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Pakistan Was Consulted Before Fatal Hit, U.S. Says
Deadly Border Strike Came After Forces Were Told Area Was Clear of Pakistani Troops, Officials Say
Wall Street Journal By JULIAN E. BARNES and ADAM ENTOUS DECEMBER 2, 2011
WASHINGTON - Pakistani officials at a border coordination center gave the go-ahead to American airstrikes that inadvertently killed 24 Pakistan troops, unaware that their own forces were in the area, according to U.S. officials briefed on the preliminary investigation.
U.S. officials, giving their first detailed explanation of the worst friendly-fire incident of the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan, said an Afghan-led assault force that included American commandos were hunting Taliban militants when they came under fire from an encampment along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
The commandos thought they were being fired upon by militants. But the assailants turned out to be Pakistani military personnel who had established a temporary campsite, U.S. officials said.
According to the initial U.S. account from the field, the commandos requested airstrikes against the encampment, prompting the team to contact a joint border-control center to determine whether Pakistani forces were in the area, a U.S. official said.
The border-control center is manned by U.S., Afghan and Pakistani representatives who are supposed to share information and head off conflicts. But the U.S. and Afghan forces conducting the Nov. 26 commando operation hadn't notified the center in advance that they planned to strike Taliban insurgents near that part of the border, the official said.
When called, the Pakistani representatives at the center said there were no Pakistani military forces in the area identified by the commandos, clearing the way for the Americans to conduct the airstrikes, the U.S. officials said.
Officials in Islamabad couldn't be reached to comment on the U.S. allegations. Pakistan repeatedly has denied its forces fired on the Americans.
Pakistan doesn't have veto authority over strikes along the border, U.S. officials said. But the North Atlantic Treaty Organization makes contact with the center to make sure its operations don't put Pakistani troops or aircraft in the line of fire.
U.S. officials acknowledge there were errors made on both sides in the incident, which occurred in the Mohmand tribal region, a lawless border area that abuts Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province. They have called the Pakistani deaths a terrible accident. "There were lots of mistakes made," the official said. "There was not good situational awareness to who was where and who was doing what."
To prevent conflicts, officials working in the border-control center need to know whether NATO forces are planning operations in the border area. That allows the Pakistanis to notify its forces that the U.S. and Afghan forces would be operating there.
But U.S. officials have in the past expressed reservations about notifying the Pakistanis about operations, concerned the missions' details could leak out.
The U.S. officials cautioned the latest account is based mainly on interviews with members of the commando team and could change as more information is gathered.
A formal report on the incident is due to be completed by U.S. military investigators by Dec. 23. Officials said that investigation could incorporate overhead imagery and information collected from the aircraft that struck the Pakistani position.
"Our view on this will not be complete until we've completed the investigation," a senior official said.
The incident resulted in another major setback to U.S.-Pakistan relations. In response, Pakistan has pulled out of an international conference on the Afghan war in Bonn, Germany, next week. Islamabad also has closed border crossings used by the U.S. and its NATO allies to bring in supplies for troops in neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials said earlier this week the attack on their base, known as Volcano, began just after midnight. About 50 minutes after the air assault began, Pakistani officials reached the NATO command in Afghanistan and told officials to call off the strikes, they said.
In addition to the strike on the border base, Pakistani officials said reinforcements trying to aid the stricken base also were hit by the airstrikes.
Pakistani military personnel in a second base began firing at the American helicopters. According to the Pakistani account, the helicopters flew off, then returned and struck the second post.
A senior Pakistani military officer said it was impossible for the U.S. not to know it was firing at Pakistani military bases.
U.S. officials countered that the Pakistani positions were more like makeshift campsites than established military bases. A U.S. official said that because the Taliban and Pakistani military use some of the same weaponry, it was difficult to tell who was firing at the assault force.
"There was absolutely no malicious, deliberate attack on the Pakistani military posts," a U.S. defense official said.
Other American officials said the Pakistani military should have known from the presence of helicopters used to ferry in the combined U.S.-Afghan commando force that Americans were in the area.
"If you hear American helicopters why would you lob mortars and machine gun fire at them? The Pakistanis can say we thought it was insurgents, except for the fact that the Taliban doesn't have helicopters," said the U.S. official.
The White House has decided, at least for now, against having President Barack Obama issue a video message offering condolences for the Pakistani deaths, officials said. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and other State Department officials had recommended such a video message to try to ease tensions between Washington and Islamabad over the incident.
But other officials argued that it was premature for Mr. Obama to intervene so publicly given continued uncertainty about what exactly transpired.
Republican candidates for the White House often accuse Mr. Obama of being too quick to apologize for U.S. actions.
"There was, obviously, no apology, and there was an expression of condolences," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, noting that the investigation into the incident was "at the early stages." —Tom Wright in New Delhi contributed to this article.
Pakistan boycotts Afghanistan conference in Bonn
AFP
Islamabad confirmed Friday that it will boycott a major international conference in Germany next week on Afghanistan's future, the German foreign ministry said, amid Pakistani ire over deadly NATO strikes.
The news came as Afghanistan?s President Hamid Karzai arrived in Germany three days ahead of the conference in in Bonn where key leaders will mull his country's future.
He was met at the airport, amid some fanfare, by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle but with expectations for the conference falling.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told Westerwelle, during phone talks earlier, that she hoped Monday's conference would be a success and stressed Pakistan's continued support for the process of regional stabilisation.
However Khar confirmed "Pakistan's decision not to participate in the international conference on Afghanistan", the German foreign ministry statement added.
Westerwelle regretted Islamabad's decision, and promised to keep Afghanistan's neighbour fully briefed on the conference.
Pakistan's decision deals a stinging blow to hopes for drawing up a roadmap for Afghanistan's future.
The meeting will bring 100 national delegations to the western German city of Bonn. However a deadly NATO bombing raid prompted Pakistan to scratch its name from the list, jeopardising already modest expectations.
A total of 24 soldiers in attacks on two Pakistani posts close to the Afghan border were killed in the NATO sorties on Saturday, prompting fury in the nuclear-armed Muslim nation, where there is little love for the alliance with Washington.
A senior Western diplomat called Pakistan's boycott a "pretty huge blow".
Commentators said the meticulously planned meeting, 10 years after Germany staged another international huddle on political transition following the fall of the radical Taliban, risked becoming a farce.
"The entire future engagement of the international community is based on the hope that the peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban will progress, and Pakistan is the key to this process," Die Welt newspaper noted Friday.
Pakistan's Bonn Boycott Has No Negative Impact, Karzai's Spokesman Says
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 01 December 2011
A spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday said that Pakistan's boycott of Bonn conference on Afghanistan will have no negative impact.
President Karzai's spokesman, Emal Faizi, said the conference will go ahead as planned and that international community will discuss their commitments to Afghanistan beyond 2014.
Mr Faizi said Pakistan had always said it was part of the solution of Afghan problems, adding that if that was really Pakistan's stance, its participation in Bonn conference was necessary.
However, he said if Pakistan still did not want to attend, it would have no negative impact on the conference.
"Pakistan has decided not to attend. I once again stress that this will have no negative impact, as the conference agenda is fully focused on Afghanistan's future," President Karzai's spokesman, Emal Faizi, said.
"Of course a part of the agenda will focus on peace talks with anti-government armed groups, and if Pakistan wants to play a role, the conference will give it a chance," Mr Faizi added.
Pakistan recently decided to boycott the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan, after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a Nato air strike on Pakistani checkpoints.
In response to criticism from Pakistan officials that Afghan soil should not be used for operation on Pakistani territory, the Afghan government has said that foreign troops in Afghanistan were in the country based on a UN mandate and that Islamabad had also been involved in the decision.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, has reportedly requested President Barack Obama to express his condolences, over the killing of Pakistani soldiers, in a video statement to Islamabad, but the US President has rejected it.
Afghanistan summit threatens to turn into a 'farce'
02.12.2011 Deutsche Welle
Pakistan's boycott of an international Afghanistan conference in Germany has put a further damper on hopes for the war-torn country's future. In any event, for the United States it's all about security interests.
