[Afghan News] January 20, 2012

[یاسمینه]

6 NATO troops die in Afghanistan helicopter crash
By MIRWAIS KHAN | Associated Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — A NATO helicopter has crashed in southern Afghanistan, killing six members of the international military force, the U.S.-led coalition said Friday.
The cause is still being investigated, but a coalition statement said there was no enemy activity in the area at the time of Thursday's crash, which brought the number of international forces killed in Afghanistan this month to 24.
The coalition did not disclose the nationalities of those killed and would not release details of the crash until the families of the dead were notified.
It was the deadliest crash in Afghanistan since August, when 30 American troops died after a Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down in Wardak province in the center of the country.
Thursday's crash occurred on the same day that a suicide car bomber killed at least seven civilians outside a crowded gate at Kandahar Air Field, a sprawling base for U.S. and NATO operations in the south. The Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility, saying they were targeting a NATO convoy.
It was the second suicide bombing in as many days in southern Afghanistan, officials said. The coalition said no NATO troops were killed Thursday. It does not disclose information about wounded troops.
The Taliban have been stepping up attacks in southern Afghanistan, the birthplace of the insurgency, with a wave of bombings and the assassinations of three local Afghan officials this week. The violence comes even as the U.S. is moving ahead with plans for negotiating with the Taliban to try to end the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan.
Two witnesses told The Associated Press that they suspect Thursday's suicide car bomber was trying to hit U.S. troops because he detonated his explosives just as two pickup trucks, which they say are often used by American special forces, were leaving the base.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef said that NATO forces opened fire after the bombing and that they killed three of the seven civilians who died. The coalition denied this, saying there was no fighting after the blast.
Earlier, officials reported that the suicide bomber was walking near the gate, but the Afghan Ministry of Interior later said the attacker was driving a Toyota Corolla.
Zalmai Ayubi, the spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor, said two children were among the seven civilians killed. He said eight other civilians, including two children and one woman, were injured in the explosion.
Gates to the larger U.S. bases in Afghanistan often are crowded with trucks waiting to deliver goods and services, and local Afghans going to or coming back from jobs on the compounds.
Safiullah, a 40-year-old fuel tank driver from neighboring Zabul province, was waiting his turn to enter the base when the blast occurred.
"There was dust and smoke everywhere," said Safiullah, who uses just one name. "I got down on my knees. When the smoke lifted, I moved closer. I saw two children dead at the side of the road."
At the time of the explosion, two pickup trucks were leaving the base, he said. He said he remembered that, because he and another man were conversing at the time about how U.S. special forces sometimes use that kind of truck.
The explosion shattered the window of a taxi driven by Sabiullah Khan, who was at the gate waiting for customers.
"I put my head down in my car," he said. "For three or four minutes I was afraid. I was reciting the words of the Quran," the Muslim holy book. "When the smoke cleared and I knew I was OK, I started looking outside. People were shouting for help. I saw one vehicle on fire. The Afghan army were running and taking out the wounded."
He said that when he got out of his taxi, he also saw the two pickup trucks.
"Nobody was in them, but from the condition of the vehicle, I'm sure that if they were not killed, they were wounded," he said.
On Wednesday, 13 civilians, including three Afghan policemen, were killed when a suicide attacker blew himself up in a bazaar in neighboring Helmand province.
The Helmand governor's office said 22 others were wounded in the blast in Kajaki district.
The coalition said some international troops were killed and wounded in the attack, but did not disclose details.
Late Wednesday, NATO reported that one coalition trooper had been killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, but would not say whether the service member died in the Kajaki bombing, or some other incident.
U.S. Gen. John Allen, the top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, condemned the Kajaki attack, saying it was evidence that the Taliban insurgents had "declared outright war" on the Afghan people. He said that such violence "will only further isolate the Taliban from the process of peace negotiation."
The U.S. has been working to broker talks between the Taliban and President Hamid Karzai's government to end the 10-year war. The insurgents recently said they would open a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar to pursue negotiations but would also continue fighting.
Several current and former U.S. officials said the most substantive give-and-take to date between U.S. and Taliban negotiators could happen in the next week, with the goal of establishing what the U.S. calls confidence-building measures — specific steps that both sides agree to take ahead of formal talks.
However, U.S. intelligence agencies recently offered a gloomy prognosis in their latest Afghanistan report.
The Afghan National Intelligence Estimate warns that the Taliban will grow stronger, using the talks to gain credibility and run out the clock until U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, while continuing to fight for more territory, say U.S. officials who have read the classified document. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the roughly 100-page review, an amalgam of the intelligence community's predictions of possible scenarios for the Afghan war through the planned end to U.S. combat in 2014.
The report says the Afghan government has largely failed to prove itself to its people and will likely continue to weaken and find influence only in the cities. It predicts that the Taliban and warlords will largely control the countryside.
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Associated Press writers Anne Gearan and Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report from Washington.

