[Afghan News] August 30, 2012

[یاسمینه]

Australia says killings will not speed up Afghan exit
AFP
Australia said Friday it would complete its mission in Afghanistan despite suffering its deadliest day in combat since the Vietnam War and the prospect of further deaths caused by rogue soldiers.
Defence Minister Stephen Smith said the "terrible combination" of three troops being shot dead by an Afghan colleague and two others dying in a helicopter crash within 24 hours was the worst scenario he had seen in the job.
"It doesn't do anything to my resolve to stay the course, because staying the course is absolutely the right thing to do," Smith told reporters.
"We can't stay in Afghanistan forever, we don't want to stay in Afghanistan forever, and equally it would be wrong to leave prematurely or to leave tomorrow as some people suggest."
Smith said an immediate withdrawal would "increase the risks", compared to the planned gradual transition in which Afghan forces will take control of security in Uruzgan province from the Australians by late 2013.
"We would increase the prospect of Afghanistan again returning to a breeding ground for international terrorism," he said.
Late on Wednesday, three Australian troops were shot dead at close range by an Afghan soldier inside a patrol base near Tarin Kowt in restive Uruzgan, where some 1,500 Australians are deployed.
In the second incident, two Australian special forces soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed in Helmand province on Thursday morning.
NATO has struggled to counter the so-called "green-on-blue" attacks in which uniformed Afghans turn their weapons against their international allies. This was the third such incident to target Australian troops.
Smith said the attacks eroded trust between the troops and led to extra precautions, such as the use of a "guardian angel" in which one armed foreign soldier is tasked with watching Afghan soldiers to prevent attacks.
But he said there was no guarantee that this would be the last insider shooting.
"We can't discount the prospect... that it may happen again, either to us or to our NATO or ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) colleagues," he said.
A close ally of the United States, Australia has so far lost 38 soldiers in the decade-long Afghan conflict.

5 Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By KRISTEN GELINEAU | Associated Press
SYDNEY (AP) — Australia on Thursday mourned the deaths of five of its soldiers in Afghanistan, three killed by an Afghan army colleague, in the nation's deadliest hours of combat since the Vietnam War.
The Australians were killed in two separate incidents just hours apart late Wednesday and early Thursday.
The first incident took place at a base in Uruzgan province, when a man in an Afghan army uniform opened fire on Australian soldiers, killing three and wounding two, according to Air Marshal Mark Binskin, vice chief of the Australian Defense Force. Hours later, two Australian soldiers died and a crew member was wounded when their helicopter rolled over while landing in Helmand province.
"In a war of so many losses, this is our single worst day in Afghanistan," Prime Minister Julia Gillard said. "Indeed, I believe this is the most losses in combat since the days of the Vietnam War and the Battle of Long Tan. This is news so truly shocking that it's going to feel for many Australians like a physical blow."
Eighteen Australian soldiers were killed in the Battle of Long Tan in 1966. Tom Vasey, a spokesman for the Australian War Memorial, said five Australian soldiers were killed in a 14-hour period in 1971 during the Battle of Nui Le, making that the last time so many died so quickly in a combat zone.
Gillard said the latest bloodshed would not speed up Australia's plans to withdraw troops only after completing their main mission of training an Afghan battalion for securing the restive Uruzgan region. That withdrawal could happen as soon as early next year.
"Our strategy is well defined, our strategy is constant. And we cannot allow even the most grievous of losses to change our strategy," Gillard said. "We are there for a purpose and we will see that purpose through."
Australia has 1,550 troops in Afghanistan and makes the largest military contribution of any country outside NATO.
NATO Secretary-General Fogh Rasmussen welcomed Australia's resolve. "Australia's response to these tragic events in Afghanistan is exemplary. Australia is a strong and steadfast NATO partner," he said in a statement.
The victims were relaxing at the base when the assailant began shooting at close range with an automatic weapon, Binskin said. Soldiers at the base returned fire, but the shooter scaled a fence and escaped.
The Australians tried to revive their comrades, but the wounds proved fatal, he said. One of the wounded soldiers sustained a serious gunshot wound and was evacuated to another base for further treatment. He is in satisfactory condition. The other was treated at the scene.
The Afghan soldier accused of the shooting is named Hekmatullah, and was working as a night guard at the Afghan army base where the international troops had stopped to spend the night, Afghan officials said. Hekmatullah fired at the Australians as they entered the base in Uruzgan province's Chora district, said Abdulhameed Hameed, an Afghan army commander in the south.
Australian and Afghan soldiers were hunting for the killer Thursday, Binskin said. He would not release further details of the attack, and said the shooter's motive was unknown.
Insider attacks, in which Afghan security forces or insurgents posing as soldiers or police fire on their coalition allies, have been rising over the past year and have surged even higher in the last few weeks. Including the latest strike, there have been at least 34 such attacks so far this year, killing 45 coalition members, mostly Americans. Last year, four Australian soldiers were killed by Afghan troops.
In response to the spike in killings, the U.S. has begun using "guardian angels" — armed NATO service members who are assigned to watch over any gatherings of NATO troops and Afghan soldiers. Binskin said Australia also uses guardian angels, but he didn't know whether such a soldier was in place during Wednesday's shooting.
Gillard, who in the wake of the deaths will be returning early from a meeting of Pacific nation leaders in the Cook Islands, said security for Australian soldiers had been heightened following the latest attack. She acknowledged the incident was a blow for relations between the two nations' soldiers.
"These insider incidents are very difficult for trust between Australian soldiers and the Afghans that they train. They are corrosive of trust," she said.
Thirty-eight Australian soldiers have been killed in the Afghanistan war, and the latest incidents were the country's worst loss of life in a 24-hour period since the campaign began more than a decade ago.
___
Associated Press writer Mirwais Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

Afghanistan helicopter crash kills 2 NATO troops
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The international military coalition in Afghanistan says two international service members have been killed in a helicopter crash in the country's south.
NATO forces said in a statement that they had no reports of enemy activity in the area where the helicopter crashed Thursday.
The statement does not provide further details on the incident nor the nationality of the dead. At least 54 international service members have been killed in Afghanistan so far this month.

Backgrounder: NATO air crashes in Afghanistan in 2012
KABUL, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Two soldiers with the NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed when a military helicopter crashed in Garmser district of restive southern Helmand province Thursday morning.
The following is the coalition's air crash incidents in Afghanistan so far in 2012.
On Aug. 28 -- An ISAF helicopter made a forced landing in eastern Logar province, leaving no casualties.
On Aug. 16 -- Seven U.S. troops, three Afghan soldiers and a local translator were killed when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Shah Wali Kot district of southern Kandahar province.
On Aug. 3 -- No crew members were injured when a helicopter made a forced landing in western Afghanistan.
On July 18 -- Two ISAF soldiers were injured when a helicopter went down in western Afghanistan
On June 21 -- A NATO aircraft made a forced landing in eastern Afghanistan, causing no fatalities.
On June 6 -- Two NATO soldiers were killed when a military helicopter crashed in eastern Ghazni province.
On May 28 -- A NATO helicopter crashed in eastern Wardak province, leaving two U.S. service members dead.
On May 28 -- A NATO aircraft crashed in eastern Afghanistan, causing no casualties.
On April 19 -- Four U.S. soldier lost their lives when a helicopter crashed in Garmser district of Helmand province.
On March 25 -- A NATO aircraft made a hard landing in southern Afghanistan with no casualties.
On March 16 -- Twelve Turkish soldiers with the NATO-led ISAF and four civilians on the ground were killed when an ISAF helicopter crashed in eastern part of capital city of Kabul.
On Feb. 6 -- A NATO helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan, no casualties.
On Jan. 19 -- Six U.S. soldiers lost their lives in a helicopter crash in Musa Qala district of Helmand province.