Pakistan's decision not to take part has cast doubts over a major international summit in Germany aimed to plot the future of Afghanistan after NATO troops withdraw in 2014.
Delegations from 85 nations and 15 international organizations are to meet in Bonn on Monday to hammer out a roadmap for future international involvement in the country.
But days after a NATO airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border, Pakistan's refusal to participate has undercut hopes of progress.
A decade after a first Bonn conference that mapped out a post-Taliban political transition, Pakistan is seen as crucial to creating stability in war-torn Afghanistan.
Germany's disappointment
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle referred to the decision as a potential "setback." Germany's press meanwhile did not mince words about Pakistan's importance:
"The entire future engagement of the international community is based on the hope that the peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban will progress, and Pakistan is the key to this process," Die Welt newspaper noted.
"The Bonn conference is turning into a farce," wrote the Financial Times Deutschland. "If Pakistan's cancellation is maintained, then the conference will be virtually pointless on many issues."
An 'unripe' conflict
Pakistan's boycott is not the only challenge facing the international community. The United States and Pakistan have yet to sort how many American troops will remain in the country after NATO's mission ends.
"Some conflicts aren't ripe for a political settlement," according to Andrew Exum of the research institution Center for a New American Security. "That's probably the case with Afghanistan."
Exum, who served as a soldier in two Afghanistan missions and later as a civilian advisor to Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus, also sees conflict between the US and its allies over the purpose of their Afghanistan missions.
Different aims
While countries like Germany see their involvements primarily as humanitarian efforts, Barack Obama's government has taken a different approach in response to enormous pressure to bring troops home.
"From this administration it's all about security interest, and it's all about disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda," Exum said. "If the United States feels like it's done that, or it has achieved a large majority of its security interests in Afghanistan, then it may not feel like it has as much of a need to continue in Afghanistan in the way that maybe the other NATO allies do feel."
In this sense, Exum sees the US shifting "away from a focus on what we would call nation-building, or a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign to build up the government of Afghanistan - and more really toward just building up the security forces of Afghanistan to a sufficient degree where the United States can then withdraw."
The Bonn summit is not a donor conference, meaning there will not be financial pledges.
However, according to Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank, the conference does aim to demonstrate the international community's ongoing commitment to the Afghans beyond 2014.
Meanwhile, it is no secret that US-Afghan relations have largely broken down already.
"I think the US was really surprised by the resilience that President Karzai is showing," she said, in demanding an end to night raids and increased control over the US's detainment of prisoners.
"The US…was caught off guard by how publicly he's committed himself to demanding that the US yield on those two points, whereas the US is very unlikely to yield on them."
Hopes of 'follow-up'
With so much still up in the air, Felbab-Brown argues that Pakistan's presence Monday in Bonn may not make a world of difference.
"What really happens on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan in terms of negotiations with the Taliban is more important than what happens at these international summits," she said. "So the fact that they are not present at the summit does not necessarily mean that the process is not possible, or that the accomplishments of the process are not possible."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while voicing great regret at Pakistan's decision, also said she hoped for "a follow-up way that we can have the benefit of Pakistani participation in this international effort to try to work toward a stable, secure, peaceful outcome in Afghanistan."
Author: Christina Bergmann, Washington / dl
Editor: Rob Mudge
Analysis: Confusion not progress expected at Afghan meet
Reuters By Emma Graham-Harrison and Missy Ryan Thu Dec 1, 2011
KABUL/WASHINGTON - Next week's Bonn conference on Afghanistan was supposed to offer a chance to renew Western commitment to stabilize the Asian nation as foreign troops head home after a decade battling the Taliban.
Instead it looks set to be a high-profile reminder of the West's tortuous ties with a country where they have sunk billions of dollars, and of Afghanistan's uncertain future as NATO nations facing economic crisis at home try to pull loose from a costly war some believe can no longer be won outright.
A strategic partnership pact between Washington and Kabul that was expected to provide a framework for Monday's meeting in Bonn of officials from dozens of nations has not been pinned down in time -- and may take months more to secure.
Pakistan, an insecure but powerful neighbor and perhaps the single most critical player in efforts to end Afghan violence, is boycotting the meet after NATO aircraft killed 24 of its soldiers in a weekend attack the alliance called a "tragic ... accident".
Hopes for an appearance by Taliban representatives and a breakthrough in reconciliation efforts have also faded.
And hanging over the whole meeting will be the weight of a decade in which thousands of lives and billions of dollars have failed to secure Afghanistan and achieved only fragile gains in education and women's rights, falling well short of the promises made at a conference ten years ago in the same city.
"There is definitely a sharp contrast between this Bonn conference and 2001, when there was hope and enthusiasm in the air and a desire to move beyond the Taliban and do reconstruction," said Kamran Bokhari, vice-president for South Asian affairs at political risk analysts Stratfor.
"Now you have Pakistan not attending this conference, so that does throw a monkey wrench into the system ... it's not really clear what we can expect."
World leaders had high hopes for Afghanistan when they met in Bonn in December 2001, just a few months after the September 11 attacks on New York in Washington prompted western nations to back the toppling of the Taliban government.
It was hoped civil conflict would soon recede into history and that Afghanistan would move into modernity, embracing broadrights for women and chipping away at endemic poverty.
NO HANDOUTS, NEW ECONOMY?
A decade later, the United States and others in the West have dramatically scaled back their vision of what can be accomplished in a country that has earned a reputation over centuries as a 'graveyard of empires.'
Afghanistan itself says it is not looking for handouts.
"Bonn is not about asking the international community for financial help. What we need is a firm political commitment from them to help us stand on our own two feet," deputy foreign minister Jawed Ludin told Reuters.
Western diplomats in Kabul say that the main aim of the conference is to show Afghans they will not hurry away at the end of 2014 as the Soviet Union did after their military withdrawal -- and to remind world leaders to keep Afghanistan on their agenda at a time of many competing crises.
Foreign ministers from around the world are flying into Germany for a meeting that is still likely to make headlines even if there is little of substance achieved.
It will also bring together an unusually diverse cross-section of countries with a stake in Afghanistan's future, from NATO members to Iran, Russia and China.
"When we're done in Bonn, there's going to be a vision for what the future of Afghanistan is going to be like," said one senior U.S. official. "The point of ... Bonn is to send message to Taliban and anybody else that actually international engagement and investment in Afghanistan is not over."
The meeting will showcase a scheme known as "the new silk road" to bolster Afghanistan's weak economy. U.S. officials will also begin pressing fellow donor nations to define future aid commitments in coming months, perhaps with the goal of announcing pledges at a NATO summit in Chicago in May.
"FIGHT, TALK, BUILD"
In the past year the Obama administration has embraced a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban as a central goal. But there is little sign yet that embryonic peace efforts have the potential to yield a credible agreement.
"Pakistan's refusal to attend the Bonn conference is indicative of a broader discontent in the region towards the U.S.-led reconciliation approach of 'fight, talk, build,'" said Shamila Chaudhary, who was director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. National Security Council until earlier this year and is now an analyst at the Eurasia Group.
"Many had hoped that the fighting would have stopped in time for Bonn. Since it hasn't, the entire political process remains a big question mark," she said.
Diplomats acknowledge too that without the hoped-for deal with the United States -- the country that will have to foot the lion's share of the bill for Afghan security forces and more in coming years -- the conference will lack force.
"If we had got the strategic partnership with the United States, Bonn would have been more credible," said one senior diplomat in Kabul.
A framework deal with the United States for security collaboration should have allowed other countries to follow up with commitments to keep helping Afghanistan even when their troops are no longer fighting there.
WHO'LL BLINK FIRST?
The Afghans and the Americans both seem to think that the other side need the deal more than they do and are playing a reckless game of brinksmanship.
A main stumbling block has been the night-time raids that have become deeply sensitive after civilian deaths in a string of botched operations. Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants them banned; the U.S. military says it can't succeed without them.
