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US Soldier Faces Hearing in Afghan Massacre
VOA News November 5, 2012
A U.S. Army soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers during a pre-dawn rampage in March is appearing in a military courtroom for the first time Monday.
Staff Sergeant Robert Bales will face a preliminary hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in the northwestern U.S. state of Washington. The hearing is expected to last two weeks and include live video testimony from witnesses in Afghanistan.
The proceedings will determine whether Bales faces a court martial. If convicted, he could receive the death penalty. The U.S. military has not executed a service member in five decades.
Bales, an 11-year military veteran, is accused of walking out of his southern Afghanistan military post under the cover of darkness and gunning down the civilians, including several children.
U.S. forces have paid compensation to the families of the dead and to those wounded in the attack.
Staff Sergeant Bales was on his fourth military deployment, after three in Iraq, where reports say he suffered a brain injury.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
Prosecutors in Afghanistan massacre case face tough challenge
Authorities charge Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales with murdering 16 villagers, but they have limited access to evidence and key witnesses won't testify.
Los Angeles Times By Kim Murphy and Ned Parker November 5, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Most everyone was asleep when an Afghan guard at a U.S. military camp spotted the American soldier walking out the southern gate into the quiet chill of the desert. A general alarm had been sounded by the time he returned and laid his weapon on the ground.
What happened that night, U.S. authorities say, was one of the most horrific massacres of the war in Afghanistan.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a spit-polished and personable veteran of four deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, is accused of murdering 16 villagers and attempting to kill at least six others. Residents near Camp Belambay said he shot and stabbed people as they rose sleepily from their beds, dragged one woman by her hair and leveled his weapon at a shrieking baby's mouth.
"It was a mess of blood, ashes and burnt clothes," said Mohammed Wazir, who returned from out of town with his youngest son later that morning to find the rest of his family — his mother, wife, six other children, brother, sister-in-law and nephew — all dead.
"It took half an hour to identify everyone. All of the bodies were burnt," Wazir said. He was one of several villagers who traveled to Kabul, the Afghan capital, recently to recount what happened during the three-hour rampage outside Camp Belambay.
On Monday, the Army's investigation will unfold at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle in a two-week hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to hold the 3rd Stryker Brigade staff sergeant for a court-martial on charges of premeditated murder, which could carry the death penalty. The hearing will be conducted in part by video link to allow Afghan witnesses to testify from the other side of the world.
The case presents a challenge to Army prosecutors, who must link Bales, 36, to a crime scene and victims even though U.S. forensic investigators were given limited access. Afghan survivors have already expressed little confidence in the military legal system and balked at having some crucial witnesses testify.
"Hang him. That's what I want. Hang him from the neck; let him dangle," Wazir said. "Let him sit in front of us. Let him look in our eyes. And we will look in his eyes."
The slayings took place in southern Afghanistan in two remote farming villages, small clusters of mud brick houses surrounded by fields of pomegranates and grapes. Although the U.S. troop buildup has brought a measure of stability to southern cities, it has failed to offer much protection in the countryside.
Villagers live in fear of the Taliban as well as the Afghan army and U.S. forces, whose skirmishes play out on their narrow, dusty roads. Days before the massacre, villagers said, American troops had angrily questioned nearby residents after a roadside bomb blew off the leg of a friend of Bales.
Shortly after Bales' arrest, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the staff sergeant was believed to have left the special operations camp in the early morning of March 11, fired on several families, returned to the base and "basically turned himself in, told individuals what happened."
Authorities subsequently said they believed Bales made two trips outside the base that night: one to Alkozai, north of Camp Belambay, one to Najiban, about 1 1/2 miles south.
It is unclear how much physical evidence there will be at the hearing. Families almost immediately buried the bodies as dictated by Islamic tradition, making it difficult for medical examiners to positively identify them and match bullet wounds to a weapon.
Prosecutors could face a situation similar to what happened after the 2005 shootings of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. None of the eight Marines charged ever went to jail, in part because of the lack of physical evidence, said Gary Myers, a defense lawyer in that case.
"Bodies could not be examined, crime scenes were not readily available to be viewed," he said. "It's a prosecutorial nightmare when you can't generate the forensic evidence necessary to link the alleged perpetrator to the crime."
Yet the Army doesn't have to definitively prove all 16 deaths to win a conviction, said Eugene Fidell, a former military prosecutor and defense counsel who now teaches military justice at Yale Law School. "Certainly there have been cases where murder convictions have been obtained where no body was found," he said.
Another question is whether witnesses will be able to identify Bales. Most of those who saw the shooter are dead. The survivors appear to be women — whose male relatives have been reluctant to allow them to testify, even by video — and children.
Two youths who survived the massacre described the horror in detail to the Los Angeles Times, but their description of the killer, whom they called "the American," remained vague.
"I saw the man in the door and my grandmother crying and screaming," said a teenager named Rafiullah, who, like many Afghans, uses only one name. Rafiullah said he, his sister and grandmother ran next door and joined several others at the home of Haji Naim.
"The room was a mess, everyone was screaming.... Haji Naim stood up and demanded what is going on. And the American shot him," he said. "We were seven people in the room when we were shot. My grandmother, my sister, me, two of Haji Naim's kids and two of Haji Nizar's kids."
The youth swept his hand in front of him as if raking a room with gunfire. "He used a pistol," he said. Four people, including Rafiullah's grandmother, died in Alkozai. Six people, among them Rafiullah and his sister, were injured.
On his second foray, the gunman rampaged first through Wazir's house in Najiban and then burst into the home of Mohammed Daoud on the outskirts. He was muttering "Taliban, Taliban" as he pulled Daoud out of his bed, said Daoud's 10-year-old son, Hikmatullah Gul, who hid under a blanket.
He said his father was calling "Have mercy!" before he was shot. "There was so much blood from my father," he said. "But the American came again and tore everything apart. Broke windows. Threw a closet to the floor.... The whole house cried."
Both youths described seeing bright lights outside the houses during the attacks. Some villagers talked of seeing multiple soldiers, but U.S. authorities said they probably saw troops who descended on the hamlets to investigate the attacks.
Bales, a father of two who lived in a two-story home near Lake Tapps, Wash., will probably not undergo much psychological scrutiny during the hearing. His lawyer, John Henry Browne, said it was obvious he was competent to stand trial. Yet the issue of whether he was mentally incapacitated, perhaps because of long-standing stress from four combat deployments, could play a crucial role if the case goes to a court-martial.
Browne said a military mental health review board would perform an evaluation sometime after the hearing and probably consider among other things Bales' use of steroids, which have been linked anecdotally in other cases to episodes of increased aggression.
The more immediate issues will probably focus on whether Bales made any statements to fellow soldiers that might be seen as a confession, and how firmly Army investigators can link Bales to specific victims.
The defense lawyer also is compiling a "mitigation package" that will detail several traumatic incidents Bales suffered during his previous deployments. One of them, Browne said, resembles a true incident, retold in the 2007 film "In the Valley of Elah," in which U.S. soldiers ran over an Iraqi child. "It deeply affected him; it profoundly affected him," he said.
It is not possible, Browne has said, to pass judgment on what Bales did or didn't do in time of war without also looking at what the war did to Bales.
"I believe we all have a responsibility to Sgt. Bales, and to all these soldiers," he said. "They're trying to do the impossible. I've got six clients right now that are all Afghanistan veterans, all of whom are in trouble with the law in varying degrees of severity."
The U.S. government has paid families $50,000 for each death and $10,000 for each of those injured, but villagers say money is scant compensation.
"If your child dies, what would you expect? Money? No," said Wazir, who denied taking the compensation. "Will you expect prison? We don't want prison.... If the court doesn't go the way we want, we will not accept the decision of the court."
Only one family is left in the area of Alkozai where Rafiullah lived; he and his grandfather moved to another village. Najiban is a ghost town; residents fled, fearing the Americans and the Taliban. Wazir has moved 2 1/2 hours away to live with his brother in Spin Buldak. He and the others are still haunted by the killings.
Rafiullah said: "I see his face in my dreams, and sometimes I hear my sister waking up at the same time, screaming. I am praying every night, please God don't make this happen again."
kim.murphy@latimes.com
ned.parker@latimes.com
Parker reported from Kabul and Murphy from Seattle. Times staff writer David S. Cloud in Washington contributed to this report.
Italian PM vows Afghan support will continue after troops pull out
CNN By the CNN Wire Staff November 4, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan - Italy's prime minister vowed Sunday that his country will continue supporting Afghanistan even after combat troops pull out.
"It is important that the relationship between Afghanistan and the international community is modified to reflect the new conditions, but that it doesn't stop," Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said Sunday in a joint news conference with Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai.
NATO leaders are on a timetable to withdraw all of the alliance's combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014.
"It will be a presence based less on military contributions," Monti said. "It will be a presence based far more on economic cooperation, it will be cooperation on the exploration and use of Afghanistan's important mineral resources and it will be a cooperation, as it already is in this phase, of institution-building to make Afghanistan an ever more solid country."
Monti met with Karzai after visiting Italian forces on a surprise trip to Herat, Afghanistan, where Italy's troops there are based.
About 4,000 Italian troops are stationed in Afghanistan, according to a tally published by NATO's International Security Assistance Force on October 8.
At least 49 Italian troops have died in the Afghan war, according to a CNN tally.
Sunday is Italy's Armed Forces Day, which commemorates the end of World War I and honors Italian troops.
CNN's Alexander Felton contributed to this report.
Afghan forces assume security charge of Badghis province
QALAI NOW, Afghanistan, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- Afghan security forces took over the security responsibility of Badghis province, 555 km northwest of Kabul on Monday, spokesman for provincial administration Sharafudin Majidi said.
