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Suicide Bomber Attacks NATO Convoy in Afghanistan
VOA News June 20, 2012
A suicide bomber attacked NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan Wednesday, killing at least 16 people.
Provincial police chief General Sardar Mohammad Zazi said the attacker struck a checkpoint where coalition and Afghan forces were using biometric data to screen residents in Khost city.
"Around 12 noon near Speen Jumaat in Khost city at a checkpoint, unfortunately a suicide bomber managed to reach this point [and] he exploded himself," Zazi said. "That resulted in the killing and wounding of several civilians. “
At least 30 others were wounded in the blast, and Afghan and NATO officials say the casualties include police officers, coalition troops, and women and children. NATO could not immediately confirm whether troops were killed in the attack.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. The al-Qaida and Taliban-linked Haqqani network is said to be active in Khost province, which borders Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region.
The militant group, which is believed to be based in North Waziristan, has been blamed for a number of deadly attacks against international forces in Afghanistan.
Afghan army kicks off national operation against Taliban: official
KABUL, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Afghan army kicked off a military operation to ensure peace and uproot the Taliban insurgents in the war-torn country, Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi said Wednesday.
"The operation dubbed 'Nawid' which means 'promise' was kicked off by Afghan National Army (ANA) in collaboration with police and intelligence agency today, Wednesday, with a special operational plan to cover all over the country," Azimi told reporters in a weekly press conference here.
The Operation Nawid is scheduled for 18 months to stabilize security throughout the country, he added.
"indeed, the Operation Nawid aims to target the enemy across the country, ensuring security in bordering areas and highways besides providing security for development projects to win the hearts and minds of people," the spokesman emphasized.
The Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging more than a decade-long insurgency, stepped up their attacks on Afghan and some 130,000 NATO-led troops since a spring offensive was launched on May 3 in the war-ravaged country.
Providing details on the special operation, Azimi said that " Afghan army special operation force has conducted 119 operations since early April when they took the lead in the night raid operations, killing or capturing several dozens of Taliban insurgent key leaders, bomb experts and al-Qaida fighters."
The army personnel has found and defused 1,222 roadside bombs and Taliban home-make bombs or Improvised Explosive Device (IED) within the past three months, Azimi added.
Afghan Taliban has launched massive IED attacks against Afghan and foreign security force in recent years but the lethal weapon also inflected casualties on civilians. Eight civilians were killed and five others injured when their vehicle was struck by an IED in southern Helmand province on Monday.
"The Taliban has lost the ability to fight with Afghan army and police and in retaliation they launch IED attacks against security forces and that 95 percent of army fatalities have been caused by roadside mines and IEDs in recent months," he noted.
Without disclosing the number of fatalities, the spokesman said that up to 90 IED blasts have been registered by army over the past one month.
"The army has also found and seized more than 1,670 kg explosive materials, 24 heavy machine guns, 13 rounds of RPG-7 rocket launchers, 132 guns, 10 pistols, 47 hand grenades beside confiscating five vehicles and 42 motorcycles used by insurgents over the past one month ending on June 20," he added.
He made this comment while Afghan army and police are getting ready to begin the third phase of a gradual takeover of security responsibility from NATO-led troops in the coming weeks.
The Afghan forces and NATO troops have completed transition in the first two of five tranches of provinces and districts across the country where about half of the Afghan population now lives.
Under U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, 10,000 U.S. troops already pulled out from Afghanistan last year and another 23,000 will return home by September this year.
Afghanistan says Pakistan was involved in sectarian attack
Reuters Tue Jun 19, 2012
KABUL - The Afghan government on Tuesday accused neighbouring Pakistan of involvement in a bloody attack last year on minority Shi'ite Muslims, one of the worst sectarian killings in Afghanistan for years.
The December 6 attack, in which a suicide bomber blew himself up among hundreds of Shi'ites marking the Ashura rite on a Kabul street, killed dozens of people, including women and children.
The attack, timed with a series of bombings elsewhere in Afghanistan, raised fears the country could join Iraq and Pakistan in suffering regular violence motivated by tensions between religious sects.
In a news conference, Afghan Attorney General Mohammad Esaaq Alako said two Afghans had been detained for helping transport militants involved in the attack from the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
He said the two men were paid 10,000 Pakistani rupeeseach for the job, but did not say specifically by whom.
"Let me be clear, it was started from Peshawar and this (attack) was administrated by our neighbour's intelligence organs," Alako told reporters.
He did not provide specific information on why the Afghan government believed Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the ISI, was involved. Afghanistan has repeatedly accused the ISI of backing militant attacks, a charge Islamabad strongly denies.
Lutfullah Mashal, chief spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence agency, said that the plan to attack the Shi'ites in Kabul "was hatched in Peshawar."
The Taliban, which has vowed to press on with its long insurgency against the government of President Hamid Karzai and its Western backers, condemned the attack when it occurred, and denied involvement.
Ashura, which features large processions or pilgrimages that are vulnerable to militant attacks, is a major event in the Shi'ite Muslim calendar. Most of Afghanistan's Muslims are Sunnis.
(Reporting Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Missy Ryan and Daniel Magnowski)
Afghan Refugees in Pakistan Anxious as Year-End Looms
VOA News Sharon Behn June 19, 2012
ISLAMABAD - One out of every four refugees in the world is from Afghanistan, and 95 percent of them live either in Iran or Pakistan. Afghan refugees are scheduled to lose their legal residency at the end of the year, but many are not ready to return.
There are more Afghan refugees than any other nationality in the world. Many live in camps or slums on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital.
Doctor Mohamed Nazar came here from Afghanistan almost 18 years ago.
"There are no facilities for the children, there is no hygiene, no electricity, there are scorpions and snakes," said Nazar. "We only have medicine for headaches. For anything else they go to the hospital."
Since 2002, roughly 5.5 million Afghans have returned to their country. But 1.7 million are still registered in Pakistan, scattered among 80 camps.
There are at least another million undocumented Afghans.
In this unofficial camp, life is precarious. Sana Gul is a community elder here, responsible for 85 households
"Every day police come and ask us for money," said Gul. "Most of us don't have immigrant IDs, and if we refuse to pay them, they take us to the police stations and threaten to deport us, then we have pay them more."
Despite their situation, Duniya Aslam Khan of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees expects few Afghans will leave anytime soon.
"There's a whole generation who were born in Pakistan and were raised in Pakistan and know of no other country except Pakistan. The remaining ones who don't feel they can go back, cite security as the number one reason for not returning," said Khan.
After 30 years in exile, Ghulum Sarwar has 10 children, three grandchildren and many reasons to stay where he is.
"We have no other choice. We have to live here," said Sarwar. "We know we face a lot of problems here, but in Afghanistan there are more problems, like the Taliban, terrorism."
Pakistan says registered refugees can stay until the end of the year, and is working to extend the stay of some of the most vulnerable as well as students and businessmen.
But Minister of States and Frontier Regions Shaukat Ullah says the government can no longer afford to house so many.
"It's a big burden on our economy, we are facing that problem," said Ullah.
While millions of Afghans have already gone back home, the UNHCR says many often find it hard to reintegrate into the villages they left. Some have now returned to Pakistan.
Officials: Al-Qaida Leader Detained in Pakistan
VOA News June 20, 2012
Officials in Pakistan say an al-Qaida leader has been detained near the country's border with Iran.
Pakistani authorities said Wednesday that Naamen Meziche, a French national of Algerian origin, was captured during a raid near Quetta - the capital of Baluchistan province. They said he was arrested while trying to flee the country, but provided no further details.
Officials say Meziche was a close associate of senior al-Qaida leader Younis al-Mauritani, who was arrested in Baluchistan last September with the help of the CIA. Mauritani was believed to have been tasked with targeting economic interests in the United States, Europe and Australia.
Meziche has been linked to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and is said to be a member of an al-Qaida cell in Germany.
Meziche's arrest comes amid U.S. criticism that Pakistan is not doing enough to crack down on militant safe havens.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. was "reaching the limit" of its patience with Pakistan and urged the country to take action against insurgents who attack American forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan's foreign ministry rejected Panetta's comments, saying they did not contribute to peace and stability in the region.
Relations between the U.S. and Pakistan have been strained over a number of recent issues, including Pakistan's closing of the NATO supply routes into Afghanistan after the mistaken killing of 24 Pakistani troops in U.S. airstrikes last November.
