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Taliban modernizing, says former anti-vice enforcer
By Lawrence Bartlett AFP via Yahoo! News - Fri Feb 3, 1:51 am ET
Sitting cross-legged on a blood-red Afghan carpet in a house perched on a Kabul hillside, the bearded man gazes out across the sprawling city where he was once one of the most feared men in town.
Now, Maulavi Qalamuddin, former chief of the Taliban's "vice and virtue" squad which whipped women without burqas and jailed men without beards, lives behind a battered green door set in a mud wall at the top of a narrow track.
The low-slung city that he looks over towards snow-covered mountains is not the same one that he policed with such ferocity from 1996 until the Taliban were overthrown by a US-led invasion after the 9/11 attacks.
Not far from his door women in high-heeled boots and jeans step briskly through the icy streets -- hair covered and curves hidden by coats but provocative enough to have outraged the old Qalamuddin.
And young girls carry schoolbooks, exercising a right to education that was denied them under the Taliban, where a woman's place was at home or under an all-enveloping light-blue burqa.
Qalamuddin, relaxed in a lavishly carpeted room centred on a wood-burning stove and hung with curtains bearing a striking similarity to burqa blue, says he has changed too.
"The Taliban had a lot of positive achievements, but there were mistakes made," says the heavily bearded 60-year-old, wearing a traditional loose-fitting shalwar khameez, dark pin-striped waistcoat and grey turban.
With Washington and its NATO allies preparing to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan in 2014, fear of a Taliban return is widespread in Kabul and refugee agencies say increasing numbers of people are fleeing abroad.
Asked whether they are right to be afraid, Qalamuddin contemplates the gently twitching intertwined thumbs in his lap and says no.
"The people should not be afraid at all. There are only a small number of people who are afraid, and those are the ones who don't like the Islamic laws," he told AFP in an hour-long interview.
Qalamuddin, who was jailed for two years after the Taliban were routed, is now a member of President Hamid Karzai's government-appointed High Peace Council seeking to end the brutal, decade-long Taliban-led insurgency.
He says the mistakes the Taliban made while in power could be put down to the fact they were either peasants or uneducated former mujahideen fighters during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the subsequent civil war.
"I for instance did not know what a computer was, but now I have almost learned computers," he said, as one of his three sons -- all university students -- served green tea and sweets.
"The tape recorder in front of me -- when first someone placed it in front of me I was afraid of it."
Asked about the small television set standing in a corner like an accusatory ghost from his past, Qalamuddin said television had been banned because the Taliban thought "bad movies were shown on TVs".
Now, he confesses to watching political, social and news programmes "and sometimes entertainments".
Qalamuddin says that since the collapse of the Taliban government, under the onslaught of a US military thirsting for vengeance over Al-Qaeda's airborne attacks on New York and Washington, he has had no official links with them.
He does, however, "see them" sometimes when he goes to his home province of Logar, south of Kabul, and he believes the Taliban generally share his new acceptance that not all things modern are evil.
"Now everything has changed. I can say their attitude has changed 80 percent toward everything."
The fundamentalist Taliban government was recognised only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the extent to which the movement is reforming has become a key question this year.
The Taliban, led by US arch-enemy Mullah Omar and accused of sheltering Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during the 9/11 attacks, are setting up a political office in Qatar ahead of possible talks with Washington.
Combined with NATO's promised pullout of combat troops, the possibility of a new role for the Taliban in government is making Kabul jittery.
A NATO report leaked this week said "many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban".
"Once (NATO force) ISAF is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable."
Part of the militia's strategy, some reports suggest, is to present a softer image.
But the new Qalamuddin's answer to a question about whether his views on women's rights have changed carries more than a hint of the past.
"We know human rights better than you guys as we have been told of human rights by God.
"We do respect the women rights, we know the women rights in an Islamic framework," said Qalamuddin, who also has two daughters, who are "at home".
As for the beardless men on Kabul's streets -- by far the majority -- they are all sinners, he says.
"A beard is mandatory in Islam, all prophets including Christ had beards. Those who don't grow beards are sinners."
Down the muddy track outside his home, past bazaars full of mobile phones, DVDs and other signs of modernity, is the Ghazi stadium, notorious in Qalamuddin's heyday for the public execution of those considered serious sinners.
Now it is used for football and other sports.
And if he wishes, the new Qalamuddin can watch the games on the TV set in the corner of the room with the strangely blue burqa curtains, as he and the rest of Kabul await the next episode in Afghanistan's war-ravaged history.
Seven Pakistani soldiers 'killed in Taliban attack'
- Fri Feb 3, 2:30 am ET AFP
Seven Pakistani soldiers were killed and three others wounded in a Taliban attack on their check post in the country's northwestern tribal belt, according to security officials.
The overnight attack on Shidano Dand post in the Kurram region triggered clashes in which 18 militants were also killed, according to a senior military official.
"Armed militants stormed the post around midnight and killed seven soldiers," said the official, who did not want to be named, adding that troops retaliated killing 18 militants.
Other security officials also confirmed the attack.
Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan in a telephone call to AFP claimed responsibility for the raid, saying 12 Frontier Corps soldiers were killed and four others captured by militants.
"We carried out this attack to avenge the killing of our commander Taj Gul in Khyber agency," Ehsan said, without giving details when he was killed and his significance to the group.
"We have killed 12 F.C soldiers and captured four others alive," he said, adding that militants also seized a large cache of weapons.
Independent confirmation of death tolls is very difficult in the tribal area, a Taliban and Al-Qaeda stronghold barred to journalists and aid workers.
The post is located between Kurram and North Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border, a zone considered a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants.
The region has experienced a spike in clashes in recent weeks.
On Tuesday dozens of heavily armed Taliban militants attacked a Pakistani military post in the area, sparking clashes that killed eight soldiers and wounded another 15, the military said.
Helicopter gunships were mobilised when the fighting broke out and officials said 35 militants were killed.
Last July, Pakistan launched an offensive to oust Islamist militants from Kurram, mirroring operations that it has carried out -- with limited success -- across much of the rest of the tribal belt, only for militants to regroup and return.
Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt bordering Afghanistan is rife with a homegrown insurgency, Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
On Monday, President Barack Obama confirmed for the first time that US drones target Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan's tribal badlands, a programme that has escalated under his administration.
Pakistan, whose relationship with the United States deteriorated in 2011 over the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, says more than 3,000 troops have died fighting militants.
Romney Criticizes Afghan Pullout Plan, but Obama Is Eager for the Debate
New York Times By MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPER February 2, 2012
WASHINGTON - It did not take long for Mitt Romney to pounce on Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s statement Wednesday that American troops could end their combat role in Afghanistan by mid-2013, 18 months sooner than expected. Within hours, Mr. Romney lambasted it as “naïve” and “misguided.”
But President Obama, far from disavowing the Pentagon chief, seems eager to debate his Republican critics about a withdrawal timetable that his advisers contend is strategically sound, and which also happens to be politically popular. The White House said that Mr. Panetta’s remarks reflected the president’s resolve, supported by his experience in Iraq, not to wage a “war without end” in Afghanistan.
“The president made clear that U.S. forces are in Afghanistan to accomplish a mission, and they will not stay in Afghanistan forever, and they will not stay in Afghanistan any longer than is necessary to accomplish that mission,” said the press secretary, Jay Carney, when asked about Mr. Romney’s charges.
Though Republican candidates have often successfully used foreign policy against Democrats, they have struggled to turn Mr. Obama’s handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to their advantage, largely because polls show that a majority of Americans favor getting out of both countries as quickly as possible. Mr. Romney charged that the United States, by putting a more precise timeline on its military planning, was giving the Taliban and others a chance to wait out the Americans.
“Why in the world do you go to the people that you’re fighting with and tell them the date you’re pulling out your troops?” he said during a visit to a warehouse in Las Vegas. “It makes absolutely no sense.”
