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Market bomb wounds 14 in Afghanistan: officials
AFP
A bicycle bomb Wednesday wounded at least 14 people at a busy market in western Afghanistan as Muslims prepared to celebrate the end of fasting month, officials said.
The bombing in Herat city comes a day after a series of attacks killed up to 50 people across the war-torn country.
"Fourteen civilians were injured when the bomb attached to a bicycle exploded in Herat city," provincial police chief Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada told AFP.
Provincial governor's spokesman Moyeedin Noori said the bomb was detonated remotely.
"The explosion happened in a market where the crowd of people were shopping for Eid," Noori said.
Hospital official Mohammad Rafiq Shirzai, however, said 18 people were wounded including three women.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but similar attacks are usually blamed on Taliban insurgents fighting to overthrow the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
NATO has some 130,000 US-led troops helping the government fight the Taliban, but they are due to pull out in 2014.
Karzai Asks Pakistani Leader To Stop Attacks On Afghan Soil
August 15, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has asked Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to stop attacks on Afghan territory.
A statement released by the Afghan president's office said Karzai and Zardari met on the sidelines of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation summit in Mecca on August 14.
Karzai told Zardari that shelling from the Pakistani side of the border into Afghanistan was having "an extremely negative impact" on Afghan attitudes toward Pakistan.
The statement from the Afghan president's office said, without elaborating, that the "Pakistani delegation also shared with [the] Afghan side their crossborder concerns."
The two leaders agreed to form a joint delegation to visit the border and investigate crossborder shelling claims.
U.S. Defense Chief 'Very Concerned' About Afghan 'Insider' Attacks
August 14, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says he is "very concerned" about recent attacks on U.S. and NATO troops by their Afghan allies and the impact of the attacks on cooperation.
"Our enemies have attempted to undermine the trust between the coalition and the Afghan forces, and in particular they have tried to take credit for a number of so-called green-on-blue or insider attacks," Panetta said at the Pentagon.
He said such attacks have involved 31 Afghans, but "do not reflect the dedication" of Afghan security forces.
"One of the reasons the Taliban is targeting in this manner is the success that our Afghan partners are having on the battlefield," he said.
Panetta pledged improved intelligence, counterintelligence training, and other measures to help combat the attacks.
Afghanistan war: Can the US gains last?
Almost 11 years into the US-led war in Afghanistan, the situation still remains so tenuous in some parts of Afghanistan that locals worry about the safety of accepting aid from the West.
By Tom A. Peter | Christian Science Monitor – Tue, Aug 14, 2012
At a recent meeting of local government officials in east Afghanistan, a US Department of Agriculture representative lays out plans to build cold storage facilities for local farmers that would allow them to sell produce out of season at higher prices.
After listening quietly, Mohammad Hasan, a senior sub-governor asks a question that sparks nearly an hour of debate and ultimately questions whether the US mission here has worked at all.
“The Taliban threatens people not to accept development projects with American money,” he says. “How are we supposed to build these storage facilities? If we talk about them, the Taliban will kill us.”
Almost 11 years into the US-led war in Afghanistan and just weeks before the US military begins winding down its yearlong surge into Ghazni Province, the situation still remains so tenuous that locals worry about the safety of accepting development aid from the West.
RELATED How much do you know about Afghanistan?
For the past year, Ghazni has been home to one of the final major US military offensives in Afghanistan. Though the US military says it's made significant gains here, it remains unclear if these improvements can hold as the number of US troops drops.
The farming province became the focus of the US military because of the road that passes through it, linking Kabul and Kandahar, the nation’s two largest cities. Known as Highway 1, it connects Afghanistan to neighboring countries and is critical for trade.
With security established in Kabul and improving in Kandahar, US military planners wanted to eliminate the instability in the areas between them.
In Ghazni, the 1,000 Polish troops posted there reportedly lacked the resources to do much more than secure the area directly around the highway and did little to protect the outlying villages. As a result, the Taliban managed to gain a strong foothold in Ghazni.
Last summer, the US military took control of the province and increased the number of soldiers there to nearly 3,000.
“Overall the mission was to come in and produce a stronghold,” says US Army Lt. Matt Long, a platoon commander in Delta Company of the 2-504 Parachute Infantry Regiment. “I think we’ve significantly affected the area in what [the Taliban] can and can’t do.”
Throughout Afghanistan, whether these gains hold depends largely on the ability of the Afghan security forces that continue to take over responsibility for security ahead of the 2014 deadline.
In Qarah Bagh, many joint patrols are now planned and led by the Afghan military, with US troops there largely to support the Afghan National Army if it needs it.
Though US soldiers say that enough time remains to fine-tune their skills and get them ready for 2014, there remain questions about the ability of some Afghan soldiers.
At a recent training, an Afghan Army sergeant told of losing a friend who tried to remove a roadside bomb by taking several steps back and shooting at it with his rifle until it exploded and killed him.
“Prior to this [American] unit operating here, this Afghan National Army unit was really in a defensive fight to hold its own position and wasn’t really afforded the position to get much better,” says Lt. Col. William Ryan, security forces assistance team leader for the 2-504 PIR, who likens the Afghan military to a sports team without an off-season. “The contribution of the [the US Army] has … allowed the Afghan National Army to take time that it needs to get better.”
US military officials say “tactical and operational analysis” is still underway to determine how large a force will replace the current group of US soldiers currently stationed in Ghazni, but initial reductions are expected to be modest.
“What’s decisive is ultimately Afghans’ confidence in their security forces, both the police and the Army. Sure, us being here has had an impact on the enemy, but that impact is designed to give time and space to the Afghan security forces and the people to develop the relationship they need to have for our gains to be lasting,” says Maj. Jason Condrey, executive officer of the 2-504 PIR.
As US troop levels decrease, there is some question as to whether the Afghan forces will place the same level of focus on the villages far beyond the highway. Afghans tend to place greater emphasis on providing security through checkpoints than through patrolling.
“I think the highway will remain secure, but I don’t know about the villages,” says Lt. Kirk Shoemaker, a platoon leader in 2-504 PIR’s Charlie Company. He adds that while villagers are now open to speaking with American patrols that pass through, many seem to be waiting to see what will happen after the Americans begin to drawdown, he says.
In May, a group of villagers in Ghazni’s Andar district rose up against the Taliban after the group got too aggressive and had closed most of the area's schools. Despite hopes that the movement will spread to other areas of the province, no other uprisings have yet to materialize.
In the coming year, US Special Forces are expected to begin establishing Afghan Local Police units in the villages in Ghazni, which many say they hope will ensure that security does not slip away from the more remote areas of the province.
“Half the battle is the population. Once they all start turning on the Taliban, then the Taliban has no leg to stand on, and I do think we’ll get there sooner rather than later,” says Lt. Col. Praxitelis “Nick” Vamvakias, commander of the 2-504 PIR.
Is the Taliban wearing out its welcome in Afghanistan?
Tuesday marked the most violent day in Afghanistan this year, while Afghans are starting to show that they're tired of violence and fed up with the Taliban.
By Tom A. Peter August 15, 2012 at 11:02 am EDT The Christian Science Monitor
Kandahar and Ghazni, Afghanistan - After US Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales allegedly walked off a US base in Kandahar last March and went house to house, killing a total of 17 Afghan civilians, many worried that the Taliban would capitalize on the incident and the long restive province would revert to violence.
Yet more than five months later, violence in Kandahar remains at record lows. Compared with the same time last year, the Kandahar governor’s office reports that insurgent attacks and activity are down 75 percent.