Pakistan has also condemned U.S. drone strikes targeting Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants in the country's northwest.
Islamabad also sharply criticized the covert U.S. raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad last May.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Pakistan's military hold the keys to a thaw with the US
The National By Marvin Weinbaum June 15, 2012
Just when US-Pakistan relations appear to have reached a new low, yet another event drives them lower still, further complicating chances of stabilising bilateral ties.
Over the last 18 months, the deterioration of relations has been punctuated by a series of incidents, most dramatically the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the US air strike last November at Salala, in which 24 Pakistani solders died.
The latest obstacle is recent harsh criticism of Pakistan by Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary.
Hopes for an early reset of Pakistan-US relations, a restart with fewer illusions and lower expectations, are rapidly fading.
This estrangement has been building for more than a decade. At its core is American displeasure with Pakistan for harbouring Afghan insurgents, and for failing to repudiate domestic extremists. Resentment has grown over what is seen as Pakistan's ingratitude for US assistance and its displays of virulent anti-Americanism.
Pakistanis, meanwhile, hold the US-Nato war in Afghanistan responsible for spawning insurgency and violence in Pakistan. The US is considered unappreciative of Pakistan's sacrifices in aligning with the US on Afghanistan. More broadly, there lurks a suspicion about US strategic intentions.
And yet policymakers can agree that the national interests of the two countries coincide in at least two critical areas: curbing terrorism and building stability and prosperity in the region.
So why is there such great difficulty in achieving a new normal?
For at least part of the answer we have to look at the domestic context in both countries.
On the US side there is a growing debate, within government circles and among opinion leaders, over how best to approach Pakistan. One view is that with diplomacy and the right set of incentives the US can still hope to convince Pakistan to clamp down on militants linked to terrorism.
Beginning in 2009, Bush-era policies, framed by US interests in Afghanistan, focused on bolstering democratic institutions and improving the image of America through better-targeted development aid. A broader strategic partnership was intended to replace what had been a strictly transactional relationship.
Though not averse to applying pressure, the advocates of "soft power" acknowledge that Pakistan's leaders confront political and resource constraints. They are also anxious to avoid any instability that could put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal at risk.
Increasingly, however, this approach faces a challenge from those who call for the US to begin playing hardball. Saying attempts to engage Pakistan's military and elected leaders have been met only with contempt, they cite the failure to win over these elites and ordinary Pakistanis, despite $3 billion (Dh11bn) in annual aid.
Closure of the Nato supply line to Afghanistan, and the ejection of US military and intelligence personnel tracking terrorists, are taken as hostile. US forces, it is argued, should not hesitate to act unilaterally to pursue suspected terrorists, even if that means ignoring Pakistan's sensitivity about violations of its territory.
Many of these "hard power" advocates favour a containment strategy for Pakistan, including even a strategic tilt towards India.
In Pakistan, meanwhile, one looks in vain for a serious debate about how to engage the Americans. Rather, there is near-consensus that the US is determined to weaken Pakistan, to make it more pliable. In this narrative, the US and India aim to neutralise, if not seize, Pakistan's nuclear assets.
A few intrepid media commentators challenge this thinking, but the country's leaders refrain from taking issue with even the most bizarre conspiracy claims. Nobody is prepared to take the political and physical risks of speaking out.
This uniformity of views reflects a politicised Pakistani public that pays both too much and too little attention to what happens in the US. Anyone's half-baked statement is deemed to reflect official US policy. But few Pakistanis are attuned to US sensitivities.
Consumed as most Pakistanis are with sovereignty, few appreciate US feelings about how Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan cost American lives in Afghanistan. Nor is there understanding about why widely shared Pakistani attitudes - like the belief that the events of September 11, 2001 were concocted by the US - are so hurtful.
Demanding a US apology for the deaths at Salala, as a precondition for resumption of cooperation, displays a lack of awareness that the US, like Pakistan, faces a presidential election campaign.
So how, given their conflicting narratives, can the two countries work together to pursue mutual interests? In Pakistan's political climate, almost any US concession is likely to be interpreted as masking ulterior motives.
Conciliatory moves by Pakistan stand a better chance of being reciprocated. They would strengthen the hand of those in Washington who remain committed to soft power. Regrettably, however, such initiatives are unlikely from Pakistan's politicians.
The military alone has the stature necessary to sway popular attitudes and the power to check domestic forces pressing Pakistan to cut its ties to the US.
Even if some limited accord were to be reached with the generals, however, another event like Salala could instantly throw relations into a tailspin once again.
Marvin Weinbaum is a scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, and a former analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the US Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Pakistan Moves to Elect New PM
VOA News June 20, 2012
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has summoned lawmakers to meet later this week for discussions on electing a new prime minister after the dismissal of Yousuf Raza Gilani.
The president's office announced Wednesday that Zardari had summoned the lower house of parliament to meet Friday. The announcement comes a day after the Supreme Court Gilani ineligible for office because of a prior conviction.
The court found Gilani guilty of contempt on April 26 after he refused its orders to ask Swiss authorities to reopen a corruption case against President Zardari.
In his ruling, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said that because Gilani had not appealed the conviction, he is disqualified as a member of parliament and no longer prime minister. Gilani's lawyer says his client will not fight the dismissal.
The court's ruling prompted President Zardari to hold emergency closed-door meetings overnight with members of his ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and coalition partners.
They are now in talks to find a replacement for Gilani. Parliamentary elections in Pakistan are due next year but observers say the court decision has raised the prospect for early polls.
Tuesday's ruling came as the political upheaval is hitting a government already struggling with Islamic militancy, a weak economy and violent protests against crippling power blackouts.
Islamabad also is at odds with Washington over whether to reopen its territory to NATO supply convoys for coalition troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan closed the routes after a NATO airstrike mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border last November.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Questions About Afghanistan, If Congress Cared Enough to Ask Them
The Huffington Post By Dan Froomkin Senior Washington Correspondent 19/06/2012
Were they the least bit interested in exercising any oversight at all into the war that American soldiers are still fighting and dying in -- and that Chinese bond buyers are still providing the cash for -- members of Congress wouldn't have to go very far to find some excellent questions.
Congress's own think tank has come up with some doozies. Actually a lot of doozies. Thirty-nine by my count.
Just a few weeks ago, Army Col. Danny Davis, the active-service whistleblower who broke ranks to debunk official reports of progress in Afghanistan, wondered on NiemanWatchdog.org Why does Congress refuse to even ask the right questions about Afghanistan?
Now, a new Congressional Research Service report, Next Steps in the War in Afghanistan? Issues for Congress, (unearthed by the Federation of American Scientists) offers a cheat-sheet for any members who might be coming around to the idea of probing the administration's gameplan.
All of these questions are taken directly from the report, written by CRS international security expert Catherine Dale. First come the broad strategic questions:
* What fundamental national security interests does the United States have in Afghanistan and the region?
* What minimum conditions -- political, economic, security -- would need to pertain in Afghanistan in order for those U.S. interests to be protected?
* How appropriate are current and projected future U.S. approaches, until and after 2014, for helping Afghans establish those conditions?
* When and to what extent are Afghans likely to be able to sustain those conditions with relatively limited support from the international community?
* Ultimately, how important is this overall effort -- given its likely timeline, risks, and costs -- compared to other U.S. government priorities?
Here are questions "that might help inform the debates about the next steps for U.S. troop levels":
* How much must the level of insurgent threat in Afghanistan be reduced, to help ensure that Afghan forces can contend successfully with the residual challenge with minimal international assistance? To what extent is the participation of U.S. forces in combined operations now with Afghan partners still necessary to reduce that threat sufficiently?
* What other purposes does a U.S. force presence need to serve, if any, toward meeting U.S. core goals -- for example, serving as a deterrent to those who would challenge Afghanistan's sovereignty, or providing leverage for U.S. efforts to help shape a broader political settlement process aimed at ending the war?
* To what extent if any must the objectives of the combined campaign be scaled back given the constraints on the scope and duration of future U.S. troop presence?
* How should differences be reconciled when Afghan and U.S. campaign priorities diverge?
