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Germany aims to keep an Afghan contingent after pullout
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany wants to keep between 600 and 800 soldiers in Afghanistan from 2015 when most international troops will have withdrawn, Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on Thursday.
The soldiers would have a two-year mandate to train Afghan security forces and would also provide logistical support, sanitary aid and protection, he said.
After that two-year period Germany would pare the mission down to a maximum of 300 soldiers concentrated in the capital Kabul to provide further training and support, de Maiziere said.
No final decision on the issue is expected until after Germany's national election in September. Any decision would be subject to the backing of the U.N. Security Council as well as of the Afghan government.
Around 4,350 German soldiers are currently stationed in Afghanistan. In January Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament agreed to reduce the number of soldiers to 3,300 by February 2014.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) plans to withdraw by the end of 2014 and hand responsibility for security to Afghan soldiers and police.
(Reporting by Thorsten Severin; Writing by Michelle Martin, Editing by Gareth Jones)
India, China share similar concerns in Afghanistan: daily
NEW DELHI, April 18 (Xinhua) -- In the wake of the planned withdrawal of NATO troops in Afghanistan, India and China share similar concerns of minimizing violence in Afghanistan to protect their investments in the war-torn country, said a local daily Thursday.
The India-China dialogue on Afghanistan is scheduled to be held in Beijing Thursday for the first time, which is widely reported by Indian newspapers.
The Hindu, a leading Indian daily highlighted two points of commonality between India and China while discussing Afghanistan their mutual interest in investing in the country and their respective influence on Afghanistan from a strategic point of view.
The Hindu said that while India has more political influence in Kabul, China "scores over India in its ability to influence the behaviour of violence prone groups through its close ally Pakistan. "
From Indian side the talks will be led by Y K Sinha, Additional Secretary, Pakistan Afghanistan Iran, (PAI) of the external affairs ministry, and his counterparts in the Chinese foreign ministry, as per official sources.
The meeting is taking place in the backdrop of talks between the National Security Advisors of India, China and Russia held in Moscow recently to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
Blast rocks Afghan southern town, wounding 2
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, April 18 (Xinhua) -- A powerful blast shocked Spinboldak town in Taliban former strong Kandahar province 450 km south of Kabul on Thursday, injuring two people, a local official said.
"It was a bomb blast that happened in the front of a market in Spinboldak town at 04:10 p.m. local time wounding two people, both civilians," local official Faqirullah told Xinhua.
However, he did not provide more information, saying authorized officials would brief the media after investigation.
Meantime, a doctor in Spinboldak town confirmed that two injured men had been taken to hospital.
Jawed Faisal, the spokesman for Kandahar provincial administration, confirmed the blast, saying details will be made public after investigation.
News Analysis: Spring in Afghanistan season of killings
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Spring is supposed to be a season when there is serenity and peace as nature comes to life again after a long and harsh winter.
But in this militancy-plagued country, serenity is just wishful thinking as the Taliban militants continued without letup its orgy of killings, the bloodiest of which was the brazen attack in a court in the western Farah province on April 3 killing over four dozen people and injuring scores of others, majority of them innocent civilians.
In that bloody attack, which was not even publicized by the international media anymore because it seems to be a normal occurrence in Afghanistan, 53 people, including 24 judges, were reported to have been killed and more than 100 others injured.
The attack was carried out by a nine-man Taliban squad wearing suicide vests and equipped with light arms who stormed the appellate court where a group of Taliban detainees were waiting for the court's ruling on their case.
Days later on April 6, clash between Taliban militants and the NATO-led forces and Afghan troops left 11 children dead and injured five women as aircraft pounded a Taliban hideout in the mountainous Shigal district of Kunar province along the border with Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.
In the militancy-plagued Afghanistan, traditionally spring and summer are known as fighting season. As the weather gets warmer and the snows in the mountainous region of Afghanistan melt, particularly in the border with Pakistan, militant forces, led by the Taliban, usually regroup and intensify their armed attacks.
There is an Afghan popular proverb that says, "Good spring gives the message of good year." But what happened in the Afghan New Year 1392, which commenced last March 21 based on the Persian calendar, was the reverse because it brought more violence and not peace. Spring in Afghanistan begins from March 21 or first Hamal in Persian calendar and summer ends in Sept. 20 or 29 Sunbillah when the fighting reaches its peak as the insurgent groups spare no efforts in grabbing more territory and consolidating their positions.
The conflict in Afghanistan begins to cool down in autumn when the weather gets colder but it is in winter that the country can experience peace and serenity as the thick snow makes it impossible for the armed militants to move around, much less to stage attacks.
In the latest waves of violent incidents, Taliban militants stormed a checkpoint in the eastern Laghman province killing four Afghan policemen on April 17 while a roadside bomb claimed the lives of seven persons in the western Herat province on the same day. The Interior Ministry blamed Taliban for the deadly attacks.
Earlier on April 12, the Taliban insurgents raided a military outpost in the mountainous Kunar province 185 km east of Kabul killing 13 Afghan Army troopers. In 2012, official data show that the Taliban-led insurgency had killed more than 2,800 Afghan security forces, over 400 foreign soldiers, and 2,754 innocent civilians, including women and children.
The killings in Afghanistan rival only those in neighboring Pakistan where the Taliban, along with other religious groups, have carried attacks against the government and rival religious faction, particularly the Shiites. Militants loyal to the Taliban, who are very active and visible in the tribal areas, regularly target the Afghan government and NATO-led forces.
Since the launching the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom against the brutal Taliban rule for hosting al-Qaida chief Osama Ben Laden in October 2001, a total of 3,281 members of the alliance have been killed, 32 of them since January 2013, according to iCasualties, a website tracking U.S. and NATO-led forces casualties in Afghanistan.
The U.S. and NATO-led forces are packing up to leave Afghanistan and the withdrawal process is expected to be completed by the end of 2014, a departure that the Taliban has termed as a defeat of the anti-terror alliance. They have vowed to continue their jihad or holy war against Afghan security forces that will be left behind to maintain peace and stability in the country after 2014.
17 girl students mysteriously poisoned in northern Afghan town
TALUQAN, Afghanistan, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Over a dozen students of a girl school were mysteriously poisoned in Takhar province 245 km north of Kabul on Thursday, a local official said.
"Seventeen students of Bibi Hajira Girl School in Taluqan city the capital of Takhar province were mysteriously poisoned and have been taken to hospital today," Gul Agha Nazari, deputy to Education Department of Takhar province told Xinhua.
He also said that investigation has been initiated to find the fact behind the incident.
Spokesman for Takhar provincial administration, Suliman Sarwari also confirmed the incident, saying investigation is underway to know the fact.
Taliban vows revenge on US troops over Guantanamo shootings
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 18 Apr 2013, 11:31 am Khaama Press
The Taliban militants group in Afghanistan following a statement vowed to take revenge on US troops in Afghanistan after guards at Guantanamo prison fired non-lethal rounds at inmates to quell unrest.
According to US military officials, guards at the US-run prison in Cuba fired the rounds last Saturday to halt unrest as they relocated inmates into individual cells.
The incident took place after the inmates started resistance while they were being moved from communal housing to individual cells however the officials said that no detainees were seriously injured.
This comes as dozens of detainees are in the third month of a hunger strike at the prison.
Taliban group spokesman Zabiullah in his statement said, “The Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate… vow to avenge these wronged prisoners by targeting the American invaders in Afghanistan with all might at their disposal, Allah willing.”
Mujahid further added, “such cowardly actions of America and take a firm stance against it based upon evident humane principles.”
He urged the rights activists and groups to condemn the attack.
According to reports several prisoners including former Taliban members captured during the US-led invasion in Afghanistan in 2001, are serving in the jail based in Cuba.
The Stakes for America in the Race to Replace Karzai
Passivity in the run-up to next spring's Afghan presidential election will invite trouble.
Wall Street Journal By MICHÈLE FLOURNOY AND MICHAEL O'HANLON Opinion April 16, 2013
Afghanistan has held two presidential elections since 2001. Hamid Karzai won both, but the most recent (in 2009) was marred by irregularities such as stuffed ballot boxes and acrimony between Mr. Karzai and the international community. The Afghan constitution demands that Mr. Karzai step down next year, and by most accounts that is his intention. Who will succeed him?
On a recent trip to Afghanistan, almost everyone we spoke to highlighted next April's presidential election as a make-or-break event for the country—including its ability to fend off the Taliban and avoid backsliding into civil war.
What should be the international community's role over the next 12 months? Although the United States and other key outside nations shouldn't and won't try to pick a winner, they should do what they can to ensure that the next elections are freer and fairer than the last. Since the U.S. has promised at least $5 billion a year in future aid (for half a decade or more) and is considering spending $10 billion a year or more on a post-2014 military presence, Americans in particular have a stake in the electoral process and outcome.
Put more bluntly: If Afghans either hold a fraudulent election or elect a corrupt future leader, the odds of the U.S. Congress providing the expected aid are slim to none. This is also the case for other countries. The U.S. should, therefore, voice its views now rather than simply cut off aid later if the election goes badly.
As Afghans remember all too well, the Soviet-installed government of Mohammad Najibullah fell not when the Soviet Union left Afghanistan in 1989 but when Moscow cut off the money three years later. When the Taliban overran Kabul in 1996, Najibullah was tortured and murdered. All too aware of this history, Afghan reformers, opposition politicians and members of civil society are asking Americans and others to help them make their election a success.
No Afghan has yet announced a candidacy for next year's election, but many names are being floated. They include current or former chiefs of staff to the president, Mr. Karzai's brother Qayum, Minister of Education Ghulam Farooq Wardak, Minister of Finance Omar Zakhilwel, Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, former Foreign Minister and presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, and former minister Haneef Atmar.
There is much talk in Kabul these days about the desirability of finding a "consensus" candidate or slate. The idea here is to use Afghanistan's consultative traditions to avoid a divisive election while the country's democracy is so fragile.
In principle, this is a reasonable and even appealing idea. In practice, it risks having President Karzai play the role of kingmaker, since it is hard to see how a consensus would otherwise develop in a place with such strong political rivalries and with so many people clearly angling to be president. The devil will be in the details of a consensus candidate if one emerges.
Against this confusing backdrop, the international community can help by focusing on a few goals:
First, remind Afghans that Americans and others will exercise their own sovereign rights to determine future aid levels once Afghanistan exercises its sovereign right to choose a new leader. The quality of the election process and the quality of the new president's leadership will both affect decisions on aid. This is just common sense and should be conveyed as a matter of fact, not a menacing threat.
Second, help ensure the independence and integrity of the Afghan watchdog groups charged with overseeing the electoral process. For all the criticism of past Afghan elections, it was these Afghan groups—the Independent Electoral Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission—that uncovered the fraud and threw out the bad ballots. Whether or not they include foreigners, future appointees to the commissions should be selected with the input of parliament, and Mr. Karzai shouldn't be able to dismiss them once appointed. This issue is more important than many others currently being debated in Kabul, including redoing voter registration and issuing new voter cards.
