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Obama, Karzai agree to speed military transition
By JULIE PACE and ROBERT BURNS | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Friday they have agreed to speed up slightly the schedule for moving Afghanistan's security forces into the lead across the country, with U.S. troops shifting fully to a support role. The leaders also said Obama agreed to place battlefield detainees under the control of the Afghan government.
The capabilities of the Afghan army are "exceeding initial expectations," the two said in a joint statement released after their private White House meeting and working lunch and in advance of a joint news conference. As a result, Obama said he acceded to Karzai's desire to put Afghan forces in the combat lead across his country this spring, rather than wait until summer.
In their statement the leaders said they discussed the possibility of a continued U.S. troop presence beyond December 2014, when the U.S. and allied combat mission is to end. But they did not settle on any specifics.
The U.S. now has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have proposed keeping 6,000 to 15,000 U.S. troops after 2014 to continuing pursuing terrorists and training Afghan security forces. But the White House, which tends to favor lower troop levels than the generals do, says Obama would be open to pulling all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
"We wouldn't rule out any option," Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said earlier this week. "We're not guided by the goal of a certain number of U.S. troops in the country. We're guided by the objectives that the president set — disrupt, dismantle, defeat al-Qaida."
Friday's meeting was the first between Obama and Karzai since November's U.S. presidential election. Heading into his second term, Obama is shaking up his national security team, including key players who deal with Karzai and the war.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta are both expected to leave their posts within weeks. The president nominated Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as the nation's top diplomat and former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., to lead the Pentagon.
Both Kerry and Hagel are likely to favor a more rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces.
After Karzai met Thursday with Clinton and Panetta, the Pentagon chief offered an upbeat assessment of the war's progress.
"After a long and difficult path, we finally are, I believe, at the last chapter of establishing an Afghanistan, a sovereign Afghanistan, that can govern and secure itself for the future," Panetta said.
The U.S.-led NATO coalition is aiming to turn all combat missions over to Afghan forces by the end of this year. The 66,000 U.S. forces still there are already turning over territory or handing off many combat missions to the Afghans.
Still, the war's endgame is punctuated with uncertainty, beginning with doubts about whether the Afghan government can build legitimacy by credibly serving its population. Also in question is whether Afghan security forces will be capable of holding off the Taliban after international forces leave.
Panetta told a news conference that he and Karzai had laid the groundwork for the Afghan leader's White House meeting.
"We made very good progress on, you know, the kind of equipment that we would try to make available to them," to enable the Afghans to not only secure their borders but also prevent a Taliban takeover, Panetta said.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the same news conference that U.S. and Afghan officials are developing a common assessment of threats Afghanistan is likely to face in the future. Conclusions from that study will help determine the full range of Afghanistan's military requirements, he said.
Karzai was greeted at the Pentagon by a ceremonial honor guard, and at a photo-taking session in Panetta's office, the Afghan leader said he could assure the American people that his country "will not ever again be threatened by terrorists from across our borders" — an allusion to the al-Qaida leaders hiding in Pakistan. It was from Afghanistan that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida operatives plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Priorities Are Far Apart for Karzai and Obama
The New York Times By MARK LANDLER, MICHAEL R. GORDON and MATTHEW ROSENBERGJanuary 10, 2013
WASHINGTON - The last time President Obama and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan spoke face to face, it was on a video conference call on Sept. 21. Mr. Obama, distracted by an election in which the Afghanistan war was barely discussed, deflected Mr. Karzai’s most probing questions about the future of the American commitment there.
On Friday, the two leaders will finally confront those questions at the White House. For Mr. Karzai, it may prove to be a jolting illustration of how sharply Mr. Obama has scaled back his ambitions in a conflict he once called a war of necessity — going so far as to entertain an option to leave behind no American troops after 2014, when the NATO combat mission ends.
Emboldened by what administration officials assert are gains against operatives of Al Qaeda, and concerned about the financial and political costs at home, Mr. Obama is leaning toward a more aggressive timetable for withdrawing troops than his military commander in Afghanistan initially recommended.
As the White House examines options for the size of a residual military force in Afghanistan that ranges from roughly 3,000 to 9,000 troops, Mr. Obama has directed his advisers to answer a basic question: Is such a force necessary to carry out the narrow counterterrorism objective and training mission the United States envisions for postwar Afghanistan?
Mr. Karzai, who met Thursday with Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta, has far different expectations, according to Afghan officials.
Although he has been careful not to discuss specific troop numbers in public, Mr. Karzai appears to be counting on a substantial residual American force — perhaps as many as 15,000 troops, whose mission would be to advise Afghan security forces in their fight against the Taliban insurgency and carry out raids against Al Qaeda.
And he is hoping the United States will supply the Afghan Army with the latest military hardware, including tanks and fighter planes.
These very different expectations, analysts said, could reignite the tensions in a relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai that has been notoriously fraught over issues like corruption, civilian casualties and threats to Afghan sovereignty.
“There’s been a steady rollback of our objectives of what’s good enough in Afghanistan,” said Vali Nasr, a former senior State Department official who worked on Afghanistan and Pakistan and is the dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
“If you’re Karzai, you’re basically now facing the same calculation that Maliki did in Iraq,” said Mr. Nasr, referring to Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister. “ ‘If you’re not willing to stay in large numbers, why do I need you?’ ”
The possibilities for friction are compounded by cynicism on both sides: the sense in Washington that Mr. Karzai is a mercurial, unreliable partner, and the suspicion in Kabul that the Americans care about Afghanistan only when they need it for other purposes, like fighting Al Qaeda.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former commander in Afghanistan, warned in a recent interview that if the United States shrank too radically its advisory support for the Afghan military or curtailed its civilian programs, it might lose Afghan support for the counterterrorism operations it might want to continue there.
“If you don’t have the support of the Afghan people,” he said, “there’s no reason for them to be supportive of this.”
It is a measure of the potential disconnect between Mr. Karzai and Mr. Obama that Afghan officials involved in preparing his trip said the belief in the Afghan leader’s inner circle was that Mr. Karzai was coming to the talks with the upper hand.
In Mr. Karzai’s view, these officials and other people close to the president said, the United States needs a robust American presence in Afghanistan after 2014 to keep Al Qaeda off balance and Iran and Pakistan at bay. The Afghans “think they are indispensable; they think they have all the leverage,” one Afghan official said.
The Afghans were readying complaints about the United States’ continuing to detain Afghans at a prison next to Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, which was supposed to have been handed over to Afghan authorities in September.
Some of Mr. Karzai’s advisers are aware of the tenuous support at the White House for the war effort. Fearful of a repeat of Iraq, where Mr. Obama ordered a total military withdrawal, they have prevailed on the Afghan president to soften his position on granting immunity to any American troops stationed in Afghanistan after 2014, which he has done in recent months.
The ideal outcome for Mr. Karzai, these officials said, would be an American and allied training force that would help the Afghan Army make the most of the billions in aid it is expecting to receive, and a robust counterterrorism force that could work with Afghan Special Forces to combat the remnants of Al Qaeda.
The White House’s calculation looks very different. While cost was a consideration in Iraq, Mr. Obama is more sensitive now to the budget consequences of keeping troops in Afghanistan after his bruising fiscal showdown with Congress, and the prospect of huge mandatory cuts in the Pentagon’s budget.
“You’ve got to step back and see the whole field from the point of view of taxpayer spending,” said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
To some extent, officials said, the administration’s floating of a “zero option” for troops is a bargaining ploy, with both the Pentagon and with Mr. Karzai.
But resolving the differences between the United States and the Afghan government, if they are resolved, is likely to have a profound effect on the long-term commitment of other NATO members.
An allied official said that if the White House opted for a minimal troop presence, the rest of the NATO allies were expected to follow suit, especially since the war was even more unpopular among their publics. Many critics complain that Mr. Karzai has been slow to pursue corruption. But some analysts said the emerging American policy might deepen Mr. Karzai’s insecurities.
“We will not be able to give Karzai any more spine to go after cronyism and nepotism,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on Afghanistan at the Brookings Institution.
The one issue on which both sides appear in sync is the peace process, according to the Afghan officials and people close to the Afghan leader. Like their American counterparts, Afghan officials want to see negotiations with the Taliban make progress and offer rosy public assessments of the diplomatic effort.
But privately, the Afghans are aware that there have been no meaningful engagements with the Taliban in nearly a year, and that until the insurgents prove willing to sit down, the peace process will make little headway.
Thom Shanker contributed reporting.
Taliban welcome complete withdrawal of US troops
By Sayed Jawad Khaama Press January 11, 2013
The Taliban group in Afghanistan following a statement welcomed news from Washington that the US might withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan next year.
Taliban also said that the American public was pressing for an end to “this aimless war.”
This comes as Afghan president Hamid Karzai is on four day US visit and is expected to meet with the US president Barack Obama in White House on Friday to focus on how many American soldiers will remain in Afghanistan.
But the Taliban group in its statement said, “We appreciate this step of the American public and all those societies who pressurise their government in the issue of Afghanistan as to bring this aimless war to an end and to evacuate all their troops.”
The comments by the Taliban group comes amid preparations by the NATO to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 however Washington will leave a force to train, advise and assist the Afghan army and police.
However US military officers privately said comments about a total withdrawal were primarily designed as a tactic in negotiations with Kabul over a security agreement, which includes immunity for American troops remaining behind.4
The U.S. military has already given Obama options under which as few as 6,000 or as many as 20,000 soldiers would remain in Afghanistan after 2014. Those forces would work as advisers to the Afghan army and mount special operations raids against the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Mullah Omer Opposes Kabul Meeting of Islamic Scholars
TOLOnew.com Written by Abdul Wali Arian Thursday, 10 January 2013
Pressure is mounting ahead of the conference of regional Islamic scholars in Kabul with a message from Mullah Omer this week condemning the meeting and calling for scholars not to attend.
