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Lawmakers warn of outcry against Taliban transfer
By Missy Ryan and Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers are steeling for a public battle against the possible transfer of Taliban detainees out of Guantanamo Bay prison, a key step in the Obama administration's bid to broker a peace deal ending the war in Afghanistan.
Congressional opposition is gaining steam, especially among Republicans but also among some senior Democrats, to the potential transfer to Qatar of five senior Taliban prisoners, a good-faith move that could set the stage for eventual political talks between the Taliban and Afghan government.
One Republican lawmaker said public opposition would escalate sharply if and when the administration formally notified Congress it intends to transfer the prisoners, who come from the highest ranks of the Afghan militant movement.
"If they do that, then all hell breaks loose. There's just no way," the lawmaker said on condition of anonymity.
While Congress does not approve such transfers, a 30-day waiting period is required before they take place. The White House might rethink such a risky move if serious bipartisan friction emerged in a presidential election year.
Yet efforts to broker a peace deal between the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban have become central to U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, where insurgents remain capable of launching damaging attacks even after more than a decade of foreign military efforts.
Western nations have long planned to pull most combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. But as fatigue and the financial burden of the war mount, it appears NATO nations will seek to curtail their Afghan missions even earlier.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday the United States would seek to shift from a combat to an advisory role in 2013.
A fast-approaching departure for foreign troops is one reason why the congressional take on the reconciliation bid - and especially the transfer of prisoners some lawmakers fear will reemerge on the battlefield - is so skeptical.
"It would seem that the Taliban are free to wait the President out and recoup their senior leaders without obtaining any real guarantee for a peaceful, stable or free Afghanistan," said Claude Chafin, a spokesman for Buck McKeon, the Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee.
Lawmakers are also reluctant to accept a plan that, if successful, would likely bring a hard-line Islamist group with a history of oppressing women and committing human rights violations back into power in some capacity.
Recent intelligence analysis has suggested that while the Taliban has been weakened, militants are not ready to abandon their fight against Western troops.
"In fact it's saying we're all in deep kimchi, and (administration officials) feel like this is their last grasp at a straw to put something together," said the Republican lawmaker speaking on condition of anonymity.
The administration has said a transfer, if it occurs, will be a "national decision" made in consultation with Congress.
DOUBTS ABOUT DANGEROUS DETAINEES
Administration officials briefed select lawmakers from both houses of Congress this week on the heels of a round of shuttle diplomacy led by Marc Grossman, Obama's envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The flurry of meetings was aimed at enacting a series of confidence-building measures, including a detainee transfer, which could lead to substantive peace talks.
Speaking in Kabul last month, Grossman said the administration had not made a decision to move the five prisoners, whose fate has been a priority for the Taliban. He said any transfer would first have to be agreed upon with Congress.
Some Democrats are also deeply worried.
"We have an agreement that we won't negotiate with terrorists," Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, told Reuters last week.
The White House has laid out conditions that the Taliban would have to respect if any final deal were to be struck - which officials acknowledge is a long shot - including renouncing violence and embracing the Afghan constitution.
Some members of Congress and the U.S. intelligence community have raised questions about the potential hand-over of one detainee in particular, Mullah Mohammed Fazl, a "high-risk" detainee held at Guantanamo since early 2002.
As a senior commander of the Taliban army, Fazl is alleged to be responsible for the killing of thousands of Afghanistan's minority Shi'ite Muslims between 1998 and 2001.
According to U.S. military documents made public by WikiLeaks, he was also on the scene of a November 2001 prison riot that killed CIA operative Johnny Micheal Spann, the first American to die in combat in the Afghan war.
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity last month, said he knew of no evidence Fazl was involved in the death of Spann, who was surrounded and killed by rioting prisoners.
"Do we have footage of him pulling the trigger? No. Do we know he was involved in the uprising that led to (Spann's) death? Yes," said a Republican lawmaker who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They're trying to parse words there."
The administration said this week it had asked intelligence agencies for additional assessments of the risks of transferring the five detainees to a third country.
(Writing by Missy Ryan; editing by Todd Eastham)
NATO Chief: Afghan Roadmap Stands Despite US, French Announcements
VOA News February 2, 2012
NATO Secretary General Anders-Fogh Rasmussen says the coalition's timeline for the security transition in Afghanistan still stands, despite recent announcements from the United States and France.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have each suggested the coalition should end its combat role in 2013, more than a year ahead of previous plans, and switch to training and advising Afghan troops through 2014.
Rasmussen said ahead of Thursday's NATO defense ministers' meeting in Brussels that the alliance will stand by its previously agreed to plan to wind up operations in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
But the NATO secretary-general noted that international troops will hand over security control of the last Afghan provinces to Afghan forces by the middle of next year. He said starting in mid-2013, Afghan security forces will “take the lead” and coalition troops will gradually change from “combat to support.” He said “in that, there is nothing new.”
Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters traveling to Brussels with him that “hopefully by the mid-to-latter part of 2013 we will be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role.”
French President Sarkozy announced earlier this month that his country will withdraw its combat forces from Afghanistan in 2013, a year earlier than planned.
The U.S. defense chief called 2013 a crucial year for the final transfer of remaining areas to Afghan security forces. He said no decisions have been made about the level of U.S. forces remaining in Afghanistan once that combat role has ended.
Thursday's NATO meeting in Brussels is being held just days after a leaked coalition report revealed that members of the Taliban insurgency are confident they can regain power in Afghanistan once coalition troops have departed.
The meeting is meant to lay the groundwork for a larger NATO gathering set for Chicago in May.
Panetta: U.S., NATO will seek to end Afghan combat mission next year
Washington Post By Craig Whitlock and Karen DeYoung 02/02/2012
BRUSSELS - The United States hopes to end its combat mission in Afghanistan by the middle of next year, more than a year earlier than scheduled, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Wednesday.
His remarks reflected a growing sentiment within the Obama administration that its approach to Iraq, where the official end of U.S. combat operations came 16 months before the final U.S. troop withdrawal in December, may provide a useful model for winding down operations in Afghanistan.
Current NATO strategy, agreed to at a summit in Lisbon in November 2010, calls for coalition forces to gradually shift to a training, advisory and assistance role with the Afghan military on the way to withdrawing all combat troops by the end of 2014.
The alliance has yet to agree on the pace of that process, however, and Panetta went farther than some in the administration were prepared to say publicly about their own deliberations. “Our goal is to complete all of that transition in 2013,” Panetta told reporters en route to a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. “Hopefully by mid to the latter part of 2013 we’ll be able to make a transition from a combat role.”
NATO “consultations are ongoing,” said a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to clarify the administration’s position. “Until the leaders come together . . . and make a final decision” at their scheduled May summit in Chicago, “nothing is final.”
A Panetta spokesman traveling with the defense chief issued a statement Wednesday evening — several hours after Panetta’s original remarks — saying that U.S. troops could still be involved in at least some combat operations , in partnership with Afghan forces, in 2014.
But Panetta’s comments about an accelerated change in the military mission were the latest sign that the United States and its NATO allies are seeking to hasten the end of their involvement in the unpopular, decade-long war. On Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, facing a tough reelection campaign this spring, abruptly announced in Paris that his country would speed up its combat drawdown this year.
Panetta, in his remarks en route to the NATO meeting, emphasized that an early transition did not mean early withdrawal, saying, “We’ve got to stick to the Lisbon strategy.”
U.S. and NATO forces, he said, would still be actively engaged in helping Afghan forces operate. Although the Afghan army has grown in size and capability, it is still dependent on the U.S. military for airpower, troop movement, supplies and medical aid.
“It’s still a pretty robust role that we’ll be engaged in,” Panetta said. “That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be combat-ready.”
President Obama has yet to decide how many troops will stay in Afghanistan and for how long. Existing withdrawal plans call for the number to decline from its current 90,000 to 68,000 by September, a level at which military commanders — with Panetta’s backing, according to Defense officials — would like it to remain until the end of 2014. The administration is also negotiating an agreement with the Afghan government for what Panetta called an “enduring presence” of counterterrorism and training forces that would remain indefinitely.
Although Afghanistan has not played a prominent role so far in the U.S. presidential campaign, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, has said he wants to continue fighting the Taliban until it is defeated. He has criticized Obama’s strategy of battling the insurgents while also engaging them in peace talks as a sign of weakness.
The Obama administration is betting that Americans are tired of the financial and human cost of the war and would welcome an exit strategy so long as they believed it ensured U.S. national security. Obama has asserted that the completion of the phased Iraq withdrawal, promised during his 2008 campaign, is evidence of U.S. strength and his own resolve.
Although he announced the official end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq in August 2010, many of the 50,000 troops that remained continued to engage in combat, in partnership with the Iraqi troops and occasionally without them.
In addition to the human toll, the fiscal cost of the Afghanistan conflict at a time of weak economies and budget cuts has weighed heavily on all members of the coalition. Panetta said he would ask other NATO defense ministers to reconsider whether it still made sense to underwrite the expansion of Afghanistan’s national security forces, currently at about 310,000, to a planned total of 350,000 soldiers and police.
Boosting the size of the Afghan force has been a cornerstone of the NATO strategy for the war. But the alliance has been reconsidering whether it can still afford to subsidize such a large Afghan force, and for how long. Administration officials have said that Washington and allied capitals can expect to pay for the bulk of the expense of equipping and training Afghan forces long after 2014.
“There’s a general understanding that if this is going to remain sustainable, it may need to come down a little bit,” said a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon. “Exactly what the figure is and what the precise timing will be is something we need to discuss with our allies.”
Panetta said the United States and NATO would ask Arab allies, Japan, South Korea and other countries to pitch in to subsidize the Afghan army and police over the long term.
“In many ways, the funding is going to determine what kind of force we can sustain for the future,” he said.
Under the existing NATO plan, agreed to with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Lisbon, Afghan security forces are scheduled to take control of military operations in about half the country sometime this year, with the rest to gradually follow before the end of 2014.
Although Karzai has expressed public displeasure with NATO forces repeatedly since then, it is unclear whether he has participated in or been briefed on the new plans being discussed.
DeYoung reported from Washington.
Romney blasts Panetta after Afghanistan announcement
By CNN Political Reporter Peter Hamby February 1st, 2012
Las Vegas, Nevada - Mitt Romney swept into Nevada on Wednesday evening and sharply criticized Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta for declaring that the United States and NATO plan to end combat operations in Afghanistan sometime in 2013.
Romney said the public announcement jeopardizes the Afghanistan mission and “our commitments to freedom.”
“He announced that so the Taliban hears it, the Pakistanis hear it, the Afghan leaders hear it,” Romney said of Panetta during a rally in Las Vegas. “Why in the world do you go to the people that you are fighting with and tell them the day you are pulling out your troops? It makes absolutely no sense.”
The former Massachusetts governor cast the decision as a sign of the Obama administration’s “naivete.”
“He is wrong,” Romney said, drawing a booming applause. “We need new leadership in Washington.”
The campaign stop was Romney’s first in Nevada, which holds its Republican caucuses on Saturday, since his blowout win in the Florida primary the previous night.
More than 1,000 sign-waving supporters turned out to see Romney - who appeared with his wife Ann and Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki - at Brady Industries, a janitorial supply and dry cleaning company that has been based in Las Vegas since 1947.
The trio spoke in a warehouse stocked with boxes of wholesale cleaning supplies, many of them manufactured in China.
Romney is widely considered to be the Nevada frontrunner, with Ron Paul nipping at his heels.
Krolicki acknowledged the local enthusiasm for Romney but urged the crowd not to get too confident.
