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Bomb Kills 17 Civilians in Afghanistan
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN and TAIMOOR SHAH November 16, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb killed 17 civilians, most of them women and children, on Friday as they traveled to a wedding in western Afghanistan. It was the third time in less than 10 days that a bomb claimed the lives of civilians.
The minivan the group was traveling in hit an improvised explosive device buried in a dirt road in Farah Province, said Abdul Rahman Zawandai, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Nine others in the group were wounded in the blast, including five women and two children.
The area is near a small village named Missezai and is heavily patrolled by Afghan National Army soldiers, the Afghan National Police and the Afghan Local Police, who may have been the intended target, Mr. Zawandai said.
Mohammad Nazir Khidmat, the provincial council chairman, said, “This is the work of the enemies of peace.”
The Taliban frequently plant bombs in this area as a way to kill government officials or members of the Afghan security forces, but, as was the case on Friday, “they bring more casualties to civilians,” Mr. Khidmat said.
On Nov. 10, a roadside bomb attack similar to the one in Farah killed six members of a family returning from a hospital in Khost Province after the birth of a child. The newborn was among the dead. On Nov. 8, a roadside bomb hit a pickup truck in the Musa Qala district of Helmand Province, killing 10 civilians, including five women and a child.
The Taliban and other antigovernment fighters are responsible for about 80 percent of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan, many of which are the result of improvised explosive devices that cause about a third of all the deaths and injuries, according to a midyear report on the conflict by the United Nations. In the first six months of 2012, more than 3,000 civilian deaths and injuries related to the conflict were reported in Afghanistan.
Farah, a province in western Afghanistan, has never had a major contingent of international forces stationed there, and the Taliban have found it easy to move around. Their numbers rose in the past two years as some insurgents from neighboring Helmand Province, which was focus of international efforts during the surge in troop strength, relocated to Farah, Afghan security officials said.
In Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan on Friday, two children were wounded in the Panjwai district, and a member of the Afghan police was killed nearby, according to Afghan officials.
One child was hurt when he was hit by a stray bullet during a firefight between Taliban fighters and the Afghan police. The other child, a 15-year old boy, Abdul Khaliq, was wounded as he returned to his home, which he and his family had fled months before because of fighting nearby. As he was walking through the house, checking for damage, he stepped on a bomb that appeared to have been planted by insurgents, said Hajji Mahmood, the chief of the Panjwai Shura Council.
He lost an arm and a leg in the blast, said Jawad Faisal, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Afghan National Army soldiers rushed to the scene and took the boy to an Afghan military hospital.
The Taliban frequently booby-trap abandoned homes in areas where they are fighting so that the houses cannot be used by Afghan or coalition forces.
In the same area of Panjwai, a roadside bomb struck a police vehicle on Friday, killing one member of the Afghan National Police and wounding another.
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan. Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting from Kabul.
Two foreign soldiers killed in eastern Afghan blast
KABUL, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Two soldiers with the NATO-led coalition force were killed Friday in a bomb explosion in restive eastern Afghanistan, the coalition confirmed.
"Two International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service members died following an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in eastern Afghanistan today," the coalition said in a press release.
The brief statement gave neither the nationalities of the victims nor the details about the incident under the ISAF policy.
A total of 50 countries are contributing to 100,000-strong forces in Afghanistan with over 68,000 of them American mainly stationed in the east and south, followed by 9,500 from UK mainly based in southern Afghanistan.
More than 380 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.
Pakistan Takes Step, Not Leap, Toward Afghan Peace
RFE/RL By Frud Bezhan November 16, 2012
In a move intended to encourage the Taliban to join stalled peace negotiations with the Afghan government, Pakistan this week released at least eight jailed members of that militant group.
The releases, granted by Islamabad after repeated requests, is seen by some as a sign that Pakistan is finally prepared to play a constructive role in jump-starting reconciliation efforts that have yielded little since they began several years ago. Skeptics -- including the Afghan government -- say that while it is a positive step, Islamabad must do much more to prove its commitment to the Kabul-led peace process.
The Afghan government and its Western allies have stepped up efforts to find a political solution to the ongoing battle against Taliban militants. There are fears that the country could descend into civil war or face another Taliban takeover if militants are not brought into a serious peace process before 2014, when the majority of U.S. and NATO-led ISAF troops will leave.
