[Afghan News] April 18, 2012

[یاسمینه]

U.S. troops pose with suspected Afghan bombers' bodies
By Josh Levs, CNN April 18, 2012
(CNN) -- The Los Angeles Times published photos Wednesday of U.S. soldiers posing with what the newspaper said were bodies of insurgents in Afghanistan -- sparking outrage and condemnation from U.S. military officials.
The two photos published by the paper are among 18 provided by a U.S. soldier, who wanted "to draw attention to the safety risk of a breakdown in leadership and discipline," The Times reported.
The military said an investigation is under way.
The photos, from incidents in 2010, represent "a serious error in judgment by several soldiers who have acted out of ignorance and unfamiliarity with U.S. Army values," NATO'S International Security Assistance Force said in a statement. Gen. John Allen, the ISAF commander, condemned the photos, as did U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
"These images by no means represent the values or professionalism of the vast majority of U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan today," said Pentagon spokesman George Little.
One image shows a member of the U.S. military in front of what appears to be the body of an insurgent. The photo shows the insurgent's head, with his eyes open, and what may be his hand on the American soldier's shoulder. Another soldier appears to be looking down at the body, reaching his hand into the blanket covering it.
"A soldier from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division with the body of an Afghan insurgent killed while trying to plant a roadside bomb," the caption reads. "The photo is one of 18 provided to The Times of U.S. soldiers posing with corpses."
The second photo shows a group of people, including some American soldiers, standing with what appear to be legs from a dead body. One U.S. soldier is smiling and giving a double thumbs-up, while another is smiling at the camera as well. There appear to be Afghan police in that photo as well.
CNN has not authenticated the images.
The paper says the photo was from 2010, when the division arrived at a police station in Zabul province and inspected body parts. "Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held -- and others squatted beside -- the corpse's severed legs."
"An investigation that could lead to disciplinary measures is under way," Little said. "Anyone found responsible for this inhuman conduct will be held accountable in accordance with our military justice system."
The Geneva Conventions say the remains of the dead in a conflict "shall be respected."
Little added that Panetta "is also disappointed that despite our request not to publish these photographs, the Los Angeles Times went ahead. The danger is that this material could be used by the enemy to incite violence against U.S. and Afghan service members in Afghanistan. U.S. forces in the country are taking security measures to guard against it."
In the article, Times Editor Davan Maharaj said, "After careful consideration, we decided that publishing a small but representative selection of the photos would fulfill our obligation to readers to report vigorously and impartially on all aspects of the American mission in Afghanistan, including the allegation that the images reflect a breakdown in unit discipline that was endangering U.S. troops."
The soldier who provided the photos served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne's 4th Brigade Combat Team from Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, The Times reported. "He said the photos point to a breakdown in leadership and discipline that he believed compromised the safety of the troops."
"He expressed the hope that publication would help ensure that alleged security shortcomings at two U.S. bases in Afghanistan in 2010 were not repeated," the paper said. The soldier and two other former members of the battalion "said in separate interviews that they and others had complained of inadequate security at the two bases."
The commander of the 4th Brigade at the time the photos were taken and the then-commander of the 1st Battalion said they were not authorized to comment, the paper reported. The Pentagon declined a request that Army officials contact active-duty soldiers in the photos to offer them a chance to comment as well. "The Times sent requests for comment by e-mail and Facebook to seven soldiers in the photos. One, now serving in Afghanistan, declined to comment. The others did not respond."
Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, an ISAF spokesman, said The Times tipped off military officials to the photos in March, triggering an investigation. Cummings did not say where the photos were taken or how many people are under investigation.
"Such actions are morally repugnant, dishonor the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers and civilians who have served with distinction in Afghanistan, and do not represent the core values of the United States or our military," the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement.
In describing one photo not shown in the paper, The Times said two soldiers held a dead man's hand with the middle finger raised. "A soldier leaned over the bearded corpse while clutching the man's hand. Someone placed an unofficial platoon patch reading 'Zombie Hunter' next to other remains and took a picture."
The Times article notes that virtually all the men in the photos "had friends who were killed or wounded by homemade bombs or suicide attacks, according to the soldier who provided the images."
It is the latest in a string of incidents that have plagued the U.S. military in Afghanistan this year.
In January, a video posted on a website showed four U.S. Marines urinating on enemy corpses.
A month later, ISAF personnel at Bagram Air Base improperly disposed of Islamic religious materials, including Qurans, by burning them in what U.S. officials described as an unintentional error.
And Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales allegedly left a remote outpost in Kandahar province's Panjwai district in March and went house-to-house, gunning down villagers. He has been charged with 17 murders in the shooting rampage.
Perhaps the most notorious incident involving photos of U.S. troops over the past decade took place in Iraq in 2004. Images of U.S. military personnel abusing naked and restrained prisoners in the Abu Ghraib detention facility outside Baghdad shocked the world.

NATO Pledges Commitment to Afghanistan Despite Costs
VOA News April 18, 2012
NATO says it will not abandon Afghanistan to its enemies despite the financial costs.
The United States and NATO plan to pull combat troops out of the county by 2014. And in prepared remarks Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned those seeking to undermine the Afghan government, “you just can't wait us out,” saying they will find a strong Afghan security force in NATO's place.
Rasmussen also told members of the alliance supporting the Afghan security forces “is a good deal in financial and political terms.”
Top U.S. and NATO officials are meeting in Brussels to finalize plans to withdraw the remaining 130,000 foreign combat troops from Afghanistan as well as how to pay for an effective Afghan security force. The discussion will lay the groundwork for a summit of NATO leaders in Chicago next month.
On Tuesday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he wants the United States to provide $2 billion a year to fund Afghan security forces after the 2014 security handover. But Rasmussen and U.S. officials have suggested the costs could come closer to $4 billion a year.
“You're right that a figure around four billion US dollars a year has been mentioned. I would like to stress that neither this ministers' meeting nor the Chicago summit will be a pledging conference but I would expect that at the Chicago summit we will get a clear picture of the commitment to financing the Afghan Security Forces
Insurgents in Afghanistan have been stepping up their attacks, launching an offensive this week that claimed the lives of four civilians, 11 Afghan security personnel and 36 militants.
On Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that her country's troops would begin pulling out of Afghanistan one year earlier than planned. She 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 more than decade-long war winds down.

