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Uzbek Foreign Minister Warns Of Problems After NATO Leaves Afghanistan
September 29, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov has warned the UN General Assembly that "tough problems" may arise following the departure of international forces from Afghanistan in 2014.
He told the assembly on September 28 that: "Today it becomes obvious that such developments may lead to the rise of a standoff between confronting forces in Afghanistan itself and around it, the growth of extremism and radicalism, a further surge in drug trafficking, and aggravation of tension in the whole region."
Kamilov called for the establishment of a contact group under the auspices of the United Nations involving the countries neighboring Afghanistan as well as the United States, NATO, and Russia.
He said the goal should be to broker an accord between opposing forces in Afghanistan and to form "a coalition government representing the principal ethnic-national and religious groups of Afghanistan."
Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax
Blast, skirmishes claim 22 Afghans lives in 2 days
KABUL, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- In the conflict-ridden Afghanistan, the skirmishes and bombings have claimed the lives of 22 people including anti-government militants since Friday, officials confirmed on Saturday.
In the latest wave of violent incidents, the Taliban fighters and police came into conflict on Saturday in Badakhshan province, 315 km northeast of Afghan capital Kabul, leaving four Taliban militants dead and six others injured, a police officer Sakhi Dad Haidari said.
"Taliban militants attacked police checkpoint in Wardoj district today and police retaliated killing four rebels on the spot and wounding six others," Haidari told Xinhua.
Meantime, in a counterclaim, a Taliban purported spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said via telephone from unknown location that Taliban had killed a dozen of policemen and took away over a dozen others, a claim rebuffed by police officer Haidari as baseless.
Early in the morning rush hour, a roadside bomb, planted by Taliban militants on a highway in Adraskan district of the Herat province 640 km west of capital city Kabul exploded and killing two people and injuring two others, police officer Fazal Ahmad Khalili said.
"The deadly attack happened in Mir Ali area of Adraskan district at around 08:30 a.m. local time as a result a police trainer and an interpreter were killed and two others including a police trainer sustained injuries," Khalili told Xinhua.
All victims are Afghans, he said.
In a related incident, 10 Taliban militants were killed as NATO- led forces aircraft raided their hideout in Helmand province, 555 km south of capital Kabul on Friday, police spokesman in the province, Farid Ahmad Farhang said Saturday.
"A group of Taliban rebels were going in Marja district to target security forces when the aircraft of NATO-led ISAF identified their hideout and attacked them killing 10 militants on the spot," Farhang told Xinhua.
Moreover, Afghan and NATO-led forces during a joint operation in Herat province 640 km west of Kabul on Friday night had killed six Taliban fighters including a shadowy district governor, an army officer in the province said Saturday.
"The units of Afghan and the NATO-led troops during a combine operation raided Taliban hideout in Zirkoh area of Shindand district Friday night killing six rebels including a Taliban shadowy district governor named Mullah Hasan," Mahdi told Xinhua.
According to Mahdi, the murdered Taliban commander Mullah Hassan had served as shadowy governor in Shindand district.
There were no casualties on the side of security forces, Mahdi said.
Taliban militants have yet to comment.
Bomb kills 2 Afghan policemen, hours before ceremony to hand over police academy
Associated Press Saturday, September 29, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan authorities say a roadside bomb has killed two policemen in Herat province of western Afghanistan, just hours before a ceremony to hand a nearby police training academy over from NATO to Afghan control.
Raouf Ahmedi, a spokesman for the Afghan police commander for the western region, says one of the policemen killed in Saturday’s explosion was a teacher at the academy in Adraskan district. He says two other policemen were injured by the remote-controlled bomb that exploded as their vehicle passed.
Last week, a bomb in a parked motorcycle exploded outside the training center, killing two security guards.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack, but it matched the pattern of Taliban strikes that typically target Afghan forces and government workers.
Change of U.S. command expected in Afghanistan
The White House plans to nominate Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. to replace Gen. John Allen, who has directed NATO forces in Afghanistan since mid-2011.
Los Angeles Times By David S. Cloud September 28, 2012
WASHINGTON - The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan is being transferred and another Marine general will take over the war effort early next year as the United States and its allies shrink their combat role against the still-potent insurgency.
The White House plans to nominate Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, to replace Gen. John Allen, who has directed U.S. and other foreign forces in Afghanistan since mid-2011, officials said.
Although Allen is not being forced out, "the president wants somebody who can take a fresh look at the effort in Afghanistan and isn't an architect of the current strategy," said David Barno, a retired Army general who headed the war in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and now is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.
The proposed change in command comes at a perilous time in the decade-old war as well as in the heat of a U.S. presidential campaign.
The last of the 30,000 additional troops sent by President Obama in 2009 as part of a so-called surge departed Afghanistan this month, and the rest of the 68,000 U.S. troops are supposed to withdraw along with other allied troops by the end of 2014.
But last month still saw nearly 3,000 insurgent attacks. That is down from about 4,000 a month at its worst in 2010, but still up from about 2,000 a month the summer after Obama took office, according to statistics released this week by the International Security and Assistance Force in Kabul.
Allen's expected departure in January will give him only a year and a half in Afghanistan, a relatively short tenure for a senior combat commander. Dunford has never served in Afghanistan.
There are signs that the strain of overseeing the war has worn on the usually taciturn Allen, who in recent days has voiced frustration about the lethal "insider" attacks by Afghan soldiers and police that have killed 51 U.S. and coalition troops this year.
"I'm mad as hell about them, to be honest with you," he said, in an interview with "60 Minutes" scheduled to be broadcast Sunday. "It reverberates everywhere across the United States. You know, we're willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign, but we're not willing to be murdered for it."
Allen will be nominated to become Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, which, if confirmed by the Senate, would make him senior military officer for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the U.S. officials said.
Allen is exiting because the White House decided his experience at managing NATO's role in the war made him the best choice available to lead the alliance, a job that is technically a promotion, the officials said.
Allen conceded this week in an interview conducted and distributed by the Pentagon that the surge of insider killings have created "mistrust," and deepened concerns among NATO allies about keeping their troops in Afghanistan through 2014, as the alliance has agreed.
"They didn't send their troops here to experience this," Allen said. "They didn't send their troops here to be killed."
He also said the insider attacks could "cause us to change the way" the U.S. military and its allies train and advise Afghan army and police units. Allen temporarily suspended joint operations with Afghan forces, though cooperation now has resumed, officials said.
Privately, some U.S. military officers warn that if Afghan security forces continue to turn on Western troops, rather than fight the Taliban insurgents, it may prompt the White House to speed up the pace of U.S. withdrawals next year, especially if President Obama is reelected.
Allen is in talks with the administration on how quickly to bring out the remaining troops and how many will stay on as advisers and trainers after 2014. Military commanders may seek to keep as many as 15,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but the White House has yet to approve any such deployment.