Releases Welcomed
Islamabad is seen as a crucial player in the process. Pakistan's ties to the Taliban date back to the 1990s, when it provided arms, training, and intelligence to the militants. Islamabad was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban government after it took power in Afghanistan in 1996. After the regime's fall in 2001, following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, many Taliban leaders took shelter inside Pakistan.
Pakistan's release of the prisoners, who were reportedly freed late on November 15, has been met with widespread praise -- from the Afghan government to the Taliban to U.S. officials in Kabul.
According to media reports, among the released prisoners are three prominent Taliban: Mullah Nuruddin Turbai, a former justice minister; Allahdad Tabib, former deputy minister of communications; and Mullah Jahangirwal, a special adviser to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Also reportedly released were former Baghlan Province Governor Abdul Salam; former Konduz Province Governor Mowlawi Muhammad; two former government officials, Haji Qutub and Mowlawi Matiullah; and a former senior commander and deputy minister, Sayed Saduddin Agha.
Michael Kugelman, South Asia associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, says that although Pakistan's action is a positive step, the release is only "a single goodwill measure and nothing else."
Kugelman says Pakistan needs to develop a clear policy before it can be said that it has changed course and is willing to play a positive, constructive role in ending the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
"If there's one thing we can say about the Pakistani government, it is that it really doesn't have a clearly defined or strategic policy in terms of how it wants to proceed toward an Afghanistan endgame," Kugelman says. "On the one hand, there's been a lot of talk about having a key role at the negotiating table, but on the other hand there have been mixed messages coming from Islamabad for a number of months and years. It's still unclear what Pakistan wants from all of this."
Taliban Cracks?
Kugelman adds that the Taliban itself is sharply divided on the issue of peace talks. The Taliban, which he describes as a "very diffuse and complex" group, disagrees on how it should proceed with the peace process, with some hard-line Taliban protesting vehemently against participating in negotiations of any kind.
David H. Young, a Washington-based conflict-resolution expert and adjunct fellow at the American Security Project, says Pakistan is unlikely to abandon its policy of maintaining strategic influence in Afghanistan via the Taliban.
Young, who was a civilian adviser to the U.S. Army in eastern Afghanistan, says the prisoner deal is in keeping with Pakistani interests but is unlikely to help the peace process.
Referring to Pakistani intelligence's long-rumored support for the Taliban, Young says that if the country really wants to encourage reconciliation in Afghanistan it should stop the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from financing and arming the Afghan Taliban. Another step, Young says, would be for Islamabad to release Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's former deputy leader who was arrested in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi in February 2010.
Baradar was reportedly at the top of the 40-man wish list of prisoners Kabul wanted Pakistani authorities to release. Young says the fact that Islamabad has neither released nor transferred Baradar for the past two years indicates how reluctant it is to hand over the one figure who is likely to facilitate reconciliation efforts. Baradar was reportedly arrested for facilitating secret talks between Kabul and the Taliban leadership.
Young predicts that Pakistan will drag out the peace process until the Taliban is in a stronger bargaining position, namely after 2014 when international troops leave. For now, he says, small gestures like the release of Taliban prisoners strike a good balance for Pakistan between securing its own interests in Afghanistan, where it seeks a more Islamist government in Kabul, and appearing agreeable to facilitating the peace process.
Mixed Signals
Assuming that Pakistan wants to play an active role in the peace talks, Young says the country will only accept a political settlement in Afghanistan that gives it strategic influence in Kabul and minimizes the role of archrival India.
"[A policy] that involves high-level Taliban involvement in the government, guaranteed number of officials in the various ministries, and something that enables them to save face and say that we have overthrown the [Afghan President] Karzai government or instilled a more fair and stable government," Young says. "A government that is more reflective, in part, of Taliban values in order to keep Pakistan's buffer in southwest and southeast Afghanistan."
The release of the Taliban prisoners in Pakistan came after Salahuddin Rabbani, leader of the Afghan High Peace Council, the presidentially appointed body tasked with negotiating with the Taliban, held talks with senior Pakistani government officials.
Afghanistan's ambassador to Pakistan, Omar Daudzai, has welcomed the release of Taliban prisoners and announced on November 16 that Islamabad has agreed in principle to release even more.
The Taliban has likewise hailed the freeing of its members.
"We consider this as a good step and welcome it," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid was quoted as saying. "We wish to have more prisoners released. This will undoubtedly increase trust between two countries and people."