A number of well-known Islamic scholars from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are expected to participate in the regional Ulema conference which aims, among other things, to decide on the morality of suicide attacks.
The Ulema has the authority to issue a Fatwa (a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law) to deem suicide attacks as Haram (sinful by Islamic law).
The prospect of the Fatwa on suicide attacks poses a threat to insurgent groups, especially the Taliban, who use suicide bombers in most major attacks.
The statement from the Taliban, disclosed Wednesday night to media, warns the clerics that they will be "answerable to God" and will be counted as "fake" in the court of the masses.
"The regional conference, which aims to issue a Fatwa considering suicide attacks as Haram and strengthen the peace process, could do major harm to the Taliban, and that is why Mullah Omar doesn't want the religious scholars to attend the meeting," said one of the scholars Abdulhadi Hedayat.
The High Peace Council with the Afghan government is organising the conference as part of its peace efforts.
"No one and no group has the right to stop religious scholars from serving for peace, meetings, advices, Fatwas and promotions of Islamic principles," said Shahzada Shahid, member of High Peace Counicl and the Afghan Ulema Council.
"The conference will have a [good] outcome if the religious scholars are impartial, otherwise it will have no outcome at all," former Taliban leader Sayed Akbar Agha told TOLOnews.
Kabul and Islamabad agreed last month to hold the regional scholars conference and discuss whether suicide attacks are Haram or not, and also to talk over about circumstances of peace talks between Afghanistan and armed government oppositions especially the Taliban.
Last Arafa (Islamic Holy Day), Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh, in his Hajj sermon said that suicide attacks were Haram and against Islam and said that those who commit such attacks would not be forgiven by God.
Afghan film “Buzkashi Boys” shortlisted for Oscar Awards
By Mirwais Adeel Khaama Press January 11, 2013
Set against the dramatic landscape of contemporary Afghanistan and the National sport of Buzkashi – a brutal game of horse polo played with a dead goat – Buzkashi Boys tells the coming of age story of two best friends, a charismatic street urchin and a defiant blacksmith’s son, who struggle to realize their dreams as they make their way to manhood in one of the most war-torn countries on Earth.
The movie attracted considerable viewers outside the country and the film was also widely welcomed inside the country where the film industry of Afghanistan that was totally damaged due decades of civil war.
The film, which was produced with a joint international and Afghan crew, recently won best drama at the LA Shorts Fest, which makes the film eligible to be nominated for an Academy Award.
Buzkashi boys was directed by American film maker Sam French, who is working on making documentary films in Afghanistan.
Ariel Nasr who produced the film Buzkashi Boys, nominated for an Academy Award in the live action short category. He said he’s thrilled with the nomination and what it could mean for arts in Afghanistan.
“We’re hoping this will bring some attention to film makers in Afghanistan and films made in Afghanistan,” said Nasr.
Nasr, who graduated from the University of King’s College in Halifax in 2005 with a degree in history of science and classics, learned the film was one of 11 shortlisted for an Oscar in late November.
Nasr and American director Sam French co-founded the project, which aims to tell Afghan stories and build the capacity of the country’s movie industry. As a result, they employed local actors (Fawad Mohammadi, Jawanmard Paiz and Wali Talash) and let Afghan film interns work on the feature with the international crew.
Buzkashi Boys, which has picked up awards at numerous festivals in the U.S. and Europe, will next be screened at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and Cinequest in San Jose, Calif. Among the other credits for the Halifax-born Nasr — whose mom is from California and whose father is from Afghanistan — are the documentaries Good Morning Kandahar (2008) and Boxing Girls of Kabul (2012), which he wrote and directed.
The New War for Afghanistan's Untapped Oil
What's driving the recent surge in Taliban violence?
The Atlantic Jan 10 2013
By Antonia Juhasz - Antonia Juhasz is a fellow at the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism. She has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Nation, among others.
I am looking out the window as men in grey turbans run from my building out onto the highway, their AK 47s at the ready. "There's been an accident," my Afghan guide, Danish calmly tells me. "Someone was just killed in the plaza here."
I am in Faryab province in northwest Afghanistan, which had been considered among the more peaceful areas. "Was someone hit by a car?" I ask. Danish pauses. The "Oh yes, she's American" look passes quickly over his face before he replies, "Somebody was shot."
Within a few minutes we get a report from the secretary of Abdullah Masoumi, the governor of Khoja Sabz Posh District, in whose office we've been waiting for some time. It was the Taliban, he tells us, and the victim was Commander Czhulam, a leading member of the governor's security team and a former commander under General Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of the country's most powerful warlords.
With the close of 2012, the Pentagon has revealed a disturbing trend in Afghanistan: Taliban attacks remained steady, or in some cases increased, over 2011 levels. I experienced the Taliban surge firsthand this past November, and can offer a cause not cited in the Pentagon's report: oil and gas.
I was there as part of a three week investigation into the growing efforts of both the US and Afghan governments to develop Afghanistan's oil and gas sector. I prepared my itinerary to include what are supposed to be among the safest regions, and was traveling alone with just a local guide and driver, my only "safety-gear" the local clothing and black head covering I wore. As long as I kept my mouth shut, with my dark hair and Middle-European heritage, I regularly passed for a local. I was tracking an oil and gas trail across Western and Northern Afghanistan. But so too, it became increasingly apparent, are the Taliban.
I was to interview Governor Masoumi because his district sits atop fields of natural gas in one of the most energy-rich provinces. As in virtually all of Afghanistan, none of the fields are marked because almost no natural gas or oil operations are taking place. I know the fields are there because I am following a map of Afghanistan's oil and natural gas riches produced by the United States' Government's US Geological Survey (USGS).
My journey has uncovered a largely hidden battle being waged for control of Afghanistan's fossil fuel resources. The Afghan and US governments hope these resources will attract international oil companies and raise badly needed income. The Taliban appear increasingly bent on denying the fruits of the sector to their rivals, be they local, national, or international.
As we leave Faryab, Danish warns, "If the Taliban catch us, throw your camera out the window and pretend to be my deaf mute mother."
Two days later I'm in Jowzan province to the north of Faryab, waiting at the gates of the Khoja Gogardak natural gas treatment plant, a few miles from Sheberghan city. A lone guard sits nearby. Old, thin, and short with a small grey turban and stark white beard, his AK-47 is casually slung across his shoulder while two small "guard puppy" dogs relax at his feet, enjoying the calm afternoon sun in the heart of General Dostum's territory. His lackadaisical attitude is both quaint and oddly reassuring.
Suddenly, Mir Hasan, head engineer of the facility, appears and ushers us quickly inside. "There is a recent security situation which is not good and the military will be here in a few minutes," Danish translates.
Hasan had received word a few minutes earlier that his employees working at a natural gas field behind the facility and just in the distance (he points, we look) were attacked by the Taliban. "Right here?!" I ask. "Yes," Danish confirms. Hasan politely reassures me that he is happy to give me the tour of the facility, 90 percent of which is outdoors and in full view of the just-attacked field, but we'll have to be quick about it as the Afghan military is on its way. "This just happened?!" I ask. "Yes, exactly," Hasan responds. "Has this happened before?" I ask. "Mostly their attacks take place during the night," he explains. "This is the first time that they have attacked during the day."
I quickly recall that on the road out of Mazar-i-Sharif, the city General Dostum calls home, Danish had been shocked to see a man on a motorbike brazenly wearing the telltale-black turban of a Taliban and brandishing his weapon in the middle of the day. It was the first time either Danish or our driver had seen such a display in over ten years.
"I think we better go," Danish tells me. I try to stall, hoping to be there when the Afghan military arrive, but the men are anxious. Engineer Hasan cannot yet report any details other than that when the Taliban began shooting, his men got into their vehicles and fled the area without apparent injury. "You are not very lucky," Hasan tells me, as we say goodbye to him at the gate.
How right he was. I am standing in the middle of the street in Sheberghan City waiting for Mohammad Chaari, commander of security for the Amu Darya oil contract area awarded in 2011 to the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in partnership with Afghanistan's Watan Group. With two facilities operating in Sari Pul Province south of Jowzan and east of Faryab, theirs is the only oil production in Afghanistan -- although they currently ship their entire product to Turkmenistan. Almost a week earlier, I had been given a secret tour. (The Chinese no longer allow press onto the facility, so I was snuck in.)
While we wait for Chaari, we overhear a conversation between him and two CNPC engineers from Sari Pul. There has been a Taliban attack near the facility, "large enough to call in air support." No one would say more when asked, but Commander Chaari does tell me that his security detail are about to be significantly increased.
We begin crossing oil and gas fields off my itinerary, deeming them too "insecure" to visit, including oil fields very near to the city of Mazar-i-Sharif and the entire province of Kunduz. "Insecure," I have quickly learned, is code for "Taliban." As the director general of the Afghan Oil and Gas Survey tells me, "There is nothing else causing insecurity."
The US Pentagon is the de-facto lead US agency pushing the development of Afghanistan's oil and gas sector. Jim Bowen, a Houston oilman hired by the Pentagon to guide a November 15 international oil and gas contract tender process, confirmed for me that these attacks are in fact on the rise. "Certainly, as the [oil and gas] sector develops, the sector is creating targets, there is no doubt about that," Bowen tells me. "But exactly how one defines 'Taliban' is open to interpretation."