With the White House focused on the presidential race, senior Pentagon officials are playing down the setbacks and questions about whether the withdrawal strategy developed by Allen and the White House remains workable.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told reporters this week that the insider killings are a desperation tactic by the Taliban, though until recently he and others said most of the attacks were carried out by disgruntled individuals, not by insurgents.
"It is their effort to try to create the kind of high-profile attacks that, while they don't gain them anything, basically try to break our will," Panetta said. "That's what this is about. And I think when an enemy reaches that point it's near the end of their effort to really fully fight back."
Some Pentagon officers say Dunford's lack of experience in Afghanistan will not be a significant handicap. As the Pentagon winds down its military presence, the main requirement will be a commander who can manage the logistics of withdrawal and deal with the White House and Afghan officials, they argued.
Despite the declining support in Washington and elsewhere for the war, colleagues say Dunford is up to the job. He commanded the 5th Marine regiment during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, earning plaudits for his aggressive push north from Kuwait to Baghdad.
"He's a leader who breeds confidence and he can orchestrate large organizations to carry forward," said a senior U.S. officer who has worked closely with Dunford.
Barno, the former war commander, called this week for cutting U.S. combat forces to about 35,000 by next summer, far faster than Allen's strategy would suggest.
Barno said the Pentagon should speed up the turnover of security responsibility to Afghan forces, and halt most joint operations. He urged commanders to abandon Allen's plan for small teams of U.S. advisers to work with Afghan units, helping them call in airstrikes, plan operations, and arrange for casualty evacuations.
"We've done what we set out to do" by killing Osama bin Laden and degrading the Taliban's strength, Barno said in a telephone interview. "The task now is to limit U.S. exposure in the months and years ahead, and get the Afghans into the fight."
Noting that the Afghan army is now close to 352,000 soldiers, he said, "One would think with a force that size they could hold off the Taliban."
david.cloud@latimes.com
Last Western Guantanamo Detainee Returned To Canada
September 29, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The last Western detainee held at the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay prison has been returned to his native Canada.
Canadian citizen Omar Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15 years old.
He pleaded guilty in 2010 to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan as well as other charges related to terrorism and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Now 26, Khadr will serve his sentence in a maximum security prison in Canada after being sent back there on September 29.
Nonetheless, he is expected to be paroled in a few years under a deal that included his admission he that he was an Al-Qaeda supporter who killed a U.S. soldier.
Khadr's father was allegedly a financier for Al-Qaeda and Khadr's defense attorney claimed the father was responsible for bringing Omar to Afghanistan and forcing him the fight.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
Afghan gold fever heats up
The troubled country's untapped mineral resources could transform its future, if security can be improved.
The Independent By Mark Leftly Saturday 29 September 2012
Neal Rigby was munching on some fine sardines in a restaurant in Lisbon when his phone rang. It was a US State Department official, who had got hold of Rigby's mobile number through a mutual friend.
The official asked the Warrington-born geologist to fly over and meet him to discuss a sensitive project; he wanted Dr Rigby to help build an Afghanistan economy on the foundations of trillions of dollars-worth of copper and gold buried beneath its war-torn surface.
Early last year, SRK Consulting, which Dr Rigby chairs, got to work on designing a tender process that would attract American, Indian, Chinese and even British prospectors to the country. There's more than just gold and copper in Afghanistan – the country is also rich in lithium, zinc and even uranium – but those are the two metals that will kickstart the nation's mining industry.
Explorers are bidding to work in four licence areas, from the west of the country to the Tajikistan border in the north-east. SRK, which has advised on mining mergers in Mongolia and platinum projects in Zimbabwe, is working alongside the investment bank Canaccord Genuity and the law firm Mayer Brown, with the target that the first of these licences will be awarded by the end of the year.
Dr Rigby says: "The prospectivity of Afghanistan was never in doubt. But the thoughts about Afghanistan were negative after decades of conflict, decades of uncertainty. They needed advice on the conversion [from just having gold and copper in the ground] to exploration and exploitation. I describe it as 'virginal'."
Miners have long known that there is treasure in Afghanistan, as it lies on the Tethyan Eurasian mineral belt, which starts in Turkey and runs through Iran to Asia as far as Indonesia. There are other mineral belts in Afghanistan, formed through the violent collisions of tectonic plates tens of millions of years ago, which also created the 25,000ft mountains in the north-east of the country.
Then there is a geological survey of Afghanistan, outdated but still relevant, which was started in the 1950s as the country sought closer ties with the Soviet Union and abandoned in the late 1970s as friendship with the Communist bloc turned to invasion.
That survey is what the trillions of dollars of wealth estimates are based upon, but what is extraordinary is that prospectors feel that the survey could underestimate Afghanistan's mineral wealth.
Richard Williams, a Wellington College-educated former SAS commander who is now chief executive at Afghan Gold, says: "That was not a long time to collect information, and a lot of the work concentrated in 'easy win' areas, where they already knew there were plenty of metals. Those easy wins are the exploration areas that have been identified and put out to tender. That's both the good news, as it means there's a shed-load more minerals out there, and the bad news, as they're waiting to be found, and could be many years before they are brought to production."
Even in the four licence areas, some of which Afghan Gold has been shortlisted for, it could be three years until production is in full swing.
Afghan Gold is a fascinating company. While the world's biggest miners would never get involved in such an untested market, the names behind Mr Williams' venture are among the titans of the industry. At the forefront is Ian Hannam, the JP Morgan rainmaker who is currently fighting a market abuse fine imposed on him by the Financial Services Authority. Mr Hannam, who has made a fortune loading up the FTSE 100 with mining behemoths from as far afield as Kazakhstan and India, is said to see dragging Afghanistan out of abject poverty through its minerals – those four licences alone could bring in $1bn (£600m) a year in tax – as his "legacy".
Chip Goodyear, the former BHP Billiton boss who has been amusingly, not to say mistakenly, identified as a former CIA operative on conspiracy websites, and the gold-mining magnate Peter Hambro have also provided financial backing.
That these successful figures believe that they can make money out of Afghanistan shows that the opportunities are real. However, the security situation is still delicate, with at least 100 security guards needed at any one mine, 50 on watch while the remainder rest.
The government has promised to set up a mines protection force, but with personnel prioritised for the army and police this is still six to nine months away from being a fully fledged operation.
"Companies going into Afghanistan have to consider their own safety arrangements – mainly this is small banditry and cross-border smuggling, which is not actually that dissimilar to working in other countries in the region," explains a source based in Kabul.
However, conflict remains a genuine threat, the Chinese having effectively stopped work on the $3bn Aynak mine, one of the biggest copper deposits in the world, following insurgent rocket attacks.
Another problem is a mining law that has led miners to question whether they can even profit from their finds. Unlike virtually any other country in the world, a company that explores an area is not automatically granted an operational licence on making a find. Parliament is currently debating a proposal to overhaul the law, and a vote is expected in November, which few are expected to oppose
The State Department was probably also thinking that by 2011 the US had spent $443bn on the war – the UK is at £20bn and counting – so there will have to be some payback at some point. And that payback is waiting to be discovered beneath Afghanistan's scarred earth.
