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10 Police Killed in Afghanistan
VOA News May 21, 2013
Officials in western Afghanistan say a roadside bomb has killed six police officers.
Authorities say a vehicle the police were riding in was destroyed when it hit the bomb Tuesday in the Obe district of Herat province.
The police were assigned to work as guards on a dam project.
There was no claim of responsibility, but similar assaults often are blamed on the Taliban.
Meanwhile, a Taliban offensive in southern Afghanistan has killed four police officers.
Officials say a large number of Taliban fighters attacked several security checkpoints in Helmand province.
Pakistani and Chechen rebels attack police check post in Helmand
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 21 May 2013, 11:52 am Khaama Press
At least 23 Taliban militants including Pakistani and Chechen fighters were killed after attacking a police check post in southern Helmand province of Afghanistan.
Local officials in Helmand province said the incident took place in Sangin district, leaving four Afghan police officers dead.
Provincial governor spokesman Omar Zwak said the attack was carried out jointly by Pakistani and Chechen militants.
He said clashes started late Monday and the two sides are still exchanging fire.
In the meantime Taliban militants group claimed around 10 police officers along with thier commander were killed.
This comes as Afghan defense ministry on Monday announced that hundreds of Pakistani and foreign militants were deployed to Afghanistan to carry out attacks in Afghanistan.
Defense ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said several religious Madrasas teaching Taliban militants were closed and the fighters were deployed in Afghanistan.
Despite Taliban threats, Afghan women in Kandahar want to get educated
by Farid Behbud
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Despite Taliban threat and intimidation, more and more women in the southern Kandahar province, the erstwhile spiritual capital of the Taliban, have gone to school and get involved in social activities.
"Afghan women have realized that education is power. It is the key to succeed. Education changes the living conditions and the future of women. We have been living in a state of conflict and instability for three decades and it is time for us to get educated," Spina, 18, told Xinhua in a recent interview in Kandahar city, the provincial capital of Kandahar province, which is some 450 km south of Kabul.
Domestic violence, security problems and tribal traditions in parts of the conservative Afghanistan often bar girls to attend school or to get higher education.
"The uncertain security and intimidation make difficult to have equitable access to good quality education especially for girls. But despite these conditions, I attend a literacy class every day, " said Spina, who, like most Afghans has only one name, has also been a victim of violence against women.
Spina said that shortly after she got married, her mother-in- law began accusing her of not doing her household chores. She was also maltreated and this has ultimately led to her divorce and now she is living with her parents again. Spina's father, according to her, had paid more than 2,000 U.S. dollars to her in-laws so that they will agree to sign her divorce papers.
"If my husband's family were educated people, they would not have mistreated me," Spina said.
Up to now, the militant Taliban is still active in Kandahar. The fanatical group emerged in 1994 and disappeared in late 2001 following the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan.
During its rule, the Taliban had barred girls from schooling and confined women to their houses.
The Afghanistan Women Foundation, a non-government body supporting women rights in the conflict ridden country, runs literacy courses for women, besides setting up several handicraft and tailoring classes in Kandahar and adjoining provinces.
"The aim of holding literacy and vocational classes is to promote women activities, help them stand on their feet and encourage them to contribute in the rebuilding process of the country," said managing director of the body, Sohila, who like Spina, goes by only one name.
At first, Spina said, her father and brothers did not want her to go to school because all the teachers there are males.
But scores of other women, almost all wearing burka, a traditional Afghan Islamic dress that covers head to toe, have been receiving training in the classes.
According to Afghan officials, the rate of literacy for male in the war-hit country is 39 percent while female literacy rate remains at only 13 percent. Several thousand Kandahari women have graduated from literacy and vocational courses in Kandahar over the past six years, Sohila said.
"Now we can write and read. We can work as tailor to make money and support our families," a Burka wearing lady, Abida Jan said.
Some 8.4 million students, 39 percent of them girls, now go to school in the post-Taliban Afghanistan, according to officials.
Kandahar has also experienced acid attacks on school girls. In November 2008 three female students were attacked and their faces disfigured.
On May 16, in the latest Taliban attack in Kandahar, twin car bombs left nine people dead and 60 others injured, majority of them civilians.
Karzai receive honorary doctorate degree from Indian president
By GHANIZADA - 21 May 2013, 9:08 am Khaama Press
Afghan president Hamid Karzai received Doctors on Monday received Doctors of Letter Honoris Causa degree from Indian president Pranab Mukherjee at the third convocation of Lovely Professional University.
This is the first honoris causa degree awarded by the LPU which is one of the biggest private universities of India with nearly 30,000 on-campus students.
President Hamid Karzai is on a three-day state visit to India to meet with the Indian officials to discuss issues of mutual interest and seek India’s enhanced military cooperation.
Karzai praising New Delhi’s cooperation to Afghanistan acknowledged India as a friend of Afghanistan in uplifting the standard of education through its immense contribution.
He said India has already given 2,000 scholarships to Afghan students.
“India has done not only that but has gone much beyond that as it has contributed two billion dollars of its tax payers money for betterment of Afghanistan by building up infrastructure there,” Karzai quoted by Times of India said.
Karzai further added, “Need of education in Afghanistan, particularly higher education, is great. Chancellor of LPU, Ashok Mittal has offered to take as many students as Afghanistan would wish to send here on scholarship.”
“As you progress in these sectors you must remember the background of your great civilization on this earth,” Karzai said while pointing towards India’s fast rising development in industrial and technological sectors.
This is Mr Karzai’s second visit to India in the last six months.
India is playing a key role in Afghanistan reconstruction and has invested more than US $2 billion in Afghan infrastructure, including highways and hospitals and rural electricity projects.
