Tweet
US Warns Afghan Leader's Comments Threaten Troops
By KIMBERLY DOZIER The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - US commander in Afghanistan warns troops to brace for violence after Karzai's anti-US comments
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan warned his troops to be ready for increased violence because of a series of anti-American statements by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, NATO said Thursday.
In an email to battlefield commanders, Gen. Joseph Dunford, said the remarks could spur more insider attacks, days after gunmen in Afghan uniforms killed two U.S. special forces troops and a U.S. contractor in two separate shootings.
"We're at a rough point in the relationship," Dunford said in the email, according to a senior U.S. official, speaking anonymously to discuss the confidential communication.
Karzai's office released a new statement Thursday explaining the president's earlier remarks, after news of Dunford's email broke.
"My recent comments were meant to help reform, not destroy the relationship," the statement quotes Karzai telling an audience gathered for a televised talk show filmed at the Presidential Palace Thursday. "We want good relations and friendship with America, but the relationship must be between two independent nations."
That explanation may do little to soothe U.S. officials' unease. Over the weekend, the Afghan leader accused the U.S. of colluding with the Taliban on suicide attacks to keep the country unstable and give foreign forces an excuse to stay beyond their 2014 mandate. His remarks followed two suicide attacks that killed at least 19 Afghans on Saturday, coinciding with the first official visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
Karzai also cautioned that the delay in handing over a U.S.-run detention center to Afghan control "could harm bilateral relations." His remarks came after he and Dunford met Wednesday to discuss the issue but failed to resolve the impasse.
The prison transfer, originally slated for 2009, has been repeatedly delayed because of disputes between the U.S. and Afghan governments about whether all detainees should have the right to a trial and who will have the ultimate authority over the release of prisoners the U.S. considers a threat.
The Afghan government has maintained that it needs full control over which prisoners are released as a matter of national sovereignty. The issue has threatened to undermine ongoing negotiations for a security agreement that would govern the presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan after the current combat mission ends in 2014.
Dunford and other top U.S. officials have rejected Karzai's allegations of collusion with the Taliban.
Dunford's warning to his troops, first reported by The New York Times, showed the deep U.S. concern that Karzai's words could go beyond angry rhetoric and spark violence targeting U.S. forces, a threat that could harm the larger relationship.
NATO also released a statement explaining the missive, saying it "routinely conducts assessments and adapts its protection posture to ensure our forces are prepared to meet potential threats." The statement calls Dunford's email "prudent given increased coalition causalities in recent days."
Dunford also said unusually warm weather could mean an early start to the Taliban fighting season because militants can return from now-open high mountain passes from Pakistan.
On the detention center issue, NATO released a statement Wednesday saying both parties pledged to continue constructive dialogue to resolve the remaining issues. The facility has an Afghan administrator but is still U.S.-run.
Afghanistan must improve power supply to win investment-World Bank
By Katharine Houreld Thu Mar 14, 2013 11:40am EDT
KABUL, March 14 - (Reuters) - Afghanistan must make improving its power infrastructure a top priority to exploit vast mineral deposits and attract more foreign investors, the head of the World Bank said Thursday.
Kabul hopes Chinese and Indian investments in iron ore and copper mining will help offset a dip in its economy when most foreign combat troops leave the country by the end of 2014 and donors begin to reduce aid.
Along with the issue of security, the country's unreliable electricity supply is one of the biggest turn-offs for international companies looking to tap its rich resources.
"It's almost impossible to have robust economic growth if you don't have enough energy," Jim Yong Kim told Reuters during a visit to the Afghan capital.
Only a quarter of Afghanistan's 30 million people currently have access to the power grid, which is for the most part supplied by its neighbours such as Uzbekistan.
The mountainous country produces its own hydro-power, but plans to build more plants have been disrupted by the Taliban insurgency.
Insurgents have been also trying to stop the flagship government mining project, the $3 billion Aynak copper mine. Work on the project, which has been under way since 2007, was temporarily halted last year after Chinese workers were attacked by Taliban fighters.
Insurgents have fired rockets at mining projects, planted improvised explosive devices along roads and arrived armed on motorcycles to threaten people.
Poor security has also made it difficult for donors to reach agricultural projects, Kim said. Farm products currently provide the bulk of Afghanistan's exports.
"While mining holds great promise for the future, in the short term it's going to be agriculture that provides the most jobs, especially for women," he said. (Editing by Jeremy Laurence/Jeremy Gaunt.)
Commander encouraged by anti-Taliban uprising
By ROBERT BURNS | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Villagers in an area of southern Afghanistan that was the birthplace of the Taliban movement two decades ago have staged a first-of-its-kind uprising against the insurgents, a senior American commander said Wednesday.
Army Maj. Gen. Robert B. Abrams said in a video teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that this was a new and promising development in Kandahar province with potential to spread even as U.S. and allied forces are playing more of a back-seat role in fighting the insurgency.
"This is absolutely the first time that we have seen this sort of an uprising, where the people have said, 'Enough is enough,'" Abrams said, speaking from his headquarters in Kandahar city. He commands 14,000 U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan whose role has switched from direct combat to helping Afghan forces take the lead.
Abrams said the uprising in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province began about one month ago, and at this point the Taliban have been "kicked out" of all but about four villages — not at the initiative of Afghan or coalition troops but that of the villagers. "I suspect the rest of those villages will fall here in short order," Abrams said.
Abrams said Afghan officials told him there were two main triggers of the uprising. One was the arrival about six weeks ago of a new district police chief with "a renewed energy, vigor, an offensive mindset." The second was the beating of a villager by Taliban fighters who, when reprimanded by the village elder, proceeded to humiliate the elder.
"That was the straw that broke the camel's back," Abrams said. He identified the village as Peshigan.
There have been local anti-Taliban uprisings elsewhere in Afghanistan in recent years — most notably in Andar district of the eastern province of Ghazni last year — but they have not developed into anything close to a national movement.
Seth G. Jones, a counterinsurgency and counterterrorism expert at the RAND Corp. and a frequent visitor to Afghanistan, said he thinks the Panjwai and other local uprisings are significant even if they are not decisive.
"It does show some of the weaknesses of a (Taliban) movement that is not that popular," Jones said in an interview. "What this may suggest is that for the foreseeable future the struggle in rural parts of Afghanistan, including districts like Panjwai, will see-saw back and forth between insurgents, the government and then locals."
A distinguishing feature of the Panjwai uprising is its location in a traditional Taliban stronghold. Mullah Omar, who founded the Taliban movement in the early 1990s, is originally from nearby Zhari district. Panjwai has been the scene of fierce battles between Taliban and U.S.-led coalition forces for the past six years. It was the scene of killings in March 2012, allegedly by Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, of 16 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, in two Panjwai villages. Bales is scheduled to be court-martialed in September.
Abrams called the uprising "a long time coming," adding, "In short, the people have said, 'Enough is enough,' and they became fed up with the Taliban. They have asked for the support of their government."
Abrams said there is no formula for triggering popular uprisings against the Taliban.
"If there was a magic recipe, we would have figured it out years ago and sprinkled it throughout the (south)," he said. "So it's really based on the individual nuances and tribal customs and so forth, as well as the security environment inside each of the districts."
Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War and an occasional adviser to U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, said in an interview that Panjwai is "one of the most unlikely" places for a popular uprising, given the Taliban's strong influence there and the risk villagers take by standing up to the militants.
It suggests to her that the Taliban have overstepped the boundaries of what ordinary Afghans will tolerate even in an area where the Taliban traditionally enjoyed sympathy and support.
___
Follow Robert Burns on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP
News Analysis: Karzai's remarks about Taliban-U.S. talks could strain Kabul-Washington ties
By Abdul Haleem
KABUL, March 13 (Xinhua) -- A crack in the once solid U.S.- Afghanistan relations appeared after Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused the United States of holding secret talks with the Taliban outside Afghanistan, a claim sharply rebuffed by Washington as baseless.
On Sunday, President Karzai categorically said that leaders of the Taliban were holding talks with the American officials in the European and Gulf countries "every day." He said he was informed about this by foreigners and patriotic Taliban elements.
The embattled Afghan leader also lashed at Taliban-linked suicide bombings, saying that such attacks could only justify the continued presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan.
In his emotional address on Sunday, Karzai said that by carrying suicide attacks in Kabul and in Khost provinces on Saturday which claimed over a dozen lives, the Taliban was "in fact serving foreigners to justify their presence in Afghanistan."
Karzai's remarks were made during the visit to Afghanistan of newly-confirmed U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Hagel was in Kabul to get a firsthand knowledge about the security situation in the country.
Hagel, who met Karzai hours after his contradictory remarks in his fortified palace, has rejected the allegations, saying that the U.S. has been supporting the Afghan-led peace talks.
The U.S. commander of some 100,000-strong NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, General Joseph Dunford, has also rejected Karzai's allegations.
The Karzai administration has been striving hard to bring the Taliban into negotiating table and back into the country's political mainstream before the 2014 pullout of NATO-led troops from Afghanistan, but all efforts were in vain.
But there were reports that some Taliban leaders met secretly with U.S. officials in Qatar.
Earlier in February, Karzai accused the U.S. troops in the central Wardak province of harassing locals and ordered their withdrawal from the province within two weeks. The deadline had lapsed last Monday but the U.S. troops have remained in the province.
Karzai accusations and the rejection by U.S. officials, according to Afghan political observers, could harm the two countries' bilateral relations and could eventually isolate Afghanistan.
"Antagonism with the international community, above all with U. S., would not serve Afghanistan's interest and instead would benefit the armed oppositions," Kabul University professor and political analyst Faizullah Jalal told Xinhua.
Karzai's ambivalent behavior -- such as describing the Taliban as brothers one day and the next day denouncing them as U.S. servants -- could further damage the president's credibility in the eyes of Afghans and in the international community, Jalal said.
Mir Ahmad Juinda, another political analyst and former parliamentarian, said that Karzai's "confrontation with the international community would marginalize Afghanistan."
Wahid Mujda, a former Taliban official and now a political analyst, opined that the reluctance of the United States to withdraw its troops from central Wardak province and hand over Bagram prison to Afghan government has obviously angered President Karzai.
"Ignoring the president's order for the U.S. to pull out its troops from Wardak and to hand over Bagram jail to Afghan authority has annoyed the president and has prompted him charge that the United States does not respect Afghanistan sovereignty," Mujda told Xinhua.
During Hagel's tour to Afghanistan, the Bagram prison facility, where more than 2,000 suspected Taliban and al-Qaida operatives are detained, would have been formally turned over to Afghanistan last Saturday but this was cancelled.
President Karzai has announced that he will set free all detainees in the Bagram jail who have proven innocent once the prison facility is formally turned over to Afghanistan.
Mujda said that the tension between Kabul and Washington at this critical stage while Afghanistan is preparing for the 2014 presidential elections as well as the pullout of NATO-led troops in 2014 would have a negative impact on the Karzai administration and the country's stability.
Karzai Provokes Pushback at Home
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV March 13, 2013
KABUL - Afghan politicians pushed back against President Hamid Karzai's accusations of U.S. collusion with the Taliban, saying that such rhetoric is irresponsible and could endanger critical Western support.
