Tweet
Taliban attack on Kabul police HQ kills 3 officers
By AMIR SHAH and RAHIM FAIEZ | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the Kabul traffic police headquarters early Monday before another group of militants stormed the compound, battling security forces for nine hours in an attack that left three policemen and all five attackers dead, authorities said.
The coordinated assault was the second brazen raid in the heart of the Afghan capital in less than a week, a sign that the insurgency is determined to keep carrying out such spectacular attacks even as the U.S. and Afghan governments try to coax the Taliban into holding peace talks.
Nine hours after Monday's insurgent attack began with two of the five attackers blowing themselves up, police commandos killed the last two insurgents holed up in the police headquarters, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said. He added that four traffic policemen and 10 civilians were also been wounded in the fighting.
Kabul Police chief Mohammad Ayub Salangi said two Taliban suicide bombers died at the gate when their vests exploded, another blew himself up inside the building and two more were killed by security forces before they managed to detonate their explosive vests.
He said a sedan packed with explosives blew up near the gate a short time later. Such secondary devices are rigged to timers and designed to kill as many first responders as possible.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, which he said was targeting a police training facility "run by foreign military forces."
The traffic police headquarters is not heavily guarded, though it is located on a square leading to the parliament and is also next to the zoo. It is also adjacent to the Afghan border police headquarters and a police training facility — which may have been the more likely target. The traffic police facility, usually teeming with civilians seeking to get drivers licenses and registrations for vehicles, was nearly empty at the time of the attack.
Sediqi, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said Afghan forces carried out the operation against the militants without any assistance from NATO, adding that "this shows the ability of the Afghan forces, that they are leading the operation."
A unit of NATO special forces that trains and mentors Afghan police was at the scene but not taking part in the fighting.
Gul Rahman, who owns a shop near the traffic police compound, said he heard at least two blasts when the attack began just before dawn. An Associated Press reporter at the scene said a number of big explosions were heard from inside and around the building, along with heavy gunfire.
It was the second insurgent attack inside Kabul in five days.
Last Wednesday, six Taliban suicide bombers attacked the gates of the Afghan intelligence agency in downtown Kabul, killing one guard and wounding dozens. That operation bore several similarities to Monday's attack, including the use of a secondary car bomb placed outside the government compound.
The attacks came as the Afghan government has been pushing to get the Taliban to the negotiating table and as President Hamid Karzai and the U.S. negotiate for a quicker pullout of American forces. President Barack Obama said after meeting Karzai in Washington earlier this month that the U.S.-led military coalition would hand over the lead for security around the country to Afghan forces this spring — months ahead of schedule.
Obama also said he agreed with Karzai that the Taliban should open a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar to facilitate peace talks.
Pakistan, the other regional powerbroker, also said last week that it plans to release more Afghan militant detainees in an attempt to boost the peace process ahead of the departure of international troops at the end of 2014. Islamabad made the announcement after talks with Afghan and American officials in Abu Dhabi. Pakistan is thought to hold more than 100 Taliban prisoners and has so far released 26.
In general, Kabul has pressed hard for Pakistan to release Afghan detainees, with some officials saying that they hope the released Taliban can serve as intermediaries. But Washington is concerned about specific prisoners it considers dangerous, saying they could take up arms again.
___
Associated Press writers Heidi Vogt and Patrick Quinn contributed to this report.
Obama rejects protracted war in second term
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday categorically rejected protracted war as means of achieving enduring security and lasting peace as he kicked off his second four-year term.
"We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war," the president said in his inaugural address.
Declaring that "A decade of war is now ending," he drew attention to the price "paid for liberty" and lessons learned in winning the peace and turning "sworn enemies into the surest of friends."
"And we must carry those lessons into this time as well," Obama stated. "We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully -- not because we are naive about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear."
He reiterated Washington's goal of seeking alliances and strengthening institutions around the world in pursuit of its objectives.
Obama brought U.S. forces home from Iraq in late 2011 and is on the way to exit most American combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, as the two protracted wars have become unpopular in a nation burdened by a whopping size of budget deficit and debt.
Afghan Officials Deny Torture In Prisons
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan January 21, 2013
KABUL -- Afghan officials have denied claims by the United Nations that prisoners in government custody were being tortured.
Interior Ministry spokesman Seddiq Seddiqi acknowledged there were cases of "misbehavior" on the part of policemen and prison guards but said the government had no policy of torture.
Hesamuddin Hesam, the acting director of the National Directorate of Security, said those interviewed by the UN Assistance Mission In Afghanistan (UNAMA) had "lied."
In its report released on January 20, UNAMA said more than half of prisoners interviewed had complained of ill-treatment or torture in detention facilities.
In an interview with RFE/RL on January 21, Georgette Gagnon, the head of the Human Rights Unit of UNAMA, said there was no political motivation behind the report.
With reporting by dpa
Uncertain future: Afghanistan on its own
ABC Online By Amin Saikal 21 January 2013
As the US and Afghanistan agree to a speedy handover of combat operations to the Afghans, Amin Saikal says there are concerns about whether the Afghan National Army and the government can manage on their own.
The US president Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai have now agreed to a speedy handover of all combat operations to the Afghans, with American troops switching to a supporting, training and counter-terrorism role until their withdrawal by the end of 2014.
The process is likely to commence as early as April this year. Both leaders have expressed confidence in the capability of the Afghan Security Forces to do the job. However, this may not turn out to be the case.
A new Pentagon report, released in December 2012, states clearly that of the 23 brigades of the Afghan National Army (ANA), which now has a total troop strength of about 200,000, only one was ready to take on independent operations, and even then with American air support. The rest of the brigades have not achieved a capacity to replace the US and the allied forces.
Many credible military analysts believe that most of the ANA soldiers are still poorly trained and equipped, and that they suffer from low morale, high rates of desertion, malpractices and drug addiction, as well as a lack of strong allegiance to the central government.
The ANA is in many ways a microcosm of Afghanistan's mosaic society where clan, tribal, ethnic, sectarian and linguistic identification and loyalty to local power holders, or what have popularly become known as warlords, still hold strong sway. It is also trained in a piecemeal fashion by the US and its various NATO and non-NATO allies, and lacks national cohesion and uniformity of training.
The fact that it has only a very fledgling air force - something that the US has promised to deliver but has not done so in view of the risks and costs involved - does not help the ANA's fighting capacity either.
