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Afghan Officials: NATO Air Strike Kills 11 Civilians, Mostly Children
VOA News April 7, 2013
Afghan officials say a coalition air strike has killed 11 civilians, including 10 children, in the eastern part of the country during a joint Afghan-NATO operation against Taliban militants.
Government officials in Kunar province said Sunday that the air strike targeted a house near Pakistan, killing at least six suspected militants -- including two senior Taliban commanders -- in addition to the civilians.
The U.S.-led coalition confirmed that international forces called in the air strikes after they came under attack from the house Saturday. However, NATO officials have not confirmed the death toll, saying they are still investigating.
The deaths came on the same day that a car bomb killed five Americans, including three U.S. soldiers, a civilian Defense Department employee and a young female foreign service officer. The attack in southern Afghanistan's Zabul province also killed an Afghan doctor.
Their convoy was on the way to deliver books to children at an Afghan school.
Saturday's attacks also came as the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, arrived in the country to meet with American and Afghan officials and assess the number of U.S. troops who should remain in the country to train Afghan soldiers after next year.
Most NATO combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, leaving security responsibility to Afghan forces and raising fears of increased militant violence.
Suicide attack in Afghan senator house in Samangan province
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 07 Apr 2013, 8:17 pm Khaama Press
According to local authorities in northern Samangan province of Afghanistan, a suicide bomb blast rocked Aibak city on Sunday evening without causing any casualties.
The suicide bomber reportedly detonated his explosives inside the residential house of an Afghan senator.
Provincial governor Khairullah Anoosh confirming the report said the bomber detonated his explosives inside the house of Mohammad Asif Azimi, Afghan senator representing northern Samangan province in Afghan senate house.
Mr. Anoosh further added that Mohammad Asif Azimi was not present in his house when the incident took place and there were no casualties as a result of the incident.
He said the suicide bomber lost his leg following the blast and is under the treatment.
No group has so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.
Leaving Corruptistan: Washington Favors Exit over Fight with Karzai
Spiegel Online By Susanne Koelbl April 06, 2013
Declare victory and then leave. That seems to be Washington's line in Afghanistan these days. The United States has even caved in to Afghan President Hamid Karzai on a dispute over an airline alleged to have transported drugs. Getting out, it seems, has become more important than fighting corruption.
Given that friendship between Hamid Karzai and the Americans has long been a thing of the past, the negotiations are dogged. For weeks now, the Afghan president has been haggling with the United State over its troop withdrawal. At issue are the limits of what US soldiers will still be permitted to do in the country after 2014, when plans call for only 5,000 to 10,000 American troops to remain in Afghanistan. The sides are at odds over questions of jurisdiction. Afghanistan's parliament wants to be able to prosecute American soldiers in Afghan courts. But, says one US diplomat, "That will never happen."Still, Karzai is putting the Americans on notice that, this time, it is the Afghans who are calling the shots. He's giving them payback for the many humiliations they inflicted upon him in years past, like when former US special envoy Richard Holbrooke tried to replace Karzai with his political rival during the last presidential election.
For example, Karzai recently ordered elite US soldiers to pull out as quickly as possible from Wardak Province, an important gateway for insurgents headed toward Kabul. The soldiers have been accused of abusing villagers, but the accusation has yet to be substantiated.
Airline Under Radar of US Investigators
Just how poisoned relations have become can be seen particularly clearly in the way Afghans reacted to an order handed down by General James Mattis, until recently the highest-ranking US officer responsible for Afghanistan. In January, Mattis placed Kam Air, a private airline, on the blacklist of companies no longer allowed to receive contracts from the US military. The Americans suspect Kam Air of having smuggled bulk quantities of narcotics to Central Asia on passenger flights.
Of course, something like this isn't all that atypical. The United States has repeatedly excluded companies from lucrative contracts when it has deemed them to be corrupt or criminal. Until now, though, Karzai and officials at the Presidential Palace hadn't protested against such actions. But the case of Kam Air has touched a sensitive spot in the web of relations that Karzai has been carefully spinning for more than a decade. Palace insiders say Karzei has transformed the putative democracy into a kingdom completely tailored to him: Call it Karzai's Corruptistan.
In an unusually harshly formulated official communiqué to US Ambassador James Cunningham, Afghan's Foreign Ministry demanded that all documents related to the Kam Air case be made available to the Afghan government immediately. President Karzai's office has even threatened to file a "compensation/damages suit" against the US military if no concrete proof of the allegations is supplied.
The Afghans' fervent reaction is hard to comprehend, especially given the fact that Kam Air is a completely private company in which the state has no financial stake. But General Mattis had apparently stirred up a hornet's nest. In the end, Mattis was forced to ease the political pressure. In the meantime, Kam Air is once again eligible to bid for US contracts -- with the airy assertion that Kabul will take charge of any investigations itself.
Dirty Political Deal
Zamarai Kamgar, the airline's owner, hails from the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. He has a reputation for being a lively businessman with shady friends. For decades, he has had close business ties to the warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. Drug-trading is the mildest of the things that foreign intelligence agencies and human rights advocates have charged the Uzbek general with. At the end of the Taliban's rule over Afghanistan, Dostum allegedly had hundreds of Taliban fighters herded into containers, where they died of asphyxiation before their hasty burial in mass graves. International pressure drove Dostum into exile in Turkey, but President Karzai personally urged the nefarious warrior to return to Afghanistan in 2009.
At the time, Afghanistan's first democratically elected president was fighting to be re-elected. To boost support, Karzai made a dirty deal with the general: The suspected war criminal would be rehabilitated if he could guarantee to add at least half a million Uzbek votes to Karzai's Pashtun power base.
Mixed up in this deal was Zamarai Kamgar, the airline owner and friend of Dostum, who, since Karzai's re-election, has enjoyed excellent ties with the Presidential Palace in Kabul. Karzai has frequently used Kam Air planes himself whenever he or senior government officials jet off for state visits and international conferences.
Jockeying for Lucrative US Contracts
From the outside, Karzai's system of power seems like a labyrinth. A key role in the Kam Air affair has been played by his former deputy chief of staff, Kawun Kakar. The Afghan with US citizenship now works as a lawyer and counts the head of Kam Air among his clients. In the wake of the US ban on the airline, Kakar let it be known that Kamgar was "shocked" by the accusations and assumed that jealous competitors had disseminated false information.
Indeed, Afghan, American and other international suppliers are fighting tooth and nail over the big-money contracts in Afghanistan. For outsourced flights alone, the US military spends roughly $100 million each year.
Kam Air flew onto the Americans' radar when the company submitted a bid last year as a subcontractor for a deal worth millions. The main contract had been secured by Wais Jalali, the son of a former Afghan interior minister who was until recently married to one of Karzai's nieces. It is unclear how Jalali and his Veritas company was able to win the lucrative contract, especially since the Afghan with US citizenship was forced to have one of his other US-registered companies file for bankruptcy. Veritas also doesn't possess any airplanes, which is why Jalali brought Kamgar on board.
This constellation of figures attracted the Americans' attention. And when they took a closer look at the airline, they apparently found indications of a drug connection.
Resigned to Failure
Afghanistan produces 80 percent of all the opium consumed worldwide, and most of those in power profit from its trade. Nevertheless, not a single one of the top-level drug barons with ties to Karzai's network has yet to be convicted. Overzealous police chiefs are replaced before they can track down smugglers. And, as one general who used to be responsible for security at Kabul's airport says, "Kabul Airport is like a heavily protected mosque at the main entrance -- but there are three open doors out back."
