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Eleven Killed In Afghan Helicopter Crash
By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal August 16, 2012
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan says that a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan has killed 11 people, including seven foreign troops.
ISAF said the crash resulted in the deaths of four ISAF service members, three U.S. soldiers, three members of the Afghan security forces, and one Afghan civilian interpreter.
ISAF did not reveal any further details but said the cause of the crash was under investigation.
In a statement, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi claimed Taliban militants downed the helicopter.
The claims could not be independently confirmed.
Reports say the helicopter crashed in Kandahar Province, a traditional stronghold of the militant group.
In August 2011, the Taliban shot down a U.S. helicopter near Kabul, killing eight Afghans and 30 Americans, including 22 U.S. Navy SEALs.
With reporting by AFP
Militants overlook Taliban leader's instructions, continue to harm civilians
By Abdul Haleem, Chen Xin
KABUL, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- The anti-government militants fighting Afghan security forces and the NATO-led troops have intensified indiscriminate offensives in Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, which also harm the civilians in spite of Mullah Omar's order to spare non-combatants.
In the latest such attacks for which the Taliban outfit has claimed responsibility, Taliban militants launched attacks using hand grenades, injuring 11 civilians in Khost province 150 km southeast of the capital city Kabul on Wednesday.
The militants threw a hand grenade on a group of workers near the entrance gate of a U.S. base in Khost city the capital of Khost province on Wednesday wounding 11 people two of them in critical condition, provincial police chief Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.
"A group of daily wagers were waiting for access to the base to work inside, but a man hurled a grenade injuring 11 people and all the injured were shifted to a provincial capital hospital where two of the injured were in critical condition," Zazai told Xinhua.
Meantime, in a sharp reaction the Taliban militants claimed of responsibility.
Zabihullah Mujahid who claims to speak for the Taliban outfit in talks with media via telephone from unknown location said that the Taliban had already warned people working for the foreign troops to stop service or face the music; therefore the Mujahidin (holy warriors) punished them.
The attack happened just days after Taliban elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, according to media reports has called upon his fighters to prevent attacks on civilians during Eidul Fatar holidays, the second largest religious festival in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries.
Mullah Omar who has escaped the U.S. manhunt over the past 11 years, in the statement urged his fighters to gain support of the people by considering the Islamic values of Ramadan and Eidul Fatar probably falling on Saturday or Sunday depending on moon sight.
In a related incident, up to 18 people including 17 civilians and a police were injured in a bomb explosion in Herat city the capital city of Herat province 640 km west of Kabul on Wednesday, police confirmed.
"An explosive device planted on a bicycle was detonated at around 3:30 p.m. local time Wednesday in Guzari Lelamiha area of the city, injuring 18 people including a police," a police officer told Xinhua but declined to be identified. The blast took place when the people were shopping for Eidul Fatar holidays.
Taliban outfit has yet to comment. However, the source put the attack on Taliban militants.
Twenty five people including four police were killed and 50 others including seven police sustained injuries as a group of six suicide bombers targeted Zaranj city, the capital of southwestern Nimroz province 790 km southwest of Kabul on Tuesday afternoon, Interior Ministry confirmed in a statement and blamed Taliban for the attack.
On the same day Tuesday, according to Interior Ministry, 11 people including 10 civilians and one police were killed and 36 others mostly civilians were injured as an explosion rocked Dashti Archi district in Kunduz province 250 km north of Kabul.
The commander of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has condemned the deadly attacks.
"By targeting innocent civilians in populated areas, the insurgents have again shown they will kill non-combatants without hesitation to advance their backward looking plans for Afghanistan. Once again, I call on Mullah Omar to rein in his murderers. His intentions not to target civilians are hollow," said Gen. John R. Allen, the ISAF commander in a statement released here.
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.
A total of 1,145 Afghan civilians were killed and 1,954 injured in conflict -- related violent incidents and attacks in the first six months of 2012, with 80 percent of civilian casualties attributed to the anti-government elements.
Taliban Commander Killed in Takhar Raids
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 16 August 2012
A well-known Taliban commander, Mullah Anwar, was killed in an Afghan and Nato troops operatoin in the Ashkmash district in northern Takhar province on Wednesday, local officials said.
The raid was launched after it was found that "the commander was behind Monday's suicide attack in Ashkmash which killed five, including district mayor Haji Hashim," provincial spokesman Faizulllah Towhidi said.
Two of the commander's security guards were also killed.
There were no civilian casualties during the operation, he added.
Meanhwile, Isaf in a statement today said that in Ashkamash district of Takhar province, yesterday, an Afghan and coalition security force conducted an operation to find Mullah Anwar, a senior Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader.
During the operation, the security force was attacked by a group of insurgents. The force returned fire and conducted a precision airstrike.
After the strike, the force conducted a follow-on assessment and confirmed the strike had killed multiple insurgents including Anwar.
"Anwar is the senior IMU military leader in Burkah district of Baghlan province and was involved in the assassination of the Ashkamash district mayor on Monday," Isaf said in a statement.
The security force also detained two suspected insurgents and seised multiple weapons and explosives during the operation.
Ashakmash district borders Baghlan province where insurgents are active and often target local officials.
Afghan self-defense groups give communities new freedoms
USA TODAY By Carmen Gentile, Special for USA TODAY 15/08/2012
SIAH CHOY, Afghanistan - Only a few months ago, people in this small village were virtually prisoners in their own homes, resident Haji Galam says.
They were forbidden from traveling freely or using their cellphones. "They were placing IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in front of people's home so they couldn't go out at night," says Galam who spoke in front of a small mudbrick mosque where the Taliban used to sleep at night.
Today, villagers can come and go as they please. The Taliban has been driven from this area, a former insurgent stronghold west of Kandahar, thanks largely to Galam and his neighbors who joined the ranks of the Afghan Local Police (ALP), a U.S.-funded initiative to organize villagers into self-defense units.
Nationwide, there are now 13,500 villagers in the self-defense groups, which are considered a critical part of efforts to turn security responsibility over to the Afghan government as U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan.
By the end of September, the number of U.S. forces will have declined to about 68,000 from a high of about 100,000 last year. Most U.S. troops will leave at the end of 2014 when Afghan forces will assume responsibility for securing the country. Afghan soldiers and the local self-defense groups are assuming an increasing share of responsibility for providing security.
U.S. officials say the Afghan Local Police are not independent militia but are tied into Afghanistan's government. "They are held accountable for their actions," says Army Lt. Col. Todd Harrell, a military spokesman.
Critics, including Human Rights Watch, say some groups have abused their authority, and their loyalties are questionable. Individuals receive only three weeks of weapons training, and the group doesn't have the same level of organization and leadership as the Afghan army.
"The ALP is fighting for the money, nothing else," says Afghan army Capt. Azzim Hotek, whose soldiers in nearby Nalgham village work alongside the local police, though they share a strained relationship.
Coalition officials say a key asset is their local knowledge. With the help of the ALP, about 150 IEDs, or roadside bombs, were pulled from the ground in a few square miles around Siah Choy over the past few months, says Lt. Col Jeffrey Howard, a battalion commander.
"They know the locals and have better interaction with the local population," Howard says. "They can tell us who is from here and who isn't."
Critics, including some in Afghanistan's army, question the professionalism and loyalties of local groups. Hotek accuses some of the ALP commanders in his area of having ties to the Taliban.
Coalition officers acknowledge that the groups have been divided by tribal and other disputes.
"During my first month there was a lot of infighting and power struggles among them," says Army Capt. Jose Armenta, a company commander.
The future of the program is not clear. Providing salaries, weapons and ammunition will be the responsibility of the Afghan government once American troops are gone.
Hotek said he doesn't believe the local units will remain loyal to the Afghan government. "When the Americans leave, the ALP is finished," he says.
For now, the groups have had an impact on security, Armenta says.
Here in central Zharay, the birthplace of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, the ALP is creating a security presence in an area where the Taliban once enjoyed freedom.
By March, the villages around Combat Outpost Nalgham had been cleared of Taliban infiltrators, as dozens of local police regularly patrol area villages and man checkpoints, according to leaders of the previous unit that first stood up the ALP.
"There used to be fighting here every day before the ALP came," says Ali Mohammed, a farmer in Nalgham. "Now, we have more security and can go out without fear."
