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US hands control of troubled area to Afghans
By KIMBERLY DOZIER AP Intelligence Writer / March 30, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan special forces took control of part of a troubled province bordering Kabul from U.S. troops on Saturday, ending a weeks-long dispute over abuse allegations that prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to order all American forces out of the area.
The handover highlighted the Karzai government’s struggle to assert its authority over security matters on an accelerated timetable ahead of the scheduled withdrawal of most of coalition forces by December 2014.
The transfer of control in Nirkh district of Wardak province — a gateway and staging area for militant attacks on the capital — ends a rocky episode in the strained relationship between the U.S. and Karzai. The Afghan president had angrily insisted that U.S. forces leave Nirkh over the alleged torture, kidnapping and summary execution of militant suspects there — charges U.S. officials firmly denied.
‘‘As we pledged, our forces have transitioned Nirkh district to Afghan national security forces and they have now assumed full responsibility for security,’’ U.S. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement. He said the rest of Wardak would transition ‘‘over time.’’
Karzai has had longstanding unease with U.S. special operations forces, which he blames for causing civilian casualties, and the 21,000 members of the Afghan local police who work with them. He has complained bitterly and publicly that the local police are ‘‘militias’’ and believes they are ‘‘outside his control,’’ according to his spokesman Aimal Faizi.
U.S. special operations forces will continue to visit the Afghan team in Nirkh, and work throughout the rest of the province, said Maj. Gen. Tony Thomas, the top U.S. special operations commander in Afghanistan, told The Associated Press in an interview on Saturday.
‘‘American special operations forces are integral in the defense of Wardak from now until the foreseeable future,’’ Thomas said in the interview at Camp Integrity, the special operations compound on the outskirts of Kabul.
The Afghan president had originally demanded the U.S. special operations forces pull out of the entire province, but he scaled down his sweeping demand to just Nirkh district after negotiations with Dunford and other U.S. officials.
U.S. officials feared Karzai was close to banning U.S. special operations teams altogether when he declared earlier this year, while standing next to President Barack Obama in Washington, that all American forces would be out of Afghan villages by spring.
Karzai was eventually convinced to accept a more gradual transition for the country overall, just as he was with Wardak, with U.S. special operations forces leaving the villages sometime this summer.
‘‘The last teams will go in this summer and from that point out, when we culminate (handover) an area, we'll bring the teams out,’’ Thomas said.
‘‘More importantly, we’re setting up ... training centers that are run by Afghans,’’ Thomas said. ‘‘We’re working ourselves out of a job.’’
Currently, U.S. special operations teams go into an area, get to know the powerbrokers and tribesmen and then help train Afghan men selected by the locals.
To join the Afghan local police, also called the ‘‘ALP,’’ recruits drawn from the local villages must be vouched for by village elders and then vetted by the Interior Ministry, including a background check by Afghan intelligence to rule out prior participation with the Taliban. If approved, they get rudimentary training on weapons safety and basic police skills and military tactics from the U.S. special operations forces partnered with them.
The combined U.S. and Afghan forces are stationed at posts throughout Afghanistan intended to extend security and Afghan government influence to more remote, Taliban strongholds that are beyond the geographic range of the conventional Afghan army and regular uniformed police.
Afghan and coalition officials say the back-country policemen have so eroded militant influence that they've become a top target for the Taliban. The bounty for killing a local policeman is $6,000 compared to $4,000 for a regular, uniformed policeman and $2,000 for an Afghan army soldier, one Afghan official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.
The units are so popular with local security officials that Thomas has more requests to start new units than his 61 American teams can build. The Afghan interior ministry also has asked the U.S. to consider expanding the local police force by another 45,000 troops. Thomas said he now has to do his own analysis for Dunford, to determine if the coalition can afford to fund them and if Afghanistan needs that many.
Karzai has yet to be convinced. Among other things, Karzai has echoed human rights groups that have complained that some of the Afghan forces have preyed on locals, from shaking them down for cash to more serious charges.
U.S. and Afghan officials say the Afghan interior ministry has stepped up its oversight of the local police units and is responding to such complaints. Five local policemen accused of rape were charged last year and sentenced to lengthy jail terms, and Thomas said nine local police chiefs responsible for some of the units have been removed for being ‘‘negative influences.’’
Thomas points out that more than half of the 21,000-strong local police force — some 12,000 policemen — are now overseen by the Afghan interior ministry with no American special operation forces present.
‘‘We provide the money, they own ALP,’’ Thomas said.
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Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
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NATO Air Strike Kills Two Afghan Children, Nine Taliban Fighters
March 30, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Officials say that a NATO helicopter strike has killed two Afghan children and nine suspected Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's southeastern Ghazni Province.
Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, the deputy governor of Ghazni, said that the casualties happened in a joint Afghan and coalition operation early on March 30.
NATO spokesman Major Adam Wojack said that the helicopter came in response to a Taliban attack on an Afghan police patrol.
He said that the coalition was investigating reports of civilian casualties.
Afghan civilian fatalities in NATO air strikes have been a major source of friction between President Hamid Karzai's government and the U.S.-led international military coalition.
Last month, Karzai ordered Afghan forces not to call in coalition air strikes in civilian-populated areas after 10 Afghan civilians were killed in an air strike called in by Afghan troops.
Meanwhile, U.S. special operations forces have handed over their base to Afghan forces in a strategic region of central Afghanistan.
The handover of the base in Nirkh district of the central Wardak Province on March 30 fulfills Karzai's demand that U.S. Special Forces leave the area following allegations that their Afghan allies committed grave human rights abuses on their orders.
In a statement, General Joseph Dunford, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, said that NATO troops will transition security responsibilities to their Afghan counterparts in other regions of Wardak as they "continue to grow in capability and capacity."
The development ends another key disagreement in the strained relations between Washington and Kabul.
Karzai had demanded the handover after allegations of killings, torture and kidnappings emerged. U.S. officials denied the charges.
Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and dpa
Afghan president leaves for Qatar for state visit
KABUL, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai left for Qatar Saturday for a state visit during which he would discuss with the Qatari leaders the opening of a Taliban office to conduct negotiations.
The Taliban insurgent group, fighting Afghan and the NATO-led forces stationed in the country, had in the past rejected the government's offers for talks, saying there will be no dialogue in the presence of foreign forces in the country.
"President Hamid Karzai, leading a high level delegation, left this noon for Qatari capital Doha on a two-day state visit at the invitation of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifah Al- Thani," tsaid a statement issued by Presidential Palace here.
During his visit to the Persian Gulf state, the President is scheduled to hold meetings with the Amir of Qatar as well as other senior Qatari officials to discuss ways to enhance the level of bilateral cooperation and on Afghanistan's peace process, it added.
He is accompanied by Foreign Minister Zulmai Rasoul, National Security Advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Presidential Advisor on International Affairs Marufi, Chairman of the High Peace Council Salauddin Rabbani, Head of the Council's Secretariat Mohammad Masoom Stanikzai, Chief of Staff to the president Abdul Karim Khuram and the presidential Spokesman Aimal Faizi, according to the statement.
Strong American role still exists at Afghan-controlled prison
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff Saturday, March 30, 2013
BAGRAM, Afghanistan - Days after the Parwan detention center was ceremoniously transferred to Afghan control, its courtroom was full of American bailiffs, American advisers and American attorneys.
The facility itself — renamed the Afghan National Detention Facility — is on one of the country’s most fortified American bases. When an Afghan defense attorney and prosecutor this week began arguing the case of Abdul Shakor, an alleged Taliban commander detained since 2009, all of the available evidence came from American forces.
The detention center has come to symbolize President Hamid Karzai’s increasingly emphatic vows to secure Afghan sovereignty. But while the formal handover transferred all prisoners to Afghan custody, it has hardly produced a stand-alone Afghan justice system to try them. Afghanistan has retained a controversial American practice that will keep about three dozen detainees imprisoned without trial. Even the court’s top judges and attorney say they remain dependent on foreign assistance to operate.
“Without the coalition, there is no way this court can survive,” said one of the court’s top judges, Hayatullah. “Afghan forces cannot even transport the detainees here for their trials.”
As the 2014 withdrawal of most U.S. troops approaches, the court is just one example of several vital but fragile Afghan institutions, including hospitals and the fledgling army, that might struggle or even collapse without American support. If Afghanistan cannot provide social services and good governance, not to mention courts that provide fair trials and keep dangerous militants behind bars, there are real worries here that security could unravel. Already, the Afghan court at Parwan releases more than one in four defendants it tries.
The U.S. military and State Department are rushing to transform the Parwan population, composed of battlefield prisoners captured by U.S. forces and held under international law, into Afghan criminal defendants. More than 3,000 U.S. detainees, some held without trial for years, had already been transferred to Afghan custody before this week’s agreement added a final 700, including 30 to 40 the United States considers “enduring security threats” ineligible for either trial or release.
Karzai’s government had refused to guarantee it would not release the high-threat prisoners, dismissing U.S. concerns that they would return to the battlefield and arguing that there was no provision in Afghan law to hold them without trial. Last week’s agreement came only after the Pentagon agreed to accept what it called “private assurances” from Afghanistan that they would remain in custody, at least until the U.S. combat withdrawal.
Both sides said the agreement, which they declined to release publicly, provided for bilateral “consultation” when they disagreed about a potential release. That is criticized by some Afghan judicial officials and human rights attorneys, who say detention without trial deprives suspects of a fair trial.
“It’s totally anathema to rule of law,” said Tina M. Foster of the nonprofit International Justice Network. “It used to be that the Afghan public was afraid to be sent to (Parwan) because they would never see the light of day. Now, it’s just an Afghan version of the same thing.”
To construct a workable court system for the detainees, the Americans have built a massive judicial complex — complete with appellate and juvenile courts — and supply everything from printer paper to evidence. Here, Hayatullah and his Afghan colleagues are forging their own justice system and will now decide the fate of thousands of suspected insurgents.
“Though we would like to say we are not involved, we are still intertwined,” Lt. Kevin Corrigan, a U.S. legal adviser at the court, said this week.
A delicate relationship
Shakor’s case highlighted the problems of the ongoing transition, as well as an American presence that has sparked a mix of resentment and begrudging acceptance among Afghans.
Shakor was detained in Logar Province in 2009 by U.S. troops whose intelligence led them to believe he was a Taliban commander. But the Americans considered much of that information classified and would not release it to Afghan attorneys and judges.
Instead, they provided only photos of the weapons in the house where Shakor was apprehended — which he claimed belonged to a friend — and a written description of lab tests confirming that explosive material was found on his body. All other physical evidence had been destroyed or discarded, and there were no witnesses. Afghan officials say prospective witnesses regularly refuse to attend court proceedings at a U.S. military base.
The defense attorney, Karimullah Karimi, spoke angrily in the courtroom filled with U.S. officials.
“Why are we trusting the coalition forces’ report and information?” he said. “These reports are not evidence according to Afghan law.”
That has been a common defense in the Afghan trials at Parwan. Since it launched nearly three years ago with a handful of proceedings, the court has grown exponentially to about 250 trials each month.
In some cases, the argument is effective. U.S. and coalition troops on the battlefield have neither the time nor the training to collect evidence that is admissable in court, a senior U.S. administration official said. Much of what goes into their decision to detain suspects stems from intelligence they are unwilling to turn over to the Afghans.