The lies about aid and Afghanistan
The closure of British-built Afghan schools is a reminder of how the public has been misled about the west's intervention
Guardian.co.uk By Conor Foley Friday 28 September 2012
The news that the British have built far more schools and hospitals in Helmand province than the government of Afghanistan can afford to run, exposes a lie about our intervention in that country that is in many ways as insidious as the lies that surrounded the invasion of Iraq.
Afghanistan was always different from Iraq, both in terms of legal authority and in the manner in which the intervention was carried out. Most significantly, Afghanistan was not "invaded" by the west. Or if an invasion took place, it happened in 2006 or else in 2009.
The US-led Operation Enduring Freedom, which ousted the Taliban 10 years ago, was carried out by a handful of special forces who flew into the country with suitcases full of cash. They bought the allegiance of selected warlords and then called in air strikes against the Taliban hold-outs. Crudely put, we backed one side against another in a brutal civil war that had been going on since the fall of the previous externally imposed government of President Najibullah.
An international conference in Bonn, Germany, legitimised the process in December 2001 and selected Hamid Karzai as president basically because he was the most prominent Pashtun that could be found who spoke good English. The UN mission sent to help oversee the process was deliberately given a "light footprint" with no executive authority and extremely few resources. A token international military force was also deployed consisting of 4,000 soldiers.
At the same time a larger number of humanitarian aid workers arrived to help with the postwar reconstruction. I was one of them and lived in the country for a year-and-a-half between 2003 and 2004 so had a ringside seat of the resulting debacle.
The Taliban regrouped in Pakistan and gradually stepped up their cross-border attacks. International aid workers were among the softest targets to attack, and I lost count of the number of friends and colleagues who were killed and injured during this time. Part of the reason we were attacked was a decision by western governments to tie the delivery of aid into a counter-insurgency strategy that was essentially developed to make up for the lack of troops (who were by then increasingly bogged down in the fighting in Iraq). Aid became increasingly viewed as instrumentalist, a means of buying hearts and minds, isolating the insurgents, or to "shape, hold, clear, and build" as the counter-insurgency terminology puts it.
That this strategy was not working was obvious to everyone on the ground, and convinced the British and Canadian governments to significantly ramp up their military deployments in Kandahar and Helmand in 2006. However, rather than publicly admitting that they were being sent in to fight counter-insurgency campaigns, these were dressed up in humanitarian language. The UK defence secretary at the time, John Reid said: "We're in the south to help and protect the Afghan people to reconstruct their economy and democracy. We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years time without firing one shot." A Canadian diplomat subsequently admitted to me that this was the only way of selling the operations to a sceptical public.
For a couple of years, discussions on Afghanistan took on an Alice in Wonderland dimension where words became devoid of their usual meaning. Observer columnist Nick Cohen wrote perhaps the most extraordinary article ever on the subject when he blamed the lack of delivery of aid projects for a failure to consolidate the military defeats that were supposedly being inflicted on the Taliban. In fact the problem was the exact opposite. There has never been a lack of aid, but a lack of security, which at root is a governance problem and for which counter-insurgency can never be a substitute.
The 2006 "surges" are now widely recognised to have been catastrophic failures. The larger "Obama surge" of 2009 has had some successes due to sheer weight of numbers and firepower, but as the increasing number of "green on blue" attacks show, it cannot make up for the wider strategic failure.
Alternative options were on offer back in 2001. As Lucy Morgan Edwards has convincingly argued, the hardline elements in the Taliban leadership could probably have been overthrown internally, leading to a genuine reconciliation process to bring an end to the country's civil war. We had a chance to genuinely help the Afghans build a better country. Instead we are going to leave them with not much more than a bunch of empty buildings.
Can't Change Your Money In Iran? Try Afghanistan
NPR By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson September 28, 2012
The western Afghan city of Herat has become a thriving hub for the money exchange business, a consequence of geography and politics. Money-changers throng the currency market carrying thick stacks of Iranian currency, much of it brought in by the hundreds of thousands of Afghan workers who earn their living in Iran.
While the stacks of crisp 100,000 rial notes that money-changers bring to the market might look like a small fortune, the 10 million rials in each of these stacks is worth less than $400, because the Iranian currency recently lost more than half of its value.
Abdullah Dashti, who heads the Afghan money dealers union in Herat, says the money-changers are feeling the pinch of the international sanctions against Iran and are now looking to unload Iranian currency.
Multiple Ways To Change Money
But less scrupulous Afghans are using the sanctions as an opportunity to make a profit, Dashti says, by helping desperate Iranians convert their rials into dollars in Afghanistan, where American money serves as a second currency. The Iranians don't show up in Herat themselves, he says, but use Afghan intermediaries to make the exchange.
Iranians looking to change money often use the informal "hawala" system, in which transactions don't involve a physical transfer of money, but a personal pledge to settle the debt later through a third party or bank.
But money-changer Sardar Nazari says that more recently, Iranians have started sending money directly through the main border crossing.
Nazari says the rials are ferried in by Iranian taxis, and the dollars are sent back to Iran in the same taxis. He claims that border guards on both sides are given money to turn a blind eye.
Union chief Dashti says as many as 1 in 5 people in Herat are involved in Iranian money laundering.
Several of the money-changers say the exchange was so rampant this month that it created a shortage of dollars in the Herat currency market.
Herat's governor, Daoud Sabah, disputes that money laundering is a big problem in his province. He says that if there's money coming in illegally, it comes through the porous borders.
"The distance between checkposts for us is at least 12 to 15 kilometers [seven to nine miles], so if anything comes from in between, as the narcotics do, that is possible," Sabah says. "From the border with a taxi illegally? That's absolutely refutable."
Iranian diplomats in Herat declined to comment for this story. The consulate spokesman referred NPR to the Iranian Embassy in Kabul, which did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.
The U.S. Response
A U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, says the American government is talking to Afghan officials about the money laundering and other corruption. The official characterized the talks as "complex but not contentious."
A U.S. Treasury Department envoy visited Kabul earlier this month to explain how the U.S. deals with those who violate the sanctions on Iran.
Afghan officials have since warned money-changers that their accounts will be frozen and their money confiscated if they are found to be violating the sanctions.
Najibullah Akhtary, who heads Afghanistan's Money Exchange Union in Kabul, says he is personally steering clear of any large purchases of Iranian currency at the moment because the sanctions have made it too unstable.
Akhtary adds that the Afghan government must do a better job enforcing banking regulations to help end the money laundering.
Herat money-changer Nazari says that as a result of the crackdown, more dollars are now available in his city.
But he adds that the Iranians are already coming up with ways to get around any tightening of money exchanges.
He claims that Iran is demanding to be paid in dollars for fuel and most other products sold to Afghanistan.
The Tricky Business Of Reintegrating The Taliban
NPR By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson September 28, 2012
In an attempt to put down the insurgency in Afghanistan, the international community has spent millions to try to reintegrate former Taliban fighters and other militants back into society.
