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David Cameron's plea to end feud between Afghanistan and Pakistan
David Cameron has made a personal plea to Pakistan and Afghanistan to bury their differences as rising tensions threaten to sabotage efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.
Telegraph.co.uk By Rob Crilly 28 Mar 2013
Islamabad - The Prime Minister telephoned President Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad and his counterpart President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Wednesday evening to underline the need for co-operation and to put an end to public hostilities.
The slanging matches are deeply embarrassing to Mr Cameron who last month hosted both sides at Chequers before declaring a six-month push for peace.
There were few signs that his telephone diplomacy had helped bring the two sides together.
Aimal Faizi, spokesman for Mr Karzai, described the phone call from Number 10 as “friendly”.
“He said both sides should continue working together, which we agree with. We still say that Pakistan can have a key role in talks between Afghanistan and the opposition – because the leadership of the opposition is in Pakistan – but if they are not prepared to help then we will make other arrangements,” he said.
Mr Faizi added that the Chequers summit had set back relations between the two countries because Pakistani leaders had arrived with a list of unacceptable demands, such as cutting ties with India.
He also criticised Pakistani clerics for refusing to travel to Kabul for a summit of religious leaders, one of the few concrete proposals to come from Mr Cameron’s meeting.
Kabul’s go-it-alone sentiment worries foreign powers, which believe Pakistan must be included in any peace process for fear Islamabad could sabotage any deal it considers unfavourable.
Time is running out for an agreement. American combat forces are due to leave the country by the end of 2014.
This week a confidence-building visit by Afghan officers to take part in a military exercise in the Pakistani city of Quetta was cancelled over reported firing across the border from Pakistan.
Meanwhile anonymous Pakistani officials have described President Karzai as an obstacle to peace.
A spokesman for Mr Zardari declined to discuss the telephone conversation.
A statement from Downing Street said: “The Prime Minister emphasised the need for increased co-operation between Pakistan and Afghanistan, built on a relationship of trust and strong relations between the two neighbours.”
New Afghanistan Commander, Gen. Joseph Dunford: 'We're Here to Win'
March 29, 2013 ABC News
In his first television interview since taking control of the international force in Afghanistan, Gen. Joseph Dunford told ABC News' Martha Raddatz that while he expects Afghanistan's insurgency to continue beyond the U.S. drawdown next year, he feels hopeful about the direction of the country.
"I'm very clear that we're here to win," said Dunford. "There are certain things that have to happen. We've got a complete security transition. ... We've got a complete political transition. I think successful elections in the spring of 2014 will be an extraordinary event in Afghanistan and really be a bellwether for the 10 years opportunity that will follow."
Dunford admitted that attacks on the force by Afghan colleagues, like the stabbing of 26-year-old Sgt. Michael C. Cable by a 10-year-old Afghan boy with whom he was working earlier this week, have "absolutely" had an impact on the force. Dunford called such "blue-on-green incidents" a significant threat.
"It's something I take very seriously as a commander, the lives of our young men and women," he said.
Last year, at least 62 coalition troops were killed by "insider attacks." As a result, Dunford said, the NATO coalition has increased training and counter-intelligence ability, including having armed men act as "guardian angels" present at meetings involving U.S. and coalition officials with their Afghan counterparts.
"This is not an area that we'll be complacent in, this is never an area where we'll say we've solved the insider threat problem," said Dunford. "Every day, we're focused on that, we take it serious and we put mitigation measures in place."
Similarly to his predecessor, Gen. John Allen, Dunford expressed cautious optimism about the future of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops next year. He said that the Afghan security forces have really taken the lead in protecting their country and are meeting all the benchmarks the Obama administration has set.
"When I look at the Afghan forces there are really three questions that I ask," he said. "One is: Can they assume the lead in 2013? ... And the answer is yes. The second question ... is: As I look to the elections of 2014, can they provide security? ... and the answer is yes. And the third question is: Can they affect full security transition at the end of 2014? And the answer is yes."
RELATED: Ex-US Afghanistan Commander Hopeful
The general maintained the biggest requirement for the Afghans' success will be a commitment by the U.S. and the international community to continue to support the country and its security forces. Just as The U.S. and its NATO allies have made clear to the rest of the world that the force will be drawing down in a year, the Taliban also knows, and it is poised to take advantage.
"We've seen some indication that the Taliban would like to be successful this year, particularly conducting high-profile attacks and assassinations of Afghan leaders to try to erode the will of the coalition, to try to address the confidence of the Afghan people," he told Raddatz.
The commander warned that a lack of confidence by the Afghan people in American and international support could be the greatest weapon for the extremists.
"Many people tell me they're more concerned about the uncertainty of the future than they are about the Taliban," said Dunford, adding that the Taliban "will attempt to feed those fears about the post-2014 environment."
Dunford said the U.S. does not expect that all violence will cease in Afghanistan by next year, but that the goal is to leave the country with a foundation for peace, and then follow up with advisory support.
"From my perspective, we'll still need to be in the four corners of the country post 2014," he said. "We'll still need to provide advice and assistance to the Afghan core level."
He said that, similarly to the situation in Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal, Afghanistan's ultimate success needs to be measured in years, not months.
"I see a great opportunity today for stability and security in Afghanistan 10 years from now," said Dunford. "But it is going to be a long-term process. ... What we are really trying to do by the end of 2014 is provide the Afghans with what I would describe as a 'decade of opportunity.' At that point, security and stability will be in their hands."
Iraq, Afghan wars will cost US between $4-6 trillion, says Harvard study
Islamabad, Mar 30 (ANI): Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the US between 4-6 trillion dollars in the long term, a study has said.
According to Harvard University scholar Linda Bilmes, this would constrain the government's budget for decades to come.
Bilmes concluded that the US will face increasing costs to care for an estimated 2.5 million veterans, and to pay down debt incurred by borrowing to pay for the wars.
According to the News, Bilmes, who served in government under former president Bill Clinton, calculated that the US has already spent nearly 2 trillion dollars directly for the two wars launched by former president George W. Bush.
But Bilmes' study said the biggest cost would be medical care and disability benefits, saying that over half of the 1.56 million troops discharged from service have already been granted benefits for life.
Bilmes, who called the numbers unprecedented, said that costs would climb over decades.
The United States is expected to maintain a limited military presence in Afghanistan after 2014, when President Barack Obama plans to withdraw combat troops first sent after the September 11, 2001 attacks. (ANI)
Pul-e-Khumri city mayor arrested over adultery charges
By SAJAD - 29 Mar 2013, 6:19 pm Khaama Press
According to security officials in capital Kabul, Syed Maqsood Sadat mayor of Pul-e-Khumri city was arrested along with four other individuals in Kabul city over illegitimate activities.
Syed Maqsood Sadat who was recently appointed as the mayor for the provincial capital of northern Baghlan province was also dismissed from his position after he was arrested in Microryan along with three women.
The provincial government in northern Baghlan province on Thursday appointed Mir Ahmad Bayani, a former employee of Pul-e-Khumri city as the new acting mayor for the city.
According to reports Syed Maqsood Sadat has been released from the prison however the women along with one of his friend are still in the custody.
Gen. Zahir Zahir head of the criminal investigation unit in Kabul security commandment confirming the report said Afghan police forces conducted an operation after receiving reports regarding illegitimate activities in Block # 103 of Microryan.
He said Syed Maqsood Sadat mayor of Pul-e-Khumri city was arrested along with his friend and three women during the operation.
Mr. Zaher also added that around 71 cases of adultery, 55 cases of homosexuality and around 99 cases relating to usage of alcohol were filed in the criminal investigation unit of Kabul security commandment last year.
According to Gen. Zahir, Afghan police forces arrested around 198 individuals in connection to adultery charges, 97 were held in connection to homosexuality and 203 other people were arrested for the usage of alcohol in Kabul city.
Afghans Failing Security Test In Badakhshan
By Frud Bezhan and Mustafa Sarwar March 28, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
For years, Badakhshan Province enjoyed life away from the action, an island of stability as war engulfed the rest of Afghanistan. But as the broader conflict winds down, the northeastern province is offering a bleak view of the future.
That's because NATO last year handed over security duties in Badakhshan exclusively to the Afghan National Army (ANA) and National Police (ANP), but the transition has coincided with a spike in violence and increased militant activity.
The region is an ideal testing ground of Afghanistan's ability to secure remote areas on its own.
It boasts the types of mountainous valleys and rugged terrain used as safe haven by militants throughout the country. It shares borders with three neighboring states -- China, Tajikistan, and Pakistan. And it is an important transit route for the booming opium trade.
Moreover, its isolation saved it from becoming a main theater of the Afghan conflict, allowing fresh troops to gain much-needed experience before Afghanistan takes over security duties across the country at the end of 2014.
But David Young, a conflict-resolution expert and adjunct fellow at the American Security Project, says the security landscape has changed as coalition and Afghan forces have focused on securing urban areas, leaving large swaths of rural Afghanistan -- such as Badakhshan – vulnerable.
"NATO forces across the country are focusing their efforts and dissipating resources on the places where they can have the most impact," Young says. "Badakhshan is not one of those places. I fear that any terrain not classified as even moderately urban will take a lower priority and open the door to Taliban infiltration."
Deadly Battles
This month, heavy clashes between Afghan security forces and militants have been reported. And the ANA has led a weeklong offensive against militant positions in several districts.
At least 50 Taliban fighters were reported dead and dozens injured in the volatile Wardooj district on March 23. The Afghan Defense Ministry, which has sent reinforcements to Badakhshan from neighboring provinces, confirmed three Afghan soldiers were killed and nine others were wounded in the course of the operation.
In one of the deadliest attacks on government troops by militants in recent years, Taliban insurgents ambushed and killed 17 Afghan troops in Wardooj on March 6. Eleven soldiers were kidnapped but later freed in exchange for Taliban fighters in government custody.
