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Afghanistan’s Karzai: U.S. deal has to specify cash
By Amir Shah and Heidi Vogt Associated Press via The Washington Times Tuesday, April 17, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that the long-term partnership agreement being negotiated with the United States should specify exactly how much money the U.S. will give to Afghan forces in coming years.
The demand could place a new hurdle in front of the key pact just as negotiators appeared to be reaching a consensus.
The so-called strategic partnership agreement is essential to the U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan. American officials hope it will both map the course for U.S. forces after the majority of combat troops leave in 2014 and give the Afghan people confidence that they are not about to be abandoned by their largest international ally.
But negotiations have dragged on for months as Mr. Karzai has asked for specific commitments from the U.S. before signing. The biggest of these demands — agreements on the transfer of authority over detainees and the conduct of night raids — have been resolved in recent weeks in separate memorandums of understanding.
Both Afghan and U.S. officials are pushing to sign the repeatedly delayed deal before a NATO conference in Chicago in May.
But Mr. Karzai said Tuesday that the U.S. needs to go further than vague pledges to continue to fund the Afghan army and police.
"They are providing us money — there is no doubt about that — but they say they will not mention the amount in the agreement. We say: Give us less, but mention it in the agreement. Give us less, but write it down," Mr. Karzai said in a speech in the capital marking the anniversary of the birth of a revered Afghan writer.
U.S. officials have said that they expect to pay about $4 billion a year to fund Afghan forces. Mr. Karzai said he wants a written commitment of at least $2 billion. He said he would rather have a firm commitment to a lower figure than a verbal promise for a higher one.
"You have to mention 'at least' in there," Mr. Karzai said.
The comments also suggest that Mr. Karzai himself may be growing increasingly worried that the U.S. will not make good on funding pledges once there are drastically fewer American soldiers risking their lives on Afghan soil.
The U.S. already has greatly reduced its funding for development programs in Afghanistan and the past year has seen a number of NATO nations trying to speed their exits from the country even as they continue to promise to support the Afghan government. On Tuesday, Australia because the latest ally to speed up its timetable as Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Australia expects to pull out troops nearly a year earlier than planned.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul declined to comment on the demand.
"We're not going to comment on ongoing negotiations," Gavin Sundwall, the spokesman, said.
U.S. officials have said previously that they expect the document to address economic and development support for Afghanistan, but it is unclear if the American negotiators would have the legal authority to make a specific financial commitment.
Much of the contention over the strategic partnership deal with the U.S. appears to come from two very different opinions from the two governments about what the goals of the document should be. U.S. officials involved in the negotiations have said that it is not meant to set forth exact rules, but to establish a framework between the two countries to continue to work together for years to come.
The Afghan government, meanwhile, repeatedly has demanded concrete commitments and rules for U.S. forces. It sees the document as necessary to establish Afghan sovereignty after years of letting policy be set by the international allies who bankroll the government.
If the strategic partnership is not signed by the NATO summit May 20-21, it would not necessarily derail negotiations, but it would strike another blow to a U.S.-Afghan alliance that has been on edge for much of this year.
Afghan President Wants US to Guarantee $2 Billion Annually
Brian Padden April 17, 2012 VOA
Islamabad, Pakistan - A day after Afghan forces with NATO support fought off multiple attacks by Taliban militants, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is focusing on ensuring international financial support after most Western combat troops leave in 2014. In a speech Tuesday, Karzai said he wants the U.S. to guarantee at least $2 billion annually to fund the Afghan army and police under a strategic partnership agreement now being negotiated between the two countries.
Both the U.S. and Afghanistan want a strategic partnership agreement to demonstrate America's commitment to stay engaged in Afghanistan after 2014. Karzai said negotiations have stalled over whether or not to include in the agreement a minimum of $2 billion dollars a year to fund the Afghan army and police.
Karzai said the U.S. side indicated that in the future it may want to increase the amount of funding, but that he wants the strategic partnership document to include a written guarantee that Washington will provide at least $2 billion to Afghan security forces annually.
U.S. officials said they could pay up to about $4 billion a year to fund Afghan forces. But they also said the strategic pact is not meant to be a detailed aid package, but rather a broad framework committing both sides to continue to work together for years to come.
Sunday's attacks by Taliban militants in the Afghan capital and in the eastern Nangarhar, Logar and Paktia provinces have raised concerns about the readiness of Afghan forces to maintain security without U.S. and NATO support.
U.S. officials are pushing to sign the deal before a NATO conference in Chicago in May.
But negotiations over the long-term pact with the U.S. have dragged on for months as Karzai has asked for specific commitments before signing. The biggest of these demands - that the U.S. transfer authority over detainees and night raids to the Afghan government - have been recently resolved.
The Afghan president's comments suggest a growing concern on the Afghan side that the U.S. will not follow through on its promises after most American soldiers leave.
The U.S. has already greatly reduced some funding for development programs in Afghanistan, and a number of NATO nations are accelerating their withdrawal timetables. On Tuesday, Australia announced it would to pull out its troops nearly a year earlier than planned.
Q&A: International troops in Afghanistan
By Hilary Whiteman, CNN April 17, 2012
(CNN) -- When Afghan forces repelled a barrage of attacks from insurgents near Kabul's green zone over the weekend it was hailed as proof of how far local security forces had come.
"They were on scene immediately, well-led and well-coordinated," said General John Allen, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
Afghan president Hamid Karzai said it showed the country's forces would be able to defend their country after international forces leave.
Karzai: Afghan forces ready to defend nation
Then on Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced her country would pull its troops out months earlier expected -- by early 2014 -- citing an improvement in the security situation.
"We continue to see steady gains in the fight against the Afghan insurgency," Gillard said, in a speech in Canberra.
Australia plans Afghan exit
Australia's 1,550 troops in Afghanistan are a fraction of the overall number of foreign troops deployed to keep a lid on the country's insurgency more than ten years after allied airstrikes marked the start of Operation Enduring Freedom.
How many international troops are operating in Afghanistan?
More than 130,000 troops from 50 countries are currently operating in Afghanistan, according to the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF).
The United States is the biggest contributor, providing around 90,000 troops, followed by the United Kingdom (9,500), Germany (4,800) and France (3,600).
The international force has been there since 2001, shortly after the al Qaeda attacks on the U.S. on September 11. The campaign was launched to stop the Taliban from providing a safe haven for al Qaeda fighters, and to stop the terror group's use of Afghanistan as a base for its future activities.
How long are they there for?
In June 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan would end by 2014. At that time there were more than 100,000 U.S. troops in the country, following a 30,000-strong troop "surge" in December 2009 to help bolster the campaign against the Taliban.
In February this year, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the U.S. hoped to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2013, transitioning primarily to a training role as Afghan forces take more responsibility for security.
Panetta: Polls won't change Afghan strategy
Some countries have already pulled out of the country. Canada, which once headed the ISAF mission, pulled out almost all of its 3,000 soldiers at the end of 2011. Norway also withdrew almost all of its 500 troops during this period.
France announced in February that it would begin an early draw down, and that all 4,000 of its troops would be gone by 2013. Germany plans to pull out some troops next year, with the remainder leaving in 2014.
Britain, the second-biggest contributor of troops, plans to hand over its security operations to local forces by the end of 2013, before continuing in a "supporting role" from 2014.
How well trained are Afghan security forces?
The Afghan forces who fought off an 18-hour multi-pronged Taliban attack in Kabul earlier this week are some of the best trained in the country, according to analysts. The crisis response group is based in the capital and has received training from U.S. special forces.
Afghan forces repel attacks
"That would be the equal of any other unit of its type in the region," said James Brown, a military associate at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
"It's got it own intelligence assets, which it didn't have three years ago. They've got their own Afghan aviation assets, helicopters, that can respond to these kind of events. So yes, they are getting better at responding to high-profile events in Kabul -- but the Taliban are getting better as well."
This latter point is picked up by other analysts.
"I think there has to be a real question mark over the long-term prospects for Afghanistan," said Andrew Davies, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
"I think there are some reasons to be cautiously optimistic over the ability of Afghan forces. But ultimately the future of Afghanistan will be determined by the factions inside Afghanistan. I think if the last 10 years has shown us anything, then the ability of the outside world to influence the future of Afghanistan in the long term is fairly minimal."
What's next?
Gillard's announcement of Australia's troop draw down precedes an announcement from President Karzai at a summit on Afghanistan in Chicago in May.
The Afghan leader is expected to announce that a third tranche of provinces will be handed back to full Afghan control, including Uruzgan, where most of the Australian troops are based.
A clearer split of financial contributions may also emerge at the summit, with the annual cost of funding the Afghan security forces after 2014 estimated to be $4.1 billion.
"The U.S. will probably pay a big part of that and I think the UK will also chip in," said Brown. "You may not see much from the Europeans. But there might be some funding commitments from Japan," he added.
Sierra Nevada files motion in Afghan aircraft competition
By Andrea Shalal-Esa Tue Apr 17, 2012 1:47am EDT
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado - (Reuters) - Defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corp said on Monday it has filed a court motion to register concerns about the U.S. Air Force's plan to revise the rules of a bungled competition to supply 20 planes to Afghanistan and award a new contract in early 2013.
In the latest legal step stemming from a cancelled purchase that has embarrassed military officials, privately-held Sierra Nevada said the Air Force's corrective action was an overreaction.
An internal investigation found no deliberate misconduct by officials who awarded a $355 million contract to Sierra Nevada and its supplier, Brazilian plane maker Embraer (EMBR3.SA) in December.
The Air Force said on Friday it would issue revised rules for the contract, which was abruptly cancelled after its officials found problems with internal documents while preparing for a lawsuit filed by losing bidder Hawker Beechcraft.
The U.S. Air Force is handling the largely American-funded purchase of the light attack planes, which will be supplied to Afghanistan's fledging air force. Doubts are mounting about the overall readiness of the Afghan military to take charge of security in the country, which suffered heavy, coordinated insurgent attacks on Sunday.
Sierra Nevada said the judge and the companies' attorneys should have access to the Air Force's investigation to determine if the delay was really necessary, or if the air force could simply re-award the deal to Sierra Nevada.
"We need to make sure that the Air Force is not throwing the baby out with the bath water," said company spokeswoman Michelle Erlach, saying that the Air Force appeared determined to "lawsuit proof" the case.
The U.S. Air Force is due to brief both companies on Tuesday about the changes, which will delay the first deliveries of planes by 15 months, a move that has heightened concern about the ability of the Afghan air force to step in as the U.S. withdraws.
Neither U.S. Air Force officials nor Hawker Beechcraft representative could be reached immediately about Sierra Nevada's newest step in the case.
The Air Force has said it could not release the investigation publicly since it contains sensitive company data, but service officials told congressional aides that it found the contract award was decided by an inexperienced team which did not follow established procedures.
Hawker, which is in the middle of a major financial restructuring, has welcomed the chance of another opportunity to win the contract, which initially had options that could have expanded its value to $1 billion. Hawker argues that the air force should also revamp its requirements for the plane.
The case is being closely watched in Brazil, where officials were still smarting from the cancellation of an earlier contract with Lockheed Martin Corp for a reconnaissance plane based on Embraer's ERJ-145 regional jet.
The incident is a setback for Air Force officials who have tried to rebuild the service's procurement reputation after years of reforms triggered by a spate of botched contract decisions, including a deal for tens of billions of dollars for new refueling planes.
"Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta should take a personal interest in seeing that the program is promptly re-awarded to the best offeror," Lexington Institute analyst Loren Thompson wrote in a blog posting for Forbes magazine.
(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
Karzai: Taliban Attacks ‘Prolong Foreign Presence’
VOA News April 17, 2012
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has appealed to the Taliban to stop their attacks, saying renewed violence is only serving to prolong foreign presence in Afghanistan.
President Karzai's comments on Tuesday came a day after an 18-hour insurgent offensive across Afghanistan claimed the lives of four civilians, 11 Afghan security personnel and 36 militants.
Addressing an audience of college students in Kabul, Mr. Karzai said violence by the Taliban does not benefit Islam, Muslims or the Afghan people.
“You did nothing for Islam, you did not work for Afghanistan's independence and you did not work for its people, freedom and development. You worked to prolong a foreign presence.”
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the coordinated assaults on embassies, government buildings and NATO military bases, which ended Monday. But Afghan and U.S. officials blame the Pakistan-based Haqqani network.
