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Aid Workers Held in Cave Are Rescued From Taliban
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and JOHN F. BURNS The New York Times June 2, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — Four aid workers, including two women, one British and one Kenyan, who were abducted May 22 were freed early Saturday in a NATO rescue operation in northern Afghanistan, according to a NATO spokesman and a Swiss-based aid organization, Medair.
Captured by insurgents while returning from a visit to a nutrition and hygiene project in the remote, mountainous region of Badakhshan Province, the group included two Afghans who worked with the aid organization. The area is so remote that it can be reached only on horseback, and the four were riding back when they were abducted.
The rescue was carried out by NATO forces working with Afghan forces, and Gen. John R. Allen, the senior allied commander in Afghanistan, took the unusual step of issuing a public statement on the rescue.
“I’m extremely grateful to the Afghan authorities and proud of the ISAF forces that planned, rehearsed and successfully conducted this operation,” said General Allen, referring to the International Security Assistance Force, as the coalition is known. “Thanks to them, Ms. Helen Johnston, Ms. Moragwe Oirere and their two co-workers will soon be rejoining their families.”
Ms. Johnston, 28, is a British citizen, and Ms. Oirere, 26, is Kenyan, said Aurélien Demaurex, the spokesman for Medair, which is based near Lausanne, Switzerland. The two Afghans were not identified for their own safety.
The British prime minister, David Cameron, confirmed the successful rescue at an early morning news conference at 10 Downing Street, after the hostages had been brought to the British Embassy in Kabul. He said he had personally approved the operation after concluding that the number of Taliban fighters involved in the kidnapping was rising continuously.
Military officials in London said American helicopters carried the troops to the target area and American forces fought Taliban fighters while British troops converged on a cave in the Badakhshan mountains where the hostages were being held. The rescue followed more than 10 days of near round-the-clock surveillance of the hostage site by drones and piloted reconaissance planes using full-motion video and laser sensors, often in severe weather over treacherous terrain, a senior allied officer said Saturday. The British military officials said the captors had demanded a ransom of $10 million.
Taliban insurgents and criminal groups are both active in Badakhshan Province. The line between the two is sometimes unclear, but the British military officials said the Taliban had moved into the area and taken over the gangs’ operations. The officials said seven of the kidnappers were killed.
Also on Saturday, the Afghan government criticized an article last week in The New York Times on the status of the handover of the main American-run detention facility in Parwan to the Afghan government, saying it was unbalanced and inaccurately described the government’s new authority over the detainees.
At a news conference in Kabul, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Janan Mosazai, said that the Afghan government would respect the views of the Americans on whom to release, but that the ultimate decision belonged to the Afghans. Among the detainees are some senior Taliban members who have targeted Americans.
In background briefings with reporters, however, American officials have said that they — as well as the Afghans — would have to approve the decisions to release detainees. If there is a disagreement, a committee made up of the ISAF commander and the Afghan defense minister must decide, according to the memorandum of understanding signed on March 9.
Rohullah Qarizada, chairman of the Afghanistan Bar Association, said it suited both sides to play down the Americans’ final say in detainee releases. “I’ve read the M.O.U. in Dari and in English,” he said. “If the Americans don’t agree, no one gets released.”
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul and John F. Burns from London. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
EU Freezes Cash for U.N.'s Afghan Police Fund
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM June 1, 2012
KABUL - The European Union is blocking the release of 30 million ($37 million) to a United Nations-run fund that finances Afghanistan's police force amid an investigation into alleged mismanagement and corruption at the U.N. program, Western officials in Kabul said.
The EU had previously put the funds on hold pending a determination that the Afghan police force had made certain improvements, the officials said.
European leaders, adding a new condition, decided to keep the funds frozen until they are also satisfied that the U.N. has addressed allegations, reported by The Wall Street Journal on May 10, that officials running the program haven't ensured proper oversight.
"We and all the other donors have a very strong interest in making sure it gets cleaned up and people feel as though they're confident that you put your money in there and it's not going to be stolen," said a Western official.
The EU, U.S. and Japan are the main donors to the program, called the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, or Lotfa. The EU has pledged to spend about $175 million on the program for its current phase, from January 2011 to March 2013, a period with a budget of $1.4 billion.
U.N. officials said on Friday that they hadn't been informed of the new EU condition for release of the 30 million, and that they were taking the allegations seriously.
Lofta staff have told Western officials and a monitoring committee of Afghan and international officials that U.N. officials had abused the fund's $2.2 million procurement budget, paid salaries to thousands of nonexistent police officers and created high-paying positions for people with close ties to Afghan leaders, according to Western officials. Officials at the U.N. Development Program, which administers Lofta, have denied allegations of mismanagement and corruption at the fund.
The fund was seen as a way for donor governments to finance the 150,000-member police force—a central element of the U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan—while reducing the potential of Afghan government corruption.
"Lotfa is, in some ways, the only vehicle that's out there to channel contributions, so it's got to work," said the Western official. "And if it's being poorly managed, it's got to get fixed fast."
U.N. investigators have seized computers and cellphones of several UNDP officials involved with Lofta, Western officials said. The investigative team has expanded in size and scope as the investigation unfolds, officials said.
Western officials also said they had been told by U.N. employees that Lofta staff had attempted to destroy documents the day before investigators arrived. "The attempt at a coverup not only spurred the investigation, but really lit a fire under the international community," said the official. "So now you have a lot of concern by us and the other donors about how UNDP has actually managed this fund."
UNDP said it is looking into the reports of destruction of evidence, but couldn't comment on the investigation until it is complete. "At this stage it is not possible to state whether these allegations have any factual basis. Should evidence show that allegations of fraud are true, appropriate action will be taken." the UNDP said.
U.N. officials in Kabul said at the time the Journal first reported the allegations last month that a recently conducted financial audit of the fund had found no financial irregularities.
The EU, U.S. and other major donors sent a letter to the U.N. after the Journal article was published calling for a full investigation of the allegations. The letter urged the U.N. to ensure that evidence wasn't destroyed and to brief donors on the outcome of the investigation, the Western official said.
Western officials said that they were encouraged by the U.N. response to their concerns.
U.N. documents viewed by the Journal show that U.N. employees had reported concerns about mismanagement and potential fraud at Lofta before the allegations were made public last month.
An email by an employee sent in January, seen by the Journal, raised alarms about potential "no-show" workers at Afghanistan's Interior Ministry who were being paid on contract by the U.N. fund.
In a response to the Journal's initial report last month, UNDP said it was aware of the risk of "ghost" employees, but had established a process to verify attendance. —Nathan Hodge contributed to this article.
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com
Rape Case, in Public, Cites Abuse by Armed Groups in Afghanistan
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN June 1, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Lal Bibi is an 18-year-old rape victim who has taken a step rarely seen in Afghanistan: she has spoken out publicly against her tormentors, local militiamen, including several who have been identified as members of the American-trained Afghan Local Police.
She says she was raped because her cousin offended a family linked to a local militia commander, who then had his men abduct her around May 17. She was chained to a wall, sexually assaulted and beaten for five days, she said.
A number of Afghan women who are victimized like Lal Bibi are later killed by their relatives because they believe the women have brought dishonor to the family. Extraordinarily, in this case, Lal Bibi’s relatives brought the battered girl to Kunduz Hospital, near their home in northern Afghanistan, and filed a complaint with the governor. They hoped for official justice even while holding out the possibility that her death might be the only way to restore the family’s honor.
“I am already a dead person,” she said in an interview, her voice breaking.
“If the people in government fail to bring these people to justice I am going to burn myself,” she said. “I don’t want to live with this stigma on my forehead. People will mock me if these men go unpunished, so I want every single one of them to be punished.”
In addition to stretching the bounds of conservative Afghan tradition, her plight is a test of the government’s willingness to challenge the impunity of the many armed groups operating in the country, in particular the Afghan Local Police, which provides security in Afghanistan’s rural expanses. These lightly trained and American-backed security forces are considered by the United States military to be one of the best hopes of improving stability in remote areas, even as human rights groups and residents have linked some to abuses, especially in northern Afghanistan.
“She is very brave that she came out and talked to the media,” said Nedara Geya, the head of the Afghan government’s women’s affairs department in Kunduz. “She has set an example for the rest of the rape victims.”