* How good do Afghan forces need to be, to contend effectively with a residual insurgent threat? What total ANSF endstrength, and what force mix, will that require over time? How much risk, and of what kinds, do incremental reductions in future ANSF endstrength introduce?
* To what extent is a continued U.S. force presence after 2014 -- and with what force mix, and for how long -- necessary to help bolster ANSF ability?
* To what extent if any does Afghan reliance on the ALP [Afghan Local Police] -- typically deeply rooted in local communities, but not trained to the level of regular forces, and regarded skeptically by regular security force leaders as lacking national-level loyalties -- contribute to or alternatively threaten Afghanistan's future stability?
Questions "about transition and change of mission":
* Under an advisory construct, what is the proper division of labor over time between coalition units and advisory teams?
* To what extent does an increased emphasis on developing ANSF counterparts come at the expense of continuing to reduce the threats insurgents pose to stability in Afghanistan? Or can increasingly capable ANSF backed up by coalition forces make roughly similar progress?
* As the ANSF assume greater responsibilities, is it acceptable -- or even desirable, as a spur toward learning -- for them to "fail" in some ways?
* How appropriate -- and clearly understood -- are U.S. and coalition standards for knowing when to step in?
* What effects, exactly, might a post-2014 U.S. military presence in Afghanistan be designed to achieve?
Questions that "might help inform the debates about the next steps for Afghanistan's economy":
* What kind of a system can the likely future Afghan economy -- barring exogenous shocks to the system -- realistically be expected to support?
* What legal constructs and accountability mechanisms would have to be in place, and what other minimum conditions met, in order for Afghanistan to realize its maximum potential -- given its mineral resources and potential agricultural productivity -- as a fiscally self-sufficient state?
* As the balance of U.S. support shifts from providing things -- a role that has given the U.S. government a prominent seat at the table -- to providing advice, will the U.S. government be able to maintain sufficient leverage -- for example, to encourage accountability and to help shape a political settlement process?
* Given that most observers agree that it will take time for Afghans to develop the ability to generate, collect, and spend revenues, and that international assistance is likely to diminish significantly in the near-term, what are the risks to Afghan stability in the near-term? To what extent and in what ways might the international community help mitigate these risks?
* While recent commitments from the U.S. Government and NATO extend the timeline of "commitment" out to 2024, how realistic is that longer timeline for Afghans to build a largely self-sustaining economy? What minimum conditions would that require, and what is it possible to achieve by the end of the period of transformation in 2024?
* Professions of commitment notwithstanding, how much assistance are members of the international community likely to provide to Afghanistan through 2024, given the significant financial pressures and competing demands that they are likely to face?
* In a very practical sense, to what extent will the significant reduction in the U.S. troop presence over time affect the ability of U.S. Government civilians to support Afghan development efforts in a still-somewhat-unsettled security environment? What useful lessons might be drawn from the somewhat analogous so-called "transition" in Iraq, including the validity of the planning assumptions applied in that case?
* To what extent does the proposed dramatic reduction in ANSF total endstrength -- designed in part to significantly reduce pressure on the future Afghan budget -- introduce additional risk? To what extent will a smaller total force be able to protect Afghan interests, and U.S. interests in the region? How can Afghanistan best mitigate the risks, financial and otherwise, of demobilizing thousands of young men with well-developed weapons skills but few other economic prospects?
Questions that "might help inform the debates about the next steps in Afghan governance":
* What kind of durable stability can be achieved in a system based in part on self-interested powerbrokers largely unconstrained by accountability mechanisms? How might such an arrangement be expected to affect U.S. interests, if at all, in the longer-run?
* How do Afghans envisage "accountability" and the mechanisms necessary to make it work? What might the U.S. government do to support their vision?
* What forms of leverage, to encourage greater accountability, might the U.S. Government theoretically still be able to exercise, between now and 2014, and after 2014?
* To what extent do alternative voices in Afghanistan -- including civil society, the private sector, the media, and traditional local authority structures -- have the potential to provide a system of checks and balances by which the Afghan people can hold government accountable? To what extent are any such accountability measures likely to be able to exert influence to shape the 2014 presidential elections, or a reconciliation process designed to bring the war to an end?
Questions about safe havens in Pakistan:
* What results can realistically be expected in the near- to medium-term from U.S. and Afghan mil-to-mil engagement with Pakistani forces?
* To what extent might alternative approaches, such as U.S. drone strikes, be relied on to reduce the threat from Afghan insurgent safe havens inside Pakistan? How do the effects of a de-capitation drone strike compare to those of clearing and holding operations? What other risks if any do such strikes introduce?
* To what extent does current U.S. strategic thinking assume that a political settlement of the war in Afghanistan -- a "deal" -- would result in the permanent closure of safe havens? If circumstances in Pakistan do not change, what would prevent some current or future insurgent leaders from making use of the same safe havens?
* To what extent does the persistence of safe havens in Pakistan increase the requirements for Afghan resilience? What forms would that resilience have to take, to ensure that Afghan -- and U.S. -- interests are protected? What risks might any additional requirements pose to other aspects of the campaign, by reducing available resources?
And finally questions about how it all ends:
* How well do the major components of the effort -- the campaign on the ground, and political settlement efforts including a reconciliation process, as well as economic and regional approaches -- fit together and inform each other, in a single roadmap, against a timeline? What assumptions does that roadmap make? What risks does it allow?
* As part of that comprehensive roadmap, what roles should the U.S. government play? What roles are more appropriately played by other actors, first of all Afghans, and also including other members of the international community?
* What are the respective roles of the campaign on the ground, and of political settlement efforts, in bringing the war in Afghanistan to a close? Does the campaign create conditions that may produce a political settlement? Does a wellcrafted reconciliation bring the campaign on the ground to a close? Is either, or are both, essential?
* How inclusive must a settlement process be in order to help ensure the durability of any agreement achieved, and to counter-balance natural hedging behavior under the patronage of various power-brokers in the face of deep uncertainty about the future and decades of grim experience in the past? How important is the active participation in a national settlement process -- not just the post facto buy-in -- of key groups such as civil society, the media, and the private sector, as well as traditional authority structures? How if at all should the U.S. Government help foster such inclusiveness?
* To what extent if any does persistent corruption pose a challenge to the campaign on the ground or to an effective settlement process? What if the Afghan people do not view any of their apparent political choices as viable?
* Given the full panoply of U.S. national security interests and broader concerns, what should be the relative priority of Afghanistan, between now and 2014, and after 2014, for the U.S. government?
Pretty good questions, huh? And how horrifying is it that we don't already have the answers?
Cross-posted from NiemanWatchdog.org, where Froomkin is deputy editor.
Missing Afghan Army Night-Vision Goggles May Aid Taliban
Bloomberg By David Lerman Jun 20, 2012
U.S. and Afghan forces have lost track of hundreds of night-vision goggles used to hunt the Taliban, raising the odds of the high-technology eyewear falling into enemy hands, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general.
A lack of adequate supervision of the goggles, which were purchased for the Afghan Army and police, means U.S. and Afghan soldiers “may be at greater security risk during night missions in Afghanistan,” according to a report from the inspector general dated June 18.
“Improving accountability will decrease vulnerabilities to theft or loss of night-vision devices,” Jacqueline Wicecarver, assistant inspector general for acquisition and contract management, said in a memorandum accompanying the report.
Defense and NATO officials, Afghan security forces and defense contractors “did not maintain complete accountability” for 7,157 night-vision goggles and spare parts purchased for Afghan forces, the report found. Those goggles are now “more vulnerable to theft or loss,” the GAO said.
The report cited hundreds of missing serial numbers, 518 “discrepancies” and 75 goggles that were “unaccounted for during our physical inventory.”
Defense officials said they would “continue to improve accountability procedures,” according to the report.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Lerman in Washington at dlerman1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net
US, Afghan, India Forum Worries Pakistan
TOLOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Tuesday, 19 June 2012
A trilateral forum, which brings the United States and India in a new arrangement with Afghanistan, is not directed against Pakistan, says a senior US official.
US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake said that the main goal of this forum is to bring stability and economic development to Afghanistan and it is not in any means against Pakistan.
"On the contrary, it's to talk about the situation inside Afghanistan but also how we continue to support Afghanistan," Blake added.
"This is certainly not in any way seen as directed against Pakistan."
