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NATO urges Afghanistan to sign US deal: Karzai
AFP via Yahoo! News
NATO has urged Afghanistan to accelerate the signing of a strategic partnership deal with the US in the wake of deadly protests over the burning of the Koran, President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday.
NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen made the appeal in a telephone call to Karzai in which he expressed regret over the deaths of dozens of demonstrators in anti-US protests, Karzai's office said.
In response, the Afghan president said he was willing to sign the long-term agreement but reiterated that it would only be done under certain conditions.
These include a respect for Afghan national sovereignty, an end to night raids by international forces and the handing over of the Bagram prison -- known as Afghanistan's Guantanamo Bay -- to Afghan control, Karzai said in a statement.
Rasmussen had said the signing of the partnership deal, which covers relations with the US after it withdraws its combat troops in 2014, would make a "good impact" on the Chicago conference on Afghanistan in May.
The NATO chief insisted in a statement Tuesday that trust had not broken down between alliance-led troops and Afghan security forces, despite incidents in which Afghans turned their weapons on their American partners.
Two US military advisers were gunned down in the interior ministry in Kabul on Saturday, days after two American troops were killed by an Afghan soldier in the east, prompting NATO to pull its advisors out of Afghan government ministries.
Popular outrage erupted after Afghans learned that copies of the Koran were thrown into an incinerator pit at the US-run Bagram airbase, leading US President Barack Obama to apologise for what he described as an error.
Rasmussen accused Islamist insurgents of attempting to exploit anger over the Koran burning and said he hoped that NATO military advisers would soon return to their posts at Afghan government ministries.
NATO has a 130,000-strong US-led military force fighting the Taliban, which has led an insurgency against the Western-backed Kabul government since being toppled from power in 2001.
Koran Burning in Afghanistan Prompts 3 Parallel Inquiries
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and GRAHAM BOWLEY The New York Times February 29, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — Three major investigations were under way on Wednesday into the Koran burning at Bagram Air Base by the American military last week, the event that plunged Afghanistan into days of deadly protests claiming as many as 30 Afghan lives and coinciding with the shooting deaths of four American soldiers.
In a tense atmosphere in Afghanistan, the investigations signal the seriousness of the incident for both the Afghans and the Americans and an understanding of the need to offer a full explanation and a reckoning for the perpetrators.
One investigation is American, one is Afghan and one is a joint Afghan-American inquiry.
The formal American military investigation is the only one that can lead to punishment, while the other two will include recommendations but do not carry formal legal weight.
The formal legal inquiry, opened by General John R. Allen, the senior NATO commander in Afghanistan, on Feb. 21 is designed to understand the events that led to soldiers throwing Korans and other Muslim religious texts into a burn pit at the military base more than a week ago.
The investigation, known as an AR15-6, the number in the Army regulatory code, is a first step in a process that could lead ultimately to criminal legal action or lesser administrative punishment.
The formal investigation ordered by General Allen involves initial fact finding by a senior military officer, an American Army brigadier general, who was not involved in the incident.
The inquiry will conclude with a final report, which could comprise a recommendation for further legal action, including a more formal process that could lead to court-martial. The final report is due to be handed to General Allen in the second half of March. Any legal action will be pursued under American laws and regulations, not those of Afghanistan.
The brigadier general in charge of the investigation has been at the Detention Facility in Parwan and the Bagram Air Base since Feb. 22, interviewing the people involved and inspecting the evidence, and was in the process of returning to the capital, Kabul.
The formal investigation overlaps with a joint inquiry that also includes three senior Afghan security officials from the Afghan Army, the National Directorate of Security and the Interior Ministry, who have been at Parwan and Bagram with the American brigadier general.
This joint inquiry will lead to a joint report that will be passed to General Allen for review, and that could then be released publicly as early as the next three or four days.
It is much more preliminary and its recommendations will not be binding, but it is likely to include much of the material in the formal investigation, and so could provide a snapshot of the issues involved.
After days of protests, Afghanistan has been quiet in the last few days, but the findings of the reports are sensitive and are being keenly awaited by Afghans.
Similar investigations were undertaken in the past when the American military defamed the Koran.
There have been at least two other serious instances, and at least one led to the punishment of military personnel. One group of incidents occurred at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the other in Iraq, when at least one soldier used a Koran for target practice.
At Guantánamo Bay, there were accusations — later deemed untrue by the military — that soldiers had flushed a Koran down the toilet. The final military investigation concluded, however, that there had been five instances of the mishandling of the Koran by guards and an interrogator over the course of a number of years, and two soldiers were punished.
General Allen can choose to act on the recommendations of the AR15-6 investigation, ignore them or combine them with other steps, a military officer said in a background briefing.
Among the available punishments are everything from demotions and discharge from the military to imprisonment.
“General Allen takes this process extremely seriously,” said an legal official with the NATO-led coalition. “He can accept the recommendations, and he can make his own recommendations.”
While one possible result of the investigation is a court martial, and even imprisonment, officials say that would be an extreme outcome. There are many more minor forms of punishment — yet even those far lighter penalties would be taken seriously by people in the military chain of command.
More than 30 Afghans have died in the violence that followed the Koran burning, and there have been at least three assaults on American military personnel since thousands of Afghans took to the streets to protest.
These assaults on Americans took place in Khogyani District of Nangahar Province when a man in an Afghan Army uniform shot and killed two American soldiers; in Kunduz Province, where a grenade thrown by protesters near a base wounded at least six American service members; and in Kabul where two American military officers were shot in the head by an Afghan assailant who entered a secure area of the Interior Ministry where the two were working.
The third, purely Afghan investigation is by a task force that includes members of Afghanistan’s Ulema Council and some Parliament members. The Ulema is the pre-eminent religious authority in the country and is made up of scholarly mullahs.
U.S. Must Show It Respects Quran and Its Importance to Afghans
For Afghans the Quran is the word of God, the source of their hope, of their salvation, and the glue that binds different ethnic groups and tribes—and America must find a way to show it respects that, says a former Taliban abductee.
by Jere Van Dyk (/contributors/jere-van-dyk.html) | February 28, 2012 4:45 AM EST The Newsweek/Daily Beast
In 1981, I was a young freelance journalist living with the Mujahideen, America’s allies in Afghanistan in their war against the Soviet Union. In every village I passed through, someone, it seemed, had a battery-powered radio. In the morning and at night, men listened to the BBC, sometimes to the Voice of America, in Pashtu or Dari, for news on the war. They laughed at Radio Moscow. They didn’t know where America was, or what an elevator was, or a skyscraper or an ocean, but they followed the news.
In 2008, when I last slept in Afghan villages, in the mountains, on the Pakistani border, I saw small radios that said “A gift from ISAF,” the American-led coalition, stamped, on them. Today, there are many news outlets in Afghanistan. Every Afghan will know, through radio and the grapevine, the news that Americans burned the Quran.
In every home in every village in Afghanistan, there is one book, the Quran, often wrapped in a black-and-green cloth, sitting in a hollowed-out shelf in a mud-baked wall, covered in dust. It is the most precious item in the house. Virtually no one can read it, but it is the word of God, the source of their hope, their salvation, and the glue that bound different ethnic groups and tribes, and a nation, together, as they fought the infidel Soviet invaders. When Afghans fled their villages they took what they, and maybe a donkey or a camel, could carry on their backs, and the Quran. It is the same today.
If the U.S. is to succeed at all in Afghanistan, it must realize how sacred, even compared with other Muslim nations, the Quran is to Afghans. There is a ritual to even touching it. Watch President Hamid Karzai, in any news video, when he holds the Quran. Al Qaeda had power in Afghanistan in part because its leaders spoke Arabic, the language of the Quran.
In 2008 I was kidnapped by the Taliban in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Every day my jailers listened to the Voice of America. Once, my interpreter complained of a toothache and one of my bodyguards, a Qari—one who has memorized the Quran, which gave him authority—wrote a verse from the Quran on a piece of paper and my interpreter put it between his teeth and the next day he said his toothache was gone.