New Delhi is hoping to gain some influence in the country after 2014, when Western troops exit Afghanistan completely and Afghan forces become responsible for the country’s security.
Afghan Security Forces Capable Enough To Take Charge of Security: ISAF Commander
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi 20 May 2013
The Commander of ISAF, General Joseph F. Dunford said that Afghan forces have the capability to take charge of security from the foreign forces and make arrangements for the upcoming Presidential elections.
All the Police Chiefs of Afghanistan got together at a conference in Kabul with the ISAF Commander.
General Joseph Dunford is confident that Afghan security forces can take charge of all military operations from June, 2013 onward.
Afghan Interior Minister, Ghulam Mojtaba Patang said that Afghan police should be equipped with all necessary weapons to keep all the achievements made intact.
The issue of lack of police equipments, evaluating the challenges faced by the police and providing security for the upcoming Presidential elections in 2014 were discussed at the conference.
Patang pointed out all of the achievements that Afghanistan had made in the last decade at the conference.
"Democracy, an elected government, a Parliament, human rights, progress within the army and security intelligence are the segments where success has been achieved and all this should be used to bring peace in the country," Ghulam Mojtaba Patang said.
Meanwhile, General Joseph Dunford believing on the ability of Afghan security forces said, "You have given your lives for the people of Afghanistan, your commitment for a better future in Afghanistan gives me hope. When people ask me where we are in a campaign? I respond by answering three fundamental questions: Can Afghan forces soon assume a lead for responsibility for security this June? The answer is yes. Can Afghan forces provide a secure environment within which to conduct elections in 2014? The answer is yes. And will we be able to effect full security transition in December 2014? The answer is yes."
The comment from the General clearly showed the level of confidence he has on the Afghan security forces.
"The Army and police have some defects. We should tactfully rectify them," Afghanistan Chief of Staff Sher Mohammad Karimi said.
Afghan security forces are passing through a sensitive phase, security transition and upcoming Presidential elections are some of the major challenges.
Afghan peace lost in transition worries
Washington Post By Pamela Constable Tuesday, May 21, 2013
KABUL - Amid the scattered but steadily mounting carnage of the Taliban’s annual spring offensive, including a suicide bombing Monday that killed a provincial council head, hopes of stirring life into peace talks with the Islamist insurgents seem to be dying here with each new suicide attack, kidnapping and roadside bombing.
Even as this fragile nation of about 30 million holds its breath, fearing catastrophe could follow the presidential election and NATO troop pullout next year, both the Afghan government and its armed opponents seem to think that time is on their side. A once-acute feeling of urgency to end the war seems to have been overtaken by uneasy, tenuous maneuvering in a vast political fog.
“Everything in Afghanistan seems very ambiguous now,” said Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban diplomat and a member of the government-appointed peace council. “There are a hundred questions to be answered, but nothing is clear, and we have no magic formula.”
Failure of initiatives
Just a few months ago, momentum seemed to be building for rapprochement. In December, Afghan officials, political opposition figures and Taliban leaders held private discussions in Paris. Several participants described the meetings as a breakthrough, yet no concrete actions or agreements emerged from them.
A planned Taliban office in Qatar, where the insurgents could meet with Afghan and foreign officials to talk about peace negotiations, did not get off the ground before the summer fighting season began this year. Although President Hamid Karzai, who had balked at the idea, finally reached agreement with Qatar in April, the Taliban — which has insisted that it will talk only with the Americans and not with Karzai — has expressed little recent interest in moving forward.
Talks between the Americans and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, ended early last year, and a tentative deal to exchange prisoners and implement other confidence-building measures fell apart. Those discussions have not resumed, according to Obama administration officials.
The common denominator that played a part in undoing both initiatives, observers said, was the deep hostility and mistrust between Taliban leaders and Karzai. The Taliban does not recognize the Kabul government as legitimate, calling it a Western-installed puppet. The group has demanded a new constitution and says it prefers to negotiate with a wide range of Afghans and foreign interlocutors.
“The Taliban say Karzai is the biggest obstacle to peace,” said Waheed Mojda, a political analyst and former Taliban ministry employee. “They discovered in Paris that they have a lot in common with some of his opponents, and they have the same questions everyone else does about 2014. Once Karzai is gone from power, they want to be in communication with other parties and movements.”
Aides to Karzai, however, said they are convinced that despite the more-moderate tone being adopted by Taliban leaders today, they remain ruthless extremists who want to forcibly turn Afghanistan into a pure Islamic state. Karzai, who shares ethnic and tribal roots with the Taliban, was once fond of calling the group’s members “brothers,” but his comments have taken a harsher, more exasperated tone of late.
“We need a just and enduring peace, not a quick deal with the Taliban,” said Ismael Qasimyar, a longtime Karzai aide and peace council member. “The Taliban talk about girls’ education and political pluralism now, but they think that after the NATO troops withdraw, they can conquer and rule us again. . . . We will never sacrifice a single Afghan’s rights just to get a settlement with the Taliban.”
Mounting concerns
Several other factors have contributed to deepening pessimism about prospects for peace. Most dramatic is a renewed surge in Taliban violence this spring, which has left hundreds of Afghan police officers, soldiers and civilians dead, along with 57 coalition troops, from March to May. The southern-based insurgents have staged small attacks and bombings across hundreds of miles and more than a dozen provinces.
In the latest attack, a suicide bombing killed 14 people Monday, including the provincial council head of Baghlan, a relatively peaceful and secure province in the northeast. The attacker approached the official, a known anti-Taliban figure, as he talked with a group outside his office in the city of Pul-i-Khumri. The Taliban swiftly asserted responsibility for the bombing.