France threatens early withdrawal from Afghanistan
By Edward Cody and Kevin Sieff, The Washington Post
PARIS — France threatened Friday to unilaterally speed withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, underlining growing doubts about coalition unity in the U.S.-led effort to leave behind a lasting government in Kabul after more than a decade of war.
President Nicolas Sarkozy and key members of his government made the threat in a burst of anger over the killings of four French soldiers and the wounding of more than a dozen by a renegade Afghan soldier who turned an automatic rifle on his trainers Friday morning at a mountaintop base northeast of Kabul.
The attack, coming after a similar shooting less than a month ago, sabotaged confidence here in the training and transition effort that has become the top focus of U.S. and allied troops.
“We are friends of the Afghan people, allies of the Afghan people,” said a visibly upset Sarkozy. “But I cannot accept that Afghan soldiers fire on French soldiers.”
A precipitous pullout by any of the major members of the U.S.-led coalition would undermine the withdrawal plan NATO agreed to in November 2010 and increase domestic pressure on President Obama to speed the drawdown of U.S. troops.
International concern over the Afghan mission has grown amid repeated instances in which Afghan troops — infiltrated Taliban extremists or individuals with a score to settle — have shot weapons or exploded bombs in attacks designed to kill and wound NATO forces. A report commissioned by the U.S. military said at least 58 Western military personnel were killed in 26 attacks by Afghan soldiers or police between May 2007 and May 2011, when the report was finished.
“Such fratricide is fast leading to a crisis of trust between the two forces, if it hasn’t reached this point already,” the report concluded. Its author, Jeffrey Bordin, wrote that the attacks “do not represent ‘rare and isolated events’ as currently being proclaimed.”
Bordin’s study suggested that personal clashes and insurgent infiltration threaten one of the conflict’s most important relationships — that between Western troops and the Afghans, who in two years will take over combat operations as well as the war’s sprawling architecture.
The report mentions Afghan complaints about bullying, arrogance and an unwillingness to listen as creating dangerous animosity between the forces. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the study’s findings in June.
Military officials acknowledge that the relationship between NATO and Afghan forces varies across provinces and units, and they have suggested that attempts to characterize the overall relationship as troubled or tense are reductive and inaccurate. Officials say the study is not indicative of a widespread threat to the war effort.
But as attacks against foreign trainers have increased, the United States has committed to training a force of Afghan counterintelligence agents to keep insurgents out of the military and police.
Amid concerns by some in NATO that members would begin to make plans to leave Afghanistan, the alliance agreed at its last summit, 14 months ago in Lisbon, to gradually withdraw coalition combat troops by the end of 2014. The date certain — four years away when it was set — was designed to head off domestic pressure across Europe for ending involvement in the coalition.
It was thought that the timetable would allow sufficient training of Afghan troops to take over security tasks, improvement in Afghan governance and progress in negotiations with the Taliban to end the war.
Over the past year, however, the Obama administration has felt the most pressure to front-load the plan by withdrawing the bulk of its troops sooner rather than later. Alliance members plan to discuss the pace of the drawdown at NATO’s next summit, in Chicago in May.
Sarkozy, speaking Friday to foreign diplomats, said all French training and other aid operations were being suspended immediately while France’s deployment is reviewed.
Although the French role in Afghanistan has often been criticized domestically — particularly since Sarkozy relaxed rules limiting exposure to combat — it has never been seriously brought into question in Parliament.
But Sarkozy has moved into campaign mode, running for reelection in a two-round vote scheduled for April 22 and May 6. Any suggestion that he is not vigorously protecting French troops abroad could be disastrous for his hopes of a second term.
Sarkozy’s main opponent in the election, Francois Hollande of the Socialist Party, reacted to the killings Friday by announcing that, if elected, he would bring French soldiers home from Afghanistan “as fast as possible, at the latest by the end of 2012.”
“This operation has gone on long enough,” he said.
About 400 French soldiers were pulled out of Afghanistan in October, leaving an estimated 3,600 in the country. Friday’s statement by Sarkozy is likely to reopen doubts about the depth of commitment to Afghanistan in Europe, where the war has long been unpopular and where leaders have been increasingly reluctant to put their troops in harm’s way.
Some European allies have also expressed concern about the long-term cost of maintaining Afghanistan’s security forces, estimated at between $4 billion and $6 billion a year beyond 2014.
The shootings Friday were the second such attack on French troops in less than a month. Two French Foreign Legion members were shot and killed Dec. 29 by an Afghan soldier in mountainous Kapisa province, which is France’s main area of responsibility. Kapisa is a relatively peaceful zone, but it includes key infiltration routes used by the Taliban to move fighters and supplies from havens across the border in Pakistan.
Friday’s shootings occurred in the same general area. The French soldiers were finishing a workout on an Afghan-commanded base when they were joined by an Afghan army contingent that was to accompany them on a training patrol later in the day, according to reports in Paris. As a result, they were not armed or able to defend themselves, French officials said.
The killings came on the same day that new details emerged about a helicopter crash Thursday in the southern province of Helmand, which claimed the lives of six U.S. Marines. The cause was under investigation Friday, but U.S. officials said insurgent fire did not appear to be involved.
Sieff reported from Kabul. Staff writer Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.

NATO chief downplays attack on French troops in Afghanistan
BRUSSELS, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed condolences on Friday for the four French soldiers that were shot and killed by an Afghan solider, but said the attack is an "isolated" incident.
"Such tragic incidents are terrible and grab headlines, but they are isolated," he said in a statement.
"The reality is that every day, 130,000 ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) troops from 50 nations fight and train with over 300,000 Afghan soldiers. That takes a lot of trust among a lot of soldiers," Rasmussen said.
"We have the same goal. An Afghanistan that is responsible for its own security. That is what Afghans want. And we remain committed to helping Afghans achieve that goal," he concluded.
An Afghan soldier shot and killed four French troops Friday in eastern Afghanistan. Calling the killings "unacceptable," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France was suspending its training missions for Afghan troops and was mulling early withdrawal from the restless country.

Secret Talks with Taliban Will Not Lead to Peace: Abdullah
TOLOnews.com By Nazifa Mahbobi Thursday, 19 January 2012
Leader of the National Coalition, Abdullah Abdullah, on Thursday said that secrets by the Afghan government and the United States with the Taliban will not lead to any peace in Afghanistan.
Mr Abdullah said that secret talks will not be welcomed by the Afghan people and stressed that the Afghan people must not be ignored.
He emphasises that the peace talks should be held inside Afghanistan, otherwise the desired results will not be achieved.
Dr Abdullah believes that the Afghan government and the United States lack a clear plan to hold talks with the Taliban.
"The Taliban must announce that they are ready to hold peace talks with the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Those who take part in the talks must be clearly defined and it must be clear who and what sides they are representing," Dr Abdullah said.
Mr Abdullah also said that Taliban judges are addressing people's legal problems in many parts of the country and that this shows inefficiency of the government.
"Who must be blamed if people refer to Taliban judges in Quetta or areas under Taliban control to solve their problems?," the Leader of the National Coalition said.
Meanwhile, there are many youths in Afghanistan who are very concerned about possible circumstances of peace talks with the Taliban.
"The Afghan people can never accept a return of the Taliban regime or their strict rules," a resident of Kabul city, Emal Haqyar, said.
It comes as there were speculations previously that the Afghan government would be marginalised in peace talks.
The Afghan government has also showed strong reactions to talks without leadership of Afghans. But it is still unclear if the Taliban will accept the Afghan government as a side of negotiation.

