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Afghanistan Frees Detainees in Show of Sovereignty Before Karzai Visits U.S.
By AZAM AHMED and HABIB ZAHORI The New York Times January 4, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan — Just ahead of a trip to Washington by President Hamid Karzai, the Afghan government released 80 detainees on Friday, part of a continuing effort to assert its sovereignty over the contentious issue of how prisoners are handled.
American officials have long complained that the Afghans release prisoners too soon, raising the risk that many will return to the battlefield. Afghan officials counter that they are not legally allowed to detain people suspected of being insurgents without enough evidence to prosecute them, even if the Americans say they are too dangerous to release.
The releases stem from an agreement the Americans made to eventually transfer control of the Parwan Detention Facility, located at Bagram Air Base, to the Afghan government last March. Of the thousands of prisoners captured by American forces who have come under Afghan control, close to 1,000 have been released over the last year.
But Friday was a rare instance when the government made a public spectacle of releasing a large number together. A large group of local television journalists lined up to film the ceremony, during which the prisoners, dressed in new brown, yellow and blue shalwars, embraced family members most had not seen in more than a year.
“The Afghan government is not trying to open the gates of its prisons and release all prisoners,” said Gen. Ghulam Farooq, the superintendent of the Bagram Prison, which holds about 3,000 prisoners. “Those who are found guilty will be punished, but those who are innocent should be released.”
But, he added, “we don’t know how many are guilty and how many are innocent,” a reference to the limited evidence that, Afghan officials contend, makes holding the prisoners impossible under Afghan law.
Despite the government’s upbeat ceremony, the transfer of the prison has become a considerable source of tension as the Americans prepare to withdraw and Afghans take on increasing control over security in the country. The United States halted the transfer of a handful of detainees in September, arguing that the Afghan government had not held up its end of the deal. Two months later, Mr. Karzai ordered Afghan forces to take control of the American-built prison, although that has still not happened entirely.
On Friday, General Farooq dismissed the notion that the release of the detainees was contentious, saying it was part of the plan all along.
“The Afghan government and the Americans agreed that Americans would hand all prisoners to the Afghan government and that we would make a decision about keeping and releasing them based on the enforced laws of Afghanistan,” General Farooq said. “It is a 100 percent Afghan process, and the Americans don’t have any problem with it. They are not involved in it at all.”
American officials have disputed the Afghan interpretation of the agreement to hand over the prison, arguing that the American military authorities have veto power over who is released. To date, Americans have not transferred all of the Afghan prisoners they are holding to government control. In addition, newly captured Afghan prisoners are being kept in American custody, a procedure the Afghans have disputed.
In the last year, 570 detainees have been released after acquittal in Afghan courts. An additional 485 are in the process of being released, or have been released already, after a bilateral board of Afghans and Americans determined that there was not enough evidence to prosecute them. On Saturday, the government expects to release 131 more prisoners.
Some Western officials believe that the move by the Afghan government is designed to encourage reconciliation with insurgents to help put an end to the war. And by timing the move on the day before Mr. Karzai leaves for Washington to visit President Obama, it also highlights his independence as a leader.
“The main reason behind the release of these prisoners is to show the good intentions of the Afghan government,” General Farooq said. “We hope that their release will strengthen peace and stability in the country.”
Judging by the response of families and friends of the prisoners, the government’s move was well calculated.
“The release of these prisoners will definitely have a positive impact on people’s relationship with the government,” said Haji Sangeen, 48, a truck driver from Paktia who came to collect 12 of the detainees who hailed from his village. “It will bring the distance between the government and people to a minimum.”
The released prisoners, for their part, were pleased with the result, if not their detention.
Mohammed Naib, 15, from Logar Province, said he was arrested during a night raid at his school when he was just 13.
“How would you feel if someone put you in jail for two years without even telling why they have arrested you,” he asked. “ I am happy that they have decided to release us, but my rights have been disregarded. Even if they give me the entire world they won’t be able to restore my dignity.”
After the ceremony, the prisoners and their relatives went to a pink mosque nearby for lunch. They gathered in groups, chatting with one another and laughing, an air of jubilance filling the room. Some of the relatives started calling family members of the prisoners and handing the phones over to them to talk.
Abdullah, 32, also from Logar, said that he was arrested with his two brothers during a night raid about 20 months ago.
“They arrested me because I was the imam of our mosque, and they accused me of harboring insurgents,” he said. “But they couldn’t prove it.”
Like most other released detainees, Abdullah, who uses a single name, denied ever having aided the Taliban.
“I am not going to join the Taliban because I do not see a reason for that,” he said. “I will try to live a normal life, but I will not support the government or American efforts because I do not see a reason for that either.”
Obama-Karzai talks near: How many US troops should stay in Afghanistan?
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will be in Washington next week to meet with President Obama. Top of the agenda: deciding whether US troops should stay beyond 2014 – and how many.
Christian Science Monitor By Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer January 3, 2013
WASHINGTON - With Afghan President Hamid Karzai set to arrive for a meeting at the White House next week, the Obama administration is considering three options for how many troops it wants to leave in the country after NATO ends its mission in 2014.
President Obama and Mr. Karzai could make significant headway toward that decision as well as others, such as the pace of the US drawdown between now and 2014 and the sort of military hardware Afghanistan would like from the US. But approval of any Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, to keep US troops in the country remains contingent upon Karzai granting US forces immunity from local prosecution.
It was largely the question of immunity that derailed Mr. Obama’s plan to keep 3,000 US troops in Iraq beyond the December 2011 withdrawal date.
The size of a residual force for Afghanistan is likely to be larger – and potentially considerably larger – than the 3,000-strong force Obama envisioned for Iraq.
This week, the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, sent Defense Secretary Leon Panetta three scenarios calling for between 6,000 and 20,000 US troops to remain in Afghanistan. A contingent at the lower end of the range would focus primarily on counterterrorism activity carried out by Special Forces, while a force at the top of the range would allow for continued training of Afghan security forces and some joint operations with the Afghan military.
Obama has made no decisions on the size of a residual force, but in the past White House officials have suggested the president might opt for a force of about 10,000 troops.
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This week, Pentagon officials said the US is likely to decide the size of any post-2014 force before turning to the question of the pace – or what Defense officials call the “slope” – of the drawdown of the 66,000 US forces in Afghanistan.
Some regional security experts say the best outcome of the meeting next week would be for Obama and Karzai to announce progress toward the conclusion of a SOFA – and perhaps even the number of US troops envisioned for a post-2014 force.
But Karzai has sounded resistant at times to the US insistence on immunity. Meanwhile, US officials and some members of Congress say that not one soldier will remain if immunity is not granted.
Last month, Karzai suggested after meetings in Kabul with Secretary Panetta that the immunity demand might depend on first sorting out who maintains control over detained Afghan citizens – particularly when it concerns key terrorist suspects. These are issues that “directly touch on Afghan sovereignty,” Karzai said.
Concluding a SOFA within the next few months would send an important message to key players in the Afghan conflict, says Dov Zakheim, a former undersecretary of Defense during the George W. Bush administration. The announcement of a SOFA would tell the Taliban that, while the US might be withdrawing the bulk of its forces, it is going to remain a force in the country and is not “turning its back on the country, as it did in the 1990s,” he wrote in the recent issue of The National Interest.
That would also be a valuable message to send to Afghanistan's neighbors – including Pakistan, which is seen to be harboring key figures in the Afghan Taliban as a means of maintaining influence in a post-US Afghanistan.
But other experts say that a SOFA with Afghanistan will only be helpful if the US force remaining in Afghanistan post-2014 is relatively large. If the US is to continue counterterrorism operations in South Asia – and particularly in Pakistan – its force in Afghanistan should number closer to 30,000 than the 20,000 at the top of General Allen’s range of force options, say Fred and Kimberley Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute.
Afghan War Effort a Key Obama Foreign Policy Issue
Andre de Nesnera VOA News January 3, 2013
One of the major foreign policy issues facing President Barack Obama during his second term in office will be winding down the conflict in Afghanistan, America’s longest war.
American military forces have been in that country for more than 11 years, longer than the Soviet presence in the 1980s [more than nine years].
There are roughly 68,000 U.S. troops in the country. The plan is to withdraw all American and international coalition combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, ultimately handing over all military and security responsibilities to the Afghans.
But former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2005-2006), John Bolton, believes the Afghan security forces will not be ready to take over from the Americans, and he is pessimistic about Afghanistan’s future following the U.S. pullout.
“The possibility of the U.S. actually pulling out in 2014 just brings the prospect of the Taliban taking control once again more into focus. And I think if I were predicting, I would predict that’s the most likely outcome, which is obviously an extraordinarily negative outcome from the U.S. perspective,” said Bolton. “The idea that we would withdraw, even though the near certain outcome is a Taliban/al-Qaida return to power and all the risks that that entails for the United States and other countries, I just think is a kind of blindness.”
Talks on U.S. Troop Strength After 2014
U.S. and Afghan officials are engaged in negotiations over the size of the American military presence after 2014, a presence that is expected to be significantly smaller.
Former Defense Secretary (1997-2001) William Cohen said there must be an international residual military force in Afghanistan.
“It cannot be simply the United States. There has to be a recognition on the part of many countries that it’s in the world’s interest to see stability remain or be brought to Afghanistan,” Cohen said. “If we leave and everyone leaves, then I think we have a return to the status quo ante. That’s not desirable. But the United States can’t be the only country concerned about stability in Afghanistan, so it is going to have to be an international force, if there is going to be one at all.”
For many years, one of the key demands of the United States and other Western countries was for Afghan President Hamid Karzai to fight corruption. But many former U.S. government officials, including Ambassador John Bolton, said the goal of rooting out graft was a lofty one that Karzai was unable to accomplish.