Locals in Badakhshan say the government's presence in the province is weak, while the contingent of Afghan troops in the province is too small to oversee security in one of the country's largest provinces.
Daily Danger
Salahuddin is a resident of Wardooj, some 60 kilometers east of the provincial capital, Faizabad. He says dozens of locals have died or been wounded in fierce fighting between government forces and militants. The instability, he says, has forced hundreds of families to flee to neighboring provinces.
"The Taliban have attacked the district. There was intense fighting in the center and on the outskirts of the Wardooj," Salahuddin offers in an account of heavy clashes between militants and local forces on March 22, when six residents were seriously injured. "The houses were hit by mortar fire and six people were wounded. Yes, government forces and militants were involved. On one side, there were rockets used, and the other side they were firing mortars. They didn't hit their target, so people were hit."
Sharif, a resident of Germ district, says all the schools in the district have been shut and many homes destroyed. He says locals have fled because they fear they could be used by militants as human shields.
"Every single day there is fighting everywhere. People are pleading [to the government] to stop this."
Really Ready?
General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, says that despite the deterioration in security he is confident the ANA and ANP in Badakhshan can defuse the militant threat.
"In those places where a security transfer has occurred, [militants] have tried to target those places," Azimi says. "But thankfully, overall, the security situation in Badakhshan has become better."
This year is a crucial test for Afghanistan's army and police forces, who have assumed control of some 80 percent of the country.
But Young says Afghan forces' failure to secure Badakhshan suggests they are far from ready to take control of the entire country. Afghan security forces suffer from a high rate of desertion, a poor reenlistment record, low morale, and a lack of equipment.
And that can't bode well for Afghanistan, especially its rural regions, says Young.
"What I project is a limited civil war in rural pockets of the east and south, " Young says. "I think that as ISAF or Afghan forces restrict themselves to the cities -- because it doesn't have the number of forces necessary to project into the rural areas -- it will be like counterinsurgency, but Afghan-style. So they will protect the most built-up areas so that the Taliban isn't able to actually take over the entire country."
Hamid Karzai, confused by the U.S.
Washington Post By Stephen Biddle and Michael O’Hanlon Opinions Friday, March 29, 2013
Stephen Biddle is a professor at George Washington University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Michael O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Both were in Afghanistan this month on a trip sponsored by the U.S. and NATO military commands.
For most Americans, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s words and actions are difficult to understand and hard to accept. He often seems ungrateful for the efforts of U.S. troops, cavalier in his ideas of how to change the Afghan-NATO military campaign and irresolute in his commitment to the war effort. He has suggested that our troops stay out of Afghan villages even before Afghan forces are ready to handle security there. He has chastised NATO soldiers for occasional, and clearly unintentional, mistakes that led to civilian casualties. He has withheld a promise to give our troops legal immunity if they stay in his country beyond 2014. He has even equated the U.S. role in prolonging the war with that of the Taliban.
We are among those who wish Karzai would stop this behavior. He struck a more positive tone this week during a news conference with Secretary of State John Kerry, but it would be a mistake to assume that the problems have been fixed. U.S. relations with the Afghan president will sustain further ups and downs, and the only way to reduce the severity and frequency of the low points is by understanding what provokes them.
Karzai is not, as some have claimed, crazy or a fool. He is confused. In his view, the world’s only superpower is surely able to defeat a ragtag force of Taliban guerrillas — if it really wanted to. In his view, the United States could surely force Pakistan to stop harboring Afghan Taliban insurgents — if it really wanted to. Yet Washington does neither. On the contrary, Karzai watches Americans look the other way while their logistical contracts are siphoned off to support the Taliban (albeit less so lately), and he sees Americans give billions of dollars in aid each year to their ostensible Pakistani tormentors. Karzai concludes that there must be some hidden reason for the apparent contradictions.
Karzai, of course, heard President Obama reinforce the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan by 30,000 troops in March 2009 and by another 30,000 that December. Yet Karzai then heard that Vice President Biden suggested,in the same month as Obama’s speech, that the United States did not have a “counterinsurgency” strategy to preserve the Afghan government or a long-term commitment to the countryand that America’s only real interest in the region was to hunt al-Qaeda terrorists, not to defeat the Taliban. More recently, U.S. officials have suggested that the Taliban is not America’s enduring enemy and that, while militants who attack U.S. territory are terrorists, those who strike on Afghan soil are not.
These challenges did not originate in the Obama administration. In 2001 President George W. Bush pledged U.S. support to Karzai, a leader he called a hero. But in 2003 the Bush administration shifted its attention to Iraq and handed off the defense of this hero to a polyglot multinational coalition. Karzai naturally wondered whether Americans believed what they said about the importance of his government’s survival.
Many of these apparent contradictions are unintended byproducts of U.S. efforts to craft a nuanced policy. The United States has security interests in Afghanistan, but they are limited ones. The chief threat to U.S. security in the region is al-Qaeda, but it would be hard to defeat al-Qaeda if its Taliban allies overthrew the Afghan government and took over important parts of the country. Too narrow and intense a focus on the Taliban misses the big picture of America’s underlying interests; by contrast, too little emphasis on defeating the Taliban overlooks a critical means of securing the ultimate end.
To resolve these conflicting incentives, the Obama administration has sought a policy of balance and moderation. These, however, can easily become self-contradiction, confusion and muddle unless the components are carefully crafted and presented. Obama is capable of presenting subtle, nuanced positions on complex issues — his 2008 campaign speech on race relations is a defining example — but he has devoted remarkably little time to discussing his Afghanistan policy in sustained, direct public communication. The result has been mixed and confusing messaging, especially since some White House officials have, occasionally, publicly dissented from that policy.
This is not to absolve Karzai. He often lets emotional impulse preempt analysis, and his outbursts frequently elevate his domestic political interests above the needs of his alliance with the United States or of the war effort.
Yet America shares some of the blame for the public divisions between Washington and Kabul. Our inconsistencies and reversals have interacted with Karzai’s various shortcomings to create an ever more difficult relationship.
That does not change the fact that Karzai and the rest of the Afghan people know they need us and will ultimately try to work with us. We need to keep perspective, and a thick skin, when engaging in this relationship, as Kerry has done. Equally important, we need to get our own message and policy straight. If we do not, we may discover that Karzai’s successor will find us just as confusing as Karzai has.
U.S. must decide about troops in Afghanistan
Washington Post By Ronald E. Neumann Opinions Friday, March 29, 2013
Ronald E. Neumann was U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. He is the author of “The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan.”
The United States has problems in Afghanistan, with the Taliban, Pakistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The Obama administration is making them worse by dilatory decision-making about how many U.S. troops will remain there after 2014.
While recent news has focused on the latest spats with Karzai, there are some bright spots. The Afghan police are denying the Taliban passage in parts of the south where coalition troops have fought for seven years without this progress. Afghans are showing an increased willingness toward self-defense, perhaps partially in reaction to a heavy assassination campaign by the Taliban. This month, I heard accounts in eastern and southern Afghanistan of the Afghan army, national police and local police forces mutually supporting one another in ways that used to be all too rare.
Yet major challenges remain as we approach the final handover of security to the Afghans in 21 months. For one thing, local police forces could yet be a long-term threat to the state if they become predatory or promote inter-tribal feuding. This is why the expansion of local police must be done with a deep understanding of each village where the force is formed and careful attention paid to the district police chiefs who support and supervise the force.
U.S. indecision on post-2014 forces is damaging the handover goal. So is the public discussion of troop numbers too low to achieve their stated purpose. Some allies already have shown a willingness to keep as many as 2,000 troops in northern and western Afghanistan after 2014. But they will not do so if those numbers are too large in proportion to the forces the United States intends to leave or if we take away air support the allies depend on for supplies. Other allies will make troop decisions only after we do.
Doubts about U.S. intentions confuse everyone, particularly the Afghans, who, when in doubt and as a matter of survival, move to hedging behavior instead of to professional military development. It is clear that a minimally effective force needs to have a presence in the country’s four major military areas: Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, Jalalabad and Kandahar. Without these bases, U.S. advisers would not have the reach to circulate effectively to the brigade level, where the critical strengthening of the Afghan army will need to continue.
This is what advising is all about. It is in the field, not some central camp, where the real transformation to an effective fighting force takes place. The “training and advising” that President Obama has promised needs a presence outside Kabul. So do counterterrorist forces. Not every essential strike can be launched from Kabul.
The number required to have a chance of achieving the two stated tasks of counterterrorism and advising is in the range of 10,000 U.S. troops; that number is already less than many would have liked because it leaves a dangerously small margin for error. Yes, the United States is facing financial strains. But to gamble our remaining chance of success in Afghanistan on the difference of a few thousand troops is shortsighted or displays a lack of support for the men and women whose lives are at risk in carrying out the policy. If the numbers coming out of White House discussions of troop levels are 2,000 or 3,000, the signal to friends and enemies alike will be a lack of will. It is past time to conclude the decision process.
We have troops at war who are not being told the structure they are to achieve in 21 months. There is a military transition process going on, but no one can say to what purpose without the detail required for coherent planning. The location and size of our civilian contingent after 2014 require knowing the military structure on which some of its security will rest. And our NATO allies and Afghan partners are confused as to our strategic intent.
Some say that, before a final decision regarding troop numbers is made, we need to conclude a basic security agreement with Kabul that will govern the status and conditions of our forces after 2014. This is not logical. No one would buy a car on the basis of “sign now and I’ll tell you how it’s equipped later.” The Afghans need to know what is being offered if they are to meet our terms for immunity and other conditions.
Obama has stated our intent to advise and assist Afghan forces after 2014 while they take over the fight for their country’s internal security. Decisions about how to support that intent are urgently needed.
