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Karzai Summons ISAF Commander Over Air Strike
February 14, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has summoned the commander of NATO-led forces in his country to explain an air strike that Afghan officials say killed 10 civilians.
Several Taliban fighters also reportedly died in the February 13 air strike in eastern Kunar Province.
A statement from Karzai’s office quoted the president as saying "such incidents must strictly be avoided in future."
The statement said U.S. General Joseph Dunford expressed regret over the incident and pledged that NATO's International Security Assistance Force will "avoid carrying out operations and bombings in residential areas."
Dunford assumed command of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan on February 10 and will oversee the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces through 2014.
Civilian casualties inflicted by NATO forces are a highly sensitive issue and are regularly condemned by Karzai.
U.S. Inspector Warns On Afghan Reconstruction Aid
February 14, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The watchdog who monitors U.S. spending on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan has recommended that Washington reconsider how much it is spending because of security and corruption concerns.
John Sopko, the special inspector-general for Afghan reconstruction, told the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee that the U.S. government has approved – but not yet spent – $20 billion for reconstruction projects in Afghanistan.
Sopko said that as U.S. forces begin to withdraw from Afghanistan in the next two years, it will become more difficult for U.S. inspectors to check insecure areas to ensure that reconstruction funds are being spent appropriately.
Sopko has also raised concerns about corruption among Afghan authorities and the capability of the Afghan government to responsibly handle large sums of aid money.
Based on reporting by AP and Reuters
Panetta to Gen. Allen: ‘Take Your Time’
Wall Street Journal By Julian E. Barnes February 13, 2013
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had some parting advice for Gen. John Allen, who has completed his 19-month stint as the top commander in Afghanistan: “Take your time.”
Gen. Allen’s nomination to become the next supreme allied commander, the top officer in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was put on hold when he became embroiled in the David Petraeus-Paula Broadwell-Jill Kelley scandal. The Federal Bureau of Investigation turned over thousands of pages of emails between Ms. Kelley and Gen. Allen and the Pentagon began an investigation.
Gen. Allen was cleared of wrongdoing, but he has not been formally renominated for the NATO post. Officials said the nomination is his if he wants it, but Gen. Allen is not sure he wants the job.
A spokesman for Gen. Allen, Maj. David Nevers, declined to comment on Gen. Allen’s plans. “After 19 months in command in Afghanistan, and many before that spent away from home, Gen. Allen has been offered time to rest and reunite with his family before he turns his attention to his next assignment,” Maj. Nevers said.
A confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee likely would air questions about his relationship with Ms. Kelley, and also could force the emails between the two into public.
A defense official said Gen. Allen’s decision whether to take the top European military post would not be related to the investigation of his emails with Ms. Kelley.
Mr. Panetta said he met with Gen. Allen on Tuesday to discuss whether to the Marine general wanted proceed with the nomination.
“My recommendation to him was, ‘Take your time, you know, be with your family, think about what you need to do; I think your country will always find a way to make use of your great services, but you’ve got to make the decision as to what you want to do in the future,’” Mr. Panetta said.
Mr. Panetta said Gen. Allen did not indicate whether he wanted to proceed with the nomination. But Mr. Panetta praised Gen. Allen and said he believed history will judge him as a “pivotal” commander in the Afghan war.
“He’s been under tremendous amount of pressure, a lot of challenges, a lot of, you know, work that he’s had to engage in, a lot of policy decisions he’s had to work on,” Mr. Panetta said.
Afghanistan dismiss US Audit Watchdog’s remarks
By Sayed Jawad - 14 Feb 2013, 3:03 pm Khaama Press
Afghan government officials confirm corruption in governmental departments however the officials insist that the institutions have the capabilities to spend international aid properly and in a transparent way.
Afghan finance ministry denied remarks by Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and said the government of Afghanistan is able to properly use the international aid.
A spokesman for the Afghan finance ministry Wahidullah Tawhidi on Thursday said the government’s transparency and effectiveness in spending the foreign aid has been more than the other organizations who are spending the foreign aid in the country.
He said, “We deny the report since various reports by World Bank and other international organizations shows that around 85% of the aid spent by the Afghan government has been appropriate and transparent while the foreign aid spent independently and by non-governmental organizations had only 15% effectiveness and in some cases corruption has been noted in those institutions activities.”
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said Billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are being wasted in Afghanistan on fruitless reconstruction projects that are awash in corruption and have little government oversight.
“The Afghan government does not appear to have the capacity to manage the amount of funding envisioned in the international community’s pledges of direct assistance,” Sopko told a House Committee in testimony prepared for a House of Representatives hearing.
In the meantime Mohammad Yasin Osmani member of the committee for oversight and anti-corruption department of Afghanistan said John Sopko’s remarks are acceptable somehow however he said that he does not agree with all his comments.
He said that the capacity of the Afghan government to spend foreign aid has increased but still there some issues within the Afghan government that needs to be resolved.
This comes as Afghanistan and United States during president Hamid Karzai’s visit agreed to spend 50% of the foreign aid through the Afghan government.
11 Afghans Killed in Military Actions Near Pakistan Border
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN February 13, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - International military officials are investigating two episodes in which as many as 11 Afghan civilians may have been killed in what appeared to be American-led military actions.
