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U.S. Sets Stage for Exodus from Afghanistan
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE February 8, 2013
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan - Camp John Pratt is preparing for an invasion. The 880-acre sprawl in this northern city will soon become a parking lot for a decade's worth of American military equipment on the way home.
Bulldozers, dump trucks and road graders are shuttling around the camp, rushing to complete a $27 million construction job in advance of the U.S. withdrawal. Prefabricated hangars and rows of general-purpose tents have been erected to accommodate an influx of military hardware and the personnel who will move it. Hundreds of vehicles in identical desert tan are already here, parked in rows and ready to be sent to their next destination.
"We've collapsed both in from the east and west as we transition over a lot of the security responsibilities to the Afghans," said Marine Corps Brig. Gen. John Bullard, the deputy commander for coalition forces in the north of Afghanistan.
The coalition's military mission ends in December next year, the deadline by which most of the 66,000 U.S. troops in the country are slated to go home. President Barack Obama is expected to outline the speed of this drawdown, and the size of a residual U.S. force that may stay in Afghanistan after 2014, as soon as Tuesday's State of the Union address.
The clock is already ticking. A mountain of equipment has accumulated in this landlocked country since the invasion that ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001. To move that mountain, the military has three options: It can fly equipment out, move it south to Pakistani ports, or send it north through Central Asia.
On a map, Gen. Bullard pointed to a primary geographical challenge: the Hindu Kush mountain range that bisects the country, roughly separating north from south.
"You've really got one way through it—that's the Salang Tunnel," he said, referring to the treacherous, high-altitude truck route that passes through a long, decrepit tunnel that has seen little maintenance since Soviet engineers built it in the early 1960s. The tunnel often shuts down because of bad weather.
That is where Camp John Pratt comes in. The U.S. military broke ground on the project last year to create a staging area for the withdrawal of U.S. troops on the northern side of the Hindu Kush. If a piece of kit belongs to the U.S. military, and it is anywhere north of Salang, it will likely end up at Camp John Pratt before it is packed up and shipped home. Otherwise, it will be sent to the scrap heap.
Named after a U.S. Army aviator, Camp John Pratt is adjacent to a commercial airport and railway line. The most sensitive equipment—certain weapons or communications gear—must be flown out. An hour's drive away is the Hairaton border crossing to Uzbekistan, which provides a link to a network of rail and truck routes that reach across Central Asia and Russia to Baltic and Black Sea ports.
U.S. officials negotiated use of the routes, known as the Northern Distribution Network, as an alternative inbound supply line for Afghanistan amid worsening relations with Pakistan and attacks on coalition supply convoys.
Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, the outgoing U.S. commander, said the overland exit routes remain largely untested.
"The Northern Distribution Network has been used coming in, but in large measure hasn't been used going out," he told The Wall Street Journal. "Pakistani ground lines of communication have not been flowing out, but flowing in."
Gen. Allen said the military was using test shipments to ensure that the routes, permits and agreements are all in place.
"What we want is for all three lines to be flowing by the spring and to achieve full velocity on all three [air and land lines of communication] in order for us have removed the preponderance of equipment out of theater for all 50 nations by the end of '14," said Gen. Allen, who is expected to become the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's chief military commander.
The government of Uzbekistan in particular is likely to "drive a fairly hard bargain" in negotiations with the U.S. over moving military cargo over its territory, said Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
Countries along the northern exit route may also have an opportunity to bargain with Washington about acquiring some used, nonlethal military hardware to Central Asian nations "remains an option, but it is premature to speculate on what, if anything, might be provided," a State Department spokeswoman said. The transfer of equipment would have to be approved by the State Department.
Securing permits for the passage of U.S. military cargo opens the potential for friction with the Afghan government, which is increasingly assertive of its sovereignty—and short of funds.
Under an agreement between Kabul and Washington, the U.S. military can bring equipment in and out of Afghanistan without being subject to taxes or customs duties. But Afghanistan's Customs and Revenue Department still has to review each shipment of U.S. military cargo for export, said U.S. Army Col. Tom Collins, a coalition spokesman.
The Afghan government had issued directives to customs officers to help speed the process, said Mohammad Zaher Ansari, deputy director of the Afghan customs office in Hairaton, the crossing into Uzbekistan.
But Mr. Ansari said the U.S.-led coalition sometimes lacked documentation for items brought previously into the country. "It's fine that you are going to move your equipment out of the country," he said. "But you have to take it through our regulations—our customs law. You should present us with the customs documents you received when you imported them to Afghanistan."