Third, watch how the campaigns play out starting later this year. Afghan state media need to give reasonable time to all candidates, including the opposition. Vote-buying and voter intimidation need to be deterred and prevented through timely investigations of allegations. The electoral commissions will do the investigating, but outside forces must stand behind them.
Fourth, give technical, moral and if necessary financial support to fledgling Afghan political parties—provided they have multiethnic memberships and platforms, and promise to eschew violence. When U.S. officials visit Afghanistan, they should meet not only with members of the executive branch but also with a broad range of next-generation Afghan politicians and civil-society members who are the real hope for the country's future.
American passivity in the coming Afghan elections could be just as counterproductive as American assertiveness (including some nasty public spats with Mr. Karzai) was last time around. The verdict on the war in Afghanistan may be settled less on the country's battlefields than at its polling stations next spring. That election is already sneaking up on us—there is little time to lose.
Ms. Flournoy, a co-founder of the Center for a New American Security, was under secretary of defense for policy from 2009-11. Mr. O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Afghanistan - the world’s most dangerous place for aid workers
KABUL, 18 April 2013 (IRIN) - Attacks on aid workers in Afghanistan - the world’s most dangerous country for aid workers - are likely to be as high in 2013 as the worst year on record, 2011, according to a new report from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) published today.
The latest figures - which tally only incidents affecting NGO personnel, excluding UN aid workers - show that in the first three months of this year, NGOs were affected by 39 separate incidents of violence, a 63 percent increase over 2012. Twenty incidents were attributed to armed opposition groups, 11 to pro-government forces and eight to criminals.
The latest incident involving violence against aid workers, not included in the report, occurred on 15 April. Two members of an Afghan Red Crescent Society medical team were killed and two others injured when gunmen attacked them as they travelled back from Sheberghan, the provincial capital of Jowzjan Province.
“It seems to be a deliberate act, however, we cannot speculate on who committed the acts. The Afghan Red Crescent emblem was clearly marked on the car,” Gherardo Pontrandolfi, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Kabul, told IRIN.
“This is a tragedy, not only for the families of the deceased, but for all those needing medical attention, because now units like these might find it even more difficult to work in certain parts of the country,” Pontrandolfi said in a statement.
The increase in attacks on aid workers follows a rise in all attacks across the country, ANSO director Tomas Muzik told IRIN.
“Last year, we saw significantly less opposition activity in the field due to winter conditions and it being the first year international forces started to downsize.
“This year is quite different. We have once again seen a 47 percent increase in the opposition attacks [overall]. Since we are already seeing this data in the first three months, it is quite strong for us to anticipate that this year will be as violent or slightly less violent than 2011 for NGO workers.”
Aid workers vulnerable
According to the 2012 Aid Worker Security Report - which includes NGO and UN aid workers - 308 aid workers were killed, kidnapped or wounded worldwide in 2011, up from 245 in 2010.
These were the highest figures ever recorded, and Afghanistan had the highest number of attacks that year, with 51 of the total 151 violent incidents. In those attacks, 31 aid workers in Afghanistan were killed, 29 wounded and 32 kidnapped.
The Aid Worker Security Report says aid workers are most vulnerable to attacks in weak, unstable states with active, internal armed conflict.
“There is so much violence in the field that NGOs, given their presence in the field, are exposed to this. It doesn’t mean they are the ones targeted, it means they are the ones that accidentally receive rocket fire during engagements,” said Muzik.
In addition to opposition-related violence, NGOs have seen a spike in intrusions into NGO project sites by Afghan and international security forces, from three cases last year to 11 this year, according to the ANSO figures.
Anti-government groups are responsible for 40 to 60 percent of NGO attacks, but the majority of these cases are thought to be collateral or accidental exposure to violence rather than direct targeting, said the ANSO report.
“We understand that neither the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban, nor any other factions such as Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin would be averse on a political level to NGO existence in the country,” said Muzik.
ANSO also highlights a decline in rural criminal offenses against aid workers. In the first three months of last year, Afghanistan had five NGO casualties, all tied to criminal activity. In the same period of this year, nine NGO casualties were recorded, all linked to opposition attacks.
Humanitarian access unstable
Aid workers and civilians exist alongside armed militias, formal security forces and criminal groups, and telling them apart them can often be a challenge, according to research by Human Rights Watch.
Aid groups spend a long time negotiating for humanitarian access, but analysts and officials say unstable command structures in anti-government groups mean those armed on the ground may not be under the strict control of their leaders.
The situation is complicated in Afghanistan by the desire of humanitarian actors - both UN aid agencies and NGOs - to distance themselves from the United Nation’s Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), a political mission working closely with the government.
“We as humanitarians want to distinguish ourselves from this whole thing,” said one UN humanitarian official in Afghanistan, who asked not to be named, referring to UNAMA.
“But still for people in the field in the villages, it’s all UN,” he said.
Looking ahead
With international forces continuing to hand over responsibility for security to Afghan government forces, the security situation will likely change over the next two years.
A recent report by the Overseas Development Institution (ODI) suggests that after the withdrawal of international security forces, aid agencies will need to work more with opposition forces.
“Aid agencies’ access negotiations with the Taliban will be critical after 2014. Establishing effective engagement policies is fundamental to reaching all Afghans in need,” said the report.
That will mean NGOs will need to establish clear engagement policies if they are to continue to operate with a degree of safety throughout the country, says Muzik.
“NGOs will be able to operate in Afghanistan to the extent that we are able to negotiate access with the combatants and that the combatants do not directly target NGOs,” he said.
An Afghan City’s Economic Success Extends to Its Sex Trade
New York Times By AZAM AHMED Mazar-I-Sharif Journal April 17, 2013
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan - This verdant town is home to some of Afghanistan’s greatest treasures: It is the birthplace of the celebrated poet Rumi, and the site of one of the country’s most storied mosques. It is the first Afghan city to have been connected with another country by rail.
Among all of Mazar’s distinctions is a more dubious one. It is also Afghanistan’s unofficial capital of prostitution — so much so that “going to Mazar” has become a byword for Afghan men looking to pay for sex.
Partly, the phenomenon is owed to the city’s culture, which is considerably more forgiving of vice than is the rest of the country. Alcohol, though still illegal, can be found without too much trouble. Women, largely confined to the home, can be seen socializing with men in Mazar’s public parks, a rare sight even in Kabul, the capital.
But as much as anything, a business boom has fueled the sex trade in Mazar, local officials and aid workers say.
In recent years, the city’s economy has flourished as its proximity to Central Asia and its relative peace and stability have transformed it into a trading hub. Buildings are springing up across the city, as local and regional companies set up shop.
“Mazar is a big city, and compared to the other provinces a lot of prostitutes work here,” said Nilofar Sayar, director of a women’s rights group in Mazar that offers job training to sex workers. “There are lots of businesses, which means lots of money and customers.”
The flourishing of prostitution here casts a glaring light on the contradictions of the male-dominated Afghan society, where even the implication of immorality can mean death for women. The sex trade has existed in one form or another for decades, even under the ultraconservative rule of the Taliban. But officials here say the rapid spread of mobile technology has made the business easier to manage and harder to detect, allowing prostitution to expand.
Corruption is another factor that keeps business booming. Indeed, one of the interviews conducted with a prostitute for this article was coordinated by a police officer who is a client.
The business is conducted in the most secretive ways, and few are willing to talk publicly about it. Almost all of the women involved are driven to desperation by poverty. Prostitutes often wear all-concealing chadors, making it impossible to recognize them, and even the logistics of the business are shadowy. There are few, if any, actual brothels.
Years ago, brothels operated in the open here, typically as hotels, where men could visit without fear of scrutiny. But a few years back, Atta Mohammed Noor, the powerful governor of surrounding Balkh Province, ordered a crackdown. The brothels all but disappeared.
In their place, a decentralized network emerged. Women now host clients in a series of apartments across the city, or sometimes in their own homes, according to aid groups and women involved in the sex trade. The point of contact is typically a man who orchestrates the meet-ups by cellphone.
This has made the business tough to infiltrate for those police officials eager to crack down. The deputy chief of police in Mazar, Abdul Razaq Qadiri, threw his hands up when asked about prostitution in the city.
“You tell me where they are,” he shouted. ‘They don’t exactly hang signs from their doors.”
The head of investigations for the police refined his boss’s explanation.
“A few years ago, we didn’t have mobile phones, computers or the Internet,” said Gen. Salahuddin Sultanis, the head of criminal investigations for Balkh Province. “All this technology has increased relations between people, and it makes it hard for us to track.”
Women trapped in the trade here share familiar stories. They are almost always impoverished and typically divorced or widowed, struggling to support a family. Sometimes, their own families force them into prostitution, to help pay the bills or to support a husband’s drug habit. Most know that once they start selling themselves for sex, they risk death if they are discovered, and sexually transmitted disease if they are not.
Married at age 13, Aziza Jan turned to prostitution after her husband divorced her several years ago and left her to support six children, she said. Her family has no money to assist her, and her children are too young to work.
With a round face and an easy laugh, Aziza, 35, lives in a lavender-colored compound on a quiet street. She hosts her clients in a front parlor that is covered in carpets and pillows, with a wood-fired stove and a TV in a corner.
“My mother married me off at a very young age, which was a bad idea,” she said as her young son clung to her legs. “She never calls to check in on us, to see how we’re doing.”
Embarrassed to talk about what she does, she insisted that most of her money comes from her work as a seamstress. Her oldest son is coming of age now, and she hopes he will be able to help ease the family’s financial difficulties when he finishes school.
“Beyond all the hurt and pain, I try to keep myself happy,” she said with a giggle. “I look at my children, and they are my joy.”
In a few cases, the prostitutes are still married, but conduct business without their husbands’ knowing.
Fereshta, a 25-year-old mother of three, said her life had begun to fall apart when her husband lost his construction job more than five years ago.
They were forced from their home and now inhabit a shell of a building with no windows or doors and struggle to feed themselves. To survive, she said, she felt that prostituting herself was the best option, given that women are rarely allowed to work in Afghanistan.
She learned about the business from her friends, who charge $30 to $60 for their services. She described a network similar to the one described by others: Customers call a contact, who then arranges a meeting at the customer’s house or the woman’s house. Her clients are most often single, middle-class men with money to spare.
“We never answer the calls of people we don’t know,” she said. “They have to have a solid reference.”
Without the money, her family may starve. And yet if her husband were to discover what she does to put food on the table, the consequences would be dire.
“I’m forced to do this,” she said. “If my husband finds out, he will kill me. But what choice do I have?”
Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.
Pakistan's Musharraf flees court to avoid arrest
By SEBASTIAN ABBOT and MUNIR AHMED | Associated Press
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf fled court in a speeding vehicle Thursday to avoid arrest after his bail was revoked in a case involving his decision to fire senior judges while in power over five years ago.
The harried escape broadcast live on Pakistani TV marked a new low in Musharraf's troubled return from exile last month to seek a political comeback in the May 11 parliamentary election.
