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Afghanistan produces a roadmap for peace, but does it go anywhere?
A leaked document outlines a timetable for a political settlement and envisages a lead role for Pakistan, at a time Islamabad is also signalling it is keen for a deal
Guardian.co.uk By Julian Borger Monday 17 December
For a conflict in its twelfth year with no let up in the violence, a roadmap to peace sounds too good to be true. But that is what Afghanistan's High Peace Council has come up with. A four-page document which lays out some very clear directions, along with deadlines for a series of ambitious milestones. The question is whether it represents a journey in the real world, and trip into fantasy.
Much of it does indeed read like wishful thinking. The Afghan Peace Process Roadmap to 2015, first revealed by the McClatchy news agency, envisages direct talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban early next year, with Saudi Arabia as the preferred venue, and a ceasefire not long after, along with arrangements for insurgents to be reintegrated and their leaders to be given a slice of power.
The wags are already saying the whole thing should be shelved under 'romantic fiction' but it does include at least one essential element of realism. It acknowledges the centrality of striking a deal with Pakistan, something that Kabul has not always been ready to concede.
Pakistan has likewise changed its narrative in its dealings with the Afghans and the West. The army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani reportedly insists that Pakistan has realised an unstable Afghanistan threatens Pakistan rather than giving it 'strategic depth' against India. According to Masoom Stanekzai the head of the HPC secretariat, the Pakistani general does not even mention India any more in his discussions about Afghanistan. That used to be almost all Pakistani officials would talk about.
So with both capitals making all the right noises, what could possibly go wrong? A lot, it goes without saying. Pakistan does not seem so far to have made any extra effort to rein in insurgent operations launched from its territory. It has released 18 Taliban prisoners as the Afghan government had been demanding. But as the roadmap document states, Kabul wanted the releases - of prisoners who were mostly in Pakistani jail for expressing interest in talks in the first place - to be "to Afghanistan or to any third country in support of confidence building measures". Instead, the prisoners were simply allowed to scarper, and apart from rumours that they had either been re-arrested or gone back to the battle, have not been heard of since.
This is what Michael Semple, a former UN and EU envoy to Afghanistan and a fellow at Harvard's Carr Centre for Human Rights, had to say about it:
These prisoner releases have no clear link to a process. It's not clear the Afghan envoys even know who was being released. Putting militant commanders back on the street can only help peace if they have renounced violence and are committed to persuading others to do the same. There is no evidence of any such assurances in the current initiative.
Meanwhile, the Afghan government's enthusiasm for negotiations would be more encouraging if the Taliban showed more interested in talking to Kabul. The various formulations of the Taliban 'moderate' position have many different nuances but they all have in common a total refusal to talk to Hamid Karzai. It is the reddest of their red lines - a profound animosity that has its roots in Kandahar tribal politics and is given its edge by the insurgents' perception he is a puppet and a traitor.
The Taliban have more enthusiasm for the negotiations with US officials in Qatar, if only because the leadership sees them as a direct route to securing prisoner releases from Guantanamo Bay. That process has stalled because of disagreements over the circumstances of the Guantanamo releases, but could restart in the New Year.
Even in an optimistic scenario, in which the Afghan roadmap is put into action, there will be substantial costs for the Afghan people. The plan grants Pakistan a lot of control over the Taliban, and as Rachel Reid of the Open Society Foundations, points out in a Foreign Policy blog the document is not very reassuring on human rights. It talks about handing out unelected positions to the Taliban, with no limitations for those commanders suspected of war crimes. And it has little to say about women's rights.
Reid argues that it is the duty of the international community to ensure that peace in Afghanistan is not at the expense of justice. The risk is that, come 2014, the desperation to avoid all-out civil war is so strong that human rights appear an easy sacrifice.
Afghan Film Star Found Dead After Kidnapping
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan December 18, 2012
JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Officials in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar Province say actor and film director Zahir Armani has been found dead after being kidnapped earlier this week.
Behsud district head Nematullah, who uses one name, told RFE/RL that Armani's body was discovered on December 18 in a bag.
He said the actor was apparently stabbed with a knife.
Armani is a well-known celebrity in Afghanistan and has starred in more than 20 movies.
With reporting by Pajhwok.com
Security Council Eases Taliban Travel For Peace
December 18, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The United Nations Security Council has announced an easing of restrictions to enable Taliban figures to travel outside Afghanistan for peace talks.
The Security Council on December 17 renewed its sanctions regime against the Afghan Taliban.
But the resolution also invited “the government of Afghanistan, in close coordination" with the Afghan High Peace Council, to submit for consideration the names of blacklisted individuals whose presence is “necessary” at meetings outside Afghanistan in support of peace and reconciliation.
There are 132 individuals and four entities on the Security Council’s sanctions list.
The Security Council move came as reports said officials from the Afghan government, representatives of the Taliban, and other factions were expected to meet this week near the French capital, Paris, for talks on Afghanistan’s future.
The Taliban, which was ousted from Kabul after Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network perpetrated the 9/11 attacks against the United States, has continued its armed insurgency against Afghanistan's central government.
Based on reporting from Reuters and AFP
Gunmen Kill Polio Workers in Pakistan
VOA News December 18, 2012
Pakistani officials say unidentified gunmen have opened fire on polio vaccination workers, killing at least five people.
Police say at least three people were killed in a series of attacks in the port city of Karachi Tuesday and a fourth person died in a similar incident in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Several health workers were wounded.
Authorities say a fifth polio worker was shot and killed in Karachi Monday. Investigators say most of the attacks appear to have been carried out by gunmen on motorbikes.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the attacks have taken place during a three-day nationwide anti-polio drive.
The Taliban has condemned previous polio campaigns as cover for spying.
The militant group began voicing opposition to the health program after a Pakistani doctor was imprisoned for helping U.S. intelligence agents run a fake hepatitis vaccination program aimed at locating then-fugitive al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. Some militants also blame the vaccine itself for causing harm.
In July, armed men killed a Pakistani doctor working for the World Health Organization on a national immunization campaign.
The health minister of Sindhi province stopped the anti-polio drive in the Karachi region, on Tuesday, as a result of the shootings.
Meanwhile, officials say the death toll from a marketplace explosion in northwest Pakistan on Monday has risen to 21.
The car bombing attack occurred near government offices in the town of Jamrud, part of the Khyber tribal district. More than 40 people were wounded.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Khyber is home to various Islamic militant groups, including the Pakistani Taliban, which have waged a bloody insurgency against the government for several years.
Pullout of NATO forces could badly hit Afghan construction industry
By Farid Behbud, Chen Xin
KABUL, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- The construction industry in Afghanistan would be badly hit with the impending withdrawal of NATO-led coalition forces from the war-ravaged country and the continued threat from militant groups.
"The construction business hasn't been very well recently. It' s going to get worse after the military's announcement of a two- year security transition," Akram Shah, 38, a construction company owner, said.
Construction firms have complained that the road and building construction market had suffered a slump over the past few years.
On Pul-i-Charkhi road, a highway linking the capital Kabul to eastern provinces, the construction companies have parked road- building equipment to attract customers and clinch contracts.
"The violence and fighting are not the only obstacles. The administrative corruption and the extortion by officials have also affected our business," Shah told Xinhua.
The transition of security control from 100,000-strong NATO-led troops, most of them Americans, to Afghan forces is due to complete by the end of 2014.
"Without adequate security, no one dares to invest in any field, particularly in the construction industry. No construction company will have the courage to send workers and machineries to a construction site where security is lax and there is constant threat to the lives of workers and the construction company's equipment," Shah said.
Shah said most of his customers were foreign forces and foreign companies that mostly rent his equipment. He set up his company nearly 11 years ago.
"After all the foreigners would pull out, who will rent our machines?" Shah asked.
The Taliban, who ruled the country before they were ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, renewed armed insurgency, staging ambush and suicide attacks, killing combatants as well as civilians.
In May this year, the Taliban launched annual spring offensive against Afghan and NATO forces.
They also warned local constriction and logistic firms not to make a deal with foreigners and the government.
The militants have frequently attacked the local companies over the past decade. In one incident, up to 24 workers were killed and 59 wounded when three suicide bombers struck a construction site in Barmal district of Paktika province in early 2011.
"Why would we stay here now that we can do business somewhere else? If the threat persists, I and my stockholders would decide to move our assets to neighboring countries or even to Dubai," Shah said.
However, the Afghan government has recently announced that the Afghan army and police will take over full control of security from foreign forces by the end of 2013, a year ahead of schedule.
"There is no need to worry over the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan," Afghan President Hamid Karzai told a gathering of Afghan ambassadors and diplomats in his fortified palace on Saturday, adding the pullout of foreign troops from Afghanistan would not worsen the security situation in the country, rather it would help in stabilizing the country.
Not all construction dealers share Shah's negative assessment of the situation in Afghanistan.
"Some American troops will stay after 2014 to help us secure the country. The government is now negotiating a security pact with the Americans," Aman with Hajji Sarwar Construction Company said.
