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Afghan forces killed three NATO soldiers
By Laura Rozen | The Envoy
Afghan security forces and police killed three NATO soldiers in two separate incidents Monday. Two of the soldiers killed were British and one was American. The latest "green on blue" attacks came as the top commander of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan wrapped up a visit to Washington during which he sought to bolster confidence in the mission that has been shattered by a series of recent incidents, including the March 11 shooting rampage by a U.S. soldier that killed 17 Afghan civilians.
Two British soldiers "were gunned down by an Afghan soldier in front of the main gate of a joint civilian-military base in southern Afghanistan," the
Associated Press reported Monday, citing the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan.
In a separate incident, a NATO service member "was shot by an alleged member of the Afghan Local Police" as the soldier approached a local police checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan, ISAF said in a statement, adding that the incident is being investigated. Later reports indicated the third soldier killed was American. Details on his nationality were withheld until his next of kin could be notified, a spokesman for the force, Col. Gary Kolb, told Yahoo News by email Monday.
Marine Gen. John Allen, the top commander of the mission in Afghanistan, speaking in Washington Monday, sought to downplay concern over the "green on blue" attacks (or those by Afghan security personnel), calling the incidents unfortunate but not unexpected. "On any occasion where you're dealing with an insurgency and where you're also growing an indigenous force ... the enemy's going to do all that they can to disrupt ... counterinsurgency operations," he told reporters at the Pentagon Monday.
But the spike in such attacks in recent weeks has contributed to a plummeting in American public support for the Afghanistan mission. A new poll released Monday by the New York Times/CBS News found that 68% of Americans think the war in Afghanistan is going somewhat badly or very badly, up sharply from the 42% who thought that in November. "The poll found that more than two-thirds of those surveyed — 69 percent — think that the United States should not be at war in Afghanistan," the New York Times wrote on the poll's findings.
The attacks have also raised alarm about the feasibility of a key element of the Obama administration's exit strategy for Afghanistan. Under a transition plan agreed to by President Barack Obama and NATO allies, U.S.-led forces plan to train some 350,000 Afghan army soldiers and police, and transition security responsibility to them in phases, as international forces withdraw from the country by the end of 2014.
The deaths Monday brought the total number of NATO service members killed by Afghan security forces and police this year to 16, and nine of those were American. An Associated Press tally Monday said that Afghan troops or police have killed 80 NATO service members since 2007, and 80 percent of those deaths have been in the past two years.
The U.S. military late last week formally charged Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales with 17 counts of premeditated murder along with others charges for the March 11 shooting incident that killed 17 Afghan civilians, including a pregnant woman and her unborn baby. Bales' wife, Karilyn, said Monday that her husband loves children, and she finds the crimes he's accused of "unbelievable," including that he killed nine children. "He would not do that," she told NBC's Today Show.
Wife Defends U.S. Soldier Accused In Afghan Killings
March 26, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The wife of the U.S. soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan villagers, including women and children, says she finds the charges "unbelievable."
Speaking on U.S. television, Karilyn Bales said her husband, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, was a courageous soldier who "loved" children and who just wanted "to do his part" after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Bales is accused of leaving his base in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan earlier this month and killing eight Afghan adults and nine children.
U.S. investigators say they believe Bales killed in two episodes, returning to his base after the first attack and later slipping away to kill again.
The 38-year-old married father of two is being held at a U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Based on AP reporting
INTERVIEW-Afghan Taliban say U.S. must rebuild trust for talks
Reuters By Sanjeev Miglani and Hamid Shalizi March 26, 2012
KABUL - Afghanistan's Taliban will eventually resume talks with the United States, a former commander said, but it will depend on how Washington repairs trust damaged by a string of incidents, notably the killing of 16 Afghans blamed on a U.S. soldier.
The Taliban have suspended the nascent dialogue, blaming the United States for failing to deliver on a promise to transfer five of its leaders held by the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay.
The Islamist group later said actions such as the mass killing in southern Kandahar province two weeks ago had poisoned the atmosphere.
Syed Mohammed Akbar Agha, a senior commander and cousin of the Taliban's main negotiator, said the tentative secret discussions with the Americans to lay the ground for formal peace negotiations had only been suspended, not ended.
"It has been quite clear for the Taliban, for the government and also for the foreigners, that Afghanistan's problems cannot be solved without negotiations," the black turbaned, bearded Agha said in an interview with Reuters in his Kabul home.
"The talks will definitely begin, but when it will begin, that depends on rebuilding trust and confidence," he said as a handful of aides sat on rugs counting prayer beads.
The face-to-face discussions have been shrouded in secrecy ever since they began in 2010 in Germany and in Arab countries. They are meant to negotiate a political settlement for a costly and unpopular war that has dragged into its eleventh year.
The two sides appeared to have made progress late last year with an agreement on opening a Taliban political office in the Gulf state of Qatar, along with the proposed transfer from Guantanamo of the five prisoners to Qatari custody.
"The office had been agreed and they were very close to a deal on the release of prisoners one by one. Unfortunately, due to some circumstances, the atmosphere of mistrust has developed again," said Agha, whose cousin Tayeb Agha has led the talks.
"The Americans didn't stick to their promise about releasing prisoners. They were delaying, sometimes it was next day, then next week. They kept changing their position," he said.
