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A fight for Afghanistan’s most famous artifact
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff Sunday, December 30, 2012
KANDAHAR - For 250 years, Masood Akhundzada’s family has protected Afghanistan’s most sacred artifact: a cloak said to have been worn by the prophet Muhammad. Its power drew Afghan kings and presidents and Taliban leaders to a small, blue shrine in a city conquered by Alexander the Great and contested ever since.
By the time Akhundzada inherited the guardianship in 2008, it was an honor that came at a high price. Five previous guardians — his father, brothers and cousins — had been assassinated, shot in their offices, in markets and airports. They were hunted, most believed, for their connection to a piece of Islamic history that the insurgency wanted desperately to reclaim.
When Akhundzada, a large man with a wild beard and an easy smile, accepted the keys to the shrine, he also bought a gun. There’s no law, he said, that prevents a mullah from being armed if his life is in danger.
The fight between the Taliban and the Afghan government, which will almost certainly continue beyond America’s military drawdown, is as much a war over symbols as territory. Some of those symbols are ordinary Korans and mosques, stand-ins for the religiosity of warriors on both sides of the battlefield. Some are more specific and sacred, like the cloak under Akhundzada’s care, whose significance has prompted even American paranoia over its fate.
Many Afghans worry that if Kandahar slips further into anarchy after the 2014 drawdown, most famous of symbols could go with it, leaving its protectors at the dangerous intersection of rhetorical and physical battlefields.
Most residents of Kandahar say the story of the Akhundzada assassinations begins in 1996, when one-eyed Taliban leader Mohammad Omar visited the Shrine of the Cloak. The Taliban had recently taken control of the city and was on its way to Kabul.
“Here I am. Let me see it,” Omar told Qari Shawali, Akhundzada’s brother, according to witnesses.
For more than two centuries, since the cloak was brought to Kandahar by Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani, the family allowed only recognized leaders of Afghanistan to view it. But given Omar’s massive popularity in the country’s Pashtun south — and the army of men who accompanied him to the mosque — the guardians felt obliged to allow him into the shrine’s furthest reaches, unlocking the doors, safes and boxes that kept the cloak hidden from the public.
“We couldn’t object,” said Akhundzada. “He was the commander.”
The family didn’t anticipate Omar’s next move: He carried the cloak to the roof of a mosque in central Kandahar a week later. As thousands gathered below him, he put his wrists into the garment’s short sleeves. Taliban mullahs exclaimed, “Amir-ul momineen!” or “Commander of the Faithful!”
It was seen as a pivotal moment in Omar’s ascent from the poorly educated son of a farmer to leader of Afghanistan and protagonist in a global jihad. Months after putting on the cloak, Osama bin Laden came to Kandahar to commend Omar.
‘There it was’
The cloak had always been a symbol of power — the people of Kandahar attribute their province’s famously delicious fruit to its presence. For years it was unveiled to quell hysteria in the aftermath of natural disasters.
But suddenly its image was everywhere: in foreign newspapers, intelligence reports and Taliban propaganda pamphlets. Akhundzada’s relatives, who considered themselves neutral protectors of the sacred, were suddenly thrust into Afghanistan’s bloody political arena.
They had some experience in that unwanted role. During the Soviet occupation, Akhundzada’s father was killed when militants demanded that the cloak be taken out of Afghanistan — and away from perceived anti-Islamic influence — but he refused.
This time, though, the problem was inverted: The new leaders of Afghanistan were Islamist extremists who saw the cloak as the source of their power. Suddenly, Akhundzada and his brothers and cousins found themselves protecting their jewel on behalf of the Taliban.
For centuries, regime change in Afghanistan had been ceaseless. The family might hand the cloak to a king one day and his usurper months later. Their survival hinged on their neutrality. If Akhundzada’s ancestors were seen as politically involved — as anything other than the cloak’s guardians — their lives would be endangered.
As soon as the Taliban took power there was cause for concern: Akhundzada’s brother, Mohammed Mehadi, a former guardian of the cloak, was killed in Pakistan’s Karachi airport.
“That’s when we really got worried,” Akhundzada said.
He knew the Taliban would eventually fall. But would Omar attempt to take the cloak with him? How would he and his brothers transition from protecting the cloak for Omar to keeping it from him?
That transition happened in December 2001, as dramatic and chaotic as anyone in Kandahar had expected. When it was over, the cloak had a new rightful heir: Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
“The Shrine of the Cloak is an important place not just for the president, but for all Afghans and all Muslims,” said Aimal Faizi, Karzai’s spokesman.
But amid the commotion, some U.S. officials worried that the Taliban had escaped with the cloak.
“They needed us to make sure that it was still there. There was a real concern that if the cloak was stolen, it would be a blow to Karzai,” said Khalid Pashtoon, a Kandahar parliamentarian.
With Karzai’s approval, then-Kandahar Governor Gul Agha Sherzai, Pashtoon and several others slaughtered goats and cows as a sacrifice to the sacred place and went on to inspect the shrine. Akhundzada’s brother, Qari Shawali, unlocked the three boxes made of wood and silver that held the cloak.
“There it was — brown and well-kept and very beautiful,” said Pashtoon. The group prayed and wept, and reported to Karzai and U.S. officials that the cloak was indeed in the new government’s hands.
Attacks on the ‘keepers’
Not long after that, the Akhundzada family’s luck worsened. The Taliban fled Kandahar in late 2001, but militants soon returned, now an insurgency with a list of new targets, including many former allies.
Akhundzada’s nephew, the leader of Kandahar’s top religious council, was killed first, in 2005. He was shot in the face in his office.
Then in 2008, assassins killed his brother and his cousin, both custodians of the cloak, as they walked through a local market.
“We are not political people — we are just keepers of the holy cloak,” said Haji Mohammad Osman, a cousin of Akhundzada and a lower ranking guardian. “We don’t know why our family is being targeted.”
When the family decided that Akhundzada would become the new official guardian of the shrine, he was resolute. Weeks later, Akhundzada was nearly killed in a suicide bombing.
“Even if they try to chop my family to pieces, I will protect the cloak,” he said.
That declaration contained one unmistakable irony: Akhundzada has never seen the cloak that he is willing to die for. It has remained locked deep inside the shrine since he took his position. Until the president asks for it to be unveiled — which he hasn’t since 2002 — it will remain unseen, even to its guardian.
But everyone, in Kandahar and beyond, knows the Taliban hasn’t forgotten about the blue shrine and what it contains, even if the prize remains hidden.
“It is a place of blessing and importance for us,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said this week. “When Mullah Omar took it out, thousands of people gathered to watch it with their own eyes.”
When the Taliban retake Kandahar, Ahmadi said, they will also retake authority of the cloak. He would not comment on whether the Taliban was behind the recent string of Akhundzada assassinations.
Powerless
The Afghan government has upped its security of the shrine and its keepers, posting police officers around the perimeter. Akhundzada’s last trip to Kabul included a one-on-one meeting with the minister of defense.
“We all know why they’re being targeted,” said Haji Agha Lalai, the former leader of Kandahar’s provincial council. “They’ve lost so many family members because of the cloak.”
Still, Akhundzada doesn’t like to talk publicly about his predicament. With so much looming uncertainty in Afghanistan, his family is clinging to the veil of neutrality. They merely hold a few keys, he says, a minor responsibility incommensurate with the scale of retribution, whatever its source.
“If we speak about who was behind these assassinations, our enemy will target us again,” he said. “We do not feel safe.”
Special correspondents Sharaf Sharif in Kandahar and Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul contributed to this report.
What 2012 has meant for Afghanistan
BBC News 30 December 2012
After nearly a year of tense relations between all the major players in Afghanistan, there was at the end of 2012 a flurry of diplomatic activity that once again raised expectations for peace, writes journalist and author Ahmed Rashid.
The renewed hope centred around a dramatic shift by Pakistan's military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which for the first time implemented measures which could prod the Taliban to open a dialogue with Kabul.
The ISI had spent the year jailing up to 100 Taliban leaders and fighters for daring to talk to the Kabul regime, the Americans or the UN.
But by December the ISI had freed 19 of them and promised to free all the rest, including the Taliban No 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The ISI now promised to urge every Talib it freed to encourage their leaders to enter into talks with Kabul that could lead to a ceasefire as early as next year, allowing the US and Nato to peacefully exit the country in 2014 and leave hope that a civil war would not automatically follow.
In the second half of the year, important meetings of the core group of countries looking for a settlement - the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan - were hosted by Turkey, Britain and in Central Asian capitals. The Taliban met Afghans from the Northern Alliance who oppose them, first in Kyoto, Japan in June and then in Paris in December.
Acute divisions
Nevertheless, the year started poorly. The hoped-for breakthrough in the secret talks between the US, Germany and the Taliban that took place in Qatar in 2011 and early 2012 failed to come about.
The first confidence-building measure, intended to be the release by the US of five Taliban leaders from the Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for the Taliban freeing US soldier Bowe Bergdahl, broke down.
In March, the Taliban suspended all contacts with the US, saying Washington had reneged on its initial agreement to free the prisoners.
Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had refused to accept the opening of a Taliban liaison office in Qatar, while Pakistan was piqued because it had not been part of the Qatar process.
There were also acute divisions within each player's administration.
The US military opposed talks with the Taliban and undermined initiatives taken by the State Department.
The failure of the US government to act collectively and of President Obama to play a more forceful role led to the US failing to pursue any cohesive strategy.
The Afghan cabinet was similarly divided over talks with the Taliban and ministers constantly leaked sensitive meetings and documents to the press to undermine peace initiatives.
Taliban divisions
However, a fierce and important debate sprang up within the Taliban - hardliners advocating war until victory while moderates understood the rationale for peace talks.
Mullah Mohammed Omar still seemed to be in a powerful, determining position but he did not publicly take sides in the debate.
A US National Intelligence estimate in January, as well as a Pentagon report in December, both concluded that the Taliban had not given up hope of taking control of Afghanistan by force, and that corruption, poor governance and the continued presence of Taliban safe havens in Pakistan were contributing to the failure to stabilise Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Taliban relations with their main sponsor Pakistan also declined considerably.
The Taliban were shocked to discover in February that senior leader and former Defence Minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund had died of a heart attack in a Pakistani prison in March 2010, and that the ISI had withheld the news.
The ISI also held the revered Mullah Baradar in jail indefinitely and anyone talking to the Afghan government was also jailed. To their many interlocutors, the Taliban openly voiced their criticism of the ISI and Pakistan's negative role towards peace.
But the Taliban were also riven with splits. In March, the Taliban high command arrested two commanders from Zabul and Ghazni provinces for indiscipline, while the following month three members of the Taliban Military Commission were arrested for corruption.
Hardline Taliban went on an assassination spree - the most prominent being the killing in Kabul on 13 May of Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban and now member of the High Peace Council, a body which leads efforts to make peace with the Taliban.
Agha Jan Motasim, a former finance minister and another leading Taliban member who advocated peace talks, was gunned down in Karachi but survived and sought asylum in Turkey with his family.