"From now on, all the security operations will be conducted by Afghan national army and police throughout Badghis province," Majidi told Xinhua.
In a ceremony attended by Afghan and NATO-led forces officials, the security charge of Badghis province was formally handed over to Afghan national security troops.
The security transition process from NATO-led troops to Afghan government which began in mid 2011, will be completed by the end of 2014.
Troops from Spain and the United States had served in Badghis province.
Security situation improving in Afghanistan: coalition
KABUL, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The security situation in war-hit Afghanistan has been improving, a coalition spokesman said Monday.
"Clearly, the security situation is improving, the number of enemy initiated attacks is decreasing and the vast majority of the Afghan population lives in areas where peace and stability has already been established," the spokesman of the coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Brigadier General Gunter Katz, told a joint press conference.
However, he said that "with deep grief we recently saw a couple of terrorist attacks countrywide. Attacks, where innocent women and children have been murdered. We are deeply saddened by these attacks, and our hearts and prayers go with the loved one of those that were killed. However, these cowardly attacks give a wrong impression of the overall security situation here in Afghanistan,"
He made the comments in the wake of a suicide bombing in a mosque that left 41 people dead and wounding more than 50 others in the country's northern province of Faryab 425 km northwest of Afghan capital Kabul on Oct. 26.
The bombing was followed by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast killing eight women and a man in Helmand province, 555 km south of Kabul, on Oct. 30.
The Afghanistan's security transition is well underway and taking shape with more than 75 percent of the population living in areas where Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are taking the lead, the NATO's civilian spokesman, Dominic Medley said at the same press conference.
"NATO is confident that the ANSF are performing their duties and are continuing to grow in strength, skills, capability and experience. NATO has committed to a new mission to train, advise, and assist Afghan forces and the commitment to the people of Afghanistan will continue," he noted.
Transition of security responsibilities from some 100,000 NATO forces to Afghan army and police began in July last year and lasts till 2014 when Afghanistan is due to take over its full security duties from foreign forces.
U.S. presidential polls have little impact on Afghan policy
by Abdul Haleem, Chen Xin
KABUL, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The White House will not change the strategy on Afghanistan and the war on terror no matter who wins the U.S. presidential elections on Tuesday, Afghan analysts believe.
The U.S. presidential elections come on the occasion of financial crisis, increasing unemployment, tiring war in Afghanistan and, above all, the economic aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Sandy.
"No doubt the coming election is an important event for the Americans. However, it would not have a particular impact on the situation in Afghanistan," Nazari Pariani, editor-in-chief of a local popular newspaper Daily Mandegar, told Xinhua.
The U.S. foreign policy is based on the U.S. interests, he said, adding it makes no difference who rules the White House.
"Both candidates are under public pressure to leave Afghanistan or at least withdraw a large portion of troops and end the combat role of U.S. troops in Afghanistan," former parliamentarian Mohammad Daud Sultanzoy told Xinhua.
President Barack Obama has promised to withdraw his troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014; while his Republican rival Mitt Romney supported troops pullout, reportedly noting that he would listen to military commanders advice in this regard.
Sultanzoy stressed that no matter who wins the elections, the next president will face the challenges of war on terror as the Taliban militants continue fighting and their safe havens still exist in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, both observers were cautiously predicting the chance in Obama's favor because he was credited for the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden and the pullout strategy.
Securing the Durand Line could bring peace to Afghanistan
Financial Times By Javid Ahmad November 4, 2012
The reason that Afghanistan and British India chose to demarcate their 1,500-mile frontier in 1893 was to define their respective spheres of influence and limit interference in one another’s affairs. However, the establishment of what came to be known as the Durand Line never truly stopped outside interference in Afghanistan, especially after Pakistan emerged from its partition with independent India in 1947. Ever since, the nature of that line drawn on a map has been a matter of great contention between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The boundary traverses the main supply route for Nato forces in Afghanistan, which is also a trade route that connects Afghanistan with the Indian subcontinent and, just as importantly, is a conduit used by Pakistani security forces for infiltrating its proxies into the country to attack Afghan and international forces.
No government in Kabul – not even under the Taliban – has formally recognised the Durand Line as an international boundary. Some Pashtuns in Pakistan back this position out of ethnic loyalty and the prospect, however remote, of a united Pashtunistan. Pakistan holds that binding bilateral agreements, including those made by colonial era governments, are inherited by successor states, thus making the Durand Line the official boundary. To the rest of the world, including the US, that demarcation, however touchy, is official.
With peace talks stalled and Pakistan unwilling to take action against the militants it hosts, few alternative ways to combat the Afghan insurgency remain. Without dropping its territorial claims, the Afghan government should reconsider how to suspend militant infiltration, the flow of weapons and the booming drug trade that bankrolls the insurgency. One possible path to peace might involve fencing and mining the most penetrable and weakly-guarded sectors of the Durand Line.
Much of the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier is not easily accessible by foot, so any such plan must involve identifying, fencing and mining only the areas that witness regular militant crossings. In other areas, the Afghan government should install sensors and increase its border patrols. While bolstering Afghan capabilities, Washington can complement Kabul’s efforts with better drone surveillance. Afghanistan and the US can further buttress these efforts by supporting vibrant trade and business communities along the border with Pakistan, such as those in Kandahar and Nangarhar provinces.
Employing such a drastic measure certainly carries its own challenges. One crucial barrier is Afghanistan’s accession to the Mine Ban Treaty, which outlaws anti-personnel mines. President Hamid Karzai has been dead set against fencing and mining the frontier, primarily because that would seem to validate the legitimacy of the Durand Line as an international boundary, and he intends using the issue as a bargaining chip with Pakistan. Kabul also fears it will divide the Pashtuns on both sides of the border.
However, the domestic objections, in particular, can be rationalised. The number of those living in the border areas is very small and cross-border travel can still be permissible with appropriate security checks and travel documents. And the Afghan government is not militarily or politically in a position to reclaim any territory. Without recognising the line as an international boundary, Afghanistan could at least use the land it does control to counter militant movements.
The problem of the Durand Line runs deep in the Afghan psyche and most Afghans will continue to hold strong opinions. However, fencing and mining certain parts of the border would at least make it harder for insurgents to cross it and kill innocent civilians. The current response by the Afghan government is hardly sufficient. The best way to put an end to the countless challenges on both sides of the frontier – from illiteracy and abject poverty to armed militancy and extremism – is not only to insist on demarcating the Durand Line but also to secure and govern it effectively. Without any momentum for a mutually acceptable agreement, perhaps only employing harsher measures can pave the way for peace. It is certainly not optimal and ideal but it might be the way out.
The writer is a co-ordinator with the Asia Programme of the German Marshall Fund of the United States
Afghanistan: Missing George W. Bush
US relations with Afghanistan have deteriorated under Obama.
Global Post By Chris Sands November 4, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Whoever wins the US presidential election will have to deal with a huge problem that’s barely been mentioned on the campaign trail: Afghanistan.
Both major candidates may wish the war was heading toward a quiet conclusion but it shows every sign of getting more complicated as the withdrawal of NATO troops gathers pace.
Relations between officials in Washington and the government here have reached the stage where much of the talk coming out of Kabul is now openly suspicious of American intentions.
Rather than strengthening the bonds between two supposed allies, the last 11 years of conflict have been wrought with suspicion and resentment.
Behind closed doors, experts believe the West’s relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai has become increasingly tense. That’s now spilling out into the public. In recent weeks Karzai and his aides have issued a series of fraught statements not only concerning his country's future but also its national identity.
In early October he claimed the Western media was waging "psychological warfare" against the state. At the same time he accused America of failing to adequately equip the Afghan armed forces and of ignoring Pakistani rocket attacks that have allegedly killed dozens of civilians on this side of the border.
In response, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told journalists, "I think it would be helpful if the president, every once in a while, expressed his thanks for the sacrifices that have been made."
Although such outspoken comments by Karzai cause consternation in the international community, they are often met with sympathy among people here who blame foreign powers for fueling decades of fighting and political turmoil.
Abdul Hadi Wahidi, an advisor to Karzai on tribal affairs, told GlobalPost the president "has the right to express his views," particularly when it came to the subject of the cross-border attacks.
"America is very careless about this," he said, while emphasizing that both sides must maintain a strong relationship.
Afghans say they feel betrayed by the United States, accusing it of neglecting the terms of a strategic agreement between the two countries.
The pact in question includes a promise that Washington “shall regard with grave concern any external aggression against Afghanistan,” which it has also designated as a major non-NATO ally.
Relations first began seriously deteriorating four years ago, when US President Barack Obama came to power. Karzai enjoyed a close personal rapport with former president George W. Bush. That kind of connection has never existed with Obama.
When Karzai was reelected in 2009 amid allegations of systematic fraud, he is believed to have come under severe pressure from American officials to agree to a second round of voting. Since then disagreements between the two sides have occasionally boiled over into the public arena, only to turn private again after some behind the scenes diplomacy.
But with the withdrawal of all conventional foreign combat troops scheduled for the end of 2014 and the Taliban-led resistance spreading, the stakes are now higher than before and patience is wearing thin. A sense of urgency and paranoia exists as the war enters a crucial period.
There are no significant differences between Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney when it comes to Afghanistan policy, suggesting that little will change here whoever wins.
Mohammad Zubair Shafiqi is chief editor of Weesa, a daily newspaper. Interviewed at his home in Kabul near a squalid refugee camp full of families who have fled the fighting in southern provinces, he said ideological and political tensions were having a negative impact at ground level.
