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9 Wounded in Afghanistan Blast
VOA News May 15, 2013
Officials in eastern Afghanistan say a bomb blast has wounded nine people, including at least five police officers.
Authorities say the explosion Wednesday in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, targeted security forces.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Taliban militants have been ramping up attacks on government forces lately, seeking to destabilize Afghanistan as more foreign troops prepare to draw down from the 12-year war.
35 militants killed in Afghan raids: official
KABUL, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Thirty-five Taliban militants have been killed and 30 others wounded during operation across Afghanistan within the last 24 hours, the country's Interior Ministry said Wednesday afternoon.
"Afghan police supported by the army and NATO-led coalition forces launched several cleanup operations in Kunduz, Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan and Helmand provinces over the past 24 hours. As a result 22 armed Taliban were killed, 23 wounded and seven other armed Taliban were arrested," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.
Earlier on Wednesday, 13 Taliban militants were killed and seven wounded when the police forces conducted an operation in Kamdish district in the country's eastern province of Nuristan, the ministry added.
It also said that a policeman was killed and another policeman was wounded in the operations which began at around 2:00 a.m. local time Wednesday in the province 180 km east of Kabul.
The Taliban, fighting an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments.
The militant group has intensified attacks since late last month when they launched an annual rebel offensive against Afghan forces and about 100,000 NATO-led troops stationed in the country. The Taliban-led insurgency and conflicts claimed the lives of more than 2,800 Afghan security forces and 400 foreign soldiers while leaving 2,754 civilians dead last year in the central Asian state.
Sharif Seen As Trying To Reorient Pakistan's Foreign Policy
By Abubakar Siddique May 14, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Pakistan's Prime Minister-designate Nawaz Sharif has signaled his desire to take back control of Pakistan’s foreign policy from the powerful security services, which have dominated it for decades.
The degree to which he will succeed remains an open question and will determine the course of Islamabad’s future foreign policy.
Here's a look at Sharif's potential foreign policy moves.
India
Among Sharif’s first moves was to reach out to Pakistan’s archrival India, inviting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to participate in his swearing-in ceremony. Sharif has indicated he is keen to revive the peace process he undertook with India in his previous term as premier, in the late 1990s, when the two sides signed the Lahore Declaration, pledging to cooperate and avoid a nuclear arms race.
"If it is left to Nawaz Sharif, he would like to have a paradigm shift in the foreign policy because there is sincere belief in Pakistan, that it is in the vital interests of Pakistan to have good relations with India and other neighbors," says retired General Talat Masood, an Islamabad-based security expert. "[This is] because it wants peace on its borders so that it can bring peace within the country. And that is only possible if you have peace with your neighbors."
Masood says that improving relations with Islamabad's big neighbor, with whom it has fought three wars, will be a litmus test for Sharif.
"It shows his desire and resolve and determination to sort of move forward with India. Now it depends on how India reciprocates," Masood says. "I think the Indians will feel comfortable with him because they know that there is a history wherein he made sincere efforts in moving towards a good relationship with India. But those were subverted by the military."
United States
Analyst and author Ahmed Rashid, based in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, says that Sharif is likely to extend his pragmatic approach to relations with the United States.
His electoral campaign was marked by anti-U.S. rhetoric, with Sharif pledging to cut Pakistan’s cooperation with Washington in the war on terror. But Rashid says Sharif knows he needs Washington's economic assistance and backing to get loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
He predicts this will likely translate into a working relationship with the United States that will include continuing joint efforts against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
"Sharif is a very practical guy. He knows very well that whatever Pakistan does, the Americans are not going to stop drone missile [strikes]. And this is the main stumbling block," Rashid says. "So the issue is how [does] Pakistan get the best deal with the Americans on the use of drones? I don't see Sharif trying to tell the Americans to stop the use of drones because that is not going to happen."
Afghanistan
Rashid says that it’s in Sharif’s interests to help Washington in Afghanistan by redefining Pakistan's role in the country.
"He needs a safe American withdrawal from Afghanistan. He needs the Afghan Taliban to be talking to the Americans and talking to [President Hamid] Karzai," Rashid says. "I am sure we will see him playing a role to try and get the Taliban to open an office in Doha and preparing the Americans to do the same thing."
But Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador in Washington, questions how much leverage the new Pakistani prime minister will have.
Drawing on his past experience as an adviser to Sharif in the 1990s, Haqqani says that the military is unlikely to concede Pakistan's Afghan policy to the new administration.
"I think that in the immediate future, Pakistan's current approach to Afghanistan will endure," Haqqani says. "I don't think Mr. Sharif has ever articulated a very nuanced view of Afghanistan. He certainly wants the Americans to leave Afghanistan, he still wants Pakistan to have influence over Afghanistan, [and] his last government did support the Taliban enthusiastically. He doesn't have the personal relationship with [Afghan] President [Hamid] Karzai or Afghan leaders that [Pakistani President] President [Asif Ali] Zardari did. So I think Afghanistan will be one of those areas where policy will still be made by the Pakistani military."
Sharif, a devout Sunni Muslim, is considered a close ally of Saudi Arabia. He cultivated close personal friendships with the kingdom's royal family during his seven-year exile in the country.
Iran
But Rashid says he does not expect this to affect his relations with neighboring Iran, a regional competitor of Saudi Arabia.
Rashid says that despite publically opposing Pakistan’s recent multibillion-dollar gas deal with Iran, Sharif is unlikely to scrap it.
"Sharif is going to try and balance relations between Iran and the Arab world. And he would not like to get involved with the American boycott and sanctions with Iran," Rashid says. "He also realizes that Iran has the potential of being the quickest provider of gas to Pakistan and Pakistan does face this enormous energy crisis."
In Islamabad, all eyes are set on Sharif’s cabinet choices, particularly who will be chosen foreign minister.
Afghan Commandos Step Up Their Combat Role
The New York Times By Thom Shankar May 14, 2013
At a classified Commando Base, Afghanistan - One day this month, a pair of Russian Mi-17 assault helicopters delivered two teams of Afghan commandos, their faces obscured by black masks, in a touch-and-go landing at this camp in a lush valley encircled by frosty peaks about 50 miles from Kabul.
A training squadron drawn from the most secretive counterterrorism units fielded by the United States and its NATO allies watched as the Afghan commandos stormed and cleared a three-story office building that was left conspicuously unfinished — the kind of structure favored by insurgents.
This is the combination of Afghan and allied troops that the Obama administration and the government in Kabul say will assume an increasing share of the combat burden in Afghanistan as the NATO alliance gradually hands over responsibility for security operations to Afghan troops.
As other troops are withdrawn, Special Operations forces are expected to make up almost one-third of the American military presence in Afghanistan by next February. Their specialty — advising local military units on the front lines and hunting down top insurgent or terrorist leaders — will become the major focus of the alliance’s effort here either until American troops are withdrawn by the target date of December 2014 or the Afghan government asks them to stay past then.
On any day in Afghanistan, about 60 Special Operations teams are working with Afghan local police forces to provide security in villages; 50 more are assigned to Afghan strike forces, including 9 commando battalions and special police units and 19 provincial response companies.
The most elite units are housed at secret bases like this one, where assault helicopters stand by to carry them on their missions. Other commando battalions and provincial response companies are scattered among population centers and along the ring road linking Afghanistan’s major cities.
For American commanders, the transition to Afghan leadership on security has been a challenge, requiring a sharp increase in the intensity of training.
It has also required a significant reorganization of planning — and a change in the culture of American Special Operations forces, which, for the first time since the war began, answer to a single commander responsible for coordinating what had been separate, even conflicting, efforts.
“The dirty little secret among S.O.F. is that we were competing among ourselves,” said Maj. Gen. Tony Thomas, the senior commander overseeing all American and allied Special Operations forces, or S.O.F., in Afghanistan.
“We didn’t necessarily share information to the greatest extent possible,” said General Thomas, an Army Ranger with a long career in Special Operations. “It wasn’t about who got the credit or glory — but we were all so focused on our individual mission that we didn’t always synchronize the effort in the most efficient way for a common goal.”
There have been times when one strike team was targeting a suspected insurgent without knowing that a training team was courting his close kinsman to raise a local police force from their home village.
That began to change just under a year ago when General Thomas took charge of a new military organization here — the Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan, making him, in essence, the first to lead a division-sized deployment of Special Operations forces. Under his command are all the various “tribes” of American Special Operations forces: Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Marine Corps Special Operations units, as well as the top-tier strike teams that hunt down or kill high-value terrorist and insurgent leaders.
Senior officials say the new level of coordination has paid dividends in the form of initiatives like a centralized system for allocating drones, helicopters and airplanes that has allowed the 200 Special Operations aircraft to increase their sortie rate to 6,000 missions a month from 4,000.
Even as the number of American troops will be cut in half from 68,000 by next February under President Obama’s withdrawal orders, the number of Special Operations forces will remain the same through the Afghan presidential election, which is scheduled for next spring, but could be delayed until closer to December 2014.
While the bulk of the American and allied conventional forces remaining in Afghanistan will make the transition to a support role — and will be increasingly based at large military headquarters — the 10,000 American Special Operations troops will continue to be deployed alongside Afghan units. (Including NATO and coalition troops, the total Special Operations deployment here numbers 13,700.)
That partnering is rock solid, and we hope over time to come up off the tactical level,” General Thomas said. But he noted that Afghan and NATO leaders all understand the critical importance of assuring that next year’s elections are credible and secure. “So we’re probably going to stay a while longer at the tactical level than we were considering a year ago,” he added.
Alliance commanders acknowledge that one of their greatest fears is an insurgent offensive on Kabul that, even if it failed, would so humiliate Afghanistan’s security forces that — like the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War — it would undermine support for the mission here and in nations that contribute troops to the effort.
Insurgents have mounted exactly that type of raid in the past. And while Afghan and NATO officials said at the time that local security forces reacted with speed and lethal professionalism to subdue the militants, the reality is different. Special Operations commanders now acknowledge that the responses were slow and clumsy and that Afghan troops needed to be strongly urged to move in.
“The Afghan Army hadn’t performed that well in two previous tasks,” said one NATO Special Operations commander here. “Both counterattacks had to be heavily mentored. It came out O.K. in the end — but only after a lot of prompting from our side.”
The effort to sharpen the skills of Afghan Special Forces is focused at this base, which was opened to a New York Times reporter and photographer under the ground rules that its location and the Special Operations units operating here would not be disclosed. Here, the Afghan national commando strike force practices on a training range that includes a full-scale mock-up of a heroin laboratory, a fake village marketplace and that three-story, half-built office building.
The effort, according to allied and Afghan Special Operations commanders, is paying off: Twice in recent weeks, their units have prevented the use of truck bombs, each holding a charge several times larger than the explosives that leveled a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
“The most important thing that this unit offers is security for Kabul, and as we move into this fighting season and into the upcoming elections in ’14, the population will view the security of the capital as a symbol of the credibility of their government,” said Brig. Gen. James E. Kraft Jr., a deputy commander of the Special Operations Joint Task Force.
