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U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey says Taliban likely to remain long-term threat in Afghanistan
The Associated Press By ROBERT BURNS April 07, 2013
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan - The United States accepts that a diminished but resilient Taliban is likely to remain a military threat in some parts of Afghanistan long after U.S. troops complete their combat mission next year, the top U.S. military officer said Sunday.
In an Associated Press interview at this air field north of Kabul, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he is cautiously optimistic that the Afghan army will hold its own against the insurgency as Western troops pull back and Afghans assume the lead combat role. He said that by May or June, the Afghans will be in the lead throughout the country.
Asked whether some parts of the country will remain contested by the Taliban, he replied, "Yes, of course there will be."
"And if we were having this conversation 10 years from now, I suspect there would (still) be contested areas because the history of Afghanistan suggests that there will always be contested areas," he said.
He and other U.S. commanders have said that ultimately the Afghans must reach some sort of political accommodation with the insurgents, and that a reconciliation process needs to be led by Afghans, not Americans. Thus the No. 1 priority for the U.S. military in its final months of combat in Afghanistan is to do all that is possible to boost the strength and confidence of Afghan forces.
Shortly after Dempsey arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday, the Taliban demonstrated its ability to strike.
It claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed five Americans — three soldiers and two civilians, including Anne Smedinghoff, a foreign service officer and the first American diplomat killed overseas since the terrorist attack Sept. 11 in Benghazi, Libya.
A fierce battle between U.S.-backed Afghan forces and Taliban militants in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan left nearly 20 people dead, including 11 Afghan children killed in an airstrike, Afghan officials said Sunday.
There are now about 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. That number is to drop to about 32,000 by February 2014, and the combat mission is to end in December 2014. Whether some number — perhaps 9,000 or 10,000 — remain into 2015 as military trainers and counterinsurgents is yet to be decided.
Dempsey spent two days talking to senior Afghan officials, including his counterpart, Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, as well as top U.S. and allied commanders.
He also visited a U.S. base in the volatile eastern province of Paktika for an update on how U.S. troops are balancing the twin missions of advising Afghan forces and withdrawing tons of U.S. equipment as the war effort winds down.
Paktika is an example of a sector of Afghanistan that is likely to face Taliban resistance for years to come.
Bordering areas of Pakistan that provide haven for the Taliban and its affiliated Haqqani network, Paktika has been among the more important insurgent avenues into the Afghan interior.
While the province has a functioning government, Taliban influence remains significant in less populated areas, as it has since U.S. forces first invaded the country more than 11 years ago.
"There will be contested areas, and it will be the Afghans' choice whether to allow those contested areas to persist, or, when necessary, take action to exert themselves into those contested area," he said.
Dempsey said he is encouraged by the recent development of coordination centers, including one in Paktika, where a wide range of Afghan government agencies work together on security issues. He called it a "quilt" of government structures that links Kabul, the capital, to ordinary Afghans in distant villages.
In some parts of the country, Afghan villagers have shown their dissatisfaction with Taliban influence by taking up arms against the insurgents, even without being pushed by the U.S. or by Kabul. This has happened in recent weeks in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, a traditional stronghold of the Taliban. The Andar district of Ghazni province has seen a similar uprising.
"We should encourage it, but we shouldn't be seen as hijacking" these local movements, he said.
Dempsey said he discussed the uprisings with Karimi, the army chief, and the Afghan defense minister, Bismullah Khan Mohammadi. They told him they "appreciated that they should allow this to occur (and) they should probably nurture it. They don't necessarily feel at this point as if they should tangibly support it."
The Afghan government's concern, Dempsey said, is that influential warlords could embrace these local movements and eventually leverage them to threaten the armed forces of the central government.
In a separate interview Sunday with al-Hurra, the Arabic-language satellite TV channel funded by the U.S. government, Dempsey was asked whether he worries that Syria, in the midst of a civil war, could become another Afghanistan.
"I do. I have grave concerns that Syria could become an extended conflict" that drags on for many years, he said.
Afghan Leader Condemns Latest Civilian Casualties
April 8, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has condemned the killing of 11 children in a NATO air strike in eastern Afghanistan.
The children were reported killed during a joint Afghan-NATO operation against Taliban fighters in the Shigal district of restive Konar Province bordering Pakistan late on April 6.
Associated Press photos showed villagers gathered for the funerals of the children, whose bodies were wrapped in blankets.
In a statement issued by his office on April 7, Karzai said he condemned operations in populated areas that result in civilian casualties and he condemned the Taliban for using civilians as shields.
The death of Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire has strained relations between Karzai's government and the coalition. Ealier this year, Karzai banned his troops from calling in coalition air strikes.
There were conflicting figures on the number killed, but Karzai's office later said 11 people were killed -- all of them children -- and six women were wounded.
Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said six Taliban militants had also been killed in the joint operation, including two senior commanders.
The U.S.-led coalition said it was aware of reports of civilian casualties and was looking into them.
Based on reporting by AP, AFP and dpa
With Swagger, Afghan Army Takes the Lead
New York Times By AZAM AHMED April 7, 2013
DAMDARA, Afghanistan - Through the crackle of the hand radio, the Taliban fighter could be heard screaming at his comrades, berating them to strike from their mountain hide-outs and kill the infidel forces gathered nearby.
A burly Afghan Border Police commander, eavesdropping on the enemy’s open-channel communication, chuckled and decided to stir things up. “If you are a man, you don’t need to yell,” the commander spoke into his radio, as a circle of Afghan Army soldiers giggled. “Why don’t you come out, you thief, and fight us face to face? What cave are you hiding in?”
Startled, the insurgent on the other end blurted: “I’m strong with the love of God! I’m going to heaven.”
“Donkeys don’t go to heaven, usually,” the commander replied, stroking his henna-dyed beard, eliciting another round of laughs.
As Afghans begin taking the lead from American forces this year, each mission the new Afghan National Army takes on will be a step toward answering critical questions about the country’s fate. Can Afghan forces effectively fight the Taliban after the Americans are gone? And can they gain the support of local leaders and populations who are so critical to that fight?
The challenges were highlighted over the weekend by a sprawling and drawn-out battle between Afghan forces and a Taliban stronghold, an indication that the fighting season had begun again in earnest. The battle ended only after nearby American forces called in an airstrike on the Taliban commander’s home, killing him and a number of civilians, including at least 10 children.
A recent week with a well-regarded Afghan Army unit in Kunar Province showed marked differences from the American way of war. While the unit generally acquitted itself well in combat, logistical and political challenges were evident. The operation in Kunar was characterized by Afghan and American military commanders as one of the biggest of its kind in the area: a search-and-clear mission centered on the village of Damdara in Ganjgal Valley, a notorious Taliban stronghold where an insurgent ambush killed nine Afghans and four of their American Marine advisers in 2009. This time, no Americans would be in sight at any stage.
Instead, the Second Brigade of the Afghan 201st Corps, considered one of the army’s best units, was leading the charge. Army commanders coordinated with multiple police and intelligence agencies, as well as Afghan civilian officials, spending nearly a week conducting reconnaissance and drawing up elaborate terrain models to prepare for the mission.
The terrain would play a major role this day. Ganjgal Valley is picturesque, but treacherous, with high ridges arrayed in a horseshoe around the village, perfect for shielding ambushes. Cut into the hills that lead up to the mountains are terraced fields, dry and brittle with small green shoots peeking through the soil. Stones cover the base of the valley like the bed of a river.
More than 350 Afghan security force members gathered around the perimeter, some given the task of searching the village for fighters and weapons, other assigned to the ridges to confront any ambushes at eye level.
They did not have to wait long. The forces in the heights came under fire almost immediately from an opposing ridgeline northwest of the village — the one vantage point the army did not control. Dozens of fighters were firing.
Soldiers responded with vehicle-mounted guns. A team shot artillery onto the insurgent mountainside with mixed accuracy, sending up plumes of smoke into the clear sky. The rhythm of a long-range battle took hold, the shots less frequent as each side squinted to find enemies on ridges about a half-mile apart.
It was during this impasse that the war of words erupted into the Taliban’s radio patter. As Afghan soldiers drew around to listen, the conversation between the two enemies grew even more insulting and acrimonious.
The insurgent called the commander “a slave of the infidels.”
“You didn’t even have pants on when I was a good Muslim and mujahid,” the commander replied. “You are a slave of the Punjabis,” he added, referencing Pakistani support for the Taliban. “Where did you get your ammunition, you donkey? Do you have a bullet factory up there?”
As the day wore on, a line of villagers snaked through the valley toward a meeting with assembled Afghan government officials.
The district governor, Mohammad Hanif Khairkhwa, apologized for bothering them and asked whether the Afghan forces had mistreated anyone. The villagers, resting on their haunches and wrapped in earth-tone shawls, said they had not.
The government had tried before to draw support away from the Taliban here, with only modest success. Now, in making his case, Mr. Khairkhwa drew on their similarities, speaking Afghan to Afghan while turning the absence of American forces into a new chance for cooperation.
“We are from the same country, the same region, we speak the same language and share the same faith,” he said. “Do you see any foreigners here? It’s just us.”
Promising that Afghan forces would be visiting the valley again, the governor left them with a warning: “Tell the insurgents, ‘Don’t shoot from my house.’ Tell them, ‘Don’t lay mines near my house.’ If you do not, then next time, you cannot complain about what happens.”
The villagers trekked back to the village, a series of mud homes seemingly carved into the earth.
An old man with deep blue eyes and a wispy white beard began muttering under his breath as he hobbled off. “If the government people bother us, they will be held accountable by God,” he said.
Overhearing the comment, one intelligence official shouted back: “You think we are bothering you? Who do you think is shooting at us every day? If you shoot one of us, God will send you to hell.”
Farther down the valley, a row of Humvees near the front of the fight belted streams of bullets into the enemy-held mountainside. A Taliban sniper hiding in the dense forest above fired single shots back at the troops on the valley’s floor. The village remained dormant.
“They shoot at us like thieves, so we have to shoot back with force,” said Sgt. Hedyatullah Tanha, 22, a platoon commander. “If we don’t return fire they will have a long period of time to line up another shot.”
Capt. Wahidullah Atifi, a company commander, said constant fighting had sharpened his men, while armored vehicles and extra training had bolstered their confidence.
“The only bad habit my unit has is that they respond to a single shot with a volley of bullets,” he said.
Amid the clamor of gunshots, Captain Atifi’s cellphone rang. A senior commander urged him to keep his men from shooting so much.
