[Afghan News] April 17, 2013

[یاسمینه]

4 Afghan cops killed in Taliban attack in E. province
MEHTARLAM, Afghanistan, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Up to four Afghan policemen were killed and one was wounded when Taliban insurgents launched an attack on a police checkpoint in eastern province of Laghman early Wednesday morning, the provincial government confirmed in a statement.

"A large number of militants targeted an Afghan Local Police ( ALP) checkpoint in Bibe Hajira area along the main road linking provincial capital Mehtarlam to neighboring Alingar district at around 2:30 a.m. (local time). As a result four ALP cops died and one other was injured," the statement said.

It also said several Taliban militants have also been killed in the clash in the province 90 km east of Kabul.

The Taliban has been waging an insurgency since its regime was toppled by a U.S-led invasion in late 2001.

They recently intensified their attacks across the country as spring and summer known as the fighting season is drawing near.

On April 12, up to 13 Afghan army troopers were killed when Taliban raided an army outpost in neighboring Kunar province 185 km east of Kabul.

The Taliban-led insurgency and conflicts claimed the lives of more than 2, 800 Afghan security forces and over 400 foreign soldiers besides leaving 2,754 civilians dead last year in the central Asian state.


12 anti-government militants give up fighting in N Afghanistan
PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan, April 17 (Xinhua)-- Twelve anti- government militants laid down arms and joined the government- backed peace process in Baghlan province 160 km north of Kabul on Wednesday.

"With joining these brothers to the peace process, the security will be further improved in the province," provincial police chief Assadullah Shirzad said at the ceremony to welcome the former rebels.

The former militants also handed over their weapons to police.

He also called on other militants to give up fighting and join the peace process.

Nearly 4,000 armed militants, according to officials have given up fighting and joined the government-backed peace process over the past one year, a claim rejected by Taliban outfit as groundless.


American Muslims fear backlash for Islamists link in Boston blasts
By MEENA HASEEB - 17 Apr 2013, 12:08 pm Khaama Press
US Muslims are watching closely as the probe into the Boston bombings unfolds, fearing a backlash like after 9/11 if an Islamist link is confirmed to the deadly attack.

Muslim activists in the U.S. also began sending out a slew of news releases, tweets and Facebook messages urging prayers and aid for the victims — and condemning whoever was behind the horrific attack.

Executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations following a statement said, “American Muslims, like Americans of all backgrounds, condemn in the strongest possible terms today’s cowardly bomb attack on participants and spectators of the Boston Marathon.”

Awad following the statement further added, “We also call for the swift apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators. All of us as Americans to work together to bring those responsible to justice.”

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood following a statement also condemned the Boston Marathon bombings Tuesday, but a senior member of the group painted them as part of a conspiracy aimed at undermining Muslims’ moves toward democracy.

This comes as a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ibrahim Hooper, said the Muslim group had already received “the usual hate calls,” but nothing major as yet — and underlined its main message was condemnation.

Ibrahim Hooper quoted by AFP said, “You don’t want to create the impression that you’re more concerned about vandalism at a mosque, or something like that, than you are about a violent attack that takes the lives of individuals and injures many more.”

But he told AFP, “In any of these cases that’s something that’s in the back of our mind, that there’s a possibility of a backlash. We’ll just have to see how the investigation develops.”

The number of FBI-designated hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs in America shot up dramatically after the September 11, 2001 attacks, which were quickly attributed to Al-Qaeda and a team of mostly Saudi hijackers.


Cycling Past an Afghan Taboo
The New York Times By Jed Lipinski April 16, 2013
In November, Shannon Galpin was riding her single-speed mountain bike through the hills outside Kabul. It was her 11th visit to Afghanistan, and she had grown accustomed to the sight of camel caravans, abandoned Soviet tanks and soldiers sweeping the desert for land mines.

One thing she had not seen was another woman on a bicycle. But one afternoon a barista at a local cafe who happened to be an amateur cyclist told Galpin that not only were Afghan women riding bikes, but that they had formed their own national cycling team. Dressed in long pants and full sleeves, with headscarves tucked beneath their helmets, they practiced on the highways before dawn on dated road bikes, accompanied by the coach of the men’s cycling team.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Galpin, a 38-year-old former Pilates instructor from Breckenridge, Colo. “I’d been in the most liberal areas of the country, and I’d never even seen a little girl on a bike, let alone a grown woman.”

For women in Afghanistan, riding a bicycle is taboo. What is considered appropriate behavior varies from one family and community to the next, but women riding bicycles is “generally considered immoral,” said Heather Barr, an Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch.

In the hierarchy of cultural offenses committed by women, it ranks somewhere between driving a car and so-called moral crimes, which include running away from home or being spotted in the company of a man who is not a relative.

Galpin, who claims to be the first woman to have ridden a mountain bike through the Afghan countryside, once pedaled across the Panjshir Valley, a distance of 140 miles and 4,000 vertical feet of rough terrain. Having also founded the nonprofit organization Mountain2Mountain in 2006 to aid women in conflict zones, she decided to do something for Afghanistan’s cyclists.

On Wednesday, Galpin plans to return to Afghanistan to distribute more than 40 duffel bags worth of cycling gear to the men and women’s national cycling teams. The items include bicycle tools, seats, shoes and about 200 jerseys, all of them vetted for beer advertisements that might give unneeded offense in Afghanistan, where alcohol is illegal.

“My home looks like an episode of ‘Hoarders,’ ” she said.

To document the event, Galpin is taking five other women: a photographer, a writer, a social media manager and two filmmakers, who plan to make a short film about the women’s team titled “Afghan Cycles.”

Despite having received death threats, many of the female cyclists are eager to speak publicly about the team, Galpin said.

“They’re no different than women in Afghanistan who risk their lives to attend school or run for Parliament,” she said. “They know the only way to challenge and break the taboo is for other women to see them riding bikes.”

The roots of Galpin’s commitment to women’s rights stretch back to her teens. She grew up in Bismarck, N.D., and at 17 apprenticed as a modern dancer in Minneapolis. One night, while she was walking through an empty park downtown, she was raped and stabbed several times by a man who appeared from the shadows.

After the attack, Galpin quit dancing and moved back to North Dakota. With the exception of family members and close friends, she told almost no one that she had been raped until 2009, when she spoke about Mountain2Mountain on “Dateline NBC.”

“For years, I was petrified that I’d be defined as a victim,” she said during a visit to New York last month. “I didn’t realize that victimhood could also be a source of strength.”

Galpin spent most of her 20s in Europe and Lebanon, working as an athletic trainer. While living in Germany, she married a British engineer, and the two eventually moved to Breckenridge, where they had a daughter, Devon, in 2004.