So how well has it worked?
Critics like Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network say many militants use these programs to gain access to arms and money, without necessarily changing their ways.
"It's a complete disaster, because there is not enough rule of law here to ensure that people — whether or not they have a good or bad past — will not prey on the local population again," Clark says.
That sentiment is shared by residents of Pashtun Zarghun in the western province of Herat.
In many ways, the district is an Afghan success story. Farmers here have switched from growing opium poppies to saffron. Children attend school, and tribal elders work with the government to improve life for the more than 90,000 residents.
Security Risks Remain
But there's also a dark side to this enclave of mud homes and dirt roads, a 90-minute drive from the provincial capital. In Pashtun Zarghun, residents live in constant fear of militant groups and armed gangs that terrorize the countryside.
Driver Mohammed Naeem says several of his relatives were ambushed and killed by the armed gunmen of one notorious warlord here.
The warlord goes by one name — Abdullah — although residents disparagingly call him Charsi, or hashish smoker.
His militia, which at one point was loosely allied with the Taliban, is widely accused of murder, kidnapping and extortion.
Farmer Abdul Karim says he was kidnapped and almost beaten to death by Abdullah's men. He alleges the warlord and his sons took part in the beatings, which lasted two weeks.
Karim says they targeted him because he was a member of the local tribal council working with the government. The farmer adds that his relatives paid a huge ransom to get him released.
Both he and Naeem complain that Afghan officials have done nothing to punish the warlord or his men.
They are angry that Abdullah is now protected by the government because he agreed to reconcile with it in January.
A Sincere Change?
Abdullah, meanwhile, vehemently denies ever having engaged in any criminal activity.
The 47-year-old says he decided to stop fighting the government because Western troops are leaving soon. He adds that all Afghans need to rebuild their country and that former fighters like him can help keep the peace.
"It's a good step, this reconciliation process. But I assure you the war would end a lot sooner if the government gives rewards to those of us who agree to peace," Abdullah says.
Abdullah says the Afghan government has pledged to make him the chief of the local police force in Pashtun Zarghun.
Word of this spread like wildfire across the district.
"We know what kind of person this guy is," says Naeem, whose relatives were killed in the ambush. "How can Abdullah be our police chief? This guy still has armed men in the mountains and no one can move freely here because of that."
Some Signs Of Success
Former district governor Ghulam Nabi Azizi says he quit his post in July in part because of the reconciliation with Abdullah.
But he says he's not against the reintegration programs.
He says there have been some success stories, like another anti-government warlord called Suleiman Khan, who is now a respected leader in the Afghan border police.
But Azizi warns there are strongmen seeking to legitimize their criminal activities under the guise of the peace process.
Back in the provincial capital, governor Daoud Sabah says Abdullah will not be put in charge of the police in Pashtun Zarghun — or any other district.
"That will not happen in Herat, I assure you, because the people of Herat will not allow it," Sabah says.
Sabah adds that the reintegration programs have worked in his province. He says that more than half of the insurgent groups here have reconciled with the government.
He says only four of the 640 fighters who have laid down their arms here ended up rejoining the insurgency. The governor says the rest have been happy with jobs the government has given them on public works and agricultural projects.
They also receive amnesty for crimes committed against the government, Sabah says. But he adds that crimes against the people will not be forgiven.
Yet no charges have been filed against Abdullah.
In Pashtun Zarghun, some residents say they won't stand for Abdullah coming back in any official capacity.
Naeem says if that happens, he and others will take to the mountains and form their own militant group.
Afghan troops get a lesson in American cultural ignorance
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff and Richard Leiby September 28 , 2012
KABUL - During the Vietnam War, American soldiers shipped out armed with government-issued guides to the distant land and the mysterious people.
In Afghanistan, the U.S. military has tried training sessions, embedded cultural advisers, recommended reading lists and even a video game designed to school the troops in local custom.
But 11 years into the war, NATO troops and Afghan soldiers are still beset by a dangerous lack of cultural awareness, officials say, contributing to a string of insider attacks that have threatened to undermine the military partnership.
So the Afghan army is trying something new: a guide to the strange ways of the American soldier. The goal is to convince Afghan troops that when their Western counterparts do something deeply insulting, it’s likely a product of cultural ignorance and not worthy of revenge.
The pamphlet is intended to “strengthen our understanding of our [NATO] counterpart,” according to an English translation of the pamphlet that was provided to The Washington Post. But in doing so, it also reveals seemingly minor — and rarely acknowledged — cultural faux pas that have created palpable tension between the two forces.
“Please do not get offended if you see a NATO member blowing his/her nose in front of you,” the guide instructs.
“When Coalition members get excited, they may show their excitement by patting one another on the back or the behind,” it explains. “They may even do this to you if they are proud of the job you’ve done. Once again, they don’t mean to offend you.”
And another tip: “When someone feels comfortable in your presence, they may even put their feet on their own desk while speaking with you. They are by no means trying to offend you. They simply don’t know or have forgotten the Afghan custom.” Pointing the soles of one’s shoes at someone is considered a grievous insult in Afghanistan.
The guide also warns Afghan soldiers that Western troops might wink at them or inquire about their female relatives or expose their private parts while showering — all inappropriate actions by Afghan standards.
While some of the tips may be amusing to an American audience, the intention is deadly serious. Fifty-one coalition troops have been killed this year by their Afghan counterparts. While some insider attacks have been attributed to Taliban infiltrators, military officials say the majority stem from personal disputes and misunderstandings.
The 18-page pamphlet, officially titled “Cultural Understanding — A Guide to Understanding Coalition Cultures,” was introduced this month by the Afghan Defense Ministry. Written in Dari, the primary language in much of Afghanistan, it will soon be distributed to Afghan military leaders across the country. The booklet will be taught in three one-hour sessions to all soldiers as well as new recruits.
As NATO winds down its mission here, the “Cultural Understanding” guide marks the Afghan army’s most significant effort to identify long-standing points of contention and confusion between the two forces. It also seems aimed at restoring support for a foreign troop presence that has seen its popularity plummet during the course of the war. Despite widespread misgivings among the Afghan public, in the guide the coalition is depicted glowingly, often in florid language.
The United States is “a little like a lovely carpet. Different colored strands combine to make a beautiful whole.”
NATO’s coalition is described as a “work of art.”
But every work of art has its flaws. The task of laying out a set of commonly misinterpreted behaviors fell to Brig. Gen. Mohammad Amin Nasib, the bearish, affable head of religious and ideological affairs at the Defense Ministry, and his senior military adviser from the NATO side, Michael W. Gore, a mild-mannered Navy commander and chaplain.
“Some would argue that we’re too late, but any time is the right time to promote understanding of each other’s culture,” Gore said. “The Golden Rule goes a long way in any culture in helping to foster tolerance and understanding.”
Nasib wasn’t as buoyant. “Unfortunately, it’s too late,” he said. “It should have been done early.”