Captain Atifi shrugged and then sounded a note growing more common among Afghan commanders as they ponder future battles without American air support: “If we had an attack helicopter,” he said, “the fight would be over.”
In reality, if things had gone smoothly, the fight may never have happened in the first place. The army battalion commander had squashed earlier plans for a special unit to take the ridge that later became the Taliban stronghold.
Communication proved to be an obstacle, too. The patchwork of Afghan forces, including border, national and local police, were using different radios, inhibiting communication. To compensate, everyone used cellphones.
By 1:30 p.m., the search of the village concluded, turning up a handful of .50-caliber shells plucked from the floor of an old man’s home.
Soldiers began to trail down from the village. As planned, those along the ridgeline began to collapse their positions and make their way down the mountain, covering one another’s exits. After hours of sporadic fighting, all were alive and accounted for, officers said.
Then, a stutter of gunfire erupted as the Taliban exploited their vulnerability.
Soon after the soldiers abandoned high ground, insurgents slipped into the vacated positions and began firing down at a pocket of soldiers, now pinned by two lines of fire.
A dozen men piled into four Humvees and raced down the rugged dirt path to the base of the mountain, hoping to ease the enemy assault long enough to break the soldiers free. The frequency of the gunfire intensified, echoing across the valley in tidy snaps.
Twenty minutes later, the convoy reappeared, bringing with it the trapped soldiers, all alive. Taliban bullets whizzed through nearby fields, kicking up small clouds of dust.
As the men began loading into their vehicles to leave, the dormant village awakened. Muzzle flashes began to light up the dark mud windows, winging shots at the departing convoy until it was clear of the valley and on the road back to base.
President Karzai visits Farah, 2 rockets slam outside city
FARAH, Afghanistan, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai paid a visit to Farah city, the capital of Farah province, 695 km west of Kabul, on Monday to meet the families of the victims who lost their lives in massive Taliban attack last Wednesday, but the visit coincided with two rocket attacks, a local official confirmed.
"President Karzai visited Farah city to meet the families of the victims of Taliban attack in Farah city. However, before the meeting two rockets fired by militants slammed outside the city," spokesman for Farah's provincial administration, Abdul Rahman Zhawandoi, told Xinhua.
Both the rockets slammed some 4 km outside the provincial capital, causing no loss of life, he stressed.
In a massive Taliban attack in Farah city last Wednesday, more than 50 people, mostly civilians, were killed and over 100 others sustained injuries.
When meeting with the victims' families, the president, besides condemning the deadly offensive as coward terrorist act, assured that the government would continue to support those families who lost their bread earners in the attack.
Afghan soldiers enter a Taliban nest — without U.S. troops by their side
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff Monday, April 8, 2013
TANGI VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN - When the first Afghan soldiers arrived at the mouth of the Tangi Valley last week, they saw a Taliban flag waving over a towering bluff. They had entered a sliver of their own country that did not belong to them, beginning one of the most daunting missions in the short history of the Afghan army.
They climbed to the rocky peak and plucked the enemy’s flag from the ground. That’s when the first makeshift bomb exploded, a booby trap that blew the men off their feet and threw a plume of dust and smoke and fire into the air.
It was an early confirmation of what Afghan and U.S. troops already knew: The Tangi is not just another insurgent haven. According to many intelligence estimates, it is the most dangerous vein in the country’s eastern hinterlands, home to Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. It is the site of the deadliest attack endured by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and one of the biggest staging grounds for assaults on Kabul, just 60 miles away.
But what was the Afghan army doing there? Its last base in the Tangi had been abandoned and overrun by insurgents. The American military had given up on securing the valley two years earlier. Neither American nor Afghan military leaders thought Afghan security forces had the capacity to set up permanent positions there, deeming the Taliban’s sanctuary all but unshakable, regardless of the operation’s outcome.
In over a decade of war, the United States failed to destroy a patchwork of Taliban havens, leaving an untested Afghan army to either let those sanctuaries fester or make bold — but perhaps inconsequential — efforts to disturb them. As the Afghan military attempts to prove its own strength without American combat support, the Tangi appeared to be the perfect mission — a chance to do what the U.S. military could not.
For the 1,027 Afghan soldiers who entered the Tangi in early April, the threats would be unrelenting. By the time they left after four long days, more than 40 makeshift bombs had detonated. The valley was peppered with Taliban madrassas, they would learn, and homes from which fighters emerged firing machine guns and rockets. Clinics once funded by Western aid agencies had been emblazoned with Taliban slogans. Former U.S. bases had been rigged with land mines.
“Terrorists own the Tangi,” said Col. Sami Badakshani, the executive officer of the Afghan army’s 4th Brigade. “The American military left. The Afghan government left. Because of that negligence, it is like this.”
American troops were surprised to learn of the Afghan army’s plans just one day before the operation was due to start. They rushed to get air support and surveillance drones into the area, sending about a dozen advisers to an outpost overlooking the valley. But no U.S. soldiers would enter the Tangi. (A Washington Post reporter and photographer were the only Americans there.) The days of large-scale joint combat operations are over in Afghanistan, particularly in places where the U.S. military questions the long-term value of dangerous missions.
This time, the Afghan army, fledgling but ambitious, would be on its own — the first non-Taliban combatants to enter the valley in over two years.
‘IED alley’
The soldiers regrouped after the first explosion, which left them with only minor injuries. They were chastised by one of their battalion commanders. The men should have known better, said Col. Mohammed Daowood. The Taliban often attach makeshift bombs to flags, in case the enemy should attempt to remove them.
“These guys — what are they doing?” Daowood said. “We cannot lose this battle before it starts.”
The troops continued pouring into the narrow valley, with some walking along the ridgeline and others taking the main road — a key throughway between Wardak and Logar provinces, paved by Americans but untraversed because of the Taliban’s dominance. In 2009, the U.S. military dubbed it “IED alley.” In 2011, the Taliban shot down an American Chinook in the Tangi, killing 38 people, including 22 Navy SEALs, in the deadliest attack of the war.
Immediately, the first units began digging for explosive devices. The troops had none of the U.S. military’s sophisticated equipment. Their jammers, which disable remote-controlled bombs, were mostly broken. The men used their eyes and pickaxes and shovels, uncovering massive homemade mines every 15 feet and lifting them from the ground with bare hands.
One by one, they carried the mines away from the road and buried them in the ground before detonating them, shattering the windows of Tangi homes. Any of the explosive devices would have torn through the soft-skin Ford Rangers with which the Afghan army is outfitted.
The first minutes of the mission were cluttered with such markers of an invisible enemy — first the roadside bombs and then sniper fire that echoed across the valley. The Tangi is narrow enough to act as a rocky amphitheater, and the sounds of the clash thundered between mountains until it was unclear where the bullets were coming from.
By the time the first lobby of gunfire stopped, two soldiers were shot, one in the neck and one in the leg. Just before he passed out, the man shot in the neck screamed, “I am not scared of the Taliban!”
But the commanders disagreed about whether the soldiers were in fact shot by insurgents. Daowood said it was friendly fire — the product of disorganization and soldiers that, from a distance, mistook their allies for enemies. Another battalion commander screamed that it was a Taliban sniper firing from a perch above them.
While the two argued, more gunfire rang out. A bomb exploded. The issue still unresolved, the commanders continued further into the valley, their men scattering toward villages that almost certainly harbored more enemy fighters. They had not heard about the information contained in an American intelligence report delivered the previous night: 200 insurgents had snuck into the village, ostensibly to defend their sanctuary.
Disparities between Afghan and U.S. military doctrine could be seen everywhere. Daowood walked next to a man with a ski mask and oversize sunglasses covering his face. The man said he was a former Talib from the Tangi who accepted money from Daowood to work as an informant. No one in the unit had ever seen him before. Some worried he was a double agent.
He pointed to makeshift bombs that no one else saw, with wires that snaked toward distant trees so insurgents could trigger the devices without being seen.
When asked how he found them, he pulled down his bandanna and smiled. “I’m a professional,” he said.
Other commanders had their own spies who led them around the detritus of aid efforts usurped by the Taliban: bridges built with U.S. funds, a clinic funded by the Swedish Committee, a mosque built by the government of Kuwait.
For the soldiers, it was like discovering a lost world in which the Taliban’s shadow government finally took physical shape. In between firefights, they took photos of each other standing in front of Taliban buildings, straddling motorcycles that belonged to suspected insurgent commanders.
The tempo picked up quickly as they continued into the valley. The soldiers burst through doors and into small markets where men sat quietly and waited to be questioned.
“What are you doing here?” Sgt. Falak Naaz said. “What does your father do? Do you know where the Taliban commanders are?”
Almost all of the men shrugged. They were farmers, they said, or shopkeepers. They did not know any Talibs. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s alternate title, “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” was scrawled over everything. A Taliban madrassa included piles of paperwork from the insurgency’s own education department, including a mandate that students keep their beards long.
The Afghan commanders knew they were being lied to.
“When they see us, they put down their guns and pick up shovels and tell us they are farmers,” Daowood said. “Then they pick up their guns again.”
When the battalion entered the village of Hassankhel, gunfire came from all directions. On the ridgeline, there was no Afghan army presence to support the soldiers fighting in the village.
“Where’s our cover? These soldiers are lazy and scared. Where is their commander!?” Daowood screamed.
When the firefight ended, two soldiers carried a lieutenant, Mustafa, from one of the mud-brick village homes. He was shot in the stomach and bleeding badly. His platoon commander, Capt. Rahim Sadeq, looked around frantically. The Afghan army’s medevac capacity is notoriously underdeveloped. Out of desperation, the platoon commander asked a Post reporter to call for an American helicopter. (He had no such ability.)
Instead, the soldiers stole a wheelbarrow from a local farmer and lifted Lt. Mustafa into it. They raced out of the valley. What happened next confused American and Afghan troops involved in the Tangi operation. U.S. forces agreed to loan the Afghans a helicopter for the medevac, but after 40 minutes of waiting, as Mustafa bled, the Afghan Defense Ministry denied the request.
“It was baffling,” said one U.S. adviser.
Mustafa, who like many Afghans uses only one name, made it to a Kabul hospital by road. He is recovering. But the frustration of being abandoned without air medevac has taken its toll on the Afghan army. Last month, a soldier in Wardak waited 24 hours for an air medevac. He bled to death.
“We had to watch a man die for no reason,” said Gen. Abdul Raziq, the 4th Brigade commander.
