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Afghanistan: Six killed by insiders, insurgents blow up $180m in jets
Green-on-blue attacks in Afghanistan have killed at least 51 international troops this year.
By Tom A. Peter | Christian Science Monitor
At least six coalition soldiers were killed in Afghanistan this weekend in two separate incidents where members of the Afghan security forces turned their weapons against international forces.
In Afghanistan’s southern Zabul province, four coalition soldiers were reportedly killed by a group of Afghan police who turned their weapons on international troops. The other incident occurred on Saturday and left two British soldiers dead.
News of the latest so-called “green-on-blue” killings adds to what has become a serious and lethal trend confronting international forces here. Such attacks have left at least 51 international troops dead this year alone, a first for the Afghan war.
How well do you know Afghanistan? Take our quiz.
Although the international military is slated to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014, the green on blue killings and the insurgent infiltration they likely represent, may pose a serious threat for the long-term stability of Afghanistan.
“The issue of green on blue attacks is not only a tragic issue for international forces and Afghan forces right now, but post-2014 this could change into the collapse of one or many of government institutions in various districts and provinces,” says Waliullah Rahmani, executive director of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies. “There might be a risk of many elements of the Taliban and insurgency or people who are loyal to them who spy for these groups inside the Afghan government.”
In recent months, the Afghan insurgency seems to be placing increasing reliance on infiltration tactics to carry out attacks against Afghan and international forces.
On Sunday, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan released new details about an attack on Camp Bastion, a major air base in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
The base serves as one of the central logistical hubs for the British military and is attached to Camp Leatherneck, the central base for US Marines in southern Afghanistan.The camps are one of the most heavily guarded areas in Afghanistan, but on Friday, a group of 15 insurgents managed to breach the perimeter fence reportedly wearing US military uniforms and carrying rifles, grenade launchers, and suicide vests.
The insurgents managed to destroy 6 AV-8B Harrier jets and significantly damage two more. A single Harrier jet is valued at up to $30 million. Fourteen of the attackers were killed and another captured, but not before they managed to kill two international service members and injure an additional eight soldiers and a civilian contractor.
Coming amid the on-going wave of green-on-blue incidents, the attack against Camp Bastion has raised concerns about the apparent vulnerability of international forces working to transition authority to their Afghan partners as they begin reducing their numbers here.
Abdul Ghafoor Liwal, director of Regional Studies Center of Afghanistan, says it is more important than ever for US and international forces to use their remaining time to harbor good will among Afghans. Nearly 11 years into the war here, he says many Afghans now struggle to understand why international forces are still here and why they deserve Afghan support.
“Aside from the influence of the Taliban and other enemies, I think the behavior of international forces in Afghanistan causes so many problems which result in these kinds attacks,” says Mr. Liwal, speaking about green-on-blue killings. “I think the international forces must rethink their behavior, their relationship with the Afghan people, and their justification of their existence in Afghanistan.”
NATO Accused of Killing 8 Afghan Women in Airstrike
VOA News September 16, 2012
Afghan officials say NATO coalition forces have killed eight women and girls in an airstrike in a remote district of the country. The deaths come after three "insider" attacks in as many days by Afghan forces against international soldiers killed eight troops, including four Americans.
Sunday's airstrike came shortly before dawn, in Laghman province's Alingar district, east of Kabul. Villagers drove the bodies to the provincial capital, claiming they were killed by NATO aircraft while they were out gathering firewood before dawn.
A Laghman provincial government spokesman said the villagers were condemning the attack and shouting "Death to America!"
The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force initially said an air strike targeted around 45 insurgents, but later expressed condolences over "possible ISAF-caused civilian casualties" numbering five to eight.
Meanwhile, ISAF said four U.S. service members were killed Sunday in an "insider" attack in the southern part of the country.
Local authorities in Zabul province say the four Americans, were killed by an Afghan police officer. Coalition officials have not identified the service personnel.
Sunday's attack comes one day after two British solders were gunned down by an Afghan policeman in southern Helmand province.
The deadly attacks are the latest in a series of so-called green-on-blue "insider" attacks by Afghan forces against their international counterparts, threatening the military partnership between NATO and Kabul.
In another development, coalition officials say the insurgents who attacked a British military base in Afghanistan Friday, killing two U.S. Marines, were dressed in U.S. Army uniforms and were armed with automatic rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers and suicide vests.
The coalition says the 15 militants were organized into three teams and "executed a well-coordinated attack" against the airfield on Camp Bastion in Helmand province.
The alliance say the attackers destroyed six Harrier jets and "significantly damaged" two more. The militants also destroyed three coalition refueling stations and damaged six aircraft hangars.
International troops say they killed 14 of the insurgents and wounded one, who is in custody.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Karzai Criticizes U.S. Over Delayed Bagram Transfers
September 16, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticized the United States for not handing over hundreds of Afghan prisoners at the Bagram detention facility to the Afghan government.
The United States officially handed over control of the Bagram prison to Kabul on September 10, ending a six-month transfer that began after a March agreement between the two countries.
But while some 3,000 detainees have been transferred to Afghan control, about 50 foreign prisoners and several hundred Afghans detained after the March agreement remain in U.S. custody.
Karzai said in a statement that Washington's decision to delay the handover of the remaining inmates was a "serious violation" of their March agreement and contradicts the "spirit of mutual friendship and the provisions of the bilateral strategic partnership agreement."