Kabul's New Peace Negotiator Causes Stir
By Frud Bezhan April 18, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Ever since the September assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former Afghan president and leader of the Afghan High Peace Council, the presidentially appointed body tasked with negotiating with the Taliban had been looking for the perfect replacement.
The thinking was that it should be someone with the savvy to navigate contentious discussions among divergent parties -- insurgent groups, the Afghan government, and the United States. It should be someone with clout -- a political heavyweight, perhaps, who could restart long-stalled negotiations. Most importantly, it should be someone capable of breathing new life into the moribund council.
Ending months of political wrangling, the 70-member council has finally named its man -- and the appointment instantly raised questions.
How could Rabbani's 40-year-old son, Salahuddin Rabbani, hope to succeed where his high-profile father had failed? Was this relatively untested diplomat the one to make good on the Afghan government's goal of finding a political solution to its decade-long war with the Taliban?
Up To The Task
For his part, Rabbani, who is giving up his post as ambassador to Turkey to take the new position, says he is up to the task. In a statement released by Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office, Rabbani expressed his readiness to ensure "security and stability" in Afghanistan by establishing peace. He also pledged that any negotiations would be Afghan-led.
He has his supporters, most obviously those members of the High Peace Council who elected him in a secret ballot.
Mawlawi Kalamuddin, a member of the High Peace Council and a former Taliban minister, lists Rabbani's youth among his strengths.
"Salahuddin Rabbani was not involved in the wars. He is someone new and untainted," Kalamuddin says. "He has been elected to this post, on merit, by his peers. We have to all work together and back him in order to save the country."
Some, like Wahid Muzhda, a political analyst and former Taliban spokesman, say it is only natural for the younger Rabbani to pick up the mantle from his father, who was killed in September by a suicide bomber posing as a peace emissary from the Taliban.
Muzhda credits Rabbani's appointment to tradition and the influence of his father's supporters, many of them former Northern Alliance fighters who are now government ministers and provincial chiefs.
"He was elected because of who his father was," Muzhda says. "Even though the country is embracing a new political system, many important decisions are unfortunately still decided according to Afghan traditions. That means that a son will take the place of his father."
Political Concession
But like many observers, Muzhda views the choice of Rabbani as a concession. Rabbani’s appointment, he says, is an effort to placate members of the former Northern Alliance who have grown increasingly wary of the High Peace Council's negotiations with Hizb-e-Islami, a militant political group that operates in eastern Afghanistan from its base in Pakistan's northwestern Waziristan region.
"They needed to appoint someone in order for the talks to continue. Karzai had no better option than Salahuddin Rabbani," Muzhda says. "If he hadn't elected him, he would have faced further pressure [from former Northern Alliance leaders]. He elected [Rabbani] to end [the standoff]."
Hizb-e-Islami, one of the key militant factions fighting Afghan and foreign troops, is headed by notorious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister and onetime U.S. ally who is blacklisted as a terrorist by Washington.
The High Peace Council opened formal negotiations with Hizb-e-Islami in 2010, with talks centering on the reintegration of the militant group into mainstream politics.
Muzhda is not alone in seeing political maneuvering by Karzai -- who has no political party of his own or any ethnic or regional powerbase in the country -- as he plays the former Northern Alliance and Hizb-e-Islami against each other in order to strengthen his own position.
Doomed To Failure
Wadir Safi, a political science professor at Kabul University, says Rabbani’s appointment will likely have little effect on the ongoing peace process and even suggests that the process was doomed to failure. Many members of the High Peace Council, he says, vehemently oppose the return of the Taliban to Afghan life and politics.
"The High Peace Council has [failed] due to its composition and the way the government has established it," Safi says. "The members are not impartial, so they are unable to see from above and to talk to all parties."
Safi adds that many members of the High Peace Council have made their opposition to the Taliban publicly known, which in turn has contributed to the council's ineffectiveness in peace talks.
"The intention of the Peace Council and its president is that they are not interested in solving the Afghan question with the Taliban," Safi says. "They explicitly expressed their views and said that the Taliban are criminals and we don't want to talk to them anymore."
If the intention in choosing a new head of the High Peace Council head was to reverse that course, then it would seem that Rabbani's lineage would be problematic. His father, after all, was once a leader of the anti-Taliban coalition, leading to suggestions that Rabbani would face huge difficulties succeeding with insurgents at the negotiating table.
Adding to the council's difficulties are a host of new hurdles.
The appointment of Kabul's chief peace negotiator comes after the Taliban suspended talks with the United States, just months after the insurgent group announced it was opening a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar in order to conduct negotiations there.
Those talks were soon derailed, however, by a series of controversial incidents involving foreign forces, including a shooting rampage by a suspected U.S. soldier in which 17 Afghan civilians were killed and the burning of copies of the Koran by U.S. troops at an army base in Afghanistan.
The prospect of peace talks was further dented this week after dozens of militants conducted seemingly coordinated attacks in Kabul and three other Afghan cities on April 15 -- reflecting the militants' ability to enter and carry out assaults even in the heavily fortified capital.