As Mustafa was wheeled away, the soldiers gathered about 20 suspected insurgents. The soldiers punched them on the back and slapped them in the face. The two main suspects were blindfolded and handcuffed using pieces of a scarf.
“You are tools of Pakistan!” one soldier screamed.
“You are worthless Talibs,” said another.
The men stood for 20 minutes waiting for their punishment.
Daowood launched into an impassioned speech. For a long time, it remained unclear whether the men would be beaten, released or detained.
“There are no Americans here, just Muslims. Why did you shoot our Muslim soldier?” he asked.
There was no response. Then Daowood abruptly shooed all the men away, including the two who had been in the same house as Mustafa’s shooter, who apparently fled.
Another battalion took a different approach with a suspect they apprehended during a firefight, parading the slow-talking, shifty-eyed man named Wazir around the Tangi in handcuffs. Then they drove him to the operation headquarters outside the valley, where American advisers and Afghan officers gawked at him.
A few U.S. soldiers snapped photos of the man, with his bloodstained shirt, and were immediately reprimanded. It was the closest they would get to the battle.
“You are violating coalition policy!” screamed Lt. Col. John Allen. “Turn in your cameras.”
The Americans, heads down, handed over their digital cameras. The Afghans continued tugging at the detainee’s beard and asking him questions he did not understand or pretended not to hear.
‘The Taliban will be back’
By the third day, insurgent opposition had mostly faded. Soldiers were still uprooting makeshift bombs, but none had detonated under their vehicles. All of the wounded looked as if they would survive. The mood grew increasingly buoyant.
Daowood’s battalion surged further into the valley in their pickups, racing over a road that had not yet been checked for mines. Soldiers charged into a house they said belonged to a Taliban commander and made themselves tea. They lay their findings on the grass: rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and several Afghan army uniforms that could be used for sneaking into the enemy’s ranks.
For the first time in more than two years, they saw their old outpost that had been overrun. The Taliban had shot a video of dozens of fighters entering the base on motorcycles, waving Kalashnikovs in the air. On this day, though, the streets were quiet. Just one old man shuffled toward the troops and berated them as they made their way toward the outpost.
“You invited everyone here — the Americans, the Europeans,” he said. “It’s a betrayal.”
The Afghan troops responded as they did all week. The Americans are gone. Blaming foreign intruders no longer made sense.
“This is an Afghan mission,” Sadeq said.
The soldiers walked into an old USAID-funded clinic, where, amid the celebration, one local man whispered his thoughts about the futility of the Afghan National Army operation.
“It doesn’t matter if the Taliban or the ANA is here. They are both good with us,” he said, before pausing. “The Taliban will be back.”
Afghan soldiers knew that to be true, too.
During the peak of the U.S. military surge here, American commanders pushed into Taliban strongholds and stayed there. But the Afghans do not have the money or manpower to set up a string of new outposts in the Tangi. In Wardak, the lack of U.S. support is a function not just of the American drawdown but also of President Hamid Karzai’s demand this year that U.S. Special Forces troops leave the province after locals accused them of torture.
Before packing their bags, the Afghan soldiers watched many of the men who they had briefly detained strolling around the villages of Tangi.
“They’re all Talibs,” said Naaz, the sergeant, scowling at the men.
“They know we will leave,” said Badakshani, the executive officer.
After the sunset Thursday, the Afghan soldiers poured out of the valley. Some of the soldiers carried souvenirs from their trip into the Tangi. One man stole a bandage from a confiscated Taliban medical kit and used it to wrap a bleeding finger. The American advisers left the small shipping container from which they had been tracking their advisees’ progress.
Twelve hours later, according to locals in the Tangi, the Taliban reemerged.
About 200 to 300 insurgents returned from nearby villages, they said. Some merely stepped out of the homes in which they had been hiding. Many of them carried Kalashnikovs in public view. Taliban officials denied that the Afghan operation had changed anything, saying the valley would remain under their power forever.
“The Afghan and American soldiers were not able to establish their control in the past 12 years in any part of the valley,” said Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf. “Their presence on the road was temporary. . . . They cannot keep their forces there for long.”
Mohammed Sharif contributed to this report.
Roadside Bomb Kills 9 in Afghanistan
VOA News April 8, 2013
A roadside bomb in Afghanistan exploded under a bus Monday, killing nine people and wounding at least 22 others.
Local officials reported the blast occurred in Wardak province as the bus traveled from Ghazni province to the capital, Kabul. The officials say they suspect Taliban militants are responsible.
On Sunday, Afghan officials said a coalition air strike killed 11 civilians, including 10 children, in the eastern part of the country during a joint Afghan-NATO operation against the Taliban.
Afghans involvement in Syria war to be investigated: Mosazai
Khaama Press By Meena Haseeb 08 Apr 2013
Afghan foreign ministry officials announced to launch an investigation in connection to involvement of Afghan nationals in Syria war.
The officials further added that recent reports suggest involvement and casualties of Afghans in Syria and an investigation will be launched in this regard through Afghan embassy in Jordan.
Foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai while speaking during a press conference on Sunday said that several of Afghans were reportedly sent by Iran to Syria and a number of them were also reportedly killed.
Mr. Mosazai further added that the Afghan foreign ministry has received in reports in this regard and an investigation will be launched in the near future.
He said, “There are two issues including media reports which we have received. We are in contact with our embassy in Jordan to contact with the Syrian officials and other middle eastern countries to clarify the situation. We do not have embassy in Syria and therefore the probe will be done through Jordan embassy.”
Mosazai also added that a number of Afghans had traveled to Syria around 100 years back or during the past three decades.
In the meantime Radio Free Europe (RFE) says that they have achieved a video which shows the dead bodies of Syria soldiers including an Afghan citizen in Syrian military uniform.
Syria armed opposition forces are claiming that the dead bodies belong to Iran however an Afghan identity card can be seen with one of the victim.
The deceased individual has been recognized as Safar Mohammad son of Khan Ali and is the resident of northern Balkh province of Afghanistan.
Political observers in the meantime believe that Iran has sent Afghans to support Syrian government forces since Iran is supporting the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar ul Asad.
U.S. diplomat died 'doing what she loved' in Afghanistan
CNN By Catherine E. Shoichet April 7, 2013
Anne Smedinghoff lived inside a heavily secured compound.
But the public diplomacy officer for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul was always pushing to get out.
"We thought she was relatively safe in the embassy compound, but as it turned out, Anne really wanted to do a lot more," her father, Tom Smedinghoff, told CNN on Sunday.
"She was always finding projects and assignments that took her outside to the various provinces within and around Afghanistan, and that was what she wanted to do. That was what really drove her."
He said his daughter relished the opportunity to work directly with the Afghan people and that she volunteered to go to Kabul because she felt there was "a lot of good she could do there."
This weekend, the 25-year-old was trying to do just that -- delivering books to a school in southern Afghanistan -- when a suicide bomber smashed into her convoy Saturday. She is believed to be the first U.S. diplomat killed since the September attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Her death was a grim reminder of the risks and importance of pushing for change in "one of the toughest places on earth," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday.
It was an "extraordinary, harsh contradiction," Kerry said, to see an attacker kill "a young, 25-year-old woman with all of the future ahead of her, believing in the possibilities of diplomacy, of changing people's lives, of making a difference, having an impact, who was taking knowledge in books to deliver them to a school."
Officials did not say who they believe was behind the blast. But Kerry offered a sharp condemnation of the violence as he spoke Sunday to U.S. diplomats stationed in Istanbul.
"The folks who want to kill people, and that's all they want to do, are scared of knowledge. And they want to shut the doors and they don't want people to make their choices about the future. For them, it's 'You do things my way and if you don't, we'll throw acid in your face. We'll put a bullet in your face,' to a young girl trying to learn," Kerry said. "So this is a huge challenge for us. It is a confrontation with modernity, with possibilities, and everything that our country stands for, everything we stand for, is embodied in what Anne Smedinghoff stood for."
Friend: 'She pushed you to be better'
Smedinghoff graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2009 with a degree in international relations and joined the Foreign Service soon afterward.
"I remember how excited she was when she got in and started her training. She would always talk about it, because she was one of those natural leaders," said Christopher Louie, 26, a close friend who first met Smedinghoff in college. "When she was passionate about something, she would let everyone know. ... You could just tell when she got in the Foreign Service, she saw that this was her opportunity to make a big impact on the world."
And her enthusiasm was infectious, said Louie, a medical filmmaker in Washington who recently vacationed with Smedinghoff in Jordan.
"She always got people interested in what she was involved in. ... Whenever I knew I was going to see her, I'd always make sure I was brushed up on foreign affairs. She was one of those people, you didn't want to let her down," he said. "She pushed you to be better."
It was clear that "there was no better place for her" than the Foreign Service, her parents, Tom and Mary Beth Smedinghoff, said in a written statement.
After a tour of duty in Caracas, Venezuela, Smedinghoff volunteered for an assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and had been working there since July, her parents said.
"We are consoled knowing that she was doing what she loved, and that she was serving her country by helping to make a positive difference in the world," they said.
Before she joined the State Department, Smedinghoff served on the board of directors for the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults' 4K for Cancer program, spending a summer cycling across the United States to raise money and awareness.
"Anne was an incredibly optimistic, fearless, and giving person," said Ryan Hanley, the program's founder
"We mourn a life cut short," he said Sunday, "but are blessed to have shared in it."
Father: 'I think she really enjoyed the challenge'
Smedinghoff's Facebook profile gives a glimpse of her life in Afghanistan. One photo shows a group skiing in the Afghan mountains. Another shows her standing behind a lectern at the embassy, surrounded by American flags. Another, titled "Helicoptering around Helmand," shows a smiling Smedinghoff sitting beside men in camouflage, wearing a helmet and a flak jacket.
"I think she really enjoyed the challenge. She really enjoyed the opportunity to work with the local people in the community," her father told CNN.
He said she did a lot of public outreach work, helping to organize educational efforts in schools and working with women's groups to promote equality.
Tom Smedinghoff spoke to on his way to Dover Air Force Base, where his daughter's body is expected to arrive on Monday.
On Easter, her father told the Chicago Tribune, she excitedly talked about Kerry's recent visit.
"She sounded so upbeat and so positive and so excited about all the work she'd been doing," he said.
Kerry was emotional Sunday as he spoke of Smedinghoff's death. He said that they met two weeks ago when he visited Afghanistan.
