Tweet
U.S. Purchases Fuel for Afghanistan, Possibly Undermines Own Iran Oil Sanctions
TIME (blog) By Alex Rogers Jan. 31, 2013
America’s attempts to cripple Iran through economic sanctions may have been undermined by, you guessed it, America. Yesterday SIGAR, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, released a report showing that the U.S. spent nearly $1.1 billion to import fuel for Afghanistan’s National Army (ANA) between 2007 and 2012. Where the fuel came from is anyone’s guess.
In 1995 President Clinton signed an executive order prohibiting American involvement with petroleum development in Iran. Afghanistan, however, is largely dependent upon imports for meeting the majority of its energy needs and, while accurate reports of Afghanistan oil imports vary, estimates suggest that up to one-half of Afghanistan fuel (including all gas and oil used for motor vehicles, aircraft, generators, and cooking) comes from Iran.
The SIGAR report shows that until late 2012, the U.S. did not require fuel vendors, usually Afghanistan-owned companies, to provide information on their sources or checked to see if they followed U.S. sanctions. This information could have been gleaned from oil refineries, which produce a Verified Fuel Passport identifying a fuel’s origin. For 2013, the Pentagon has requested $323 million to purchase fuel for Afghanistan security forces.
“Our report again demonstrates the critical importance that oversight plays in the contracting process,” said Special Inspector General John F. Sopko. “It is essential that the Department of Defense continues to implement strict controls over the fuel supply process to ensure taxpayer funds are not used in violation of Iranian sanctions.”
The report is evidence that SIGAR has teeth as an oversight body after hitting a rough patch over the past few years. In January 2011 Maj. Gen. Arnold Fields resigned after three years as the head over a ripping peer review and a vicious congressional testimony. Afterwards there were two acting SIGAR chiefs before the agency settled on John F. Sopko in July. SIGAR has a budget of about $50 million, and investigates fraud, waste, and abuse in Afghanistan reconstruction projects that total around $19 billion.
The West has cheered the Iran oil sanctions as a major success. From 2011 to 2012, western sanctions halved Iran’s oil exports, leading to billions of dollars in lost revenue and a plunge in value of the Iranian rial. But in December Iran’s crude oil exports leapt to their highest levels since the European Union sanctions took effect last July, according to Reuters, due to increased orders from China, India, and Japan.
In November Combined Security Transition Command, the organization in charge of buying and supplying the fuel for the Afghan Army and National Police, changed their policy to require all vendors to refuse fuel from Iran. It is unclear how effective this will be, as the vendors are essentially regulating themselves and their subcontractors.
Even if U.S. money isn’t being spent on Iran oil, the report shows that after twelve years in Afghanistan, the U.S. still inadequately oversees and cooperates with the Afghan forces. SIGAR reports that the Afghan Army often asks the U.S. to purchase fuel without notifying the Afghanistan Ministry of Defense, destroying the chance of any type of complete record on fuel purchased, delivered, and consumed. In a promising sign for improvement, the U.S. intends to start giving a fuel stipend for Afghan forces to the Ministry of Defense in March instead of supplying units in the field.
Afghanistan continues Iran oil purchase despite US pressure
Press TV February 2, 2013
Afghanistan says it will continue to purchase oil from Iran despite the US pressure on Kabul to stop oil deals with Tehran.
In continuation of Washington’s hostile policies on Iran and the US interference in the internal affairs of other countries, the US Department of State has banned Afghanistan from buying Iran’s crude oil.
According to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, Washington has called on the Afghan government and other allies to take the US sanctions on Iran’s oil sector seriously.
She added that the US would pursue the policy in Afghanistan to make sure that Kabul was not violating the ‘US laws.’
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. The sanctions entered into force last summer.
On October 15, 2012, the EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran.
The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
President Karzai leaves for London to attend trilateral summit
By Mirwais Adeel - 02 Feb 2013, 1:08 pm Khaama Press
Afghan president Hamid Karzai is due to leave Afghanistan along with a high level government officials to visit United Kingdom.
Presidential Palace officials said president Karzai will attend trialeral summit between Afghanistan-Pakistan and United Kingdom besides meeting with the British officials.
The officials also added that president Karzai will visit Norway following the London visit to sign a strategic pact between the two nations.
The summit will discuss cooperation of the three countries for peace and security in the war-torn Afghanistan.
The first trilateral summit was held in Kabul in August when Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf visited the Afghan capital. The second was held in the United Nations on the sidelines of UN annual general assembly’s session.
In the meantime reports also suggest that Pakistan and Afghanistan leaders are likely to discuss the proposed Strategic Partnership Agreement.
Pakistan has already handed over a draft to the Afghan government and President Karzai is expected to come with his initial response, the sources said.
8 NATO service members die in Afghanistan in Jan.
KABUL, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Up to eight soldiers with the NATO- led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had been killed in Afghan war in January this year, the lowest casualty in a month over the past four years.
