Jr., a coalition spokesman. “Civilian casualties during night operations account for less than 1 percent of all civilian casualties.
“The bottom line is these are the most successful and safest operations that we do. Night operations have removed a significant number of insurgents that are responsible for killing Afghan civilians.”
Karzai peppered his speech with nationalistic statements about Afghanistan not tolerating meddling from other nations. He likened his homeland to a lion.
“America is a powerful, rich and wealthy nation with a larger population, but we are a lion,” Karzai said.
When people in the audience chuckled, Karzai continued with the analogy.
“We are ready for a strategic partnership between a lion and the U.S.,” he said.
“A lion doesn’t like anyone to enter into his house. A lion doesn’t like strangers entering his house. A lion doesn’t like that his sons are taken out of his house during the night.”
Some of his critics boycotted the meeting, accusing the president of sidelining the parliament. Trying to appease his opponents, Karzai noted that the parliament still would have to approve of any pact negotiated with the U.S.
The Taliban condemned the meeting as an attempt by the U.S. to justify a permanent presence in Afghanistan. The insurgent group promised to launch attacks to disrupt it, but no violence was reported on the opening day.
Security for the four-day jirga is tight. Much of Kabul went into a security lockdown ahead of the meeting. Roads were closed and intelligence agents swarmed the meeting hall on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul.
At the last such meeting — a “peace jirga” in June 2010 — Taliban fighters wearing suicide vests fired at a tent holding some 1,500 dignitaries, lawmakers and civil society activists. The assault triggered a battle with security forces that killed at least two militants. Karzai brushed off the interruption and urged fighters to lay down their arms
Since then, a new hardened structure has been built at the jirga site.
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Associated Press Writers Heidi Vogt and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.

Afghan president advocates having strategic partnership with U.S.
KABUL, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Wednesday said that having strategic partnership with the United States would benefit Afghanistan.
"Having strategic relations with the United States is in the benefit of Afghanistan, but we have preconditions in this regard. Our conditions are that the United States and NATO forces should stop searching Afghan houses and night operations, should halt having parallel establishments with Afghan administration and should respect our national sovereignty from now on," Karzai said in his speech at the Loya Jirga or traditional grand assembly.
The parallel establishments, according to Afghan officials, mean that the U.S. and NATO-run civilian-military Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and private security firms run by foreigners.
President Karzai had in the past criticized the PRTs and night raid operations, calling on NATO-led forces to stop searching houses and harming civilians during military operations.
"Our relations with U.S. should be based in equity and be a relations between two sovereign independent countries," Karzai told the audience in his hour-long address.
In his speech, the Afghan president described Afghans as "lion" and said, although the United States is a powerful and wealthy country dealing with the lion, the lion does not like anyone to kill or take away its kids.
In parts of his speech, the Afghan President pointed out that Afghanistan in spite of having strategic partnership with the United States would also have friendly relations with its neighbors, with China, Russia and assured that "Afghan soil would not be used against anyone".
More than 2,500 people including tribal elders, lawmakers and government functionaries, according to officials, attended the assembly to discuss the proposed strategic partnership with the United States of America and government-initiated peace talks with the Taliban and other armed opposition groups in the militancy- plagued country.
"Any decisions taken by the Jirga participants would be respected and implemented," said Karzai.
The decisions, taken by the four-day Loya Jirga would be forwarded to parliament for ratification.

Afghanistan's Loya Jirga: Substance or Hot Air?
by Aryn Baker Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 10:59 am
‘Tis the season. The season of talks on Afghanistan, that is. Two weeks ago it was Istanbul, where Afghanistan's neighbors met to discuss their roles in the country's stability going forward. Early next month it will be Bonn, Germany, where the rest of the world will convene to ask, again, “whither Afghanistan?” And today, in Kabul, some 2000 Afghan influentials have gathered at the invitation of President Hamid Karzai to decide what kind of future relationship they want with the US, and the Taliban. Will the combined output of hot air do anything to lift Afghanistan out of its current quagmire? So far it doesn't look promising.
Karzai opened the Traditional Loya Jirga, or council of elders meeting, with an exhortation to balance the country's need for ongoing international assistance as the US and NATO troop presence draws down with a wish to see Afghanistan maintain its agency. "We want to have a strong partnership with the U.S. and NATO, but with conditions," Karzai said. " We want our national sovereignty, and an end to night raids and to the detention of our countrymen. We don't want parallel structures alongside our government."
The Jirga, which has no legislative powers, is meant to be consultative. Critics argue that Karzai is merely seeking political cover for an eventual agreement with the U.S. that is bound to be unpalatable not only for some Afghans, but for Afghanistan's neighbors, who have little desire for a continued U.S. presence in the country past the 2014 deadline for American troop withdrawal. That may be the case, but Karzai's bold opening statement also seemed directed at US administration observers. For the past several months Afghan government officials have been very clear that they want to see continued US investment and commitment in the country well beyond the deadline. By getting representatives from all of Afghanistan's 34 provinces to agree on the terms of continued U.S. presence (Jirgas, a traditional dispute resolution mechanism, generally work towards consensus) before the formal agreement is finalized, Karzai can convincingly present the Americans with a united front. It's a high stakes gamble: Karzai's conditions—an end to night raids, Afghan control of detention facilities, funding that goes directly to the government—are highly contentious.
The secondary goal of the Jirga, determining the best path to peace with the Taliban, is likely to engender more fevered debate. Since the assassination of Afghanistan's premier peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani, reconciliation efforts with the Taliban have largely collapsed. Former militia leaders of ethnic groups that have been traditionally allied against the largely Pashtun Taliban hold that peace can only be achieved through a military defeat. Others argue that it's too late – negotiations are the only way forward. In the Asia Foundation's annual survey of the Afghan people, released yesterday, Eighty-two percent of respondents supported the government's attempts to address the security situation through negotiation and reconciliation with insurgents. It's not so clear, however, that the Taliban are interested in being reconciled. Just a few days before the Jirga's opening, the Taliban released what it said was the gathering's security plan and promised to disrupt the meeting with violence. Whether they intended to follow thorough with their threat or were dabbling in psy-ops in order to intimidate delegates, as the Afghan government claims, is immaterial. Either way they want the meeting disrupted.
The Jirga, with its photogenic display of colorful headgear and dashing capes, may embrace tradition, but parliamentarians argue that it is unconstitutional. Such issues of national import, they say, should be discussed by the people's elected representatives, not tribal leaders and influentials hand selected by the president and his supporters. Any resolution that comes out at the end of the three day meeting is likely to be met with dispute and skepticism if it differs significantly from parliamentary opinion, further dividing the public over important national issues at a time when it most needs to come together. Hot air may be a waste of time, but it's usually harmless. This time however, it could ignite a political conflict at a moment when the country needs to unite more than ever.
Aryn Baker is TIME's Middle East Bureau Chief, based in Beirut. Find her on Twitter at @arynebaker. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEWorld.