Mr. Romney issued a similar criticism last October, when Mr. Obama announced the pullout of the last soldiers from Iraq, declaring that the decision was either “naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude” and that it would jeopardize the hard-won gains made by American soldiers. But he said little more about Iraq, even as that country’s security deteriorated sharply late last year.
Part of the reason may be the general public weariness with these wars, even among some in the Republican Party. Last June, 79 percent of Americans said that they approved of Mr. Obama’s plan to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan — beginning in 2011, with a pullout of 33,000 by the end of this summer — according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. Just 17 percent said they disapproved.
Given those feelings, Mr. Romney’s swift denunciation could play into Mr. Obama’s hands, foreign policy and political analysts said. His comments “demonstrate a political tin ear here at home,” said Brian Katulis, a national security expert at the Center for American Progress, which has close ties to the White House.
Mr. Panetta’s announcement, Mr. Katulis said, is a reminder to the Afghans that they must govern and secure themselves once American troops leave. But, he added, “it wouldn’t surprise me that there’s a second-level objective here, which is to demonstrate to the American public that there is a clear plan coming from the administration, while we don’t know what the other side is offering.”
Mr. Romney has said that he would listen to the military’s recommendations about when to bring back the troops. He said the president had “disregarded the counsel of his top military commanders” in speeding up the withdrawal, though Mr. Romney, too, has said that the troops should leave as soon as possible.
“After failing to outline a strategy for Afghanistan and being all over the map over whether and when to withdraw,” said Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, Mr. Romney “has made clear he would leave our troops indefinitely in Afghanistan, just as he would have in Iraq.”
At the same time, there is evidence of a continued divide between the White House and the military over the pace of withdrawal.
On Thursday, military officials insisted that nothing had changed, despite Mr. Panetta’s announcement. “This is the exact policy that the commander in chief announced last year,” one official said, speaking on grounds of anonymity. Except that Mr. Obama did not mention combat troops being out in 2013.
Administration officials claimed that the announcement was consistent with the president’s promise that the Afghan drawdown would continue at a steady pace until the United States handed over security to the Afghans in 2014. Mr. Panetta, they said, was merely signaling when the troops might be able to make the transition from combat operations to providing advice and training to Afghan troops.
Tensions over timing were also apparent on Capitol Hill. David H. Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the former commander in Afghanistan, played down Mr. Panetta’s remarks in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, saying they did not represent a new development.
But Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, a Republican and the chairman of the committee, disputed that, saying that it was “never our understanding” that American troops would step back from a combat role as early as 2013. “That was a change,” Mr. Rogers said.
For the Obama administration, the primary mission in Afghanistan was to destroy the capacity of Al Qaeda to carry out terrorist attacks, which officials said they had largely accomplished. Mr. Romney, officials said, seems to be arguing in favor of extending the war with an unclear goal.
“We’re focused on defeating Al Qaeda, whereas other people seem focused on the size and number of U.S. troops deployed overseas,” said a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Scott Shane contributed reporting.
U.S. Will Keep Fighting as Afghans Take the Lead, Panetta Says
New York Times By ELISABETH BUMILLER February 2, 2012
BRUSSELS - Reacting to consternation among NATO allies, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta sought to clarify on Thursday night that American troops would not step back entirely from combat in Afghanistan next year but would allow Afghan security forces a “lead” role.
“As I stated to our allies today, we hope that the A.N.S.F. forces will be ready to take the combat lead in all of Afghanistan sometime in 2013,” Mr. Panetta said, referring to the Afghan National Security Forces, the 300,000-strong army and police force built, trained and financed by NATO.
Mr. Panetta, who was visiting NATO military headquarters here, was reacting to concerns among the allies about his statement to reporters while traveling to a meeting with them here that “hopefully by the mid to latter part of 2013 we’ll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role” in Afghanistan. It was the first time that the United States had put a date on stepping back from a central role in the conflict, at least before the end of 2014, when most of the troops are scheduled to be home.
Mr. Panetta’s comments, which reflected the Obama administration’s eagerness to get out of the unpopular war, were immediately dissected by European nations that are under pressure from their parliaments to bring their troops home from the decade-long conflict. European officials said it would be hard to persuade their own countries to stay put if the United States were perceived as rushing to the exits.
France, however, continued to move toward accelerating its withdrawal from Afghanistan a year early. The French defense minister, Gérard Longuet, reiterated in an interview late Thursday in Brussels that his country would withdraw its combat forces from Afghanistan — 2,400 soldiers in Kapisa Province — by 2013, although about 1,200 French personnel would be left behind in a support role in Kabul and other areas until 2014.
At the same time, the French proposed on Thursday that all NATO nations fighting in Afghanistan should consider ending their combat roles in 2013 to give the Afghan forces more time to prepare for the departure of most foreign troops the next year. “We must not leave the most difficult for the end,” Mr. Longuet said.
Still, there was plenty of confusion over Mr. Panetta’s remarks. “He said the combat role will come to an end, but he also said combat will continue,” one senior NATO official said Thursday afternoon. At another point, the same official said that Mr. Panetta’s comments were premature, and that NATO would make any decisions about the combat role of the alliance in Afghanistan.
“I’m not saying that Secretary Panetta wasn’t right for what he said,” said the official, who asked not to be identified by name under ground rules imposed by NATO. “I’m just saying as NATO, there’s been no decisions — we’re still working this, we’re consulting with our allies. There are different views about when this should happen, how quickly it can happen.”
NATO was consumed by semantics for much of the day, but on Thursday evening, Mr. Panetta offered a general explanation of what putting the Afghans in a lead combat role would mean for American troops on the ground. Afghan security forces, he said, would “decide, obviously, patrols, tactics, enemy targets.” He added that “we’ll be there for support, we’ll be there for guidance, but they’re the ones who will be in the lead and conduct the operations.”
He defined a narrow mission for American troops — self-defense, Special Operations and emergencies. “Our troops are going to have to defend themselves, they’re going to have to deal with some Special Operations, they’re going to have to deal with some in extremis situations that might develop,” Mr. Panetta said.
Defense officials acknowledged that most details needed to be worked out by American commanders on the ground, and that Mr. Panetta was speaking from a level of 30,000 feet. Defense analysts noted that policy statements issued from capitals only went so far, particularly when it came to relying on the Afghan security forces, which have a mixed record. Afghan troops have fatally turned their guns on their American and French trainers several times recently.
“Major elements of the A.N.S.F. cannot possibly be ready to stand on their own by 2014,” Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in an e-mail.
The United States has about 90,000 troops in Afghanistan, but 22,000 of them are due home by the fall. No schedule has been set for the pace of the withdrawal of the 68,000 American troops who will remain, only that almost all are to be out by the end of 2014. NATO officials and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, expect that a small international force will stay behind.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary general of NATO, said Thursday that the alliance remained committed to the principle of “in together, out together.”
Vulnerable Afghans struggle to survive harsh winter
by Abdul Haleem, Yangtze Yan
KABUL, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- "I am a mother of three and have nothing to keep my hut warm," a destitute woman appealed to passersby for alms in downtown Kabul.
Sitting alongside a snowy street and holding up an umbrella to keep herself and two kids from heavy snowfall, the dejected lady said that the continued cold spell and snowfall had doubled her pains.
"I have no choice but to beg, I have three children and no proper food and shelter," the upset mother told Xinhua on Friday.
Nevertheless, the begging but shy woman refused to disclose her name, saying that "I need assistance and not talking to people."
Inquiring women's name in the conservative Afghanistan sometimes creates problem for the questioners as many Afghan women do not like to reveal their names to others other than their close relatives.
The impoverished lady is not alone that has been living on charity provided by passersby and relief agencies.
Begging, particularly by women, is a taboo in Afghanistan. However, the continued instability and extreme poverty have forced many to beg on streets.
Almost in every street of the war-battered yet under- construction capital city and other Afghan cities, the begging men, women and children often disturb the attention of onlookers.
Grabbing her two children on arm in the snowy day, another woman was also busy in seeking handout to survive.
