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Kabul Promises Change, Gets Vow of Lasting Aid
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV The Wall Street Journal
BONN, Germany—Representatives of 85 countries pledged to support Afghanistan in the decade after most coalition forces withdraw in 2014, demanding in exchange better governance, a clampdown on graft, and clean elections once President Hamid Karzai's term expires.
A key amendment to the Bonn conference's communiqué, inserted after Western insistence on Monday, called for "strengthening and improving Afghanistan's electoral process." Afghanistan approved the statement.
Mr. Karzai, whose fraud-marred re-election in 2009 badly strained Kabul's relations with the West, is barred by the Afghan constitution from running again in 2014, and has said he isn't seeking another term.
Many of Mr. Karzai's opponents in Kabul, however, say they fear he could try to retain power by citing deteriorating security and convening a traditional gathering known as the Loya Jirga to authorize an extension of his tenure.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that isn't an option. "The Afghans committed to proceed with inclusive, fair and credible presidential elections, and a peaceful and democratic transfer of power in 2014," she said, speaking after a meeting in Bonn with Mr. Karzai on Monday.
Relations between Kabul and the international community should be built in the spirit of "mutual accountability" in which foreign aid is reciprocated with better governance and reforms, Mrs. Clinton added.
"The United States is prepared to stand with the Afghan people, but the Afghans themselves must also meet the commitments they have made," she said.
A United Nations-led watchdog, the Electoral Complaints Commission, disqualified nearly a million votes recorded as cast for Mr. Karzai in 2009, depriving him of an outright majority. Mr. Karzai—who complained of foreign "interference" at the time—has since reduced the ECC's autonomy.
Now, the Afghan government is seeking to remove the U.N.'s electoral oversight role outright as it negotiates a new mandate for the U.N. mission in the country.
Mr. Karzai, addressing the conference, said he will "Afghanize" the electoral process to ensure that future elections are "insulated against fraud and interference."
By contrast, Mrs. Clinton stressed the need for the international community's continuing role in the Afghan elections.
Mahmoud Saikal, a representative of the Afghan opposition attending the Bonn summit, said he doubted how much effect Western pressure will have on Mr. Karzai by 2014. "To restore the credibility of the badly damaged electoral process is not easy," he said. "The man doesn't believe in the rule of law, the constitution or the political opposition."
In his address, Mr. Karzai voiced a commitment to the rule of law and democracy.
He also appealed for continuing international funding well after foreign forces have pulled out. The Afghan government has estimated it will need at least $10 billion a year in coming years to forestall the collapse of its security forces and basic services.
"The Afghan people do not wish to remain a burden on the generosity of the international community for a single day longer than absolutely necessary," Mr. Karzai said. "But we will need your steadfast support for at least another decade."
In response, the conference statement promised to meet Afghanistan's "special, significant and continuing" fiscal needs in the years after 2014. A separate donor conference in Tokyo in July is slated to discuss the financial details.
The donors' generosity is likely to be limited, given the economic troubles in Europe and the U.S. "As everyone is aware, the international community faces fiscal constraints," Mrs. Clinton said in Bonn. She said the exact amount of aid the Afghans can expect has yet to be decided.
When the Bonn conference was announced last year, its organizers expected that a tentative peace process with the Taliban would bear its first fruits by now, possibly allowing Taliban representatives to attend the gathering, or at least its sidelines. The Taliban, however, chose to boycott the meeting, describing it as "an American trap." Pakistan, where most Taliban leaders are based, also pulled out of the event.
Mrs. Clinton acknowledged in Bonn that the peace process with the insurgents is still "at the very beginning." Any future settlement with the Taliban, she added, shouldn't sacrifice women's rights and other achievements of the past decade. Speaker after speaker at the conference made the same demands.
Mrs. Clinton, however, also injected a dose of realism. "In conflicts you do not make peace with your friends," she said. "If you want to resolve a conflict, then you have to sit across the table and talk with people whose views are often very different from yours."
A Counterinsurgency Success in Afghanistan
Local Taliban leaders offer help in fighting 'foreign Taliban': 'We will finish them together.'
Wall Street Journal By ANNE JOLIS DECEMBER 5, 2011
Forward Operating Base Howz-e-Madad, Afghanistan - On Monday the world's governments gather in Bonn, Germany, to discuss the future of Afghanistan, as NATO forces prepare to withdraw by 2014. Germany had wanted the Taliban at the table in Bonn, which the Americans wouldn't countenance. Pakistan has opted to boycott the conference, and activists are descending upon Bonn to agitate for an even faster NATO draw-down.
Meanwhile, in Howz-e-Madad, Kandahar Province, Maj. Brian Ducote of the First Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, has not given up on delivering a sustainable peace to this patch of southern Afghanistan—one that won't wind up harboring terrorists bent on attacking innocent Westerners. Until very recently the area was a hotbed of insurgent activity and attacks against NATO troops and locals alike. But last week, 15 months after the major arrived as part of the U.S. surge, the battalion had a breakthrough: a letter, signed by several local Taliban leaders and mid-level operators.
"We are ready to give up our weapons if you are ready to respond to our requests," reads the letter, stamped with the Taliban movement's official letterhead, which was seen by the Journal.
The signatories request that their courier be protected, as well as their own identities. The wavering insurgents go on to speak of "foreign Taliban who are not ready to give up their weapons. We will finish them together." They want "things like the release of prisoners," but also "drinking water for local mosques and schools. . . . Nobody will help us, so we want help from you."
"It's a beautiful thing," grins the 35-year-old Georgia native, who says this is the most "hopeful progress" he's seen. His battalion is part of the Third Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, better known as Task Force Spartan, whose arrival in March of this year increased U.S. troop presence in this portion of western Kandahar to about 4,200 from no more than 800 in 2008.
The battalion's work began with an aggressive clearing operation against Taliban strongholds. As the troops have gradually stabilized the area, they have also been able to focus on winning the confidence of the locals, and on rebuilding and development projects.
Last week's letter suggests it's starting to pay off. The Taliban's core have "black hearts," says the major. But many of its foot-soldiers and mid-level operatives joined out of expedience rather than ideology, and they are now "feeling disenfranchised, as they see the [Afghan] government strengthen. They see that there are local solutions to governance. They don't want to be left behind."
This progress builds on the evidence in Iraq that counterinsurgency can work: "We live outside the wire," says Maj. Ducote. It also shows what American soldiers can achieve when politicians let them. "It's always about time," says Maj. Ducote.
By March, his battalion and the rest of Task Force Spartan will leave Kandahar. They will be replaced by the Fourth Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, which will mean a small reduction in the number of soldiers.
While last week's message "is a positive step, they're not at the table yet," the major cautions. "I'd say they're looking at the table from a distance. This is not the end of our hard work to bring about stability—enduring stability—to this area."
But "it's a delicate balance, it has to be a genuine relationship based in trust. If we're perceived as disingenuous, we're not making real progress," Maj. Ducote adds. Counterinsurgency is "about accepting the fact that we can't always control the speed at which they want to build those relationships."
There's a lot that Western governments can't control in a country like Afghanistan. Our commitment to sustaining the gains that soldiers like Maj. Ducote have already achieved are not among them.
Miss Jolis is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.
Afghan Allies Pledge Long-Term Support
VOA News December 5, 2011
World leaders have pledged long-term support to war-torn Afghanistan as international combat troops prepare to leave the country by 2014.
Some 100 nations and international organizations attended Monday's international conference, in the Germany city of Bonn, which was aimed at charting the course for the country's future.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. is ready to support Afghanistan, but the South Asian nation must carry through on reforms, take responsibility for its own security, and build a democracy rooted in the rule of law.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the conference that after the withdrawal of NATO troops from his country in 2014, Afghanistan will still need international help for at least another decade.
He said the Afghan government will work to fight corruption more effectively and further reform government institutions to render them more efficient, transparent, and accountable.
Pakistan, considered vital to any prospect of stability in Afghanistan, boycotted the one-day meeting in response to a cross-border attack by NATO late last month that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Clinton said it was unfortunate that Pakistan didn't attend, but said she expected it to play a constructive role going forward.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's western neighbor Iran, represented by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, said it strongly condemned any foreign military bases in the country after 2014.
The talks in the former German capital focused on three key areas: the transfer of security responsibilities from international to Afghan forces, reconciliation with the Taliban, and long-term prospects for international aid.
No new aid pledges were expected at the meeting. However, the United States announced it would resume paying into the World Bank-administered Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, which it said would allow for the disbursement of more than $650 million in aid suspended over concerns about Afghanistan's troubled Kabul Bank.
Afghanistan says it will need outside aid until 2025
Washington Post By Karen DeYoung Monday, December 5, 2011
BONN - Afghanistan expects to remain dependent on international economic assistance until 2025, according to projections President Hamid Karzai will deliver to global partners at a conference here Monday.
Together with ongoing costs to support the Afghan army and police forces, at least $10 billion in assistance will be required annually after the scheduled departure of foreign combat forces by the end of 2014.
“At first glance, this figure may look enormous,” a final draft of the Afghan report said. But its total cost “will be lower than a single year of current military expenditure” by the international community of about $140 billion, it said.
The United States and the World Bank anticipate that Afghanistan’s economic growth of up to 11 percent in recent years will drop by more than half as security responsibility is transferred to Afghan forces over the next three years.
“This decline, if left unmitigated, could have a serious effect on stability, particularly in those regions and sectors that have been most bolstered by external funding,” according to an Obama administration assessment sent to Congress on Friday.
The Bonn conference, chaired by Afghanistan on the 10th anniversary of the international gathering here that established an interim Afghan government after the overthrow of the Taliban, will seek broad commitments from donors not to abandon their support after the end of military operations.
All donors are under severe budget constraints. The fear is that as their military efforts decrease, they will begin to withdraw economic assistance. The United States, by far the largest contributor, will spend about $120 billion in Afghanistan this year, less than a tenth of it in nonmilitary aid.
The continuation of economic assistance “is an obligation that has to be met to ensure that we don’t throw away 10 years of blood and treasure” spent fending off a Taliban return, said a senior official of one of the several international organizations with major roles in Afghanistan.
NATO agreed at a summit last year that it would end its combat role in Afghanistan in December 2014. In July, President Obama announced an initial withdrawal of 33,000 U.S. troops by September 2012, leaving about 68,000.
In an ongoing transition process, the Afghans have assumed security control for more than half the country, although foreign forces continue to provide advice and backup in those areas.
Afghans weary of yet another summit ahead of Bonn Conference
An international conference on Afghanistan's future opens Monday in Bonn, Germany. But on the streets of Kabul, Afghans have low expectations a decade into the Western presence here.
Christian Science Monitor By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent December 4, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan - As leaders from around the world gather in Bonn, Germany to discuss the future of Afghanistan the stakes could not be higher. Question marks hover over NATO and Afghan forces' progress against the insurgency, the future of US involvement after its 2014 withdrawal deadline, and which factions in the conflict Pakistan will ultimately support.
Yet for many Afghans, the second Bonn Conference is little to be excited about. International summits like it have taken place on a nearly annual basis over the past ten years and most Afghans say they’ve seen little change as a result.
“I don’t think these conferences are for the good of Afghanistan. We’ve seen many other conferences where hundreds or even thousands of people came. During conferences here in Afghanistan, they closed the roads and people suffered due to strict security policies or even died in attacks during the conference, but they changed nothing,” says Zmary Sapai, a wholesale food merchant in Kabul. “These conferences are just throwing dirt in the eyes of the Afghan people.”
MONITOR QUIZ: Weekly News Quiz for Nov. 27-Dec. 2, 2011
On Monday the second Bonn Conference will take place 10 years after the first one gathered shortly after the fall of the Taliban government. A decade ago Afghan and international leaders gathered to create a transitional government and pave the way for a new constitution.
Today the political and security situation in Afghanistan remains far from settled and Afghan leaders at Bonn will likely be looking to secure continued international support for the decade to come as they seek to create lasting stability.
The first Bonn Conference and the years immediately following it were marked with much hope following the ouster of the Taliban government and violence staying at relatively low levels. Within five years, however, the Taliban resurgence was well under way and the promises of reconstruction and peace seemed distant to most Afghans.
RECOMMENDED Four things to know about the Bonn Conference
“If the coming 10 years are like the last 10 years, it will make the Afghans very concerned. After the first Bonn Conference they were saying that they were bringing democracy to Afghanistan, but they gave the country to warlords and jihadist groups,” says Babrak Shinwari, a former member of Parliament from Nangarhar.
Despite billions of dollars of international investment in Afghanistan’s reconstruction – more than $70 billion from the US alone – the nation has seen questionable progress.
Human Rights Watch was one of several organizations to issue a cautionary statement in the days leading up to the conference. The rights organization warned of a situation “dominated by poor governance, lack of rule of law, impunity for militias and police, laws and policies that harm women, and conflict-related abuses.”
Still, there is hope enough time remains to overcome the mistakes of the last ten years. In addition to time, many say improvement will also require enduring international funding.
The Afghan government currently gets 90 percent of its public spending budget from international donors and the World Bank recently warned that it will depend on billions of dollars in foreign assistance for years to come in order to stay afloat.
“From the Bonn Conference what we hope is that the Afghan government makes their demands and suggestions in a fair way that can convince the international community to keep their political and economic assistance for the long-term and maintain these achievements we’ve made over the last several years with the support of the international community,” says Zaifnoon Safi, a member of parliament from Laghman Province.
Pakistan Holds Firm to Afghanistan Conference Boycott
VOA News December 5, 2011 Kurt Achin
Islamabad, Pakistan - Pakistan is holding firm to its boycott of the Bonn international conference on Afghanistan, and warns it will stay away from any future peace process unless its sovereignty and security concerns are better respected.
With Pakistan conspicuously absent from Monday's international conference in Bonn, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter went on domestic TV here in Islamabad to express Washington's disappointment.
"Afghanistan is Pakistan's neighbor. Pakistan deserves a voice at the table to talk about these things. We have tried to convince our Pakistani friends to attend. If they choose not to attend, that is their choice," said Munter.
Pakistani officials announced a boycott of the Bonn conference soon after U.S. helicopters and fighter jets reportedly fired on two Pakistani military encampments, killing 24 soldiers. Pakistan resisted all efforts to persuade it to send envoys to the conference, including a phone call Sunday, on the eve of the conference, to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari from President Barack Obama, who expressed regret over the incident.
Ambassador Munter said Monday the United States is complying with a Pakistan's order to vacate U.S. personnel from an airbase in southwestern Pakistan. He repeated the White House's message that last week's attack was a "tragedy" and a "mistake." In an interview with Pakistan state television, he hinted that those responsible may face punishment.
"I can only say that we will have an investigation, and that if people have been found to have made mistakes, there will be results," he said.
Pakistani leaders says they are fully reviewing the terms for the country's engagement with the United States. Abdul Basit, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, said Pakistan supports Afghan peace efforts, but that last month's NATO attack created circumstances that would not permit Pakistan to attend the Bonn conference. He said if those circumstances do not change, it will be difficult for Pakistan to associate itself with any peace process in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's main demand is for better coordination between its military and the U.S.-led NATO stabilization force in Afghanistan to ensure that Pakistani sovereignty is respected.