"I remember her -- vivacious, smart, capable, chosen often by the ambassador there to be the lead person because of her capabilities," he said.
Neighbor: 'She had candle power'
Residents in the River Forest, Illinois, neighborhood where the Smedinghoff family lives said they were devastated by the news.
"Anne Smedinghoff was one of those rare people who, you were lucky if you were near her. She had candle power," one neighbor told CNN affiliate WGN. "She brightened everyone's life."
Katie Whiting, whose sister was Smedinghoff's best friend, told the CNN affiliate that the "beautiful and brave" diplomat was doing her dream job.
"The world has really lost somebody who was going to do a lot of good things. ... Every dangerous place she wanted to go there, because that's where the hard work was," Whiting said.
In Smedinghoff's memory, CNN affiliate WBBM reported, American flags lined the road near her family's home on Sunday.
A large photograph she posted on her Facebook profile less than three weeks ago shows another road on the other side of the world, lined with Afghan flags.
CNN's John Branch and Rick Martin contributed to this report.
16 militants killed in Afghanistan in last 24 hours
KABUL, April 8 (Xinhua) -- A total of 16 militants have been killed in separate operations across Afghanistan, authorities said Monday.
"Afghan National Police (ALP) supported by the army and the NATO-led coalition forces launched several cleanup operations in Kunar, Nangarhar, Kapisa, Jawzjan, Kandahar, Zabul, Wardak, Ghazni, Paktya and Helmand provinces over the last 24 hours. As a result 12 armed Taliban insurgents were killed and one armed insurgent was wounded," the country's Interior Ministry said in a statement.
In addition, four militants were killed and five others were arrested when the joint forces conducted a search operation in Shiram area of Sari Pul, capital city of northern Sari Pul province overnight, the provincial police chief Abdul Raoof Taj told Xinhua Monday.
The security forces have recently intensified operations across the country as spring and summer known as the fighting season is drawing near.
The Taliban insurgent group, which is fighting an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments.
Chinese Confucius Institute re-opens in Afghanistan
Xinhua April 7, 2013
KABUL - 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.
Afghanistan strongly condemn use of civilians as human shield
By SADAF SHINWARI - 08 Apr 2013, 2:45 pm Khaama Press
The Afghan government strongly condemned ordinary Afghan civilians being used the human shield during military operations.
Officials in Afghan presidential palace (ARG) warned that civilian casualties during military operations will harm Afghan peace process with the militant groups.
Afghan president deputy spokesperson Adila Raz on Monday said, “The government of Afghanistan strongly condemn the use of civilians as human shields and reiterates that such actions will harm stability and Afghan peace process.”
This comes as at least 26 people including 11 Afghan kids were killed during a joint military operation by Afghan and coalition security forces in Shegal district of eastern Kunar province on Saturday.
According to reports president Hamid Karzai has appointed a delegation to visit the area and inspect the incident.
The Nato-led coalition confirmed it was investigating the allegation and that it had used aircraft in the area to support a force of Afghan and foreign troops.
The fighting in Kunar on Saturday also led to the death of a US civilian adviser. An Afghan security official in the area said the joint operation had been launched after intelligence reports showed that hundreds of Taliban militants were massing in the area.
Karzai Orders Faster Review of Bagram Prisoner Cases
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Sunday, 07 April 2013
President Hamid Karzai has ordered the investigations into the individual cases of prisoners held at Bagram detention centre to be done more quickly and that those without lawyers to be given lawyers, the attorney general's office said Sunday.
Since the Afghan government was handed control of most of Bagram prison in September, 1,376 prisoners have been released. However, Karzai is said to be seeking a quicker review of the remaining prisoners, including those handed over by US military in March.
A new committee made up of Afghanistan's judicial organs has been delegated to oversee the investigations. The supreme court will trial those who are charged as criminals and free those who are found to be without grounds for imprisonment,
"Serious investigations into the cases of the Bagram prisoners are ongoing. As many as 1,376 of these prisoners have been released [since September]," said Abdulbasir Aziz, spokesman of the attorney general's office.
Karzai's order, however, has been criticised by analysts who warn that hasty acts by the judiciary and the president will be of no benefit to Afghanistan.
"The president wants to have the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Pakistan, and his tribe closer to himself by releasing these prisoners," said political lecturer at Kabul University Faizullah Jalal. "We have constantly seen that many of the Taliban who have been released join the group again and run suicide attacks," he added.
There is little information available on most of the prisoners who have been released already.
Karzai Dismisses APPF Deputy Jamil Junbish
TOLOnews.com By Karim Amini Sunday, 07 April 2013
The deputy head of the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF) has been dismissed by President Hamid Karzai over claims that he allowed some private security companies to rearm after their weapons had been confiscated.
Afghanistan's presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi told TOLOnews on Sunday that Karzai dismissed deputy minister Jamil Junbish for disobeying a presidential decree regarding the distribution of armaments to the companies.
"[Junbish's] dismissal was because a number of companies that were previously banned and had their armaments collected by the interior ministry were given armaments again," Faizi said in a telephone interview.
"The responsibility was on a person from the interior ministry and the decision was eventually made [to dismiss Junbish]," he said.
Faizi rejected rumours that Junbish's dismissal was partly because of pressure from other government staff, particularly first vice president Mohammad Fahim Qasim.
"You saw that the deputy minister for security travelled to the provinces and banned all those [private security] companies on the highways that had caused security problems in some provinces... and their weapons were collected by the interior ministry.
"The deputy interior minister for security himself had travelled to the provinces but eventually another official of the interior ministry distributed armaments to some of the private companies. This act was carried out against the law, and against the president's decision and decree, the programme by the Afghan government for banning them. The act was made against all these decisions and that is why the dismissal was made," Faizi said.
Junbish was installed as APPF deputy minister on October 6.
Donors Not Providing Funds as Pledged: Finance Ministry
TOLOnews.com By Zabihullah Jhanmal Sunday, 07 April 2013
Almost 20 percent of foreign donors delivered less funds than they pledged to Afghanistan last year, impacting development plans across the country, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) said Sunday.
MOF spokesman Wahidullah Tawhidi called on donors to be realistic in their pledges and ensure the funds are distributed.
"This issue was not only of last year but a number of donors have not been committed to their funds since the very beginning, an act which has caused some of the projects be left half done," Tawhidi said.
MoF figures show that Pakistan, Brunei, and Portugal have not met last year's written commitment in amounts of $50 million, $40 million, and $10 million respectively.
According to the MoF, other countries and organisations which have not met their funding pledges over the years include the European Union, Germany, India, Australia, Norway, Italy, Iran, France, Turkey, Spain, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Belgium, Poland, Ireland, Luxemburg, Hungary, Greece, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Islamic Development Bank.
Those that have consistently provided funds as pledged are Japan, England, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Kuwait, Lithuania, Austria, Singapore, Estonia, and the Aga Khan Development Network.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) also asked donors to honour their commitments.
"Based on the conclusions of the international conferences on Afghanistan, we call on the donors to be sincere in putting into practice their commitments," said MOFA spokesman Janan Mosazai on Sunday.
Statistics supplied by the MoF show that of the $8 billion committed by donors in Persian year 1391 (March 2011 to March 2012), less than $7 billion was provided.
Kapisa Provincial Council Member Arrested for Insurgent Links
TOLOnews.com By Azim Arash Sunday, 07 April 2013
A member of the provincial council of eastern Kapisa province has been arrested by Afghan security forces for his links to insurgents, local officials said Sunday.
Najibullah Rahimi was arrested by security forces on Friday while he was at home on suspicions that he was distributing large amounts of money to people who have not been identified, the provincial council chief Mohammad Hussian Sanjani told TOLOnews.
"I have information that Najibullah Rahimi was arrested at his home and the forces also sized seven Kalashnikovs, several grenades and some money during the raid," Sanjani said.
"The police have started investigating him. He is a member of the council and he shouldn't have much weapons at his home," he added.
On Sunday, some of Rahimi's supporters took to the streets to demand his release.
The demonstrators said that his arrest was "unfair and he should be released as soon as possible."
"If the government will not release him we will block all the streets and the shops in the district," one of the protestors said.
Kapisa provincial governor Mehrabuddin Safi confirmed that Rahimi was arrested based on "information received by the security forces and he is under investigation."
Private School Curriculums Contradict Govt System: Senate
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 07 April 2013
Afghan senators Sunday deplored the state of the education system in Afghanistan, calling on the Minister of Education to implement past decrees aimed at protecting the curriculum.
Education minister Farouq Wardak was summoned before the Senate on Sunday where he was questioned him over the lack of consistency between the curriculums of the private and government schools.
The senators also suggested that there was corruption within the ministry's secondary education department which needed to be addressed.
However, Wardak insisted that the education system has made some impressive achievements in the past 11 years.
Senator Lailama Ahmadi asked Wardak about a decree which had banned school texts from neighbouring countries, saying that some private schools are still using such texts.
"The education ministry should have implemented a decree one year ago which banned books from neighbouring countries from being taught but unfortunately Kabul's education department has permitted teaching from them," she said.
Senator Mahmood Daneshjoo explained: "This decree was meant to be implemented a year ago. It says that the violation of [curriculum] laws should be stopped, but it's not being implemented yet.
"On the day [the decree was to be enacted], a number of MPs went to the education minister's home and asked for a cancellation of the decree, and the minister verbally accepted the cancellation," Daneshjoo added.
Senator Aziza Musleh pointed out that there was a textbook shortage, saying there is generally only one book for every five students in some schools.
Wardak acknowledged the concerns and said that he is making an effort to resolve these challenges within the education system, while reminding them of the system's achievements.
AISA Investment Offer Attracts Investors
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Sunday, 07 April 2013
The Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA) has issued up to 100 investment licenses for the next two years to new investors with the most popular investment sectors being agriculture, industry, and mines.
AISA chief Wafiullah Aftakhar on Saturday said that the fresh investment interest comes on the back of a bold new plan to attract investors, including offering tax exemptions and free land.
"About 80 to 100 investors have been issued license in the fields of agriculture and mines and have already started to work," Aftakhar said. "This is encouraging for future investors."
According to Aftakhar, the new AISA offer - which is still to be approved by the government - gives free land, zero tariffs on raw materials, and tax exemptions for the next decade to those who invest $1 million or more the next two years.
Aftakhar said he is hopeful that the offer will be approved soon by the government.