Sitting in Kabul shortly before my departure, I speak with Javed Noorani, extractive industries monitor for the Afghan NGO Integrity Watch. He confirms Bowen's analysis: As the oil and gas sector draws increasing public attention, so too have Taliban attacks grown. But identifying who is supporting those Taliban, "be they Pakistani, Iranian, or homegrown, is not so simple."
The result is clear, and far from unique to Afghanistan: As development of the oil and gas sector has risen, so too has violence and insecurity.
U.S. Says Buildings Missing In Afghanistan
January 11, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) says the United States is missing several buildings it thought it had built in Afghanistan.
John Sopko said on January 10 that he didn't know where the buildings were or even if they were ever built.
In his first public remarks since his July 2012 appointment by President Barack Obama, Sopko said corruption, inadequate planning, poor security, and the questionable sustainability of projects are among the challenges facing U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
He said the United States risks wasting billions of dollars if the agencies charged with implementing new programs and constructing new facilities don’t answer basic questions about how they are carrying out their work.
Sopko said Washington spends some $28 million per day on rebuilding and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
5 Afghan policemen killed in checkpoint attack in western province
QALA-E-NAW, Afghanistan, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- Up to five Afghan policemen were killed and five others wounded when Taliban militants launched armed attacks against checkpoints in the country's western province Badghis, the provincial police chief said Friday.
"Five members of Afghan National Police (ANP) were martyred and five were wounded as Taliban militants raided their posts in Abkamari and Muquar districts late Thursday night," police chief Sharafuddin Sharaf told Xinhua.
He said two militants were also killed in the brief battle in the province 555 km northwest of capital Kabul.
The Taliban, who ruled the country before they were ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, renewed armed insurgency, staging ambush and suicide attacks, killing combatants as well as civilians.
The insurgent group has urged the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people against supporting government and foreign troops.
Special IG for Afghan reconstruction cites rampant fraud, waste
Stars and Stripes By Chris Carroll Stars and Stripes January 10, 2013
WASHINGTON - Much of the $28 million the United States spends daily to build up Afghanistan is thrown at projects without planning, and little attention is paid to whether the work ever gets done right, the U.S. official in charge of oversight of Afghan reconstruction said Thursday.
Meanwhile, security is so bad in many areas that keeping watch over projects is nearly impossible, while bribes and corruption continue to flourish, said John Sopko, who in July took over the job of Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, or SIGAR.
In his first public speech since his appointment, he painted a grim picture of the state of the U.S. campaign to remake Afghanistan, an effort that has cost thousands of U.S. lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.
The quarterly reports that Sopko, a longtime prosecutor and congressional counsel, has since issued form a counterpoint to more optimistic assessments coming from the Pentagon and other parts of the U.S. government.
In order to wisely use U.S. taxpayer money to reconstruct Afghanistan, U.S. military and civilian officials need to start asking tough but simple questions, Sopko told an audience at the Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank focused on global security issues.
“Are these programs and buildings needed? Have you asked the Afghans if they want them?” he said. “Have we designed them to meet any specific needs that the Afghans have? And have we designed them in such a way that they can be sustainable in the future?”
Frequently the answer is no, Sopko said. He gave the example of an Afghan army garrison constructed in Kunduz province on unstable ground, a mistake which led to buildings cracking and falling apart. When asked to explain why the base was built there, or how it was decided it needed to be built at all, U.S. officials could offer no explanation.
“We got blank stares,” he said.
Although the $70 million base is unusable, the Department of Defense paid the contractor who built it, an action Sopko called “inexplicable.”
In another case that received attention last fall, SIGAR investigators discovered that anti-IED grates required on culverts to keep bombs from being planted under roads were never installed — negligence that may have cost American lives, he said.
Sopko said his office has 60 of its investigators on the ground in Afghanistan, out of a total staff of 200, making it the largest U.S. oversight agency in country. They are assisted by U.S. military units they frequently embed with, and Sopko praised U.S. commanding general in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, for facilitating SIGAR investigations.
Sopko said he’s driven by the knowledge that with the war winding down and U.S. troop levels dropping, he needs to act fast to give Afghanistan a chance to benefit from the massive but shaky reconstruction effort the United States has mounted.
“If we don’t get it right, then those lives and that treasure that we have spent over the last 11 years will have been wasted, will have been spent in vain,” he said.
U.S. policy and troops in Afghanistan
The Washington Post By Ronald E. Neumann Friday, January 11, 2013
Ronald E. Neumann was U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from July 2005 to April 2007. He is the author of “The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan.”
As President Hamid Karzai meets with President Obama on Friday, their discussion is sure to include the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014. There are many options, but decisions should depend on our objectives — which badly need to be clarified for Americans, Afghans and the world community. The media are full of numbers — 3,000 to 20,000 — that are said to have various levels of risk. But risk of what? The lack of clarity about the United States’ purpose in Afghanistan has confused Americans and Afghans alike. The latter, preoccupied not with transition next year but with survival in 2015 and beyond, resort to hedging strategies of tightening tribal and militia ties that undercut state development and Afghan military cohesion.
Obama’s announced goal of defeating al-Qaeda has never been well linked to our strategy of rolling back the Taliban insurgency and stabilizing Afghanistan — the efforts that preoccupy our troops and money. They are connected, but not in ways clearly explained. Al-Qaeda is a regenerative movement. Afghanistan lacks a reasonably firm state that can manage the large war that will continue after our combat forces are withdrawn. Without some continuing U.S. support, civil war and fragmentation are likely to engulf Afghanistan, destabilizing Central Asia as neighboring powers are drawn to safeguard their own interests and providing a breeding ground for extremism.
Acknowledging the cohesion between what we have been doing and defeating al-Qaeda is fundamental to clear decisions. Do the goals still hold, or are we changing them? The different troop numbers are not about “risk” but about different policies.
A presence of 3,000 to 6,000 troops is a counterterrorist policy that gives up on serious support for the Afghan military and focuses on killing our enemies. It offers nothing to Afghans except endless killing and, hence, will face increasing Afghan rejection. Further, since our forces will need local allies for intelligence and logistical support, such a tiny presence is likely to further empower the very warlords who have done so much to foment corruption. If the Afghan state collapses without our support, our presence will be unsustainable. In sum, a counterterrorist strategy is superficially attractive but a bankrupt strategic choice.
Stabilizing Afghanistan, the policy we have actually pursued, will not require the massive troop commitment in place today but will require three missions besides counterterrorism. One is training. Traveling throughout southern and eastern Afghanistan last year, I saw that Afghan forces have made significant progress. But much will remain to be accomplished in higher staff and institutional development if these forces are to stand on their own in a long war. How many trainers are needed can be debated, but the function should not be ignored.
Another mission is to build logistical, air and medical evacuation services (“enablers”). I was told during a visit to Afghanistan in 2010 that we could not complete required enabler training and equipment delivery before 2016 because we delayed starting the program in order to devote our efforts to rapidly forming infantry units. U.S. legal wranglings and contractual problems have caused further delays. Yet without these capabilities, Afghan forces will be confined mostly to garrisons, ceding the countryside to others, including insurgents. We need to fill the gap for a few years to succeed and because we share responsibility for the situation. Enablers can be steadily ramped down as Afghan forces develop, but they should not be abruptly cut off because we have failed to meet an earlier, never-achievable deadline.
Third, a small number of advisers will be needed with Afghan units. In addition to moving Afghan forces from quantity to quality, they will provide essential links to air and logistics. For example, U.S. pilots will not bomb targets unless Western advisers direct the strikes and evaluate the dangers on the ground. These requirements will diminish as Afghan forces and enablers mature.
Responsible decisions on force levels beyond 2014 need public clarity about which missions the forces are to accomplish, for what purposes and with public acknowledgment of risks to mission success. Deciding numbers without such clarity is a recipe for failure, because everyone from the Karzai government to our NATO allies will make different assumptions about our policy and work at cross purposes based on those assumptions.
Deciding on small numbers and claiming that the U.S. forces can do multiple training and counterterrorist jobs strains credulity. Changing to a mostly counterterrorist mission, in addition to its practical problems, would undercut our agreements to support Afghanistan beyond 2014 as well as the commitments our diplomacy has generated from NATO nations and other troop and financial contributors. In short, it would be a new policy in the last years before transition. I think it would fail, but if the Obama administration decides to change the policy, then it owes Americans, allies and Afghans an explanation about what we are really doing and how the potential for success of the new policy justifies the lives it is putting at risk.
Over 3,300 insurgents killed in Afghanistan in 2012
KABUL, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- More than 3,300 insurgents have been killed and nearly 3,500 others detained in operations carried out by Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops throughout last year in the insurgency-hit country.
According to figures based on the country's Interior Ministry statements, a total of 3,328 Taliban insurgents have been killed and up to 3,480 have been detained by the joint forces in 2012.
The Afghan army, police and the coalition forces intensified military pressure against the Taliban and other anti-government militant groups throughout the country last year, particularly since early May last year when Taliban launched an annual rebel offensive against the Afghan forces and the foreign troops stationed in the country.
The Taliban, who ruled the country before they were ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, renewed armed insurgency, staging ambush and suicide attacks, killing combatants as well as civilians.
Despite a decrease in violent attacks due to cold weather in an imminent winter, the government security forces and 100,000 NATO- led coalition forces continue to press the militants in the militancy-hit country.
"During these winter months which the insurgents have typically used to regroup, waiting for what they have termed 'fighting season', I want to make it clear that ISAF and the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have no operational pause," ISAF Spokesman Brigadier General Gunter Katz told a press briefing on Monday.