Taliban Says It Attacked Pakistani Air Force Base
VOA News August 16, 2012
Militants armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades have attacked a large air force base in northern Pakistan, setting off a fierce battle that ended with one soldier and nine militants dead.
Pakistani officials say the base in Kamra is back under control after several hours of fighting Thursday that also wounded the base's commander. Earlier reports said two Pakistani security officials had been killed.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The militant group has targeted a string of military bases in the past several years.
Pakistani military officials said the base, located about 60 kilometers northwest of Islamabad, has no links to the country's nuclear arsenal.
The facility is home to the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, which builds fighter jets.
Also Thursday, authorities say suspected Sunni militants pulled at least 22 Shi'ites off buses in Pakistan's northwestern Chitral region and shot and killed them. The buses were traveling from the the city of Rawalpindi to the northern city of Gilgit.
Afghan attacks on allies alarm departing nations
The Washington Times By Ashish Kumar Sen and Rowan Scarborough Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Western nations preparing to withdraw from combat in Afghanistan increasingly are alarmed by Afghan security forces turning their weapons on allied troops, attacks that the Taliban claim as proof of their sway over local troops.
Five such attacks have occurred in the past week — the deadliest on Friday, when six U.S. troops were killed by Afghan security personnel in two separate incidents.
Called “green-on-blue” attacks in reference to colors of Afghan uniforms and coalition helmets, the assaults heightened tensions and frayed nerves among coalition troops as international forces aim to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
“Probably the biggest area of frustration is the continued lack of trustworthiness of many members of the Afghan National Army [ANA], as demonstrated by the disturbing frequency of green-on-blue violence,” said Paul Pillar, a CIA veteran and former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia.
“The overall combat effectiveness and ability of the ANA to operate independently is obviously a focus of major concern and effort. But in terms of outright frustration, I would think the tenuous loyalties of members of a force that is supposed to be our ally would rank most highly,” he said.
As of Monday, there have been 29 green-on-blue attacks this year and a total of 37 coalition deaths, 21 of which have been Americans, according to statistics provided by the Pentagon.
At a Pentagon briefing Tuesday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta expressed concern that such attacks occur, in part because of the “potential damage to our partnership efforts.”
The attacks also are taking a toll on troop morale.
“For our service members operating in the field hearing about these attacks, it is only natural to be concerned about their welfare and that of their buddies, and to have a heightened sense of awareness,” said Navy Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a Pentagon spokesman. “Anyone in that position would do the same, and we don’t discount the impact of these tragedies on individual morale.”
In a letter Tuesday to commanders in Afghanistan, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos sought to soothe the rattled nerves of troops. He said such attacks show that the U.S. is winning the war against Taliban insurgents.
“When faced with the stark reality of what has just happened, it would be easy to give in to the belief that these attacks indicate we are losing the fight,” Gen. Amos wrote in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. “In fact, the opposite is true.
“These attacks are occurring because we are winning the fight in [regional command southwest],” he said. “Over the last four years, we have steadily improved the security situation in Helmand [province]. Historical casualty levels have steadily declined. Afghan security forces have made dramatic improvements in dependability, capability and performance.”
Countering the attacks
The Marines suffered their worst so-called “green-on-blue” fatalities on Friday. An Afghan police officer fatally shot three Marines he had invited to dinner in Helmand province. That same day, three Marines assigned to a training unit were killed by an Afghan policeman in Helmand.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks, often exaggerating their success and citing the assaults as proof of their infiltration of Afghanistan’s security apparatus.
Military leaders and defense analysts have downplayed the Taliban’s self-proclaimed role in the attacks, some of which have occurred after personal conflicts between Afghan and allied troops. Defense officials say the attacks have had no operational impact.
“We are certainly concerned” about green-on-blue attacks, said Cmdr. Speaks, the Pentagon spokesman.
“But it is important to remember that the 31 shooters in incidents this year make up less than 1/100th of 1 percent of all [Afghan security] personnel,” he said. “These insidious attacks are designed to sow doubt among the coalition forces and our Afghan partners, but we will not be deterred,” he added.
In his letter to Marine commanders, Gen. Amos said: “Faced with our undeniable momentum and his own failure, the enemy is increasingly forced to resort to spectacular attacks. I am confident that these recent attacks were carefully crafted to drive a wedge between us and our Afghan partners. This is a common theme in the latter stages of a counterinsurgency operation. We saw the same thing in Iraq after the balance had tipped in our favor.”
To stop the attacks, the military is taking several steps, including increasing counterintelligence and putting into place an eight-step vetting process for Afghan security forces recruits.
The huge financial investment made by the U.S. and its NATO allies in Afghanistan’s security forces is being undermined not only by green-on-blue attacks, but by rampant corruption, nepotism and divided loyalties within these institutions.
Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the House Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations last month that similar “divided loyalties” opened the door to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, years of civil war and eventually the collapse of the Soviet-backed government in Kabul in 1992.
“Even high-level military officers and government officials left to join the same Pashtun, Tajik, or Hazara Islamist militias that they had only recently been fighting against,” he said.
“The threat that similar divisions could split the current Afghan central government must be taken seriously, given the rise of a new Northern Alliance and factional divisions among Pashtuns,” he added. The Northern Alliance is made up of non-Pashtun ethnic groups, mainly Tajiks and Uzbeks, who joined forces to fight the predominantly Pashtun Taliban.
U.S. and Afghan officials readily acknowledge these problems, but a solution remains elusive.
Other challenges
“There are fault lines in [Afghan] institutions based on ethnicity, and that is the painful history of Afghanistan,” said Said T. Jawad, who served as Afghanistan’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2003 to 2010. “There is definitely a need to focus on the morale, the commitment and the loyalty of the troops so that their loyalty lies with the Afghan flag.”
Mr. Jawad has been mentioned as a potential successor to Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, who resigned as defense minister last week after receiving a vote of no confidence from the parliament. Mr. Jawad lacks military experience, but is well-connected in Washington, where he is based.
Others whose names have been floated for the position are former Interior Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, former Deputy Defense Minister Atiquallah Baryalai and Education Minister Farooq Wardak.
One of the biggest challenges for the next minister will be to negotiate a status-of-forces agreement with the U.S. that will determine the conditions for the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014.
“It will be a hard sell for both countries to their own people,” said Shahmahmood Miakhel, the Afghanistan-based country director of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
President Obama intends to leave a small follow-on force in Afghanistan that would focus on training the Afghan military to full capacity and conducting joint counterterrorism operations after 2014.
The U.S. administration will have its work cut out trying to win Congress’ approval for such a force, said Mr. Miakhel. The Afghan government will have the challenge of justifying the presence of these troops to the Afghan people, determining the role they will play under Afghan law and managing the reaction of Afghanistan’s neighbors who look warily on a U.S. presence in the region, he added.
Meanwhile, the coalition faces the challenge of turning the Afghan National Security Forces into a professional and cohesive fighting force.
Joshua Foust, a fellow at the American Security Project, said the Afghan National Security Forces‘ performance is probably the biggest source of frustration for Afghanistan’s allies.
“Some units have lived up to the hype and performed admirably, but there remain serious shortfalls in performance and retention that need to be addressed,” he said.
Part of the challenge is the high expectations of U.S. trainers, who demand performance from Afghan recruits that are probably unrealistic, he said.
“But the other challenge is the occasionally misleading reports of progress from [the NATO training mission]. Soldiers have complained for years that the training is not long enough or tailored closely enough to the needs of Afghan recruits to perform to the standards the U.S. demands. As a result, there is growing frustration about reality not meeting either expectations or public brags by the leadership,” he said.
Afghan forces have taken the lead in 40 percent of conventional operations, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to improve their capabilities in areas such as logistics and other specialized warfare.
Mr. Cordesman warned lawmakers that a realistic assessment of the Afghan security forces‘ capabilities is crucial as the Obama administration draws down U.S. troops.
“‘Spinning’ positive reports to the neglect of real problems at the strategic level is a recipe for defeat, regardless of how well the [Afghans] perform militarily,” he said.
As Afghanistan turns
The shake-up in Karzai's government portends the nation's divided future.
Los Angles Times By Sarah Chayes Op-Ed August 16, 2012
In a raucous session that brought lawmakers to blows this month, the Afghan parliament passed a no-confidence vote against the country's top security officials: the ministers of defense and interior. With Afghanistan struggling to take on more challenging pieces of its own defense burden from international troops, the decision came as an ill-timed surprise. Just as surprising was President Hamid Karzai's quick agreement that the two should go.