Expert observers warn that Afghanistan could wind up becoming a narcostate after Western troops withdraw, one in which politicians, businesspeople and criminals seamlessly cooperate. Indeed, this could soon become a reality.
"We would have had to reveal our classified sources, which would have only led to additional entanglements," says one US diplomat in explaining why the Americans allowed Kam Air to bid for contracts again. Getting into a fight with President Karzai about such a touchy subject during the negotiations over future US troop strengths and rules of engagement, he adds, would have carried too high a price.
Other Western diplomats also just shrug their shoulders. After all, they reason, the fight against the narcostate isn't part of the UN mandate, and embassies and military bases are not "law-enforcement agencies." There is no lack of knowledge about what is going on, but who wants to get back into it with re-strengthened warlords? "Almost all of these criminals have ultimately gotten what they wanted. Only the Taliban is still fighting against us," says one Western military officer.
Given all this, what is left of the mission in Afghanistan?
A state with a security apparatus that might be strong enough to at best hold the Taliban halfway in check.
A country whose order will be guaranteed by brutal warlords. And a president who will play the kingmaker and wait until the last moment to reveal the person he will back as his successor and who will look like a puppet of Karzai's interests when the latter steps down next year.
Is that what a successful mission looks like? "Of course," quips one Western diplomat. "We declare victory, and then we leave."
Paktia provincial council chief murdered in Kunduz province
By SAYED JAWAD - 07 Apr 2013, 3:03 pm Khaama Press
According to local authorities in northern Kunduz province of Afghanistan, unknown gunmen assassinated Mirza Ali, provincial council chief for eastern for eastern Paktia province of Afghanistan.
Provincial governor spokesman for Kunduz, Enayatullah Khaliq confirming the report said the incident took place on Saturday night in this province.
Mr. Khaliq further added that Mirza Ali was living in Haji Shahid village in the second district of northern Kunduz city and was killed while he was on his way towards his home
Mirza Ali was appointed as provincial council chief for Paktia province during the past one year and had close cooperation with the Paktia high council department.
Local security officials are saying that an investigation has been started in connection to Mirza Ali’s assassination.
No group has so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.
Kunduz is among the relatively volatile region in northern Afghanistan where militants are actively operating in a number of its districts.
This comes as Afghan parliament house speaker’s family members including his father were killed following a suicide bomb blast in this province.
Afghanistan calls Pak-Afghan strategic pact ‘meaningless’
By SAYED JAWAD - 07 Apr 2013, 9:05 pm Khaama Press
Afghan foreign ministry officials on Sunday called the strategic pact between Kabul and Islamabad meaningless unless Pakistan does not take practical steps to fight terrorism and assist Afghanistan in peace process with the militant groups.
The officials once again emphasized that Taliban leaders are based in Pakistan adn those Taliban figures who were supporting Afghan peace talks were either killed or arrested.
Pakistan, the closes neighbor of Afghanistan has long been accused of violence in Afghanistan.
Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai on Sunday said that the draft strategic pact agreement between Kabul and Islamabad was handed over to Afghan foreign minister during a summit in London.
Mr. Mosazai further added that Afghanistan wants practical steps by Pakistan to fight terrorism before the two nations sign a long term strategic cooperation agreement.
He said, “If we ignore the priorities which have direct impact on peace process, security and the sovereignty of Afghanistan then signing only a strategic pact on a peace of paper will have no meaning.”
Foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai also criticized Pakistan for its negative inteference in Afghan peace process once again insisted that the Taliban figures are based in Pakistan.
Mosazai said that those Taliban leaders who were in direct contact with the Afghan government and those who were supporting Afghan peace process are either killed or detained.
Kabul and Islamabad have been engaged in negotiating Afghan peace process during the past three years but Afghanistan recently announced to continue peace talks with the militant groups with the cooperation of Islamabad after the Afghan government failed to achieve satisfactory results.
Chinese Confucius Institute re-opens in Afghanistan
KABUL, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Confucius Institute of Kabul University re-opened Sunday after a halt of one year and a half since October 2010, marking the enhanced Sino-Afghan cultural exchanges.
Addressing the re-opening ceremony, Xu Feihong, Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan, congratulated Confucius Institute on its comeback to this war-hit nation, saying it marks a significant progress in relations between the two nations.
Xu said that the young generation of Afghanistan symbolizes the future and hope of this war-hit country. The friendship between the two nations also needs to be carried forward and passed down by the youths.
"China and Afghanistan are good neighbors, friends, and partners. The exchanges between the two peoples could date back to 2,000 years ago," Xu added, "I wish all the students from Confucius Institute a promising future and could continue helping promote the bilateral ties, since the two governments had upgraded their ties to the level of a strategic and cooperative partnership last year."
Habibullah Habib, president of Kabul University, expressed his gratitude to China's efforts in bringing Confucius Institute back to Afghanistan, saying he felt honored to witness the re-open of this cultural promotion institution in Kabul University.
"China and the Chinese language both play an important role on the international arena," he noted, "I hope the Chinese learners could contribute to the bilateral friendship by learning this language well."
Ma Li, a 19-year-old female student with a Chinese name, told Xinhua that she received family support to learn Chinese language and she hopes to be a proficient speaker after graduation.
Confucius Institute in Kabul University was launched in January 2008 and was halted in October 2010 due to social security concerns.
At the moment, one teacher from China and two other Chinese instructors are teaching the Chinese language to around 100 Afghan learners at elementary levels.
Afghan tragedy mars Kerry trip focused on Mideast
AFP April 07, 2013
Istanbul - US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Turkey on Sunday for key talks on Syria and the Middle East on a visit overshadowed by the killing of a young woman diplomat in an Afghan bombing. The US foreign service employee, who Kerry met late last month when he visited Kabul, died Saturday in a roadside bombing attack of a NATO convoy in Zabul province which killed three NATO troops and two civilians.
"Our State Department family is grieving over the loss of one of our own, an exceptional young Foreign Service officer," Kerry said in a heartfelt statement, condemning the bombing as "a despicable attack."
Kerry was due to meet later Sunday with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks set to focus on the burgeoning crisis in Syria and the Middle East peace process.
He would also "encourage Turkey to expeditiously implement its agreement with Israel and fully normalize their relationship to allow for deeper cooperation," a top State Department official said, asking to remain anonymous.
Israel apologised to Ankara in late March for the deaths of nine Turkish activists in a botched raid by Israeli commandos on a Gaza-bound aid ship, in a breakthrough brokered by US President Barack Obama during a visit to Jerusalem.
The apology ended a nearly three-year rift between Israel and Turkey -- two key US allies in the region -- and the two countries are due to begin talks on compensation on April 12.
But they have yet to exchange ambassadors and fully restore diplomatic ties, and the US official stressed this "was a pivotal time to encourage them to keep moving forward."
Erdogan accepted the apology "in the name of the Turkish people" but said the country's future relationship with Israel would depend on the Jewish state.
Syria will also loom large in their talks, with Turkey having kept its borders open to refugees fleeing the conflict now in its third year.
Turkey has taken in some 190,000 refugees since the start of the conflict to topple President Bashar al-Assad, most of whom are housed in 17 camps stretched along the border with Syria, according to UN figures.