The commandos, he said, “have been making significant advances in securing the ‘rat lines’ leading toward Kabul and interdicting I.E.D. materials.”
Shortcomings remain. One NATO Special Operations adviser said the training squadron was trying to “wean the Afghans off the ‘crack pipe’ of our aviation” — in particular troop transport and medical evacuation, which the Afghan forces cannot yet sustain on their own.
Although the unit based here is considered the most proficient in the country, allied officials said that it conducted 85 percent of its missions unilaterally, but still required coalition support for the other 15 percent.
Afghanistan Exit: Kabul and Berlin Estranged as Withdrawal Looms
Spiegel Online By Ralf Beste, Matthias Gebauer and Gordon Repinski May 14, 2013
With the security situation deteriorating in Afghanistan, Chancellor Merkel paid a visit to German troops last week without even informing Afghan President Karzai. The move highlights frosty relations between Berlin and Kabul amid difficult negotiations for the 2014 troop withdrawal.
It's a hot morning at the German military's Kunduz field camp when Chancellor Angela Merkel has a brief close encounter with war. She looks up at a soldier, a man who towers 2 meters (6.5 feet) tall, with tattoos up to his neck. The rifle hanging in front of his chest comes to the height of her face. Surrounding the chancellor and the soldier are his unit's light-wheeled tanks, which ran into an improvised explosive device two weeks ago. The troops are lined up at attention. Against this backdrop, the chancellor wants to know what war feels like. She has just a brief moment. "How many attacks have there been?" she asks. "Seven," the soldier replies. Merkel nods, reflects for a second and says: "Not nice!" Fortunately, the soldier assures her, nothing has ever happened aside from material damage. "Well, I'm sure it gave you quite a scare!" Merkel says. Then the chancellor hurries on.
Quite a scare -- that is occasionally Berlin's view of the war. But the reality in Afghanistan became clear the weekend before last when one German and seven American ISAF soldiers were killed during attacks and clashes with the enemy.
The death of this Bundeswehr soldier called to mind a war that hardly receives any attention anymore in Germany. After all, the withdrawal has already begun and the German military has weathered the worst of the fighting, or at least that's what many had hoped after nearly two years without a combat casualty.
But the latest German soldier killed in action is emblematic of the security situation on the ground, which began deteriorating once again during the first few months of this year. After 11 years in Afghanistan, the Bundeswehr faces the most difficult year of its military mission. While the Taliban gains ground amid a rising number of attacks and clashes, it has to master the massive logistical challenge of a withdrawal.
The German military will leave behind a country still far from peace after decades of war. It seems that the decline in clashes over the past year was not a sign of the sustainable success of the West, but merely a tactical break by the insurgents.
Roughly one-and-a-half years before the planned end of the international military effort, its success appears more doubtful than ever. German politicians deflect attention from the imminent failure of this mission -- which was designed to bring security, stability and democracy to Afghanistan -- with vague demands for "reforms" and progress in the "political process."
Among the Bundeswehr soldiers in the two large camps in Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif the mood was gloomy during the week following the deadly clash. "Death seemed so far away," says a friend of the dead soldier, "now it has come one step closer."
Serious Concerns about Withdrawal
Depressing figures recently released by the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office in Kabul confirm this impression. According to the organization, the number of attacks by Afghan insurgents during the first quarter of 2013 rose by 47 percent in comparison to the previous year, with most now directed against Afghan security forces.
The statistics paint a grim picture for the Bundeswehr's area of operations in the north of the country. In many regions the number of clashes has increased, and the situation is even worse in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
There has even been increased fighting in parts of Badakhshan Province in the northeastern part of the country, which has been relatively calm until recently. At the end of last year, the Bundeswehr held an official ceremony in which it handed over control of its camp in Faizabad to the Afghan security forces, a move that was seen as a test of how the situation might develop after the troop withdrawal. Now, ISAF officials are doing their best not to recognize any trend in the dramatic increase in the number of incidents. No one is willing to admit the possibility of failure in the northeast.
The withdrawal has begun and heavily-loaded military transport aircraft leave the country and head west nearly every day. The first camps have already been closed, and this year the Bundeswehr intends to close its fortress at OP North and the Kunduz field camp.
In northern Afghanistan the government is expressing serious concerns about the withdrawal of the Germans, which is proceeding much more rapidly than many had imagined. Atta Mohammed Noor, the powerful governor of the northern Afghan region of Balkh, is urging a long-term German mission in Mazar-e-Sharif. "Without the help of the Germans, the army will quickly fall apart again," he warns. "Which is why a further stationing of troops is urgently required here."
While the situation is better than it was during the crisis year of 2011, says German State Secretary of Defense Christian Schmidt, who visited Bundeswehr troops last week, he admits that "the Afghans are still unable to achieve security on their own." In other words, the security situation is so precarious that Afghanistan is in danger of sinking into chaos and civil war after the withdrawal of ISAF troops.
Frosty Relations
It still remains unclear whether, and how, the international mission will continue following the withdrawal at the end of 2014. In April, Germany pressed ahead with an offer to station 600 to 800 soldiers to train Afghan military forces starting in 2015. The main objective of this early commitment was to ensure that the issue remained out of the election campaign as Germans go to the polls in September 2013.
Nevertheless, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière pointed out in April that this offer depends on a number of factors. As planned, NATO must launch a training mission throughout the country, and not merely in Kabul, he said. The UN Security Council must also grant this military force a mandate, he added. But above all, the minister demanded that Kabul be more obliging, saying that he expected a formal invitation from the Afghan government: "We want to be welcome," de Maizière said.
That invitation has not been extended, though. In view of the shaky security situation, it is particularly important to maintain good relations with the Afghan hosts during the withdrawal phase. Only by working in close cooperation with Kabul can NATO member states plan an effective military involvement for the period following the withdrawal at the end of 2014. However, Chancellor Merkel appears to have little interest in this.
Her brief visit last Friday illustrated once again how strained relations remain between Berlin and Kabul after 11 years of the German mission in Afghanistan. There is so little trust that German protocol officers didn't even bother to announce the chancellor's arrival to their counterparts in Kabul.
There would have been an opportunity for a phone call with Afghan President Hamid Karzai shortly before Merkel disembarked from her government aircraft in Mazar-e-Sharif at 6 a.m. -- but no telephone conversation took place. This has annoyed officials in Kabul, who see Merkel's visit as an "open affront," says one of Karzai's advisers. "In Germany it would be a scandal if we landed in Berlin without advance notice, but one can do this with us Afghans," he quipped. The mood is so frosty that Kabul is even considering making an official complaint to Berlin.
Merkel's view of Karzai is no less critical. During their last meeting, Karzai spoke at length about reforming his corrupt government, including revamping the justice system and bolstering women's rights. But virtually none of this has happened. Instead, Berlin has closely observed how Karzai attempts to control the electoral commission and forges unholy alliances with dubious warlords to secure his power base beyond the elections slated for April 2014.
All Eyes on Washington
It's not merely a lack of trust between Berlin and Kabul that is making post-withdrawal planning difficult, though. Germany's NATO partners have also been hesitant to commit to a further mission. France and Canada have stayed out completely, and among the remaining major allies it is primarily the British who are reluctant to shoulder a portion of the burden. Nevertheless, the Mongolians, Swedes and Belgians have indicated that they are willing to remain in northern Afghanistan under German leadership.
The greatest problem is Washington. The United States, which should actually assume a leading role, is mired in internal squabbling over Afghanistan. Due to his hesitation, US President Barack Obama is already the subject of ridicule in defense circles, where they say that the beginning of his second term in office is "more reminiscent of Jimmy Carter than Bill Clinton." Staff members at ISAF headquarters in Kabul are also getting nervous.
Negotiations over stationing a follow-up mission have stalled. While President Karzai indicated last week that he is prepared to tolerate American military bases even after 2014, the mid-June summit planned by leaders of NATO member countries to determine their further engagement in the country will now no longer take place.
If Obama decides against committing some 8,000 US troops, all plans for the period following the combat mission will be off, and the Germans will have little choice but to withdraw their trainers from northern Afghanistan -- leaving the Afghans to face an uncertain future on their own.
Translated from the German by Paul Cohen
Younger Generation Poised To Lead Afghanistan's Future
NPR By Renee Montagne May 14, 2013
Afghans under 35 make up about 75 percent of the country's population. Each one of them was born into war and endured their country's nearly unbroken string of conflicts. And they've come of age as Afghanistan struggles to establish itself as an autonomous country.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne, in Kabul, Afghanistan.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep, in Washington, with David Greene.
Renee's been in Afghanistan as the United States prepares to substantially draw down its presence in that country, which puts the focus on the Afghans who will try to run the country next. Renee's been reporting on a generation that's poised to take over: younger political and business leaders, a group we have not heard much about, even though Afghans under 35 make up about 75 percent of the population. It's a very young country.
And, Renee, what marks the younger generation in Afghanistan?
MONTAGNE: This is what marks them, Steve: every one under about the age of 35 was born into war. And they've endured their country's nearly unbroken string of conflicts in their young lives. And they've come of age as Afghanistan struggles to come back as a country. And in the last couple of years, scores of youth groups have sprung up. They're aimed at creating a civil society. And I have to say, it's quite a range of interests.
I mean, there's women's rights, of course. And also something that might that might surprise people, one called Youth in Action: It advocates for a more green Afghanistan. And what they say as they travel around the country actually cleaning up the streets and pushing for a ban on plastic.
INSKEEP: Trying to get past the war and focus on the environment. Now, what else are you hearing?
MONTAGNE: I'll tell you, I'm hearing, in particular, one voice, and that has surprised a lot of people here. That would be the 30-something founder of an election watchdog group. He's the former head of the country's Human Rights Commission. His name is Nader Nadery. And he's just published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that extolled Afghanistan's civil society. That's a bit of surprise. He writes that it has blossomed.
Now, Nadery is famous here for, at some risk to himself, taking on the powers that be. He hasn't lost sight of the challenges. But when we sat down at his office here in Kabul, I ask him why the optimism now, just as Afghanistan heads into an uncertain future.
NADER NADERY: Throughout the past 10 years, people like us, like me, were out there pushing and struggling and lobbying, being on the street, being on the - knocking on the parliament's house, the politicians, on the media. And I'm still doing that.
Now, the fear is that by ignoring what we have built, there's a very clear chance of what I call a self-fulfilling prophecy: 2014, Afghanistan is going to fall apart. There's going to be, again, a civil war, and - there was nothing being done, and therefore it's going to be a doomsday.
