[Afghan News] May 13, 2013

[یاسمینه]

Leaving Afghanistan Is a $7 Billion Moving Task for U.S.
By Gopal Ratnam - May 13, 2013 Bloomberg
The U.S. invaded Afghanistan more than 12 years ago with a contingent of special forces and Central Intelligence Agency officers, some of them on horseback, armed with laser pointers to direct air strikes against al-Qaeda and its Taliban hosts.

Getting Americans out again will be more complicated.

While the fighting continues, the U.S. is mounting what may become a $7 billion effort to withdraw most of its forces from Afghanistan by the end of next year. It will require sending Humvees, helicopters, drones and 12 1/2-ton mine-resistant vehicles home by rail and truck networks stretching from Karachi to ports in the Baltic Sea.

Unlike Iraq, where “the fighting had for a good extent stopped” before the U.S. began to withdraw, in Afghanistan “there’s still certainly an active insurgency and an active fight and essentially we’re in contact with the enemy as we do this,” Alan Estevez, the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for logistics, said. “All of those things make it difficult and increase the risk of our departure as we pull out.”

Among the biggest contractors involved in the move are A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S (MAERSKB), the Copenhagen-based owner of the world’s largest container line, the American President Lines unit of Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines Ltd. (NOL), and Hamburg, Germany-based Hapag-Lloyd AG, according to Estevez.

The shipping companies contract in turn with local trucking companies such as those in Pakistan to carry the cargo to ports, he said.

The U.S. has begun withdrawing troops and war materiel from Afghanistan after the longest war in American history. So far, the conflict has cost about $600 billion, led to the deaths of 2,205 American troops and injured 18,462. About 16,725 Afghan civilians also have been killed.

Lost Intelligence

Of the 66,000 U.S. troops now in Afghanistan, about 32,000 will return by February, and most of the rest will depart by December 2014, leaving a smaller force to train and advise Afghans as well as conduct counterterrorism operations.

Withdrawing from hostile territory is among the most difficult operations any military faces, and there’s no guarantee that U.S.-trained Afghan forces can keep the peace as American forces leave. As the number of troops dwindles, those who remain and their supply lines can be more vulnerable to ambushes. Sending reinforcements becomes more difficult and time-consuming.

Intelligence may dry up as forces and civilian personnel abandon forward positions, losing contact with Afghan allies and enemies alike in areas where the Taliban remain strong. Collecting intelligence may be compromised as the U.S. shrinks its presence in Afghanistan, James Clapper, the top U.S. intelligence official told Congress last month.

Reduced Footprint

“Obviously it’s not going to be as robust as it is today simply because we won’t have the presence in as many locales,” Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told the House intelligence committee April 11. “As the other components of our presence there, the military and the diplomatic” are reduced, “that in turn affects the footprint that we will have.”

Politics and geography make the withdrawal from Afghanistan more complicated than the departure from Iraq that was completed in 2011. The U.S. was able to stockpile war materiel from Iraq in neighboring Kuwait before loading it on ships. The U.S. moved out 2 million items from 92 bases in Iraq in about 20,000 truckloads.

In the absence of a safe and friendly zone such as Kuwait, the Pentagon plans to send about 60 percent of its inventory in Afghanistan -- mostly non-lethal items -- through Pakistan by truck to the port of Karachi, Estevez said in an interview in his Pentagon office.

Fragile Relations

In the past, Pakistan has closed the two main border crossings from Afghanistan to protest U.S. actions. The supply route was shut from November 2011 to July 2012 after a U.S. military strike mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani troops.

Although the route is now open, the relationship between the two countries remains fragile, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused Pakistan of sheltering militants and letting them stage attacks on his country.

The other 40 percent of the American cargo will go north past the Hindu Kush mountains, crisscrossing several former Soviet republics in the Caucasus by truck and rail before reaching ports on the Baltic Sea in Latvia or Lithuania, Estevez said. The tab for the withdrawal may be $5 billion to $7 billion, he said.

By the end of 2014, the Pentagon will have moved about 22,000 containers of materiel out of Afghanistan, Estevez said.

Blackhawks, Trucks

The U.S. Army, which has the largest presence in the country, estimates that it has about $27 billion of military hardware in Afghanistan, and most of it will come home, Estevez said. The other military services have smaller inventories, he said.

About 80 percent of the war gear, including Blackhawk helicopters, radios, trucks and remotely piloted aircraft, will return to the U.S., Estevez said. Most of the equipment that supports U.S. bases, such as air-conditioners, construction material and furniture, will be left behind or destroyed, he said.

Few military items will be left for the Afghans to use, U.S. Army Brigadier General Steve Shapiro, deputy commander for theater sustainment, told reporters in Kabul in March. The military gear Afghanistan needs will be provided through the Pentagon’s foreign military sales program, Shapiro said.

Sharing Roads

The U.S. is coordinating its withdrawal with similar plans by 50 coalition partners, Major General Kenneth Dahl, deputy commanding general for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told reporters in Kabul in March. “Because of the geography and physics of Afghanistan, we have to coordinate so we don’t all try to take the same roads,” he said.

The Pentagon and the military services also are drawing up a list of excess defense articles the U.S. doesn’t need so they can be given away to allies, Dahl said. Non-military items including equipment used to support bases may be given away to several Afghan agencies, Dahl said.

Moving materiel through Pakistan remains the most cost-effective route, Estevez said.

Customs checkpoints that had atrophied when the Pakistan route was closed in 2012 are being revived as the U.S. is starting to send out materiel, Estevez said. Equipment to build up Afghanistan’s military capability also is flowing in through the same Pakistani route, Estevez said.

Cargo going north has to go by road, traversing the narrow Salang Tunnel, a single-lane passage through the Hindu Kush that carried Soviet forces out of Afghanistan in 1989 and a “choke point” that suffers from heavy snowfall and extreme heat, Estevez said. Once the equipment gets beyond the mountains, it will be loaded on trains heading west, he said.

“Afghanistan is a logistician’s nightmare and also a dream,” Estevez said because of the challenge of getting materiel in and out of the country.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gopal Ratnam in Washington atgratnam1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott atjwalcott9@bloomberg.net


Finance minister disclose names of corrupt Afghan lawmakers
By MEENA HASEEB - 13 May 2013, 12:58 pm Khaama Press
Afghan finance minister, Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal in an unprecedented move on Monday disclosed the names of Afghan lawmakers involved in illegal activities.

The minister was summoned by Afghan parliament on Monday to brief lawmakers for his alleged comments regarding lawmakers involvement in illegal activities including smuggle of alcohol, fuel and flour from neighboring countries.

He said, “Lawmakers Haji Zahir Qadir representing Nangarhar province, Arif Rahmani representing Ghazni province, Sulaiman Khel representing Paktia, Samullah Samir, Hamidzai Lalai representing Kandahar province and Mohsini representing Baghlan province were involved in illegal activities.”

Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal initiated dislosing lawmakers names from Haji Zahir Qadir and said that he has continuously requested for financial aid from him to support “Peace Convoy” course.

According to finance minister Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal, the lawmaker, Haji Zahir Qadir has imported flour worth 269 million dollars illegally during the past two years.

Zakhilwal also added that lawmaker Hamidzai Lalai is importing alcohol and he has threatened a customs official to death after his illegal activities

were disclosed yesterday.

Other lawmaker, Samiullah Samim representing Farah province of Afghanistan was accused of fuel and alcohol smuggle by Afghan finance minister Hazrat Omer Zakhil.