But Galpin grew restless in Colorado. Not long after she arrived, her marriage fell apart. Then her sister, who is 10 years younger, reported being raped in college. Galpin founded Mountain2Mountain in response.

“It sounds cliché, but I wanted to make the world a better place for my daughter,” she said.

Galpin made her first trip to Afghanistan in 2008. Since then, Mountain2Mountain has built a heroin rehabilitation center for women and computer labs for girls’ schools in Kabul, among other projects.

Afghanistan has 45 licensed female cyclists among three categories: junior, under-23 and elite, according to the International Cycling Union, the world governing body of cycling, or U.C.I. Some of these riders participated in the Asian cycling championships, held in New Delhi last month, though four of them failed to finish.

“The fact that they were at the start line is a victory of sorts,” said Dominique Raymond, the manager of National Federations and Continental Confederations for the U.C.I. Galpin said that current attitudes toward female cyclists in Afghanistan are not so different from those in the United States in the late 1800s.

“Women were often deemed promiscuous if they rode bikes in the street,” she said.

Sue Macy, the author of “Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom,” a book about the bike’s role in women’s rights, said the sudden popularity of the “safety” bicycle, as opposed to the treacherous, high-wheeled “ordinary” bike, in the early 1890s changed how women dressed and engaged with the world.

“Since they couldn’t wear hoop skirts and corsets on a bike, they started wearing bifurcated garments, like bloomers,” she said. “Instead of meeting a suitor in the parlor, they started riding around and meeting people without supervision.”

Galpin is hoping to influence similar changes in Afghanistan, where female athletes have made substantial strides. Women represented Afghanistan at the Olympics for the first time at the 2004 Athens Games when Fariba Rezayee competed in judo and Robina Muqimyar ran the 100-meter sprint.

Last year, Sadaf Rahimi received an invitation to box in the London Games, the first time the sport was open to women. (The International Boxing Association later revoked the invitation on the grounds that superior boxers posed a risk to the safety of Rahimi, who was 19.)

Salma Kakar, 16, a cyclist on the Afghan women’s team, recently announced her intent to wave the flag of Afghanistan at the Olympics. For that to happen, Raymond said, the team would need to start accumulating points in the U.C.I. nations ranking, gained through events like the Women’s Road World Cup and the Continental Championships.

If the Afghan women fail to qualify through competition, they are also eligible for scholarships through the Olympic Solidarity Commission, which helps countries in need to develop their sports programs.

The first step, of course, is to get some proper equipment.

“The bike company Giro donated a bunch of helmets and shoes,” Galpin said. “But the girls need money to train, to travel to races and to afford coaches who can teach them basic stuff like how to ride in a pack.

“Once they’ve all finished a race,” she added, “they can start trying to win one.”


“A War for No Wise Purpose”: Afghanistan Defeats the West Again
The West invades Afghanistan, tries to control it, and has to retreat in defeat. Sound familiar? It happened in 1842 to the British and it’s happening now to America. Historian William Dalrymple explains how in writing his new book, Return of a King, he found eerie historical echoes repeating in the valleys of Afghanistan.
The Daily Beast By William Dalrymple Apr 17, 2013
In 1843, shortly after his return from the battlefields of the First Anglo-Afghan War, the army chaplain in Jalalabad, Rev G H Gleig, wrote a memoir about the disastrous expedition of which he was one of the few survivors. It was, he wrote, “a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, has been acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.”

Gleig had a point. In the spring of 1839, the West invaded Afghanistan for the first time since Alexander the Great. Nearly twenty thousand British and East India Company troops poured through the passes, ousted the popular ruler Dost Mohammad Khan, who the British believed to be pro-Russian, and re-established on the throne Shah Shuja ul-Mulk, the exiled king who had spent the last twenty years as a British pensioner in India. On the way in, the British faced little resistance. But after little more than two years, the Afghans rose in answer to the call for jihad and Afghanistan exploded into rebellion.

In the winter of 1841-2, the two most senior British envoys were assassinated in Kabul, followed, a few months later, by Shah Shuja himself. After a two-month siege, 18,500 cold, hungry and leaderless East India Company troops and their followers retreated through the icy passes in the middle of winter. One by one, they were shot down by Afghan marksmen firing from behind boulders with their long-barrelled jezails—the sniper rifles of the 19th century—as the troops trudged snowblind and frostbitten through the icy mountain drifts.

After eight days on the death march, the last fifty survivors made their final stand at the village of Gandamak, near Jalalabad. As late as the 1970’s, fragments of Victorian weaponry and military equipment could be found lying in the screes above the village. Even today, the hill is still covered with bleached British bones. Out of the 18,500-strong party than left Kabul, only one man, Dr Brydon, made it back to the British garrison in Jalalabad. A handful of British officers and their wives were taken hostage; the rest were shot. Meanwhile, the Indian sepoys who made up the bulk of the army were either sold en masse into slavery in Central Asia, or disarmed, stripped naked, and left to perish in the snow.

The First Anglo-Afghan war was arguably the greatest military humiliation ever suffered by the West in the East: an entire army of what was then the most powerful military nation in the world utterly routed and destroyed by poorly-equipped tribesmen. For Afghans, the British defeat of 1842 became a symbol of freedom from foreign invasion, and of the determination of Afghans to refuse to be ruled ever again by any foreign power. The diplomatic quarter of Kabul is still named after the Afghan leader who oversaw the rout of the British in 1842: Dost Mohammad’s son, Wazir Akbar Khan.

But 1842 wasn’t the last time the Afghans would see off their would-be invaders and occupiers. In the 1980s it was the Russians’ withdrawal from their failed occupation of Afghanistan that triggered the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. Less than twenty years later, in 2001, British and American troops arrived in Afghanistan where they proceeded to begin losing what was, in Britain’s case, its fourth war in that country. As before, in the end, despite all the billions of dollars handed out, the training of an entire army of Afghan troops, and the infinitely superior weaponry of the occupiers, the Afghan resistance succeeded again propelling the hated Kafirs out the exit.

The First Anglo-Afghan war was arguably the greatest military humiliation ever suffered by the West in the East.

It was as the latest neo-colonial adventure in Afghanistan was just beginning to turn sour in 2006, and the commentators were first beginning to predict new Gandamaks, that I began thinking of writing a new history of the West’s first failed attempt at controlling Afghanistan. After an easy conquest and the successful installation of a pro-Western puppet ruler, the regime was facing increasingly widespread resistance. History was clearly beginning to repeat itself.