Twenty Afghan political parties and two coalitions, reflecting much of the country's political spectrum outside the insurgency, said in a joint statement on Wednesday that Mr. Karzai's allegations "do not represent the views of the people of Afghanistan toward their international friends."
"The president's remarks are part of a series of deliberate actions that push Afghanistan toward disaster," the parties said. "Creating such provocations against the international community is an escape from national responsibilities, and a failed attempt to divert public opinion from genuine issues."
Mr. Karzai's charge in a speech on Sunday that the Taliban kill Afghan civilians "in the service of America" sparked sharp rebuttals from U.S. military and civilian officials and an angry reaction on Capitol Hill. He made similar remarks again on Tuesday, despite the American rebukes.
Though the party system is weak in Afghanistan and few senior leaders attended the joint news conference Wednesday, representatives of many groups that issued the statement hold high-level positions in the Afghan government, military and law-enforcement agencies. They also include key opposition movements.
"If they are rational, most Afghan politicians understand that the future of Afghanistan, its development and stability, are linked with a good relationship with the international community," said Fabrizio Foschini, an analyst with the Kabul-based Afghan Analysts Network.
In Parliament, too, Mr. Karzai's tirades have provoked consternation. "We don't know what is going on and the entire nation is confused," said Kabul lawmaker Qais Hassan."Afghanistan desperately needs the cooperation of the international community. We should avoid irresponsible speeches," added Massoud Khan Noorzai, a lawmaker from the southern province of Helmand.
Hamidullah Farooqi, who served as a minister of transport under Mr. Karzai in 2009-10 and is now a leader of one of the parties that signed Wednesday's declaration, said the Afghan president probably doesn't actually believe in a Taliban collusion with the U.S.
"He's just trying to show that he is not a puppet," he said. "But this is dangerous because it poisons the Afghan public opinion."
The latest flare-up in the bilateral relationship comes as the U.S. is withdrawing its forces and negotiating with Mr. Karzai what American military presence, if any, will remain in Afghanistan after the coalition's mandate ends next year.
Mr. Karzai has clashed with the U.S. on several aspects of this disengagement, complaining that the U.S. doesn't sufficiently respect Afghan sovereignty.
One of the most contested issues is the future of the U.S.-run detention facility at the Bagram Air Field north of Kabul. A ceremony to transfer the facility and its Afghan detainees to Afghan control was abruptly canceled on Saturday, after the Afghan government demanded last-minute changes to the deal, which foresees U.S. involvement in deciding which detainees get released.
U.S. officials say they are concerned about the possibility of Mr. Karzai freeing some of the most dangerous insurgent suspects detained at Bagram, as happened with some detainees previously handed over to Afghan authorities.
A meeting on Wednesday between Mr. Karzai and the coalition commander, U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, failed to break the impasse. Gen. Dunford said in a statement that the coalition "will complete the transfer when the remaining issues have been resolved," and that any such handover must be done in a way "mitigating the real threats that some of these detainees pose to Afghan and coalition forces."
Mr. Karzai said in a statement that "more delays in the Bagram prison transfer can harm relations between Afghanistan and the U.S."
Mr. Karzai has also demanded the withdrawal of U.S. Special Operations Forces from the province of Wardak, accusing them of human-rights abuses. The U.S. rejected these accusations and didn't comply with the Monday deadline demanded by Mr. Karzai for the pullout.
The Taliban on Wednesday mocked Mr. Karzai for his outbursts, saying the remarks showed his fury at being ignored by the U.S.
"He was insisting on the Bagram takeover, which didn't take place, and his deadline for the Wardak Special Forces withdrawal didn't work, either. This shows he is powerless," said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. "Poor Karzai isn't guilty: His masters have put him in a very tough spot. Such talk from him is a sign of desperation." —Habib Khan Totakhil and Ziaulhaq Sultani contributed to this article.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
Afghan security vacuum feared along "gateway to Kabul"
Reuters By Mirwais Harooni and Michael Georgy Thu Mar 14, 2013
MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan - The Afghan policeman manning a checkpoint glances at the snow-covered mountains that are home to Taliban fighters and predicts what would happen if elite U.S. forces leave Wardak province, seen as the gateway to the capital of Kabul.
"The Taliban will take over in one day," Mohammad Jamil says. "They are nearby."
Ever since President Hamid Karzai announced late last month that U.S. forces would be barred from the strategic province because of alleged abuses against civilians, Afghan forces who will be left to provide security without them have grown more anxious by the day.
Wardak, just a 40-minute drive from Kabul, is a prime example of what could happen in other parts of Afghanistan as the United States winds down an increasingly unpopular war, now in its 12th year.
U.S. special forces are expected to play a major role after most NATO combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014, and Karzai's decision could complicate negotiations between the United States and Afghanistan over the scope of U.S. operations after the pull-out.
"It's special forces who go usually on the front lines and fight with Taliban," said a second Afghan policeman, Mir Hussain. "If we make them leave this province than there won't be anybody to fight them. It's obvious that as soon as they leave our province the Taliban will return to power here."
Strategically located astride the Western approach to Kabul, Wardak is ideally placed for the insurgents who control nearby mountain villages to use as a staging ground for suicide operations into the city, home to nearly 5 million people and dozens of diplomatic missions.
Militants already carry out ambushes, shooting attacks and suicide bombings on American and Afghan forces there.
Fears that the departures of U.S. special forces will embolden the insurgents are heightened by the arrival of spring, which traditionally marks the start of Afghanistan's "fighting season" as the snow melts.
Earlier this week, two U.S. soldiers, reported to be special forces, were killed in an attack in the province.
LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP
Karzai ordered U.S. special forces to leave after residents complained that they, and Afghans working with them, were torturing and killing civilians, an allegation strongly denied by the Americans.
Even after the deadline for U.S. special forces to withdraw passed on Sunday, General Abdul Razaq, a senior police detective, told Reuters they were still in Wardak, a collection of mostly apple and apricot farms surrounded by mountains.
U.S. forces have refused to comment on their deployment.
Razaq said local officials had urged the Interior Ministry to provide strong support if the American forces leave, including artillery and reinforcements.
Some residents speak with hatred about the elite U.S. forces and believe allegations that they committed atrocities.
"Every day they kill our innocent people," said Abdul Ghafoor, 54, without offering any evidence to back the accusations, as his companions nodded in agreement.
But others seem far more worried about the security vacuum the province may face. Many remember how Wardak was the launching pad for the Taliban when they took over Kabul and much of the country in 1996.
They don't have to look far. Collapsed buildings, including one that served as a coordination centre for security forces, are a potent reminder of the devastation wreaked by Taliban suicide bombings.
"A small number of people from Wardak province had complained to President Karzai about special forces but now they also know that their decision wasn't right," said Hameeda Akbari, a member of parliament from Wardak.
"They want to find a way to solve the problem and keep special forces for some more time. If special forces leave Wardak, the security situation will get worse."
KABUL RISK HEIGHTENS
Some fear the dangers could reach far beyond the provincial capital of Maidan Shahr, where Afghan policemen speed past a children's playground called Peace Park in jeeps mounted with machine guns.
"As soon as these forces leave this province not only Wardak, but even some parts of Kabul, will be occupied by Taliban and Kabul security will be in danger," said Haji Rokai, a tribal elder. "So I hope that the government takes a better decision and keep these forces here for longer period."
Afghan Army Chief of Staff Sher Mohammad Karimi recently told Reuters most of the suicide attacks in Kabul were planned just 25 km (15 miles) away in Wardak.
"It is one of our biggest concerns," he said.
Jittery Afghan forces have set up a multitude of checkpoints along Maidan Shahr's two paved roads. Intelligence agents, police and soldiers stop and question motorists travelling on potholed, dusty streets.
"We got a tip-off that the Taliban were sending a suicide bomber here today to carry out a mission," said an Afghan intelligence agent who checked vehicles.
LIVING IN FEAR
It is not only the Taliban who are waiting to attack. The al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, believed to be the United States' deadliest foe in Afghanistan, and other insurgent groups like Hizb-i-Islami, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, are also active.
In 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, a truck bomb in Wardak wounded 77 American soldiers. A month earlier, the Taliban shot down a transport helicopter in Wardak, killing all 38 people on board, including 25 U.S. special forces.
The Taliban haven't lost their edge despite the presence of U.S. special forces and their intimidating Afghan partners, who ride off-road motorbikes and cover their faces with balaclavas and dark sunglasses.
Afghan security forces, already at a disadvantage because they lack training and equipment, could become less effective if the Americans leave.
"We have five PK light machine guns in our whole district, but the Taliban has more than five in a small checkpoint. So how can we fight with them or protect our people from their atrocities?" asked the policeman Jamil.
He recalls the consequences of a U.S. withdrawal from a nearby district, Sayedabad. "The Taliban captured that valley. Now it's a training camp for them where they learn how to attack Afghan and foreign forces."
Provincial officials are not taking any chances. Many of them refuse to spend the night in Wardak for fear of attacks by militants.
"It is a 15-minute drive from my office to my house but I cannot go there," said Esmatullah Asem, head of Maidan Shahr Hospital. "The last time I went home was two years ago. I live in Kabul." (Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Jeremy Laurence and Alex Richardson)
Ex-Spy Chief: Pakistan Sees Afghanistan As 'Sub-Nation'
RFE/RL March 13, 2013
Afghanistan's ex-spy chief has risked sparking another war of words by making a series of allegations against Pakistan.
Amrullah Saleh, former director of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), on March 12 accused Pakistan of treating Afghanistan as a "sub-nation."
"Pakistan has monopolized the right to have all sorts of foreign relations itself and when it comes to Afghanistan, they want to create limitations for us; treating us not as a nation, but as sub-nation, as to whom we should talk to or who should be our allies," Saleh said.
Speaking on the Pakistani Express News television program "Sarhad Ke Us Paar," Saleh also accused Islamabad of taking money in exchange for its recent release of dozens of Taliban prisoners in its custody. He said Pakistan had even offered to mediate between the Afghan government and the Taliban leadership "for the right price."
"Pakistan is no longer denying to having harbored the Taliban leadership, and its government is now putting a high price tag on the Taliban and saying if you pay the price we are going to push these guys for reconciliation and we know what the price tag is," he said.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry has vehemently rejected Saleh's allegations, insisting that it did not take money from Kabul or offer to be a mediator.
"Pakistan encourages an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue and is committed to it," a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Express News.
Saleh, who was head of the NDS between 2004 and 2010, resigned after an attack on a high-profile peace conference. He was a close associate of former anti-Taliban Afghan leader Ahmad Shah Masud and served as his liaison with the CIA in the late 1990s.
On the program, he also accused Pakistan of trying to dominate Afghanistan through proxies, a reference to the Taliban and other militant groups fighting against Kabul. He said that despite Islamabad's pledges to support the peace process with the Taliban, Pakistan did not want a functioning state in Afghanistan.