"I know that the business is not as good as two years ago. I think it will take the construction industry time to recover. But without doubt, the uncertainty would end the moment the local security forces can prove that they are capable of providing security to the country," said Aman, 41, who like many Afghans, goes only by one name.
According to Karzai, even if the NATO-led forces leave Afghanistan, international financial support for the war-ravaged country will continue to pour in.
During an international aid conference in Japan in July, the donor countries pledged more than 16 billion U.S. dollars in development aid for Afghanistan through 2015.
The U.S. and its NATO allies also promised almost the same amount to support Afghan army and police after the pullout of their troops.
"I don't want to see another civil war and stifle here as we saw after the withdrawal of the Russian forces in 1990s," Karzai said.
Voter Registration Key to Success of Elections: IEC
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Monday, 17 December 2012
The Independent Election Commission warned Monday that the success of the 2014 presidential elections depends on successful voter registration, which can't commence unless a new registration plan is passed by parliament.
"Success in voter registration is in fact success in the elections. If this project fails, we will not have a successful election," IEC Fazl Ahmad Manawi said. He added that successful voter registration will help curb electoral fraud, leading to a resolution of "at least 50 percent of the election issues."
Manawi said that after consulting with the government, political parties and the civil society, a new plan for voter registration is prepared and the IEC has asked parliament to approve it as soon as possible.
The IEC has also asked parliament to fast-track the approval of the another, more controversial legislation, the new election law. Parliament and the administration are at loggerheads over several of its provisions, including the presence of two foreign observers in the Electoral Complains Commission. A recent draft of the law approved by the Council of Ministers removed the ECC altogether, relegating its responsibilities to the Supreme Court.
"If the [election] law is not passed soon, it will cause us serious operational problems. We are hopeful the law will be passed as soon as possible; otherwise, the commission will have no other option except referring to the previous law, which will clearly have the problems of the past," Manavi said.
Voter registration is scheduled to start late April 2013 and will cost approximately $30 million, according to the new plan.
According to the IEC statistics, the registration will take four months in the districts and five more months in the centers of the provinces. About 12 million Afghans will be registered.
In Sign of Normalization, Pentagon to Reimburse Pakistan $688 Million
New York Times By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER December 17, 2012
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon quietly notified Congress this month that it would reimburse Pakistan nearly $700 million for the cost of stationing 140,000 troops on the border with Afghanistan, an effort to normalize support for the Pakistani military after nearly two years of crises and mutual retaliation.
The biggest proponent of putting foreign aid and military reimbursements to Pakistan on a steady footing is the man President Barack Obama is leaning toward naming as secretary of state: Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. Mr. Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has frequently served as an envoy to Pakistan, including after the killing of Osama bin Laden, and was a co-author of a law that authorized five years and about $7.5 billion of nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan.
The United States also provides about $2 billion in annual security assistance, roughly half of which goes to reimburse Pakistan for conducting military operations to fight terrorism.
Until now, many of these reimbursements, called coalition support funds, have been held up, in part because of disputes with Pakistan over the Bin Laden raid, the operations of the C.I.A., and its decision to block supply lines into Afghanistan last year.
The $688 million payment — the first since this summer, covering food, ammunition and other expenses from June through November 2011 — has caused barely a ripple of protest since it was sent to Capitol Hill on Dec. 7.
The absence of a reaction, American and Pakistani officials say, underscores how relations between the two countries have been gradually thawing since Pakistan reopened the NATO supply routes in July after an apology from the Obama administration for an errant American airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November 2011.
Mr. Kerry’s nomination would be welcomed in Pakistan, where he is seen as perhaps the most sympathetic to Pakistani concerns of any senior lawmaker. He has nurtured relationships with top civilian and military officials, as well as the I.S.I., Pakistan’s most powerful intelligence agency.
But if he becomes secretary of state, Mr. Kerry will inherit one of the hardest diplomatic tasks in South Asia: helping Pakistan find a role in steering Afghanistan toward a political agreement with the Taliban. As the United States, which tried and failed to broker such an agreement, begins to step back, Pakistan’s role is increasing.
For a relationship rocked in the past two years by a C.I.A. contractor’s shooting of two Pakistanis, the Navy SEAL raid that killed Bin Laden and the accidental airstrike, perhaps the most remarkable event in recent months has been relative calm. A senior American official dealing with Pakistan said recently that “this is the longest we’ve gone in a while without a crisis.”
Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said, “Pakistan-United States relations are settling down to a more stable trajectory.”
The interlude has allowed the United States to reduce the huge backlog of NATO supplies at the border — down to about 3,000 containers from 7,000 when the border crossings reopened — and to conduct dry runs for the tons of equipment that will flow out of Afghanistan to Pakistani ports when the American drawdown steps up early next year.
Moreover, the two sides have resumed a series of high-level meetings — capped by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s meeting this month with top Pakistani officials in Brussels — on a range of topics including counterterrorism, economic cooperation, energy and the security of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal.
Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, concurred. “There’s greater convergence between the two countries than there has been in eight years,” she said. “It’s been a fairly quick kiss and make up, but it’s been driven by the approaching urgency of 2014, and by their shared desire for a stable outcome in the region.”
The one exception to the state of calm has been a tense set of discussions about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. United States officials have told their Pakistani colleagues that Islamabad’s move to smaller, more portable weapons creates a greater risk that one could be stolen or diverted. A delegation of American nuclear experts was in Pakistan last week, but found that the two countries had fundamentally divergent views about whether Pakistan’s changes to its arsenal pose a danger.
The greatest progress, officials say, has been in the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan, after years of mutual recrimination. A high-level Afghan delegation visited Pakistan in November, resulting in the release of several midlevel Taliban commanders from Pakistani jails as a sign of good will in restarting the peace process.
The United States, which was quietly in the background of those meetings, approved of the release of the prisoners, but has still held back on releasing five militants from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a key Taliban demand.
One American official said there was a “big push” to move the talks process forward during the current winter lull in fighting. The United States is quietly seeking to revive a peace channel in Qatar, which was frozen earlier this year after the Taliban refused to participate.
Despite the easing of tensions in recent months, there are still plenty of sore spots in the relationship.
Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero, who heads the Pentagon agency responsible for combating roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, told a Senate hearing last week that Pakistan’s efforts to stem the flow of a common agricultural fertilizer, calcium ammonium nitrate, that Taliban insurgents use to make roadside bombs had fallen woefully short.
“Our Pakistani partners can and must do more,” General Barbero told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing.
American officials have also all but given up on Pakistan’s carrying out a clearing operation in North Waziristan, a major militant safe haven.
“Pakistan’s continued acceptance of sanctuaries for Afghan-focused insurgents and failure to interdict I.E.D. materials and components continue to undermine the security of Afghanistan and pose an enduring threat to U.S., coalition and Afghan forces,” a Pentagon report, mandated by Congress, concluded last week.
Declan Walsh contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.
Afghanistan Seeks Taxes From Contractors to U.S.
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE December 17, 2012
KABUL - Afghanistan has launched tax audits of major contractors to the U.S. military, government officials say, in a bid to shore up the country's finances as the international military presence winds down and reconstruction funds dry up.
In particular, Kabul is focusing on the U.S. military's main food supplier in Afghanistan, Supreme Foodservice GmbH, alleging that the company and similar logistics firms are abusing their status to illegally bring taxable goods into the country for resale.
Supreme says it isn't engaging in any commercial activity in Afghanistan that should make it liable for taxes.
Kabul's move potentially puts the Afghan government at odds with Washington, which has viewed, with limited caveats, materials imported to support the 66,000 U.S. forces here as exempt from taxation and customs fees. Since 2005, the Pentagon spent more than $7.9 billion on its food-supply contract with Supreme alone, awarding the company an additional $1.5 billion extension contract this past summer.
Contractors working for the U.S. government have collectively "evaded hundreds of millions" of dollars in legitimate Afghan taxes every year by engaging in commercial transactions that aren't supposed to be exempt from taxation, Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal said in an interview.
"Most of them have violated our tax law," Mr. Zakhilwal said. "Now they are coming more into compliance."
U.S. officials have taken a different view. A 2003 bilateral agreement states the U.S. government, "its military and civilian personnel, contractors, and contractor personnel shall not be liable to pay any tax or similar fees assessed within Afghanistan." A subsequent 2004 Military Technical Agreement also carved out a tax-free status for contractors to the U.S., a view that has been reinforced by U.S. officials in correspondence with Afghan officials.
"Typically, in bilateral agreements with governments around the world, civilian assistance has not been taxed," said a U.S. official.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a U.S. government watchdog, is currently conducting its own inquiry into the Afghan government's imposition of taxes, tariffs and fees on materials imported for U.S.-funded reconstruction programs. The agency disclosed the audit in a recent quarterly report.
Since 2001, the U.S. has allocated nearly $90 billion for reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, work that is largely performed by contractors. The U.S. military also depends on private firms to deliver food, fuel and other supplies to bases around the country.
At issue is more than the interpretation of the bilateral agreements that govern customs clearances and tax issues for contractors.