The proposed transfer has also raised hackles in the U.S. Congress, where politicians of both parties warn transferring the Taliban prisoners might somehow strengthen the insurgency.
The Pentagon is leading negotiations with the Qatari government on the conditions of that transfer, but no agreement has been reached on safeguards that would satisfy U.S. worries about the senior Taliban slipping away.
MURDER STRAINS TALKS
The shooting in Kandahar, for which a U.S. army staff sergeant has been charged with 17 counts of murder, put further strain on the peace process as public anger mounted, Agha said. Most of the dead were children and women.
He said it was disgraceful that the accused soldier had been flown to the United States instead of facing trial in Afghanistan.
The effort to seek reconciliation with the Taliban while building up Afghan national forces are the twin planks in the U.S. strategy to hold the country together when the last NATO combat forces withdraw in 2014.
Agha, who has been involved in peace consultations within the Taliban and who spent five years in prisons in Pakistan and Afghanistan, offered a rare glimpse into the talks that so far have produced little but scepticism.
He said the next stage in the negotiations with the Americans would have been an agreement on regional ceasefires as confidence developed between the two sides.
"The plan is to have ceasefire province-by-province. It will start in the areas where the fighting is the most intense. These will be in the south. People will benefit from it. They are suffering the most."
It's not clear, however, what kind of a final political settlement the peace negotiators from the two sides have in mind, or indeed what role Taliban leader Mullah Omar might play in a future Afghanistan.
Agha said it was up to Afghans to decide whether they choose Mullah Omar as their leader or stick with President Hamid Karzai.
"The people know this very well that under whose leadership there will be peace," he said. (Editing by Paul Tait)
World must not abandon Afghanistan after combat mission ends, says UK ambassador
British and American troops fighting in Afghanistan "should get out now" if the world's major powers are not prepared to continue backing the Afghan government after combat operations end in 2014, according to Britain's ambassador in Kabul.
Telegraph.co.uk By Con Coughlin 26 Mar 2012
Kabul - In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Sir William Patey, 58, who finishes his posting at the end of the week, said the world would be making a "monumental historical mistake" if it did not continue to provide financial and other support to Afghanistan following the 2014 deadline.
Nato combat forces are due to complete their withdrawal by the end of 2014, when security for the country will be handed over to Afghan security forces. Mr Patey, who previously served as Britain's ambassador to Iraq, predicted that Afghanistan "will still be a bit messy" when the withdrawal is completed, but insisted that the country "will not be on the point of collapse".
An international conference on the future of Afghanistan is to be hosted by Nato in Chicago in May, when donor nations will be asked to contribute $4.3 billion (£2.7 billion) a year after 2014 to maintain the country's reconstruction effort after three decades of incessant conflict. Washington has indicated that it is prepared to contribute £1.75 billion, with the remainder coming from Europe and other states, such as Japan and Australia, that are currently supporting the Nato mission.
The British Government says it is prepared to contribute £62.5 million to the fund, but there are concerns that other countries, such as France, are proving reluctant to maintain their involvement in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 deadline.
Mr Patey said that the success of Britain's policy of withdrawing its troops and leaving Afghanistan in a stable state "is totally dependent on the international community to bankroll the Afghans for a number of years to come".
"If we are not prepared to do that then we should get out now. If the international community loses the will we will be making a monumental mistake. It is not a lot of money when you imagine what we have spent already," he said.
At present the American military spends £7.5 billion a year in Afghanistan, while Britain's contribution is about £2.1 billion.
Concerns about Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists after 2014 have re-surfaced following the recent spate of shootings in the Toulouse area of France by an al-Qaeda gunman who is reported to have trained in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar – the former stronghold of the Taliban – and Pakistan.
Mr Patey said that the Taliban "are not looking as though they want to engage in reconciliation", although he said it was unlikely that "the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will be restored" once Nato forces have ended their combat mission.
But he admitted that the biggest obstacle to securing future international funding for Afghanistan was the widespread corruption that continues to afflict the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The international community was partly to blame for the corruption because, in the past, it had donated billions of pounds to Afghanistan without being diligent about how it was spent.
Mr Patey, who caused controversy when his valedictory diplomatic cable from Iraq, which criticised Tony Blair's involvement there, was made public, said the West's involvement in the Iraq war was partly to blame for the current problems it faced in Afghanistan.
"We wasted five years here while we were messing around in Iraq," he said.
Mr Patey, who is retiring from the Diplomatic Service, played down suggestions that recent controversies involving Nato troops, such as the Koran-burning incident in Kandahar, pictures of American soldiers urinating on dead Taliban fighters and the shooting of 16 innocent Afghan civilians by a US soldier, would cause any lasting damage to the Nato effort.
Similar incidents may re-occur, he said, but "will be seen as small bumps in history".
Iranian Leader's Speech Prompts U.S. Walkout At Conference
March 26, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has slammed U.S. policy in Afghanistan as the source of all the country's problems.
Speaking at a regional conference on March 26 in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe, Ahmadinejad's remarks prompted the U.S. delegation to walk out of the meeting.
Ahmadinejad said the United States went into Afghanistan in late 2001 under the pretext of fighting against terrorism, and was now using the same pretext to encircle the whole region.
Leaders from Afghanistan's neighboring states, as well as a U.S. delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake, attended the Dushanbe conference.
As Ahmadinejad began to speak, the U.S. delegation left the conference hall, returning after his speech.