In the more lethal episode, 10 civilians were killed overnight in Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan in a village where two known Taliban commanders were visiting family members, Afghan officials said.
“Ten civilians were killed last night in a joint Afghan and American operation that took place in Chogam Valley in Shigal District,” said Fazlullah Wahidi, the provincial governor. He said four women, one man and five children between the ages of 8 and 13 were killed; four teenagers were wounded, three of whom were girls.
Increasingly over the past two years, foreign insurgents, sometimes with links to Al Qaeda and other non-Afghan groups, have taken refuge in Kunar and neighboring Nuristan Province. Both provinces have a long border with Pakistan, and insurgents can hide easily in the rugged and forested mountain terrain.
Mr. Wahidi said the target of the Kunar operation was a Taliban leader named Shahpour, “a known and really dangerous Afghan Taliban commander with links to Al Qaeda operatives in Kunar,” and another Taliban commander, known as Rocketi, a Pakistani citizen from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, formerly North-West Frontier Province. Both men were killed in the attack.
Mr. Wahidi said that the operation was not coordinated with Afghan security forces, but that locally hired Afghan paramilitaries were involved in the raid, which included an airstrike and a ground operation. Sometimes United States government agencies other than the military use special commandos.
Maj. Adam Wojack, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, said they had no information on the operation but “were aware of the reports” of civilian deaths and were looking into it.
Local officials in Kunar said that Shahpour was believed to have links to Al Qaeda and narrowly escaped being killed last year when the Americans attacked another Al Qaeda-linked Taliban commander known as Abu Hafez Al-Najde, who also went by the name Commander Ghani. Shahpour was the Taliban leader in charge of nearby Dangam district but was visiting relatives at the time of the raid.
People from Chogam, who brought injured civilians from the remote village where the attack took place to the main hospital in the provincial capital, Asadabad, described a precise but damaging hit on two adjacent houses.
“Two homes were totally destroyed; air power was used during the operation,” said a man who brought a boy with cuts to the hospital for treatment, but refused to give his name. “There are still dead bodies under the rubble and human flesh scattered in the area.”
The other episode in which an Afghan civilian was killed by foreign troops occurred on Tuesday during the daytime.
It took place as NATO-led forces were checking a stretch of heavily traveled highway between Kandahar and Spinbaldak for explosives during a road clearance mission and shot at an oncoming car that did not stop when signaled to do so, Major Wojack said.
Taj Mohammed, the local Afghan border police commander, corroborated much of the ISAF account, but did not see the shooting himself. He said the car was carrying people from a wedding party.
Major Wojack said that the forces followed standard procedure of signaling to the car to stop. After the driver stopped, he started to accelerate toward the convoy, at which point the ISAF soldier shot at the car, Mr. Wojack said.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, and an employee of The New York Times from Kunar Province.
Official: US troop pullout from Afghanistan risks monitoring of billions in civilian projects
Associated Press February 13, 2013
WASHINGTON - An accelerating U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan this year and next will raise the risk of ill-advised spending of billions in U.S. funds for the country’s rebuilding, the top auditor of U.S. reconstruction spending said Wednesday.
John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, told the House Oversight Committee that civilians monitoring these projects are allowed to work only within a “safe zone, or bubble” limited to areas within about a 20-minute helicopter flight to a facility that can provide emergency medical care.
“As our U.S. troops continue to withdraw, the amount of territory in Afghanistan that falls outside of the bubble will increase,” Sopko said. “Accordingly, the amount of programs and number of projects that can be monitored and overseen by U.S. personnel will decrease.”
President Barack Obama announced Tuesday in his State of the Union speech that 34,000 U.S. troops will come home from Afghanistan over the coming year, with an unspecified additional number leaving in 2014. There currently are about 66,000 U.S. troops there. The combat mission is due to end at the end of 2014.
Obama’s goal is to have Afghan forces sufficiently trained and equipped to handle security on their own by then.
Sopko said $20 billion in reconstruction money appropriated by the Congress has not yet been spent. He said security issues and Afghan government corruption make it problematic that the money will be used wisely.
He said his auditors already have encountered limitations on their work due to security restrictions. Recently in northern Afghanistan his organization was prevented from visiting an area because it was deemed too dangerous, he said. “As a result, 38 projects and over $72 million in U.S. taxpayer money is beyond our inspection.”
Acknowledging that his organization does not have a firm grasp on the amount of U.S. money that could be at risk in the next few years in Afghanistan, Sopko said he will soon request that the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Army Corps of Engineers and other government agencies tell him the status of each of their Afghan reconstruction projects and how many more they plan to start in the months ahead.
The projects that are still on the drawing board could commit billions in additional U.S. funds, Sopko said. His conversations with various agency leaders suggested to him that they are seized with a “desire to get the money pumped out before the clock runs out,” he said, referring to Obama’s timetable for ending the war.
Sopko said he is concerned about the prospect for success of Washington’s two main aims in Afghanistan: transferring full responsibility for Afghan security to Afghan forces, and the simultaneous effort to improve the Afghan government’s ability to manage the country’s reconstruction during that transition and beyond.
“I think it is fair to say that the success or failure of our entire 10-year engagement in Afghanistan is teetering on whether these two interrelated and very important and ambitious goals can be met,” he said.