Like a number of areas in the north, Kunduz Province has become a patchwork of armed militias with overlapping territories. In addition to the Afghan Local Police, who are attached to the government through the Interior Ministry, there are many freelance groups, as well as others financed by international forces to guard otherwise unsecured areas. In the past year, both official and unofficial armed groups in Kunduz Province have been involved in abuses.
American military officials said that as far as they could determine, members of the Afghan Local Police were not involved in abusing Lal Bibi, saying they hoped that justice would be done in any case. However, a number of the local authorities, including the governor, the military prosecutor for Kunduz, as well as the Afghan Local Police director for the province, said the men who had abducted her and beat her were A.L.P. members.
Because of that government connection, the provincial military prosecutor has decided to take up her case. There were differing accounts of whether the man accused of raping her was a member of the A.L.P., but all agreed that his brother was a local commander in the force.
“All of the men are part of the first 300 A.L.P. who were trained by the American Special Forces,” said the prosecutor, Gen. Mohammed Sharif Safi. “It is not the first time that they have committed such a horrible crime. All of them are a bunch of illiterate and uneducated bandits and thugs who go around harassing people.”
So far, two people have been arrested in the case, including Khudai Dad, who is accused of raping Lal Bibi, and his brother, Sakhi Dad, who is an Afghan Local Police member, according to the Kunduz governor’s office and the police officer in charge of the province’s A.L.P. force, Col. Mohammed Shokur.
Not yet detained, however, is the chief suspect in Lal Bibi’s abduction, Cmdr. Muhammad Ishaq Nezaami, who disappeared shortly after she was grabbed.
He has a troubled past. He was arrested six months ago on charges of attempted rape in a different case but was cleared, General Safi said, adding that he believed that powerful people intervened on Commander Nezaami’s behalf. However, Colonel Shokur, the police official, said the charges were dropped in that case because of lack of evidence.
Lal Bibi is the youngest daughter in a Kuchi family, ethnic Pashtuns who are seminomadic herders. She and her family live in a tent in the scrub land outside the city of Kunduz and raise sheep for their livelihood.
Her nightmare began when a distant male cousin, Mohammed Issa, an Afghan Local Police member, started a relationship with a local girl. In one account, he tried unsuccessfully to elope with her. In another version, he contracted to marry her and then could not pay the bride price and fled. In either case, he was thought to have dishonored the father, who was furious and sought compensation.
Although Lal Bibi was only a cousin of the offender and in no way connected to the episode, in tribal justice one possible settlement would have been for her family to give Lal Bibi to the wronged girl’s family as payment, a practice known as baadal. But no tribal settlement was reached. Instead, Commander Nezaami, the local A.L.P. leader, came with armed men to her home and grabbed her, according to her and her family’s accounts.
“I was busy milking the sheep with my mother, and suddenly a car pulled up close to our tent,” Lal Bibi said. “They first grabbed my father and tied his hands, and then the armed men grabbed me and my mother from behind, and I didn’t know what happened and why they were there.”
She said that Commander Nezaami’s men threw her into a truck and took her to the home of one of his subcommanders, Sakhi Dad, whose brother was the father of the girl whose honor was seen as compromised by Lal Bibi’s distant cousin.
She told the rest of the story in rushed gasps: She was chained to a wall, she said, and Khudai Dad raped her repeatedly. Other men came in and beat her.
“I would begin to scream every time one of them came into the room, because I knew they were going to beat me or rape me again,” she said.
The experience is written on her body, according to a report by the regional Kunduz Hospital. “The doctors found signs that she was beaten and tortured,” said Dr. Shukur Rahimi, the head of the hospital. And, there was physical evidence consistent with her account of being chained.
An examination also confirmed that her hymen had been broken. That can be tantamount to a death sentence in Afghanistan, where women are considered fit to marry only if they are proved to be virgins on their wedding night. Some who fail that test are killed by relatives to restore the family’s honor.
In interviews, both Lal Bibi’s mother and grandfather said they were thinking of killing her unless justice was done, although the fact that they had come forward suggested that they were hoping that the government will prosecute the men and redress the wrongs done to her and her family through the legal system.
“If nobody wants to solve our problem, then they should behead her; we don’t want her,” her mother said.
The girl’s grandfather, Hajji Rustam, who lives with the family, seemed torn between tribal traditions that require that a tarnished girl be killed and deep feeling for his granddaughter’s distress.
He said: “Put yourself in our shoes: What if somebody raped your daughter? I am sure when you see that no one is helping you to bring the culprits to justice, you will be ready to kill yourself, kill your daughter.”
Then, he looked over at his granddaughter, whom he has been staying with since the rape: “During the day, she sits and doesn’t talk and is silent for hours and suddenly she screams. Her soul has been broken, and she is a very sad person.”
An employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kunduz, Afghanistan, and Habib Zahori from Kabul.
31 Taliban rebels killed in Afghan Kandahar province within week: police
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Up to 31 Taliban insurgents have been killed in clashes with and military operations by police within the past week in southern Afghan province of Kandahar, deputy provincial police chief said on Saturday.
"A total of 31 Taliban rebels, including four would-be suicide bombers, have been killed in Kandahar city and surrounding districts by the Afghan National Police (ANP) over the last seven days," Rahmatullah Atrafi told reporters in a press briefing here.
Five other suspects have been injured and 21 other insurgents detained, he said, adding "The ANP also found and seized weapons and explosive besides discovering drugs and opium."
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging a decade-long insurgency, launched a spring offensive against Afghan forces and NATO-led coalition troops from May 3.
Afghan and NATO-led Coalition forces have put pressure on the insurgents since the beginning of the spring, However, the militant group have conducted suicide attacks and roadside bombings against security forces in retaliation.
As many as 14 Taliban, armed with suicide vests and weapons, were killed and more than 20 civilians injured when Taliban detonated a suicide truck bomb and launched an attack on a U.S. military base in eastern Khost province on Friday afternoon.
O’HANLON: Rays of hope in Afghanistan
Progress portends stability by 2014 pullout
The Washington Times By Michael O'Hanlon Friday, June 1, 2012
The war in Afghanistan is a slog at best. Even those of us supporting the mission there must acknowledge that it has been slower, harder going than expected. With Osama bin Laden dead and other al Qaeda leaders also out of the picture (or out of the region) the original motivation for the effort seems less compelling to many as well.
But the United States should not lose patience. Because we already have an exit strategy to remove most NATO troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, no one need worry too much about a possible quagmire. Beyond that, there are good reasons to think that even if this mission does not achieve its loftiest earlier goals, it likely can attain the minimal acceptable requirement: preventing a Taliban return to power and a major al Qaeda presence on Afghan soil.
Several hopeful things I saw on a recent trip actually centered on politics - often viewed by many American observers as the Achilles’ heel of our mission in Kabul. To be sure, cronyism and corruption still permeate much of the Afghan state, fueled at times by insufficiently monitored foreign-aid efforts and military contracts. And fears of possible future civil war have grown over the past few years.
But a spirit of hopefulness, more than fear, characterized most of those with whom I spoke recently in Kabul. The recent signing of the U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement to guide cooperation after 2014 reassures many that they will not be left to their own internal conflicts - or the mercy of their neighbors - when NATO’s transition is complete. Although details of this agreement may prove difficult to negotiate, the accord definitely has given a boost to the strides of many Afghan reformers who continue to work hard for their nation’s future.
Moreover, more than ever before, politics is breaking out in Afghanistan. The 2014 presidential election is still two years away. But new political organizations, such as the Rights and Justice Party, are forming, and reform movements designed to get out the vote and improve the independence and integrity of the electoral process, including the Coalition for Reform and Development, are gaining steam. Everyone is forming shortlists of the most likely candidates for the race - some of them serious reformists. We do not yet know, of course, if the process will be successful, and it is possible that a weaker or less honest and effective leader than President Hamid Karzai could be elected. That could spell disaster, and Washington needs to think hard about using its leverage to reduce the odds of such an outcome. But there is still positive political energy in the air.