The violence comes as NATO foreign and defense ministers prepare to meet Wednesday in Brussels, where they are expected to discuss the planned withdrawal of all of the nearly 130,000 foreign combat troops by the end of 2014. Ministers will lay the groundwork for next month's NATO summit in Chicago.
That plan seemed to take a hit on Tuesday, when Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that her country's troops would begin pulling out of Afghanistan one year earlier than planned.
Ms. Gillard said said most of her country's 1,550 troops would return home by the end of 2013, thanks in part to security improvements and the death of Osama bin Laden.
Australia is not the first country to begin accelerating its withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Earlier this year, France said its combat forces would also leave the country by the end of 2013, also a year ahead of schedule.
Many observers fear that other countries could follow suit, leading to a dangerous “race to the exits” as the over decade-long war winds down.
But others are taking a more optimistic stance, praising the quick response of the Afghan security forces for limiting the damage of the most recent insurgent attacks.
On Monday, President Karzai said the attacks were an “intelligence failure for us and especially for NATO” and demanded a full investigation.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks in the strongest possible terms. He noted the Afghan forces' efforts in responding to the attack and called on all parties to do everything possible to protect civilians.
The U.N. Security Council also condemned the attacks, which came at a time of increased tension between coalition and Afghan forces over several incidents, including the accidental burning of Qurans and a deadly attack by a U.S. soldier that killed 17 Afghan villagers.
Kabul attack could spark US-Pakistan tension
By SEBASTIAN ABBOT | Associated Press
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A brazen, 18-hour attack allegedly carried out by Pakistan-based militants on targets in the Afghan capital, including the U.S. Embassy, could spark fresh tension between Washington and Islamabad just as they seemed to be patching up their vital but troubled relationship.
The attack, which ended early Monday, will likely re-ignite anger in Washington over Pakistan's unwillingness to crack down on militants using its territory as a base to target neighboring Afghanistan. But the Obama administration must weigh the impact any public criticism of Pakistan may have on the country's cooperation with it in other areas, including getting supplies to troops in Afghanistan and negotiating peace with insurgents there.
The potential flashpoint comes days after Pakistan's parliament finally approved new guidelines for the country in its relationship with the U.S., a decision that Washington hopes will pave the way for the reopening of supply lines to NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistan closed its border crossings to NATO supplies in November in retaliation for American airstrikes that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. It has taken the government months to navigate the delicate path of resuscitating ties with the U.S., a difficult process in a country where anti-American sentiment is rampant.
Afghan officials on Monday said a gunman arrested in the attacks told authorities the simultaneous strikes in Kabul and three other cities were carried out by the Haqqani network, a militant group allegedly linked to Pakistan's spy agency. The attacks killed 11 people — eight members of the Afghan security forces and three civilians. Thirty-six insurgents were also killed.
The attacks were the most widespread in Kabul since an assault on the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters last September also blamed on the Haqqani network. U.S. officials accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, of helping with that attack, sparking outrage in Islamabad.
An ISI official said Monday that claims the Haqqani network was behind the latest attacks were "nothing but accusations."
"We have no idea who carried out these attacks," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. "Whenever something happens, blame is always laid on our doorstep."
If the role of the Haqqani network is confirmed, it could place the Obama administration in a tricky position. It could face pressure from Congress and Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney to criticize Pakistan. But the U.S. wants Islamabad to reopen the NATO supply lines, and the country's help is seen as key to negotiating a peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The relationship is further complicated by Pakistani opposition to U.S. drone strikes targeting the Haqqani network and other militants along the border. Pakistan's parliament has demanded the attacks stop, but the U.S. has refused to comply.
Pakistan's army, which is considered the most powerful player in the country, has its own incentive to patch up ties: getting American military aid flowing to the country again. The U.S. has given Pakistan billions of dollars in military aid over the past decade, but flows have largely been frozen since the middle of last year after Osama bin Laden was found hiding in a Pakistani garrison town.
The U.S. has not found evidence that senior Pakistani officials knew the whereabouts of the slain al-Qaida chief, but his discovery fueled anger over Pakistan's alleged ties to Islamist militants.
Washington has long demanded that Pakistan target Taliban militants and their allies in the Haqqani network who are using Pakistani territory to launch cross-border attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.
Islamabad has refused, claiming its forces are stretched too thin fighting domestic militants seeking to topple the Pakistani government. But most analysts believe Pakistan is reluctant to crack down on groups with which it has long-standing ties because they could serve as key allies in Afghanistan after foreign troops withdraw, especially to counter the influence of its archenemy India.
The top U.S. military official at the time of last September's attack in Kabul, now-retired Adm. Mike Mullen, said the Haqqani network "acts as a veritable arm" of Pakistan's spy agency. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs accused Pakistan of supporting and encouraging the attack, which killed 16 Afghans, as well as a massive truck bombing that also occurred in September at a military base in Wardak, Afghanistan, that wounded 77 American soldiers.
Islamabad angrily denied the accusations.
The Pakistani government's ties to the Haqqani network date back to the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Pakistani and U.S. spy agencies supported the group's founder, Jalaluddin Haqqani, in his fight against the Soviets. His group has since become the most feared militant faction battling U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
One of the militants arrested during the latest attacks in Kabul and three other cities has told authorities that the Haqqani network was behind the assaults, Afghan Interior Minister Besmillah Mohammadi said Monday.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid had previously claimed responsibility for the attacks, a common practice for assaults believed to be carried out by the Haqqani network. The groups are closely linked, and Haqqani militants pledge allegiance to Taliban chief Mullah Omar.
A spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, said they were still trying to determine who carried out the attacks.
"A Haqqani connection is a possibility, but still too early to determine for sure," Cummings said.
___
Associated Press writers Chris Brummitt in Islamabad and Rahim Faiez and Deb Riechmann contributed to this report from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Pentagon: Haqqani Network Likely Behind Afghan Attacks
VOA News April 17, 2012
The Pentagon says the Pakistani-based militant Haqqani network was likely behind the coordinated attacks across Afghanistan that claimed the lives of four civilians, 11 Afghan security personnel and 36 insurgents.
Fighting in the Afghan capital and three eastern provinces began Sunday afternoon and ended nearly 18 hours later early Monday.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the multiple assaults on embassies, government buildings and NATO military bases. But both Afghanistan's Interior Ministry and the Pentagon blamed the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network, which is said to operate out of sanctuaries in northwest Pakistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the attacks represented an “intelligence failure for us, and especially for NATO,” and demanded a full investigation.
But NATO and U.S. leaders described the response by Afghan forces as a “sign of progress,” saying the attacks would not affect the plan to gradually withdraw foreign troops from the country and transfer security control to local forces.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard cited that progress on Tuesday when she announced that her country's troops would begin withdrawing from Afghanistan one year earlier than planned. Ms. Gillard said – thanks to the success of the Afghan forces – most of her country's 1,550 troops there would return home by the end of 2013.
Australia had previously planned to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, when all foreign combat troops are scheduled to leave the country. NATO and Afghan officials continue to work on a long-term strategic agreement defining the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan following that date.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the Afghan attacks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar in a telephone call Monday. The State Department said Clinton underscored the “shared responsibility for robust action” by the United States, NATO, Afghanistan and Pakistan to confront militants.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks in the strongest possible terms. He noted the Afghan forces' efforts in responding to the attack and called on all parties to do everything possible to protect civilians.
Australia to withdraw troops from Afghanistan earlier than expected
By the CNN Wire Staff April 17, 2012
(CNN) -- Australian troops could begin pulling out of Afghanistan in the coming months and may leave the country almost entirely by the end of next year, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Tuesday.
It's the latest announcement of international troop drawdowns in Afghanistan, a trend that signals the coalition's confidence in the country's fighting forces, the transition to Afghan security control, and the war's growing unpopularity in the countries that contribute troops.
Australia's move would mean that most of the more than 1,500 Australian soldiers in Afghanistan could leave a year earlier than the government had previously suggested.
"We continue to see steady gains in the fight against the Afghan insurgency," Gillard said in a speech in Canberra, suggesting that the strategy of international forces in the country had led to "security gains over the past year and a half."
She highlighted the progress made by Afghan troops, notably in the southern province of Uruzgan, where most of the Australian forces are concentrated.
Gillard said she expected the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to make an announcement in the coming months about beginning the process of putting Afghan troops in charge of security in Uruzgan and other provinces, a transition that should take 12 to 18 months.
"And when this is complete, Australia's commitment in Afghanistan will look very different to that we have today," she said, adding that "the majority of our troops will have returned home."
That timetable puts Australian forces on a quicker withdrawal timetable than Gillard had previously described. In a speech to parliament in November, she said that the transition in Uruzgan might well be completed before the end of 2014.
Australia has been among those nations that have contributed troops, supplies and other resources to the NATO-led military effort in Afghanistan, which began in the weeks after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Gillard made her remarks Tuesday ahead of a summit meeting in Chicago in May. At the meeting, the leaders of countries with troops in Afghanistan will make key decisions about the future of the international coalition's mission there.
Australia's 1,550 troops in Afghanistan are a fraction of the overall number of foreign troops deployed to keep a lid on the country's insurgency more than 10 years after allied airstrikes marked the start of Operation Enduring Freedom.
The number of Australian soldiers killed in the war stands at 32, according to a CNN count.
More than 130,000 troops from 50 countries are currently operating in Afghanistan, according to the International Security and Assistance Force.
The international force has been there since 2001, shortly after the al Qaeda terror attacks on the United States. The campaign was launched to stop the Taliban from providing a safe haven for al Qaeda fighters and to stop the terror group's use of Afghanistan as a base for its future activities.
The United States is the biggest contributor, providing about 90,000 troops, followed by the United Kingdom with 9,500, Germany with 4,800 troops and France with 3,600.
In June 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan would end by 2014. At that time, there were more than 100,000 U.S. troops in the country after a 30,000-strong troop "surge" in December 2009 to help bolster the campaign against the Taliban.
In February, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that the United States hoped to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2013, transitioning primarily to a training role as Afghan forces take more responsibility for security.
France announced in February that it would begin an early drawdown, and its troops would be gone by 2013. Germany plans to pull out some troops next year, with the remainder leaving in 2014.
Britain plans to hand over its security operations to local forces by the end of 2013 before continuing in a "supporting role" from 2014.
Some countries have already pulled out. Canada, which once headed the ISAF mission, removed almost all of its 3,000 soldiers at the end of 2011. Norway also withdrew almost all of its 500 troops during this period.
CNN's Jethro Mullen and Hilary Whiteman contributed to this report.
Afghan Attacks Had Political Rather Than Military Targets
Bloomberg By Viola Gienger Apr 17, 2012
The militants who waged weekend attacks on the Afghan capital, Kabul, and three other cities wielded small arms and rocket-propelled grenades to fire what may have been primarily political ammunition.
The assault, which U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said yesterday was organized by the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, kept Afghan security forces at bay for more than 17 hours and required NATO helicopters to end the standoff. Afghan President Hamid Karzai called it an “intelligence failure for us and especially NATO.”
Other officials cautioned that it is premature to conclude that the Haqqani group was responsible, noting that the Taliban announced the attacks almost as soon as they began. A finding that Haqqani was behind the attacks could further complicate troubled U.S.-Pakistani relations because U.S. intelligence officials think the group has links to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate and has been largely shielded from American drone attacks.
The insurgents’ aim wasn’t to take and hold territory; it was to erode both confidence in Karzai’s government and already waning U.S. and European public and political support for the Afghan war, said U.S. and European military experts and officials.
The attacks signal to Afghan citizens that, when the U.S. and its allies exit as planned at the end of 2014, the Taliban will be back, said Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. ‘Sitting On the Fence’
“That makes the NATO job harder today, keeps the local population sitting on the fence and indicates that all the progress we have achieved in Afghanistan risks coming undone if we stick to politically driven time lines,” Volker said in an e-mail.
The purpose of this attack “may well have been for the insurgents to remind the U.S., NATO, the Afghans and, indeed, their own supporters that they’re still in business,” said former British Army Brigadier Ben Barry, a senior fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. “Just as NATO has been pursuing a strategy of fight and negotiate, it may be that the insurgents are doing the same thing.”
Afghan forces and NATO troops killed 36 guerrillas to end the wave of attacks yesterday that struck Kabul and three provincial capitals in eastern Afghanistan starting the previous day.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks and urged stronger security measures. NATO Summit
“We need to strengthen the capacity of counter-terrorism efforts and of Afghan national security,” Ban said yesterday in Brussels. “These issues will be discussed in detail at the forthcoming NATO summit in Chicago in May.”