According to iCasualties, a website tracking the casualties of NATO-led troops in the U.S.-led war on terror, eight soldiers had been killed in the militancy-hit country last month, three of whom are Americans.
A Polish soldier with the coalition was killed in a hostile fire incident on Jan. 23 in eastern Ghazni province, 100 km south of capital city of Kabul, according to the website.
Out of all deaths last month, four soldiers had been killed in home-made bomb or Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks across the country.
The simple but difficult to be detected Taliban weapon used in making suicide vests and roadside bombs, has proved a challenge for Afghan and NATO-led forces in the central Asian country.
Three other service men were killed in separate small arms fire incidents in different part of the insurgency-hit country last month, including one British soldier who was shot and killed by an Afghan army soldier.
The incident took place on Jan. 7, as the Afghan soldier opened fire against coalition forces in a military base in Nahr-e Saraj district of southern Helmand province, 100 km south of Kabul, the latest in the so-called green-on-blue insider attacks.
The shooter was also killed in the firing in the attack claimed by the Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging an insurgency since its regime was toppled by a U.S-led invasion in late 2001.
The casualties of the military alliance in the war against Taliban and other insurgent groups have also dropped down in 2012 for the second successive year in comparison with 2010 when the military alliance suffered the highest losses of lives.
A total of 402 foreign soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in 2012, compared with 566 deaths in 2011. According to the website, in 2010 the casualties of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan had been registered at 711.
Currently there are about 100,000 NATO-led forces, with nearly 66,000 of them Americans, stationed in the country to stop the Taliban from returning to power.
The last of 33,000 U.S. surge troops pulled out of the country last September, which was part of U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan and the ultimate goal is to transfer lead security responsibility to the Afghan forces by 2014.
However, local observers are of the view that a decline in the violence, foreign troops withdrawal and handover of security responsibilities from foreign forces to the Afghan army and police could also be a reason for lower foreign force casualties throughout 2012.
The next steps in Afghanistan
San Jose Mercury News By Trudy Rubin 02/01/2013
Should the United States leave any troops in Afghanistan after 2014? Would that prevent the return of militant jihadis who could threaten nuclear-armed Pakistan next door?
With most or all U.S. forces set to leave Afghanistan by 2014, President Obama is considering a "zero option," which would mean relying on drone strikes and special forces to counter militants, while leaving overall security to shaky Afghan forces.
Is this the best approach, I asked Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who, as U.S. commander in Afghanistan, presided over the U.S. troop "surge," but also led the Joint Special Operations Command in its fight against al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI). His account of his Iraq and Afghan roles, "My Share of the Task: A Memoir," has just been published.
"It's dangerous to view drone strikes as a strategy in itself," the general said firmly in a phone interview. "I fear it is a tempting approach that may be overweighted."
So what does he think the United States should do?
First some background. McChrystal's memoir gives a gripping account of the complex counterterrorism mission that killed AQI leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Yet, when he took command in Afghanistan, the general concluded that a counterterrorism strategy alone would not prevent the country's collapse; nor would it prevent militants from taking control of territory and terrorizing the people.
So McChrystal adopted a classic "counterinsurgency" approach (known as COIN), the concept promoted by Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq. McChrystal requested a surge of U.S. troops "as a bridge" to protect Afghans in key areas, in hopes of buying time for the training of Afghan forces and the strengthening of the Afghan government. "I thought it would work," the general said. "The real question was Afghans' confidence. It was all about their perceptions of impending abandonment."
In other words, if rural Afghans thought U.S. forces would have their back, they would have the courage to stand up to the Taliban -- even as their own government developed the strength to protect them. McChrystal also believed it was critical to treat Afghans with respect, and to limit civilian casualties.
The book details the tensions that arose between McChrystal and the White House over how many "surge" troops should be dispatched (he wanted 40,000 and got 30,000), and over Obama's announcement that he would begin withdrawing surge forces in July 2011.
"I cited concerns that (the announcement) would give the Taliban a sense that if they survived until that date, they could prevail," the general writes. But he concluded that a surge of 30,000 was "something we could work with."
Fast-forward. After the recent departure of the last surge troops, we can see that they stabilized certain areas of Afghanistan, but national and local Afghan government never kept their part of the bargain. Burdened by corruption, bereft of government services, Afghans once again fear pending abandonment by international forces. They have no certainty that their own security forces can protect them. And the Taliban is once again making serious inroads.
Meantime, McChrystal was fired by Obama in 2010 over a Rolling Stone article that quoted him and his staff as making critical remarks about White House officials.
COIN theory is now in disfavor. In an age of austerity, Obama has adopted a far more limited counterterrorism strategy, while promising to maintain a "strategic partnership" with Kabul.
Yet McChrystal still believes more is needed. "I still think the issue of (Afghan) confidence is crucial," he told me. "When President Obama talks about partnership ... the Afghan people have to believe there is some sinew to that -- that we are a reliable ally."