"American forces are going into villages in the countryside without permission, arresting people and doing their operations," he said. "This is all similar to the Russian invaders and occupiers and once again the bad memories of the Soviet Union are being refreshed in the minds of the people."
When the International Crisis Group published a study last month warning that the Afghan state could collapse if the transition process does not run smoothly it provoked uproar in official circles. Weesa, meanwhile, ran a story accusing the organization’s senior analyst here of carrying out espionage, accompanied by a picture of her.
Shafiqi told GlobalPost the report was part of a wider conspiracy to weaken the government's negotiating position as it discusses a possible long-term security agreement with the United States.
Tensions worsened when the American special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, pointed out that an internationally recognized border separated the two neighbors.
Drawn during the days of the British Empire, Afghanistan does not regard the boundary as permanent and continues to lay claim to large swathes of territory on the other side of the frontier.
Abdul Hameed Mubarez was deputy minister for information and culture in the early years of the US occupation. He said Washington has traditionally favored Pakistan and, in his opinion, the latest developments confirmed its bias.
“I have many differences with Mr. Karzai, but on the relationship with the United States, now I am on the side of Mr. Karzai,” he said.
“We have never accepted foreign troops in Afghanistan. You have seen our history with the British. There is no difference for us between the British [Empire] and the Americans.”
Kabul Threatens to Expel Foreign Critics Over Report
Wall Street Journal By MARIA ABI-HABIB and HABIB KHAN TOTAKHIL November 4, 2012
KABUL - The Afghan government said it is considering expelling the staff of an influential global conflict-resolution think tank over a recent critical report, fueling concerns about Kabul's tolerance of dissent.
In a report released in October, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group outlined the risks of the U.S.-led coalition's withdrawal and warned that Afghanistan may slide back into civil war if it doesn't hold free and fair presidential elections in 2014.
President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said in an email to The Wall Street Journal that the ICG's reports are full of "bias and doom," and appear motivated by a desire "to mislead the Afghan people and create an environment of confusion about their future."
Mr. Faizi added that his government finds the ICG's activities "detrimental to Afghanistan's national interests" and is now "in the process of assessing the ICG's operations in the country."
The ICG's communications director, Andrew Stroehlein, said the organization hadn't heard directly from the Afghan government.
"Until we actually know from the government what, if anything, they intend to do, it is very hard to respond to it, let alone discuss what the implications for other [nongovernmental organizations], think tanks and journalists may or may not be," he said.
Mr. Faizi first issued the threat to expel the ICG in an Afghan television appearance on Saturday, hours after Mr. Karzai met with the editors of major Afghan news organizations, urging them not report about Afghanistan negatively and to "protect the national interest," said participants in the meeting.
Western diplomats in Kabul said they were watching these latest developments with concern. One said the threat to kick out the ICG "would not be a good move." The U.S. Embassy declined to comment on Mr. Faizi's remarks about the organization.
The pressure on the ICG and Mr. Karzai's recent criticism of the foreign press have raised concerns among Western diplomats, international and national journalists and human-rights workers that a crackdown on freedom of expression is under way. The U.S.-led coalition has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into promoting a free press and civil society, citing freedom of expression as Afghanistan's key achievement since the Taliban regime's downfall in 2001.
"It's extremely alarming and concerning for anyone involved in media and human-rights analysis. It does seem to be something that is getting worse and worse," said a human-rights worker in Kabul.
Mr. Faizi brushed off such concerns. "We strongly assure all stakeholders that there will not be any clampdown on freedom of press and expression," he said.
The ICG, which provides direct recommendations to policy makers in addition to publishing reports, has operations in 26 countries around the world, according to its website. Thomas Pickering, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is the organization's chairman of the board. Louise Arbor, the former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, is the president and chief executive.
October's ICG report, which the group published on its website, analyzed the transition of security responsibilities to the Afghan forces. The report concluded that the government was "plagued by factionalism and corruption" and was "far from ready to assume responsibility for security" when U.S. and international forces withdraw in 2014.
The Afghan government at the time protested the report's findings. Afghan lawmakers also demanded an apology, and one newspaper published by an Afghan official claimed the author of the report was conducting "espionage."
At a news conference in October, Mr. Karzai separately accused a number of U.S. and British news organizations of waging "psychological war" to undermine the confidence of Afghans as international forces withdraw.
On Saturday, Mr. Karzai reiterated this criticism as he met with more than 100 representatives of Afghanistan's media and analysts. During the encounter, he urged them to "protect and defend the national interest of Afghanistan," said Fahim Dashti, the chief executive of Afghanistan's National Journalists Union.
Mr. Karzai said "you are allowed to criticize me and my government" but "don't worry the Afghan people about 2014," Mr. Dashti said.
Mr. Dashti and other representatives who attended the meeting said the comments weren't a direct threat to implement censorship. They said, however, that other elements of the Afghan government could use the president's remarks as a rationale for clamping down.
"We told Karzai that we agree with this point, but there are people in your government who will misuse your instructions to the media. They'll make the media's work difficult," said Danish Karokhel, the editor of Pajhwok news agency.
The president criticized "Western media" in the meeting, saying it is "conducting propaganda and using[local] media outlets for their own interests," Sarnavesht Daily, a local newspaper, reported.
The Afghan government has acted against international organizations in the past. In 2007, Kabul kicked out Michael Semple, a senior European Union diplomat, for reaching out to the Taliban without the Afghan government's permission. —Ziaulhaq Sultani contributed to this article.
Write to Maria Abi-Habib at maria.habib@dowjones.com
Saudi Arabia Positions Itself For Larger Afghan Role
By Frud Bezhan November 5, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Saudi Arabia's support for Afghanistan has been steady but inconspicuous over the years. But that is about to change.
The powerful Sunni-majority kingdom is embarking on a very public effort to carve out a bigger role in Afghanistan, pitting the oil-rich Gulf state directly against Shi'ite rival Iran in the race for influence as foreign forces leave.
That much became clear on October 29, when the Afghan government announced that Riyadh would build a multimillion-dollar Islamic complex in Kabul, marking its largest and most expensive foray into post-9/11 Afghanistan.
The project, which is expected to cost between $45 million and $100 million, was agreed between the two countries in Jeddah. Construction is expected to begin next year. The Islamic complex will cover 24 hectares on Maranjan Hill in central Kabul. It will feature a university, a hospital, a sports hall, and a mosque capable of holding around 15,000 worshippers at a time.
When completed, it will become a rival to the massive Iranian-built Khatam al-Nabyeen Islamic University in western Kabul. The Shi'ite religious school, which was opened in 2006, was built at a cost of some $17 million by one of Afghanistan's most Iran-leaning clerics. The campus has a mosque, classrooms, and dormitories for its 1,000 Afghan students.
Late On The Scene
Thomas Ruttig, a former UN and European diplomat and director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent research organization in Kabul, sees the Saudi move as part of the intensified competition for influence as U.S. and NATO troops look to draw down by 2014.
Riyadh's chief motivation is clearly to counter the significant sway of archrival Iran. But Ruttig says that Riyadh has its work cut out for it, considering its late arrival.
Iran, in contrast, has had a highly visible presence for the past decade.
Iran has built on its lingual and cultural links with Afghanistan by spending millions on infrastructure, including roads, power grids, and railway projects. Tehran also leaves its mark through its export of cultural and political views via its strong media presence and funding of religious schools.
Now the scene is set for an aggressive competition between Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, which promotes the extremist Wahabbi sect of Islam, and Shi'ite-majority Iran. This raises the potential, Ruttig says, for sectarian tension in Afghanistan, whose population is estimated to be about 85 percent Sunni and 15 percent Shi'ite.
"There are very strained relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both those countries will be competing for influence in Afghanistan, with the sectarian differences between both sides in the background," Ruttig says. "So far, Sunni-Shi'ite relations in Afghanistan have been quite stable, but that can be undermined if both sides are much more aggressive than before in vying for influence in what they might perceive as a post-2014 [political] vacuum."
Seeking Leverage
The possibility of increased sectarian tension in Afghanistan would be cause for alarm in Central Asia and China, whose governments are wary of growing religious extremism.
It could be argued that Saudi Arabia was always a major player in the competition for influence in Afghanistan: Riyadh was a key financier of the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s; it helped fund and arm the Taliban in the 1990s; and it has in recent years sought to broker behind-the-scenes peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
But those efforts were always behind the scenes, and other than the provision of food and relief supplies and the occasional business venture, there were few obvious examples of Saudi involvement in Afghanistan.
Adel Darwish, a British journalist and political commentator who specializes in Middle Eastern politics, says Saudi Arabia is poised to make an important contribution. He says the Saudis can convince the Taliban leadership to enter peace negotiations and to encourage Pakistan to cut its ties with the militant group.
That leverage comes in part because of Riyadh's close ties to regional powerhouse Pakistan, which has long supported the Afghan Taliban, and the kingdom's role as a spiritual authority in the Muslim world as the guardian of Islam's two holiest shrines. Riyadh was also a staunch backer of the Taliban in the 1990s, when it was one of only three countries -- along with Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates -- to recognize the group during its rule in Afghanistan from 1996-2001.
Darwish says although Riyadh severed ties with the Taliban after 2001 when the militant group failed to handover Osama bin Laden, who was a Saudi national at the time, the kingdom still has considerable leverage over the militant group.
Both Kabul and Washington have endorsed an expanded Saudi role in Afghanistan. Earlier this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai reiterated that Saudi Arabia was "an important player" in Afghanistan and "has facilitated talks [with the Taliban] in the past and now." U.S. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has said Riyadh's involvement in Afghanistan could shape the success of the NATO-led mission.