America's Pakistan Mess Gets Worse With Alleged NATO Strike
Pakistan, South Asia, Afghanistan, Middle East, U.S. Military
Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy The Daily Beast
America’s relationship with Pakistan is crashing. Decades of mistrust and duplicity on both sides are coming to the surface. The Pakistani Army has an agenda that is at odds with ours. At bottom, we are on opposite sides of the war in Afghanistan, and that poisons everything.
The death of two dozen Pakistani jawans, or soldiers, allegedly due to NATO airstrikes, is the latest crisis in a year of crises along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of course, we need to let the two armies investigate what exactly happened and apportion blame. But the facts won't change the downward slide in the relationship. In 2011 we have argued over drones, a CIA contractor named Raymond Davis, Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, the assassination of Afghan peace negotiator and former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, and the Taliban attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in September, which the Pakistani Army orchestrated. In every case, the details were disputed, but the big takeaway is clear—we just don't trust each other. Two of the six biggest countries in the world simply have no faith in each other's word.
This trust gap is the result of decades of mutual deceit and lying. Pakistan proclaimed it was our ally against communism or Al Qaeda or whatever when what it really just wanted was arms and help to fight India. America promised to help democracy in Pakistan and instead backed four brutal military dictators. Ironically, the Army believes we have betrayed it over and over again. We have.
Now we are at war in Afghanistan. Since at least 2005, Pakistan's Army has been assisting the Afghan Taliban in fighting the Afghan government we support and the world accepts as the legitimate government of the country. Pakistan's Army backs a medieval monstrosity that would impose a reprise of the Taliban hell of the 1990s. It prefers this to what it dreads: a pro-India regime on its western border. It tries to hide its hand, but regularly its troops along the border shelter the Taliban and even provide artillery support. It harbors their leaders, including Mullah Mohammed Omar in Quetta. It gives training and advice to those who kill Americans. Former Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who knows Pakistan well, said it clearly: it backs our enemy.
This is the fundamental problem that all the diplomatic niceties can't ignore. NATO supports the Karzai government. Pakistan's Army (not its civilian government) backs the Afghan Taliban. The Army has politically neutered the civilians elected to run Pakistan in 2008. Three years ago it used the Nov. 26 terror attack on Mumbai to neuter President Asif Ali Zardari; he wanted to cooperate with India's investigation of the terrorists, and it didn't. It won. Now it has engineered the ouster of Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, whom it has long despised because he literally wrote the book on their lying and deceit. It won again.
Now it is interfering with NATO's supply line from Karachi. About half our supplies come through there. The Pakistani Army controls both our logistics and the Taliban's. It's a good place to be in war. The Army knows it. Now it also has threatened (again) to shut down a drone base.
America has to engage Pakistan. It is too important not to engage. It is on track to have the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. But we also need to help Pakistan's weak democracy and contain its generals. It is a tough balance. A year ago, President Obama promised he would visit Pakistan in 2011. The visit is not even on the agenda anymore. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship is in tatters. It is likely to get even worse now.
Afghan Peace Effort Hits Wall
Pakistan's Pullout From Bonn Meeting, No Taliban Role Bodes Ill for Cooperation
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV DECEMBER 5, 2011
BONN, Germany - Monday's international conference on Afghanistan, initially convened to encourage talks with the Taliban and spur regional cooperation, is highlighting instead the likely dead end in the peace outreach and the failure to get Pakistani help in stabilizing the country.
The Bonn gathering, held 10 years after another meeting here created Afghanistan's first post-Taliban government and marked the beginning of unprecedented international involvement in the country, is bringing together senior officials from nearly 100 nations, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the United Nations Secretary General.
Not attending, however, are the Taliban—who were excluded from the original Bonn setup and have waged an intensifying insurgency ever since. Pakistan, too, decided to boycott the conference after some 24 of its soldiers were killed a week ago in a U.S. airstrike near the Afghan border. Another neighbor, Iran, which is attending, said it will use the Bonn pulpit to campaign against U.S. military bases on Afghan soil.
Just as Iran's foreign minister arrived in Bonn Sunday afternoon, the country's Fars news agency reported that Iranian forces downed an American drone that strayed into Iranian airspace. The U.S.-led coalition command in Kabul said its troops lost control of an unarmed drone over western Afghanistan last week.
"The narrative of regional cooperation being built up in Washington and other Western capitals in no way matches reality," said Candace Rondeaux, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, a global think tank. "Everybody who should be at the table working together is working at cross purposes. "
When the Bonn meeting was initially announced last year, hopes were high that the tentative peace outreach would bring concrete results by now. Germany, in particular, was engaged in organizing what seemed like promising contacts with Tayeb Agha, believed to represent the senior Taliban command. These expectations were punctured, however, after a purported Taliban peace emissary assassinated Afghanistan's top negotiator, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, in Kabul in September.
Relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, meanwhile, steadily deteriorated after the May killing of Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil, with American officials openly accusing Islamabad of funding and arming the Taliban and the related Haqqani network.
Pakistan's decision to boycott the Bonn gathering made it impossible for any potential Taliban-linked figures to participate, said Thomas Ruttig, senior analyst at the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analyst Network: "If the Pakistanis are not going, the Taliban cannot come."
The conference organizers are playing down the significance of the Pakistani pullout. "It is regrettable—but it is really their loss for not being part of this constructive and rewarding process," Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister, Jawed Ludin, said in an interview.
The German hosts were even more dismissive. Speaking minutes after a protocol officer carried out a flagpole with the Pakistani banner from the conference's venue in the former West German parliament this weekend, Germany's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Michael Steiner, argued that the issues of regional cooperation already had been discussed with Pakistan at a meeting in Istanbul last month.
Pakistan's absence "doesn't change the outcome," Mr. Steiner said. "It doesn't affect a single comma."
Another senior Western diplomat broke out laughing when he heard Mr. Steiner's words. "It is the elephant in the room," he said.
With hopes for progress in the peace talks and regional cooperation dashed, the Bonn conference's main message, officials said, will be to reassure the Afghans that the international community will continue its support even after most foreign troops leave in 2014—as long as Mr. Karzai's administration improves governance and clamps down on corruption.
Mr. Karzai made such a pledge Sunday night, addressing a dinner for the attending delegations. "We will remain committed to the reforms we have promised," he said, "and to working for a peace process that is Afghan-owned and Afghan-led."
The Afghan government estimates it will need as much as $10 billion a year in international aid for many years to come to prevent its administration and security forces from collapsing—a level that many Western analysts say is unrealistic. Ahead of the Bonn gathering, Afghan officials had touted the idea of a so-called "transition dividend" under which coalition nations would commit to investing in Afghanistan part of the money that they save by pulling out their troops in coming years.
This idea, however, was dropped from the conference's declaration, diplomats said, in part because of donor nations' resistance to such commitments. Actual levels of international financial support for Afghanistan aren't scheduled to be discussed until a pledging conference in Japan next year.
Still, Mr. Ludin said, the Bonn communique Monday will contain "very solid language" about the international community's continuing financial support for Afghanistan in the decade after 2014. "The world is aware of Afghanistan's unique needs during these years," he said, "and of the fact that Afghanistan won't be able to pay for all its costs with its own revenue for quite some time."
Obama Laments Pakistan Killings
Wall Street Journal By ADAM ENTOUS DECEMBER 5, 2011
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama called his Pakistani counterpart to personally express his condolences for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a recent NATO airstrike along Afghanistan's border, a sign the White House was stepping up efforts to ease tensions.
The White House said Mr. Obama told Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari during the call that "this regrettable incident was not a deliberate attack on Pakistan and reiterated the United States' strong commitment to a full investigation." Mr. Obama called the loss of life "tragic."
It was the first such statement by Mr. Obama since the Nov. 26 incident. U.S. officials have called the incident a tragedy and have offered condolences, but haven't apologized for any wrongdoing, as the Pakistanis still demand, citing the need to complete an investigation.
The White House said Messrs. Obama and Zardari "reaffirmed their commitment to the U.S.-Pakistan bilateral relationship, which is critical to the security of both nations."
U.S. and Pakistani officials have offered conflicting accounts of the incident, which has badly strained already shaky U.S.-Pakistan relations. Pakistan has so far refused to take part in the U.S. investigation.
As a result of the strike, Islamabad has boycotted a conference in Bonn of countries meeting Monday on ways to aid Afghanistan, which borders Pakistan, and has closed border crossings to North Atlantic Treaty Organization convoys trying to move supplies to U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The government also has asked the U.S. to cease its drone operations from Shamsi Air Base in the country's southwest. U.S. has already begun readying equipment to depart from the base, officials say.
"Loss of access to this base would not lessen capabilities, as it has served primarily as a back-up capability for quite a while now," a U.S. official said.
U.S. officials say the Central Intelligence Agency can launch the drones from bases in Afghanistan. The CIA uses the drones to strike militant targets on Pakistani soil. And NATO supplies can be flown over Pakistan into Afghanistan.
Both the air cargo and drone operations depend primarily on access to Pakistani air space, which Islamabad has kept open.
The White House had considered having Mr. Obama issue a video message expressing condolences for the incident but decided not to do so for now.
U.S. officials say mistakes were made on both sides that led to the airstrike that killed the Pakistani soldiers.
Mr. Obama's decision to personally engage with Mr. Zardari shows that efforts by top State Department and military officials have thus far been insufficient in getting Islamabad to tone down its response to the incident.
The administration's urgency reflects concerns that Pakistan could keep the border with Afghanistan closed for weeks if not months, potentially resulting in supply shortages for U.S. and NATO forces there.
Pentagon planners say they have enough ammunition and other supplies to last at least 60 days, but some officials say shortages of fuel and other essentials could start to appear sooner.
Pakistani officials charged the strike was a deliberate attack on Pakistani troops by NATO forces. U.S. officials said Afghan and U.S. commandos were pursuing militants in the area the night of the attack and received clearance for the strike from a joint border coordination center run by U.S., Afghan and Pakistani officials.
Pakistani officials responded that the U.S. forces provided the center with the incorrect location for the strike. U.S. officials say they gave accurate data. —Siobhan Gorman contributed to this article.
Pakistan, Taliban Make Presence Felt In Bonn By Their Absence
By Charles Recknagel December 5, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
BONN, Germany -- The message coming from Bonn was clear: the international community intends to support Afghanistan after foreign combat troops leave the country, and that means new training for Afghanistan's security forces and further development aid for its economy.
At least that's the message conveyed by the bevy of high-powered representatives of 85 countries and 16 international organizations gathered at the so-called Bonn II conference.
But if participants' focus was on committing to Afghanistan after foreign troops leave by the end of 2014, two key players made their presence felt by their absence: Pakistan and the Taliban.
??"We would, of course, have benefited from Pakistan's contribution to this conference," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted. "And to that end, nobody in this hall is more concerned than the United States is about getting an accurate picture of what occurred in the recent border incident."
Damage Control
Pakistan said it would not come after NATO accidentally attacked two of its border posts late last month, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Pakistan is a key player in the Afghan crisis because it is on Pakistani soil that Afghan insurgents have their safe havens. Islamabad also is widely believed to wield such influence with some Taliban groups -- particularly the Haqqani faction -- that Islamabad's cooperation is needed to bring them into any Afghan peace process.
Islamabad's boycott left Kabul, which has difficult relations with its neighbor, in the awkward position of trying to do damage control.
Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin told RFE/RL that Afghanistan and Pakistan continued to talk bilaterally about security matters no matter what happened on the larger world stage.
"Well, Pakistan's support is absolutely crucial, but we are working with them on that on a bilateral basis," Ludin said. "That is a process that is ongoing, as I said. But their absence from this conference is not going to affect our bilateral relationship."
For it's part, the Taliban's absence only further underlined the challenges to peace in Pakistan. Afghan officials confirmed to RFE/RL that no active members of the Taliban, nor any prominent former members of the organization, were present in Bonn.
No Ignoring The Neighbors
Yet Pakistan's and the Taliban's absence was important for other reasons as well. One is the much-voiced hope in Bonn that peace in Afghanistan could help the entire region become more peaceful and prosperous.
As Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the conference: "A stable, secure, and developed Afghanistan is not just the noble desire of the Afghan people and our international friends. It is a necessity if the region is to achieve security and meaningful economic integration."
Kabul and the international community know that one day Afghanistan will have to stand on its own economic base, and that base can only come through trade with its immediate and extended neighbors.
Other Kabul officials brought this same message with them as they attended the conference.
Afghan Finance Minister Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal told RFE/RL that Kabul wanted good economic relations with all of its neighbors, even those like Iran that today give its Western backers cause for alarm.
"We don't get involved in the politics of the U.S. and others. We have kept the best of relationships with Pakistan. We have kept the best of relations with Iran. We want to keep the best of relations and the U.S. is supportive of this," Zakhilwal said.
"Again, they are keeping their bilateral politics with Iran and everybody else to themselves and do not make it part of their policy in Afghanistan," he noted. "And Afghans genuinely want their country to move toward stability and to become a genuine, active part of the region which includes Iran, which includes Pakistan, and which includes the north, China, and everyone else."
Because of its location, Afghanistan is a land bridge for transit, transportation, and connectivity within the region. Routes through Afghanistan could provide Central Asia with direct access to the booming markets of India, a prospect that interests gas-exporting Turkmenistan, to mention just one state.
This conference took place 10 years after the first Bonn conference sought to set out the foundations of a new Afghanistan following the toppling of the Taliban in 2001.
The conference did not focus on pledges of new dollar amounts for Afghanistan but on showing that the world's willingness to help the strife-torn country remains undiminished.
Afghan anti-corruption watchdog threatens to quit
Hamid Karzai warned corrupt senior officials must be prosecuted to end stalemate in battle with Taliban
Guardian.co.uk By Julian Borger, diplomatic editor Sunday 4 December 2011
The head of an internationally backed corruption watchdog in Afghanistan has warned that members will resign in protest if the government of President Hamid Karzai does not start prosecuting senior officials.
Speaking in the runup to Monday's Bonn conference on Afghanistan, Drago Kos severely criticised the two Afghan institutions in charge of tackling corruption: the attorney general's office and the high office of oversight (HOO).
"We are not satisfied with their work. If they take the lead, there will be impunity. Nobody is ever brought to court. There are no prosecutions. Cases just stop at the HOO or the police or the attorney general's office. Orally, they support our work, but nothing is done," said Kos. The independent anti-corruption monitoring and evaluation committee was created this year largely at the prompting of the US and British governments, but Kos said so far there had been no prosecutions of top Afghan figures implicated in corruption.
"We will have no problem to leave as soon as possible. If there are no changes, there is no point for us to stay. We are out of here," said Kos, who also chairs the Council of Europe's anti-corruption group.