The conference in Dushanbe is the fifth such meeting since 2005 and aims to boost cooperation in rebuilding Afghanistan.
With reporting by Reuters and AFP
Talks on Australian Afghanistan troop withdrawal
The Australian By Amanda Hodge March 26, 2012
Kabul - HIGH-LEVEL talks over the timing of Australia's withdrawal from Oruzgan began at the weekend at a meeting of NATO and Afghan government officials to finalise the next tranche of districts and provinces to be handed back to local security forces.
Oruzgan province - where the bulk of Australia's 1550-strong military presence is concentrated - will almost certainly be included in the coming third stage of the transition process.
The Australian understands there are differences of opinion between Afghan and NATO officials over whether Afghan forces are ready to take the security lead across the entire province.
More conservative Afghan officials are said to be lobbying for Australian and US forces to retain control over the more trouble-prone districts within the southern province until the fourth tranche of transition, not likely to occur until later this year or even early next year. Such a move would delay Australian troops' exit from the province.
NATO wants the entire province to be handed back to allow it the freedom to shift forces to areas of greater need in the months before some 23,000 US troops, deployed as part of the military surge strategy, are withdrawn after the Afghan summer fighting season late this year.
NATO's Australian-born transition commander Michael Kingsford told The Australian at the International Security Assistance Force's Kabul headquarters at the weekend: "Some areas the Afghans want to include that we don't think are ready and some areas we want to include that the Afghans don't think are ready.
"It's more about how much, than what, is in. There are some concerns about the security situation. It's not just Oruzgan; there are a number of provinces where we may want to put in the entire province, but we have different views on what the security process is."
Colonel Kingsford will see through the entire fourth phase of transition and most of the planning for the fifth and final stage.
He will also plan which provinces may complete transition to Afghan leadership at the military and governance level before the December 31, 2014, NATO withdrawal date.
"That's still very much a discussion topic within embassies and ministries and ISAF headquarters. Plans we come up with for implementation depend on what provinces identify as critical gaps in security; that's usually equipment, manning and completion of roads. They're easy. It's the political decisions that are tougher."
On Saturday, senior NATO and Afghan military commanders met deputy Afghan security ministers to begin debating the final shortlist, although the key meeting - between ISAF leadership, Afghan security ministers, the Australian ambassador and Afghan transition co-ordinator Ashraf Ghani - will be held early next month. All sides must reach agreement by mid-April, when NATO is scheduled to present its recommended list of provinces and districts to President Hamid Karzai. He will likely announce his final decision about late April.
Australian officials in Kabul said they were confident Oruzgan would start transition in tranche three and that "Australia will be fully involved in the decision-making process".
In accordance with Mr Karzai's accelerated transition timetable, NATO now aims to see Afghan National Security Forces take the lead for security across the entire country by the middle of next year. The third tranche of transition will be phased in over four months starting in May, after the key NATO summit in Chicago, where it is hoped more detail will be added to the post-2014 Afghan blueprint.
"Dates will vary based on situations on the ground," Colonel Kingsford said. "Some of the stuff we're doing now may bounce back to tranche four, but we're hoping most of it will be tranche three.
"As (NATO and US commander in Afghanistan) General John Allen said in congressional hearings, we're trying to keep it on track."
The entire transition process, from the time Afghan forces take the security lead in a district to full handover, will take between 12 and 18 months.
Some 32 Australians have been killed in the almost 11-year long Afghan conflict, and opinion polls reveal most people want the troops brought home.
Julia Gillard has committed to retaining a special forces presence in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 withdrawal date.
NATO would also be "looking in detail" at the fate of the more than two dozen Provincial Reconstruction Teams operating across Afghanistan that delivered aid and development programs locally, Colonel Kingsford added.
A civilian NATO official involved in the transition process confirmed PRT teams would cease operating in local provinces and districts after the December 31, 2014 withdrawal date.
"That's all going to have to shift to a different model of delivery by 2015", most likely where civilian aid money was distributed through the Afghan government's budget, the official said.
Australia is the largest non-NATO contributor of military forces with 1550 soldiers in Afghanistan.
Suicide attack in S. Afghanistan kills attacker, wounds 4
TRINKOT, Afghanistan, March 26 (Xinhua) -- A suicide bomber targeted a convoy of NATO-led forces in Chora district of Uruzgan province 370 km south of Kabul on Monday injuring four people including three foreign soldiers, police said.
"A terrorist strapped suicide vest in his body and blew himself up next to the convoy of NATO-led forces in Chora district killing himself and injuring four others including three foreign soldiers and a civilian," deputy to provincial police Gulab Khan told Xinhua.
However, he declined to give more details, saying all the details would be made public after completion of investigation.
However, police have cordoned off the area and began interrogation.
12 Taliban fighters give up militancy in W. Afghan province
HERAT, Afghanistan, March 26 (Xinhua) -- A dozen Taliban fighters laid down arms and resumed normal life in Herat province 640 km west of capital Kabul on Monday.
"With these former militants joining to the government-backed peace process the security will be further improved in Herat," provincial governor Daud Saba said while welcoming the former anti- government fighters.
He also called on other militants to follow the step and join the peace process.
The former insurgents under Mullah Abdullah have vowed to keep peace from now on while handing over their weapons to the authorities.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have yet to make comment.
