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Deadly blast hits Afghan market in Faryab province
14 May 2012 BBC News
A bomb explosion at a market in northern Afghanistan has killed nine people, police say.
An official from a provincial council was among the dead in the Ghormuch district of Faryab province.
A local doctor told the BBC at least 10 people had been injured.
Last month at least 10 people were killed in Faryab when a suicide bomber struck a meeting of officials in the provincial capital.
Attacks in northern Afghanistan are far less common than in the south and east and Faryab province is considered to be relatively peaceful.
The bomb was remotely detonated, police told Reuters news agency.
At the time of the explosion, the market was busy and filled with shoppers.
No group has said it carried out the attack as yet, but Taliban attacks traditionally increase after a winter lull when bad weather restricts the movement of fighters.
On Sunday a Taliban official turned peace negotiator was shot dead in Kabul, dealing a blow to President Hamid Karzai's hopes of reconciliation moves with Taliban fighters.
Nato forces are set to hand over responsibility for security to Afghans by 2014.
17 armed militants killed in Afghan province
SHARAN, Afghanistan, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani security forces eliminated 17 armed anti-government militants Sunday night during cleanup operations in Paktika province, 155 km south of capital Kabul, spokesman for provincial administration Mukhlis Afghan said Monday.
According to the spokesman, the operations backed by NATO-led aircrafts were conducted in Sarobi and Shakhil Abad districts Sunday night during which a number of arms and ammunitions were seized by security forces. "Fifteen armed militants were killed in Sarobi district and two others in Shakhil Abad,"Afghan told Xinhua, adding that all insurgents were dressed in military uniform.
There were no casualties on the security forces or civilians.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have yet to make any comment.
Obama Welcomes Afghan Security Transfer
May 14, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
U.S. President Barack Obama has welcomed the latest transfer of security from NATO to Afghan forces, saying it is "an important step forward" toward achieving objectives in Afghanistan.
The security transfer, announced by Kabul on May 13, takes in 230 districts and the centers of all provincial capitals, including the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar city.
The announcement came the same day attackers shot dead an influential peace negotiator in the capital, Kabul.
Arsala Rahmani, 68, was among the most senior and potentially pivotal members of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, set up by President Hamid Karzai two years ago to liaise with the insurgents.
The Taliban denied involvement in the killing of Rahmani, a defector from the Taliban who retained strong ties to the movement.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
Afghan assassination casts more gloom over peace efforts
Arsala Rahmani, a member of the High Peace Council, is gunned down in Kabul. His position as an ex-minister in the Taliban government made him a valuable asset.
Los Angeles Times By Laura King May 13, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - A brazen daytime assassination on Sunday offered a grim reminder of stymied progress in a key part of NATO's effort to wind down the Afghan war: peace talks with the Taliban.
Arsala Rahmani, a senior member of the Afghan government body set up to conduct negotiations with the militant group, was shot and killed while traveling by car through the Afghan capital, police said. Coming less than nine months after the assassination of the head of the High Peace Council, the killing cast yet more gloom over Western-backed efforts to bring the insurgents to the bargaining table.
The Obama administration had hoped to have substantive progress on the negotiating front to cite when a NATO summit convenes next week in Chicago. Instead, preliminary contacts appear to have broken down.
Rahmani, who was traveling without a bodyguard, was gunned down en route to a work-related meeting, said Hashmat Stanikzai, a spokesman for the Kabul police chief. No one else was injured, and the assailant or assailants escaped.
As a former member of the Taliban, Rahmani had possessed both unique influence with the insurgents and understanding of their views.
The Taliban issued an unusually quick denial of responsibility for the killing, even though the group had previously said members of the High Peace Council would be targeted in its spring offensive. "We deny any kind of involvement," said spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, contacted by telephone.
The U.S. Embassy, the NATO force and the United Nations mission all condemned Rahmani's killing, as did Afghan President Hamid Karzai. NATO's International Security Assistance Force praised Rahmani, a onetime deputy minister in the Taliban government, for "turning his back on an insurgent movement that continues to be wholly detrimental to the future of Afghanistan."
The High Peace Council was created by Karzai in 2010 to try to inaugurate talks with the Taliban. But the efforts have foundered, particularly in the wake of the killing in September of the council's head, former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Hopes of launching peace talks with the Taliban were high at the beginning of the year, when the group declared its willingness to open a liaison office in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar to facilitate contacts with the United States. But in March the Taliban leadership said it was cutting off contacts, citing what it said was bad faith on the side of the U.S.
The breakdown apparently centered on a prisoner exchange meant to build confidence on both sides. The family of the only known American soldier held captive by the Taliban, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, complained publicly this month that not enough was being done to secure his freedom. The Taliban leadership, for its part, accused the Americans of failing to follow through on the proposed handing over of several senior insurgents held at Guantanamo Bay.
Although efforts to start negotiations with the Taliban have failed to gain traction, the Karzai government announced Sunday that it was moving ahead with another prelude to the withdrawal of NATO's combat force: plans for Afghan security forces to formally assume responsibility for safeguarding more areas of the country. With the designating of the latest areas, about three-quarters of the Afghan population now lives in areas where the Afghan police and army are to have primary responsibility for confronting insurgents.
Previously, the NATO force had intended to leave the most dangerous regions till the end of the "transition" process, but areas handed over include many where the Taliban and other insurgent groups remain active. The thinking is that the Afghan forces will have to prove their mettle, but will also have Western troops available to back them up if they find themselves in over their heads.
Most North Atlantic Treaty Organization combat forces are to leave in 2014.
Fighting has been ratcheting upward in recent weeks with the arrival of warmer weather. The NATO force said Sunday that two Western service members had been killed in fighting in eastern Afghanistan, but provided no details.
The NATO force also said Sunday that it would not be making any further public comment on the deaths of two British troops killed a day earlier in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan. Western military officials said at the time that the two were shot to death by what were believed to be insurgents disguised as Afghan police officers. But a spokesman for the Helmand provincial government, Daoud Ahmadi, said Sunday that authorities had ascertained the two were Afghan police.
Such "insider" shootings — attacks carried out by members of the Afghan police or army — have been blamed for about 14% of the deaths of Western service members this year.
laura.king@latimes.com
Special correspondent Aimal Yaqubi contributed to this report.
Afghan peace negotiator laid to rest after being assassinated
KABUL, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The body of late Afghan peace negotiator and senator Mawlawi Arsallah Rahmani who was assassinated Sunday was laid to rest Monday amid tight security.
Hundreds of people including Rahmani's family members, friends and government officials attended the funeral where the speakers called on the government to bring to justice those behind the murder.
Rahmani who served as member of the government-backed High Council for Peace, a body tasked to talk with the Taliban and find a negotiated settlement for Afghan crisis, was gunned down by unknown armed men in Kabul on Monday morning. The attackers have made their escape.
15 Taliban rebels surrender in W. Afghanistan
HERAT, Afghanistan, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Over a dozen Taliban rebels surrendered in Afghanistan's western province of Herat on Monday, a provincial government spokesman said.