The release of Taliban prisoners comes after a string of setbacks. In March, the Taliban said they were suspending talks with the United States only weeks after they opened a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar. Kabul objected to the Qatar talks on the basis that they were not Afghan-led.
The Taliban said in a statement that the U.S. approach was "erratic and shaky" and accused Washington of going against their word.
2 insurgents killed in E. Afghanistan: coalition
KABUL, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition troops have eliminated two insurgents and detained two in restive eastern Afghan provinces within a 24-hour period, the coalition forces confirmed in a press release issued from Bagram, the main U.S. base in the country, on Friday.
"Afghan and coalition forces killed two insurgents, detained two and cleared two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) during operations in eastern Afghanistan throughout the past 24 hours," the coalition's Regional Command-East (RC-E) said in the release.
The insurgents were killed in two separate engagements in Logar province some 60 km south of Afghan capital Kabul and Nangarhar province 120 km east of capital.
"Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces found and safely cleared two IEDs in Zarghun Shahr District, Paktika Province 150 km southeast of Kabul."
The Afghan Taliban has launched massive IED attacks against coalition and Afghan national security force in recent years.
Operations in RC-East are still ongoing, the coalition release added.
Taliban insurgent group, who has been waging an insurgency of more than a decade, has yet to make comments.
Pakistan releases 13 Afghan Taliban figures
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan has freed 13 Afghan Taliban figures as a goodwill gesture to the visiting Afghan peace envoy, Salahuddin Rabbani, sources said on Thursday.
Anwar Haq Mujahid, a famous Taliban leader, and eight more operatives were released on Thursday and four were freed days before the visit to Islamabad by Afghan Peace Council, they said.
Afghan delegation had submitted a list of senior Taliban leaders to Pakistan that included four senior Afghan Taliban leaders. Mujahid was in the list and Islamabad, in a first phase, released him and promised to consider the release of others, the sources said.
Mujahid, the son of a known Jehadi leader in eastern Afghanistan, Maulvi Younas Khalis, who died in 2006, had assumed leadership of Hizb-e-Islami party. He was the Taliban commander when he was arrested in Pakistan in 2009.
Sources said that the freed Taliban will not be handed over to the Afghan government and can rejoin family members, go to Afghanistan or any other country, the sources said. They will not be arrested under an agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States.
Afghan government had mentioned nearly 40 Afghan Taliban figures in a list handed over to Pakistan.
Pakistan and Afghan Peace Council have also agreed to form a small bilateral group to establish contact with Taliban, the source said. The group will chalk out a mechanism for contacts with Taliban.
Afghan Economy Slows
Sharon Behn VOA News November 15, 2012
KABUL — For the past 10 years, Afghanistan's economy has been heavily dependent on foreign aid and contracts linked to the needs of thousands of coalition troops. That will largely end in 2014 as foreign combat forces leave the country. The government is downplaying the potential impact, but business owners in Kabul say they are worried about the country's economic future.
Row upon row of heavy construction equipment lies idle along Kabul's Jalalabad Road as international contracts begin to dry up with international forces pulling out. Machines like these had been used to build the heavily fortified bases that coalition troops established around the country.
Business owner Haji Abdul Khalil Ahmadzai used to sell 10 - 15 of these machines a month. Now he is lucky if he sells one.
"The country's situation is getting worse, we can't sell our equipment, or send them out, sometimes the insurgents burn our vehicles," Ahmadzai said. "Our country is going through hard times. Work is slowing down, it's not like it was in the past."
Ahmadzai's worries are echoed across the business community.
In an effort to prevent a steep economic downturn which could further destabilize already weak government institutions, U.S. and Afghan officials are trying to attract investment in the country's mineral, agricultural and energy resources.
Noorullah Delawari, governor of Afghanistan's Central Bank, says the country's GDP growth is healthy and that a pledge of $16 billion in international aid will help.
"We have been given assurance, people are hopeful, we are all hopeful in accordance with agreements we have with the donors that will carry us at least to 2020 even 2024," said Delawari. "So with those negotiated or promised support to Afghanistan, I believe we can carry on our economic activities at the same level we have had as we have in the past few years."
But some say businessmen are beginning to cash their money in for dollars.
Former minister and current economics professor Hamidullah Farooqi says the government has failed to create a healthy economy.
"The majority of our economy is, unfortunately, illegal, and the forces of the mafia system and mafia economy are huge, and that creates enough difficulty for the legal economy, for the economic forces which were in the society," Farooqi noted.