To complicate the situation further, most of the ANA troops come from non-ethnic Pashtun minorities. The Pashtuns, who form about 42 per cent of Afghanistan's estimated 30 million population, and to whose particular tribe the Taliban and their affiliates belong, are substantially under-represented in the ANA. Traditionally, the non-Pashtun troops have shown a marked reluctance to fight in Pashtun-dominated provinces, which are the hotbed of insurgency along the border with Pakistan.
This is not to claim that strenuous efforts have not been made to build the ANA as an effective force. What is evident is that the ANA is nowhere near capacity to hold out on their own against the Taliban and their supporters for very long. The same, and indeed more so, applies to the Afghan Police Force, Local Police Force and Border Guard, which are riddled with corruption and have not proved to be terribly effective. The ranks of these forces and the ANA, like the Karzai government as a whole, are penetrated by the armed opposition. A result has been a dramatic increase in inside or 'green on blue' killings and assassination of government or government-associated leading figures, especially over the last two years.
This situation has ignited a debate in Washington about the number of troops the US could leave behind under a new status of force agreement with Afghanistan beyond 2014, and has confronted president Obama with serious quandaries. Whilst the US military has argued for a fairly substantial number, somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 for supporting the Afghan forces and conducting counter-terrorism operations, some political figures, including vice president Joe Biden, the newly-nominated secretary of state, John Kerry, and secretary of defence, Chuck Hagel, appear to favour either a total withdrawal or, if absolutely necessary, no more than a few thousand troops, provided that they will have complete immunity from Afghan law.
On the other hand, president Karzai - who is well aware of the weaknesses of his government and Afghan security forces, but is keen to play a nationalist card for domestic consumption - has insisted on the continuation of substantial American military, financial and economic assistance.
Yet, he is unwilling either to grant immunity to American soldiers or to engage in serious democratic and anti-corruption reforms. He has also failed to show much gratitude to Washington for all its human and material assistance over the last 11 years. Karzai continues to think that America needs him and Afghanistan more for its anti-terrorist operations against Al Qaeda and its supporters, especially in Pakistan, than vice-versa. However, in reality, he is not in as strong a bargaining position. President Obama has already demonstrated in the case of Iraq that he cannot and will not consent to the presence of American troops abroad without immunity from national laws.
Whatever the final outcome, most indications are that the US and its allies are tired of the very costly and unwinnable Afghan war, and that they want to exit from Afghanistan as soon as possible and focus on their own serious financial and economic difficulties.
Karzai had all the opportunities in the world since his political ascension in December 2001 with the full US and, for that matter, international support to build enduring state institutional foundations for a stable and secure Afghanistan. But he squandered it all by promoting such policies and practices that centred upon his interests and those of his family members and cronies around him. He could have opened a new and constructive chapter in the turbulent evolution of Afghan politics and society. Instead, he has acted like a traditional ruler, lacking in both vision and consideration for the future of Afghanistan.
Karzai's term of office is due to end in 2014, but he may leave an Afghanistan with its future very much hanging in the balance.
Amin Saikal is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University, and author of Modern Afghanistan: a History of Struggle and Survival, London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.
Army may restrict Afghanistan exemptions in new redundancy round
With another 4,800 jobs to go by end of year, army considering whether to keep ringfencing soldiers preparing for posting
The Guardian By Nick Hopkins Sunday 20 January 2013
The army is expected to set out the details of a fresh redundancy round on Tuesday as it seeks to cut almost 5,000 posts by the end of the year, the Guardian can reveal.
Letters will be sent to commanders who will explain to personnel the areas from which 4,800 jobs will have to go. Officers will be told who can be exempted from the process this time round, as the army continues to shrink by a fifth to a total of 82,000 personnel.
With so many people having left over the past two years, the army has had to consider whether it can continue to ringfence all soldiers who are preparing for service in Afghanistan.
One option that has been looked at involves exempting only troops actually serving in Helmand province on a six-month tour, putting at risk staff still months away from being deployed.
"The pool of people is shrinking all the time and you can get into a position when you are exempting a large percentage of the army. That isn't fair on the ones who are left," said a Whitehall source. "None of this is easy. There is no painless way of doing this any more."
Ministers have been criticised for appearing to lean on senior army officers to accept as many voluntary redundancies as possible, to minimise the number of people being sacked. However, government sources say the decision over who goes is entirely for the army and there has been no direct interference.
"We all want as few compulsory redundancies as possible, but the final say will come from the army, not ministers or the Ministry of Defence," said an official.
Ministers had privately urged the army to cut 10,000 jobs this time, making it the last tranche. But the head of the army, General Sir Peter Wall, and the chief of the defence staff, General Sir David Richards, are understood to have pushed back against this idea.
They feared this suited a political rather than a military agenda. A further, final cut will be announced later this year or early in 2014, which means some army personnel will find out about compulsory redundancies in the runup to the next general election.
During early consultations Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, had suggested halting army recruitment as another way of making the cuts needed. But he was persuaded against this because of the damaging effect it would have in years to come.
"We did this once before and it leaves you with gaps in capability that are very difficult to deal with," an officer said.
The army has been the hardest hit of all the services in terms of the numbers being cut. Twenty thousand posts will have been axed by the time the process is complete, and some in the MoD fear this will not necessarily be the end of it.
The department's budget is under intense pressure and it is unclear how extra savings of more than £200m will be made after 2015, following measures announced in last year's autumn statement.
Afghanistan Returns Impounded Tajik Helicopters
By RFE/RL's Tajik Service January 21, 2013
DUSHANBE -- Afghanistan has agreed to return two Tajik helicopters impounded by Kabul last summer over a tax dispute.
Firuz Hamroev, the general director of the company Tajik Air, told journalists on January 21 that one helicopter was back in Dushanbe and another one would arrive soon from Kabul.
Hamroev said the two helicopters were impounded in Kabul over claims that the Supreme Food company, which supplies NATO troops in Afghanistan, did not pay its taxes.
Supreme Food had leased the use of Tajik Air's helicopters.
Last summer, five Tajik pilots had to spend 45 days in Kabul over the issue.
According to Hamroev, the Afghan authorities agreed to return the two helicopters after Tajik Air ended its cooperation with Supreme Food.
Anti-Torture Efforts in Afghanistan Failed, U.N. Says
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN January 20, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - Intense efforts to halt torture and other harsh coercive methods that are used in a number of Afghan intelligence and police detention centers have failed to produce any appreciable improvement in the treatment of detainees, according to a report released Sunday by the United Nations, raising questions for the international military coalition here.