"The best way for us to make progress is for you [Pakistan] to respect Afghanistan as a dignified nation not as your backyard," Saleh said. "For as long as you're trying to dominate us through proxies it will backfire because we have gained massive soft power and Afghans are ready to stand up and rise as a nation."
Saleh also suggested that if Pakistan continued its policies toward Afghanistan, there could be a possibility of war between the two neighbors.
"When Pakistan gives itself the right to fragment my nation along ethnic lines and harbor antistate elements on the soil of Pakistan to hurt us as a nation, there may come a time when we won't be possessing the policy of coming to you softly and begging you to have mercy on us. As a sovereign country, Afghanistan also has the right to reciprocate," Saleh warned.
His comments come after another Afghan ex-spy chief, Rahmatullah Nabil, on March 3 accused Pakistan's notorious intelligence service, Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), of covertly supporting the Taliban and other extremist groups working against the government in Afghanistan.
In an unprecedented step, Nabil called for the United Nations to place the ISI on its global list of terrorist groups. "A terrorist is blacklisted, but the person who provides them with safe havens is not blacklisted," Nabil said.
Nabil, who is deputy chairman of Afghanistan's National Security Council, also said Pakistan should not be allowed to participate in negotiations to reach a peace agreement with the Taliban.
Afghanistan's current spy chief, Asadullah Khalid, is still recovering in a U.S. hospital after he survived a suicide attack on December 6, 2012. The assailant reportedly pretended to be a "messenger of peace from the Taliban" before detonating explosives at a government guesthouse used by the NDS.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the time said the assassination plot "came from Pakistan." Karzai said that although the Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack, he believed it originated in the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the Taliban's leadership is believed to be based.
Although Karzai never implicated Islamabad, Pakistan did issue a strong rejection that it was involved.
Recent accusations of Pakistani meddling in Afghanistan have struck a chord with ordinary Afghans, many of whom harbor resentment towards their eastern neighbor and accuse it of orchestrating the violence in the country.
-- Frud Bezhan
Pakistan charged Afghanistan to release Taliban prisoners: Saleh
By Meena Haseeb - 13 Mar 2013, 3:59 pm Khaama Press
Former Afghan spy — national directorate of security (NDS) chief Amrullah Saleh on Tuesday accused Pakistan of taking money from Afghanistan for the recent release of Taliban cadres.
Amrullah Saleh claimed that the Pakistani government had even offered to mediate between the Afghan government and the Taliban, The Express News reported.
Saleh, who is known for his anti-Pakistan statements said, “Pakistan is no longer denying to having harboured the Taliban leadership, and its government is now putting a high price tag on the Taliban and saying if you pay the price we are going to push these guys for reconciliation and we know what the price tag is.”
In the meantime Amrullah Saleh’s remarks for charging Afghanistan to release prisoners and mediate offer were denied by Pakistani foreign ministry.
“Pakistan encourages an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue and is committed to it,” the foreign ministry spokesperson told Express News.
According to the Pakistani newspaper, former Afghan NDS chief Amrullah Saleh also that Pakistan has been treating Afghanistan as a ‘sub-nation’ and wished to ‘dominate’ the war-torn country.
Saleh quoted by the Express News said, “Pakistan has monopolised the right to have all sorts of foreign relations itself and when it comes to Afghanistan, they want to create limitations for us; treating us not as a nation, but as sub-nation, as to who we should talk to or who should be our allies.”
Officials Urge Tougher Line on Kabul Bank Case Verdicts
New York Times By AZAM AHMED March 13, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan attorney general’s office said Wednesday that it planned to appeal the verdicts issued by a special court last week in the Kabul Bank fraud case, saying the sentences given were not in accordance with the original charges prosecutors filed.
The special court handed down sentences ranging from six months to several years and, in some instances, hundreds of millions of dollars in fines, to the 21 defendants in the largest financial fraud case in Afghan history. But in delivering their verdicts, the judges altered the charges, making them more lenient than the ones in the original indictment. Further, given the nature of the new charges, it was unclear how easy it would be to enforce the sentences and fines that were given.
“We want heavier punishment and long-term imprisonment for all the culprits,” said Sayed Alam Ishaqzai, the director of the anticorruption department of the attorney general. “It’s not in accordance with our indictment. There is no balance between the crime and punishment.”
Last week’s ruling was widely seen as relatively lenient on the two principal figures in the bank’s corruption, Sherkhan Farnood, the bank’s founder, and Khalilullah Frozi, its chief executive. The men each received five-year prison sentences and were fined hundreds of millions of dollars, but it was unclear whether the fines, in particular, could be enforced because there were no confiscation orders issued with them.
The men presided over a campaign of fraudulent loans and kickbacks that siphoned nearly $900 million from depositors until Kabul Bank was pushed to near collapse in 2010. One investigative report likened the bank’s operations to a Ponzi scheme, and long delays in bringing the principals to justice were widely criticized by the Afghan public and Western officials.
In its appeal, the attorney general’s office can seek to reinstate the initial charges, including embezzlement and money laundering, paving the way for considerably harsher sentences. And the money laundering law allows the court to confiscate assets and accounts to recover the losses the bank sustained, money that the Western-funded Afghan government had to cover.
The attorney general’s office also plans to appeal the sentences of the other 19 people convicted. Those defendants were given sentences ranging from 6 to 30 months in prison.
But while the action by the prosecutors is likely to be seen as a step in the direction of legal accountability, there have been grave concerns about the inclusion of some of the defendants on the indictment list. Among those who might face tougher sentences would be a handful of former regulators who worked to repair the damage at Kabul Bank. Their inclusion in the indictment and convictions was widely seen as a retaliatory move by senior Afghan officials.
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting.
Kabul Court Sentences Murderer to Death
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Kabul's preliminary court of Zone 4 on Wednesday sentenced a man to death for stabbing an elderly driver to death.
The court also sentenced the father of the accused to four months prison for being linked to the incident.
The accused, who only goes by one name Ajmal, confessed his crime saying that he killed the driver for money and sold the car to his father for 100,000 Afs ($2,000).
"Previously I was a chef near the artillery depot in Sar-e-Kotal. I killed him there," Ajmal told the court.
Ajmal's father Farid has rejected his own sentence saying that he was the one who turned Ajmal over to be tried after his son deceived him into buying the car.
"I have handed this boy over to the government myself," he said.
Abdul Baset Bakhtiari, head of the preliminary court handed down a sentence for both the murder and the car theft.
"As guided by Article 395 of the Penal Code, we sentence you with the name Ajmal son of Mohammad Farid to the most extreme punishment of execution for the killing of Abdul Qader," he said.
"Regarding the theft of the car, we sentence you to seven years imprisonment as guided by Article 465 of the mentioned code," he added.
A relative of the elderly victim said the verdict for Ajmal's father was too light.
"I didn't expect this (verdict) for his father. I want the next court to have a more serious sentence for his father," said one of the relatives.
Ajmal has been imprisoned previously for other crimes, including two years for home theft. He said that his other inmates in the prison encouraged him to kill.
Afghan Authorities Seize 21 Tons Of Heroin, Morphine
March 12, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan officials say counternarcotic teams have seized some 21 tons of heroin and morphine.
The bust, the biggest of the year, was made during a helicopter raid with the help of Russia's Federal Drug Control Service.
General Abdul Khalil Bahktyar, the raid commander, said in a news conference in Kabul on March 12 that Afghan commandos raided a facility in the Sherzad district of Nangarhar Province.
The drugs seized included large quantities of chemicals such as ammonium chloride, which is used to manufacture illicit drugs.
Bahktyar said the raid was the latest of about 200 carried out this year.
He said the narcotics seized were burned at the scene and six drug labs destroyed.
Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the world's opium.
Based on reporting by Interfax and AP
Canada spent $10 million for security at Afghan dam project
Toronto Star By Jessica McDiarmid News reporter Wed Mar 13 2013
Canada spent about $10 million on security in Afghanistan at its $50-million Dahla dam project, where private security contractors were linked to allegations of corruption and involved in an armed standoff with Canadian security officials.
One of Canada’s signature projects in Afghanistan, the Dahla dam was guarded in part by Watan Risk Management, a controversial Afghan security firm with alleged ties to crime and corruption. How much they were paid remains secret.
The Canadian International Development Agency contracted the project to SNC-Lavalin, which was responsible for security.
Canadian problems with Watan included an armed standoff in February 2010 that erupted between Watan guards and two Canadian overseers. The Canadian security officials fled Afghanistan shortly afterward.
The U.S. banned contracts with Watan in 2010 as part of efforts to prevent aid money from winding up in the hands of corrupt officials and the Taliban, but SNC-Lavalin maintained its ties into 2011, when it finally severed the relationship. Watan has denied allegations of wrongdoing.
A spokesperson for SNC-Lavalin said details such as what was paid to subcontractors are confidential. CIDA and SNC-Lavalin officials have previously refused to say how much of the budget for the Dahla Dam went to security costs, citing commercial privacy.
Documents obtained by the Star under Access to Information law showed that $8.9 million was budgeted for security as of October 2010. CIDA later said it had paid about $10 million by March last year, when Canada’s four-year role in the project ended.
The money isn’t an exorbitant amount to spend on security in a place like Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban that’s often dubbed Afghanistan’s most dangerous province. But critics say the lack of transparency surrounding those costs raise troubling questions about how Canada’s development money is spent.
“This is what my problem with CIDA is, they’re doing things with public funds and they’re not accountable for it,” said Nipa Banerjee, a former head of CIDA’s operations in Afghanistan.
Between 2001 and 2011, CIDA put $1.65 billion into Afghanistan, with another $300 million on the books for 2011 to 2014. CIDA doesn’t disclose how much money overall has gone to pay for security or what firms are hired to provide it.
“As records of projects are kept on an individual basis, the consolidation of the information as requested is not readily available,” spokesperson Amy Mills wrote in an email.
CIDA doesn’t directly hire private security contractors in Afghanistan. Like its American counterpart, USAID, it disperses funds to “implementing partners,” which are responsible for security.
By contrast, however, USAID has published an audit that estimates at least $179 million went to private security costs from October 2006 to June 2009. Costs ranged from 0.5 to 34 per cent of overall project budgets. The average security cost per project was 8.3 per cent, though it noted actual costs could be much higher due to reporting problems.
USAID estimates private security costs can run from 8 to 10 per cent in low-risk areas to as high as 20, 30, or even 50 per cent in “extremely dangerous” locations.
Banerjee, who led CIDA’s work in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2006, said paying for security is a necessity of doing development work in conflict countries. But she also said use of private security contractors ate through development funds and undermined the Afghan government’s authority, because at times they operated outside Afghan law.
“It is really kind of a dilemma,” said Banerjee, now a professor at the University of Ottawa, researching Canada’s development efforts in Afghanistan.
At least two other CIDA-funded projects in Afghanistan budgeted roughly a quarter of their funds for private security, according to the documents obtained by the Star.
The Peace Dividend Trust’s Afghanistan Marketplace project, which CIDA granted $11.7 million, budgeted about $3.4 million — nearly 30 per cent — for security in a project that sought to help Afghan businesses sell goods to international organizations. Its chief investment officer Ainsley Butler declined an interview, saying they don’t discuss security outside the organization.