"Please help me as much as you can. I am in urgent need of firewood, food and money," said the woman dressed in tatters.
To cope with the poverty and assist the needy Afghans in 2012, the government of Afghanistan and the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) appealed for 437 million U.S. dollars on Jan. 28.
"The appeal is a total of 437 million U.S. dollars," UN Humanitarian Coordinator Michael Keating told a joint press conference with Afghan Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development Jarullah Mansoori.
At the press briefing, the UN official said that 8.8 million Afghans are in need of humanitarian assistance in 2012 and over 187,000 people were displaced in 2011, mostly due to security incidents.
Unprecedentedly in couple of years, the current chilly winter, accompanied by heavy snowfalls, has been hitting most parts of the mountainous Afghanistan over the past month. The snow depth marked up to 60 centimeters in Kabul and adjoining provinces since Thursday.
More than 40 people have lost their lives in avalanche and snowfall some two weeks ago in the northeast Badakhshan province and scores others sustained injuries, according to officials.
"Please help me to buy a few nan and feed my children tonight," said a 39-year-old man who introduced himself as Karim outside a roadside hotel.
Nan is a flat bread and the most affordable food item that Afghan families often put on their dining tables during mealtime.
The Taliban who may leave Gitmo
CNN By Adam Levine and Tim Lister, with reporting from Ted Barrett and Pam Benson February 3rd, 2012
As part of its efforts to explore peace talks with the Taliban, the Obama administration is considering the controversial release of several senior Taliban figures from the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. The names of those being considered for release have not been disclosed, and the conditions are still being discussed. But diplomatic sources say they would probably be relocated to Qatar in the Persian Gulf, where the Taliban is negotiating the establishment of a liaison office to facilitate dialogue with the U.S.
The administration has said any discussion about releasing the detainees is very preliminary and hinges on the Taliban renouncing terrorism and agreeing to peace talks.
But the proposal, confirmed in congressional testimony this week, has come under attack in Congress. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, said Thursday that the U.S. was "crossing a dangerous line" by discussing the possibility of releasing the prisoners.
And in a letter to President Obama, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, a former Marine officer who served in Afghanistan, warned that the release would "send the wrong message to the Taliban."
"Releasing prisoners strictly for the purpose of accelerating negotiations undermines the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and deliberately ignores the threat of a Taliban resurgence," Hunter wrote.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, who attended a closed briefing on Tuesday about the potential release, called it "really, really bizarre."
"This whole thing is highly questionable because the Taliban know we're leaving. ... Put yourself in their shoes."
"There are many people who are experts in the region who say they are rope-a-doping us."
McCain said Tuesday that he did not believe Qatar would ensure that the Taliban detainees were secured.
"These people really were in positions of authority. One of them was responsible for the deaths of several American soldiers," McCain said.
Officials say none of those being considered for release has been involved in killing Americans. And any proposed transfer would be part of consultations with Congress, according to James Clapper, director of national intelligence.
Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee this week that such transfers, though controversial, are not new when trying to end combat.
"In almost every case where we've had hostilities, that at some point in time, there are negotiations. I don't think anyone in the administration harbors any illusions about the potential here," Clapper said.
"Of course, part and parcel of such a decision, if it were finally made, would be the actual determination of where these detainees might go and the conditions in which they would be controlled or surveilled."
Clapper and Matthew Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate committee that the five being considered for release were among those assessed in 2009 to be too dangerous to release and too difficult to be tried. But Clapper said that assessment, recently redone, was based on returning them to their "point of origin," meaning Afghanistan.
CIA analysts considered different scenarios, said CIA Director David Petraeus.
"Our analysts did provide assessments of the five and the risks presented by various scenarios by which they could be sent somewhere - not back to Afghanistan or Pakistan - and then based on the various mitigating measures that could be implemented to ensure that they cannot return to militant activity," Petraeus said Tuesday.
Clapper said the circumstances also need to be taken into consideration when assessing the risk.
"This is a different condition, though, in terms of the potential for negotiating some form of confidence-building measure with the Taliban," Clapper said.
A CNN analysis of detainee records at Guantanamo Bay published by WikiLeaks suggests the following detainees among those being considered for release. CNN has been told by a knowledgeable source that the list is accurate. The source spoke on the condition no name was used because the list has not been publicized.
Khair Ulla Said Wali Khairkhwa: Former Afghan minister of interior during Taliban rule, governor of Herat and a military commander. Alleged to have been "directly associated" with Osama bin Laden. According to a detainee assessment, Khairkhwa was probably associated with al Qaeda's now-deceased leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi. He is also described as one of the "major opium drug lords in western Afghanistan" and a "friend of current Afghan President Hamid Karzai." He was arrested February 2002 in Pakistan and was transferred to Guantanamo in May 2002. During questioning, Khairkhwa denied all knowledge of extremist activities.
Mullah Mohammad Fazl: Deputy minister of defense under the Taliban, senior military commander who was chief of staff of the Afghan army and commander of the Taliban's 10th Division. Wanted by the U.N. in connection with the massacre of thousands of Afghan Shiites during the Taliban rule. "When asked about the murders, detainee did not express any regret," according to the detainee assessment. Alleged to have been associated with several militant Islamist groups, including al Qaeda. Surrendered in November 2001 to Northern Alliance (opponents of the Taliban). Transferred to U.S. custody in December 2001 and one of the first arrivals at Guantanamo. Assessed as having high intelligence value.
Mullah Norullah Nori: Senior Taliban commander during hostilities with U.S. and allies in Mazar-e Sharif in late 2001. Taliban governor of two provinces and also implicated, according to detainee assessment, in the murder of Afghan Shiites. Nori claimed during interrogation that "he never received any weapons or military training." Surrendered in November 2001 to Northern Alliance and transferred to U.S. custody a month later. According to 2008 detainee assessment, Nori "continues to deny his role, importance and level of access to Taliban officials." Same assessment characterized him as high risk and of high intelligence value.
Abdul Haq Wasiq: Now 40 years old; formerly deputy director of Taliban intelligence. An administrative review in 2007 cited a source as saying that Wasiq was also " an al Qaeda intelligence member" and had links with members of another militant Islamist group, Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin. Wasiq claimed, according to the review, that he was arrested while trying to help the United States locate senior Taliban figures. He denied any links to militant groups.
Mohammad Nabi Omari: According to the first administrative review of Omari in 2004, he was a member of the Taliban and associated with both al Qaeda and another militant group Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin. He was the Taliban's chief of communications and helped al Qaeda members to escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Omari acknowledged during hearings that he had worked for the Taliban but denied connections with militant groups. He also said that he had worked with a U.S. operative named Mark to try to track down Mullah Omar. Omari is now 43 or 44 years of age. He has been held at Guantanamo for more than nine years.
Premature Evacuation?
Why cutting and running in Afghanistan is good politics for Obama.
Foreign Policy BY MICHAEL A. COHEN FEBRUARY 2, 2012
Barack Obama is nothing if not a trailblazing politician -- after all, when you're the first African-American elected to the nation's highest office, breaking the mold is sort of part of your political DNA. However, with the announcement by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Tuesday, Feb. 1, that the Obama administration intends to end combat operations in Afghanistan in mid-2013 he is laying out another unique course -- seeking re-election this November as the architect of two drawdowns of U.S. military engagements. This is the kind of thing doesn't happen too often in American politics.
Rather, U.S. wars tend to end not before, but after elections. In 1952, Harry S. Truman was forced from office, in part, because of his inability to end the slaughter in Korea. It was his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who finally brought the war to a conclusion after running on a pledge that he would end the conflict. In 1968, an effort to begin disengaging the United States from the war in Vietnam also disengaged Lyndon B. Johnson from his dreams of another term as "your president." In 1972, the final breakthrough at the Paris peace talks came two months after incumbent President Richard Nixon had been overwhelmingly reelected -- and after he had dropped copious amounts of bombs on North Vietnam. In 2004, George W. Bush had decidedly little interest in talking about retreat from Iraq.