As international aid winds down, Afghanistan will need to offset the billions currently provided by the U.S. and the international community to sustain the country's economy and pay for its military. Afghanistan last year took in around $2 billion in total revenue, according to the country's finance ministry. Donors expect the country will need as much $8 billion per year in international assistance, more than half of it to fund the army and the police, for at least another decade. An expected revenue boom from mining and natural-resource exploitation has been slow to materialize; the sector currently contributes only $100 million or so a year, according to Afghan officials.
Afghanistan's Large Taxpayer Office, which oversees tax collection for around 300 large companies and provides about 60% of the country's tax income, has been working to bring in more revenue, according to its director, Subhanullah Fahimi. Several contractors "are under very serious audit" for alleged tax violations and back taxes, he said.
"They enter their cargo, their fuel, under the name of exempt cargo," he said. "But they sell it on the market."
Mr. Fahimi singled out Supreme, a unit of Netherlands-based Supreme Group that has been a food supplier to U.S. and coalition forces since 2002, for belatedly registering as a taxpayer in Afghanistan. "Until 2011, 2010, they did not file any tax return," he said. "They had no record with the Ministry of Finance. No record. No tax payment, no compliance, no filing of tax returns. Nothing."
Mr. Fahimi said the company was now "making good," paying up to $20 million over the past two to three years to resolve tax issues.
Supreme, in a statement provided to The Wall Street Journal, said it had been unable to resolve its taxation issues. The main problem, the company said, was the Afghan government's unwillingness to follow agreements that exempt contractors supporting the military mission in Afghanistan from taxes.
"We do not engage in any commercial activity in Afghanistan," Supreme's statement said. "The fundamental cause of this issue is the reluctance of [the government of Afghanistan] to adhere to the two bilateral agreements. Clearly, therefore, the resolution of the matter is outside of the control of Supreme Group."
It isn't clear whether U.S. taxpayers would ultimately have to refund the military contractors if they are forced to pay taxes to Kabul that, according to U.S. interpretation, contravene bilateral agreements.
The U.S. Agency for International Development "has a very clear bilateral agreement that development assistance is not subject to Afghan tax," said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel of the Professional Services Council, a trade group that represents government contractors. "Not quite so with contractors who are supporting Defense or State Department or others."
"It's of interest to the government of Afghanistan to generate revenue—even the U.S. government has been encouraging them to find sources of revenue to support their infrastructure," Mr. Chvotkin said. "Therein lies the challenge."
Several Afghan and international contractors contacted by the Journal declined to comment. Mr. Chvotkin said many companies were reluctant to speak publicly about the issue because of continuing negotiations with the Afghan government about their tax bills.
A person involved in logistics issues said the matter could come to a head if the Afghan government imposes fees or restrictions on cargo that slows the delivery of goods to forward operating bases, or FOBs.
"We've been told [by the coalition] to reduce stocks. So they'll run out of fuel and they'll go on MREs on some of these FOBs," the person said, referring to the military's packaged rations. "And little Johnny's going to call Mom, and that's now going to be all over the press."
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
Afghan Woman Carves Out An Entrepreneurial Niche
NPR By Sean Carberry December 17, 2012
Behind a tall metal gate in a nondescript nook of Kabul sits the Bamboo Wood Industries factory. It's not a place you're likely to stumble across by accident. Inside, a handful of men are cutting, painting and assembling desks and cabinets. The pieces being made are chocolate brown and quite modern looking.
Sitting in a spartan, unheated office above the factory floor is Fatima Jafari, the owner of the company. The 30-something woman started the business a little over a year ago.
"Before I came back to Afghanistan, I lived in Iran. There, it was so difficult for Afghan women to find a job and earn some money. There, I decided to make a job, make an opportunity for other Afghan women to work together," Jafari says.
So while in Iran, she organized carpentry work for Afghan women.
"And after I came back to Afghanistan, and after I had some personal problems in my life, I decided to start a business," Jafari says.
She didn't want to go into detail about the personal problem, but it involved separating from her husband.
"That problem make me [want] to work more and try more to go forward with my life," Jafari says.
Launching The Business
So, with nothing more than an eight-week business course at the American University of Afghanistan, and the help of a cousin who is a successful businessman, Jafari started her company. But it has been a struggle. Her cousin, who runs an interior design business, is her only customer so far.
"We don't have any problem with the quality of our products. But the problem we are facing is we don't have any customers, and I don't have any budget that I can spend on advertising," Jafari says.
She has been submitting bids to prospective clients, but even when they say they love her products, she doesn't get the contract. Is it because she's a woman in male-dominated Afghanistan?
"Maybe, because in this business, people don't expect that a woman can run a business like my business, as wood industry," Jafari says.
But, Jafari suspects the real reason is corruption — she's not paying anyone off to give her the contracts.
It's often a struggle to keep the operation going. Sometimes there is no work for weeks at a time. But she still pays the 12 men who work on the factory floor.
"I pay them every month because I cannot tell them that this week there's no work, you have to go home. If I do that, I will lose them," Jafari says.
She doesn't want to lose them because she says they are good workers and they respect a woman as the boss. That's not easy to find in Afghanistan.
She has tried to get help from the Ministry of Women's Affairs and has met with some other women's groups, but so far they have not been able to help her with the business.
"I would like to work with foreign organizations as well, especially embassies and the NGOs, but unfortunately they are leaving Afghanistan and I have to concentrate on the local markets," Jafari says.
But she says it's tough to sell a quality product on the local market.
"This desk, for example, is an L-shaped desk and it costs about $500. People pay more than this price to buy Turkish products because they trust Turkish products, but local products, they cannot trust on local products because of the quality," Jafari says.
Her goal right now is to find financial help so she can open her own showroom and prove to Afghans that local products can be as good as anyone else's.
Insight: Afghans turn to AK-47, fearing Taliban return or civil war
Reuters By Martin Petty Mon Dec 17, 2012
KABUL - Afghan father-of-four Mohammad Nasir has a secret he's been keeping from his family.
The aid worker pulls a television bench out from the living-room wall of his Kabul home. Behind it is a carved out shelf, hiding what he hopes will keep loved ones safe when Western troops withdraw by the end of 2014 -- an AK-47 assault rifle.
Arms purchases are soaring in Afghanistan, along with the price of weapons, a sign that many Afghans fear a return of the Taliban, civil war or rising lawlessness.
An assault rifle cost $400 a year ago. Today, some arms dealers are selling them for triple the price.
And it's not just ordinary Afghans who are buying. Warlords who control militias, and former anti-Soviet mujahideen fighters are also boosting the trade.
"Whenever you turn on the TV or radio, the discussion is 2014. I'm not feeling safe now, it's become like doomsday for Afghans," said Nasir, 48, storing the polished second-hand rifle and slamming the TV unit back against the wall.
"People are saying security will collapse, or soldiers will join warlords or the Taliban, so we need something to protect our families when there's a crisis."
The brisk arms business is complicating the government's efforts to pacify a country where the Taliban can strike virtually anywhere, ethnic tensions can easily ignite violence, and warlords are constantly jockeying for influence.
Afghanistan wants to project an image of stability ahead of 2014, a critical year when presidential elections will be held and the 350,000 Afghan security force will take over security.
Any upheaval could also encourage regional powers like Iran and Pakistan to try and gain influence before the Afghan endgame, a widespread fear among officials and ordinary Afghans.
President Hamid Karzai calls the talk of chaos, Western media "propaganda", and says Afghan security forces have made great progress.
But for many Afghans, the threat of a descent into chaos is real so a growing number are investing in weapons, despite exorbitant costs. The average Afghan family earns only about $200 a month.
FEAR OF 2014 BATTLEFIELDS
Reuters spoke to buyers and sellers of illegal arms in five provinces and each cited the foreign troop withdrawal as the main driver of the underground trade.
"More people are buying weapons now, some to protect themselves from kidnappers and robbers and others in anticipation of things getting worse," said a Kabul resident in his fruit shop, where a verse from the Koran on the wall calls for God to guide Muslims on a straight path.
He bought a handgun illegally for $500, a model his dealer says now fetches $1,000.
"If the situation changes in 2014 this area will once again become a battlefield between former warlords who are still powerful," he said.
The government has highlighted 2014 as a year to invest in Afghanistan, which has relied on foreign aid for its economic lifeline, and take advantage of its cheap labor and land leases. Last month it held a televised conference promoting the country's natural resources and its industrial potential.
In the 10 years following 2014, the government hopes revenues from oil, natural gas, iron, copper and other mining ventures will generate $4 billion in annual revenue.
But in the north, which is home to untapped oil and gas resources, warlords and their supporters are now re-arming for fear militants may seize power again, say residents.
Afghanistan's largest foreign investment project, the Aynak copper deposit in Logar province, lies in one of the country's most dangerous regions just south of the capital, Kabul.
Rocket attacks this year saw its Chinese workers temporarily flee the project, which is run by China Metallurgical Group (MCC) and Jiangxi Copper.
AK-47: A LEGACY OF WAR
Afghanistan has seen little peace in three decades. The American-backed mujahideen drove out the Russians in 1989 after 10 years of occupation, but American interest faded quickly.
Much of Kabul was later destroyed in a civil war and more than 50,000 civilians killed. The Taliban rose from the ashes of that conflict and imposed their austere brand of Islam.