Russia considers returning to Afghanistan
By J. Dana Stuster Friday, March 29, 2013 The Foreign Policy
The Soviet Union's 10-year occupation of Afghanistan cost the country more than 15,000 lives, and an additional 50,000 were wounded. Before the USSR withdrew its forces in 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev described the Soviet efforts to fight the insurgency there as "a bleeding wound." And yet -- just over two decades after leaving what came to be considered the Soviet version of the Vietnam War -- Russia is now eager to return to Afghanistan.
Russian defense officials are exploring the possibility of establishing military bases on Afghan soil after the U.S. drawdown in 2014, according to Russian press reports. Sergey Koshelev, of the Russian Defense Ministry's Department of Cooperation, told Russia Today that the military "will look into various options of creating repair bases" to maintain the Afghan National Security Forces's Russian-made equipment. Further cooperation is also being considered, according to Russia's NATO envoy Aleksandr Grushko.
Russia certainly has an economic stake in post-war Afghanistan. In addition to maintaining Russian gear -- from small arms to armored personnel carriers and helicopters -- Russia is also considering expanding its supply routes into Afghanistan through Central Asian countries. These supply routes, often called the Northern Distribution Network, have been a troublesome logistical lifeline for ISAF troops in Afghanistan, and will likely remain important after the drawdown.
An article in the government-sponsored paper Pravda last November touted Russia's cultural projects in Afghanistan as a prelude to new projects like those being discussed now. "It's obvious that Moscow's interest after the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan ...will increase dramatically," Lyuba Lulko wrote then. "The country has always been in the zone of Soviet and Russian interests." The article went on to recast the Soviet occupation: "After what the Americans leave in Afghanistan, the Soviet presence seems to be a blessing. Soviet soldiers are remembered with respect," Lulko added. An Afghan student studying Russian was quoted saying, "Russia is our neighbor, we love its culture. All was well, when the Russians were here."
Nonetheless, as RT's report stressed, "Russian officials have repeatedly denied that Moscow is considering resuming its military presence in Afghanistan."
Afghan villagers flee their homes, blame US drones
Associated Press By KATHY GANNON Thursday March 28, 2013
KHALIS FAMILY VILLAGE, Afghanistan - Barely able to walk even with a cane, Ghulam Rasool says he padlocked his front door, handed over the keys and his three cows to a neighbor and fled his mountain home in the middle of the night to escape relentless airstrikes from U.S. drones targeting militants in this remote corner of Afghanistan.
asool and other Afghan villagers have their own name for Predator drones. They call them benghai, which in the Pashto language means the "buzzing of flies." When they explain the noise, they scrunch their faces and try to make a sound that resembles an army of flies.
"They are evil things that fly so high you don't see them but all the time you hear them," said Rasool, whose body is stooped and shrunken with age and his voice barely louder than a whisper. "Night and day we hear this sound and then the bombardment starts."
The U.S. military is increasingly relying on drone strikes inside Afghanistan, where the number of weapons fired from unmanned aerial aircraft soared from 294 in 2011 to 506 last year. With international combat forces set to withdraw by the end of next year, such attacks are now used more for targeted killings and less for supporting ground troops.
It's unclear whether Predator drone strikes will continue after 2014 in Afghanistan, where the government has complained bitterly about civilian casualties. The strikes sometimes accidentally kill civilians while forcing others to abandon their hometowns in fear, feeding widespread anti-American sentiment.
The Associated Press — in a rare on-the-ground look unaccompanied by military or security — visited two Afghan villages in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan to talk to residents who reported that they had been affected by drone strikes.
In one village, Afghans disputed NATO's contention that five men killed in a particular drone strike were militants. In the other, a school that was leveled in a nighttime airstrike targeting Taliban fighters hiding inside has yet to be rebuilt.
"These foreigners started the problem," Rasool said of international troops. "They have their own country. They should leave."
From the U.S. perspective, the overall drone program has been a success.
While the Pentagon operates the drones in Afghanistan, the CIA for nearly a decade has used drones to target militants, including Afghans, in Pakistan's border regions. CIA drones have killed al-Qaida No. 2 Abu Yahya al-Libi and other leading extremists.
Still, criticism of the use of drones for targeted killings around the world has been mounting in recent months. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights has launched an investigation into their effect on civilians.
Rasool said his decision to leave his home in Hisarak district came nearly a month ago after a particularly blistering air assault killed five people in the neighboring village of Meya Saheeb.
The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, confirmed an airstrike on Feb. 24 at Meya Saheeb, but as a matter of policy would neither confirm nor deny that drones were used.
Rasool said that he, his son, half a dozen grandchildren, and two other families crammed into the back of a cart pulled by a tractor. They drove throughout the day until they found a house in Khalis Family Village, named after anti-communist rebel leader Maulvi Yunus Khalis, who had close ties to al-Qaida.
The village is not far from the Tora Bora mountain range where in 2001 the U.S.-led coalition mounted its largest operation of the war to flush out al-Qaida and Taliban warriors.
"Nobody ever comes here. It's a little dangerous sometimes because of the Taliban," said Zarullah Khan, a neighbor of Rasool's.
But the historic significance of his newfound refuge was lost on Rasool.
"Who's Khalis? We stopped when we found a house for rent," he said, grumbling at the monthly $200 bill shared among the three families packed into the high-walled compound where he spoke with the AP.
Standing nearby, Rasool's 12-year-old grandson, Ahmed Shah, recalled the attack in Meya Saheeb. The earth shook for what seemed like hours and the next morning his friends told him there were bodies in the nearby village. A little afraid, but more curious, he walked the short distance to Meya Saheed.
"I wanted to see the dead bodies," he said. And he did — three bodies, all middle-aged men.
ISAF reported five militants were killed, but Rasool claimed they were businessmen. One of the dead had a carpet shop in the village, he said.
Disputes over the identities of those killed have been a hallmark of the 12-year war.
In Pakistan, an AP investigation last year found that drone strikes were killing fewer civilians than many in that country were led to believe, and that many of the dead were combatants.
In Afghanistan, the U.N. has reported that five drone strikes in 2012 resulted in civilian casualties, with 16 civilians killed and three wounded. It reported just one incident in which civilians were killed the previous year.
At the other end of the province from Meya Saheeb and Khalis Family Village lies the village of Budyali. To get there, one must drive along a long, two-lane highway often booby-trapped by militants, before turning turning off onto a narrow, dusty track and finally cross a rock-strewn riverbed.
A Budyali resident, Hayat Gul, says the sound of "benghai" is commonplace in the village. He says he was wounded nearly two years ago in a Taliban firefight with Afghan security forces at a nearby school that led to an airstrike.
Tucked in the shadow of a hulking mountain crisscrossed with dozens of footpaths, the school now is in ruins.
The early morning strike on the school took place on July 17, 2011, hours after the Taliban attacked the district headquarters and the Afghan National Army appealed to their coalition partners for help.
Gul said he and a second guard, 63-year-old Ghulam Ahad, were asleep in the small cement guard house at one end of the school. They awoke to the sound of gunfire as more than a dozen Taliban militants scaled the school walls around midnight, chased by Afghan soldiers.
A bullet struck Gul in the shoulder. Frightened and unsure of what to do, Ahad stepped outside the guard house and was killed. Bullet holes still riddle the badly damaged building.
Village elders and the school's principal, Sayed Habib, said coalition forces responded to the army's request for help with drones, fighter jets and rockets.
The air assault, which residents say began about 3 a.m. and likely included drone strikes, flattened everything across a vast compound that includes the school. Habib said 13 insurgents were killed.
ISAF confirmed that airstrikes killed insurgents in the Budyali area on that day but would not say what type of airstrikes or provide any other details.
Habib and a local malik or elder, Shah Mohammed Khan, said that in the days leading up to the airstrikes the sound of drones could be heard overhead.
"Everyone knows the sound of the unpiloted planes. Even our children know," Habib said.
The elders were critical of the U.S. attack. They said they would have preferred that the Afghan soldiers try to negotiate with the Taliban to leave the school and surrender.
Habib and the village elders recalled the attack while sitting in the middle of the devastated school, where debris was still scattered across a vast yard. They pointed toward a blackboard, pockmarked with gaping holes.
"Shamefully they destroyed our school, our books, our library," said Malik Gul Nawaz, an elder with a gray beard and a pot belly.
Habib said that in an attempt to rebuild the school, a contractor constructed a boundary wall before another Taliban attack. He fled with nearly $400,000 in foreign funds.
The roughly 1,300 students now take classes at a makeshift school made up of tents provided by UNICEF. Gul, who was taken to a U.S. military hospital at Bagram Air Base after the attack and treated for the bullet wound to his left shoulder, is now a watchman at the new school.
He held a small photograph of his dead colleague, Ahad, in his trembling left hand.
"We want to end this war," Gul said. "Enough people have been killed now. We have to find unity."
Calls for Revision of Law on Dual Nationality Diplomats
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Thursday, 28 March 2013
The Senate's first vice speaker on Thursday said a new law aimed at removing Afghan diplomats with dual nationalities or foreign wives was not appropriate given Afghanistan's situation.
Mohammad Alam Izedyar said Afghanistan's foreign ministry needs more time to build capacity before it demands that its envoys to other nations hold only one passport.
"I don't see it as good for Afghanistan. I don't see it as good for international relations and diplomatic affairs of Afghanistan. In a situation where we need capacity and skilled persons, I think it will cause a huge vacuum which the foreign ministry cannot recover from in a short time," Izedyar told TOLOnews.
"That is why the government has postponed the signing -- it has come to realise what the consequences will be later," he added.
Parliament approved the law three months ago stating that any Afghan with a foreign passport or foreign wife cannot work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or in Afghan embassies abroad. But the law has not been enacted by the Council of Ministers.
A number of civil society organisations and senators who spoke to TOLOnews agreed that Afghanistan would be challenged to fill all the diplomatic positions in keeping with the new law.