Afghan officials: Insurgent rockets kill 5 civilians who were waiting roadside for a bus
By Amir Shah,Heidi Vogt, The Associated Press
KABUL - Insurgent rockets killed five Afghan civilians Thursday while they were waiting on the side of a road for a bus in the east of the country, government officials said.
The attack came as the Australian government announced the deaths of five soldiers — three when an Afghan soldier turned his gun on them inside a base and two from a helicopter crash.
Attacks and firefights have been on the rise in Afghanistan this summer after a calm winter as the Taliban launch strikes against international forces and step up targeted killings of those seen as beholden to the government.
Insurgents appeared to be aiming at a nearby Afghan army base but the rockets missed their target, said the deputy police chief for Logar province, Raeis Khan Rahimzai says another 10 people were wounded by the barrage in Baraki Barak district.
It was the second such incident in as many days, said Logar government spokesman Din Mohammad Darwesh. He said a rocket hit a civilian house on Wednesday and killed one woman inside.
Militants have been responsible for the vast majority of civilian casualties in the Afghan war, with roadside bombs being the biggest killers. A U.N. report last month said 1,145 civilians were killed and 1,954 others were injured in the first half of the year, 80 per cent of them by militants.
The Taliban have also been recruiting and encouraging Afghan police and soldiers to attack their international or Afghan colleagues. The Wednesday attack that killed three Australian soldiers in Uruzgan province in the south was the eighth such assault this month — making 15 international service members killed by their partners in Afghanistan in August.
Australia has 1,550 troops in Afghanistan and makes the largest military contribution of any country outside NATO. Last year, four Australian soldiers were killed by Afghan troops.
At least 53 international service members have been killed in Afghanistan so far this month.

Dismiss and shake up
By Omar Samad Thursday, August 30, 2012 Foreign Policy
Hours before flying off to Tehran to attend the Non-Aligned Movement summit on Wednesday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai dismissed the country's intelligence chief and indicated that a slate of three nominees would be submitted soon for parliamentary approval to fill three key vacant security portfolios - defense, interior, and now, intelligence (National Directorate for Security).
A statement released earlier in the day by the President's press office confirmed rumors that NDS chief Rahmatullah Nabil had been removed. It did not specify any reasons for the dismissal. At a special meeting, Karzai thanked Nabil for his accomplishments and pledged to appoint him as ambassador soon.
The statement also stressed that the head of NDS shall not hold the position longer than two years.
Nabil was put in charge of NDS almost two years ago when his predecessor, Amrullah Saleh, and then-minister of interior Hanif Atmar, resigned as part of a politically-motivated shakeup.
Former defense minister, Rahim Wardak, and interior minister, Bismillah Mohammadi, received a no-confidence vote at the Afghan Lower House of Parliament three weeks ago, caused by what parliamentarians termed "security lapses" and outrage at reports of Pakistani cross-border shelling that killed scores and displaced thousands in Kunar province.
However, in addition to Afghan frustration vis-à-vis the shelling incidents, political motivations may also have played a role in the abrupt rejection of the two key ministers.
It is expected that Mohammadi, who is respected by many within army and police ranks for his tenacity and sense of duty, but faces opposition from political foes, will be nominated for the defense portfolio. Many see his re-nomination as a way for Karzai to maintain a semblance of ethnic equity, however, his approval by a temperamental House is not guaranteed.
The slot for the Ministry of Interior is expected to go to Mojtaba Patang, who is now in charge of the Afghan Protection Police Force (APPF), while current Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs, Assadullah Khaled, who is also responsible for security in the South and is seen as a member of the president's inner-circle, is slated to head the NDS.
Nabil's unexpected dismissal is thought by some analysts to be tied to the recent surge in green-on-blue attacks that have rattled nerves in Washington and Kabul.
The former head of NDS is also known to have been at odds with top-level government officials who claim to belong to an offshoot of the Hezb-i-Islami group, whose controversial leader, Gulbudin Hekmatyar, is believed to be in hiding in Pakistan's tribal belt. He is said to have opposed recent efforts by groups such as the Hezb to take credit for or take control of recent local anti-Taliban uprisings.
This latest shakeup in the country's most important security institutions is not only a reflection of growing unease about the overall security condition in the country, but may also be part of political realignments at play domestically, as well as a prelude to the gradual NATO/U.S. drawdown by 2015.
Not only will Karzai attend the summit in Tehran and meet Iranian leaders to discuss sources of regional tensions, but he is also scheduled to visit Pakistan soon to raise bilateral concerns over stalled reconciliation efforts with Taliban leaders known to reside in sanctuaries across the border.
Relations between Afghanistan and its two neighbors, Iran and Pakistan, have been strained in recent times, over border skirmishes and allegations of collusion with Taliban and other extremist groups.
Political pundits reacting in Kabul's media consider the shakeups to be politically-motivated, while others attribute them to leadership disarray or even the meddling of neighboring governments.
While all new ministerial nominees will have to appear before the Lower House, there is no assurance that all will be approved.
Official sources indicate that new appointments are also expected for the ministry of Finance, whose minister is fighting corruption allegations, the directorate in charge of local governance (provincial and district-level appointments), the head of the all-important Independent Election Commission and the Attorney General's Office among others.
One area, almost out-of-sight, where key nominations are overdue, is the judiciary, where two senior members of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, need to be replaced. As a constitutionally set appointment, the term limits for the departing justices have not been respected. The judiciary represents an independent branch that can, and ought to, help promote rule-of-law and good governance, and play an effective check-and-balance role.
Each new appointment will be telling of the aims and trends developing over the next two years as Afghanistan deals with the NATO end-of-mission objectives, the security transition, holding credible presidential elections, and efforts to prevent an economic collapse.
These dynamics are at play at a time when the Taliban are resorting to more violence, while some of their external advocates toy with the notion of immediate negotiations leading to a political deal. Meanwhile, Karzai, mindful of his legacy and future prospects, seems to be setting the course during the last leg of his last term toward security, political and economic transitions that will not only assure stronger political predictability and avoid a security vacuum, but also allow him to shape the post-2014 outcome to the extent possible.
Omar Samad is a Senior Afghanistan Expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington DC, and the former Afghan Ambassador to France and Canada.