Attackers in Afghanistan wore US uniforms
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Coalition military authorities in Afghanistan say the insurgents who attacked a British airfield in southwestern Afghanistan on Friday, killing two U.S. Marines, wore U.S. Army uniforms and destroyed six Harrier fighter jets.
They said in a statement Saturday that about 15 insurgents carried out the attack, describing the attack as well coordinated by insurgents who were "well equipped, trained and rehearsed." Fourteen of the 15 were killed. One was captured.
They said attackers penetrated the base's perimeter and were armed with automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and suicide vests. Besides destroying six planes, they destroyed three refueling stations on the base and damaged six aircraft hangars.
Coalition authorities have not yet identified the two Marines killed. Eight military members and one civilian contractor were also injured in the assault.
30 Taliban militants defect to government in N. Afghanistan
FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Up to 30 Taliban militants defected to government in Badakhshan province, some 315 km northeast of Afghan capital Kabul, a provincial government spokesman said.
"A total of 30 Taliban, including their commander named Mullah Sohbaat, renounce violence and joined the peace and reconciliation process in Shahri Buzurg district Saturday afternoon," spokesman Abdul Maruf Rasikh told Xinhua.
He said the former insurgents also handed over 30 AK-47 guns to security officials.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have not made any comment yet.
More than 3,500 anti-government insurgents have laid down their arms in Afghanistan over the past year, officials said.
Progress Noted, But Questions Remain Over 'New Silk Road' Initiative
By Richard Solash September 16, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Can camels and caravans be reincarnated as rail networks and oil pipelines?
That's the idea behind the United States' New Silk Road initiative, which aims to use energy, transport, trade, and infrastructure projects to support Afghanistan and provide regional stability after foreign troops leave the country.
In India last summer, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on countries to draw inspiration from the ancient Silk Road that for centuries connected the Far East and Europe.
"[Let's build] an international web and network of economic and transit connections," she said. "That means building more rail lines, highways, [and] energy infrastructure, like the proposed pipeline to run from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan through Pakistan into India (TAPI). It means upgrading the facilities at border crossings. And it certainly means removing the bureaucratic barriers and other impediments to the free flow of goods and people."
The benefits, in theory, are multifold.
Avenues would be opened for Kabul to increase regional trade, providing much-needed income to help offset the expected drop in international aid after foreign troops draw down in 2014.
Neighboring countries would be active participants in rebuilding regional ties, providing an economic foundation that could help prevent the spread of extremism.
Funding would come from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the private sector, and interested governments, while the United States would use its clout to keep things moving.
The United States, well aware of fears that waning U.S. interest in the region could lead to chaos, would be able to show that it is involved for the long-term while also keeping Iranian interests in the region at bay.
Progress, But Questions Remain
This month, about one year after the initiative was launched with much fanfare, the major stakeholders will get a chance to take stock of its progress when diplomats from Afghanistan, its neighbors, and world powers meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
In that time, analysts say, there have been some signs of progress toward a vision of regional interconnectivity. But they also say major questions remain about the plan's feasibility amid persistent instability, corruption, and rivalries.
S. Frederick Starr, the chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University, says progress "has been slower than it should have been but faster than the pessimists expected."
Starr, who was instrumental in formulating the concept behind the U.S. initiative, says Clinton is correct in describing the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) pipeline as one of its lynchpins.
Washington cited this spring's pricing agreement for Turkmen gas as a landmark toward making the slow-moving project more than just an $8 billion pipe dream. But huge obstacles remain, including finding private-sector investors willing to fund a pipeline that would traverse restive areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Building Confidence
Starr says the U.S. government has not done enough to inspire confidence in the viability of the project, in ambitious plans for dams, power grids, and rail networks. The best way to convince governments and investors that they can be safe and profitable, he argues, is to start small.
"The key short-term issue is opening up a few key road corridors in and out of Afghanistan," Starr says. "We're only talking about four or five, which [would be] honest and fast. Exporters of cotton from Central Asia would be sending hundreds of trucks to Gwadar, Karachi, Chah Bahar, and Bandar Abbas [through Afghanistan].
"And if you do the short-term projects successfully," he continues, "confidence in the midterm projects will rise and those, in turn, will create more confidence and eagerness to invest in the long-term projects. But that hasn't been done yet."
For its part, the United States has cited recent steps to implement a transit-trade agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan as another significant stride. If fully implemented, it could speed the transfer of Afghan goods to foreign markets and perhaps set a regional precedent.
Washington has also welcomed a move by Islamabad and New Delhi toward normalizing trade, as well as agreements between Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to streamline crossborder transport. Planned rail networks linking Kabul to the outside world are also slowly gathering steam.
But in practice, such deals don't necessarily remove entrenched impediments to regional trade, such as protective tariff systems and corruption.
It's not rare for Afghan imports coming through Pakistan to be held up, sometimes for months, until trade disputes are settled or unrelated bilateral tensions ebb.
Regional Rivalries
Farther north, Tajik truck driver Mahmud Bobokhonov expressed his frustration to RFE/RL's Tajik Service near the border with Kyrgyzstan.
"Kyrgyz officials think that every Tajik smuggles drugs and demand money to allow you to cross the border," he says. "Even every passenger on crossborder buses has to pay at least 100 Russian rubles to enter Kyrgyzstan. There is no oversight of border and custom guards and they do anything they want."
Sebastien Peyrouse, a Central Asia expert at George Washington University, says that in many cases Washington may not have the clout to overcome deep-seated regional rivalries.
