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Prospects For Afghan Peace Deal With Taliban Dim, But Not Dead
By Abubakar Siddique October 25, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Grand hopes for a comprehensive peace settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan have not died, but they have dimmed considerably.
The goal today, according to experts, is much narrower in scope -- keep lines of communication open for now, with an eye toward helping the Afghan government work out a deal with the Taliban after foreign troops exit the country.
Kabul is primarily concentrating on preparing the ground for 2014, says Marvin Weinbaum, a former intelligence analyst with the U.S. State Department, when a presidential election is expected to be held and NATO forces are to hand over security operations to the Afghan government.
Based on his impressions during recent travels to Afghanistan, Weinbaum says that Afghan and Western officials view a political settlement with the Taliban as something that is years down the road.
"If the [Afghan] election leaves us with a president who is at least acceptable to the major factions and then [the Afghan authorities] are able to sustain the country until 2017 or so, then that represents the best hope there is for a political solution," Weinbaum says.
Contacts and discussions with the Taliban are now focused on setting up future negotiations, says Weinbaum, a regional specialist at Washington's Middle East Institute think tank.
"What is absent here is any discussion about the substance. All of this discussion now which is going on is all facilitation. How can we bring the two together?" Weinbaum says. "And there is no attention being given to whether there are the ingredients for reaching any kind of mutual accommodation over the next two years."
Does The Taliban Want To Talk?
The idea of a political reconciliation with the Taliban gained traction soon after U.S. President Barack Obama announced a major surge of troops in 2009. In 2010, international donors pledged some $140 million to help reintegrate rebel foot soldiers into society. Late that year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai appointed dozens of notable Afghans to a High Peace Council to entice more moderate Taliban leaders to drop their weapons and work with the government.
The next year saw a lot of behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity to get the Taliban on board. Some former Taliban leaders were removed from the UN sanctions list and the insurgents were encouraged to establish a contact office in the Middle East. But the September 2011 assassination of High Peace Council Chairman Burhanuddin Rabbani dealt a blow to the process.
Hopes were revived when the Taliban opened a political office in Qatar in January. However, the group subsequently announced in May that it was suspending talks with Washington. The Taliban accused Washington of changing its position and failing to swap five Taliban Guantanamo inmates in exchange for the only U.S. soldier the group holds.
According to Michael Semple, a former UN and EU diplomat, the Taliban is questioning the benefits of negotiations. Based on his interviews with current and former Taliban leaders, Semple says that hard-liners who want to fight on appear to be winning out over those who favor a peace settlement.
"Some of them clearly have argued that if they fight on, they will be able to see the Americans out of the country; they will find themselves in a militarily strengthened position in 2014; and they will be in a position to make a bid for power," Semple says. "Those in the movement who believe that they are going to gain a military advantage, they have the upper hand."
Dawood Muradian, head of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies in Kabul, says that the Taliban is clearly on the wane, but there will be no room for a peace deal until it accepts the Afghan Constitution.
"The Afghan government and the Afghan political class will continue to be embracing, to be inviting anyone who wants to join the political process," Muradian says, pointing to a "cautious optimism that we have entered a post-Taliban era. The Taliban no longer present a strategic threat to Afghanistan. The Taliban have been defeated politically, morally, and also in many aspects, they have been defeated militarily."
Francesc Vendrell, former representative for the EU and UN in Afghanistan, notes that a third party could play a major role in a peace deal being struck between the Taliban and the Afghan government. But the United States, which had assumed the role, will be challenged by Kabul's insistence on leading the peace process and also by the influence of regional powers such as Iran and Pakistan.
"Without the assistance of a facilitator or mediator, its hard to see [this process taking shape] -- it might take longer. Or, you would need a very active [direct] negotiations process," Vendrell says.
Afghan Clash Leaves 25 Taliban, 5 Police Dead
October 25, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
SHEBERGHAN, Afghanistan -- Officials in Afghanistan's Faryab Province say 25 Taliban fighters, including a senior commander, and five police were killed in a gun battle.
Faryab Governor Abdullah Botash said a large group of Taliban seized control of the Mayan Dara Bazaar for about two hours on October 25 before security forces rushed to the scene.
In the ensuing battle, they reportedly killed the Taliban's shadow governor for Faryab, Yaar Muhammad, and 24 other members of his group.
Deputy Faryab Governor Abdul Satar Barez said the attack was carried out by the "brutal enemies of Afghanistan."
Two civilians were also killed, reportedly after being accused of collaborating with the government, during the brief period that the Taliban fighters controlled the bazaar.
Based on reporting by AFP and Afghan Islamic Press
Pakistan President, Politician Reassure Karzai Of Antiterror Cooperation
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan October 24, 2012
ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's president and the leader of a Pakistani party have sent separate letters to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, reassuring him of their cooperation in the joint fight against terrorism.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Imran Khan, leader of the Tehrik-e Insaaf party, sent the separate messages after Karzai addressed open letters on October 13 to political and religious leaders in Pakistan in condemnation of the terrorist attack on teenage rights activist Malala Yousafzai.
In the letters, Karzai invited Pakistani leaders to help both countries take coordinated action against terrorism and extremism.
Zardari said in his letter that Pakistan was committed "to concrete action to eradicate the menace of terrorism and extremism."
Imran Khan said in his message that “we all have the responsibility to play a role in ending the violence."
We're Winning in Afghanistan
Why hasn't the media noticed?
Foreign Policy BY STEWART UPTON OCTOBER 24, 2012
Last week, a New York Times editorial argued that it is time for U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan -- a process that it said should not take more than a year, a much faster timeline than the president has proposed.
The editorial reflects the growing effort to justify and rationalize our abandonment of Afghanistan, just as we did after the Soviets left. The international community has repeatedly promised the Afghan people that it would not do that again, specifically because we know many Afghans are concerned their country will fall apart when U.S. and international troops leave at the end of 2014. And yet, as the Associated Press reported in August, there is a sense in Afghanistan that history could repeat itself.
When the Soviet army withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, U.S. support to mujahedeen fighters who had been battling the Soviets dried up quickly, and the country sank into civil war as militias and warlords battled for power, devastating Kabul. That was followed by the rise of the Taliban and years of rule under their repressive regime.
Foreign Policy's own coverage has noted a shift in the conversation from fighting into 2015 or sticking around through 2014 to whether the United States even makes it to 2014. Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban, has noted, "Pundits and politicians, as well as think-tanks and military officers have been full of doom and gloom."
But many of us on the ground don't understand the recent pessimism. As U.S. Marine Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus, the regional commander for southwestern Afghanistan, told a group of media from Kabul about the negativity of recent press coverage, "When I read them I have to back up and say, are we talking about the same place?" He added: "We are still a province at war, but look at the progress that has been made in Helmand Province over the past three years." Indeed, even the Times editorial acknowledged that "[t]he Taliban has not retaken territory lost to coalition forces."
We are reaching the point in which the misperception being created by the media is undermining our ability to achieve their own definition of success in Afghanistan: denying al Qaeda a safe haven via a strengthened Afghan security force that is capable of taking over lead responsibility in the future.
Have insider attacks and sensational Taliban attacks taken place?
Yes, and we are accountable for that.
But there is something to the comments made by senior officials that the sensational attacks are reflective of a desperate insurgency. If you were a Taliban commander losing an insurgency for the past couple of years since the surge, wouldn't you feel the need to conduct sensational attacks to give the perception your narrative is winning out and to reassure your followers?
If the Taliban had genuinely gained ground or momentum, reporting that creates the perception the insurgency is everywhere and can do everything would be understandable; but harassing attacks by insurgents have not adversely affected our operational planning or the transition.
After the Sept. 14 attack on Camp Bastion, we observed a motivated insurgency in Helmand province planning more attacks to get some momentum going. Approximately 100 Taliban were staging attacks in the districts of Marjah and Nad Ali.
Then something happened that hadn't before: The northern district police chiefs coordinated sweeping clearing operations that killed approximately half of the would-be attackers and demoralized the rest.
The results of the surge -- specifically, the growth of the Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) in both size and capabilities -- has made it possible for the coalition to transition to what we call a Security Force Assistance mode of operations. With this change, the campaign has progressed from one focused on coalition-led operations, to one that supports the development of the Afghan security forces (the intelligence services, the military, and the police), enabling them to conduct independent operations.
The transition to a Security Force Assistance mode of operations in the southwest began in April, and where transition to the ANSF has taken place in our area of operations, there has been no significant increase in either insurgent or criminal activity. This includes the entire province of Nimroz and 8 of the 14 the districts in Helmand.
In order to strategically defeat the Taliban we need to highlight the successes of the ANSF and reassure the Afghan people that the international community will not abandon them. The 800-pound gorilla in the room is the lack of confidence the Afghan people have in their security forces being able to hold their own after the coalition leaves, and in some cases, it is the security forces themselves that lack the confidence.
The ANSF and the Afghan people don't know just how good their security forces really are -- and will be in the future. Should Afghans see confidence and esprit de corps in the ANSF, we could see something similar to the "Anbar Awakening" in Iraq.
That confidence is starting to build. In the first two weeks of September, insurgents moved in after 1st Battalion, 7th Marines pulled back from areas in the Musa Qala district of Helmand Province. Once the local officials and ANSF perceived this development as a problem, they ordered the area be retaken. Face-to-face and toe-to-toe, the Taliban had to back down, and we saw some bravado emerge from the ANSF that soon carried over to operations in Sangin.
This past week all of the casualties for our area of operations were members of the ANSF. Don't underestimate ANSF's bravery or their willingness to put their lives on the line for their country because they are doing it every single day. They are not afraid of the Taliban, and they move quickly to the sound of the gun.
In Afghan war, enter Sir Mortimer Durand
Reuters By Myra MacDonald October 24, 2012
When the British decided to define the outer limits of their Indian empire, they fudged the question. After two disastrous wars in Afghanistan, they sent the Foreign Secretary of India, Sir Mortimer Durand, to Kabul in 1893 to agree the limits of British and Afghan influence. The result was the Durand Line which Pakistan considers today as its border and Afghanistan refuses to recognise. Then, rather than extend the rule of the Raj out to the Durand Line, the British baulked at pacifying the tribes in what is now Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Instead, they used the still-extant Frontier Crimes Regulation of 1901 to keep them at bay, if necessary through collective punishment. The Pashtun tribes living on either side of the Durand Line continued to move back and forth, resenting outside interference and rejecting an arbitrary division of their lands by a foreign power.