"In these months we continue our relentless pressure on the insurgency," he added.
Gen. Katz said that the Afghan and coalition forces have had great achievements throughout 2012, saying "In 2012, the ANSF together with ISAF increased security in Afghanistan significantly. The insurgency was fought successfully; it was pushed even in areas that used to be safe havens for them."
Figures released by the Afghan Interior Ministry showed more than 500 insurgents had been wounded during the military operations last year.
However, the insurgents in retaliation responded by carrying out suicide bombings and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) attacks against security forces, inflicting casualties on the civilians as well.
Records kept by Xinhua reveal that the insurgents had launched nearly 80 suicide attacks last year while multiple suicide bombers have been involved in several of the suicide bombings.
On the other hand, the security forces also suffered casualties last year. More than 1,000 personnel of Afghan army lost their lives in military operations, direct fighting and IED blasts in 2012, according to General Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the country's Defense Ministry.
However, the government has not released the figures of police casualties, who have been facing more threats in the war against Taliban than the army.
The conflicts had claimed the lives of 405 coalition forces including 310 Americans and 51 Britons last year.
Afghanistan: Taliban may be 'weak,' but fear remains
As President Karzai discusses his country's future with President Obama in Washington, many Afghans continue day-to-day fight against extremist intimidation on the ground.
Christian Science Monitor By Scott Peterson, Staff writer January 10, 2013
Kabul and Kunduz, Afghanistan - The television is always tuned to the news channel at the police station in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan.
When the screen shows the images of a suicide bombing at another police headquarters elsewhere in Afghanistan, officer Said Sarwar Husaini turns up the volume to hear the report. The TV shows black smoke billowing from a station just like his; frantic Afghan police are both victims and rescuers.
While Afghan President Hamid Karzai meets US President Barack Obama during a high-profile visit to Washington this week for strategic discussions about Afghanistan's future, the Afghan officer represents part of a real fight for Afghanistan that is playing out at ground level and highlights just how much grip the Taliban still has over Afghans – and also, how little.
"Yes, there are lots of threats, but as police we are used to danger," says Mr. Husaini, the Kunduz police spokesman, of the risks of being a member of Afghanistan's 350,000-strong security forces in the midst of an insurgency that has foiled US and Western forces after 11 years of war.
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Analysts note that although the Taliban have been able to mount a dangerous insurgency, few say that will mean the ultra-conservative group will be able to topple the Afghan government even when the bulk of US and NATO forces depart by the end of 2014.
Yet the Taliban have been effective in creating a calculus of intimidation in many parts of the country, influencing the decision making of Afghans like Husaini.
"At the beginning, when someone joins the security forces to help people, it's a difficult decision," says Husaini, after the TV news report is over. His police station is on a main road in Kunduz, but encircled by soil-filled Hesco barriers, multiple checkpoints, and coils of barbed wire. Six months ago, he survived an explosion from a bomb attached to his car.
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"They threaten me, they know me from the TV," says Husaini of the Taliban. "They say: 'This spokesman, finally we will catch and kill him.'"
But Husaini and many other Afghans say they don’t believe nation-building efforts wrought since the Taliban and their Al Qaeda "guests" were forced from power in late 2001 will unravel.
"People want freedom, they are not ready to accept the Taliban again," says a veteran Afghan police trainer in Kunduz, who asked that his name not be used for his own safety.
"People won't again accept a strict social environment, or being forced to wear long beards, and women not being allowed to go to school or to work," says the police trainer. "[The Taliban] know very well they are not accepted. They are not as strong as before; they are weak."
"I can't say everything is finished with the Taliban," the Afghan adds. "But in the past, the fear they created was 90 percent; now it's 20 percent."
Oft-voiced fears of a return of Taliban preeminence after 2014 may be overblown, some here argue, because Afghans already lived through years of their Draconian rule in the late 1990s. Back then, even images of the human form were banned – and checkpoints were marked by sparkling bunches of video and audiotape pulled from the cassettes of passing motorists.
"The Taliban have become weaker," says Hilaluddin Hilal, a military analyst and one time deputy minister for security and parliamentarian.
"The numbers of that younger generation who want an education and want democracy are increasing," says General Hilal, speaking in Kabul. "And those who want the Taliban, who are uneducated, are decreasing." Taliban not out of the picture
That doesn't mean the Taliban and other ultra-conservative elements don't continue – sometimes effectively – their efforts to derail nation-building efforts in Afghanistan. Many blame the Karzai government for scandalous levels of corruption that have contributed to its limited authority.
But the list of grim Taliban tactics has turned many off. There have been multiple reports of poisonings of water supplies at girls schools – including a high school in Kunduz. And suicide and other attacks on US and NATO forces, and on civilians, don’t seem to stop.
Indeed, frequent and lethal insurgent attacks led by the Taliban marked 2012, including a string of suicide bombings that targeted even mosques and shops.
In the past year alone, more than 60 incidents of Afghan security force members turning their guns on their American and NATO counterparts have unsettled a fragile relationship. The Taliban claimed many of those attacks as the work of their own infiltrators. Growing civil society
"But at the same time, we have seen civil society grow, and watched people be very vocal and adamant about their social rights," says Massoumeh Torfeh, the director of strategic communications in Kabul for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
"People are becoming more vocal, they are saying they are not going to let [anyone] take away the achievements of the past 10 years," says Ms. Torfeh, referring to efforts that emerge from the Taliban as well as some haphazard dealings from officials to curb citizen rights.
"Of course, it is impossible for ordinary people to stand up to [Taliban] suicide bombings – they can't," says Torfeh. "But in whatever way they can, they have done it in all provinces across Afghanistan." For example she says, "as soon as there are threats to the democratization process, the media warn about it." Outside influences don't help
While that may be the trajectory, Afghan militants have long had help from outside the country, says the Kunduz police trainer.
"Unfortunately our neighboring countries [Pakistan and Iran] do not want us to have a good police, they want to keep Afghanistan poor and weak and not self-sufficient; they benefit from this weakness," says the police trainer.
"They keep families under pressure, and use insurgents to do it. They say, 'Tell your cousins, your family, to stop working for the government,'" says the police trainer. "They have many tools to make people afraid."
One former Afghan translator for US and British forces knows those tools well. Despite working that job for a very short time several years ago, in the Taliban strongholds of Kandahar and Helmand provinces, the translator – who asked not to be identified for security reasons – has not been able to visit his home village.
The last time he was back, he avoided two explosions aimed at another relative who was a senior government servant. No one was even officially aware of his own work, helping what are seen in his Pashtun region as "occupying" forces.
"People in my area are so against the US," says the Afghan translator, speaking in Kabul. "Some work with the Taliban, but some just sit at home, really, really hating the US."
The risks even in Kabul were brought home to him in recent months, when a friend who had translated for US Special Forces received threat letters from the Taliban. Then a grenade was lobbed into his house. Within a week he had fled to Europe.
"Believe me, people do not feel safe in this city," says the translator. "No one wants to be far from their family. But it has gotten worse, [such work] is remembered [by the Taliban] more and more.
"A clear fact is that they are such bad people," adds the translator. "When you realize if bad people think like that, it's a threat, and it's forever."
Still, says Husaini, the Kunduz police spokesman, "One thing that gives us courage is our faith in God."
Military Uniform Company Near Collapse
TOLOnews.com By Zabihullah Jhanmal Thursday, 10 January 2013
An Afghan private company which produces military uniforms and boots is close to collapse after it failed to win the army's military uniform contract, owners said.
The factory had employed more than 1,000 personnel – mostly women – before the Afghan Ministry of Defense was authorised to allocate the contract for military uniforms, but now the company has less than 500 employees.
"Since the Afghan Ministries of Defence and Interior asked us to provide 105,000 uniforms [with boots] in two months. We quit the contract because we couldn't even import the necessary raw materials during that period," Nasrat Rahmati, head of the Afghan-owned Tarsian and Blinkley, told TOLOnews.
The Afghan Chamber of Commerce (ACCI) and Industries blamed the government for not providing necessary facilities to the factories to prevent their collapse and bankruptcy.
"We have several other factories in the same situation but the government is not able to support them and solve their issues," Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the ACCI, Khanjan Alokozay told TOLOnews.
Most of the factory workers in Tarsian and Blinkley are women on an average wage of 7,000 Afs ($140) per month plus food coupons, who are now concerned they will lose their jobs.
The Ministry of Defense has struggled in the past with lack of professional personnel and transparency in handling military contracts.
Citizens Call on Govt to Reduce Fuel Prices
TOLOnews.com By Zabihullah Jhanmal Thursday, 10 January 2013
Kabul citizens have called on the government to do more to bring down fuel prices, especially that of gas, saying that the Ministry of Commerce and Industries should encourage more gas sellers to bring down prices.
Residents who spoke to TOLOnews said that a healthy competition between the private sector and government will result in lower prices.
Ministry officials responded to TOLOnews that 30 more gas supply centres will be opened in Kabul soon which will bring down the liquid gas price.
"We are trying to have, once again, meetings with the private sector in order to reduce the price of liquid gas in the markets," said Faridullah Sheerzai, Head of Oil and Gas Enterprise Department of Ministry of Commerce and Industries.
The price of liquid gas is currently around 65 Afs ($1.27) per kilogram compared to less than 50 Afs in the summer.
"If the big companies at the top reduce the price of gas it will definitely be reduced when sold by retailers," a Kabul resident told TOLOnews.
"There should be more competition between the private (sector) and the government. They should import more gas so the prices come down a bit," another resident said.