Of course, when U.S. troops first arrived here in 2001 to oust the Taliban, customs regulations were the last of their concerns. —Maria Abi-Habib contributed to this article.
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared February 9, 2013, on page A7 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: U.S. Sets Up Afghan Exit Route.
U.S. rejects U.N. report on children killed in Afghanistan
The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child cites reports that U.S. forces killed hundreds of Afghan children in the last four years, which the U.S. calls 'categorically unfounded.'
Los Angeles Times By Shashank Bengali February 8, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S. military Friday strongly rejected reports cited by a United Nations committee indicating that American forces had killed hundreds of children in Afghanistan over the last four years.
The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said it was alarmed by reports that hundreds of children had died in U.S. attacks and airstrikes due to a "reported lack of precautionary measures and indiscriminate use of force."
The U.S. military called the reports "categorically unfounded."
The U.N. committee stated its concern last week in a response to a periodic report by the United States on measures it had taken to protect children in armed conflict. The committee also expressed concern that "members of the armed forces responsible for the killings of children have not always been held accountable."
In a statement, the U.S. military said the reports were unsubstantiated and cited figures from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan showing that the vast majority of civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan over the last several years were caused by insurgents.
The Geneva-based U.N. committee, which is independent of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, was reviewing U.S. policies on children in conflict for the first time since 2008. In addition to the Afghan mission's figures, it received information from several international rights groups, including New York-based Human Rights Watch.
In April, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that 110 children were killed and 68 were injured in 2011 in airstrikes conducted by pro-government forces, led by the United States, which furnishes air power for the Afghan government. Those figures represented a doubling of the child casualties from a year earlier, Ban said.
But the U.S. military said that the International Security Assistance Force, which it leads, reduced civilian casualties by 49% in 2012 from 2011, and that the number of children killed or wounded in ISAF air operations fell by nearly 40%.
The military rejected the allegation that it used force indiscriminately, saying it applies strict rules when carrying out airstrikes in areas where civilians may be. When their operations do kill civilians, "ISAF and U.S. military officials make every effort to meet with the families of those we have harmed and to express our condolences personally," the statement said.
Advocacy groups praised the U.N. committee's findings and called on the United States to do more to protect children on the battlefield.
"The U.S. must also honor its international law obligations to thoroughly and independently investigate civilian deaths and abuses against children, hold perpetrators accountable and compensate victims," Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Human Rights Program, told the Associated Press.
6 Afghan Civilians Killed in Blast
VOA News February 9, 2013
Officials in southern Afghanistan say a roadside bomb blast has killed six family members.
Authorities say the two women and four men, all civilians, were killed Friday evening when their car struck a mine in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province.
Roadside bombs are the favorite weapons of Taliban insurgents fighting to oust the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.
UK defence secretary visits Afghanistan
AP 08/02/2013
LONDON - British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond made an unannounced visit to southern Afghanistan to visit UK troops, his ministry said.
He returned home on Thursday after a two-day visit to the country, where he met with new Afghan Defense Minister Bismillah Mohammadi in Kabul and with British personnel at an observation post and patrol base in Helmand province, the ministry said.
Hammond’s visit comes after British Prime Minister David Cameron hosted Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari for trilateral talks on Afghanistan’s floundering peace and reconciliation process.
Attempts at peace have faltered even as international forces prepare to withdraw from the country in 2014.
British troops form the second-largest Nato contingent fighting to stop the Taliban insurgency ahead of the planned withdrawal.
Rare Afghan fashion show part of effort to empower women
The Associated Press By Amir Shah And Kim Gamel 08/02/2013
KABUL - Afghan models paraded down a candle-lined catwalk Friday as men and women watched from the audience in a restaurant off a muddy street in Kabul.
The rare fashion show in this war-weary capital was a small production but a big idea — part of an Afghan group's efforts to empower women by breaking down barriers in this highly conservative Muslim society.
"The situation always gets tougher and tougher every day by day, but we should not back down. We are here to move on and move forward, so I think if women step up and they show up in this field, I think they will do a good job," said Shahar Banoo Zeerak, the designer whose clothes were featured in the show.
The idea of women on display remains mostly taboo in Afghanistan more than a decade after the 2001 U.S. assault that ousted the Taliban from power after a five-year reign of terror by the fundamentalist movement.