Lawmakers Call for NDS Chief's Reinstatement
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Afghan lawmakers criticised the dismissal of the country's intelligence chief Rahmatullah Nabil by President Karzai on Wednesday, linking it with the influence of neighboring spy agencies within the Afghan government.
MPs praised the National Directorate of Security (NDS) chief Nabil in Wednesday's sitting session, calling him an intelligent and qualified person for this position and urged Karzai to revise his decision.
"Rahmatullah Nabil, the NDS Chief, was able to make remarkable achievements in a short period of time and stand against the foreign spy agencies' conspiracies. His activities need to be praised. On behalf of all of you, I want to ask President Karzai to allow Mr. Nabil continue his job," deputy speaker of the parliament Abdul Zaher Qadir said.
"The NDS was headed towards professionalism and nationalism after Mr Nabel took the seat," Daikundi MP Asadullah Sahadati said.
However, the dismissal, explained by Karzai's office as a simple matter of Nabil having completed the decreed two-year tenure, was marred by rumours that Nabil was dismissed after he went to Tajikistan for a break without the permission of Karzai.
"The dismissal of effective officials at the Afghan spy agency may cost the government too much," Herat MP Nahid Farid said.
Karzai's office released a statement Wednesday afternoon confirming Nabil's departure, saying that he would soon start in a new role as an ambassador.
"President Karzai commended the dedication Mr. Nabil demonstrated in job over the past two years and wished him success in the new job he would soon take over as an ambassador to a foreign country," the statement said.

Afghan minister accused of abuses to become new intelligence chief
By Jon Stephenson | McClatchy Newspapers Thursday, August 30, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan Cabinet minister dogged by torture allegations is slated to become the new chief of Afghanistan’s notorious intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security.
The appointment of Asadullah Khalid, the minister of border and tribal affairs, will be announced within days by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said a man who knows Khalid. A former senior government official who’s close to Karzai told McClatchy that “Khalid’s appointment has been confirmed.”
Both men spoke only on the condition of anonymity, as they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Khalid was the governor of the restive southern province of Kandahar, where troops from Canada were based, from 2005 to 2008. He had a notorious reputation among many Kandaharis, who say he abducted and tortured personal and political opponents, but he’s consistently denied any involvement in such activity.
In April 2010 the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said suspicions had been widespread during Khalid’s tenure in Kandahar that “the feared governor kept a private dungeon for prisoners under his palace.” The CBC quoted top-level Canadian government documents that showed Canadian authorities had known in spring 2007 about claims of serious human-rights abuses by Khalid.
“Allegations of human rights abuses by the governor are numerous and consistent,” said one document from spring 2007. “According to multiple sources, including the U.K. embassy, the private detention centre is located under the governor’s guest house.”
Also in April 2010, Canada’s newspaper The Globe and Mail quoted a former official who’d served under Khalid at the governor’s palace in Kandahar as saying he’d seen a prisoner in a guard room hanging from the ceiling “trussed like a chicken.” The Globe and Mail quoted another man as saying he was among those detained at the palace and “endured weeks of beatings supervised by the governor himself.”
Khalid was removed a few months later, but he’s remained a powerful figure in Afghanistan.
If he’s confirmed as Karzai’s choice for National Directorate of Security director, and he survives a parliamentary vote of confidence, his appointment probably will spark concern among human rights groups in Afghanistan and abroad. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have accused the National Directorate of Security of torturing detainees. The appointment of someone with Khalid’s reputation could suggest that Karzai isn’t serious about reforming the agency.
The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan last October reported “compelling” evidence that 125 detainees – 46 percent of 273 detainees it interviewed who’d been in National Directorate of Security detention – had experienced torture. A number of countries in the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, including Britain and New Zealand, have ordered their soldiers not to transfer detainees to some National Directorate of Security departments for fear of complicity in torture.
The former senior Afghan government official who’s close to Karzai told McClatchy that the president’s choice of Khalid was a mistake. He suggested that Western nations wouldn’t support the decision and that it might not be welcomed by the United States, which had funded and worked closely with the National Directorate of Security.
“I am not sure that the Americans will maintain their support for the NDS under Khalid,” the former official said. “He has many shortcomings, including that he is brutal.”
Others have suggested that pressure from the United States to urgently tackle the Taliban-led insurgency is precisely the reason that Karzai has selected Khalid.
A writer at the Kabul Politics blog claimed that Karzai had fired the former National Directorate of Security director, Rahmatullah Nabil, because of U.S. anger over the directorate’s apparent failure to stem the increasing number of “green on blue” attacks – in which Afghan security personnel turn their weapons on their coalition counterparts – and that the United States promoted Khalid as a suitable replacement.
However, the former senior government official close to Karzai said Khalid and one of Karzai’s brothers, Abdul Qayum, had been involved in secret talks with Saudi Arabia in an effort to involve the Saudis in peace negotiations with the Taliban. He said that appointing Khalid to the directorate job “is just another step in this direction.”
He said Karzai was well aware of Khalid’s background and the numerous allegations of criminality, and that he would have appointed Khalid thinking that the advantages of doing so outweighed the disadvantages.
“The president must have done his calculations,” the former official said.
Stephenson is a McClatchy special correspondent.

