[Afghan News] November 19, 2011

[یاسمینه]

Afghanistan national assembly backs pact with US
By AMIR SHAH and RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press Nov 19, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A traditional Afghan national assembly on Saturday endorsed President Hamid Karzai's decision to negotiate a long-term security pact with the U.S. but imposed some conditions, including an end to unpopular night raids by military forces searching for insurgents.
A nonbinding resolution issued at the end of the Loya Jirga assembly backed an initiative from the president to negotiate a pact that will govern the presence of U.S. troops after 2014, when most international forces are to have left or moved into support roles.
The jirga's findings are consultative and Karzai does not need the jirga's permission to broker a pact, but he wanted its approval to strengthen his position at the talks.
They are likely to bolster Karzai's negotiating position with the United States during talks that are currently under way for a written U.S-Afghan agreement, which the U.S. calls a Strategic Partnership Document.
The more than 2,000 people who attended the four-day meeting asked him to ensure that the United States ends night-raids, hands over all Afghan detainees in their custody and limits any agreement to 10 years. They also said the future pact must be approved by parliament once it is drafted.
Karzai said that he had been worried that either the jirga participants would reject the proposed strategic partnership deal, or that they would fail to put enough conditions on it.
"We will act on the basis of your consultation," Karzai told the assembled delegates.
"I am very happy that you have accepted it and have put lots of conditions on it. I accept this resolution. It is the instruction to the Afghan government from the Afghan people," Karzai said.
The resolution said any future deal should include the immediate end of the night raids, where U.S. forces accompanied by Afghans carry out raids to kill or capture insurgents. They said all such raids should be Afghan-led.
It also said that any pact should least 10 years and that after 2014 all military operations should be led by Afghan forces. It added that the U.S. should commit to training and equipping the Afghan armed forces and should help the government build capacity instead of creating any parallel administrative structures - a reference to the joint international military and civilian provincial reconstruction teams now operating around the country.
As part of a future deal, both sides visualize a force of several thousand, which would train Afghan forces and help with counterterrorism operations. But the legal status of that force, how it would operate, where it would be based, and what it could or could not do has held up the talks.
Washington sees the document as a nonbinding set of principles guiding the two nations' future relationship. The Afghans want a strong and binding agreement to govern the presence of American forces in the country after 2014.
Afghan politicians are under pressure to uphold the country's sovereignty, but also see the agreement as a key bulwark against both homegrown insurgents and some of its neighbors, including Iran and Pakistan - which has been accused of maintaining ties with some Afghan militant groups.
"Regarding the strategic partnership with the United States, everyone said it is a must for the Afghans. It is the only way for Afghanistan to survive," said Mahmoud Karzai, a businessman and the president's brother.
"Our independence depends on it and we are in an area which is probably the worst in the world, surrounded by countries which are in the mode of confrontation and not in the mode of peace and economic development," he said.
But as much as it says it needs the agreement, Afghan's government also wants to show that it can rein in American operations.
President Karzai has said he will demand an end to nighttime "kill-or-capture" raids which citizens of this deeply conservative country say intrude on their privacy, and has asked that all detention centers in the country come under Afghan control.
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.
And although Karzai often 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.
Delegates also backed Karzai's effort to make peace with the Taliban through reconciliation talks, although many said a peace council set up last year should be broadened.
Talks have made no headway, and efforts were brought to a halt following the Sept. 20 assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading the Afghan government's effort to broker peace. Rabbani was killed at his Kabul home by an assassin posing as a peace emissary from the insurgent group.
Rabbani has not been replaced as head of the 70-member council, which is made up former Taliban, ex-warlords, members of parliament, top tribal elders and clerics. Critics have said that it is too heavily packed with Taliban opponents.
"We should appoint people who are more popular with the communities and are fully supported by the people. They should be able to go to villages, to remote areas," Gul Pascha Majudi, a Pashtun parliamentarian from the eastern province of Paktia, where Afghan and international military forces have been battling insurgents.
The meeting took place under tight security and the Taliban had vowed to carry out attacks to disrupt the gathering.
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Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Patrick Quinn contributed from Kabul.

Karzai welcomes Afghan Jirga's decisions on strategic partnership with U.S.
By Farid Behbud, Zhang Jianhua
KABUL, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday welcomed decisions taken by country's Loya Jirga or grand assembly on a proposed strategic partnership with the United States.
The vast majority of the over 2,300 participants from across the country including tribal elders, notables, lawmakers and government functionaries after four days of discussions on Saturday recommended the government for having strategic partnership with the United States.
"I agree with your decisions and the resolution readout today has been a comprehensive decision that will be respected and implemented," President Karzai in his short speech.
In an 76-article resolution readout at the end of the four-day Jirga, the participants expressed their support to inking strategic relationship with the United States and believing it would benefit the war-torn Afghanistan in all fields.
"I welcome and support your decisions," Karzai said in his speech to the audience after the resolution was readout at the end of the historic Jirga.
"We will put into practice these decisions and all the course of this process will be implemented by your discussions," the Afghan President further said.
"This strategic partnership with the United States will never be signed without discussing with you and that it will be clear and unambiguous," Karzai added.
"If the national interests of Afghans is not clear in this pact it would not be implemented," Afghan President said, adding "this pact (the strategic partnership with the United States) will be for benefit of Afghanistan."
"It is preferred that the U.S. military installations should be established in Afghanistan's borders with the neighboring states particularly from where terrorists threaten the country," the Jirga's resolution stressed.
The resolution also noted that "inking strategic partnership with the United States would be for 10 years and can be extended if necessary.
This resolution also recommended that U.S. forces should halt night raid on villages and arresting Afghans in war on insurgents.
It also demanded the U.S. military to hand over any detention center in Afghan soil to Afghan government.
The resolution also recommended that signing strategic partnership between Afghanistan and United States is inked " between two sovereign independent countries" and the documents of strategic partnership should be registered with the United Nations.
"If Afghanistan is attacked by any country the United States should stand alongside Afghanistan," the resolution pointed out.
The resolution also recommended Afghan government to continue peace talks with the armed opposition groups including Taliban but with renewing the past way and new strategy.
It also noted that peace talks with the armed oppositions should be "Afghan-led" but saying neighboring countries and international community should support the Afghan national reconciliation and peace process.