The huge flows are placing a massive burden on Turkish resources, and Kerry would stress the need to keep the borders open as well as their shared support for the Syrian opposition council, the official said.
After talks in Turkey, Kerry heads later Sunday to Israel and Ramallah in the West Bank, where he will meet with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
He will also meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, in what will be his third trip to the Middle East region since the start of his tenure on February 1.
US officials have said the return visit will give him a chance to probe possibilities for restarting the moribund peace process, which has stalled for over two years, in the wake of Obama's trip last month.
Kerry's departure for Istanbul was delayed by about three hours when a door on his Boeing 757 malfunctioned, and he was visibly saddened by the tragedy in Afghanistan as he waited with his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry for a second plane to be prepared.
Before leaving, he phoned the parents of the State Department employee to offer his condolences. Four other State Department staff were injured, one critically, in the attack.
The Zabul bombing comes almost exactly seven months after ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American staff were killed in a militant attack on September 11 on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya.
U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghan provinces is unfinished work
As an 11-year effort winds down, U.S. provincial reconstruction teams, or PRTs, have made gains but have also left infrastructure that is incomplete, unsustainable or incompatible with local needs.
Los Angeles Times By Shashank Bengali April 6, 2013
CHARIKAR, Afghanistan - At the doorstep of the U.S.-funded schoolhouse in this mountain-fringed northern town, Ghulam Nabi crouched in the mud and scooped up two rocks. He needed them, the school engineer explained, to scare off the building's only regular occupant: a stray dog.
Nearly four years after ground was broken, the 24-room $310,000 high school stands unfinished, a bleak monument to America's unrealized ambitions in Afghanistan. Graffiti scars the entrance. Water stains blot the ceiling. Unconnected electrical wires reach out from the walls like aimless tentacles.
The concrete shell is one of at least six uncompleted schoolhouses in Parwan province that were financed by a U.S. provincial reconstruction team as part of a decade-long nation-building effort now winding down as the U.S. war in Afghanistan draws to a close.
The teams, known as PRTs, composed mainly of soldiers assisted by a few civilian development experts, have left a mixed legacy in places like Charikar, an hour's drive north of Kabul. Starting in 2002, U.S. teams poured hundreds of millions of dollars a year into new roads, bridges, health clinics and schoolhouses in an effort to win hearts and minds, bolster the Afghan government and improve security.
But in the headlong rush to achieve those goals, the 12 teams also saddled Afghanistan's impoverished provinces with infrastructure that wasn't completed, can't be sustained or didn't mesh with local needs.
The PRTs have been responsible for only a fraction of the $89 billion the United States has spent over the last decade to rebuild Afghanistan, but they suffered from the same poor planning and inadequate oversight that characterized the broader U.S. reconstruction effort. With four of the PRTs now shut down, and seven others due to be retired by summer's end, Afghan officials are beginning to confront the challenge of picking up where U.S. aspirations left off.
The schoolhouse in Charikar may never open because the PRT at the nearby Bagram air base has stopped working in the area, the Afghan builders say they've run out of money, and the provincial government lacks the funding to finish construction. For now, local education officials are dipping into their meager budget to pay a security guard to ward off squatters.
Another school in Parwan was so shoddily built by the U.S. team's Afghan contractors that a giant beam had to be erected to keep the roof from caving in, provincial officials said; five years later, they still won't allow students inside. In the mountain district of Surkh-e-Parsa, the U.S. financed a two-story, 24-room schoolhouse even though the surrounding villages didn't have anywhere near enough children to fill it.
"If you collected the whole area around it, they wouldn't even fill the first floor," Mohammed Azizyar, the lead engineer for the provincial education department, said one recent morning at his office in Charikar. Meanwhile, at a decades-old facility in a different district, 12 grade levels were crammed into five classrooms.
"If they would have coordinated with us, we would have given them a better idea of where we needed new buildings," Azizyar said. "That was our main problem with the PRT. They could start projects very quickly. But many times they didn't follow the policies and strategies of the education department."
Proponents say the teams established a U.S. military presence in far-flung provinces, built roads to connect remote villages and constructed public buildings at a pace perhaps unequaled in Afghanistan's history.
U.S. officials point to dramatic improvements in maternal health, infant mortality, school attendance and other indicators as evidence that the reconstruction effort in the provinces has succeeded.
"PRTs have provided much-needed assistance and support at a time when the Afghan government was not in a position to provide basic services in the provinces and districts," said Alexandra Taylor, a spokeswoman for the U.S.-led NATO coalition.
U.S. officials could not provide breakdowns of how much money the teams spent or how many projects they carried out. The bulk of PRT funding came from the Pentagon's $3.45-billion Commander's Emergency Response Program, intended for small quick-impact projects, with the State Department, Army Corps of Engineers, Agency for International Development and others kicking in additional money.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks that preceded the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. military increasingly has viewed relief and reconstruction as crucial to fighting terrorism in failing states. The Pentagon established PRTs in Afghanistan and Iraq, assigning troops to development work usually reserved for civilian agencies.
A decade later, there remains considerable debate within the U.S. government over the merits of that strategy. A 2011 report by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations found "limited" evidence that aid could buy stability in Afghanistan and said that "the unintended consequences of pumping large amounts of money into a war zone cannot be underestimated."
Many critics say the teams squandered money on projects that fit short-term military objectives but had questionable long-term value.
"A lot of it will endure, but a lot of it was wasted," said Gerald Meyerle, a senior research scientist at the nonprofit CNA research group who has advised the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
The teams were led by military commanders who, at least in the early years, were unprepared for the details of reconstruction work. Experts say that some projects fueled instability by favoring certain warlords or ethnic groups, while others were assigned to fly-by-night Afghan contractors who pocketed the cash without completing the work.
The troops typically deployed for less than a year, sometimes leaving behind projects that replacement units were unable or unwilling to finish. Commanders were judged on what they conceived and delivered and how much they spent, so new projects often took priority over old ones, officials and experts said.
Four years ago, an American PRT financed a health clinic in Nijrab district, north of the capital, but the Afghan builders neglected to install a water system, forcing clinic workers to boil drinking water for patients, said Mirza Mohamed Reja, the Kapisa provincial health director. The contractors told Reja the U.S. had signed off on the building, so their work was done.
"We brought this up with every new PRT, but they always said it was the responsibility of the old PRT," Reja said. "They said, 'Let's talk about the next project. Don't talk about the past.'"
While conducting research in Afghanistan in the mid-2000s, Andrew Wilder recalled asking PRTs for lists of their projects, only to find that few kept a tally and hardly any teams knew what their predecessors had accomplished.
"There wasn't really a proper hand-over or a central repository of data of what we built," said Wilder, now director of Afghanistan and Pakistan programs at the United States Institute of Peace. "Part of this is that they were thinking not in development terms but in security terms. And they were chasing the money trail."
Only now, after 11 years, are U.S. and Afghan officials compiling a roster of all the PRT projects. "In hindsight, it would have been really nice if we kept a list," said one U.S. official involved in the effort.
Commanders' penchant for operating independently of Kabul and its hand-picked provincial governors — often striking deals directly with district officials and tribal leaders — prompted President Hamid Karzai in 2011 to call the PRTs "parallel structures" that challenged his government's authority. By then, the U.S. had begun to pull back the teams.