"A total of 15 Taliban fighters, including their commander Mullah Anis Akhond, have renounced violence and joined the peace process in Shindand district on Monday morning," spokesman Mohiddin Noori told Xinhua.
With the former insurgents' surrender, peace and stability would be further strengthened in several parts of the province with Herat city as its capital, Noori said.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have not made any comment yet.
The Afghan government set up a 70-member High Peace Council in the summer of 2010 to encourage Taliban to disarm and give up militancy against the government.
A senior member of the council Arsallah Rahmani was shot and killed by unknown gunmen in Kabul on Sunday morning.
More than 3,500 anti-government insurgents have laid down their arms in Afghanistan over the past year, according to officials.
U.N. Defends Afghan Police Fund as Donors Seek Probe
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE, YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and STEPHEN FIDLER May 13, 2012
KABUL - International donors called on Sunday for an inquiry into potential mismanagement of the United Nations-administered trust fund that helps pay for Afghanistan's fledgling police force, even as the U.N. reiterated its support for the program and denied the accusations.
The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee, an anticorruption group composed of high-level Afghan and international officials, expressed concerns about the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, or Lotfa. Administered by the U.N. Development Program, Lotfa covers salaries, benefits and other operating costs for the Afghan National Police.
The issue is sensitive because Lotfa—established in 2002 as a result of international donor concerns that the Afghan government was at the time unable to properly disburse the money itself—is supposed to be an example of probity.
Most of the money in the fund comes from the U.S., European nations and Japan. "We will request a detailed investigation and accountability," a senior Western official said Sunday. "There is zero tolerance of mismanagement and corruption."
An American official in Kabul added that the U.S. has strongly supported the work of the committee that highlighted the problems at Lotfa. "We encourage the UNDP to be responsive to the concerns raised by the MEC that have been reported on," the U.S. official said.
In Brussels, a spokesman for the European Union's External Action Service, which is responsible for foreign aid, said the issues raised by the Journal article "are indeed a matter of serious concern." The EU would follow up with the UNDP "to ensure all necessary actions are taken to restore donor confidence in the management of Lotfa," he said.
In a detailed response to the Journal's article, the UNDP on Sunday denied allegations that the fund was vulnerable to fraud, and said specific incidents of possible corruption, raised by apparent whistleblowers in documents reviewed by the Journal, were incorrect.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan added that a recently conducted financial audit of Lotfa by KPMG found no financial irregularities. "I am confident that comprehensive steps to ensure transparency and oversight are being taken by UNDP to further its efforts to contribute to a robust and professional police force in Afghanistan," said Michael Keating, the U.N. mission's deputy head.
In a finding issued to donors Friday, the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee said Lotfa "has been and will continue to be vulnerable to corruption," even though the fund is crucial to Afghanistan's security.
"The lack of proper oversight and accountability of Lotfa has been flagged by a number of institutions as insufficient for a trust fund of this size and importance," the finding says. "UNDP Country Office has received internal complaints and is conducting its own integrity checks and financial audits which need to be published and made public."
The committee also called for the fund's management to publish the results of a recent internal audit, which UNDP officials said showed no evidence of irregularity.
On Sunday, Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's presidential adviser who oversees the transition of security to Afghan control, told reporters in Kabul that the U.N. needs to overhaul its auditing system. "Its auditing system is of a different century," he said.
Among the internal complaints raised within Lotfa were suspicions that the program may have overpaid for office supplies and equipment, or paid worker salaries for positions that went unfilled, according to the whistleblower documents reviewed by the Journal.
Satinder Bindra, the UNDP's director of communications, said in a statement Sunday that the agency "has a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of mismanagement or corruption for its entire country program in Afghanistan," and added that it was "committed to diligently following up on" the committee's recommendations.
Responding to specific allegations of the misallocation of funds, the UNDP said it found no evidence of wrongdoing. A luxury furniture set flagged in one internal document as possibly not being documented or delivered was "procured with full procedural checks and are still being used by the head of the Afghan Border Police," the UNDP said.
An $800 paper shredder mentioned in a report as possibly being purchased for above market price "was in line with our procurement policy and was only approved after the project justified its need for a more robust product," the UNDP said.
The UNDP acknowledged in its response that it was aware of the risk of "no-show" workers at Afghanistan's interior ministry who may still be paid on contract by Lotfa.
"Precisely because we are fully aware of this risk, a system was established for all the staff in the Ministry of Interior in key departments to work under contract," the statement said. "Payments to staff are only processed after the examination of monthly attendance sheets submitted to supervisors, who sign off on the entire process."
The Afghan interior ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since 2002, international donors have contributed about $2.9 billion to Lotfa; the U.S. traditionally has been the top international donor. The fund is seen as key to the country's security, particularly as the U.S. and its allies prepare to withdraw the bulk of their troops by 2014.
Officials said EU foreign ministers meet tomorrow in Brussels, where there will be a previously scheduled discussion on Afghanistan. The issue may be raised there, though it is not officially on the agenda.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com and Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com
AP Exclusive: Moderate Taliban speaks of divisions
Associated Press May 14, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - One of the most powerful men on the Taliban council, Agha Jan Motasim, nearly lost his life in a hail of bullets for advocating a negotiated settlement that would bring a broad-based government to his beleaguered homeland of Afghanistan.
In an exclusive and rare interview by a member of the so-called Quetta Shura, Motasim told The Associated Press Sunday that a majority of Taliban wants a peace settlement and that there are only "a few" hard-liners in the movement.
"There are two kinds of Taliban. The one type of Taliban who believes that the foreigners want to solve the problem but there is another group and they don't believe, and they are thinking that the foreigners only want to fight," he said by telephone. "I can tell you, though, that the majority of the Taliban and the Taliban leadership want a broad-based government for all Afghan people and an Islamic system like other Islamic countries."
But Motasim chastised the West, singling out the United States and Britain, for failing to bolster the moderates within the fundamentalist Islamic movement by refusing to recognize the Taliban as a political identity and backtracking on promises __ all of which he said strengthens the hard-liners and weakens moderates like himself.
He lamented Sunday's assassination in Kabul of Arsala Rahmani, a member of the Afghan government-appointed peace council who was active in trying to set up formal talks with insurgents. Rahmani served as deputy minister of higher education in the former Taliban regime but later reconciled with the current Afghan government.
"He was a nationalist. We respected him," Motasim said.
Motasim used his own stature to press for talks nearly three years before the United States began making overtures to the Taliban in late 2010. At the time, he was also chief of the Taliban political committee, a powerful position that he held until he was shot last August. He is still a member of the Taliban leadership council, the Quetta Shura, named after the Pakistani city of the same name.
His voice softened and he paused often as he reflected on the brutal shooting in the port city of Karachi, Pakistan, where he lived, while moving regularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan in areas that he refused to identify.
Several bullets shattered his body and he was hospitalized for many weeks. In the first days after the shooting, he wasn't expected to survive.