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Robert Burns can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP
Netherlands to end police training mission in Afghanistan
THE HAGUE, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- In July, the Netherlands will hand over the Afghan police training center it has been running together with Germany to the Afghan authorities, Dutch television station NOS reported Thursday.
The Netherlands and Germany will remain involved in the center that is located in the northern Kunduz region, but will no longer provide trainings to Afghan police officers, NOS said.
Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten and senior police officers visited Kunduz and Kabul to meet the 50 Dutch police officers there.
"I told them that they are doing an unbelievably good job in difficult circumstances. The cabinet is proud of them," Opstelten said.
The Netherlands agreed to send trainers to Afghanistan in 2011, on condition they worked in the northern province Kunduz and only undertook civilian tasks.
25 killed or injured following traffic incident in Ghazni
By Mirwais Adeel - 14 Feb 2013, 12:18 pm Khaama Press
According to local authorities in eastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan, at least 25 people were killed or injured following
a deadly traffic incident on Ghazni-Kandahar highway.
Provincial security chief Gen. Mohammad Hussain said the incident took place in Qarabagh district killing at least 16 people and injuring 9 others.
He said the incident took place around 4 am local time on Thursday after a civilian bus struck with a truck.
The wounded individuals have been taken to hospital, Gen. Mohammad Hussain said adding that a number of the wounded individuals are in critical health condition.
Ghazni-Kandahar highway is one of the busiest highways of Afghanistan where majority of road accidents are taking place.
In the meantime Ghazni traffic department chief Abdullah Ahmadi said at last 18 people were killed and 23 others were injured following the incident.
Karzai Welcomes US Troop Withdrawal
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Wednesday, 13 February 2013
President Hamid Karzai has welcomed the US president's announcement that more than half of the US troops deployed in Afghanistan will leave by this time next year.
"Afghanistan welcomes the announcement by President Obama, who in his State of the Union address said that the US would be pulling out another 34,000 troops over the next year from Afghanistan," Karzai's office said in a statement on Wednesday.
Obama said in his address, "This spring, our forces will move into a support role, while Afghan security forces take the lead."
"This is something Afghanistan has wanted for so long now. The withdrawal in spring of foreign forces from Afghan villages will definitely help in ensuring peace and full security in Afghanistan," Karzai's office said.
Nevertheless, it noted that it wanted the relationship with the American forces to continue.
"As Obama underscored America's commitment to a unified and sovereign Afghanistan beyond 2014, we hope the bilateral relations and cooperation between the two countries could further expand," it said.
The Ministry of Defence also supported the US decision.
"We welcome the US troop's withdrawal. The Afghan security forces are to take over combat and operations control in 2013 and they are ready to take security of the country," MOD spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi told TOLOnews.
Obama said the plan was part of the American aim to end its involvement in the war by the end of 2014.
"Tonight, I can announce that over the next year another 34,000 American troops will come home from Afghanistan," he said Tuesday night in Washington DC. "This drawdown will continue. And by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over."
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement the troop withdrawal plan was based on a recommendation from Marine Gen. John Allen, who just ended his command of US and Isaf forces in Afghanistan.
The withdrawal is the latest phase in a transition plan that the US, Afghanistan and allies developed at recent Nato summits in Lisbon, Portugal, and Chicago.
The number of US troops has already declined from a high of about 100,000 in 2010 to 66,000 now.
This year is expected to be a critical test for Afghan security forces who are now leading 90 percent of the operations and taking the bulk of the casualties.
New Kabul Bank Auction Set for Saturday
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Wednesday, 13 February 2013
New Kabul Bank will be auctioned on Saturday after months of securing interested buyers, Ministry of Finance (MOF) told TOLOnews on Wednesday.
Eight domestic and foreign companies will bid in the auction, MOF spokesman Wahid Tawhidi said.
He declined to name the companies but said there were five domestic companies among the eight.
"We will start the bidding on Saturday after lunch and we will announce New Kabul Bank's buyer and their price in front of civil society representatives and media," Tawhidi said.
The original date for the auction was set for 13 January, but this was extended on the request of some of the interested foreign companies to 16 February, he added.
Iran Welcomes Afghanistan in International Transit Convention
TOLOnews.com By Zabihullah Jhanmal Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Iran has welcomed Afghanistan's membership in the International Road Transport (IRT) Convention, according to its Urban Planning and Roads Ministry.
Iran ministry officials said that Afghanistan's membership will facilitate Afghan trucks travelling from Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf and European countries via Iran.
Both countries supported Afghanistan's membership in the fourth Afghanistan-Iran Transport Cooperation meeting in Kabul, where they also agreed on 17 points of transport facilitation between the two countries.
"We are interested in Afghanistan's membership in international transit routes which will pave the way for the development of transportation with Iran," Iran Deputy Minister Urban Planning and Roads Shahyar Afandizada said.
"By the implementation of these agreements, we are trying to solve the transit problems that come between the two countries," Afghan Deputy Minister for planning and policy in the Transport and Aviation Ministry Jariullah Mansory said.
The Afghanistan-Iran Transport Cooperation meeting began Tuesday and ran for two days.
The agenda covered simplification of ground transportation, avoiding delays for transit trucks in either country, modernisation of border crossings, and construction of a second Milak Bridge.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Transport and Aviation added that the government is aiming to use the IRT membership to improve cooperation with other countries in the region.