Here are some other hopeful indicators in Afghanistan:
Afghan security forces have almost reached their envisioned full size of 352,000, counting army and police. They are collectively taking at least twice the casualties of NATO forces, participating in at least 90 percent of all operations and leading about 40 percent of operations themselves (albeit usually the simpler ones at this point). They repulsed the April 15 Haqqani network attack on Kabul and other cities largely on their own.
While the security forces still suffer from political patronage appointments and corruption, the problems are being addressed partially. About 50 Afghan army leaders in the east of the country alone have been replaced over the past year; 70 police officers were fired recently in the country’s west for poor performance; and the Ministry of Defense has opened a full criminal investigation into the problems that produced corruption and theft at Afghanistan’s main military hospital last year. To be sure, such efforts could be too little too late. There remain pockets of serious problems, such as with the country’s air force. And some of the firings and hirings raise concerns of ethnic bias. But on balance, the progress is picking up.
The Afghan Local Police (ALP) , a form of armed community watch overseen by NATO troops, generally is proving its mettle. These lightly armed and locally organized forces are holding their ground in about 80 percent of all firefights, even when sometimes outgunned by the Taliban, and they are taking the highest rate of casualties of any part of the Afghan security forces. There have been a handful of cases of abuse within this program, and a number of illegal militias are falsely adopting the name Afghan Local Police to disguise their true nature (which is sometimes to attack their neighboring tribes or communities). But U.S. special operations forces have monitored and worked effectively with the actual ALP forces and stepped in to address problems when needed. They only allow their formation after several months of getting to know an area and working with local elders to try to ensure a reasonable mix of ALP members. The admittedly daunting challenge in coming months and years will be to keep growing the program while also gradually handing over oversight to Afghan special forces.
Recent Asia Foundation work suggests that the quality of governance at the provincial level in Afghanistan is improving. There still are too many bad actors and too much interference from Kabul in the day-to-day operations of regional governments. But by one scale, at least, the average quality of governance has improved at least 10 percent over the past year.
On the anti-corruption front, more than 100 companies or individuals (some of them U.S.-based) have been debarred from working with NATO because of suspicions of corruption or association with enemy elements. This overdue effort requires constant vigilance to be sure that companies or individuals that have been debarred once do not simply reorganize under a different name - but NATO is finally on the job on that matter.
Much still needs to be done, of course. Land reform and prevention of land expropriation by corrupt actors demand attention. Electoral watchdog organizations need to be strengthened and means of possible voting fraud reduced before 2014. Otherwise, cheating and scandal could delegitimize the election outcomes and contribute to more ethnic tension. The army and police still need to get a lot better. Some of the worst of the worst need to be arrested and tried for corrupt ways. And the international community needs to find leverage - and communicate its willingness to use that leverage - to maximize the chances that good leadership emerges from that election - conditioning future aid and troop levels on the quality of future Afghan governance. Pakistan needs to help more. Even if true alliance and friendship are unlikely, we at least need Pakistan to behave like the “frenemy” it once was instead of the antagonist it more recently has become.
But all these points are pretty well known. Less well known is all the good happening in Afghanistan. Whether it will be enough in the end is unclear, but there is a lot to build on.
Michael O’Hanlon is co-author of the Brookings Institution’s “Afghanistan Index” and “Toward a Political Strategy for Afghanistan.”
Thank Goats For Pakistan's Best Hashish
By Abubakar Siddique June 2, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Although hashish is illegal in Pakistan, it is easily available and widely consumed in the country's largely lawless northern tribal region.
For Noor Muhammad Afridi, dealing in "Awal Namber Garda" is more than just his life's work.
By providing the black, sticky hashish that keeps his customers very happy, he's keeping up a long, family tradition.
Just like his forefathers in the Afridi clan, the 32-year-old from Pakistan's tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghan border has become a connoisseur of the local delicacy, aged to perfection with a centuries-old technique.
"If you put [freshly prepared] hash resin into a goatskin or a sheepskin, it matures into something very good," he says. "It is well-preserved inside the skin, which also adds oil to it."
The technique is believed to greatly enhance the hashish's quality and, more importantly for its users, its effect.
If the end product makes the cut, it earns the right to join the prize sheep skins hanging from the rafters of Afridi's hash shop in Jamrud, gateway to the Khyber Pass.
'Top-Grade Dust'
To obtain Awal Namber Garda, Pashto for "top-grade dust," Afridi must travel from the plains of Jamrud to his clan's ancestral lands in the nearby mountains of Tirah Maidan.
There, a moderate climate, red soil, and locals skilled in the craft of cannabis combine to produce what is renowned as the region's best hashish.
It is an arduous journey made by way of rides in open pickup trucks and steep hikes, but it is well worth it.
Every gram guarantees profit -- Afridi can fetch up to $500 a kilogram for Awal Namber Garda -- and, if all goes well, Afridi has plenty to stock his shop.
The process begins once carefully cultivated marijuana plants have been cut and hung upside down.
After they have dried, a thin cloth is used to carefully thresh the plants to collect the glistening, hair-like resin glands protruding from the buds and upper leaves.
The residue is crushed into a fine, malleable powder -- the main ingredient for making what, for Afridi, is black gold.
The next step involves goats and sheep that locals slaughter in celebration of a good cannabis harvest.
The longer the hashish is kept inside the skin of a freshly-slaughtered animal, the better -- three months at least, says Afridi. The process works best during the hot summer months, but direct sunlight must be avoided.
Shah Mahmud, 55, is the type of farmer that Afridi has watched since childhood tending to cannabis on the tiny terraced fields of the Tirah Maidan.
Mahmud says the resin powder is stitched into the skins, which each hold six to 10 kilograms of hashish.
'Not A Bad Addiction'
Drawing on his experience of decades of hash use, Mahmud claims that, when the process is completed, Awal Namber Garda is beyond compare.
"Its outstanding quality is that the oil has enhanced its effect," he says. "If it's dry, it loses its effect and smoking it even causes headaches. The [summer] heat is like an enemy of 'Garda'. If you protect it from the heat properly, nothing can harm it."
While hashish available outside Khyber is often adulterated with henna, chewing gum, or even chemicals, Mahmud maintains that the hashish prepared in the Tirah Maidan is the real deal.
"Hashish is not a bad addiction even if you smoke it for 50 or 60 years," he says. "Cigarettes are more dangerous because each one you smoke reduces your age by a minute.'Garda' doesn't dry out your mind. A Charsi [hashish smoker] is always straightforward."
Afridi seconds the notion, and says that locals credit hashish with treating many diseases.
He insists that few of his regular customers ever get sick.
"Awal Namber Garda is very good," he says. "The second and third rate hashish is considered very bad because its effect is similar to your brain being squeezed very hard."
Afghanistan slayings: Sgt. Bales had used steroids, Army alleges
By Kim Murphy June 1, 2012 Los Angeles Times
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused in the late-night massacre of 16 men, women and children in southern Afghanistan, was using alcohol and steroids near the time of the murders, drugs that have been linked to symptoms of unusual aggression, Army prosecutors alleged Friday.
A new charge sheet returned against the 38-year-old serviceman also charges him with burning bodies of the victims and damaging a laptop computer in a purported attempt to impede the investigation into the March 11 attacks near a remote special operations post near the town of Belambay.
Except for the new evidence of substance use, the main difference in the new charge sheet is that it reduces the number of alleged murders from 17 to 16, clearing up a continued point of confusion since the killings first were reported. Army officials said a detailed investigation since the original charges were brought revealed that one of the victims was originally named twice.
The charges also include six counts of attempted murder, with victims that included four children, and six counts of assault that also involved shooting, with four children among those victims. A seventh assault charge alleges that Bales in February, the month before the killings, beat an Afghan man with his hands and knees, striking him in the face and the body.
The new charge sheet is the first indication of possible drug use in connection with the attacks, though it does not allege that either steroids or alcohol prompted the killings and makes no mention of possible side effects of either substance.
Steroids have long been linked to cases of strong aggression, often popularly described as “roid rage,” though the product Bales was alleged to have used, stanozolol, is consdered a milder form with fewer such side effects.
“Steroids can cause aggression and anger. It’s not uncommon for people on steroids to be just angry,” said former military psychologist Bart Billings, who has testified before Congress on the possible dangerous side effects of the Army’s widespread use of psychiatric drugs.