“It’s not time to celebrate,” he said. “We will celebrate Saturday night.”
Pakistan Foreign Minister Supports Kabul's Place in Taliban Negotiations
Wall Street Journal By MARIA ABI-HABIB FEBRUARY 2, 2012
KABUL - Pakistan's foreign minister visited Kabul Wednesday to declare support for Afghan-led peace talks with the Taliban, signaling a thaw in relations between the two uneasy neighbors.
Hina Rabbani Khar's Kabul trip is the first high-level meeting between Afghan and Pakistani officials since September, when relations were rocked by the assassination of Afghanistan's chief peace negotiator, in a killing many Afghan officials have blamed on Pakistan's spy agency. Pakistan denied these allegations.
Ties were further strained in November, when a joint U.S.-Afghan military operation along the border resulted in the killing of some 24 Pakistani troops, prompting Pakistan to shut down the frontier to coalition supplies.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been uneasy with the recent U.S. negotiations with Taliban emissaries, and he has pushed for a seat at the table. While the Taliban so far have declined to negotiate with Kabul, Ms. Khar's comments on Wednesday endorsed Mr. Karzai's request to be a part of the peace negotiations.
Ms. Khar's visit followed the leak of a NATO-coalition report late Tuesday that said Pakistan's spy agency had deep links to and control over the Taliban insurgency.
"Pakistan will stand behind any [peace] initiative, any initiative whatsoever that Afghanistan would take," she said. "So our only prerequisites to be supportive of an initiative is that it should be Afghan-led, it should be Afghan-owned, it should be Afghan-driven."
Afghan officials have been asking Islamabad for nearly a year to declare publicly that Pakistan would allow Afghanistan to steer negotiations with the Taliban. "This is the policy change we've been looking for," an Afghan official said of Ms. Khar's comments Wednesday.
U.S. officials in Kabul have said they support an Afghan-led process.
It's unclear, of course, to what extent her remarks reflect the opinion of the powerful Pakistani military and the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, traditional supporters of the Taliban. Tensions between Pakistan's civilian government and the military are high, with speculation rife about a possible coup.
When asked about Pakistan's historic support of the Taliban, Ms. Khar said this was "old wine in an even older bottle."
"Let's blame the governments and not the people [who] deserve a fair chance to enjoy a peaceful existence. And anybody else who has an agenda which is otherwise should have by now learned their lessons from history," she said.
Afghan officials said they saw these comments as a slight to Pakistan's ISI spy service.
Ms. Khar, who met Mr. Karzai Wednesday, invited him to visit Islamabad later this month to revive trilateral negotiations with Iran. Those meetings have focused on combating terrorism, quashing the drug trade and strengthening economic and political ties. Mr. Karzai accepted the invitation.
Afghan officials say they have two more requests of Islamabad to push forward the peace process and illustrate Pakistan's goodwill.
Pakistan, they say, must publicly state that it will provide safe passage to insurgents willing to negotiate with Kabul, and it should also transfer Afghan detainees to Afghan custody. Mr. Karzai intends to push these issues in Islamabad later this month, officials say.
One detainee that Afghan officials want Islamabad to release is Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's second-in-command arrested nearly two years ago in Pakistan. Afghan officials claim he was arrested for starting negotiations with Mr. Karzai's government without the consent of Pakistan's military, an allegation that Pakistan denies.
In a separate development, the Taliban said in an emailed statement Wednesday that they aren't meeting the Afghan government for peace talks in Saudi Arabia, rebuffing comments from Afghan officials that negotiations would take place in Riyadh.
Afghan officials had said this week that they were taking command of the negotiations by meeting insurgent representatives in Saudi Arabia, but the insurgent group has agreed to meet only with the U.S. so far.
Wednesday's statement said that the Taliban "haven't reached the negotiation table with the U.S. and its allies. First we have to build trust and the process of building trust has not yet started." —Ziaulhaq Sultani contributed to this article.
Taliban Captives Dispute U.S. View on Afghanistan War
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND and ALISSA J. RUBIN February 1, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - More Taliban insurgents are being killed or captured than ever before, yet when the captives are interrogated by the American military, they remain convinced that they are winning the war.
That is because the Taliban believe that their own hearts-and-minds campaign is winning over Afghans — or so they tell their interrogators — and even converting a growing number of Afghan government officials and soldiers.
Those are among some of the findings of a NATO report, “State of the Taliban 2012,” based on 27,000 interrogations of 4,000 Taliban and other captives that portrays a Taliban insurgency that is far from vanquished or demoralized even as the United States and its allies enter what they hope will be the final phase of the war. A copy of the document, which was first reported by the BBC and The Times of London, was given to The New York Times by a Western official, on the condition of anonymity because it was classified.
The report coincides with an announcement on Wednesday by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta that American forces would step back from a combat role in Afghanistan as early as mid-2013, more than a year before all American troops are scheduled to withdraw.
Yet the classified report provides a sobering counterpoint to the coalition’s decidedly more upbeat public assessments of progress in the war and of the Afghanistan that NATO says it will leave behind. It abounds with accounts of cooperation between the insurgents and local government officials or security forces, as well as accounts from Taliban detainees who claim that in areas where coalition soldiers are withdrawing, the Afghan military is cooperating with the insurgents.
“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban,” the report says. The Afghan government “continues to declare its willingness to fight, yet many of its personnel have secretly reached out to insurgents, seeking long-term options in the event of a possible Taliban victory,” it adds.
The Taliban accounts may be influenced by the duress of interrogation or tinged with bravado. Yet the report’s findings roundly challenge many of the assumptions on which American policy in Afghanistan is based: that American military might will force the Taliban to the negotiating table; that the coalition’s counterinsurgency strategy will increase support for the Afghan government among Afghans; and that as NATO troops leave, Afghan security forces will be able to take over their responsibilities.
It also portrays a tight yet nuanced relationship between the Taliban and their Pakistani patrons, one not only of sometimes servile dependence, but also of frank enmity, and it says that the Taliban have gradually distanced themselves from Al Qaeda. The Taliban’s alliance with Al Qaeda was the reason that coalition forces entered Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Publication of the report put NATO officials on the defensive, and on Wednesday they issued an unusually detailed rebuttal. A spokesman for the NATO-led coalition played down the findings and emphasized that NATO analysts did not necessarily accept the views of the Taliban detainees as valid.
“This document aggregates the comments of Taliban detainees in a captive environment without considering the validity of or motivation behind their reflections,” said Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. “Any conclusions drawn from this would be questionable at best.”
“It is important not to draw conclusions based on Taliban comments or musings,” Colonel Cummings said. “These detainees include some of the most motivated and ruthless of the insurgents, who are inspired to play up their success. It is what they want us to believe they think.”
In Washington, the State Department’s spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said the report reflected a limited assessment of detainees’ attitudes and would not alter American efforts to repair the badly strained relationship with Pakistan, particularly after a mistaken border attack on Pakistani troops in November.
“It was not designed for any purpose other than to help those in the field understand what Taliban detainees were saying,” Ms. Nuland said. “So it was in no way designed to impact on our ongoing efforts to be back on track with Pakistan.”
A crucial element of the American strategy in Afghanistan is to step up the tempo of raids aimed at capturing or killing insurgents, particularly midlevel commanders; in the past two years the number of detainees has more than doubled. The raids are intended to pressure the insurgents to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the war, and in recent weeks there have been steps toward starting peace talks.
The report, dated Jan. 6, provided little evidence to believe that this strategy or the increase in the number of troops during the Obama administration had helped spur the nascent peace talks. “Taliban commanders, along with rank and file members, increasingly believe their control of Afghanistan is inevitable,” the report said. “Though the Taliban suffered severely in 2011, its strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact.”
It added of the insurgents: “While they are weary of war, they see little hope for a negotiated peace. Despite numerous tactical setbacks, surrender is far from their collective mind-set. For the moment, they believe that continuing the fight and expanding Taliban governance are their only viable courses of action.”
Recruits and donations for the Taliban increased over the past year, the report said, citing insurgents’ accounts.
One of the most startling elements in the report is the view by detainees that the Taliban have mostly rejected their old alliance with Al Qaeda and no longer give members of the terrorist network logistical or military support.
“In most regions of Afghanistan, Taliban leaders have no interest in associating with Al Qaeda,” the report said. “Working with Al Qaeda invites targeting and Al Qaeda personnel are no longer the adept and versatile fighters and commanders they once were.”
The report said the Haqqani network, a particularly lethal Pakistan-based faction of the insurgency that once had close ties with Al Qaeda, had not had any contacts with Al Qaeda in two years, according to detainees.
The report was apparently leaked to the BBC and The Times of London on the eve of the first high-level visit to Afghanistan since last September by a Pakistani official, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, and both news organizations made much of Pakistan’s role in supporting the insurgents. Ms. Khar dismissed that as “old wine in an even older bottle.”
One former Obama administration official speculated that the American military might have been behind the leak. “The mood in Kabul is that the U.S. military are very critical of Pakistan,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of military rules about discussing classified material. “They think the problem is not the Taliban, but the ISI,” the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, Pakistan’s spy agency.
Much of the Pakistani material in the report depicts a surprisingly unhappy alliance between the Taliban and the ISI. While it confirmed complaints by American officials that factions of the ISI cooperate with the Taliban, it also reported that Taliban leaders and fighters viewed their patrons with distrust and even hostility.
“ISI is thoroughly aware of Taliban activities and the whereabouts of all senior Taliban personnel,” the report said. “The Haqqani family, for example, resides immediately west of the ISI office at the airfield in Miram Shah, Pakistan,” the report said. The Haqqani network has been responsible for some of the most spectacular insurgent attacks of the past year, including an assault on the American Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul in September.
“There is a widespread assumption that Pakistan will never allow the Taliban the chance to become independent of ISI control,” the report said.
At the same time, however, it reported that Taliban commanders and fighters viewed the Pakistanis with suspicion and as “untrustworthy, manipulative, controlling and demeaning,” and cooperated with them “in lieu of realistic alternatives.” And the detainees reported no evidence that ISI directly financed or supplied the Taliban in the field, working through intermediaries instead.
But it was the accounts of cooperation between the insurgents and local government officials or security forces that seemed to most upset NATO officials. “Captured photographs of Taliban personnel riding openly in the green Ford Ranger pickup trucks of the Afghan army are commonplace throughout Afghanistan,” the report said, adding that the vehicles were “sold or donated” to the Taliban. Elsewhere it cited a document related to a plot between Afghan intelligence agents and the Taliban to ambush American soldiers.
Some of the newest material in the report covered extensive efforts by the Taliban to improve their relations with local people. The Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, has promoted a code of conduct that sets out how insurgents should deal with people, including rules on avoiding civilian casualties and excessively brutal punishments.
The group has even instituted “hot line” numbers for citizens to make complaints about their treatment by insurgents, and it sends fact-finding committees out from headquarters in Quetta, eliciting complaints against local Taliban leaders.
The report, which also included interrogations of non-Taliban civilians who were arrested after sweeps of their communities, cited the high marks the insurgents received for their judicial activities, which in contrast to many government court actions, were offered to people without demands for payments or bribes.
Reporting was contributed by Declan Walsh and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan; Sharifullah Sahak from Kabul; and Steven Lee Myers from Washington.
Pakistan rejects Taliban ‘blame games’
Financial Times By Matthew Gree February 1, 2012
Islamabad - Pakistan tried to prevent fresh claims that it backs Taliban insurgents from overshadowing its attempts to mend ties with Afghanistan by calling for an end to “blame games” over the region’s conflicts.