The AP spoke to Motasim from Turkey where he had gone for additional treatment. When speaking of his attackers, he referred to them as brothers and colleagues, saying they may have been Taliban hard-liners who opposed his moderate positions.
"My idea was I wanted a broad-based government, all political parties together and maybe some hard-liners among the Taliban in Afghanistan and in Pakistan didn't like to hear this and so they attacked me," he said. Some of the gunmen may have come from Afghanistan and some may have been from Pakistan's North Waziristan where militant groups have found sanctuary, Motasim said.
In the early minutes of the telephone conversation, Motasim was reluctant to talk politics, saying he had been told by his friends and colleagues to stay silent.
"I am not involved in any talks. I am only here for my treatment," he said.
But he gradually opened up, saying the Taliban have three main demands: They want all Afghan prisoners released from U.S.-run detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay and near Bagram Air Field north of the Afghan capital; the names of all Taliban currently on the United Nations sanctions blacklist removed; and recognition of the Taliban as a political party.
He said talks in Qatar ended earlier this year after the United States reneged on a promise to release five prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. "But those are just the famous ones," he said. "There are thousands more being held in Bagram and they are being held under the name of Taliban but they are innocent people, farmers and clerics."
The prisoner exchange issue is rife with sensitivity as the United States has sought to exchange American Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, captured by the Taliban in 2009, for Afghan Taliban held in Guantanamo. It appears the prisoner exchange fell through after the Afghan authorities demanded the five prisoners be repatriated to Afghanistan, according to an Afghan official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to brief the media. The five prisoners have demanded they be allowed to go to Qatar with their families.
Motasim said he wasn't told why the prisoners were not released but when they weren't the hard-liners among the Taliban took it as a sign that the United States was disingenuous, said Motasim, who acknowledged that the Taliban have set up an office in Qatar.
He said the office has no official recognition as a political headquarters of the Taliban, rather it has been veiled in secrecy and the American interlocutors are engaging with them as insurgents not political representatives of at least some Afghans. Motasim said most of the Taliban who were negotiating with the Americans are on the U.N. sanctions list.
The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against the Taliban in November 1999 for refusing to send Osama bin Laden to the United States or a third country for trial on terrorism charges in connection with the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The sanctions — a travel ban, arms embargo and assets freeze — were later extended to al-Qaida. In July 2005, the council extended the sanctions again to cover affiliates and splinter groups of al-Qaida and the Taliban.
"They (the U.S.) have to give political independence to the Taliban," he said.
Looking ahead to next week's NATO summit in Chicago, Motasim said he had a message for participants.
"The decisions of NATO should be for the good of Afghanistan and should not call for more violence. It should call for an end to the fighting, an end to the raids and killings," he said. "Afghanistan is destroyed, the people are displaced, refugees, poor people are dying in their homes and also foreigners are dying here. It should end."
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Kathy Gannon is AP Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be followed on www.twitter.com/kathygannon
NATO a step closer to getting out of Afghan war
AFP By Staff Writers May 13, 2012
Kabul - NATO took a step closer to getting out of the Afghan war on Sunday as the Kabul government announced local forces would take over control of security in a large new slice of the country.
In the third phase of a five-tranche military transition process, 122 more districts throughout Afghanistan will come under local command, putting Afghan forces in control of security for 75 percent of the population.
Kapisa province, where French troops are based, is one of three provinces designated for a complete handover. French president-elect Francois Hollande pledged during his election campaign to pull France's 3,400 troops out this year.
NATO has a total of 130,000 soldiers helping the government of President Hamid Karzai fight an insurgency by hardline Taliban Islamists, and they are due to withdraw by the end of 2014 when the transition process is complete.
But the conflict is increasingly unpopular in the US and other contributing nations, with opinion polls showing a desire to get out as soon as possible.
While NATO is quick to praise the growing skills of the 350,000-strong Afghan security forces it is training to take over, officers acknowledge the war will not be won on the battlefield.
The US and Karzai have made moves towards peace talks with the Taliban but in a setback to the process a senior member of Karzai's High Peace Council was assassinated in a drive-by shooting in Kabul in broad daylight on Sunday.
Arsala Rahmani, a former minister in the Taliban regime, was killed just hours before the transition announcement.
A key negotiator in the council, he "had recently established contacts with senior Taliban leaders", a senior security official told AFP.
The insurgents had in March pulled out of preliminary talks with the US in Qatar, saying Washington had not fulfilled confidence-building pledges such as releasing five Taliban leaders from the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
And they have steadfastly rejected talks with Karzai's administration, describing it as a puppet of the Americans.
Government officials said the handover's third phase would start immediately and could take as little as six months, although according to NATO's International Security Assistance Force complete transition in an area can take 12-18 months.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen welcomed the latest announcement.
"The completion of transition at the end of 2014 will mark the end of NATO's combat role, but not the end of our engagement," he said in a statement.
"NATO is committed to an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, and to providing the training which the Afghan forces will still need, beyond 2014."
The commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), General John Allen, also hailed the move, calling it "a testament to the capacity and capability of the Afghan National Security Force".
"Afghanistan continues to move forward in securing the sovereign future of their country and the security of its borders, and this is another step in bringing the hope of greater prosperity to the Afghan people," said Allen.
The total number of districts covered by the three phases is 260 in all of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, with every provincial capital now in a designated area of transition, ISAF said.
The first two phases -- the first in July last year -- have already put 50 percent of the population under Afghan security control, although NATO forces still provide vital back-up and crucial air support.
US, Pakistan in intense negotiations aimed at reopening NATO supply line into Afghanistan
Associated Press May 14, 2012
ISLAMABAD - The United States has been holding intense negotiations with Pakistan to get the country to reopen its border to supplies meant for NATO troops in Afghanistan, a U.S. official said Monday, a day before senior Pakistani decision makers are set to discuss the issue.
The clock is ticking ahead of a NATO summit in Chicago on May 20-21 that is largely focused on the Afghan war. Pakistan will likely only receive an invitation if it ends its nearly six-month blockade of NATO supplies.
A team of U.S. negotiators has been in the country for several weeks working out the nuts and bolts of a potential agreement to reopen the supply line, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The Americans met with their Pakistani counterparts all day Sunday and were scheduled to resume discussions Monday, the official said.
Pakistan closed its Afghan border crossings to the U.S.-led coalition at the end of November, in retaliation for American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two small outposts in the northwest. The U.S. expressed its condolences, but that wasn't enough for Pakistan.
Pakistan's government then threw the issue to parliament, which used the opportunity to try to renegotiate the country's relationship with the U.S., a popular move in a country where anti-American sentiment is rampant despite billions of dollars in annual U.S. aid.
Passing the gauntlet to parliament was likely meant to provide the government political cover, but the lawmakers' stark demands have made it more difficult for Pakistani officials to maneuver.
Parliament demanded an "unconditional apology" for the deaths of the Pakistani soldiers and an end to U.S. drone strikes in the country. Although it did not explicitly link these issues to reopening the supply line, they have complicated matters since the U.S. has refused both demands.
