Tweet
Turkmenistan plans natural gas sale deal with Afghanistan, India, Pakistan later this month
By Associated Press,
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — Senior officials in Turkmenistan say the energy-rich Central Asian nation plans to sign a natural gas sales agreement with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India later this month.
The deal would mark a decisive move toward construction of a landmark pipeline crossing the four nations that backers hope will meet energy demands across the region.
Two high-ranking officials, who cannot be named as they are not authorized to speak with the media, told The Associated Press this week they expect the agreement to be signed at an energy conference in Turkmenistan late May.
Progress on the project has to date been delayed by disagreement among participant nations on transit fees and the price for the gas.
It has been widely assumed that gas for the more than 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) pipeline will be sourced from the Dauletabad field in southern Turkmenistan.
An official from the state gas company said, however, that a portion of the fuel will eventually be drawn from the vast and yet-to-be developed South Yolotan field near the Afghan border.
Independent British auditor Gaffney, Cline & Associates estimates that South Yolotan may hold up to 21.2 trillion cubic meters of gas, potentially making it second largest reserve of gas in the world after the South Pars field, shared between Iran and Qatar.
Another top Turkmen energy industry official told the AP that the first gas is expected to be drawn from South Yolotan in 2013, but that the date could be brought forward to the end of this year in the best-case scenario.
The gas pipeline across Afghanistan, projected to ship 33 billion cubic meters a year, has been actively backed by the United States. It would give Turkmenistan a further export route for its copious energy reserves and generate revenue for Afghanistan. It currently exports to Russia, Iran and China, and also harbors ambitions of selling directly to Europe.
Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov has said Afghanistan could stand to earn more than $1 billion annually in transit fees. Afghan leader Hamid Karzai predicts maintaining the pipeline could provide employment for 50,000 people in Afghanistan alone.
But many observers remain concerned about the security risks of laying a pipeline across some of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s unruly tribal areas.
No details have been disclosed about the selling price for Turkmenistan’s gas, but media in Pakistan cited the country’s petroleum minister as saying the gas would cost less than was being paid for gas imported from Iran.
While pursuing plans to open up new markets on its immediate border, Turkmenistan is also pushing ahead with expanding capacity for gas transportation routes to China, which traverse neighboring Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Turkmenistan began supplying gas to China through a newly completed pipeline in late 2009. That pipeline and a second route that came online in June is expected to bring full annual capacity to 40 billion cubic meters by 2015.
A Turkmen energy official told the AP this week that third pipeline to China is already in the works, which will enable Turkmenistan to meet the commitments made in 2011 to gradually boost natural gas deliveries to China to 65 billion cubic meters annually.
Taliban claims Pakistan suicide bombing that killed 20
ANWARULLAH KHAN The Associated Press Friday, May. 04, 2012
KHAR, Pakistan — A Taliban suicide bombing in a Pakistani market close to the Afghan border killed 20 people Friday, officials said, a day after the U.S. released letters seized from Osama bin Laden's compound that criticized Pakistani militants for killing too many civilians.
Five of the dead in the blast in the Bajur tribal area were local members of the security forces, including one who had received an award for bravery in fighting Islamist militants, government administrator Abdul Haseeb said. The others were passers-by. At least 40 people were wounded.
The suicide bomber detonated his explosives as he approached a security checkpoint near the market in the town of Khar, said Mr. Haseeb. The attack took place as locals were headed to work or taking their children to school.
The explosion damaged over a dozen shops, and rescue officials searched through the debris for anyone trapped inside. The ground outside the market was covered in blood and littered with the shoes of those hit by the attack.
Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the bombing in a telephone call to The Associated Press.
“This is revenge for killing our people,” said Mr. Ahsan.
Pakistan's branch of the Taliban, which is battling for control of the region, has killed and wounded thousands of people since 2009, many of them civilians in markets or mosques.
On Thursday, the U.S. released 17 letters seized from the compound of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden by American commandos after they had killed him one year ago. Many of them addressed bombings in which civilians were killed.
Two senior al-Qaeda leaders wrote a letter to Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud in December 2010 criticizing the group for carrying out attacks in markets, mosques and other places that kill innocent Muslims. It accused the group of making “clear legal and religious mistakes which might result in a negative deviation from the set path of the jihadists' movement in Pakistan.”
The group's actions also “are contrary to the objectives of jihad and to the efforts exerted by us,” said the letter, which was written by Abu Yahya al-Libi and a militant leader identified as Atiyatullah.
One of Mr. bin Laden's spokesmen, the American Adam Gadahn, wrote a letter to an unknown recipient in January 2011 in which he listed a series of attacks on mosques and other sites in Pakistan that killed hundreds of civilians. The Pakistani Taliban either claimed responsibility for the attacks or were suspected of carrying them out.
Mr. Gadahn said these kinds of attacks “distort the picture of the pious and loyal mujahideen.”
“Now many regular people are looking at the mujahideen as a group that does not hesitate to take people's money by falsehood, detonating mosques, spilling the bloods of scores of people in the way to kill one or two who were labeled as enemies,” said Mr. Gadahn.
One of the incidents highlighted by Gadahn was a 2010 suicide bombing of a mosque in the northwest town of Darra Adam Khel targeting anti-Taliban tribal elders that killed nearly 70 people. He expressed skepticism at attempts by the Pakistani Taliban to blame the attack on the private U.S. security firm formerly known as Blackwater.
The Pakistani Taliban rarely claim responsibility for attacks that kill many civilians, often blaming them on the U.S. or Pakistani governments.
Mr. Gadahn advised the Pakistani Taliban to carry out more targeted attacks that would limit civilian casualties.
“If that targeted person really deserves to be killed, why not employ another method rather than the random attacks, which is not tolerated by any mind or religion?” said Mr. Gadahn. “Have you not remembered that you are fighting in the Muslim towns and not in the infidel's fortresses?”
Besieged Afghan media appeals to Karzai for protection
By Amie Ferris-Rotman and Mirwais Harooni Fri May 4, 2012 4:36am EDT
KABUL - (Reuters) - Afghanistan's media representatives are appealing to the government to protect the rights of journalists who are facing a growing number of violent threats in what they see as an undeclared campaign against media freedom.
War and an atmosphere of impunity make Afghanistan one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. The Taliban often regard reporters as their enemies and many officials are suspicious of a prying press.
Despite media freedom being protected by the constitution, the relatively large, often Western-backed press corps can face intimidation, abduction or even death for reporting on issues such as corruption and other government failings.
"Day by day, it is getting worse. No one is here to support reporters," Sediq Zalique, head of investigative reporting at national daily "8 a.m.", told Reuters on Friday.
Zalique said he had received several threatening phone calls from unidentified men in what he believes was a response to his articles revealing corruption and drug-running by officials.
Many Afghans view the government as deeply corrupt.
Some media hold back from publishing stories they know will attract the government's ire.
Reporters at Afghan news agency Pajhwok are resorting to self-censorship to avoid the fate of colleagues who have been beaten and detained. Three have been killed over the last decade, its editor-in-chief Danish Karokhil told Reuters, adding that the government had to act to protect the media.
Some government officials acknowledge that authorities are not doing enough.
"The Afghan government simply needs to do more to protect media freedoms," Deputy Minister of Information and Culture Deen Mohammad Mubarez Rashidi told an awards ceremony on Thursday honoring slain radio journalist Sadim Khan Bhadurzoy, who was kidnapped and beheaded in eastern Paktika province in February.
New York-based watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said last month in its annual report that while Afghanistan has experienced a slowdown in targeted killings, it had made no progress in prosecuting the killers of journalists.
Afghanistan ranks seventh on the CPJ's "Impunity Index", a listing of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes.
No one has been arrested in connection with the murder of Bhadurzoy. The Taliban denied involvement, though the Islamist militants have targeted journalists in their southern and eastern strongholds in the past.
"MAJOR ACHIEVEMENT"
Increased insecurity in the face of intensifying violence as most Western combat troops prepare to leave by 2014 has also led to greater impunity surrounding threats against reporters, said Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar, executive director of the Afghan media development group Nai.