Marking a new development, not only did the Taliban fail to use the shooting spree as a propaganda tool to renew their momentum, but a growing number of residents say they’ve grown frustrated with the group and increasingly intolerant of its activities.
“The bad behavior of the Taliban with the local people – when they use their fields, houses, mosques, and streets as their battlefield, when they put landmines in roads and in their fields – has shifted the sympathy of the people toward the government. People are very unhappy with the Taliban about these issues,” says Haji Fazel Mohammad, the district governor of Panjwayi, where the Bales incident occurred.
Throughout Afghanistan, many locals are losing whatever sympathy they may have once had for the Taliban. In Ghazni Province in eastern Afghanistan, a group of locals in Andar district rose up against the extremist group after it shut down a majority of schools in the area.
The uprising, which began in May, failed to spread beyond Andar and there are a number of indications that local politics and power struggles may have had just as much, if not more, to do with the uprising than frustration with the Taliban. Most evidence points to a conflict between Afghanistan’s Hezeb-e Islami, a more moderate Islamic group, and the Taliban that has reportedly been taking place in Wardak and Ghazni for some time now.
Still, as US and NATO forces work to hand over security responsibilities to their Afghan counterparts ahead of the 2014 deadline to end their combat operations, there is hope that evaporating support for the Taliban may lay the foundation for long-term stability in Afghanistan.
“Much like what happened in Iraq where there was a turning point after Al Qaeda in Iraq had killed so many of the people and done so many beheadings and intimidated so many, the people finally got tired of it and stood up and fought back. That was the turning point in Iraq. The same type of turning point can occur and will occur here,” says US Army Lt. Col. Praxitelis “Nick” Vamvakias, commander of the 2-504 Parachute Infantry Regiment in Ghazni Province.
Taliban have got the message
Unlike in Iraq, locals say the Taliban received the message after the uprising in Ghazni’s Andar district and backed off from some of its more aggressive behavior.
“The situation is becoming normal again after the uprising. There are no Taliban in the area where the uprising happened. In the other areas of Andar where there was no uprising, the Taliban’s behavior with the people has changed. They are a little softer,” says Shahbaz, a farmer in Andar district who, like many Afghans only has one name.
Additionally, throughout Afghanistan, as in Kandahar and especially Ghazni, the Taliban remain a considerable threat. Despite being an area of focus for the US military this past year, with NATO forces tripling there, many areas of the province remain restive and dangerous.
Within the Afghan government, the Parliament has been so frustrated with its military’s inability to reign in violence and stop assassinations that it forced the resignation of the country’s minister of defense and interior.
Afghans more pro government?
Even if the Taliban continues to lose the support of the population, it does not necessarily mean the local population is now siding with the Afghan government and international forces.
With the security situation and political future of Afghanistan still far from stable or certain – yesterday marked the deadliest day of 2012 for Afghan civilians – many analysts say that Afghans, especially those in rural areas appear to be hedging their bets.
That the US military and NATO will end their combat mission here in 2014 is no secret, making many Afghans weary of looking to international troops for enduring support. The Afghan government’s reputation for pervasive corruption has also made a number of locals hesitant to place their allegiances there.
“There are lots of people here in Kabul who want to brand it as a kind of uprising that has ceased the nation, but I think that’s too simplistic,” says Alex Strick van Linschoten, an independent researcher and author of “An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/Al-Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan.”
Speaking about recent security improvements in Kandahar, he adds, “It seems that people are happy with the situation and they don’t want it to go back how it was before, yet at the same time that doesn’t mean they think the government is the greatest thing ever.”
Possible trend?
Amid this climate, many Afghan observers say that its unlikely widespread frustration will translate into a nationwide uprising, or even sweep through the rest of Ghazni Province.
Few Afghans possess the means to revolt. It is among the 10 poorest countries in the world and has a per capita GDP of $528. Facing this level of destitution, for Afghans living hand-to-mouth, abandoning their fields or jobs to fend off the Taliban is simply not an option.
“Our people are very poor. They are always worried about covering their daily expenses and surviving. As long as they are uncertain about whether their children can survive, how can they be ready for an uprising? Economically, if they are supported and they are more secure financially then I think in that case they will start to rise up against the Taliban,” says Mohammad Isa Khan, a former attorney general and independent analyst in Kandahar.
Why isn't anyone talking about Afghanistan?
Foreign Policy (blog) By Stephen M. Walt Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Remember the war in Afghanistan? You know: It was the "good war," fought in response to Al Qaeda's attack on 9/11 and the Taliban's refusal to turn them in, and subsequently justified by 1) the need to prevent future terrorist "safe havens," 2) the desire to liberate Afghan women, 3) the imperative to bring democracy and modern governance to an underdeveloped tribal society, and 4) as always, the need to preserve American "credibility."
Writing on the New Yorker's website, reporter Dexter Filkins warns that our long and costly effort there is likely to be a failure. We're getting out, he says, but there is little sign that we will leave behind a properly functioning Afghan state. He notes that neither Obama nor Romney are saying much about the war in this campaign (in part because there is about an angstrom's worth of difference in their respective positions). But he says "You can bet that, whoever the president is, he'll be talking about it [after we're gone]."
Three points. First, it is not really news to hear that our Afghan project is failing, because the effort to impose a centralized state from the outside was probably doomed from the start. It's possible that a focused international effort from 2002 onward would have succeeded (and especially if the geniuses in the Bush administration hadn't taken their eye off the ball in order to invade Iraq), but the odds are against it. Plenty of people have been warning for years now that this war was going to end up a failure, which is why some of us opposed Obama's decision to escalate the war in 2009 and called for disengagement instead.
Second, even if Filkins' pessimism is right, it is not clear why the next president will want or will have to spend a lot of time worrying about Afghanistan. If Afghanistan were truly a vital strategic interest, it wouldn't be all that hard to convince Americans to pony up the resources to stay. But the fact is that Afghanistan isn't a vital interest: it's a land-locked and impoverished country thousands of miles from our shores. The only reason that we went there in the first place is because a handful of misguided crackpots decided to hide out there, and subsequently got very lucky in staging a dramatic attack on U.S. soil. Once they were scattered and/or killed, Afghanistan reverted to being the strategic backwater it has always been. The American people understand this, yet Obama had to concoct a face-saving strategy of escalating first in order to withdraw later. If the next president-whoever it is-is smart, he'll spend as much time worrying about Afghanistan as Carter and Reagan spent worrying about Vietnam. Which is to say: hardly any.
Third, this whole sad episode should really be seen as a colossal failure of the American national security establishment. The futility of the Afghan campaign was apparent years ago, and we've heard plenty of testimony from returning soldiers, diplomats, and aid workers that the ISAF effort wasn't likely to work. Even those who continued to defend the effort usually had to admit that success was going to require a decade or more of additional commitment and hundreds of billions of dollars in additional aid. Yet our national security apparatus couldn't reach the conclusion to withdraw without first escalating the war, and without wasting more soldiers' lives and a few hundred billion more dollars.
I've offered my own thoughts on why it's hard to end costly wars here; today I'll simply say it's even harder when the culture of the national security establishment rewards hawkish postures, and tends to view anyone who counsels moderation or prudence as some sort of weak-willed idealist. Nothing does more than hard-headed and realistic assessments of the costs and benefits of alternative course of action, even when the writing was on the wall a long time ago.
Guardian Angels in Afghanistan
The Pentagon's attempt to reduce the growing trend of "green on blue" violence.