It is always hazardous to claim to see through the complexities of Afghan politics, but the ousters were clearly rooted, at least in part, in a fierce struggle for positioning in a post-America Afghanistan that may well implode.
One reason cited by officials and the media for the no-confidence vote is that the lawmakers had grown exasperated by the security forces' inability to stem or respond to artillery fire that has been pummeling Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan. It's certainly true that people are frustrated by the shelling, but whether that is the reason or the excuse for the vote is less clear. Short of a declaration of war on Pakistan, an eminently political decision that would require at least some international coordination, it's not clear what the army could do.
A second reason cited for the ousters is that Karzai wants to demonstrate that he is at last taking action against corruption in his government, and the record of police and military personnel is particularly poor. However, having worked for two commanders of international military forces as well as for the Joint Staff on anti-corruption policy in Afghanistan, I have not observed Karzai, since 2003, make a good-faith move to address the institutionalized graft that plagues his country. Rather, he has obstructed anti-corruption efforts, directing ministers to shut down investigations, ordering detained suspects set free, and reportedly helping arrange the 2010 escape from Afghanistan of a former minister of religious affairs indicted on charges of corruption. It seems unlikely that high-mindedness is motivating the president now.
A third reason frequently cited for the vote is that the members of the Afghan parliament — far from immune to corruption themselves — were irritated at their inability to obtain some of the jobs and lucrative contracts the two ministers hand out. Though all of these possibilities probably contain elements of truth, and may have helped stoke lawmakers' enthusiasm for the vote, this third one rings truest.
But to understand the move's greatest significance, you have to examine the ouster of the interior minister, Bismullah Khan Mohammadi.
Mohammadi, an ethnic Tajik, was a key commander in the northern resistance to the Taliban during the civil war that raged in Afghanistan from 1994 through the fall of that regime in 2001. For the first eight years of the Karzai government, he served as chief of staff of the Afghan national army. Senior U.S. and Afghan military officers once described to me how shrewdly he calculated his appointments, especially at the crucial middle-management level, larding the officer corps with lieutenant colonels and colonels loyal to the old northern commanders.
As minister of the interior, a position he assumed in June 2010, he aggressively pursued the same policy within the Afghan national police while retaining the personal loyalty of many ranking army officers. In 2011, NATO's International Security Assistance Force Joint Command, which manages the day-to-day running of the war, was tracking the way he gerrymandered police zones in the north so as to build what amounted to a region that excludes ethnic Pashtuns. He also rapidly expanded the arming of local militias in the north.
Most Afghans and experienced observers I know say a plausible scenario upon the large-scale departure of international troops in 2014 is either disintegration into civil conflict or a de facto division of power along ethnic lines, with a Pakistan-backed Pashtun bloc in the south and east lining up against one or more northern non-Pashtun blocs that might well gain military support from India and Uzbekistan, if not Iran. Recent signs indicate that many key players are already rushing to consolidate their positions within this framework, already operating, for all intents and purposes, in a post-2014 world.
It is in this context that Mohammadi's dismissal is to be understood. He is a key northern bloc asset. And in the same way international forces stepped up their campaign to capture and kill Taliban commanders, northern military leaders are being neutralized at a rapid rate, regardless of their official positions in the Karzai government. Before Mohammadi, it was key Uzbek former commander Ahmad Khan Samanghani, killed in a blast at a wedding in mid-July.
The other minister voted out of office this month, Abdul Rahim Wardak, is far less consequential. Though described as a Karzai loyalist and appreciated by international officials, he was known to be the butt of verbal abuse by Karzai in Cabinet meetings and was reputed to be a heavy drinker with little real control over the Afghan army. Karzai typically removes officials in pairs to provide the appearance of ethnic or tribal evenhandedness. In this case, Wardak would be the fig leaf for Mohammadi's removal.
This reading of events suggests that Karzai will end up aligning himself with the Pakistan/Pashtun, Taliban-tolerant bloc. While as president he has often criticized Pakistan, he also has expressed understanding for the Taliban and has pardoned dozens of Taliban prisoners. In 1994, when the Taliban took power in southern Afghanistan, Karzai was a strong supporter. The regime selected him to serve as its ambassador to the United Nations, though it never got a seat in the world body. So perhaps we should not be surprised if he lines up that way again today.
Sarah Chayes, former special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a resident associate at the Carnegie Endowment and a contributing writer to Opinion.
Afghan-Pakistani Team To Probe Cross-Border Shelling
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan August 15, 2012
KABUL -- Afghan officials say a deal has been struck with Pakistan to investigate a recent surge in cross-border attacks that has raised tensions between the two neighbors.
Aimal Faizi, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said a joint military team will be sent to the country's porous eastern border with Pakistan to conduct an investigation.
Faizi revealed that Karzai asked Zardari to put a stop to attacks on Afghan territory and said the cross-border shelling was having "an extremely negative impact" on Afghan attitudes toward Pakistan.
"The Afghan president asked the Pakistani government to immediately stop its cross-border shelling," Faizi said.
"He said the attacks from Pakistan into Afghan territory were having a negative impact on the friendship between the Afghan and Pakistani people and that these attacks should be stopped immediately."
Afghan officials, who blame Pakistan for the alleged attacks, say thousands of rockets and heavy artillery shells have landed in eastern Afghanistan in recent months, killing dozens of civilians and forcing thousands to flee their homes.
NATO's military force in Afghanistan last month also condemned cross-border shelling from Pakistan.
Pakistani officials have rejected the allegations, insisting that Pakistani troops only respond to attacks from militants.
Afghanistan's parliament earlier this month dismissed the country's defense and interior ministers over alleged security failures, including perceived inaction by the two ministers in the face of the spate of cross-border shelling.
Afghanistan and Pakistan typically blame each other for violence by Taliban militants plaguing both sides of their border, known as the Durand Line.
With reporting by AFP
The U.S. Plot to Blow Up the Afghan Ministry of Defense
TIME By Mark Thompson August 15, 2012
Times have gotten tougher in Afghanistan given the latest green-on-blue attacks, where Afghan troops – or at least killers clad like Afghan troops – have taken to killing U.S. and other allied personnel with firearms or suicide vests. Army Major David Fitzpatrick, who was deployed as a trainer for the Afghan military in Kabul from July 2010 to July 2011, knows how a high-profile attack – even when it fails – can change the everyday life of U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan.
He details some of those changes in this recently-posted June interview he did with the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Part of his job involved regularly going to the Afghan Ministry of Defense to mentor Afghan military personnel. But that got tougher after an insurgent penetrated that compound and came close to killing then-Afghan Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak. Highlights:
It was April of 2011, the Afghan MoD was infiltrated and there was a suicide bomber that made it into the main office of our MoD, who made it to the actual third floor and almost got to the Minister’s office, Minister Wardak, the actual Minister of Defense.
The suicide bomber made it to the minister’s office before he was shot. Yeah, our biggest incident was there so from there our force protection level went to the maxthe suicide bomber didn’t detonate because he was killed before he could — he was halfway down the hallway before he would have detonated himself, before he was stopped.
From there, the tension between us and the Afghan were high. Afghans didn’t trust anyone anymore. There were rumors going around that the infiltrator was seen getting out of a black SUV and for some reason the Afghans thinks that the Coalition only drives black SUVs. [Laughter]
They were accusing us of bringing in the infiltrator. They were very suspicious of us. Before the attack, it would take us a minute to get through the main entrance; now it would take an hour-and-a-half to get through security because they would search us.
It was funny. They would stop us, search our vehicles when we did drive, search our persons but any Afghan vehicle coming in that was covered, like with a tarp on the back of the bed of the truck, or dark windows, they would just wave on through and didn’t even bother to stop them. It was like, “That’s how the suicide bomber got in, not through us. Why would we bring somebody in to blow up the Minister of Defense? That doesn’t make sense.”
We even pointed out while we were being searched at the gate, “Look, you just let another truck in and he’s got a tarp on the back. Do you know what is underneath that tarp?” It was just rumors. They believed rumor quite a bit and so they were suspicious of us because they had heard a rumor. That was it.
Yeah, we were always kind of fearful because the guards were very — I am not going to say trigger happy but they were — yeah.