Khalvatgar even suggested the government could be cracking down on the press in order to send a signal to the Taliban, that it was serious about reconciliation talks and was willing to restrict the meddlesome media to prove it.
"The government is reaching out to the Taliban as peace talks continue. Press freedom is sacrificed along the way," he said.
Nai, which tracks media infringements, says there were 77 recorded cases of brutality and threats against Afghanistan's fledgling media between May 2011 and May 2012.
But President Hamid Karzai defended the state of Afghan media on Thursday, telling reporters: "Freedom of the press is one of the Afghan government's major achievements. We will firmly support it and respect it".
Karzai also said he would look into the case of television reporter Nasto Naderi, who is serving a short jail term for drinking alcohol - banned in Muslim Afghanistan - and was charged with making false accusations against officials.
Amnesty International launched a campaign this week for his release, saying Naderi is at risk of torture or death in detention for his programs which reveal corruption and criminality, often implicating officials.
In February, a government request that female television presenters wear headscarves and avoid heavy make-up angered journalists who said it was proof authorities expected the Taliban to regain a share of power.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Secrecy Paramount on Obama’s 36-Hour Secret Afghan Trip
Bloomberg By Julianna Goldman May 3, 2012
The cryptic call summoning reporters to the White House came at 12:19 p.m. Sunday from a private number and lasted only 25 seconds. By the following night, Air Force One was in the air.
In the next 36 hours, the 13-member pool of reporters who travel wherever the president goes would spend almost 28 hours in the air, fly in dual-rotor Chinook helicopters across the Hindu Kush mountain range, visit the presidential palace in Kabul, cover an address to the nation. All of it done under a cover of darkness.
President Barack Obama’s trip to Afghanistan was wrapped in secrecy. There was no arrival ceremony and no gaggle of dignitaries that typically mark a visit by the leader of the U.S. The cloak-and-dagger-like procedures required to keep the trip a surprise offer a glimpse into how the president can keep moving in a dangerous world.
Afghan insurgents put an exclamation point on the security imperative. Within hours of Obama’s departure from Bagram Airfield, they mounted coordinated attacks that killed six civilians in Kabul. The Taliban, claiming responsibility, said it was in response to the president’s trip.
The protocol was established under former President George W. Bush for his trips to the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s continued under Obama, who has now been to Afghanistan three times and to Iraq once.
“Whenever the president travels to a war zone, it’s necessary to take additional security precautions, and we are always guided by security professionals in determining those arrangements,” said Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, who accompanied Obama on the trip. Call Comes
For this flight it began for reporters on April 29, when a White House aide called members of what is known as the traveling pool to a 5 p.m. meeting in the office of press secretary Jay Carney. The main question for the meeting was the destination. The answer from Carney and White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer came quickly: Afghanistan.
The president would be flying overnight to Bagram Airfield, visiting on the anniversary of the killing of al- Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He would meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace to sign a strategic partnership agreement that had been under negotiation for more 20 months. Obama would then return to Bagram, meet with troops and deliver an address to the nation Tuesday evening before returning home. Safety Concerns
The safety of the president and all those traveling with him would be jeopardized if word leaked. The reporters were instructed to tell one editor, and to do so either in person or by land-line telephone. No mobile phone calls, no e-mails.
The news pool was told to report at 10 p.m. April 30 at Joint Base Andrews just outside of Washington and given directions to a different entrance than the one usually used for presidential trips. Arrival was to be only by personal vehicle.
The entrance gate was unlit and as a group we drove to a dark parking lot on the base. Our bags were checked by security officers and we handed over all our communications devices. We boarded a blue school bus along with several members of the White House staff, including top national security council aides Denis McDonough and Rhodes, deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromonaco and senior White House adviser David Plouffe. Shades Drawn
The shades were drawn on Air Force One when the bus arrived and would remain that way until after leaving Afghanistan. Reporters never saw Obama board. Shortly after midnight, the plane moved on the tarmac and at 12:09 a.m. Air Force One was wheels up.
About an hour into the 13 1/2-hour flight, computers, phones and tablets were returned. With a little more than two hours to go before landing, administration officials gave a briefing about the trip, the president’s address and the agreement he’d be signing.
The reporters also got a security briefing: which helicopters to board from Bagram to Kabul and the type of body armor we had the option of wearing.
As the plane began its descent into Bagram, all the interior and exterior lights on the plane were turned off. Minutes later, the landing alert sounded and soon Air Force One touched down at 10:20 p.m. in Afghanistan, 1:50 p.m. Washington time.
The news of our trip was still embargoed. Reporters weren’t allowed to communicate until the arrival in Kabul. Local Afghan reporters had already been gathered at the presidential palace. To prevent the story from leaking, they were told that they would be covering a meeting between Karzai and a delegation of U.S. members of Congress. On the Ground
The president walked off the plane and onto the tarmac in Afghanistan on a clear, bright-mooned, starry night. Wearing a long black trench coat, he was greeted by U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti.
The reporting pool was instructed to run to helicopter No. 4. Each seat in the Boeing Co. (BA) CH-47 Chinook was equipped with a 25-pound camouflaged armored vest and a plastic bag that included earplugs, a tactical light and a yellow envelope labeled “Motion sickness bag: For use during moments of stomach upset.” Over the Mountains
Moments later, the unlit Chinook was in the air for a 30- minute lift to Kabul. In the moonlight, the contours of the Hindu Kush mountain range were visible. The Marines on board watched the ground below. About 20 minutes into the flight lights were flickering on the ground below and some high-rise buildings were visible. Oddly, there were several brightly-lit structures with flashing colors.
Once on the ground, Marines standing on the unlit field directed us into armored vans for the 1.1-mile, 22-vehicle convoy to the palace. During the drive, we began establishing connections with our news organizations so that when Carney gave the word, we could report that the president was in Afghanistan.
By the time the reporters all made contact with Washington, we were standing in the courtyard of the presidential palace. Correspondents from Bloomberg, the Associated Press and Reuters gathered with Carney, who counted to three and said, “Go.”
The news was out and we were officially in Afghanistan. Maintaining Secrecy
Maintaining secrecy is one of the biggest challenges in planning such trips. Several of us who traveled this week were also on a December 2010 unannounced visit to Afghanistan, where news of the president’s visit leaked before we even landed. The White House as well as the news organizations went to great lengths to make sure that didn’t happen again.
Still, an Afghan-based news channel, TOLOnews had already reported Obama’s arrival -- several hours before Air Force One landed. The story spread on Twitter and the World Wide Web. Because the president was still in the air, the White House released a carefully worded denial and the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan used Twitter to say “Reports that President Obama is in Kabul are false.”
Once Obama and Karzai signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement, the entourage was rushed out of the palace back into the convoys to reload into the helicopters for the return trip to Bagram.
While news of the president’s visit was no longer secret, security was no less an issue. We again flew in darkness across a lit-up Kabul and back through the mountains. In the Hangar
The rest of the trip was spent in a hangar on the base. Obama delivered remarks to the troops, visited with wounded servicemen and women and handed out 10 Purple Hearts.
Finally, along with more than a dozen members of the military, we watched on a live television feed as the president, who was in an adjacent hangar, addressed the U.S. public. He spoke at roughly the same time of day that, one year earlier, Navy SEALs were conducting the raid that killed bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
As the president was ending his remarks, we were being rushed to gather our belongings. The sun would soon be rising. The outlines of the mountain ranges were becoming clearer. Staff and press were hurried onto the airplane. As during our departure from Andrews less than 24 hours earlier, the shades were all drawn and we never saw the president board.
At 4:30 a.m. local time, 8 p.m. in Washington, we felt the plane’s wheels lift off Afghan soil. Obama had spent six hours and 10 minutes on the ground.
To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net
Nurse in Afghanistan Dies in Skype Chat With Wife
By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press May 4, 2012
HOUSTON - The Texas-based wife of an Army officer serving in Afghanistan witnessed her husband's death as the two video chatted via Skype, his family said Friday.
The circumstances of Capt. Bruce Kevin Clark's death Monday were not immediately available.
