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Afghanistan's security prospects after Nato withdrawal
By Frank Gardner BBC security correspondent, Afghanistan
Nato-led forces have been in Afghanistan for so long now that it is almost hard to remember why they went in.
Governments often repeat that it was in direct response to Al-Qaeda's attacks of 9/11, planned from Osama Bin Laden's Afghan base.
But that does not explain why now, more than 11 years later, there are still more than 100,000 troops from 51 countries stationed in this country and yet they have failed to defeat the insurgency that kills and maims on a daily basis.
By the end of next year Nato's combat forces will all be gone, leaving Afghanistan's national security forces to fight a determined enemy on their own.
Can they do it?
Traffic police attacked
Through the veils of sleep I became dimly aware of sirens outside my window.
There was shouting, megaphones and the rush of fire engines racing down the street.
It was my first morning back in Kabul and a team of jihadist insurgents had targeted the capital's traffic police headquarters, detonating suicide vests, then holding out inside for nine hours in a protracted gun battle before being killed.
It was the second brazen attack on this scale in the capital in less than a month. Later, I learned there are, on average, four such planned attacks here every week that get foiled, mostly by the national intelligence service, the NDS.
Even that agency's chief has become a victim, recovering in a US hospital from a recent failed assassination attempt and issuing orders by phone from several thousand miles away.
One of his predecessors, Amrullah Saleh, who led the NDS's intelligence war on the Taliban from 2004 to 2010, told me he expects such attacks to increase.
"As Nato withdraws forces and reduces its presence in Afghanistan, the Taliban are going to change their tactics," he said.
"They're going to modify their strategy and they are going to do more and more spectacular attacks.
"Why? Currently they are having this two track strategy: a very slow, frustrating, with no tangible results - talks with Americans and episodically and at very low level with Afghan government," Mr Saleh said.
Parallel with that, he added, what gives the Taliban integrity and cohesion "is fighting".
"The moment they stop fighting that integrity and cohesion will fracture, and they know it," he said.
Attacks 'for show'
But what about those peace talks? Aren't the Taliban supposed to be exhausted after years of war, and aren't they now poised to open an office for political dialogue in neutral Qatar?
One of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's leading interlocutors is Mohammed Stanekzai.
Just back from preliminary talks in the Gulf, I went to see him in his well-guarded office. Noticeably older, greyer and more weary than when I last saw him a few years ago, he insisted there was hope for peace.
These recent attacks in Kabul, he said, were for show. I pressed him on who he thought was behind them and why.
He said: "Whether they are criminals; whether they are Taleban; whether they are al-Qaeda? If you do a deeper analysis, most of those suicide bombers are not Afghans."
Minister Stanekzai, as everyone addresses him, is head of the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Programme, the APRP. (A by-product of having Nato here for so long is that the country is now awash with acronyms.)
For two years now, it has been reaching out to low-level insurgents and trying to entice them to lay down their weapons and rejoin village communities.
It has had limited results: just 6,028 have officially joined the programme across the whole country. That is compared to an estimated 30,000 Taliban insurgents who seem to have an inexhaustible supply of new recruits from their bases across the border in Pakistan.
Important for enemies
I asked to see the programme in action, so on a bright, sub-zero morning I accompanied a government delegation to the troubled province of Ghazni, taking off from a frozen landing site at the Nato base in Kabul in a US Army Chinook helicopter.
With the tailgate open, the breath-taking beauty of snowbound Afghanistan unfolded beneath us, the landscape stark, brittle and largely empty.
In Ghazni the Taliban have a strong presence, so to get from the local base to the Governor's office we had to squeeze into heavily armoured mine-resistant vehicles called Cougars.
As the convoy growled down Highway One, the national ring road that encircles the whole country, the turret machine-gunner rotated left and right, scanning the roadside.
"Our president always says that if Ghazni is safe, the whole of Afghanistan is safe" the governor, Musa Khan, told me later. "Ghazni is important both for our enemies and its very important for us".
But Ghazni is not safe. As I sat in the Governor's office for a shura, a mini-conference of tribal elders, I heard a distant thump.
Nobody flinched but it turned out to be the sound of a suicide bomber blowing up a police checkpoint in town, killing three.
Job-seekers or Taliban?
Little wonder the US soldiers escorting the delegation were nervous.
Across the street, we found two dozen Afghan men we were told were former insurgents who had been persuaded to give up the fight and were now being "enrolled" into the programme.
In exchange for turning in their Kalashnikovs, they would each be given up to $180 (£115) a month for a limited period as they assimilated back into village life.
It was impossible to know how genuine they were.
"The people in this programme are not real Taliban," scoffed Afghans I had met in Kabul. "They are just job-seekers."
But still, I noticed the men kept their faces covered by their scarves, they seemed extremely wary and after a brief and rather uninformative interview with their "commander", a local official whispered to me: "This is a very bad man: he has done bad things".
It was hard to assess the reintegration programme.
More dangerous
Of course, as a journalist, it can sometimes be all too easy to fly into a country and pick holes in other people's efforts.
Back in the capital, I remarked to Lt Gen Nick Carter, the senior British general and deputy commander of all Nato's forces in Afghanistan, that despite its bustling street life the city seemed edgier and more dangerous than when I had first visited in 2003.
There are far more blast walls and checkpoints than before. I put it to the general that most people don't understand why Nato has not finished the job and gone home by now after so long here.
Gen Carter, a veteran of several senior command postings in Afghanistan, did not deny it was more dangerous now than 10 years ago. "But it's remarkable how things have progressed in the broader civil society sense," he countered.
"Access to healthcare is very different to what it was; education has moved on hugely. There are 20 million mobile telephone users now.
"I think in terms of the sort of progress towards the sort of things that we would understand in our countries there's been a momentum which is, I wouldn't say irreversible, but it's progressed in an extraordinary way."
But Amrullah Saleh, the long-time Afghan intelligence chief who handed over running the NDS in 2010 and who is now a political opponent of the president, has a warning for the West.