He said the lawmaker called from Germany and requested him to release five oil tankers which were seized for the smuggling of fuel in Farah province.

While pointing towards the smuggling activities in southern provinces of Afghanistan including Paktia and Paktika province, Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal said the customs officers of the two provinces were fired from their positions but Paktika lawmaker Mahmood Khan Sulaiman sent him money and requested to re-appoint his son as Paktika customs officer.

In the meantime finance minister Hazrat omer Zakhilwal accused lawmaker Mohammad Azim Mohsini representing Baghlan province for requesting the finance ministry to have illegal houses in Pul-e-Khumri city.

He also accused Arif Rahmani representing eastern Ghazni province for requesting the finance ministry to receive money and contracts.

Afghan finance minister, Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal’s comments created furor among the Afghan lawmakers however they were allowed to speak during the assembly meeting.

Meanwhile Afghan lawmakers accused finance minister for similar illegal activities but Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal vowed to resign from his position if the allegations against him were proved to be true.

Zakhilwal also said that Afghan lawmakers cases have been forwarded to Afghan attorney general office for further legal actions.


Karzai’s elder brother Mahmoud Karzai deny insulting Pashtuns
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 13 May 2013, 10:53 am Khaama Press
Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s elder brother, Mahmoud Karzaid denied insulting Pashtuns in Afghanistan and called the report published in Afghan newspaper as “nonsense and disgrace”.

Afghanistan based newspaper Benawa recently published a report citing Mahmoud Karzai as saying that, “It is no more important for me that Pashtuns should remain in power, since the Pashtun leaders have not served Afghanistan to their best during the past 300 years. We (offspring of Ahmadshah Baba and Mirwais Nika ) should stop deceiving ourselves and others.”

Karzai was also quoted as saying that, “We should resolve the issue of Durand Line ourselves with Pakistan, and we do not need those residing on the other side of the border.”

His remarks created furors and doubts among the Afghans specifically on social media, where some believed Karzai had admitted a historical acknowledgement while some believed that his remarks were aimed at elections campaign.

However Mahmoud Karzai in an interview with BBC Persian said, “We emphasized in our meeting that those times have gone when people were take the properties and goods of others. Now people should concentrate more on education and put further efforts to properly among themselves and with the world.”

He also denied insulting Ahmadshah Durrani and said, “I am myself a Pashtun and how it would be possible to insult Afghanistan and someone who has created Afghanistan.”

Mahmud Karzai also ruled out rumors that his remarks were aimed to attracting the non-Pashtuns mind towards himself for the upcoming elections and said that his brother Qayum Karzai would stand for the elections and will support him.

In the meantime, he also insisted that it is not important who becomes the next president of Afghanistan and to which tribe the next president will belong to.

He said, “There is democracy in Afghanistan and anyone who achieves more votes in the election should be supported by all Afghans, and this what the Afghan constitution says and is one of the main demands of the Afghan people and the international community.”

Mahmud Karzai called the Durand Line agreement a forced and unfair agreement and said Afghans will never accept Durand line as the formal border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He said it will be a political suicide both for the current and future generation of Afghanistan if the legal status of Durand line is accepted by Afghanistan.


Taliban Says Remaining Turkish Hostages To Be Freed Soon
May 13, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan say they will soon release the remaining four of eight Turks they captured last month.

The eight Turkish engineers were seized when bad weather forced their helicopter to make an emergency landing in Afghanistan's Logar Province on April 21.

An Afghan translator and two pilots -- one from Russia and one from Kyrgyzstan -- were seized along with the Turks.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on May 12 that four Turks had been freed and handed over following efforts by Turkey's intelligence service.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahed e-mailed a statement on May 13 that said the four had been freed as a "goodwill gesture" and that the remaining four will be freed "in the near future."

He did not make any reference to the Afghan translator and the two pilots.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP


Police detain 5 Taliban fighters in northern Afghan town
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Police captured five armed Taliban militants on Monday during operations against Taliban outfit in Kunduz province 250 km north of Kabul, said Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, a police spokesman in the province.

"Personnel of national police raided a Taliban hideout in Dasht- e-Archi district early today morning and detained five rebels," Hussaini said at a press conference here.

A number of arms and ammunitions including suicide vests and explosive material were also discovered during the operations which lasted for a while, he added. However, he did not say if there were any casualties on police.

Taliban militants who launched their spring offensive on April 28 are yet to make comment.


Afghan Roadside Bomb Kills At Least 10 Civilians
May 13, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
A roadside bombing in Afghanistan's Kandahar Province has killed at least 10 civilians and injured at least 12.

Provincial police and officials blamed Taliban insurgents for the bombing on May 13 which took place in the Arghistan district.

Provincial police chief Abdul Raziq said the victims were traveling to the funeral of two people who were killed by a similar blast a few days ago.

He said there were women and children among the victims.

The bombing was the latest violence to occur since the Taliban announced late last month that they have launched their annual "spring offensive" to oust the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

It comes as Afghan security forces are taking over responsibility for fighting the Taliban and NATO-led troops prepare to leave the country by the end of 2014.

Based on reporting by AFP and dpa


Afghan Forces Lack Equipments to Defend Borders
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi 12 May 2013
Afghan National Security Advisor for President Karzai on Saturday said that security forces face shortage of equipment to defend the borders.

Afghan National Security Advisor for President Karzia Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta while visiting Goshta district, said that several options are at hand to equip Afghan security forces and the government cannot wait for support from international community in this regard.

It is time for Afghan forces to be equipped like the forces of some neighbouring countries, Dr Spanta said.

"We cannot wait for international community. We are thankful to international community. They have supported us a lot but current equipment are not enough to defend the country's borders. We are working on all options to equip our forces," Dr Spanta said.

Meanwhile, Afghan Border Police (ABP) in Goshta District of eastern Nangarhar province said that they are on standby in the last several days.

Afghan Government has deployed additional army forces to the area to back border police.

Afghan border police who have exchanged fire twice with the Pakistani military in the past two weeks, are saying that they face lack of military resources and equipment.

"Pakistani military owns tanks and artilleries but we have only mortars and 82 mm artillery, in spite of this we are ready to fight against Pakistan," Afghan Border Police Anbia Khan Momand said.

"We have engaged with them twice so far. If clashes break out one more time, I will destroy all their check posts," Afghan Border Police Imran said.

It is said that Pakistan military have built check posts across Durand Line on Afghanistan soil.

"According to Durand Line map which is given us by Isaf, their check posts have been built on this side of the line. They should be on that side until the problem is solved," Dr Spanta said.

It seems that Afghan forces possess strong support of the people. A group of women from Jalalabad city have come to praise forces' performance in Goshta district.

Sanga Jabarkhil, one of the women who visited Goshta district, said she was there to praise the bravery of the Afghan security forces.

Another woman Khosh Noma said "We, around 200 women, came to raise the morale of our forces as like Malalai gave moral to the soldiers in Maiwand war." Afghan forces in Goshta district are on standby to respond to threats from the other side of the border. Pakistan has also deployed tanks against Afghan forces.


Danish prime minister in Afghanistan to visit forces
Press TV May 13, 2013
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has travelled to Afghanistan to meet Denmark’s forces in the country’s south.

The premier’s office said in a Sunday statement that Thorning-Schmidt visited “the special forces in Lashkar Gah as well as Danish troops and envoys at Camp Price... and Camp Bastion.”