Ten years ago an agreement in Bonn formally recognised the Karzai government after the fall of the Taliban and marked the formation of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). A decade on, Karzai is still battling the Taliban and Isaf is due to withdraw its combat forces with no victory in sight. Kos, like many western officials in Kabul, sees endemic corruption as a principal factor in the stalemate. "Corruption is Afghanistan's number one problem. It's not security, not the Taliban. Those are dramatic but corruption affects the lives of all the people. It is felt by everyone."
Last year the country's largest private financial institution, Kabul Bank, virtually collapsed after some $900m in unsecured loans to insiders such as the president's brother, Mahmoud Karzai, and Abdul Haseen Fahim, the brother of vice-president Qasim Fahim. Kos said it: "It was not a bank. It was a Ponzi scheme." So far there have been no prosecutions.
"This government has to prove it is serious. Only way to prove that is by bringing people in top position to court," he said. He criticised the attorney general's strategy of putting the recouping of the lost funds over prosecutions. "We say it is easier to bargain with suspects when your freeze their assets," he said.
The attorney general's office rejected criticism of its investigation of the Kabul Bank, which it said was progressing "normally".
The deputy attorney general, Rahmatullah Nazari, said: "MEC has asked us for a clarification, but it shared the issue with the media before our clarification."
Some western officials suggested it would be impossible, after more than three decades of warfare, to hold the Kabul government to too high a standard, and called on the international community to be realistic in its expectations of the Bonn conference.
A senior US official said: "Success would be an Afghan state that is stable enough to have a minimal level of confidence of its citizens. A state that would be able to secure itself past 2014, on the road to democracy and a decreasing dependence on aid."
The official pointed to a recent national opinion survey by the Asia Foundation which found that 73% of Afghans asked thought the government was doing a good job. More respondents (46%) said the country was moving in the right direction, than said it was moving the wrong way (36%). Among the pessimists, nearly half said security was the main problem, while only 16% cited corruption.
What comes next
Afghanistan gets a rotten press in the West but the outlook is not all bad, particularly if the country’s security forces, shown above, do what is hoped
The Economist Dec 3rd 2011
Kabul and Kandahar - WHEN a bodyguard working for southern Afghanistan’s most notorious power broker gunned down his boss in July, a medley of voices loudly declared the end was nigh for Kandahar. Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of Kandahar’s provincial council and brother of Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, had long been accused of running a mafia-style criminal syndicate that excluded important tribes from influence, encouraging them to support the Taliban. Nonetheless, his death caused talk of a dangerous power vacuum. In fact, the city and province of Kandahar now look in better shape than they have for years. Roads in the province which were once laced with landmines, are far safer than they were and farmers from areas that were once war zones say they can drive their goods to market without fear.
Next week an international conference on the future of Afghanistan will be held in Bonn. It comes almost exactly a decade after the first, which was intended to launch one of the poorest countries in the world, torn apart by war for more than quarter of century, on a path towards stability, democracy and the rule of law. After numerous setbacks, the mood at next week’s conference will be far less heady than it was ten years ago, just after al-Qaeda’s Taliban hosts had been swept from power. But it will not be pessimistic. As the experience of Kandahar, once the centre of Taliban power, suggests, the news from Afghanistan is by no means all bad.
For a start, the fact that this conference is the first to be Afghan-led says something about the country’s slowly growing capacity to organise (if not yet pay for) itself. This week saw the announcement of the second phase of the transition process, under which the Afghan government and its national security forces (ANSF) gradually take over responsibility for the country (see map). By the end of 2014, when most of 130,000 combat troops of ISAF (the American-dominated, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force) will have left the country, the transition to Afghan command must be complete.
The aim of next week’s conference is to commit the international community to supporting Afghanistan after 2014. The support needed is many-sided: to prevent violence from reaching intolerable levels again; to help the government develop its capacity to provide the services that its citizens depend on, in particular a less corrupt and more efficient system of administering justice; to create the scope for economic progress, including the exploitation of the country’s plentiful mineral and energy resources; and, finally, to send a clear message to Afghanistan’s neighbours that the country is not going to be abandoned as happened in the past.
In addition, a ten-year strategic-partnership agreement with America is expected to be signed before long. A loya jirga called by President Karzai last month overwhelmingly gave it its backing. America is likely to retain a military presence in the country of around 20,000 troops who will provide the Afghan army with a range of “enablers” from command and control to logistics and close air support.
A report published by the World Bank last week suggested that Afghanistan will need an open-ended commitment from foreign donors of at least $7 billion a year, much of which will probably have to be spent on security unless the insurgency has weakened by 2014. This is a chunky, but not an impossible amount, given the sums that have been already been spent on Afghanistan ($440 billion by America alone).
The questions that cash-strapped voters in Western countries are entitled to ask is whether this will not on past experience just be throwing good money after bad, particularly if either the Taliban come storming back once the foreign troops have left or the country again descends into bloody civil war, as it did some years after the departure of the Soviet Union in 1989. There is a tendency to conclude that little has been achieved in the past ten years apart from the killing of Osama bin Laden (in Pakistan) and the suppression of al-Qaeda, thanks mainly to American drone attacks. Afghanistan, it is widely assumed, is a hopeless case not worth any more of the West’s blood or treasure.
From hope, through horror, to today
A better way to look at Afghanistan is not to lump the past ten years together, but to think of it in terms of four distinct phases. The first was the period of illusion between 2002 and 2004 when the Taliban appeared to be beaten and ludicrously high expectations of what Afghanistan could become took hold. The second was from 2006 to 2009 when the Taliban used the distraction of the Iraq war to reignite the insurgency from its safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The third phase, the “surge”, ran from late 2009, when Barack Obama announced he was sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
The fourth phase, which has recently begun under the new ISAF commander, General John Allen (who replaced the higher-profile General David Petraeus in July), is drawdown and transition. By the end of this year, 10,000 American troops will have left Afghanistan, and another 23,000 are due to be home by September 2012. To the surprise of sceptics, including some within ISAF itself, at least some parts of the strategy that has evolved since the dark days of 2009 appear to be working.
The main military effort has been in the south and south-west, concentrated on the former Taliban strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces. There is no doubt that the Taliban has taken a terrible beating in those areas. In particular, the targeting of what ISAF calls “mid-level commanders” appears to have been effective. ISAF commanders say that the average life expectancy of these fighters is less than three weeks. The impact of this attrition is that the Taliban’s command and control is under severe pressure. The insurgents can no longer mount co-ordinated or complex attacks in the south, and are increasingly reliant on the indiscriminate use of fairly crude improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and suicide-bombings.
One result is that the Taliban are much more likely to kill civilians, whose support they ultimately depend on, than foreign or Afghan forces. ISAF reckons that across the country, 85% of civilian casualties in 2011 were caused by the Taliban. This year’s opinion survey by the Asia Foundation found that sympathy for the Taliban is at its lowest level since the surveys began in 2004, and that the number of Afghans who have no sympathy with the insurgents has risen from 36% in 2009 to 64%. The latest ISAF figures for the number of enemy-initiated attacks from January to October in the Pushtun heartland provinces of Helmand and Nimroz show a fall of 29%. In the east, however, attacks rose by 21% and now account for 39% of attacks across the country. As the military campaign switches to the east, the potential for more damaging border clashes with Pakistan is bound to grow (see article).
A critical test is whether the Afghan army and police will prove capable of holding what General Allen calls the “human terrain” as American troops are either sent home or moved eastward. He thinks they will. He believes that there is strong local support for the army and that much of the enemy has either gone home or chosen not to fight. In Kandahar an ISAF commander recently remarked that the Taliban now feel like “the away team”.
A lot is riding on the ANSF. General Allen calls it “the defeat mechanism” of the insurgency; a Western diplomat suggested that the Taliban will not really be beaten until they are defeated by Afghan forces in Kandahar. As far as numbers are concerned, the ANSF currently stands at about 300,000 and should reach its target strength of 352,000 by 2014 with plenty of time to spare. Soldiers and policemen going absent without leave is still a big problem, but General Daniel Bolger, who runs the NATO training mission, is confident that as leadership improves at platoon level, and as NATO gets better at handling cultural differences, things will improve.
The Afghan army will find it harder to meet the professional standards it will need if it is to win the confidence of ordinary Afghans, particularly in the south. General Bolger thinks he is getting there. American military mentors praise the Afghans for their fearlessness and the speed with which they move around the battlefield. “They will never be as good as US troops, but they don’t need to be,” says an American officer. “They just have to be better than the Taliban.”
A priority is to get more recruits from the Pushtu-speaking parts of the south. One Afghan brigade commander from Kandahar is bullish that his men can do the job, but he also reveals the deep ethnic tensions within an institution that is top- heavy with northern Tajiks. “I don’t trust any of my Pushtun soldiers,” he says. Another aim is to “Afghanise” the night raids that have disrupted the insurgency but at the cost of offending sensibilities. Though the army is respected, up to a point, by most Afghans, the perception of the police is much less positive. They are seen as less well trained, frequently corrupt and often linked to human-rights abuses.
Most Afghans, says the Asia Foundation report, strongly support the reconciliation efforts of the government’s peace council. But since the assassination in September of the council’s chairman, Burhanuddin Rabbani, by a suicide-bomber, hopes have dimmed. Masoom Stanekzai, the head of the council’s secretariat, who suffered injuries in the blast, believes that the peace council is targeted because it is a threat to some of the Taliban’s backers—by which he clearly means Pakistan.
Mr Stanekzai supports the establishment of a Taliban office, perhaps in the Gulf state of Qatar, authorised to negotiate. Like other Afghans, he says that if talks are to get anywhere, there must be “an address” for the Taliban. He argues that with the withdrawal of foreign forces in 2014 and an inclusive political process, there are no excuses left for the insurgency.
Most Afghan officials believe that though a political settlement of some kind is both desirable and necessary, it may have to wait until after 2014. In the meantime the effort to reintegrate former Taliban fighters into their communities is showing results, perhaps because very few of them have any ideological commitment to the insurgency. Since the programme began a year ago with a budget of $140m, nearly 3,000 fighters have been enrolled into training schemes and only a tiny handful have returned to the battlefield. But most of the “reintegrees” are from the north and ISAF intelligence sources are unconvinced that it will have much effect.
The government’s score card
The insurgency’s resilience should never be underestimated. But it has suffered heavy casualties and its “offer” to the Afghan people, even among its traditional supporters in the south, has diminishing appeal. Despite the general weakness of governance in Afghanistan—and corruption that reaches from top to bottom—the Karzai administration is not seen by Afghans to be as completely hopeless as Western media suggest. According to the Asia Foundation, satisfaction with the government’s performance is at 74%. Confidence in provincial government, at 80%, is at its highest level since 2007.
Under the Taliban 1.2m children were in education, hardly any of them girls; today there are 8.2m, 40% of them are girls. Only 8% of the population had access to basic health care; today 80% have this. The role of women has been changed fundamentally: 27% of seats in the lower house of Parliament are held by them. As one woman put it: “When the Taliban first took power, people didn’t really know what they were like. They do now and the women of Afghanistan will never forgive them.”
Other social changes include rapidly growing mobile-phone ownership—60% of Afghans have one—and a thriving and outspoken media represented by 75 television channels and 175 radio stations. Afghan journalists are still learning their trade, but they claim they have the freedom to investigate corruption, although most work for companies that are owned by business interests and power-brokers. An American diplomat who was in Afghanistan in 2002 and has now returned says that although it may take 30 years to develop the other institutions that civil society depends upon, there has nonetheless been “an unremarked revolution”.
A big test will be whether the presidential election scheduled for 2014, which Mr Karzai has promised not to contest, will be undermined, as was the previous one in 2009, by large-scale vote-rigging. Parliamentarians are pressing the independent electoral commission to get on with establishing a biometric database for registering voters before it is too late. A relatively clean election would do a lot to prevent a possible spike in violence that could undermine the transition process. But that may be hoping for too much—some analysts fear that a broken electoral system will not have been repaired in time.
Many other things could still go wrong. Only glacial progress has been made against the criminal networks who run the opium business and are often tangled up with the Taliban. The potential for the poppy-growing regions to become a mini narcostate on Colombian lines remains.
So does Pakistan’s strategic paranoia about encirclement, particularly if there is a pro-Indian government in Kabul that is hostile to its interests. But as one Afghan minister says: “Nothing would do more to guarantee Pakistan’s influence with us than if it were to make a real effort with the Taliban to deliver peace.” That remains wishful thinking. In particular, Pakistan is reluctant to take on the formidable Haqqani network in the east that has been responsible for a spate of spectacular attacks in Kabul this year.
There is also a danger of a “drawdown recession” as Afghan companies that have grown fat on contracts to support the huge ISAF presence in the country see their lucrative business wither over the next three years. But the World Bank thinks that, after 2014, the economy, now growing at 9%, can continue by about 5-6% a year.
Although there is understandable nervousness about what happens after 2014, there is also optimism and an appetite among better-educated younger Afghans to take responsibility for their country’s future. A common complaint is how Afghanistan is portrayed in the West as a lost cause. “Why are you all so gloomy,” they ask. “Can’t you see that things are getting better here?”
The future of Afghanistan is fraught with risk and the insurgency will almost certainly not disappear. But the Taliban are unlikely to return to power and there is a determination to avoid a collapse into civil war of the kind that happened in the years after the Russians left. The expression coined by General Petraeus, “Afghan good enough” is hated for its patronising overtone. Muddling through, on the other hand, is probably not a bad way of thinking about what comes next.
CORRECTION: This story orginially referred to ISAF figures for the number of enemy-initiated attacks in Helmand and Nimroz since June. In fact, the relevant dataset ran from January to October. This was corrected on December 2nd. We also switched the main picture accompanying the article, from a picture of Afghan policemen to a picture of Afghan soldiers.
Iran opposes foreign military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014
BONN, Germany, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Iran turns against any forms of foreign military presence on the soil of its neighboring Afghanistan, the Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday.
"Certain Western countries seek to extend their military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014 by maintaining their military bases there. We deem such an approach contradictory to the efforts toward sustaining stability and security in Afghanistan." Salehi said in a speech at the ongoing international conference on Afghanistan in the western German city of Bonn.
"We believe that any international or regional initiative to restore peace and security in Afghanistan could only be successful if they give up the presence of foreign military forces and especially, the founding of foreign military bases in Afghanistan," he said.
Salehi also said Iran condemned the frequent attacks on the civilian target by the military insurgents in Afghanistan, citing those kind of violent assaults on the ordinary resident has violated the basic human rights.
It has been widely speculated that the current Afghan government could hardly stand on its own strength had it not been for the large scale military support and massive economic aids from the western alliances.
The Taliban insurgency in the past decade still pose great threat, while the situations could be exacerbated after the mandatory pullout of foreign troops by the end of 2014.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to continue support for the Afghans, saying the international community has "much to lose if the country again becomes a source of terrorism and instability," arousing the speculations the military aids and supports from the United States and its western alliance would still continue to stay in Afghanistan in a long course ahead.