The report, titled “Treatment of Conflict-Related Detainees in Afghan Custody,” offered a grim tour of Afghanistan’s detention facilities, where even adolescents have reported abuse like beatings with hoses and pipes and threats of sodomy.
Despite concerted efforts for more than a year to train Afghan intelligence and police officials in interrogation techniques that respect human rights, the United Nations investigation found that incidences of torture by the police had risen.
In the case of the intelligence service, the United Nations reported a lower incidence of torture. But it was not clear whether that finding reflected improved behavior as much as it did a decrease in the number of detainees handed over to the intelligence service by the international military coalition. And some detainees have alluded to new secret interrogation centers.
The Afghan government rejected the report’s specific allegations but said that there were some abuses, and that it had taken numerous steps to improve the treatment of detainees. The government gave United Nations officials access to those held in all but one detention facility.
Among the questions raised by the report is whether the pervasiveness of torture will make it difficult for the American military to hand over those being held in the Parwan Detention Facility, also known as Bagram Prison, as required under the agreement reached last week in Washington between President Obama and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
The international Convention Against Torture, which the United States has signed, prohibits the transfer of a detainee “to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
The United Nations did not look at the Parwan Detention Facility, in part because it is not yet wholly under Afghan control. But there could be questions about whether, given the inadequacies throughout the Afghan system, it would violate the torture convention to transfer those prisoners under American control to the Afghans. According to some estimates, 700 to 900 prisoners are still in American custody there.
The military is confident that the Afghan section of the Parwan center follows all of the human rights guidelines on the treatment of detainees, said Col. Thomas Collins, a senior spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, which is known as ISAF. And although conditions could worsen after the United States departs, or prisoners could be transferred to other facilities where there was abuse, the Americans cannot do anything about that.
“We can never completely rule out the chance of torture by the government, but in its own Constitution it prohibits torture, and it is a signatory of the torture convention,” he said about Afghanistan. “What we have to have is reasonable assurances that the people will be treated well and will not be tortured.”
But the report underscored just how difficult it is for ISAF to have confidence in the government’s assurances, given the reality at Afghan detention facilities.
Even before the report’s official publication, it had considerable impact on Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan. On Jan. 11, after reviewing an early copy, he ordered a halt in transfers of detainees who had been picked up on the battlefield to all of the 34 Afghan detention sites that the report cited for abuse.
After a United Nations report on torture in 2011, the international coalition suspended transfers of battlefield detainees to 16 Afghan detention sites. ISAF resumed transfers to most of those centers after certifying that they were complying with human rights protocols.
Then, in October 2012, the coalition received new reports of torture and abuse and halted some of the transfers that it had restarted only months before, the United Nations report said. The United Nations has briefed ISAF at several points in the course of its research, which included interviews with more than 600 detainees as well as employees of the Afghan intelligence service, the Afghan police, judges and prosecutors.
In a letter appended to the report by General Allen to Jan Kubis, the United Nations special representative to Afghanistan, he describes for the first time the enormous efforts that the coalition and he personally have made to stem the abuse. The ISAF approach, which the United Nations praises, includes training, spot checks and the monitoring of detainee treatment.
Despite General Allen’s requests over the past eight months that Afghan officials take action in 80 cases — and in some cases asking them to remove individuals accused of abuse — “to date Afghan officials have acted in only one instance,” General Allen wrote. In that case, an intelligence official was merely moved to another province, he said.
The Afghan government’s 20-page response, which is included in the United Nations report, rejected all specific allegations, including “beating with rubber pipes or water pipes, forced confession, suspension, twisting of the detainees’ penises and wrenching of the detainees’ testicles, death threats, sexual abuse and child abuse.”
The government response, written by Rahmatullah Nabil, a former director of intelligence and now the deputy national security adviser, said the government “does not entirely rule out the abuse and ill treatment by staff at detention centers, but this is due to a lack of capacity and sound training of these organs.” The level of torture reflected in the report “is exaggerated,” he said.
At the same time, both the Interior Ministry and the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan government’s intelligence service, acknowledged problems in detainees’ treatment, and listed many steps they were taking. But the intelligence service, clearly angry about the report’s findings, also charged that the United Nations had manufactured “facts by making accusations to discredit investigations and judicial prosecution processes.”
The United Nations study, which took a year to complete, describes a country in conflict where a prime goal of the security officials is to remove potentially dangerous individuals by detaining them and torturing them until they confess.
Torture is hardly new in Afghanistan. When the Communists ruled, the intelligence service, known as the Khad, was widely feared for its rough treatment of suspects. Changing such an ingrained culture would take an enormous effort, both the United Nations and ISAF officials say.
Georgette Gagnon, the United Nations director of human rights for Afghanistan, pointed to a “persistent lack of accountability for perpetrators of torture, with few investigations and no prosecutions for those responsible.”
“The findings highlight that torture cannot be addressed by training, inspections and directives alone, but requires sound accountability measures to stop and prevent its use,” she said.
General Allen noted that international influence is on the wane as the formal military withdrawal nears. “Solving this problem will take commitment on the part of the Afghans and their leaders,” he wrote.
Afghan telecom ministry to issue electronic ID cards in March
By Sadaf Shinwari - January 21 2013, 11:01 am Khaama Press
According to Afghan telecommunication and information technology ministry, formal distribution of electronic identity cards will be started by mid March this year.
Amirzai Sangin Afghan telecommunication and information technology minister quoted in a statement released by Afghan presidential palace said the distribution of electronic identity cards will be started after 21 March, 2013.
He was speaking during the national security council meeting and said the application form and centers to collect the information are the two main tasks being carried out by the ministry.
He said the registration process will start by February this year and the electronic identity cards will be issued to Afghan citizens in March.
According to officials over 80% of the equipments for the preparation and distribution of electronic identity cards have been transported to capital Kabul and will be installed in the near future.
The national security council meeting also discussed the upcoming presidential election.
This comes as a number of the political parties and main political opposition coalition of the government urged to start work on electronic identity cards before the presidential election in a bid to prevent fraudulent acts during the election which is due to be organized in 2014.
ANP Elite Launches More Than 2000 Operations in Year
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Sunday, 20 January 2013
The Afghan National Police's elite Crisis Response Unit (CRU) carried out more than 2000 anti-insurgent operations in the past year, the unit chief said Sunday.