Another sticking point is immunity from Afghan courts for U.S. soldiers and the detention of Afghan suspects.
Afghanistan will remain heavily dependent on outside help. It faces a $7 billion annual hole in its accounts after 2014, according to a recent World Bank survey. Its army is unlikely to survive in fighting form without foreign cash.
Yet U.S. lawmakers facing pressure to cut costs are wondering how much they will have to fork out, especially amid questions about the reliability of a deeply corrupt government whose leader Karzai has at best rocky ties with the West.
President Barack Obama, eyeing re-election in 2012, appears determined to withdraw steadily as foreign troops hand control of security to Afghans by the end of 2014, even though his commanders fret about what they can accomplish before then.
But if Afghanistan splinters into civil war, the way it did after the collapse of the Soviet Union brought an end to army salary subsidies and weapons flow, it risks becoming a haven once again for militants who want to target the United States.
"Done right, our military drawdown will motivate Afghans and their neighbors to negotiate seriously with each other about their future," John Kerry, the influential Democratic senator, wrote in an op-ed published on Thursday. "Done wrong, it could precipitate another war."
The Afghan government is banking on a U.S. desire for future bases allowing it to keep an eye on Afghanistan and Pakistan as it seeks to neutralize a threat posed by militants including the Taliban, the Haqqani network and al Qaeda.
Yet the Obama administration is also grappling with another urgent desire: to finally end a long, unpopular war.
Analysts like Jeffrey Dressler of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington say militants are well aware of that yearning to go home. "By showing ourselves as wanting to get out, it's like showing red meat to all these groups," he said.
(Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; editing by Missy Ryan and editing by Anthony Boadle)
Afghan President Karzai to visit Britain next week
AFP
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will visit Britain next week to sign a strategic partnership deal with London following a conference on Afghanistan's future in Germany, his office said Friday.
Karzai will meet Prime Minister David Cameron and Prince Charles during the two-day visit Tuesday and Wednesday, officials added.
The strategic partnership agreement between Britain and Afghanistan will govern political and diplomatic relations between the two countries after 2014, by which time all foreign combat troops are due to leave.
Last month, a "loya jirga" or traditional meeting of Afghan elders endorsed a strategic partnership deal with the United States -- with a string of conditions including an end to US-led night raids -- and other countries including Britain.
The agreement with Britain is expected to be less complex than the one with the US, which is still being negotiated in talks which have dragged on longer than expected.
It is not expected to cover any future British military presence in Afghanistan after 2014, when a sizeable international training mission for Afghan forces is expected to remain.
Britain currently has around 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, mainly in the troubled southern province of Helmand.
It is the second largest contributor to the 140,000-strong foreign force fighting a Taliban-led insurgency after the US.
Karzai's trip to London will come after Monday's Bonn conference on the future of Afghanistan, which will discuss the international community's role in the warring country post-2014.
Listen to women in a new AfghanistanBy Khaled Hosseini, Special to CNN
December 2, 2011
Editor's note: Khaled Hosseini is the author of "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns." He works to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan through the Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a nonprofit aid organization.
(CNN) -- As a writer, one of my most important responsibilities is listening. I try to do so with an open mind, so I can hear the voices of the characters whose stories I will tell. When I wrote about Afghan women in my second novel, I thought about the brave women I had met in Kabul and about their stories. Their voices came to me in hushed whispers. At times they woke me in the night with the urgency of what they had to say. I am indebted to those women, because without them, my novels would lack authenticity and would also be far less likely to resonate with readers.
Supporting women's rights in Afghanistan is largely about listening. A recent report from international aid organization Oxfam summarizes it best: The voices of women in Afghanistan must be heard if a lasting peace is to be achieved and "the international community is to fulfill its agenda of setting Afghanistan on its own feet."
In recent years, women have made incredible gains in Afghanistan. The end of Taliban rule has meant a new Afghanistan, with more opportunities for women. Millions of girls are back in school. Women are working, particularly in Kabul, as professionals in a wide range of fields. Afghanistan has a female provincial governor; there are women serving in parliament, the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Only the hardest cynic would dismiss these accomplishments as insignificant.
Yet far too many women in Afghanistan are still denied a place at the table -- denied the right to speak for themselves. Oxfam's report illustrates how war and unrest, illiteracy, poverty and gender discrimination have made it nearly impossible for the vast majority of women in Afghanistan to contribute to the global dialogue about the future of their homeland. Without them, the gains that have been made in recent years for half of Afghanistan's most brilliant resources remain at risk.
When I was a boy living in Kabul, I had a different experience. A different political environment meant women were respected -- their intelligence and accomplishments greatly valued. My mother was a teacher and school administrator. She was known on campus for her confidence and effective leadership. My aunt was a professor at Kabul University. She inspired young men and women to be creative and poetic, furthering Afghanistan's rich cultural and artistic legacy. My cousin was a physician. Men and women alike relied on her skill, strength and kindness.
The women I have met in Afghanistan in recent years are equally talented. Though most have been denied education, survive without access to even basic health care and often lack even rudimentary shelter, they are determined, resilient, resourceful and optimistic. They have a truly indomitable spirit and are the real backbones of families and communities.
If Aghanistan is to exist once again as a peaceful and thriving nation, it must make women's rights one of the cornerstones of national reconstruction. Any peace negotiations with insurgent groups must ensure that Afghan women are able to exercise their rights and participate in every facet of Afghan society without fear of retribution. They must be given political, social and economic power to help usher in and sustain the country's long-term redevelopment.
Most importantly, Afghan women must be allowed the opportunity to be heard. As the International Conference on Afghanistan approaches in Bonn, Germany, world leaders must insist that women not only participate in the Afghan delegation but that all discussions around peace and reconciliation include how women will be involved. Afghan women's voices are an indispensable resource and without them, the story of peace and prosperity cannot be told.
Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Khaled Hosseini.
Afghanistan faces $4bn defence funding shortfall
Exclusive: US is prepared to foot only $3bn of bill for security forces, raising fears that Kabul will struggle to fight Taliban
Guardian.co.uk By Julian Borger, diplomatic editor Thursday 1 December 2011
Afghanistan's security forces face a $4bn (£2.5bn) funding shortfall after 2014 – when they are supposed to take over the main responsibility for fighting the insurgency – raising questions over whether the Kabul government will have the resources to keep the Taliban at bay, the Guardian has learned.
The Afghan army and police combined currently number about 308,000, and are due to reach their peak strength of 352,000 by the end of next year. The western strategy is for the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) to take on an increasing share in the fighting, allowing the US, Britain and their allies to withdraw all their troops from combat by 2014 and focus on training and counter-terrorist operations.
However, a 352,000-strong ANSF is estimated to cost $8bn and US officials have told their European counterparts that Washington is only prepared to foot $3bn of that bill after 2014. Other donors are expected to come up with another $1bn, enough to finance a force of only 220,000 troops.
Foreign and Afghan officials in Kabul agree such force would only be able to hold the line against the insurgents if there was a breakthrough in peace talks, or a collapse in the Taliban, both of which currently look unlikely.
"The Americans have told us that Congress is not prepared to give Afghanistan more military aid than Israel, which means no more than $3bn," a European official said.
The fear that international financial support for Afghanistan will evaporate in 2014 as the west struggles to escape from chronic recession and western capitals seek to put the conflict behind them, has alarmed the Kabul government of Hamid Karzai. Karzai will chair an international conference in Bonn on Monday designed to seek international commitments to continue to support Afghanistan long after 2014, when the country, after more than three decades of war, will continue to be an economic basket case. A World Bank report last week projected Afghanistan's fiscal deficit by 2021-22 at 25% of the country's GDP.
"Even assuming ambitious targets for robust growth in domestic revenue are met there will be an unmanageable fiscal gap," the World Bank report said.
An agreement on how to fill the current ANSF financing gap will not be attempted until the Nato summit in Chicago this summer. Meanwhile, US officials have made it clear that other countries will have to come up with more than the $1bn they are currently projected to contribute to the ANSF and are warning the Afghan government that it may have to make do with a significantly smaller force over the long term than had originally been planned.