Strategic change
Meanwhile, relations between Pakistan and the US and Afghanistan plummeted. For seven months, the strategic road between Karachi and the Afghan border was closed to Nato supplies due to several contentious issues between the two countries. Pakistan was not invited to the Chicago Nato summit in May.
The military were furious at the alleged connivance by Afghan intelligence in giving sanctuary to the militant Pashtun leader from Swat, Mullah Fazlullah who had established a base in the Afghan province of Kunar.
Fazlullah, along with some 1,500 men, mounted lethal attacks on Pakistani army outposts along the border. Pakistan retaliated by shelling Afghan villages in Kunar and Nuristan.
The first hint of a breakthrough in improved relations came in July when Omar Daudzai, the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, was taken by the ISI to briefly meet Mullah Baradar in a safe house.
There was no follow-up meeting and a war of words again developed between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
As violence by the Pakistani Taliban intensified and Pakistan's economic, social and foreign policy problems mounted, the army finally accepted the need for a change in strategic direction that could also benefit Pakistan's domestic crisis.
In November, nine Taliban prisoners were released from Pakistani jails, soon followed by another group of nine. In direct contrast to the ISI's instructions in the early part of the year, the freed Taliban were made to swear an oath that they would persuade their fellow Taliban to promote reconciliation with Kabul.
In December, the UN Security Council made it easier for the Taliban to travel and there was considerable speculation as to which country would offer the best venue for talks between the Taliban and Kabul - Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Qatar.
The US released $688m (£425m) in military aid to Pakistan, easing its balance of payments problems and signalling that relations had now improved.
The US military remained deeply sceptical, however, about Pakistan's about-turn on the Taliban.
Crucial year
There was another setback when Assadullah Khalid, the head of Afghan intelligence, was severely wounded by a suicide bomber.
Hamid Karzai again blamed Pakistan and it took another summit in Istanbul to ensure that the attack would not derail co-operation between the two countries.
Time is now of the essence. Any talks will need months, possibly years, but everyone - even the Taliban - would like to see a ceasefire before 2014.
Once that happens there could be more fruitful talks between the Taliban and Kabul on power-sharing that could lead to a political settlement.
With Afghan presidential elections due in April 2014 - and Mr Karzai unable to stand - there is the chance for a new and invigorated Afghan leadership which the Taliban could accept as a negotiating partner.
The new US Secretary of State John Kerry knows the region well, has played a major role in calming down passions in both Kabul and Islamabad over the last four years and is trusted by regional leaders. It will be up to him to give the importance to the Afghan peace talks they warrant to make them a success.
A great deal depends on Pakistan showing maturity, generosity and a genuine desire for peace in the region. It must soon chalk out a timetable so that the Taliban are left with no other option but to go home and work out a compromise with Kabul.
But ultimately it will be the Afghans who will decide upon their own future and work towards a peaceful resolution. The coming year is all important.
You Say 2012 Was Bad?
More trouble than ever is brewing, not only in Afghanistan but across the border in Pakistan too. Even the Taliban are worried.
The Daily Beast By Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau Dec 30, 2012
A shroud of anxiety hangs over the coming year in Afghanistan. It’s not only the country’s war-weary civilians who are beset with trepidation and uncertainty—even the Taliban are uncharacteristically worried. The people of Pakistan next door are bracing for trouble as well. To be sure, the Afghan insurgents unabashedly welcome the impending U.S. troop drawdown. Maybe now they can start to regroup and regain some of the momentum they’ve lost over the past three years. At the same time, however, they’re acutely aware that their ranks have been decimated, while the Americans have worked overtime to transform the Afghan National Army into a credible fighting force. The Taliban’s propaganda department keeps claiming that the ANA is a laughably hollow threat, unable to fill the vacuum left by the departing Western troops. But privately, the guerrillas in the field aren’t sure which side is stronger now.
The country’s civilians are likewise on edge—and not only over the danger of intensified fighting. They worry that the U.S. departure will threaten both their personal livelihoods and the Afghan economy as a whole. According to the World Bank, roughly 97 percent of Afghanistan’s $18 billion GDP comes from foreign military and development aid and from spending by foreign forces. The West’s reduced involvement in the conflict will necessarily mean the end of many formerly lucrative contracts. Unemployment, already soaring, will grow still worse; capital flight will accelerate, and rising numbers of educated and talented Afghans will flee the country, whether legally or by employing people smugglers.
On top of everything else, there’s a rapidly growing threat of civil war. Afghans saw it happen 20 years ago: after the Soviet military pulled out, the pro-Kremlin regime in Kabul collapsed, and the West lost interest in Afghanistan. The country disintegrated into a bloody free-for-all among rival militias. Today, as the allies’ withdrawal gathers steam, powerful former warlords are hastening to rebuild and rearm the private armies they commanded during the 1990s, preparing to fight the Taliban—and quite likely each other—once again.
Their militias now control large swaths of territory, particularly in northern Afghanistan. “We have to be ready to restart our resistance against the Taliban as the Americans go home,” says one northern militia commander, declining to be named. In the western province of Herat, the powerful former mujahedin leader Ismail Khan, formerly a kingpin in the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, is rearming his men. A senior Afghan government official describes the rearming of the warlords as “a dangerous cancer” and a prelude to civil war. “The private militias are speedily taking shape again,” he warns. “Next year they will be flexing their muscles even more.”
Many Afghans fear that as aid dollars and military contracts shrink, the resurrected warlords will move to grab as much of that wealth as possible, as fast as they can. “We’re in a civil war already, and the U.S. withdrawal will make it worse,” says Hajji Ahmadzai, a well-todo construction contractor. “The business community will be like raw meat in front of hungry dogs.” Many of his colleagues are thinking of emigrating, he says. “There is and will be a significant increase in the numbers of Afghans going to the West because of all this uncertainty,” he predicts. He personally feels so doubtful about the future that he has stopped investing in new projects and has put some of his businesses and buildings up for sale.
In fact, Ahmadzai confesses, he’s considering whether to go, too. “If things don’t dramatically improve in 2013, I will shift to Dubai or Canada,” he says. It’s not an easy decision, he says; unlike millions of other Afghans, he has stayed in his home country through years of war and Taliban rule. “I’ve never left my country in my entire life,” he says. “But I fear that a civil war will endanger my life, my family, and property. The rich will be the first targets.” Since the U.S. and allied withdrawals began, his business has almost dried up. He owns five houses in the upscale, heavily guarded Kabul neighborhood of Wa zir Akhbar Khan. At present, he says, he can find no takers for any of the properties, even though they had been bringing him monthly rents of $10,000 for each.
Longtime Taliban officials say their plan is only to hang on and hope for the best. “This will be a crucial and decisive period,” says a former cabinet minister from the toppled Taliban regime. “Our resistance will remain, but it may become harder than in the past two or three years to carry on. We have lost so many fighters, leaders, and commanders. No one knows what will happen next.” A senior Taliban intelligence official echoes his doubts. Where in winters past the insurgents have always predicted major advances for the coming year, he says the aim for 2013 is merely to keep the movement united and continue fighting. “Our strategy is to keep attacking, no matter if the attacks are large or small or skillful,” he says. “We have to stay intact and prove ourselves in 2013.”
That won’t be easy. “Even though we will keep attacking, we could lose more territorial influence and control in the north and south,” the former minister admits. He frankly wonders whether the Afghan guerrillas of today are capable of outfighting the numerically far superior and largely U.S.-trained ANA—particularly with Kabul’s forces continuing to enjoy support from overwhelming American firepower. “One big question is: can we expand our influence in areas where the ANA is taking over?” he says. Otherwise, more Afghans are likely to abandon the insurgency as a losing cause. “If the Afghan army can hold its ground, that would be a huge moral victory for the Kabul regime.”
The biggest worry is the Taliban’s lack of leadership at the top, the former minister says. “In terms of running the insurgency, most of our current military commanders are weaker and poorer than the old guard of Mullah Obaidullah, Mullah Dadullah, and Mullah Baradar,” he complains. (The notoriously bloodthirsty Dadullah was the Taliban’s top military commander at the time of his death in action in 2007; Barada r, formerly Mullah Omar’s righthand man, has been imprisoned by Pakistani authorities since early 2010; and Obaidullah, once the Taliban’s third in command, died in a Pakistani jail that same year.) “The new top guys’ abilities and prestige just don’t compare,” says the former minister. “Everyone misses Baradar.”
Even more than that, the insurgents miss Mullah Omar himself. They’ve had no verifiable communications from their Amir-ul-Momineen (Leader of the Faithful) since he disappeared into the Kandahar mountains on the back of Baradar’s motorcycle in late 2001. Now Omar’s loyal followers can only pray that 2013 will be the year he finally makes his presence known, resumes full leadership responsibility, rallies his forces, and begins issuing orders once again. “This is the right time for Mullah Omar to show up,” says the former minister. “It’s getting very late for us.” In fact, he warns, many Taliban are close to losing hope that Omar will ever come back. “But if he proves he’s alive and begins to lead, we will have a winning hand.”
The truth is that the Taliban’s problems go far deeper than Omar’s absence. The insurgents remain intent on killing their way back into power, rather than developing an economic and political platform that would be acceptable to most Afghans, who are heartily sick of corruption and carnage. The country’s voters are supposed to elect a new president in 2014; their constitution prevents Hamid Karzai—an ethnic Pashtun, like the plurality of Afghanistan’s people and like almost every member of the Taliban—from running for a third term, and so far he has no obvious successor. “The Taliban have to draw up a map for Afghanistan’s future in 2013,” the former minister says. “Waiting until 2014 could be too late.”
But as feckless and sticky-fingered as President Hamid Karzai’s regime has been, the insurgents have failed until now to turn its flaws to their advantage. “There is a serious leadership vacuum, particularly among Pashtuns on Kabul’s side,” the former minister says. “If the Taliban can change, become more open and flexible, we could win more popular support among Afghans.” It may be too late for that. Long, painful experience has taught many Afghans—city dwellers especially—to hate and fear the Taliban. The group became a synonym for cruelty and intolerance during its years in power, and since then its roadside bombs and suicide attacks have slaughtered thousands of civilians. Many Afghans have endured more than enough of the Taliban’s brand of persuasion. Ahmadzai charges that the coalition is leaving its work unfinished. “U.S. and NATO forces came here to accomplish a mission—which they did not complete,” he complains. “And now they’re flying home, leaving us with a corrupt regime and a strong Taliban.”
The crowning irony is that Afghanistan’s fate in 2013 may very well be determined not by the Afghans themselves but by the Pakistanis next door. Most Afghans—including most Taliban—are convinced that the insurgency answers ultimately to Pakistan’s armed forces, particularly to the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency (ISI). After all, Pakistan has powerful leverage over the Afghan guerrillas in the form of the safe havens and assistance that enable them to keep fighting. As a result, the Taliban fear that Pakistan might decide to betray them for its own reasons. “Our biggest worry for next year is not the ANA or U.S. forces. It is that Pakistan may stab us in the back, as it did in 2001,” says the senior Taliban intelligence officer. The insurgents have not forgotten Islamabad’s abrupt abandonment of Omar’s regime under American pressure after the 9/11 attacks.