Reja, the health official in Kapisa, said the local PRT in December pulled funding halfway through a two-year $499,000 program to train 60 midwives in the provincial capital, Mahmud-i-Raqi. He now is scrambling to find money from Kabul to keep the program running.
"The girls have come from all over eastern Afghanistan. We have made promises to their families," Reja said. But he added quickly, "It's not fair only to blame the PRT. Until now, our government itself has done almost nothing."
The U.S. official called the decision to stop such programs regrettable, but said the Afghan government must step up and disburse more of the funds donors have allocated for development.
"There are cases where we're not going to finish things and not going to be able to keep promises," the official said. "I agree it's wrong to make a promise we can't keep, but now I tell the Afghans, 'Here's what we have done and how we can help you realize your goals.'
"Half a trillion dollars and thousands of casualties later, not for minute would I say we haven't done enough in Afghanistan."
shashank.bengali@latimes.com
We Release Taliban, They Kill Our People: Karzai
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 06 April 2013
President Hamid Karzai spoke out against the Taliban attack in Farah province saying on Friday that while his administration is endeavoring to release imprisoned members of the Taliban, the group responds with suicide attacks.
"We went another step towards preserving national sovereignty and providing peace in the country, the responsibilities of Bagram Prison were handed over to the government of Afghanistan and many of the innocent Taliban or those who were imprisoned under the name of the Taliban were released. For this humanitarian act, the Taliban attacked Farah so that people would become pessimistic about the release of those prisoners," he said in a radio address.
Karzai suggested that the Taliban carry out the attacks following the decrees of foreigners who aim to continue the violence across Afghanistan.
"The Taliban carried out a brutal terrorist attack in Farah province in which they killed people. As a result of this attack, tens of innocent people were killed while about a hundred were injured. The people of Afghanistan are still depressed even if this inhuman act is condemned many times," he said.
The president asked the members of the group to question their leaders as to why they would kill innocent people.
"I call upon the Afghan Taliban to ask their elders whose interest were the Khost, Kabul, and Farah attacks for," President Karzai said, "Their goal is for the innocent Taliban and those who are imprisoned under the Taliban's name not to be released and that Bagram Prison should not be handed over to the government of Afghanistan."
The Taliban have constantly rejected Kabul's calls for peace talks, considering their only negotiation partner is the United States.
Karzai called upon the Taliban not to be a "tool" in the hands of the foreigners and to stop killing civilians as it has no benefit.
Two Govt Ministers Receive MP Confidence Vote
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Saturday, 06 April 2013
The minister of mines and minister of information and culture on Saturday received the vote of confidence from Afghanistan's parliament after questioning over their ministries' budget spending on development.
The ministers had appeared before parliament on Monday along with the minister of commerce, but the vote on whether they will retain their government positions was delayed until Saturday because of disagreements among the members of parliament about the impeachment process.
Eleven government ministers have been summoned to parliament in the past week to be questioned on the lack of spending of the development budgets of Persian year 1390 (March 2011-March 2012).
Disagreements again dissolved today's parliamentary session which ended without any resolution on the four ministers who were being questioned on Saturday - the ministers of defence, interior, higher education, and urban development.
A number of MPs claimed corruption was at work in the voting process on the 11 ministers, pointing to the fact that none of the ministers were being disqualified for the underspent development budgets so crucial to Afghanistan's reconstruction
"Dear Speaker, you have lost the honor of yourself and the honor of parliament. Please stop the meeting and end this process," MP Daoud Kalakani said before the session broke up. Some MPs claimed that their colleagues are granting confidence votes to the ministers in exchange for money and other walked out of the parliamentary session in protest.
"The ministers who were accused of not spending their development budgets have successfully received the confidence vote because of corruption in the parliament. It is so worrying," MP Shikiba Hashimi said. "Therefore we decided to not vote on the remaining four ministers today because it does not have any benefit."
"The ministers' impeachment process was illegal. We had evidence that they had failed in their work but suddenly the lawmakers changed their ideas and give them a vote of confidence which shows the corruption in parliament and that lawmakers are receiving money from the ministers," MP Mohmmad Naeem Lalai Hamidzai said.
Afghan political analyst Mir Ahmad Joyenda criticised the process, saying that the lawmakers' vote is more based on relationships and "transactions". He warned that parliament risks losing the faith of the people it is meant to represent.
"The ministers are passing the impeachment process successfully depending on the relationships and influence that they have in parliament," Joyenda told TOLOnews.
Unemployed Afghans Find Job Opportunity in Poppy Harvests
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Saturday, 06 April 2013
Unemployment is driving young Afghans to southern Helmand province where there are plentiful jobs in harvesting the poppy fields that will later become opium.
The warmer weather has brought the season for poppy scoring, a time-consuming job which is increasingly drawing many Afghan youth for the opportunity to make some money.
The second half of the Persian month Hamal (first half of April) is when the scoring usually begins. And the pay is reasonable relative to other skilled jobs across the country.
"We can make 200 to 300 Afghanis a day ($4 to $5). We don't have any other choice than going there for scoring," a Helmand resident told TOLOnews.
Afghanistan tops the list of opium-producing countries, responsible for some 90 percent of the world's opiates, according to the UN Office of Drugs and Crime. Helmand province alone is responsible for 75 percent of the world's total production.
Helmand police told TOLOnews that that the poppy within the province is mostly planted over lands that are illegally owned.
"The planting [of poppy] is done in lands that have been land-grabbed by a number of people across the province...and we are working to stop this issue," said Abdul Nabi Elham, Helmand police chief.
According to the Ministry of Counter Narcotics, casualties among the Afghan counter-narcotics forces have risen 50 percent compared to last year, signalling the rise in efforts to prevent production.
"Opposition groups, or those who are behind this matter, defend the opium fields very seriously. We have, by today, about 50 to 60 martyrs from national police and national army," said Mohammad Ibrahim Azhar, deputy minister of counter-narcotics.
"There is no doubt that if this process continues this way there will be more martyrs and more casualties," he added.
Destroying poppy fields is the last resort method used by the Afghan government to try to stop opium production, but it has proved inadequate and poppy farming has proliferated in the past decade.
India Removes Export Tariffs on Afghan Goods
TOLOnews.com By Zabiullah Jahanmal Saturday, 06 April 2013
The Indian government will not charge tariffs on more than 460 goods being exported from Afghanistan to India in a bid to increase trade between the two countries, the Afghan ministry of commerce and industries said Saturday.
Minister Anwar ul Haq Ahadi said that the Indian government has agreed to not charge tariffs on 465 kinds of Afghan goods amid Afghanistan's troubles with transiting the goods through Pakistan.
"We are trying to negotiate with the Pakistani government to remove the transit problems and we are also seeking another ways to simplify the process," Ahadi said.
Meanwhile, a delegation of trade specialists from India have arrived in Afghanistan to give technical assistance to help Afghan traders and producers saying that the Indian markets will benefit from Afghanistan's goods.
Officials at India's embassy in Afghanistan said that they will also try to use the Central Asian countries to improve trade between Afghanistan and India.
"We are exploring other routes for access to the sea to export and import Afghanistan's product through Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan," Ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya told TOLOnews.
However the benefits for facilitating the transport of goods is likely to be more in India's favour based on the trade statistics.