According to the Oil and Gas Enterprise Department, the government is responsible for a very small part of the oil and gas sold in the country.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By JULIE PACE and ROBERT BURNS | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Friday they have agreed to speed up slightly the schedule for moving Afghanistan's security forces into the lead across the country, with U.S. troops shifting fully to a support role. The leaders also said Obama agreed to place battlefield detainees under the control of the Afghan government.
The capabilities of the Afghan army are "exceeding initial expectations," the two said in a joint statement released after their private White House meeting and working lunch and in advance of a joint news conference. As a result, Obama said he acceded to Karzai's desire to put Afghan forces in the combat lead across his country this spring, rather than wait until summer.
In their statement the leaders said they discussed the possibility of a continued U.S. troop presence beyond December 2014, when the U.S. and allied combat mission is to end. But they did not settle on any specifics.
The U.S. now has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have proposed keeping 6,000 to 15,000 U.S. troops after 2014 to continuing pursuing terrorists and training Afghan security forces. But the White House, which tends to favor lower troop levels than the generals do, says Obama would be open to pulling all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
"We wouldn't rule out any option," Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said earlier this week. "We're not guided by the goal of a certain number of U.S. troops in the country. We're guided by the objectives that the president set — disrupt, dismantle, defeat al-Qaida."
Friday's meeting was the first between Obama and Karzai since November's U.S. presidential election. Heading into his second term, Obama is shaking up his national security team, including key players who deal with Karzai and the war.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta are both expected to leave their posts within weeks. The president nominated Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as the nation's top diplomat and former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., to lead the Pentagon.
Both Kerry and Hagel are likely to favor a more rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces.
After Karzai met Thursday with Clinton and Panetta, the Pentagon chief offered an upbeat assessment of the war's progress.
"After a long and difficult path, we finally are, I believe, at the last chapter of establishing an Afghanistan, a sovereign Afghanistan, that can govern and secure itself for the future," Panetta said.
The U.S.-led NATO coalition is aiming to turn all combat missions over to Afghan forces by the end of this year. The 66,000 U.S. forces still there are already turning over territory or handing off many combat missions to the Afghans.
Still, the war's endgame is punctuated with uncertainty, beginning with doubts about whether the Afghan government can build legitimacy by credibly serving its population. Also in question is whether Afghan security forces will be capable of holding off the Taliban after international forces leave.
Panetta told a news conference that he and Karzai had laid the groundwork for the Afghan leader's White House meeting.
"We made very good progress on, you know, the kind of equipment that we would try to make available to them," to enable the Afghans to not only secure their borders but also prevent a Taliban takeover, Panetta said.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the same news conference that U.S. and Afghan officials are developing a common assessment of threats Afghanistan is likely to face in the future. Conclusions from that study will help determine the full range of Afghanistan's military requirements, he said.
Karzai was greeted at the Pentagon by a ceremonial honor guard, and at a photo-taking session in Panetta's office, the Afghan leader said he could assure the American people that his country "will not ever again be threatened by terrorists from across our borders" — an allusion to the al-Qaida leaders hiding in Pakistan. It was from Afghanistan that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida operatives plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Priorities Are Far Apart for Karzai and Obama
The New York Times By MARK LANDLER, MICHAEL R. GORDON and MATTHEW ROSENBERGJanuary 10, 2013
WASHINGTON - The last time President Obama and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan spoke face to face, it was on a video conference call on Sept. 21. Mr. Obama, distracted by an election in which the Afghanistan war was barely discussed, deflected Mr. Karzai’s most probing questions about the future of the American commitment there.
On Friday, the two leaders will finally confront those questions at the White House. For Mr. Karzai, it may prove to be a jolting illustration of how sharply Mr. Obama has scaled back his ambitions in a conflict he once called a war of necessity — going so far as to entertain an option to leave behind no American troops after 2014, when the NATO combat mission ends.
Emboldened by what administration officials assert are gains against operatives of Al Qaeda, and concerned about the financial and political costs at home, Mr. Obama is leaning toward a more aggressive timetable for withdrawing troops than his military commander in Afghanistan initially recommended.
As the White House examines options for the size of a residual military force in Afghanistan that ranges from roughly 3,000 to 9,000 troops, Mr. Obama has directed his advisers to answer a basic question: Is such a force necessary to carry out the narrow counterterrorism objective and training mission the United States envisions for postwar Afghanistan?
Mr. Karzai, who met Thursday with Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta, has far different expectations, according to Afghan officials.
Although he has been careful not to discuss specific troop numbers in public, Mr. Karzai appears to be counting on a substantial residual American force — perhaps as many as 15,000 troops, whose mission would be to advise Afghan security forces in their fight against the Taliban insurgency and carry out raids against Al Qaeda.
And he is hoping the United States will supply the Afghan Army with the latest military hardware, including tanks and fighter planes.
These very different expectations, analysts said, could reignite the tensions in a relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai that has been notoriously fraught over issues like corruption, civilian casualties and threats to Afghan sovereignty.
“There’s been a steady rollback of our objectives of what’s good enough in Afghanistan,” said Vali Nasr, a former senior State Department official who worked on Afghanistan and Pakistan and is the dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
“If you’re Karzai, you’re basically now facing the same calculation that Maliki did in Iraq,” said Mr. Nasr, referring to Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister. “ ‘If you’re not willing to stay in large numbers, why do I need you?’ ”
The possibilities for friction are compounded by cynicism on both sides: the sense in Washington that Mr. Karzai is a mercurial, unreliable partner, and the suspicion in Kabul that the Americans care about Afghanistan only when they need it for other purposes, like fighting Al Qaeda.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former commander in Afghanistan, warned in a recent interview that if the United States shrank too radically its advisory support for the Afghan military or curtailed its civilian programs, it might lose Afghan support for the counterterrorism operations it might want to continue there.
“If you don’t have the support of the Afghan people,” he said, “there’s no reason for them to be supportive of this.”
It is a measure of the potential disconnect between Mr. Karzai and Mr. Obama that Afghan officials involved in preparing his trip said the belief in the Afghan leader’s inner circle was that Mr. Karzai was coming to the talks with the upper hand.
In Mr. Karzai’s view, these officials and other people close to the president said, the United States needs a robust American presence in Afghanistan after 2014 to keep Al Qaeda off balance and Iran and Pakistan at bay. The Afghans “think they are indispensable; they think they have all the leverage,” one Afghan official said.
The Afghans were readying complaints about the United States’ continuing to detain Afghans at a prison next to Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, which was supposed to have been handed over to Afghan authorities in September.
Some of Mr. Karzai’s advisers are aware of the tenuous support at the White House for the war effort. Fearful of a repeat of Iraq, where Mr. Obama ordered a total military withdrawal, they have prevailed on the Afghan president to soften his position on granting immunity to any American troops stationed in Afghanistan after 2014, which he has done in recent months.
The ideal outcome for Mr. Karzai, these officials said, would be an American and allied training force that would help the Afghan Army make the most of the billions in aid it is expecting to receive, and a robust counterterrorism force that could work with Afghan Special Forces to combat the remnants of Al Qaeda.
The White House’s calculation looks very different. While cost was a consideration in Iraq, Mr. Obama is more sensitive now to the budget consequences of keeping troops in Afghanistan after his bruising fiscal showdown with Congress, and the prospect of huge mandatory cuts in the Pentagon’s budget.
“You’ve got to step back and see the whole field from the point of view of taxpayer spending,” said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
To some extent, officials said, the administration’s floating of a “zero option” for troops is a bargaining ploy, with both the Pentagon and with Mr. Karzai.
But resolving the differences between the United States and the Afghan government, if they are resolved, is likely to have a profound effect on the long-term commitment of other NATO members.
An allied official said that if the White House opted for a minimal troop presence, the rest of the NATO allies were expected to follow suit, especially since the war was even more unpopular among their publics. Many critics complain that Mr. Karzai has been slow to pursue corruption. But some analysts said the emerging American policy might deepen Mr. Karzai’s insecurities.
“We will not be able to give Karzai any more spine to go after cronyism and nepotism,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on Afghanistan at the Brookings Institution.
The one issue on which both sides appear in sync is the peace process, according to the Afghan officials and people close to the Afghan leader. Like their American counterparts, Afghan officials want to see negotiations with the Taliban make progress and offer rosy public assessments of the diplomatic effort.
But privately, the Afghans are aware that there have been no meaningful engagements with the Taliban in nearly a year, and that until the insurgents prove willing to sit down, the peace process will make little headway.
Thom Shanker contributed reporting.
Taliban welcome complete withdrawal of US troops
By Sayed Jawad Khaama Press January 11, 2013
The Taliban group in Afghanistan following a statement welcomed news from Washington that the US might withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan next year.
Taliban also said that the American public was pressing for an end to “this aimless war.”
This comes as Afghan president Hamid Karzai is on four day US visit and is expected to meet with the US president Barack Obama in White House on Friday to focus on how many American soldiers will remain in Afghanistan.
But the Taliban group in its statement said, “We appreciate this step of the American public and all those societies who pressurise their government in the issue of Afghanistan as to bring this aimless war to an end and to evacuate all their troops.”
The comments by the Taliban group comes amid preparations by the NATO to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 however Washington will leave a force to train, advise and assist the Afghan army and police.
However US military officers privately said comments about a total withdrawal were primarily designed as a tactic in negotiations with Kabul over a security agreement, which includes immunity for American troops remaining behind.4
The U.S. military has already given Obama options under which as few as 6,000 or as many as 20,000 soldiers would remain in Afghanistan after 2014. Those forces would work as advisers to the Afghan army and mount special operations raids against the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Mullah Omer Opposes Kabul Meeting of Islamic Scholars
TOLOnew.com Written by Abdul Wali Arian Thursday, 10 January 2013
Pressure is mounting ahead of the conference of regional Islamic scholars in Kabul with a message from Mullah Omer this week condemning the meeting and calling for scholars not to attend.