He believes that in its haste to exit Afghanistan, the West is so eager to differentiate between the Taliban threat and that of al-Qaeda that it is downplaying what he sees as the dangers of a Taliban return.
"A lot of Western analysts now say al-Qaeda's main base is no longer Afghanistan; it's maybe Mali, it's maybe Somalia, it's maybe North Africa," he said.
"Or maybe it's a sleeping cell in some corner of Europe so why we should have massive force here?"
But he disagrees with part of that analysis, saying al-Qaeda's objective was to franchise, and they have franchised.
"And if Afghanistan remains unresolved, so this will become, even if not realistically but psychologically, with domination of Taleban, it means an ally of al-Qaeda re-dominating the country, whether partly or wholly," Mr Saleh said.
"The current effort to underestimate the strength of the Taliban, to try to delink them from al-Qaeda in our own imaginations is wrong," he added.
Others in Afghanistan disagree.
They say the Taliban have learned from their mistakes and know that so much has changed since they were last in power that there are some things they could never bring back, like banning televisions or burning down girls' schools.
Either way, Afghans are truly tired of war, after 33 years of constant conflict, but the search for a peace deal could still prove to be a long and costly one.
Afghan, Pakistani Defense Officials Discuss Military Cooperation
By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal and RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan January 28, 2013
ISLAMABAD -- Afghan and Pakistani defense officials are discussing bilateral military cooperation, including the prospects of having the Afghan National Army trained by Pakistani military specialists.
Afghan Defense Minister Bismillah Muhammadi is on the first day of a five-day visit to Pakistan.
Sources with Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that the talks between the military delegations in Rawalpindi included Pakistan's Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
Muhammadi also met on January 28 with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
Relations between the two countries have been strained in recent months over allegations of cross-border attacks.
Afghanistan accuses Pakistani forces of shelling border areas in the eastern Kunar and Nooristan provinces, killing a number of local residents.
Islamabad has rejected the accusations.
Taliban Arrive in Qatar to Open Office
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry Sunday, 27 January 2013
A number of high-ranking Taliban members have arrived in Doha to continue efforts to open a liaison office for the group, Qatari newspaper Gulf Times reported Sunday.
Afghan officials said they are working on opening the office for insurgent representatives to facilitate the peace process.
"We hope to open an office for the Taliban once the US and Qatar agree on the matter, and we hope to witness direct talks with the group," said Janan Moosazai, ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson.
The High Peace Council said the presence of the group's officials in Qatar indicates the insurgents' inclination to hold talks with the Afghan government.
"The presence of Taliban members in Qatar -- we hope it's their top officials -- shows the group's agreement for opening an office for advancing peace talks with the government of Afghanistan," said Mohammad Ismail Qasemyar, international affairs adviser and member of the High Peace Council.
The Taliban have so far rejected talking to the Afghan government, and there is no date set for the opening of the liaison office.
An 'Afghan redneck' creates art in a war zone
By Aman Mojadidi, Special to CNN January 27, 2013
Editor's note: Aman Mojadidi is an American artist of Afghan descent who has staged public art projects in Afghanistan for the past nine years. He spoke at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh in June. TED is a nonprofit dedicated to "Ideas worth spreading" which it makes available through talks posted on its website.
I grew up in Florida in wartime -- where the bombs were 7,691 miles away.
My childhood was an Afghan-American suburban dream punctuated by weekend sleepovers, Saturday soccer games, fistfights with racist children of the Confederate South and religio-nationalist-driven demonstrations chanting "Down with Brezhnev!"; "Long live Islam!"; "Down with Communism!"; and "Long Live Afghanistan!" before I even knew what that meant. It is what I was fed growing up, in between Southern-fried chicken and garlic mashed potatoes, cumin-scented meat and basmati rice. That's why I've referred to myself as "Afghan by blood, redneck by the grace of God."
Now as an artist in a world that is simultaneously in the process of globalizing and fracturing, the work I do explores what I have come to call the "geography of self," a concept that revolves around a positioning of oneself in the world -- not just physically, but emotionally, mentally and, perhaps even for those who believe, spiritually.
This position is ambiguous, temporary and very often debated. It is constructed by multiple voices and rendered through a prism of different, sometimes even contradictory, perspectives.
The body of work I create combines traditional storylines and postmodern narrative strategies to approach themes such as belonging, identity politics and conflict, as well as the push towards -- and resistance against -- modernization.
My work travels through mental and physical landscapes. It intentionally blurs and merges the lines between them, as well as those between fact and fiction, documentation and imagination.
I looked into corruption in Afghanistan through a work called "Payback" and impersonated a police officer, set up a fake checkpoint on the street in Kabul and stopped cars, but instead of asking them for a bribe, offered them money and apologized on behalf of the Kabul Police Department.
I spent a day in the life of a jihadi gangster who wears his jihad against the communists like pop-star bling and uses armed religious intimidation and political corruption to make himself rich. And where else can the jihadi gangster go, but run for parliament and do a public installation campaign with the slogan: "Vote for me! I've done jihad, and I'm rich."
What I engage in through my art is, in fact, storytelling. But through these stories, there is a clear attempt to disrupt and reinterpret historical narratives, both real and imagined, in order to create an entirely new narrative that challenges the dominating histories' stories that shape our experience and understanding of the world we live in.
It's not about activism, but about being engaged with our world and humanity in a way that goes beyond the superficial, instead looking deeper into historical constructions of our present state and the basic principles of human responsibility.
Art has often been and continues to be considered transcendent. I see this as misguided and, in fact, a way of subverting the powerful voice art can be in global discussions about politics, economics, society, culture, religion and international relations.
This is not to say that I think my art provides answers. In fact, it may simply produce more questions. But in asking those questions, history and our role in how it constructs the present can be better understood.
By using historical facts, documentation, oral history and imagination, I create forms of resistance against the imposition of certain historical interpretations upon us. It provides a way for us to rethink history, disturb identity, challenge authority, dissect politics, shake up society and understand ourselves. In the end, I hope we learn to question what we know of the past, what we understand of the present and what we can imagine for the future.