Afghans fear they will be abandoned by the United States once again. Most don't want the Taliban to return, so they are determined to protect themselves.
And there are plenty of weapons; arms left over from the war against the Soviets, guns smuggled over the porous border with Pakistan and those sold by former mujahideen commanders.
Russian or Pakistani-made AK-47 assault rifles are the biggest sellers, followed by light machineguns. In some areas, the militias go for rocket-propelled grenades.
To avoid arrest, arms dealers and sellers operate by word of mouth, avoiding cellphones which may be tapped by authorities. Deals are sealed in restaurants, homes or busy street markets.
Afghan authorities say they've had success in seizures of illegal firearms but concede that in a country with a turbulent history, their efforts may have little impact.
The government was deeply embarrassed when Energy and Water Minister Ismail Khan, an influential former warlord, recently called on militias to rearm to protect Afghanistan after 2014.
General Mohammed Najib Aman, a deputy of the anti-terrorism department at the Interior Ministry, denies the illegal gun trade is flourishing.
"Buying and selling of weapon, without being authorized, is...illegal and they will be arrested," Aman told Reuters.
The government is encouraging people to seek licenses for weapons so the authorities can track guns. Aman estimates between 30,000 and 40,000 gun licenses have been issued.
But the positive message from the government and NATO-led force runs counter to the unease on the streets, where the Afghan security force has gained little public confidence.
"In my area there are lots of kidnappings, robbery and other criminal activities and also lots of fear of 2014," said Shir Ali, speaking in his pharmacy in northern Kunduz Province. "I bought this very expensive Kalashnikov to protest my family."
'GUN CULTURE' ENTRENCHED
At least 57 foreign troops have been killed by rogue Afghan security personnel this year. That figure represents about 13 percent of ISAF deaths in Afghanistan in 2012.
Lieutenant General James Terry, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the country's "gun culture" was partly to blame.
"This is a society that's really been traumatized by 30-plus years of war," Terry said. "We also understand that a lot of grievances and dispute resolutions are done, frankly, at the barrel of a gun."
Former mujahideen commanders in particular are cashing-in on the insecurity, using their wartime connections to acquire handguns and rifles and sell at inflated prices.
Islamuddin laid down his weapons after the Taliban was ousted in 2001, and became a used car salesman. These days that's a front for his real money-making business.
He now sells light machine guns for 150,000 Afghanis ($2,900), double the value a year ago, and AK-47s for 60,000 Afghanis ($1,150), triple that of last year.
"People are worried, so they're buying guns now because they might not be able to buy one when they most need it," he said sitting in a hotel restaurant.
Militias also look to be heeding Ismail Khan's call to arms.
"The number of sales and the price of guns has gone up and former mujahideen commanders who served warlords are buying more and more from us every day," said one seller. "They're anticipating civil war once the foreign troops leave."
Not all Afghans expect a war. Waheed Mujhda, a politics expert at the Afghan Analytical and Advisory Centre, said even warlords realized renewed civil conflict would not help anyone.
"Having so many people owning guns is a big problem for the government, but it's not a political problem," he said. "There may be small conflicts after 2014, but civil war is unlikely. The last time, it was a failure that no one wants to see again."
But a growing number of people are not taking any chances.
"I'm sure if something goes wrong in 2014, I'll face lots of problems," said Nasir. "If the Taliban return to power they'll kill me because I work with the government. If warlords come to power it's bad news for everyone."
(Additional reporting by Folad Hamdard in KUNDUZ and David Alexander in WASHINGTON; Editing by Michael Georgy and Michael Perry)
Germany to continue supporting Afghanistan after 2014
KABUL, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- The visiting German President Joachim Gauck said Tuesday that his country will continue supporting Afghanistan after 2014 when the NATO-led coalition forces leave the conflict-ridden country.
"Germany and the international community will continue to support Afghanistan after 2014," Gauck told a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The German president described his country's relations with Afghanistan as cordial and historic.
Gauck began a two-day trip to Afghanistan on Monday to visit the German troops and hold talks with Afghan leaders.
It is Gauck's first visit to the war-torn country since he took office in March this year.
President Karzai thanked Gauck and the people of Germany for their support to Afghanistan over the past decade.
More than 4,300 German troops have been serving in Afghanistan within the framework of 100,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The German troops are mostly stationed in northern Kunduz, Balkh and Badakhshan provinces.
The transition of security control from the NATO-led troops to Afghan forces is due to complete by the end of 2014.
A total of 53 German soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan so far.
Hizb-e-Islami Welcomes Atta's Comments on Potential Electoral Alliance
TOLOnews.com By Karim Amini Monday, 17 December 2012
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's political party, Hizb-e-Islami, has welcomed Balkh governor and potential presidential contender Atta Mohammad Noor's comments that he could consider an alliance with the party.
"We welcome Balkh Governor's comments and his goodwill, but we haven't made a final decision to participate in the elections," Hizb-e-Islami spokesman Ghairat Bahir told TOLOnews in a phone interview. "It is still too early for forming alliances," he added.
Bahir also commented on the ongoing debate about the new electoral law. His party does not accept the presence of the two foreigners in the seven-person Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), but opposes a draft plan from the Council of Ministers to scrap the body altogether.
"The Electoral Complaints Commission should exist but without the two foreigners. The Commission is effective in addressing complaints," Bahir said.
Governor Atta Noor has also voiced support for the continued existence of the ECC. The Right and Justice Party joined the chorus of support Monday, adding that it sees the presence of the two foreigners in the body as important.
The Right and Justice Party also expressed its willingness to enter into a coalition with "any party that stands for the good of the country, be it Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami or the Taliban if they disarm."
7 Taliban insurgents killed in operations in Afghanistan
KABUL, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police have killed seven Taliban insurgents in different provinces within one-day operations, as the security forces continue to press the militants, the country's Ministry of Interior said Tuesday.
"Afghan National Police (ANP) in partnership with the army and the NATO-led coalition forces conducted nine cleanup operations in Kabul, Kunduz, Wardak, Logar, Khost and Helmand province over the past 24 hours, killing seven armed Taliban insurgents," the ministry said in a statement.
The ANP also found weapons besides defusing five Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) as a result of the operations, it said.
Up to seven insurgent were wounded and four others detained by the ANP during the above raids, it added.
The Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments.
In addition, three Taliban were killed when Afghan police and army responded to a Taliban attack against checkpoints in Duhab district in Nuristan province 180 km east of capital city of Kabul early Tuesday morning, provincial police chief Ghulam Ullah told Xinhua.
The Afghan forces and some 100,000 coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militants recently but the insurgents in retaliation responded by carrying out suicide and IED attacks.
Taliban on Monday carried out a suicide car bomb attack against a U.S. company named "Contract" in charge of providing military and logistic services to security forces, killing two local employees and wounding 15 other civilians in eastern Kabul.
Paris Meeting Will Have 'No Positive Result': High Peace Official
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Monday, 17 December 2012
The Paris meeting between Afghan and Taliban leaders on 20 Dec. will not result in concrete progress toward peace, a High Peace Council official said Monday.
Speaking to TOLOnews, Deputy Chair of the Afghan High Peace Council Ataullah Lodin said that as Taliban have repeatedly declined to negotiate with the Afghan government, the meeting will fail to bring any progress.
"The High Peace Council welcomes any peace negotiation, but I think this meeting will have no positive results in bringing peace because the Taliban have clearly stated they don't want to negotiate peace," Lodin said, adding that no "official" government representative will attend the meeting he called "symbolic."
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday that individual representatives of the Afghan government, the Taliban and other political parties will meet in Paris to discuss peace in the post-2014 Afghanistan.
"They have been invited on an individual basis," he said." The idea is to get them to talk freely and behind closed doors," he told Reuters, adding that there would be 20 participants. He declined to say who were attending.
But reports suggest that National Coalition leader Abdullah Abdullah and Afghanistan National Front leader Ahmad Zia Massoud will attend the meeting.
The Afghan government has made repeated overtures to the Taliban to bring them to the negotiating table. The Taliban have rebuffed all such attempts, calling Karzai's administration a "puppet government." They continue to reject recent media accounts that they are ready to meet with government officials in Paris.
Karzai Bemoans Country's Health Sector Challenges
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Monday, 17 December 2012
President Hamid Karzai raised concerns Sunday over the lack of standard health facilities in Afghanistan and expressed disapproval at the use of intimidation by security officials to obtain free health care for relatives.
Addressing the National Conference on the Improvement of Medical Ethics in Afghanistan, he noted that Afghanistan is among the countries with the least developed health care and science sectors.
"We need lots of time to improve the quality of the medical sector; however, we are trying hard to make progress," he said.
Karzai acknowledged that some members of the Afghan security forces intimidate medical care providers to treat their relatives for free and vowed to discuss the issue with the relevant government organs.
"One of the ICRC's (International Committee of the Red Cross) leaders told me that security forces are using intimidation to get treatment for their relatives," Karzai said. "No one should use force or their official position to treat their patients."