Afghanistan: New Textbooks Baffle Teachers
In Nangarhar, some say texts for new school curriculum are too hard, others that they are plain wrong.
IWPR By Hijratullah Ekhtyar 13 Feb 13
Afghanistan - Teachers as well as pupils at schools in eastern Afghanistan are struggling to get to grips with a newly-introduced curriculum. Some of the textbooks are far too advanced, while others are riddled with mistakes, experts claim.
Ninety million US dollars has been spent on compiling and publishing the new set of textbooks. They were distributed in Nangarhar province six months ago, though some other parts of Afghanistan will have to wait another three months to get them.
Education officials say that if teaching staff cannot handle the courses, that is a reflection on their abilities.
But some teachers say the content of the national curriculum is so complicated that they cannot even understand it themselves, let alone pass it on to their students.
Rahatullah, who teaches chemistry at the Kabo High School in Nangarhar’s Khugiani district, and says the science presented in the books is university-level material.
“The new 11th-grade chemistry book contains topics that are taught in first year of chemistry at university. And 12th-grade subjects like algebra, geometry and trigonometry include content that’s taught at university level,” he said. “That indicates that the curriculum content is set at too high a level. How can 10th, 11th and 12th grade pupils grasp it? How can teachers teach it?”
Rahatullah predicted that teachers would leave in droves, while others might just pretend to teach.
“If someone says he can teach it, he might do so, but I’m certain that his pupils won’t learn a thing from it,” he added.”
Mohammad Seddiq, a pupil at the Abdul Wakil High School, said the curriculum was so challenging as to put him off continuing in education.
“The teachers say, “We don’t know the content, so how can we teach you?’ The old-style textbooks were easy,” he said.
Shamsurrahman Nurani, a teacher at the Separ Elementary School in Chaparhar district, complained that some of the textbooks were cluttered with information that was hard to make sense of.
“The subjects have too much detail and explanation, so that the pupils can’t understand and get confused,” he said.
Nurani said the current crop of teachers had been trained to use a different curriculum and were finding it hard to adjust.
Education officials in Nangarhar insist an extensive retraining programme is already under way.
“This curriculum suits the requirement of the times we live in,” the spokesman for the provincial education department, Mohammad Asef Shinwari, said. “The problems stem from the low level of knowledge of our teachers. We have already trained up some skilled science teachers and they are now involved in training high school teachers to use the new curriculum. We plan to [re]train some 5,000 teachers. Thus far we have trained 1,000 and the process is continuing.”
Shinwari said a lot of thought and work had gone into the revamped textbooks, with a special committee that looked at the methods used in countries like India, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan and Malaysia. As a result, he said, Afghanistan’s curriculum was now better than those of some of its neighbours.
Mathematics teacher Nadira Sayeda, from the Rokhshana High School, believes that looking at other models is part of the problem. She claims that much of the content has been blindly copied from foreign publications, with errors introduced along the way.
Within the first few pages of the 11th-grade physics text, she identified 15 errors, plus mistakes in the examples used to drive home the points made in each lesson.
The teaching methods used in Afghanistan have closely followed political trends over the last three decades. The communist regime that took over in the late 1970s incorporated Soviet-influenced ideology into education. The mujahedin groups that seized power in 1992 changed the books to highlight their views, such as highlighting their militia commanders in the history texts.
Things changed again when the Taleban captured Kabul in 1996. They stopped girls going to school and imposed their own hard-line vision of Islam on schoolbooks, in the sciences as well as in the humanities.
The post-2001 period has seen significant changes for the better, notably in female education. However, problems remain. The latest history textbooks deal with the last three decades by ignoring them – a compromise made, some say, because some warlords-turned-politicians do not want too much light shone on past events.
As chemistry teacher Rahatullah put it, “Whenever a new government comes to power, it interferes in the education system according to its political tastes.”
“This new curriculum may be suited to American, British or some other western states, but not to the children and adolescents of a war-torn country like Afghanistan,” he added.
Asadullah Ghazanfar, a writer who has looked into the way the textbooks were compiled, says the work on Pashto grammar contains inaccurate definitions, in addition to explanations so poorly worded as to be incomprehensible. He found similar problems in books written in Afghanistan’s other main language, Dari.
“I can say for certain that nothing is right in those books,” he said.
These things matter, Ghazanfar says, because schoolbooks are the most important documents that any country possesses, second only to the constitution.
Another of Ghazanfar’s gripes is that one Pashto textbook includes material about 18th century poet Kazem Khan Shaida, whose work is highly regarded but is so sophisticated that the average teacher will not really grasp what it is about. “It’s particular punishment for pupils who are not native Pashto speakers,” he added.
Zarin Anzor, a writer and literary expert who wrote the Pashto textbook used for the 12th grade, defended his decision to incorporate challenging material.
“I consciously selected some general information about Pashto literature and its mystical content, because 12th grade is the door to university level,” he said, pointing out that future students needed to have a general grounding in Pashto literature.
“I agree that these subjects may be hard for school pupils – they’re difficult for teachers,” he added.
In the end, though, he said normal international practice was for education officials to decide what the curriculum should be, and then produce or retrain teachers to the required standard.