Commenting on the article of the law pertaining to the foreign wives, a member of the political movement Afghanistan 1400, Wahid Omar, said the article is not logical and it should be revised.
"The law is correct, except for the article that says an Afghan who wants to represent Afghanistan cannot have a foreign wife because they put this constraint, a person needs to make a decision between becoming a diplomat or leaving his wife," Omar told TOLOnews.
"This is unethical and not implementable that someone – for the sake of becoming a diplomat – would leave his wife. This is not correct," he said.
Civil society organisations pointed out that Afghanistan is already facing the challenge of keeping skilled people in the country post-2014 who might otherwise find work in a foreign country.
"Parliament's approval of this law will lead to even less capacity in Afghanistan. Because now we're seeing that many of the capable are already escaping the country," said Mohammad Naim Nazari, CEO of Human Rights and Civil Society Network.
Some senators have pointed out that there are many officials and MPs who only carry an Afghan passport but they have long-term visas for other countries, even up to five years.
"We suggested the parliament allow a three-year respite [on this law] for further capacity building, but the parliament did not accept the matter," said Senator Nessar Ahmad Hares.
"We oppose this law," he added.
Those who support the new law, such as the members of the parliament commission for international relations, argue that the law is beneficial to Afghanistan and called for it to be enacted.
"The diplomats who have dual nationalities should leave their foreign nationality behind. It is not hard to do," said Nahid Farid, member of the commission.
"If they want to serve Afghanistan, they should leave their foreign nationality behind," she added.
Govt Rejects ISI Report of Afghan Support for Taliban
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Thursday, 28 March 2013
The Afghan government Thursday rejected the claims in a report by Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which suggested Kabul backs the Taliban in Pakistan.
The Afghan Government Media and Information Center (GMIC) retaliated with a counter-claim that Pakistan's military, especially the ISI, are the backers of the Taliban.
The Ministry of Interior (MOI) warned that the report presented to Pakistan's Supreme Court on Tuesday could be a conspiracy against Afghanistan.
MOI spokesman Sediq Seddiqi said: "Releasing this report could be an attempt to betray the people of Pakistan and make another conspiracy against Afghanistan."
The report suggests that President Hamid Karzai's administration is working with groups linked to the main Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan movement.
It said that anti-Pakistan groups, particularly from Afghanistan, were providing "strong support" in terms of money, logistics and training and this was "one of the main factors for increased militancy".
The reaction in Kabul Thursday was strong, with the head of the GMIC Sefatullah Safi describing Islamabad as thinking Afghanistan is still in the 1990s.
"Pakistan's activities so far show that it does not support a powerful Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is not agreed with such logic today. It is wrong if Pakistan's aim is to use a weak Afghanistan to reach its interests," he.
Recently, the Afghan government has said it is capable of progressing in peace negotiations without cooperation from its neighbour Pakistan, a process which Kabul previously said Islamabad played an important role in.
One Afghan political analyst said Pakistan is attempting to weaken the ability of Afghanistan to negotiate.
"Pakistan is trying to weaken the Afghan government's demands in Qatar and so lead it to lose. On the other hand it is trying to secure Taliban's demands," Ajmal Balooch told TOLOnews.
Kabul–Islamabad relations have deteriorated recently despite some promising steps being made earlier this year when the Afghan High Peace Council went to Pakistan and the presidents of both countries met in London.
Govt Rejects ISI Report of Afghan Support for Taliban
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Thursday, 28 March 2013
The Afghan government Thursday rejected the claims in a report by Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which suggested Kabul backs the Taliban in Pakistan.
The Afghan Government Media and Information Center (GMIC) retaliated with a counter-claim that Pakistan's military, especially the ISI, are the backers of the Taliban.
The Ministry of Interior (MOI) warned that the report presented to Pakistan's Supreme Court on Tuesday could be a conspiracy against Afghanistan.
MOI spokesman Sediq Seddiqi said: "Releasing this report could be an attempt to betray the people of Pakistan and make another conspiracy against Afghanistan."
The report suggests that President Hamid Karzai's administration is working with groups linked to the main Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan movement.
It said that anti-Pakistan groups, particularly from Afghanistan, were providing "strong support" in terms of money, logistics and training and this was "one of the main factors for increased militancy".
The reaction in Kabul Thursday was strong, with the head of the GMIC Sefatullah Safi describing Islamabad as thinking Afghanistan is still in the 1990s.
"Pakistan's activities so far show that it does not support a powerful Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is not agreed with such logic today. It is wrong if Pakistan's aim is to use a weak Afghanistan to reach its interests," he.
Recently, the Afghan government has said it is capable of progressing in peace negotiations without cooperation from its neighbour Pakistan, a process which Kabul previously said Islamabad played an important role in.
One Afghan political analyst said Pakistan is attempting to weaken the ability of Afghanistan to negotiate.
"Pakistan is trying to weaken the Afghan government's demands in Qatar and so lead it to lose. On the other hand it is trying to secure Taliban's demands," Ajmal Balooch told TOLOnews.
Kabul–Islamabad relations have deteriorated recently despite some promising steps being made earlier this year when the Afghan High Peace Council went to Pakistan and the presidents of both countries met in London.
Jawzjan Attorney General Accused of Corruption
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 28 March 2013
Nothern Jawzjan provincial council and residents have accused the provincial attorney general's office of indifference in fighting against corruption, claiming that cases are rarely followed up or are influenced by personal preferences.
Local officials said that the staff in the attorney general's office are not fairly investigating the cases brought before it and sometimes make decisions based on their own wishes.
Abdul Hai Hayat, provincial council chief said that if the local officials do not seriously fight against the corruption then the people will not trust the government.
"We are worried about this situation. The people will lose their hope and such conditions brings about a gap between the government and the people," Hayat told TOLOnews.
A man whose son was injured in an accident by another driver claimed that the Jawzjan attorney general changed the story in his son's file and charged the boy as being responsible for the incident.
"The office took a decision in favor of the driver. I don't know whether my son will be arrested or they will force me to pay a fine," the man told TOLOnews.
The Jawzjan attorney general refused to talk to TOLOnews on the matter.
How Sesame Street tones down for Afghanistan
AFP 29/03/2013
NEW DELHI - Indian and Afghan producers of children’s TV favourite ‘Sesame Street’ are brainstorming in a New Delhi office, swapping tips on how to make Big Bird and his fluffy pals palatable to local viewers.
As the show makes India a satellite hub for production and training, it is a chance for the Afghan producers to tap into their Indian peers’ six years of experience in balancing sensitivities within their own culturally and religiously diverse nation.
In doing so, the Afghans are working out how to avoid upsetting their own audiences in their quest to teach reading, writing and arithmetic in a conflict-torn country where only 50 per cent of children attend school.
“This is all the education they’re getting,” says Sayed Farhad Hashimi of the other half. Hashimi is an advisor to the Afghan show that launched in 2011 and is now heading into its second season as ‘Bagch-e-Simsim’ (Sesame Garden).
Hashimi notes that in his religiously conservative, warring country, the programme treads a fine line, and is unique as a show for young children there.
“Parents control the television and they’re going to turn it off if they don’t like what they see,” he explains over cups of green tea in mugs emblazoned with ‘Sesame Street’ puppets.
“We don’t want that to happen. We want it to be received well – in fact it’s vital,” he says, adding that the programme consults with the government and parents about content.
“In most places, schools aren’t open, so we’re reaching out to high-need areas.”
‘Sesame Street’, which airs in countries from Pakistan to Tanzania to Turkey, insists its co-productions are not done to create positive attitudes toward the United States but to “foster positive attitudes” in children about themselves.
“The goal is to reach all children at the same time as accommodating local sensibilities,” explains Ira Joshi, an education director of the Indian version of the highly popular US show, as the Afghans nod strongly in agreement.
Gender equity
On this afternoon, ideas fly thick and fast as the Afghans and the Indians, along with producers from the US parent show, work on a plot showing a seven-year-old girl learning Afghanistan’s vigorous Attan national dance.
“We can get her to practise with her little brother,” suggests Mina Sharif, the bubbly Canadian-Afghan producer of the Afghan show, which is funded by the US Department of State and broadcast four afternoons a week.
“We’ll get the whole family involved – everybody will be clapping – even the grandfather,” Sharif tells the session.
In the initial season, Afghan script writers feared parents might frown on encouraging children to dance – such activity is often seen as sexual in Afghanistan – so they got them to “exercise” instead. But these writers figure they’ve found a way round by getting all the family to participate while the brother partnering his sister will send a message of “gender equity” in a country where girl’s rights are often severely curtailed.
“The boy’s participation puts the gender part of it across,” says Lilith Dollard, content specialist for the US Sesame Street, which has become a global entertainment powerhouse since its 1969 launch.
“Gender equity is a cross-cutting theme for all we do,” says Dollard.
Acceptance of diversity
Gender equality is also an important buzzword for programme makers in India where girls are often undervalued, which results in them getting less food, medical attention and schooling than boys.
Promoting acceptance of diversity is another priority, with the Afghans introducing children in different provinces to each other and the Indian programme-makers doing the same.
“In India, we show a slice of a child’s life in different parts of the country. We show what these kids have in common,” says Joshi.
Both the Afghan and Indian programmes promote education with puppets wearing school uniforms to express the importance of education for both boys and girls. The Indian show features a gutsy girl muppet who says: “Stay in school, study, work hard – there isn’t anything you can’t do.”
In Afghanistan, the programme sought to push the envelope a little last season. ‘Sesame Street’ viewers in Afghanistan include around one million three-to-seven-year-olds, but the actual number of watchers is much greater as whole families are clustered around the set.
“To show the experience of the first day at school, we had a little girl as role model, not a boy as might be the case – taken to the school by her father and mother,” says Hashimi.
But the show’s tried-and-tested formula of songs, letters and numbers presented by the vibrantly hued puppets is in abundance in both the shows.
