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Five aid workers kidnapped in Afghanistan
Reuters – Wed, May 23, 2012
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Five aid workers, including two Western women doctors, have been kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in northeastern Afghanistan, police and the provincial governor's office said on Wednesday.
The aid workers working for a foreign-based aid group were making their way from central Faizabad city and were abducted on Tuesday in Yaftal-e Bala district, said Abdul Marouf Rasikh, a spokesman for the governor of Badakhshan province.
Police in the area, which is not a focus for Afghan insurgents but which is home to groups of mainly criminal gunmen, said the aid workers had been visiting a health clinic in Yawan district, where the road had been destroyed by floods.
"They were travelling by donkey. Two foreign women and their Afghan translators were kidnapped and we have started a search operation," said Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, police spokesman for northern Afghanistan.
NATO-led forces said they had no information on the kidnapping, while NGOs operating in the area declined to comment citing the sensitivity of the issue.
The kidnapping of foreigners has become relatively common in parts of Afghanistan since U-S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the former Taliban government in 2001, heralding a 10-year anti-insurgent war.
(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Nick Macfie)
100 girl students poisoned in N. Afghanistan
TALUQAN, Afghanistan, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Up to 100 girl students were poisoned Wednesday at a high school in Afghanistan's northern province of Takhar, a provincial source said.
"A total of 100 girls were poisoned Wednesday morning in a high school in provincial capital Taluqan city," a spokesman for provincial government Mustafa Rasoul told Xinhua.
He said some of the students were allowed home after treatments but some others were still in the hospital for medical treatment.
He said an investigation has been launched by police into the incident.
This is the forth incident of its kind since the educational year began in March.
More than 400 boys were poisoned in eastern Khost province on Tuesday May 18.
No group has claimed the responsibility for the incident so far. During its rule which collapsed in late 2001, the Taliban regime had banned school for girls and confined women to their houses.
Afghan Education Minister Farooq Wardak said earlier this month that more than 530 schools had remained closed due to insecurity and thus over 300,000 students have been deprived of education rights in 11 provinces, mostly in southern and eastern parts of the insurgency-hit country.
Taliban tightens grip on Afghan schools
CNN By Nick Paton Walsh May 22, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan - In parts of rural Afghanistan a fierce battle is going on between the Taliban and the country's government. And the victims in this battle, it seems, are school children.
Recently, the Taliban demanded the closure of some schools in two eastern provinces. In Ghazni province, the closure of schools was in retaliation for the government's ban on motorbikes often used by insurgents. In Wardak province, the Taliban has been a little more compromising, locals say, and has allowed some schools to open late after making changes to the curriculum.
"The Taliban are fine with us as long as we do what they want. They tell us what to teach and what not to. If we don't do what they say they have a representative who comes checking things," one teacher said. "They have increased the number of hours we teach religious subjects in a week and decreased other subjects like English. If we didn't, they would threaten teachers, and it is very much possible that they would close the school down."
This power struggle in classrooms is symptomatic of broader fears about the future. As the U.S.-led military effort winds down in Afghanistan will the Taliban tighten its grip on daily life in the country?
CNN's cameras were allowed in one classroom in Wardak but those interviewed will not be identified for their own safety.
In this classroom, teaching is allowed but a Taliban minder oversees the syllabus. One student in the class says he does not mind.
"The Taliban have only increased the religious subjects in our day-to-day schedule, which is very good as people should learn religious subjects," he said.
Mohammad Sediq Patman, a deputy education minister said the government has to be flexible in order to keep schools open. In areas where the Taliban had more control, sometimes the government lets them influence what subjects are taught and even allows them to check student attendance, Patman said.
"There was no deal between the government and the Taliban, but only in order to keep the schools open and running the Education Ministry had shown flexibility to this issue," he said.
One Taliban school minder spoke to CNN but chose to cover his face on camera so that he could not be identified.
"We didn't allow schools to be opened here at the beginning of the school year because we wanted them to change," the Taliban minder said. "Then we had a big meeting with school officials and concluded we would allow school to start, but teaching should be according to our principles and Islamic principles. They accepted that. We have only increased Islamic subjects so that even when a person becomes an engineer, he should have enough knowledge in Islam."
The minder said he was implementing instructions from Taliban leader Mullah Omar as are many others across Afghanistan.
Lost in transition: A political strategy for Afghanistan
Foreign Policy (blog) By Scott Smith and Andrew Wilder Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) signed by President Obama and President Karzai in the dead of night in Kabul on May 2nd, and the recently concluded Chicago Summit, have sent an important message that the international community is not abandoning Afghanistan, and that Afghanistan's stability and security remain a key objective of the United States and its NATO allies. The Chicago summit has ratified crucial details of the security strategy to meet these objectives. But the last decade in Afghanistan has shown that security strategies in the absence of political strategies do not translate into peace and stability. The international community's political strategy has always been muddled or murky at best, or missing altogether. But politics is happening in Afghanistan, providing new opportunities even as international troops withdraw. After Chicago, there is an urgent need to ensure that a strategy for the upcoming political transition in Afghanistan, and in particular the 2014 presidential election, receives similar policy attention as has been devoted to the security transition and the SPA.
We've just returned from a few weeks in Afghanistan, where we perceived both a new and energized spirit of politicking for the 2014 presidential elections, as well as baldly stated fears of a return to civil war. For many we interviewed, the two are inextricably linked - a massively flawed election in 2014, or a failure to hold an election at all, could easily result in a destabilizing situation where there is no legitimate civilian control, and security forces could break down and begin competing for power along ethnic and factional lines. If so, the tens of billions of dollars devoted to building the Afghan security forces, under the assumption that they would come under civilian control, could amount instead to an investment in a more ruthless and costly civil conflict that further destabilizes Afghanistan and its neighbors. Given this huge risk, not only for Afghans but also for core U.S. national security interests in the region, it is imperative to rectify the major imbalance between the time and effort devoted to planning the security transition vs. the political transition - especially given that the fate of both are so deeply intertwined.
In Kabul, the political transition discussions we had often boiled down to one question: what will Karzai do? He has repeatedly stated publicly that he will not be president after 2014. But there are few examples in Afghan history of orderly and peaceful transitions of power, and many Afghans refuse to take President Karzai at his word. If it is true, as Thomas Jefferson is reported to have said, that "information is the currency of democracy", then rumor is the currency of Afghan democracy (some might say, more simply, that currency is the currency of Afghan democracy). Karzai's statements have been dismissed by many Afghans with a raft of conspiracy theories on how he will extend his power. These range from the Constitutional (declaring a state of emergency-though this could only last two months before it would need to be ratified by the parliament), to the coercive (convening a rigged loya jirga to change the constitution), to the too-clever-by-half (resigning with his two vice-presidents before his term is up and running a few months later on the ground that he had not completed two terms).
President Karzai's recent proposal to hold elections in 2013, ostensibly to take advantage of the larger number of international troops, only fueled the suspicions of those who refuse to believe that he will respect the Afghan Constitution. At the same time, many of those we spoke to say that Karzai recognizes that any attempt to subvert the Constitution will lead to demonstrations in Kabul. One political figure said that the regime can only fall as a result of unrest in Kabul, not insurgency in the provinces. The one thing that would bring rioting to Kabul's streets, he argued, would be an attempt to hold onto power unconstitutionally, and that Karzai is aware of this and would not risk it.
If President Karzai does give up power constitutionally, there are several plausible scenarios. The first would be for the political elite, including Karzai and major opposition figures, to settle on a single candidate. An elite consensus along these lines would turn the election into a sort of referendum, and minimize the probability that electoral fraud would be as destabilizing as it was in 2009. The second scenario is that Karzai backs a candidate who many opposition figures find unacceptable, but a broad-based opposition coalition is able to agree on a single rival candidate. In the event of a hotly contested race that this scenario could result in, the quality of the election would play a crucial role in ensuring a legitimate transfer of power. A third scenario would be for Karzai to back a candidate while the opposition is unable to unite. This could allow Karzai to perpetuate his hold on power through the election of a political proxy-many in Kabul called this the "Putin-Medvedev scenario".
What happens next depends as much on the opposition as on President Karzai. At crucial moments, opposition figures have lost their nerve, preferring to be co-opted by the palace rather than face the real risks of confronting the existing power structure. Even now, the opposition is divided between those who claim that Karzai has become so powerful that he-or any candidate he backs-is invincible, and those who claim that he is intrinsically weak but that the international community's deference has made him artificially strong. The opposition appears to be waiting for signals-from Karzai that he will allow a fair election (for example, by setting an election date soon and by ensuring the appointment of independent election commissioners), and from the international community that they will insist on it. The danger of on-going ambiguity about the commitment to support and hold credible elections is that Afghan political figures will not take the required risks to participate constructively in the consensus-building process. It would not be surprising if Karzai tested the nerve of his opposition, in the hopes that it collapses under the test. It has worked in the past.
Nonetheless, there are encouraging signs of political activity aimed at the presidential election. Candidates and parties are organizing, opposition parties are making specific demands for electoral reforms, and a process to reform the election legislation has begun.
The international community, however, has greeted this activity with extreme caution. The common talking point of senior U.S. government officials is that elections in Afghanistan are a sovereign matter. Opposition figures listen to this in dismay, arguing that the sovereignty the internationals are protecting is not Afghanistan's, but Karzai's and the corrupt and predatory political mafias with strong links to the palace. A true respect for Afghan sovereignty, they argue, would require the promotion of a level political playing field. They have a point: it is curious at least that the presence of 130,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, and the provision of assistance worth about the equivalent of the country's GDP, is somehow not an infringement on sovereignty, while pressure to hold fair elections in accordance with the Afghan Constitution is perceived to be too intrusive and risky. The greater risk is that such misplaced sensitivities that are often interpreted by Afghans as lukewarm international support for democratic elections, and/or undue skepticism that credible elections can be held, will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are, however, good reasons for international caution. Government and opposition figures alike noted that the international community's legitimacy on elections was undermined in 2009 by the perception that the late U.S. State Department Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, backed individual candidates against Karzai rather than supporting the process. President Karzai has used this to frighten the international community away from its legitimate concerns about the process, whereas the key lesson from 2009 should be to forcefully support the process but not individual candidates. Furthermore, a fundamental difference between the 2009 and 2014 presidential elections, which should reduce some of the sensitivities regarding international support for the process, is that Karzai has publically stated on numerous occasions that in accordance with the Constitution he will not be contesting the next election.
The U.S. government was particularly cautious about antagonizing Karzai, including by raising election-related issues, during the long and drawn-out process of negotiating the SPA. Many Afghans expressed concern that this caution will continue during the negotiation of the Status of Forces Agreement, which must be completed in the next 12 months, giving Karzai at least another year of tranquility on electoral matters. The U.N., which took positions in both the 2009 and 2010 elections that angered Karzai, is similarly reticent, and in public at least echoes the "sovereign process" talking point.
