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Taliban leader captured in S. Afghanistan: coalition
KABUL, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- A local Taliban leader was arrested on Friday by the Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition troops in the country's south province of Kandahar in the latest crackdown against the militants.
"An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Taliban leader in Kandahar province today," the coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement providing daily operational updates.
During the operation, the security force also detained two suspected insurgents in the province 450 km south of capital Kabul.
"The arrested leader is suspected of being responsible for organizing improvised explosive device (IED) operations, kidnappings, and attacking against Afghan and coalition forces," the statement added.
In neighboring Helmand province, some 555 km south of Kabul, the joint forces detained two suspected insurgents during a security operation in search of a Taliban leader earlier Friday, it said.
"The Taliban leader is believed to be responsible for the distribution of munitions to Taliban insurgents and serves as the functional head of a Taliban direct action cell."
Separately, a Taliban facilitator was arrested in Nangarhar province 120 km east of Kabul also Friday, the coalition statement said.
In addition, the Afghan and coalition forces confirmed the arrest of a Haqqani leader in eastern Logar province Tuesday, the statement said, adding "The arrested leader is alleged to have organized and executed IED attacks."
The Taliban-linked Haqqani network mostly operating in eastern Afghan provinces and capital Kabul was responsible for many high- profile attacks against the security forces.
In neighboring Paktia province 100 south of Kabul, another Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Haqqani leader also Friday.
"The arrested leader is suspected of being responsible for directing attacks against government officials in Paktia province and also working directly with Taliban leaders to carry out kidnappings and executions of several Afghans," it said.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have yet to make comments.
The Afghan forces and some 100,000 NATO-led coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militants throughout the country recently but the insurgents in retaliation responded by carrying out suicide attacks and roadside bombings.
Two policemen and a civilian were wounded in an IED attack in Tirin Kot, the provincial capital of Uruzgan province 370 km south of Kabul earlier Friday.
Separately, four policemen were killed in an armed attack in Gereshk district of Helmand overnight, provincial police chief Nabi Ilham told Xinhua without disclosing more details about the incident.
Afghanistan: Taliban fear grips once peaceful Parwan province
Not far from the largest US military base in Afghanistan, the Taliban is making major inroads.
Global Post By Chris Sands November 1, 2012
PARWAN, Afghanistan - Just a few miles from the biggest US military base in Afghanistan is the headquarters of Parwan's provincial governor.
More than a year after it was attacked by a team of suicide bombers, the buildings remain peppered with bullet holes, scarred by shrapnel and in some places stained with blood.
The compound in the town of Charikar is still open for business. There is no other option. But the damage stands as proof that even in once peaceful areas, the war has begun to leave an indelible mark.
Since the US invaded in 2001, Parawan has never been regarded as dangerous.
Bordering Kabul and situated on two highways that are essential transport links to the center and north of the country, it was traditionally seen as a stronghold of the anti-Taliban opposition.
Then the insurgents slowly began to appear.
First they were only in the mountains and a few remote valleys. Next they started to emerge elsewhere, their message of resistance in the name of Islam finding support across districts and among different ethnic groups.
Soon they felt confident enough to search cars in broad daylight, stage public executions and regularly attempt high-profile operations in Charikar, the provincial capital. Today they are active in roughly half of Parwan. Many people believe the situation will get worse.
As spokeswoman for the governor, Roshna Khalid was at work when the insurgents struck last summer. While the assault was unfolding, she saw "a very handsome man" in a police uniform who she did not initially realize was a suicide bomber.
"I don't know why he didn't shoot me because they shot all my other friends and colleagues," she said.
As the carnage unfolded, Khalid spent much of the time hiding in her office. She hunkered against a wall, reciting prayers and thinking about her family. By the time the attack was over, the insurgents had killed at least 22 people.
She has continued to receive threats ordering her to quit her job or face the consequences. Gunmen have also attempted to kidnap one of her sons.
Khalid admitted the local government is worried that Afghan security forces will be unable to cope if all conventional NATO combat troops exit the country as scheduled by the end of 2014.
"If they do not train and equip our police and army we will not be able to control the situation," she said. "Time is very short. Day by day the foreigners are saying they are leaving soon, so it depends on them."
Most of the trouble here can be traced to the region of Ghorband, which encompasses four of Parwan's 10 districts. In some places there, the Taliban essentially have full control, while in others they can move relatively freely around the inhospitable landscape.
The first obvious sign that the insurgents were in the ascendancy in this area came in June 2011. Jawad Zahak, a prominent official in neighboring Bamiyan province, was kidnapped and reportedly beheaded as he travelled on the main road through Ghorband. This route to central Afghanistan is now the scene of frequent attacks and even insurgent checkpoints.
Speaking at his small convenience store not far from Taliban territory, shopkeeper Abdul Samad said one of his relatives in the Afghan army had been killed in an ambush on the same highway when a rocket-propelled grenade blew up his truck.
"Day and night the situation is very bad there," he said.
A number of other noticeable incidents have occurred. Infamously, earlier this year a woman accused of adultery was executed in front of a crowd of villagers in Shinwari district. Her death was captured on video.
Some, however, welcome the militants' presence. Hassan, a Kabul University student from Ghorband, told GlobalPost the rebels had backing from ethnic Hazaras and Tajiks in the area, as well as Pashtuns.
"They have received a lot of support from local people. Before there was thieving, drug addicts, dog fighting and all these other illegal activities. Now none of this is happening and the Taliban have crushed them. No one commits injustice. This is not just coming from my mind, it is the truth from society," he said.
There are signs that the resistance is now taking root elsewhere in Parwan. Rockets are often shot at Bagram Air Field, the biggest US military installation in the country. According to the local government, they are fired from areas that are not part of Ghorband.
In one such assault, the plane of Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was damaged as it waited on the ground in August. In similar circumstances, three members of the Afghan intelligence service were killed when their helicopter was hit.
The dangers in Parwan are not confined only to the insurgency, with many people here also possessing unlicensed guns and the threat of common criminality rising.
Zakia Sangin, a member of parliament for the province, said local security forces could "lose control of the center and the green areas" if they are not given better equipment before the foreign troops withdraw.
Unable to visit Ghorband for some time, she added that she now feels vulnerable even in Charikar. "When I stay in my own home I worry that I am not safe," she said.
NATO death toll drops in Afghanistan in October
by Farid Behbud, Chen Xin
KABUL, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of the NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan considerably decreased for the second successive month in October in comparison with August when the military alliance suffered the highest casualties since January this year by losing 52 service members.
Twenty-four ISAF soldiers, among them 17 U.S. troops, have lost their lives in October compared to 27 in September, according to the iCasualties, a website tracking the casualties of foreign troops in the war-torn country.
Out of the total fatalities, four service members have been killed in the so-called "green-on-blue" insider attacks when Afghan army, police or gunmen in their uniform open fire against their international partners.
In the latest such attacks, two British soldiers with the coalition were killed on Oct. 30 when their patrol was attacked by a man wearing the uniform of Afghan National Police (ANP) in Nahr- e Saraj district of Helmand province, some 555 km south of Afghan capital of Kabul.
The attacker fled the scene after making sure his victims were killed.
Days earlier, two U.S. soldiers were killed in a similar incident in Khas Uruzgan district of southern Uruzgan province 370 km south of Kabul on Oct. 25. The shooter who was in ANP uniform escaped shortly after the incident.
The casualty brings the number of foreign soldiers killed in green-on-blue attacks to 57 in about 37 green-on-blue attacks so far this year.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have regularly claimed responsibilities for the green on blue attacks, saying their men have infiltrated into the ranks of Afghan army and police to kill foreign soldiers.
However, the coalition military officials have recently said that about 25 percent of the insider attacks are in some manner related to the Taliban-led insurgency.
They said the factors that contribute to the so-called green on blue shootings are wide-ranging from infiltration and impersonation to personal grievances.
However, it is said that the cultural differences between Afghan security forces and their western partners could also be a reason for the attacks.
The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since the militant group, whose regime was ousted in a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, launched an annual offensive on May 3 against Afghan and the NATO- led forces across the country.