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon after the Kabul assault was over, Panetta sought to downplay the attacks’ significance.
“There were no tactical gains here,” Panetta said. “These are isolated attacks that are done for symbolic purposes, and they have not regained any territory.”
The counterattack “was very much an Afghan show,” with the U.S. and France providing helicopter support, said U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking alongside Panetta.
“What does it mean? It means we’re still in a fight,” Dempsey said. “We’ve been talking quite openly about the fact that we’ve got three more fighting seasons” in which to build the Afghan security forces and “diminish the capability” of the Taliban, he said, referring to the plan for removing most coalition forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. All-Time Low
The American public and members of Congress are increasingly less inclined to provide that much time, though.
Public support in the U.S. fell to an all-time low of 30 percent saying the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll. Among Republican respondents, 55 percent said it hasn’t been worth the costs, the first time a majority of Republicans gave that response. The poll was taken April 5-8, and the full sample had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Congressional supporters of the Afghan war are concerned that more high-profile attacks that catch the American public’s attention will further weaken support, according to a House Republican aide and a congressional staffer, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Patience is Eroding
Combined with periodic criticism of the U.S. by Karzai and U.S. agreements with him that seem to trade away American military tools, such as night raids by special operations forces, patience in Congress already has eroded considerably, the congressional staffer said.
The trend highlights the need for President Barack Obama to articulate a road map for progress and success in Afghanistan as Congress starts debating funding and war policy for the next fiscal year, the House Republican aide said.
Such attacks are staged “for what we might call psychological operations,” said Seth Jones, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation who goes to Afghanistan regularly for research and has advised the U.S. military.
“If you look at the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, it’s definitely a mixed picture,” Jones said, adding that he has seen coalition and Afghan forces intercept attempted Taliban attacks.
Still, the Taliban continue to control territory in the east, the west and the north of Afghanistan and even parts of the south, Jones said. Testing the Afghans
This year’s fighting season will test the Afghan army and police, said retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane, a member of the advisory Defense Policy Board. The exit of 23,000 U.S. troops this year will remove 40 percent of the force from Kandahar province in the country’s south and two-thirds of the American Marines in neighboring Helmand province, he said.
“We’re turning military operations over to the Afghans with U.S. and NATO in a support role,” Keane said in an interview yesterday. “We will find out if the Afghans can handle it.”
Kabul probably will recover quickly from the latest spate of attacks, Keane said. “We do not have 100,000-plus forces in Afghanistan” to control episodic attacks in Kabul,” he said.
The more urgent and long-term threat is the havens across the border in Pakistan where militants hole up, Keane said.
The sanctuaries in Pakistan are “the most serious threat to the future security of Afghanistan,” Keane said.
“We should begin to target them much as we do al-Qaeda,” he said. “We cannot leave those sanctuaries with the kind of vibrancy they currently have when we pull most of our forces out by 2014. That puts Afghanistan at much too much risk.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net
Intelligence is Never a Guarantee: Nato Responds to Karzai
TOLOnews.com Monday, 16 April 2012
Nato's chief responded to Afghan President Hamid Karzai blaming Sunday's insurgent attacks on the intelligence agencies of Afghanistan "and especially Nato", saying intelligence was never a 100 percent guarantee.
"We do all we can to prevent such attacks in co-ordination with the Afghan security forces and the Afghan intelligence services, but of course you can never give a 100 percent guarantee," Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in an interview with TOLOnews Monday.
Karzai called for a "full investigation" into Sunday's events, describing the terrorists' "infiltration" as an "intelligence failure for us and especially Nato" in his first statement since insurgents attacked main areas of the country's capital and three other provinces on Sunday afternoon.
Rasmussen said the "blame game" did not help the situation when asked by TOLOnews about Karzai's comments.
"I think we are in this together. We should help each other," he said.
Karzai condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms" during his regular Cabinet meeting on Monday, according to his press office, and praised the Afghan security forces for their valour in repelling the attack.
"Afghan security forces proudly displayed their ability which was itself an assurance to the people that they are capable of protecting their country," he said.
He also praised the security forces for "the caution and the care they exercised" in preventing any further harm to civilians and for a "relatively quick control of the situation".
Rasmussen also praised the Afghan forces for how they dealt with the situation.
"When such attacks actually happen, it's good to see that the Afghan security forces can take action in such an excellent manner," he said.
The Presidential office said that across the four provinces - Kabul, Nangarhar, Logar and Paktia - 4 civilians and 11 members of the Afghans security forces were killed, while 32 civilians and nearly 40 security personnel were injured.
Sunday's battle saw three main areas of Afghanistan's capital Kabul targeted by insurgents who were heavily armed and organised.
It took 18 hours for security forces to end the clashes in the capital, eventually requiring Isaf helicopter gunships to flush the insurgents out from their "bases" - three half-constructed buildings close to Western embassies, and government and security facilities.
As many as 36 terrorists were killed in all four provinces, and one insurgent was captured alive, Karzai's office said.
Karzai said he was deeply saddened by the events and offered his condolences to the families of the victims, and prayed for a quick recovery of the wounded.
Afghanistan: overinterpreting the Kabul attack
A coordinated attack in the heart of Kabul - which coincided with attacks in three other provinces - isn't a good thing. But sign of imminent defeat or victory? Hardly.
By Dan Murphy, Staff writer April 17, 2012 The Christian Science Monitor
The simple fact was that Kabul was hit by a coordinated attack, probably by the Haqqani Network (though the Taliban were happy to take credit) on Sunday. The attacks in Kabul and in Nangarhar, Paktia, and Logar provinces ended in defeat for the assailants. Of 37 attackers in Kabul, 36 were killed and one captured, at the cost of 11 Afghan soldiers' deaths and four civilians.
What it means is another thing.
On balance, the answer is "not much." Sure, there was overheated handwringing in some quarters. A Reuters report speculated that the day-long attack might have the same effect on US public opinion as the months-long Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968, which saw assaults on dozens of cities and the bloodiest year of the war for US troops, with over 10,000 killed by June (no Americans died in Sunday's attack).
On the other side was Gen. John Allen, commander of international troops in Afghanistan, who spun the attack as evidence of insurgent weakness. "The very fact that the enemy chose these particular targets speaks volumes about where we are in this campaign and the degree to which we have advanced the very things the enemy fears the most – a sovereign Afghanistan responsive to its people and an enduring commitment by the international community. Each attack was meant to send a message: that legitimate governance and Afghan sovereignty are in peril. The ANSF response itself is proof enough of that folly."
The gap between these points of view is a reminder that the war in Afghanistan is a war of perceptions now.
For US officers and supporters of the war, the task is to send a message of steady progress that just a little more commitment can cement. For the Taliban and other insurgent groups, it's to send a message of unhindered ability to strike. On both sides, the arguments over the insurgency's strength or weakness also feeds directly into proposed peace talks with the Taliban. The stronger they are, or can at least make themselves to look, the better their bargaining position (the talks are currently on hold).
But the reality is that we know very little today that we didn't know last week. Afghanistan remains a dangerous place, with President Hamid Karzai, the man installed as Afghanistan's leader by international forces, still a very uncertain call. President Karzai called the Kabul attack an "intelligence failure for us and especially NATO."
Max Boot, a conservative commentator who can be relied on to insist the Afghan war (or any US war, really) is going well, maintained his record with a piece for Commentary magazine in which he portrays the attacks as good news.
"For all the headlines about the capital city being “rocked” by gunfire and explosions, the impact of the insurgent attacks–most likely the work of the Haqqani Network, not the Taliban per se–was negligible," he writes. "I visited the capital two weeks ago and found, as I have previously noted, that the streets are thronged with people: hardly the sign of a city under siege. I remember Baghdad in the dark days of 2006-2007 when entire neighborhoods were ghost towns. There is nothing like that going on in Kabul..... If this is the best the Haqqanis could do for a comeback, their efforts are indicative of the growing weakness of the insurgency and the growing strength of the security forces."
He goes on to caveat his position by saying: "that is not to say that a positive outcome in Afghanistan is inevitable–it is anything but. However, it does indicate that if we lose, it will be because of our ardent desire to pull out–not because the Taliban have the capacity to evict us or to defeat our Afghan allies."
Well, I lived in Baghdad during the "dark days" and while my experience of Afghanistan is far more limited (a one-month visit in 2010) what I can say is that the two should not be compared. Baghdad was then in the grips of a vicious sectarian civil war that burned in the presence of tens of thousands of US troops. The flames eventually cooled, with whole neighborhoods stripped of their Sunni inhabitants, or vice-versa. I remember the frequent statements from the US government and military that individual insurgent attacks were signs of "desperation" on the part of the attackers.
The Afghan conflict is very different, the Afghan people very different from the Iraqis. Kabul has generally been an oasis throughout 10 years of war. One reason the city's population has swelled (it's tripled since 2001, to about 5 million now) is because it's far safer than much of the rest of Afghanistan. So what the attacks demonstrated was that one of the safest places in the country, where billions have been spent on economic development and training of Afghan security forces, can still be touched.
Most analysts of Afghanistan are most worried about the future and whether the center around Karzai will hold in the face of the inevitable drawdown of US forces. Their concerns don't focus on a successful Taliban march on a capital filled with people who recall the Taliban reign with horror, but on the chances that the military could splinter along the ethnic lines that drove the Taliban civil war after the Soviet Union's departure, with warlords running their own enclaves.
The Kabul-based blogger at "It's Always Sunni in Kabul," has an informed take that occupies the sensible middle ground. Yes, Afghan forces performed well (good news). But no, this was not ANSF's success alone: US Blackhawks fired on some of the attackers in the capital, and ISAF advisers were there with Afghan forces almost every step of the way, "advising." This doesn't mean Afghan troops aren't getting better, just that this performance isn't a meaningful data point on how they'd do on their own.
He agrees with Mr. Boot (and most everyone else) that this was not a tactical success for the attackers by any stretch. They were quickly pinned down and surrounded and all eventually killed or captured.
But the Afghan war is one of perceptions. The Taliban (and Haqqani) strategy, such as it is, is to keep reminding everyone that they're still capable of inflicting damage after 10 years of being hunted by the most capable military on the globe. That's heartening to their supporters, and something to frighten Afghans who don't support them about their future. As the blogger writes:
Kabul is supposed to be the most secure city in Afghanistan, and once again, some insurgent group managed to stockpile weapons and supplies in a half-constructed building at the edge of the diplomatic area here in Kabul and light the city up for hours at a time. If the message is: “We can get you anywhere,” message sent. Just, once they get there, they don’t tend to accomplish much. This speaks to increasing levels of proficiency by the ANSF in their response to the situation, but also to the lack of quality intel/planning to make sure these kinds of events do not happen again. If the playbook had changed dramatically from the events of September of 2011, then those things happen, but in this case it’s almost identical. So someone’s making it very clear that the government of Afghanistan really can’t stop them from doing what they want to do.
Thieving politicians imperil Afghanistan
Financial Times By Matthew Green Global Insight April 16, 2012
Islamabad - Not content to stand by as insurgents strafed the parliament in Kabul at the weekend, one MP commandeered a machinegun from a guard, scrambled on to a rooftop and began to fire back. “Parliament is my house, and the house of the nation,” said Mohammad Naeem Lalai Hamidzai. “It is my duty to defend my house from my enemies.”
Such have-a-go patriotism might give pause to those who see only a bleak future for Afghanistan. Yet Mr Hamidzai’s enthusiasm for the fray was also a reminder that violence is never far from the edge of Afghan politics.
As the US and its allies begin to withdraw the bulk of their troops, attacks such as Sunday’s raids in Kabul are likely to dominate the news agenda in the west.
Yet the most insidious threat to Afghanistan’s future is not posed by teams of brainwashed young men in search of martyrdom, but by the kleptocratic political order that has sprouted in the decade since the US invasion.
Unless Afghanistan’s allies start to ask harder questions about how the country is governed, then the handover to Afghan forces in 2014 will be the starting gun for another phase of bloodshed.
Debate in the wake of the latest attacks has followed familiar contours: Will Afghan security forces be ready? How long will western voters bankroll the campaign? Will the Taliban talk?
The spectacle of suicide squads infiltrating layers of security around Kabul to fire rockets at embassies and military bases does not bode well on any of these points.
Yet the discussion risks obscuring the most fundamental issue: Is the Afghan political establishment fit for purpose? The answer may well be No. Without sweeping reform, the fighting will go on.