Given this reticence to date, the widely reported meeting President Obama had with President Karzai on the sidelines of the Chicago Summit, during which issues of electoral reform and planning for the 2014 elections were raised and discussed, are a very encouraging sign that the U.S. will now be prioritizing the political transition and supporting and advocating more publically for credible elections in 2014. While international support for elections must be done sensitively and respectfully, too quiet and soft of an approach would be a big mistake. The majority of Afghans who respect the Constitution and want a democratic future for their country need to be assured that the international community led by the U.S. is committed to doing everything possible to ensure relatively free and fair elections. The stakes of the 2014 election are very high, and the future stability of Afghanistan - ultimately the core strategic interest of the U.S. - is likely to depend on the perception of the election's legitimacy. While the challenges to holding credible elections in 2014 are undoubtedly great, and the risks considerable, the much greater risk is to continue to pay scant attention to the political transition, and to pin hopes on a stable and secure Afghanistan solely on the abilities of the Afghan National Security Forces. One need not look far in the region to see the negative consequences for peace and stability, not to mention democracy, of relatively strong security institutions and very weak civilian institutions.
For better or for worse, the international community has inherited a partial responsibility for ensuring that the next elections play the role of consensus-building and state legitimation that would be the most likely way to save the country from civil war. The international community can fulfill this responsibility by doing the following:
* Make it clear that future assistance will depend on a credible electoral process in 2014. The Tokyo conference in July provides an opportunity to underline this message. It should anyway be clear to the Afghan government that the global financial situation is such that many countries are simply looking for excuses to reduce their aid to Afghanistan. Deeply flawed elections or no elections would inevitably lead to much sharper reductions in aid. * Provide reassurances that the necessary international logistic and security assets required to hold elections will be in place in 2014. * Avoid the tempting diplomatic game of identifying potential candidates, and instead support electoral processes to help create a level playing field and allow Afghans to form their own coalitions and freely support their favored candidates. * Support civil society, media, women's and youth groups, to continue to discuss how to improve Afghan elections. Civic and voter education in the past has been insufficient. There is time to correct this. The more knowledgeable the electorate, the harder it is to rig elections, and the greater the popular expectation for elections, the more costly would be any decision to cancel them. * Avoid the temptation to fall for quick-fixes-like accelerated elections in 2013. Patience and discretion are required, but there should be no lack of conviction in the need for a level playing field.
Given the recent history of Afghan elections, it may seem implausible to bet on Afghan democracy as a means of solving Afghanistan's deep-rooted problems, but almost everyone we spoke to were clear that it was the only bet to make. Democratic processes might not succeed, but everything else will surely fail without them.
Scott Smith is the Deputy Director for Afghan Programs, and Andrew Wilder the Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan Programs, at the United States Institute of Peace. The views reflected here are their own.
Two Foreign Women Reported Abducted In Afghanistan
May 23, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Officials in Afghanistan say two foreign women and three Afghan colleagues working for an international relief organization have been abducted in the northeastern Badakhshan Province.
Abdul Maroof Rasekh, a spokesman for the provincial governor, says unknown gunmen abducted the foreigners and their colleagues as they traveled from the Yaftal district to Ragestan district.
The foreigners are described as an African woman and a European woman.
Neither the name of the relief organization nor the identities of the five who were abducted were immediately released.
Based on reporting by AP and dpa
Turkmenistan, Pakistan, India Sign Trans-Afghan Gas Pipeline Deal
May 23, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Representatives of Turkmenistan, Pakistan, and India have signed an agreement aimed at the construction of a pipeline that would cross Afghanistan to bring Turkmen gas to India and Pakistan.
The U.S.-backed deal was signed in the Turkmen Caspian resort of Avaza on May 23.
Representatives of India's state-owned Gail Ltd. and Pakistan's private Inter State Gas System joined Turkmenistan in signing the deal.
The concept of the estimated $7.6 billion pipeline was first raised in the mid-1990s, but construction has yet to begin.
Turkmen officials have said the proposed 1,735-kilometer pipeline could carry 33 billion cubic meters a year.
According to supporters of the project, the pipeline could be operational by 2016, if the security situation in Afghanistan is stable.
The United States has backed the project for years.
For Washington, analysts say, the project offers a way to further isolate Iran, which has announced plans to try to build a separate gas pipeline with Pakistan.
Analysts say Turkmenistan, meanwhile, is seeking to expand its gas exports beyond Russia and China.
Some analysts have suggested that the pipeline project also signals a potential warming of economic ties between traditional rivals India and Pakistan.
Irfan Ashraf Qazi, a spokesman for Pakistan's Petroleum Ministry, told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal that according to the agreement, Turkmenistan is planning to pump 3.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Hesaid Afghanistan would get 0.5 billion cubic feet of this amount, while Pakistan and India would share the rest equally.
Qazi explained the planned pipeline route:
According to Qazi, the pipeline "will lead from the South Osman field of Turkmenistan to Herat in Afghanistan. [From Herat] to Kandahar, then to Chaman and Zhob [in Balochistan of Pakistan] and then to Dera Ghazi Khan and Multan [in the Punjab region of Pakistan].”
Plans for rates and fees for the pipeline have not yet been publicly disclosed.
The deal was signed after Pakistan and Iran earlier in the spring announced plans for a pipeline to deliver Iranian gas to Pakistan.
The United States warned Pakistan against pursuing that deal with Tehran, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying Islamabad could face "damaging" consequences from the United States over the project.
At that time, Pakistani officials responded by saying Islamabad still wanted the project with Iran to go forward.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal, AP, and AFP
Kyrgyzstan, NATO sign land transit agreement
BISHKEK, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyzstan and NATO have signed an agreement on the transit of cargo by land through Kyrgyzstan for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
The agreement was signed at the NATO summit in Chicago on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry's press service said.
The ministry believes that the accord "is important for the further development of bilateral cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and NATO in the interests of stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan and ensuring security in Kyrgyzstan and the Central Asian region," it said.
At the signing ceremony, NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow thanked Kyrgyzstan for the support, saying the agreement was an important contribution to stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan.
Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbaev said his country will continue to assist the international community, including NATO, in security, peace, stability and further economic and social development of Afghanistan.
The agreement is yet to be approved by Kyrgyzstan's parliament and president.
U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan to depart on health reasons: State Department
WASHINGTON, May 22 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. State Department confirmed on Tuesday that U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker will leave his post earlier than expected this summer due to "health reasons."
Crocker has informed both the Afghan government and the NATO- led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan that he "intends to depart his post for health reasons, in mid-summer," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.
Crocker, a veteran diplomat appointed to the current post last year for a two-year term, had previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon.
Nuland praised Crocker for the "enormous achievements" he has achieved during his 10-month tenure, especially the signing of the U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement, which charts the bilateral relations after the scheduled NATO troop pullout in 2014.
The announcement came just after the conclusion of the NATO summit in Chicago, which on Monday adopted the exit strategy on how NATO will hand over the security of Afghanistan to the Afghan forces by mid-2013.
Ryan Crocker’s Afghanistan: Mission Impossible
A one-of-a-kind U.S. diplomat says he’s leaving Afghanistan. Ron Moreau on what the ambassador achieved and how hard he will be to replace.
The Daily Beast By Ron Moreau May 22, 2012
In late 2001, shortly after the Taliban’s collapse, a young, relatively unknown Pashtun tribal leader was named as interim leader of Afghanistan by an international conference at Bonn, Germany. Just 10 days later, one of America’s top troubleshooting diplomats landed in Kabul. It would be his job to reopen the U.S. Embassy, which had been shuttered since 1989. But Ryan Crocker’s other job in the Afghan capital would be even more important: to work closely with President Hamid Karzai, whose main qualification for the job was that unlike practically every other potential Afghan leader, he didn’t have blood on his hands from the country’s interminable civil wars. “We were together every day for the four months I was here,” Crocker told The Daily Beast earlier this year in the heavily guarded American Embassy earlier this year. “And every single conversation we had would have the phrase ‘What the hell do we do now?’”
President Obama and the State Department must be asking the same question right now. Crocker has announced that he’s preparing to leave Kabul, returning to retirement a full year before his latest two-year posting was to end. Replacing one of the State Department’s most talented diplomats won’t be easy, not only because Crocker has an intimate and encyclopedic knowledge of the region, but also because he managed to establish a close rapport with the famously difficult, mercurial, and irascible Afghan president.
Crocker and Karzai bonded in early 2002 while they tried to figure out their next moves in a country that had been devastated by three decades of war and five years of Taliban misrule. And that decade-old friendship served them well after President Obama cajoled Crocker to come out of retirement last summer, leave his cushy position as dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, and return to Kabul. A sense of patriotism and mission forced Crocker to accept Obama’s can’t-refuse offer—much to the disappointment of Crocker’s wife, Christine, a retired Foreign Service officer herself. She thought her husband’s service on the front lines of American diplomacy had continued long enough.
Upon his arrival in Kabul in July 2011, Crocker faced an enormous challenge: to rebuild a working relationship between the United States and Karzai. The connection between the Afghan president and the outgoing ambassador, retired U.S. Army Gen. Karl Eikenberry, couldn’t have been more dysfunctional. A leaked cable from Eikenberry to the State Department pretty much summed up Eikenberry’s view of Karzai and showed how frayed and tense their dealings had become. The Afghan president, Eikenberry wrote in exasperation, “is not an adequate strategic partner [He] continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defense, governance, or development.”
His wife experienced the dangers of the job firsthand back in 1998, when her husband was serving as ambassador to Syria and a frenzied crowd attacked and burned their Damascus residence.
And it wasn’t just to mend ties that Crocker was sent back to Kabul: his assignment was to sit down with Karzai and negotiate the terms of the Strategic Partnership Agreement, the framework for Afghan-U.S. cooperation in the entire decade after the 2014 American troop withdrawal. Crocker had his work cut out for him. Karzai fulminated loudly and often against what he called U.S. violations of Afghan sovereignty. He even famously threatened to join the Taliban if America didn’t change its ways.
At issue were the Coalition forces’ frequent night raids against Afghan homes that were suspected of harboring Taliban fighters and commanders. The U.S. military called those operations its most effective tool against the insurgency, but Karzai had repeatedly denounced them as a violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty and an insult to the country’s conservative traditions. And there was another sore spot: the Americans’ incarceration of Taliban suspects in U.S.-controlled prisons. Karzai demanded an immediate end to the night raids and the transfer of all Afghan prisoners held in U.S. custody to the Afghan government within weeks. Both disputes loomed as insurmountable obstacles that threatened to doom any strategic agreement, even though the Americans—and most Afghans—deemed the partnership essential to the Kabul government’s long-term survival. “I’m hoping to reset the relationship,” Crocker told The Daily Beast earlier this year.
And he largely succeeded. Leveraging his close personal relationship with Karzai, Crocker was instrumental in negotiating side agreements on night raids and the prisoner issue that were satisfactory to both the Americans and the Afghan government—even its difficult president. Most Afghan prisoners would be transferred to Afghan custody by the end of the year. And night raids would continue, but with Afghan forces in the lead. U.S. troops would enter people’s homes only if expressly asked by Afghan forces. Beyond that, the Americans would provide the Afghans with intelligence, firepower, logistical support, and bus service, delivering Afghan troops to their targets. (As Crocker says, it will be a long time before the Afghans are able to conduct such surgical operations on their own.)
With those two thorny problems out of the way, the stage was set. During the U.S. president’s late-night surprise visit to Kabul earlier this month, Obama and Karzai signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement. Now, having patched up relations with Karzai and negotiated the crucial agreement, Crocker has announced that he’ll be leaving Kabul this summer. His wife, Christine, must be relieved at his decision. She experienced the dangers of the job firsthand back in 1998, when her husband was serving as ambassador to Syria and a frenzied crowd attacked and burned their Damascus residence.