If Afghans think Washington is committed to the partnership, McChrystal believes their army, now better trained, can hold together -- with U.S. assistance in training, air support and logistics, and intelligence. Educated Afghans would be less likely to flee. The Taliban might be persuaded to make a political deal -- with Pakistan more willing to facilitate such a deal.
On the other hand, if Obama goes for a "zero option" or a tiny, symbolic number of troops (rather than the 9,000-15,000 the military reportedly seeks), "it would be very difficult to convince Afghans there was a strategic partnership." U.S. diplomats would be hunkered down in Kabul. Afghan and Pakistani officials might become even more hostile to drone strikes.
"I became convinced (in Afghanistan) that counterterrorism is only effective if meshed with a wider strategy," McChrystal said. As for the use of drones, "It is a very limited approach that gives the illusion you are making progress because you are doing something."
When deciding if any troops should stay on in Afghanistan in 2014, White House officials would be wise to consider these concerns.
Trudy Rubin is a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist.
5 militants detained in Afghanistan: ISAF
KABUL, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Five militants were captured in operations in the eastern Afghan region, said the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Saturday.
"Afghan and coalition forces detained five insurgents and cleared four improvised explosive devices during operations in eastern Afghanistan throughout the past 24 hours," the ISAF's Regional Command-East said in a press release.
The detained men were captured in Paktiya and neighboring Ghazni province and were transferred to bases for questioning, it said, adding that operations in RC-East are ongoing.
The Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments.
How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Start in Kabul
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBINand DANIEL J. WAKIN February 1, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - Every night Mohsen, a slight, awkward 13-year-old boy, goes home from school to an orphanage here and does something that would probably have been impossible a dozen years ago: he practices his violin before going to bed.
The instrument, he said, has become his closest friend. “It has a sad voice,” he said.
All such voices, happy or sad, were banned by the Taliban from 1996 to 2001, when they imposed their extremist vision of Islam on Afghanistan, a country with a long and rich musical tradition. Musicians were beaten, instruments destroyed, cassette tapes smashed.
But since 2010 an Afghan music scholar trained in Australia, aided by a Juilliard-educated violinist and with government backing, has kept a small music school going in Kabul, putting musical instruments into the hands of street kids and striving to make space for girls in a country where education is often denied them.
The very existence of the school, the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, is a significant achievement. Now it is sending a group of youngsters, ages 9 to 21, to the United States for a 13-day tour. They arrive on Sunday, with performances scheduled for the Kennedy Center in Washington (on Thursday) and Carnegie Hall (on Feb. 12), not to mention an ice-skating trip to Yonkers and a visit to “The Lion King” on Broadway.
“It’s the responsibility of a musician to defend the right of human beings everywhere to be musical and to express themselves through music,” said William Harvey, the American violinist who is the conductor of the school’s Afghanistan Youth Orchestra. “We’re celebrating a victory: the return of music.”
The 48 Afghan students on the tour will perform in traditional ensembles and in a Western-style orchestra in tandem with players from the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra and the Scarsdale High School Orchestra, which helped raise money for the tour.
The Afghans will also play at the State Department, the Italian Embassy and the World Bank. They will stay together in hotels, traveling under the eyes of security guards. United States Embassy officials here have warned the students not to abscond.
The organizers say the tour has special significance in a country so marked by violence and misery. “We are taking the message of peace and stability to the international community to show what a positive change has occurred,” said the school’s founder and driving force, Ahmad Sarmast, who has a Ph.D. in music from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Yet worries linger. Music in Afghanistan still draws strident censure from the many conservative mullahs, who insist that it is un-Islamic. And once the American military withdraws next year, the school’s existence could become precarious if such conservative forces come to power.
For now, though, the school is pushing ahead with its ambitious plans. Altogether it will cost $13 million to run the school for the next 11 years, including the construction of a concert hall, rehearsal space and dormitories for the students, who attend free, Mr. Sarmast said. At least six embassies — including that of the United States — contribute to the school’s annual costs, along with the Goethe Institut, the British Council and Afghanistan’s religiously conservative Ministry of Education (a shield against accusations that the institute is “un-Islamic”).
The American tour is primarily sponsored by the United States Embassy, which is spending slightly more than $300,000, according to embassy officials. The World Bank, which is underwriting the school’s new concert hall and dormitory, is putting up more than $100,000 for the tour; other contributors include the Carnegie Corporation and the Asian Cultural Council.
Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center officials have also thrown their weight behind the concerts. Carnegie will bring schoolchildren to the performance in Stern Auditorium and has helped with publicity. The Kennedy Center has lent a hand with costs and is putting the Afghan orchestra in its Millennium Stage series in the main concert hall.
“This is a moment that they can grab,” said Garth Ross, the Kennedy Center’s vice president for community engagement. “They’re doing so in such a positive, public, global way. That’s super inspiring.”
Besides training in music theory and Western and Afghan instruments, the school offers its 141 students the ministry’s curriculum, which includes religious and Koranic studies. Significantly, a third of the students are girls, who often struggle to receive basic education in Afghanistan. Half the students are from orphanages or are former street kids. Few had any musical knowledge before they arrived.