Musharraf made his exit with the help of bodyguards, who pushed him past policemen and paramilitary soldiers and helped him into a black SUV that sped off with a member of his security team hanging on the side of the vehicle. Lawyers taunted the 69-year-old as he roared away, yelling, "Look who is running! Musharraf is running!"
The car carrying the former military strongman dashed to his luxury farmhouse, which is protected by high walls, razor wire and guard towers. Dozens of police and elite commandos blocked the main road that runs to the compound on the outskirts of Islamabad, keeping a crowd of journalists and onlookers at bay. About 20 Musharraf supporters held banners and shouted slogans.
None of the security forces protecting the compound made any move to arrest Musharraf, likely because they were awaiting orders from senior officials trying to figure out how to deal with a delicate situation. Musharraf's legal team said they would appeal the arrest warrant in the Supreme Court.
"A lot of people are going to demand to know why he escaped the custody of the security forces," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political science professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Pakistan's government seems reluctant to wade into the controversy surrounding Musharraf, especially given his connection to the army, considered the most powerful institution in the country.
Musharraf seized power in a coup in 1999 when he was serving as army chief and spent nearly a decade in power before being forced to step down in 2008. He returned last month after four years in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai despite legal challenges and Taliban death threats.
He has received paltry public support, and earlier this week was disqualified from running in the coming election because of his actions while in power. A court has also barred him from leaving the country.
The upcoming vote is historic because it will mark the first time in Pakistan that parliament has completed its full five-year term and handed over power in democratic elections. The country has experienced three military coups and constant political instability since it was founded in 1947.
The court order to arrest Musharraf and his decision to flee puts the current army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in an awkward position. There have been calls for paramilitary soldiers protecting Musharraf to arrest him. That could force Kayani to decide whether to protect a former army chief or respect judges who have shown an increasing willingness to go after senior military and civilian officials.
If Musharraf were sent to prison, it would be the first time a Pakistani army chief has been put behind bars.
"General Musharraf's act today underscores his disregard for due legal process and indicates his assumption that as a former army chief and military dictator he can evade accountability for abuses," the head of Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, Ali Dayan Hasan, said in a statement. "Continued military protection for General Musharraf will make a mockery of claims that Pakistan's armed forces support the rule of law and bring the military further disrepute that it can ill afford."
A spokeswoman for Musharraf, Aasia Ishaq, said officials in Islamabad planned to declare his house a jail, which is allowed under the country's law. That would mean Musharraf was effectively under house arrest, and could solve Kayani's dilemma for the time being.
But a police official in the area where Musharraf lives, Mohammed Ijaj, said he had not yet received such an order.
Thursday's case before the Islamabad High Court involved Musharraf's decision to dismiss senior judges, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, when he declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution in 2007. He was concerned the judges would challenge his recent re-election as president, and cited the growing Taliban insurgency in the country as justification for the state of emergency.
The man who filed the petition before the Islamabad High Court, Aslam Ghuman, also accused Musharraf of placing the judges under house arrest.
Musharraf's spokeswoman, Ishaq, denied he issued an arrest order, even though the judges were clearly confined to their homes. Government officials at the time claimed they restricted the movement of the judges for their own security.
Musharraf's crackdown on the judges outraged many Pakistanis, and fueled a nationwide protest movement by lawyers that eventually resulted in him stepping down under the threat of impeachment.
Before he returned to the country nearly a month ago, Musharraf was granted bail for the judges' case and two others, meaning he could not be arrested when he landed — a feature of Pakistan's legal system. But the bail agreement was temporary.
An Islamabad High Court judge, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, who had extended the bail agreement once on April 12, refused to do so again Thursday and ordered Musharraf's arrest, according to a copy of the court order. The judge ordered Musharraf to be investigated under an anti-terrorism law, which does not allow bail, the order said.
Siddiqui wrote that Musharraf's "shameful" decision to arrest judges "spread fear in society ... and terror throughout Pakistan."
Many policemen and paramilitary soldiers were on duty at the court, but they seemed caught off-guard and nobody appeared to try to prevent Musharraf from leaving as he pushed past them.
The judge ordered the Islamabad police chief to appear before the court on Friday to explain why Musharraf was not arrested and to ensure action is taken against policemen "who remained napping" instead of performing their duties.
Musharraf's spokeswoman, Ishaq, said the judge was "biased," claiming he participated in the protests against Musharraf when he was in power. Musharraf's legal team will file an appeal with the Supreme Court on Friday, said Ishaq.
Musharraf is facing a raft of other legal challenges, including allegations before the Supreme Court that he committed treason while in power. He also faces legal charges in two other cases. One involves allegations that Musharraf didn't provide adequate security to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in a gun and suicide attack in 2007. The other relates to the death of a nationalist leader in Baluchistan in 2006.
Given the legal challenges and Taliban threats against Musharraf, many experts have been left scratching their heads as to why he returned. Some have speculated he misjudged the level of public backing he would get, while others suggested he was simply homesick.
Musharraf released a video message online late Thursday saying he had done great things for the country and asking, "Why am I being stopped from taking part in politics?"
___
Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.
Can Pakistan drive the Taliban out of its tribal belt?
With the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan looming, Pakistan is turning its attention to the impoverished tribal areas where regional terror groups have long sought haven.
By Taha Siddiqui | Christian Science Monitor
Impoverished and perpetually neglected by the country’s central government, the semi-autonomous tribal regions of northwest Pakistan have long been a simmering source of both national and regional tension.
For years, the country’s central government has tacitly allowed extremist groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban to use the region as a kind of haven for militants waging conflicts just across the border in neighboring Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the aftershocks of that conflict have spilled over into the tribal areas’ civilian population, disrupting education and economic activity.
Now, with the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops in Afghanistan looming, the Pakistani government is reexamining its role in the long-neglected region and renewing its counterinsurgency efforts against militants. But many analysts, local leaders, and residents question whether the country has either the will or the resources to truly reform its tribal belt.
"The tribal areas have been knowingly neglected socially and constitutionally by successive regimes since independence," says Rahimullah Yousafzai, an expert on the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), as the regions are collectively known.
Indeed, the Pakistani military claims it has now secured control in many areas of FATA – the most recent win in South Waziristan, where a military operation was launched in 2009. But even those areas have yet to be transferred to the hands of the civilian administration, and many others are not under the government's control at all.
A HISTORY OF DIVISION
Since British colonization, the region’s seven geographically divided “agencies” have not been an official part of Pakistan. In 1901, to appease tribal leadership wary of a centralized government, the British introduced a separate governing system in FATA, known as the Frontier’s Crimes Regulations (FCR), which continued after Pakistan's independence in 1947.
Under the FCR, the tribal areas are governed by federally appointed political administrators who have absolute executive, legislative, and judicial power in each agency. Constitutional civil rights afforded to the rest of Pakistan do not exist.
“The government also gives many privileges to the tribal leadership like money, land, etc.," says Safdar Hayat, former president of the Tribal Union of Journalists, who hails from North Waziristan, where the Taliban are headquartered. "These privileges are not allocated as rights of civilians but only for those heads of tribes who do not question the FCR.”
Added to that is instability in neighboring Afghanistan, which has bled over into the region and contributed to a low educational attainments and high poverty. Along with rigid cultural traditions, these factors have held the tribal areas back in terms of socio-economic development compared with the rest of Pakistan. They have also fueled concern about the insecurity and militancy spreading beyond the region.
But bringing the region under the control of the Pakistani government isn’t an easy task, officials argue.
A 'WARRIOR-LIKE' PEOPLE
Ethnic groups in Pakistan’s tribal belt have fought against foreign aggression for centuries. The British, Americans, and then Pakistanis all took advantage of their outside reputation as a warrior-like people, setting up the current dynamic.
“Pre-independence, the British exploited the folklore of Pashtun bravery to keep the Afghans from entering their colonial-ruled regions of the subcontinent,” says Nizam Dawar, who is a development specialist based in the tribal region. “Post-independence we allied with the Americans, and used the same Pashtun tribes to ward off communism from [the Soviet Union],” says Mr. Dawar.
When the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, however, those same American-trained militants began clashing with NATO forces and then retreating to Pakistan for sanctuary.
Also complicating matters, the Pakistani military under Gen. Pervez Musharraf made peace pacts with the militants based in FATA during the NATO-led Afghan war, tacitly allowing them haven, while also continuing to ally itself with the United States against its “war on terror.”
Twelve years later, many security experts say the military still does not want to burn bridges with Afghan militants in FATA, which it sees as a potential way to influence what happens to Afghanistan after NATO pulls out in 2014.
WHAT NEXT?
Analysts, local leaders, and even some in the military emphasize that the legal framework in FATA needs to be repealed and constitutional rights granted to its citizens to ensure social and infrastructural development.
“Where is the civilian leadership? Even now, the military is chipping in more than anyone else. We should pull our act together, since we have been neglecting this region for over 65 years,” says Brigadier Hassan Hayat, an operational commander, who has been posted in South Waziristan for the past two years rehabilitating refugees and maintaining law and order.
More than $150 million has been pledged by countries like the US, Britain, and Germany in a bid to revive the livelihood of people beset by terrorism and natural disasters in Pakistan, according to statistics by provided by the Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Many of their projects focus on FATA.
But despite so much inflow, development workers say the outlook remains grim as aid is channeled through the military – instead of civilian authorities.
“The tribal belt has now become a hotbed for war economy. With some much money pouring in from all over the world for development, the main stakeholders – especially the military – are now also financially benefiting from keeping the conflict alive,” Mr. Dawar, the development worker, says.
“FATA continues to stay out of constitutional ambit because the military wants absolute control over the strategic belt,” echoing history, he says. “The civilian leadership remains sidelined.”
Fiber Optic Network Construction Begins in N. Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Installation of a 260-kilometer fiber optic cable between northern Kunduz province and north-eastern Badakhshan province began Wednesday, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) said.
The $6.1 million project, which will run through Takhar province, is being implemented with funds from the World Bank and will run from the Ali Abad District of Kunduz to the provincial capital of Faizabad in Badakshan province, MCIT minister Amirzai Sangin said.
The new fiber optic network is expected to deliver greater connectivity to Afghanistan's neighboring countries and the world, he added, describing Afghanistan as a pioneer in telecommunications in the region.
"We are so happy about the fast progress in the information technology sector. Just as information technology plays a role in the lives of people in the world, so we aim to facilitate any services in Afghanistan which are used in developed countries," Sangin said.
Kunduz officials welcomed the news of the project and the potential for standard telecommunication services in the province.
"Kunduz is boundary province which shares a border with Tajikistan and we should try to have as developed a country as our neighbors," Kunduz Governor Mohammad Anwar Jegdilik said.
"The telecommunication companies are active in Afghanistan, in fact they earn multifold benefits for the people," Kunduz MP Fatima Aziz said.
The ministry added that Afghanistan's fiber optic network will ultimately cost up to $60 million, and will give the government $5 million per month in earnings after it is complete.
Congress to reveal new allegations in multibillion Afghanistan food contract dispute
Foreign Policy (blog) By Kevin Baron Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Congressional investigators will reveal new allegations on Wednesday claiming that Defense Department officials were in a near-panic in 2006 about how to resolve a six-year, multi-billion dollar dispute over the largest food-services contract in Afghanistan, after the Swiss company performing the work tried to double bill and defraud the Pentagon.