While trade between Afghanistan and India reached $500 million last year, $100 million was Afghanistan's exports to India and $400 million was India's exports to Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
VOA News April 7, 2013
Afghan officials say a coalition air strike has killed 11 civilians, including 10 children, in the eastern part of the country during a joint Afghan-NATO operation against Taliban militants.
Government officials in Kunar province said Sunday that the air strike targeted a house near Pakistan, killing at least six suspected militants -- including two senior Taliban commanders -- in addition to the civilians.
The U.S.-led coalition confirmed that international forces called in the air strikes after they came under attack from the house Saturday. However, NATO officials have not confirmed the death toll, saying they are still investigating.
The deaths came on the same day that a car bomb killed five Americans, including three U.S. soldiers, a civilian Defense Department employee and a young female foreign service officer. The attack in southern Afghanistan's Zabul province also killed an Afghan doctor.
Their convoy was on the way to deliver books to children at an Afghan school.
Saturday's attacks also came as the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, arrived in the country to meet with American and Afghan officials and assess the number of U.S. troops who should remain in the country to train Afghan soldiers after next year.
Most NATO combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, leaving security responsibility to Afghan forces and raising fears of increased militant violence.
Suicide attack in Afghan senator house in Samangan province
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 07 Apr 2013, 8:17 pm Khaama Press
According to local authorities in northern Samangan province of Afghanistan, a suicide bomb blast rocked Aibak city on Sunday evening without causing any casualties.
The suicide bomber reportedly detonated his explosives inside the residential house of an Afghan senator.
Provincial governor Khairullah Anoosh confirming the report said the bomber detonated his explosives inside the house of Mohammad Asif Azimi, Afghan senator representing northern Samangan province in Afghan senate house.
Mr. Anoosh further added that Mohammad Asif Azimi was not present in his house when the incident took place and there were no casualties as a result of the incident.
He said the suicide bomber lost his leg following the blast and is under the treatment.
No group has so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.
Leaving Corruptistan: Washington Favors Exit over Fight with Karzai
Spiegel Online By Susanne Koelbl April 06, 2013
Declare victory and then leave. That seems to be Washington's line in Afghanistan these days. The United States has even caved in to Afghan President Hamid Karzai on a dispute over an airline alleged to have transported drugs. Getting out, it seems, has become more important than fighting corruption.
Given that friendship between Hamid Karzai and the Americans has long been a thing of the past, the negotiations are dogged. For weeks now, the Afghan president has been haggling with the United State over its troop withdrawal. At issue are the limits of what US soldiers will still be permitted to do in the country after 2014, when plans call for only 5,000 to 10,000 American troops to remain in Afghanistan. The sides are at odds over questions of jurisdiction. Afghanistan's parliament wants to be able to prosecute American soldiers in Afghan courts. But, says one US diplomat, "That will never happen."Still, Karzai is putting the Americans on notice that, this time, it is the Afghans who are calling the shots. He's giving them payback for the many humiliations they inflicted upon him in years past, like when former US special envoy Richard Holbrooke tried to replace Karzai with his political rival during the last presidential election.
For example, Karzai recently ordered elite US soldiers to pull out as quickly as possible from Wardak Province, an important gateway for insurgents headed toward Kabul. The soldiers have been accused of abusing villagers, but the accusation has yet to be substantiated.
Airline Under Radar of US Investigators
Just how poisoned relations have become can be seen particularly clearly in the way Afghans reacted to an order handed down by General James Mattis, until recently the highest-ranking US officer responsible for Afghanistan. In January, Mattis placed Kam Air, a private airline, on the blacklist of companies no longer allowed to receive contracts from the US military. The Americans suspect Kam Air of having smuggled bulk quantities of narcotics to Central Asia on passenger flights.
Of course, something like this isn't all that atypical. The United States has repeatedly excluded companies from lucrative contracts when it has deemed them to be corrupt or criminal. Until now, though, Karzai and officials at the Presidential Palace hadn't protested against such actions. But the case of Kam Air has touched a sensitive spot in the web of relations that Karzai has been carefully spinning for more than a decade. Palace insiders say Karzei has transformed the putative democracy into a kingdom completely tailored to him: Call it Karzai's Corruptistan.
In an unusually harshly formulated official communiqué to US Ambassador James Cunningham, Afghan's Foreign Ministry demanded that all documents related to the Kam Air case be made available to the Afghan government immediately. President Karzai's office has even threatened to file a "compensation/damages suit" against the US military if no concrete proof of the allegations is supplied.
The Afghans' fervent reaction is hard to comprehend, especially given the fact that Kam Air is a completely private company in which the state has no financial stake. But General Mattis had apparently stirred up a hornet's nest. In the end, Mattis was forced to ease the political pressure. In the meantime, Kam Air is once again eligible to bid for US contracts -- with the airy assertion that Kabul will take charge of any investigations itself.
Dirty Political Deal
Zamarai Kamgar, the airline's owner, hails from the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. He has a reputation for being a lively businessman with shady friends. For decades, he has had close business ties to the warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. Drug-trading is the mildest of the things that foreign intelligence agencies and human rights advocates have charged the Uzbek general with. At the end of the Taliban's rule over Afghanistan, Dostum allegedly had hundreds of Taliban fighters herded into containers, where they died of asphyxiation before their hasty burial in mass graves. International pressure drove Dostum into exile in Turkey, but President Karzai personally urged the nefarious warrior to return to Afghanistan in 2009.
At the time, Afghanistan's first democratically elected president was fighting to be re-elected. To boost support, Karzai made a dirty deal with the general: The suspected war criminal would be rehabilitated if he could guarantee to add at least half a million Uzbek votes to Karzai's Pashtun power base.
Mixed up in this deal was Zamarai Kamgar, the airline owner and friend of Dostum, who, since Karzai's re-election, has enjoyed excellent ties with the Presidential Palace in Kabul. Karzai has frequently used Kam Air planes himself whenever he or senior government officials jet off for state visits and international conferences.
Jockeying for Lucrative US Contracts
From the outside, Karzai's system of power seems like a labyrinth. A key role in the Kam Air affair has been played by his former deputy chief of staff, Kawun Kakar. The Afghan with US citizenship now works as a lawyer and counts the head of Kam Air among his clients. In the wake of the US ban on the airline, Kakar let it be known that Kamgar was "shocked" by the accusations and assumed that jealous competitors had disseminated false information.
Indeed, Afghan, American and other international suppliers are fighting tooth and nail over the big-money contracts in Afghanistan. For outsourced flights alone, the US military spends roughly $100 million each year.
Kam Air flew onto the Americans' radar when the company submitted a bid last year as a subcontractor for a deal worth millions. The main contract had been secured by Wais Jalali, the son of a former Afghan interior minister who was until recently married to one of Karzai's nieces. It is unclear how Jalali and his Veritas company was able to win the lucrative contract, especially since the Afghan with US citizenship was forced to have one of his other US-registered companies file for bankruptcy. Veritas also doesn't possess any airplanes, which is why Jalali brought Kamgar on board.
This constellation of figures attracted the Americans' attention. And when they took a closer look at the airline, they apparently found indications of a drug connection.
Resigned to Failure
Afghanistan produces 80 percent of all the opium consumed worldwide, and most of those in power profit from its trade. Nevertheless, not a single one of the top-level drug barons with ties to Karzai's network has yet to be convicted. Overzealous police chiefs are replaced before they can track down smugglers. And, as one general who used to be responsible for security at Kabul's airport says, "Kabul Airport is like a heavily protected mosque at the main entrance -- but there are three open doors out back."