Corruption Still Rampant
“Although we’d certainly like an Afghanistan without corruption, the odds of the United States making that happen or of the Karzai regime or anybody else making it happen in a short period of time was always unrealistic,” said Bolton. “It is a fact of life there that the Afghans themselves are going to have to decide how to deal with. It might have been part of the unrealistic expectations that we had for the Afghan national government.”
Former National Security Adviser [1974-77; 1989-93], retired Air Force General Brent Scowcroft also said the United States had unrealistic expectations about what it could achieve in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“We cannot step in on a brief timetable and remake societies. We’ve tried it several times now and it’s just beyond our capability. So we have to realize, when we are contemplating action in another country, what is realistic for us to accomplish and what isn’t,” Scowcroft said. “Because both in Iraq and Afghanistan, we had these grand notions of remaking the societies and turning them into democracies, well you just can’t do that overnight. And it takes an intensity and a dedication which we can’t perpetuate, and so we need to reign in our aspirations.”
War Weariness in U.S. and Europe
General Scowcroft added there is a war weariness in the United States.
“With the Afghan war, with the Iraq hostilities, I think there is a strong sense ‘don’t get involved anymore, pull back.’ Psychologically, that can be harmful," he said. "I don’t know what there is out in the future, but going from one extreme to another is dangerous.”
Experts said there is also a war weariness in Europe, and they said this does not bode well for putting together a smaller international military force to replace the one currently in Afghanistan until the end of 2014.
U.S. likely to keep thousands of troops in Afghanistan after NATO forces leave
CNN By Mike Mount January 3rd, 2013
The United States could keep between 6,000 and 15,000 troops in Afghanistan after the official 2014 NATO withdrawal, say officials familiar with plans submitted to the Pentagon by the current U.S. commander in that country, Gen. John Allen.
Allen was tasked with developing an overarching plan for how U.S. forces will leave Afghanistan over the next two years, as well as solidifying a post-international combat troop presence. Now he has offered three distinctive options for the president, according to senior defense officials.
The officials said Allen's plans - created with input from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's office, the Joint Staff, the U.S. Central Command, and the White House - would give President Barack Obama options based on what he is looking to do in Afghanistan.
The plans are awaiting official approval from Panetta, the officials said.
According to the officials:
The low-end option calls for 6,000 to 6,500 troops that would be strictly for counterterrorism operations: hunting down Taliban and al Qaeda members and cells still operating around the country. This would require mostly Special Operations Forces, with a limited number of support troops and only a very small amount of training assistance for Afghan forces.
The mid-range option, involving around 10,000 troops, would still have the main focus on counterterrorism operations, but it would have a bigger training footprint for Afghan forces, with most of the focus on Special Operations troops and a limited amount of conventional troop training.
The 15,000-troop option would bring in a greater number of conventional troops for training Afghan Security Forces, as well as a bigger support element in addition to the counterterrorism forces.
The defense officials said planning for the post-2014 troop presence is still not complete, but it is very close. They said they expect next week's visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to involve conversations discussing these options. Officials said Karzai and Panetta are expected to meet at some point.
Last spring, NATO and the Afghan government agreed on a plan for the United States and international forces to end the NATO mission in Afghanistan and hand over full security responsibility of the country to the Afghan government. At the end of last September - as the final troops added during the "surge" that Obama ordered in December 2009 left Afghanistan - the president ordered Allen to assess the situation in the country and develop an exit strategy.
Defense officials said that Allen had to develop a post-2014 security plan before he could determine how fast troops could be withdrawn over the next two years, to ensure stability throughout the exit.
There are currently 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The capability of Afghan security forces has long been in question, with slow improvement in the military, and the Afghan police force lagging far behind. A December 2012 assessment of the security forces, which looked at a snapshot from between the spring and summer, showed that only one of the Afghan Army's 23 brigades was able to operate on its own, without U.S. military air or ground troop support.
Military analysts who closely watch Afghan operations say that while Allen has not yet made a recommendation for the pace of the force withdrawal, he is expected to suggest pulling troops out at a slower rate than the president would want.
One senior Defense official told CNN the United States is expecting the Afghan government to allow legal protections for U.S. troops who remain in Afghanistan after the NATO mission ends in 2014.
The refusal by the Iraq government to extend legal protections for U.S. troops after the end of the war in Iraq was a major reason the United States left the country with no residual military training force.
The Afghan plans come as Allen prepares to leave Afghanistan in early February in a regular command rotation. Taking over for him will be Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford.
Allen was nominated to take over as head of the U.S. European Command, becoming the top military commander for NATO forces. In that role, he was expected to be a key adviser on Afghanistan through its NATO allies. But his nomination is on hold while he is being investigated for alleged improper e-mail communications with a Tampa, Florida socialite, Jill Kelley.
U.S. Welcomes Militant's Reported Death
January 4, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The U.S. Defense Department has welcomed reports that a prominent Islamic militant commander was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan.
Pentagon spokesman George Little did not confirm the strike, but said the death of Mullah Nazir would mark a “significant blow” against militants and would be “helpful” to both U.S. and Pakistani forces.
The United States generally does not comment about its drone program.
Nazir was reported killed in a missile strike overnight on January 2-3 in South Waziristan.
A top deputy was reportedly among around eight other people also killed.
Nazir is held responsible by authorities for coordinating attacks on U.S. and NATO-led troops in neighboring Afghanistan.
He is said to have had a truce deal with Pakistan's military and did not focus on Pakistani targets.
Nazir was reportedly wounded in a bombing attack in November.
Local elders in Waziristan named Bawal Khan, who was a close aide to Mullah Nazir, as his successor, an RFE/RL correspondent reports.
Based on reporting by AP and AFP
Insider Attacks in Afghanistan Shape the Late Stages of a War
New York Times By MATTHEW ROSENBERG January 3, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - It was only after the young Afghan soldier’s hatred of Americans had grown murderous that he reached out to the Taliban.
The soldier, named simply Mahmood, 22, said that in May he told the insurgents of his plan to shoot Americans the next time they visited the outpost where he was based in northeastern Afghanistan. He asked the Taliban to take him in if he escaped.
The Taliban veterans he contacted were skeptical. Despite their public insistence that they employ vast ranks of infiltrators within the Afghan Army and the police, they acknowledged that many of the insider attacks they take credit for start as offers by angry young men like Mahmood. They had seen many fail, or lose their nerve before even starting, and they figured that Mahmood, too, would prove more talk than action or would die in the attempt.
“Even the Taliban didn’t think I would be able to do this,” Mr. Mahmood said in an interview.
He proved them wrong days later, on the morning of May 11, when he opened fire on American trainers who had gone to the outpost in the mountains of Kunar Province. One American was killed and two others were wounded. Mahmood escaped in the ensuing confusion, and he remains free in Kunar after the Taliban welcomed him into their ranks.
It was, he said, his “proudest day.”
Such insider attacks, by Afghan security forces on their Western allies, became “the signature violence of 2012,” in the words of one former American official. The surge in attacks has provided the clearest sign yet that Afghan resentment of foreigners is becoming unmanageable, and American officials have expressed worries about its disruptive effects on the training mission that is the core of the American withdrawal plan for 2014.
“It’s a game changer on all levels,” said First Sgt. Joseph Hissong, an American who helped fight off an insider attack by Afghan soldiers that left two men in his unit dead.
Cultural clashes have contributed to some of the insider attacks, with Afghan soldiers and police officers becoming enraged by what they see as rude and abusive behavior by Americans close to them. In some cases, the abusive or corrupt behavior of Afghan officers prompts the killer to go after Americans, who are seen as backing the local commanders. On rare occasions, like the killing of an American contractor by an Afghan policewoman late last month, there seems to be no logical explanation.
But behind it all, many senior coalition and Afghan officials are now concluding that after nearly 12 years of war, the view of foreigners held by many Afghans has come to mirror that of the Taliban. Hope has turned into hatred, and some will find a reason to act on those feelings.
“A great percentage of the insider attacks have the enemy narrative — the narrative that the infidels have to be driven out — somewhere inside of them, but they aren’t directed by the enemy,” said a senior coalition officer, who asked not to be identified because of Afghan and American sensitivities about the attacks.
The result is that, although the Taliban have successfully infiltrated the security forces before, they do not always have to. Soldiers and police officers will instead go to them, as was the case with Mr. Mahmood, who offered a glimpse of the thinking behind the violence in one of the few interviews conducted with Afghans who have committed insider attacks.
“I have intimate friends in the army who have the same opinion as I do,” Mr. Mahmood said. “We used to sit and share our hearts’ tales.”
But he said he did not tell any of his compatriots of his plan to shoot Americans, fearing that it could leak out and derail his attack. The interviews with Mr. Mahmood and his Taliban contacts were conducted in recent weeks by telephone and through written responses to questions. There are also two videos that show Mr. Mahmood with the Taliban: an insurgent-produced propaganda video available on jihadi Web sites, and an interview conducted by a local journalist in Kunar.
Though Mr. Mahmood at times contradicted himself, falling into stock Taliban commentary about how it had always been his ambition to kill foreigners, much of what he said mirrored the timelines and versions of events provided by Taliban fighters who know him, as well as Afghan officials familiar with his case.
Mr. Mahmood grew up in Tajikan, a small village in the southern province of Helmand. The area around his village remains dominated by the Taliban despite advances against the insurgents made in recent years by American and British troops. Even Afghans from other parts of Helmand are hesitant to travel to Tajikan for fear of the Taliban.
Col. Khudaidad, an Afghan officer who runs the Afghan National Army’s recruitment center in Helmand, said Mr. Mahmood enlisted about four years ago. His story, up to that point, would be familiar to many Americans: He was a poor boy from a family of eight who worked sweeping up in a tailor shop and was looking for a better life. The army offered steady pay, reading and writing lessons, and a chance to see something beyond the mud hovels in which he was born and raised.
“He barely had a beard,” recalled Colonel Khudaidad, who also uses only one name, in an interview. “He looked so innocent that you wouldn’t believe what he did if you only saw him then.”