For the Taliban, the fear is that Pakistan could try forcing them into a peace deal they can’t refuse. The insurgents are deeply divided among themselves over whether to keep fighting or pursue a negotiated settlement. At present the Qatar peace process seems to have gone nowhere since the Taliban suspended the talks last March. Nevertheless, the former minister says, a few Taliban representatives are still sitting in Qatar, awaiting further instructions. “The Taliban in Qatar are isolated and in an embarrassing situation,” he says. “They have to produce some fruit or close the office.” And yet there’s nothing they can do until Pakistan allows them to close shop or resume talking.
But other than the castaways in Qatar, the insurgents are not completely at Pakistan’s mercy. In fact, they have made it clear that if Pakistan double-crosses them this time, they will retaliate, the Taliban intelligence officer says. “If Pakistan withdraws its support, as it did in 2001, we will not collapse as we did back then,” he warns. “We are much stronger now. We could join forces with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan [the Pakistani Taliban, who are fighting Pakistani security forces in the tribal areas] and pose a great danger to Pakistan.”
And Islamabad already has plenty to worry about. In addition to the TTP, who have killed more than 3,000 members of the country’s security forces in the past several years, the people of Pakistan are suffering from grinding poverty, recurrent financial crises, and chronic short ages of energy and clean water. All three of the country’s most powerful men—President Asif Ali Zardari, Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry are due to retire in the next 12 months, and in that order. Neither Zardari nor Kayani wants to be at the mercy of the hard-nosed chief justice, but no one can say how either of them might try to protect himself.
Zardari has been plagued by unresolved corruption charges for more than 20 years, and Kayani now has his own legal headaches. The Army and the ISI have always operated with practically no legal interference, but now they’re facing a spate of lawsuits challenging their sweeping powers and their habits of arresting, detaining, disappearing, or eliminating just about anyone they regard as a national security risk. One lawsuit, brought by a courageous former army lawyer, Inam ur Raheem, even contests the legality of Kayani’s remaining in office, having reached the official retirement age of 60. The Army doesn’t take kindly to outside interference in its powers, perquisites, and privileges. Recently Raheem was savagely beaten by a gang of thugs. The military denied any responsibility.
Still, Pakistani politics may give the Taliban at least a slight respite from their troubles—that is, those insurgents who make it through the first few months of 2013. National elections, due in May, will pit the deeply unpopular Zardari’s ruling Pakistan Peoples Party against his longtime archfoe, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and the upstart politician and former cricket star Imran Khan. Neither of the two has much good to say about America’s conduct in Afghan or its counterterrorism programs, and both publicly are opposed to the Obama administration’s escalating drone war over Pakistan’s tribal belt. But before either one takes over, the Predators seem likely to be busier than ever. Expect street protests, flag-burnings, and a recruiting surge for the militants in the tribal areas. And keep your head down.
Sami Yousafzai is Newsweek's correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he has covered militancy, al Qaeda, and the Taliban for the magazine since 9/11. He was born in Afghanistan but moved to Pakistan with his family after the Russian invasion in 1979. He began his career as a sports journalist but switched to war reporting in 1997.
Ron Moreau is Newsweek’s Afghanistan and Pakistan correspondent, and has been covering the region for the magazine for the past 10 years. Since he first joined Newsweek during the Vietnam War, he has reported extensively from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
1056 Afghan soldiers killed in 2012: Defense officials
By Sajad Khaama Press December 30 2012
The security transition from NATO troops to Afghan security forces which started last year is due to complete in five phases following a pre-planned organized program.
Despite Afghan security forces are in charge of over 75% of the Afghan soil security, Afghan officials are continuously expressing concerns regarding the lack of proper military equipments which creates challenges for the Afghan security forces.
In the meantime increased Afghan army troops casualties is another challenge being faced by Afghan national army where over 1000 service members have been killed during the year.
Afghan defense ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi on Sunday told reporters, “At least 906 Afghan national army soldiers have been killed during the past 9 months, and a total of 1056 Afghans troops have been killed during the year 2012 which shows an increase as compared to 2011.”
An Afghan military analyst Faqir Mohammad Faqir said increased attacks by militants is one of the main reason behind Afghan army casualties.
He said, “Whenever the other party involved in war increases activities then it will naturally increase the casualties but I think the Afghan troops should trained well, must be disciplined and equipped with modern weapons in a bid to reduce the growing casualties.”
Mr. Faqir also insisted that further works should be done in order to prevent Afghan army troops to lose their morale.
In the meantime NATO is looking to increase Afghan police and army numbers to 350,000 as the coalition troops are getting prepared to leave the country in 2014.
However Afghan and NATO officials are concerned regarding low morale of the Afghan security forces and troops escaping from their duties and growing insider attacks by Afghan troops on their international counterparts and comrades which creates barriers for the training of Afgahn security forces.
At least 60 NATO troops were killed by their Afghan counterparts during the year 2012.
Afghan allies
Now even top officials in the Kabul government vow to kill Americans
New York Post By PAUL SPERRY December 29, 2012
“The fate of the Americans in Afghanistan will be worse than that of the Russians,” Mohammed Ismail Khan warned in 2009. The same Afghan is now vowing to drive all “foreigners” out of Afghanistan.
More bluster from a Taliban leader? Hardly. Khan serves as Afghanistan’s energy minister, and is a key member of American ally Hamid Karzai’s cabinet.
In a videotaped meeting last month with jihadists in Herat Province, Khan slammed the US for bringing “American girls, white-skinned Western soldiers and black-skinned American soldiers” into Afghanistan. He called on the “mujahideen” to take up arms and attack them like they did the Soviet “invaders” in the 1980s.
Though his threatening remarks were quickly dismissed by the Afghan government, they should not be taken lightly — especially with American soldiers increasingly vulnerable to insider attacks by Afghans.
Khan has lethal experience launching such attacks. In March 1979, Khan, then a captain in the Afghan army, orchestrated the murder of 50 Soviet military advisers and 300 of their family members in Herat Province. He decapitated many of them and had their heads paraded on spikes through the city.
The atrocity marked the opening salvo of the rebellion which led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.
The US Army recently cited Khan’s treachery as an example of “green-on-blue attacks” that “were common and costly to the Soviet army” during its occupation of Afghanistan. It warned that Khan is “now the Afghan government’s minister of energy.”
The Army published the account in February 2012 and distributed it to soldiers serving in Afghanistan as part of an “Official Use Only” handbook, titled, “Inside the Wire Threats — Afghanistan.” The 35-page handbook also notes that Soviet attempts to train and stand up an Afghan army to fight insurgents failed miserably. “The Afghan army was an unreliable ally,” it said. “It faced constant defections from the start, as not only individuals and units but also whole divisions went over to the mujahideen, taking their personal kit and rifles as well as tanks and armored vehicles.”
Added the report: “The original Soviet plan to push the Afghan army into the field to combat the mujahideen fell by the wayside. The Afghan army’s limited numbers, lack of training, and questionable loyalties made this project too risky to implement.”
A 2011 Army survey found that “on average, US soldiers perceived that 50% of (the) ANA (Afghan National Army) were Islamic radicals” vulnerable to Taliban recruitment. The results were reported in an unclassified study titled, “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility.” It quotes one American soldier as saying, “A reporter attached to my platoon said that during a conversation with ANA soliders, they said that if the Taliban began to win the war, they would switch sides and join the Taliban.”
The crux of the Obama administration’s exit strategy has been training Afghan security forces to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. Much of that training has been suspended due to rogue attacks and defections not unlike what the Soviets faced.
Afghan government troops and police — our allies — have turned their guns on US-led coalition troops at least 47 times this year, killing at least 63, most of them Americans. That’s more than double 2011’s total of 21 attacks, in which 35 were killed.
One recent attack involved for the first time an Afghan policewoman, who early last week drew her US-issued pistol and fatally shot a US military adviser in the chest at the police headquarters in Kabul. The police sergeant, a mother of four with a clean record, had earlier been a refugee in Iran.
Until 2005, Khan was governor of Herat Province, which borders Iran. He controlled border crossings and trade there. He also influenced local recruitment for Afghan security forces. Kabul recently accused Khan of illegally distributing weapons to his jihadi supporters in Herat. Although Khan says he would fight the Taliban if it returned to power, his own son-in-law recently joined the Taliban insurgency.
The US military seems to be in denial about the breadth and scope of theinternal threats it faces in Afghanistan. While on the one hand it warns that the “major problem confronting the Soviets was the unreliability of the Afghan army,” it nonetheless appears Polyannish about its own prospects for partnering with the Afghan army. “U.S. forces can gain keen insights and lessons from the Soviet 10-year occupation of Afghanistan,” the Army handbook asserts. The same document goes on to claim that “in contrast” to the Soviet experience, “the United States and CF (coalition forces) have achieved great success in training and partnering with our ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) counterparts.”
Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration.”
NATO fuel tankers catch fire in eastern Afghanistan, 1 killed
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- At least one person was killed when 11 oil trucks supplying fuel for the NATO-led coalition forces caught fire following a blast in eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar on Sunday evening.
"Initially, an oil tanker caught fire after an explosion by a sticky bomb but later it engulfed 10 more trucks in the incident which took place at about 6 p.m. local time in Behsud district," Mohammad Zahir police chief of the district told Xinhua.
One driver who was wounded in the incident later died of his wounds in a hospital in the incident, he said.
No group claims responsibility for the incident. Taliban insurgent group routinely claims attacking oil trucks.
Taliban has warned the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people against supporting government and foreign troops.
Winter’s Deadly Bite Returns to Refugee Camps of Kabul
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND December 29, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - The snow that fell on a refugee camp in Kabul last week left thick powder piled voluptuously on the sagging roofs of huts and skinny tree branches, turning the squalor into a winter wonderland. The mistake of a toddler named Janan was to play in it.
By nightfall Thursday, Janan, 3, was sick. On Friday, he never woke up.
He became the first known victim to freeze to death this winter in the mud and tarpaulin warrens of Kabul’s 44 refugee camps, where more than 100 children died of cold last winter.
His father, Taj Mohammad, 32, fears Janan may not be the last. “I am worried that more of my children will die,” he said.
When the children died here last winter, the question was, how could this happen in the capital city, home to 2,000 aid groups, recipient of $58 billion in development aid and at least $3.5 billion in humanitarian aid over the past 10 years?
The question this winter is, how could it happen again?
The answer appears to be a combination of stubbornness, by the Afghan government and the refugees themselves; inadequate deliveries of aid as winter sets in; and, in some cases, desperate families who sold their winter clothes and blankets in the summer to get food.
Last winter, after news reports drew attention to the deaths, aid groups, individuals and the American military rushed in with blankets and warm clothing, charcoal and firewood.
The United Nations organized the aid to try to get supplies where they were needed most.