More than 3,000 Taliban fighters, according to Afghan officials have given up militancy over the past one year.
NATO aircraft makes hard landing in S. Afghanistan
KABUL, March 26 (Xinhua) -- A NATO aircraft made a hard landing in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, the military alliance confirmed in a press release on Monday.
"An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) aircraft made a hard landing in southern Afghanistan yesterday," the NATO- led ISAF said in the press release.
However, the release did not provide details, only saying " ISAF is still in the process of assessing the circumstances to determine more facts; however, initial reporting indicates that there was no enemy activity in the area,"
All personnel on the aircraft were recovered with no reported casualties, the release added.
Currently over 130,000 NATO-led ISAF with majority of them Americans have been serving in Afghanistan.
What should US do next in Afghanistan?
The Australian March 26, 2012
AMERICA'S time is up in Afghanistan. Staff Sergeant Robert Bales had nothing to do with this moment of reckoning. There is something unacceptable about a war we wage with little debate or attention. Say what you will about the war in Iraq, George W. Bush claimed and defended it, paid a political price for it and suffered the wrath of the war's opponents.
From Susan Sarandon to the Dixie Chicks, it was the fashion to weigh in on the war in Mesopotamia. Despite the divisiveness of that time, it was nobler than the silence attending the Afghan war.
This is Barack Obama's war, but it causes him no anguish. Nothing here of the torment that ate at Lyndon Johnson over Vietnam. The Afghan campaign is politically manageable, the Obama devotees give it a pass and the Republicans (save for Ron Paul) have no coherent alternative to offer. They have no use for Afghanistan, they bristle at paying for the war, but they proclaim what they believe: that this is not a winnable war. A year or so ago there was a case for giving the war a chance. But our country is trapped there, hostage to the Afghan furies. It is time to concede what the late Richard Holbrooke knew about the war he was asked to oversee: There is nothing there for us, there is no possibility that we can put together an order that would survive our withdrawal.
Faoud Ajami
I DON'T think the assumptions on which the American exit strategy is based are looking very convincing at the moment.
The political foundation for the military transition strategy is pretty shaky, and I don't see much willingness to step back from those assumptions, which have been on a kind of automatic pilot, and ask the hard questions about what the alternatives might be if those assumptions are wrong.
My fear is that the centre will not hold when 2014 arrives. All this planning on transition and security handover depends on there being a political centre and a government that's unified enough, with security forces that aren't crumbling, to prevent an ethnic-based civil war that's even worse than the one we have now.
It is important to think ahead about some of those political questions, and I don't see that happening at the moment.
In the past few years, the White House has been sticking to its plan, but it's pointless to couple that outward resolve with an internal refusal to deal with reality, which is what I'm afraid is going on.
Steve Coll
THE three recent gruesome incidents only highlight that Afghanistan is facing a serious political, military and social meltdown.
There is still time to rescue it from such a fate after a US withdrawal, which could repeat the civil war that resulted from the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the failure then of the US and the Soviet and Afghan communists to negotiate a political settlement.
The Obama administration needs to put its emphasis on the present slow-moving but ongoing negotiations with the Taliban, despite a temporary suspension of the talks. The talks need to move rapidly: first with steps to build trust, followed by military confidence-building measures that could reduce the violence on both sides, and eventually political negotiations leading to power-sharing.
But divisions within the Obama administration and the Kabul government on talking to the Taliban have so far prevented a faster pace, while the US election could reduce Obama's capacity for risk-taking in the negotiations.
Yet the US cannot withdraw from Afghanistan leaving behind a civil war. The only feasible option is for the US to help negotiate an end to the war before 2014 and its withdrawal. The alternative could be a multi-dimensional war that would devastate the region.
Fouad Ajami teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; Steve Coll is the president of the New America Foundation; Ahmed Rashid is the author of Descent Into Chaos: The US and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia
The New Republic
Tajikistan eyes rail, energy links with Iran, Afghanistan
Reuters Mon Mar 26, 2012
DUSHANBE - Iran and Tajikistan plan to construct a railway line through Afghanistan and to improve energy and water supply links between the three countries, the office of Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon said on Monday.
Rakhmon signed a joint declaration with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on improving after talks between the three leaders in the Tajik capital on Sunday, the presidential office said in a statement.
It said the three presidents "reached an understanding on how to cooperate more productively to accelerate construction of a railway from Iran to Tajikistan through Afghanistan".
The countries also plan to build an "energy line" across the three countries to supply Iranian oil products and gas, as well as to link the electricity grids of the three countries and to supply drinking water from Tajikistan to Iran.
Tajikistan, a mountainous Central Asian state of 7.7 million people, is the poorest of 15 former Soviet republics. It relies on imported fuel, mainly from Russia, and plans to develop a hydroelectric power industry, partly with Iranian investment.
Tajikistan shares historical and cultural ties with Iran, which has the world's second-largest natural gas reserves after Russia. Both countries border Afghanistan.
"Other countries could also become participants in these projects," the Tajik presidential office said in the statement. Delegations from the three countries will meet in Teheran in two months to discuss implementation of the projects, it said.
In a separate meeting late on Sunday, the three leaders also met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. The presidents were in Tajikistan for a weekend conference to mark the Persian New Year and a regional Afghan economic conference that began on Monday.