Afghan government feels out of the loop on talks
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff Friday, January 20, 2012
KABUL - After years of advocating peace talks as the only way out of the Afghan war, President Hamid Karzai will soon need to decide whether he is willing to participate in an emerging diplomatic process that his top advisers claim has left him marginalized by both the United States and the Taliban.
Although Karzai agreed this month to bless the opening of a Taliban diplomatic office in Qatar, his administration has become increasingly frustrated by talks between U.S. officials and the insurgency, leaving top Afghan government officials unsure where they fit in the negotiations.
The Obama administration, eager for a political settlement to the decade-long war, saw Karzai’s acquiescence to the Qatar office as a signal that his government is on board with a process that had been stagnant for years but has lurched to life in recent weeks.
In interviews, however, Afghan officials say they feel sidelined and misled, left guessing at the character of the negotiations, even as U.S. officials emphasize the importance of “Afghan-led” talks.
“If we continue this way, we’re doomed,” said Shaida M. Abdali, Karzai’s deputy national security adviser.
Marc Grossman, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, will visit Kabul on Saturday for what Afghan officials say will be a pivotal point in negotiations. The officials say they will demand increased clarity from the U.S. diplomat, and a promise that the peace process will promptly become Afghan-led.
The United States insists that it has kept Karzai briefed throughout the nascent peace process, and that early contacts with Taliban representatives were intended only to build confidence before real negotiations begin between the Afghan government and the insurgency. U.S. officials also claim that they have slowed the process at Karzai’s request, and that there have been no direct contacts with the Taliban since October.
But senior Afghan officials, who agreed in principle to early talks between U.S. envoys and the Taliban, say American diplomats have overplayed their hand, making tentative concessions that Karzai opposes and creating distrust that could cripple the peace effort.
The Afghan government is now operating from a position of “deep suspicion,” according to one senior Karzai adviser. The suspicion stems from both the substance of early talks between the United States and the Taliban, and disappointment that after more than a year of quiet negotiations, Karzai is still not playing a lead role, said the adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
Late last year, the United States had prepared to transfer Taliban prisoners who are now being held at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay to Qatar, where they would be held under house arrest. In return, the Taliban would publicly repudiate international terrorism. But Karzai blocked the deal, insisting that if the prisoners were to be released, they should be handed over to the Afghan government, U.S. officials have said.
“That is our constitutional right,” Abdali said. “We are a legitimate government, and we should be treated as one.”
Any transfer of Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo would require the administration to certify to Congress that they would not escape and pose no threat to U.S. security, conditions that would be difficult to meet in Afghanistan’s prison system.
For Afghan officials, that early disagreement over the prisoners cast doubt on the American role in peace negotiations, raising concern that U.S. compromises might weaken Karzai’s position before the Afghan government could take charge of negotiations.
The complaints from Karzai’s inner circle could frustrate U.S. officials, who had assumed they had arrived at a basic agreement with Karzai on the strategy for negotiations. But even the setting for talks — considered by Western diplomats to be critical groundwork for the peace process — remains a point of contention in Kabul.
“We’re fine with a diplomatic office in Qatar, but we still want negotiations to take place in Saudi Arabia or Turkey,” said Aymal Faizi, Karzai’s spokesman.
Some Western officials attribute the recent expressions of doubt by Afghan officials to Karzai’s anxiety over reconciling with the Taliban, an idea that still faces widespread opposition in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials began meeting with Mohammed Tayeb al-Agha, an aide to Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, in November 2010. Karzai’s advisers say their frustration has accumulated since then, as they have waited to take on a more significant role. The September assassination of Afghan peace council chief Burhanuddin Rabbani by a man posing as a Taliban envoy only exacerbated that tension.
In the absence of direct talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar, Karzai has relied on his own set of contacts within the organization. But his advisers say those conversations are no substitute for the kinds of talks the United States has held with men who have apparently been selected by the Taliban’s leadership to serve as the organization’s negotiators.
In the absence of clear information from U.S. officials, top Karzai advisers said they have grown worried about rumors that the United States has offered the Taliban seven provinces in southern Afghanistan. U.S. officials flatly deny such a proposal exists.
Karzai’s advisers say their anxiety could be dispelled during Grossman’s visit on Saturday.
“We need to know exactly what they’ve said to the Taliban and what they’ve heard in return,” one Afghan official said. “We need to be involved in the future of our own country.”
Although Afghan officials have mostly directed their frustration toward the U.S. role in negotiations, the Taliban poses a potentially larger hurdle to the peace process. In the group’s statement this month about its willingness to negotiate, it acknowledged the United States as a negotiating partner, but not Karzai’s government.
Even though the Taliban has never formally agreed to direct talks with the Afghan government, the Karzai administration remains insistent that it could promptly begin productive talks with the insurgency if the United States were to cooperate.
On the U.S. side, some are less hopeful about the Taliban’s willingness to engage with Karzai, claiming the group prefers to talk to the United States. The Taliban is “not willing to sit down with the Afghan government,’” one U.S. official recently said. “Our job is to see if we can break through that door.”
Staff writer Karen DeYoung contributed to this report from Washington.

McMaster: Afghan anti-corruption drive is working
Washington Post By Jason Ukman 19/01/2012
U.S. efforts to help root out corruption in Afghanistan have been repeatedly stymied since their beginning. Afghan officials alleged to have engaged in bribery have escaped prosecution; investigative initiatives have stalled; and political interference has at times hindered attempts to reduce the sort of endemic malfeasance that has driven Afghans to the Taliban.
But the senior military officer tasked with combating corruption in Afghanistan asserts that Afghan officials now recognize the long-term costs of the problem, and he says the Americans understand that their failure to properly oversee the huge sums of money the West has delivered to the country have helped fuel the problem.
“Afghans recognize – I mean very clearly – the threat to the Afghan state of corruption and organized crime,” Army Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster said Thursday in a rare briefing. “And what’s different now than maybe a couple of years ago is we have a common understanding of that problem as a basis for common action.”
U.S. military officials have long stressed that widespread corruption in Afghanistan threatens to undermine battlefield gains in the country. But actually reducing corruption in a desperately poor country that has seen decades of conflict has proven both practically and politically difficult.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly vowed to make a priority of anti-corruption efforts – most recently at an international conference on Afghanistan in December – only to condemn American attempts to combat corruption as interference in internal Afghan affairs. His moves to quash investigations into high-level officials in his government forced the Obama administration to back off a more aggressive approach to corruption.
Last year, the country’s entire financial system nearly collapsed after revelations that the leadership of Kabul Bank had funneled nearly $1 billion in illicit loans to shareholders and prominent government officials.
U.S. officials, meantime, have continued to fret about the consequences of corruption.
“Corruption makes a mockery of the rule of law,” Adm. Mike Mullen told Congress last fall, before he stepped down as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “It de-legitimizes the very governing institutions to which we will be transitioning authority, and it sends an aggrieved populace further into the waiting arms of the Taliban.”
Speaking to reporters from Kabul on Thursday, McMaster said the goal has been to reduce corruption – not win at an “all-or-nothing” contest. And he dismissed the “myth” that the Afghan government has always had a natural affinity for corruption, saying that that belief was “bigotry masquerading as cultural sensitivity.”
“This is a problem fundamentally of political will, and there’s a need to generate the political will to take on this problem set. I think now, because we’ve worked on this problem together, we can also see the long-term costs of inaction against these networks,” McMaster said.
Whether that recognition will succeed in reducing corruption over the long term is far from certain. Transparency International still ranks Afghanistan as the one of the most corrupt countries in the world, tied with Myanmar, and less corrupt than only Somalia. In describing various anti-corruption reforms and auditing measures, McMaster did not cite any high-level prosecutions of senior Afghan officials.
Among the clearest signs of progress, McMaster said, may involve reforms to “make sure we’re not part of the problem,” with international aid continuously diverted to the insurgency or organized crime networks.
Officials, McMaster said, “follow ... where our money goes much better than before.”