She also met international representatives including Helmand task force head Rupert Jones of Britain, the statement added.

Currently, Denmark has more than 600 soldiers based in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand.

The country has not yet announced a definite timetable for its full withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The visit, which is the premier’s second since she took office in 2011, comes two days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere visited Germany’s forces stationed in Afghanistan.

Merkel arrived in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on May 10 and made a short trip to the nearby city of Kunduz along with Maiziere.

With around 4,300 troops deployed in the provinces of Kunduz, Balkh and Badakhshan, Germany has the third largest contingent in Afghanistan after the US and Britain.

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity remains across the country despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops.


When a Bomb Goes Off in Afghanistan
For four years, foreign correspondent Heidi Vogt was always one of the first people to file when a bomb went off in Afghanistan. But as U.S. troops begin to draw down, there is also a corresponding press drawdown that will prevent Americans from hearing the full story.
The Daily Beast By Heidi Vogt May 12, 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan - The first thing is always the boom. Then the rattling of window frames. Then I look up from my computer for someone to make eye contact with. My Afghan colleague does the same. “Was that?” “Did you feel?” We both rush for the stairs, running up to the roof to look for smoke. As I go, I flip through other options in my head: Earthquake? No. Gas tank explosion? Unlikely. The military blowing up a weapons cache? Maybe.

When I reach the roof, the photographers and cameramen are already there. They always run faster, because they need the images. They're filming a black puff rising across town and debating what building may have been hit—maybe a government ministry, maybe an embassy, maybe a hotel. I go downstairs to make phone calls. From my desk, I hear a car pulling out of the compound—video and photo on their way.

It’s 8:30 a.m. and I haven’t had coffee yet.

I have spent the past four years as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press in Afghanistan. I have been one of about a dozen international reporters across various news outlets charged with telling the American public what's going on "over there." It makes for a strange workday: rushing out to bomb sites, counting suicide attacks and emailing with the Taliban.

People call the news the first draft of history. Working for a wire service in Afghanistan is like being there for the brainstorming session, then publishing your notes. It's a terrifying job. There's a lot more chance of getting something wrong than right, and there's the fear of losing a bit of your humanity in covering the daily death toll of war.

But in return you get to be one of the people trying to find a narrative in the chaos. You get to be one of the people to ascribe meaning.

And these days what scares me most is that with every passing month there are fewer people doing that job in Afghanistan. It takes an intense surge of effort by scores of people pulling 14-hour days to tell you about just one explosion. And that reporting machine is what keeps Afghanistan alive in the American consciousness.

Bombings in Kabul usually happen in the morning, before rush hour. I'm an early riser, so I often work the morning shift and seldom get woken up by the blast.

As I start to make calls, groggy American colleagues walk into the newsroom. They were up late the night before writing up an airstrike or the latest corruption scandal. “Was that?” “Is someone on the way?” “Are we alerting it?” “Is there coffee?”

I open a blank document on my computer and consider what I know. I type a sentence: “Explosion sounds in Afghan capital. Plume of smoke seen rising.”

I dial the U.S. military press office. An army captain answers.

“Could that have been a controlled detonation?” I ask.

“No. We don’t know what it was.”

“So what can you say?”

“We are aware of reports of an explosion in Kabul. Afghan forces are responding. They are in the lead on this.”

“You are aware of an explosion, or aware of reports of an explosion?”

“Reports of an explosion.”

A call comes in on my cell from an Afghan colleague on the scene: “There are lots of ambulances. No one is talking.” I hear the sirens.

“Can you see anything?”

“Smoke. Police. They blocked the road.”

“Any dead?”

“I only see ambulances.” I hang up, reread my one sentence. Yes, that's all I really know. I press “send." The AP and Agence France Press call this an “alert.” Reuters calls it a “snap.” The three agencies race each other to be first with that one sentence. There are back office people who track who wins by how many seconds.

I start typing the next version of the story: a couple paragraphs we call "the urgent." Maximum 130 words.

I type: “A blast has hit in the center of the Afghan capital, sending a black plume of smoke rising. Sirens could be heard wailing soon after the explosion early Sunday as ambulances rushed to the scene. Police blocked the roads around the Interior Ministry. There were no immediate reports of casualties.”

I send it. Four minutes. Fast enough.

Now everyone is up to speed and we divide up tasks. One person will write. Another will go to the scene. Another will work the phones. Another will pull background from the archives: when was the last bombing in Kabul? Can we say this is rare, or that bombings are uncommon in the city? No, the last one was three weeks ago -- that’s not so rare. Can we say the city is getting more violent? No, it was more violent in 2010. Okay – let’s get that in. Can we call Kabul “relatively safe?” Relative to what?

About an hour in, information starts to tail off. The police are still holding everyone back from the blast site, but now we know much more. We know there was a car bomb and gunmen on foot. We know at least five people are dead.

We all pause to decide what it means.

If it is the third bombing in a month, it could show that the Taliban are still able to penetrate the heavily fortified capital despite the efforts of international forces to secure the city.

If it turns out that the target is the shopping mall next to the Interior Ministry, it could show that the insurgents are increasingly willing to go after civilian targets as they fight to show that they are powerful force in Afghanistan.

If the five dead are Afghan guards who spotted something suspicious about the vehicle and stopped it at the gate, it could show that the Afghan forces are stepping up and protecting their own people, that the training has been working and that the guards are heroes.

If the bomb was planted on a vehicle parked inside the Interior Ministry, it could show that the insurgency has once again penetrated the Afghan government, demonstrating how insecure the Kabul administration is despite all the help from its Western backers.

Regardless of any of this, the U.S. military will issue a statement saying that the bombing shows that the insurgency is increasingly desperate. The Afghan government will issue a news release obliquely blaming Pakistan

And we, the reporters, will start chasing down leads. Some of us will go after the “color” at the site – touring the blown up building and writing down details like the clothes on the corpses or the shattered glass on the street and hoping to find someone who saw it all happen. I try to time it so I get there after the jumpiness has subsided but before the police have cleaned everything up and stopped talking.

Others, meanwhile, hit up government officials or go to the hospitals looking for survivors. All of us will be switching between phone calls and writing and rewriting until well after midnight.

I will write down the details from video and photos that I didn't see firsthand: police rushing wounded to the hospital in the back of a green pickup truck, a woman's dead body covered with a man's coat for propriety’s sake, a child crying. Occasionally I will catch my breath at a particularly gruesome photo or a memory of a lifeless body, but mostly I will focus on just piecing it all together.

If this seems formulaic or dispassionate it is because I have done it so many times. Like the rest of the press corps in Afghanistan, I have learned to separate myself from the moment in order to get the right story out. That is the job, after all, to be a witness.

Over time, I have gotten pretty good at being that witness. I have a dozen Afghan politicians and Western analysts in my phone who I can call up at a moment’s notice to ask “What’s really going on?” I know enough about the way the political winds have changed that I can call bull**** when a military official says “now we’re trying something completely new.” And I have been here long enough that I really care about Afghanistan—about my friends here and the colleagues who risk so much to work for an American news organization and the beautiful mountainous country full of people just trying to make a living. And that means I care even more about getting the story right.

But I am intensely aware that the story matters in the U.S. in proportion to how many troops we have on the ground. If civil war erupts in the next few years it will break my heart, but it may not have the chance to break yours.

There’s a press drawdown that accompanies a troop drawdown. Back in 2010, big name TV stars were jostling each other out of the way to dodge bullets in Afghanistan and every news outlet was adding reporters. Back then the AP had four international staffers; now the AP has two.