One senior US official said: "I don't think anybody would see the 352,000 figure as a permanent figure. It is the Afghan surge. I'm not aware of any plans not to reach it [next year], but it would be an open question how long it could be held at that level."
For Afghan officials, the question mark over continued financing brings back uncomfortable memories of 1989, when the Soviet army withdrew and western support for Afghanistan vanished, leaving the country to slide into prolonged civil war.
Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan defence minister, said a dramatic shortfall in international support could lead to a return to chaos.
"Afghanistan has always been a proxy battleground in the past so if we are left alone and isolated as we were left in 1989, then the risk [of a repeat] is there, definitely," Wardak said in an interview in Kabul. "If Afghanistan is left by itself, it can become an ungoverned area or a failed state It can become once again a place terrorists can hide they can take shelter, they can train and they can plan and they can operate from."
Wardak has been privately criticised by western officials for demanding tanks and fighter jets for the Afghan army, with limited application for the sort of counter-insurgency it is currently involved in, but he argued such heavy equipment is necessary psychologically, to send a message to the Afghan people and the country's enemies alike.
"My main purpose is that it will bring up the level of confidence of the Afghan people. They are a society which is used to seeing a lot of that stuff, and with anything less than that, they are always doubtful," the defence minister said. "So aircraft and tanks and heavy stuff will no only bring up the confidence of the people. And it will send a really strong message to our enemies that the odds [against them] are much higher."
Diplomats in Kabul said they saw the $3bn US figure as an opening offer in what it is likely to be a protracted negotiation leading up to the Nato summit in Chicago.
"The United States is keen to lessen the burden on themselves, there is less money around in general and the Americans won't commit to multi-year funding. That is going to mean a negotiation with the Afghans about the size of their army, and a negotiation among the allies on who is prepared to do what," a western diplomat in Kabul said.
In London, an official from the Department for International Development pointed out that the US and its allies were currently spending more than $100bn a year on the war, so full support of the ANSF would be a bargain, in relative terms.
"In the scheme of what is spent on international security at present, it is paltry. But the track record of the international community in providing long-term financing is not great," the official said. "If the international community can find the political will for many multiples of that [needed] figure now, it should be able to find the political will now But failure to address this will lead straight back to conflict."
Flag lowering signals end of Canadian presence in Kandahar
The Globe and Mail By Campbell Clark Thursday, Dec. 01, 2011
OTTAWA - The flag has been taken down at Task Force Kandahar as Canadian soldiers mark the coming end of their presence in the bloody Afghan province. The last task, to send kit home, is being held up at the line that always loomed over the mission, the Pakistan border.
The lowering of the Maple Leaf in a quiet ceremony on Thursday at the Kandahar Air Field marked the symbolic end of Canadian presence in the war-ravaged southern province after six years.
The Canadian Forces troops who are there to dismantle equipment and send it home after the combat mission ended in July will leave by Dec. 12.
Lt. Gen. Stuart Beare, the commander of Canadian expeditionary forces, told The Canadian Press it was “gratifying” to witness the last ceremony in Kandahar, and that allies understand the decision to leave the province and send 950 soldiers to the Afghan capital, Kabul, for a training mission.
“They may miss us in terms of seeing the flag walking around KAF,” he said. “They know we're still in the game and we're going to be doing it from Kabul.”
But the delay in completing the last task of sending equipment home is symbolic of challenges Canadian troops faced in Kandahar that still threaten the training mission’s goals of building Afghan forces that can secure the nation.
Sensitive weapons and equipment have been sent by air, but road convoys to carry the rest have been delayed by Pakistan’s decision to close the border over U.S. cross-border strikes on Nov. 26 that killed 24 soldiers.
For years, Canadian soldiers fought to clear Kandahar Taliban insurgents, who slipped across the Pakistan border and returned for new fighting with the acceptance or support of at least elements of Pakistan’s army and intelligence service, according to western officials.
It meant Canadian soldiers in Kandahar were in a battle they could not win on Afghan territory alone, said Gordon Smith, the director of Centre of Global Studies at the University of Victoria.
“They did a great job. They lost their lives,” he said. “It was mission impossible.”
Mr. Smith faced criticism when he issued a 2007 report that said political settlement with elements of the Taliban would be necessary, a sentiment that has since become a tenet of NATO policy. One reason he cited was Pakistan’s acceptance or support of Taliban activities.
Canadian troops’ shift to training Afghan forces in the hope they can eventually secure the nation is tied in part to some form of political reconciliation. Pakistan’s border closing could work as an obstacle to NATO allies’ efforts to encourage a political settlement in Afghanistan.
With a report from The Canadian Press
Herat Officials Allege Interference by Elected Assembly
Police say provincial council members spring suspects from detention before they can be brought to trial.
IWPR By Abdul Razaq Moheq 1 Dec 11
Afghanistan - The elected assembly for the western Afghan province of Herat is under fire from police and prosecutors, who accuse its members of corrupt practices including getting crime suspects released.
Allegations of interference in the affairs of local government and policing reflect tensions between the 19-member elected council and the executive, local observers say.
The chief of police in Herat province, General Sayed Aqa Saqeb, openly complains of interference by some of provincial councillors.
In one case, he said, police arrested a man accused of instigating trouble against the security forces, but was released soon afterwards after someone from the council intervened on his behalf. Saqeb said this kind of thing would not only increase crime rates as perpetrators acted with impunity, but would dent police morale.
Maria Bashir, the chief prosecutor in Herat, confirmed that this was going on – her office had also been approached by assembly members asking for suspects to be freed or to get reduced sentences.
“Unfortunately, certain representatives of the people on the provincial council try to make government agencies do illegal things, abusing their titles and exerting pressure and influence,” she said.
According to Bashir, many councillors were ignorant of Afghan law, the extent of the powers granted them, and the demarcation between their role and that of other institutions of state.
Others argue that ignorance of the law may have worked as an excuse in past years, but the current assembly is the second to be elected, so its members should be aware of the rules by now.
Abdol Razaq Rahmani, director of the local passport department, confirmed that his staff had been asked by councillors to issue documents on behalf of favoured constituents.
Pointing at his mobile phone, he said, “We don’t have blank passports. I receive so many calls from officials that I finally had to switch my phone off today.”
Gholam Mahbub from the Zenda Jan district said his own experience showed how having the right connections was key to getting a passport.
“A friend of mine came with me to the city to obtain a passport and he managed to get one in two days because he knows a provincial councillor,” he said. “I have spent the past ten days trying to get a passport, as I don’t know anyone.”
The council’s chairman, Abdul Zaher Faizzadah, rejects all allegations of wrongdoing by his fellow-members.
“Members of the provincial council have never made illegal requests of government agencies,” he said. “Whenever they have approached government agencies, it has only been to resolve people’s problems, something that lies within their mandate and indeed is their legal obligation.”
Faizzadah said the accusations made against the council reflected a deep-seated hostility to its members.
However, at least one assembly member told IWPR that colleagues had acted outside the law.
“The provincial council’s members are part of the same society in which corruption and law-breaking exist,” the councillor said. “My own constituents have illegal demands of me as well, but I explain to them that I am not authorised to do so, and I try to convince them of this.”
A second councillor also told IWPR of corruption and abuse of power by assembly members, saying, “I cannot defend thieving representatives,” but later retracted the remarks.
Abdul Qader Kamel, head of the Association of Political Parties and Civic Institutions in Herat, said the behaviour of council members was likely to erode not only their credibility, but people’s faith in elections in general.
“It is not the job of provincial councillors to apply to government agencies in pursuit of their personal interests or matters relating to their friends, nor to demand illegal things from them,” he said.
Bashir said any councillor who committed an offence was liable to face prosecution by her office, or by military prosecutors if the crime related to security issues. But she acknowledged that no prosecutions had yet been brought, and no cases were pending.