Insecurity, the insurgency and a lack of medical facilities and equipment are some of the main challenges to offering basic health care to the Afghan people.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
A leaked document outlines a timetable for a political settlement and envisages a lead role for Pakistan, at a time Islamabad is also signalling it is keen for a deal
Guardian.co.uk By Julian Borger Monday 17 December
For a conflict in its twelfth year with no let up in the violence, a roadmap to peace sounds too good to be true. But that is what Afghanistan's High Peace Council has come up with. A four-page document which lays out some very clear directions, along with deadlines for a series of ambitious milestones. The question is whether it represents a journey in the real world, and trip into fantasy.
Much of it does indeed read like wishful thinking. The Afghan Peace Process Roadmap to 2015, first revealed by the McClatchy news agency, envisages direct talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban early next year, with Saudi Arabia as the preferred venue, and a ceasefire not long after, along with arrangements for insurgents to be reintegrated and their leaders to be given a slice of power.
The wags are already saying the whole thing should be shelved under 'romantic fiction' but it does include at least one essential element of realism. It acknowledges the centrality of striking a deal with Pakistan, something that Kabul has not always been ready to concede.
Pakistan has likewise changed its narrative in its dealings with the Afghans and the West. The army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani reportedly insists that Pakistan has realised an unstable Afghanistan threatens Pakistan rather than giving it 'strategic depth' against India. According to Masoom Stanekzai the head of the HPC secretariat, the Pakistani general does not even mention India any more in his discussions about Afghanistan. That used to be almost all Pakistani officials would talk about.
So with both capitals making all the right noises, what could possibly go wrong? A lot, it goes without saying. Pakistan does not seem so far to have made any extra effort to rein in insurgent operations launched from its territory. It has released 18 Taliban prisoners as the Afghan government had been demanding. But as the roadmap document states, Kabul wanted the releases - of prisoners who were mostly in Pakistani jail for expressing interest in talks in the first place - to be "to Afghanistan or to any third country in support of confidence building measures". Instead, the prisoners were simply allowed to scarper, and apart from rumours that they had either been re-arrested or gone back to the battle, have not been heard of since.
This is what Michael Semple, a former UN and EU envoy to Afghanistan and a fellow at Harvard's Carr Centre for Human Rights, had to say about it:
These prisoner releases have no clear link to a process. It's not clear the Afghan envoys even know who was being released. Putting militant commanders back on the street can only help peace if they have renounced violence and are committed to persuading others to do the same. There is no evidence of any such assurances in the current initiative.
Meanwhile, the Afghan government's enthusiasm for negotiations would be more encouraging if the Taliban showed more interested in talking to Kabul. The various formulations of the Taliban 'moderate' position have many different nuances but they all have in common a total refusal to talk to Hamid Karzai. It is the reddest of their red lines - a profound animosity that has its roots in Kandahar tribal politics and is given its edge by the insurgents' perception he is a puppet and a traitor.
The Taliban have more enthusiasm for the negotiations with US officials in Qatar, if only because the leadership sees them as a direct route to securing prisoner releases from Guantanamo Bay. That process has stalled because of disagreements over the circumstances of the Guantanamo releases, but could restart in the New Year.
Even in an optimistic scenario, in which the Afghan roadmap is put into action, there will be substantial costs for the Afghan people. The plan grants Pakistan a lot of control over the Taliban, and as Rachel Reid of the Open Society Foundations, points out in a Foreign Policy blog the document is not very reassuring on human rights. It talks about handing out unelected positions to the Taliban, with no limitations for those commanders suspected of war crimes. And it has little to say about women's rights.
Reid argues that it is the duty of the international community to ensure that peace in Afghanistan is not at the expense of justice. The risk is that, come 2014, the desperation to avoid all-out civil war is so strong that human rights appear an easy sacrifice.
Afghan Film Star Found Dead After Kidnapping
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan December 18, 2012
JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Officials in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar Province say actor and film director Zahir Armani has been found dead after being kidnapped earlier this week.
Behsud district head Nematullah, who uses one name, told RFE/RL that Armani's body was discovered on December 18 in a bag.
He said the actor was apparently stabbed with a knife.
Armani is a well-known celebrity in Afghanistan and has starred in more than 20 movies.
With reporting by Pajhwok.com
Security Council Eases Taliban Travel For Peace
December 18, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The United Nations Security Council has announced an easing of restrictions to enable Taliban figures to travel outside Afghanistan for peace talks.
The Security Council on December 17 renewed its sanctions regime against the Afghan Taliban.
But the resolution also invited “the government of Afghanistan, in close coordination" with the Afghan High Peace Council, to submit for consideration the names of blacklisted individuals whose presence is “necessary” at meetings outside Afghanistan in support of peace and reconciliation.
There are 132 individuals and four entities on the Security Council’s sanctions list.
The Security Council move came as reports said officials from the Afghan government, representatives of the Taliban, and other factions were expected to meet this week near the French capital, Paris, for talks on Afghanistan’s future.
The Taliban, which was ousted from Kabul after Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network perpetrated the 9/11 attacks against the United States, has continued its armed insurgency against Afghanistan's central government.
Based on reporting from Reuters and AFP
Gunmen Kill Polio Workers in Pakistan
VOA News December 18, 2012
Pakistani officials say unidentified gunmen have opened fire on polio vaccination workers, killing at least five people.
Police say at least three people were killed in a series of attacks in the port city of Karachi Tuesday and a fourth person died in a similar incident in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Several health workers were wounded.
Authorities say a fifth polio worker was shot and killed in Karachi Monday. Investigators say most of the attacks appear to have been carried out by gunmen on motorbikes.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the attacks have taken place during a three-day nationwide anti-polio drive.
The Taliban has condemned previous polio campaigns as cover for spying.
The militant group began voicing opposition to the health program after a Pakistani doctor was imprisoned for helping U.S. intelligence agents run a fake hepatitis vaccination program aimed at locating then-fugitive al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. Some militants also blame the vaccine itself for causing harm.
In July, armed men killed a Pakistani doctor working for the World Health Organization on a national immunization campaign.
The health minister of Sindhi province stopped the anti-polio drive in the Karachi region, on Tuesday, as a result of the shootings.
Meanwhile, officials say the death toll from a marketplace explosion in northwest Pakistan on Monday has risen to 21.
The car bombing attack occurred near government offices in the town of Jamrud, part of the Khyber tribal district. More than 40 people were wounded.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Khyber is home to various Islamic militant groups, including the Pakistani Taliban, which have waged a bloody insurgency against the government for several years.
Pullout of NATO forces could badly hit Afghan construction industry
By Farid Behbud, Chen Xin
KABUL, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- The construction industry in Afghanistan would be badly hit with the impending withdrawal of NATO-led coalition forces from the war-ravaged country and the continued threat from militant groups.
"The construction business hasn't been very well recently. It' s going to get worse after the military's announcement of a two- year security transition," Akram Shah, 38, a construction company owner, said.
Construction firms have complained that the road and building construction market had suffered a slump over the past few years.
On Pul-i-Charkhi road, a highway linking the capital Kabul to eastern provinces, the construction companies have parked road- building equipment to attract customers and clinch contracts.
"The violence and fighting are not the only obstacles. The administrative corruption and the extortion by officials have also affected our business," Shah told Xinhua.
The transition of security control from 100,000-strong NATO-led troops, most of them Americans, to Afghan forces is due to complete by the end of 2014.
"Without adequate security, no one dares to invest in any field, particularly in the construction industry. No construction company will have the courage to send workers and machineries to a construction site where security is lax and there is constant threat to the lives of workers and the construction company's equipment," Shah said.
Shah said most of his customers were foreign forces and foreign companies that mostly rent his equipment. He set up his company nearly 11 years ago.
"After all the foreigners would pull out, who will rent our machines?" Shah asked.
The Taliban, who ruled the country before they were ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, renewed armed insurgency, staging ambush and suicide attacks, killing combatants as well as civilians.
In May this year, the Taliban launched annual spring offensive against Afghan and NATO forces.
They also warned local constriction and logistic firms not to make a deal with foreigners and the government.
The militants have frequently attacked the local companies over the past decade. In one incident, up to 24 workers were killed and 59 wounded when three suicide bombers struck a construction site in Barmal district of Paktika province in early 2011.
"Why would we stay here now that we can do business somewhere else? If the threat persists, I and my stockholders would decide to move our assets to neighboring countries or even to Dubai," Shah said.
However, the Afghan government has recently announced that the Afghan army and police will take over full control of security from foreign forces by the end of 2013, a year ahead of schedule.
"There is no need to worry over the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan," Afghan President Hamid Karzai told a gathering of Afghan ambassadors and diplomats in his fortified palace on Saturday, adding the pullout of foreign troops from Afghanistan would not worsen the security situation in the country, rather it would help in stabilizing the country.
Not all construction dealers share Shah's negative assessment of the situation in Afghanistan.
"Some American troops will stay after 2014 to help us secure the country. The government is now negotiating a security pact with the Americans," Aman with Hajji Sarwar Construction Company said.
"I know that the business is not as good as two years ago. I think it will take the construction industry time to recover. But without doubt, the uncertainty would end the moment the local security forces can prove that they are capable of providing security to the country," said Aman, 41, who like many Afghans, goes only by one name.