Islamabad, anxious about what will happen in Afghanistan as foreign forces withdraw, wants to soothe tensions triggered by the murder of Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former Afghan president, in September.
The killing unleashed public anger against Pakistan, which has a record of backing Afghan insurgent factions stretching back to the US and Saudi funded jihad against Soviet invaders in the 1980s.
Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s foreign minister, visited Kabul on Wednesday for the first high-profile official trip since the murder, hoping to glean a greater insight into Afghanistan’s attempts to kindle dialogue with insurgents.
The trip coincided with the leak of a US military report detailing testimony from captured militants who told their interrogators that Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence agency has close links with the Taliban.
Ms Khar dismissed the report and called for an end to “blame games” over Afghanistan. “We can disregard this as a potentially strategic leak . . . This is old wine in an even older bottle,” she told reporters in Kabul.
The testimony from captured insurgents painted a bleak picture of Kabul’s progress in asserting its authority as Isaf, the Nato-led force in Afghanistan, starts to scale back its numbers in the country.
“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban,” the report said. “Once Isaf is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable.”
A Pakistani official said the report had little impact on Mrs Khar’s trip since it was barely raised in meetings with Afghan officials and politicians.
The classified report, obtained by The Times and the BBC, was based on interrogations of some 4,000 captured fighters from the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Many of them said ISI officials regularly met insurgent leaders to offer advice and direct operations. Pakistan knows the location of Taliban leaders and continues to manipulate them “unabatedly,” the report said.
However, the report said detainees provided little evidence to suggest that Pakistan was providing funding or weapons. Some independent analysts also questioned how far evidence from interrogations alone could be relied on to paint a complete picture of the complex cross-border insurgency, in which many factions exert considerable autonomy.
The document detailed prisoners’ claims that most of Pakistan’s support came from ISI-sponsored Punjabi militant groups based in North Waziristan and Baluchistan, near the Afghan border. It said they provided “electronics expertise, remote detonators, advanced explosives, mines and suicide vests.”
The testimony is consistent with a belief among western officials that Pakistan is hedging its bets by maintaining links with the insurgency while exploring the possibility that a negotiated settlement might one day deliver stability to its neighbour.
Pakistan has allowed Taliban representatives to travel to Qatar, which the US hopes will be a hub for contacts, according to Afghan and Pakistani officials, although the start of substantive talks might be many months away.
The leaked document suggested that the Taliban was gaining popularity partly because the austere movement was becoming more tolerant.
“It remains to be seen whether a revitalised, more progressive Taliban will endure if they continue to gain power and popularity. Regardless, at least within the Taliban, the refurbished image is already having a positive effect on morale,” the report said.
TIME Exclusive: Q&A with Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar
TIME By Aryn Baker 02/02/2012
Since she was appointed as Pakistan's Foreign Minister in July of 2011, Hina Rabbani Khar has had to deal with the fallout from the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May, a deterioration in relations with Afghanistan, and a botched cross border operation that saw 24 Pakistani soldiers mistakenly killed by U.S. forces in November. She is Pakistan's youngest and first female foreign minister. On the eve of her first high-profile visit to Kabul since the assassination of Afghan peace envoy Berhanuddin Rabbani (no relation), she talks about her country's relationship with Afghanistan, the U.S., and with its own army.
TIME: What prompted your trip to Kabul?
Hina Rabbani Khar: As Foreign Minister of Pakistan, I would say that the most important capital in the world is Kabul. If this track works, if Pakistan and Afghanistan can work with confidence in each other's intentions and actions, we can go a very long way. With that trust we can fix a lot of things and will not need outside influence and interference. Therefore we would be open to engage with Afghanistan at any level and at any time. Since 2008 [when the elected government came to power] we have given a very consistent message to Afghanistan that we mean business, that we would want to support anything that Afghans feel is for their betterment. They have to choose the direction, and we would be behind them following that direction.
Unfortunately a few things, particularly [Afghan peace envoy Burhanuddin] Rabbani's assassination, led to some unwarranted recriminatory comments coming from Kabul which were difficult to live with. Post that, this signal from Pakistan is very clear. I am very comfortable with the fact that we are the ones reaching out to Kabul, and I am proud of that. It is something that is good for Pakistan. (MORE: NATO report says Pakistan is still propping up the Taliban)
TIME: Who will you be seeing in Kabul aside from President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul?
HRK: I hope to be seeing pretty much all the important political leadership in Afghanistan.
TIME: What about members of the opposition?
HRK: Yes, I am meeting the opposition.
TIME: Why? You don't think that will be contentious?
HRK: Why should it be? The point is, we are reaching out to all of Afghanistan, and that should be fine. We want to build relations that are country-to-country people-to-people. These are relationships that are sustainable for the long term. Pakistan is typically seen to be too attached to one part within Afghanistan [the Taliban], so I think that is a myth that needs to be broken. I am calling it a myth because I don't think it has been true for the past ten-plus years. So therefore it is important to send a message that whoever is important in Afghanistan is important to Pakistan.
TIME: There has been a lot of speculation that you will also be discussing opening a second negotiating track with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia.
HRK: No, I think this is all imaginary fanciful writing. It helps sell papers I guess. I will be very clear. The only purpose of my visit is to reach out to Afghanistan, to give them the confidence that whatever path the Afghans choose for themselves, they will find Pakistan to be behind them. Not beside them, but behind them. This is an extremely important message. We have a stake in their future, because our future is also linked to theirs. We are doing it for Pakistan, we are not doing it as a favor for anyone else.
It is then up to the Afghans to really decide what course of action they want to take, and what best suits their interests. Hopefully we will find the space to be able to support them in whatever they choose for themselves. (PHOTOS: The Taliban's War in Pakistan)
TIME: Do you feel, as Karzai has suggested, that Pakistan and Afghanistan will be sidelined from negotiations between the Taliban and the United States?
HRK: I am not very concerned about Pakistan being sidelined, and I want to break this perception of Pakistan wanting to take center stage, or remain relevant. We want to remain relevant to ourselves, and nobody else. Our stake is in our own future. As a neighbor of Afghanistan we have a stake in their future, but in their future lead by them, as I said before, followed by us.
As far as this whole thing being an Afghan-led process, whether it is or not, that is an bilateral issue between the United States and Afghanistan. I have made it very clear that we would be supportive of anything that is Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, Afghan-backed, and Afghan-driven. Pakistan supports whole-heartedly and with full momentum whatever is considered to be the solution, as long as it is the Afghan solution.
I just want to reiterate the fact that there can be no solution brokered in Washington, London, Paris, Germany or Islamabad -- it has to be brokered in Kabul. At the same time let me say we would be supportive of anything that has the Afghan blessing. So if the Qatar option is something that the Afghans want to pursue, Pakistan has no reason not to support it. I want to be completely and abundantly clear on that point. (PHOTOS: Osama bin Laden's Pakistan Hideaway)
TIME: How do Pakistan's goals for Afghanistan differ from those of the United States and NATO?
HRK: Pakistan's desires and hopes for Afghanistan are nothing more than a peaceful, stable Afghanistan. It may be friendly to Pakistan, or it may not. It is a sovereign country to decide who it wants to be friendly with or not. So what are our options? Our options are to do whatever we can, with as much trust as we can, to build as much confidence as we can so we can learn to live peacefully with each other and promote peace and stability in each other's countries. So that is what Pakistan's interest is, it starts from there and ends there. All these myths about Pakistan's interests will hopefully find their way to the dustbin.
As far as the U.S. is concerned, that is a different ballgame. [Unlike the U.S.,] we will remain here. So Pakistan's interests in having a stable Afghanistan are obviously extremely huge. But when it comes to the U.S. and the NATO countries, they came here with some goals. I believe in the last ten years, those goals have changed considerably. I believe they want to leave the country in a situation that is more stable than when they came in.
Secondly, the most important thing is not to promote militancy in the search for solutions. For instance -- drone strikes in Pakistan. For us all of those things matter because they leave an effect. They may not matter so much to those who will not be here to see the negative effects of all that.
TIME: As the neighbor that will be most affected by the withdrawal of NATO forces in 2014, what are your views on the timeline?
HRK: We have always maintained that timelines should be based on the situation on the ground. It should be interlinked with the goals to be achieved. The timeline should not in terms of months and years, but in terms of what you came out here to achieve here.
TIME: Many are saying that America has already lost the war in Afghanistan.
HRK: I wouldn't want to comment on that because it depends on how you look at what they came out to achieve. But the battle for hearts and minds has not been won. I don't know that it's been lost, but it has certainly not been won. (MORE: On the Ground in Afghanistan, a Taliban Whose Momentum Seems Anything but Broken)
TIME: What about in Pakistan?
HRK: I think the way some of the U.S.'s actions have been carried out have been exceptionally detrimental to the long time partnership between the U.S. and Pakistan.
TIME: Haven't the political and military leadership exacerbated the problem for their own popular gains? Using anti-Americanism to rally support?
HRK: I don't think the Pakistan People's Party has ever opted to appear anti-American or hostile to the Americans. If anything we have tried to open up space for all the positive things the U.S. has tried to do. But what an ordinary Pakistani has seen over the past ten years is an escalation in suicide bomb attacks and security risks to their lives and the lives of their children. The fact that our economy has suffered $70 billion in losses [from the battle against militancy]. And yet we are told on a daily basis how much assistance we are being given from the U.S. What you call Coalition Support Funds, that is reimbursement on expenditures that we have spent [on securing] the western borders. So an average Pakistan feels worse off from being a partner in this particular [war].
You [the United States] are a proclaimed supporter of democracies the world over. And finally four years back you had a real election in Pakistan and there was a democratic government in place. What is the bastion of that democracy? It is the parliament, which represents the people of that country. Now if someone speaks at the top of its lungs that this one particular tool -- drones -- is counter productive, is unlawful, is unacceptable, is against the sovereignty of Pakistan, and yet you show yourself to be more attached to that particular tool rather than the reason for which you are using it, which is to ensure that there is no more militancy in the country. We have said many times over that this actually fuels all of the elements [of militancy] that we want to take out. So it is very difficult to explain why the U.S would choose to ignore the will of 180 million people and think it knows better.
I think it is unfair to say that Pakistani leaders have fueled anti-Americanism. But if Parliament speaks in one unanimous voice on a certain point, you [the Americans] have to be mindful of that and respectful of the will of the people. (MORE: Why We're Stuck With Pakistan)
TIME: The Parliamentary committee tasked with reviewing the U.S.-Pakistani relationship is about to release its findings. What will it look like?
HRK: It will redefine what is uncompromisable for Pakistan, and within that I think it will be very realistic. Many people think it is going to be confrontational, but I don't think that is going to be the case at all. I find that everybody [on the committee] is very geared onto the reality check and everybody understands that this is an important relationship for the U.S. and Pakistan to have, but that it also should be in the pursuance of our national interest.
TIME: What about U.S. requests for assistance in fighting the militant groups in the tribal areas?
HRK: This whole approach of having a to do list with each other is completely flawed. It is that which has lead us to where we are today. It is that along with cutting deals on the side that has lead us to where we are today.
I look at this as a huge opportunity for not only Pakistan, but for the strengthening of democracy in Pakistan, and the strengthening of this particular relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan. It has to be more reality based, more according to the aspirations of the people of Pakistan. It is not a confrontationalist approach, it is just an approach which says that this is the definition of our national interest, this relationship has to fall within this ambit, and if it does we would be much more worthy partners. So I look at this as a huge opportunity for the U.S -Pakistan track.