In a report in November, the organization’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that distribution of fuel, cold-weather clothing, blankets and tarpaulins would begin Dec. 9 and continue through January, although the agency warned that firewood supplies for February had not yet been financed by donor countries.
Despite the preparations, matters rapidly took a turn for the worse the first time that protracted subfreezing temperatures set in with a snowstorm on Thursday and Friday.
In visits on Saturday to two camps that were the worst hit last January and February, Charahi Qambar and Nasaji Bagrami, residents were clearly ill prepared for the conditions around them now.
Small boys and girls ran through the muddy ice and snow in open sandals, flip-flops and even just barefoot. While here and there a child had a donated coat or sweater, they were the exception. Some adult men were better clothed, often with donated warm clothing, but few had hats, gloves or warm boots.
“I fear for the future,” said Mohammad Yousef, the manager of Aschiana, one of the few refugee groups working in the Kabul camps. “This is only the start of the cold weather.”
Abdul Wakil, 8, recounted what had happened to his little brother Janan at the Charahi Qambar camp on the western side of the capital. “He was playing in the cold and snow,” Abdul Wakil said, shivering in a thin cotton shirt and trousers, a pair of toeless socks poking out of the front of his sandals, his only footwear. “Then he got sick and got a fever and died.”
His father, Mr. Mohammad, filled in the blanks. They brought the 3-year-old into their mud hut, but its roof was leaking and they were out of fuel. “We couldn’t get him warm again,” he said. “We were just wrapping ourselves in our blankets, it was all we could do.” They had received an aid distribution of charcoal 15 days earlier, but it had run out by then, he said.
Now the family, with six other young children, has a bit more fuel, donated by friends after Janan’s death: a sack of sawdust donated by a carpenter, some roof poles and pieces of dried shrubs. Their only food is some bread and potatoes. Only a couple of his children have warm clothing; the rest are in rags. “That’s all they have,” he said, “they have nothing else to wear.”
“There are 900 families here, and every family has 10 to 15 children,” said Najibullah, an Aschiana worker at the Charahi Qambar camp, the biggest in Kabul. Distributions of clothing mostly came after the worst of last year’s winter weather. “When the NGOs came, they gave out one jacket per house.”
United Nations officials could not immediately be reached to discuss why supplies are apparently still so short in the camps.
In the past, though, officials have said the 35,000 refugees in the Kabul camps are caught in a Catch-22. Their camps are unregistered and the government wants the residents to return to their homes, so they do not qualify for many forms of emergency aid. But most of them come from war zones, particularly Helmand Province in these two large camps, and say it is not safe to return.
Even after losing one of his sons, Mr. Mohammad said he had no intention of returning south. “I would rather freeze to death than get bombed again,” he said.
In an interview last February during the height of last winter’s crisis, the head of the United Nations’ humanitarian coordination agency, Aidan O’Leary, said emergency aid was not a long-term answer. “It will keep them alive, but we can’t afford to lose sight that there has to be a better solution going forward, not to be dealing with this situation every time winter comes about,” he said.
Afghan government officials and international agencies held a meeting last summer with camp leaders to try to persuade them to take offers of allotments of farmland if the refugees would return to Helmand, but nearly all of them refused. Instead, many new refugees from the fighting arrived in the past year; nationwide, 33,000 people were newly displaced by the fighting in November, according to United Nations figures.
Camp representatives counter-proposed that they would be willing to settle on farmland in Kabul Province instead. Mohammad Ibrahim, the leader of the Nasaji Bagrami camp, said they were promised that efforts would be made to find international donors to finance that, but nothing came of it.
During the summer, Mr. Ibrahim said, camp residents still had chronic problems finding work and buying food, and many of them sold the blankets and warm clothing they had received.
“It’s true, that is what happened,” he said. “People do what they have to do to get food to eat.”
Islamuldin Jurat, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, had not yet heard of the death of 3-year-old Janan, but was unsurprised. “We are expecting casualties,” he said. “They needed more help from the beginning of the year. From spring until now, these people did not have enough food, enough calories and fat, so in the winter they need much more food, so we are expecting the cold weather might take the lives of some children.”
So far, no children have died in the Nasaji Bagrami camp this winter, but Mr. Ibrahim said he believed it was only a matter of time.
In one hut live two widows, Rahima, 24, and Shahid, 45. They had married brothers in Marja, in Helmand, and both men were killed in an aerial bombardment six months ago; so they fled here. Between them they have 14 children, ranging in age from 8 months to 13 years. They were all crammed into a one-room mud hut with a wet floor, a ceiling that dripped from snow melt, and no stove or heater. Instead there was a small pile of embers, and over it a pot of rice. The heat was so sparse that the rice had been cooking for hours and was still not ready.
There was no other food or fuel in sight.
All of the children appeared to have colds, eyes and noses streaming. Rahima said she was painfully aware of the risk of cold to her infant son, 8-month-old Niaz Mohammad. “And I’m not only worried about him but the rest of the children, too,” she said. “They all cry at night because of the cold. We try to cover them with whatever we have but they still do.”
And then there was the hut of Baidullah, 55, whose 6-year-old son Pardeen was among the 17 children in this camp who died last winter from the cold. Mr. Baidullah, who fled with his family of seven from Helmand, said he feared his 3-year-old son Ismail will be next; he has been sick with a cold and fever for 10 days.
Mr. Baidullah’s hut has new United Nations-donated tarps on the roof, so for now it is dry. But inside there is only a metal dish of embers for heat. They place the dish inside a sandalee, a square wooden frame covered with a blanket under which they sit or lie with their legs inside. On Saturday, Ismail and his mother were huddled under the sandalee, but the embers were dwindling, and with nightfall still five hours away, the family supply of fuel was down to scraps of cardboard and plastic bottles.
“I’m worried,” Mr. Baidullah said. Not so much about another death in the family, to which he seems to have resigned himself, but about the costs of the funeral. “I don’t even have enough money for the burial shroud.”
Blast hits police mobile, wounds 4 in eastern Afghan town
SHARAN, Afghanistan, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Four people, including three policemen, were wounded Sunday morning when a blast hit a police vehicle in eastern Afghan province of Paktika, the provincial government confirmed in a statement.
"Three members of Afghan Local Police (ALP) and a civilian passerby were injured in the explosion which took place at about 9: 00 a.m. (local time) near the bazaar in Sarobi district," the statement said.
The injured were shifted to a hospital in neighbouring Urgun district, where one ALP cop was reported to be in critical condition, the statement said, adding, "The initial investigation shows that the explosion might have caused by a sticky bomb attached to the vehicle."
The NATO and U.S.-funded ALP or community police was established in August 2010 to protect villages and districts around the insurgency-hit country where Afghan army and police have limited presence.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Taliban insurgents were suspected of carrying out such attacks.
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.
Missing NATO soldier found dead in S. Afghanistan
KABUL, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- A Georgian soldier with the NATO-led coalition forces, who went missing since Dec. 18, was found dead in southern Afghanistan, the coalition forces confirmed on Sunday.
"The body of the Georgian soldier who was reported missing Dec. 18 was found by members of the Afghan police yesterday in southern Afghanistan. The police recovered the body and turned him over to members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)," the coalition or ISAF said in a statement.
The brief statement did not provide details into the incident, only saying "The circumstances of the soldier's capture and death are under investigation."
A total of 1,561 Georgian soldiers have been stationed in Afghanistan within the framework of 100,000-strong NATO-led ISAF forces. More than 10 Georgian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.
Afghan, Pakistan to Open Border, Probe Citizen Abuse Cases
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry Saturday, 29 December 2012
Afghan and Pakistani officials pledged to open the Torkham Border and start an immediate probe into recent incidents of abuse of Pakistani and Afghan citizens in each country, Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Saturday.
One incident occurred in Landi Kotal near Peshawar, Pakistan when several Afghan citizens were badly beaten by unknown gunmen and their travel documents torn.
The other incident occurred when, according to reports, several Pakistani truck drivers were mistreated and their documents torn near Kabul.
In response, Pakistani officials closed the Torkham border Friday.
Thousands of trucks remain stranded on the Pakistan-Afghan border and seven ill people, who couldn't receive medical attention on time, have died, Afghan officials said. There have also been reports of 13 people freezing to death.
In a meeting between Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Mohammad Umar Daudzai, and special secretary of the Pakistani foreign ministry, Alamgir Babur, both sides decided to start an immediate investigation in on the two incidents.
"Both countries would conduct comprehensive investigations into the reported incident of a number of Pakistani citizens getting mistreated near Kabul last week and the Landi Kotal incident and undertake necessary measures," the MoFA statement said.
Meanwhile, Afghan analysts emphasized that the ripping of Afghan passports was a major insult for Afghanistan and the government should pursue the issue very seriously.
"Ripping of the national documents is a major disrespect and abuse to the prestige of the nation. The issue should be followed up through diplomacy," Afghanistan's National Front Spokesman Sayed Fazel Sancharaki said.
'Powerful Figures' Involved in Land Grabbing: Parliament Commission
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Sadaat Saturday, 29 December 2012
The newly formed parliament commission on supervising the government's activities said Saturday that 1.25 million acres of land have been confiscated illegally over the past few years across the country, with powerful figures heavily involved in land-grabbing.
The commission said that in Kabul alone, 11,426 acres of land have been grabbed illegally by 11 powerful figures, and the government has not addressed the issue although the cases have been presented to the Attorney General's Office.
"One million and two hundred fifty thousand acres of land are confiscated across the country. According to our findings, most of the land is confiscated by powerful figures," said Saleh Mohammed Saljooqi, member of the Special Commission for Studying and Analyzing Government Activities.
"The government is responsible to examine the matter," he added.
Although the commission said it has identified the high-profile land-grabbers, it did not disclose any names.
"We have identified the names and locations of these people but, according to the Constitution, as you know, we cannot disclose anyone's name before a decision is reached by the court," Saljooqi said.
A number of MPs at the parliament session reacted to the commission's non-disclosure of the names.
"This report of yours is incomplete. Why aren't the names disclosed if the report has been finalised?" said Gulalai Noor Saafi, MP.
"You have to name (them). They are criminals. Why aren't their names disclosed?" said Ramazan Bashardost, MP.
Parliament to Review Draft Election Law
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Sadaat Saturday, 29 December 2012
The Ministry of Justice on Saturday presented the draft of the Afghan elections law to the lawmakers.
Speaking before the MPs, Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib urged the lawmakers to consider national interests and the interests of the Afghan people in reviewing the law.
The controversial election law draft was recently approved by the Council of Ministers after several weeks of delay and discussions.
The new draft removes the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) and charges the Supreme Court with its responsibilities. The Parliament is expected to argue in favor of reinstating the ECC and keeping the two foreign observers on the seven-member body.
The Independent Election Commission is worried that the draft law might not be ratified early enough to allow time for voter registration and other processes to be completed before election day.