The situation remains as nebulous to this day. Pakistan, like the British Raj before it, wants a secure western frontier and has been ready to back Islamist militants in Afghanistan to obtain it. Indeed, its emphasis on Islam has been used as a means of countering ethnic Pashtun nationalism, lest the Pashtun lay claim to a Pashtunistan covering both sides of the Durand Line. Meanwhile, remembering the days when Peshawar was a fabled Afghan city, some Afghans hanker after a Greater Afghanistan, incorporating the lands of all Pashtun (or Afghan) tribes as far as the Indus river. (Historically, the identification of Afghanistan with the Pashtun was such that the words “Afghan” and “Pashtun” were treated as synonyms.) And even those Afghans who recognise how unrealistic it would be to claim a sizeable chunk of modern-day Pakistan retain a proprietary sense over the Pashtun living on the other side of the Durand Line. Meanwhile the Pashtun themselves resent their arbitrary separation between two countries, which has reduced their capacity to exercise political power.
With the worsening of the Afghan war, the situation on either side of the Durand Line has become even more explosive. Islamabad complains about its sovereignty being breached by U.S. drone strikes in FATA; Kabul accuses Pakistan of sheltering and supporting Afghan Taliban militants on its side; Pakistan shells the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan where it says some of the Pakistani Taliban have taken refuge.
It was into this minefield that the United States stepped when – in what appeared to be almost a casual comment – U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman reaffirmed during a visit to the region that Washington recognises the Durand Line as the international boundary. In case there were any doubts about what he said, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland made the same point when asked at a briefing about the official U.S. position on the Durand Line. “Well, our policy on this has not changed,” she said. “It was correctly stated by Ambassador Grossman that we see this as the internationally recognised boundary.”
As someone who has been following Pakistan for a while, it came as a surprise to me that the United States had a policy on the Durand Line, given how contentious it is as an issue.
Grossman’s comments were first criticised by Afghanistan, and later played down as a reiteration of an existing position rather than a new approach:
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs once again reaffirms the historic importance of the Durand Line for the Afghan people and reiterates its long-standing position that only the Afghan nation can determine its status,” the Afghan government said. “U.S. policy concerning the recognition of Durand Line is not a new development and has no bearing on the views of the Afghan people or the policy of the Government of Afghanistan on this issue.”
Grossman’s comments may indeed have been meant as no more than a passing reference to existing U.S. policy – Washington has little to gain by picking a fight with Kabul right now as it prepares to pull out most combat troops by the end of 2014 while negotiating the right to retain bases there afterwards which can be used for targeting al Qaeda and other Islamist militants, including through drone strikes in FATA. Yet arguments over the future of the Durand Line are not going to go away; rather they are likely to intensify as the deadline approaches for pulling out foreign troops from Afghanistan – especially if, as expected, there is no political settlement by then with Taliban insurgents. And as a result, even a throwaway remark about policy attracts attention.
At first glance, the idea of settling the border is appealing. With its western flank secured, Pakistan would have less reason to interfere in Afghanistan – though it would still worry about Indian influence there. Any agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan would help them channel cross-border movement through official crossings while using joint surveillance and patrols to prevent Islamist militants moving back and forth. Islamabad would incorporate FATA fully into Pakistan and Kabul would breathe easier if it believed it were to be spared what is now more than 30 years of Islamist militants seeping in from the east.
But it is not that simple. Perhaps in the long-run, settling the border needs to be the ultimate aim. But it cannot be the starting point. Departing British colonial rulers proved when they partitioned India in 1947 that defining borders – without regard to, or consultations with, the people who lived on either side of them – only stored up bigger problems for later. Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Durand Line are already unhappy with governments in both Islamabad and Kabul – with the result that some support the same Islamist militancy which, ironically, was once nurtured by Pakistan to suppress Pashtun nationalism. On both sides they believe they have been marginalised – in Afghanistan following the U.S.-led invasion which ousted the Pashtun Taliban; and in Pakistan by the dominance of the country’s heartland Punjab province. Without accommodating ethnic Pashtun fully in the political processes of both Afghanistan and Pakistan before agreeing a frontier, the imposition of a border – itself going against cherished rights of free movement and trade – could stoke more, rather than less violence.
And legally, the case for turning the Durand Line into the international border is not watertight. Pakistan argues that it is the clear inheritor of borders negotiated by the British before 1947; Afghanistan has a multitude of grievances with the Durand Line, one of which is that it says the treaty was forced upon it by British imperialism.
In a review of historical documents on the original 1893 agreement and published by RUSI (subscription), authors Bijan Omrani and Frank Ledwidge conclude that the Durand Line was never meant to be an international border.
The research paper argues that the agreement negotiated by Durand with Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman fixed only “the limit of their respective spheres of influence” rather than being a clear delineation of sovereignty. It quotes a memorandum written by Sir Denis Fitzpatrick, the Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab and therefore the most senior official overseeing the frontier at the time, writing in 1896 that:
“I think it is of the highest importance that it should simply be understood to be a line on our side of which the Amir’s interference except when we allow him to chastise a tribe, shall be absolutely excluded I think if the agreement between us and the Amir were treated to be anything like a partition of territory, it would have a bad effect”
The paper also notes that should a dispute over the recognition of the Durand Line ever be taken to international arbitration, a court would need to examine whether both countries had treated it as an international border for a prolonged period – evidence that would be nearly impossible to provide given the degree of interference and movement of people on both sides.
Intriguingly, given Pakistan’s own deep hostility to U.S.-led or Afghan raids into FATA to tackle Taliban militants, the paper also argues that such “hot pursuit” was clearly allowed in the original treaty. It quotes Fitzpatrick as saying that, “There would be places in which for a long time to come we should not attempt to establish internal peace or prevent the tribes from fighting amongst themselves and places like the Afridi country where it would be difficult for us to prevent the tribes from raiding on the Amir’s territory and in which accordingly we should in a proper case have to allow the Amir to counter-raid, though on the understanding that he would not take permanent possession.”
Going by that interpretation of the treaty – and other historians and other lawyers, reading different documents in different languages might read it differently – you could make a case that Afghanistan (and the United States if acting on behalf of Kabul) could conduct raids by ground troops into FATA. Equally, Pakistan could send troops into Kunar and Nuristan. It is a can of worms that nobody has wanted to open – the anecdote serves not to prove a point of law or history but rather to illustrate the complexity of the Durand Line question.
The paper finishes by recommending that rather than stick to an artificial 19th century line, Afghanistan and Pakistan should work out a means of shared sovereignty, recognising the needs of the people who live there, closely linked by family ties and custom, to move and trade freely across the Durand Line. “the best way to solve the many problems on either side of it – poverty, illiteracy, poor health, corruption, terrorism, laws which contravene all notions of human rights – is not to persist in the attempt to split sovereignty, but to share it. An area so unified in terrain, population and custom cannot bear inequalities in administration, but requires a common approach on both sides to solve the problems.”
Maybe; maybe not. It is hard to see how this could work at a time when Taliban militants are bent on taking over both Afghanistan and, more recently as far as the Pakistani Taliban are concerned, Pakistan as well. In any case, the trust is not there between Pakistan and Afghanistan to even begin to consider such an arrangement.
But perhaps there is a need for outside, UN, mediation. This is too difficult an issue to be resolved by a few short words from the United States that “we see this as the internationally recognised boundary.”
The tribal areas have changed massively since the days of the British and we should be very wary of summoning their experience. Yet we should also be aware of it.
Here is what the research paper describes as the response to the Durand Line agreement: “Reaction amongst the Pashtun tribes to the demarcation was generally (though with a few exceptions) negative. The Mahsuds attacked and burned the British Boundary Commission camp in Wana (in South Waziristan) in 1894, and in 1897, after the conclusion of the Commission’s work, there was a general rising which required the action of 60,000 troops to suppress.”
Decision on Durand Line Belongs to Afghans, Faizi Says
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Wednesday, 24 October 2012
President Hamid Karzai's spokesman on Wednesday said the Durand Line dividing Afghanistan and Pakistan is a matter for the Afghan people to decide, dismissing statements by American officials on what the demarcation means under US policy.
Aimal Faizi said the comments of foreigners on the Durand Line will not have any effect on the verdict of the Afghan people, to whom the decision belongs.
"Whatever their position is, it will not affect the Afghan people and government. The Durand Line is a historic matter and it is up to the people of Afghanistan to decide about this," Faizi said at a press conference in Kabul.
The Durand Line Agreement was drawn up by the British in 1893 to divide the Pashtun region between what was then British India and the Kingdom of Afghanistan.
Pakistan inherited the agreement after its partition from the British Raj in 1947 but there has never been an official ratification of the line between Islamabad and Kabul.
Faizi's statement comes US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman triggered a renewed debate on the demarcation with his comments in an interview on a private television network in Kabul on Sunday.
"Our policy is that border is the international border," Grossman said on October 21. "I think it is time to lift everybody's vision here to a regional conception of what the region could be."
US State Department spokesperson Victora Nuland reiterated Grossman's statement on Tuesday in the US after she was asked by a reporter about the matter.
"Well, our policy on this has not changed. It was correctly stated by Ambassador Grossman that we see this as the internationally recognised boundary," she
said. The Afghan government has already responded to Grossman's comment with a statement on Tuesday from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying it "rejects and considers irrelevant any statement by anyone about the legal status of this line.
U.S. Eager To Step Aside; Are Afghan Forces Ready?
NPR By Tom Bowman October 24, 2012
America's exit strategy in Afghanistan is to have Afghan forces take the lead in fighting for their country. But too often these days, the job still falls to U.S. troops.
A senior officer in Afghanistan tells NPR that Americans continue to coddle Afghan forces and that this must stop. Tough love is in, the officer says. He says the Afghan forces are far more capable than the U.S. estimates and have simply grown accustomed to the U.S. doing everything for them.