The office the administrative affairs said that the draft is pending approval from the Council of Ministers.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
The Associated Press By ROBERT BURNS April 07, 2013
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan - The United States accepts that a diminished but resilient Taliban is likely to remain a military threat in some parts of Afghanistan long after U.S. troops complete their combat mission next year, the top U.S. military officer said Sunday.
In an Associated Press interview at this air field north of Kabul, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he is cautiously optimistic that the Afghan army will hold its own against the insurgency as Western troops pull back and Afghans assume the lead combat role. He said that by May or June, the Afghans will be in the lead throughout the country.
Asked whether some parts of the country will remain contested by the Taliban, he replied, "Yes, of course there will be."
"And if we were having this conversation 10 years from now, I suspect there would (still) be contested areas because the history of Afghanistan suggests that there will always be contested areas," he said.
He and other U.S. commanders have said that ultimately the Afghans must reach some sort of political accommodation with the insurgents, and that a reconciliation process needs to be led by Afghans, not Americans. Thus the No. 1 priority for the U.S. military in its final months of combat in Afghanistan is to do all that is possible to boost the strength and confidence of Afghan forces.
Shortly after Dempsey arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday, the Taliban demonstrated its ability to strike.
It claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed five Americans — three soldiers and two civilians, including Anne Smedinghoff, a foreign service officer and the first American diplomat killed overseas since the terrorist attack Sept. 11 in Benghazi, Libya.
A fierce battle between U.S.-backed Afghan forces and Taliban militants in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan left nearly 20 people dead, including 11 Afghan children killed in an airstrike, Afghan officials said Sunday.
There are now about 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. That number is to drop to about 32,000 by February 2014, and the combat mission is to end in December 2014. Whether some number — perhaps 9,000 or 10,000 — remain into 2015 as military trainers and counterinsurgents is yet to be decided.
Dempsey spent two days talking to senior Afghan officials, including his counterpart, Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, as well as top U.S. and allied commanders.
He also visited a U.S. base in the volatile eastern province of Paktika for an update on how U.S. troops are balancing the twin missions of advising Afghan forces and withdrawing tons of U.S. equipment as the war effort winds down.
Paktika is an example of a sector of Afghanistan that is likely to face Taliban resistance for years to come.
Bordering areas of Pakistan that provide haven for the Taliban and its affiliated Haqqani network, Paktika has been among the more important insurgent avenues into the Afghan interior.
While the province has a functioning government, Taliban influence remains significant in less populated areas, as it has since U.S. forces first invaded the country more than 11 years ago.
"There will be contested areas, and it will be the Afghans' choice whether to allow those contested areas to persist, or, when necessary, take action to exert themselves into those contested area," he said.
Dempsey said he is encouraged by the recent development of coordination centers, including one in Paktika, where a wide range of Afghan government agencies work together on security issues. He called it a "quilt" of government structures that links Kabul, the capital, to ordinary Afghans in distant villages.
In some parts of the country, Afghan villagers have shown their dissatisfaction with Taliban influence by taking up arms against the insurgents, even without being pushed by the U.S. or by Kabul. This has happened in recent weeks in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, a traditional stronghold of the Taliban. The Andar district of Ghazni province has seen a similar uprising.
"We should encourage it, but we shouldn't be seen as hijacking" these local movements, he said.
Dempsey said he discussed the uprisings with Karimi, the army chief, and the Afghan defense minister, Bismullah Khan Mohammadi. They told him they "appreciated that they should allow this to occur (and) they should probably nurture it. They don't necessarily feel at this point as if they should tangibly support it."
The Afghan government's concern, Dempsey said, is that influential warlords could embrace these local movements and eventually leverage them to threaten the armed forces of the central government.
In a separate interview Sunday with al-Hurra, the Arabic-language satellite TV channel funded by the U.S. government, Dempsey was asked whether he worries that Syria, in the midst of a civil war, could become another Afghanistan.
"I do. I have grave concerns that Syria could become an extended conflict" that drags on for many years, he said.
Afghan Leader Condemns Latest Civilian Casualties
April 8, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has condemned the killing of 11 children in a NATO air strike in eastern Afghanistan.
The children were reported killed during a joint Afghan-NATO operation against Taliban fighters in the Shigal district of restive Konar Province bordering Pakistan late on April 6.
Associated Press photos showed villagers gathered for the funerals of the children, whose bodies were wrapped in blankets.
In a statement issued by his office on April 7, Karzai said he condemned operations in populated areas that result in civilian casualties and he condemned the Taliban for using civilians as shields.
The death of Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire has strained relations between Karzai's government and the coalition. Ealier this year, Karzai banned his troops from calling in coalition air strikes.
There were conflicting figures on the number killed, but Karzai's office later said 11 people were killed -- all of them children -- and six women were wounded.
Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said six Taliban militants had also been killed in the joint operation, including two senior commanders.
The U.S.-led coalition said it was aware of reports of civilian casualties and was looking into them.
Based on reporting by AP, AFP and dpa
With Swagger, Afghan Army Takes the Lead
New York Times By AZAM AHMED April 7, 2013
DAMDARA, Afghanistan - Through the crackle of the hand radio, the Taliban fighter could be heard screaming at his comrades, berating them to strike from their mountain hide-outs and kill the infidel forces gathered nearby.
A burly Afghan Border Police commander, eavesdropping on the enemy’s open-channel communication, chuckled and decided to stir things up. “If you are a man, you don’t need to yell,” the commander spoke into his radio, as a circle of Afghan Army soldiers giggled. “Why don’t you come out, you thief, and fight us face to face? What cave are you hiding in?”
Startled, the insurgent on the other end blurted: “I’m strong with the love of God! I’m going to heaven.”
“Donkeys don’t go to heaven, usually,” the commander replied, stroking his henna-dyed beard, eliciting another round of laughs.
As Afghans begin taking the lead from American forces this year, each mission the new Afghan National Army takes on will be a step toward answering critical questions about the country’s fate. Can Afghan forces effectively fight the Taliban after the Americans are gone? And can they gain the support of local leaders and populations who are so critical to that fight?
The challenges were highlighted over the weekend by a sprawling and drawn-out battle between Afghan forces and a Taliban stronghold, an indication that the fighting season had begun again in earnest. The battle ended only after nearby American forces called in an airstrike on the Taliban commander’s home, killing him and a number of civilians, including at least 10 children.
A recent week with a well-regarded Afghan Army unit in Kunar Province showed marked differences from the American way of war. While the unit generally acquitted itself well in combat, logistical and political challenges were evident. The operation in Kunar was characterized by Afghan and American military commanders as one of the biggest of its kind in the area: a search-and-clear mission centered on the village of Damdara in Ganjgal Valley, a notorious Taliban stronghold where an insurgent ambush killed nine Afghans and four of their American Marine advisers in 2009. This time, no Americans would be in sight at any stage.
Instead, the Second Brigade of the Afghan 201st Corps, considered one of the army’s best units, was leading the charge. Army commanders coordinated with multiple police and intelligence agencies, as well as Afghan civilian officials, spending nearly a week conducting reconnaissance and drawing up elaborate terrain models to prepare for the mission.
The terrain would play a major role this day. Ganjgal Valley is picturesque, but treacherous, with high ridges arrayed in a horseshoe around the village, perfect for shielding ambushes. Cut into the hills that lead up to the mountains are terraced fields, dry and brittle with small green shoots peeking through the soil. Stones cover the base of the valley like the bed of a river.
More than 350 Afghan security force members gathered around the perimeter, some given the task of searching the village for fighters and weapons, other assigned to the ridges to confront any ambushes at eye level.
They did not have to wait long. The forces in the heights came under fire almost immediately from an opposing ridgeline northwest of the village — the one vantage point the army did not control. Dozens of fighters were firing.
Soldiers responded with vehicle-mounted guns. A team shot artillery onto the insurgent mountainside with mixed accuracy, sending up plumes of smoke into the clear sky. The rhythm of a long-range battle took hold, the shots less frequent as each side squinted to find enemies on ridges about a half-mile apart.
It was during this impasse that the war of words erupted into the Taliban’s radio patter. As Afghan soldiers drew around to listen, the conversation between the two enemies grew even more insulting and acrimonious.
The insurgent called the commander “a slave of the infidels.”
“You didn’t even have pants on when I was a good Muslim and mujahid,” the commander replied. “You are a slave of the Punjabis,” he added, referencing Pakistani support for the Taliban. “Where did you get your ammunition, you donkey? Do you have a bullet factory up there?”
As the day wore on, a line of villagers snaked through the valley toward a meeting with assembled Afghan government officials.
The district governor, Mohammad Hanif Khairkhwa, apologized for bothering them and asked whether the Afghan forces had mistreated anyone. The villagers, resting on their haunches and wrapped in earth-tone shawls, said they had not.
The government had tried before to draw support away from the Taliban here, with only modest success. Now, in making his case, Mr. Khairkhwa drew on their similarities, speaking Afghan to Afghan while turning the absence of American forces into a new chance for cooperation.
“We are from the same country, the same region, we speak the same language and share the same faith,” he said. “Do you see any foreigners here? It’s just us.”
Promising that Afghan forces would be visiting the valley again, the governor left them with a warning: “Tell the insurgents, ‘Don’t shoot from my house.’ Tell them, ‘Don’t lay mines near my house.’ If you do not, then next time, you cannot complain about what happens.”
The villagers trekked back to the village, a series of mud homes seemingly carved into the earth.
An old man with deep blue eyes and a wispy white beard began muttering under his breath as he hobbled off. “If the government people bother us, they will be held accountable by God,” he said.
Overhearing the comment, one intelligence official shouted back: “You think we are bothering you? Who do you think is shooting at us every day? If you shoot one of us, God will send you to hell.”
Farther down the valley, a row of Humvees near the front of the fight belted streams of bullets into the enemy-held mountainside. A Taliban sniper hiding in the dense forest above fired single shots back at the troops on the valley’s floor. The village remained dormant.
“They shoot at us like thieves, so we have to shoot back with force,” said Sgt. Hedyatullah Tanha, 22, a platoon commander. “If we don’t return fire they will have a long period of time to line up another shot.”
Capt. Wahidullah Atifi, a company commander, said constant fighting had sharpened his men, while armored vehicles and extra training had bolstered their confidence.
“The only bad habit my unit has is that they respond to a single shot with a volley of bullets,” he said.
Amid the clamor of gunshots, Captain Atifi’s cellphone rang. A senior commander urged him to keep his men from shooting so much.