According to a Democratic Briefing Memo from the committee's minority staff to subcomitte members, obtained exclusively by the E-Ring, the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security has obtained new documents and internal Defense Logistics Agency emails that it claims illustrate how Supreme Foodservice has improperly charged $757 million to ship food supplies to forward operating bases in Afghanistan since 2006.
DLA, in rejecting Supreme’s fee invoice, argues that the cost of the shipments already were included in the base price of the contract.
“In other words, charging the distribution fee amounted to double-billing,” said the memo, which was distributed to subcommittee members in advance of a hearing on the controversy scheduled for Wednesday.
Witnesses expected to testify include Michael Schuster, managing director of Supreme Group’s logistics division; Daniel Blair, DOD deputy inspector general for auditing; and contracting executives from DLA.
The committee also will reveal that a DOD audit found Supreme built an unrequested $58 million warehouse in Helmand province solely to “strategically position themselves” to win more DOD contracts, and then tried to charge U.S. taxpayers for it.
The saga began in 2005 when Supreme was selected to deliver food and supplies to four U.S. bases in Afghanistan. The award was worth $726 million but had a maximum value over five years of $4.2 billion.
Before a single morsel was delivered to U.S. troops, however, DLA offered to vastly expand the scope of work, asking Supreme to deliver food to 68 bases across the country. But DLA and Supreme never settled on how much to charge for the new work, which required travel by helicopter and airplane to more remote locations. Supreme was given the OK to start work and bill later. That’s when the fight ensued. Six months into the contract, Supreme sent their bill for $33 million, causing alarm in DLA.
“I do not understand why we are so far apart on price,” a Supreme employee wrote to DLA in regards to helicopter fees in 2006.
According to the memo, “The DLA contracting officer responded: ‘The biggest issue that I'm having with the helo [helicopter] price is that it represents more than a 300% increase over what we've paid for air support to the FOBS [forward operating bases].’”
Later, in 2009, a DLA contracting officer wrote a colleague about her worries that DLA told Supreme to start the expanded work without an agreement on the costs for the service. “We did not have a way to verify precisely what we owed, but knew that we owed the vendor for the service.”
DOD was unable to resolve the pricing dispute for years, and so in December 2011 agency officials finally exercised their authority to unilaterally set rates. By DLA’s math, Supreme overcharged the U.S. and should repay $757 million. Supreme, however, claims DLA owes them $1.8 billion, and has challenged DLA’s decision in appeals proceedings.
Meanwhile, despite the dispute, DLA extended Supreme’s contract rather than open it to competitive bidding after President Obama announced the 2010 Afghan surge. Last year, with no alternative supplier in place, Supreme was delivering to 265 locations in Afghanistan.
In June, DLA finally switched providers and awarded a new $10 billion food distribution contract to Anham FZCO, of Dubai. But DLA also extended the Supreme contract for up to $1.5 billion through December 2013, with the intention of stopping that work once Anham was ready to take it over.
In the meantime, Anham has had a slow start. Supreme, wanting to keep working its current extention, appealed to the U.S. Government Accountability Office and won a court stay in February preventing DLA from starting Anham on the job. But a judge later ruled in favor of DOD’s wartime discretion to start the work. So last week, Supreme filed a second suit against the U.S., this time in the Court of Federal Claims to challenge DLA’s decision to switch providers.
DLA maintains Supreme improperly tried to charge an additional premium fee for delivering food to forward operating bases, when that cost should have been covered within Supreme’s base distribution fee. The agency argues that Supreme invoiced the Defense Department for both the basic fee and the premium fee. In addition, the premium sometimes included both the premium and the basic fee. This, DLA alleges, is the double billing.
So DLA now claims it overpaid $567 million in premium fees to Supreme and another $177 million in double charges. Additionally, defense officials want Supreme to return $12 million it charged DLA “for transferring goods short distances from Supreme's warehouse in southern Afghanistan, including Camp Leatherneck which was directly across the street.”
Congressional investigators say they have many questions are hoping for more answers -- including why DLA took so long to resolve the dispute, extended the controversial contract repeatedly, and why Supreme has yet to provide satisfactory documentation justifying its fees.
"We will hear about how the Defense Logistics Agency continued to pay Supreme billions of dollars in spite of very strong concerns at the agency that taxpayers were being overbilled,” said Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., ranking member of the subcommittee, in an email statement to the E-Ring. “It took DLA six years to demand that Supreme reimburse the government more than $750 million in overpayments. That is an astounding amount of money.”
Red Crescent Suspends Work in N. Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com By Jawed Stanikzai Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Red Crescent has suspended its activities in northern Afghanistan after the death of two of its staff in Jawzjan province on Tuesday evening.
Condemning the incident, Red Crescent said that attacks on health workers will limit its humanitarian services and called on the responsible organisations to track down the perpetrators of the incident to punish them.
"The Red Crescent has temporarily suspended its activities because of two of its staff being killed and another doctor being injured," Red Crescent's head of the public affairs Walid Akbar Sarwari said Wednesday.
Local officials including the Red Crescent head told TOLOnews Tuesday night that the two Red Crescent employees were killed and two were wounded Tuesday evening in Jawzjan's Khan Aqa district when unknown armed men opened fire on the vehicle as it was travelling to the provincial capital Sheberghan city.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Public Health condemned the incident and said that attacks on health workers will lead to far greater problems for many citizens including widespread health issues.
"Attacking health workers while they're doing their duties in different areas will have a horrid effect on the process of providing health care," said Suraya Dali, Minister of Public Health.
Radio Station Arman FM Marks 10 Years of Broadcast
TOLOnews.com By Aazem Arash Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Afghanistan's first private radio station Arman FM marks its 10-year anniversary this week, celebrating its growth across the country to more than 15 provinces.
Arman FM, which is part of the Moby Group*, has focused on broadcasting entertainment programmes featuring local, regional and international music.
When it started in 2003, it had only nine employees based in the capital Kabul with limited reach.
Today it broadcasts 24 hours a day with live streaming on the internet and some 15 million listeners across Afghanistan, according to the head of Moby Group's broadcasting Massoud Sanjar.
"Arman was a revolution in Afghanistan's media. We launched the modern format of the media in Afghanistan. Before, only one radio station was broadcasting with a different format in the country. We changed the face of the media in terms of broadcasting news, entertainment, and interviews in Afghanistan," Sanjar said.
One fan of the station told TOLOnews he had been listening to the channel for ten years.
"Since Arman started broadcasting in Afghanistan, I have always listened to it – in the past almost ten years," said a taxi driver in Kabul city.
Karzai’s anti-U.S. rhetoric: An Afghan perspective
By Najib Sharifi, Ahmad Shafi Thursday, April 11, 2013 - 2:39 PM Foreign Policy
Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s latest vague and controversial anti-U.S. remarks were puzzling to many people both inside and outside Afghanistan, as they implied that the United States is inadvertently colluding with the Taliban. Despite the fact that he later accused the media of misinterpreting his comments and tried to clarify his remarks during a press conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Kabul, his comments generated a lot of noise, confusion, and varied interpretations by political commentators.
The most popular interpretations explained that Karzai’s bizarre remarks were likely aimed at cementing his patriotic image. Others believed his comments were attempts to rebuild his legacy as he nears the end of his term in office. Some speculated that they were a result of “bad advice” from his political cronies.
All of these interpretations may have shades of truth to them, yet there is another unnoticed nuance to Karzai’s remarks. Karzai is displaying his influence over the U.S. because of two important matters: peace talks with the Taliban and the 2014 presidential elections.
With regard to the peace talks, Karzai wants to take the lead on the process, undermine any existing secret negotiation channels that have excluded him, and at a minimum, reduce Kabul’s dependence on Pakistan’s cooperation for the success of any future peace talks. Having felt excluded from the “secret channels” allegedly opened by the United States to hold negotiations with the Taliban, Karzai also wants the Taliban to know that approaching the Americans for peace talks will end up nowhere if his government is not involved.
To be able to dominate the political landscape, Karzai needed to showcase his power and authority to the Taliban and counter the militants’ long-running accusations that he is a “powerless” “puppet” of the Americans and that he does not have authority over major decisions in the country So he staged the recent political drama by ratcheting up his demands on the transfer of the Parwan Detention Facility from the U.S. military to the Afghan government and the expulsion of U.S. Special Forces from parts of Wardak province. He also stepped up his anti-U.S. rhetoric to ensure his demands were met despite widespread opposition from influential political and social groups in the country. To add weight to his demands, he even involved the Council of Religious Scholars, a body widely considered to be a tool for advancing Karzai’s personal political goals. While he achieved both demands, it was a political gamble that brought Afghan-U.S. relations to their lowest point in the last decade. Yet for Karzai, the end result was that he managed to display his authority and influence over a major international player, though it has yet to produce any breakthroughs in terms of holding direct talks with the Taliban.
The second issue on Karzai’s mind is the 2014 presidential election. He is constitutionally barred from running for another term, and the Afghan president knows well that his survival and his family’s and clan’s statuses in post-2014 Afghanistan depend on whomever becomes the next leader of the country. Karzai’s anti-U.S. rhetoric and what it achieved will reinforce his position as a “Kingmaker” in the upcoming elections. This is likely to mobilize powerbrokers around him and make it easier for his handpicked candidate to win the election because in Afghanistan, the perception of power is more important than actual power.
For Karzai, having a handpicked successor who ensures the continuation of his and his family’s interest and political survival is more a matter of necessity than choice. This is because, in the incredible tale of Afghan history, many rulers of the country and their families have either been brutally killed or have faced permanent exile in foreign lands. This unfortunate historical precedent has become even more prominent as five out of nine Afghan leaders and their immediate families have been murdered since the Communist revolution in 1978. For Karzai, the stakes are even higher if he loses power or if he becomes politically irrelevant. After all, members of the Karzai family and tribe have enjoyed incredible riches and political domination of southern Afghanistan over the last 12 years, sometimes at the cost of other tribes and political rivals. Since 2001, his relatives and tribe have ruled the south of the country–where Afghan kings have historically hailed from–more like the Sopranos of Kandahar than the Kennedys of Afghanistan.
With the Afghan election date fast approaching, the United States should expect more such erratic statements from Karzai. But they should also understand that Karzai’s anti-U.S. statements neither reflect nor speak for the wider Afghan public view of the United States. In fact, Karzai was taken aback by the harsh criticism he faced from majority in the country, including members of his own government. This backlash stemmed from the anxiety that has gripped the country over the widespread belief that a premature withdrawal of the U.S.-led NATO troops will mark the beginning of a civil war in the country. Many Afghans see their leader’s frantic and bizarre statements as not only damaging to the national interests of the country, but also further throwing the country into the arms of Afghanistan’s two rapacious neighbors: Pakistan and Iran.
Najib Sharifi is the Director of Afghanistan New Generation Organization—a youth empowerment body based in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Ahmad Shafi is an Afghan journalist and a former NPR producer.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany wants to keep between 600 and 800 soldiers in Afghanistan from 2015 when most international troops will have withdrawn, Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on Thursday.