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
September 29, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov has warned the UN General Assembly that "tough problems" may arise following the departure of international forces from Afghanistan in 2014.
He told the assembly on September 28 that: "Today it becomes obvious that such developments may lead to the rise of a standoff between confronting forces in Afghanistan itself and around it, the growth of extremism and radicalism, a further surge in drug trafficking, and aggravation of tension in the whole region."
Kamilov called for the establishment of a contact group under the auspices of the United Nations involving the countries neighboring Afghanistan as well as the United States, NATO, and Russia.
He said the goal should be to broker an accord between opposing forces in Afghanistan and to form "a coalition government representing the principal ethnic-national and religious groups of Afghanistan."
Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax
Blast, skirmishes claim 22 Afghans lives in 2 days
KABUL, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- In the conflict-ridden Afghanistan, the skirmishes and bombings have claimed the lives of 22 people including anti-government militants since Friday, officials confirmed on Saturday.
In the latest wave of violent incidents, the Taliban fighters and police came into conflict on Saturday in Badakhshan province, 315 km northeast of Afghan capital Kabul, leaving four Taliban militants dead and six others injured, a police officer Sakhi Dad Haidari said.
"Taliban militants attacked police checkpoint in Wardoj district today and police retaliated killing four rebels on the spot and wounding six others," Haidari told Xinhua.
Meantime, in a counterclaim, a Taliban purported spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said via telephone from unknown location that Taliban had killed a dozen of policemen and took away over a dozen others, a claim rebuffed by police officer Haidari as baseless.
Early in the morning rush hour, a roadside bomb, planted by Taliban militants on a highway in Adraskan district of the Herat province 640 km west of capital city Kabul exploded and killing two people and injuring two others, police officer Fazal Ahmad Khalili said.
"The deadly attack happened in Mir Ali area of Adraskan district at around 08:30 a.m. local time as a result a police trainer and an interpreter were killed and two others including a police trainer sustained injuries," Khalili told Xinhua.
All victims are Afghans, he said.
In a related incident, 10 Taliban militants were killed as NATO- led forces aircraft raided their hideout in Helmand province, 555 km south of capital Kabul on Friday, police spokesman in the province, Farid Ahmad Farhang said Saturday.
"A group of Taliban rebels were going in Marja district to target security forces when the aircraft of NATO-led ISAF identified their hideout and attacked them killing 10 militants on the spot," Farhang told Xinhua.
Moreover, Afghan and NATO-led forces during a joint operation in Herat province 640 km west of Kabul on Friday night had killed six Taliban fighters including a shadowy district governor, an army officer in the province said Saturday.
"The units of Afghan and the NATO-led troops during a combine operation raided Taliban hideout in Zirkoh area of Shindand district Friday night killing six rebels including a Taliban shadowy district governor named Mullah Hasan," Mahdi told Xinhua.
According to Mahdi, the murdered Taliban commander Mullah Hassan had served as shadowy governor in Shindand district.
There were no casualties on the side of security forces, Mahdi said.
Taliban militants have yet to comment.
Bomb kills 2 Afghan policemen, hours before ceremony to hand over police academy
Associated Press Saturday, September 29, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan authorities say a roadside bomb has killed two policemen in Herat province of western Afghanistan, just hours before a ceremony to hand a nearby police training academy over from NATO to Afghan control.
Raouf Ahmedi, a spokesman for the Afghan police commander for the western region, says one of the policemen killed in Saturday’s explosion was a teacher at the academy in Adraskan district. He says two other policemen were injured by the remote-controlled bomb that exploded as their vehicle passed.
Last week, a bomb in a parked motorcycle exploded outside the training center, killing two security guards.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack, but it matched the pattern of Taliban strikes that typically target Afghan forces and government workers.
Change of U.S. command expected in Afghanistan
The White House plans to nominate Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. to replace Gen. John Allen, who has directed NATO forces in Afghanistan since mid-2011.
Los Angeles Times By David S. Cloud September 28, 2012
WASHINGTON - The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan is being transferred and another Marine general will take over the war effort early next year as the United States and its allies shrink their combat role against the still-potent insurgency.
The White House plans to nominate Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, to replace Gen. John Allen, who has directed U.S. and other foreign forces in Afghanistan since mid-2011, officials said.
Although Allen is not being forced out, "the president wants somebody who can take a fresh look at the effort in Afghanistan and isn't an architect of the current strategy," said David Barno, a retired Army general who headed the war in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and now is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.
The proposed change in command comes at a perilous time in the decade-old war as well as in the heat of a U.S. presidential campaign.
The last of the 30,000 additional troops sent by President Obama in 2009 as part of a so-called surge departed Afghanistan this month, and the rest of the 68,000 U.S. troops are supposed to withdraw along with other allied troops by the end of 2014.
But last month still saw nearly 3,000 insurgent attacks. That is down from about 4,000 a month at its worst in 2010, but still up from about 2,000 a month the summer after Obama took office, according to statistics released this week by the International Security and Assistance Force in Kabul.
Allen's expected departure in January will give him only a year and a half in Afghanistan, a relatively short tenure for a senior combat commander. Dunford has never served in Afghanistan.
There are signs that the strain of overseeing the war has worn on the usually taciturn Allen, who in recent days has voiced frustration about the lethal "insider" attacks by Afghan soldiers and police that have killed 51 U.S. and coalition troops this year.
"I'm mad as hell about them, to be honest with you," he said, in an interview with "60 Minutes" scheduled to be broadcast Sunday. "It reverberates everywhere across the United States. You know, we're willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign, but we're not willing to be murdered for it."
Allen will be nominated to become Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, which, if confirmed by the Senate, would make him senior military officer for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the U.S. officials said.
Allen is exiting because the White House decided his experience at managing NATO's role in the war made him the best choice available to lead the alliance, a job that is technically a promotion, the officials said.
Allen conceded this week in an interview conducted and distributed by the Pentagon that the surge of insider killings have created "mistrust," and deepened concerns among NATO allies about keeping their troops in Afghanistan through 2014, as the alliance has agreed.
"They didn't send their troops here to experience this," Allen said. "They didn't send their troops here to be killed."
He also said the insider attacks could "cause us to change the way" the U.S. military and its allies train and advise Afghan army and police units. Allen temporarily suspended joint operations with Afghan forces, though cooperation now has resumed, officials said.
Privately, some U.S. military officers warn that if Afghan security forces continue to turn on Western troops, rather than fight the Taliban insurgents, it may prompt the White House to speed up the pace of U.S. withdrawals next year, especially if President Obama is reelected.
Allen is in talks with the administration on how quickly to bring out the remaining troops and how many will stay on as advisers and trainers after 2014. Military commanders may seek to keep as many as 15,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but the White House has yet to approve any such deployment.
With the White House focused on the presidential race, senior Pentagon officials are playing down the setbacks and questions about whether the withdrawal strategy developed by Allen and the White House remains workable.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told reporters this week that the insider killings are a desperation tactic by the Taliban, though until recently he and others said most of the attacks were carried out by disgruntled individuals, not by insurgents.