Karzai at loya jirga: Afghanistan is 'a lion' to be respected
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai kicked of this week's loya jirga by pointing out both the need for international and US help and the need to make sure Afghans are setting the rules in their own country.
By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent / November 16, 2011 The Christian Science Monitor
Kabul, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai opened a meeting of 2,000 Afghan elders on Wednesday with a strong call for lasting ties with the US and named the conditions necessary for a strategic agreement between the two nations.
Provided the US agrees to the terms, Mr. Karzai said he was open to having US forces remain on bases here after the 2014 troop withdrawal deadline.
The speech marked the first time that the Afghan president has publicly laid out his desired plan for long-term relations with the US.
In recent speeches, Karzai has often thrown sharp barbs at the US, leading many to question the future of bilateral ties. But his opening speech at the loya jirga, or grand assembly, showed a marked enthusiasm for committing to strong ties with the US.
“America wants to stay powerful in Afghanistan and use our military infrastructure,” said Karzai during his speech. “They have their own goals and we have our own goals. We will search for our benefit and their benefit.”
No more night raids
Karzai laid out several conditions necessary for continuing relations with the US, most of which are familiar demands that include an end to house searches and night raids, closing international detention facilities, and recognizing Afghan sovereignty.
Following the president’s address, the loya jirga attendants started what will be four days of meeting to discuss strategic relations with the US and reconciliation talks with the insurgency. At the conclusion of the loya jirga, the participants will provide their recommendations to the parliament and Karzai.
The president, who called the loya jirga, appeared to have won over the majority of the audience with his speech, drawing cheers when he compared Afghanistan to a lion capable of standing on equal footing with the West. “It’s true that America is a powerful, rich, strong country, but we are also a lion,” he said.
Initial reactions from those in the audience indicate that the loya jirga is likely to embrace Karzai’s vision of future relations with the US. Karzai’s call for continuing to work with the US while emphasizing Afghan sovereignty and independence resonated strongly with many delegates.
“In Karzai’s speech there was not a single point I could object to,” says Abdul Ahad Helmandwal, a loya jirga representative from Helmand province. “Now the nation of Afghanistan knows what is good for it and what is bad for it. I believe this strategic deal and any other will be good for Afghanistan.”
Still, many Afghans remain skeptical about how strongly their nation can dictate terms with the US, despite the president’s confidence. A number of Afghans have criticized the loya jirga, saying it is stacked primarily with Karzai loyalists.
“We have a proverb in Pashtu that a powerful person and a weak person cannot be friends. Right now, America is powerful and Afghanistan is the poorest in the world, so if Afghanistan agrees or doesn’t agree America will try to stay in Afghanistan until they reach their goals,” says Habib Rahman, a Kabul resident who listened to the speech on television.
Though all of Kabul was on tight security lockdown, with many Afghan and international organizations closed for security reasons, the first day of the loya jirga concluded without any attacks.
In the days leading up to the loya jirga, there was some concern after the Taliban claimed to have intercepted the government’s security plan for the event and a suicide bomber tried unsuccessfully to enter the site of the loya jirga on Monday.
During the last loya jirga in 2010, insurgents attacked the event with rockets and suicide bombers during Karzai’s address.

Afghanistan's loya jirga - what is it good for?
MSNBC By Atia Abawi, NBC News Correspondent 15/11/2011
KABUL - This week over 2,000 Afghans representing all walks of life – from farmers to business owners – will congregate in the capital Kabul. Some will come from the far-flung provinces within Afghanistan, others from neighboring Iran and Pakistan, where millions of refugees still live after 30 years of war.
There will even be representatives from the Afghan diaspora who have found new homes in the Unites States, Canada and Europe.
They will gather for a traditional meeting, called a loya jirga or grand assembly, a tradition that dates back hundreds of years. The jirga is a gathering of tribes to discuss and decide on important decisions and milestones in the country. In the past it has been used to choose kings, constitutions and regimes.
This year tribal elders and community leaders will discuss the future of the relationship between the U.S. and Afghanistan as American troops begin to withdraw. But while the Jirga is an ancient tradition, some Afghans say the meeting has no binding authority and is being used simply to provide non-binding advice to the government of President Hamid Karzai.
“I think no major decisions will come out of this jirga,” political analyst Haroun Mir told NBC News. “It will be up to President Karzai either to take into consideration these recommendations or go ahead with his own decision.”
The U.S. isn’t commenting on the jirga, saying only that it is an Afghan process that they have the “upmost respect” for, according to the State Department’s Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner.
“The U.S. and Afghanistan are close partners and allies, and we have great confidence that this loya jirga is going to reaffirm that strong partnership,” Toner said.
Taliban threat The challenges of holding this jirga are vast, with security being the biggest problem in the eyes of most Afghans, as well as the international community.
To underscore this point, The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the gathering and kill anyone taking part in it.
They also claim to have obtained the security plans for the three-day congregation. To add validity to the group’s assertion, on Monday Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid sent NBC News a 20-page document it claims are those plans.
Some Afghan government officials say that the document has been fabricated, while others say that although the document is authentic it is actually an outdated version.
Mir says Taliban threats should be taken more seriously.
“Certainly the risk is very high and they have the capacity to threaten the Afghan forces,” he said. Mir underlined his point by referring to recent insurgent attacks in the Afghan capital, including the September assassination of the head of the High Peace Council for Reconciliation, Burhanuddin Rabbani.
“These attacks happened through those who provide protection for Taliban inside Kabul and facilitated their transportation in the city,” Mir said.
While top officials are at risk from attacks, regular Afghans have borne the brunt of worsening violence in Afghanistan – with around 1,462 civilians killed between January and June, the first six month of 2011 have been the deadliest six months for civilians since the war began in 2001, according to BBC News.
Peaceful settlement? Despite continued threats from the Taliban, it is expected one of the topics of discussion will be on how to forge a peaceful settlement with them.
Security aside, there is still confusion among many Afghans and foreigners as to why this jirga has been called now, what will be discussed and will the decisions made hold any weight.
Some parliamentarians have even called on Afghans to boycott the jirga, saying that it is an illegal process and that decisions made on Afghanistan should be done in the democratic fashion through the government.
"The real representatives of the people are in parliament. We have been elected,” Nasrullah Sadiqizada Nili, a lawmaker from Day Kundi province, told the Associated Press. Although parliamentarians are included in the event, Nili said he and many others would not attend in protest.
"This loya jirga has no legitimacy," Nili said.
Still thousands will gather starting Wednesday and the meeting is expected to last four days.
Fazl-e-Ahad contributed to this report.