Afghan turmoil claims 10 NATO soldiers in 2 days
By Abdul Haleem, Chen Xin
KABUL, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Continued militancy and mayhem in Afghanistan have claimed the lives of 10 soldiers with the NATO- led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) over the past two days, bringing the coalition's fatalities to 26 since January this year, the military alliance confirmed in statements released Friday.
The latest fatalities that the NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force suffered was killing of four service members by a man in Afghan army uniform in the eastern region Friday morning.
"Four International Security Assistance Force Service members were killed today in eastern Afghanistan by a member of Afghan National Army," a statement released by the NATO-led ISAF here said.
Without giving more details on the nationalities of the victims and the exact place of the incident, the alliance in the brief statement added that "suspected shooter has been apprehended."
"It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities," the statement further said.
A private television channel Tolo earlier reported that an Afghan soldier opened fire and killed four foreign soldiers in Kapisa province Friday morning.
Troops from France and the United States have been stationed in Kapisa province 65 km northeast of Afghan capital Kabul, where Taliban insurgents are active in parts of the mountainous province.
In the previous incident for which Taliban claimed responsibility, a helicopter crashed and killed six NATO soldiers in the southern region of Afghanistan on Thursday.
"Six International Security Assistance Force service members died following a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan yesterday," a statement released by NATO-led ISAF troops here confirmed.
However, the brief statement also did not reveal the nationalities of the victims and the exact place of the incident.
Meantime, Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Friday claimed responsibility for shooting down a chopper in Helmand province that left six service members of the alliance dead in southern Afghanistan on Thursday.
Qari Yusuf Ahmadi who claims to speak for the Taliban outfit in talks with media via telephone from unknown location claimed that "Taliban fighters shot down a Chinook helicopter of foreign troops on Thursday night in Zabir Kariz village which located between Zamindawar and Musa Qala districts."
Notorious for militancy and growing poppy, Helmand province with Lashkar Gah as its capital 555 km south of Afghan capital Kabul has been regarded as the hotbed of Taliban militants over the past couples of years.
Until January 19, according to iCasualties, a website tracking the casualties of U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, 16 soldiers with 14 of them Americans had been killed in Afghanistan while 10 more deaths on Thursday and Friday brought the alliance casualties to 26 since beginning of January this year against 32 throughout January 2011.

Drone Strike Kills Top Al-Qaeda Figure
January 20, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
U.S. officials have told Western media that a top Al-Qaeda operative was killed in a CIA drone strike earlier this month.
Unnamed U.S. officials told the AP and Reuters news agencies the strike inside Pakistan on January 10 targeted Aslam Awan, described as an "external operations planner" for Al-Qaeda.
Pakistani officials could not confirm Awan was killed in the drone attack in the border province of North Waziristan, but U.S. officials quoted by Western agencies say he was.
The strike is reportedly one of the first in some six weeks after U.S. forces mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani border troops, triggering a chill in relations between Pakistan and the United States.
compiled from agency reports

NATO Supplies to Afghanistan Keep Flowing, But at a Price
ABCNews.com By Luis Martinez Jan 20, 2012
It’s been almost two months since Pakistan closed the two key border crossings into Afghanistan used to supply NATO troops in Afghanistan, and though alternate routes have kept the supplies flowing, the financial cost has been substantial.
A Pentagon official says the cost of moving supplies into Afghanistan is now $104 million a month. That’s $87 million more than the $17 million it used to cost to transport supplies when the border crossings were open.
The cost estimate includes the added costs of the combined ground and air movements being used to offset the closed border crossings.
The 512 percent increase in monthly costs resulted from Pakistan’s shut down of the border crossings at Torkham and Chaman shortly after a NATO air strike in late November mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers serving at a remote border outpost. The Pakistani government closed the crossings to show their displeasure with the U.S. and NATO in the wake of the deadly attack.
Pentagon officials have said that the closure of the border crossings has not impacted NATO’s military operations inside Afghanistan.
But rerouting those supplies has proven costly.
Though the overland routes through Pakistan were a crucial entry way for fuel supplies, in recent years U.S. military planners had expanded another ground supply route known as the Northern Distribution Network (NDN).
Coursing its way through Russia and the former Soviet republics that border Afghanistan, the seven supply routes that form the NDN were already the main entry point for non-lethal supplies for NATO in Afghanistan.
When Pakistan closed the border crossings, only 30 percent of NATO supplies flowed through them, most of it fuel.
A Defense official says most of the added costs come from the diversion of supplies originally intended to go through Pakistan that now arrive by ship in other countries in the region for eventual air transport into Afghanistan.
For example, there is the added cost in diverting some cargo from Pakistani ports to Indian ports where the supplies are either flown into Afghanistan or transported northward by train for delivery through one of the NDN routes.
Additional costs come from the transportation of more materials through the NDN, and the even pricier cost of flowing in supplies on direct flights from the U.S. or Europe into Afghanistan.
The direct flights cost ten times what it would cost to transport materials through Pakistan. That is one of the reasons it is the least used option.
Transporting materials through the NDN is estimated to be three times the cost of transporting supplies through Pakistan.
Pakistan has not indicated that it will reopen the border crossings any time soon which could mean that using the costly alternate routes will be the only options for the foreseeable future.

India discusses Afghan situation with U.S.
NEW DELHI, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- India and the United States Friday held a high-level meeting to discuss ways to bring about peace to war-ravaged Afghanistan.
U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman met Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai in the national capital and reviewed the situation in Kabul and discussed ways to enhance their partnership for the "Afghan-led and Afghan- owned" reconciliation process.
"We reviewed the situation and I appreciate his (Mathai's) desire to continue the conversation between India and the U.S. on this issue," Grossman told the media after the meeting.
Grossman, who is to visit Afghanistan on Saturday, said that he would have discussions with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and later on the United States will decide on its next course of action.
"Obviously, the issue of relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan is hugely important. We would like to continue to reinforce conversation on that issue as well. We encourage dialogue between Pakistan and Afghanistan and we would like to see revival of the (trilateral) core group," he said.