"We are entrusting the military with investigating and with finding out what happened to Capt. Clark," Bradley Taber-Thomas, Clark's brother-in-law, told The Associated Press.
The Pentagon said the 43-year-old officer was formerly from Spencerport, N.Y., and that his death is under investigation.
"Bruce's wife tragically witnessed her husband's death during one of their regular Skype video-chats on Monday," Taber-Thomas said in a prepared statement. "At the time of the incident, the family was hoping for a rescue and miracle, but later learned that it was not to be.
Clark, an Army chief nurse, was assigned to the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso and deployed in March.
Taber-Thomas said the soldier's body was returned Thursday to Dover Air Force Base.
"Although the circumstances were unimaginable, Bruce's wife and extended family will be forever thankful that he and his wife were together in his last moments," he said.
A funeral is planned in Spencerport, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester and his wife's hometown, but details were not immediately available. Clark and his wife moved there in 2000 and he joined the Army six years later.
A memorial service also was planned for Addison, Mich., where Clark graduated from high school.
"While we understand the interest our family's tragedy will attract given the unique circumstances, we ask that our privacy be respected during our time of grief," Taber-Thomas said.
Taber-Thomas said Clark is survived by his wife and two daughters, age 3 and 9.
———
AP writer Chris Carola contributed to this report from Albany, N.Y.
Dispatches from Afghanistan: An Introduction
By National Journal Staff | National Journal
Only days after President Obama’s historic visit, National Journal Chief Correspondent Michael Hirsh travels to Afghanistan ahead of the NATO Summit in May to give readers an in-depth and exclusive assessment of America’s planned exit from the longest war in its history. The president, in his May 1 speech from Kabul, declared confidently both that the United States will successfully hand over Afghanistan to the Afghans by 2014, and he is winding down the war against al Qaeda begun on 9/11. “The goal that I set – to defeat al Qaeda, and deny it a chance to rebuild – is within reach,” Obama said.
Do Obama’s words really hold up? Is the “war on terror” really ending? How much of a 2012 election issue will Afghanistan become? What is the view of American and NATO forces on the ground, as well as senior Afghan officials?
During the week-long trip, divided between Kabul and the Regional Commands, Hirsh will address these issues, posting regularly in this space based on his observations and discussions with senior NATO, ISAF and Afghan officials.
A major issue that Hirsh will explore in detail is whether the plan for a handoff to Afghan forces by mid-2013 is feasible or wise, considering the recent incidents of “blue on green” shootings of American and NATO soldiers by their Afghan trainees. The new agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai commits billions of dollars in U.S. funds and U.S. trainers and counter-terrorism forces to be deployed in Afghanistan until at least 2024. But is the government of Afghanistan reliable or stable in the end? Many experts on the ground say the readiness of Afghan forces has been overestimated, just as the corruption of Karzai’s government and its lack of support inside the country tend to be underestimated.
Obama’s Deal With Afghanistan Underscores Its Crucial Role in the War on Terror
The country’s location makes it the crucial piece in the war on terror, writes Bruce Riedel, who notes that a U.S.-Afghan partnership has contained the Taliban and quietly kept the heat on Pakistan.
The Daily Beast By Bruce Riedel May 3, 2012
President Obama’s dramatic visit to Kabul and his address to the American people underscored the most important lesson of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden: we need Afghanistan. Without Afghan bases to operate from, we cannot defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates in Pakistan. It is a sobering truth that has long term implications for U.S. patience in dealing with the Afghan-Pakistan conundrum.
The agreement that Presidents Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai signed in Kabul commits the United States to a 10-year security partnership with Afghanistan that will run to at least 2024. After American and other NATO combat troops turn over the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda to Afghan security forces in 2014, America will continue to provide expertise, funds, and military assistance to the Afghans. In turn, Afghanistan will provide the U.S. with the use of its military bases to carry out counterterrorist missions in the region. Neither side says those missions—including drone attacks—will be in Pakistan, but everyone knows that is the deal. For understandable reasons Obama and Karzai pull their punches about Pakistan, but they know the truth well: Pakistan cannot police its terror problem.
The SEAL mission that killed high-value target No. 1 illustrated dramatically that America does not trust Pakistan to take action against key terror targets. After providing almost $25 billion in military and economic aid to Pakistan to fight al Qaeda since 9/11, Obama and his aides rightly decided that giving any advance information to the Pakistanis, even to strongman Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, would compromise the raid. Bitter experience in the last decade has proven that. The elected civilian government that might be prepared to do more against terror simply does not control the generals who run Pakistan’s security services.
Today three of the five terrorists on America’s most-wanted list live in Pakistan. Bin Laden’s heir, Ayman Zawahiri, is the only one “hiding.” Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, commutes between bases in Quetta and Karachi where he enjoys the backing of the Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). The ISI has been his patron since the mid-'90s. A NATO study based on the interrogations of 4,000 captured insurgents in Afghanistan leaked to the press earlier this year concluded that “senior Taliban leaders meet regularly with ISI personnel and the ISI is thoroughly aware of the Taliban activities and the whereabouts of all senior Taliban personnel.”
The surge of troops sent by Obama has turned the momentum around and made possible the building of an Afghan army that with continued American financial and military support has a decent chance of containing the Taliban after 2014.
The latest addition to the most-wanted list, Hafeez Saeed, the head of Lashkar-e-Taiba, does not even make any pretence of hiding. He is a regular on Pakistani television and often addresses large crowds of enthusiastic supporters at rallies the ISI helps to arrange. Saeed was responsible for the death of six Americans in the Mumbai massacre in November 2008. The ISI helped plan and finance the attack. When the Obama administration announced a $10 million bounty for him last month, the Pakistani authorities did nothing to bring him to justice.
Jimmy Carter has gotten a bad rap in the last few days from several Republicans who have argued that “even Carter” would have ordered the Abbottabad raid that killed bin Laden. President Carter in fact did order a high-risk military operation in 1979 to try to rescue the American hostages in Tehran. It failed because the mission was a bridge too far. The helicopters had to deploy from Oman and fly hundreds of miles to get to the target. In contrast, the SEAL mission was launched from Afghan bases within fairly easy reach of bin Laden’s hideout. Geography did in Carter. Without Afghanistan, it would have done in Obama, too. If the mission had been staged from the Arabian Sea, it would almost certainly have failed when the first helicopter into the hideout compound crash landed.
Obama inherited a disaster in Afghanistan in 2009. The Taliban had recovered from their initial defeat in 2001 with Pakistani help and were on the march in the southern and eastern parts of the country. They had the momentum everywhere. British, Danish, and Canadian forces in the south were on the defensive, facing catastrophic defeat. The surge of troops sent by Obama has turned the momentum around and made possible the building of an Afghan Army that with continued American financial and military support has a decent chance of containing the Taliban after 2014. It won’t be cheap, but it will be much less expensive than sending Americans to do the job.
Of course the best outcome would be a political process than brings the Taliban to a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement of the Afghan civil war. After undue delay the United States has finally put itself in support of such a process. The Taliban “suspended” their support for negotiations this spring. Shortly after they did so, they trumpeted a new American poll that showed growing American popular frustration with the war and a desire to get out of Afghanistan. The Taliban and their ISI patrons should reconsider now the wisdom of suspension. The president’s decision to sign the long-term pact with Kabul means time is not on the Taliban’s side. But we cannot depend on their good judgment; peace has been elusive in Afghanistan for more than 30 years now. Pakistan has become the terror capital of the world. We will need our Afghan partner for years to come.
Bruce Riedel, a former longtime CIA officer, is a senior fellow in the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. At President Obama’s request, he chaired the strategic review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009. He is author of the book Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of the Global Jihad and The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology and Future.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Nato Troop Withdrawal Impacting Foreign Direct Investment: AISA
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 03 May 2012
The complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, slated for 2014, is negatively impacting foreign investment in the country, according to the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA).
AISA Investment Promotion Director Rohullah Ahmadzai said the agency has noticed a decline in interest in foreign direct investment since 2011 when the Nato-led combat mission named 2014 as the date for the troop withdrawal.