Hijratullah Ekhtyar is an IWPR-trained reporter in Nangarhar, Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
February 14, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has summoned the commander of NATO-led forces in his country to explain an air strike that Afghan officials say killed 10 civilians.
Several Taliban fighters also reportedly died in the February 13 air strike in eastern Kunar Province.
A statement from Karzai’s office quoted the president as saying "such incidents must strictly be avoided in future."
The statement said U.S. General Joseph Dunford expressed regret over the incident and pledged that NATO's International Security Assistance Force will "avoid carrying out operations and bombings in residential areas."
Dunford assumed command of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan on February 10 and will oversee the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces through 2014.
Civilian casualties inflicted by NATO forces are a highly sensitive issue and are regularly condemned by Karzai.
U.S. Inspector Warns On Afghan Reconstruction Aid
February 14, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The watchdog who monitors U.S. spending on reconstruction projects in Afghanistan has recommended that Washington reconsider how much it is spending because of security and corruption concerns.
John Sopko, the special inspector-general for Afghan reconstruction, told the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee that the U.S. government has approved – but not yet spent – $20 billion for reconstruction projects in Afghanistan.
Sopko said that as U.S. forces begin to withdraw from Afghanistan in the next two years, it will become more difficult for U.S. inspectors to check insecure areas to ensure that reconstruction funds are being spent appropriately.
Sopko has also raised concerns about corruption among Afghan authorities and the capability of the Afghan government to responsibly handle large sums of aid money.
Based on reporting by AP and Reuters
Panetta to Gen. Allen: ‘Take Your Time’
Wall Street Journal By Julian E. Barnes February 13, 2013
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had some parting advice for Gen. John Allen, who has completed his 19-month stint as the top commander in Afghanistan: “Take your time.”
Gen. Allen’s nomination to become the next supreme allied commander, the top officer in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was put on hold when he became embroiled in the David Petraeus-Paula Broadwell-Jill Kelley scandal. The Federal Bureau of Investigation turned over thousands of pages of emails between Ms. Kelley and Gen. Allen and the Pentagon began an investigation.
Gen. Allen was cleared of wrongdoing, but he has not been formally renominated for the NATO post. Officials said the nomination is his if he wants it, but Gen. Allen is not sure he wants the job.
A spokesman for Gen. Allen, Maj. David Nevers, declined to comment on Gen. Allen’s plans. “After 19 months in command in Afghanistan, and many before that spent away from home, Gen. Allen has been offered time to rest and reunite with his family before he turns his attention to his next assignment,” Maj. Nevers said.
A confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee likely would air questions about his relationship with Ms. Kelley, and also could force the emails between the two into public.
A defense official said Gen. Allen’s decision whether to take the top European military post would not be related to the investigation of his emails with Ms. Kelley.
Mr. Panetta said he met with Gen. Allen on Tuesday to discuss whether to the Marine general wanted proceed with the nomination.
“My recommendation to him was, ‘Take your time, you know, be with your family, think about what you need to do; I think your country will always find a way to make use of your great services, but you’ve got to make the decision as to what you want to do in the future,’” Mr. Panetta said.
Mr. Panetta said Gen. Allen did not indicate whether he wanted to proceed with the nomination. But Mr. Panetta praised Gen. Allen and said he believed history will judge him as a “pivotal” commander in the Afghan war.
“He’s been under tremendous amount of pressure, a lot of challenges, a lot of, you know, work that he’s had to engage in, a lot of policy decisions he’s had to work on,” Mr. Panetta said.
Afghanistan dismiss US Audit Watchdog’s remarks
By Sayed Jawad - 14 Feb 2013, 3:03 pm Khaama Press
Afghan government officials confirm corruption in governmental departments however the officials insist that the institutions have the capabilities to spend international aid properly and in a transparent way.
Afghan finance ministry denied remarks by Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and said the government of Afghanistan is able to properly use the international aid.
A spokesman for the Afghan finance ministry Wahidullah Tawhidi on Thursday said the government’s transparency and effectiveness in spending the foreign aid has been more than the other organizations who are spending the foreign aid in the country.
He said, “We deny the report since various reports by World Bank and other international organizations shows that around 85% of the aid spent by the Afghan government has been appropriate and transparent while the foreign aid spent independently and by non-governmental organizations had only 15% effectiveness and in some cases corruption has been noted in those institutions activities.”
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said Billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are being wasted in Afghanistan on fruitless reconstruction projects that are awash in corruption and have little government oversight.
“The Afghan government does not appear to have the capacity to manage the amount of funding envisioned in the international community’s pledges of direct assistance,” Sopko told a House Committee in testimony prepared for a House of Representatives hearing.
In the meantime Mohammad Yasin Osmani member of the committee for oversight and anti-corruption department of Afghanistan said John Sopko’s remarks are acceptable somehow however he said that he does not agree with all his comments.
He said that the capacity of the Afghan government to spend foreign aid has increased but still there some issues within the Afghan government that needs to be resolved.
This comes as Afghanistan and United States during president Hamid Karzai’s visit agreed to spend 50% of the foreign aid through the Afghan government.
11 Afghans Killed in Military Actions Near Pakistan Border
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN February 13, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - International military officials are investigating two episodes in which as many as 11 Afghan civilians may have been killed in what appeared to be American-led military actions.