Gameplans for Afghanistan
Pakistan's policies are forcing Mr. Karzai to seek autonomy. But that makes Islamabad more paranoid.
Wall Street Journal NOVEMBER 15, 2011
As the Obama administration pushes for an earlier drawdown of U.S. troops, Kabul must quickly take responsibility for maintaining internal stability and charting an independent foreign policy. We asked four analysts—Michael O'Hanlon, Marin Strmecki, Amin Saikal and Nitin Pai—how Kabul should address the challenge.
Don't Turn to India
By Michael O'Hanlon
Afghan President Hamid Karzai went to New Delhi last month and signed a long-term security agreement, making many believe that Kabul can choose India over Pakistan for its key strategic partner in the region. Yet the notion that India can be a substitute for Pakistan is an unwise gamble. If Kabul continues down this road, the most probable outcome would be Islamabad waging a full-blown proxy war.
Pakistan is paranoid about its arch rival gaining a major foothold in Afghanistan. This is its chief motivation for all the trouble its intelligence agencies have caused by supporting the Haqqani network and the Quetta Shura Taliban.
This problem is bad enough as is, but it could grow more severe. In a worst case, as NATO winds down its effort in Afghanistan, Pakistan could seek to stir up even more trouble, with the possibility of civil war and even the partition of Afghanistan becoming much more real. In turn, the country could once again become a terrorist sanctuary.
To be sure, it would be useful if New Delhi and Kabul expanded their economic interactions. However, even as Kabul seeks better ties with New Delhi it must work hard to strengthen relations with Islamabad. Kabul should seek a bargain in which it addresses some of Pakistan's fears in exchange for Islamabad reining in the Haqqani network and the Quetta Shura.
One step Kabul should take is clarifying the nature of military relations with India. In the aftermath of President Karzai's trip to India, where New Delhi and Kabul agreed that India would help train Afghan security forces, Afghanistan could promise Pakistan that such training will occur only under the auspices of NATO's training mission, as long as NATO remains in Afghanistan.
Second, Kabul also could request that India close its consulates in eastern and southern Afghanistan. Islamabad sees these Indian outposts in Jalalabad and Kandahar as intelligence collection sites and covert action staging bases in disguise. Though it's doubtful that the consulates are as threatening as Islamabad thinks, they are not important enough to risk antagonizing Pakistan.
Kabul also should commit to respect the Durand Line that has separated Pakistan and Afghanistan since British times as the effective border indefinitely. Afghans continue to resist accepting this arbitrary line as their boundary. But it makes little sense for small, weak Afghanistan to pick a fight with its big neighbor over where the border should be, especially since what is at stake are remote mountain regions that are hardly the heartland of either country.
Finally, Kabul should further develop Afghanistan-Pakistan border management discussions, with high-level government participation on both sides. In this forum, Islamabad could also convey its preferences as to who among the Haqqanis or other tribes might be accorded government jobs in Afghanistan's eastern provinces. Islamabad should not get to choose Afghanistan's local leaders, but there is no reason to deprive it of a chance to advocate for certain interests. Afghanistan might do the same in reverse.
None of this will be easy. But for those looking for fruitful peace talks to secure Afghanistan's future, a conversation with Pakistan is a more promising arena for diplomacy than with India, and certainly better than those between Kabul and the Taliban.
Mr. O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Have a Plan B
By Marin Strmecki
Afghanistan's survival, long dependent on adroit geopolitics, will turn on its external relations more so now than ever before. The immediate challenge is how to deal with the Pakistan's determined effort to destabilize Afghanistan through support for terrorist proxies.
The best option—let's call it Plan A—is to try to recreate the conditions that enabled internal and regional stability in the 20th century before the Communist coup and Soviet intervention in 1979. This formula involved giving all of Afghanistan's neighbors some degree of political influence but permitting none to have a dominant one. This preserved Afghan independence, since it convinced one power that the others didn't have a dominant foothold in Kabul.
In those quieter and more stable days, Afghanistan also had a government with institutions sufficiently strong to uphold that balance-of-power formula. Its security forces then enabled the government to police its territory, while its political and economic institutions created the legitimacy that ensured the social cohesion, making it difficult for foreign powers to subvert that.
Today, with its institutions and economy only partially rebuilt and with a much more dangerous threat environment, the Afghan government cannot do this alone. It therefore requires Afghanistan to have a long-term strategic relationship with the United States that includes an enduring but relatively small military presence and long-term capacity building efforts in the security and other sectors.
An aspect of the U.S. role would be to reassure regional powers, particularly Pakistan, that Afghanistan would not become an instrument of one of its rivals. In essence, the U.S. would guarantee Afghanistan's non-alignment vis-à-vis regional rivals. At the same time, the U.S. should mediate Pakistan-Afghanistan issues (such as the border ones) and facilitate regional trade. This approach will test whether the Pakistani military can be reconciled to the existence of a stable and independent Afghanistan.
If this does not alter Pakistan's policies—and there is good reason to believe that it would not—then Afghanistan must go to Plan B, which involves balancing against or containing Pakistan. In this scenario, Kabul will still need the relationship with Washington to build up internal Afghan capabilities to thwart Pakistan's policies. More importantly, the enduring U.S. presence would need to be larger. If President Obama draws down American forces too quickly or fails to commit to an enduring presence after 2014, it will be difficult to bring this plan to fruition.
Under Plan B, Afghanistan would need to stronger ties with India, Russia, Central Asian states, and possibly Iran. The recently concluded Indo-Afghanistan strategic partnership agreement creates the legal framework for such cooperation. It will involve training Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police officers at Indian institutions.
When should Afghanistan shift from Plan A to Plan B? That is the big question and depends on Pakistan. Initial Afghan statements following the September assassination of former Afghan president Burhannudin Rabbani, who was leading effort to reconcile with Pakistan-supported insurgent groups, indicated that Kabul was losing faith in the possibility of coming to terms with Pakistan. Perhaps Hamid Karzai is already thinking of some kind of Plan B, considering he soon stepped up relations with New Delhi. Future Afghan leaders will have to watch out for the point when Islamabad cannot be induced to end its destabilizing policies.
Mr. Strmecki is senior vice president of the Smith Richardson Foundation.
Without the U.S., Neither Here Nor There
By Amin Saikal
Afghanistan is in the grip of long-term disorder. It lacks the necessary foundations for enduring internal stability and the capacity for pursuing an appropriately effective foreign policy. It is not in a strong position to deter Pakistan's predatory behavior or to avoid the possibility of wider internal strife. That position dwindles further with the U.S. and its NATO allies deciding to withdraw most of their troops by 2014.
With Islamabad intent on influencing the turn of events in Kabul one way or the other, Afghanistan is being dealt such cards that it's got to hedge its bets. President Karzai is taking two simultaneous tacks. The first is to conclude with Washington a new strategic partnership to enable the U.S. to retain, at least until 2024, a number of military bases, with somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 troops. These forces will aim to prevent the Taliban and their Pakistani supporters from taking over power in Kabul.
The second is to forge closer ties with those regional players that could counterbalance Pakistan. Hence his recent signing of a strategic partnership with India; greater disposition towards Iran; and even strengthening ties with China, which has become the biggest investor in the Afghan mining industry and which could potentially have a restraining influence on Pakistan. Mr. Karzai has also been keen to enlist greater Turkish and Russian involvement.
Keeping both options open might seem like a good idea, but there are troublesome aspects. For one, Mr. Karzai's problems are as much domestically rooted as they are embedded in Pakistan's interventionism. His administration is dogged by a highly fragmented, corrupt and dysfunctional governing elite. One of his legacies is bound to be his failure to depart from the tradition of governing by patronage and divide and rule. Hence Afghanistan has no strong political institutions to absorb chaos at home or at its borders. That means that while Mr. Karzai tries to play off, say, Pakistan against India, Pakistan can create enough trouble to prevent him from proceeding.
Another problem for Kabul is that no regional player with which Mr. Karzai hopes to get close has the same capacity as Washington. The United States and its allies are well-placed to help Afghanistan with its institution-building, while providing a security umbrella.
Unless the U.S. and many of its NATO allies remain firmly engaged in Afghanistan for another two decades, either a situation of stalemate and bloodshed could continue; or the ethnic Pashtun Taliban could take over power, under Pakistan's aegis. That will provoke resistance from the non-Pashtuns, who could expect to be aided by Iran, India, Central Asian republics and Russia—and plunge the country into a civil war.
Mr. Saikal is director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University. He is also author of "Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival" (2006). Delhi Is Not Enough
By Nitin Pai
The heart of Afghanistan's problem is that its natural desire for autonomy provokes strong resistance from Pakistan. Islamabad perceives anything less than a satellite regime as inimical to its interests, in turn driving Kabul to seek autonomy by reaching out to India, Iran, Russia and China.
This vicious cycle of insecurity can be broken in two ways: reconfigure the Durand Line that separates Afghanistan from Pakistan, or change geopolitical attitudes in Pakistan. The latter is decidedly more painless, but requires getting Pakistan's generals to change their minds. It is not going to be easy.
Afghanistan then has to look for other solutions. To some extent, the Afghan state can look to New Delhi because India faces significant risks in the short term from a U.S. withdrawal.
Triumphant militants and their backers in the Pakistani military establishment, fresh from defeating a superpower, might decide to turn their attention to Kashmir. This is what happened in the early 1990s when Pakistani and other foreign veterans of the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan edged out local militants in the Kashmir valley and began one of the most violent phases of Pakistan's proxy war.
Hence India doesn't want a repeat of the 1990s. There is however a sense in New Delhi that 2011 is not 1991. Only the most credulous today accept Pakistani denials that it does not use terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy. The good news then is that international pressure on Pakistan is likely to persist even after U.S. troops leave Afghanistan.
Even so, New Delhi is hedging in four ways. First, as the recent agreements signed by President Karzai and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh show, India intends to further bolster the capacity of the Afghan state to provide for its own security. Training Afghan troops allows India the flexibility to raise or lower its security investments, depending on circumstances.
Second, India is strengthening its relationships with Afghan political formations opposed to the Taliban. Third, it is attempting to improve bilateral relations with Pakistan, to the extent possible. Fourth, New Delhi is cooperating with other nations to keep the conflict contained within Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But Kabul has its own internal problems that bedevil its foreign policy. The strategic logic in Mr. Karzai's attempts at striking a balance in Afghanistan's relations with its neighbors has been often overshadowed by the perception that his actions are mercurial and clumsy. That means his new friends in New Delhi, Beijing or in Moscow—with whom he is trying to get closer—may look at him with some wariness.
What's more, Mr. Karzai is keeping the Pakistani channel open at the same time. In this he faces determined domestic opposition from quarters that disapprove of his dalliances with Pakistan and its proxies. All of this makes for a heart-stopping tightrope act.
Mr. Pai is founder of the Takshashila Institution, an independent think tank.