Perhaps this is too ambitious a project; perhaps art should simply be aesthetically appealing and keep itself out of the realm of politics, history and self-awareness. Perhaps this is too arrogant a philosophy, to think that what I have to say about the world and our role in it has any bearing at all on how others should think about their environment and themselves.
Perhaps this is too futile a goal and art is not enough of an action to be an actual catalyst for change. But this is the burden of creating this kind of work, a burden that perhaps comes from the dualistic life I have lived as an American citizen growing up in the comfort of suburbia while family members in Afghanistan fought, died and, yes, killed in their battle against an invading army.
Knowing these opposing experiences could be simultaneously shared within the collective subconscious of my family drove me towards trying to better understand history, politics, perspectives and the human condition.
This IS my burden and so I must ask: "What's yours?"
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Afghan orphans hope their music will win over 'American hearts' at Carnegie Hall
NBC News By Thanh Truong, Correspondent 27/01/2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - From the cold basement of an orphanage in Kabul, the beat of a bass drum bounces through the halls.
Hitting the high hat and cymbals was Laila, a 13-year old orphan and the only known female drummer in Afghanistan.
"I like playing the drums and there are no other girls in Afghanistan playing the drums,” Laila said with a big smile. “I'm the only girl and I want to become well known as an Afghan girl playing drums.”
For now, she plays in a basement, but soon it'll be D.C.'s Kennedy Center and New York's Carnegie Hall.
Laila and 10 other girls from her orphanage will be joining ensembles from the Afghan National Institute of Music as they make their U.S. debut.
For many of the performers, it will be their first time out of the country and their first time in America.
"I hear it is very clean and has big buildings and you have such freedom there,” 10-year old Sapna said. "I forget the name of the president of America, but I have heard of him."
Sapna plays the piano and likes the "fast songs" that allow her to move her little fingers quickly over the keys. Music is part of the curriculum at this orphanage run by Andeisha Farid, the executive director of the Afghan Child Education and Caring Organization.
'Hope for a better future'
In a country where female freedoms are few, Farid said these young girls represent the potential in Afghanistan's future.
"Afghan women, they suffer so badly. They even struggle for their very basic human rights,” Farid said. “We hope for a better future for Afghanistan. If we can properly invest in these children, a long-term investment, they realize that there is hope in Afghanistan.”
The sheer fact that dozens of girls are practicing and learning music is a sign of progress in a country where only an estimated 15 percent of women can even read and write, never mind read music or play an instrument.
The arts and music suffered heavily under the Taliban, and not just for women.
Since 2001 a small group of Afghans have worked to bring music back to the country. Ahmad Sarmast, who holds a doctorate in music, spearheaded the movement and the effort culminated in the 2010 establishment of the Afghan National Institute of Music.
Musicians and their mentors from the ANIM will embark on a two-week tour of the U.S. starting February 2. They'll be playing a combination of classical and Afghan pieces.
Music has given these children an opportunity that so few have in Afghanistan and they are eager to share what they've learned.
"People can understand each other's hearts through music. American people can understand Afghan hearts and Afghans can understand American hearts. It's universal," said Sapna.
Yet, hurdles remain.
Twelve-year-old Fareshta said pressure from her home village prevented her from playing the trumpet.
NBC first met Fareshta when Brian Williams visited her orphanage.
Fareshta said people in her village threatened to make her family outcasts if she kept on attending music school.
She now only plays when she is in the orphanage. And, while the other girls prepare for their performances in the U.S., she won't be going.
"I want to go music school and play more music," Fareshta said.
She shrugged when asked if it all seemed unfair. After all, so much that has and is happening in Afghanistan seems unfair.
But after listening to a girl like Laila practicing on the drums, it is easy to understand that the music these young people create is a message of hope in a country awash with disappointments.
NATO vehicle accident injure 10 in northern Afghanistan
By Mirwais Adeel - Mon Jan 28, 2:39 pm Khaama Press
According to local authorities in northern Samangan province of Afghanistan, at least 10 Afghan civilians were injured following a road traffic incident in this province.
The officials further added the incident took place after a civilian bus collided with the NATO troops vehicle in Rabatk highway.
Provincial security chief Musadiqullah Muzaffari confirming the report said the incident took place on Monday and accused NATO troops for reckless driving.
He said the vehicle of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force was also damaged following the incident however NATO troops did not suffer any casualty.
International Security Assistance Force yet to comment regarding the incident.
Samangan is located in northern central Afghanistan, delimited by Baghlan province in the east, Bamyan in the south, Sar-e-Pul in the south-west and Balkh province in the northwest.
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) established a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the province and troops however Afghan security forces are currently providing security for Samangan province.
US must provide evidence on Kam Air allegations: Afghanistan
Khaama Press By Meena Haseeb Mon Jan 28, 2013
The government of Afghanistan called on US embassy in Kabul to provide evidence and documents regarding US military’s allegations on Kam Air for smuggling drugs and opium out of Afghanistan.
Afghan foreign ministry officials also vowed to strictly investigate the allegations against Afghanistan’s major private Airline company Kam Air.
Foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai quoted by Radio Free Europe (RFE) said the government of Afghanistan has requested United States to provide documents and evidence regarding allegations against Kam Air.
This comes as a US military official on Friday told Wall Street Journal that Kam Air has ferried opium to neighboring Tajikistan.
Kam Air was reportedly added to the blacklist of United States following the report.
In the meantime a spokesman for the ministry of transportation and chief of the Kabul International Airport strictly denied smuggling of opium from Kabul airport.
Kabul International Airport chief Mohammad Yaqoub Rassouli said the airport is equipped with modern accessories which prevents anyone to transport opium outside of the country.
Kam Air chief Zamarai Kamgar following a press conference also denied the allegations and accused a number of the nations who are struggling to harm Afghanistan’s major private airline company.
He said, “The comments by US military officials regarding Kam Air’s involvement in opium smuggle was followed after government’s request from International Security Assistance Force to use local companies for the transport of their goods and equipments.”