The charge sheet says Bales’ use and possession of the drug while on combat duty was a violation of miitary law. It alleges that Bales “on divers occasions” used alcohol while posted at Belambay between Nov. 1 and March 10 — the day before the predawn shootings — in violation of military orders prohibting alcohol use in Afghanistan.
Bales’ defense lawyers had initially denied Bales had used alcohol at the outpost, but attorney Emma Scanlan said Friday that military prosecutors claim to have evidence that the sergeant was drinking before the shootings.
“He was not an alcoholic,” Scanlan said. “The allegation that he may have used a limited amount of alcohol does not mean that alcohol fueled some kind of homicidal rage.”
Scanlan said defense lawyers continue to be convinced that Bales, who was on his fourth combat deployment, was not suffering from stress in connection with his family. His wife had put the family house up for sale as a result of purported financial problems shortly before the attacks.
"We stand by the original statement that he doesn't have any domestic issues outside of what happens in an ordinary marriage where one person is deployed multiple times," she said.
Khomeini Commemorations Met With Resistance By Afghan Youth
RFE/RL By Frud Bezhan June 01, 2012
Young people swept through the streets of Kabul this week, defacing and tearing down posters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini plastered throughout the city.
Meant to commemorate the anniversary of the death of the former Iranian supreme leader, the posters and large billboards have offended many in Afghanistan, a Sunni-majority country whose relations with its western neighbor have recently soured.
Demonstrations have been staged daily in the Afghan capital ahead of the June 3 anniversary.
Scores of young people gathered on June 1 in front of a looming billboard of Khomeini, some carrying placards reading: "This Is Kabul Not Tehran."
"Why are we celebrating Khomeini's day here?" asked Kabul University student Ahmad Jan Kandahari. "He is an Iranian figure. Why do we need to celebrate him here in Afghanistan? Here we have our own cultural icons and jihadi figures. They should be the ones celebrated in Afghanistan."
'Direct Attack'
During a rally on May 31, a Kabul high-school student named Arash described efforts to honor Khomeini as a grave injustice to the Afghan nation.
"As you see, posters of Ayatollah Khomeini are hanging in the intersections," he said. "This is a direct attack against Afghan culture and own national heroes." The social-networking site Facebook was abuzz with comments and photos after the posters were put up. And while many were critical of the move, some defended Khomeini as a great leader of the Islamic faith.
"Khomeini is one of the leaders of the Islamic faith," wrote Ashraf Frugh, a member of the Shi'ite Hazara ethnic minority. "He doesn't just belong to Iran but to all countries where he has followers."
Those followers are the ones the Islamic Shura of Kabul, the Shi'ite council that put up the posters, intended to lure to the streets on June 1. The posters, which the council put up with the permission of local authorities, feature a large image of Khomenei and announce a "big gathering" in large letters. All comers are invited to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the "Great Leader...saying goodbye to this world."
The religious council expects hundreds to pour through the Mazari Mosque in a mass prayer to pay their respects.
Fierce Political Debate
Coming amid increased tensions between Tehran and Kabul, with some Afghan lawmakers accusing Iran of meddling in Afghanistan's internal affairs, the issue has become fodder for a fierce political debate.
"Iranian leaders are not the leaders of Afghanistan!" wrote Kabul University student Rohullah Elham in one Afghan forum. "The policies of Iran do not favor Afghanistan. The Islamic regime in Iran is not our government. Those of you who have sold your souls, wake up!"
Ahmad Saeedi, a Kabul-based political analyst, says the marking of Khomeini's death in Afghanistan is a worrying indication of Iran's growing influence in the country.
"The cultural, economic, and political influence of Iran starts from the presidential office and spreads throughout the country," Saeedi says. "This is ensuring that the rules and traditions of Iran are overriding those in Afghanistan."
Observers say the main source of recent Afghan-Iran tensions is Kabul's signing of a long-term strategic agreement with United States on May 1, which raised Iranian fears of an extended American presence in Afghanistan.
Some Afghan lawmakers and officials have accused Tehran of launching a campaign aimed at derailing the U.S.-Afghan partnership, notably through bribing influential Afghan lawmakers and by inciting anti-American and antigovernment sentiment through media outlets it funds.
Written and reported by Frud Bezhan, with additional reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan
Seeing a Change in Kabul From a Beach in California
New York Times By JAALA A. THIBAULT June 1, 2012
Living on the beach in Southern California is a bit surreal. I wake to the crashing of waves, the chirping of birds. Each day I open my eyes, I cannot quite believe that I get to live in a place where the beauty seems unchangeable. But just the other day as I was running by a usually calm point, I noticed that the waves were breaking in a new place; with the turning of the seasons, a new sandbar had formed, providing fresh fun for the crop of surfers playing in the water. The hollering, happy people made the water prettier than I remembered it.
Though the small shifts in the ocean landscape here are almost imperceptible, each year I notice that this stretch of coast is changing. For better or worse, the water rises and the sands reform, no matter if people will them to or not. One day I am running by a placid patch of ocean; the next day the once-calm place is a thriving and wavy surf spot. Change takes time, but at some point it is right there lapping at your feet, and you can’t help but notice.
Afghanistan is much like the shifting sands and changing tides here on the beaches of Southern California. Though it is absent of all that is beach life, changes are happening slowly but consistently; though life seems as if it stays the same day to day, it is growing ever so slightly every second. I know this because I have seen small changes happen over the past couple of years. The changes I have witnessed are on a small scale, but that scale is an indication of what is happening in society. I return time after time to Kabul, because like the breathtaking changes I see in nature in Southern California, so too do I see amazing changes in Afghanistan. I can’t quite believe that I get to be a part of both.
The first time I went to Afghanistan was in 2010; I was on a 10-month teaching fellowship with the State Department. A stranger in a strange land, I fumbled through life trying to learn and absorb the culture just so I could gain enough footing to do my job and wear my head scarf correctly. I taught a few classes of English at the Education University and struggled to learn the students’ names during the first semester.
During the second semester I gained a few acquaintances and began working with some of my students who had graduated. All the students I worked with wanted to become teachers so they could “make the education system better.” One student said: “There is nothing else we can do but teach; if we can teach people in a different way, though, we have the answer. Teaching people to think differently will change everything in our society.” By the spring, two of those students had obtained scholarships to study teaching methods in India for a month. It was their first step in becoming professional teachers.
When I returned to Kabul in the winter of 2011-12, I was a friendly face in a familiar city. That time around, I spent a month training English teachers at the Education University. During the workshop I was conducting, it was announced that a master’s degree program in teaching English (taught in English) would be starting at the university. It would be the first of its kind in Afghanistan. Now the teachers I was training would have the opportunity to be students again. Those who already had their master’s degrees would become the teachers, and those who did not have advanced degrees would no longer have to look abroad to further their studies. Access to higher education had arrived.
When I return to Afghanistan this time, I will be training the same group of teachers I have been working with for the past two years at the Education University. I will be conducting a workshop on teaching writing. This time, though, the teachers will have to balance their time; they will be juggling their graduate studies and, for some, their teaching responsibilities.
Two of my students will be going through interviews, having made the final round of vetting for the Fulbright scholarship. Another of my students will be well on his way to India; he has been admitted to a two-year graduate program to study for his master’s degree in educational counseling.
Change happens slowly, but in my small world in Kabul, it has become hard to ignore that it has arrived. A friend of mine who is a student in the master’s program said: “Just a couple years ago, when you first arrived, we hoped that you could bring some supplies: dictionaries and books. We had a big dream that maybe you could build a computer lab. But what you brought was better: access to education. The gift of knowledge is greater than any material thing because now we can take what we have learned and teach more people. It doesn’t cost anything and can’t be taken away from us.”
Just as I admire the changing shores of Southern California and marvel at my good fortune in settling here, I will continue to be amazed at the changes that are taking place in the lives of my Afghan friends. Just two years ago they dreamed that I would bring them a new computer lab. Now we are friends and colleagues; we exchange stories and live through each other’s ups and downs. We will continue to grow and change, together.