The weekend attacks were designed to convince Afghans that their government is too weak to protect them. After years of corruption and cronyism under the administration of Hamid Karzai, the president, few need such persuasion. Though there is widespread support in Kabul for people serving in the Afghan army and police, there is much less respect for the government they are fighting to uphold.
The fact the insurgents succeeded mainly in killing themselves (36 died while security forces suffered 11 dead) is less significant than the fear they inspired. The virulence of protests that erupted in February after copies of the Koran were burned at a US base exposed the tension simmering in much of the country. With nobody sure how many US troops will stay after 2014, old civil war factions are rearming. Ethnic faultlines are deepening.
The sense of uncertainty grew last week when Mr Karzai said presidential elections might be held in 2013 – a year early. The thinking is that it may be better to stage them before too many more foreign troops have left. If the blatant rigging of the 2009 presidential race is any guide, they will be unlikely to address the disenfranchisement afflicting much of the population. In a measure of the mistrust with which Mr Karzai is viewed by some critics, some Afghans are even convinced he ordered Sunday’s attack to serve some Machiavellian purpose.
With the US pinning its hopes on striking a deal with the Taliban, Mr Karzai’s government may simply lack the legitimacy needed to guarantee any form of accord. As the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, warned last month, a peace process comprised primarily of a carve-up of power between unsavoury elites could trigger worse violence.
The US and its allies have long been guilty of placing far more weight on the military wing of their campaign than on fostering Afghan governance. It is time to reverse the imbalance. Perhaps power needs to be devolved to provinces to foster accountability; certainly more needs to be done to train civil servants and tackle an entrenched culture of bribery and embezzlement. Unless a real attempt is made to shut down the drivers of 30 years of conflict, 2014 may be one more milestone on a path of perpetual war.
Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in anti-education attack
By Mohammad Hamid
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - About 150 Afghan schoolgirls were poisoned on Tuesday after drinking contaminated water at a high school in the country's north, officials said, blaming it on conservative radicals opposed to female education.
Since the 2001 toppling of the Taliban, which banned education for women and girls, females have returned to schools, especially in Kabul.
But periodic attacks still occur against girls, teachers and their school buildings, usually in the more conservative south and east of the country, from where the Taliban insurgency draws most support.
"We are 100 percent sure that the water they drunk inside their classes was poisoned. This is either the work of those who are against girls' education or irresponsible armed individuals," said Jan Mohammad Nabizada, a spokesman for education department in northern Takhar province.
Some of the 150 girls, who suffered from headaches and vomiting, were in critical condition, while others were able to go home after treatment in hospital, the officials said.
They said they knew the water had been poisoned because a larger tank used to fill the affected water jugs was not contaminated.
"This is not a natural illness. It's an intentional act to poison schoolgirls," said Haffizullah Safi, head of Takhar's public health department.
None of the officials blamed any particular group for the attack, fearing retribution from anyone named.
The Afghan government said last year that the Taliban, which has been trying to adopt a more moderate face to advance exploratory peace talks, had dropped its opposition to female education.
But the insurgency has never stated that explicitly and in the past acid has been thrown in the faces of women and girls by hardline Islamists while walking to school.
Education for women was outlawed by the Taliban government from 1996-2001 as un-Islamic.
(Reporting by Mohammad Hamid; Writing by Jack Kimball, Editing by Rob Taylor and Sanjeev Miglani)
Instant justice, Afghan-army style, fails to win over locals
By Nick Paton Walsh, CNN April 16, 2012
Qadem Khel, Ghazni province, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The day begins with a count of the necessities for a joint operation with Afghan troops -- among them 85 halal MREs (Meals Ready To Eat). Around the tactical headquarters, soldiers of the 172nd Infantry get a taste of home before setting off into the wilder fringes of lawless Ghazni province.
There's baseball televised from Fenway Park, replete with a rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner" by Rose Newton, aged 11. One lieutenant has his mortgage approved by email; another exclaims how he just can't wait to go home.
This is FOB "4 Corners." And tonight these soldiers plan an air assault into an area called Qadem Khel, where the Taliban is basically the law. Neither this unit, nor other U.S. forces, will get to do many more of these as the drawdown of Allied forces gathers pace.
Adding an air of anticipation to the mission, the men at 4 Corners believe two of the men they most want to take off the battlefield are in the area. They have a photo of one of them, with and without a heavy mop of hair. The helicopters arrive and, with the assistance of night vision for the Americans and some careful footwork by their Afghan colleagues, they climb aboard.
The helicopters touch down in a huge expanse of desert. The troops huddle in the coldest moment before the dawn, and then begin their approach.
The mantra now is "Afghan-led," part of NATO's bid to make this an Afghan-only war. The Afghan soldiers are mostly from the north or northeast of Afghanistan and to many locals they are strangers almost as foreign as the Americans. They lead the way, set the tempo. And, for a mission that many of the Americans thought might have been one for special forces, that tempo is pretty relaxed.
In large numbers, in daylight, they amble into town. They're allowed into most homes; would you say "no" when four dozen armed men arrive at your door? When they meet a locked door, the Afghans seem to turn away, particularly when a pocket knife can't prise the lock.
It is remarkable to watch, and their casual attitude is contagious to the Americans, who are soon also ambling, in between the occasional grimace at how this operation is being led. Soon it becomes clear that their prey has probably fled unless they're remarkably lazy.
Sergeant Richard Snader admits that "once they hear the birds they probably leave immediately."
But still they carry on, house to house, the first contact this village has had with the Afghan government in over six months. At times, it has an almost random feeling. Two boys are caught riding banned motorbikes. One Afghan soldier considers shooting the bike's fuel tank as a punishment, but decides that's probably too dangerous even for him. So the soldiers let the tires down, and then the more sheepish biker is given a couple of heavy slaps around the head. Instant justice, Afghan-army style. Far from western jurisprudence, but in rural Afghanistan, this is often what passes as the law.
As they pass through the village, locals seem bemused, friendly. As though visited by aliens, rather than caught in a war. This is not a place where NATO has power, or Afghanistan's government even exists. Captain Chris Barlow says he's been told by locals that when the Taliban lay booby traps for NATO, they issue a warning to villagers over the mosque loudspeakers. This is their form of law. Barlow, with eight weeks left in his tour, accepts it's likely American forces won't return to Qadam Khel soon.
Eventually, the insurgency makes an appearance. The Americans are searching a house where weapons had been found previously when shots are fired. There is confusion and the Afghan army seem to relish the fight ahead. U.S. airpower arrives quickly, with one of the heavily armed A10 warplanes buzzing the likely insurgent position. But after 20 minutes, it's clear children and women are near the insurgent firing position. The Americans dispense with any idea of an assault.
They head back into the village, and at dark move again -- across wide open fields to the landing zone. A whirr of Chinook blades and a cloud of dust later, the Americans are gone, perhaps for the last time.
US in denial: Watershed in Afghanistan
Diplomatic statements have ignored the strategic and psychological battles won by the Taliban.
Aljazeera By Marwan Bishara, is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera. 16 Apr 2012
Doha, Qatar - In one of the first official US reactions to the attacks against Kabul and cities across eastern Afghanistan last weekend, Ryan C Crocker, US ambassador to Afghanistan, said: "The Taliban are really good at issuing statements, Less good at actually fighting."
And after accusing (or crediting) the Haqqani network based in the tribal area within the Afghan-Pakistan borders' region, the ambassador added: "Frankly I don't think the Taliban is good enough."
These declarations have come after the insurgents targeted sensitive installations in the country's most important population centres - including at least three prominent targets in Kabul - in one of the most coordinated and pronounced assaults since the occupation began 11 years ago.
The US government has clearly chosen to shift the blame across the border to Pakistan, and to put a brave face on its humiliation - by downplaying what the Taliban are calling the beginning of their "spring offensive".
The US State Department called the attacks "cowardly", and praised the "swift and effective response" of Afghan forces.
Furthermore, in the same breath, the top US commander in Afghanistan, General John R Allen, praised the Afghan forces who "were on scene immediately, well-led and well-coordinated ... and [who] largely kept the insurgents contained".
A quick survey of the Obama administration's media strategy, and its swift and well-coordinated official declarations, shows that perhaps it is Washington, not the Taliban, that is pretty good at "issuing statements".
Asymmetric warfare
If taken seriously, I mean not as media newspeak, Ambassador Crocker's Clausewitzian evaluation of the Taliban and the state of play in Afghanistan belongs to the conventional wars of a past era.
However, in their unconventional war against the US-led occupation of their country, the Taliban insurgency isn't expected either to fight face-to-face or "fairly" against the superior firepower of the United States and its allies.
To characterise the Taliban attacks as "cowardly" is frankly mind-boggling. And I am not referring merely to the fact that the insurgents knew too well that they wouldn't come out alive from the attack, or that part of the operations involved suicide attacks on NATO facilities.
Like them or hate them, the Taliban fight against the US and Afghan forces has been effective and, yes, impressive. It will be taught in the US and other war academies for decades to come.
As Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith reported from Kabul, the civilian casualties from the most recent attacks were relatively low - considering the three suicide bombings. Instead the Taliban were attempting to send a spectacular message: if they want to, they can strike fear and panic right in the heart of the capital.
Furthermore, in asymmetrical warfare, statements can have a more powerful psychological effect than raw firepower.
The Taliban's claim that their well-planned and sophisticated operation was only the beginning of a spring offensive has probably resulted in many soiled undergarments across the country - they have generally proven credible in their pronouncements of war, certainly more credible than the predictions of the occupying forces.
The US-led war and occupation of Afghanistan has already gone on longer than the Vietnam War, and longer than the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Washington's war pundits assured Americans that the US occupation would be nothing like that of the Soviets, or that the British during their first, second and third Afghanistan wars in the 19th and 20th centuries. They have also proven dead wrong.
So have their assurances that this would be a cakewalk for the US "liberators", easily fending off "the oppressive Taliban" proved to be nonsensical.
According to news reports, the number of attacks across the country has increased considerably in recent weeks, as fighters return from Pakistan.
Clearly, the recent cowardly US soldier killing spree against Afghan civilians in their homes has helped shore up support against the US occupation.
And now that the Obama administration speaks openly about withdrawing combat troops by 2014, there is little doubt that many Afghans, including more than a few in the newly trained national army, will find their place among those staying - the Taliban.
What's their secret?
Is there something special about Afghanistan's geography or culture that no foreign superpower has been able to win a war there or secure an occupation? Perhaps.
Is it the large support given to the Taliban from the Pashtuns, the largest ethnic segment of Afghan society? Is the failure of the corrupt Karzai government to govern - or to provide basic services to the people - to blame? Is it the high civilian casualties in the war at the hands of NATO forces? These factors most probably add to the mix.
It is nonetheless amazing how a people who have suffered so much since Afghanistan became a republic four decades ago could still go on fighting.
The 1970s featured internal strife among communists, Islamists and others, while the 1980s witnessed horrific Soviet occupation and cynical Cold War manipulations.
Soon the vacuum left by the Cold War in the 1990s was filled by regional powers - who helped widen and deepen the national divides. And in the past decade, Afghanistan has become the main battlefield of the US "global war on terror".
And yet the Afghans, notably the Taliban and their allies, have been unrelenting in their slow and calculated resistance against the "foreign and Western occupiers" who continue to visit havoc upon their homeland.
The Taliban's endurance could be also explained by any number of factors, extending from Pakistani support to religious beliefs - and permitting and/or taxing the drug trade.
Such cases of relying on regional support and unsavoury practices to sustain and subsidise resistance have been documented from Latin American to Africa and Asia.
But what is special about the Taliban is, in some ways, similar to the reasons behind the popularity of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
They reject all compromises with the occupiers, and cast away their values, laws and ideas. They don't heed pleas from Western dominated international institutions, nor fraternise with their enemies' "peace camps".
They believe, and are tightly united, in their cause of freedom from foreign occupation - denying NATO much actionable intelligence against the fighting group. The Taliban has also been consistently sticking to this one sacred goal, while dismissing any diplomatic formulae that are not conditional on withdrawal - first and foremost.
The Afghans obviously know by experience, wit or instinct what the encyclopaedic West continues to ignore: No foreign power, mighty as it may be, has succeeded in the past century to overcome the indigenous will of the people for freedom from foreign rule.
Marwan Bishara is Al Jazeera's senior political analyst and the author of The Invisible Arab: The promise and peril of the Arab revolutions, now available in bookstores.