I think they’re under a lot of pressure. The Afghans started putting Colonels and Generals down at the gates and main entrance to supervise, so the Afghan Soldiers manning the gates were feeling the pressure. I am sure the Generals and Colonels were telling the guards to search everybody except for certain individuals.
In Afghanistan, Scandal Erupts Over Changing Street Name To Honor Iranians
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan August 15, 2012
MAZAR-I SHARIF, Afghanistan -- Provincial officials in northern Afghanistan have asked the central government in Kabul to decide whether a street in Mazar-e Sharif should be named after a group of Iranian diplomats killed there in 1998.
The move, announced in a statement by the Administrative Council of Balkh Province, comes after a scandal erupted over reports that the street with Iran's former consulate building in Mazar-e Sharif already had been renamed Martyrs of the Consulate of the Islamic Republic of Iran without approval from Kabul.
If the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture blocks the proposed name change, the affair is likely to rekindle an old dispute and damage relations between Tehran and Kabul.
But formal approval of the name change risks angering the many Afghans who view the Iranian diplomats as spies who had tried to divide Afghanistan along sectarian lines in order to create a Shi'ite-dominated buffer state on Iran's eastern border.
Eight Iranian diplomats and an employee of Iran's state-run IRNA news agency were killed at the Iranian consulate building in August 1998 when Mazar-e Sharif was overrun by Taliban fighters.
A senior Taliban official at the time -- Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil -- initially said Taliban investigators concluded that the Iranians were killed by "renegade forces" who acted without orders from the Taliban leadership. Later, the Taliban denied any involvement in their deaths.
Tehran has always blamed the killings on the Taliban, saying it also held Pakistan's government partly responsible because Islamabad had vouched for the safety of the diplomats before Mazar-e Sharif fell to the Taliban.
Angry Debate
Reports of the street name being changed to honor the slain Iranians emerged last week in an announcement by Iran's Foreign Ministry.
By August 12, the story had boiled over into an angry debate on the floor of the Afghan parliament.
"The people who were killed there may have been spies, but now they name the roads in their honor," said Mohammad Akbar Stanikzai, an independent member of parliament from Logar Province. "If you see how Afghans in Iran are not allowed to attend Friday Prayers, how they don't have permission to attend the religious schools, or how Iran executes innocent Afghans, it is shameful for us to rename our streets in honor of their spies."
In fact, the administrators of Balkh Province say the original request to change the name of the street was made by the Iranian government, which had itself renamed a street in Tehran after the slain Afghan anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Masud.
Balkh's governor, Atta Mohammad Noor, is said to have backed the change and forwarded it to the provincial council for their approval in order to recognize "the services and cooperation of the friendly country of Iran with the people of Afghanistan" during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and resistance against the Taliban regime.
'An Insult' To Afghan Culture
It was after the debates in parliament that Balkh's provincial council admitted the name change also requires approval from the Information and Culture Ministry in Kabul.
Afghan analyst Razaq Mamoon told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that a majority of the Afghan people oppose the name change.
"This is an extraordinary decision and it is not compatible with Afghanistan's laws," Mamoon says. "It will be opposed by a majority of the people. The reason is that the street named after Abu Muslim-i Khorasani [the current name of the street] is a central road of the city. Naming it to honor nine or 10 Iranian spies will be an insult to Abu Muslim-i Khorasani and Afghan culture."
Tehran has long been accused of playing a double game in Afghanistan -- helping Afghan Shi'ites while allegedly working to destabilize the larger Sunni Afghan community.
Relations between Kabul and Tehran have been strained in recent years due to Iran's toughened immigration policy, which has led to the repatriation of many Afghan asylum seekers.
Although Iran has hosted a large number of Afghan refugees since the early 1980s, it has tried to repatriate those still in Iran as soon as possible.
Angry demonstrations have been sparked in Afghanistan by public executions of Afghan citizens in the streets of Iran.
There also have been many reports alleging that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has been training Afghan militants inside Iran to carry out terrorist attacks back in Afghanistan.
Written by RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz in Prague, based on reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan in Mazar-e Sharif and Kabul
Lawmaker: Nimroz Bombers Were Iranian
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Lawmakers condemned the deadly Nimroz attacks, alleging that the bombers who targetted a civilian hospital in Zaranj city and a crowded Bazaar in the same area killing 29 were Iranian Balochs.
According to Nimroz MP Freshta Amini, the "three suicide bombers arrested yesterday were Iranian Balochs and the matter will be discussed with the Iranian embassy."
The MPs also said that if Iran, like Pakistan, starts sending terrorists to Afghanistan, it will create major issues for Afghanistan and Afghan security forces should prevent these infiltrations.
Five other would-be suicide bombers were killed by Police and three others detained. The nationalities of the dead and detained attackers have yet to be confirmed.
NDS Detains Three Assassins in Herat
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Three insurgents attempting to assassinate a provincial Ulema Council member by placing explosives in the scholar's car were detained by the National Directorate of Security personnel, according to the provincial spokesman Mahiuddin Noori.
"These individuals confessed that they were planning to kill religious scholars in Herat province," Noori said.
Noori also added that a prominent Taliban commander was killed in an Afghan-led operation in Kuzra district of Herat.
Afghan National Army Special Forces conducted the operation in the Haft Darband areas of the Kuzra district to eradicate a Taliban's hideout. Three Taliban fighters, including their commander Faiz Mohammad, were killed and 8 other Taliban fighters were injured.
Multiple explosives devices were seized at the time of operation.
Olympic medal helps unify torn Afghanistan
DW 15/08/2012
The Afghan taekwondo master Rohullah Nikpah won his second consecutive bronze medal at the Olympics. The country's six athletes received a warm welcome home on Tuesday from cheering crowds.
Crowds went wild in Kabul's Ghazi Stadium. Where once the Taliban used to carry out public executions, people cheered and waved flags to welcome home the country's six athletes who participated in the 2012 London Olympics. They cheered loudest for Rohullah Nikpah, winner of the bronze medal in taekwondo.
"The best part for me is not the medal itself but the peace, unity and fraternity it has created among my fellow countrymen," Nikpah said after returning home.
Hundreds of people went to the stadium, especially children and young adults, to celebrate Rohullah Nikpah and the medal he brought back for Afghanistan. One group of about 50 boys dressed in taekwondo uniforms stood in the staduim holding placards and portraits of the athletes and of national symbols of Afghanistan.
Positive attention
One of the boys named Majed said, "I want to win a medal, too, and go abroad and represent my country in competition. It makes me so happy to see Afghanistan getting positive attention."
Conidering the daily news, which is full of reports of attacks and killings, Nikpah's bronze medal is like balm for the soul of Afghanistan.
The enthusiasm for the games was quite novelty this year. People throughout the entire country celebrated when they saw the taekwondo champion holding the Afghan flag in London. This year, posters and placards with the athletes' pictures printed on them were hung up all over the country, contrary to the last Olympic Games, explained Afghan sports journalist Musadeq Parsa.
"The Beijing Olympics took place in 2008 without hardly anyone in Afghanistan noticing. No one expected Nikpah to win a medal. So this time, the suspence was all the greater - the people watched with great interest and showed their support for him."
Unity through patriotism
He said it was apparent that the Afghan people's enthusiasm for this year's Olympic games and for their country's athletes brought them closer together.
"One could say that the ethnic conflicts decreased by 90 percent during the games. The athletes received equal support from the Afghan people - no matter where in Afghanistan they were from or which ethnic group they belonged to. During the games there were no ethnic differences - there was just Afghanistan."
Speaking for this is the fact that Rohullah Nikpah is an ethnic Hazara - a group of people which usually faces discrimination. While it was good that the London Games were helping Afghans to forget their prejudices, Parsa said the government was not doing enough to invest in the country's sports infrastructure.
"Getting kids interested in sports is the government's responsibility. They don't allocate extra money for the training of competitive athletes. Foreign aid donors have also not given enough support for this important part of society."
But at least Afghanistan is preparing to introduce a football league based on the European model. Medal winner Nikpah is sure that sports will play a pivitol role in the peace process of his country.
"I wanted the people of Afghanistan to be happy with my performance and to come together and enjoy the games. God willing, this kind of patriotism will grow day by day."