With Eye on Past, Karzai Lays Out Vision for an Independent Afghanistan
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN and GRAHAM BOWLEY April 17, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - In a sweeping speech on Tuesday that touched on some of the heroes of Afghanistan’s past 150 years, President Hamid Karzai laid out a vision of a modern, independent Afghanistan that could outlast security upheaval and foreign entanglement. And he made an emotional defense of his outreach to the Taliban, urging the insurgents again to lay down their weapons, if only to hasten the withdrawal of American forces.
Speaking at an event to celebrate the time of King Amanullah, a reformist ruler in the 1920s, Mr. Karzai appeared to be trying to set himself up as a similar leader who is intent on guiding his country to independence from foreign domination, be it Britain in the past, or the United States today, and as part of a leadership tradition that embraced education and modernization.
Coming at a time of perhaps the greatest uncertainty in recent years — with vital strategic talks with the West under way, another fighting season begun and deep public disillusionment with his administration’s corruption — his speech offered a window into what seemed a deeply personal longing for a united Afghanistan that looked to the future, even as he invoked the past.
“There are many similarities between today and the time of Amanullah Khan,” Mr. Karzai said. “Then, as well, they wanted development on the one hand, while on the other struggling for independence from the British oppression and still trying to protect the value of freedom.”
Today, he said, young Afghans are intent on making their own future. “This is a steady wheel that is progressively moving toward more development, and it will not turn back,” he said. “This is a young man’s engine with a power that does not know cold or any other obstacles.”
His speech was most passionate when he turned to the Taliban’s recent attacks on the capital, clearly showing conflicted feelings about an insurgent movement rooted in his native southern homeland and his own Pashtun ethnicity.
He deplored the loss of life — for both the attackers who died fighting as well as the members of the Afghan security forces who died trying to protect civilians. And he took an almost fatherly tone about each side, even as he lamented how the Taliban had upended people’s lives.
“Thirty-five young people who came to Afghanistan in the name of suicide bombers were apparently Afghans; some could have been foreigners, and all were probably Muslims,” he said. “All were young, and instead of educating themselves and becoming mullahs, becoming a teacher or a doctor or an agriculturalist, he committed suicide. He didn’t do anything for himself or for his family or for his country or religion. And he also caused the death of other Muslims.”
As for the security force members, Mr. Karzai lauded their sacrifice.
“Police, soldiers from our Ministries of Defense and Interior and N.D.S.” — the National Directorate of Security — “who went and sacrificed themselves, they bravely protected their country,” he said. “And there were other victims, the thousands of children who were deprived of going to school that day and thousands of families who were heartsick.”
Still, he defended his outreach to the Taliban and his frequent description of them as “brothers.” Such references have infuriated many Afghans, not least those who lost family members fighting them and felt their lives had been destroyed by the group’s restrictions on education.
“Some people become angry at me in the media when I call the Talib ‘my brother,’ ” he said. “They say: Why do I call them brothers? But I am not quitting this, and I will call them brothers again even if it is criticized.”
Then he appealed to them as Afghans to stop their fighting, arguing that although they claim to want NATO troops to leave the country, their attacks give the alliance an excuse to stay. “Again, you have worked to help foreigners stay here,” he said.
More worrisome to some listeners was that after first suggesting the Taliban were responsible for Sunday’s mayhem, he appeared to back away from that, addressing the Taliban about the attack “if you have done it or not.” That raised questions about whether he was striking an apologist note, perhaps seeking to blame some other group.
These alternating embraces and reproaches of the Taliban may also reflect the conflicting views of his inner circle of advisers, which includes former mujahedeen commanders from northern Afghanistan who have little affection for the Taliban, some supporters of the West and some close to Pakistan, or with ties to former Taliban commanders.
And at root, this is one of Mr. Karzai’s quandaries, whether to embrace the movement of Afghan youth who long for an outward-looking future or to hew to the country’s often warring past.
In that, and on other issues, he has often seemed to want things both ways. Throughout his speech, when it came to the United States he expressed a desire to be free of foreigners telling the government what to do, but also a wish for continued aid.
“On the one hand, we want the foreign forces to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014. On the other, we want to have close relations with the world,” he said.
Near the end of his speech he added that he wanted Americans to save money by sending their troops home, but that out of the money they save, “they should leave some amount for us.”

Afghanistan Taliban commander claims reward for his own capture
18 April 2012 BBC News
An Afghan Taliban commander wanted for organising attacks on Afghan and US troops has been captured after giving himself up and demanding the $100 reward for his arrest, officials say.
Mohammad Ashan is suspected of organising improvised explosive device (IED) attacks on US and Afghan troops.
He gave himself up to Afghan troops after approaching a checkpoint.
US forces later confirmed Mohammad Ashan's identity using a biometric scan.
The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says that Mr Ahsan is a mid- to low-level Taliban commander in the south-eastern province of Paktika. He is not thought to have commanded a significant number of insurgents.
But the IED attacks he is suspected of a role in were damaging enough to prompt officials into putting up numerous "wanted" posters in the districts where he was active, he says.
Nato officials and Afghan troops are at a loss to understand why Mr Ashan attempted to claim a reward for his own capture, our correspondent adds.
Up until now, the tactic of using "wanted" posters for insurgents had not yielded many positive results, officials say.