CANADEM’s Technical Assistance Program put about 22 per cent, or $2.7 million, of the $12.2 million it received from CIDA toward private security. Its Kabul-based project brought in Canadian experts to advise the fledgling Afghan government from 2008 to 2012.
Executive director Paul LaRose-Edwards said Afghanistan had the highest price tag for security in the organization’s history, “bar none.”
The organization tried to keep security costs down, but due diligence in Afghanistan was expensive and organizations funded by CIDA are responsible for security — and liable if something goes wrong.
“We had no way around this,” said LaRose-Edwards.
In Kandahar, Afghan officials have complained that millions were wasted on security firms and other costs at the Dahla dam, while the Canadians failed to raise the dam wall. Ottawa has responded that it successfully fulfilled its task of repairing the irrigation system attached to the dam. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has carried on the project.
Following a 2010 presidential decree, the state-owned, for-profit Afghan Public Protection Force is taking over from private security companies.
NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar wants a post-mortem on how Canada’s development funds have been spent.
“This is something that if Canadians knew the amounts we’re spending and the way it was being done, they would be quite upset,” said Dewar.
The office of Julian Fantino, minister responsible for CIDA, referred specific questions regarding security costs in Afghanistan to CIDA media relations. An emailed statement quoted Fantino saying Canada’s efforts in Afghanistan delivered “tangible results.”
“With respect to security, all partner agencies have the prerogative for the safety and protection of their personnel, and must comply with Canadian and Afghan law when contracting security services,” the statement read, in part.
“Despite the obvious challenges of operating in, and reporting from, a conflict zone, we can say with certainty that the vast majority of Canadian projects have met, and in some cases have even exceeded, their objectives.”
With Star files
Moving mountains of war gear home from Afghanistan
Maj. Gen. Kurt Stein has to figure out how to move $48-billion worth of war gear back home from landlocked, mountainous and war-torn Afghanistan.
Los Angeles Times By David Zucchino March 13, 2013
FT. BRAGG, N.C. - For the last 11 years, the U.S. military has stuffed bases in Afghanistan with Humvees and bullets, radios and radars, armored vehicles and surveillance balloons. Army Maj. Gen. Kurt Stein has less than two years to move $48-billion worth of weapons, gear and equipment back home.
Before U.S. combat troops leave at the end of 2014, Stein has to figure out how to transport 35,000 vehicles, 95,000 shipping containers and mountains of other war materiel out of a landlocked, mountainous country in the middle of a war.
It's not the first monumental moving job for Stein, 54, a burly former enlisted man with 37 years experience in military logistics. He was a top commander of the massive effort to move gear and equipment out of Iraq two years ago.
"Hard but not that hard," Stein said of moving tons of materiel on paved Iraqi highways into relatively safe and orderly Kuwait. "Afghanistan? Big difference. We don't have the road networks or the ports."
There's one more thing: Stein doesn't know how much stuff to leave behind, if any, because he doesn't know how many troops will remain after 2014, if any. That is still being negotiated by the U.S. and Afghanistan, with a target date of November 2013.
"All we can do now is get after what we know today," he said. The rest, he said, "depends on the end state, which we certainly don't know."
Stein estimates moving the materiel will cost taxpayers about $6 billion. The job is being tackled by more than 86,000 people, military and civilian, under his command.
Stein is technically deployed to Afghanistan, but he commutes to Ft. Bragg. Chronically jet-lagged, Stein lives on Afghan time, starting work at 4:30 a.m. at Ft. Bragg to stay in sync with operations in Afghanistan. Clocks on his office wall are set to times in North Carolina, Greenwich Mean Time, Iraq and Afghanistan.
He hasn't had time to finish setting up his office here because he's usually traveling — his territory covers 6 million square miles. He took command on a Friday last June, then flew to Afghanistan the following Monday.
Until last month, Stein spent millions of extra dollars to fly out gear and equipment because Pakistan would not guarantee truck passage through the Khyber Pass to Pakistani ports. After lengthy negotiations with U.S. officials, Pakistan agreed in mid-February to allow daily ground shipments across the border, but it could still close the crossing at any time.
Trucks are carrying materiel to Pakistani ports, where it is shipped to the U.S. Separately, military aircraft and contracted civilian planes are taking some materiel to ports in Jordan, Dubai and Oman, where containers are loaded onto ships headed to U.S. ports. From there, goods are trucked to military depots and arsenals around the country.
In the meantime, Stein has to continue to pour in supplies, weapons and ammunition, plus food and water, to the 66,000 U.S. troops still manning bases and outposts in the 11-year-old war. The stuff coming in crosses paths with the stuff going out. About 1,500 vehicles and 1,000 cargo containers exit Afghanistan monthly.
U.S. forces have shut down or turned over to Afghan forces 619 bases and combat outposts, with 193 still to be handed over or dismantled. All that equipment has to go somewhere. Some — portable toilets, concrete barriers, vehicles, modular housing — is going to Afghan security forces because it costs more to ship than it's worth. Other stuff — wood and metal from temporary buildings and barriers, plus old vehicles and trailers — is being crushed and sold to Afghans as scrap.
Some of the stuff is just plain worn out and will be destroyed. "The Afghans don't want junk, either," Stein said.
david.zucchino@latimes.com
Bagram Handover to Happen Next Week: Karzai
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 13 March 2013
President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday said that the government will take control of Bagram prison from the US next week - the third time in less than a week that he has named a new deadline.
Karzai said in a speech in southern Helmand province yesterday that the handover will happen next week on Saturday or Sunday.
On Sunday he had said it would happen this week. And last Wednesday he said it would happen last Saturday.
"I am sure you are all aware of the arguments about the Bagram prison handover. I urge you all to stand with me and say that Karzai is right, and we want to take responsibility of the prison and those who are innocent should be released. God willing, this demand will be implemented practically, by Saturday or Sunday next week," he said during an official visit to Helmand yesterday.
The handover was due to take place on Saturday with a signing ceremony when the US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel was visiting, but was delayed after disagreements over a few points in the new memorandum.
More than 3,000 suspected Taliban insurgents are being detained at Bagram. Last September, the US handed control of most of the high-security prison over to the Afghans, but did not transfer 600 or so detainees captured after the inital memorandum was signed in March 2012.
The White House said on Monday that the US is continuing to work with Afghanistan on the transfer of the prison to the Afghans.
Cross-Border Trade Depressed in Afghan North
Merchants claim customs procedures at Hairatan checkpoint are riddled with corruption and red tape.
IWPR By Qayum Babak 13 Mar 13
Afghanistan - Trade through Afghanistan’s main northern route has collapsed, and while officials blame unfair rules and security problems, merchants say procedures there are so corrupt that they prefer to use other routes.
Hairatan sits on the river Amu Darya, connected by bridge with the border town of Termez in Uzbekistan. A new railway from the main provincial town Mazar-e Sharif up to the border connects Afghanistan to freight networks via the Central Asia states to Russia and Europe. That should give Hairatan a unique advantage over road-only crossing points into Iran to the west and Pakistan to the south.
Instead, trade through Hairatan has fallen away dramatically. According to Arash Yunusi, chief executive of the Balkh region chamber of commerce, import volumes in February stood at 2,000 tons, compared with 80,000 tons in the same month of 2012.
Traders from northern Afghanistan raised concerns about the future of commerce through Hairatan when they met at the Balkh chamber of commerce in Mazar-e Sharif on February 11. They warned that the economy of northern Afghanistan would be at risk unless central government acted swiftly to address problems with cross-border trade arrangements.
Afghanistan remains heavily reliant on imports, and is vulnerable to any changes in the terms of trade. Pakistan, in particular, has imposed severe delays on freight heading from Afghanistan for export via the port at Karachi.
Local officials say the reason why Hairatan is suffering is that the customs rules there are stricter than elsewhere.
Speaking on February 18, provincial governor Atta Mohammad Nur suggested that central government was applying a higher standard to Hairatan than to other checkpoints.
"Everywhere except Hairatan, tariff and taxes on export goods have been lifted, but our traders are still being charged taxes for export goods and the custom laws are applied equitably," he said.
The governor’s spokesman, Monir Farhad, argued that Hairatan was effectively being punished for sticking to the rules.
"All the relevant regulations from the finance and commerce ministries are applied properly to traders at Hayratan. So they go to [other border checkpoints] that are more to their advantage,” he told IWPR.
Yunosi, meanwhile, claimed that goods were simply smuggled into Afghanistan at other locations.
"The fall in imports through Hairatan has been caused by goods coming in through other routes without being subjected to tariffs and taxes, because staff there are corrupt," he said.
Afghanistan’s trade minister Anwarolhaq Ahadi, visiting Hairatan port on February 18, denied the rules applied there were any different from elsewhere.
"It needs to be stated clearly that the law is enforced in equal measure at all border checkpoints,” he said.
Ahadi acknowledged that imports had slumped at Hairatan, but contrasted this with Aqina, a border crossing with Turkmenistan further west, where import revenues were rising rapidly.
Local traders to whom IWPR spoke disagreed strongly that the Hairatan checkpoint was less corrupt than others. Many said the problems stemmed from officials in Balkh region appointing relatives to positions of power on the border.
One of the few businessmen prepared to speak on the record was Sayed Taher Roshan Zadah, who said the reason people avoided shipping goods though Hairatan was not the customs duties they had to pay, but “bureaucracy and customs officers who take bribes”.
"The corrupt, bribe-taking staff in Hairatan, who mostly have the backing of senior government officials have robbed traders so much that all of them have started fleeing the port," said the businessman, who heads the Roshan Zadah Group.
Aref Totakhel, who speaks on behalf of the traders who use the checkpoint, agreed that staff there were “most corrupt”.
“They bought their positions and they extort bribes just as they please, using various pretexts,” he said. “That’s why traders have grown tired of it.”
Asked about problems at Hairatan, Farhad said, "I can neither confirm nor deny that corruption exists, but it isn’t on as large a scale as the traders say".
Saleh Mohammad, a departmental director in the local customs office, insisted that staff there operated by the letter of the law.
The reason imports were falling, he said, was “the daily announcements and warnings from the media about the withdrawal of foreign forces in 2014. Traders have halted their commercial activities because they are scared of 2014."
Speaking on February 11, finance ministry spokesman Wahid Tawhidi denied suggestions that security fears were depressing foreign trade. Like Ahadi, he pointed to increased import revenues at Aqina, and said the same was true of Koshki and Islam Qala in Herat province, where goods are traded with Iran.
Sayed Sakha, regional finance chief for Herat province, confirmed that customs revenues were on the rise there.
"Our revenues have risen eight per cent this year, due to increased levels of imports and exports,” he told IWPR by phone.
Back at Hairatan, trader Totakhel told IWPR he was being driven to desperation by the bureaucracy involved in getting goods across the border.
"Believe me, I have collected 15 signatures so far to obtain a lawful order, and I’ve paid out money as well,” he said, clutching a handful of documents. “I’ve been going around for three days now. I’ve grown weary of life, yet my work is still not done."