The soldiers would have a two-year mandate to train Afghan security forces and would also provide logistical support, sanitary aid and protection, he said.
After that two-year period Germany would pare the mission down to a maximum of 300 soldiers concentrated in the capital Kabul to provide further training and support, de Maiziere said.
No final decision on the issue is expected until after Germany's national election in September. Any decision would be subject to the backing of the U.N. Security Council as well as of the Afghan government.
Around 4,350 German soldiers are currently stationed in Afghanistan. In January Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament agreed to reduce the number of soldiers to 3,300 by February 2014.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) plans to withdraw by the end of 2014 and hand responsibility for security to Afghan soldiers and police.
(Reporting by Thorsten Severin; Writing by Michelle Martin, Editing by Gareth Jones)
India, China share similar concerns in Afghanistan: daily
NEW DELHI, April 18 (Xinhua) -- In the wake of the planned withdrawal of NATO troops in Afghanistan, India and China share similar concerns of minimizing violence in Afghanistan to protect their investments in the war-torn country, said a local daily Thursday.
The India-China dialogue on Afghanistan is scheduled to be held in Beijing Thursday for the first time, which is widely reported by Indian newspapers.
The Hindu, a leading Indian daily highlighted two points of commonality between India and China while discussing Afghanistan their mutual interest in investing in the country and their respective influence on Afghanistan from a strategic point of view.
The Hindu said that while India has more political influence in Kabul, China "scores over India in its ability to influence the behaviour of violence prone groups through its close ally Pakistan. "
From Indian side the talks will be led by Y K Sinha, Additional Secretary, Pakistan Afghanistan Iran, (PAI) of the external affairs ministry, and his counterparts in the Chinese foreign ministry, as per official sources.
The meeting is taking place in the backdrop of talks between the National Security Advisors of India, China and Russia held in Moscow recently to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
Blast rocks Afghan southern town, wounding 2
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, April 18 (Xinhua) -- A powerful blast shocked Spinboldak town in Taliban former strong Kandahar province 450 km south of Kabul on Thursday, injuring two people, a local official said.
"It was a bomb blast that happened in the front of a market in Spinboldak town at 04:10 p.m. local time wounding two people, both civilians," local official Faqirullah told Xinhua.
However, he did not provide more information, saying authorized officials would brief the media after investigation.
Meantime, a doctor in Spinboldak town confirmed that two injured men had been taken to hospital.
Jawed Faisal, the spokesman for Kandahar provincial administration, confirmed the blast, saying details will be made public after investigation.
News Analysis: Spring in Afghanistan season of killings
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Spring is supposed to be a season when there is serenity and peace as nature comes to life again after a long and harsh winter.
But in this militancy-plagued country, serenity is just wishful thinking as the Taliban militants continued without letup its orgy of killings, the bloodiest of which was the brazen attack in a court in the western Farah province on April 3 killing over four dozen people and injuring scores of others, majority of them innocent civilians.
In that bloody attack, which was not even publicized by the international media anymore because it seems to be a normal occurrence in Afghanistan, 53 people, including 24 judges, were reported to have been killed and more than 100 others injured.
The attack was carried out by a nine-man Taliban squad wearing suicide vests and equipped with light arms who stormed the appellate court where a group of Taliban detainees were waiting for the court's ruling on their case.
Days later on April 6, clash between Taliban militants and the NATO-led forces and Afghan troops left 11 children dead and injured five women as aircraft pounded a Taliban hideout in the mountainous Shigal district of Kunar province along the border with Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.
In the militancy-plagued Afghanistan, traditionally spring and summer are known as fighting season. As the weather gets warmer and the snows in the mountainous region of Afghanistan melt, particularly in the border with Pakistan, militant forces, led by the Taliban, usually regroup and intensify their armed attacks.
There is an Afghan popular proverb that says, "Good spring gives the message of good year." But what happened in the Afghan New Year 1392, which commenced last March 21 based on the Persian calendar, was the reverse because it brought more violence and not peace. Spring in Afghanistan begins from March 21 or first Hamal in Persian calendar and summer ends in Sept. 20 or 29 Sunbillah when the fighting reaches its peak as the insurgent groups spare no efforts in grabbing more territory and consolidating their positions.
The conflict in Afghanistan begins to cool down in autumn when the weather gets colder but it is in winter that the country can experience peace and serenity as the thick snow makes it impossible for the armed militants to move around, much less to stage attacks.
In the latest waves of violent incidents, Taliban militants stormed a checkpoint in the eastern Laghman province killing four Afghan policemen on April 17 while a roadside bomb claimed the lives of seven persons in the western Herat province on the same day. The Interior Ministry blamed Taliban for the deadly attacks.
Earlier on April 12, the Taliban insurgents raided a military outpost in the mountainous Kunar province 185 km east of Kabul killing 13 Afghan Army troopers. In 2012, official data show that the Taliban-led insurgency had killed more than 2,800 Afghan security forces, over 400 foreign soldiers, and 2,754 innocent civilians, including women and children.
The killings in Afghanistan rival only those in neighboring Pakistan where the Taliban, along with other religious groups, have carried attacks against the government and rival religious faction, particularly the Shiites. Militants loyal to the Taliban, who are very active and visible in the tribal areas, regularly target the Afghan government and NATO-led forces.
Since the launching the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom against the brutal Taliban rule for hosting al-Qaida chief Osama Ben Laden in October 2001, a total of 3,281 members of the alliance have been killed, 32 of them since January 2013, according to iCasualties, a website tracking U.S. and NATO-led forces casualties in Afghanistan.
The U.S. and NATO-led forces are packing up to leave Afghanistan and the withdrawal process is expected to be completed by the end of 2014, a departure that the Taliban has termed as a defeat of the anti-terror alliance. They have vowed to continue their jihad or holy war against Afghan security forces that will be left behind to maintain peace and stability in the country after 2014.
17 girl students mysteriously poisoned in northern Afghan town
TALUQAN, Afghanistan, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Over a dozen students of a girl school were mysteriously poisoned in Takhar province 245 km north of Kabul on Thursday, a local official said.
"Seventeen students of Bibi Hajira Girl School in Taluqan city the capital of Takhar province were mysteriously poisoned and have been taken to hospital today," Gul Agha Nazari, deputy to Education Department of Takhar province told Xinhua.
He also said that investigation has been initiated to find the fact behind the incident.
Spokesman for Takhar provincial administration, Suliman Sarwari also confirmed the incident, saying investigation is underway to know the fact.
Taliban vows revenge on US troops over Guantanamo shootings
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 18 Apr 2013, 11:31 am Khaama Press
The Taliban militants group in Afghanistan following a statement vowed to take revenge on US troops in Afghanistan after guards at Guantanamo prison fired non-lethal rounds at inmates to quell unrest.
According to US military officials, guards at the US-run prison in Cuba fired the rounds last Saturday to halt unrest as they relocated inmates into individual cells.
The incident took place after the inmates started resistance while they were being moved from communal housing to individual cells however the officials said that no detainees were seriously injured.
This comes as dozens of detainees are in the third month of a hunger strike at the prison.
Taliban group spokesman Zabiullah in his statement said, “The Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate… vow to avenge these wronged prisoners by targeting the American invaders in Afghanistan with all might at their disposal, Allah willing.”
Mujahid further added, “such cowardly actions of America and take a firm stance against it based upon evident humane principles.”
He urged the rights activists and groups to condemn the attack.
According to reports several prisoners including former Taliban members captured during the US-led invasion in Afghanistan in 2001, are serving in the jail based in Cuba.
The Stakes for America in the Race to Replace Karzai
Passivity in the run-up to next spring's Afghan presidential election will invite trouble.
Wall Street Journal By MICHÈLE FLOURNOY AND MICHAEL O'HANLON Opinion April 16, 2013
Afghanistan has held two presidential elections since 2001. Hamid Karzai won both, but the most recent (in 2009) was marred by irregularities such as stuffed ballot boxes and acrimony between Mr. Karzai and the international community. The Afghan constitution demands that Mr. Karzai step down next year, and by most accounts that is his intention. Who will succeed him?
On a recent trip to Afghanistan, almost everyone we spoke to highlighted next April's presidential election as a make-or-break event for the country—including its ability to fend off the Taliban and avoid backsliding into civil war.
What should be the international community's role over the next 12 months? Although the United States and other key outside nations shouldn't and won't try to pick a winner, they should do what they can to ensure that the next elections are freer and fairer than the last. Since the U.S. has promised at least $5 billion a year in future aid (for half a decade or more) and is considering spending $10 billion a year or more on a post-2014 military presence, Americans in particular have a stake in the electoral process and outcome.
Put more bluntly: If Afghans either hold a fraudulent election or elect a corrupt future leader, the odds of the U.S. Congress providing the expected aid are slim to none. This is also the case for other countries. The U.S. should, therefore, voice its views now rather than simply cut off aid later if the election goes badly.
As Afghans remember all too well, the Soviet-installed government of Mohammad Najibullah fell not when the Soviet Union left Afghanistan in 1989 but when Moscow cut off the money three years later. When the Taliban overran Kabul in 1996, Najibullah was tortured and murdered. All too aware of this history, Afghan reformers, opposition politicians and members of civil society are asking Americans and others to help them make their election a success.
No Afghan has yet announced a candidacy for next year's election, but many names are being floated. They include current or former chiefs of staff to the president, Mr. Karzai's brother Qayum, Minister of Education Ghulam Farooq Wardak, Minister of Finance Omar Zakhilwel, Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, former Foreign Minister and presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, and former minister Haneef Atmar.
There is much talk in Kabul these days about the desirability of finding a "consensus" candidate or slate. The idea here is to use Afghanistan's consultative traditions to avoid a divisive election while the country's democracy is so fragile.
In principle, this is a reasonable and even appealing idea. In practice, it risks having President Karzai play the role of kingmaker, since it is hard to see how a consensus would otherwise develop in a place with such strong political rivalries and with so many people clearly angling to be president. The devil will be in the details of a consensus candidate if one emerges.
Against this confusing backdrop, the international community can help by focusing on a few goals:
First, remind Afghans that Americans and others will exercise their own sovereign rights to determine future aid levels once Afghanistan exercises its sovereign right to choose a new leader. The quality of the election process and the quality of the new president's leadership will both affect decisions on aid. This is just common sense and should be conveyed as a matter of fact, not a menacing threat.
Second, help ensure the independence and integrity of the Afghan watchdog groups charged with overseeing the electoral process. For all the criticism of past Afghan elections, it was these Afghan groups—the Independent Electoral Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission—that uncovered the fraud and threw out the bad ballots. Whether or not they include foreigners, future appointees to the commissions should be selected with the input of parliament, and Mr. Karzai shouldn't be able to dismiss them once appointed. This issue is more important than many others currently being debated in Kabul, including redoing voter registration and issuing new voter cards.