That pretty much sums up the situation in southern Afghanistan earlier this year.
Americans Out Front
In May, just outside the city of Kandahar, Sgt. Matthew McMurray and his platoon joined Afghan troops on a patrol through a village.
The Americans prodded the Afghans to lead the effort to search homes for insurgents or bomb-making materials. Hours later, McMurray offered his assessment of the Afghan soldiers.
"I think it'll take a long, long time. We have to keep pushing them," he says. "It is very frustrating."
That sounds familiar to Seth Jones, a defense analyst at the RAND Corp. who just returned from Afghanistan.
"Overall the Americans are still conducting a lot of operations in Afghanistan right now," Jones says. "In terms of combat operations, the Americans are at least in many operations in the lead."
Many operations are in the south and east, where the Taliban insurgency is the strongest. In those areas, 30 to 40 percent of Afghan battalions are what American officials term "independent." But officials say those Afghan units still need American advisers.
All this contradicts the public line, which is that Afghan forces are out in front.
Afghan Improvement
Australian Army Brig. Gen. Roger Noble, a deputy operations officer, told Pentagon reporters recently that three-quarters of the country is now under Afghan control or is moving in that direction.
"In these areas, Afghans have the lead for their own security and their own lives. And the future of Afghan is day by day increasingly in Afghan hands," Noble said. "This is the plan and it's on track."
Canadian Brig. Gen. Thomas Putt, director of development for the Afghan security forces, says the Afghans are vastly better than they were five years ago.
"I was out watching between 8,000 and 9,000 soldiers and policemen operating together in multibrigade-level operations that I had never ever seen before," he says.
Others say that's exactly the point: that if the Afghan forces are getting better they should be planning missions and doing the bulk of the fighting.
"They have got to take the lead for the campaign," Jones says. "The American role has got to be then one of supporting. But it's got to be the Afghans in the lead of a campaign."
To make that happen — and some U.S. officers are now making this case — American troops can't keep doing everything for them.
Shrinking military-led aid sparks concern among Afghans
Reuters By Adrian Croft Wed Oct 24, 2012
GARDEZ, Afghanistan - Military-led teams set up to deliver aid projects in Afghanistan are winding down their operations, sparking concern among some local officials that the government is not ready to take over their development role.
Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) were a key part of U.S.-led forces' strategy "to win hearts and minds" in both Iraq and Afghanistan, building schools, hospitals and roads.
But now the teams, led by different countries in the coalition, are scaling back in Afghanistan as NATO-led forces hand over security responsibility to local commanders before most foreign combat troops pull out by the end of 2014.
Of the 22 existing today -- down from 26 last month -- three are expected to close by the middle of next year, NATO military officials have said.
The PRT in Paktia, a poor, mountainous province in eastern Afghanistan bordering Pakistan and used as a transit route by insurgents, was the first to open in Afghanistan in 2003.
The PRT was slated to close in December 2014, but the unit's U.S. commander said he was proposing to shut it earlier, in June 2013, on grounds that Afghans were ready to take on the work.
Naiz Mohammad Khalil, governor of the Sayid Karam district of Paktia, which borders Gardez and benefits from the PRT, said he would be "upset" when it closed.
"We need more mentors, we need them to stay for longer to train us more," he said in the provincial capital Gardez.
The PRT's commander, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel John Morse, said that when the PRT was established, "We were the only ones that were delivering the basic services to the people.
"That's important at the time when there was no one doing that, but now as the Afghan government stands up and starts to deliver basic services, the PRT can be looked (at) negatively, so we can't do that any longer," he told reporters during a media visit organized by NATO last week.
PROJECT NUMBERS DECLINE
In 2010, the Paktia PRT, headquartered at a U.S. military base near Gardez, managed 114 projects costing $15.5 million. In 2011, that fell to 101 projects worth $10 million and this year to 21 projects costing $800,000.
Of those projects, only three remain, Morse said.
Morse conceded that Kabul had not sent enough money to Paktia this year for development work. "We really felt that Paktia province is starting to stand on their own and they are getting funding from Kabul, (though) not in the amounts we would like to see," he said.
Before 2011, the Paktia PRT built agricultural dams, irrigation systems, wells, hospitals and schools. More recent projects have been more modest, ranging from solar lights for bazaars to a wall around a girls' school.
The main focus of the PRT's work has switched to advising and mentoring Afghan officials to provide services.
Paktia Governor Juma Khan Hamdard said while the provincial government would implement development projects well and act against corruption, he cautioned that the Afghan government did not have the money to make up for the fall in PRT funding.
"The ministers do not (have) money up in Kabul," Hamdard said.
The Paktia officials' fears echo greater concerns by Afghans over how development projects will be sustained once foreign donors pull the plug, which they are in the process of doing.
Donors pledged in Tokyo in July to give Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, $16 billion in development aid through 2015. But there are no guarantees for what will happen after that date.
There are also concerns by major donors and aid organizations that weak political will and graft could prevent funds reaching the right people at a crucial time.
Some development projects in Paktia will continue, paid for by international donors.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. government aid arm, is financing one of the most important projects in Paktia, the paving of a section of highway connecting Gardez with the neighboring province of Khost.
The World Bank is funding an Afghan-led project to build the Machalgho dam in Paktia, although work on the project, under the supervision of an Afghan ministry, has been delayed.
USAID will continue to work in Afghanistan after the Paktia PRT closes, but projects will be run from Kabul and carried out by charities or local people, said Justin Gordon, USAID senior field program officer for Paktia province.
He said Afghan officials were generally in a position to take more development responsibility but the situation varied.
(Editing by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Ron Popeski)
Afghanistan Will Have a Fair Election Without Foreigners: Faizi
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Afghanistan will have a fair and transparent election in 2014, presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi said Wednesday, reiterating the president's statements against foreign advisers in the election commission.
At a press conference in Kabul, Faizi supported President Hamid Karzai's stance against having two foreign advisers on the board of the Election Complaints Commission (ECC) saying that Afghanistan is capable running a fair and transparent election and any foreigners in the ECC is a violation of the country's sovereignty.
"Today Afghanistan has the capability and qualities to launch a fair and transparent election – the presence of foreigners at the Election Complaints Commission will not guarantee the transparency of election," he said, adding that the Afghan government and political parties will also not be able to intervene.
"Afghanistan is not a dictatorship for the government to intervene in the election process – there are guarantees that not only the Afghan government but also political parties will not be allowed any kind of intervention in the election," Faizi said.
However, Afghan political expert Mohammad Asif Wardak fears that these guarantees will not stop the vast corruption leading up to the election.
"The existence of corruption in Afghanistan is more the point of concern than any other thing. This will definitely have a negative impact on the process of an election," he told TOLOnews.
Insecurity, weak governance, and a looming financial slowdown are also among the challenges ahead of the Afghan government as it attempts to ensure the presidential selection is transparent.
First vice president of Afghanistan Mohammad Qasim Fahim recently said that if the security situation deteriorates, hosting a transparent and nationwide election would be impossible.
Britain's £180m annual aid budget to Afghanistan being wasted, MPs warn
Britain's aid spending in Afghanistan is in danger of going to waste as a result of the failures of the Kabul government, MPs have warned.
Telegraph.co.uk By Ben Farmer, Kabul and Damien McElroy 25 Oct 2012
The Department for International Development (Dfid) was told by MPs on the committee scrutinising aid that it should concentrate its annual £178 million Afghan budget on rescuing Afghans from poverty.
Its current focus on bankrolling projects to bolster the Afghan government was dubious because of the weaknesses of Hamid Karzai's administration, MPs said.
Dfid's goal of creating a competent Afghan government was being hamstrung by poor security, lack of action by the current regime and failure to reach a peace deal with the Taliban, the report found.
Sir Malcolm Bruce, committee chairman, said: "It is questionable whether Dfid has the capacity to build a viable state but we should be able to deliver effective development."
Britain has also failed to keep promises to protect the rights of Afghan women, whose plight has worsened in recent years, according to a report from the MPs' committee scrutinising Britain's aid.
The report accused Dfid's operations in Afghanistan of being too reliant on consultants based in Kabul and said staff postings were too short. Britain had also let Afghan women down.
"The UK Government has talked a lot about women's rights in Afghanistan, but it has not followed this up with enough practical action," he said.
"The treatment of women in Afghanistan after troops pull-out in 2014 will be the litmus test of whether we have succeeded in improving the lives of ordinary Afghans over the last ten years."
But the report concluded Britain should retain a large aid budget in Afghanistan as an "obligation to the millions of Afghans who have resisted the Taliban and the British soldiers who have died in the country".
MPs warned that the withdrawal of British forces from Helmand province before the end of 2014 put at risk the gains seen from the British spending in the province.
The report said the withdrawal of Dfid staff alongside the troops was certain, but must not jeopardise British aid flows in the area.
It said: "Security gains in Helmand have been achieved at a very high cost in terms of British lives, injured service personnel and support staff as well as military and development spending. The UK must not walk away from the province after 2014."
The report said that the precarious security situation in Afghanistan already made it difficult to ensure that Dfid funds were spent efficiently in schemes free from the taint of corruption.
"A serious problem for Dfid in Afghanistan is the difficulty in monitoring its programme since security conditions prevent Dfid staff visiting projects," the MPs said.
The department was too reliant on private sector consultants working in Kabul, it added, at the expense of its operations at the grassroots.
"We recommend that Dfid be prepared, as Afghanistan, moves closer to 2014 to be able to shift the focus of its governance programme away from consultants in Kabul towards helping the Afghan Government deliver basic services at a local level," the report said.
One witness at the committee said British aid was too focused on areas of conflict, neglecting stable regions where there was a greater development potential.
"OK, we should find some suicide bombers so that we get more funding," said Orzala Ashraf, an activist.
But MPs added that Dfid staff sent to Afghanistan got too much time off and did not stay long enough at their jobs. At present staff work according to a "six weeks on, two weeks off" rotation and many only complete a six month contract.
"Dfid may need to re-evaluate the type of work that it is ultimately able to effectively and accountably support after international troops withdraw," it said. "Some sectors or geographic areas may be more difficult to monitor than others."