"Most of the countries in Central Asia have bad relations. So, for example, now you see that Tajikistan is trying to sell electricity to Afghanistan, but on the other hand, Uzbekistan is putting strong pressure on Kabul so that it doesn't buy electricity from Tajikistan," Peyrouse says. "There are a lot of tensions between Central Asian countries, which can mean a real problem for further involvement in Afghanistan."
Nevertheless, U.S. officials remain bullish on the Silk Road.
"We have seen a real shift in the way that people talk about [the New Silk Road initiative]," says Robert Blake, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs. "It's no longer, 'How can the New Silk Road possibly happen?' Instead, it's, 'What are the linkages that can be strengthened or developed to knit these countries more closely together?'"
Washington has also stressed that its vision for the region is meant to emerge after years, not 12 months. The question, analysts say, is whether progress will have enough momentum to sustain itself after 2014.
RFE/RL Tajik Service correspondent Ma'sum Imomov contributed to this story
Young Lives, Lost in the Fog of War
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND September 15, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - These days, Abdul Farhad tries to sleep with the lights on in his bedroom and his eyes wide open, because as soon as he closes them he is back in his shop in central Kabul and it is 11:30 a.m. on the eighth of September.
He is sitting behind the desk in his office, a small room with a floor-to-ceiling plate-glass front wall, with a view he says he will never forget.
The usual street children are clustered in front of his car rental shop, in the heart of the capital’s military and diplomatic quarter. Khorshid, 15, dressed, as always, in a brightly colored tunic over prim trousers, is a skateboarding sensation who dreams of winning the girls’ world championship one day.
Her younger sister, Parwana, 11, has even bigger dreams, to become a doctor. Somewhere nearby is their big-eyed little sister Mursal, who is 7 and already speaks English well enough to soften the hearts of passing G.I.’s, and separate them from “just one dollar, mister.”
With them are their friends Nawab, 17; Mohammad Eesa, 16; Elyas, 15; and Nawal, 17 — all skateboarders and fellow pavement hustlers. This is their territory, and they come here every day after school and on public holidays like the one on Sept. 8, which honored an assassinated anti-Taliban leader. They sell scarves, or stale chewing gum, from sacks that double as school bags, but mostly they beg.
As Mr. Farhad watches idly, a stranger enters the frame with a knapsack on his back. Mr. Farhad reckons he is 15 or 16. The children swarm the stranger, worried he is competition and trying to see what he is carrying.
The knapsack explodes.
Mr. Farhad found himself on the floor behind his desk, his ears ringing. He was bleeding in several places, but not seriously wounded. He gave a prayer of thanks that a salesman had persuaded him to cover the inside of the windows with Mylar, a film that prevents glass from shattering into lethal shards. “Otherwise,” he said, “I would have been a dead man for sure.”
The children were not as lucky. The suicide bombing, the 55th in Afghanistan this year — there have been two more since — killed four of them, as well as three adults.
Elyas, who had wandered far enough away to save his life, lay in the street, wounded. Looking around at a landscape of blood and bodies, he had a sudden, terrible realization. “None of my friends my age are alive,” the boy said. “I’m all alone.”
Once again, innocent children were among the victims of the most indiscriminate of weapons. As police and military targets have hardened their defenses since the insurgents first began using large numbers of suicide bombers in 2006, more and more of the victims have been civilian bystanders, almost always including children. Afghanistan has one of the world’s highest population growth rates, and children are thick on the ground in any public place. According to human rights researchers, 865 civilians were killed or wounded in suicide or other bombings in the first eight months of this year, 38 percent of them children.
Mr. Farhad, 24, does not remember the moment of the explosion.
On the floor of his shop on Ariana Road, he marveled that he was not dead. The bomber had been just 10 yards away. “All over the floor in here, there were hands and feet and pieces of flesh,” he recalled several days later.
He walked outside to see so many body parts in a scene of such carnage that it was impossible to tell who was who.
His landlord, Latifullah, had been next door, fixing the metal gate in the wall around his home. Now he was dead. Latifullah’s widow, who has three young children to support in a society where it is hard for women to find work, was wailing.
“In our society, a woman without a husband or brothers is a dead woman,” Mr. Farhad said. “Now she has no one.”
Mohammad Sardar, who runs a carpet shop down the street, was on the sidewalk, an arm blown nearly completely off, but Mr. Farhad was able to bandage it crudely and stanch the flow of blood. “He was conscious and I felt he was strong, and if only an ambulance came he might have survived,” Mr. Farhad said.
But no ambulance came. Mr. Sardar died in the back of a police car that had been pressed into service to take him to a hospital.
“All those embassies nearby, the Spanish and Italian, the American, and ISAF headquarters, I am sure they all had ambulances, but not one ambulance came to help these guys,” Mr. Farhad said. The headquarters of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force was on the other side of Ariana Road, 100 yards away.
Most of the victims were beyond help. Police officers cleaned up the scene and delivered the body parts to two hospitals.
The Taliban issued a statement saying they had targeted a C.I.A. safe house; they denied the bomber had been a youth. Yet the only house nearby, other than Mr. Farhad’s little shop, was Latifullah’s house, where his widow could be heard screaming “Death to America” in her anguish.
“Everyone knows where that C.I.A. safe house is,” said Lt. Col. Waisullah Taj, the police chief of Kabul’s District 10. “That is not the place. This incident proved their stupidity. They could have attacked the embassy or the ISAF gate or the police, instead they just killed four little beggars.”