Mr. Mahmood says he was anything but an innocent. He grew up being told that Americans, Britons and Jews “are the enemies of our country and our religion,” he said.
But until May, he worked and fought alongside foreigners without incident. The change came in the Ghaziabad District of Kunar, where he ended up after the start of 2012, he said.
The area is thick with Taliban, along with Islamists from Pakistan. Many residents sympathized with the insurgents and often complained to Afghan soldiers about the abuses committed by Americans and the failure of Afghan soldiers to control much of anything beyond the perimeter of their own outpost, Mr. Mahmood said. The Taliban, they glorified.
Listening to villagers, Mr. Mahmood became convinced that the foreigners had killed too many Afghans and insulted the Prophet Muhammad too many times. He wanted to be driving them out, not helping them stay. The villagers’ stories “strengthened my desire to kill Americans with my own fingers,” he said.
He contacted the Taliban through a local sympathizer. He did not want help — he only asked the insurgents “not to shoot me” if he managed to escape after attacking the Americans, which he told them would happen in a few days.
He was on guard duty when American soldiers arrived at the outpost on May 11. He waited for a few of them to shed their body armor and put down their weapons, and then he opened fire. (New regulations require American trainers to keep their armor on and weapons at hand when visiting Afghan bases.)
The Afghan and American soldiers initially thought the attack was coming from the outside. They “didn’t even think that someone within the Afghan Army might have opened fire on Americans,” he said. “I took advantage of this confusion and fled.”
He claimed to have hit six Americans. “I don’t know how many were killed, though I hope all were,” he said. The coalition said one soldier was killed and two were wounded.
The Taliban welcomed him as a hero. He was given the title “ghazi,” an honorific for someone who helps drive off non-Muslim invaders. “They let me keep the same rifle I used to kill Americans.”
In August, the Taliban featured Mr. Mahmood in a propaganda video, calling him “Ghazi of Ghaziabad.” The video shows Mr. Mahmood, smiling broadly, being draped with garlands and showered with praise from local elders, Taliban fighters and cheering crowds of men and boys.
The following month, the American-led military coalition announced that it had killed Mr. Mahmood in an airstrike. The coalition now says it was mistaken and that Mr. Mahmood is still with the Taliban in Kunar.
Villagers and officials in Helmand backed up that account, saying Mr. Mahmood had been in touch with relatives since the report of his death. Mr. Mahmood said he spoke only to his mother, and that “she was happy.”
Sangar Rahimi and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting from Kabul, and an employee of The New York Times from Asadabad.
Afghan census dodges questions of ethnicity and language
Door-to-door interviewers embark on controversial project to count population of country for first time since 1979
Guardian.co.uk By Emma Graham-Harrison Thursday 3 January 2013
Chaghcharan - There are two questions Hajera Bashir does not ask as she goes door to door gathering census data in Ghor province in Afghanistan's freezing central highlands: which ethnic group residents belong to, and what language they speak at home.
With these taboo topics set aside, she quizzes families about everything else: their income and how many wives each man has, whether they can read and if their sons and daughters are in school, domestic details such as how they heat their homes, whether they have a toilet and if they keep chickens.
The shy 18-year-old is part of a critical but controversial effort to count the Afghan population for the first time since 1979. Expected to take at least six years on a slow, province-by-province basis, it is possible only because it sidesteps tangled questions about the country's ethnic balance. Asking about language is avoided because it can be used as a proxy marker for ethnicity.
"We don't ask for ethnicity or language spoken, this is on purpose," said Laurent Zessler, head in Afghanistan of the UN Population Fund, which is supporting the project. "This country has so many issues to address between the political process, the economy and security, why complicate it?"
Still, the complexity of Afghanistan's ethnic politics means any kind of counting is controversial. The first results, from normally calm central Bamiyan province, showed an actual population barely half official estimates. The area is mostly home to Hazaras, a Shia minority who have often been persecuted in Sunni-dominated Afghanistan, and many took the findings as another form of attack.
"Death to the enemies of Bamiyan! The statistics are wrong!" shouted more than 1,000 demonstrators as they marched on UN offices in the small town this summer, the Pajhwok news agency reported.
A previous attempt to end the decades-long wait for a count of the Afghan people, in 2008, was scrapped, with the government citing security problems. In December officials even dropped plans to unveil a new estimate of the population.
Although war has often put swaths of the country off-limits to statisticians, bitter ethnic politics have also played a role in slow progress, because of the risks that a population count might reduce the official size of some constituencies or expand those of rivals.
"If a politician sees that the ethnic group to which he or she belongs is less than expected, they will sometimes reject the data," said Abdul Rahman Ghafoori, head of the Central Statistics Office, who has the delicate job of balancing his country's need for decent data against the influence of groups who would rather details remain opaque or unchanged.
"We are not looking to reduce or increase population," he said, in an ornately carved office that survived years of violence better than the institution he heads. He is trying to capture his country in numbers with a staff of just 800, and an ambivalent population. "Statistics is a new thing for most people in Afghanistan," he said, "they don't feel it's a need, a necessity."
It is hard to overstate how few reliable numbers there are about population or anything else in Afghanistan, or what a problem this is for those trying to bolster the economy, distribute aid, decide where clinics should be built or how many teachers recruited, or do any other kind of long-term planning.
"The first step is to admit just how bad and conflicting many of the data now being used really are," wrote Anthony Cordesman, in a recent paper for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (pdf) on the economic impact of the departure of western troops.
The lack of reliable figures create "real world uncertainty levels that can easily reach 20-30%", he said, citing population figures from sources including the World Bank and Afghan and US governments that vary from 26 million to 32 million. The estimates are muddied by years of violence, death and exodus, to Pakistan, Iran or further afield; there are only educated guesses about how many people survived, how many returned and how many have since been born.
"For us this is historical because it's the first time since 1979 that we have a survey at the district level, from house to house," said the UN's Zessler. "We are convinced that if we continue to carry these out, province by province, that will give us the same result as a national census."
So far only three provinces have been counted, and they are among the most secure in the country. Security problems are likely to be added to political tensions as teams spread out in more restive areas. But the slow timetable, with the final provinces not due to be surveyed until 2016, may help limit political opposition to the project.
The government could not even consider using the data to change polling districts or the makeup of parliament until the whole country has been counted, UN and Afghan officials say, and that will be long after Afghanistan has chosen its next president and parliament.
The data that is stored up in the meantime may prove a vital tool for cutting corruption and waste, as the resources for development drop off in tandem with foreign troop numbers, supporters of the project say.
"If this survey had been done earlier, it could have changed the whole course of development here," said 28-year-old Abdul Sanjar, head of the provincial union of journalists in Ghor. "So much of the aid and money sent here was wasted as no one knew where or how to spend it. I hope this will be a step towards change."
Pakistan, U.S. to solve drone strike issue: spokesman
ISLAMABAD, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan said Friday that it wants to resolve the issue of the American drone attacks in the country through bilateral talks with the United States.
The statement came a day after U.S. spy aircraft carried two attacks in the Waziristan tribal region and killed a senior Pakistani Taliban leader Mullah Nazir and eight other people.
Mullah Nazir's Wazir tribe had struck a peace deal with the Pakistani forces in 2007 and both sides are holding the agreement. However, the U.S. had been accusing him of sending fighters to Afghanistan for attacks on foreign and Afghan forces.
Pakistan publicly opposes the American drone attacks, but the U. S. has not hinted any change in the CIA-controlled drone operations.
"We consider the drone strikes totally unproductive, illegal and violative of Pakistan's territorial integrity," Foreign Ministry spokesman Moazam Khan said.
He told a weekly press briefing that Pakistan has time and again taken up the issue of drone strikes with the United States and hoped both sides will be able to resolve this issue bilaterally.
"We are also in touch with different organizations including the United Nations to brief them about Pakistan's position on the drone attacks," the spokesman said.
Khan said that the issue of drones has been raised at the highest level as Pakistan condemns the drone attacks.
When queried about the killing of Mullah Nazir in drone strike, the spokesman said he cannot confirm the death of the Taliban leader in the drone strike.
To another question, the spokesman confirmed that Pakistan has released 26 Taliban leaders to facilitate the reconciliation and peace process in Afghanistan.
"Pakistan attaches great importance to peace and stability in Afghanistan and is willing to facilitate the reconciliation process there," he said.
The spokesman said Pakistan is hopeful that a conference of Pakistani and Afghan religious scholars will be held in Kabul this month and that concerned quarters are finalizing the date for the conference and the Pakistani delegation will attend the meeting.
About the visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Islamabad, the spokesman said the invitation is there but no date has yet been finalized.
When asked as to when Pakistan will finally grant the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to India, the spokesman said the federal cabinet in its last meeting discussed the issue and reiterated its earlier resolve of granting the MFN status to India.
Regarding the recent visit of Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to Saudi Arabia, the spokesman said the foreign minister held in-depth discussions with the Saudi leadership on the expansion of bilateral relations in diverse fields.
During the visit, the two sides emphasized the need to institutionalize the relationship and discussed the regional situation with particular reference to the situation in Afghanistan and Syria.
The two countries share the perception that terrorism poses a common threat to the region and the world, the spokesman said.
About US-Iran relations, the spokesman hoped that all the issues between the two countries would be resolved peacefully.
Soldier who survived IED blast in Afghanistan found hanged
Trooper Robert Griffiths, 24, who served in 1st the Queen's Dragoon Guards, was on leave when his body was found
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 January 2013
A soldier who survived a roadside bomb blast while driving a light tank in Afghanistan has been found hanged while at home on leave. Trooper Robert Griffiths, 24, was one of three soldiers who walked away unhurt from a potentially deadly roadside blast in November 2011.