Because of Afghan concerns about the character of U.S. evidence, which typically consists of written reports and photographs, many detainees are acquitted who would have remained in custody under the U.S. detainee review board. About 27 percent of suspects tried here are acquitted.
“The judges often don’t think there is adequate physical evidence,” said Lt. Col. David Cline, a U.S. legal adviser at the court.
Already, the Afghan court has released some detainees who have returned to the insurgency, according to Afghan officials.
“All the physical evidence gathered by the coalition should be used in the court. If we don’t have the evidence, we can’t use it to convict,” Hayatullah said.
Shakor, a thick man with a bushy gray beard, had been held without trial for three years. He was guided last week to the courtroom wearing opaque goggles. When a member of the three-judge panel asked him to stand up and “tell us the whole story,” Shakor rose, his feet and hands still shackled.
“When coalition forces conducted the operation, they took materials from everywhere and they blamed me,” Shakor said. “I’m not a Talib. You can ask anyone.”
His attorney then presented a document signed by dozens of members of Shakor’s district claiming he was innocent.
Moving forward
As always, Hayatullah had to weigh the validity of a popular argument founded on skepticism of NATO forces with the seemingly damning information in the coalition’s report — and he had to do so while a room full of U.S. officials, including his personal adviser, watched.
He and two other judges left the court to deliberate. When they returned, Shakor stood again.
The judges told him that he was found guilty of participating in the insurgency but not attempted murder or murder. That meant Shakor would receive only a three-year sentence, which he had already served while awaiting trial. He would be released, despite the implication in the military report that he had been involved in the manufacture or placement of improvised explosive devices.
The American advisers and attorneys in the room were not surprised. Given the quality of the evidence, the ruling was standard in the Afghan court.
As long as U.S. forces are participating in targeted operations, evidence will continue coming from U.S. troops. The American legal advisory role is expected to continue as well.
It will remain up to Afghan judges to decide how to craft their own rulings in a court where the Western presence far from disappeared when the justice system officially became Afghan-owned.
“The opportunity to hold these trials is all because of the coalition forces,” Hayatullah said. “I told [the head of the prison] — we need to be able to do the same job as the coalition.”
Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
No pre-conditions for Afghan peace, says Pakistani spokesman
ISLAMABAD, March 29 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Friday rejected Afghan presidential spokesman's claim that Islamabad has imposed " pre-conditions" for the peace process in the war-torn country, local media reported.
Aimal Faizi, spokesperson to President Hamid Karzai, said in Kabul that Pakistan has tried to "sabotage" the peace process and put pre-conditions.
Faizi also said that Islamabad has asked Afghanistan to cut ties with India, however, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman denied all these assertions.
The Pakistani spokesperson said that Pakistan has not laid down any pre-conditions for the peace process.
"Pakistan is whole-heartedly supporting and facilitating the peace process without any conditions or preference for any particular group or party," he said in a statement.
The spokesperson said that the proposal for a Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) between Pakistan and Afghanistan had emanated from President Karzai himself. "The Government of Pakistan had welcomed the proposal."
He also said that Pakistan did not demand that Afghanistan should "cut all ties with India." Pakistan has no objection or issue with Afghanistan developing relations with any country.
"We have only stressed that those external forces which are using the soil of Afghanistan to destabilize Pakistan should be discouraged."
On sending Afghan army officers to Pakistan for training, the spokesperson said that this was an offer made by the government of Pakistan of goodwill to contribute to the training needs of the security forces of Afghanistan. "This was not a pre-condition but an offer in goodwill."
The spokesperson added that Pakistan remains fully committed to facilitating peace, reconciliation and stability in Afghanistan, adding Pakistan's offers of goodwill should not be construed as pre-conditions.
How Afghanistan is Beginning to Deal with Workplace Sexual Harassment
TIME By Mujib Mashal March 29, 2013
Kabul - As the razor wire, the blast walls and the security checks around Kabul’s presidential palace clearly suggest, Afghans employed by the government have a lot to be concerned just by walking to the office. But for Afghan women employees there is an additional hazard: the security officers there ostensibly for their safety as well as the drivers of government vehicles. According to one female employee of the Independent Directorate of Local Governance – located just 200 meters from the presidential palace – the women are constantly accosted by the “suggestive gaze, the non-stop whistling, the catcalling, the unnecessary coughing” of the security officers as they make their way to work. Indeed, many of the 35 women who work at IDLG – who make up less than 10% of the total staff – are often forced to avoid the main path to their offices.
Sexual harassment at the work place – and lack of mechanisms to address complaints arising from it – is one of the main impediments to female participation in the work force. And the behavior is rampant. In civilian institutions, there are constant reports of verbal and physical harassment, blackmailing for sexual favors, and the use of authority to coerce sex, according to interviews with several female workers, activists as well as independent studies. A report by Women for Afghan Women found “a complete lack of policies and procedures with respect to sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination” in government ministries. It is no surprise that women make up less than one percent of the police force: senior staff demand sexual favors for women to receive promotions and grants of leave. Junior police officers have, in private conversation with activists, reported groping and touching by male superiors, but they can’t officially file complaints fearing repercussion.
“Women who work in public offices tell me that there is a growing sexual demands at the work place that never existed beforeeven the women who had been working there for like years,” says Wazhma Frogh, executive director of the Research Institute for Women Peace and Security.
A majority of the current work-force is young men and women in their 20s or 30s. In their lifetime, female participation first dwindled due to the civil war and the Taliban’s subsequent ban on the women in public sphere. While educational opportunities have increased since the overthrow of Mullah Omar’s regime, the new government imposed a policy of gender segregation—with girls and boys studying in separate classrooms, indeed separate schools—to appease conservative leaders. As a result, for 12 formative years young men and women do not interact in academic environment as equals. At the university, there is more opportunity for cross-gender interaction, but by then the ideas of the sexes and the traditional power dynamics have become rigid already. Added to this is a flood of TV channels showing popular western media, romantic soap operas—where women are equally represented as men–as well as a vast availability of cheap pornographic material in the market. The society’s conservative values have not changed t
o accommodate the influx of such media. Says Aarya Nijat, the capacity and institutional development director at IDLG: “I don’t blame men. They simply don’t know how to interact with women at this level – they haven’t had to.”
Nijat, however, has been active in addressing the problems of her female co-workers at the directorate. “We brought up the issue in the leadership meeting several times – about the harassment by the palace guards, the drivers,” says Nijat, who is the only female in the organization’s 15-member leadership committee. “It’s fortunate that they [leadership] saw this as a systemic issue rather than individual cases. We shouldn’t be putting the individual intentions at focus – but see this systemic issue.”
After nearly three months of work, IDLG launched a “zero tolerance for harassment” policy guideline – a small but unprecedented move to make the workplace conducive to women. The results have affected not just the offices in Kabul but the entire country. All new employees of local governance – the 34 governor’s offices, the hundreds of district governor, municipality and provincial council offices around the country – will be required to sign the policy upon employment, which details all forms of unacceptable conduct. The effort is aimed at “doing away with the shame tied to discussing harassment,” Nijat says.
IDLG officials hope the measure will encourage more female participation in local governance. Even in central Bamyan province, led by the country’s only female governor, female participation in the local government is at 11%. In Ghazni, just two hours drive from Kabul, the governor admits there is not a single female worker in his office. “We are gradually seeing women beat the competition to positions that people thought naturally belonged to men,” says Matin Bek, the deputy director of IDLG. He points to the female mayor in Daikundi and the district governor in Jawzjan, who are “not token representatives” but have won their position by merit. “But for increasing and encouraging participation, we need to put in place mechanisms for a healthier work environment,” Bek reiterates.
For Nijat and her colleagues at IDLG, a similar movement in neighboring Pakistan serves both as an inspiration as well as a reminder. In Pakistan, it took over a decade of activism– and bottom-up work at the corporate and government sectors implementing their own policies –to pass anti-sexual harassment legislation at the national level. The bill was repeatedly struck down for having the work “sexual” in its title – something Nijat and her colleagues avoided in their compromise.
A longer-term solution may be co-education. Dr. Sima Samar, chairwoman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the first female cabinet member in the government of President Hamid Karzai, said she had the courage to speak out in the company of powerful men because she was co-educated in a school in Lashkargah, Helmand. “Co-education plays an important role – it gives courage from an early age,” she said. “But on the other hand, we know that in many places they won’t let their girls go to school after 4th grade if the teacher is male. Our priority is education and raising capacity of women at any cost.”
Trading of Women Rife in East Afghanistan, Report Claims
Saturday, 30 March 2013 21:34 by Shakila Abrahimkhil
The sale and exchange of women as goods is rampant in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province with as many as two women traded per day, according to the findings of a sociology researcher.
In a report obtained by TOLOnews, researcher Assadullah Ahmadi stated that he found some women had been traded up to five times in three Nangarhar districts – Rodat, Mohmand, and Shinwar – as part of the socially-accepted use of wives and daughters as possessions.
"It is [happening] in Mohmand and Rodad, and all of the Shinwar, and the spot of sale is the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan," Ahmadi said.
"This is a society where its clerics speak out against Nowruz, against new year, and almost anything else. But we see that the average of women sold in Nangarhar is two per day," he added, suggesting that the Islamic clerics were ignoring the practice.
In his report, Ahmadi says that the eastern Afghan women were often sold across the border into Pakistan and usually for less than the cost of a mule.
"There are even women that have been sold three to five times and in some cases sold along with their daughters. When we went to them, we came to know their price is less than a mule," he said.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Hajj and Islamic Affairs on Saturday told TOLOnews that it is aware of women being sold in Afghanistan and especially in eastern Nangarhar province, stating that it is a cultural practice that even the clerics are not capable of preventing.
"There is no doubt that women are being sold, and for three reasons: past practices, poverty, and illiteracy. The women whose husbands doubt them, the women that are not liked by their husbands, and the women whose husbands are poor are sold. However they are not sold as servants but they do the Nikah," said Dai-ul-Haq Abed, deputy minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs.
The Nikah is the temporary or fixed-term marriage allowed in Islam under certain conditions.
"In a discussion with the Hajj and Religious Affairs of Shinwar, they told us that it's a very ingrained trend. We have tried to work on this issue through Islamic means. The phenomenon is decreasing but not eradicated," Abed added.
The Nangarhar provincial council also acknowledged it was a problem, saying that for years women have been sold in Shinwar and that elders of the tribe are involved.
"The selling of women has been out there in the past and now. One who overlooks this matter, overlooks the truth," said Mofti Moeen Shah, a member of the provincial council.
"In our tribe of Shinwari, they do it [sell the woman] when the husband dies," he added.
According to the council, aside from being traded for money, girls as young as five-years-old are given to victims of crimes committed by the girl's family member. After receiving her, the victim will often sell the girl and keep the money.
"In districts of Nangarhar, there are married women between ages of 16 to 80 who are sold when either her husband needs money or wants to marry another girl," said Angiza Shinwari, a member of the provincial council.
"This practice has been done for years now, and it has recently increased because there is no rule of law and there is no punishment of the criminals," she added.
However Nangarhar deputy governor Mohammad Hanif Gardiwal, while admitting that there was abuse of women, rejected that they were being sold.
"[We accept that] ill-treatment of women is present. We have acted against it with officials from districts, education department, and the clerics so that they can make people and the youth understand that women cannot be sold or given as 'baad' [traded in return for crimes]," he said.