Broken Broker?
Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar, the foreign-relations adviser for the Afghan High Peace Council, the presidentially appointed body tasked with negotiating with insurgents, says the Saudis have shown a genuine willingness to broker reconciliation talks.
"We welcome the promises of Saudi Arabia and we hope that this friendly cooperation will lead to an effective outcome," Qasimyar says. "We hope that we will witness these promises coming to fruition."
Others, however, note that the Saudis have been active in behind-the-scenes peace negotiations between members of the Taliban and the Afghan government in the past. But those talks, which took place in recent years, have yielded no breakthroughs.
Wahid Muzhda, a political analyst and former Taliban spokesman, is among the skeptics. He says many Taliban feel betrayed by Riyadh after Saudi authorities arrested and jailed a former Taliban representative, Mawlawi Shabir Ahmad. Ahmad was jailed with his four sons in Riyadh in 2001. He was released in 2011.
"The Taliban say that Saudi Arabia has acted as an enemy toward us," Muzdha says, suggesting the Saudis have taken the side of the West. "They have not been neutral. The Taliban doesn't recognize Saudi Arabia as a [peace] broker."
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report
As NATO Nears Exit, Construction Dries Up
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND and SANGAR RAHIMI November 4, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Jalalabad Road, the heart of what might be called the Afghan capital’s military-industrial complex, has also become the place where heavy construction equipment comes to die.
Lined with Afghan and NATO military facilities and the contracting firms that serve them, the road is also garlanded with miles of brightly colored holding yards — in the yellows, oranges, blues and reds of backhoes and diggers, forklifts and bulldozers, cranes and cherry pickers, graders and rollers.
Most of them are new, or newish, and nearly all are idled. Nowhere is the impending collapse of Afghanistan’s construction industry more evident than here, where Afghan companies that hire out heavy equipment to construction firms have hit hard times.
“In the past two months nobody has rented a single piece of my machinery,” said Shafiq Ahmad Sidiqi, 28, who owns a construction company and rents out hydraulic lift platforms, of which he has 30 in various sizes. “The foreigners are leaving, and the money is drawing down.”
Precise figures on the falloff of construction in Afghanistan are difficult to come by, but those in the business say the impending American and NATO withdrawal has not only slashed military spending, but also depressed construction spending generally.
“The decline of investment in construction started at the beginning of 2012 as soon as the 2014 deadline was announced,” said Ghulam Ali Danish Kamal, the executive manager of the Afghan Builders Association.
Mr. Kamal said the number of construction companies in Afghanistan had fallen to at most 3,000, compared with 10,000 at one time. “Already there has been a 30 to 40 percent drop in investment in construction this year, and some of the projects that you see here are from 2011, which will be completed by the end of this year,” he said. “In 2013, most of the companies will be out of a job, and even if there are some projects they will be small ones.”
Afghan government officials insist things are not as bad as all that. “We don’t confirm the decline in the number of construction companies,” said Wafiullah Iftikhar, president of the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency, who maintained that the drop in military financing would be made up for in long-term foreign investment. “We do accept that there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of projects and contracts awarded by NATO forces in 2012, but it does not necessarily mean the construction sector would collapse,” he said. “We are hopeful that in the near future the construction sector would boom once again, since the international community has pledged billions of dollars to spend on infrastructural and economic development projects.”
That is little solace to Mr. Sidiqi. At the height of the boom in 2010 and 2011, his company employed 400 full-time workers on a dozen projects, many of them in dangerous areas in southern Afghanistan. He has let all but a few office staff members go, and hires temporary workers whenever a project comes along.
He said he had only one project on the books, a $500,000 job building container housing on a base, and that is likely to fall through, too. “I just got an e-mail that it’s going to be canceled,” he said.
His company had contracts with the French military, so was hit harder and sooner than some others, after the French announced that they would complete their pullout a year ahead of schedule, by the end of 2013, after losing troops this year to attacks attributed to Afghan security forces.
Last year, Mr. Sidiqi said, he made a fateful business decision, deciding to sink his profits into the purchase of a couple dozen more hydraulic lift platforms at $22,000 apiece, because the profits in renting them were so high. By the time he took delivery, the business had tanked. “Now, I could sell them for scrap metal,” he said.
“Before the announcement of the withdrawal, all these yards were empty because the equipment was out on jobs,” he said. Now, the yards are almost all full, and all over Kabul are the skeletons of unfinished buildings, devoid of workers. The slowdown has had one unintended consequence at the Qara Company, a loose cooperative of 15 crane owner-operators who originally came from Bamian Province: they have all gotten to be good volleyball players, since there is nothing much else for them to do but play on the court they have set up in their yard.
“Before, we used to have clients twice a day,” said Mohammad Musa, 35, one of the crane owners, who has a 20-ton, Japanese-made Tadano crane with a 115-foot boom. “Now, we are lucky if we have one a week.”
“There is no doubt that they would make less profit now and there would be less business,” Mr. Iftikhar said of the construction sector, “but it does not mean collapse.”
Total American spending in Afghanistan was budgeted at $159.4 billion in 2011, and the estimate for 2012 is $126.5 billion, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. By 2013, that will have dropped to $96.7 billion. More difficult to quantify is how much other countries’ international spending in Afghanistan, as well as private investment, has fallen. “One of the biggest concerns that the Afghan government, the international community and we have is the financial and investment drainage,” Mr. Kamal said. “We have been hearing that a lot of people are taking their money out of Afghanistan and investing in other countries.”
Mr. Sidiqi said he had no plans to leave, since his capital is all in heavy construction equipment. He does still get plenty of e-mails from the military contracting authorities inviting him to bid on work. “They’re asking us to destroy those bases we made for them,” he said. That, he added, does not seem to be a business with a future.
Habib Zahori contributed reporting.
UN mandate not essential for post-2014 Afghan mission: NATO chief
BRUSSELS, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Monday the military alliance need not get UN Security Council authorization for its new training mission in Afghanistan after 2014.
"We would be able to operate in Afghanistan after 2014 on the basis of the invitation from the Afghan government. That will be fully in accordance with intentional law," he told reporters at his monthly press conference.
"If we, on top of that, could have a United Nations mandate, I think it would be a good thing."
The military alliance are working on the plans for the post-2014 training and advisory mission that will start after the end of NATO combat operations in Afghanistan.
The NATO chief said that the alliance is in the very early phase of planning and the final plan is to be finished by mid-2013.
Last month, Nikolay Korchunov, Russia's acting ambassador to NATO, warned that Russia would stop cooperating with NATO over Afghanistan after 2014 unless the alliance gets UN mandate for the new training mission.
The current mission of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is endorsed by the UN Security Council.
Mujahedeen Army is Against Afghan Interests: Senators
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Sunday, 04 November 2012
Afghanistan's senators on Sunday criticised the plans for a Mujahedeen military unit as claimed last week by former jihadi commander and current Minister of Energy and Water Ismail Khan, saying it went against Afghanistan's national interests.
The Senators emphasised that improving the abilities of the Afghan National Security Forces is the only way to protect the country after 2014 while the formation of any other form of private army would only spread chaos.
"We should focus on strengthening the government and security forces which we believe is the only way to respond to the challenges after 2014," Senate First Deputy Chair of Mohammad Alam Ezedyar said.
"It's against the national interests of the country. I am against its formation," Senator Shir Mohammad Akhundzada said.
The senators also believe that Afghan National Security Force will lose their credibility and meaning if such an unit is formed.
"If Mujahedeen's military unit is formed, it will undermine the presence of Afghan National Security Forces," Senator Hedayatullah Rehahi said.
"The formation of such councils creates fresh challenges and chaos in the country," Afghan Senator Dawood Asas said.
Ismail Khan on Thursday said in a gathering in western Herat province that because the Nato-led soldiers had failed to protect and secure the country, he is working with others to form a military unit drawn from former Mujahedeen leaders and fighters.
Hizb-e-Islami Will Participate in Election if Transparent, Adviser Says
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 04 November 2012
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar-led militant group Hizb-e-Islami said that the group will participate in the upcoming presidential election in 2014 if it was fair and transparent.
Speaking to TOLOnews in Pakistan, the party's political adviser Ghairat Baheer responded to the Afghan Independent Elections Commission (IEC) chief's call last week for the group to participate in the upcoming presidential election, saying it accepts an elected government.
"Hizb-e-Islami accepts an elected government. We have strong commitments and beliefs in the elections within our own party. We will participate in the upcoming presidential election if its transparent and fair," Baheer told TOLOnews in an exclusive interview on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Afghan politicians backed the IEC invitation saying that anyone who accepts Afghanistan's constitution has the right to participate in the elections.
"Anyone who renounces violence, accepts Afghanistan's constitution and believes in democracy can participate in the elections. We welcome them," Afghan political expert and member of Rights and Justice party Moeen Marastyla said told TOLOnews.
Political analyst Wahid Muzhda believes that Hekmatyar will not run for election himself but instead will support one of the candidates.
"I don't think Gulbuddin Hekmatyar will nominate himself for the presidential election, but he may support one of the candidates," he said Sunday.
IEC chief Fazel Ahmad Manawe on Wednesday called on the Taliban and other armed opposition groups to renounce violence and engage politically.
"I urge the Taliban, Hizb-e-Islami and other armed groups to choose the right path and renounce violence because war is not a solution for peace," Manawe said at a press briefing in Kabul.
"We are even prepared to pave the ground for the armed opposition, be it the Taliban or Hezb-i-Islami, to participate in the election, either as voters or candidates."