In the more lethal episode, 10 civilians were killed overnight in Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan in a village where two known Taliban commanders were visiting family members, Afghan officials said.
“Ten civilians were killed last night in a joint Afghan and American operation that took place in Chogam Valley in Shigal District,” said Fazlullah Wahidi, the provincial governor. He said four women, one man and five children between the ages of 8 and 13 were killed; four teenagers were wounded, three of whom were girls.
Increasingly over the past two years, foreign insurgents, sometimes with links to Al Qaeda and other non-Afghan groups, have taken refuge in Kunar and neighboring Nuristan Province. Both provinces have a long border with Pakistan, and insurgents can hide easily in the rugged and forested mountain terrain.
Mr. Wahidi said the target of the Kunar operation was a Taliban leader named Shahpour, “a known and really dangerous Afghan Taliban commander with links to Al Qaeda operatives in Kunar,” and another Taliban commander, known as Rocketi, a Pakistani citizen from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, formerly North-West Frontier Province. Both men were killed in the attack.
Mr. Wahidi said that the operation was not coordinated with Afghan security forces, but that locally hired Afghan paramilitaries were involved in the raid, which included an airstrike and a ground operation. Sometimes United States government agencies other than the military use special commandos.
Maj. Adam Wojack, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, said they had no information on the operation but “were aware of the reports” of civilian deaths and were looking into it.
Local officials in Kunar said that Shahpour was believed to have links to Al Qaeda and narrowly escaped being killed last year when the Americans attacked another Al Qaeda-linked Taliban commander known as Abu Hafez Al-Najde, who also went by the name Commander Ghani. Shahpour was the Taliban leader in charge of nearby Dangam district but was visiting relatives at the time of the raid.
People from Chogam, who brought injured civilians from the remote village where the attack took place to the main hospital in the provincial capital, Asadabad, described a precise but damaging hit on two adjacent houses.
“Two homes were totally destroyed; air power was used during the operation,” said a man who brought a boy with cuts to the hospital for treatment, but refused to give his name. “There are still dead bodies under the rubble and human flesh scattered in the area.”
The other episode in which an Afghan civilian was killed by foreign troops occurred on Tuesday during the daytime.
It took place as NATO-led forces were checking a stretch of heavily traveled highway between Kandahar and Spinbaldak for explosives during a road clearance mission and shot at an oncoming car that did not stop when signaled to do so, Major Wojack said.
Taj Mohammed, the local Afghan border police commander, corroborated much of the ISAF account, but did not see the shooting himself. He said the car was carrying people from a wedding party.
Major Wojack said that the forces followed standard procedure of signaling to the car to stop. After the driver stopped, he started to accelerate toward the convoy, at which point the ISAF soldier shot at the car, Mr. Wojack said.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, and an employee of The New York Times from Kunar Province.
Official: US troop pullout from Afghanistan risks monitoring of billions in civilian projects
Associated Press February 13, 2013
WASHINGTON - An accelerating U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan this year and next will raise the risk of ill-advised spending of billions in U.S. funds for the country’s rebuilding, the top auditor of U.S. reconstruction spending said Wednesday.
John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, told the House Oversight Committee that civilians monitoring these projects are allowed to work only within a “safe zone, or bubble” limited to areas within about a 20-minute helicopter flight to a facility that can provide emergency medical care.
“As our U.S. troops continue to withdraw, the amount of territory in Afghanistan that falls outside of the bubble will increase,” Sopko said. “Accordingly, the amount of programs and number of projects that can be monitored and overseen by U.S. personnel will decrease.”
President Barack Obama announced Tuesday in his State of the Union speech that 34,000 U.S. troops will come home from Afghanistan over the coming year, with an unspecified additional number leaving in 2014. There currently are about 66,000 U.S. troops there. The combat mission is due to end at the end of 2014.
Obama’s goal is to have Afghan forces sufficiently trained and equipped to handle security on their own by then.
Sopko said $20 billion in reconstruction money appropriated by the Congress has not yet been spent. He said security issues and Afghan government corruption make it problematic that the money will be used wisely.
He said his auditors already have encountered limitations on their work due to security restrictions. Recently in northern Afghanistan his organization was prevented from visiting an area because it was deemed too dangerous, he said. “As a result, 38 projects and over $72 million in U.S. taxpayer money is beyond our inspection.”
Acknowledging that his organization does not have a firm grasp on the amount of U.S. money that could be at risk in the next few years in Afghanistan, Sopko said he will soon request that the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Army Corps of Engineers and other government agencies tell him the status of each of their Afghan reconstruction projects and how many more they plan to start in the months ahead.
The projects that are still on the drawing board could commit billions in additional U.S. funds, Sopko said. His conversations with various agency leaders suggested to him that they are seized with a “desire to get the money pumped out before the clock runs out,” he said, referring to Obama’s timetable for ending the war.
Sopko said he is concerned about the prospect for success of Washington’s two main aims in Afghanistan: transferring full responsibility for Afghan security to Afghan forces, and the simultaneous effort to improve the Afghan government’s ability to manage the country’s reconstruction during that transition and beyond.
“I think it is fair to say that the success or failure of our entire 10-year engagement in Afghanistan is teetering on whether these two interrelated and very important and ambitious goals can be met,” he said.