Nebraska kebab-maker now top U.S. adviser in Afghanistan
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff March 29 , 2013
KABUL - The man who once owned the only Afghan restaurant in Omaha is known for a different distinction here: He’s one of the longest-serving Americans at NATO’s military headquarters and the only person to have advised the last seven U.S. commanders.
Gen. John R. Allen called Abdullah Amini “my mentor.” To Gen. David H. Petraeus, he was “my wise counsel.” Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal wrote to him, “Your friendship means more to me than I’ll ever be able to explain.”
Over nearly a decade in Afghanistan, Amini has become a key player in the American mission, helping top generals navigate a culture in which misunderstandings and perceived insensitivity can have deadly consequences. But his ascent to the halls of power was much different from theirs. And now, as the U.S. military prepares to withdraw, he faces his greatest test as a cultural conduit: watching as the troops of his adopted United States leave the nation of his birth to an uncertain fate.
The men he advised went to prestigious military academies and earned recognition by leading thousands of soldiers and Marines. Amini fought his first battles with a Kalashnikov and no uniform, as a 21-year-old in the mountains of his native southwestern Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation.
At times, Amini’s dual identity has put him in a difficult spot — when relatives complained about the behavior of U.S. troops, or when he had to face a roomful of Afghans who were livid that American soldiers had burned Korans.
Amini is outspoken about the successes of the United States’ longest war: the millions of children in school, the growth of Afghan security forces. But he frets about the dozens of siblings and other relatives he will leave behind when he, too, departs in 2014.
“We must be hopeful. We must win. We don’t have any other option,” he said. “But when I think as a non-member of the coalition, as a regular Afghan, really I’m worried.”
An emissary and a critic
When Amini returned to Afghanistan in early 2002, he saw the U.S. intervention as the best chance for the country to move beyond decades of war. But he had never met an American soldier or Marine.
A decade later, he has served for nearly the duration of the war, alongside some of the conflict’s most prominent American figures. He has been an interpreter in significant meetings, an emissary when things go wrong and a critic when U.S. generals make poor decisions.
“The first thing I did when I arrived in Kabul is go to Abdullah’s office,” said Marc Chretien, the political adviser to Allen, whose Afghan tour ended in February.
That office is many miles and decades removed from Amini’s roots in remote Farah province. War cut short his studies, but as a young mujaheddin fighter he always remembered one image from a geography textbook: the soaring skyline of New York City.
In 1988, he arrived in the United States as a refugee with $7 in his pocket. In the months that followed, he was rejected from every job he applied for in Omaha, where he had relatives.
But by 2001, he had accomplished most of his goals. He was a U.S. citizen. His three American-born children spoke perfect English. He owned a restaurant where business soared — even Nebraska’s governor was a customer.
But the news from Afghanistan in the 1990s had haunted him. Twenty of his relatives were killed during the civil war. The Taliban rose to power, demolishing the values of the country he remembered. He was thriving in the United States while his native country was being destroyed. He feared he would never return.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the distance between Afghanistan and Nebraska was suddenly shortened. His native country was back in the headlines, but for an unimaginable reason. He worried, with a restaurant named Afghani Kebab, that he would be a target.
“I thought someone might show up with a gun and shoot me,” he said.
Instead, he got a flurry of phone calls expressing support. He was shocked when business quintupled on Sept. 12.
Then there were more phone calls from American officials and contractors. The United States was going to war in Afghanistan, they said. Would Amini be interested in working with U.S. troops on the ground?
Amini had grown embittered toward U.S. foreign policy when the country turned its back on Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. But a return to his home country would mean a chance to rebuild the battered cities he had once fought to defend.
The night he closed his kebab restaurant in 2002, a local television news crew interviewed Amini, wearing his usual black bow tie and white button-down shirt, surrounded by dozens of his customers.
“Everyone else from around the world wants to help this poor country,” he said, tearing up. “Why not me?”
‘Everything was in ruins’
In 2002, Amini arrived in Kandahar, a longtime Taliban stronghold, to work as a cultural adviser and interpreter. He couldn’t believe what had become of the country.
“Everything was in ruins,” he said.
Amini watched as U.S. officials made gains and errors — building schools and encouraging civil society while also awarding positions in the new government to corrupt Afghans. It sometimes felt like cultural awareness was being sacrificed for political expediency.
“If this is not right for this mission, I will fight you all the way to the White House,” he recalled telling his bosses.
His willingness to speak up earned him respect. By 2005, he had nearly unlimited access to top officials. When Hillary Rodham Clinton came to the country as secretary of state, Amini was her intermediary with a group of Afghan women. He took Vice President Biden to meet soldiers in eastern Afghanistan. He went with then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to volatile Wardak province.
But Amini’s brothers and sisters were ordinary Afghans living in a remote province in one of the world’s poorest countries. Sometimes they called him to complain about the actions of U.S. troops.
“My children almost died today,” his sister told him one day in 2009. A NATO convoy had held up traffic for more than seven hours. Cars with no air conditioning and no access to water were stuck on the road in scorching heat.
Amini told McChrystal, then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, the story.
“We are losing the support of the public,” Amini recalled saying. “We are losing hearts and minds.”
Within days, McChrystal issued a directive that would prevent those protracted bottlenecks. He would later write in his memoir, “My Share of the Task,” that he relied on Amini’s “ability to parse interactions I had with Afghans for revealing cues I overlooked.”
Amini reviewed the speeches of U.S. commanders, crossing out lines that might be perceived as culturally insensitive. In some cases, Amini was blunt: “Sir, I will not translate that,” he would say.
Amini grew to admire his bosses, men who he says understood the importance of personal relationships in Afghanistan. When each new general arrived — as Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. did in February — Amini would dole out the same advice:“Through friendship, an Afghan will sacrifice his life for you. Through bad relations, he will turn into your enemy.”
Amini was always there when the relationship between his two countries had to be patched. When violent protests broke out after U.S. troops burned hundreds of Korans at a base last year, Allen dispatched Amini to speak with Afghans on the general’s behalf. When photos of soldiers urinating on dead insurgents surfaced and civilian casualties threatened U.S. relations with President Hamid Karzai, Amini conveyed apologetic messages to Afghan leaders.
Still, he and other cultural advisers wonder how those incidents could happen after 11 years of U.S. troops working with Afghans. And they have wondered what the dwindling appetite for an American presence in Afghanistan will bring.
Amini has decided to remain in Kabul until at least 2014, when the majority of U.S. troops are due to withdraw. He has always encouraged American generals to exercise patience with their Afghan counterparts. Now he is trying to accept his own advice, staying as anxiety here grows.
The men he works alongside have encouraged him to be optimistic as his long tour nears its conclusion, knowing well that Amini’s ties to Afghanistan are unlike theirs, that the lives of his relatives hinge on the war’s outcome.
“I look forward to when you can simply drive across this country to visit your family,” Dunford wrote to him recently. “We’ll get there.”
Amini read the e-mail out loud at his desk. Then the phone rang. It was Karzai’s palace on the line. There were problems to resolve between Amini's two countries, and as it often does, reconciliation began with a call to his office.
NATO soldier dies in Afghanistan
KABUL, March 30 (Xinhua) -- A soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) died Friday in southern Afghanistan, the ISAF forces confirmed Saturday.
"An International Security Assistance Force service member died as a result of a non-battle related injury in southern Afghanistan yesterday," the ISAF said in a press release.
The brief release did not disclose the nationality of the victim, only saying "it is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities."
The latest death brings to 25 the number of foreign soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.
An Eternal Return in Afghanistan?
World Policy Journal (blog) By Vanni Cappelli March 29, 2013
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's asserted this month that the United States and the Taliban are working in an opposed but complementary manner to destabilize his country and “prolong the presence of the American forces,” each for their own ends. These controversial words are not just another passing furor in America's longest war.
The remarks feed into a growing narrative that views Afghanistan as an intractably corrupt, atavistic, and irrational land, whose problems are essentially cultural and therefore unsolvable by the United States. This month, during his trip to Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel described the Afghan situation as “complicated.” The picture drawn by an emerging consensus in government, foreign policy elites, and the media is not that of a labyrinth but of a prison or even a lunatic asylum, with the inmates circling around their confined space to return to exactly where they were before the Americans arrived.
If there was indeed never a chance of winning in Afghanistan because of the nature of that country, as this view holds, then the prospects of a return to civil war, a return of the Taliban, and even a return of terrorist safe havens are seen as inevitable, and, in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden and the weakening of al-Qaida, not a vital national security concern of America. It is as if we are being presented with a smaller, limited version of the ancient idea of the eternal return, which views history as cycling through the same events, negating the free will of individuals and nations.
Writing about Washington infighting in Foreign Policy, analyst Sarah Chayes deplored such efforts "to define the narrative on Afghanistan, to tell a story that lays the blame for the policy's failure at someone else's door." Yet these self-exculpations are ultimately an attempt to control the narrative on September 11th, avoiding an honest reckoning with the historical causes of that catastrophe and the failure of the United States to respond to it effectively. Karzai may be wrong about our conscious intentions, but he is right about the results of our actions.
Only by highly selective of narratives can September 11th be said to have resulted only from al-Qaida's taking refuge in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, and an appropriate response limited to a military defeat of those two entities. The attacks were actually an emanation from the general Islamic extremist milieu created and fostered across South-Central Asia by Pakistan's ruling military-security services complex over the preceding half century, in order to maintain its power and further its deeply linked domestic and foreign agendas. Any coherent policy seeking to preserve American national and international security from Islamic extremism should have begun by addressing the existence of this atmosphere as a whole, and the tragic role of the United States in enabling it during the Cold War.
Ever since Pakistan's foundation under the cry "Islam in danger" in 1947, its elites have sought to preserve the country's feudal socio-economic structures and block democracy, land reform, and women's rights via an authoritarian religious militarism that channeled national energies away from undesirable modernizations, which were associated with India. Over time, this approach evolved into using Islamist militants to crush secular reformers at home, while also deploying them in transnational proxy wars. For example, the Pakistani army organized the brutal razakars, a Bengali paramilitary group that guilty of war crimes in Bangladesh before its independence from Pakistan in 1971. Pakistan also sent jihadis against Afghanistan and India in the 1990s. Lacking the resources to pursue these multiple, prolonged aggressions on its own, Pakistan secured massive military assistance from the United States, which uncritically provided it since the 1950s out of a strict Cold War calculus.
The policy of building up Pakistan into a major regional military power was countered by withering and prescient criticism over the decades by American statesmen such as Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles and Senators Albert Gore Sr., Edward Kennedy, and Larry Pressler. All Washington could see, however, was that it possessed a secure square on the Cold War chessboard. Such myopia ignored the fact that the country's official "Ideology of Pakistan" was as anti-Western as it was anti-communist.
Nevertheless, the investment seemed to bear spectacular fruit when America and Pakistan collaborated to back the Afghans' successful resistance to the Soviet invasion of their country in the 1980s. Yet this final Cold War victory was achieved at a high price. America consented to the Pakistanis' demand that the extremist fighters who were most under their control receive the lion's share of the aid. The secular reformist and religious moderate groups who overwhelmingly represented the enduring cultural traditions of Afghanistan were excluded or marginalized. Thus, after America’s preoccupations had shifted elsewhere, the stage was set for the brutal proxy war through which Pakistani intelligence brought the Taliban to power in Kabul.