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
VOA News November 5, 2012
A U.S. Army soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers during a pre-dawn rampage in March is appearing in a military courtroom for the first time Monday.
Staff Sergeant Robert Bales will face a preliminary hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in the northwestern U.S. state of Washington. The hearing is expected to last two weeks and include live video testimony from witnesses in Afghanistan.
The proceedings will determine whether Bales faces a court martial. If convicted, he could receive the death penalty. The U.S. military has not executed a service member in five decades.
Bales, an 11-year military veteran, is accused of walking out of his southern Afghanistan military post under the cover of darkness and gunning down the civilians, including several children.
U.S. forces have paid compensation to the families of the dead and to those wounded in the attack.
Staff Sergeant Bales was on his fourth military deployment, after three in Iraq, where reports say he suffered a brain injury.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
Prosecutors in Afghanistan massacre case face tough challenge
Authorities charge Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales with murdering 16 villagers, but they have limited access to evidence and key witnesses won't testify.
Los Angeles Times By Kim Murphy and Ned Parker November 5, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Most everyone was asleep when an Afghan guard at a U.S. military camp spotted the American soldier walking out the southern gate into the quiet chill of the desert. A general alarm had been sounded by the time he returned and laid his weapon on the ground.
What happened that night, U.S. authorities say, was one of the most horrific massacres of the war in Afghanistan.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a spit-polished and personable veteran of four deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, is accused of murdering 16 villagers and attempting to kill at least six others. Residents near Camp Belambay said he shot and stabbed people as they rose sleepily from their beds, dragged one woman by her hair and leveled his weapon at a shrieking baby's mouth.
"It was a mess of blood, ashes and burnt clothes," said Mohammed Wazir, who returned from out of town with his youngest son later that morning to find the rest of his family — his mother, wife, six other children, brother, sister-in-law and nephew — all dead.
"It took half an hour to identify everyone. All of the bodies were burnt," Wazir said. He was one of several villagers who traveled to Kabul, the Afghan capital, recently to recount what happened during the three-hour rampage outside Camp Belambay.
On Monday, the Army's investigation will unfold at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle in a two-week hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to hold the 3rd Stryker Brigade staff sergeant for a court-martial on charges of premeditated murder, which could carry the death penalty. The hearing will be conducted in part by video link to allow Afghan witnesses to testify from the other side of the world.
The case presents a challenge to Army prosecutors, who must link Bales, 36, to a crime scene and victims even though U.S. forensic investigators were given limited access. Afghan survivors have already expressed little confidence in the military legal system and balked at having some crucial witnesses testify.
"Hang him. That's what I want. Hang him from the neck; let him dangle," Wazir said. "Let him sit in front of us. Let him look in our eyes. And we will look in his eyes."
The slayings took place in southern Afghanistan in two remote farming villages, small clusters of mud brick houses surrounded by fields of pomegranates and grapes. Although the U.S. troop buildup has brought a measure of stability to southern cities, it has failed to offer much protection in the countryside.
Villagers live in fear of the Taliban as well as the Afghan army and U.S. forces, whose skirmishes play out on their narrow, dusty roads. Days before the massacre, villagers said, American troops had angrily questioned nearby residents after a roadside bomb blew off the leg of a friend of Bales.
Shortly after Bales' arrest, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the staff sergeant was believed to have left the special operations camp in the early morning of March 11, fired on several families, returned to the base and "basically turned himself in, told individuals what happened."
Authorities subsequently said they believed Bales made two trips outside the base that night: one to Alkozai, north of Camp Belambay, one to Najiban, about 1 1/2 miles south.
It is unclear how much physical evidence there will be at the hearing. Families almost immediately buried the bodies as dictated by Islamic tradition, making it difficult for medical examiners to positively identify them and match bullet wounds to a weapon.
Prosecutors could face a situation similar to what happened after the 2005 shootings of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. None of the eight Marines charged ever went to jail, in part because of the lack of physical evidence, said Gary Myers, a defense lawyer in that case.
"Bodies could not be examined, crime scenes were not readily available to be viewed," he said. "It's a prosecutorial nightmare when you can't generate the forensic evidence necessary to link the alleged perpetrator to the crime."
Yet the Army doesn't have to definitively prove all 16 deaths to win a conviction, said Eugene Fidell, a former military prosecutor and defense counsel who now teaches military justice at Yale Law School. "Certainly there have been cases where murder convictions have been obtained where no body was found," he said.
Another question is whether witnesses will be able to identify Bales. Most of those who saw the shooter are dead. The survivors appear to be women — whose male relatives have been reluctant to allow them to testify, even by video — and children.
Two youths who survived the massacre described the horror in detail to the Los Angeles Times, but their description of the killer, whom they called "the American," remained vague.
"I saw the man in the door and my grandmother crying and screaming," said a teenager named Rafiullah, who, like many Afghans, uses only one name. Rafiullah said he, his sister and grandmother ran next door and joined several others at the home of Haji Naim.
"The room was a mess, everyone was screaming.... Haji Naim stood up and demanded what is going on. And the American shot him," he said. "We were seven people in the room when we were shot. My grandmother, my sister, me, two of Haji Naim's kids and two of Haji Nizar's kids."
The youth swept his hand in front of him as if raking a room with gunfire. "He used a pistol," he said. Four people, including Rafiullah's grandmother, died in Alkozai. Six people, among them Rafiullah and his sister, were injured.
On his second foray, the gunman rampaged first through Wazir's house in Najiban and then burst into the home of Mohammed Daoud on the outskirts. He was muttering "Taliban, Taliban" as he pulled Daoud out of his bed, said Daoud's 10-year-old son, Hikmatullah Gul, who hid under a blanket.
He said his father was calling "Have mercy!" before he was shot. "There was so much blood from my father," he said. "But the American came again and tore everything apart. Broke windows. Threw a closet to the floor.... The whole house cried."
Both youths described seeing bright lights outside the houses during the attacks. Some villagers talked of seeing multiple soldiers, but U.S. authorities said they probably saw troops who descended on the hamlets to investigate the attacks.
Bales, a father of two who lived in a two-story home near Lake Tapps, Wash., will probably not undergo much psychological scrutiny during the hearing. His lawyer, John Henry Browne, said it was obvious he was competent to stand trial. Yet the issue of whether he was mentally incapacitated, perhaps because of long-standing stress from four combat deployments, could play a crucial role if the case goes to a court-martial.
Browne said a military mental health review board would perform an evaluation sometime after the hearing and probably consider among other things Bales' use of steroids, which have been linked anecdotally in other cases to episodes of increased aggression.
The more immediate issues will probably focus on whether Bales made any statements to fellow soldiers that might be seen as a confession, and how firmly Army investigators can link Bales to specific victims.
The defense lawyer also is compiling a "mitigation package" that will detail several traumatic incidents Bales suffered during his previous deployments. One of them, Browne said, resembles a true incident, retold in the 2007 film "In the Valley of Elah," in which U.S. soldiers ran over an Iraqi child. "It deeply affected him; it profoundly affected him," he said.
It is not possible, Browne has said, to pass judgment on what Bales did or didn't do in time of war without also looking at what the war did to Bales.
"I believe we all have a responsibility to Sgt. Bales, and to all these soldiers," he said. "They're trying to do the impossible. I've got six clients right now that are all Afghanistan veterans, all of whom are in trouble with the law in varying degrees of severity."
The U.S. government has paid families $50,000 for each death and $10,000 for each of those injured, but villagers say money is scant compensation.
"If your child dies, what would you expect? Money? No," said Wazir, who denied taking the compensation. "Will you expect prison? We don't want prison.... If the court doesn't go the way we want, we will not accept the decision of the court."
Only one family is left in the area of Alkozai where Rafiullah lived; he and his grandfather moved to another village. Najiban is a ghost town; residents fled, fearing the Americans and the Taliban. Wazir has moved 2 1/2 hours away to live with his brother in Spin Buldak. He and the others are still haunted by the killings.
Rafiullah said: "I see his face in my dreams, and sometimes I hear my sister waking up at the same time, screaming. I am praying every night, please God don't make this happen again."
kim.murphy@latimes.com
ned.parker@latimes.com
Parker reported from Kabul and Murphy from Seattle. Times staff writer David S. Cloud in Washington contributed to this report.
Italian PM vows Afghan support will continue after troops pull out
CNN By the CNN Wire Staff November 4, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan - Italy's prime minister vowed Sunday that his country will continue supporting Afghanistan even after combat troops pull out.
"It is important that the relationship between Afghanistan and the international community is modified to reflect the new conditions, but that it doesn't stop," Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said Sunday in a joint news conference with Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai.
NATO leaders are on a timetable to withdraw all of the alliance's combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014.
"It will be a presence based less on military contributions," Monti said. "It will be a presence based far more on economic cooperation, it will be cooperation on the exploration and use of Afghanistan's important mineral resources and it will be a cooperation, as it already is in this phase, of institution-building to make Afghanistan an ever more solid country."
Monti met with Karzai after visiting Italian forces on a surprise trip to Herat, Afghanistan, where Italy's troops there are based.
About 4,000 Italian troops are stationed in Afghanistan, according to a tally published by NATO's International Security Assistance Force on October 8.
At least 49 Italian troops have died in the Afghan war, according to a CNN tally.
Sunday is Italy's Armed Forces Day, which commemorates the end of World War I and honors Italian troops.
CNN's Alexander Felton contributed to this report.
Afghan forces assume security charge of Badghis province
QALAI NOW, Afghanistan, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- Afghan security forces took over the security responsibility of Badghis province, 555 km northwest of Kabul on Monday, spokesman for provincial administration Sharafudin Majidi said.