This comes as US top Senator John McCain believes that US cannot cut off its relations with Pakistan because it could have greater challenge as Pakistan is a nuclear state.
"The US cannot afford to "cut off all relations with Pakistan because then it could become even more unstable and we could have even greater challenges since they have a nuclear inventory, among other things", as Senator McCain said.
Policy makers in Washington believe that the Indians will not send their troops to Afghanistan even if the Americans want them to. And therefore, the US will have to deal with Pakistan if it wants long-term stability in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Afghan military expert believes that US, Afghanistan and Indian relationships can boost intelligence for either countries even for Pakistan.
"The trilateral forum of Afghanistan, US and India is beneficial for intelligence purposes for all three countries including Pakistan." General Abdul Wahed Taqat said.
The relations between Pakistan and the United States strained more when a deadly Nato air strike killed as many as 24 Pakistani soldiers near Afghan border.
New Worries About Women’s Rights and Ethnic Tensions Emerge in Afghanistan
New York Times By GRAHAM BOWLEY June 19, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Events this week that raised questions on women’s rights and ethnic tensions have added to long-term concerns about Afghanistan after American-led forces withdraw in 2014 and new elections are held.
Over the past two days, women’s rights advocates and others have expressed outrage over comments by the Afghan justice minister in which he claimed that women’s shelters encouraged “immorality and prostitution,” according to news reports.
Rights workers see the shelters as vital to help protect women who face abuse and exploitation with little recourse under local and traditional law. Amid concerns that conservatives could roll back tentative progress made on women’s rights, the United Nations office in Afghanistan stepped in on Tuesday, issuing a statement saying that it “strongly supports the critical role that women’s protection shelters play in providing support and safety for vulnerable Afghan women and girls, especially victims of domestic abuse and violence.”
And in new evidence of sectarian strains, a prominent Afghan ethnic leader has asserted that a new national almanac published by the country’s Academy of Sciences significantly understates the size of Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities and makes discriminatory statements about the Hazaras, his own ethnic group.
Late Tuesday, the outcry appeared to have forced the hand of President Hamid Karzai, whose office said he had fired the academy’s director, and Afghan officials said he had also dismissed three others in the academy.
The Hazara leader, the former warlord Hajji Mohammed Mohaqiq, said that the almanac estimated that Hazaras constituted only about 9 percent of the Afghan population and that Pashtuns made up 60 percent. He said that the almanac also called the Hazaras, who are Shiites, infidels, among other inflammatory things. He demanded that the book be withdrawn and called for the abolition of the academy, which is under the control of Mr. Karzai’s office.
“A corrupt circle of characters surround President Karzai who are preparing for a civil war after 2014,” he said.
The almanac is not yet in general circulation, and officials at the academy would not discuss whether Mr. Mohaqiq’s assertions were correct.
Experts say it is hard to determine the country’s ethnic makeup. The C.I.A. World Factbook, for instance, estimates that the Hazaras make up 9 percent of the country’s population, the same as the figure said to be in the almanac, though it puts the Pashtun population lower, at 42 percent. But that is based on old data — there is no official Afghan census, and the country has changed through the past 10 years of war and turmoil. Some prominent Hazaras argue that the ethnic group may represent more than 20 percent of the population, though that, too, can be seen as a politicized figure.
In any case, Mr. Mohaqiq’s claims have resonated in the news media here at a delicate time, ahead of the withdrawal of NATO troops and the national elections. Estimates of the country’s demographics are seen as critical to establishing government representation, and Mr. Mohaqiq said that in the past such matters had led to civil conflict.
There is a sectarian component to the tensions, too. Members of Afghanistan’s Shiite minority, most of whom are Hazaras, faced savage discrimination during the years of rule by the Taliban, who are predominantly Pashtun. Though sectarian violence has been a less significant part of the insurgent violence of the past 10 years, there are concerns that such strife could be rekindled after NATO troops withdraw.
On Tuesday, an investigation into a bloody attack aimed at Shiites in Kabul last December found that it had been planned in Pakistan and had been intended to incite sectarian strife.
The chief prosecutor, Mohammed Ishaq Aloko, led an official commission looking into the attack, in which one of two potential suicide bombers struck a procession of Shiites at a shrine on Ashura, which marks the death of Shiite Islam’s holiest martyr. At the time, an extremist group based in Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack.
“It was a special conspiracy on a special religious day of our nation,” he said at a news conference, adding that two Afghans had confessed to driving the bombers from Peshawar, Pakistan. “They wanted to ignite sectarian conflict in Afghanistan.”
Meanwhile, the summer fighting season continued in southern Afghanistan, with two insurgent attacks against Afghan and NATO security forces near Kandahar.
The attacks punctured a few months of relative calm brought about by more aggressive policing by Afghan security forces.
In one attack, insurgents wearing police uniforms besieged a police base on the outskirts of Kandahar, leaving four police officers dead and seven wounded, Afghan officials said. Three suicide bombers infiltrated the base before detonating themselves, NATO said. A fourth was killed before he could gain entry.
The base, where about 30 police officers are stationed, acts as a checkpoint for traffic entering or leaving the city. Some NATO troops are also stationed there, but there were no reports of NATO casualties.
The second attack took place about 50 miles north of Kandahar in the district of Shah Wali Kot. The attack, on a joint NATO-Afghan military base, resulted in the deaths of seven Taliban fighters, NATO and Afghan officials said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks.
Southern Afghanistan is still seen as volatile and vulnerable to Taliban violence. But officials said the frequency and the size of the attacks had diminished a little in recent months because of the increase in the number of Afghan security forces being deployed, especially in Kandahar, and an increase in the number of raids to detain suspected insurgents and restrict their movements.
The tactics are forcing the insurgency to resort to attacks on the city’s fringes or in outlying districts, as in Tuesday’s burst of violence, the officials said.
“We deployed more security forces in Kandahar and out of Kandahar City, and that is the reason Kandahar is calm,” Gen. Abdul Raziq, the police chief in Kandahar Province, said in an interview.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Sangar Rahimi and Jawad Sukhanyar from Kabul.
Troops sacked while training to fight in Afghanistan, despite MoD vows
Soldiers training to fight in Afghanistan have been sacked in an apparent breach of rules laid down by the Ministry of Defence, it can be disclosed.
Telegraph.co.uk By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 20 Jun 2012
Two highly experienced company commanders from the 2nd Bn The Yorkshire Regiment have been made compulsorily redundant despite their battalion being at 48 hours readiness to deploy to Afghanistan.
The officers will be sent to the front line in the knowledge that they “will not know where next month’s income is coming from,” colleagues have said.
The men are part of the Theatre Reserve Battalion based in Cyprus that is trained to fight in Afghanistan at a moment’s notice. Every battalion that has been the TRB has deployed elements on every tour since the Helmand campaign began in 2006.
But their compulsory redundancy appears to flout the pledge made by defence chiefs and politicians that “no one who is currently preparing to join operations, already deployed on operations or in recovery from operations will be made redundant”.
“One day we have been made redundant and the next we are being asked to go to Afghanistan where we will risk life and limb,” one officer told a friend.
“Everyone has a degree of self preservation when considering deployment and the rules and regulations are what they are but what are we supposed to do? Disobey orders?
“You can imagine being put in that position and told you must deploy. Why would I want to risk my life again?”
The officers have also suffered the financial blow, first disclosed by The Daily Telegraph earlier this week that means they will lose out on a pension worth up £300,000 by being sacked just months short of their 16 year qualifying period.
Soldiers also now face having to wait an extra five years to get a pension with plans to move the immediate pensionable age to 45.
Officers have told this newspaper that the pension issue is having a serious effect on morale throughout the Army, especially as it shrinks by a fifth to 82,000.
An officer speaking on behalf of the sacked men said: “With the pensions issue and now this you can imagine their thoughts after 15 years loyal service where they’ve regularly risked their lives.
“The big dilemma is if the Army says you are going to Afghanistan but you are sacked what happens if you say 'I’m not going’. One of these officers has a six-month-old child. What do you think his family will say?”
Patrick Mercer, the MP and former infantry commander, condemned the sackings. “These men are at very short notice to move onto extremely dangerous operation and it seems the most curious decision to sack them while they are on this level of alert.
“These are highly experienced infantry officers who are needed on operations now, surely other officers can be found from non-combat roles."