Hezb-i-Islami Returns to Peace Talks
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 17 April 2012
Afghan President Hamid Karzai met with a delegation of the Islamist political party Hezb-i-Islami on Monday afternoon to restart peace talks, just over a fortnight after the group announced it was suspending them.
Ghairat Baheer, the son-in-law of Hezb-i-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, led the delegation which met Karzai and the High Peace Council to discuss the peace talk plan, according to a statement from the Karzai's office.
"Officials from the Afghan High Peace Council and Hezb-i-Islami also discussed and expressed optimism about the talks," the statement said.
At the end of the meeting, both sides agreed to continue the talks in order to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan, the President's office said.
The six Hezb-i-Islami members arrived in Kabul on Saturday, Qazi Amin Waqad of the High Peace Council said.
The second largest Afghan insurgent group suspended formal talks with the Afghan government on March 29 after claiming neither Afghan nor American officials would seriously consider its 15-point peace proposal.
Qaribur Rahman Saeed, a representative of Hezb-i-Islami in Europe, said the leader Hekmatyar would no longer take part in formal talks until its 15-point National Rescue Agreement was seriously considered.
The plan called for the withdrawal of coalition forces by July 2010, holding new elections and possibly rewriting the Afghan Constitution.
Hezb-i-Islami first presented the plan during talks with the Afghan government in February 2010.
The Hezb-i-Islami was founded by Hekmatyar in 1977.
Hekmatyar was one of the prominent Jihadi leaders who fought against the Soviet troops. He was Prime Minister during Burhanuddin Rabbani's time as President, in 1993-1994 and for a stint in 1996.
Hezb-i-Islami's visit coincides with the appointment of Salahuddin Rabban as the new head of the High Peace Council, replacing his father Burhanuddin who led the council until he was assassinated by the Taliban last year.
Salahuddin was previously Afghanistan's Ambassador to Turkey, before he was appointed acting chairman of Islamist political party Jamiat-e-Islami, the party his father led from 1968 to his death in 2011.

The Taliban Are Too Weak for a Tet Offensive
The only way they will shoot their way back into power is if we abandon Afghanistan.
Wall Street Journal By MAX BOOT Opinion April 17, 2012
The Tet Offensive it wasn't. On Sunday, insurgents belonging to the Haqqani network attacked seven high-profile sites in Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan. The Afghan National Security Forces responded swiftly and professionally with minimal assistance from NATO. Far more insurgents wound up dying (36) than members of the security forces (11). Life in the capital has already returned to normal. When I was there a few weeks ago, I saw a thriving city where the biggest daily concerns are traffic jams and air pollution—not insurgent attacks.
The failure of this insurgent assault bodes well for Afghanistan's future—and runs counter to the doom-and-gloom in the U.S. The Taliban, Haqqanis and associated insurgents continue to enjoy safe havens in Pakistan, but the only way they will shoot their way back into power is if we abandon the vast majority of Afghans who have no desire to be ruled by ignorant, medieval tyrants.
Significant progress has been made in recent weeks in negotiating a long-term U.S.-Afghan security accord that the Obama administration hopes to unveil at the NATO summit in Chicago next month. The two most contentious issues—"night raids" and the detention of Taliban prisoners by the U.S. military—were resolved by giving Afghan authorities more control while allowing essential operations to continue.
The bad news—and the reason so many well-to-do Afghans are talking of selling homes and businesses and moving abroad—is that there remain major concerns about how much support the U.S. will provide for Afghanistan when 70% of the American public has turned against the war.
The White House can take three specific steps to make clear the depth of our commitment. First, pledge to maintain a force of at least 68,000 troops through the end of 2014. Second, maintain a residual presence after 2014 of at least 30,000 troops to advise and assist Afghan forces. Third, maintain funding of at least $6 billion a year for the Afghan National Security Forces indefinitely.
Unfortunately, there is serious reason to wonder if these conditions will be met. The president is already in the process of cutting the U.S. force—which peaked at 100,000 last year—by 32,000 troops. That drawdown will be completed by the end of September, earlier than military commanders deem advisable. The withdrawal of these "surge" forces has imperiled plans to switch the counterinsurgency focus from southern to eastern Afghanistan where Haqqani sanctuaries remain intact a few hours' drive from Kabul.
I recently visited Khost Province on the border with Pakistan. Although this is a longtime Haqqani stronghold, both Khost and neighboring Paktia are garrisoned by only one U.S. brigade, or roughly 4,000 troops. The widespread fear is that once the U.S. troops leave, the Haqqanis will return. It is imperative that more U.S. troops be committed to clear such areas, but that may no longer be possible given the U.S. drawdown. So far plans call for only one additional brigade to be sent to the east—a unit from the 82nd Airborne Division that is moving into Logar Province south of Kabul.
Even after 2014, barring a miraculous peace agreement with the Taliban, Afghanistan will need a robust American presence. Afghan troops are eager and skilled fighters—they rush into battle in unarmored pick-up trucks along bomb-strewn roads—but they need assistance with logistics, medevac flights, air support, intelligence collection, and other higher-level functions.
Providing that support will require a substantial contingent of American personnel who in turn will need more troops to protect and supply them. If U.S. force levels post-2014 are minuscule—say, the 5,000 troops that President Obama offered to leave in Iraq—they will not be able to protect themselves, much less carry out their mission.
The bulk of future fighting must be carried out by the Afghans themselves, but in order to have any chance of success they must have enough troops to garrison a far-flung country of 30 million people. And that in turn will require outside funding. The Kabul government remains too impoverished to pay its own security costs.
Maintaining an Afghan force of 350,000 soldiers and police, the level which will be reached this year, will require $6 billion a year. Yet the Obama administration wants to provide only $4.1 billion a year. That would require laying off 120,000 soldiers and cops—a move that would significantly destabilize Afghanistan without producing significant savings in a $3.8 trillion U.S. budget.
If we avoid such unforced errors and stick with the plans developed by Gens. Stanley McChrystal, David Petraeus and John Allen, we have a good chance to maintain a pro-Western regime in power. The Taliban are too weak to defeat us or our Afghan allies. But we can defeat ourselves.
Mr. Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present," out next January by Norton.