Abdul Razaq Moheq is an IWPR-trained reporter in Herat, western Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
Deadly Border Strike Came After Forces Were Told Area Was Clear of Pakistani Troops, Officials Say
Wall Street Journal By JULIAN E. BARNES and ADAM ENTOUS DECEMBER 2, 2011
WASHINGTON - Pakistani officials at a border coordination center gave the go-ahead to American airstrikes that inadvertently killed 24 Pakistan troops, unaware that their own forces were in the area, according to U.S. officials briefed on the preliminary investigation.
U.S. officials, giving their first detailed explanation of the worst friendly-fire incident of the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan, said an Afghan-led assault force that included American commandos were hunting Taliban militants when they came under fire from an encampment along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
The commandos thought they were being fired upon by militants. But the assailants turned out to be Pakistani military personnel who had established a temporary campsite, U.S. officials said.
According to the initial U.S. account from the field, the commandos requested airstrikes against the encampment, prompting the team to contact a joint border-control center to determine whether Pakistani forces were in the area, a U.S. official said.
The border-control center is manned by U.S., Afghan and Pakistani representatives who are supposed to share information and head off conflicts. But the U.S. and Afghan forces conducting the Nov. 26 commando operation hadn't notified the center in advance that they planned to strike Taliban insurgents near that part of the border, the official said.
When called, the Pakistani representatives at the center said there were no Pakistani military forces in the area identified by the commandos, clearing the way for the Americans to conduct the airstrikes, the U.S. officials said.
Officials in Islamabad couldn't be reached to comment on the U.S. allegations. Pakistan repeatedly has denied its forces fired on the Americans.
Pakistan doesn't have veto authority over strikes along the border, U.S. officials said. But the North Atlantic Treaty Organization makes contact with the center to make sure its operations don't put Pakistani troops or aircraft in the line of fire.
U.S. officials acknowledge there were errors made on both sides in the incident, which occurred in the Mohmand tribal region, a lawless border area that abuts Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province. They have called the Pakistani deaths a terrible accident. "There were lots of mistakes made," the official said. "There was not good situational awareness to who was where and who was doing what."
To prevent conflicts, officials working in the border-control center need to know whether NATO forces are planning operations in the border area. That allows the Pakistanis to notify its forces that the U.S. and Afghan forces would be operating there.
But U.S. officials have in the past expressed reservations about notifying the Pakistanis about operations, concerned the missions' details could leak out.
The U.S. officials cautioned the latest account is based mainly on interviews with members of the commando team and could change as more information is gathered.
A formal report on the incident is due to be completed by U.S. military investigators by Dec. 23. Officials said that investigation could incorporate overhead imagery and information collected from the aircraft that struck the Pakistani position.
"Our view on this will not be complete until we've completed the investigation," a senior official said.
The incident resulted in another major setback to U.S.-Pakistan relations. In response, Pakistan has pulled out of an international conference on the Afghan war in Bonn, Germany, next week. Islamabad also has closed border crossings used by the U.S. and its NATO allies to bring in supplies for troops in neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials said earlier this week the attack on their base, known as Volcano, began just after midnight. About 50 minutes after the air assault began, Pakistani officials reached the NATO command in Afghanistan and told officials to call off the strikes, they said.
In addition to the strike on the border base, Pakistani officials said reinforcements trying to aid the stricken base also were hit by the airstrikes.
Pakistani military personnel in a second base began firing at the American helicopters. According to the Pakistani account, the helicopters flew off, then returned and struck the second post.
A senior Pakistani military officer said it was impossible for the U.S. not to know it was firing at Pakistani military bases.
U.S. officials countered that the Pakistani positions were more like makeshift campsites than established military bases. A U.S. official said that because the Taliban and Pakistani military use some of the same weaponry, it was difficult to tell who was firing at the assault force.
"There was absolutely no malicious, deliberate attack on the Pakistani military posts," a U.S. defense official said.
Other American officials said the Pakistani military should have known from the presence of helicopters used to ferry in the combined U.S.-Afghan commando force that Americans were in the area.
"If you hear American helicopters why would you lob mortars and machine gun fire at them? The Pakistanis can say we thought it was insurgents, except for the fact that the Taliban doesn't have helicopters," said the U.S. official.
The White House has decided, at least for now, against having President Barack Obama issue a video message offering condolences for the Pakistani deaths, officials said. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and other State Department officials had recommended such a video message to try to ease tensions between Washington and Islamabad over the incident.
But other officials argued that it was premature for Mr. Obama to intervene so publicly given continued uncertainty about what exactly transpired.
Republican candidates for the White House often accuse Mr. Obama of being too quick to apologize for U.S. actions.
"There was, obviously, no apology, and there was an expression of condolences," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, noting that the investigation into the incident was "at the early stages." —Tom Wright in New Delhi contributed to this article.
Pakistan boycotts Afghanistan conference in Bonn
AFP
Islamabad confirmed Friday that it will boycott a major international conference in Germany next week on Afghanistan's future, the German foreign ministry said, amid Pakistani ire over deadly NATO strikes.
The news came as Afghanistan?s President Hamid Karzai arrived in Germany three days ahead of the conference in in Bonn where key leaders will mull his country's future.
He was met at the airport, amid some fanfare, by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle but with expectations for the conference falling.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told Westerwelle, during phone talks earlier, that she hoped Monday's conference would be a success and stressed Pakistan's continued support for the process of regional stabilisation.
However Khar confirmed "Pakistan's decision not to participate in the international conference on Afghanistan", the German foreign ministry statement added.
Westerwelle regretted Islamabad's decision, and promised to keep Afghanistan's neighbour fully briefed on the conference.
Pakistan's decision deals a stinging blow to hopes for drawing up a roadmap for Afghanistan's future.
The meeting will bring 100 national delegations to the western German city of Bonn. However a deadly NATO bombing raid prompted Pakistan to scratch its name from the list, jeopardising already modest expectations.
A total of 24 soldiers in attacks on two Pakistani posts close to the Afghan border were killed in the NATO sorties on Saturday, prompting fury in the nuclear-armed Muslim nation, where there is little love for the alliance with Washington.
A senior Western diplomat called Pakistan's boycott a "pretty huge blow".
Commentators said the meticulously planned meeting, 10 years after Germany staged another international huddle on political transition following the fall of the radical Taliban, risked becoming a farce.
"The entire future engagement of the international community is based on the hope that the peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban will progress, and Pakistan is the key to this process," Die Welt newspaper noted Friday.
Pakistan's Bonn Boycott Has No Negative Impact, Karzai's Spokesman Says
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 01 December 2011
A spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday said that Pakistan's boycott of Bonn conference on Afghanistan will have no negative impact.
President Karzai's spokesman, Emal Faizi, said the conference will go ahead as planned and that international community will discuss their commitments to Afghanistan beyond 2014.
Mr Faizi said Pakistan had always said it was part of the solution of Afghan problems, adding that if that was really Pakistan's stance, its participation in Bonn conference was necessary.
However, he said if Pakistan still did not want to attend, it would have no negative impact on the conference.
"Pakistan has decided not to attend. I once again stress that this will have no negative impact, as the conference agenda is fully focused on Afghanistan's future," President Karzai's spokesman, Emal Faizi, said.
"Of course a part of the agenda will focus on peace talks with anti-government armed groups, and if Pakistan wants to play a role, the conference will give it a chance," Mr Faizi added.
Pakistan recently decided to boycott the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan, after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a Nato air strike on Pakistani checkpoints.
In response to criticism from Pakistan officials that Afghan soil should not be used for operation on Pakistani territory, the Afghan government has said that foreign troops in Afghanistan were in the country based on a UN mandate and that Islamabad had also been involved in the decision.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, has reportedly requested President Barack Obama to express his condolences, over the killing of Pakistani soldiers, in a video statement to Islamabad, but the US President has rejected it.
Afghanistan summit threatens to turn into a 'farce'
02.12.2011 Deutsche Welle
Pakistan's boycott of an international Afghanistan conference in Germany has put a further damper on hopes for the war-torn country's future. In any event, for the United States it's all about security interests.