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
VOA News June 20, 2012
A suicide bomber attacked NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan Wednesday, killing at least 16 people.
Provincial police chief General Sardar Mohammad Zazi said the attacker struck a checkpoint where coalition and Afghan forces were using biometric data to screen residents in Khost city.
"Around 12 noon near Speen Jumaat in Khost city at a checkpoint, unfortunately a suicide bomber managed to reach this point [and] he exploded himself," Zazi said. "That resulted in the killing and wounding of several civilians. “
At least 30 others were wounded in the blast, and Afghan and NATO officials say the casualties include police officers, coalition troops, and women and children. NATO could not immediately confirm whether troops were killed in the attack.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. The al-Qaida and Taliban-linked Haqqani network is said to be active in Khost province, which borders Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region.
The militant group, which is believed to be based in North Waziristan, has been blamed for a number of deadly attacks against international forces in Afghanistan.
Afghan army kicks off national operation against Taliban: official
KABUL, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Afghan army kicked off a military operation to ensure peace and uproot the Taliban insurgents in the war-torn country, Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi said Wednesday.
"The operation dubbed 'Nawid' which means 'promise' was kicked off by Afghan National Army (ANA) in collaboration with police and intelligence agency today, Wednesday, with a special operational plan to cover all over the country," Azimi told reporters in a weekly press conference here.
The Operation Nawid is scheduled for 18 months to stabilize security throughout the country, he added.
"indeed, the Operation Nawid aims to target the enemy across the country, ensuring security in bordering areas and highways besides providing security for development projects to win the hearts and minds of people," the spokesman emphasized.
The Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging more than a decade-long insurgency, stepped up their attacks on Afghan and some 130,000 NATO-led troops since a spring offensive was launched on May 3 in the war-ravaged country.
Providing details on the special operation, Azimi said that " Afghan army special operation force has conducted 119 operations since early April when they took the lead in the night raid operations, killing or capturing several dozens of Taliban insurgent key leaders, bomb experts and al-Qaida fighters."
The army personnel has found and defused 1,222 roadside bombs and Taliban home-make bombs or Improvised Explosive Device (IED) within the past three months, Azimi added.
Afghan Taliban has launched massive IED attacks against Afghan and foreign security force in recent years but the lethal weapon also inflected casualties on civilians. Eight civilians were killed and five others injured when their vehicle was struck by an IED in southern Helmand province on Monday.
"The Taliban has lost the ability to fight with Afghan army and police and in retaliation they launch IED attacks against security forces and that 95 percent of army fatalities have been caused by roadside mines and IEDs in recent months," he noted.
Without disclosing the number of fatalities, the spokesman said that up to 90 IED blasts have been registered by army over the past one month.
"The army has also found and seized more than 1,670 kg explosive materials, 24 heavy machine guns, 13 rounds of RPG-7 rocket launchers, 132 guns, 10 pistols, 47 hand grenades beside confiscating five vehicles and 42 motorcycles used by insurgents over the past one month ending on June 20," he added.
He made this comment while Afghan army and police are getting ready to begin the third phase of a gradual takeover of security responsibility from NATO-led troops in the coming weeks.
The Afghan forces and NATO troops have completed transition in the first two of five tranches of provinces and districts across the country where about half of the Afghan population now lives.
Under U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, 10,000 U.S. troops already pulled out from Afghanistan last year and another 23,000 will return home by September this year.
Afghanistan says Pakistan was involved in sectarian attack
Reuters Tue Jun 19, 2012
KABUL - The Afghan government on Tuesday accused neighbouring Pakistan of involvement in a bloody attack last year on minority Shi'ite Muslims, one of the worst sectarian killings in Afghanistan for years.
The December 6 attack, in which a suicide bomber blew himself up among hundreds of Shi'ites marking the Ashura rite on a Kabul street, killed dozens of people, including women and children.
The attack, timed with a series of bombings elsewhere in Afghanistan, raised fears the country could join Iraq and Pakistan in suffering regular violence motivated by tensions between religious sects.
In a news conference, Afghan Attorney General Mohammad Esaaq Alako said two Afghans had been detained for helping transport militants involved in the attack from the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
He said the two men were paid 10,000 Pakistani rupeeseach for the job, but did not say specifically by whom.
"Let me be clear, it was started from Peshawar and this (attack) was administrated by our neighbour's intelligence organs," Alako told reporters.
He did not provide specific information on why the Afghan government believed Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the ISI, was involved. Afghanistan has repeatedly accused the ISI of backing militant attacks, a charge Islamabad strongly denies.
Lutfullah Mashal, chief spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence agency, said that the plan to attack the Shi'ites in Kabul "was hatched in Peshawar."
The Taliban, which has vowed to press on with its long insurgency against the government of President Hamid Karzai and its Western backers, condemned the attack when it occurred, and denied involvement.
Ashura, which features large processions or pilgrimages that are vulnerable to militant attacks, is a major event in the Shi'ite Muslim calendar. Most of Afghanistan's Muslims are Sunnis.
(Reporting Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Missy Ryan and Daniel Magnowski)
Afghan Refugees in Pakistan Anxious as Year-End Looms
VOA News Sharon Behn June 19, 2012
ISLAMABAD - One out of every four refugees in the world is from Afghanistan, and 95 percent of them live either in Iran or Pakistan. Afghan refugees are scheduled to lose their legal residency at the end of the year, but many are not ready to return.
There are more Afghan refugees than any other nationality in the world. Many live in camps or slums on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital.
Doctor Mohamed Nazar came here from Afghanistan almost 18 years ago.
"There are no facilities for the children, there is no hygiene, no electricity, there are scorpions and snakes," said Nazar. "We only have medicine for headaches. For anything else they go to the hospital."
Since 2002, roughly 5.5 million Afghans have returned to their country. But 1.7 million are still registered in Pakistan, scattered among 80 camps.
There are at least another million undocumented Afghans.
In this unofficial camp, life is precarious. Sana Gul is a community elder here, responsible for 85 households
"Every day police come and ask us for money," said Gul. "Most of us don't have immigrant IDs, and if we refuse to pay them, they take us to the police stations and threaten to deport us, then we have pay them more."
Despite their situation, Duniya Aslam Khan of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees expects few Afghans will leave anytime soon.
"There's a whole generation who were born in Pakistan and were raised in Pakistan and know of no other country except Pakistan. The remaining ones who don't feel they can go back, cite security as the number one reason for not returning," said Khan.
After 30 years in exile, Ghulum Sarwar has 10 children, three grandchildren and many reasons to stay where he is.
"We have no other choice. We have to live here," said Sarwar. "We know we face a lot of problems here, but in Afghanistan there are more problems, like the Taliban, terrorism."
Pakistan says registered refugees can stay until the end of the year, and is working to extend the stay of some of the most vulnerable as well as students and businessmen.
But Minister of States and Frontier Regions Shaukat Ullah says the government can no longer afford to house so many.
"It's a big burden on our economy, we are facing that problem," said Ullah.
While millions of Afghans have already gone back home, the UNHCR says many often find it hard to reintegrate into the villages they left. Some have now returned to Pakistan.
Officials: Al-Qaida Leader Detained in Pakistan
VOA News June 20, 2012
Officials in Pakistan say an al-Qaida leader has been detained near the country's border with Iran.
Pakistani authorities said Wednesday that Naamen Meziche, a French national of Algerian origin, was captured during a raid near Quetta - the capital of Baluchistan province. They said he was arrested while trying to flee the country, but provided no further details.
Officials say Meziche was a close associate of senior al-Qaida leader Younis al-Mauritani, who was arrested in Baluchistan last September with the help of the CIA. Mauritani was believed to have been tasked with targeting economic interests in the United States, Europe and Australia.
Meziche has been linked to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and is said to be a member of an al-Qaida cell in Germany.
Meziche's arrest comes amid U.S. criticism that Pakistan is not doing enough to crack down on militant safe havens.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. was "reaching the limit" of its patience with Pakistan and urged the country to take action against insurgents who attack American forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan's foreign ministry rejected Panetta's comments, saying they did not contribute to peace and stability in the region.
Relations between the U.S. and Pakistan have been strained over a number of recent issues, including Pakistan's closing of the NATO supply routes into Afghanistan after the mistaken killing of 24 Pakistani troops in U.S. airstrikes last November.