“We don’t want to overload the programme with messages – we want it to be fun,” says Dollard.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
David Cameron has made a personal plea to Pakistan and Afghanistan to bury their differences as rising tensions threaten to sabotage efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.
Telegraph.co.uk By Rob Crilly 28 Mar 2013
Islamabad - The Prime Minister telephoned President Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad and his counterpart President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Wednesday evening to underline the need for co-operation and to put an end to public hostilities.
The slanging matches are deeply embarrassing to Mr Cameron who last month hosted both sides at Chequers before declaring a six-month push for peace.
There were few signs that his telephone diplomacy had helped bring the two sides together.
Aimal Faizi, spokesman for Mr Karzai, described the phone call from Number 10 as “friendly”.
“He said both sides should continue working together, which we agree with. We still say that Pakistan can have a key role in talks between Afghanistan and the opposition – because the leadership of the opposition is in Pakistan – but if they are not prepared to help then we will make other arrangements,” he said.
Mr Faizi added that the Chequers summit had set back relations between the two countries because Pakistani leaders had arrived with a list of unacceptable demands, such as cutting ties with India.
He also criticised Pakistani clerics for refusing to travel to Kabul for a summit of religious leaders, one of the few concrete proposals to come from Mr Cameron’s meeting.
Kabul’s go-it-alone sentiment worries foreign powers, which believe Pakistan must be included in any peace process for fear Islamabad could sabotage any deal it considers unfavourable.
Time is running out for an agreement. American combat forces are due to leave the country by the end of 2014.
This week a confidence-building visit by Afghan officers to take part in a military exercise in the Pakistani city of Quetta was cancelled over reported firing across the border from Pakistan.
Meanwhile anonymous Pakistani officials have described President Karzai as an obstacle to peace.
A spokesman for Mr Zardari declined to discuss the telephone conversation.
A statement from Downing Street said: “The Prime Minister emphasised the need for increased co-operation between Pakistan and Afghanistan, built on a relationship of trust and strong relations between the two neighbours.”
New Afghanistan Commander, Gen. Joseph Dunford: 'We're Here to Win'
March 29, 2013 ABC News
In his first television interview since taking control of the international force in Afghanistan, Gen. Joseph Dunford told ABC News' Martha Raddatz that while he expects Afghanistan's insurgency to continue beyond the U.S. drawdown next year, he feels hopeful about the direction of the country.
"I'm very clear that we're here to win," said Dunford. "There are certain things that have to happen. We've got a complete security transition. ... We've got a complete political transition. I think successful elections in the spring of 2014 will be an extraordinary event in Afghanistan and really be a bellwether for the 10 years opportunity that will follow."
Dunford admitted that attacks on the force by Afghan colleagues, like the stabbing of 26-year-old Sgt. Michael C. Cable by a 10-year-old Afghan boy with whom he was working earlier this week, have "absolutely" had an impact on the force. Dunford called such "blue-on-green incidents" a significant threat.
"It's something I take very seriously as a commander, the lives of our young men and women," he said.
Last year, at least 62 coalition troops were killed by "insider attacks." As a result, Dunford said, the NATO coalition has increased training and counter-intelligence ability, including having armed men act as "guardian angels" present at meetings involving U.S. and coalition officials with their Afghan counterparts.
"This is not an area that we'll be complacent in, this is never an area where we'll say we've solved the insider threat problem," said Dunford. "Every day, we're focused on that, we take it serious and we put mitigation measures in place."
Similarly to his predecessor, Gen. John Allen, Dunford expressed cautious optimism about the future of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops next year. He said that the Afghan security forces have really taken the lead in protecting their country and are meeting all the benchmarks the Obama administration has set.
"When I look at the Afghan forces there are really three questions that I ask," he said. "One is: Can they assume the lead in 2013? ... And the answer is yes. The second question ... is: As I look to the elections of 2014, can they provide security? ... and the answer is yes. And the third question is: Can they affect full security transition at the end of 2014? And the answer is yes."
RELATED: Ex-US Afghanistan Commander Hopeful
The general maintained the biggest requirement for the Afghans' success will be a commitment by the U.S. and the international community to continue to support the country and its security forces. Just as The U.S. and its NATO allies have made clear to the rest of the world that the force will be drawing down in a year, the Taliban also knows, and it is poised to take advantage.
"We've seen some indication that the Taliban would like to be successful this year, particularly conducting high-profile attacks and assassinations of Afghan leaders to try to erode the will of the coalition, to try to address the confidence of the Afghan people," he told Raddatz.
The commander warned that a lack of confidence by the Afghan people in American and international support could be the greatest weapon for the extremists.
"Many people tell me they're more concerned about the uncertainty of the future than they are about the Taliban," said Dunford, adding that the Taliban "will attempt to feed those fears about the post-2014 environment."
Dunford said the U.S. does not expect that all violence will cease in Afghanistan by next year, but that the goal is to leave the country with a foundation for peace, and then follow up with advisory support.
"From my perspective, we'll still need to be in the four corners of the country post 2014," he said. "We'll still need to provide advice and assistance to the Afghan core level."
He said that, similarly to the situation in Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal, Afghanistan's ultimate success needs to be measured in years, not months.
"I see a great opportunity today for stability and security in Afghanistan 10 years from now," said Dunford. "But it is going to be a long-term process. ... What we are really trying to do by the end of 2014 is provide the Afghans with what I would describe as a 'decade of opportunity.' At that point, security and stability will be in their hands."
Iraq, Afghan wars will cost US between $4-6 trillion, says Harvard study
Islamabad, Mar 30 (ANI): Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the US between 4-6 trillion dollars in the long term, a study has said.
According to Harvard University scholar Linda Bilmes, this would constrain the government's budget for decades to come.
Bilmes concluded that the US will face increasing costs to care for an estimated 2.5 million veterans, and to pay down debt incurred by borrowing to pay for the wars.
According to the News, Bilmes, who served in government under former president Bill Clinton, calculated that the US has already spent nearly 2 trillion dollars directly for the two wars launched by former president George W. Bush.
But Bilmes' study said the biggest cost would be medical care and disability benefits, saying that over half of the 1.56 million troops discharged from service have already been granted benefits for life.
Bilmes, who called the numbers unprecedented, said that costs would climb over decades.
The United States is expected to maintain a limited military presence in Afghanistan after 2014, when President Barack Obama plans to withdraw combat troops first sent after the September 11, 2001 attacks. (ANI)
Pul-e-Khumri city mayor arrested over adultery charges
By SAJAD - 29 Mar 2013, 6:19 pm Khaama Press
According to security officials in capital Kabul, Syed Maqsood Sadat mayor of Pul-e-Khumri city was arrested along with four other individuals in Kabul city over illegitimate activities.
Syed Maqsood Sadat who was recently appointed as the mayor for the provincial capital of northern Baghlan province was also dismissed from his position after he was arrested in Microryan along with three women.
The provincial government in northern Baghlan province on Thursday appointed Mir Ahmad Bayani, a former employee of Pul-e-Khumri city as the new acting mayor for the city.
According to reports Syed Maqsood Sadat has been released from the prison however the women along with one of his friend are still in the custody.
Gen. Zahir Zahir head of the criminal investigation unit in Kabul security commandment confirming the report said Afghan police forces conducted an operation after receiving reports regarding illegitimate activities in Block # 103 of Microryan.
He said Syed Maqsood Sadat mayor of Pul-e-Khumri city was arrested along with his friend and three women during the operation.
Mr. Zaher also added that around 71 cases of adultery, 55 cases of homosexuality and around 99 cases relating to usage of alcohol were filed in the criminal investigation unit of Kabul security commandment last year.
According to Gen. Zahir, Afghan police forces arrested around 198 individuals in connection to adultery charges, 97 were held in connection to homosexuality and 203 other people were arrested for the usage of alcohol in Kabul city.
Afghans Failing Security Test In Badakhshan
By Frud Bezhan and Mustafa Sarwar March 28, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
For years, Badakhshan Province enjoyed life away from the action, an island of stability as war engulfed the rest of Afghanistan. But as the broader conflict winds down, the northeastern province is offering a bleak view of the future.
That's because NATO last year handed over security duties in Badakhshan exclusively to the Afghan National Army (ANA) and National Police (ANP), but the transition has coincided with a spike in violence and increased militant activity.
The region is an ideal testing ground of Afghanistan's ability to secure remote areas on its own.
It boasts the types of mountainous valleys and rugged terrain used as safe haven by militants throughout the country. It shares borders with three neighboring states -- China, Tajikistan, and Pakistan. And it is an important transit route for the booming opium trade.
Moreover, its isolation saved it from becoming a main theater of the Afghan conflict, allowing fresh troops to gain much-needed experience before Afghanistan takes over security duties across the country at the end of 2014.
But David Young, a conflict-resolution expert and adjunct fellow at the American Security Project, says the security landscape has changed as coalition and Afghan forces have focused on securing urban areas, leaving large swaths of rural Afghanistan -- such as Badakhshan – vulnerable.
"NATO forces across the country are focusing their efforts and dissipating resources on the places where they can have the most impact," Young says. "Badakhshan is not one of those places. I fear that any terrain not classified as even moderately urban will take a lower priority and open the door to Taliban infiltration."
Deadly Battles
This month, heavy clashes between Afghan security forces and militants have been reported. And the ANA has led a weeklong offensive against militant positions in several districts.
At least 50 Taliban fighters were reported dead and dozens injured in the volatile Wardooj district on March 23. The Afghan Defense Ministry, which has sent reinforcements to Badakhshan from neighboring provinces, confirmed three Afghan soldiers were killed and nine others were wounded in the course of the operation.
In one of the deadliest attacks on government troops by militants in recent years, Taliban insurgents ambushed and killed 17 Afghan troops in Wardooj on March 6. Eleven soldiers were kidnapped but later freed in exchange for Taliban fighters in government custody.