(Reporting by Roman Kozhevnikov; Writing by Robin Paxton; Editing by Kim Coghill)
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Laura Rozen | The Envoy
Afghan security forces and police killed three NATO soldiers in two separate incidents Monday. Two of the soldiers killed were British and one was American. The latest "green on blue" attacks came as the top commander of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan wrapped up a visit to Washington during which he sought to bolster confidence in the mission that has been shattered by a series of recent incidents, including the March 11 shooting rampage by a U.S. soldier that killed 17 Afghan civilians.
Two British soldiers "were gunned down by an Afghan soldier in front of the main gate of a joint civilian-military base in southern Afghanistan," the
Associated Press reported Monday, citing the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan.
In a separate incident, a NATO service member "was shot by an alleged member of the Afghan Local Police" as the soldier approached a local police checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan, ISAF said in a statement, adding that the incident is being investigated. Later reports indicated the third soldier killed was American. Details on his nationality were withheld until his next of kin could be notified, a spokesman for the force, Col. Gary Kolb, told Yahoo News by email Monday.
Marine Gen. John Allen, the top commander of the mission in Afghanistan, speaking in Washington Monday, sought to downplay concern over the "green on blue" attacks (or those by Afghan security personnel), calling the incidents unfortunate but not unexpected. "On any occasion where you're dealing with an insurgency and where you're also growing an indigenous force ... the enemy's going to do all that they can to disrupt ... counterinsurgency operations," he told reporters at the Pentagon Monday.
But the spike in such attacks in recent weeks has contributed to a plummeting in American public support for the Afghanistan mission. A new poll released Monday by the New York Times/CBS News found that 68% of Americans think the war in Afghanistan is going somewhat badly or very badly, up sharply from the 42% who thought that in November. "The poll found that more than two-thirds of those surveyed — 69 percent — think that the United States should not be at war in Afghanistan," the New York Times wrote on the poll's findings.
The attacks have also raised alarm about the feasibility of a key element of the Obama administration's exit strategy for Afghanistan. Under a transition plan agreed to by President Barack Obama and NATO allies, U.S.-led forces plan to train some 350,000 Afghan army soldiers and police, and transition security responsibility to them in phases, as international forces withdraw from the country by the end of 2014.
The deaths Monday brought the total number of NATO service members killed by Afghan security forces and police this year to 16, and nine of those were American. An Associated Press tally Monday said that Afghan troops or police have killed 80 NATO service members since 2007, and 80 percent of those deaths have been in the past two years.
The U.S. military late last week formally charged Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales with 17 counts of premeditated murder along with others charges for the March 11 shooting incident that killed 17 Afghan civilians, including a pregnant woman and her unborn baby. Bales' wife, Karilyn, said Monday that her husband loves children, and she finds the crimes he's accused of "unbelievable," including that he killed nine children. "He would not do that," she told NBC's Today Show.
Wife Defends U.S. Soldier Accused In Afghan Killings
March 26, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The wife of the U.S. soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan villagers, including women and children, says she finds the charges "unbelievable."
Speaking on U.S. television, Karilyn Bales said her husband, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, was a courageous soldier who "loved" children and who just wanted "to do his part" after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Bales is accused of leaving his base in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan earlier this month and killing eight Afghan adults and nine children.
U.S. investigators say they believe Bales killed in two episodes, returning to his base after the first attack and later slipping away to kill again.
The 38-year-old married father of two is being held at a U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Based on AP reporting
INTERVIEW-Afghan Taliban say U.S. must rebuild trust for talks
Reuters By Sanjeev Miglani and Hamid Shalizi March 26, 2012
KABUL - Afghanistan's Taliban will eventually resume talks with the United States, a former commander said, but it will depend on how Washington repairs trust damaged by a string of incidents, notably the killing of 16 Afghans blamed on a U.S. soldier.
The Taliban have suspended the nascent dialogue, blaming the United States for failing to deliver on a promise to transfer five of its leaders held by the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay.
The Islamist group later said actions such as the mass killing in southern Kandahar province two weeks ago had poisoned the atmosphere.
Syed Mohammed Akbar Agha, a senior commander and cousin of the Taliban's main negotiator, said the tentative secret discussions with the Americans to lay the ground for formal peace negotiations had only been suspended, not ended.
"It has been quite clear for the Taliban, for the government and also for the foreigners, that Afghanistan's problems cannot be solved without negotiations," the black turbaned, bearded Agha said in an interview with Reuters in his Kabul home.
"The talks will definitely begin, but when it will begin, that depends on rebuilding trust and confidence," he said as a handful of aides sat on rugs counting prayer beads.
The face-to-face discussions have been shrouded in secrecy ever since they began in 2010 in Germany and in Arab countries. They are meant to negotiate a political settlement for a costly and unpopular war that has dragged into its eleventh year.
The two sides appeared to have made progress late last year with an agreement on opening a Taliban political office in the Gulf state of Qatar, along with the proposed transfer from Guantanamo of the five prisoners to Qatari custody.
"The office had been agreed and they were very close to a deal on the release of prisoners one by one. Unfortunately, due to some circumstances, the atmosphere of mistrust has developed again," said Agha, whose cousin Tayeb Agha has led the talks.
"The Americans didn't stick to their promise about releasing prisoners. They were delaying, sometimes it was next day, then next week. They kept changing their position," he said.
The proposed transfer has also raised hackles in the U.S. Congress, where politicians of both parties warn transferring the Taliban prisoners might somehow strengthen the insurgency.