Few American diplomats have served with such distinction in so many of the globe’s most strategic hotspots. In April 1983 the young Foreign Service officer stood cut and bleeding in Beirut as he briefed the press in front of the U.S. Embassy, which had just been destroyed by a terrorist bomb. Seven months earlier he had investigated another scene of horrendous carnage in Lebanon after the massacres of Palestinians by pro-Israel Lebanese Christian militias at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. He witnessed yet more horror amid the ruins of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, following the October 1983 truck bombing. But Crocker is probably best known for his role in Baghdad from 2007 to 2009, when he worked closely with Gen. David Petraeus to restore a modicum of stability to an Iraq that was torn apart by merciless insurgency and sectarian bloodletting.
His abilities will be sorely missed in Afghanistan and across the region. In fact, his retirement may not be as restful as he and his wife might hope. The White House, the State Department, the U.S. military, and the CIA will almost surely be calling him constantly to ask him a question he knows well: what the hell do we do now?
Ron Moreau is Newsweek’s Afghanistan and Pakistan correspondent and has been covering the region for the magazine the past 10 years. Since he first joined Newsweek during the Vietnam War, he has reported extensively from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Rogue Afghan Insurgent Group Enters Political Scene
May 22, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
As the Afghan government struggles to reach a negotiated peace settlement with insurgents while international troops prepare to withdraw, a previously marginal militant group has answered the call for talks with a resounding "no.”
Until recently, little was heard of the Mullah Dadullah Front, an extremist militant group that operates mainly out of southern Afghanistan. But that has changed, with the group claiming responsibility for the assassination of a key negotiator for the High Peace Council, the government's main avenue for peace talks, and for sending death threats to Kabul lawmakers.
The front takes the name of a former radical Taliban commander who was killed in a U.S-led attack in Helmand Province in 2007. Afghan intelligence officials have described the group as a Taliban faction.
Despite having vowed to target members of the High Peace Council, the Taliban was quick to distance itself from the recent assassination and has publicly stated that it is not affiliated with the Mullah Dadullah Front.
Mohammad Yasin Zia, deputy chief of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghan intelligence body, says that although details about the group are sketchy, its recent actions show the group's clear opposition to peace talks and to an extended American military presence in the country.
'They Are All Terrorists'
Zia, who played down the threat posed by the radical group, maintained that the incidents were part of a psychological war to instill fear in the minds of Afghan citizens and lawmakers.
"This is part of a psychological war," he said. "Only a few people have gathered together. They’ve created something imaginary so it can have a bad influence on the minds of Afghan people.
"There should be no concern over the group. The Mullah Dadullah Front is no different from others; they are all terrorists."
Zia's remarks come after the NDS announced on May 19 that it had arrested three members of the front in Kabul. The alleged members, who are in custody, were reportedly in possession of several suicide vests.
The arrests also followed reports last week that numerous members of parliament had received text messages and telephone calls attributed to the group, in which they were told they would be "targeted" if they ratified the recently signed strategic agreement between Washington and Kabul.
Parliament, which opened discussion on the agreement on May 22, is expected to decide on ratification as soon as this week.
The agreement, which covers relations between the two countries when NATO forces pull out in 2014, has to be ratified by the Afghan senate and parliament before it can go into effect.
The Dadullah Front also claimed responsibility for the assassination, on May 14, of Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban official who had become an influential member of the Afghan High Peace Council.
Rahmani, who lived under government protection in Kabul, was seen as a viable mediator in any future negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
After the Afghan government accused the Taliban of responsibility for the assassination, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid promptly released a statement denying involvement in the incident.
"We are still committed to our campaign against the members of the so-called peace council, but again I insist that the Taliban were not behind today’s assassination," the statement read.
'Hard-Core' Offshoot
Nonetheless, Jeffrey Dressler, a senior analyst and team leader for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C., considers the Dadullah Front to be a "hard-core" offshoot within the larger Taliban movement.
He says that it is unclear how numerically strong the Dadullah Front is, but adds that the group has recently expanded its sphere of influence to the southeastern provinces of Zabul and Ghazni, in addition to the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan.
Dressler, who says the group has been active for several years, maintains that the group's power and reach should not be overstated, despite its higher profile of late.
"My sense is that the power and reach of this group is limited and although they may have increased their geographic spread, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are a significant threat," he told RFE/RL.
"Despite this, successfully executing proponents of peace talks will certainly not help the overall effort, which hasn’t fared well thus far."
Although he plays down the significance of the Dadullah Front, Dressler is discouraged by the fact that radical elements of the Taliban continue to have considerable influence over the divisive issue of peace talks with the Afghan government and international community.
"Although there are individuals within the Taliban movement that are more moderate than these extremist factions, they do not appear to be terribly influential, even if they are in fact a majority," he wrote in a recently published report.
Afghan intelligence officials have described Mullah Dadullah, the man, as an effective yet brutal militant leader who had close ties with Al-Qaeda and embraced the terrorist organization’s extremist tactics, including the use of suicide bombers and the incorporation of foreign fighters.
During the Taliban's reign, Dadullah was famous for his acts of cruelty, including public hangings, and the stoning of women.
He was also known for massacring hundreds from the minority Shi'ite Hazara ethnic group in central Afghanistan.
Analysis: Looming end of Afghan mission leaves NATO with identity crisis
Reuters By David Brunnstrom and Adrian Croft May 22, 2012
CHICAGO - NATO put on a brave face at its Chicago summit but the reality is that the alliance has been weakened by the euro zone crisis and faces an identity crisis about what its role will be once it ends its intervention in Afghanistan in 2014.
NATO leaders sealed a landmark agreement to hand control of Afghanistan over to its own security forces by the middle of next year, putting the Western alliance on an "irreversible" path out of the unpopular, decade-long war. The big question mark hanging over the summit was how will NATO, a 28-nation grouping originally designed for the Cold War, adapt to the world beyond 2014?
In an era where governments are slashing defense spending to cut budget deficits, the United States is increasingly tilting towards defense challenges in Asia while many of NATO's other members, preoccupied by economic problems, have little appetite for foreign adventures.That raises the question of whether the United States, which accounts for three-quarters of NATO defense spending, will remain committed to the 63-year-old organization despite its frustrations at European allies' reluctance to contribute more towards their own defense.
"The U.S. has been NATO's quarterback since the alliance was founded. That's OK by us, but we're increasingly concerned that - in light of economic pressures in Europe - we're going to have to play quarterback, running back, and wide receiver all at the same time. That's not good for the team," said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
SOFT TARGET
While the Pentagon is also being forced to cut defense spending - by $487 billion over the next decade - the gap between the United States and its European allies is only likely to widen as many governments see defense as a "soft target" for budget cuts they are being forced into by the debt crisis.
Big European nations such as Germany and Britain are sharply cutting defense and only five allies meet NATO's benchmark of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense.
Belgian Defense Minister Pieter de Crem said he agreed with former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates's warning last year that NATO risked "collective military irrelevance" unless alliance members acted to reverse declining capabilities.
"NATO is a political-military organization for collective defense and one cannot have all the advantages and all the assets without participating or bringing in a fair share," he told Reuters during the summit.
He said the challenge was to have fair burden-sharing between the two sides of the Atlantic "taking into account budgetary constraints."
NATO's answer to the money shortage is "smart defense," saving money by sharing equipment and facilities between allies and having countries specialize in different areas of defense.
"I think this summit sent a very clear message that the European allies are committed to acquiring the necessary military capabilities in the future, despite the economic crisis, despite declining defense budgets," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Reuters in an interview.
"We won't get more money for defense in the very near future - let's face it ... That makes it necessary to do business in a new way and I think multinational cooperation is the way forward," he said.
The summit approved an initial package of 20 multinational projects, including enabling fighter jets to use munitions from various sources and countries and a scheme to pool maritime patrol aircraft from various nations.
A broader question being asked in Chicago was what role should NATO have in the future - should it continue to fight fires in different parts of the world or pull in its horns and concentrate on defending its own territory?
REINVENTION
NATO has reinvented itself several times before. Originally a mutual defense pact that bound North America and Western Europe together during the Cold War, the alliance survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and intervened in wars in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
Afghanistan was NATO's first mission outside its traditional area of operations and its most ambitious. NATO forms the core of the 50-nation International Security Assistance Force that is battling the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Last year, with the United States taking a low profile but providing critical capabilities and supplies, Britain and France led a NATO air operation in Libya that helped rebels topple Muammar Gaddafi, a key milestone in the Arab Spring.Czech Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra argued that the crucial issue for the alliance now was not enlargement, or out-of-area operations, but common defense of its member countries.
NATO's article 5 commitment to mutual defense was the "bedrock" that justified NATO in the eyes of its population, he said.Other leaders, like British Prime Minister David Cameron, disagreed that NATO should lower its ambitions and "look inwards."
"I argued, and this summit agreed, that NATO should actually do the opposite," he told a news conference. "We should look outwards, reassert NATO's relevance and make sure it is ready and capable to tackle the threats that may lie outside its territory but nonetheless are very real threats to us at home."
Jamie Shea, NATO's deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges, wrote recently that NATO could soon be an alliance without a major operation under way.
While crises could come out of the blue, NATO interventions of the future were unlikely to follow past patterns, he said in an article on the website of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.
"They are likely to be more spaced out and more focused on air and naval operations than on land deployments," Shea wrote. "The objectives are more likely to be limited and short-term, involving more intelligence-gathering and special forces, to say nothing of the increased use of robotics and drones in place of soldiers.
"Moreover, if Libya is to be the model for the future, not all the allies will decide to participate, particularly in the sharp end of the operation," he said.
Clara O'Donnell, visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution, said the fact that countries traditionally active in NATO operations, such as Poland and the Netherlands, chose not to take part in the Libya air strikes showed a dwindling desire to show solidarity with other NATO members, reflecting the unpopularity of foreign expeditions in many countries.
In a sign that NATO remains a controversial organization, baton-wielding police clashed with anti-war protesters marching on the summit on Sunday while leaders met behind heavy security in a cavernous convention center.
Despite the doubts, few see the United States walking away from NATO or the alliance breaking up because Washington knows it can generally count on its European allies in time of crisis and derives valuable political support from them in pursuit of its interests.
"Afghanistan will end, some day, it's not going to be tomorrow, but there's going to be something else - I can't predict where, when - and the West is going to need a tool to act and until we find a better one, I'd like to keep the alliance around for a while," Leo Michel of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the U.S. National Defense University said in London recently.
(This has been corrected to Libya air strikes from operations in paragraph 2)
(Additional reporting by Phillip Stewart; Editing by Eric Beech)
15 militants killed, 33 arrested in Afghanistan within 24 hours: gov't
KABUL, May 23 (Xinhua) -- A total of 15 Taliban militants have been killed and 33 others arrested as Afghan forces and NATO-led coalition troops launched eight military operations within the past 24 hours, the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Wednesday morning.
"Afghan police, army and NATO-led coalition forces launched eight cleanup operations over the past 24 hours, killing 15 armed Taliban insurgents and detaining 33 others suspected," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.
The statement said that five other insurgents were injured during the raids conducted in southern Helmand and Zabul and eastern Nangarhar, Ghazni and Khost provinces.
The joint forces also found and seized weapons, the statement said, without saying if there were any casualties on the side of security forces.
However, the Taliban insurgent group, which announced it would launch a spring rebel offensive from May 3 against Afghan and NATO forces, has not make comments yet.