IMF approves new credit program for Afghanistan after Kabul Bank crisis
By Associated Press, November 15
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan got a new line of credit Tuesday from the International Monetary Fund, which said the struggling government had taken steps to address governance and accountability issues that surfaced during the Kabul Bank crisis.
The IMF said it had approved a three-year $133.6 million loan for Afghanistan, which had been without IMF backing for more than a year.
The decision reassures international donors — some of whom had withheld aid while waiting for the IMF to give Afghanistan a new stamp of approval after the bank scandal. It comes just weeks before an international conference on Afghanistan scheduled for Dec. 5 in Bonn, Germany.
The IMF suspended its credit program for the country because of mismanagement at Kabul Bank — the country’s largest private financial institution — which made more than $800 million in fraudulent and questionable loans.
Kabul Bank became a symbol of the country’s deep-rooted corruption.
The bank operated like a “Ponzi scheme” that resulted in “fraud of an unprecedented scale” for an impoverished country like Afghanistan, Axel Schimmelpfennig, the IMF’s country director, told reporters in a conference call from the fund’s headquarters in Washington.
The case has been closely followed by Afghans and international donors because it is a test of government officials’ pledge to root out patronage and graft and to show accountability to world financial institutions such as the IMF.
“It is important that the authorities accelerate measures to enhance governance, including strengthening the banking law and financial sector supervision as well as the framework for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism,” said Nemat Shafik, deputy managing director and acting chairwoman of the IMF.
She also urged Afghan authorities to be more ambitious about increasing domestic revenues, especially since international aid is expected to decline over the coming years, and to continue their work to introduce a value-added tax in 2014.
Schimmelpfennig said that while there was still work to be done, the IMF approved the new loan because Afghan authorities had made strides in reforming banking oversight, getting millions of dollars in Kabul bank loans on restructured repayment schedules and working to increase revenue for the government, which runs largely on international aid.
He also noted that Afghan lawmakers agreed last month to reimburse Afghanistan’s central bank up to $825 million it cost to bail out the Kabul Bank — a sum that could decrease depending on how much loan money is recovered.
That recapitalization partly satisfied IMF conditions to extend new credit to Afghanistan, but the IMF also asked the Afghan government to strengthen oversight and regulation of the banking sector and work to improve revenue collection. The Afghan government has vowed to prosecute anyone accused of criminal activity related to the bank.
Criminal investigations against the bank’s top two executives, several bank officials and others are under way. The two bank executives are Sherkhan Farnood, the former chairman of Kabul Bank and a world-class poker player, and Khalilullah Ferozi, the former chief executive officer. They were held in detention for a few months, but recently were given freedom for part of each day to work with officials to recover the lost money.
Farnood and Ferozi each had owned 28 percent of the bank’s shares. President Hamid Karzai’s brother, Mahmood Karzai, was the bank’s third largest shareholder with 7 percent. Haseen Fahim, a brother of one of the nation’s two vice presidents, also owned shares of Kabul Bank. Afghan officials have said that Mahmood Karzai and Fahim had repaid most of what they borrowed from the bank.
The Kabul Bank has been split into a “good bank” — now being run by the Afghan Finance Ministry — and a “bad bank,” which is saddled with hundreds of millions of dollars in bad loans. Schimmelpfennig said the Afghan government hopes to put the “good bank” up for sale in the middle of next year.
In October, the Afghan Finance Ministry said that of the more than $800 million in fraudulent loans issued by Kabul Bank, more than $70 million has been recovered; $350 million in loans have been restructured for repayment; and $110 million in assets associated with the loans have been seized and transferred to the government. Some of the questionable loans were used to buy luxurious mansions in Dubai and invest in risky prestige projects like the airline and shopping malls in Kabul.
A forensic audit of Kabul Bank began last summer.
“Right now, the authorities think that the assets that they are trying to recover are to the tune of $935 million,” Schimmelpfennig said.
Audits are being conducted on other Afghan banks as well.
Earlier this year, concerns were raised about the condition of Azizi Bank.
Fraidoon Mohtasheme, the bank’s senior customer relations manager, told The Associated Press in an interview in July that accusations of liquidity problems were “baseless” and “politically motivated.” He said the bank, which employs 2,500 people, had solid liquidity and was not involved in investments outside Afghanistan.
A review of the bank’s books revealed that the institution had a few large exposures from individual borrowers and business sectors, Schimmelpfennig said.
The bank has agreed to increase its capital by $10 million this year and $10 million next year to put it in a stronger position.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner backedthe IMF decision. “There’s more work that needs to be done to reform and modernize Afghanistan’s banking and financial system,” he said. “But we are encouraged by the Afghan government’s actions over the past year to deal with the Kabul bank crisis, as well as to respond to the International Monetary Fund’s recommendations.”