"From now on, all the security operations will be conducted by Afghan national army and police throughout Badghis province," Majidi told Xinhua.
In a ceremony attended by Afghan and NATO-led forces officials, the security charge of Badghis province was formally handed over to Afghan national security troops.
The security transition process from NATO-led troops to Afghan government which began in mid 2011, will be completed by the end of 2014.
Troops from Spain and the United States had served in Badghis province.
Security situation improving in Afghanistan: coalition
KABUL, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The security situation in war-hit Afghanistan has been improving, a coalition spokesman said Monday.
"Clearly, the security situation is improving, the number of enemy initiated attacks is decreasing and the vast majority of the Afghan population lives in areas where peace and stability has already been established," the spokesman of the coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Brigadier General Gunter Katz, told a joint press conference.
However, he said that "with deep grief we recently saw a couple of terrorist attacks countrywide. Attacks, where innocent women and children have been murdered. We are deeply saddened by these attacks, and our hearts and prayers go with the loved one of those that were killed. However, these cowardly attacks give a wrong impression of the overall security situation here in Afghanistan,"
He made the comments in the wake of a suicide bombing in a mosque that left 41 people dead and wounding more than 50 others in the country's northern province of Faryab 425 km northwest of Afghan capital Kabul on Oct. 26.
The bombing was followed by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast killing eight women and a man in Helmand province, 555 km south of Kabul, on Oct. 30.
The Afghanistan's security transition is well underway and taking shape with more than 75 percent of the population living in areas where Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are taking the lead, the NATO's civilian spokesman, Dominic Medley said at the same press conference.
"NATO is confident that the ANSF are performing their duties and are continuing to grow in strength, skills, capability and experience. NATO has committed to a new mission to train, advise, and assist Afghan forces and the commitment to the people of Afghanistan will continue," he noted.
Transition of security responsibilities from some 100,000 NATO forces to Afghan army and police began in July last year and lasts till 2014 when Afghanistan is due to take over its full security duties from foreign forces.
U.S. presidential polls have little impact on Afghan policy
by Abdul Haleem, Chen Xin
KABUL, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The White House will not change the strategy on Afghanistan and the war on terror no matter who wins the U.S. presidential elections on Tuesday, Afghan analysts believe.
The U.S. presidential elections come on the occasion of financial crisis, increasing unemployment, tiring war in Afghanistan and, above all, the economic aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Sandy.
"No doubt the coming election is an important event for the Americans. However, it would not have a particular impact on the situation in Afghanistan," Nazari Pariani, editor-in-chief of a local popular newspaper Daily Mandegar, told Xinhua.
The U.S. foreign policy is based on the U.S. interests, he said, adding it makes no difference who rules the White House.
"Both candidates are under public pressure to leave Afghanistan or at least withdraw a large portion of troops and end the combat role of U.S. troops in Afghanistan," former parliamentarian Mohammad Daud Sultanzoy told Xinhua.
President Barack Obama has promised to withdraw his troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014; while his Republican rival Mitt Romney supported troops pullout, reportedly noting that he would listen to military commanders advice in this regard.
Sultanzoy stressed that no matter who wins the elections, the next president will face the challenges of war on terror as the Taliban militants continue fighting and their safe havens still exist in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, both observers were cautiously predicting the chance in Obama's favor because he was credited for the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden and the pullout strategy.
Securing the Durand Line could bring peace to Afghanistan
Financial Times By Javid Ahmad November 4, 2012
The reason that Afghanistan and British India chose to demarcate their 1,500-mile frontier in 1893 was to define their respective spheres of influence and limit interference in one another’s affairs. However, the establishment of what came to be known as the Durand Line never truly stopped outside interference in Afghanistan, especially after Pakistan emerged from its partition with independent India in 1947. Ever since, the nature of that line drawn on a map has been a matter of great contention between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The boundary traverses the main supply route for Nato forces in Afghanistan, which is also a trade route that connects Afghanistan with the Indian subcontinent and, just as importantly, is a conduit used by Pakistani security forces for infiltrating its proxies into the country to attack Afghan and international forces.
No government in Kabul – not even under the Taliban – has formally recognised the Durand Line as an international boundary. Some Pashtuns in Pakistan back this position out of ethnic loyalty and the prospect, however remote, of a united Pashtunistan. Pakistan holds that binding bilateral agreements, including those made by colonial era governments, are inherited by successor states, thus making the Durand Line the official boundary. To the rest of the world, including the US, that demarcation, however touchy, is official.
With peace talks stalled and Pakistan unwilling to take action against the militants it hosts, few alternative ways to combat the Afghan insurgency remain. Without dropping its territorial claims, the Afghan government should reconsider how to suspend militant infiltration, the flow of weapons and the booming drug trade that bankrolls the insurgency. One possible path to peace might involve fencing and mining the most penetrable and weakly-guarded sectors of the Durand Line.
Much of the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier is not easily accessible by foot, so any such plan must involve identifying, fencing and mining only the areas that witness regular militant crossings. In other areas, the Afghan government should install sensors and increase its border patrols. While bolstering Afghan capabilities, Washington can complement Kabul’s efforts with better drone surveillance. Afghanistan and the US can further buttress these efforts by supporting vibrant trade and business communities along the border with Pakistan, such as those in Kandahar and Nangarhar provinces.
Employing such a drastic measure certainly carries its own challenges. One crucial barrier is Afghanistan’s accession to the Mine Ban Treaty, which outlaws anti-personnel mines. President Hamid Karzai has been dead set against fencing and mining the frontier, primarily because that would seem to validate the legitimacy of the Durand Line as an international boundary, and he intends using the issue as a bargaining chip with Pakistan. Kabul also fears it will divide the Pashtuns on both sides of the border.
However, the domestic objections, in particular, can be rationalised. The number of those living in the border areas is very small and cross-border travel can still be permissible with appropriate security checks and travel documents. And the Afghan government is not militarily or politically in a position to reclaim any territory. Without recognising the line as an international boundary, Afghanistan could at least use the land it does control to counter militant movements.
The problem of the Durand Line runs deep in the Afghan psyche and most Afghans will continue to hold strong opinions. However, fencing and mining certain parts of the border would at least make it harder for insurgents to cross it and kill innocent civilians. The current response by the Afghan government is hardly sufficient. The best way to put an end to the countless challenges on both sides of the frontier – from illiteracy and abject poverty to armed militancy and extremism – is not only to insist on demarcating the Durand Line but also to secure and govern it effectively. Without any momentum for a mutually acceptable agreement, perhaps only employing harsher measures can pave the way for peace. It is certainly not optimal and ideal but it might be the way out.
The writer is a co-ordinator with the Asia Programme of the German Marshall Fund of the United States
Afghanistan: Missing George W. Bush
US relations with Afghanistan have deteriorated under Obama.
Global Post By Chris Sands November 4, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Whoever wins the US presidential election will have to deal with a huge problem that’s barely been mentioned on the campaign trail: Afghanistan.
Both major candidates may wish the war was heading toward a quiet conclusion but it shows every sign of getting more complicated as the withdrawal of NATO troops gathers pace.
Relations between officials in Washington and the government here have reached the stage where much of the talk coming out of Kabul is now openly suspicious of American intentions.
Rather than strengthening the bonds between two supposed allies, the last 11 years of conflict have been wrought with suspicion and resentment.
Behind closed doors, experts believe the West’s relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai has become increasingly tense. That’s now spilling out into the public. In recent weeks Karzai and his aides have issued a series of fraught statements not only concerning his country's future but also its national identity.
In early October he claimed the Western media was waging "psychological warfare" against the state. At the same time he accused America of failing to adequately equip the Afghan armed forces and of ignoring Pakistani rocket attacks that have allegedly killed dozens of civilians on this side of the border.
In response, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told journalists, "I think it would be helpful if the president, every once in a while, expressed his thanks for the sacrifices that have been made."
Although such outspoken comments by Karzai cause consternation in the international community, they are often met with sympathy among people here who blame foreign powers for fueling decades of fighting and political turmoil.
Abdul Hadi Wahidi, an advisor to Karzai on tribal affairs, told GlobalPost the president "has the right to express his views," particularly when it came to the subject of the cross-border attacks.
"America is very careless about this," he said, while emphasizing that both sides must maintain a strong relationship.
Afghans say they feel betrayed by the United States, accusing it of neglecting the terms of a strategic agreement between the two countries.
The pact in question includes a promise that Washington “shall regard with grave concern any external aggression against Afghanistan,” which it has also designated as a major non-NATO ally.
Relations first began seriously deteriorating four years ago, when US President Barack Obama came to power. Karzai enjoyed a close personal rapport with former president George W. Bush. That kind of connection has never existed with Obama.
When Karzai was reelected in 2009 amid allegations of systematic fraud, he is believed to have come under severe pressure from American officials to agree to a second round of voting. Since then disagreements between the two sides have occasionally boiled over into the public arena, only to turn private again after some behind the scenes diplomacy.
But with the withdrawal of all conventional foreign combat troops scheduled for the end of 2014 and the Taliban-led resistance spreading, the stakes are now higher than before and patience is wearing thin. A sense of urgency and paranoia exists as the war enters a crucial period.
There are no significant differences between Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney when it comes to Afghanistan policy, suggesting that little will change here whoever wins.
Mohammad Zubair Shafiqi is chief editor of Weesa, a daily newspaper. Interviewed at his home in Kabul near a squalid refugee camp full of families who have fled the fighting in southern provinces, he said ideological and political tensions were having a negative impact at ground level.