Author: Waslat Hasrat-Nazimi / sb Editor: Shamil Shams
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal August 16, 2012
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan says that a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan has killed 11 people, including seven foreign troops.
ISAF said the crash resulted in the deaths of four ISAF service members, three U.S. soldiers, three members of the Afghan security forces, and one Afghan civilian interpreter.
ISAF did not reveal any further details but said the cause of the crash was under investigation.
In a statement, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi claimed Taliban militants downed the helicopter.
The claims could not be independently confirmed.
Reports say the helicopter crashed in Kandahar Province, a traditional stronghold of the militant group.
In August 2011, the Taliban shot down a U.S. helicopter near Kabul, killing eight Afghans and 30 Americans, including 22 U.S. Navy SEALs.
With reporting by AFP
Militants overlook Taliban leader's instructions, continue to harm civilians
By Abdul Haleem, Chen Xin
KABUL, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- The anti-government militants fighting Afghan security forces and the NATO-led troops have intensified indiscriminate offensives in Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, which also harm the civilians in spite of Mullah Omar's order to spare non-combatants.
In the latest such attacks for which the Taliban outfit has claimed responsibility, Taliban militants launched attacks using hand grenades, injuring 11 civilians in Khost province 150 km southeast of the capital city Kabul on Wednesday.
The militants threw a hand grenade on a group of workers near the entrance gate of a U.S. base in Khost city the capital of Khost province on Wednesday wounding 11 people two of them in critical condition, provincial police chief Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.
"A group of daily wagers were waiting for access to the base to work inside, but a man hurled a grenade injuring 11 people and all the injured were shifted to a provincial capital hospital where two of the injured were in critical condition," Zazai told Xinhua.
Meantime, in a sharp reaction the Taliban militants claimed of responsibility.
Zabihullah Mujahid who claims to speak for the Taliban outfit in talks with media via telephone from unknown location said that the Taliban had already warned people working for the foreign troops to stop service or face the music; therefore the Mujahidin (holy warriors) punished them.
The attack happened just days after Taliban elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, according to media reports has called upon his fighters to prevent attacks on civilians during Eidul Fatar holidays, the second largest religious festival in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries.
Mullah Omar who has escaped the U.S. manhunt over the past 11 years, in the statement urged his fighters to gain support of the people by considering the Islamic values of Ramadan and Eidul Fatar probably falling on Saturday or Sunday depending on moon sight.
In a related incident, up to 18 people including 17 civilians and a police were injured in a bomb explosion in Herat city the capital city of Herat province 640 km west of Kabul on Wednesday, police confirmed.
"An explosive device planted on a bicycle was detonated at around 3:30 p.m. local time Wednesday in Guzari Lelamiha area of the city, injuring 18 people including a police," a police officer told Xinhua but declined to be identified. The blast took place when the people were shopping for Eidul Fatar holidays.
Taliban outfit has yet to comment. However, the source put the attack on Taliban militants.
Twenty five people including four police were killed and 50 others including seven police sustained injuries as a group of six suicide bombers targeted Zaranj city, the capital of southwestern Nimroz province 790 km southwest of Kabul on Tuesday afternoon, Interior Ministry confirmed in a statement and blamed Taliban for the attack.
On the same day Tuesday, according to Interior Ministry, 11 people including 10 civilians and one police were killed and 36 others mostly civilians were injured as an explosion rocked Dashti Archi district in Kunduz province 250 km north of Kabul.
The commander of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has condemned the deadly attacks.
"By targeting innocent civilians in populated areas, the insurgents have again shown they will kill non-combatants without hesitation to advance their backward looking plans for Afghanistan. Once again, I call on Mullah Omar to rein in his murderers. His intentions not to target civilians are hollow," said Gen. John R. Allen, the ISAF commander in a statement released here.
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.
A total of 1,145 Afghan civilians were killed and 1,954 injured in conflict -- related violent incidents and attacks in the first six months of 2012, with 80 percent of civilian casualties attributed to the anti-government elements.
Taliban Commander Killed in Takhar Raids
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 16 August 2012
A well-known Taliban commander, Mullah Anwar, was killed in an Afghan and Nato troops operatoin in the Ashkmash district in northern Takhar province on Wednesday, local officials said.
The raid was launched after it was found that "the commander was behind Monday's suicide attack in Ashkmash which killed five, including district mayor Haji Hashim," provincial spokesman Faizulllah Towhidi said.
Two of the commander's security guards were also killed.
There were no civilian casualties during the operation, he added.
Meanhwile, Isaf in a statement today said that in Ashkamash district of Takhar province, yesterday, an Afghan and coalition security force conducted an operation to find Mullah Anwar, a senior Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader.
During the operation, the security force was attacked by a group of insurgents. The force returned fire and conducted a precision airstrike.
After the strike, the force conducted a follow-on assessment and confirmed the strike had killed multiple insurgents including Anwar.
"Anwar is the senior IMU military leader in Burkah district of Baghlan province and was involved in the assassination of the Ashkamash district mayor on Monday," Isaf said in a statement.
The security force also detained two suspected insurgents and seised multiple weapons and explosives during the operation.
Ashakmash district borders Baghlan province where insurgents are active and often target local officials.
Afghan self-defense groups give communities new freedoms
USA TODAY By Carmen Gentile, Special for USA TODAY 15/08/2012
SIAH CHOY, Afghanistan - Only a few months ago, people in this small village were virtually prisoners in their own homes, resident Haji Galam says.
They were forbidden from traveling freely or using their cellphones. "They were placing IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in front of people's home so they couldn't go out at night," says Galam who spoke in front of a small mudbrick mosque where the Taliban used to sleep at night.
Today, villagers can come and go as they please. The Taliban has been driven from this area, a former insurgent stronghold west of Kandahar, thanks largely to Galam and his neighbors who joined the ranks of the Afghan Local Police (ALP), a U.S.-funded initiative to organize villagers into self-defense units.
Nationwide, there are now 13,500 villagers in the self-defense groups, which are considered a critical part of efforts to turn security responsibility over to the Afghan government as U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan.
By the end of September, the number of U.S. forces will have declined to about 68,000 from a high of about 100,000 last year. Most U.S. troops will leave at the end of 2014 when Afghan forces will assume responsibility for securing the country. Afghan soldiers and the local self-defense groups are assuming an increasing share of responsibility for providing security.
U.S. officials say the Afghan Local Police are not independent militia but are tied into Afghanistan's government. "They are held accountable for their actions," says Army Lt. Col. Todd Harrell, a military spokesman.
Critics, including Human Rights Watch, say some groups have abused their authority, and their loyalties are questionable. Individuals receive only three weeks of weapons training, and the group doesn't have the same level of organization and leadership as the Afghan army.
"The ALP is fighting for the money, nothing else," says Afghan army Capt. Azzim Hotek, whose soldiers in nearby Nalgham village work alongside the local police, though they share a strained relationship.
Coalition officials say a key asset is their local knowledge. With the help of the ALP, about 150 IEDs, or roadside bombs, were pulled from the ground in a few square miles around Siah Choy over the past few months, says Lt. Col Jeffrey Howard, a battalion commander.
"They know the locals and have better interaction with the local population," Howard says. "They can tell us who is from here and who isn't."
Critics, including some in Afghanistan's army, question the professionalism and loyalties of local groups. Hotek accuses some of the ALP commanders in his area of having ties to the Taliban.
Coalition officers acknowledge that the groups have been divided by tribal and other disputes.
"During my first month there was a lot of infighting and power struggles among them," says Army Capt. Jose Armenta, a company commander.
The future of the program is not clear. Providing salaries, weapons and ammunition will be the responsibility of the Afghan government once American troops are gone.
Hotek said he doesn't believe the local units will remain loyal to the Afghan government. "When the Americans leave, the ALP is finished," he says.
For now, the groups have had an impact on security, Armenta says.
Here in central Zharay, the birthplace of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, the ALP is creating a security presence in an area where the Taliban once enjoyed freedom.
By March, the villages around Combat Outpost Nalgham had been cleared of Taliban infiltrators, as dozens of local police regularly patrol area villages and man checkpoints, according to leaders of the previous unit that first stood up the ALP.
"There used to be fighting here every day before the ALP came," says Ali Mohammed, a farmer in Nalgham. "Now, we have more security and can go out without fear."