"It is their effort to try to create the kind of high-profile attacks that, while they don't gain them anything, basically try to break our will," Panetta said. "That's what this is about. And I think when an enemy reaches that point it's near the end of their effort to really fully fight back."
Some Pentagon officers say Dunford's lack of experience in Afghanistan will not be a significant handicap. As the Pentagon winds down its military presence, the main requirement will be a commander who can manage the logistics of withdrawal and deal with the White House and Afghan officials, they argued.
Despite the declining support in Washington and elsewhere for the war, colleagues say Dunford is up to the job. He commanded the 5th Marine regiment during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, earning plaudits for his aggressive push north from Kuwait to Baghdad.
"He's a leader who breeds confidence and he can orchestrate large organizations to carry forward," said a senior U.S. officer who has worked closely with Dunford.
Barno, the former war commander, called this week for cutting U.S. combat forces to about 35,000 by next summer, far faster than Allen's strategy would suggest.
Barno said the Pentagon should speed up the turnover of security responsibility to Afghan forces, and halt most joint operations. He urged commanders to abandon Allen's plan for small teams of U.S. advisers to work with Afghan units, helping them call in airstrikes, plan operations, and arrange for casualty evacuations.
"We've done what we set out to do" by killing Osama bin Laden and degrading the Taliban's strength, Barno said in a telephone interview. "The task now is to limit U.S. exposure in the months and years ahead, and get the Afghans into the fight."
Noting that the Afghan army is now close to 352,000 soldiers, he said, "One would think with a force that size they could hold off the Taliban."
david.cloud@latimes.com
Last Western Guantanamo Detainee Returned To Canada
September 29, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The last Western detainee held at the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay prison has been returned to his native Canada.
Canadian citizen Omar Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15 years old.
He pleaded guilty in 2010 to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan as well as other charges related to terrorism and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Now 26, Khadr will serve his sentence in a maximum security prison in Canada after being sent back there on September 29.
Nonetheless, he is expected to be paroled in a few years under a deal that included his admission he that he was an Al-Qaeda supporter who killed a U.S. soldier.
Khadr's father was allegedly a financier for Al-Qaeda and Khadr's defense attorney claimed the father was responsible for bringing Omar to Afghanistan and forcing him the fight.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
Afghan gold fever heats up
The troubled country's untapped mineral resources could transform its future, if security can be improved.
The Independent By Mark Leftly Saturday 29 September 2012
Neal Rigby was munching on some fine sardines in a restaurant in Lisbon when his phone rang. It was a US State Department official, who had got hold of Rigby's mobile number through a mutual friend.
The official asked the Warrington-born geologist to fly over and meet him to discuss a sensitive project; he wanted Dr Rigby to help build an Afghanistan economy on the foundations of trillions of dollars-worth of copper and gold buried beneath its war-torn surface.
Early last year, SRK Consulting, which Dr Rigby chairs, got to work on designing a tender process that would attract American, Indian, Chinese and even British prospectors to the country. There's more than just gold and copper in Afghanistan – the country is also rich in lithium, zinc and even uranium – but those are the two metals that will kickstart the nation's mining industry.
Explorers are bidding to work in four licence areas, from the west of the country to the Tajikistan border in the north-east. SRK, which has advised on mining mergers in Mongolia and platinum projects in Zimbabwe, is working alongside the investment bank Canaccord Genuity and the law firm Mayer Brown, with the target that the first of these licences will be awarded by the end of the year.
Dr Rigby says: "The prospectivity of Afghanistan was never in doubt. But the thoughts about Afghanistan were negative after decades of conflict, decades of uncertainty. They needed advice on the conversion [from just having gold and copper in the ground] to exploration and exploitation. I describe it as 'virginal'."
Miners have long known that there is treasure in Afghanistan, as it lies on the Tethyan Eurasian mineral belt, which starts in Turkey and runs through Iran to Asia as far as Indonesia. There are other mineral belts in Afghanistan, formed through the violent collisions of tectonic plates tens of millions of years ago, which also created the 25,000ft mountains in the north-east of the country.
Then there is a geological survey of Afghanistan, outdated but still relevant, which was started in the 1950s as the country sought closer ties with the Soviet Union and abandoned in the late 1970s as friendship with the Communist bloc turned to invasion.
That survey is what the trillions of dollars of wealth estimates are based upon, but what is extraordinary is that prospectors feel that the survey could underestimate Afghanistan's mineral wealth.
Richard Williams, a Wellington College-educated former SAS commander who is now chief executive at Afghan Gold, says: "That was not a long time to collect information, and a lot of the work concentrated in 'easy win' areas, where they already knew there were plenty of metals. Those easy wins are the exploration areas that have been identified and put out to tender. That's both the good news, as it means there's a shed-load more minerals out there, and the bad news, as they're waiting to be found, and could be many years before they are brought to production."
Even in the four licence areas, some of which Afghan Gold has been shortlisted for, it could be three years until production is in full swing.
Afghan Gold is a fascinating company. While the world's biggest miners would never get involved in such an untested market, the names behind Mr Williams' venture are among the titans of the industry. At the forefront is Ian Hannam, the JP Morgan rainmaker who is currently fighting a market abuse fine imposed on him by the Financial Services Authority. Mr Hannam, who has made a fortune loading up the FTSE 100 with mining behemoths from as far afield as Kazakhstan and India, is said to see dragging Afghanistan out of abject poverty through its minerals – those four licences alone could bring in $1bn (£600m) a year in tax – as his "legacy".
Chip Goodyear, the former BHP Billiton boss who has been amusingly, not to say mistakenly, identified as a former CIA operative on conspiracy websites, and the gold-mining magnate Peter Hambro have also provided financial backing.
That these successful figures believe that they can make money out of Afghanistan shows that the opportunities are real. However, the security situation is still delicate, with at least 100 security guards needed at any one mine, 50 on watch while the remainder rest.
The government has promised to set up a mines protection force, but with personnel prioritised for the army and police this is still six to nine months away from being a fully fledged operation.
"Companies going into Afghanistan have to consider their own safety arrangements – mainly this is small banditry and cross-border smuggling, which is not actually that dissimilar to working in other countries in the region," explains a source based in Kabul.
However, conflict remains a genuine threat, the Chinese having effectively stopped work on the $3bn Aynak mine, one of the biggest copper deposits in the world, following insurgent rocket attacks.
Another problem is a mining law that has led miners to question whether they can even profit from their finds. Unlike virtually any other country in the world, a company that explores an area is not automatically granted an operational licence on making a find. Parliament is currently debating a proposal to overhaul the law, and a vote is expected in November, which few are expected to oppose
The State Department was probably also thinking that by 2011 the US had spent $443bn on the war – the UK is at £20bn and counting – so there will have to be some payback at some point. And that payback is waiting to be discovered beneath Afghanistan's scarred earth.