A number of well-known Islamic scholars from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are expected to participate in the regional Ulema conference which aims, among other things, to decide on the morality of suicide attacks.
The Ulema has the authority to issue a Fatwa (a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law) to deem suicide attacks as Haram (sinful by Islamic law).
The prospect of the Fatwa on suicide attacks poses a threat to insurgent groups, especially the Taliban, who use suicide bombers in most major attacks.
The statement from the Taliban, disclosed Wednesday night to media, warns the clerics that they will be "answerable to God" and will be counted as "fake" in the court of the masses.
"The regional conference, which aims to issue a Fatwa considering suicide attacks as Haram and strengthen the peace process, could do major harm to the Taliban, and that is why Mullah Omar doesn't want the religious scholars to attend the meeting," said one of the scholars Abdulhadi Hedayat.
The High Peace Council with the Afghan government is organising the conference as part of its peace efforts.
"No one and no group has the right to stop religious scholars from serving for peace, meetings, advices, Fatwas and promotions of Islamic principles," said Shahzada Shahid, member of High Peace Counicl and the Afghan Ulema Council.
"The conference will have a [good] outcome if the religious scholars are impartial, otherwise it will have no outcome at all," former Taliban leader Sayed Akbar Agha told TOLOnews.
Kabul and Islamabad agreed last month to hold the regional scholars conference and discuss whether suicide attacks are Haram or not, and also to talk over about circumstances of peace talks between Afghanistan and armed government oppositions especially the Taliban.
Last Arafa (Islamic Holy Day), Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh, in his Hajj sermon said that suicide attacks were Haram and against Islam and said that those who commit such attacks would not be forgiven by God.
Afghan film “Buzkashi Boys” shortlisted for Oscar Awards
By Mirwais Adeel Khaama Press January 11, 2013
Set against the dramatic landscape of contemporary Afghanistan and the National sport of Buzkashi – a brutal game of horse polo played with a dead goat – Buzkashi Boys tells the coming of age story of two best friends, a charismatic street urchin and a defiant blacksmith’s son, who struggle to realize their dreams as they make their way to manhood in one of the most war-torn countries on Earth.
The movie attracted considerable viewers outside the country and the film was also widely welcomed inside the country where the film industry of Afghanistan that was totally damaged due decades of civil war.
The film, which was produced with a joint international and Afghan crew, recently won best drama at the LA Shorts Fest, which makes the film eligible to be nominated for an Academy Award.
Buzkashi boys was directed by American film maker Sam French, who is working on making documentary films in Afghanistan.
Ariel Nasr who produced the film Buzkashi Boys, nominated for an Academy Award in the live action short category. He said he’s thrilled with the nomination and what it could mean for arts in Afghanistan.
“We’re hoping this will bring some attention to film makers in Afghanistan and films made in Afghanistan,” said Nasr.
Nasr, who graduated from the University of King’s College in Halifax in 2005 with a degree in history of science and classics, learned the film was one of 11 shortlisted for an Oscar in late November.
Nasr and American director Sam French co-founded the project, which aims to tell Afghan stories and build the capacity of the country’s movie industry. As a result, they employed local actors (Fawad Mohammadi, Jawanmard Paiz and Wali Talash) and let Afghan film interns work on the feature with the international crew.
Buzkashi Boys, which has picked up awards at numerous festivals in the U.S. and Europe, will next be screened at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and Cinequest in San Jose, Calif. Among the other credits for the Halifax-born Nasr — whose mom is from California and whose father is from Afghanistan — are the documentaries Good Morning Kandahar (2008) and Boxing Girls of Kabul (2012), which he wrote and directed.
The New War for Afghanistan's Untapped Oil
What's driving the recent surge in Taliban violence?
The Atlantic Jan 10 2013
By Antonia Juhasz - Antonia Juhasz is a fellow at the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism. She has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Nation, among others.
I am looking out the window as men in grey turbans run from my building out onto the highway, their AK 47s at the ready. "There's been an accident," my Afghan guide, Danish calmly tells me. "Someone was just killed in the plaza here."
I am in Faryab province in northwest Afghanistan, which had been considered among the more peaceful areas. "Was someone hit by a car?" I ask. Danish pauses. The "Oh yes, she's American" look passes quickly over his face before he replies, "Somebody was shot."
Within a few minutes we get a report from the secretary of Abdullah Masoumi, the governor of Khoja Sabz Posh District, in whose office we've been waiting for some time. It was the Taliban, he tells us, and the victim was Commander Czhulam, a leading member of the governor's security team and a former commander under General Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of the country's most powerful warlords.
With the close of 2012, the Pentagon has revealed a disturbing trend in Afghanistan: Taliban attacks remained steady, or in some cases increased, over 2011 levels. I experienced the Taliban surge firsthand this past November, and can offer a cause not cited in the Pentagon's report: oil and gas.
I was there as part of a three week investigation into the growing efforts of both the US and Afghan governments to develop Afghanistan's oil and gas sector. I prepared my itinerary to include what are supposed to be among the safest regions, and was traveling alone with just a local guide and driver, my only "safety-gear" the local clothing and black head covering I wore. As long as I kept my mouth shut, with my dark hair and Middle-European heritage, I regularly passed for a local. I was tracking an oil and gas trail across Western and Northern Afghanistan. But so too, it became increasingly apparent, are the Taliban.
I was to interview Governor Masoumi because his district sits atop fields of natural gas in one of the most energy-rich provinces. As in virtually all of Afghanistan, none of the fields are marked because almost no natural gas or oil operations are taking place. I know the fields are there because I am following a map of Afghanistan's oil and natural gas riches produced by the United States' Government's US Geological Survey (USGS).
My journey has uncovered a largely hidden battle being waged for control of Afghanistan's fossil fuel resources. The Afghan and US governments hope these resources will attract international oil companies and raise badly needed income. The Taliban appear increasingly bent on denying the fruits of the sector to their rivals, be they local, national, or international.
As we leave Faryab, Danish warns, "If the Taliban catch us, throw your camera out the window and pretend to be my deaf mute mother."
Two days later I'm in Jowzan province to the north of Faryab, waiting at the gates of the Khoja Gogardak natural gas treatment plant, a few miles from Sheberghan city. A lone guard sits nearby. Old, thin, and short with a small grey turban and stark white beard, his AK-47 is casually slung across his shoulder while two small "guard puppy" dogs relax at his feet, enjoying the calm afternoon sun in the heart of General Dostum's territory. His lackadaisical attitude is both quaint and oddly reassuring.
Suddenly, Mir Hasan, head engineer of the facility, appears and ushers us quickly inside. "There is a recent security situation which is not good and the military will be here in a few minutes," Danish translates.
Hasan had received word a few minutes earlier that his employees working at a natural gas field behind the facility and just in the distance (he points, we look) were attacked by the Taliban. "Right here?!" I ask. "Yes," Danish confirms. Hasan politely reassures me that he is happy to give me the tour of the facility, 90 percent of which is outdoors and in full view of the just-attacked field, but we'll have to be quick about it as the Afghan military is on its way. "This just happened?!" I ask. "Yes, exactly," Hasan responds. "Has this happened before?" I ask. "Mostly their attacks take place during the night," he explains. "This is the first time that they have attacked during the day."
I quickly recall that on the road out of Mazar-i-Sharif, the city General Dostum calls home, Danish had been shocked to see a man on a motorbike brazenly wearing the telltale-black turban of a Taliban and brandishing his weapon in the middle of the day. It was the first time either Danish or our driver had seen such a display in over ten years.
"I think we better go," Danish tells me. I try to stall, hoping to be there when the Afghan military arrive, but the men are anxious. Engineer Hasan cannot yet report any details other than that when the Taliban began shooting, his men got into their vehicles and fled the area without apparent injury. "You are not very lucky," Hasan tells me, as we say goodbye to him at the gate.
How right he was. I am standing in the middle of the street in Sheberghan City waiting for Mohammad Chaari, commander of security for the Amu Darya oil contract area awarded in 2011 to the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in partnership with Afghanistan's Watan Group. With two facilities operating in Sari Pul Province south of Jowzan and east of Faryab, theirs is the only oil production in Afghanistan -- although they currently ship their entire product to Turkmenistan. Almost a week earlier, I had been given a secret tour. (The Chinese no longer allow press onto the facility, so I was snuck in.)
While we wait for Chaari, we overhear a conversation between him and two CNPC engineers from Sari Pul. There has been a Taliban attack near the facility, "large enough to call in air support." No one would say more when asked, but Commander Chaari does tell me that his security detail are about to be significantly increased.
We begin crossing oil and gas fields off my itinerary, deeming them too "insecure" to visit, including oil fields very near to the city of Mazar-i-Sharif and the entire province of Kunduz. "Insecure," I have quickly learned, is code for "Taliban." As the director general of the Afghan Oil and Gas Survey tells me, "There is nothing else causing insecurity."
The US Pentagon is the de-facto lead US agency pushing the development of Afghanistan's oil and gas sector. Jim Bowen, a Houston oilman hired by the Pentagon to guide a November 15 international oil and gas contract tender process, confirmed for me that these attacks are in fact on the rise. "Certainly, as the [oil and gas] sector develops, the sector is creating targets, there is no doubt about that," Bowen tells me. "But exactly how one defines 'Taliban' is open to interpretation."