Third, watch how the campaigns play out starting later this year. Afghan state media need to give reasonable time to all candidates, including the opposition. Vote-buying and voter intimidation need to be deterred and prevented through timely investigations of allegations. The electoral commissions will do the investigating, but outside forces must stand behind them.
Fourth, give technical, moral and if necessary financial support to fledgling Afghan political parties—provided they have multiethnic memberships and platforms, and promise to eschew violence. When U.S. officials visit Afghanistan, they should meet not only with members of the executive branch but also with a broad range of next-generation Afghan politicians and civil-society members who are the real hope for the country's future.
American passivity in the coming Afghan elections could be just as counterproductive as American assertiveness (including some nasty public spats with Mr. Karzai) was last time around. The verdict on the war in Afghanistan may be settled less on the country's battlefields than at its polling stations next spring. That election is already sneaking up on us—there is little time to lose.
Ms. Flournoy, a co-founder of the Center for a New American Security, was under secretary of defense for policy from 2009-11. Mr. O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Afghanistan - the world’s most dangerous place for aid workers
KABUL, 18 April 2013 (IRIN) - Attacks on aid workers in Afghanistan - the world’s most dangerous country for aid workers - are likely to be as high in 2013 as the worst year on record, 2011, according to a new report from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) published today.
The latest figures - which tally only incidents affecting NGO personnel, excluding UN aid workers - show that in the first three months of this year, NGOs were affected by 39 separate incidents of violence, a 63 percent increase over 2012. Twenty incidents were attributed to armed opposition groups, 11 to pro-government forces and eight to criminals.
The latest incident involving violence against aid workers, not included in the report, occurred on 15 April. Two members of an Afghan Red Crescent Society medical team were killed and two others injured when gunmen attacked them as they travelled back from Sheberghan, the provincial capital of Jowzjan Province.
“It seems to be a deliberate act, however, we cannot speculate on who committed the acts. The Afghan Red Crescent emblem was clearly marked on the car,” Gherardo Pontrandolfi, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Kabul, told IRIN.
“This is a tragedy, not only for the families of the deceased, but for all those needing medical attention, because now units like these might find it even more difficult to work in certain parts of the country,” Pontrandolfi said in a statement.
The increase in attacks on aid workers follows a rise in all attacks across the country, ANSO director Tomas Muzik told IRIN.
“Last year, we saw significantly less opposition activity in the field due to winter conditions and it being the first year international forces started to downsize.
“This year is quite different. We have once again seen a 47 percent increase in the opposition attacks [overall]. Since we are already seeing this data in the first three months, it is quite strong for us to anticipate that this year will be as violent or slightly less violent than 2011 for NGO workers.”
Aid workers vulnerable
According to the 2012 Aid Worker Security Report - which includes NGO and UN aid workers - 308 aid workers were killed, kidnapped or wounded worldwide in 2011, up from 245 in 2010.
These were the highest figures ever recorded, and Afghanistan had the highest number of attacks that year, with 51 of the total 151 violent incidents. In those attacks, 31 aid workers in Afghanistan were killed, 29 wounded and 32 kidnapped.
The Aid Worker Security Report says aid workers are most vulnerable to attacks in weak, unstable states with active, internal armed conflict.
“There is so much violence in the field that NGOs, given their presence in the field, are exposed to this. It doesn’t mean they are the ones targeted, it means they are the ones that accidentally receive rocket fire during engagements,” said Muzik.
In addition to opposition-related violence, NGOs have seen a spike in intrusions into NGO project sites by Afghan and international security forces, from three cases last year to 11 this year, according to the ANSO figures.
Anti-government groups are responsible for 40 to 60 percent of NGO attacks, but the majority of these cases are thought to be collateral or accidental exposure to violence rather than direct targeting, said the ANSO report.
“We understand that neither the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban, nor any other factions such as Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin would be averse on a political level to NGO existence in the country,” said Muzik.
ANSO also highlights a decline in rural criminal offenses against aid workers. In the first three months of last year, Afghanistan had five NGO casualties, all tied to criminal activity. In the same period of this year, nine NGO casualties were recorded, all linked to opposition attacks.
Humanitarian access unstable
Aid workers and civilians exist alongside armed militias, formal security forces and criminal groups, and telling them apart them can often be a challenge, according to research by Human Rights Watch.
Aid groups spend a long time negotiating for humanitarian access, but analysts and officials say unstable command structures in anti-government groups mean those armed on the ground may not be under the strict control of their leaders.
The situation is complicated in Afghanistan by the desire of humanitarian actors - both UN aid agencies and NGOs - to distance themselves from the United Nation’s Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), a political mission working closely with the government.
“We as humanitarians want to distinguish ourselves from this whole thing,” said one UN humanitarian official in Afghanistan, who asked not to be named, referring to UNAMA.
“But still for people in the field in the villages, it’s all UN,” he said.
Looking ahead
With international forces continuing to hand over responsibility for security to Afghan government forces, the security situation will likely change over the next two years.
A recent report by the Overseas Development Institution (ODI) suggests that after the withdrawal of international security forces, aid agencies will need to work more with opposition forces.
“Aid agencies’ access negotiations with the Taliban will be critical after 2014. Establishing effective engagement policies is fundamental to reaching all Afghans in need,” said the report.
That will mean NGOs will need to establish clear engagement policies if they are to continue to operate with a degree of safety throughout the country, says Muzik.
“NGOs will be able to operate in Afghanistan to the extent that we are able to negotiate access with the combatants and that the combatants do not directly target NGOs,” he said.
An Afghan City’s Economic Success Extends to Its Sex Trade
New York Times By AZAM AHMED Mazar-I-Sharif Journal April 17, 2013
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan - This verdant town is home to some of Afghanistan’s greatest treasures: It is the birthplace of the celebrated poet Rumi, and the site of one of the country’s most storied mosques. It is the first Afghan city to have been connected with another country by rail.
Among all of Mazar’s distinctions is a more dubious one. It is also Afghanistan’s unofficial capital of prostitution — so much so that “going to Mazar” has become a byword for Afghan men looking to pay for sex.
Partly, the phenomenon is owed to the city’s culture, which is considerably more forgiving of vice than is the rest of the country. Alcohol, though still illegal, can be found without too much trouble. Women, largely confined to the home, can be seen socializing with men in Mazar’s public parks, a rare sight even in Kabul, the capital.
But as much as anything, a business boom has fueled the sex trade in Mazar, local officials and aid workers say.
In recent years, the city’s economy has flourished as its proximity to Central Asia and its relative peace and stability have transformed it into a trading hub. Buildings are springing up across the city, as local and regional companies set up shop.
“Mazar is a big city, and compared to the other provinces a lot of prostitutes work here,” said Nilofar Sayar, director of a women’s rights group in Mazar that offers job training to sex workers. “There are lots of businesses, which means lots of money and customers.”
The flourishing of prostitution here casts a glaring light on the contradictions of the male-dominated Afghan society, where even the implication of immorality can mean death for women. The sex trade has existed in one form or another for decades, even under the ultraconservative rule of the Taliban. But officials here say the rapid spread of mobile technology has made the business easier to manage and harder to detect, allowing prostitution to expand.
Corruption is another factor that keeps business booming. Indeed, one of the interviews conducted with a prostitute for this article was coordinated by a police officer who is a client.
The business is conducted in the most secretive ways, and few are willing to talk publicly about it. Almost all of the women involved are driven to desperation by poverty. Prostitutes often wear all-concealing chadors, making it impossible to recognize them, and even the logistics of the business are shadowy. There are few, if any, actual brothels.
Years ago, brothels operated in the open here, typically as hotels, where men could visit without fear of scrutiny. But a few years back, Atta Mohammed Noor, the powerful governor of surrounding Balkh Province, ordered a crackdown. The brothels all but disappeared.
In their place, a decentralized network emerged. Women now host clients in a series of apartments across the city, or sometimes in their own homes, according to aid groups and women involved in the sex trade. The point of contact is typically a man who orchestrates the meet-ups by cellphone.
This has made the business tough to infiltrate for those police officials eager to crack down. The deputy chief of police in Mazar, Abdul Razaq Qadiri, threw his hands up when asked about prostitution in the city.
“You tell me where they are,” he shouted. ‘They don’t exactly hang signs from their doors.”
The head of investigations for the police refined his boss’s explanation.
“A few years ago, we didn’t have mobile phones, computers or the Internet,” said Gen. Salahuddin Sultanis, the head of criminal investigations for Balkh Province. “All this technology has increased relations between people, and it makes it hard for us to track.”
Women trapped in the trade here share familiar stories. They are almost always impoverished and typically divorced or widowed, struggling to support a family. Sometimes, their own families force them into prostitution, to help pay the bills or to support a husband’s drug habit. Most know that once they start selling themselves for sex, they risk death if they are discovered, and sexually transmitted disease if they are not.
Married at age 13, Aziza Jan turned to prostitution after her husband divorced her several years ago and left her to support six children, she said. Her family has no money to assist her, and her children are too young to work.
With a round face and an easy laugh, Aziza, 35, lives in a lavender-colored compound on a quiet street. She hosts her clients in a front parlor that is covered in carpets and pillows, with a wood-fired stove and a TV in a corner.
“My mother married me off at a very young age, which was a bad idea,” she said as her young son clung to her legs. “She never calls to check in on us, to see how we’re doing.”
Embarrassed to talk about what she does, she insisted that most of her money comes from her work as a seamstress. Her oldest son is coming of age now, and she hopes he will be able to help ease the family’s financial difficulties when he finishes school.
“Beyond all the hurt and pain, I try to keep myself happy,” she said with a giggle. “I look at my children, and they are my joy.”
In a few cases, the prostitutes are still married, but conduct business without their husbands’ knowing.
Fereshta, a 25-year-old mother of three, said her life had begun to fall apart when her husband lost his construction job more than five years ago.
They were forced from their home and now inhabit a shell of a building with no windows or doors and struggle to feed themselves. To survive, she said, she felt that prostituting herself was the best option, given that women are rarely allowed to work in Afghanistan.
She learned about the business from her friends, who charge $30 to $60 for their services. She described a network similar to the one described by others: Customers call a contact, who then arranges a meeting at the customer’s house or the woman’s house. Her clients are most often single, middle-class men with money to spare.
“We never answer the calls of people we don’t know,” she said. “They have to have a solid reference.”
Without the money, her family may starve. And yet if her husband were to discover what she does to put food on the table, the consequences would be dire.
“I’m forced to do this,” she said. “If my husband finds out, he will kill me. But what choice do I have?”
Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.
Pakistan's Musharraf flees court to avoid arrest
By SEBASTIAN ABBOT and MUNIR AHMED | Associated Press
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf fled court in a speeding vehicle Thursday to avoid arrest after his bail was revoked in a case involving his decision to fire senior judges while in power over five years ago.
The harried escape broadcast live on Pakistani TV marked a new low in Musharraf's troubled return from exile last month to seek a political comeback in the May 11 parliamentary election.
Musharraf made his exit with the help of bodyguards, who pushed him past policemen and paramilitary soldiers and helped him into a black SUV that sped off with a member of his security team hanging on the side of the vehicle. Lawyers taunted the 69-year-old as he roared away, yelling, "Look who is running! Musharraf is running!"