Jaala A. Thibault taught English and trained teachers at Kabul Education University in 2010 and 2011 as part of the English Language Fellows Program under the State Department. She returns intermittently to Afghanistan to conduct teacher-training workshops. In the United States, she teaches English as a Second Language at Santa Barbara City College.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and JOHN F. BURNS The New York Times June 2, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — Four aid workers, including two women, one British and one Kenyan, who were abducted May 22 were freed early Saturday in a NATO rescue operation in northern Afghanistan, according to a NATO spokesman and a Swiss-based aid organization, Medair.
Captured by insurgents while returning from a visit to a nutrition and hygiene project in the remote, mountainous region of Badakhshan Province, the group included two Afghans who worked with the aid organization. The area is so remote that it can be reached only on horseback, and the four were riding back when they were abducted.
The rescue was carried out by NATO forces working with Afghan forces, and Gen. John R. Allen, the senior allied commander in Afghanistan, took the unusual step of issuing a public statement on the rescue.
“I’m extremely grateful to the Afghan authorities and proud of the ISAF forces that planned, rehearsed and successfully conducted this operation,” said General Allen, referring to the International Security Assistance Force, as the coalition is known. “Thanks to them, Ms. Helen Johnston, Ms. Moragwe Oirere and their two co-workers will soon be rejoining their families.”
Ms. Johnston, 28, is a British citizen, and Ms. Oirere, 26, is Kenyan, said Aurélien Demaurex, the spokesman for Medair, which is based near Lausanne, Switzerland. The two Afghans were not identified for their own safety.
The British prime minister, David Cameron, confirmed the successful rescue at an early morning news conference at 10 Downing Street, after the hostages had been brought to the British Embassy in Kabul. He said he had personally approved the operation after concluding that the number of Taliban fighters involved in the kidnapping was rising continuously.
Military officials in London said American helicopters carried the troops to the target area and American forces fought Taliban fighters while British troops converged on a cave in the Badakhshan mountains where the hostages were being held. The rescue followed more than 10 days of near round-the-clock surveillance of the hostage site by drones and piloted reconaissance planes using full-motion video and laser sensors, often in severe weather over treacherous terrain, a senior allied officer said Saturday. The British military officials said the captors had demanded a ransom of $10 million.
Taliban insurgents and criminal groups are both active in Badakhshan Province. The line between the two is sometimes unclear, but the British military officials said the Taliban had moved into the area and taken over the gangs’ operations. The officials said seven of the kidnappers were killed.
Also on Saturday, the Afghan government criticized an article last week in The New York Times on the status of the handover of the main American-run detention facility in Parwan to the Afghan government, saying it was unbalanced and inaccurately described the government’s new authority over the detainees.
At a news conference in Kabul, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Janan Mosazai, said that the Afghan government would respect the views of the Americans on whom to release, but that the ultimate decision belonged to the Afghans. Among the detainees are some senior Taliban members who have targeted Americans.
In background briefings with reporters, however, American officials have said that they — as well as the Afghans — would have to approve the decisions to release detainees. If there is a disagreement, a committee made up of the ISAF commander and the Afghan defense minister must decide, according to the memorandum of understanding signed on March 9.
Rohullah Qarizada, chairman of the Afghanistan Bar Association, said it suited both sides to play down the Americans’ final say in detainee releases. “I’ve read the M.O.U. in Dari and in English,” he said. “If the Americans don’t agree, no one gets released.”
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul and John F. Burns from London. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
EU Freezes Cash for U.N.'s Afghan Police Fund
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM June 1, 2012
KABUL - The European Union is blocking the release of 30 million ($37 million) to a United Nations-run fund that finances Afghanistan's police force amid an investigation into alleged mismanagement and corruption at the U.N. program, Western officials in Kabul said.
The EU had previously put the funds on hold pending a determination that the Afghan police force had made certain improvements, the officials said.
European leaders, adding a new condition, decided to keep the funds frozen until they are also satisfied that the U.N. has addressed allegations, reported by The Wall Street Journal on May 10, that officials running the program haven't ensured proper oversight.
"We and all the other donors have a very strong interest in making sure it gets cleaned up and people feel as though they're confident that you put your money in there and it's not going to be stolen," said a Western official.
The EU, U.S. and Japan are the main donors to the program, called the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, or Lotfa. The EU has pledged to spend about $175 million on the program for its current phase, from January 2011 to March 2013, a period with a budget of $1.4 billion.
U.N. officials said on Friday that they hadn't been informed of the new EU condition for release of the 30 million, and that they were taking the allegations seriously.
Lofta staff have told Western officials and a monitoring committee of Afghan and international officials that U.N. officials had abused the fund's $2.2 million procurement budget, paid salaries to thousands of nonexistent police officers and created high-paying positions for people with close ties to Afghan leaders, according to Western officials. Officials at the U.N. Development Program, which administers Lofta, have denied allegations of mismanagement and corruption at the fund.
The fund was seen as a way for donor governments to finance the 150,000-member police force—a central element of the U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan—while reducing the potential of Afghan government corruption.
"Lotfa is, in some ways, the only vehicle that's out there to channel contributions, so it's got to work," said the Western official. "And if it's being poorly managed, it's got to get fixed fast."
U.N. investigators have seized computers and cellphones of several UNDP officials involved with Lofta, Western officials said. The investigative team has expanded in size and scope as the investigation unfolds, officials said.
Western officials also said they had been told by U.N. employees that Lofta staff had attempted to destroy documents the day before investigators arrived. "The attempt at a coverup not only spurred the investigation, but really lit a fire under the international community," said the official. "So now you have a lot of concern by us and the other donors about how UNDP has actually managed this fund."
UNDP said it is looking into the reports of destruction of evidence, but couldn't comment on the investigation until it is complete. "At this stage it is not possible to state whether these allegations have any factual basis. Should evidence show that allegations of fraud are true, appropriate action will be taken." the UNDP said.
U.N. officials in Kabul said at the time the Journal first reported the allegations last month that a recently conducted financial audit of the fund had found no financial irregularities.
The EU, U.S. and other major donors sent a letter to the U.N. after the Journal article was published calling for a full investigation of the allegations. The letter urged the U.N. to ensure that evidence wasn't destroyed and to brief donors on the outcome of the investigation, the Western official said.
Western officials said that they were encouraged by the U.N. response to their concerns.
U.N. documents viewed by the Journal show that U.N. employees had reported concerns about mismanagement and potential fraud at Lofta before the allegations were made public last month.
An email by an employee sent in January, seen by the Journal, raised alarms about potential "no-show" workers at Afghanistan's Interior Ministry who were being paid on contract by the U.N. fund.
In a response to the Journal's initial report last month, UNDP said it was aware of the risk of "ghost" employees, but had established a process to verify attendance. —Nathan Hodge contributed to this article.
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com
Rape Case, in Public, Cites Abuse by Armed Groups in Afghanistan
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN June 1, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Lal Bibi is an 18-year-old rape victim who has taken a step rarely seen in Afghanistan: she has spoken out publicly against her tormentors, local militiamen, including several who have been identified as members of the American-trained Afghan Local Police.
She says she was raped because her cousin offended a family linked to a local militia commander, who then had his men abduct her around May 17. She was chained to a wall, sexually assaulted and beaten for five days, she said.
A number of Afghan women who are victimized like Lal Bibi are later killed by their relatives because they believe the women have brought dishonor to the family. Extraordinarily, in this case, Lal Bibi’s relatives brought the battered girl to Kunduz Hospital, near their home in northern Afghanistan, and filed a complaint with the governor. They hoped for official justice even while holding out the possibility that her death might be the only way to restore the family’s honor.
“I am already a dead person,” she said in an interview, her voice breaking.
“If the people in government fail to bring these people to justice I am going to burn myself,” she said. “I don’t want to live with this stigma on my forehead. People will mock me if these men go unpunished, so I want every single one of them to be punished.”
In addition to stretching the bounds of conservative Afghan tradition, her plight is a test of the government’s willingness to challenge the impunity of the many armed groups operating in the country, in particular the Afghan Local Police, which provides security in Afghanistan’s rural expanses. These lightly trained and American-backed security forces are considered by the United States military to be one of the best hopes of improving stability in remote areas, even as human rights groups and residents have linked some to abuses, especially in northern Afghanistan.
“She is very brave that she came out and talked to the media,” said Nedara Geya, the head of the Afghan government’s women’s affairs department in Kunduz. “She has set an example for the rest of the rape victims.”