Pakistan has also condemned U.S. drone strikes targeting Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants in the country's northwest.
Islamabad also sharply criticized the covert U.S. raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad last May.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Pakistan's military hold the keys to a thaw with the US
The National By Marvin Weinbaum June 15, 2012
Just when US-Pakistan relations appear to have reached a new low, yet another event drives them lower still, further complicating chances of stabilising bilateral ties.
Over the last 18 months, the deterioration of relations has been punctuated by a series of incidents, most dramatically the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the US air strike last November at Salala, in which 24 Pakistani solders died.
The latest obstacle is recent harsh criticism of Pakistan by Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary.
Hopes for an early reset of Pakistan-US relations, a restart with fewer illusions and lower expectations, are rapidly fading.
This estrangement has been building for more than a decade. At its core is American displeasure with Pakistan for harbouring Afghan insurgents, and for failing to repudiate domestic extremists. Resentment has grown over what is seen as Pakistan's ingratitude for US assistance and its displays of virulent anti-Americanism.
Pakistanis, meanwhile, hold the US-Nato war in Afghanistan responsible for spawning insurgency and violence in Pakistan. The US is considered unappreciative of Pakistan's sacrifices in aligning with the US on Afghanistan. More broadly, there lurks a suspicion about US strategic intentions.
And yet policymakers can agree that the national interests of the two countries coincide in at least two critical areas: curbing terrorism and building stability and prosperity in the region.
So why is there such great difficulty in achieving a new normal?
For at least part of the answer we have to look at the domestic context in both countries.
On the US side there is a growing debate, within government circles and among opinion leaders, over how best to approach Pakistan. One view is that with diplomacy and the right set of incentives the US can still hope to convince Pakistan to clamp down on militants linked to terrorism.
Beginning in 2009, Bush-era policies, framed by US interests in Afghanistan, focused on bolstering democratic institutions and improving the image of America through better-targeted development aid. A broader strategic partnership was intended to replace what had been a strictly transactional relationship.
Though not averse to applying pressure, the advocates of "soft power" acknowledge that Pakistan's leaders confront political and resource constraints. They are also anxious to avoid any instability that could put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal at risk.
Increasingly, however, this approach faces a challenge from those who call for the US to begin playing hardball. Saying attempts to engage Pakistan's military and elected leaders have been met only with contempt, they cite the failure to win over these elites and ordinary Pakistanis, despite $3 billion (Dh11bn) in annual aid.
Closure of the Nato supply line to Afghanistan, and the ejection of US military and intelligence personnel tracking terrorists, are taken as hostile. US forces, it is argued, should not hesitate to act unilaterally to pursue suspected terrorists, even if that means ignoring Pakistan's sensitivity about violations of its territory.
Many of these "hard power" advocates favour a containment strategy for Pakistan, including even a strategic tilt towards India.
In Pakistan, meanwhile, one looks in vain for a serious debate about how to engage the Americans. Rather, there is near-consensus that the US is determined to weaken Pakistan, to make it more pliable. In this narrative, the US and India aim to neutralise, if not seize, Pakistan's nuclear assets.
A few intrepid media commentators challenge this thinking, but the country's leaders refrain from taking issue with even the most bizarre conspiracy claims. Nobody is prepared to take the political and physical risks of speaking out.
This uniformity of views reflects a politicised Pakistani public that pays both too much and too little attention to what happens in the US. Anyone's half-baked statement is deemed to reflect official US policy. But few Pakistanis are attuned to US sensitivities.
Consumed as most Pakistanis are with sovereignty, few appreciate US feelings about how Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan cost American lives in Afghanistan. Nor is there understanding about why widely shared Pakistani attitudes - like the belief that the events of September 11, 2001 were concocted by the US - are so hurtful.
Demanding a US apology for the deaths at Salala, as a precondition for resumption of cooperation, displays a lack of awareness that the US, like Pakistan, faces a presidential election campaign.
So how, given their conflicting narratives, can the two countries work together to pursue mutual interests? In Pakistan's political climate, almost any US concession is likely to be interpreted as masking ulterior motives.
Conciliatory moves by Pakistan stand a better chance of being reciprocated. They would strengthen the hand of those in Washington who remain committed to soft power. Regrettably, however, such initiatives are unlikely from Pakistan's politicians.
The military alone has the stature necessary to sway popular attitudes and the power to check domestic forces pressing Pakistan to cut its ties to the US.
Even if some limited accord were to be reached with the generals, however, another event like Salala could instantly throw relations into a tailspin once again.
Marvin Weinbaum is a scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, and a former analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the US Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Pakistan Moves to Elect New PM
VOA News June 20, 2012
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has summoned lawmakers to meet later this week for discussions on electing a new prime minister after the dismissal of Yousuf Raza Gilani.
The president's office announced Wednesday that Zardari had summoned the lower house of parliament to meet Friday. The announcement comes a day after the Supreme Court Gilani ineligible for office because of a prior conviction.
The court found Gilani guilty of contempt on April 26 after he refused its orders to ask Swiss authorities to reopen a corruption case against President Zardari.
In his ruling, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said that because Gilani had not appealed the conviction, he is disqualified as a member of parliament and no longer prime minister. Gilani's lawyer says his client will not fight the dismissal.
The court's ruling prompted President Zardari to hold emergency closed-door meetings overnight with members of his ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and coalition partners.
They are now in talks to find a replacement for Gilani. Parliamentary elections in Pakistan are due next year but observers say the court decision has raised the prospect for early polls.
Tuesday's ruling came as the political upheaval is hitting a government already struggling with Islamic militancy, a weak economy and violent protests against crippling power blackouts.
Islamabad also is at odds with Washington over whether to reopen its territory to NATO supply convoys for coalition troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan closed the routes after a NATO airstrike mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border last November.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Questions About Afghanistan, If Congress Cared Enough to Ask Them
The Huffington Post By Dan Froomkin Senior Washington Correspondent 19/06/2012
Were they the least bit interested in exercising any oversight at all into the war that American soldiers are still fighting and dying in -- and that Chinese bond buyers are still providing the cash for -- members of Congress wouldn't have to go very far to find some excellent questions.
Congress's own think tank has come up with some doozies. Actually a lot of doozies. Thirty-nine by my count.
Just a few weeks ago, Army Col. Danny Davis, the active-service whistleblower who broke ranks to debunk official reports of progress in Afghanistan, wondered on NiemanWatchdog.org Why does Congress refuse to even ask the right questions about Afghanistan?
Now, a new Congressional Research Service report, Next Steps in the War in Afghanistan? Issues for Congress, (unearthed by the Federation of American Scientists) offers a cheat-sheet for any members who might be coming around to the idea of probing the administration's gameplan.
All of these questions are taken directly from the report, written by CRS international security expert Catherine Dale. First come the broad strategic questions:
* What fundamental national security interests does the United States have in Afghanistan and the region?
* What minimum conditions -- political, economic, security -- would need to pertain in Afghanistan in order for those U.S. interests to be protected?
* How appropriate are current and projected future U.S. approaches, until and after 2014, for helping Afghans establish those conditions?
* When and to what extent are Afghans likely to be able to sustain those conditions with relatively limited support from the international community?
* Ultimately, how important is this overall effort -- given its likely timeline, risks, and costs -- compared to other U.S. government priorities?
Here are questions "that might help inform the debates about the next steps for U.S. troop levels":
* How much must the level of insurgent threat in Afghanistan be reduced, to help ensure that Afghan forces can contend successfully with the residual challenge with minimal international assistance? To what extent is the participation of U.S. forces in combined operations now with Afghan partners still necessary to reduce that threat sufficiently?
* What other purposes does a U.S. force presence need to serve, if any, toward meeting U.S. core goals -- for example, serving as a deterrent to those who would challenge Afghanistan's sovereignty, or providing leverage for U.S. efforts to help shape a broader political settlement process aimed at ending the war?
* To what extent if any must the objectives of the combined campaign be scaled back given the constraints on the scope and duration of future U.S. troop presence?
* How should differences be reconciled when Afghan and U.S. campaign priorities diverge?
* How good do Afghan forces need to be, to contend effectively with a residual insurgent threat? What total ANSF endstrength, and what force mix, will that require over time? How much risk, and of what kinds, do incremental reductions in future ANSF endstrength introduce?