In the course of the initial research I visited many of the places associated with the war. In Herat I paid my respects to the grave of Dost Mohammad Khan at the Sufi shrine of Gaza Gagh. On arrival in Kandahar, the car sent to pick me up from the airport received a sniper shot through its back window as it neared the perimeter; later I stood at the shrine of Baba Wali on the edge of town and saw an IED blow up a US patrol as it crossed the Arghandab River, then as now the frontier between the occupied zone and the area controlled by the Afghan resistance. In Kabul I managed to get permission to visit the Bala Hisar, once Shah Shuja’s citadel, now the headquarters of the Afghan Army’s intelligence corps, where reports about Taliban movements are evaluated amid a litter of spiked British canon from 1842 and upturned Soviet T-72 tanks from the 1980’s.

'The closer I looked, the more the West’s first disastrous entanglement in Afghanistan seemed to resemble the neo-Colonial adventures of our own day. For the war of 1839 was waged on the basis of dubious and doctored intelligence about a virtually non-existent threat: information about a single Russian envoy to Kabul was exaggerated and manipulated by a group of ambitious and ideologically-driven hawks to create a scare—in this case, about a phantom Russian invasion. As John MacNeill, the Russophobe British ambassador wrote from Teheran: “We should declare that he who is not with us is against us... We must secure Afghanistan.” Thus was brought about an unnecessary, expensive, and entirely avoidable war.

More astonishing still, Shah Shuja, so I learned, was a Popalzai, from the same sub-tribe as President Hamid Karzai, while his principal opponents were the Ghilzai tribe, who today make up the bulk of the Taliban’s foot-soldiers: the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, is from the Ghilzai’s Hotak ruling clan, as was the leading resistance fighter, Mohammad Shah Khan, who supervised the slaughter of the Kabul army in the Khord Kabul in 1841.

"The lies Lord Auckland told Dost Mohammad Khan, that we don't want to interfere with your country, that’s exactly what they tell us today, the Americans and all the others,” [Karzai said].

The problems which precede the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan are unchanged: with all resources poured into defence, then as now, the occupation brings few tangible signs of improvement or development; instead, the presence of large numbers of well-paid foreign troops causes the cost of food and provisions to rise, and living standards to fall; under western occupation, the Afghans invariably feel they are getting poorer, not richer.

There are other uncanny similarities, too: in both cases the war effort was partially privatised: in 1839, alongside the British army proper came troops belonging to a corporation, the East India Company, just as today the US has sub-contracted much of the security in Afghanistan to companies like Blackstone. In both cases, the commercial imperatives of the corporations soon come to clash with the political agendas of the politicians.

In both cases, one of the biggest problems was that the ruler installed by the West resisted being used as a puppet and gradually turned on his backers. Recently, President Hamid Karzai has begun describing NATO forces as an army of occupation and threatened to join the Taliban if Washington kept putting pressure on him. Shah Shuja did much the same to the British towards the end of his rule.

When I published Return of a King in India in January, Karzai read my book within a fortnight of publication and invited me to Kabul to talk about Shuja. His view was that the US were doing to him what the British had done to Shah Shuja 170 years ago: "The lies Lord Auckland told Dost Mohammad Khan, that we don't want to interfere with your country, that’s exactly what they tell us today, the Americans and all the others,” he said. “Our so-called current allies behave to us just as the British did to my ancestor. They tried to do exactly as they did in the 19th century." Karzai made it clear that he thought Shah Shuja didn't stress his independence enough, and having learned the lessons of history was never going to allow himself to be remembered as anyone’s puppet.

In 2001, the Taliban asked their young men, “Do you want to be remembered as a son of Shah Shuja or as a son of Dost Mohammad?”

We in the West may have forgotten the details of this history that did so much to inform and mould the Afghans’ hatred of foreign rule; but the Afghans have not: in village after village I found that the names of all the participants in the drama were still alive as if the event had taken place two years ago, not two centuries. In particular Shah Shuja remains a symbol of quisling treachery in Afghanistan: in 2001, the Taliban asked their young men, “Do you want to be remembered as a son of Shah Shuja or as a son of Dost Mohammad?”

The failures of 170 years ago do still hold important lessons and warnings, for us today and it is still not too late to learn some lessons from the mistakes of the 19th century. Otherwise, the West’s fourth war in the country looks likely to end with as few political gains as the first three, and like them to terminate in an embarrassing withdrawal after a humiliating defeat, with Afghanistan yet again left in tribal chaos and quite possibly ruled by the same government which the war was originally fought to overthrow.

As George Lawrence, a veteran of that first war, who was taken hostage during the retreat, wrote to the London Times just before Britain blundered in to the Second Anglo-Afghan War thirty years later, “a new generation has arisen which, instead of profiting from the solemn lessons of the past, is willing and eager to embroil us in the affairs of that turbulent and unhappy country... The disaster of Retreat from Kabul should stand forever a warning to the Statesmen of the future not to repeat the policies that bore such bitter fruit in 1839-42.”

William Dalrymple will be speaking about his new book, Return of the King: The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-42 at The Asia Society, New York City on the 22nd April; Politics & Prose Washington DC on the 24th; Harvard University’s Mahindra Humanities Centre the 25th; Asia Pacific Museum Pasadena 28th; the Getty Museum LA on the 30th; Mechanics Library Institute San Fran 1st May; Seattle Asian Art Museum on the 2nd May; The Freer Sackler DC on the 3rd; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the 5th. Full details on www.williamdalrymple.com

William Dalrymple is the author of eight acclaimed works of history and travel, including, most recently, Return of the King: The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-42, currently a No.1 bestseller in India, to be published in February in the UK and in April in the US. He divides his time between New Delhi and London, and is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The Guardian.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.


U.S. commander in Afghanistan calls for robust force to remain after 2014
Washington Post By Ernesto Londoño Wednesday, April 17, 2013
The commander of military forces in Afghanistan said Tuesday that the United States and its allies should keep troops in Kabul and the “four corners” of the country after 2014, warning about growing uncertainty across the region as the withdrawal begins.

“Many Afghans have told me they no longer fear the Taliban as much as they fear what will happen after 2014,” Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his first congressional testimony since taking command in Kabul in February. “There is a growing sense that December 2014 is a cliff for the Afghan people.”

Dunford’s endorsement of an international force robust enough to provide support at the four regional training centers marked the Pentagon’s most expansive and ambitious vision of the role the United States should aspire to play in Afghanistan after the U.N. authorization for military operations expires. The White House has refrained from committing to a post-2014 troop level as it negotiates the terms of a bilateral security agreement with Kabul. Administration officials say they hope to have a deal by late spring or early summer.

The administration’s hedging on its future role is increasingly being compared to the failed attempts to keep a residual force in Iraq at the end of 2010. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized Dunford for declining to say how many U.S. troops he felt should remain after 2014.

“I can’t tell you how deeply disappointed I am in your testimony, General, because they see what happened in Iraq,” McCain said at the hearing. “They see us withdrawing [from] every place in the world. They see what’s happening in Syria. They see a lack of commitment [from] the United States in Libya post-Gaddafi. They know which way the wind is blowing.”