"American forces are going into villages in the countryside without permission, arresting people and doing their operations," he said. "This is all similar to the Russian invaders and occupiers and once again the bad memories of the Soviet Union are being refreshed in the minds of the people."
When the International Crisis Group published a study last month warning that the Afghan state could collapse if the transition process does not run smoothly it provoked uproar in official circles. Weesa, meanwhile, ran a story accusing the organization’s senior analyst here of carrying out espionage, accompanied by a picture of her.
Shafiqi told GlobalPost the report was part of a wider conspiracy to weaken the government's negotiating position as it discusses a possible long-term security agreement with the United States.
Tensions worsened when the American special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, pointed out that an internationally recognized border separated the two neighbors.
Drawn during the days of the British Empire, Afghanistan does not regard the boundary as permanent and continues to lay claim to large swathes of territory on the other side of the frontier.
Abdul Hameed Mubarez was deputy minister for information and culture in the early years of the US occupation. He said Washington has traditionally favored Pakistan and, in his opinion, the latest developments confirmed its bias.
“I have many differences with Mr. Karzai, but on the relationship with the United States, now I am on the side of Mr. Karzai,” he said.
“We have never accepted foreign troops in Afghanistan. You have seen our history with the British. There is no difference for us between the British [Empire] and the Americans.”
Kabul Threatens to Expel Foreign Critics Over Report
Wall Street Journal By MARIA ABI-HABIB and HABIB KHAN TOTAKHIL November 4, 2012
KABUL - The Afghan government said it is considering expelling the staff of an influential global conflict-resolution think tank over a recent critical report, fueling concerns about Kabul's tolerance of dissent.
In a report released in October, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group outlined the risks of the U.S.-led coalition's withdrawal and warned that Afghanistan may slide back into civil war if it doesn't hold free and fair presidential elections in 2014.
President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said in an email to The Wall Street Journal that the ICG's reports are full of "bias and doom," and appear motivated by a desire "to mislead the Afghan people and create an environment of confusion about their future."
Mr. Faizi added that his government finds the ICG's activities "detrimental to Afghanistan's national interests" and is now "in the process of assessing the ICG's operations in the country."
The ICG's communications director, Andrew Stroehlein, said the organization hadn't heard directly from the Afghan government.
"Until we actually know from the government what, if anything, they intend to do, it is very hard to respond to it, let alone discuss what the implications for other [nongovernmental organizations], think tanks and journalists may or may not be," he said.
Mr. Faizi first issued the threat to expel the ICG in an Afghan television appearance on Saturday, hours after Mr. Karzai met with the editors of major Afghan news organizations, urging them not report about Afghanistan negatively and to "protect the national interest," said participants in the meeting.
Western diplomats in Kabul said they were watching these latest developments with concern. One said the threat to kick out the ICG "would not be a good move." The U.S. Embassy declined to comment on Mr. Faizi's remarks about the organization.
The pressure on the ICG and Mr. Karzai's recent criticism of the foreign press have raised concerns among Western diplomats, international and national journalists and human-rights workers that a crackdown on freedom of expression is under way. The U.S.-led coalition has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into promoting a free press and civil society, citing freedom of expression as Afghanistan's key achievement since the Taliban regime's downfall in 2001.
"It's extremely alarming and concerning for anyone involved in media and human-rights analysis. It does seem to be something that is getting worse and worse," said a human-rights worker in Kabul.
Mr. Faizi brushed off such concerns. "We strongly assure all stakeholders that there will not be any clampdown on freedom of press and expression," he said.
The ICG, which provides direct recommendations to policy makers in addition to publishing reports, has operations in 26 countries around the world, according to its website. Thomas Pickering, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is the organization's chairman of the board. Louise Arbor, the former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, is the president and chief executive.
October's ICG report, which the group published on its website, analyzed the transition of security responsibilities to the Afghan forces. The report concluded that the government was "plagued by factionalism and corruption" and was "far from ready to assume responsibility for security" when U.S. and international forces withdraw in 2014.
The Afghan government at the time protested the report's findings. Afghan lawmakers also demanded an apology, and one newspaper published by an Afghan official claimed the author of the report was conducting "espionage."
At a news conference in October, Mr. Karzai separately accused a number of U.S. and British news organizations of waging "psychological war" to undermine the confidence of Afghans as international forces withdraw.
On Saturday, Mr. Karzai reiterated this criticism as he met with more than 100 representatives of Afghanistan's media and analysts. During the encounter, he urged them to "protect and defend the national interest of Afghanistan," said Fahim Dashti, the chief executive of Afghanistan's National Journalists Union.
Mr. Karzai said "you are allowed to criticize me and my government" but "don't worry the Afghan people about 2014," Mr. Dashti said.
Mr. Dashti and other representatives who attended the meeting said the comments weren't a direct threat to implement censorship. They said, however, that other elements of the Afghan government could use the president's remarks as a rationale for clamping down.
"We told Karzai that we agree with this point, but there are people in your government who will misuse your instructions to the media. They'll make the media's work difficult," said Danish Karokhel, the editor of Pajhwok news agency.
The president criticized "Western media" in the meeting, saying it is "conducting propaganda and using[local] media outlets for their own interests," Sarnavesht Daily, a local newspaper, reported.
The Afghan government has acted against international organizations in the past. In 2007, Kabul kicked out Michael Semple, a senior European Union diplomat, for reaching out to the Taliban without the Afghan government's permission. —Ziaulhaq Sultani contributed to this article.
Write to Maria Abi-Habib at maria.habib@dowjones.com
Saudi Arabia Positions Itself For Larger Afghan Role
By Frud Bezhan November 5, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Saudi Arabia's support for Afghanistan has been steady but inconspicuous over the years. But that is about to change.
The powerful Sunni-majority kingdom is embarking on a very public effort to carve out a bigger role in Afghanistan, pitting the oil-rich Gulf state directly against Shi'ite rival Iran in the race for influence as foreign forces leave.
That much became clear on October 29, when the Afghan government announced that Riyadh would build a multimillion-dollar Islamic complex in Kabul, marking its largest and most expensive foray into post-9/11 Afghanistan.
The project, which is expected to cost between $45 million and $100 million, was agreed between the two countries in Jeddah. Construction is expected to begin next year. The Islamic complex will cover 24 hectares on Maranjan Hill in central Kabul. It will feature a university, a hospital, a sports hall, and a mosque capable of holding around 15,000 worshippers at a time.
When completed, it will become a rival to the massive Iranian-built Khatam al-Nabyeen Islamic University in western Kabul. The Shi'ite religious school, which was opened in 2006, was built at a cost of some $17 million by one of Afghanistan's most Iran-leaning clerics. The campus has a mosque, classrooms, and dormitories for its 1,000 Afghan students.
Late On The Scene
Thomas Ruttig, a former UN and European diplomat and director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent research organization in Kabul, sees the Saudi move as part of the intensified competition for influence as U.S. and NATO troops look to draw down by 2014.
Riyadh's chief motivation is clearly to counter the significant sway of archrival Iran. But Ruttig says that Riyadh has its work cut out for it, considering its late arrival.
Iran, in contrast, has had a highly visible presence for the past decade.
Iran has built on its lingual and cultural links with Afghanistan by spending millions on infrastructure, including roads, power grids, and railway projects. Tehran also leaves its mark through its export of cultural and political views via its strong media presence and funding of religious schools.
Now the scene is set for an aggressive competition between Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, which promotes the extremist Wahabbi sect of Islam, and Shi'ite-majority Iran. This raises the potential, Ruttig says, for sectarian tension in Afghanistan, whose population is estimated to be about 85 percent Sunni and 15 percent Shi'ite.
"There are very strained relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both those countries will be competing for influence in Afghanistan, with the sectarian differences between both sides in the background," Ruttig says. "So far, Sunni-Shi'ite relations in Afghanistan have been quite stable, but that can be undermined if both sides are much more aggressive than before in vying for influence in what they might perceive as a post-2014 [political] vacuum."
Seeking Leverage
The possibility of increased sectarian tension in Afghanistan would be cause for alarm in Central Asia and China, whose governments are wary of growing religious extremism.
It could be argued that Saudi Arabia was always a major player in the competition for influence in Afghanistan: Riyadh was a key financier of the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s; it helped fund and arm the Taliban in the 1990s; and it has in recent years sought to broker behind-the-scenes peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
But those efforts were always behind the scenes, and other than the provision of food and relief supplies and the occasional business venture, there were few obvious examples of Saudi involvement in Afghanistan.
Adel Darwish, a British journalist and political commentator who specializes in Middle Eastern politics, says Saudi Arabia is poised to make an important contribution. He says the Saudis can convince the Taliban leadership to enter peace negotiations and to encourage Pakistan to cut its ties with the militant group.
That leverage comes in part because of Riyadh's close ties to regional powerhouse Pakistan, which has long supported the Afghan Taliban, and the kingdom's role as a spiritual authority in the Muslim world as the guardian of Islam's two holiest shrines. Riyadh was also a staunch backer of the Taliban in the 1990s, when it was one of only three countries -- along with Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates -- to recognize the group during its rule in Afghanistan from 1996-2001.
Darwish says although Riyadh severed ties with the Taliban after 2001 when the militant group failed to handover Osama bin Laden, who was a Saudi national at the time, the kingdom still has considerable leverage over the militant group.
Both Kabul and Washington have endorsed an expanded Saudi role in Afghanistan. Earlier this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai reiterated that Saudi Arabia was "an important player" in Afghanistan and "has facilitated talks [with the Taliban] in the past and now." U.S. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has said Riyadh's involvement in Afghanistan could shape the success of the NATO-led mission.