CRU head Gen. Sayed Mohammad Roshandel told TOLOnews that most of the CRU's operations are carried out independently, at night, and in many different parts of the country with the aim of attack the core of the insurgency.
The CRU, made up of a few thousand officers deployed in 19 provinces of Afghanistan, had some impressive achievements, he added.
Roshandel declined to comment on the specific number of casualties incurred by both insurgents and the CRU from its operations, citing security concerns.
The operations are usually complete in a short period of time and the standard of the forces' capability matches those of advanced units in developed countries, he said.
"It's been ten years since the police Crisis Response Unit was founded. The forces are deployed to carry out operations against insurgency in 19 provinces, and more than 2,000 operations have been executed by the forces in the past year with impressive results," he said.
"We are ready to do operations under any situation and in different areas to serve our country," one of the officers told TOLOnews.
Full security responsibility across Afghanistan is to be handed to the Afghans from foreign control by the end of 2014.
Hurley says military alone can't solve Afghanistan
ABC News By chief political correspondent Simon Cullen 21/01/2013
Defence Force chief David Hurley says military intervention alone cannot solve Afghanistan's problems, arguing it needs to be followed up with long-term development and diplomatic efforts.
Most Australian troops are due to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of the year once control for local security in Uruzgan province is handed over to Afghan forces.
However General Hurley says there remains long-term challenges that need to be dealt with if the international community is to have confidence in the Afghan government's ability to sustain the country's transformation.
"What (the military) can do is go in and create space... (but) eventually it gets pushed back in if you don't come in behind with the diplomatic (efforts)," General Hurley told a Strategic Policy Institute lunch in Canberra.
"The danger in Afghanistan is that the governance and development arrangements are not put in place adequately as the military contracts.
"(As) our effort contracts, the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) will take over and take up that strain.
"But you must come in behind it. It cannot be sustained purely on military grounds."
Speaking at the same event, the head of British armed forces, General Sir David Richards, indicated that a key priority for the transition process was to make sure Afghan forces were on a "good long-term footing".
"The most important single requirement is to ensure that Afghan people and their army and police retain confidence in the west and that we don't... do a Russia," General Richards said, referring to the 1998 withdrawal of Soviet troops and the overthrow of the Afghan government three years later.
Many countries have indicated they are likely to have an ongoing military presence in Afghanistan once the official withdrawal process ends, although General Richards says the size of that force is unlikely to be decided until a few more months.
Reset
General Hurley says the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, in addition to the end of operations in Timor and the Solomon Islands, will mean the need to "reconfigure" what the Australian Defence Force (ADF) looks like.
He says the Defence white paper process, which is due to be finished in the first half of this year, will focus on "resetting" the ADF.
"Getting the ADF back into a preparedness mode, a training and engagement mode... that helps us shape our region and makes it a friendly place to work in."
But he says it will also be about building capacity and preparedness so that armed forces can be deployed at short notice, adding there will continue to be a role for the Defence Force in dealing with asylum seeker boats.
"Obviously the border protection task continues which is very consuming for both Navy and Air Force."
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Julia Gillard is due to deliver a major security speech in which she will talk about the need to continue and deepen the "atmosphere of relative peace" that currently exists in Asia.
"Indeed, nothing is more important in Australia's security outlook," she is expected to say.
She also plans to raise the issue of cyber security and the need to develop more sophisticated measures to deal with the problem.
"Australia is an attractive target for a range of malicious cyber actors, from politically motivated hackers and criminal networks to nation states," Ms Gillard will say.
"This not only has the potential to impact on governments but businesses and the community alike."
African situation
One particular security challenge identified by both defence chiefs is the recent Al Qaeda-linked terrorist attack in northern Africa.
There are reports that dozens of people, including several British residents, have been killed during a hostage situation at a gas field in Algeria.
The attack prompted British prime minister David Cameron to declare the world needed to work together to deal with the continuing terrorism threat in the region.
"This is a global threat and it will require a global response. It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months," Mr Cameron said.
General Richards, who has been in Australia for the annual ministerial talks between Australia and the United Kingdom, indicated he would be travelling to Africa next week to consider how to support the international effort in neighbouring Mali.
General Hurley says he is aware of Australia's significant mining interests in Africa and the large number of Australians who work there.
"We are just looking at what Australia's interests are in the region, and we'll have the conversation with government about how that is to be managed," he said.
Cement Factories to Return to Tender: Mines Ministry
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Sunday, 20 January 2013
The management of three cement factories in Afghanistan will be put out to tender by the end of March, the Ministry of Mines said Sunday.
Included in the three is the Herat Cement Factory which was previously contracted with an Iranian company but was terminated by the ministry because of the company's failure to fulfill their commitments in due time, ministry officials said.
"The Iranian company could not address the articles in the contract and its commitments in due time. Following review and discussions, the Ministry of Mines terminated the contract with this company," MoM spokesman Ahmad Tamim Asi said.
"(The factory) will be put up for international bidding in Hamal 1392 (March-April 2013) to increase the capacity of cement production in Afghanistan," he added.
The Herat factory has the capacity to produce 3,000 tonnes of cement per day, however the company has failed to meet this in 27 months because it does not have the essential technical and financial facilities to excavate the raw materials needed to produce the cement.
The ministry also said that in the next Persian year of 1392 (Mar 2013-Mar 2014), the cement factories of Jabul Saraj in Parwan province and Ghori in Baghlan province will also be put up for bidding in order for the factories to produce more and meet domestic cement demand.
Taliban Eager to Negotiate, Peace Meeting Attendees Say
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry Sunday, 20 January 2013
The Taliban are interested in negotiating and renouncing violence after 2014, Afghan politicians attending the Dubai Peace Meeting said Sunday.
Speaking to TOLOnews, the National Front spokesman Sayed Fazel Sancharaki said that all the parties attending the meeting wanted to stop the bloodshed and find a peaceful resolution to the Afghan conflict through negotiation.
"All the parties emphasised to have negotiations and were interested in stopping the bloodshed after this," he said.
The attendees also stressed that Taliban were interested in renouncing violence and ending the conflict after more than a decade of combat.
"The Taliban have agreed that war is not a solution for Afghanistan and there should a political resolution," Afghan Analyst Wahid Muzhda said.
The two-day gathering was organised by the international group Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs in order to boost political resolutions for Afghanistan.
Another meeting is expected to be organised by the United Nations in Turkmenistan's Ishqabad city in the near future to bring the interested parties together again.