Follow him on Twitter: @marwanbishara
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Amir Shah and Heidi Vogt Associated Press via The Washington Times Tuesday, April 17, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that the long-term partnership agreement being negotiated with the United States should specify exactly how much money the U.S. will give to Afghan forces in coming years.
The demand could place a new hurdle in front of the key pact just as negotiators appeared to be reaching a consensus.
The so-called strategic partnership agreement is essential to the U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan. American officials hope it will both map the course for U.S. forces after the majority of combat troops leave in 2014 and give the Afghan people confidence that they are not about to be abandoned by their largest international ally.
But negotiations have dragged on for months as Mr. Karzai has asked for specific commitments from the U.S. before signing. The biggest of these demands — agreements on the transfer of authority over detainees and the conduct of night raids — have been resolved in recent weeks in separate memorandums of understanding.
Both Afghan and U.S. officials are pushing to sign the repeatedly delayed deal before a NATO conference in Chicago in May.
But Mr. Karzai said Tuesday that the U.S. needs to go further than vague pledges to continue to fund the Afghan army and police.
"They are providing us money — there is no doubt about that — but they say they will not mention the amount in the agreement. We say: Give us less, but mention it in the agreement. Give us less, but write it down," Mr. Karzai said in a speech in the capital marking the anniversary of the birth of a revered Afghan writer.
U.S. officials have said that they expect to pay about $4 billion a year to fund Afghan forces. Mr. Karzai said he wants a written commitment of at least $2 billion. He said he would rather have a firm commitment to a lower figure than a verbal promise for a higher one.
"You have to mention 'at least' in there," Mr. Karzai said.
The comments also suggest that Mr. Karzai himself may be growing increasingly worried that the U.S. will not make good on funding pledges once there are drastically fewer American soldiers risking their lives on Afghan soil.
The U.S. already has greatly reduced its funding for development programs in Afghanistan and the past year has seen a number of NATO nations trying to speed their exits from the country even as they continue to promise to support the Afghan government. On Tuesday, Australia because the latest ally to speed up its timetable as Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Australia expects to pull out troops nearly a year earlier than planned.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul declined to comment on the demand.
"We're not going to comment on ongoing negotiations," Gavin Sundwall, the spokesman, said.
U.S. officials have said previously that they expect the document to address economic and development support for Afghanistan, but it is unclear if the American negotiators would have the legal authority to make a specific financial commitment.
Much of the contention over the strategic partnership deal with the U.S. appears to come from two very different opinions from the two governments about what the goals of the document should be. U.S. officials involved in the negotiations have said that it is not meant to set forth exact rules, but to establish a framework between the two countries to continue to work together for years to come.
The Afghan government, meanwhile, repeatedly has demanded concrete commitments and rules for U.S. forces. It sees the document as necessary to establish Afghan sovereignty after years of letting policy be set by the international allies who bankroll the government.
If the strategic partnership is not signed by the NATO summit May 20-21, it would not necessarily derail negotiations, but it would strike another blow to a U.S.-Afghan alliance that has been on edge for much of this year.
Afghan President Wants US to Guarantee $2 Billion Annually
Brian Padden April 17, 2012 VOA
Islamabad, Pakistan - A day after Afghan forces with NATO support fought off multiple attacks by Taliban militants, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is focusing on ensuring international financial support after most Western combat troops leave in 2014. In a speech Tuesday, Karzai said he wants the U.S. to guarantee at least $2 billion annually to fund the Afghan army and police under a strategic partnership agreement now being negotiated between the two countries.
Both the U.S. and Afghanistan want a strategic partnership agreement to demonstrate America's commitment to stay engaged in Afghanistan after 2014. Karzai said negotiations have stalled over whether or not to include in the agreement a minimum of $2 billion dollars a year to fund the Afghan army and police.
Karzai said the U.S. side indicated that in the future it may want to increase the amount of funding, but that he wants the strategic partnership document to include a written guarantee that Washington will provide at least $2 billion to Afghan security forces annually.
U.S. officials said they could pay up to about $4 billion a year to fund Afghan forces. But they also said the strategic pact is not meant to be a detailed aid package, but rather a broad framework committing both sides to continue to work together for years to come.
Sunday's attacks by Taliban militants in the Afghan capital and in the eastern Nangarhar, Logar and Paktia provinces have raised concerns about the readiness of Afghan forces to maintain security without U.S. and NATO support.
U.S. officials are pushing to sign the deal before a NATO conference in Chicago in May.
But negotiations over the long-term pact with the U.S. have dragged on for months as Karzai has asked for specific commitments before signing. The biggest of these demands - that the U.S. transfer authority over detainees and night raids to the Afghan government - have been recently resolved.
The Afghan president's comments suggest a growing concern on the Afghan side that the U.S. will not follow through on its promises after most American soldiers leave.
The U.S. has already greatly reduced some funding for development programs in Afghanistan, and a number of NATO nations are accelerating their withdrawal timetables. On Tuesday, Australia announced it would to pull out its troops nearly a year earlier than planned.
Q&A: International troops in Afghanistan
By Hilary Whiteman, CNN April 17, 2012
(CNN) -- When Afghan forces repelled a barrage of attacks from insurgents near Kabul's green zone over the weekend it was hailed as proof of how far local security forces had come.
"They were on scene immediately, well-led and well-coordinated," said General John Allen, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
Afghan president Hamid Karzai said it showed the country's forces would be able to defend their country after international forces leave.
Karzai: Afghan forces ready to defend nation
Then on Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced her country would pull its troops out months earlier expected -- by early 2014 -- citing an improvement in the security situation.
"We continue to see steady gains in the fight against the Afghan insurgency," Gillard said, in a speech in Canberra.
Australia plans Afghan exit
Australia's 1,550 troops in Afghanistan are a fraction of the overall number of foreign troops deployed to keep a lid on the country's insurgency more than ten years after allied airstrikes marked the start of Operation Enduring Freedom.
How many international troops are operating in Afghanistan?
More than 130,000 troops from 50 countries are currently operating in Afghanistan, according to the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF).
The United States is the biggest contributor, providing around 90,000 troops, followed by the United Kingdom (9,500), Germany (4,800) and France (3,600).
The international force has been there since 2001, shortly after the al Qaeda attacks on the U.S. on September 11. The campaign was launched to stop the Taliban from providing a safe haven for al Qaeda fighters, and to stop the terror group's use of Afghanistan as a base for its future activities.
How long are they there for?
In June 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan would end by 2014. At that time there were more than 100,000 U.S. troops in the country, following a 30,000-strong troop "surge" in December 2009 to help bolster the campaign against the Taliban.
In February this year, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the U.S. hoped to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2013, transitioning primarily to a training role as Afghan forces take more responsibility for security.
Panetta: Polls won't change Afghan strategy
Some countries have already pulled out of the country. Canada, which once headed the ISAF mission, pulled out almost all of its 3,000 soldiers at the end of 2011. Norway also withdrew almost all of its 500 troops during this period.
France announced in February that it would begin an early draw down, and that all 4,000 of its troops would be gone by 2013. Germany plans to pull out some troops next year, with the remainder leaving in 2014.
Britain, the second-biggest contributor of troops, plans to hand over its security operations to local forces by the end of 2013, before continuing in a "supporting role" from 2014.
How well trained are Afghan security forces?
The Afghan forces who fought off an 18-hour multi-pronged Taliban attack in Kabul earlier this week are some of the best trained in the country, according to analysts. The crisis response group is based in the capital and has received training from U.S. special forces.
Afghan forces repel attacks
"That would be the equal of any other unit of its type in the region," said James Brown, a military associate at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
"It's got it own intelligence assets, which it didn't have three years ago. They've got their own Afghan aviation assets, helicopters, that can respond to these kind of events. So yes, they are getting better at responding to high-profile events in Kabul -- but the Taliban are getting better as well."
This latter point is picked up by other analysts.
"I think there has to be a real question mark over the long-term prospects for Afghanistan," said Andrew Davies, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
"I think there are some reasons to be cautiously optimistic over the ability of Afghan forces. But ultimately the future of Afghanistan will be determined by the factions inside Afghanistan. I think if the last 10 years has shown us anything, then the ability of the outside world to influence the future of Afghanistan in the long term is fairly minimal."
What's next?
Gillard's announcement of Australia's troop draw down precedes an announcement from President Karzai at a summit on Afghanistan in Chicago in May.
The Afghan leader is expected to announce that a third tranche of provinces will be handed back to full Afghan control, including Uruzgan, where most of the Australian troops are based.
A clearer split of financial contributions may also emerge at the summit, with the annual cost of funding the Afghan security forces after 2014 estimated to be $4.1 billion.
"The U.S. will probably pay a big part of that and I think the UK will also chip in," said Brown. "You may not see much from the Europeans. But there might be some funding commitments from Japan," he added.
Sierra Nevada files motion in Afghan aircraft competition
By Andrea Shalal-Esa Tue Apr 17, 2012 1:47am EDT
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado - (Reuters) - Defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corp said on Monday it has filed a court motion to register concerns about the U.S. Air Force's plan to revise the rules of a bungled competition to supply 20 planes to Afghanistan and award a new contract in early 2013.
In the latest legal step stemming from a cancelled purchase that has embarrassed military officials, privately-held Sierra Nevada said the Air Force's corrective action was an overreaction.
An internal investigation found no deliberate misconduct by officials who awarded a $355 million contract to Sierra Nevada and its supplier, Brazilian plane maker Embraer (EMBR3.SA) in December.
The Air Force said on Friday it would issue revised rules for the contract, which was abruptly cancelled after its officials found problems with internal documents while preparing for a lawsuit filed by losing bidder Hawker Beechcraft.
The U.S. Air Force is handling the largely American-funded purchase of the light attack planes, which will be supplied to Afghanistan's fledging air force. Doubts are mounting about the overall readiness of the Afghan military to take charge of security in the country, which suffered heavy, coordinated insurgent attacks on Sunday.
Sierra Nevada said the judge and the companies' attorneys should have access to the Air Force's investigation to determine if the delay was really necessary, or if the air force could simply re-award the deal to Sierra Nevada.
"We need to make sure that the Air Force is not throwing the baby out with the bath water," said company spokeswoman Michelle Erlach, saying that the Air Force appeared determined to "lawsuit proof" the case.
The U.S. Air Force is due to brief both companies on Tuesday about the changes, which will delay the first deliveries of planes by 15 months, a move that has heightened concern about the ability of the Afghan air force to step in as the U.S. withdraws.
Neither U.S. Air Force officials nor Hawker Beechcraft representative could be reached immediately about Sierra Nevada's newest step in the case.
The Air Force has said it could not release the investigation publicly since it contains sensitive company data, but service officials told congressional aides that it found the contract award was decided by an inexperienced team which did not follow established procedures.
Hawker, which is in the middle of a major financial restructuring, has welcomed the chance of another opportunity to win the contract, which initially had options that could have expanded its value to $1 billion. Hawker argues that the air force should also revamp its requirements for the plane.
The case is being closely watched in Brazil, where officials were still smarting from the cancellation of an earlier contract with Lockheed Martin Corp for a reconnaissance plane based on Embraer's ERJ-145 regional jet.
The incident is a setback for Air Force officials who have tried to rebuild the service's procurement reputation after years of reforms triggered by a spate of botched contract decisions, including a deal for tens of billions of dollars for new refueling planes.
"Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta should take a personal interest in seeing that the program is promptly re-awarded to the best offeror," Lexington Institute analyst Loren Thompson wrote in a blog posting for Forbes magazine.
(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
Karzai: Taliban Attacks ‘Prolong Foreign Presence’
VOA News April 17, 2012
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has appealed to the Taliban to stop their attacks, saying renewed violence is only serving to prolong foreign presence in Afghanistan.
President Karzai's comments on Tuesday came a day after an 18-hour insurgent offensive across Afghanistan claimed the lives of four civilians, 11 Afghan security personnel and 36 militants.
Addressing an audience of college students in Kabul, Mr. Karzai said violence by the Taliban does not benefit Islam, Muslims or the Afghan people.
“You did nothing for Islam, you did not work for Afghanistan's independence and you did not work for its people, freedom and development. You worked to prolong a foreign presence.”
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the coordinated assaults on embassies, government buildings and NATO military bases, which ended Monday. But Afghan and U.S. officials blame the Pakistan-based Haqqani network.