The soldier, with 1st the Queen's Dragoon Guards, later described surviving the blast from the improvised explosive device (IED) as a "buzz". At the time he was driving an upgraded 35-tonne Scimitar Mk2 light tank, with heavy armour, on routine patrol in Nahr-e-Saraj in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Trooper Griffiths, who serves in what is known as the Welsh cavalry, went on to praise the role the new Scimitar played in protecting them.
He was found hanged at his parents' home in the Gower village of Bishopston, near Swansea, south Wales, last Saturday evening.
South Wales police have confirmed that they are investigating the death of a 24-year-old man at the location.
A spokesman said the soldier's family had been informed and that the death was not being treated as suspicious.
"Police are investigating the death of a soldier who was serving with 1st the Queen's Dragoon Guards," an Army spokesman told BBC Wales online. "Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time."
Trooper Griffiths finished a seven-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in April last year. His regiment is based in barracks in Paderborn, Germany, but he was back in the UK on leave over the Christmas period.
Trooper Griffiths's encounter with the potentially fatal IED was highlighted at the time in a Ministry of Defence online news release. Headlined "Soldiers survive IED strike thanks to Scimitar", the story goes on to chronicle the vehicle's lifesaving armour upgrade.
It followed a period in Afghanistan when British patrol vehicles were perceived as underprotected and putting the lives of soldiers at risk.
Israeli Library Unveils Ancient Afghan Manuscripts
Associated Press By ARON HELLER January 3, 2013
JERUSALEM - A trove of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew characters rescued from caves in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan is providing the first physical evidence of a Jewish community that thrived there a thousand years ago.
On Thursday Israel's National Library unveiled the cache of recently purchased documents that run the gamut of life experiences, including biblical commentaries, personal letters and financial records.
Researchers say the "Afghan Genizah" marks the greatest such archive found since the "Cairo Genizah" was discovered in an Egyptian synagogue more than 100 years ago, a vast depository of medieval manuscripts considered to be among the most valuable collections of historical documents ever found.
Genizah, a Hebrew term that loosely translates as "storage," refers to a storeroom adjacent to a synagogue or Jewish cemetery where Hebrew-language books and papers are kept. Under Jewish law, it is forbidden to throw away writings containing the formal names of God, so they are either buried or stashed away.
The Afghan collection gives an unprecedented look into the lives of Jews in ancient Persia in the 11th century. The paper manuscripts, preserved over the centuries by the dry, shady conditions of the caves, include writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judea-Arabic and the unique Judeo-Persian language from that era, which was written in Hebrew letters.
"It was the Yiddish of Persian Jews," said Haggai Ben-Shammai, the library's academic director.
Holding the documents, protected by a laminated sheath, Ben-Shammai said they included mentions of distinctly Jewish names and evidence of their commercial activities along the "Silk road" connecting Europe and the East. The obscure Judeo-Persian language, along with carbon dating technology, helped verify the authenticity of the collection, he said.
"We've had many historical sources on Jewish settlements in that area," he said. "This is the first time that we have a large collection of manuscripts that represents the culture of the Jews that lived there. Until today we had nothing of this."
The documents are believed to have come from caves in the northeast region of modern-day Afghanistan, once at the outer reaches of the Persian empire. In recent years, the same caves have served as hideouts for Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
It remains unclear how the ancient manuscripts emerged. Ben-Shammai said the library was contacted by various antiquities dealers who got their hands on them.
Last month, the library purchased 29 out of hundreds of the documents believed to be floating around the world, after long negotiations with antiquities dealers. The library refused to say how much it paid for the collection, adding that it hoped to purchase more in the future and didn't want to drive up prices. The documents arrived in Israel last week.
Comparisons with the other find are inevitable.
The Cairo Genizah was discovered in the late 1800s in Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue, built in the ninth century. It included thousands of documents Jews stored there for more than 1,000 years.
Ben-Shammai said it was too early to compare the two, and it would take a long time to sift through the findings from Afghanistan. He said they were already significant since no other Hebrew writings had even been found so far from the Holy Land.
He said the Jewish community in the region at the time lived largely like others in the Muslim world, as a "tolerated minority" that was treated better than under Christian rule. Afghanistan's Jewish community numbered as many as 40,000 in the late 19th century, after Persian Jews fled forced conversion.
By the mid-20th century, only about 5,000 remained, and most emigrated after Israel's creation in 1948. A lone Jewish man remains in Afghanistan, while 25,000 Jews live in neighboring Iran — Israel's bitter enemy.
The library promises the finds will be digitized and uploaded to its website for all to see.
Aviad Stollman, curator of the library's Judaica collection, said much more would be gleaned after intense research on the papers, but already it tells a story of a previously little known community.
"First we can verify that they actually existed — that is the most important point," he said. "And of course their interests. They were not interested only in commerce and liturgy; they were interested also in the Talmud and the Bible," he said.
"They were Jews living a thousand years ago in this place. I think that is the most exciting part."
Pakistani Girl Discharged from British Hospital
Selah Hennessy VOA News January 4, 2013
LONDON — Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban last year, has been temporarily discharged from a British hospital.
According to the hospital, Yousafzai will spend the next few weeks rehabilitating at her parent’s temporary house elsewhere in England. In the meantime, she will be treated by the hospital as an outpatient. She is scheduled to undergo reconstructive surgery in the coming weeks.
Pakistan's ambassador to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hassan, says British authorities are looking after Yousafzai’s security and her whereabouts will not be made public.
"She has been shifted somewhere nearby, from where she will be visiting the hospital for physiotherapy regularly and she will be re-admitted for her reconstructive surgery later on this month," he said.
Fifteen-year-old Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman last October. The bullet, which grazed her brain, was removed at a hospital in Pakistan before she was flown to Britain for specialist treatment.
Burzine Waghmar, of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said it is likely that Yousafzai will remain in Britain for the foreseeable future. Her father was recently appointed education attaché at the Consulate of Pakistan in Birmingham.
“I think it is a very pragmatic move on the part of the Pakistani government to have come to this sort of arrangement, which I think is the best of the worst, and that has become acceptable to the Pakistanis and also London as well,” said Waghmar.
Yousafzai is well-known internationally for campaigning for girls’ education in Pakistan. When she was 11 years old she wrote a blog for the BBC’s Urdu service recounting her life in Pakistan's northwestern Swat Valley, which was then controlled by the Taliban.
Yousafzai would still be a target if she returned to Pakistan, Waghmar said.
“Even if the federal authorities were to rehabilitate [relocate] her and her family elsewhere under protection, it would be of no good. Because those extremist elements - make no mistake - would be able to locate her anywhere else in Pakistan, too. And they would be sure that this time they would not fail upon pulling the trigger.”
Waghmar said he fears Yousafzai’s shooting will have done little to improve women’s rights in Pakistan. He compares it to the recent rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in India. The gang rap has led to widespread protests and demands for tougher laws for sexual assault.
“You can see the outpouring in India on a national basis in terms of outrage, which goes to show there is a stronger civil society and elements within that, which are patently lacking in Pakistan,” he said.
Yousafzai's next surgery will repair damage done to her skull by the shooting.
Afghanistan Faces Uncertain Future: Ghani
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Thursday, 03 January 2013
Afghanistan will face major threats post-2014 if its national forces are not fully trained and equipped, Head of the Transition commission Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai said Thursday.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with TOLOnews, he added that the country's national identity could be in jeopardy and some neighboring countries might be banking on the government's collapse.
"We are facing the threat of losing our national identity. Our neighbors, some international experts and those who do not want the good of Afghanistan are waiting for a regime collapse," Ahmadzai said.
There's anxiety among ordinary Afghans about the future, but Ashraf Ghani added that even government officials are worried about the future.
"Government officials are also afraid of the uncertain situation of the country after 2014," Ghani added.
This comes as top Isaf commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, has presented three contingencies about the presence of US troops in Afghanistan after 2014.
The first scenario calls for 6,000 troops, and the second and third plans ask for 10,000 to 20,000 forces after 2014.
President Hamid Karzai will visit his American counterpart next week to discuss these and other security-related issues.
Lack of capacity, inadequate resources and a functionally nonexistent air force are considered the main shortfalls of the Afghan security forces as they take charge of protecting the country after the withdrawal of the foreign forces from Afghanistan.
To ease the pressure on the security forces, Afghanistan is trying hard to bring the Taliban into peace negotiations. Pakistan seems to be cooperating lately, but the process is still far from being on a stable track.
$10m Agricultural Facility Opens in Nangarhar
TOLOnews.com By Azim Arash Thursday, 03 January 2013
A poultry farm and cold room worth $10 million were opened in Kama and Behsood districts of Nangarhar province Wednesday as part of a program to help reduce opium poppy cultivation and encourage farmers to adopt alternative crops.
The ministry of counter narcotics, which has spearheaded the inter-ministerial project involving ministries of agriculture, finance and rural rehabilitation and development, said that these facilities are part of a programme to support rural and agriculture development in the fight against opium poppy.
"For reducing the cultivation of opium, we will implement programmes for rural and agricultural development worth $56 million in three provinces," said Zarrar Ahmad Moqbel, minister of counter narcotics.
Balk and Badakhshan will be the other two provinces, Moqbel added.
The Nangarhar governor welcomed the new projects and asked the ministry of agriculture to continue supporting the province's farmers to help fight poppy cultivation.
"The implementation of this programme could encourage people to abandon cultivating opium and get involved in other agricultural activities. We call the ministry of counter narcotics to support the farmers of Nangarhar province," said Gul Agha Shirzai, governor of Nangarhar.
Afghanistan has struggled in the fight against the cultivation of opium poppy. Despite the millions of dollars of aid from international community and efforts by the United States, Afghanistan is still the top producer of opium in the world. The UN Office on Drug and Crimes says Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium.