It took several days to discern who lived and who died. The final tally would be seven dead and four wounded, one gravely.
At the edge of the blast scene, Mursal stood screaming and crying, but unhurt. She wanted to look for her sisters Khorshid and Parwana, but the police would not let her. Someone with a cellphone called her mother, and she cried into the phone that she could not find them.
Khorshid had worked part time at a charity called Skateistan, teaching other children how to skateboard. The program uses skateboarding as a way to try to draw Kabul’s street children to school and away from the dangerous streets.
It was a co-worker from Skateistan who found Khorshid’s body in the morgue at the Emergency Surgical Center for War Victims, and called her mother, Bibi Hawa, with the news.
Their family is among the poorest of the poor, and so their house is among the highest of the high, at the top of a steep hill — a climb up a 45-degree slope to a three-room concrete hut with no electricity, sewerage or water.
Bibi Hawa is not a traditional Afghan wife, though she had six daughters and two sons. She works as a police officer, posted far from the city. Her husband, she says matter-of-factly, “is a heroin addict.”
Her children spent most of their time on the streets, alone, trudging for hours on foot and riding in minibuses to and from school and work, but always meeting up with her at dark high on the hill for the family supper.
The children made more money than she did, between Khorshid’s skateboard teaching and their street begging.
“They were my sons, not my daughters,” she said. “They were my breadwinners.” She knew her girls were full of promise. They spoke English remarkably well, learned on the street from passers-by. Khorshid was also an accomplished athlete in volleyball and karate, and had her part-time Skateistan salary. She and Parwana were good students. And their incomes were helping the family to build a new home.
“We were feeling free and we thought ISAF was the safest place in Kabul,” Ms. Hawa said. “How could we expect that three coffins would come to my home?”
First was Khorshid, whose name means “sun.” She was buried the same day.
“We thought Parwana was frightened and hiding somewhere, but then at night we got a call,” Ms. Hawa said. The body of Parwana, whose name means “butterfly,” was found in another hospital’s morgue, along with Ms. Hawa’s son-in-law Assad, 22. They were buried the next day.
“My daughters were athletes and scholars,” said their father, Mohammad Zaman, who looked bleary-eyed and haggard as he joined his wife. He wept while she stayed still, occasionally rolling her eyes. “I told my wife, I will put a tent near my children’s graves and live there from now on,” he said.
Other families mourned two other children, who had also attended Skateistan’s programs. They were Mohammad Eesa, one of the charity’s earliest skateboarders, and Nawab, who won the group’s 2012 skateboarding championship. That made seven dead, but at the Emergency hospital there was, as Emanuele Nannini, a program coordinator, put it, “another half a body.”
“We have a pair of legs in our morgue,” he said. “No one will come and take them.” One theory was that the legs were all that remained of the suicide bomber, but doctors at the hospital judged them to be 30 years old, not 15.
There were other body parts unaccounted for and uncollected. Mr. Farhad and other locals eventually found a hand, bits of flesh, tufts of hair, odds and ends of what had been human lives. They buried them in a hole in the earthen verge between the sidewalk and Ariana Road, by a pole where well-wishers tied scarves in remembrance of the girls.
“This really hurts to say it, but the dogs are coming every day to dig it up,” Mr. Farhad said. “So we had to put a big stone on top of it.” An alley cat sniffed around the edges of the stone, then sat on its haunches nearby, watching.
Al-Qaeda Weapons Expert Killed in Paktika Operation
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 15 September 2012
An al-Qaeda weapons expert was killed in an airstrike during a joint Afghan and Nato troops operation in Paktika province, Isaf said on Saturday.
The joint security force in Paktika's Mata Khan district identified the expert Taqwa – also known as Eissa Khan – transporting weapons toward a populated area on Wednesday. After ensuring no civilians were in the area, they killed him in an airstrike, Isaf said in a statement.
"As an al-Qaeda weapons expert, Taqwa is suspected of directing multiple attacks against Afghan and coalition forces, often using improvised explosive devices, and equipping insurgent and terrorist fighters with weapons, ammunition and explosives," Isaf added.
The statement also said that a Taliban attack cell leader was captured in eastern Nangarhar province's Khugyani district and a Taliban forger was captured in the Jalalabad district on Saturday.
The cell leader is believed to be responsible for the transportation of weapons, ammunition and insurgent fighters to conduct attacks throughout Laghman and Nangarhar provinces, while the forger is suspected of providing fake documents and identification cards to Taliban insurgents attempting to infiltrate the Afghan government and security forces, according to Isaf.
Several others insurgents were also captured during the operation.
12 Civilians from 2 Families Killed in Helmand Blast
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 15 September 2012
At least 12 civilians from two families including seven girls were killed in a roadside bomb blast in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on Friday, local officials said.
The incident happened in the Gowband area of Gereshk district of the province when a vehicle set off the roadside bomb at around 2PM, provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi told TOLOnews Saturday.
"Twelve of our innocent civilians were killed in the blast, which is seven girls, three men and two older women – all members of two families," he said.
He said that the insurgents had "placed the roadside bomb to target the local troops."
No group including the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Gereshk is one of the more insecure districts in the province with insurgents regularly planting improvised explosive devices.