This means that there’s a little less time for everything: for figuring out who might really have been behind that explosion, for stopping by a government official’s office for tea, for following up on a rumor about a missing $10 million or a mass grave.

But the overall media presence is still pretty robust: all three wires and the major newspapers continue to have full-fledged bureaus in Afghanistan. And there is a cadre of freelancers who can survive here because there is still some appetite for Afghanistan stories in U.S. magazines. Add to that the host of brave and competent Afghan reporters working for the international press that are well-paid enough to stay and confident enough to speak the truth because they have powerful Western companies protecting them.

So right now, Afghanistan still has plenty of witnesses. When a bomb goes off, when an airstrike kills civilians, when a woman is stoned to death for trying to escape an abusive husband, reporters elbow each other out of the way to get the story.

We have many motivations. Some of them are selfish: getting on the front page, making a name for ourselves, showing everyone how smart we are. Some of them are admirable: exposing injustice, telling the stories of people who otherwise go unnoticed, telling the truth no matter where it leads. And when you get dozens of people in one country competing against each other to do all these things, you get a lot of news.

You get stories of Afghan corruption and American malfeasance, you get stories of women imprisoned for adultery and of female parliamentarians standing up for their rights. You get stories of American aid projects that turn into financial sinkholes and Afghan officials running smuggling rings. You get to know something about Afghanistan from people whose primary agenda is to tell you what's important and interesting about Afghanistan—the journalists.

Sometimes when I call press officers with the U.S. military about a story, they ask me what my “angle” is. It's a hard question to answer. I know what they’re really asking is “do you have a political agenda here? Have you decided what the story is beforehand?” In their terms, I don’t have an angle. But of course I have an angle. I’m asking them about an issue because I think it’s important right now. I think maybe the U.S. government hasn’t been as successful as they say they have or I think the Afghan government may be more corrupt now than it was before the Americans poured money into cleaning it up. I am starting with a hunch, and that's why I'm bothering to ask the questions. My job is to be on the ground and let people know when reality doesn't quite match up with the rhetoric.

And if I get it wrong, one of my competitors will make that clear in print the very next day. That is, as long as they're still here.

When a suicide bomber blows himself up in 2015, there may be a very small handful of Western reporters still in country to cover it. The current staffers in Kabul will have moved on to Jerusalem or Cairo or London or New York. The freelancers will be in Syria, or wherever the next Syria is. And the Afghan journalists who are so key to any reporting in the country will have less of a shield between them and a government that has shown little commitment to freedom of the press.

We’ve seen this happen already in Iraq. Did you hear about the car bombings outside Baghdad last month that killed more than 30 people? Or the wave of attacks in March that killed 65 people on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion? An al-Qaida in Iraq front group claimed responsibility. Stories were written about these attacks, but fewer than there would have been two years ago. And those that were written got less space on websites and in newspapers than they would have back then.

Afghanistan, already slipping off the American front page, will show up as a three-inch story in the international section when an American special forces soldier dies. There will be few details, because the U.S. special forces don’t like to give details and there won't be many reporters with the time to dig in and ask questions. The fewer reporters, the harder it is to fight the rhetoric. My own editors have reacted with surprise when I explain that the U.S. plans to keep combat troops in Afghanistan after 2014. On trips back to the U.S., people ask me what there is left to report in Afghanistan, now that the war is over.

These are the things I think about as I myself depart. It was time for me to move on, and I assume I will be replaced. But there's no guarantee. There's also no guarantee that we'll be ever be able to find the right narrative for the past 12 years in which thousands of Americans and Afghans have died. But I hope the American public will remember when our troops have dwindled and the money has tapered off and the newspapers are flogging newer stories on the front page, that it doesn't mean things are fixed. Things are unlikely to be "fixed" for a very long time. Afghans will live this reality. I can only hope Americans will hear about it.

Heidi Vogt was an Afghanistan correspondent for The Associated Press from 2008 to 2013.

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


Medics train Afghans to treat their own in war zone
The Washington Times By Kristina Wong May 12, 2013
Camp Shorabak, Afghanistan - Amid the unrelenting sun and ubiquitous sand of Helmand province, U.S. and Afghan forces last week unpacked bandages, scalpels and operating tables — the makings of the region’s first mobile surgical unit for Afghan medics to treat their wounded soldiers.

Injured Afghan troops in southwestern areas have had access only to level 1 medical facilities, which provide basic first aid. As a level 2 facility, the mobile surgical unit will resemble a small hospital under a tent and provide treatment for life-threatening wounds.

Call it M*A*S*H 2.0.

“This is very important to their capability of medically treating their own injured, which they don’t have here in the southwest,” said Navy Capt. Joseph Kochan, an anesthesiologist and deputy command surgeon with NATO's Training Mission-Afghanistan who helped set up the unit. “Now, we’re at least giving them the surgical stabilization capability so eventually, when they do develop a [level 3] facility in this area, they’ll be able to stabilize them here and move them on.”

As U.S. troops withdraw, they are racing to teach Afghan forces how to treat their critically wounded by setting up mobile hospitals.

Eight such units are scheduled to be set up across the country. Each will have a 22-member Afghan team comprising two trauma surgeons, an orthopedic surgeon and two anesthesiologists, as well as nurses, physician assistants and technicians. The teams will serve 90-day deployments.

The first mobile unit was set up last week in Helmand province, where Afghan troops are suffering heavy casualties from roadside bombs and insurgent attacks. The Afghan medical team will be trained by U.S. and British troops and will begin receiving patients in a few weeks.

The Afghan medics eventually will take charge of the facility and begin training other teams.

Injured Afghan troops now are taken to coalition medical facilities in Helmand, then moved to other coalition facilities miles away in Kandahar or Kabul, the nation’s capital.

Medical evacuations usually are conducted by helicopters or small planes, but Afghanistan’s embryonic air force won’t be able to perform such tasks for years.

“Their only other option right now is the back of a Ford Ranger pickup truck and giddyap across the desert until they get to something that resembles a military medical facility,” said Marine Maj. Gen. Charles Gurganus, who recently finished his tour as commanding general of forces in southwestern Afghanistan.

Most coalition combat troops are scheduled to leave the country by the end of next year, which means Afghan medics will need to develop skills quickly.

“It’s a real necessity for the Afghans,” said Lt. Noor Ahmad, an Afghan National Army medical officer who is helping set up the first unit.

Casualties for Afghan troops are more than double those for coalition forces. Most are blast injuries from roadside bombs, wounds to arms and legs, and blunt trauma to the chest and abdomen, Capt. Kochan said.

Complicating the medical training effort: Most Afghan troops cannot read or write English, let alone their own language. Also, most Afghans prefer to learn how to fight, not treat the wounded, and prefer to rely on coalition medical expertise.

“The majority of them automatically go into panic mode. But that’s what we’re there for,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Donald Luanglath, a Navy corpsman. “You have to say, ‘Hey, it’s OK, it’s OK. He’s still breathing. Remember your basic steps. It’s going to be all right.’”

Also making medical training more difficult is the reality that most Afghan doctors and others with medical knowledge are loath to go to dangerous and remote areas, such as southwestern Afghanistan. Afghan troops from outside of the region are not told that they will deploy to the southwest until after they are en route.