Osama Bin Laden was tender and kind, Zawahiri says
16 November 2011 BBC News
Osama Bin Laden has been described as both "tender" and "kind" in a video released by the new head of al-Qaeda.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took over at the head of the network after Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in May, said the former leader was a sensitive man.
The video, entitled Days with the Imam: Part One, lasts about 30 minutes. It has been posted on jihadist websites.
Zawahiri said he had created the video to show Bin Laden's "human side" and tell people about his great loyalty.
"People don't know that this man was tender, gentle, kind, with refined feelings, even when life was hard," Zawahiri says in the video, dressed in a white robe and turban and sitting in front of a green curtain.
"We never saw a man like him."
Tearful
Zawahiri, who met Bin Laden in Pakistan in the mid-1980s when both were supporting fighters battling Soviet forces in Afghanistan described his time spent with Bin Laden as an "honour".
He recalls how Bin Laden reacted when he received the news that some members of Zawahri's family had been killed. With tears in his eyes, Bin Laden came to see him and hugged him.
He adds that Bin Laden was devoted to his children, paying great attention to ensuring that they were well-educated, despite constantly moving from place to place.
"Everyone close to him saw the fine and noble education in his children," he said, adding that Bin Laden employed a teacher who would threaten to beat the children with a stick to teach them the Koran.
Bin Laden, he said, did not want those who carried out the September 11 attacks - which killed nearly 3,000 people - to be forgotten.
"The sheikh would remember with goodness and gratitude and be moved by the memory of the 19 brothers who attacked the idol of our age, America," Zawahiri said. "He would remember these brothers with extreme fidelity."
Once, when the pair were hiding in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora, he said Bin Laden wrote death certificates for each one of the hijackers, fearing he would be killed "without remembering these heroic martyrs".
Analysts suggest that the fond memories of the terror group's former leader have been shared in part to try and boost hi own popularity with al-Qaeda followers, by emphasizing his closeness to the charismatic leader.

Afghans in Transition
By KARL F. INDERFURTH and THEODORE L. ELIOT Jr.
Afghanistan is now in transition mode as the United States and its NATO allies turn responsibility for the country’s security over to the Afghans, with the goal of completing the process by the end of 2014. During this period, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says a strategy of “fight, talk, build” will be pursued.
How do Afghans feel about the elements of that strategy? A recent survey directed by The Asia Foundation provides some answers. (The complete survey is available on Tuesday at the foundation’s Web site.)
In July, close to 6,500 Afghans were surveyed across the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. The demographics are important: 78 percent were from rural areas and 22 percent from urban areas; 57 percent were men and 43 percent women. The margin of error is 4.1 percent.
This was the seventh poll conducted by the foundation since 2004, providing a valuable perspective of the national mood of Afghans over time.
Bottom line: Despite the daunting security, economic and political challenges facing Afghanistan, close to half of those polled (46 percent) say the country is moving in the right direction — statistically the same as in 2010. But those saying the country is moving in the wrong direction have increased by 8 percent over the past year, from 27 percent to 35 percent. Afghan optimists are holding steady; pessimists are on the rise.
Now to Clinton’s three-pronged strategy.
“Fight”: Afghans (not necessarily the Taliban) are clearly tired of the fighting. They’ve been at it, in one form or another, for over 30 years. Insecurity is identified as the biggest problem by over one third of those polled. More than half say they fear for their personal safety in their local area.
At the same time, those surveyed believe that their own security forces, the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, are showing signs of improvement, with the army receiving the most positive assessment: 87 percent say the army is helping improve the security situation in the country.
Two other indicators, over time, are also positive. In 2007, 62 percent of those asked said the Afghan army was “unprofessional and poorly trained.” That number dropped to 44 percent this year. Likewise, there was a decline among those who said the army needed the support of foreign troops and could not operate by itself: from 77 percent in 2007 to 60 percent today.
“Talk”: Afghans are overwhelmingly in favor of talking. Eighty-two percent of respondents support their government’s efforts to address the security situation through negotiation and reconciliation with the Taliban and other armed opposition groups. But since the survey was conducted, that effort has run aground, called off by President Hamid Karzai after the assassination of Afghan peace envoy and former president Burhanuddin Rabbani by a suicide bomber posing as a Taliban peace emissary. The future of the Afghan reconciliation process — the “talking” — is at best uncertain.
What is certain is that the Taliban’s increased use of high-profile killings and civilian attacks is having a significant impact on Afghan public opinion. The percentage of Afghans who have some level of sympathy for the motivations of the insurgents fell to its lowest level (29 percent) in the history of this survey: in 2009, it was 56 percent; last year, 40 percent.
“Build”: Afghans are most encouraged by the ongoing rebuilding of their country. Of those seeing their country moving in the right direction, the primary reason given was reconstruction (40 percent). More than half of the respondents say they are aware of development projects in their local area, including the building of roads and bridges (59 percent) and education (57 percent).
Afghans are also aware of which countries have provided the most aid for projects in their localities, citing the United States, Germany, Japan, India and Britain, in that order.
As with the future of the reconciliation process, however, the future of U.S. and international development aid has come into question since the survey was conducted. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department announced that civilian aid to Afghanistan had reached its “high water” mark, declaring that America would spend less on development assistance as it withdraws troops from the country. U.S. aid fell from $4.1 billion in 2010 to $2.5 billion this year.
Whether the Afghan people have reached their high water mark for their expectations for the future will be shown in future surveys.
Today the survey shows that most Afghan see progress in the quality of their lives, appreciate the services they receive from their government, and continue to support equal rights regardless of gender, ethnicity or religion. Eighty-five percent support educational opportunities for women.
One hopes none of these advances will be lost in the current Afghan transition.
Karl F. Inderfurth, assistant U.S. secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 1997 to 2001, is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Theodore L. Eliot, Jr., U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 1973 to 1978, is dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Both are trustees of The Asia Foundation.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on November 15, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune with the headline: Afghans in Transition.