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee who recently traveled to Afghanistan, said U.S. officials there are hoping the post-2014 military footprint will include between 10,000 and 13,000 U.S. troops. Ideally, he said, they would be complemented by as many as 7,000 troops from allied nations. Coming up with an agreement quickly for such a presence will be crucial to maintaining the flow of international aid on which Afghanistan depends, he said.

“If we don’t get a bilateral agreement and we don’t get the troops, Afghanistan is not going to get the money,” Hunter said in an interview.

Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the range of 8,000 to 12,000 NATO troops the administration has endorsed for post-2014 is woefully inadequate to support counterterrorism operations and substantive training.

“A force of 10,000 would barely be able to protect itself and would likely result in ceding the city of Herat in the west to Iranian authorities, which is a scary thought,” Inhofe said, citing what he said commanders have told him.

U.S. allies and Afghan officials, particularly military commanders, have begun to fret about Washington’s willingness to maintain a robust presence in Afghanistan, analysts say.

“I think the uncertainty that surrounds the nature of our presence is troublesome both to Afghans and our allies,” said Kim Kagan, a former military adviser who runs the Institute for the Study of War. “It makes it difficult for Afghans to plan what their requirements will be long-term and for our allies, who also rely on our enabling capabilities.”

Dunford said he had seen evidence that U.S. efforts to get the Taliban to reconcile with the Afghan government and join the political process are not bearing fruit.

“I don’t have any insight today that would lead me to believe the Taliban will be part of the political process in 2014,” the general said.


Afghanistan war can yet be won, US general tells Congress
The commander of US forces in Afghanistan outlined three achievements that would secure a 'win' after 11 years of combat – acknowledging none is yet in hand. He gave Congress a report Tuesday on the war's progress.
Christian Science Monitor By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer April 16, 2013
Washington - Is it still possible for the United States to “win” the war in Afghanistan, which, at 11 years, is the longest war in US history?

Yes is the assessment of Gen. Joseph Dunford, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, who was on Capitol Hill Tuesday testifying on the progress of the war.

It is not the sort of portrait of victory Pentagon officials had envisioned at the war’s start – and may even be a victory that defies the definition of the word.

Still, Dunford told lawmakers, he is determined to keep using the word “win.”

“For the last few years, many people have shied away from using the word ‘win.’ I personally have used that word since arriving in Afghanistan,” he said. “I frankly think that when we’re talking to 18-, 19-, 20-, 21-year-old soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, we ought to talk in those terms.”

He went on to describe what "win" might look like: Afghan national security forces (ANSF) taking over the “lead” in security operations in 2014 “is an important component of winning, and I think we have a plan that’s in place to do that.”

What, precisely, it means for ANSF to take the lead in security operations has changed frequently over the years.

At one time, commanders spoke of the goal of ANSF units operating “independently.” Military officials rarely use that word anymore, however.

That’s because only one Afghan National Army brigade in the country’s military currently operates “Independent with Advisors,” a somewhat oxymoronic label that is now the highest rating that any ANA unit can achieve.

It’s unclear how many more brigades will be able to achieve that rating, given the current attrition rate in the Afghan Army, which continues to present “a significant challenge,” Dunford acknowledged.

The attrition rate amounts to a loss of 5,000 troops per month, or 60,000 a year. “Vacancies are not always filled quickly or with properly trained personnel,” he added. “The ANA’s sustained high attrition rates remain a significant concern and threaten the growth and development of a professional, competent, and capable force.”

Dunford described another “important component of our winning,” which is “to ensure that we deny sanctuary to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and we contribute to regional stability where we have national interests.”

On that front, some problems remain, particularly when it comes to the Taliban, which Dunford describes as “enablers” of Al Qaeda.

“Safe havens in Afghanistan and sanctuaries in Pakistan continue to provide Taliban senior leadership some freedom of movement and freedom of action, facilitating the training of fighters and the planning of operations,” he told lawmakers.

As a result, the Taliban “remain firm in their conviction that ISAF’s [International Security and Assistance Force's] drawdown and perceived ANSF weakness, especially when supplemented with continued external support and with sanctuary in Pakistan that the Taliban exploit, will translate into a restoration of the pre-'surge' military capabilities and influence.”

Even more problematic, after more than a decade of US military intervention, is the continued tie between Al Qaeda and the Taliban, he said. “Despite effective counterterrorism pressure on Al Qaeda and its Taliban enablers, and on the small number of Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda’s relationship with local Afghan Taliban remains intact,” the general said.

Dunford argued that the 62,000 US troops still in Afghanistan should continue to fight until at least November, when their presence will again be evaluated.

At the end of 2014, if US troops can “effect security transition, effect political transition, and deny Al Qaeda sanctuary,” Dunford said – acknowledging that none of these goals has yet been accomplished – “we can look at the families and the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines that have served over the last 11 years and say we won because we provided the Afghans the opportunity to seize the decade of opportunity that starts in 2015.”

After that, he concluded, “it very much at that point is up to the Afghans.”


Long Journey Ahead for Afghanistan
The Huffington Post By John Glen 16/04/2013
I recently found myself trundling along a muddy track heading in the direction of Kabul's International Airport, laden with flak-jacket and close protection, and contemplating the gap between what we enjoy, even in the most needy communities in the UK, and the men, women and children on the streets of Kabul's outskirts.

Recent discussions with my constituents sprung to mind, on the issue of DFID spending levels and maintaining development aid at 0.7% of GNP. I believe it is right to honour this commitment, whilst also robustly challenging the priorities and effectiveness of this spending. I welcomed the call by the House of Commons International Development Select Committee to encourage the government to link our aid in Pakistan to improvements in the integrity of the Pakistani income tax regime.

With Britain's increased investment comes increased influence; and the government should use its growing voice in the developing world to place an emphasis on capacity-building projects which will ultimately reduce the need for aid amongst recipient countries in the long-term. Goals in this area will not be met overnight. Nor will they be met in convenient, predictable patterns which sync with our general election cycle.

Recognising the deep, long-term nature of development work is critical to reasoning why we cannot duck out of our obligation when we feel the financial strain at home, and plan to return to it at a later date. Debate on how to achieve our objectives in development needs to be open and informed. Alongside DFID, the role of the British Council must remain central to our efforts overseas.

It was at the invitation of the British Council that I once again found myself in Afghanistan, having previously visited as a member of Defence Select Committee in 2011. Having seen how our nation exercises hard power in one of the toughest environments imaginable, I was eager to see how soft power was deployed in the same environment.

The work of the British Council in Afghanistan can be divided into three elements: English, the arts, and education and society. During my time in Kabul, albeit brief, I was able to witness examples of all three.