Opium cultivation is a source of livelihood for many farmers. Insurgents are also involved in the protection of farms and smuggling of opium. One of the insurgents' main sources of income is from opium. Efforts by the government to introduce alternative crops such as saffron have had limited success.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By AZAM AHMED and HABIB ZAHORI The New York Times January 4, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan — Just ahead of a trip to Washington by President Hamid Karzai, the Afghan government released 80 detainees on Friday, part of a continuing effort to assert its sovereignty over the contentious issue of how prisoners are handled.
American officials have long complained that the Afghans release prisoners too soon, raising the risk that many will return to the battlefield. Afghan officials counter that they are not legally allowed to detain people suspected of being insurgents without enough evidence to prosecute them, even if the Americans say they are too dangerous to release.
The releases stem from an agreement the Americans made to eventually transfer control of the Parwan Detention Facility, located at Bagram Air Base, to the Afghan government last March. Of the thousands of prisoners captured by American forces who have come under Afghan control, close to 1,000 have been released over the last year.
But Friday was a rare instance when the government made a public spectacle of releasing a large number together. A large group of local television journalists lined up to film the ceremony, during which the prisoners, dressed in new brown, yellow and blue shalwars, embraced family members most had not seen in more than a year.
“The Afghan government is not trying to open the gates of its prisons and release all prisoners,” said Gen. Ghulam Farooq, the superintendent of the Bagram Prison, which holds about 3,000 prisoners. “Those who are found guilty will be punished, but those who are innocent should be released.”
But, he added, “we don’t know how many are guilty and how many are innocent,” a reference to the limited evidence that, Afghan officials contend, makes holding the prisoners impossible under Afghan law.
Despite the government’s upbeat ceremony, the transfer of the prison has become a considerable source of tension as the Americans prepare to withdraw and Afghans take on increasing control over security in the country. The United States halted the transfer of a handful of detainees in September, arguing that the Afghan government had not held up its end of the deal. Two months later, Mr. Karzai ordered Afghan forces to take control of the American-built prison, although that has still not happened entirely.
On Friday, General Farooq dismissed the notion that the release of the detainees was contentious, saying it was part of the plan all along.
“The Afghan government and the Americans agreed that Americans would hand all prisoners to the Afghan government and that we would make a decision about keeping and releasing them based on the enforced laws of Afghanistan,” General Farooq said. “It is a 100 percent Afghan process, and the Americans don’t have any problem with it. They are not involved in it at all.”
American officials have disputed the Afghan interpretation of the agreement to hand over the prison, arguing that the American military authorities have veto power over who is released. To date, Americans have not transferred all of the Afghan prisoners they are holding to government control. In addition, newly captured Afghan prisoners are being kept in American custody, a procedure the Afghans have disputed.
In the last year, 570 detainees have been released after acquittal in Afghan courts. An additional 485 are in the process of being released, or have been released already, after a bilateral board of Afghans and Americans determined that there was not enough evidence to prosecute them. On Saturday, the government expects to release 131 more prisoners.
Some Western officials believe that the move by the Afghan government is designed to encourage reconciliation with insurgents to help put an end to the war. And by timing the move on the day before Mr. Karzai leaves for Washington to visit President Obama, it also highlights his independence as a leader.
“The main reason behind the release of these prisoners is to show the good intentions of the Afghan government,” General Farooq said. “We hope that their release will strengthen peace and stability in the country.”
Judging by the response of families and friends of the prisoners, the government’s move was well calculated.
“The release of these prisoners will definitely have a positive impact on people’s relationship with the government,” said Haji Sangeen, 48, a truck driver from Paktia who came to collect 12 of the detainees who hailed from his village. “It will bring the distance between the government and people to a minimum.”
The released prisoners, for their part, were pleased with the result, if not their detention.
Mohammed Naib, 15, from Logar Province, said he was arrested during a night raid at his school when he was just 13.
“How would you feel if someone put you in jail for two years without even telling why they have arrested you,” he asked. “ I am happy that they have decided to release us, but my rights have been disregarded. Even if they give me the entire world they won’t be able to restore my dignity.”
After the ceremony, the prisoners and their relatives went to a pink mosque nearby for lunch. They gathered in groups, chatting with one another and laughing, an air of jubilance filling the room. Some of the relatives started calling family members of the prisoners and handing the phones over to them to talk.
Abdullah, 32, also from Logar, said that he was arrested with his two brothers during a night raid about 20 months ago.
“They arrested me because I was the imam of our mosque, and they accused me of harboring insurgents,” he said. “But they couldn’t prove it.”
Like most other released detainees, Abdullah, who uses a single name, denied ever having aided the Taliban.
“I am not going to join the Taliban because I do not see a reason for that,” he said. “I will try to live a normal life, but I will not support the government or American efforts because I do not see a reason for that either.”
Obama-Karzai talks near: How many US troops should stay in Afghanistan?
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will be in Washington next week to meet with President Obama. Top of the agenda: deciding whether US troops should stay beyond 2014 – and how many.
Christian Science Monitor By Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer January 3, 2013
WASHINGTON - With Afghan President Hamid Karzai set to arrive for a meeting at the White House next week, the Obama administration is considering three options for how many troops it wants to leave in the country after NATO ends its mission in 2014.
President Obama and Mr. Karzai could make significant headway toward that decision as well as others, such as the pace of the US drawdown between now and 2014 and the sort of military hardware Afghanistan would like from the US. But approval of any Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, to keep US troops in the country remains contingent upon Karzai granting US forces immunity from local prosecution.
It was largely the question of immunity that derailed Mr. Obama’s plan to keep 3,000 US troops in Iraq beyond the December 2011 withdrawal date.
The size of a residual force for Afghanistan is likely to be larger – and potentially considerably larger – than the 3,000-strong force Obama envisioned for Iraq.
This week, the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, sent Defense Secretary Leon Panetta three scenarios calling for between 6,000 and 20,000 US troops to remain in Afghanistan. A contingent at the lower end of the range would focus primarily on counterterrorism activity carried out by Special Forces, while a force at the top of the range would allow for continued training of Afghan security forces and some joint operations with the Afghan military.
Obama has made no decisions on the size of a residual force, but in the past White House officials have suggested the president might opt for a force of about 10,000 troops.
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This week, Pentagon officials said the US is likely to decide the size of any post-2014 force before turning to the question of the pace – or what Defense officials call the “slope” – of the drawdown of the 66,000 US forces in Afghanistan.
Some regional security experts say the best outcome of the meeting next week would be for Obama and Karzai to announce progress toward the conclusion of a SOFA – and perhaps even the number of US troops envisioned for a post-2014 force.
But Karzai has sounded resistant at times to the US insistence on immunity. Meanwhile, US officials and some members of Congress say that not one soldier will remain if immunity is not granted.
Last month, Karzai suggested after meetings in Kabul with Secretary Panetta that the immunity demand might depend on first sorting out who maintains control over detained Afghan citizens – particularly when it concerns key terrorist suspects. These are issues that “directly touch on Afghan sovereignty,” Karzai said.
Concluding a SOFA within the next few months would send an important message to key players in the Afghan conflict, says Dov Zakheim, a former undersecretary of Defense during the George W. Bush administration. The announcement of a SOFA would tell the Taliban that, while the US might be withdrawing the bulk of its forces, it is going to remain a force in the country and is not “turning its back on the country, as it did in the 1990s,” he wrote in the recent issue of The National Interest.
That would also be a valuable message to send to Afghanistan's neighbors – including Pakistan, which is seen to be harboring key figures in the Afghan Taliban as a means of maintaining influence in a post-US Afghanistan.
But other experts say that a SOFA with Afghanistan will only be helpful if the US force remaining in Afghanistan post-2014 is relatively large. If the US is to continue counterterrorism operations in South Asia – and particularly in Pakistan – its force in Afghanistan should number closer to 30,000 than the 20,000 at the top of General Allen’s range of force options, say Fred and Kimberley Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute.
Afghan War Effort a Key Obama Foreign Policy Issue
Andre de Nesnera VOA News January 3, 2013
One of the major foreign policy issues facing President Barack Obama during his second term in office will be winding down the conflict in Afghanistan, America’s longest war.
American military forces have been in that country for more than 11 years, longer than the Soviet presence in the 1980s [more than nine years].
There are roughly 68,000 U.S. troops in the country. The plan is to withdraw all American and international coalition combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, ultimately handing over all military and security responsibilities to the Afghans.
But former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2005-2006), John Bolton, believes the Afghan security forces will not be ready to take over from the Americans, and he is pessimistic about Afghanistan’s future following the U.S. pullout.
“The possibility of the U.S. actually pulling out in 2014 just brings the prospect of the Taliban taking control once again more into focus. And I think if I were predicting, I would predict that’s the most likely outcome, which is obviously an extraordinarily negative outcome from the U.S. perspective,” said Bolton. “The idea that we would withdraw, even though the near certain outcome is a Taliban/al-Qaida return to power and all the risks that that entails for the United States and other countries, I just think is a kind of blindness.”
Talks on U.S. Troop Strength After 2014
U.S. and Afghan officials are engaged in negotiations over the size of the American military presence after 2014, a presence that is expected to be significantly smaller.
Former Defense Secretary (1997-2001) William Cohen said there must be an international residual military force in Afghanistan.
“It cannot be simply the United States. There has to be a recognition on the part of many countries that it’s in the world’s interest to see stability remain or be brought to Afghanistan,” Cohen said. “If we leave and everyone leaves, then I think we have a return to the status quo ante. That’s not desirable. But the United States can’t be the only country concerned about stability in Afghanistan, so it is going to have to be an international force, if there is going to be one at all.”
For many years, one of the key demands of the United States and other Western countries was for Afghan President Hamid Karzai to fight corruption. But many former U.S. government officials, including Ambassador John Bolton, said the goal of rooting out graft was a lofty one that Karzai was unable to accomplish.