Kam Air is one of the major private airline company in Afghanistan which is operating during the past 10 years and is providing aviation services in Afghanistan and other regional countries.
Female Afghan lawmaker survive gunmen attack in Nangarhar
By Sadaf Shinwari - Mon Jan 28, 10:34 am Khaama Press
According to local authorities in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, unknown gunmen carried out a life attempt attack on a female Afghan lawmaker.
The officials further added the incident took place late Sunday evening after a number of unknown gunmen opened fire on lawmaker Frishta Anwari who represents eastern Nangarhar province in Afghan house of representatives.
A local police official speaking on the condition of anonymity said lawmaker Frishta Anwari survived the attack however one of his security guard was critically injured following the attack.
The official also added that the clashes between the security guards of the lawmaker and the gunmen continued for almost 30 minutes in Tangi area on Kabul-Jalalabad highway.
No group or individual has so far claimed responsibility behind the attack.
Nangarhar province is among the relatively peaceful region in eastern Afghanistan however militants have recently increased their activities in a number of its districts.
Interior Ministry Concerned by Increase in Police Casualties
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Sunday, 27 January 2013
IEDs or suicide attacks kill an average of six to 10 policemen daily, according to the ministry or interior, which expressed worry over the number of deaths but said the police suffers only a minimal number of losses in face-to-face battles with insurgents.
"We are very distressed by the increase in casualties of the national police. Unfortunately, our police force suffers losses every day and are forced to struggle to defend their soil and face losses," said Seddiq Seddiqi, spokesperson of the ministry of interior affairs.
According to officials, over the last two days alone, IED and suicide attacks have killed 19 policemen in the provinces of Farah, Kandahar, and Kunduz.
But Seddiqi rejected that the casualties might have a negative effect on police morale.
"The casualties would have no negative effect on the motivation and morale of the national police, and it might even boost their morale to fight better to defend their soil," Seddiqi said.
While the interior ministry is worried by the losses of the Afghan National Police, the country's defense ministry has said that the army's casualties have actually dropped.
"According to the ministry's figures of national army's casualties, the losses have decreased compared to last year," said Gen. Zahir Azimi, defense ministry spokesman.
The defense ministry's statistics show that over the second half of 1390 (September 2011 to March 2012), 479 soldiers were killed, while in the first half of 1391 (March 2012 to October 2012), the number was 463, nearly a one-percent decrease.
The defense ministry also said that 80 percent of the current operations are carried out entirely by Afghan forces.
During drawdown, Pentagon cuts cooked breakfast for some troops in Afghanistan
Washington Guardian By John Solomon Sunday, January 27, 2013
The Army has stopped serving cooked breakfasts to some of the U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan as part of its drawdown, a move that prompted troops to write home asking their families and friends to send care packages with cereal, breakfast bars and other foods.
The Army told the Washington Guardian the current cutbacks began Jan. 1, and affect about 2,700 soldiers deployed in forward operating bases in more remote areas of Afghanistan.
Officials said the reduction of cooked breakfasts and midnight meals is not related to the U.S. budget crisis, but rather is part of the effort to begin closing down U.S. operations in the affected areas and transition them to Afghan troops. The affected soldiers are being given packaged meals known as MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) as substitutes for a cooked breakfast, the officials said.
“As a part of the responsible draw down of operational forces serving in Afghanistan, my staff examined ways to reduce our footprint and set the conditions for the reduction of forces,” explained Col. Joe Wawro, an infantry commander for the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat team.
Wawro said military and civilian leaders collaborated on ideas and “estimated that by changing the meal cycle, they would reduce their overall operations by 40 percent” if breakfast and midnight snacks were converted from cooked options to MREs.
“After carefully examining all these inputs, I decided to modify the meal cycle as described above. This has absolutely nothing to do with the national budget and everything to do with our responsible reduction of forces,” he said.
Wawro said soldiers in the affected bases still get cooked lunch and dinners, and rely on MREs for breakfast and night snacks and that “most dining facilities have a variety of take-away items like cereal, milk juice, fruit, oatmeal, granola bars, etc. to augment the MREs.”
“I see this as a good thing; even though some of the amenities may change as we head home, our Afghan partners continue to transition into the areas we once held,” he said.
Several families of affected soldiers began contacting the Washington Guardian several days ago to raise concerns about the change, reporting their sons, daughters or spouses had written home to seek care packages after the end of cooked breakfasts.
The families refused to speak on the record for fear their loved ones might be singled out for complaining. But they described messages sent via email, Facebook and other social media in which troops didn’t fully understand the reasons for the changes and worried they were related to impending budget cutbacks.
The Washington Guardian reported earlier this month that the current budget crisis in Congress prompted Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to write a memo order preparations for sweeping budget cuts across all military programs to begin as early as next month.
But officials said those orders were not impacting the Afghanistan decisions. They said the meal cutbacks are currently affecting forward operating bases in more remote areas of Afghanistan and not affecting the main American bases in Kabul and Kandahar.
Officials stressed other comforts at the forward operating bases may also soon be reduced, such as laundry and recreation, as officials look for other ways to reduce the American footprint in advance of departing the country.
“In order to set the conditions for each base closure or a base transfer, non-tactical logistics and support services (i.e. any non-mission essential services) must decline. Typically the complete cessation of non-tactical logistics and services, such as laundry services or morale, welfare and recreation services, occurs 2-3 months prior to a base closure or transfer,” Lt. Col. Paul Haverstick said.
“That said, commanders may determine they need to make such changes earlier or phase them in slower over a longer period of time. Such decisions depend on a myriad of factors, such as the size of the base, its location and the transportation assets available to a commander,” he said.
The U.S. military has already transitioned about 50 bases from American to Afghan control and is in the process of a drawdown to be completed by 2014 to meet President Barack Obama’s pledge, officials said. There are currently about 68,000 Americans troops in the country as the U.S., according to NATO, down from more than 100,000 after a 2009 U.S. “surge” designed to overcome a spike in violence that threatened the stability of Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Frank Gardner BBC security correspondent, Afghanistan
Nato-led forces have been in Afghanistan for so long now that it is almost hard to remember why they went in.