In the bloodiest attack against the coalition and the Afghan forces, three U.S. soldiers, the provincial commander of the Afghan rapid-reaction police force, Mubarak Shah, along with three ALP officers and six civilians were killed in a suicide attack in Khost city, the provincial capital of Khost province.
Up to 61 people including three ALP officers and 58 civilians were wounded in the bombing for which Taliban claimed responsibility in the province 150 km southeast of Kabul on Oct. 1.
Until Friday, Nov. 2 up to 370 foreign soldiers, with 280 of them American troops, have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.
According to U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, the last of 33,000 additional U.S. troops would have been withdrawn from Afghanistan this month, bringing the total number of foreign soldiers to 100,000 with nearly 68,000 of them Americans.
The ultimate goal is to transfer leading security responsibility to the Afghan forces by 2014.
Hunger Strike Intensifies at Australian Immigration camp
Phil Mercer VOA News November 2, 2012
SYDNEY — Australia’s Department of Immigration has confirmed that 170 asylum seekers in Nauru have started a hunger strike. Detainees say that they are protesting their transfer to a remote camp in the South Pacific while they wait to have their refugee claims processed.
The protest involves mostly Sri Lankan asylum seekers and others from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.
They have been taken to Nauru, a tiny South Pacific island near the Equator, to an Australian-sponsored detention center.
The detainees are angry at being transported against their will to such a remote location and are worried about what they claim is the slow progress of their asylum applications.
Immigration officials say about 170 inmates are refusing to eat, while refugee rights campaigners say the figure is far higher, around 270.
Ian Rintoul, from Australia’s Refugee Action Coalition, says one detainee tried to hang himself and was cut free by security guards.
"They are desperate. They have seen the deterioration of mental health of others. I mean, two days ago there was the guy who jumped off a light pole in the middle of the detention center with a sheet around his neck," he said.
Asylum seekers on Nauru recently set up a Facebook page to appeal to the Australian public. They said: “We are not being given the fair treatment, which affect [sic] us physically and mentally. This bitter reality torture [sic] us 24 hours.”
The protestors claim at least three detainees have become unconscious during the hunger strike.
Australia recently reopened the camp on Nauru to try to stem a steady flow of asylum seekers arriving by boat.
The arrival of thousands of undocumented migrants has become a divisive political issue in Australia. While The Greens party leaders believe all asylum seekers should be assessed on Australian soil, the Labor government and the conservative opposition argue that offshore processing is a powerful deterrent, and will stop asylum seekers making the hazardous sea crossing from Indonesia and beyond.
Another remote Australian-sponsored facility in Papua New Guinea is due to open in the next week.
Australia resettles about 13,000 refugees each year under a range of international agreements.
Bombs Away: Will Afghanistan’s Artillerymen Learn How to Shoot Right?
TIME By John Wendle Nov. 01, 2012
FOB Shank, Logar Province and COP Monti, Kunar Province
The afternoon was quiet and hot, and the men of 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment were standing guard and shoveling rocky dirt into sandbags. Suddenly the heavy chatter of the 240-Bravo machine gun ripped open the tired quiet. “Incoming!” someone shouted. We dove for cover. There was a dull whoosh and a distant explosion down the side of the thousand-foot mountain as an insurgent mortar team missed Outpost Shal, a small base on the border with Pakistan in Kunar province.
An allied Afghan platoon opened up with their .50-caliber machine gun, spraying bullets all over the valley, and their mortar team went into action. Within seconds, the team of three had run down to their position, yanked the cover off the mouth of the heaviest weapon on the post, unwrapped an 82-mm round and dropped it down the tube. There was a strong metallic clink, followed by a blast as the bomb went zooming out from the mortar. Seconds later a boom reverberated over the surrounding mountains, and the Afghan crew stood on tiptoe, trying to see where it had landed.
And that is the point. Over the course of 10 days in October, the Afghan National Army (ANA) mortar crew never actually aimed their tube. They never took a bearing, never read out elevations, never set up their aiming sticks — though they did continuously clean and oil the weapon.
One American soldier fighting alongside the Afghan artillerymen explains part of the problem. “Most of their stuff is Russian, like their artillery and whatnot. So it’s funny, they wanted us to teach them — our artillery guys — how to shoot, so they can actually get correct grids and all that,” Sergeant Steven Schwigert tells TIME. “And our artillery guys walked over there and looked [at the equipment] and they said, ‘O.K., you guys said it had instructions, right?’ And [the ANA] says, ‘Yeah,’ and they pulled out this manual, and they sat it down in front of them, and it’s all in Russian. And our guys were like, ‘What the?’”
As the U.S. and its NATO allies start to close down or hand over bases to their ANA counterparts ahead of the planned 2014 withdrawal, the Afghans are going to have to begin handling the entire range of duties that an army would normally take care of itself — from logistics and medevac to air support and artillery. And, in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan, artillery is “essential,” says First Lieutenant Matthew Bergeron, chief of the battery stationed at Combat Outpost Monti.
“They’re getting better at direct fire, but their capability of shooting indirect, it’s basically none. They don’t have the capability of doing it, at least accurately,” says Bergeron. “It’s just a lack of equipment and knowledge. Until they get that ability, they can’t shoot indirect fire.”
And the ANA will have to catch up quickly, as U.S. and NATO forces withdraw, since Afghanistan’s mountains and valleys provide perfect cover for insurgents. This makes learning how to shoot over a ridge to hit something on the opposite slope a necessity. “[Indirect-fire missions are] essentially what it takes around here, especially at those outposts, because they’re in the middle of nowhere, and you’re literally surrounded by the enemy, 360 degrees,” Bergeron says.
A walk down to the ANA’s gun line on the Afghan side of Combat Outpost Monti does not instill confidence. The sun gleamed off the cannon’s freshly oiled exterior, but this did nothing to cover the rust spotting the field piece. It was a D-30 howitzer, which first entered service in 1963 and was introduced to Afghanistan by the Soviets, who sent it to help arm the communist regime; later, it would be deployed during their 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and war against the mujahedin.
To clean their 122-mm field piece, the gun crew had elevated the weapon almost straight up. From the top chirped a very nervous monkey, which one of the soldiers had tied for no apparent reason with a string to the muzzle of the apparatus. The monkey peaked over the edge and looked down at us, his darting eyes seeming to say that he knew he was in a pickle. The crew laughed.
Back on the U.S. side of the base, Colonel Fakir Mohammad Gundiwal, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade of the ANA’s 201st Corps, was sitting in his office at a desk piled high with documents, but lacking a computer. After dodging questions and saying that the army had no problems, the colonel, who has served as a soldier of one stripe or another for nearly three decades, suddenly relented and enumerated a specific series of problems facing the Afghan Army.
“It’s a problem with our Defense Ministry. It’s bad management. We need the right man, at the right time, for the right job. Sometimes they’ll send a guy who has logistics training to the artillery and the guy with artillery training to logistics,” Gundiwal says.
Over the past 18 months, U.S. forces have begun to acknowledge and do something about the problems that face the Afghan army when it comes to its artillery readiness. They are providing weapons, ammunition and training at the Kabul Military Training Center (KMTC) and through Security Force Assistance Teams (SFATs) and Stabilization and Transition Teams (STTs) deployed out to smaller bases across the country.
At the KMTC, artillerymen can go through anything from a six-week course on basic maintenance to a 16-week officer career course. This year, the school will have trained over 1,200 artillerymen, which will bring the total strength of the artillery corps to more than 2,200 since its formation in 2010. The U.S. Army isstill in the process of procuring 194 D-30s for the ANA. However, in mid-September this year, Staff Sgt. Mike Wimberly, an SFAT member training Afghan artillery crews at Forward Operating Base Shank in Logar Province, said that the ANA had gotten only 64 guns.
At Forward Operating Base Shank, in Logar Province, with Staff Sgt. Wimberly, the challenge appears in starker relief. Standing behind a D-30 painted a light yellow, a crew of six loudly counts off in Pashto, only to have artilleryman number five shout “seven!” They start over and get it right, then lustily shout, “Enemy! Death! Enemy! Death! Enemy! Death!” Then organized chaos breaks out as they swarm their gun, trying to ready it for action in a minute and ten seconds. They uncover the recoil system, unclip clips, and crank cranks so fast their arms become blurs. Then one soldier cannot unclip a clip and he just stands there. The commander comes over and shouts and he hops to it again.