Captain Atifi shrugged and then sounded a note growing more common among Afghan commanders as they ponder future battles without American air support: “If we had an attack helicopter,” he said, “the fight would be over.”
In reality, if things had gone smoothly, the fight may never have happened in the first place. The army battalion commander had squashed earlier plans for a special unit to take the ridge that later became the Taliban stronghold.
Communication proved to be an obstacle, too. The patchwork of Afghan forces, including border, national and local police, were using different radios, inhibiting communication. To compensate, everyone used cellphones.
By 1:30 p.m., the search of the village concluded, turning up a handful of .50-caliber shells plucked from the floor of an old man’s home.
Soldiers began to trail down from the village. As planned, those along the ridgeline began to collapse their positions and make their way down the mountain, covering one another’s exits. After hours of sporadic fighting, all were alive and accounted for, officers said.
Then, a stutter of gunfire erupted as the Taliban exploited their vulnerability.
Soon after the soldiers abandoned high ground, insurgents slipped into the vacated positions and began firing down at a pocket of soldiers, now pinned by two lines of fire.
A dozen men piled into four Humvees and raced down the rugged dirt path to the base of the mountain, hoping to ease the enemy assault long enough to break the soldiers free. The frequency of the gunfire intensified, echoing across the valley in tidy snaps.
Twenty minutes later, the convoy reappeared, bringing with it the trapped soldiers, all alive. Taliban bullets whizzed through nearby fields, kicking up small clouds of dust.
As the men began loading into their vehicles to leave, the dormant village awakened. Muzzle flashes began to light up the dark mud windows, winging shots at the departing convoy until it was clear of the valley and on the road back to base.
President Karzai visits Farah, 2 rockets slam outside city
FARAH, Afghanistan, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai paid a visit to Farah city, the capital of Farah province, 695 km west of Kabul, on Monday to meet the families of the victims who lost their lives in massive Taliban attack last Wednesday, but the visit coincided with two rocket attacks, a local official confirmed.
"President Karzai visited Farah city to meet the families of the victims of Taliban attack in Farah city. However, before the meeting two rockets fired by militants slammed outside the city," spokesman for Farah's provincial administration, Abdul Rahman Zhawandoi, told Xinhua.
Both the rockets slammed some 4 km outside the provincial capital, causing no loss of life, he stressed.
In a massive Taliban attack in Farah city last Wednesday, more than 50 people, mostly civilians, were killed and over 100 others sustained injuries.
When meeting with the victims' families, the president, besides condemning the deadly offensive as coward terrorist act, assured that the government would continue to support those families who lost their bread earners in the attack.
Afghan soldiers enter a Taliban nest — without U.S. troops by their side
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff Monday, April 8, 2013
TANGI VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN - When the first Afghan soldiers arrived at the mouth of the Tangi Valley last week, they saw a Taliban flag waving over a towering bluff. They had entered a sliver of their own country that did not belong to them, beginning one of the most daunting missions in the short history of the Afghan army.
They climbed to the rocky peak and plucked the enemy’s flag from the ground. That’s when the first makeshift bomb exploded, a booby trap that blew the men off their feet and threw a plume of dust and smoke and fire into the air.
It was an early confirmation of what Afghan and U.S. troops already knew: The Tangi is not just another insurgent haven. According to many intelligence estimates, it is the most dangerous vein in the country’s eastern hinterlands, home to Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. It is the site of the deadliest attack endured by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and one of the biggest staging grounds for assaults on Kabul, just 60 miles away.
But what was the Afghan army doing there? Its last base in the Tangi had been abandoned and overrun by insurgents. The American military had given up on securing the valley two years earlier. Neither American nor Afghan military leaders thought Afghan security forces had the capacity to set up permanent positions there, deeming the Taliban’s sanctuary all but unshakable, regardless of the operation’s outcome.
In over a decade of war, the United States failed to destroy a patchwork of Taliban havens, leaving an untested Afghan army to either let those sanctuaries fester or make bold — but perhaps inconsequential — efforts to disturb them. As the Afghan military attempts to prove its own strength without American combat support, the Tangi appeared to be the perfect mission — a chance to do what the U.S. military could not.
For the 1,027 Afghan soldiers who entered the Tangi in early April, the threats would be unrelenting. By the time they left after four long days, more than 40 makeshift bombs had detonated. The valley was peppered with Taliban madrassas, they would learn, and homes from which fighters emerged firing machine guns and rockets. Clinics once funded by Western aid agencies had been emblazoned with Taliban slogans. Former U.S. bases had been rigged with land mines.
“Terrorists own the Tangi,” said Col. Sami Badakshani, the executive officer of the Afghan army’s 4th Brigade. “The American military left. The Afghan government left. Because of that negligence, it is like this.”
American troops were surprised to learn of the Afghan army’s plans just one day before the operation was due to start. They rushed to get air support and surveillance drones into the area, sending about a dozen advisers to an outpost overlooking the valley. But no U.S. soldiers would enter the Tangi. (A Washington Post reporter and photographer were the only Americans there.) The days of large-scale joint combat operations are over in Afghanistan, particularly in places where the U.S. military questions the long-term value of dangerous missions.
This time, the Afghan army, fledgling but ambitious, would be on its own — the first non-Taliban combatants to enter the valley in over two years.
‘IED alley’
The soldiers regrouped after the first explosion, which left them with only minor injuries. They were chastised by one of their battalion commanders. The men should have known better, said Col. Mohammed Daowood. The Taliban often attach makeshift bombs to flags, in case the enemy should attempt to remove them.
“These guys — what are they doing?” Daowood said. “We cannot lose this battle before it starts.”
The troops continued pouring into the narrow valley, with some walking along the ridgeline and others taking the main road — a key throughway between Wardak and Logar provinces, paved by Americans but untraversed because of the Taliban’s dominance. In 2009, the U.S. military dubbed it “IED alley.” In 2011, the Taliban shot down an American Chinook in the Tangi, killing 38 people, including 22 Navy SEALs, in the deadliest attack of the war.
Immediately, the first units began digging for explosive devices. The troops had none of the U.S. military’s sophisticated equipment. Their jammers, which disable remote-controlled bombs, were mostly broken. The men used their eyes and pickaxes and shovels, uncovering massive homemade mines every 15 feet and lifting them from the ground with bare hands.
One by one, they carried the mines away from the road and buried them in the ground before detonating them, shattering the windows of Tangi homes. Any of the explosive devices would have torn through the soft-skin Ford Rangers with which the Afghan army is outfitted.
The first minutes of the mission were cluttered with such markers of an invisible enemy — first the roadside bombs and then sniper fire that echoed across the valley. The Tangi is narrow enough to act as a rocky amphitheater, and the sounds of the clash thundered between mountains until it was unclear where the bullets were coming from.
By the time the first lobby of gunfire stopped, two soldiers were shot, one in the neck and one in the leg. Just before he passed out, the man shot in the neck screamed, “I am not scared of the Taliban!”
But the commanders disagreed about whether the soldiers were in fact shot by insurgents. Daowood said it was friendly fire — the product of disorganization and soldiers that, from a distance, mistook their allies for enemies. Another battalion commander screamed that it was a Taliban sniper firing from a perch above them.
While the two argued, more gunfire rang out. A bomb exploded. The issue still unresolved, the commanders continued further into the valley, their men scattering toward villages that almost certainly harbored more enemy fighters. They had not heard about the information contained in an American intelligence report delivered the previous night: 200 insurgents had snuck into the village, ostensibly to defend their sanctuary.
Disparities between Afghan and U.S. military doctrine could be seen everywhere. Daowood walked next to a man with a ski mask and oversize sunglasses covering his face. The man said he was a former Talib from the Tangi who accepted money from Daowood to work as an informant. No one in the unit had ever seen him before. Some worried he was a double agent.
He pointed to makeshift bombs that no one else saw, with wires that snaked toward distant trees so insurgents could trigger the devices without being seen.
When asked how he found them, he pulled down his bandanna and smiled. “I’m a professional,” he said.
Other commanders had their own spies who led them around the detritus of aid efforts usurped by the Taliban: bridges built with U.S. funds, a clinic funded by the Swedish Committee, a mosque built by the government of Kuwait.
For the soldiers, it was like discovering a lost world in which the Taliban’s shadow government finally took physical shape. In between firefights, they took photos of each other standing in front of Taliban buildings, straddling motorcycles that belonged to suspected insurgent commanders.
The tempo picked up quickly as they continued into the valley. The soldiers burst through doors and into small markets where men sat quietly and waited to be questioned.
“What are you doing here?” Sgt. Falak Naaz said. “What does your father do? Do you know where the Taliban commanders are?”
Almost all of the men shrugged. They were farmers, they said, or shopkeepers. They did not know any Talibs. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s alternate title, “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” was scrawled over everything. A Taliban madrassa included piles of paperwork from the insurgency’s own education department, including a mandate that students keep their beards long.
The Afghan commanders knew they were being lied to.
“When they see us, they put down their guns and pick up shovels and tell us they are farmers,” Daowood said. “Then they pick up their guns again.”
When the battalion entered the village of Hassankhel, gunfire came from all directions. On the ridgeline, there was no Afghan army presence to support the soldiers fighting in the village.
“Where’s our cover? These soldiers are lazy and scared. Where is their commander!?” Daowood screamed.
When the firefight ended, two soldiers carried a lieutenant, Mustafa, from one of the mud-brick village homes. He was shot in the stomach and bleeding badly. His platoon commander, Capt. Rahim Sadeq, looked around frantically. The Afghan army’s medevac capacity is notoriously underdeveloped. Out of desperation, the platoon commander asked a Post reporter to call for an American helicopter. (He had no such ability.)
Instead, the soldiers stole a wheelbarrow from a local farmer and lifted Lt. Mustafa into it. They raced out of the valley. What happened next confused American and Afghan troops involved in the Tangi operation. U.S. forces agreed to loan the Afghans a helicopter for the medevac, but after 40 minutes of waiting, as Mustafa bled, the Afghan Defense Ministry denied the request.
“It was baffling,” said one U.S. adviser.
Mustafa, who like many Afghans uses only one name, made it to a Kabul hospital by road. He is recovering. But the frustration of being abandoned without air medevac has taken its toll on the Afghan army. Last month, a soldier in Wardak waited 24 hours for an air medevac. He bled to death.
“We had to watch a man die for no reason,” said Gen. Abdul Raziq, the 4th Brigade commander.