At least two people were killed and four were wounded in an IED blast on August 22, and in early July seven people including five children were killed in three separate blasts over three days.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
Green-on-blue attacks in Afghanistan have killed at least 51 international troops this year.
By Tom A. Peter | Christian Science Monitor
At least six coalition soldiers were killed in Afghanistan this weekend in two separate incidents where members of the Afghan security forces turned their weapons against international forces.
In Afghanistan’s southern Zabul province, four coalition soldiers were reportedly killed by a group of Afghan police who turned their weapons on international troops. The other incident occurred on Saturday and left two British soldiers dead.
News of the latest so-called “green-on-blue” killings adds to what has become a serious and lethal trend confronting international forces here. Such attacks have left at least 51 international troops dead this year alone, a first for the Afghan war.
How well do you know Afghanistan? Take our quiz.
Although the international military is slated to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014, the green on blue killings and the insurgent infiltration they likely represent, may pose a serious threat for the long-term stability of Afghanistan.
“The issue of green on blue attacks is not only a tragic issue for international forces and Afghan forces right now, but post-2014 this could change into the collapse of one or many of government institutions in various districts and provinces,” says Waliullah Rahmani, executive director of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies. “There might be a risk of many elements of the Taliban and insurgency or people who are loyal to them who spy for these groups inside the Afghan government.”
In recent months, the Afghan insurgency seems to be placing increasing reliance on infiltration tactics to carry out attacks against Afghan and international forces.
On Sunday, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan released new details about an attack on Camp Bastion, a major air base in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
The base serves as one of the central logistical hubs for the British military and is attached to Camp Leatherneck, the central base for US Marines in southern Afghanistan.The camps are one of the most heavily guarded areas in Afghanistan, but on Friday, a group of 15 insurgents managed to breach the perimeter fence reportedly wearing US military uniforms and carrying rifles, grenade launchers, and suicide vests.
The insurgents managed to destroy 6 AV-8B Harrier jets and significantly damage two more. A single Harrier jet is valued at up to $30 million. Fourteen of the attackers were killed and another captured, but not before they managed to kill two international service members and injure an additional eight soldiers and a civilian contractor.
Coming amid the on-going wave of green-on-blue incidents, the attack against Camp Bastion has raised concerns about the apparent vulnerability of international forces working to transition authority to their Afghan partners as they begin reducing their numbers here.
Abdul Ghafoor Liwal, director of Regional Studies Center of Afghanistan, says it is more important than ever for US and international forces to use their remaining time to harbor good will among Afghans. Nearly 11 years into the war here, he says many Afghans now struggle to understand why international forces are still here and why they deserve Afghan support.
“Aside from the influence of the Taliban and other enemies, I think the behavior of international forces in Afghanistan causes so many problems which result in these kinds attacks,” says Mr. Liwal, speaking about green-on-blue killings. “I think the international forces must rethink their behavior, their relationship with the Afghan people, and their justification of their existence in Afghanistan.”
NATO Accused of Killing 8 Afghan Women in Airstrike
VOA News September 16, 2012
Afghan officials say NATO coalition forces have killed eight women and girls in an airstrike in a remote district of the country. The deaths come after three "insider" attacks in as many days by Afghan forces against international soldiers killed eight troops, including four Americans.
Sunday's airstrike came shortly before dawn, in Laghman province's Alingar district, east of Kabul. Villagers drove the bodies to the provincial capital, claiming they were killed by NATO aircraft while they were out gathering firewood before dawn.
A Laghman provincial government spokesman said the villagers were condemning the attack and shouting "Death to America!"
The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force initially said an air strike targeted around 45 insurgents, but later expressed condolences over "possible ISAF-caused civilian casualties" numbering five to eight.
Meanwhile, ISAF said four U.S. service members were killed Sunday in an "insider" attack in the southern part of the country.
Local authorities in Zabul province say the four Americans, were killed by an Afghan police officer. Coalition officials have not identified the service personnel.
Sunday's attack comes one day after two British solders were gunned down by an Afghan policeman in southern Helmand province.
The deadly attacks are the latest in a series of so-called green-on-blue "insider" attacks by Afghan forces against their international counterparts, threatening the military partnership between NATO and Kabul.
In another development, coalition officials say the insurgents who attacked a British military base in Afghanistan Friday, killing two U.S. Marines, were dressed in U.S. Army uniforms and were armed with automatic rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers and suicide vests.
The coalition says the 15 militants were organized into three teams and "executed a well-coordinated attack" against the airfield on Camp Bastion in Helmand province.
The alliance say the attackers destroyed six Harrier jets and "significantly damaged" two more. The militants also destroyed three coalition refueling stations and damaged six aircraft hangars.
International troops say they killed 14 of the insurgents and wounded one, who is in custody.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Karzai Criticizes U.S. Over Delayed Bagram Transfers
September 16, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticized the United States for not handing over hundreds of Afghan prisoners at the Bagram detention facility to the Afghan government.
The United States officially handed over control of the Bagram prison to Kabul on September 10, ending a six-month transfer that began after a March agreement between the two countries.
But while some 3,000 detainees have been transferred to Afghan control, about 50 foreign prisoners and several hundred Afghans detained after the March agreement remain in U.S. custody.
Karzai said in a statement that Washington's decision to delay the handover of the remaining inmates was a "serious violation" of their March agreement and contradicts the "spirit of mutual friendship and the provisions of the bilateral strategic partnership agreement."