While not a hard and fast rule -- and one that is occasionally out of the hands of a commander-in-chief -- the general direction of wartime presidents is to avoid any hint of military vacillation or weakness before facing voters (even when fighting an unpopular war).
Not Barack Obama. He is running for reelection on a platform of bringing the troops home from Iraq, winding down the war in Afghanistan on a now accelerated timetable, and -- with the death of Osama bin Laden -- as the president who is ending the global war on terror.
Not surprisingly, Obama's Republican opponents are already taking him to task for the decision. GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney last night blasted what he called Obama's "naiveté" in signaling U.S. intentions to the enemy. He was joined by the 2008 GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain, who criticized Obama for sending "reassurance to our enemies that the United States is more eager to leave Afghanistan than to succeed." Romney, who briefly suggested last summer that it was time "to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can" from Afghanistan, has now adopted the position that the United States must defeat the Taliban militarily. As he said in South Carolina last month, "These people [the Taliban] have declared war on us. They've killed Americans. We go anywhere they are and we kill them." It's a rather traditional playbook for a Republican -- but that doesn't mean it will necessarily work with voters.
On the surface, it is certainly unusual for a presidential candidate, particularly a Democrat, to hand his opponents a potential military cudgel by which to bash him. But Obama probably understands better than his opponents that such attacks have rather limited political saliency. Voters strongly oppose the war in Afghanistan and have for quite some time. Indeed, 56 percent of Americans would, if they had their way, bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan immediately. Republicans will undoubtedly attack Obama's "retreat" from the war, but if the White House is assuming that voters won't care or that they will view the decision as a positive example of presidential leadership, they're probably right. It wouldn't be a U.S. presidential election cycle if Republicans weren't attacking their opponents as weak on national security -- but tradition shouldn't be confused with smart politics.
And this doesn't necessarily mean that Obama's decision was driven by political considerations, either. One of the more underreported elements of Panetta's comments on Tuesday was his call for an "enduring presence" by the United States in Afghanistan beyond 2014, which was the original NATO deadline for the withdrawal of foreign forces. While the U.S. combat mission might be ending sooner than originally planned, it's quite possible that the U.S. role in Afghanistan's politics will continue for some time.
Still, a desire to wind down the war quickly, the potential for kickstarting negotiations with the Taliban, and the recent decision by France to pull the plug on its involvement in Afghanistan in 2013 were likely greater influences on the administration's decision-making than creating an applause line for the fall presidential campaign.
Nonetheless, it is striking that the White House appears largely unconcerned about the political fallout from this decision. In 2008, candidate Obama ran on a platform of more fully resourcing the war in Afghanistan -- a stance that was motivated in part by a desire to shield himself from traditional GOP attacks on Democratic national security weakness. Within mere weeks of taking office -- and before even completing a serious review of the mission in Afghanistan -- Obama approved sending 17,000 troops to the war. In December 2009, according to Bob Woodward's account, he announced his intention to surge troops in Afghanistan against what appeared to be his better instincts. It was a decision, again, that appeared motivated, in part, by a desire to avoid charges of ignoring military counsel or not taking seriously enough the threat of jihadist terror. That now seems like a very long time ago -- and a very different Democratic politician.
To be sure, if Obama's State of the Union address -- bookended by reflections on the killing of bin Laden -- is any indication, Obama has not backed down from an inclination to tout his military bonafides. Indeed, the president's 2012 website provides a compelling snapshot into his campaign's mindset about how foreign policy will help their candidate in 2012.
It doesn't actually mention the words "foreign policy."
Rather the focus is on "national security" -- in particular, Obama's commitment to the nation's veterans and a strong military as well as his efforts to rid the world of the threat of loose nukes and al Qaeda terrorists.
Put it all together and we have a rather counterintuitive construct for a presidential candidate: tough enough to pursue and kill those that threaten America, but brave enough to take risks for peace and end America's wars. That such a strategy might work is unusual; that it's even being tried is fascinating indeed. A president running on a platform for ending and winding down America's wars -- fancy that.
Interview: Rashid On 'Bad Timing' Of NATO Report On Pakistan And Taliban
February 1, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and the well-respected author of several books on the Taliban and militant Islam, answers questions about the impact of a leaked NATO report that alleges that Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency is "intimately involved" with the Afghan insurgency. Rashid spoke with RFE/RL correspondent Abubakar Siddique.
RFE/RL: Is the revelation in this NATO report about Islamabad's support for the Taliban news to you?
Ahmed Rashid: It's very well known amongst NATO militaries [and] amongst the U.S. military. I was told by senior American generals that they approached [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld back in 2005 about the support that the Taliban were getting from Pakistan. But it was ignored by Bush at that time.
So this is nothing new, I think, for anyone. But the fact that it should be leaked and that it should come in such language, I suppose, is going to create quite a furor.
RFE/RL: How do you read the timing of this leak, then, given that all sides are now pushing for a negotiated settlement?
Rashid: Well, the timing obviously is very bad because this is precisely the time that Pakistan needs to be wooed and Pakistan needs to come on board this peace process with the Taliban, be it American or German or Qatari-led -- whatever.
Certainly, what you see now happening is that Pakistan is going to go its own way. It's not going to cooperate with the Americans or with NATO. And this kind of leak that has happened is going to make things much more difficult for Pakistan to accept an American negotiated end to the war.
RFE/RL: So, if they go their own way, does that mean we are back to square one?
Rashid: Certainly, there is a danger of that. I think the timing could have been connected to the fact that today the Pakistani foreign minister was expected to visit Kabul and hold talks with [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai. So there will be a lot of suspicion in Islamabad that the Americans deliberately leaked this at this particular movement to perhaps sabotage Pakistan's effort [to reach an understanding with Afghanistan].
RFE/RL: There is a lot of uncertainty around the future of international efforts in Afghanistan. France, for instance, has already announced that they are going to leave a year early. Could something like this prompt others to follow suit?
Rashid: There is an enormous diplomatic effort right now to try to persuade other NATO countries not to leave early. But the possibility, of course, exists that some countries with some of the smaller contingents of troops could decide to leave early.
Certainly, the Americans don't want to announce anything more until the NATO summit in Chicago in May, in which things might become clearer. And where you might see the Americans themselves bring the date forward for their exit from 2014 to perhaps a few months earlier.
Pakistan, UNHCR agree new regional approach to Afghan refugees
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency Thursday called for additional international solidarity with Pakistan and Iran which continue to host large numbers of Afghan refugees after more than 30 years.
There are currently 1.7 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Since 2002, more than five million Afghan refugees have already left for home, the majority with assistance from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In 2011 just over 50,000 Afghan refugees returned home from Pakistan, down from nearly 110,000 thousand in 2010. Despite the decline, the number of Afghan returns last year still represented the largest refugee repatriation programme in the world.
"At a time when many countries are closing their doors to those fleeing violence and persecution, the generosity of the people and the government of Pakistan towards Afghan refugees deserves greater recognition and support on the part of the international community,"UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ant nio Guterres told a news conference in Islamabad.
During his visit Mr Guterres also met with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. Central to their talks was an agreement reached in Dubai earlier this week between Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and UNHCR to pursue a regional strategy aimed at finding durable solutions to the Afghan refugee situation.
The new strategy will be presented at an international conference to be held in Switzerland in early May.
The conference will seek international support for programmes inside Afghanistan that will increase the attractiveness and sustainability of returns while providing additional support to communities that continue to host Afghan refugees.
"The priority now," said the UNHCR chief, "is to create conditions inside Afghanistan that will allow for large scale voluntary repatriation." Afghan refugees will be more ready to go home once the right conditions are in place inside Afghanistan, he added.
Mr Guterres also commended the government for reaffirming its commitment to the voluntary and gradual return of Afghan refugees.