Corruption Still Rampant
“Although we’d certainly like an Afghanistan without corruption, the odds of the United States making that happen or of the Karzai regime or anybody else making it happen in a short period of time was always unrealistic,” said Bolton. “It is a fact of life there that the Afghans themselves are going to have to decide how to deal with. It might have been part of the unrealistic expectations that we had for the Afghan national government.”
Former National Security Adviser [1974-77; 1989-93], retired Air Force General Brent Scowcroft also said the United States had unrealistic expectations about what it could achieve in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“We cannot step in on a brief timetable and remake societies. We’ve tried it several times now and it’s just beyond our capability. So we have to realize, when we are contemplating action in another country, what is realistic for us to accomplish and what isn’t,” Scowcroft said. “Because both in Iraq and Afghanistan, we had these grand notions of remaking the societies and turning them into democracies, well you just can’t do that overnight. And it takes an intensity and a dedication which we can’t perpetuate, and so we need to reign in our aspirations.”
War Weariness in U.S. and Europe
General Scowcroft added there is a war weariness in the United States.
“With the Afghan war, with the Iraq hostilities, I think there is a strong sense ‘don’t get involved anymore, pull back.’ Psychologically, that can be harmful," he said. "I don’t know what there is out in the future, but going from one extreme to another is dangerous.”
Experts said there is also a war weariness in Europe, and they said this does not bode well for putting together a smaller international military force to replace the one currently in Afghanistan until the end of 2014.
U.S. likely to keep thousands of troops in Afghanistan after NATO forces leave
CNN By Mike Mount January 3rd, 2013
The United States could keep between 6,000 and 15,000 troops in Afghanistan after the official 2014 NATO withdrawal, say officials familiar with plans submitted to the Pentagon by the current U.S. commander in that country, Gen. John Allen.
Allen was tasked with developing an overarching plan for how U.S. forces will leave Afghanistan over the next two years, as well as solidifying a post-international combat troop presence. Now he has offered three distinctive options for the president, according to senior defense officials.
The officials said Allen's plans - created with input from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's office, the Joint Staff, the U.S. Central Command, and the White House - would give President Barack Obama options based on what he is looking to do in Afghanistan.
The plans are awaiting official approval from Panetta, the officials said.
According to the officials:
The low-end option calls for 6,000 to 6,500 troops that would be strictly for counterterrorism operations: hunting down Taliban and al Qaeda members and cells still operating around the country. This would require mostly Special Operations Forces, with a limited number of support troops and only a very small amount of training assistance for Afghan forces.
The mid-range option, involving around 10,000 troops, would still have the main focus on counterterrorism operations, but it would have a bigger training footprint for Afghan forces, with most of the focus on Special Operations troops and a limited amount of conventional troop training.
The 15,000-troop option would bring in a greater number of conventional troops for training Afghan Security Forces, as well as a bigger support element in addition to the counterterrorism forces.
The defense officials said planning for the post-2014 troop presence is still not complete, but it is very close. They said they expect next week's visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to involve conversations discussing these options. Officials said Karzai and Panetta are expected to meet at some point.
Last spring, NATO and the Afghan government agreed on a plan for the United States and international forces to end the NATO mission in Afghanistan and hand over full security responsibility of the country to the Afghan government. At the end of last September - as the final troops added during the "surge" that Obama ordered in December 2009 left Afghanistan - the president ordered Allen to assess the situation in the country and develop an exit strategy.
Defense officials said that Allen had to develop a post-2014 security plan before he could determine how fast troops could be withdrawn over the next two years, to ensure stability throughout the exit.
There are currently 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The capability of Afghan security forces has long been in question, with slow improvement in the military, and the Afghan police force lagging far behind. A December 2012 assessment of the security forces, which looked at a snapshot from between the spring and summer, showed that only one of the Afghan Army's 23 brigades was able to operate on its own, without U.S. military air or ground troop support.
Military analysts who closely watch Afghan operations say that while Allen has not yet made a recommendation for the pace of the force withdrawal, he is expected to suggest pulling troops out at a slower rate than the president would want.
One senior Defense official told CNN the United States is expecting the Afghan government to allow legal protections for U.S. troops who remain in Afghanistan after the NATO mission ends in 2014.
The refusal by the Iraq government to extend legal protections for U.S. troops after the end of the war in Iraq was a major reason the United States left the country with no residual military training force.
The Afghan plans come as Allen prepares to leave Afghanistan in early February in a regular command rotation. Taking over for him will be Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford.
Allen was nominated to take over as head of the U.S. European Command, becoming the top military commander for NATO forces. In that role, he was expected to be a key adviser on Afghanistan through its NATO allies. But his nomination is on hold while he is being investigated for alleged improper e-mail communications with a Tampa, Florida socialite, Jill Kelley.
U.S. Welcomes Militant's Reported Death
January 4, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The U.S. Defense Department has welcomed reports that a prominent Islamic militant commander was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan.
Pentagon spokesman George Little did not confirm the strike, but said the death of Mullah Nazir would mark a “significant blow” against militants and would be “helpful” to both U.S. and Pakistani forces.
The United States generally does not comment about its drone program.
Nazir was reported killed in a missile strike overnight on January 2-3 in South Waziristan.
A top deputy was reportedly among around eight other people also killed.
Nazir is held responsible by authorities for coordinating attacks on U.S. and NATO-led troops in neighboring Afghanistan.
He is said to have had a truce deal with Pakistan's military and did not focus on Pakistani targets.
Nazir was reportedly wounded in a bombing attack in November.
Local elders in Waziristan named Bawal Khan, who was a close aide to Mullah Nazir, as his successor, an RFE/RL correspondent reports.
Based on reporting by AP and AFP
Insider Attacks in Afghanistan Shape the Late Stages of a War
New York Times By MATTHEW ROSENBERG January 3, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - It was only after the young Afghan soldier’s hatred of Americans had grown murderous that he reached out to the Taliban.
The soldier, named simply Mahmood, 22, said that in May he told the insurgents of his plan to shoot Americans the next time they visited the outpost where he was based in northeastern Afghanistan. He asked the Taliban to take him in if he escaped.
The Taliban veterans he contacted were skeptical. Despite their public insistence that they employ vast ranks of infiltrators within the Afghan Army and the police, they acknowledged that many of the insider attacks they take credit for start as offers by angry young men like Mahmood. They had seen many fail, or lose their nerve before even starting, and they figured that Mahmood, too, would prove more talk than action or would die in the attempt.
“Even the Taliban didn’t think I would be able to do this,” Mr. Mahmood said in an interview.
He proved them wrong days later, on the morning of May 11, when he opened fire on American trainers who had gone to the outpost in the mountains of Kunar Province. One American was killed and two others were wounded. Mahmood escaped in the ensuing confusion, and he remains free in Kunar after the Taliban welcomed him into their ranks.
It was, he said, his “proudest day.”
Such insider attacks, by Afghan security forces on their Western allies, became “the signature violence of 2012,” in the words of one former American official. The surge in attacks has provided the clearest sign yet that Afghan resentment of foreigners is becoming unmanageable, and American officials have expressed worries about its disruptive effects on the training mission that is the core of the American withdrawal plan for 2014.
“It’s a game changer on all levels,” said First Sgt. Joseph Hissong, an American who helped fight off an insider attack by Afghan soldiers that left two men in his unit dead.
Cultural clashes have contributed to some of the insider attacks, with Afghan soldiers and police officers becoming enraged by what they see as rude and abusive behavior by Americans close to them. In some cases, the abusive or corrupt behavior of Afghan officers prompts the killer to go after Americans, who are seen as backing the local commanders. On rare occasions, like the killing of an American contractor by an Afghan policewoman late last month, there seems to be no logical explanation.
But behind it all, many senior coalition and Afghan officials are now concluding that after nearly 12 years of war, the view of foreigners held by many Afghans has come to mirror that of the Taliban. Hope has turned into hatred, and some will find a reason to act on those feelings.
“A great percentage of the insider attacks have the enemy narrative — the narrative that the infidels have to be driven out — somewhere inside of them, but they aren’t directed by the enemy,” said a senior coalition officer, who asked not to be identified because of Afghan and American sensitivities about the attacks.
The result is that, although the Taliban have successfully infiltrated the security forces before, they do not always have to. Soldiers and police officers will instead go to them, as was the case with Mr. Mahmood, who offered a glimpse of the thinking behind the violence in one of the few interviews conducted with Afghans who have committed insider attacks.
“I have intimate friends in the army who have the same opinion as I do,” Mr. Mahmood said. “We used to sit and share our hearts’ tales.”
But he said he did not tell any of his compatriots of his plan to shoot Americans, fearing that it could leak out and derail his attack. The interviews with Mr. Mahmood and his Taliban contacts were conducted in recent weeks by telephone and through written responses to questions. There are also two videos that show Mr. Mahmood with the Taliban: an insurgent-produced propaganda video available on jihadi Web sites, and an interview conducted by a local journalist in Kunar.
Though Mr. Mahmood at times contradicted himself, falling into stock Taliban commentary about how it had always been his ambition to kill foreigners, much of what he said mirrored the timelines and versions of events provided by Taliban fighters who know him, as well as Afghan officials familiar with his case.
Mr. Mahmood grew up in Tajikan, a small village in the southern province of Helmand. The area around his village remains dominated by the Taliban despite advances against the insurgents made in recent years by American and British troops. Even Afghans from other parts of Helmand are hesitant to travel to Tajikan for fear of the Taliban.
Col. Khudaidad, an Afghan officer who runs the Afghan National Army’s recruitment center in Helmand, said Mr. Mahmood enlisted about four years ago. His story, up to that point, would be familiar to many Americans: He was a poor boy from a family of eight who worked sweeping up in a tailor shop and was looking for a better life. The army offered steady pay, reading and writing lessons, and a chance to see something beyond the mud hovels in which he was born and raised.
“He barely had a beard,” recalled Colonel Khudaidad, who also uses only one name, in an interview. “He looked so innocent that you wouldn’t believe what he did if you only saw him then.”