Pakistan's decision not to take part has cast doubts over a major international summit in Germany aimed to plot the future of Afghanistan after NATO troops withdraw in 2014.
Delegations from 85 nations and 15 international organizations are to meet in Bonn on Monday to hammer out a roadmap for future international involvement in the country.
But days after a NATO airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border, Pakistan's refusal to participate has undercut hopes of progress.
A decade after a first Bonn conference that mapped out a post-Taliban political transition, Pakistan is seen as crucial to creating stability in war-torn Afghanistan.
Germany's disappointment
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle referred to the decision as a potential "setback." Germany's press meanwhile did not mince words about Pakistan's importance:
"The entire future engagement of the international community is based on the hope that the peace process between the Afghan government and the Taliban will progress, and Pakistan is the key to this process," Die Welt newspaper noted.
"The Bonn conference is turning into a farce," wrote the Financial Times Deutschland. "If Pakistan's cancellation is maintained, then the conference will be virtually pointless on many issues."
An 'unripe' conflict
Pakistan's boycott is not the only challenge facing the international community. The United States and Pakistan have yet to sort how many American troops will remain in the country after NATO's mission ends.
"Some conflicts aren't ripe for a political settlement," according to Andrew Exum of the research institution Center for a New American Security. "That's probably the case with Afghanistan."
Exum, who served as a soldier in two Afghanistan missions and later as a civilian advisor to Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus, also sees conflict between the US and its allies over the purpose of their Afghanistan missions.
Different aims
While countries like Germany see their involvements primarily as humanitarian efforts, Barack Obama's government has taken a different approach in response to enormous pressure to bring troops home.
"From this administration it's all about security interest, and it's all about disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda," Exum said. "If the United States feels like it's done that, or it has achieved a large majority of its security interests in Afghanistan, then it may not feel like it has as much of a need to continue in Afghanistan in the way that maybe the other NATO allies do feel."
In this sense, Exum sees the US shifting "away from a focus on what we would call nation-building, or a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign to build up the government of Afghanistan - and more really toward just building up the security forces of Afghanistan to a sufficient degree where the United States can then withdraw."
The Bonn summit is not a donor conference, meaning there will not be financial pledges.
However, according to Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank, the conference does aim to demonstrate the international community's ongoing commitment to the Afghans beyond 2014.
Meanwhile, it is no secret that US-Afghan relations have largely broken down already.
"I think the US was really surprised by the resilience that President Karzai is showing," she said, in demanding an end to night raids and increased control over the US's detainment of prisoners.
"The US…was caught off guard by how publicly he's committed himself to demanding that the US yield on those two points, whereas the US is very unlikely to yield on them."
Hopes of 'follow-up'
With so much still up in the air, Felbab-Brown argues that Pakistan's presence Monday in Bonn may not make a world of difference.
"What really happens on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan in terms of negotiations with the Taliban is more important than what happens at these international summits," she said. "So the fact that they are not present at the summit does not necessarily mean that the process is not possible, or that the accomplishments of the process are not possible."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while voicing great regret at Pakistan's decision, also said she hoped for "a follow-up way that we can have the benefit of Pakistani participation in this international effort to try to work toward a stable, secure, peaceful outcome in Afghanistan."
Author: Christina Bergmann, Washington / dl
Editor: Rob Mudge
Analysis: Confusion not progress expected at Afghan meet
Reuters By Emma Graham-Harrison and Missy Ryan Thu Dec 1, 2011
KABUL/WASHINGTON - Next week's Bonn conference on Afghanistan was supposed to offer a chance to renew Western commitment to stabilize the Asian nation as foreign troops head home after a decade battling the Taliban.
Instead it looks set to be a high-profile reminder of the West's tortuous ties with a country where they have sunk billions of dollars, and of Afghanistan's uncertain future as NATO nations facing economic crisis at home try to pull loose from a costly war some believe can no longer be won outright.
A strategic partnership pact between Washington and Kabul that was expected to provide a framework for Monday's meeting in Bonn of officials from dozens of nations has not been pinned down in time -- and may take months more to secure.
Pakistan, an insecure but powerful neighbor and perhaps the single most critical player in efforts to end Afghan violence, is boycotting the meet after NATO aircraft killed 24 of its soldiers in a weekend attack the alliance called a "tragic ... accident".
Hopes for an appearance by Taliban representatives and a breakthrough in reconciliation efforts have also faded.
And hanging over the whole meeting will be the weight of a decade in which thousands of lives and billions of dollars have failed to secure Afghanistan and achieved only fragile gains in education and women's rights, falling well short of the promises made at a conference ten years ago in the same city.
"There is definitely a sharp contrast between this Bonn conference and 2001, when there was hope and enthusiasm in the air and a desire to move beyond the Taliban and do reconstruction," said Kamran Bokhari, vice-president for South Asian affairs at political risk analysts Stratfor.
"Now you have Pakistan not attending this conference, so that does throw a monkey wrench into the system ... it's not really clear what we can expect."
World leaders had high hopes for Afghanistan when they met in Bonn in December 2001, just a few months after the September 11 attacks on New York in Washington prompted western nations to back the toppling of the Taliban government.
It was hoped civil conflict would soon recede into history and that Afghanistan would move into modernity, embracing broadrights for women and chipping away at endemic poverty.
NO HANDOUTS, NEW ECONOMY?
A decade later, the United States and others in the West have dramatically scaled back their vision of what can be accomplished in a country that has earned a reputation over centuries as a 'graveyard of empires.'
Afghanistan itself says it is not looking for handouts.
"Bonn is not about asking the international community for financial help. What we need is a firm political commitment from them to help us stand on our own two feet," deputy foreign minister Jawed Ludin told Reuters.
Western diplomats in Kabul say that the main aim of the conference is to show Afghans they will not hurry away at the end of 2014 as the Soviet Union did after their military withdrawal -- and to remind world leaders to keep Afghanistan on their agenda at a time of many competing crises.
Foreign ministers from around the world are flying into Germany for a meeting that is still likely to make headlines even if there is little of substance achieved.
It will also bring together an unusually diverse cross-section of countries with a stake in Afghanistan's future, from NATO members to Iran, Russia and China.
"When we're done in Bonn, there's going to be a vision for what the future of Afghanistan is going to be like," said one senior U.S. official. "The point of ... Bonn is to send message to Taliban and anybody else that actually international engagement and investment in Afghanistan is not over."
The meeting will showcase a scheme known as "the new silk road" to bolster Afghanistan's weak economy. U.S. officials will also begin pressing fellow donor nations to define future aid commitments in coming months, perhaps with the goal of announcing pledges at a NATO summit in Chicago in May.
"FIGHT, TALK, BUILD"
In the past year the Obama administration has embraced a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban as a central goal. But there is little sign yet that embryonic peace efforts have the potential to yield a credible agreement.
"Pakistan's refusal to attend the Bonn conference is indicative of a broader discontent in the region towards the U.S.-led reconciliation approach of 'fight, talk, build,'" said Shamila Chaudhary, who was director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. National Security Council until earlier this year and is now an analyst at the Eurasia Group.
"Many had hoped that the fighting would have stopped in time for Bonn. Since it hasn't, the entire political process remains a big question mark," she said.
Diplomats acknowledge too that without the hoped-for deal with the United States -- the country that will have to foot the lion's share of the bill for Afghan security forces and more in coming years -- the conference will lack force.
"If we had got the strategic partnership with the United States, Bonn would have been more credible," said one senior diplomat in Kabul.
A framework deal with the United States for security collaboration should have allowed other countries to follow up with commitments to keep helping Afghanistan even when their troops are no longer fighting there.
WHO'LL BLINK FIRST?
The Afghans and the Americans both seem to think that the other side need the deal more than they do and are playing a reckless game of brinksmanship.
A main stumbling block has been the night-time raids that have become deeply sensitive after civilian deaths in a string of botched operations. Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants them banned; the U.S. military says it can't succeed without them.