The Council's work in promoting English learning and teaching programmes is arguably their signature activity. In Afghanistan it was good to see that their efforts were fully aligned with the work of the Embassy's Defence Section, and I opened a new English learning centre - the fifth so far. More such centres are due to open to support the Afghan National Army Officers Academy, which will be the UK's legacy military contribution to Afghanistan Academy, due to open in October 2013. The British Council also delivers English classes for personnel from Afghanistan's three main security operations as well as preparing Afghans attending full time military training in the UK.

Next on the itinerary was an English Teachers' training workshop at Kabul's teacher training facility, and part of the effort to raise the quality of education in Afghanistan. Again, the long-term nature of the relationship between the Afghan faculty and the British Council was apparent, and it was clear that British Council staff had secured credibility with those receiving support. It was also heartening to note that in a class of 60 trainee teachers, at least half were female.

In the arts, the British Council have been working with both the Afghanistan Institute of Music (ANIM) and the National Museum of Afghanistan, offering professional leadership development and small grants. In visiting ANIM I was struck by the enthusiasm of the musicians, 50% of whom are orphans, and the transformative impact this facility was having on culture in Kabul. The orchestra had recently returned from a performance in Carnegie Hall, and I hope we are able to welcome them to the UK soon.

As we left the muddy track behind and joined the highway, I considered again the debate around development spending and the British Council's work - some might perceive such efforts as an unaffordable luxury. However, I believe it should be seen as an integral part of the range of soft power activities we deploy to secure goodwill, create mutual understanding, strengthen development, and build the broader cultural infrastructure required to enable good government to succeed in the least stable countries. It is in deepening the cultural roots and self-confidence of a well-educated civil society that the impact of the British Council's work is best understood.

International development is a difficult arena to pin-down to quantifiable metrics of success; meaning expenditure can be left open to mis-characterisation. If 'success' is viewed as 'how many teachers attend a British Council training event' then I think we miss something about quality and long-term impact. The true mark of success will be how many of those teachers will go back from Kabul to teach in far-off regions of the country and be inspired to teach local teachers new techniques and an awareness of British culture and values.

Despite pressure to deliver savings - and the British Council have taken their share - let us be clear that this work is not easy, and the impact is not always immediately apparent.

The road back to Salisbury was a long one, but it wasn't as long as the journey Afghanistan is on to achieve self-sufficiency and security. It seems to me that by re-framing what timetables are realistic, and recognising the value of collaboration and long-term relationships we can understand the role of soft power more fully, and appreciate the long term support the British Council brings to development of the most inhospitable countries in our world today. I am proud to support the British Council and be an advocate for all that they seek to achieve.


Top general pushing to keep US troops in Afghanistan
Leader of coalition forces, Dunford says Afghans fearing 2014 pull-out.
Global Post April 16, 2013
The American general leading NATO forces in Afghanistan said today that US troops should remain in the country after 2014, suggesting further unrest after the UN mission expires.

Speaking to a senate committee hearing for the first time since taking over in February, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford said Afghans are leery of losing international support.

“Many Afghans have told me they no longer fear the Taliban as much as they fear what will happen after 2014,” Dunford said, according to The Washington Post.

“There is a growing sense that December 2014 is a cliff for the Afghan people.”

Dunford didn’t have specific numbers in mind, saying he needed to gauge how well Afghan security forces fared this summer before offering a recommendation.

Lawmakers have been pressing US commanders to release recommendations for how many troops should remain in Afghanistan after 2014, when President Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw most US forces, Reuters reported.

Committee member Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told Dunford that vague assessments are hurting the mission.

“One of the reasons we’re having so much difficulty in some areas is because the Afghans don't know what our commitment is,” he said. “I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in your testimony, general.”

The reason for Dunford’s hesitation is to gauge how well Afghans can defend themselves against terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, USA Today said.

The Afghan security force now numbers about 350,000, while US troops numbers are expected to reach 34,000 from 63,000 by next year.

“I believe this summer will be the bellwether for Afghan performance into 2014,” Dunford said, according to USA Today.


Senators Condemn Pakistani Border Presence Amid Reports of Resolution
TOLOnews By Rafi Sediqi 16 April 2013
Afghanistan's senate on Tuesday condemned the buildup of Pakistan's military on the border between the two countries, calling for clearer government policies on the neighbouring state, despite some media reports saying the matter was resolved.

Mohammad Alam Izedyar, the vice chair of senate, said Afghanistan should have a clear position against Pakistan's policies while a number of other senators called for the international community to take action for bringing the border issues between the two nations to an end.
The latest incident is Pakistan's construction of a controversial border gate on the Durand Line - the 2,400-kilometer border between the two countries which is recognized by Pakistan but not by Afghanistan.

The senate's condemnation came after Pakistani media reported that the matter had been "amicably resolved" after a meeting between senior military commanders of both countries in Rawalpindi, where Pakistan's army is headquartered.

An official Pakistan statement said that Afghanistan's Director General of Military Operations Maj Gen Afzal Aman had met with his Pakistani counterpart Maj Gen Ashfaq Nadeem Ahmed.

The statement also said that the construction is taking place in Pakistan's tribal district of Mohmand that borders Afghanistan - a clear attempt to clarify claims that the gate is being built in Afghanistan's territory.

Afghan senators repeated such claims on Tuesday. "The issue of Pakistani military passing the border and reaching Nangarhar province's Goshta district is very distressing. The government should resolve this issue through a diplomatic channel and a clear policy," Izedyar said.

"Pakistan's military is going towards the Goshta district of Nangarhar province. They consider many parts of Afghanistan as Pakistan's soil, an issue which is very distressing and should be followed up," said senator Lotfullah Baba.

Senator Gul Ahmad Azami warned that "Pakistan has passed the limits for forgetting the Durand Line. If the [Afghan] government is indifferent, Pakistan will build a gate in Jalalabad," adding that "the border of Afghanistan should be made clear."

Afghan senators said the country's security forces should act responsibly while responding to any harassment from Pakistan side, and control the Afghan borders.

President Hamid Karzai ordered security officials on Sunday to take immediate action following the reports of the gate's construction.

A delegation headed by Afghan army chief of staff Gen Sher Mohammad Karimi had gone to investigate the activities of the Pakistani military on the Durand line, namely the checkpoints bordering the Goshta district in Nangarhar, and had briefed the Afghan National Security Council on Sunday.

"Ten years ago a Pakistani delegation with the help of the coalition's [Nato] forces had established 11 military check posts near Durand line. Now Pakistan has deployed heavy weapons, soldiers and trying to rebuild the old check posts," Karzai's office said in a statement Sunday.

Nato has also been called on to prevent the Pakistan's military buildup.