Farooqi predicts even tougher economic times are ahead, if Afghanistan's government doesn't start working harder for its people.
Petraeus Scandal Not Losing Afghan Hearts And Minds
By Frud Bezhan
November 15, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
A sex scandal involving the United States' two most-recent military commanders in Afghanistan might be fueling media frenzy at home, but the response has been surprisingly muted in the Afghan theater of war.
A public relations disaster could have been expected in Afghanistan after retired four-star General David Petraeus, who commanded U.S. forces there from June 2010 to July 2011, resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency after admitting to an extramarital affair.
Some might have predicted enemy forces to seize on the propaganda opportunity when it was announced that his successor as U.S. commander in Afghanistan, four-star Marine General John Allen, came under scrutiny for e-mail exchanges linked to the scandal.
The reactions to previous transgressions involving the U.S. military certainly provided cause for worry: deadly clashes broke out after U.S. soldiers burned copies of the Koran in April, and widespread condemnation followed the release of a video showing American soldiers urinating on the corpses of Taliban militants.
But for the most part, the reaction to the Petraeus scandal has been noticeably subdued in Afghanistan -- whether from the government, the media, or even the Taliban.
It appears that Petraeus's affair with his married biographer, Paula Broadwell, is not the type of thing that loses hearts and minds in Afghanistan.
A Domestic Issue
Waliullah Rahmani, an Afghan social commentator, suggests that much of this can be explained by the fact that General Petraeus is not as involved in Afghanistan as he once was. Many Afghans, Rahmani says, see this as an exclusively domestic U.S. issue, not one that raises concerns about the American mission in Afghanistan.
"It has happened while General Petraeus was out of the country," he says. "He is not someone who is engaged in the day-to-day business in Afghanistan and, for sure, he isn't someone who is influencing the destiny of Afghans, although he was [to a degree] when he was head of the CIA. Since it [didn't affect the country directly], people weren't attentive to it."
Rahmani says a "stronger Afghan reaction" could be expected if General Allen were to fall because of the scandal. He is under investigation for "potentially inappropriate" messages he exchanged with Jill Kelley, a glamorous Florida socialite who reportedly received threatening e-mails from Broadwell.
General Allen has denied an improper relationship with Kelley, and while U.S. President Barack Obama accepted Petraeus's resignation he has expressed "faith" in General Allen.
On November 14, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton attempted to downplay the effect the situation might have on the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
She maintained that U.S. officials have discussed the matter with allied officials.
"There has been a lot of conversation, as you might expect, but no concern whatsoever being expressed to us because the mission has been set forth and it's being carried out," Clinton said at a press conference in Australia.
The most obvious sign that military operations in Afghanistan have not been affected is perhaps apparent in what the Taliban is not saying.
While the militant group has a long history of quickly seizing on U.S. military missteps as a propaganda tool, a week after the scandal broke no strongly-worded statements had yet been issued by the Taliban.
That does not mean it hasn't been noticed; it just appears to be more a source of amusement than a call to arms.
Dangerous Ramifications
In an interview with the AFP news agency this week in northwest Pakistan, a Taliban official reportedly burst into laughter at the mention of the Petraeus affair.
"What a *******! But all Americans are the same, it's nothing new," the unnamed official said. "It's quite normal for Americans and Western people to behave like this -- they live in free-sex societies where nobody cares about this sort of thing, so what do you expect?"
After news broke of General Petraeus's resignation and the investigation into General Allen's actions, Afghan media have largely refrained from commentary and debate.
Ghulam Gilani Zwak, chairman of the TV station KabulNews, says the main reason is because talking about extramarital affairs is seen as a "cultural taboo" in Afghanistan, a deeply religious and conservative country where family matters are kept private and are outside the realm of public debate.
In rare cases where cases of adultery go public, severe punishment awaits. Under Shari'a law, any man or woman found guilty of having a relationship outside marriage or an extramarital affair can be publicly flogged or even stoned to death.
In Zwak's view, the "dangerous" ramifications of illicit scandals in Afghanistan ensure that many of them never come to light, especially if they involve tribal, religious, or government leaders.
"In our society [extramarital affairs] are seen in [a] very bad [light]," he says. "According to our law, [an adulterer] could go to court. Islamic Shari'a law means he could go to jail for several years. A person [found guilty] can also be killed."