But coalition troops are trying to emphasize that this fighting season is the last opportunity the Afghans will have to learn these skills before standing on their own. The level of U.S. forces, currently about 66,000, is expected to be reduced by roughly half by February.


Afghans on U.S. bases losing jobs after years of devoted service
Interpreters, mechanics and others who depended on the good, steady pay now feel abandoned as American troops prepare to exit. Some fear militant retaliation.
Los Angeles Times By David Zucchino May 12, 2013
CHARIKAR, Afghanistan - Abdul Shakour was working the night shift at Bagram air base repairing American vehicles when he was called to an emergency meeting.

The news was bad: Shakour and 22 other Afghan mechanics were being laid off. After seven years at Bagram, Shakour was unceremoniously shown the door last month. He was told to return the next day to turn in his security badge and collect his final paycheck.

"There aren't as many vehicles to fix and not as many soldiers around, so they don't need us anymore," Shakour said outside the base, speaking with a thick accent the English he had learned from American civilians and troops.

The 11-year Western military occupation of Afghanistan has been a boon for the Afghan workforce, providing thousands of jobs for interpreters, mechanics, cleaners and drivers. But with bases being torn down and equipment shipped out as combat troops prepare to leave next year, many Afghan workers are no longer needed.

For Shakour and his close friend Padshah Gul, a mechanic who was laid off the same day, the consequences are devastating. Their Bagram jobs paid far more than typical semiskilled Afghans earn. The pair assumed that working for foreigners afforded more certainty and stability than the shaky Afghan economy could provide. Now that seemingly solid foundation has been torn away, leaving them feeling bereft and abandoned.

"I worked hard. I never made mistakes. I never missed work. I'm a very good mechanic; I can fix anything. So how can they send me away just like that?" Shakour asked. He clutched a folder stuffed with certificates from his American supervisors citing his superior job performance.

U.S. military officials referred layoff questions to private contracting firms, which hire most Afghans working on bases. The mechanics worked for Fluor, an engineering and construction company based in Irving, Texas. The firm did not respond to requests for comment.

The mechanics said Fluor supervisors told them the contract under which they were hired had ended. Afghan workers at military bases have been laid off periodically for years, but the pace has quickened this year as U.S. and coalition troops pull out.

Shakour, 28, a solidly built, gregarious man, says his $1,300-a-month salary has supported an extended family of 12, including his wife and 2-year-old son. Over the years, he had worked his way up from laborer trainee to mechanic supervisor.

Gul, 40, a slender man with a long, solemn face, has cared for 13 relatives, including his wife and six children, on his $900-a-month salary. He had toiled at Bagram since 2008, working his way up to a job in which he trained mechanics to repair civilian vehicles used by American troops.

"This hit me very hard. Times are difficult now, so it's very upsetting," Gul said, sitting dejectedly in his whitewashed farmhouse in Jabal os Saraj, a bustling market town about 20 miles from the Bagram base.

He said he was given no warning of the layoff and no severance pay. "Even the lowest government workers in Afghanistan get severance when they leave their jobs," he said.

Charikar, Jabal os Saraj and other towns in Parwan province have enjoyed a modest economic boom in the last decade, thanks to job opportunities at the massive Bagram base. About 25 miles north of Kabul, it is one of the two largest coalition air bases in Afghanistan, along with Kandahar Airfield.

"I think we have become too dependent on Bagram," said Ahmad Shah Khan, 46, another mechanic who was laid off the same day after seven years at Bagram. "Now everybody is depressed and wondering what will happen next."

Bagram has pumped up the local economy on and off for years, beginning when the Soviet military occupied the base in the 1980s. Now, layoffs are affecting thousands of extended families — "a huge problem the people are facing now," said Roshna Khalid, spokeswoman for Parwan's governor.

Some laid-off younger men drift into opium or heroin addiction, she said, and others leave the country in search of work. "As more people are losing jobs, that adds to violence and insecurity in the country as a whole," Khalid said.

Citing security concerns, a U.S. military spokesman declined to say how many U.S. troops or Afghan workers remain at Bagram. A colonel there said the base is home to 38,000 people: U.S. and coalition troops, plus thousands of Afghan and foreign workers.

In addition to the economic blow, laid-off mechanics face possible retaliation from insurgents for having aided the Americans. Afghan workers at coalition bases routinely receive Taliban death threats, often in the form of so-called night letters left at their homes. Scores of Afghan workers, especially interpreters working with U.S. troops, have been killed by insurgents.

The three mechanics say they have not been directly threatened but worry that they and their families are at an elevated risk as U.S. troops depart. "Everyone knows I worked for the Americans. How can I hide something like that?" Gul said.

Shakour said he fears that the Taliban will grow bolder as more troops leave. "It's a big problem, of course," he said. "I would love to move my whole family to another country."

The U.S. offers a Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghans who can prove they provided "faithful and valuable service to the U.S. government," according to the State Department. But under a 2009 law, such visas are limited to 1,500 a year. Applicants must meet strict requirements, including documentation of a serious threat against them because of their service to the U.S. government.

A separate special visa program has been created for Afghan interpreters who have worked for U.S. troops. Hasibullah Qaimy, 24, has already applied. After 18 months interpreting for U.S. troops, he has been told he will lose his $800-a-month job in two months because the unit he serves is leaving.

" 'Downsizing' is what they called it," Qaimy said in lightly accented English. He was put on a list of interpreters to be considered for jobs with other U.S. units. But he holds out little hope for such a job because so many other interpreters have been told that they also will be laid off as the units they serve leave Afghanistan.

Qaimy says he hopes to use his finance degree to find work with an Afghan business or use his English skills to interpret for an international aid group. "But will I ever find a job that pays so much as this one? I don't think so," he said as he took a break from interpreting for a U.S. Army platoon.

Shakour, the mechanic, says he's proud of his service to the United States. "You have proven to be a great asset to our mission here in Afghanistan," an American supervisor wrote in a certificate that cited Shakour's "professionalism, dedication and outstanding performance."
Another supervisor wrote, "Your hard work and professionalism will never be forgotten."

Despite their jobs suddenly being taken away, many workers cherish these boilerplate certificates. They say they believed for years that the documents insulated them from the sort of calamity that hit them last month.

They say they knew U.S. forces were returning home, but assumed their jobs were safe through 2014 because of their certificates of lavish praise. Shakour, for instance, was a foreman, and was shocked that he was sacked along with the mechanics he supervised.

"I heard rumors about layoffs, but I never thought it would happen to me," he said.

He was close to several American civilian contractors he worked with, he said, sharing tea and jokes with them. "They came and told me how sorry they were that I lost my job," he said. Their own jobs could soon be eliminated as more U.S. troops leave.

The three Afghan mechanics are searching desperately for work. But the nation's beleaguered economy will only shrink as the money and jobs brought by foreign troops, aid programs and nongovernmental groups decline.

Gul said, with faint hope in his voice, that his brother is still employed at Bagram as a mechanic.

Is he worried?

Gul lowered his head and grimaced. "Of course he is," he said. "The Americans are leaving. Soon all the jobs will be gone."

david.zucchino@latimes.com

Special correspondent Hashmat Baktash contributed to this report.


What Nawaz Sharif's win means for Pakistan's neighbours
BBC News By Ahmed Rashid 12 May 2013
Nawaz Sharif's astonishing victory at the polls is certain to be welcomed by neighbours and other countries in the region hoping for a more stable Pakistan - but much will depend on how effectively he is able to work with the Pakistani army, writes Ahmed Rashid.