The students come from almost every province and include members of the country’s three main ethnic groups, the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Hazaras, Mr. Sarmast said. “We have a wonderful mosaic of Afghanistan here,” he said. “Part of our commitment is to promote musical diversity in Afghanistan.”
The faculty includes a half-dozen Westerners.
The school offers something else: a place of security. For many students this is simply the first time in their lives that an adult has paid attention to them and encouraged their talent.
In fact, it might just be the happiest place in Kabul.
At midday recently, chattering children poured out of the red two-story building, each grasping a plastic-foam lunch container in one hand and a water bottle in the other. They wolfed down their food and raced back to class, showing a level of engagement rarely seen in Afghan schools.
In a cramped rehearsal room where the children and teachers were crowded in chairs barely an inch apart, Mr. Harvey was trying in vain to quiet the students so that they could begin rehearsing both the Afghan and Western pieces for their Carnegie Hall concert.
“We start from silence,” he shouted over the din. When he had quiet, he counted in Dari, “Yak, du, sei, char,” prompting the first soft notes of Ravel’s “Bolero.”
In another practice room two girls were playing a raga on sitars, their faces rapt in concentration. Next door three boys practiced the Western flute as a teacher supervised. At the end of the corridor, where the rooms have upright pianos, a thin lad, Arson Fahim, 14, played a Mozart sonata.
An organization that works with orphans, the Afghan Child Education and Care Organization, brought Arson to the school. Speaking in hesitant but clear English — English is a required course — he said he had no idea how he came to love Western classical music. “I had never had any hope I would ever see a piano,” said Arson, who was introduced to the keyboard just a year ago.
Now, after devouring recordings on the Internet by different pianists, he sounds like a savvy conservatory student. “I like the way Richter plays Mozart,” he said, referring to the Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter. Another pianist, Milad, 18, also in English, declared himself partial to Bach. Both said they were in awe of the pianist Glenn Gould and carried on a 10-minute conversation about his technique.
“Glenn Gould was a genius because he could watch 12 movies at the same time, and that’s why he plays Bach so well,” said Milad. “Because you have to have five voices at the same time with Bach. I can listen to two, but five is almost impossible.”
Marjan, a 14-year-old girl with a face at once tough and sad, came to the school through Aschiana, a nongovernmental organization that works with Afghan street kids and displaced people. She has been playing the violin for three years. Mr. Harvey, the youth orchestra’s conductor, said her story encapsulates the hope of music.
“When you see a little girl who was selling chewing gum on the street because her father was beaten by the Taliban with a chain so badly that he couldn’t work, and her mother does laundry to bring in enough money,” he said, “this is really a historic moment.”
Americans are weary, even cynical, after reports of so much violence, he said. “But with these two big concerts in New York and Washington, we are showing people not to give up on Afghanistan.”
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and Daniel J. Wakin from New York.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 1, 2013
An earlier version of this article contained a photo caption with an incorrect name for one of the musicians. She is Gulalai, not Homa, who is seated to her left.
Afghanistan warns Kabul police: Start following traffic rules
Stars and Stripes By Heath Druzin January 30, 2013
KABUL - Police in the capital have plenty to monitor already — suicide bombers, kidnappers, car thieves. Now add to that list their own comrades behaving badly on the roads.
The Ministry of Interior has issued a warning to Afghan National Police officers: Those caught flouting traffic laws in government vehicles will be punished. The ministry is even dispatching patrols with the sole purpose of catching fellow officers driving carelessly or using their government vehicles for personal errands.
Corruption has been an ongoing problem for the Afghan security forces, especially in the ranks of the police, consistently viewed with less trust by Afghans than the army. In Kabul, where traffic is already perpetually snarled, residents are accustomed to police trucks barreling through traffic and cutting off other drivers.
In a released statement, the Ministry of Interior says it’s beginning a crackdown on reckless driving by officers and the use of government vehicles outside of duty hours.
“There have been accidents in Kabul and the provinces because of the careless driving by the police,” said Ministry of Interior spokesman Najib Danish.
Danish said some of the crashes have caused injuries and that officers driving their vehicles, often packed with armed soldiers, after work hours led to a more militarized feel in Kabul and in the provinces.
The Ministry of the Interior warning also said officers who park their official cars at their homes instead of in police lots will be punished.
Offenders who are caught driving recklessly or misusing their police vehicles will get a warning first and, upon a second offense, face criminal prosecution, Danish said.
The new patrols will also be on the lookout for dangerous driving by civilians, though what will constitute “dangerous” is yet to be seen in Kabul, where wrong-way driving and passing with oncoming traffic bearing down are normal, lanes are nonexistent, and traffic enforcement mostly consists of fining drivers caught at checkpoints with expired licenses. Fortunately, speeding is not much of a problem, as the city’s near-constant traffic jams assure lead-footed drivers have few opportunities to get past third gear.
Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
TIME (blog) By Alex Rogers Jan. 31, 2013
America’s attempts to cripple Iran through economic sanctions may have been undermined by, you guessed it, America. Yesterday SIGAR, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, released a report showing that the U.S. spent nearly $1.1 billion to import fuel for Afghanistan’s National Army (ANA) between 2007 and 2012. Where the fuel came from is anyone’s guess.
In 1995 President Clinton signed an executive order prohibiting American involvement with petroleum development in Iran. Afghanistan, however, is largely dependent upon imports for meeting the majority of its energy needs and, while accurate reports of Afghanistan oil imports vary, estimates suggest that up to one-half of Afghanistan fuel (including all gas and oil used for motor vehicles, aircraft, generators, and cooking) comes from Iran.
The SIGAR report shows that until late 2012, the U.S. did not require fuel vendors, usually Afghanistan-owned companies, to provide information on their sources or checked to see if they followed U.S. sanctions. This information could have been gleaned from oil refineries, which produce a Verified Fuel Passport identifying a fuel’s origin. For 2013, the Pentagon has requested $323 million to purchase fuel for Afghanistan security forces.
“Our report again demonstrates the critical importance that oversight plays in the contracting process,” said Special Inspector General John F. Sopko. “It is essential that the Department of Defense continues to implement strict controls over the fuel supply process to ensure taxpayer funds are not used in violation of Iranian sanctions.”
The report is evidence that SIGAR has teeth as an oversight body after hitting a rough patch over the past few years. In January 2011 Maj. Gen. Arnold Fields resigned after three years as the head over a ripping peer review and a vicious congressional testimony. Afterwards there were two acting SIGAR chiefs before the agency settled on John F. Sopko in July. SIGAR has a budget of about $50 million, and investigates fraud, waste, and abuse in Afghanistan reconstruction projects that total around $19 billion.
The West has cheered the Iran oil sanctions as a major success. From 2011 to 2012, western sanctions halved Iran’s oil exports, leading to billions of dollars in lost revenue and a plunge in value of the Iranian rial. But in December Iran’s crude oil exports leapt to their highest levels since the European Union sanctions took effect last July, according to Reuters, due to increased orders from China, India, and Japan.
In November Combined Security Transition Command, the organization in charge of buying and supplying the fuel for the Afghan Army and National Police, changed their policy to require all vendors to refuse fuel from Iran. It is unclear how effective this will be, as the vendors are essentially regulating themselves and their subcontractors.
Even if U.S. money isn’t being spent on Iran oil, the report shows that after twelve years in Afghanistan, the U.S. still inadequately oversees and cooperates with the Afghan forces. SIGAR reports that the Afghan Army often asks the U.S. to purchase fuel without notifying the Afghanistan Ministry of Defense, destroying the chance of any type of complete record on fuel purchased, delivered, and consumed. In a promising sign for improvement, the U.S. intends to start giving a fuel stipend for Afghan forces to the Ministry of Defense in March instead of supplying units in the field.
Afghanistan continues Iran oil purchase despite US pressure
Press TV February 2, 2013
Afghanistan says it will continue to purchase oil from Iran despite the US pressure on Kabul to stop oil deals with Tehran.
In continuation of Washington’s hostile policies on Iran and the US interference in the internal affairs of other countries, the US Department of State has banned Afghanistan from buying Iran’s crude oil.
According to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, Washington has called on the Afghan government and other allies to take the US sanctions on Iran’s oil sector seriously.
She added that the US would pursue the policy in Afghanistan to make sure that Kabul was not violating the ‘US laws.’
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. The sanctions entered into force last summer.
On October 15, 2012, the EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran.
The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
President Karzai leaves for London to attend trilateral summit
By Mirwais Adeel - 02 Feb 2013, 1:08 pm Khaama Press
Afghan president Hamid Karzai is due to leave Afghanistan along with a high level government officials to visit United Kingdom.
Presidential Palace officials said president Karzai will attend trialeral summit between Afghanistan-Pakistan and United Kingdom besides meeting with the British officials.
The officials also added that president Karzai will visit Norway following the London visit to sign a strategic pact between the two nations.
The summit will discuss cooperation of the three countries for peace and security in the war-torn Afghanistan.
The first trilateral summit was held in Kabul in August when Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf visited the Afghan capital. The second was held in the United Nations on the sidelines of UN annual general assembly’s session.
In the meantime reports also suggest that Pakistan and Afghanistan leaders are likely to discuss the proposed Strategic Partnership Agreement.
Pakistan has already handed over a draft to the Afghan government and President Karzai is expected to come with his initial response, the sources said.
8 NATO service members die in Afghanistan in Jan.
KABUL, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Up to eight soldiers with the NATO- led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had been killed in Afghan war in January this year, the lowest casualty in a month over the past four years.
According to iCasualties, a website tracking the casualties of NATO-led troops in the U.S.-led war on terror, eight soldiers had been killed in the militancy-hit country last month, three of whom are Americans.