A spokesman for Dfid said the department was committed to effective development work that alleviated poverty and assisted vulnerable groups.
"We agree that women's rights should be at the heart of our work in Afghanistan. UK funding is already making a big difference – it has helped get 2.2 million girls into school, and our £19.5 million Tawanmandi civil society programme is providing over half its grants to Afghan women's organisations.
"But we agree with the IDC (International Development Committee) that massive challenges remain. That is why the new Secretary of State has pledged to do more to make sure Afghan women have the opportunity to take decisions that affect their own lives.
"Afghanistan will remain one of the poorest countries in the word for many years to come. The UK is committed for the long term and has pledged to maintain current levels of assistance until at least 2017."
Human trafficking, prostitution thrive in Afghanistan
DW 24/10/2012
Thousands of Afghan girls and boys are trafficked into neighboring countries and sold into slavery each year. Though it is taboo, prostitution is alive and thriving - at the cost of those forced to work in it.
It is the oldest trade in the world and exists in probably every country in the world. Yet prostitution is not a dream job. Most female sex workers are forced to make a living through prostitution.
In conservative Afghanistan, prostitution is illegal. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Human trafficking is booming - young women are being sold and sent over to neighboring countries, mostly to Pakistan.
Many people are unaware of just how many women are forced to work as prostitutes, according to Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division.
"HRW did a report that was released in March this year about women in prison for moral crimes. And one of the things that I found really surprising by doing those interviews, was how many women I met, had been forced in prostitution often by their husbands and in-laws."
Women sold as commodities
The reason, she explained, that women were forced into the sex trade by their families was due to poverty and drug addiction - usually of a husband or brother or both. The families often saw women as a source of money and take advantage of it.
Women from Pakistan are also been bought and sold to Afghanistan. Poor or practically non-existing security at the border means criminals smuggling and trafficking goods and people can easily get away with it. When the trafficked people arrive on the other side of the border, they are fully at the mercy of their pimps.
One woman from Pakistan who wished not to be named is now in Jalalabad - far away from her home in Karachi.
"We are poor and helpless. What are we supposed to do? We don't have anything to eat. That's why the "big man" brought us here from Karachi. No one likes doing this work, but I don't have any other choice," she told DW.
The young woman speaks neither of Afghanistan's official languages - Dari and Pashtu. She said she didn't know who to turn to and was afraid of the consequences she would face should she run away and the authority of her pimp, the "big man," as she called him. But he himself also cited poverty as a reason to force women into prostitution.
"I do this because I am poor and I want to be able to feed my children. I am aware that there are dangerous consequences, harsh punishments for this kind of work - for instance death or being ostracized and other things."
But he insisted he did not force anyone to work - that the women who work for him prostituted themselves because they wanted to.
Prostitution, whether out of one's own will or not, is illegal according to Islamic law. The cleric Nek Mohammad works for the court in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar and offers consultations on Islamic law. All forms of position are illegal, he told DW.
"At least four people have to bear witness to the crime. And should the prostitute or the person who buys her be married, his or her spouse will have to be stoned. If there are no married people involved, then they receive lashings."
Disease
But punishment is not the only thing to worry about. Most of the prostitutes are unaware of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV and do not use condoms. The number of cases of STDs had sharply risen in the past few months, according to Dr. Baz Mohammad Sherzad, head of Nangarhar province's health ministry.
"Our doctors confirm that many young men who have come to us recently have had urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases. If prostitution is allowed then it is no wonder there is an increase in such problems in Nangarhar."
Nonetheless, doctors should promote educational campaigns, said Sherzad. The government should tackle the problem. Yet the government had a whole set of other problems: "Think about child marriage, forced marriage, domestic violence, the sale of women for marriage and other purposes, forced prostitution, self immolation - honestly the government hasn't been dealing very effectively with any of those issues," said Heather Barr.
She said it was unfortunate that there was a lack of political will to solve these issues. Progress was only made very slow.
As of recently, it is now illegal to lock up women for running away from home, which is just a further symptom of the violence and forced prostitution women continue to face in Afghanistan.
Winter planning aims to save lives
KABUL, 25 October 2012 (IRIN) - After last year’s Afghan winter - the harshest in 15 years - killed dozens of displaced children in urban settlements, government and aid agencies in Afghanistan are preparing themselves for the coming winter.
As of 30 September 2012, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported 445,856 persons internally displaced due to conflict. Many of these live in informal settlements in and around Kabul, but their numbers can be hard to track.
The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is compiling data on the size of the settlements, where the deaths occurred, to scale up its winter assistance stocks accordingly, the deputy head of the Afghanistan office, Arnhild Spence, told IRIN.
The Afghan National Disaster Management Authority is in the process of collecting and consolidating data on preparedness measures which the various line ministries are undertaking in the provinces.
Natural hazards (from floods, to droughts to avalanches) are recurrent in Afghanistan, making the poorest Afghans - not only residents of informal urban settlements, but also those in mountainous, avalanche-prone areas of the northeast, central highlands and east - even more vulnerable.
The government has transferred 90 million Afghanis (US$1.6 million) to each of the country’s 34 provinces to deal with the possible emergency situation during the winter, according to Afghanistan Humanitarian Country Team winterization preparedness status update on 22 October 2012.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), in coordination with the Afghan authorities and other aid agencies, is planning to distribute blankets, plastic sheets, charcoal, and warm clothes to 240,000 people in less-accessible rural areas where internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees who have returned from Pakistan and Iran are living in difficult conditions in isolated remote communities, according to spokesperson Mohammad Nader Farhad.
The Afghan Red Crescent Society is establishing four disaster response units, with about 3,300 volunteers assigned, to provide assistance during winter emergencies.
As the 2012-13 cold season begins, OCHA says 13 provinces are at a high or very high risk of an extreme winter.
Still, Spence said, “we are expecting a slightly less harsh winter than last year in Afghanistan, which was exceptionally cold.”
“Preventable tragedy”
In an open letter on 18 October, a coalition of 30 NGOs, including Amnesty International, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief called for urgent assistance for vulnerable displaced people, pointing to the death last year of at least 100 people - mostly children - in Kabul’s settlements alone.
“What happened last year was a preventable tragedy, and should act as a sharp reminder that emergency assistance must be provided immediately, before the winter arrives,” said Polly Truscott, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Programme.
On 22 October, the national IDP task force, which brings together government and aid partners, met in Kabul to discuss among other things preparations for winter assistance for the displaced. Another coordination forum, the Kabul Informal Settlement Task Force, has agreed to meet every month from now throughout the winter to better respond to the needs of the displaced.
Thanks to increasing acceptance by donors that a response is needed to the plight of urban IDPs, and thanks also to the work of aid agencies, the condition of IDPs has slightly improved compared to two years ago, Nassim Majidi, co-director of Samuel Hall Consulting, a research and consulting organization based in Kabul, told IRIN. But she said their housing - mud homes and tents - was still not adapted to Kabul’s harsh winter conditions. Accusations that community leaders are not distributing relief items properly have not helped, she added. “Families are naturally very worried about the upcoming winter.”
The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations is drafting a national IDP policy, planned to be released in March 2013. Aid agencies say it is an important step in acknowledging the scope of the IDP problem and expanding attention beyond Kabul and its informal urban settlements to the needs of IDPs nationwide. Amnesty says what is needed now is urgent action.
“We urge the Government of Afghanistan, international donors and relevant humanitarian organisations to immediately launch a winter assistance campaign to help ensure adequate planning and preparedness to safeguard the lives of hundreds of thousands of IDPs across Afghanistan over the next few critical months,” the open letter said.
Govt Stalled as Afghan Lawmakers Head to Mecca
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 24 October 2012
More than one hundred Afghan lawmakers have gone on pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca, unexpectedly stalling government work including the much-debated draft election law.
In an apparently unplanned move, both the House of Representatives and the Senate have not convened since last week because of the lack of lawmakers present.
Executive director of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) Jandad Spinghar told TOLOnews that the absence of the parliament members has slowed down necessary legislation.
"The legislation process has been delayed," he said Tuesday, adding that the rules of the Houses should not have allowed this to happen.
"There is a need to supervise the government activity and summon some officials over this. Regretfully now the lack of presence is the main problem. The rules of procedure of the House need to be corrected – it should be fixed to put pressure on parliament members to be present."
Senator Daoud Ehsas said that about 20 senators went to Mecca including the Head of the Senate and the upper house's Second Deputy.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Hajj and Islamic Affairs claimed that according to the Afghan Embassy in Saudi Arabia, at least 100 parliamentarians have gone to Hajj.
"We got some information from the Afghan Embassy in Saudi Arabia that about hundred representatives from the Parliament and Senate went to Hajj with personal visas," acting Minister Daeeul Haq Abid said.
Lawmakers who remained in Kabul have criticised their colleagues for failing to fulfill their professional responsibilities, saying they should not receive their salary.
"There is no need to go Hajj in essential situations," Balkh MP Mohammad Abdo said. "Those who are not fulfilling their responsibilities correctly, their salary is haraam [sinful]."
The parliamentary commission for the safety of MPs responded to claims that the parliament should be monitoring both official and unofficial trips of the lawmakers, saying that they are investigating.
"It is not clear so far – we are researching the issue and then will share with the media," commission member Farkhonda Zahra Nadri told TOLOnews.
However, she conceded that the situation of the suspended parliament was not acceptable.
"This is really worrying. Hopefully it will not become a custom," she said.
Some lawmakers claim that their colleagues have been funded by the Ministry of Hajj and that they have gone to Mecca for the fourth or fifth time.
In Islam, the religious pilgrimage to Mecca is only obligatory once in a lifetime by those who can afford to do so.
Religious scholars Sayed Mohammad Hassan Sharif Balkhabi said that the religious oblation or sacrifice represented by making the pilgrimage is not greater than the oblation of fulfilling ones responsibilities.
"These representatives, instead of going to Hajj, should do their responsibility; it has more oblation," he told TOLOnews.