Afghan forces and some 130,000 NATO-led coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militant groups throughout the country recently as spring and summer, known as "fighting seasons" draw near.
Over 800 insurgents have been killed and more than 1,450 others detained in the country so far this year, according to the figures released by the Afghan Interior Ministry.
15 Afghan Taliban lay down arms, join peace process
HERAT, Afghanistan, May 23 (Xinhua) -- A total of 15 Taliban insurgents laid down their arms and joined the government-backed peace process in Herat province 640 km west of the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday, police said.
"Fifteen Taliban fighters gave up fighting and joined the peace process in Chasht district, Herat today," police spokesman of the province Noor Khan Nikzad told newsmen here.
All the former militants also handed over their weapons to police, he said, adding that with these people joining the peace process, security will be farther strengthened in Herat.
Taliban militants fighting the government are yet to make comment.
More than 3000 Taliban militants, according to officials, have joined the government-backed peace process over the past one year in the country, which was rejected by the Taliban as baseless.
This is not an exit strategy for Afghanistan, it's a surrender strategy
Telegraph.co.uk By Con Coughlin May 22nd, 2012
President Barack Obama believes the Afghan war "as we know it" will be over in two years when combat operations are ended. If he really believes that then he is living in cloud cuckoo land.
We all know that Mr Obama and David Cameron have lost interest in the Afghan campaign. It's too costly, and there are no votes in it. So let's get out at the earliest opportunity and leave the Afghans to clear up their own mess.
Hurrah, I hear you say. After more than 400 British dead, and hundreds more seriously wounded , not to mention the mind-boggling $350 billion price tag, the campaign has so far cost, it's high time we brought home our brave boys and girls and turned our attention to more pressing concerns, such as reviving the economy and making Britain a great nation once more.
But there is one enormous snag to this otherwise commendable plan: the Afghans are not capable of clearing up their own mess, and won't be in a position to do so for at least a decade. Remember, when all this started, serious military men like General Sir David Richards, now the head of our Armed Forces, and General David Petraeus, the mastermind of the counter-insurgency strategy to defeat Islamist terrorists, warned that this would take at least a decade, if not more.
Instead, out of pure political expediency, Messrs Obama and Cameron are running up the white flag before the job is done, and all the hard work and suffering of the past decade could end up being worthless. Not even their own military and Nato advisers agree with the decision they've taken at the Chicago summit, warning that there is every likelihood the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies will be back in control of large parts of Afghanistan once we have withdrawn, with all the implications that will have for our own security.
When I was in Kabul in March, Ryan Crocker, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, gave a stark warning that al-Qaeda was still alive and well in Afghanistan and still plotting to carry out spectacular attacks against the West. You only have to look at what al-Qaeda did in Yemen yesterday to see the group still have the capacity and determination to carry out acts of indiscriminate murder.
No, Mr President, this war is far from over, and when the next bombs start going off on the streets of London and New York, you will be the one to blame.
Afghans back Chicago deal, warn West to keep promises
Reuters By Mirwais Harooni and Rob Taylor May 22, 2012
KABUL - People in Afghanistan were surprisingly optimistic on Tuesday about NATO's plan to pull combat troops out of their war-ravaged nation by the end of 2014, but warned Western leaders to stick to aid and security promises.
A Chicago summit meeting of the 28-member bloc, attended also by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other world leaders, endorsed an exit strategy on Monday that calls for handing control of Afghanistan to its own security forces by the middle of next year.
But it left unanswered questions about how to prevent a slide into chaos and a Taliban resurgence after the pullout.
Despite the sense of combat fatigue in Chicago and frustration that nearly 11 years of military engagement had failed to defeat Taliban Islamists, Afghans were surprisingly upbeat. They said the agreement showed Western nations would not abandon their nation after a decade-long war and a massive aid and reconstruction effort.
"I don't think foreign nations will leave us as easily as they say. The international community has spent billions of dollars here now," said university student Tawab, speaking to Reuters at a park near a mosque in central Kabul.
"The conference has decided that some foreign forces will stay in Afghanistan, so it's like back-up support."
Housing prices in Kabul have jumped 15 percent since U.S President Barack Obama, who declared on Monday that the 10-year war was "effectively over", visited Kabul to sign a long-term security deal with Karzai on May 2.
Donor nations have been negotiating agreements with Karzai's government committing to ongoing aid and reconstruction support, as well as government and agricultural advisers, for at least a decade beyond the two-year NATO drawdown ending in 2014.
Since a U.S-led coalition helped Afghan forces topple the Taliban government in late 2001, Afghanistan has been one of the world's largest aid recipients, with more than US$57 billion spent on development to help counter support for insurgents.
In volatile southern Helmand province, one of the most violent parts of the country and the scene of several major clashes between the Taliban and Western troops, villagers said their lives had improved.
AND NOW WE HAVE A HEALTH CLINIC
Ezatullah, a shopkeeper in the town of Marjah where NATO troops fought one of the bloodiest battles of the war, said a 35-km (22-mile) paved road connecting to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah had nearly been completed, cutting costs and travel time to prevent vital food supplies spoiling in the area's searing summer heat.
"And now we have a health clinic built three years ago which provides most services to people. But still people are facing problems, as it's not enough. There should be at least a clinic in every big village," he said.
Security had also improved since 15,000 U.S. and British surge troops ousted around 2,000 insurgents from the area, said Marjah resident Nisar Ahmad, draining support from the Taliban.
"Now this district is fully protected by Afghan Local Police. Almost all of our schools are open and boys and girls attend schools. But we still face a lack of electricity despite the billions of dollars spent," Ahmad said.
In the Arghandab district of neigbouring Kandahar province - where U.S. troops suffered heavy casualties in 2010 - local resident Hajji Shah Mohammad Ahmadi said economic progress had been spurred by roads, schools and new health clinics.
And even in restive eastern provinces, where Western troops are still fighting to choke off insurgent supply routes across the mountainous Pakistan border in one of the last major offensives of the war, local people counted improvements.
Abdul Naser, from Chapa Dara district in Kunar, said where once there had been no roads, water canals, electricity, schools, clinics or security, now there was vehicle traffic, power generators, doctors and education.
"We got two clinics during the past months with female doctors. We have paved roads. But some projects were not well built and people still face some security threats," he said.
However, an April poll by the privately-run Tolo TV channel found just over 50 percent of Afghans though civil war would break out again after foreign troops withdrew, while 26 percent saw no change and 23 percent thought security would improve.
Still, property dealers in the capital Kabul - once convulsed by civil war but where cars have now replaced bicycles and some high-rise apartment buildings have sprung up - say business is thriving despite worries.
"People's morale and economic morale have gone up," said Mohammad Nader Faizyaar, the owner of the high-end Faisal Business Centre mall that retails everything from women's fashion accessories to furniture.
"People feel that the future of this country is stable and everyone can hopefully invest."
Sarwar Akbari, 38, a Kabul resident in the Wazir diplomatic district, said international backers had to now honour their promises not to abandon the country amid pressure on aid budgets, particularly in cash-strapped Europe. He also said they had to reach some kind of agreement with the Taliban.
"If they don't fulfil their promises, and if they don't stop neighbouring countries from interfering in Afghanistan and reach a peace with the Taliban, then this conference and any others will be useless," he said. (Additional reporting by Jack Kimball; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
U.S. senators vote to tie Pakistan aid to supply routes
Reuters Tue May 22, 2012
WASHINGTON - A U.S. Senate panel voted cuts in aid to Pakistan on Tuesday and threatened to withhold even more cash if Islamabad does not reopen its supply routes for NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, reflecting American frustration over a months-long standoff.
The action by the Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign aid followed a weekend NATO summit in Chicago at which Washington had hoped to reach a deal with Islamabad to end the supply line dispute.
Pakistan closed the supply routes through its territory to Afghanistan in protest when U.S. aircraft killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border last November. NATO has been seeking to compensate via expanded shipments of war supplies via Afghanistan's other neighbors but those routes are more expensive.
The Senate panel voted to cut aid to Pakistan by 58 percent in fiscal 2013 from the request by the administration of President Barack Obama, said the panel's chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy, who like Obama is a Democrat.
The senators voted $1 billion for Pakistan, including $800 million in foreign aid. However, funding for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund was limited to just $50 million, and that money was tied to the supply lines' reopening, said Senator Lindsey Graham, the panel's top Republican.
"We're not going to be giving money to an ally that won't be an ally," Graham told reporters.
The counterinsurgency fund was established several years ago to help train and equip Pakistan's military.
The panel's spending blueprint must still be approved by the full Senate and the House of Representatives before it can become law. But criticism of Pakistan in Congress and demands for a complete aid cutoff have been growing, especially after Osama bin Laden was found and killed by U.S. forces in a Pakistani city a little more than a year ago.
Pakistan has been one of the leading recipients of U.S. foreign aid and in recent years. U.S. lawmakers have approved more than $20 billion in aid and reimbursements since 2001.
The administration suspended $800 million in aid for Pakistan's military last year but American officials have suggested the aid could be restored if Pakistan would display more commitment to counter-terrorism operations.
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Bill Trott)
Kingsley As Karzai?
May 23, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Frud Behzan
“Do you ever think of a movie starring Ben Kingsley as Hamid Karzai?”
That was the question posed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as he interviewed the Afghan president in the United States on May 21.
Karzai replied by noting Kingsley’s award-winning role in the film “Gandhi,” which won eight Academy Awards in 1982.
“He is a great actor, and I would be very happy and honored if he took that role," Karzai said.
Kingsley can currently be seen in cinemas playing the role of a Karzai look-alike in British actor Sacha Baron Cohen’s new comedy, “The Dictator.”
Baron Cohen’s character in the film, Admiral General Aladeen from the fictional North African state of Wadiya, is a caricature of several former international autocrats, including Colonel Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, and Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan.
In the film, Kingsley, who is dressed in Karzai’s trademark Afghan karakul hat and robe, plays Aladeen’s treacherous and corrupt uncle Tamir, who organizes a sinister plot to overthrow the “supreme leader” and turn Wadiya into a democracy and sell its oil interests to foreign firms.
No word yet from the actor on whether he'd like to play Karzai on the silver screen.
At least as the Afghan president, Kingsley wouldn't have to kiss anyone's armpits.
Pakistani doctor sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping U.S. track down bin Laden
ISLAMABAD, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi who was charged with treason for helping the United States to track down and kill Osama bin Laden has been sentenced to 30-year imprisonment, reported local media Geo on Wednesday.
The sentence was announced by the Political Administration of Khyber Agency Dr. Shakil Afridi belongs to after he was found guilty under the Frontier Crimes Regulation for carrying out a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad for getting the DNA samples of Osama bin Laden.
Dr. Shakil Afridi was also fined 320,000 rupees (about 3,478 U. S. dollars). Local media said that if he could not pay the fine he could face another three-year imprisonment.
Following the announcement of the sentence, Dr. Shakil Afridi had reportedly been shifted to a central jail in Peshawar.
The doctor was arrested on May 22, 2011 when he was trying to escape to Afghanistan via Pakistan's northwestern Torkham border after the U.S. Navy Seals killed bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound on May 2, 2011.
Dr. Shakil Afridi confessed that he had conducted a fake polio vaccination drive in the Bilal Town area of Abbotabad between March 15-18 and April 21-23 of 2011 to get DNA samples of the residents who lived in bin Laden's compound.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
Reuters – Wed, May 23, 2012
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Five aid workers, including two Western women doctors, have been kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in northeastern Afghanistan, police and the provincial governor's office said on Wednesday.