He thanked Pakistan for its hospitality towards Afghan refugees while praising its continued commitment to finding lasting solutions to the situation.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Lawrence Bartlett AFP via Yahoo! News - Fri Feb 3, 1:51 am ET
Sitting cross-legged on a blood-red Afghan carpet in a house perched on a Kabul hillside, the bearded man gazes out across the sprawling city where he was once one of the most feared men in town.
Now, Maulavi Qalamuddin, former chief of the Taliban's "vice and virtue" squad which whipped women without burqas and jailed men without beards, lives behind a battered green door set in a mud wall at the top of a narrow track.
The low-slung city that he looks over towards snow-covered mountains is not the same one that he policed with such ferocity from 1996 until the Taliban were overthrown by a US-led invasion after the 9/11 attacks.
Not far from his door women in high-heeled boots and jeans step briskly through the icy streets -- hair covered and curves hidden by coats but provocative enough to have outraged the old Qalamuddin.
And young girls carry schoolbooks, exercising a right to education that was denied them under the Taliban, where a woman's place was at home or under an all-enveloping light-blue burqa.
Qalamuddin, relaxed in a lavishly carpeted room centred on a wood-burning stove and hung with curtains bearing a striking similarity to burqa blue, says he has changed too.
"The Taliban had a lot of positive achievements, but there were mistakes made," says the heavily bearded 60-year-old, wearing a traditional loose-fitting shalwar khameez, dark pin-striped waistcoat and grey turban.
With Washington and its NATO allies preparing to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan in 2014, fear of a Taliban return is widespread in Kabul and refugee agencies say increasing numbers of people are fleeing abroad.
Asked whether they are right to be afraid, Qalamuddin contemplates the gently twitching intertwined thumbs in his lap and says no.
"The people should not be afraid at all. There are only a small number of people who are afraid, and those are the ones who don't like the Islamic laws," he told AFP in an hour-long interview.
Qalamuddin, who was jailed for two years after the Taliban were routed, is now a member of President Hamid Karzai's government-appointed High Peace Council seeking to end the brutal, decade-long Taliban-led insurgency.
He says the mistakes the Taliban made while in power could be put down to the fact they were either peasants or uneducated former mujahideen fighters during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the subsequent civil war.
"I for instance did not know what a computer was, but now I have almost learned computers," he said, as one of his three sons -- all university students -- served green tea and sweets.
"The tape recorder in front of me -- when first someone placed it in front of me I was afraid of it."
Asked about the small television set standing in a corner like an accusatory ghost from his past, Qalamuddin said television had been banned because the Taliban thought "bad movies were shown on TVs".
Now, he confesses to watching political, social and news programmes "and sometimes entertainments".
Qalamuddin says that since the collapse of the Taliban government, under the onslaught of a US military thirsting for vengeance over Al-Qaeda's airborne attacks on New York and Washington, he has had no official links with them.
He does, however, "see them" sometimes when he goes to his home province of Logar, south of Kabul, and he believes the Taliban generally share his new acceptance that not all things modern are evil.
"Now everything has changed. I can say their attitude has changed 80 percent toward everything."
The fundamentalist Taliban government was recognised only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the extent to which the movement is reforming has become a key question this year.
The Taliban, led by US arch-enemy Mullah Omar and accused of sheltering Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during the 9/11 attacks, are setting up a political office in Qatar ahead of possible talks with Washington.
Combined with NATO's promised pullout of combat troops, the possibility of a new role for the Taliban in government is making Kabul jittery.
A NATO report leaked this week said "many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban".
"Once (NATO force) ISAF is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable."
Part of the militia's strategy, some reports suggest, is to present a softer image.
But the new Qalamuddin's answer to a question about whether his views on women's rights have changed carries more than a hint of the past.
"We know human rights better than you guys as we have been told of human rights by God.
"We do respect the women rights, we know the women rights in an Islamic framework," said Qalamuddin, who also has two daughters, who are "at home".
As for the beardless men on Kabul's streets -- by far the majority -- they are all sinners, he says.
"A beard is mandatory in Islam, all prophets including Christ had beards. Those who don't grow beards are sinners."
Down the muddy track outside his home, past bazaars full of mobile phones, DVDs and other signs of modernity, is the Ghazi stadium, notorious in Qalamuddin's heyday for the public execution of those considered serious sinners.
Now it is used for football and other sports.
And if he wishes, the new Qalamuddin can watch the games on the TV set in the corner of the room with the strangely blue burqa curtains, as he and the rest of Kabul await the next episode in Afghanistan's war-ravaged history.
Seven Pakistani soldiers 'killed in Taliban attack'
- Fri Feb 3, 2:30 am ET AFP
Seven Pakistani soldiers were killed and three others wounded in a Taliban attack on their check post in the country's northwestern tribal belt, according to security officials.
The overnight attack on Shidano Dand post in the Kurram region triggered clashes in which 18 militants were also killed, according to a senior military official.
"Armed militants stormed the post around midnight and killed seven soldiers," said the official, who did not want to be named, adding that troops retaliated killing 18 militants.
Other security officials also confirmed the attack.
Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan in a telephone call to AFP claimed responsibility for the raid, saying 12 Frontier Corps soldiers were killed and four others captured by militants.
"We carried out this attack to avenge the killing of our commander Taj Gul in Khyber agency," Ehsan said, without giving details when he was killed and his significance to the group.
"We have killed 12 F.C soldiers and captured four others alive," he said, adding that militants also seized a large cache of weapons.
Independent confirmation of death tolls is very difficult in the tribal area, a Taliban and Al-Qaeda stronghold barred to journalists and aid workers.
The post is located between Kurram and North Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border, a zone considered a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants.
The region has experienced a spike in clashes in recent weeks.
On Tuesday dozens of heavily armed Taliban militants attacked a Pakistani military post in the area, sparking clashes that killed eight soldiers and wounded another 15, the military said.
Helicopter gunships were mobilised when the fighting broke out and officials said 35 militants were killed.
Last July, Pakistan launched an offensive to oust Islamist militants from Kurram, mirroring operations that it has carried out -- with limited success -- across much of the rest of the tribal belt, only for militants to regroup and return.
Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt bordering Afghanistan is rife with a homegrown insurgency, Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
On Monday, President Barack Obama confirmed for the first time that US drones target Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan's tribal badlands, a programme that has escalated under his administration.
Pakistan, whose relationship with the United States deteriorated in 2011 over the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, says more than 3,000 troops have died fighting militants.
Romney Criticizes Afghan Pullout Plan, but Obama Is Eager for the Debate
New York Times By MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPER February 2, 2012
WASHINGTON - It did not take long for Mitt Romney to pounce on Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s statement Wednesday that American troops could end their combat role in Afghanistan by mid-2013, 18 months sooner than expected. Within hours, Mr. Romney lambasted it as “naïve” and “misguided.”
But President Obama, far from disavowing the Pentagon chief, seems eager to debate his Republican critics about a withdrawal timetable that his advisers contend is strategically sound, and which also happens to be politically popular. The White House said that Mr. Panetta’s remarks reflected the president’s resolve, supported by his experience in Iraq, not to wage a “war without end” in Afghanistan.
“The president made clear that U.S. forces are in Afghanistan to accomplish a mission, and they will not stay in Afghanistan forever, and they will not stay in Afghanistan any longer than is necessary to accomplish that mission,” said the press secretary, Jay Carney, when asked about Mr. Romney’s charges.
Though Republican candidates have often successfully used foreign policy against Democrats, they have struggled to turn Mr. Obama’s handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to their advantage, largely because polls show that a majority of Americans favor getting out of both countries as quickly as possible. Mr. Romney charged that the United States, by putting a more precise timeline on its military planning, was giving the Taliban and others a chance to wait out the Americans.
“Why in the world do you go to the people that you’re fighting with and tell them the date you’re pulling out your troops?” he said during a visit to a warehouse in Las Vegas. “It makes absolutely no sense.”