TIME: What do you mean by deals on the side?
HRK: It is the parliament of Pakistan that must decide whether it is time for military action in one area or not. And secondly, please let's not overlook all the work that we have done in the last few years. We have had many military actions in the past. You can't do everything at the same time. What is expected of Pakistan [in the tribal areas] is what even 48 countries cannot achieve on the other side of the border. It is completely unrealistic. (VIDEO: Pakistan After bin Laden)
TIME: Yet clearly there has been support within the military for the U.S. drone program, even if Parliament has been against it. Doesn't this indicate a two-track relationship?
HRK: There is not a single military person to date that has ever accepted in front of me that they have ever been supportive of drones. There is nobody in Pakistan who has ever been supportive of this. The national interests of a country are defined by the parliament. It is the security interests of a country that are defined by the military. As far as the case of Pakistan is concerned, the military will work with whoever has political ownership. The military cannot act without being authorized.
TIME: Until November, the U.S. operated its drone program out of an airbase in Pakistan. Clearly, someone was supportive of the drone program. That could not have happened without Pakistani military assistance.
HRK: This is what I am saying, when I talk about doing only acceptable to the people of Pakistan. That authorization was given in an era where there was no functioning parliament.
TIME: So there was support for drones prior to your government coming in?
HRK: I can only say there was support by the Musharraf regime for that, and I believe he has admitted that on some level or another. The permission for the drone program, if given at all, was given during the time of President Musharraf.
TIME: Are there any other red lines?
HRK: No unilateral action at any level, of any type. Like Abbottabad [where Osama bin Laden was captured and killed]. Like what happened in Salala [where a cross-border NATO attack, led by U.S. forces, mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26]. You see what was really scary was the fact that in the U.S. CentCom report [on the investigation into the incident] they quote the trust deficit as one of the reasons why our people were not warned 72 hours before that a small operation was to take place. Now if this is the level of trust deficit between the two countries, that we can't even be alerted ahead of an operation on our border, then we should have many many more worries than we currently do. We should almost forget about having a partnership that works. Because on something as small as this if the trust deficit is quoted as reason, it's scary. (VIDEO: Where Should Pakistan's Army Aim Its Guns?)
TIME: Can the Americans trust the Pakistani military then? It has acted above the law on several occasions.
HRK: The military has ruled this country for 33 years. The military has a real presence in this country. But there is also a constitution in this county, and the military cannot go beyond that constitution, and as you see them right now they are working in the framework of that particular constitution, and I think it would be unfair to say they are working in cahoots with someone else, and I have no reason to believe that anyone is doing that. For instance on bin Laden, there were many theories, but I think most of the Americans have by now also reached the conclusion that there was nobody in the system who had foreknowledge of his existence.
TIME: Is this an evolution, that the government is now dictating the military's actions?
HRK: The military is part of Pakistan. I do not want Pakistan to appear to be a civilian vs. military paradigm. The military is part of the executive, it works under the executive. Because of the fact that the military has in some ways been in power for 33 years, I think the expectation level of the military internally and externally is just very different than what it ought to be. And I think that is going to be put right. And it is going to be through governments like this where the due processes work, the system delivers, the systems work, there is a clear and simple transition from one government to another. Five years from today, I don't think somebody interviewing the next foreign minister is going to be asking these kind of questions, as much as you are. And ten years from today no one would even mention it.
TIME: If that is the case your government will have achieved something that no other government ever has in Pakistan. As Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the other day, coups are over in this country. What brought this about?
HRK: I think there has been transformation in Pakistan with the realization that there is no easy answer. I think coups in Pakistan have been justified on the pretext of 'we are the solution. We will give you liberation from your problems, and we will deliver.' What we have seen in the past 60 years is that, if anything, [coups] have been the problem, not part of the problem. They have created the problem. It is because of military coups that Pakistan today is where it is. And Pakistan has a much brighter future. Pakistan has much more potential. It is because of this tendency towards military coups that has led many institutions to be not strong and not take roots. And therefore your delivery systems -- whether education or health -- suffer because of this. You have to give a lot of credit for the transformation to the media. People are much more politically conscious today than they ever were. I myself can say I am a convert as far as this is concerned. When I did my thesis paper in school it was about how democracy hasn't delivered in South Asia. Today you see a completely different point. Today if there is one thing I firmly believe it is that Pakistan will only be delivered at the back of a consistent democratic trend. Then there is nothing that can keep Pakistan back. Pakistan will, Insha'Allah, emerge as one of the stronger countries in the world.
UN tries to strike deal with Pakistan to safeguard two million Afghan refugees
The United Nations is trying to strike a deal with Pakistan to safeguard the future of more than two million Afghan refugees who fled years of violence in their home country.
Telegraph.co.uk By Rob Crilly 01 Feb 2012
Islamabad - Pakistan has repeatedly said it expects them to have left by the end of 2012 but with no end in sight to the bitter conflict ravaging Afghanistan UN officials are in Islamabad this week to find a deal.
An international conference has been called for May to present a new long-term strategy amid concerns that a decade of misguided policy has failed to help families returning home.
At the same time, Pakistani ministers have expressed concern at the economic and social burden they have been expected to bear and are agitating for speedier returns.
António Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, on Wednesday told The Daily Telegraph the group was in talks with the Pakistan government to ensure refugees could stay beyond 2012 and to speed up programmes of voluntary repatriation.
"What matters now is what is guaranteed and what is guaranteed is that there won't be any policy of involuntary expulsion of refugees," he said.
"And we have agreed with them to do our best to enhance the programme of voluntary repatriation." Afghans have sought safety in Pakistan ever since the Soviet invasion in 1979.
Pakistan hosts the world's biggest population of refugees. Some 1.7 million are registered as refugees with thousands more living under the radar.
However, Pakistan's weak economic record and widespread armed insurgencies have meant Afghans have regularly been made scapegoats for the country's ills.
Rehman Malik, the country's interior minister, has repeatedly accused the refugee population of being a source of terrorism.
With the conflict in Afghanistan showing no signs of easing and with international forces withdrawing in 2014, the numbers of refugees returning are on the wane.
In December, the UNHCR's Afghanistan representative admitted that its strategy in the war-wracked country was "the biggest mistake UNHCR ever made".
"It was concentrated on support to families returning," said Mr Guterres.
"And this was not the most important factor. The most important factor was whether the conditions on the ground were there to be sustainable and successful." He said a new policy – concentrating on giving support to communities to which families where returning – had been agreed with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, and would be presented to donors in May.
Pakistan Says Willing to Push Afghan Insurgents Towards Peace
VOA News February 2, 2012
Pakistan says it is willing to push Afghan insurgents to make peace, if asked to do so by the Afghan government.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told reporters in Islamabad Thursday that “we are willing to do whatever the Afghans want or expect.”
Khar made the comments a day after visiting Afghanistan, where she met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and pledged Pakistan's support for the Afghan peace process.
Pakistan is seen as a key player in that process because of its historical ties to the Taliban. Many of the Afghan insurgent group's leaders are believed to be based in Pakistan.
Following talks with President Karzai Wednesday, Foreign Minister Khar said Pakistan has no “hidden agenda” in Afghanistan. She also said that Pakistan stands strongly behind political efforts to end the war in neighboring Afghanistan, but that the process should be led and driven by the Afghans.
Khar's visit to Kabul was aimed at mending strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghan officials have accused militants from Pakistan of fomenting violence in Afghanistan with the goal of disrupting the peace process.
Afghan officials have said last year's suicide attack that killed the country's key peacemaker, former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, was planned in Pakistan and carried out by a Pakistani citizen. Pakistan has denied any involvement in Mr. Rabbani's killing.
On Wednesday, Pakistan dismissed a leaked NATO report that accused its military intelligence agency, the ISI, of supporting the Afghan Taliban. The classified report was compiled from the interrogations of 4,000 captured Taliban and al-Qaida operatives.
Taliban local leader captured in Afghanistan: ISAF
KABUL, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- A Taliban local leader was captured Thursday in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces said.
"An Afghan and coalition security force captured a Taliban leader during an operation in Nahr-e Saraj district, Helmand province, today," the ISAF said in a press release issued here.
Without disclosing the name of the captured leader, ISAF said that "The leader directed roadside bomb attacks against Afghan forces throughout the district. One additional suspected insurgent was detained during the operation."
Afghan forces and ISAF troops have intensified cleanup operations throughout the post-Taliban country recently.
The Taliban insurgents, who launched in May 2011 a rebel offensive against Afghan and NATO forces, have yet to confirm the capture of the leader.
Business Hurt by Anti-Pollution Drive in North Afghan City
But officials claim success in creating greener, cleaner urban environment.
IWPR By Ahmad Ramin Delasa 1 Feb 12
Afghanistan - The authorities in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif are running a major campaign to cut pollution, but factory owners and truck drivers forced out of the city as part of the clean-up say their businesses are suffering.
Officials in Mazar-e Sharif claim to have reduced pollution by 70 per cent by forcing brick kilns and other factories to relocate out of the centre, planting trees, limiting access for vehicles, and impounding older, high-emissions cars.
They have also installed public bins, and dug wells to irrigate the city’s green areas, in what they say is a model for reducing pollution levels nationwide.
Abdol Wahab drives an aging, Soviet-made Moskvich taxi, and has been hard hit by the ban on entering the city during the daytime.
“The traffic police... say our vehicles emit too high exhaust fumes,” he said. “I am fed up with this work but I don’t have other options. Mazar is a city for wealthy people who have luxury cars. There’s no room for poor people here.”
To get round the ban and earn enough to support a household of ten people, Abdol Wahab continues to slip into Mazar-e Sharif along alleyways and side streets.
Some of those affected told IWPR that the measures were tainted by corruption.
Mohammad Ibrahim, a confectionary factory owner, said police demanded money in exchange for allowing him to keep his business going in the city.
“We couldn’t pay bribes every day so we had to move out,” he said.
Relocating the factory outside Mazar-e Sharif has made it harder to transport ingredients and finished products, and for staff to get to work, he said.
Traffic police have banned trucks from entering Mazar-e Sharif during daylight, so when IWPR interviewed driver Feda Mohammad, he was sitting in his goods vehicle outside the city waiting for night to fall.
He claimed that drivers were still allowed into the city in the daytime, if they paid an illicit fee.
“How long are we going to have to pay bribes to drive... inside the city?” he asked. “No one listens to us and there’s no point speaking about the problem.”
Traffic police deny taking kickbacks while enforcing the war on pollution.
Mohammad Ajan, director of Balkh provincial traffic police department, said drivers were spreading false rumours because they were unhappy with the new rules. In reality, he said, enforcement was being monitored rigorously.
Not everyone is opposed to the clean-up.
Brick kiln owner Mohammad Sadeq said the relocation plans initially caused arguments between businessmen and police, but these had been resolved.
“I’m happy with the decision because it has been implemented equitably,” he said.
For their part, provincial officials say they are proud of the progress made in one of Afghanistan’s more picturesque cities.
“This programme has been effective,” said Ziaulhaq Atai, a senior environmental official. “We have also started programmes to collect rubbish house to house, and have installed rubbish bins.”
Dr Basir, head of the sanitation department at the provincial health department, said his agency had provided clean drinking water, as well as burying and burning waste.
“We have made great progress in the area of sanitation,” he said.
City resident Saleh Mohammad said he was happy the roads had been asphalted, which reduced dust and smog.
“Now we have a chance to breathe clean air,” he said.