Some hopeful signs out of the Afghan army
Associated Press April 16, 2013
CAMP THUNDER, Afghanistan - Gen. Mohammad Sharif Yaftali, commander of Afghanistan's 203rd Thunder Corps, looked happy as he sat down for lunch in his eastern command post near the border with Pakistan.

He had every reason to be smiling, as did his U.S. advisers.

His troops, he said, had just successfully completed a large-scale operation — code-named Azadi, or "freedom" — aimed at securing strategic highways leading out of Kabul and at clearing a region around the capital. Over the course of the 13-day sweep, his forces battled Taliban and other insurgents 20 times, killing at least 20.

Along the way, his officers sat down with tribal elders to win support for the military and set up local police forces to defend their villages from the Taliban. Separately, his troops successfully freed two Afghan soldiers kidnapped by militants.

It was all done without international troops. "We did the planning and everything ourselves," Yaftali beamed. "The coalition was there, but they did not fight with us. They just gave us advice. We are in the lead, we are no longer shoulder-to-shoulder."

Unlike past operations where American and coalition forces were fighting alongside Afghan soldiers or going into the field alone, both sides expressed a confidence in Afghanistan's army that was not present as little as one year ago.

There have been deep questions about the ability of the Afghan army to take the fight to the insurgency with international combat troops due to leave the country by the end of 2014.

It is not certain that the performance of the 203rd can be replicated in all the army corps around Afghanistan, or even at the brigade and battalion level. But if its ability to successfully carry out large-scale operations can be replicated across the army, then it offers hope the Afghans may be able to hold their own against the insurgency after 2014.

U.S. and coalition military officials say that overall, the nascent force is surpassing many of their expectations. They say it is far better prepared to fight alone than many people think and should be able to take over.

Canadian Brig. Gen. Thomas Putt, the director of the U.S.-led coalition's program for development of the Afghan security forces, said the Afghan troops were accelerating in their preparedness and "we have to rush to keep up."

"We are rushing to catch up in their rush to get at it," he said. "We have the delicious problem of being behind them."

Coalition officials point to continuing problems in logistics and equipment for the Afghan troops. But they say the forces' ability to work on their own is speedily improving. Five of Afghanistan's 26 brigades are now operating independently from the coalition, and 16 are working with only advisory support, said British Lt. Gen. Nick Carter, the second-in-command of the international coalition. Last year just one out of the 23 brigades then operational was able to operate independently.

The Afghan National Security Forces are supposed to finish taking the lead in security later this spring, with the coalition forces moving entirely to a training and advisory role. Already, Afghans are in the lead in more than 80 percent of the nation. According to NATO, the Afghan army now numbers over 175,000, about 12,000 shy of its goal, and has an annual attrition rate of 2.6 percent — higher than the target of 1.4 percent.

Afghan experts also warn of continuing difficulties, some tangible and some intangible.

Jawed Kohistani, an Afghan political and military analyst, said morale is low in a military force made up mostly of soldiers who joined only for the steady salary. He added that a lack of modern military equipment also poses problems.

"The Afghan security forces will face more challenges and won't be able to fulfill all the expectations of the international community or the Afghan people," Kohistani said.

Many of the brigades that are now able to operate independently are in the eastern part of Afghanistan and many are under Yaftali's command.

Yaftali's 203rd Corps in Gardez, the capital of eastern Paktia province, numbers 19,000 soldiers in four brigades. It is one of the largest of the army's six corps and is responsible for six eastern provinces, including two of the most active — Ghazni and Wardak.

The Azadi operation involved some 2,500 Afghan soldiers and police, operating in Ghazni and Zabol provinces, located on a strategic route connecting the capital, Kabul, with the southern province of Kandahar.

Nationwide, some 150,000 police are being trained by the coalition. They make up a large part of the 332,753-member Afghan National Security Forces but are gradually supposed to take the lead role in law enforcement and leave fighting the insurgency to the army.

During the Azadi operation, the army fought insurgents in more than 20 engagements, killing 20 of them and wounding 12. They also found 59 roadside mines. By comparison, two Afghan village police were killed and nine policemen and one soldier were wounded.

The coalition provided no combat support, said Col. Terry Cook, of the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division from Fort Bliss, Texas, and an adviser to Yaftali.

"They even did their own medical evacuations," he said.

"We are pretty good, we are in a better place. We can take the fight to the insurgents," Yaftali said.

Yaftali's sprawling base in Gardez has a regional training center, a logistical one, the best military hospital in the country, and soon will have its own air support when MI-17 helicopters are based there. It will probably be one of the places where the U.S. military stations advisers after 2014.

"It is amazing the progress they have made," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Clarence Chinn, the deputy commanding general. His advisers have been working with Yaftali and his senior officers, but no Americans are on the front lines fighting the insurgents — they have left that completely to the Afghans.

"They are an extremely capable force and we are helping them with logistics and training. We are really shifting our effort," Cook said.

Putt said the coalition is now focusing on getting Afghan troops the equipment they need to be more effective. They include mortars at the company and battalion levels, and howitzers at the brigade level. The U.S. also recently announced it would buy an additional 30 Russian made MI-17 helicopters, some with gunship capabilities, to supplement the nearly 50 already acquired.

They are also working on training them on logistics, or as Putt said, the problem of "how do you sustain thousands of troops."

"If there is an Achilles heel, it is logistics, and we are working on it," Putt said.

But the fighting is taking its toll on the Afghan army.

Last week Taliban militants stormed an Afghan army outpost in Kunar province, on the border with Pakistan, and killed 13 soldiers in a five-hour gunbattle. Insurgents have been stepping up their attacks this spring as they try to take advantage of the rapid withdrawal of foreign forces.

More than 1,200 Afghan soldiers died in 2012 compared to more than 550 in 2011, according to data compiled by the Washington-based Brookings Institution. By comparison, coalition casualties have declined as they take forces off the battlefield — with 32 so far this year, 394 in 2012 and 543 in 2011.

About 660 militants were reported to have been killed by coalition and Afghan forces so far this year, compared with close to 3,000 militants last year. The NATO command does not issue reports on the number of insurgents its troops have killed, and Afghan military figures, from which the AP compiles its data, cannot be independently verified.

"People say that 2014 will provide challenges," Yaftali said. But, he predicted, the year the Afghan army takes the security lead will be far more important: "2013 is going to be the crucial year."


A Question of Morality: Germany's Afghan Staff Fear Reprisals
Der Spiegel April 16, 2013
The German military plans to withdraw from Afghanistan completely by the end of next year. As it pulls out, it leaves behind Afghan employees -- some 1,700 of them -- including interpreters, drivers and kitchen staff. The Taliban has threatened to kill the collaborators.