"The issue of foreign forces withdrawing in 2014 has had a negative effect over the investment sector, and also over economic situation of all the country, because since 2011, simultaneous with our efforts to attract investment to Afghanistan, we had the announcement of the Nato withdrawal, so it might be the reason," he told TOLOnews Thursday.
His statement referred to the decision of a multi-national joint venture (JV) withdrawing a request to build an industrial park in Afghanistan.
Ahmadzai said the consortium had not officially announced its decision, but it had appeared to withdraw the request made four months ago.
ANHAM FZCO, an American-Arabic JV had sought to construct an industrial park for processing agricultural products, but was no longer pursuing the plan, he said.
He said that the company had wanted to have around 100 acres lands near an airport within Afghanistan, but it had not obtained the land so far.
ANHAM had wanted to build the park to process agricultural products for export to world markets, according to Ahmadzai.
According to its website, ANHAM was formed in 2004 by three investment and trade contracting groups. A Saudi Arabian conglomerate and contractor The Arab Supply and Trading Company, a US-based investment group and international trade organisation 2 HII-Finance Corporation, and a Jordanian holding company for diversified businesses GMS Holdings (a founder of the Munir Sukhtian Group).
Stress of war prompts soldiers to take Afghan dogs home
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
KABUL (Reuters) - Spot made the clandestine journey from the Afghan Taliban stronghold of Helmand to the capital Kabul, where he is undergoing medical treatment before moving to the United States to live with the family of the Marine who rescued him.
His ears clipped and tail severed from his days as a fighting dog, the surprisingly docile ginger and white mutt is one of hundreds being adopted in increasing numbers by foreign soldiers, who pay vast sums to take their new pets home.
"Dogs have been proven to help post-traumatic stress and the soldiers who adopt them are addressing this," said Pen Farthing, founder of British charity Nowzad, an animal shelter on the outskirts of Kabul.
A former Royal Marine, Farthing adopted his dog Nowzad, named after a Helmand district, during his tour there in 2006. He then set up the charity, where dogs and some cats are neutered and vaccinated against rabies before their journeys abroad.
Nowzad has given homes to over 330 dogs since it was founded, mostly to soldiers from the U.S. and Britain, but also from South Africa, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.
It costs around $3,000 to get a dog from Afghanistan to its new home, and Nowzad relies solely on much-needed donations. It is now trying to raise $250,000 for a new plot of land.
The dogs' birthplaces in some way reflect the thrust of the NATO-led war against Taliban insurgents, which has experienced some of its toughest fighting in the militants' southern bastions.
"We're seeing more soldier rescues than ever before. When you're being shot at by the Taliban every day, dogs give you that little bit of normality," Farthing said by a row of outdoor pens holding black and yellow puppies.
Nearby stood Dshka, an affectionate grey hound rescued by a U.S. Marine sergeant in Kajaki in Helmand, where British forces handed security to the U.S. in 2010 as part of the American troop surge. His neighbor, Poppy, a small black dog from Kandahar, will soon go to a British soldier's home.
Afghans bring the dogs to the capital by car, often through large swathes of Taliban country over days.
Workers at Nowzad are now hoping that Afghans will begin to adopt dogs, banking on a changing attitude to owning pets.
Poverty prevents many Afghans from having dogs and cats at home, and some Muslims believe dogs are unclean and therefore unfit for keeping. Kabul is home to thousands of stray dogs, and many are shot and killed.
Dogfighting, which the austere rule of the Taliban outlawed, enjoys enormous popular support across the country, as does birdfighting, and welfare groups say there is little respect for animals.
"City workers say dogs are a threat to people's lives but this is cruel," said Afghan veterinarian Abdul Hadi, one of two working full-time at Nowzad. "Dogs have the right to live and it is time for Afghans to enjoy them."
Afghan families are beginning to adopt dogs from Nowzad, they said, giving promise to the charity's goal to become Afghan-led in the future.
(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Finances a Mystery at Kabul Conference
IWPR 05/03/2012 By Khan Mohammad Danishju
Donors gave more than one million dollars in funding and materials, but paper trail for where this went proves elusive.
The search began with a missing generator. The machine, worth as much as 20,000 US dollars in Kabul, is said to have been bought with money donated by the United States Agency for International Development for a conference in July 2010.
The Kabul International Conference on July 19-20, 2010, was attended by delegates from more than 70 countries, who gathered in the Afghan capital to discuss a way forward for this battered nation. They discussed security, development and how Afghanistan could be better governed.
Spending on the conference itself has raised questions about transparency. An IWPR reporter spent two months last year trying to trace how around 1.16 million dollars in conference funding and material support – from the United States, Germany, the European Union and the UN Development Programme – was used.
The search proved largely inconclusive. No generator could be found. Nor were the hundreds of chairs, curtains and the large conference table that Germany had provided. And no record was uncovered of tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of stationary that the EU reportedly paid for.
Afghanistan’s foreign ministry has asserted that no international funding was used for the conference, though donors maintain that money and equipment left their hands.
On March 8, 2011, the foreign ministry wrote to the finance ministry about the conference’s finances.
“As you are aware, the Kabul international conference was successfully held... at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No national or international resources [were used to] financially assist this conference,” the letter said.
The ministry added that it borrowed rooms for foreign conference guests at the Intercontinental, Kabul Serena and Safi Landmark hotels, and noted that they were now keen to be reimbursed.
“The hotel administrations are continually asking for payment of their bills, a sum of 5,450,181 afghanis [112,887 dollars]. We have forwarded the matter to you and will be grateful for your consideration to reimburse [them],” the ministry said.
The claim that there was no international financial support appears to contradict the position of western donors.
In June 2011, a US embassy source told IWPR that USAID contributed approximately 500,000 dollars to fund the conference. This was to cover equipment needs, including the generator.
“Funds were also used to support other direct costs associated with conducting the conference,” the official wrote in an email.
The US embassy’s public affairs section did not directly fund the Afghan government to run the conference.
According to a document obtained by IWPR, the German government donated 400,000 euro, or 530,549 dollars, for the conference, A large share of this was set aside to purchase materials, including a conference table, 220 chairs and curtains.
The German government was responsible for packaging and shipping these items and then assembling them in Kabul, according to Christian Doktor, the economic, development and civil-military cooperation counsellor at the German embassy.
IWPR was unable to locate the table and chairs, or find any record of what happened to them after the conference.
The UN Development Programme, UNDP, contributed 45,000 dollars to the conference. According to Mohammad Amin Khaliqi, director of policy oversight and evaluation at the finance ministry, this was spent on stationary.
Afghan officials were unclear about the breakdown of funding for the conference.
Hafiz Wududi, director of the foreign ministry’s media department, said paperwork for conference expenses might not exist anywhere in the ministry.
“Our department is unaware of details on the conference,” he said.
Mohammad Zahir Faqirzada, a former foreign ministry spokesman, said the ministry had no documents on the conference’s budget.
“You should speak to the finance ministry which is responsible for this, and ask it about the government’s expenditure,” he said.
At the finance ministry, Shafiq Ahmed Qarizada, acting deputy head of policy, said the government spent nothing on running the conference.
Asked who was responsible for the spending he replied, “I don’t know anything about this issue,” before referring further questions to Khaliqi.
Khaliqi said he believed Germany and the US were the conference’s only donors, and he was unaware that UNDP had been involved.
The current foreign ministry spokesman, Janan Musazai, said he knew nothing about the conference.
Several hotels told IWPR they were still waiting to be reimbursed for putting up conference delegates.
The Kabul Serena Hotel said the foreign ministry had not paid its bill after one year. Naimatullah Habib, sales manager at the Kabul Serena, said that if he publicly disclosed the amount that the ministry owed, it might sever relations with the hotel.
Documents provided by Mustafa, accounts manager at the Safi Landmark Hotel, show that the foreign ministry owed the hotel 3,107 dollars as of September 5, 2011.
Hotel Intercontinental officials said there was no record of any conference guests staying there, so the foreign ministry owed it nothing.
Khan Mohammad Danishju is an IWPR-trained reporter in Afghanistan.