The Pentagon is leading negotiations with the Qatari government on the conditions of that transfer, but no agreement has been reached on safeguards that would satisfy U.S. worries about the senior Taliban slipping away.
MURDER STRAINS TALKS
The shooting in Kandahar, for which a U.S. army staff sergeant has been charged with 17 counts of murder, put further strain on the peace process as public anger mounted, Agha said. Most of the dead were children and women.
He said it was disgraceful that the accused soldier had been flown to the United States instead of facing trial in Afghanistan.
The effort to seek reconciliation with the Taliban while building up Afghan national forces are the twin planks in the U.S. strategy to hold the country together when the last NATO combat forces withdraw in 2014.
Agha, who has been involved in peace consultations within the Taliban and who spent five years in prisons in Pakistan and Afghanistan, offered a rare glimpse into the talks that so far have produced little but scepticism.
He said the next stage in the negotiations with the Americans would have been an agreement on regional ceasefires as confidence developed between the two sides.
"The plan is to have ceasefire province-by-province. It will start in the areas where the fighting is the most intense. These will be in the south. People will benefit from it. They are suffering the most."
It's not clear, however, what kind of a final political settlement the peace negotiators from the two sides have in mind, or indeed what role Taliban leader Mullah Omar might play in a future Afghanistan.
Agha said it was up to Afghans to decide whether they choose Mullah Omar as their leader or stick with President Hamid Karzai.
"The people know this very well that under whose leadership there will be peace," he said. (Editing by Paul Tait)
World must not abandon Afghanistan after combat mission ends, says UK ambassador
British and American troops fighting in Afghanistan "should get out now" if the world's major powers are not prepared to continue backing the Afghan government after combat operations end in 2014, according to Britain's ambassador in Kabul.
Telegraph.co.uk By Con Coughlin 26 Mar 2012
Kabul - In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Sir William Patey, 58, who finishes his posting at the end of the week, said the world would be making a "monumental historical mistake" if it did not continue to provide financial and other support to Afghanistan following the 2014 deadline.
Nato combat forces are due to complete their withdrawal by the end of 2014, when security for the country will be handed over to Afghan security forces. Mr Patey, who previously served as Britain's ambassador to Iraq, predicted that Afghanistan "will still be a bit messy" when the withdrawal is completed, but insisted that the country "will not be on the point of collapse".
An international conference on the future of Afghanistan is to be hosted by Nato in Chicago in May, when donor nations will be asked to contribute $4.3 billion (£2.7 billion) a year after 2014 to maintain the country's reconstruction effort after three decades of incessant conflict. Washington has indicated that it is prepared to contribute £1.75 billion, with the remainder coming from Europe and other states, such as Japan and Australia, that are currently supporting the Nato mission.
The British Government says it is prepared to contribute £62.5 million to the fund, but there are concerns that other countries, such as France, are proving reluctant to maintain their involvement in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 deadline.
Mr Patey said that the success of Britain's policy of withdrawing its troops and leaving Afghanistan in a stable state "is totally dependent on the international community to bankroll the Afghans for a number of years to come".
"If we are not prepared to do that then we should get out now. If the international community loses the will we will be making a monumental mistake. It is not a lot of money when you imagine what we have spent already," he said.
At present the American military spends £7.5 billion a year in Afghanistan, while Britain's contribution is about £2.1 billion.
Concerns about Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists after 2014 have re-surfaced following the recent spate of shootings in the Toulouse area of France by an al-Qaeda gunman who is reported to have trained in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar – the former stronghold of the Taliban – and Pakistan.
Mr Patey said that the Taliban "are not looking as though they want to engage in reconciliation", although he said it was unlikely that "the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will be restored" once Nato forces have ended their combat mission.
But he admitted that the biggest obstacle to securing future international funding for Afghanistan was the widespread corruption that continues to afflict the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The international community was partly to blame for the corruption because, in the past, it had donated billions of pounds to Afghanistan without being diligent about how it was spent.
Mr Patey, who caused controversy when his valedictory diplomatic cable from Iraq, which criticised Tony Blair's involvement there, was made public, said the West's involvement in the Iraq war was partly to blame for the current problems it faced in Afghanistan.
"We wasted five years here while we were messing around in Iraq," he said.
Mr Patey, who is retiring from the Diplomatic Service, played down suggestions that recent controversies involving Nato troops, such as the Koran-burning incident in Kandahar, pictures of American soldiers urinating on dead Taliban fighters and the shooting of 16 innocent Afghan civilians by a US soldier, would cause any lasting damage to the Nato effort.
Similar incidents may re-occur, he said, but "will be seen as small bumps in history".
Iranian Leader's Speech Prompts U.S. Walkout At Conference
March 26, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has slammed U.S. policy in Afghanistan as the source of all the country's problems.
Speaking at a regional conference on March 26 in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe, Ahmadinejad's remarks prompted the U.S. delegation to walk out of the meeting.
Ahmadinejad said the United States went into Afghanistan in late 2001 under the pretext of fighting against terrorism, and was now using the same pretext to encircle the whole region.
Leaders from Afghanistan's neighboring states, as well as a U.S. delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake, attended the Dushanbe conference.
As Ahmadinejad began to speak, the U.S. delegation left the conference hall, returning after his speech.