My jailer said I had to convert to Islam if I hoped to survive. The Taliban gave me books on Islam to read. One day I was reading one of the books and grew tired from reading in the dark and put it on floor. There were verses from the Quran in the book. A bodyguard and my interpreter told me to pick the book up immediately. I could not put anything with a verse from the Quran on the floor. I put it on top of my notebook, but it was still too close to the floor. I put the book on my cot and they relented. The Qari spent weeks sitting on his cot reciting in a sing-song chant the entire Quran. Men listened to him, gathering strength. When he finished, our jailers gave us all a sugary treat. The Taliban commander said if I converted to Islam I would no longer have to wear glasses.
The U.S. military should provide a booklet on Afghan culture and the role of Islam and the Quran to all its personnel in Afghanistan.
I grew up in a Christian household. When I was a boy, we never put a book on top of the Bible in our house. Magnify this a hundred times in a land where every morning men go to the mosque in their villages to hear a sermon before going to work, where people pray by the road, by mountain streams, and in empty fields, where men save throughout their entire lives so they can go on hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, and be able to put hajji, an honorific, in front of their names, and you can begin to understand the importance of Islam in Afghanistan and how Afghans feel about the Quran.
I have seen in the photographs and video of Afghans rioting that many are Tajiks, U.S. allies in the war against the Taliban, who are Pashtuns. The Interior Ministry, where two U.S. officers were killed, is dominated by Tajiks. All Afghans know, from listening to their radios, that U.S. Marines urinated on dead Afghans, that U.S. aircraft have killed boys herding sheep and gathering firewood, that in February 2011 Gen. David Petraeus suggested to Karzai that Afghan parents burned their children to exaggerate civilian casualties. The Taliban kill far more civilians than Western forces, but Afghans blame the foreigners. They see the corruption of the Western-backed government all around them.
The U.S. must find a way to show Afghans that we truly respect them and their scripture. U.S. soldiers, and other foreigners, must stop calling them “hajjis,” or rag heads, as some journalists did in the 1980s. Foreigners must take off their sunglasses and show their eyes. With every night raid, and every time a foreigner enters a house without taking off his shoes, we anger people. The U.S. military should provide a booklet on Afghan culture and the role of Islam and the Quran to all its personnel in Afghanistan, just as it provided a booklet on Italian culture and its monuments to every GI before the invasion of Italy in World War II. Every foreigner should read this booklet.
The largest and tallest building in Kabul is a grain silo and bread factory, built by the Soviets. The U.S. has poured billions of dollars into Afghanistan. It has built roads and schools and health clinics. It must build something large and important, like, say, a water purification plant, or maybe a mosque, as a symbol, to show that it cares about the people, not just its own interests. Perception is reality.
Men in every village in Afghanistan are watching us and listening to their radios. Every morning, in every village, mullahs are preaching.
Jere Van Dyk is the author of “Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban”.
Bulgarian president visits Afghanistan
AFP via Yahoo! News
Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev met his Afghan counterpart Wednesday during a visit to Afghanistan, where Bulgaria has more than 600 soldiers in a NATO mission fighting a Taliban insurgency.
President Hamid Karzai's office said the two men discussed issues of mutual interest, including the possibility of Afghan students studying engineering and medicine in Bulgaria.
Plevneliev invited Karzai to pay an official visit to Bulgaria and the Afghan president accepted, the statement said, though no date was announced.
Bulgaria has 614 soldiers, army instructors and military doctors in NATO's US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which plans to end combat operations in 2014.
Bulgaria will withdraw 10 military doctors from a Spanish field hospital in Afghanistan's third city of Herat by the end of this year, while 257 soldiers patrolling Kabul airport will follow suit in early 2013.
A 347-strong troop contingent guarding the airport in the southern city of Kandahar will be the last to pull out by the official ISAF deadline.
Bulgaria has not suffered any casualties in Afghanistan so far, apart from a French Foreign Legion army trainer killed along with three other French troops by a renegade Afghan soldier inside their base on January 20.
Blast in Afghan Kabul Bank Injures 10
16:44 29/02/2012MOSCOW, February 29 (RIA Novosti)
A bomb exploded on Wednesday afternoon injuring at least 10 people in Kabul Bank in the city of Tulukan, the administrative center of the northern Afghan province Takhar, the governor's press service said.
According to preliminary information, the explosion occurred at about 1:15 p.m. local time (08:45 GMT). Ten people were wounded as a result of the incident, some are in critical condition.
This was the second bombing in Afghanistan on Wednesday. At about 10:00 a.m. local time (05:30 GMT) a car bomb hit a convoy of NATO troops in the town of Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern province of Helmand. The explosion injured at least six people, including children and foreign military.
The Kabul Bank, which collapsed and was transferred to the government, pays the salaries to civil servants, including members of the Afghan security forces. Terrorists have repeatedly attacked branches of the bank.
Car Bomb Targets Foreign Troops in Southern Afghanistan
VOA News February 29, 2012
At least six people were injured in a car bomb explosion targeting a convoy of foreign troops in southern Afghanistan.
Police say the attack occurred Wednesday in Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province.
A senior police officer (Kamaluddin Sherzad) says it was clear the troops were the target of the attack, although it was unclear if any were actually injured in the blast.
“The foreign troops' convoy was on the street when a car loaded with explosives detonated in front of them. It looked like the plan was very accurate.”
At Least 20 Injured In Afghan Attacks
February 29, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
KABUL -- At least 20 people have been reported injured in two explosions in Afghanistan -- one targeting a supply convoy for NATO-led forces, and the second targeting a bank in the northeast.
The Interior Ministry said a suicide car bombing on February 29 targeted non-military vehicles of a NATO provincial reconstruction team in Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province.
Seven people, including two children and a policeman, were injured. A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance force said no one in the convoy was injured.
Also on February 29, a bomb exploded outside the private Kabul Bank in Taluqan city, the provincial capital of northern Takhar Province.
Radio Free Afghanistan reports that 13 civilians were injured, including five in critical condition.
With dpa reporting
Afghan forces face threat from within, says official
By Michael Georgy
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan must act quickly to tackle infiltration of its security forces or another fatal attack on Western forces could undermine ties with NATO, a senior Afghan defense ministry official said on Wednesday, in a rare admission of the threat within.
On Saturday, a U.S. lieutenant colonel and a major were shot at close range while working in an office in the heart of the Interior Ministry, one of the most closely-guarded buildings in Afghanistan.
A stunned NATO quickly withdrew all staff from ministries dotted around the Afghan capital following the attack which came after the burning of Korans in a NATO base triggered deadly riots in parts of the country.
"We must make great efforts to prevent infiltration. This is a challenge for us," the official, speaking on the condition that he not be identified because he did not have the authority, told Reuters.
"It's a very serious matter."
Afghan security officials believe Abdul Saboor, a police intelligence officer, killed the Americans. He is at large.
The attack called into question NATO's strategy of replacing big combat units with teams of special advisors like the U.S. officers who were gunned down.
Their work is a key part of NATO's training mission to create reliable Afghan security forces to take over before foreign combat troops leave by end-2014.
"If we don't deal with infiltration then Afghanistan will suffer. We will lose credibility with NATO and the rest of the international community," said the ministry of defense official.
According to the Pentagon, around 70 members of the NATO force were killed in 42 insider attacks from May 2007 through January 2012.
These attacks have become more frequent as the United States has sent tens of thousands of more soldiers to Afghanistan as part of a surge to fight in Taliban strongholds.
Last month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy suspended training and support operations and announced that France would withdraw entirely by the end of 2013 after four French troops were killed by a rogue Afghan soldier.
The Ministry of Defense official said the large size of the Afghan army and police -- about 250,000 -- made it difficult to stop infiltration.
Afghanistan hopes to create a force of about 350,000 and then trim some of it.
"Our intelligence agencies will have to work on tapping phones and monitoring people's movements," said the official. "The bigger the force gets the harder it will be to fight infiltration."