NATO and Afghan officials point out that most attacks are still confined to a few small areas of the country and that the insurgents lack the capacity to confront Afghan and coalition troops, who far outnumber them. But the growing number of attacks on civilians this year has alarmed Afghans and international observers, and many express concern that Afghan troops will not be able to provide security in many regions during the election next year.
Another widely shared concern here is whether Pakistan, a powerful neighbor that many Afghans mistrust, will hinder the peace process and take advantage of a tumultuous transitional year to weaken the Kabul government. Afghan officials say Pakistan wields strong influence over the Taliban and is in no hurry to bring the group to the negotiating table.
Pakistan “does not want a strong Afghan government; it wants a slice of the cake of Afghan power,” Qasimyar said. “Pakistani officials repeatedly say they want peace and stability for Afghanistan, but Pakistan is a nursery and exporter for extremism. Taliban leaders living in Pakistan need to get out of there, so they will be free to think and be independent and engage in peace.”
Beyond any single source of worry, though, analysts and officials here said the broad questions associated with the upcoming transition seem to have overwhelmed the narrower demands and conditions for peace. Who will govern the country? Will the defense forces hold together or disintegrate into ethnic factions? Will the war economy collapse? Will the neighbors interfere? Will any Americans stay beyond 2014, and what will be the function of those troops?
“For everyone, 2014 is the big nightmare,” Mujahid said. “There is a great gap between the people and the government, but I see little chance for a legitimate election that will bring stability. As long as the future is not clear, I think there is nothing we can do for peace.”
Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
Afghan archaeology site faces rocky future
Ancient ruins of Mes Aynak threatened by planned Chinese mining project.
Aljazeera By Jennifer Glasse 20 May 2013
Mes Aynak, Afghanistan - Ruins dot each hilltop in mountainous Mes Aynak, an hour's drive south of the capital Kabul. Buddhist monasteries stood here for hundreds of years, and Afghan workers under the supervision of archaeologists are racing to uncover remnants of the past.
The four-square-kilometre site contains the remains of 2,000-year-old villages, but archaeologists say they believe the area has likely been inhabited for 5,000 years. Green-tinged rocks are everywhere: in the ancient walls, jutting out of the ground. That's because this is one of the most copper-rich spots in the world.
It's also why archaeologists have a sense of urgency to uncover Mes Aynak. The mining rights to the area have been sold to a Chinese company in a $3bn deal, Afghanistan's largest commercial contract.
The prospect of mining threatens the ancient site.
"The copper will be extracted from this area. They will blow up these mountains to get to it," explains Afghan archaeologist Mohammed Rabi Sabiri.
He is helping preserve what is being uncovered here. "It's clear there is pressure, but we continue to work here. The work you see here should have taken 10 years, but we have done it in four years, and we keep on working."
Buddhist statues of all sizes have been found in the dozen monasteries, some with astonishing details - one is colourful, still vividly painted on the front and back. Another has its centuries-old gold gilding largely intact.
A selection of statues, pottery and other articles found is on display at the National Museum in Kabul. They are made of wood, clay, copper and gold. Many artefacts remain in storage. There are plans to build another museum in Logar province, close to Mes Aynak, but building has not begun.
At the site itself, life-size clay statues are kept under plastic, protecting them from snow, wind and rain until archaeologists can apply special chemicals to harden the clay so they can be safely moved intact. The monasteries are dotted with ancient stupas, constructed with intricately laid rock. The bases of these Buddhist shrines were likely once home to relics, the painted plaster that once covered them has mostly worn off. Here and there, some clay details remain.
Historical significance
Archaeologist Philippe Marquis, with the French organisation DAFA (La Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan), has been excavating since the site was reopened in 2009. He says Mes Aynak is crucial to understanding what was happening in the region from the first to seventh centuries AD.
"We know there was a very important commercial network in this area which is called the Silk Road. So we think that this Silk Road could also have been a Buddhist road - and could have been also a copper road," Marquis explains.
That is what makes the site unique, he says. "What is specifically very interesting on this site is connection between the Buddhist monasteries and the copper mining. Until now it's something that had never really been worked on.
"So I think that everything we are getting from this site is going to be fresh information, very new data about a period, philosophical movement, Buddhism, and specifically it's going to add a lot of things about the ancient history of this country."
With prospects of copper mining looming large, its a race against time for the archaeologists. But it seems they would have more time than they had orginally thought. There's already a camp of white buildings with bright blue roofs surrounded by hectares of green fencing dotted with guard towers. It all sits empty right now. There's no electricity or water supply to the camp; the guard towers are empty. The area still needs a main road and a railway to get the copper out, and there's no sign that construction is under way.
The United Nations' cultural arm, UNESCO, is also stepping in to help the excavation project.
"We want to preserve and protect the maximum possible what is there," says UNESCO director general Irina Bokova. "At the same time we understand that economic development is a problem for the country. The good news is, I think, we have some time, probably some three years to work on this."
On a two-day visit to Afghanistan in May 2013, Bokova secured the cooperation of the Afghan Ministries of Culture and Mining, as well as funding from the World Bank, to ensure preservation continues at Mes Aynak.
The 'Pompeii of Afghanistan'?
The site has the potential to become the Pompeii of Afghanistan, where visitors could walk through the monasteries and the nearby communities that supported this once-thriving area. But the planned mine and the precarious security situation in Afghanistan makes that an impossibility for now.
Afghan archaeologist Omar Sultan first visited Mes Aynak in the 1970s, when he says everything was still under the soil. He's now the liaison between the Afghan government and those at the site, and is realistic about what can be achieved here.