The Taliban said Friday in a statement that they had not sent any representatives to Dubai for the conference.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By AMIR SHAH and RAHIM FAIEZ | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Two Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the Kabul traffic police headquarters early Monday before another group of militants stormed the compound, battling security forces for nine hours in an attack that left three policemen and all five attackers dead, authorities said.
The coordinated assault was the second brazen raid in the heart of the Afghan capital in less than a week, a sign that the insurgency is determined to keep carrying out such spectacular attacks even as the U.S. and Afghan governments try to coax the Taliban into holding peace talks.
Nine hours after Monday's insurgent attack began with two of the five attackers blowing themselves up, police commandos killed the last two insurgents holed up in the police headquarters, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said. He added that four traffic policemen and 10 civilians were also been wounded in the fighting.
Kabul Police chief Mohammad Ayub Salangi said two Taliban suicide bombers died at the gate when their vests exploded, another blew himself up inside the building and two more were killed by security forces before they managed to detonate their explosive vests.
He said a sedan packed with explosives blew up near the gate a short time later. Such secondary devices are rigged to timers and designed to kill as many first responders as possible.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, which he said was targeting a police training facility "run by foreign military forces."
The traffic police headquarters is not heavily guarded, though it is located on a square leading to the parliament and is also next to the zoo. It is also adjacent to the Afghan border police headquarters and a police training facility — which may have been the more likely target. The traffic police facility, usually teeming with civilians seeking to get drivers licenses and registrations for vehicles, was nearly empty at the time of the attack.
Sediqi, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said Afghan forces carried out the operation against the militants without any assistance from NATO, adding that "this shows the ability of the Afghan forces, that they are leading the operation."
A unit of NATO special forces that trains and mentors Afghan police was at the scene but not taking part in the fighting.
Gul Rahman, who owns a shop near the traffic police compound, said he heard at least two blasts when the attack began just before dawn. An Associated Press reporter at the scene said a number of big explosions were heard from inside and around the building, along with heavy gunfire.
It was the second insurgent attack inside Kabul in five days.
Last Wednesday, six Taliban suicide bombers attacked the gates of the Afghan intelligence agency in downtown Kabul, killing one guard and wounding dozens. That operation bore several similarities to Monday's attack, including the use of a secondary car bomb placed outside the government compound.
The attacks came as the Afghan government has been pushing to get the Taliban to the negotiating table and as President Hamid Karzai and the U.S. negotiate for a quicker pullout of American forces. President Barack Obama said after meeting Karzai in Washington earlier this month that the U.S.-led military coalition would hand over the lead for security around the country to Afghan forces this spring — months ahead of schedule.
Obama also said he agreed with Karzai that the Taliban should open a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar to facilitate peace talks.
Pakistan, the other regional powerbroker, also said last week that it plans to release more Afghan militant detainees in an attempt to boost the peace process ahead of the departure of international troops at the end of 2014. Islamabad made the announcement after talks with Afghan and American officials in Abu Dhabi. Pakistan is thought to hold more than 100 Taliban prisoners and has so far released 26.
In general, Kabul has pressed hard for Pakistan to release Afghan detainees, with some officials saying that they hope the released Taliban can serve as intermediaries. But Washington is concerned about specific prisoners it considers dangerous, saying they could take up arms again.
___
Associated Press writers Heidi Vogt and Patrick Quinn contributed to this report.
Obama rejects protracted war in second term
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday categorically rejected protracted war as means of achieving enduring security and lasting peace as he kicked off his second four-year term.
"We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war," the president said in his inaugural address.
Declaring that "A decade of war is now ending," he drew attention to the price "paid for liberty" and lessons learned in winning the peace and turning "sworn enemies into the surest of friends."
"And we must carry those lessons into this time as well," Obama stated. "We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully -- not because we are naive about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear."
He reiterated Washington's goal of seeking alliances and strengthening institutions around the world in pursuit of its objectives.
Obama brought U.S. forces home from Iraq in late 2011 and is on the way to exit most American combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, as the two protracted wars have become unpopular in a nation burdened by a whopping size of budget deficit and debt.
Afghan Officials Deny Torture In Prisons
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan January 21, 2013
KABUL -- Afghan officials have denied claims by the United Nations that prisoners in government custody were being tortured.
Interior Ministry spokesman Seddiq Seddiqi acknowledged there were cases of "misbehavior" on the part of policemen and prison guards but said the government had no policy of torture.
Hesamuddin Hesam, the acting director of the National Directorate of Security, said those interviewed by the UN Assistance Mission In Afghanistan (UNAMA) had "lied."
In its report released on January 20, UNAMA said more than half of prisoners interviewed had complained of ill-treatment or torture in detention facilities.
In an interview with RFE/RL on January 21, Georgette Gagnon, the head of the Human Rights Unit of UNAMA, said there was no political motivation behind the report.
With reporting by dpa
Uncertain future: Afghanistan on its own
ABC Online By Amin Saikal 21 January 2013
As the US and Afghanistan agree to a speedy handover of combat operations to the Afghans, Amin Saikal says there are concerns about whether the Afghan National Army and the government can manage on their own.
The US president Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai have now agreed to a speedy handover of all combat operations to the Afghans, with American troops switching to a supporting, training and counter-terrorism role until their withdrawal by the end of 2014.
The process is likely to commence as early as April this year. Both leaders have expressed confidence in the capability of the Afghan Security Forces to do the job. However, this may not turn out to be the case.
A new Pentagon report, released in December 2012, states clearly that of the 23 brigades of the Afghan National Army (ANA), which now has a total troop strength of about 200,000, only one was ready to take on independent operations, and even then with American air support. The rest of the brigades have not achieved a capacity to replace the US and the allied forces.
Many credible military analysts believe that most of the ANA soldiers are still poorly trained and equipped, and that they suffer from low morale, high rates of desertion, malpractices and drug addiction, as well as a lack of strong allegiance to the central government.
The ANA is in many ways a microcosm of Afghanistan's mosaic society where clan, tribal, ethnic, sectarian and linguistic identification and loyalty to local power holders, or what have popularly become known as warlords, still hold strong sway. It is also trained in a piecemeal fashion by the US and its various NATO and non-NATO allies, and lacks national cohesion and uniformity of training.
The fact that it has only a very fledgling air force - something that the US has promised to deliver but has not done so in view of the risks and costs involved - does not help the ANA's fighting capacity either.