Taliban Says It Attacked Pakistani Air Force Base
VOA News August 16, 2012
Militants armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades have attacked a large air force base in northern Pakistan, setting off a fierce battle that ended with one soldier and nine militants dead.
Pakistani officials say the base in Kamra is back under control after several hours of fighting Thursday that also wounded the base's commander. Earlier reports said two Pakistani security officials had been killed.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The militant group has targeted a string of military bases in the past several years.
Pakistani military officials said the base, located about 60 kilometers northwest of Islamabad, has no links to the country's nuclear arsenal.
The facility is home to the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, which builds fighter jets.
Also Thursday, authorities say suspected Sunni militants pulled at least 22 Shi'ites off buses in Pakistan's northwestern Chitral region and shot and killed them. The buses were traveling from the the city of Rawalpindi to the northern city of Gilgit.
Afghan attacks on allies alarm departing nations
The Washington Times By Ashish Kumar Sen and Rowan Scarborough Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Western nations preparing to withdraw from combat in Afghanistan increasingly are alarmed by Afghan security forces turning their weapons on allied troops, attacks that the Taliban claim as proof of their sway over local troops.
Five such attacks have occurred in the past week — the deadliest on Friday, when six U.S. troops were killed by Afghan security personnel in two separate incidents.
Called “green-on-blue” attacks in reference to colors of Afghan uniforms and coalition helmets, the assaults heightened tensions and frayed nerves among coalition troops as international forces aim to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
“Probably the biggest area of frustration is the continued lack of trustworthiness of many members of the Afghan National Army [ANA], as demonstrated by the disturbing frequency of green-on-blue violence,” said Paul Pillar, a CIA veteran and former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia.
“The overall combat effectiveness and ability of the ANA to operate independently is obviously a focus of major concern and effort. But in terms of outright frustration, I would think the tenuous loyalties of members of a force that is supposed to be our ally would rank most highly,” he said.
As of Monday, there have been 29 green-on-blue attacks this year and a total of 37 coalition deaths, 21 of which have been Americans, according to statistics provided by the Pentagon.
At a Pentagon briefing Tuesday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta expressed concern that such attacks occur, in part because of the “potential damage to our partnership efforts.”
The attacks also are taking a toll on troop morale.
“For our service members operating in the field hearing about these attacks, it is only natural to be concerned about their welfare and that of their buddies, and to have a heightened sense of awareness,” said Navy Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a Pentagon spokesman. “Anyone in that position would do the same, and we don’t discount the impact of these tragedies on individual morale.”
In a letter Tuesday to commanders in Afghanistan, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos sought to soothe the rattled nerves of troops. He said such attacks show that the U.S. is winning the war against Taliban insurgents.
“When faced with the stark reality of what has just happened, it would be easy to give in to the belief that these attacks indicate we are losing the fight,” Gen. Amos wrote in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. “In fact, the opposite is true.
“These attacks are occurring because we are winning the fight in [regional command southwest],” he said. “Over the last four years, we have steadily improved the security situation in Helmand [province]. Historical casualty levels have steadily declined. Afghan security forces have made dramatic improvements in dependability, capability and performance.”
Countering the attacks
The Marines suffered their worst so-called “green-on-blue” fatalities on Friday. An Afghan police officer fatally shot three Marines he had invited to dinner in Helmand province. That same day, three Marines assigned to a training unit were killed by an Afghan policeman in Helmand.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks, often exaggerating their success and citing the assaults as proof of their infiltration of Afghanistan’s security apparatus.
Military leaders and defense analysts have downplayed the Taliban’s self-proclaimed role in the attacks, some of which have occurred after personal conflicts between Afghan and allied troops. Defense officials say the attacks have had no operational impact.
“We are certainly concerned” about green-on-blue attacks, said Cmdr. Speaks, the Pentagon spokesman.
“But it is important to remember that the 31 shooters in incidents this year make up less than 1/100th of 1 percent of all [Afghan security] personnel,” he said. “These insidious attacks are designed to sow doubt among the coalition forces and our Afghan partners, but we will not be deterred,” he added.
In his letter to Marine commanders, Gen. Amos said: “Faced with our undeniable momentum and his own failure, the enemy is increasingly forced to resort to spectacular attacks. I am confident that these recent attacks were carefully crafted to drive a wedge between us and our Afghan partners. This is a common theme in the latter stages of a counterinsurgency operation. We saw the same thing in Iraq after the balance had tipped in our favor.”
To stop the attacks, the military is taking several steps, including increasing counterintelligence and putting into place an eight-step vetting process for Afghan security forces recruits.
The huge financial investment made by the U.S. and its NATO allies in Afghanistan’s security forces is being undermined not only by green-on-blue attacks, but by rampant corruption, nepotism and divided loyalties within these institutions.
Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the House Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations last month that similar “divided loyalties” opened the door to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, years of civil war and eventually the collapse of the Soviet-backed government in Kabul in 1992.
“Even high-level military officers and government officials left to join the same Pashtun, Tajik, or Hazara Islamist militias that they had only recently been fighting against,” he said.
“The threat that similar divisions could split the current Afghan central government must be taken seriously, given the rise of a new Northern Alliance and factional divisions among Pashtuns,” he added. The Northern Alliance is made up of non-Pashtun ethnic groups, mainly Tajiks and Uzbeks, who joined forces to fight the predominantly Pashtun Taliban.
U.S. and Afghan officials readily acknowledge these problems, but a solution remains elusive.
Other challenges
“There are fault lines in [Afghan] institutions based on ethnicity, and that is the painful history of Afghanistan,” said Said T. Jawad, who served as Afghanistan’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2003 to 2010. “There is definitely a need to focus on the morale, the commitment and the loyalty of the troops so that their loyalty lies with the Afghan flag.”
Mr. Jawad has been mentioned as a potential successor to Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, who resigned as defense minister last week after receiving a vote of no confidence from the parliament. Mr. Jawad lacks military experience, but is well-connected in Washington, where he is based.
Others whose names have been floated for the position are former Interior Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, former Deputy Defense Minister Atiquallah Baryalai and Education Minister Farooq Wardak.
One of the biggest challenges for the next minister will be to negotiate a status-of-forces agreement with the U.S. that will determine the conditions for the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014.
“It will be a hard sell for both countries to their own people,” said Shahmahmood Miakhel, the Afghanistan-based country director of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
President Obama intends to leave a small follow-on force in Afghanistan that would focus on training the Afghan military to full capacity and conducting joint counterterrorism operations after 2014.
The U.S. administration will have its work cut out trying to win Congress’ approval for such a force, said Mr. Miakhel. The Afghan government will have the challenge of justifying the presence of these troops to the Afghan people, determining the role they will play under Afghan law and managing the reaction of Afghanistan’s neighbors who look warily on a U.S. presence in the region, he added.
Meanwhile, the coalition faces the challenge of turning the Afghan National Security Forces into a professional and cohesive fighting force.
Joshua Foust, a fellow at the American Security Project, said the Afghan National Security Forces‘ performance is probably the biggest source of frustration for Afghanistan’s allies.
“Some units have lived up to the hype and performed admirably, but there remain serious shortfalls in performance and retention that need to be addressed,” he said.
Part of the challenge is the high expectations of U.S. trainers, who demand performance from Afghan recruits that are probably unrealistic, he said.
“But the other challenge is the occasionally misleading reports of progress from [the NATO training mission]. Soldiers have complained for years that the training is not long enough or tailored closely enough to the needs of Afghan recruits to perform to the standards the U.S. demands. As a result, there is growing frustration about reality not meeting either expectations or public brags by the leadership,” he said.
Afghan forces have taken the lead in 40 percent of conventional operations, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to improve their capabilities in areas such as logistics and other specialized warfare.
Mr. Cordesman warned lawmakers that a realistic assessment of the Afghan security forces‘ capabilities is crucial as the Obama administration draws down U.S. troops.
“‘Spinning’ positive reports to the neglect of real problems at the strategic level is a recipe for defeat, regardless of how well the [Afghans] perform militarily,” he said.
As Afghanistan turns
The shake-up in Karzai's government portends the nation's divided future.
Los Angles Times By Sarah Chayes Op-Ed August 16, 2012
In a raucous session that brought lawmakers to blows this month, the Afghan parliament passed a no-confidence vote against the country's top security officials: the ministers of defense and interior. With Afghanistan struggling to take on more challenging pieces of its own defense burden from international troops, the decision came as an ill-timed surprise. Just as surprising was President Hamid Karzai's quick agreement that the two should go.