* To what extent is a continued U.S. force presence after 2014 -- and with what force mix, and for how long -- necessary to help bolster ANSF ability?
* To what extent if any does Afghan reliance on the ALP [Afghan Local Police] -- typically deeply rooted in local communities, but not trained to the level of regular forces, and regarded skeptically by regular security force leaders as lacking national-level loyalties -- contribute to or alternatively threaten Afghanistan's future stability?
Questions "about transition and change of mission":
* Under an advisory construct, what is the proper division of labor over time between coalition units and advisory teams?
* To what extent does an increased emphasis on developing ANSF counterparts come at the expense of continuing to reduce the threats insurgents pose to stability in Afghanistan? Or can increasingly capable ANSF backed up by coalition forces make roughly similar progress?
* As the ANSF assume greater responsibilities, is it acceptable -- or even desirable, as a spur toward learning -- for them to "fail" in some ways?
* How appropriate -- and clearly understood -- are U.S. and coalition standards for knowing when to step in?
* What effects, exactly, might a post-2014 U.S. military presence in Afghanistan be designed to achieve?
Questions that "might help inform the debates about the next steps for Afghanistan's economy":
* What kind of a system can the likely future Afghan economy -- barring exogenous shocks to the system -- realistically be expected to support?
* What legal constructs and accountability mechanisms would have to be in place, and what other minimum conditions met, in order for Afghanistan to realize its maximum potential -- given its mineral resources and potential agricultural productivity -- as a fiscally self-sufficient state?
* As the balance of U.S. support shifts from providing things -- a role that has given the U.S. government a prominent seat at the table -- to providing advice, will the U.S. government be able to maintain sufficient leverage -- for example, to encourage accountability and to help shape a political settlement process?
* Given that most observers agree that it will take time for Afghans to develop the ability to generate, collect, and spend revenues, and that international assistance is likely to diminish significantly in the near-term, what are the risks to Afghan stability in the near-term? To what extent and in what ways might the international community help mitigate these risks?
* While recent commitments from the U.S. Government and NATO extend the timeline of "commitment" out to 2024, how realistic is that longer timeline for Afghans to build a largely self-sustaining economy? What minimum conditions would that require, and what is it possible to achieve by the end of the period of transformation in 2024?
* Professions of commitment notwithstanding, how much assistance are members of the international community likely to provide to Afghanistan through 2024, given the significant financial pressures and competing demands that they are likely to face?
* In a very practical sense, to what extent will the significant reduction in the U.S. troop presence over time affect the ability of U.S. Government civilians to support Afghan development efforts in a still-somewhat-unsettled security environment? What useful lessons might be drawn from the somewhat analogous so-called "transition" in Iraq, including the validity of the planning assumptions applied in that case?
* To what extent does the proposed dramatic reduction in ANSF total endstrength -- designed in part to significantly reduce pressure on the future Afghan budget -- introduce additional risk? To what extent will a smaller total force be able to protect Afghan interests, and U.S. interests in the region? How can Afghanistan best mitigate the risks, financial and otherwise, of demobilizing thousands of young men with well-developed weapons skills but few other economic prospects?
Questions that "might help inform the debates about the next steps in Afghan governance":
* What kind of durable stability can be achieved in a system based in part on self-interested powerbrokers largely unconstrained by accountability mechanisms? How might such an arrangement be expected to affect U.S. interests, if at all, in the longer-run?
* How do Afghans envisage "accountability" and the mechanisms necessary to make it work? What might the U.S. government do to support their vision?
* What forms of leverage, to encourage greater accountability, might the U.S. Government theoretically still be able to exercise, between now and 2014, and after 2014?
* To what extent do alternative voices in Afghanistan -- including civil society, the private sector, the media, and traditional local authority structures -- have the potential to provide a system of checks and balances by which the Afghan people can hold government accountable? To what extent are any such accountability measures likely to be able to exert influence to shape the 2014 presidential elections, or a reconciliation process designed to bring the war to an end?
Questions about safe havens in Pakistan:
* What results can realistically be expected in the near- to medium-term from U.S. and Afghan mil-to-mil engagement with Pakistani forces?
* To what extent might alternative approaches, such as U.S. drone strikes, be relied on to reduce the threat from Afghan insurgent safe havens inside Pakistan? How do the effects of a de-capitation drone strike compare to those of clearing and holding operations? What other risks if any do such strikes introduce?
* To what extent does current U.S. strategic thinking assume that a political settlement of the war in Afghanistan -- a "deal" -- would result in the permanent closure of safe havens? If circumstances in Pakistan do not change, what would prevent some current or future insurgent leaders from making use of the same safe havens?
* To what extent does the persistence of safe havens in Pakistan increase the requirements for Afghan resilience? What forms would that resilience have to take, to ensure that Afghan -- and U.S. -- interests are protected? What risks might any additional requirements pose to other aspects of the campaign, by reducing available resources?
And finally questions about how it all ends:
* How well do the major components of the effort -- the campaign on the ground, and political settlement efforts including a reconciliation process, as well as economic and regional approaches -- fit together and inform each other, in a single roadmap, against a timeline? What assumptions does that roadmap make? What risks does it allow?
* As part of that comprehensive roadmap, what roles should the U.S. government play? What roles are more appropriately played by other actors, first of all Afghans, and also including other members of the international community?
* What are the respective roles of the campaign on the ground, and of political settlement efforts, in bringing the war in Afghanistan to a close? Does the campaign create conditions that may produce a political settlement? Does a wellcrafted reconciliation bring the campaign on the ground to a close? Is either, or are both, essential?
* How inclusive must a settlement process be in order to help ensure the durability of any agreement achieved, and to counter-balance natural hedging behavior under the patronage of various power-brokers in the face of deep uncertainty about the future and decades of grim experience in the past? How important is the active participation in a national settlement process -- not just the post facto buy-in -- of key groups such as civil society, the media, and the private sector, as well as traditional authority structures? How if at all should the U.S. Government help foster such inclusiveness?
* To what extent if any does persistent corruption pose a challenge to the campaign on the ground or to an effective settlement process? What if the Afghan people do not view any of their apparent political choices as viable?
* Given the full panoply of U.S. national security interests and broader concerns, what should be the relative priority of Afghanistan, between now and 2014, and after 2014, for the U.S. government?
Pretty good questions, huh? And how horrifying is it that we don't already have the answers?
Cross-posted from NiemanWatchdog.org, where Froomkin is deputy editor.
Missing Afghan Army Night-Vision Goggles May Aid Taliban
Bloomberg By David Lerman Jun 20, 2012
U.S. and Afghan forces have lost track of hundreds of night-vision goggles used to hunt the Taliban, raising the odds of the high-technology eyewear falling into enemy hands, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general.
A lack of adequate supervision of the goggles, which were purchased for the Afghan Army and police, means U.S. and Afghan soldiers “may be at greater security risk during night missions in Afghanistan,” according to a report from the inspector general dated June 18.
“Improving accountability will decrease vulnerabilities to theft or loss of night-vision devices,” Jacqueline Wicecarver, assistant inspector general for acquisition and contract management, said in a memorandum accompanying the report.
Defense and NATO officials, Afghan security forces and defense contractors “did not maintain complete accountability” for 7,157 night-vision goggles and spare parts purchased for Afghan forces, the report found. Those goggles are now “more vulnerable to theft or loss,” the GAO said.
The report cited hundreds of missing serial numbers, 518 “discrepancies” and 75 goggles that were “unaccounted for during our physical inventory.”
Defense officials said they would “continue to improve accountability procedures,” according to the report.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Lerman in Washington at dlerman1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net
US, Afghan, India Forum Worries Pakistan
TOLOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Tuesday, 19 June 2012
A trilateral forum, which brings the United States and India in a new arrangement with Afghanistan, is not directed against Pakistan, says a senior US official.
US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake said that the main goal of this forum is to bring stability and economic development to Afghanistan and it is not in any means against Pakistan.
"On the contrary, it's to talk about the situation inside Afghanistan but also how we continue to support Afghanistan," Blake added.
"This is certainly not in any way seen as directed against Pakistan."
This comes as US top Senator John McCain believes that US cannot cut off its relations with Pakistan because it could have greater challenge as Pakistan is a nuclear state.