The Afghanistan of Abdul's dreams was a peaceful and stable country. It was a country whose citizens would not have to live in fear, and where parents could send their daughters to school. And it was a country with decent roads and hospitals. When Abdul* signed his employment contract with Germany, he believed that he would be helping to make this vision of Afghanistan a reality.Now Abdul is sitting in a dusty café in Kabul, showing us photos of his time with the German military, the Bundeswehr. In one photo, the Afghan is posing with a hulking blonde German soldier who has placed his arm around him. Abdul drank his first beer in the Bundeswehr camp in Kunduz. "Bitte ein Bit," he says with a chuckle, quoting the advertising slogan of a well-known German brand of beer. He once bought a colorful layer cake for one of their birthdays. "They were my friends," says Abdul.

Now his German friends have gone home, and Abdul fears for his life. He is in the same position as many of the roughly 1,700 Afghan nationals who work or worked for Germany, either for the Bundeswehr or the country's interior ministry.

Islamists in the country see them as traitors for cooperating with foreigners. The Taliban has repeatedly declared that death awaits the "collaborators with the enemy." Many Afghan employees of NATO have already been murdered, while others could face grim prospects when their protectors leave.

The Western allies plan to withdraw their combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, when the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission officially comes to an end. Now that the gigantic military operation is winding down, local Afghan employees fear the revenge of their fellow Afghans more than ever. Germany benefited from its Afghan helpers for years, and now the Afghans are waiting for Germany to help them.

Taliban Reprisals

They were paid well for their work. Many translators received about 650 ($848) a month, or about 10 times the average Afghan income. They too could have recognized the risk they were taking. And they also have no compelling legal right to be rescued. In other words, what happens to them is mainly a question of morality.

"When the foreigners are gone, the Taliban will beat us to death like flies," says Abdul, 25. He stands out in the streets of Kabul, a clean-shaven young man surrounded by men in beards. He looks nervous as he walks past begging women hidden under their burqas, and men carrying Kalashnikovs. He is constantly looking around.

The first calls began about a year ago. When he answered his mobile phone, there would be silence at the other end of the line, and when he called the number back, the phone would already be switched off. The anonymous callers eventually began making threats. One of them said: "You help the infidels, you are a spy. You will die." Abdul threw away his SIM card. He went into hiding with relatives in Kabul a few months ago. He had to leave his wife and daughter behind in Kunduz.

Abdul worked for the Bundeswehr as an interpreter for more than two years. He was proud of his job at first, knowing that the foreigners had come to help the Afghans. He felt that he was part of the future of his wonderful country.

When Abdul went on patrols with the Germans, his legs would often tremble a little when he stepped out of the Dingo transport vehicles. He was part of the Operational Mentor and Liaison Team (OMLT) in Kunduz, a unit in which German advisors operate together with Afghan soldiers. OMLT soldiers were repeatedly ambushed by insurgents or hit with roadside bombs, and a few were killed. For weeks, Abdul camped with the Germans at outposts in Baghlan Province, a Taliban area. They slept on cots, surrounded by green ridges where they suspected the enemy was hiding.

"We were the ears and eyes of the Germans," he says. He remembers that they often went into villages together and spoke with the local elders. When one of the Germans said something unseemly, something that could antagonize people, he simply modified his translation a little.

He wore a uniform during these operations. "Now everyone there knows my face," he says.

'I Risked My Life for the Germans'

One of Abdul's duties was to gather information for the Bundeswehr, including information about friends and neighbors. He says that he once heard a soldier with the Afghan army stirring up anti-German sentiment among his fellow soldiers. Abdul initially reported the incident to the commander of the Afghans. But the officer wasn't interested, so he told his German supervisor instead. The Afghan soldier was questioned and transferred to a different location. He is now one of many whose revenge the interpreter fears.

"I risked my life for the Germans," he says.

He is disappointed that they don't want to help him. Other ISAF countries, like the United States, Canada and New Zealand, have set up generous programs for local personnel and their families. France decided to accept about 170 of its Afghan employees into the country.

But so far the German government has refused to implement a collective solution. An announcement from the Interior Ministry, which holds primary responsibility, states that Germany is "aware of its special responsibility for the local Afghan employees." But according to authorities in Berlin, emigration to Germany will only be considered if "there is evidence of a concrete danger to life and limb which differs significantly from the general threat potential in Afghanistan," which also can't be averted locally.

When Afghan employees have concerns, they take them to their duty station in Afghanistan. An "interagency task force" consisting of representatives from the Interior, Foreign and Defense Ministries, as well as the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, will then evaluate the information and review the "individual threat situation" on a case-by-case basis.

The German Defense Ministry has examined 11 cases to date, but in none of the cases did the examiners conclude that emigration was justified. The German ministries were unwilling to provide further details on their criteria.

"An extralegal, completely non-transparent procedure was established," says attorney Victor Pfaff, who represents a few Afghan employees for the special interest organization Pro Asyl. Pfaff argues that under Section 22 Subsection 11 of the German Residence Act, every foreigner has the right to apply for a German visa for "urgent humanitarian reasons," but that the Afghans are being denied this right. Instead, he says, the German government is forcing them into a special procedure, thereby practically denying them the possibility of taking legal action.

"The Moor has done his part, and now the Moor can go -- that's unacceptable," says Elke Hoff, defense policy spokeswoman for Germany's liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), who is addressing the issues surrounding the Afghan employees. "We need a contingent solution," says Green Party defense expert Omid Nouripour. "These people are under threat because they helped us," which results in a "moral obligation." Nouripour believes that the number of potential immigrants is manageable. After all, not every kitchen worker who helped the Germans will have to flee from the Taliban.

The German government offers two main arguments in defense of its high hurdles. First, says Berlin, it would be detrimental to the country's reconstruction if the Germans' employees, who are often well-trained, fled to Germany, which would also be contrary to the Afghan government's wishes. Second, the Germans point out that the security situation has improved.

Asad's father disagrees. He is very concerned about his son, and he rails against the Germans, saying that it's time they finally took responsibility. There are roughly 20 pairs of shoes on the veranda of his small house in the city of Kunduz on this sunny Friday. His relatives have come to the house for a group prayer session. He has even invited a mullah, in the hope that he will help ward off disaster for the family. Asad, a freckled young man in a tracksuit, doesn't leave the house anymore. "He has to disappear from here," says the father, adding that prayer is the only thing he can do for his son.

Asad was exercising at the local health club a few weeks ago when his mobile phone rang. "Are you Asad, the translator?" the caller asked. "Come outside." Four armed men in a white Toyota Corolla were waiting there for Asad. Two got out and threatened him. "They grabbed me by the T-shirt and tried to pull me into the vehicle," says Asad. His fitness instructor and a few other young men came to his aid, and the men in the Toyota eventually gave up. He doesn't know who was behind the attempted kidnapping.