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN and TAIMOOR SHAH November 16, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb killed 17 civilians, most of them women and children, on Friday as they traveled to a wedding in western Afghanistan. It was the third time in less than 10 days that a bomb claimed the lives of civilians.
The minivan the group was traveling in hit an improvised explosive device buried in a dirt road in Farah Province, said Abdul Rahman Zawandai, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Nine others in the group were wounded in the blast, including five women and two children.
The area is near a small village named Missezai and is heavily patrolled by Afghan National Army soldiers, the Afghan National Police and the Afghan Local Police, who may have been the intended target, Mr. Zawandai said.
Mohammad Nazir Khidmat, the provincial council chairman, said, “This is the work of the enemies of peace.”
The Taliban frequently plant bombs in this area as a way to kill government officials or members of the Afghan security forces, but, as was the case on Friday, “they bring more casualties to civilians,” Mr. Khidmat said.
On Nov. 10, a roadside bomb attack similar to the one in Farah killed six members of a family returning from a hospital in Khost Province after the birth of a child. The newborn was among the dead. On Nov. 8, a roadside bomb hit a pickup truck in the Musa Qala district of Helmand Province, killing 10 civilians, including five women and a child.
The Taliban and other antigovernment fighters are responsible for about 80 percent of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan, many of which are the result of improvised explosive devices that cause about a third of all the deaths and injuries, according to a midyear report on the conflict by the United Nations. In the first six months of 2012, more than 3,000 civilian deaths and injuries related to the conflict were reported in Afghanistan.
Farah, a province in western Afghanistan, has never had a major contingent of international forces stationed there, and the Taliban have found it easy to move around. Their numbers rose in the past two years as some insurgents from neighboring Helmand Province, which was focus of international efforts during the surge in troop strength, relocated to Farah, Afghan security officials said.
In Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan on Friday, two children were wounded in the Panjwai district, and a member of the Afghan police was killed nearby, according to Afghan officials.
One child was hurt when he was hit by a stray bullet during a firefight between Taliban fighters and the Afghan police. The other child, a 15-year old boy, Abdul Khaliq, was wounded as he returned to his home, which he and his family had fled months before because of fighting nearby. As he was walking through the house, checking for damage, he stepped on a bomb that appeared to have been planted by insurgents, said Hajji Mahmood, the chief of the Panjwai Shura Council.
He lost an arm and a leg in the blast, said Jawad Faisal, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Afghan National Army soldiers rushed to the scene and took the boy to an Afghan military hospital.
The Taliban frequently booby-trap abandoned homes in areas where they are fighting so that the houses cannot be used by Afghan or coalition forces.
In the same area of Panjwai, a roadside bomb struck a police vehicle on Friday, killing one member of the Afghan National Police and wounding another.
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan. Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting from Kabul.
Two foreign soldiers killed in eastern Afghan blast
KABUL, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Two soldiers with the NATO-led coalition force were killed Friday in a bomb explosion in restive eastern Afghanistan, the coalition confirmed.
"Two International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service members died following an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in eastern Afghanistan today," the coalition said in a press release.
The brief statement gave neither the nationalities of the victims nor the details about the incident under the ISAF policy.
A total of 50 countries are contributing to 100,000-strong forces in Afghanistan with over 68,000 of them American mainly stationed in the east and south, followed by 9,500 from UK mainly based in southern Afghanistan.
More than 380 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.
Pakistan Takes Step, Not Leap, Toward Afghan Peace
RFE/RL By Frud Bezhan November 16, 2012
In a move intended to encourage the Taliban to join stalled peace negotiations with the Afghan government, Pakistan this week released at least eight jailed members of that militant group.
The releases, granted by Islamabad after repeated requests, is seen by some as a sign that Pakistan is finally prepared to play a constructive role in jump-starting reconciliation efforts that have yielded little since they began several years ago. Skeptics -- including the Afghan government -- say that while it is a positive step, Islamabad must do much more to prove its commitment to the Kabul-led peace process.
The Afghan government and its Western allies have stepped up efforts to find a political solution to the ongoing battle against Taliban militants. There are fears that the country could descend into civil war or face another Taliban takeover if militants are not brought into a serious peace process before 2014, when the majority of U.S. and NATO-led ISAF troops will leave.