Mr Sharif was twice prime minister in the 1990s and both times he made genuine efforts to make peace with India but was thwarted at every step by an aggressive and uncompromising army which eventually launched the war in Kargil in disputed Kashmir in 1999 that led to a military debacle and also a coup against his government.

Mr Sharif clearly understands that Pakistan's traditional allies in the West, immersed in a global recession, are unlikely to offer Islamabad much in the way of a bailout. However, India can play a major role in reviving Pakistan's bankrupt economy as a potential investor.

This time around, the army - faced with an apparent collapse of the state - is also more amenable to the idea of improving relations with India, but army chief Gen Pervez Kayani still baulks at the idea of Indian factories and investment taking root in Pakistan. However, Pakistan has little choice and Sharif even less so, as avenues to rescue the economy close one by one. Gen Kayani is also due to step down at the end of the year and a new army chief may well be able to put the years of acrimony between Mr Sharif and the army to an end.

Pipeline pressure

President Asif Ali Zardari virtually surrendered foreign policy decision-making to the army in order to stay on its right side.

Mr Sharif is unlikely to do that and will instead need to co-operate with the army in order to have an effective policy towards brokering peace in Afghanistan between the Americans, President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban leaders, who are all based in Pakistan.

The peaceful withdrawal of US troops next year from Afghanistan through the Pakistani port city of Karachi, the end of the Afghan war and the survival of the regime in Kabul will all largely depend on how seriously Pakistan plays its role in forcing the Taliban to the peace table.

Mr Sharif is keen to do so - simply because he knows he will be unable to tackle Pakistan's internal crisis without peace across the border.

Mr Sharif will face a quandary with Iran as the US puts pressure on Pakistan to abide by UN-mandated sanctions on Iran imposed because of its nuclear programme. Pakistan has just signed an agreement for a critically-needed gas pipeline to be built between the two countries and Mr Sharif will want to continue that programme as Pakistan is severely lacking in gas supplies.

The five central Asian states - Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - are already deeply concerned about the US pullout from Afghanistan and the US failure to control the Taliban - for which they also blame the Pakistan military. They will be relieved to see Mr Sharif in power and expect him to broker peace in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's traditional ally, China, which has become increasingly concerned and even privately critical of Pakistan's pandering to extremism and the Taliban, will now seek an ally in Mr Sharif and hope that he will be able to work with the army to end Pakistan's tolerance of extremism.

China is worried because militant Uighur Muslims from the Chinese province of Xinjiang are still receiving training in Pakistan.

Mending fences

The most difficult relationship is likely to be with the Americans. Mr Sharif, like other politicians in this election campaign, has risen on a wave of anti-Americanism.

His brother Shahbaz Sharif, former chief minister of Punjab, had stopped all projects by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Punjab province as a mark of anger against Washington's policies and its use of drones.

The army has its own multi-dimensional quarrels with Washington, especially over the use of drone missiles.

However, Mr Sharif knows that he will need US support in order to garner desperately needed aid from the IMF, the World Bank and other global institutions and he cannot do that without US support for a peace process with India and Afghanistan.

Many politicians, including Mr Sharif, have long felt that the army has had a monopoly of power over foreign policy for far too long. Even on election day, it was the military which evicted a New York Times correspondent from the country, an act which the interim government knew nothing about.

Declan Walsh was thrown out for apparently annoying the military back in February with a story about conflict between the CIA and the ISI over the use of drone missiles.

Mr Sharif is also going to need a more friendly and pragmatic foreign policy in his efforts to end Pakistan's long-running domestic insurgencies - the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas, the Baloch separatists in Balochistan and the multiple ethnic and sectarian killings in Karachi,

Blaming India or Afghanistan for helping create Pakistan's own domestic instability, as former regimes have done, resolves nothing.

Pakistan stands isolated and disliked in the neighbourhood and rebuilding its reputation is not going to be easy.


Why U.S. is losing support among Afghans?
Khaama Press By Ahmad Shah Katawazai 12 May 2013
Anti-American sentiments are perhaps looming on high level ever among Afghans. It is on a very critical juncture when the US troop’s withdrawal is already planned till the end of 2014, Pivotal Security agreement with the US is to be signed in the near future and the expected botched presidential elections will be held next April.

While the ongoing turf between Karzai and the US Administration is turning public opinion in Afghanistan even further against the United States.

After 9/11 in late 2001, with the US invasion of Afghanistan hopes were there among ordinary Afghans that the US presence will help in getting rid of the neighbor’s meddling in Afghanistan, it will be an end from the warlords and Taliban oppression and that their economy will improve with US aid. That was a welcome relief and a sort of positive feeling existed which is unfortunately on downward spiral now.

Why America lost its image as a champion of Democracy and proponent of peace in Afghanistan? Various factors both on regional and country level exists which needs to be concentrated for future cooperation between the two countries.

Unfortunately the US failed to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans because of its

Policies towards Afghanistan itself and its neighbor countries especially Pakistan and Iran.

One after the other Afghan, ISAF and NATO officials have stated about Pakistan providing sanctuaries and support to Taliban but no rational strategy has been devised in order to prevent Pakistan from supporting Taliban.

Pakistan is a country which is playing the most pernicious role in the region by harboring and training terrorists which not only endangers the region but is threatening the globe. Pakistan is posing the greater existential threat to the national security of Afghanistan by supporting and providing sanctuaries to the Taliban. This is definitely against the interests of Afghanistan and the West as well. The competing major countries and neighbors have defined their objective in Afghanistan only vaguely.

Despite providing support to terrorists still Pakistan is beneficiary of the huge sum of aid from the U.S. and the U.S. has always caved into its demands. But little has been done against it.

Pakistan, an unstable country with a nuclear arsenal and supporter of terrorism and violent extremism instead of bringing pressure on it, is appeased by the U.S. Why the United States is appeasing Pakistan? Is a question raised by majority of Afghans?

Afghans were much frustrated when the Kunar province witnessed shelling from Pakistani side. Despite the presence of more than forty countries troops in the country and signing of the strategic agreement with the United States, the shelling was not prevented and the International Community announced that it is the internal matter of Afghanistan.

The shelling regained last month with rocket fires from Pakistani side. This is a major question for Afghan that despite the physical presence of International Community and signing of various strategic agreement with various major countries there is rocket shelling on Afghan soil (Kunar province), but nothing has been done against that.

Disenchantment from the West rose further when the NATO built facilities inside the Afghan land (in Goshta district, Jalalabad) were occupied or apparently provided by NATO to Pakistani troops, which resulted in fight between Afghan and Pakistani soldiers.

When the US and western countries announced that they are withdrawing their forces, this created fear and anxiety among Afghans that they will be left again like in the 1990’s. With this the neighbor countries especially Iran and Pakistan were mainly encouraged that after the withdrawal of the US forces they will be having tabs in the country where they provided more support to Taliban in order to have more influence and sway over the country. The withdrawal announcement actually boosted the Taliban and neighbor countries strategic position.

The ongoing turf between the Afghan and US administration and the withdrawal announcement has only strengthened the Taliban. Without a long term plan withdrawal of the U.S. forces could repeat the 1990’s once again, paving way for the warlords and Taliban to take over. Afghans sees it as a new great game where they only sacrifice and are victim of the policies of the major powers.

With the departure of the US combat troops there is fear that an internecine violence could erupt among the warlords like it was followed with the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989.

This fear of being lonely once again is turning the public opinion against the United States and its western allies.