Ahmad Ramin Delasa is a freelance reporter in Balkh province.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Missy Ryan and Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers are steeling for a public battle against the possible transfer of Taliban detainees out of Guantanamo Bay prison, a key step in the Obama administration's bid to broker a peace deal ending the war in Afghanistan.
Congressional opposition is gaining steam, especially among Republicans but also among some senior Democrats, to the potential transfer to Qatar of five senior Taliban prisoners, a good-faith move that could set the stage for eventual political talks between the Taliban and Afghan government.
One Republican lawmaker said public opposition would escalate sharply if and when the administration formally notified Congress it intends to transfer the prisoners, who come from the highest ranks of the Afghan militant movement.
"If they do that, then all hell breaks loose. There's just no way," the lawmaker said on condition of anonymity.
While Congress does not approve such transfers, a 30-day waiting period is required before they take place. The White House might rethink such a risky move if serious bipartisan friction emerged in a presidential election year.
Yet efforts to broker a peace deal between the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban have become central to U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, where insurgents remain capable of launching damaging attacks even after more than a decade of foreign military efforts.
Western nations have long planned to pull most combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. But as fatigue and the financial burden of the war mount, it appears NATO nations will seek to curtail their Afghan missions even earlier.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday the United States would seek to shift from a combat to an advisory role in 2013.
A fast-approaching departure for foreign troops is one reason why the congressional take on the reconciliation bid - and especially the transfer of prisoners some lawmakers fear will reemerge on the battlefield - is so skeptical.
"It would seem that the Taliban are free to wait the President out and recoup their senior leaders without obtaining any real guarantee for a peaceful, stable or free Afghanistan," said Claude Chafin, a spokesman for Buck McKeon, the Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee.
Lawmakers are also reluctant to accept a plan that, if successful, would likely bring a hard-line Islamist group with a history of oppressing women and committing human rights violations back into power in some capacity.
Recent intelligence analysis has suggested that while the Taliban has been weakened, militants are not ready to abandon their fight against Western troops.
"In fact it's saying we're all in deep kimchi, and (administration officials) feel like this is their last grasp at a straw to put something together," said the Republican lawmaker speaking on condition of anonymity.
The administration has said a transfer, if it occurs, will be a "national decision" made in consultation with Congress.
DOUBTS ABOUT DANGEROUS DETAINEES
Administration officials briefed select lawmakers from both houses of Congress this week on the heels of a round of shuttle diplomacy led by Marc Grossman, Obama's envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The flurry of meetings was aimed at enacting a series of confidence-building measures, including a detainee transfer, which could lead to substantive peace talks.
Speaking in Kabul last month, Grossman said the administration had not made a decision to move the five prisoners, whose fate has been a priority for the Taliban. He said any transfer would first have to be agreed upon with Congress.
Some Democrats are also deeply worried.
"We have an agreement that we won't negotiate with terrorists," Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, told Reuters last week.
The White House has laid out conditions that the Taliban would have to respect if any final deal were to be struck - which officials acknowledge is a long shot - including renouncing violence and embracing the Afghan constitution.
Some members of Congress and the U.S. intelligence community have raised questions about the potential hand-over of one detainee in particular, Mullah Mohammed Fazl, a "high-risk" detainee held at Guantanamo since early 2002.
As a senior commander of the Taliban army, Fazl is alleged to be responsible for the killing of thousands of Afghanistan's minority Shi'ite Muslims between 1998 and 2001.
According to U.S. military documents made public by WikiLeaks, he was also on the scene of a November 2001 prison riot that killed CIA operative Johnny Micheal Spann, the first American to die in combat in the Afghan war.
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity last month, said he knew of no evidence Fazl was involved in the death of Spann, who was surrounded and killed by rioting prisoners.
"Do we have footage of him pulling the trigger? No. Do we know he was involved in the uprising that led to (Spann's) death? Yes," said a Republican lawmaker who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They're trying to parse words there."
The administration said this week it had asked intelligence agencies for additional assessments of the risks of transferring the five detainees to a third country.
(Writing by Missy Ryan; editing by Todd Eastham)
NATO Chief: Afghan Roadmap Stands Despite US, French Announcements
VOA News February 2, 2012
NATO Secretary General Anders-Fogh Rasmussen says the coalition's timeline for the security transition in Afghanistan still stands, despite recent announcements from the United States and France.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have each suggested the coalition should end its combat role in 2013, more than a year ahead of previous plans, and switch to training and advising Afghan troops through 2014.
Rasmussen said ahead of Thursday's NATO defense ministers' meeting in Brussels that the alliance will stand by its previously agreed to plan to wind up operations in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
But the NATO secretary-general noted that international troops will hand over security control of the last Afghan provinces to Afghan forces by the middle of next year. He said starting in mid-2013, Afghan security forces will “take the lead” and coalition troops will gradually change from “combat to support.” He said “in that, there is nothing new.”
Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters traveling to Brussels with him that “hopefully by the mid-to-latter part of 2013 we will be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role.”
French President Sarkozy announced earlier this month that his country will withdraw its combat forces from Afghanistan in 2013, a year earlier than planned.
The U.S. defense chief called 2013 a crucial year for the final transfer of remaining areas to Afghan security forces. He said no decisions have been made about the level of U.S. forces remaining in Afghanistan once that combat role has ended.
Thursday's NATO meeting in Brussels is being held just days after a leaked coalition report revealed that members of the Taliban insurgency are confident they can regain power in Afghanistan once coalition troops have departed.
The meeting is meant to lay the groundwork for a larger NATO gathering set for Chicago in May.
Panetta: U.S., NATO will seek to end Afghan combat mission next year
Washington Post By Craig Whitlock and Karen DeYoung 02/02/2012
BRUSSELS - The United States hopes to end its combat mission in Afghanistan by the middle of next year, more than a year earlier than scheduled, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Wednesday.
His remarks reflected a growing sentiment within the Obama administration that its approach to Iraq, where the official end of U.S. combat operations came 16 months before the final U.S. troop withdrawal in December, may provide a useful model for winding down operations in Afghanistan.
Current NATO strategy, agreed to at a summit in Lisbon in November 2010, calls for coalition forces to gradually shift to a training, advisory and assistance role with the Afghan military on the way to withdrawing all combat troops by the end of 2014.
The alliance has yet to agree on the pace of that process, however, and Panetta went farther than some in the administration were prepared to say publicly about their own deliberations. “Our goal is to complete all of that transition in 2013,” Panetta told reporters en route to a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. “Hopefully by mid to the latter part of 2013 we’ll be able to make a transition from a combat role.”
NATO “consultations are ongoing,” said a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to clarify the administration’s position. “Until the leaders come together . . . and make a final decision” at their scheduled May summit in Chicago, “nothing is final.”
A Panetta spokesman traveling with the defense chief issued a statement Wednesday evening — several hours after Panetta’s original remarks — saying that U.S. troops could still be involved in at least some combat operations , in partnership with Afghan forces, in 2014.
But Panetta’s comments about an accelerated change in the military mission were the latest sign that the United States and its NATO allies are seeking to hasten the end of their involvement in the unpopular, decade-long war. On Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, facing a tough reelection campaign this spring, abruptly announced in Paris that his country would speed up its combat drawdown this year.
Panetta, in his remarks en route to the NATO meeting, emphasized that an early transition did not mean early withdrawal, saying, “We’ve got to stick to the Lisbon strategy.”
U.S. and NATO forces, he said, would still be actively engaged in helping Afghan forces operate. Although the Afghan army has grown in size and capability, it is still dependent on the U.S. military for airpower, troop movement, supplies and medical aid.
“It’s still a pretty robust role that we’ll be engaged in,” Panetta said. “That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be combat-ready.”
President Obama has yet to decide how many troops will stay in Afghanistan and for how long. Existing withdrawal plans call for the number to decline from its current 90,000 to 68,000 by September, a level at which military commanders — with Panetta’s backing, according to Defense officials — would like it to remain until the end of 2014. The administration is also negotiating an agreement with the Afghan government for what Panetta called an “enduring presence” of counterterrorism and training forces that would remain indefinitely.
Although Afghanistan has not played a prominent role so far in the U.S. presidential campaign, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, has said he wants to continue fighting the Taliban until it is defeated. He has criticized Obama’s strategy of battling the insurgents while also engaging them in peace talks as a sign of weakness.
The Obama administration is betting that Americans are tired of the financial and human cost of the war and would welcome an exit strategy so long as they believed it ensured U.S. national security. Obama has asserted that the completion of the phased Iraq withdrawal, promised during his 2008 campaign, is evidence of U.S. strength and his own resolve.
Although he announced the official end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq in August 2010, many of the 50,000 troops that remained continued to engage in combat, in partnership with the Iraqi troops and occasionally without them.
In addition to the human toll, the fiscal cost of the Afghanistan conflict at a time of weak economies and budget cuts has weighed heavily on all members of the coalition. Panetta said he would ask other NATO defense ministers to reconsider whether it still made sense to underwrite the expansion of Afghanistan’s national security forces, currently at about 310,000, to a planned total of 350,000 soldiers and police.
Boosting the size of the Afghan force has been a cornerstone of the NATO strategy for the war. But the alliance has been reconsidering whether it can still afford to subsidize such a large Afghan force, and for how long. Administration officials have said that Washington and allied capitals can expect to pay for the bulk of the expense of equipping and training Afghan forces long after 2014.
“There’s a general understanding that if this is going to remain sustainable, it may need to come down a little bit,” said a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon. “Exactly what the figure is and what the precise timing will be is something we need to discuss with our allies.”
Panetta said the United States and NATO would ask Arab allies, Japan, South Korea and other countries to pitch in to subsidize the Afghan army and police over the long term.
“In many ways, the funding is going to determine what kind of force we can sustain for the future,” he said.
Under the existing NATO plan, agreed to with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Lisbon, Afghan security forces are scheduled to take control of military operations in about half the country sometime this year, with the rest to gradually follow before the end of 2014.
Although Karzai has expressed public displeasure with NATO forces repeatedly since then, it is unclear whether he has participated in or been briefed on the new plans being discussed.
DeYoung reported from Washington.
Romney blasts Panetta after Afghanistan announcement
By CNN Political Reporter Peter Hamby February 1st, 2012
Las Vegas, Nevada - Mitt Romney swept into Nevada on Wednesday evening and sharply criticized Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta for declaring that the United States and NATO plan to end combat operations in Afghanistan sometime in 2013.
Romney said the public announcement jeopardizes the Afghanistan mission and “our commitments to freedom.”
“He announced that so the Taliban hears it, the Pakistanis hear it, the Afghan leaders hear it,” Romney said of Panetta during a rally in Las Vegas. “Why in the world do you go to the people that you are fighting with and tell them the day you are pulling out your troops? It makes absolutely no sense.”
The former Massachusetts governor cast the decision as a sign of the Obama administration’s “naivete.”
“He is wrong,” Romney said, drawing a booming applause. “We need new leadership in Washington.”
The campaign stop was Romney’s first in Nevada, which holds its Republican caucuses on Saturday, since his blowout win in the Florida primary the previous night.
More than 1,000 sign-waving supporters turned out to see Romney - who appeared with his wife Ann and Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki - at Brady Industries, a janitorial supply and dry cleaning company that has been based in Las Vegas since 1947.
The trio spoke in a warehouse stocked with boxes of wholesale cleaning supplies, many of them manufactured in China.
Romney is widely considered to be the Nevada frontrunner, with Ron Paul nipping at his heels.
Krolicki acknowledged the local enthusiasm for Romney but urged the crowd not to get too confident.