Attackers in Afghanistan wore US uniforms
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Coalition military authorities in Afghanistan say the insurgents who attacked a British airfield in southwestern Afghanistan on Friday, killing two U.S. Marines, wore U.S. Army uniforms and destroyed six Harrier fighter jets.
They said in a statement Saturday that about 15 insurgents carried out the attack, describing the attack as well coordinated by insurgents who were "well equipped, trained and rehearsed." Fourteen of the 15 were killed. One was captured.
They said attackers penetrated the base's perimeter and were armed with automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and suicide vests. Besides destroying six planes, they destroyed three refueling stations on the base and damaged six aircraft hangars.
Coalition authorities have not yet identified the two Marines killed. Eight military members and one civilian contractor were also injured in the assault.
30 Taliban militants defect to government in N. Afghanistan
FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Up to 30 Taliban militants defected to government in Badakhshan province, some 315 km northeast of Afghan capital Kabul, a provincial government spokesman said.
"A total of 30 Taliban, including their commander named Mullah Sohbaat, renounce violence and joined the peace and reconciliation process in Shahri Buzurg district Saturday afternoon," spokesman Abdul Maruf Rasikh told Xinhua.
He said the former insurgents also handed over 30 AK-47 guns to security officials.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have not made any comment yet.
More than 3,500 anti-government insurgents have laid down their arms in Afghanistan over the past year, officials said.
Progress Noted, But Questions Remain Over 'New Silk Road' Initiative
By Richard Solash September 16, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Can camels and caravans be reincarnated as rail networks and oil pipelines?
That's the idea behind the United States' New Silk Road initiative, which aims to use energy, transport, trade, and infrastructure projects to support Afghanistan and provide regional stability after foreign troops leave the country.
In India last summer, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on countries to draw inspiration from the ancient Silk Road that for centuries connected the Far East and Europe.
"[Let's build] an international web and network of economic and transit connections," she said. "That means building more rail lines, highways, [and] energy infrastructure, like the proposed pipeline to run from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan through Pakistan into India (TAPI). It means upgrading the facilities at border crossings. And it certainly means removing the bureaucratic barriers and other impediments to the free flow of goods and people."
The benefits, in theory, are multifold.
Avenues would be opened for Kabul to increase regional trade, providing much-needed income to help offset the expected drop in international aid after foreign troops draw down in 2014.
Neighboring countries would be active participants in rebuilding regional ties, providing an economic foundation that could help prevent the spread of extremism.
Funding would come from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the private sector, and interested governments, while the United States would use its clout to keep things moving.
The United States, well aware of fears that waning U.S. interest in the region could lead to chaos, would be able to show that it is involved for the long-term while also keeping Iranian interests in the region at bay.
Progress, But Questions Remain
This month, about one year after the initiative was launched with much fanfare, the major stakeholders will get a chance to take stock of its progress when diplomats from Afghanistan, its neighbors, and world powers meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
In that time, analysts say, there have been some signs of progress toward a vision of regional interconnectivity. But they also say major questions remain about the plan's feasibility amid persistent instability, corruption, and rivalries.
S. Frederick Starr, the chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University, says progress "has been slower than it should have been but faster than the pessimists expected."
Starr, who was instrumental in formulating the concept behind the U.S. initiative, says Clinton is correct in describing the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) pipeline as one of its lynchpins.
Washington cited this spring's pricing agreement for Turkmen gas as a landmark toward making the slow-moving project more than just an $8 billion pipe dream. But huge obstacles remain, including finding private-sector investors willing to fund a pipeline that would traverse restive areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Building Confidence
Starr says the U.S. government has not done enough to inspire confidence in the viability of the project, in ambitious plans for dams, power grids, and rail networks. The best way to convince governments and investors that they can be safe and profitable, he argues, is to start small.
"The key short-term issue is opening up a few key road corridors in and out of Afghanistan," Starr says. "We're only talking about four or five, which [would be] honest and fast. Exporters of cotton from Central Asia would be sending hundreds of trucks to Gwadar, Karachi, Chah Bahar, and Bandar Abbas [through Afghanistan].
"And if you do the short-term projects successfully," he continues, "confidence in the midterm projects will rise and those, in turn, will create more confidence and eagerness to invest in the long-term projects. But that hasn't been done yet."
For its part, the United States has cited recent steps to implement a transit-trade agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan as another significant stride. If fully implemented, it could speed the transfer of Afghan goods to foreign markets and perhaps set a regional precedent.
Washington has also welcomed a move by Islamabad and New Delhi toward normalizing trade, as well as agreements between Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to streamline crossborder transport. Planned rail networks linking Kabul to the outside world are also slowly gathering steam.
But in practice, such deals don't necessarily remove entrenched impediments to regional trade, such as protective tariff systems and corruption.
It's not rare for Afghan imports coming through Pakistan to be held up, sometimes for months, until trade disputes are settled or unrelated bilateral tensions ebb.
Regional Rivalries
Farther north, Tajik truck driver Mahmud Bobokhonov expressed his frustration to RFE/RL's Tajik Service near the border with Kyrgyzstan.
"Kyrgyz officials think that every Tajik smuggles drugs and demand money to allow you to cross the border," he says. "Even every passenger on crossborder buses has to pay at least 100 Russian rubles to enter Kyrgyzstan. There is no oversight of border and custom guards and they do anything they want."
Sebastien Peyrouse, a Central Asia expert at George Washington University, says that in many cases Washington may not have the clout to overcome deep-seated regional rivalries.