According to Karzai, even if the NATO-led forces leave Afghanistan, international financial support for the war-ravaged country will continue to pour in.
During an international aid conference in Japan in July, the donor countries pledged more than 16 billion U.S. dollars in development aid for Afghanistan through 2015.
The U.S. and its NATO allies also promised almost the same amount to support Afghan army and police after the pullout of their troops.
"I don't want to see another civil war and stifle here as we saw after the withdrawal of the Russian forces in 1990s," Karzai said.
Voter Registration Key to Success of Elections: IEC
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Monday, 17 December 2012
The Independent Election Commission warned Monday that the success of the 2014 presidential elections depends on successful voter registration, which can't commence unless a new registration plan is passed by parliament.
"Success in voter registration is in fact success in the elections. If this project fails, we will not have a successful election," IEC Fazl Ahmad Manawi said. He added that successful voter registration will help curb electoral fraud, leading to a resolution of "at least 50 percent of the election issues."
Manawi said that after consulting with the government, political parties and the civil society, a new plan for voter registration is prepared and the IEC has asked parliament to approve it as soon as possible.
The IEC has also asked parliament to fast-track the approval of the another, more controversial legislation, the new election law. Parliament and the administration are at loggerheads over several of its provisions, including the presence of two foreign observers in the Electoral Complains Commission. A recent draft of the law approved by the Council of Ministers removed the ECC altogether, relegating its responsibilities to the Supreme Court.
"If the [election] law is not passed soon, it will cause us serious operational problems. We are hopeful the law will be passed as soon as possible; otherwise, the commission will have no other option except referring to the previous law, which will clearly have the problems of the past," Manavi said.
Voter registration is scheduled to start late April 2013 and will cost approximately $30 million, according to the new plan.
According to the IEC statistics, the registration will take four months in the districts and five more months in the centers of the provinces. About 12 million Afghans will be registered.
In Sign of Normalization, Pentagon to Reimburse Pakistan $688 Million
New York Times By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER December 17, 2012
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon quietly notified Congress this month that it would reimburse Pakistan nearly $700 million for the cost of stationing 140,000 troops on the border with Afghanistan, an effort to normalize support for the Pakistani military after nearly two years of crises and mutual retaliation.
The biggest proponent of putting foreign aid and military reimbursements to Pakistan on a steady footing is the man President Barack Obama is leaning toward naming as secretary of state: Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. Mr. Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has frequently served as an envoy to Pakistan, including after the killing of Osama bin Laden, and was a co-author of a law that authorized five years and about $7.5 billion of nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan.
The United States also provides about $2 billion in annual security assistance, roughly half of which goes to reimburse Pakistan for conducting military operations to fight terrorism.
Until now, many of these reimbursements, called coalition support funds, have been held up, in part because of disputes with Pakistan over the Bin Laden raid, the operations of the C.I.A., and its decision to block supply lines into Afghanistan last year.
The $688 million payment — the first since this summer, covering food, ammunition and other expenses from June through November 2011 — has caused barely a ripple of protest since it was sent to Capitol Hill on Dec. 7.
The absence of a reaction, American and Pakistani officials say, underscores how relations between the two countries have been gradually thawing since Pakistan reopened the NATO supply routes in July after an apology from the Obama administration for an errant American airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November 2011.
Mr. Kerry’s nomination would be welcomed in Pakistan, where he is seen as perhaps the most sympathetic to Pakistani concerns of any senior lawmaker. He has nurtured relationships with top civilian and military officials, as well as the I.S.I., Pakistan’s most powerful intelligence agency.
But if he becomes secretary of state, Mr. Kerry will inherit one of the hardest diplomatic tasks in South Asia: helping Pakistan find a role in steering Afghanistan toward a political agreement with the Taliban. As the United States, which tried and failed to broker such an agreement, begins to step back, Pakistan’s role is increasing.
For a relationship rocked in the past two years by a C.I.A. contractor’s shooting of two Pakistanis, the Navy SEAL raid that killed Bin Laden and the accidental airstrike, perhaps the most remarkable event in recent months has been relative calm. A senior American official dealing with Pakistan said recently that “this is the longest we’ve gone in a while without a crisis.”
Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said, “Pakistan-United States relations are settling down to a more stable trajectory.”
The interlude has allowed the United States to reduce the huge backlog of NATO supplies at the border — down to about 3,000 containers from 7,000 when the border crossings reopened — and to conduct dry runs for the tons of equipment that will flow out of Afghanistan to Pakistani ports when the American drawdown steps up early next year.
Moreover, the two sides have resumed a series of high-level meetings — capped by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s meeting this month with top Pakistani officials in Brussels — on a range of topics including counterterrorism, economic cooperation, energy and the security of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal.
Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, concurred. “There’s greater convergence between the two countries than there has been in eight years,” she said. “It’s been a fairly quick kiss and make up, but it’s been driven by the approaching urgency of 2014, and by their shared desire for a stable outcome in the region.”
The one exception to the state of calm has been a tense set of discussions about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. United States officials have told their Pakistani colleagues that Islamabad’s move to smaller, more portable weapons creates a greater risk that one could be stolen or diverted. A delegation of American nuclear experts was in Pakistan last week, but found that the two countries had fundamentally divergent views about whether Pakistan’s changes to its arsenal pose a danger.
The greatest progress, officials say, has been in the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan, after years of mutual recrimination. A high-level Afghan delegation visited Pakistan in November, resulting in the release of several midlevel Taliban commanders from Pakistani jails as a sign of good will in restarting the peace process.
The United States, which was quietly in the background of those meetings, approved of the release of the prisoners, but has still held back on releasing five militants from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a key Taliban demand.
One American official said there was a “big push” to move the talks process forward during the current winter lull in fighting. The United States is quietly seeking to revive a peace channel in Qatar, which was frozen earlier this year after the Taliban refused to participate.
Despite the easing of tensions in recent months, there are still plenty of sore spots in the relationship.
Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero, who heads the Pentagon agency responsible for combating roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, told a Senate hearing last week that Pakistan’s efforts to stem the flow of a common agricultural fertilizer, calcium ammonium nitrate, that Taliban insurgents use to make roadside bombs had fallen woefully short.
“Our Pakistani partners can and must do more,” General Barbero told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing.
American officials have also all but given up on Pakistan’s carrying out a clearing operation in North Waziristan, a major militant safe haven.
“Pakistan’s continued acceptance of sanctuaries for Afghan-focused insurgents and failure to interdict I.E.D. materials and components continue to undermine the security of Afghanistan and pose an enduring threat to U.S., coalition and Afghan forces,” a Pentagon report, mandated by Congress, concluded last week.
Declan Walsh contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.
Afghanistan Seeks Taxes From Contractors to U.S.
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE December 17, 2012
KABUL - Afghanistan has launched tax audits of major contractors to the U.S. military, government officials say, in a bid to shore up the country's finances as the international military presence winds down and reconstruction funds dry up.
In particular, Kabul is focusing on the U.S. military's main food supplier in Afghanistan, Supreme Foodservice GmbH, alleging that the company and similar logistics firms are abusing their status to illegally bring taxable goods into the country for resale.
Supreme says it isn't engaging in any commercial activity in Afghanistan that should make it liable for taxes.
Kabul's move potentially puts the Afghan government at odds with Washington, which has viewed, with limited caveats, materials imported to support the 66,000 U.S. forces here as exempt from taxation and customs fees. Since 2005, the Pentagon spent more than $7.9 billion on its food-supply contract with Supreme alone, awarding the company an additional $1.5 billion extension contract this past summer.
Contractors working for the U.S. government have collectively "evaded hundreds of millions" of dollars in legitimate Afghan taxes every year by engaging in commercial transactions that aren't supposed to be exempt from taxation, Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal said in an interview.
"Most of them have violated our tax law," Mr. Zakhilwal said. "Now they are coming more into compliance."
U.S. officials have taken a different view. A 2003 bilateral agreement states the U.S. government, "its military and civilian personnel, contractors, and contractor personnel shall not be liable to pay any tax or similar fees assessed within Afghanistan." A subsequent 2004 Military Technical Agreement also carved out a tax-free status for contractors to the U.S., a view that has been reinforced by U.S. officials in correspondence with Afghan officials.
"Typically, in bilateral agreements with governments around the world, civilian assistance has not been taxed," said a U.S. official.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a U.S. government watchdog, is currently conducting its own inquiry into the Afghan government's imposition of taxes, tariffs and fees on materials imported for U.S.-funded reconstruction programs. The agency disclosed the audit in a recent quarterly report.
Since 2001, the U.S. has allocated nearly $90 billion for reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, work that is largely performed by contractors. The U.S. military also depends on private firms to deliver food, fuel and other supplies to bases around the country.
At issue is more than the interpretation of the bilateral agreements that govern customs clearances and tax issues for contractors.