Qayum Babak is an IWPR-trained reporter in Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By KIMBERLY DOZIER The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - US commander in Afghanistan warns troops to brace for violence after Karzai's anti-US comments
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan warned his troops to be ready for increased violence because of a series of anti-American statements by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, NATO said Thursday.
In an email to battlefield commanders, Gen. Joseph Dunford, said the remarks could spur more insider attacks, days after gunmen in Afghan uniforms killed two U.S. special forces troops and a U.S. contractor in two separate shootings.
"We're at a rough point in the relationship," Dunford said in the email, according to a senior U.S. official, speaking anonymously to discuss the confidential communication.
Karzai's office released a new statement Thursday explaining the president's earlier remarks, after news of Dunford's email broke.
"My recent comments were meant to help reform, not destroy the relationship," the statement quotes Karzai telling an audience gathered for a televised talk show filmed at the Presidential Palace Thursday. "We want good relations and friendship with America, but the relationship must be between two independent nations."
That explanation may do little to soothe U.S. officials' unease. Over the weekend, the Afghan leader accused the U.S. of colluding with the Taliban on suicide attacks to keep the country unstable and give foreign forces an excuse to stay beyond their 2014 mandate. His remarks followed two suicide attacks that killed at least 19 Afghans on Saturday, coinciding with the first official visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
Karzai also cautioned that the delay in handing over a U.S.-run detention center to Afghan control "could harm bilateral relations." His remarks came after he and Dunford met Wednesday to discuss the issue but failed to resolve the impasse.
The prison transfer, originally slated for 2009, has been repeatedly delayed because of disputes between the U.S. and Afghan governments about whether all detainees should have the right to a trial and who will have the ultimate authority over the release of prisoners the U.S. considers a threat.
The Afghan government has maintained that it needs full control over which prisoners are released as a matter of national sovereignty. The issue has threatened to undermine ongoing negotiations for a security agreement that would govern the presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan after the current combat mission ends in 2014.
Dunford and other top U.S. officials have rejected Karzai's allegations of collusion with the Taliban.
Dunford's warning to his troops, first reported by The New York Times, showed the deep U.S. concern that Karzai's words could go beyond angry rhetoric and spark violence targeting U.S. forces, a threat that could harm the larger relationship.
NATO also released a statement explaining the missive, saying it "routinely conducts assessments and adapts its protection posture to ensure our forces are prepared to meet potential threats." The statement calls Dunford's email "prudent given increased coalition causalities in recent days."
Dunford also said unusually warm weather could mean an early start to the Taliban fighting season because militants can return from now-open high mountain passes from Pakistan.
On the detention center issue, NATO released a statement Wednesday saying both parties pledged to continue constructive dialogue to resolve the remaining issues. The facility has an Afghan administrator but is still U.S.-run.
Afghanistan must improve power supply to win investment-World Bank
By Katharine Houreld Thu Mar 14, 2013 11:40am EDT
KABUL, March 14 - (Reuters) - Afghanistan must make improving its power infrastructure a top priority to exploit vast mineral deposits and attract more foreign investors, the head of the World Bank said Thursday.
Kabul hopes Chinese and Indian investments in iron ore and copper mining will help offset a dip in its economy when most foreign combat troops leave the country by the end of 2014 and donors begin to reduce aid.
Along with the issue of security, the country's unreliable electricity supply is one of the biggest turn-offs for international companies looking to tap its rich resources.
"It's almost impossible to have robust economic growth if you don't have enough energy," Jim Yong Kim told Reuters during a visit to the Afghan capital.
Only a quarter of Afghanistan's 30 million people currently have access to the power grid, which is for the most part supplied by its neighbours such as Uzbekistan.
The mountainous country produces its own hydro-power, but plans to build more plants have been disrupted by the Taliban insurgency.
Insurgents have been also trying to stop the flagship government mining project, the $3 billion Aynak copper mine. Work on the project, which has been under way since 2007, was temporarily halted last year after Chinese workers were attacked by Taliban fighters.
Insurgents have fired rockets at mining projects, planted improvised explosive devices along roads and arrived armed on motorcycles to threaten people.
Poor security has also made it difficult for donors to reach agricultural projects, Kim said. Farm products currently provide the bulk of Afghanistan's exports.
"While mining holds great promise for the future, in the short term it's going to be agriculture that provides the most jobs, especially for women," he said. (Editing by Jeremy Laurence/Jeremy Gaunt.)
Commander encouraged by anti-Taliban uprising
By ROBERT BURNS | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Villagers in an area of southern Afghanistan that was the birthplace of the Taliban movement two decades ago have staged a first-of-its-kind uprising against the insurgents, a senior American commander said Wednesday.
Army Maj. Gen. Robert B. Abrams said in a video teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that this was a new and promising development in Kandahar province with potential to spread even as U.S. and allied forces are playing more of a back-seat role in fighting the insurgency.
"This is absolutely the first time that we have seen this sort of an uprising, where the people have said, 'Enough is enough,'" Abrams said, speaking from his headquarters in Kandahar city. He commands 14,000 U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan whose role has switched from direct combat to helping Afghan forces take the lead.
Abrams said the uprising in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province began about one month ago, and at this point the Taliban have been "kicked out" of all but about four villages — not at the initiative of Afghan or coalition troops but that of the villagers. "I suspect the rest of those villages will fall here in short order," Abrams said.
Abrams said Afghan officials told him there were two main triggers of the uprising. One was the arrival about six weeks ago of a new district police chief with "a renewed energy, vigor, an offensive mindset." The second was the beating of a villager by Taliban fighters who, when reprimanded by the village elder, proceeded to humiliate the elder.
"That was the straw that broke the camel's back," Abrams said. He identified the village as Peshigan.
There have been local anti-Taliban uprisings elsewhere in Afghanistan in recent years — most notably in Andar district of the eastern province of Ghazni last year — but they have not developed into anything close to a national movement.
Seth G. Jones, a counterinsurgency and counterterrorism expert at the RAND Corp. and a frequent visitor to Afghanistan, said he thinks the Panjwai and other local uprisings are significant even if they are not decisive.
"It does show some of the weaknesses of a (Taliban) movement that is not that popular," Jones said in an interview. "What this may suggest is that for the foreseeable future the struggle in rural parts of Afghanistan, including districts like Panjwai, will see-saw back and forth between insurgents, the government and then locals."
A distinguishing feature of the Panjwai uprising is its location in a traditional Taliban stronghold. Mullah Omar, who founded the Taliban movement in the early 1990s, is originally from nearby Zhari district. Panjwai has been the scene of fierce battles between Taliban and U.S.-led coalition forces for the past six years. It was the scene of killings in March 2012, allegedly by Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, of 16 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, in two Panjwai villages. Bales is scheduled to be court-martialed in September.
Abrams called the uprising "a long time coming," adding, "In short, the people have said, 'Enough is enough,' and they became fed up with the Taliban. They have asked for the support of their government."
Abrams said there is no formula for triggering popular uprisings against the Taliban.
"If there was a magic recipe, we would have figured it out years ago and sprinkled it throughout the (south)," he said. "So it's really based on the individual nuances and tribal customs and so forth, as well as the security environment inside each of the districts."
Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War and an occasional adviser to U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, said in an interview that Panjwai is "one of the most unlikely" places for a popular uprising, given the Taliban's strong influence there and the risk villagers take by standing up to the militants.
It suggests to her that the Taliban have overstepped the boundaries of what ordinary Afghans will tolerate even in an area where the Taliban traditionally enjoyed sympathy and support.
___
Follow Robert Burns on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP
News Analysis: Karzai's remarks about Taliban-U.S. talks could strain Kabul-Washington ties
By Abdul Haleem
KABUL, March 13 (Xinhua) -- A crack in the once solid U.S.- Afghanistan relations appeared after Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused the United States of holding secret talks with the Taliban outside Afghanistan, a claim sharply rebuffed by Washington as baseless.
On Sunday, President Karzai categorically said that leaders of the Taliban were holding talks with the American officials in the European and Gulf countries "every day." He said he was informed about this by foreigners and patriotic Taliban elements.
The embattled Afghan leader also lashed at Taliban-linked suicide bombings, saying that such attacks could only justify the continued presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan.
In his emotional address on Sunday, Karzai said that by carrying suicide attacks in Kabul and in Khost provinces on Saturday which claimed over a dozen lives, the Taliban was "in fact serving foreigners to justify their presence in Afghanistan."
Karzai's remarks were made during the visit to Afghanistan of newly-confirmed U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Hagel was in Kabul to get a firsthand knowledge about the security situation in the country.
Hagel, who met Karzai hours after his contradictory remarks in his fortified palace, has rejected the allegations, saying that the U.S. has been supporting the Afghan-led peace talks.
The U.S. commander of some 100,000-strong NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, General Joseph Dunford, has also rejected Karzai's allegations.
The Karzai administration has been striving hard to bring the Taliban into negotiating table and back into the country's political mainstream before the 2014 pullout of NATO-led troops from Afghanistan, but all efforts were in vain.
But there were reports that some Taliban leaders met secretly with U.S. officials in Qatar.
Earlier in February, Karzai accused the U.S. troops in the central Wardak province of harassing locals and ordered their withdrawal from the province within two weeks. The deadline had lapsed last Monday but the U.S. troops have remained in the province.
Karzai accusations and the rejection by U.S. officials, according to Afghan political observers, could harm the two countries' bilateral relations and could eventually isolate Afghanistan.
"Antagonism with the international community, above all with U. S., would not serve Afghanistan's interest and instead would benefit the armed oppositions," Kabul University professor and political analyst Faizullah Jalal told Xinhua.
Karzai's ambivalent behavior -- such as describing the Taliban as brothers one day and the next day denouncing them as U.S. servants -- could further damage the president's credibility in the eyes of Afghans and in the international community, Jalal said.
Mir Ahmad Juinda, another political analyst and former parliamentarian, said that Karzai's "confrontation with the international community would marginalize Afghanistan."
Wahid Mujda, a former Taliban official and now a political analyst, opined that the reluctance of the United States to withdraw its troops from central Wardak province and hand over Bagram prison to Afghan government has obviously angered President Karzai.
"Ignoring the president's order for the U.S. to pull out its troops from Wardak and to hand over Bagram jail to Afghan authority has annoyed the president and has prompted him charge that the United States does not respect Afghanistan sovereignty," Mujda told Xinhua.
During Hagel's tour to Afghanistan, the Bagram prison facility, where more than 2,000 suspected Taliban and al-Qaida operatives are detained, would have been formally turned over to Afghanistan last Saturday but this was cancelled.
President Karzai has announced that he will set free all detainees in the Bagram jail who have proven innocent once the prison facility is formally turned over to Afghanistan.
Mujda said that the tension between Kabul and Washington at this critical stage while Afghanistan is preparing for the 2014 presidential elections as well as the pullout of NATO-led troops in 2014 would have a negative impact on the Karzai administration and the country's stability.
Karzai Provokes Pushback at Home
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV March 13, 2013
KABUL - Afghan politicians pushed back against President Hamid Karzai's accusations of U.S. collusion with the Taliban, saying that such rhetoric is irresponsible and could endanger critical Western support.