This report was produced in November 2011 as part of the Afghan Investigative Journalism Fund project, and originally published on the Afghan Centre for Investigative Journalism website which IWPR has set up locally.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Associated Press,
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — Senior officials in Turkmenistan say the energy-rich Central Asian nation plans to sign a natural gas sales agreement with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India later this month.
The deal would mark a decisive move toward construction of a landmark pipeline crossing the four nations that backers hope will meet energy demands across the region.
Two high-ranking officials, who cannot be named as they are not authorized to speak with the media, told The Associated Press this week they expect the agreement to be signed at an energy conference in Turkmenistan late May.
Progress on the project has to date been delayed by disagreement among participant nations on transit fees and the price for the gas.
It has been widely assumed that gas for the more than 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) pipeline will be sourced from the Dauletabad field in southern Turkmenistan.
An official from the state gas company said, however, that a portion of the fuel will eventually be drawn from the vast and yet-to-be developed South Yolotan field near the Afghan border.
Independent British auditor Gaffney, Cline & Associates estimates that South Yolotan may hold up to 21.2 trillion cubic meters of gas, potentially making it second largest reserve of gas in the world after the South Pars field, shared between Iran and Qatar.
Another top Turkmen energy industry official told the AP that the first gas is expected to be drawn from South Yolotan in 2013, but that the date could be brought forward to the end of this year in the best-case scenario.
The gas pipeline across Afghanistan, projected to ship 33 billion cubic meters a year, has been actively backed by the United States. It would give Turkmenistan a further export route for its copious energy reserves and generate revenue for Afghanistan. It currently exports to Russia, Iran and China, and also harbors ambitions of selling directly to Europe.
Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov has said Afghanistan could stand to earn more than $1 billion annually in transit fees. Afghan leader Hamid Karzai predicts maintaining the pipeline could provide employment for 50,000 people in Afghanistan alone.
But many observers remain concerned about the security risks of laying a pipeline across some of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s unruly tribal areas.
No details have been disclosed about the selling price for Turkmenistan’s gas, but media in Pakistan cited the country’s petroleum minister as saying the gas would cost less than was being paid for gas imported from Iran.
While pursuing plans to open up new markets on its immediate border, Turkmenistan is also pushing ahead with expanding capacity for gas transportation routes to China, which traverse neighboring Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Turkmenistan began supplying gas to China through a newly completed pipeline in late 2009. That pipeline and a second route that came online in June is expected to bring full annual capacity to 40 billion cubic meters by 2015.
A Turkmen energy official told the AP this week that third pipeline to China is already in the works, which will enable Turkmenistan to meet the commitments made in 2011 to gradually boost natural gas deliveries to China to 65 billion cubic meters annually.
Taliban claims Pakistan suicide bombing that killed 20
ANWARULLAH KHAN The Associated Press Friday, May. 04, 2012
KHAR, Pakistan — A Taliban suicide bombing in a Pakistani market close to the Afghan border killed 20 people Friday, officials said, a day after the U.S. released letters seized from Osama bin Laden's compound that criticized Pakistani militants for killing too many civilians.
Five of the dead in the blast in the Bajur tribal area were local members of the security forces, including one who had received an award for bravery in fighting Islamist militants, government administrator Abdul Haseeb said. The others were passers-by. At least 40 people were wounded.
The suicide bomber detonated his explosives as he approached a security checkpoint near the market in the town of Khar, said Mr. Haseeb. The attack took place as locals were headed to work or taking their children to school.
The explosion damaged over a dozen shops, and rescue officials searched through the debris for anyone trapped inside. The ground outside the market was covered in blood and littered with the shoes of those hit by the attack.
Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the bombing in a telephone call to The Associated Press.
“This is revenge for killing our people,” said Mr. Ahsan.
Pakistan's branch of the Taliban, which is battling for control of the region, has killed and wounded thousands of people since 2009, many of them civilians in markets or mosques.
On Thursday, the U.S. released 17 letters seized from the compound of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden by American commandos after they had killed him one year ago. Many of them addressed bombings in which civilians were killed.
Two senior al-Qaeda leaders wrote a letter to Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud in December 2010 criticizing the group for carrying out attacks in markets, mosques and other places that kill innocent Muslims. It accused the group of making “clear legal and religious mistakes which might result in a negative deviation from the set path of the jihadists' movement in Pakistan.”
The group's actions also “are contrary to the objectives of jihad and to the efforts exerted by us,” said the letter, which was written by Abu Yahya al-Libi and a militant leader identified as Atiyatullah.
One of Mr. bin Laden's spokesmen, the American Adam Gadahn, wrote a letter to an unknown recipient in January 2011 in which he listed a series of attacks on mosques and other sites in Pakistan that killed hundreds of civilians. The Pakistani Taliban either claimed responsibility for the attacks or were suspected of carrying them out.
Mr. Gadahn said these kinds of attacks “distort the picture of the pious and loyal mujahideen.”
“Now many regular people are looking at the mujahideen as a group that does not hesitate to take people's money by falsehood, detonating mosques, spilling the bloods of scores of people in the way to kill one or two who were labeled as enemies,” said Mr. Gadahn.
One of the incidents highlighted by Gadahn was a 2010 suicide bombing of a mosque in the northwest town of Darra Adam Khel targeting anti-Taliban tribal elders that killed nearly 70 people. He expressed skepticism at attempts by the Pakistani Taliban to blame the attack on the private U.S. security firm formerly known as Blackwater.
The Pakistani Taliban rarely claim responsibility for attacks that kill many civilians, often blaming them on the U.S. or Pakistani governments.
Mr. Gadahn advised the Pakistani Taliban to carry out more targeted attacks that would limit civilian casualties.
“If that targeted person really deserves to be killed, why not employ another method rather than the random attacks, which is not tolerated by any mind or religion?” said Mr. Gadahn. “Have you not remembered that you are fighting in the Muslim towns and not in the infidel's fortresses?”
Besieged Afghan media appeals to Karzai for protection
By Amie Ferris-Rotman and Mirwais Harooni Fri May 4, 2012 4:36am EDT
KABUL - (Reuters) - Afghanistan's media representatives are appealing to the government to protect the rights of journalists who are facing a growing number of violent threats in what they see as an undeclared campaign against media freedom.
War and an atmosphere of impunity make Afghanistan one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. The Taliban often regard reporters as their enemies and many officials are suspicious of a prying press.
Despite media freedom being protected by the constitution, the relatively large, often Western-backed press corps can face intimidation, abduction or even death for reporting on issues such as corruption and other government failings.
"Day by day, it is getting worse. No one is here to support reporters," Sediq Zalique, head of investigative reporting at national daily "8 a.m.", told Reuters on Friday.
Zalique said he had received several threatening phone calls from unidentified men in what he believes was a response to his articles revealing corruption and drug-running by officials.
Many Afghans view the government as deeply corrupt.
Some media hold back from publishing stories they know will attract the government's ire.
Reporters at Afghan news agency Pajhwok are resorting to self-censorship to avoid the fate of colleagues who have been beaten and detained. Three have been killed over the last decade, its editor-in-chief Danish Karokhil told Reuters, adding that the government had to act to protect the media.
Some government officials acknowledge that authorities are not doing enough.
"The Afghan government simply needs to do more to protect media freedoms," Deputy Minister of Information and Culture Deen Mohammad Mubarez Rashidi told an awards ceremony on Thursday honoring slain radio journalist Sadim Khan Bhadurzoy, who was kidnapped and beheaded in eastern Paktika province in February.
New York-based watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said last month in its annual report that while Afghanistan has experienced a slowdown in targeted killings, it had made no progress in prosecuting the killers of journalists.
Afghanistan ranks seventh on the CPJ's "Impunity Index", a listing of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes.
No one has been arrested in connection with the murder of Bhadurzoy. The Taliban denied involvement, though the Islamist militants have targeted journalists in their southern and eastern strongholds in the past.
"MAJOR ACHIEVEMENT"
Increased insecurity in the face of intensifying violence as most Western combat troops prepare to leave by 2014 has also led to greater impunity surrounding threats against reporters, said Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar, executive director of the Afghan media development group Nai.