The violence comes as NATO foreign and defense ministers prepare to meet Wednesday in Brussels, where they are expected to discuss the planned withdrawal of all of the nearly 130,000 foreign combat troops by the end of 2014. Ministers will lay the groundwork for next month's NATO summit in Chicago.
That plan seemed to take a hit on Tuesday, when Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that her country's troops would begin pulling out of Afghanistan one year earlier than planned.
Ms. Gillard said said most of her country's 1,550 troops would return home by the end of 2013, thanks in part to security improvements and the death of Osama bin Laden.
Australia is not the first country to begin accelerating its withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Earlier this year, France said its combat forces would also leave the country by the end of 2013, also a year ahead of schedule.
Many observers fear that other countries could follow suit, leading to a dangerous “race to the exits” as the over decade-long war winds down.
But others are taking a more optimistic stance, praising the quick response of the Afghan security forces for limiting the damage of the most recent insurgent attacks.
On Monday, President Karzai said the attacks were an “intelligence failure for us and especially for NATO” and demanded a full investigation.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks in the strongest possible terms. He noted the Afghan forces' efforts in responding to the attack and called on all parties to do everything possible to protect civilians.
The U.N. Security Council also condemned the attacks, which came at a time of increased tension between coalition and Afghan forces over several incidents, including the accidental burning of Qurans and a deadly attack by a U.S. soldier that killed 17 Afghan villagers.
Kabul attack could spark US-Pakistan tension
By SEBASTIAN ABBOT | Associated Press
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A brazen, 18-hour attack allegedly carried out by Pakistan-based militants on targets in the Afghan capital, including the U.S. Embassy, could spark fresh tension between Washington and Islamabad just as they seemed to be patching up their vital but troubled relationship.
The attack, which ended early Monday, will likely re-ignite anger in Washington over Pakistan's unwillingness to crack down on militants using its territory as a base to target neighboring Afghanistan. But the Obama administration must weigh the impact any public criticism of Pakistan may have on the country's cooperation with it in other areas, including getting supplies to troops in Afghanistan and negotiating peace with insurgents there.
The potential flashpoint comes days after Pakistan's parliament finally approved new guidelines for the country in its relationship with the U.S., a decision that Washington hopes will pave the way for the reopening of supply lines to NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistan closed its border crossings to NATO supplies in November in retaliation for American airstrikes that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. It has taken the government months to navigate the delicate path of resuscitating ties with the U.S., a difficult process in a country where anti-American sentiment is rampant.
Afghan officials on Monday said a gunman arrested in the attacks told authorities the simultaneous strikes in Kabul and three other cities were carried out by the Haqqani network, a militant group allegedly linked to Pakistan's spy agency. The attacks killed 11 people — eight members of the Afghan security forces and three civilians. Thirty-six insurgents were also killed.
The attacks were the most widespread in Kabul since an assault on the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters last September also blamed on the Haqqani network. U.S. officials accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, of helping with that attack, sparking outrage in Islamabad.
An ISI official said Monday that claims the Haqqani network was behind the latest attacks were "nothing but accusations."
"We have no idea who carried out these attacks," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. "Whenever something happens, blame is always laid on our doorstep."
If the role of the Haqqani network is confirmed, it could place the Obama administration in a tricky position. It could face pressure from Congress and Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney to criticize Pakistan. But the U.S. wants Islamabad to reopen the NATO supply lines, and the country's help is seen as key to negotiating a peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The relationship is further complicated by Pakistani opposition to U.S. drone strikes targeting the Haqqani network and other militants along the border. Pakistan's parliament has demanded the attacks stop, but the U.S. has refused to comply.
Pakistan's army, which is considered the most powerful player in the country, has its own incentive to patch up ties: getting American military aid flowing to the country again. The U.S. has given Pakistan billions of dollars in military aid over the past decade, but flows have largely been frozen since the middle of last year after Osama bin Laden was found hiding in a Pakistani garrison town.
The U.S. has not found evidence that senior Pakistani officials knew the whereabouts of the slain al-Qaida chief, but his discovery fueled anger over Pakistan's alleged ties to Islamist militants.
Washington has long demanded that Pakistan target Taliban militants and their allies in the Haqqani network who are using Pakistani territory to launch cross-border attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.
Islamabad has refused, claiming its forces are stretched too thin fighting domestic militants seeking to topple the Pakistani government. But most analysts believe Pakistan is reluctant to crack down on groups with which it has long-standing ties because they could serve as key allies in Afghanistan after foreign troops withdraw, especially to counter the influence of its archenemy India.
The top U.S. military official at the time of last September's attack in Kabul, now-retired Adm. Mike Mullen, said the Haqqani network "acts as a veritable arm" of Pakistan's spy agency. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs accused Pakistan of supporting and encouraging the attack, which killed 16 Afghans, as well as a massive truck bombing that also occurred in September at a military base in Wardak, Afghanistan, that wounded 77 American soldiers.
Islamabad angrily denied the accusations.
The Pakistani government's ties to the Haqqani network date back to the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Pakistani and U.S. spy agencies supported the group's founder, Jalaluddin Haqqani, in his fight against the Soviets. His group has since become the most feared militant faction battling U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
One of the militants arrested during the latest attacks in Kabul and three other cities has told authorities that the Haqqani network was behind the assaults, Afghan Interior Minister Besmillah Mohammadi said Monday.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid had previously claimed responsibility for the attacks, a common practice for assaults believed to be carried out by the Haqqani network. The groups are closely linked, and Haqqani militants pledge allegiance to Taliban chief Mullah Omar.
A spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, said they were still trying to determine who carried out the attacks.
"A Haqqani connection is a possibility, but still too early to determine for sure," Cummings said.
___
Associated Press writers Chris Brummitt in Islamabad and Rahim Faiez and Deb Riechmann contributed to this report from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Pentagon: Haqqani Network Likely Behind Afghan Attacks
VOA News April 17, 2012
The Pentagon says the Pakistani-based militant Haqqani network was likely behind the coordinated attacks across Afghanistan that claimed the lives of four civilians, 11 Afghan security personnel and 36 insurgents.
Fighting in the Afghan capital and three eastern provinces began Sunday afternoon and ended nearly 18 hours later early Monday.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the multiple assaults on embassies, government buildings and NATO military bases. But both Afghanistan's Interior Ministry and the Pentagon blamed the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network, which is said to operate out of sanctuaries in northwest Pakistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the attacks represented an “intelligence failure for us, and especially for NATO,” and demanded a full investigation.
But NATO and U.S. leaders described the response by Afghan forces as a “sign of progress,” saying the attacks would not affect the plan to gradually withdraw foreign troops from the country and transfer security control to local forces.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard cited that progress on Tuesday when she announced that her country's troops would begin withdrawing from Afghanistan one year earlier than planned. Ms. Gillard said – thanks to the success of the Afghan forces – most of her country's 1,550 troops there would return home by the end of 2013.
Australia had previously planned to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, when all foreign combat troops are scheduled to leave the country. NATO and Afghan officials continue to work on a long-term strategic agreement defining the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan following that date.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the Afghan attacks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar in a telephone call Monday. The State Department said Clinton underscored the “shared responsibility for robust action” by the United States, NATO, Afghanistan and Pakistan to confront militants.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks in the strongest possible terms. He noted the Afghan forces' efforts in responding to the attack and called on all parties to do everything possible to protect civilians.
Australia to withdraw troops from Afghanistan earlier than expected
By the CNN Wire Staff April 17, 2012
(CNN) -- Australian troops could begin pulling out of Afghanistan in the coming months and may leave the country almost entirely by the end of next year, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Tuesday.
It's the latest announcement of international troop drawdowns in Afghanistan, a trend that signals the coalition's confidence in the country's fighting forces, the transition to Afghan security control, and the war's growing unpopularity in the countries that contribute troops.
Australia's move would mean that most of the more than 1,500 Australian soldiers in Afghanistan could leave a year earlier than the government had previously suggested.
"We continue to see steady gains in the fight against the Afghan insurgency," Gillard said in a speech in Canberra, suggesting that the strategy of international forces in the country had led to "security gains over the past year and a half."
She highlighted the progress made by Afghan troops, notably in the southern province of Uruzgan, where most of the Australian forces are concentrated.
Gillard said she expected the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to make an announcement in the coming months about beginning the process of putting Afghan troops in charge of security in Uruzgan and other provinces, a transition that should take 12 to 18 months.
"And when this is complete, Australia's commitment in Afghanistan will look very different to that we have today," she said, adding that "the majority of our troops will have returned home."
That timetable puts Australian forces on a quicker withdrawal timetable than Gillard had previously described. In a speech to parliament in November, she said that the transition in Uruzgan might well be completed before the end of 2014.
Australia has been among those nations that have contributed troops, supplies and other resources to the NATO-led military effort in Afghanistan, which began in the weeks after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Gillard made her remarks Tuesday ahead of a summit meeting in Chicago in May. At the meeting, the leaders of countries with troops in Afghanistan will make key decisions about the future of the international coalition's mission there.
Australia's 1,550 troops in Afghanistan are a fraction of the overall number of foreign troops deployed to keep a lid on the country's insurgency more than 10 years after allied airstrikes marked the start of Operation Enduring Freedom.
The number of Australian soldiers killed in the war stands at 32, according to a CNN count.
More than 130,000 troops from 50 countries are currently operating in Afghanistan, according to the International Security and Assistance Force.
The international force has been there since 2001, shortly after the al Qaeda terror attacks on the United States. The campaign was launched to stop the Taliban from providing a safe haven for al Qaeda fighters and to stop the terror group's use of Afghanistan as a base for its future activities.
The United States is the biggest contributor, providing about 90,000 troops, followed by the United Kingdom with 9,500, Germany with 4,800 troops and France with 3,600.
In June 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan would end by 2014. At that time, there were more than 100,000 U.S. troops in the country after a 30,000-strong troop "surge" in December 2009 to help bolster the campaign against the Taliban.
In February, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that the United States hoped to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2013, transitioning primarily to a training role as Afghan forces take more responsibility for security.
France announced in February that it would begin an early drawdown, and its troops would be gone by 2013. Germany plans to pull out some troops next year, with the remainder leaving in 2014.
Britain plans to hand over its security operations to local forces by the end of 2013 before continuing in a "supporting role" from 2014.
Some countries have already pulled out. Canada, which once headed the ISAF mission, removed almost all of its 3,000 soldiers at the end of 2011. Norway also withdrew almost all of its 500 troops during this period.
CNN's Jethro Mullen and Hilary Whiteman contributed to this report.
Afghan Attacks Had Political Rather Than Military Targets
Bloomberg By Viola Gienger Apr 17, 2012
The militants who waged weekend attacks on the Afghan capital, Kabul, and three other cities wielded small arms and rocket-propelled grenades to fire what may have been primarily political ammunition.
The assault, which U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said yesterday was organized by the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, kept Afghan security forces at bay for more than 17 hours and required NATO helicopters to end the standoff. Afghan President Hamid Karzai called it an “intelligence failure for us and especially NATO.”
Other officials cautioned that it is premature to conclude that the Haqqani group was responsible, noting that the Taliban announced the attacks almost as soon as they began. A finding that Haqqani was behind the attacks could further complicate troubled U.S.-Pakistani relations because U.S. intelligence officials think the group has links to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate and has been largely shielded from American drone attacks.
The insurgents’ aim wasn’t to take and hold territory; it was to erode both confidence in Karzai’s government and already waning U.S. and European public and political support for the Afghan war, said U.S. and European military experts and officials.
The attacks signal to Afghan citizens that, when the U.S. and its allies exit as planned at the end of 2014, the Taliban will be back, said Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. ‘Sitting On the Fence’
“That makes the NATO job harder today, keeps the local population sitting on the fence and indicates that all the progress we have achieved in Afghanistan risks coming undone if we stick to politically driven time lines,” Volker said in an e-mail.
The purpose of this attack “may well have been for the insurgents to remind the U.S., NATO, the Afghans and, indeed, their own supporters that they’re still in business,” said former British Army Brigadier Ben Barry, a senior fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. “Just as NATO has been pursuing a strategy of fight and negotiate, it may be that the insurgents are doing the same thing.”
Afghan forces and NATO troops killed 36 guerrillas to end the wave of attacks yesterday that struck Kabul and three provincial capitals in eastern Afghanistan starting the previous day.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks and urged stronger security measures. NATO Summit
“We need to strengthen the capacity of counter-terrorism efforts and of Afghan national security,” Ban said yesterday in Brussels. “These issues will be discussed in detail at the forthcoming NATO summit in Chicago in May.”