Twenty Afghan political parties and two coalitions, reflecting much of the country's political spectrum outside the insurgency, said in a joint statement on Wednesday that Mr. Karzai's allegations "do not represent the views of the people of Afghanistan toward their international friends."
"The president's remarks are part of a series of deliberate actions that push Afghanistan toward disaster," the parties said. "Creating such provocations against the international community is an escape from national responsibilities, and a failed attempt to divert public opinion from genuine issues."
Mr. Karzai's charge in a speech on Sunday that the Taliban kill Afghan civilians "in the service of America" sparked sharp rebuttals from U.S. military and civilian officials and an angry reaction on Capitol Hill. He made similar remarks again on Tuesday, despite the American rebukes.
Though the party system is weak in Afghanistan and few senior leaders attended the joint news conference Wednesday, representatives of many groups that issued the statement hold high-level positions in the Afghan government, military and law-enforcement agencies. They also include key opposition movements.
"If they are rational, most Afghan politicians understand that the future of Afghanistan, its development and stability, are linked with a good relationship with the international community," said Fabrizio Foschini, an analyst with the Kabul-based Afghan Analysts Network.
In Parliament, too, Mr. Karzai's tirades have provoked consternation. "We don't know what is going on and the entire nation is confused," said Kabul lawmaker Qais Hassan."Afghanistan desperately needs the cooperation of the international community. We should avoid irresponsible speeches," added Massoud Khan Noorzai, a lawmaker from the southern province of Helmand.
Hamidullah Farooqi, who served as a minister of transport under Mr. Karzai in 2009-10 and is now a leader of one of the parties that signed Wednesday's declaration, said the Afghan president probably doesn't actually believe in a Taliban collusion with the U.S.
"He's just trying to show that he is not a puppet," he said. "But this is dangerous because it poisons the Afghan public opinion."
The latest flare-up in the bilateral relationship comes as the U.S. is withdrawing its forces and negotiating with Mr. Karzai what American military presence, if any, will remain in Afghanistan after the coalition's mandate ends next year.
Mr. Karzai has clashed with the U.S. on several aspects of this disengagement, complaining that the U.S. doesn't sufficiently respect Afghan sovereignty.
One of the most contested issues is the future of the U.S.-run detention facility at the Bagram Air Field north of Kabul. A ceremony to transfer the facility and its Afghan detainees to Afghan control was abruptly canceled on Saturday, after the Afghan government demanded last-minute changes to the deal, which foresees U.S. involvement in deciding which detainees get released.
U.S. officials say they are concerned about the possibility of Mr. Karzai freeing some of the most dangerous insurgent suspects detained at Bagram, as happened with some detainees previously handed over to Afghan authorities.
A meeting on Wednesday between Mr. Karzai and the coalition commander, U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, failed to break the impasse. Gen. Dunford said in a statement that the coalition "will complete the transfer when the remaining issues have been resolved," and that any such handover must be done in a way "mitigating the real threats that some of these detainees pose to Afghan and coalition forces."
Mr. Karzai said in a statement that "more delays in the Bagram prison transfer can harm relations between Afghanistan and the U.S."
Mr. Karzai has also demanded the withdrawal of U.S. Special Operations Forces from the province of Wardak, accusing them of human-rights abuses. The U.S. rejected these accusations and didn't comply with the Monday deadline demanded by Mr. Karzai for the pullout.
The Taliban on Wednesday mocked Mr. Karzai for his outbursts, saying the remarks showed his fury at being ignored by the U.S.
"He was insisting on the Bagram takeover, which didn't take place, and his deadline for the Wardak Special Forces withdrawal didn't work, either. This shows he is powerless," said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. "Poor Karzai isn't guilty: His masters have put him in a very tough spot. Such talk from him is a sign of desperation." —Habib Khan Totakhil and Ziaulhaq Sultani contributed to this article.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
Afghan security vacuum feared along "gateway to Kabul"
Reuters By Mirwais Harooni and Michael Georgy Thu Mar 14, 2013
MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan - The Afghan policeman manning a checkpoint glances at the snow-covered mountains that are home to Taliban fighters and predicts what would happen if elite U.S. forces leave Wardak province, seen as the gateway to the capital of Kabul.
"The Taliban will take over in one day," Mohammad Jamil says. "They are nearby."
Ever since President Hamid Karzai announced late last month that U.S. forces would be barred from the strategic province because of alleged abuses against civilians, Afghan forces who will be left to provide security without them have grown more anxious by the day.
Wardak, just a 40-minute drive from Kabul, is a prime example of what could happen in other parts of Afghanistan as the United States winds down an increasingly unpopular war, now in its 12th year.
U.S. special forces are expected to play a major role after most NATO combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014, and Karzai's decision could complicate negotiations between the United States and Afghanistan over the scope of U.S. operations after the pull-out.
"It's special forces who go usually on the front lines and fight with Taliban," said a second Afghan policeman, Mir Hussain. "If we make them leave this province than there won't be anybody to fight them. It's obvious that as soon as they leave our province the Taliban will return to power here."
Strategically located astride the Western approach to Kabul, Wardak is ideally placed for the insurgents who control nearby mountain villages to use as a staging ground for suicide operations into the city, home to nearly 5 million people and dozens of diplomatic missions.
Militants already carry out ambushes, shooting attacks and suicide bombings on American and Afghan forces there.
Fears that the departures of U.S. special forces will embolden the insurgents are heightened by the arrival of spring, which traditionally marks the start of Afghanistan's "fighting season" as the snow melts.
Earlier this week, two U.S. soldiers, reported to be special forces, were killed in an attack in the province.
LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP
Karzai ordered U.S. special forces to leave after residents complained that they, and Afghans working with them, were torturing and killing civilians, an allegation strongly denied by the Americans.
Even after the deadline for U.S. special forces to withdraw passed on Sunday, General Abdul Razaq, a senior police detective, told Reuters they were still in Wardak, a collection of mostly apple and apricot farms surrounded by mountains.
U.S. forces have refused to comment on their deployment.
Razaq said local officials had urged the Interior Ministry to provide strong support if the American forces leave, including artillery and reinforcements.
Some residents speak with hatred about the elite U.S. forces and believe allegations that they committed atrocities.
"Every day they kill our innocent people," said Abdul Ghafoor, 54, without offering any evidence to back the accusations, as his companions nodded in agreement.
But others seem far more worried about the security vacuum the province may face. Many remember how Wardak was the launching pad for the Taliban when they took over Kabul and much of the country in 1996.
They don't have to look far. Collapsed buildings, including one that served as a coordination centre for security forces, are a potent reminder of the devastation wreaked by Taliban suicide bombings.
"A small number of people from Wardak province had complained to President Karzai about special forces but now they also know that their decision wasn't right," said Hameeda Akbari, a member of parliament from Wardak.
"They want to find a way to solve the problem and keep special forces for some more time. If special forces leave Wardak, the security situation will get worse."
KABUL RISK HEIGHTENS
Some fear the dangers could reach far beyond the provincial capital of Maidan Shahr, where Afghan policemen speed past a children's playground called Peace Park in jeeps mounted with machine guns.
"As soon as these forces leave this province not only Wardak, but even some parts of Kabul, will be occupied by Taliban and Kabul security will be in danger," said Haji Rokai, a tribal elder. "So I hope that the government takes a better decision and keep these forces here for longer period."
Afghan Army Chief of Staff Sher Mohammad Karimi recently told Reuters most of the suicide attacks in Kabul were planned just 25 km (15 miles) away in Wardak.
"It is one of our biggest concerns," he said.
Jittery Afghan forces have set up a multitude of checkpoints along Maidan Shahr's two paved roads. Intelligence agents, police and soldiers stop and question motorists travelling on potholed, dusty streets.
"We got a tip-off that the Taliban were sending a suicide bomber here today to carry out a mission," said an Afghan intelligence agent who checked vehicles.
LIVING IN FEAR
It is not only the Taliban who are waiting to attack. The al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, believed to be the United States' deadliest foe in Afghanistan, and other insurgent groups like Hizb-i-Islami, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, are also active.
In 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, a truck bomb in Wardak wounded 77 American soldiers. A month earlier, the Taliban shot down a transport helicopter in Wardak, killing all 38 people on board, including 25 U.S. special forces.
The Taliban haven't lost their edge despite the presence of U.S. special forces and their intimidating Afghan partners, who ride off-road motorbikes and cover their faces with balaclavas and dark sunglasses.
Afghan security forces, already at a disadvantage because they lack training and equipment, could become less effective if the Americans leave.
"We have five PK light machine guns in our whole district, but the Taliban has more than five in a small checkpoint. So how can we fight with them or protect our people from their atrocities?" asked the policeman Jamil.
He recalls the consequences of a U.S. withdrawal from a nearby district, Sayedabad. "The Taliban captured that valley. Now it's a training camp for them where they learn how to attack Afghan and foreign forces."
Provincial officials are not taking any chances. Many of them refuse to spend the night in Wardak for fear of attacks by militants.
"It is a 15-minute drive from my office to my house but I cannot go there," said Esmatullah Asem, head of Maidan Shahr Hospital. "The last time I went home was two years ago. I live in Kabul." (Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Jeremy Laurence and Alex Richardson)
Ex-Spy Chief: Pakistan Sees Afghanistan As 'Sub-Nation'
RFE/RL March 13, 2013
Afghanistan's ex-spy chief has risked sparking another war of words by making a series of allegations against Pakistan.
Amrullah Saleh, former director of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), on March 12 accused Pakistan of treating Afghanistan as a "sub-nation."
"Pakistan has monopolized the right to have all sorts of foreign relations itself and when it comes to Afghanistan, they want to create limitations for us; treating us not as a nation, but as sub-nation, as to whom we should talk to or who should be our allies," Saleh said.
Speaking on the Pakistani Express News television program "Sarhad Ke Us Paar," Saleh also accused Islamabad of taking money in exchange for its recent release of dozens of Taliban prisoners in its custody. He said Pakistan had even offered to mediate between the Afghan government and the Taliban leadership "for the right price."
"Pakistan is no longer denying to having harbored the Taliban leadership, and its government is now putting a high price tag on the Taliban and saying if you pay the price we are going to push these guys for reconciliation and we know what the price tag is," he said.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry has vehemently rejected Saleh's allegations, insisting that it did not take money from Kabul or offer to be a mediator.
"Pakistan encourages an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue and is committed to it," a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Express News.
Saleh, who was head of the NDS between 2004 and 2010, resigned after an attack on a high-profile peace conference. He was a close associate of former anti-Taliban Afghan leader Ahmad Shah Masud and served as his liaison with the CIA in the late 1990s.
On the program, he also accused Pakistan of trying to dominate Afghanistan through proxies, a reference to the Taliban and other militant groups fighting against Kabul. He said that despite Islamabad's pledges to support the peace process with the Taliban, Pakistan did not want a functioning state in Afghanistan.
"The best way for us to make progress is for you [Pakistan] to respect Afghanistan as a dignified nation not as your backyard," Saleh said. "For as long as you're trying to dominate us through proxies it will backfire because we have gained massive soft power and Afghans are ready to stand up and rise as a nation."