"In order to save this we have to remove all of these things ... so that the people of Afghanistan can see that this is what it was, and this is what we saved."
Sultan says there's nothing wrong with allowing mining to progress here, even if it means the ancient structures of Mes Aynak will be destroyed. The key, he says, is to learn as much as possible from the site and ensure the information and as many artefacts as possible are preserved and shown to the people of Afghanistan.
But even that will be a challenge, Marquis says. "One of the problems of today's Afghanistan is there is still not enough capacity locally to deal with management of cultural heritage," he explains.
"Cultural heritage is something which is fragile - something that needs to be cared about. And if we don't care about [it] properly, I would say it is all part of a memory which are going to be erased, but erased forever."
Afghan president Hamid Karzai to seek military aid as he arrives in India
Karzai is expected to ask India for help with 'military needs and shortages' during three-day visit to subcontinent
The Guardian By Jason Burke 20 May 2013
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has arrived in Delhi on a three-day visit during which he is expected to ask India to boost its assistance to Afghan armed forces.
The request would heighten tensions in the region, and raise concerns among western observers of a fierce battle for influence in Afghanistan after the bulk of US forces are withdrawn next year.
Key Karzai aides said last weekend the Afghan leader would be asking India to help "with military needs and shortages".
India and Afghanistan signed a strategic agreement two years ago and a number of Afghan army officers are being trained at Indian institutions. Officials in Kabul have repeatedly stressed that they are short of planes, heavy weapons, armoured vehicles and a range of other military supplies.
However, any transfers of Indian arms to Kabul would be seen as deeply provocative by neighbouring Pakistan, where senior military decision-makers have long been concerned about Indian influence in Afghanistan.
Indian officials told the Guardian they saw the statements from Kabul as "messaging", rather than a serious proposal.
"There are mechanisms to discuss those kind of issues. We are already providing equipment and assistance within our modest capabilities," one senior official said.
He also stressed that Delhi was also aware of "regional sensitivities".
Over the coming months, Indian policymakers will have to balance a desire to bolster influence in Kabul with hopes to improve relations with Islamabad. The election of Nawaz Sharif for a third time as Pakistan's prime minister 10 days ago has been broadly welcomed in Delhi.
Sharif, a rightwing businessman, has said he wants to see better ties with his country's giant eastern neighbour.
Afghan officials have explicitly linked the appeal for military assistance to a series of recent clashes between Pakistani and Afghan border guards and even suggested that they might ask India for artillery. Both Kabul and Islamabad accuse each other of harbouring militants who launch cross-border raids.
The Afghan ambassador in Delhi last week said that Karzai would seek further co-operation to tackle "terrorist groups".
"The Afghans are sending a very clear signal to India saying they are looking for more commitment. They are looking at the situation post-2014 and telling the Indians: show us that you are serious," said Raja C Mohan, a respected Delhi-based analyst.
Karzai's visit to Delhi, ostensibly to collect an honorary degree, follows that of Li Keqiang, the Chinese prime minister, in a hectic few days for diplomacy in the Indian capital.
Though Li made India the first destination of his maiden overseas trip, talks with Indian officials were overshadowed by a recent standoff between Indian and Chinese troops at a remote disputed point on their long and often ill-defined border. The confrontation in Ladakh, in the western Himalayas, was resolved only two weeks ago. Though both Li and his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, emphasised their desire to focus on trade between the two emerging economic powers, tensions were evident.
Indian officials told the Guardian that the border dispute had prompted a review of the relationship with Beijing.
"It was best to indicate that upfront as an area of concern," one said.
Li will travel on Tuesday to Islamabad, underlining another dynamic in the region with the potential to cause instability. Though the depth of the relationship is sometimes exaggerated, Pakistan and China have built closer links in recent years. India is also concerned about Beijing's relationship with Sri Lanka and its presence in Bangladesh.
Sharif Calls for Peace Talks With Pakistani Taliban
VOA News Ayaz Gul May 20, 2013
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif, who is set to become prime minister for a third time after his party won recent parliamentary elections, on Monday called for peace talks with domestic Taliban extremists, saying “this is the best option” to fight militancy.
Addressing newly elected federal and provincial lawmakers of his Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party in Lahore, Sharif described terrorism as “the most serious challenge” facing the country.
Without eliminating this “menace” and establishing peace in Pakistan, he added, attempts to revive the national economy and overcome a deepening energy crisis will not succeed.
The presumptive prime minister has in the past favored peace talks between the militants and the government, but Monday’s statement was the first time he has done so publicly since his party scored a resounding victory in May 11 national elections.
Sharif says he has long called for resolving the issue of militancy through peaceful negotiations because using “guns and bullets only” can never be a solution to the problem. The “offer should be taken seriously,” he says, if Taliban militants are ready to engage in a peace dialogue with the government.
He was referring to a recent offer of peace talks by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, which is an alliance of Islamist groups waging a bloody insurgency against the Pakistani state.
Sharif says that the bloody war has killed more than 40,000 Pakistanis and caused billions of dollars in losses to the national economy.
He says there is nothing wrong in sitting across the table and engaging in talks with militants. “If it can help bring peace to the country, in my view it is the best option,” the former prime minister added.
Pakistan’s partnership in the U.S.-led counter-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan and military offensive against Taliban bases in the northwestern border regions over the past decade has prompted retaliatory suicide and other terrorist attacks in the country.
Recent media reports quoted a Taliban spokesman as saying they may declare a ceasefire if the Sharif party demonstrated seriousness in holding peace talks.
Critics are skeptical about the success of any future talks between Pakistani authorities and the Taliban. Previous peace deals with the militants, they say, have only allowed the insurgents to regroup.