After The U.S. Leaves, Who Pays For Afghan Forces?
NPR By Larry Abramson April 17, 2012
This week, NATO Cabinet ministers, including U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, will try to tackle the problem of Afghan security. The basic plan for bringing American troops home from Afghanistan is to let Afghan security forces fight for their own country. But there's a hitch — finding a way to pay for the Afghan army.
Right now, the Afghan national security forces are growing, and will surpass 350,000 troops and police later this year. For the West, that's the idea — once those troops are well trained, Western forces can leave. But someone will have to pay the multibillion-dollar cost of keeping those Afghan forces in arms.
"How long do you project that we Americans are going to have to bear most of the cost of paying for the Afghan security forces?" Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, asked top Pentagon officials at a recent hearing. "Are we talking about 10 years, or 20 years?"
James Miller, acting undersecretary for defense, basically shrugged. He admitted it would be a long time before Afghanistan can afford to pay that bill. And over the next couple of years, the budget shortfall will grow — because the Western commitment to pay for the bigger Afghan security force is already beginning to shrink. Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies says that over the next year alone, the U.S. share drops by nearly half.
"What that really tells you is we don't have a plan," Cordesman says. "We have a set of goals, and they're being dictated as much by budget pressures and the knowledge we're leaving as anything else."
Like Cordesman, many politicians in the U.S. and Afghanistan are worried the declining financial commitment means Afghan forces could face an impossible task after 2014 — that's a critical year, because it's when Western nations plan to hand over security to Afghanistan.
At a news conference in Kabul last week, NATO leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in effect, that NATO would keep Afghanistan safe for the long term.
"The whole international community committed itself to help finance the Afghan security forces also beyond 2014," Cordesman says.
There's one way to bridge the gap between promises to keep Afghanistan secure and the desire to cut expenses: The U.S. needs other NATO countries to help pick up more of the tab.
"About $1.3 billion of that they would like to see coming from foreign donors, and then another $500 million coming from the Afghan government," says Nora Bensahel with the Center for a New American Security, explaining U.S. spending goals.
But like diners facing a big dinner bill, the U.S. and NATO are waiting to see who grabs the check first. The U.S. would like to see all of this ironed out before the next big NATO meeting in Chicago in May. But Cordesman says there's no sign other countries will step up.
"Because they haven't been spending it when this war had a far higher priority in U.S. eyes, and far more public support than it has today," Cordesman says.
With Europe facing economic turmoil, and public support for the war on the decline in the U.S., there's no political gain to being first in line to pay for Afghan defense. The U.S. is simply hoping that the costs of security will get cheaper. Bensahel says the U.S. figures the Afghan army can shrink after 2014.
"The administration has explicitly said that it can plan to bring down those numbers, and therefore pay less money, because it assumes there's reconciliation with the Taliban by that point," Bensahel says.
If there's no peace settlement and a big Afghan fighting force is still needed, expenses will remain high. With so much still unknown about the future of Afghanistan, it's no wonder NATO seems to be deferring decisions about funding until later.

Withdrawal heralds fresh dangers in Afghanistan
Sydney Morning Herald By John Cantwell Opinion April 18, 2012
We're pulling our troops out for political reasons, not for military purposes.
THERE is an unpleasant whiff of politics and self-interest in the strategy to withdraw American, Australian and other foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by 2014 or earlier.
The electoral cycles of nations contributing troops to the fight in Afghanistan mean that politicians everywhere are looking for the exits.
Barack Obama wants to lock in a firm plan for the withdrawal before the US presidential elections late this year. Nicolas Sarkozy used the current French presidential election process to announce an accelerated 2013 departure plan. Germany goes to the polls next year, the same time that its troops will start withdrawing.
Italians vote next year and Prime Minister Mario Monti has told them their troops will be home by 2014. British Prime Minister David Cameron is also clearing the decks, proposing deep cuts to troop numbers in 2013.
All of these decisions are driven by politics and growing disillusionment over Afghanistan in the voting constituencies of contributing nations.
Now Australia will follow. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced that the majority of our combat troops will be withdrawn by the end of 2013. This represents a modest advance of the previously announced 2014 milestone for transition. There is no surprise in this: the withdrawal of our conventional combat troops from Afghanistan has long been foreshadowed by our political leaders.
There is also some confidence in military circles that security in the province where most Australian troops are deployed, Oruzgan, has improved and is likely to continue doing so, albeit in a patchy and fragile fashion.
In an opinion piece published earlier this month I wrote that the elements of the Afghanistan National Army being trained by Australians, the 4th Brigade, will be ready to take the lead in parts of Oruzgan province within the next 12 months. I also said that the brigade as a whole will be ready by 2014 provided that certain high-end combat support elements continue to be provided by the coalition. The progress achieved is thanks to the skill and sacrifice of Australian soldiers. None of that has changed.
It makes sense that Australia makes clear its position ahead of the NATO conference on Afghanistan in Chicago next month. I have no doubt that our government will have paid close attention to the advice of the Chief of the Defence Force, General David Hurley, in developing its revised position.
But make no mistake, the key considerations are political not military. Could anyone seriously doubt that the government's political strategists would not have considered the electoral benefits of this revised withdrawal schedule, when the federal election rolls around next year?
For its part, it is unlikely that the opposition wants to be dragged down electorally by opposing an early departure from the unpopular Afghanistan conflict. In a speech this week outlining Australia's position, Prime Minister Gillard said she welcomes debate on these issues. What's the point? The decisions have been made, the policy has been announced and next month our position will be locked in at the Chicago conference.
That's not to say that I think the policy is wrong, but simply to remark that public debate on the schedule is now largely irrelevant.
What is relevant is the high likelihood of a troubled transition process, in Oruzgan and Afghanistan more broadly. The improved performance of the Afghan 4th Brigade is from a very low base. It takes many years to grow genuinely competent armed forces and the Afghans have a long way to go.
As they take the lead more often, it is inevitable that things will go wrong sometimes, perhaps badly. Australian mentors will have a vital role to play right up to the day they leave. There is a strong possibility that our troops will continue to be involved in direct combat action, to bolster the Afghan soldiers or get them out of trouble.
The other reason that the pathway to a changed posture in Afghanistan is unlikely to be smooth is that the Taliban and their insurgent allies get a say in how it goes. The Taliban might simply be content to wait for us all to leave, but I think that's unlikely.
Afghans admire strength, not weakness. The Taliban will want to be in a strong bargaining position when the Afghanistan government starts the process of reconciliation and political bargaining. That means more high-profile attacks, continued unrest and potentially greater risks for our troops and their Afghan colleagues.
The Prime Minister tells us that we are entering a strategically important period, and she's right. But we are also entering a period of great uncertainty and potentially greater danger, not just to our troops, but to the whole strategy.
John Cantwell recently retired from the Australian Army with the rank of major-general. He was the Australian National Commander in Afghanistan and the Middle East in 2010.