Khalvatgar even suggested the government could be cracking down on the press in order to send a signal to the Taliban, that it was serious about reconciliation talks and was willing to restrict the meddlesome media to prove it.
"The government is reaching out to the Taliban as peace talks continue. Press freedom is sacrificed along the way," he said.
Nai, which tracks media infringements, says there were 77 recorded cases of brutality and threats against Afghanistan's fledgling media between May 2011 and May 2012.
But President Hamid Karzai defended the state of Afghan media on Thursday, telling reporters: "Freedom of the press is one of the Afghan government's major achievements. We will firmly support it and respect it".
Karzai also said he would look into the case of television reporter Nasto Naderi, who is serving a short jail term for drinking alcohol - banned in Muslim Afghanistan - and was charged with making false accusations against officials.
Amnesty International launched a campaign this week for his release, saying Naderi is at risk of torture or death in detention for his programs which reveal corruption and criminality, often implicating officials.
In February, a government request that female television presenters wear headscarves and avoid heavy make-up angered journalists who said it was proof authorities expected the Taliban to regain a share of power.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Secrecy Paramount on Obama’s 36-Hour Secret Afghan Trip
Bloomberg By Julianna Goldman May 3, 2012
The cryptic call summoning reporters to the White House came at 12:19 p.m. Sunday from a private number and lasted only 25 seconds. By the following night, Air Force One was in the air.
In the next 36 hours, the 13-member pool of reporters who travel wherever the president goes would spend almost 28 hours in the air, fly in dual-rotor Chinook helicopters across the Hindu Kush mountain range, visit the presidential palace in Kabul, cover an address to the nation. All of it done under a cover of darkness.
President Barack Obama’s trip to Afghanistan was wrapped in secrecy. There was no arrival ceremony and no gaggle of dignitaries that typically mark a visit by the leader of the U.S. The cloak-and-dagger-like procedures required to keep the trip a surprise offer a glimpse into how the president can keep moving in a dangerous world.
Afghan insurgents put an exclamation point on the security imperative. Within hours of Obama’s departure from Bagram Airfield, they mounted coordinated attacks that killed six civilians in Kabul. The Taliban, claiming responsibility, said it was in response to the president’s trip.
The protocol was established under former President George W. Bush for his trips to the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s continued under Obama, who has now been to Afghanistan three times and to Iraq once.
“Whenever the president travels to a war zone, it’s necessary to take additional security precautions, and we are always guided by security professionals in determining those arrangements,” said Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, who accompanied Obama on the trip. Call Comes
For this flight it began for reporters on April 29, when a White House aide called members of what is known as the traveling pool to a 5 p.m. meeting in the office of press secretary Jay Carney. The main question for the meeting was the destination. The answer from Carney and White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer came quickly: Afghanistan.
The president would be flying overnight to Bagram Airfield, visiting on the anniversary of the killing of al- Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He would meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace to sign a strategic partnership agreement that had been under negotiation for more 20 months. Obama would then return to Bagram, meet with troops and deliver an address to the nation Tuesday evening before returning home. Safety Concerns
The safety of the president and all those traveling with him would be jeopardized if word leaked. The reporters were instructed to tell one editor, and to do so either in person or by land-line telephone. No mobile phone calls, no e-mails.
The news pool was told to report at 10 p.m. April 30 at Joint Base Andrews just outside of Washington and given directions to a different entrance than the one usually used for presidential trips. Arrival was to be only by personal vehicle.
The entrance gate was unlit and as a group we drove to a dark parking lot on the base. Our bags were checked by security officers and we handed over all our communications devices. We boarded a blue school bus along with several members of the White House staff, including top national security council aides Denis McDonough and Rhodes, deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromonaco and senior White House adviser David Plouffe. Shades Drawn
The shades were drawn on Air Force One when the bus arrived and would remain that way until after leaving Afghanistan. Reporters never saw Obama board. Shortly after midnight, the plane moved on the tarmac and at 12:09 a.m. Air Force One was wheels up.
About an hour into the 13 1/2-hour flight, computers, phones and tablets were returned. With a little more than two hours to go before landing, administration officials gave a briefing about the trip, the president’s address and the agreement he’d be signing.
The reporters also got a security briefing: which helicopters to board from Bagram to Kabul and the type of body armor we had the option of wearing.
As the plane began its descent into Bagram, all the interior and exterior lights on the plane were turned off. Minutes later, the landing alert sounded and soon Air Force One touched down at 10:20 p.m. in Afghanistan, 1:50 p.m. Washington time.
The news of our trip was still embargoed. Reporters weren’t allowed to communicate until the arrival in Kabul. Local Afghan reporters had already been gathered at the presidential palace. To prevent the story from leaking, they were told that they would be covering a meeting between Karzai and a delegation of U.S. members of Congress. On the Ground
The president walked off the plane and onto the tarmac in Afghanistan on a clear, bright-mooned, starry night. Wearing a long black trench coat, he was greeted by U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti.
The reporting pool was instructed to run to helicopter No. 4. Each seat in the Boeing Co. (BA) CH-47 Chinook was equipped with a 25-pound camouflaged armored vest and a plastic bag that included earplugs, a tactical light and a yellow envelope labeled “Motion sickness bag: For use during moments of stomach upset.” Over the Mountains
Moments later, the unlit Chinook was in the air for a 30- minute lift to Kabul. In the moonlight, the contours of the Hindu Kush mountain range were visible. The Marines on board watched the ground below. About 20 minutes into the flight lights were flickering on the ground below and some high-rise buildings were visible. Oddly, there were several brightly-lit structures with flashing colors.
Once on the ground, Marines standing on the unlit field directed us into armored vans for the 1.1-mile, 22-vehicle convoy to the palace. During the drive, we began establishing connections with our news organizations so that when Carney gave the word, we could report that the president was in Afghanistan.
By the time the reporters all made contact with Washington, we were standing in the courtyard of the presidential palace. Correspondents from Bloomberg, the Associated Press and Reuters gathered with Carney, who counted to three and said, “Go.”
The news was out and we were officially in Afghanistan. Maintaining Secrecy
Maintaining secrecy is one of the biggest challenges in planning such trips. Several of us who traveled this week were also on a December 2010 unannounced visit to Afghanistan, where news of the president’s visit leaked before we even landed. The White House as well as the news organizations went to great lengths to make sure that didn’t happen again.
Still, an Afghan-based news channel, TOLOnews had already reported Obama’s arrival -- several hours before Air Force One landed. The story spread on Twitter and the World Wide Web. Because the president was still in the air, the White House released a carefully worded denial and the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan used Twitter to say “Reports that President Obama is in Kabul are false.”
Once Obama and Karzai signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement, the entourage was rushed out of the palace back into the convoys to reload into the helicopters for the return trip to Bagram.
While news of the president’s visit was no longer secret, security was no less an issue. We again flew in darkness across a lit-up Kabul and back through the mountains. In the Hangar
The rest of the trip was spent in a hangar on the base. Obama delivered remarks to the troops, visited with wounded servicemen and women and handed out 10 Purple Hearts.
Finally, along with more than a dozen members of the military, we watched on a live television feed as the president, who was in an adjacent hangar, addressed the U.S. public. He spoke at roughly the same time of day that, one year earlier, Navy SEALs were conducting the raid that killed bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
As the president was ending his remarks, we were being rushed to gather our belongings. The sun would soon be rising. The outlines of the mountain ranges were becoming clearer. Staff and press were hurried onto the airplane. As during our departure from Andrews less than 24 hours earlier, the shades were all drawn and we never saw the president board.
At 4:30 a.m. local time, 8 p.m. in Washington, we felt the plane’s wheels lift off Afghan soil. Obama had spent six hours and 10 minutes on the ground.
To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net
Nurse in Afghanistan Dies in Skype Chat With Wife
By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press May 4, 2012
HOUSTON - The Texas-based wife of an Army officer serving in Afghanistan witnessed her husband's death as the two video chatted via Skype, his family said Friday.
The circumstances of Capt. Bruce Kevin Clark's death Monday were not immediately available.
"We are entrusting the military with investigating and with finding out what happened to Capt. Clark," Bradley Taber-Thomas, Clark's brother-in-law, told The Associated Press.