Although the possibility of Taliban infiltration of Afghan forces is most worrying for U.S.-led NATO troops, the defense official expressed concerns that any type of incident could be harmful to strategic ties.
"Whether it is the Taliban or someone who is mentally ill we have to avoid it at any cost."
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
US says Afghan turmoil won't change US plan
BEIJING, Feb. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- The Pentagon says that the US military is fully committed to its mission in Afghanistan, and has no plans to change its strategy.
Pentagon spokesman George Little adds that the US is taking "the long view", saying it’s important to sustain the progress that has been made against insurgents.
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Jay Carney says the violence will not speed up the time line for troop withdrawal.
But the US says it’s still not ready to allow its advisers to return to work at Afghan offices.
About 40 people have been killed in protests and related attacks, including four US soldiers after NATO troops burned several Qurans in a trash fire last week.
US officials have apologized for the burning of the religious material.
(Source: CNTV.cn)
U.S. Secures New Afghan Exit Routes
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE FEBRUARY 29, 2012
WASHINGTON - The U.S. secured approval from several countries in Central Asia to move military cargo out of Afghanistan, the military's top logistics officer said, allowing for a withdrawal without relying mainly on Pakistan.
Air Force Gen. William Fraser told lawmakers the U.S. had secured approval to move equipment through Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and was exploring routes to move out armored vehicles as well as nonlethal supplies.
"We now have two-way approval to move equipment back out of Afghanistan," Gen. Fraser told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, referring to agreements to bring cargo both into Afghanistan and out through Central Asia. Russia and Uzbekistan also endorsed reverse transit routes, Gen. Fraser told lawmakers.
Military logistics in Afghanistan have been complicated in recent months by rocky relations between the U.S. and Pakistan. Planners were forced to reroute cargo into Afghanistan late last year when Pakistan closed border crossings to U.S. and allied supply convoys after a U.S. airstrike killed Pakistani troops.
Much of the traffic shifted to the so-called Northern Distribution Network, a system of overland supply lines that begins at Baltic and Black sea ports and winds across Central Asia. But that network primarily moves cargo in one direction, into Afghanistan. U.S. officials have sought to persuade countries in the region to reverse the route.
Gen. Fraser, who heads the arm of the military that oversees logistics, said that moving equipment out of landlocked Afghanistan is a daunting task, and that reopening overland supply lines across Pakistan would be crucial to withdrawal.
"We need the Pakistan [ground lines of communication] open, because of the large numbers that we're talking about that we need to bring out in a timely manner," he said.
U.K. defense officials are also pursuing new exit routes from Afghanistan. U.K. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond signed an agreement in Kazakhstan on Monday allowing overflight access to move military equipment to and from Afghanistan, and the U.K. and Kazakhstan agreed to start negotiations on overland transit.
Mr. Hammond was also scheduled to hold a series of meetings on the subject in Uzbekistan, according to a statement from the defense ministry. U.K. officials are also visiting Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
"It's vital that we secure the supply lines we need to get our equipment home as combat operations finish by the end of 2014," Mr. Hammond said in a statement. "We have a major logistical operation to undertake to get around 11,000 containers and around 3,000 armored vehicles back from Afghanistan and we will need to work with our partners in the region to do so."
Afghans Don't Hate America
They also don't want a return of the Taliban, despite the recent protests over the burning of Qurans.
Wall Street Journal By MAX BOOT Opinion FEBRUARY 28, 2012
Violent Afghan protests over the burning of Qurans have strengthened the hand of those in Washington who argue for a faster reduction of U.S. troops. Especially galling was an incident of violence within Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, in which a disaffected driver shot and killed two American advisers.
Many Americans seem to be saying that if the Afghan people don't want us there, why should we stay? That's dubious logic because we are not in Afghanistan as a favor to the Afghan people. We are there to protect our own self-interest in not having their territory once again become a haven for al Qaeda.
It's also a fallacy to assume that most Afghans are anti-American. The protests, which tapered off Tuesday, have involved a few thousand people out of a population of 30 million. The attacks on Americans have been carried out by a handful of assailants. President Hamid Karzai has accepted President Obama's apology over the Quran-burning incident, condemned the violence and called for restraint. His security forces have policed the protests and suffered heavier casualties than our own.
While no doubt most people in Afghanistan are outraged over the desecration of their holy book, they are not anti-American. The most recent survey of Afghan views, conducted by ABC/BBC/ARD in November 2010, found that 62% of Afghans support the U.S. military presence while only 11% support the Taliban. That's considerably higher than the share of Americans who back the mission—35%. Another poll, conducted by the Asia Foundation last year, found that only 21% of Afghans blame foreign troops for the war waged by the Taliban and other insurgents. Most Afghans think the Taliban are fighting to gain power, make money, or for other selfish motives.
One can always question opinion polls in a country where illiteracy and insecurity are rampant. But Afghans also demonstrate with their actions where their sympathies lie. More than 350,000 Afghan men have joined the security forces and more would sign up if there were money to pay them. Estimates of the insurgency's strength are generally under 30,000 men. That's far below the number of mujahedeen—an estimated 100,000 out of a smaller population—who took up arms against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
There is considerable resentment of the United States in Afghanistan, as you would expect from any proud people who are compelled to deal with a foreign military presence. But the biggest reason Afghans are wary is because the NATO mission has not delivered what they most want—freedom from fear. In the Asia Foundation poll, 46% said the country was moving in the right direction but pervasive insecurity was their greatest concern.
The U.S. and its allies have been taking important steps to address insecurity, especially in Kandahar and Helmand provinces where most surge troops have gone. Commanders had hoped to pivot the focus of operations this year to eastern Afghanistan, where insecurity continues to lap at the outskirts of Kabul. But that plan has been put in serious jeopardy by President Obama's decision to bring home 32,000 troops by September.
Further troops cuts are rumored for announcement in May—as are cuts in the Afghan Security Forces. The U.S. is pushing to reduce the size of the Afghan army and police to just 230,000 by 2014 from 352,000 today to save a few billion dollars out of a federal budget of nearly $4 trillion.
Contrary to popular impression, the Afghan Security Forces are not a hotbed of anti-Americanism. Major Fernando Lujan, a Dari-speaking Special Forces officer, spent 14 months in Afghanistan, mostly embedded as the lone American in Afghan units, and came away impressed by their fighting spirit.
What the Afghan forces lack is logistics, equipment and intelligence. Most have to drive over IED-strewn roads in unarmored pickup trucks. The support they need to fight effectively is provided by NATO units, but Afghan fighting quality will suffer if we start withdrawing. So will their morale, because they'll feel abandoned to face an insurgency that retains Pakistan support.
The woes of the Afghan forces will surely multiply if, as currently envisioned, 120,000 troops and cops are demobilized with little prospect of a civilian job. Many could join the insurgency or the drug traffickers simply to make a living. This could be the reverse of the surge in Iraq, when 100,000 formerly hostile Sunnis joined with coalition forces to fight insurgents.
All of the problems today in the Afghan Security Forces—including Taliban infiltrators—will be aggravated by a rapid American drawdown. That will make it impossible to secure even our most basic interests and will likely consign Afghanistan to another civil war. We saw how the last such conflict played out in the 1990s with the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Why risk a repeat?
Mr. Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present," due out next January.
Aid organizations' workload to increase in Afghanistan: ICRC
GENEVA, Feb. 29 (Xinhua) -- The workload of aid agencies in Afghanistan such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is set to increase as they address the needs of war-affected communities in the face of an international military pullback from the country, the ICRC country delegation head said on Wednesday.
"I fear there will still be a lot of work to do well beyond 2014," Reto Stocker said, adding that a possible accelerated drawdown of troops would mean a rapid shift of responsibilities to Afghan national security forces.
International forces currently support and mentor the Afghan army, civil defence groups and the Afghan local police.
"This comes with legal obligations under the Geneva Conventions to ensure that such forces will respect international humanitarian law at all times, including after the departure of most international troops," he said.
Stocker added many people in Kabul, including impoverished communities, partly depend on Afghanistan's war economy. So as this economy shrinks over the months and years to come, it will affect all sectors of society.