Karzai Is Said to Consider Divisive Figures for Top Cabinet Posts
New York Times By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and GRAHAM BOWLEY August 29, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has broadened a top-level cabinet shake-up, firing the country’s spy chief on Wednesday and, according to Western officials, lining up replacements for that post and the vacant Defense and Interior Ministries, at least one of which seemed likely to heighten tensions between Parliament and the presidential palace.
According to two Western officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the situation, top aides to Mr. Karzai recently told Western officials that Mr. Karzai intends to nominate a politically influential Tajik commander, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, to take over the Defense Ministry — a move that is likely to provoke members of the Afghan Parliament who voted just three weeks ago to dismiss Mr. Mohammadi from his post as interior minister.
The officials said Karzai aides had informed Western officials that a powerful Karzai loyalist who has faced accusations of corruption and human rights abuses, Asadullah Khalid, was in line to take over the country’s main intelligence agency, and that a long-serving police official, Ghulam Mujtaba Patang, would lead the Interior Ministry.
One Western official, however, cautioned that there was still some chance that the names could be a trial balloon designed to elicit a reaction from American and NATO officials who still are in charge of providing most of the country’s security, or from Afghan lawmakers who must ratify the choices. Nothing is set in stone until Mr. Karzai makes a formal announcement, which could come as soon as Saturday, the official said. There were also signs on Wednesday that Mr. Mohammadi could face a tough vote in Parliament.
The changes would complete a sweep of the country’s most powerful security posts, in what many officials saw as an effort by Mr. Karzai maximize his influence ahead of the planned 2014 elections, when he will not be able to run again because of term limits.
“With this cabinet reshuffling, President Karzai is trying to consolidate his grip on power,” said Jawid Kohistani, a security analyst based in Kabul. “He is not thinking only about his remaining two years in office. He has long-term plans, and this reshuffling is just the first step. Indeed, he wants to have full control over all government apparatuses to make sure that whoever from his team runs for president in the upcoming elections wins.”
Mr. Karzai’s aides confirmed Wednesday that the current head of the spy agency, Rahmatullah Nabil, will leave that job and become an ambassador to a foreign country. But Karzai aides declined to speak about any new cabinet appointments.
The men identified as the probable appointments were not likely to raise objections from the government’s Western supporters, some officials said. But at least two of the choices come along with some controversy.
Mr. Khalid, the likely new spy chief, is an influential confidant of Mr. Karzai, who delegated to him significant power over security in southern Afghanistan after Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother, was assassinated last year. Lately Mr. Khalid, who also serves as minister of tribal and border affairs, has been leading the government’s efforts to support uprisings against the Taliban in Ghazni Province, where the head of the provincial council, Qazi Sahim Shah, was fatally shot on Wednesday evening in what local officials said may have been retribution by insurgents.
His appointment to lead the National Directorate of Security could prove controversial in some quarters, especially with human rights groups: While seen as a committed enemy of the Taliban, Mr. Khalid was also removed from his job as governor of Kandahar Province in 2008 amid accusations of human rights abuses and corruption. He has denied those accusations, and his allies called them politically motivated.
Reached for comment, Mr. Khalid insisted that, despite rumors circulating through the capital all week that he had been chosen, he had not been officially contacted yet.
Appointing Mr. Mohammadi as defense minister would seem a direct provocation of Parliament, but it may also be a way for Mr. Karzai to keep one of the country’s most powerful Tajik officials in his political camp.
Mr. Mohammadi, who has also served previously as chief of staff for the Afghan Army, angered many other politicians by aggressively filling major security posts with other Tajiks from Panjshir, the province northeast of Kabul that was a stronghold of the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. An official in his office declined to comment on reports of his nomination on Wednesday, saying that “it is his personal business.”
But it was clear to Mr. Kohistani, the security analyst, why Mr. Karzai might risk the wrath of Parliament by renominating Mr. Mohammadi. “President Karzai cannot let go of Bismillah Khan because he doesn’t want to add him to the ranks of his opponents,” Mr. Kohistani said. “He will do whatever it takes to keep him.”
The immediate catalyst for the national security reshuffle was the vote by Parliament this month to dismiss the defense minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, as well as Mr. Mohammadi.
Members of Parliament complained of problems, including what they said was a failure to respond effectively to cross-border attacks from militants in Pakistan and corruption in contracting procedures.
But Parliament may have also acted because members were frustrated that their recommendations for appointments had not been taken into account and that they had not received their fair share of contracts.
Mr. Mohammadi “was already disqualified once by Parliament, and I don’t think he will gain a vote of confidence again,” said Daud Kalakani, an influential lawmaker who said that he and other Parliament members had been informed of the nominee choices by Mr. Karzai’s minister of parliamentary affairs.
Mr. Patang, who does not have the sort of deep political or ethnic power base that ministers often possess, is seen as a competent, long-serving police official and someone whom Mr. Karzai can control. His new job would be crucial in ensuring fair elections.
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Patang said he had not spoken to Mr. Karzai directly but had learned about the decision from the news media and the minister of parliamentary affairs.
On Wednesday, the international coalition announced that an attacker in an Afghan Army uniform had killed three NATO personnel members in southern Afghanistan the day before. A wave of similar insider attacks has increased tensions between the Afghan security forces and the foreign troops working with them.
Reporting was contributed by Habib Zahori, Jawad Sukhanyar, Sangar Rahimi and an employee of The New York Times.

Pentagon may take legal action against SEAL author
August 30, 2012 9:19 PM
(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's top lawyer on Thursday informed the former Navy SEAL who wrote a forthcoming book describing details of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden that he violated agreements to not divulge military secrets and that as a result the Pentagon is considering taking legal action against him, CBS News has confirmed.
The general counsel of the Defense Department, Jeh Johnson, wrote in a letter transmitted to the author that he had signed two nondisclosure agreements with the Navy in 2007 that obliged him to "never divulge" classified information.
"This commitment remains in force even after you left the active duty Navy," Johnson wrote. He said the author left active duty "on or about April 20, 2012," which was nearly one year after the May 2011 raid.
By signing the agreements, the ex-SEAL acknowledged his awareness, Johnson wrote, that "disclosure of classified information constitutes a violation of federal criminal law." He said it also obliged the author to submit his manuscript for a security review by the government before it was published. The Pentagon has said the manuscript was not submitted for review, although it obtained a copy last week.
Johnson said that after reviewing a copy of the book, "No Easy Day," the Pentagon concluded that the author is in "material breach and violation" of the agreements.
The book is to be published next week by Penguin Group (USA)'s Dutton imprint. The Associated Press purchased a copy Tuesday.
Johnson addressed his letter to Mr. "Mark Owen," using quotation marks to signify that that this is the author's pseudonym. When word of the book was announced last week, a few news organizations discovered Mark Owen's real name and published it. CBS News does not identify members of classified counter-terrorism units.
The author referred requests for comment about the letter to his publisher, which was not immediately available.
"I write to formally advise you of your material breach and violation of your agreements, and to inform you that the department is considering pursuing against you, and all those acting in concert with you, all remedies legally available to us in light of this situation," Johnson wrote.
The Pentagon has not revealed how it got a copy of the book.
Johnson noted that "copies of the book have apparently already been released." He added, "further public dissemination of your book will aggravate your breach and violation of your agreements."
The Pentagon did not release copies of the nondisclosure agreements that it said the ex-SEAL had signed in 2007. A spokesman, Army Col. Steve Warren, said they were being withheld because they include the author's real name and his signature.
In his book, the author wrote that the SEALs spotted bin Laden at the top of a darkened hallway and shot him in the head even though they could not tell whether he was armed. Administration officials have described the SEALs shooting bin Laden only after he ducked back into a bedroom because they assumed he might be reaching for a weapon.
Military experts said Wednesday that if the author's recollection is accurate, the SEALS made the right call to open fire on the terrorist mastermind, who had plenty of time to reach for a weapon or explosives as they made their way up to the third level of the house where he hid.