Analysts have speculated that the Obama administration is reluctant to apologize for the errant airstrikes because of potential criticism from Congress and Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney. Anger at Pakistan is high in the U.S. because of the country's alleged support for Islamist militants killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials have said in private that they have no intention of stopping covert CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, which they see as key to targeting militants in the country who pose a threat to the West. The strikes are immensely unpopular in Pakistan because many people believe they mostly kill civilians, allegations disputed by the U.S. and independent research.
The issue is complicated by the fact that Pakistan is widely believed to have supported some of the strikes in the past, although that cooperation has come under strain as the relationship between the Washington and Islamabad has deteriorated.
Pakistan has its own reasons for wanting to patch up the relationship with the U.S. In addition to an invitation to the upcoming NATO summit, Pakistan would like to free up over a billion dollars in U.S. military aid that has been frozen for the past year.
Also, other members of NATO, such as Britain, are unhappy with Pakistan's decision to block supplies for so long.
Pakistani Cabinet members and senior military officials are scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss whether to reopen the NATO supply line. That session is to be followed by a full meeting of the Cabinet on Wednesday.
Unless the U.S. softens its position on Pakistan's demands, the government will have to balance the benefit of reopening the supply line with the potential backlash at home from anti-U.S. politicians and activists who will inevitably accuse the government of selling out to Washington's interests.
Pakistan faces mounting pressure over NATO supply routes
by Muhammad Tahir
ISLAMABAD, May 14 (Xinhua) -- With Pakistan faces growing pressure over the closing of key supplies for NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan, the country's top panel of powerful military and civilian leadership is set to take a decision on the reopening of land routes on Tuesday.
Pakistan had closed all supply routes after a cross-border NATO air strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November 2011 and Islamabad is demanding a public apology for the incident for reopening the routes.
The U.S. has so far refused to tender apology, but top American and NATO leaders have now pressed Islamabad to reopen key supply routes. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has warned Pakistan that it may miss a key NATO summit on Afghanistan in Chicago next week if NATO supply routes were not reopened.
NATO leaders have also cautioned that blockade for long time of supplies via Pakistan's shortest and cheap routes could create problems for nearly 140,000 foreign troops in war-shattered Afghanistan. The Afghan government has also joined the U.S. and NATO to call for the reopening of routes as NATO supplies destined for Afghanistan are also blocked.
Afghan Education Minister Farooq Wardag said in Kabul on Sunday that millions of text books, printed in Dubai by the U.S. for Afghan students, have been stuck up at Pakistan's southern Karachi port for months.
Officials said that nearly 70 percent of the NATO supplies are being transported via Pakistan. Chief of the U.S. Central Command, or Centcom, General James Mattis, said last month that the U.S. will also need Pakistan's land routes for the withdrawal of its forces in the future. The U.S. plans to withdraw thousands of troops this year as part of its exit strategy.
With foreign pressure and a visible change in the mood of Pakistani civilian leaders, there is a strong possibility of reopening the NATO supply line in the meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) on Tuesday. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani will preside over the meeting, which will be attended by senior military leaders and key ministers. Army chief General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani has already said the military would back any decision by the government.
It was DCC which had unanimously taken the decision to shut supply routes on NATO just hours after the U.S. fighter jets struck two border posts along the border with Afghanistan and killed 24 soldiers.
Sensing the fast growing pressure, two key Pakistani ministers have supported the reopening of NATO supply routes.
Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar said last week Pakistan might face sanctions if it does not open supply routes to the U.S.- led NATO forces in Afghanistan through its territory.
"Pakistan has signed international conventions and under them, it would not be easy to continue the suspension of (NATO) supplies as it may lead to sanctions by the international community," Mukhtar said during his interaction with the media.
Last month a joint session of parliament adopted guidelines for resetting relations with the U.S., including the reopening of the NATO supply routes. Asked about Pakistan-U.S. defence cooperation, Mukhtar said Islamabad had asked Washington to conduct joint and coordinated drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal belt but this was refused.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar came up with a statement on Sunday that she personally believed that NATO supply routes through Pakistan, closed for some six months now, should be reopened.
She argued in a media interaction that it is in Pakistan's interest to facilitate an international operation in Afghanistan, adding that there are many friendly countries whose supplies are also blocked. She further said NATO and ISAF supplies should not be seen in the context of relations with the United States. "After all, NATO and ISAF are umbrella organizations for over 40 countries, including close friends such as Turkey, the UK, etc," she said.
The issue was also prominently figured at the trilateral meeting of top military leaders from ISAF, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi on Sunday.
Pakistan has been in a fix over the NATO supply routes over the past few months as the government is also facing strong opposition from an amalgamation of religious groups to the reopening of the routes.
On the other hand there is no let-up in pressure from the U.S. and its NATO allies. Last week a U.S. Congressional Committee passed a bill imposing conditions on Pakistan for receiving American economic and military aid. The bill seeks certification from the Defence Secretary that Pakistan is committed to supporting counter-terrorism operations in the country, and also prohibits the preferential procurement of goods or services from Pakistan till Islamabad re-opens the NATO supply routes.
Poor Afghans becoming more vulnerable to Taliban
CBS News By Allen Pizzey May 13, 2012
KABUL - An assassin dealt another blow to peace efforts in Afghanistan on Sunday. A former Taliban official turned peace envoy was shot dead in Kabul while sitting in traffic. Arsala Rahmani was trying to set up formal talks with the insurgents to end the 11-year-old war.
To that end, Afghan leaders said today they'll take over security in areas that make up 75 percent of the nation's population in six months. CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports the transition leaves many Afghans in limbo.
The polite name for an overcrowded collection of mud huts is "informal settlement".
As many as 35,000 people live in one such place around Kabul alone, according to U.N. figures. Some of the people in one of the informal settlements have already been moved once to make way for commercial development.
They claim the land they were living on was taken over by corrupt officials for their own ends, and now they've being told to move again.
About $60 billion worth of humanitarian aid has poured into Afghanistan in the past ten years. But much of it has been earmarked for crises, and since the problems in the squatter camps are chronic and long-standing, they don't qualify for it.
"The government not only doesn't care about us," Nour Mohammed said. "They want to destroy us."
The World Bank has warned that a sudden withdrawal of both foreign troops and aid money could "shock the country's fragile economy and pose a serious threat to security."
There's only one way to avoid that, according to Rohullah Ahmadzai of the Afghan Investment Support Agency.
"A real and honest commitment is needed from both Afghan government plus international community," Ahmadzai said.
More than one-third of Afghans live in absolute poverty, and most of the others aren't much better off.
The population of Kabul has more than tripled to five million people over the past ten years as people flee rural areas looking for both security and jobs.
There are no hard unemployment figures,but the lack of opportunity is obvious, which is where the Taliban comes in.