Another sticking point is immunity from Afghan courts for U.S. soldiers and the detention of Afghan suspects.
Afghanistan will remain heavily dependent on outside help. It faces a $7 billion annual hole in its accounts after 2014, according to a recent World Bank survey. Its army is unlikely to survive in fighting form without foreign cash.
Yet U.S. lawmakers facing pressure to cut costs are wondering how much they will have to fork out, especially amid questions about the reliability of a deeply corrupt government whose leader Karzai has at best rocky ties with the West.
President Barack Obama, eyeing re-election in 2012, appears determined to withdraw steadily as foreign troops hand control of security to Afghans by the end of 2014, even though his commanders fret about what they can accomplish before then.
But if Afghanistan splinters into civil war, the way it did after the collapse of the Soviet Union brought an end to army salary subsidies and weapons flow, it risks becoming a haven once again for militants who want to target the United States.
"Done right, our military drawdown will motivate Afghans and their neighbors to negotiate seriously with each other about their future," John Kerry, the influential Democratic senator, wrote in an op-ed published on Thursday. "Done wrong, it could precipitate another war."
The Afghan government is banking on a U.S. desire for future bases allowing it to keep an eye on Afghanistan and Pakistan as it seeks to neutralize a threat posed by militants including the Taliban, the Haqqani network and al Qaeda.
Yet the Obama administration is also grappling with another urgent desire: to finally end a long, unpopular war.
Analysts like Jeffrey Dressler of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington say militants are well aware of that yearning to go home. "By showing ourselves as wanting to get out, it's like showing red meat to all these groups," he said.
(Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; editing by Missy Ryan and editing by Anthony Boadle)
Afghan President Karzai to visit Britain next week
AFP
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will visit Britain next week to sign a strategic partnership deal with London following a conference on Afghanistan's future in Germany, his office said Friday.
Karzai will meet Prime Minister David Cameron and Prince Charles during the two-day visit Tuesday and Wednesday, officials added.
The strategic partnership agreement between Britain and Afghanistan will govern political and diplomatic relations between the two countries after 2014, by which time all foreign combat troops are due to leave.
Last month, a "loya jirga" or traditional meeting of Afghan elders endorsed a strategic partnership deal with the United States -- with a string of conditions including an end to US-led night raids -- and other countries including Britain.
The agreement with Britain is expected to be less complex than the one with the US, which is still being negotiated in talks which have dragged on longer than expected.
It is not expected to cover any future British military presence in Afghanistan after 2014, when a sizeable international training mission for Afghan forces is expected to remain.
Britain currently has around 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, mainly in the troubled southern province of Helmand.
It is the second largest contributor to the 140,000-strong foreign force fighting a Taliban-led insurgency after the US.
Karzai's trip to London will come after Monday's Bonn conference on the future of Afghanistan, which will discuss the international community's role in the warring country post-2014.
Listen to women in a new AfghanistanBy Khaled Hosseini, Special to CNN
December 2, 2011
Editor's note: Khaled Hosseini is the author of "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns." He works to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan through the Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a nonprofit aid organization.
(CNN) -- As a writer, one of my most important responsibilities is listening. I try to do so with an open mind, so I can hear the voices of the characters whose stories I will tell. When I wrote about Afghan women in my second novel, I thought about the brave women I had met in Kabul and about their stories. Their voices came to me in hushed whispers. At times they woke me in the night with the urgency of what they had to say. I am indebted to those women, because without them, my novels would lack authenticity and would also be far less likely to resonate with readers.
Supporting women's rights in Afghanistan is largely about listening. A recent report from international aid organization Oxfam summarizes it best: The voices of women in Afghanistan must be heard if a lasting peace is to be achieved and "the international community is to fulfill its agenda of setting Afghanistan on its own feet."
In recent years, women have made incredible gains in Afghanistan. The end of Taliban rule has meant a new Afghanistan, with more opportunities for women. Millions of girls are back in school. Women are working, particularly in Kabul, as professionals in a wide range of fields. Afghanistan has a female provincial governor; there are women serving in parliament, the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Only the hardest cynic would dismiss these accomplishments as insignificant.
Yet far too many women in Afghanistan are still denied a place at the table -- denied the right to speak for themselves. Oxfam's report illustrates how war and unrest, illiteracy, poverty and gender discrimination have made it nearly impossible for the vast majority of women in Afghanistan to contribute to the global dialogue about the future of their homeland. Without them, the gains that have been made in recent years for half of Afghanistan's most brilliant resources remain at risk.
When I was a boy living in Kabul, I had a different experience. A different political environment meant women were respected -- their intelligence and accomplishments greatly valued. My mother was a teacher and school administrator. She was known on campus for her confidence and effective leadership. My aunt was a professor at Kabul University. She inspired young men and women to be creative and poetic, furthering Afghanistan's rich cultural and artistic legacy. My cousin was a physician. Men and women alike relied on her skill, strength and kindness.
The women I have met in Afghanistan in recent years are equally talented. Though most have been denied education, survive without access to even basic health care and often lack even rudimentary shelter, they are determined, resilient, resourceful and optimistic. They have a truly indomitable spirit and are the real backbones of families and communities.
If Aghanistan is to exist once again as a peaceful and thriving nation, it must make women's rights one of the cornerstones of national reconstruction. Any peace negotiations with insurgent groups must ensure that Afghan women are able to exercise their rights and participate in every facet of Afghan society without fear of retribution. They must be given political, social and economic power to help usher in and sustain the country's long-term redevelopment.
Most importantly, Afghan women must be allowed the opportunity to be heard. As the International Conference on Afghanistan approaches in Bonn, Germany, world leaders must insist that women not only participate in the Afghan delegation but that all discussions around peace and reconciliation include how women will be involved. Afghan women's voices are an indispensable resource and without them, the story of peace and prosperity cannot be told.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Khaled Hosseini.
Afghanistan faces $4bn defence funding shortfall
Exclusive: US is prepared to foot only $3bn of bill for security forces, raising fears that Kabul will struggle to fight Taliban
Guardian.co.uk By Julian Borger, diplomatic editor Thursday 1 December 2011
Afghanistan's security forces face a $4bn (£2.5bn) funding shortfall after 2014 – when they are supposed to take over the main responsibility for fighting the insurgency – raising questions over whether the Kabul government will have the resources to keep the Taliban at bay, the Guardian has learned.
The Afghan army and police combined currently number about 308,000, and are due to reach their peak strength of 352,000 by the end of next year. The western strategy is for the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) to take on an increasing share in the fighting, allowing the US, Britain and their allies to withdraw all their troops from combat by 2014 and focus on training and counter-terrorist operations.
However, a 352,000-strong ANSF is estimated to cost $8bn and US officials have told their European counterparts that Washington is only prepared to foot $3bn of that bill after 2014. Other donors are expected to come up with another $1bn, enough to finance a force of only 220,000 troops.
Foreign and Afghan officials in Kabul agree such force would only be able to hold the line against the insurgents if there was a breakthrough in peace talks, or a collapse in the Taliban, both of which currently look unlikely.
"The Americans have told us that Congress is not prepared to give Afghanistan more military aid than Israel, which means no more than $3bn," a European official said.
The fear that international financial support for Afghanistan will evaporate in 2014 as the west struggles to escape from chronic recession and western capitals seek to put the conflict behind them, has alarmed the Kabul government of Hamid Karzai. Karzai will chair an international conference in Bonn on Monday designed to seek international commitments to continue to support Afghanistan long after 2014, when the country, after more than three decades of war, will continue to be an economic basket case. A World Bank report last week projected Afghanistan's fiscal deficit by 2021-22 at 25% of the country's GDP.
"Even assuming ambitious targets for robust growth in domestic revenue are met there will be an unmanageable fiscal gap," the World Bank report said.
An agreement on how to fill the current ANSF financing gap will not be attempted until the Nato summit in Chicago this summer. Meanwhile, US officials have made it clear that other countries will have to come up with more than the $1bn they are currently projected to contribute to the ANSF and are warning the Afghan government that it may have to make do with a significantly smaller force over the long term than had originally been planned.