Hoping for security pact, U.S. ignores needling from Karzai
AP 18/11/2011
WASHINGTON - U.S. policymakers are not very happy with what they are hearing so far from an Afghan political gathering considering a long-term security pact with the U.S., but they are likely to bless its outcome so long as that includes endorsement of an American military presence after 2014.
As seen from Washington, President Hamid Karzai's sit-down with Afghanistan's elders has gotten off to a rocky start. There have been demands for the end of American special operations "night raids," a pair of Taliban rockets fired toward the gathering site and Karzai's declaration of Iran as his nation's cherished "brother."
Yet the Obama administration is trying to take a longer view, and dismisses much of the rhetoric as Afghan domestic politics.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner voiced support for the Afghan meeting, calling it a "chance for Afghans to use this traditional forum to discuss the future relationship between our two countries."
"We believe the end result is going to be an affirmation of that partnership," Toner told reporters Thursday.
Privately, American officials stressed that while they were not happy with Karzai's rhetoric, they were focusing on what is at stake: A long-term strategy to enhance Afghanistan's stability and security, and prevent the country from again becoming a sanctuary for terrorists.
The chief U.S. goal is more solid footing for a continued military counterterrorism presence in Afghanistan after American combat troops leave in 2014.
More than a decade after Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida committed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States, Afghanistan remains mired in conflict with a resilient Taliban-led insurgency determined to retake control of the country. Reconciliation efforts have stalled.
Underlining the threat, insurgents fired two rockets Thursday at the site of the meeting. Both missed their targets, but the attack served as a reminder of the opposition to Karzai's efforts from armed anti-government groups.
The grand council, or "loya jirga," continues until Saturday. It brings tribal chiefs and various power brokers to the capital, Kabul, for discussion about a written agreement the U.S. calls a Strategic Partnership Document, a nonbinding set of principles guiding the two nations' future security relationship and other aspects of U.S. support.
Washington wants to maintain a post-2014 force of possibly several thousand Americans, partly to assuage Afghan worries that the U.S. might abandon Afghanistan and partly to continue the hunt for militants likely to remain a potent threat to U.S. interests and the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
The residual force would train Afghan forces, gather intelligence and conduct some counterterrorism operations, although several questions remain unresolved about how they would operate in the country. Those sticking points, which boil down to fights over U.S. leeway and Afghan sovereignty, have held up final negotiation of the document for months.
The U.S. hopes to get the agreement done ahead of an international conference about Afghanistan's future early next month.
The plan depends on the backing of Karzai, a mercurial leader who has increasingly sought to boost his popularity by denouncing the U.S.
Karzai opened the meeting of 2,200 Afghan leaders by likening his nation to a lion that can work with the U.S., but one that "doesn't like strangers entering his house" or "that his sons are taken out of his house during the night."
He weighed in on the U.S.-Iran divide, calling the Islamic republic a brother and saying it has shown greater "rationality" than the United States. He pledged to deepen cooperation between Afghanistan and Iran.
Karzai recently vowed to side with Pakistan should that country eventually go to war with the U.S., a statement the Obama administration brushed aside with no public criticism of Karzai.
U.S. officials still see Karzai as the best partner against al-Qaida and other Islamist extremists and the best hope for Afghanistan's peaceful development. Given that assessment, they are left biting their tongues while Karzai plays to anti-U.S. feelings, hoping even that it can oddly benefit the United States by strengthening his ability to deliver a new security pact.
At the same time, Karzai needs American military and financial strength to sustain his weak government's battle against the Taliban insurgency, and he supports a continued military presence.
Karzai does not need the elders' permission to broker a pact with the U.S., but he wants their stamp of approval to strengthen his negotiating position with the United States.
The gambit puts the U.S. in a complicated position: Hoping Karzai can bring legitimacy to U.S. plans, even if that would imply difficult talks ahead on how American troops can operate in Afghanistan.
The biggest stumbling block centers on Karzai's demand that the U.S. end night raids, which involve American troops swooping in, sometimes in helicopters, to search Afghan homes. Many in the deeply conservative country see the raids as an affront to the sanctity of their private homes, and some analysts argue the raids do more harm than good. Another long-standing issue concerns control of prisons that house suspected militants.
At the Pentagon, officials cautioned that negotiations on the future U.S.-Afghan relationship were only just beginning. They said the rejection of night raids was not a decisive factor at this point, but insisted that operations conducted under the cloak of darkness were an effective way to maintain pressure on militants. More quick-strike operations probably will be needed as American troop numbers shrink over the next three years.
"The night raids do perform a very valuable and necessary function," said Capt. John Kirby, Pentagon spokesman. "What we're trying to do with Afghanistan is develop a strong partnership moving forward, and that's what our focus is on. And we're not looking at that in terms of deal-breakers or red lines."
Influential Republican Sen. Sen. Lindsey Graham took a tougher tone, characterizing Karzai's demands as "not helpful." Speaking Thursday at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said the night raids were responsible for 82 percent of 2,800 detainees currently held by the U.S. military at its main base in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, a Sweeping, Ambitious Effort to Gather Biometric Data
By ROD NORDLAND The New York Times November 19, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan has many dubious distinctions on the international-rankings front: 10th-poorest, third-most corrupt, worst place to be a child, longest at war. To that may soon be added: most heavily fingerprinted.
Since September, Afghanistan has been the only country in the world to fingerprint and photograph all travelers who pass through Kabul International Airport, arriving and departing.
A handful of other countries fingerprint arriving foreigners, but no country has ever sought to gather biometric data on everyone who comes and goes, whatever their nationality. Nor do Afghan authorities plan to stop there: their avowed goal is to fingerprint, photograph and scan the irises of every living Afghan.
It is a goal heartily endorsed by the American military, which has already gathered biometric data on two million Afghans who have been encountered by soldiers on the battlefield, or who have just applied for a job with the coalition military or its civilian contractors.
The Kabul airport program is also financed by the United States, with money and training provided by the American Embassy. Americans, like all other travelers, are subject to it.
“Some of the embassies are quite exercised about it,” one Western diplomat said. Such a program would be illegal if carried out in the home countries of most of the occupying coalition. The United States and Japan fingerprint all foreigners on arrival; South Korea plans to start doing so in January. (Brazil retaliated against the American program by fingerprinting arriving Americans only.) Officials at the American Embassy declined to comment specifically on the program; a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security denied it had anything to do with it.
Biometric data is also being gathered by the American military at all of Afghanistan’s eight major border crossings, in a program that it plans to hand over to the Afghan government at the end of this month. So far, that program gathers only random samples at border crossings, because traffic is so heavy, but since it began in April it has already added 200,000 people to the military’s biometrics database.
The military wants to use biometrics to identify known or suspected insurgents, and to prevent infiltration of military bases and Afghan security forces. “The technology removes the mask of anonymity,” said Capt. Kevin Aandahl of the Navy, a spokesman for the military’s detainee operations, which include the biometrics program.
Gathering the data does not stop at Afghanistan’s borders, however, since the military shares all of the biometrics it collects with the United States Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security through interconnected databases.
Even the civilian-run airport program collecting fingerprints and photographs feeds its information into computers at the American Embassy, as well as at the Afghan Ministry of the Interior and its intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, according to Mohammad Yaqub Rasuli, the head of the Kabul International Airport.
Mr. Rasuli acknowledges that the airport screening has had a rocky start. “We are happy with the system, but the airlines and the passengers are not that happy,” he said.
Delays of up to two hours have resulted from the screening, which takes at least three minutes per passenger. With six screening stations at most, the process becomes laborious, and so many travelers recently have been missing their flights that the airlines routinely delay takeoffs.
“Someone who is not used to this system, it can take 10 to 15 minutes each,” said Mohammed Fawad, deputy director of immigration at the airport.
Reporters at the airport have on several occasions witnessed immigration officers just waving through some passengers as crowds backed up; others were allowed to skip their thumbprints to speed things along. One man had his hand fingerprinted upside down, with nails facing the scanner.