The aid workers working for a foreign-based aid group were making their way from central Faizabad city and were abducted on Tuesday in Yaftal-e Bala district, said Abdul Marouf Rasikh, a spokesman for the governor of Badakhshan province.
Police in the area, which is not a focus for Afghan insurgents but which is home to groups of mainly criminal gunmen, said the aid workers had been visiting a health clinic in Yawan district, where the road had been destroyed by floods.
"They were travelling by donkey. Two foreign women and their Afghan translators were kidnapped and we have started a search operation," said Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, police spokesman for northern Afghanistan.
NATO-led forces said they had no information on the kidnapping, while NGOs operating in the area declined to comment citing the sensitivity of the issue.
The kidnapping of foreigners has become relatively common in parts of Afghanistan since U-S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the former Taliban government in 2001, heralding a 10-year anti-insurgent war.
(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Nick Macfie)
100 girl students poisoned in N. Afghanistan
TALUQAN, Afghanistan, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Up to 100 girl students were poisoned Wednesday at a high school in Afghanistan's northern province of Takhar, a provincial source said.
"A total of 100 girls were poisoned Wednesday morning in a high school in provincial capital Taluqan city," a spokesman for provincial government Mustafa Rasoul told Xinhua.
He said some of the students were allowed home after treatments but some others were still in the hospital for medical treatment.
He said an investigation has been launched by police into the incident.
This is the forth incident of its kind since the educational year began in March.
More than 400 boys were poisoned in eastern Khost province on Tuesday May 18.
No group has claimed the responsibility for the incident so far. During its rule which collapsed in late 2001, the Taliban regime had banned school for girls and confined women to their houses.
Afghan Education Minister Farooq Wardak said earlier this month that more than 530 schools had remained closed due to insecurity and thus over 300,000 students have been deprived of education rights in 11 provinces, mostly in southern and eastern parts of the insurgency-hit country.
Taliban tightens grip on Afghan schools
CNN By Nick Paton Walsh May 22, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan - In parts of rural Afghanistan a fierce battle is going on between the Taliban and the country's government. And the victims in this battle, it seems, are school children.
Recently, the Taliban demanded the closure of some schools in two eastern provinces. In Ghazni province, the closure of schools was in retaliation for the government's ban on motorbikes often used by insurgents. In Wardak province, the Taliban has been a little more compromising, locals say, and has allowed some schools to open late after making changes to the curriculum.
"The Taliban are fine with us as long as we do what they want. They tell us what to teach and what not to. If we don't do what they say they have a representative who comes checking things," one teacher said. "They have increased the number of hours we teach religious subjects in a week and decreased other subjects like English. If we didn't, they would threaten teachers, and it is very much possible that they would close the school down."
This power struggle in classrooms is symptomatic of broader fears about the future. As the U.S.-led military effort winds down in Afghanistan will the Taliban tighten its grip on daily life in the country?
CNN's cameras were allowed in one classroom in Wardak but those interviewed will not be identified for their own safety.
In this classroom, teaching is allowed but a Taliban minder oversees the syllabus. One student in the class says he does not mind.
"The Taliban have only increased the religious subjects in our day-to-day schedule, which is very good as people should learn religious subjects," he said.
Mohammad Sediq Patman, a deputy education minister said the government has to be flexible in order to keep schools open. In areas where the Taliban had more control, sometimes the government lets them influence what subjects are taught and even allows them to check student attendance, Patman said.
"There was no deal between the government and the Taliban, but only in order to keep the schools open and running the Education Ministry had shown flexibility to this issue," he said.
One Taliban school minder spoke to CNN but chose to cover his face on camera so that he could not be identified.
"We didn't allow schools to be opened here at the beginning of the school year because we wanted them to change," the Taliban minder said. "Then we had a big meeting with school officials and concluded we would allow school to start, but teaching should be according to our principles and Islamic principles. They accepted that. We have only increased Islamic subjects so that even when a person becomes an engineer, he should have enough knowledge in Islam."
The minder said he was implementing instructions from Taliban leader Mullah Omar as are many others across Afghanistan.
Lost in transition: A political strategy for Afghanistan
Foreign Policy (blog) By Scott Smith and Andrew Wilder Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) signed by President Obama and President Karzai in the dead of night in Kabul on May 2nd, and the recently concluded Chicago Summit, have sent an important message that the international community is not abandoning Afghanistan, and that Afghanistan's stability and security remain a key objective of the United States and its NATO allies. The Chicago summit has ratified crucial details of the security strategy to meet these objectives. But the last decade in Afghanistan has shown that security strategies in the absence of political strategies do not translate into peace and stability. The international community's political strategy has always been muddled or murky at best, or missing altogether. But politics is happening in Afghanistan, providing new opportunities even as international troops withdraw. After Chicago, there is an urgent need to ensure that a strategy for the upcoming political transition in Afghanistan, and in particular the 2014 presidential election, receives similar policy attention as has been devoted to the security transition and the SPA.
We've just returned from a few weeks in Afghanistan, where we perceived both a new and energized spirit of politicking for the 2014 presidential elections, as well as baldly stated fears of a return to civil war. For many we interviewed, the two are inextricably linked - a massively flawed election in 2014, or a failure to hold an election at all, could easily result in a destabilizing situation where there is no legitimate civilian control, and security forces could break down and begin competing for power along ethnic and factional lines. If so, the tens of billions of dollars devoted to building the Afghan security forces, under the assumption that they would come under civilian control, could amount instead to an investment in a more ruthless and costly civil conflict that further destabilizes Afghanistan and its neighbors. Given this huge risk, not only for Afghans but also for core U.S. national security interests in the region, it is imperative to rectify the major imbalance between the time and effort devoted to planning the security transition vs. the political transition - especially given that the fate of both are so deeply intertwined.
In Kabul, the political transition discussions we had often boiled down to one question: what will Karzai do? He has repeatedly stated publicly that he will not be president after 2014. But there are few examples in Afghan history of orderly and peaceful transitions of power, and many Afghans refuse to take President Karzai at his word. If it is true, as Thomas Jefferson is reported to have said, that "information is the currency of democracy", then rumor is the currency of Afghan democracy (some might say, more simply, that currency is the currency of Afghan democracy). Karzai's statements have been dismissed by many Afghans with a raft of conspiracy theories on how he will extend his power. These range from the Constitutional (declaring a state of emergency-though this could only last two months before it would need to be ratified by the parliament), to the coercive (convening a rigged loya jirga to change the constitution), to the too-clever-by-half (resigning with his two vice-presidents before his term is up and running a few months later on the ground that he had not completed two terms).
President Karzai's recent proposal to hold elections in 2013, ostensibly to take advantage of the larger number of international troops, only fueled the suspicions of those who refuse to believe that he will respect the Afghan Constitution. At the same time, many of those we spoke to say that Karzai recognizes that any attempt to subvert the Constitution will lead to demonstrations in Kabul. One political figure said that the regime can only fall as a result of unrest in Kabul, not insurgency in the provinces. The one thing that would bring rioting to Kabul's streets, he argued, would be an attempt to hold onto power unconstitutionally, and that Karzai is aware of this and would not risk it.
If President Karzai does give up power constitutionally, there are several plausible scenarios. The first would be for the political elite, including Karzai and major opposition figures, to settle on a single candidate. An elite consensus along these lines would turn the election into a sort of referendum, and minimize the probability that electoral fraud would be as destabilizing as it was in 2009. The second scenario is that Karzai backs a candidate who many opposition figures find unacceptable, but a broad-based opposition coalition is able to agree on a single rival candidate. In the event of a hotly contested race that this scenario could result in, the quality of the election would play a crucial role in ensuring a legitimate transfer of power. A third scenario would be for Karzai to back a candidate while the opposition is unable to unite. This could allow Karzai to perpetuate his hold on power through the election of a political proxy-many in Kabul called this the "Putin-Medvedev scenario".
What happens next depends as much on the opposition as on President Karzai. At crucial moments, opposition figures have lost their nerve, preferring to be co-opted by the palace rather than face the real risks of confronting the existing power structure. Even now, the opposition is divided between those who claim that Karzai has become so powerful that he-or any candidate he backs-is invincible, and those who claim that he is intrinsically weak but that the international community's deference has made him artificially strong. The opposition appears to be waiting for signals-from Karzai that he will allow a fair election (for example, by setting an election date soon and by ensuring the appointment of independent election commissioners), and from the international community that they will insist on it. The danger of on-going ambiguity about the commitment to support and hold credible elections is that Afghan political figures will not take the required risks to participate constructively in the consensus-building process. It would not be surprising if Karzai tested the nerve of his opposition, in the hopes that it collapses under the test. It has worked in the past.
Nonetheless, there are encouraging signs of political activity aimed at the presidential election. Candidates and parties are organizing, opposition parties are making specific demands for electoral reforms, and a process to reform the election legislation has begun.
The international community, however, has greeted this activity with extreme caution. The common talking point of senior U.S. government officials is that elections in Afghanistan are a sovereign matter. Opposition figures listen to this in dismay, arguing that the sovereignty the internationals are protecting is not Afghanistan's, but Karzai's and the corrupt and predatory political mafias with strong links to the palace. A true respect for Afghan sovereignty, they argue, would require the promotion of a level political playing field. They have a point: it is curious at least that the presence of 130,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, and the provision of assistance worth about the equivalent of the country's GDP, is somehow not an infringement on sovereignty, while pressure to hold fair elections in accordance with the Afghan Constitution is perceived to be too intrusive and risky. The greater risk is that such misplaced sensitivities that are often interpreted by Afghans as lukewarm international support for democratic elections, and/or undue skepticism that credible elections can be held, will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are, however, good reasons for international caution. Government and opposition figures alike noted that the international community's legitimacy on elections was undermined in 2009 by the perception that the late U.S. State Department Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, backed individual candidates against Karzai rather than supporting the process. President Karzai has used this to frighten the international community away from its legitimate concerns about the process, whereas the key lesson from 2009 should be to forcefully support the process but not individual candidates. Furthermore, a fundamental difference between the 2009 and 2014 presidential elections, which should reduce some of the sensitivities regarding international support for the process, is that Karzai has publically stated on numerous occasions that in accordance with the Constitution he will not be contesting the next election.
The U.S. government was particularly cautious about antagonizing Karzai, including by raising election-related issues, during the long and drawn-out process of negotiating the SPA. Many Afghans expressed concern that this caution will continue during the negotiation of the Status of Forces Agreement, which must be completed in the next 12 months, giving Karzai at least another year of tranquility on electoral matters. The U.N., which took positions in both the 2009 and 2010 elections that angered Karzai, is similarly reticent, and in public at least echoes the "sovereign process" talking point.