Despite the deepening crisis, the Afghan strategy is worth saving
Washington Post By Editorial Board Wednesday, February 29, 2012
THE LATEST CRISIS in Afghanistan strikes at the heart of the U.S. strategy for preventing the country from reverting to Taliban rule or becoming a base for al-Qaeda. If those goals are to be achieved, the Afghan security forces that have been recruited, trained and equipped at enormous cost over the past several years must be sustained — something that will require continued training and advising by NATO, and heavy outside funding, for many years to come. That prospect seemed to be endangered last week when four U.S. soldiers were killed by Afghans in uniform. After an attack inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul, U.S. and NATO advisers were withdrawn from all ministries.
Fortunately, Pentagon and White House officials are describing the move as temporary and have said that the Obama administration and NATO remain committed to the underlying strategy. Yet the episode seems likely to strengthen those in and outside the administration who seek to accelerate the drawdown of U.S. troops next year and slash funding for Afghan forces. While perhaps appealing to voters in an election year, those steps would only compound the challenges facing the Afghan mission.
The probable trigger for the latest attacks on U.S. soldiers was the mistaken but inexcusable burning of Korans at the U.S. air base in Bagram, an incident for which President Obama rightly apologized. Republican presidential candidates were foolish to criticize Mr. Obama’s gesture, which prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to call for an end to violent anti-American demonstrations. It’s worth noting that Afghan security forces have been defending U.S. installations and personnel and suffered their own casualties in the process. Meanwhile, Afghan forces elsewhere in the country have continued to carry out joint operations with U.S. troops.
The popular backlash in Afghanistan nevertheless reflects deeper problems. There is understandable weariness with foreign troops after more than a decade of inconclusive war; resentment at the death of civilians in NATO operations; and frustration with the corruption and fecklessness of a U.S.-backed government. The Obama administration’s poor handling of Mr. Karzai has magnified these problems, while its setting of politically motivated timetables for troop withdrawals and aggressive pursuit of negotiations with the Taliban has convinced many Afghans that the United States is preparing to abandon the country.
The only secure and honorable means of exit is to finish the work of creating an Afghan army and police force capable of defending the country from the Taliban and other extremists, with backup from U.S. special forces and air power. Achieving that goal by the end of 2014, the current NATO timetable, will be hard enough, as the events of the past week vividly show. If the Obama administration chooses to accelerate the timetable or significantly reduce the funding — and thus the size — of Afghan forces, it will become nearly impossible.
Tracking Down Afghan Kidnappers
Reporter encounters fear and evasive behaviour while investigating crimes.
IWPR By Mina Habib 28 Feb 12
Afghanistan - On my way home from work one day, I was on a Kabul bus listening to my fellow-passengers chat about the current spate of robberies and kidnappings. They said that far from trusting the police, they believed that some security officers and senior government officials were involved in these crimes.
I was intrigued by this, as public faith in the Afghan government and its armed forces seems to have steadily decreased over the past ten years.
One passenger, aged about 50, turned to the rest of us and said, “There are even ministers involved in these things.”
As evidence, he described a recent kidnapping in the upscale Kabul neighbourhood of Wazir Akbar Khan.
“It happened in between two security checkpoints,” he said. “Two people were killed and two others injured. The police were just watching. The kidnappers’ car, which was followed by another, somehow drove into an alley that belongs to a high-ranking government official. The rest of the time, people can’t even go in their on foot.”
When I next went to the IWPR office, I put the idea to my editor, who encouraged me to write an article about the issue.
Pursuing stories like this is not without risk, but I did not want to give up on it.
My first interview was with a trader, Shur Niazi, who managed to escape from the men who kidnapped him.
I found Niazi in a corridor at Kabul police headquarters, one of his hands still cuffed with the chain which the kidnappers had used to hold him.
Four of the alleged kidnappers were there, as were two eyewitnesses, their faces wrapped in scarves to conceal their identities.
“These are very dangerous people,” one of the witnesses told me. “It will be a real problem if they recognise you.”
Although Niazi had escaped his ordeal, he did not look happy.
“Living in this country means taking a chance with one’s life,” he said. “For this reason, many traders and investors – including myself – have moved their families and their capital outside the country.”
Niazi said that if the perpetrators of such crimes were punished severely, others would be deterred from carrying out similar acts – but he did not think this would happen.
“When a thief, kidnapper or murderer is released in return for a cash bribe, or because they have connections with powerful people, it only encourages others,” he said.
As I left the police station, the kidnappers looked at me with hostility.
Not everyone who had been through a kidnapping was as courageous as Niazi.
Another merchant who had been abducted kept me waiting for a week, broke several appointments to meet, and ultimately refused to be interviewed. Speaking by phone, he said it was just too dangerous.
“Interviews won’t do any good. They will only expose us further and make us more vulnerable, because these kidnappers are not ordinary people,” he said. “You should be careful as well, because you are a woman, and they can create all kind of trouble for you.”
I did manage to interview the victim of an attempted kidnapping, Ahmad Shah Hakimi, deputy head of the Kabul Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He escaped, but two of his bodyguards, who were also relatives of his, were killed, and two of his brothers were wounded.
The assailants also stole a large sum of money.
Although he initially refused an interview, Hakimi eventually agreed to talk to me at a safe location.
“How is it possible for someone to attack you in the middle of a main road between two security checkpoints, kill people and take away three million US dollars?” Hakimi asked. “It’s obvious these people enjoy solid support from high-ranking government officials.”
In Niazi’s case, one of the suspects arrested for the kidnapping was the brother of a member of the Meshrano Jirga, the upper house or senate in Afghanistan’s parliament.
I tried to contact the politician, but when I finally got through, the person on the other end asked, “Who are you? First tell me your full name so I can write it down.”
When I identified myself, the response was, “Do not pursue such matters. What if you get kidnapped yourself?”
That did scare me, since the area where I live is not particularly safe. That night, I received a phone call from an unknown number, and the caller told me, “You’re working on some very dangerous issues. Try not to include the name of the senator, otherwise you’ll find yourself in trouble.”
I immediately contacted the criminal investigation department at Kabul police headquarters and informed them about the call I had received.
“It’s good that you told us about this,” an officer told me. “These individuals have also threatened the head of the criminal investigation department. Don’t worry – and contact us if you have any more trouble.”
The next day, I went to see criminal investigations chief Mohammad Zaher, who was working on the Niazi kidnapping case.
When I asked him about allegations that police are implicated in some kidnappings and robberies, he got very angry, protesting, “It isn’t fair to accuse police of being involved.”
He confirmed that the police had been pressured to release the kidnapper with political connections.
“The senator phoned me and asked me to release her brother,” he said, adding that the pressure stopped once he made it clear that this attempted interference might implicate the politician as well.
As I researched the story, I came across accusations that criminals had been released by the attorney general’s office, so I decided to get a response from it, too.
I made repeated visits to the offices of Afghanistan’s chief prosecutor, Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq Aloko, but no one there was prepared to be interviewed.
Eventually, I waited for two hours until deputy attorney general Abdol Wakil Amini arrived at his office. When I asked him to comment, he said angrily, “This is nothing to do with me. You should go to Sayed Jalal in the administrative department of the attorney’s office.”
When I approached Jalal, he was equally displeased. “You can contact the National Directorate for Security about it,” he told me, even though the allegations did not relate to that agency.
I went back to the attorney general’s office. I asked Aloko’s secretary for an appointment, but I was told he had just come back from a meeting at the presidential palace and was tired, so he needed a three-hour rest period.
I was taken aback at this and told the official I would include this in the article.
“You can do whatever you want,” he told me. “Write that the rest period was six hours.”
I realised that officials simply did not want to talk to me, and were putting me off with endless excuses.
It took all my patience to finish the story and overcome the many obstacles put in my way – but I did so in the end.
Since my article was published, prosecutors have summoned the politician whose brother was implicated in Shur Niazi’s abduction and questioned her about her possible role in it. The attorney general has also written to the Meshrano Jirga about the case.
Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained reporter in Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
AFP via Yahoo! News
NATO has urged Afghanistan to accelerate the signing of a strategic partnership deal with the US in the wake of deadly protests over the burning of the Koran, President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday.
NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen made the appeal in a telephone call to Karzai in which he expressed regret over the deaths of dozens of demonstrators in anti-US protests, Karzai's office said.
In response, the Afghan president said he was willing to sign the long-term agreement but reiterated that it would only be done under certain conditions.
These include a respect for Afghan national sovereignty, an end to night raids by international forces and the handing over of the Bagram prison -- known as Afghanistan's Guantanamo Bay -- to Afghan control, Karzai said in a statement.
Rasmussen had said the signing of the partnership deal, which covers relations with the US after it withdraws its combat troops in 2014, would make a "good impact" on the Chicago conference on Afghanistan in May.
The NATO chief insisted in a statement Tuesday that trust had not broken down between alliance-led troops and Afghan security forces, despite incidents in which Afghans turned their weapons on their American partners.
Two US military advisers were gunned down in the interior ministry in Kabul on Saturday, days after two American troops were killed by an Afghan soldier in the east, prompting NATO to pull its advisors out of Afghan government ministries.
Popular outrage erupted after Afghans learned that copies of the Koran were thrown into an incinerator pit at the US-run Bagram airbase, leading US President Barack Obama to apologise for what he described as an error.
Rasmussen accused Islamist insurgents of attempting to exploit anger over the Koran burning and said he hoped that NATO military advisers would soon return to their posts at Afghan government ministries.
NATO has a 130,000-strong US-led military force fighting the Taliban, which has led an insurgency against the Western-backed Kabul government since being toppled from power in 2001.
Koran Burning in Afghanistan Prompts 3 Parallel Inquiries
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and GRAHAM BOWLEY The New York Times February 29, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — Three major investigations were under way on Wednesday into the Koran burning at Bagram Air Base by the American military last week, the event that plunged Afghanistan into days of deadly protests claiming as many as 30 Afghan lives and coinciding with the shooting deaths of four American soldiers.
In a tense atmosphere in Afghanistan, the investigations signal the seriousness of the incident for both the Afghans and the Americans and an understanding of the need to offer a full explanation and a reckoning for the perpetrators.
One investigation is American, one is Afghan and one is a joint Afghan-American inquiry.
The formal American military investigation is the only one that can lead to punishment, while the other two will include recommendations but do not carry formal legal weight.
The formal legal inquiry, opened by General John R. Allen, the senior NATO commander in Afghanistan, on Feb. 21 is designed to understand the events that led to soldiers throwing Korans and other Muslim religious texts into a burn pit at the military base more than a week ago.
The investigation, known as an AR15-6, the number in the Army regulatory code, is a first step in a process that could lead ultimately to criminal legal action or lesser administrative punishment.
The formal investigation ordered by General Allen involves initial fact finding by a senior military officer, an American Army brigadier general, who was not involved in the incident.
The inquiry will conclude with a final report, which could comprise a recommendation for further legal action, including a more formal process that could lead to court-martial. The final report is due to be handed to General Allen in the second half of March. Any legal action will be pursued under American laws and regulations, not those of Afghanistan.
The brigadier general in charge of the investigation has been at the Detention Facility in Parwan and the Bagram Air Base since Feb. 22, interviewing the people involved and inspecting the evidence, and was in the process of returning to the capital, Kabul.
The formal investigation overlaps with a joint inquiry that also includes three senior Afghan security officials from the Afghan Army, the National Directorate of Security and the Interior Ministry, who have been at Parwan and Bagram with the American brigadier general.
This joint inquiry will lead to a joint report that will be passed to General Allen for review, and that could then be released publicly as early as the next three or four days.
It is much more preliminary and its recommendations will not be binding, but it is likely to include much of the material in the formal investigation, and so could provide a snapshot of the issues involved.
After days of protests, Afghanistan has been quiet in the last few days, but the findings of the reports are sensitive and are being keenly awaited by Afghans.
Similar investigations were undertaken in the past when the American military defamed the Koran.
There have been at least two other serious instances, and at least one led to the punishment of military personnel. One group of incidents occurred at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the other in Iraq, when at least one soldier used a Koran for target practice.
At Guantánamo Bay, there were accusations — later deemed untrue by the military — that soldiers had flushed a Koran down the toilet. The final military investigation concluded, however, that there had been five instances of the mishandling of the Koran by guards and an interrogator over the course of a number of years, and two soldiers were punished.
General Allen can choose to act on the recommendations of the AR15-6 investigation, ignore them or combine them with other steps, a military officer said in a background briefing.
Among the available punishments are everything from demotions and discharge from the military to imprisonment.
“General Allen takes this process extremely seriously,” said an legal official with the NATO-led coalition. “He can accept the recommendations, and he can make his own recommendations.”
While one possible result of the investigation is a court martial, and even imprisonment, officials say that would be an extreme outcome. There are many more minor forms of punishment — yet even those far lighter penalties would be taken seriously by people in the military chain of command.
More than 30 Afghans have died in the violence that followed the Koran burning, and there have been at least three assaults on American military personnel since thousands of Afghans took to the streets to protest.
These assaults on Americans took place in Khogyani District of Nangahar Province when a man in an Afghan Army uniform shot and killed two American soldiers; in Kunduz Province, where a grenade thrown by protesters near a base wounded at least six American service members; and in Kabul where two American military officers were shot in the head by an Afghan assailant who entered a secure area of the Interior Ministry where the two were working.
The third, purely Afghan investigation is by a task force that includes members of Afghanistan’s Ulema Council and some Parliament members. The Ulema is the pre-eminent religious authority in the country and is made up of scholarly mullahs.
U.S. Must Show It Respects Quran and Its Importance to Afghans
For Afghans the Quran is the word of God, the source of their hope, of their salvation, and the glue that binds different ethnic groups and tribes—and America must find a way to show it respects that, says a former Taliban abductee.
by Jere Van Dyk (/contributors/jere-van-dyk.html) | February 28, 2012 4:45 AM EST The Newsweek/Daily Beast
In 1981, I was a young freelance journalist living with the Mujahideen, America’s allies in Afghanistan in their war against the Soviet Union. In every village I passed through, someone, it seemed, had a battery-powered radio. In the morning and at night, men listened to the BBC, sometimes to the Voice of America, in Pashtu or Dari, for news on the war. They laughed at Radio Moscow. They didn’t know where America was, or what an elevator was, or a skyscraper or an ocean, but they followed the news.
In 2008, when I last slept in Afghan villages, in the mountains, on the Pakistani border, I saw small radios that said “A gift from ISAF,” the American-led coalition, stamped, on them. Today, there are many news outlets in Afghanistan. Every Afghan will know, through radio and the grapevine, the news that Americans burned the Quran.
In every home in every village in Afghanistan, there is one book, the Quran, often wrapped in a black-and-green cloth, sitting in a hollowed-out shelf in a mud-baked wall, covered in dust. It is the most precious item in the house. Virtually no one can read it, but it is the word of God, the source of their hope, their salvation, and the glue that bound different ethnic groups and tribes, and a nation, together, as they fought the infidel Soviet invaders. When Afghans fled their villages they took what they, and maybe a donkey or a camel, could carry on their backs, and the Quran. It is the same today.
If the U.S. is to succeed at all in Afghanistan, it must realize how sacred, even compared with other Muslim nations, the Quran is to Afghans. There is a ritual to even touching it. Watch President Hamid Karzai, in any news video, when he holds the Quran. Al Qaeda had power in Afghanistan in part because its leaders spoke Arabic, the language of the Quran.
In 2008 I was kidnapped by the Taliban in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Every day my jailers listened to the Voice of America. Once, my interpreter complained of a toothache and one of my bodyguards, a Qari—one who has memorized the Quran, which gave him authority—wrote a verse from the Quran on a piece of paper and my interpreter put it between his teeth and the next day he said his toothache was gone.