Locals in Badakhshan say the government's presence in the province is weak, while the contingent of Afghan troops in the province is too small to oversee security in one of the country's largest provinces.
Daily Danger
Salahuddin is a resident of Wardooj, some 60 kilometers east of the provincial capital, Faizabad. He says dozens of locals have died or been wounded in fierce fighting between government forces and militants. The instability, he says, has forced hundreds of families to flee to neighboring provinces.
"The Taliban have attacked the district. There was intense fighting in the center and on the outskirts of the Wardooj," Salahuddin offers in an account of heavy clashes between militants and local forces on March 22, when six residents were seriously injured. "The houses were hit by mortar fire and six people were wounded. Yes, government forces and militants were involved. On one side, there were rockets used, and the other side they were firing mortars. They didn't hit their target, so people were hit."
Sharif, a resident of Germ district, says all the schools in the district have been shut and many homes destroyed. He says locals have fled because they fear they could be used by militants as human shields.
"Every single day there is fighting everywhere. People are pleading [to the government] to stop this."
Really Ready?
General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, says that despite the deterioration in security he is confident the ANA and ANP in Badakhshan can defuse the militant threat.
"In those places where a security transfer has occurred, [militants] have tried to target those places," Azimi says. "But thankfully, overall, the security situation in Badakhshan has become better."
This year is a crucial test for Afghanistan's army and police forces, who have assumed control of some 80 percent of the country.
But Young says Afghan forces' failure to secure Badakhshan suggests they are far from ready to take control of the entire country. Afghan security forces suffer from a high rate of desertion, a poor reenlistment record, low morale, and a lack of equipment.
And that can't bode well for Afghanistan, especially its rural regions, says Young.
"What I project is a limited civil war in rural pockets of the east and south, " Young says. "I think that as ISAF or Afghan forces restrict themselves to the cities -- because it doesn't have the number of forces necessary to project into the rural areas -- it will be like counterinsurgency, but Afghan-style. So they will protect the most built-up areas so that the Taliban isn't able to actually take over the entire country."
Hamid Karzai, confused by the U.S.
Washington Post By Stephen Biddle and Michael O’Hanlon Opinions Friday, March 29, 2013
Stephen Biddle is a professor at George Washington University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Michael O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Both were in Afghanistan this month on a trip sponsored by the U.S. and NATO military commands.
For most Americans, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s words and actions are difficult to understand and hard to accept. He often seems ungrateful for the efforts of U.S. troops, cavalier in his ideas of how to change the Afghan-NATO military campaign and irresolute in his commitment to the war effort. He has suggested that our troops stay out of Afghan villages even before Afghan forces are ready to handle security there. He has chastised NATO soldiers for occasional, and clearly unintentional, mistakes that led to civilian casualties. He has withheld a promise to give our troops legal immunity if they stay in his country beyond 2014. He has even equated the U.S. role in prolonging the war with that of the Taliban.
We are among those who wish Karzai would stop this behavior. He struck a more positive tone this week during a news conference with Secretary of State John Kerry, but it would be a mistake to assume that the problems have been fixed. U.S. relations with the Afghan president will sustain further ups and downs, and the only way to reduce the severity and frequency of the low points is by understanding what provokes them.
Karzai is not, as some have claimed, crazy or a fool. He is confused. In his view, the world’s only superpower is surely able to defeat a ragtag force of Taliban guerrillas — if it really wanted to. In his view, the United States could surely force Pakistan to stop harboring Afghan Taliban insurgents — if it really wanted to. Yet Washington does neither. On the contrary, Karzai watches Americans look the other way while their logistical contracts are siphoned off to support the Taliban (albeit less so lately), and he sees Americans give billions of dollars in aid each year to their ostensible Pakistani tormentors. Karzai concludes that there must be some hidden reason for the apparent contradictions.
Karzai, of course, heard President Obama reinforce the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan by 30,000 troops in March 2009 and by another 30,000 that December. Yet Karzai then heard that Vice President Biden suggested,in the same month as Obama’s speech, that the United States did not have a “counterinsurgency” strategy to preserve the Afghan government or a long-term commitment to the countryand that America’s only real interest in the region was to hunt al-Qaeda terrorists, not to defeat the Taliban. More recently, U.S. officials have suggested that the Taliban is not America’s enduring enemy and that, while militants who attack U.S. territory are terrorists, those who strike on Afghan soil are not.
These challenges did not originate in the Obama administration. In 2001 President George W. Bush pledged U.S. support to Karzai, a leader he called a hero. But in 2003 the Bush administration shifted its attention to Iraq and handed off the defense of this hero to a polyglot multinational coalition. Karzai naturally wondered whether Americans believed what they said about the importance of his government’s survival.
Many of these apparent contradictions are unintended byproducts of U.S. efforts to craft a nuanced policy. The United States has security interests in Afghanistan, but they are limited ones. The chief threat to U.S. security in the region is al-Qaeda, but it would be hard to defeat al-Qaeda if its Taliban allies overthrew the Afghan government and took over important parts of the country. Too narrow and intense a focus on the Taliban misses the big picture of America’s underlying interests; by contrast, too little emphasis on defeating the Taliban overlooks a critical means of securing the ultimate end.
To resolve these conflicting incentives, the Obama administration has sought a policy of balance and moderation. These, however, can easily become self-contradiction, confusion and muddle unless the components are carefully crafted and presented. Obama is capable of presenting subtle, nuanced positions on complex issues — his 2008 campaign speech on race relations is a defining example — but he has devoted remarkably little time to discussing his Afghanistan policy in sustained, direct public communication. The result has been mixed and confusing messaging, especially since some White House officials have, occasionally, publicly dissented from that policy.
This is not to absolve Karzai. He often lets emotional impulse preempt analysis, and his outbursts frequently elevate his domestic political interests above the needs of his alliance with the United States or of the war effort.
Yet America shares some of the blame for the public divisions between Washington and Kabul. Our inconsistencies and reversals have interacted with Karzai’s various shortcomings to create an ever more difficult relationship.
That does not change the fact that Karzai and the rest of the Afghan people know they need us and will ultimately try to work with us. We need to keep perspective, and a thick skin, when engaging in this relationship, as Kerry has done. Equally important, we need to get our own message and policy straight. If we do not, we may discover that Karzai’s successor will find us just as confusing as Karzai has.
U.S. must decide about troops in Afghanistan
Washington Post By Ronald E. Neumann Opinions Friday, March 29, 2013
Ronald E. Neumann was U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. He is the author of “The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan.”
The United States has problems in Afghanistan, with the Taliban, Pakistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The Obama administration is making them worse by dilatory decision-making about how many U.S. troops will remain there after 2014.
While recent news has focused on the latest spats with Karzai, there are some bright spots. The Afghan police are denying the Taliban passage in parts of the south where coalition troops have fought for seven years without this progress. Afghans are showing an increased willingness toward self-defense, perhaps partially in reaction to a heavy assassination campaign by the Taliban. This month, I heard accounts in eastern and southern Afghanistan of the Afghan army, national police and local police forces mutually supporting one another in ways that used to be all too rare.
Yet major challenges remain as we approach the final handover of security to the Afghans in 21 months. For one thing, local police forces could yet be a long-term threat to the state if they become predatory or promote inter-tribal feuding. This is why the expansion of local police must be done with a deep understanding of each village where the force is formed and careful attention paid to the district police chiefs who support and supervise the force.
U.S. indecision on post-2014 forces is damaging the handover goal. So is the public discussion of troop numbers too low to achieve their stated purpose. Some allies already have shown a willingness to keep as many as 2,000 troops in northern and western Afghanistan after 2014. But they will not do so if those numbers are too large in proportion to the forces the United States intends to leave or if we take away air support the allies depend on for supplies. Other allies will make troop decisions only after we do.
Doubts about U.S. intentions confuse everyone, particularly the Afghans, who, when in doubt and as a matter of survival, move to hedging behavior instead of to professional military development. It is clear that a minimally effective force needs to have a presence in the country’s four major military areas: Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, Jalalabad and Kandahar. Without these bases, U.S. advisers would not have the reach to circulate effectively to the brigade level, where the critical strengthening of the Afghan army will need to continue.
This is what advising is all about. It is in the field, not some central camp, where the real transformation to an effective fighting force takes place. The “training and advising” that President Obama has promised needs a presence outside Kabul. So do counterterrorist forces. Not every essential strike can be launched from Kabul.
The number required to have a chance of achieving the two stated tasks of counterterrorism and advising is in the range of 10,000 U.S. troops; that number is already less than many would have liked because it leaves a dangerously small margin for error. Yes, the United States is facing financial strains. But to gamble our remaining chance of success in Afghanistan on the difference of a few thousand troops is shortsighted or displays a lack of support for the men and women whose lives are at risk in carrying out the policy. If the numbers coming out of White House discussions of troop levels are 2,000 or 3,000, the signal to friends and enemies alike will be a lack of will. It is past time to conclude the decision process.
We have troops at war who are not being told the structure they are to achieve in 21 months. There is a military transition process going on, but no one can say to what purpose without the detail required for coherent planning. The location and size of our civilian contingent after 2014 require knowing the military structure on which some of its security will rest. And our NATO allies and Afghan partners are confused as to our strategic intent.
Some say that, before a final decision regarding troop numbers is made, we need to conclude a basic security agreement with Kabul that will govern the status and conditions of our forces after 2014. This is not logical. No one would buy a car on the basis of “sign now and I’ll tell you how it’s equipped later.” The Afghans need to know what is being offered if they are to meet our terms for immunity and other conditions.
Obama has stated our intent to advise and assist Afghan forces after 2014 while they take over the fight for their country’s internal security. Decisions about how to support that intent are urgently needed.