At the same time, across a gravel lot, Afghan officers who learned that morning how to use a sight to calculate bearings and arcs for indirect fire – hitting a target they cannot see – teach junior officers and non-commissioned officers how to use it. One officer sat writing a cheat sheet on his palm. A majority of Afghans, though, cannot read, let alone decipher a map or do the trigonometry necessary for the exercise. Though not non-existent, the technical exactitude, education and discipline needed for accurate artillery are all elements lacking in Afghanistan.
“Some of them, if you give them a map, they couldn’t point out where their house was. But if you showed them a terrain map, they would start to be able to use the terrain to show you where they live,” says Staff Sgt. Wimberly. “Depending on what level they’re at, they should be able to read and write,” he says. “It takes them a long time to calculate. That’s the longest part,” but in artillery, delays can translate into infantry being overrun and killed.
Aside from the massive difficulty of teaching people complex mathematics in a foreign language through interpreters, there are other complications. U.S. trainers have had to teach Afghan officers that they need to have up-to-date maps and intelligence, so they do not shell civilian areas or compatriots they cannot see on the opposite slope of a mountain by mistake.
“Artillery is a perishable skill. It’s all about repetition. These guys will quadruple the amount of dry fire missions compared to the ones that they’ll actually shoot, because if they don’t, they just make mistakes. Everything about artillery is about being safe, because when we shoot its [to support] somebody on the other end,” says Staff Sgt. Wimberly.
But, the SFAT trainers have had the Afghan officers five days a week for eight weeks and they think the lessons are starting to sink in. And they need to. Indirect fire had a major impact during the grinding war between the Soviets and the mujahedeen and will continue to play an important role as the U.S. and NATO prepare to withdrawal by the end of 2014 and the ANA have to take on the Taliban and other insurgent groups by themselves.
Also, the Afghans do not have a choice. “It used to be that if [the Afghans] needed it, we just gave it to them, because it was easier than making them get it for themselves. But now we’ve kind of pulled the rug, so, it makes them stand up on their own. And I think that that’s what they need,” says Staff Sgt. Wimberly.
The Afghans seem to understand the new ethos and are realistic about the conditions they will be fighting in when the Americans leave. When asked if he would prefer an advanced American howitzer that uses a computer for targeting, Sgt. Nasratullah, a D-30 howitzer commander says, “I’m sure their gun can target a long distance, but I’d rather have these guns, because they are very simple to use.”
As a flight of Apaches and Blackhawks thump overhead, Staff Sgt. Wimberly steps aside from observing a gun crew run yet another drill. Over the din of the training and the noise of the American air power overhead, he says, “I feel that they’ll be trained. I think time will tell how they react to it. Because eventually there’s not going to be a US infantry platoon to go out with their infantry. There’s not going be a U.S. gun battery that can partner with theirs. So the more we pull away from [them] now, while we’re still here, the better they will be for the long haul.”
Afghanistan's Mujahideen 'building new military unit'
Afghanistan's Mujahideen commanders are building a new military unit to protect the country where Nato forces have failed, according to one of the country's most prominent warlords.
By Ben Farmer, Kabul 02 Nov 2012 The Telegraph (UK)
Ismail Khan reportedly complained that the commanders who defeated the Russians and later fought the Taliban had been sidelined.
He said that the Nato coalition had sent "girls" to fight and said Hamid Karzai was aware of the plans to build the Mujahideen unit, reported Tolo News, the country's biggest private news network.
His comments came as many Afghans fear that the country may fracture and return to civil war after Nato combat forces pull out at the end of 2014.
The Mujahideen who fought the Soviet-backed government in the 1980s turned on each other during the 1990s and many of the commanders are now remembered more for barbarity than heroism.
Mr Khan, minister for energy and water, was a senior resistance commander against the Russians and then ran the western city of Herat as his own fiefdom until the Taliban swept him from power.
Mr Khan told Tolo that the Mujahideen were again needed to protect Afghanistan from "foreign conspiracies".
"The foreigners sidelined those who had fought for ages," he reportedly said at a gathering for former resistance commanders in Herat.
"They collected all our weapons, our artillery and tanks, and put them on the rubbish heap.
"Instead, they brought Dutch girls, French girls, girls from Holland, they armed American girls, they brought white-skinned Western soldiers, and black-skinned American soldiers, and they thought by doing all this they would bring security here but they failed," he added.
Mr Khan said the Afghan president was fully aware of the plans.
He said: "We have had detailed discussions with President Hamid Karzai. We are planning on this strategy and the registration of people is under way." The international community spent billions first trying to disarm the Mujahideen after 2001 and then building an Afghan army and police force.
Mr Khan's comments are not the first time former Mujahideen commanders have hinted they are rearming and reorganising.
Leaders from the remnants of the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban during the 1990s, have warned they were preparing to fight again if a peace deal with the insurgents was imposed on them.
Afghanistan security forces report raises fears over long-term stability
US government watchdog warns that country is unlikely to be able to maintain facilities after foreign troops pull out in 2014
Guardian.co.uk By Emma Graham-Harrison Thursday 1 November 2012
Kabul - Afghanistan will struggle to maintain its security forces' buildings and equipment after foreign forces leave at the end of 2014, a US government watchdog said in a bleak report that raised serious questions about long-term stability prospects.
The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction has also announced an audit into $230m (£142.5m) worth of repair parts ordered for the Afghan army that have gone missing, underlining problems with corruption and accountability.
The $50bn effort to train Afghan security forces initially focused on the fighting skills needed to face the Taliban on the frontline. But critics have long warned that this meant equally important capacities, including logistics networks that can get food, fuel and ammunition to soldiers out in the field, were being dangerously neglected.
The US and Nato are now rushing to correct this imbalance, but may have started too late. Afghanistan will struggle to maintain facilities that cost the US government nearly $12bn to build, the report said.
It added: "The Afghan government continues to face challenges that will likely prohibit it from being capable of fully sustaining (Afghanistan National Security Forces) ANSF facilities after the transition in 2014 and the expected significant decrease in US and coalition support.
"The Afghan government's challenges in assuming O&M (operations and maintenance) responsibilities include a lack of sufficient numbers and quality of personnel, as well as undeveloped budgeting, procurement, and logistics systems."
The army is doing better than the police, who have not put in place the employees or systems needed to be self-sustaining and instead still rely on the US and Nato, the report said. "As a result, US funds invested in the construction and maintenance ... are at risk of being wasted"
One particularly serious challenge is high illiteracy among new recruits, which is the legacy of a weak education system and three decades of war. Qualified applicants are also being lured away by higher salaries in the private sector.
Training centres aim to teach recruits basic reading and writing at the same time that they learn to handle a weapon, but the education needed to manage complex systems cannot be delivered in a few weeks.
Fewer than 40% of organisation and management positions were filled in June this year, the report said. There is also a shortage of technicians able to handle key issues such as water supply, sewage disposal and electricity. Logistics networks have been undermined by serious fraud, which is now endemic in much of Afghanistan.
The planned audit into missing spare parts for the army came after inspectors discovered 474 of 500 shipping containers had gone astray. The loss may have triggered another $137m in spending on replacements.
It is just the latest in a string of corruption concerns unearthed by the special inspector. His office is currently investigating fuel supplies provided to the police, as records on nearly $475m in fuel payments have been shredded, the report said.
Receiving Ashes Before Confronting Afghanistan’s Dust
New York Times
By JOHN BILBY At War November 1, 2012
A Soldier Writes
It was Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012; I would be leaving early the next morning.
That night, I stepped out into a brisk New York City evening and set off for the 6 train. I needed a break; the packing list from Fort Hood, the mobilization station for my National Guard unit, was starting to blur into the separate one published by my unit, and I was trying to parse the necessities from the “we told you so” items that would be needed only in a dire emergency.