Like a number of areas in the north, Kunduz Province has become a patchwork of armed militias with overlapping territories. In addition to the Afghan Local Police, who are attached to the government through the Interior Ministry, there are many freelance groups, as well as others financed by international forces to guard otherwise unsecured areas. In the past year, both official and unofficial armed groups in Kunduz Province have been involved in abuses.
American military officials said that as far as they could determine, members of the Afghan Local Police were not involved in abusing Lal Bibi, saying they hoped that justice would be done in any case. However, a number of the local authorities, including the governor, the military prosecutor for Kunduz, as well as the Afghan Local Police director for the province, said the men who had abducted her and beat her were A.L.P. members.
Because of that government connection, the provincial military prosecutor has decided to take up her case. There were differing accounts of whether the man accused of raping her was a member of the A.L.P., but all agreed that his brother was a local commander in the force.
“All of the men are part of the first 300 A.L.P. who were trained by the American Special Forces,” said the prosecutor, Gen. Mohammed Sharif Safi. “It is not the first time that they have committed such a horrible crime. All of them are a bunch of illiterate and uneducated bandits and thugs who go around harassing people.”
So far, two people have been arrested in the case, including Khudai Dad, who is accused of raping Lal Bibi, and his brother, Sakhi Dad, who is an Afghan Local Police member, according to the Kunduz governor’s office and the police officer in charge of the province’s A.L.P. force, Col. Mohammed Shokur.
Not yet detained, however, is the chief suspect in Lal Bibi’s abduction, Cmdr. Muhammad Ishaq Nezaami, who disappeared shortly after she was grabbed.
He has a troubled past. He was arrested six months ago on charges of attempted rape in a different case but was cleared, General Safi said, adding that he believed that powerful people intervened on Commander Nezaami’s behalf. However, Colonel Shokur, the police official, said the charges were dropped in that case because of lack of evidence.
Lal Bibi is the youngest daughter in a Kuchi family, ethnic Pashtuns who are seminomadic herders. She and her family live in a tent in the scrub land outside the city of Kunduz and raise sheep for their livelihood.
Her nightmare began when a distant male cousin, Mohammed Issa, an Afghan Local Police member, started a relationship with a local girl. In one account, he tried unsuccessfully to elope with her. In another version, he contracted to marry her and then could not pay the bride price and fled. In either case, he was thought to have dishonored the father, who was furious and sought compensation.
Although Lal Bibi was only a cousin of the offender and in no way connected to the episode, in tribal justice one possible settlement would have been for her family to give Lal Bibi to the wronged girl’s family as payment, a practice known as baadal. But no tribal settlement was reached. Instead, Commander Nezaami, the local A.L.P. leader, came with armed men to her home and grabbed her, according to her and her family’s accounts.
“I was busy milking the sheep with my mother, and suddenly a car pulled up close to our tent,” Lal Bibi said. “They first grabbed my father and tied his hands, and then the armed men grabbed me and my mother from behind, and I didn’t know what happened and why they were there.”
She said that Commander Nezaami’s men threw her into a truck and took her to the home of one of his subcommanders, Sakhi Dad, whose brother was the father of the girl whose honor was seen as compromised by Lal Bibi’s distant cousin.
She told the rest of the story in rushed gasps: She was chained to a wall, she said, and Khudai Dad raped her repeatedly. Other men came in and beat her.
“I would begin to scream every time one of them came into the room, because I knew they were going to beat me or rape me again,” she said.
The experience is written on her body, according to a report by the regional Kunduz Hospital. “The doctors found signs that she was beaten and tortured,” said Dr. Shukur Rahimi, the head of the hospital. And, there was physical evidence consistent with her account of being chained.
An examination also confirmed that her hymen had been broken. That can be tantamount to a death sentence in Afghanistan, where women are considered fit to marry only if they are proved to be virgins on their wedding night. Some who fail that test are killed by relatives to restore the family’s honor.
In interviews, both Lal Bibi’s mother and grandfather said they were thinking of killing her unless justice was done, although the fact that they had come forward suggested that they were hoping that the government will prosecute the men and redress the wrongs done to her and her family through the legal system.
“If nobody wants to solve our problem, then they should behead her; we don’t want her,” her mother said.
The girl’s grandfather, Hajji Rustam, who lives with the family, seemed torn between tribal traditions that require that a tarnished girl be killed and deep feeling for his granddaughter’s distress.
He said: “Put yourself in our shoes: What if somebody raped your daughter? I am sure when you see that no one is helping you to bring the culprits to justice, you will be ready to kill yourself, kill your daughter.”
Then, he looked over at his granddaughter, whom he has been staying with since the rape: “During the day, she sits and doesn’t talk and is silent for hours and suddenly she screams. Her soul has been broken, and she is a very sad person.”
An employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kunduz, Afghanistan, and Habib Zahori from Kabul.
31 Taliban rebels killed in Afghan Kandahar province within week: police
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Up to 31 Taliban insurgents have been killed in clashes with and military operations by police within the past week in southern Afghan province of Kandahar, deputy provincial police chief said on Saturday.
"A total of 31 Taliban rebels, including four would-be suicide bombers, have been killed in Kandahar city and surrounding districts by the Afghan National Police (ANP) over the last seven days," Rahmatullah Atrafi told reporters in a press briefing here.
Five other suspects have been injured and 21 other insurgents detained, he said, adding "The ANP also found and seized weapons and explosive besides discovering drugs and opium."
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging a decade-long insurgency, launched a spring offensive against Afghan forces and NATO-led coalition troops from May 3.
Afghan and NATO-led Coalition forces have put pressure on the insurgents since the beginning of the spring, However, the militant group have conducted suicide attacks and roadside bombings against security forces in retaliation.
As many as 14 Taliban, armed with suicide vests and weapons, were killed and more than 20 civilians injured when Taliban detonated a suicide truck bomb and launched an attack on a U.S. military base in eastern Khost province on Friday afternoon.
O’HANLON: Rays of hope in Afghanistan
Progress portends stability by 2014 pullout
The Washington Times By Michael O'Hanlon Friday, June 1, 2012
The war in Afghanistan is a slog at best. Even those of us supporting the mission there must acknowledge that it has been slower, harder going than expected. With Osama bin Laden dead and other al Qaeda leaders also out of the picture (or out of the region) the original motivation for the effort seems less compelling to many as well.
But the United States should not lose patience. Because we already have an exit strategy to remove most NATO troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, no one need worry too much about a possible quagmire. Beyond that, there are good reasons to think that even if this mission does not achieve its loftiest earlier goals, it likely can attain the minimal acceptable requirement: preventing a Taliban return to power and a major al Qaeda presence on Afghan soil.
Several hopeful things I saw on a recent trip actually centered on politics - often viewed by many American observers as the Achilles’ heel of our mission in Kabul. To be sure, cronyism and corruption still permeate much of the Afghan state, fueled at times by insufficiently monitored foreign-aid efforts and military contracts. And fears of possible future civil war have grown over the past few years.
But a spirit of hopefulness, more than fear, characterized most of those with whom I spoke recently in Kabul. The recent signing of the U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement to guide cooperation after 2014 reassures many that they will not be left to their own internal conflicts - or the mercy of their neighbors - when NATO’s transition is complete. Although details of this agreement may prove difficult to negotiate, the accord definitely has given a boost to the strides of many Afghan reformers who continue to work hard for their nation’s future.
Moreover, more than ever before, politics is breaking out in Afghanistan. The 2014 presidential election is still two years away. But new political organizations, such as the Rights and Justice Party, are forming, and reform movements designed to get out the vote and improve the independence and integrity of the electoral process, including the Coalition for Reform and Development, are gaining steam. Everyone is forming shortlists of the most likely candidates for the race - some of them serious reformists. We do not yet know, of course, if the process will be successful, and it is possible that a weaker or less honest and effective leader than President Hamid Karzai could be elected. That could spell disaster, and Washington needs to think hard about using its leverage to reduce the odds of such an outcome. But there is still positive political energy in the air.
Here are some other hopeful indicators in Afghanistan:
Afghan security forces have almost reached their envisioned full size of 352,000, counting army and police. They are collectively taking at least twice the casualties of NATO forces, participating in at least 90 percent of all operations and leading about 40 percent of operations themselves (albeit usually the simpler ones at this point). They repulsed the April 15 Haqqani network attack on Kabul and other cities largely on their own.