MONTAGNE: Nader Nadery says that while suicide attacks make the headlines, most Afghans are now focused on jobs, the rule of law and next year's presidential elections. Insecurity, corruption, the well-documented waste of international aid, all that has made it an article of faith for many that the only future for Afghanistan is a dark one.
The fact is, there has been a dramatic opening to the outside world, thanks to a proliferation of media, a flood of cell phones now accessible even to most women, and education.
In the past 10 years, the seeds were planted. This younger generation of Afghanistan, they want an upward mobility and the political life of Afghanistan and the government. Most of them are visionary. They want a different Afghanistan for themselves and for their kids.
Among those young visionaries is Shaharzad Akbar. She's a leader of one of those youth groups poised to play a greater role in Afghanistan's future. A core value of this movement is that these young Afghans have transcended the ethnic and ideological divides that pitted their own parents against each other.
SHAHARZAD AKBAR: We don't sympathize with the battles that our parents had with other.
MONTAGNE: Those battles began with the Soviet invasion in 1979 that propped up Afghanistan's communist government, which was then fighting the Mujahedeen. After the Soviets withdrew, the Mujahedeen turned into warlords and launched a bloody civil war that, by the mid '90s, had reduced Kabul to rubble.
It was during a brief ceasefire that Shaharzad's parents grabbed their little girls and fled.
AKBAR: I remember my mom dragging us through the streets. And for the first time, I saw corpses - like, people dead, lying on the street. And, you know, my siblings were crying, and we were terrified. And I remember I didn't have shoes because we had walked through Kabul city and my shoes had fallen apart.
MONTAGNE: Her family ended up as refugees in Pakistan, returning only after the Taliban government was driven out. Now, at 25, Shaharzad Akbar heads one of the most influential of the youth groups, Afghanistan 1400, named after the new century of the Persian Calendar that dawns in eight years.
A version of her wartime experience is shared by virtually everyone in these groups. But something else they have in common is opportunity. They've seized on the chance for a higher education, thanks to the many scholarships and grants that have flowed in. Shaharzad Akbar has degrees from Smith College and Oxford. Sahmi Sadat, a 28-year-old founder of another group, graduated from the UK Defense Academy, and those opportunities, he says, have brought a new sense of what's possible.
SAHMI SADAT: Afghanistan broke with history post-2001 when the Taliban regime was collapsed. We have accepted each other, the coexistence. All tribes, everyone who was an Afghan, was welcomed back to the country and was given a chance to come and serve their country. And we are actually the result of this one decade of peace. And now we stand for our country, and we work together.
MONTAGNE: It's very interesting that you said these last 10 years of peace, because much of the rest of the world thinks you've all just spent the last 10 or 12 years in the middle of a war.
SADAT: The standards of defining peace may differ from West to Afghanistan. Of course, everything happened in the backdrop of a counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, but we still feel that it was peaceful enough that we could have gone to schools. It was peaceful enough that we had freedom of speech. It was peaceful enough for me to travel to the rest of the world and learn, come back and apply new concepts and make Afghanistan a better place.
MONTAGNE: Each of the youth groups has its own approach. Sahmi Sadat's A3 uses its well-connected membership - which includes a young tribal leader and several top government advisors - to lobby and influence policy. They've also become adept at political theater. A few days ago, they drove a caravan of cars six hours to the border with Pakistan. It was a show of patriotism and a moment to honor the border police who recently lost one of their own in a rare clash with Pakistani forces.
The fallen border officer has since become something of a national hero here, a country where anti-Pakistan feelings run deep.
(APPLAUSE)
MONTAGNE: At the border, the A3 activists gave appreciative speeches and handed out tiny Afghan flags. The border police told tales of bravery, defending the nation's honor.
(APPLAUSE)
MONTAGNE: Clearly, the bigger challenge for Afghanistan's new generation come 2014 when NATO combat forces pull out, is the insurgency, the Taliban and militant groups linked to it.
Still, of the several wars that have beset these Afghans throughout their lives, many see a civil war between ethnic groups as a thing of the past. Those were the battles that forced Shaharzad Akbar's family to flee Kabul. Now, she says, the warlords who led those ethnic militias are also invested in the new Afghanistan.
AKBAR: None of them will benefit from instability and war. You know, they have businesses here. The Mujahedeen have grown very comfortable in the past 10 years. Their soldiers have also - the militia has also grown very comfortable.
MONTAGNE: So to put it in another way, you're saying that Afghanistan is not a prisoner of its own history. It's not doomed, or even likely to repeat its history, because things are just that different now.
AKBAR: Actually, I think things are just that different.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MONTAGNE: We've been hearing from young leaders of civil society here in Kabul. Tomorrow, a young business man, who, in the last decade, built from scratch a business empire, everything from mining operations to media.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I had a TV, wooden TV set. I'd be in the (unintelligible), and now I own a TV channel. I mean, look at how much things have changed.
Much of $1bn Afghanistan tax bill is bogus, says US
American watchdog claims Afghan government is charging US contractors with illegal taxes
The Guardian By Emma Graham-Harrison and Mokhtar Amiri 14/05/2013
Kabul - The Afghan government has charged a tax bill of nearly $1bn (£600m) to foreign firms working for the US military and government over the last five years, but there is no legal basis for many of the charges and levies, a US watchdog has found in a damning new report released on Tuesday.
Kabul has ignored agreements with Nato and the US to spare firms supplying the military or involved in development projects from paying national taxes, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar) said.
One in every 10 dollars chalked up towards the $921m bill since 2008 was a clear violation of violated those deals, the auditor said. The vast majority of the rest could not be evaluated because there was no clear description of the taxes or penalties levied, which in itself is a red flag to accountants.
"Based on our analysis, much of this total amount is likely illegitimate," said the report, which is just the latest in a string of probes by the government-appointed auditor into the finances of the US mission in Afghanistan.
The rocketing taxes have raised the cost of the war for US taxpayers because the contracting firms contractors have often passed on their extra expenses or asked to be reimbursed, Sigar said.
They are also affecting military supply chains, because many of the companies are disputing their bills, prompting a crackdown from the Afghan government.
So far only $67m, or 7% of the total demanded, has been paid. For firms with outstanding bills punishments have included limits on movement, the suspension of business licences and, in one case, arresting three employees, the report said.
"It's disturbing that the Afghan government is targeting American contractors with unjust taxes and intimidation," said John Sopko, the special inspector general, in a statement. "It's even more disturbing that US agencies are letting it happen – all at the expense of American taxpayers, who have already shouldered a heavy burden on Afghan reconstruction. This needs to end."
The US embassy said that the report was not clear enough about the different types of contracting arrangements in Afghanistan, which undermined its findings.
"The report does not carefully distinguish between taxation on contractors working on assistance contracts which are tax-exempt under our bilateral agreements, and taxation of contractors that support the US embassy, such as operations, maintenance, and construction contractors, who are not tax-exempt," said embassy spokesman David Snepp. "Unfortunately, without this distinction, we are not able to draw any reliable conclusion concerning the amount of illegitimate taxation."
The US government has not managed to present a unified front to the Afghan taxmen, or done enough to help the companies get certificates they need to avoid the levies. Some US officials have also compounded the costs of the opaque system by reimbursing contractors for their tax bill, the report said, citing examples including one from the development agency.
"For example, in one USAID contract, the prime contractor was reimbursed nearly $160,000 for sales tax. However, USAID's agreements [with the Kabul government] specifically name sales tax as an exempt category," the report said.
Taxation of contractors is one of the apparently dull, but very thorny, issues on the table as Washington and Kabul try to agree terms for a US military presence after 2014, when the Nato-led mission officially ends. The negotiations have been slow and drawn out.
Afghan officials say commercial firms that reap rich profits from the war are playing the tax system to avoid fair contributions to their country's economy. US critics counter that Afghanistan is trying to benefit twice from development and military aid, by taking the help and then using the contracts to fill government coffers as well, which increases the cost of basic assistance.
The watchdog's findings also raise questions about Afghanistan's financial base at a time when the west is pulling out troops and cutting back on aid and construction projects that have pumped money into the country's feeble economy for years.
The government in Kabul and foreign diplomats have touted an improved tax system as one sign that the country was straightening out its own finances and slowly weaning itself off the foreign aid that has paid for anything from schools and roads to hospitals and the police.
A US embassy official earlier this year described Afghanistan's tightened-up tax regime as "a pretty substantial achievement", the Reuters news agency reported. It pulled in $1.6bn, and is more successful than that in neighbouring Pakistan, according to official data, but it was not clear if that figure included the bills that the watchdog claims should not have been sent out.
The Afghan finance ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the report.
British forces to remain in Afghanistan into 2015
AFP May 15, 2013
London - Some British troops will have to stay in Afghanistan into 2015 to ensure the departure of forces is properly managed, defence minister Philip Hammond said on Tuesday.
Combat operations are still due to finish by the end of 2014 but the final tours of duty will be extended to last up to a maximum of nine months for a “relatively small number” of personnel, Hammond told parliament.
British troops currently serve around six months in Afghanistan, but those deploying this October will stay for eight months. Hammond said: “The rationale for this decision is clear and is based on advice from military commanders.”
He said one reason was to “better align the final tours with key milestones in the transition process such as the Afghan presidential elections in spring 2014”. The six-month rotation of British forces would have coincided with the elections.
Hammond said extending the tours would also remove the need to train and deploy another brigade to cover the final two months of 2014 .
The move means only two more brigades will be needed before British forces withdraw in 2015.
A few hundred soldiers will remain in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan into 2015 after combat operations have ended to complete the process of returning valuable equipment to Britain.
Prime Minister David Cameron has already said that the size of the British force in Afghanistan will be reduced from its peak of 9,500 military personnel to about 5,200 by the end of this year.
Hammond told parliament that troop numbers would be at about 7,900 by the end of this month.
British troops have been based in Helmand since the campaign began in 2001.
A total of 444 British soldiers have lost their lives, mainly in attacks involving improvised explosive devices (IEDs) laid by the Taliban, but the number of deaths has slowed steadily this year.
Should India Provide Direct Military Aid to Afghanistan?
New York Times By JAVID AHMAD India Ink May 14, 2013
Over the past decade, India has invested heavily in Afghanistan’s reconstruction. Recognizing India’s significant economic and development contributions, the United States has called on New Delhi to play an important role in the new Silk Road initiative aimed at transforming Afghanistan into a regional trade hub.
At the same time, New Delhi has been reluctant to become directly involved in supporting Afghanistan’s nascent security sector. The many uncertainties surrounding next year’s security transition from international to Afghan leadership raise further questions about New Delhi’s role in the Afghan endgame.
India’s decision-makers acknowledge that India’s own internal security would be at risk if the international drawdown from Afghanistan leaves behind a security vacuum that is filled by Pakistan-backed militant groups. New Delhi can no longer ignore the related consequences. And while some of the Pakistan-related sensitivities are important for India, it should not approach its relations with Afghanistan, a sovereign nation, solely from a Pakistan angle.