"Most of the countries in Central Asia have bad relations. So, for example, now you see that Tajikistan is trying to sell electricity to Afghanistan, but on the other hand, Uzbekistan is putting strong pressure on Kabul so that it doesn't buy electricity from Tajikistan," Peyrouse says. "There are a lot of tensions between Central Asian countries, which can mean a real problem for further involvement in Afghanistan."
Nevertheless, U.S. officials remain bullish on the Silk Road.
"We have seen a real shift in the way that people talk about [the New Silk Road initiative]," says Robert Blake, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs. "It's no longer, 'How can the New Silk Road possibly happen?' Instead, it's, 'What are the linkages that can be strengthened or developed to knit these countries more closely together?'"
Washington has also stressed that its vision for the region is meant to emerge after years, not 12 months. The question, analysts say, is whether progress will have enough momentum to sustain itself after 2014.
RFE/RL Tajik Service correspondent Ma'sum Imomov contributed to this story
Young Lives, Lost in the Fog of War
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND September 15, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - These days, Abdul Farhad tries to sleep with the lights on in his bedroom and his eyes wide open, because as soon as he closes them he is back in his shop in central Kabul and it is 11:30 a.m. on the eighth of September.
He is sitting behind the desk in his office, a small room with a floor-to-ceiling plate-glass front wall, with a view he says he will never forget.
The usual street children are clustered in front of his car rental shop, in the heart of the capital’s military and diplomatic quarter. Khorshid, 15, dressed, as always, in a brightly colored tunic over prim trousers, is a skateboarding sensation who dreams of winning the girls’ world championship one day.
Her younger sister, Parwana, 11, has even bigger dreams, to become a doctor. Somewhere nearby is their big-eyed little sister Mursal, who is 7 and already speaks English well enough to soften the hearts of passing G.I.’s, and separate them from “just one dollar, mister.”
With them are their friends Nawab, 17; Mohammad Eesa, 16; Elyas, 15; and Nawal, 17 — all skateboarders and fellow pavement hustlers. This is their territory, and they come here every day after school and on public holidays like the one on Sept. 8, which honored an assassinated anti-Taliban leader. They sell scarves, or stale chewing gum, from sacks that double as school bags, but mostly they beg.
As Mr. Farhad watches idly, a stranger enters the frame with a knapsack on his back. Mr. Farhad reckons he is 15 or 16. The children swarm the stranger, worried he is competition and trying to see what he is carrying.
The knapsack explodes.
Mr. Farhad found himself on the floor behind his desk, his ears ringing. He was bleeding in several places, but not seriously wounded. He gave a prayer of thanks that a salesman had persuaded him to cover the inside of the windows with Mylar, a film that prevents glass from shattering into lethal shards. “Otherwise,” he said, “I would have been a dead man for sure.”
The children were not as lucky. The suicide bombing, the 55th in Afghanistan this year — there have been two more since — killed four of them, as well as three adults.
Elyas, who had wandered far enough away to save his life, lay in the street, wounded. Looking around at a landscape of blood and bodies, he had a sudden, terrible realization. “None of my friends my age are alive,” the boy said. “I’m all alone.”
Once again, innocent children were among the victims of the most indiscriminate of weapons. As police and military targets have hardened their defenses since the insurgents first began using large numbers of suicide bombers in 2006, more and more of the victims have been civilian bystanders, almost always including children. Afghanistan has one of the world’s highest population growth rates, and children are thick on the ground in any public place. According to human rights researchers, 865 civilians were killed or wounded in suicide or other bombings in the first eight months of this year, 38 percent of them children.
Mr. Farhad, 24, does not remember the moment of the explosion.
On the floor of his shop on Ariana Road, he marveled that he was not dead. The bomber had been just 10 yards away. “All over the floor in here, there were hands and feet and pieces of flesh,” he recalled several days later.
He walked outside to see so many body parts in a scene of such carnage that it was impossible to tell who was who.
His landlord, Latifullah, had been next door, fixing the metal gate in the wall around his home. Now he was dead. Latifullah’s widow, who has three young children to support in a society where it is hard for women to find work, was wailing.
“In our society, a woman without a husband or brothers is a dead woman,” Mr. Farhad said. “Now she has no one.”
Mohammad Sardar, who runs a carpet shop down the street, was on the sidewalk, an arm blown nearly completely off, but Mr. Farhad was able to bandage it crudely and stanch the flow of blood. “He was conscious and I felt he was strong, and if only an ambulance came he might have survived,” Mr. Farhad said.
But no ambulance came. Mr. Sardar died in the back of a police car that had been pressed into service to take him to a hospital.
“All those embassies nearby, the Spanish and Italian, the American, and ISAF headquarters, I am sure they all had ambulances, but not one ambulance came to help these guys,” Mr. Farhad said. The headquarters of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force was on the other side of Ariana Road, 100 yards away.
Most of the victims were beyond help. Police officers cleaned up the scene and delivered the body parts to two hospitals.
The Taliban issued a statement saying they had targeted a C.I.A. safe house; they denied the bomber had been a youth. Yet the only house nearby, other than Mr. Farhad’s little shop, was Latifullah’s house, where his widow could be heard screaming “Death to America” in her anguish.
“Everyone knows where that C.I.A. safe house is,” said Lt. Col. Waisullah Taj, the police chief of Kabul’s District 10. “That is not the place. This incident proved their stupidity. They could have attacked the embassy or the ISAF gate or the police, instead they just killed four little beggars.”