Afghanistan Closes Hundreds Of NGOs
January 19, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
A top Afghan official says hundreds of local and foreign NGOs have been shut down for violating the law.
Economy Minister Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that 600 Afghan and 195 foreign NGOs were closed on January 18 because they failed to send biannual reports to the Economy Ministry detailing their activities, progress, and budgets, which is required by law.
“These NGOs either didn’t send us their work reports or committed other violations," he said. "If NGOs don’t send us their reports every six months and if we continue not to receive them for two years, these NGOs are considered to be inactive.”
Arghandiwal added that all NGOs operating inside Afghanistan must have a license and working permit from the Economy Ministry, which regulates all their activities.
The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), which works with aid agencies and international donors to coordinate humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, welcomed the decision.
Mohammed Hashim Mayar, an advisor to ACBAR, claimed the closed NGOs -- whose identities have yet to be revealed -- were ineffective and their closures would have no adverse effects in Afghanistan.
“These NGOs were closed according to the law," he said. "They were small and had no effective activities. They registered themselves so they could get money from donors. Once they couldn’t get funding they couldn’t function. [Their liquidation] will neither affect the Afghan people nor the government. Their liquidation will not have any impact.”
Calls For Closer Monitoring
Since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, hundreds of NGOs have begun working in Afghanistan on various projects funded by international donors. But according to the Economy Ministry, some 1,715 Afghan and 301 foreign NGOs have been liquidated for breaking the law since that time.
Since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, hundreds of NGOs have begun working in south-Asian country on various projects funded by international donors.
Nonetheless, according to the Economy Ministry, 1,715 Afghan and 301 foreign NGOs have been liquidated for breaking the law since that time.
A number of NGOs in Afghanistan have come under criticism for being ineffective, wasting resources, and implementing substandard projects.
There have been persistent calls for their funding and activities to be closely monitored to limit corruption and to redirect resources to key areas such as infrastructure.
Written by Frud Bezhan based on reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan

US Relations Still on Hold, Says Pakistan
VOA News January 19, 2012
Pakistan's foreign minister said on Thursday that relations with the United States remain on hold following November's NATO attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border.
In an interview with Reuters news agency, Hina Rabbani Khar told Reuters said Pakistan cannot begin to re-engage with the U.S. until it finishes re-evaluating bilateral ties.
The comments come just days after Pakistan delayed a visit by U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman until a parliamentary committee completes its review of U.S.-Pakistan relations.
Grossman is leading a delegation to Afghanistan this week to get Afghan President Hamid Karzai's approval for the resumption of preliminary peace talks with the Taliban.
Pakistan's foreign minister told Reuters that Washington should not push Islamabad to get involved in the Afghan peace process or go after militant networks until Pakistan finishes re-evaluating its ties with the United States. The U.S. needs to be patient and that any pressure would only hurt efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan, Khar said.
She also noted that the parliamentary committee could unveil its recommendations for relations with the United States within days.
The November 26 NATO attack on a Pakistani military post plunged U.S.-Pakistan relations to a new low point. And last May, a U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad infuriated Pakistan, which was not made aware of the U.S. operation beforehand.
The Pakistani foreign minister did strike a positive note in her interview, telling Reuters that re-evaluating ties will give both countries the ability to strengthen their partnership and make it much more effective. She said that Pakistan considers its relationship with the U.S. to be an "extremely important one."
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S.-Pakistan relationship should be "broad and deep," going beyond just the area of security. The full civilian relationship has been moving forward since the November attack and that U.S. civilian aid has continued to flow to Pakistan, Nuland said.

Pakistan to re-open NATO route, Taliban talks falter
Reuters By Michael Georgy Thu Jan 19, 2012
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan expects to re-open supply routes to NATO forces in Afghanistan, halted after a NATO cross-border air attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November, but will impose tariffs, a senior security official told Reuters Thursday.
The move suggests tensions with the United States and NATO have eased, but more progress is needed for the kind of cooperation necessary to fight militancy in the border region which U.S. President Barack Obama has called the world's most dangerous place.
The official said the fees were designed to both express continued anger over the November 26 attack and raise funds for the state to fight homegrown Taliban militants blamed for many of the suicide bombings across the country.
"The tariffs will cover everything from the port to security to roads, which after all belong to Pakistan," the security official, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters.
No date was given for reopening the supply routes. Pakistan's trade ministry was working out details of the tariffs, said the official.
The NATO attack plunged relations between troubled allies Pakistan and the United States to their lowest point in years.
Ties had already been severely strained by a secret raid by U.S. special forces that killed Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil in May last year, embarrassing the military, which has ruled the country for over half of its 64-year history and sets security and foreign policy.
Asked if the re-opening was a sign that the crisis in relations could be tackled, the official said there was some way to go before normalcy was possible.
The two land routes to Afghanistan through Pakistan account for just under a third of all cargo that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) ships into Afghanistan.
MYRIAD CHALLENGES
Aside from friction with the United States, Pakistan faces a slowing economy heavily dependent on foreign aid and is struggling with militant violence.
Exploratory peace talks between the homegrown Taliban, which is close to al Qaeda, and Islamabad, raised hopes that Pakistan's leaders could eventually have one less major problem to deal with.
But the talks have made little headway, a senior security official told Reuters Thursday, after the Taliban flatly rejected a demand that it work through tribal elders to reach a deal whereby fighters approach authorities and lay down their arms.
"They felt it would be humiliating. The talks are not making progress," the official said. "If they want to be included in the political system, that is what they will have to do."
The Pakistani Taliban, allied with the Afghan Taliban movement fighting U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan, are entrenched in Pakistan's unruly northwestern tribal areas, along the porous frontier with Afghanistan.
GOVERNMENT STABILITY
Past peace talks have merely given the group time and space to consolidate and launch fresh suicide attacks on army installations, police stations and crowded street markets.
Such a new wave of violence could further undermine a government under pressure from the Supreme Court and the military.
Pakistan's Supreme Court Thursday adjourned a contempt hearing for Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in a case that could push him from office and imperil hopes that the longest-running civilian administration in the country's coup-marred history can complete a five-year term.
Gilani was in court to explain why he should not be charged with contempt for failing to re-open old corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.
The government maintains Zardari has presidential immunity.
"It is my conviction that he (Zardari) has complete immunity inside and outside the country," Gilani told the court.
The prime minister, however, appeared not to have convinced some judges.
"On the next date, let's hear you convince us the issue is of the president's immunity," said Justice Sarmad Osmani, a member of the seven-panel bench. "Let's grab the bull by its horns."
While the immediate battle is about Gilani, the larger political crisis is about Zardari -- who has had his own run-ins with the chief justice -- and the fate of his government which is also increasingly at loggerheads with the military.
Tensions between the civilian leadership and the army, at their worst since a 1999 coup, were sparked by a mysterious memo last year that sought U.S. help in reining in the generals.
(Additional reporting by Qasim Nauman, Serena Chaudhry and Rebecca Conway in ISLAMABAD, and Faisal Aziz and Sahar Ahmed in KARACHI; Editing by Ed Lane)