Broken Broker?
Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar, the foreign-relations adviser for the Afghan High Peace Council, the presidentially appointed body tasked with negotiating with insurgents, says the Saudis have shown a genuine willingness to broker reconciliation talks.
"We welcome the promises of Saudi Arabia and we hope that this friendly cooperation will lead to an effective outcome," Qasimyar says. "We hope that we will witness these promises coming to fruition."
Others, however, note that the Saudis have been active in behind-the-scenes peace negotiations between members of the Taliban and the Afghan government in the past. But those talks, which took place in recent years, have yielded no breakthroughs.
Wahid Muzhda, a political analyst and former Taliban spokesman, is among the skeptics. He says many Taliban feel betrayed by Riyadh after Saudi authorities arrested and jailed a former Taliban representative, Mawlawi Shabir Ahmad. Ahmad was jailed with his four sons in Riyadh in 2001. He was released in 2011.
"The Taliban say that Saudi Arabia has acted as an enemy toward us," Muzdha says, suggesting the Saudis have taken the side of the West. "They have not been neutral. The Taliban doesn't recognize Saudi Arabia as a [peace] broker."
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report
As NATO Nears Exit, Construction Dries Up
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND and SANGAR RAHIMI November 4, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - Jalalabad Road, the heart of what might be called the Afghan capital’s military-industrial complex, has also become the place where heavy construction equipment comes to die.
Lined with Afghan and NATO military facilities and the contracting firms that serve them, the road is also garlanded with miles of brightly colored holding yards — in the yellows, oranges, blues and reds of backhoes and diggers, forklifts and bulldozers, cranes and cherry pickers, graders and rollers.
Most of them are new, or newish, and nearly all are idled. Nowhere is the impending collapse of Afghanistan’s construction industry more evident than here, where Afghan companies that hire out heavy equipment to construction firms have hit hard times.
“In the past two months nobody has rented a single piece of my machinery,” said Shafiq Ahmad Sidiqi, 28, who owns a construction company and rents out hydraulic lift platforms, of which he has 30 in various sizes. “The foreigners are leaving, and the money is drawing down.”
Precise figures on the falloff of construction in Afghanistan are difficult to come by, but those in the business say the impending American and NATO withdrawal has not only slashed military spending, but also depressed construction spending generally.
“The decline of investment in construction started at the beginning of 2012 as soon as the 2014 deadline was announced,” said Ghulam Ali Danish Kamal, the executive manager of the Afghan Builders Association.
Mr. Kamal said the number of construction companies in Afghanistan had fallen to at most 3,000, compared with 10,000 at one time. “Already there has been a 30 to 40 percent drop in investment in construction this year, and some of the projects that you see here are from 2011, which will be completed by the end of this year,” he said. “In 2013, most of the companies will be out of a job, and even if there are some projects they will be small ones.”
Afghan government officials insist things are not as bad as all that. “We don’t confirm the decline in the number of construction companies,” said Wafiullah Iftikhar, president of the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency, who maintained that the drop in military financing would be made up for in long-term foreign investment. “We do accept that there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of projects and contracts awarded by NATO forces in 2012, but it does not necessarily mean the construction sector would collapse,” he said. “We are hopeful that in the near future the construction sector would boom once again, since the international community has pledged billions of dollars to spend on infrastructural and economic development projects.”
That is little solace to Mr. Sidiqi. At the height of the boom in 2010 and 2011, his company employed 400 full-time workers on a dozen projects, many of them in dangerous areas in southern Afghanistan. He has let all but a few office staff members go, and hires temporary workers whenever a project comes along.
He said he had only one project on the books, a $500,000 job building container housing on a base, and that is likely to fall through, too. “I just got an e-mail that it’s going to be canceled,” he said.
His company had contracts with the French military, so was hit harder and sooner than some others, after the French announced that they would complete their pullout a year ahead of schedule, by the end of 2013, after losing troops this year to attacks attributed to Afghan security forces.
Last year, Mr. Sidiqi said, he made a fateful business decision, deciding to sink his profits into the purchase of a couple dozen more hydraulic lift platforms at $22,000 apiece, because the profits in renting them were so high. By the time he took delivery, the business had tanked. “Now, I could sell them for scrap metal,” he said.
“Before the announcement of the withdrawal, all these yards were empty because the equipment was out on jobs,” he said. Now, the yards are almost all full, and all over Kabul are the skeletons of unfinished buildings, devoid of workers. The slowdown has had one unintended consequence at the Qara Company, a loose cooperative of 15 crane owner-operators who originally came from Bamian Province: they have all gotten to be good volleyball players, since there is nothing much else for them to do but play on the court they have set up in their yard.
“Before, we used to have clients twice a day,” said Mohammad Musa, 35, one of the crane owners, who has a 20-ton, Japanese-made Tadano crane with a 115-foot boom. “Now, we are lucky if we have one a week.”
“There is no doubt that they would make less profit now and there would be less business,” Mr. Iftikhar said of the construction sector, “but it does not mean collapse.”
Total American spending in Afghanistan was budgeted at $159.4 billion in 2011, and the estimate for 2012 is $126.5 billion, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. By 2013, that will have dropped to $96.7 billion. More difficult to quantify is how much other countries’ international spending in Afghanistan, as well as private investment, has fallen. “One of the biggest concerns that the Afghan government, the international community and we have is the financial and investment drainage,” Mr. Kamal said. “We have been hearing that a lot of people are taking their money out of Afghanistan and investing in other countries.”
Mr. Sidiqi said he had no plans to leave, since his capital is all in heavy construction equipment. He does still get plenty of e-mails from the military contracting authorities inviting him to bid on work. “They’re asking us to destroy those bases we made for them,” he said. That, he added, does not seem to be a business with a future.
Habib Zahori contributed reporting.
UN mandate not essential for post-2014 Afghan mission: NATO chief
BRUSSELS, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Monday the military alliance need not get UN Security Council authorization for its new training mission in Afghanistan after 2014.
"We would be able to operate in Afghanistan after 2014 on the basis of the invitation from the Afghan government. That will be fully in accordance with intentional law," he told reporters at his monthly press conference.
"If we, on top of that, could have a United Nations mandate, I think it would be a good thing."
The military alliance are working on the plans for the post-2014 training and advisory mission that will start after the end of NATO combat operations in Afghanistan.
The NATO chief said that the alliance is in the very early phase of planning and the final plan is to be finished by mid-2013.
Last month, Nikolay Korchunov, Russia's acting ambassador to NATO, warned that Russia would stop cooperating with NATO over Afghanistan after 2014 unless the alliance gets UN mandate for the new training mission.
The current mission of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is endorsed by the UN Security Council.
Mujahedeen Army is Against Afghan Interests: Senators
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Sunday, 04 November 2012
Afghanistan's senators on Sunday criticised the plans for a Mujahedeen military unit as claimed last week by former jihadi commander and current Minister of Energy and Water Ismail Khan, saying it went against Afghanistan's national interests.
The Senators emphasised that improving the abilities of the Afghan National Security Forces is the only way to protect the country after 2014 while the formation of any other form of private army would only spread chaos.
"We should focus on strengthening the government and security forces which we believe is the only way to respond to the challenges after 2014," Senate First Deputy Chair of Mohammad Alam Ezedyar said.
"It's against the national interests of the country. I am against its formation," Senator Shir Mohammad Akhundzada said.
The senators also believe that Afghan National Security Force will lose their credibility and meaning if such an unit is formed.
"If Mujahedeen's military unit is formed, it will undermine the presence of Afghan National Security Forces," Senator Hedayatullah Rehahi said.
"The formation of such councils creates fresh challenges and chaos in the country," Afghan Senator Dawood Asas said.
Ismail Khan on Thursday said in a gathering in western Herat province that because the Nato-led soldiers had failed to protect and secure the country, he is working with others to form a military unit drawn from former Mujahedeen leaders and fighters.
Hizb-e-Islami Will Participate in Election if Transparent, Adviser Says
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 04 November 2012
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar-led militant group Hizb-e-Islami said that the group will participate in the upcoming presidential election in 2014 if it was fair and transparent.
Speaking to TOLOnews in Pakistan, the party's political adviser Ghairat Baheer responded to the Afghan Independent Elections Commission (IEC) chief's call last week for the group to participate in the upcoming presidential election, saying it accepts an elected government.
"Hizb-e-Islami accepts an elected government. We have strong commitments and beliefs in the elections within our own party. We will participate in the upcoming presidential election if its transparent and fair," Baheer told TOLOnews in an exclusive interview on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Afghan politicians backed the IEC invitation saying that anyone who accepts Afghanistan's constitution has the right to participate in the elections.
"Anyone who renounces violence, accepts Afghanistan's constitution and believes in democracy can participate in the elections. We welcome them," Afghan political expert and member of Rights and Justice party Moeen Marastyla said told TOLOnews.
Political analyst Wahid Muzhda believes that Hekmatyar will not run for election himself but instead will support one of the candidates.
"I don't think Gulbuddin Hekmatyar will nominate himself for the presidential election, but he may support one of the candidates," he said Sunday.
IEC chief Fazel Ahmad Manawe on Wednesday called on the Taliban and other armed opposition groups to renounce violence and engage politically.
"I urge the Taliban, Hizb-e-Islami and other armed groups to choose the right path and renounce violence because war is not a solution for peace," Manawe said at a press briefing in Kabul.
"We are even prepared to pave the ground for the armed opposition, be it the Taliban or Hezb-i-Islami, to participate in the election, either as voters or candidates."
www.afghanistannewscenter.com