Navy SEAL on Bin Laden Raid Speaks Out
By LEE FERRAN and LUIS MARTINEZ | ABC News
A member of America's elite and secretive SEAL Team Six stepped out of the shadows -- but still apparently in disguise -- to make his first public appearance to talk about the historic raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The team member, who recently wrote a book about the mission called "No Easy Day" under the pseudonym Mark Owen, said in a CBS News' "60 Minutes" interview that his team practiced repeatedly for the mission in a mock-up replica of bin Laden's Abbottabad compound and after a practice run in front of what Owen called "VIPs," top Navy officials asked each member of the team if they were ready.
"And I'm pretty sure, to a man, we all said, 'Yes, absolutely,'" said Owen in excerpts of the interview broadcast tonight on "CBS Evening News With Scott Pelly." CBS said that in addition to the pseudonym, Owen was appearing in disguise for their interview.
Copies of Owen's book, leaked today to two news outlets, describe the gruesome scene when Osama bin Laden died and offer details that appear to contradict some of the "official" account, according to the news organizations that obtained copies of the book.
"Blood and brains spilled out of the side of his skull," a passage in the book says, according to The Huffington Post.
In the book, the author said he was right behind the "point man" who first shot bin Laden after the al Qaeda leader poked his head out of a doorway on one of the upper floors of the complex in Abbottabad, Pakistan. At the time, it wasn't immediately clear if those shots had connected.
"We were less than five steps from getting to the top when I heard suppressed shots. BOP. BOP," Owen writes of the May 2011 raid, according to the Huffington Post and The Associated Press, which also obtained a copy. "I couldn't tell from my position if the rounds hit the target or not. The man disappeared into the room."
It wasn't until several SEAL Team Six members entered the room that Owen learned some of the first shots hit their mark and that Osama bin Laden was the man bleeding and twitching on the ground with an apparent shot to the head. Still, Owen and another SEAL pointed their laser sights at his chest and "fired several rounds. The bullets tore into him, slamming his body into the floor until he was motionless."
The reported account appears to differ from earlier versions of the raid given by U.S. officials, including that of White House spokesperson Jay Carney, that the SEALs had entered the room before bin Laden was shot, that one of bin Laden's wives charged the SEALs and that bin Laden had "resisted" before he was killed, even if he was unarmed.
"No Easy Day" does say that two women were in the room when bin Laden died, but they were wailing over his body when the SEALs entered, the AP reported. White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment to The Associated Press on the discrepancies, but told the news organization, "As President Obama said on the night that justice was brought to Osama bin Laden, 'We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country.'"
Owen also reportedly writes that the SEALs were told in a pre-raid briefing the mission was not an assassination and that bin Laden should be detained should he pose no threat.
Reports on the leaked copies came just hours after the book's publisher, Dutton, announced it was moving up the publishing date to Sept. 4 from its original intended release on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The move came after the book became the center of widespread controversy over possible national security breaches.
Officials from the White House to the Department of Defense to the CIA have said they were unaware of the book and had not reviewed it for possible leaks at the time of the first media reports. A Department of Defense spokesperson said Monday the department had received a copy of the manuscript and had begun reviewing it for potential security issues.
Owen also said he was aware the book could be used as a political pawn near the end of a tight presidential election.
"My worry from the beginning is, you know, it's a political season. This book is not political whatsoever," Owen told CBS. "You know, if these -- crazies on either side of the aisle want to make it political, shame on them. This is a book about Sept. 11, and it needs to rest on Sept. 11. Not be brought into the political arena, because this-- this has nothing to do with politics."
Dutton said Owen plans to donate a majority of the proceeds from his book to charities that help the families of fallen Navy SEALs.

A once-tranquil corner of Afghanistan turns deadly
Afghanistan's largely peaceful Bamiyan province once was touted as a transition success story. Now it may become a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of winding down the war.
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times August 30, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — Not long ago, Bamiyan province was considered one of the most peaceful corners of Afghanistan, a remote and scenic enclave that was largely free of the daily violence that roils so much of the country. Now it may become a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of winding down the war here.
In the summer of 2011, Bamiyan's tranquil image was such that it was picked as the country's first province for the transfer of fighting duties from Western forces to Afghan troops, a process that is to be replicated across Afghanistan in a prelude to the end of NATO's combat role in 2014.
In recent months, however, a province best known as the site of the giant Buddhas that were dynamited more than a decade ago by the Taliban has been making news of the most ominous kind, including the deaths of five soldiers from New Zealand this month. To put that loss in perspective, the fatalities represented half of that nation's battle deaths for the entire war, including its first woman killed in conflict since 1966.
Even before the recent spasm of violence, there had been other danger signs for Bamiyan: the deaths of nine Afghan policemen in two bombing attacks in July, and the abduction and decapitation last year of Bamiyan's popular provincial council leader as he traveled to the capital, Kabul.
At the war's outset, Bamiyan seemed better positioned than almost any part of Afghanistan to fend off an insurgent presence. Tucked away in the central highlands, its population is mainly made up of ethnic Hazaras, whose fierce anti-Taliban sentiments were stoked by the systematic massacre of thousands during the fundamentalist movement's reign over Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Isolated by punishing winters and a poor road network, Bamiyan was never an insurgent thoroughfare, unlike conflict zones in the country's south and east that are crisscrossed by fighters with the Taliban, Pakistan's Haqqani network and other militant groups. And the haunting emptiness of the Buddha niches is a daily reminder of the fruits of Taliban intolerance.
Although the province is formally at the forefront of the nationwide "transition" effort, critics complain that the handoff of responsibility to Afghan forces has been fraught with problems.
"At the time of the hand-over ceremony, the transitional authority promised to increase the number of police, and give them better training and equipment, but these promises did not materialize," said Mohammad Akbari, a lawmaker from Bamiyan. "There are no Afghan soldiers, and the number of police is not more than 1,000 for the entire province.... If there are no remedial measures, there are fears that security will get even worse."
Perhaps because of deteriorating safety, Bamiyan's "transition" has not yet been declared complete, a step that NATO officials had signaled this year was imminent. No date has been set.
Local people are also anxiously wondering how Bamiyan will be affected by New Zealand's move to hasten the departure of its 150-member troop contingent. After the recent deaths, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said he expected the country's forces to leave early next year, about six months ahead of schedule. Key said the decision was not linked to the latest fatalities, but in a close-knit country, news of the deaths hit like a thunderbolt.
Portraits of the three soldiers killed Aug. 19 in a massive blast from a roadside bomb in northeastern Bamiyan gazed out from the front pages of virtually every New Zealand newspaper, including the rosy-cheeked face of 26-year-old Lance Cpl. Jacinda Baker, who had trained as a medic. The country was already reeling from the news that two other New Zealand troops had been slain in a gunfight two weeks earlier in the same part of the province.
Despite such setbacks, NATO insists that the process of handing over responsibilities to Afghan forces is on track.
"With 28 months left in the [NATO force's] mission, we are forging ahead with the process of transition," Gen. John Allen, the American who commands Western forces in Afghanistan, told Pentagon reporters via satellite link last week. "And as the Afghans assume full responsibility for the security of their country, our support will continue."
But some critics contend that with the clock ticking, Afghan forces are being hastily thrust into the lead in hazard-prone parts of the country.
"Unfortunately, things are getting more dangerous day by day," said Qari Mir Hatim Tarakhil, the head of the provincial council in Laghman, in eastern Afghanistan. "Since the transition happened about a year ago, insecurity has really increased."
Some officials quietly acknowledge that touting the peacefulness of an area such as Bamiyan, and holding it up as a transition success story, might have heightened its attractiveness as a target in the eyes of the insurgents. Nonetheless, many hope there is still time to contain the Taliban threat among its pristine peaks and valleys.
The provincial police chief, Gen. Juma Gildi Yardom, said he believed the Taliban did not have any significant havens in Bamiyan, but were slipping in and out from more restive neighboring provinces. And as elsewhere in Afghanistan, there is the acknowledgment that at some point, the country's security forces will simply have to hold their own.
In Lowgar province, not far from Kabul, where the transition began in June in several districts, the police chief, Ghulam Sakhi Rogh Lewanai, survived a Taliban ambush this month, but declared himself undaunted.
"As an Afghan, I defend my country, I defend the honor of my people and I defend our national interest," Lewanai said. "When the NATO forces have gone, I am ready to protect our homeland for as long as I am alive."
laura.king@latimes.com
Special correspondents Hashmat Baktash and Aimal Yaqubi contributed to this report.