The nature of Afghanistan was never as critical as the nature of Pakistan, and Washington's refused to confront this fact. Afghanistan and the adjoining Tribal Areas, which were historically a part of the country, were never incubation points of Islamic extremism. Militancy was opportunistically projected into these impoverished and devastated lands by the Pakistani army as part of its "strategic depth" policy of ideological and military confrontation with India—as it had long fostered radicalism in territories directly under its control. By contrast, India and Bangladesh have Muslim populations of comparable size with Pakistan's, yet fundamentalism has a minimal following in those countries because it does not enjoy state support.
Since the September 11th attacks were a manifestation of terror in the service of an extremist ideology that had long ravaged South and Central Asia with similarly inspired violence, it was myopic and dangerous for America to have focused solely on the direct perpetrators and assume that their elimination would free us from the threat of terror at large. It was certainly oxymoronic to have turned to the entity most responsible for the diffusion of this radicalism in its region and the world as an ally against it. The ultimatum delivered to Pakistan by the Bush administration in September of 2001 was predictably accepted—as an existential necessity to avoid direct war—and then predictably evaded—as an existential necessity to maintain a power paradigm.
The causes of America's retreat from Afghanistan have less to do with the unchanging regional realities than with Washington's resistance to recognize the degree to which its own unchanging policies have created these realities. Fighting militants in Afghanistan and hitting them with drone strikes in the Tribal Areas, while arming their masters, has yielded a circularity as fixed as any found in ancient legend. If the killing of bin Laden in a stronghold of the Pakistani military did not break this cycle, it is hard to imagine what will.
Afghanistan remains a forlorn and devastated land under attack from a much larger neighbor. Washington must transform the mission from the Sisyphean goal of defeating the Taliban to a realistic one of containing Pakistan's ability to destabilize its neighbors in order to make possible a transition to real civilian rule.
For the people of Afghanistan, the prospect is one of endless war and a reversal of the tenuous achievements of the last dozen years. Areas "cleared" by the Marines can be retaken by the Taliban in days, and a girl's school can be burned down in an hour. For the people of Pakistan, the prospect is one of the unrelieved grip of a military security-services complex that has stunted its social, economic, and cultural development and created a climate of escalating sectarian and political violence. The people of India will continue to bear the brunt given their proximity to a rogue state that has launched repeated attacks against them. Populations across the region and the world will face the return of whole countries as terrorist safe havens.
And for all the talk of war weariness among a population that has been minimally engaged in this war, the American people's involvement in this drama is far from over. The United States’ own role in providing Islamic extremists with a megaphone and weapons has left the world no safer than it was in the summer of 2001. America’s refusal to recognize that the cry "Islam in danger" did not begin and will not end with al-Qaida can only bring the same returns it has yielded in the past.
Vanni Cappelli, a freelance journalist, is the president of the Afghanistan Foreign Press Association.
Female host deals with family issues on radio show in Afghanistan
By Josh Smith Stars and Stripes March 30, 2013
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan — There’s no crackle of static or catchy radio jingle to be heard. Squeezed into a cramped plywood room adorned with Afghan flags and stacked with electronic equipment, the two women could be speaking among themselves.
But they are speaking to a much larger audience via a radio transmitter the size of a small refrigerator.
With a target audience of women and families, the weekly show — called in Pashto “Da Kor Rana,” or “The Light of the House” — is broadcast from Forward Operating Base Spin Boldak to the booming border areas in southern Afghanistan.
On this day, host Zubiah Fedaie, an Afghan linguist with the base’s civil affairs unit, is interviewing Capt. Noorul Hayat, a pioneering, female member of the Afghan Uniform Police.
The pair take calls from locals — men and women — asking how to join the Afghan police forces.
Nearly three dozen calls come in, but with time limits and many dropped calls, four people make it onto the show.
“It attracts a lot of attention and helps our outreach to women, men and families,” Hayat said through an interpreter.
Other topics discussed on the show during the four months it has been running have included wedding traditions, medical issues, education, drug addiction and corruption.
Before starting as host of the program — a rarity in a patriarchal society in which women are seldom accepted in public life — Fedaie said she was warned to expect threats, but so far there haven’t been any.
“I was told people would swear at me, but in all the months I’ve done it, I’ve had no disrespect.”
The show is part of a U.S. Army program in which Afghan DJs run a radio station using “radio-in-a-box” technology. The technology has been used by the military for years to set up radio stations in Afghanistan as an overt effort to counter or displace Taliban messaging.
But “Da Kor Rana” is breaking new ground, Army officials say.
“The thing about the program at Spin Boldak is that it is definitely unique,” said Sgt. 1st Class James Grindle, a soldier with military information support operations — commonly known as PSYOPS (Psychological Operations) — who helps oversee the area’s programs. “Although radio broadcasting stations, themselves, are in multiple locations throughout Afghanistan, there has never been a security situation stable enough to conduct live broadcasts with female key communicators and members of the Afghan National Security Forces.”
The show, and especially the involvement of female leaders like Hayat, is evidence of a social shift, Grindle said.
“The fact that women are openly advocating for their own rights and want to be an integral part of a productive Afghan society and join the Afghan National Security Forces is definitely new to areas traditionally dominated by males.”
The station, dubbed “The Voice of Spin Boldak,” runs a variety of music, talk shows and public service announcements, both locally produced and culled from international services. The only other local radio options, operators say, are stations in Kandahar, more than 65 miles to the north, and in Pakistan.
Spin Boldak is located in what used to be the heartland of the Taliban movement, roughly halfway between Kandahar and the Pakistani city of Quetta — where the insurgency’s exiled leadership is thought to be based.
Besides setting up the station, soldiers with a PSYOPS unit pass out hand-crank radios during patrols to help build audiences.
Army officials insist the station’s programming is designed to boost civic engagement, not to push propaganda.
“We would lose listeners if it was all just propaganda,” said Staff Sgt. Chungkai Yang, a former news reporter and member of the 361st Psychological Operations Company, who oversees the station at Spin Boldak. “The main priority is that locals know their government is taking steps to ensure their safety and stability.”
And local leaders seem to agree.
Haji Feda Mohammad, a resident of Spin Boldak and member of the Kandahar provincial council, said “Da Kor Rana” is heard by many people in the area.
“The show is very good for the people,” he said through an interpreter. “They talk about how to live well in a society, respect others, respect women’s rights and a lot more things.”
He said the local radio station has attracted many listeners who are coming to recognize the power of media.
“People know that radio shows are important to learn something, so everyone listens to it, if they are in the mountains, desert, farms or in towns,” he said.
Like many other things, the station’s equipment is set to be handed over to the Afghan government in the coming months as U.S. forces withdraw.
What happens to the programming at that point is anybody’s guess, and American officials acknowledge a concern that the expensive equipment and its ability to deliver a powerful message could be commandeered for subversive purposes.
But Yang said he has been working to instill an appreciation for the power of media in local leaders. In fact, he said, Afghan leaders often prefer radio over television because it allows them to connect directly with citizens while helping to preserve a certain amount of anonymity. “It’s a way to reach out without risking their lives,” he said.
Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.
smith.josh@stripes.com
U.S. Tests a Risky Route for Shipping Gear Out of Afghanistan
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE March 29, 2013
KABUL - The U.S. military's efforts to ship out the mountains of equipment it accumulated over 11 years of Afghan war began in earnest this month, when a trial load of military hardware trucked through Pakistan set sail from the port of Karachi.
The shipment, which included more than 70 containers and 20 military vehicles, was a crucial test of a plan to bring home an estimated $22 billion in U.S. military gear from landlocked Afghanistan. Until now, the Pakistani route was used for supplies entering Afghanistan, rather than exiting.
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Steven Shapiro, deputy commanding general of the 1st Theater Sustainment Command, said the successful delivery proved that the coalition's transit route through Pakistan would enable the military to meet President Barack Obama's goal of cutting the size of the 66,000-strong American force in Afghanistan by half by next February.
"Pakistan certainly has a vested interest in getting it right too, because it's a big deal for them," Gen. Shapiro said. "So we feel very confident that the Pakistani military is going to help us move through Pakistan."
The route through Karachi may, however, prove problematic. In recent months, several large neighborhoods in the city have fallen under the sway of the Taliban. Further underscoring the risks, a suicide bomber on Friday attacked a Pakistani security convoy in the northern city of Peshawar, which lies along one of two the main transportation corridors.
The bomb exploded around half a mile from the U.S. consulate in the city. Jameel Shah, a spokesman for Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital, said 12 people were killed.
Gen. Shapiro said Friday he wasn't alarmed by recent security incidents along the Pakistan route, and said the U.S. had alternatives to shipping through the country. "We're not going to put all of our eggs in one basket," he said.
The U.S. began taking out equipment last year as part of the withdrawal of 33,000 surge troops. The military says it now plans to move a combined total of around 100 containers and vehicles per week through Pakistan, a figure that is going to increase gradually over the coming weeks.
When the exodus is in full swing—military commanders expect the logistics push to reach its peak this August—the U.S. will be sending about 1,500 military vehicles and 1,000 containers per month out of Afghanistan. The majority—around two-thirds of that cargo—will move through Pakistan, military officials say.
The most sensitive equipment, such as weapons and communications systems, must be flown out by air, the costliest option. U.S. officials have also negotiated an alternative overland route, dubbed the Northern Distribution Network, through Central Asia to Baltic and Black Sea ports. While more expensive than the route through Pakistan, the NDN isn't exposed to attacks by Pakistani Taliban.
In the past, militants in Pakistan's tribal areas have sporadically attacked U.S. and coalition convoys bringing vital supplies into Afghanistan. And in 2011, Pakistan closed the border for months, following a coalition airstrike that claimed the lives of 24 Pakistani troops.
The pullout of American gear may also face complications as bilateral relations between Kabul and Islamabad erode. In recent weeks, top Afghan officials have said Pakistan isn't doing enough to support nascent efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, and accused Islamabad of demanding unacceptable preconditions for its assistance in peace talks.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is currently planning a trip to the Gulf emirate of Qatar, where the Taliban last year began to establish a political office to facilitate peace talks. Aimal Faizi, Mr. Karzai's spokesman, said the Afghan president would leave "very soon" for his official trip to Qatar, where he would also meet with Qatari businessmen interested in investing in Afghanistan. Thus far, the Taliban have refused to negotiate directly with Mr. Karzai's government.
U.S. officials estimate the U.S. will spend $6 billion over around three years to remove what needs to go home by a December 2014 withdrawal deadline. The remaining equipment will be handed over to the Afghans, or simply scrapped.
Complicating the U.S. departure from Afghanistan is the lack of a friendly neighbor that can provide a holding area for military gear while it is packed, prepped and readied for shipment onward.
During the withdrawal from Iraq, U.S. commanders described neighboring Kuwait as a "catcher's mitt" for military equipment: Bases in the deserts of northern Kuwait served as giant parking lots for armored vehicles, trucks and Humvees awaiting shipment home.
Departing units could simply drive down Route Tampa, the main military supply road, and hand over the keys to their vehicles. Once that was done, equipment could be sent home from Kuwaiti ports back home to U.S. depots for maintenance, repair or storage.