As Mustafa was wheeled away, the soldiers gathered about 20 suspected insurgents. The soldiers punched them on the back and slapped them in the face. The two main suspects were blindfolded and handcuffed using pieces of a scarf.
“You are tools of Pakistan!” one soldier screamed.
“You are worthless Talibs,” said another.
The men stood for 20 minutes waiting for their punishment.
Daowood launched into an impassioned speech. For a long time, it remained unclear whether the men would be beaten, released or detained.
“There are no Americans here, just Muslims. Why did you shoot our Muslim soldier?” he asked.
There was no response. Then Daowood abruptly shooed all the men away, including the two who had been in the same house as Mustafa’s shooter, who apparently fled.
Another battalion took a different approach with a suspect they apprehended during a firefight, parading the slow-talking, shifty-eyed man named Wazir around the Tangi in handcuffs. Then they drove him to the operation headquarters outside the valley, where American advisers and Afghan officers gawked at him.
A few U.S. soldiers snapped photos of the man, with his bloodstained shirt, and were immediately reprimanded. It was the closest they would get to the battle.
“You are violating coalition policy!” screamed Lt. Col. John Allen. “Turn in your cameras.”
The Americans, heads down, handed over their digital cameras. The Afghans continued tugging at the detainee’s beard and asking him questions he did not understand or pretended not to hear.
‘The Taliban will be back’
By the third day, insurgent opposition had mostly faded. Soldiers were still uprooting makeshift bombs, but none had detonated under their vehicles. All of the wounded looked as if they would survive. The mood grew increasingly buoyant.
Daowood’s battalion surged further into the valley in their pickups, racing over a road that had not yet been checked for mines. Soldiers charged into a house they said belonged to a Taliban commander and made themselves tea. They lay their findings on the grass: rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and several Afghan army uniforms that could be used for sneaking into the enemy’s ranks.
For the first time in more than two years, they saw their old outpost that had been overrun. The Taliban had shot a video of dozens of fighters entering the base on motorcycles, waving Kalashnikovs in the air. On this day, though, the streets were quiet. Just one old man shuffled toward the troops and berated them as they made their way toward the outpost.
“You invited everyone here — the Americans, the Europeans,” he said. “It’s a betrayal.”
The Afghan troops responded as they did all week. The Americans are gone. Blaming foreign intruders no longer made sense.
“This is an Afghan mission,” Sadeq said.
The soldiers walked into an old USAID-funded clinic, where, amid the celebration, one local man whispered his thoughts about the futility of the Afghan National Army operation.
“It doesn’t matter if the Taliban or the ANA is here. They are both good with us,” he said, before pausing. “The Taliban will be back.”
Afghan soldiers knew that to be true, too.
During the peak of the U.S. military surge here, American commanders pushed into Taliban strongholds and stayed there. But the Afghans do not have the money or manpower to set up a string of new outposts in the Tangi. In Wardak, the lack of U.S. support is a function not just of the American drawdown but also of President Hamid Karzai’s demand this year that U.S. Special Forces troops leave the province after locals accused them of torture.
Before packing their bags, the Afghan soldiers watched many of the men who they had briefly detained strolling around the villages of Tangi.
“They’re all Talibs,” said Naaz, the sergeant, scowling at the men.
“They know we will leave,” said Badakshani, the executive officer.
After the sunset Thursday, the Afghan soldiers poured out of the valley. Some of the soldiers carried souvenirs from their trip into the Tangi. One man stole a bandage from a confiscated Taliban medical kit and used it to wrap a bleeding finger. The American advisers left the small shipping container from which they had been tracking their advisees’ progress.
Twelve hours later, according to locals in the Tangi, the Taliban reemerged.
About 200 to 300 insurgents returned from nearby villages, they said. Some merely stepped out of the homes in which they had been hiding. Many of them carried Kalashnikovs in public view. Taliban officials denied that the Afghan operation had changed anything, saying the valley would remain under their power forever.
“The Afghan and American soldiers were not able to establish their control in the past 12 years in any part of the valley,” said Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf. “Their presence on the road was temporary. . . . They cannot keep their forces there for long.”
Mohammed Sharif contributed to this report.
Roadside Bomb Kills 9 in Afghanistan
VOA News April 8, 2013
A roadside bomb in Afghanistan exploded under a bus Monday, killing nine people and wounding at least 22 others.
Local officials reported the blast occurred in Wardak province as the bus traveled from Ghazni province to the capital, Kabul. The officials say they suspect Taliban militants are responsible.
On Sunday, Afghan officials said a coalition air strike killed 11 civilians, including 10 children, in the eastern part of the country during a joint Afghan-NATO operation against the Taliban.
Afghans involvement in Syria war to be investigated: Mosazai
Khaama Press By Meena Haseeb 08 Apr 2013
Afghan foreign ministry officials announced to launch an investigation in connection to involvement of Afghan nationals in Syria war.
The officials further added that recent reports suggest involvement and casualties of Afghans in Syria and an investigation will be launched in this regard through Afghan embassy in Jordan.
Foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai while speaking during a press conference on Sunday said that several of Afghans were reportedly sent by Iran to Syria and a number of them were also reportedly killed.
Mr. Mosazai further added that the Afghan foreign ministry has received in reports in this regard and an investigation will be launched in the near future.
He said, “There are two issues including media reports which we have received. We are in contact with our embassy in Jordan to contact with the Syrian officials and other middle eastern countries to clarify the situation. We do not have embassy in Syria and therefore the probe will be done through Jordan embassy.”
Mosazai also added that a number of Afghans had traveled to Syria around 100 years back or during the past three decades.
In the meantime Radio Free Europe (RFE) says that they have achieved a video which shows the dead bodies of Syria soldiers including an Afghan citizen in Syrian military uniform.
Syria armed opposition forces are claiming that the dead bodies belong to Iran however an Afghan identity card can be seen with one of the victim.
The deceased individual has been recognized as Safar Mohammad son of Khan Ali and is the resident of northern Balkh province of Afghanistan.
Political observers in the meantime believe that Iran has sent Afghans to support Syrian government forces since Iran is supporting the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar ul Asad.
U.S. diplomat died 'doing what she loved' in Afghanistan
CNN By Catherine E. Shoichet April 7, 2013
Anne Smedinghoff lived inside a heavily secured compound.
But the public diplomacy officer for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul was always pushing to get out.
"We thought she was relatively safe in the embassy compound, but as it turned out, Anne really wanted to do a lot more," her father, Tom Smedinghoff, told CNN on Sunday.
"She was always finding projects and assignments that took her outside to the various provinces within and around Afghanistan, and that was what she wanted to do. That was what really drove her."
He said his daughter relished the opportunity to work directly with the Afghan people and that she volunteered to go to Kabul because she felt there was "a lot of good she could do there."
This weekend, the 25-year-old was trying to do just that -- delivering books to a school in southern Afghanistan -- when a suicide bomber smashed into her convoy Saturday. She is believed to be the first U.S. diplomat killed since the September attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Her death was a grim reminder of the risks and importance of pushing for change in "one of the toughest places on earth," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday.
It was an "extraordinary, harsh contradiction," Kerry said, to see an attacker kill "a young, 25-year-old woman with all of the future ahead of her, believing in the possibilities of diplomacy, of changing people's lives, of making a difference, having an impact, who was taking knowledge in books to deliver them to a school."
Officials did not say who they believe was behind the blast. But Kerry offered a sharp condemnation of the violence as he spoke Sunday to U.S. diplomats stationed in Istanbul.
"The folks who want to kill people, and that's all they want to do, are scared of knowledge. And they want to shut the doors and they don't want people to make their choices about the future. For them, it's 'You do things my way and if you don't, we'll throw acid in your face. We'll put a bullet in your face,' to a young girl trying to learn," Kerry said. "So this is a huge challenge for us. It is a confrontation with modernity, with possibilities, and everything that our country stands for, everything we stand for, is embodied in what Anne Smedinghoff stood for."
Friend: 'She pushed you to be better'
Smedinghoff graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2009 with a degree in international relations and joined the Foreign Service soon afterward.
"I remember how excited she was when she got in and started her training. She would always talk about it, because she was one of those natural leaders," said Christopher Louie, 26, a close friend who first met Smedinghoff in college. "When she was passionate about something, she would let everyone know. ... You could just tell when she got in the Foreign Service, she saw that this was her opportunity to make a big impact on the world."
And her enthusiasm was infectious, said Louie, a medical filmmaker in Washington who recently vacationed with Smedinghoff in Jordan.
"She always got people interested in what she was involved in. ... Whenever I knew I was going to see her, I'd always make sure I was brushed up on foreign affairs. She was one of those people, you didn't want to let her down," he said. "She pushed you to be better."
It was clear that "there was no better place for her" than the Foreign Service, her parents, Tom and Mary Beth Smedinghoff, said in a written statement.
After a tour of duty in Caracas, Venezuela, Smedinghoff volunteered for an assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and had been working there since July, her parents said.
"We are consoled knowing that she was doing what she loved, and that she was serving her country by helping to make a positive difference in the world," they said.
Before she joined the State Department, Smedinghoff served on the board of directors for the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults' 4K for Cancer program, spending a summer cycling across the United States to raise money and awareness.
"Anne was an incredibly optimistic, fearless, and giving person," said Ryan Hanley, the program's founder
"We mourn a life cut short," he said Sunday, "but are blessed to have shared in it."
Father: 'I think she really enjoyed the challenge'
Smedinghoff's Facebook profile gives a glimpse of her life in Afghanistan. One photo shows a group skiing in the Afghan mountains. Another shows her standing behind a lectern at the embassy, surrounded by American flags. Another, titled "Helicoptering around Helmand," shows a smiling Smedinghoff sitting beside men in camouflage, wearing a helmet and a flak jacket.
"I think she really enjoyed the challenge. She really enjoyed the opportunity to work with the local people in the community," her father told CNN.
He said she did a lot of public outreach work, helping to organize educational efforts in schools and working with women's groups to promote equality.
Tom Smedinghoff spoke to on his way to Dover Air Force Base, where his daughter's body is expected to arrive on Monday.
On Easter, her father told the Chicago Tribune, she excitedly talked about Kerry's recent visit.
"She sounded so upbeat and so positive and so excited about all the work she'd been doing," he said.
Kerry was emotional Sunday as he spoke of Smedinghoff's death. He said that they met two weeks ago when he visited Afghanistan.