The mental work of buying sheets and pillows (a substitution for a three-layer sleeping bag that took up more space than it was worth for a logistics officer like myself) built up; a long walk to the East Harlem Target to buy detergent and sunscreen had the feel of my own personal Gethsemane. I was reaching a point of exhaustion. I would take what I could fit, and my wife would have to mail me the rest once I hit the ground in Kandahar in April.
The day had been bright and clear, the weather unseasonably warm; the night cooled the neighborhood off, but not unpleasantly so. I descended underground and paid my fare; I was heading only two stops to 96th Street, but the predictable stop-and-go of the subway, its hiss and whoosh of recycled air and its pleasantly automated voices (ones that know no anticipation) calmed me. The doors opened at 96th, and I climbed back out into the night and headed through the doors of St. Francis de Sales Church.
St. Francis greeted me at the door, his hand held up in a sign of grace, his solemn eyes looking beyond me. Mary and Joseph gazed beatifically down the length of the church, parents either cosmically accepting of their son’s grim fate, or simply unaware. Dozens of people gathered in the aisles, stumbled over strangers to get to saved seats and scolded children as they contorted every which way to get comfortable. The observant stood side by side with the relapsed (at least for the night). I edged in behind the last pew, comfortably anonymous, and breathed deeply the smell of incense as I watched the priest prepare for the service.
Although I was more of a cultural Catholic than an observant one, I knew I was beginning my time in the Wilderness. I had come to characterize my deployment this way: it came at the tail end of a war that few regarded with interest anymore, a war that became more violent as we sought harder to stabilize it. Afghanistan was alive to me, a seething mass of humanity that sought to bleed us where it could not rend us. If I struggled with it, and outlasted it, I thought that I might lose a piece of myself, but that perhaps I would gain something in the process, something that would go deep and hold fast when the winds of life howled. I did not know yet that there would be days of surprising grace, nor that one of those days would come in Kuwait when, my resolve sapped by exhaustion, heat, and anxiety for the war I was headed toward, I would gather courage from following my brother-in-law, a fellow officer in my unit, onto the plane to Kandahar. That the plea for forgiveness in the Our Father would one day be words
whispered longingly to the dead and to those still living, to the soldiers we had lost and the ones we still sought desperately to protect. And that the words of the nunc dimittis would take on a deeper urgency as our time grew short, a request to simply go in peace.
And, that we would be drawing toward Bethlehem as we shook off the desert and prepared to return to our civilian lives, to confront worlds gone strange to us, where once we knew them well.
The service drew to a close after we received our ashes. It was time to return to my bags and their weight. Although I did not know it as I soon would, Kandahar would be ashes and dust — and, from that, rebirth.
John Bilby is a New Jersey National Guard soldier currently deployed to Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, as a battalion transportation officer. He was born and raised in Belmar, N.J., and is a resident of New York City, where he is enrolled in a teacher preparation program at the City University of New York. He has been in the National Guard for six years and is scheduled to redeploy stateside in January 2013.
Sale of Kabul Bank Assets Challenging, Receivership Says
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Thursday, 01 November 2012
Kabul Bank's receivership manager on Thursday said that the efforts to auction the bank's properties as soon as possible are happening both inside and outside the country, but the asset sale is challenging.
Hamidullah Mohebbi said Kabul Bank currently holds eleven properties worth more than 119 million Emirati Dirhams (US$32.4 million) in Dubai.
Following President Karzai's order on Wednesday for urgent action of the Kabul Bank assets still pending sale, as well as the sale of the properties of its former shareholders in Dubai, Mohebbi said the receivership managers were making a serious effort for enact this order, given little had been done on these properties since the beginning of the bank's crisis two years ago.
He said that in the first step, the properties of its former shareholders in Dubai will be put into auction.
"We are putting a lot of effort into asking from Dubai Land Department for a close date, but it depends on them. They fix the auction date and the mechanism of sale according to their rules and systems. This is related to them according to the laws in Dubai. We will try our best to have it sooner," Mohebbi told TOLOnews Thursday.
Currently, of the eleven properties worth 119.6m dirhams in Dubai, according to Dubai Land Department prices, three are being sold: one worth 22.5m dirhams ($6.1m), another for 30.8m dirhams ($8.4m) and a house worth 10.7m dirhams ($2.9m). Another eight properties of Kabul Bank's shareholders will be put to auction with help of Dubai's governmental institutions.
However the outcome for Kabul Bank's properties in Afghanistan are not clear with few willing buyers, Mohebbi said.
"Nobody so far is willing to buy any of the properties. We are facing this problem. We will soon reannounce prices for some of the properties to be purchased," he said.
Of the fourteen cases of those who received group loans from Kabul Bank, nine have been sent to the Financial Disputes Resolution Commission, cases which are mostly of Kabul Bank's shareholders. There are another fifty cases of those who have received loans from Kabul Bank without any assurance, a list of which has been sent to the president's office.
"A few days ago, we sent to the Office of Administrative Affairs and the president's office a list of those identifying those who have received loans, as well as their company names, and the amount they have paid back so far," said Noorullah Delawari, Governor of Da Afghanistan Bank.
President Karzai ordered on Wednesday for all Kabul Bank's assets to be returned or sold within one month.
Eighth Season of 'Afghan Star' Kicks Off Friday
TOLOnews.com By Rezwan Natiq Thursday, 01 November 2012
One of Afghanistan's leading entertainment shows 'Afghan Star' will begin its eighth season on Friday November 2, a testament to its success and popularity.
The singing contest – modeled on the hugely popular US show 'American Idol' – was first launched to discover hidden singing talent around Afghanistan and build the fledging music scene in the country, according to its network TOLO TV*.
TOLO TV Channel Manager Massood Sanjer believes the reality show owes its success largely to the fact that Afghan people love music and the lack of musicians and singers was felt in the market.
"The idea of creating Afghan Star at the beginning was that music does not have borders and people love any kind of music whether its pop, classic or any other kind," Sanjer told TOLOnews in an interview on Thursday.
Another factor behind the programme's buoyant ratings is that Afghanistan's population has a huge percentage of young people who are interested in participating in a show that can lead to fame, Sanjer added.
The show has also helped pushed boundaries for women in the music industry.
Sanjer said that with Afghanistan's traditions around women, it was be difficult for females to extensively participate in the culture of music. Nevertheless, some female contestants had joined the show and gained strong public support and a following.
"In a traditional country like Afghanistan, it was difficult for women to become singers, even in the past. But since Afghan Star has begun, people better understand that women can be singers too, just as they can be teachers and doctors," he said.
Online Audience
Along with the growth in those who follow the show in Afghanistan, Sanjer said the online portal is also seeing massive increase in its popularity abroad.
The introduction of the 3G internet services in Afghanistan has boosted not only the participation of Afghans in-country, but also Afghans and Farsi-speakers living abroad are actively following the competition.
"We had 3 million [unique] viewers on YouTube last year. As the 3G service is introduced in the country, it will pave the way for people to be part of the online competition. It will be an opportunity for those Afghans who live abroad but love their country to participate," he added.
The eighth season has a slight change in that the auditions will be based on larger zones in Afghanistan, whereas the previous versions selected contestants from the 34 provinces.
Challenges Ahead
Sanjer said he does not expect to face too many challenges after so many years of experience, although the problem of security is always a concern.
"In Afghanistan, most people have understood the purpose of Afghan Star. We don't expect too many challenges as the show is now in its eighth year, but yeah, of course we have some security challenges," Sanjer said.
With the expanding music market in Afghanistan, Sanjer is confident that those introduced through Afghan Star can become leading singers in the market as they are already chosen by the public and have a following through the exposure they receive via the TV and radio outlets.
He pointed out that songs from Afghan Star singers have already topped charts in the country.
Sanjer also believes the show can compete with its counterparts in the region, including India, in terms of the technical expertise and its presentation of the stage sets, filming, and audio.
"Technical-wise, we can compete even with India, but as you know music is part of the Indian culture and they study music in schools from the time they are little kids. The music market in India is so big and Indian movies get popular by its songs," Sanjer said.
Come Prepared
As the seasons progress, Sanjer said the contestants come better prepared after witnessing in the previous years how serious it gets at the pointy end of the competition.