The conference in Dushanbe is the fifth such meeting since 2005 and aims to boost cooperation in rebuilding Afghanistan.
With reporting by Reuters and AFP
Talks on Australian Afghanistan troop withdrawal
The Australian By Amanda Hodge March 26, 2012
Kabul - HIGH-LEVEL talks over the timing of Australia's withdrawal from Oruzgan began at the weekend at a meeting of NATO and Afghan government officials to finalise the next tranche of districts and provinces to be handed back to local security forces.
Oruzgan province - where the bulk of Australia's 1550-strong military presence is concentrated - will almost certainly be included in the coming third stage of the transition process.
The Australian understands there are differences of opinion between Afghan and NATO officials over whether Afghan forces are ready to take the security lead across the entire province.
More conservative Afghan officials are said to be lobbying for Australian and US forces to retain control over the more trouble-prone districts within the southern province until the fourth tranche of transition, not likely to occur until later this year or even early next year. Such a move would delay Australian troops' exit from the province.
NATO wants the entire province to be handed back to allow it the freedom to shift forces to areas of greater need in the months before some 23,000 US troops, deployed as part of the military surge strategy, are withdrawn after the Afghan summer fighting season late this year.
NATO's Australian-born transition commander Michael Kingsford told The Australian at the International Security Assistance Force's Kabul headquarters at the weekend: "Some areas the Afghans want to include that we don't think are ready and some areas we want to include that the Afghans don't think are ready.
"It's more about how much, than what, is in. There are some concerns about the security situation. It's not just Oruzgan; there are a number of provinces where we may want to put in the entire province, but we have different views on what the security process is."
Colonel Kingsford will see through the entire fourth phase of transition and most of the planning for the fifth and final stage.
He will also plan which provinces may complete transition to Afghan leadership at the military and governance level before the December 31, 2014, NATO withdrawal date.
"That's still very much a discussion topic within embassies and ministries and ISAF headquarters. Plans we come up with for implementation depend on what provinces identify as critical gaps in security; that's usually equipment, manning and completion of roads. They're easy. It's the political decisions that are tougher."
On Saturday, senior NATO and Afghan military commanders met deputy Afghan security ministers to begin debating the final shortlist, although the key meeting - between ISAF leadership, Afghan security ministers, the Australian ambassador and Afghan transition co-ordinator Ashraf Ghani - will be held early next month. All sides must reach agreement by mid-April, when NATO is scheduled to present its recommended list of provinces and districts to President Hamid Karzai. He will likely announce his final decision about late April.
Australian officials in Kabul said they were confident Oruzgan would start transition in tranche three and that "Australia will be fully involved in the decision-making process".
In accordance with Mr Karzai's accelerated transition timetable, NATO now aims to see Afghan National Security Forces take the lead for security across the entire country by the middle of next year. The third tranche of transition will be phased in over four months starting in May, after the key NATO summit in Chicago, where it is hoped more detail will be added to the post-2014 Afghan blueprint.
"Dates will vary based on situations on the ground," Colonel Kingsford said. "Some of the stuff we're doing now may bounce back to tranche four, but we're hoping most of it will be tranche three.
"As (NATO and US commander in Afghanistan) General John Allen said in congressional hearings, we're trying to keep it on track."
The entire transition process, from the time Afghan forces take the security lead in a district to full handover, will take between 12 and 18 months.
Some 32 Australians have been killed in the almost 11-year long Afghan conflict, and opinion polls reveal most people want the troops brought home.
Julia Gillard has committed to retaining a special forces presence in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 withdrawal date.
NATO would also be "looking in detail" at the fate of the more than two dozen Provincial Reconstruction Teams operating across Afghanistan that delivered aid and development programs locally, Colonel Kingsford added.
A civilian NATO official involved in the transition process confirmed PRT teams would cease operating in local provinces and districts after the December 31, 2014 withdrawal date.
"That's all going to have to shift to a different model of delivery by 2015", most likely where civilian aid money was distributed through the Afghan government's budget, the official said.
Australia is the largest non-NATO contributor of military forces with 1550 soldiers in Afghanistan.
Suicide attack in S. Afghanistan kills attacker, wounds 4
TRINKOT, Afghanistan, March 26 (Xinhua) -- A suicide bomber targeted a convoy of NATO-led forces in Chora district of Uruzgan province 370 km south of Kabul on Monday injuring four people including three foreign soldiers, police said.
"A terrorist strapped suicide vest in his body and blew himself up next to the convoy of NATO-led forces in Chora district killing himself and injuring four others including three foreign soldiers and a civilian," deputy to provincial police Gulab Khan told Xinhua.
However, he declined to give more details, saying all the details would be made public after completion of investigation.
However, police have cordoned off the area and began interrogation.
12 Taliban fighters give up militancy in W. Afghan province
HERAT, Afghanistan, March 26 (Xinhua) -- A dozen Taliban fighters laid down arms and resumed normal life in Herat province 640 km west of capital Kabul on Monday.
"With these former militants joining to the government-backed peace process the security will be further improved in Herat," provincial governor Daud Saba said while welcoming the former anti- government fighters.
He also called on other militants to follow the step and join the peace process.
The former insurgents under Mullah Abdullah have vowed to keep peace from now on while handing over their weapons to the authorities.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have yet to make comment.
More than 3,000 Taliban fighters, according to Afghan officials have given up militancy over the past one year.