Expert observers warn that Afghanistan could wind up becoming a narcostate after Western troops withdraw, one in which politicians, businesspeople and criminals seamlessly cooperate. Indeed, this could soon become a reality.
"We would have had to reveal our classified sources, which would have only led to additional entanglements," says one US diplomat in explaining why the Americans allowed Kam Air to bid for contracts again. Getting into a fight with President Karzai about such a touchy subject during the negotiations over future US troop strengths and rules of engagement, he adds, would have carried too high a price.
Other Western diplomats also just shrug their shoulders. After all, they reason, the fight against the narcostate isn't part of the UN mandate, and embassies and military bases are not "law-enforcement agencies." There is no lack of knowledge about what is going on, but who wants to get back into it with re-strengthened warlords? "Almost all of these criminals have ultimately gotten what they wanted. Only the Taliban is still fighting against us," says one Western military officer.
Given all this, what is left of the mission in Afghanistan?
A state with a security apparatus that might be strong enough to at best hold the Taliban halfway in check.
A country whose order will be guaranteed by brutal warlords. And a president who will play the kingmaker and wait until the last moment to reveal the person he will back as his successor and who will look like a puppet of Karzai's interests when the latter steps down next year.
Is that what a successful mission looks like? "Of course," quips one Western diplomat. "We declare victory, and then we leave."
Paktia provincial council chief murdered in Kunduz province
By SAYED JAWAD - 07 Apr 2013, 3:03 pm Khaama Press
According to local authorities in northern Kunduz province of Afghanistan, unknown gunmen assassinated Mirza Ali, provincial council chief for eastern for eastern Paktia province of Afghanistan.
Provincial governor spokesman for Kunduz, Enayatullah Khaliq confirming the report said the incident took place on Saturday night in this province.
Mr. Khaliq further added that Mirza Ali was living in Haji Shahid village in the second district of northern Kunduz city and was killed while he was on his way towards his home
Mirza Ali was appointed as provincial council chief for Paktia province during the past one year and had close cooperation with the Paktia high council department.
Local security officials are saying that an investigation has been started in connection to Mirza Ali’s assassination.
No group has so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.
Kunduz is among the relatively volatile region in northern Afghanistan where militants are actively operating in a number of its districts.
This comes as Afghan parliament house speaker’s family members including his father were killed following a suicide bomb blast in this province.
Afghanistan calls Pak-Afghan strategic pact ‘meaningless’
By SAYED JAWAD - 07 Apr 2013, 9:05 pm Khaama Press
Afghan foreign ministry officials on Sunday called the strategic pact between Kabul and Islamabad meaningless unless Pakistan does not take practical steps to fight terrorism and assist Afghanistan in peace process with the militant groups.
The officials once again emphasized that Taliban leaders are based in Pakistan adn those Taliban figures who were supporting Afghan peace talks were either killed or arrested.
Pakistan, the closes neighbor of Afghanistan has long been accused of violence in Afghanistan.
Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai on Sunday said that the draft strategic pact agreement between Kabul and Islamabad was handed over to Afghan foreign minister during a summit in London.
Mr. Mosazai further added that Afghanistan wants practical steps by Pakistan to fight terrorism before the two nations sign a long term strategic cooperation agreement.
He said, “If we ignore the priorities which have direct impact on peace process, security and the sovereignty of Afghanistan then signing only a strategic pact on a peace of paper will have no meaning.”
Foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai also criticized Pakistan for its negative inteference in Afghan peace process once again insisted that the Taliban figures are based in Pakistan.
Mosazai said that those Taliban leaders who were in direct contact with the Afghan government and those who were supporting Afghan peace process are either killed or detained.
Kabul and Islamabad have been engaged in negotiating Afghan peace process during the past three years but Afghanistan recently announced to continue peace talks with the militant groups with the cooperation of Islamabad after the Afghan government failed to achieve satisfactory results.
Chinese Confucius Institute re-opens in Afghanistan
KABUL, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Confucius Institute of Kabul University re-opened Sunday after a halt of one year and a half since October 2010, marking the enhanced Sino-Afghan cultural exchanges.
Addressing the re-opening ceremony, Xu Feihong, Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan, congratulated Confucius Institute on its comeback to this war-hit nation, saying it marks a significant progress in relations between the two nations.
Xu said that the young generation of Afghanistan symbolizes the future and hope of this war-hit country. The friendship between the two nations also needs to be carried forward and passed down by the youths.
"China and Afghanistan are good neighbors, friends, and partners. The exchanges between the two peoples could date back to 2,000 years ago," Xu added, "I wish all the students from Confucius Institute a promising future and could continue helping promote the bilateral ties, since the two governments had upgraded their ties to the level of a strategic and cooperative partnership last year."
Habibullah Habib, president of Kabul University, expressed his gratitude to China's efforts in bringing Confucius Institute back to Afghanistan, saying he felt honored to witness the re-open of this cultural promotion institution in Kabul University.
"China and the Chinese language both play an important role on the international arena," he noted, "I hope the Chinese learners could contribute to the bilateral friendship by learning this language well."
Ma Li, a 19-year-old female student with a Chinese name, told Xinhua that she received family support to learn Chinese language and she hopes to be a proficient speaker after graduation.
Confucius Institute in Kabul University was launched in January 2008 and was halted in October 2010 due to social security concerns.
At the moment, one teacher from China and two other Chinese instructors are teaching the Chinese language to around 100 Afghan learners at elementary levels.
Afghan tragedy mars Kerry trip focused on Mideast
AFP April 07, 2013
Istanbul - US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Turkey on Sunday for key talks on Syria and the Middle East on a visit overshadowed by the killing of a young woman diplomat in an Afghan bombing. The US foreign service employee, who Kerry met late last month when he visited Kabul, died Saturday in a roadside bombing attack of a NATO convoy in Zabul province which killed three NATO troops and two civilians.
"Our State Department family is grieving over the loss of one of our own, an exceptional young Foreign Service officer," Kerry said in a heartfelt statement, condemning the bombing as "a despicable attack."
Kerry was due to meet later Sunday with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks set to focus on the burgeoning crisis in Syria and the Middle East peace process.
He would also "encourage Turkey to expeditiously implement its agreement with Israel and fully normalize their relationship to allow for deeper cooperation," a top State Department official said, asking to remain anonymous.
Israel apologised to Ankara in late March for the deaths of nine Turkish activists in a botched raid by Israeli commandos on a Gaza-bound aid ship, in a breakthrough brokered by US President Barack Obama during a visit to Jerusalem.
The apology ended a nearly three-year rift between Israel and Turkey -- two key US allies in the region -- and the two countries are due to begin talks on compensation on April 12.
But they have yet to exchange ambassadors and fully restore diplomatic ties, and the US official stressed this "was a pivotal time to encourage them to keep moving forward."
Erdogan accepted the apology "in the name of the Turkish people" but said the country's future relationship with Israel would depend on the Jewish state.
Syria will also loom large in their talks, with Turkey having kept its borders open to refugees fleeing the conflict now in its third year.
Turkey has taken in some 190,000 refugees since the start of the conflict to topple President Bashar al-Assad, most of whom are housed in 17 camps stretched along the border with Syria, according to UN figures.