The Afghans were of the view that with U.S. arrival there will be democracy and the criminals will be bring to justice, but unfortunately with their arrival they filled the pockets of the warlords which had criminal background and were once involved in plundering the country. With the economic power provided in millions by the U.S. in the later stage these warlords came into political power. The US is seen as supporters of the warlords and criminals by the majority now.

The unpopular ex-criminals during the civil war were bring back in the mainstream economy and politics instead of sidelining them. They were re-empowered with cash and weapons at the hands of the west mainly the United States which is the foremost concern of Afghan population.

Largely it was seen as to replace one unacceptable terror group with another one, as long as the latest one pledged its loyalty to the United States.

The US never tried to understand Afghan culture and tradition. The anti-terrorism efforts and tactics are still widely unpopular.

Civilian casualties are the major source of the anti-American sentiments and disenchantment among the Afghans, which is often raised from the government administration. The local people from different areas have time and again complained against the civilian casualties committed by the International troops which are consistently ignored.

Blind bombing in different parts of the country especially the southern areas and relentless airstrikes which still continues is feeding widespread anti American sentiments.

Secret private and secret CIA militias in different parts of the country especially in south and eastern parts have raised major concerns among Afghans which further blackened America’s image. The latest were the Maidan Wardak tragic incidents where villagers and students according to reports were seized in their homes at night, disappeared and were tragically killed by secret forces.

This is what generated fear and violence among Afghans fueling anti-Americanism while on the other hand aiding Taliban recruitment.

Secret arrests, private prisons, torture and killing, warlords, criminals support, inappropriate behavior with the prisoners, private prisons, are all the factors which aid to the Taliban recruitment and disenchantment among Afghans.

The most significant factor which raised major concerns from the very beginning is the inappropriate behavior of the ground forces with the population.

The Der Spiegel, a German Magazine when published photos allegedly depicting American soldiers posing with the bloodied and naked corpse of an Afghan civilian added more fuel to the fire, likewise videos that purportedly showed troops urinating on the corpses of suspected Taliban fighters, the burning of Korans created much anger and frustration among Afghans.

Night raids, searching Afghan houses by foreigners where xenophobia is on rise, is something unacceptable and irrational.

Burning of Quran provoked anti American sentiments throughout the Islamic World and especially in Afghanistan. Demonstrations were there several times and with this the neighbor countries propagated against the west and U.S. unleashing a new wave of conspiracy theories.

Protests unleashed in different parts of World over a film insulting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), including Afghanistan.

In countries like Afghanistan which has passed through three decade of wars and where the power struggle between radical and moderate Islamic groups still continues on a large scale such tendencies of violence are even on higher scale.

With the conspiracy theories in a traditional country which is deeply suspicious of the west, anti-American feelings are running high.

The so called Islamic Political groups once having support of the west and east equally during the cold war to undermine communism now are in effort to have control over the politics and country internally and internationally with an emphasis on the extremis version and interpretation of Islamic Sharia.

Statement like US and Taliban collusion for the purpose of the retainment of presence of the US in the country, the past and present assistance of the U.S. with local warlords having criminal background and the Taliban once supported by the U.S. and western countries during the Soviet invasion are all the conspiracy or factual theories which contribute in fueling anti-Americanism among Afghans.

Neighbor countries media propaganda has fostered more anti American and anti-western feelings. Most of the reports and programs aired on media outlets from the neighbor countries reflect and add more to anti-western sentiments and the fundamentalist ideologies in the country and region.

Iran the region’s most persistent irritant of the United States, has compiled considerable resources in order to propagate against the US and West and create anti-American feeling among the masses.

Though more than a decade has passed since the International Community is working on training and equipping of the Afghan forces but still from equipment side the Afghan forces are faced with major problems.

Due to their ill-equipment and having strong and unfortunately dangerous neighbors the government security apparatus seems unprepared at this time to take the lead responsibility against the insurgence. The failure of the Afghan forces on major scale is due to the lack of resources and their ill-equipment. The poorly equipped and short on air power Afghan Security Forces can’t defend their country until and unless they are not provided with sophisticated weapons in order to defend their country.

Unwillingness on the part of the US for bringing regional balance of power and providing needed resources to the Afghan forces have raised major doubts in the minds of Afghan people.

Vast majority in 2001 were willing and ready to support US in its war against terrorism. But with the passage of time the U.S. lost its support that once it was enjoying among Afghan, it was all due to their ill-conceived policies.

One of the blunder which was committed in the very beginning and which added much to the Taliban recruitment was the disenchantment of the Pashtun population, Vast majority of the population was alienated in Bonn Conference back in 2001. Most of the ministries were given to the Northern Alliance and the Pashtun population was not given their due share in the newly established governmental structure which infuriated the Pashtun population. The people of Afghanistan had much higher expectations than the reality. In 2001 after attack on its soil by Al-Qaeda with the US arrival in Afghanistan hopes were there among many Afghans that it could pave the way for stability, justice, progress and prosperity and emancipation from warlords. They had come with the slogan of dismantling Al-Qaeda and promising to bring democracy in the country. They were seen by the vast majority as a beacon of stability and economic prosperity. But unfortunately after more than a decade still Afghanistan is facing plethora of problems in v
arious fields, which infuriated them on a wide scale.

Afghans had high hopes for rebuilding its infrastructure, improving the life standard; there was much optimism that the country will see drastic changes. But unfortunately the process saw major setbacks and frustration.

Historical factors and the past legacy of leaving Afghans to its fate when the U.S. national interests were served after the disintegration of the Soviet Union is a factor which raises doubts among Afghans.

The Afghans are now given the feeling of the past dissertation. Afghans felt deserted by the US in the early 1990’s following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. As soon as the Soviet troops departed from Afghanistan the US officials lost interest in Afghanistan, they backed away from helping the Afghans in standing on their feet instead the country was left for its fate which erupted in civil war paving way for the Taliban to rule on the country with their extremist ideology till 2001.Instead of helping it, Afghanistan was left alone after the Soviet withdrawal.

The above mentioned factors are deepening the sense of disappointment, hopelessness, loss, defeat and anger among Afghans and especially on the part of the youth of the country. Almost 65 percent of the population is aged 25 or younger. This constituency of the population is driven by the past three decade war, ongoing violence, insurgency and cruelty taking place in the region. With no concentration to the problems and demands despite the fact that International community is present in their country, there will be an overwhelming pool of new recruits to the Taliban groups which already with collaboration with neighbor countries is working against the western interests. The consequences could result much more subtle, perhaps more dangerous in the long run where the level of mistrust of the United States and west will grow deeper. This threat looming deeper and perhaps more dangerous may pose even greater risk in the years to come.

Public opinion among Afghans especially youths, towards the United States has not improved instead it is on downward pace and has actually worsened in Afghanistan.

Instead of peace, prosperity and justice the Afghans still see extremism, insecurity, wide-scale corruption, impoverishment and violence throughout the country which brings anxiety and frustration among the people.

The reality of the past more than a decade has unleashed new concerns and embittered the Afghans. Instead of bringing real democracy the west after providing warlords and criminals with millions of dollars is now leaving once again the country to its fate. Such sort of announcements could stir more anti-Americanism among Afghans instead of bridging the existing gaps in their policies.

The reality is that no system, no matter what form it has, can survive without a minimal threshold of popular support. While the popular support could be garnered only through policies that could touch the hearts and minds of people which could be felt in the society from the very gross roots.