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon after the Kabul assault was over, Panetta sought to downplay the attacks’ significance.
“There were no tactical gains here,” Panetta said. “These are isolated attacks that are done for symbolic purposes, and they have not regained any territory.”
The counterattack “was very much an Afghan show,” with the U.S. and France providing helicopter support, said U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking alongside Panetta.
“What does it mean? It means we’re still in a fight,” Dempsey said. “We’ve been talking quite openly about the fact that we’ve got three more fighting seasons” in which to build the Afghan security forces and “diminish the capability” of the Taliban, he said, referring to the plan for removing most coalition forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. All-Time Low
The American public and members of Congress are increasingly less inclined to provide that much time, though.
Public support in the U.S. fell to an all-time low of 30 percent saying the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll. Among Republican respondents, 55 percent said it hasn’t been worth the costs, the first time a majority of Republicans gave that response. The poll was taken April 5-8, and the full sample had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Congressional supporters of the Afghan war are concerned that more high-profile attacks that catch the American public’s attention will further weaken support, according to a House Republican aide and a congressional staffer, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Patience is Eroding
Combined with periodic criticism of the U.S. by Karzai and U.S. agreements with him that seem to trade away American military tools, such as night raids by special operations forces, patience in Congress already has eroded considerably, the congressional staffer said.
The trend highlights the need for President Barack Obama to articulate a road map for progress and success in Afghanistan as Congress starts debating funding and war policy for the next fiscal year, the House Republican aide said.
Such attacks are staged “for what we might call psychological operations,” said Seth Jones, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation who goes to Afghanistan regularly for research and has advised the U.S. military.
“If you look at the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, it’s definitely a mixed picture,” Jones said, adding that he has seen coalition and Afghan forces intercept attempted Taliban attacks.
Still, the Taliban continue to control territory in the east, the west and the north of Afghanistan and even parts of the south, Jones said. Testing the Afghans
This year’s fighting season will test the Afghan army and police, said retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane, a member of the advisory Defense Policy Board. The exit of 23,000 U.S. troops this year will remove 40 percent of the force from Kandahar province in the country’s south and two-thirds of the American Marines in neighboring Helmand province, he said.
“We’re turning military operations over to the Afghans with U.S. and NATO in a support role,” Keane said in an interview yesterday. “We will find out if the Afghans can handle it.”
Kabul probably will recover quickly from the latest spate of attacks, Keane said. “We do not have 100,000-plus forces in Afghanistan” to control episodic attacks in Kabul,” he said.
The more urgent and long-term threat is the havens across the border in Pakistan where militants hole up, Keane said.
The sanctuaries in Pakistan are “the most serious threat to the future security of Afghanistan,” Keane said.
“We should begin to target them much as we do al-Qaeda,” he said. “We cannot leave those sanctuaries with the kind of vibrancy they currently have when we pull most of our forces out by 2014. That puts Afghanistan at much too much risk.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net
Intelligence is Never a Guarantee: Nato Responds to Karzai
TOLOnews.com Monday, 16 April 2012
Nato's chief responded to Afghan President Hamid Karzai blaming Sunday's insurgent attacks on the intelligence agencies of Afghanistan "and especially Nato", saying intelligence was never a 100 percent guarantee.
"We do all we can to prevent such attacks in co-ordination with the Afghan security forces and the Afghan intelligence services, but of course you can never give a 100 percent guarantee," Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in an interview with TOLOnews Monday.
Karzai called for a "full investigation" into Sunday's events, describing the terrorists' "infiltration" as an "intelligence failure for us and especially Nato" in his first statement since insurgents attacked main areas of the country's capital and three other provinces on Sunday afternoon.
Rasmussen said the "blame game" did not help the situation when asked by TOLOnews about Karzai's comments.
"I think we are in this together. We should help each other," he said.
Karzai condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms" during his regular Cabinet meeting on Monday, according to his press office, and praised the Afghan security forces for their valour in repelling the attack.
"Afghan security forces proudly displayed their ability which was itself an assurance to the people that they are capable of protecting their country," he said.
He also praised the security forces for "the caution and the care they exercised" in preventing any further harm to civilians and for a "relatively quick control of the situation".
Rasmussen also praised the Afghan forces for how they dealt with the situation.
"When such attacks actually happen, it's good to see that the Afghan security forces can take action in such an excellent manner," he said.
The Presidential office said that across the four provinces - Kabul, Nangarhar, Logar and Paktia - 4 civilians and 11 members of the Afghans security forces were killed, while 32 civilians and nearly 40 security personnel were injured.
Sunday's battle saw three main areas of Afghanistan's capital Kabul targeted by insurgents who were heavily armed and organised.
It took 18 hours for security forces to end the clashes in the capital, eventually requiring Isaf helicopter gunships to flush the insurgents out from their "bases" - three half-constructed buildings close to Western embassies, and government and security facilities.
As many as 36 terrorists were killed in all four provinces, and one insurgent was captured alive, Karzai's office said.
Karzai said he was deeply saddened by the events and offered his condolences to the families of the victims, and prayed for a quick recovery of the wounded.
Afghanistan: overinterpreting the Kabul attack
A coordinated attack in the heart of Kabul - which coincided with attacks in three other provinces - isn't a good thing. But sign of imminent defeat or victory? Hardly.
By Dan Murphy, Staff writer April 17, 2012 The Christian Science Monitor
The simple fact was that Kabul was hit by a coordinated attack, probably by the Haqqani Network (though the Taliban were happy to take credit) on Sunday. The attacks in Kabul and in Nangarhar, Paktia, and Logar provinces ended in defeat for the assailants. Of 37 attackers in Kabul, 36 were killed and one captured, at the cost of 11 Afghan soldiers' deaths and four civilians.
What it means is another thing.
On balance, the answer is "not much." Sure, there was overheated handwringing in some quarters. A Reuters report speculated that the day-long attack might have the same effect on US public opinion as the months-long Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968, which saw assaults on dozens of cities and the bloodiest year of the war for US troops, with over 10,000 killed by June (no Americans died in Sunday's attack).
On the other side was Gen. John Allen, commander of international troops in Afghanistan, who spun the attack as evidence of insurgent weakness. "The very fact that the enemy chose these particular targets speaks volumes about where we are in this campaign and the degree to which we have advanced the very things the enemy fears the most – a sovereign Afghanistan responsive to its people and an enduring commitment by the international community. Each attack was meant to send a message: that legitimate governance and Afghan sovereignty are in peril. The ANSF response itself is proof enough of that folly."
The gap between these points of view is a reminder that the war in Afghanistan is a war of perceptions now.
For US officers and supporters of the war, the task is to send a message of steady progress that just a little more commitment can cement. For the Taliban and other insurgent groups, it's to send a message of unhindered ability to strike. On both sides, the arguments over the insurgency's strength or weakness also feeds directly into proposed peace talks with the Taliban. The stronger they are, or can at least make themselves to look, the better their bargaining position (the talks are currently on hold).
But the reality is that we know very little today that we didn't know last week. Afghanistan remains a dangerous place, with President Hamid Karzai, the man installed as Afghanistan's leader by international forces, still a very uncertain call. President Karzai called the Kabul attack an "intelligence failure for us and especially NATO."
Max Boot, a conservative commentator who can be relied on to insist the Afghan war (or any US war, really) is going well, maintained his record with a piece for Commentary magazine in which he portrays the attacks as good news.
"For all the headlines about the capital city being “rocked” by gunfire and explosions, the impact of the insurgent attacks–most likely the work of the Haqqani Network, not the Taliban per se–was negligible," he writes. "I visited the capital two weeks ago and found, as I have previously noted, that the streets are thronged with people: hardly the sign of a city under siege. I remember Baghdad in the dark days of 2006-2007 when entire neighborhoods were ghost towns. There is nothing like that going on in Kabul..... If this is the best the Haqqanis could do for a comeback, their efforts are indicative of the growing weakness of the insurgency and the growing strength of the security forces."
He goes on to caveat his position by saying: "that is not to say that a positive outcome in Afghanistan is inevitable–it is anything but. However, it does indicate that if we lose, it will be because of our ardent desire to pull out–not because the Taliban have the capacity to evict us or to defeat our Afghan allies."
Well, I lived in Baghdad during the "dark days" and while my experience of Afghanistan is far more limited (a one-month visit in 2010) what I can say is that the two should not be compared. Baghdad was then in the grips of a vicious sectarian civil war that burned in the presence of tens of thousands of US troops. The flames eventually cooled, with whole neighborhoods stripped of their Sunni inhabitants, or vice-versa. I remember the frequent statements from the US government and military that individual insurgent attacks were signs of "desperation" on the part of the attackers.
The Afghan conflict is very different, the Afghan people very different from the Iraqis. Kabul has generally been an oasis throughout 10 years of war. One reason the city's population has swelled (it's tripled since 2001, to about 5 million now) is because it's far safer than much of the rest of Afghanistan. So what the attacks demonstrated was that one of the safest places in the country, where billions have been spent on economic development and training of Afghan security forces, can still be touched.
Most analysts of Afghanistan are most worried about the future and whether the center around Karzai will hold in the face of the inevitable drawdown of US forces. Their concerns don't focus on a successful Taliban march on a capital filled with people who recall the Taliban reign with horror, but on the chances that the military could splinter along the ethnic lines that drove the Taliban civil war after the Soviet Union's departure, with warlords running their own enclaves.
The Kabul-based blogger at "It's Always Sunni in Kabul," has an informed take that occupies the sensible middle ground. Yes, Afghan forces performed well (good news). But no, this was not ANSF's success alone: US Blackhawks fired on some of the attackers in the capital, and ISAF advisers were there with Afghan forces almost every step of the way, "advising." This doesn't mean Afghan troops aren't getting better, just that this performance isn't a meaningful data point on how they'd do on their own.
He agrees with Mr. Boot (and most everyone else) that this was not a tactical success for the attackers by any stretch. They were quickly pinned down and surrounded and all eventually killed or captured.
But the Afghan war is one of perceptions. The Taliban (and Haqqani) strategy, such as it is, is to keep reminding everyone that they're still capable of inflicting damage after 10 years of being hunted by the most capable military on the globe. That's heartening to their supporters, and something to frighten Afghans who don't support them about their future. As the blogger writes:
Kabul is supposed to be the most secure city in Afghanistan, and once again, some insurgent group managed to stockpile weapons and supplies in a half-constructed building at the edge of the diplomatic area here in Kabul and light the city up for hours at a time. If the message is: “We can get you anywhere,” message sent. Just, once they get there, they don’t tend to accomplish much. This speaks to increasing levels of proficiency by the ANSF in their response to the situation, but also to the lack of quality intel/planning to make sure these kinds of events do not happen again. If the playbook had changed dramatically from the events of September of 2011, then those things happen, but in this case it’s almost identical. So someone’s making it very clear that the government of Afghanistan really can’t stop them from doing what they want to do.
Thieving politicians imperil Afghanistan
Financial Times By Matthew Green Global Insight April 16, 2012
Islamabad - Not content to stand by as insurgents strafed the parliament in Kabul at the weekend, one MP commandeered a machinegun from a guard, scrambled on to a rooftop and began to fire back. “Parliament is my house, and the house of the nation,” said Mohammad Naeem Lalai Hamidzai. “It is my duty to defend my house from my enemies.”
Such have-a-go patriotism might give pause to those who see only a bleak future for Afghanistan. Yet Mr Hamidzai’s enthusiasm for the fray was also a reminder that violence is never far from the edge of Afghan politics.
As the US and its allies begin to withdraw the bulk of their troops, attacks such as Sunday’s raids in Kabul are likely to dominate the news agenda in the west.
Yet the most insidious threat to Afghanistan’s future is not posed by teams of brainwashed young men in search of martyrdom, but by the kleptocratic political order that has sprouted in the decade since the US invasion.
Unless Afghanistan’s allies start to ask harder questions about how the country is governed, then the handover to Afghan forces in 2014 will be the starting gun for another phase of bloodshed.
Debate in the wake of the latest attacks has followed familiar contours: Will Afghan security forces be ready? How long will western voters bankroll the campaign? Will the Taliban talk?
The spectacle of suicide squads infiltrating layers of security around Kabul to fire rockets at embassies and military bases does not bode well on any of these points.
Yet the discussion risks obscuring the most fundamental issue: Is the Afghan political establishment fit for purpose? The answer may well be No. Without sweeping reform, the fighting will go on.