He also reminded the contestants that if they win, TOLO TV in coordination with Barbud Music Production will make a music album with them which will help them both financially and boost their experience in the industry.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
KABUL, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- A local Taliban leader was arrested on Friday by the Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition troops in the country's south province of Kandahar in the latest crackdown against the militants.
"An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Taliban leader in Kandahar province today," the coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement providing daily operational updates.
During the operation, the security force also detained two suspected insurgents in the province 450 km south of capital Kabul.
"The arrested leader is suspected of being responsible for organizing improvised explosive device (IED) operations, kidnappings, and attacking against Afghan and coalition forces," the statement added.
In neighboring Helmand province, some 555 km south of Kabul, the joint forces detained two suspected insurgents during a security operation in search of a Taliban leader earlier Friday, it said.
"The Taliban leader is believed to be responsible for the distribution of munitions to Taliban insurgents and serves as the functional head of a Taliban direct action cell."
Separately, a Taliban facilitator was arrested in Nangarhar province 120 km east of Kabul also Friday, the coalition statement said.
In addition, the Afghan and coalition forces confirmed the arrest of a Haqqani leader in eastern Logar province Tuesday, the statement said, adding "The arrested leader is alleged to have organized and executed IED attacks."
The Taliban-linked Haqqani network mostly operating in eastern Afghan provinces and capital Kabul was responsible for many high- profile attacks against the security forces.
In neighboring Paktia province 100 south of Kabul, another Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Haqqani leader also Friday.
"The arrested leader is suspected of being responsible for directing attacks against government officials in Paktia province and also working directly with Taliban leaders to carry out kidnappings and executions of several Afghans," it said.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have yet to make comments.
The Afghan forces and some 100,000 NATO-led coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militants throughout the country recently but the insurgents in retaliation responded by carrying out suicide attacks and roadside bombings.
Two policemen and a civilian were wounded in an IED attack in Tirin Kot, the provincial capital of Uruzgan province 370 km south of Kabul earlier Friday.
Separately, four policemen were killed in an armed attack in Gereshk district of Helmand overnight, provincial police chief Nabi Ilham told Xinhua without disclosing more details about the incident.
Afghanistan: Taliban fear grips once peaceful Parwan province
Not far from the largest US military base in Afghanistan, the Taliban is making major inroads.
Global Post By Chris Sands November 1, 2012
PARWAN, Afghanistan - Just a few miles from the biggest US military base in Afghanistan is the headquarters of Parwan's provincial governor.
More than a year after it was attacked by a team of suicide bombers, the buildings remain peppered with bullet holes, scarred by shrapnel and in some places stained with blood.
The compound in the town of Charikar is still open for business. There is no other option. But the damage stands as proof that even in once peaceful areas, the war has begun to leave an indelible mark.
Since the US invaded in 2001, Parawan has never been regarded as dangerous.
Bordering Kabul and situated on two highways that are essential transport links to the center and north of the country, it was traditionally seen as a stronghold of the anti-Taliban opposition.
Then the insurgents slowly began to appear.
First they were only in the mountains and a few remote valleys. Next they started to emerge elsewhere, their message of resistance in the name of Islam finding support across districts and among different ethnic groups.
Soon they felt confident enough to search cars in broad daylight, stage public executions and regularly attempt high-profile operations in Charikar, the provincial capital. Today they are active in roughly half of Parwan. Many people believe the situation will get worse.
As spokeswoman for the governor, Roshna Khalid was at work when the insurgents struck last summer. While the assault was unfolding, she saw "a very handsome man" in a police uniform who she did not initially realize was a suicide bomber.
"I don't know why he didn't shoot me because they shot all my other friends and colleagues," she said.
As the carnage unfolded, Khalid spent much of the time hiding in her office. She hunkered against a wall, reciting prayers and thinking about her family. By the time the attack was over, the insurgents had killed at least 22 people.
She has continued to receive threats ordering her to quit her job or face the consequences. Gunmen have also attempted to kidnap one of her sons.
Khalid admitted the local government is worried that Afghan security forces will be unable to cope if all conventional NATO combat troops exit the country as scheduled by the end of 2014.
"If they do not train and equip our police and army we will not be able to control the situation," she said. "Time is very short. Day by day the foreigners are saying they are leaving soon, so it depends on them."
Most of the trouble here can be traced to the region of Ghorband, which encompasses four of Parwan's 10 districts. In some places there, the Taliban essentially have full control, while in others they can move relatively freely around the inhospitable landscape.
The first obvious sign that the insurgents were in the ascendancy in this area came in June 2011. Jawad Zahak, a prominent official in neighboring Bamiyan province, was kidnapped and reportedly beheaded as he travelled on the main road through Ghorband. This route to central Afghanistan is now the scene of frequent attacks and even insurgent checkpoints.
Speaking at his small convenience store not far from Taliban territory, shopkeeper Abdul Samad said one of his relatives in the Afghan army had been killed in an ambush on the same highway when a rocket-propelled grenade blew up his truck.
"Day and night the situation is very bad there," he said.
A number of other noticeable incidents have occurred. Infamously, earlier this year a woman accused of adultery was executed in front of a crowd of villagers in Shinwari district. Her death was captured on video.
Some, however, welcome the militants' presence. Hassan, a Kabul University student from Ghorband, told GlobalPost the rebels had backing from ethnic Hazaras and Tajiks in the area, as well as Pashtuns.
"They have received a lot of support from local people. Before there was thieving, drug addicts, dog fighting and all these other illegal activities. Now none of this is happening and the Taliban have crushed them. No one commits injustice. This is not just coming from my mind, it is the truth from society," he said.
There are signs that the resistance is now taking root elsewhere in Parwan. Rockets are often shot at Bagram Air Field, the biggest US military installation in the country. According to the local government, they are fired from areas that are not part of Ghorband.
In one such assault, the plane of Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was damaged as it waited on the ground in August. In similar circumstances, three members of the Afghan intelligence service were killed when their helicopter was hit.
The dangers in Parwan are not confined only to the insurgency, with many people here also possessing unlicensed guns and the threat of common criminality rising.
Zakia Sangin, a member of parliament for the province, said local security forces could "lose control of the center and the green areas" if they are not given better equipment before the foreign troops withdraw.
Unable to visit Ghorband for some time, she added that she now feels vulnerable even in Charikar. "When I stay in my own home I worry that I am not safe," she said.
NATO death toll drops in Afghanistan in October
by Farid Behbud, Chen Xin
KABUL, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of the NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan considerably decreased for the second successive month in October in comparison with August when the military alliance suffered the highest casualties since January this year by losing 52 service members.
Twenty-four ISAF soldiers, among them 17 U.S. troops, have lost their lives in October compared to 27 in September, according to the iCasualties, a website tracking the casualties of foreign troops in the war-torn country.
Out of the total fatalities, four service members have been killed in the so-called "green-on-blue" insider attacks when Afghan army, police or gunmen in their uniform open fire against their international partners.
In the latest such attacks, two British soldiers with the coalition were killed on Oct. 30 when their patrol was attacked by a man wearing the uniform of Afghan National Police (ANP) in Nahr- e Saraj district of Helmand province, some 555 km south of Afghan capital of Kabul.
The attacker fled the scene after making sure his victims were killed.
Days earlier, two U.S. soldiers were killed in a similar incident in Khas Uruzgan district of southern Uruzgan province 370 km south of Kabul on Oct. 25. The shooter who was in ANP uniform escaped shortly after the incident.
The casualty brings the number of foreign soldiers killed in green-on-blue attacks to 57 in about 37 green-on-blue attacks so far this year.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have regularly claimed responsibilities for the green on blue attacks, saying their men have infiltrated into the ranks of Afghan army and police to kill foreign soldiers.
However, the coalition military officials have recently said that about 25 percent of the insider attacks are in some manner related to the Taliban-led insurgency.
They said the factors that contribute to the so-called green on blue shootings are wide-ranging from infiltration and impersonation to personal grievances.
However, it is said that the cultural differences between Afghan security forces and their western partners could also be a reason for the attacks.
The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since the militant group, whose regime was ousted in a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, launched an annual offensive on May 3 against Afghan and the NATO- led forces across the country.