Russia considers returning to Afghanistan
By J. Dana Stuster Friday, March 29, 2013 The Foreign Policy
The Soviet Union's 10-year occupation of Afghanistan cost the country more than 15,000 lives, and an additional 50,000 were wounded. Before the USSR withdrew its forces in 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev described the Soviet efforts to fight the insurgency there as "a bleeding wound." And yet -- just over two decades after leaving what came to be considered the Soviet version of the Vietnam War -- Russia is now eager to return to Afghanistan.
Russian defense officials are exploring the possibility of establishing military bases on Afghan soil after the U.S. drawdown in 2014, according to Russian press reports. Sergey Koshelev, of the Russian Defense Ministry's Department of Cooperation, told Russia Today that the military "will look into various options of creating repair bases" to maintain the Afghan National Security Forces's Russian-made equipment. Further cooperation is also being considered, according to Russia's NATO envoy Aleksandr Grushko.
Russia certainly has an economic stake in post-war Afghanistan. In addition to maintaining Russian gear -- from small arms to armored personnel carriers and helicopters -- Russia is also considering expanding its supply routes into Afghanistan through Central Asian countries. These supply routes, often called the Northern Distribution Network, have been a troublesome logistical lifeline for ISAF troops in Afghanistan, and will likely remain important after the drawdown.
An article in the government-sponsored paper Pravda last November touted Russia's cultural projects in Afghanistan as a prelude to new projects like those being discussed now. "It's obvious that Moscow's interest after the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan ...will increase dramatically," Lyuba Lulko wrote then. "The country has always been in the zone of Soviet and Russian interests." The article went on to recast the Soviet occupation: "After what the Americans leave in Afghanistan, the Soviet presence seems to be a blessing. Soviet soldiers are remembered with respect," Lulko added. An Afghan student studying Russian was quoted saying, "Russia is our neighbor, we love its culture. All was well, when the Russians were here."
Nonetheless, as RT's report stressed, "Russian officials have repeatedly denied that Moscow is considering resuming its military presence in Afghanistan."
Afghan villagers flee their homes, blame US drones
Associated Press By KATHY GANNON Thursday March 28, 2013
KHALIS FAMILY VILLAGE, Afghanistan - Barely able to walk even with a cane, Ghulam Rasool says he padlocked his front door, handed over the keys and his three cows to a neighbor and fled his mountain home in the middle of the night to escape relentless airstrikes from U.S. drones targeting militants in this remote corner of Afghanistan.
asool and other Afghan villagers have their own name for Predator drones. They call them benghai, which in the Pashto language means the "buzzing of flies." When they explain the noise, they scrunch their faces and try to make a sound that resembles an army of flies.
"They are evil things that fly so high you don't see them but all the time you hear them," said Rasool, whose body is stooped and shrunken with age and his voice barely louder than a whisper. "Night and day we hear this sound and then the bombardment starts."
The U.S. military is increasingly relying on drone strikes inside Afghanistan, where the number of weapons fired from unmanned aerial aircraft soared from 294 in 2011 to 506 last year. With international combat forces set to withdraw by the end of next year, such attacks are now used more for targeted killings and less for supporting ground troops.
It's unclear whether Predator drone strikes will continue after 2014 in Afghanistan, where the government has complained bitterly about civilian casualties. The strikes sometimes accidentally kill civilians while forcing others to abandon their hometowns in fear, feeding widespread anti-American sentiment.
The Associated Press — in a rare on-the-ground look unaccompanied by military or security — visited two Afghan villages in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan to talk to residents who reported that they had been affected by drone strikes.
In one village, Afghans disputed NATO's contention that five men killed in a particular drone strike were militants. In the other, a school that was leveled in a nighttime airstrike targeting Taliban fighters hiding inside has yet to be rebuilt.
"These foreigners started the problem," Rasool said of international troops. "They have their own country. They should leave."
From the U.S. perspective, the overall drone program has been a success.
While the Pentagon operates the drones in Afghanistan, the CIA for nearly a decade has used drones to target militants, including Afghans, in Pakistan's border regions. CIA drones have killed al-Qaida No. 2 Abu Yahya al-Libi and other leading extremists.
Still, criticism of the use of drones for targeted killings around the world has been mounting in recent months. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights has launched an investigation into their effect on civilians.
Rasool said his decision to leave his home in Hisarak district came nearly a month ago after a particularly blistering air assault killed five people in the neighboring village of Meya Saheeb.
The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, confirmed an airstrike on Feb. 24 at Meya Saheeb, but as a matter of policy would neither confirm nor deny that drones were used.
Rasool said that he, his son, half a dozen grandchildren, and two other families crammed into the back of a cart pulled by a tractor. They drove throughout the day until they found a house in Khalis Family Village, named after anti-communist rebel leader Maulvi Yunus Khalis, who had close ties to al-Qaida.
The village is not far from the Tora Bora mountain range where in 2001 the U.S.-led coalition mounted its largest operation of the war to flush out al-Qaida and Taliban warriors.
"Nobody ever comes here. It's a little dangerous sometimes because of the Taliban," said Zarullah Khan, a neighbor of Rasool's.
But the historic significance of his newfound refuge was lost on Rasool.
"Who's Khalis? We stopped when we found a house for rent," he said, grumbling at the monthly $200 bill shared among the three families packed into the high-walled compound where he spoke with the AP.
Standing nearby, Rasool's 12-year-old grandson, Ahmed Shah, recalled the attack in Meya Saheeb. The earth shook for what seemed like hours and the next morning his friends told him there were bodies in the nearby village. A little afraid, but more curious, he walked the short distance to Meya Saheed.
"I wanted to see the dead bodies," he said. And he did — three bodies, all middle-aged men.
ISAF reported five militants were killed, but Rasool claimed they were businessmen. One of the dead had a carpet shop in the village, he said.
Disputes over the identities of those killed have been a hallmark of the 12-year war.
In Pakistan, an AP investigation last year found that drone strikes were killing fewer civilians than many in that country were led to believe, and that many of the dead were combatants.
In Afghanistan, the U.N. has reported that five drone strikes in 2012 resulted in civilian casualties, with 16 civilians killed and three wounded. It reported just one incident in which civilians were killed the previous year.
At the other end of the province from Meya Saheeb and Khalis Family Village lies the village of Budyali. To get there, one must drive along a long, two-lane highway often booby-trapped by militants, before turning turning off onto a narrow, dusty track and finally cross a rock-strewn riverbed.
A Budyali resident, Hayat Gul, says the sound of "benghai" is commonplace in the village. He says he was wounded nearly two years ago in a Taliban firefight with Afghan security forces at a nearby school that led to an airstrike.
Tucked in the shadow of a hulking mountain crisscrossed with dozens of footpaths, the school now is in ruins.
The early morning strike on the school took place on July 17, 2011, hours after the Taliban attacked the district headquarters and the Afghan National Army appealed to their coalition partners for help.
Gul said he and a second guard, 63-year-old Ghulam Ahad, were asleep in the small cement guard house at one end of the school. They awoke to the sound of gunfire as more than a dozen Taliban militants scaled the school walls around midnight, chased by Afghan soldiers.
A bullet struck Gul in the shoulder. Frightened and unsure of what to do, Ahad stepped outside the guard house and was killed. Bullet holes still riddle the badly damaged building.
Village elders and the school's principal, Sayed Habib, said coalition forces responded to the army's request for help with drones, fighter jets and rockets.
The air assault, which residents say began about 3 a.m. and likely included drone strikes, flattened everything across a vast compound that includes the school. Habib said 13 insurgents were killed.
ISAF confirmed that airstrikes killed insurgents in the Budyali area on that day but would not say what type of airstrikes or provide any other details.
Habib and a local malik or elder, Shah Mohammed Khan, said that in the days leading up to the airstrikes the sound of drones could be heard overhead.
"Everyone knows the sound of the unpiloted planes. Even our children know," Habib said.
The elders were critical of the U.S. attack. They said they would have preferred that the Afghan soldiers try to negotiate with the Taliban to leave the school and surrender.
Habib and the village elders recalled the attack while sitting in the middle of the devastated school, where debris was still scattered across a vast yard. They pointed toward a blackboard, pockmarked with gaping holes.
"Shamefully they destroyed our school, our books, our library," said Malik Gul Nawaz, an elder with a gray beard and a pot belly.
Habib said that in an attempt to rebuild the school, a contractor constructed a boundary wall before another Taliban attack. He fled with nearly $400,000 in foreign funds.
The roughly 1,300 students now take classes at a makeshift school made up of tents provided by UNICEF. Gul, who was taken to a U.S. military hospital at Bagram Air Base after the attack and treated for the bullet wound to his left shoulder, is now a watchman at the new school.
He held a small photograph of his dead colleague, Ahad, in his trembling left hand.
"We want to end this war," Gul said. "Enough people have been killed now. We have to find unity."
Calls for Revision of Law on Dual Nationality Diplomats
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Thursday, 28 March 2013
The Senate's first vice speaker on Thursday said a new law aimed at removing Afghan diplomats with dual nationalities or foreign wives was not appropriate given Afghanistan's situation.
Mohammad Alam Izedyar said Afghanistan's foreign ministry needs more time to build capacity before it demands that its envoys to other nations hold only one passport.
"I don't see it as good for Afghanistan. I don't see it as good for international relations and diplomatic affairs of Afghanistan. In a situation where we need capacity and skilled persons, I think it will cause a huge vacuum which the foreign ministry cannot recover from in a short time," Izedyar told TOLOnews.
"That is why the government has postponed the signing -- it has come to realise what the consequences will be later," he added.
Parliament approved the law three months ago stating that any Afghan with a foreign passport or foreign wife cannot work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or in Afghan embassies abroad. But the law has not been enacted by the Council of Ministers.
A number of civil society organisations and senators who spoke to TOLOnews agreed that Afghanistan would be challenged to fill all the diplomatic positions in keeping with the new law.
Commenting on the article of the law pertaining to the foreign wives, a member of the political movement Afghanistan 1400, Wahid Omar, said the article is not logical and it should be revised.