One way for New Delhi to overcome its anxieties and further cement ties with Kabul is to consider providing direct military assistance to the Afghan government and training support to the burgeoning Afghan National Security Forces. The India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement signed in October 2011 already provides the staging ground for an increased military cooperation with Afghanistan. Under the agreement, India provides — though to a limited extent — training support and light military equipment to Afghan forces.
However, because of New Delhi’s hesitation to put military personnel on the ground, all trainings of Afghan forces are conducted inside India. Although New Delhi has deployed a small number of paramilitary forces to guard its diplomatic facilities and aid workers in Afghanistan after a number of attacks, the troops are not engaged in any combat or training missions. Looking ahead, India’s decision-makers should consider anchoring these troops to support the Afghan forces and also consider establishing a military training academy in Afghanistan for Afghan forces.
More specifically, India should focus on propping up the Afghan air force, which remains largely reliant on international air support. India should bolster the ability of the Afghan air force to more ably operate its current fleet of 50 helicopters. For Afghan forces, the helicopters are an essential tool for operational air support and for resupplying remote military outposts, so New Delhi should particularly focus on training the technical and maintenance staff, on supplying the necessary spare parts and on improving the Afghan aircrew’s medevac capability. By supplying an airbase support advisory team, India can augment the ability of the Afghan air force to support ground operations with troop and cargo movements and deploy Afghan forces across the country.
In addition to training support, India should consider providing the Afghan government with military hardware, including attack helicopters, a handful of fighter aircrafts, armored vehicles, artillery and tactical communication tools. New Delhi may boost these efforts by increasing its cooperation with Afghan intelligence services and provide specialized training to Afghan operatives in collecting technical and aerial intelligence.
Undeniably, these measures would come with important risks and constraints. For one, it would add further to Pakistan’s many deep-rooted security concerns. Pakistan could derail the incipient peace talks with the Taliban, increase its support to the insurgent elements it hosts on its soil to spur further violence in Afghanistan or employ militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba to strike more frequently in India or on Indian assets inside Afghanistan.
However, a closer India-Afghan relationship would be intended to strengthen the Afghan government so it can remain functioning after 2014, and not to monitor Pakistan’s activities. Pakistan must realize that India’s assistance will go directly to the Afghan government, and not to any Afghan factions, as it has been in the past. Pakistan must also recognize that closer ties with India in Afghanistan better serves the interests of all parties.
Kabul does not choose sides in its relations with India and Pakistan, and, as it does with New Delhi, Kabul can also work with Islamabad in security and other sectors, but Pakistan must first show a sincere effort that it is not working toward sinister strategic objectives in Afghanistan.
Looking ahead, India is expected to stay the course and stick to training the Afghan forces inside India to avoid any backlash. But Afghanistan would welcome greater military assistance from India. Growing frustration with Pakistan has also prompted Washington to seek more Indian engagement after former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, during a visit to New Delhi, called on India to continue training the Afghan forces.
India is uniquely placed to provide such support. It leads the world’s fourth-largest and modernized military force with extraordinary experience in training missions. India’s military could use the services of many India-trained Afghan security personnel buoyed by people-to-people contacts and linguistic affinity within Afghanistan.
A politically and economically stable Afghanistan is of a strategic significance to India, but more collaboration is necessary. Despite little support among India’s policy makers for greater military cooperation with Afghanistan, the lingering ambiguity around Afghanistan’s future after 2014 provides a good opportunity for New Delhi to step up its efforts to be a force for stability in the country. Afghanistan values its relations with India, and any future direct military and training support to Afghan forces would not only strengthen bilateral relations but would also play a significant role in enhancing Afghanistan’s security after international forces leave the country.
Javid Ahmad is a program coordinator for Asia at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a consultant to Pentagon’s AfPak Hands program.
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Rise of Raw Material Prices Raises Concerns
TOLOnews.com By Zabiulah Jahanmal 13 May 2013
Afghanistan's Chamber of Commerce and Industries ACCI on Monday said that raw materials' prices have increased 25% due to high tariffs and extortions in Afghanistan.
Officials at the Afghan chamber of commerce and industries said that the Finance Ministry is attempting to increase government's incomes by putting high prices on raw material which does not increase incomes but pave the way of smuggling for materials.
The officials claim that foreign governments is putting less tariffs on raw materials but Afghan government puts more tariffs which has caused prices of raw and building materials to go high.
"They put tariffs on foods like rice and sugar. They take taxes from four to five percent from sugar which is about 300 Afg of tax accounts on one sack of sugar," the Deputy Chairman of ACCI Khan Jan Alokozai said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance said that the tariff has increased on some raw materials as foods to back domestic productions and it does not affect the prices of the raw materials in markets.
"We put high tariffs on foods coming from abroad in order to find market for domestic products. We decrease the tariffs back when we have sold our products. We have to support our farmers and this is a principle of economy," the Ministry of Finance Advisor Najibullah Manali said.
But ACCI officials believe that the action will open the way for raw materials' smuggling in the country.
"There are people in different areas of Peshawar city like Miranshah, Bajaur and Bano and saying that we give this sugar to you, but give us 300 Rupees," Khan Jan Alokozai said.
It is said that putting high tariffs on raw materials has also increased prices of construction materials in Afghanistan.
School Girls Poisoned in Mazar-e-Sharif
TOLOnews.com By TOLOnews.com 14 May 2013
At least 150 school girls including five teachers were poisoned in northern Mazar-e-Sharif city early Tuesday, Security and health officials said.
The students were taken to hospitals in Mazar-e-Sharif city.
Head of public health hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif said that the incident happened when an unpleasant odour pervaded the space of Khorasan girls school in Mazar-e-Sharif and the students started to feel nausea.
Meanwhile, it is also said that the students' started feeling sick after a septic well was opened near the school.
"Their blood pressure and breathing were fine but some of them coughed and had some problem in their throats and thought that the stench is the cause of the incident," Head of Civil Hospital of Mazar-e-Sharif Dr Khaja Noor Mohammad Faiz said.
A teacher and some of the students said that they started feeling sick after they smelt some kind of gas in the school space.
"There was an upleasant smell and my classmates fainted. Soon after that, I also fainted," a school girl said.
"150 students of Khorasan School were hospitalised due to the incident and hospital officials assured us that the students are fine," Provincial Intelligence Chief Abdul Razaq Qadiri said.
Head of education department of Balkh province said their lessons have been shut down because of the incident.
"The health team have assured that there is no sign of poisoning and te cause of incident was the stench of the opened septic well," Head of Eduaction Department of Balkh Province, Qais Mehraen, said.
This is the first time that school girls are poisoned in Mazar-e-Sharif city in the current year.
It comes as recently 200 school girls were poisoned in Sultan Razia high school in the 7th district of Kabul early this month.
Taliban pledge support for Afghan polio campaign
Afghan government announced polio vaccination program last month
CBC News May 15, 2013
The Taliban in Afghanistan say they will now support programs aimed at eradicating polio in the country.
In a statement released earlier this week in Afghanistan, the Taliban said they asked members “not to create any kind of trouble” for health workers, but would not tolerate foreigners participating in the eradiction program.
"According to the latest international medicine science, the polio disease can only be cured by preventive measures ie the anti-polio drops and the vaccination of children against this disease," the group said.
"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan supports and lends a hand to all those programs which works for the health care of the helpless people of our country."
“Foreign employees should refrain from going to the region,” the group said, “and similarly the campaign should be harmonized with the regional conditions, Islamic values and local cultural traditions.”
Afganistan is one of three countries, along with Pakistan and Nigeria, where the disease remains a problem. Last month, the Afghan government pledged to vaccinate eight million children under the age of five against polio and measles.
In March, Afghanistan had to halt a polio vaccination program in Nuristan province, citing Taliban opposition.
In 2012, a 16-year-old girl volunteering in Kapisa province in a vaccination campaign was shot repeatedly. She died later in hospital.
There have been more attacks in Pakistan against polio program workers and security personnel guarding them. Five women were shot and killed in Karachi in December 2012.
Attorney General Asks Finance Minister to Substantiate His Accusations Against MPs
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry 14 May 2013
The Afghan Attorney General on Tuesday asked Finance minister to officially hand over all evidence supporting his accusations of corruption against MPs.
The Attorney General said that only one case related to smuggling of alcohol has been received. It comes as the finance ministry has previously said that cases related to all the MPs accused of corruption have been sent to the Attorney General's Office.
"If there is any accusation and there is evidence, it must be officially sent to the Attorney General's Office, so that we can start our investigations," Basir Aziz Attorney General's spokesman told TOLOnews.
Meanwhile, head of high office of oversight and anti-corruption considers existence of corruption in parliament shameful.
"It is not only embarrassing but also as an Afghan it is shameful for us, existence of corruption in our administrations also raised noise of international community," anti-corruption chief Azizullah Lodin told TOLOnews.
It comes after Afghan finance minister Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal on Monday revealed the names of lawmakers that he claims are involved in smuggling and other illegal activities
The finance minister accused Mohammad Zahir Qadir, Mohammad Naeem Lalai Hamedzai, Mohammad Arif Rahmani, Mahmmod Khan Sulaiman Khil, Azim Mohsini and Samiullah Samim of making illegal demands and being involved in smuggling.
However, the accused MPs dismissed the allegations, urging the minister to provide proof.
Unemployment On the Rise In Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi 14 May 2013
Less attention of international community to work on building of infrastructure in Afghanistan is a cause of unemployment rise in the country, officials said.
Afghan minister of labour and social affairs who was summoned to the upper house on Tuesday said that most of international community's funds hasn't been spent for priority needs of the people.
Meanwhile, a number of senators said that the ministry of labour and social affairs has not made efforts to reduce unemployment rates in the country.
Minister of labour and social affairs said that lack of sufficient budget and also inattention of international community to build infrastructures caused a rise in unemployment.
"In the past ten years, a lot of job opportunities have been created but the donated money has not been provided to us and has been spent in projects that were not necessary. The international community hasn't paid attention in this regard," Amena Afzali minister of labour and social affairs told senators.
On the other hand, a number of senators believe that unemployment is the main reason why most Afghan youths are leaving for neighbouring countries. Senators urged the ministry to adopt necessary strategies to address the problem.
"Unemployment has caused insecurity and immigration of Afghan youths to other countries, but an appropriate strategy must be adopted to reduce unemployment in the country," Bashir Ahmad Samim a senator said.
"Today most of workers are going to the neighbour countries to seek jobs due to lack of job opportunities in their own country. The ministry of labour and social affairs has not been able to reduce unemployment rate in the country," Senator Ali Akbar Jamshidi said.
The Minister of Labour and Social Affairs emphasises that paving the ground for employment in the country requires more time.