The Pentagon said the 43-year-old officer was formerly from Spencerport, N.Y., and that his death is under investigation.
"Bruce's wife tragically witnessed her husband's death during one of their regular Skype video-chats on Monday," Taber-Thomas said in a prepared statement. "At the time of the incident, the family was hoping for a rescue and miracle, but later learned that it was not to be.
Clark, an Army chief nurse, was assigned to the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso and deployed in March.
Taber-Thomas said the soldier's body was returned Thursday to Dover Air Force Base.
"Although the circumstances were unimaginable, Bruce's wife and extended family will be forever thankful that he and his wife were together in his last moments," he said.
A funeral is planned in Spencerport, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester and his wife's hometown, but details were not immediately available. Clark and his wife moved there in 2000 and he joined the Army six years later.
A memorial service also was planned for Addison, Mich., where Clark graduated from high school.
"While we understand the interest our family's tragedy will attract given the unique circumstances, we ask that our privacy be respected during our time of grief," Taber-Thomas said.
Taber-Thomas said Clark is survived by his wife and two daughters, age 3 and 9.
———
AP writer Chris Carola contributed to this report from Albany, N.Y.
Dispatches from Afghanistan: An Introduction
By National Journal Staff | National Journal
Only days after President Obama’s historic visit, National Journal Chief Correspondent Michael Hirsh travels to Afghanistan ahead of the NATO Summit in May to give readers an in-depth and exclusive assessment of America’s planned exit from the longest war in its history. The president, in his May 1 speech from Kabul, declared confidently both that the United States will successfully hand over Afghanistan to the Afghans by 2014, and he is winding down the war against al Qaeda begun on 9/11. “The goal that I set – to defeat al Qaeda, and deny it a chance to rebuild – is within reach,” Obama said.
Do Obama’s words really hold up? Is the “war on terror” really ending? How much of a 2012 election issue will Afghanistan become? What is the view of American and NATO forces on the ground, as well as senior Afghan officials?
During the week-long trip, divided between Kabul and the Regional Commands, Hirsh will address these issues, posting regularly in this space based on his observations and discussions with senior NATO, ISAF and Afghan officials.
A major issue that Hirsh will explore in detail is whether the plan for a handoff to Afghan forces by mid-2013 is feasible or wise, considering the recent incidents of “blue on green” shootings of American and NATO soldiers by their Afghan trainees. The new agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai commits billions of dollars in U.S. funds and U.S. trainers and counter-terrorism forces to be deployed in Afghanistan until at least 2024. But is the government of Afghanistan reliable or stable in the end? Many experts on the ground say the readiness of Afghan forces has been overestimated, just as the corruption of Karzai’s government and its lack of support inside the country tend to be underestimated.
Obama’s Deal With Afghanistan Underscores Its Crucial Role in the War on Terror
The country’s location makes it the crucial piece in the war on terror, writes Bruce Riedel, who notes that a U.S.-Afghan partnership has contained the Taliban and quietly kept the heat on Pakistan.
The Daily Beast By Bruce Riedel May 3, 2012
President Obama’s dramatic visit to Kabul and his address to the American people underscored the most important lesson of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden: we need Afghanistan. Without Afghan bases to operate from, we cannot defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates in Pakistan. It is a sobering truth that has long term implications for U.S. patience in dealing with the Afghan-Pakistan conundrum.
The agreement that Presidents Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai signed in Kabul commits the United States to a 10-year security partnership with Afghanistan that will run to at least 2024. After American and other NATO combat troops turn over the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda to Afghan security forces in 2014, America will continue to provide expertise, funds, and military assistance to the Afghans. In turn, Afghanistan will provide the U.S. with the use of its military bases to carry out counterterrorist missions in the region. Neither side says those missions—including drone attacks—will be in Pakistan, but everyone knows that is the deal. For understandable reasons Obama and Karzai pull their punches about Pakistan, but they know the truth well: Pakistan cannot police its terror problem.
The SEAL mission that killed high-value target No. 1 illustrated dramatically that America does not trust Pakistan to take action against key terror targets. After providing almost $25 billion in military and economic aid to Pakistan to fight al Qaeda since 9/11, Obama and his aides rightly decided that giving any advance information to the Pakistanis, even to strongman Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, would compromise the raid. Bitter experience in the last decade has proven that. The elected civilian government that might be prepared to do more against terror simply does not control the generals who run Pakistan’s security services.
Today three of the five terrorists on America’s most-wanted list live in Pakistan. Bin Laden’s heir, Ayman Zawahiri, is the only one “hiding.” Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, commutes between bases in Quetta and Karachi where he enjoys the backing of the Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). The ISI has been his patron since the mid-'90s. A NATO study based on the interrogations of 4,000 captured insurgents in Afghanistan leaked to the press earlier this year concluded that “senior Taliban leaders meet regularly with ISI personnel and the ISI is thoroughly aware of the Taliban activities and the whereabouts of all senior Taliban personnel.”
The surge of troops sent by Obama has turned the momentum around and made possible the building of an Afghan army that with continued American financial and military support has a decent chance of containing the Taliban after 2014.
The latest addition to the most-wanted list, Hafeez Saeed, the head of Lashkar-e-Taiba, does not even make any pretence of hiding. He is a regular on Pakistani television and often addresses large crowds of enthusiastic supporters at rallies the ISI helps to arrange. Saeed was responsible for the death of six Americans in the Mumbai massacre in November 2008. The ISI helped plan and finance the attack. When the Obama administration announced a $10 million bounty for him last month, the Pakistani authorities did nothing to bring him to justice.
Jimmy Carter has gotten a bad rap in the last few days from several Republicans who have argued that “even Carter” would have ordered the Abbottabad raid that killed bin Laden. President Carter in fact did order a high-risk military operation in 1979 to try to rescue the American hostages in Tehran. It failed because the mission was a bridge too far. The helicopters had to deploy from Oman and fly hundreds of miles to get to the target. In contrast, the SEAL mission was launched from Afghan bases within fairly easy reach of bin Laden’s hideout. Geography did in Carter. Without Afghanistan, it would have done in Obama, too. If the mission had been staged from the Arabian Sea, it would almost certainly have failed when the first helicopter into the hideout compound crash landed.
Obama inherited a disaster in Afghanistan in 2009. The Taliban had recovered from their initial defeat in 2001 with Pakistani help and were on the march in the southern and eastern parts of the country. They had the momentum everywhere. British, Danish, and Canadian forces in the south were on the defensive, facing catastrophic defeat. The surge of troops sent by Obama has turned the momentum around and made possible the building of an Afghan Army that with continued American financial and military support has a decent chance of containing the Taliban after 2014. It won’t be cheap, but it will be much less expensive than sending Americans to do the job.
Of course the best outcome would be a political process than brings the Taliban to a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement of the Afghan civil war. After undue delay the United States has finally put itself in support of such a process. The Taliban “suspended” their support for negotiations this spring. Shortly after they did so, they trumpeted a new American poll that showed growing American popular frustration with the war and a desire to get out of Afghanistan. The Taliban and their ISI patrons should reconsider now the wisdom of suspension. The president’s decision to sign the long-term pact with Kabul means time is not on the Taliban’s side. But we cannot depend on their good judgment; peace has been elusive in Afghanistan for more than 30 years now. Pakistan has become the terror capital of the world. We will need our Afghan partner for years to come.
Bruce Riedel, a former longtime CIA officer, is a senior fellow in the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. At President Obama’s request, he chaired the strategic review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009. He is author of the book Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of the Global Jihad and The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology and Future.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Nato Troop Withdrawal Impacting Foreign Direct Investment: AISA
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 03 May 2012
The complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, slated for 2014, is negatively impacting foreign investment in the country, according to the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA).
AISA Investment Promotion Director Rohullah Ahmadzai said the agency has noticed a decline in interest in foreign direct investment since 2011 when the Nato-led combat mission named 2014 as the date for the troop withdrawal.
"The issue of foreign forces withdrawing in 2014 has had a negative effect over the investment sector, and also over economic situation of all the country, because since 2011, simultaneous with our efforts to attract investment to Afghanistan, we had the announcement of the Nato withdrawal, so it might be the reason," he told TOLOnews Thursday.