Releases Welcomed
Islamabad is seen as a crucial player in the process. Pakistan's ties to the Taliban date back to the 1990s, when it provided arms, training, and intelligence to the militants. Islamabad was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban government after it took power in Afghanistan in 1996. After the regime's fall in 2001, following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, many Taliban leaders took shelter inside Pakistan.
Pakistan's release of the prisoners, who were reportedly freed late on November 15, has been met with widespread praise -- from the Afghan government to the Taliban to U.S. officials in Kabul.
According to media reports, among the released prisoners are three prominent Taliban: Mullah Nuruddin Turbai, a former justice minister; Allahdad Tabib, former deputy minister of communications; and Mullah Jahangirwal, a special adviser to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Also reportedly released were former Baghlan Province Governor Abdul Salam; former Konduz Province Governor Mowlawi Muhammad; two former government officials, Haji Qutub and Mowlawi Matiullah; and a former senior commander and deputy minister, Sayed Saduddin Agha.
Michael Kugelman, South Asia associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, says that although Pakistan's action is a positive step, the release is only "a single goodwill measure and nothing else."
Kugelman says Pakistan needs to develop a clear policy before it can be said that it has changed course and is willing to play a positive, constructive role in ending the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
"If there's one thing we can say about the Pakistani government, it is that it really doesn't have a clearly defined or strategic policy in terms of how it wants to proceed toward an Afghanistan endgame," Kugelman says. "On the one hand, there's been a lot of talk about having a key role at the negotiating table, but on the other hand there have been mixed messages coming from Islamabad for a number of months and years. It's still unclear what Pakistan wants from all of this."
Taliban Cracks?
Kugelman adds that the Taliban itself is sharply divided on the issue of peace talks. The Taliban, which he describes as a "very diffuse and complex" group, disagrees on how it should proceed with the peace process, with some hard-line Taliban protesting vehemently against participating in negotiations of any kind.
David H. Young, a Washington-based conflict-resolution expert and adjunct fellow at the American Security Project, says Pakistan is unlikely to abandon its policy of maintaining strategic influence in Afghanistan via the Taliban.
Young, who was a civilian adviser to the U.S. Army in eastern Afghanistan, says the prisoner deal is in keeping with Pakistani interests but is unlikely to help the peace process.
Referring to Pakistani intelligence's long-rumored support for the Taliban, Young says that if the country really wants to encourage reconciliation in Afghanistan it should stop the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from financing and arming the Afghan Taliban. Another step, Young says, would be for Islamabad to release Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's former deputy leader who was arrested in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi in February 2010.
Baradar was reportedly at the top of the 40-man wish list of prisoners Kabul wanted Pakistani authorities to release. Young says the fact that Islamabad has neither released nor transferred Baradar for the past two years indicates how reluctant it is to hand over the one figure who is likely to facilitate reconciliation efforts. Baradar was reportedly arrested for facilitating secret talks between Kabul and the Taliban leadership.
Young predicts that Pakistan will drag out the peace process until the Taliban is in a stronger bargaining position, namely after 2014 when international troops leave. For now, he says, small gestures like the release of Taliban prisoners strike a good balance for Pakistan between securing its own interests in Afghanistan, where it seeks a more Islamist government in Kabul, and appearing agreeable to facilitating the peace process.
Mixed Signals
Assuming that Pakistan wants to play an active role in the peace talks, Young says the country will only accept a political settlement in Afghanistan that gives it strategic influence in Kabul and minimizes the role of archrival India.
"[A policy] that involves high-level Taliban involvement in the government, guaranteed number of officials in the various ministries, and something that enables them to save face and say that we have overthrown the [Afghan President] Karzai government or instilled a more fair and stable government," Young says. "A government that is more reflective, in part, of Taliban values in order to keep Pakistan's buffer in southwest and southeast Afghanistan."
The release of the Taliban prisoners in Pakistan came after Salahuddin Rabbani, leader of the Afghan High Peace Council, the presidentially appointed body tasked with negotiating with the Taliban, held talks with senior Pakistani government officials.
Afghanistan's ambassador to Pakistan, Omar Daudzai, has welcomed the release of Taliban prisoners and announced on November 16 that Islamabad has agreed in principle to release even more.
The Taliban has likewise hailed the freeing of its members.
"We consider this as a good step and welcome it," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid was quoted as saying. "We wish to have more prisoners released. This will undoubtedly increase trust between two countries and people."