The Silk Road Through Afghanistan
The Country's Economic Future Lies in its Region
Foreign Affairs By Thomas R. Nides December 5, 2011
In December 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a military surge against al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. That mission was complemented by a civilian surge to bolster the government, economy, and civil society of Afghanistan and the states throughout its neighborhood. The dual surges laid the foundation for what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined at an address to the Asia Society last February: an intensified diplomatic effort to support an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process with insurgents. This diplomatic surge is meant to seek an end to the Afghan conflict and chart a new, more secure future for the region.
The United States and its international partners have begun to transfer responsibility for Afghanistan's security to the Afghan National Security Forces, as was agreed last November in Lisbon. As Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced on November 26, nearly half of the population will be under Afghan security responsibility in the near future, and by the end of 2014, security throughout the whole of the country will be the responsibility of the Afghans themselves.
But there are risks in any such transformation. As World Bank President Robert Zoellick has pointed out, transition in postconflict societies has too often brought unintentional economic hardship. To sustain the many gains that Afghans have achieved over the past decade, and to advance the United States' long-term partnership with the Afghan government, Washington and our allies and partners must focus on the future of Afghanistan's economy.
Afghanistan's political and economic futures are linked. That is why Congress and the U.S. people have provided generous assistance to build Afghan capacity. And we are working closely with the Afghan government to wean the Afghan economy off international assistance and lay the foundation for sustainable, private-sector-led growth. As part of this effort, Afghanistan must be firmly integrated into the economic life of its region. A secure, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan can exist only in the context of a secure, stable, and prosperous neighborhood. That is the premise of what Clinton and others are calling the "new Silk Road."
To create the context in which Afghanistan can grow, the United States is already shifting its assistance efforts from stabilization projects to investments that focus on spurring growth and integrating Afghanistan into the economy of South and Central Asia. Growing employment and genuine economic opportunities in sectors such as agriculture and light manufacturing, facilitated by an improved business climate and greater market access, will blunt the appeal of violent extremism and narcotics trade.
Afghanistan's neighbors stand to benefit from expanded regional linkages -- and many of them have already begun to take steps toward achieving the new Silk Road vision. Last year, Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to harmonize customs arrangements, institute international standards at crossing points, work to reduce smuggling, and increase government revenues from legitimate trade. In late September, the commerce ministers of India and Pakistan pledged to normalize their countries' bilateral trade relationship -- a milestone, given the more than half century of enmity that exists between these two nations. At the conference on Afghanistan in Istanbul last month, regional governments committed to encourage growth and stability through a series of steps to improve economic and trade confidence. If governments follow through, each country would be better positioned to generate economic growth and opportunity for its people and offer greater market opportunities for both their own people and the people of Afghanistan.
In the longer term, the extractive industries present an appealing source of growth for Afghanistan and private-sector engagement. Based on U.S. Geological Survey maps and data, Afghanistan's mineral resources are worth at least $1 trillion. Some of these deposits are already under development. Last week's announcement by Kabul that Indian and Canadian bidders were the preferred investors to develop a major Afghan iron-ore deposit underscores the real potential of this sector.
To develop these resources for the benefit of all citizens, the Afghan government must take steps to avoid the so-called resource curse (when states blessed with natural resources squander their potential wealth due to corruption and a lack of good governance), while at the same time creating a more transparent, predictable, and appealing business climate to attract international investors. To satisfy both its citizens and the international private sector, Kabul is better defining land rights, legal and regulatory codes, financial and investor protections, and revenue collection procedures. This month, the Afghan government produced a policy document titled "Towards a Self-Sustaining Afghanistan" that presents a forthright, candid approach to reform and a realistic strategy to transition Afghanistan from donor dependency to eventual self-sufficiency.
None of this is possible without the private sector. Afghanistan needs investment and trade if it is going to escape its current over-dependence on foreign assistance. The international community can help by encouraging the private sector to engage with Afghanistan's economy, as the United States has done with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, and the U.S. Trade Development Agency.
This is the beginning -- not the end -- of the effort to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Serious challenges remain. As combat troops come home between now and 2014, Washington and our allies and partners must continue to lay the groundwork, including this week in Bonn, for long-term support for Afghanistan's future to ensure that transition is irreversible and that the hard-fought gains of the last ten years are sustained. The countries of the region must choose cooperation over conflict. And Afghans must take responsibility for their future.
Roadside Bomb Blast Kills Five Afghan Civilians
VOA News December 5, 2011
A vehicle travelling in southern Afghanistan struck a roadside bomb, causing an explosion that left five people dead.
Local officials say one woman and four children were killed in Monday's blast in the Chor district of Uruzgan province.
Six others were injured in the blast.
Roadside bombs are frequently planted by insurgents attempting to target Afghan or international forces in the country. A recent United Nations report blamed 80 percent of civilian deaths on insurgents and others fighting the Afghan government.
Madam secretary, only ‘talk’ can save Afghanistan
Financial Times By Ahmed Rashid December 4, 2011
A string of recent international conferences on Afghanistan and the region have failed to make any headway. With Pakistan’s decision to boycott the Bonn conference this week, building an international consensus has become even more difficult – and this at a time when there is a risk of an unstoppable meltdown of order in Afghanistan and the region.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton recently defined US policy as “talk, fight, build’’. But that is already redundant. To get anywhere in this highly dangerous environment the strategy should be “talk, talk and more talk”.
Unfortunately, there are clear and ever-widening differences between the state department, which wants to negotiate with the Taliban, and the Pentagon and CIA, which want to fight them until the last US soldier leaves Afghanistan – a policy that is silently rejected by most Nato states and regional countries and has plunged Afghan policy into much greater uncertainty. (Blaming the Taliban for not conceding more at the table is unfair when US policy is so unclear as to the future.)
At the heart of the crisis is the Taliban demand that US Special Forces stop the night raids that have deeply antagonised Afghans, even as Pakistan demands an end to the CIA’s secretive drone campaign in its border regions. Both the Taliban campaign of assassinations of key Afghan government figures and Pakistan’s support for the Taliban are retaliation for these US policies. A US night raid near Pakistan’s border killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and led to the present crisis between Islamabad and Washington.
The anti-American uproar in Pakistan, which follows a year of incidents undermining trust between the two countries, partly reflects genuine anger. But it has also been stoked by the all-powerful military. They want a role in talks with the Taliban, which the Americans are unwilling to concede.
To be clear, the US and Nato have been poorly prepared for the Afghan endgame, which now involves a complex battle for influence between the Taliban, the government and ethnic warlords, and an equally intense clandestine battle for influence by Afghanistan’s six neighbours, especially Pakistan.
So, a decade after its predecessor, which set up the interim Afghan government, the Bonn conference has to address a host of problems. In particular, President Hamid Karzai is at odds with the non-Pashtun ethnic groups in the north and their leaders over a range of issues, in particular their opposition to talks with the Taliban. Inter-ethnic rivalries are at their worst since 2001.
Mr Karzai has also antagonised the Afghan parliament and the wider political opposition, which includes the majority Pashtuns. They boycotted a recent loya jirga, or tribal council, he called and will boycott Bonn.
Equally pressing is the economic crisis. The recession in the west fuels doubt that money will be forthcoming in the future. The US has spent an inordinate amount of money on building up the Afghan forces, but nothing like the same funds on the civil service, the judiciary or on health and education. And it is still unknown whether the Afghan army can operate without US backing.
Then there is the problem of the constitution. Mr Karzai’s term in office ends in 2014 and already there are demands from all ethnic groups to reopen the constitution, to change it from a presidential to a parliamentary form of government and devolve power to the provinces.
If, and this is a big if, talks with the Taliban do succeed and there is agreement on power sharing, it is likely that the Taliban too will demand constitutional changes. These demands come from important segments of all ethnic groups and need to be addressed by the government and the foreign powers before they leave. Failure to do so could lead to civil war.
As for the secret talks between the Taliban and the Americans, they have continued even after the assassination of a key Afghan interlocutor, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in September. But neither Mr Karzai, nor the Taliban nor Pakistan know how serious the Americans are about talks. Meanwhile, the Americans have big doubts about how serious the Taliban are about a negotiated settlement. As an added complication, against the backdrop of the latest US-Pakistan fracas, the Pakistan military will for now hold back Taliban leaders from talking to the Americans. The failure to secure neighbours’ co-operation is weighing heavily on Afghans.
In the midst of the economic crisis, Afghanistan’s problems may appear minor. But history is clear that the world neglects the region at its peril – and that is what we are doing now.
The writer’s latest book is ‘Descent into Chaos’
Afghanistan's Struggle Has Wide Resonance
From America to the former Soviet bloc, the fight against tyranny deserves wholehearted support.
Wall Street Journal By VYGAUDAS USACKAS DECEMBER 5, 2011
In the spring of 1983, I boarded a train for Kazakhstan along with other Lithuanians drafted into the Soviet military. Once there, we were to receive our orders for deployment to Afghanistan, where the Red Army was bogged down in what was to become one of the most notorious wars of the modern age.
As luck would have it, our commanding officer liked a drink, so once we got to Almaty, then Kazakhstan's capital, we plied him with as much vodka as us poorly paid conscripts could afford. He got so drunk that he passed out and didn't wake up until our transport to Afghanistan was long gone. We let him sleep, of course, and we never did get sent to fight the Afghans. We sat out the war, which helped bring down the Soviet Union, in Karaganda, far from the fighting.
Almost two decades later, I was sent to Kabul as the European Union's ambassador to Afghanistan. I often describe it as a miracle that I escaped being sent to fight in Afghanistan, and that my fate was to be sent there as a diplomat instead, representing 27 countries and half a billion people. Every conversation I have with the Afghan people is informed by the intervening years, when I was on the frontline of Lithuania's fight for independence from the Soviet Union.
It is that experience, fighting for the freedom and future of my own country, that helps me understand where Afghanistan finds itself today, on the precipice of despair. I have been on that precipice, and I strive each day to reassure Afghans that, whichever way they fall, their fate is in their own hands.
My country, today among the smallest in Europe, was once among the biggest and richest. From the 13th to 15th centuries, it included in its territory Belarus, Ukraine and parts of what are today Poland and Russia. My father comes from a wealthy landowning family, my mother from simple farming folk. Despite representing different ends of the social spectrum, both families faced fierce persecution when the Soviets invaded in 1940. We had a few years' respite from the communists while the Nazis were in control during World War II. The Soviets re-occupied Lithuania in 1944.
My father and his parents were on the first train of deportees sent to Siberia, and spent five years in the frozen labor camps between Kasnojarsk and Irkutsk. My mother was shot twice and has carried the bullets in her chest all her life—as souvenirs, we like to say. The family's land was confiscated.
During my two years as a Soviet soldier, I had to attend regular political indoctrination sessions, where we were told that the war in Afghanistan was one of "liberation." We had heard that one before, when the Soviets supposedly "liberated" Lithuania after the war.
After returning home, I studied law at Vilnius University, where I discovered Thomas Jefferson, who "swore upon the altar of God against every form of tyranny." To this day I keep a picture of the man who drafted the U.S. Declaration of Independence on my desk, as a reminder that freedom is everyone's right.
Student politics at that time in Lithuania could be dangerous, even life-threatening. But it was also exciting, and I felt I was supporting the cause of freedom and democracy in my country, which had been under the yoke of the Soviet Union for 50 years.
In 1990, a year before the Soviet Union disintegrated, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence. But it was almost two years before Washington recognized Lithuania as an independent country. During that time, my colleagues and I feared that it would all unravel, that freedom was for others but not for Lithuanians. History, it turns out, was on our side.
It is my belief that history will also prove to be on Afghanistan's side. Now, two decades later, we can look back and understand how painful the Soviet war in Afghanistan was, but we can also see that it helped to undermine the Soviet Union. Afghanistan shook the foundations of the communist giant and enabled the Baltics to become free again. It is an achievement Afghan people can be proud of.
They can also be proud of the achievements of the past ten years, since the Taliban were pushed from power and the Afghan people once more became masters of their own destiny. Many Afghans tell me that they worry their gains will be lost, given the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO combat troops and knowing that violent insurgency will continue for some time after that. One young man, citing the doomsayers, told me that if Afghans are constantly told their situation is hopeless, eventually it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that they will lose hope.
He has no reason to lose hope, but he does need to be vigilant. Only Afghans can determine the type of country they want for themselves and for their children. In pursuing freedom from tyranny, they have the wholehearted support of the international community, and the goodwill of all right-thinking people.
Today, when Afghanistan's leaders attend the Bonn Conference on their country's future, they will find that the commitment of their supporters has not wavered and will not waver. The lessons of the Soviet withdrawal have been learned. We are in Afghanistan to stay, to help the Afghans create the country they want, and to ensure they take and hold their rightful place among the international community of free nations. The genuine efforts of Afghans to improve governance and justice in their country, to tackle corruption and to advance the rights of women, will help entrench the staying power of their many supporters around the world. —Mr. Usackas is the European Union's ambassador and special representative to Afghanistan. He previously served as Lithuania's foreign minister and its ambassador to the U.S. and U.K.
Iran says its military has U.S. drone in its possession
NATO says Iran may be referring to an unarmed U.S. drone that went missing in western Afghanistan late last week. It's unclear whether it was shot down.
Los Angeles Times By Ramin Mostaghim and Alexandra Zavis December 4, 2011
Tehran and Beirut - Iran's armed forces brought down a U.S. drone that officials said had violated the country's airspace along the eastern border, Iranian media reported Sunday.
The aircraft suffered minor damage and was in the possession of the armed forces, according to an Iranian military official quoted by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's U.S.-led force in neighboring Afghanistan said Iranian authorities might be referring to an unarmed U.S. reconnaissance plane that went missing during a mission in western Afghanistan late last week.
"The operators of the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status," NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said in a brief statement.
Some initial reports out of Iran suggested the drone had been shot down. But the semiofficial Fars news agency, which is close to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, quoted a military official as saying that Iran's electronic-cyber warfare unit had managed to take control of the aircraft and bring it "under their possession."
The official told Fars that Iran's response "will not be limited to the country's borders."
Iranian officials identified the aircraft as an RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone, which is made by Lockheed Martin. The United States has not confirmed using the Sentinel, although at least one was reportedly monitoring Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan during the raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader in May.
Iranian news agencies did not immediately publish images of the allegedly downed craft.
Iranian officials have made similar claims before. In July, a lawmaker said the Revolutionary Guard had shot down a U.S. drone that was trying to gather information on an underground uranium-enrichment site near the city of Qom, according to wire service reports. But the Guard later denied the report, saying its air defenses had only hit a test target.
Iran's already strained relations with the United States and its allies over Tehran's disputed nuclear program worsened last week after hard-line protesters ransacked the British Embassy and a diplomatic residential compound in Tehran.
Britain shut down the embassy Wednesday and gave Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave London. Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands temporarily recalled their ambassadors from Tehran in solidarity with Britain.