UN to pull staff out of Afghan provinces
By Indo Asian News Service | IANS
Kabul, Aug 31 (IANS/RIA Novosti) The UN assistance mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) will withdraw its representations in several provinces, reported the Afghan Pajhwok news agency citing UNAMA chief Jan Kubis.
The news comes a day after an Afghan serviceman shot dead three Australian soldiers and wounded two others at a base near Tirinkot in Uruzgan province.
UNAMA will confine its operations to the zonal level within a few months, said Kubis during a visit to Tirinkot.
Uruzgan province needs more assistance than other provinces in Afghanistan, he said at a meeting with local officials and residents. He also noted that the security situation has improved but that much remains to be done.
He said the provinces where the UN is closing its representation will continue receiving international assistance as before.
--IANS/RIA Novosti

Pakistani officials confirm death of key militant
By SEBASTIAN ABBOT | Associated Press
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed Thursday that a U.S. drone strike last week near the Afghan border killed the son of the founder of the powerful Haqqani militant network, a major blow to one of the most feared groups fighting American troops in Afghanistan.
Badruddin Haqqani, who has been described as the organization's day-to-day operations commander, was killed Aug. 24 in one of three strikes that hit militant hideouts in the Shawal Valley in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, said two senior intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
A U.S. official confirmed that Badruddin Haqqani was killed in a CIA drone strike. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the drone program publicly.
The presence of the mostly Afghan Haqqani network in North Waziristan has been a major source of friction between Pakistan and the U.S. The Obama administration has repeatedly demanded that Pakistan prevent the group from using its territory to launch attacks in Afghanistan, but Islamabad has refused — a stance many analysts believe is driven by the country's strong historical ties to the Haqqani network's founder, Jalaluddin Haqqani.
The Pakistani intelligence officials didn't specify which strike on Aug. 24 killed Badruddin, but said he was leaving a hideout when the U.S. missiles hit. The confirmation of his death came from their sources within the Taliban, which is allied with the Haqqani network, and agents on the ground, they said. But neither the officials nor their sources have actually seen Badruddin's body.
Pakistani intelligence officials previously said they were 90 percent sure Badruddin was killed in a drone strike in a different part of North Waziristan on Aug. 21. It's unclear what caused the discrepancy.
Afghanistan's intelligence agency said several days ago that its operatives had confirmed Badruddin's death. A senior Taliban commander has also confirmed the militant's death.
A Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan, Zabiullah Mujahid, has however rejected reports of Badruddin's death, calling them "propaganda of the enemy."
The U.S. does not often comment publicly on the covert CIA drone program in Pakistan.
The areas where the American drone strikes generally occur are extremely remote and dangerous, making it difficult to verify a particular person's death.
Badruddin was considered a vital part of the Haqqani structure.
The U.S. State Department has designated Badruddin, along with his father and brothers — Nasiruddin and Sirajuddin — as terrorists. The State Department said in May 2011 that Badruddin sits on the Miram Shah Shura, a group that controls all Haqqani network activities and coordinates attacks in southeastern Afghanistan.
Badruddin is also believed to have been responsible for the 2008 kidnapping of New York Times reporter David Rohde, the department said.
After their father effectively retired in 2005, Badruddin and his brother Sirajuddin expanded the network into kidnapping and extortion, both highly profitable for the organization, according to a recent report by the West Point, N.Y.-based Combating Terrorism Center. Afghan intelligence authorities have released intercepts of Badruddin orchestrating an attack against the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul in 2011, the CTC said.
The U.S. has long viewed the Haqqani network as one of the biggest threats to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan as well as the country's long term stability.
The Pakistani military has refused to target the Haqqani network, saying its troops are stretched too thin fighting militants at war with the state in other parts of the tribal region. But many analysts believe the military views the group as an important potential ally in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.
Also on Thursday, Pakistan security officials arrested the founder of one of the country's most virulently anti-Shiite militant groups, Laskhar-e-Jangvi, for allegedly making a speech that spread sectarian hatred.
A police official in Lahore, Maroof Afzal, said police arrested Malik Ishaq as he returned from a religious pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. He was arrested because of a speech he made during Ramadan that authorities said incited sectarian hatred.
Laskhar-e-Jangvi allies itself with al-Qaida and the Taliban. The group is blamed for scores of attacks on Shiites, regarded as infidels, and on Pakistani and U.S. interests. Police arrested Ishaq in 1997, and he was accused in more than 200 criminal cases including the killing of 70 Shiites. But the prosecution could never prove the case, in part because of witness and judge intimidation, and he went free in 2011.
The arrest comes as the country is undergoing a surge of sectarian attacks, many by Sunni Muslims who view Shiites as infidels. Much of the violence has come in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province.
Gunmen shot to death a Shiite Muslim judge along with his bodyguard and driver Thursday in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, said senior police official Wazir Khan Nasir. The police suspect it was a sectarian killing, he said.
Also Thursday, fighting continued for a seventh day between security forces and Taliban militants who came from Afghanistan to attack an area in northwest Pakistan, officials said. The fighting in the Bajur tribal area killed eight militants, two anti-Taliban militiamen, a soldier and a female civilian, said a local political official, Nazimeen Khan.
A total of 73 militants, 14 militiamen, 10 soldiers and 11 civilians, including six women and four children, have been killed in the week of fighting in the Salarzai area of Bajur, said Khan.
___
Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed and Rebecca Santana in Islamabad, Kimberly Dozier in Washington, Babar Dogar in Lahore, Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, and Anwarullah Khan in Khar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