It has stated that unless the new law is approved soon, the 2014 elections might have to take place under the existing laws, whose flaws have led to widespread abuse in previous elections.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff Sunday, December 30, 2012
KANDAHAR - For 250 years, Masood Akhundzada’s family has protected Afghanistan’s most sacred artifact: a cloak said to have been worn by the prophet Muhammad. Its power drew Afghan kings and presidents and Taliban leaders to a small, blue shrine in a city conquered by Alexander the Great and contested ever since.
By the time Akhundzada inherited the guardianship in 2008, it was an honor that came at a high price. Five previous guardians — his father, brothers and cousins — had been assassinated, shot in their offices, in markets and airports. They were hunted, most believed, for their connection to a piece of Islamic history that the insurgency wanted desperately to reclaim.
When Akhundzada, a large man with a wild beard and an easy smile, accepted the keys to the shrine, he also bought a gun. There’s no law, he said, that prevents a mullah from being armed if his life is in danger.
The fight between the Taliban and the Afghan government, which will almost certainly continue beyond America’s military drawdown, is as much a war over symbols as territory. Some of those symbols are ordinary Korans and mosques, stand-ins for the religiosity of warriors on both sides of the battlefield. Some are more specific and sacred, like the cloak under Akhundzada’s care, whose significance has prompted even American paranoia over its fate.
Many Afghans worry that if Kandahar slips further into anarchy after the 2014 drawdown, most famous of symbols could go with it, leaving its protectors at the dangerous intersection of rhetorical and physical battlefields.
Most residents of Kandahar say the story of the Akhundzada assassinations begins in 1996, when one-eyed Taliban leader Mohammad Omar visited the Shrine of the Cloak. The Taliban had recently taken control of the city and was on its way to Kabul.
“Here I am. Let me see it,” Omar told Qari Shawali, Akhundzada’s brother, according to witnesses.
For more than two centuries, since the cloak was brought to Kandahar by Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani, the family allowed only recognized leaders of Afghanistan to view it. But given Omar’s massive popularity in the country’s Pashtun south — and the army of men who accompanied him to the mosque — the guardians felt obliged to allow him into the shrine’s furthest reaches, unlocking the doors, safes and boxes that kept the cloak hidden from the public.
“We couldn’t object,” said Akhundzada. “He was the commander.”
The family didn’t anticipate Omar’s next move: He carried the cloak to the roof of a mosque in central Kandahar a week later. As thousands gathered below him, he put his wrists into the garment’s short sleeves. Taliban mullahs exclaimed, “Amir-ul momineen!” or “Commander of the Faithful!”
It was seen as a pivotal moment in Omar’s ascent from the poorly educated son of a farmer to leader of Afghanistan and protagonist in a global jihad. Months after putting on the cloak, Osama bin Laden came to Kandahar to commend Omar.
‘There it was’
The cloak had always been a symbol of power — the people of Kandahar attribute their province’s famously delicious fruit to its presence. For years it was unveiled to quell hysteria in the aftermath of natural disasters.
But suddenly its image was everywhere: in foreign newspapers, intelligence reports and Taliban propaganda pamphlets. Akhundzada’s relatives, who considered themselves neutral protectors of the sacred, were suddenly thrust into Afghanistan’s bloody political arena.
They had some experience in that unwanted role. During the Soviet occupation, Akhundzada’s father was killed when militants demanded that the cloak be taken out of Afghanistan — and away from perceived anti-Islamic influence — but he refused.
This time, though, the problem was inverted: The new leaders of Afghanistan were Islamist extremists who saw the cloak as the source of their power. Suddenly, Akhundzada and his brothers and cousins found themselves protecting their jewel on behalf of the Taliban.
For centuries, regime change in Afghanistan had been ceaseless. The family might hand the cloak to a king one day and his usurper months later. Their survival hinged on their neutrality. If Akhundzada’s ancestors were seen as politically involved — as anything other than the cloak’s guardians — their lives would be endangered.
As soon as the Taliban took power there was cause for concern: Akhundzada’s brother, Mohammed Mehadi, a former guardian of the cloak, was killed in Pakistan’s Karachi airport.
“That’s when we really got worried,” Akhundzada said.
He knew the Taliban would eventually fall. But would Omar attempt to take the cloak with him? How would he and his brothers transition from protecting the cloak for Omar to keeping it from him?
That transition happened in December 2001, as dramatic and chaotic as anyone in Kandahar had expected. When it was over, the cloak had a new rightful heir: Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
“The Shrine of the Cloak is an important place not just for the president, but for all Afghans and all Muslims,” said Aimal Faizi, Karzai’s spokesman.
But amid the commotion, some U.S. officials worried that the Taliban had escaped with the cloak.
“They needed us to make sure that it was still there. There was a real concern that if the cloak was stolen, it would be a blow to Karzai,” said Khalid Pashtoon, a Kandahar parliamentarian.
With Karzai’s approval, then-Kandahar Governor Gul Agha Sherzai, Pashtoon and several others slaughtered goats and cows as a sacrifice to the sacred place and went on to inspect the shrine. Akhundzada’s brother, Qari Shawali, unlocked the three boxes made of wood and silver that held the cloak.
“There it was — brown and well-kept and very beautiful,” said Pashtoon. The group prayed and wept, and reported to Karzai and U.S. officials that the cloak was indeed in the new government’s hands.
Attacks on the ‘keepers’
Not long after that, the Akhundzada family’s luck worsened. The Taliban fled Kandahar in late 2001, but militants soon returned, now an insurgency with a list of new targets, including many former allies.
Akhundzada’s nephew, the leader of Kandahar’s top religious council, was killed first, in 2005. He was shot in the face in his office.
Then in 2008, assassins killed his brother and his cousin, both custodians of the cloak, as they walked through a local market.
“We are not political people — we are just keepers of the holy cloak,” said Haji Mohammad Osman, a cousin of Akhundzada and a lower ranking guardian. “We don’t know why our family is being targeted.”
When the family decided that Akhundzada would become the new official guardian of the shrine, he was resolute. Weeks later, Akhundzada was nearly killed in a suicide bombing.
“Even if they try to chop my family to pieces, I will protect the cloak,” he said.
That declaration contained one unmistakable irony: Akhundzada has never seen the cloak that he is willing to die for. It has remained locked deep inside the shrine since he took his position. Until the president asks for it to be unveiled — which he hasn’t since 2002 — it will remain unseen, even to its guardian.
But everyone, in Kandahar and beyond, knows the Taliban hasn’t forgotten about the blue shrine and what it contains, even if the prize remains hidden.
“It is a place of blessing and importance for us,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said this week. “When Mullah Omar took it out, thousands of people gathered to watch it with their own eyes.”
When the Taliban retake Kandahar, Ahmadi said, they will also retake authority of the cloak. He would not comment on whether the Taliban was behind the recent string of Akhundzada assassinations.
Powerless
The Afghan government has upped its security of the shrine and its keepers, posting police officers around the perimeter. Akhundzada’s last trip to Kabul included a one-on-one meeting with the minister of defense.
“We all know why they’re being targeted,” said Haji Agha Lalai, the former leader of Kandahar’s provincial council. “They’ve lost so many family members because of the cloak.”
Still, Akhundzada doesn’t like to talk publicly about his predicament. With so much looming uncertainty in Afghanistan, his family is clinging to the veil of neutrality. They merely hold a few keys, he says, a minor responsibility incommensurate with the scale of retribution, whatever its source.
“If we speak about who was behind these assassinations, our enemy will target us again,” he said. “We do not feel safe.”
Special correspondents Sharaf Sharif in Kandahar and Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul contributed to this report.
What 2012 has meant for Afghanistan
BBC News 30 December 2012
After nearly a year of tense relations between all the major players in Afghanistan, there was at the end of 2012 a flurry of diplomatic activity that once again raised expectations for peace, writes journalist and author Ahmed Rashid.
The renewed hope centred around a dramatic shift by Pakistan's military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which for the first time implemented measures which could prod the Taliban to open a dialogue with Kabul.
The ISI had spent the year jailing up to 100 Taliban leaders and fighters for daring to talk to the Kabul regime, the Americans or the UN.
But by December the ISI had freed 19 of them and promised to free all the rest, including the Taliban No 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The ISI now promised to urge every Talib it freed to encourage their leaders to enter into talks with Kabul that could lead to a ceasefire as early as next year, allowing the US and Nato to peacefully exit the country in 2014 and leave hope that a civil war would not automatically follow.
In the second half of the year, important meetings of the core group of countries looking for a settlement - the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan - were hosted by Turkey, Britain and in Central Asian capitals. The Taliban met Afghans from the Northern Alliance who oppose them, first in Kyoto, Japan in June and then in Paris in December.
Acute divisions
Nevertheless, the year started poorly. The hoped-for breakthrough in the secret talks between the US, Germany and the Taliban that took place in Qatar in 2011 and early 2012 failed to come about.
The first confidence-building measure, intended to be the release by the US of five Taliban leaders from the Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for the Taliban freeing US soldier Bowe Bergdahl, broke down.
In March, the Taliban suspended all contacts with the US, saying Washington had reneged on its initial agreement to free the prisoners.
Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had refused to accept the opening of a Taliban liaison office in Qatar, while Pakistan was piqued because it had not been part of the Qatar process.
There were also acute divisions within each player's administration.
The US military opposed talks with the Taliban and undermined initiatives taken by the State Department.
The failure of the US government to act collectively and of President Obama to play a more forceful role led to the US failing to pursue any cohesive strategy.
The Afghan cabinet was similarly divided over talks with the Taliban and ministers constantly leaked sensitive meetings and documents to the press to undermine peace initiatives.
Taliban divisions
However, a fierce and important debate sprang up within the Taliban - hardliners advocating war until victory while moderates understood the rationale for peace talks.
Mullah Mohammed Omar still seemed to be in a powerful, determining position but he did not publicly take sides in the debate.
A US National Intelligence estimate in January, as well as a Pentagon report in December, both concluded that the Taliban had not given up hope of taking control of Afghanistan by force, and that corruption, poor governance and the continued presence of Taliban safe havens in Pakistan were contributing to the failure to stabilise Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Taliban relations with their main sponsor Pakistan also declined considerably.
The Taliban were shocked to discover in February that senior leader and former Defence Minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund had died of a heart attack in a Pakistani prison in March 2010, and that the ISI had withheld the news.
The ISI also held the revered Mullah Baradar in jail indefinitely and anyone talking to the Afghan government was also jailed. To their many interlocutors, the Taliban openly voiced their criticism of the ISI and Pakistan's negative role towards peace.
But the Taliban were also riven with splits. In March, the Taliban high command arrested two commanders from Zabul and Ghazni provinces for indiscipline, while the following month three members of the Taliban Military Commission were arrested for corruption.
Hardline Taliban went on an assassination spree - the most prominent being the killing in Kabul on 13 May of Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban and now member of the High Peace Council, a body which leads efforts to make peace with the Taliban.
Agha Jan Motasim, a former finance minister and another leading Taliban member who advocated peace talks, was gunned down in Karachi but survived and sought asylum in Turkey with his family.