While the security forces still suffer from political patronage appointments and corruption, the problems are being addressed partially. About 50 Afghan army leaders in the east of the country alone have been replaced over the past year; 70 police officers were fired recently in the country’s west for poor performance; and the Ministry of Defense has opened a full criminal investigation into the problems that produced corruption and theft at Afghanistan’s main military hospital last year. To be sure, such efforts could be too little too late. There remain pockets of serious problems, such as with the country’s air force. And some of the firings and hirings raise concerns of ethnic bias. But on balance, the progress is picking up.
The Afghan Local Police (ALP) , a form of armed community watch overseen by NATO troops, generally is proving its mettle. These lightly armed and locally organized forces are holding their ground in about 80 percent of all firefights, even when sometimes outgunned by the Taliban, and they are taking the highest rate of casualties of any part of the Afghan security forces. There have been a handful of cases of abuse within this program, and a number of illegal militias are falsely adopting the name Afghan Local Police to disguise their true nature (which is sometimes to attack their neighboring tribes or communities). But U.S. special operations forces have monitored and worked effectively with the actual ALP forces and stepped in to address problems when needed. They only allow their formation after several months of getting to know an area and working with local elders to try to ensure a reasonable mix of ALP members. The admittedly daunting challenge in coming months and years will be to keep growing the program while also gradually handing over oversight to Afghan special forces.
Recent Asia Foundation work suggests that the quality of governance at the provincial level in Afghanistan is improving. There still are too many bad actors and too much interference from Kabul in the day-to-day operations of regional governments. But by one scale, at least, the average quality of governance has improved at least 10 percent over the past year.
On the anti-corruption front, more than 100 companies or individuals (some of them U.S.-based) have been debarred from working with NATO because of suspicions of corruption or association with enemy elements. This overdue effort requires constant vigilance to be sure that companies or individuals that have been debarred once do not simply reorganize under a different name - but NATO is finally on the job on that matter.
Much still needs to be done, of course. Land reform and prevention of land expropriation by corrupt actors demand attention. Electoral watchdog organizations need to be strengthened and means of possible voting fraud reduced before 2014. Otherwise, cheating and scandal could delegitimize the election outcomes and contribute to more ethnic tension. The army and police still need to get a lot better. Some of the worst of the worst need to be arrested and tried for corrupt ways. And the international community needs to find leverage - and communicate its willingness to use that leverage - to maximize the chances that good leadership emerges from that election - conditioning future aid and troop levels on the quality of future Afghan governance. Pakistan needs to help more. Even if true alliance and friendship are unlikely, we at least need Pakistan to behave like the “frenemy” it once was instead of the antagonist it more recently has become.
But all these points are pretty well known. Less well known is all the good happening in Afghanistan. Whether it will be enough in the end is unclear, but there is a lot to build on.
Michael O’Hanlon is co-author of the Brookings Institution’s “Afghanistan Index” and “Toward a Political Strategy for Afghanistan.”
Thank Goats For Pakistan's Best Hashish
By Abubakar Siddique June 2, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Although hashish is illegal in Pakistan, it is easily available and widely consumed in the country's largely lawless northern tribal region.
For Noor Muhammad Afridi, dealing in "Awal Namber Garda" is more than just his life's work.
By providing the black, sticky hashish that keeps his customers very happy, he's keeping up a long, family tradition.
Just like his forefathers in the Afridi clan, the 32-year-old from Pakistan's tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghan border has become a connoisseur of the local delicacy, aged to perfection with a centuries-old technique.
"If you put [freshly prepared] hash resin into a goatskin or a sheepskin, it matures into something very good," he says. "It is well-preserved inside the skin, which also adds oil to it."
The technique is believed to greatly enhance the hashish's quality and, more importantly for its users, its effect.
If the end product makes the cut, it earns the right to join the prize sheep skins hanging from the rafters of Afridi's hash shop in Jamrud, gateway to the Khyber Pass.
'Top-Grade Dust'
To obtain Awal Namber Garda, Pashto for "top-grade dust," Afridi must travel from the plains of Jamrud to his clan's ancestral lands in the nearby mountains of Tirah Maidan.
There, a moderate climate, red soil, and locals skilled in the craft of cannabis combine to produce what is renowned as the region's best hashish.
It is an arduous journey made by way of rides in open pickup trucks and steep hikes, but it is well worth it.
Every gram guarantees profit -- Afridi can fetch up to $500 a kilogram for Awal Namber Garda -- and, if all goes well, Afridi has plenty to stock his shop.
The process begins once carefully cultivated marijuana plants have been cut and hung upside down.
After they have dried, a thin cloth is used to carefully thresh the plants to collect the glistening, hair-like resin glands protruding from the buds and upper leaves.
The residue is crushed into a fine, malleable powder -- the main ingredient for making what, for Afridi, is black gold.
The next step involves goats and sheep that locals slaughter in celebration of a good cannabis harvest.
The longer the hashish is kept inside the skin of a freshly-slaughtered animal, the better -- three months at least, says Afridi. The process works best during the hot summer months, but direct sunlight must be avoided.
Shah Mahmud, 55, is the type of farmer that Afridi has watched since childhood tending to cannabis on the tiny terraced fields of the Tirah Maidan.
Mahmud says the resin powder is stitched into the skins, which each hold six to 10 kilograms of hashish.
'Not A Bad Addiction'
Drawing on his experience of decades of hash use, Mahmud claims that, when the process is completed, Awal Namber Garda is beyond compare.
"Its outstanding quality is that the oil has enhanced its effect," he says. "If it's dry, it loses its effect and smoking it even causes headaches. The [summer] heat is like an enemy of 'Garda'. If you protect it from the heat properly, nothing can harm it."
While hashish available outside Khyber is often adulterated with henna, chewing gum, or even chemicals, Mahmud maintains that the hashish prepared in the Tirah Maidan is the real deal.
"Hashish is not a bad addiction even if you smoke it for 50 or 60 years," he says. "Cigarettes are more dangerous because each one you smoke reduces your age by a minute.'Garda' doesn't dry out your mind. A Charsi [hashish smoker] is always straightforward."
Afridi seconds the notion, and says that locals credit hashish with treating many diseases.
He insists that few of his regular customers ever get sick.
"Awal Namber Garda is very good," he says. "The second and third rate hashish is considered very bad because its effect is similar to your brain being squeezed very hard."
Afghanistan slayings: Sgt. Bales had used steroids, Army alleges
By Kim Murphy June 1, 2012 Los Angeles Times
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused in the late-night massacre of 16 men, women and children in southern Afghanistan, was using alcohol and steroids near the time of the murders, drugs that have been linked to symptoms of unusual aggression, Army prosecutors alleged Friday.
A new charge sheet returned against the 38-year-old serviceman also charges him with burning bodies of the victims and damaging a laptop computer in a purported attempt to impede the investigation into the March 11 attacks near a remote special operations post near the town of Belambay.
Except for the new evidence of substance use, the main difference in the new charge sheet is that it reduces the number of alleged murders from 17 to 16, clearing up a continued point of confusion since the killings first were reported. Army officials said a detailed investigation since the original charges were brought revealed that one of the victims was originally named twice.
The charges also include six counts of attempted murder, with victims that included four children, and six counts of assault that also involved shooting, with four children among those victims. A seventh assault charge alleges that Bales in February, the month before the killings, beat an Afghan man with his hands and knees, striking him in the face and the body.
The new charge sheet is the first indication of possible drug use in connection with the attacks, though it does not allege that either steroids or alcohol prompted the killings and makes no mention of possible side effects of either substance.
Steroids have long been linked to cases of strong aggression, often popularly described as “roid rage,” though the product Bales was alleged to have used, stanozolol, is consdered a milder form with fewer such side effects.
“Steroids can cause aggression and anger. It’s not uncommon for people on steroids to be just angry,” said former military psychologist Bart Billings, who has testified before Congress on the possible dangerous side effects of the Army’s widespread use of psychiatric drugs.