Governments often repeat that it was in direct response to Al-Qaeda's attacks of 9/11, planned from Osama Bin Laden's Afghan base.
But that does not explain why now, more than 11 years later, there are still more than 100,000 troops from 51 countries stationed in this country and yet they have failed to defeat the insurgency that kills and maims on a daily basis.
By the end of next year Nato's combat forces will all be gone, leaving Afghanistan's national security forces to fight a determined enemy on their own.
Can they do it?
Traffic police attacked
Through the veils of sleep I became dimly aware of sirens outside my window.
There was shouting, megaphones and the rush of fire engines racing down the street.
It was my first morning back in Kabul and a team of jihadist insurgents had targeted the capital's traffic police headquarters, detonating suicide vests, then holding out inside for nine hours in a protracted gun battle before being killed.
It was the second brazen attack on this scale in the capital in less than a month. Later, I learned there are, on average, four such planned attacks here every week that get foiled, mostly by the national intelligence service, the NDS.
Even that agency's chief has become a victim, recovering in a US hospital from a recent failed assassination attempt and issuing orders by phone from several thousand miles away.
One of his predecessors, Amrullah Saleh, who led the NDS's intelligence war on the Taliban from 2004 to 2010, told me he expects such attacks to increase.
"As Nato withdraws forces and reduces its presence in Afghanistan, the Taliban are going to change their tactics," he said.
"They're going to modify their strategy and they are going to do more and more spectacular attacks.
"Why? Currently they are having this two track strategy: a very slow, frustrating, with no tangible results - talks with Americans and episodically and at very low level with Afghan government," Mr Saleh said.
Parallel with that, he added, what gives the Taliban integrity and cohesion "is fighting".
"The moment they stop fighting that integrity and cohesion will fracture, and they know it," he said.
Attacks 'for show'
But what about those peace talks? Aren't the Taliban supposed to be exhausted after years of war, and aren't they now poised to open an office for political dialogue in neutral Qatar?
One of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's leading interlocutors is Mohammed Stanekzai.
Just back from preliminary talks in the Gulf, I went to see him in his well-guarded office. Noticeably older, greyer and more weary than when I last saw him a few years ago, he insisted there was hope for peace.
These recent attacks in Kabul, he said, were for show. I pressed him on who he thought was behind them and why.
He said: "Whether they are criminals; whether they are Taleban; whether they are al-Qaeda? If you do a deeper analysis, most of those suicide bombers are not Afghans."
Minister Stanekzai, as everyone addresses him, is head of the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Programme, the APRP. (A by-product of having Nato here for so long is that the country is now awash with acronyms.)
For two years now, it has been reaching out to low-level insurgents and trying to entice them to lay down their weapons and rejoin village communities.
It has had limited results: just 6,028 have officially joined the programme across the whole country. That is compared to an estimated 30,000 Taliban insurgents who seem to have an inexhaustible supply of new recruits from their bases across the border in Pakistan.
Important for enemies
I asked to see the programme in action, so on a bright, sub-zero morning I accompanied a government delegation to the troubled province of Ghazni, taking off from a frozen landing site at the Nato base in Kabul in a US Army Chinook helicopter.
With the tailgate open, the breath-taking beauty of snowbound Afghanistan unfolded beneath us, the landscape stark, brittle and largely empty.
In Ghazni the Taliban have a strong presence, so to get from the local base to the Governor's office we had to squeeze into heavily armoured mine-resistant vehicles called Cougars.
As the convoy growled down Highway One, the national ring road that encircles the whole country, the turret machine-gunner rotated left and right, scanning the roadside.
"Our president always says that if Ghazni is safe, the whole of Afghanistan is safe" the governor, Musa Khan, told me later. "Ghazni is important both for our enemies and its very important for us".
But Ghazni is not safe. As I sat in the Governor's office for a shura, a mini-conference of tribal elders, I heard a distant thump.
Nobody flinched but it turned out to be the sound of a suicide bomber blowing up a police checkpoint in town, killing three.
Job-seekers or Taliban?
Little wonder the US soldiers escorting the delegation were nervous.
Across the street, we found two dozen Afghan men we were told were former insurgents who had been persuaded to give up the fight and were now being "enrolled" into the programme.
In exchange for turning in their Kalashnikovs, they would each be given up to $180 (£115) a month for a limited period as they assimilated back into village life.
It was impossible to know how genuine they were.
"The people in this programme are not real Taliban," scoffed Afghans I had met in Kabul. "They are just job-seekers."
But still, I noticed the men kept their faces covered by their scarves, they seemed extremely wary and after a brief and rather uninformative interview with their "commander", a local official whispered to me: "This is a very bad man: he has done bad things".
It was hard to assess the reintegration programme.
More dangerous
Of course, as a journalist, it can sometimes be all too easy to fly into a country and pick holes in other people's efforts.
Back in the capital, I remarked to Lt Gen Nick Carter, the senior British general and deputy commander of all Nato's forces in Afghanistan, that despite its bustling street life the city seemed edgier and more dangerous than when I had first visited in 2003.
There are far more blast walls and checkpoints than before. I put it to the general that most people don't understand why Nato has not finished the job and gone home by now after so long here.
Gen Carter, a veteran of several senior command postings in Afghanistan, did not deny it was more dangerous now than 10 years ago. "But it's remarkable how things have progressed in the broader civil society sense," he countered.
"Access to healthcare is very different to what it was; education has moved on hugely. There are 20 million mobile telephone users now.
"I think in terms of the sort of progress towards the sort of things that we would understand in our countries there's been a momentum which is, I wouldn't say irreversible, but it's progressed in an extraordinary way."
But Amrullah Saleh, the long-time Afghan intelligence chief who handed over running the NDS in 2010 and who is now a political opponent of the president, has a warning for the West.