It pays fighters up to $20 per day, a serious reason to consider what's next for Afghanistan's economy when U.S. and other troops leave.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
14 May 2012 BBC News
A bomb explosion at a market in northern Afghanistan has killed nine people, police say.
An official from a provincial council was among the dead in the Ghormuch district of Faryab province.
A local doctor told the BBC at least 10 people had been injured.
Last month at least 10 people were killed in Faryab when a suicide bomber struck a meeting of officials in the provincial capital.
Attacks in northern Afghanistan are far less common than in the south and east and Faryab province is considered to be relatively peaceful.
The bomb was remotely detonated, police told Reuters news agency.
At the time of the explosion, the market was busy and filled with shoppers.
No group has said it carried out the attack as yet, but Taliban attacks traditionally increase after a winter lull when bad weather restricts the movement of fighters.
On Sunday a Taliban official turned peace negotiator was shot dead in Kabul, dealing a blow to President Hamid Karzai's hopes of reconciliation moves with Taliban fighters.
Nato forces are set to hand over responsibility for security to Afghans by 2014.
17 armed militants killed in Afghan province
SHARAN, Afghanistan, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani security forces eliminated 17 armed anti-government militants Sunday night during cleanup operations in Paktika province, 155 km south of capital Kabul, spokesman for provincial administration Mukhlis Afghan said Monday.
According to the spokesman, the operations backed by NATO-led aircrafts were conducted in Sarobi and Shakhil Abad districts Sunday night during which a number of arms and ammunitions were seized by security forces. "Fifteen armed militants were killed in Sarobi district and two others in Shakhil Abad,"Afghan told Xinhua, adding that all insurgents were dressed in military uniform.
There were no casualties on the security forces or civilians.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have yet to make any comment.
Obama Welcomes Afghan Security Transfer
May 14, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
U.S. President Barack Obama has welcomed the latest transfer of security from NATO to Afghan forces, saying it is "an important step forward" toward achieving objectives in Afghanistan.
The security transfer, announced by Kabul on May 13, takes in 230 districts and the centers of all provincial capitals, including the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar city.
The announcement came the same day attackers shot dead an influential peace negotiator in the capital, Kabul.
Arsala Rahmani, 68, was among the most senior and potentially pivotal members of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, set up by President Hamid Karzai two years ago to liaise with the insurgents.
The Taliban denied involvement in the killing of Rahmani, a defector from the Taliban who retained strong ties to the movement.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
Afghan assassination casts more gloom over peace efforts
Arsala Rahmani, a member of the High Peace Council, is gunned down in Kabul. His position as an ex-minister in the Taliban government made him a valuable asset.
Los Angeles Times By Laura King May 13, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - A brazen daytime assassination on Sunday offered a grim reminder of stymied progress in a key part of NATO's effort to wind down the Afghan war: peace talks with the Taliban.
Arsala Rahmani, a senior member of the Afghan government body set up to conduct negotiations with the militant group, was shot and killed while traveling by car through the Afghan capital, police said. Coming less than nine months after the assassination of the head of the High Peace Council, the killing cast yet more gloom over Western-backed efforts to bring the insurgents to the bargaining table.
The Obama administration had hoped to have substantive progress on the negotiating front to cite when a NATO summit convenes next week in Chicago. Instead, preliminary contacts appear to have broken down.
Rahmani, who was traveling without a bodyguard, was gunned down en route to a work-related meeting, said Hashmat Stanikzai, a spokesman for the Kabul police chief. No one else was injured, and the assailant or assailants escaped.
As a former member of the Taliban, Rahmani had possessed both unique influence with the insurgents and understanding of their views.
The Taliban issued an unusually quick denial of responsibility for the killing, even though the group had previously said members of the High Peace Council would be targeted in its spring offensive. "We deny any kind of involvement," said spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, contacted by telephone.
The U.S. Embassy, the NATO force and the United Nations mission all condemned Rahmani's killing, as did Afghan President Hamid Karzai. NATO's International Security Assistance Force praised Rahmani, a onetime deputy minister in the Taliban government, for "turning his back on an insurgent movement that continues to be wholly detrimental to the future of Afghanistan."
The High Peace Council was created by Karzai in 2010 to try to inaugurate talks with the Taliban. But the efforts have foundered, particularly in the wake of the killing in September of the council's head, former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Hopes of launching peace talks with the Taliban were high at the beginning of the year, when the group declared its willingness to open a liaison office in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar to facilitate contacts with the United States. But in March the Taliban leadership said it was cutting off contacts, citing what it said was bad faith on the side of the U.S.
The breakdown apparently centered on a prisoner exchange meant to build confidence on both sides. The family of the only known American soldier held captive by the Taliban, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, complained publicly this month that not enough was being done to secure his freedom. The Taliban leadership, for its part, accused the Americans of failing to follow through on the proposed handing over of several senior insurgents held at Guantanamo Bay.
Although efforts to start negotiations with the Taliban have failed to gain traction, the Karzai government announced Sunday that it was moving ahead with another prelude to the withdrawal of NATO's combat force: plans for Afghan security forces to formally assume responsibility for safeguarding more areas of the country. With the designating of the latest areas, about three-quarters of the Afghan population now lives in areas where the Afghan police and army are to have primary responsibility for confronting insurgents.
Previously, the NATO force had intended to leave the most dangerous regions till the end of the "transition" process, but areas handed over include many where the Taliban and other insurgent groups remain active. The thinking is that the Afghan forces will have to prove their mettle, but will also have Western troops available to back them up if they find themselves in over their heads.
Most North Atlantic Treaty Organization combat forces are to leave in 2014.
Fighting has been ratcheting upward in recent weeks with the arrival of warmer weather. The NATO force said Sunday that two Western service members had been killed in fighting in eastern Afghanistan, but provided no details.
The NATO force also said Sunday that it would not be making any further public comment on the deaths of two British troops killed a day earlier in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan. Western military officials said at the time that the two were shot to death by what were believed to be insurgents disguised as Afghan police officers. But a spokesman for the Helmand provincial government, Daoud Ahmadi, said Sunday that authorities had ascertained the two were Afghan police.
Such "insider" shootings — attacks carried out by members of the Afghan police or army — have been blamed for about 14% of the deaths of Western service members this year.
laura.king@latimes.com
Special correspondent Aimal Yaqubi contributed to this report.
Afghan peace negotiator laid to rest after being assassinated
KABUL, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The body of late Afghan peace negotiator and senator Mawlawi Arsallah Rahmani who was assassinated Sunday was laid to rest Monday amid tight security.
Hundreds of people including Rahmani's family members, friends and government officials attended the funeral where the speakers called on the government to bring to justice those behind the murder.
Rahmani who served as member of the government-backed High Council for Peace, a body tasked to talk with the Taliban and find a negotiated settlement for Afghan crisis, was gunned down by unknown armed men in Kabul on Monday morning. The attackers have made their escape.
15 Taliban rebels surrender in W. Afghanistan
HERAT, Afghanistan, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Over a dozen Taliban rebels surrendered in Afghanistan's western province of Herat on Monday, a provincial government spokesman said.