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
www.afghanistannewcenter.com
By KIMBERLY DOZIER AP Intelligence Writer / March 30, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan special forces took control of part of a troubled province bordering Kabul from U.S. troops on Saturday, ending a weeks-long dispute over abuse allegations that prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to order all American forces out of the area.
The handover highlighted the Karzai government’s struggle to assert its authority over security matters on an accelerated timetable ahead of the scheduled withdrawal of most of coalition forces by December 2014.
The transfer of control in Nirkh district of Wardak province — a gateway and staging area for militant attacks on the capital — ends a rocky episode in the strained relationship between the U.S. and Karzai. The Afghan president had angrily insisted that U.S. forces leave Nirkh over the alleged torture, kidnapping and summary execution of militant suspects there — charges U.S. officials firmly denied.
‘‘As we pledged, our forces have transitioned Nirkh district to Afghan national security forces and they have now assumed full responsibility for security,’’ U.S. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement. He said the rest of Wardak would transition ‘‘over time.’’
Karzai has had longstanding unease with U.S. special operations forces, which he blames for causing civilian casualties, and the 21,000 members of the Afghan local police who work with them. He has complained bitterly and publicly that the local police are ‘‘militias’’ and believes they are ‘‘outside his control,’’ according to his spokesman Aimal Faizi.
U.S. special operations forces will continue to visit the Afghan team in Nirkh, and work throughout the rest of the province, said Maj. Gen. Tony Thomas, the top U.S. special operations commander in Afghanistan, told The Associated Press in an interview on Saturday.
‘‘American special operations forces are integral in the defense of Wardak from now until the foreseeable future,’’ Thomas said in the interview at Camp Integrity, the special operations compound on the outskirts of Kabul.
The Afghan president had originally demanded the U.S. special operations forces pull out of the entire province, but he scaled down his sweeping demand to just Nirkh district after negotiations with Dunford and other U.S. officials.
U.S. officials feared Karzai was close to banning U.S. special operations teams altogether when he declared earlier this year, while standing next to President Barack Obama in Washington, that all American forces would be out of Afghan villages by spring.
Karzai was eventually convinced to accept a more gradual transition for the country overall, just as he was with Wardak, with U.S. special operations forces leaving the villages sometime this summer.
‘‘The last teams will go in this summer and from that point out, when we culminate (handover) an area, we'll bring the teams out,’’ Thomas said.
‘‘More importantly, we’re setting up ... training centers that are run by Afghans,’’ Thomas said. ‘‘We’re working ourselves out of a job.’’
Currently, U.S. special operations teams go into an area, get to know the powerbrokers and tribesmen and then help train Afghan men selected by the locals.
To join the Afghan local police, also called the ‘‘ALP,’’ recruits drawn from the local villages must be vouched for by village elders and then vetted by the Interior Ministry, including a background check by Afghan intelligence to rule out prior participation with the Taliban. If approved, they get rudimentary training on weapons safety and basic police skills and military tactics from the U.S. special operations forces partnered with them.
The combined U.S. and Afghan forces are stationed at posts throughout Afghanistan intended to extend security and Afghan government influence to more remote, Taliban strongholds that are beyond the geographic range of the conventional Afghan army and regular uniformed police.
Afghan and coalition officials say the back-country policemen have so eroded militant influence that they've become a top target for the Taliban. The bounty for killing a local policeman is $6,000 compared to $4,000 for a regular, uniformed policeman and $2,000 for an Afghan army soldier, one Afghan official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.
The units are so popular with local security officials that Thomas has more requests to start new units than his 61 American teams can build. The Afghan interior ministry also has asked the U.S. to consider expanding the local police force by another 45,000 troops. Thomas said he now has to do his own analysis for Dunford, to determine if the coalition can afford to fund them and if Afghanistan needs that many.
Karzai has yet to be convinced. Among other things, Karzai has echoed human rights groups that have complained that some of the Afghan forces have preyed on locals, from shaking them down for cash to more serious charges.
U.S. and Afghan officials say the Afghan interior ministry has stepped up its oversight of the local police units and is responding to such complaints. Five local policemen accused of rape were charged last year and sentenced to lengthy jail terms, and Thomas said nine local police chiefs responsible for some of the units have been removed for being ‘‘negative influences.’’
Thomas points out that more than half of the 21,000-strong local police force — some 12,000 policemen — are now overseen by the Afghan interior ministry with no American special operation forces present.
‘‘We provide the money, they own ALP,’’ Thomas said.
___
Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
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NATO Air Strike Kills Two Afghan Children, Nine Taliban Fighters
March 30, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Officials say that a NATO helicopter strike has killed two Afghan children and nine suspected Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's southeastern Ghazni Province.
Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, the deputy governor of Ghazni, said that the casualties happened in a joint Afghan and coalition operation early on March 30.
NATO spokesman Major Adam Wojack said that the helicopter came in response to a Taliban attack on an Afghan police patrol.
He said that the coalition was investigating reports of civilian casualties.
Afghan civilian fatalities in NATO air strikes have been a major source of friction between President Hamid Karzai's government and the U.S.-led international military coalition.
Last month, Karzai ordered Afghan forces not to call in coalition air strikes in civilian-populated areas after 10 Afghan civilians were killed in an air strike called in by Afghan troops.
Meanwhile, U.S. special operations forces have handed over their base to Afghan forces in a strategic region of central Afghanistan.
The handover of the base in Nirkh district of the central Wardak Province on March 30 fulfills Karzai's demand that U.S. Special Forces leave the area following allegations that their Afghan allies committed grave human rights abuses on their orders.
In a statement, General Joseph Dunford, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, said that NATO troops will transition security responsibilities to their Afghan counterparts in other regions of Wardak as they "continue to grow in capability and capacity."
The development ends another key disagreement in the strained relations between Washington and Kabul.
Karzai had demanded the handover after allegations of killings, torture and kidnappings emerged. U.S. officials denied the charges.
Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and dpa
Afghan president leaves for Qatar for state visit
KABUL, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai left for Qatar Saturday for a state visit during which he would discuss with the Qatari leaders the opening of a Taliban office to conduct negotiations.
The Taliban insurgent group, fighting Afghan and the NATO-led forces stationed in the country, had in the past rejected the government's offers for talks, saying there will be no dialogue in the presence of foreign forces in the country.
"President Hamid Karzai, leading a high level delegation, left this noon for Qatari capital Doha on a two-day state visit at the invitation of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifah Al- Thani," tsaid a statement issued by Presidential Palace here.
During his visit to the Persian Gulf state, the President is scheduled to hold meetings with the Amir of Qatar as well as other senior Qatari officials to discuss ways to enhance the level of bilateral cooperation and on Afghanistan's peace process, it added.
He is accompanied by Foreign Minister Zulmai Rasoul, National Security Advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Presidential Advisor on International Affairs Marufi, Chairman of the High Peace Council Salauddin Rabbani, Head of the Council's Secretariat Mohammad Masoom Stanikzai, Chief of Staff to the president Abdul Karim Khuram and the presidential Spokesman Aimal Faizi, according to the statement.
Strong American role still exists at Afghan-controlled prison
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff Saturday, March 30, 2013
BAGRAM, Afghanistan - Days after the Parwan detention center was ceremoniously transferred to Afghan control, its courtroom was full of American bailiffs, American advisers and American attorneys.
The facility itself — renamed the Afghan National Detention Facility — is on one of the country’s most fortified American bases. When an Afghan defense attorney and prosecutor this week began arguing the case of Abdul Shakor, an alleged Taliban commander detained since 2009, all of the available evidence came from American forces.
The detention center has come to symbolize President Hamid Karzai’s increasingly emphatic vows to secure Afghan sovereignty. But while the formal handover transferred all prisoners to Afghan custody, it has hardly produced a stand-alone Afghan justice system to try them. Afghanistan has retained a controversial American practice that will keep about three dozen detainees imprisoned without trial. Even the court’s top judges and attorney say they remain dependent on foreign assistance to operate.
“Without the coalition, there is no way this court can survive,” said one of the court’s top judges, Hayatullah. “Afghan forces cannot even transport the detainees here for their trials.”
As the 2014 withdrawal of most U.S. troops approaches, the court is just one example of several vital but fragile Afghan institutions, including hospitals and the fledgling army, that might struggle or even collapse without American support. If Afghanistan cannot provide social services and good governance, not to mention courts that provide fair trials and keep dangerous militants behind bars, there are real worries here that security could unravel. Already, the Afghan court at Parwan releases more than one in four defendants it tries.
The U.S. military and State Department are rushing to transform the Parwan population, composed of battlefield prisoners captured by U.S. forces and held under international law, into Afghan criminal defendants. More than 3,000 U.S. detainees, some held without trial for years, had already been transferred to Afghan custody before this week’s agreement added a final 700, including 30 to 40 the United States considers “enduring security threats” ineligible for either trial or release.
Karzai’s government had refused to guarantee it would not release the high-threat prisoners, dismissing U.S. concerns that they would return to the battlefield and arguing that there was no provision in Afghan law to hold them without trial. Last week’s agreement came only after the Pentagon agreed to accept what it called “private assurances” from Afghanistan that they would remain in custody, at least until the U.S. combat withdrawal.
Both sides said the agreement, which they declined to release publicly, provided for bilateral “consultation” when they disagreed about a potential release. That is criticized by some Afghan judicial officials and human rights attorneys, who say detention without trial deprives suspects of a fair trial.
“It’s totally anathema to rule of law,” said Tina M. Foster of the nonprofit International Justice Network. “It used to be that the Afghan public was afraid to be sent to (Parwan) because they would never see the light of day. Now, it’s just an Afghan version of the same thing.”
To construct a workable court system for the detainees, the Americans have built a massive judicial complex — complete with appellate and juvenile courts — and supply everything from printer paper to evidence. Here, Hayatullah and his Afghan colleagues are forging their own justice system and will now decide the fate of thousands of suspected insurgents.
“Though we would like to say we are not involved, we are still intertwined,” Lt. Kevin Corrigan, a U.S. legal adviser at the court, said this week.
A delicate relationship
Shakor’s case highlighted the problems of the ongoing transition, as well as an American presence that has sparked a mix of resentment and begrudging acceptance among Afghans.
Shakor was detained in Logar Province in 2009 by U.S. troops whose intelligence led them to believe he was a Taliban commander. But the Americans considered much of that information classified and would not release it to Afghan attorneys and judges.
Instead, they provided only photos of the weapons in the house where Shakor was apprehended — which he claimed belonged to a friend — and a written description of lab tests confirming that explosive material was found on his body. All other physical evidence had been destroyed or discarded, and there were no witnesses. Afghan officials say prospective witnesses regularly refuse to attend court proceedings at a U.S. military base.
The defense attorney, Karimullah Karimi, spoke angrily in the courtroom filled with U.S. officials.
“Why are we trusting the coalition forces’ report and information?” he said. “These reports are not evidence according to Afghan law.”
That has been a common defense in the Afghan trials at Parwan. Since it launched nearly three years ago with a handful of proceedings, the court has grown exponentially to about 250 trials each month.
In some cases, the argument is effective. U.S. and coalition troops on the battlefield have neither the time nor the training to collect evidence that is admissable in court, a senior U.S. administration official said. Much of what goes into their decision to detain suspects stems from intelligence they are unwilling to turn over to the Afghans.