The minister said that a number of the countries have pledged to employ Afghan workers, however these commitments have not been implemented.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
VOA News May 15, 2013
Officials in eastern Afghanistan say a bomb blast has wounded nine people, including at least five police officers.
Authorities say the explosion Wednesday in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, targeted security forces.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Taliban militants have been ramping up attacks on government forces lately, seeking to destabilize Afghanistan as more foreign troops prepare to draw down from the 12-year war.
35 militants killed in Afghan raids: official
KABUL, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Thirty-five Taliban militants have been killed and 30 others wounded during operation across Afghanistan within the last 24 hours, the country's Interior Ministry said Wednesday afternoon.
"Afghan police supported by the army and NATO-led coalition forces launched several cleanup operations in Kunduz, Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan and Helmand provinces over the past 24 hours. As a result 22 armed Taliban were killed, 23 wounded and seven other armed Taliban were arrested," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.
Earlier on Wednesday, 13 Taliban militants were killed and seven wounded when the police forces conducted an operation in Kamdish district in the country's eastern province of Nuristan, the ministry added.
It also said that a policeman was killed and another policeman was wounded in the operations which began at around 2:00 a.m. local time Wednesday in the province 180 km east of Kabul.
The Taliban, fighting an insurgency of more than one decade, has yet to make comments.
The militant group has intensified attacks since late last month when they launched an annual rebel offensive against Afghan forces and about 100,000 NATO-led troops stationed in the country. The Taliban-led insurgency and conflicts claimed the lives of more than 2,800 Afghan security forces and 400 foreign soldiers while leaving 2,754 civilians dead last year in the central Asian state.
Sharif Seen As Trying To Reorient Pakistan's Foreign Policy
By Abubakar Siddique May 14, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Pakistan's Prime Minister-designate Nawaz Sharif has signaled his desire to take back control of Pakistan’s foreign policy from the powerful security services, which have dominated it for decades.
The degree to which he will succeed remains an open question and will determine the course of Islamabad’s future foreign policy.
Here's a look at Sharif's potential foreign policy moves.
India
Among Sharif’s first moves was to reach out to Pakistan’s archrival India, inviting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to participate in his swearing-in ceremony. Sharif has indicated he is keen to revive the peace process he undertook with India in his previous term as premier, in the late 1990s, when the two sides signed the Lahore Declaration, pledging to cooperate and avoid a nuclear arms race.
"If it is left to Nawaz Sharif, he would like to have a paradigm shift in the foreign policy because there is sincere belief in Pakistan, that it is in the vital interests of Pakistan to have good relations with India and other neighbors," says retired General Talat Masood, an Islamabad-based security expert. "[This is] because it wants peace on its borders so that it can bring peace within the country. And that is only possible if you have peace with your neighbors."
Masood says that improving relations with Islamabad's big neighbor, with whom it has fought three wars, will be a litmus test for Sharif.
"It shows his desire and resolve and determination to sort of move forward with India. Now it depends on how India reciprocates," Masood says. "I think the Indians will feel comfortable with him because they know that there is a history wherein he made sincere efforts in moving towards a good relationship with India. But those were subverted by the military."
United States
Analyst and author Ahmed Rashid, based in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, says that Sharif is likely to extend his pragmatic approach to relations with the United States.
His electoral campaign was marked by anti-U.S. rhetoric, with Sharif pledging to cut Pakistan’s cooperation with Washington in the war on terror. But Rashid says Sharif knows he needs Washington's economic assistance and backing to get loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
He predicts this will likely translate into a working relationship with the United States that will include continuing joint efforts against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
"Sharif is a very practical guy. He knows very well that whatever Pakistan does, the Americans are not going to stop drone missile [strikes]. And this is the main stumbling block," Rashid says. "So the issue is how [does] Pakistan get the best deal with the Americans on the use of drones? I don't see Sharif trying to tell the Americans to stop the use of drones because that is not going to happen."
Afghanistan
Rashid says that it’s in Sharif’s interests to help Washington in Afghanistan by redefining Pakistan's role in the country.
"He needs a safe American withdrawal from Afghanistan. He needs the Afghan Taliban to be talking to the Americans and talking to [President Hamid] Karzai," Rashid says. "I am sure we will see him playing a role to try and get the Taliban to open an office in Doha and preparing the Americans to do the same thing."
But Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador in Washington, questions how much leverage the new Pakistani prime minister will have.
Drawing on his past experience as an adviser to Sharif in the 1990s, Haqqani says that the military is unlikely to concede Pakistan's Afghan policy to the new administration.
"I think that in the immediate future, Pakistan's current approach to Afghanistan will endure," Haqqani says. "I don't think Mr. Sharif has ever articulated a very nuanced view of Afghanistan. He certainly wants the Americans to leave Afghanistan, he still wants Pakistan to have influence over Afghanistan, [and] his last government did support the Taliban enthusiastically. He doesn't have the personal relationship with [Afghan] President [Hamid] Karzai or Afghan leaders that [Pakistani President] President [Asif Ali] Zardari did. So I think Afghanistan will be one of those areas where policy will still be made by the Pakistani military."
Sharif, a devout Sunni Muslim, is considered a close ally of Saudi Arabia. He cultivated close personal friendships with the kingdom's royal family during his seven-year exile in the country.
Iran
But Rashid says he does not expect this to affect his relations with neighboring Iran, a regional competitor of Saudi Arabia.
Rashid says that despite publically opposing Pakistan’s recent multibillion-dollar gas deal with Iran, Sharif is unlikely to scrap it.
"Sharif is going to try and balance relations between Iran and the Arab world. And he would not like to get involved with the American boycott and sanctions with Iran," Rashid says. "He also realizes that Iran has the potential of being the quickest provider of gas to Pakistan and Pakistan does face this enormous energy crisis."
In Islamabad, all eyes are set on Sharif’s cabinet choices, particularly who will be chosen foreign minister.
Afghan Commandos Step Up Their Combat Role
The New York Times By Thom Shankar May 14, 2013
At a classified Commando Base, Afghanistan - One day this month, a pair of Russian Mi-17 assault helicopters delivered two teams of Afghan commandos, their faces obscured by black masks, in a touch-and-go landing at this camp in a lush valley encircled by frosty peaks about 50 miles from Kabul.
A training squadron drawn from the most secretive counterterrorism units fielded by the United States and its NATO allies watched as the Afghan commandos stormed and cleared a three-story office building that was left conspicuously unfinished — the kind of structure favored by insurgents.
This is the combination of Afghan and allied troops that the Obama administration and the government in Kabul say will assume an increasing share of the combat burden in Afghanistan as the NATO alliance gradually hands over responsibility for security operations to Afghan troops.
As other troops are withdrawn, Special Operations forces are expected to make up almost one-third of the American military presence in Afghanistan by next February. Their specialty — advising local military units on the front lines and hunting down top insurgent or terrorist leaders — will become the major focus of the alliance’s effort here either until American troops are withdrawn by the target date of December 2014 or the Afghan government asks them to stay past then.
On any day in Afghanistan, about 60 Special Operations teams are working with Afghan local police forces to provide security in villages; 50 more are assigned to Afghan strike forces, including 9 commando battalions and special police units and 19 provincial response companies.
The most elite units are housed at secret bases like this one, where assault helicopters stand by to carry them on their missions. Other commando battalions and provincial response companies are scattered among population centers and along the ring road linking Afghanistan’s major cities.
For American commanders, the transition to Afghan leadership on security has been a challenge, requiring a sharp increase in the intensity of training.
It has also required a significant reorganization of planning — and a change in the culture of American Special Operations forces, which, for the first time since the war began, answer to a single commander responsible for coordinating what had been separate, even conflicting, efforts.
“The dirty little secret among S.O.F. is that we were competing among ourselves,” said Maj. Gen. Tony Thomas, the senior commander overseeing all American and allied Special Operations forces, or S.O.F., in Afghanistan.
“We didn’t necessarily share information to the greatest extent possible,” said General Thomas, an Army Ranger with a long career in Special Operations. “It wasn’t about who got the credit or glory — but we were all so focused on our individual mission that we didn’t always synchronize the effort in the most efficient way for a common goal.”
There have been times when one strike team was targeting a suspected insurgent without knowing that a training team was courting his close kinsman to raise a local police force from their home village.
That began to change just under a year ago when General Thomas took charge of a new military organization here — the Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan, making him, in essence, the first to lead a division-sized deployment of Special Operations forces. Under his command are all the various “tribes” of American Special Operations forces: Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Marine Corps Special Operations units, as well as the top-tier strike teams that hunt down or kill high-value terrorist and insurgent leaders.
Senior officials say the new level of coordination has paid dividends in the form of initiatives like a centralized system for allocating drones, helicopters and airplanes that has allowed the 200 Special Operations aircraft to increase their sortie rate to 6,000 missions a month from 4,000.
Even as the number of American troops will be cut in half from 68,000 by next February under President Obama’s withdrawal orders, the number of Special Operations forces will remain the same through the Afghan presidential election, which is scheduled for next spring, but could be delayed until closer to December 2014.
While the bulk of the American and allied conventional forces remaining in Afghanistan will make the transition to a support role — and will be increasingly based at large military headquarters — the 10,000 American Special Operations troops will continue to be deployed alongside Afghan units. (Including NATO and coalition troops, the total Special Operations deployment here numbers 13,700.)
That partnering is rock solid, and we hope over time to come up off the tactical level,” General Thomas said. But he noted that Afghan and NATO leaders all understand the critical importance of assuring that next year’s elections are credible and secure. “So we’re probably going to stay a while longer at the tactical level than we were considering a year ago,” he added.
Alliance commanders acknowledge that one of their greatest fears is an insurgent offensive on Kabul that, even if it failed, would so humiliate Afghanistan’s security forces that — like the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War — it would undermine support for the mission here and in nations that contribute troops to the effort.
Insurgents have mounted exactly that type of raid in the past. And while Afghan and NATO officials said at the time that local security forces reacted with speed and lethal professionalism to subdue the militants, the reality is different. Special Operations commanders now acknowledge that the responses were slow and clumsy and that Afghan troops needed to be strongly urged to move in.
“The Afghan Army hadn’t performed that well in two previous tasks,” said one NATO Special Operations commander here. “Both counterattacks had to be heavily mentored. It came out O.K. in the end — but only after a lot of prompting from our side.”
The effort to sharpen the skills of Afghan Special Forces is focused at this base, which was opened to a New York Times reporter and photographer under the ground rules that its location and the Special Operations units operating here would not be disclosed. Here, the Afghan national commando strike force practices on a training range that includes a full-scale mock-up of a heroin laboratory, a fake village marketplace and that three-story, half-built office building.
The effort, according to allied and Afghan Special Operations commanders, is paying off: Twice in recent weeks, their units have prevented the use of truck bombs, each holding a charge several times larger than the explosives that leveled a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
“The most important thing that this unit offers is security for Kabul, and as we move into this fighting season and into the upcoming elections in ’14, the population will view the security of the capital as a symbol of the credibility of their government,” said Brig. Gen. James E. Kraft Jr., a deputy commander of the Special Operations Joint Task Force.