On Thursday, the European Union imposed new sanctions on 180 Iranian individuals, companies and organizations in response to an International Atomic Energy Agency report alleging that Tehran had pressed ahead with tests aimed at building a nuclear weapon. Iran says its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV The Wall Street Journal
BONN, Germany—Representatives of 85 countries pledged to support Afghanistan in the decade after most coalition forces withdraw in 2014, demanding in exchange better governance, a clampdown on graft, and clean elections once President Hamid Karzai's term expires.
A key amendment to the Bonn conference's communiqué, inserted after Western insistence on Monday, called for "strengthening and improving Afghanistan's electoral process." Afghanistan approved the statement.
Mr. Karzai, whose fraud-marred re-election in 2009 badly strained Kabul's relations with the West, is barred by the Afghan constitution from running again in 2014, and has said he isn't seeking another term.
Many of Mr. Karzai's opponents in Kabul, however, say they fear he could try to retain power by citing deteriorating security and convening a traditional gathering known as the Loya Jirga to authorize an extension of his tenure.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that isn't an option. "The Afghans committed to proceed with inclusive, fair and credible presidential elections, and a peaceful and democratic transfer of power in 2014," she said, speaking after a meeting in Bonn with Mr. Karzai on Monday.
Relations between Kabul and the international community should be built in the spirit of "mutual accountability" in which foreign aid is reciprocated with better governance and reforms, Mrs. Clinton added.
"The United States is prepared to stand with the Afghan people, but the Afghans themselves must also meet the commitments they have made," she said.
A United Nations-led watchdog, the Electoral Complaints Commission, disqualified nearly a million votes recorded as cast for Mr. Karzai in 2009, depriving him of an outright majority. Mr. Karzai—who complained of foreign "interference" at the time—has since reduced the ECC's autonomy.
Now, the Afghan government is seeking to remove the U.N.'s electoral oversight role outright as it negotiates a new mandate for the U.N. mission in the country.
Mr. Karzai, addressing the conference, said he will "Afghanize" the electoral process to ensure that future elections are "insulated against fraud and interference."
By contrast, Mrs. Clinton stressed the need for the international community's continuing role in the Afghan elections.
Mahmoud Saikal, a representative of the Afghan opposition attending the Bonn summit, said he doubted how much effect Western pressure will have on Mr. Karzai by 2014. "To restore the credibility of the badly damaged electoral process is not easy," he said. "The man doesn't believe in the rule of law, the constitution or the political opposition."
In his address, Mr. Karzai voiced a commitment to the rule of law and democracy.
He also appealed for continuing international funding well after foreign forces have pulled out. The Afghan government has estimated it will need at least $10 billion a year in coming years to forestall the collapse of its security forces and basic services.
"The Afghan people do not wish to remain a burden on the generosity of the international community for a single day longer than absolutely necessary," Mr. Karzai said. "But we will need your steadfast support for at least another decade."
In response, the conference statement promised to meet Afghanistan's "special, significant and continuing" fiscal needs in the years after 2014. A separate donor conference in Tokyo in July is slated to discuss the financial details.
The donors' generosity is likely to be limited, given the economic troubles in Europe and the U.S. "As everyone is aware, the international community faces fiscal constraints," Mrs. Clinton said in Bonn. She said the exact amount of aid the Afghans can expect has yet to be decided.
When the Bonn conference was announced last year, its organizers expected that a tentative peace process with the Taliban would bear its first fruits by now, possibly allowing Taliban representatives to attend the gathering, or at least its sidelines. The Taliban, however, chose to boycott the meeting, describing it as "an American trap." Pakistan, where most Taliban leaders are based, also pulled out of the event.
Mrs. Clinton acknowledged in Bonn that the peace process with the insurgents is still "at the very beginning." Any future settlement with the Taliban, she added, shouldn't sacrifice women's rights and other achievements of the past decade. Speaker after speaker at the conference made the same demands.
Mrs. Clinton, however, also injected a dose of realism. "In conflicts you do not make peace with your friends," she said. "If you want to resolve a conflict, then you have to sit across the table and talk with people whose views are often very different from yours."
A Counterinsurgency Success in Afghanistan
Local Taliban leaders offer help in fighting 'foreign Taliban': 'We will finish them together.'
Wall Street Journal By ANNE JOLIS DECEMBER 5, 2011
Forward Operating Base Howz-e-Madad, Afghanistan - On Monday the world's governments gather in Bonn, Germany, to discuss the future of Afghanistan, as NATO forces prepare to withdraw by 2014. Germany had wanted the Taliban at the table in Bonn, which the Americans wouldn't countenance. Pakistan has opted to boycott the conference, and activists are descending upon Bonn to agitate for an even faster NATO draw-down.
Meanwhile, in Howz-e-Madad, Kandahar Province, Maj. Brian Ducote of the First Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, has not given up on delivering a sustainable peace to this patch of southern Afghanistan—one that won't wind up harboring terrorists bent on attacking innocent Westerners. Until very recently the area was a hotbed of insurgent activity and attacks against NATO troops and locals alike. But last week, 15 months after the major arrived as part of the U.S. surge, the battalion had a breakthrough: a letter, signed by several local Taliban leaders and mid-level operators.
"We are ready to give up our weapons if you are ready to respond to our requests," reads the letter, stamped with the Taliban movement's official letterhead, which was seen by the Journal.
The signatories request that their courier be protected, as well as their own identities. The wavering insurgents go on to speak of "foreign Taliban who are not ready to give up their weapons. We will finish them together." They want "things like the release of prisoners," but also "drinking water for local mosques and schools. . . . Nobody will help us, so we want help from you."
"It's a beautiful thing," grins the 35-year-old Georgia native, who says this is the most "hopeful progress" he's seen. His battalion is part of the Third Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, better known as Task Force Spartan, whose arrival in March of this year increased U.S. troop presence in this portion of western Kandahar to about 4,200 from no more than 800 in 2008.
The battalion's work began with an aggressive clearing operation against Taliban strongholds. As the troops have gradually stabilized the area, they have also been able to focus on winning the confidence of the locals, and on rebuilding and development projects.
Last week's letter suggests it's starting to pay off. The Taliban's core have "black hearts," says the major. But many of its foot-soldiers and mid-level operatives joined out of expedience rather than ideology, and they are now "feeling disenfranchised, as they see the [Afghan] government strengthen. They see that there are local solutions to governance. They don't want to be left behind."
This progress builds on the evidence in Iraq that counterinsurgency can work: "We live outside the wire," says Maj. Ducote. It also shows what American soldiers can achieve when politicians let them. "It's always about time," says Maj. Ducote.
By March, his battalion and the rest of Task Force Spartan will leave Kandahar. They will be replaced by the Fourth Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, which will mean a small reduction in the number of soldiers.
While last week's message "is a positive step, they're not at the table yet," the major cautions. "I'd say they're looking at the table from a distance. This is not the end of our hard work to bring about stability—enduring stability—to this area."
But "it's a delicate balance, it has to be a genuine relationship based in trust. If we're perceived as disingenuous, we're not making real progress," Maj. Ducote adds. Counterinsurgency is "about accepting the fact that we can't always control the speed at which they want to build those relationships."
There's a lot that Western governments can't control in a country like Afghanistan. Our commitment to sustaining the gains that soldiers like Maj. Ducote have already achieved are not among them.
Miss Jolis is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.
Afghan Allies Pledge Long-Term Support
VOA News December 5, 2011
World leaders have pledged long-term support to war-torn Afghanistan as international combat troops prepare to leave the country by 2014.
Some 100 nations and international organizations attended Monday's international conference, in the Germany city of Bonn, which was aimed at charting the course for the country's future.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. is ready to support Afghanistan, but the South Asian nation must carry through on reforms, take responsibility for its own security, and build a democracy rooted in the rule of law.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the conference that after the withdrawal of NATO troops from his country in 2014, Afghanistan will still need international help for at least another decade.
He said the Afghan government will work to fight corruption more effectively and further reform government institutions to render them more efficient, transparent, and accountable.
Pakistan, considered vital to any prospect of stability in Afghanistan, boycotted the one-day meeting in response to a cross-border attack by NATO late last month that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Clinton said it was unfortunate that Pakistan didn't attend, but said she expected it to play a constructive role going forward.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's western neighbor Iran, represented by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, said it strongly condemned any foreign military bases in the country after 2014.
The talks in the former German capital focused on three key areas: the transfer of security responsibilities from international to Afghan forces, reconciliation with the Taliban, and long-term prospects for international aid.
No new aid pledges were expected at the meeting. However, the United States announced it would resume paying into the World Bank-administered Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, which it said would allow for the disbursement of more than $650 million in aid suspended over concerns about Afghanistan's troubled Kabul Bank.
Afghanistan says it will need outside aid until 2025
Washington Post By Karen DeYoung Monday, December 5, 2011
BONN - Afghanistan expects to remain dependent on international economic assistance until 2025, according to projections President Hamid Karzai will deliver to global partners at a conference here Monday.
Together with ongoing costs to support the Afghan army and police forces, at least $10 billion in assistance will be required annually after the scheduled departure of foreign combat forces by the end of 2014.
“At first glance, this figure may look enormous,” a final draft of the Afghan report said. But its total cost “will be lower than a single year of current military expenditure” by the international community of about $140 billion, it said.
The United States and the World Bank anticipate that Afghanistan’s economic growth of up to 11 percent in recent years will drop by more than half as security responsibility is transferred to Afghan forces over the next three years.
“This decline, if left unmitigated, could have a serious effect on stability, particularly in those regions and sectors that have been most bolstered by external funding,” according to an Obama administration assessment sent to Congress on Friday.
The Bonn conference, chaired by Afghanistan on the 10th anniversary of the international gathering here that established an interim Afghan government after the overthrow of the Taliban, will seek broad commitments from donors not to abandon their support after the end of military operations.
All donors are under severe budget constraints. The fear is that as their military efforts decrease, they will begin to withdraw economic assistance. The United States, by far the largest contributor, will spend about $120 billion in Afghanistan this year, less than a tenth of it in nonmilitary aid.
The continuation of economic assistance “is an obligation that has to be met to ensure that we don’t throw away 10 years of blood and treasure” spent fending off a Taliban return, said a senior official of one of the several international organizations with major roles in Afghanistan.
NATO agreed at a summit last year that it would end its combat role in Afghanistan in December 2014. In July, President Obama announced an initial withdrawal of 33,000 U.S. troops by September 2012, leaving about 68,000.
In an ongoing transition process, the Afghans have assumed security control for more than half the country, although foreign forces continue to provide advice and backup in those areas.
Afghans weary of yet another summit ahead of Bonn Conference
An international conference on Afghanistan's future opens Monday in Bonn, Germany. But on the streets of Kabul, Afghans have low expectations a decade into the Western presence here.
Christian Science Monitor By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent December 4, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan - As leaders from around the world gather in Bonn, Germany to discuss the future of Afghanistan the stakes could not be higher. Question marks hover over NATO and Afghan forces' progress against the insurgency, the future of US involvement after its 2014 withdrawal deadline, and which factions in the conflict Pakistan will ultimately support.
Yet for many Afghans, the second Bonn Conference is little to be excited about. International summits like it have taken place on a nearly annual basis over the past ten years and most Afghans say they’ve seen little change as a result.
“I don’t think these conferences are for the good of Afghanistan. We’ve seen many other conferences where hundreds or even thousands of people came. During conferences here in Afghanistan, they closed the roads and people suffered due to strict security policies or even died in attacks during the conference, but they changed nothing,” says Zmary Sapai, a wholesale food merchant in Kabul. “These conferences are just throwing dirt in the eyes of the Afghan people.”
MONITOR QUIZ: Weekly News Quiz for Nov. 27-Dec. 2, 2011
On Monday the second Bonn Conference will take place 10 years after the first one gathered shortly after the fall of the Taliban government. A decade ago Afghan and international leaders gathered to create a transitional government and pave the way for a new constitution.
Today the political and security situation in Afghanistan remains far from settled and Afghan leaders at Bonn will likely be looking to secure continued international support for the decade to come as they seek to create lasting stability.
The first Bonn Conference and the years immediately following it were marked with much hope following the ouster of the Taliban government and violence staying at relatively low levels. Within five years, however, the Taliban resurgence was well under way and the promises of reconstruction and peace seemed distant to most Afghans.
RECOMMENDED Four things to know about the Bonn Conference
“If the coming 10 years are like the last 10 years, it will make the Afghans very concerned. After the first Bonn Conference they were saying that they were bringing democracy to Afghanistan, but they gave the country to warlords and jihadist groups,” says Babrak Shinwari, a former member of Parliament from Nangarhar.
Despite billions of dollars of international investment in Afghanistan’s reconstruction – more than $70 billion from the US alone – the nation has seen questionable progress.
Human Rights Watch was one of several organizations to issue a cautionary statement in the days leading up to the conference. The rights organization warned of a situation “dominated by poor governance, lack of rule of law, impunity for militias and police, laws and policies that harm women, and conflict-related abuses.”
Still, there is hope enough time remains to overcome the mistakes of the last ten years. In addition to time, many say improvement will also require enduring international funding.
The Afghan government currently gets 90 percent of its public spending budget from international donors and the World Bank recently warned that it will depend on billions of dollars in foreign assistance for years to come in order to stay afloat.
“From the Bonn Conference what we hope is that the Afghan government makes their demands and suggestions in a fair way that can convince the international community to keep their political and economic assistance for the long-term and maintain these achievements we’ve made over the last several years with the support of the international community,” says Zaifnoon Safi, a member of parliament from Laghman Province.
Pakistan Holds Firm to Afghanistan Conference Boycott
VOA News December 5, 2011 Kurt Achin
Islamabad, Pakistan - Pakistan is holding firm to its boycott of the Bonn international conference on Afghanistan, and warns it will stay away from any future peace process unless its sovereignty and security concerns are better respected.
With Pakistan conspicuously absent from Monday's international conference in Bonn, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter went on domestic TV here in Islamabad to express Washington's disappointment.
"Afghanistan is Pakistan's neighbor. Pakistan deserves a voice at the table to talk about these things. We have tried to convince our Pakistani friends to attend. If they choose not to attend, that is their choice," said Munter.
Pakistani officials announced a boycott of the Bonn conference soon after U.S. helicopters and fighter jets reportedly fired on two Pakistani military encampments, killing 24 soldiers. Pakistan resisted all efforts to persuade it to send envoys to the conference, including a phone call Sunday, on the eve of the conference, to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari from President Barack Obama, who expressed regret over the incident.
Ambassador Munter said Monday the United States is complying with a Pakistan's order to vacate U.S. personnel from an airbase in southwestern Pakistan. He repeated the White House's message that last week's attack was a "tragedy" and a "mistake." In an interview with Pakistan state television, he hinted that those responsible may face punishment.
"I can only say that we will have an investigation, and that if people have been found to have made mistakes, there will be results," he said.
Pakistani leaders says they are fully reviewing the terms for the country's engagement with the United States. Abdul Basit, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, said Pakistan supports Afghan peace efforts, but that last month's NATO attack created circumstances that would not permit Pakistan to attend the Bonn conference. He said if those circumstances do not change, it will be difficult for Pakistan to associate itself with any peace process in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's main demand is for better coordination between its military and the U.S.-led NATO stabilization force in Afghanistan to ensure that Pakistani sovereignty is respected.