Kabul's one-stop forgery shop
Jon Boone and Nooruddin Bakhshi, Kabul January 20, 2012 The Age (Australia)
ACROSS the road from the headquarters of Kabul's police chief is a one-stop shop for every document an Afghan could need.
A marriage certificate, a CV, a job application - or, for several hundred dollars more, Taliban death threats, the special chits also known as ''night letters'' that can be a passport to a new life in the West.
''We can write whatever you need; it depends,'' said one young clerk.
''For example, we will mention you work in a government department, your job title and salary. It will say; 'If you don't leave your job by this date, we will come and kill you or put a bomb in your house.'
''Or we can say you are working with US forces,'' he added.
That is just the first of many expensive outlays on the high-risk road to a new life in the West. Buyers hope the document will persuade immigration officers many thousands of kilometres away to give them asylum in Europe or Australia.
One people smuggler was happy to talk business after a perfunctory introduction in a car next to a police checkpoint in Kabul.
He said two factors were driving a boom in his business: the rising fear among some Afghans for the future of their country, and the existence of a class of well-off professionals who can afford his huge fees.
Smugglers offer different packages depending on what people can afford. By far the most expensive option, often in excess of $20,000, involves the elaborate forgery of European passports, or tinkering with legitimate ones, which allows his wealthiest clients to fly directly to their target country.
''Eighty per cent of my customers go on a fake passport to Britain,'' confides a smuggler working in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
''If you have money, everything is possible because we have contacts in Western countries who make them for us.''
For a passage to Australia, the smuggler offered an all-expenses-included trip for $11,500. After flying to Malaysia legally, the migrants move across the porous border into Indonesia, from where they try to sail to Christmas Island.
One smuggler, Abdul Khaliq Karbalay, is currently advising would-be clients to wait as the route has become unusable in the wake of the sinking of a boat full of migrants off East Java in December.
Around 250 people were aboard but only 47 survived. Many others fly from Islamabad and travel under fake Pakistani passports. ''We have people at the airport who make sure they will get through customs,'' the talkative Karbalay said.
He oversees the departure of about 15 people a month by plane. He also assists around 100 people each month who can only afford to travel by land, a figure that quadruples in the northern summer when the mountain paths between Iran and Turkey are less treacherous.
That was the route tried by Mohammad Nasim, a 21-year-old from a well-off family who decided to try to leave his country after his brother was killed by a bomb at the Indian embassy in Kabul.
His ultimate destination was Britain, but he only got as far as the Greek border after walking over the mountains from Iran into south-east Turkey.
Around 40 other Afghans were in the group walking under cover of darkness along mountain tracks. With fake passports they then travelled by car to Istanbul, but the documents failed him when he tried to cross into Greece. ''I'd agreed to pay $18,000 if I got to England, but I only had to give them $5000 in advance,'' said Nasim. ''I was just unlucky when they checked my document.''
He was deported back to Iran, where he was kidnapped by a criminal gang before being allowed to return to Kabul after his family paid a ransom.
The situation for marooned Afghans in Greece - where 50,000 Afghans go each year - is so bad that the Afghan government plans to open an embassy in Athens.
For Mohammad, a 30-year-old mechanic, finding the cash to travel is almost impossible.
''I am worried about the future of Afghanistan,'' he said, pointing off into the distance at the wall of snow-capped peaks that surround the Afghan capital. ''The Taliban are behind those mountains; they can come tomorrow or the day after.''