"The law is correct, except for the article that says an Afghan who wants to represent Afghanistan cannot have a foreign wife because they put this constraint, a person needs to make a decision between becoming a diplomat or leaving his wife," Omar told TOLOnews.
"This is unethical and not implementable that someone – for the sake of becoming a diplomat – would leave his wife. This is not correct," he said.
Civil society organisations pointed out that Afghanistan is already facing the challenge of keeping skilled people in the country post-2014 who might otherwise find work in a foreign country.
"Parliament's approval of this law will lead to even less capacity in Afghanistan. Because now we're seeing that many of the capable are already escaping the country," said Mohammad Naim Nazari, CEO of Human Rights and Civil Society Network.
Some senators have pointed out that there are many officials and MPs who only carry an Afghan passport but they have long-term visas for other countries, even up to five years.
"We suggested the parliament allow a three-year respite [on this law] for further capacity building, but the parliament did not accept the matter," said Senator Nessar Ahmad Hares.
"We oppose this law," he added.
Those who support the new law, such as the members of the parliament commission for international relations, argue that the law is beneficial to Afghanistan and called for it to be enacted.
"The diplomats who have dual nationalities should leave their foreign nationality behind. It is not hard to do," said Nahid Farid, member of the commission.
"If they want to serve Afghanistan, they should leave their foreign nationality behind," she added.
Govt Rejects ISI Report of Afghan Support for Taliban
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Thursday, 28 March 2013
The Afghan government Thursday rejected the claims in a report by Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which suggested Kabul backs the Taliban in Pakistan.
The Afghan Government Media and Information Center (GMIC) retaliated with a counter-claim that Pakistan's military, especially the ISI, are the backers of the Taliban.
The Ministry of Interior (MOI) warned that the report presented to Pakistan's Supreme Court on Tuesday could be a conspiracy against Afghanistan.
MOI spokesman Sediq Seddiqi said: "Releasing this report could be an attempt to betray the people of Pakistan and make another conspiracy against Afghanistan."
The report suggests that President Hamid Karzai's administration is working with groups linked to the main Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan movement.
It said that anti-Pakistan groups, particularly from Afghanistan, were providing "strong support" in terms of money, logistics and training and this was "one of the main factors for increased militancy".
The reaction in Kabul Thursday was strong, with the head of the GMIC Sefatullah Safi describing Islamabad as thinking Afghanistan is still in the 1990s.
"Pakistan's activities so far show that it does not support a powerful Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is not agreed with such logic today. It is wrong if Pakistan's aim is to use a weak Afghanistan to reach its interests," he.
Recently, the Afghan government has said it is capable of progressing in peace negotiations without cooperation from its neighbour Pakistan, a process which Kabul previously said Islamabad played an important role in.
One Afghan political analyst said Pakistan is attempting to weaken the ability of Afghanistan to negotiate.
"Pakistan is trying to weaken the Afghan government's demands in Qatar and so lead it to lose. On the other hand it is trying to secure Taliban's demands," Ajmal Balooch told TOLOnews.
Kabul–Islamabad relations have deteriorated recently despite some promising steps being made earlier this year when the Afghan High Peace Council went to Pakistan and the presidents of both countries met in London.
Govt Rejects ISI Report of Afghan Support for Taliban
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Thursday, 28 March 2013
The Afghan government Thursday rejected the claims in a report by Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which suggested Kabul backs the Taliban in Pakistan.
The Afghan Government Media and Information Center (GMIC) retaliated with a counter-claim that Pakistan's military, especially the ISI, are the backers of the Taliban.
The Ministry of Interior (MOI) warned that the report presented to Pakistan's Supreme Court on Tuesday could be a conspiracy against Afghanistan.
MOI spokesman Sediq Seddiqi said: "Releasing this report could be an attempt to betray the people of Pakistan and make another conspiracy against Afghanistan."
The report suggests that President Hamid Karzai's administration is working with groups linked to the main Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan movement.
It said that anti-Pakistan groups, particularly from Afghanistan, were providing "strong support" in terms of money, logistics and training and this was "one of the main factors for increased militancy".
The reaction in Kabul Thursday was strong, with the head of the GMIC Sefatullah Safi describing Islamabad as thinking Afghanistan is still in the 1990s.
"Pakistan's activities so far show that it does not support a powerful Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is not agreed with such logic today. It is wrong if Pakistan's aim is to use a weak Afghanistan to reach its interests," he.
Recently, the Afghan government has said it is capable of progressing in peace negotiations without cooperation from its neighbour Pakistan, a process which Kabul previously said Islamabad played an important role in.
One Afghan political analyst said Pakistan is attempting to weaken the ability of Afghanistan to negotiate.
"Pakistan is trying to weaken the Afghan government's demands in Qatar and so lead it to lose. On the other hand it is trying to secure Taliban's demands," Ajmal Balooch told TOLOnews.
Kabul–Islamabad relations have deteriorated recently despite some promising steps being made earlier this year when the Afghan High Peace Council went to Pakistan and the presidents of both countries met in London.
Jawzjan Attorney General Accused of Corruption
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 28 March 2013
Nothern Jawzjan provincial council and residents have accused the provincial attorney general's office of indifference in fighting against corruption, claiming that cases are rarely followed up or are influenced by personal preferences.
Local officials said that the staff in the attorney general's office are not fairly investigating the cases brought before it and sometimes make decisions based on their own wishes.
Abdul Hai Hayat, provincial council chief said that if the local officials do not seriously fight against the corruption then the people will not trust the government.
"We are worried about this situation. The people will lose their hope and such conditions brings about a gap between the government and the people," Hayat told TOLOnews.
A man whose son was injured in an accident by another driver claimed that the Jawzjan attorney general changed the story in his son's file and charged the boy as being responsible for the incident.
"The office took a decision in favor of the driver. I don't know whether my son will be arrested or they will force me to pay a fine," the man told TOLOnews.
The Jawzjan attorney general refused to talk to TOLOnews on the matter.
How Sesame Street tones down for Afghanistan
AFP 29/03/2013
NEW DELHI - Indian and Afghan producers of children’s TV favourite ‘Sesame Street’ are brainstorming in a New Delhi office, swapping tips on how to make Big Bird and his fluffy pals palatable to local viewers.
As the show makes India a satellite hub for production and training, it is a chance for the Afghan producers to tap into their Indian peers’ six years of experience in balancing sensitivities within their own culturally and religiously diverse nation.
In doing so, the Afghans are working out how to avoid upsetting their own audiences in their quest to teach reading, writing and arithmetic in a conflict-torn country where only 50 per cent of children attend school.
“This is all the education they’re getting,” says Sayed Farhad Hashimi of the other half. Hashimi is an advisor to the Afghan show that launched in 2011 and is now heading into its second season as ‘Bagch-e-Simsim’ (Sesame Garden).
Hashimi notes that in his religiously conservative, warring country, the programme treads a fine line, and is unique as a show for young children there.
“Parents control the television and they’re going to turn it off if they don’t like what they see,” he explains over cups of green tea in mugs emblazoned with ‘Sesame Street’ puppets.
“We don’t want that to happen. We want it to be received well – in fact it’s vital,” he says, adding that the programme consults with the government and parents about content.
“In most places, schools aren’t open, so we’re reaching out to high-need areas.”
‘Sesame Street’, which airs in countries from Pakistan to Tanzania to Turkey, insists its co-productions are not done to create positive attitudes toward the United States but to “foster positive attitudes” in children about themselves.
“The goal is to reach all children at the same time as accommodating local sensibilities,” explains Ira Joshi, an education director of the Indian version of the highly popular US show, as the Afghans nod strongly in agreement.
Gender equity
On this afternoon, ideas fly thick and fast as the Afghans and the Indians, along with producers from the US parent show, work on a plot showing a seven-year-old girl learning Afghanistan’s vigorous Attan national dance.
“We can get her to practise with her little brother,” suggests Mina Sharif, the bubbly Canadian-Afghan producer of the Afghan show, which is funded by the US Department of State and broadcast four afternoons a week.
“We’ll get the whole family involved – everybody will be clapping – even the grandfather,” Sharif tells the session.
In the initial season, Afghan script writers feared parents might frown on encouraging children to dance – such activity is often seen as sexual in Afghanistan – so they got them to “exercise” instead. But these writers figure they’ve found a way round by getting all the family to participate while the brother partnering his sister will send a message of “gender equity” in a country where girl’s rights are often severely curtailed.
“The boy’s participation puts the gender part of it across,” says Lilith Dollard, content specialist for the US Sesame Street, which has become a global entertainment powerhouse since its 1969 launch.
“Gender equity is a cross-cutting theme for all we do,” says Dollard.
Acceptance of diversity
Gender equality is also an important buzzword for programme makers in India where girls are often undervalued, which results in them getting less food, medical attention and schooling than boys.
Promoting acceptance of diversity is another priority, with the Afghans introducing children in different provinces to each other and the Indian programme-makers doing the same.
“In India, we show a slice of a child’s life in different parts of the country. We show what these kids have in common,” says Joshi.
Both the Afghan and Indian programmes promote education with puppets wearing school uniforms to express the importance of education for both boys and girls. The Indian show features a gutsy girl muppet who says: “Stay in school, study, work hard – there isn’t anything you can’t do.”
In Afghanistan, the programme sought to push the envelope a little last season. ‘Sesame Street’ viewers in Afghanistan include around one million three-to-seven-year-olds, but the actual number of watchers is much greater as whole families are clustered around the set.
“To show the experience of the first day at school, we had a little girl as role model, not a boy as might be the case – taken to the school by her father and mother,” says Hashimi.
But the show’s tried-and-tested formula of songs, letters and numbers presented by the vibrantly hued puppets is in abundance in both the shows.
“We don’t want to overload the programme with messages – we want it to be fun,” says Dollard.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com