20 militants join peace process in N. Afghanistan
PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Another group of anti-government militants gave up fighting and joined the government-initiated peace process in Afghanistan's northern province on Wednesday.
"Twenty armed rebels handed over their weapons to authorities and joined the peace process in Deh Salah district of Baghlan province today," provincial police chief Assadullah Shirzad told newsmen in a ceremony to welcome the former fighters.
With joining these people to the peace process, the security will be further improved in Baghlan province, he further said.
It is the second militants group, joining the peace process in a single day on Wednesday.
The previous, also composed of 20 militants laid down arms and resumed normal life in Badakhshan province.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan government and NATO-led forces have yet to make comment.

Afghan police question school workers over poisoning
From Masoud Popalzai, CNN April 18, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Afghan police are questioning two school caretakers after more than 170 women and girls were hospitalized with suspected poisoning, a district official said Wednesday.
Police took the school employees into custody in the town of Rostaq, district administrator Moelam Hussein said.
Local health officials blamed the act on extremists opposed to women's education.
A total of 171 women and girls were hospitalized Tuesday, and four remained semi-conscious in the hospital Wednesday, Dr. Hafizullah Safi said.
Some 25 women and girls returned to the hospital Wednesday morning, complaining of more stomach pains, fever and vomiting. They were given medication and released, said Safi, the provincial health department director.
A sample of the water from the school was taken and had been sent to Kabul for testing, but it will take several days for the results.
The victims range in age from 14 to 30 and were taken to a hospital in Afghanistan's northeastern Takhar province after their school's water tank was contaminated, according to Safi.
No deaths were reported, but more than half the victims partially lost consciousness, while others suffered dizziness and vomiting.
"Looking at the health condition of these girls, I can definitely say that their water was contaminated by some sort of poison," Safi said. "But we don't know yet what was the water exactly contaminated with."
Taliban say they trained attackers
"It is the work of those who are against girls' education and peace and stability in Afghanistan," district administrator Hussain said.
In 2010, more than 100 schoolgirls and teachers were sickened in a series of similar poisonings.
During the Taliban's rule from 1996 to 2001, many Afghan girls were not allowed to attend school, though the schools began reopening after the regime was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion.
Observers say, however, that abuse of women remains common in the post-Taliban era and is often accepted in conservative and traditional families, where women are barred from education and commonly subjected to domestic violence.
Australia to accelerate withdrawal
In January 2011, Afghan Education Minister Dr. Farooq Wardak told the Education World Forum in London that the Taliban had abandoned their opposition to girls' education. But the group never offered a statement confirming or denying that claim.
Female educational facilities, students and teachers, meanwhile, have come under vicious attack as the insurgency has spread outside Taliban strongholds in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.
The country maintains one of the world's youngest populations. Officials say literacy rates among both children and adults remain low.