Foreign Policy BY JOHN REED AUGUST 14, 2012
An increase in Afghan security forces attacking their NATO counterparts -- or what have been called "green on blue" incidents -- is prompting the U.S. military to implement a host of new safeguards, top Pentagon officials announced Tuesday, Aug. 14.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will increase intelligence and counterintelligence efforts aimed at stopping attacks before they occur, establish forensic teams that will analyze attacks, improve the vetting process for Afghan security forces, and require that a NATO service member, dubbed a "guardian angel," observe any gathering of NATO and Afghan troops. The guardian angel will "watch people's backs and hopefully identify people that would be involved in those attacks," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters during an Aug. 14 briefing at the Pentagon.
There have been 27 green-on-blue incidents so far in 2012, which have led to 37 deaths, according to ISAF. There have been several such attacks in the last week, killing three NATO troops and wounding two.
The safeguards will be implemented by ISAF commander Gen. John Allen. "General Allen is meeting with the [Afghan] security minister to talk about further steps to take in order to protect against these attacks, and he's also meeting with the village elders," said Panetta. "These are the people who usually vouch for these people -- they have to sign something that vouches for the character of these individuals. He's going back to them to ensure that that's being done properly."
At the briefing, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that, as part of his upcoming tour of the Middle East, he will travel to Kabul next week to talk with Allen about how to protect against what he called an "insider attack threat." "I think you'll hear us start talking about these incidents more as 'insider attack' rather than 'green on blue' because that understates the effect this is having on the ANSF [Afghan national security forces] itself. They're suffering casualties from the same trend that we're suffering" from, said Dempsey.
Allen will also meet with all his one-star generals in Afghanistan to discuss ways to end the attacks. Meanwhile, Afghan defense officials will hold a summit to discuss how to fight the problem. Dempsey noted that the Afghan security forces have "discharged hundreds of soldiers who did indicate that some of these young men had the capability to be radicalized." These soldiers were known to have consumed terrorist propaganda or frequently traveled back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Dempsey.
The attacks may cause ISAF to increase the ratio of NATO mentors to Afghan troops being trained, according to Maj. Gen. Tod Wolters, who was in charge of the Air Force's presence in Afghanistan from May 2011 until May 2012.
While "99.9 percent" of coalition troops and Afghan security forces share a high level of trust, "it just takes one green-on-blue incident where some yo-yo goes off and does something stupid, and now you start to levy some uncertainty on that trust that was established," Wolters said in an Aug. 14 talk at the Air Force Association. "That's a big deal because it forces us to go back and look at the math equation as far as the ratio is concerned in this Security Force Assistance model."
The model Wolters referred to is the coalition's plan to shift from counterinsurgency warfare, in which NATO troops lead combat missions, toward supporting Afghan troops who lead and conduct missions. This shift is critical as NATO prepares to withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan by 2014.
"Any time you have one of these green-on-blue incidents, as you can well imagine, you're probably a little less prone to have one coalition member support 50 Afghan security members. You might be in a position where you desire to have five or six coalition members," said Wolters, noting that these were examples, not the actual ratios. Changing the ratio even slightly, Wolters added, could affect how quickly the United States withdraws troops.
While Panetta did say that the Taliban has begun to use insider attacks to hit NATO forces with increasing frequency, he was quick to point out that there are multiple kinds of attackers. "It's clear that there's no one source that is producing these attacks," said Panetta. "Some of it is individuals who for one reason or another are upset and suddenly take it out" on NATO troops; other attacks are conducted by "self-radicalized" Afghans with no ties to the Taliban or by insurgent groups that have infiltrated the Afghan security forces.
Taliban Showing New Willingness On Prisoner Swap
NPR By Dina Temple-Raston August 15, 2012
There are new glimmers of hope for the only known U.S. prisoner of war held captive in Afghanistan — 26-year-old Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban more than three years ago. After lengthy discussions, it appears his captors may be more receptive than ever before to finding a way to send him home.
Watching Bergdahl in Taliban propaganda videos is heartbreaking. In the first videotape released soon after he disappeared from his forward operating base in Afghanistan in 2009, the young man is wearing a traditional shalwar kameez. He is shown eating, cross-legged on the floor. Then he is prompted, in English, by someone off-camera.
"Well I am scared," Bergdahl begins. "Um ... I am scared I won't be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner."
A rooster crows in the background before the camera cuts to another scene.
Bergdahl has appeared in five Taliban propaganda videos. U.S. officials say they believe he is healthy and is being treated relatively well. He is thought to be in the hands of the Haqqani network in northwest Pakistan, which works closely with the Taliban. The Haqqani network is thought to be moving Bergdahl around so U.S. authorities won't be able to find him.
Talks Gain Traction
In the past couple of months, U.S. officials familiar with the talks say the discussions with the Taliban about Bergdahl have found new momentum. The talks had stalled in March after an American serviceman left his base in southern Afghanistan and shot and killed 16 villagers. But in recent months, the Taliban expressed an interest in getting back to where things had left off. One of the key topics of discussion: trading a handful of Taliban prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl.
Richard Barrett, the coordinator of the U.N.'s al-Qaida and Taliban monitoring team, has been tracking the prisoner discussions. The U.N. is involved because, among other things, the Security Council has leveled travel restrictions against the Taliban leaders who may be part of the swap. The Security Council would have to provide an exemption for the exchange to take place.
"Right now, everyone is waiting on everyone else to make the first move," Barrett says. And even if the discussions were to move forward, which he understands is happening, "it has to wait a little bit on the mechanics being sorted out."
U.S. officials familiar with the discussions say that it is in this area of "mechanics" where there has been the most movement. Broadly, the U.S. has made clear that if the Taliban renounces al-Qaida publicly, other initiatives would be triggered. Among those early plans: a transfer of five Taliban leaders now at Guantanamo Bay to Qatar, where they would be under some sort of house arrest. In exchange for their move out of Guantanamo, the Taliban would have to get the Haqqani network to release Bergdahl.
'Number Of Moving Pieces'
U.S. officials say this proposal was floated in March. What appears to have changed is the Taliban's receptiveness to it.
James Cunningham, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, tiptoed around the issue in a roundtable with reporters in Kabul.
"How shall I put this? We see reflections," he said of moves by the Taliban. "There are a number of moving pieces that are possible. We haven't made any decisions in any way, shape, or form as far as I know, about any transfers."
To prepare for those decisions, there need to be understandings and groundwork laid. As envisioned now, if there were to be a swap, it would include the Taliban's former ministers of defense, interior and intelligence, all of whom have been in Guantanamo for the past decade. There are a dozen other Afghan detainees at the military prison, but only these key political leaders of the Taliban are the focus of current discussions.
"These are really important people and I think it would be more than symbolic," says the U.N.'s Barrett. "They would be under house arrest, but they could be joined by their families and so on. There would be an office there in Qatar and presumably they would be in communication with their Taliban friends. You could argue that their release could give a boost to the movement. Whether it was a boost toward peace or a boost toward war that would remain to be seen."
A Change Of Heart
Clearly that is one of the many things left to be worked out. The hope is that the prisoner release would just be the beginning. The thought is that confidence-building measure would lead to broader talks between the U.S. and the Taliban and would eventually pave the way for the one thing that is required for lasting peace in Afghanistan: formal reconciliation talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
U.S. officials say they aren't sure why the Taliban has shown this sudden change of heart. They say the Taliban may now have a better idea of what the future of its country looks like — there are now a U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership agreement, global backing of Afghanistan and a realization that the U.S. will still have a role in Afghanistan after 2014. That might be a future of which it wants to be a part.