America's Pakistan Mess Gets Worse With Alleged NATO Strike
Pakistan, South Asia, Afghanistan, Middle East, U.S. Military
Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy The Daily Beast
America’s relationship with Pakistan is crashing. Decades of mistrust and duplicity on both sides are coming to the surface. The Pakistani Army has an agenda that is at odds with ours. At bottom, we are on opposite sides of the war in Afghanistan, and that poisons everything.
The death of two dozen Pakistani jawans, or soldiers, allegedly due to NATO airstrikes, is the latest crisis in a year of crises along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of course, we need to let the two armies investigate what exactly happened and apportion blame. But the facts won't change the downward slide in the relationship. In 2011 we have argued over drones, a CIA contractor named Raymond Davis, Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, the assassination of Afghan peace negotiator and former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, and the Taliban attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in September, which the Pakistani Army orchestrated. In every case, the details were disputed, but the big takeaway is clear—we just don't trust each other. Two of the six biggest countries in the world simply have no faith in each other's word.
This trust gap is the result of decades of mutual deceit and lying. Pakistan proclaimed it was our ally against communism or Al Qaeda or whatever when what it really just wanted was arms and help to fight India. America promised to help democracy in Pakistan and instead backed four brutal military dictators. Ironically, the Army believes we have betrayed it over and over again. We have.
Now we are at war in Afghanistan. Since at least 2005, Pakistan's Army has been assisting the Afghan Taliban in fighting the Afghan government we support and the world accepts as the legitimate government of the country. Pakistan's Army backs a medieval monstrosity that would impose a reprise of the Taliban hell of the 1990s. It prefers this to what it dreads: a pro-India regime on its western border. It tries to hide its hand, but regularly its troops along the border shelter the Taliban and even provide artillery support. It harbors their leaders, including Mullah Mohammed Omar in Quetta. It gives training and advice to those who kill Americans. Former Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who knows Pakistan well, said it clearly: it backs our enemy.
This is the fundamental problem that all the diplomatic niceties can't ignore. NATO supports the Karzai government. Pakistan's Army (not its civilian government) backs the Afghan Taliban. The Army has politically neutered the civilians elected to run Pakistan in 2008. Three years ago it used the Nov. 26 terror attack on Mumbai to neuter President Asif Ali Zardari; he wanted to cooperate with India's investigation of the terrorists, and it didn't. It won. Now it has engineered the ouster of Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, whom it has long despised because he literally wrote the book on their lying and deceit. It won again.
Now it is interfering with NATO's supply line from Karachi. About half our supplies come through there. The Pakistani Army controls both our logistics and the Taliban's. It's a good place to be in war. The Army knows it. Now it also has threatened (again) to shut down a drone base.
America has to engage Pakistan. It is too important not to engage. It is on track to have the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. But we also need to help Pakistan's weak democracy and contain its generals. It is a tough balance. A year ago, President Obama promised he would visit Pakistan in 2011. The visit is not even on the agenda anymore. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship is in tatters. It is likely to get even worse now.
Afghan Peace Effort Hits Wall
Pakistan's Pullout From Bonn Meeting, No Taliban Role Bodes Ill for Cooperation
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV DECEMBER 5, 2011
BONN, Germany - Monday's international conference on Afghanistan, initially convened to encourage talks with the Taliban and spur regional cooperation, is highlighting instead the likely dead end in the peace outreach and the failure to get Pakistani help in stabilizing the country.
The Bonn gathering, held 10 years after another meeting here created Afghanistan's first post-Taliban government and marked the beginning of unprecedented international involvement in the country, is bringing together senior officials from nearly 100 nations, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the United Nations Secretary General.
Not attending, however, are the Taliban—who were excluded from the original Bonn setup and have waged an intensifying insurgency ever since. Pakistan, too, decided to boycott the conference after some 24 of its soldiers were killed a week ago in a U.S. airstrike near the Afghan border. Another neighbor, Iran, which is attending, said it will use the Bonn pulpit to campaign against U.S. military bases on Afghan soil.
Just as Iran's foreign minister arrived in Bonn Sunday afternoon, the country's Fars news agency reported that Iranian forces downed an American drone that strayed into Iranian airspace. The U.S.-led coalition command in Kabul said its troops lost control of an unarmed drone over western Afghanistan last week.
"The narrative of regional cooperation being built up in Washington and other Western capitals in no way matches reality," said Candace Rondeaux, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, a global think tank. "Everybody who should be at the table working together is working at cross purposes. "
When the Bonn meeting was initially announced last year, hopes were high that the tentative peace outreach would bring concrete results by now. Germany, in particular, was engaged in organizing what seemed like promising contacts with Tayeb Agha, believed to represent the senior Taliban command. These expectations were punctured, however, after a purported Taliban peace emissary assassinated Afghanistan's top negotiator, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, in Kabul in September.
Relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, meanwhile, steadily deteriorated after the May killing of Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil, with American officials openly accusing Islamabad of funding and arming the Taliban and the related Haqqani network.
Pakistan's decision to boycott the Bonn gathering made it impossible for any potential Taliban-linked figures to participate, said Thomas Ruttig, senior analyst at the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analyst Network: "If the Pakistanis are not going, the Taliban cannot come."
The conference organizers are playing down the significance of the Pakistani pullout. "It is regrettable—but it is really their loss for not being part of this constructive and rewarding process," Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister, Jawed Ludin, said in an interview.
The German hosts were even more dismissive. Speaking minutes after a protocol officer carried out a flagpole with the Pakistani banner from the conference's venue in the former West German parliament this weekend, Germany's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Michael Steiner, argued that the issues of regional cooperation already had been discussed with Pakistan at a meeting in Istanbul last month.
Pakistan's absence "doesn't change the outcome," Mr. Steiner said. "It doesn't affect a single comma."
Another senior Western diplomat broke out laughing when he heard Mr. Steiner's words. "It is the elephant in the room," he said.
With hopes for progress in the peace talks and regional cooperation dashed, the Bonn conference's main message, officials said, will be to reassure the Afghans that the international community will continue its support even after most foreign troops leave in 2014—as long as Mr. Karzai's administration improves governance and clamps down on corruption.
Mr. Karzai made such a pledge Sunday night, addressing a dinner for the attending delegations. "We will remain committed to the reforms we have promised," he said, "and to working for a peace process that is Afghan-owned and Afghan-led."
The Afghan government estimates it will need as much as $10 billion a year in international aid for many years to come to prevent its administration and security forces from collapsing—a level that many Western analysts say is unrealistic. Ahead of the Bonn gathering, Afghan officials had touted the idea of a so-called "transition dividend" under which coalition nations would commit to investing in Afghanistan part of the money that they save by pulling out their troops in coming years.
This idea, however, was dropped from the conference's declaration, diplomats said, in part because of donor nations' resistance to such commitments. Actual levels of international financial support for Afghanistan aren't scheduled to be discussed until a pledging conference in Japan next year.
Still, Mr. Ludin said, the Bonn communique Monday will contain "very solid language" about the international community's continuing financial support for Afghanistan in the decade after 2014. "The world is aware of Afghanistan's unique needs during these years," he said, "and of the fact that Afghanistan won't be able to pay for all its costs with its own revenue for quite some time."
Obama Laments Pakistan Killings
Wall Street Journal By ADAM ENTOUS DECEMBER 5, 2011
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama called his Pakistani counterpart to personally express his condolences for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a recent NATO airstrike along Afghanistan's border, a sign the White House was stepping up efforts to ease tensions.
The White House said Mr. Obama told Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari during the call that "this regrettable incident was not a deliberate attack on Pakistan and reiterated the United States' strong commitment to a full investigation." Mr. Obama called the loss of life "tragic."
It was the first such statement by Mr. Obama since the Nov. 26 incident. U.S. officials have called the incident a tragedy and have offered condolences, but haven't apologized for any wrongdoing, as the Pakistanis still demand, citing the need to complete an investigation.
The White House said Messrs. Obama and Zardari "reaffirmed their commitment to the U.S.-Pakistan bilateral relationship, which is critical to the security of both nations."
U.S. and Pakistani officials have offered conflicting accounts of the incident, which has badly strained already shaky U.S.-Pakistan relations. Pakistan has so far refused to take part in the U.S. investigation.
As a result of the strike, Islamabad has boycotted a conference in Bonn of countries meeting Monday on ways to aid Afghanistan, which borders Pakistan, and has closed border crossings to North Atlantic Treaty Organization convoys trying to move supplies to U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The government also has asked the U.S. to cease its drone operations from Shamsi Air Base in the country's southwest. U.S. has already begun readying equipment to depart from the base, officials say.
"Loss of access to this base would not lessen capabilities, as it has served primarily as a back-up capability for quite a while now," a U.S. official said.
U.S. officials say the Central Intelligence Agency can launch the drones from bases in Afghanistan. The CIA uses the drones to strike militant targets on Pakistani soil. And NATO supplies can be flown over Pakistan into Afghanistan.
Both the air cargo and drone operations depend primarily on access to Pakistani air space, which Islamabad has kept open.
The White House had considered having Mr. Obama issue a video message expressing condolences for the incident but decided not to do so for now.
U.S. officials say mistakes were made on both sides that led to the airstrike that killed the Pakistani soldiers.
Mr. Obama's decision to personally engage with Mr. Zardari shows that efforts by top State Department and military officials have thus far been insufficient in getting Islamabad to tone down its response to the incident.
The administration's urgency reflects concerns that Pakistan could keep the border with Afghanistan closed for weeks if not months, potentially resulting in supply shortages for U.S. and NATO forces there.
Pentagon planners say they have enough ammunition and other supplies to last at least 60 days, but some officials say shortages of fuel and other essentials could start to appear sooner.
Pakistani officials charged the strike was a deliberate attack on Pakistani troops by NATO forces. U.S. officials said Afghan and U.S. commandos were pursuing militants in the area the night of the attack and received clearance for the strike from a joint border coordination center run by U.S., Afghan and Pakistani officials.
Pakistani officials responded that the U.S. forces provided the center with the incorrect location for the strike. U.S. officials say they gave accurate data. —Siobhan Gorman contributed to this article.
Pakistan, Taliban Make Presence Felt In Bonn By Their Absence
By Charles Recknagel December 5, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
BONN, Germany -- The message coming from Bonn was clear: the international community intends to support Afghanistan after foreign combat troops leave the country, and that means new training for Afghanistan's security forces and further development aid for its economy.
At least that's the message conveyed by the bevy of high-powered representatives of 85 countries and 16 international organizations gathered at the so-called Bonn II conference.
But if participants' focus was on committing to Afghanistan after foreign troops leave by the end of 2014, two key players made their presence felt by their absence: Pakistan and the Taliban.
??"We would, of course, have benefited from Pakistan's contribution to this conference," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted. "And to that end, nobody in this hall is more concerned than the United States is about getting an accurate picture of what occurred in the recent border incident."
Damage Control
Pakistan said it would not come after NATO accidentally attacked two of its border posts late last month, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Pakistan is a key player in the Afghan crisis because it is on Pakistani soil that Afghan insurgents have their safe havens. Islamabad also is widely believed to wield such influence with some Taliban groups -- particularly the Haqqani faction -- that Islamabad's cooperation is needed to bring them into any Afghan peace process.
Islamabad's boycott left Kabul, which has difficult relations with its neighbor, in the awkward position of trying to do damage control.
Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin told RFE/RL that Afghanistan and Pakistan continued to talk bilaterally about security matters no matter what happened on the larger world stage.
"Well, Pakistan's support is absolutely crucial, but we are working with them on that on a bilateral basis," Ludin said. "That is a process that is ongoing, as I said. But their absence from this conference is not going to affect our bilateral relationship."
For it's part, the Taliban's absence only further underlined the challenges to peace in Pakistan. Afghan officials confirmed to RFE/RL that no active members of the Taliban, nor any prominent former members of the organization, were present in Bonn.
No Ignoring The Neighbors
Yet Pakistan's and the Taliban's absence was important for other reasons as well. One is the much-voiced hope in Bonn that peace in Afghanistan could help the entire region become more peaceful and prosperous.
As Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the conference: "A stable, secure, and developed Afghanistan is not just the noble desire of the Afghan people and our international friends. It is a necessity if the region is to achieve security and meaningful economic integration."
Kabul and the international community know that one day Afghanistan will have to stand on its own economic base, and that base can only come through trade with its immediate and extended neighbors.
Other Kabul officials brought this same message with them as they attended the conference.
Afghan Finance Minister Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal told RFE/RL that Kabul wanted good economic relations with all of its neighbors, even those like Iran that today give its Western backers cause for alarm.
"We don't get involved in the politics of the U.S. and others. We have kept the best of relationships with Pakistan. We have kept the best of relations with Iran. We want to keep the best of relations and the U.S. is supportive of this," Zakhilwal said.
"Again, they are keeping their bilateral politics with Iran and everybody else to themselves and do not make it part of their policy in Afghanistan," he noted. "And Afghans genuinely want their country to move toward stability and to become a genuine, active part of the region which includes Iran, which includes Pakistan, and which includes the north, China, and everyone else."
Because of its location, Afghanistan is a land bridge for transit, transportation, and connectivity within the region. Routes through Afghanistan could provide Central Asia with direct access to the booming markets of India, a prospect that interests gas-exporting Turkmenistan, to mention just one state.
This conference took place 10 years after the first Bonn conference sought to set out the foundations of a new Afghanistan following the toppling of the Taliban in 2001.
The conference did not focus on pledges of new dollar amounts for Afghanistan but on showing that the world's willingness to help the strife-torn country remains undiminished.
Afghan anti-corruption watchdog threatens to quit
Hamid Karzai warned corrupt senior officials must be prosecuted to end stalemate in battle with Taliban
Guardian.co.uk By Julian Borger, diplomatic editor Sunday 4 December 2011
The head of an internationally backed corruption watchdog in Afghanistan has warned that members will resign in protest if the government of President Hamid Karzai does not start prosecuting senior officials.
Speaking in the runup to Monday's Bonn conference on Afghanistan, Drago Kos severely criticised the two Afghan institutions in charge of tackling corruption: the attorney general's office and the high office of oversight (HOO).
"We are not satisfied with their work. If they take the lead, there will be impunity. Nobody is ever brought to court. There are no prosecutions. Cases just stop at the HOO or the police or the attorney general's office. Orally, they support our work, but nothing is done," said Kos. The independent anti-corruption monitoring and evaluation committee was created this year largely at the prompting of the US and British governments, but Kos said so far there had been no prosecutions of top Afghan figures implicated in corruption.
"We will have no problem to leave as soon as possible. If there are no changes, there is no point for us to stay. We are out of here," said Kos, who also chairs the Council of Europe's anti-corruption group.