"The US cannot afford to "cut off all relations with Pakistan because then it could become even more unstable and we could have even greater challenges since they have a nuclear inventory, among other things", as Senator McCain said.
Policy makers in Washington believe that the Indians will not send their troops to Afghanistan even if the Americans want them to. And therefore, the US will have to deal with Pakistan if it wants long-term stability in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Afghan military expert believes that US, Afghanistan and Indian relationships can boost intelligence for either countries even for Pakistan.
"The trilateral forum of Afghanistan, US and India is beneficial for intelligence purposes for all three countries including Pakistan." General Abdul Wahed Taqat said.
The relations between Pakistan and the United States strained more when a deadly Nato air strike killed as many as 24 Pakistani soldiers near Afghan border.
New Worries About Women’s Rights and Ethnic Tensions Emerge in Afghanistan
New York Times By GRAHAM BOWLEY June 19, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Events this week that raised questions on women’s rights and ethnic tensions have added to long-term concerns about Afghanistan after American-led forces withdraw in 2014 and new elections are held.
Over the past two days, women’s rights advocates and others have expressed outrage over comments by the Afghan justice minister in which he claimed that women’s shelters encouraged “immorality and prostitution,” according to news reports.
Rights workers see the shelters as vital to help protect women who face abuse and exploitation with little recourse under local and traditional law. Amid concerns that conservatives could roll back tentative progress made on women’s rights, the United Nations office in Afghanistan stepped in on Tuesday, issuing a statement saying that it “strongly supports the critical role that women’s protection shelters play in providing support and safety for vulnerable Afghan women and girls, especially victims of domestic abuse and violence.”
And in new evidence of sectarian strains, a prominent Afghan ethnic leader has asserted that a new national almanac published by the country’s Academy of Sciences significantly understates the size of Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities and makes discriminatory statements about the Hazaras, his own ethnic group.
Late Tuesday, the outcry appeared to have forced the hand of President Hamid Karzai, whose office said he had fired the academy’s director, and Afghan officials said he had also dismissed three others in the academy.
The Hazara leader, the former warlord Hajji Mohammed Mohaqiq, said that the almanac estimated that Hazaras constituted only about 9 percent of the Afghan population and that Pashtuns made up 60 percent. He said that the almanac also called the Hazaras, who are Shiites, infidels, among other inflammatory things. He demanded that the book be withdrawn and called for the abolition of the academy, which is under the control of Mr. Karzai’s office.
“A corrupt circle of characters surround President Karzai who are preparing for a civil war after 2014,” he said.
The almanac is not yet in general circulation, and officials at the academy would not discuss whether Mr. Mohaqiq’s assertions were correct.
Experts say it is hard to determine the country’s ethnic makeup. The C.I.A. World Factbook, for instance, estimates that the Hazaras make up 9 percent of the country’s population, the same as the figure said to be in the almanac, though it puts the Pashtun population lower, at 42 percent. But that is based on old data — there is no official Afghan census, and the country has changed through the past 10 years of war and turmoil. Some prominent Hazaras argue that the ethnic group may represent more than 20 percent of the population, though that, too, can be seen as a politicized figure.
In any case, Mr. Mohaqiq’s claims have resonated in the news media here at a delicate time, ahead of the withdrawal of NATO troops and the national elections. Estimates of the country’s demographics are seen as critical to establishing government representation, and Mr. Mohaqiq said that in the past such matters had led to civil conflict.
There is a sectarian component to the tensions, too. Members of Afghanistan’s Shiite minority, most of whom are Hazaras, faced savage discrimination during the years of rule by the Taliban, who are predominantly Pashtun. Though sectarian violence has been a less significant part of the insurgent violence of the past 10 years, there are concerns that such strife could be rekindled after NATO troops withdraw.
On Tuesday, an investigation into a bloody attack aimed at Shiites in Kabul last December found that it had been planned in Pakistan and had been intended to incite sectarian strife.
The chief prosecutor, Mohammed Ishaq Aloko, led an official commission looking into the attack, in which one of two potential suicide bombers struck a procession of Shiites at a shrine on Ashura, which marks the death of Shiite Islam’s holiest martyr. At the time, an extremist group based in Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack.
“It was a special conspiracy on a special religious day of our nation,” he said at a news conference, adding that two Afghans had confessed to driving the bombers from Peshawar, Pakistan. “They wanted to ignite sectarian conflict in Afghanistan.”
Meanwhile, the summer fighting season continued in southern Afghanistan, with two insurgent attacks against Afghan and NATO security forces near Kandahar.
The attacks punctured a few months of relative calm brought about by more aggressive policing by Afghan security forces.
In one attack, insurgents wearing police uniforms besieged a police base on the outskirts of Kandahar, leaving four police officers dead and seven wounded, Afghan officials said. Three suicide bombers infiltrated the base before detonating themselves, NATO said. A fourth was killed before he could gain entry.
The base, where about 30 police officers are stationed, acts as a checkpoint for traffic entering or leaving the city. Some NATO troops are also stationed there, but there were no reports of NATO casualties.
The second attack took place about 50 miles north of Kandahar in the district of Shah Wali Kot. The attack, on a joint NATO-Afghan military base, resulted in the deaths of seven Taliban fighters, NATO and Afghan officials said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks.
Southern Afghanistan is still seen as volatile and vulnerable to Taliban violence. But officials said the frequency and the size of the attacks had diminished a little in recent months because of the increase in the number of Afghan security forces being deployed, especially in Kandahar, and an increase in the number of raids to detain suspected insurgents and restrict their movements.
The tactics are forcing the insurgency to resort to attacks on the city’s fringes or in outlying districts, as in Tuesday’s burst of violence, the officials said.
“We deployed more security forces in Kandahar and out of Kandahar City, and that is the reason Kandahar is calm,” Gen. Abdul Raziq, the police chief in Kandahar Province, said in an interview.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Sangar Rahimi and Jawad Sukhanyar from Kabul.
Troops sacked while training to fight in Afghanistan, despite MoD vows
Soldiers training to fight in Afghanistan have been sacked in an apparent breach of rules laid down by the Ministry of Defence, it can be disclosed.
Telegraph.co.uk By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 20 Jun 2012
Two highly experienced company commanders from the 2nd Bn The Yorkshire Regiment have been made compulsorily redundant despite their battalion being at 48 hours readiness to deploy to Afghanistan.
The officers will be sent to the front line in the knowledge that they “will not know where next month’s income is coming from,” colleagues have said.
The men are part of the Theatre Reserve Battalion based in Cyprus that is trained to fight in Afghanistan at a moment’s notice. Every battalion that has been the TRB has deployed elements on every tour since the Helmand campaign began in 2006.
But their compulsory redundancy appears to flout the pledge made by defence chiefs and politicians that “no one who is currently preparing to join operations, already deployed on operations or in recovery from operations will be made redundant”.
“One day we have been made redundant and the next we are being asked to go to Afghanistan where we will risk life and limb,” one officer told a friend.
“Everyone has a degree of self preservation when considering deployment and the rules and regulations are what they are but what are we supposed to do? Disobey orders?
“You can imagine being put in that position and told you must deploy. Why would I want to risk my life again?”
The officers have also suffered the financial blow, first disclosed by The Daily Telegraph earlier this week that means they will lose out on a pension worth up £300,000 by being sacked just months short of their 16 year qualifying period.
Soldiers also now face having to wait an extra five years to get a pension with plans to move the immediate pensionable age to 45.
Officers have told this newspaper that the pension issue is having a serious effect on morale throughout the Army, especially as it shrinks by a fifth to 82,000.
An officer speaking on behalf of the sacked men said: “With the pensions issue and now this you can imagine their thoughts after 15 years loyal service where they’ve regularly risked their lives.
“The big dilemma is if the Army says you are going to Afghanistan but you are sacked what happens if you say 'I’m not going’. One of these officers has a six-month-old child. What do you think his family will say?”
Patrick Mercer, the MP and former infantry commander, condemned the sackings. “These men are at very short notice to move onto extremely dangerous operation and it seems the most curious decision to sack them while they are on this level of alert.
“These are highly experienced infantry officers who are needed on operations now, surely other officers can be found from non-combat roles."
www.afghanistannewscenter.com