The car carrying the former military strongman dashed to his luxury farmhouse, which is protected by high walls, razor wire and guard towers. Dozens of police and elite commandos blocked the main road that runs to the compound on the outskirts of Islamabad, keeping a crowd of journalists and onlookers at bay. About 20 Musharraf supporters held banners and shouted slogans.
None of the security forces protecting the compound made any move to arrest Musharraf, likely because they were awaiting orders from senior officials trying to figure out how to deal with a delicate situation. Musharraf's legal team said they would appeal the arrest warrant in the Supreme Court.
"A lot of people are going to demand to know why he escaped the custody of the security forces," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political science professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Pakistan's government seems reluctant to wade into the controversy surrounding Musharraf, especially given his connection to the army, considered the most powerful institution in the country.
Musharraf seized power in a coup in 1999 when he was serving as army chief and spent nearly a decade in power before being forced to step down in 2008. He returned last month after four years in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai despite legal challenges and Taliban death threats.
He has received paltry public support, and earlier this week was disqualified from running in the coming election because of his actions while in power. A court has also barred him from leaving the country.
The upcoming vote is historic because it will mark the first time in Pakistan that parliament has completed its full five-year term and handed over power in democratic elections. The country has experienced three military coups and constant political instability since it was founded in 1947.
The court order to arrest Musharraf and his decision to flee puts the current army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in an awkward position. There have been calls for paramilitary soldiers protecting Musharraf to arrest him. That could force Kayani to decide whether to protect a former army chief or respect judges who have shown an increasing willingness to go after senior military and civilian officials.
If Musharraf were sent to prison, it would be the first time a Pakistani army chief has been put behind bars.
"General Musharraf's act today underscores his disregard for due legal process and indicates his assumption that as a former army chief and military dictator he can evade accountability for abuses," the head of Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, Ali Dayan Hasan, said in a statement. "Continued military protection for General Musharraf will make a mockery of claims that Pakistan's armed forces support the rule of law and bring the military further disrepute that it can ill afford."
A spokeswoman for Musharraf, Aasia Ishaq, said officials in Islamabad planned to declare his house a jail, which is allowed under the country's law. That would mean Musharraf was effectively under house arrest, and could solve Kayani's dilemma for the time being.
But a police official in the area where Musharraf lives, Mohammed Ijaj, said he had not yet received such an order.
Thursday's case before the Islamabad High Court involved Musharraf's decision to dismiss senior judges, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, when he declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution in 2007. He was concerned the judges would challenge his recent re-election as president, and cited the growing Taliban insurgency in the country as justification for the state of emergency.
The man who filed the petition before the Islamabad High Court, Aslam Ghuman, also accused Musharraf of placing the judges under house arrest.
Musharraf's spokeswoman, Ishaq, denied he issued an arrest order, even though the judges were clearly confined to their homes. Government officials at the time claimed they restricted the movement of the judges for their own security.
Musharraf's crackdown on the judges outraged many Pakistanis, and fueled a nationwide protest movement by lawyers that eventually resulted in him stepping down under the threat of impeachment.
Before he returned to the country nearly a month ago, Musharraf was granted bail for the judges' case and two others, meaning he could not be arrested when he landed — a feature of Pakistan's legal system. But the bail agreement was temporary.
An Islamabad High Court judge, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, who had extended the bail agreement once on April 12, refused to do so again Thursday and ordered Musharraf's arrest, according to a copy of the court order. The judge ordered Musharraf to be investigated under an anti-terrorism law, which does not allow bail, the order said.
Siddiqui wrote that Musharraf's "shameful" decision to arrest judges "spread fear in society ... and terror throughout Pakistan."
Many policemen and paramilitary soldiers were on duty at the court, but they seemed caught off-guard and nobody appeared to try to prevent Musharraf from leaving as he pushed past them.
The judge ordered the Islamabad police chief to appear before the court on Friday to explain why Musharraf was not arrested and to ensure action is taken against policemen "who remained napping" instead of performing their duties.
Musharraf's spokeswoman, Ishaq, said the judge was "biased," claiming he participated in the protests against Musharraf when he was in power. Musharraf's legal team will file an appeal with the Supreme Court on Friday, said Ishaq.
Musharraf is facing a raft of other legal challenges, including allegations before the Supreme Court that he committed treason while in power. He also faces legal charges in two other cases. One involves allegations that Musharraf didn't provide adequate security to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in a gun and suicide attack in 2007. The other relates to the death of a nationalist leader in Baluchistan in 2006.
Given the legal challenges and Taliban threats against Musharraf, many experts have been left scratching their heads as to why he returned. Some have speculated he misjudged the level of public backing he would get, while others suggested he was simply homesick.
Musharraf released a video message online late Thursday saying he had done great things for the country and asking, "Why am I being stopped from taking part in politics?"
___
Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana and Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.
Can Pakistan drive the Taliban out of its tribal belt?
With the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan looming, Pakistan is turning its attention to the impoverished tribal areas where regional terror groups have long sought haven.
By Taha Siddiqui | Christian Science Monitor
Impoverished and perpetually neglected by the country’s central government, the semi-autonomous tribal regions of northwest Pakistan have long been a simmering source of both national and regional tension.
For years, the country’s central government has tacitly allowed extremist groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban to use the region as a kind of haven for militants waging conflicts just across the border in neighboring Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the aftershocks of that conflict have spilled over into the tribal areas’ civilian population, disrupting education and economic activity.
Now, with the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops in Afghanistan looming, the Pakistani government is reexamining its role in the long-neglected region and renewing its counterinsurgency efforts against militants. But many analysts, local leaders, and residents question whether the country has either the will or the resources to truly reform its tribal belt.
"The tribal areas have been knowingly neglected socially and constitutionally by successive regimes since independence," says Rahimullah Yousafzai, an expert on the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), as the regions are collectively known.
Indeed, the Pakistani military claims it has now secured control in many areas of FATA – the most recent win in South Waziristan, where a military operation was launched in 2009. But even those areas have yet to be transferred to the hands of the civilian administration, and many others are not under the government's control at all.
A HISTORY OF DIVISION
Since British colonization, the region’s seven geographically divided “agencies” have not been an official part of Pakistan. In 1901, to appease tribal leadership wary of a centralized government, the British introduced a separate governing system in FATA, known as the Frontier’s Crimes Regulations (FCR), which continued after Pakistan's independence in 1947.
Under the FCR, the tribal areas are governed by federally appointed political administrators who have absolute executive, legislative, and judicial power in each agency. Constitutional civil rights afforded to the rest of Pakistan do not exist.
“The government also gives many privileges to the tribal leadership like money, land, etc.," says Safdar Hayat, former president of the Tribal Union of Journalists, who hails from North Waziristan, where the Taliban are headquartered. "These privileges are not allocated as rights of civilians but only for those heads of tribes who do not question the FCR.”
Added to that is instability in neighboring Afghanistan, which has bled over into the region and contributed to a low educational attainments and high poverty. Along with rigid cultural traditions, these factors have held the tribal areas back in terms of socio-economic development compared with the rest of Pakistan. They have also fueled concern about the insecurity and militancy spreading beyond the region.
But bringing the region under the control of the Pakistani government isn’t an easy task, officials argue.
A 'WARRIOR-LIKE' PEOPLE
Ethnic groups in Pakistan’s tribal belt have fought against foreign aggression for centuries. The British, Americans, and then Pakistanis all took advantage of their outside reputation as a warrior-like people, setting up the current dynamic.
“Pre-independence, the British exploited the folklore of Pashtun bravery to keep the Afghans from entering their colonial-ruled regions of the subcontinent,” says Nizam Dawar, who is a development specialist based in the tribal region. “Post-independence we allied with the Americans, and used the same Pashtun tribes to ward off communism from [the Soviet Union],” says Mr. Dawar.
When the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, however, those same American-trained militants began clashing with NATO forces and then retreating to Pakistan for sanctuary.
Also complicating matters, the Pakistani military under Gen. Pervez Musharraf made peace pacts with the militants based in FATA during the NATO-led Afghan war, tacitly allowing them haven, while also continuing to ally itself with the United States against its “war on terror.”
Twelve years later, many security experts say the military still does not want to burn bridges with Afghan militants in FATA, which it sees as a potential way to influence what happens to Afghanistan after NATO pulls out in 2014.
WHAT NEXT?
Analysts, local leaders, and even some in the military emphasize that the legal framework in FATA needs to be repealed and constitutional rights granted to its citizens to ensure social and infrastructural development.
“Where is the civilian leadership? Even now, the military is chipping in more than anyone else. We should pull our act together, since we have been neglecting this region for over 65 years,” says Brigadier Hassan Hayat, an operational commander, who has been posted in South Waziristan for the past two years rehabilitating refugees and maintaining law and order.
More than $150 million has been pledged by countries like the US, Britain, and Germany in a bid to revive the livelihood of people beset by terrorism and natural disasters in Pakistan, according to statistics by provided by the Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Many of their projects focus on FATA.
But despite so much inflow, development workers say the outlook remains grim as aid is channeled through the military – instead of civilian authorities.
“The tribal belt has now become a hotbed for war economy. With some much money pouring in from all over the world for development, the main stakeholders – especially the military – are now also financially benefiting from keeping the conflict alive,” Mr. Dawar, the development worker, says.
“FATA continues to stay out of constitutional ambit because the military wants absolute control over the strategic belt,” echoing history, he says. “The civilian leadership remains sidelined.”
Fiber Optic Network Construction Begins in N. Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com By Shahla Murtazaie Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Installation of a 260-kilometer fiber optic cable between northern Kunduz province and north-eastern Badakhshan province began Wednesday, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) said.
The $6.1 million project, which will run through Takhar province, is being implemented with funds from the World Bank and will run from the Ali Abad District of Kunduz to the provincial capital of Faizabad in Badakshan province, MCIT minister Amirzai Sangin said.
The new fiber optic network is expected to deliver greater connectivity to Afghanistan's neighboring countries and the world, he added, describing Afghanistan as a pioneer in telecommunications in the region.
"We are so happy about the fast progress in the information technology sector. Just as information technology plays a role in the lives of people in the world, so we aim to facilitate any services in Afghanistan which are used in developed countries," Sangin said.
Kunduz officials welcomed the news of the project and the potential for standard telecommunication services in the province.
"Kunduz is boundary province which shares a border with Tajikistan and we should try to have as developed a country as our neighbors," Kunduz Governor Mohammad Anwar Jegdilik said.
"The telecommunication companies are active in Afghanistan, in fact they earn multifold benefits for the people," Kunduz MP Fatima Aziz said.
The ministry added that Afghanistan's fiber optic network will ultimately cost up to $60 million, and will give the government $5 million per month in earnings after it is complete.
Congress to reveal new allegations in multibillion Afghanistan food contract dispute
Foreign Policy (blog) By Kevin Baron Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Congressional investigators will reveal new allegations on Wednesday claiming that Defense Department officials were in a near-panic in 2006 about how to resolve a six-year, multi-billion dollar dispute over the largest food-services contract in Afghanistan, after the Swiss company performing the work tried to double bill and defraud the Pentagon.