My jailer said I had to convert to Islam if I hoped to survive. The Taliban gave me books on Islam to read. One day I was reading one of the books and grew tired from reading in the dark and put it on floor. There were verses from the Quran in the book. A bodyguard and my interpreter told me to pick the book up immediately. I could not put anything with a verse from the Quran on the floor. I put it on top of my notebook, but it was still too close to the floor. I put the book on my cot and they relented. The Qari spent weeks sitting on his cot reciting in a sing-song chant the entire Quran. Men listened to him, gathering strength. When he finished, our jailers gave us all a sugary treat. The Taliban commander said if I converted to Islam I would no longer have to wear glasses.
The U.S. military should provide a booklet on Afghan culture and the role of Islam and the Quran to all its personnel in Afghanistan.
I grew up in a Christian household. When I was a boy, we never put a book on top of the Bible in our house. Magnify this a hundred times in a land where every morning men go to the mosque in their villages to hear a sermon before going to work, where people pray by the road, by mountain streams, and in empty fields, where men save throughout their entire lives so they can go on hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, and be able to put hajji, an honorific, in front of their names, and you can begin to understand the importance of Islam in Afghanistan and how Afghans feel about the Quran.
I have seen in the photographs and video of Afghans rioting that many are Tajiks, U.S. allies in the war against the Taliban, who are Pashtuns. The Interior Ministry, where two U.S. officers were killed, is dominated by Tajiks. All Afghans know, from listening to their radios, that U.S. Marines urinated on dead Afghans, that U.S. aircraft have killed boys herding sheep and gathering firewood, that in February 2011 Gen. David Petraeus suggested to Karzai that Afghan parents burned their children to exaggerate civilian casualties. The Taliban kill far more civilians than Western forces, but Afghans blame the foreigners. They see the corruption of the Western-backed government all around them.
The U.S. must find a way to show Afghans that we truly respect them and their scripture. U.S. soldiers, and other foreigners, must stop calling them “hajjis,” or rag heads, as some journalists did in the 1980s. Foreigners must take off their sunglasses and show their eyes. With every night raid, and every time a foreigner enters a house without taking off his shoes, we anger people. The U.S. military should provide a booklet on Afghan culture and the role of Islam and the Quran to all its personnel in Afghanistan, just as it provided a booklet on Italian culture and its monuments to every GI before the invasion of Italy in World War II. Every foreigner should read this booklet.
The largest and tallest building in Kabul is a grain silo and bread factory, built by the Soviets. The U.S. has poured billions of dollars into Afghanistan. It has built roads and schools and health clinics. It must build something large and important, like, say, a water purification plant, or maybe a mosque, as a symbol, to show that it cares about the people, not just its own interests. Perception is reality.
Men in every village in Afghanistan are watching us and listening to their radios. Every morning, in every village, mullahs are preaching.
Jere Van Dyk is the author of “Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban”.
Bulgarian president visits Afghanistan
AFP via Yahoo! News
Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev met his Afghan counterpart Wednesday during a visit to Afghanistan, where Bulgaria has more than 600 soldiers in a NATO mission fighting a Taliban insurgency.
President Hamid Karzai's office said the two men discussed issues of mutual interest, including the possibility of Afghan students studying engineering and medicine in Bulgaria.
Plevneliev invited Karzai to pay an official visit to Bulgaria and the Afghan president accepted, the statement said, though no date was announced.
Bulgaria has 614 soldiers, army instructors and military doctors in NATO's US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which plans to end combat operations in 2014.
Bulgaria will withdraw 10 military doctors from a Spanish field hospital in Afghanistan's third city of Herat by the end of this year, while 257 soldiers patrolling Kabul airport will follow suit in early 2013.
A 347-strong troop contingent guarding the airport in the southern city of Kandahar will be the last to pull out by the official ISAF deadline.
Bulgaria has not suffered any casualties in Afghanistan so far, apart from a French Foreign Legion army trainer killed along with three other French troops by a renegade Afghan soldier inside their base on January 20.
Blast in Afghan Kabul Bank Injures 10
16:44 29/02/2012MOSCOW, February 29 (RIA Novosti)
A bomb exploded on Wednesday afternoon injuring at least 10 people in Kabul Bank in the city of Tulukan, the administrative center of the northern Afghan province Takhar, the governor's press service said.
According to preliminary information, the explosion occurred at about 1:15 p.m. local time (08:45 GMT). Ten people were wounded as a result of the incident, some are in critical condition.
This was the second bombing in Afghanistan on Wednesday. At about 10:00 a.m. local time (05:30 GMT) a car bomb hit a convoy of NATO troops in the town of Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern province of Helmand. The explosion injured at least six people, including children and foreign military.
The Kabul Bank, which collapsed and was transferred to the government, pays the salaries to civil servants, including members of the Afghan security forces. Terrorists have repeatedly attacked branches of the bank.
Car Bomb Targets Foreign Troops in Southern Afghanistan
VOA News February 29, 2012
At least six people were injured in a car bomb explosion targeting a convoy of foreign troops in southern Afghanistan.
Police say the attack occurred Wednesday in Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province.
A senior police officer (Kamaluddin Sherzad) says it was clear the troops were the target of the attack, although it was unclear if any were actually injured in the blast.
“The foreign troops' convoy was on the street when a car loaded with explosives detonated in front of them. It looked like the plan was very accurate.”
At Least 20 Injured In Afghan Attacks
February 29, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
KABUL -- At least 20 people have been reported injured in two explosions in Afghanistan -- one targeting a supply convoy for NATO-led forces, and the second targeting a bank in the northeast.
The Interior Ministry said a suicide car bombing on February 29 targeted non-military vehicles of a NATO provincial reconstruction team in Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province.
Seven people, including two children and a policeman, were injured. A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance force said no one in the convoy was injured.
Also on February 29, a bomb exploded outside the private Kabul Bank in Taluqan city, the provincial capital of northern Takhar Province.
Radio Free Afghanistan reports that 13 civilians were injured, including five in critical condition.
With dpa reporting
Afghan forces face threat from within, says official
By Michael Georgy
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan must act quickly to tackle infiltration of its security forces or another fatal attack on Western forces could undermine ties with NATO, a senior Afghan defense ministry official said on Wednesday, in a rare admission of the threat within.
On Saturday, a U.S. lieutenant colonel and a major were shot at close range while working in an office in the heart of the Interior Ministry, one of the most closely-guarded buildings in Afghanistan.
A stunned NATO quickly withdrew all staff from ministries dotted around the Afghan capital following the attack which came after the burning of Korans in a NATO base triggered deadly riots in parts of the country.
"We must make great efforts to prevent infiltration. This is a challenge for us," the official, speaking on the condition that he not be identified because he did not have the authority, told Reuters.
"It's a very serious matter."
Afghan security officials believe Abdul Saboor, a police intelligence officer, killed the Americans. He is at large.
The attack called into question NATO's strategy of replacing big combat units with teams of special advisors like the U.S. officers who were gunned down.
Their work is a key part of NATO's training mission to create reliable Afghan security forces to take over before foreign combat troops leave by end-2014.
"If we don't deal with infiltration then Afghanistan will suffer. We will lose credibility with NATO and the rest of the international community," said the ministry of defense official.
According to the Pentagon, around 70 members of the NATO force were killed in 42 insider attacks from May 2007 through January 2012.
These attacks have become more frequent as the United States has sent tens of thousands of more soldiers to Afghanistan as part of a surge to fight in Taliban strongholds.
Last month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy suspended training and support operations and announced that France would withdraw entirely by the end of 2013 after four French troops were killed by a rogue Afghan soldier.
The Ministry of Defense official said the large size of the Afghan army and police -- about 250,000 -- made it difficult to stop infiltration.
Afghanistan hopes to create a force of about 350,000 and then trim some of it.
"Our intelligence agencies will have to work on tapping phones and monitoring people's movements," said the official. "The bigger the force gets the harder it will be to fight infiltration."
Although the possibility of Taliban infiltration of Afghan forces is most worrying for U.S.-led NATO troops, the defense official expressed concerns that any type of incident could be harmful to strategic ties.