It took several days to discern who lived and who died. The final tally would be seven dead and four wounded, one gravely.
At the edge of the blast scene, Mursal stood screaming and crying, but unhurt. She wanted to look for her sisters Khorshid and Parwana, but the police would not let her. Someone with a cellphone called her mother, and she cried into the phone that she could not find them.
Khorshid had worked part time at a charity called Skateistan, teaching other children how to skateboard. The program uses skateboarding as a way to try to draw Kabul’s street children to school and away from the dangerous streets.
It was a co-worker from Skateistan who found Khorshid’s body in the morgue at the Emergency Surgical Center for War Victims, and called her mother, Bibi Hawa, with the news.
Their family is among the poorest of the poor, and so their house is among the highest of the high, at the top of a steep hill — a climb up a 45-degree slope to a three-room concrete hut with no electricity, sewerage or water.
Bibi Hawa is not a traditional Afghan wife, though she had six daughters and two sons. She works as a police officer, posted far from the city. Her husband, she says matter-of-factly, “is a heroin addict.”
Her children spent most of their time on the streets, alone, trudging for hours on foot and riding in minibuses to and from school and work, but always meeting up with her at dark high on the hill for the family supper.
The children made more money than she did, between Khorshid’s skateboard teaching and their street begging.
“They were my sons, not my daughters,” she said. “They were my breadwinners.” She knew her girls were full of promise. They spoke English remarkably well, learned on the street from passers-by. Khorshid was also an accomplished athlete in volleyball and karate, and had her part-time Skateistan salary. She and Parwana were good students. And their incomes were helping the family to build a new home.
“We were feeling free and we thought ISAF was the safest place in Kabul,” Ms. Hawa said. “How could we expect that three coffins would come to my home?”
First was Khorshid, whose name means “sun.” She was buried the same day.
“We thought Parwana was frightened and hiding somewhere, but then at night we got a call,” Ms. Hawa said. The body of Parwana, whose name means “butterfly,” was found in another hospital’s morgue, along with Ms. Hawa’s son-in-law Assad, 22. They were buried the next day.
“My daughters were athletes and scholars,” said their father, Mohammad Zaman, who looked bleary-eyed and haggard as he joined his wife. He wept while she stayed still, occasionally rolling her eyes. “I told my wife, I will put a tent near my children’s graves and live there from now on,” he said.
Other families mourned two other children, who had also attended Skateistan’s programs. They were Mohammad Eesa, one of the charity’s earliest skateboarders, and Nawab, who won the group’s 2012 skateboarding championship. That made seven dead, but at the Emergency hospital there was, as Emanuele Nannini, a program coordinator, put it, “another half a body.”
“We have a pair of legs in our morgue,” he said. “No one will come and take them.” One theory was that the legs were all that remained of the suicide bomber, but doctors at the hospital judged them to be 30 years old, not 15.
There were other body parts unaccounted for and uncollected. Mr. Farhad and other locals eventually found a hand, bits of flesh, tufts of hair, odds and ends of what had been human lives. They buried them in a hole in the earthen verge between the sidewalk and Ariana Road, by a pole where well-wishers tied scarves in remembrance of the girls.
“This really hurts to say it, but the dogs are coming every day to dig it up,” Mr. Farhad said. “So we had to put a big stone on top of it.” An alley cat sniffed around the edges of the stone, then sat on its haunches nearby, watching.
Al-Qaeda Weapons Expert Killed in Paktika Operation
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 15 September 2012
An al-Qaeda weapons expert was killed in an airstrike during a joint Afghan and Nato troops operation in Paktika province, Isaf said on Saturday.
The joint security force in Paktika's Mata Khan district identified the expert Taqwa – also known as Eissa Khan – transporting weapons toward a populated area on Wednesday. After ensuring no civilians were in the area, they killed him in an airstrike, Isaf said in a statement.
"As an al-Qaeda weapons expert, Taqwa is suspected of directing multiple attacks against Afghan and coalition forces, often using improvised explosive devices, and equipping insurgent and terrorist fighters with weapons, ammunition and explosives," Isaf added.
The statement also said that a Taliban attack cell leader was captured in eastern Nangarhar province's Khugyani district and a Taliban forger was captured in the Jalalabad district on Saturday.
The cell leader is believed to be responsible for the transportation of weapons, ammunition and insurgent fighters to conduct attacks throughout Laghman and Nangarhar provinces, while the forger is suspected of providing fake documents and identification cards to Taliban insurgents attempting to infiltrate the Afghan government and security forces, according to Isaf.
Several others insurgents were also captured during the operation.
12 Civilians from 2 Families Killed in Helmand Blast
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 15 September 2012
At least 12 civilians from two families including seven girls were killed in a roadside bomb blast in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on Friday, local officials said.
The incident happened in the Gowband area of Gereshk district of the province when a vehicle set off the roadside bomb at around 2PM, provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi told TOLOnews Saturday.
"Twelve of our innocent civilians were killed in the blast, which is seven girls, three men and two older women – all members of two families," he said.
He said that the insurgents had "placed the roadside bomb to target the local troops."
No group including the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Gereshk is one of the more insecure districts in the province with insurgents regularly planting improvised explosive devices.
At least two people were killed and four were wounded in an IED blast on August 22, and in early July seven people including five children were killed in three separate blasts over three days.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com