Bridging the existing gaps and flaws which aid to doubt and suspicion among population is in the long term national interest of both countries (Afghanistan and the United States) expected to set the trends of future developments with signing of the Security Agreement after they signed Strategic Agreement in back 2011.

I think the Afghans with the help of International community can puncture the hysteria about the West and especially the United States that has been manufactured by those who want to advertise anti-western sentiments for their own malignant reasons, only through transparent economic aid, robust support to the Afghan National Security Forces, rooting out the ongoing corruption and bringing a system based on justice and transparency.


Afghans Say an American Tortured Civilians
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND May 12, 2013
MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan - The authorities in Afghanistan are seeking the arrest on murder and torture charges of a man they say is an American and part of a Special Forces unit operating in Wardak Province, three Afghan officials have confirmed.

The accusations against the man, Zakaria Kandahari, and the assertion that he and much of his unit are American are a new turn in a dispute over counterinsurgency tactics in Wardak that has strained relations between Kabul and Washington. American officials say their forces are being wrongly blamed for atrocities carried out by a rogue Afghan unit. But the Afghan officials say they have substantial evidence of American involvement.

They say they have testimony and documents implicating Mr. Kandahari and his unit in the killings or disappearances of 15 Afghans in Wardak. Mr. Kandahari is of Afghan descent but was born and raised in the United States, they say. Included in the evidence, the Afghan officials say, is a videotape of Mr. Kandahari torturing one of the 15 Afghans, a man they identified as Sayid Mohammad.

Mr. Mohammad was picked up by the unit in Wardak six months ago and has not been seen since, the officials said. The partial remains of Mohammad Qassim, another of the 15 Afghans, were found in a trash pit just outside the fence around the unit’s base in the Nerkh district, according to Mr. Qassim’s family and Afghan officials.

Afghan officials who have seen the videotape say a person speaking English with an American accent can be heard supervising the torture session, which Mr. Kandahari is seen conducting.

An American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with official policy, confirmed the existence of the video showing Mr. Kandahari but denied that he was an American citizen. “Everybody in that video is Afghan; there are no American voices,” the official said.

At the center of the Afghans’ accusations is an American Special Forces A Team that had been based in the Nerkh district until recently. An A Team is an elite unit of 12 American soldiers who work with extra resources that the military calls “enablers,” making it possible for the team to have the effect of a much larger unit. Those resources can include specialized equipment, air support and Afghan partner troops or interpreters. The American official said Mr. Kandahari had been an interpreter working for the team in the Nerkh district without pay in exchange for being allowed to live on the base.

Afghan officials give a different account of his role. They say he and others working with the team wore American-style military uniforms, but had long beards and often, bizarrely, rode motorized four-wheeled bikes on hunts for insurgents. The Afghan officials said Mr. Kandahari appeared to be in a leadership position in the unit.

Afghan investigators say the team detained the 15 Afghan civilians in sweeps, apparently on suspicion of having ties to insurgents, although their family members deny any association with either the Taliban or Hezb-i-Islami, another group fighting the government in Wardak. The investigators say that 7 of the 15 are known to have been killed and that the other 8 are still missing and almost certainly dead.

The American official said the team was not to blame. “We have done three investigations down there, and all absolve ISAF forces and Special Forces of all wrongdoing,” the official said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. “It is simply not true.”

Relatives of the victims and their supporters have staged noisy protests in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. They say the International Committee of the Red Cross has been investigating the disappearances. In keeping with standard practice, the Red Cross has made no public comment on the matter.

In February, President Hamid Karzai ordered all American Special Operations forces to leave Wardak Province, an area near the capital where insurgents have been active. Afghan and American officials then reached a compromise under which the A Team was removed from the Nerkh district but that allowed other Special Operations units to remain in at least four locations in the province. It is not known where the team that left the Nerkh district went.

Afghan officials investigated the events in the Nerkh district, and when they concluded that the accusations of misconduct by the team were true, the head of the Afghan military, Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, personally asked the American commander at the time, Gen. John R. Allen, to hand Mr. Kandahari over to the Afghan authorities.

According to a senior Afghan official, General Allen personally promised General Karimi that the American military would do so within 24 hours, but the promise was not kept, nor was a second promise a day later to hand him over the following morning. “The next morning they said he had escaped from them and they did not know where he was,” the official said.

The American official said the military was not trying to shield Mr. Kandahari. “The S.F. guys tried to pick him up, but he got wind of it and went on the lam, and we lost contact with him,” the official said. “We would have no reason to try to harbor this individual.”

And a spokesman for the American military, David E. Nevers, said General Allen “never had a conversation with General Karimi about this issue.”

The Special Forces A Team originally moved into its Nerkh district base in Wardak in the autumn of 2012, around the time that a bomb wiped out much of the provincial government center here in Maidan Shahr, the provincial capital. The senior Afghan official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of political sensitivities about the case, said that top Afghan officials understood that the unit had been transferred from Camp Gecko in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan. Afghan officials and human rights investigators say Camp Gecko, formerly the home of the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, now includes a C.I.A. paramilitary base and some Special Operations facilities.

Gen. Sharafuddin Sharaf, a senior official of the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service, said that his agency has issued a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Kandahari on charges of murder, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, but that he could not be found. The Afghan attorney general filed a formal criminal case against him last week, General Sharaf said. Another Afghan official confirmed that those charges had been filed.

Mr. Kandahari is described by Afghans who have seen him as in his late 20s or early 30s and fluent in Pashto, which he speaks with a Kandahar accent, and English. General Sharaf said that it was not known whether Zakaria Kandahari is his real name or an alias, and that the authorities had no information about his family or original home.

A 16-year-old student named Hikmatullah, who said he was tortured by Mr. Kandahari, said his tormentor had a tattoo of a large green sword on his upper right arm.

Hikmatullah said he had been picked up with two of his brothers, Sadiqullah and Ismatullah, from the village of Amer Kheil. Whenever he denied being an insurgent, he said, Mr. Kandahari beat and kicked him until his shoulder was dislocated. He was released after three days, he said, but his brothers are missing.

Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.


MoFA Summons Iran Ambassador to Protest Killing of Afghan Travelers
TOLOnews.com By Hassb Maudoodi 12 May 2013
The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the Iranian Ambassodor on Sunday after nine Afghan travellers were killed by Iranian border police, MoFA spokesman said.

The spokesperson for the Afghan foreign ministry, Janan Musazai, said that the government has expressed its concern to the Iranian Ambassador in Kabul over the killing of nine Afghans by Iranian border police.

Meanwhile, today a delegation from Farah province has gone to Khurasan province of Iran for further investigation.

"The foreign ministry yesterday evening met with the Iranian Ambassador and expressed Afghan government's concern and asked him to provide information regarding the issue as soon as possible to the Afghan government. The ministry of foreign affairs is seriously pursuing this issue with the Iranian embassy and also with the Iranian consulate in Herat" said Janan Musazai spokesperson of ministry of foreign affairs.

It seems that illegal travel of Afghans to neighbouring countries, especially to Iran could be controversial.

Mr Musazai urged all Afghans to obtain passports to be able to legally enter Iran, so that they do not face with any threats similar to the incident in Farah border near Iran.

This is not the first time that Afghan travellers are killed by Iranian border police. So far many reports of beating, imprisonment and even killing of Afghans have been published, the incidents that the government of Afghanistan has always pledged to consider and investigate, but final results of such investigations have not been shared with the Afghan people.

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