"A total of 15 Taliban fighters, including their commander Mullah Anis Akhond, have renounced violence and joined the peace process in Shindand district on Monday morning," spokesman Mohiddin Noori told Xinhua.
With the former insurgents' surrender, peace and stability would be further strengthened in several parts of the province with Herat city as its capital, Noori said.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have not made any comment yet.
The Afghan government set up a 70-member High Peace Council in the summer of 2010 to encourage Taliban to disarm and give up militancy against the government.
A senior member of the council Arsallah Rahmani was shot and killed by unknown gunmen in Kabul on Sunday morning.
More than 3,500 anti-government insurgents have laid down their arms in Afghanistan over the past year, according to officials.
U.N. Defends Afghan Police Fund as Donors Seek Probe
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE, YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and STEPHEN FIDLER May 13, 2012
KABUL - International donors called on Sunday for an inquiry into potential mismanagement of the United Nations-administered trust fund that helps pay for Afghanistan's fledgling police force, even as the U.N. reiterated its support for the program and denied the accusations.
The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee, an anticorruption group composed of high-level Afghan and international officials, expressed concerns about the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, or Lotfa. Administered by the U.N. Development Program, Lotfa covers salaries, benefits and other operating costs for the Afghan National Police.
The issue is sensitive because Lotfa—established in 2002 as a result of international donor concerns that the Afghan government was at the time unable to properly disburse the money itself—is supposed to be an example of probity.
Most of the money in the fund comes from the U.S., European nations and Japan. "We will request a detailed investigation and accountability," a senior Western official said Sunday. "There is zero tolerance of mismanagement and corruption."
An American official in Kabul added that the U.S. has strongly supported the work of the committee that highlighted the problems at Lotfa. "We encourage the UNDP to be responsive to the concerns raised by the MEC that have been reported on," the U.S. official said.
In Brussels, a spokesman for the European Union's External Action Service, which is responsible for foreign aid, said the issues raised by the Journal article "are indeed a matter of serious concern." The EU would follow up with the UNDP "to ensure all necessary actions are taken to restore donor confidence in the management of Lotfa," he said.
In a detailed response to the Journal's article, the UNDP on Sunday denied allegations that the fund was vulnerable to fraud, and said specific incidents of possible corruption, raised by apparent whistleblowers in documents reviewed by the Journal, were incorrect.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan added that a recently conducted financial audit of Lotfa by KPMG found no financial irregularities. "I am confident that comprehensive steps to ensure transparency and oversight are being taken by UNDP to further its efforts to contribute to a robust and professional police force in Afghanistan," said Michael Keating, the U.N. mission's deputy head.
In a finding issued to donors Friday, the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee said Lotfa "has been and will continue to be vulnerable to corruption," even though the fund is crucial to Afghanistan's security.
"The lack of proper oversight and accountability of Lotfa has been flagged by a number of institutions as insufficient for a trust fund of this size and importance," the finding says. "UNDP Country Office has received internal complaints and is conducting its own integrity checks and financial audits which need to be published and made public."
The committee also called for the fund's management to publish the results of a recent internal audit, which UNDP officials said showed no evidence of irregularity.
On Sunday, Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's presidential adviser who oversees the transition of security to Afghan control, told reporters in Kabul that the U.N. needs to overhaul its auditing system. "Its auditing system is of a different century," he said.
Among the internal complaints raised within Lotfa were suspicions that the program may have overpaid for office supplies and equipment, or paid worker salaries for positions that went unfilled, according to the whistleblower documents reviewed by the Journal.
Satinder Bindra, the UNDP's director of communications, said in a statement Sunday that the agency "has a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of mismanagement or corruption for its entire country program in Afghanistan," and added that it was "committed to diligently following up on" the committee's recommendations.
Responding to specific allegations of the misallocation of funds, the UNDP said it found no evidence of wrongdoing. A luxury furniture set flagged in one internal document as possibly not being documented or delivered was "procured with full procedural checks and are still being used by the head of the Afghan Border Police," the UNDP said.
An $800 paper shredder mentioned in a report as possibly being purchased for above market price "was in line with our procurement policy and was only approved after the project justified its need for a more robust product," the UNDP said.
The UNDP acknowledged in its response that it was aware of the risk of "no-show" workers at Afghanistan's interior ministry who may still be paid on contract by Lotfa.
"Precisely because we are fully aware of this risk, a system was established for all the staff in the Ministry of Interior in key departments to work under contract," the statement said. "Payments to staff are only processed after the examination of monthly attendance sheets submitted to supervisors, who sign off on the entire process."
The Afghan interior ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since 2002, international donors have contributed about $2.9 billion to Lotfa; the U.S. traditionally has been the top international donor. The fund is seen as key to the country's security, particularly as the U.S. and its allies prepare to withdraw the bulk of their troops by 2014.
Officials said EU foreign ministers meet tomorrow in Brussels, where there will be a previously scheduled discussion on Afghanistan. The issue may be raised there, though it is not officially on the agenda.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com and Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com
AP Exclusive: Moderate Taliban speaks of divisions
Associated Press May 14, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - One of the most powerful men on the Taliban council, Agha Jan Motasim, nearly lost his life in a hail of bullets for advocating a negotiated settlement that would bring a broad-based government to his beleaguered homeland of Afghanistan.
In an exclusive and rare interview by a member of the so-called Quetta Shura, Motasim told The Associated Press Sunday that a majority of Taliban wants a peace settlement and that there are only "a few" hard-liners in the movement.
"There are two kinds of Taliban. The one type of Taliban who believes that the foreigners want to solve the problem but there is another group and they don't believe, and they are thinking that the foreigners only want to fight," he said by telephone. "I can tell you, though, that the majority of the Taliban and the Taliban leadership want a broad-based government for all Afghan people and an Islamic system like other Islamic countries."
But Motasim chastised the West, singling out the United States and Britain, for failing to bolster the moderates within the fundamentalist Islamic movement by refusing to recognize the Taliban as a political identity and backtracking on promises __ all of which he said strengthens the hard-liners and weakens moderates like himself.
He lamented Sunday's assassination in Kabul of Arsala Rahmani, a member of the Afghan government-appointed peace council who was active in trying to set up formal talks with insurgents. Rahmani served as deputy minister of higher education in the former Taliban regime but later reconciled with the current Afghan government.
"He was a nationalist. We respected him," Motasim said.
Motasim used his own stature to press for talks nearly three years before the United States began making overtures to the Taliban in late 2010. At the time, he was also chief of the Taliban political committee, a powerful position that he held until he was shot last August. He is still a member of the Taliban leadership council, the Quetta Shura, named after the Pakistani city of the same name.
His voice softened and he paused often as he reflected on the brutal shooting in the port city of Karachi, Pakistan, where he lived, while moving regularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan in areas that he refused to identify.
Several bullets shattered his body and he was hospitalized for many weeks. In the first days after the shooting, he wasn't expected to survive.