The release of Taliban prisoners comes after a string of setbacks. In March, the Taliban said they were suspending talks with the United States only weeks after they opened a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar. Kabul objected to the Qatar talks on the basis that they were not Afghan-led.
The Taliban said in a statement that the U.S. approach was "erratic and shaky" and accused Washington of going against their word.
2 insurgents killed in E. Afghanistan: coalition
KABUL, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition troops have eliminated two insurgents and detained two in restive eastern Afghan provinces within a 24-hour period, the coalition forces confirmed in a press release issued from Bagram, the main U.S. base in the country, on Friday.
"Afghan and coalition forces killed two insurgents, detained two and cleared two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) during operations in eastern Afghanistan throughout the past 24 hours," the coalition's Regional Command-East (RC-E) said in the release.
The insurgents were killed in two separate engagements in Logar province some 60 km south of Afghan capital Kabul and Nangarhar province 120 km east of capital.
"Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces found and safely cleared two IEDs in Zarghun Shahr District, Paktika Province 150 km southeast of Kabul."
The Afghan Taliban has launched massive IED attacks against coalition and Afghan national security force in recent years.
Operations in RC-East are still ongoing, the coalition release added.
Taliban insurgent group, who has been waging an insurgency of more than a decade, has yet to make comments.
Pakistan releases 13 Afghan Taliban figures
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan has freed 13 Afghan Taliban figures as a goodwill gesture to the visiting Afghan peace envoy, Salahuddin Rabbani, sources said on Thursday.
Anwar Haq Mujahid, a famous Taliban leader, and eight more operatives were released on Thursday and four were freed days before the visit to Islamabad by Afghan Peace Council, they said.
Afghan delegation had submitted a list of senior Taliban leaders to Pakistan that included four senior Afghan Taliban leaders. Mujahid was in the list and Islamabad, in a first phase, released him and promised to consider the release of others, the sources said.
Mujahid, the son of a known Jehadi leader in eastern Afghanistan, Maulvi Younas Khalis, who died in 2006, had assumed leadership of Hizb-e-Islami party. He was the Taliban commander when he was arrested in Pakistan in 2009.
Sources said that the freed Taliban will not be handed over to the Afghan government and can rejoin family members, go to Afghanistan or any other country, the sources said. They will not be arrested under an agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States.
Afghan government had mentioned nearly 40 Afghan Taliban figures in a list handed over to Pakistan.
Pakistan and Afghan Peace Council have also agreed to form a small bilateral group to establish contact with Taliban, the source said. The group will chalk out a mechanism for contacts with Taliban.
Afghan Economy Slows
Sharon Behn VOA News November 15, 2012
KABUL — For the past 10 years, Afghanistan's economy has been heavily dependent on foreign aid and contracts linked to the needs of thousands of coalition troops. That will largely end in 2014 as foreign combat forces leave the country. The government is downplaying the potential impact, but business owners in Kabul say they are worried about the country's economic future.
Row upon row of heavy construction equipment lies idle along Kabul's Jalalabad Road as international contracts begin to dry up with international forces pulling out. Machines like these had been used to build the heavily fortified bases that coalition troops established around the country.
Business owner Haji Abdul Khalil Ahmadzai used to sell 10 - 15 of these machines a month. Now he is lucky if he sells one.
"The country's situation is getting worse, we can't sell our equipment, or send them out, sometimes the insurgents burn our vehicles," Ahmadzai said. "Our country is going through hard times. Work is slowing down, it's not like it was in the past."
Ahmadzai's worries are echoed across the business community.
In an effort to prevent a steep economic downturn which could further destabilize already weak government institutions, U.S. and Afghan officials are trying to attract investment in the country's mineral, agricultural and energy resources.
Noorullah Delawari, governor of Afghanistan's Central Bank, says the country's GDP growth is healthy and that a pledge of $16 billion in international aid will help.
"We have been given assurance, people are hopeful, we are all hopeful in accordance with agreements we have with the donors that will carry us at least to 2020 even 2024," said Delawari. "So with those negotiated or promised support to Afghanistan, I believe we can carry on our economic activities at the same level we have had as we have in the past few years."
But some say businessmen are beginning to cash their money in for dollars.
Former minister and current economics professor Hamidullah Farooqi says the government has failed to create a healthy economy.
"The majority of our economy is, unfortunately, illegal, and the forces of the mafia system and mafia economy are huge, and that creates enough difficulty for the legal economy, for the economic forces which were in the society," Farooqi noted.