Some lawmakers suggested that their colleagues went more for recreation or tourism more than for making a holy pilgrimage. The lower and upper houses are not likely to reconvene until next week after the Eid al-Adha holidays end on Sunday.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Abubakar Siddique October 25, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Grand hopes for a comprehensive peace settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan have not died, but they have dimmed considerably.
The goal today, according to experts, is much narrower in scope -- keep lines of communication open for now, with an eye toward helping the Afghan government work out a deal with the Taliban after foreign troops exit the country.
Kabul is primarily concentrating on preparing the ground for 2014, says Marvin Weinbaum, a former intelligence analyst with the U.S. State Department, when a presidential election is expected to be held and NATO forces are to hand over security operations to the Afghan government.
Based on his impressions during recent travels to Afghanistan, Weinbaum says that Afghan and Western officials view a political settlement with the Taliban as something that is years down the road.
"If the [Afghan] election leaves us with a president who is at least acceptable to the major factions and then [the Afghan authorities] are able to sustain the country until 2017 or so, then that represents the best hope there is for a political solution," Weinbaum says.
Contacts and discussions with the Taliban are now focused on setting up future negotiations, says Weinbaum, a regional specialist at Washington's Middle East Institute think tank.
"What is absent here is any discussion about the substance. All of this discussion now which is going on is all facilitation. How can we bring the two together?" Weinbaum says. "And there is no attention being given to whether there are the ingredients for reaching any kind of mutual accommodation over the next two years."
Does The Taliban Want To Talk?
The idea of a political reconciliation with the Taliban gained traction soon after U.S. President Barack Obama announced a major surge of troops in 2009. In 2010, international donors pledged some $140 million to help reintegrate rebel foot soldiers into society. Late that year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai appointed dozens of notable Afghans to a High Peace Council to entice more moderate Taliban leaders to drop their weapons and work with the government.
The next year saw a lot of behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity to get the Taliban on board. Some former Taliban leaders were removed from the UN sanctions list and the insurgents were encouraged to establish a contact office in the Middle East. But the September 2011 assassination of High Peace Council Chairman Burhanuddin Rabbani dealt a blow to the process.
Hopes were revived when the Taliban opened a political office in Qatar in January. However, the group subsequently announced in May that it was suspending talks with Washington. The Taliban accused Washington of changing its position and failing to swap five Taliban Guantanamo inmates in exchange for the only U.S. soldier the group holds.
According to Michael Semple, a former UN and EU diplomat, the Taliban is questioning the benefits of negotiations. Based on his interviews with current and former Taliban leaders, Semple says that hard-liners who want to fight on appear to be winning out over those who favor a peace settlement.
"Some of them clearly have argued that if they fight on, they will be able to see the Americans out of the country; they will find themselves in a militarily strengthened position in 2014; and they will be in a position to make a bid for power," Semple says. "Those in the movement who believe that they are going to gain a military advantage, they have the upper hand."
Dawood Muradian, head of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies in Kabul, says that the Taliban is clearly on the wane, but there will be no room for a peace deal until it accepts the Afghan Constitution.
"The Afghan government and the Afghan political class will continue to be embracing, to be inviting anyone who wants to join the political process," Muradian says, pointing to a "cautious optimism that we have entered a post-Taliban era. The Taliban no longer present a strategic threat to Afghanistan. The Taliban have been defeated politically, morally, and also in many aspects, they have been defeated militarily."
Francesc Vendrell, former representative for the EU and UN in Afghanistan, notes that a third party could play a major role in a peace deal being struck between the Taliban and the Afghan government. But the United States, which had assumed the role, will be challenged by Kabul's insistence on leading the peace process and also by the influence of regional powers such as Iran and Pakistan.
"Without the assistance of a facilitator or mediator, its hard to see [this process taking shape] -- it might take longer. Or, you would need a very active [direct] negotiations process," Vendrell says.
Afghan Clash Leaves 25 Taliban, 5 Police Dead
October 25, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
SHEBERGHAN, Afghanistan -- Officials in Afghanistan's Faryab Province say 25 Taliban fighters, including a senior commander, and five police were killed in a gun battle.
Faryab Governor Abdullah Botash said a large group of Taliban seized control of the Mayan Dara Bazaar for about two hours on October 25 before security forces rushed to the scene.
In the ensuing battle, they reportedly killed the Taliban's shadow governor for Faryab, Yaar Muhammad, and 24 other members of his group.
Deputy Faryab Governor Abdul Satar Barez said the attack was carried out by the "brutal enemies of Afghanistan."
Two civilians were also killed, reportedly after being accused of collaborating with the government, during the brief period that the Taliban fighters controlled the bazaar.
Based on reporting by AFP and Afghan Islamic Press
Pakistan President, Politician Reassure Karzai Of Antiterror Cooperation
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan October 24, 2012
ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's president and the leader of a Pakistani party have sent separate letters to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, reassuring him of their cooperation in the joint fight against terrorism.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Imran Khan, leader of the Tehrik-e Insaaf party, sent the separate messages after Karzai addressed open letters on October 13 to political and religious leaders in Pakistan in condemnation of the terrorist attack on teenage rights activist Malala Yousafzai.
In the letters, Karzai invited Pakistani leaders to help both countries take coordinated action against terrorism and extremism.
Zardari said in his letter that Pakistan was committed "to concrete action to eradicate the menace of terrorism and extremism."
Imran Khan said in his message that “we all have the responsibility to play a role in ending the violence."
We're Winning in Afghanistan
Why hasn't the media noticed?
Foreign Policy BY STEWART UPTON OCTOBER 24, 2012
Last week, a New York Times editorial argued that it is time for U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan -- a process that it said should not take more than a year, a much faster timeline than the president has proposed.
The editorial reflects the growing effort to justify and rationalize our abandonment of Afghanistan, just as we did after the Soviets left. The international community has repeatedly promised the Afghan people that it would not do that again, specifically because we know many Afghans are concerned their country will fall apart when U.S. and international troops leave at the end of 2014. And yet, as the Associated Press reported in August, there is a sense in Afghanistan that history could repeat itself.
When the Soviet army withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, U.S. support to mujahedeen fighters who had been battling the Soviets dried up quickly, and the country sank into civil war as militias and warlords battled for power, devastating Kabul. That was followed by the rise of the Taliban and years of rule under their repressive regime.
Foreign Policy's own coverage has noted a shift in the conversation from fighting into 2015 or sticking around through 2014 to whether the United States even makes it to 2014. Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban, has noted, "Pundits and politicians, as well as think-tanks and military officers have been full of doom and gloom."
But many of us on the ground don't understand the recent pessimism. As U.S. Marine Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus, the regional commander for southwestern Afghanistan, told a group of media from Kabul about the negativity of recent press coverage, "When I read them I have to back up and say, are we talking about the same place?" He added: "We are still a province at war, but look at the progress that has been made in Helmand Province over the past three years." Indeed, even the Times editorial acknowledged that "[t]he Taliban has not retaken territory lost to coalition forces."
We are reaching the point in which the misperception being created by the media is undermining our ability to achieve their own definition of success in Afghanistan: denying al Qaeda a safe haven via a strengthened Afghan security force that is capable of taking over lead responsibility in the future.
Have insider attacks and sensational Taliban attacks taken place?
Yes, and we are accountable for that.
But there is something to the comments made by senior officials that the sensational attacks are reflective of a desperate insurgency. If you were a Taliban commander losing an insurgency for the past couple of years since the surge, wouldn't you feel the need to conduct sensational attacks to give the perception your narrative is winning out and to reassure your followers?
If the Taliban had genuinely gained ground or momentum, reporting that creates the perception the insurgency is everywhere and can do everything would be understandable; but harassing attacks by insurgents have not adversely affected our operational planning or the transition.
After the Sept. 14 attack on Camp Bastion, we observed a motivated insurgency in Helmand province planning more attacks to get some momentum going. Approximately 100 Taliban were staging attacks in the districts of Marjah and Nad Ali.
Then something happened that hadn't before: The northern district police chiefs coordinated sweeping clearing operations that killed approximately half of the would-be attackers and demoralized the rest.
The results of the surge -- specifically, the growth of the Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) in both size and capabilities -- has made it possible for the coalition to transition to what we call a Security Force Assistance mode of operations. With this change, the campaign has progressed from one focused on coalition-led operations, to one that supports the development of the Afghan security forces (the intelligence services, the military, and the police), enabling them to conduct independent operations.
The transition to a Security Force Assistance mode of operations in the southwest began in April, and where transition to the ANSF has taken place in our area of operations, there has been no significant increase in either insurgent or criminal activity. This includes the entire province of Nimroz and 8 of the 14 the districts in Helmand.
In order to strategically defeat the Taliban we need to highlight the successes of the ANSF and reassure the Afghan people that the international community will not abandon them. The 800-pound gorilla in the room is the lack of confidence the Afghan people have in their security forces being able to hold their own after the coalition leaves, and in some cases, it is the security forces themselves that lack the confidence.
The ANSF and the Afghan people don't know just how good their security forces really are -- and will be in the future. Should Afghans see confidence and esprit de corps in the ANSF, we could see something similar to the "Anbar Awakening" in Iraq.
That confidence is starting to build. In the first two weeks of September, insurgents moved in after 1st Battalion, 7th Marines pulled back from areas in the Musa Qala district of Helmand Province. Once the local officials and ANSF perceived this development as a problem, they ordered the area be retaken. Face-to-face and toe-to-toe, the Taliban had to back down, and we saw some bravado emerge from the ANSF that soon carried over to operations in Sangin.
This past week all of the casualties for our area of operations were members of the ANSF. Don't underestimate ANSF's bravery or their willingness to put their lives on the line for their country because they are doing it every single day. They are not afraid of the Taliban, and they move quickly to the sound of the gun.
In Afghan war, enter Sir Mortimer Durand
Reuters By Myra MacDonald October 24, 2012
When the British decided to define the outer limits of their Indian empire, they fudged the question. After two disastrous wars in Afghanistan, they sent the Foreign Secretary of India, Sir Mortimer Durand, to Kabul in 1893 to agree the limits of British and Afghan influence. The result was the Durand Line which Pakistan considers today as its border and Afghanistan refuses to recognise. Then, rather than extend the rule of the Raj out to the Durand Line, the British baulked at pacifying the tribes in what is now Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Instead, they used the still-extant Frontier Crimes Regulation of 1901 to keep them at bay, if necessary through collective punishment. The Pashtun tribes living on either side of the Durand Line continued to move back and forth, resenting outside interference and rejecting an arbitrary division of their lands by a foreign power.