“It is some sort of cultural deficiency,” Mr. Rasuli said. “After six months, everyone will be happy with it.” The next step will be a national identity card with biometric data on every citizen, he said. “A lot of our problems will be solved with this.”
As with the military’s biometric data, information on each person is fed into a computer to find those who are on terrorist watch lists, have outstanding criminal warrants or even are just businessmen under investigation.
In the first two and a half months, how many suspects have been apprehended with the new system, Mr. Rasuli was asked.
“None,” he said.
The military has done somewhat better with its program, according to Col. Fred Washington, director of the United States Army’s biometrics task force. Since 2007, when biometric collection began in Afghanistan, biometrics have been used to identify 3,000 suspects on either Watch List 1 or Watch List 2, the American military’s two most serious classifications for possible insurgents or terrorists. In many cases, fingerprints found on bomb remains have identified the bomb maker, he said.
“People are accepting it because they know it’s making their country secure,” Colonel Washington said.
Mohammad Musa Mahmoodi, executive director of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said, “Given the circumstances in Afghanistan, fighting terrorism and insurgency, government can take measures to protect its citizens.”
“To be honest, we’ve got more important problems to worry about,” he said.
Civil liberties groups abroad are more concerned. “The situation in Afghanistan is unprecedented, but I worry that we could move into that situation in the United States without even realizing we’re doing it,” said Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
There have been some signs of Afghan sensitivities as well. A military-financed program to gather biometric data in the city of Kandahar in 2010, during the push to control insurgency there, was so unpopular that President Hamid Karzai promised local elders to have it canceled, which it was, according to Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the governor in Kandahar Province.
And the Afghan government has yet to pass legislation providing for the biometric screening of the entire population that it has announced it plans to carry out for the national identity card.
As a result, the military has not conducted wholesale sweeps of communities to gather biometrics, Colonel Washington said, although in just the past year 12,000 soldiers have been trained to use the B.A.T. — the Biometric Automated Toolset. “We can’t go door to door,” he said.
The Commander’s Guide to Biometrics in Afghanistan, however, encourages documenting as many Afghans as possible.
“Every person who lives within an operational area should be identified and fully biometrically enrolled with facial photos, iris scans, and all 10 fingerprints (if present),” the guide says. (That was apparently a reference to Afghanistan’s many amputees.)
While the B.A.T. equipment is portable, it is not always easy to use, and the results can sometimes be unpredictable.
A reporter from The New York Times, an American of Norwegian rather than Afghan extraction, voluntarily submitted to a test screening with the B.A.T. system. After his fingerprints and iris scans were entered into the B.A.T.’s armored laptop, an unexpected “hit” popped up on the screen, along with the photograph of a heavily bearded Afghan.
The “hit” identified the reporter as “Haji Daro Shar Mohammed,” who is on terrorist Watch List 4, with this note: “Deny Access, Do Not Hire, Subject Poses a Threat.”
Ray Rivera contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Spotlight on Afghan refugees in Pakistan
By Karin Brulliard, The Washington Post November 18
NOWSHERA, Pakistan — A few hundred men took to the streets in a suburb of this city early this month, furiously chanting for the expulsion of neighbors they described as interlopers.
The objects of their ire were Afghan refugees, millions of whom reside here in Pakistan. They are hardly newcomers — many fled war, Russian occupation or Taliban rule years or even decades ago. Many were born in Pakistan.
But the recent demonstration was a sign of bubbling discontent about Afghans in Pakistan, who comprise the world’s largest refugee population. While their presence has long been a source of tension, Pakistani politicians and the media are increasingly exaggerating their numbers and identifying them as a problem that must be solved as the neighboring nations eye the finale of the U.S.-led Afghan war, remote as that seems for now.
On an official visit to Australia last month, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called on the international community to help repatriate Afghans, who he said were “causing numerous difficulties” and spreading polio. In a recent interview, Interior Minister Rehman Malik accused the refugees of being “involved in criminal activities,” and said sending Afghans home was among Pakistan’s priorities.
The spotlight on Afghan refugees comes as the ever-wary neighbors trade barbs about cross-border violence and a potential negotiated settlement to the war in Afghanistan. Afghan officials, like their U.S. counterparts, have blamed Pakistan for fueling the Taliban insurgency, a claim Pakistan denies. But Pakistan wants a key role in reconciliation, and the refugees — who by most accounts Pakistan has hosted fairly graciously — could provide leverage.
At the same time, persistent violence has led to a decrease in refugee returns to Afghanistan, and there is scant sign that those remaining will soon leave. Amid a failing economy and political jockeying ahead of 2013 elections in Pakistan, analysts say Afghans are convenient targets. Indeed, the argument here echoes the U.S. immigration debate, with concerns about foreigners who commit crimes, steal jobs and fail to assimilate.
“We have been treating them as our brothers,” said Sher Bahadur, 64, one Nowshera resident who joined the recent demonstration, which took place after a fight between Pakistanis and Afghans. “Now the situation is so bad that we fear they have the might, power and resources to displace us.”
The complaints are not new, but the tenor has alarmed Afghan officials. One senior Afghan official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Pakistan is showing “early signs of new pressure” over refugees. The official said it was unclear whether the motivation is a desire to see Afghans leave, win additional refugee aid or blame Afghans for Taliban activity inside Pakistan.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1.7 million registered Afghan refugees live in Pakistan; the government says the figure is around 2 million. Another 1 million are believed to be in Pakistan illegally, said Habibullah Khan, secretary of the government’s States and Frontiers Regions Division. In the first 10 months of 2011, 43,000 Afghan refugees returned home, a figure that was 59 percent lower than the same period last year, the UNHCR said.
The majority of refugees are ethnic Pashtuns who have blended into Pakistan’s Pashtun-dominant belt along the border, which has long been poorly patrolled and traversed by migrant populations, including militants. Afghanistan, in fact, does not recognize the border, nor do many Pashtuns.
Originally housed in camps, most refugees now live in regular neighborhoods, where some have become fixtures in the transportation, clothing and carpet industries. Most are poorly-paid laborers.
There is little doubt the Afghans’ presence has affected Pakistan’s weak economy, but just how is debatable. Pakistan hosts more refugees for every dollar of per capita income than any other nation, which makes it difficult to absorb and support them, according to the UNHCR. But Afghans also contribute, said Rustam Shah Mohmand, Pakistan’s former refugee commissioner.
“Pakistan gets foreign exchange” from Afghan carpet exporters, Mohmand said. “Many have relatives in the West who send remittances. . . . They provide cheap farm labor to the landowners in the frontier.”
Yet many Pakistanis depict Afghans as drug- and gun-runners, in part because they are often arrested after militant attacks and violent crimes. The accusations are unfair, human rights advocates say.
Last year, the Pakistani government decided that all Afghan refugees would be “voluntarily” repatriated after the end of 2012. What that means remains unclear. A plan to offer visas will probably apply to only about 150,000 refugees, Khan said. But Tim Irwin, a UNHCR spokesman, said “there’s certainly no talk of anyone being forced back.”
There is such talk in Nowshera, however, where thousands of Afghans live. The recent fight broke out with a quarrel between Afghan and Pakistani youths, after which adults jumped into the fray, residents said. Pakistanis — who refer to themselves as “locals” — said Afghans attacked with rods, wounding several, then followed them to the hospital with Kalashnikovs.
Last week, dozens of Pakistani men packed into one elder’s home and recited grievances: Afghans keep to themselves, and they insulted Pakistan during the brawl. They are rich and buy off police. They are bad drivers.
“We are Pashtun, but we are not Afghan. We are Pakistani,” said Mohammed Akbar, 31. A man sitting on a sofa interjected: “The Afghans should go back!”
Yet a visit to Afghan elders — at the grand home of a clothing importer — revealed how indelibly the immigrants have become part of the landscape. Several had lived in Pakistan for 40 years and held dual citizenship. The fight, they shrugged, was a mere scuffle being exploited by Pakistani community leaders for political gain.
“We are mixing. But whenever such an incident happens, they label us Kabulis,” or Kabul natives, said refugee Jamil Khan, 23, who participated in the fight.
Both sides said the issue would be settled by elders, according to local tradition. But the Pakistanis said tensions would remain rife.
“Nobody believes that they will go,” said Liaqat Gilani, a former district mayor.
A short drive away at a former Afghan refugee camp that is now a squalid slum, truck owner Watan Khan, 39, said he has no plan to return to the home town he left in 1978, in Afghanistan’s Taliban-riddled Logar province. Therefore, he said, he has no right to complain about Pakistani treatment.
“Even if our lives are not as good as locals, we have no choice,” Khan said. “We are living in someone else’s land.”