It is always hazardous to claim to see through the complexities of Afghan politics, but the ousters were clearly rooted, at least in part, in a fierce struggle for positioning in a post-America Afghanistan that may well implode.
One reason cited by officials and the media for the no-confidence vote is that the lawmakers had grown exasperated by the security forces' inability to stem or respond to artillery fire that has been pummeling Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan. It's certainly true that people are frustrated by the shelling, but whether that is the reason or the excuse for the vote is less clear. Short of a declaration of war on Pakistan, an eminently political decision that would require at least some international coordination, it's not clear what the army could do.
A second reason cited for the ousters is that Karzai wants to demonstrate that he is at last taking action against corruption in his government, and the record of police and military personnel is particularly poor. However, having worked for two commanders of international military forces as well as for the Joint Staff on anti-corruption policy in Afghanistan, I have not observed Karzai, since 2003, make a good-faith move to address the institutionalized graft that plagues his country. Rather, he has obstructed anti-corruption efforts, directing ministers to shut down investigations, ordering detained suspects set free, and reportedly helping arrange the 2010 escape from Afghanistan of a former minister of religious affairs indicted on charges of corruption. It seems unlikely that high-mindedness is motivating the president now.
A third reason frequently cited for the vote is that the members of the Afghan parliament — far from immune to corruption themselves — were irritated at their inability to obtain some of the jobs and lucrative contracts the two ministers hand out. Though all of these possibilities probably contain elements of truth, and may have helped stoke lawmakers' enthusiasm for the vote, this third one rings truest.
But to understand the move's greatest significance, you have to examine the ouster of the interior minister, Bismullah Khan Mohammadi.
Mohammadi, an ethnic Tajik, was a key commander in the northern resistance to the Taliban during the civil war that raged in Afghanistan from 1994 through the fall of that regime in 2001. For the first eight years of the Karzai government, he served as chief of staff of the Afghan national army. Senior U.S. and Afghan military officers once described to me how shrewdly he calculated his appointments, especially at the crucial middle-management level, larding the officer corps with lieutenant colonels and colonels loyal to the old northern commanders.
As minister of the interior, a position he assumed in June 2010, he aggressively pursued the same policy within the Afghan national police while retaining the personal loyalty of many ranking army officers. In 2011, NATO's International Security Assistance Force Joint Command, which manages the day-to-day running of the war, was tracking the way he gerrymandered police zones in the north so as to build what amounted to a region that excludes ethnic Pashtuns. He also rapidly expanded the arming of local militias in the north.
Most Afghans and experienced observers I know say a plausible scenario upon the large-scale departure of international troops in 2014 is either disintegration into civil conflict or a de facto division of power along ethnic lines, with a Pakistan-backed Pashtun bloc in the south and east lining up against one or more northern non-Pashtun blocs that might well gain military support from India and Uzbekistan, if not Iran. Recent signs indicate that many key players are already rushing to consolidate their positions within this framework, already operating, for all intents and purposes, in a post-2014 world.
It is in this context that Mohammadi's dismissal is to be understood. He is a key northern bloc asset. And in the same way international forces stepped up their campaign to capture and kill Taliban commanders, northern military leaders are being neutralized at a rapid rate, regardless of their official positions in the Karzai government. Before Mohammadi, it was key Uzbek former commander Ahmad Khan Samanghani, killed in a blast at a wedding in mid-July.
The other minister voted out of office this month, Abdul Rahim Wardak, is far less consequential. Though described as a Karzai loyalist and appreciated by international officials, he was known to be the butt of verbal abuse by Karzai in Cabinet meetings and was reputed to be a heavy drinker with little real control over the Afghan army. Karzai typically removes officials in pairs to provide the appearance of ethnic or tribal evenhandedness. In this case, Wardak would be the fig leaf for Mohammadi's removal.
This reading of events suggests that Karzai will end up aligning himself with the Pakistan/Pashtun, Taliban-tolerant bloc. While as president he has often criticized Pakistan, he also has expressed understanding for the Taliban and has pardoned dozens of Taliban prisoners. In 1994, when the Taliban took power in southern Afghanistan, Karzai was a strong supporter. The regime selected him to serve as its ambassador to the United Nations, though it never got a seat in the world body. So perhaps we should not be surprised if he lines up that way again today.
Sarah Chayes, former special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a resident associate at the Carnegie Endowment and a contributing writer to Opinion.
Afghan-Pakistani Team To Probe Cross-Border Shelling
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan August 15, 2012
KABUL -- Afghan officials say a deal has been struck with Pakistan to investigate a recent surge in cross-border attacks that has raised tensions between the two neighbors.
Aimal Faizi, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said a joint military team will be sent to the country's porous eastern border with Pakistan to conduct an investigation.
Faizi revealed that Karzai asked Zardari to put a stop to attacks on Afghan territory and said the cross-border shelling was having "an extremely negative impact" on Afghan attitudes toward Pakistan.
"The Afghan president asked the Pakistani government to immediately stop its cross-border shelling," Faizi said.
"He said the attacks from Pakistan into Afghan territory were having a negative impact on the friendship between the Afghan and Pakistani people and that these attacks should be stopped immediately."
Afghan officials, who blame Pakistan for the alleged attacks, say thousands of rockets and heavy artillery shells have landed in eastern Afghanistan in recent months, killing dozens of civilians and forcing thousands to flee their homes.
NATO's military force in Afghanistan last month also condemned cross-border shelling from Pakistan.
Pakistani officials have rejected the allegations, insisting that Pakistani troops only respond to attacks from militants.
Afghanistan's parliament earlier this month dismissed the country's defense and interior ministers over alleged security failures, including perceived inaction by the two ministers in the face of the spate of cross-border shelling.
Afghanistan and Pakistan typically blame each other for violence by Taliban militants plaguing both sides of their border, known as the Durand Line.
With reporting by AFP
The U.S. Plot to Blow Up the Afghan Ministry of Defense
TIME By Mark Thompson August 15, 2012
Times have gotten tougher in Afghanistan given the latest green-on-blue attacks, where Afghan troops – or at least killers clad like Afghan troops – have taken to killing U.S. and other allied personnel with firearms or suicide vests. Army Major David Fitzpatrick, who was deployed as a trainer for the Afghan military in Kabul from July 2010 to July 2011, knows how a high-profile attack – even when it fails – can change the everyday life of U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan.
He details some of those changes in this recently-posted June interview he did with the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Part of his job involved regularly going to the Afghan Ministry of Defense to mentor Afghan military personnel. But that got tougher after an insurgent penetrated that compound and came close to killing then-Afghan Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak. Highlights:
It was April of 2011, the Afghan MoD was infiltrated and there was a suicide bomber that made it into the main office of our MoD, who made it to the actual third floor and almost got to the Minister’s office, Minister Wardak, the actual Minister of Defense.
The suicide bomber made it to the minister’s office before he was shot. Yeah, our biggest incident was there so from there our force protection level went to the maxthe suicide bomber didn’t detonate because he was killed before he could — he was halfway down the hallway before he would have detonated himself, before he was stopped.
From there, the tension between us and the Afghan were high. Afghans didn’t trust anyone anymore. There were rumors going around that the infiltrator was seen getting out of a black SUV and for some reason the Afghans thinks that the Coalition only drives black SUVs. [Laughter]
They were accusing us of bringing in the infiltrator. They were very suspicious of us. Before the attack, it would take us a minute to get through the main entrance; now it would take an hour-and-a-half to get through security because they would search us.
It was funny. They would stop us, search our vehicles when we did drive, search our persons but any Afghan vehicle coming in that was covered, like with a tarp on the back of the bed of the truck, or dark windows, they would just wave on through and didn’t even bother to stop them. It was like, “That’s how the suicide bomber got in, not through us. Why would we bring somebody in to blow up the Minister of Defense? That doesn’t make sense.”
We even pointed out while we were being searched at the gate, “Look, you just let another truck in and he’s got a tarp on the back. Do you know what is underneath that tarp?” It was just rumors. They believed rumor quite a bit and so they were suspicious of us because they had heard a rumor. That was it.
Yeah, we were always kind of fearful because the guards were very — I am not going to say trigger happy but they were — yeah.