The situation remains as nebulous to this day. Pakistan, like the British Raj before it, wants a secure western frontier and has been ready to back Islamist militants in Afghanistan to obtain it. Indeed, its emphasis on Islam has been used as a means of countering ethnic Pashtun nationalism, lest the Pashtun lay claim to a Pashtunistan covering both sides of the Durand Line. Meanwhile, remembering the days when Peshawar was a fabled Afghan city, some Afghans hanker after a Greater Afghanistan, incorporating the lands of all Pashtun (or Afghan) tribes as far as the Indus river. (Historically, the identification of Afghanistan with the Pashtun was such that the words “Afghan” and “Pashtun” were treated as synonyms.) And even those Afghans who recognise how unrealistic it would be to claim a sizeable chunk of modern-day Pakistan retain a proprietary sense over the Pashtun living on the other side of the Durand Line. Meanwhile the Pashtun themselves resent their arbitrary separation between two countries, which has reduced their capacity to exercise political power.
With the worsening of the Afghan war, the situation on either side of the Durand Line has become even more explosive. Islamabad complains about its sovereignty being breached by U.S. drone strikes in FATA; Kabul accuses Pakistan of sheltering and supporting Afghan Taliban militants on its side; Pakistan shells the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan where it says some of the Pakistani Taliban have taken refuge.
It was into this minefield that the United States stepped when – in what appeared to be almost a casual comment – U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman reaffirmed during a visit to the region that Washington recognises the Durand Line as the international boundary. In case there were any doubts about what he said, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland made the same point when asked at a briefing about the official U.S. position on the Durand Line. “Well, our policy on this has not changed,” she said. “It was correctly stated by Ambassador Grossman that we see this as the internationally recognised boundary.”
As someone who has been following Pakistan for a while, it came as a surprise to me that the United States had a policy on the Durand Line, given how contentious it is as an issue.
Grossman’s comments were first criticised by Afghanistan, and later played down as a reiteration of an existing position rather than a new approach:
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs once again reaffirms the historic importance of the Durand Line for the Afghan people and reiterates its long-standing position that only the Afghan nation can determine its status,” the Afghan government said. “U.S. policy concerning the recognition of Durand Line is not a new development and has no bearing on the views of the Afghan people or the policy of the Government of Afghanistan on this issue.”
Grossman’s comments may indeed have been meant as no more than a passing reference to existing U.S. policy – Washington has little to gain by picking a fight with Kabul right now as it prepares to pull out most combat troops by the end of 2014 while negotiating the right to retain bases there afterwards which can be used for targeting al Qaeda and other Islamist militants, including through drone strikes in FATA. Yet arguments over the future of the Durand Line are not going to go away; rather they are likely to intensify as the deadline approaches for pulling out foreign troops from Afghanistan – especially if, as expected, there is no political settlement by then with Taliban insurgents. And as a result, even a throwaway remark about policy attracts attention.
At first glance, the idea of settling the border is appealing. With its western flank secured, Pakistan would have less reason to interfere in Afghanistan – though it would still worry about Indian influence there. Any agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan would help them channel cross-border movement through official crossings while using joint surveillance and patrols to prevent Islamist militants moving back and forth. Islamabad would incorporate FATA fully into Pakistan and Kabul would breathe easier if it believed it were to be spared what is now more than 30 years of Islamist militants seeping in from the east.
But it is not that simple. Perhaps in the long-run, settling the border needs to be the ultimate aim. But it cannot be the starting point. Departing British colonial rulers proved when they partitioned India in 1947 that defining borders – without regard to, or consultations with, the people who lived on either side of them – only stored up bigger problems for later. Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Durand Line are already unhappy with governments in both Islamabad and Kabul – with the result that some support the same Islamist militancy which, ironically, was once nurtured by Pakistan to suppress Pashtun nationalism. On both sides they believe they have been marginalised – in Afghanistan following the U.S.-led invasion which ousted the Pashtun Taliban; and in Pakistan by the dominance of the country’s heartland Punjab province. Without accommodating ethnic Pashtun fully in the political processes of both Afghanistan and Pakistan before agreeing a frontier, the imposition of a border – itself going against cherished rights of free movement and trade – could stoke more, rather than less violence.
And legally, the case for turning the Durand Line into the international border is not watertight. Pakistan argues that it is the clear inheritor of borders negotiated by the British before 1947; Afghanistan has a multitude of grievances with the Durand Line, one of which is that it says the treaty was forced upon it by British imperialism.
In a review of historical documents on the original 1893 agreement and published by RUSI (subscription), authors Bijan Omrani and Frank Ledwidge conclude that the Durand Line was never meant to be an international border.
The research paper argues that the agreement negotiated by Durand with Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman fixed only “the limit of their respective spheres of influence” rather than being a clear delineation of sovereignty. It quotes a memorandum written by Sir Denis Fitzpatrick, the Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab and therefore the most senior official overseeing the frontier at the time, writing in 1896 that:
“I think it is of the highest importance that it should simply be understood to be a line on our side of which the Amir’s interference except when we allow him to chastise a tribe, shall be absolutely excluded I think if the agreement between us and the Amir were treated to be anything like a partition of territory, it would have a bad effect”
The paper also notes that should a dispute over the recognition of the Durand Line ever be taken to international arbitration, a court would need to examine whether both countries had treated it as an international border for a prolonged period – evidence that would be nearly impossible to provide given the degree of interference and movement of people on both sides.
Intriguingly, given Pakistan’s own deep hostility to U.S.-led or Afghan raids into FATA to tackle Taliban militants, the paper also argues that such “hot pursuit” was clearly allowed in the original treaty. It quotes Fitzpatrick as saying that, “There would be places in which for a long time to come we should not attempt to establish internal peace or prevent the tribes from fighting amongst themselves and places like the Afridi country where it would be difficult for us to prevent the tribes from raiding on the Amir’s territory and in which accordingly we should in a proper case have to allow the Amir to counter-raid, though on the understanding that he would not take permanent possession.”
Going by that interpretation of the treaty – and other historians and other lawyers, reading different documents in different languages might read it differently – you could make a case that Afghanistan (and the United States if acting on behalf of Kabul) could conduct raids by ground troops into FATA. Equally, Pakistan could send troops into Kunar and Nuristan. It is a can of worms that nobody has wanted to open – the anecdote serves not to prove a point of law or history but rather to illustrate the complexity of the Durand Line question.
The paper finishes by recommending that rather than stick to an artificial 19th century line, Afghanistan and Pakistan should work out a means of shared sovereignty, recognising the needs of the people who live there, closely linked by family ties and custom, to move and trade freely across the Durand Line. “the best way to solve the many problems on either side of it – poverty, illiteracy, poor health, corruption, terrorism, laws which contravene all notions of human rights – is not to persist in the attempt to split sovereignty, but to share it. An area so unified in terrain, population and custom cannot bear inequalities in administration, but requires a common approach on both sides to solve the problems.”
Maybe; maybe not. It is hard to see how this could work at a time when Taliban militants are bent on taking over both Afghanistan and, more recently as far as the Pakistani Taliban are concerned, Pakistan as well. In any case, the trust is not there between Pakistan and Afghanistan to even begin to consider such an arrangement.
But perhaps there is a need for outside, UN, mediation. This is too difficult an issue to be resolved by a few short words from the United States that “we see this as the internationally recognised boundary.”
The tribal areas have changed massively since the days of the British and we should be very wary of summoning their experience. Yet we should also be aware of it.
Here is what the research paper describes as the response to the Durand Line agreement: “Reaction amongst the Pashtun tribes to the demarcation was generally (though with a few exceptions) negative. The Mahsuds attacked and burned the British Boundary Commission camp in Wana (in South Waziristan) in 1894, and in 1897, after the conclusion of the Commission’s work, there was a general rising which required the action of 60,000 troops to suppress.”
Decision on Durand Line Belongs to Afghans, Faizi Says
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Wednesday, 24 October 2012
President Hamid Karzai's spokesman on Wednesday said the Durand Line dividing Afghanistan and Pakistan is a matter for the Afghan people to decide, dismissing statements by American officials on what the demarcation means under US policy.
Aimal Faizi said the comments of foreigners on the Durand Line will not have any effect on the verdict of the Afghan people, to whom the decision belongs.
"Whatever their position is, it will not affect the Afghan people and government. The Durand Line is a historic matter and it is up to the people of Afghanistan to decide about this," Faizi said at a press conference in Kabul.
The Durand Line Agreement was drawn up by the British in 1893 to divide the Pashtun region between what was then British India and the Kingdom of Afghanistan.
Pakistan inherited the agreement after its partition from the British Raj in 1947 but there has never been an official ratification of the line between Islamabad and Kabul.
Faizi's statement comes US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman triggered a renewed debate on the demarcation with his comments in an interview on a private television network in Kabul on Sunday.
"Our policy is that border is the international border," Grossman said on October 21. "I think it is time to lift everybody's vision here to a regional conception of what the region could be."
US State Department spokesperson Victora Nuland reiterated Grossman's statement on Tuesday in the US after she was asked by a reporter about the matter.
"Well, our policy on this has not changed. It was correctly stated by Ambassador Grossman that we see this as the internationally recognised boundary," she
said. The Afghan government has already responded to Grossman's comment with a statement on Tuesday from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying it "rejects and considers irrelevant any statement by anyone about the legal status of this line.
U.S. Eager To Step Aside; Are Afghan Forces Ready?
NPR By Tom Bowman October 24, 2012
America's exit strategy in Afghanistan is to have Afghan forces take the lead in fighting for their country. But too often these days, the job still falls to U.S. troops.
A senior officer in Afghanistan tells NPR that Americans continue to coddle Afghan forces and that this must stop. Tough love is in, the officer says. He says the Afghan forces are far more capable than the U.S. estimates and have simply grown accustomed to the U.S. doing everything for them.