Sitting in Kabul shortly before my departure, I speak with Javed Noorani, extractive industries monitor for the Afghan NGO Integrity Watch. He confirms Bowen's analysis: As the oil and gas sector draws increasing public attention, so too have Taliban attacks grown. But identifying who is supporting those Taliban, "be they Pakistani, Iranian, or homegrown, is not so simple."
The result is clear, and far from unique to Afghanistan: As development of the oil and gas sector has risen, so too has violence and insecurity.
U.S. Says Buildings Missing In Afghanistan
January 11, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) says the United States is missing several buildings it thought it had built in Afghanistan.
John Sopko said on January 10 that he didn't know where the buildings were or even if they were ever built.
In his first public remarks since his July 2012 appointment by President Barack Obama, Sopko said corruption, inadequate planning, poor security, and the questionable sustainability of projects are among the challenges facing U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
He said the United States risks wasting billions of dollars if the agencies charged with implementing new programs and constructing new facilities don’t answer basic questions about how they are carrying out their work.
Sopko said Washington spends some $28 million per day on rebuilding and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
5 Afghan policemen killed in checkpoint attack in western province
QALA-E-NAW, Afghanistan, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- Up to five Afghan policemen were killed and five others wounded when Taliban militants launched armed attacks against checkpoints in the country's western province Badghis, the provincial police chief said Friday.
"Five members of Afghan National Police (ANP) were martyred and five were wounded as Taliban militants raided their posts in Abkamari and Muquar districts late Thursday night," police chief Sharafuddin Sharaf told Xinhua.
He said two militants were also killed in the brief battle in the province 555 km northwest of capital Kabul.
The Taliban, who ruled the country before they were ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, renewed armed insurgency, staging ambush and suicide attacks, killing combatants as well as civilians.
The insurgent group has urged the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants besides warning people against supporting government and foreign troops.
Special IG for Afghan reconstruction cites rampant fraud, waste
Stars and Stripes By Chris Carroll Stars and Stripes January 10, 2013
WASHINGTON - Much of the $28 million the United States spends daily to build up Afghanistan is thrown at projects without planning, and little attention is paid to whether the work ever gets done right, the U.S. official in charge of oversight of Afghan reconstruction said Thursday.
Meanwhile, security is so bad in many areas that keeping watch over projects is nearly impossible, while bribes and corruption continue to flourish, said John Sopko, who in July took over the job of Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, or SIGAR.
In his first public speech since his appointment, he painted a grim picture of the state of the U.S. campaign to remake Afghanistan, an effort that has cost thousands of U.S. lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.
The quarterly reports that Sopko, a longtime prosecutor and congressional counsel, has since issued form a counterpoint to more optimistic assessments coming from the Pentagon and other parts of the U.S. government.
In order to wisely use U.S. taxpayer money to reconstruct Afghanistan, U.S. military and civilian officials need to start asking tough but simple questions, Sopko told an audience at the Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank focused on global security issues.
“Are these programs and buildings needed? Have you asked the Afghans if they want them?” he said. “Have we designed them to meet any specific needs that the Afghans have? And have we designed them in such a way that they can be sustainable in the future?”
Frequently the answer is no, Sopko said. He gave the example of an Afghan army garrison constructed in Kunduz province on unstable ground, a mistake which led to buildings cracking and falling apart. When asked to explain why the base was built there, or how it was decided it needed to be built at all, U.S. officials could offer no explanation.
“We got blank stares,” he said.
Although the $70 million base is unusable, the Department of Defense paid the contractor who built it, an action Sopko called “inexplicable.”
In another case that received attention last fall, SIGAR investigators discovered that anti-IED grates required on culverts to keep bombs from being planted under roads were never installed — negligence that may have cost American lives, he said.
Sopko said his office has 60 of its investigators on the ground in Afghanistan, out of a total staff of 200, making it the largest U.S. oversight agency in country. They are assisted by U.S. military units they frequently embed with, and Sopko praised U.S. commanding general in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, for facilitating SIGAR investigations.
Sopko said he’s driven by the knowledge that with the war winding down and U.S. troop levels dropping, he needs to act fast to give Afghanistan a chance to benefit from the massive but shaky reconstruction effort the United States has mounted.
“If we don’t get it right, then those lives and that treasure that we have spent over the last 11 years will have been wasted, will have been spent in vain,” he said.
U.S. policy and troops in Afghanistan
The Washington Post By Ronald E. Neumann Friday, January 11, 2013
Ronald E. Neumann was U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from July 2005 to April 2007. He is the author of “The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan.”
As President Hamid Karzai meets with President Obama on Friday, their discussion is sure to include the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014. There are many options, but decisions should depend on our objectives — which badly need to be clarified for Americans, Afghans and the world community. The media are full of numbers — 3,000 to 20,000 — that are said to have various levels of risk. But risk of what? The lack of clarity about the United States’ purpose in Afghanistan has confused Americans and Afghans alike. The latter, preoccupied not with transition next year but with survival in 2015 and beyond, resort to hedging strategies of tightening tribal and militia ties that undercut state development and Afghan military cohesion.
Obama’s announced goal of defeating al-Qaeda has never been well linked to our strategy of rolling back the Taliban insurgency and stabilizing Afghanistan — the efforts that preoccupy our troops and money. They are connected, but not in ways clearly explained. Al-Qaeda is a regenerative movement. Afghanistan lacks a reasonably firm state that can manage the large war that will continue after our combat forces are withdrawn. Without some continuing U.S. support, civil war and fragmentation are likely to engulf Afghanistan, destabilizing Central Asia as neighboring powers are drawn to safeguard their own interests and providing a breeding ground for extremism.
Acknowledging the cohesion between what we have been doing and defeating al-Qaeda is fundamental to clear decisions. Do the goals still hold, or are we changing them? The different troop numbers are not about “risk” but about different policies.
A presence of 3,000 to 6,000 troops is a counterterrorist policy that gives up on serious support for the Afghan military and focuses on killing our enemies. It offers nothing to Afghans except endless killing and, hence, will face increasing Afghan rejection. Further, since our forces will need local allies for intelligence and logistical support, such a tiny presence is likely to further empower the very warlords who have done so much to foment corruption. If the Afghan state collapses without our support, our presence will be unsustainable. In sum, a counterterrorist strategy is superficially attractive but a bankrupt strategic choice.
Stabilizing Afghanistan, the policy we have actually pursued, will not require the massive troop commitment in place today but will require three missions besides counterterrorism. One is training. Traveling throughout southern and eastern Afghanistan last year, I saw that Afghan forces have made significant progress. But much will remain to be accomplished in higher staff and institutional development if these forces are to stand on their own in a long war. How many trainers are needed can be debated, but the function should not be ignored.
Another mission is to build logistical, air and medical evacuation services (“enablers”). I was told during a visit to Afghanistan in 2010 that we could not complete required enabler training and equipment delivery before 2016 because we delayed starting the program in order to devote our efforts to rapidly forming infantry units. U.S. legal wranglings and contractual problems have caused further delays. Yet without these capabilities, Afghan forces will be confined mostly to garrisons, ceding the countryside to others, including insurgents. We need to fill the gap for a few years to succeed and because we share responsibility for the situation. Enablers can be steadily ramped down as Afghan forces develop, but they should not be abruptly cut off because we have failed to meet an earlier, never-achievable deadline.
Third, a small number of advisers will be needed with Afghan units. In addition to moving Afghan forces from quantity to quality, they will provide essential links to air and logistics. For example, U.S. pilots will not bomb targets unless Western advisers direct the strikes and evaluate the dangers on the ground. These requirements will diminish as Afghan forces and enablers mature.
Responsible decisions on force levels beyond 2014 need public clarity about which missions the forces are to accomplish, for what purposes and with public acknowledgment of risks to mission success. Deciding numbers without such clarity is a recipe for failure, because everyone from the Karzai government to our NATO allies will make different assumptions about our policy and work at cross purposes based on those assumptions.
Deciding on small numbers and claiming that the U.S. forces can do multiple training and counterterrorist jobs strains credulity. Changing to a mostly counterterrorist mission, in addition to its practical problems, would undercut our agreements to support Afghanistan beyond 2014 as well as the commitments our diplomacy has generated from NATO nations and other troop and financial contributors. In short, it would be a new policy in the last years before transition. I think it would fail, but if the Obama administration decides to change the policy, then it owes Americans, allies and Afghans an explanation about what we are really doing and how the potential for success of the new policy justifies the lives it is putting at risk.
Over 3,300 insurgents killed in Afghanistan in 2012
KABUL, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- More than 3,300 insurgents have been killed and nearly 3,500 others detained in operations carried out by Afghan forces and the NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops throughout last year in the insurgency-hit country.
According to figures based on the country's Interior Ministry statements, a total of 3,328 Taliban insurgents have been killed and up to 3,480 have been detained by the joint forces in 2012.
The Afghan army, police and the coalition forces intensified military pressure against the Taliban and other anti-government militant groups throughout the country last year, particularly since early May last year when Taliban launched an annual rebel offensive against the Afghan forces and the foreign troops stationed in the country.
The Taliban, who ruled the country before they were ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, renewed armed insurgency, staging ambush and suicide attacks, killing combatants as well as civilians.
Despite a decrease in violent attacks due to cold weather in an imminent winter, the government security forces and 100,000 NATO- led coalition forces continue to press the militants in the militancy-hit country.
"During these winter months which the insurgents have typically used to regroup, waiting for what they have termed 'fighting season', I want to make it clear that ISAF and the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have no operational pause," ISAF Spokesman Brigadier General Gunter Katz told a press briefing on Monday.