Sharif is seen as a conservative Muslim and has always enjoyed the support of right-wing forces in the country. His party is expected to form a stable government at the federal level and in two of the country’s four provinces, including Punjab, the power base of Pakistan.
Applying Early Lessons to Build Afghan Security
The New York Times By Thom Shanker Military Memo May 20, 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan - As a young Army Green Beret major in December 2001, Don Bolduc fought shoulder to shoulder in an offensive against Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital, with a little-known Pashtun resistance commander named Hamid Karzai.
The offensive was nearly aborted when a 2,000-pound bomb dropped from a high-altitude American B-52 fell on their position, a friendly fire catastrophe that killed three Green Berets and five Afghan militiamen — and could have ended the life of the future Afghan president.
His hip damaged in the blast, Major Bolduc declined medical evacuation. He tended to the grim task of gathering the remains of the fallen soldiers, and, resuming their advance, Mr. Karzai’s militia and the Army Special Forces advisers swept into Kandahar, routing the Taliban in retaliation for supporting Al Qaeda in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
That campaign sealed the success of the American invasion, an early example of the emerging new way of war in which tiny bands of Special Operations forces successfully trained and organized larger units of local fighters to advance a grander, shared security agenda.
The young major spent five years deployed to Afghanistan after the fall of Kandahar, and is now a brigadier general. But in the more than 11 years since that offensive the war at times shifted to a conventional fight even as it became a sideshow after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Today, though, as the deputy commander of all Special Operations forces in the country, General Bolduc is reapplying lessons of that first victory, creating a program to train Afghan villagers to protect their homes from insurgents.
“What inspired me was my first rotation here into Afghanistan, where I learned how to use the tribes and other ethnic groups to secure local and rural areas with small numbers of people,” General Bolduc said.
“I saw the power of this culture in protecting itself at the local level, which I believe is the secret to security in Afghanistan — at the district level and below,” General Bolduc said. “You can be very effective, but in a way that is traditional, and congruent with how they have protected themselves for hundreds of years.”
Critics say the initiative, called Afghan Local Police and now with a roster of 22,150 in 55 village districts across the country, risks creating rogue militias that could turn against the central government. And some local policemen indeed have been responsible for atrocities.
But supporters, including senior Afghan Interior Ministry officials and some high-profile provincial governors, say the program is the key to a long-term security strategy that requires building layer upon layer of defense from the borders inward to Kabul, and from the village up to the provincial capitals. But they demand that it fall under strict government control.
General Bolduc is quick to point out that despite early misgiving by the leadership in Kabul, the Afghan Local Police program is officially approved in a lengthy order — 9 chapters and 49 articles — signed in April by the Afghan government.
And he says that any successes are a tribute to what he learned about “Afghan mud-hut diplomacy” from Mr. Karzai and from Gul Agha Shirzai, the first governor of liberated Kandahar, as well as to the continuing ongoing efforts by the more than 50 small teams of Marines, Navy SEALs and Green Berets now in the field training local police units.
But as General Bolduc prepares to leave Afghanistan after his ninth tour, the Afghan Local Police program will be his legacy. “Don Bolduc is the godfather of the A.L.P.,” said Maj. Gen. Tony Thomas, the senior Special Operations commander here.
Statistics compiled by the Special Operations headquarters show an unexpected resilience within the Afghan Local Police force, which had higher casualty rates but lower attrition last year than the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.
But, like those larger security organizations, it has been found guilty of gross misbehavior. The most horrific was a case in which four members of a local police unit in the insurgent-contested province of Kunduz were convicted in November in the rape of a shepherd’s 18-year-old daughter.
General Bolduc said 96 allegations of misconduct by Afghan Local Police members had been investigated, with 77 found valid, resulting in administration release from the program or jail time. The International Committee of the Red Cross is now deeply involved in the 21-day training program for recruits, conducting programs in human rights as well as first aid.
From the capital to the provinces, senior officials now embrace the Afghan Local Police program, with the caveat that it must remain folded under the authorities of the official Interior Ministry police forces.
In an interview at his Kabul headquarters, Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahman, the Afghan deputy interior minister, described the Afghan Local Police program as “the most beautiful ingredient” in the emerging, multilayered security architecture for the nation. And out in the far west, the governor of Herat Province, Daud Shah Saba, said, “The A.L.P. will be ‘the’ solution, so long as the police department supports the program and remains in firm control over its activities.”
General Bolduc agrees that oversight of the A.L.P. is “a valid concern.”
“We don’t want to put guns in the hands of people and not have them accountable,” he added. He said the whole program was expected to report to the government through the Ministry of the Interior.
“We’ve moved through different periods of this war, applying different types of combat power,” General Bolduc said. “But it wasn’t until we came to grips with the fact that this was a counterinsurgency, it was rural based, that we had to start thinking about the center of gravity, which is the populace, and conducting operations that complement each other.”
General Bolduc acknowledges there is a “back to the future” feel to the Afghan Local Police effort, not only because it draws on the lessons from the initial offensive to topple the Taliban but also because it is related to a traditional core mission of Army Special Forces; since their founding, the Green Berets have specialized in training partnerships with indigenous security forces. That has been a shared effort of General Bolduc and his two brothers, raised on a maple syrup farm in New England: One brother was also among the Green Beret units to first land in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, and the other continues to serve as a Special Forces officer.
As he prepares to depart for a senior assignment with the military’s Africa Command, General Bolduc is most concerned about ensuring the Afghan Local Police effort becomes what is termed a “program of record” with long-term support from the central government.