Strategic change
Meanwhile, relations between Pakistan and the US and Afghanistan plummeted. For seven months, the strategic road between Karachi and the Afghan border was closed to Nato supplies due to several contentious issues between the two countries. Pakistan was not invited to the Chicago Nato summit in May.
The military were furious at the alleged connivance by Afghan intelligence in giving sanctuary to the militant Pashtun leader from Swat, Mullah Fazlullah who had established a base in the Afghan province of Kunar.
Fazlullah, along with some 1,500 men, mounted lethal attacks on Pakistani army outposts along the border. Pakistan retaliated by shelling Afghan villages in Kunar and Nuristan.
The first hint of a breakthrough in improved relations came in July when Omar Daudzai, the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, was taken by the ISI to briefly meet Mullah Baradar in a safe house.
There was no follow-up meeting and a war of words again developed between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
As violence by the Pakistani Taliban intensified and Pakistan's economic, social and foreign policy problems mounted, the army finally accepted the need for a change in strategic direction that could also benefit Pakistan's domestic crisis.
In November, nine Taliban prisoners were released from Pakistani jails, soon followed by another group of nine. In direct contrast to the ISI's instructions in the early part of the year, the freed Taliban were made to swear an oath that they would persuade their fellow Taliban to promote reconciliation with Kabul.
In December, the UN Security Council made it easier for the Taliban to travel and there was considerable speculation as to which country would offer the best venue for talks between the Taliban and Kabul - Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Qatar.
The US released $688m (£425m) in military aid to Pakistan, easing its balance of payments problems and signalling that relations had now improved.
The US military remained deeply sceptical, however, about Pakistan's about-turn on the Taliban.
Crucial year
There was another setback when Assadullah Khalid, the head of Afghan intelligence, was severely wounded by a suicide bomber.
Hamid Karzai again blamed Pakistan and it took another summit in Istanbul to ensure that the attack would not derail co-operation between the two countries.
Time is now of the essence. Any talks will need months, possibly years, but everyone - even the Taliban - would like to see a ceasefire before 2014.
Once that happens there could be more fruitful talks between the Taliban and Kabul on power-sharing that could lead to a political settlement.
With Afghan presidential elections due in April 2014 - and Mr Karzai unable to stand - there is the chance for a new and invigorated Afghan leadership which the Taliban could accept as a negotiating partner.
The new US Secretary of State John Kerry knows the region well, has played a major role in calming down passions in both Kabul and Islamabad over the last four years and is trusted by regional leaders. It will be up to him to give the importance to the Afghan peace talks they warrant to make them a success.
A great deal depends on Pakistan showing maturity, generosity and a genuine desire for peace in the region. It must soon chalk out a timetable so that the Taliban are left with no other option but to go home and work out a compromise with Kabul.
But ultimately it will be the Afghans who will decide upon their own future and work towards a peaceful resolution. The coming year is all important.
You Say 2012 Was Bad?
More trouble than ever is brewing, not only in Afghanistan but across the border in Pakistan too. Even the Taliban are worried.
The Daily Beast By Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau Dec 30, 2012
A shroud of anxiety hangs over the coming year in Afghanistan. It’s not only the country’s war-weary civilians who are beset with trepidation and uncertainty—even the Taliban are uncharacteristically worried. The people of Pakistan next door are bracing for trouble as well. To be sure, the Afghan insurgents unabashedly welcome the impending U.S. troop drawdown. Maybe now they can start to regroup and regain some of the momentum they’ve lost over the past three years. At the same time, however, they’re acutely aware that their ranks have been decimated, while the Americans have worked overtime to transform the Afghan National Army into a credible fighting force. The Taliban’s propaganda department keeps claiming that the ANA is a laughably hollow threat, unable to fill the vacuum left by the departing Western troops. But privately, the guerrillas in the field aren’t sure which side is stronger now.
The country’s civilians are likewise on edge—and not only over the danger of intensified fighting. They worry that the U.S. departure will threaten both their personal livelihoods and the Afghan economy as a whole. According to the World Bank, roughly 97 percent of Afghanistan’s $18 billion GDP comes from foreign military and development aid and from spending by foreign forces. The West’s reduced involvement in the conflict will necessarily mean the end of many formerly lucrative contracts. Unemployment, already soaring, will grow still worse; capital flight will accelerate, and rising numbers of educated and talented Afghans will flee the country, whether legally or by employing people smugglers.
On top of everything else, there’s a rapidly growing threat of civil war. Afghans saw it happen 20 years ago: after the Soviet military pulled out, the pro-Kremlin regime in Kabul collapsed, and the West lost interest in Afghanistan. The country disintegrated into a bloody free-for-all among rival militias. Today, as the allies’ withdrawal gathers steam, powerful former warlords are hastening to rebuild and rearm the private armies they commanded during the 1990s, preparing to fight the Taliban—and quite likely each other—once again.
Their militias now control large swaths of territory, particularly in northern Afghanistan. “We have to be ready to restart our resistance against the Taliban as the Americans go home,” says one northern militia commander, declining to be named. In the western province of Herat, the powerful former mujahedin leader Ismail Khan, formerly a kingpin in the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, is rearming his men. A senior Afghan government official describes the rearming of the warlords as “a dangerous cancer” and a prelude to civil war. “The private militias are speedily taking shape again,” he warns. “Next year they will be flexing their muscles even more.”
Many Afghans fear that as aid dollars and military contracts shrink, the resurrected warlords will move to grab as much of that wealth as possible, as fast as they can. “We’re in a civil war already, and the U.S. withdrawal will make it worse,” says Hajji Ahmadzai, a well-todo construction contractor. “The business community will be like raw meat in front of hungry dogs.” Many of his colleagues are thinking of emigrating, he says. “There is and will be a significant increase in the numbers of Afghans going to the West because of all this uncertainty,” he predicts. He personally feels so doubtful about the future that he has stopped investing in new projects and has put some of his businesses and buildings up for sale.
In fact, Ahmadzai confesses, he’s considering whether to go, too. “If things don’t dramatically improve in 2013, I will shift to Dubai or Canada,” he says. It’s not an easy decision, he says; unlike millions of other Afghans, he has stayed in his home country through years of war and Taliban rule. “I’ve never left my country in my entire life,” he says. “But I fear that a civil war will endanger my life, my family, and property. The rich will be the first targets.” Since the U.S. and allied withdrawals began, his business has almost dried up. He owns five houses in the upscale, heavily guarded Kabul neighborhood of Wa zir Akhbar Khan. At present, he says, he can find no takers for any of the properties, even though they had been bringing him monthly rents of $10,000 for each.
Longtime Taliban officials say their plan is only to hang on and hope for the best. “This will be a crucial and decisive period,” says a former cabinet minister from the toppled Taliban regime. “Our resistance will remain, but it may become harder than in the past two or three years to carry on. We have lost so many fighters, leaders, and commanders. No one knows what will happen next.” A senior Taliban intelligence official echoes his doubts. Where in winters past the insurgents have always predicted major advances for the coming year, he says the aim for 2013 is merely to keep the movement united and continue fighting. “Our strategy is to keep attacking, no matter if the attacks are large or small or skillful,” he says. “We have to stay intact and prove ourselves in 2013.”
That won’t be easy. “Even though we will keep attacking, we could lose more territorial influence and control in the north and south,” the former minister admits. He frankly wonders whether the Afghan guerrillas of today are capable of outfighting the numerically far superior and largely U.S.-trained ANA—particularly with Kabul’s forces continuing to enjoy support from overwhelming American firepower. “One big question is: can we expand our influence in areas where the ANA is taking over?” he says. Otherwise, more Afghans are likely to abandon the insurgency as a losing cause. “If the Afghan army can hold its ground, that would be a huge moral victory for the Kabul regime.”
The biggest worry is the Taliban’s lack of leadership at the top, the former minister says. “In terms of running the insurgency, most of our current military commanders are weaker and poorer than the old guard of Mullah Obaidullah, Mullah Dadullah, and Mullah Baradar,” he complains. (The notoriously bloodthirsty Dadullah was the Taliban’s top military commander at the time of his death in action in 2007; Barada r, formerly Mullah Omar’s righthand man, has been imprisoned by Pakistani authorities since early 2010; and Obaidullah, once the Taliban’s third in command, died in a Pakistani jail that same year.) “The new top guys’ abilities and prestige just don’t compare,” says the former minister. “Everyone misses Baradar.”
Even more than that, the insurgents miss Mullah Omar himself. They’ve had no verifiable communications from their Amir-ul-Momineen (Leader of the Faithful) since he disappeared into the Kandahar mountains on the back of Baradar’s motorcycle in late 2001. Now Omar’s loyal followers can only pray that 2013 will be the year he finally makes his presence known, resumes full leadership responsibility, rallies his forces, and begins issuing orders once again. “This is the right time for Mullah Omar to show up,” says the former minister. “It’s getting very late for us.” In fact, he warns, many Taliban are close to losing hope that Omar will ever come back. “But if he proves he’s alive and begins to lead, we will have a winning hand.”
The truth is that the Taliban’s problems go far deeper than Omar’s absence. The insurgents remain intent on killing their way back into power, rather than developing an economic and political platform that would be acceptable to most Afghans, who are heartily sick of corruption and carnage. The country’s voters are supposed to elect a new president in 2014; their constitution prevents Hamid Karzai—an ethnic Pashtun, like the plurality of Afghanistan’s people and like almost every member of the Taliban—from running for a third term, and so far he has no obvious successor. “The Taliban have to draw up a map for Afghanistan’s future in 2013,” the former minister says. “Waiting until 2014 could be too late.”
But as feckless and sticky-fingered as President Hamid Karzai’s regime has been, the insurgents have failed until now to turn its flaws to their advantage. “There is a serious leadership vacuum, particularly among Pashtuns on Kabul’s side,” the former minister says. “If the Taliban can change, become more open and flexible, we could win more popular support among Afghans.” It may be too late for that. Long, painful experience has taught many Afghans—city dwellers especially—to hate and fear the Taliban. The group became a synonym for cruelty and intolerance during its years in power, and since then its roadside bombs and suicide attacks have slaughtered thousands of civilians. Many Afghans have endured more than enough of the Taliban’s brand of persuasion. Ahmadzai charges that the coalition is leaving its work unfinished. “U.S. and NATO forces came here to accomplish a mission—which they did not complete,” he complains. “And now they’re flying home, leaving us with a corrupt regime and a strong Taliban.”
The crowning irony is that Afghanistan’s fate in 2013 may very well be determined not by the Afghans themselves but by the Pakistanis next door. Most Afghans—including most Taliban—are convinced that the insurgency answers ultimately to Pakistan’s armed forces, particularly to the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency (ISI). After all, Pakistan has powerful leverage over the Afghan guerrillas in the form of the safe havens and assistance that enable them to keep fighting. As a result, the Taliban fear that Pakistan might decide to betray them for its own reasons. “Our biggest worry for next year is not the ANA or U.S. forces. It is that Pakistan may stab us in the back, as it did in 2001,” says the senior Taliban intelligence officer. The insurgents have not forgotten Islamabad’s abrupt abandonment of Omar’s regime under American pressure after the 9/11 attacks.