Mr. Romney issued a similar criticism last October, when Mr. Obama announced the pullout of the last soldiers from Iraq, declaring that the decision was either “naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude” and that it would jeopardize the hard-won gains made by American soldiers. But he said little more about Iraq, even as that country’s security deteriorated sharply late last year.
Part of the reason may be the general public weariness with these wars, even among some in the Republican Party. Last June, 79 percent of Americans said that they approved of Mr. Obama’s plan to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan — beginning in 2011, with a pullout of 33,000 by the end of this summer — according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. Just 17 percent said they disapproved.
Given those feelings, Mr. Romney’s swift denunciation could play into Mr. Obama’s hands, foreign policy and political analysts said. His comments “demonstrate a political tin ear here at home,” said Brian Katulis, a national security expert at the Center for American Progress, which has close ties to the White House.
Mr. Panetta’s announcement, Mr. Katulis said, is a reminder to the Afghans that they must govern and secure themselves once American troops leave. But, he added, “it wouldn’t surprise me that there’s a second-level objective here, which is to demonstrate to the American public that there is a clear plan coming from the administration, while we don’t know what the other side is offering.”
Mr. Romney has said that he would listen to the military’s recommendations about when to bring back the troops. He said the president had “disregarded the counsel of his top military commanders” in speeding up the withdrawal, though Mr. Romney, too, has said that the troops should leave as soon as possible.
“After failing to outline a strategy for Afghanistan and being all over the map over whether and when to withdraw,” said Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, Mr. Romney “has made clear he would leave our troops indefinitely in Afghanistan, just as he would have in Iraq.”
At the same time, there is evidence of a continued divide between the White House and the military over the pace of withdrawal.
On Thursday, military officials insisted that nothing had changed, despite Mr. Panetta’s announcement. “This is the exact policy that the commander in chief announced last year,” one official said, speaking on grounds of anonymity. Except that Mr. Obama did not mention combat troops being out in 2013.
Administration officials claimed that the announcement was consistent with the president’s promise that the Afghan drawdown would continue at a steady pace until the United States handed over security to the Afghans in 2014. Mr. Panetta, they said, was merely signaling when the troops might be able to make the transition from combat operations to providing advice and training to Afghan troops.
Tensions over timing were also apparent on Capitol Hill. David H. Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the former commander in Afghanistan, played down Mr. Panetta’s remarks in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, saying they did not represent a new development.
But Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, a Republican and the chairman of the committee, disputed that, saying that it was “never our understanding” that American troops would step back from a combat role as early as 2013. “That was a change,” Mr. Rogers said.
For the Obama administration, the primary mission in Afghanistan was to destroy the capacity of Al Qaeda to carry out terrorist attacks, which officials said they had largely accomplished. Mr. Romney, officials said, seems to be arguing in favor of extending the war with an unclear goal.
“We’re focused on defeating Al Qaeda, whereas other people seem focused on the size and number of U.S. troops deployed overseas,” said a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Scott Shane contributed reporting.
U.S. Will Keep Fighting as Afghans Take the Lead, Panetta Says
New York Times By ELISABETH BUMILLER February 2, 2012
BRUSSELS - Reacting to consternation among NATO allies, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta sought to clarify on Thursday night that American troops would not step back entirely from combat in Afghanistan next year but would allow Afghan security forces a “lead” role.
“As I stated to our allies today, we hope that the A.N.S.F. forces will be ready to take the combat lead in all of Afghanistan sometime in 2013,” Mr. Panetta said, referring to the Afghan National Security Forces, the 300,000-strong army and police force built, trained and financed by NATO.
Mr. Panetta, who was visiting NATO military headquarters here, was reacting to concerns among the allies about his statement to reporters while traveling to a meeting with them here that “hopefully by the mid to latter part of 2013 we’ll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role” in Afghanistan. It was the first time that the United States had put a date on stepping back from a central role in the conflict, at least before the end of 2014, when most of the troops are scheduled to be home.
Mr. Panetta’s comments, which reflected the Obama administration’s eagerness to get out of the unpopular war, were immediately dissected by European nations that are under pressure from their parliaments to bring their troops home from the decade-long conflict. European officials said it would be hard to persuade their own countries to stay put if the United States were perceived as rushing to the exits.
France, however, continued to move toward accelerating its withdrawal from Afghanistan a year early. The French defense minister, Gérard Longuet, reiterated in an interview late Thursday in Brussels that his country would withdraw its combat forces from Afghanistan — 2,400 soldiers in Kapisa Province — by 2013, although about 1,200 French personnel would be left behind in a support role in Kabul and other areas until 2014.
At the same time, the French proposed on Thursday that all NATO nations fighting in Afghanistan should consider ending their combat roles in 2013 to give the Afghan forces more time to prepare for the departure of most foreign troops the next year. “We must not leave the most difficult for the end,” Mr. Longuet said.
Still, there was plenty of confusion over Mr. Panetta’s remarks. “He said the combat role will come to an end, but he also said combat will continue,” one senior NATO official said Thursday afternoon. At another point, the same official said that Mr. Panetta’s comments were premature, and that NATO would make any decisions about the combat role of the alliance in Afghanistan.
“I’m not saying that Secretary Panetta wasn’t right for what he said,” said the official, who asked not to be identified by name under ground rules imposed by NATO. “I’m just saying as NATO, there’s been no decisions — we’re still working this, we’re consulting with our allies. There are different views about when this should happen, how quickly it can happen.”
NATO was consumed by semantics for much of the day, but on Thursday evening, Mr. Panetta offered a general explanation of what putting the Afghans in a lead combat role would mean for American troops on the ground. Afghan security forces, he said, would “decide, obviously, patrols, tactics, enemy targets.” He added that “we’ll be there for support, we’ll be there for guidance, but they’re the ones who will be in the lead and conduct the operations.”
He defined a narrow mission for American troops — self-defense, Special Operations and emergencies. “Our troops are going to have to defend themselves, they’re going to have to deal with some Special Operations, they’re going to have to deal with some in extremis situations that might develop,” Mr. Panetta said.
Defense officials acknowledged that most details needed to be worked out by American commanders on the ground, and that Mr. Panetta was speaking from a level of 30,000 feet. Defense analysts noted that policy statements issued from capitals only went so far, particularly when it came to relying on the Afghan security forces, which have a mixed record. Afghan troops have fatally turned their guns on their American and French trainers several times recently.
“Major elements of the A.N.S.F. cannot possibly be ready to stand on their own by 2014,” Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in an e-mail.
The United States has about 90,000 troops in Afghanistan, but 22,000 of them are due home by the fall. No schedule has been set for the pace of the withdrawal of the 68,000 American troops who will remain, only that almost all are to be out by the end of 2014. NATO officials and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, expect that a small international force will stay behind.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary general of NATO, said Thursday that the alliance remained committed to the principle of “in together, out together.”
Vulnerable Afghans struggle to survive harsh winter
by Abdul Haleem, Yangtze Yan
KABUL, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- "I am a mother of three and have nothing to keep my hut warm," a destitute woman appealed to passersby for alms in downtown Kabul.
Sitting alongside a snowy street and holding up an umbrella to keep herself and two kids from heavy snowfall, the dejected lady said that the continued cold spell and snowfall had doubled her pains.
"I have no choice but to beg, I have three children and no proper food and shelter," the upset mother told Xinhua on Friday.
Nevertheless, the begging but shy woman refused to disclose her name, saying that "I need assistance and not talking to people."
Inquiring women's name in the conservative Afghanistan sometimes creates problem for the questioners as many Afghan women do not like to reveal their names to others other than their close relatives.
The impoverished lady is not alone that has been living on charity provided by passersby and relief agencies.
Begging, particularly by women, is a taboo in Afghanistan. However, the continued instability and extreme poverty have forced many to beg on streets.
Almost in every street of the war-battered yet under- construction capital city and other Afghan cities, the begging men, women and children often disturb the attention of onlookers.
Grabbing her two children on arm in the snowy day, another woman was also busy in seeking handout to survive.