In the bloodiest attack against the coalition and the Afghan forces, three U.S. soldiers, the provincial commander of the Afghan rapid-reaction police force, Mubarak Shah, along with three ALP officers and six civilians were killed in a suicide attack in Khost city, the provincial capital of Khost province.
Up to 61 people including three ALP officers and 58 civilians were wounded in the bombing for which Taliban claimed responsibility in the province 150 km southeast of Kabul on Oct. 1.
Until Friday, Nov. 2 up to 370 foreign soldiers, with 280 of them American troops, have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.
According to U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, the last of 33,000 additional U.S. troops would have been withdrawn from Afghanistan this month, bringing the total number of foreign soldiers to 100,000 with nearly 68,000 of them Americans.
The ultimate goal is to transfer leading security responsibility to the Afghan forces by 2014.
Hunger Strike Intensifies at Australian Immigration camp
Phil Mercer VOA News November 2, 2012
SYDNEY — Australia’s Department of Immigration has confirmed that 170 asylum seekers in Nauru have started a hunger strike. Detainees say that they are protesting their transfer to a remote camp in the South Pacific while they wait to have their refugee claims processed.
The protest involves mostly Sri Lankan asylum seekers and others from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.
They have been taken to Nauru, a tiny South Pacific island near the Equator, to an Australian-sponsored detention center.
The detainees are angry at being transported against their will to such a remote location and are worried about what they claim is the slow progress of their asylum applications.
Immigration officials say about 170 inmates are refusing to eat, while refugee rights campaigners say the figure is far higher, around 270.
Ian Rintoul, from Australia’s Refugee Action Coalition, says one detainee tried to hang himself and was cut free by security guards.
"They are desperate. They have seen the deterioration of mental health of others. I mean, two days ago there was the guy who jumped off a light pole in the middle of the detention center with a sheet around his neck," he said.
Asylum seekers on Nauru recently set up a Facebook page to appeal to the Australian public. They said: “We are not being given the fair treatment, which affect [sic] us physically and mentally. This bitter reality torture [sic] us 24 hours.”
The protestors claim at least three detainees have become unconscious during the hunger strike.
Australia recently reopened the camp on Nauru to try to stem a steady flow of asylum seekers arriving by boat.
The arrival of thousands of undocumented migrants has become a divisive political issue in Australia. While The Greens party leaders believe all asylum seekers should be assessed on Australian soil, the Labor government and the conservative opposition argue that offshore processing is a powerful deterrent, and will stop asylum seekers making the hazardous sea crossing from Indonesia and beyond.
Another remote Australian-sponsored facility in Papua New Guinea is due to open in the next week.
Australia resettles about 13,000 refugees each year under a range of international agreements.
Bombs Away: Will Afghanistan’s Artillerymen Learn How to Shoot Right?
TIME By John Wendle Nov. 01, 2012
FOB Shank, Logar Province and COP Monti, Kunar Province
The afternoon was quiet and hot, and the men of 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment were standing guard and shoveling rocky dirt into sandbags. Suddenly the heavy chatter of the 240-Bravo machine gun ripped open the tired quiet. “Incoming!” someone shouted. We dove for cover. There was a dull whoosh and a distant explosion down the side of the thousand-foot mountain as an insurgent mortar team missed Outpost Shal, a small base on the border with Pakistan in Kunar province.
An allied Afghan platoon opened up with their .50-caliber machine gun, spraying bullets all over the valley, and their mortar team went into action. Within seconds, the team of three had run down to their position, yanked the cover off the mouth of the heaviest weapon on the post, unwrapped an 82-mm round and dropped it down the tube. There was a strong metallic clink, followed by a blast as the bomb went zooming out from the mortar. Seconds later a boom reverberated over the surrounding mountains, and the Afghan crew stood on tiptoe, trying to see where it had landed.
And that is the point. Over the course of 10 days in October, the Afghan National Army (ANA) mortar crew never actually aimed their tube. They never took a bearing, never read out elevations, never set up their aiming sticks — though they did continuously clean and oil the weapon.
One American soldier fighting alongside the Afghan artillerymen explains part of the problem. “Most of their stuff is Russian, like their artillery and whatnot. So it’s funny, they wanted us to teach them — our artillery guys — how to shoot, so they can actually get correct grids and all that,” Sergeant Steven Schwigert tells TIME. “And our artillery guys walked over there and looked [at the equipment] and they said, ‘O.K., you guys said it had instructions, right?’ And [the ANA] says, ‘Yeah,’ and they pulled out this manual, and they sat it down in front of them, and it’s all in Russian. And our guys were like, ‘What the?’”
As the U.S. and its NATO allies start to close down or hand over bases to their ANA counterparts ahead of the planned 2014 withdrawal, the Afghans are going to have to begin handling the entire range of duties that an army would normally take care of itself — from logistics and medevac to air support and artillery. And, in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan, artillery is “essential,” says First Lieutenant Matthew Bergeron, chief of the battery stationed at Combat Outpost Monti.
“They’re getting better at direct fire, but their capability of shooting indirect, it’s basically none. They don’t have the capability of doing it, at least accurately,” says Bergeron. “It’s just a lack of equipment and knowledge. Until they get that ability, they can’t shoot indirect fire.”
And the ANA will have to catch up quickly, as U.S. and NATO forces withdraw, since Afghanistan’s mountains and valleys provide perfect cover for insurgents. This makes learning how to shoot over a ridge to hit something on the opposite slope a necessity. “[Indirect-fire missions are] essentially what it takes around here, especially at those outposts, because they’re in the middle of nowhere, and you’re literally surrounded by the enemy, 360 degrees,” Bergeron says.
A walk down to the ANA’s gun line on the Afghan side of Combat Outpost Monti does not instill confidence. The sun gleamed off the cannon’s freshly oiled exterior, but this did nothing to cover the rust spotting the field piece. It was a D-30 howitzer, which first entered service in 1963 and was introduced to Afghanistan by the Soviets, who sent it to help arm the communist regime; later, it would be deployed during their 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and war against the mujahedin.
To clean their 122-mm field piece, the gun crew had elevated the weapon almost straight up. From the top chirped a very nervous monkey, which one of the soldiers had tied for no apparent reason with a string to the muzzle of the apparatus. The monkey peaked over the edge and looked down at us, his darting eyes seeming to say that he knew he was in a pickle. The crew laughed.
Back on the U.S. side of the base, Colonel Fakir Mohammad Gundiwal, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade of the ANA’s 201st Corps, was sitting in his office at a desk piled high with documents, but lacking a computer. After dodging questions and saying that the army had no problems, the colonel, who has served as a soldier of one stripe or another for nearly three decades, suddenly relented and enumerated a specific series of problems facing the Afghan Army.
“It’s a problem with our Defense Ministry. It’s bad management. We need the right man, at the right time, for the right job. Sometimes they’ll send a guy who has logistics training to the artillery and the guy with artillery training to logistics,” Gundiwal says.
Over the past 18 months, U.S. forces have begun to acknowledge and do something about the problems that face the Afghan army when it comes to its artillery readiness. They are providing weapons, ammunition and training at the Kabul Military Training Center (KMTC) and through Security Force Assistance Teams (SFATs) and Stabilization and Transition Teams (STTs) deployed out to smaller bases across the country.
At the KMTC, artillerymen can go through anything from a six-week course on basic maintenance to a 16-week officer career course. This year, the school will have trained over 1,200 artillerymen, which will bring the total strength of the artillery corps to more than 2,200 since its formation in 2010. The U.S. Army isstill in the process of procuring 194 D-30s for the ANA. However, in mid-September this year, Staff Sgt. Mike Wimberly, an SFAT member training Afghan artillery crews at Forward Operating Base Shank in Logar Province, said that the ANA had gotten only 64 guns.
At Forward Operating Base Shank, in Logar Province, with Staff Sgt. Wimberly, the challenge appears in starker relief. Standing behind a D-30 painted a light yellow, a crew of six loudly counts off in Pashto, only to have artilleryman number five shout “seven!” They start over and get it right, then lustily shout, “Enemy! Death! Enemy! Death! Enemy! Death!” Then organized chaos breaks out as they swarm their gun, trying to ready it for action in a minute and ten seconds. They uncover the recoil system, unclip clips, and crank cranks so fast their arms become blurs. Then one soldier cannot unclip a clip and he just stands there. The commander comes over and shouts and he hops to it again.