His statement referred to the decision of a multi-national joint venture (JV) withdrawing a request to build an industrial park in Afghanistan.
Ahmadzai said the consortium had not officially announced its decision, but it had appeared to withdraw the request made four months ago.
ANHAM FZCO, an American-Arabic JV had sought to construct an industrial park for processing agricultural products, but was no longer pursuing the plan, he said.
He said that the company had wanted to have around 100 acres lands near an airport within Afghanistan, but it had not obtained the land so far.
ANHAM had wanted to build the park to process agricultural products for export to world markets, according to Ahmadzai.
According to its website, ANHAM was formed in 2004 by three investment and trade contracting groups. A Saudi Arabian conglomerate and contractor The Arab Supply and Trading Company, a US-based investment group and international trade organisation 2 HII-Finance Corporation, and a Jordanian holding company for diversified businesses GMS Holdings (a founder of the Munir Sukhtian Group).
Stress of war prompts soldiers to take Afghan dogs home
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
KABUL (Reuters) - Spot made the clandestine journey from the Afghan Taliban stronghold of Helmand to the capital Kabul, where he is undergoing medical treatment before moving to the United States to live with the family of the Marine who rescued him.
His ears clipped and tail severed from his days as a fighting dog, the surprisingly docile ginger and white mutt is one of hundreds being adopted in increasing numbers by foreign soldiers, who pay vast sums to take their new pets home.
"Dogs have been proven to help post-traumatic stress and the soldiers who adopt them are addressing this," said Pen Farthing, founder of British charity Nowzad, an animal shelter on the outskirts of Kabul.
A former Royal Marine, Farthing adopted his dog Nowzad, named after a Helmand district, during his tour there in 2006. He then set up the charity, where dogs and some cats are neutered and vaccinated against rabies before their journeys abroad.
Nowzad has given homes to over 330 dogs since it was founded, mostly to soldiers from the U.S. and Britain, but also from South Africa, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.
It costs around $3,000 to get a dog from Afghanistan to its new home, and Nowzad relies solely on much-needed donations. It is now trying to raise $250,000 for a new plot of land.
The dogs' birthplaces in some way reflect the thrust of the NATO-led war against Taliban insurgents, which has experienced some of its toughest fighting in the militants' southern bastions.
"We're seeing more soldier rescues than ever before. When you're being shot at by the Taliban every day, dogs give you that little bit of normality," Farthing said by a row of outdoor pens holding black and yellow puppies.
Nearby stood Dshka, an affectionate grey hound rescued by a U.S. Marine sergeant in Kajaki in Helmand, where British forces handed security to the U.S. in 2010 as part of the American troop surge. His neighbor, Poppy, a small black dog from Kandahar, will soon go to a British soldier's home.
Afghans bring the dogs to the capital by car, often through large swathes of Taliban country over days.
Workers at Nowzad are now hoping that Afghans will begin to adopt dogs, banking on a changing attitude to owning pets.
Poverty prevents many Afghans from having dogs and cats at home, and some Muslims believe dogs are unclean and therefore unfit for keeping. Kabul is home to thousands of stray dogs, and many are shot and killed.
Dogfighting, which the austere rule of the Taliban outlawed, enjoys enormous popular support across the country, as does birdfighting, and welfare groups say there is little respect for animals.
"City workers say dogs are a threat to people's lives but this is cruel," said Afghan veterinarian Abdul Hadi, one of two working full-time at Nowzad. "Dogs have the right to live and it is time for Afghans to enjoy them."
Afghan families are beginning to adopt dogs from Nowzad, they said, giving promise to the charity's goal to become Afghan-led in the future.
(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Finances a Mystery at Kabul Conference
IWPR 05/03/2012 By Khan Mohammad Danishju
Donors gave more than one million dollars in funding and materials, but paper trail for where this went proves elusive.
The search began with a missing generator. The machine, worth as much as 20,000 US dollars in Kabul, is said to have been bought with money donated by the United States Agency for International Development for a conference in July 2010.
The Kabul International Conference on July 19-20, 2010, was attended by delegates from more than 70 countries, who gathered in the Afghan capital to discuss a way forward for this battered nation. They discussed security, development and how Afghanistan could be better governed.
Spending on the conference itself has raised questions about transparency. An IWPR reporter spent two months last year trying to trace how around 1.16 million dollars in conference funding and material support – from the United States, Germany, the European Union and the UN Development Programme – was used.
The search proved largely inconclusive. No generator could be found. Nor were the hundreds of chairs, curtains and the large conference table that Germany had provided. And no record was uncovered of tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of stationary that the EU reportedly paid for.
Afghanistan’s foreign ministry has asserted that no international funding was used for the conference, though donors maintain that money and equipment left their hands.
On March 8, 2011, the foreign ministry wrote to the finance ministry about the conference’s finances.
“As you are aware, the Kabul international conference was successfully held... at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No national or international resources [were used to] financially assist this conference,” the letter said.
The ministry added that it borrowed rooms for foreign conference guests at the Intercontinental, Kabul Serena and Safi Landmark hotels, and noted that they were now keen to be reimbursed.
“The hotel administrations are continually asking for payment of their bills, a sum of 5,450,181 afghanis [112,887 dollars]. We have forwarded the matter to you and will be grateful for your consideration to reimburse [them],” the ministry said.
The claim that there was no international financial support appears to contradict the position of western donors.
In June 2011, a US embassy source told IWPR that USAID contributed approximately 500,000 dollars to fund the conference. This was to cover equipment needs, including the generator.
“Funds were also used to support other direct costs associated with conducting the conference,” the official wrote in an email.
The US embassy’s public affairs section did not directly fund the Afghan government to run the conference.
According to a document obtained by IWPR, the German government donated 400,000 euro, or 530,549 dollars, for the conference, A large share of this was set aside to purchase materials, including a conference table, 220 chairs and curtains.
The German government was responsible for packaging and shipping these items and then assembling them in Kabul, according to Christian Doktor, the economic, development and civil-military cooperation counsellor at the German embassy.
IWPR was unable to locate the table and chairs, or find any record of what happened to them after the conference.
The UN Development Programme, UNDP, contributed 45,000 dollars to the conference. According to Mohammad Amin Khaliqi, director of policy oversight and evaluation at the finance ministry, this was spent on stationary.
Afghan officials were unclear about the breakdown of funding for the conference.
Hafiz Wududi, director of the foreign ministry’s media department, said paperwork for conference expenses might not exist anywhere in the ministry.
“Our department is unaware of details on the conference,” he said.
Mohammad Zahir Faqirzada, a former foreign ministry spokesman, said the ministry had no documents on the conference’s budget.
“You should speak to the finance ministry which is responsible for this, and ask it about the government’s expenditure,” he said.
At the finance ministry, Shafiq Ahmed Qarizada, acting deputy head of policy, said the government spent nothing on running the conference.
Asked who was responsible for the spending he replied, “I don’t know anything about this issue,” before referring further questions to Khaliqi.
Khaliqi said he believed Germany and the US were the conference’s only donors, and he was unaware that UNDP had been involved.
The current foreign ministry spokesman, Janan Musazai, said he knew nothing about the conference.
Several hotels told IWPR they were still waiting to be reimbursed for putting up conference delegates.
The Kabul Serena Hotel said the foreign ministry had not paid its bill after one year. Naimatullah Habib, sales manager at the Kabul Serena, said that if he publicly disclosed the amount that the ministry owed, it might sever relations with the hotel.
Documents provided by Mustafa, accounts manager at the Safi Landmark Hotel, show that the foreign ministry owed the hotel 3,107 dollars as of September 5, 2011.
Hotel Intercontinental officials said there was no record of any conference guests staying there, so the foreign ministry owed it nothing.
Khan Mohammad Danishju is an IWPR-trained reporter in Afghanistan.
This report was produced in November 2011 as part of the Afghan Investigative Journalism Fund project, and originally published on the Afghan Centre for Investigative Journalism website which IWPR has set up locally.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com