The lies about aid and Afghanistan
The closure of British-built Afghan schools is a reminder of how the public has been misled about the west's intervention
Guardian.co.uk By Conor Foley Friday 28 September 2012
The news that the British have built far more schools and hospitals in Helmand province than the government of Afghanistan can afford to run, exposes a lie about our intervention in that country that is in many ways as insidious as the lies that surrounded the invasion of Iraq.
Afghanistan was always different from Iraq, both in terms of legal authority and in the manner in which the intervention was carried out. Most significantly, Afghanistan was not "invaded" by the west. Or if an invasion took place, it happened in 2006 or else in 2009.
The US-led Operation Enduring Freedom, which ousted the Taliban 10 years ago, was carried out by a handful of special forces who flew into the country with suitcases full of cash. They bought the allegiance of selected warlords and then called in air strikes against the Taliban hold-outs. Crudely put, we backed one side against another in a brutal civil war that had been going on since the fall of the previous externally imposed government of President Najibullah.
An international conference in Bonn, Germany, legitimised the process in December 2001 and selected Hamid Karzai as president basically because he was the most prominent Pashtun that could be found who spoke good English. The UN mission sent to help oversee the process was deliberately given a "light footprint" with no executive authority and extremely few resources. A token international military force was also deployed consisting of 4,000 soldiers.
At the same time a larger number of humanitarian aid workers arrived to help with the postwar reconstruction. I was one of them and lived in the country for a year-and-a-half between 2003 and 2004 so had a ringside seat of the resulting debacle.
The Taliban regrouped in Pakistan and gradually stepped up their cross-border attacks. International aid workers were among the softest targets to attack, and I lost count of the number of friends and colleagues who were killed and injured during this time. Part of the reason we were attacked was a decision by western governments to tie the delivery of aid into a counter-insurgency strategy that was essentially developed to make up for the lack of troops (who were by then increasingly bogged down in the fighting in Iraq). Aid became increasingly viewed as instrumentalist, a means of buying hearts and minds, isolating the insurgents, or to "shape, hold, clear, and build" as the counter-insurgency terminology puts it.
That this strategy was not working was obvious to everyone on the ground, and convinced the British and Canadian governments to significantly ramp up their military deployments in Kandahar and Helmand in 2006. However, rather than publicly admitting that they were being sent in to fight counter-insurgency campaigns, these were dressed up in humanitarian language. The UK defence secretary at the time, John Reid said: "We're in the south to help and protect the Afghan people to reconstruct their economy and democracy. We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years time without firing one shot." A Canadian diplomat subsequently admitted to me that this was the only way of selling the operations to a sceptical public.
For a couple of years, discussions on Afghanistan took on an Alice in Wonderland dimension where words became devoid of their usual meaning. Observer columnist Nick Cohen wrote perhaps the most extraordinary article ever on the subject when he blamed the lack of delivery of aid projects for a failure to consolidate the military defeats that were supposedly being inflicted on the Taliban. In fact the problem was the exact opposite. There has never been a lack of aid, but a lack of security, which at root is a governance problem and for which counter-insurgency can never be a substitute.
The 2006 "surges" are now widely recognised to have been catastrophic failures. The larger "Obama surge" of 2009 has had some successes due to sheer weight of numbers and firepower, but as the increasing number of "green on blue" attacks show, it cannot make up for the wider strategic failure.
Alternative options were on offer back in 2001. As Lucy Morgan Edwards has convincingly argued, the hardline elements in the Taliban leadership could probably have been overthrown internally, leading to a genuine reconciliation process to bring an end to the country's civil war. We had a chance to genuinely help the Afghans build a better country. Instead we are going to leave them with not much more than a bunch of empty buildings.
Can't Change Your Money In Iran? Try Afghanistan
NPR By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson September 28, 2012
The western Afghan city of Herat has become a thriving hub for the money exchange business, a consequence of geography and politics. Money-changers throng the currency market carrying thick stacks of Iranian currency, much of it brought in by the hundreds of thousands of Afghan workers who earn their living in Iran.
While the stacks of crisp 100,000 rial notes that money-changers bring to the market might look like a small fortune, the 10 million rials in each of these stacks is worth less than $400, because the Iranian currency recently lost more than half of its value.
Abdullah Dashti, who heads the Afghan money dealers union in Herat, says the money-changers are feeling the pinch of the international sanctions against Iran and are now looking to unload Iranian currency.
Multiple Ways To Change Money
But less scrupulous Afghans are using the sanctions as an opportunity to make a profit, Dashti says, by helping desperate Iranians convert their rials into dollars in Afghanistan, where American money serves as a second currency. The Iranians don't show up in Herat themselves, he says, but use Afghan intermediaries to make the exchange.
Iranians looking to change money often use the informal "hawala" system, in which transactions don't involve a physical transfer of money, but a personal pledge to settle the debt later through a third party or bank.
But money-changer Sardar Nazari says that more recently, Iranians have started sending money directly through the main border crossing.
Nazari says the rials are ferried in by Iranian taxis, and the dollars are sent back to Iran in the same taxis. He claims that border guards on both sides are given money to turn a blind eye.
Union chief Dashti says as many as 1 in 5 people in Herat are involved in Iranian money laundering.
Several of the money-changers say the exchange was so rampant this month that it created a shortage of dollars in the Herat currency market.
Herat's governor, Daoud Sabah, disputes that money laundering is a big problem in his province. He says that if there's money coming in illegally, it comes through the porous borders.
"The distance between checkposts for us is at least 12 to 15 kilometers [seven to nine miles], so if anything comes from in between, as the narcotics do, that is possible," Sabah says. "From the border with a taxi illegally? That's absolutely refutable."
Iranian diplomats in Herat declined to comment for this story. The consulate spokesman referred NPR to the Iranian Embassy in Kabul, which did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.
The U.S. Response
A U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, says the American government is talking to Afghan officials about the money laundering and other corruption. The official characterized the talks as "complex but not contentious."
A U.S. Treasury Department envoy visited Kabul earlier this month to explain how the U.S. deals with those who violate the sanctions on Iran.
Afghan officials have since warned money-changers that their accounts will be frozen and their money confiscated if they are found to be violating the sanctions.
Najibullah Akhtary, who heads Afghanistan's Money Exchange Union in Kabul, says he is personally steering clear of any large purchases of Iranian currency at the moment because the sanctions have made it too unstable.
Akhtary adds that the Afghan government must do a better job enforcing banking regulations to help end the money laundering.
Herat money-changer Nazari says that as a result of the crackdown, more dollars are now available in his city.
But he adds that the Iranians are already coming up with ways to get around any tightening of money exchanges.
He claims that Iran is demanding to be paid in dollars for fuel and most other products sold to Afghanistan.
The Tricky Business Of Reintegrating The Taliban
NPR By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson September 28, 2012
In an attempt to put down the insurgency in Afghanistan, the international community has spent millions to try to reintegrate former Taliban fighters and other militants back into society.