For the Taliban, the fear is that Pakistan could try forcing them into a peace deal they can’t refuse. The insurgents are deeply divided among themselves over whether to keep fighting or pursue a negotiated settlement. At present the Qatar peace process seems to have gone nowhere since the Taliban suspended the talks last March. Nevertheless, the former minister says, a few Taliban representatives are still sitting in Qatar, awaiting further instructions. “The Taliban in Qatar are isolated and in an embarrassing situation,” he says. “They have to produce some fruit or close the office.” And yet there’s nothing they can do until Pakistan allows them to close shop or resume talking.
But other than the castaways in Qatar, the insurgents are not completely at Pakistan’s mercy. In fact, they have made it clear that if Pakistan double-crosses them this time, they will retaliate, the Taliban intelligence officer says. “If Pakistan withdraws its support, as it did in 2001, we will not collapse as we did back then,” he warns. “We are much stronger now. We could join forces with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan [the Pakistani Taliban, who are fighting Pakistani security forces in the tribal areas] and pose a great danger to Pakistan.”
And Islamabad already has plenty to worry about. In addition to the TTP, who have killed more than 3,000 members of the country’s security forces in the past several years, the people of Pakistan are suffering from grinding poverty, recurrent financial crises, and chronic short ages of energy and clean water. All three of the country’s most powerful men—President Asif Ali Zardari, Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry are due to retire in the next 12 months, and in that order. Neither Zardari nor Kayani wants to be at the mercy of the hard-nosed chief justice, but no one can say how either of them might try to protect himself.
Zardari has been plagued by unresolved corruption charges for more than 20 years, and Kayani now has his own legal headaches. The Army and the ISI have always operated with practically no legal interference, but now they’re facing a spate of lawsuits challenging their sweeping powers and their habits of arresting, detaining, disappearing, or eliminating just about anyone they regard as a national security risk. One lawsuit, brought by a courageous former army lawyer, Inam ur Raheem, even contests the legality of Kayani’s remaining in office, having reached the official retirement age of 60. The Army doesn’t take kindly to outside interference in its powers, perquisites, and privileges. Recently Raheem was savagely beaten by a gang of thugs. The military denied any responsibility.
Still, Pakistani politics may give the Taliban at least a slight respite from their troubles—that is, those insurgents who make it through the first few months of 2013. National elections, due in May, will pit the deeply unpopular Zardari’s ruling Pakistan Peoples Party against his longtime archfoe, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and the upstart politician and former cricket star Imran Khan. Neither of the two has much good to say about America’s conduct in Afghan or its counterterrorism programs, and both publicly are opposed to the Obama administration’s escalating drone war over Pakistan’s tribal belt. But before either one takes over, the Predators seem likely to be busier than ever. Expect street protests, flag-burnings, and a recruiting surge for the militants in the tribal areas. And keep your head down.
Sami Yousafzai is Newsweek's correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he has covered militancy, al Qaeda, and the Taliban for the magazine since 9/11. He was born in Afghanistan but moved to Pakistan with his family after the Russian invasion in 1979. He began his career as a sports journalist but switched to war reporting in 1997.
Ron Moreau is Newsweek’s Afghanistan and Pakistan correspondent, and has been covering the region for the magazine for the past 10 years. Since he first joined Newsweek during the Vietnam War, he has reported extensively from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
1056 Afghan soldiers killed in 2012: Defense officials
By Sajad Khaama Press December 30 2012
The security transition from NATO troops to Afghan security forces which started last year is due to complete in five phases following a pre-planned organized program.
Despite Afghan security forces are in charge of over 75% of the Afghan soil security, Afghan officials are continuously expressing concerns regarding the lack of proper military equipments which creates challenges for the Afghan security forces.
In the meantime increased Afghan army troops casualties is another challenge being faced by Afghan national army where over 1000 service members have been killed during the year.
Afghan defense ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi on Sunday told reporters, “At least 906 Afghan national army soldiers have been killed during the past 9 months, and a total of 1056 Afghans troops have been killed during the year 2012 which shows an increase as compared to 2011.”
An Afghan military analyst Faqir Mohammad Faqir said increased attacks by militants is one of the main reason behind Afghan army casualties.
He said, “Whenever the other party involved in war increases activities then it will naturally increase the casualties but I think the Afghan troops should trained well, must be disciplined and equipped with modern weapons in a bid to reduce the growing casualties.”
Mr. Faqir also insisted that further works should be done in order to prevent Afghan army troops to lose their morale.
In the meantime NATO is looking to increase Afghan police and army numbers to 350,000 as the coalition troops are getting prepared to leave the country in 2014.
However Afghan and NATO officials are concerned regarding low morale of the Afghan security forces and troops escaping from their duties and growing insider attacks by Afghan troops on their international counterparts and comrades which creates barriers for the training of Afgahn security forces.
At least 60 NATO troops were killed by their Afghan counterparts during the year 2012.
Afghan allies
Now even top officials in the Kabul government vow to kill Americans
New York Post By PAUL SPERRY December 29, 2012
“The fate of the Americans in Afghanistan will be worse than that of the Russians,” Mohammed Ismail Khan warned in 2009. The same Afghan is now vowing to drive all “foreigners” out of Afghanistan.
More bluster from a Taliban leader? Hardly. Khan serves as Afghanistan’s energy minister, and is a key member of American ally Hamid Karzai’s cabinet.
In a videotaped meeting last month with jihadists in Herat Province, Khan slammed the US for bringing “American girls, white-skinned Western soldiers and black-skinned American soldiers” into Afghanistan. He called on the “mujahideen” to take up arms and attack them like they did the Soviet “invaders” in the 1980s.
Though his threatening remarks were quickly dismissed by the Afghan government, they should not be taken lightly — especially with American soldiers increasingly vulnerable to insider attacks by Afghans.
Khan has lethal experience launching such attacks. In March 1979, Khan, then a captain in the Afghan army, orchestrated the murder of 50 Soviet military advisers and 300 of their family members in Herat Province. He decapitated many of them and had their heads paraded on spikes through the city.
The atrocity marked the opening salvo of the rebellion which led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.
The US Army recently cited Khan’s treachery as an example of “green-on-blue attacks” that “were common and costly to the Soviet army” during its occupation of Afghanistan. It warned that Khan is “now the Afghan government’s minister of energy.”
The Army published the account in February 2012 and distributed it to soldiers serving in Afghanistan as part of an “Official Use Only” handbook, titled, “Inside the Wire Threats — Afghanistan.” The 35-page handbook also notes that Soviet attempts to train and stand up an Afghan army to fight insurgents failed miserably. “The Afghan army was an unreliable ally,” it said. “It faced constant defections from the start, as not only individuals and units but also whole divisions went over to the mujahideen, taking their personal kit and rifles as well as tanks and armored vehicles.”
Added the report: “The original Soviet plan to push the Afghan army into the field to combat the mujahideen fell by the wayside. The Afghan army’s limited numbers, lack of training, and questionable loyalties made this project too risky to implement.”
A 2011 Army survey found that “on average, US soldiers perceived that 50% of (the) ANA (Afghan National Army) were Islamic radicals” vulnerable to Taliban recruitment. The results were reported in an unclassified study titled, “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility.” It quotes one American soldier as saying, “A reporter attached to my platoon said that during a conversation with ANA soliders, they said that if the Taliban began to win the war, they would switch sides and join the Taliban.”
The crux of the Obama administration’s exit strategy has been training Afghan security forces to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. Much of that training has been suspended due to rogue attacks and defections not unlike what the Soviets faced.
Afghan government troops and police — our allies — have turned their guns on US-led coalition troops at least 47 times this year, killing at least 63, most of them Americans. That’s more than double 2011’s total of 21 attacks, in which 35 were killed.
One recent attack involved for the first time an Afghan policewoman, who early last week drew her US-issued pistol and fatally shot a US military adviser in the chest at the police headquarters in Kabul. The police sergeant, a mother of four with a clean record, had earlier been a refugee in Iran.
Until 2005, Khan was governor of Herat Province, which borders Iran. He controlled border crossings and trade there. He also influenced local recruitment for Afghan security forces. Kabul recently accused Khan of illegally distributing weapons to his jihadi supporters in Herat. Although Khan says he would fight the Taliban if it returned to power, his own son-in-law recently joined the Taliban insurgency.
The US military seems to be in denial about the breadth and scope of theinternal threats it faces in Afghanistan. While on the one hand it warns that the “major problem confronting the Soviets was the unreliability of the Afghan army,” it nonetheless appears Polyannish about its own prospects for partnering with the Afghan army. “U.S. forces can gain keen insights and lessons from the Soviet 10-year occupation of Afghanistan,” the Army handbook asserts. The same document goes on to claim that “in contrast” to the Soviet experience, “the United States and CF (coalition forces) have achieved great success in training and partnering with our ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) counterparts.”
Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration.”
NATO fuel tankers catch fire in eastern Afghanistan, 1 killed
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- At least one person was killed when 11 oil trucks supplying fuel for the NATO-led coalition forces caught fire following a blast in eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar on Sunday evening.
"Initially, an oil tanker caught fire after an explosion by a sticky bomb but later it engulfed 10 more trucks in the incident which took place at about 6 p.m. local time in Behsud district," Mohammad Zahir police chief of the district told Xinhua.
One driver who was wounded in the incident later died of his wounds in a hospital in the incident, he said.
No group claims responsibility for the incident. Taliban insurgent group routinely claims attacking oil trucks.
Taliban has warned the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people against supporting government and foreign troops.
Winter’s Deadly Bite Returns to Refugee Camps of Kabul
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND December 29, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - The snow that fell on a refugee camp in Kabul last week left thick powder piled voluptuously on the sagging roofs of huts and skinny tree branches, turning the squalor into a winter wonderland. The mistake of a toddler named Janan was to play in it.
By nightfall Thursday, Janan, 3, was sick. On Friday, he never woke up.
He became the first known victim to freeze to death this winter in the mud and tarpaulin warrens of Kabul’s 44 refugee camps, where more than 100 children died of cold last winter.
His father, Taj Mohammad, 32, fears Janan may not be the last. “I am worried that more of my children will die,” he said.
When the children died here last winter, the question was, how could this happen in the capital city, home to 2,000 aid groups, recipient of $58 billion in development aid and at least $3.5 billion in humanitarian aid over the past 10 years?
The question this winter is, how could it happen again?
The answer appears to be a combination of stubbornness, by the Afghan government and the refugees themselves; inadequate deliveries of aid as winter sets in; and, in some cases, desperate families who sold their winter clothes and blankets in the summer to get food.
Last winter, after news reports drew attention to the deaths, aid groups, individuals and the American military rushed in with blankets and warm clothing, charcoal and firewood.
The United Nations organized the aid to try to get supplies where they were needed most.