As international aid winds down, Afghanistan will need to offset the billions currently provided by the U.S. and the international community to sustain the country's economy and pay for its military. Afghanistan last year took in around $2 billion in total revenue, according to the country's finance ministry. Donors expect the country will need as much $8 billion per year in international assistance, more than half of it to fund the army and the police, for at least another decade. An expected revenue boom from mining and natural-resource exploitation has been slow to materialize; the sector currently contributes only $100 million or so a year, according to Afghan officials.
Afghanistan's Large Taxpayer Office, which oversees tax collection for around 300 large companies and provides about 60% of the country's tax income, has been working to bring in more revenue, according to its director, Subhanullah Fahimi. Several contractors "are under very serious audit" for alleged tax violations and back taxes, he said.
"They enter their cargo, their fuel, under the name of exempt cargo," he said. "But they sell it on the market."
Mr. Fahimi singled out Supreme, a unit of Netherlands-based Supreme Group that has been a food supplier to U.S. and coalition forces since 2002, for belatedly registering as a taxpayer in Afghanistan. "Until 2011, 2010, they did not file any tax return," he said. "They had no record with the Ministry of Finance. No record. No tax payment, no compliance, no filing of tax returns. Nothing."
Mr. Fahimi said the company was now "making good," paying up to $20 million over the past two to three years to resolve tax issues.
Supreme, in a statement provided to The Wall Street Journal, said it had been unable to resolve its taxation issues. The main problem, the company said, was the Afghan government's unwillingness to follow agreements that exempt contractors supporting the military mission in Afghanistan from taxes.
"We do not engage in any commercial activity in Afghanistan," Supreme's statement said. "The fundamental cause of this issue is the reluctance of [the government of Afghanistan] to adhere to the two bilateral agreements. Clearly, therefore, the resolution of the matter is outside of the control of Supreme Group."
It isn't clear whether U.S. taxpayers would ultimately have to refund the military contractors if they are forced to pay taxes to Kabul that, according to U.S. interpretation, contravene bilateral agreements.
The U.S. Agency for International Development "has a very clear bilateral agreement that development assistance is not subject to Afghan tax," said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel of the Professional Services Council, a trade group that represents government contractors. "Not quite so with contractors who are supporting Defense or State Department or others."
"It's of interest to the government of Afghanistan to generate revenue—even the U.S. government has been encouraging them to find sources of revenue to support their infrastructure," Mr. Chvotkin said. "Therein lies the challenge."
Several Afghan and international contractors contacted by the Journal declined to comment. Mr. Chvotkin said many companies were reluctant to speak publicly about the issue because of continuing negotiations with the Afghan government about their tax bills.
A person involved in logistics issues said the matter could come to a head if the Afghan government imposes fees or restrictions on cargo that slows the delivery of goods to forward operating bases, or FOBs.
"We've been told [by the coalition] to reduce stocks. So they'll run out of fuel and they'll go on MREs on some of these FOBs," the person said, referring to the military's packaged rations. "And little Johnny's going to call Mom, and that's now going to be all over the press."
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
Afghan Woman Carves Out An Entrepreneurial Niche
NPR By Sean Carberry December 17, 2012
Behind a tall metal gate in a nondescript nook of Kabul sits the Bamboo Wood Industries factory. It's not a place you're likely to stumble across by accident. Inside, a handful of men are cutting, painting and assembling desks and cabinets. The pieces being made are chocolate brown and quite modern looking.
Sitting in a spartan, unheated office above the factory floor is Fatima Jafari, the owner of the company. The 30-something woman started the business a little over a year ago.
"Before I came back to Afghanistan, I lived in Iran. There, it was so difficult for Afghan women to find a job and earn some money. There, I decided to make a job, make an opportunity for other Afghan women to work together," Jafari says.
So while in Iran, she organized carpentry work for Afghan women.
"And after I came back to Afghanistan, and after I had some personal problems in my life, I decided to start a business," Jafari says.
She didn't want to go into detail about the personal problem, but it involved separating from her husband.
"That problem make me [want] to work more and try more to go forward with my life," Jafari says.
Launching The Business
So, with nothing more than an eight-week business course at the American University of Afghanistan, and the help of a cousin who is a successful businessman, Jafari started her company. But it has been a struggle. Her cousin, who runs an interior design business, is her only customer so far.
"We don't have any problem with the quality of our products. But the problem we are facing is we don't have any customers, and I don't have any budget that I can spend on advertising," Jafari says.
She has been submitting bids to prospective clients, but even when they say they love her products, she doesn't get the contract. Is it because she's a woman in male-dominated Afghanistan?
"Maybe, because in this business, people don't expect that a woman can run a business like my business, as wood industry," Jafari says.
But, Jafari suspects the real reason is corruption — she's not paying anyone off to give her the contracts.
It's often a struggle to keep the operation going. Sometimes there is no work for weeks at a time. But she still pays the 12 men who work on the factory floor.
"I pay them every month because I cannot tell them that this week there's no work, you have to go home. If I do that, I will lose them," Jafari says.
She doesn't want to lose them because she says they are good workers and they respect a woman as the boss. That's not easy to find in Afghanistan.
She has tried to get help from the Ministry of Women's Affairs and has met with some other women's groups, but so far they have not been able to help her with the business.
"I would like to work with foreign organizations as well, especially embassies and the NGOs, but unfortunately they are leaving Afghanistan and I have to concentrate on the local markets," Jafari says.
But she says it's tough to sell a quality product on the local market.
"This desk, for example, is an L-shaped desk and it costs about $500. People pay more than this price to buy Turkish products because they trust Turkish products, but local products, they cannot trust on local products because of the quality," Jafari says.
Her goal right now is to find financial help so she can open her own showroom and prove to Afghans that local products can be as good as anyone else's.
Insight: Afghans turn to AK-47, fearing Taliban return or civil war
Reuters By Martin Petty Mon Dec 17, 2012
KABUL - Afghan father-of-four Mohammad Nasir has a secret he's been keeping from his family.
The aid worker pulls a television bench out from the living-room wall of his Kabul home. Behind it is a carved out shelf, hiding what he hopes will keep loved ones safe when Western troops withdraw by the end of 2014 -- an AK-47 assault rifle.
Arms purchases are soaring in Afghanistan, along with the price of weapons, a sign that many Afghans fear a return of the Taliban, civil war or rising lawlessness.
An assault rifle cost $400 a year ago. Today, some arms dealers are selling them for triple the price.
And it's not just ordinary Afghans who are buying. Warlords who control militias, and former anti-Soviet mujahideen fighters are also boosting the trade.
"Whenever you turn on the TV or radio, the discussion is 2014. I'm not feeling safe now, it's become like doomsday for Afghans," said Nasir, 48, storing the polished second-hand rifle and slamming the TV unit back against the wall.
"People are saying security will collapse, or soldiers will join warlords or the Taliban, so we need something to protect our families when there's a crisis."
The brisk arms business is complicating the government's efforts to pacify a country where the Taliban can strike virtually anywhere, ethnic tensions can easily ignite violence, and warlords are constantly jockeying for influence.
Afghanistan wants to project an image of stability ahead of 2014, a critical year when presidential elections will be held and the 350,000 Afghan security force will take over security.
Any upheaval could also encourage regional powers like Iran and Pakistan to try and gain influence before the Afghan endgame, a widespread fear among officials and ordinary Afghans.
President Hamid Karzai calls the talk of chaos, Western media "propaganda", and says Afghan security forces have made great progress.
But for many Afghans, the threat of a descent into chaos is real so a growing number are investing in weapons, despite exorbitant costs. The average Afghan family earns only about $200 a month.
FEAR OF 2014 BATTLEFIELDS
Reuters spoke to buyers and sellers of illegal arms in five provinces and each cited the foreign troop withdrawal as the main driver of the underground trade.
"More people are buying weapons now, some to protect themselves from kidnappers and robbers and others in anticipation of things getting worse," said a Kabul resident in his fruit shop, where a verse from the Koran on the wall calls for God to guide Muslims on a straight path.
He bought a handgun illegally for $500, a model his dealer says now fetches $1,000.
"If the situation changes in 2014 this area will once again become a battlefield between former warlords who are still powerful," he said.
The government has highlighted 2014 as a year to invest in Afghanistan, which has relied on foreign aid for its economic lifeline, and take advantage of its cheap labor and land leases. Last month it held a televised conference promoting the country's natural resources and its industrial potential.
In the 10 years following 2014, the government hopes revenues from oil, natural gas, iron, copper and other mining ventures will generate $4 billion in annual revenue.
But in the north, which is home to untapped oil and gas resources, warlords and their supporters are now re-arming for fear militants may seize power again, say residents.
Afghanistan's largest foreign investment project, the Aynak copper deposit in Logar province, lies in one of the country's most dangerous regions just south of the capital, Kabul.
Rocket attacks this year saw its Chinese workers temporarily flee the project, which is run by China Metallurgical Group (MCC) and Jiangxi Copper.
AK-47: A LEGACY OF WAR
Afghanistan has seen little peace in three decades. The American-backed mujahideen drove out the Russians in 1989 after 10 years of occupation, but American interest faded quickly.
Much of Kabul was later destroyed in a civil war and more than 50,000 civilians killed. The Taliban rose from the ashes of that conflict and imposed their austere brand of Islam.