So how well has it worked?
Critics like Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network say many militants use these programs to gain access to arms and money, without necessarily changing their ways.
"It's a complete disaster, because there is not enough rule of law here to ensure that people — whether or not they have a good or bad past — will not prey on the local population again," Clark says.
That sentiment is shared by residents of Pashtun Zarghun in the western province of Herat.
In many ways, the district is an Afghan success story. Farmers here have switched from growing opium poppies to saffron. Children attend school, and tribal elders work with the government to improve life for the more than 90,000 residents.
Security Risks Remain
But there's also a dark side to this enclave of mud homes and dirt roads, a 90-minute drive from the provincial capital. In Pashtun Zarghun, residents live in constant fear of militant groups and armed gangs that terrorize the countryside.
Driver Mohammed Naeem says several of his relatives were ambushed and killed by the armed gunmen of one notorious warlord here.
The warlord goes by one name — Abdullah — although residents disparagingly call him Charsi, or hashish smoker.
His militia, which at one point was loosely allied with the Taliban, is widely accused of murder, kidnapping and extortion.
Farmer Abdul Karim says he was kidnapped and almost beaten to death by Abdullah's men. He alleges the warlord and his sons took part in the beatings, which lasted two weeks.
Karim says they targeted him because he was a member of the local tribal council working with the government. The farmer adds that his relatives paid a huge ransom to get him released.
Both he and Naeem complain that Afghan officials have done nothing to punish the warlord or his men.
They are angry that Abdullah is now protected by the government because he agreed to reconcile with it in January.
A Sincere Change?
Abdullah, meanwhile, vehemently denies ever having engaged in any criminal activity.
The 47-year-old says he decided to stop fighting the government because Western troops are leaving soon. He adds that all Afghans need to rebuild their country and that former fighters like him can help keep the peace.
"It's a good step, this reconciliation process. But I assure you the war would end a lot sooner if the government gives rewards to those of us who agree to peace," Abdullah says.
Abdullah says the Afghan government has pledged to make him the chief of the local police force in Pashtun Zarghun.
Word of this spread like wildfire across the district.
"We know what kind of person this guy is," says Naeem, whose relatives were killed in the ambush. "How can Abdullah be our police chief? This guy still has armed men in the mountains and no one can move freely here because of that."
Some Signs Of Success
Former district governor Ghulam Nabi Azizi says he quit his post in July in part because of the reconciliation with Abdullah.
But he says he's not against the reintegration programs.
He says there have been some success stories, like another anti-government warlord called Suleiman Khan, who is now a respected leader in the Afghan border police.
But Azizi warns there are strongmen seeking to legitimize their criminal activities under the guise of the peace process.
Back in the provincial capital, governor Daoud Sabah says Abdullah will not be put in charge of the police in Pashtun Zarghun — or any other district.
"That will not happen in Herat, I assure you, because the people of Herat will not allow it," Sabah says.
Sabah adds that the reintegration programs have worked in his province. He says that more than half of the insurgent groups here have reconciled with the government.
He says only four of the 640 fighters who have laid down their arms here ended up rejoining the insurgency. The governor says the rest have been happy with jobs the government has given them on public works and agricultural projects.
They also receive amnesty for crimes committed against the government, Sabah says. But he adds that crimes against the people will not be forgiven.
Yet no charges have been filed against Abdullah.
In Pashtun Zarghun, some residents say they won't stand for Abdullah coming back in any official capacity.
Naeem says if that happens, he and others will take to the mountains and form their own militant group.
Afghan troops get a lesson in American cultural ignorance
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff and Richard Leiby September 28 , 2012
KABUL - During the Vietnam War, American soldiers shipped out armed with government-issued guides to the distant land and the mysterious people.
In Afghanistan, the U.S. military has tried training sessions, embedded cultural advisers, recommended reading lists and even a video game designed to school the troops in local custom.
But 11 years into the war, NATO troops and Afghan soldiers are still beset by a dangerous lack of cultural awareness, officials say, contributing to a string of insider attacks that have threatened to undermine the military partnership.
So the Afghan army is trying something new: a guide to the strange ways of the American soldier. The goal is to convince Afghan troops that when their Western counterparts do something deeply insulting, it’s likely a product of cultural ignorance and not worthy of revenge.
The pamphlet is intended to “strengthen our understanding of our [NATO] counterpart,” according to an English translation of the pamphlet that was provided to The Washington Post. But in doing so, it also reveals seemingly minor — and rarely acknowledged — cultural faux pas that have created palpable tension between the two forces.
“Please do not get offended if you see a NATO member blowing his/her nose in front of you,” the guide instructs.
“When Coalition members get excited, they may show their excitement by patting one another on the back or the behind,” it explains. “They may even do this to you if they are proud of the job you’ve done. Once again, they don’t mean to offend you.”
And another tip: “When someone feels comfortable in your presence, they may even put their feet on their own desk while speaking with you. They are by no means trying to offend you. They simply don’t know or have forgotten the Afghan custom.” Pointing the soles of one’s shoes at someone is considered a grievous insult in Afghanistan.
The guide also warns Afghan soldiers that Western troops might wink at them or inquire about their female relatives or expose their private parts while showering — all inappropriate actions by Afghan standards.
While some of the tips may be amusing to an American audience, the intention is deadly serious. Fifty-one coalition troops have been killed this year by their Afghan counterparts. While some insider attacks have been attributed to Taliban infiltrators, military officials say the majority stem from personal disputes and misunderstandings.
The 18-page pamphlet, officially titled “Cultural Understanding — A Guide to Understanding Coalition Cultures,” was introduced this month by the Afghan Defense Ministry. Written in Dari, the primary language in much of Afghanistan, it will soon be distributed to Afghan military leaders across the country. The booklet will be taught in three one-hour sessions to all soldiers as well as new recruits.
As NATO winds down its mission here, the “Cultural Understanding” guide marks the Afghan army’s most significant effort to identify long-standing points of contention and confusion between the two forces. It also seems aimed at restoring support for a foreign troop presence that has seen its popularity plummet during the course of the war. Despite widespread misgivings among the Afghan public, in the guide the coalition is depicted glowingly, often in florid language.
The United States is “a little like a lovely carpet. Different colored strands combine to make a beautiful whole.”
NATO’s coalition is described as a “work of art.”
But every work of art has its flaws. The task of laying out a set of commonly misinterpreted behaviors fell to Brig. Gen. Mohammad Amin Nasib, the bearish, affable head of religious and ideological affairs at the Defense Ministry, and his senior military adviser from the NATO side, Michael W. Gore, a mild-mannered Navy commander and chaplain.
“Some would argue that we’re too late, but any time is the right time to promote understanding of each other’s culture,” Gore said. “The Golden Rule goes a long way in any culture in helping to foster tolerance and understanding.”
Nasib wasn’t as buoyant. “Unfortunately, it’s too late,” he said. “It should have been done early.”
www.afghanistannewscenter.com