To complicate the situation further, most of the ANA troops come from non-ethnic Pashtun minorities. The Pashtuns, who form about 42 per cent of Afghanistan's estimated 30 million population, and to whose particular tribe the Taliban and their affiliates belong, are substantially under-represented in the ANA. Traditionally, the non-Pashtun troops have shown a marked reluctance to fight in Pashtun-dominated provinces, which are the hotbed of insurgency along the border with Pakistan.
This is not to claim that strenuous efforts have not been made to build the ANA as an effective force. What is evident is that the ANA is nowhere near capacity to hold out on their own against the Taliban and their supporters for very long. The same, and indeed more so, applies to the Afghan Police Force, Local Police Force and Border Guard, which are riddled with corruption and have not proved to be terribly effective. The ranks of these forces and the ANA, like the Karzai government as a whole, are penetrated by the armed opposition. A result has been a dramatic increase in inside or 'green on blue' killings and assassination of government or government-associated leading figures, especially over the last two years.
This situation has ignited a debate in Washington about the number of troops the US could leave behind under a new status of force agreement with Afghanistan beyond 2014, and has confronted president Obama with serious quandaries. Whilst the US military has argued for a fairly substantial number, somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 for supporting the Afghan forces and conducting counter-terrorism operations, some political figures, including vice president Joe Biden, the newly-nominated secretary of state, John Kerry, and secretary of defence, Chuck Hagel, appear to favour either a total withdrawal or, if absolutely necessary, no more than a few thousand troops, provided that they will have complete immunity from Afghan law.
On the other hand, president Karzai - who is well aware of the weaknesses of his government and Afghan security forces, but is keen to play a nationalist card for domestic consumption - has insisted on the continuation of substantial American military, financial and economic assistance.
Yet, he is unwilling either to grant immunity to American soldiers or to engage in serious democratic and anti-corruption reforms. He has also failed to show much gratitude to Washington for all its human and material assistance over the last 11 years. Karzai continues to think that America needs him and Afghanistan more for its anti-terrorist operations against Al Qaeda and its supporters, especially in Pakistan, than vice-versa. However, in reality, he is not in as strong a bargaining position. President Obama has already demonstrated in the case of Iraq that he cannot and will not consent to the presence of American troops abroad without immunity from national laws.
Whatever the final outcome, most indications are that the US and its allies are tired of the very costly and unwinnable Afghan war, and that they want to exit from Afghanistan as soon as possible and focus on their own serious financial and economic difficulties.
Karzai had all the opportunities in the world since his political ascension in December 2001 with the full US and, for that matter, international support to build enduring state institutional foundations for a stable and secure Afghanistan. But he squandered it all by promoting such policies and practices that centred upon his interests and those of his family members and cronies around him. He could have opened a new and constructive chapter in the turbulent evolution of Afghan politics and society. Instead, he has acted like a traditional ruler, lacking in both vision and consideration for the future of Afghanistan.
Karzai's term of office is due to end in 2014, but he may leave an Afghanistan with its future very much hanging in the balance.
Amin Saikal is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University, and author of Modern Afghanistan: a History of Struggle and Survival, London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.
Army may restrict Afghanistan exemptions in new redundancy round
With another 4,800 jobs to go by end of year, army considering whether to keep ringfencing soldiers preparing for posting
The Guardian By Nick Hopkins Sunday 20 January 2013
The army is expected to set out the details of a fresh redundancy round on Tuesday as it seeks to cut almost 5,000 posts by the end of the year, the Guardian can reveal.
Letters will be sent to commanders who will explain to personnel the areas from which 4,800 jobs will have to go. Officers will be told who can be exempted from the process this time round, as the army continues to shrink by a fifth to a total of 82,000 personnel.
With so many people having left over the past two years, the army has had to consider whether it can continue to ringfence all soldiers who are preparing for service in Afghanistan.
One option that has been looked at involves exempting only troops actually serving in Helmand province on a six-month tour, putting at risk staff still months away from being deployed.
"The pool of people is shrinking all the time and you can get into a position when you are exempting a large percentage of the army. That isn't fair on the ones who are left," said a Whitehall source. "None of this is easy. There is no painless way of doing this any more."
Ministers have been criticised for appearing to lean on senior army officers to accept as many voluntary redundancies as possible, to minimise the number of people being sacked. However, government sources say the decision over who goes is entirely for the army and there has been no direct interference.
"We all want as few compulsory redundancies as possible, but the final say will come from the army, not ministers or the Ministry of Defence," said an official.
Ministers had privately urged the army to cut 10,000 jobs this time, making it the last tranche. But the head of the army, General Sir Peter Wall, and the chief of the defence staff, General Sir David Richards, are understood to have pushed back against this idea.
They feared this suited a political rather than a military agenda. A further, final cut will be announced later this year or early in 2014, which means some army personnel will find out about compulsory redundancies in the runup to the next general election.
During early consultations Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, had suggested halting army recruitment as another way of making the cuts needed. But he was persuaded against this because of the damaging effect it would have in years to come.
"We did this once before and it leaves you with gaps in capability that are very difficult to deal with," an officer said.
The army has been the hardest hit of all the services in terms of the numbers being cut. Twenty thousand posts will have been axed by the time the process is complete, and some in the MoD fear this will not necessarily be the end of it.
The department's budget is under intense pressure and it is unclear how extra savings of more than £200m will be made after 2015, following measures announced in last year's autumn statement.
Afghanistan Returns Impounded Tajik Helicopters
By RFE/RL's Tajik Service January 21, 2013
DUSHANBE -- Afghanistan has agreed to return two Tajik helicopters impounded by Kabul last summer over a tax dispute.
Firuz Hamroev, the general director of the company Tajik Air, told journalists on January 21 that one helicopter was back in Dushanbe and another one would arrive soon from Kabul.
Hamroev said the two helicopters were impounded in Kabul over claims that the Supreme Food company, which supplies NATO troops in Afghanistan, did not pay its taxes.
Supreme Food had leased the use of Tajik Air's helicopters.
Last summer, five Tajik pilots had to spend 45 days in Kabul over the issue.
According to Hamroev, the Afghan authorities agreed to return the two helicopters after Tajik Air ended its cooperation with Supreme Food.
Anti-Torture Efforts in Afghanistan Failed, U.N. Says
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN January 20, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - Intense efforts to halt torture and other harsh coercive methods that are used in a number of Afghan intelligence and police detention centers have failed to produce any appreciable improvement in the treatment of detainees, according to a report released Sunday by the United Nations, raising questions for the international military coalition here.