"Please help me as much as you can. I am in urgent need of firewood, food and money," said the woman dressed in tatters.
To cope with the poverty and assist the needy Afghans in 2012, the government of Afghanistan and the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) appealed for 437 million U.S. dollars on Jan. 28.
"The appeal is a total of 437 million U.S. dollars," UN Humanitarian Coordinator Michael Keating told a joint press conference with Afghan Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development Jarullah Mansoori.
At the press briefing, the UN official said that 8.8 million Afghans are in need of humanitarian assistance in 2012 and over 187,000 people were displaced in 2011, mostly due to security incidents.
Unprecedentedly in couple of years, the current chilly winter, accompanied by heavy snowfalls, has been hitting most parts of the mountainous Afghanistan over the past month. The snow depth marked up to 60 centimeters in Kabul and adjoining provinces since Thursday.
More than 40 people have lost their lives in avalanche and snowfall some two weeks ago in the northeast Badakhshan province and scores others sustained injuries, according to officials.
"Please help me to buy a few nan and feed my children tonight," said a 39-year-old man who introduced himself as Karim outside a roadside hotel.
Nan is a flat bread and the most affordable food item that Afghan families often put on their dining tables during mealtime.
The Taliban who may leave Gitmo
CNN By Adam Levine and Tim Lister, with reporting from Ted Barrett and Pam Benson February 3rd, 2012
As part of its efforts to explore peace talks with the Taliban, the Obama administration is considering the controversial release of several senior Taliban figures from the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. The names of those being considered for release have not been disclosed, and the conditions are still being discussed. But diplomatic sources say they would probably be relocated to Qatar in the Persian Gulf, where the Taliban is negotiating the establishment of a liaison office to facilitate dialogue with the U.S.
The administration has said any discussion about releasing the detainees is very preliminary and hinges on the Taliban renouncing terrorism and agreeing to peace talks.
But the proposal, confirmed in congressional testimony this week, has come under attack in Congress. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, said Thursday that the U.S. was "crossing a dangerous line" by discussing the possibility of releasing the prisoners.
And in a letter to President Obama, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, a former Marine officer who served in Afghanistan, warned that the release would "send the wrong message to the Taliban."
"Releasing prisoners strictly for the purpose of accelerating negotiations undermines the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and deliberately ignores the threat of a Taliban resurgence," Hunter wrote.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, who attended a closed briefing on Tuesday about the potential release, called it "really, really bizarre."
"This whole thing is highly questionable because the Taliban know we're leaving. ... Put yourself in their shoes."
"There are many people who are experts in the region who say they are rope-a-doping us."
McCain said Tuesday that he did not believe Qatar would ensure that the Taliban detainees were secured.
"These people really were in positions of authority. One of them was responsible for the deaths of several American soldiers," McCain said.
Officials say none of those being considered for release has been involved in killing Americans. And any proposed transfer would be part of consultations with Congress, according to James Clapper, director of national intelligence.
Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee this week that such transfers, though controversial, are not new when trying to end combat.
"In almost every case where we've had hostilities, that at some point in time, there are negotiations. I don't think anyone in the administration harbors any illusions about the potential here," Clapper said.
"Of course, part and parcel of such a decision, if it were finally made, would be the actual determination of where these detainees might go and the conditions in which they would be controlled or surveilled."
Clapper and Matthew Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate committee that the five being considered for release were among those assessed in 2009 to be too dangerous to release and too difficult to be tried. But Clapper said that assessment, recently redone, was based on returning them to their "point of origin," meaning Afghanistan.
CIA analysts considered different scenarios, said CIA Director David Petraeus.
"Our analysts did provide assessments of the five and the risks presented by various scenarios by which they could be sent somewhere - not back to Afghanistan or Pakistan - and then based on the various mitigating measures that could be implemented to ensure that they cannot return to militant activity," Petraeus said Tuesday.
Clapper said the circumstances also need to be taken into consideration when assessing the risk.
"This is a different condition, though, in terms of the potential for negotiating some form of confidence-building measure with the Taliban," Clapper said.
A CNN analysis of detainee records at Guantanamo Bay published by WikiLeaks suggests the following detainees among those being considered for release. CNN has been told by a knowledgeable source that the list is accurate. The source spoke on the condition no name was used because the list has not been publicized.
Khair Ulla Said Wali Khairkhwa: Former Afghan minister of interior during Taliban rule, governor of Herat and a military commander. Alleged to have been "directly associated" with Osama bin Laden. According to a detainee assessment, Khairkhwa was probably associated with al Qaeda's now-deceased leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi. He is also described as one of the "major opium drug lords in western Afghanistan" and a "friend of current Afghan President Hamid Karzai." He was arrested February 2002 in Pakistan and was transferred to Guantanamo in May 2002. During questioning, Khairkhwa denied all knowledge of extremist activities.
Mullah Mohammad Fazl: Deputy minister of defense under the Taliban, senior military commander who was chief of staff of the Afghan army and commander of the Taliban's 10th Division. Wanted by the U.N. in connection with the massacre of thousands of Afghan Shiites during the Taliban rule. "When asked about the murders, detainee did not express any regret," according to the detainee assessment. Alleged to have been associated with several militant Islamist groups, including al Qaeda. Surrendered in November 2001 to Northern Alliance (opponents of the Taliban). Transferred to U.S. custody in December 2001 and one of the first arrivals at Guantanamo. Assessed as having high intelligence value.
Mullah Norullah Nori: Senior Taliban commander during hostilities with U.S. and allies in Mazar-e Sharif in late 2001. Taliban governor of two provinces and also implicated, according to detainee assessment, in the murder of Afghan Shiites. Nori claimed during interrogation that "he never received any weapons or military training." Surrendered in November 2001 to Northern Alliance and transferred to U.S. custody a month later. According to 2008 detainee assessment, Nori "continues to deny his role, importance and level of access to Taliban officials." Same assessment characterized him as high risk and of high intelligence value.
Abdul Haq Wasiq: Now 40 years old; formerly deputy director of Taliban intelligence. An administrative review in 2007 cited a source as saying that Wasiq was also " an al Qaeda intelligence member" and had links with members of another militant Islamist group, Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin. Wasiq claimed, according to the review, that he was arrested while trying to help the United States locate senior Taliban figures. He denied any links to militant groups.
Mohammad Nabi Omari: According to the first administrative review of Omari in 2004, he was a member of the Taliban and associated with both al Qaeda and another militant group Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin. He was the Taliban's chief of communications and helped al Qaeda members to escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Omari acknowledged during hearings that he had worked for the Taliban but denied connections with militant groups. He also said that he had worked with a U.S. operative named Mark to try to track down Mullah Omar. Omari is now 43 or 44 years of age. He has been held at Guantanamo for more than nine years.
Premature Evacuation?
Why cutting and running in Afghanistan is good politics for Obama.
Foreign Policy BY MICHAEL A. COHEN FEBRUARY 2, 2012
Barack Obama is nothing if not a trailblazing politician -- after all, when you're the first African-American elected to the nation's highest office, breaking the mold is sort of part of your political DNA. However, with the announcement by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Tuesday, Feb. 1, that the Obama administration intends to end combat operations in Afghanistan in mid-2013 he is laying out another unique course -- seeking re-election this November as the architect of two drawdowns of U.S. military engagements. This is the kind of thing doesn't happen too often in American politics.
Rather, U.S. wars tend to end not before, but after elections. In 1952, Harry S. Truman was forced from office, in part, because of his inability to end the slaughter in Korea. It was his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who finally brought the war to a conclusion after running on a pledge that he would end the conflict. In 1968, an effort to begin disengaging the United States from the war in Vietnam also disengaged Lyndon B. Johnson from his dreams of another term as "your president." In 1972, the final breakthrough at the Paris peace talks came two months after incumbent President Richard Nixon had been overwhelmingly reelected -- and after he had dropped copious amounts of bombs on North Vietnam. In 2004, George W. Bush had decidedly little interest in talking about retreat from Iraq.