Some women still don't go outside without wearing blue burqas that cover them from head to toe. Violence against women is still common in Afghanistan, and there are reports of women being stoned, executed in public or imprisoned for having affairs with men. Women have even set themselves on fire to escape domestic violence.
Friday's fashion show was organized by Young Women for Change, an independent, non-profit Afghan organization committed to empowering Afghan women and improving their lives.
Most of the 10 models, including three young men, who showed off 33 designs including colorful short-sleeved dresses, jeans, tunics and more traditional outfits — were Afghan women who volunteer for the group.
One of them, 17-year-old Farkhonda Taheri, had never even seen a fashion show before. She said her father and other family members were supportive of her decision to participate, but her grandmother was not happy.
"The biggest challenge for us that we cannot do these things in Afghanistan because people do not like it," she said afterward. "I was excited because I felt I am going to bring a change."
She said it was important for Afghan youths to take risks to bring change as the country struggles to achieve a semblance of normalcy, with international combat forces preparing to withdraw by the end of 2014.
"Who will bring the peace? We are going to bring it. Afghans. The new generation," Taheri said.
There have been a few other fashion shows in Afghanistan, but most were geared toward an international audience and seldom featured Afghan women or a mixed Afghan audience. Reflecting the obstacles, the organizers did not permit local Afghan media to film the event to protect the women, who on occasion appeared without headscarves and in short skirts.
"It may not be perfect and professional but it's a beginning," said Salma Gul, the 26-year-old tailor who made the clothes.
Organizers said they had two reasons for staging the show despite fears of violence in a country that sees frequent bombings and suicide attacks, often against targets deemed un-Islamic by extremists. One was to raise money for the advocacy group and the other was to gradually change attitudes toward women.
A spokesman for the advocacy group, Mohammad Zafar Salehi, said they earned more than $1,000 from the show, which sold tickets and drew mostly group members and friends.
"We want to change the mindset of the people but at the same time I worry about the security of the girls," he said as the famous Afghan rock band Morchaha performed in another room. "I believe in a change that can be slow."
Sufficient US troops remains in Afghanistan: Dempsey
By Mirwais Adeel - 09 Feb 2013, 8:45 pm Khaama Press
The top U.S. military officer and chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey on Saturday said he was confident enough U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan after 2014 to accomplish the three-part mission agreed to by allies at last year’s NATO summit in Chicago.
Gen. Dempsey also said he did not know whether President Barack Obama would announce the size of the post-2014 U.S. force for Afghanistan during his upcoming State of the Union address, Reuters News Agency reported.
In the meantime he said an announcement on the management of forces in 2013 “has to come fairly soon, simply because we’re two months in(to)” the year.
According to the officials a decision on the size of the post-2014 U.S. force would be made before any announcement of the speed of the 2013 drawdown.
This comes as Afghan security forces are expected to take over full security responsibility by the end of 2014 which is a deadline for the complete withdrawal of NATO troops from the country.
While speaking to reporters before leaving to Afghanistan or a change of command ceremony for the International Security Assistance Force while playing down suggestion by some White House officials that the United States might consider a “zero option” Gen. Dempsey said no one had suggested that to him, “and I would never recommend zero.”
Marine Corps General John Allen will hand over command of the international coalition to Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, expected to be the force’s last commander.
Dempsey said said, “The military at this point is confident that the number will match the mission. Let me put it this way: I will not at any point ask 10,000 troops to do 20,000 troops’ work.”
He also said the only circumstance under which a zero option was likely to come into play was if the two sides failed to negotiate a bilateral security agreement, as happened in Iraq.
“This is why the bilateral security agreement is so important, because if we get this agreement in place soon, then it takes away all of the anxieties related to our enduring presence there,” he said.
Gen. Dempsey also noted that Afghanistan’s economy was considerably weaker than Iraq’s, which led Afghans to recognize they would need international support for the long-term, an issue that did not confront oil-rich Iraq.
Our mission in Afghanistan hasn't been for nothing
The Australian Peter Jennings February 08, 2013
WRITING on Tuesday in the Fairfax press, Australian National University academic Hugh White makes the most damning case for the "total failure" of Australia's mission in Afghanistan.
He claims that our involvement in the conflict from the start "never made sense" and was a fantasy based on foundations that our government, opposition and Australian Defence Force "all know to be false". White exposes what he says is "the real reason" for our involvement: support for the US. Although the US now regards our efforts as irrelevant, Washington will turn the alliance "against China".