Barrett says the prisoner swap and what follows it won't be easy for either side. Both have a careful calculus to make.
"It is that casting of an agreement as victory, or at least not defeat, that is really important for both sides," he said.
Even if both can eventually declare victory, there is another wild card: how trading five Taliban leaders for America's only known prisoner of war will be received by both the Afghan and the American people.
Four children killed in eastern Afghan roadside bombing
By ANI
Kabul, Aug. 15 (Xinhua-ANI): Four children were killed and a man was wounded in a roadside bombing in eastern Afghan province of Paktika late Tuesday, a provincial government spokesman said Wednesday morning.
"A civilian car ran over a roadside bomb in Kharbin area of Yousuf Khil district at around 6 p.m. local time Tuesday and the blast killed four innocent children and injured a man," spokesman Mokhlis Afghan told Xinhua.
In a separate incident, a woman and her four children were injured when a rocket fired by Taliban insurgents hit a house in Saultano area of Sar Hawza district in Paktika province also Tuesday evening, he said.
In another development, 11 civilian workers were injured in a grenade attack near the entrance of a U.S. and NATO military base in Khost city, the capital of neighbouring Khost province earlier Wednesday, a police source said.
"The workers were waiting for access to the base but a man hurled a grenade and the injured were shifted to a provincial capital hospital where two of the injured were in critical conditions," the source told Xinhua.
Violence has been on the rise since Taliban launched an annual spring offensive on May 3.
The Taliban insurgent group has warned the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people against supporting government and foreign troops.
Up to 60 people were killed and 160 others injured in a coordinated suicide attack in southwestern Nimroz and in a motorbike bomb explosion in northern Kunduz province on Tuesday.
A total of 1,145 civilians were killed and 1,954 injured in conflict-related violent incidents and attacks in the first six months of 2012, a 15 percent decrease in overall civilian casualties compared with the same period in 2011, according to a UN report released in capital Kabul on Aug. 8. (Xinhua-ANI)
Armed uprising against Taliban forces insurgents from 50 Afghan villages
An uprising against the Taliban has evicted the gunmen from 50 villages in eastern Afghanistan, according to local leaders, beginning a revolt that Kabul hopes will spread across insurgent-held territory.
Telegraph.co.uk By Ben Farmer 14 Aug 2012
Andar - More than 250 men have taken up arms in Ghazni province and are fighting nearly daily skirmishes against determined Taliban attempts to retake the area.
Their armed campaign began in protest at insurgent edicts closing schools and bazaars, as well as resentment that the Taliban were outsiders taking orders from Pakistan.
In four months of fighting, the uprising has lost more than 20 members and claims to have cleared an enclave of Andar district which had previously been under tight Taliban control.
Its progress is being closely watched by Nato and Western officials who have long hoped the insurgents' repression might trigger a movement similar to the Sunni 'Awakening' brigades which turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
But they are doubtful over who is directing the revolt and wary it has been hijacked by leaders from other armed factions.
Many in the uprising seem as opposed to the international coalition and Hamid Karzai as they are to the insurgents.
Lotfullah Kamrani, a 24-year-old graduate who now commands dozens of anti-Taliban fighters, said his men were in daily clashes, some lasting up to 10 hours.
Since kicking out the insurgents from around a sixth of Andar's villages they had been able to reopen shops in the district centre and boys' schools which had been long closed.
Militiamen on motorbikes patrol their fields and villages armed with a jumble of their own weapons left over from the Russian occupation and ensuing civil war.
"The Taliban are very strong, but according to my belief the community is on our side and they cannot stand against us," Mr Kamrani said.
As he showed off his force, they received a call that Taliban had been spotted near one of their villages and several of his men took to their motorcycles to chase them away.
Frustration with the Taliban had grown in recent years, he said, as they appeared to be controlled more and more by outsiders from Pakistan.
"They were applying the law of Pakistan here in Afghanistan. They were creating their own rules on the orders of Pakistan," he said.
Mohammad Nazir, a 42-year-old father of four, said the Taliban had initially been welcomed in Andar, but had grown tyrannical.
"We were helpless in many things," he said. "The schools were closed, the shops were closed, my sons were not able to go to school. We had talked about what to do many times in the past, but we decided to rise up in the spring."
The Taliban deny the rebellion is a popular movement, saying it is funded and directed by America and the Afghan government. They have promised to retake the area and this week distributed letters again threatening to kill those who resist. Privately though, they have tried to negotiate.
"The Taliban have requested many times for us to talk with them," said Mr Kamrani. "There's no trust left though."
Many observers are still suspicious of who is really behind the uprising. Local MPs and Western officials say that Asadullah Khalid, Mr Karzai's southern security chief, had tried to take control and steer it to other areas.
Mr Khalid and Mr Kamrani both confirmed he was helping the uprising to find ammunition, but claimed he was acting independently of the government because his family was from Ghazni province. The government had no involvement in the uprising, they said.
Another fear is that the fighting may only be a power grab by a rival armed faction which had been disguised as a popular movement.
Mohammad Aref Shah Jahan, a former intelligence chief in the province, said the revolt had been orchestrated by members of Hizb-i-Islami, a powerful faction dating from the war against the Russian invasion of the 1980s founded by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and remembered for its brutality in the civil war. Hekmatyar has led his own insurgency against Nato and Mr Karzai since 2002.
Fighters conceded that many of their number had once belonged to this group, but denied they were organised along political lines.
Faizanullah Faizan, a former governor and senior Hizb-i-Islami commander now playing a leading role in the uprising, said: "It's a 100 per cent civilian uprising. It doesn't belong to any political party, but we are made up of all the old groups."
Nato commanders stress they are watching, but not giving support. Brigadier-General Lewis Boone, from the International Security Assistance Force, said: "The basic situation in Andar is they don't like us and they don't like the Taliban. They want to be left alone essentially. Are we looking at it closely? You bet we are. Is it another uprising like we saw in Iraq? I think that would be a leap."
Taliban ‘Weapons Dealer' Capture in Helmand
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 15 August 2012
A Taliban weapons dealer was captured in a joint Afghan and Nato operation in southern Helmand province on Wednesday, Isaf said in a statement.
"An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Taliban weapons dealer during an operation in Sangin district inHelmand province today," Isaf said.
The weapons dealer provided homemade explosives and other improvised explosive device (IEDs) material to Taliban fighters.
At the time of his arrest, he was involved in plans to smuggle a large quantity of homemade explosives into the region for use in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces.
The security force also detained two suspected insurgents during the operation.
Another Taliban leader was captured in joint forces operation in Nahr-e-Saraj district of the province today. The Taliban leader recruited fighters and provided them with weapons and explosives.
Karzai Appoints Former Defense Minister as Senior Military Advisor
TOLOnews.com By Rezwan Natiq Tuesday, 14 August 2012
President Hamid Karzai appointed the former Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak as his senior military advisor said in a presidential statement released on Monday.
Wardak will focus on reform, development and training of Afghan National Security Forces, according to the statement.
Last week, Wardak was dismissed from his Defense Minister post after weak responses, according to lawmakers, to Pakistan's cross-border rocket attacks into Afghanistan. He was then ordered by President Karzai to retain his position until a nominee was suggested to Parliament.
Wardak, however, resigned from his position of nine years mission at the Ministry of Defense.