Given this reticence to date, the widely reported meeting President Obama had with President Karzai on the sidelines of the Chicago Summit, during which issues of electoral reform and planning for the 2014 elections were raised and discussed, are a very encouraging sign that the U.S. will now be prioritizing the political transition and supporting and advocating more publically for credible elections in 2014. While international support for elections must be done sensitively and respectfully, too quiet and soft of an approach would be a big mistake. The majority of Afghans who respect the Constitution and want a democratic future for their country need to be assured that the international community led by the U.S. is committed to doing everything possible to ensure relatively free and fair elections. The stakes of the 2014 election are very high, and the future stability of Afghanistan - ultimately the core strategic interest of the U.S. - is likely to depend on the perception of the election's legitimacy. While the challenges to holding credible elections in 2014 are undoubtedly great, and the risks considerable, the much greater risk is to continue to pay scant attention to the political transition, and to pin hopes on a stable and secure Afghanistan solely on the abilities of the Afghan National Security Forces. One need not look far in the region to see the negative consequences for peace and stability, not to mention democracy, of relatively strong security institutions and very weak civilian institutions.
For better or for worse, the international community has inherited a partial responsibility for ensuring that the next elections play the role of consensus-building and state legitimation that would be the most likely way to save the country from civil war. The international community can fulfill this responsibility by doing the following:
* Make it clear that future assistance will depend on a credible electoral process in 2014. The Tokyo conference in July provides an opportunity to underline this message. It should anyway be clear to the Afghan government that the global financial situation is such that many countries are simply looking for excuses to reduce their aid to Afghanistan. Deeply flawed elections or no elections would inevitably lead to much sharper reductions in aid. * Provide reassurances that the necessary international logistic and security assets required to hold elections will be in place in 2014. * Avoid the tempting diplomatic game of identifying potential candidates, and instead support electoral processes to help create a level playing field and allow Afghans to form their own coalitions and freely support their favored candidates. * Support civil society, media, women's and youth groups, to continue to discuss how to improve Afghan elections. Civic and voter education in the past has been insufficient. There is time to correct this. The more knowledgeable the electorate, the harder it is to rig elections, and the greater the popular expectation for elections, the more costly would be any decision to cancel them. * Avoid the temptation to fall for quick-fixes-like accelerated elections in 2013. Patience and discretion are required, but there should be no lack of conviction in the need for a level playing field.
Given the recent history of Afghan elections, it may seem implausible to bet on Afghan democracy as a means of solving Afghanistan's deep-rooted problems, but almost everyone we spoke to were clear that it was the only bet to make. Democratic processes might not succeed, but everything else will surely fail without them.
Scott Smith is the Deputy Director for Afghan Programs, and Andrew Wilder the Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan Programs, at the United States Institute of Peace. The views reflected here are their own.
Two Foreign Women Reported Abducted In Afghanistan
May 23, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Officials in Afghanistan say two foreign women and three Afghan colleagues working for an international relief organization have been abducted in the northeastern Badakhshan Province.
Abdul Maroof Rasekh, a spokesman for the provincial governor, says unknown gunmen abducted the foreigners and their colleagues as they traveled from the Yaftal district to Ragestan district.
The foreigners are described as an African woman and a European woman.
Neither the name of the relief organization nor the identities of the five who were abducted were immediately released.
Based on reporting by AP and dpa
Turkmenistan, Pakistan, India Sign Trans-Afghan Gas Pipeline Deal
May 23, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Representatives of Turkmenistan, Pakistan, and India have signed an agreement aimed at the construction of a pipeline that would cross Afghanistan to bring Turkmen gas to India and Pakistan.
The U.S.-backed deal was signed in the Turkmen Caspian resort of Avaza on May 23.
Representatives of India's state-owned Gail Ltd. and Pakistan's private Inter State Gas System joined Turkmenistan in signing the deal.
The concept of the estimated $7.6 billion pipeline was first raised in the mid-1990s, but construction has yet to begin.
Turkmen officials have said the proposed 1,735-kilometer pipeline could carry 33 billion cubic meters a year.
According to supporters of the project, the pipeline could be operational by 2016, if the security situation in Afghanistan is stable.
The United States has backed the project for years.
For Washington, analysts say, the project offers a way to further isolate Iran, which has announced plans to try to build a separate gas pipeline with Pakistan.
Analysts say Turkmenistan, meanwhile, is seeking to expand its gas exports beyond Russia and China.
Some analysts have suggested that the pipeline project also signals a potential warming of economic ties between traditional rivals India and Pakistan.
Irfan Ashraf Qazi, a spokesman for Pakistan's Petroleum Ministry, told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal that according to the agreement, Turkmenistan is planning to pump 3.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Hesaid Afghanistan would get 0.5 billion cubic feet of this amount, while Pakistan and India would share the rest equally.
Qazi explained the planned pipeline route:
According to Qazi, the pipeline "will lead from the South Osman field of Turkmenistan to Herat in Afghanistan. [From Herat] to Kandahar, then to Chaman and Zhob [in Balochistan of Pakistan] and then to Dera Ghazi Khan and Multan [in the Punjab region of Pakistan].”
Plans for rates and fees for the pipeline have not yet been publicly disclosed.
The deal was signed after Pakistan and Iran earlier in the spring announced plans for a pipeline to deliver Iranian gas to Pakistan.
The United States warned Pakistan against pursuing that deal with Tehran, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying Islamabad could face "damaging" consequences from the United States over the project.
At that time, Pakistani officials responded by saying Islamabad still wanted the project with Iran to go forward.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal, AP, and AFP
Kyrgyzstan, NATO sign land transit agreement
BISHKEK, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyzstan and NATO have signed an agreement on the transit of cargo by land through Kyrgyzstan for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
The agreement was signed at the NATO summit in Chicago on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry's press service said.
The ministry believes that the accord "is important for the further development of bilateral cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and NATO in the interests of stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan and ensuring security in Kyrgyzstan and the Central Asian region," it said.
At the signing ceremony, NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow thanked Kyrgyzstan for the support, saying the agreement was an important contribution to stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan.
Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbaev said his country will continue to assist the international community, including NATO, in security, peace, stability and further economic and social development of Afghanistan.
The agreement is yet to be approved by Kyrgyzstan's parliament and president.
U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan to depart on health reasons: State Department
WASHINGTON, May 22 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. State Department confirmed on Tuesday that U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker will leave his post earlier than expected this summer due to "health reasons."
Crocker has informed both the Afghan government and the NATO- led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan that he "intends to depart his post for health reasons, in mid-summer," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.
Crocker, a veteran diplomat appointed to the current post last year for a two-year term, had previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon.
Nuland praised Crocker for the "enormous achievements" he has achieved during his 10-month tenure, especially the signing of the U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement, which charts the bilateral relations after the scheduled NATO troop pullout in 2014.
The announcement came just after the conclusion of the NATO summit in Chicago, which on Monday adopted the exit strategy on how NATO will hand over the security of Afghanistan to the Afghan forces by mid-2013.
Ryan Crocker’s Afghanistan: Mission Impossible
A one-of-a-kind U.S. diplomat says he’s leaving Afghanistan. Ron Moreau on what the ambassador achieved and how hard he will be to replace.
The Daily Beast By Ron Moreau May 22, 2012
In late 2001, shortly after the Taliban’s collapse, a young, relatively unknown Pashtun tribal leader was named as interim leader of Afghanistan by an international conference at Bonn, Germany. Just 10 days later, one of America’s top troubleshooting diplomats landed in Kabul. It would be his job to reopen the U.S. Embassy, which had been shuttered since 1989. But Ryan Crocker’s other job in the Afghan capital would be even more important: to work closely with President Hamid Karzai, whose main qualification for the job was that unlike practically every other potential Afghan leader, he didn’t have blood on his hands from the country’s interminable civil wars. “We were together every day for the four months I was here,” Crocker told The Daily Beast earlier this year in the heavily guarded American Embassy earlier this year. “And every single conversation we had would have the phrase ‘What the hell do we do now?’”
President Obama and the State Department must be asking the same question right now. Crocker has announced that he’s preparing to leave Kabul, returning to retirement a full year before his latest two-year posting was to end. Replacing one of the State Department’s most talented diplomats won’t be easy, not only because Crocker has an intimate and encyclopedic knowledge of the region, but also because he managed to establish a close rapport with the famously difficult, mercurial, and irascible Afghan president.
Crocker and Karzai bonded in early 2002 while they tried to figure out their next moves in a country that had been devastated by three decades of war and five years of Taliban misrule. And that decade-old friendship served them well after President Obama cajoled Crocker to come out of retirement last summer, leave his cushy position as dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, and return to Kabul. A sense of patriotism and mission forced Crocker to accept Obama’s can’t-refuse offer—much to the disappointment of Crocker’s wife, Christine, a retired Foreign Service officer herself. She thought her husband’s service on the front lines of American diplomacy had continued long enough.
Upon his arrival in Kabul in July 2011, Crocker faced an enormous challenge: to rebuild a working relationship between the United States and Karzai. The connection between the Afghan president and the outgoing ambassador, retired U.S. Army Gen. Karl Eikenberry, couldn’t have been more dysfunctional. A leaked cable from Eikenberry to the State Department pretty much summed up Eikenberry’s view of Karzai and showed how frayed and tense their dealings had become. The Afghan president, Eikenberry wrote in exasperation, “is not an adequate strategic partner [He] continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defense, governance, or development.”
His wife experienced the dangers of the job firsthand back in 1998, when her husband was serving as ambassador to Syria and a frenzied crowd attacked and burned their Damascus residence.
And it wasn’t just to mend ties that Crocker was sent back to Kabul: his assignment was to sit down with Karzai and negotiate the terms of the Strategic Partnership Agreement, the framework for Afghan-U.S. cooperation in the entire decade after the 2014 American troop withdrawal. Crocker had his work cut out for him. Karzai fulminated loudly and often against what he called U.S. violations of Afghan sovereignty. He even famously threatened to join the Taliban if America didn’t change its ways.
At issue were the Coalition forces’ frequent night raids against Afghan homes that were suspected of harboring Taliban fighters and commanders. The U.S. military called those operations its most effective tool against the insurgency, but Karzai had repeatedly denounced them as a violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty and an insult to the country’s conservative traditions. And there was another sore spot: the Americans’ incarceration of Taliban suspects in U.S.-controlled prisons. Karzai demanded an immediate end to the night raids and the transfer of all Afghan prisoners held in U.S. custody to the Afghan government within weeks. Both disputes loomed as insurmountable obstacles that threatened to doom any strategic agreement, even though the Americans—and most Afghans—deemed the partnership essential to the Kabul government’s long-term survival. “I’m hoping to reset the relationship,” Crocker told The Daily Beast earlier this year.
And he largely succeeded. Leveraging his close personal relationship with Karzai, Crocker was instrumental in negotiating side agreements on night raids and the prisoner issue that were satisfactory to both the Americans and the Afghan government—even its difficult president. Most Afghan prisoners would be transferred to Afghan custody by the end of the year. And night raids would continue, but with Afghan forces in the lead. U.S. troops would enter people’s homes only if expressly asked by Afghan forces. Beyond that, the Americans would provide the Afghans with intelligence, firepower, logistical support, and bus service, delivering Afghan troops to their targets. (As Crocker says, it will be a long time before the Afghans are able to conduct such surgical operations on their own.)
With those two thorny problems out of the way, the stage was set. During the U.S. president’s late-night surprise visit to Kabul earlier this month, Obama and Karzai signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement. Now, having patched up relations with Karzai and negotiated the crucial agreement, Crocker has announced that he’ll be leaving Kabul this summer. His wife, Christine, must be relieved at his decision. She experienced the dangers of the job firsthand back in 1998, when her husband was serving as ambassador to Syria and a frenzied crowd attacked and burned their Damascus residence.