NATO ministers to grapple with Afghan troubles
Reuters By Sebastian Moffett April 17, 2012
BRUSSELS
* Military alliance at turning point in history
* Problems in Afghanistan to dominate Brussels talks
* Ministers to prepare for Chicago summit
NATO foreign and defence ministers will refine plans for withdrawing combat troops from Afghanistan this week in a meeting that comes after an insurgent attack in the heart of Kabul and recrimination from the alliance's Afghan allies.
The meeting, at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday, will prepare the ground for a NATO summit in Chicago next month which will detail pullback plans, and outline funding and measures to try to ensure Afghanistan does not collapse into civil war.
Ministers will also discuss ways to maintain defence capabilities while their budgets are under pressure. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is also expected to attend on the meeting Thursday and discuss NATO's missile defence system - which Russia sees as a threat.
The series of high-level meetings comes at a crucial time for the North Atlantic alliance.
Though NATO was the focus of U.S. defence efforts in the decades after World War Two, President Barack Obama announced in January that the United States would concentrate more on the Pacific region. U.S. officials have also become critical of what they say is Europe's under-funding of defence.
"We're at a pivotal point for the alliance," U.S. Secretary of Defence Leon E. Panetta told reporters in Washington before leaving for Brussels. "We'll also be working to ensure that NATO itself has the right military capabilities that will be needed for the future."
A timetable agreed at the last NATO summit, in 2010, called for the withdrawal of combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, after which responsibility for security would be handed over to Afghan forces. Western countries would help finance security and development in Afghanistan after that, according to the plan, and some troops would stay on to provide training.
But a series of violent incidents has further shaken Western public support for operations, and individual allies have announced earlier-than-expected withdrawals.
An insurgent attack in the heavily guarded diplomatic district of the Afghan capital on Sunday highlighted the lack of progress NATO has made in bringing security to Afghanistan, more than 10 years after the Taliban were forced from power.
Fighting raged for 18 hours in central Kabul before Afghan forces backed by NATO troops killed the last of the 35 insurgents in a dawn raid. Eleven Afghan troops and four civilians also died in the fighting.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday's attacks had been an intelligence failure for Afghanistan and "especially for NATO", and on Tuesday referred to the Taliban as brothers.
Edward Burke, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank said insurgents had received funding siphoned off from international aid sent to help Karzai.
"For many European governments, they feel the Karzai administration is too corrupt and too indifferent to the requests of its allies," said Burke. "Many European governments in a time of austerity don't see the rationale."
Spain last year said 40 percent of Spanish troops would return home by the first half of 2013 - accelerating withdrawal plans by a few months, according to one newspaper.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is currently campaigning for re-election, announced France would pull out of Afghanistan completely at the end of 2013, instead of in 2014 as previously planned after four French troops were killed by a rogue Afghan soldier.
Australia said on Tuesday it would start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan this year, and Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she expected all international forces there to be playing a supporting role for Afghan forces by mid-2013. Australia had been expected to withdraw towards the end of 2014.
Nevertheless, as Western forces prepare to leave, NATO officials are increasingly praising the ability of Afghan security forces, who analysts say have been plagued by ill-discipline, low levels of education and poor pay.
The response to Sunday's attacks came almost wholly from local security forces, and the failure of the attacks to cause mass casualties demonstrated the forces' capabilities, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told a news conference on Monday.
"They defeated the attacks and they did that largely on their own," she said. "They are getting more capable by the day." (Additional reporting by Missy Ryan; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Washington's war for Afghanistan's women
Foreign Policy By Gayle Tzemach Lemmon Tuesday, April 17, 2012
As Sunday's spectacular attack in Kabul showed, the war in Afghanistan may be winding down in Washington, but it is heating up on the ground with spring's arrival.
And in Foggy Bottom and, to a lesser degree, on Capitol Hill, a battle is on for American hearts and minds even as calls for immediate withdrawal grow louder. The objective: to keep Afghan women from falling off the political agenda while Washington and its NATO allies hunt desperately for a diplomatic solution to America's longest-ever war. As the NATO summit in Chicago approaches - and women to date still have no formal role - that fight gets more urgent.
"Any peace that is attempted to be made by excluding more than half the population is no peace at all," said Sec. of State Hillary Clinton at a luncheon for the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council, an organization started under President George W. Bush to support programs benefiting Afghan women. "We will continue to stand with and work closely with Afghan women. And we will be working closely with the international community as well, because we all need to be vigilant and disciplined in our support and in our refusal to accept the erosion of women's rights and freedoms."
Former First Lady Laura Bush echoed the Secretary's comments.
"The failure to protect women's rights and to ensure their security could undermine the significant gains Afghan women have achieved," said Mrs. Bush. "No one wants to see Afghanistan's progress reversed or its people returned to the perilous circumstances that marked the Taliban's rule."
Clinton, Bush and their allies face an uphill fight. Today a record-high 69 percent of Americans say the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting. And the recent alleged killing of unarmed Afghan civilians by an American soldier has cemented public desire to call an end to the war that began just after the attacks of September 11.
President Obama did not once mention Afghan women in his 2009 speech at West Point, and members of his administration have been quoted as likening the country's women to "pet rocks."
It wasn't always this way. In 2001, Washington leaders regularly invoked the plight of women, who had just endured years of Taliban rule that barred them from school and work. Afghan women became something of a cause célèbre worldwide, and the return of women to public life was seen as among the most positive byproducts of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Then-First Lady Laura Bush spoke out in support of Afghan women during a weekly presidential radio broadcast in 2001, and made high-profile visits to women's projects while visiting the country.
A decade later, members of Mrs. Bush's team acknowledge the challenge they face convincing the American public that supporting Afghan women on the way out of the country matters.
"It is hard for people to see the endgame and that is what I think contributes to the frustration," says Mrs. Bush's former chief of staff, Anita McBride. "This is not high on the radar screen because it is challenging and the solution seems so far away."
Those working closely with Sec. Clinton acknowledge the battle to keep women front and center is not easy. But they say they see an increased acknowledgment throughout the State Department and in the president's recent executive order on U.N. Resolution 1325 that women matter when it comes to peace.
"While clearly there is a strong, strong desire for the end of this (war), the big concern is the state of the women -- what happens to Afghan women and that they not somehow be forgotten," says Ambassador-at-large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer. "There is a recognition that for the genuine end of conflict and for the ability to reconcile with whomever it is possible to reconcile with, that the women have to be a part of that."
Those who have spoken out about the need to end the war swiftly say they agree.
"I came away strongly feeling that as we do draw down there that we have to retain a focus on these gains and whatever is necessary diplomatically or through our aid, that we can't neglect women," says Rep. Niki Tsongas of a recent trip to Afghanistan. "You have to publicly continue to raise the issue. That is the very least what we can continue to do, to publicly raise the issue and the importance of just trying to protect and secure those gains."
Tsongas did just that at a recent House Armed Services Committee hearing with Gen. John Allen.
"The question is, as we draw down from Afghanistan over the next several years, what can we do to make sure that we don't lose the hard-fought gains for the rights of Afghan women, 50 percent of the population? And what, if any, leverage will we have as we go through this process and after our withdrawal is complete?" she asked.
But is more than rhetorical support from those who support Afghan women's progress even possible?
"It is difficult, because I think that even for those who care very deeply about the status of Afghan women there is a little bit of schizophrenia, because I think some of us recognize that whatever the future is for Afghan women, the kind of military footprint that we have in Afghanistan can't go on another decade," says Rep. Donna Edwards, who co-chairs the Afghan Women's Task Force in Congress. "I believe that it is possible for us to construct a strategy where we make those kinds of civilian investments that will enable investments where it is possible to support women entrepreneurs, to support women in education, to support women as parliamentarians, I think it is possible to do that and I don't think we have too many more options left."
So what do the women at the center of all the discussion think of all the discussion of their future? Most say they simply want to be part of the conversation about their own country, particularly as they work to elbow their way into the discussions in Chicago next month. And they want to know what, exactly, leaders of the international community means when they say to women that "we will not abandon you," as Sec. Clinton has repeatedly.
"We women are no more the priority for the world, that is true," says Samira Hamidi of the Afghan Women's Network. "The international community is in a rush for withdrawal, but at the same time they keep repeating and pushing the theme that we will remain with you."
Hamidi says women want clarity on what, exactly, those assurances mean. Says Hamidi, "in ten years whatever has happened for women is because of the struggle and participation of women. We are still fighting for our rights, for our inclusion, to be part of decisions and to be decision makers."
What Hamidi and other women leaders say they seek are assurances that any Taliban negotiations will keep in tact the Afghan constitution of the past decade, with its guarantee of equal opportunities, including the right to work and go to school, as well as a set-aside of a quarter of parliamentary seats for women. More than two million Afghan girls are now in school, with thousands in university, and civil society leaders want them to stay there. Women also want to be at the table, not outside the room, in any diplomatic discussions that will decide their country's future shape. That starts with Chicago next month.
Women say they are not asking for favors, but to be part of their own societies. They can speak up for themselves, and they are, but they could use the backing of big-dollar international donors who will be funding their government's security forces for years to come.
"The worrying part for me in 2014 is not that the international community is leaving -- troops are leaving, they have to leave this is a reality. We can't expect them to stay in Afghanistan for years and years, but for me what is important is how powerful our own security forces will be in 2014, how responsive they will be to women's needs. Those are things that the international community can really make their funding conditional on."
Those who support Afghan women say that if the world wants to see any progress achieved in Afghanistan continue, it will support civil society leaders like Hamidi - between now and 2014, and beyond.
"Increasingly, across the board, people get the fact that this is pragmatic, that you can't get from here to there on the items all of us want to see [in Afghanistan] without women," Verveer says. "Is it a guarantee? Well, we can't write the future. None of us knows exactly what is going to happen. We are dealing with a hypothetical and the best we can all do is to make sure that everything is in place as best as it can be as this continues to go forward."
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana.