The starkness of White's judgments is alarming. It is possible to rationally oppose the war in Afghanistan without claiming that government policy was knowingly false or that one must be delusional to have hoped for a better outcome.
I am not a disinterested observer, having been closely involved in Australian policy on Afghanistan from the start of 2006 to just recently. My view is that Australia's participation in the war was necessary; it has produced some positive outcomes and created the basis for cautious optimism that Afghanistan will have a better future. It showed the international community could stick with a costly but necessary mission for more than a decade. Our participation in the war was not based on falsehood and shouldn't be dismissed in that way.
Putting the positive case for the Afghanistan war may not win a popularity contest but what it does do is reflect the real world of policy decisions, which is about making difficult choices between unpalatable alternatives.
Australia's involvement in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks in the US was an appropriate response to a global problem -- expanding fundamentalist terrorism. We might have chosen not to be involved and to act as a free-rider on the security provided by others, but this has never been a feature of Australia's engagement in world affairs. Our approach has been to define our strategic interests broadly and to make practical efforts with others to fix problems.
White says that the mission against al-Qa'ida effectively had been won by the time Australian forces were deployed to Oruzgan province in 2006. In fact al-Qa'ida has been more tenacious than that, both in Afghanistan and outside. It's wrong to imply that it simply left the field. The task was more to break the link between al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. This has been substantially achieved, but a continuing counter-terrorism effort will be needed to keep the connection severed.
The Taliban too has been severely damaged; it isn't right to argue as White does that "it seems as strong as ever". The Taliban does not have the capacity to unilaterally take over in Kabul. If it returns to any measure of power it will be in a federalist system and as a participant in a political process. The prospect of Taliban members in parliament is not appealing but turning fighting into politics is an essential pathway to stabilise Afghanistan.
I have yet to meet a politician, official or military officer from any participating country that thought the purpose of the operation in Afghanistan was to produce a central Asian Switzerland. White, of course, is right to say that large parts of government in Afghanistan remain corrupt, ineffective and with little authority in the provinces. That's all true but the context now is that al-Qa'ida is largely defeated in-country, the Taliban is significantly weakened and the government in Kabul is pro-Western. These are important gains.
Progress in social and economic development has been made of a type that probably looks more impressive to Afghan than Australian eyes. Solid advances also have been made in training the Afghan military. They aren't up to the standard of the ADF but they will be able to hold their own, with the continued assistance of the US, Australia and others.
It would be deeply wrong to be triumphal about any of this: gains can be reversed, but there is cause to think that Afghanistan can remain unified and largely stable thanks to the efforts of Australia and the international community.
White's exposure of the dirty little secret that the war was all about promoting our alliance with the US is also puzzling. From the very beginning of the operation to now, governments have made it clear that alliance relations have been an important factor in our involvement. This is completely compatible with our counter-terrorism aims and indeed is the means by which we have been able to operate in the war.
It's hardly surprising that the US is putting more strategic attention on China but, even if it wanted to, Washington won't have the choice to disengage from Afghanistan. Indeed, the US will stay on if the Afghan government agrees, presumably with a strong focus on counter-terrorism.
Australia will leave Afghanistan having done a serious job well. We will remain engaged through aid and military training, which is appropriate for our national interests. We have succeeded in making our alliance with the US much more capable than most realise and have trained the next leadership generation of the ADF. The costs were tragically high, but the outcomes are valuable and important. The situation in Afghanistan reflects the messy reality of international security, but it's good enough to merit some praise for the commitment of the international community rather than wholesale denunciation.
Peter Jennings is executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a former deputy secretary for strategy in the Department of Defence.
Afghanistan drug-smugglers killed while trying to carry heroin across border to Tajikistan
The Associated Press February 8, 2013
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Authorities in Tajikistan say border guards have shot dead two drug-smugglers from neighbouring Afghanistan trying to cross with a consignment of illegal narcotics.
The State Security Services said Friday another two were wounded and fled, while a fifth was captured. It did not say why the guards opened fire.
Officials say 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of heroin and raw opium were seized.
A further 65 kilograms (143 pounds) of drugs, mainly hashish, have been intercepted in two other operations over the past week.
Tajikistan says it took 6 tons of illegal drugs out of circulation in 2012.