Would-be suicide bomber captured in W. Afghanistan
HERAT, Afghanistan, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- A would-be suicide bomber was captured by Afghan police in the country's Herat province 640 km west of capital city of Kabul, provincial police chief said on Saturday.
"A suspected militant, who strapped explosive vest in his body and intended to target Afghan army and police forces in Injil district north of capital city of Herat, was captured and his vicious terrorist attack was foiled," Sayed Agha Saqib told Xinhua.
The suspect was loyal with the Taliban, he said.
The Taliban insurgents have stepped up their attacks on Afghan and NATO-led troops since a spring rebel offensive was launched in May this year in the war-ravaged country.
The news came in the same day when a four-day Afghan Loya Jirga or traditional grand assembly wrapped up in capital city of Kabul.
After four-day discussions, with over 2,300 participant including tribal elders, notables, lawmakers and government functionaries, the assembly recommended the government to ink strategic partnership with the United States.

Afghanistan friendly fire incident kills 2 police
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan and NATO authorities say two Afghan policemen have died in a friendly fire incident outside the city of Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan.
Ghazni provincial governor Musa Akbar Zada says two other policemen were wounded in the incident at a checkpoint Friday.
He says NATO forces were conducting an operation that was not coordinated with Afghan forces. He says that when the coalition forces ignored Afghan police orders to stop, shots were fired and the policemen were in killed in a gunbattle.
The U.S.-led military coalition says a joint Afghan and NATO force called for air support and tried several times to identify themselves as friendly forces.
When they were unable to stop the threat, they engaged in self-defense, killing the two.

Al-Qaida facilitator killed in Afghanistan: ISAF
KABUL, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- A joint Afghan and NATO-led Coalition forces in an operation killed an al-Qaida facilitator in the country's Wardak province, the military alliance said on Saturday.
"A combined Afghan and coalition security force conducted an operation in search of an al-Qaida network facilitator in Sayyidabad district, Wardak province, yesterday," NATO-led ISAF said in a statement.
"The facilitator trained insurgents and worked as a courier. He delivered messages and transported money for the al-Qaida network, " the statement added.
A shooter engaged the security force with small arms fire from a building inside of the compound during the operation. "Assessing an immediate threat, the security force returned fire, killing the facilitator," the statement said.
The security force detained two suspected insurgents and destroyed multiple weapons.
No civilians were injured during the operation, it further said.
Separately, a Haqqani network leader was captured by joint forces during another operation in Bak district of eastern Khost province on Friday, according to the statement.
A Taliban and al-Qaida affiliated group of militants, the Haqqani network, which mostly operates in eastern Afghan provinces and capital Kabul, has been responsible for many high-profile attacks against security forces.

NATO service member killed in Afghanistan's restive south
KABUL, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- A NATO soldier was killed in an insurgent attack in restive Afghanistan's southern region on Friday, the military alliance said on Saturday.
"An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service member died following an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan yesterday," the NATO-led ISAF said in a statement.
However, the brief statement did not provide details on the attack and the nationality of the victim, 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 southern Afghanistan known as Taliban hotbed.
Militancy has been rampant since May this year when Taliban militants announced to launch spring offensive in the war-battered Afghanistan.
Over 520 foreign soldiers, most of them Americans, have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.

Afghan officials undergo training in saffron cultivation in Indian-controlled Kashmir
by Peerzada Arshad Hamid
SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- A 25- member team from Afghanistan's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) is currently undergoing a specialized training in saffron cultivation in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said Friday.
The visiting delegation comprising of senior officers and agricultural experts are being trained by experts at Sher-i- Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST) in growing this costliest spice.
The delegation reached Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian-controlled Kashmir Sunday for a week-long training course.
Apart from imparting theoretical classes, the visiting delegation was taken to field trip to saffron fields and Saffron Research Center at Pampore.
"Experts in saffron cultivation at SKUAST are providing training and opinion to the visiting Afghan delegation about how saffron is grown," said Niyaz Ahmad, a technical officer at Saffron Research Center, Pampore. "They were also shown saffron fields and educated how the fields are managed and bulbs sown."
Pampore town in the outskirts of Srinagar is known for its vast saffron fields.
Apart from Kashmir, saffron is grown mostly at two places in the world - Iran and Spain. While Iran accounts for about 70 percent of total world production, the quality of the Kashmir Saffron is considered the best.
Saffron bulbs germinate underneath the dry earth sprouting green shoots. In November, the bulbs bloom with purple flowers spotting red threads (stigma).
"We are here to see the latest trends that are put in place to get better yields of saffron, so that we can implement these back at home to see increased yields," said Naseem Attai, head of the visiting Afghan delegation.
Afghanistan, in particular Herat, has the ideal climate for growing saffron.
Currently it is considered to be the major supplier of illicit opium in South Asia. The production and processing of narcotic drugs has distorted the image of country.
"Poppy cultivation has wreaked havoc there and we want to get rid of poppy menace," said Rafiq, another delegate. "We are contemplating to introduce the saffron cultivation at vast scale so that farmers there switch to this crop and gain better yields."
The Afghan officials are hopeful that saffron might bring economic benefits besides helping in image building of the country.