Because of Afghan concerns about the character of U.S. evidence, which typically consists of written reports and photographs, many detainees are acquitted who would have remained in custody under the U.S. detainee review board. About 27 percent of suspects tried here are acquitted.
“The judges often don’t think there is adequate physical evidence,” said Lt. Col. David Cline, a U.S. legal adviser at the court.
Already, the Afghan court has released some detainees who have returned to the insurgency, according to Afghan officials.
“All the physical evidence gathered by the coalition should be used in the court. If we don’t have the evidence, we can’t use it to convict,” Hayatullah said.
Shakor, a thick man with a bushy gray beard, had been held without trial for three years. He was guided last week to the courtroom wearing opaque goggles. When a member of the three-judge panel asked him to stand up and “tell us the whole story,” Shakor rose, his feet and hands still shackled.
“When coalition forces conducted the operation, they took materials from everywhere and they blamed me,” Shakor said. “I’m not a Talib. You can ask anyone.”
His attorney then presented a document signed by dozens of members of Shakor’s district claiming he was innocent.
Moving forward
As always, Hayatullah had to weigh the validity of a popular argument founded on skepticism of NATO forces with the seemingly damning information in the coalition’s report — and he had to do so while a room full of U.S. officials, including his personal adviser, watched.
He and two other judges left the court to deliberate. When they returned, Shakor stood again.
The judges told him that he was found guilty of participating in the insurgency but not attempted murder or murder. That meant Shakor would receive only a three-year sentence, which he had already served while awaiting trial. He would be released, despite the implication in the military report that he had been involved in the manufacture or placement of improvised explosive devices.
The American advisers and attorneys in the room were not surprised. Given the quality of the evidence, the ruling was standard in the Afghan court.
As long as U.S. forces are participating in targeted operations, evidence will continue coming from U.S. troops. The American legal advisory role is expected to continue as well.
It will remain up to Afghan judges to decide how to craft their own rulings in a court where the Western presence far from disappeared when the justice system officially became Afghan-owned.
“The opportunity to hold these trials is all because of the coalition forces,” Hayatullah said. “I told [the head of the prison] — we need to be able to do the same job as the coalition.”
Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
No pre-conditions for Afghan peace, says Pakistani spokesman
ISLAMABAD, March 29 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Friday rejected Afghan presidential spokesman's claim that Islamabad has imposed " pre-conditions" for the peace process in the war-torn country, local media reported.
Aimal Faizi, spokesperson to President Hamid Karzai, said in Kabul that Pakistan has tried to "sabotage" the peace process and put pre-conditions.
Faizi also said that Islamabad has asked Afghanistan to cut ties with India, however, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman denied all these assertions.
The Pakistani spokesperson said that Pakistan has not laid down any pre-conditions for the peace process.
"Pakistan is whole-heartedly supporting and facilitating the peace process without any conditions or preference for any particular group or party," he said in a statement.
The spokesperson said that the proposal for a Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) between Pakistan and Afghanistan had emanated from President Karzai himself. "The Government of Pakistan had welcomed the proposal."
He also said that Pakistan did not demand that Afghanistan should "cut all ties with India." Pakistan has no objection or issue with Afghanistan developing relations with any country.
"We have only stressed that those external forces which are using the soil of Afghanistan to destabilize Pakistan should be discouraged."
On sending Afghan army officers to Pakistan for training, the spokesperson said that this was an offer made by the government of Pakistan of goodwill to contribute to the training needs of the security forces of Afghanistan. "This was not a pre-condition but an offer in goodwill."
The spokesperson added that Pakistan remains fully committed to facilitating peace, reconciliation and stability in Afghanistan, adding Pakistan's offers of goodwill should not be construed as pre-conditions.
How Afghanistan is Beginning to Deal with Workplace Sexual Harassment
TIME By Mujib Mashal March 29, 2013
Kabul - As the razor wire, the blast walls and the security checks around Kabul’s presidential palace clearly suggest, Afghans employed by the government have a lot to be concerned just by walking to the office. But for Afghan women employees there is an additional hazard: the security officers there ostensibly for their safety as well as the drivers of government vehicles. According to one female employee of the Independent Directorate of Local Governance – located just 200 meters from the presidential palace – the women are constantly accosted by the “suggestive gaze, the non-stop whistling, the catcalling, the unnecessary coughing” of the security officers as they make their way to work. Indeed, many of the 35 women who work at IDLG – who make up less than 10% of the total staff – are often forced to avoid the main path to their offices.
Sexual harassment at the work place – and lack of mechanisms to address complaints arising from it – is one of the main impediments to female participation in the work force. And the behavior is rampant. In civilian institutions, there are constant reports of verbal and physical harassment, blackmailing for sexual favors, and the use of authority to coerce sex, according to interviews with several female workers, activists as well as independent studies. A report by Women for Afghan Women found “a complete lack of policies and procedures with respect to sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination” in government ministries. It is no surprise that women make up less than one percent of the police force: senior staff demand sexual favors for women to receive promotions and grants of leave. Junior police officers have, in private conversation with activists, reported groping and touching by male superiors, but they can’t officially file complaints fearing repercussion.
“Women who work in public offices tell me that there is a growing sexual demands at the work place that never existed beforeeven the women who had been working there for like years,” says Wazhma Frogh, executive director of the Research Institute for Women Peace and Security.
A majority of the current work-force is young men and women in their 20s or 30s. In their lifetime, female participation first dwindled due to the civil war and the Taliban’s subsequent ban on the women in public sphere. While educational opportunities have increased since the overthrow of Mullah Omar’s regime, the new government imposed a policy of gender segregation—with girls and boys studying in separate classrooms, indeed separate schools—to appease conservative leaders. As a result, for 12 formative years young men and women do not interact in academic environment as equals. At the university, there is more opportunity for cross-gender interaction, but by then the ideas of the sexes and the traditional power dynamics have become rigid already. Added to this is a flood of TV channels showing popular western media, romantic soap operas—where women are equally represented as men–as well as a vast availability of cheap pornographic material in the market. The society’s conservative values have not changed t
o accommodate the influx of such media. Says Aarya Nijat, the capacity and institutional development director at IDLG: “I don’t blame men. They simply don’t know how to interact with women at this level – they haven’t had to.”
Nijat, however, has been active in addressing the problems of her female co-workers at the directorate. “We brought up the issue in the leadership meeting several times – about the harassment by the palace guards, the drivers,” says Nijat, who is the only female in the organization’s 15-member leadership committee. “It’s fortunate that they [leadership] saw this as a systemic issue rather than individual cases. We shouldn’t be putting the individual intentions at focus – but see this systemic issue.”
After nearly three months of work, IDLG launched a “zero tolerance for harassment” policy guideline – a small but unprecedented move to make the workplace conducive to women. The results have affected not just the offices in Kabul but the entire country. All new employees of local governance – the 34 governor’s offices, the hundreds of district governor, municipality and provincial council offices around the country – will be required to sign the policy upon employment, which details all forms of unacceptable conduct. The effort is aimed at “doing away with the shame tied to discussing harassment,” Nijat says.
IDLG officials hope the measure will encourage more female participation in local governance. Even in central Bamyan province, led by the country’s only female governor, female participation in the local government is at 11%. In Ghazni, just two hours drive from Kabul, the governor admits there is not a single female worker in his office. “We are gradually seeing women beat the competition to positions that people thought naturally belonged to men,” says Matin Bek, the deputy director of IDLG. He points to the female mayor in Daikundi and the district governor in Jawzjan, who are “not token representatives” but have won their position by merit. “But for increasing and encouraging participation, we need to put in place mechanisms for a healthier work environment,” Bek reiterates.
For Nijat and her colleagues at IDLG, a similar movement in neighboring Pakistan serves both as an inspiration as well as a reminder. In Pakistan, it took over a decade of activism– and bottom-up work at the corporate and government sectors implementing their own policies –to pass anti-sexual harassment legislation at the national level. The bill was repeatedly struck down for having the work “sexual” in its title – something Nijat and her colleagues avoided in their compromise.
A longer-term solution may be co-education. Dr. Sima Samar, chairwoman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the first female cabinet member in the government of President Hamid Karzai, said she had the courage to speak out in the company of powerful men because she was co-educated in a school in Lashkargah, Helmand. “Co-education plays an important role – it gives courage from an early age,” she said. “But on the other hand, we know that in many places they won’t let their girls go to school after 4th grade if the teacher is male. Our priority is education and raising capacity of women at any cost.”
Trading of Women Rife in East Afghanistan, Report Claims
Saturday, 30 March 2013 21:34 by Shakila Abrahimkhil
The sale and exchange of women as goods is rampant in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province with as many as two women traded per day, according to the findings of a sociology researcher.
In a report obtained by TOLOnews, researcher Assadullah Ahmadi stated that he found some women had been traded up to five times in three Nangarhar districts – Rodat, Mohmand, and Shinwar – as part of the socially-accepted use of wives and daughters as possessions.
"It is [happening] in Mohmand and Rodad, and all of the Shinwar, and the spot of sale is the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan," Ahmadi said.
"This is a society where its clerics speak out against Nowruz, against new year, and almost anything else. But we see that the average of women sold in Nangarhar is two per day," he added, suggesting that the Islamic clerics were ignoring the practice.
In his report, Ahmadi says that the eastern Afghan women were often sold across the border into Pakistan and usually for less than the cost of a mule.
"There are even women that have been sold three to five times and in some cases sold along with their daughters. When we went to them, we came to know their price is less than a mule," he said.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Hajj and Islamic Affairs on Saturday told TOLOnews that it is aware of women being sold in Afghanistan and especially in eastern Nangarhar province, stating that it is a cultural practice that even the clerics are not capable of preventing.
"There is no doubt that women are being sold, and for three reasons: past practices, poverty, and illiteracy. The women whose husbands doubt them, the women that are not liked by their husbands, and the women whose husbands are poor are sold. However they are not sold as servants but they do the Nikah," said Dai-ul-Haq Abed, deputy minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs.
The Nikah is the temporary or fixed-term marriage allowed in Islam under certain conditions.
"In a discussion with the Hajj and Religious Affairs of Shinwar, they told us that it's a very ingrained trend. We have tried to work on this issue through Islamic means. The phenomenon is decreasing but not eradicated," Abed added.
The Nangarhar provincial council also acknowledged it was a problem, saying that for years women have been sold in Shinwar and that elders of the tribe are involved.
"The selling of women has been out there in the past and now. One who overlooks this matter, overlooks the truth," said Mofti Moeen Shah, a member of the provincial council.
"In our tribe of Shinwari, they do it [sell the woman] when the husband dies," he added.
According to the council, aside from being traded for money, girls as young as five-years-old are given to victims of crimes committed by the girl's family member. After receiving her, the victim will often sell the girl and keep the money.
"In districts of Nangarhar, there are married women between ages of 16 to 80 who are sold when either her husband needs money or wants to marry another girl," said Angiza Shinwari, a member of the provincial council.
"This practice has been done for years now, and it has recently increased because there is no rule of law and there is no punishment of the criminals," she added.
However Nangarhar deputy governor Mohammad Hanif Gardiwal, while admitting that there was abuse of women, rejected that they were being sold.
"[We accept that] ill-treatment of women is present. We have acted against it with officials from districts, education department, and the clerics so that they can make people and the youth understand that women cannot be sold or given as 'baad' [traded in return for crimes]," he said.