The weekend attacks were designed to convince Afghans that their government is too weak to protect them. After years of corruption and cronyism under the administration of Hamid Karzai, the president, few need such persuasion. Though there is widespread support in Kabul for people serving in the Afghan army and police, there is much less respect for the government they are fighting to uphold.
The fact the insurgents succeeded mainly in killing themselves (36 died while security forces suffered 11 dead) is less significant than the fear they inspired. The virulence of protests that erupted in February after copies of the Koran were burned at a US base exposed the tension simmering in much of the country. With nobody sure how many US troops will stay after 2014, old civil war factions are rearming. Ethnic faultlines are deepening.
The sense of uncertainty grew last week when Mr Karzai said presidential elections might be held in 2013 – a year early. The thinking is that it may be better to stage them before too many more foreign troops have left. If the blatant rigging of the 2009 presidential race is any guide, they will be unlikely to address the disenfranchisement afflicting much of the population. In a measure of the mistrust with which Mr Karzai is viewed by some critics, some Afghans are even convinced he ordered Sunday’s attack to serve some Machiavellian purpose.
With the US pinning its hopes on striking a deal with the Taliban, Mr Karzai’s government may simply lack the legitimacy needed to guarantee any form of accord. As the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, warned last month, a peace process comprised primarily of a carve-up of power between unsavoury elites could trigger worse violence.
The US and its allies have long been guilty of placing far more weight on the military wing of their campaign than on fostering Afghan governance. It is time to reverse the imbalance. Perhaps power needs to be devolved to provinces to foster accountability; certainly more needs to be done to train civil servants and tackle an entrenched culture of bribery and embezzlement. Unless a real attempt is made to shut down the drivers of 30 years of conflict, 2014 may be one more milestone on a path of perpetual war.
Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in anti-education attack
By Mohammad Hamid
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - About 150 Afghan schoolgirls were poisoned on Tuesday after drinking contaminated water at a high school in the country's north, officials said, blaming it on conservative radicals opposed to female education.
Since the 2001 toppling of the Taliban, which banned education for women and girls, females have returned to schools, especially in Kabul.
But periodic attacks still occur against girls, teachers and their school buildings, usually in the more conservative south and east of the country, from where the Taliban insurgency draws most support.
"We are 100 percent sure that the water they drunk inside their classes was poisoned. This is either the work of those who are against girls' education or irresponsible armed individuals," said Jan Mohammad Nabizada, a spokesman for education department in northern Takhar province.
Some of the 150 girls, who suffered from headaches and vomiting, were in critical condition, while others were able to go home after treatment in hospital, the officials said.
They said they knew the water had been poisoned because a larger tank used to fill the affected water jugs was not contaminated.
"This is not a natural illness. It's an intentional act to poison schoolgirls," said Haffizullah Safi, head of Takhar's public health department.
None of the officials blamed any particular group for the attack, fearing retribution from anyone named.
The Afghan government said last year that the Taliban, which has been trying to adopt a more moderate face to advance exploratory peace talks, had dropped its opposition to female education.
But the insurgency has never stated that explicitly and in the past acid has been thrown in the faces of women and girls by hardline Islamists while walking to school.
Education for women was outlawed by the Taliban government from 1996-2001 as un-Islamic.
(Reporting by Mohammad Hamid; Writing by Jack Kimball, Editing by Rob Taylor and Sanjeev Miglani)
Instant justice, Afghan-army style, fails to win over locals
By Nick Paton Walsh, CNN April 16, 2012
Qadem Khel, Ghazni province, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The day begins with a count of the necessities for a joint operation with Afghan troops -- among them 85 halal MREs (Meals Ready To Eat). Around the tactical headquarters, soldiers of the 172nd Infantry get a taste of home before setting off into the wilder fringes of lawless Ghazni province.
There's baseball televised from Fenway Park, replete with a rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner" by Rose Newton, aged 11. One lieutenant has his mortgage approved by email; another exclaims how he just can't wait to go home.
This is FOB "4 Corners." And tonight these soldiers plan an air assault into an area called Qadem Khel, where the Taliban is basically the law. Neither this unit, nor other U.S. forces, will get to do many more of these as the drawdown of Allied forces gathers pace.
Adding an air of anticipation to the mission, the men at 4 Corners believe two of the men they most want to take off the battlefield are in the area. They have a photo of one of them, with and without a heavy mop of hair. The helicopters arrive and, with the assistance of night vision for the Americans and some careful footwork by their Afghan colleagues, they climb aboard.
The helicopters touch down in a huge expanse of desert. The troops huddle in the coldest moment before the dawn, and then begin their approach.
The mantra now is "Afghan-led," part of NATO's bid to make this an Afghan-only war. The Afghan soldiers are mostly from the north or northeast of Afghanistan and to many locals they are strangers almost as foreign as the Americans. They lead the way, set the tempo. And, for a mission that many of the Americans thought might have been one for special forces, that tempo is pretty relaxed.
In large numbers, in daylight, they amble into town. They're allowed into most homes; would you say "no" when four dozen armed men arrive at your door? When they meet a locked door, the Afghans seem to turn away, particularly when a pocket knife can't prise the lock.
It is remarkable to watch, and their casual attitude is contagious to the Americans, who are soon also ambling, in between the occasional grimace at how this operation is being led. Soon it becomes clear that their prey has probably fled unless they're remarkably lazy.
Sergeant Richard Snader admits that "once they hear the birds they probably leave immediately."
But still they carry on, house to house, the first contact this village has had with the Afghan government in over six months. At times, it has an almost random feeling. Two boys are caught riding banned motorbikes. One Afghan soldier considers shooting the bike's fuel tank as a punishment, but decides that's probably too dangerous even for him. So the soldiers let the tires down, and then the more sheepish biker is given a couple of heavy slaps around the head. Instant justice, Afghan-army style. Far from western jurisprudence, but in rural Afghanistan, this is often what passes as the law.
As they pass through the village, locals seem bemused, friendly. As though visited by aliens, rather than caught in a war. This is not a place where NATO has power, or Afghanistan's government even exists. Captain Chris Barlow says he's been told by locals that when the Taliban lay booby traps for NATO, they issue a warning to villagers over the mosque loudspeakers. This is their form of law. Barlow, with eight weeks left in his tour, accepts it's likely American forces won't return to Qadam Khel soon.
Eventually, the insurgency makes an appearance. The Americans are searching a house where weapons had been found previously when shots are fired. There is confusion and the Afghan army seem to relish the fight ahead. U.S. airpower arrives quickly, with one of the heavily armed A10 warplanes buzzing the likely insurgent position. But after 20 minutes, it's clear children and women are near the insurgent firing position. The Americans dispense with any idea of an assault.
They head back into the village, and at dark move again -- across wide open fields to the landing zone. A whirr of Chinook blades and a cloud of dust later, the Americans are gone, perhaps for the last time.
US in denial: Watershed in Afghanistan
Diplomatic statements have ignored the strategic and psychological battles won by the Taliban.
Aljazeera By Marwan Bishara, is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera. 16 Apr 2012
Doha, Qatar - In one of the first official US reactions to the attacks against Kabul and cities across eastern Afghanistan last weekend, Ryan C Crocker, US ambassador to Afghanistan, said: "The Taliban are really good at issuing statements, Less good at actually fighting."
And after accusing (or crediting) the Haqqani network based in the tribal area within the Afghan-Pakistan borders' region, the ambassador added: "Frankly I don't think the Taliban is good enough."
These declarations have come after the insurgents targeted sensitive installations in the country's most important population centres - including at least three prominent targets in Kabul - in one of the most coordinated and pronounced assaults since the occupation began 11 years ago.
The US government has clearly chosen to shift the blame across the border to Pakistan, and to put a brave face on its humiliation - by downplaying what the Taliban are calling the beginning of their "spring offensive".
The US State Department called the attacks "cowardly", and praised the "swift and effective response" of Afghan forces.
Furthermore, in the same breath, the top US commander in Afghanistan, General John R Allen, praised the Afghan forces who "were on scene immediately, well-led and well-coordinated ... and [who] largely kept the insurgents contained".
A quick survey of the Obama administration's media strategy, and its swift and well-coordinated official declarations, shows that perhaps it is Washington, not the Taliban, that is pretty good at "issuing statements".
Asymmetric warfare
If taken seriously, I mean not as media newspeak, Ambassador Crocker's Clausewitzian evaluation of the Taliban and the state of play in Afghanistan belongs to the conventional wars of a past era.
However, in their unconventional war against the US-led occupation of their country, the Taliban insurgency isn't expected either to fight face-to-face or "fairly" against the superior firepower of the United States and its allies.
To characterise the Taliban attacks as "cowardly" is frankly mind-boggling. And I am not referring merely to the fact that the insurgents knew too well that they wouldn't come out alive from the attack, or that part of the operations involved suicide attacks on NATO facilities.
Like them or hate them, the Taliban fight against the US and Afghan forces has been effective and, yes, impressive. It will be taught in the US and other war academies for decades to come.
As Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith reported from Kabul, the civilian casualties from the most recent attacks were relatively low - considering the three suicide bombings. Instead the Taliban were attempting to send a spectacular message: if they want to, they can strike fear and panic right in the heart of the capital.
Furthermore, in asymmetrical warfare, statements can have a more powerful psychological effect than raw firepower.
The Taliban's claim that their well-planned and sophisticated operation was only the beginning of a spring offensive has probably resulted in many soiled undergarments across the country - they have generally proven credible in their pronouncements of war, certainly more credible than the predictions of the occupying forces.
The US-led war and occupation of Afghanistan has already gone on longer than the Vietnam War, and longer than the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Washington's war pundits assured Americans that the US occupation would be nothing like that of the Soviets, or that the British during their first, second and third Afghanistan wars in the 19th and 20th centuries. They have also proven dead wrong.
So have their assurances that this would be a cakewalk for the US "liberators", easily fending off "the oppressive Taliban" proved to be nonsensical.
According to news reports, the number of attacks across the country has increased considerably in recent weeks, as fighters return from Pakistan.
Clearly, the recent cowardly US soldier killing spree against Afghan civilians in their homes has helped shore up support against the US occupation.
And now that the Obama administration speaks openly about withdrawing combat troops by 2014, there is little doubt that many Afghans, including more than a few in the newly trained national army, will find their place among those staying - the Taliban.
What's their secret?
Is there something special about Afghanistan's geography or culture that no foreign superpower has been able to win a war there or secure an occupation? Perhaps.
Is it the large support given to the Taliban from the Pashtuns, the largest ethnic segment of Afghan society? Is the failure of the corrupt Karzai government to govern - or to provide basic services to the people - to blame? Is it the high civilian casualties in the war at the hands of NATO forces? These factors most probably add to the mix.
It is nonetheless amazing how a people who have suffered so much since Afghanistan became a republic four decades ago could still go on fighting.
The 1970s featured internal strife among communists, Islamists and others, while the 1980s witnessed horrific Soviet occupation and cynical Cold War manipulations.
Soon the vacuum left by the Cold War in the 1990s was filled by regional powers - who helped widen and deepen the national divides. And in the past decade, Afghanistan has become the main battlefield of the US "global war on terror".
And yet the Afghans, notably the Taliban and their allies, have been unrelenting in their slow and calculated resistance against the "foreign and Western occupiers" who continue to visit havoc upon their homeland.
The Taliban's endurance could be also explained by any number of factors, extending from Pakistani support to religious beliefs - and permitting and/or taxing the drug trade.
Such cases of relying on regional support and unsavoury practices to sustain and subsidise resistance have been documented from Latin American to Africa and Asia.
But what is special about the Taliban is, in some ways, similar to the reasons behind the popularity of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
They reject all compromises with the occupiers, and cast away their values, laws and ideas. They don't heed pleas from Western dominated international institutions, nor fraternise with their enemies' "peace camps".
They believe, and are tightly united, in their cause of freedom from foreign occupation - denying NATO much actionable intelligence against the fighting group. The Taliban has also been consistently sticking to this one sacred goal, while dismissing any diplomatic formulae that are not conditional on withdrawal - first and foremost.
The Afghans obviously know by experience, wit or instinct what the encyclopaedic West continues to ignore: No foreign power, mighty as it may be, has succeeded in the past century to overcome the indigenous will of the people for freedom from foreign rule.
Marwan Bishara is Al Jazeera's senior political analyst and the author of The Invisible Arab: The promise and peril of the Arab revolutions, now available in bookstores.
Follow him on Twitter: @marwanbishara
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com