Ten years ago an agreement in Bonn formally recognised the Karzai government after the fall of the Taliban and marked the formation of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). A decade on, Karzai is still battling the Taliban and Isaf is due to withdraw its combat forces with no victory in sight. Kos, like many western officials in Kabul, sees endemic corruption as a principal factor in the stalemate. "Corruption is Afghanistan's number one problem. It's not security, not the Taliban. Those are dramatic but corruption affects the lives of all the people. It is felt by everyone."
Last year the country's largest private financial institution, Kabul Bank, virtually collapsed after some $900m in unsecured loans to insiders such as the president's brother, Mahmoud Karzai, and Abdul Haseen Fahim, the brother of vice-president Qasim Fahim. Kos said it: "It was not a bank. It was a Ponzi scheme." So far there have been no prosecutions.
"This government has to prove it is serious. Only way to prove that is by bringing people in top position to court," he said. He criticised the attorney general's strategy of putting the recouping of the lost funds over prosecutions. "We say it is easier to bargain with suspects when your freeze their assets," he said.
The attorney general's office rejected criticism of its investigation of the Kabul Bank, which it said was progressing "normally".
The deputy attorney general, Rahmatullah Nazari, said: "MEC has asked us for a clarification, but it shared the issue with the media before our clarification."
Some western officials suggested it would be impossible, after more than three decades of warfare, to hold the Kabul government to too high a standard, and called on the international community to be realistic in its expectations of the Bonn conference.
A senior US official said: "Success would be an Afghan state that is stable enough to have a minimal level of confidence of its citizens. A state that would be able to secure itself past 2014, on the road to democracy and a decreasing dependence on aid."
The official pointed to a recent national opinion survey by the Asia Foundation which found that 73% of Afghans asked thought the government was doing a good job. More respondents (46%) said the country was moving in the right direction, than said it was moving the wrong way (36%). Among the pessimists, nearly half said security was the main problem, while only 16% cited corruption.
What comes next
Afghanistan gets a rotten press in the West but the outlook is not all bad, particularly if the country’s security forces, shown above, do what is hoped
The Economist Dec 3rd 2011
Kabul and Kandahar - WHEN a bodyguard working for southern Afghanistan’s most notorious power broker gunned down his boss in July, a medley of voices loudly declared the end was nigh for Kandahar. Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of Kandahar’s provincial council and brother of Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, had long been accused of running a mafia-style criminal syndicate that excluded important tribes from influence, encouraging them to support the Taliban. Nonetheless, his death caused talk of a dangerous power vacuum. In fact, the city and province of Kandahar now look in better shape than they have for years. Roads in the province which were once laced with landmines, are far safer than they were and farmers from areas that were once war zones say they can drive their goods to market without fear.
Next week an international conference on the future of Afghanistan will be held in Bonn. It comes almost exactly a decade after the first, which was intended to launch one of the poorest countries in the world, torn apart by war for more than quarter of century, on a path towards stability, democracy and the rule of law. After numerous setbacks, the mood at next week’s conference will be far less heady than it was ten years ago, just after al-Qaeda’s Taliban hosts had been swept from power. But it will not be pessimistic. As the experience of Kandahar, once the centre of Taliban power, suggests, the news from Afghanistan is by no means all bad.
For a start, the fact that this conference is the first to be Afghan-led says something about the country’s slowly growing capacity to organise (if not yet pay for) itself. This week saw the announcement of the second phase of the transition process, under which the Afghan government and its national security forces (ANSF) gradually take over responsibility for the country (see map). By the end of 2014, when most of 130,000 combat troops of ISAF (the American-dominated, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force) will have left the country, the transition to Afghan command must be complete.
The aim of next week’s conference is to commit the international community to supporting Afghanistan after 2014. The support needed is many-sided: to prevent violence from reaching intolerable levels again; to help the government develop its capacity to provide the services that its citizens depend on, in particular a less corrupt and more efficient system of administering justice; to create the scope for economic progress, including the exploitation of the country’s plentiful mineral and energy resources; and, finally, to send a clear message to Afghanistan’s neighbours that the country is not going to be abandoned as happened in the past.
In addition, a ten-year strategic-partnership agreement with America is expected to be signed before long. A loya jirga called by President Karzai last month overwhelmingly gave it its backing. America is likely to retain a military presence in the country of around 20,000 troops who will provide the Afghan army with a range of “enablers” from command and control to logistics and close air support.
A report published by the World Bank last week suggested that Afghanistan will need an open-ended commitment from foreign donors of at least $7 billion a year, much of which will probably have to be spent on security unless the insurgency has weakened by 2014. This is a chunky, but not an impossible amount, given the sums that have been already been spent on Afghanistan ($440 billion by America alone).
The questions that cash-strapped voters in Western countries are entitled to ask is whether this will not on past experience just be throwing good money after bad, particularly if either the Taliban come storming back once the foreign troops have left or the country again descends into bloody civil war, as it did some years after the departure of the Soviet Union in 1989. There is a tendency to conclude that little has been achieved in the past ten years apart from the killing of Osama bin Laden (in Pakistan) and the suppression of al-Qaeda, thanks mainly to American drone attacks. Afghanistan, it is widely assumed, is a hopeless case not worth any more of the West’s blood or treasure.
From hope, through horror, to today
A better way to look at Afghanistan is not to lump the past ten years together, but to think of it in terms of four distinct phases. The first was the period of illusion between 2002 and 2004 when the Taliban appeared to be beaten and ludicrously high expectations of what Afghanistan could become took hold. The second was from 2006 to 2009 when the Taliban used the distraction of the Iraq war to reignite the insurgency from its safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The third phase, the “surge”, ran from late 2009, when Barack Obama announced he was sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
The fourth phase, which has recently begun under the new ISAF commander, General John Allen (who replaced the higher-profile General David Petraeus in July), is drawdown and transition. By the end of this year, 10,000 American troops will have left Afghanistan, and another 23,000 are due to be home by September 2012. To the surprise of sceptics, including some within ISAF itself, at least some parts of the strategy that has evolved since the dark days of 2009 appear to be working.
The main military effort has been in the south and south-west, concentrated on the former Taliban strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces. There is no doubt that the Taliban has taken a terrible beating in those areas. In particular, the targeting of what ISAF calls “mid-level commanders” appears to have been effective. ISAF commanders say that the average life expectancy of these fighters is less than three weeks. The impact of this attrition is that the Taliban’s command and control is under severe pressure. The insurgents can no longer mount co-ordinated or complex attacks in the south, and are increasingly reliant on the indiscriminate use of fairly crude improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and suicide-bombings.
One result is that the Taliban are much more likely to kill civilians, whose support they ultimately depend on, than foreign or Afghan forces. ISAF reckons that across the country, 85% of civilian casualties in 2011 were caused by the Taliban. This year’s opinion survey by the Asia Foundation found that sympathy for the Taliban is at its lowest level since the surveys began in 2004, and that the number of Afghans who have no sympathy with the insurgents has risen from 36% in 2009 to 64%. The latest ISAF figures for the number of enemy-initiated attacks from January to October in the Pushtun heartland provinces of Helmand and Nimroz show a fall of 29%. In the east, however, attacks rose by 21% and now account for 39% of attacks across the country. As the military campaign switches to the east, the potential for more damaging border clashes with Pakistan is bound to grow (see article).
A critical test is whether the Afghan army and police will prove capable of holding what General Allen calls the “human terrain” as American troops are either sent home or moved eastward. He thinks they will. He believes that there is strong local support for the army and that much of the enemy has either gone home or chosen not to fight. In Kandahar an ISAF commander recently remarked that the Taliban now feel like “the away team”.
A lot is riding on the ANSF. General Allen calls it “the defeat mechanism” of the insurgency; a Western diplomat suggested that the Taliban will not really be beaten until they are defeated by Afghan forces in Kandahar. As far as numbers are concerned, the ANSF currently stands at about 300,000 and should reach its target strength of 352,000 by 2014 with plenty of time to spare. Soldiers and policemen going absent without leave is still a big problem, but General Daniel Bolger, who runs the NATO training mission, is confident that as leadership improves at platoon level, and as NATO gets better at handling cultural differences, things will improve.
The Afghan army will find it harder to meet the professional standards it will need if it is to win the confidence of ordinary Afghans, particularly in the south. General Bolger thinks he is getting there. American military mentors praise the Afghans for their fearlessness and the speed with which they move around the battlefield. “They will never be as good as US troops, but they don’t need to be,” says an American officer. “They just have to be better than the Taliban.”
A priority is to get more recruits from the Pushtu-speaking parts of the south. One Afghan brigade commander from Kandahar is bullish that his men can do the job, but he also reveals the deep ethnic tensions within an institution that is top- heavy with northern Tajiks. “I don’t trust any of my Pushtun soldiers,” he says. Another aim is to “Afghanise” the night raids that have disrupted the insurgency but at the cost of offending sensibilities. Though the army is respected, up to a point, by most Afghans, the perception of the police is much less positive. They are seen as less well trained, frequently corrupt and often linked to human-rights abuses.
Most Afghans, says the Asia Foundation report, strongly support the reconciliation efforts of the government’s peace council. But since the assassination in September of the council’s chairman, Burhanuddin Rabbani, by a suicide-bomber, hopes have dimmed. Masoom Stanekzai, the head of the council’s secretariat, who suffered injuries in the blast, believes that the peace council is targeted because it is a threat to some of the Taliban’s backers—by which he clearly means Pakistan.
Mr Stanekzai supports the establishment of a Taliban office, perhaps in the Gulf state of Qatar, authorised to negotiate. Like other Afghans, he says that if talks are to get anywhere, there must be “an address” for the Taliban. He argues that with the withdrawal of foreign forces in 2014 and an inclusive political process, there are no excuses left for the insurgency.
Most Afghan officials believe that though a political settlement of some kind is both desirable and necessary, it may have to wait until after 2014. In the meantime the effort to reintegrate former Taliban fighters into their communities is showing results, perhaps because very few of them have any ideological commitment to the insurgency. Since the programme began a year ago with a budget of $140m, nearly 3,000 fighters have been enrolled into training schemes and only a tiny handful have returned to the battlefield. But most of the “reintegrees” are from the north and ISAF intelligence sources are unconvinced that it will have much effect.
The government’s score card
The insurgency’s resilience should never be underestimated. But it has suffered heavy casualties and its “offer” to the Afghan people, even among its traditional supporters in the south, has diminishing appeal. Despite the general weakness of governance in Afghanistan—and corruption that reaches from top to bottom—the Karzai administration is not seen by Afghans to be as completely hopeless as Western media suggest. According to the Asia Foundation, satisfaction with the government’s performance is at 74%. Confidence in provincial government, at 80%, is at its highest level since 2007.
Under the Taliban 1.2m children were in education, hardly any of them girls; today there are 8.2m, 40% of them are girls. Only 8% of the population had access to basic health care; today 80% have this. The role of women has been changed fundamentally: 27% of seats in the lower house of Parliament are held by them. As one woman put it: “When the Taliban first took power, people didn’t really know what they were like. They do now and the women of Afghanistan will never forgive them.”
Other social changes include rapidly growing mobile-phone ownership—60% of Afghans have one—and a thriving and outspoken media represented by 75 television channels and 175 radio stations. Afghan journalists are still learning their trade, but they claim they have the freedom to investigate corruption, although most work for companies that are owned by business interests and power-brokers. An American diplomat who was in Afghanistan in 2002 and has now returned says that although it may take 30 years to develop the other institutions that civil society depends upon, there has nonetheless been “an unremarked revolution”.
A big test will be whether the presidential election scheduled for 2014, which Mr Karzai has promised not to contest, will be undermined, as was the previous one in 2009, by large-scale vote-rigging. Parliamentarians are pressing the independent electoral commission to get on with establishing a biometric database for registering voters before it is too late. A relatively clean election would do a lot to prevent a possible spike in violence that could undermine the transition process. But that may be hoping for too much—some analysts fear that a broken electoral system will not have been repaired in time.
Many other things could still go wrong. Only glacial progress has been made against the criminal networks who run the opium business and are often tangled up with the Taliban. The potential for the poppy-growing regions to become a mini narcostate on Colombian lines remains.
So does Pakistan’s strategic paranoia about encirclement, particularly if there is a pro-Indian government in Kabul that is hostile to its interests. But as one Afghan minister says: “Nothing would do more to guarantee Pakistan’s influence with us than if it were to make a real effort with the Taliban to deliver peace.” That remains wishful thinking. In particular, Pakistan is reluctant to take on the formidable Haqqani network in the east that has been responsible for a spate of spectacular attacks in Kabul this year.
There is also a danger of a “drawdown recession” as Afghan companies that have grown fat on contracts to support the huge ISAF presence in the country see their lucrative business wither over the next three years. But the World Bank thinks that, after 2014, the economy, now growing at 9%, can continue by about 5-6% a year.
Although there is understandable nervousness about what happens after 2014, there is also optimism and an appetite among better-educated younger Afghans to take responsibility for their country’s future. A common complaint is how Afghanistan is portrayed in the West as a lost cause. “Why are you all so gloomy,” they ask. “Can’t you see that things are getting better here?”
The future of Afghanistan is fraught with risk and the insurgency will almost certainly not disappear. But the Taliban are unlikely to return to power and there is a determination to avoid a collapse into civil war of the kind that happened in the years after the Russians left. The expression coined by General Petraeus, “Afghan good enough” is hated for its patronising overtone. Muddling through, on the other hand, is probably not a bad way of thinking about what comes next.
CORRECTION: This story orginially referred to ISAF figures for the number of enemy-initiated attacks in Helmand and Nimroz since June. In fact, the relevant dataset ran from January to October. This was corrected on December 2nd. We also switched the main picture accompanying the article, from a picture of Afghan policemen to a picture of Afghan soldiers.
Iran opposes foreign military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014
BONN, Germany, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Iran turns against any forms of foreign military presence on the soil of its neighboring Afghanistan, the Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday.
"Certain Western countries seek to extend their military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014 by maintaining their military bases there. We deem such an approach contradictory to the efforts toward sustaining stability and security in Afghanistan." Salehi said in a speech at the ongoing international conference on Afghanistan in the western German city of Bonn.
"We believe that any international or regional initiative to restore peace and security in Afghanistan could only be successful if they give up the presence of foreign military forces and especially, the founding of foreign military bases in Afghanistan," he said.
Salehi also said Iran condemned the frequent attacks on the civilian target by the military insurgents in Afghanistan, citing those kind of violent assaults on the ordinary resident has violated the basic human rights.
It has been widely speculated that the current Afghan government could hardly stand on its own strength had it not been for the large scale military support and massive economic aids from the western alliances.
The Taliban insurgency in the past decade still pose great threat, while the situations could be exacerbated after the mandatory pullout of foreign troops by the end of 2014.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to continue support for the Afghans, saying the international community has "much to lose if the country again becomes a source of terrorism and instability," arousing the speculations the military aids and supports from the United States and its western alliance would still continue to stay in Afghanistan in a long course ahead.