ISAF said in a press conference that Wardak's dismissal was a step back as he is one of its closest allies, but his dismissal would not have a negative impacts on the security transition.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
AFP
A bicycle bomb Wednesday wounded at least 14 people at a busy market in western Afghanistan as Muslims prepared to celebrate the end of fasting month, officials said.
The bombing in Herat city comes a day after a series of attacks killed up to 50 people across the war-torn country.
"Fourteen civilians were injured when the bomb attached to a bicycle exploded in Herat city," provincial police chief Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada told AFP.
Provincial governor's spokesman Moyeedin Noori said the bomb was detonated remotely.
"The explosion happened in a market where the crowd of people were shopping for Eid," Noori said.
Hospital official Mohammad Rafiq Shirzai, however, said 18 people were wounded including three women.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but similar attacks are usually blamed on Taliban insurgents fighting to overthrow the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
NATO has some 130,000 US-led troops helping the government fight the Taliban, but they are due to pull out in 2014.
Karzai Asks Pakistani Leader To Stop Attacks On Afghan Soil
August 15, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has asked Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to stop attacks on Afghan territory.
A statement released by the Afghan president's office said Karzai and Zardari met on the sidelines of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation summit in Mecca on August 14.
Karzai told Zardari that shelling from the Pakistani side of the border into Afghanistan was having "an extremely negative impact" on Afghan attitudes toward Pakistan.
The statement from the Afghan president's office said, without elaborating, that the "Pakistani delegation also shared with [the] Afghan side their crossborder concerns."
The two leaders agreed to form a joint delegation to visit the border and investigate crossborder shelling claims.
U.S. Defense Chief 'Very Concerned' About Afghan 'Insider' Attacks
August 14, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says he is "very concerned" about recent attacks on U.S. and NATO troops by their Afghan allies and the impact of the attacks on cooperation.
"Our enemies have attempted to undermine the trust between the coalition and the Afghan forces, and in particular they have tried to take credit for a number of so-called green-on-blue or insider attacks," Panetta said at the Pentagon.
He said such attacks have involved 31 Afghans, but "do not reflect the dedication" of Afghan security forces.
"One of the reasons the Taliban is targeting in this manner is the success that our Afghan partners are having on the battlefield," he said.
Panetta pledged improved intelligence, counterintelligence training, and other measures to help combat the attacks.
Afghanistan war: Can the US gains last?
Almost 11 years into the US-led war in Afghanistan, the situation still remains so tenuous in some parts of Afghanistan that locals worry about the safety of accepting aid from the West.
By Tom A. Peter | Christian Science Monitor – Tue, Aug 14, 2012
At a recent meeting of local government officials in east Afghanistan, a US Department of Agriculture representative lays out plans to build cold storage facilities for local farmers that would allow them to sell produce out of season at higher prices.
After listening quietly, Mohammad Hasan, a senior sub-governor asks a question that sparks nearly an hour of debate and ultimately questions whether the US mission here has worked at all.
“The Taliban threatens people not to accept development projects with American money,” he says. “How are we supposed to build these storage facilities? If we talk about them, the Taliban will kill us.”
Almost 11 years into the US-led war in Afghanistan and just weeks before the US military begins winding down its yearlong surge into Ghazni Province, the situation still remains so tenuous that locals worry about the safety of accepting development aid from the West.
RELATED How much do you know about Afghanistan?
For the past year, Ghazni has been home to one of the final major US military offensives in Afghanistan. Though the US military says it's made significant gains here, it remains unclear if these improvements can hold as the number of US troops drops.
The farming province became the focus of the US military because of the road that passes through it, linking Kabul and Kandahar, the nation’s two largest cities. Known as Highway 1, it connects Afghanistan to neighboring countries and is critical for trade.
With security established in Kabul and improving in Kandahar, US military planners wanted to eliminate the instability in the areas between them.
In Ghazni, the 1,000 Polish troops posted there reportedly lacked the resources to do much more than secure the area directly around the highway and did little to protect the outlying villages. As a result, the Taliban managed to gain a strong foothold in Ghazni.
Last summer, the US military took control of the province and increased the number of soldiers there to nearly 3,000.
“Overall the mission was to come in and produce a stronghold,” says US Army Lt. Matt Long, a platoon commander in Delta Company of the 2-504 Parachute Infantry Regiment. “I think we’ve significantly affected the area in what [the Taliban] can and can’t do.”
Throughout Afghanistan, whether these gains hold depends largely on the ability of the Afghan security forces that continue to take over responsibility for security ahead of the 2014 deadline.
In Qarah Bagh, many joint patrols are now planned and led by the Afghan military, with US troops there largely to support the Afghan National Army if it needs it.
Though US soldiers say that enough time remains to fine-tune their skills and get them ready for 2014, there remain questions about the ability of some Afghan soldiers.
At a recent training, an Afghan Army sergeant told of losing a friend who tried to remove a roadside bomb by taking several steps back and shooting at it with his rifle until it exploded and killed him.
“Prior to this [American] unit operating here, this Afghan National Army unit was really in a defensive fight to hold its own position and wasn’t really afforded the position to get much better,” says Lt. Col. William Ryan, security forces assistance team leader for the 2-504 PIR, who likens the Afghan military to a sports team without an off-season. “The contribution of the [the US Army] has … allowed the Afghan National Army to take time that it needs to get better.”
US military officials say “tactical and operational analysis” is still underway to determine how large a force will replace the current group of US soldiers currently stationed in Ghazni, but initial reductions are expected to be modest.
“What’s decisive is ultimately Afghans’ confidence in their security forces, both the police and the Army. Sure, us being here has had an impact on the enemy, but that impact is designed to give time and space to the Afghan security forces and the people to develop the relationship they need to have for our gains to be lasting,” says Maj. Jason Condrey, executive officer of the 2-504 PIR.
As US troop levels decrease, there is some question as to whether the Afghan forces will place the same level of focus on the villages far beyond the highway. Afghans tend to place greater emphasis on providing security through checkpoints than through patrolling.
“I think the highway will remain secure, but I don’t know about the villages,” says Lt. Kirk Shoemaker, a platoon leader in 2-504 PIR’s Charlie Company. He adds that while villagers are now open to speaking with American patrols that pass through, many seem to be waiting to see what will happen after the Americans begin to drawdown, he says.
In May, a group of villagers in Ghazni’s Andar district rose up against the Taliban after the group got too aggressive and had closed most of the area's schools. Despite hopes that the movement will spread to other areas of the province, no other uprisings have yet to materialize.
In the coming year, US Special Forces are expected to begin establishing Afghan Local Police units in the villages in Ghazni, which many say they hope will ensure that security does not slip away from the more remote areas of the province.
“Half the battle is the population. Once they all start turning on the Taliban, then the Taliban has no leg to stand on, and I do think we’ll get there sooner rather than later,” says Lt. Col. Praxitelis “Nick” Vamvakias, commander of the 2-504 PIR.
Is the Taliban wearing out its welcome in Afghanistan?
Tuesday marked the most violent day in Afghanistan this year, while Afghans are starting to show that they're tired of violence and fed up with the Taliban.
By Tom A. Peter August 15, 2012 at 11:02 am EDT The Christian Science Monitor
Kandahar and Ghazni, Afghanistan - After US Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales allegedly walked off a US base in Kandahar last March and went house to house, killing a total of 17 Afghan civilians, many worried that the Taliban would capitalize on the incident and the long restive province would revert to violence.
Yet more than five months later, violence in Kandahar remains at record lows. Compared with the same time last year, the Kandahar governor’s office reports that insurgent attacks and activity are down 75 percent.