Nebraska kebab-maker now top U.S. adviser in Afghanistan
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff March 29 , 2013
KABUL - The man who once owned the only Afghan restaurant in Omaha is known for a different distinction here: He’s one of the longest-serving Americans at NATO’s military headquarters and the only person to have advised the last seven U.S. commanders.
Gen. John R. Allen called Abdullah Amini “my mentor.” To Gen. David H. Petraeus, he was “my wise counsel.” Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal wrote to him, “Your friendship means more to me than I’ll ever be able to explain.”
Over nearly a decade in Afghanistan, Amini has become a key player in the American mission, helping top generals navigate a culture in which misunderstandings and perceived insensitivity can have deadly consequences. But his ascent to the halls of power was much different from theirs. And now, as the U.S. military prepares to withdraw, he faces his greatest test as a cultural conduit: watching as the troops of his adopted United States leave the nation of his birth to an uncertain fate.
The men he advised went to prestigious military academies and earned recognition by leading thousands of soldiers and Marines. Amini fought his first battles with a Kalashnikov and no uniform, as a 21-year-old in the mountains of his native southwestern Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation.
At times, Amini’s dual identity has put him in a difficult spot — when relatives complained about the behavior of U.S. troops, or when he had to face a roomful of Afghans who were livid that American soldiers had burned Korans.
Amini is outspoken about the successes of the United States’ longest war: the millions of children in school, the growth of Afghan security forces. But he frets about the dozens of siblings and other relatives he will leave behind when he, too, departs in 2014.
“We must be hopeful. We must win. We don’t have any other option,” he said. “But when I think as a non-member of the coalition, as a regular Afghan, really I’m worried.”
An emissary and a critic
When Amini returned to Afghanistan in early 2002, he saw the U.S. intervention as the best chance for the country to move beyond decades of war. But he had never met an American soldier or Marine.
A decade later, he has served for nearly the duration of the war, alongside some of the conflict’s most prominent American figures. He has been an interpreter in significant meetings, an emissary when things go wrong and a critic when U.S. generals make poor decisions.
“The first thing I did when I arrived in Kabul is go to Abdullah’s office,” said Marc Chretien, the political adviser to Allen, whose Afghan tour ended in February.
That office is many miles and decades removed from Amini’s roots in remote Farah province. War cut short his studies, but as a young mujaheddin fighter he always remembered one image from a geography textbook: the soaring skyline of New York City.
In 1988, he arrived in the United States as a refugee with $7 in his pocket. In the months that followed, he was rejected from every job he applied for in Omaha, where he had relatives.
But by 2001, he had accomplished most of his goals. He was a U.S. citizen. His three American-born children spoke perfect English. He owned a restaurant where business soared — even Nebraska’s governor was a customer.
But the news from Afghanistan in the 1990s had haunted him. Twenty of his relatives were killed during the civil war. The Taliban rose to power, demolishing the values of the country he remembered. He was thriving in the United States while his native country was being destroyed. He feared he would never return.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the distance between Afghanistan and Nebraska was suddenly shortened. His native country was back in the headlines, but for an unimaginable reason. He worried, with a restaurant named Afghani Kebab, that he would be a target.
“I thought someone might show up with a gun and shoot me,” he said.
Instead, he got a flurry of phone calls expressing support. He was shocked when business quintupled on Sept. 12.
Then there were more phone calls from American officials and contractors. The United States was going to war in Afghanistan, they said. Would Amini be interested in working with U.S. troops on the ground?
Amini had grown embittered toward U.S. foreign policy when the country turned its back on Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. But a return to his home country would mean a chance to rebuild the battered cities he had once fought to defend.
The night he closed his kebab restaurant in 2002, a local television news crew interviewed Amini, wearing his usual black bow tie and white button-down shirt, surrounded by dozens of his customers.
“Everyone else from around the world wants to help this poor country,” he said, tearing up. “Why not me?”
‘Everything was in ruins’
In 2002, Amini arrived in Kandahar, a longtime Taliban stronghold, to work as a cultural adviser and interpreter. He couldn’t believe what had become of the country.
“Everything was in ruins,” he said.
Amini watched as U.S. officials made gains and errors — building schools and encouraging civil society while also awarding positions in the new government to corrupt Afghans. It sometimes felt like cultural awareness was being sacrificed for political expediency.
“If this is not right for this mission, I will fight you all the way to the White House,” he recalled telling his bosses.
His willingness to speak up earned him respect. By 2005, he had nearly unlimited access to top officials. When Hillary Rodham Clinton came to the country as secretary of state, Amini was her intermediary with a group of Afghan women. He took Vice President Biden to meet soldiers in eastern Afghanistan. He went with then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to volatile Wardak province.
But Amini’s brothers and sisters were ordinary Afghans living in a remote province in one of the world’s poorest countries. Sometimes they called him to complain about the actions of U.S. troops.
“My children almost died today,” his sister told him one day in 2009. A NATO convoy had held up traffic for more than seven hours. Cars with no air conditioning and no access to water were stuck on the road in scorching heat.
Amini told McChrystal, then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, the story.
“We are losing the support of the public,” Amini recalled saying. “We are losing hearts and minds.”
Within days, McChrystal issued a directive that would prevent those protracted bottlenecks. He would later write in his memoir, “My Share of the Task,” that he relied on Amini’s “ability to parse interactions I had with Afghans for revealing cues I overlooked.”
Amini reviewed the speeches of U.S. commanders, crossing out lines that might be perceived as culturally insensitive. In some cases, Amini was blunt: “Sir, I will not translate that,” he would say.
Amini grew to admire his bosses, men who he says understood the importance of personal relationships in Afghanistan. When each new general arrived — as Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. did in February — Amini would dole out the same advice:“Through friendship, an Afghan will sacrifice his life for you. Through bad relations, he will turn into your enemy.”
Amini was always there when the relationship between his two countries had to be patched. When violent protests broke out after U.S. troops burned hundreds of Korans at a base last year, Allen dispatched Amini to speak with Afghans on the general’s behalf. When photos of soldiers urinating on dead insurgents surfaced and civilian casualties threatened U.S. relations with President Hamid Karzai, Amini conveyed apologetic messages to Afghan leaders.
Still, he and other cultural advisers wonder how those incidents could happen after 11 years of U.S. troops working with Afghans. And they have wondered what the dwindling appetite for an American presence in Afghanistan will bring.
Amini has decided to remain in Kabul until at least 2014, when the majority of U.S. troops are due to withdraw. He has always encouraged American generals to exercise patience with their Afghan counterparts. Now he is trying to accept his own advice, staying as anxiety here grows.
The men he works alongside have encouraged him to be optimistic as his long tour nears its conclusion, knowing well that Amini’s ties to Afghanistan are unlike theirs, that the lives of his relatives hinge on the war’s outcome.
“I look forward to when you can simply drive across this country to visit your family,” Dunford wrote to him recently. “We’ll get there.”
Amini read the e-mail out loud at his desk. Then the phone rang. It was Karzai’s palace on the line. There were problems to resolve between Amini's two countries, and as it often does, reconciliation began with a call to his office.
NATO soldier dies in Afghanistan
KABUL, March 30 (Xinhua) -- A soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) died Friday in southern Afghanistan, the ISAF forces confirmed Saturday.
"An International Security Assistance Force service member died as a result of a non-battle related injury in southern Afghanistan yesterday," the ISAF said in a press release.
The brief release did not disclose the nationality of the victim, only saying "it is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities."
The latest death brings to 25 the number of foreign soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.
An Eternal Return in Afghanistan?
World Policy Journal (blog) By Vanni Cappelli March 29, 2013
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's asserted this month that the United States and the Taliban are working in an opposed but complementary manner to destabilize his country and “prolong the presence of the American forces,” each for their own ends. These controversial words are not just another passing furor in America's longest war.
The remarks feed into a growing narrative that views Afghanistan as an intractably corrupt, atavistic, and irrational land, whose problems are essentially cultural and therefore unsolvable by the United States. This month, during his trip to Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel described the Afghan situation as “complicated.” The picture drawn by an emerging consensus in government, foreign policy elites, and the media is not that of a labyrinth but of a prison or even a lunatic asylum, with the inmates circling around their confined space to return to exactly where they were before the Americans arrived.
If there was indeed never a chance of winning in Afghanistan because of the nature of that country, as this view holds, then the prospects of a return to civil war, a return of the Taliban, and even a return of terrorist safe havens are seen as inevitable, and, in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden and the weakening of al-Qaida, not a vital national security concern of America. It is as if we are being presented with a smaller, limited version of the ancient idea of the eternal return, which views history as cycling through the same events, negating the free will of individuals and nations.
Writing about Washington infighting in Foreign Policy, analyst Sarah Chayes deplored such efforts "to define the narrative on Afghanistan, to tell a story that lays the blame for the policy's failure at someone else's door." Yet these self-exculpations are ultimately an attempt to control the narrative on September 11th, avoiding an honest reckoning with the historical causes of that catastrophe and the failure of the United States to respond to it effectively. Karzai may be wrong about our conscious intentions, but he is right about the results of our actions.
Only by highly selective of narratives can September 11th be said to have resulted only from al-Qaida's taking refuge in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, and an appropriate response limited to a military defeat of those two entities. The attacks were actually an emanation from the general Islamic extremist milieu created and fostered across South-Central Asia by Pakistan's ruling military-security services complex over the preceding half century, in order to maintain its power and further its deeply linked domestic and foreign agendas. Any coherent policy seeking to preserve American national and international security from Islamic extremism should have begun by addressing the existence of this atmosphere as a whole, and the tragic role of the United States in enabling it during the Cold War.
Ever since Pakistan's foundation under the cry "Islam in danger" in 1947, its elites have sought to preserve the country's feudal socio-economic structures and block democracy, land reform, and women's rights via an authoritarian religious militarism that channeled national energies away from undesirable modernizations, which were associated with India. Over time, this approach evolved into using Islamist militants to crush secular reformers at home, while also deploying them in transnational proxy wars. For example, the Pakistani army organized the brutal razakars, a Bengali paramilitary group that guilty of war crimes in Bangladesh before its independence from Pakistan in 1971. Pakistan also sent jihadis against Afghanistan and India in the 1990s. Lacking the resources to pursue these multiple, prolonged aggressions on its own, Pakistan secured massive military assistance from the United States, which uncritically provided it since the 1950s out of a strict Cold War calculus.
The policy of building up Pakistan into a major regional military power was countered by withering and prescient criticism over the decades by American statesmen such as Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles and Senators Albert Gore Sr., Edward Kennedy, and Larry Pressler. All Washington could see, however, was that it possessed a secure square on the Cold War chessboard. Such myopia ignored the fact that the country's official "Ideology of Pakistan" was as anti-Western as it was anti-communist.
Nevertheless, the investment seemed to bear spectacular fruit when America and Pakistan collaborated to back the Afghans' successful resistance to the Soviet invasion of their country in the 1980s. Yet this final Cold War victory was achieved at a high price. America consented to the Pakistanis' demand that the extremist fighters who were most under their control receive the lion's share of the aid. The secular reformist and religious moderate groups who overwhelmingly represented the enduring cultural traditions of Afghanistan were excluded or marginalized. Thus, after America’s preoccupations had shifted elsewhere, the stage was set for the brutal proxy war through which Pakistani intelligence brought the Taliban to power in Kabul.