The Silk Road Through Afghanistan
The Country's Economic Future Lies in its Region
Foreign Affairs By Thomas R. Nides December 5, 2011
In December 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a military surge against al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. That mission was complemented by a civilian surge to bolster the government, economy, and civil society of Afghanistan and the states throughout its neighborhood. The dual surges laid the foundation for what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined at an address to the Asia Society last February: an intensified diplomatic effort to support an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process with insurgents. This diplomatic surge is meant to seek an end to the Afghan conflict and chart a new, more secure future for the region.
The United States and its international partners have begun to transfer responsibility for Afghanistan's security to the Afghan National Security Forces, as was agreed last November in Lisbon. As Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced on November 26, nearly half of the population will be under Afghan security responsibility in the near future, and by the end of 2014, security throughout the whole of the country will be the responsibility of the Afghans themselves.
But there are risks in any such transformation. As World Bank President Robert Zoellick has pointed out, transition in postconflict societies has too often brought unintentional economic hardship. To sustain the many gains that Afghans have achieved over the past decade, and to advance the United States' long-term partnership with the Afghan government, Washington and our allies and partners must focus on the future of Afghanistan's economy.
Afghanistan's political and economic futures are linked. That is why Congress and the U.S. people have provided generous assistance to build Afghan capacity. And we are working closely with the Afghan government to wean the Afghan economy off international assistance and lay the foundation for sustainable, private-sector-led growth. As part of this effort, Afghanistan must be firmly integrated into the economic life of its region. A secure, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan can exist only in the context of a secure, stable, and prosperous neighborhood. That is the premise of what Clinton and others are calling the "new Silk Road."
To create the context in which Afghanistan can grow, the United States is already shifting its assistance efforts from stabilization projects to investments that focus on spurring growth and integrating Afghanistan into the economy of South and Central Asia. Growing employment and genuine economic opportunities in sectors such as agriculture and light manufacturing, facilitated by an improved business climate and greater market access, will blunt the appeal of violent extremism and narcotics trade.
Afghanistan's neighbors stand to benefit from expanded regional linkages -- and many of them have already begun to take steps toward achieving the new Silk Road vision. Last year, Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to harmonize customs arrangements, institute international standards at crossing points, work to reduce smuggling, and increase government revenues from legitimate trade. In late September, the commerce ministers of India and Pakistan pledged to normalize their countries' bilateral trade relationship -- a milestone, given the more than half century of enmity that exists between these two nations. At the conference on Afghanistan in Istanbul last month, regional governments committed to encourage growth and stability through a series of steps to improve economic and trade confidence. If governments follow through, each country would be better positioned to generate economic growth and opportunity for its people and offer greater market opportunities for both their own people and the people of Afghanistan.
In the longer term, the extractive industries present an appealing source of growth for Afghanistan and private-sector engagement. Based on U.S. Geological Survey maps and data, Afghanistan's mineral resources are worth at least $1 trillion. Some of these deposits are already under development. Last week's announcement by Kabul that Indian and Canadian bidders were the preferred investors to develop a major Afghan iron-ore deposit underscores the real potential of this sector.
To develop these resources for the benefit of all citizens, the Afghan government must take steps to avoid the so-called resource curse (when states blessed with natural resources squander their potential wealth due to corruption and a lack of good governance), while at the same time creating a more transparent, predictable, and appealing business climate to attract international investors. To satisfy both its citizens and the international private sector, Kabul is better defining land rights, legal and regulatory codes, financial and investor protections, and revenue collection procedures. This month, the Afghan government produced a policy document titled "Towards a Self-Sustaining Afghanistan" that presents a forthright, candid approach to reform and a realistic strategy to transition Afghanistan from donor dependency to eventual self-sufficiency.
None of this is possible without the private sector. Afghanistan needs investment and trade if it is going to escape its current over-dependence on foreign assistance. The international community can help by encouraging the private sector to engage with Afghanistan's economy, as the United States has done with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, and the U.S. Trade Development Agency.
This is the beginning -- not the end -- of the effort to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Serious challenges remain. As combat troops come home between now and 2014, Washington and our allies and partners must continue to lay the groundwork, including this week in Bonn, for long-term support for Afghanistan's future to ensure that transition is irreversible and that the hard-fought gains of the last ten years are sustained. The countries of the region must choose cooperation over conflict. And Afghans must take responsibility for their future.
Roadside Bomb Blast Kills Five Afghan Civilians
VOA News December 5, 2011
A vehicle travelling in southern Afghanistan struck a roadside bomb, causing an explosion that left five people dead.
Local officials say one woman and four children were killed in Monday's blast in the Chor district of Uruzgan province.
Six others were injured in the blast.
Roadside bombs are frequently planted by insurgents attempting to target Afghan or international forces in the country. A recent United Nations report blamed 80 percent of civilian deaths on insurgents and others fighting the Afghan government.
Madam secretary, only ‘talk’ can save Afghanistan
Financial Times By Ahmed Rashid December 4, 2011
A string of recent international conferences on Afghanistan and the region have failed to make any headway. With Pakistan’s decision to boycott the Bonn conference this week, building an international consensus has become even more difficult – and this at a time when there is a risk of an unstoppable meltdown of order in Afghanistan and the region.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton recently defined US policy as “talk, fight, build’’. But that is already redundant. To get anywhere in this highly dangerous environment the strategy should be “talk, talk and more talk”.
Unfortunately, there are clear and ever-widening differences between the state department, which wants to negotiate with the Taliban, and the Pentagon and CIA, which want to fight them until the last US soldier leaves Afghanistan – a policy that is silently rejected by most Nato states and regional countries and has plunged Afghan policy into much greater uncertainty. (Blaming the Taliban for not conceding more at the table is unfair when US policy is so unclear as to the future.)
At the heart of the crisis is the Taliban demand that US Special Forces stop the night raids that have deeply antagonised Afghans, even as Pakistan demands an end to the CIA’s secretive drone campaign in its border regions. Both the Taliban campaign of assassinations of key Afghan government figures and Pakistan’s support for the Taliban are retaliation for these US policies. A US night raid near Pakistan’s border killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and led to the present crisis between Islamabad and Washington.
The anti-American uproar in Pakistan, which follows a year of incidents undermining trust between the two countries, partly reflects genuine anger. But it has also been stoked by the all-powerful military. They want a role in talks with the Taliban, which the Americans are unwilling to concede.
To be clear, the US and Nato have been poorly prepared for the Afghan endgame, which now involves a complex battle for influence between the Taliban, the government and ethnic warlords, and an equally intense clandestine battle for influence by Afghanistan’s six neighbours, especially Pakistan.
So, a decade after its predecessor, which set up the interim Afghan government, the Bonn conference has to address a host of problems. In particular, President Hamid Karzai is at odds with the non-Pashtun ethnic groups in the north and their leaders over a range of issues, in particular their opposition to talks with the Taliban. Inter-ethnic rivalries are at their worst since 2001.
Mr Karzai has also antagonised the Afghan parliament and the wider political opposition, which includes the majority Pashtuns. They boycotted a recent loya jirga, or tribal council, he called and will boycott Bonn.
Equally pressing is the economic crisis. The recession in the west fuels doubt that money will be forthcoming in the future. The US has spent an inordinate amount of money on building up the Afghan forces, but nothing like the same funds on the civil service, the judiciary or on health and education. And it is still unknown whether the Afghan army can operate without US backing.
Then there is the problem of the constitution. Mr Karzai’s term in office ends in 2014 and already there are demands from all ethnic groups to reopen the constitution, to change it from a presidential to a parliamentary form of government and devolve power to the provinces.
If, and this is a big if, talks with the Taliban do succeed and there is agreement on power sharing, it is likely that the Taliban too will demand constitutional changes. These demands come from important segments of all ethnic groups and need to be addressed by the government and the foreign powers before they leave. Failure to do so could lead to civil war.
As for the secret talks between the Taliban and the Americans, they have continued even after the assassination of a key Afghan interlocutor, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in September. But neither Mr Karzai, nor the Taliban nor Pakistan know how serious the Americans are about talks. Meanwhile, the Americans have big doubts about how serious the Taliban are about a negotiated settlement. As an added complication, against the backdrop of the latest US-Pakistan fracas, the Pakistan military will for now hold back Taliban leaders from talking to the Americans. The failure to secure neighbours’ co-operation is weighing heavily on Afghans.
In the midst of the economic crisis, Afghanistan’s problems may appear minor. But history is clear that the world neglects the region at its peril – and that is what we are doing now.
The writer’s latest book is ‘Descent into Chaos’
Afghanistan's Struggle Has Wide Resonance
From America to the former Soviet bloc, the fight against tyranny deserves wholehearted support.
Wall Street Journal By VYGAUDAS USACKAS DECEMBER 5, 2011
In the spring of 1983, I boarded a train for Kazakhstan along with other Lithuanians drafted into the Soviet military. Once there, we were to receive our orders for deployment to Afghanistan, where the Red Army was bogged down in what was to become one of the most notorious wars of the modern age.
As luck would have it, our commanding officer liked a drink, so once we got to Almaty, then Kazakhstan's capital, we plied him with as much vodka as us poorly paid conscripts could afford. He got so drunk that he passed out and didn't wake up until our transport to Afghanistan was long gone. We let him sleep, of course, and we never did get sent to fight the Afghans. We sat out the war, which helped bring down the Soviet Union, in Karaganda, far from the fighting.
Almost two decades later, I was sent to Kabul as the European Union's ambassador to Afghanistan. I often describe it as a miracle that I escaped being sent to fight in Afghanistan, and that my fate was to be sent there as a diplomat instead, representing 27 countries and half a billion people. Every conversation I have with the Afghan people is informed by the intervening years, when I was on the frontline of Lithuania's fight for independence from the Soviet Union.
It is that experience, fighting for the freedom and future of my own country, that helps me understand where Afghanistan finds itself today, on the precipice of despair. I have been on that precipice, and I strive each day to reassure Afghans that, whichever way they fall, their fate is in their own hands.
My country, today among the smallest in Europe, was once among the biggest and richest. From the 13th to 15th centuries, it included in its territory Belarus, Ukraine and parts of what are today Poland and Russia. My father comes from a wealthy landowning family, my mother from simple farming folk. Despite representing different ends of the social spectrum, both families faced fierce persecution when the Soviets invaded in 1940. We had a few years' respite from the communists while the Nazis were in control during World War II. The Soviets re-occupied Lithuania in 1944.
My father and his parents were on the first train of deportees sent to Siberia, and spent five years in the frozen labor camps between Kasnojarsk and Irkutsk. My mother was shot twice and has carried the bullets in her chest all her life—as souvenirs, we like to say. The family's land was confiscated.
During my two years as a Soviet soldier, I had to attend regular political indoctrination sessions, where we were told that the war in Afghanistan was one of "liberation." We had heard that one before, when the Soviets supposedly "liberated" Lithuania after the war.
After returning home, I studied law at Vilnius University, where I discovered Thomas Jefferson, who "swore upon the altar of God against every form of tyranny." To this day I keep a picture of the man who drafted the U.S. Declaration of Independence on my desk, as a reminder that freedom is everyone's right.
Student politics at that time in Lithuania could be dangerous, even life-threatening. But it was also exciting, and I felt I was supporting the cause of freedom and democracy in my country, which had been under the yoke of the Soviet Union for 50 years.
In 1990, a year before the Soviet Union disintegrated, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence. But it was almost two years before Washington recognized Lithuania as an independent country. During that time, my colleagues and I feared that it would all unravel, that freedom was for others but not for Lithuanians. History, it turns out, was on our side.
It is my belief that history will also prove to be on Afghanistan's side. Now, two decades later, we can look back and understand how painful the Soviet war in Afghanistan was, but we can also see that it helped to undermine the Soviet Union. Afghanistan shook the foundations of the communist giant and enabled the Baltics to become free again. It is an achievement Afghan people can be proud of.
They can also be proud of the achievements of the past ten years, since the Taliban were pushed from power and the Afghan people once more became masters of their own destiny. Many Afghans tell me that they worry their gains will be lost, given the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO combat troops and knowing that violent insurgency will continue for some time after that. One young man, citing the doomsayers, told me that if Afghans are constantly told their situation is hopeless, eventually it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that they will lose hope.
He has no reason to lose hope, but he does need to be vigilant. Only Afghans can determine the type of country they want for themselves and for their children. In pursuing freedom from tyranny, they have the wholehearted support of the international community, and the goodwill of all right-thinking people.
Today, when Afghanistan's leaders attend the Bonn Conference on their country's future, they will find that the commitment of their supporters has not wavered and will not waver. The lessons of the Soviet withdrawal have been learned. We are in Afghanistan to stay, to help the Afghans create the country they want, and to ensure they take and hold their rightful place among the international community of free nations. The genuine efforts of Afghans to improve governance and justice in their country, to tackle corruption and to advance the rights of women, will help entrench the staying power of their many supporters around the world. —Mr. Usackas is the European Union's ambassador and special representative to Afghanistan. He previously served as Lithuania's foreign minister and its ambassador to the U.S. and U.K.
Iran says its military has U.S. drone in its possession
NATO says Iran may be referring to an unarmed U.S. drone that went missing in western Afghanistan late last week. It's unclear whether it was shot down.
Los Angeles Times By Ramin Mostaghim and Alexandra Zavis December 4, 2011
Tehran and Beirut - Iran's armed forces brought down a U.S. drone that officials said had violated the country's airspace along the eastern border, Iranian media reported Sunday.
The aircraft suffered minor damage and was in the possession of the armed forces, according to an Iranian military official quoted by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's U.S.-led force in neighboring Afghanistan said Iranian authorities might be referring to an unarmed U.S. reconnaissance plane that went missing during a mission in western Afghanistan late last week.
"The operators of the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status," NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said in a brief statement.
Some initial reports out of Iran suggested the drone had been shot down. But the semiofficial Fars news agency, which is close to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, quoted a military official as saying that Iran's electronic-cyber warfare unit had managed to take control of the aircraft and bring it "under their possession."
The official told Fars that Iran's response "will not be limited to the country's borders."
Iranian officials identified the aircraft as an RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone, which is made by Lockheed Martin. The United States has not confirmed using the Sentinel, although at least one was reportedly monitoring Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan during the raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader in May.
Iranian news agencies did not immediately publish images of the allegedly downed craft.
Iranian officials have made similar claims before. In July, a lawmaker said the Revolutionary Guard had shot down a U.S. drone that was trying to gather information on an underground uranium-enrichment site near the city of Qom, according to wire service reports. But the Guard later denied the report, saying its air defenses had only hit a test target.
Iran's already strained relations with the United States and its allies over Tehran's disputed nuclear program worsened last week after hard-line protesters ransacked the British Embassy and a diplomatic residential compound in Tehran.
Britain shut down the embassy Wednesday and gave Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave London. Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands temporarily recalled their ambassadors from Tehran in solidarity with Britain.
On Thursday, the European Union imposed new sanctions on 180 Iranian individuals, companies and organizations in response to an International Atomic Energy Agency report alleging that Tehran had pressed ahead with tests aimed at building a nuclear weapon. Iran says its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com