NATO aircraft makes hard landing in S. Afghanistan
KABUL, March 26 (Xinhua) -- A NATO aircraft made a hard landing in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, the military alliance confirmed in a press release on Monday.
"An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) aircraft made a hard landing in southern Afghanistan yesterday," the NATO- led ISAF said in the press release.
However, the release did not provide details, only saying " ISAF is still in the process of assessing the circumstances to determine more facts; however, initial reporting indicates that there was no enemy activity in the area,"
All personnel on the aircraft were recovered with no reported casualties, the release added.
Currently over 130,000 NATO-led ISAF with majority of them Americans have been serving in Afghanistan.
What should US do next in Afghanistan?
The Australian March 26, 2012
AMERICA'S time is up in Afghanistan. Staff Sergeant Robert Bales had nothing to do with this moment of reckoning. There is something unacceptable about a war we wage with little debate or attention. Say what you will about the war in Iraq, George W. Bush claimed and defended it, paid a political price for it and suffered the wrath of the war's opponents.
From Susan Sarandon to the Dixie Chicks, it was the fashion to weigh in on the war in Mesopotamia. Despite the divisiveness of that time, it was nobler than the silence attending the Afghan war.
This is Barack Obama's war, but it causes him no anguish. Nothing here of the torment that ate at Lyndon Johnson over Vietnam. The Afghan campaign is politically manageable, the Obama devotees give it a pass and the Republicans (save for Ron Paul) have no coherent alternative to offer. They have no use for Afghanistan, they bristle at paying for the war, but they proclaim what they believe: that this is not a winnable war. A year or so ago there was a case for giving the war a chance. But our country is trapped there, hostage to the Afghan furies. It is time to concede what the late Richard Holbrooke knew about the war he was asked to oversee: There is nothing there for us, there is no possibility that we can put together an order that would survive our withdrawal.
Faoud Ajami
I DON'T think the assumptions on which the American exit strategy is based are looking very convincing at the moment.
The political foundation for the military transition strategy is pretty shaky, and I don't see much willingness to step back from those assumptions, which have been on a kind of automatic pilot, and ask the hard questions about what the alternatives might be if those assumptions are wrong.
My fear is that the centre will not hold when 2014 arrives. All this planning on transition and security handover depends on there being a political centre and a government that's unified enough, with security forces that aren't crumbling, to prevent an ethnic-based civil war that's even worse than the one we have now.
It is important to think ahead about some of those political questions, and I don't see that happening at the moment.
In the past few years, the White House has been sticking to its plan, but it's pointless to couple that outward resolve with an internal refusal to deal with reality, which is what I'm afraid is going on.
Steve Coll
THE three recent gruesome incidents only highlight that Afghanistan is facing a serious political, military and social meltdown.
There is still time to rescue it from such a fate after a US withdrawal, which could repeat the civil war that resulted from the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the failure then of the US and the Soviet and Afghan communists to negotiate a political settlement.
The Obama administration needs to put its emphasis on the present slow-moving but ongoing negotiations with the Taliban, despite a temporary suspension of the talks. The talks need to move rapidly: first with steps to build trust, followed by military confidence-building measures that could reduce the violence on both sides, and eventually political negotiations leading to power-sharing.
But divisions within the Obama administration and the Kabul government on talking to the Taliban have so far prevented a faster pace, while the US election could reduce Obama's capacity for risk-taking in the negotiations.
Yet the US cannot withdraw from Afghanistan leaving behind a civil war. The only feasible option is for the US to help negotiate an end to the war before 2014 and its withdrawal. The alternative could be a multi-dimensional war that would devastate the region.
Fouad Ajami teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; Steve Coll is the president of the New America Foundation; Ahmed Rashid is the author of Descent Into Chaos: The US and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia
The New Republic
Tajikistan eyes rail, energy links with Iran, Afghanistan
Reuters Mon Mar 26, 2012
DUSHANBE - Iran and Tajikistan plan to construct a railway line through Afghanistan and to improve energy and water supply links between the three countries, the office of Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon said on Monday.
Rakhmon signed a joint declaration with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on improving after talks between the three leaders in the Tajik capital on Sunday, the presidential office said in a statement.
It said the three presidents "reached an understanding on how to cooperate more productively to accelerate construction of a railway from Iran to Tajikistan through Afghanistan".
The countries also plan to build an "energy line" across the three countries to supply Iranian oil products and gas, as well as to link the electricity grids of the three countries and to supply drinking water from Tajikistan to Iran.
Tajikistan, a mountainous Central Asian state of 7.7 million people, is the poorest of 15 former Soviet republics. It relies on imported fuel, mainly from Russia, and plans to develop a hydroelectric power industry, partly with Iranian investment.
Tajikistan shares historical and cultural ties with Iran, which has the world's second-largest natural gas reserves after Russia. Both countries border Afghanistan.
"Other countries could also become participants in these projects," the Tajik presidential office said in the statement. Delegations from the three countries will meet in Teheran in two months to discuss implementation of the projects, it said.
In a separate meeting late on Sunday, the three leaders also met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. The presidents were in Tajikistan for a weekend conference to mark the Persian New Year and a regional Afghan economic conference that began on Monday.
(Reporting by Roman Kozhevnikov; Writing by Robin Paxton; Editing by Kim Coghill)
www.afghanistannewscenter.com