“It’s not time to celebrate,” he said. “We will celebrate Saturday night.”
Pakistan Foreign Minister Supports Kabul's Place in Taliban Negotiations
Wall Street Journal By MARIA ABI-HABIB FEBRUARY 2, 2012
KABUL - Pakistan's foreign minister visited Kabul Wednesday to declare support for Afghan-led peace talks with the Taliban, signaling a thaw in relations between the two uneasy neighbors.
Hina Rabbani Khar's Kabul trip is the first high-level meeting between Afghan and Pakistani officials since September, when relations were rocked by the assassination of Afghanistan's chief peace negotiator, in a killing many Afghan officials have blamed on Pakistan's spy agency. Pakistan denied these allegations.
Ties were further strained in November, when a joint U.S.-Afghan military operation along the border resulted in the killing of some 24 Pakistani troops, prompting Pakistan to shut down the frontier to coalition supplies.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been uneasy with the recent U.S. negotiations with Taliban emissaries, and he has pushed for a seat at the table. While the Taliban so far have declined to negotiate with Kabul, Ms. Khar's comments on Wednesday endorsed Mr. Karzai's request to be a part of the peace negotiations.
Ms. Khar's visit followed the leak of a NATO-coalition report late Tuesday that said Pakistan's spy agency had deep links to and control over the Taliban insurgency.
"Pakistan will stand behind any [peace] initiative, any initiative whatsoever that Afghanistan would take," she said. "So our only prerequisites to be supportive of an initiative is that it should be Afghan-led, it should be Afghan-owned, it should be Afghan-driven."
Afghan officials have been asking Islamabad for nearly a year to declare publicly that Pakistan would allow Afghanistan to steer negotiations with the Taliban. "This is the policy change we've been looking for," an Afghan official said of Ms. Khar's comments Wednesday.
U.S. officials in Kabul have said they support an Afghan-led process.
It's unclear, of course, to what extent her remarks reflect the opinion of the powerful Pakistani military and the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, traditional supporters of the Taliban. Tensions between Pakistan's civilian government and the military are high, with speculation rife about a possible coup.
When asked about Pakistan's historic support of the Taliban, Ms. Khar said this was "old wine in an even older bottle."
"Let's blame the governments and not the people [who] deserve a fair chance to enjoy a peaceful existence. And anybody else who has an agenda which is otherwise should have by now learned their lessons from history," she said.
Afghan officials said they saw these comments as a slight to Pakistan's ISI spy service.
Ms. Khar, who met Mr. Karzai Wednesday, invited him to visit Islamabad later this month to revive trilateral negotiations with Iran. Those meetings have focused on combating terrorism, quashing the drug trade and strengthening economic and political ties. Mr. Karzai accepted the invitation.
Afghan officials say they have two more requests of Islamabad to push forward the peace process and illustrate Pakistan's goodwill.
Pakistan, they say, must publicly state that it will provide safe passage to insurgents willing to negotiate with Kabul, and it should also transfer Afghan detainees to Afghan custody. Mr. Karzai intends to push these issues in Islamabad later this month, officials say.
One detainee that Afghan officials want Islamabad to release is Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's second-in-command arrested nearly two years ago in Pakistan. Afghan officials claim he was arrested for starting negotiations with Mr. Karzai's government without the consent of Pakistan's military, an allegation that Pakistan denies.
In a separate development, the Taliban said in an emailed statement Wednesday that they aren't meeting the Afghan government for peace talks in Saudi Arabia, rebuffing comments from Afghan officials that negotiations would take place in Riyadh.
Afghan officials had said this week that they were taking command of the negotiations by meeting insurgent representatives in Saudi Arabia, but the insurgent group has agreed to meet only with the U.S. so far.
Wednesday's statement said that the Taliban "haven't reached the negotiation table with the U.S. and its allies. First we have to build trust and the process of building trust has not yet started." —Ziaulhaq Sultani contributed to this article.
Taliban Captives Dispute U.S. View on Afghanistan War
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND and ALISSA J. RUBIN February 1, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - More Taliban insurgents are being killed or captured than ever before, yet when the captives are interrogated by the American military, they remain convinced that they are winning the war.
That is because the Taliban believe that their own hearts-and-minds campaign is winning over Afghans — or so they tell their interrogators — and even converting a growing number of Afghan government officials and soldiers.
Those are among some of the findings of a NATO report, “State of the Taliban 2012,” based on 27,000 interrogations of 4,000 Taliban and other captives that portrays a Taliban insurgency that is far from vanquished or demoralized even as the United States and its allies enter what they hope will be the final phase of the war. A copy of the document, which was first reported by the BBC and The Times of London, was given to The New York Times by a Western official, on the condition of anonymity because it was classified.
The report coincides with an announcement on Wednesday by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta that American forces would step back from a combat role in Afghanistan as early as mid-2013, more than a year before all American troops are scheduled to withdraw.
Yet the classified report provides a sobering counterpoint to the coalition’s decidedly more upbeat public assessments of progress in the war and of the Afghanistan that NATO says it will leave behind. It abounds with accounts of cooperation between the insurgents and local government officials or security forces, as well as accounts from Taliban detainees who claim that in areas where coalition soldiers are withdrawing, the Afghan military is cooperating with the insurgents.
“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban,” the report says. The Afghan government “continues to declare its willingness to fight, yet many of its personnel have secretly reached out to insurgents, seeking long-term options in the event of a possible Taliban victory,” it adds.
The Taliban accounts may be influenced by the duress of interrogation or tinged with bravado. Yet the report’s findings roundly challenge many of the assumptions on which American policy in Afghanistan is based: that American military might will force the Taliban to the negotiating table; that the coalition’s counterinsurgency strategy will increase support for the Afghan government among Afghans; and that as NATO troops leave, Afghan security forces will be able to take over their responsibilities.
It also portrays a tight yet nuanced relationship between the Taliban and their Pakistani patrons, one not only of sometimes servile dependence, but also of frank enmity, and it says that the Taliban have gradually distanced themselves from Al Qaeda. The Taliban’s alliance with Al Qaeda was the reason that coalition forces entered Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Publication of the report put NATO officials on the defensive, and on Wednesday they issued an unusually detailed rebuttal. A spokesman for the NATO-led coalition played down the findings and emphasized that NATO analysts did not necessarily accept the views of the Taliban detainees as valid.
“This document aggregates the comments of Taliban detainees in a captive environment without considering the validity of or motivation behind their reflections,” said Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. “Any conclusions drawn from this would be questionable at best.”
“It is important not to draw conclusions based on Taliban comments or musings,” Colonel Cummings said. “These detainees include some of the most motivated and ruthless of the insurgents, who are inspired to play up their success. It is what they want us to believe they think.”
In Washington, the State Department’s spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said the report reflected a limited assessment of detainees’ attitudes and would not alter American efforts to repair the badly strained relationship with Pakistan, particularly after a mistaken border attack on Pakistani troops in November.
“It was not designed for any purpose other than to help those in the field understand what Taliban detainees were saying,” Ms. Nuland said. “So it was in no way designed to impact on our ongoing efforts to be back on track with Pakistan.”
A crucial element of the American strategy in Afghanistan is to step up the tempo of raids aimed at capturing or killing insurgents, particularly midlevel commanders; in the past two years the number of detainees has more than doubled. The raids are intended to pressure the insurgents to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the war, and in recent weeks there have been steps toward starting peace talks.
The report, dated Jan. 6, provided little evidence to believe that this strategy or the increase in the number of troops during the Obama administration had helped spur the nascent peace talks. “Taliban commanders, along with rank and file members, increasingly believe their control of Afghanistan is inevitable,” the report said. “Though the Taliban suffered severely in 2011, its strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact.”
It added of the insurgents: “While they are weary of war, they see little hope for a negotiated peace. Despite numerous tactical setbacks, surrender is far from their collective mind-set. For the moment, they believe that continuing the fight and expanding Taliban governance are their only viable courses of action.”
Recruits and donations for the Taliban increased over the past year, the report said, citing insurgents’ accounts.
One of the most startling elements in the report is the view by detainees that the Taliban have mostly rejected their old alliance with Al Qaeda and no longer give members of the terrorist network logistical or military support.
“In most regions of Afghanistan, Taliban leaders have no interest in associating with Al Qaeda,” the report said. “Working with Al Qaeda invites targeting and Al Qaeda personnel are no longer the adept and versatile fighters and commanders they once were.”
The report said the Haqqani network, a particularly lethal Pakistan-based faction of the insurgency that once had close ties with Al Qaeda, had not had any contacts with Al Qaeda in two years, according to detainees.
The report was apparently leaked to the BBC and The Times of London on the eve of the first high-level visit to Afghanistan since last September by a Pakistani official, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, and both news organizations made much of Pakistan’s role in supporting the insurgents. Ms. Khar dismissed that as “old wine in an even older bottle.”
One former Obama administration official speculated that the American military might have been behind the leak. “The mood in Kabul is that the U.S. military are very critical of Pakistan,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of military rules about discussing classified material. “They think the problem is not the Taliban, but the ISI,” the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, Pakistan’s spy agency.
Much of the Pakistani material in the report depicts a surprisingly unhappy alliance between the Taliban and the ISI. While it confirmed complaints by American officials that factions of the ISI cooperate with the Taliban, it also reported that Taliban leaders and fighters viewed their patrons with distrust and even hostility.
“ISI is thoroughly aware of Taliban activities and the whereabouts of all senior Taliban personnel,” the report said. “The Haqqani family, for example, resides immediately west of the ISI office at the airfield in Miram Shah, Pakistan,” the report said. The Haqqani network has been responsible for some of the most spectacular insurgent attacks of the past year, including an assault on the American Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul in September.
“There is a widespread assumption that Pakistan will never allow the Taliban the chance to become independent of ISI control,” the report said.
At the same time, however, it reported that Taliban commanders and fighters viewed the Pakistanis with suspicion and as “untrustworthy, manipulative, controlling and demeaning,” and cooperated with them “in lieu of realistic alternatives.” And the detainees reported no evidence that ISI directly financed or supplied the Taliban in the field, working through intermediaries instead.
But it was the accounts of cooperation between the insurgents and local government officials or security forces that seemed to most upset NATO officials. “Captured photographs of Taliban personnel riding openly in the green Ford Ranger pickup trucks of the Afghan army are commonplace throughout Afghanistan,” the report said, adding that the vehicles were “sold or donated” to the Taliban. Elsewhere it cited a document related to a plot between Afghan intelligence agents and the Taliban to ambush American soldiers.
Some of the newest material in the report covered extensive efforts by the Taliban to improve their relations with local people. The Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, has promoted a code of conduct that sets out how insurgents should deal with people, including rules on avoiding civilian casualties and excessively brutal punishments.
The group has even instituted “hot line” numbers for citizens to make complaints about their treatment by insurgents, and it sends fact-finding committees out from headquarters in Quetta, eliciting complaints against local Taliban leaders.
The report, which also included interrogations of non-Taliban civilians who were arrested after sweeps of their communities, cited the high marks the insurgents received for their judicial activities, which in contrast to many government court actions, were offered to people without demands for payments or bribes.
Reporting was contributed by Declan Walsh and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan; Sharifullah Sahak from Kabul; and Steven Lee Myers from Washington.
Pakistan rejects Taliban ‘blame games’
Financial Times By Matthew Gree February 1, 2012
Islamabad - Pakistan tried to prevent fresh claims that it backs Taliban insurgents from overshadowing its attempts to mend ties with Afghanistan by calling for an end to “blame games” over the region’s conflicts.