"I remember her -- vivacious, smart, capable, chosen often by the ambassador there to be the lead person because of her capabilities," he said.
Neighbor: 'She had candle power'
Residents in the River Forest, Illinois, neighborhood where the Smedinghoff family lives said they were devastated by the news.
"Anne Smedinghoff was one of those rare people who, you were lucky if you were near her. She had candle power," one neighbor told CNN affiliate WGN. "She brightened everyone's life."
Katie Whiting, whose sister was Smedinghoff's best friend, told the CNN affiliate that the "beautiful and brave" diplomat was doing her dream job.
"The world has really lost somebody who was going to do a lot of good things. ... Every dangerous place she wanted to go there, because that's where the hard work was," Whiting said.
In Smedinghoff's memory, CNN affiliate WBBM reported, American flags lined the road near her family's home on Sunday.
A large photograph she posted on her Facebook profile less than three weeks ago shows another road on the other side of the world, lined with Afghan flags.
CNN's John Branch and Rick Martin contributed to this report.
16 militants killed in Afghanistan in last 24 hours
KABUL, April 8 (Xinhua) -- A total of 16 militants have been killed in separate operations across Afghanistan, authorities said Monday.
"Afghan National Police (ALP) supported by the army and the NATO-led coalition forces launched several cleanup operations in Kunar, Nangarhar, Kapisa, Jawzjan, Kandahar, Zabul, Wardak, Ghazni, Paktya and Helmand provinces over the last 24 hours. As a result 12 armed Taliban insurgents were killed and one armed insurgent was wounded," the country's Interior Ministry said in a statement.
In addition, four militants were killed and five others were arrested when the joint forces conducted a search operation in Shiram area of Sari Pul, capital city of northern Sari Pul province overnight, the provincial police chief Abdul Raoof Taj told Xinhua Monday.
The security forces have recently intensified operations across the country as spring and summer known as the fighting season is drawing near.
The Taliban insurgent group, which is fighting an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments.
Chinese Confucius Institute re-opens in Afghanistan
Xinhua April 7, 2013
KABUL - 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.
Afghanistan strongly condemn use of civilians as human shield
By SADAF SHINWARI - 08 Apr 2013, 2:45 pm Khaama Press
The Afghan government strongly condemned ordinary Afghan civilians being used the human shield during military operations.
Officials in Afghan presidential palace (ARG) warned that civilian casualties during military operations will harm Afghan peace process with the militant groups.
Afghan president deputy spokesperson Adila Raz on Monday said, “The government of Afghanistan strongly condemn the use of civilians as human shields and reiterates that such actions will harm stability and Afghan peace process.”
This comes as at least 26 people including 11 Afghan kids were killed during a joint military operation by Afghan and coalition security forces in Shegal district of eastern Kunar province on Saturday.
According to reports president Hamid Karzai has appointed a delegation to visit the area and inspect the incident.
The Nato-led coalition confirmed it was investigating the allegation and that it had used aircraft in the area to support a force of Afghan and foreign troops.
The fighting in Kunar on Saturday also led to the death of a US civilian adviser. An Afghan security official in the area said the joint operation had been launched after intelligence reports showed that hundreds of Taliban militants were massing in the area.
Karzai Orders Faster Review of Bagram Prisoner Cases
TOLOnews.com By Saleha Soadat Sunday, 07 April 2013
President Hamid Karzai has ordered the investigations into the individual cases of prisoners held at Bagram detention centre to be done more quickly and that those without lawyers to be given lawyers, the attorney general's office said Sunday.
Since the Afghan government was handed control of most of Bagram prison in September, 1,376 prisoners have been released. However, Karzai is said to be seeking a quicker review of the remaining prisoners, including those handed over by US military in March.
A new committee made up of Afghanistan's judicial organs has been delegated to oversee the investigations. The supreme court will trial those who are charged as criminals and free those who are found to be without grounds for imprisonment,
"Serious investigations into the cases of the Bagram prisoners are ongoing. As many as 1,376 of these prisoners have been released [since September]," said Abdulbasir Aziz, spokesman of the attorney general's office.
Karzai's order, however, has been criticised by analysts who warn that hasty acts by the judiciary and the president will be of no benefit to Afghanistan.
"The president wants to have the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Pakistan, and his tribe closer to himself by releasing these prisoners," said political lecturer at Kabul University Faizullah Jalal. "We have constantly seen that many of the Taliban who have been released join the group again and run suicide attacks," he added.
There is little information available on most of the prisoners who have been released already.
Karzai Dismisses APPF Deputy Jamil Junbish
TOLOnews.com By Karim Amini Sunday, 07 April 2013
The deputy head of the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF) has been dismissed by President Hamid Karzai over claims that he allowed some private security companies to rearm after their weapons had been confiscated.
Afghanistan's presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi told TOLOnews on Sunday that Karzai dismissed deputy minister Jamil Junbish for disobeying a presidential decree regarding the distribution of armaments to the companies.
"[Junbish's] dismissal was because a number of companies that were previously banned and had their armaments collected by the interior ministry were given armaments again," Faizi said in a telephone interview.
"The responsibility was on a person from the interior ministry and the decision was eventually made [to dismiss Junbish]," he said.
Faizi rejected rumours that Junbish's dismissal was partly because of pressure from other government staff, particularly first vice president Mohammad Fahim Qasim.
"You saw that the deputy minister for security travelled to the provinces and banned all those [private security] companies on the highways that had caused security problems in some provinces... and their weapons were collected by the interior ministry.
"The deputy interior minister for security himself had travelled to the provinces but eventually another official of the interior ministry distributed armaments to some of the private companies. This act was carried out against the law, and against the president's decision and decree, the programme by the Afghan government for banning them. The act was made against all these decisions and that is why the dismissal was made," Faizi said.
Junbish was installed as APPF deputy minister on October 6.
Donors Not Providing Funds as Pledged: Finance Ministry
TOLOnews.com By Zabihullah Jhanmal Sunday, 07 April 2013
Almost 20 percent of foreign donors delivered less funds than they pledged to Afghanistan last year, impacting development plans across the country, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) said Sunday.
MOF spokesman Wahidullah Tawhidi called on donors to be realistic in their pledges and ensure the funds are distributed.
"This issue was not only of last year but a number of donors have not been committed to their funds since the very beginning, an act which has caused some of the projects be left half done," Tawhidi said.
MoF figures show that Pakistan, Brunei, and Portugal have not met last year's written commitment in amounts of $50 million, $40 million, and $10 million respectively.
According to the MoF, other countries and organisations which have not met their funding pledges over the years include the European Union, Germany, India, Australia, Norway, Italy, Iran, France, Turkey, Spain, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Belgium, Poland, Ireland, Luxemburg, Hungary, Greece, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Islamic Development Bank.
Those that have consistently provided funds as pledged are Japan, England, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Kuwait, Lithuania, Austria, Singapore, Estonia, and the Aga Khan Development Network.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) also asked donors to honour their commitments.
"Based on the conclusions of the international conferences on Afghanistan, we call on the donors to be sincere in putting into practice their commitments," said MOFA spokesman Janan Mosazai on Sunday.
Statistics supplied by the MoF show that of the $8 billion committed by donors in Persian year 1391 (March 2011 to March 2012), less than $7 billion was provided.
Kapisa Provincial Council Member Arrested for Insurgent Links
TOLOnews.com By Azim Arash Sunday, 07 April 2013
A member of the provincial council of eastern Kapisa province has been arrested by Afghan security forces for his links to insurgents, local officials said Sunday.
Najibullah Rahimi was arrested by security forces on Friday while he was at home on suspicions that he was distributing large amounts of money to people who have not been identified, the provincial council chief Mohammad Hussian Sanjani told TOLOnews.
"I have information that Najibullah Rahimi was arrested at his home and the forces also sized seven Kalashnikovs, several grenades and some money during the raid," Sanjani said.
"The police have started investigating him. He is a member of the council and he shouldn't have much weapons at his home," he added.
On Sunday, some of Rahimi's supporters took to the streets to demand his release.
The demonstrators said that his arrest was "unfair and he should be released as soon as possible."
"If the government will not release him we will block all the streets and the shops in the district," one of the protestors said.
Kapisa provincial governor Mehrabuddin Safi confirmed that Rahimi was arrested based on "information received by the security forces and he is under investigation."
Private School Curriculums Contradict Govt System: Senate
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 07 April 2013
Afghan senators Sunday deplored the state of the education system in Afghanistan, calling on the Minister of Education to implement past decrees aimed at protecting the curriculum.
Education minister Farouq Wardak was summoned before the Senate on Sunday where he was questioned him over the lack of consistency between the curriculums of the private and government schools.
The senators also suggested that there was corruption within the ministry's secondary education department which needed to be addressed.
However, Wardak insisted that the education system has made some impressive achievements in the past 11 years.
Senator Lailama Ahmadi asked Wardak about a decree which had banned school texts from neighbouring countries, saying that some private schools are still using such texts.
"The education ministry should have implemented a decree one year ago which banned books from neighbouring countries from being taught but unfortunately Kabul's education department has permitted teaching from them," she said.
Senator Mahmood Daneshjoo explained: "This decree was meant to be implemented a year ago. It says that the violation of [curriculum] laws should be stopped, but it's not being implemented yet.
"On the day [the decree was to be enacted], a number of MPs went to the education minister's home and asked for a cancellation of the decree, and the minister verbally accepted the cancellation," Daneshjoo added.
Senator Aziza Musleh pointed out that there was a textbook shortage, saying there is generally only one book for every five students in some schools.
Wardak acknowledged the concerns and said that he is making an effort to resolve these challenges within the education system, while reminding them of the system's achievements.
AISA Investment Offer Attracts Investors
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Sunday, 07 April 2013
The Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA) has issued up to 100 investment licenses for the next two years to new investors with the most popular investment sectors being agriculture, industry, and mines.
AISA chief Wafiullah Aftakhar on Saturday said that the fresh investment interest comes on the back of a bold new plan to attract investors, including offering tax exemptions and free land.
"About 80 to 100 investors have been issued license in the fields of agriculture and mines and have already started to work," Aftakhar said. "This is encouraging for future investors."
According to Aftakhar, the new AISA offer - which is still to be approved by the government - gives free land, zero tariffs on raw materials, and tax exemptions for the next decade to those who invest $1 million or more the next two years.
Aftakhar said he is hopeful that the offer will be approved soon by the government.
The office the administrative affairs said that the draft is pending approval from the Council of Ministers.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com