The huge flows are placing a massive burden on Turkish resources, and Kerry would stress the need to keep the borders open as well as their shared support for the Syrian opposition council, the official said.
After talks in Turkey, Kerry heads later Sunday to Israel and Ramallah in the West Bank, where he will meet with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
He will also meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, in what will be his third trip to the Middle East region since the start of his tenure on February 1.
US officials have said the return visit will give him a chance to probe possibilities for restarting the moribund peace process, which has stalled for over two years, in the wake of Obama's trip last month.
Kerry's departure for Istanbul was delayed by about three hours when a door on his Boeing 757 malfunctioned, and he was visibly saddened by the tragedy in Afghanistan as he waited with his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry for a second plane to be prepared.
Before leaving, he phoned the parents of the State Department employee to offer his condolences. Four other State Department staff were injured, one critically, in the attack.
The Zabul bombing comes almost exactly seven months after ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American staff were killed in a militant attack on September 11 on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya.
U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghan provinces is unfinished work
As an 11-year effort winds down, U.S. provincial reconstruction teams, or PRTs, have made gains but have also left infrastructure that is incomplete, unsustainable or incompatible with local needs.
Los Angeles Times By Shashank Bengali April 6, 2013
CHARIKAR, Afghanistan - At the doorstep of the U.S.-funded schoolhouse in this mountain-fringed northern town, Ghulam Nabi crouched in the mud and scooped up two rocks. He needed them, the school engineer explained, to scare off the building's only regular occupant: a stray dog.
Nearly four years after ground was broken, the 24-room $310,000 high school stands unfinished, a bleak monument to America's unrealized ambitions in Afghanistan. Graffiti scars the entrance. Water stains blot the ceiling. Unconnected electrical wires reach out from the walls like aimless tentacles.
The concrete shell is one of at least six uncompleted schoolhouses in Parwan province that were financed by a U.S. provincial reconstruction team as part of a decade-long nation-building effort now winding down as the U.S. war in Afghanistan draws to a close.
The teams, known as PRTs, composed mainly of soldiers assisted by a few civilian development experts, have left a mixed legacy in places like Charikar, an hour's drive north of Kabul. Starting in 2002, U.S. teams poured hundreds of millions of dollars a year into new roads, bridges, health clinics and schoolhouses in an effort to win hearts and minds, bolster the Afghan government and improve security.
But in the headlong rush to achieve those goals, the 12 teams also saddled Afghanistan's impoverished provinces with infrastructure that wasn't completed, can't be sustained or didn't mesh with local needs.
The PRTs have been responsible for only a fraction of the $89 billion the United States has spent over the last decade to rebuild Afghanistan, but they suffered from the same poor planning and inadequate oversight that characterized the broader U.S. reconstruction effort. With four of the PRTs now shut down, and seven others due to be retired by summer's end, Afghan officials are beginning to confront the challenge of picking up where U.S. aspirations left off.
The schoolhouse in Charikar may never open because the PRT at the nearby Bagram air base has stopped working in the area, the Afghan builders say they've run out of money, and the provincial government lacks the funding to finish construction. For now, local education officials are dipping into their meager budget to pay a security guard to ward off squatters.
Another school in Parwan was so shoddily built by the U.S. team's Afghan contractors that a giant beam had to be erected to keep the roof from caving in, provincial officials said; five years later, they still won't allow students inside. In the mountain district of Surkh-e-Parsa, the U.S. financed a two-story, 24-room schoolhouse even though the surrounding villages didn't have anywhere near enough children to fill it.
"If you collected the whole area around it, they wouldn't even fill the first floor," Mohammed Azizyar, the lead engineer for the provincial education department, said one recent morning at his office in Charikar. Meanwhile, at a decades-old facility in a different district, 12 grade levels were crammed into five classrooms.
"If they would have coordinated with us, we would have given them a better idea of where we needed new buildings," Azizyar said. "That was our main problem with the PRT. They could start projects very quickly. But many times they didn't follow the policies and strategies of the education department."
Proponents say the teams established a U.S. military presence in far-flung provinces, built roads to connect remote villages and constructed public buildings at a pace perhaps unequaled in Afghanistan's history.
U.S. officials point to dramatic improvements in maternal health, infant mortality, school attendance and other indicators as evidence that the reconstruction effort in the provinces has succeeded.
"PRTs have provided much-needed assistance and support at a time when the Afghan government was not in a position to provide basic services in the provinces and districts," said Alexandra Taylor, a spokeswoman for the U.S.-led NATO coalition.
U.S. officials could not provide breakdowns of how much money the teams spent or how many projects they carried out. The bulk of PRT funding came from the Pentagon's $3.45-billion Commander's Emergency Response Program, intended for small quick-impact projects, with the State Department, Army Corps of Engineers, Agency for International Development and others kicking in additional money.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks that preceded the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. military increasingly has viewed relief and reconstruction as crucial to fighting terrorism in failing states. The Pentagon established PRTs in Afghanistan and Iraq, assigning troops to development work usually reserved for civilian agencies.
A decade later, there remains considerable debate within the U.S. government over the merits of that strategy. A 2011 report by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations found "limited" evidence that aid could buy stability in Afghanistan and said that "the unintended consequences of pumping large amounts of money into a war zone cannot be underestimated."
Many critics say the teams squandered money on projects that fit short-term military objectives but had questionable long-term value.
"A lot of it will endure, but a lot of it was wasted," said Gerald Meyerle, a senior research scientist at the nonprofit CNA research group who has advised the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
The teams were led by military commanders who, at least in the early years, were unprepared for the details of reconstruction work. Experts say that some projects fueled instability by favoring certain warlords or ethnic groups, while others were assigned to fly-by-night Afghan contractors who pocketed the cash without completing the work.
The troops typically deployed for less than a year, sometimes leaving behind projects that replacement units were unable or unwilling to finish. Commanders were judged on what they conceived and delivered and how much they spent, so new projects often took priority over old ones, officials and experts said.
Four years ago, an American PRT financed a health clinic in Nijrab district, north of the capital, but the Afghan builders neglected to install a water system, forcing clinic workers to boil drinking water for patients, said Mirza Mohamed Reja, the Kapisa provincial health director. The contractors told Reja the U.S. had signed off on the building, so their work was done.
"We brought this up with every new PRT, but they always said it was the responsibility of the old PRT," Reja said. "They said, 'Let's talk about the next project. Don't talk about the past.'"
While conducting research in Afghanistan in the mid-2000s, Andrew Wilder recalled asking PRTs for lists of their projects, only to find that few kept a tally and hardly any teams knew what their predecessors had accomplished.
"There wasn't really a proper hand-over or a central repository of data of what we built," said Wilder, now director of Afghanistan and Pakistan programs at the United States Institute of Peace. "Part of this is that they were thinking not in development terms but in security terms. And they were chasing the money trail."
Only now, after 11 years, are U.S. and Afghan officials compiling a roster of all the PRT projects. "In hindsight, it would have been really nice if we kept a list," said one U.S. official involved in the effort.
Commanders' penchant for operating independently of Kabul and its hand-picked provincial governors — often striking deals directly with district officials and tribal leaders — prompted President Hamid Karzai in 2011 to call the PRTs "parallel structures" that challenged his government's authority. By then, the U.S. had begun to pull back the teams.