He believes that in its haste to exit Afghanistan, the West is so eager to differentiate between the Taliban threat and that of al-Qaeda that it is downplaying what he sees as the dangers of a Taliban return.
"A lot of Western analysts now say al-Qaeda's main base is no longer Afghanistan; it's maybe Mali, it's maybe Somalia, it's maybe North Africa," he said.
"Or maybe it's a sleeping cell in some corner of Europe so why we should have massive force here?"
But he disagrees with part of that analysis, saying al-Qaeda's objective was to franchise, and they have franchised.
"And if Afghanistan remains unresolved, so this will become, even if not realistically but psychologically, with domination of Taleban, it means an ally of al-Qaeda re-dominating the country, whether partly or wholly," Mr Saleh said.
"The current effort to underestimate the strength of the Taliban, to try to delink them from al-Qaeda in our own imaginations is wrong," he added.
Others in Afghanistan disagree.
They say the Taliban have learned from their mistakes and know that so much has changed since they were last in power that there are some things they could never bring back, like banning televisions or burning down girls' schools.
Either way, Afghans are truly tired of war, after 33 years of constant conflict, but the search for a peace deal could still prove to be a long and costly one.
Afghan, Pakistani Defense Officials Discuss Military Cooperation
By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal and RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan January 28, 2013
ISLAMABAD -- Afghan and Pakistani defense officials are discussing bilateral military cooperation, including the prospects of having the Afghan National Army trained by Pakistani military specialists.
Afghan Defense Minister Bismillah Muhammadi is on the first day of a five-day visit to Pakistan.
Sources with Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that the talks between the military delegations in Rawalpindi included Pakistan's Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
Muhammadi also met on January 28 with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
Relations between the two countries have been strained in recent months over allegations of cross-border attacks.
Afghanistan accuses Pakistani forces of shelling border areas in the eastern Kunar and Nooristan provinces, killing a number of local residents.
Islamabad has rejected the accusations.
Taliban Arrive in Qatar to Open Office
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry Sunday, 27 January 2013
A number of high-ranking Taliban members have arrived in Doha to continue efforts to open a liaison office for the group, Qatari newspaper Gulf Times reported Sunday.
Afghan officials said they are working on opening the office for insurgent representatives to facilitate the peace process.
"We hope to open an office for the Taliban once the US and Qatar agree on the matter, and we hope to witness direct talks with the group," said Janan Moosazai, ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson.
The High Peace Council said the presence of the group's officials in Qatar indicates the insurgents' inclination to hold talks with the Afghan government.
"The presence of Taliban members in Qatar -- we hope it's their top officials -- shows the group's agreement for opening an office for advancing peace talks with the government of Afghanistan," said Mohammad Ismail Qasemyar, international affairs adviser and member of the High Peace Council.
The Taliban have so far rejected talking to the Afghan government, and there is no date set for the opening of the liaison office.
An 'Afghan redneck' creates art in a war zone
By Aman Mojadidi, Special to CNN January 27, 2013
Editor's note: Aman Mojadidi is an American artist of Afghan descent who has staged public art projects in Afghanistan for the past nine years. He spoke at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh in June. TED is a nonprofit dedicated to "Ideas worth spreading" which it makes available through talks posted on its website.
I grew up in Florida in wartime -- where the bombs were 7,691 miles away.
My childhood was an Afghan-American suburban dream punctuated by weekend sleepovers, Saturday soccer games, fistfights with racist children of the Confederate South and religio-nationalist-driven demonstrations chanting "Down with Brezhnev!"; "Long live Islam!"; "Down with Communism!"; and "Long Live Afghanistan!" before I even knew what that meant. It is what I was fed growing up, in between Southern-fried chicken and garlic mashed potatoes, cumin-scented meat and basmati rice. That's why I've referred to myself as "Afghan by blood, redneck by the grace of God."
Now as an artist in a world that is simultaneously in the process of globalizing and fracturing, the work I do explores what I have come to call the "geography of self," a concept that revolves around a positioning of oneself in the world -- not just physically, but emotionally, mentally and, perhaps even for those who believe, spiritually.
This position is ambiguous, temporary and very often debated. It is constructed by multiple voices and rendered through a prism of different, sometimes even contradictory, perspectives.
The body of work I create combines traditional storylines and postmodern narrative strategies to approach themes such as belonging, identity politics and conflict, as well as the push towards -- and resistance against -- modernization.
My work travels through mental and physical landscapes. It intentionally blurs and merges the lines between them, as well as those between fact and fiction, documentation and imagination.
I looked into corruption in Afghanistan through a work called "Payback" and impersonated a police officer, set up a fake checkpoint on the street in Kabul and stopped cars, but instead of asking them for a bribe, offered them money and apologized on behalf of the Kabul Police Department.
I spent a day in the life of a jihadi gangster who wears his jihad against the communists like pop-star bling and uses armed religious intimidation and political corruption to make himself rich. And where else can the jihadi gangster go, but run for parliament and do a public installation campaign with the slogan: "Vote for me! I've done jihad, and I'm rich."
What I engage in through my art is, in fact, storytelling. But through these stories, there is a clear attempt to disrupt and reinterpret historical narratives, both real and imagined, in order to create an entirely new narrative that challenges the dominating histories' stories that shape our experience and understanding of the world we live in.
It's not about activism, but about being engaged with our world and humanity in a way that goes beyond the superficial, instead looking deeper into historical constructions of our present state and the basic principles of human responsibility.
Art has often been and continues to be considered transcendent. I see this as misguided and, in fact, a way of subverting the powerful voice art can be in global discussions about politics, economics, society, culture, religion and international relations.
This is not to say that I think my art provides answers. In fact, it may simply produce more questions. But in asking those questions, history and our role in how it constructs the present can be better understood.
By using historical facts, documentation, oral history and imagination, I create forms of resistance against the imposition of certain historical interpretations upon us. It provides a way for us to rethink history, disturb identity, challenge authority, dissect politics, shake up society and understand ourselves. In the end, I hope we learn to question what we know of the past, what we understand of the present and what we can imagine for the future.