Few American diplomats have served with such distinction in so many of the globe’s most strategic hotspots. In April 1983 the young Foreign Service officer stood cut and bleeding in Beirut as he briefed the press in front of the U.S. Embassy, which had just been destroyed by a terrorist bomb. Seven months earlier he had investigated another scene of horrendous carnage in Lebanon after the massacres of Palestinians by pro-Israel Lebanese Christian militias at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. He witnessed yet more horror amid the ruins of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, following the October 1983 truck bombing. But Crocker is probably best known for his role in Baghdad from 2007 to 2009, when he worked closely with Gen. David Petraeus to restore a modicum of stability to an Iraq that was torn apart by merciless insurgency and sectarian bloodletting.
His abilities will be sorely missed in Afghanistan and across the region. In fact, his retirement may not be as restful as he and his wife might hope. The White House, the State Department, the U.S. military, and the CIA will almost surely be calling him constantly to ask him a question he knows well: what the hell do we do now?
Ron Moreau is Newsweek’s Afghanistan and Pakistan correspondent and has been covering the region for the magazine the past 10 years. Since he first joined Newsweek during the Vietnam War, he has reported extensively from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Rogue Afghan Insurgent Group Enters Political Scene
May 22, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
As the Afghan government struggles to reach a negotiated peace settlement with insurgents while international troops prepare to withdraw, a previously marginal militant group has answered the call for talks with a resounding "no.”
Until recently, little was heard of the Mullah Dadullah Front, an extremist militant group that operates mainly out of southern Afghanistan. But that has changed, with the group claiming responsibility for the assassination of a key negotiator for the High Peace Council, the government's main avenue for peace talks, and for sending death threats to Kabul lawmakers.
The front takes the name of a former radical Taliban commander who was killed in a U.S-led attack in Helmand Province in 2007. Afghan intelligence officials have described the group as a Taliban faction.
Despite having vowed to target members of the High Peace Council, the Taliban was quick to distance itself from the recent assassination and has publicly stated that it is not affiliated with the Mullah Dadullah Front.
Mohammad Yasin Zia, deputy chief of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghan intelligence body, says that although details about the group are sketchy, its recent actions show the group's clear opposition to peace talks and to an extended American military presence in the country.
'They Are All Terrorists'
Zia, who played down the threat posed by the radical group, maintained that the incidents were part of a psychological war to instill fear in the minds of Afghan citizens and lawmakers.
"This is part of a psychological war," he said. "Only a few people have gathered together. They’ve created something imaginary so it can have a bad influence on the minds of Afghan people.
"There should be no concern over the group. The Mullah Dadullah Front is no different from others; they are all terrorists."
Zia's remarks come after the NDS announced on May 19 that it had arrested three members of the front in Kabul. The alleged members, who are in custody, were reportedly in possession of several suicide vests.
The arrests also followed reports last week that numerous members of parliament had received text messages and telephone calls attributed to the group, in which they were told they would be "targeted" if they ratified the recently signed strategic agreement between Washington and Kabul.
Parliament, which opened discussion on the agreement on May 22, is expected to decide on ratification as soon as this week.
The agreement, which covers relations between the two countries when NATO forces pull out in 2014, has to be ratified by the Afghan senate and parliament before it can go into effect.
The Dadullah Front also claimed responsibility for the assassination, on May 14, of Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban official who had become an influential member of the Afghan High Peace Council.
Rahmani, who lived under government protection in Kabul, was seen as a viable mediator in any future negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
After the Afghan government accused the Taliban of responsibility for the assassination, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid promptly released a statement denying involvement in the incident.
"We are still committed to our campaign against the members of the so-called peace council, but again I insist that the Taliban were not behind today’s assassination," the statement read.
'Hard-Core' Offshoot
Nonetheless, Jeffrey Dressler, a senior analyst and team leader for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C., considers the Dadullah Front to be a "hard-core" offshoot within the larger Taliban movement.
He says that it is unclear how numerically strong the Dadullah Front is, but adds that the group has recently expanded its sphere of influence to the southeastern provinces of Zabul and Ghazni, in addition to the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan.
Dressler, who says the group has been active for several years, maintains that the group's power and reach should not be overstated, despite its higher profile of late.
"My sense is that the power and reach of this group is limited and although they may have increased their geographic spread, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are a significant threat," he told RFE/RL.
"Despite this, successfully executing proponents of peace talks will certainly not help the overall effort, which hasn’t fared well thus far."
Although he plays down the significance of the Dadullah Front, Dressler is discouraged by the fact that radical elements of the Taliban continue to have considerable influence over the divisive issue of peace talks with the Afghan government and international community.
"Although there are individuals within the Taliban movement that are more moderate than these extremist factions, they do not appear to be terribly influential, even if they are in fact a majority," he wrote in a recently published report.
Afghan intelligence officials have described Mullah Dadullah, the man, as an effective yet brutal militant leader who had close ties with Al-Qaeda and embraced the terrorist organization’s extremist tactics, including the use of suicide bombers and the incorporation of foreign fighters.
During the Taliban's reign, Dadullah was famous for his acts of cruelty, including public hangings, and the stoning of women.
He was also known for massacring hundreds from the minority Shi'ite Hazara ethnic group in central Afghanistan.
Analysis: Looming end of Afghan mission leaves NATO with identity crisis
Reuters By David Brunnstrom and Adrian Croft May 22, 2012
CHICAGO - NATO put on a brave face at its Chicago summit but the reality is that the alliance has been weakened by the euro zone crisis and faces an identity crisis about what its role will be once it ends its intervention in Afghanistan in 2014.
NATO leaders sealed a landmark agreement to hand control of Afghanistan over to its own security forces by the middle of next year, putting the Western alliance on an "irreversible" path out of the unpopular, decade-long war. The big question mark hanging over the summit was how will NATO, a 28-nation grouping originally designed for the Cold War, adapt to the world beyond 2014?
In an era where governments are slashing defense spending to cut budget deficits, the United States is increasingly tilting towards defense challenges in Asia while many of NATO's other members, preoccupied by economic problems, have little appetite for foreign adventures.That raises the question of whether the United States, which accounts for three-quarters of NATO defense spending, will remain committed to the 63-year-old organization despite its frustrations at European allies' reluctance to contribute more towards their own defense.
"The U.S. has been NATO's quarterback since the alliance was founded. That's OK by us, but we're increasingly concerned that - in light of economic pressures in Europe - we're going to have to play quarterback, running back, and wide receiver all at the same time. That's not good for the team," said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
SOFT TARGET
While the Pentagon is also being forced to cut defense spending - by $487 billion over the next decade - the gap between the United States and its European allies is only likely to widen as many governments see defense as a "soft target" for budget cuts they are being forced into by the debt crisis.
Big European nations such as Germany and Britain are sharply cutting defense and only five allies meet NATO's benchmark of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense.
Belgian Defense Minister Pieter de Crem said he agreed with former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates's warning last year that NATO risked "collective military irrelevance" unless alliance members acted to reverse declining capabilities.
"NATO is a political-military organization for collective defense and one cannot have all the advantages and all the assets without participating or bringing in a fair share," he told Reuters during the summit.
He said the challenge was to have fair burden-sharing between the two sides of the Atlantic "taking into account budgetary constraints."
NATO's answer to the money shortage is "smart defense," saving money by sharing equipment and facilities between allies and having countries specialize in different areas of defense.
"I think this summit sent a very clear message that the European allies are committed to acquiring the necessary military capabilities in the future, despite the economic crisis, despite declining defense budgets," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Reuters in an interview.
"We won't get more money for defense in the very near future - let's face it ... That makes it necessary to do business in a new way and I think multinational cooperation is the way forward," he said.
The summit approved an initial package of 20 multinational projects, including enabling fighter jets to use munitions from various sources and countries and a scheme to pool maritime patrol aircraft from various nations.
A broader question being asked in Chicago was what role should NATO have in the future - should it continue to fight fires in different parts of the world or pull in its horns and concentrate on defending its own territory?
REINVENTION
NATO has reinvented itself several times before. Originally a mutual defense pact that bound North America and Western Europe together during the Cold War, the alliance survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and intervened in wars in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
Afghanistan was NATO's first mission outside its traditional area of operations and its most ambitious. NATO forms the core of the 50-nation International Security Assistance Force that is battling the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Last year, with the United States taking a low profile but providing critical capabilities and supplies, Britain and France led a NATO air operation in Libya that helped rebels topple Muammar Gaddafi, a key milestone in the Arab Spring.Czech Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra argued that the crucial issue for the alliance now was not enlargement, or out-of-area operations, but common defense of its member countries.
NATO's article 5 commitment to mutual defense was the "bedrock" that justified NATO in the eyes of its population, he said.Other leaders, like British Prime Minister David Cameron, disagreed that NATO should lower its ambitions and "look inwards."
"I argued, and this summit agreed, that NATO should actually do the opposite," he told a news conference. "We should look outwards, reassert NATO's relevance and make sure it is ready and capable to tackle the threats that may lie outside its territory but nonetheless are very real threats to us at home."
Jamie Shea, NATO's deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges, wrote recently that NATO could soon be an alliance without a major operation under way.
While crises could come out of the blue, NATO interventions of the future were unlikely to follow past patterns, he said in an article on the website of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.
"They are likely to be more spaced out and more focused on air and naval operations than on land deployments," Shea wrote. "The objectives are more likely to be limited and short-term, involving more intelligence-gathering and special forces, to say nothing of the increased use of robotics and drones in place of soldiers.
"Moreover, if Libya is to be the model for the future, not all the allies will decide to participate, particularly in the sharp end of the operation," he said.
Clara O'Donnell, visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution, said the fact that countries traditionally active in NATO operations, such as Poland and the Netherlands, chose not to take part in the Libya air strikes showed a dwindling desire to show solidarity with other NATO members, reflecting the unpopularity of foreign expeditions in many countries.
In a sign that NATO remains a controversial organization, baton-wielding police clashed with anti-war protesters marching on the summit on Sunday while leaders met behind heavy security in a cavernous convention center.
Despite the doubts, few see the United States walking away from NATO or the alliance breaking up because Washington knows it can generally count on its European allies in time of crisis and derives valuable political support from them in pursuit of its interests.
"Afghanistan will end, some day, it's not going to be tomorrow, but there's going to be something else - I can't predict where, when - and the West is going to need a tool to act and until we find a better one, I'd like to keep the alliance around for a while," Leo Michel of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the U.S. National Defense University said in London recently.
(This has been corrected to Libya air strikes from operations in paragraph 2)
(Additional reporting by Phillip Stewart; Editing by Eric Beech)
15 militants killed, 33 arrested in Afghanistan within 24 hours: gov't
KABUL, May 23 (Xinhua) -- A total of 15 Taliban militants have been killed and 33 others arrested as Afghan forces and NATO-led coalition troops launched eight military operations within the past 24 hours, the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Wednesday morning.
"Afghan police, army and NATO-led coalition forces launched eight cleanup operations over the past 24 hours, killing 15 armed Taliban insurgents and detaining 33 others suspected," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.
The statement said that five other insurgents were injured during the raids conducted in southern Helmand and Zabul and eastern Nangarhar, Ghazni and Khost provinces.
The joint forces also found and seized weapons, the statement said, without saying if there were any casualties on the side of security forces.
However, the Taliban insurgent group, which announced it would launch a spring rebel offensive from May 3 against Afghan and NATO forces, has not make comments yet.