Afghan Forces Criticised After Kabul Battles
Series of coordinated strikes suggests national security forces unable to preempt insurgent attacks
IWPR By Mina Habib 17 Apr 12
Afghanistan - Kabul residents say they have little faith in the ability of the Afghan security services to protect them after dramatic attacks hit the city this week.
A number of key locations in the capital were targeted, with dozens of militants firing on the Afghan parliament, the national army academy and the Sherpur district, home to senior government officials and diplomats.
Foreign embassies also came under fire in the onslaught,which began at noon on April 15 and was only brought to a halt the following morning.
Hafizollah lives with his sister and nephew in one of the apartment blocks used by the insurgents, it faces parliament and parts of its are still under construction. He told IWPR how the fighting began as he was nearing home.
“I saw my sister and nephew jump out of the second-floor window, screaming,” he said. “My sister had taken my little nephew’s hand, hanging him out of the window. Although policemen caught my nephew, my sister jumped and was injured. I took her to hospital.”
Hafizollah said that while the security forces performed well during the incident, they had failed to anticipate trouble.
“The government always acts after an attack takes place, and in my opinion that’s a failure,” he said. “The security forces wake up for a few days after an incident happens, but then they go back to sleep again until the next one.”
Hajji Aman, president of the Habib Wasim company, which has a ground-floor office in the same building, said his premises sustained considerable damage in the firefight, but at least all his colleagues were safe.
There were also attacks in Logar, Nangarhar and Paktia provinces. According to the Afghan interior ministry, 47 people died, 36 of them the insurgents who carried out the attack. Three civilians and eight policemen were killed. Of the 65 people injured, 25 were civilians.
Ehsan, a Kabul shopkeeper, said it was obvious that the Afghan security and intelligence forces were weak and incapable of ensure the safety of citizens, and that they could not be trusted.
“Although the armed opposition have used buildings under construction in Kabul several times recently [to launch attacks], the government has learned no lessons from the past and has failed to place such buildings under surveillance,” he said. “That’s obvious negligence on the part of the security forces.”
Amanullah, a taxi driver, argued that the insurgents had networks of people within government which helped them infiltrate the capital.
“It isn’t a simple matter to bring dozens of suicide attackers into the city along with tons of light and heavy weapons, and then deploy them in different parts of the city,” he said.
The attack, among the most dramatic in the capital since the Taleban regime was toppled in 2001, has further called into question the Afghan security forces’ ability to defend the country once international troops withdraw in 2014.
The Taleban claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they was part of their long-promised spring offensive, and also describing them as retribution for the recent killing of civilians by an American soldier in Kandahar and the burning of Korans at the Bagram airbase.
Defence analyst Atiqullah Amarkhel said, however, that the attacks were probably an attempt to counter claims that the insurgents faced imminent defeat.
“John Allen [commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan] said at a Kabul news conference a while ago that 2012 would be a destiny-deciding year for the people of Afghanistan because they would eliminate the armed opposition forces,” he said. “The Taleban therefore wanted to demonstrate their strength and their ability to offer resistance at any time and at any location.
“In my opinion, this is a success for the Taleban and a failure for the security forces. The Taleban were able to show their strength across all these provinces in a coordinated manner, while the government forces didn’t have a clue about their whereabouts or capacity. The security forces fought against them but that was out of helplessness, because it was their duty to do so.”
Political analyst Fazel Rahman Oria praised the response of the Afghan security forces, and accused Pakistan of being the hidden hand behind the operation.
“Pakistan has been kept out of Afghan affairs recently,” he said. “The Americans have been paying less attention to Pakistan’s demands, so it decided to exert pressure on the Americans and on the Afghan government by conducting this operation, in order to show that peace in Afghanistan is impossible unless Pakistan is involved.
Officials including Interior Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi have blamed the attacks on the “Haqqani network”, a Taleban ally which is believed to have the backing of elements within the Pakistani establishment.
But Oria placed some blame on the Afghan government too, arguing that it had failed to win the battle for hearts and minds.
“Our government doesn’t have a strong intelligence operation, nor has it made an effort to win over public opinion,” he said. “So people are angry with the government, and help the insurgents for that reason. The government has failed to attract support from its people.”
Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained reporter in Kabul.

www.afghanistannewscenter.com