A Polish soldier with the coalition was killed in a hostile fire incident on Jan. 23 in eastern Ghazni province, 100 km south of capital city of Kabul, according to the website.
Out of all deaths last month, four soldiers had been killed in home-made bomb or Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks across the country.
The simple but difficult to be detected Taliban weapon used in making suicide vests and roadside bombs, has proved a challenge for Afghan and NATO-led forces in the central Asian country.
Three other service men were killed in separate small arms fire incidents in different part of the insurgency-hit country last month, including one British soldier who was shot and killed by an Afghan army soldier.
The incident took place on Jan. 7, as the Afghan soldier opened fire against coalition forces in a military base in Nahr-e Saraj district of southern Helmand province, 100 km south of Kabul, the latest in the so-called green-on-blue insider attacks.
The shooter was also killed in the firing in the attack claimed by the Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging an insurgency since its regime was toppled by a U.S-led invasion in late 2001.
The casualties of the military alliance in the war against Taliban and other insurgent groups have also dropped down in 2012 for the second successive year in comparison with 2010 when the military alliance suffered the highest losses of lives.
A total of 402 foreign soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in 2012, compared with 566 deaths in 2011. According to the website, in 2010 the casualties of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan had been registered at 711.
Currently there are about 100,000 NATO-led forces, with nearly 66,000 of them Americans, stationed in the country to stop the Taliban from returning to power.
The last of 33,000 U.S. surge troops pulled out of the country last September, which was part of U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan and the ultimate goal is to transfer lead security responsibility to the Afghan forces by 2014.
However, local observers are of the view that a decline in the violence, foreign troops withdrawal and handover of security responsibilities from foreign forces to the Afghan army and police could also be a reason for lower foreign force casualties throughout 2012.
The next steps in Afghanistan
San Jose Mercury News By Trudy Rubin 02/01/2013
Should the United States leave any troops in Afghanistan after 2014? Would that prevent the return of militant jihadis who could threaten nuclear-armed Pakistan next door?
With most or all U.S. forces set to leave Afghanistan by 2014, President Obama is considering a "zero option," which would mean relying on drone strikes and special forces to counter militants, while leaving overall security to shaky Afghan forces.
Is this the best approach, I asked Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who, as U.S. commander in Afghanistan, presided over the U.S. troop "surge," but also led the Joint Special Operations Command in its fight against al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI). His account of his Iraq and Afghan roles, "My Share of the Task: A Memoir," has just been published.
"It's dangerous to view drone strikes as a strategy in itself," the general said firmly in a phone interview. "I fear it is a tempting approach that may be overweighted."
So what does he think the United States should do?
First some background. McChrystal's memoir gives a gripping account of the complex counterterrorism mission that killed AQI leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Yet, when he took command in Afghanistan, the general concluded that a counterterrorism strategy alone would not prevent the country's collapse; nor would it prevent militants from taking control of territory and terrorizing the people.
So McChrystal adopted a classic "counterinsurgency" approach (known as COIN), the concept promoted by Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq. McChrystal requested a surge of U.S. troops "as a bridge" to protect Afghans in key areas, in hopes of buying time for the training of Afghan forces and the strengthening of the Afghan government. "I thought it would work," the general said. "The real question was Afghans' confidence. It was all about their perceptions of impending abandonment."
In other words, if rural Afghans thought U.S. forces would have their back, they would have the courage to stand up to the Taliban -- even as their own government developed the strength to protect them. McChrystal also believed it was critical to treat Afghans with respect, and to limit civilian casualties.
The book details the tensions that arose between McChrystal and the White House over how many "surge" troops should be dispatched (he wanted 40,000 and got 30,000), and over Obama's announcement that he would begin withdrawing surge forces in July 2011.
"I cited concerns that (the announcement) would give the Taliban a sense that if they survived until that date, they could prevail," the general writes. But he concluded that a surge of 30,000 was "something we could work with."
Fast-forward. After the recent departure of the last surge troops, we can see that they stabilized certain areas of Afghanistan, but national and local Afghan government never kept their part of the bargain. Burdened by corruption, bereft of government services, Afghans once again fear pending abandonment by international forces. They have no certainty that their own security forces can protect them. And the Taliban is once again making serious inroads.
Meantime, McChrystal was fired by Obama in 2010 over a Rolling Stone article that quoted him and his staff as making critical remarks about White House officials.
COIN theory is now in disfavor. In an age of austerity, Obama has adopted a far more limited counterterrorism strategy, while promising to maintain a "strategic partnership" with Kabul.
Yet McChrystal still believes more is needed. "I still think the issue of (Afghan) confidence is crucial," he told me. "When President Obama talks about partnership ... the Afghan people have to believe there is some sinew to that -- that we are a reliable ally."