In a report in November, the organization’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that distribution of fuel, cold-weather clothing, blankets and tarpaulins would begin Dec. 9 and continue through January, although the agency warned that firewood supplies for February had not yet been financed by donor countries.
Despite the preparations, matters rapidly took a turn for the worse the first time that protracted subfreezing temperatures set in with a snowstorm on Thursday and Friday.
In visits on Saturday to two camps that were the worst hit last January and February, Charahi Qambar and Nasaji Bagrami, residents were clearly ill prepared for the conditions around them now.
Small boys and girls ran through the muddy ice and snow in open sandals, flip-flops and even just barefoot. While here and there a child had a donated coat or sweater, they were the exception. Some adult men were better clothed, often with donated warm clothing, but few had hats, gloves or warm boots.
“I fear for the future,” said Mohammad Yousef, the manager of Aschiana, one of the few refugee groups working in the Kabul camps. “This is only the start of the cold weather.”
Abdul Wakil, 8, recounted what had happened to his little brother Janan at the Charahi Qambar camp on the western side of the capital. “He was playing in the cold and snow,” Abdul Wakil said, shivering in a thin cotton shirt and trousers, a pair of toeless socks poking out of the front of his sandals, his only footwear. “Then he got sick and got a fever and died.”
His father, Mr. Mohammad, filled in the blanks. They brought the 3-year-old into their mud hut, but its roof was leaking and they were out of fuel. “We couldn’t get him warm again,” he said. “We were just wrapping ourselves in our blankets, it was all we could do.” They had received an aid distribution of charcoal 15 days earlier, but it had run out by then, he said.
Now the family, with six other young children, has a bit more fuel, donated by friends after Janan’s death: a sack of sawdust donated by a carpenter, some roof poles and pieces of dried shrubs. Their only food is some bread and potatoes. Only a couple of his children have warm clothing; the rest are in rags. “That’s all they have,” he said, “they have nothing else to wear.”
“There are 900 families here, and every family has 10 to 15 children,” said Najibullah, an Aschiana worker at the Charahi Qambar camp, the biggest in Kabul. Distributions of clothing mostly came after the worst of last year’s winter weather. “When the NGOs came, they gave out one jacket per house.”
United Nations officials could not immediately be reached to discuss why supplies are apparently still so short in the camps.
In the past, though, officials have said the 35,000 refugees in the Kabul camps are caught in a Catch-22. Their camps are unregistered and the government wants the residents to return to their homes, so they do not qualify for many forms of emergency aid. But most of them come from war zones, particularly Helmand Province in these two large camps, and say it is not safe to return.
Even after losing one of his sons, Mr. Mohammad said he had no intention of returning south. “I would rather freeze to death than get bombed again,” he said.
In an interview last February during the height of last winter’s crisis, the head of the United Nations’ humanitarian coordination agency, Aidan O’Leary, said emergency aid was not a long-term answer. “It will keep them alive, but we can’t afford to lose sight that there has to be a better solution going forward, not to be dealing with this situation every time winter comes about,” he said.
Afghan government officials and international agencies held a meeting last summer with camp leaders to try to persuade them to take offers of allotments of farmland if the refugees would return to Helmand, but nearly all of them refused. Instead, many new refugees from the fighting arrived in the past year; nationwide, 33,000 people were newly displaced by the fighting in November, according to United Nations figures.
Camp representatives counter-proposed that they would be willing to settle on farmland in Kabul Province instead. Mohammad Ibrahim, the leader of the Nasaji Bagrami camp, said they were promised that efforts would be made to find international donors to finance that, but nothing came of it.
During the summer, Mr. Ibrahim said, camp residents still had chronic problems finding work and buying food, and many of them sold the blankets and warm clothing they had received.
“It’s true, that is what happened,” he said. “People do what they have to do to get food to eat.”
Islamuldin Jurat, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, had not yet heard of the death of 3-year-old Janan, but was unsurprised. “We are expecting casualties,” he said. “They needed more help from the beginning of the year. From spring until now, these people did not have enough food, enough calories and fat, so in the winter they need much more food, so we are expecting the cold weather might take the lives of some children.”
So far, no children have died in the Nasaji Bagrami camp this winter, but Mr. Ibrahim said he believed it was only a matter of time.
In one hut live two widows, Rahima, 24, and Shahid, 45. They had married brothers in Marja, in Helmand, and both men were killed in an aerial bombardment six months ago; so they fled here. Between them they have 14 children, ranging in age from 8 months to 13 years. They were all crammed into a one-room mud hut with a wet floor, a ceiling that dripped from snow melt, and no stove or heater. Instead there was a small pile of embers, and over it a pot of rice. The heat was so sparse that the rice had been cooking for hours and was still not ready.
There was no other food or fuel in sight.
All of the children appeared to have colds, eyes and noses streaming. Rahima said she was painfully aware of the risk of cold to her infant son, 8-month-old Niaz Mohammad. “And I’m not only worried about him but the rest of the children, too,” she said. “They all cry at night because of the cold. We try to cover them with whatever we have but they still do.”
And then there was the hut of Baidullah, 55, whose 6-year-old son Pardeen was among the 17 children in this camp who died last winter from the cold. Mr. Baidullah, who fled with his family of seven from Helmand, said he feared his 3-year-old son Ismail will be next; he has been sick with a cold and fever for 10 days.
Mr. Baidullah’s hut has new United Nations-donated tarps on the roof, so for now it is dry. But inside there is only a metal dish of embers for heat. They place the dish inside a sandalee, a square wooden frame covered with a blanket under which they sit or lie with their legs inside. On Saturday, Ismail and his mother were huddled under the sandalee, but the embers were dwindling, and with nightfall still five hours away, the family supply of fuel was down to scraps of cardboard and plastic bottles.
“I’m worried,” Mr. Baidullah said. Not so much about another death in the family, to which he seems to have resigned himself, but about the costs of the funeral. “I don’t even have enough money for the burial shroud.”
Blast hits police mobile, wounds 4 in eastern Afghan town
SHARAN, Afghanistan, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Four people, including three policemen, were wounded Sunday morning when a blast hit a police vehicle in eastern Afghan province of Paktika, the provincial government confirmed in a statement.
"Three members of Afghan Local Police (ALP) and a civilian passerby were injured in the explosion which took place at about 9: 00 a.m. (local time) near the bazaar in Sarobi district," the statement said.
The injured were shifted to a hospital in neighbouring Urgun district, where one ALP cop was reported to be in critical condition, the statement said, adding, "The initial investigation shows that the explosion might have caused by a sticky bomb attached to the vehicle."
The NATO and U.S.-funded ALP or community police was established in August 2010 to protect villages and districts around the insurgency-hit country where Afghan army and police have limited presence.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Taliban insurgents were suspected of carrying out such attacks.
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.
Missing NATO soldier found dead in S. Afghanistan
KABUL, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- A Georgian soldier with the NATO-led coalition forces, who went missing since Dec. 18, was found dead in southern Afghanistan, the coalition forces confirmed on Sunday.
"The body of the Georgian soldier who was reported missing Dec. 18 was found by members of the Afghan police yesterday in southern Afghanistan. The police recovered the body and turned him over to members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)," the coalition or ISAF said in a statement.
The brief statement did not provide details into the incident, only saying "The circumstances of the soldier's capture and death are under investigation."
A total of 1,561 Georgian soldiers have been stationed in Afghanistan within the framework of 100,000-strong NATO-led ISAF forces. More than 10 Georgian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.
Afghan, Pakistan to Open Border, Probe Citizen Abuse Cases
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry Saturday, 29 December 2012
Afghan and Pakistani officials pledged to open the Torkham Border and start an immediate probe into recent incidents of abuse of Pakistani and Afghan citizens in each country, Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Saturday.
One incident occurred in Landi Kotal near Peshawar, Pakistan when several Afghan citizens were badly beaten by unknown gunmen and their travel documents torn.
The other incident occurred when, according to reports, several Pakistani truck drivers were mistreated and their documents torn near Kabul.
In response, Pakistani officials closed the Torkham border Friday.
Thousands of trucks remain stranded on the Pakistan-Afghan border and seven ill people, who couldn't receive medical attention on time, have died, Afghan officials said. There have also been reports of 13 people freezing to death.
In a meeting between Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Mohammad Umar Daudzai, and special secretary of the Pakistani foreign ministry, Alamgir Babur, both sides decided to start an immediate investigation in on the two incidents.
"Both countries would conduct comprehensive investigations into the reported incident of a number of Pakistani citizens getting mistreated near Kabul last week and the Landi Kotal incident and undertake necessary measures," the MoFA statement said.
Meanwhile, Afghan analysts emphasized that the ripping of Afghan passports was a major insult for Afghanistan and the government should pursue the issue very seriously.
"Ripping of the national documents is a major disrespect and abuse to the prestige of the nation. The issue should be followed up through diplomacy," Afghanistan's National Front Spokesman Sayed Fazel Sancharaki said.
'Powerful Figures' Involved in Land Grabbing: Parliament Commission
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Sadaat Saturday, 29 December 2012
The newly formed parliament commission on supervising the government's activities said Saturday that 1.25 million acres of land have been confiscated illegally over the past few years across the country, with powerful figures heavily involved in land-grabbing.
The commission said that in Kabul alone, 11,426 acres of land have been grabbed illegally by 11 powerful figures, and the government has not addressed the issue although the cases have been presented to the Attorney General's Office.
"One million and two hundred fifty thousand acres of land are confiscated across the country. According to our findings, most of the land is confiscated by powerful figures," said Saleh Mohammed Saljooqi, member of the Special Commission for Studying and Analyzing Government Activities.
"The government is responsible to examine the matter," he added.
Although the commission said it has identified the high-profile land-grabbers, it did not disclose any names.
"We have identified the names and locations of these people but, according to the Constitution, as you know, we cannot disclose anyone's name before a decision is reached by the court," Saljooqi said.
A number of MPs at the parliament session reacted to the commission's non-disclosure of the names.
"This report of yours is incomplete. Why aren't the names disclosed if the report has been finalised?" said Gulalai Noor Saafi, MP.
"You have to name (them). They are criminals. Why aren't their names disclosed?" said Ramazan Bashardost, MP.
Parliament to Review Draft Election Law
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Sadaat Saturday, 29 December 2012
The Ministry of Justice on Saturday presented the draft of the Afghan elections law to the lawmakers.
Speaking before the MPs, Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib urged the lawmakers to consider national interests and the interests of the Afghan people in reviewing the law.
The controversial election law draft was recently approved by the Council of Ministers after several weeks of delay and discussions.
The new draft removes the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) and charges the Supreme Court with its responsibilities. The Parliament is expected to argue in favor of reinstating the ECC and keeping the two foreign observers on the seven-member body.
The Independent Election Commission is worried that the draft law might not be ratified early enough to allow time for voter registration and other processes to be completed before election day.
It has stated that unless the new law is approved soon, the 2014 elections might have to take place under the existing laws, whose flaws have led to widespread abuse in previous elections.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com