At the same time, across a gravel lot, Afghan officers who learned that morning how to use a sight to calculate bearings and arcs for indirect fire – hitting a target they cannot see – teach junior officers and non-commissioned officers how to use it. One officer sat writing a cheat sheet on his palm. A majority of Afghans, though, cannot read, let alone decipher a map or do the trigonometry necessary for the exercise. Though not non-existent, the technical exactitude, education and discipline needed for accurate artillery are all elements lacking in Afghanistan.
“Some of them, if you give them a map, they couldn’t point out where their house was. But if you showed them a terrain map, they would start to be able to use the terrain to show you where they live,” says Staff Sgt. Wimberly. “Depending on what level they’re at, they should be able to read and write,” he says. “It takes them a long time to calculate. That’s the longest part,” but in artillery, delays can translate into infantry being overrun and killed.
Aside from the massive difficulty of teaching people complex mathematics in a foreign language through interpreters, there are other complications. U.S. trainers have had to teach Afghan officers that they need to have up-to-date maps and intelligence, so they do not shell civilian areas or compatriots they cannot see on the opposite slope of a mountain by mistake.
“Artillery is a perishable skill. It’s all about repetition. These guys will quadruple the amount of dry fire missions compared to the ones that they’ll actually shoot, because if they don’t, they just make mistakes. Everything about artillery is about being safe, because when we shoot its [to support] somebody on the other end,” says Staff Sgt. Wimberly.
But, the SFAT trainers have had the Afghan officers five days a week for eight weeks and they think the lessons are starting to sink in. And they need to. Indirect fire had a major impact during the grinding war between the Soviets and the mujahedeen and will continue to play an important role as the U.S. and NATO prepare to withdrawal by the end of 2014 and the ANA have to take on the Taliban and other insurgent groups by themselves.
Also, the Afghans do not have a choice. “It used to be that if [the Afghans] needed it, we just gave it to them, because it was easier than making them get it for themselves. But now we’ve kind of pulled the rug, so, it makes them stand up on their own. And I think that that’s what they need,” says Staff Sgt. Wimberly.
The Afghans seem to understand the new ethos and are realistic about the conditions they will be fighting in when the Americans leave. When asked if he would prefer an advanced American howitzer that uses a computer for targeting, Sgt. Nasratullah, a D-30 howitzer commander says, “I’m sure their gun can target a long distance, but I’d rather have these guns, because they are very simple to use.”
As a flight of Apaches and Blackhawks thump overhead, Staff Sgt. Wimberly steps aside from observing a gun crew run yet another drill. Over the din of the training and the noise of the American air power overhead, he says, “I feel that they’ll be trained. I think time will tell how they react to it. Because eventually there’s not going to be a US infantry platoon to go out with their infantry. There’s not going be a U.S. gun battery that can partner with theirs. So the more we pull away from [them] now, while we’re still here, the better they will be for the long haul.”
Afghanistan's Mujahideen 'building new military unit'
Afghanistan's Mujahideen commanders are building a new military unit to protect the country where Nato forces have failed, according to one of the country's most prominent warlords.
By Ben Farmer, Kabul 02 Nov 2012 The Telegraph (UK)
Ismail Khan reportedly complained that the commanders who defeated the Russians and later fought the Taliban had been sidelined.
He said that the Nato coalition had sent "girls" to fight and said Hamid Karzai was aware of the plans to build the Mujahideen unit, reported Tolo News, the country's biggest private news network.
His comments came as many Afghans fear that the country may fracture and return to civil war after Nato combat forces pull out at the end of 2014.
The Mujahideen who fought the Soviet-backed government in the 1980s turned on each other during the 1990s and many of the commanders are now remembered more for barbarity than heroism.
Mr Khan, minister for energy and water, was a senior resistance commander against the Russians and then ran the western city of Herat as his own fiefdom until the Taliban swept him from power.
Mr Khan told Tolo that the Mujahideen were again needed to protect Afghanistan from "foreign conspiracies".
"The foreigners sidelined those who had fought for ages," he reportedly said at a gathering for former resistance commanders in Herat.
"They collected all our weapons, our artillery and tanks, and put them on the rubbish heap.
"Instead, they brought Dutch girls, French girls, girls from Holland, they armed American girls, they brought white-skinned Western soldiers, and black-skinned American soldiers, and they thought by doing all this they would bring security here but they failed," he added.
Mr Khan said the Afghan president was fully aware of the plans.
He said: "We have had detailed discussions with President Hamid Karzai. We are planning on this strategy and the registration of people is under way." The international community spent billions first trying to disarm the Mujahideen after 2001 and then building an Afghan army and police force.
Mr Khan's comments are not the first time former Mujahideen commanders have hinted they are rearming and reorganising.
Leaders from the remnants of the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban during the 1990s, have warned they were preparing to fight again if a peace deal with the insurgents was imposed on them.
Afghanistan security forces report raises fears over long-term stability
US government watchdog warns that country is unlikely to be able to maintain facilities after foreign troops pull out in 2014
Guardian.co.uk By Emma Graham-Harrison Thursday 1 November 2012
Kabul - Afghanistan will struggle to maintain its security forces' buildings and equipment after foreign forces leave at the end of 2014, a US government watchdog said in a bleak report that raised serious questions about long-term stability prospects.
The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction has also announced an audit into $230m (£142.5m) worth of repair parts ordered for the Afghan army that have gone missing, underlining problems with corruption and accountability.
The $50bn effort to train Afghan security forces initially focused on the fighting skills needed to face the Taliban on the frontline. But critics have long warned that this meant equally important capacities, including logistics networks that can get food, fuel and ammunition to soldiers out in the field, were being dangerously neglected.
The US and Nato are now rushing to correct this imbalance, but may have started too late. Afghanistan will struggle to maintain facilities that cost the US government nearly $12bn to build, the report said.
It added: "The Afghan government continues to face challenges that will likely prohibit it from being capable of fully sustaining (Afghanistan National Security Forces) ANSF facilities after the transition in 2014 and the expected significant decrease in US and coalition support.
"The Afghan government's challenges in assuming O&M (operations and maintenance) responsibilities include a lack of sufficient numbers and quality of personnel, as well as undeveloped budgeting, procurement, and logistics systems."
The army is doing better than the police, who have not put in place the employees or systems needed to be self-sustaining and instead still rely on the US and Nato, the report said. "As a result, US funds invested in the construction and maintenance ... are at risk of being wasted"
One particularly serious challenge is high illiteracy among new recruits, which is the legacy of a weak education system and three decades of war. Qualified applicants are also being lured away by higher salaries in the private sector.
Training centres aim to teach recruits basic reading and writing at the same time that they learn to handle a weapon, but the education needed to manage complex systems cannot be delivered in a few weeks.
Fewer than 40% of organisation and management positions were filled in June this year, the report said. There is also a shortage of technicians able to handle key issues such as water supply, sewage disposal and electricity. Logistics networks have been undermined by serious fraud, which is now endemic in much of Afghanistan.
The planned audit into missing spare parts for the army came after inspectors discovered 474 of 500 shipping containers had gone astray. The loss may have triggered another $137m in spending on replacements.
It is just the latest in a string of corruption concerns unearthed by the special inspector. His office is currently investigating fuel supplies provided to the police, as records on nearly $475m in fuel payments have been shredded, the report said.
Receiving Ashes Before Confronting Afghanistan’s Dust
New York Times
By JOHN BILBY At War November 1, 2012
A Soldier Writes
It was Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012; I would be leaving early the next morning.
That night, I stepped out into a brisk New York City evening and set off for the 6 train. I needed a break; the packing list from Fort Hood, the mobilization station for my National Guard unit, was starting to blur into the separate one published by my unit, and I was trying to parse the necessities from the “we told you so” items that would be needed only in a dire emergency.
The mental work of buying sheets and pillows (a substitution for a three-layer sleeping bag that took up more space than it was worth for a logistics officer like myself) built up; a long walk to the East Harlem Target to buy detergent and sunscreen had the feel of my own personal Gethsemane. I was reaching a point of exhaustion. I would take what I could fit, and my wife would have to mail me the rest once I hit the ground in Kandahar in April.