The AP spoke to Motasim from Turkey where he had gone for additional treatment. When speaking of his attackers, he referred to them as brothers and colleagues, saying they may have been Taliban hard-liners who opposed his moderate positions.
"My idea was I wanted a broad-based government, all political parties together and maybe some hard-liners among the Taliban in Afghanistan and in Pakistan didn't like to hear this and so they attacked me," he said. Some of the gunmen may have come from Afghanistan and some may have been from Pakistan's North Waziristan where militant groups have found sanctuary, Motasim said.
In the early minutes of the telephone conversation, Motasim was reluctant to talk politics, saying he had been told by his friends and colleagues to stay silent.
"I am not involved in any talks. I am only here for my treatment," he said.
But he gradually opened up, saying the Taliban have three main demands: They want all Afghan prisoners released from U.S.-run detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay and near Bagram Air Field north of the Afghan capital; the names of all Taliban currently on the United Nations sanctions blacklist removed; and recognition of the Taliban as a political party.
He said talks in Qatar ended earlier this year after the United States reneged on a promise to release five prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. "But those are just the famous ones," he said. "There are thousands more being held in Bagram and they are being held under the name of Taliban but they are innocent people, farmers and clerics."
The prisoner exchange issue is rife with sensitivity as the United States has sought to exchange American Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, captured by the Taliban in 2009, for Afghan Taliban held in Guantanamo. It appears the prisoner exchange fell through after the Afghan authorities demanded the five prisoners be repatriated to Afghanistan, according to an Afghan official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to brief the media. The five prisoners have demanded they be allowed to go to Qatar with their families.
Motasim said he wasn't told why the prisoners were not released but when they weren't the hard-liners among the Taliban took it as a sign that the United States was disingenuous, said Motasim, who acknowledged that the Taliban have set up an office in Qatar.
He said the office has no official recognition as a political headquarters of the Taliban, rather it has been veiled in secrecy and the American interlocutors are engaging with them as insurgents not political representatives of at least some Afghans. Motasim said most of the Taliban who were negotiating with the Americans are on the U.N. sanctions list.
The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against the Taliban in November 1999 for refusing to send Osama bin Laden to the United States or a third country for trial on terrorism charges in connection with the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The sanctions — a travel ban, arms embargo and assets freeze — were later extended to al-Qaida. In July 2005, the council extended the sanctions again to cover affiliates and splinter groups of al-Qaida and the Taliban.
"They (the U.S.) have to give political independence to the Taliban," he said.
Looking ahead to next week's NATO summit in Chicago, Motasim said he had a message for participants.
"The decisions of NATO should be for the good of Afghanistan and should not call for more violence. It should call for an end to the fighting, an end to the raids and killings," he said. "Afghanistan is destroyed, the people are displaced, refugees, poor people are dying in their homes and also foreigners are dying here. It should end."
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Kathy Gannon is AP Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be followed on www.twitter.com/kathygannon
NATO a step closer to getting out of Afghan war
AFP By Staff Writers May 13, 2012
Kabul - NATO took a step closer to getting out of the Afghan war on Sunday as the Kabul government announced local forces would take over control of security in a large new slice of the country.
In the third phase of a five-tranche military transition process, 122 more districts throughout Afghanistan will come under local command, putting Afghan forces in control of security for 75 percent of the population.
Kapisa province, where French troops are based, is one of three provinces designated for a complete handover. French president-elect Francois Hollande pledged during his election campaign to pull France's 3,400 troops out this year.
NATO has a total of 130,000 soldiers helping the government of President Hamid Karzai fight an insurgency by hardline Taliban Islamists, and they are due to withdraw by the end of 2014 when the transition process is complete.
But the conflict is increasingly unpopular in the US and other contributing nations, with opinion polls showing a desire to get out as soon as possible.
While NATO is quick to praise the growing skills of the 350,000-strong Afghan security forces it is training to take over, officers acknowledge the war will not be won on the battlefield.
The US and Karzai have made moves towards peace talks with the Taliban but in a setback to the process a senior member of Karzai's High Peace Council was assassinated in a drive-by shooting in Kabul in broad daylight on Sunday.
Arsala Rahmani, a former minister in the Taliban regime, was killed just hours before the transition announcement.
A key negotiator in the council, he "had recently established contacts with senior Taliban leaders", a senior security official told AFP.
The insurgents had in March pulled out of preliminary talks with the US in Qatar, saying Washington had not fulfilled confidence-building pledges such as releasing five Taliban leaders from the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
And they have steadfastly rejected talks with Karzai's administration, describing it as a puppet of the Americans.
Government officials said the handover's third phase would start immediately and could take as little as six months, although according to NATO's International Security Assistance Force complete transition in an area can take 12-18 months.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen welcomed the latest announcement.
"The completion of transition at the end of 2014 will mark the end of NATO's combat role, but not the end of our engagement," he said in a statement.
"NATO is committed to an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, and to providing the training which the Afghan forces will still need, beyond 2014."
The commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), General John Allen, also hailed the move, calling it "a testament to the capacity and capability of the Afghan National Security Force".
"Afghanistan continues to move forward in securing the sovereign future of their country and the security of its borders, and this is another step in bringing the hope of greater prosperity to the Afghan people," said Allen.
The total number of districts covered by the three phases is 260 in all of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, with every provincial capital now in a designated area of transition, ISAF said.
The first two phases -- the first in July last year -- have already put 50 percent of the population under Afghan security control, although NATO forces still provide vital back-up and crucial air support.
US, Pakistan in intense negotiations aimed at reopening NATO supply line into Afghanistan
Associated Press May 14, 2012
ISLAMABAD - The United States has been holding intense negotiations with Pakistan to get the country to reopen its border to supplies meant for NATO troops in Afghanistan, a U.S. official said Monday, a day before senior Pakistani decision makers are set to discuss the issue.
The clock is ticking ahead of a NATO summit in Chicago on May 20-21 that is largely focused on the Afghan war. Pakistan will likely only receive an invitation if it ends its nearly six-month blockade of NATO supplies.
A team of U.S. negotiators has been in the country for several weeks working out the nuts and bolts of a potential agreement to reopen the supply line, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The Americans met with their Pakistani counterparts all day Sunday and were scheduled to resume discussions Monday, the official said.
Pakistan closed its Afghan border crossings to the U.S.-led coalition at the end of November, in retaliation for American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two small outposts in the northwest. The U.S. expressed its condolences, but that wasn't enough for Pakistan.
Pakistan's government then threw the issue to parliament, which used the opportunity to try to renegotiate the country's relationship with the U.S., a popular move in a country where anti-American sentiment is rampant despite billions of dollars in annual U.S. aid.
Passing the gauntlet to parliament was likely meant to provide the government political cover, but the lawmakers' stark demands have made it more difficult for Pakistani officials to maneuver.
Parliament demanded an "unconditional apology" for the deaths of the Pakistani soldiers and an end to U.S. drone strikes in the country. Although it did not explicitly link these issues to reopening the supply line, they have complicated matters since the U.S. has refused both demands.