Better Late Than Never: The Afghan War Handbook
TIME By Mark Thompson January 19, 2012
After a decade of war in Afghanistan, there’s a new guidebook out on just who we’re fighting. It’s The Afghan Way of War by Robert Johnson, Oxford historian. It is his subtitle – How and Why They Fight – that should be required reading for the leaders of both the U.S. and U.K., as well as the grunts on Afghan soil. Battleland conducted an email exchange with Johnson about his work:
What’s the most important thing you learned in writing The Afghan Way of War?
The most significant discovery was the Afghan perspective, which was just as full of misconceptions and errors of judgment as their adversaries who occupied their lands. The greatest fallacy of all is the tendency to generalize about Afghans. In Afghanistan, ‘localism’ is all. It matters a great deal how power is distributed, that there is redress, equilibrium and accountability.
Afghans have often been attributed with the ability to defeat all invaders, but The Afghan Way of War illustrates that co-opting foreigners to serve local power interests could be far more important. It is also striking how frequently Afghan regular military forces underperformed in Afghanistan’s history, compared with irregular fighters. While habits of fighting styles emerged, pragmatism would always triumph, so settling scores might just as easily become settling of differences, if it served the purposes of local leaders.
Most surprising was the realization that foreign military interventions, far from fulfilling the rhetoric of nationalists claiming an affront to Islam and identity, actually created long term benefits for Afghanistan that were not apparent at the time.
What is the biggest misconception Westerners have about the Afghan way of war?
Very often Westerners assume that the past repeats itself in Afghanistan, or, at the very least, there are ‘obvious’ parallels in the Afghan way of war. Interestingly, policies were framed in 2001 precisely in order to avoid repeating the past, namely, a permanent military occupation. By seeking a cheaper alternative, it seems the Coalition may have in fact worsened the situation.
Although it may have had a decisive effect, too little assistance was offered to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2006. A failure to consult local peoples, too much haste and eagerness to impose Western models alienated many who would otherwise have tolerated the Coalition forces.
Assumptions were then often made that Afghan ‘Taliban’ were ideologues aligned precisely to Al Qaeda, when many were in fact fighting for local interests. Understanding the more subtle and nuanced perspectives has greatly assisted International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) units to come to terms with who has been fighting them and why.
Is there such a thing as the “$10 Taliban”? What share of the Taliban do you think they are?
Most fighters are drawn from local communities, although there is a significant levy from outside the country who have been used to stiffen, facilitate and lead groups of local fighters. A proportion of locals fight without any expectation of financial reward, although there has been an understanding that certain fighters have earned more than $10 a day, and commanders three times that amount.
For some years, this acted as a competitive salary compared with the rates of pay of uniformed police and Afghan Army ‘warriors’. Nevertheless, money is no guide to loyalty. A Pashtun proverb warns that you can hire an Afghan, but you can never buy him.
Who is now the enemy in Afghanistan?
This very much depends on one’s perspective. More than one ISAF commander has specified that the task of Western forces is to protect the Afghan people not only from insurgents but also predatory police and officials. Many Afghans in rural areas express the view that Pakistan is becoming a greater enemy than the foreigners or the corrupt elites of Kabul.
No foreigners or government workers who coerce Afghans are tolerated, and there is little faith or trust in outsiders generally, especially if they provide no protection. However, there are memories of how Pakistan has tried to interfere in Afghanistan before and the civil war of 1989-2001 is largely blamed on Islamabad.
For the West, its enemies too are shifting. Where once Al Qaeda loomed largest, now it is the Haqqani network and the insurgents of regional Command East who pose the greatest threats. One hopes that the enemies of good government – impatience and hubris – have now been slain.
Can Afghanistan build and sustain an army?
Building an army is often easier than sustaining one. The Western military plan is to gradually scale back the large Afghan National Security Forces as the security situation improves. This expectation is not settled in time, but is assumed to be after the Western transition in 2014-2015.
The Afghan government cannot sustain a large army and police service through its own revenues, and there is a risk that the Afghan army might precipitate some sort of seizure of power to secure its position in Afghan politics and prevent its contraction. Finding employment for these troops, police and Auxiliary police will be the key to avoiding a security crisis.
Do you think it makes sense for all international combat troops to get out of Afghanistan by 2015?
It makes perfect sense to carry out a staged withdrawal, and, contrary to some accounts, this was always envisaged. No one planned for a permanent occupation. What appears to be at stake, however, is the ability to ensure that the stabilization measures in the economy and governance can endure beyond the Western military withdrawal.
The recent National Intelligence Estimate may, if rumors are accurate, take a negative view of this, but ISAF officers remain upbeat. A premature or rapid withdrawal would almost certainly undo the precarious security situation in Regional Command East.
In one incident last year, ANSF abandoned their posts the moment they came under fire from insurgents, but elsewhere in the country they have been more resilient and have led their own independent operations against fighters. The picture is therefore mixed and is likely to remain so: some areas will probably remain under government jurisdiction, others may not.
What did the U.S., U.K. and their allies do right when they invaded Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks?
Much has been made of the successful formula in 2001 in Afghanistan of Western air power with Special Operational Forces on the ground, seeking the consensus and support of willing local fighters, which was also a feature in Kosovo and Libya.
The restoration of Afghan sovereignty in 2001, the deployment of development assistance, to search for a local leader with broad based support and the development of local security forces were also measures which went a long way to win Afghan support. Above all, restoring the pride and dignity of Afghans, to enable them to secure and govern their own people and territory, was and is vital.
What did the U.S., U.K. and their allies do wrong when they invaded Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks?
A number of errors were made after 2001 which has led some to believe that Westerners were the enemy, which in turn meant continuation of the war and the squandering of opportunities for funding, peace and development. In Afghan history, this realization is not unusual.
Yet after 2001 the most glaring problems were to design a legal and constitutional system that did not build consensus, that Western forces allowed themselves to be manipulated by factions, to be drawn into a military occupation without adequate ‘lines of operation’ in governance and economic assistance, and a failure to unify their efforts or align them with Afghans.
The greatest dereliction of duty though has not been by soldiers, but by political leaders, ambassadors and policy advisors who failed to design a diplomatic solution. While the soldiers did their best to secure, or build, or understand the local peoples needs, their political masters either ignored Afghanistan in favor of Iraq, or failed to engage in regional or local dialogues.
Some of these political figures have sheltered behind the ranks of the soldiers, the wounded and the dead, but history has a way of judging such betrayal and incompetence with devastating precision.