Afghan forces and some 130,000 NATO-led coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militant groups throughout the country recently as spring and summer, known as "fighting seasons" draw near.
Over 800 insurgents have been killed and more than 1,450 others detained in the country so far this year, according to the figures released by the Afghan Interior Ministry.
15 Afghan Taliban lay down arms, join peace process
HERAT, Afghanistan, May 23 (Xinhua) -- A total of 15 Taliban insurgents laid down their arms and joined the government-backed peace process in Herat province 640 km west of the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday, police said.
"Fifteen Taliban fighters gave up fighting and joined the peace process in Chasht district, Herat today," police spokesman of the province Noor Khan Nikzad told newsmen here.
All the former militants also handed over their weapons to police, he said, adding that with these people joining the peace process, security will be farther strengthened in Herat.
Taliban militants fighting the government are yet to make comment.
More than 3000 Taliban militants, according to officials, have joined the government-backed peace process over the past one year in the country, which was rejected by the Taliban as baseless.
This is not an exit strategy for Afghanistan, it's a surrender strategy
Telegraph.co.uk By Con Coughlin May 22nd, 2012
President Barack Obama believes the Afghan war "as we know it" will be over in two years when combat operations are ended. If he really believes that then he is living in cloud cuckoo land.
We all know that Mr Obama and David Cameron have lost interest in the Afghan campaign. It's too costly, and there are no votes in it. So let's get out at the earliest opportunity and leave the Afghans to clear up their own mess.
Hurrah, I hear you say. After more than 400 British dead, and hundreds more seriously wounded , not to mention the mind-boggling $350 billion price tag, the campaign has so far cost, it's high time we brought home our brave boys and girls and turned our attention to more pressing concerns, such as reviving the economy and making Britain a great nation once more.
But there is one enormous snag to this otherwise commendable plan: the Afghans are not capable of clearing up their own mess, and won't be in a position to do so for at least a decade. Remember, when all this started, serious military men like General Sir David Richards, now the head of our Armed Forces, and General David Petraeus, the mastermind of the counter-insurgency strategy to defeat Islamist terrorists, warned that this would take at least a decade, if not more.
Instead, out of pure political expediency, Messrs Obama and Cameron are running up the white flag before the job is done, and all the hard work and suffering of the past decade could end up being worthless. Not even their own military and Nato advisers agree with the decision they've taken at the Chicago summit, warning that there is every likelihood the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies will be back in control of large parts of Afghanistan once we have withdrawn, with all the implications that will have for our own security.
When I was in Kabul in March, Ryan Crocker, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, gave a stark warning that al-Qaeda was still alive and well in Afghanistan and still plotting to carry out spectacular attacks against the West. You only have to look at what al-Qaeda did in Yemen yesterday to see the group still have the capacity and determination to carry out acts of indiscriminate murder.
No, Mr President, this war is far from over, and when the next bombs start going off on the streets of London and New York, you will be the one to blame.
Afghans back Chicago deal, warn West to keep promises
Reuters By Mirwais Harooni and Rob Taylor May 22, 2012
KABUL - People in Afghanistan were surprisingly optimistic on Tuesday about NATO's plan to pull combat troops out of their war-ravaged nation by the end of 2014, but warned Western leaders to stick to aid and security promises.
A Chicago summit meeting of the 28-member bloc, attended also by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other world leaders, endorsed an exit strategy on Monday that calls for handing control of Afghanistan to its own security forces by the middle of next year.
But it left unanswered questions about how to prevent a slide into chaos and a Taliban resurgence after the pullout.
Despite the sense of combat fatigue in Chicago and frustration that nearly 11 years of military engagement had failed to defeat Taliban Islamists, Afghans were surprisingly upbeat. They said the agreement showed Western nations would not abandon their nation after a decade-long war and a massive aid and reconstruction effort.
"I don't think foreign nations will leave us as easily as they say. The international community has spent billions of dollars here now," said university student Tawab, speaking to Reuters at a park near a mosque in central Kabul.
"The conference has decided that some foreign forces will stay in Afghanistan, so it's like back-up support."
Housing prices in Kabul have jumped 15 percent since U.S President Barack Obama, who declared on Monday that the 10-year war was "effectively over", visited Kabul to sign a long-term security deal with Karzai on May 2.
Donor nations have been negotiating agreements with Karzai's government committing to ongoing aid and reconstruction support, as well as government and agricultural advisers, for at least a decade beyond the two-year NATO drawdown ending in 2014.
Since a U.S-led coalition helped Afghan forces topple the Taliban government in late 2001, Afghanistan has been one of the world's largest aid recipients, with more than US$57 billion spent on development to help counter support for insurgents.
In volatile southern Helmand province, one of the most violent parts of the country and the scene of several major clashes between the Taliban and Western troops, villagers said their lives had improved.
AND NOW WE HAVE A HEALTH CLINIC
Ezatullah, a shopkeeper in the town of Marjah where NATO troops fought one of the bloodiest battles of the war, said a 35-km (22-mile) paved road connecting to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah had nearly been completed, cutting costs and travel time to prevent vital food supplies spoiling in the area's searing summer heat.
"And now we have a health clinic built three years ago which provides most services to people. But still people are facing problems, as it's not enough. There should be at least a clinic in every big village," he said.
Security had also improved since 15,000 U.S. and British surge troops ousted around 2,000 insurgents from the area, said Marjah resident Nisar Ahmad, draining support from the Taliban.
"Now this district is fully protected by Afghan Local Police. Almost all of our schools are open and boys and girls attend schools. But we still face a lack of electricity despite the billions of dollars spent," Ahmad said.
In the Arghandab district of neigbouring Kandahar province - where U.S. troops suffered heavy casualties in 2010 - local resident Hajji Shah Mohammad Ahmadi said economic progress had been spurred by roads, schools and new health clinics.
And even in restive eastern provinces, where Western troops are still fighting to choke off insurgent supply routes across the mountainous Pakistan border in one of the last major offensives of the war, local people counted improvements.
Abdul Naser, from Chapa Dara district in Kunar, said where once there had been no roads, water canals, electricity, schools, clinics or security, now there was vehicle traffic, power generators, doctors and education.
"We got two clinics during the past months with female doctors. We have paved roads. But some projects were not well built and people still face some security threats," he said.
However, an April poll by the privately-run Tolo TV channel found just over 50 percent of Afghans though civil war would break out again after foreign troops withdrew, while 26 percent saw no change and 23 percent thought security would improve.
Still, property dealers in the capital Kabul - once convulsed by civil war but where cars have now replaced bicycles and some high-rise apartment buildings have sprung up - say business is thriving despite worries.
"People's morale and economic morale have gone up," said Mohammad Nader Faizyaar, the owner of the high-end Faisal Business Centre mall that retails everything from women's fashion accessories to furniture.
"People feel that the future of this country is stable and everyone can hopefully invest."
Sarwar Akbari, 38, a Kabul resident in the Wazir diplomatic district, said international backers had to now honour their promises not to abandon the country amid pressure on aid budgets, particularly in cash-strapped Europe. He also said they had to reach some kind of agreement with the Taliban.
"If they don't fulfil their promises, and if they don't stop neighbouring countries from interfering in Afghanistan and reach a peace with the Taliban, then this conference and any others will be useless," he said. (Additional reporting by Jack Kimball; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
U.S. senators vote to tie Pakistan aid to supply routes
Reuters Tue May 22, 2012
WASHINGTON - A U.S. Senate panel voted cuts in aid to Pakistan on Tuesday and threatened to withhold even more cash if Islamabad does not reopen its supply routes for NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, reflecting American frustration over a months-long standoff.
The action by the Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign aid followed a weekend NATO summit in Chicago at which Washington had hoped to reach a deal with Islamabad to end the supply line dispute.
Pakistan closed the supply routes through its territory to Afghanistan in protest when U.S. aircraft killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border last November. NATO has been seeking to compensate via expanded shipments of war supplies via Afghanistan's other neighbors but those routes are more expensive.
The Senate panel voted to cut aid to Pakistan by 58 percent in fiscal 2013 from the request by the administration of President Barack Obama, said the panel's chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy, who like Obama is a Democrat.
The senators voted $1 billion for Pakistan, including $800 million in foreign aid. However, funding for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund was limited to just $50 million, and that money was tied to the supply lines' reopening, said Senator Lindsey Graham, the panel's top Republican.
"We're not going to be giving money to an ally that won't be an ally," Graham told reporters.
The counterinsurgency fund was established several years ago to help train and equip Pakistan's military.
The panel's spending blueprint must still be approved by the full Senate and the House of Representatives before it can become law. But criticism of Pakistan in Congress and demands for a complete aid cutoff have been growing, especially after Osama bin Laden was found and killed by U.S. forces in a Pakistani city a little more than a year ago.
Pakistan has been one of the leading recipients of U.S. foreign aid and in recent years. U.S. lawmakers have approved more than $20 billion in aid and reimbursements since 2001.
The administration suspended $800 million in aid for Pakistan's military last year but American officials have suggested the aid could be restored if Pakistan would display more commitment to counter-terrorism operations.
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Bill Trott)
Kingsley As Karzai?
May 23, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Frud Behzan
“Do you ever think of a movie starring Ben Kingsley as Hamid Karzai?”
That was the question posed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as he interviewed the Afghan president in the United States on May 21.
Karzai replied by noting Kingsley’s award-winning role in the film “Gandhi,” which won eight Academy Awards in 1982.
“He is a great actor, and I would be very happy and honored if he took that role," Karzai said.
Kingsley can currently be seen in cinemas playing the role of a Karzai look-alike in British actor Sacha Baron Cohen’s new comedy, “The Dictator.”
Baron Cohen’s character in the film, Admiral General Aladeen from the fictional North African state of Wadiya, is a caricature of several former international autocrats, including Colonel Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, and Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan.
In the film, Kingsley, who is dressed in Karzai’s trademark Afghan karakul hat and robe, plays Aladeen’s treacherous and corrupt uncle Tamir, who organizes a sinister plot to overthrow the “supreme leader” and turn Wadiya into a democracy and sell its oil interests to foreign firms.
No word yet from the actor on whether he'd like to play Karzai on the silver screen.
At least as the Afghan president, Kingsley wouldn't have to kiss anyone's armpits.
Pakistani doctor sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping U.S. track down bin Laden
ISLAMABAD, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi who was charged with treason for helping the United States to track down and kill Osama bin Laden has been sentenced to 30-year imprisonment, reported local media Geo on Wednesday.
The sentence was announced by the Political Administration of Khyber Agency Dr. Shakil Afridi belongs to after he was found guilty under the Frontier Crimes Regulation for carrying out a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad for getting the DNA samples of Osama bin Laden.
Dr. Shakil Afridi was also fined 320,000 rupees (about 3,478 U. S. dollars). Local media said that if he could not pay the fine he could face another three-year imprisonment.
Following the announcement of the sentence, Dr. Shakil Afridi had reportedly been shifted to a central jail in Peshawar.
The doctor was arrested on May 22, 2011 when he was trying to escape to Afghanistan via Pakistan's northwestern Torkham border after the U.S. Navy Seals killed bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound on May 2, 2011.
Dr. Shakil Afridi confessed that he had conducted a fake polio vaccination drive in the Bilal Town area of Abbotabad between March 15-18 and April 21-23 of 2011 to get DNA samples of the residents who lived in bin Laden's compound.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
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