The U.N. believes around 20 per cent of the heroin produced in Afghanistan is trafficked through Central Asia to Russia, Europe, and China. An estimated 100 tons of Afghan heroin passes through Tajikistan annually.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE February 8, 2013
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan - Camp John Pratt is preparing for an invasion. The 880-acre sprawl in this northern city will soon become a parking lot for a decade's worth of American military equipment on the way home.
Bulldozers, dump trucks and road graders are shuttling around the camp, rushing to complete a $27 million construction job in advance of the U.S. withdrawal. Prefabricated hangars and rows of general-purpose tents have been erected to accommodate an influx of military hardware and the personnel who will move it. Hundreds of vehicles in identical desert tan are already here, parked in rows and ready to be sent to their next destination.
"We've collapsed both in from the east and west as we transition over a lot of the security responsibilities to the Afghans," said Marine Corps Brig. Gen. John Bullard, the deputy commander for coalition forces in the north of Afghanistan.
The coalition's military mission ends in December next year, the deadline by which most of the 66,000 U.S. troops in the country are slated to go home. President Barack Obama is expected to outline the speed of this drawdown, and the size of a residual U.S. force that may stay in Afghanistan after 2014, as soon as Tuesday's State of the Union address.
The clock is already ticking. A mountain of equipment has accumulated in this landlocked country since the invasion that ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001. To move that mountain, the military has three options: It can fly equipment out, move it south to Pakistani ports, or send it north through Central Asia.
On a map, Gen. Bullard pointed to a primary geographical challenge: the Hindu Kush mountain range that bisects the country, roughly separating north from south.
"You've really got one way through it—that's the Salang Tunnel," he said, referring to the treacherous, high-altitude truck route that passes through a long, decrepit tunnel that has seen little maintenance since Soviet engineers built it in the early 1960s. The tunnel often shuts down because of bad weather.
That is where Camp John Pratt comes in. The U.S. military broke ground on the project last year to create a staging area for the withdrawal of U.S. troops on the northern side of the Hindu Kush. If a piece of kit belongs to the U.S. military, and it is anywhere north of Salang, it will likely end up at Camp John Pratt before it is packed up and shipped home. Otherwise, it will be sent to the scrap heap.
Named after a U.S. Army aviator, Camp John Pratt is adjacent to a commercial airport and railway line. The most sensitive equipment—certain weapons or communications gear—must be flown out. An hour's drive away is the Hairaton border crossing to Uzbekistan, which provides a link to a network of rail and truck routes that reach across Central Asia and Russia to Baltic and Black Sea ports.
U.S. officials negotiated use of the routes, known as the Northern Distribution Network, as an alternative inbound supply line for Afghanistan amid worsening relations with Pakistan and attacks on coalition supply convoys.
Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, the outgoing U.S. commander, said the overland exit routes remain largely untested.
"The Northern Distribution Network has been used coming in, but in large measure hasn't been used going out," he told The Wall Street Journal. "Pakistani ground lines of communication have not been flowing out, but flowing in."
Gen. Allen said the military was using test shipments to ensure that the routes, permits and agreements are all in place.
"What we want is for all three lines to be flowing by the spring and to achieve full velocity on all three [air and land lines of communication] in order for us have removed the preponderance of equipment out of theater for all 50 nations by the end of '14," said Gen. Allen, who is expected to become the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's chief military commander.
The government of Uzbekistan in particular is likely to "drive a fairly hard bargain" in negotiations with the U.S. over moving military cargo over its territory, said Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
Countries along the northern exit route may also have an opportunity to bargain with Washington about acquiring some used, nonlethal military hardware to Central Asian nations "remains an option, but it is premature to speculate on what, if anything, might be provided," a State Department spokeswoman said. The transfer of equipment would have to be approved by the State Department.
Securing permits for the passage of U.S. military cargo opens the potential for friction with the Afghan government, which is increasingly assertive of its sovereignty—and short of funds.
Under an agreement between Kabul and Washington, the U.S. military can bring equipment in and out of Afghanistan without being subject to taxes or customs duties. But Afghanistan's Customs and Revenue Department still has to review each shipment of U.S. military cargo for export, said U.S. Army Col. Tom Collins, a coalition spokesman.
The Afghan government had issued directives to customs officers to help speed the process, said Mohammad Zaher Ansari, deputy director of the Afghan customs office in Hairaton, the crossing into Uzbekistan.
But Mr. Ansari said the U.S.-led coalition sometimes lacked documentation for items brought previously into the country. "It's fine that you are going to move your equipment out of the country," he said. "But you have to take it through our regulations—our customs law. You should present us with the customs documents you received when you imported them to Afghanistan."