Saleh also suggested that if Pakistan continued its policies toward Afghanistan, there could be a possibility of war between the two neighbors.
"When Pakistan gives itself the right to fragment my nation along ethnic lines and harbor antistate elements on the soil of Pakistan to hurt us as a nation, there may come a time when we won't be possessing the policy of coming to you softly and begging you to have mercy on us. As a sovereign country, Afghanistan also has the right to reciprocate," Saleh warned.
His comments come after another Afghan ex-spy chief, Rahmatullah Nabil, on March 3 accused Pakistan's notorious intelligence service, Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), of covertly supporting the Taliban and other extremist groups working against the government in Afghanistan.
In an unprecedented step, Nabil called for the United Nations to place the ISI on its global list of terrorist groups. "A terrorist is blacklisted, but the person who provides them with safe havens is not blacklisted," Nabil said.
Nabil, who is deputy chairman of Afghanistan's National Security Council, also said Pakistan should not be allowed to participate in negotiations to reach a peace agreement with the Taliban.
Afghanistan's current spy chief, Asadullah Khalid, is still recovering in a U.S. hospital after he survived a suicide attack on December 6, 2012. The assailant reportedly pretended to be a "messenger of peace from the Taliban" before detonating explosives at a government guesthouse used by the NDS.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the time said the assassination plot "came from Pakistan." Karzai said that although the Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack, he believed it originated in the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the Taliban's leadership is believed to be based.
Although Karzai never implicated Islamabad, Pakistan did issue a strong rejection that it was involved.
Recent accusations of Pakistani meddling in Afghanistan have struck a chord with ordinary Afghans, many of whom harbor resentment towards their eastern neighbor and accuse it of orchestrating the violence in the country.
-- Frud Bezhan
Pakistan charged Afghanistan to release Taliban prisoners: Saleh
By Meena Haseeb - 13 Mar 2013, 3:59 pm Khaama Press
Former Afghan spy — national directorate of security (NDS) chief Amrullah Saleh on Tuesday accused Pakistan of taking money from Afghanistan for the recent release of Taliban cadres.
Amrullah Saleh claimed that the Pakistani government had even offered to mediate between the Afghan government and the Taliban, The Express News reported.
Saleh, who is known for his anti-Pakistan statements said, “Pakistan is no longer denying to having harboured the Taliban leadership, and its government is now putting a high price tag on the Taliban and saying if you pay the price we are going to push these guys for reconciliation and we know what the price tag is.”
In the meantime Amrullah Saleh’s remarks for charging Afghanistan to release prisoners and mediate offer were denied by Pakistani foreign ministry.
“Pakistan encourages an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue and is committed to it,” the foreign ministry spokesperson told Express News.
According to the Pakistani newspaper, former Afghan NDS chief Amrullah Saleh also that Pakistan has been treating Afghanistan as a ‘sub-nation’ and wished to ‘dominate’ the war-torn country.
Saleh quoted by the Express News said, “Pakistan has monopolised the right to have all sorts of foreign relations itself and when it comes to Afghanistan, they want to create limitations for us; treating us not as a nation, but as sub-nation, as to who we should talk to or who should be our allies.”
Officials Urge Tougher Line on Kabul Bank Case Verdicts
New York Times By AZAM AHMED March 13, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan attorney general’s office said Wednesday that it planned to appeal the verdicts issued by a special court last week in the Kabul Bank fraud case, saying the sentences given were not in accordance with the original charges prosecutors filed.
The special court handed down sentences ranging from six months to several years and, in some instances, hundreds of millions of dollars in fines, to the 21 defendants in the largest financial fraud case in Afghan history. But in delivering their verdicts, the judges altered the charges, making them more lenient than the ones in the original indictment. Further, given the nature of the new charges, it was unclear how easy it would be to enforce the sentences and fines that were given.
“We want heavier punishment and long-term imprisonment for all the culprits,” said Sayed Alam Ishaqzai, the director of the anticorruption department of the attorney general. “It’s not in accordance with our indictment. There is no balance between the crime and punishment.”
Last week’s ruling was widely seen as relatively lenient on the two principal figures in the bank’s corruption, Sherkhan Farnood, the bank’s founder, and Khalilullah Frozi, its chief executive. The men each received five-year prison sentences and were fined hundreds of millions of dollars, but it was unclear whether the fines, in particular, could be enforced because there were no confiscation orders issued with them.
The men presided over a campaign of fraudulent loans and kickbacks that siphoned nearly $900 million from depositors until Kabul Bank was pushed to near collapse in 2010. One investigative report likened the bank’s operations to a Ponzi scheme, and long delays in bringing the principals to justice were widely criticized by the Afghan public and Western officials.
In its appeal, the attorney general’s office can seek to reinstate the initial charges, including embezzlement and money laundering, paving the way for considerably harsher sentences. And the money laundering law allows the court to confiscate assets and accounts to recover the losses the bank sustained, money that the Western-funded Afghan government had to cover.
The attorney general’s office also plans to appeal the sentences of the other 19 people convicted. Those defendants were given sentences ranging from 6 to 30 months in prison.
But while the action by the prosecutors is likely to be seen as a step in the direction of legal accountability, there have been grave concerns about the inclusion of some of the defendants on the indictment list. Among those who might face tougher sentences would be a handful of former regulators who worked to repair the damage at Kabul Bank. Their inclusion in the indictment and convictions was widely seen as a retaliatory move by senior Afghan officials.
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting.
Kabul Court Sentences Murderer to Death
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Kabul's preliminary court of Zone 4 on Wednesday sentenced a man to death for stabbing an elderly driver to death.
The court also sentenced the father of the accused to four months prison for being linked to the incident.
The accused, who only goes by one name Ajmal, confessed his crime saying that he killed the driver for money and sold the car to his father for 100,000 Afs ($2,000).
"Previously I was a chef near the artillery depot in Sar-e-Kotal. I killed him there," Ajmal told the court.
Ajmal's father Farid has rejected his own sentence saying that he was the one who turned Ajmal over to be tried after his son deceived him into buying the car.
"I have handed this boy over to the government myself," he said.
Abdul Baset Bakhtiari, head of the preliminary court handed down a sentence for both the murder and the car theft.
"As guided by Article 395 of the Penal Code, we sentence you with the name Ajmal son of Mohammad Farid to the most extreme punishment of execution for the killing of Abdul Qader," he said.
"Regarding the theft of the car, we sentence you to seven years imprisonment as guided by Article 465 of the mentioned code," he added.
A relative of the elderly victim said the verdict for Ajmal's father was too light.
"I didn't expect this (verdict) for his father. I want the next court to have a more serious sentence for his father," said one of the relatives.
Ajmal has been imprisoned previously for other crimes, including two years for home theft. He said that his other inmates in the prison encouraged him to kill.
Afghan Authorities Seize 21 Tons Of Heroin, Morphine
March 12, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan officials say counternarcotic teams have seized some 21 tons of heroin and morphine.
The bust, the biggest of the year, was made during a helicopter raid with the help of Russia's Federal Drug Control Service.
General Abdul Khalil Bahktyar, the raid commander, said in a news conference in Kabul on March 12 that Afghan commandos raided a facility in the Sherzad district of Nangarhar Province.
The drugs seized included large quantities of chemicals such as ammonium chloride, which is used to manufacture illicit drugs.
Bahktyar said the raid was the latest of about 200 carried out this year.
He said the narcotics seized were burned at the scene and six drug labs destroyed.
Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the world's opium.
Based on reporting by Interfax and AP
Canada spent $10 million for security at Afghan dam project
Toronto Star By Jessica McDiarmid News reporter Wed Mar 13 2013
Canada spent about $10 million on security in Afghanistan at its $50-million Dahla dam project, where private security contractors were linked to allegations of corruption and involved in an armed standoff with Canadian security officials.
One of Canada’s signature projects in Afghanistan, the Dahla dam was guarded in part by Watan Risk Management, a controversial Afghan security firm with alleged ties to crime and corruption. How much they were paid remains secret.
The Canadian International Development Agency contracted the project to SNC-Lavalin, which was responsible for security.
Canadian problems with Watan included an armed standoff in February 2010 that erupted between Watan guards and two Canadian overseers. The Canadian security officials fled Afghanistan shortly afterward.
The U.S. banned contracts with Watan in 2010 as part of efforts to prevent aid money from winding up in the hands of corrupt officials and the Taliban, but SNC-Lavalin maintained its ties into 2011, when it finally severed the relationship. Watan has denied allegations of wrongdoing.
A spokesperson for SNC-Lavalin said details such as what was paid to subcontractors are confidential. CIDA and SNC-Lavalin officials have previously refused to say how much of the budget for the Dahla Dam went to security costs, citing commercial privacy.
Documents obtained by the Star under Access to Information law showed that $8.9 million was budgeted for security as of October 2010. CIDA later said it had paid about $10 million by March last year, when Canada’s four-year role in the project ended.
The money isn’t an exorbitant amount to spend on security in a place like Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban that’s often dubbed Afghanistan’s most dangerous province. But critics say the lack of transparency surrounding those costs raise troubling questions about how Canada’s development money is spent.
“This is what my problem with CIDA is, they’re doing things with public funds and they’re not accountable for it,” said Nipa Banerjee, a former head of CIDA’s operations in Afghanistan.
Between 2001 and 2011, CIDA put $1.65 billion into Afghanistan, with another $300 million on the books for 2011 to 2014. CIDA doesn’t disclose how much money overall has gone to pay for security or what firms are hired to provide it.
“As records of projects are kept on an individual basis, the consolidation of the information as requested is not readily available,” spokesperson Amy Mills wrote in an email.
CIDA doesn’t directly hire private security contractors in Afghanistan. Like its American counterpart, USAID, it disperses funds to “implementing partners,” which are responsible for security.
By contrast, however, USAID has published an audit that estimates at least $179 million went to private security costs from October 2006 to June 2009. Costs ranged from 0.5 to 34 per cent of overall project budgets. The average security cost per project was 8.3 per cent, though it noted actual costs could be much higher due to reporting problems.
USAID estimates private security costs can run from 8 to 10 per cent in low-risk areas to as high as 20, 30, or even 50 per cent in “extremely dangerous” locations.
Banerjee, who led CIDA’s work in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2006, said paying for security is a necessity of doing development work in conflict countries. But she also said use of private security contractors ate through development funds and undermined the Afghan government’s authority, because at times they operated outside Afghan law.
“It is really kind of a dilemma,” said Banerjee, now a professor at the University of Ottawa, researching Canada’s development efforts in Afghanistan.
At least two other CIDA-funded projects in Afghanistan budgeted roughly a quarter of their funds for private security, according to the documents obtained by the Star.
The Peace Dividend Trust’s Afghanistan Marketplace project, which CIDA granted $11.7 million, budgeted about $3.4 million — nearly 30 per cent — for security in a project that sought to help Afghan businesses sell goods to international organizations. Its chief investment officer Ainsley Butler declined an interview, saying they don’t discuss security outside the organization.