Marking a new development, not only did the Taliban fail to use the shooting spree as a propaganda tool to renew their momentum, but a growing number of residents say they’ve grown frustrated with the group and increasingly intolerant of its activities.
“The bad behavior of the Taliban with the local people – when they use their fields, houses, mosques, and streets as their battlefield, when they put landmines in roads and in their fields – has shifted the sympathy of the people toward the government. People are very unhappy with the Taliban about these issues,” says Haji Fazel Mohammad, the district governor of Panjwayi, where the Bales incident occurred.
Throughout Afghanistan, many locals are losing whatever sympathy they may have once had for the Taliban. In Ghazni Province in eastern Afghanistan, a group of locals in Andar district rose up against the extremist group after it shut down a majority of schools in the area.
The uprising, which began in May, failed to spread beyond Andar and there are a number of indications that local politics and power struggles may have had just as much, if not more, to do with the uprising than frustration with the Taliban. Most evidence points to a conflict between Afghanistan’s Hezeb-e Islami, a more moderate Islamic group, and the Taliban that has reportedly been taking place in Wardak and Ghazni for some time now.
Still, as US and NATO forces work to hand over security responsibilities to their Afghan counterparts ahead of the 2014 deadline to end their combat operations, there is hope that evaporating support for the Taliban may lay the foundation for long-term stability in Afghanistan.
“Much like what happened in Iraq where there was a turning point after Al Qaeda in Iraq had killed so many of the people and done so many beheadings and intimidated so many, the people finally got tired of it and stood up and fought back. That was the turning point in Iraq. The same type of turning point can occur and will occur here,” says US Army Lt. Col. Praxitelis “Nick” Vamvakias, commander of the 2-504 Parachute Infantry Regiment in Ghazni Province.
Taliban have got the message
Unlike in Iraq, locals say the Taliban received the message after the uprising in Ghazni’s Andar district and backed off from some of its more aggressive behavior.
“The situation is becoming normal again after the uprising. There are no Taliban in the area where the uprising happened. In the other areas of Andar where there was no uprising, the Taliban’s behavior with the people has changed. They are a little softer,” says Shahbaz, a farmer in Andar district who, like many Afghans only has one name.
Additionally, throughout Afghanistan, as in Kandahar and especially Ghazni, the Taliban remain a considerable threat. Despite being an area of focus for the US military this past year, with NATO forces tripling there, many areas of the province remain restive and dangerous.
Within the Afghan government, the Parliament has been so frustrated with its military’s inability to reign in violence and stop assassinations that it forced the resignation of the country’s minister of defense and interior.
Afghans more pro government?
Even if the Taliban continues to lose the support of the population, it does not necessarily mean the local population is now siding with the Afghan government and international forces.
With the security situation and political future of Afghanistan still far from stable or certain – yesterday marked the deadliest day of 2012 for Afghan civilians – many analysts say that Afghans, especially those in rural areas appear to be hedging their bets.
That the US military and NATO will end their combat mission here in 2014 is no secret, making many Afghans weary of looking to international troops for enduring support. The Afghan government’s reputation for pervasive corruption has also made a number of locals hesitant to place their allegiances there.
“There are lots of people here in Kabul who want to brand it as a kind of uprising that has ceased the nation, but I think that’s too simplistic,” says Alex Strick van Linschoten, an independent researcher and author of “An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/Al-Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan.”
Speaking about recent security improvements in Kandahar, he adds, “It seems that people are happy with the situation and they don’t want it to go back how it was before, yet at the same time that doesn’t mean they think the government is the greatest thing ever.”
Possible trend?
Amid this climate, many Afghan observers say that its unlikely widespread frustration will translate into a nationwide uprising, or even sweep through the rest of Ghazni Province.
Few Afghans possess the means to revolt. It is among the 10 poorest countries in the world and has a per capita GDP of $528. Facing this level of destitution, for Afghans living hand-to-mouth, abandoning their fields or jobs to fend off the Taliban is simply not an option.
“Our people are very poor. They are always worried about covering their daily expenses and surviving. As long as they are uncertain about whether their children can survive, how can they be ready for an uprising? Economically, if they are supported and they are more secure financially then I think in that case they will start to rise up against the Taliban,” says Mohammad Isa Khan, a former attorney general and independent analyst in Kandahar.
Why isn't anyone talking about Afghanistan?
Foreign Policy (blog) By Stephen M. Walt Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Remember the war in Afghanistan? You know: It was the "good war," fought in response to Al Qaeda's attack on 9/11 and the Taliban's refusal to turn them in, and subsequently justified by 1) the need to prevent future terrorist "safe havens," 2) the desire to liberate Afghan women, 3) the imperative to bring democracy and modern governance to an underdeveloped tribal society, and 4) as always, the need to preserve American "credibility."
Writing on the New Yorker's website, reporter Dexter Filkins warns that our long and costly effort there is likely to be a failure. We're getting out, he says, but there is little sign that we will leave behind a properly functioning Afghan state. He notes that neither Obama nor Romney are saying much about the war in this campaign (in part because there is about an angstrom's worth of difference in their respective positions). But he says "You can bet that, whoever the president is, he'll be talking about it [after we're gone]."
Three points. First, it is not really news to hear that our Afghan project is failing, because the effort to impose a centralized state from the outside was probably doomed from the start. It's possible that a focused international effort from 2002 onward would have succeeded (and especially if the geniuses in the Bush administration hadn't taken their eye off the ball in order to invade Iraq), but the odds are against it. Plenty of people have been warning for years now that this war was going to end up a failure, which is why some of us opposed Obama's decision to escalate the war in 2009 and called for disengagement instead.
Second, even if Filkins' pessimism is right, it is not clear why the next president will want or will have to spend a lot of time worrying about Afghanistan. If Afghanistan were truly a vital strategic interest, it wouldn't be all that hard to convince Americans to pony up the resources to stay. But the fact is that Afghanistan isn't a vital interest: it's a land-locked and impoverished country thousands of miles from our shores. The only reason that we went there in the first place is because a handful of misguided crackpots decided to hide out there, and subsequently got very lucky in staging a dramatic attack on U.S. soil. Once they were scattered and/or killed, Afghanistan reverted to being the strategic backwater it has always been. The American people understand this, yet Obama had to concoct a face-saving strategy of escalating first in order to withdraw later. If the next president-whoever it is-is smart, he'll spend as much time worrying about Afghanistan as Carter and Reagan spent worrying about Vietnam. Which is to say: hardly any.
Third, this whole sad episode should really be seen as a colossal failure of the American national security establishment. The futility of the Afghan campaign was apparent years ago, and we've heard plenty of testimony from returning soldiers, diplomats, and aid workers that the ISAF effort wasn't likely to work. Even those who continued to defend the effort usually had to admit that success was going to require a decade or more of additional commitment and hundreds of billions of dollars in additional aid. Yet our national security apparatus couldn't reach the conclusion to withdraw without first escalating the war, and without wasting more soldiers' lives and a few hundred billion more dollars.
I've offered my own thoughts on why it's hard to end costly wars here; today I'll simply say it's even harder when the culture of the national security establishment rewards hawkish postures, and tends to view anyone who counsels moderation or prudence as some sort of weak-willed idealist. Nothing does more than hard-headed and realistic assessments of the costs and benefits of alternative course of action, even when the writing was on the wall a long time ago.
Guardian Angels in Afghanistan
The Pentagon's attempt to reduce the growing trend of "green on blue" violence.