Of course, when U.S. troops first arrived here in 2001 to oust the Taliban, customs regulations were the last of their concerns. —Maria Abi-Habib contributed to this article.
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared February 9, 2013, on page A7 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: U.S. Sets Up Afghan Exit Route.
U.S. rejects U.N. report on children killed in Afghanistan
The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child cites reports that U.S. forces killed hundreds of Afghan children in the last four years, which the U.S. calls 'categorically unfounded.'
Los Angeles Times By Shashank Bengali February 8, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S. military Friday strongly rejected reports cited by a United Nations committee indicating that American forces had killed hundreds of children in Afghanistan over the last four years.
The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said it was alarmed by reports that hundreds of children had died in U.S. attacks and airstrikes due to a "reported lack of precautionary measures and indiscriminate use of force."
The U.S. military called the reports "categorically unfounded."
The U.N. committee stated its concern last week in a response to a periodic report by the United States on measures it had taken to protect children in armed conflict. The committee also expressed concern that "members of the armed forces responsible for the killings of children have not always been held accountable."
In a statement, the U.S. military said the reports were unsubstantiated and cited figures from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan showing that the vast majority of civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan over the last several years were caused by insurgents.
The Geneva-based U.N. committee, which is independent of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, was reviewing U.S. policies on children in conflict for the first time since 2008. In addition to the Afghan mission's figures, it received information from several international rights groups, including New York-based Human Rights Watch.
In April, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that 110 children were killed and 68 were injured in 2011 in airstrikes conducted by pro-government forces, led by the United States, which furnishes air power for the Afghan government. Those figures represented a doubling of the child casualties from a year earlier, Ban said.
But the U.S. military said that the International Security Assistance Force, which it leads, reduced civilian casualties by 49% in 2012 from 2011, and that the number of children killed or wounded in ISAF air operations fell by nearly 40%.
The military rejected the allegation that it used force indiscriminately, saying it applies strict rules when carrying out airstrikes in areas where civilians may be. When their operations do kill civilians, "ISAF and U.S. military officials make every effort to meet with the families of those we have harmed and to express our condolences personally," the statement said.
Advocacy groups praised the U.N. committee's findings and called on the United States to do more to protect children on the battlefield.
"The U.S. must also honor its international law obligations to thoroughly and independently investigate civilian deaths and abuses against children, hold perpetrators accountable and compensate victims," Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Human Rights Program, told the Associated Press.
6 Afghan Civilians Killed in Blast
VOA News February 9, 2013
Officials in southern Afghanistan say a roadside bomb blast has killed six family members.
Authorities say the two women and four men, all civilians, were killed Friday evening when their car struck a mine in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province.
Roadside bombs are the favorite weapons of Taliban insurgents fighting to oust the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.
UK defence secretary visits Afghanistan
AP 08/02/2013
LONDON - British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond made an unannounced visit to southern Afghanistan to visit UK troops, his ministry said.
He returned home on Thursday after a two-day visit to the country, where he met with new Afghan Defense Minister Bismillah Mohammadi in Kabul and with British personnel at an observation post and patrol base in Helmand province, the ministry said.
Hammond’s visit comes after British Prime Minister David Cameron hosted Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari for trilateral talks on Afghanistan’s floundering peace and reconciliation process.
Attempts at peace have faltered even as international forces prepare to withdraw from the country in 2014.
British troops form the second-largest Nato contingent fighting to stop the Taliban insurgency ahead of the planned withdrawal.
Rare Afghan fashion show part of effort to empower women
The Associated Press By Amir Shah And Kim Gamel 08/02/2013
KABUL - Afghan models paraded down a candle-lined catwalk Friday as men and women watched from the audience in a restaurant off a muddy street in Kabul.
The rare fashion show in this war-weary capital was a small production but a big idea — part of an Afghan group's efforts to empower women by breaking down barriers in this highly conservative Muslim society.
"The situation always gets tougher and tougher every day by day, but we should not back down. We are here to move on and move forward, so I think if women step up and they show up in this field, I think they will do a good job," said Shahar Banoo Zeerak, the designer whose clothes were featured in the show.
The idea of women on display remains mostly taboo in Afghanistan more than a decade after the 2001 U.S. assault that ousted the Taliban from power after a five-year reign of terror by the fundamentalist movement.