Mr. Mahmood says he was anything but an innocent. He grew up being told that Americans, Britons and Jews “are the enemies of our country and our religion,” he said.
But until May, he worked and fought alongside foreigners without incident. The change came in the Ghaziabad District of Kunar, where he ended up after the start of 2012, he said.
The area is thick with Taliban, along with Islamists from Pakistan. Many residents sympathized with the insurgents and often complained to Afghan soldiers about the abuses committed by Americans and the failure of Afghan soldiers to control much of anything beyond the perimeter of their own outpost, Mr. Mahmood said. The Taliban, they glorified.
Listening to villagers, Mr. Mahmood became convinced that the foreigners had killed too many Afghans and insulted the Prophet Muhammad too many times. He wanted to be driving them out, not helping them stay. The villagers’ stories “strengthened my desire to kill Americans with my own fingers,” he said.
He contacted the Taliban through a local sympathizer. He did not want help — he only asked the insurgents “not to shoot me” if he managed to escape after attacking the Americans, which he told them would happen in a few days.
He was on guard duty when American soldiers arrived at the outpost on May 11. He waited for a few of them to shed their body armor and put down their weapons, and then he opened fire. (New regulations require American trainers to keep their armor on and weapons at hand when visiting Afghan bases.)
The Afghan and American soldiers initially thought the attack was coming from the outside. They “didn’t even think that someone within the Afghan Army might have opened fire on Americans,” he said. “I took advantage of this confusion and fled.”
He claimed to have hit six Americans. “I don’t know how many were killed, though I hope all were,” he said. The coalition said one soldier was killed and two were wounded.
The Taliban welcomed him as a hero. He was given the title “ghazi,” an honorific for someone who helps drive off non-Muslim invaders. “They let me keep the same rifle I used to kill Americans.”
In August, the Taliban featured Mr. Mahmood in a propaganda video, calling him “Ghazi of Ghaziabad.” The video shows Mr. Mahmood, smiling broadly, being draped with garlands and showered with praise from local elders, Taliban fighters and cheering crowds of men and boys.
The following month, the American-led military coalition announced that it had killed Mr. Mahmood in an airstrike. The coalition now says it was mistaken and that Mr. Mahmood is still with the Taliban in Kunar.
Villagers and officials in Helmand backed up that account, saying Mr. Mahmood had been in touch with relatives since the report of his death. Mr. Mahmood said he spoke only to his mother, and that “she was happy.”
Sangar Rahimi and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting from Kabul, and an employee of The New York Times from Asadabad.
Afghan census dodges questions of ethnicity and language
Door-to-door interviewers embark on controversial project to count population of country for first time since 1979
Guardian.co.uk By Emma Graham-Harrison Thursday 3 January 2013
Chaghcharan - There are two questions Hajera Bashir does not ask as she goes door to door gathering census data in Ghor province in Afghanistan's freezing central highlands: which ethnic group residents belong to, and what language they speak at home.
With these taboo topics set aside, she quizzes families about everything else: their income and how many wives each man has, whether they can read and if their sons and daughters are in school, domestic details such as how they heat their homes, whether they have a toilet and if they keep chickens.
The shy 18-year-old is part of a critical but controversial effort to count the Afghan population for the first time since 1979. Expected to take at least six years on a slow, province-by-province basis, it is possible only because it sidesteps tangled questions about the country's ethnic balance. Asking about language is avoided because it can be used as a proxy marker for ethnicity.
"We don't ask for ethnicity or language spoken, this is on purpose," said Laurent Zessler, head in Afghanistan of the UN Population Fund, which is supporting the project. "This country has so many issues to address between the political process, the economy and security, why complicate it?"
Still, the complexity of Afghanistan's ethnic politics means any kind of counting is controversial. The first results, from normally calm central Bamiyan province, showed an actual population barely half official estimates. The area is mostly home to Hazaras, a Shia minority who have often been persecuted in Sunni-dominated Afghanistan, and many took the findings as another form of attack.
"Death to the enemies of Bamiyan! The statistics are wrong!" shouted more than 1,000 demonstrators as they marched on UN offices in the small town this summer, the Pajhwok news agency reported.
A previous attempt to end the decades-long wait for a count of the Afghan people, in 2008, was scrapped, with the government citing security problems. In December officials even dropped plans to unveil a new estimate of the population.
Although war has often put swaths of the country off-limits to statisticians, bitter ethnic politics have also played a role in slow progress, because of the risks that a population count might reduce the official size of some constituencies or expand those of rivals.
"If a politician sees that the ethnic group to which he or she belongs is less than expected, they will sometimes reject the data," said Abdul Rahman Ghafoori, head of the Central Statistics Office, who has the delicate job of balancing his country's need for decent data against the influence of groups who would rather details remain opaque or unchanged.
"We are not looking to reduce or increase population," he said, in an ornately carved office that survived years of violence better than the institution he heads. He is trying to capture his country in numbers with a staff of just 800, and an ambivalent population. "Statistics is a new thing for most people in Afghanistan," he said, "they don't feel it's a need, a necessity."
It is hard to overstate how few reliable numbers there are about population or anything else in Afghanistan, or what a problem this is for those trying to bolster the economy, distribute aid, decide where clinics should be built or how many teachers recruited, or do any other kind of long-term planning.
"The first step is to admit just how bad and conflicting many of the data now being used really are," wrote Anthony Cordesman, in a recent paper for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (pdf) on the economic impact of the departure of western troops.
The lack of reliable figures create "real world uncertainty levels that can easily reach 20-30%", he said, citing population figures from sources including the World Bank and Afghan and US governments that vary from 26 million to 32 million. The estimates are muddied by years of violence, death and exodus, to Pakistan, Iran or further afield; there are only educated guesses about how many people survived, how many returned and how many have since been born.
"For us this is historical because it's the first time since 1979 that we have a survey at the district level, from house to house," said the UN's Zessler. "We are convinced that if we continue to carry these out, province by province, that will give us the same result as a national census."
So far only three provinces have been counted, and they are among the most secure in the country. Security problems are likely to be added to political tensions as teams spread out in more restive areas. But the slow timetable, with the final provinces not due to be surveyed until 2016, may help limit political opposition to the project.
The government could not even consider using the data to change polling districts or the makeup of parliament until the whole country has been counted, UN and Afghan officials say, and that will be long after Afghanistan has chosen its next president and parliament.
The data that is stored up in the meantime may prove a vital tool for cutting corruption and waste, as the resources for development drop off in tandem with foreign troop numbers, supporters of the project say.
"If this survey had been done earlier, it could have changed the whole course of development here," said 28-year-old Abdul Sanjar, head of the provincial union of journalists in Ghor. "So much of the aid and money sent here was wasted as no one knew where or how to spend it. I hope this will be a step towards change."
Pakistan, U.S. to solve drone strike issue: spokesman
ISLAMABAD, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan said Friday that it wants to resolve the issue of the American drone attacks in the country through bilateral talks with the United States.
The statement came a day after U.S. spy aircraft carried two attacks in the Waziristan tribal region and killed a senior Pakistani Taliban leader Mullah Nazir and eight other people.
Mullah Nazir's Wazir tribe had struck a peace deal with the Pakistani forces in 2007 and both sides are holding the agreement. However, the U.S. had been accusing him of sending fighters to Afghanistan for attacks on foreign and Afghan forces.
Pakistan publicly opposes the American drone attacks, but the U. S. has not hinted any change in the CIA-controlled drone operations.
"We consider the drone strikes totally unproductive, illegal and violative of Pakistan's territorial integrity," Foreign Ministry spokesman Moazam Khan said.
He told a weekly press briefing that Pakistan has time and again taken up the issue of drone strikes with the United States and hoped both sides will be able to resolve this issue bilaterally.
"We are also in touch with different organizations including the United Nations to brief them about Pakistan's position on the drone attacks," the spokesman said.
Khan said that the issue of drones has been raised at the highest level as Pakistan condemns the drone attacks.
When queried about the killing of Mullah Nazir in drone strike, the spokesman said he cannot confirm the death of the Taliban leader in the drone strike.
To another question, the spokesman confirmed that Pakistan has released 26 Taliban leaders to facilitate the reconciliation and peace process in Afghanistan.
"Pakistan attaches great importance to peace and stability in Afghanistan and is willing to facilitate the reconciliation process there," he said.
The spokesman said Pakistan is hopeful that a conference of Pakistani and Afghan religious scholars will be held in Kabul this month and that concerned quarters are finalizing the date for the conference and the Pakistani delegation will attend the meeting.
About the visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Islamabad, the spokesman said the invitation is there but no date has yet been finalized.
When asked as to when Pakistan will finally grant the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to India, the spokesman said the federal cabinet in its last meeting discussed the issue and reiterated its earlier resolve of granting the MFN status to India.
Regarding the recent visit of Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to Saudi Arabia, the spokesman said the foreign minister held in-depth discussions with the Saudi leadership on the expansion of bilateral relations in diverse fields.
During the visit, the two sides emphasized the need to institutionalize the relationship and discussed the regional situation with particular reference to the situation in Afghanistan and Syria.
The two countries share the perception that terrorism poses a common threat to the region and the world, the spokesman said.
About US-Iran relations, the spokesman hoped that all the issues between the two countries would be resolved peacefully.
Soldier who survived IED blast in Afghanistan found hanged
Trooper Robert Griffiths, 24, who served in 1st the Queen's Dragoon Guards, was on leave when his body was found
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 January 2013
A soldier who survived a roadside bomb blast while driving a light tank in Afghanistan has been found hanged while at home on leave. Trooper Robert Griffiths, 24, was one of three soldiers who walked away unhurt from a potentially deadly roadside blast in November 2011.