Foreign Policy BY JOHN REED AUGUST 14, 2012
An increase in Afghan security forces attacking their NATO counterparts -- or what have been called "green on blue" incidents -- is prompting the U.S. military to implement a host of new safeguards, top Pentagon officials announced Tuesday, Aug. 14.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will increase intelligence and counterintelligence efforts aimed at stopping attacks before they occur, establish forensic teams that will analyze attacks, improve the vetting process for Afghan security forces, and require that a NATO service member, dubbed a "guardian angel," observe any gathering of NATO and Afghan troops. The guardian angel will "watch people's backs and hopefully identify people that would be involved in those attacks," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters during an Aug. 14 briefing at the Pentagon.
There have been 27 green-on-blue incidents so far in 2012, which have led to 37 deaths, according to ISAF. There have been several such attacks in the last week, killing three NATO troops and wounding two.
The safeguards will be implemented by ISAF commander Gen. John Allen. "General Allen is meeting with the [Afghan] security minister to talk about further steps to take in order to protect against these attacks, and he's also meeting with the village elders," said Panetta. "These are the people who usually vouch for these people -- they have to sign something that vouches for the character of these individuals. He's going back to them to ensure that that's being done properly."
At the briefing, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that, as part of his upcoming tour of the Middle East, he will travel to Kabul next week to talk with Allen about how to protect against what he called an "insider attack threat." "I think you'll hear us start talking about these incidents more as 'insider attack' rather than 'green on blue' because that understates the effect this is having on the ANSF [Afghan national security forces] itself. They're suffering casualties from the same trend that we're suffering" from, said Dempsey.
Allen will also meet with all his one-star generals in Afghanistan to discuss ways to end the attacks. Meanwhile, Afghan defense officials will hold a summit to discuss how to fight the problem. Dempsey noted that the Afghan security forces have "discharged hundreds of soldiers who did indicate that some of these young men had the capability to be radicalized." These soldiers were known to have consumed terrorist propaganda or frequently traveled back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Dempsey.
The attacks may cause ISAF to increase the ratio of NATO mentors to Afghan troops being trained, according to Maj. Gen. Tod Wolters, who was in charge of the Air Force's presence in Afghanistan from May 2011 until May 2012.
While "99.9 percent" of coalition troops and Afghan security forces share a high level of trust, "it just takes one green-on-blue incident where some yo-yo goes off and does something stupid, and now you start to levy some uncertainty on that trust that was established," Wolters said in an Aug. 14 talk at the Air Force Association. "That's a big deal because it forces us to go back and look at the math equation as far as the ratio is concerned in this Security Force Assistance model."
The model Wolters referred to is the coalition's plan to shift from counterinsurgency warfare, in which NATO troops lead combat missions, toward supporting Afghan troops who lead and conduct missions. This shift is critical as NATO prepares to withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan by 2014.
"Any time you have one of these green-on-blue incidents, as you can well imagine, you're probably a little less prone to have one coalition member support 50 Afghan security members. You might be in a position where you desire to have five or six coalition members," said Wolters, noting that these were examples, not the actual ratios. Changing the ratio even slightly, Wolters added, could affect how quickly the United States withdraws troops.
While Panetta did say that the Taliban has begun to use insider attacks to hit NATO forces with increasing frequency, he was quick to point out that there are multiple kinds of attackers. "It's clear that there's no one source that is producing these attacks," said Panetta. "Some of it is individuals who for one reason or another are upset and suddenly take it out" on NATO troops; other attacks are conducted by "self-radicalized" Afghans with no ties to the Taliban or by insurgent groups that have infiltrated the Afghan security forces.
Taliban Showing New Willingness On Prisoner Swap
NPR By Dina Temple-Raston August 15, 2012
There are new glimmers of hope for the only known U.S. prisoner of war held captive in Afghanistan — 26-year-old Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban more than three years ago. After lengthy discussions, it appears his captors may be more receptive than ever before to finding a way to send him home.
Watching Bergdahl in Taliban propaganda videos is heartbreaking. In the first videotape released soon after he disappeared from his forward operating base in Afghanistan in 2009, the young man is wearing a traditional shalwar kameez. He is shown eating, cross-legged on the floor. Then he is prompted, in English, by someone off-camera.
"Well I am scared," Bergdahl begins. "Um ... I am scared I won't be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner."
A rooster crows in the background before the camera cuts to another scene.
Bergdahl has appeared in five Taliban propaganda videos. U.S. officials say they believe he is healthy and is being treated relatively well. He is thought to be in the hands of the Haqqani network in northwest Pakistan, which works closely with the Taliban. The Haqqani network is thought to be moving Bergdahl around so U.S. authorities won't be able to find him.
Talks Gain Traction
In the past couple of months, U.S. officials familiar with the talks say the discussions with the Taliban about Bergdahl have found new momentum. The talks had stalled in March after an American serviceman left his base in southern Afghanistan and shot and killed 16 villagers. But in recent months, the Taliban expressed an interest in getting back to where things had left off. One of the key topics of discussion: trading a handful of Taliban prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl.
Richard Barrett, the coordinator of the U.N.'s al-Qaida and Taliban monitoring team, has been tracking the prisoner discussions. The U.N. is involved because, among other things, the Security Council has leveled travel restrictions against the Taliban leaders who may be part of the swap. The Security Council would have to provide an exemption for the exchange to take place.
"Right now, everyone is waiting on everyone else to make the first move," Barrett says. And even if the discussions were to move forward, which he understands is happening, "it has to wait a little bit on the mechanics being sorted out."
U.S. officials familiar with the discussions say that it is in this area of "mechanics" where there has been the most movement. Broadly, the U.S. has made clear that if the Taliban renounces al-Qaida publicly, other initiatives would be triggered. Among those early plans: a transfer of five Taliban leaders now at Guantanamo Bay to Qatar, where they would be under some sort of house arrest. In exchange for their move out of Guantanamo, the Taliban would have to get the Haqqani network to release Bergdahl.
'Number Of Moving Pieces'
U.S. officials say this proposal was floated in March. What appears to have changed is the Taliban's receptiveness to it.
James Cunningham, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, tiptoed around the issue in a roundtable with reporters in Kabul.
"How shall I put this? We see reflections," he said of moves by the Taliban. "There are a number of moving pieces that are possible. We haven't made any decisions in any way, shape, or form as far as I know, about any transfers."
To prepare for those decisions, there need to be understandings and groundwork laid. As envisioned now, if there were to be a swap, it would include the Taliban's former ministers of defense, interior and intelligence, all of whom have been in Guantanamo for the past decade. There are a dozen other Afghan detainees at the military prison, but only these key political leaders of the Taliban are the focus of current discussions.
"These are really important people and I think it would be more than symbolic," says the U.N.'s Barrett. "They would be under house arrest, but they could be joined by their families and so on. There would be an office there in Qatar and presumably they would be in communication with their Taliban friends. You could argue that their release could give a boost to the movement. Whether it was a boost toward peace or a boost toward war that would remain to be seen."
A Change Of Heart
Clearly that is one of the many things left to be worked out. The hope is that the prisoner release would just be the beginning. The thought is that confidence-building measure would lead to broader talks between the U.S. and the Taliban and would eventually pave the way for the one thing that is required for lasting peace in Afghanistan: formal reconciliation talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
U.S. officials say they aren't sure why the Taliban has shown this sudden change of heart. They say the Taliban may now have a better idea of what the future of its country looks like — there are now a U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership agreement, global backing of Afghanistan and a realization that the U.S. will still have a role in Afghanistan after 2014. That might be a future of which it wants to be a part.