McChrystal on return visit to Afghanistan: palace
AFP
General Stanley McChrystal, the US former commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan who left his post last year, visited President Hamid Karzai Saturday on a personal trip, officials said.
McChrystal was recalled by President Barack Obama from his role leading NATO troops in the war against the Taliban over comments made by him and his aides about senior political leaders to Rolling Stone magazine.
But he and Karzai enjoyed warm relations and McChrystal and his wife are now spending several days in Afghanistan "as special guests of the president," a statement from the Afghan presidential palace said.
"President Karzai once again thanked General McChrystal for a mission he called sincere and courageous and for all his efforts and services during his command in Afghanistan," the statement said.
"Also, the president made a specific reference to General McChrystal’s efforts to prevent civilian casualties and thanked him for all that on behalf of the people of Afghanistan."
The issue of civilian casualties in NATO raids is a highly sensitive one in Afghanistan and one over which McChrystal's successor, General David Petraeus, issued an apology earlier this year following the deaths of nine children in a NATO airstrike.
When news of the potential visit to Afghanistan first emerged last month, some analysts raised the possibility that McChrystal, who is now retired, could in future act as an informal contact between the US and Afghanistan.
Relations between Karzai and many US officials are rocky, although the US provides the bulk of the 140,000-strong foreign force which is helping Afghan security forces to fight the Taliban.
Earlier Saturday, Afghan elders at a traditional meeting or loya jirga in Kabul endorsed a proposed strategic partnership deal which Karzai is negotiating with the US.
This will govern the presence of US troops in the country after 2014, when all NATO-led combat forces are due to leave Afghanistan.

Germany gears up for Afghan meet with Pakistan talks
AFP 18/11/2011
Germany on Friday welcomed a promise from Pakistan to work "without hidden agendas" in Afghanistan, as it gears up to host a key international conference on the war-torn country.
More than 90 delegations from all over the world will gather in Bonn on December 5, with Afghanistan's neighbours playing a key role.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle arrived in Pakistan this week in preparation for the conference.
"I welcome the clear commitment by Pakistan that it has no hidden agenda in Afghanistan," Westerwelle told a news conference alongside Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar after talks in Islamabad.
"We have to work together because stability in Afghanistan is in our interest and in the interest of the world," he said.
"The commitment of the German government and the international community is crystal clear -- we will not forget Afghanistan and this region," he added.
NATO combat troops are scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and the Afghan government is set to take full responsibility for national security.
The United States and Afghanistan have often accused Pakistan of playing a double game in continuing to support the Afghan Taliban as a means of offsetting the growing power of arch-rival India.
Westerwelle, who also held talks with Pakistan's powerful army chief of staff General Ashfaq Kayani, called for a political solution in Afghanistan, saying his country believes that military engagement alone will not work.
Earlier this year, Der Spiegel magazine said Germany was helping mediate secret, direct talks between the US and the Afghan Taliban although Western diplomats in Kabul now say these have collapsed.
Peace efforts in Afghanistan were driven further into a dead end by the September assassination of Kabul peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani by a suicide turban bomber.
"Pakistan has no hidden agenda for pursuit of peace in Afghanistan and in the region," Khar told the news conference.
"We want a stable and peaceful government in Afghanistan which allows us to function peacefully," she added.

Taliban-affiliated website releases purported video of Kabul suicide bombers
November 18, 2011|By Nick Paton Walsh, CNN
A Taliban-affiliated website has released video that purports to show suicide bombers who targeted Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel in June preparing for the attack in the hills and studying a tiny model of the hotel in detail.
The video -- released on a Taliban-affiliated website in the past few days -- is an hour long. It includes testimony and footage - -even gymnastics -- from the seven attackers who killed 11 more people when they laid siege to a government conference at the hotel for six hours.
The attack -- one of the most brazen and penetrating to hit the capital -- was eventually suppressed by special forces, helicopters and a drone.
One of the apparent suicide bombers, Naseer Ahmad Anas, speaks of his motivation to take his own life and that of others.
"My message is life is too short," he says. "You can die of cancer, or a car accident. If you want God's blessing, be a suicide attacker."
CNN cannot prove the authenticity of the elaborate video.
The images also show masked and uniformed men training in the hills, the exercises they undertake clearly designed to show they are a more disciplined force than parts of the Taliban have been in the past.
In one scene, they appear to attack an Afghan military vehicle, killing the troops and stealing their weapons and uniforms. The footage is undated and the mountainous location where it was shot is unclear.
The hotel attackers are also filmed in a room sitting in a circle, surrounding a realistic mock-up of the Intercontinental Hotel. A tutor, whose face and voice are not discernible, offers tactical tips for the assault.
"Those of you with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, get on the roof and use it as a control tower, so the enemy can't enter easily."
The video shows footage of the attack obscured by darkness, but the tracer fire of the attackers, and their NATO and Afghan opponents is visible. The attack caused considerable concern in Kabul, the first of several attributed to the Haqqani network that penetrated the capital's so-called Ring of Steel.
The video is possibly also the first detailed glimpse of a part of the insurgency that is rapidly becoming America's main opponent here.
The Haqqani network, a group of militants active in Afghanistan's east but accused of receiving sanctuary and logistical support in Pakistan, were blamed for the Intercontinental Hotel attack and some observers have suggested the pictures are in fact a rare insight into the network.
The insurgent group -- which is linked to the Taliban but often considered a more sophisticated and independent adjunct to it -- has rarely been filmed.