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Robert Burns can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP
Netherlands to end police training mission in Afghanistan
THE HAGUE, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- In July, the Netherlands will hand over the Afghan police training center it has been running together with Germany to the Afghan authorities, Dutch television station NOS reported Thursday.
The Netherlands and Germany will remain involved in the center that is located in the northern Kunduz region, but will no longer provide trainings to Afghan police officers, NOS said.
Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten and senior police officers visited Kunduz and Kabul to meet the 50 Dutch police officers there.
"I told them that they are doing an unbelievably good job in difficult circumstances. The cabinet is proud of them," Opstelten said.
The Netherlands agreed to send trainers to Afghanistan in 2011, on condition they worked in the northern province Kunduz and only undertook civilian tasks.
25 killed or injured following traffic incident in Ghazni
By Mirwais Adeel - 14 Feb 2013, 12:18 pm Khaama Press
According to local authorities in eastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan, at least 25 people were killed or injured following
a deadly traffic incident on Ghazni-Kandahar highway.
Provincial security chief Gen. Mohammad Hussain said the incident took place in Qarabagh district killing at least 16 people and injuring 9 others.
He said the incident took place around 4 am local time on Thursday after a civilian bus struck with a truck.
The wounded individuals have been taken to hospital, Gen. Mohammad Hussain said adding that a number of the wounded individuals are in critical health condition.
Ghazni-Kandahar highway is one of the busiest highways of Afghanistan where majority of road accidents are taking place.
In the meantime Ghazni traffic department chief Abdullah Ahmadi said at last 18 people were killed and 23 others were injured following the incident.
Karzai Welcomes US Troop Withdrawal
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Wednesday, 13 February 2013
President Hamid Karzai has welcomed the US president's announcement that more than half of the US troops deployed in Afghanistan will leave by this time next year.
"Afghanistan welcomes the announcement by President Obama, who in his State of the Union address said that the US would be pulling out another 34,000 troops over the next year from Afghanistan," Karzai's office said in a statement on Wednesday.
Obama said in his address, "This spring, our forces will move into a support role, while Afghan security forces take the lead."
"This is something Afghanistan has wanted for so long now. The withdrawal in spring of foreign forces from Afghan villages will definitely help in ensuring peace and full security in Afghanistan," Karzai's office said.
Nevertheless, it noted that it wanted the relationship with the American forces to continue.
"As Obama underscored America's commitment to a unified and sovereign Afghanistan beyond 2014, we hope the bilateral relations and cooperation between the two countries could further expand," it said.
The Ministry of Defence also supported the US decision.
"We welcome the US troop's withdrawal. The Afghan security forces are to take over combat and operations control in 2013 and they are ready to take security of the country," MOD spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi told TOLOnews.
Obama said the plan was part of the American aim to end its involvement in the war by the end of 2014.
"Tonight, I can announce that over the next year another 34,000 American troops will come home from Afghanistan," he said Tuesday night in Washington DC. "This drawdown will continue. And by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over."
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement the troop withdrawal plan was based on a recommendation from Marine Gen. John Allen, who just ended his command of US and Isaf forces in Afghanistan.
The withdrawal is the latest phase in a transition plan that the US, Afghanistan and allies developed at recent Nato summits in Lisbon, Portugal, and Chicago.
The number of US troops has already declined from a high of about 100,000 in 2010 to 66,000 now.
This year is expected to be a critical test for Afghan security forces who are now leading 90 percent of the operations and taking the bulk of the casualties.
New Kabul Bank Auction Set for Saturday
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Wednesday, 13 February 2013
New Kabul Bank will be auctioned on Saturday after months of securing interested buyers, Ministry of Finance (MOF) told TOLOnews on Wednesday.
Eight domestic and foreign companies will bid in the auction, MOF spokesman Wahid Tawhidi said.
He declined to name the companies but said there were five domestic companies among the eight.
"We will start the bidding on Saturday after lunch and we will announce New Kabul Bank's buyer and their price in front of civil society representatives and media," Tawhidi said.
The original date for the auction was set for 13 January, but this was extended on the request of some of the interested foreign companies to 16 February, he added.
Iran Welcomes Afghanistan in International Transit Convention
TOLOnews.com By Zabihullah Jhanmal Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Iran has welcomed Afghanistan's membership in the International Road Transport (IRT) Convention, according to its Urban Planning and Roads Ministry.
Iran ministry officials said that Afghanistan's membership will facilitate Afghan trucks travelling from Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf and European countries via Iran.
Both countries supported Afghanistan's membership in the fourth Afghanistan-Iran Transport Cooperation meeting in Kabul, where they also agreed on 17 points of transport facilitation between the two countries.
"We are interested in Afghanistan's membership in international transit routes which will pave the way for the development of transportation with Iran," Iran Deputy Minister Urban Planning and Roads Shahyar Afandizada said.
"By the implementation of these agreements, we are trying to solve the transit problems that come between the two countries," Afghan Deputy Minister for planning and policy in the Transport and Aviation Ministry Jariullah Mansory said.
The Afghanistan-Iran Transport Cooperation meeting began Tuesday and ran for two days.
The agenda covered simplification of ground transportation, avoiding delays for transit trucks in either country, modernisation of border crossings, and construction of a second Milak Bridge.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Transport and Aviation added that the government is aiming to use the IRT membership to improve cooperation with other countries in the region.