Talk of Devolution Angers Kabul
Fears that decentralisation could produce “balkanised” Afghanistan.
IWPR By Mina Habib 19 Jan 12
Afghanistan - Afghan opposition leaders have angered the government by meeting United States Congress members and issuing a call for decentralisation in their country.
Critics of the January 9 meeting in Berlin see it as a case of foreign meddling that could encourage further destabilisation and fragmentation of the state.
The Afghan delegation consisted of leaders of the Afghan National Front, a political bloc opposed to President Hamed Karzai and unhappy about plans to seek peace with the Taleban.
The Afghan National Front was represented by its leader Ahmad Zia Massoud; General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful figure formerly in command of a mainly Uzbek militia; Haji Mohammad Mohaqeq, who heads Hezb-i Wahdat, an ethnic Hazara militia-turned-party; and Amrullah Saleh, former chief of the Afghan security service.
Massoud and Saleh come from the Tajik-populated Panshir Valley, so that together with Dostum and Muhaqeq, the front represents the main non-Pashtun factions once known as the Northern Alliance. This group allied itself with the US-led coalition that invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 and drove out the largely Pashtun Taleban.
The US side was led by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, his fellow-Republicans Louie Gohmert and Steve King, and Democrat Loretta Sanchez.
In a joint statement, participants described the ongoing attempts to come to terms with the insurgents as flawed because they excluded Northern Alliance factions that helped oust the Taleban regime back in 2001.
“The present form of discussions with the Taliban is flawed, as it excludes anti-Taleban Afghans. The present negotiations with the Taleban fail to take into account the risks, sacrifices and legitimate interests of the Afghans who ended the brutal oppression of all Afghans,” the statement said.
Rohrabacher said a coalition government with the Taleban would be a betrayal of the Americans who had died in Afghanistan, and of the Northern Alliance members who supported the US invasion.
The Afghan authorities are pursuing negotiations with insurgent groups via its High Peace Council, and on a somewhat separate track, the Taleban are expected to open a mission in Qatar through which they will talk to the international community. (See Afghans Demand Ownership of Taleban Talks Process on the controversy surrounding the Qatar office.)
Controversially, the joint statement called for administrative authority to be devolved to regional level. It suggested a revised constitution could correct “inherent flaws in the present power structure by decentralising the political system, making it more compatible with the diverse political, social and cultural nature of Afghanistan”.
At national level, the statement said, Afghanistan should have a parliamentary democracy rather than a “personality-centred presidential system”, and at subnational level, provincial governors should be elected and regional councils given more power.
“Such elected governors and provincial councils should also have authority for such things as creating budgets and generating revenue, overseeing police and healthcare, as well as establishing educational authority, if they so desire,” it said.
Afghanistan’s foreign ministry condemned the unofficial talks, saying they undermined national unity, and were tantamount to foreign interference.
“If [people] contact foreign countries without consulting the Afghan government and go against the national interest, we not only disagree with such action, we condemn it,” Hamid Elmi, a spokesman for Karzai, told IWPR.
The US State Department washed its hands of the meeting, saying its view was that such talks should take place in Afghanistan, and it had not sanctioned the meeting, according to RFE/RL.
"We also believe it's always best when our members of Congress can see a broad cross section of Afghan political leaders, not just a slice," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, according to the Associated Press. "But it's within their right to meet with whomever they'd like."
The German government said in a statement that it was not involved in arranging the private event.
Faizullah Zaki, a spokesman for the Afghan National Front, defended the talks, saying they allowed the opposition to air their views internationally.
Many commentators in Afghanistan shared their government’s anger with the Berlin meeting.
Ramazan Bashardost, an independent-minded member of parliament who is no supporter of Karzai, said he was saddened by the affair, and accused the Americans of supporting individuals “whose hands are stained with the blood of the people”.
He said he suspected the US was planning to put together a “salad” of unsavoury political figures and “force-feed” the concoction to the Afghan people, “even if it makes them vomit”.
Devolution, which many fear would turn Afghanistan into a collection of mini-states defined by ethnicity and ruled by warlords, is a hugely controversial issue in the country. Political analyst Wahid Mozhda warned against any plan to carve up Afghanistan.
“Wherever America has intervened, it has subsequently left a legacy of balkanisation,” he said.
Another analyst, Ghafur Liwal, also spoke out against moves that could lead to fragmentation. He said there were some in the US and Afghanistan who had been panicked by their respective governments’ policies of engaging with insurgent groups, and were responding by bolstering the former Northern Alliance leaders now in opposition, as an “instrument to intimidate the Karzai government”.
On the streets of the capital, Afghans differed in their reactions to the unofficial Berlin diplomacy.
Kabul resident Hakim Shariyar said that opposition leaders were entitled to express their opinions, and that he would like to see the central monopoly on power reduced, and greater authority given to parliament.
But Kabul University student Gul Rasul said Afghanistan was already far too fragmented. He traced this state of affairs back to the chaos that followed the collapse of President Najibullah’s administration in 1992, which led to years of internecine warfare among the various militarised factions.
Even today, he said, local leaders had far too much independent authority.
“Doesn’t Atta Mohammad Nur, the governor of Balkh province, have an independent government? It’s obvious that he doesn’t obey the Karzai government. Isn’t that federalism?” Rasul asked.
Atta Mohammad did not attend the Berlin talks, saying he did not agree with its agenda. Nor did Abdullah Abdullah, who like him came out of the same Northern Alliance faction as Massoud. A spokesman for Abdullah’s Coalition for Change and Hope, Sayed Hussain Sancharaki, said the group opposed a federal solution for Afghanistan.
Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained contributor in Kabul.

Afghan Constitution More Breached Than Honoured
Eighth anniversary of bill of rights leaves little cause for rejoicing.
IWPR By Mina Habib 19 Jan 12
Afghanistan - As Afghanistan marked the eighth anniversary of its constitution this month, legal experts bemoaned the failure to put it into practice, blaming conflict, corruption and a culture of impunity.
The constitution passed on January 4, 2004 laid out a vision of a modern Afghanistan committed to human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
At the anniversary ceremony held in the capital Kabul, the assessment of the last eight years was bleak. Critics said the rich and powerful systematically disregarded the letter of the law, while foreign military operations undermined the principles of sovereignty enshrined in the constitution.
Gul Rahman Qazi, who chairs the Independent Commission for Overseeing Implementation of the Constitution, focused on the NATO-led international force, saying its presence was in breach of articles upholding national sovereignty, making security and defence the responsibility of the government alone, and outlining the rights and obligations of foreign nationals.
The United States embassy declined IWPR’s request for a comment on this, while NATO’s International Security Assistance Force sent an email saying its support for Afghanistan was consistent with international law, a mandate from the United Nations, and agreements with the government.
The Afghan parliament is at loggerheads with President Karzai, and the anniversary offered his political opponents another chance to accuse him of imposing unconstitutional decisions. One of their central complaints concerns his move to review some results of the September 2010 parliamentary election following allegations of fraud. (See Afghanistan's Troublesome Parliament for background on this.)
Sardar Mohammad Oghli, a vocal critic of Karzai and a former member of parliament from the northern province of Faryab, alleged that the president had violated the constitution at least 20 times, for example by changing the scheduled dates of elections, and keeping ministers in their posts despite votes of no confidence by legislators.
Abdullah Abdullah, leader of the opposition Coalition for Change and Hope, said the president encouraged others to ignore the constitution by breaching it himself.
“When the president himself violates the constitution and uses it as an instrument for his own will, this obviously paves the way for others to interfere in implementing the law,” he said.
Rafi Ferdous, an advisor at the government’s media centre, said the allegations levelled by Karzai’s critics and the media were unfair, arguing that radical change could not happen overnight.
“It is true that in some cases, the constitution has not been implemented in the past eight years, but turning it into a reality is going to take many years,” he said.
Faizullah Jalal, professor of law and political science at Kabul University, said there was a whole swathe of Afghan strongmen who acted with impunity.
“The laws have always been broken by powerful individuals,” he said. “This has not only undermined national unity, it has fed a ‘mafia dragon’ which has swallowed up both the people and the government.”
In Kabul, people said they were fed up with lawlessness in its different forms.
“The law is blind here; it does not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty,” shopkeeper Gul Agha said. “When ordinary people commit a crime, they are jailed for years without trial, but if powerful individuals or their relatives break the law, there is no one who can bring them to justice.”
A city traffic policeman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said disregard for the law was symbolised by the driving habits of people in power.
“Ministers, deputy ministers and [paramilitary] commanders break traffic laws. They drive on the wrong side of the road, they go over intersections illegally, and generally ignore the rules,” he said, adding that it was impossible to stop them and charge them with such violations. If traffic officers tried, he added, they would be threatened by the armed men who surround such people.
Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained reporter in Kabul.

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