"Whether it is the Taliban or someone who is mentally ill we have to avoid it at any cost."
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
US says Afghan turmoil won't change US plan
BEIJING, Feb. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- The Pentagon says that the US military is fully committed to its mission in Afghanistan, and has no plans to change its strategy.
Pentagon spokesman George Little adds that the US is taking "the long view", saying it’s important to sustain the progress that has been made against insurgents.
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Jay Carney says the violence will not speed up the time line for troop withdrawal.
But the US says it’s still not ready to allow its advisers to return to work at Afghan offices.
About 40 people have been killed in protests and related attacks, including four US soldiers after NATO troops burned several Qurans in a trash fire last week.
US officials have apologized for the burning of the religious material.
(Source: CNTV.cn)
U.S. Secures New Afghan Exit Routes
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE FEBRUARY 29, 2012
WASHINGTON - The U.S. secured approval from several countries in Central Asia to move military cargo out of Afghanistan, the military's top logistics officer said, allowing for a withdrawal without relying mainly on Pakistan.
Air Force Gen. William Fraser told lawmakers the U.S. had secured approval to move equipment through Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and was exploring routes to move out armored vehicles as well as nonlethal supplies.
"We now have two-way approval to move equipment back out of Afghanistan," Gen. Fraser told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, referring to agreements to bring cargo both into Afghanistan and out through Central Asia. Russia and Uzbekistan also endorsed reverse transit routes, Gen. Fraser told lawmakers.
Military logistics in Afghanistan have been complicated in recent months by rocky relations between the U.S. and Pakistan. Planners were forced to reroute cargo into Afghanistan late last year when Pakistan closed border crossings to U.S. and allied supply convoys after a U.S. airstrike killed Pakistani troops.
Much of the traffic shifted to the so-called Northern Distribution Network, a system of overland supply lines that begins at Baltic and Black sea ports and winds across Central Asia. But that network primarily moves cargo in one direction, into Afghanistan. U.S. officials have sought to persuade countries in the region to reverse the route.
Gen. Fraser, who heads the arm of the military that oversees logistics, said that moving equipment out of landlocked Afghanistan is a daunting task, and that reopening overland supply lines across Pakistan would be crucial to withdrawal.
"We need the Pakistan [ground lines of communication] open, because of the large numbers that we're talking about that we need to bring out in a timely manner," he said.
U.K. defense officials are also pursuing new exit routes from Afghanistan. U.K. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond signed an agreement in Kazakhstan on Monday allowing overflight access to move military equipment to and from Afghanistan, and the U.K. and Kazakhstan agreed to start negotiations on overland transit.
Mr. Hammond was also scheduled to hold a series of meetings on the subject in Uzbekistan, according to a statement from the defense ministry. U.K. officials are also visiting Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
"It's vital that we secure the supply lines we need to get our equipment home as combat operations finish by the end of 2014," Mr. Hammond said in a statement. "We have a major logistical operation to undertake to get around 11,000 containers and around 3,000 armored vehicles back from Afghanistan and we will need to work with our partners in the region to do so."
Afghans Don't Hate America
They also don't want a return of the Taliban, despite the recent protests over the burning of Qurans.
Wall Street Journal By MAX BOOT Opinion FEBRUARY 28, 2012
Violent Afghan protests over the burning of Qurans have strengthened the hand of those in Washington who argue for a faster reduction of U.S. troops. Especially galling was an incident of violence within Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, in which a disaffected driver shot and killed two American advisers.
Many Americans seem to be saying that if the Afghan people don't want us there, why should we stay? That's dubious logic because we are not in Afghanistan as a favor to the Afghan people. We are there to protect our own self-interest in not having their territory once again become a haven for al Qaeda.
It's also a fallacy to assume that most Afghans are anti-American. The protests, which tapered off Tuesday, have involved a few thousand people out of a population of 30 million. The attacks on Americans have been carried out by a handful of assailants. President Hamid Karzai has accepted President Obama's apology over the Quran-burning incident, condemned the violence and called for restraint. His security forces have policed the protests and suffered heavier casualties than our own.
While no doubt most people in Afghanistan are outraged over the desecration of their holy book, they are not anti-American. The most recent survey of Afghan views, conducted by ABC/BBC/ARD in November 2010, found that 62% of Afghans support the U.S. military presence while only 11% support the Taliban. That's considerably higher than the share of Americans who back the mission—35%. Another poll, conducted by the Asia Foundation last year, found that only 21% of Afghans blame foreign troops for the war waged by the Taliban and other insurgents. Most Afghans think the Taliban are fighting to gain power, make money, or for other selfish motives.
One can always question opinion polls in a country where illiteracy and insecurity are rampant. But Afghans also demonstrate with their actions where their sympathies lie. More than 350,000 Afghan men have joined the security forces and more would sign up if there were money to pay them. Estimates of the insurgency's strength are generally under 30,000 men. That's far below the number of mujahedeen—an estimated 100,000 out of a smaller population—who took up arms against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
There is considerable resentment of the United States in Afghanistan, as you would expect from any proud people who are compelled to deal with a foreign military presence. But the biggest reason Afghans are wary is because the NATO mission has not delivered what they most want—freedom from fear. In the Asia Foundation poll, 46% said the country was moving in the right direction but pervasive insecurity was their greatest concern.
The U.S. and its allies have been taking important steps to address insecurity, especially in Kandahar and Helmand provinces where most surge troops have gone. Commanders had hoped to pivot the focus of operations this year to eastern Afghanistan, where insecurity continues to lap at the outskirts of Kabul. But that plan has been put in serious jeopardy by President Obama's decision to bring home 32,000 troops by September.
Further troops cuts are rumored for announcement in May—as are cuts in the Afghan Security Forces. The U.S. is pushing to reduce the size of the Afghan army and police to just 230,000 by 2014 from 352,000 today to save a few billion dollars out of a federal budget of nearly $4 trillion.
Contrary to popular impression, the Afghan Security Forces are not a hotbed of anti-Americanism. Major Fernando Lujan, a Dari-speaking Special Forces officer, spent 14 months in Afghanistan, mostly embedded as the lone American in Afghan units, and came away impressed by their fighting spirit.
What the Afghan forces lack is logistics, equipment and intelligence. Most have to drive over IED-strewn roads in unarmored pickup trucks. The support they need to fight effectively is provided by NATO units, but Afghan fighting quality will suffer if we start withdrawing. So will their morale, because they'll feel abandoned to face an insurgency that retains Pakistan support.
The woes of the Afghan forces will surely multiply if, as currently envisioned, 120,000 troops and cops are demobilized with little prospect of a civilian job. Many could join the insurgency or the drug traffickers simply to make a living. This could be the reverse of the surge in Iraq, when 100,000 formerly hostile Sunnis joined with coalition forces to fight insurgents.
All of the problems today in the Afghan Security Forces—including Taliban infiltrators—will be aggravated by a rapid American drawdown. That will make it impossible to secure even our most basic interests and will likely consign Afghanistan to another civil war. We saw how the last such conflict played out in the 1990s with the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Why risk a repeat?
Mr. Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present," due out next January.
Aid organizations' workload to increase in Afghanistan: ICRC
GENEVA, Feb. 29 (Xinhua) -- The workload of aid agencies in Afghanistan such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is set to increase as they address the needs of war-affected communities in the face of an international military pullback from the country, the ICRC country delegation head said on Wednesday.
"I fear there will still be a lot of work to do well beyond 2014," Reto Stocker said, adding that a possible accelerated drawdown of troops would mean a rapid shift of responsibilities to Afghan national security forces.
International forces currently support and mentor the Afghan army, civil defence groups and the Afghan local police.
"This comes with legal obligations under the Geneva Conventions to ensure that such forces will respect international humanitarian law at all times, including after the departure of most international troops," he said.
Stocker added many people in Kabul, including impoverished communities, partly depend on Afghanistan's war economy. So as this economy shrinks over the months and years to come, it will affect all sectors of society.