“Some of the mistakes we’ve made over here is that we have created things they can’t sustain,” General Bolduc said. “The A.L.P. is a program they can manage over time by themselves.”
Upgrading Air Force and Stopping Terror Activities on High Priority: MoD
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian 20 May 2013
Based on the information received by the Ministry of Defense (MoD), all Madrasas (religious schools) which previously were the hotspots for terror activities in Pakistan have been closed and all the students of these Madrasa are now being sent to Afghanistan to carry out insurgent activities.
Spokesperson of the Ministry, General Zahir Azimi said that even though the Taliban activities have increased in the country but the Afghan National Army (ANA) has the ability to eliminate these threats.
Meanwhile, the National Security Council has ordered Ministry of Finance to buy five Russian Antonov cargo and transportation planes for the Ministry of Defense at a cost of $100 million.
General Zahir Azimi said, "Our information indicates that all madrasas which could give boost terrorism have been shut and now in order to keep the terror activities going the students are being sent to Afghanistan to carry out suicide attacks. But our security forces like always have the ability to remove all these threats and keep the situation under control."
In the meantime, Afghan security forces are facing numerous challenges including lack of facilities in Afghan Air force which was emphasized by the MoD.
General Zahir Azimi said, "The main challenge is to upgrade the Afghan Air Forces for which the Minister of Defense has expressed his concerns and the National Security Council decided to buy five Russian Antonov cargo planes."
Najeebullah Manilai Advisor to the Ministry of Finance said, "The Ministry of Finance will discuss the issue with the Ministry of Defense and money for buying these planes will be sanctioned."
It seems that government's concentration on the upgradation of the Air Force is high on pirority.
Meanwhile, ISAF called its training sessions for the Afghan security forces to be in line with Nato standards. ISAF Spokesperson General Gunter Katz believes that in the upcoming years, Afghan pilots would be able to match the level of a Nato pilot in terms of competency.
General Katz said, "I am a pilot and I went to training facilities in Shendand and Kabul and I flew MI17 planes. As a Nato pilot I can tell you what I have seen, those young student pilots are doing extremely well and each of those student pilots from Afghanistan could be a NATO pilot in the future because of high standards that I have seen in the Shendend and Kabul facilities. You can be very proud of your Air Force and your pilots who will protect you in the future. On top of it this is a moment as the first female pilot recently graduated from Shendend, which is yet another success story for the Afghan Air Force."
Air force is known to be an important part of defense forces for each country. Afghanistan is endeavoring to own a fully equipped and powerful air force but still there exists some major challenges.
Correction: TOLOnews apologies for misspelling the name of the ISAF Spokesman Gen Gunter Katz.
With end of Afghan war in sight, Europe pushes business
Reuters By Amie Ferris-Rotman 20 May, 2013
Herat, Afghanistan - The European Union threw its weight behind developing Afghanistan's small but promising private sector this week, in the hope that business can usher in stability and peace once foreign troops leave by the end of next year.
In the largest ever EU visit outside the capital Kabul in 12 years of war, a 21-country delegation of envoys jetted to the western city of Herat on Sunday, whose flurry of business activity is largely seen as a rare success story in desperately poor, insurgency-plagued Afghanistan.
War and tens of billions of dollars in constant aid have made Afghanistan a ward of the international community, though vast potential mineral resources and pent-up business desire amongst educated youths mean the environment could be changing.
The EU chose Herat for its trip as "we are encouraged by the province's vision, its ability to attract foreign investment", the bloc's representative to Afghanistan, Vygaudas Usackas, told Herat governor Daoud Saba at his summer home overlooking the city, where high-rise apartments glistened in the sun.
Saba, appointed three years ago largely for his expertise in minerals, called his large and fertile province, one of 34 in the country, a "stand-alone island".
Herat's $1-billion a year economy, mostly from agriculture, industry and mining, led the province to contribute almost a fifth of the country's revenue last year.
"Afghanistan is slowly, slowly becoming another country, moving from the Kabul-centric way of things," Italian ambassador Luciano Pezzotti, whose embassy and military organised the EU trip to Herat, told Reuters.
The fourth-largest contributor to the NATO-led war, almost all of Italy's 3,000 troops are in Herat.
German ambassador Rudiger Koenig said Herat, which enjoys better security than the Taliban strongholds of the south and east, should serve as a "blueprint" for the rest of the country.
Despite Western sanctions denting the economy of much richer Iran, with which Afghanistan shares a long and porous border, Herat enjoys robust trade with its Muslim neighbour and is expected to more than double its output over the next decade, spurred by the private sector, Saba said.
In 2012, 8.4 percent of Afghanistan's annual GDP of around $20 billion was from the private sector, according to the Asian Development Bank, up 1 percent on the year before.
Its "made in Herat" goods, particularly white marble, own-brand Super Cola, and the country's most successful ice cream company, "Herat Ice Cream", have already come to symbolise quality beyond Herat's borders.
Britain-based firm Cashmere Fibres International Limited is expected to soon move its dehairing facility to Herat, the embassy said, in a bid to boost the private sector.
PepsiCo opens its first plant in Afghanistan in 2014
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 20 May 2013, 9:30 pm Khaama Press
One of the largest global and multinational American food and beverage corporation PepsiCo plans to open its first plant in Afghanistan in 2014.
The investment by PepsiCo comes amid concerns regarding the economy of the country beyond 2014 after NATO troops leave the country after 13 years of war, which will leave hundreds of Afghans working for foreign troops unemployed.
However there are still optimisms regarding the investment by multinational companies specifically in mining sector which will boost the economy of Afghanistan and will contribute towards the self-sufficiency of the country.