Islamabad, anxious about what will happen in Afghanistan as foreign forces withdraw, wants to soothe tensions triggered by the murder of Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former Afghan president, in September.
The killing unleashed public anger against Pakistan, which has a record of backing Afghan insurgent factions stretching back to the US and Saudi funded jihad against Soviet invaders in the 1980s.
Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s foreign minister, visited Kabul on Wednesday for the first high-profile official trip since the murder, hoping to glean a greater insight into Afghanistan’s attempts to kindle dialogue with insurgents.
The trip coincided with the leak of a US military report detailing testimony from captured militants who told their interrogators that Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence agency has close links with the Taliban.
Ms Khar dismissed the report and called for an end to “blame games” over Afghanistan. “We can disregard this as a potentially strategic leak . . . This is old wine in an even older bottle,” she told reporters in Kabul.
The testimony from captured insurgents painted a bleak picture of Kabul’s progress in asserting its authority as Isaf, the Nato-led force in Afghanistan, starts to scale back its numbers in the country.
“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban,” the report said. “Once Isaf is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable.”
A Pakistani official said the report had little impact on Mrs Khar’s trip since it was barely raised in meetings with Afghan officials and politicians.
The classified report, obtained by The Times and the BBC, was based on interrogations of some 4,000 captured fighters from the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Many of them said ISI officials regularly met insurgent leaders to offer advice and direct operations. Pakistan knows the location of Taliban leaders and continues to manipulate them “unabatedly,” the report said.
However, the report said detainees provided little evidence to suggest that Pakistan was providing funding or weapons. Some independent analysts also questioned how far evidence from interrogations alone could be relied on to paint a complete picture of the complex cross-border insurgency, in which many factions exert considerable autonomy.
The document detailed prisoners’ claims that most of Pakistan’s support came from ISI-sponsored Punjabi militant groups based in North Waziristan and Baluchistan, near the Afghan border. It said they provided “electronics expertise, remote detonators, advanced explosives, mines and suicide vests.”
The testimony is consistent with a belief among western officials that Pakistan is hedging its bets by maintaining links with the insurgency while exploring the possibility that a negotiated settlement might one day deliver stability to its neighbour.
Pakistan has allowed Taliban representatives to travel to Qatar, which the US hopes will be a hub for contacts, according to Afghan and Pakistani officials, although the start of substantive talks might be many months away.
The leaked document suggested that the Taliban was gaining popularity partly because the austere movement was becoming more tolerant.
“It remains to be seen whether a revitalised, more progressive Taliban will endure if they continue to gain power and popularity. Regardless, at least within the Taliban, the refurbished image is already having a positive effect on morale,” the report said.
TIME Exclusive: Q&A with Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar
TIME By Aryn Baker 02/02/2012
Since she was appointed as Pakistan's Foreign Minister in July of 2011, Hina Rabbani Khar has had to deal with the fallout from the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May, a deterioration in relations with Afghanistan, and a botched cross border operation that saw 24 Pakistani soldiers mistakenly killed by U.S. forces in November. She is Pakistan's youngest and first female foreign minister. On the eve of her first high-profile visit to Kabul since the assassination of Afghan peace envoy Berhanuddin Rabbani (no relation), she talks about her country's relationship with Afghanistan, the U.S., and with its own army.
TIME: What prompted your trip to Kabul?
Hina Rabbani Khar: As Foreign Minister of Pakistan, I would say that the most important capital in the world is Kabul. If this track works, if Pakistan and Afghanistan can work with confidence in each other's intentions and actions, we can go a very long way. With that trust we can fix a lot of things and will not need outside influence and interference. Therefore we would be open to engage with Afghanistan at any level and at any time. Since 2008 [when the elected government came to power] we have given a very consistent message to Afghanistan that we mean business, that we would want to support anything that Afghans feel is for their betterment. They have to choose the direction, and we would be behind them following that direction.
Unfortunately a few things, particularly [Afghan peace envoy Burhanuddin] Rabbani's assassination, led to some unwarranted recriminatory comments coming from Kabul which were difficult to live with. Post that, this signal from Pakistan is very clear. I am very comfortable with the fact that we are the ones reaching out to Kabul, and I am proud of that. It is something that is good for Pakistan. (MORE: NATO report says Pakistan is still propping up the Taliban)
TIME: Who will you be seeing in Kabul aside from President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul?
HRK: I hope to be seeing pretty much all the important political leadership in Afghanistan.
TIME: What about members of the opposition?
HRK: Yes, I am meeting the opposition.
TIME: Why? You don't think that will be contentious?
HRK: Why should it be? The point is, we are reaching out to all of Afghanistan, and that should be fine. We want to build relations that are country-to-country people-to-people. These are relationships that are sustainable for the long term. Pakistan is typically seen to be too attached to one part within Afghanistan [the Taliban], so I think that is a myth that needs to be broken. I am calling it a myth because I don't think it has been true for the past ten-plus years. So therefore it is important to send a message that whoever is important in Afghanistan is important to Pakistan.
TIME: There has been a lot of speculation that you will also be discussing opening a second negotiating track with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia.
HRK: No, I think this is all imaginary fanciful writing. It helps sell papers I guess. I will be very clear. The only purpose of my visit is to reach out to Afghanistan, to give them the confidence that whatever path the Afghans choose for themselves, they will find Pakistan to be behind them. Not beside them, but behind them. This is an extremely important message. We have a stake in their future, because our future is also linked to theirs. We are doing it for Pakistan, we are not doing it as a favor for anyone else.
It is then up to the Afghans to really decide what course of action they want to take, and what best suits their interests. Hopefully we will find the space to be able to support them in whatever they choose for themselves. (PHOTOS: The Taliban's War in Pakistan)
TIME: Do you feel, as Karzai has suggested, that Pakistan and Afghanistan will be sidelined from negotiations between the Taliban and the United States?
HRK: I am not very concerned about Pakistan being sidelined, and I want to break this perception of Pakistan wanting to take center stage, or remain relevant. We want to remain relevant to ourselves, and nobody else. Our stake is in our own future. As a neighbor of Afghanistan we have a stake in their future, but in their future lead by them, as I said before, followed by us.
As far as this whole thing being an Afghan-led process, whether it is or not, that is an bilateral issue between the United States and Afghanistan. I have made it very clear that we would be supportive of anything that is Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, Afghan-backed, and Afghan-driven. Pakistan supports whole-heartedly and with full momentum whatever is considered to be the solution, as long as it is the Afghan solution.
I just want to reiterate the fact that there can be no solution brokered in Washington, London, Paris, Germany or Islamabad -- it has to be brokered in Kabul. At the same time let me say we would be supportive of anything that has the Afghan blessing. So if the Qatar option is something that the Afghans want to pursue, Pakistan has no reason not to support it. I want to be completely and abundantly clear on that point. (PHOTOS: Osama bin Laden's Pakistan Hideaway)
TIME: How do Pakistan's goals for Afghanistan differ from those of the United States and NATO?
HRK: Pakistan's desires and hopes for Afghanistan are nothing more than a peaceful, stable Afghanistan. It may be friendly to Pakistan, or it may not. It is a sovereign country to decide who it wants to be friendly with or not. So what are our options? Our options are to do whatever we can, with as much trust as we can, to build as much confidence as we can so we can learn to live peacefully with each other and promote peace and stability in each other's countries. So that is what Pakistan's interest is, it starts from there and ends there. All these myths about Pakistan's interests will hopefully find their way to the dustbin.
As far as the U.S. is concerned, that is a different ballgame. [Unlike the U.S.,] we will remain here. So Pakistan's interests in having a stable Afghanistan are obviously extremely huge. But when it comes to the U.S. and the NATO countries, they came here with some goals. I believe in the last ten years, those goals have changed considerably. I believe they want to leave the country in a situation that is more stable than when they came in.
Secondly, the most important thing is not to promote militancy in the search for solutions. For instance -- drone strikes in Pakistan. For us all of those things matter because they leave an effect. They may not matter so much to those who will not be here to see the negative effects of all that.
TIME: As the neighbor that will be most affected by the withdrawal of NATO forces in 2014, what are your views on the timeline?
HRK: We have always maintained that timelines should be based on the situation on the ground. It should be interlinked with the goals to be achieved. The timeline should not in terms of months and years, but in terms of what you came out here to achieve here.
TIME: Many are saying that America has already lost the war in Afghanistan.
HRK: I wouldn't want to comment on that because it depends on how you look at what they came out to achieve. But the battle for hearts and minds has not been won. I don't know that it's been lost, but it has certainly not been won. (MORE: On the Ground in Afghanistan, a Taliban Whose Momentum Seems Anything but Broken)
TIME: What about in Pakistan?
HRK: I think the way some of the U.S.'s actions have been carried out have been exceptionally detrimental to the long time partnership between the U.S. and Pakistan.
TIME: Haven't the political and military leadership exacerbated the problem for their own popular gains? Using anti-Americanism to rally support?
HRK: I don't think the Pakistan People's Party has ever opted to appear anti-American or hostile to the Americans. If anything we have tried to open up space for all the positive things the U.S. has tried to do. But what an ordinary Pakistani has seen over the past ten years is an escalation in suicide bomb attacks and security risks to their lives and the lives of their children. The fact that our economy has suffered $70 billion in losses [from the battle against militancy]. And yet we are told on a daily basis how much assistance we are being given from the U.S. What you call Coalition Support Funds, that is reimbursement on expenditures that we have spent [on securing] the western borders. So an average Pakistan feels worse off from being a partner in this particular [war].
You [the United States] are a proclaimed supporter of democracies the world over. And finally four years back you had a real election in Pakistan and there was a democratic government in place. What is the bastion of that democracy? It is the parliament, which represents the people of that country. Now if someone speaks at the top of its lungs that this one particular tool -- drones -- is counter productive, is unlawful, is unacceptable, is against the sovereignty of Pakistan, and yet you show yourself to be more attached to that particular tool rather than the reason for which you are using it, which is to ensure that there is no more militancy in the country. We have said many times over that this actually fuels all of the elements [of militancy] that we want to take out. So it is very difficult to explain why the U.S would choose to ignore the will of 180 million people and think it knows better.
I think it is unfair to say that Pakistani leaders have fueled anti-Americanism. But if Parliament speaks in one unanimous voice on a certain point, you [the Americans] have to be mindful of that and respectful of the will of the people. (MORE: Why We're Stuck With Pakistan)
TIME: The Parliamentary committee tasked with reviewing the U.S.-Pakistani relationship is about to release its findings. What will it look like?
HRK: It will redefine what is uncompromisable for Pakistan, and within that I think it will be very realistic. Many people think it is going to be confrontational, but I don't think that is going to be the case at all. I find that everybody [on the committee] is very geared onto the reality check and everybody understands that this is an important relationship for the U.S. and Pakistan to have, but that it also should be in the pursuance of our national interest.
TIME: What about U.S. requests for assistance in fighting the militant groups in the tribal areas?
HRK: This whole approach of having a to do list with each other is completely flawed. It is that which has lead us to where we are today. It is that along with cutting deals on the side that has lead us to where we are today.
I look at this as a huge opportunity for not only Pakistan, but for the strengthening of democracy in Pakistan, and the strengthening of this particular relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan. It has to be more reality based, more according to the aspirations of the people of Pakistan. It is not a confrontationalist approach, it is just an approach which says that this is the definition of our national interest, this relationship has to fall within this ambit, and if it does we would be much more worthy partners. So I look at this as a huge opportunity for the U.S -Pakistan track.