Reja, the health official in Kapisa, said the local PRT in December pulled funding halfway through a two-year $499,000 program to train 60 midwives in the provincial capital, Mahmud-i-Raqi. He now is scrambling to find money from Kabul to keep the program running.
"The girls have come from all over eastern Afghanistan. We have made promises to their families," Reja said. But he added quickly, "It's not fair only to blame the PRT. Until now, our government itself has done almost nothing."
The U.S. official called the decision to stop such programs regrettable, but said the Afghan government must step up and disburse more of the funds donors have allocated for development.
"There are cases where we're not going to finish things and not going to be able to keep promises," the official said. "I agree it's wrong to make a promise we can't keep, but now I tell the Afghans, 'Here's what we have done and how we can help you realize your goals.'
"Half a trillion dollars and thousands of casualties later, not for minute would I say we haven't done enough in Afghanistan."
shashank.bengali@latimes.com
We Release Taliban, They Kill Our People: Karzai
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 06 April 2013
President Hamid Karzai spoke out against the Taliban attack in Farah province saying on Friday that while his administration is endeavoring to release imprisoned members of the Taliban, the group responds with suicide attacks.
"We went another step towards preserving national sovereignty and providing peace in the country, the responsibilities of Bagram Prison were handed over to the government of Afghanistan and many of the innocent Taliban or those who were imprisoned under the name of the Taliban were released. For this humanitarian act, the Taliban attacked Farah so that people would become pessimistic about the release of those prisoners," he said in a radio address.
Karzai suggested that the Taliban carry out the attacks following the decrees of foreigners who aim to continue the violence across Afghanistan.
"The Taliban carried out a brutal terrorist attack in Farah province in which they killed people. As a result of this attack, tens of innocent people were killed while about a hundred were injured. The people of Afghanistan are still depressed even if this inhuman act is condemned many times," he said.
The president asked the members of the group to question their leaders as to why they would kill innocent people.
"I call upon the Afghan Taliban to ask their elders whose interest were the Khost, Kabul, and Farah attacks for," President Karzai said, "Their goal is for the innocent Taliban and those who are imprisoned under the Taliban's name not to be released and that Bagram Prison should not be handed over to the government of Afghanistan."
The Taliban have constantly rejected Kabul's calls for peace talks, considering their only negotiation partner is the United States.
Karzai called upon the Taliban not to be a "tool" in the hands of the foreigners and to stop killing civilians as it has no benefit.
Two Govt Ministers Receive MP Confidence Vote
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Saturday, 06 April 2013
The minister of mines and minister of information and culture on Saturday received the vote of confidence from Afghanistan's parliament after questioning over their ministries' budget spending on development.
The ministers had appeared before parliament on Monday along with the minister of commerce, but the vote on whether they will retain their government positions was delayed until Saturday because of disagreements among the members of parliament about the impeachment process.
Eleven government ministers have been summoned to parliament in the past week to be questioned on the lack of spending of the development budgets of Persian year 1390 (March 2011-March 2012).
Disagreements again dissolved today's parliamentary session which ended without any resolution on the four ministers who were being questioned on Saturday - the ministers of defence, interior, higher education, and urban development.
A number of MPs claimed corruption was at work in the voting process on the 11 ministers, pointing to the fact that none of the ministers were being disqualified for the underspent development budgets so crucial to Afghanistan's reconstruction
"Dear Speaker, you have lost the honor of yourself and the honor of parliament. Please stop the meeting and end this process," MP Daoud Kalakani said before the session broke up. Some MPs claimed that their colleagues are granting confidence votes to the ministers in exchange for money and other walked out of the parliamentary session in protest.
"The ministers who were accused of not spending their development budgets have successfully received the confidence vote because of corruption in the parliament. It is so worrying," MP Shikiba Hashimi said. "Therefore we decided to not vote on the remaining four ministers today because it does not have any benefit."
"The ministers' impeachment process was illegal. We had evidence that they had failed in their work but suddenly the lawmakers changed their ideas and give them a vote of confidence which shows the corruption in parliament and that lawmakers are receiving money from the ministers," MP Mohmmad Naeem Lalai Hamidzai said.
Afghan political analyst Mir Ahmad Joyenda criticised the process, saying that the lawmakers' vote is more based on relationships and "transactions". He warned that parliament risks losing the faith of the people it is meant to represent.
"The ministers are passing the impeachment process successfully depending on the relationships and influence that they have in parliament," Joyenda told TOLOnews.
Unemployed Afghans Find Job Opportunity in Poppy Harvests
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Saturday, 06 April 2013
Unemployment is driving young Afghans to southern Helmand province where there are plentiful jobs in harvesting the poppy fields that will later become opium.
The warmer weather has brought the season for poppy scoring, a time-consuming job which is increasingly drawing many Afghan youth for the opportunity to make some money.
The second half of the Persian month Hamal (first half of April) is when the scoring usually begins. And the pay is reasonable relative to other skilled jobs across the country.
"We can make 200 to 300 Afghanis a day ($4 to $5). We don't have any other choice than going there for scoring," a Helmand resident told TOLOnews.
Afghanistan tops the list of opium-producing countries, responsible for some 90 percent of the world's opiates, according to the UN Office of Drugs and Crime. Helmand province alone is responsible for 75 percent of the world's total production.
Helmand police told TOLOnews that that the poppy within the province is mostly planted over lands that are illegally owned.
"The planting [of poppy] is done in lands that have been land-grabbed by a number of people across the province...and we are working to stop this issue," said Abdul Nabi Elham, Helmand police chief.
According to the Ministry of Counter Narcotics, casualties among the Afghan counter-narcotics forces have risen 50 percent compared to last year, signalling the rise in efforts to prevent production.
"Opposition groups, or those who are behind this matter, defend the opium fields very seriously. We have, by today, about 50 to 60 martyrs from national police and national army," said Mohammad Ibrahim Azhar, deputy minister of counter-narcotics.
"There is no doubt that if this process continues this way there will be more martyrs and more casualties," he added.
Destroying poppy fields is the last resort method used by the Afghan government to try to stop opium production, but it has proved inadequate and poppy farming has proliferated in the past decade.
India Removes Export Tariffs on Afghan Goods
TOLOnews.com By Zabiullah Jahanmal Saturday, 06 April 2013
The Indian government will not charge tariffs on more than 460 goods being exported from Afghanistan to India in a bid to increase trade between the two countries, the Afghan ministry of commerce and industries said Saturday.
Minister Anwar ul Haq Ahadi said that the Indian government has agreed to not charge tariffs on 465 kinds of Afghan goods amid Afghanistan's troubles with transiting the goods through Pakistan.
"We are trying to negotiate with the Pakistani government to remove the transit problems and we are also seeking another ways to simplify the process," Ahadi said.
Meanwhile, a delegation of trade specialists from India have arrived in Afghanistan to give technical assistance to help Afghan traders and producers saying that the Indian markets will benefit from Afghanistan's goods.
Officials at India's embassy in Afghanistan said that they will also try to use the Central Asian countries to improve trade between Afghanistan and India.
"We are exploring other routes for access to the sea to export and import Afghanistan's product through Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan," Ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya told TOLOnews.
However the benefits for facilitating the transport of goods is likely to be more in India's favour based on the trade statistics.
While trade between Afghanistan and India reached $500 million last year, $100 million was Afghanistan's exports to India and $400 million was India's exports to Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com