Hamed Kakar, head of the marketing for Dubai-based Alokozay group of companies, which will partner with PepsiCo for the investment of the plant told Reuters News agency in interview, “It will go on stream in 2014.”
Alokozay group of companies will invest around $60 million to build the plant which will provide around 3,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The investment will also prevent import of Pepsi products from neighboring Pakistan.
According to reports Pepsi plant will be built in Kabul industrial zone near Coca-Cola plant which returned to Afghanistan in 2006 after almost a decade break.
US military praises Pakistan’s steps to curb fertilizers used in Afghanistan bombs
Associated Press May 20, 2013
Islamabad - Pakistan has taken a number of steps to prevent fertilizers made within its borders for agriculture from being used as explosives in roadside bombs that target American troops in Afghanistan, said a top U.S. military officer Monday.
Brig. Gen. Robert P. Walters Jr., deputy director of the U.S. military’s Joint IED Defeat Organization, spoke in a conference arranged by the Pakistani military in the capital of Islamabad on ways to counter the bombs — often referred to as improvised explosive devices — that account for the vast majority of casualties in Afghanistan.
Many of the homemade bombs used in Afghanistan contain materials derived from calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer produced in Pakistan at two factories. The fertilizer becomes a powerful explosive when mixed with fuel oil. The fertilizer issue has been a bone of contention between often wary allies, the U.S. and Pakistan.
The U.S. has pushed Pakistan for greater regulation of the fertilizer, which Pakistan says is necessary for its vital agriculture sector. The Lahore-based Fatima Group owns the two factories where the fertilizers are made.
Just last Friday, officials in Indiana withdrew state backing for a fertilizer plant being built in conjunction with the Fatima Group because state officials said they were concerned about whether the company’s owners were doing enough to keep the potentially explosive material from being used against U.S. troops.
Walters said Pakistan has reinforced its border to prevent the fertilizer from being smuggled into Afghanistan. He also said the Fatima Group has improved its distribution, packaging and tracking procedures to prevent fertilizers from falling into the wrong hands.
“The government of Pakistan has done several things to assist in this counter IED effort,” he said, although he cautioned that more work needs to be done.
At the same time, other ingredients are increasingly being used as the main ingredient in the bombs. Walters said 47 percent of the homemade IEDs used in Afghanistan are made with material derived from calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer. But he said that potassium chlorate is now the main charge in 45 percent of the bombs — an increase from 20 percent a year ago.
About 80 percent of the IEDs that the U.S. and its allies encounter are termed “homemade,” while others are made from old shells or other explosive ordinance.
Pakistan has at times bristled at the suggestion that it alone is responsible for the IED problem in neighboring Afghanistan, and pointed out that its own citizens and soldiers have suffered extensively from roadside bombs.
Pakistan has been battling an insurgency in the tribal areas in the northwestern part of the country bordering Afghanistan for years. Militants often target Pakistani troops or civilians using roadside bombs, and tens of thousands of people have been killed and maimed over the years.
Pakistan’s top military officer, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said that the focus on calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizers has created the perception that controlling that element alone will remove the “menace of IEDs.”
“There is evidence that as Pakistan tightens its control of use and distribution of CAN, terrorists simply switch to other precursors,” he said during the conference.
Afghanistan catching up with the Internet and modern lifestyle
Xinhua By Abdul Haleem May 20, 2013
KABUL - Some 12 years ago, it was unthinkable to have Internet cafes in Afghanistan. But today, Kabul, and some other cities and towns in the country, have Internet shops where Afghans, especially students, can surf and look for the information that they need.
"I go the Internet cafe usually twice a week to gather information about Afghanistan's contemporary history as well as on other topics, such as World War II and about Adolf Hitler," Mohammad Omar, a Kabul University student, said.
Although there is a public library in Kabul, the vast majority of students prefer to go to Internet shops where they can get the necessary information through search engines without any hassle.
Despite being a conservative country where tribalism is deeply rooted, Afghanistan has no recourse but to move towards modernization and join the computer age otherwise it will be left behind.
Even in Kandahar, once the bailiwick of the Taliban, there are universities, schools and Internet shops that are open to both men and women.
During the six-year Taliban rule, which collapsed after the invasion of the country by the U.S.-led military coalition in late 2001, the Internet was banned, schools for girls were closed, and men were forced to wear turban, sport beard and study theology.
The Taliban also confined women to their houses and forced them to wear burqa whenever they come out of their houses. They were not allowed to walk in the streets without male escorts.
Today, according to officials, nearly two million Afghans have access to the Internet. Around 22 million Afghans, or some 72 percent of the country's population, have now access to phone services, a tremendous achievement that would be unthinkable decade ago.
Now parents, even in rural areas, are sending their daughters to school, a practice that was taboo during the brutal reign of the Taliban.
"I want my daughters to become doctors and serve the patients particularly the female ones," Abdul Qadir, a villager in Baghlan province, said during a recent interview with Xinhua.
A farmer, Qadir, 41, said that he wants his three daughters to continue their studies until they become doctors, adding that by being medical practitioners, his daughters can best serve their fellow Afghans, particularly the poor.
Aside from dreaming big dreams, there is now a perceptible change in lifestyle and standard of living in Afghanistan, not just in Kabul but also in the countryside.
Some villagers who have adequate incomes have now abandoned their traditional mud houses but built concrete houses.
Afghans today, even in the remote areas, listen to music, watch television and enjoy European and Asian channels with the use of satellite disks, something that they could not have enjoyed just a decade ago under the Taliban.
Some villagers, when they come to Kabul to study, often abandon the turban that their fathers wear. They now wear plain clothes replacing the traditional pirahan-tonban.