Despite the deepening crisis, the Afghan strategy is worth saving
Washington Post By Editorial Board Wednesday, February 29, 2012
THE LATEST CRISIS in Afghanistan strikes at the heart of the U.S. strategy for preventing the country from reverting to Taliban rule or becoming a base for al-Qaeda. If those goals are to be achieved, the Afghan security forces that have been recruited, trained and equipped at enormous cost over the past several years must be sustained — something that will require continued training and advising by NATO, and heavy outside funding, for many years to come. That prospect seemed to be endangered last week when four U.S. soldiers were killed by Afghans in uniform. After an attack inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul, U.S. and NATO advisers were withdrawn from all ministries.
Fortunately, Pentagon and White House officials are describing the move as temporary and have said that the Obama administration and NATO remain committed to the underlying strategy. Yet the episode seems likely to strengthen those in and outside the administration who seek to accelerate the drawdown of U.S. troops next year and slash funding for Afghan forces. While perhaps appealing to voters in an election year, those steps would only compound the challenges facing the Afghan mission.
The probable trigger for the latest attacks on U.S. soldiers was the mistaken but inexcusable burning of Korans at the U.S. air base in Bagram, an incident for which President Obama rightly apologized. Republican presidential candidates were foolish to criticize Mr. Obama’s gesture, which prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to call for an end to violent anti-American demonstrations. It’s worth noting that Afghan security forces have been defending U.S. installations and personnel and suffered their own casualties in the process. Meanwhile, Afghan forces elsewhere in the country have continued to carry out joint operations with U.S. troops.
The popular backlash in Afghanistan nevertheless reflects deeper problems. There is understandable weariness with foreign troops after more than a decade of inconclusive war; resentment at the death of civilians in NATO operations; and frustration with the corruption and fecklessness of a U.S.-backed government. The Obama administration’s poor handling of Mr. Karzai has magnified these problems, while its setting of politically motivated timetables for troop withdrawals and aggressive pursuit of negotiations with the Taliban has convinced many Afghans that the United States is preparing to abandon the country.
The only secure and honorable means of exit is to finish the work of creating an Afghan army and police force capable of defending the country from the Taliban and other extremists, with backup from U.S. special forces and air power. Achieving that goal by the end of 2014, the current NATO timetable, will be hard enough, as the events of the past week vividly show. If the Obama administration chooses to accelerate the timetable or significantly reduce the funding — and thus the size — of Afghan forces, it will become nearly impossible.
Tracking Down Afghan Kidnappers
Reporter encounters fear and evasive behaviour while investigating crimes.
IWPR By Mina Habib 28 Feb 12
Afghanistan - On my way home from work one day, I was on a Kabul bus listening to my fellow-passengers chat about the current spate of robberies and kidnappings. They said that far from trusting the police, they believed that some security officers and senior government officials were involved in these crimes.
I was intrigued by this, as public faith in the Afghan government and its armed forces seems to have steadily decreased over the past ten years.
One passenger, aged about 50, turned to the rest of us and said, “There are even ministers involved in these things.”
As evidence, he described a recent kidnapping in the upscale Kabul neighbourhood of Wazir Akbar Khan.
“It happened in between two security checkpoints,” he said. “Two people were killed and two others injured. The police were just watching. The kidnappers’ car, which was followed by another, somehow drove into an alley that belongs to a high-ranking government official. The rest of the time, people can’t even go in their on foot.”
When I next went to the IWPR office, I put the idea to my editor, who encouraged me to write an article about the issue.
Pursuing stories like this is not without risk, but I did not want to give up on it.
My first interview was with a trader, Shur Niazi, who managed to escape from the men who kidnapped him.
I found Niazi in a corridor at Kabul police headquarters, one of his hands still cuffed with the chain which the kidnappers had used to hold him.
Four of the alleged kidnappers were there, as were two eyewitnesses, their faces wrapped in scarves to conceal their identities.
“These are very dangerous people,” one of the witnesses told me. “It will be a real problem if they recognise you.”
Although Niazi had escaped his ordeal, he did not look happy.
“Living in this country means taking a chance with one’s life,” he said. “For this reason, many traders and investors – including myself – have moved their families and their capital outside the country.”
Niazi said that if the perpetrators of such crimes were punished severely, others would be deterred from carrying out similar acts – but he did not think this would happen.
“When a thief, kidnapper or murderer is released in return for a cash bribe, or because they have connections with powerful people, it only encourages others,” he said.
As I left the police station, the kidnappers looked at me with hostility.
Not everyone who had been through a kidnapping was as courageous as Niazi.
Another merchant who had been abducted kept me waiting for a week, broke several appointments to meet, and ultimately refused to be interviewed. Speaking by phone, he said it was just too dangerous.
“Interviews won’t do any good. They will only expose us further and make us more vulnerable, because these kidnappers are not ordinary people,” he said. “You should be careful as well, because you are a woman, and they can create all kind of trouble for you.”
I did manage to interview the victim of an attempted kidnapping, Ahmad Shah Hakimi, deputy head of the Kabul Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He escaped, but two of his bodyguards, who were also relatives of his, were killed, and two of his brothers were wounded.
The assailants also stole a large sum of money.
Although he initially refused an interview, Hakimi eventually agreed to talk to me at a safe location.
“How is it possible for someone to attack you in the middle of a main road between two security checkpoints, kill people and take away three million US dollars?” Hakimi asked. “It’s obvious these people enjoy solid support from high-ranking government officials.”
In Niazi’s case, one of the suspects arrested for the kidnapping was the brother of a member of the Meshrano Jirga, the upper house or senate in Afghanistan’s parliament.
I tried to contact the politician, but when I finally got through, the person on the other end asked, “Who are you? First tell me your full name so I can write it down.”
When I identified myself, the response was, “Do not pursue such matters. What if you get kidnapped yourself?”
That did scare me, since the area where I live is not particularly safe. That night, I received a phone call from an unknown number, and the caller told me, “You’re working on some very dangerous issues. Try not to include the name of the senator, otherwise you’ll find yourself in trouble.”
I immediately contacted the criminal investigation department at Kabul police headquarters and informed them about the call I had received.
“It’s good that you told us about this,” an officer told me. “These individuals have also threatened the head of the criminal investigation department. Don’t worry – and contact us if you have any more trouble.”
The next day, I went to see criminal investigations chief Mohammad Zaher, who was working on the Niazi kidnapping case.
When I asked him about allegations that police are implicated in some kidnappings and robberies, he got very angry, protesting, “It isn’t fair to accuse police of being involved.”
He confirmed that the police had been pressured to release the kidnapper with political connections.
“The senator phoned me and asked me to release her brother,” he said, adding that the pressure stopped once he made it clear that this attempted interference might implicate the politician as well.
As I researched the story, I came across accusations that criminals had been released by the attorney general’s office, so I decided to get a response from it, too.
I made repeated visits to the offices of Afghanistan’s chief prosecutor, Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq Aloko, but no one there was prepared to be interviewed.
Eventually, I waited for two hours until deputy attorney general Abdol Wakil Amini arrived at his office. When I asked him to comment, he said angrily, “This is nothing to do with me. You should go to Sayed Jalal in the administrative department of the attorney’s office.”
When I approached Jalal, he was equally displeased. “You can contact the National Directorate for Security about it,” he told me, even though the allegations did not relate to that agency.
I went back to the attorney general’s office. I asked Aloko’s secretary for an appointment, but I was told he had just come back from a meeting at the presidential palace and was tired, so he needed a three-hour rest period.
I was taken aback at this and told the official I would include this in the article.
“You can do whatever you want,” he told me. “Write that the rest period was six hours.”
I realised that officials simply did not want to talk to me, and were putting me off with endless excuses.
It took all my patience to finish the story and overcome the many obstacles put in my way – but I did so in the end.
Since my article was published, prosecutors have summoned the politician whose brother was implicated in Shur Niazi’s abduction and questioned her about her possible role in it. The attorney general has also written to the Meshrano Jirga about the case.
Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained reporter in Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com