Afghanistan: New Textbooks Baffle Teachers
In Nangarhar, some say texts for new school curriculum are too hard, others that they are plain wrong.
IWPR By Hijratullah Ekhtyar 13 Feb 13
Afghanistan - Teachers as well as pupils at schools in eastern Afghanistan are struggling to get to grips with a newly-introduced curriculum. Some of the textbooks are far too advanced, while others are riddled with mistakes, experts claim.
Ninety million US dollars has been spent on compiling and publishing the new set of textbooks. They were distributed in Nangarhar province six months ago, though some other parts of Afghanistan will have to wait another three months to get them.
Education officials say that if teaching staff cannot handle the courses, that is a reflection on their abilities.
But some teachers say the content of the national curriculum is so complicated that they cannot even understand it themselves, let alone pass it on to their students.
Rahatullah, who teaches chemistry at the Kabo High School in Nangarhar’s Khugiani district, and says the science presented in the books is university-level material.
“The new 11th-grade chemistry book contains topics that are taught in first year of chemistry at university. And 12th-grade subjects like algebra, geometry and trigonometry include content that’s taught at university level,” he said. “That indicates that the curriculum content is set at too high a level. How can 10th, 11th and 12th grade pupils grasp it? How can teachers teach it?”
Rahatullah predicted that teachers would leave in droves, while others might just pretend to teach.
“If someone says he can teach it, he might do so, but I’m certain that his pupils won’t learn a thing from it,” he added.”
Mohammad Seddiq, a pupil at the Abdul Wakil High School, said the curriculum was so challenging as to put him off continuing in education.
“The teachers say, “We don’t know the content, so how can we teach you?’ The old-style textbooks were easy,” he said.
Shamsurrahman Nurani, a teacher at the Separ Elementary School in Chaparhar district, complained that some of the textbooks were cluttered with information that was hard to make sense of.
“The subjects have too much detail and explanation, so that the pupils can’t understand and get confused,” he said.
Nurani said the current crop of teachers had been trained to use a different curriculum and were finding it hard to adjust.
Education officials in Nangarhar insist an extensive retraining programme is already under way.
“This curriculum suits the requirement of the times we live in,” the spokesman for the provincial education department, Mohammad Asef Shinwari, said. “The problems stem from the low level of knowledge of our teachers. We have already trained up some skilled science teachers and they are now involved in training high school teachers to use the new curriculum. We plan to [re]train some 5,000 teachers. Thus far we have trained 1,000 and the process is continuing.”
Shinwari said a lot of thought and work had gone into the revamped textbooks, with a special committee that looked at the methods used in countries like India, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan and Malaysia. As a result, he said, Afghanistan’s curriculum was now better than those of some of its neighbours.
Mathematics teacher Nadira Sayeda, from the Rokhshana High School, believes that looking at other models is part of the problem. She claims that much of the content has been blindly copied from foreign publications, with errors introduced along the way.
Within the first few pages of the 11th-grade physics text, she identified 15 errors, plus mistakes in the examples used to drive home the points made in each lesson.
The teaching methods used in Afghanistan have closely followed political trends over the last three decades. The communist regime that took over in the late 1970s incorporated Soviet-influenced ideology into education. The mujahedin groups that seized power in 1992 changed the books to highlight their views, such as highlighting their militia commanders in the history texts.
Things changed again when the Taleban captured Kabul in 1996. They stopped girls going to school and imposed their own hard-line vision of Islam on schoolbooks, in the sciences as well as in the humanities.
The post-2001 period has seen significant changes for the better, notably in female education. However, problems remain. The latest history textbooks deal with the last three decades by ignoring them – a compromise made, some say, because some warlords-turned-politicians do not want too much light shone on past events.
As chemistry teacher Rahatullah put it, “Whenever a new government comes to power, it interferes in the education system according to its political tastes.”
“This new curriculum may be suited to American, British or some other western states, but not to the children and adolescents of a war-torn country like Afghanistan,” he added.
Asadullah Ghazanfar, a writer who has looked into the way the textbooks were compiled, says the work on Pashto grammar contains inaccurate definitions, in addition to explanations so poorly worded as to be incomprehensible. He found similar problems in books written in Afghanistan’s other main language, Dari.
“I can say for certain that nothing is right in those books,” he said.
These things matter, Ghazanfar says, because schoolbooks are the most important documents that any country possesses, second only to the constitution.
Another of Ghazanfar’s gripes is that one Pashto textbook includes material about 18th century poet Kazem Khan Shaida, whose work is highly regarded but is so sophisticated that the average teacher will not really grasp what it is about. “It’s particular punishment for pupils who are not native Pashto speakers,” he added.
Zarin Anzor, a writer and literary expert who wrote the Pashto textbook used for the 12th grade, defended his decision to incorporate challenging material.
“I consciously selected some general information about Pashto literature and its mystical content, because 12th grade is the door to university level,” he said, pointing out that future students needed to have a general grounding in Pashto literature.
“I agree that these subjects may be hard for school pupils – they’re difficult for teachers,” he added.
In the end, though, he said normal international practice was for education officials to decide what the curriculum should be, and then produce or retrain teachers to the required standard.
Hijratullah Ekhtyar is an IWPR-trained reporter in Nangarhar, Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com