"In these months we continue our relentless pressure on the insurgency," he added.
Gen. Katz said that the Afghan and coalition forces have had great achievements throughout 2012, saying "In 2012, the ANSF together with ISAF increased security in Afghanistan significantly. The insurgency was fought successfully; it was pushed even in areas that used to be safe havens for them."
Figures released by the Afghan Interior Ministry showed more than 500 insurgents had been wounded during the military operations last year.
However, the insurgents in retaliation responded by carrying out suicide bombings and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) attacks against security forces, inflicting casualties on the civilians as well.
Records kept by Xinhua reveal that the insurgents had launched nearly 80 suicide attacks last year while multiple suicide bombers have been involved in several of the suicide bombings.
On the other hand, the security forces also suffered casualties last year. More than 1,000 personnel of Afghan army lost their lives in military operations, direct fighting and IED blasts in 2012, according to General Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the country's Defense Ministry.
However, the government has not released the figures of police casualties, who have been facing more threats in the war against Taliban than the army.
The conflicts had claimed the lives of 405 coalition forces including 310 Americans and 51 Britons last year.
Afghanistan: Taliban may be 'weak,' but fear remains
As President Karzai discusses his country's future with President Obama in Washington, many Afghans continue day-to-day fight against extremist intimidation on the ground.
Christian Science Monitor By Scott Peterson, Staff writer January 10, 2013
Kabul and Kunduz, Afghanistan - The television is always tuned to the news channel at the police station in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan.
When the screen shows the images of a suicide bombing at another police headquarters elsewhere in Afghanistan, officer Said Sarwar Husaini turns up the volume to hear the report. The TV shows black smoke billowing from a station just like his; frantic Afghan police are both victims and rescuers.
While Afghan President Hamid Karzai meets US President Barack Obama during a high-profile visit to Washington this week for strategic discussions about Afghanistan's future, the Afghan officer represents part of a real fight for Afghanistan that is playing out at ground level and highlights just how much grip the Taliban still has over Afghans – and also, how little.
"Yes, there are lots of threats, but as police we are used to danger," says Mr. Husaini, the Kunduz police spokesman, of the risks of being a member of Afghanistan's 350,000-strong security forces in the midst of an insurgency that has foiled US and Western forces after 11 years of war.
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Analysts note that although the Taliban have been able to mount a dangerous insurgency, few say that will mean the ultra-conservative group will be able to topple the Afghan government even when the bulk of US and NATO forces depart by the end of 2014.
Yet the Taliban have been effective in creating a calculus of intimidation in many parts of the country, influencing the decision making of Afghans like Husaini.
"At the beginning, when someone joins the security forces to help people, it's a difficult decision," says Husaini, after the TV news report is over. His police station is on a main road in Kunduz, but encircled by soil-filled Hesco barriers, multiple checkpoints, and coils of barbed wire. Six months ago, he survived an explosion from a bomb attached to his car.
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"They threaten me, they know me from the TV," says Husaini of the Taliban. "They say: 'This spokesman, finally we will catch and kill him.'"
But Husaini and many other Afghans say they don’t believe nation-building efforts wrought since the Taliban and their Al Qaeda "guests" were forced from power in late 2001 will unravel.
"People want freedom, they are not ready to accept the Taliban again," says a veteran Afghan police trainer in Kunduz, who asked that his name not be used for his own safety.
"People won't again accept a strict social environment, or being forced to wear long beards, and women not being allowed to go to school or to work," says the police trainer. "[The Taliban] know very well they are not accepted. They are not as strong as before; they are weak."
"I can't say everything is finished with the Taliban," the Afghan adds. "But in the past, the fear they created was 90 percent; now it's 20 percent."
Oft-voiced fears of a return of Taliban preeminence after 2014 may be overblown, some here argue, because Afghans already lived through years of their Draconian rule in the late 1990s. Back then, even images of the human form were banned – and checkpoints were marked by sparkling bunches of video and audiotape pulled from the cassettes of passing motorists.
"The Taliban have become weaker," says Hilaluddin Hilal, a military analyst and one time deputy minister for security and parliamentarian.
"The numbers of that younger generation who want an education and want democracy are increasing," says General Hilal, speaking in Kabul. "And those who want the Taliban, who are uneducated, are decreasing." Taliban not out of the picture
That doesn't mean the Taliban and other ultra-conservative elements don't continue – sometimes effectively – their efforts to derail nation-building efforts in Afghanistan. Many blame the Karzai government for scandalous levels of corruption that have contributed to its limited authority.
But the list of grim Taliban tactics has turned many off. There have been multiple reports of poisonings of water supplies at girls schools – including a high school in Kunduz. And suicide and other attacks on US and NATO forces, and on civilians, don’t seem to stop.
Indeed, frequent and lethal insurgent attacks led by the Taliban marked 2012, including a string of suicide bombings that targeted even mosques and shops.
In the past year alone, more than 60 incidents of Afghan security force members turning their guns on their American and NATO counterparts have unsettled a fragile relationship. The Taliban claimed many of those attacks as the work of their own infiltrators. Growing civil society
"But at the same time, we have seen civil society grow, and watched people be very vocal and adamant about their social rights," says Massoumeh Torfeh, the director of strategic communications in Kabul for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
"People are becoming more vocal, they are saying they are not going to let [anyone] take away the achievements of the past 10 years," says Ms. Torfeh, referring to efforts that emerge from the Taliban as well as some haphazard dealings from officials to curb citizen rights.
"Of course, it is impossible for ordinary people to stand up to [Taliban] suicide bombings – they can't," says Torfeh. "But in whatever way they can, they have done it in all provinces across Afghanistan." For example she says, "as soon as there are threats to the democratization process, the media warn about it." Outside influences don't help
While that may be the trajectory, Afghan militants have long had help from outside the country, says the Kunduz police trainer.
"Unfortunately our neighboring countries [Pakistan and Iran] do not want us to have a good police, they want to keep Afghanistan poor and weak and not self-sufficient; they benefit from this weakness," says the police trainer.
"They keep families under pressure, and use insurgents to do it. They say, 'Tell your cousins, your family, to stop working for the government,'" says the police trainer. "They have many tools to make people afraid."
One former Afghan translator for US and British forces knows those tools well. Despite working that job for a very short time several years ago, in the Taliban strongholds of Kandahar and Helmand provinces, the translator – who asked not to be identified for security reasons – has not been able to visit his home village.
The last time he was back, he avoided two explosions aimed at another relative who was a senior government servant. No one was even officially aware of his own work, helping what are seen in his Pashtun region as "occupying" forces.
"People in my area are so against the US," says the Afghan translator, speaking in Kabul. "Some work with the Taliban, but some just sit at home, really, really hating the US."
The risks even in Kabul were brought home to him in recent months, when a friend who had translated for US Special Forces received threat letters from the Taliban. Then a grenade was lobbed into his house. Within a week he had fled to Europe.
"Believe me, people do not feel safe in this city," says the translator. "No one wants to be far from their family. But it has gotten worse, [such work] is remembered [by the Taliban] more and more.
"A clear fact is that they are such bad people," adds the translator. "When you realize if bad people think like that, it's a threat, and it's forever."
Still, says Husaini, the Kunduz police spokesman, "One thing that gives us courage is our faith in God."
Military Uniform Company Near Collapse
TOLOnews.com By Zabihullah Jhanmal Thursday, 10 January 2013
An Afghan private company which produces military uniforms and boots is close to collapse after it failed to win the army's military uniform contract, owners said.
The factory had employed more than 1,000 personnel – mostly women – before the Afghan Ministry of Defense was authorised to allocate the contract for military uniforms, but now the company has less than 500 employees.
"Since the Afghan Ministries of Defence and Interior asked us to provide 105,000 uniforms [with boots] in two months. We quit the contract because we couldn't even import the necessary raw materials during that period," Nasrat Rahmati, head of the Afghan-owned Tarsian and Blinkley, told TOLOnews.
The Afghan Chamber of Commerce (ACCI) and Industries blamed the government for not providing necessary facilities to the factories to prevent their collapse and bankruptcy.
"We have several other factories in the same situation but the government is not able to support them and solve their issues," Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the ACCI, Khanjan Alokozay told TOLOnews.
Most of the factory workers in Tarsian and Blinkley are women on an average wage of 7,000 Afs ($140) per month plus food coupons, who are now concerned they will lose their jobs.
The Ministry of Defense has struggled in the past with lack of professional personnel and transparency in handling military contracts.
Citizens Call on Govt to Reduce Fuel Prices
TOLOnews.com By Zabihullah Jhanmal Thursday, 10 January 2013
Kabul citizens have called on the government to do more to bring down fuel prices, especially that of gas, saying that the Ministry of Commerce and Industries should encourage more gas sellers to bring down prices.
Residents who spoke to TOLOnews said that a healthy competition between the private sector and government will result in lower prices.
Ministry officials responded to TOLOnews that 30 more gas supply centres will be opened in Kabul soon which will bring down the liquid gas price.
"We are trying to have, once again, meetings with the private sector in order to reduce the price of liquid gas in the markets," said Faridullah Sheerzai, Head of Oil and Gas Enterprise Department of Ministry of Commerce and Industries.
The price of liquid gas is currently around 65 Afs ($1.27) per kilogram compared to less than 50 Afs in the summer.
"If the big companies at the top reduce the price of gas it will definitely be reduced when sold by retailers," a Kabul resident told TOLOnews.
"There should be more competition between the private (sector) and the government. They should import more gas so the prices come down a bit," another resident said.
According to the Oil and Gas Enterprise Department, the government is responsible for a very small part of the oil and gas sold in the country.
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