Some women still don't go outside without wearing blue burqas that cover them from head to toe. Violence against women is still common in Afghanistan, and there are reports of women being stoned, executed in public or imprisoned for having affairs with men. Women have even set themselves on fire to escape domestic violence.
Friday's fashion show was organized by Young Women for Change, an independent, non-profit Afghan organization committed to empowering Afghan women and improving their lives.
Most of the 10 models, including three young men, who showed off 33 designs including colorful short-sleeved dresses, jeans, tunics and more traditional outfits — were Afghan women who volunteer for the group.
One of them, 17-year-old Farkhonda Taheri, had never even seen a fashion show before. She said her father and other family members were supportive of her decision to participate, but her grandmother was not happy.
"The biggest challenge for us that we cannot do these things in Afghanistan because people do not like it," she said afterward. "I was excited because I felt I am going to bring a change."
She said it was important for Afghan youths to take risks to bring change as the country struggles to achieve a semblance of normalcy, with international combat forces preparing to withdraw by the end of 2014.
"Who will bring the peace? We are going to bring it. Afghans. The new generation," Taheri said.
There have been a few other fashion shows in Afghanistan, but most were geared toward an international audience and seldom featured Afghan women or a mixed Afghan audience. Reflecting the obstacles, the organizers did not permit local Afghan media to film the event to protect the women, who on occasion appeared without headscarves and in short skirts.
"It may not be perfect and professional but it's a beginning," said Salma Gul, the 26-year-old tailor who made the clothes.
Organizers said they had two reasons for staging the show despite fears of violence in a country that sees frequent bombings and suicide attacks, often against targets deemed un-Islamic by extremists. One was to raise money for the advocacy group and the other was to gradually change attitudes toward women.
A spokesman for the advocacy group, Mohammad Zafar Salehi, said they earned more than $1,000 from the show, which sold tickets and drew mostly group members and friends.
"We want to change the mindset of the people but at the same time I worry about the security of the girls," he said as the famous Afghan rock band Morchaha performed in another room. "I believe in a change that can be slow."
Sufficient US troops remains in Afghanistan: Dempsey
By Mirwais Adeel - 09 Feb 2013, 8:45 pm Khaama Press
The top U.S. military officer and chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey on Saturday said he was confident enough U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan after 2014 to accomplish the three-part mission agreed to by allies at last year’s NATO summit in Chicago.
Gen. Dempsey also said he did not know whether President Barack Obama would announce the size of the post-2014 U.S. force for Afghanistan during his upcoming State of the Union address, Reuters News Agency reported.
In the meantime he said an announcement on the management of forces in 2013 “has to come fairly soon, simply because we’re two months in(to)” the year.
According to the officials a decision on the size of the post-2014 U.S. force would be made before any announcement of the speed of the 2013 drawdown.
This comes as Afghan security forces are expected to take over full security responsibility by the end of 2014 which is a deadline for the complete withdrawal of NATO troops from the country.
While speaking to reporters before leaving to Afghanistan or a change of command ceremony for the International Security Assistance Force while playing down suggestion by some White House officials that the United States might consider a “zero option” Gen. Dempsey said no one had suggested that to him, “and I would never recommend zero.”
Marine Corps General John Allen will hand over command of the international coalition to Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, expected to be the force’s last commander.
Dempsey said said, “The military at this point is confident that the number will match the mission. Let me put it this way: I will not at any point ask 10,000 troops to do 20,000 troops’ work.”
He also said the only circumstance under which a zero option was likely to come into play was if the two sides failed to negotiate a bilateral security agreement, as happened in Iraq.
“This is why the bilateral security agreement is so important, because if we get this agreement in place soon, then it takes away all of the anxieties related to our enduring presence there,” he said.
Gen. Dempsey also noted that Afghanistan’s economy was considerably weaker than Iraq’s, which led Afghans to recognize they would need international support for the long-term, an issue that did not confront oil-rich Iraq.
Our mission in Afghanistan hasn't been for nothing
The Australian Peter Jennings February 08, 2013
WRITING on Tuesday in the Fairfax press, Australian National University academic Hugh White makes the most damning case for the "total failure" of Australia's mission in Afghanistan.
He claims that our involvement in the conflict from the start "never made sense" and was a fantasy based on foundations that our government, opposition and Australian Defence Force "all know to be false". White exposes what he says is "the real reason" for our involvement: support for the US. Although the US now regards our efforts as irrelevant, Washington will turn the alliance "against China".