The commandos, he said, “have been making significant advances in securing the ‘rat lines’ leading toward Kabul and interdicting I.E.D. materials.”
Shortcomings remain. One NATO Special Operations adviser said the training squadron was trying to “wean the Afghans off the ‘crack pipe’ of our aviation” — in particular troop transport and medical evacuation, which the Afghan forces cannot yet sustain on their own.
Although the unit based here is considered the most proficient in the country, allied officials said that it conducted 85 percent of its missions unilaterally, but still required coalition support for the other 15 percent.
Afghanistan Exit: Kabul and Berlin Estranged as Withdrawal Looms
Spiegel Online By Ralf Beste, Matthias Gebauer and Gordon Repinski May 14, 2013
With the security situation deteriorating in Afghanistan, Chancellor Merkel paid a visit to German troops last week without even informing Afghan President Karzai. The move highlights frosty relations between Berlin and Kabul amid difficult negotiations for the 2014 troop withdrawal.
It's a hot morning at the German military's Kunduz field camp when Chancellor Angela Merkel has a brief close encounter with war. She looks up at a soldier, a man who towers 2 meters (6.5 feet) tall, with tattoos up to his neck. The rifle hanging in front of his chest comes to the height of her face. Surrounding the chancellor and the soldier are his unit's light-wheeled tanks, which ran into an improvised explosive device two weeks ago. The troops are lined up at attention. Against this backdrop, the chancellor wants to know what war feels like. She has just a brief moment. "How many attacks have there been?" she asks. "Seven," the soldier replies. Merkel nods, reflects for a second and says: "Not nice!" Fortunately, the soldier assures her, nothing has ever happened aside from material damage. "Well, I'm sure it gave you quite a scare!" Merkel says. Then the chancellor hurries on.
Quite a scare -- that is occasionally Berlin's view of the war. But the reality in Afghanistan became clear the weekend before last when one German and seven American ISAF soldiers were killed during attacks and clashes with the enemy.
The death of this Bundeswehr soldier called to mind a war that hardly receives any attention anymore in Germany. After all, the withdrawal has already begun and the German military has weathered the worst of the fighting, or at least that's what many had hoped after nearly two years without a combat casualty.
But the latest German soldier killed in action is emblematic of the security situation on the ground, which began deteriorating once again during the first few months of this year. After 11 years in Afghanistan, the Bundeswehr faces the most difficult year of its military mission. While the Taliban gains ground amid a rising number of attacks and clashes, it has to master the massive logistical challenge of a withdrawal.
The German military will leave behind a country still far from peace after decades of war. It seems that the decline in clashes over the past year was not a sign of the sustainable success of the West, but merely a tactical break by the insurgents.
Roughly one-and-a-half years before the planned end of the international military effort, its success appears more doubtful than ever. German politicians deflect attention from the imminent failure of this mission -- which was designed to bring security, stability and democracy to Afghanistan -- with vague demands for "reforms" and progress in the "political process."
Among the Bundeswehr soldiers in the two large camps in Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif the mood was gloomy during the week following the deadly clash. "Death seemed so far away," says a friend of the dead soldier, "now it has come one step closer."
Serious Concerns about Withdrawal
Depressing figures recently released by the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office in Kabul confirm this impression. According to the organization, the number of attacks by Afghan insurgents during the first quarter of 2013 rose by 47 percent in comparison to the previous year, with most now directed against Afghan security forces.
The statistics paint a grim picture for the Bundeswehr's area of operations in the north of the country. In many regions the number of clashes has increased, and the situation is even worse in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
There has even been increased fighting in parts of Badakhshan Province in the northeastern part of the country, which has been relatively calm until recently. At the end of last year, the Bundeswehr held an official ceremony in which it handed over control of its camp in Faizabad to the Afghan security forces, a move that was seen as a test of how the situation might develop after the troop withdrawal. Now, ISAF officials are doing their best not to recognize any trend in the dramatic increase in the number of incidents. No one is willing to admit the possibility of failure in the northeast.
The withdrawal has begun and heavily-loaded military transport aircraft leave the country and head west nearly every day. The first camps have already been closed, and this year the Bundeswehr intends to close its fortress at OP North and the Kunduz field camp.
In northern Afghanistan the government is expressing serious concerns about the withdrawal of the Germans, which is proceeding much more rapidly than many had imagined. Atta Mohammed Noor, the powerful governor of the northern Afghan region of Balkh, is urging a long-term German mission in Mazar-e-Sharif. "Without the help of the Germans, the army will quickly fall apart again," he warns. "Which is why a further stationing of troops is urgently required here."
While the situation is better than it was during the crisis year of 2011, says German State Secretary of Defense Christian Schmidt, who visited Bundeswehr troops last week, he admits that "the Afghans are still unable to achieve security on their own." In other words, the security situation is so precarious that Afghanistan is in danger of sinking into chaos and civil war after the withdrawal of ISAF troops.
Frosty Relations
It still remains unclear whether, and how, the international mission will continue following the withdrawal at the end of 2014. In April, Germany pressed ahead with an offer to station 600 to 800 soldiers to train Afghan military forces starting in 2015. The main objective of this early commitment was to ensure that the issue remained out of the election campaign as Germans go to the polls in September 2013.
Nevertheless, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière pointed out in April that this offer depends on a number of factors. As planned, NATO must launch a training mission throughout the country, and not merely in Kabul, he said. The UN Security Council must also grant this military force a mandate, he added. But above all, the minister demanded that Kabul be more obliging, saying that he expected a formal invitation from the Afghan government: "We want to be welcome," de Maizière said.
That invitation has not been extended, though. In view of the shaky security situation, it is particularly important to maintain good relations with the Afghan hosts during the withdrawal phase. Only by working in close cooperation with Kabul can NATO member states plan an effective military involvement for the period following the withdrawal at the end of 2014. However, Chancellor Merkel appears to have little interest in this.
Her brief visit last Friday illustrated once again how strained relations remain between Berlin and Kabul after 11 years of the German mission in Afghanistan. There is so little trust that German protocol officers didn't even bother to announce the chancellor's arrival to their counterparts in Kabul.
There would have been an opportunity for a phone call with Afghan President Hamid Karzai shortly before Merkel disembarked from her government aircraft in Mazar-e-Sharif at 6 a.m. -- but no telephone conversation took place. This has annoyed officials in Kabul, who see Merkel's visit as an "open affront," says one of Karzai's advisers. "In Germany it would be a scandal if we landed in Berlin without advance notice, but one can do this with us Afghans," he quipped. The mood is so frosty that Kabul is even considering making an official complaint to Berlin.
Merkel's view of Karzai is no less critical. During their last meeting, Karzai spoke at length about reforming his corrupt government, including revamping the justice system and bolstering women's rights. But virtually none of this has happened. Instead, Berlin has closely observed how Karzai attempts to control the electoral commission and forges unholy alliances with dubious warlords to secure his power base beyond the elections slated for April 2014.
All Eyes on Washington
It's not merely a lack of trust between Berlin and Kabul that is making post-withdrawal planning difficult, though. Germany's NATO partners have also been hesitant to commit to a further mission. France and Canada have stayed out completely, and among the remaining major allies it is primarily the British who are reluctant to shoulder a portion of the burden. Nevertheless, the Mongolians, Swedes and Belgians have indicated that they are willing to remain in northern Afghanistan under German leadership.
The greatest problem is Washington. The United States, which should actually assume a leading role, is mired in internal squabbling over Afghanistan. Due to his hesitation, US President Barack Obama is already the subject of ridicule in defense circles, where they say that the beginning of his second term in office is "more reminiscent of Jimmy Carter than Bill Clinton." Staff members at ISAF headquarters in Kabul are also getting nervous.
Negotiations over stationing a follow-up mission have stalled. While President Karzai indicated last week that he is prepared to tolerate American military bases even after 2014, the mid-June summit planned by leaders of NATO member countries to determine their further engagement in the country will now no longer take place.
If Obama decides against committing some 8,000 US troops, all plans for the period following the combat mission will be off, and the Germans will have little choice but to withdraw their trainers from northern Afghanistan -- leaving the Afghans to face an uncertain future on their own.
Translated from the German by Paul Cohen
Younger Generation Poised To Lead Afghanistan's Future
NPR By Renee Montagne May 14, 2013
Afghans under 35 make up about 75 percent of the country's population. Each one of them was born into war and endured their country's nearly unbroken string of conflicts. And they've come of age as Afghanistan struggles to establish itself as an autonomous country.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne, in Kabul, Afghanistan.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep, in Washington, with David Greene.
Renee's been in Afghanistan as the United States prepares to substantially draw down its presence in that country, which puts the focus on the Afghans who will try to run the country next. Renee's been reporting on a generation that's poised to take over: younger political and business leaders, a group we have not heard much about, even though Afghans under 35 make up about 75 percent of the population. It's a very young country.
And, Renee, what marks the younger generation in Afghanistan?
MONTAGNE: This is what marks them, Steve: every one under about the age of 35 was born into war. And they've endured their country's nearly unbroken string of conflicts in their young lives. And they've come of age as Afghanistan struggles to come back as a country. And in the last couple of years, scores of youth groups have sprung up. They're aimed at creating a civil society. And I have to say, it's quite a range of interests.
I mean, there's women's rights, of course. And also something that might that might surprise people, one called Youth in Action: It advocates for a more green Afghanistan. And what they say as they travel around the country actually cleaning up the streets and pushing for a ban on plastic.
INSKEEP: Trying to get past the war and focus on the environment. Now, what else are you hearing?
MONTAGNE: I'll tell you, I'm hearing, in particular, one voice, and that has surprised a lot of people here. That would be the 30-something founder of an election watchdog group. He's the former head of the country's Human Rights Commission. His name is Nader Nadery. And he's just published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that extolled Afghanistan's civil society. That's a bit of surprise. He writes that it has blossomed.
Now, Nadery is famous here for, at some risk to himself, taking on the powers that be. He hasn't lost sight of the challenges. But when we sat down at his office here in Kabul, I ask him why the optimism now, just as Afghanistan heads into an uncertain future.
NADER NADERY: Throughout the past 10 years, people like us, like me, were out there pushing and struggling and lobbying, being on the street, being on the - knocking on the parliament's house, the politicians, on the media. And I'm still doing that.
Now, the fear is that by ignoring what we have built, there's a very clear chance of what I call a self-fulfilling prophecy: 2014, Afghanistan is going to fall apart. There's going to be, again, a civil war, and - there was nothing being done, and therefore it's going to be a doomsday.