If Afghans think Washington is committed to the partnership, McChrystal believes their army, now better trained, can hold together -- with U.S. assistance in training, air support and logistics, and intelligence. Educated Afghans would be less likely to flee. The Taliban might be persuaded to make a political deal -- with Pakistan more willing to facilitate such a deal.
On the other hand, if Obama goes for a "zero option" or a tiny, symbolic number of troops (rather than the 9,000-15,000 the military reportedly seeks), "it would be very difficult to convince Afghans there was a strategic partnership." U.S. diplomats would be hunkered down in Kabul. Afghan and Pakistani officials might become even more hostile to drone strikes.
"I became convinced (in Afghanistan) that counterterrorism is only effective if meshed with a wider strategy," McChrystal said. As for the use of drones, "It is a very limited approach that gives the illusion you are making progress because you are doing something."
When deciding if any troops should stay on in Afghanistan in 2014, White House officials would be wise to consider these concerns.
Trudy Rubin is a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist.
5 militants detained in Afghanistan: ISAF
KABUL, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Five militants were captured in operations in the eastern Afghan region, said the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Saturday.
"Afghan and coalition forces detained five insurgents and cleared four improvised explosive devices during operations in eastern Afghanistan throughout the past 24 hours," the ISAF's Regional Command-East said in a press release.
The detained men were captured in Paktiya and neighboring Ghazni province and were transferred to bases for questioning, it said, adding that operations in RC-East are ongoing.
The Taliban insurgent group, which has been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments.
How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Start in Kabul
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBINand DANIEL J. WAKIN February 1, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - Every night Mohsen, a slight, awkward 13-year-old boy, goes home from school to an orphanage here and does something that would probably have been impossible a dozen years ago: he practices his violin before going to bed.
The instrument, he said, has become his closest friend. “It has a sad voice,” he said.
All such voices, happy or sad, were banned by the Taliban from 1996 to 2001, when they imposed their extremist vision of Islam on Afghanistan, a country with a long and rich musical tradition. Musicians were beaten, instruments destroyed, cassette tapes smashed.
But since 2010 an Afghan music scholar trained in Australia, aided by a Juilliard-educated violinist and with government backing, has kept a small music school going in Kabul, putting musical instruments into the hands of street kids and striving to make space for girls in a country where education is often denied them.
The very existence of the school, the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, is a significant achievement. Now it is sending a group of youngsters, ages 9 to 21, to the United States for a 13-day tour. They arrive on Sunday, with performances scheduled for the Kennedy Center in Washington (on Thursday) and Carnegie Hall (on Feb. 12), not to mention an ice-skating trip to Yonkers and a visit to “The Lion King” on Broadway.
“It’s the responsibility of a musician to defend the right of human beings everywhere to be musical and to express themselves through music,” said William Harvey, the American violinist who is the conductor of the school’s Afghanistan Youth Orchestra. “We’re celebrating a victory: the return of music.”
The 48 Afghan students on the tour will perform in traditional ensembles and in a Western-style orchestra in tandem with players from the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra and the Scarsdale High School Orchestra, which helped raise money for the tour.
The Afghans will also play at the State Department, the Italian Embassy and the World Bank. They will stay together in hotels, traveling under the eyes of security guards. United States Embassy officials here have warned the students not to abscond.
The organizers say the tour has special significance in a country so marked by violence and misery. “We are taking the message of peace and stability to the international community to show what a positive change has occurred,” said the school’s founder and driving force, Ahmad Sarmast, who has a Ph.D. in music from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Yet worries linger. Music in Afghanistan still draws strident censure from the many conservative mullahs, who insist that it is un-Islamic. And once the American military withdraws next year, the school’s existence could become precarious if such conservative forces come to power.
For now, though, the school is pushing ahead with its ambitious plans. Altogether it will cost $13 million to run the school for the next 11 years, including the construction of a concert hall, rehearsal space and dormitories for the students, who attend free, Mr. Sarmast said. At least six embassies — including that of the United States — contribute to the school’s annual costs, along with the Goethe Institut, the British Council and Afghanistan’s religiously conservative Ministry of Education (a shield against accusations that the institute is “un-Islamic”).
The American tour is primarily sponsored by the United States Embassy, which is spending slightly more than $300,000, according to embassy officials. The World Bank, which is underwriting the school’s new concert hall and dormitory, is putting up more than $100,000 for the tour; other contributors include the Carnegie Corporation and the Asian Cultural Council.
Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center officials have also thrown their weight behind the concerts. Carnegie will bring schoolchildren to the performance in Stern Auditorium and has helped with publicity. The Kennedy Center has lent a hand with costs and is putting the Afghan orchestra in its Millennium Stage series in the main concert hall.
“This is a moment that they can grab,” said Garth Ross, the Kennedy Center’s vice president for community engagement. “They’re doing so in such a positive, public, global way. That’s super inspiring.”
Besides training in music theory and Western and Afghan instruments, the school offers its 141 students the ministry’s curriculum, which includes religious and Koranic studies. Significantly, a third of the students are girls, who often struggle to receive basic education in Afghanistan. Half the students are from orphanages or are former street kids. Few had any musical knowledge before they arrived.