West squandered Afghan opportunities: Abdullah
AFP 30 August 2012
Any chance for the West to claim that the long war in Afghanistan has been a success is fast slipping away, says former and potentially future presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah.
Eleven years after the 9/11 attacks on the United States led to an invasion of Afghanistan in pursuit of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and two years before NATO troops pull out, the so-called ‘good war’ has lost its gloss.
Afghan soldiers are increasingly turning their weapons against their NATO allies, Taleban insurgents are stepping up their attacks and the Western-backed government is corrupt and weak.
‘When the Americans entered Afghanistan they were welcomed,’ Abdullah, a former foreign minister well known in the West, told AFP in an interview this week in the garden of his tightly protected upmarket Kabul home.
But opportunities to capitalise on the goodwill generated after the hardline Taleban Islamists were ousted from power and Western troops and cash poured into the country were squandered, he said.
‘To call it a success or a victory is getting more problematic as we move on. Things which should have been done at the beginning have become a hundred times more difficult today.’
The criticism comes from a man once courted by Western diplomats as the most viable hope for a political opposition in Afghanistan as part of efforts to inculcate democracy.
The former eye surgeon and aide to renowned anti-Soviet commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated in 2001, was foreign minister in the Afghan government that emerged after the Taleban’s downfall.
He then ran against President Hamid Karzai in the 2009 presidential elections and won 30 percent of the vote, even though Karzai’s supporters were widely condemned for massive fraud.
Despite having shot onto the world stage as the first real political opponent of his former boss, Abdullah called off a second-round showdown, fearing that the fraud would be repeated, leaving Karzai with a suspect legitimacy.
With presidential elections looming in 2014, the same year 130,000 US-led NATO forces are due to withdraw, will he run again?
The urbane 51 year-old with a trim grey beard, dressed in an elegant white shalwar khameez, hesitates over his answer at the start of the interview.
He hasn’t decided, he says. But later he acknowledges that ‘more than half my heart says I might be a candidate’.
His main concern, he says, is for free and fair elections and the survival of the ‘political process’, without which Afghanistan is headed for a crisis.
Karzai, who constitutionally cannot run for a third term, ‘doesn’t believe in democracy’, Abdullah says.
‘My concern is he might make the final mistake of trying to derail the political process once again and this time around it will be very costly for the nation.’
Abdullah chooses his words with care. Unlike many Afghans he shies away from predicting a new ethnically-based civil war when the West pulls out, as happened when the Soviets withdrew after a 10-year occupation in the 1980s.
But, he says, ‘internally any attempt to derail the democratic process will have severe consequences for the country, including security consequences, and coupled with the transition that can lead to a crisis’.
Ethnicity will also play a part in the 2014 elections, possibly counting against Abdullah. His father was a Pashtun, Afghanistan’s main ethnic group and the source of both Karzai and most Taleban fighters.
But his mother is an ethnic Tajik and he is associated with the anti-Taleban Tajiks of Massoud’s stronghold in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul.
Afghanistan must be grateful for the West’s sacrifices ‘in blood and treasure’ he says, but faults the US for missed opportunities in the early years after the invasion as then-president George W. Bush turned his attention to Iraq.
‘This was the best time, the people were ready for change. At that time we needed much more serious engagement, especially in the development and reconstruction of Afghanistan.
‘Iraq was a distraction and the double role and dirty game of Pakistan was ignored during that period. At that time it would have been easy to clamp down on a few Taleban leaders.’
But Pakistan then provided the Taleban with bases and the opportunity to regroup and launch an insurgency which grew in strength over the years, he said.
‘So that critical period was missed’ and by the time President Barack Obama came to power and authorised a military and civilian ‘surge’ to bolster the war effort and rebuild Afghanistan the best chance for success had been lost.
Abdullah also takes Karzai to task for what he calls his ‘vague’ message in which he regularly calls the Taleban ‘brothers’, urging them to talk peace, and criticises the United States.
‘Sometimes you don’t know who he calls the enemy — the Taleban or the Americans.’
Abdullah suggests this is one of the main reasons behind the increasing number of so-called green-on-blue attacks in which Afghan troops or police turn their weapons against their NATO allies.
But the image of US troops has also taken a battering this year, with the burning of Korans at an army base provoking riots, videos posted online of troops urinating on Taleban corpses and a massacre of civilians by a rogue soldier.
Polls show the Western public is sick of the war, and all foreign combat troops will be gone shortly after the 2014 presidential elections.
‘They are already leaving, thousands are going as we speak,’ Abdullah says, glancing up at the blue sky above his garden. ‘The war will continue. If we can save the political process we can save the situation.
‘And if the political process is in danger of course the prospect of major crisis will be there.’

FEATURE-Abuse allegations mount against flagship Afghan police force
Reuters By Mirwais Harooni Aug 30, 2012
CHAR DARAH, Afghanistan
* Flagship militia set up to ease public anxiety, not fuel it
* But gains often overshadowed by allegations of rape, murder
Fahima had just arrived home from school when members of the Afghan Local Police (ALP), a U.S.-trained militia charged with making Afghans in Taliban strongholds feel more secure, started hammering on the front door searching for her father.
They elbowed it open and, frustrated at not finding him, started beating her younger brother, prompting 17-year-old Fahima to intervene. One of the men turned and shot her dead.
"She was in her first days as an eleventh grade student," said Fahima's father, Khuja, who believes the killing was score settling over an old land dispute.
"Offenders are still serving as local policemen and they are free. Police say the killer has escaped but he's walking in public with his gun and no one is able to catch him."
The ALP was set up in 2010 in villages where the national force is weak, a flagship project of U.S. General David Petraeus, who stepped down as commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan in 2011.
The government began recruiting everyone from farmers to shopkeepers for the militia, hoping to take the edge away from the Taliban in their rural bastions.
American officials have hailed the ALP as an effective homegrown force which has restricted the ability of the Taliban to move in the countryside.
In northern Kunduz province's Char Darah district, a Taliban stronghold until recently, people credit the ALP for making it safer to travel and send children to school against frequent insurgent opposition to education, especially for girls.
"The Taliban here were demanding money from local people, beating them if they refused. Now we don't let them do it," said Gul Ahmad, an ALP commander in Sarak Bala village.
But security gains made by the now 20,000-strong militia are often overshadowed by mounting accusations of abuses, including rape and murder.
Human rights groups say ALP members sometimes act like warlords, demanding bribes, skimming contracts and committing the kind of atrocities that rattled Afghanistan in a civil war that killed 50,000 people before the Taliban took over in 1996.
Afghans already have enough to worry about. Many fear the United States and other Western allies will abandon Afghanistan after 2014, when most NATO combat troops will have gone, leaving them at the mercy of the Taliban. There is widespread talk of another civil war.
The ALP was supposed to ease public anxiety, not fuel it.
UNIFORMS, A SALARY, BUT LITTLE DISCIPLINE
Duties range from manning checkpoints and running patrols to providing security forces with intelligence on insurgents. Each member gets a monthly salary and food worth about $180 and are issued brown uniforms and an AK-47 rifle.
Some acquire heavier weapons like machineguns or rocket-propelled grenades on their own and prefer the traditional flowing shirt and baggy trousers to mix in with the population in farming villages with mudbrick homes.
Many complain they are underpaid and have to borrow or steal from the poor locals they are meant to protect.
"My father works as a farmer and I have to help him live. If I don't get enough money then I'll have an eye on other local people's pockets," said Lutfullah, 28.
Their pasts often don't inspire confidence either. Rights groups say some were former Taliban fighters or members of militias that wreaked havoc in Afghanistan for decades. There are reports of the ALP joining the Taliban.
"Some of them are guilty of repeated killings," said Hussain Ali Moin, coordinator for the Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission.
More than 100 ALP members have been jailed for crimes including murder, bombings, rapes, beatings and robbery, according to chief military prosecutor Mohammad Rahim Hanifi.
In one of the most high-profile cases, an ALP commander and four of his men entered a house in Kunduz province, assaulted a family and abducted their 18-year-old daughter, Lal Bibi, in May.
She told her family she was chained to a wall and repeatedly raped before being brought home a week later.
"She says if she does not get justice she will set herself on fire," her 56-year-old father, Hajji Rustam, told Reuters.
The trauma was so severe, it made him long for the days when rapists were publicly stoned to death or flogged under Taliban rule.
"The Taliban were better than the ALP," he said. "At least they respected our honour. They opposed only women's activities in public, but these people assault us in our homes."
STRICTER VETTING
The problems may multiply, with plans to boost the force to 30,000 and make it operational over most of the country.
Some of the attacks allegedly committed by the ALP also seem to be motivated by sectarian rivalries, which could complicate efforts to tame the force.
In southern Uruzgan province, an ALP commander belonging to the Hazara minority ethnic group in late July gunned down 15 Pashtun civilians in Khas Uruzgan, a day after the Pashtun Taliban killed two of his friends, officials said.
"Commander Abdul Hakim Shujahi took nine villagers out of their houses and took them to the Matakzai area of the village and killed them with stones and gunshots," said Mohammad Waris Faizi, who heads the Independent Human Rights Commission investigation office in the province.
"Then he and his people arrested six villagers from the Khak Afghan area and killed them too," Faizi said.
Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Seddiqi denied troubles were widespread and said the ALP was making serious sacrifices for Afghanistan, accounting for more than half of all casualties among anti-insurgent forces.
"They are very useful, to be honest, and very effective. They are inflicting big losses on the Taliban," he said.
In order to improve the ALP's image, authorities say they are stepping up vetting beyond word of mouth from local leaders, governors, intelligence and police chiefs, and turning to biometric data.
"If there are any criminals, we can track them and we can find them," Seddiqi said.
But those efforts have not calmed Afghans.
"The Taliban and ALP are active during the night," said villager Najibullah Khairkhwah, 33. "Both can shoot you, rob you. So I prefer not to leave my house."