Delaware governor says morale high among US troops visited in Afghanistan
By Associated Press, November 16
DOVER, Del. — Delaware Gov. Jack Markell says morale is high among the U.S. troops he has seen in Afghanistan.
Markell is in Afghanistan this week as part of a Defense Department initiative allowing governors to visit troops overseas, including National Guardsmen and reservists.
Markell’s delegation left Washington on Monday after briefings at the Pentagon and a trip to Walter Reed medical center, where the governor visited with a Delawarean who has undergone more than 30 surgeries to his injured arm.
Markell stopped in Kuwait before traveling to Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where he was struck by the sight of a soldier being treated at the base hospital after losing both legs. The governor says such scenes bring home the reality of the sacrifices being made by U.S. troops.

Cultural sensitivity key to limiting Afghan clashes
The Canberra Times BY CLIVE WILLIAMS 16 Nov, 2011
“Green-on-blue” incidents have been occurring in Afghanistan for the past six years, but more than half of the total deaths have occurred in the past 12 months – and that upward trend seems set to continue.
“Green” refers to Afghan security forces, while “blue” refers to the International Security Assistance Force, which includes the US, Britain and Australia. To date, at least 52 ISAF personnel have died in green-on-blue incidents since 2005, with 26 killed since November 2010. Four of those 26 have been Australian Army personnel. In May 2011 an Afghan soldier killed one Australian soldier, and in October 2011, an Afghan sergeant killed three Australians. This month an Afghan soldier wounded three Australians.
The Taliban actually cause relatively few incidents. Most, at around 40 per cent, have been put down to stress of various kinds, 15 per cent to pressure put on individuals by the Taliban, and 10 per cent to Taliban disguised in Afghan uniforms. The cause of the remaining 35 per cent has not been determined.
My belief is that the upsurge in incidents has occurred because of increased recruitment, training pressures, and a cultural disconnect between trainers and Afghans.
Since President Obama announced that Afghans would be responsible for their own security by 2014, there has been increased pressure to make the Afghan National Army combat-capable. The ANA is currently about 170,000 strong, to be built up to 260,000 by 2015. The Afghan National Police is currently 140,000, to be built up to 160,000 by next year.
It is not just a simple matter of surging the ANA to 260,000. The increase is being undermined by high desertion and attrition rates, with some Afghan units down to 60per cent of their establishment strength. It is rather like filling a bucket with a large hole in the bottom.
ANA enlisted personnel I spoke to at the Kabul Military Training Centre were unhappy about a number of issues: poor pay, no leave, being unable to see or contact their wives and children – who were usually in another part of the country, being unable to visit their family and village to help plant the poppy crop (around November) and harvest it (around March), weak leadership, lack of suitable military equipment, Taliban pressure, government corruption etc.
The surge and desertion/attrition challenges have had two significant impacts on Afghan force development: first the need to take in and retain 8000 army recruits a month – which inevitably means lowering the bar on standards; second is increased ISAF field-mentoring, with 5000 ISAF soldiers now working with Afghan units.
Security vetting has been stepped up to try to weed out Afghan recruits with Taliban links and Taliban sympathies. The main green/blue disconnect seems to be the cultural one. The Australian Defence Force has few problems working with US, Canadian, British or New Zealand forces, because of our cultural similarities and common language. The same is true to a lesser extent of our work with other forces in ISAF. But the reality is that Australian soldiers have little in common with Afghan troops.
ISAF’s concerns about Afghan troops include their poor hygiene, poor discipline, inefficiency, treachery, thieving, unreliability, illiteracy, technical incompetence, corruption, lack of motivation, and drug taking. From the Afghan perspective we are infidels and uninvited occupiers of their land, lack cultural sensitivity, cause civilian casualties, don’t know how to keep our women under control – and disrespect theirs, trespass on their property, can’t handle hardship, are too regimented, and are arrogant.
One reported Afghan complaint about Australians is that they wear sunglasses at meetings, which they regard as disrespectful to their elders. I tend to agree with that. Wearing sunglasses when talking to someone not wearing sunglasses is bad manners – and wearing sunglasses at meetings with local Afghan officials is not on.
I am not sure what it is with Gen Y, but I noticed that when Julia Gillard was trying to address the troops at a soldiers’ canteen at Tarin Kowt on her recent visit, the large TV screen with Australian football was still on behind her. Some soldiers seemed to be paying more attention to the TV than they were to the Prime Minister.
A review of green-on-blue incidents seems to suggest that many could be put down to personal clashes and disagreements. In the case of the Australian incidents, the first seems to have followed an earlier argument, the second seems to have been a premeditated religiously-motivated attack, while the motivation for the third incident has not yet been disclosed.
The main problem created by such incidents is lack of trust, which undermines ISAF’s and our ability to work effectively with Afghans. Last year, German troops refused to go out in the field with Afghans following a green-on-blue incident that killed three Germans.
Australian soldiers in past campaigns have been well regarded for their training work with local security forces, largely due to our diggers’ egalitarian and easy-going attitude.
The green-on-blue problems in Afghanistan suggest that ISAF needs to be as discerning about who it integrates with Afghan units as it is about who is being recruited into the Afghan security forces.
It seems doubtful that the ANA and police will be capable of safeguarding national security by 2014.
A longer term issue is who will provide the training needed after 2014, and pay for the expanded Afghan security forces – at an estimated US$8 billion a year. The US is said to be keen to share that burden with others, including Australia.
# Clive Williams is a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, and an Adjunct Professor at Macquarie University’s Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism. He is also a former Army officer.