The way the Bundeswehr is currently dealing with its Afghan staff in Kunduz seems to be a lesson in how not to foster continued cooperation. The Germans have been slowly dismissing employees in recent months, and the interpreters feel especially abandoned. They are probably the group that is most at risk.

In anger and despair, some 35 men recently staged a demonstration outside the Bundeswehr camp in Kunduz. Two of them were eventually allowed to speak with the Germans, but they say that they were given little hope. In the end, they say, they signed annulment contracts and each of them collected two months' salary as a settlement payment. Now, the Afghans say they were told by the Germans, they will have to rely on the Afghan security forces. By last Friday, the Bundeswehr had not commented on the incident.

Some of the young Afghans have come to a hotel in Kunduz for a meeting. The mood is tense. "Didn't you say that you wouldn't leave until there was peace?" one of the Afghans asks the visitors from Germany. "You are withdrawing the entire apparatus from the country, but you're leaving us here," says another Afghan. "You fortify yourselves and claim the country is safe." According to the Afghans, the Bundeswehr built yet another new wall around its camp a few weeks ago -- would it do this if the soldiers no longer had anything to fear?

"We sold off our lives for a few thousand dollars," inveighs Farhad, an interpreter whom the group designated their spokesman. "If only I had worked for the Americans."

Now Farhad says he is afraid that the Taliban will overrun the country, and that he will end up in a mass grave. It is clear to him, he says, that he has to leave Afghanistan, illegally if necessary.

Tom Koenigs, a member of the Green Party and chairman of the human rights committee in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, goes so far as to demand that every Afghan employee be given the right to come to Germany. He calls the German authorities' behavior "bureaucratic and foolish." The Afghan employees are qualified and willing to integrate into German society, he argues, and they could even be a boon for Germany, which is already home to almost 57,000 Afghans.

A Dire Situation

In recent months, it has also become apparent how fragile the situation is in large parts of the country. Less than half a year after the Bundeswehr closed its first camp, in Badakhshan Province, it recently had to return there when Afghan government forces and Islamists became involved in heavy fighting. And the Taliban was gaining ground.

The number of attacks also remained constant. An average of five policemen are killed in Afghanistan every day. Only one of the 23 brigades in the Afghan National Army is even capable of seriously opposing insurgents without the help of NATO troops.

According to a recent report by the US Defense Department, the Taliban is "determined," "tough" and has "substantial regenerative powers." The report found that the Taliban controls districts in southern Afghanistan, while extensive corruption weakens the central government in Kabul. The Pentagon characterizes the plan to turn over responsibility for their own security to the Afghans by the end of 2014 as "a challenge."

"The Afghan army and the police have made progress," says Green Party politician Nouripour. "But they cannot protect a high-risk group in the long term." He doesn't think it's a good idea to resettle the Afghan employees within Afghanistan, or to place them in new jobs to help with reconstruction. "These people won't do anyone any good if they're dead."

Nouripour believes that a comprehensive acceptance program would collide with the whitewashing of the security situation. "The West's only objective in Afghanistan today is to withdraw quickly and without defeat." If Berlin were to admit that its own employees are no longer safe in the country, says Nouripour, it would be tantamount to losing face.

If the Germans don't want to gamble away the Afghans' trust, they should recognize reality and act accordingly, he says. "If we abandon the people who were on our side, it will become difficult in the coming months to solicit the support of the Afghans," says Nouripour. The goal now is to defend the Germans' credibility in the Hindu Kush region.

Abdul rarely ventures out to his home town of Khanabad in Kunduz Province, which is considered a breeding ground for the Taliban. He hardly ever sees his pregnant wife and their 9-month-old daughter. When he does visit, he does so surreptitiously, and he spends only a few hours in his family's house. He no longer dares to spend the night there. An explosive vest was recently found in a house a few blocks away, says Abdul. The neighbors berate his wife for loving a traitor.

Now that he has gone into hiding in Kabul, he says, he misses the way his daughter chortles when he sees her. "My life is getting poorer," he says. He can't afford to bring his family to Kabul, after having spent most of his salary from Germany for his wedding. He had invited a large number of guests, as is customary in Afghanistan.

But is he at least safe in the capital? He doesn't think so, says Abdul, because the Taliban has spies everywhere.

On a recent evening, Abdul sat drinking a glass of tea when his mobile phone, the one with the new SIM card, began to ring. When he answered, the person at the other end was silent. Abdul called back the number, but the phone had already been switched off.

*The full names of the Afghans have been withheld to protect their safety.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan


Herat Roadside Bomb Kills 7 Women, Children
TOLOnews.com Wednesday, 17 April 2013
At least seven civilians have been killed and four others injured in a roadside bomb blast in western Herat province this morning, local officials said Wednesday.

The blast happened about 08:00am in Herat's Shindand district when the civilian vehicle struck the improvised explosive device (IED) in the road, province police chief Samanwal Hussiani told TOLOnews.

All those killed were women and children, he said.

"Unfortunately, a civilian passenger vehicle which was travelling from a village into the capital of the Shindand district has struck a roadside bomb, killing seven women and children and injuring four others," Hussiani said.

The injured have been taken to a nearby hospital.

No group including the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the blast.

Insurgents frequently used roadside bomb to target Afghan and Nato troops, but most of the victims is civilians.


IEC Not Consulted on Law Governing IEC Structure, Function
TOLOnews By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Members of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) said they were not consulted by the country's lawmakers before the law governing the commission's structure and function was approved this week.

Outgoing head of the IEC, Fazal Ahmad Manawi, on Tuesday said that despite the lack of consultation, the IEC will implement the law. However, he identified problems related to the complexity of the IEC selection process, lack of clarity on the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) and lack of clarity on the relationship between the two commissions.

"Whenever this scheme becomes the law, we have to implement it. We had hoped that they would consult us regarding the structure of this law - that would have been useful. It still has some problems but we have to implement it. This law has been made by parliament and approved by the senate," Manawi said.

However, he declined to elaborate on the details.

"Now that it (the law) is approved, I don't want to discuss the different aspects of it, but what I believe is that the point of discussion regarding selecting [the IEC members] is very complicated and takes much time to implement. It has its own issues," he said.

"The way the Electoral Complaints Commission is composed will always remain a problem between the two commissions. The relationship between the two commissions are not well-described, however we hope we will be able to work with this," he added.

After numerous debates the structure and functioning law of IEC with the controversial elimination of the foreign advisers in the ECC was approved by a joint parliament and senate committee on Saturday. The law still requires President Hamid Karzai's signature.

Meanwhile, Manawi said the registration of the presidential candidate's names for next year's April 5 election will begin in five months and this has to be implemented according to the election law, which is still pending government approval.

www.afghanistannewscenter.com