TIME: What do you mean by deals on the side?
HRK: It is the parliament of Pakistan that must decide whether it is time for military action in one area or not. And secondly, please let's not overlook all the work that we have done in the last few years. We have had many military actions in the past. You can't do everything at the same time. What is expected of Pakistan [in the tribal areas] is what even 48 countries cannot achieve on the other side of the border. It is completely unrealistic. (VIDEO: Pakistan After bin Laden)
TIME: Yet clearly there has been support within the military for the U.S. drone program, even if Parliament has been against it. Doesn't this indicate a two-track relationship?
HRK: There is not a single military person to date that has ever accepted in front of me that they have ever been supportive of drones. There is nobody in Pakistan who has ever been supportive of this. The national interests of a country are defined by the parliament. It is the security interests of a country that are defined by the military. As far as the case of Pakistan is concerned, the military will work with whoever has political ownership. The military cannot act without being authorized.
TIME: Until November, the U.S. operated its drone program out of an airbase in Pakistan. Clearly, someone was supportive of the drone program. That could not have happened without Pakistani military assistance.
HRK: This is what I am saying, when I talk about doing only acceptable to the people of Pakistan. That authorization was given in an era where there was no functioning parliament.
TIME: So there was support for drones prior to your government coming in?
HRK: I can only say there was support by the Musharraf regime for that, and I believe he has admitted that on some level or another. The permission for the drone program, if given at all, was given during the time of President Musharraf.
TIME: Are there any other red lines?
HRK: No unilateral action at any level, of any type. Like Abbottabad [where Osama bin Laden was captured and killed]. Like what happened in Salala [where a cross-border NATO attack, led by U.S. forces, mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26]. You see what was really scary was the fact that in the U.S. CentCom report [on the investigation into the incident] they quote the trust deficit as one of the reasons why our people were not warned 72 hours before that a small operation was to take place. Now if this is the level of trust deficit between the two countries, that we can't even be alerted ahead of an operation on our border, then we should have many many more worries than we currently do. We should almost forget about having a partnership that works. Because on something as small as this if the trust deficit is quoted as reason, it's scary. (VIDEO: Where Should Pakistan's Army Aim Its Guns?)
TIME: Can the Americans trust the Pakistani military then? It has acted above the law on several occasions.
HRK: The military has ruled this country for 33 years. The military has a real presence in this country. But there is also a constitution in this county, and the military cannot go beyond that constitution, and as you see them right now they are working in the framework of that particular constitution, and I think it would be unfair to say they are working in cahoots with someone else, and I have no reason to believe that anyone is doing that. For instance on bin Laden, there were many theories, but I think most of the Americans have by now also reached the conclusion that there was nobody in the system who had foreknowledge of his existence.
TIME: Is this an evolution, that the government is now dictating the military's actions?
HRK: The military is part of Pakistan. I do not want Pakistan to appear to be a civilian vs. military paradigm. The military is part of the executive, it works under the executive. Because of the fact that the military has in some ways been in power for 33 years, I think the expectation level of the military internally and externally is just very different than what it ought to be. And I think that is going to be put right. And it is going to be through governments like this where the due processes work, the system delivers, the systems work, there is a clear and simple transition from one government to another. Five years from today, I don't think somebody interviewing the next foreign minister is going to be asking these kind of questions, as much as you are. And ten years from today no one would even mention it.
TIME: If that is the case your government will have achieved something that no other government ever has in Pakistan. As Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the other day, coups are over in this country. What brought this about?
HRK: I think there has been transformation in Pakistan with the realization that there is no easy answer. I think coups in Pakistan have been justified on the pretext of 'we are the solution. We will give you liberation from your problems, and we will deliver.' What we have seen in the past 60 years is that, if anything, [coups] have been the problem, not part of the problem. They have created the problem. It is because of military coups that Pakistan today is where it is. And Pakistan has a much brighter future. Pakistan has much more potential. It is because of this tendency towards military coups that has led many institutions to be not strong and not take roots. And therefore your delivery systems -- whether education or health -- suffer because of this. You have to give a lot of credit for the transformation to the media. People are much more politically conscious today than they ever were. I myself can say I am a convert as far as this is concerned. When I did my thesis paper in school it was about how democracy hasn't delivered in South Asia. Today you see a completely different point. Today if there is one thing I firmly believe it is that Pakistan will only be delivered at the back of a consistent democratic trend. Then there is nothing that can keep Pakistan back. Pakistan will, Insha'Allah, emerge as one of the stronger countries in the world.
UN tries to strike deal with Pakistan to safeguard two million Afghan refugees
The United Nations is trying to strike a deal with Pakistan to safeguard the future of more than two million Afghan refugees who fled years of violence in their home country.
Telegraph.co.uk By Rob Crilly 01 Feb 2012
Islamabad - Pakistan has repeatedly said it expects them to have left by the end of 2012 but with no end in sight to the bitter conflict ravaging Afghanistan UN officials are in Islamabad this week to find a deal.
An international conference has been called for May to present a new long-term strategy amid concerns that a decade of misguided policy has failed to help families returning home.
At the same time, Pakistani ministers have expressed concern at the economic and social burden they have been expected to bear and are agitating for speedier returns.
António Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, on Wednesday told The Daily Telegraph the group was in talks with the Pakistan government to ensure refugees could stay beyond 2012 and to speed up programmes of voluntary repatriation.
"What matters now is what is guaranteed and what is guaranteed is that there won't be any policy of involuntary expulsion of refugees," he said.
"And we have agreed with them to do our best to enhance the programme of voluntary repatriation." Afghans have sought safety in Pakistan ever since the Soviet invasion in 1979.
Pakistan hosts the world's biggest population of refugees. Some 1.7 million are registered as refugees with thousands more living under the radar.
However, Pakistan's weak economic record and widespread armed insurgencies have meant Afghans have regularly been made scapegoats for the country's ills.
Rehman Malik, the country's interior minister, has repeatedly accused the refugee population of being a source of terrorism.
With the conflict in Afghanistan showing no signs of easing and with international forces withdrawing in 2014, the numbers of refugees returning are on the wane.
In December, the UNHCR's Afghanistan representative admitted that its strategy in the war-wracked country was "the biggest mistake UNHCR ever made".
"It was concentrated on support to families returning," said Mr Guterres.
"And this was not the most important factor. The most important factor was whether the conditions on the ground were there to be sustainable and successful." He said a new policy – concentrating on giving support to communities to which families where returning – had been agreed with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, and would be presented to donors in May.
Pakistan Says Willing to Push Afghan Insurgents Towards Peace
VOA News February 2, 2012
Pakistan says it is willing to push Afghan insurgents to make peace, if asked to do so by the Afghan government.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told reporters in Islamabad Thursday that “we are willing to do whatever the Afghans want or expect.”
Khar made the comments a day after visiting Afghanistan, where she met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and pledged Pakistan's support for the Afghan peace process.
Pakistan is seen as a key player in that process because of its historical ties to the Taliban. Many of the Afghan insurgent group's leaders are believed to be based in Pakistan.
Following talks with President Karzai Wednesday, Foreign Minister Khar said Pakistan has no “hidden agenda” in Afghanistan. She also said that Pakistan stands strongly behind political efforts to end the war in neighboring Afghanistan, but that the process should be led and driven by the Afghans.
Khar's visit to Kabul was aimed at mending strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghan officials have accused militants from Pakistan of fomenting violence in Afghanistan with the goal of disrupting the peace process.
Afghan officials have said last year's suicide attack that killed the country's key peacemaker, former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, was planned in Pakistan and carried out by a Pakistani citizen. Pakistan has denied any involvement in Mr. Rabbani's killing.
On Wednesday, Pakistan dismissed a leaked NATO report that accused its military intelligence agency, the ISI, of supporting the Afghan Taliban. The classified report was compiled from the interrogations of 4,000 captured Taliban and al-Qaida operatives.
Taliban local leader captured in Afghanistan: ISAF
KABUL, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- A Taliban local leader was captured Thursday in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces said.
"An Afghan and coalition security force captured a Taliban leader during an operation in Nahr-e Saraj district, Helmand province, today," the ISAF said in a press release issued here.
Without disclosing the name of the captured leader, ISAF said that "The leader directed roadside bomb attacks against Afghan forces throughout the district. One additional suspected insurgent was detained during the operation."
Afghan forces and ISAF troops have intensified cleanup operations throughout the post-Taliban country recently.
The Taliban insurgents, who launched in May 2011 a rebel offensive against Afghan and NATO forces, have yet to confirm the capture of the leader.
Business Hurt by Anti-Pollution Drive in North Afghan City
But officials claim success in creating greener, cleaner urban environment.
IWPR By Ahmad Ramin Delasa 1 Feb 12
Afghanistan - The authorities in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif are running a major campaign to cut pollution, but factory owners and truck drivers forced out of the city as part of the clean-up say their businesses are suffering.
Officials in Mazar-e Sharif claim to have reduced pollution by 70 per cent by forcing brick kilns and other factories to relocate out of the centre, planting trees, limiting access for vehicles, and impounding older, high-emissions cars.
They have also installed public bins, and dug wells to irrigate the city’s green areas, in what they say is a model for reducing pollution levels nationwide.
Abdol Wahab drives an aging, Soviet-made Moskvich taxi, and has been hard hit by the ban on entering the city during the daytime.
“The traffic police... say our vehicles emit too high exhaust fumes,” he said. “I am fed up with this work but I don’t have other options. Mazar is a city for wealthy people who have luxury cars. There’s no room for poor people here.”
To get round the ban and earn enough to support a household of ten people, Abdol Wahab continues to slip into Mazar-e Sharif along alleyways and side streets.
Some of those affected told IWPR that the measures were tainted by corruption.
Mohammad Ibrahim, a confectionary factory owner, said police demanded money in exchange for allowing him to keep his business going in the city.
“We couldn’t pay bribes every day so we had to move out,” he said.
Relocating the factory outside Mazar-e Sharif has made it harder to transport ingredients and finished products, and for staff to get to work, he said.
Traffic police have banned trucks from entering Mazar-e Sharif during daylight, so when IWPR interviewed driver Feda Mohammad, he was sitting in his goods vehicle outside the city waiting for night to fall.
He claimed that drivers were still allowed into the city in the daytime, if they paid an illicit fee.
“How long are we going to have to pay bribes to drive... inside the city?” he asked. “No one listens to us and there’s no point speaking about the problem.”
Traffic police deny taking kickbacks while enforcing the war on pollution.
Mohammad Ajan, director of Balkh provincial traffic police department, said drivers were spreading false rumours because they were unhappy with the new rules. In reality, he said, enforcement was being monitored rigorously.
Not everyone is opposed to the clean-up.
Brick kiln owner Mohammad Sadeq said the relocation plans initially caused arguments between businessmen and police, but these had been resolved.
“I’m happy with the decision because it has been implemented equitably,” he said.
For their part, provincial officials say they are proud of the progress made in one of Afghanistan’s more picturesque cities.
“This programme has been effective,” said Ziaulhaq Atai, a senior environmental official. “We have also started programmes to collect rubbish house to house, and have installed rubbish bins.”
Dr Basir, head of the sanitation department at the provincial health department, said his agency had provided clean drinking water, as well as burying and burning waste.
“We have made great progress in the area of sanitation,” he said.
City resident Saleh Mohammad said he was happy the roads had been asphalted, which reduced dust and smog.
“Now we have a chance to breathe clean air,” he said.
Ahmad Ramin Delasa is a freelance reporter in Balkh province.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com