Pakistan's U.S. "memo" plunges gov't into deep political crisis
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani government has been thrown into a deep political crisis following a recent claim by a Pakistani-American business tycoon that he had been asked by Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. Hussain Haqqani to deliver the President Asif Ali Zardari's memo to the U.S. former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, seeking Washington's help to rein the powerful army.
Haqqani denied drafting any memo and also offered resignation after the opposition agitated the issue. But Mullen office has reportedly confirmed that a memo had been received and Pentagon said it is Pakistan's internal problem. The tycoon Mansoor released the text of the memo to the media after denial by Pakistan's U.S. envoy and the government.
The opposition parties have mounted pressure on the government to clarify position and the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) has called for a special session of the parliament to discuss the issue. The opposition has also asked for treason case against Haqqani and his arrest on his arrival in Pakistan.
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani was quick to address to the opposition's criticism and told the National Assembly, Lower House of the parliament on Friday, that he has summoned Haqqani to question him about the reported memo.
The Prime Minister then rushed to the presidency to attend a meeting of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to discuss to the country's most important and challenging issue.
Reports quoted President Zaradri as denying any memo he has written to Mike Mullen. He also reportedly told a meeting of the ruling party that he has direct access to the U.S. President then why he should use a mediator for contacts with the United States.
Reports said that Haqqani left Washington late Friday evening for Islamabad after meeting top U.S. officials including the American Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Marc Grossman.
He has already offered resignation to end the controversy. No decision has yet been taken about his future and Prime Minister Gilani said that the Pakistani ambassador would be given a chance to clarify his position. Interior Minister Rehman Malik has rejected a call by the opposition to frame treason charges against the beleaguered ambassador.
The Interior Minister told reporters that the ambassador has been called by the president and the prime minister to give explanation and his point of view.
A Pentagon spokesman said in Washington that Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta is aware of the memo and that he will not talk on the issue. The State Department spokesman said that Hussain Haqqani is still Pakistan ambassador and the United States is still having regular interaction with him as it is having with other envoys.
The controversial memo has added to the problems of the Pakistani government, which is already facing the deadly insurgents, the tough political opposition, energy and power shortage, and economic difficulties.
The memo issue is believed to be the most serious matter as the man who claimed to have delivered the document standby his claim that he was approached by the Ambassador to Mike Mullen.
Mansoor also said that he has also provided all "evidences" to the Pakistani authorities and the Pakistani nation. "I am ready to go to Pakistan to provide more details," he told Pakistani reporters in London. A petition has also been filed in the Supreme Court, seeking formation of a judicial commission to investigate the issue.
The memo is seen as an emerging big political challenge for the Pakistani government and the beleaguered government has been put to a test how to deal with it when it is facing a lot of other problems. The issue is considered very sensitive as the controversial document has sought the U.S. help to tighten " control over the army".
The main opposition PML-N of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has already launched "Go Zardari Go" campaign and is scheduled to hold a rally on Sunday in Faisalabad, the industrial city in eastern Punjab province, the party's major political base. The opposition will now use the memo issue as a tool to mount pressure on the government.

Afghan police force seeks women officers
ABC Online By Sally Sara Saturday, November 19, 2011
ELIZABETH JACKSON: The Afghan Government is trying to recruit thousands of women to join the national police force. Female police officers have already been targeted and killed by the Taliban. But, police commanders say security across Afghanistan will only improve when there are more women in uniform.
Our Afghanistan correspondent Sally Sara reports from Kabul.
(Sound of gun shots)
SALLY SARA: This is the firing range at the Kabul Police Academy. But, these are no ordinary police officers. Women make up less than 1 per cent of the Afghan National Police Force.
Asefa Azimi is one of the few females in the ranks.
(Asefa Azimi speaking)
She says she is trying not to let the Taliban capture the government, and will do her best to protect the country, even with the last drop of her blood.
Ms Azimi is a mother of six. The 38 year old is not afraid to risk her life.
She says she is not worried, one day we come to this world and one day we leave it so, sp she will be proud to be a martyr for her country.
Some of the women have been criticised by their families and communities for defying tradition and joining the force. Some families are worried the women will be killed in the line of duty. Others believe it's not an appropriate job for a female.
Monica Selboe is a police trainer from Norway, helping the Afghan women to boost their policing skills.
MONICA SELBOE: I really admire them. They are really strong women. And you see it when you talk to each one of them, they have their own story and they are really strong because as everybody knows, there is not a lot of policewomen in this country.
SALLY SARA: There are only 1200 women among more than 136,000 police officers in Afghanistan. The Afghan government wants to recruit 5000 female officers by 2014. But, the insurgents are doing all they can to stop it. Two female police officers were killed by a motorbike bomb in the western city of Herat in September. It was the first time policewomen had been targeted.
(Sound of prayers being chanted)
A mullah says prayers at the graduation ceremony of a group of female officers. The women proudly hold their certificates in the air, as they celebrate their success.
(Sound of clapping)
Female police are needed to search women at check points. Commander Alhaj Neyaz BiBi also hopes they will encourage other females to report crimes, especially sexual assault and domestic violence.
(Alhaj Neyaz BiBi speaking)
She says it's easier for women to report crime to another woman. But, many females won't come out of their houses because they fear their husband will punish them.
Access to the justice system is still extremely limited. Afghanistan's female police officers are small in number, but determined to make a difference.
This is Sally Sara in Kabul for Saturday AM.

Afghanistan can be the Switzerland of South Asia: Kux
The News International By Rasheed KhalidSaturday, November 19, 2011
Former US ambassador Dennis Kux has said that Afghanistan could be the Switzerland of South Asia, which was created by Congress of Vienna, having good relations with not only its neighbours but also all countries.
He was addressing a ‘Roundtable Discussion on US Policy towards South Asia’ organised by the Centre for International Strategic Studies (CISS) in collaboration with the US Embassy at the National Library here on Thursday.
Kux said that Switzerland has good relations with all countries in the region. He noted that the world is observing 200th anniversary of Congress of Vienna four years later.
Answering a question, Kux said that stable Afghanistan and Pakistan are in US interest and we are pursuing this goal. He told a questioner that you cannot and do not have to change India-centric policy but do not have agreements with bad guys. He said that India and Pakistan cannot change history but can move on.
Earlier, in his talk, the ambassador said that US is helping Pakistan and does not want its destabilisation. He said that power is scattered in Afghanistan. He also talked about ties between regional countries of South and Central Asia especially TAPI oil pipeline which is in the interest of the region and all countries will be better off with it. He said, we never wanted a base back in Afghanistan but the situation there is not conducive.
Kux said that Republican administrations traditionally had been more pro-Pakistan but a Republican President George W Bush had asked why we are ignoring India, which is a great country of one billion people and the biggest democracy in the world. He said that it is not possible for US to change Pakistan’s India-centric attitude though Islamabad can improve relations with New Delhi on its own. He also talked about the book he is writing.
He said that Indo-US deal is against Non-Proliferation Treaty, which does not allow such an arrangement with non-nuclear countries. He warned that we have to be careful and the Indo-Afghan strategic cooperation is a mistake.
He said that Republicans now control the House of Representatives and its foreign relations committee chief is calling to cut off aid to Pakistan.
He said that Taliban attacking Pakistan are bad guys but are tough fighters.
Answering a question, ambassador Kux dispelled the impression that India was intervening in Balochistan.
Ali Sarwar Naqvi, Executive Director of ICSS, welcomed and later thanked the speaker and the participants.