The students come from almost every province and include members of the country’s three main ethnic groups, the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Hazaras, Mr. Sarmast said. “We have a wonderful mosaic of Afghanistan here,” he said. “Part of our commitment is to promote musical diversity in Afghanistan.”
The faculty includes a half-dozen Westerners.
The school offers something else: a place of security. For many students this is simply the first time in their lives that an adult has paid attention to them and encouraged their talent.
In fact, it might just be the happiest place in Kabul.
At midday recently, chattering children poured out of the red two-story building, each grasping a plastic-foam lunch container in one hand and a water bottle in the other. They wolfed down their food and raced back to class, showing a level of engagement rarely seen in Afghan schools.
In a cramped rehearsal room where the children and teachers were crowded in chairs barely an inch apart, Mr. Harvey was trying in vain to quiet the students so that they could begin rehearsing both the Afghan and Western pieces for their Carnegie Hall concert.
“We start from silence,” he shouted over the din. When he had quiet, he counted in Dari, “Yak, du, sei, char,” prompting the first soft notes of Ravel’s “Bolero.”
In another practice room two girls were playing a raga on sitars, their faces rapt in concentration. Next door three boys practiced the Western flute as a teacher supervised. At the end of the corridor, where the rooms have upright pianos, a thin lad, Arson Fahim, 14, played a Mozart sonata.
An organization that works with orphans, the Afghan Child Education and Care Organization, brought Arson to the school. Speaking in hesitant but clear English — English is a required course — he said he had no idea how he came to love Western classical music. “I had never had any hope I would ever see a piano,” said Arson, who was introduced to the keyboard just a year ago.
Now, after devouring recordings on the Internet by different pianists, he sounds like a savvy conservatory student. “I like the way Richter plays Mozart,” he said, referring to the Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter. Another pianist, Milad, 18, also in English, declared himself partial to Bach. Both said they were in awe of the pianist Glenn Gould and carried on a 10-minute conversation about his technique.
“Glenn Gould was a genius because he could watch 12 movies at the same time, and that’s why he plays Bach so well,” said Milad. “Because you have to have five voices at the same time with Bach. I can listen to two, but five is almost impossible.”
Marjan, a 14-year-old girl with a face at once tough and sad, came to the school through Aschiana, a nongovernmental organization that works with Afghan street kids and displaced people. She has been playing the violin for three years. Mr. Harvey, the youth orchestra’s conductor, said her story encapsulates the hope of music.
“When you see a little girl who was selling chewing gum on the street because her father was beaten by the Taliban with a chain so badly that he couldn’t work, and her mother does laundry to bring in enough money,” he said, “this is really a historic moment.”
Americans are weary, even cynical, after reports of so much violence, he said. “But with these two big concerts in New York and Washington, we are showing people not to give up on Afghanistan.”
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and Daniel J. Wakin from New York.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 1, 2013
An earlier version of this article contained a photo caption with an incorrect name for one of the musicians. She is Gulalai, not Homa, who is seated to her left.
Afghanistan warns Kabul police: Start following traffic rules
Stars and Stripes By Heath Druzin January 30, 2013
KABUL - Police in the capital have plenty to monitor already — suicide bombers, kidnappers, car thieves. Now add to that list their own comrades behaving badly on the roads.
The Ministry of Interior has issued a warning to Afghan National Police officers: Those caught flouting traffic laws in government vehicles will be punished. The ministry is even dispatching patrols with the sole purpose of catching fellow officers driving carelessly or using their government vehicles for personal errands.
Corruption has been an ongoing problem for the Afghan security forces, especially in the ranks of the police, consistently viewed with less trust by Afghans than the army. In Kabul, where traffic is already perpetually snarled, residents are accustomed to police trucks barreling through traffic and cutting off other drivers.
In a released statement, the Ministry of Interior says it’s beginning a crackdown on reckless driving by officers and the use of government vehicles outside of duty hours.
“There have been accidents in Kabul and the provinces because of the careless driving by the police,” said Ministry of Interior spokesman Najib Danish.
Danish said some of the crashes have caused injuries and that officers driving their vehicles, often packed with armed soldiers, after work hours led to a more militarized feel in Kabul and in the provinces.
The Ministry of the Interior warning also said officers who park their official cars at their homes instead of in police lots will be punished.
Offenders who are caught driving recklessly or misusing their police vehicles will get a warning first and, upon a second offense, face criminal prosecution, Danish said.
The new patrols will also be on the lookout for dangerous driving by civilians, though what will constitute “dangerous” is yet to be seen in Kabul, where wrong-way driving and passing with oncoming traffic bearing down are normal, lanes are nonexistent, and traffic enforcement mostly consists of fining drivers caught at checkpoints with expired licenses. Fortunately, speeding is not much of a problem, as the city’s near-constant traffic jams assure lead-footed drivers have few opportunities to get past third gear.
Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com