The report, titled “Treatment of Conflict-Related Detainees in Afghan Custody,” offered a grim tour of Afghanistan’s detention facilities, where even adolescents have reported abuse like beatings with hoses and pipes and threats of sodomy.
Despite concerted efforts for more than a year to train Afghan intelligence and police officials in interrogation techniques that respect human rights, the United Nations investigation found that incidences of torture by the police had risen.
In the case of the intelligence service, the United Nations reported a lower incidence of torture. But it was not clear whether that finding reflected improved behavior as much as it did a decrease in the number of detainees handed over to the intelligence service by the international military coalition. And some detainees have alluded to new secret interrogation centers.
The Afghan government rejected the report’s specific allegations but said that there were some abuses, and that it had taken numerous steps to improve the treatment of detainees. The government gave United Nations officials access to those held in all but one detention facility.
Among the questions raised by the report is whether the pervasiveness of torture will make it difficult for the American military to hand over those being held in the Parwan Detention Facility, also known as Bagram Prison, as required under the agreement reached last week in Washington between President Obama and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
The international Convention Against Torture, which the United States has signed, prohibits the transfer of a detainee “to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
The United Nations did not look at the Parwan Detention Facility, in part because it is not yet wholly under Afghan control. But there could be questions about whether, given the inadequacies throughout the Afghan system, it would violate the torture convention to transfer those prisoners under American control to the Afghans. According to some estimates, 700 to 900 prisoners are still in American custody there.
The military is confident that the Afghan section of the Parwan center follows all of the human rights guidelines on the treatment of detainees, said Col. Thomas Collins, a senior spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, which is known as ISAF. And although conditions could worsen after the United States departs, or prisoners could be transferred to other facilities where there was abuse, the Americans cannot do anything about that.
“We can never completely rule out the chance of torture by the government, but in its own Constitution it prohibits torture, and it is a signatory of the torture convention,” he said about Afghanistan. “What we have to have is reasonable assurances that the people will be treated well and will not be tortured.”
But the report underscored just how difficult it is for ISAF to have confidence in the government’s assurances, given the reality at Afghan detention facilities.
Even before the report’s official publication, it had considerable impact on Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan. On Jan. 11, after reviewing an early copy, he ordered a halt in transfers of detainees who had been picked up on the battlefield to all of the 34 Afghan detention sites that the report cited for abuse.
After a United Nations report on torture in 2011, the international coalition suspended transfers of battlefield detainees to 16 Afghan detention sites. ISAF resumed transfers to most of those centers after certifying that they were complying with human rights protocols.
Then, in October 2012, the coalition received new reports of torture and abuse and halted some of the transfers that it had restarted only months before, the United Nations report said. The United Nations has briefed ISAF at several points in the course of its research, which included interviews with more than 600 detainees as well as employees of the Afghan intelligence service, the Afghan police, judges and prosecutors.
In a letter appended to the report by General Allen to Jan Kubis, the United Nations special representative to Afghanistan, he describes for the first time the enormous efforts that the coalition and he personally have made to stem the abuse. The ISAF approach, which the United Nations praises, includes training, spot checks and the monitoring of detainee treatment.
Despite General Allen’s requests over the past eight months that Afghan officials take action in 80 cases — and in some cases asking them to remove individuals accused of abuse — “to date Afghan officials have acted in only one instance,” General Allen wrote. In that case, an intelligence official was merely moved to another province, he said.
The Afghan government’s 20-page response, which is included in the United Nations report, rejected all specific allegations, including “beating with rubber pipes or water pipes, forced confession, suspension, twisting of the detainees’ penises and wrenching of the detainees’ testicles, death threats, sexual abuse and child abuse.”
The government response, written by Rahmatullah Nabil, a former director of intelligence and now the deputy national security adviser, said the government “does not entirely rule out the abuse and ill treatment by staff at detention centers, but this is due to a lack of capacity and sound training of these organs.” The level of torture reflected in the report “is exaggerated,” he said.
At the same time, both the Interior Ministry and the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan government’s intelligence service, acknowledged problems in detainees’ treatment, and listed many steps they were taking. But the intelligence service, clearly angry about the report’s findings, also charged that the United Nations had manufactured “facts by making accusations to discredit investigations and judicial prosecution processes.”
The United Nations study, which took a year to complete, describes a country in conflict where a prime goal of the security officials is to remove potentially dangerous individuals by detaining them and torturing them until they confess.
Torture is hardly new in Afghanistan. When the Communists ruled, the intelligence service, known as the Khad, was widely feared for its rough treatment of suspects. Changing such an ingrained culture would take an enormous effort, both the United Nations and ISAF officials say.
Georgette Gagnon, the United Nations director of human rights for Afghanistan, pointed to a “persistent lack of accountability for perpetrators of torture, with few investigations and no prosecutions for those responsible.”
“The findings highlight that torture cannot be addressed by training, inspections and directives alone, but requires sound accountability measures to stop and prevent its use,” she said.
General Allen noted that international influence is on the wane as the formal military withdrawal nears. “Solving this problem will take commitment on the part of the Afghans and their leaders,” he wrote.
Afghan telecom ministry to issue electronic ID cards in March
By Sadaf Shinwari - January 21 2013, 11:01 am Khaama Press
According to Afghan telecommunication and information technology ministry, formal distribution of electronic identity cards will be started by mid March this year.
Amirzai Sangin Afghan telecommunication and information technology minister quoted in a statement released by Afghan presidential palace said the distribution of electronic identity cards will be started after 21 March, 2013.
He was speaking during the national security council meeting and said the application form and centers to collect the information are the two main tasks being carried out by the ministry.
He said the registration process will start by February this year and the electronic identity cards will be issued to Afghan citizens in March.
According to officials over 80% of the equipments for the preparation and distribution of electronic identity cards have been transported to capital Kabul and will be installed in the near future.
The national security council meeting also discussed the upcoming presidential election.
This comes as a number of the political parties and main political opposition coalition of the government urged to start work on electronic identity cards before the presidential election in a bid to prevent fraudulent acts during the election which is due to be organized in 2014.
ANP Elite Launches More Than 2000 Operations in Year
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Sunday, 20 January 2013
The Afghan National Police's elite Crisis Response Unit (CRU) carried out more than 2000 anti-insurgent operations in the past year, the unit chief said Sunday.
CRU head Gen. Sayed Mohammad Roshandel told TOLOnews that most of the CRU's operations are carried out independently, at night, and in many different parts of the country with the aim of attack the core of the insurgency.