While not a hard and fast rule -- and one that is occasionally out of the hands of a commander-in-chief -- the general direction of wartime presidents is to avoid any hint of military vacillation or weakness before facing voters (even when fighting an unpopular war).
Not Barack Obama. He is running for reelection on a platform of bringing the troops home from Iraq, winding down the war in Afghanistan on a now accelerated timetable, and -- with the death of Osama bin Laden -- as the president who is ending the global war on terror.
Not surprisingly, Obama's Republican opponents are already taking him to task for the decision. GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney last night blasted what he called Obama's "naiveté" in signaling U.S. intentions to the enemy. He was joined by the 2008 GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain, who criticized Obama for sending "reassurance to our enemies that the United States is more eager to leave Afghanistan than to succeed." Romney, who briefly suggested last summer that it was time "to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can" from Afghanistan, has now adopted the position that the United States must defeat the Taliban militarily. As he said in South Carolina last month, "These people [the Taliban] have declared war on us. They've killed Americans. We go anywhere they are and we kill them." It's a rather traditional playbook for a Republican -- but that doesn't mean it will necessarily work with voters.
On the surface, it is certainly unusual for a presidential candidate, particularly a Democrat, to hand his opponents a potential military cudgel by which to bash him. But Obama probably understands better than his opponents that such attacks have rather limited political saliency. Voters strongly oppose the war in Afghanistan and have for quite some time. Indeed, 56 percent of Americans would, if they had their way, bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan immediately. Republicans will undoubtedly attack Obama's "retreat" from the war, but if the White House is assuming that voters won't care or that they will view the decision as a positive example of presidential leadership, they're probably right. It wouldn't be a U.S. presidential election cycle if Republicans weren't attacking their opponents as weak on national security -- but tradition shouldn't be confused with smart politics.
And this doesn't necessarily mean that Obama's decision was driven by political considerations, either. One of the more underreported elements of Panetta's comments on Tuesday was his call for an "enduring presence" by the United States in Afghanistan beyond 2014, which was the original NATO deadline for the withdrawal of foreign forces. While the U.S. combat mission might be ending sooner than originally planned, it's quite possible that the U.S. role in Afghanistan's politics will continue for some time.
Still, a desire to wind down the war quickly, the potential for kickstarting negotiations with the Taliban, and the recent decision by France to pull the plug on its involvement in Afghanistan in 2013 were likely greater influences on the administration's decision-making than creating an applause line for the fall presidential campaign.
Nonetheless, it is striking that the White House appears largely unconcerned about the political fallout from this decision. In 2008, candidate Obama ran on a platform of more fully resourcing the war in Afghanistan -- a stance that was motivated in part by a desire to shield himself from traditional GOP attacks on Democratic national security weakness. Within mere weeks of taking office -- and before even completing a serious review of the mission in Afghanistan -- Obama approved sending 17,000 troops to the war. In December 2009, according to Bob Woodward's account, he announced his intention to surge troops in Afghanistan against what appeared to be his better instincts. It was a decision, again, that appeared motivated, in part, by a desire to avoid charges of ignoring military counsel or not taking seriously enough the threat of jihadist terror. That now seems like a very long time ago -- and a very different Democratic politician.
To be sure, if Obama's State of the Union address -- bookended by reflections on the killing of bin Laden -- is any indication, Obama has not backed down from an inclination to tout his military bonafides. Indeed, the president's 2012 website provides a compelling snapshot into his campaign's mindset about how foreign policy will help their candidate in 2012.
It doesn't actually mention the words "foreign policy."
Rather the focus is on "national security" -- in particular, Obama's commitment to the nation's veterans and a strong military as well as his efforts to rid the world of the threat of loose nukes and al Qaeda terrorists.
Put it all together and we have a rather counterintuitive construct for a presidential candidate: tough enough to pursue and kill those that threaten America, but brave enough to take risks for peace and end America's wars. That such a strategy might work is unusual; that it's even being tried is fascinating indeed. A president running on a platform for ending and winding down America's wars -- fancy that.
Interview: Rashid On 'Bad Timing' Of NATO Report On Pakistan And Taliban
February 1, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and the well-respected author of several books on the Taliban and militant Islam, answers questions about the impact of a leaked NATO report that alleges that Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency is "intimately involved" with the Afghan insurgency. Rashid spoke with RFE/RL correspondent Abubakar Siddique.
RFE/RL: Is the revelation in this NATO report about Islamabad's support for the Taliban news to you?
Ahmed Rashid: It's very well known amongst NATO militaries [and] amongst the U.S. military. I was told by senior American generals that they approached [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld back in 2005 about the support that the Taliban were getting from Pakistan. But it was ignored by Bush at that time.
So this is nothing new, I think, for anyone. But the fact that it should be leaked and that it should come in such language, I suppose, is going to create quite a furor.
RFE/RL: How do you read the timing of this leak, then, given that all sides are now pushing for a negotiated settlement?
Rashid: Well, the timing obviously is very bad because this is precisely the time that Pakistan needs to be wooed and Pakistan needs to come on board this peace process with the Taliban, be it American or German or Qatari-led -- whatever.
Certainly, what you see now happening is that Pakistan is going to go its own way. It's not going to cooperate with the Americans or with NATO. And this kind of leak that has happened is going to make things much more difficult for Pakistan to accept an American negotiated end to the war.
RFE/RL: So, if they go their own way, does that mean we are back to square one?
Rashid: Certainly, there is a danger of that. I think the timing could have been connected to the fact that today the Pakistani foreign minister was expected to visit Kabul and hold talks with [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai. So there will be a lot of suspicion in Islamabad that the Americans deliberately leaked this at this particular movement to perhaps sabotage Pakistan's effort [to reach an understanding with Afghanistan].
RFE/RL: There is a lot of uncertainty around the future of international efforts in Afghanistan. France, for instance, has already announced that they are going to leave a year early. Could something like this prompt others to follow suit?
Rashid: There is an enormous diplomatic effort right now to try to persuade other NATO countries not to leave early. But the possibility, of course, exists that some countries with some of the smaller contingents of troops could decide to leave early.
Certainly, the Americans don't want to announce anything more until the NATO summit in Chicago in May, in which things might become clearer. And where you might see the Americans themselves bring the date forward for their exit from 2014 to perhaps a few months earlier.
Pakistan, UNHCR agree new regional approach to Afghan refugees
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency Thursday called for additional international solidarity with Pakistan and Iran which continue to host large numbers of Afghan refugees after more than 30 years.
There are currently 1.7 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Since 2002, more than five million Afghan refugees have already left for home, the majority with assistance from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In 2011 just over 50,000 Afghan refugees returned home from Pakistan, down from nearly 110,000 thousand in 2010. Despite the decline, the number of Afghan returns last year still represented the largest refugee repatriation programme in the world.
"At a time when many countries are closing their doors to those fleeing violence and persecution, the generosity of the people and the government of Pakistan towards Afghan refugees deserves greater recognition and support on the part of the international community,"UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ant nio Guterres told a news conference in Islamabad.
During his visit Mr Guterres also met with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. Central to their talks was an agreement reached in Dubai earlier this week between Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and UNHCR to pursue a regional strategy aimed at finding durable solutions to the Afghan refugee situation.
The new strategy will be presented at an international conference to be held in Switzerland in early May.
The conference will seek international support for programmes inside Afghanistan that will increase the attractiveness and sustainability of returns while providing additional support to communities that continue to host Afghan refugees.
"The priority now," said the UNHCR chief, "is to create conditions inside Afghanistan that will allow for large scale voluntary repatriation." Afghan refugees will be more ready to go home once the right conditions are in place inside Afghanistan, he added.
Mr Guterres also commended the government for reaffirming its commitment to the voluntary and gradual return of Afghan refugees.
He thanked Pakistan for its hospitality towards Afghan refugees while praising its continued commitment to finding lasting solutions to the situation.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com