According to a Democratic Briefing Memo from the committee's minority staff to subcomitte members, obtained exclusively by the E-Ring, the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security has obtained new documents and internal Defense Logistics Agency emails that it claims illustrate how Supreme Foodservice has improperly charged $757 million to ship food supplies to forward operating bases in Afghanistan since 2006.
DLA, in rejecting Supreme’s fee invoice, argues that the cost of the shipments already were included in the base price of the contract.
“In other words, charging the distribution fee amounted to double-billing,” said the memo, which was distributed to subcommittee members in advance of a hearing on the controversy scheduled for Wednesday.
Witnesses expected to testify include Michael Schuster, managing director of Supreme Group’s logistics division; Daniel Blair, DOD deputy inspector general for auditing; and contracting executives from DLA.
The committee also will reveal that a DOD audit found Supreme built an unrequested $58 million warehouse in Helmand province solely to “strategically position themselves” to win more DOD contracts, and then tried to charge U.S. taxpayers for it.
The saga began in 2005 when Supreme was selected to deliver food and supplies to four U.S. bases in Afghanistan. The award was worth $726 million but had a maximum value over five years of $4.2 billion.
Before a single morsel was delivered to U.S. troops, however, DLA offered to vastly expand the scope of work, asking Supreme to deliver food to 68 bases across the country. But DLA and Supreme never settled on how much to charge for the new work, which required travel by helicopter and airplane to more remote locations. Supreme was given the OK to start work and bill later. That’s when the fight ensued. Six months into the contract, Supreme sent their bill for $33 million, causing alarm in DLA.
“I do not understand why we are so far apart on price,” a Supreme employee wrote to DLA in regards to helicopter fees in 2006.
According to the memo, “The DLA contracting officer responded: ‘The biggest issue that I'm having with the helo [helicopter] price is that it represents more than a 300% increase over what we've paid for air support to the FOBS [forward operating bases].’”
Later, in 2009, a DLA contracting officer wrote a colleague about her worries that DLA told Supreme to start the expanded work without an agreement on the costs for the service. “We did not have a way to verify precisely what we owed, but knew that we owed the vendor for the service.”
DOD was unable to resolve the pricing dispute for years, and so in December 2011 agency officials finally exercised their authority to unilaterally set rates. By DLA’s math, Supreme overcharged the U.S. and should repay $757 million. Supreme, however, claims DLA owes them $1.8 billion, and has challenged DLA’s decision in appeals proceedings.
Meanwhile, despite the dispute, DLA extended Supreme’s contract rather than open it to competitive bidding after President Obama announced the 2010 Afghan surge. Last year, with no alternative supplier in place, Supreme was delivering to 265 locations in Afghanistan.
In June, DLA finally switched providers and awarded a new $10 billion food distribution contract to Anham FZCO, of Dubai. But DLA also extended the Supreme contract for up to $1.5 billion through December 2013, with the intention of stopping that work once Anham was ready to take it over.
In the meantime, Anham has had a slow start. Supreme, wanting to keep working its current extention, appealed to the U.S. Government Accountability Office and won a court stay in February preventing DLA from starting Anham on the job. But a judge later ruled in favor of DOD’s wartime discretion to start the work. So last week, Supreme filed a second suit against the U.S., this time in the Court of Federal Claims to challenge DLA’s decision to switch providers.
DLA maintains Supreme improperly tried to charge an additional premium fee for delivering food to forward operating bases, when that cost should have been covered within Supreme’s base distribution fee. The agency argues that Supreme invoiced the Defense Department for both the basic fee and the premium fee. In addition, the premium sometimes included both the premium and the basic fee. This, DLA alleges, is the double billing.
So DLA now claims it overpaid $567 million in premium fees to Supreme and another $177 million in double charges. Additionally, defense officials want Supreme to return $12 million it charged DLA “for transferring goods short distances from Supreme's warehouse in southern Afghanistan, including Camp Leatherneck which was directly across the street.”
Congressional investigators say they have many questions are hoping for more answers -- including why DLA took so long to resolve the dispute, extended the controversial contract repeatedly, and why Supreme has yet to provide satisfactory documentation justifying its fees.
"We will hear about how the Defense Logistics Agency continued to pay Supreme billions of dollars in spite of very strong concerns at the agency that taxpayers were being overbilled,” said Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., ranking member of the subcommittee, in an email statement to the E-Ring. “It took DLA six years to demand that Supreme reimburse the government more than $750 million in overpayments. That is an astounding amount of money.”
Red Crescent Suspends Work in N. Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com By Jawed Stanikzai Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Red Crescent has suspended its activities in northern Afghanistan after the death of two of its staff in Jawzjan province on Tuesday evening.
Condemning the incident, Red Crescent said that attacks on health workers will limit its humanitarian services and called on the responsible organisations to track down the perpetrators of the incident to punish them.
"The Red Crescent has temporarily suspended its activities because of two of its staff being killed and another doctor being injured," Red Crescent's head of the public affairs Walid Akbar Sarwari said Wednesday.
Local officials including the Red Crescent head told TOLOnews Tuesday night that the two Red Crescent employees were killed and two were wounded Tuesday evening in Jawzjan's Khan Aqa district when unknown armed men opened fire on the vehicle as it was travelling to the provincial capital Sheberghan city.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Public Health condemned the incident and said that attacks on health workers will lead to far greater problems for many citizens including widespread health issues.
"Attacking health workers while they're doing their duties in different areas will have a horrid effect on the process of providing health care," said Suraya Dali, Minister of Public Health.
Radio Station Arman FM Marks 10 Years of Broadcast
TOLOnews.com By Aazem Arash Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Afghanistan's first private radio station Arman FM marks its 10-year anniversary this week, celebrating its growth across the country to more than 15 provinces.
Arman FM, which is part of the Moby Group*, has focused on broadcasting entertainment programmes featuring local, regional and international music.
When it started in 2003, it had only nine employees based in the capital Kabul with limited reach.
Today it broadcasts 24 hours a day with live streaming on the internet and some 15 million listeners across Afghanistan, according to the head of Moby Group's broadcasting Massoud Sanjar.
"Arman was a revolution in Afghanistan's media. We launched the modern format of the media in Afghanistan. Before, only one radio station was broadcasting with a different format in the country. We changed the face of the media in terms of broadcasting news, entertainment, and interviews in Afghanistan," Sanjar said.
One fan of the station told TOLOnews he had been listening to the channel for ten years.
"Since Arman started broadcasting in Afghanistan, I have always listened to it – in the past almost ten years," said a taxi driver in Kabul city.
Karzai’s anti-U.S. rhetoric: An Afghan perspective
By Najib Sharifi, Ahmad Shafi Thursday, April 11, 2013 - 2:39 PM Foreign Policy
Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s latest vague and controversial anti-U.S. remarks were puzzling to many people both inside and outside Afghanistan, as they implied that the United States is inadvertently colluding with the Taliban. Despite the fact that he later accused the media of misinterpreting his comments and tried to clarify his remarks during a press conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Kabul, his comments generated a lot of noise, confusion, and varied interpretations by political commentators.
The most popular interpretations explained that Karzai’s bizarre remarks were likely aimed at cementing his patriotic image. Others believed his comments were attempts to rebuild his legacy as he nears the end of his term in office. Some speculated that they were a result of “bad advice” from his political cronies.
All of these interpretations may have shades of truth to them, yet there is another unnoticed nuance to Karzai’s remarks. Karzai is displaying his influence over the U.S. because of two important matters: peace talks with the Taliban and the 2014 presidential elections.
With regard to the peace talks, Karzai wants to take the lead on the process, undermine any existing secret negotiation channels that have excluded him, and at a minimum, reduce Kabul’s dependence on Pakistan’s cooperation for the success of any future peace talks. Having felt excluded from the “secret channels” allegedly opened by the United States to hold negotiations with the Taliban, Karzai also wants the Taliban to know that approaching the Americans for peace talks will end up nowhere if his government is not involved.
To be able to dominate the political landscape, Karzai needed to showcase his power and authority to the Taliban and counter the militants’ long-running accusations that he is a “powerless” “puppet” of the Americans and that he does not have authority over major decisions in the country So he staged the recent political drama by ratcheting up his demands on the transfer of the Parwan Detention Facility from the U.S. military to the Afghan government and the expulsion of U.S. Special Forces from parts of Wardak province. He also stepped up his anti-U.S. rhetoric to ensure his demands were met despite widespread opposition from influential political and social groups in the country. To add weight to his demands, he even involved the Council of Religious Scholars, a body widely considered to be a tool for advancing Karzai’s personal political goals. While he achieved both demands, it was a political gamble that brought Afghan-U.S. relations to their lowest point in the last decade. Yet for Karzai, the end result was that he managed to display his authority and influence over a major international player, though it has yet to produce any breakthroughs in terms of holding direct talks with the Taliban.
The second issue on Karzai’s mind is the 2014 presidential election. He is constitutionally barred from running for another term, and the Afghan president knows well that his survival and his family’s and clan’s statuses in post-2014 Afghanistan depend on whomever becomes the next leader of the country. Karzai’s anti-U.S. rhetoric and what it achieved will reinforce his position as a “Kingmaker” in the upcoming elections. This is likely to mobilize powerbrokers around him and make it easier for his handpicked candidate to win the election because in Afghanistan, the perception of power is more important than actual power.
For Karzai, having a handpicked successor who ensures the continuation of his and his family’s interest and political survival is more a matter of necessity than choice. This is because, in the incredible tale of Afghan history, many rulers of the country and their families have either been brutally killed or have faced permanent exile in foreign lands. This unfortunate historical precedent has become even more prominent as five out of nine Afghan leaders and their immediate families have been murdered since the Communist revolution in 1978. For Karzai, the stakes are even higher if he loses power or if he becomes politically irrelevant. After all, members of the Karzai family and tribe have enjoyed incredible riches and political domination of southern Afghanistan over the last 12 years, sometimes at the cost of other tribes and political rivals. Since 2001, his relatives and tribe have ruled the south of the country–where Afghan kings have historically hailed from–more like the Sopranos of Kandahar than the Kennedys of Afghanistan.
With the Afghan election date fast approaching, the United States should expect more such erratic statements from Karzai. But they should also understand that Karzai’s anti-U.S. statements neither reflect nor speak for the wider Afghan public view of the United States. In fact, Karzai was taken aback by the harsh criticism he faced from majority in the country, including members of his own government. This backlash stemmed from the anxiety that has gripped the country over the widespread belief that a premature withdrawal of the U.S.-led NATO troops will mark the beginning of a civil war in the country. Many Afghans see their leader’s frantic and bizarre statements as not only damaging to the national interests of the country, but also further throwing the country into the arms of Afghanistan’s two rapacious neighbors: Pakistan and Iran.
Najib Sharifi is the Director of Afghanistan New Generation Organization—a youth empowerment body based in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Ahmad Shafi is an Afghan journalist and a former NPR producer.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com