MONTAGNE: Nader Nadery says that while suicide attacks make the headlines, most Afghans are now focused on jobs, the rule of law and next year's presidential elections. Insecurity, corruption, the well-documented waste of international aid, all that has made it an article of faith for many that the only future for Afghanistan is a dark one.
The fact is, there has been a dramatic opening to the outside world, thanks to a proliferation of media, a flood of cell phones now accessible even to most women, and education.
In the past 10 years, the seeds were planted. This younger generation of Afghanistan, they want an upward mobility and the political life of Afghanistan and the government. Most of them are visionary. They want a different Afghanistan for themselves and for their kids.
Among those young visionaries is Shaharzad Akbar. She's a leader of one of those youth groups poised to play a greater role in Afghanistan's future. A core value of this movement is that these young Afghans have transcended the ethnic and ideological divides that pitted their own parents against each other.
SHAHARZAD AKBAR: We don't sympathize with the battles that our parents had with other.
MONTAGNE: Those battles began with the Soviet invasion in 1979 that propped up Afghanistan's communist government, which was then fighting the Mujahedeen. After the Soviets withdrew, the Mujahedeen turned into warlords and launched a bloody civil war that, by the mid '90s, had reduced Kabul to rubble.
It was during a brief ceasefire that Shaharzad's parents grabbed their little girls and fled.
AKBAR: I remember my mom dragging us through the streets. And for the first time, I saw corpses - like, people dead, lying on the street. And, you know, my siblings were crying, and we were terrified. And I remember I didn't have shoes because we had walked through Kabul city and my shoes had fallen apart.
MONTAGNE: Her family ended up as refugees in Pakistan, returning only after the Taliban government was driven out. Now, at 25, Shaharzad Akbar heads one of the most influential of the youth groups, Afghanistan 1400, named after the new century of the Persian Calendar that dawns in eight years.
A version of her wartime experience is shared by virtually everyone in these groups. But something else they have in common is opportunity. They've seized on the chance for a higher education, thanks to the many scholarships and grants that have flowed in. Shaharzad Akbar has degrees from Smith College and Oxford. Sahmi Sadat, a 28-year-old founder of another group, graduated from the UK Defense Academy, and those opportunities, he says, have brought a new sense of what's possible.
SAHMI SADAT: Afghanistan broke with history post-2001 when the Taliban regime was collapsed. We have accepted each other, the coexistence. All tribes, everyone who was an Afghan, was welcomed back to the country and was given a chance to come and serve their country. And we are actually the result of this one decade of peace. And now we stand for our country, and we work together.
MONTAGNE: It's very interesting that you said these last 10 years of peace, because much of the rest of the world thinks you've all just spent the last 10 or 12 years in the middle of a war.
SADAT: The standards of defining peace may differ from West to Afghanistan. Of course, everything happened in the backdrop of a counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, but we still feel that it was peaceful enough that we could have gone to schools. It was peaceful enough that we had freedom of speech. It was peaceful enough for me to travel to the rest of the world and learn, come back and apply new concepts and make Afghanistan a better place.
MONTAGNE: Each of the youth groups has its own approach. Sahmi Sadat's A3 uses its well-connected membership - which includes a young tribal leader and several top government advisors - to lobby and influence policy. They've also become adept at political theater. A few days ago, they drove a caravan of cars six hours to the border with Pakistan. It was a show of patriotism and a moment to honor the border police who recently lost one of their own in a rare clash with Pakistani forces.
The fallen border officer has since become something of a national hero here, a country where anti-Pakistan feelings run deep.
(APPLAUSE)
MONTAGNE: At the border, the A3 activists gave appreciative speeches and handed out tiny Afghan flags. The border police told tales of bravery, defending the nation's honor.
(APPLAUSE)
MONTAGNE: Clearly, the bigger challenge for Afghanistan's new generation come 2014 when NATO combat forces pull out, is the insurgency, the Taliban and militant groups linked to it.
Still, of the several wars that have beset these Afghans throughout their lives, many see a civil war between ethnic groups as a thing of the past. Those were the battles that forced Shaharzad Akbar's family to flee Kabul. Now, she says, the warlords who led those ethnic militias are also invested in the new Afghanistan.
AKBAR: None of them will benefit from instability and war. You know, they have businesses here. The Mujahedeen have grown very comfortable in the past 10 years. Their soldiers have also - the militia has also grown very comfortable.
MONTAGNE: So to put it in another way, you're saying that Afghanistan is not a prisoner of its own history. It's not doomed, or even likely to repeat its history, because things are just that different now.
AKBAR: Actually, I think things are just that different.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MONTAGNE: We've been hearing from young leaders of civil society here in Kabul. Tomorrow, a young business man, who, in the last decade, built from scratch a business empire, everything from mining operations to media.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I had a TV, wooden TV set. I'd be in the (unintelligible), and now I own a TV channel. I mean, look at how much things have changed.
Much of $1bn Afghanistan tax bill is bogus, says US
American watchdog claims Afghan government is charging US contractors with illegal taxes
The Guardian By Emma Graham-Harrison and Mokhtar Amiri 14/05/2013
Kabul - The Afghan government has charged a tax bill of nearly $1bn (£600m) to foreign firms working for the US military and government over the last five years, but there is no legal basis for many of the charges and levies, a US watchdog has found in a damning new report released on Tuesday.
Kabul has ignored agreements with Nato and the US to spare firms supplying the military or involved in development projects from paying national taxes, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar) said.
One in every 10 dollars chalked up towards the $921m bill since 2008 was a clear violation of violated those deals, the auditor said. The vast majority of the rest could not be evaluated because there was no clear description of the taxes or penalties levied, which in itself is a red flag to accountants.
"Based on our analysis, much of this total amount is likely illegitimate," said the report, which is just the latest in a string of probes by the government-appointed auditor into the finances of the US mission in Afghanistan.
The rocketing taxes have raised the cost of the war for US taxpayers because the contracting firms contractors have often passed on their extra expenses or asked to be reimbursed, Sigar said.
They are also affecting military supply chains, because many of the companies are disputing their bills, prompting a crackdown from the Afghan government.
So far only $67m, or 7% of the total demanded, has been paid. For firms with outstanding bills punishments have included limits on movement, the suspension of business licences and, in one case, arresting three employees, the report said.
"It's disturbing that the Afghan government is targeting American contractors with unjust taxes and intimidation," said John Sopko, the special inspector general, in a statement. "It's even more disturbing that US agencies are letting it happen – all at the expense of American taxpayers, who have already shouldered a heavy burden on Afghan reconstruction. This needs to end."
The US embassy said that the report was not clear enough about the different types of contracting arrangements in Afghanistan, which undermined its findings.
"The report does not carefully distinguish between taxation on contractors working on assistance contracts which are tax-exempt under our bilateral agreements, and taxation of contractors that support the US embassy, such as operations, maintenance, and construction contractors, who are not tax-exempt," said embassy spokesman David Snepp. "Unfortunately, without this distinction, we are not able to draw any reliable conclusion concerning the amount of illegitimate taxation."
The US government has not managed to present a unified front to the Afghan taxmen, or done enough to help the companies get certificates they need to avoid the levies. Some US officials have also compounded the costs of the opaque system by reimbursing contractors for their tax bill, the report said, citing examples including one from the development agency.
"For example, in one USAID contract, the prime contractor was reimbursed nearly $160,000 for sales tax. However, USAID's agreements [with the Kabul government] specifically name sales tax as an exempt category," the report said.
Taxation of contractors is one of the apparently dull, but very thorny, issues on the table as Washington and Kabul try to agree terms for a US military presence after 2014, when the Nato-led mission officially ends. The negotiations have been slow and drawn out.
Afghan officials say commercial firms that reap rich profits from the war are playing the tax system to avoid fair contributions to their country's economy. US critics counter that Afghanistan is trying to benefit twice from development and military aid, by taking the help and then using the contracts to fill government coffers as well, which increases the cost of basic assistance.
The watchdog's findings also raise questions about Afghanistan's financial base at a time when the west is pulling out troops and cutting back on aid and construction projects that have pumped money into the country's feeble economy for years.
The government in Kabul and foreign diplomats have touted an improved tax system as one sign that the country was straightening out its own finances and slowly weaning itself off the foreign aid that has paid for anything from schools and roads to hospitals and the police.
A US embassy official earlier this year described Afghanistan's tightened-up tax regime as "a pretty substantial achievement", the Reuters news agency reported. It pulled in $1.6bn, and is more successful than that in neighbouring Pakistan, according to official data, but it was not clear if that figure included the bills that the watchdog claims should not have been sent out.
The Afghan finance ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the report.
British forces to remain in Afghanistan into 2015
AFP May 15, 2013
London - Some British troops will have to stay in Afghanistan into 2015 to ensure the departure of forces is properly managed, defence minister Philip Hammond said on Tuesday.
Combat operations are still due to finish by the end of 2014 but the final tours of duty will be extended to last up to a maximum of nine months for a “relatively small number” of personnel, Hammond told parliament.
British troops currently serve around six months in Afghanistan, but those deploying this October will stay for eight months. Hammond said: “The rationale for this decision is clear and is based on advice from military commanders.”
He said one reason was to “better align the final tours with key milestones in the transition process such as the Afghan presidential elections in spring 2014”. The six-month rotation of British forces would have coincided with the elections.
Hammond said extending the tours would also remove the need to train and deploy another brigade to cover the final two months of 2014 .
The move means only two more brigades will be needed before British forces withdraw in 2015.
A few hundred soldiers will remain in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan into 2015 after combat operations have ended to complete the process of returning valuable equipment to Britain.
Prime Minister David Cameron has already said that the size of the British force in Afghanistan will be reduced from its peak of 9,500 military personnel to about 5,200 by the end of this year.
Hammond told parliament that troop numbers would be at about 7,900 by the end of this month.
British troops have been based in Helmand since the campaign began in 2001.
A total of 444 British soldiers have lost their lives, mainly in attacks involving improvised explosive devices (IEDs) laid by the Taliban, but the number of deaths has slowed steadily this year.
Should India Provide Direct Military Aid to Afghanistan?
New York Times By JAVID AHMAD India Ink May 14, 2013
Over the past decade, India has invested heavily in Afghanistan’s reconstruction. Recognizing India’s significant economic and development contributions, the United States has called on New Delhi to play an important role in the new Silk Road initiative aimed at transforming Afghanistan into a regional trade hub.
At the same time, New Delhi has been reluctant to become directly involved in supporting Afghanistan’s nascent security sector. The many uncertainties surrounding next year’s security transition from international to Afghan leadership raise further questions about New Delhi’s role in the Afghan endgame.
India’s decision-makers acknowledge that India’s own internal security would be at risk if the international drawdown from Afghanistan leaves behind a security vacuum that is filled by Pakistan-backed militant groups. New Delhi can no longer ignore the related consequences. And while some of the Pakistan-related sensitivities are important for India, it should not approach its relations with Afghanistan, a sovereign nation, solely from a Pakistan angle.