The charge sheet says Bales’ use and possession of the drug while on combat duty was a violation of miitary law. It alleges that Bales “on divers occasions” used alcohol while posted at Belambay between Nov. 1 and March 10 — the day before the predawn shootings — in violation of military orders prohibting alcohol use in Afghanistan.
Bales’ defense lawyers had initially denied Bales had used alcohol at the outpost, but attorney Emma Scanlan said Friday that military prosecutors claim to have evidence that the sergeant was drinking before the shootings.
“He was not an alcoholic,” Scanlan said. “The allegation that he may have used a limited amount of alcohol does not mean that alcohol fueled some kind of homicidal rage.”
Scanlan said defense lawyers continue to be convinced that Bales, who was on his fourth combat deployment, was not suffering from stress in connection with his family. His wife had put the family house up for sale as a result of purported financial problems shortly before the attacks.
"We stand by the original statement that he doesn't have any domestic issues outside of what happens in an ordinary marriage where one person is deployed multiple times," she said.
Khomeini Commemorations Met With Resistance By Afghan Youth
RFE/RL By Frud Bezhan June 01, 2012
Young people swept through the streets of Kabul this week, defacing and tearing down posters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini plastered throughout the city.
Meant to commemorate the anniversary of the death of the former Iranian supreme leader, the posters and large billboards have offended many in Afghanistan, a Sunni-majority country whose relations with its western neighbor have recently soured.
Demonstrations have been staged daily in the Afghan capital ahead of the June 3 anniversary.
Scores of young people gathered on June 1 in front of a looming billboard of Khomeini, some carrying placards reading: "This Is Kabul Not Tehran."
"Why are we celebrating Khomeini's day here?" asked Kabul University student Ahmad Jan Kandahari. "He is an Iranian figure. Why do we need to celebrate him here in Afghanistan? Here we have our own cultural icons and jihadi figures. They should be the ones celebrated in Afghanistan."
'Direct Attack'
During a rally on May 31, a Kabul high-school student named Arash described efforts to honor Khomeini as a grave injustice to the Afghan nation.
"As you see, posters of Ayatollah Khomeini are hanging in the intersections," he said. "This is a direct attack against Afghan culture and own national heroes." The social-networking site Facebook was abuzz with comments and photos after the posters were put up. And while many were critical of the move, some defended Khomeini as a great leader of the Islamic faith.
"Khomeini is one of the leaders of the Islamic faith," wrote Ashraf Frugh, a member of the Shi'ite Hazara ethnic minority. "He doesn't just belong to Iran but to all countries where he has followers."
Those followers are the ones the Islamic Shura of Kabul, the Shi'ite council that put up the posters, intended to lure to the streets on June 1. The posters, which the council put up with the permission of local authorities, feature a large image of Khomenei and announce a "big gathering" in large letters. All comers are invited to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the "Great Leader...saying goodbye to this world."
The religious council expects hundreds to pour through the Mazari Mosque in a mass prayer to pay their respects.
Fierce Political Debate
Coming amid increased tensions between Tehran and Kabul, with some Afghan lawmakers accusing Iran of meddling in Afghanistan's internal affairs, the issue has become fodder for a fierce political debate.
"Iranian leaders are not the leaders of Afghanistan!" wrote Kabul University student Rohullah Elham in one Afghan forum. "The policies of Iran do not favor Afghanistan. The Islamic regime in Iran is not our government. Those of you who have sold your souls, wake up!"
Ahmad Saeedi, a Kabul-based political analyst, says the marking of Khomeini's death in Afghanistan is a worrying indication of Iran's growing influence in the country.
"The cultural, economic, and political influence of Iran starts from the presidential office and spreads throughout the country," Saeedi says. "This is ensuring that the rules and traditions of Iran are overriding those in Afghanistan."
Observers say the main source of recent Afghan-Iran tensions is Kabul's signing of a long-term strategic agreement with United States on May 1, which raised Iranian fears of an extended American presence in Afghanistan.
Some Afghan lawmakers and officials have accused Tehran of launching a campaign aimed at derailing the U.S.-Afghan partnership, notably through bribing influential Afghan lawmakers and by inciting anti-American and antigovernment sentiment through media outlets it funds.
Written and reported by Frud Bezhan, with additional reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan
Seeing a Change in Kabul From a Beach in California
New York Times By JAALA A. THIBAULT June 1, 2012
Living on the beach in Southern California is a bit surreal. I wake to the crashing of waves, the chirping of birds. Each day I open my eyes, I cannot quite believe that I get to live in a place where the beauty seems unchangeable. But just the other day as I was running by a usually calm point, I noticed that the waves were breaking in a new place; with the turning of the seasons, a new sandbar had formed, providing fresh fun for the crop of surfers playing in the water. The hollering, happy people made the water prettier than I remembered it.
Though the small shifts in the ocean landscape here are almost imperceptible, each year I notice that this stretch of coast is changing. For better or worse, the water rises and the sands reform, no matter if people will them to or not. One day I am running by a placid patch of ocean; the next day the once-calm place is a thriving and wavy surf spot. Change takes time, but at some point it is right there lapping at your feet, and you can’t help but notice.
Afghanistan is much like the shifting sands and changing tides here on the beaches of Southern California. Though it is absent of all that is beach life, changes are happening slowly but consistently; though life seems as if it stays the same day to day, it is growing ever so slightly every second. I know this because I have seen small changes happen over the past couple of years. The changes I have witnessed are on a small scale, but that scale is an indication of what is happening in society. I return time after time to Kabul, because like the breathtaking changes I see in nature in Southern California, so too do I see amazing changes in Afghanistan. I can’t quite believe that I get to be a part of both.
The first time I went to Afghanistan was in 2010; I was on a 10-month teaching fellowship with the State Department. A stranger in a strange land, I fumbled through life trying to learn and absorb the culture just so I could gain enough footing to do my job and wear my head scarf correctly. I taught a few classes of English at the Education University and struggled to learn the students’ names during the first semester.
During the second semester I gained a few acquaintances and began working with some of my students who had graduated. All the students I worked with wanted to become teachers so they could “make the education system better.” One student said: “There is nothing else we can do but teach; if we can teach people in a different way, though, we have the answer. Teaching people to think differently will change everything in our society.” By the spring, two of those students had obtained scholarships to study teaching methods in India for a month. It was their first step in becoming professional teachers.
When I returned to Kabul in the winter of 2011-12, I was a friendly face in a familiar city. That time around, I spent a month training English teachers at the Education University. During the workshop I was conducting, it was announced that a master’s degree program in teaching English (taught in English) would be starting at the university. It would be the first of its kind in Afghanistan. Now the teachers I was training would have the opportunity to be students again. Those who already had their master’s degrees would become the teachers, and those who did not have advanced degrees would no longer have to look abroad to further their studies. Access to higher education had arrived.
When I return to Afghanistan this time, I will be training the same group of teachers I have been working with for the past two years at the Education University. I will be conducting a workshop on teaching writing. This time, though, the teachers will have to balance their time; they will be juggling their graduate studies and, for some, their teaching responsibilities.
Two of my students will be going through interviews, having made the final round of vetting for the Fulbright scholarship. Another of my students will be well on his way to India; he has been admitted to a two-year graduate program to study for his master’s degree in educational counseling.
Change happens slowly, but in my small world in Kabul, it has become hard to ignore that it has arrived. A friend of mine who is a student in the master’s program said: “Just a couple years ago, when you first arrived, we hoped that you could bring some supplies: dictionaries and books. We had a big dream that maybe you could build a computer lab. But what you brought was better: access to education. The gift of knowledge is greater than any material thing because now we can take what we have learned and teach more people. It doesn’t cost anything and can’t be taken away from us.”
Just as I admire the changing shores of Southern California and marvel at my good fortune in settling here, I will continue to be amazed at the changes that are taking place in the lives of my Afghan friends. Just two years ago they dreamed that I would bring them a new computer lab. Now we are friends and colleagues; we exchange stories and live through each other’s ups and downs. We will continue to grow and change, together.
Jaala A. Thibault taught English and trained teachers at Kabul Education University in 2010 and 2011 as part of the English Language Fellows Program under the State Department. She returns intermittently to Afghanistan to conduct teacher-training workshops. In the United States, she teaches English as a Second Language at Santa Barbara City College.
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