Afghans fear they will be abandoned by the United States once again. Most don't want the Taliban to return, so they are determined to protect themselves.
And there are plenty of weapons; arms left over from the war against the Soviets, guns smuggled over the porous border with Pakistan and those sold by former mujahideen commanders.
Russian or Pakistani-made AK-47 assault rifles are the biggest sellers, followed by light machineguns. In some areas, the militias go for rocket-propelled grenades.
To avoid arrest, arms dealers and sellers operate by word of mouth, avoiding cellphones which may be tapped by authorities. Deals are sealed in restaurants, homes or busy street markets.
Afghan authorities say they've had success in seizures of illegal firearms but concede that in a country with a turbulent history, their efforts may have little impact.
The government was deeply embarrassed when Energy and Water Minister Ismail Khan, an influential former warlord, recently called on militias to rearm to protect Afghanistan after 2014.
General Mohammed Najib Aman, a deputy of the anti-terrorism department at the Interior Ministry, denies the illegal gun trade is flourishing.
"Buying and selling of weapon, without being authorized, is...illegal and they will be arrested," Aman told Reuters.
The government is encouraging people to seek licenses for weapons so the authorities can track guns. Aman estimates between 30,000 and 40,000 gun licenses have been issued.
But the positive message from the government and NATO-led force runs counter to the unease on the streets, where the Afghan security force has gained little public confidence.
"In my area there are lots of kidnappings, robbery and other criminal activities and also lots of fear of 2014," said Shir Ali, speaking in his pharmacy in northern Kunduz Province. "I bought this very expensive Kalashnikov to protest my family."
'GUN CULTURE' ENTRENCHED
At least 57 foreign troops have been killed by rogue Afghan security personnel this year. That figure represents about 13 percent of ISAF deaths in Afghanistan in 2012.
Lieutenant General James Terry, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the country's "gun culture" was partly to blame.
"This is a society that's really been traumatized by 30-plus years of war," Terry said. "We also understand that a lot of grievances and dispute resolutions are done, frankly, at the barrel of a gun."
Former mujahideen commanders in particular are cashing-in on the insecurity, using their wartime connections to acquire handguns and rifles and sell at inflated prices.
Islamuddin laid down his weapons after the Taliban was ousted in 2001, and became a used car salesman. These days that's a front for his real money-making business.
He now sells light machine guns for 150,000 Afghanis ($2,900), double the value a year ago, and AK-47s for 60,000 Afghanis ($1,150), triple that of last year.
"People are worried, so they're buying guns now because they might not be able to buy one when they most need it," he said sitting in a hotel restaurant.
Militias also look to be heeding Ismail Khan's call to arms.
"The number of sales and the price of guns has gone up and former mujahideen commanders who served warlords are buying more and more from us every day," said one seller. "They're anticipating civil war once the foreign troops leave."
Not all Afghans expect a war. Waheed Mujhda, a politics expert at the Afghan Analytical and Advisory Centre, said even warlords realized renewed civil conflict would not help anyone.
"Having so many people owning guns is a big problem for the government, but it's not a political problem," he said. "There may be small conflicts after 2014, but civil war is unlikely. The last time, it was a failure that no one wants to see again."
But a growing number of people are not taking any chances.
"I'm sure if something goes wrong in 2014, I'll face lots of problems," said Nasir. "If the Taliban return to power they'll kill me because I work with the government. If warlords come to power it's bad news for everyone."
(Additional reporting by Folad Hamdard in KUNDUZ and David Alexander in WASHINGTON; Editing by Michael Georgy and Michael Perry)
Germany to continue supporting Afghanistan after 2014
KABUL, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- The visiting German President Joachim Gauck said Tuesday that his country will continue supporting Afghanistan after 2014 when the NATO-led coalition forces leave the conflict-ridden country.
"Germany and the international community will continue to support Afghanistan after 2014," Gauck told a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The German president described his country's relations with Afghanistan as cordial and historic.
Gauck began a two-day trip to Afghanistan on Monday to visit the German troops and hold talks with Afghan leaders.
It is Gauck's first visit to the war-torn country since he took office in March this year.
President Karzai thanked Gauck and the people of Germany for their support to Afghanistan over the past decade.
More than 4,300 German troops have been serving in Afghanistan within the framework of 100,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The German troops are mostly stationed in northern Kunduz, Balkh and Badakhshan provinces.
The transition of security control from the NATO-led troops to Afghan forces is due to complete by the end of 2014.
A total of 53 German soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan so far.
Hizb-e-Islami Welcomes Atta's Comments on Potential Electoral Alliance
TOLOnews.com By Karim Amini Monday, 17 December 2012
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's political party, Hizb-e-Islami, has welcomed Balkh governor and potential presidential contender Atta Mohammad Noor's comments that he could consider an alliance with the party.
"We welcome Balkh Governor's comments and his goodwill, but we haven't made a final decision to participate in the elections," Hizb-e-Islami spokesman Ghairat Bahir told TOLOnews in a phone interview. "It is still too early for forming alliances," he added.
Bahir also commented on the ongoing debate about the new electoral law. His party does not accept the presence of the two foreigners in the seven-person Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), but opposes a draft plan from the Council of Ministers to scrap the body altogether.
"The Electoral Complaints Commission should exist but without the two foreigners. The Commission is effective in addressing complaints," Bahir said.
Governor Atta Noor has also voiced support for the continued existence of the ECC. The Right and Justice Party joined the chorus of support Monday, adding that it sees the presence of the two foreigners in the body as important.
The Right and Justice Party also expressed its willingness to enter into a coalition with "any party that stands for the good of the country, be it Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami or the Taliban if they disarm."
7 Taliban insurgents killed in operations in Afghanistan
KABUL, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police have killed seven Taliban insurgents in different provinces within one-day operations, as the security forces continue to press the militants, the country's Ministry of Interior said Tuesday.
"Afghan National Police (ANP) in partnership with the army and the NATO-led coalition forces conducted nine cleanup operations in Kabul, Kunduz, Wardak, Logar, Khost and Helmand province over the past 24 hours, killing seven armed Taliban insurgents," the ministry said in a statement.
The ANP also found weapons besides defusing five Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) as a result of the operations, it said.
Up to seven insurgent were wounded and four others detained by the ANP during the above raids, it added.
The Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments.
In addition, three Taliban were killed when Afghan police and army responded to a Taliban attack against checkpoints in Duhab district in Nuristan province 180 km east of capital city of Kabul early Tuesday morning, provincial police chief Ghulam Ullah told Xinhua.
The Afghan forces and some 100,000 coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militants recently but the insurgents in retaliation responded by carrying out suicide and IED attacks.
Taliban on Monday carried out a suicide car bomb attack against a U.S. company named "Contract" in charge of providing military and logistic services to security forces, killing two local employees and wounding 15 other civilians in eastern Kabul.
Paris Meeting Will Have 'No Positive Result': High Peace Official
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Monday, 17 December 2012
The Paris meeting between Afghan and Taliban leaders on 20 Dec. will not result in concrete progress toward peace, a High Peace Council official said Monday.
Speaking to TOLOnews, Deputy Chair of the Afghan High Peace Council Ataullah Lodin said that as Taliban have repeatedly declined to negotiate with the Afghan government, the meeting will fail to bring any progress.
"The High Peace Council welcomes any peace negotiation, but I think this meeting will have no positive results in bringing peace because the Taliban have clearly stated they don't want to negotiate peace," Lodin said, adding that no "official" government representative will attend the meeting he called "symbolic."
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday that individual representatives of the Afghan government, the Taliban and other political parties will meet in Paris to discuss peace in the post-2014 Afghanistan.
"They have been invited on an individual basis," he said." The idea is to get them to talk freely and behind closed doors," he told Reuters, adding that there would be 20 participants. He declined to say who were attending.
But reports suggest that National Coalition leader Abdullah Abdullah and Afghanistan National Front leader Ahmad Zia Massoud will attend the meeting.
The Afghan government has made repeated overtures to the Taliban to bring them to the negotiating table. The Taliban have rebuffed all such attempts, calling Karzai's administration a "puppet government." They continue to reject recent media accounts that they are ready to meet with government officials in Paris.
Karzai Bemoans Country's Health Sector Challenges
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Monday, 17 December 2012
President Hamid Karzai raised concerns Sunday over the lack of standard health facilities in Afghanistan and expressed disapproval at the use of intimidation by security officials to obtain free health care for relatives.
Addressing the National Conference on the Improvement of Medical Ethics in Afghanistan, he noted that Afghanistan is among the countries with the least developed health care and science sectors.
"We need lots of time to improve the quality of the medical sector; however, we are trying hard to make progress," he said.
Karzai acknowledged that some members of the Afghan security forces intimidate medical care providers to treat their relatives for free and vowed to discuss the issue with the relevant government organs.
"One of the ICRC's (International Committee of the Red Cross) leaders told me that security forces are using intimidation to get treatment for their relatives," Karzai said. "No one should use force or their official position to treat their patients."
Insecurity, the insurgency and a lack of medical facilities and equipment are some of the main challenges to offering basic health care to the Afghan people.
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