Barrett says the prisoner swap and what follows it won't be easy for either side. Both have a careful calculus to make.
"It is that casting of an agreement as victory, or at least not defeat, that is really important for both sides," he said.
Even if both can eventually declare victory, there is another wild card: how trading five Taliban leaders for America's only known prisoner of war will be received by both the Afghan and the American people.
Four children killed in eastern Afghan roadside bombing
By ANI
Kabul, Aug. 15 (Xinhua-ANI): Four children were killed and a man was wounded in a roadside bombing in eastern Afghan province of Paktika late Tuesday, a provincial government spokesman said Wednesday morning.
"A civilian car ran over a roadside bomb in Kharbin area of Yousuf Khil district at around 6 p.m. local time Tuesday and the blast killed four innocent children and injured a man," spokesman Mokhlis Afghan told Xinhua.
In a separate incident, a woman and her four children were injured when a rocket fired by Taliban insurgents hit a house in Saultano area of Sar Hawza district in Paktika province also Tuesday evening, he said.
In another development, 11 civilian workers were injured in a grenade attack near the entrance of a U.S. and NATO military base in Khost city, the capital of neighbouring Khost province earlier Wednesday, a police source said.
"The workers were waiting for access to the base but a man hurled a grenade and the injured were shifted to a provincial capital hospital where two of the injured were in critical conditions," the source told Xinhua.
Violence has been on the rise since Taliban launched an annual spring offensive on May 3.
The Taliban insurgent group has warned the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people against supporting government and foreign troops.
Up to 60 people were killed and 160 others injured in a coordinated suicide attack in southwestern Nimroz and in a motorbike bomb explosion in northern Kunduz province on Tuesday.
A total of 1,145 civilians were killed and 1,954 injured in conflict-related violent incidents and attacks in the first six months of 2012, a 15 percent decrease in overall civilian casualties compared with the same period in 2011, according to a UN report released in capital Kabul on Aug. 8. (Xinhua-ANI)
Armed uprising against Taliban forces insurgents from 50 Afghan villages
An uprising against the Taliban has evicted the gunmen from 50 villages in eastern Afghanistan, according to local leaders, beginning a revolt that Kabul hopes will spread across insurgent-held territory.
Telegraph.co.uk By Ben Farmer 14 Aug 2012
Andar - More than 250 men have taken up arms in Ghazni province and are fighting nearly daily skirmishes against determined Taliban attempts to retake the area.
Their armed campaign began in protest at insurgent edicts closing schools and bazaars, as well as resentment that the Taliban were outsiders taking orders from Pakistan.
In four months of fighting, the uprising has lost more than 20 members and claims to have cleared an enclave of Andar district which had previously been under tight Taliban control.
Its progress is being closely watched by Nato and Western officials who have long hoped the insurgents' repression might trigger a movement similar to the Sunni 'Awakening' brigades which turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
But they are doubtful over who is directing the revolt and wary it has been hijacked by leaders from other armed factions.
Many in the uprising seem as opposed to the international coalition and Hamid Karzai as they are to the insurgents.
Lotfullah Kamrani, a 24-year-old graduate who now commands dozens of anti-Taliban fighters, said his men were in daily clashes, some lasting up to 10 hours.
Since kicking out the insurgents from around a sixth of Andar's villages they had been able to reopen shops in the district centre and boys' schools which had been long closed.
Militiamen on motorbikes patrol their fields and villages armed with a jumble of their own weapons left over from the Russian occupation and ensuing civil war.
"The Taliban are very strong, but according to my belief the community is on our side and they cannot stand against us," Mr Kamrani said.
As he showed off his force, they received a call that Taliban had been spotted near one of their villages and several of his men took to their motorcycles to chase them away.
Frustration with the Taliban had grown in recent years, he said, as they appeared to be controlled more and more by outsiders from Pakistan.
"They were applying the law of Pakistan here in Afghanistan. They were creating their own rules on the orders of Pakistan," he said.
Mohammad Nazir, a 42-year-old father of four, said the Taliban had initially been welcomed in Andar, but had grown tyrannical.
"We were helpless in many things," he said. "The schools were closed, the shops were closed, my sons were not able to go to school. We had talked about what to do many times in the past, but we decided to rise up in the spring."
The Taliban deny the rebellion is a popular movement, saying it is funded and directed by America and the Afghan government. They have promised to retake the area and this week distributed letters again threatening to kill those who resist. Privately though, they have tried to negotiate.
"The Taliban have requested many times for us to talk with them," said Mr Kamrani. "There's no trust left though."
Many observers are still suspicious of who is really behind the uprising. Local MPs and Western officials say that Asadullah Khalid, Mr Karzai's southern security chief, had tried to take control and steer it to other areas.
Mr Khalid and Mr Kamrani both confirmed he was helping the uprising to find ammunition, but claimed he was acting independently of the government because his family was from Ghazni province. The government had no involvement in the uprising, they said.
Another fear is that the fighting may only be a power grab by a rival armed faction which had been disguised as a popular movement.
Mohammad Aref Shah Jahan, a former intelligence chief in the province, said the revolt had been orchestrated by members of Hizb-i-Islami, a powerful faction dating from the war against the Russian invasion of the 1980s founded by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and remembered for its brutality in the civil war. Hekmatyar has led his own insurgency against Nato and Mr Karzai since 2002.
Fighters conceded that many of their number had once belonged to this group, but denied they were organised along political lines.
Faizanullah Faizan, a former governor and senior Hizb-i-Islami commander now playing a leading role in the uprising, said: "It's a 100 per cent civilian uprising. It doesn't belong to any political party, but we are made up of all the old groups."
Nato commanders stress they are watching, but not giving support. Brigadier-General Lewis Boone, from the International Security Assistance Force, said: "The basic situation in Andar is they don't like us and they don't like the Taliban. They want to be left alone essentially. Are we looking at it closely? You bet we are. Is it another uprising like we saw in Iraq? I think that would be a leap."
Taliban ‘Weapons Dealer' Capture in Helmand
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 15 August 2012
A Taliban weapons dealer was captured in a joint Afghan and Nato operation in southern Helmand province on Wednesday, Isaf said in a statement.
"An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Taliban weapons dealer during an operation in Sangin district inHelmand province today," Isaf said.
The weapons dealer provided homemade explosives and other improvised explosive device (IEDs) material to Taliban fighters.
At the time of his arrest, he was involved in plans to smuggle a large quantity of homemade explosives into the region for use in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces.
The security force also detained two suspected insurgents during the operation.
Another Taliban leader was captured in joint forces operation in Nahr-e-Saraj district of the province today. The Taliban leader recruited fighters and provided them with weapons and explosives.
Karzai Appoints Former Defense Minister as Senior Military Advisor
TOLOnews.com By Rezwan Natiq Tuesday, 14 August 2012
President Hamid Karzai appointed the former Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak as his senior military advisor said in a presidential statement released on Monday.
Wardak will focus on reform, development and training of Afghan National Security Forces, according to the statement.
Last week, Wardak was dismissed from his Defense Minister post after weak responses, according to lawmakers, to Pakistan's cross-border rocket attacks into Afghanistan. He was then ordered by President Karzai to retain his position until a nominee was suggested to Parliament.
Wardak, however, resigned from his position of nine years mission at the Ministry of Defense.
ISAF said in a press conference that Wardak's dismissal was a step back as he is one of its closest allies, but his dismissal would not have a negative impacts on the security transition.
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