The nature of Afghanistan was never as critical as the nature of Pakistan, and Washington's refused to confront this fact. Afghanistan and the adjoining Tribal Areas, which were historically a part of the country, were never incubation points of Islamic extremism. Militancy was opportunistically projected into these impoverished and devastated lands by the Pakistani army as part of its "strategic depth" policy of ideological and military confrontation with India—as it had long fostered radicalism in territories directly under its control. By contrast, India and Bangladesh have Muslim populations of comparable size with Pakistan's, yet fundamentalism has a minimal following in those countries because it does not enjoy state support.
Since the September 11th attacks were a manifestation of terror in the service of an extremist ideology that had long ravaged South and Central Asia with similarly inspired violence, it was myopic and dangerous for America to have focused solely on the direct perpetrators and assume that their elimination would free us from the threat of terror at large. It was certainly oxymoronic to have turned to the entity most responsible for the diffusion of this radicalism in its region and the world as an ally against it. The ultimatum delivered to Pakistan by the Bush administration in September of 2001 was predictably accepted—as an existential necessity to avoid direct war—and then predictably evaded—as an existential necessity to maintain a power paradigm.
The causes of America's retreat from Afghanistan have less to do with the unchanging regional realities than with Washington's resistance to recognize the degree to which its own unchanging policies have created these realities. Fighting militants in Afghanistan and hitting them with drone strikes in the Tribal Areas, while arming their masters, has yielded a circularity as fixed as any found in ancient legend. If the killing of bin Laden in a stronghold of the Pakistani military did not break this cycle, it is hard to imagine what will.
Afghanistan remains a forlorn and devastated land under attack from a much larger neighbor. Washington must transform the mission from the Sisyphean goal of defeating the Taliban to a realistic one of containing Pakistan's ability to destabilize its neighbors in order to make possible a transition to real civilian rule.
For the people of Afghanistan, the prospect is one of endless war and a reversal of the tenuous achievements of the last dozen years. Areas "cleared" by the Marines can be retaken by the Taliban in days, and a girl's school can be burned down in an hour. For the people of Pakistan, the prospect is one of the unrelieved grip of a military security-services complex that has stunted its social, economic, and cultural development and created a climate of escalating sectarian and political violence. The people of India will continue to bear the brunt given their proximity to a rogue state that has launched repeated attacks against them. Populations across the region and the world will face the return of whole countries as terrorist safe havens.
And for all the talk of war weariness among a population that has been minimally engaged in this war, the American people's involvement in this drama is far from over. The United States’ own role in providing Islamic extremists with a megaphone and weapons has left the world no safer than it was in the summer of 2001. America’s refusal to recognize that the cry "Islam in danger" did not begin and will not end with al-Qaida can only bring the same returns it has yielded in the past.
Vanni Cappelli, a freelance journalist, is the president of the Afghanistan Foreign Press Association.
Female host deals with family issues on radio show in Afghanistan
By Josh Smith Stars and Stripes March 30, 2013
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan — There’s no crackle of static or catchy radio jingle to be heard. Squeezed into a cramped plywood room adorned with Afghan flags and stacked with electronic equipment, the two women could be speaking among themselves.
But they are speaking to a much larger audience via a radio transmitter the size of a small refrigerator.
With a target audience of women and families, the weekly show — called in Pashto “Da Kor Rana,” or “The Light of the House” — is broadcast from Forward Operating Base Spin Boldak to the booming border areas in southern Afghanistan.
On this day, host Zubiah Fedaie, an Afghan linguist with the base’s civil affairs unit, is interviewing Capt. Noorul Hayat, a pioneering, female member of the Afghan Uniform Police.
The pair take calls from locals — men and women — asking how to join the Afghan police forces.
Nearly three dozen calls come in, but with time limits and many dropped calls, four people make it onto the show.
“It attracts a lot of attention and helps our outreach to women, men and families,” Hayat said through an interpreter.
Other topics discussed on the show during the four months it has been running have included wedding traditions, medical issues, education, drug addiction and corruption.
Before starting as host of the program — a rarity in a patriarchal society in which women are seldom accepted in public life — Fedaie said she was warned to expect threats, but so far there haven’t been any.
“I was told people would swear at me, but in all the months I’ve done it, I’ve had no disrespect.”
The show is part of a U.S. Army program in which Afghan DJs run a radio station using “radio-in-a-box” technology. The technology has been used by the military for years to set up radio stations in Afghanistan as an overt effort to counter or displace Taliban messaging.
But “Da Kor Rana” is breaking new ground, Army officials say.
“The thing about the program at Spin Boldak is that it is definitely unique,” said Sgt. 1st Class James Grindle, a soldier with military information support operations — commonly known as PSYOPS (Psychological Operations) — who helps oversee the area’s programs. “Although radio broadcasting stations, themselves, are in multiple locations throughout Afghanistan, there has never been a security situation stable enough to conduct live broadcasts with female key communicators and members of the Afghan National Security Forces.”
The show, and especially the involvement of female leaders like Hayat, is evidence of a social shift, Grindle said.
“The fact that women are openly advocating for their own rights and want to be an integral part of a productive Afghan society and join the Afghan National Security Forces is definitely new to areas traditionally dominated by males.”
The station, dubbed “The Voice of Spin Boldak,” runs a variety of music, talk shows and public service announcements, both locally produced and culled from international services. The only other local radio options, operators say, are stations in Kandahar, more than 65 miles to the north, and in Pakistan.
Spin Boldak is located in what used to be the heartland of the Taliban movement, roughly halfway between Kandahar and the Pakistani city of Quetta — where the insurgency’s exiled leadership is thought to be based.
Besides setting up the station, soldiers with a PSYOPS unit pass out hand-crank radios during patrols to help build audiences.
Army officials insist the station’s programming is designed to boost civic engagement, not to push propaganda.
“We would lose listeners if it was all just propaganda,” said Staff Sgt. Chungkai Yang, a former news reporter and member of the 361st Psychological Operations Company, who oversees the station at Spin Boldak. “The main priority is that locals know their government is taking steps to ensure their safety and stability.”
And local leaders seem to agree.
Haji Feda Mohammad, a resident of Spin Boldak and member of the Kandahar provincial council, said “Da Kor Rana” is heard by many people in the area.
“The show is very good for the people,” he said through an interpreter. “They talk about how to live well in a society, respect others, respect women’s rights and a lot more things.”
He said the local radio station has attracted many listeners who are coming to recognize the power of media.
“People know that radio shows are important to learn something, so everyone listens to it, if they are in the mountains, desert, farms or in towns,” he said.
Like many other things, the station’s equipment is set to be handed over to the Afghan government in the coming months as U.S. forces withdraw.
What happens to the programming at that point is anybody’s guess, and American officials acknowledge a concern that the expensive equipment and its ability to deliver a powerful message could be commandeered for subversive purposes.
But Yang said he has been working to instill an appreciation for the power of media in local leaders. In fact, he said, Afghan leaders often prefer radio over television because it allows them to connect directly with citizens while helping to preserve a certain amount of anonymity. “It’s a way to reach out without risking their lives,” he said.
Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.
smith.josh@stripes.com
U.S. Tests a Risky Route for Shipping Gear Out of Afghanistan
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE March 29, 2013
KABUL - The U.S. military's efforts to ship out the mountains of equipment it accumulated over 11 years of Afghan war began in earnest this month, when a trial load of military hardware trucked through Pakistan set sail from the port of Karachi.
The shipment, which included more than 70 containers and 20 military vehicles, was a crucial test of a plan to bring home an estimated $22 billion in U.S. military gear from landlocked Afghanistan. Until now, the Pakistani route was used for supplies entering Afghanistan, rather than exiting.
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Steven Shapiro, deputy commanding general of the 1st Theater Sustainment Command, said the successful delivery proved that the coalition's transit route through Pakistan would enable the military to meet President Barack Obama's goal of cutting the size of the 66,000-strong American force in Afghanistan by half by next February.
"Pakistan certainly has a vested interest in getting it right too, because it's a big deal for them," Gen. Shapiro said. "So we feel very confident that the Pakistani military is going to help us move through Pakistan."
The route through Karachi may, however, prove problematic. In recent months, several large neighborhoods in the city have fallen under the sway of the Taliban. Further underscoring the risks, a suicide bomber on Friday attacked a Pakistani security convoy in the northern city of Peshawar, which lies along one of two the main transportation corridors.
The bomb exploded around half a mile from the U.S. consulate in the city. Jameel Shah, a spokesman for Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital, said 12 people were killed.
Gen. Shapiro said Friday he wasn't alarmed by recent security incidents along the Pakistan route, and said the U.S. had alternatives to shipping through the country. "We're not going to put all of our eggs in one basket," he said.
The U.S. began taking out equipment last year as part of the withdrawal of 33,000 surge troops. The military says it now plans to move a combined total of around 100 containers and vehicles per week through Pakistan, a figure that is going to increase gradually over the coming weeks.
When the exodus is in full swing—military commanders expect the logistics push to reach its peak this August—the U.S. will be sending about 1,500 military vehicles and 1,000 containers per month out of Afghanistan. The majority—around two-thirds of that cargo—will move through Pakistan, military officials say.
The most sensitive equipment, such as weapons and communications systems, must be flown out by air, the costliest option. U.S. officials have also negotiated an alternative overland route, dubbed the Northern Distribution Network, through Central Asia to Baltic and Black Sea ports. While more expensive than the route through Pakistan, the NDN isn't exposed to attacks by Pakistani Taliban.
In the past, militants in Pakistan's tribal areas have sporadically attacked U.S. and coalition convoys bringing vital supplies into Afghanistan. And in 2011, Pakistan closed the border for months, following a coalition airstrike that claimed the lives of 24 Pakistani troops.
The pullout of American gear may also face complications as bilateral relations between Kabul and Islamabad erode. In recent weeks, top Afghan officials have said Pakistan isn't doing enough to support nascent efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, and accused Islamabad of demanding unacceptable preconditions for its assistance in peace talks.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is currently planning a trip to the Gulf emirate of Qatar, where the Taliban last year began to establish a political office to facilitate peace talks. Aimal Faizi, Mr. Karzai's spokesman, said the Afghan president would leave "very soon" for his official trip to Qatar, where he would also meet with Qatari businessmen interested in investing in Afghanistan. Thus far, the Taliban have refused to negotiate directly with Mr. Karzai's government.
U.S. officials estimate the U.S. will spend $6 billion over around three years to remove what needs to go home by a December 2014 withdrawal deadline. The remaining equipment will be handed over to the Afghans, or simply scrapped.
Complicating the U.S. departure from Afghanistan is the lack of a friendly neighbor that can provide a holding area for military gear while it is packed, prepped and readied for shipment onward.
During the withdrawal from Iraq, U.S. commanders described neighboring Kuwait as a "catcher's mitt" for military equipment: Bases in the deserts of northern Kuwait served as giant parking lots for armored vehicles, trucks and Humvees awaiting shipment home.
Departing units could simply drive down Route Tampa, the main military supply road, and hand over the keys to their vehicles. Once that was done, equipment could be sent home from Kuwaiti ports back home to U.S. depots for maintenance, repair or storage.
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
www.afghanistannewcenter.com