Farooqi predicts even tougher economic times are ahead, if Afghanistan's government doesn't start working harder for its people.
Petraeus Scandal Not Losing Afghan Hearts And Minds
By Frud Bezhan
November 15, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
A sex scandal involving the United States' two most-recent military commanders in Afghanistan might be fueling media frenzy at home, but the response has been surprisingly muted in the Afghan theater of war.
A public relations disaster could have been expected in Afghanistan after retired four-star General David Petraeus, who commanded U.S. forces there from June 2010 to July 2011, resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency after admitting to an extramarital affair.
Some might have predicted enemy forces to seize on the propaganda opportunity when it was announced that his successor as U.S. commander in Afghanistan, four-star Marine General John Allen, came under scrutiny for e-mail exchanges linked to the scandal.
The reactions to previous transgressions involving the U.S. military certainly provided cause for worry: deadly clashes broke out after U.S. soldiers burned copies of the Koran in April, and widespread condemnation followed the release of a video showing American soldiers urinating on the corpses of Taliban militants.
But for the most part, the reaction to the Petraeus scandal has been noticeably subdued in Afghanistan -- whether from the government, the media, or even the Taliban.
It appears that Petraeus's affair with his married biographer, Paula Broadwell, is not the type of thing that loses hearts and minds in Afghanistan.
A Domestic Issue
Waliullah Rahmani, an Afghan social commentator, suggests that much of this can be explained by the fact that General Petraeus is not as involved in Afghanistan as he once was. Many Afghans, Rahmani says, see this as an exclusively domestic U.S. issue, not one that raises concerns about the American mission in Afghanistan.
"It has happened while General Petraeus was out of the country," he says. "He is not someone who is engaged in the day-to-day business in Afghanistan and, for sure, he isn't someone who is influencing the destiny of Afghans, although he was [to a degree] when he was head of the CIA. Since it [didn't affect the country directly], people weren't attentive to it."
Rahmani says a "stronger Afghan reaction" could be expected if General Allen were to fall because of the scandal. He is under investigation for "potentially inappropriate" messages he exchanged with Jill Kelley, a glamorous Florida socialite who reportedly received threatening e-mails from Broadwell.
General Allen has denied an improper relationship with Kelley, and while U.S. President Barack Obama accepted Petraeus's resignation he has expressed "faith" in General Allen.
On November 14, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton attempted to downplay the effect the situation might have on the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
She maintained that U.S. officials have discussed the matter with allied officials.
"There has been a lot of conversation, as you might expect, but no concern whatsoever being expressed to us because the mission has been set forth and it's being carried out," Clinton said at a press conference in Australia.
The most obvious sign that military operations in Afghanistan have not been affected is perhaps apparent in what the Taliban is not saying.
While the militant group has a long history of quickly seizing on U.S. military missteps as a propaganda tool, a week after the scandal broke no strongly-worded statements had yet been issued by the Taliban.
That does not mean it hasn't been noticed; it just appears to be more a source of amusement than a call to arms.
Dangerous Ramifications
In an interview with the AFP news agency this week in northwest Pakistan, a Taliban official reportedly burst into laughter at the mention of the Petraeus affair.
"What a *******! But all Americans are the same, it's nothing new," the unnamed official said. "It's quite normal for Americans and Western people to behave like this -- they live in free-sex societies where nobody cares about this sort of thing, so what do you expect?"
After news broke of General Petraeus's resignation and the investigation into General Allen's actions, Afghan media have largely refrained from commentary and debate.
Ghulam Gilani Zwak, chairman of the TV station KabulNews, says the main reason is because talking about extramarital affairs is seen as a "cultural taboo" in Afghanistan, a deeply religious and conservative country where family matters are kept private and are outside the realm of public debate.
In rare cases where cases of adultery go public, severe punishment awaits. Under Shari'a law, any man or woman found guilty of having a relationship outside marriage or an extramarital affair can be publicly flogged or even stoned to death.
In Zwak's view, the "dangerous" ramifications of illicit scandals in Afghanistan ensure that many of them never come to light, especially if they involve tribal, religious, or government leaders.
"In our society [extramarital affairs] are seen in [a] very bad [light]," he says. "According to our law, [an adulterer] could go to court. Islamic Shari'a law means he could go to jail for several years. A person [found guilty] can also be killed."
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report
www.afghanistannewscenter.com