A Marine's Death by Friendly Fire Haunts Afghanistan Outpost
Wall Street Journal By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS NOVEMBER 19, 2011
SHIR GHAZAY, Afghanistan - Capt. Matthew Stiger stood facing the battlefield memorial made of a rifle, helmet, boots and Benjamin Schmidt's dog tags. In the long afternoon shadows, he prayed Lance Cpl. Schmidt's family would get through the hard days to come. He saluted in a slow, deliberate motion.
And, in a voice only he could hear, Capt. Stiger begged forgiveness from the dead Marine, a 24-year-old sniper his men had mistakenly killed during a firefight on a dusty Afghan ridge.
Lance Cpl. Schmidt's friendly fire death on Oct. 6 left an invisible rift running down the middle of Combat Outpost Shir Ghazay, dividing the snipers, who lost one of their own, and Capt. Stiger's tank crews, who killed him. In war, troops willingly risk death at the enemy's hands. When it's delivered by a friend, the effect can be paralyzing.
Senior Marines in 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, feared the snipers would lash out at the tankers, while the tankers would be so crippled by guilt that they would be unable to make the life-or-death decisions combat requires.
In the weeks since Benjamin Schmidt's death, commanders have offered battlefield counseling sessions, private olive branches and public rituals aimed at getting their troops past the accidental killing and back into the field.
"One group of young men has to find it in their hearts to at least get along with, if not forgive, the people who killed their brother," said Lt. Col. Bill Vivian, who as 2nd Battalion's commander is over both the snipers and the tankers. "The other group has to have the maturity to be man enough to ask for forgiveness. And we all collectively have to be Marine enough to carry on with the mission."
Friendly fire caused about 2% of U.S. casualties in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, military historians estimate. In one incident during the 1943 Sicily landings, U.S. antiaircraft gunners shot down or damaged 80 of 144 American troop planes, killing as many as 157, according to an article published by the Army's Combat Studies Institute.
In 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fratricide rate has been much lower, in part because modern warfare involves smaller units making smaller battlefield movements. There have been 20 U.S. friendly fire fatalities out of 6,100 total deaths, a rate of less than half a percent, according to iCasualties.org. The most infamous was the friendly fire death of professional football player-turned-Army Ranger Pat Tillman Jr. in Afghanistan in 2004. Another 18 coalition troops have died in fratricide incidents, including 12 from the U.K., which is, after the U.S., the largest international contributor of forces to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, iCasualties.org reported.
But for the units on the ground that have to keep fighting, the impact of friendly fire is no less debilitating for its infrequency. War, said Lt. Col. Vivian, "is a very human business."
Lance Cpl. Schmidt grew up in San Antonio hanging out with NBA stars with his father, David Schmidt, team doctor for the San Antonio Spurs. From his mother, Becky Whetstone, a marriage and family therapist who dabbled in stand-up comedy, he acquired a sharp sense of humor.
After high school, he enrolled in Texas Christian University, but spent more time partying than in class and was in danger of failing out, his mother said. When his parents confronted him about his alcohol use, he shocked them by joining the Marines.
In the service, he pursued one of the most challenging career paths, the snipers. He came home from his first Afghan tour telling his mother he had learned to apply himself. He talked about getting a doctorate in history.
Earlier this year, Lance Cpl. Schmidt told his parents the Marines had required him to extend his four-year enlistment because his platoon was deploying to Afghanistan again. In reality, he went voluntarily because he didn't want his friends to go to war without him, his fellow Marines say.
On Thursday, Oct. 6, 2nd Battalion's mission was to oust Taliban fighters from villages that run along a desiccated riverbed. Insurgents use the riverbed, or wadi, to cross northern Helmand Province, part of the Taliban's traditional power base in southern Afghanistan.
Snipers were out in force for the operation near Lwar Julji village, having been assigned the task of picking off enemy fighters while infantrymen swept through mud-walled compounds and farm fields. One sniper team, Head Hunter 1, positioned itself on a finger of elevated land, armed with a .50-caliber rifle capable of penetrating a car engine from a mile away.
Lance Cpl. Schmidt was part of Head Hunter 2, an eight-man team that took up firing positions on another rise 100 yards to the south. Teamed with Sgt. Roberto Colon, Head Hunter 2's leader, he was trying to locate a Taliban sharpshooter who was peppering the Marines.
Every time the Taliban fighter fired, the snipers heard the report from his weapon, then later, the bullet's impact. That indicated the shooter was more than 1,200 yards away. That's the range at which such rounds slow to below the speed of sound, and the noise passes the bullet itself.
Lying on his stomach, Sgt. Colon, 30, of Woodbridge, N.J., peered through binoculars and spotted two men on the far side of the wadi. After each shot, they ducked behind a waist-high wall.
Sgt. Colon ordered most of his men to take cover while he radioed the adjacent sniper team and talked them onto the insurgents' location. A sniper from Head Hunter 1 opened fire with the .50-caliber gun, killing one.
Around 4:30 p.m., Lance Cpl. Schmidt moved forward to join Sgt. Colon and two other U.S. snipers, squeezing in to look over the sergeant's shoulder. If Sgt. Colon began firing, Lance Cpl. Schmidt's job would be to track the vapor trails of outgoing rounds and guide him to his targets.
What happened next is still the subject of a formal Marine Corps investigation, the whys and hows yet to be determined. What the Marines on the battlefield that afternoon know is that a tank from Alpha Co., 2nd Tank Battalion was in the area to provide muscle for the infantry. It was about 700 yards away, north of the two sniper teams, according to Sgt. Colon. Shortly after Head Hunter 1 killed the insurgent, the tank opened fire on Head Hunter 2, spraying Sgt. Colon's men with machine-gun rounds.
As they scrambled for cover, the other snipers noticed that Lance Cpl. Schmidt didn't move. He had been hit in the head.
Sgt. Colon and another sniper, Cpl. Nicholas Abey, pulled Lance Cpl. Schmidt to a more secure spot. As they did so, they exchanged looks that said they knew their friend was gone.
A Navy corpsman bandaged Lance Cpl. Schmidt's wounds before he was evacuated to a series of field hospitals. Just after 7 p.m., a doctor pronounced him dead.
In a mud-brick village on the night of Oct. 6, Sgt. Colon sat down with the rest of the snipers. The tank that fired the shots was parked nearby, and the sergeant knew he had to calm his men and keep them "from walking the 50 yards to the tankers and saying or doing something that they would most likely regret."
It was an accident, Sgt. Colon told his men, a terrible accident, but an accident nonetheless. He told them about losing a Marine in combat in Iraq, and the guilt and fear that followed. He told his men that Lance Cpl. Schmidt "wouldn't want us to sit around and sulk while there were still Taliban on the other side of the hill," the sergeant recalled later.
The incident reverberated across the battalion. Senior Marines kept the tank unit out of action. But Lance Cpl. Schmidt's unit, Head Hunter 2, went back to the front line after a night's rest.