Analysts have speculated that the Obama administration is reluctant to apologize for the errant airstrikes because of potential criticism from Congress and Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney. Anger at Pakistan is high in the U.S. because of the country's alleged support for Islamist militants killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials have said in private that they have no intention of stopping covert CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, which they see as key to targeting militants in the country who pose a threat to the West. The strikes are immensely unpopular in Pakistan because many people believe they mostly kill civilians, allegations disputed by the U.S. and independent research.
The issue is complicated by the fact that Pakistan is widely believed to have supported some of the strikes in the past, although that cooperation has come under strain as the relationship between the Washington and Islamabad has deteriorated.
Pakistan has its own reasons for wanting to patch up the relationship with the U.S. In addition to an invitation to the upcoming NATO summit, Pakistan would like to free up over a billion dollars in U.S. military aid that has been frozen for the past year.
Also, other members of NATO, such as Britain, are unhappy with Pakistan's decision to block supplies for so long.
Pakistani Cabinet members and senior military officials are scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss whether to reopen the NATO supply line. That session is to be followed by a full meeting of the Cabinet on Wednesday.
Unless the U.S. softens its position on Pakistan's demands, the government will have to balance the benefit of reopening the supply line with the potential backlash at home from anti-U.S. politicians and activists who will inevitably accuse the government of selling out to Washington's interests.
Pakistan faces mounting pressure over NATO supply routes
by Muhammad Tahir
ISLAMABAD, May 14 (Xinhua) -- With Pakistan faces growing pressure over the closing of key supplies for NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan, the country's top panel of powerful military and civilian leadership is set to take a decision on the reopening of land routes on Tuesday.
Pakistan had closed all supply routes after a cross-border NATO air strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November 2011 and Islamabad is demanding a public apology for the incident for reopening the routes.
The U.S. has so far refused to tender apology, but top American and NATO leaders have now pressed Islamabad to reopen key supply routes. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has warned Pakistan that it may miss a key NATO summit on Afghanistan in Chicago next week if NATO supply routes were not reopened.
NATO leaders have also cautioned that blockade for long time of supplies via Pakistan's shortest and cheap routes could create problems for nearly 140,000 foreign troops in war-shattered Afghanistan. The Afghan government has also joined the U.S. and NATO to call for the reopening of routes as NATO supplies destined for Afghanistan are also blocked.
Afghan Education Minister Farooq Wardag said in Kabul on Sunday that millions of text books, printed in Dubai by the U.S. for Afghan students, have been stuck up at Pakistan's southern Karachi port for months.
Officials said that nearly 70 percent of the NATO supplies are being transported via Pakistan. Chief of the U.S. Central Command, or Centcom, General James Mattis, said last month that the U.S. will also need Pakistan's land routes for the withdrawal of its forces in the future. The U.S. plans to withdraw thousands of troops this year as part of its exit strategy.
With foreign pressure and a visible change in the mood of Pakistani civilian leaders, there is a strong possibility of reopening the NATO supply line in the meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) on Tuesday. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani will preside over the meeting, which will be attended by senior military leaders and key ministers. Army chief General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani has already said the military would back any decision by the government.
It was DCC which had unanimously taken the decision to shut supply routes on NATO just hours after the U.S. fighter jets struck two border posts along the border with Afghanistan and killed 24 soldiers.
Sensing the fast growing pressure, two key Pakistani ministers have supported the reopening of NATO supply routes.
Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar said last week Pakistan might face sanctions if it does not open supply routes to the U.S.- led NATO forces in Afghanistan through its territory.
"Pakistan has signed international conventions and under them, it would not be easy to continue the suspension of (NATO) supplies as it may lead to sanctions by the international community," Mukhtar said during his interaction with the media.
Last month a joint session of parliament adopted guidelines for resetting relations with the U.S., including the reopening of the NATO supply routes. Asked about Pakistan-U.S. defence cooperation, Mukhtar said Islamabad had asked Washington to conduct joint and coordinated drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal belt but this was refused.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar came up with a statement on Sunday that she personally believed that NATO supply routes through Pakistan, closed for some six months now, should be reopened.
She argued in a media interaction that it is in Pakistan's interest to facilitate an international operation in Afghanistan, adding that there are many friendly countries whose supplies are also blocked. She further said NATO and ISAF supplies should not be seen in the context of relations with the United States. "After all, NATO and ISAF are umbrella organizations for over 40 countries, including close friends such as Turkey, the UK, etc," she said.
The issue was also prominently figured at the trilateral meeting of top military leaders from ISAF, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi on Sunday.
Pakistan has been in a fix over the NATO supply routes over the past few months as the government is also facing strong opposition from an amalgamation of religious groups to the reopening of the routes.
On the other hand there is no let-up in pressure from the U.S. and its NATO allies. Last week a U.S. Congressional Committee passed a bill imposing conditions on Pakistan for receiving American economic and military aid. The bill seeks certification from the Defence Secretary that Pakistan is committed to supporting counter-terrorism operations in the country, and also prohibits the preferential procurement of goods or services from Pakistan till Islamabad re-opens the NATO supply routes.
Poor Afghans becoming more vulnerable to Taliban
CBS News By Allen Pizzey May 13, 2012
KABUL - An assassin dealt another blow to peace efforts in Afghanistan on Sunday. A former Taliban official turned peace envoy was shot dead in Kabul while sitting in traffic. Arsala Rahmani was trying to set up formal talks with the insurgents to end the 11-year-old war.
To that end, Afghan leaders said today they'll take over security in areas that make up 75 percent of the nation's population in six months. CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports the transition leaves many Afghans in limbo.
The polite name for an overcrowded collection of mud huts is "informal settlement".
As many as 35,000 people live in one such place around Kabul alone, according to U.N. figures. Some of the people in one of the informal settlements have already been moved once to make way for commercial development.
They claim the land they were living on was taken over by corrupt officials for their own ends, and now they've being told to move again.
About $60 billion worth of humanitarian aid has poured into Afghanistan in the past ten years. But much of it has been earmarked for crises, and since the problems in the squatter camps are chronic and long-standing, they don't qualify for it.
"The government not only doesn't care about us," Nour Mohammed said. "They want to destroy us."
The World Bank has warned that a sudden withdrawal of both foreign troops and aid money could "shock the country's fragile economy and pose a serious threat to security."
There's only one way to avoid that, according to Rohullah Ahmadzai of the Afghan Investment Support Agency.
"A real and honest commitment is needed from both Afghan government plus international community," Ahmadzai said.
More than one-third of Afghans live in absolute poverty, and most of the others aren't much better off.
The population of Kabul has more than tripled to five million people over the past ten years as people flee rural areas looking for both security and jobs.
There are no hard unemployment figures,but the lack of opportunity is obvious, which is where the Taliban comes in.
It pays fighters up to $20 per day, a serious reason to consider what's next for Afghanistan's economy when U.S. and other troops leave.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com