The soldier, with 1st the Queen's Dragoon Guards, later described surviving the blast from the improvised explosive device (IED) as a "buzz". At the time he was driving an upgraded 35-tonne Scimitar Mk2 light tank, with heavy armour, on routine patrol in Nahr-e-Saraj in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Trooper Griffiths, who serves in what is known as the Welsh cavalry, went on to praise the role the new Scimitar played in protecting them.
He was found hanged at his parents' home in the Gower village of Bishopston, near Swansea, south Wales, last Saturday evening.
South Wales police have confirmed that they are investigating the death of a 24-year-old man at the location.
A spokesman said the soldier's family had been informed and that the death was not being treated as suspicious.
"Police are investigating the death of a soldier who was serving with 1st the Queen's Dragoon Guards," an Army spokesman told BBC Wales online. "Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time."
Trooper Griffiths finished a seven-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in April last year. His regiment is based in barracks in Paderborn, Germany, but he was back in the UK on leave over the Christmas period.
Trooper Griffiths's encounter with the potentially fatal IED was highlighted at the time in a Ministry of Defence online news release. Headlined "Soldiers survive IED strike thanks to Scimitar", the story goes on to chronicle the vehicle's lifesaving armour upgrade.
It followed a period in Afghanistan when British patrol vehicles were perceived as underprotected and putting the lives of soldiers at risk.
Israeli Library Unveils Ancient Afghan Manuscripts
Associated Press By ARON HELLER January 3, 2013
JERUSALEM - A trove of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew characters rescued from caves in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan is providing the first physical evidence of a Jewish community that thrived there a thousand years ago.
On Thursday Israel's National Library unveiled the cache of recently purchased documents that run the gamut of life experiences, including biblical commentaries, personal letters and financial records.
Researchers say the "Afghan Genizah" marks the greatest such archive found since the "Cairo Genizah" was discovered in an Egyptian synagogue more than 100 years ago, a vast depository of medieval manuscripts considered to be among the most valuable collections of historical documents ever found.
Genizah, a Hebrew term that loosely translates as "storage," refers to a storeroom adjacent to a synagogue or Jewish cemetery where Hebrew-language books and papers are kept. Under Jewish law, it is forbidden to throw away writings containing the formal names of God, so they are either buried or stashed away.
The Afghan collection gives an unprecedented look into the lives of Jews in ancient Persia in the 11th century. The paper manuscripts, preserved over the centuries by the dry, shady conditions of the caves, include writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judea-Arabic and the unique Judeo-Persian language from that era, which was written in Hebrew letters.
"It was the Yiddish of Persian Jews," said Haggai Ben-Shammai, the library's academic director.
Holding the documents, protected by a laminated sheath, Ben-Shammai said they included mentions of distinctly Jewish names and evidence of their commercial activities along the "Silk road" connecting Europe and the East. The obscure Judeo-Persian language, along with carbon dating technology, helped verify the authenticity of the collection, he said.
"We've had many historical sources on Jewish settlements in that area," he said. "This is the first time that we have a large collection of manuscripts that represents the culture of the Jews that lived there. Until today we had nothing of this."
The documents are believed to have come from caves in the northeast region of modern-day Afghanistan, once at the outer reaches of the Persian empire. In recent years, the same caves have served as hideouts for Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
It remains unclear how the ancient manuscripts emerged. Ben-Shammai said the library was contacted by various antiquities dealers who got their hands on them.
Last month, the library purchased 29 out of hundreds of the documents believed to be floating around the world, after long negotiations with antiquities dealers. The library refused to say how much it paid for the collection, adding that it hoped to purchase more in the future and didn't want to drive up prices. The documents arrived in Israel last week.
Comparisons with the other find are inevitable.
The Cairo Genizah was discovered in the late 1800s in Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue, built in the ninth century. It included thousands of documents Jews stored there for more than 1,000 years.
Ben-Shammai said it was too early to compare the two, and it would take a long time to sift through the findings from Afghanistan. He said they were already significant since no other Hebrew writings had even been found so far from the Holy Land.
He said the Jewish community in the region at the time lived largely like others in the Muslim world, as a "tolerated minority" that was treated better than under Christian rule. Afghanistan's Jewish community numbered as many as 40,000 in the late 19th century, after Persian Jews fled forced conversion.
By the mid-20th century, only about 5,000 remained, and most emigrated after Israel's creation in 1948. A lone Jewish man remains in Afghanistan, while 25,000 Jews live in neighboring Iran — Israel's bitter enemy.
The library promises the finds will be digitized and uploaded to its website for all to see.
Aviad Stollman, curator of the library's Judaica collection, said much more would be gleaned after intense research on the papers, but already it tells a story of a previously little known community.
"First we can verify that they actually existed — that is the most important point," he said. "And of course their interests. They were not interested only in commerce and liturgy; they were interested also in the Talmud and the Bible," he said.
"They were Jews living a thousand years ago in this place. I think that is the most exciting part."
Pakistani Girl Discharged from British Hospital
Selah Hennessy VOA News January 4, 2013
LONDON — Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban last year, has been temporarily discharged from a British hospital.
According to the hospital, Yousafzai will spend the next few weeks rehabilitating at her parent’s temporary house elsewhere in England. In the meantime, she will be treated by the hospital as an outpatient. She is scheduled to undergo reconstructive surgery in the coming weeks.
Pakistan's ambassador to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hassan, says British authorities are looking after Yousafzai’s security and her whereabouts will not be made public.
"She has been shifted somewhere nearby, from where she will be visiting the hospital for physiotherapy regularly and she will be re-admitted for her reconstructive surgery later on this month," he said.
Fifteen-year-old Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman last October. The bullet, which grazed her brain, was removed at a hospital in Pakistan before she was flown to Britain for specialist treatment.
Burzine Waghmar, of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said it is likely that Yousafzai will remain in Britain for the foreseeable future. Her father was recently appointed education attaché at the Consulate of Pakistan in Birmingham.
“I think it is a very pragmatic move on the part of the Pakistani government to have come to this sort of arrangement, which I think is the best of the worst, and that has become acceptable to the Pakistanis and also London as well,” said Waghmar.
Yousafzai is well-known internationally for campaigning for girls’ education in Pakistan. When she was 11 years old she wrote a blog for the BBC’s Urdu service recounting her life in Pakistan's northwestern Swat Valley, which was then controlled by the Taliban.
Yousafzai would still be a target if she returned to Pakistan, Waghmar said.
“Even if the federal authorities were to rehabilitate [relocate] her and her family elsewhere under protection, it would be of no good. Because those extremist elements - make no mistake - would be able to locate her anywhere else in Pakistan, too. And they would be sure that this time they would not fail upon pulling the trigger.”
Waghmar said he fears Yousafzai’s shooting will have done little to improve women’s rights in Pakistan. He compares it to the recent rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in India. The gang rap has led to widespread protests and demands for tougher laws for sexual assault.
“You can see the outpouring in India on a national basis in terms of outrage, which goes to show there is a stronger civil society and elements within that, which are patently lacking in Pakistan,” he said.
Yousafzai's next surgery will repair damage done to her skull by the shooting.
Afghanistan Faces Uncertain Future: Ghani
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Thursday, 03 January 2013
Afghanistan will face major threats post-2014 if its national forces are not fully trained and equipped, Head of the Transition commission Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai said Thursday.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with TOLOnews, he added that the country's national identity could be in jeopardy and some neighboring countries might be banking on the government's collapse.
"We are facing the threat of losing our national identity. Our neighbors, some international experts and those who do not want the good of Afghanistan are waiting for a regime collapse," Ahmadzai said.
There's anxiety among ordinary Afghans about the future, but Ashraf Ghani added that even government officials are worried about the future.
"Government officials are also afraid of the uncertain situation of the country after 2014," Ghani added.
This comes as top Isaf commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, has presented three contingencies about the presence of US troops in Afghanistan after 2014.
The first scenario calls for 6,000 troops, and the second and third plans ask for 10,000 to 20,000 forces after 2014.
President Hamid Karzai will visit his American counterpart next week to discuss these and other security-related issues.
Lack of capacity, inadequate resources and a functionally nonexistent air force are considered the main shortfalls of the Afghan security forces as they take charge of protecting the country after the withdrawal of the foreign forces from Afghanistan.
To ease the pressure on the security forces, Afghanistan is trying hard to bring the Taliban into peace negotiations. Pakistan seems to be cooperating lately, but the process is still far from being on a stable track.
$10m Agricultural Facility Opens in Nangarhar
TOLOnews.com By Azim Arash Thursday, 03 January 2013
A poultry farm and cold room worth $10 million were opened in Kama and Behsood districts of Nangarhar province Wednesday as part of a program to help reduce opium poppy cultivation and encourage farmers to adopt alternative crops.
The ministry of counter narcotics, which has spearheaded the inter-ministerial project involving ministries of agriculture, finance and rural rehabilitation and development, said that these facilities are part of a programme to support rural and agriculture development in the fight against opium poppy.
"For reducing the cultivation of opium, we will implement programmes for rural and agricultural development worth $56 million in three provinces," said Zarrar Ahmad Moqbel, minister of counter narcotics.
Balk and Badakhshan will be the other two provinces, Moqbel added.
The Nangarhar governor welcomed the new projects and asked the ministry of agriculture to continue supporting the province's farmers to help fight poppy cultivation.
"The implementation of this programme could encourage people to abandon cultivating opium and get involved in other agricultural activities. We call the ministry of counter narcotics to support the farmers of Nangarhar province," said Gul Agha Shirzai, governor of Nangarhar.
Afghanistan has struggled in the fight against the cultivation of opium poppy. Despite the millions of dollars of aid from international community and efforts by the United States, Afghanistan is still the top producer of opium in the world. The UN Office on Drug and Crimes says Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium.
Opium cultivation is a source of livelihood for many farmers. Insurgents are also involved in the protection of farms and smuggling of opium. One of the insurgents' main sources of income is from opium. Efforts by the government to introduce alternative crops such as saffron have had limited success.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com