One senior US official said: "I don't think anybody would see the 352,000 figure as a permanent figure. It is the Afghan surge. I'm not aware of any plans not to reach it [next year], but it would be an open question how long it could be held at that level."
For Afghan officials, the question mark over continued financing brings back uncomfortable memories of 1989, when the Soviet army withdrew and western support for Afghanistan vanished, leaving the country to slide into prolonged civil war.
Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan defence minister, said a dramatic shortfall in international support could lead to a return to chaos.
"Afghanistan has always been a proxy battleground in the past so if we are left alone and isolated as we were left in 1989, then the risk [of a repeat] is there, definitely," Wardak said in an interview in Kabul. "If Afghanistan is left by itself, it can become an ungoverned area or a failed state It can become once again a place terrorists can hide they can take shelter, they can train and they can plan and they can operate from."
Wardak has been privately criticised by western officials for demanding tanks and fighter jets for the Afghan army, with limited application for the sort of counter-insurgency it is currently involved in, but he argued such heavy equipment is necessary psychologically, to send a message to the Afghan people and the country's enemies alike.
"My main purpose is that it will bring up the level of confidence of the Afghan people. They are a society which is used to seeing a lot of that stuff, and with anything less than that, they are always doubtful," the defence minister said. "So aircraft and tanks and heavy stuff will no only bring up the confidence of the people. And it will send a really strong message to our enemies that the odds [against them] are much higher."
Diplomats in Kabul said they saw the $3bn US figure as an opening offer in what it is likely to be a protracted negotiation leading up to the Nato summit in Chicago.
"The United States is keen to lessen the burden on themselves, there is less money around in general and the Americans won't commit to multi-year funding. That is going to mean a negotiation with the Afghans about the size of their army, and a negotiation among the allies on who is prepared to do what," a western diplomat in Kabul said.
In London, an official from the Department for International Development pointed out that the US and its allies were currently spending more than $100bn a year on the war, so full support of the ANSF would be a bargain, in relative terms.
"In the scheme of what is spent on international security at present, it is paltry. But the track record of the international community in providing long-term financing is not great," the official said. "If the international community can find the political will for many multiples of that [needed] figure now, it should be able to find the political will now But failure to address this will lead straight back to conflict."
Flag lowering signals end of Canadian presence in Kandahar
The Globe and Mail By Campbell Clark Thursday, Dec. 01, 2011
OTTAWA - The flag has been taken down at Task Force Kandahar as Canadian soldiers mark the coming end of their presence in the bloody Afghan province. The last task, to send kit home, is being held up at the line that always loomed over the mission, the Pakistan border.
The lowering of the Maple Leaf in a quiet ceremony on Thursday at the Kandahar Air Field marked the symbolic end of Canadian presence in the war-ravaged southern province after six years.
The Canadian Forces troops who are there to dismantle equipment and send it home after the combat mission ended in July will leave by Dec. 12.
Lt. Gen. Stuart Beare, the commander of Canadian expeditionary forces, told The Canadian Press it was “gratifying” to witness the last ceremony in Kandahar, and that allies understand the decision to leave the province and send 950 soldiers to the Afghan capital, Kabul, for a training mission.
“They may miss us in terms of seeing the flag walking around KAF,” he said. “They know we're still in the game and we're going to be doing it from Kabul.”
But the delay in completing the last task of sending equipment home is symbolic of challenges Canadian troops faced in Kandahar that still threaten the training mission’s goals of building Afghan forces that can secure the nation.
Sensitive weapons and equipment have been sent by air, but road convoys to carry the rest have been delayed by Pakistan’s decision to close the border over U.S. cross-border strikes on Nov. 26 that killed 24 soldiers.
For years, Canadian soldiers fought to clear Kandahar Taliban insurgents, who slipped across the Pakistan border and returned for new fighting with the acceptance or support of at least elements of Pakistan’s army and intelligence service, according to western officials.
It meant Canadian soldiers in Kandahar were in a battle they could not win on Afghan territory alone, said Gordon Smith, the director of Centre of Global Studies at the University of Victoria.
“They did a great job. They lost their lives,” he said. “It was mission impossible.”
Mr. Smith faced criticism when he issued a 2007 report that said political settlement with elements of the Taliban would be necessary, a sentiment that has since become a tenet of NATO policy. One reason he cited was Pakistan’s acceptance or support of Taliban activities.
Canadian troops’ shift to training Afghan forces in the hope they can eventually secure the nation is tied in part to some form of political reconciliation. Pakistan’s border closing could work as an obstacle to NATO allies’ efforts to encourage a political settlement in Afghanistan.
With a report from The Canadian Press
Herat Officials Allege Interference by Elected Assembly
Police say provincial council members spring suspects from detention before they can be brought to trial.
IWPR By Abdul Razaq Moheq 1 Dec 11
Afghanistan - The elected assembly for the western Afghan province of Herat is under fire from police and prosecutors, who accuse its members of corrupt practices including getting crime suspects released.
Allegations of interference in the affairs of local government and policing reflect tensions between the 19-member elected council and the executive, local observers say.
The chief of police in Herat province, General Sayed Aqa Saqeb, openly complains of interference by some of provincial councillors.
In one case, he said, police arrested a man accused of instigating trouble against the security forces, but was released soon afterwards after someone from the council intervened on his behalf. Saqeb said this kind of thing would not only increase crime rates as perpetrators acted with impunity, but would dent police morale.
Maria Bashir, the chief prosecutor in Herat, confirmed that this was going on – her office had also been approached by assembly members asking for suspects to be freed or to get reduced sentences.
“Unfortunately, certain representatives of the people on the provincial council try to make government agencies do illegal things, abusing their titles and exerting pressure and influence,” she said.
According to Bashir, many councillors were ignorant of Afghan law, the extent of the powers granted them, and the demarcation between their role and that of other institutions of state.
Others argue that ignorance of the law may have worked as an excuse in past years, but the current assembly is the second to be elected, so its members should be aware of the rules by now.
Abdol Razaq Rahmani, director of the local passport department, confirmed that his staff had been asked by councillors to issue documents on behalf of favoured constituents.
Pointing at his mobile phone, he said, “We don’t have blank passports. I receive so many calls from officials that I finally had to switch my phone off today.”
Gholam Mahbub from the Zenda Jan district said his own experience showed how having the right connections was key to getting a passport.
“A friend of mine came with me to the city to obtain a passport and he managed to get one in two days because he knows a provincial councillor,” he said. “I have spent the past ten days trying to get a passport, as I don’t know anyone.”
The council’s chairman, Abdul Zaher Faizzadah, rejects all allegations of wrongdoing by his fellow-members.
“Members of the provincial council have never made illegal requests of government agencies,” he said. “Whenever they have approached government agencies, it has only been to resolve people’s problems, something that lies within their mandate and indeed is their legal obligation.”
Faizzadah said the accusations made against the council reflected a deep-seated hostility to its members.
However, at least one assembly member told IWPR that colleagues had acted outside the law.
“The provincial council’s members are part of the same society in which corruption and law-breaking exist,” the councillor said. “My own constituents have illegal demands of me as well, but I explain to them that I am not authorised to do so, and I try to convince them of this.”
A second councillor also told IWPR of corruption and abuse of power by assembly members, saying, “I cannot defend thieving representatives,” but later retracted the remarks.
Abdul Qader Kamel, head of the Association of Political Parties and Civic Institutions in Herat, said the behaviour of council members was likely to erode not only their credibility, but people’s faith in elections in general.
“It is not the job of provincial councillors to apply to government agencies in pursuit of their personal interests or matters relating to their friends, nor to demand illegal things from them,” he said.
Bashir said any councillor who committed an offence was liable to face prosecution by her office, or by military prosecutors if the crime related to security issues. But she acknowledged that no prosecutions had yet been brought, and no cases were pending.
Abdul Razaq Moheq is an IWPR-trained reporter in Herat, western Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com