That pretty much sums up the situation in southern Afghanistan earlier this year.
Americans Out Front
In May, just outside the city of Kandahar, Sgt. Matthew McMurray and his platoon joined Afghan troops on a patrol through a village.
The Americans prodded the Afghans to lead the effort to search homes for insurgents or bomb-making materials. Hours later, McMurray offered his assessment of the Afghan soldiers.
"I think it'll take a long, long time. We have to keep pushing them," he says. "It is very frustrating."
That sounds familiar to Seth Jones, a defense analyst at the RAND Corp. who just returned from Afghanistan.
"Overall the Americans are still conducting a lot of operations in Afghanistan right now," Jones says. "In terms of combat operations, the Americans are at least in many operations in the lead."
Many operations are in the south and east, where the Taliban insurgency is the strongest. In those areas, 30 to 40 percent of Afghan battalions are what American officials term "independent." But officials say those Afghan units still need American advisers.
All this contradicts the public line, which is that Afghan forces are out in front.
Afghan Improvement
Australian Army Brig. Gen. Roger Noble, a deputy operations officer, told Pentagon reporters recently that three-quarters of the country is now under Afghan control or is moving in that direction.
"In these areas, Afghans have the lead for their own security and their own lives. And the future of Afghan is day by day increasingly in Afghan hands," Noble said. "This is the plan and it's on track."
Canadian Brig. Gen. Thomas Putt, director of development for the Afghan security forces, says the Afghans are vastly better than they were five years ago.
"I was out watching between 8,000 and 9,000 soldiers and policemen operating together in multibrigade-level operations that I had never ever seen before," he says.
Others say that's exactly the point: that if the Afghan forces are getting better they should be planning missions and doing the bulk of the fighting.
"They have got to take the lead for the campaign," Jones says. "The American role has got to be then one of supporting. But it's got to be the Afghans in the lead of a campaign."
To make that happen — and some U.S. officers are now making this case — American troops can't keep doing everything for them.
Shrinking military-led aid sparks concern among Afghans
Reuters By Adrian Croft Wed Oct 24, 2012
GARDEZ, Afghanistan - Military-led teams set up to deliver aid projects in Afghanistan are winding down their operations, sparking concern among some local officials that the government is not ready to take over their development role.
Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) were a key part of U.S.-led forces' strategy "to win hearts and minds" in both Iraq and Afghanistan, building schools, hospitals and roads.
But now the teams, led by different countries in the coalition, are scaling back in Afghanistan as NATO-led forces hand over security responsibility to local commanders before most foreign combat troops pull out by the end of 2014.
Of the 22 existing today -- down from 26 last month -- three are expected to close by the middle of next year, NATO military officials have said.
The PRT in Paktia, a poor, mountainous province in eastern Afghanistan bordering Pakistan and used as a transit route by insurgents, was the first to open in Afghanistan in 2003.
The PRT was slated to close in December 2014, but the unit's U.S. commander said he was proposing to shut it earlier, in June 2013, on grounds that Afghans were ready to take on the work.
Naiz Mohammad Khalil, governor of the Sayid Karam district of Paktia, which borders Gardez and benefits from the PRT, said he would be "upset" when it closed.
"We need more mentors, we need them to stay for longer to train us more," he said in the provincial capital Gardez.
The PRT's commander, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel John Morse, said that when the PRT was established, "We were the only ones that were delivering the basic services to the people.
"That's important at the time when there was no one doing that, but now as the Afghan government stands up and starts to deliver basic services, the PRT can be looked (at) negatively, so we can't do that any longer," he told reporters during a media visit organized by NATO last week.
PROJECT NUMBERS DECLINE
In 2010, the Paktia PRT, headquartered at a U.S. military base near Gardez, managed 114 projects costing $15.5 million. In 2011, that fell to 101 projects worth $10 million and this year to 21 projects costing $800,000.
Of those projects, only three remain, Morse said.
Morse conceded that Kabul had not sent enough money to Paktia this year for development work. "We really felt that Paktia province is starting to stand on their own and they are getting funding from Kabul, (though) not in the amounts we would like to see," he said.
Before 2011, the Paktia PRT built agricultural dams, irrigation systems, wells, hospitals and schools. More recent projects have been more modest, ranging from solar lights for bazaars to a wall around a girls' school.
The main focus of the PRT's work has switched to advising and mentoring Afghan officials to provide services.
Paktia Governor Juma Khan Hamdard said while the provincial government would implement development projects well and act against corruption, he cautioned that the Afghan government did not have the money to make up for the fall in PRT funding.
"The ministers do not (have) money up in Kabul," Hamdard said.
The Paktia officials' fears echo greater concerns by Afghans over how development projects will be sustained once foreign donors pull the plug, which they are in the process of doing.
Donors pledged in Tokyo in July to give Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, $16 billion in development aid through 2015. But there are no guarantees for what will happen after that date.
There are also concerns by major donors and aid organizations that weak political will and graft could prevent funds reaching the right people at a crucial time.
Some development projects in Paktia will continue, paid for by international donors.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. government aid arm, is financing one of the most important projects in Paktia, the paving of a section of highway connecting Gardez with the neighboring province of Khost.
The World Bank is funding an Afghan-led project to build the Machalgho dam in Paktia, although work on the project, under the supervision of an Afghan ministry, has been delayed.
USAID will continue to work in Afghanistan after the Paktia PRT closes, but projects will be run from Kabul and carried out by charities or local people, said Justin Gordon, USAID senior field program officer for Paktia province.
He said Afghan officials were generally in a position to take more development responsibility but the situation varied.
(Editing by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Ron Popeski)
Afghanistan Will Have a Fair Election Without Foreigners: Faizi
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Afghanistan will have a fair and transparent election in 2014, presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi said Wednesday, reiterating the president's statements against foreign advisers in the election commission.
At a press conference in Kabul, Faizi supported President Hamid Karzai's stance against having two foreign advisers on the board of the Election Complaints Commission (ECC) saying that Afghanistan is capable running a fair and transparent election and any foreigners in the ECC is a violation of the country's sovereignty.
"Today Afghanistan has the capability and qualities to launch a fair and transparent election – the presence of foreigners at the Election Complaints Commission will not guarantee the transparency of election," he said, adding that the Afghan government and political parties will also not be able to intervene.
"Afghanistan is not a dictatorship for the government to intervene in the election process – there are guarantees that not only the Afghan government but also political parties will not be allowed any kind of intervention in the election," Faizi said.
However, Afghan political expert Mohammad Asif Wardak fears that these guarantees will not stop the vast corruption leading up to the election.
"The existence of corruption in Afghanistan is more the point of concern than any other thing. This will definitely have a negative impact on the process of an election," he told TOLOnews.
Insecurity, weak governance, and a looming financial slowdown are also among the challenges ahead of the Afghan government as it attempts to ensure the presidential selection is transparent.
First vice president of Afghanistan Mohammad Qasim Fahim recently said that if the security situation deteriorates, hosting a transparent and nationwide election would be impossible.
Britain's £180m annual aid budget to Afghanistan being wasted, MPs warn
Britain's aid spending in Afghanistan is in danger of going to waste as a result of the failures of the Kabul government, MPs have warned.
Telegraph.co.uk By Ben Farmer, Kabul and Damien McElroy 25 Oct 2012
The Department for International Development (Dfid) was told by MPs on the committee scrutinising aid that it should concentrate its annual £178 million Afghan budget on rescuing Afghans from poverty.
Its current focus on bankrolling projects to bolster the Afghan government was dubious because of the weaknesses of Hamid Karzai's administration, MPs said.
Dfid's goal of creating a competent Afghan government was being hamstrung by poor security, lack of action by the current regime and failure to reach a peace deal with the Taliban, the report found.
Sir Malcolm Bruce, committee chairman, said: "It is questionable whether Dfid has the capacity to build a viable state but we should be able to deliver effective development."
Britain has also failed to keep promises to protect the rights of Afghan women, whose plight has worsened in recent years, according to a report from the MPs' committee scrutinising Britain's aid.
The report accused Dfid's operations in Afghanistan of being too reliant on consultants based in Kabul and said staff postings were too short. Britain had also let Afghan women down.
"The UK Government has talked a lot about women's rights in Afghanistan, but it has not followed this up with enough practical action," he said.
"The treatment of women in Afghanistan after troops pull-out in 2014 will be the litmus test of whether we have succeeded in improving the lives of ordinary Afghans over the last ten years."
But the report concluded Britain should retain a large aid budget in Afghanistan as an "obligation to the millions of Afghans who have resisted the Taliban and the British soldiers who have died in the country".
MPs warned that the withdrawal of British forces from Helmand province before the end of 2014 put at risk the gains seen from the British spending in the province.
The report said the withdrawal of Dfid staff alongside the troops was certain, but must not jeopardise British aid flows in the area.
It said: "Security gains in Helmand have been achieved at a very high cost in terms of British lives, injured service personnel and support staff as well as military and development spending. The UK must not walk away from the province after 2014."
The report said that the precarious security situation in Afghanistan already made it difficult to ensure that Dfid funds were spent efficiently in schemes free from the taint of corruption.
"A serious problem for Dfid in Afghanistan is the difficulty in monitoring its programme since security conditions prevent Dfid staff visiting projects," the MPs said.
The department was too reliant on private sector consultants working in Kabul, it added, at the expense of its operations at the grassroots.
"We recommend that Dfid be prepared, as Afghanistan, moves closer to 2014 to be able to shift the focus of its governance programme away from consultants in Kabul towards helping the Afghan Government deliver basic services at a local level," the report said.
One witness at the committee said British aid was too focused on areas of conflict, neglecting stable regions where there was a greater development potential.
"OK, we should find some suicide bombers so that we get more funding," said Orzala Ashraf, an activist.
But MPs added that Dfid staff sent to Afghanistan got too much time off and did not stay long enough at their jobs. At present staff work according to a "six weeks on, two weeks off" rotation and many only complete a six month contract.
"Dfid may need to re-evaluate the type of work that it is ultimately able to effectively and accountably support after international troops withdraw," it said. "Some sectors or geographic areas may be more difficult to monitor than others."