The day had been bright and clear, the weather unseasonably warm; the night cooled the neighborhood off, but not unpleasantly so. I descended underground and paid my fare; I was heading only two stops to 96th Street, but the predictable stop-and-go of the subway, its hiss and whoosh of recycled air and its pleasantly automated voices (ones that know no anticipation) calmed me. The doors opened at 96th, and I climbed back out into the night and headed through the doors of St. Francis de Sales Church.
St. Francis greeted me at the door, his hand held up in a sign of grace, his solemn eyes looking beyond me. Mary and Joseph gazed beatifically down the length of the church, parents either cosmically accepting of their son’s grim fate, or simply unaware. Dozens of people gathered in the aisles, stumbled over strangers to get to saved seats and scolded children as they contorted every which way to get comfortable. The observant stood side by side with the relapsed (at least for the night). I edged in behind the last pew, comfortably anonymous, and breathed deeply the smell of incense as I watched the priest prepare for the service.
Although I was more of a cultural Catholic than an observant one, I knew I was beginning my time in the Wilderness. I had come to characterize my deployment this way: it came at the tail end of a war that few regarded with interest anymore, a war that became more violent as we sought harder to stabilize it. Afghanistan was alive to me, a seething mass of humanity that sought to bleed us where it could not rend us. If I struggled with it, and outlasted it, I thought that I might lose a piece of myself, but that perhaps I would gain something in the process, something that would go deep and hold fast when the winds of life howled. I did not know yet that there would be days of surprising grace, nor that one of those days would come in Kuwait when, my resolve sapped by exhaustion, heat, and anxiety for the war I was headed toward, I would gather courage from following my brother-in-law, a fellow officer in my unit, onto the plane to Kandahar. That the plea for forgiveness in the Our Father would one day be words
whispered longingly to the dead and to those still living, to the soldiers we had lost and the ones we still sought desperately to protect. And that the words of the nunc dimittis would take on a deeper urgency as our time grew short, a request to simply go in peace.
And, that we would be drawing toward Bethlehem as we shook off the desert and prepared to return to our civilian lives, to confront worlds gone strange to us, where once we knew them well.
The service drew to a close after we received our ashes. It was time to return to my bags and their weight. Although I did not know it as I soon would, Kandahar would be ashes and dust — and, from that, rebirth.
John Bilby is a New Jersey National Guard soldier currently deployed to Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, as a battalion transportation officer. He was born and raised in Belmar, N.J., and is a resident of New York City, where he is enrolled in a teacher preparation program at the City University of New York. He has been in the National Guard for six years and is scheduled to redeploy stateside in January 2013.
Sale of Kabul Bank Assets Challenging, Receivership Says
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Thursday, 01 November 2012
Kabul Bank's receivership manager on Thursday said that the efforts to auction the bank's properties as soon as possible are happening both inside and outside the country, but the asset sale is challenging.
Hamidullah Mohebbi said Kabul Bank currently holds eleven properties worth more than 119 million Emirati Dirhams (US$32.4 million) in Dubai.
Following President Karzai's order on Wednesday for urgent action of the Kabul Bank assets still pending sale, as well as the sale of the properties of its former shareholders in Dubai, Mohebbi said the receivership managers were making a serious effort for enact this order, given little had been done on these properties since the beginning of the bank's crisis two years ago.
He said that in the first step, the properties of its former shareholders in Dubai will be put into auction.
"We are putting a lot of effort into asking from Dubai Land Department for a close date, but it depends on them. They fix the auction date and the mechanism of sale according to their rules and systems. This is related to them according to the laws in Dubai. We will try our best to have it sooner," Mohebbi told TOLOnews Thursday.
Currently, of the eleven properties worth 119.6m dirhams in Dubai, according to Dubai Land Department prices, three are being sold: one worth 22.5m dirhams ($6.1m), another for 30.8m dirhams ($8.4m) and a house worth 10.7m dirhams ($2.9m). Another eight properties of Kabul Bank's shareholders will be put to auction with help of Dubai's governmental institutions.
However the outcome for Kabul Bank's properties in Afghanistan are not clear with few willing buyers, Mohebbi said.
"Nobody so far is willing to buy any of the properties. We are facing this problem. We will soon reannounce prices for some of the properties to be purchased," he said.
Of the fourteen cases of those who received group loans from Kabul Bank, nine have been sent to the Financial Disputes Resolution Commission, cases which are mostly of Kabul Bank's shareholders. There are another fifty cases of those who have received loans from Kabul Bank without any assurance, a list of which has been sent to the president's office.
"A few days ago, we sent to the Office of Administrative Affairs and the president's office a list of those identifying those who have received loans, as well as their company names, and the amount they have paid back so far," said Noorullah Delawari, Governor of Da Afghanistan Bank.
President Karzai ordered on Wednesday for all Kabul Bank's assets to be returned or sold within one month.
Eighth Season of 'Afghan Star' Kicks Off Friday
TOLOnews.com By Rezwan Natiq Thursday, 01 November 2012
One of Afghanistan's leading entertainment shows 'Afghan Star' will begin its eighth season on Friday November 2, a testament to its success and popularity.
The singing contest – modeled on the hugely popular US show 'American Idol' – was first launched to discover hidden singing talent around Afghanistan and build the fledging music scene in the country, according to its network TOLO TV*.
TOLO TV Channel Manager Massood Sanjer believes the reality show owes its success largely to the fact that Afghan people love music and the lack of musicians and singers was felt in the market.
"The idea of creating Afghan Star at the beginning was that music does not have borders and people love any kind of music whether its pop, classic or any other kind," Sanjer told TOLOnews in an interview on Thursday.
Another factor behind the programme's buoyant ratings is that Afghanistan's population has a huge percentage of young people who are interested in participating in a show that can lead to fame, Sanjer added.
The show has also helped pushed boundaries for women in the music industry.
Sanjer said that with Afghanistan's traditions around women, it was be difficult for females to extensively participate in the culture of music. Nevertheless, some female contestants had joined the show and gained strong public support and a following.
"In a traditional country like Afghanistan, it was difficult for women to become singers, even in the past. But since Afghan Star has begun, people better understand that women can be singers too, just as they can be teachers and doctors," he said.
Online Audience
Along with the growth in those who follow the show in Afghanistan, Sanjer said the online portal is also seeing massive increase in its popularity abroad.
The introduction of the 3G internet services in Afghanistan has boosted not only the participation of Afghans in-country, but also Afghans and Farsi-speakers living abroad are actively following the competition.
"We had 3 million [unique] viewers on YouTube last year. As the 3G service is introduced in the country, it will pave the way for people to be part of the online competition. It will be an opportunity for those Afghans who live abroad but love their country to participate," he added.
The eighth season has a slight change in that the auditions will be based on larger zones in Afghanistan, whereas the previous versions selected contestants from the 34 provinces.
Challenges Ahead
Sanjer said he does not expect to face too many challenges after so many years of experience, although the problem of security is always a concern.
"In Afghanistan, most people have understood the purpose of Afghan Star. We don't expect too many challenges as the show is now in its eighth year, but yeah, of course we have some security challenges," Sanjer said.
With the expanding music market in Afghanistan, Sanjer is confident that those introduced through Afghan Star can become leading singers in the market as they are already chosen by the public and have a following through the exposure they receive via the TV and radio outlets.
He pointed out that songs from Afghan Star singers have already topped charts in the country.
Sanjer also believes the show can compete with its counterparts in the region, including India, in terms of the technical expertise and its presentation of the stage sets, filming, and audio.
"Technical-wise, we can compete even with India, but as you know music is part of the Indian culture and they study music in schools from the time they are little kids. The music market in India is so big and Indian movies get popular by its songs," Sanjer said.
Come Prepared
As the seasons progress, Sanjer said the contestants come better prepared after witnessing in the previous years how serious it gets at the pointy end of the competition.
He also reminded the contestants that if they win, TOLO TV in coordination with Barbud Music Production will make a music album with them which will help them both financially and boost their experience in the industry.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com