The CRU, made up of a few thousand officers deployed in 19 provinces of Afghanistan, had some impressive achievements, he added.
Roshandel declined to comment on the specific number of casualties incurred by both insurgents and the CRU from its operations, citing security concerns.
The operations are usually complete in a short period of time and the standard of the forces' capability matches those of advanced units in developed countries, he said.
"It's been ten years since the police Crisis Response Unit was founded. The forces are deployed to carry out operations against insurgency in 19 provinces, and more than 2,000 operations have been executed by the forces in the past year with impressive results," he said.
"We are ready to do operations under any situation and in different areas to serve our country," one of the officers told TOLOnews.
Full security responsibility across Afghanistan is to be handed to the Afghans from foreign control by the end of 2014.
Hurley says military alone can't solve Afghanistan
ABC News By chief political correspondent Simon Cullen 21/01/2013
Defence Force chief David Hurley says military intervention alone cannot solve Afghanistan's problems, arguing it needs to be followed up with long-term development and diplomatic efforts.
Most Australian troops are due to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of the year once control for local security in Uruzgan province is handed over to Afghan forces.
However General Hurley says there remains long-term challenges that need to be dealt with if the international community is to have confidence in the Afghan government's ability to sustain the country's transformation.
"What (the military) can do is go in and create space... (but) eventually it gets pushed back in if you don't come in behind with the diplomatic (efforts)," General Hurley told a Strategic Policy Institute lunch in Canberra.
"The danger in Afghanistan is that the governance and development arrangements are not put in place adequately as the military contracts.
"(As) our effort contracts, the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) will take over and take up that strain.
"But you must come in behind it. It cannot be sustained purely on military grounds."
Speaking at the same event, the head of British armed forces, General Sir David Richards, indicated that a key priority for the transition process was to make sure Afghan forces were on a "good long-term footing".
"The most important single requirement is to ensure that Afghan people and their army and police retain confidence in the west and that we don't... do a Russia," General Richards said, referring to the 1998 withdrawal of Soviet troops and the overthrow of the Afghan government three years later.
Many countries have indicated they are likely to have an ongoing military presence in Afghanistan once the official withdrawal process ends, although General Richards says the size of that force is unlikely to be decided until a few more months.
Reset
General Hurley says the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, in addition to the end of operations in Timor and the Solomon Islands, will mean the need to "reconfigure" what the Australian Defence Force (ADF) looks like.
He says the Defence white paper process, which is due to be finished in the first half of this year, will focus on "resetting" the ADF.
"Getting the ADF back into a preparedness mode, a training and engagement mode... that helps us shape our region and makes it a friendly place to work in."
But he says it will also be about building capacity and preparedness so that armed forces can be deployed at short notice, adding there will continue to be a role for the Defence Force in dealing with asylum seeker boats.
"Obviously the border protection task continues which is very consuming for both Navy and Air Force."
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Julia Gillard is due to deliver a major security speech in which she will talk about the need to continue and deepen the "atmosphere of relative peace" that currently exists in Asia.
"Indeed, nothing is more important in Australia's security outlook," she is expected to say.
She also plans to raise the issue of cyber security and the need to develop more sophisticated measures to deal with the problem.
"Australia is an attractive target for a range of malicious cyber actors, from politically motivated hackers and criminal networks to nation states," Ms Gillard will say.
"This not only has the potential to impact on governments but businesses and the community alike."
African situation
One particular security challenge identified by both defence chiefs is the recent Al Qaeda-linked terrorist attack in northern Africa.
There are reports that dozens of people, including several British residents, have been killed during a hostage situation at a gas field in Algeria.
The attack prompted British prime minister David Cameron to declare the world needed to work together to deal with the continuing terrorism threat in the region.
"This is a global threat and it will require a global response. It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months," Mr Cameron said.
General Richards, who has been in Australia for the annual ministerial talks between Australia and the United Kingdom, indicated he would be travelling to Africa next week to consider how to support the international effort in neighbouring Mali.
General Hurley says he is aware of Australia's significant mining interests in Africa and the large number of Australians who work there.
"We are just looking at what Australia's interests are in the region, and we'll have the conversation with government about how that is to be managed," he said.
Cement Factories to Return to Tender: Mines Ministry
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Sunday, 20 January 2013
The management of three cement factories in Afghanistan will be put out to tender by the end of March, the Ministry of Mines said Sunday.
Included in the three is the Herat Cement Factory which was previously contracted with an Iranian company but was terminated by the ministry because of the company's failure to fulfill their commitments in due time, ministry officials said.
"The Iranian company could not address the articles in the contract and its commitments in due time. Following review and discussions, the Ministry of Mines terminated the contract with this company," MoM spokesman Ahmad Tamim Asi said.
"(The factory) will be put up for international bidding in Hamal 1392 (March-April 2013) to increase the capacity of cement production in Afghanistan," he added.
The Herat factory has the capacity to produce 3,000 tonnes of cement per day, however the company has failed to meet this in 27 months because it does not have the essential technical and financial facilities to excavate the raw materials needed to produce the cement.
The ministry also said that in the next Persian year of 1392 (Mar 2013-Mar 2014), the cement factories of Jabul Saraj in Parwan province and Ghori in Baghlan province will also be put up for bidding in order for the factories to produce more and meet domestic cement demand.
Taliban Eager to Negotiate, Peace Meeting Attendees Say
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry Sunday, 20 January 2013
The Taliban are interested in negotiating and renouncing violence after 2014, Afghan politicians attending the Dubai Peace Meeting said Sunday.
Speaking to TOLOnews, the National Front spokesman Sayed Fazel Sancharaki said that all the parties attending the meeting wanted to stop the bloodshed and find a peaceful resolution to the Afghan conflict through negotiation.
"All the parties emphasised to have negotiations and were interested in stopping the bloodshed after this," he said.
The attendees also stressed that Taliban were interested in renouncing violence and ending the conflict after more than a decade of combat.
"The Taliban have agreed that war is not a solution for Afghanistan and there should a political resolution," Afghan Analyst Wahid Muzhda said.
The two-day gathering was organised by the international group Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs in order to boost political resolutions for Afghanistan.
Another meeting is expected to be organised by the United Nations in Turkmenistan's Ishqabad city in the near future to bring the interested parties together again.
The Taliban said Friday in a statement that they had not sent any representatives to Dubai for the conference.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com