Perhaps this is too ambitious a project; perhaps art should simply be aesthetically appealing and keep itself out of the realm of politics, history and self-awareness. Perhaps this is too arrogant a philosophy, to think that what I have to say about the world and our role in it has any bearing at all on how others should think about their environment and themselves.
Perhaps this is too futile a goal and art is not enough of an action to be an actual catalyst for change. But this is the burden of creating this kind of work, a burden that perhaps comes from the dualistic life I have lived as an American citizen growing up in the comfort of suburbia while family members in Afghanistan fought, died and, yes, killed in their battle against an invading army.
Knowing these opposing experiences could be simultaneously shared within the collective subconscious of my family drove me towards trying to better understand history, politics, perspectives and the human condition.
This IS my burden and so I must ask: "What's yours?"
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Afghan orphans hope their music will win over 'American hearts' at Carnegie Hall
NBC News By Thanh Truong, Correspondent 27/01/2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - From the cold basement of an orphanage in Kabul, the beat of a bass drum bounces through the halls.
Hitting the high hat and cymbals was Laila, a 13-year old orphan and the only known female drummer in Afghanistan.
"I like playing the drums and there are no other girls in Afghanistan playing the drums,” Laila said with a big smile. “I'm the only girl and I want to become well known as an Afghan girl playing drums.”
For now, she plays in a basement, but soon it'll be D.C.'s Kennedy Center and New York's Carnegie Hall.
Laila and 10 other girls from her orphanage will be joining ensembles from the Afghan National Institute of Music as they make their U.S. debut.
For many of the performers, it will be their first time out of the country and their first time in America.
"I hear it is very clean and has big buildings and you have such freedom there,” 10-year old Sapna said. "I forget the name of the president of America, but I have heard of him."
Sapna plays the piano and likes the "fast songs" that allow her to move her little fingers quickly over the keys. Music is part of the curriculum at this orphanage run by Andeisha Farid, the executive director of the Afghan Child Education and Caring Organization.
'Hope for a better future'
In a country where female freedoms are few, Farid said these young girls represent the potential in Afghanistan's future.
"Afghan women, they suffer so badly. They even struggle for their very basic human rights,” Farid said. “We hope for a better future for Afghanistan. If we can properly invest in these children, a long-term investment, they realize that there is hope in Afghanistan.”
The sheer fact that dozens of girls are practicing and learning music is a sign of progress in a country where only an estimated 15 percent of women can even read and write, never mind read music or play an instrument.
The arts and music suffered heavily under the Taliban, and not just for women.
Since 2001 a small group of Afghans have worked to bring music back to the country. Ahmad Sarmast, who holds a doctorate in music, spearheaded the movement and the effort culminated in the 2010 establishment of the Afghan National Institute of Music.
Musicians and their mentors from the ANIM will embark on a two-week tour of the U.S. starting February 2. They'll be playing a combination of classical and Afghan pieces.
Music has given these children an opportunity that so few have in Afghanistan and they are eager to share what they've learned.
"People can understand each other's hearts through music. American people can understand Afghan hearts and Afghans can understand American hearts. It's universal," said Sapna.
Yet, hurdles remain.
Twelve-year-old Fareshta said pressure from her home village prevented her from playing the trumpet.
NBC first met Fareshta when Brian Williams visited her orphanage.
Fareshta said people in her village threatened to make her family outcasts if she kept on attending music school.
She now only plays when she is in the orphanage. And, while the other girls prepare for their performances in the U.S., she won't be going.
"I want to go music school and play more music," Fareshta said.
She shrugged when asked if it all seemed unfair. After all, so much that has and is happening in Afghanistan seems unfair.
But after listening to a girl like Laila practicing on the drums, it is easy to understand that the music these young people create is a message of hope in a country awash with disappointments.
NATO vehicle accident injure 10 in northern Afghanistan
By Mirwais Adeel - Mon Jan 28, 2:39 pm Khaama Press
According to local authorities in northern Samangan province of Afghanistan, at least 10 Afghan civilians were injured following a road traffic incident in this province.
The officials further added the incident took place after a civilian bus collided with the NATO troops vehicle in Rabatk highway.
Provincial security chief Musadiqullah Muzaffari confirming the report said the incident took place on Monday and accused NATO troops for reckless driving.
He said the vehicle of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force was also damaged following the incident however NATO troops did not suffer any casualty.
International Security Assistance Force yet to comment regarding the incident.
Samangan is located in northern central Afghanistan, delimited by Baghlan province in the east, Bamyan in the south, Sar-e-Pul in the south-west and Balkh province in the northwest.
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) established a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the province and troops however Afghan security forces are currently providing security for Samangan province.
US must provide evidence on Kam Air allegations: Afghanistan
Khaama Press By Meena Haseeb Mon Jan 28, 2013
The government of Afghanistan called on US embassy in Kabul to provide evidence and documents regarding US military’s allegations on Kam Air for smuggling drugs and opium out of Afghanistan.
Afghan foreign ministry officials also vowed to strictly investigate the allegations against Afghanistan’s major private Airline company Kam Air.
Foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai quoted by Radio Free Europe (RFE) said the government of Afghanistan has requested United States to provide documents and evidence regarding allegations against Kam Air.
This comes as a US military official on Friday told Wall Street Journal that Kam Air has ferried opium to neighboring Tajikistan.
Kam Air was reportedly added to the blacklist of United States following the report.
In the meantime a spokesman for the ministry of transportation and chief of the Kabul International Airport strictly denied smuggling of opium from Kabul airport.
Kabul International Airport chief Mohammad Yaqoub Rassouli said the airport is equipped with modern accessories which prevents anyone to transport opium outside of the country.
Kam Air chief Zamarai Kamgar following a press conference also denied the allegations and accused a number of the nations who are struggling to harm Afghanistan’s major private airline company.
He said, “The comments by US military officials regarding Kam Air’s involvement in opium smuggle was followed after government’s request from International Security Assistance Force to use local companies for the transport of their goods and equipments.”