Snipers are a breed apart even within the Marines, a cliquish group of specialized killers who stalk in teams as small as two men, each dependent on the other for survival. They keep count of their kills on the barracks wall, ticking them off like prisoners marking time.
Viewed from inside that brotherhood, the tankers seem to have it easy. They fight from within a 70-ton armored box, so heavy they drive around culverts to avoid crushing them. But the tanks provide firepower the grunts appreciate when they're in a jam. "They're the cavalry," said Sgt. Colon.
On Oct. 7, one day after the shooting, the commander of the sniper platoon, Gunnery Sgt. Jairo Fredonis, a 37-year-old from the Bronx, tracked down the commander of the four-man tank crew that fired the fatal shot. "How could you do that?" Gunnery Sgt. Fredonis recalled asking the tanker sergeant. "What happened? How could you make that mistake?"
The sergeant stood mute, recalled Gunnery Sgt. Fredonis, who stalked off.
Military investigators arrived in the area to address the legal aftershocks of a friendly fire death. Senior commanders were there to address the emotional aftershocks.
Safe behind the ridgeline that sloped down to the wadi, Lt. Col. Vivian, the battalion commander, and Col. Eric Smith, the top Marine in the area, gathered the tankers in a semicircle, even as gunfire continued on the other side.
Col. Smith worried about getting the tank crews through the next 24 hours. "No one woke up today intending to kill another Marine," he told the tankers.
The commanders kept the tankers out of combat. Two days later, after the village-clearing operation ended, they were sent back to the unit's outpost at Shir Ghazay.
The sniper teams went to the main battalion base in Musa Qala, about 15 miles northeast of Shir Ghazay, where they could be with each other and away from the tankers. Over the days that followed, they went through the motions. They clustered together in the mess tent over packaged scrambled eggs and grape Kool-Aid. They mourned and fumed.
Gunnery Sgt. Fredonis decided to keep secret the identity of the tank commander, the man with direct authority over the tank's guns. "I am confident my Marines are mature enough to know they can't punish him for the rest of his life," said Gunnery Sgt. Fredonis. Still, he said, "I think it's best they don't have a face."
"I'd punch him in the face," admitted one sniper. "He probably wanted to know what it's like to kill someone. Now he knows."
Years earlier, Gunnery Sgt. Fredonis had lost his 14-year-old brother to an accident, and he confessed in a letter to Lance Cpl. Schmidt's parents that he enlisted in the Marine Corps in search of family. "I loved your son—I love him still," Gunnery Sgt. Fredonis wrote. "He was my little brother, and I will forever miss him."
Senior Marines were more worried about the tankers than the snipers. While the snipers could direct their fury and grief across camp, the tankers could aim only at themselves.
The tank company commander, Capt. Stiger, who had earned a bronze star for valor in Iraq, took the incident especially hard, even though he wasn't on the ridgeline when it happened. He searched for ways to keep his men from succumbing to self-doubt. During the second week of October, the captain gathered his 100-man company to brace them for five more months of combat.
"This incident will be something that we have to deal with the rest of our lives," Capt. Stiger recalled saying. "Remorse, anger and depression are things that some of us will have to deal with for years down the road. For now, we have work to do; we have to deal with it and move on."
After a few days, Capt. Stiger started sending his men out on simple missions, protecting roads and setting up blocking positions to inhibit Taliban movements. "If we don't give them a sense of purpose, it will ultimately destroy them," said Capt. Stiger, 33, of Colorado Springs, Colo. "We're giving them a sense of purpose."
He kept two tankers out of action for more than a week; he didn't think they were ready to face combat.
On Oct. 13, a week after Lance Cpl. Schmidt's death, the snipers of Head Hunter 2 returned to Shir Ghazay and found themselves sharing the small outpost with the tank crews.
Capt. Stiger found Sgt. Colon outside the sniper team's tent. The captain struggled for words that would suffice.
"There's no other way I can put it," he told the sniper, according to both men. "I apologize for the actions of my company."
Sgt. Colon appreciated the gesture, a commander taking responsibility for his unit's mistake. "They're being bigger men about it," the sergeant said the next day. "I'm trying to get my men to be bigger men about it."
The top officer at the outpost, Capt. George Flynn, commander of the battalion's Echo Co., an infantry unit, was something of a neutral party, neither sniper nor tanker. Some of his Marines had befriended Lance Cpl. Schmidt during his first combat tour, but his men also counted on the tanks for firepower.
The snipers had attended a memorial service at battalion headquarters. In an unusual move, Capt. Flynn, a 32-year-old from Woodbridge, Va., asked Lt. Col. Vivian to authorize a second ceremony at Shir Ghazay. That gave the tankers a chance to pay their respects to Lance Cpl. Schmidt in full sight of the snipers.
In the late afternoon of Oct. 14, Sgt. Colon and his team gathered in the gravel lot at the center of camp. Most sat on cots facing a knee-high wooden box, which bore a photo of Lance Cpl. Schmidt in helmet and fatigues. In the picture, he cradled a rifle with a long sniper scope.
Behind the snipers gathered the infantrymen and, at the back, the tankers, their faces glum and their hands clasped behind their backs as the Marine Corps hymn played over loudspeakers in an endless loop.
One of Lance Cpl. Schmidt's friends, Cpl. Jordan Cody, a 22-year-old from Spindale, N.C., marched forward holding a rifle stiffly in front of him, paused, and inserted it, bayonet-first, into the box, which had been built for such ceremonies.
Cpl. Nicholas Crandall, 26, from Kalamazoo, Mich., then balanced a camouflaged helmet on the rifle's stock. Cpl. Ruben Chavez, 28, of Amarillo, Texas, arranged a pair of combat boots, toes towards the gathered Marines, and dangled a set of Lance Cpl. Schmidt's dog tags from the rifle's pistol grip.
Sgt. Colon removed a cord from his own neck and placed it next to the dog tags. Hanging from it was a bullet, symbol of the one-shot, one-kill sniper fraternity.
"While his death was tragic," Sgt. Colon told the Marines, "I don't believe that he would have wanted it to happen anywhere else other than right beside his brothers."
As a light breeze flicked at the American and Marine Corps flags, Capt. Flynn bluntly told the snipers and tankers to put their feelings aside.
"Lance Cpl. Schmidt had a dangerous job in a dangerous business and was working in a dangerous environment, and under those conditions people get hurt," he said. "And in the case of Lance Cpl. Schmidt and many others, people die. It happened, and we need to prepare for it to happen again. It just comes with the job."
He continued: "We need to accept it. We need to learn from it. We need to move on, together."
On command, the battalion sergeant major stepped forward and called the roll of the sniper platoon.
"Cpl. Courter."
"Present," the Marine responded.
"Sgt. Colon"
"Present."
"Lance Cpl. Lanz."
"Present."
When the sergeant major called, "Lance Cpl. Schmidt," he was met with silence. A little louder, he called, "Lance Cpl. Benjamin Schmidt." No response. "Lance Cpl. Benjamin W. Schmidt," he bellowed, as if irked that his fallen Marine dared miss roll call.
Then, quieter, he said, "Honor the dead." A Marine held a bugle to his lips, from which came a recording of taps.
One by one the Marines walked forward to pay their respects. First came the snipers. Last came the tankers. Some stood. Some knelt, alone with their thoughts about a lost friend.

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