A spokesman for Dfid said the department was committed to effective development work that alleviated poverty and assisted vulnerable groups.
"We agree that women's rights should be at the heart of our work in Afghanistan. UK funding is already making a big difference – it has helped get 2.2 million girls into school, and our £19.5 million Tawanmandi civil society programme is providing over half its grants to Afghan women's organisations.
"But we agree with the IDC (International Development Committee) that massive challenges remain. That is why the new Secretary of State has pledged to do more to make sure Afghan women have the opportunity to take decisions that affect their own lives.
"Afghanistan will remain one of the poorest countries in the word for many years to come. The UK is committed for the long term and has pledged to maintain current levels of assistance until at least 2017."
Human trafficking, prostitution thrive in Afghanistan
DW 24/10/2012
Thousands of Afghan girls and boys are trafficked into neighboring countries and sold into slavery each year. Though it is taboo, prostitution is alive and thriving - at the cost of those forced to work in it.
It is the oldest trade in the world and exists in probably every country in the world. Yet prostitution is not a dream job. Most female sex workers are forced to make a living through prostitution.
In conservative Afghanistan, prostitution is illegal. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Human trafficking is booming - young women are being sold and sent over to neighboring countries, mostly to Pakistan.
Many people are unaware of just how many women are forced to work as prostitutes, according to Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division.
"HRW did a report that was released in March this year about women in prison for moral crimes. And one of the things that I found really surprising by doing those interviews, was how many women I met, had been forced in prostitution often by their husbands and in-laws."
Women sold as commodities
The reason, she explained, that women were forced into the sex trade by their families was due to poverty and drug addiction - usually of a husband or brother or both. The families often saw women as a source of money and take advantage of it.
Women from Pakistan are also been bought and sold to Afghanistan. Poor or practically non-existing security at the border means criminals smuggling and trafficking goods and people can easily get away with it. When the trafficked people arrive on the other side of the border, they are fully at the mercy of their pimps.
One woman from Pakistan who wished not to be named is now in Jalalabad - far away from her home in Karachi.
"We are poor and helpless. What are we supposed to do? We don't have anything to eat. That's why the "big man" brought us here from Karachi. No one likes doing this work, but I don't have any other choice," she told DW.
The young woman speaks neither of Afghanistan's official languages - Dari and Pashtu. She said she didn't know who to turn to and was afraid of the consequences she would face should she run away and the authority of her pimp, the "big man," as she called him. But he himself also cited poverty as a reason to force women into prostitution.
"I do this because I am poor and I want to be able to feed my children. I am aware that there are dangerous consequences, harsh punishments for this kind of work - for instance death or being ostracized and other things."
But he insisted he did not force anyone to work - that the women who work for him prostituted themselves because they wanted to.
Prostitution, whether out of one's own will or not, is illegal according to Islamic law. The cleric Nek Mohammad works for the court in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar and offers consultations on Islamic law. All forms of position are illegal, he told DW.
"At least four people have to bear witness to the crime. And should the prostitute or the person who buys her be married, his or her spouse will have to be stoned. If there are no married people involved, then they receive lashings."
Disease
But punishment is not the only thing to worry about. Most of the prostitutes are unaware of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV and do not use condoms. The number of cases of STDs had sharply risen in the past few months, according to Dr. Baz Mohammad Sherzad, head of Nangarhar province's health ministry.
"Our doctors confirm that many young men who have come to us recently have had urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases. If prostitution is allowed then it is no wonder there is an increase in such problems in Nangarhar."
Nonetheless, doctors should promote educational campaigns, said Sherzad. The government should tackle the problem. Yet the government had a whole set of other problems: "Think about child marriage, forced marriage, domestic violence, the sale of women for marriage and other purposes, forced prostitution, self immolation - honestly the government hasn't been dealing very effectively with any of those issues," said Heather Barr.
She said it was unfortunate that there was a lack of political will to solve these issues. Progress was only made very slow.
As of recently, it is now illegal to lock up women for running away from home, which is just a further symptom of the violence and forced prostitution women continue to face in Afghanistan.
Winter planning aims to save lives
KABUL, 25 October 2012 (IRIN) - After last year’s Afghan winter - the harshest in 15 years - killed dozens of displaced children in urban settlements, government and aid agencies in Afghanistan are preparing themselves for the coming winter.
As of 30 September 2012, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported 445,856 persons internally displaced due to conflict. Many of these live in informal settlements in and around Kabul, but their numbers can be hard to track.
The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is compiling data on the size of the settlements, where the deaths occurred, to scale up its winter assistance stocks accordingly, the deputy head of the Afghanistan office, Arnhild Spence, told IRIN.
The Afghan National Disaster Management Authority is in the process of collecting and consolidating data on preparedness measures which the various line ministries are undertaking in the provinces.
Natural hazards (from floods, to droughts to avalanches) are recurrent in Afghanistan, making the poorest Afghans - not only residents of informal urban settlements, but also those in mountainous, avalanche-prone areas of the northeast, central highlands and east - even more vulnerable.
The government has transferred 90 million Afghanis (US$1.6 million) to each of the country’s 34 provinces to deal with the possible emergency situation during the winter, according to Afghanistan Humanitarian Country Team winterization preparedness status update on 22 October 2012.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), in coordination with the Afghan authorities and other aid agencies, is planning to distribute blankets, plastic sheets, charcoal, and warm clothes to 240,000 people in less-accessible rural areas where internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees who have returned from Pakistan and Iran are living in difficult conditions in isolated remote communities, according to spokesperson Mohammad Nader Farhad.
The Afghan Red Crescent Society is establishing four disaster response units, with about 3,300 volunteers assigned, to provide assistance during winter emergencies.
As the 2012-13 cold season begins, OCHA says 13 provinces are at a high or very high risk of an extreme winter.
Still, Spence said, “we are expecting a slightly less harsh winter than last year in Afghanistan, which was exceptionally cold.”
“Preventable tragedy”
In an open letter on 18 October, a coalition of 30 NGOs, including Amnesty International, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief called for urgent assistance for vulnerable displaced people, pointing to the death last year of at least 100 people - mostly children - in Kabul’s settlements alone.
“What happened last year was a preventable tragedy, and should act as a sharp reminder that emergency assistance must be provided immediately, before the winter arrives,” said Polly Truscott, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Programme.
On 22 October, the national IDP task force, which brings together government and aid partners, met in Kabul to discuss among other things preparations for winter assistance for the displaced. Another coordination forum, the Kabul Informal Settlement Task Force, has agreed to meet every month from now throughout the winter to better respond to the needs of the displaced.
Thanks to increasing acceptance by donors that a response is needed to the plight of urban IDPs, and thanks also to the work of aid agencies, the condition of IDPs has slightly improved compared to two years ago, Nassim Majidi, co-director of Samuel Hall Consulting, a research and consulting organization based in Kabul, told IRIN. But she said their housing - mud homes and tents - was still not adapted to Kabul’s harsh winter conditions. Accusations that community leaders are not distributing relief items properly have not helped, she added. “Families are naturally very worried about the upcoming winter.”
The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations is drafting a national IDP policy, planned to be released in March 2013. Aid agencies say it is an important step in acknowledging the scope of the IDP problem and expanding attention beyond Kabul and its informal urban settlements to the needs of IDPs nationwide. Amnesty says what is needed now is urgent action.
“We urge the Government of Afghanistan, international donors and relevant humanitarian organisations to immediately launch a winter assistance campaign to help ensure adequate planning and preparedness to safeguard the lives of hundreds of thousands of IDPs across Afghanistan over the next few critical months,” the open letter said.
Govt Stalled as Afghan Lawmakers Head to Mecca
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 24 October 2012
More than one hundred Afghan lawmakers have gone on pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca, unexpectedly stalling government work including the much-debated draft election law.
In an apparently unplanned move, both the House of Representatives and the Senate have not convened since last week because of the lack of lawmakers present.
Executive director of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) Jandad Spinghar told TOLOnews that the absence of the parliament members has slowed down necessary legislation.
"The legislation process has been delayed," he said Tuesday, adding that the rules of the Houses should not have allowed this to happen.
"There is a need to supervise the government activity and summon some officials over this. Regretfully now the lack of presence is the main problem. The rules of procedure of the House need to be corrected – it should be fixed to put pressure on parliament members to be present."
Senator Daoud Ehsas said that about 20 senators went to Mecca including the Head of the Senate and the upper house's Second Deputy.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Hajj and Islamic Affairs claimed that according to the Afghan Embassy in Saudi Arabia, at least 100 parliamentarians have gone to Hajj.
"We got some information from the Afghan Embassy in Saudi Arabia that about hundred representatives from the Parliament and Senate went to Hajj with personal visas," acting Minister Daeeul Haq Abid said.
Lawmakers who remained in Kabul have criticised their colleagues for failing to fulfill their professional responsibilities, saying they should not receive their salary.
"There is no need to go Hajj in essential situations," Balkh MP Mohammad Abdo said. "Those who are not fulfilling their responsibilities correctly, their salary is haraam [sinful]."
The parliamentary commission for the safety of MPs responded to claims that the parliament should be monitoring both official and unofficial trips of the lawmakers, saying that they are investigating.
"It is not clear so far – we are researching the issue and then will share with the media," commission member Farkhonda Zahra Nadri told TOLOnews.
However, she conceded that the situation of the suspended parliament was not acceptable.
"This is really worrying. Hopefully it will not become a custom," she said.
Some lawmakers claim that their colleagues have been funded by the Ministry of Hajj and that they have gone to Mecca for the fourth or fifth time.
In Islam, the religious pilgrimage to Mecca is only obligatory once in a lifetime by those who can afford to do so.
Religious scholars Sayed Mohammad Hassan Sharif Balkhabi said that the religious oblation or sacrifice represented by making the pilgrimage is not greater than the oblation of fulfilling ones responsibilities.
"These representatives, instead of going to Hajj, should do their responsibility; it has more oblation," he told TOLOnews.
Some lawmakers suggested that their colleagues went more for recreation or tourism more than for making a holy pilgrimage. The lower and upper houses are not likely to reconvene until next week after the Eid al-Adha holidays end on Sunday.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com