How to eliminate Afghan drug production
By Viktor Ivanov CNN 15/11/2011
In early September, the upper house of the Afghan parliament accused the international community of failing to wage a successful fight against drug production and trafficking in Afghanistan. This accusation is supported, in their view, by the growth of the heroin manufacturing industry in the country to an estimated worth of about $50 billion.
Equally disappointing is the conclusion of the U.S. Congress Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, co-chaired by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Grassley, which acknowledges the absence of distinctive results of international efforts in Afghanistan to combat drug production. Both senators draw attention to the need to destroy opium poppies as the main way of eliminating drug production.
Also discouraging is that the United Nations estimates that in the decade since U.S. and NATO military operations began in Afghanistan, Afghan heroin has killed a million young people in Eurasia. Moreover, shortly after the start of military operations, it came to the United States itself and, according to American experts, about two million Americans have become addicts. U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman said earlier this year that drug trafficking from Afghanistan poses a threat not only for Russia but for the United States as well.
What has stymied progress in the fight against Afghan drug production? There are three main causes.
First, the most effective tactical approach to combating drug production—crop extermination—is not applied in Afghanistan today. Simply put, if there were no crops, there would be no drugs. Rather, current strategies focus on strangling drug trafficking routes, which are difficult to expose and extremely criminalized. Considering that trafficking routes in Eurasia and Central Asia cover more than 25 million square kilometers, whereas all opium poppy fields in Afghanistan comprise no more than 1,300 square kilometers—20 thousand times smaller than the overall trafficking territory—it seems misguided to focus on the former.
A more effective approach would be to begin at the root of the process, where the crops grow, and introduce appropriate legal norms so that land where drug crops are discovered could be expropriated and owners strictly punished. The application of effective measures against land owners with crops of opium poppies would make anti-drug programs more targeted, tied as they are to the people behind the trade as opposed to a regional administration.
Second, the current approach to combating drug production and trafficking in Afghanistan is ideological. Current strategies focus on the movement and finances of the Taliban, which, even the U.S. State Department has conceded, is the beneficiary of only a minority of drug profits—less than $150 million—compared to the $50 billion in total revenues of Afghan heroin traffickers. As a result, powerful crime syndicates remain outside the focus of the world's attention and are sufficiently resourced to bribe officials, influence policies of other states and, perhaps, to fund international organizations.
This approach sacrifices anti-drug missions to geopolitical objectives. This is not dissimilar to the situation in Noriega’s Panama, with respect to which the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Drugs and International Operations of the U.S. Senate concluded: “In some ways foreign policy considerations impair the ability of the United States to wage war against drugs. Foreign policy priorities from time to time delayed, hindered or directly contradict enforcement efforts aimed at preventing the diversion of drugs into the United States.”
Third, in the fight against drug production there is virtually no use of modern digital technology. In the era of iPhone and GPS, this is anachronistic at best. The time has come to incorporate digital systems into the fight against drug production. I would like to introduce Russia’s initiative for digital measures to eliminate Afghan drug production: the Digital Poppy Road Map.
We propose creating an interactive map as an informational resource available to all people to consolidate information on Afghan drug production in one place. It would record all relevant information on crops, drug labs, warehouses and routes of transit. The goal of this project will be to consolidate this information so that it can be constantly revised and updated by a number of parties.
The map will identify key drug production infrastructure and supply hubs, opium and marijuana fields, opium markets and bazaars, drug laboratories, drug holdings, trade paths, etc. Such a map will enable authorities to identify and localize the exact infrastructure contributing to the production of these brands, which will give a new understanding of this complex issue.
Placing such a map in the public eye will enable us to coordinate anti-drug trafficking assignments to the appropriate authorities. This will promote transparency and cooperation among key international players in the Afghan anti-trafficking movement.
According to our estimates, tens of billions of dollars a year are spent on anti-drug programs without much success. Thorough digitization can be done for just $150 million a year, by our estimates. The digitization of the fight against drug production would require the close cooperation of Russia, the United States and other global bodies. It is an affordable, effective and badly needed tool against the scourge of the global drug trade.
Viktor Ivanov is the Director of Russia's Federal Service for the Control of Narcotics. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Viktor Ivanov.

A Mission’s Troubles Offer Window on an Unsteady Region in Afghanistan
By MIMI WELLS November 15, 2011 The New York Times
They came carrying cases of frozen meat, downloaded episodes of their favorite TV shows, baby wipes and enough firepower to light up the surrounding mountains for three days. First Platoon, Charlie Company would be spending the next week protecting the only road in Kunar Province from inside of Checkpoint 2.5; a cramped, heavily fortified American outpost.
A convoy loaded with fuel and other essentials for their main headquarters at Forward Operating Base Bostick — the most remote American Army base in eastern Afghanistan — would be driving past, and it was their job to secure the convoy as it traveled on a dangerous route through the heart of Kunar Province. It is a part of Afghanistan so isolated that when the Second Battalion, 27th Infantry arrived here from Hawaii in April, villagers thought they were Russian soldiers. The road serves as the region’s unofficial border with Pakistan: from its eastern side the Taliban influence politics in local villages and use mountain footpaths to bring weapons in from the wild tribal areas. American and Afghan security forces operate largely from the west.
Securing the road is not only essential for supplying Bostick, it is the cornerstone of 2-27’s big-picture goal of stabilizing Kunar and empowering its provincial government. Whether Afghan forces can take responsibility for securing areas like Kunar remains the central question for NATO as it begins drawing down troops over the coming year toward the goal of transferring all security operations to the Afghan government in 2014. My time with 2-27 underscored just how unstable the region remains, despite 10 years of American presence.
The resupply mission was divided into two stages: first 2-27 would build two outposts to expel the Taliban from an area near the road known as the “Ghaziabad Gap”; then they would lead more than 100 Afghan jingle trucks from Jalalabad to Bostick.
During the first phase of the operation, as soldiers descended on the two outpost positions under the cover of night, I traveled with the Battalion commander, Lt. Col. Dan Wilson, to the Nishigam District center, in the heart of Ghaziabad.
Colonel Wilson was just back from a large jirga where, dressed in a blue salwar kameez, he had spoken before Ghaziabad elders, government officials and Afghan security forces about plans to pave and secure the embattled section of the road. His officers counted the jirga as a big success; the attendees had signed their names to an agreement saying they would work together, and morale appeared to be high.
At the district center Colonel Wilson spent his days building relationships with locals. No other battalion commander has ever spent the night at the center, and Colonel Wilson seemed to embrace his work whole heartedly; eating plates of rice and chicken with his fingers alongside Afghan officers, and calling his counterparts in the national police and army, “my brothers.” At night he worked the radios by the light of his headlamp, directing his men as they built the outposts.
Outpost Shal quickly turned into the fiercest, bloodiest fight. Its location — on a small mountaintop overlooking a valley in the middle of one of the Taliban’s main supply routes from Pakistan — incensed what some called, “the hornet’s nest,” and insurgents came out in droves to defeat it. Colonel Wilson’s soldiers reported insurgents approaching within 10 meters — close enough to see their faces. Daily 12-hour firefights were draining their ammunition supplies, and they detonated their claymore mines — an extreme measure usually reserved as a last resort — three times to keep from being overrun completely.
From the district center Colonel Wilson coordinated the use of every weapon in 2-27’s arsenal; including rockets fired from Bagram airfield and Jalalabad. B-52 bombers flew in from as far away as Qatar.
After four nights Colonel Wilson was ready to move to a location where he could better command the resupply convoy. We were told not to pack up until the last minute to keep our departure a surprise and reduce the chances of an ambush.
Sure enough our four-truck convoy had barely made it two miles down the dirt road when it came to an abrupt halt. Two men were spotted in a cornfield ahead, possibly planting a roadside bomb. Intelligence officers stationed at Bostick radioed that there could be an ambush up ahead.
By the time we were cleared to drive on it was daylight, a dangerous time to be in an American convoy on an Afghan road.
We pulled into a compound in the closest village and took cover. Jalaleh is only about three miles from the Nishigam District center, but the shift in the atmosphere was palpable. For an hour or so no one emerged from the building to greet us, unheard of in a culture that takes fierce pride in the way it welcomes guests.
Two soldiers from my truck ventured inside the compound to scan it, and I followed. Inside the mud walls was an oasis of fruit trees and tall rose bushes with flowers of every hue.
When I went back outside some of the soldiers had gotten out of the trucks to stretch and scan the mountains surrounding us. In the back of my truck a sergeant was sprawled out across the seats and the gunner was in his turret.
Eventually Colonel Wilson and his Afghan counterparts were invited inside to eat.
A few minutes later there was a loud, thundering explosion, and everyone jumped up. A rocket-propelled grenade had struck the ground outside by the trucks and bursts of machine gun fire were cracking through the air. Insurgents hidden in the mountains directly above the compound were shooting down at trucks.
Another grenade landed, and thick black smoke burst into the sky. Someone shouted that one of the trucks had been hit and Colonel Wilson sprinted out of the room.
Within seconds of the second grenade strike a group of eight or nine Afghans quietly crept in and crouched against a wall. Some held hands. An old man with a white, wiry beard watched the window and told me that if God decided today was his day, there was nothing he could do.
After what seemed like two hours, but was probably only 10 minutes, the fighting began to die down. I found out that the grenade had narrowly missed its target and struck a fuel can strapped to the back of our truck, causing it to burst into flames. The men in the back had escaped by crawling out of the gunner’s turret.
Slowly, the soldiers filed into the compound and sat on the porch, scanning the mountains occasionally with their rifle sights. Their faces were covered in dirt, and their eyes were shiny.
A man appeared with cups of chai and plates loaded with cracked walnuts. The Afghan soldiers stretched out in the grass and the Americans agreed among themselves that they had showed themselves to be tough fighters.
But the calm was pierced by a radio call — a soldier had been killed at Outpost Shal, the operation’s first casualty. In the coming days another member of 2-27 would die there. The soldiers passed cigarettes around and stayed in their body armor, wondering about the dead soldier’s identity.
At the first sign of darkness we got into our trucks and sped south on the road to Combat Outpost Monti where everyone, even Colonel Wilson, slept in the same room. The next morning I flew back to Bostick on a helicopter with him and his interpreter.
Thirty hours later I was driving to Checkpoint 2.5 with another platoon to observe the resupply convoy.
We arrived at the checkpoint around 3 or 4 a.m. The supply trucks were scheduled to start coming through sometime in the next two nights, and First Platoon, Charlie Company was prepared for an all-out firefight. During 2-27’s last resupply mission in July, eight fuel trucks had been blown up and roadside bombs killed three soldiers.
For two days the soldiers monitored their radios and scanned the neighboring village — where a white Taliban flag flies from a radio tower, but when the first lights of the convoy finally spilled out onto the road, the night was quiet except for the steady hum of a helicopter flying above it.
When it arrived at Bostick a few hours later the trucks had not been shot at once, a major victory for 2-27, and the first time in recent memory that a resupply convoy has arrived unscathed. The celebration was brief though, 2-27 quickly turned its attention back to Outpost Shal, which will soon be handed over to Afghan forces.
Mimi Wells is a multimedia journalist from New York City. She is currently embedded in eastern Afghanistan with the Second Battalion, 27th Infantry regiment from Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, with the support of the Center for Investigative Reporting. She is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and in May 2011 was awarded a grant for Pashto language study from the South Asian Language Institute. You can follow her on Twitter: @mimiwells