One way for New Delhi to overcome its anxieties and further cement ties with Kabul is to consider providing direct military assistance to the Afghan government and training support to the burgeoning Afghan National Security Forces. The India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement signed in October 2011 already provides the staging ground for an increased military cooperation with Afghanistan. Under the agreement, India provides — though to a limited extent — training support and light military equipment to Afghan forces.
However, because of New Delhi’s hesitation to put military personnel on the ground, all trainings of Afghan forces are conducted inside India. Although New Delhi has deployed a small number of paramilitary forces to guard its diplomatic facilities and aid workers in Afghanistan after a number of attacks, the troops are not engaged in any combat or training missions. Looking ahead, India’s decision-makers should consider anchoring these troops to support the Afghan forces and also consider establishing a military training academy in Afghanistan for Afghan forces.
More specifically, India should focus on propping up the Afghan air force, which remains largely reliant on international air support. India should bolster the ability of the Afghan air force to more ably operate its current fleet of 50 helicopters. For Afghan forces, the helicopters are an essential tool for operational air support and for resupplying remote military outposts, so New Delhi should particularly focus on training the technical and maintenance staff, on supplying the necessary spare parts and on improving the Afghan aircrew’s medevac capability. By supplying an airbase support advisory team, India can augment the ability of the Afghan air force to support ground operations with troop and cargo movements and deploy Afghan forces across the country.
In addition to training support, India should consider providing the Afghan government with military hardware, including attack helicopters, a handful of fighter aircrafts, armored vehicles, artillery and tactical communication tools. New Delhi may boost these efforts by increasing its cooperation with Afghan intelligence services and provide specialized training to Afghan operatives in collecting technical and aerial intelligence.
Undeniably, these measures would come with important risks and constraints. For one, it would add further to Pakistan’s many deep-rooted security concerns. Pakistan could derail the incipient peace talks with the Taliban, increase its support to the insurgent elements it hosts on its soil to spur further violence in Afghanistan or employ militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba to strike more frequently in India or on Indian assets inside Afghanistan.
However, a closer India-Afghan relationship would be intended to strengthen the Afghan government so it can remain functioning after 2014, and not to monitor Pakistan’s activities. Pakistan must realize that India’s assistance will go directly to the Afghan government, and not to any Afghan factions, as it has been in the past. Pakistan must also recognize that closer ties with India in Afghanistan better serves the interests of all parties.
Kabul does not choose sides in its relations with India and Pakistan, and, as it does with New Delhi, Kabul can also work with Islamabad in security and other sectors, but Pakistan must first show a sincere effort that it is not working toward sinister strategic objectives in Afghanistan.
Looking ahead, India is expected to stay the course and stick to training the Afghan forces inside India to avoid any backlash. But Afghanistan would welcome greater military assistance from India. Growing frustration with Pakistan has also prompted Washington to seek more Indian engagement after former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, during a visit to New Delhi, called on India to continue training the Afghan forces.
India is uniquely placed to provide such support. It leads the world’s fourth-largest and modernized military force with extraordinary experience in training missions. India’s military could use the services of many India-trained Afghan security personnel buoyed by people-to-people contacts and linguistic affinity within Afghanistan.
A politically and economically stable Afghanistan is of a strategic significance to India, but more collaboration is necessary. Despite little support among India’s policy makers for greater military cooperation with Afghanistan, the lingering ambiguity around Afghanistan’s future after 2014 provides a good opportunity for New Delhi to step up its efforts to be a force for stability in the country. Afghanistan values its relations with India, and any future direct military and training support to Afghan forces would not only strengthen bilateral relations but would also play a significant role in enhancing Afghanistan’s security after international forces leave the country.
Javid Ahmad is a program coordinator for Asia at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a consultant to Pentagon’s AfPak Hands program.
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Rise of Raw Material Prices Raises Concerns
TOLOnews.com By Zabiulah Jahanmal 13 May 2013
Afghanistan's Chamber of Commerce and Industries ACCI on Monday said that raw materials' prices have increased 25% due to high tariffs and extortions in Afghanistan.
Officials at the Afghan chamber of commerce and industries said that the Finance Ministry is attempting to increase government's incomes by putting high prices on raw material which does not increase incomes but pave the way of smuggling for materials.
The officials claim that foreign governments is putting less tariffs on raw materials but Afghan government puts more tariffs which has caused prices of raw and building materials to go high.
"They put tariffs on foods like rice and sugar. They take taxes from four to five percent from sugar which is about 300 Afg of tax accounts on one sack of sugar," the Deputy Chairman of ACCI Khan Jan Alokozai said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance said that the tariff has increased on some raw materials as foods to back domestic productions and it does not affect the prices of the raw materials in markets.
"We put high tariffs on foods coming from abroad in order to find market for domestic products. We decrease the tariffs back when we have sold our products. We have to support our farmers and this is a principle of economy," the Ministry of Finance Advisor Najibullah Manali said.
But ACCI officials believe that the action will open the way for raw materials' smuggling in the country.
"There are people in different areas of Peshawar city like Miranshah, Bajaur and Bano and saying that we give this sugar to you, but give us 300 Rupees," Khan Jan Alokozai said.
It is said that putting high tariffs on raw materials has also increased prices of construction materials in Afghanistan.
School Girls Poisoned in Mazar-e-Sharif
TOLOnews.com By TOLOnews.com 14 May 2013
At least 150 school girls including five teachers were poisoned in northern Mazar-e-Sharif city early Tuesday, Security and health officials said.
The students were taken to hospitals in Mazar-e-Sharif city.
Head of public health hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif said that the incident happened when an unpleasant odour pervaded the space of Khorasan girls school in Mazar-e-Sharif and the students started to feel nausea.
Meanwhile, it is also said that the students' started feeling sick after a septic well was opened near the school.
"Their blood pressure and breathing were fine but some of them coughed and had some problem in their throats and thought that the stench is the cause of the incident," Head of Civil Hospital of Mazar-e-Sharif Dr Khaja Noor Mohammad Faiz said.
A teacher and some of the students said that they started feeling sick after they smelt some kind of gas in the school space.
"There was an upleasant smell and my classmates fainted. Soon after that, I also fainted," a school girl said.
"150 students of Khorasan School were hospitalised due to the incident and hospital officials assured us that the students are fine," Provincial Intelligence Chief Abdul Razaq Qadiri said.
Head of education department of Balkh province said their lessons have been shut down because of the incident.
"The health team have assured that there is no sign of poisoning and te cause of incident was the stench of the opened septic well," Head of Eduaction Department of Balkh Province, Qais Mehraen, said.
This is the first time that school girls are poisoned in Mazar-e-Sharif city in the current year.
It comes as recently 200 school girls were poisoned in Sultan Razia high school in the 7th district of Kabul early this month.
Taliban pledge support for Afghan polio campaign
Afghan government announced polio vaccination program last month
CBC News May 15, 2013
The Taliban in Afghanistan say they will now support programs aimed at eradicating polio in the country.
In a statement released earlier this week in Afghanistan, the Taliban said they asked members “not to create any kind of trouble” for health workers, but would not tolerate foreigners participating in the eradiction program.
"According to the latest international medicine science, the polio disease can only be cured by preventive measures ie the anti-polio drops and the vaccination of children against this disease," the group said.
"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan supports and lends a hand to all those programs which works for the health care of the helpless people of our country."
“Foreign employees should refrain from going to the region,” the group said, “and similarly the campaign should be harmonized with the regional conditions, Islamic values and local cultural traditions.”
Afganistan is one of three countries, along with Pakistan and Nigeria, where the disease remains a problem. Last month, the Afghan government pledged to vaccinate eight million children under the age of five against polio and measles.
In March, Afghanistan had to halt a polio vaccination program in Nuristan province, citing Taliban opposition.
In 2012, a 16-year-old girl volunteering in Kapisa province in a vaccination campaign was shot repeatedly. She died later in hospital.
There have been more attacks in Pakistan against polio program workers and security personnel guarding them. Five women were shot and killed in Karachi in December 2012.
Attorney General Asks Finance Minister to Substantiate His Accusations Against MPs
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry 14 May 2013
The Afghan Attorney General on Tuesday asked Finance minister to officially hand over all evidence supporting his accusations of corruption against MPs.
The Attorney General said that only one case related to smuggling of alcohol has been received. It comes as the finance ministry has previously said that cases related to all the MPs accused of corruption have been sent to the Attorney General's Office.
"If there is any accusation and there is evidence, it must be officially sent to the Attorney General's Office, so that we can start our investigations," Basir Aziz Attorney General's spokesman told TOLOnews.
Meanwhile, head of high office of oversight and anti-corruption considers existence of corruption in parliament shameful.
"It is not only embarrassing but also as an Afghan it is shameful for us, existence of corruption in our administrations also raised noise of international community," anti-corruption chief Azizullah Lodin told TOLOnews.
It comes after Afghan finance minister Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal on Monday revealed the names of lawmakers that he claims are involved in smuggling and other illegal activities
The finance minister accused Mohammad Zahir Qadir, Mohammad Naeem Lalai Hamedzai, Mohammad Arif Rahmani, Mahmmod Khan Sulaiman Khil, Azim Mohsini and Samiullah Samim of making illegal demands and being involved in smuggling.
However, the accused MPs dismissed the allegations, urging the minister to provide proof.
Unemployment On the Rise In Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi 14 May 2013
Less attention of international community to work on building of infrastructure in Afghanistan is a cause of unemployment rise in the country, officials said.
Afghan minister of labour and social affairs who was summoned to the upper house on Tuesday said that most of international community's funds hasn't been spent for priority needs of the people.
Meanwhile, a number of senators said that the ministry of labour and social affairs has not made efforts to reduce unemployment rates in the country.
Minister of labour and social affairs said that lack of sufficient budget and also inattention of international community to build infrastructures caused a rise in unemployment.
"In the past ten years, a lot of job opportunities have been created but the donated money has not been provided to us and has been spent in projects that were not necessary. The international community hasn't paid attention in this regard," Amena Afzali minister of labour and social affairs told senators.
On the other hand, a number of senators believe that unemployment is the main reason why most Afghan youths are leaving for neighbouring countries. Senators urged the ministry to adopt necessary strategies to address the problem.
"Unemployment has caused insecurity and immigration of Afghan youths to other countries, but an appropriate strategy must be adopted to reduce unemployment in the country," Bashir Ahmad Samim a senator said.
"Today most of workers are going to the neighbour countries to seek jobs due to lack of job opportunities in their own country. The ministry of labour and social affairs has not been able to reduce unemployment rate in the country," Senator Ali Akbar Jamshidi said.
The Minister of Labour and Social Affairs emphasises that paving the ground for employment in the country requires more time.
The minister said that a number of the countries have pledged to employ Afghan workers, however these commitments have not been implemented.
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