Govt won't bring charges over CIA interrogations
By PETE YOST | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department announced Thursday it has ended its investigation into CIA interrogations of terrorist detainees without bringing criminal charges.
The decision in the probes of the deaths of two terrorist suspects marks the end of a wide-ranging criminal investigation by federal prosecutor John Durham into interrogation practices during the presidency of George W. Bush.
Durham has looked into the treatment of 101 detainees in U.S. custody since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Durham's probe into another episode involving the CIA began in January 2008 when the Justice Department chose him to conduct a criminal investigation into the agency's destruction of videotapes it had made of its interrogations of terrorist suspects.
In August 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder expanded Durham's mandate to include a preliminary review of the CIA's interrogation of specific detainees overseas. In June 2011, Holder approved Durham's request to move into a full criminal investigation of the two deaths.
The 2009 expansion followed the public release of an internal CIA inspector general's report that revealed agency interrogators once threatened to kill a Sept. 11 suspect's children and suggested another would be forced to watch his mother be sexually assaulted. The report said some CIA interrogators went beyond Bush administration restrictions that gave them wide latitude to use severe tactics such as waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique.
In regard to the just-completed probe of the two detainees' deaths, Holder said that "based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two deaths, the department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt."
In a message to employees Thursday, CIA Director David Petraeus said that "as intelligence officers, our inclination, of course, is to look ahead to the challenges of the future rather than backwards at those of the past. Nonetheless, it was very important that we supported fully the Justice Department in its efforts" and "I would like to thank everyone who played a role" in doing so.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said he was "heartened that the investigation is complete, and I'm heartened by the results. I had great confidence in Mr. Durham. I just regret that many CIA officers had to go through yet another review of these activities."
Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the outcome of the investigation "nothing short of a scandal."
"Continuing impunity threatens to undermine the universally recognized prohibition on torture and other abusive treatment," Jaffer said.
Durham's review examined whether CIA interrogators used any unauthorized interrogation techniques, and if so, whether the techniques could constitute violations of the torture statute or any other laws. The approach taken in the probe was not to prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.
Thursday's announcement came in the deaths of Gul Rahman and Manadel al-Jamadi.
Rahman died in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2002, after being shackled to a cold concrete wall in a secret CIA prison in northern Kabul, Afghanistan, known as the Salt Pit. He was suspected of links to the terrorist group al-Qaida. Rahman is the only detainee known to have died in a CIA-run prison.
Before Durham looked into Rahman's death, two other federal prosecutors conducted separate reviews and could not prove the CIA officer running the Salt Pit had intended to harm the detainee — a point made in a government document that has been released publicly.
Al-Jamadi died in 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A military autopsy declared al-Jamadi's death a homicide.
At Abu Ghraib prison, instead of turning al-Jamadi over to the Army, CIA officers took him to a shower stall. They put a sandbag over his head, cuffed his hands behind his back and chained his arms to a barred window. When he leaned forward, his arms stretched painfully behind and above his back.
Within an hour, he was dead.
At least three CIA employees came under scrutiny, including a paramilitary officer who ran what was known as the detainee exploitation cell at Abu Ghraib.
The officer was on the raid when a group of Navy SEALs captured al-Jamadi. He processed al-Jamadi into the prison but he was not in the shower room when al-Jamadi died.
The officer failed to have a doctor supervise al-Jamadi before he was processed into the prison, violating agency procedures. The officer, who was reprimanded over the incident, now works for a defense contractor.
___
Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman contributed to this report.

Lawmakers Support Election Law Amendments: FEFA
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 29 August 2012
The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) said Wednesday that most Afghan parliamentarians want amendments to the election law.
In a recent poll conducted by the group, the majority of lawmakers favoured a change in the law - specifically in the structure, duties and authority of the Afghan Independent Election Commission, FEFA chief Jandad Spinghar said at a briefing Wednesday.
The briefing in Kabul included representatives from FEFA, political parties, social activists, the UN and other national and international bodies' in Afghanistan.
"We wanted to give a clear picture to the political parties and social activists as to how much enthusiasm there is among Afghan lawmakers to approve the new law," Spinghar said.
According to Spinghar, the lawmakers want all the election commissioners to gain vote of confidence from the parliament to hold their position in order to ensure their impartiality, effectiveness, independence, and qualifications.
He also added that the new election law should also be supported by Afghan president, cabinet and politicians.
"In order to have an independent and impartial and professional election commission, President Karzai, the cabinet, the parliamentarians and all politicians should support the election law," he said.

Finance Ministry Female Graduates Did Not Meet Hiring Requirements: Zakhilwal
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Afghanistan's Finance Minister claimed Wednesday that 30 female university graduates hired to the Finance Ministry were appointed without passing necessary job requirements.
The female graduates were hired as part of a US-funded project for the Ministry which aims to support and increase the role of women in government entities.
"We have a tough hiring process at the Ministry of Finance and experience is one of the main requirements of every job, but these graduates have been hired without passing these requirements," Finance Minister Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal told TOLOnews.
The employees are meant to pass short training courses before starting the job at the Ministry but the recent hires did not do so, he said.
Head of US Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Afghanistan Ken Yama****a said Wednesday that the role of women at the government agency level had proven to be "effective".
"We experience that the role of women at the government agencies were an effective cause to further development," Yama****a said, adding USAID assists in hiring up to 100 female university graduates every year under the aims of "capacity building" purposes.

www.afghanistannewscenter.com