The starkness of White's judgments is alarming. It is possible to rationally oppose the war in Afghanistan without claiming that government policy was knowingly false or that one must be delusional to have hoped for a better outcome.
I am not a disinterested observer, having been closely involved in Australian policy on Afghanistan from the start of 2006 to just recently. My view is that Australia's participation in the war was necessary; it has produced some positive outcomes and created the basis for cautious optimism that Afghanistan will have a better future. It showed the international community could stick with a costly but necessary mission for more than a decade. Our participation in the war was not based on falsehood and shouldn't be dismissed in that way.
Putting the positive case for the Afghanistan war may not win a popularity contest but what it does do is reflect the real world of policy decisions, which is about making difficult choices between unpalatable alternatives.
Australia's involvement in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks in the US was an appropriate response to a global problem -- expanding fundamentalist terrorism. We might have chosen not to be involved and to act as a free-rider on the security provided by others, but this has never been a feature of Australia's engagement in world affairs. Our approach has been to define our strategic interests broadly and to make practical efforts with others to fix problems.
White says that the mission against al-Qa'ida effectively had been won by the time Australian forces were deployed to Oruzgan province in 2006. In fact al-Qa'ida has been more tenacious than that, both in Afghanistan and outside. It's wrong to imply that it simply left the field. The task was more to break the link between al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. This has been substantially achieved, but a continuing counter-terrorism effort will be needed to keep the connection severed.
The Taliban too has been severely damaged; it isn't right to argue as White does that "it seems as strong as ever". The Taliban does not have the capacity to unilaterally take over in Kabul. If it returns to any measure of power it will be in a federalist system and as a participant in a political process. The prospect of Taliban members in parliament is not appealing but turning fighting into politics is an essential pathway to stabilise Afghanistan.
I have yet to meet a politician, official or military officer from any participating country that thought the purpose of the operation in Afghanistan was to produce a central Asian Switzerland. White, of course, is right to say that large parts of government in Afghanistan remain corrupt, ineffective and with little authority in the provinces. That's all true but the context now is that al-Qa'ida is largely defeated in-country, the Taliban is significantly weakened and the government in Kabul is pro-Western. These are important gains.
Progress in social and economic development has been made of a type that probably looks more impressive to Afghan than Australian eyes. Solid advances also have been made in training the Afghan military. They aren't up to the standard of the ADF but they will be able to hold their own, with the continued assistance of the US, Australia and others.
It would be deeply wrong to be triumphal about any of this: gains can be reversed, but there is cause to think that Afghanistan can remain unified and largely stable thanks to the efforts of Australia and the international community.
White's exposure of the dirty little secret that the war was all about promoting our alliance with the US is also puzzling. From the very beginning of the operation to now, governments have made it clear that alliance relations have been an important factor in our involvement. This is completely compatible with our counter-terrorism aims and indeed is the means by which we have been able to operate in the war.
It's hardly surprising that the US is putting more strategic attention on China but, even if it wanted to, Washington won't have the choice to disengage from Afghanistan. Indeed, the US will stay on if the Afghan government agrees, presumably with a strong focus on counter-terrorism.
Australia will leave Afghanistan having done a serious job well. We will remain engaged through aid and military training, which is appropriate for our national interests. We have succeeded in making our alliance with the US much more capable than most realise and have trained the next leadership generation of the ADF. The costs were tragically high, but the outcomes are valuable and important. The situation in Afghanistan reflects the messy reality of international security, but it's good enough to merit some praise for the commitment of the international community rather than wholesale denunciation.
Peter Jennings is executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a former deputy secretary for strategy in the Department of Defence.
Afghanistan drug-smugglers killed while trying to carry heroin across border to Tajikistan
The Associated Press February 8, 2013
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Authorities in Tajikistan say border guards have shot dead two drug-smugglers from neighbouring Afghanistan trying to cross with a consignment of illegal narcotics.
The State Security Services said Friday another two were wounded and fled, while a fifth was captured. It did not say why the guards opened fire.
Officials say 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of heroin and raw opium were seized.
A further 65 kilograms (143 pounds) of drugs, mainly hashish, have been intercepted in two other operations over the past week.
Tajikistan says it took 6 tons of illegal drugs out of circulation in 2012.
The U.N. believes around 20 per cent of the heroin produced in Afghanistan is trafficked through Central Asia to Russia, Europe, and China. An estimated 100 tons of Afghan heroin passes through Tajikistan annually.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com