Kam Air is one of the major private airline company in Afghanistan which is operating during the past 10 years and is providing aviation services in Afghanistan and other regional countries.
Female Afghan lawmaker survive gunmen attack in Nangarhar
By Sadaf Shinwari - Mon Jan 28, 10:34 am Khaama Press
According to local authorities in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, unknown gunmen carried out a life attempt attack on a female Afghan lawmaker.
The officials further added the incident took place late Sunday evening after a number of unknown gunmen opened fire on lawmaker Frishta Anwari who represents eastern Nangarhar province in Afghan house of representatives.
A local police official speaking on the condition of anonymity said lawmaker Frishta Anwari survived the attack however one of his security guard was critically injured following the attack.
The official also added that the clashes between the security guards of the lawmaker and the gunmen continued for almost 30 minutes in Tangi area on Kabul-Jalalabad highway.
No group or individual has so far claimed responsibility behind the attack.
Nangarhar province is among the relatively peaceful region in eastern Afghanistan however militants have recently increased their activities in a number of its districts.
Interior Ministry Concerned by Increase in Police Casualties
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Sunday, 27 January 2013
IEDs or suicide attacks kill an average of six to 10 policemen daily, according to the ministry or interior, which expressed worry over the number of deaths but said the police suffers only a minimal number of losses in face-to-face battles with insurgents.
"We are very distressed by the increase in casualties of the national police. Unfortunately, our police force suffers losses every day and are forced to struggle to defend their soil and face losses," said Seddiq Seddiqi, spokesperson of the ministry of interior affairs.
According to officials, over the last two days alone, IED and suicide attacks have killed 19 policemen in the provinces of Farah, Kandahar, and Kunduz.
But Seddiqi rejected that the casualties might have a negative effect on police morale.
"The casualties would have no negative effect on the motivation and morale of the national police, and it might even boost their morale to fight better to defend their soil," Seddiqi said.
While the interior ministry is worried by the losses of the Afghan National Police, the country's defense ministry has said that the army's casualties have actually dropped.
"According to the ministry's figures of national army's casualties, the losses have decreased compared to last year," said Gen. Zahir Azimi, defense ministry spokesman.
The defense ministry's statistics show that over the second half of 1390 (September 2011 to March 2012), 479 soldiers were killed, while in the first half of 1391 (March 2012 to October 2012), the number was 463, nearly a one-percent decrease.
The defense ministry also said that 80 percent of the current operations are carried out entirely by Afghan forces.
During drawdown, Pentagon cuts cooked breakfast for some troops in Afghanistan
Washington Guardian By John Solomon Sunday, January 27, 2013
The Army has stopped serving cooked breakfasts to some of the U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan as part of its drawdown, a move that prompted troops to write home asking their families and friends to send care packages with cereal, breakfast bars and other foods.
The Army told the Washington Guardian the current cutbacks began Jan. 1, and affect about 2,700 soldiers deployed in forward operating bases in more remote areas of Afghanistan.
Officials said the reduction of cooked breakfasts and midnight meals is not related to the U.S. budget crisis, but rather is part of the effort to begin closing down U.S. operations in the affected areas and transition them to Afghan troops. The affected soldiers are being given packaged meals known as MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) as substitutes for a cooked breakfast, the officials said.
“As a part of the responsible draw down of operational forces serving in Afghanistan, my staff examined ways to reduce our footprint and set the conditions for the reduction of forces,” explained Col. Joe Wawro, an infantry commander for the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat team.
Wawro said military and civilian leaders collaborated on ideas and “estimated that by changing the meal cycle, they would reduce their overall operations by 40 percent” if breakfast and midnight snacks were converted from cooked options to MREs.
“After carefully examining all these inputs, I decided to modify the meal cycle as described above. This has absolutely nothing to do with the national budget and everything to do with our responsible reduction of forces,” he said.
Wawro said soldiers in the affected bases still get cooked lunch and dinners, and rely on MREs for breakfast and night snacks and that “most dining facilities have a variety of take-away items like cereal, milk juice, fruit, oatmeal, granola bars, etc. to augment the MREs.”
“I see this as a good thing; even though some of the amenities may change as we head home, our Afghan partners continue to transition into the areas we once held,” he said.
Several families of affected soldiers began contacting the Washington Guardian several days ago to raise concerns about the change, reporting their sons, daughters or spouses had written home to seek care packages after the end of cooked breakfasts.
The families refused to speak on the record for fear their loved ones might be singled out for complaining. But they described messages sent via email, Facebook and other social media in which troops didn’t fully understand the reasons for the changes and worried they were related to impending budget cutbacks.
The Washington Guardian reported earlier this month that the current budget crisis in Congress prompted Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to write a memo order preparations for sweeping budget cuts across all military programs to begin as early as next month.
But officials said those orders were not impacting the Afghanistan decisions. They said the meal cutbacks are currently affecting forward operating bases in more remote areas of Afghanistan and not affecting the main American bases in Kabul and Kandahar.
Officials stressed other comforts at the forward operating bases may also soon be reduced, such as laundry and recreation, as officials look for other ways to reduce the American footprint in advance of departing the country.
“In order to set the conditions for each base closure or a base transfer, non-tactical logistics and support services (i.e. any non-mission essential services) must decline. Typically the complete cessation of non-tactical logistics and services, such as laundry services or morale, welfare and recreation services, occurs 2-3 months prior to a base closure or transfer,” Lt. Col. Paul Haverstick said.
“That said, commanders may determine they need to make such changes earlier or phase them in slower over a longer period of time. Such decisions depend on a myriad of factors, such as the size of the base, its location and the transportation assets available to a commander,” he said.
The U.S. military has already transitioned about 50 bases from American to Afghan control and is in the process of a drawdown to be completed by 2014 to meet President Barack Obama’s pledge, officials said. There are currently about 68,000 Americans troops in the country as the U.S., according to NATO, down from more than 100,000 after a 2009 U.S. “surge” designed to overcome a spike in violence that threatened the stability of Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com