CANADEM’s Technical Assistance Program put about 22 per cent, or $2.7 million, of the $12.2 million it received from CIDA toward private security. Its Kabul-based project brought in Canadian experts to advise the fledgling Afghan government from 2008 to 2012.
Executive director Paul LaRose-Edwards said Afghanistan had the highest price tag for security in the organization’s history, “bar none.”
The organization tried to keep security costs down, but due diligence in Afghanistan was expensive and organizations funded by CIDA are responsible for security — and liable if something goes wrong.
“We had no way around this,” said LaRose-Edwards.
In Kandahar, Afghan officials have complained that millions were wasted on security firms and other costs at the Dahla dam, while the Canadians failed to raise the dam wall. Ottawa has responded that it successfully fulfilled its task of repairing the irrigation system attached to the dam. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has carried on the project.
Following a 2010 presidential decree, the state-owned, for-profit Afghan Public Protection Force is taking over from private security companies.
NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar wants a post-mortem on how Canada’s development funds have been spent.
“This is something that if Canadians knew the amounts we’re spending and the way it was being done, they would be quite upset,” said Dewar.
The office of Julian Fantino, minister responsible for CIDA, referred specific questions regarding security costs in Afghanistan to CIDA media relations. An emailed statement quoted Fantino saying Canada’s efforts in Afghanistan delivered “tangible results.”
“With respect to security, all partner agencies have the prerogative for the safety and protection of their personnel, and must comply with Canadian and Afghan law when contracting security services,” the statement read, in part.
“Despite the obvious challenges of operating in, and reporting from, a conflict zone, we can say with certainty that the vast majority of Canadian projects have met, and in some cases have even exceeded, their objectives.”
With Star files
Moving mountains of war gear home from Afghanistan
Maj. Gen. Kurt Stein has to figure out how to move $48-billion worth of war gear back home from landlocked, mountainous and war-torn Afghanistan.
Los Angeles Times By David Zucchino March 13, 2013
FT. BRAGG, N.C. - For the last 11 years, the U.S. military has stuffed bases in Afghanistan with Humvees and bullets, radios and radars, armored vehicles and surveillance balloons. Army Maj. Gen. Kurt Stein has less than two years to move $48-billion worth of weapons, gear and equipment back home.
Before U.S. combat troops leave at the end of 2014, Stein has to figure out how to transport 35,000 vehicles, 95,000 shipping containers and mountains of other war materiel out of a landlocked, mountainous country in the middle of a war.
It's not the first monumental moving job for Stein, 54, a burly former enlisted man with 37 years experience in military logistics. He was a top commander of the massive effort to move gear and equipment out of Iraq two years ago.
"Hard but not that hard," Stein said of moving tons of materiel on paved Iraqi highways into relatively safe and orderly Kuwait. "Afghanistan? Big difference. We don't have the road networks or the ports."
There's one more thing: Stein doesn't know how much stuff to leave behind, if any, because he doesn't know how many troops will remain after 2014, if any. That is still being negotiated by the U.S. and Afghanistan, with a target date of November 2013.
"All we can do now is get after what we know today," he said. The rest, he said, "depends on the end state, which we certainly don't know."
Stein estimates moving the materiel will cost taxpayers about $6 billion. The job is being tackled by more than 86,000 people, military and civilian, under his command.
Stein is technically deployed to Afghanistan, but he commutes to Ft. Bragg. Chronically jet-lagged, Stein lives on Afghan time, starting work at 4:30 a.m. at Ft. Bragg to stay in sync with operations in Afghanistan. Clocks on his office wall are set to times in North Carolina, Greenwich Mean Time, Iraq and Afghanistan.
He hasn't had time to finish setting up his office here because he's usually traveling — his territory covers 6 million square miles. He took command on a Friday last June, then flew to Afghanistan the following Monday.
Until last month, Stein spent millions of extra dollars to fly out gear and equipment because Pakistan would not guarantee truck passage through the Khyber Pass to Pakistani ports. After lengthy negotiations with U.S. officials, Pakistan agreed in mid-February to allow daily ground shipments across the border, but it could still close the crossing at any time.
Trucks are carrying materiel to Pakistani ports, where it is shipped to the U.S. Separately, military aircraft and contracted civilian planes are taking some materiel to ports in Jordan, Dubai and Oman, where containers are loaded onto ships headed to U.S. ports. From there, goods are trucked to military depots and arsenals around the country.
In the meantime, Stein has to continue to pour in supplies, weapons and ammunition, plus food and water, to the 66,000 U.S. troops still manning bases and outposts in the 11-year-old war. The stuff coming in crosses paths with the stuff going out. About 1,500 vehicles and 1,000 cargo containers exit Afghanistan monthly.
U.S. forces have shut down or turned over to Afghan forces 619 bases and combat outposts, with 193 still to be handed over or dismantled. All that equipment has to go somewhere. Some — portable toilets, concrete barriers, vehicles, modular housing — is going to Afghan security forces because it costs more to ship than it's worth. Other stuff — wood and metal from temporary buildings and barriers, plus old vehicles and trailers — is being crushed and sold to Afghans as scrap.
Some of the stuff is just plain worn out and will be destroyed. "The Afghans don't want junk, either," Stein said.
david.zucchino@latimes.com
Bagram Handover to Happen Next Week: Karzai
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 13 March 2013
President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday said that the government will take control of Bagram prison from the US next week - the third time in less than a week that he has named a new deadline.
Karzai said in a speech in southern Helmand province yesterday that the handover will happen next week on Saturday or Sunday.
On Sunday he had said it would happen this week. And last Wednesday he said it would happen last Saturday.
"I am sure you are all aware of the arguments about the Bagram prison handover. I urge you all to stand with me and say that Karzai is right, and we want to take responsibility of the prison and those who are innocent should be released. God willing, this demand will be implemented practically, by Saturday or Sunday next week," he said during an official visit to Helmand yesterday.
The handover was due to take place on Saturday with a signing ceremony when the US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel was visiting, but was delayed after disagreements over a few points in the new memorandum.
More than 3,000 suspected Taliban insurgents are being detained at Bagram. Last September, the US handed control of most of the high-security prison over to the Afghans, but did not transfer 600 or so detainees captured after the inital memorandum was signed in March 2012.
The White House said on Monday that the US is continuing to work with Afghanistan on the transfer of the prison to the Afghans.
Cross-Border Trade Depressed in Afghan North
Merchants claim customs procedures at Hairatan checkpoint are riddled with corruption and red tape.
IWPR By Qayum Babak 13 Mar 13
Afghanistan - Trade through Afghanistan’s main northern route has collapsed, and while officials blame unfair rules and security problems, merchants say procedures there are so corrupt that they prefer to use other routes.
Hairatan sits on the river Amu Darya, connected by bridge with the border town of Termez in Uzbekistan. A new railway from the main provincial town Mazar-e Sharif up to the border connects Afghanistan to freight networks via the Central Asia states to Russia and Europe. That should give Hairatan a unique advantage over road-only crossing points into Iran to the west and Pakistan to the south.
Instead, trade through Hairatan has fallen away dramatically. According to Arash Yunusi, chief executive of the Balkh region chamber of commerce, import volumes in February stood at 2,000 tons, compared with 80,000 tons in the same month of 2012.
Traders from northern Afghanistan raised concerns about the future of commerce through Hairatan when they met at the Balkh chamber of commerce in Mazar-e Sharif on February 11. They warned that the economy of northern Afghanistan would be at risk unless central government acted swiftly to address problems with cross-border trade arrangements.
Afghanistan remains heavily reliant on imports, and is vulnerable to any changes in the terms of trade. Pakistan, in particular, has imposed severe delays on freight heading from Afghanistan for export via the port at Karachi.
Local officials say the reason why Hairatan is suffering is that the customs rules there are stricter than elsewhere.
Speaking on February 18, provincial governor Atta Mohammad Nur suggested that central government was applying a higher standard to Hairatan than to other checkpoints.
"Everywhere except Hairatan, tariff and taxes on export goods have been lifted, but our traders are still being charged taxes for export goods and the custom laws are applied equitably," he said.
The governor’s spokesman, Monir Farhad, argued that Hairatan was effectively being punished for sticking to the rules.
"All the relevant regulations from the finance and commerce ministries are applied properly to traders at Hayratan. So they go to [other border checkpoints] that are more to their advantage,” he told IWPR.
Yunosi, meanwhile, claimed that goods were simply smuggled into Afghanistan at other locations.
"The fall in imports through Hairatan has been caused by goods coming in through other routes without being subjected to tariffs and taxes, because staff there are corrupt," he said.
Afghanistan’s trade minister Anwarolhaq Ahadi, visiting Hairatan port on February 18, denied the rules applied there were any different from elsewhere.
"It needs to be stated clearly that the law is enforced in equal measure at all border checkpoints,” he said.
Ahadi acknowledged that imports had slumped at Hairatan, but contrasted this with Aqina, a border crossing with Turkmenistan further west, where import revenues were rising rapidly.
Local traders to whom IWPR spoke disagreed strongly that the Hairatan checkpoint was less corrupt than others. Many said the problems stemmed from officials in Balkh region appointing relatives to positions of power on the border.
One of the few businessmen prepared to speak on the record was Sayed Taher Roshan Zadah, who said the reason people avoided shipping goods though Hairatan was not the customs duties they had to pay, but “bureaucracy and customs officers who take bribes”.
"The corrupt, bribe-taking staff in Hairatan, who mostly have the backing of senior government officials have robbed traders so much that all of them have started fleeing the port," said the businessman, who heads the Roshan Zadah Group.
Aref Totakhel, who speaks on behalf of the traders who use the checkpoint, agreed that staff there were “most corrupt”.
“They bought their positions and they extort bribes just as they please, using various pretexts,” he said. “That’s why traders have grown tired of it.”
Asked about problems at Hairatan, Farhad said, "I can neither confirm nor deny that corruption exists, but it isn’t on as large a scale as the traders say".
Saleh Mohammad, a departmental director in the local customs office, insisted that staff there operated by the letter of the law.
The reason imports were falling, he said, was “the daily announcements and warnings from the media about the withdrawal of foreign forces in 2014. Traders have halted their commercial activities because they are scared of 2014."
Speaking on February 11, finance ministry spokesman Wahid Tawhidi denied suggestions that security fears were depressing foreign trade. Like Ahadi, he pointed to increased import revenues at Aqina, and said the same was true of Koshki and Islam Qala in Herat province, where goods are traded with Iran.
Sayed Sakha, regional finance chief for Herat province, confirmed that customs revenues were on the rise there.
"Our revenues have risen eight per cent this year, due to increased levels of imports and exports,” he told IWPR by phone.
Back at Hairatan, trader Totakhel told IWPR he was being driven to desperation by the bureaucracy involved in getting goods across the border.
"Believe me, I have collected 15 signatures so far to obtain a lawful order, and I’ve paid out money as well,” he said, clutching a handful of documents. “I’ve been going around for three days now. I’ve grown weary of life, yet my work is still not done."
Qayum Babak is an IWPR-trained reporter in Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com