I think they’re under a lot of pressure. The Afghans started putting Colonels and Generals down at the gates and main entrance to supervise, so the Afghan Soldiers manning the gates were feeling the pressure. I am sure the Generals and Colonels were telling the guards to search everybody except for certain individuals.
In Afghanistan, Scandal Erupts Over Changing Street Name To Honor Iranians
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan August 15, 2012
MAZAR-I SHARIF, Afghanistan -- Provincial officials in northern Afghanistan have asked the central government in Kabul to decide whether a street in Mazar-e Sharif should be named after a group of Iranian diplomats killed there in 1998.
The move, announced in a statement by the Administrative Council of Balkh Province, comes after a scandal erupted over reports that the street with Iran's former consulate building in Mazar-e Sharif already had been renamed Martyrs of the Consulate of the Islamic Republic of Iran without approval from Kabul.
If the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture blocks the proposed name change, the affair is likely to rekindle an old dispute and damage relations between Tehran and Kabul.
But formal approval of the name change risks angering the many Afghans who view the Iranian diplomats as spies who had tried to divide Afghanistan along sectarian lines in order to create a Shi'ite-dominated buffer state on Iran's eastern border.
Eight Iranian diplomats and an employee of Iran's state-run IRNA news agency were killed at the Iranian consulate building in August 1998 when Mazar-e Sharif was overrun by Taliban fighters.
A senior Taliban official at the time -- Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil -- initially said Taliban investigators concluded that the Iranians were killed by "renegade forces" who acted without orders from the Taliban leadership. Later, the Taliban denied any involvement in their deaths.
Tehran has always blamed the killings on the Taliban, saying it also held Pakistan's government partly responsible because Islamabad had vouched for the safety of the diplomats before Mazar-e Sharif fell to the Taliban.
Angry Debate
Reports of the street name being changed to honor the slain Iranians emerged last week in an announcement by Iran's Foreign Ministry.
By August 12, the story had boiled over into an angry debate on the floor of the Afghan parliament.
"The people who were killed there may have been spies, but now they name the roads in their honor," said Mohammad Akbar Stanikzai, an independent member of parliament from Logar Province. "If you see how Afghans in Iran are not allowed to attend Friday Prayers, how they don't have permission to attend the religious schools, or how Iran executes innocent Afghans, it is shameful for us to rename our streets in honor of their spies."
In fact, the administrators of Balkh Province say the original request to change the name of the street was made by the Iranian government, which had itself renamed a street in Tehran after the slain Afghan anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Masud.
Balkh's governor, Atta Mohammad Noor, is said to have backed the change and forwarded it to the provincial council for their approval in order to recognize "the services and cooperation of the friendly country of Iran with the people of Afghanistan" during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and resistance against the Taliban regime.
'An Insult' To Afghan Culture
It was after the debates in parliament that Balkh's provincial council admitted the name change also requires approval from the Information and Culture Ministry in Kabul.
Afghan analyst Razaq Mamoon told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that a majority of the Afghan people oppose the name change.
"This is an extraordinary decision and it is not compatible with Afghanistan's laws," Mamoon says. "It will be opposed by a majority of the people. The reason is that the street named after Abu Muslim-i Khorasani [the current name of the street] is a central road of the city. Naming it to honor nine or 10 Iranian spies will be an insult to Abu Muslim-i Khorasani and Afghan culture."
Tehran has long been accused of playing a double game in Afghanistan -- helping Afghan Shi'ites while allegedly working to destabilize the larger Sunni Afghan community.
Relations between Kabul and Tehran have been strained in recent years due to Iran's toughened immigration policy, which has led to the repatriation of many Afghan asylum seekers.
Although Iran has hosted a large number of Afghan refugees since the early 1980s, it has tried to repatriate those still in Iran as soon as possible.
Angry demonstrations have been sparked in Afghanistan by public executions of Afghan citizens in the streets of Iran.
There also have been many reports alleging that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has been training Afghan militants inside Iran to carry out terrorist attacks back in Afghanistan.
Written by RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz in Prague, based on reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan in Mazar-e Sharif and Kabul
Lawmaker: Nimroz Bombers Were Iranian
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Lawmakers condemned the deadly Nimroz attacks, alleging that the bombers who targetted a civilian hospital in Zaranj city and a crowded Bazaar in the same area killing 29 were Iranian Balochs.
According to Nimroz MP Freshta Amini, the "three suicide bombers arrested yesterday were Iranian Balochs and the matter will be discussed with the Iranian embassy."
The MPs also said that if Iran, like Pakistan, starts sending terrorists to Afghanistan, it will create major issues for Afghanistan and Afghan security forces should prevent these infiltrations.
Five other would-be suicide bombers were killed by Police and three others detained. The nationalities of the dead and detained attackers have yet to be confirmed.
NDS Detains Three Assassins in Herat
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Three insurgents attempting to assassinate a provincial Ulema Council member by placing explosives in the scholar's car were detained by the National Directorate of Security personnel, according to the provincial spokesman Mahiuddin Noori.
"These individuals confessed that they were planning to kill religious scholars in Herat province," Noori said.
Noori also added that a prominent Taliban commander was killed in an Afghan-led operation in Kuzra district of Herat.
Afghan National Army Special Forces conducted the operation in the Haft Darband areas of the Kuzra district to eradicate a Taliban's hideout. Three Taliban fighters, including their commander Faiz Mohammad, were killed and 8 other Taliban fighters were injured.
Multiple explosives devices were seized at the time of operation.
Olympic medal helps unify torn Afghanistan
DW 15/08/2012
The Afghan taekwondo master Rohullah Nikpah won his second consecutive bronze medal at the Olympics. The country's six athletes received a warm welcome home on Tuesday from cheering crowds.
Crowds went wild in Kabul's Ghazi Stadium. Where once the Taliban used to carry out public executions, people cheered and waved flags to welcome home the country's six athletes who participated in the 2012 London Olympics. They cheered loudest for Rohullah Nikpah, winner of the bronze medal in taekwondo.
"The best part for me is not the medal itself but the peace, unity and fraternity it has created among my fellow countrymen," Nikpah said after returning home.
Hundreds of people went to the stadium, especially children and young adults, to celebrate Rohullah Nikpah and the medal he brought back for Afghanistan. One group of about 50 boys dressed in taekwondo uniforms stood in the staduim holding placards and portraits of the athletes and of national symbols of Afghanistan.
Positive attention
One of the boys named Majed said, "I want to win a medal, too, and go abroad and represent my country in competition. It makes me so happy to see Afghanistan getting positive attention."
Conidering the daily news, which is full of reports of attacks and killings, Nikpah's bronze medal is like balm for the soul of Afghanistan.
The enthusiasm for the games was quite novelty this year. People throughout the entire country celebrated when they saw the taekwondo champion holding the Afghan flag in London. This year, posters and placards with the athletes' pictures printed on them were hung up all over the country, contrary to the last Olympic Games, explained Afghan sports journalist Musadeq Parsa.
"The Beijing Olympics took place in 2008 without hardly anyone in Afghanistan noticing. No one expected Nikpah to win a medal. So this time, the suspence was all the greater - the people watched with great interest and showed their support for him."
Unity through patriotism
He said it was apparent that the Afghan people's enthusiasm for this year's Olympic games and for their country's athletes brought them closer together.
"One could say that the ethnic conflicts decreased by 90 percent during the games. The athletes received equal support from the Afghan people - no matter where in Afghanistan they were from or which ethnic group they belonged to. During the games there were no ethnic differences - there was just Afghanistan."
Speaking for this is the fact that Rohullah Nikpah is an ethnic Hazara - a group of people which usually faces discrimination. While it was good that the London Games were helping Afghans to forget their prejudices, Parsa said the government was not doing enough to invest in the country's sports infrastructure.
"Getting kids interested in sports is the government's responsibility. They don't allocate extra money for the training of competitive athletes. Foreign aid donors have also not given enough support for this important part of society."
But at least Afghanistan is preparing to introduce a football league based on the European model. Medal winner Nikpah is sure that sports will play a pivitol role in the peace process of his country.
"I wanted the people of Afghanistan to be happy with my performance and to come together and enjoy the games. God willing, this kind of patriotism will grow day by day."
Author: Waslat Hasrat-Nazimi / sb Editor: Shamil Shams
www.afghanistannewscenter.com