3 NATO service members killed in Afghanistan's restive south
KABUL, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Three NATO service members were killed on Wednesday in two separate blasts in restive Afghanistan' s southern region, the military alliance confirmed here.
"Two International Security Assistance Force service members died following an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in southern Afghanistan today," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed in a statement on Wednesday.
Another ISAF service member was killed in a similar incident also in the southern part of the country earlier Wednesday, according to a separate ISAF statement.
The brief statements did not provide details on the incidents and the nationality of the victims under ISAF policy, only saying "It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities."
Troops mainly from the U.S., Britain, Canada and Australia have been stationed in the southern region, which is branded as Taliban hotbed, within the framework of the ISAF to fight Taliban militants there.
Over 520 foreign soldiers, most of them Americans, have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.
Wednesday's attacks on ISAF forces happened as the Afghan government opened a traditional Loya Jirga or grand assembly of tribal elders, lawmakers and government functionaries on Wednesday in the capital city of Kabul.
With over 2,500 participants, the assembly aims to discuss the proposed strategic partnership with the U.S. and government- initiated peace talks with the Taliban in the militancy-plagued country.

Afghanistan Impounds Russian Freight Plane With 'False Tail Number'
November 16, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan authorities have impounded a Russian freight plane belonging to an aviation company at the center of a high-profile case that has raised tensions between Tajikistan and Russia, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.
The cargo plane belonging to Rolkan Investment Ltd. was impounded at Kabul airport because authorities said it had a false registration number.
The plane was leased by the UAE-based company AIR Space, which is owned by an Indian businessman.
Kabul international airport spokesperson Yaqubulla Rasuli told RFE/RL that cargo planes rented by AIR Space work primarily with international organizations in Afghanistan and deliver shipments for a supply firm called Supreme Food. Rasuli said the planes are not registered with the Afghan aviation authorities and their registration numbers are false.
The move follows the high-profile jailing in Tajikistan last week of two pilots working for Rolkan Investment Ltd.
The pilots -- Vladimir Sadovnichy, a Russian, and Estonian citizen Aleksei Rudenko -- were jailed for 8 1/2 years on charges of smuggling, illegally crossing the border, and violating international aviation regulations.
The pair flew Russian An-72 cargo planes from Afghanistan to Tajikistan on March 12. The cargo of one of the planes included a disassembled aircraft engine that was not listed on the customs declaration.
On November 14, Tajikistan's Prosecutor General Sherkhon Salimzoda produced a written request from Afghanistan's Transport Ministry to detain the two planes because they left Afghanistan illegally and did not have proper documents.
Russian Foreign Ministry officials slammed the sentences as politically motivated, and in an apparent retaliatory move, Russia's immigration police began arresting and deporting Tajik migrant workers.
Rolkan Investment Ltd official Valery Pfeyfer, who denied the initial RFE/RL report about the Kabul plane, finally confirmed on November 16 that three of Rolkan's planes were leased by AIR Space, which has a large debt to Afghanistan.
Pfeyfer also confirmed that two An-72 planes are impounded in Tajikistan and one An-74 (a modification of the An-72) is parked in Kabul airport. He said the crew of the third plane are in Afghanistan, but have not been arrested.
Rolkan Investment Ltd is registered in the British Virgin Islands.

www.afghanistannewscenter.com