Even the traditional burqa, an envelope-like dress worn by Afghan women is also being gradually replaced by Iranian or Arabic hijab or veil that only partially covers the woman's face.
"We are young people and living in modern world, so it is unnecessary for us to wear heavy turban and carry a gun," a college student from the southern Helmand province, Ziarat Gul, told Xinhua.
In the rural areas, it is customary for a man to carry a gun. This is a part of their culture.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
VOA News May 21, 2013
Officials in western Afghanistan say a roadside bomb has killed six police officers.
Authorities say a vehicle the police were riding in was destroyed when it hit the bomb Tuesday in the Obe district of Herat province.
The police were assigned to work as guards on a dam project.
There was no claim of responsibility, but similar assaults often are blamed on the Taliban.
Meanwhile, a Taliban offensive in southern Afghanistan has killed four police officers.
Officials say a large number of Taliban fighters attacked several security checkpoints in Helmand province.
Pakistani and Chechen rebels attack police check post in Helmand
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 21 May 2013, 11:52 am Khaama Press
At least 23 Taliban militants including Pakistani and Chechen fighters were killed after attacking a police check post in southern Helmand province of Afghanistan.
Local officials in Helmand province said the incident took place in Sangin district, leaving four Afghan police officers dead.
Provincial governor spokesman Omar Zwak said the attack was carried out jointly by Pakistani and Chechen militants.
He said clashes started late Monday and the two sides are still exchanging fire.
In the meantime Taliban militants group claimed around 10 police officers along with thier commander were killed.
This comes as Afghan defense ministry on Monday announced that hundreds of Pakistani and foreign militants were deployed to Afghanistan to carry out attacks in Afghanistan.
Defense ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said several religious Madrasas teaching Taliban militants were closed and the fighters were deployed in Afghanistan.
Despite Taliban threats, Afghan women in Kandahar want to get educated
by Farid Behbud
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Despite Taliban threat and intimidation, more and more women in the southern Kandahar province, the erstwhile spiritual capital of the Taliban, have gone to school and get involved in social activities.
"Afghan women have realized that education is power. It is the key to succeed. Education changes the living conditions and the future of women. We have been living in a state of conflict and instability for three decades and it is time for us to get educated," Spina, 18, told Xinhua in a recent interview in Kandahar city, the provincial capital of Kandahar province, which is some 450 km south of Kabul.
Domestic violence, security problems and tribal traditions in parts of the conservative Afghanistan often bar girls to attend school or to get higher education.
"The uncertain security and intimidation make difficult to have equitable access to good quality education especially for girls. But despite these conditions, I attend a literacy class every day, " said Spina, who, like most Afghans has only one name, has also been a victim of violence against women.
Spina said that shortly after she got married, her mother-in- law began accusing her of not doing her household chores. She was also maltreated and this has ultimately led to her divorce and now she is living with her parents again. Spina's father, according to her, had paid more than 2,000 U.S. dollars to her in-laws so that they will agree to sign her divorce papers.
"If my husband's family were educated people, they would not have mistreated me," Spina said.
Up to now, the militant Taliban is still active in Kandahar. The fanatical group emerged in 1994 and disappeared in late 2001 following the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan.
During its rule, the Taliban had barred girls from schooling and confined women to their houses.
The Afghanistan Women Foundation, a non-government body supporting women rights in the conflict ridden country, runs literacy courses for women, besides setting up several handicraft and tailoring classes in Kandahar and adjoining provinces.
"The aim of holding literacy and vocational classes is to promote women activities, help them stand on their feet and encourage them to contribute in the rebuilding process of the country," said managing director of the body, Sohila, who like Spina, goes by only one name.
At first, Spina said, her father and brothers did not want her to go to school because all the teachers there are males.
But scores of other women, almost all wearing burka, a traditional Afghan Islamic dress that covers head to toe, have been receiving training in the classes.
According to Afghan officials, the rate of literacy for male in the war-hit country is 39 percent while female literacy rate remains at only 13 percent. Several thousand Kandahari women have graduated from literacy and vocational courses in Kandahar over the past six years, Sohila said.
"Now we can write and read. We can work as tailor to make money and support our families," a Burka wearing lady, Abida Jan said.
Some 8.4 million students, 39 percent of them girls, now go to school in the post-Taliban Afghanistan, according to officials.
Kandahar has also experienced acid attacks on school girls. In November 2008 three female students were attacked and their faces disfigured.
On May 16, in the latest Taliban attack in Kandahar, twin car bombs left nine people dead and 60 others injured, majority of them civilians.
Karzai receive honorary doctorate degree from Indian president
By GHANIZADA - 21 May 2013, 9:08 am Khaama Press
Afghan president Hamid Karzai received Doctors on Monday received Doctors of Letter Honoris Causa degree from Indian president Pranab Mukherjee at the third convocation of Lovely Professional University.
This is the first honoris causa degree awarded by the LPU which is one of the biggest private universities of India with nearly 30,000 on-campus students.
President Hamid Karzai is on a three-day state visit to India to meet with the Indian officials to discuss issues of mutual interest and seek India’s enhanced military cooperation.
Karzai praising New Delhi’s cooperation to Afghanistan acknowledged India as a friend of Afghanistan in uplifting the standard of education through its immense contribution.
He said India has already given 2,000 scholarships to Afghan students.
“India has done not only that but has gone much beyond that as it has contributed two billion dollars of its tax payers money for betterment of Afghanistan by building up infrastructure there,” Karzai quoted by Times of India said.
Karzai further added, “Need of education in Afghanistan, particularly higher education, is great. Chancellor of LPU, Ashok Mittal has offered to take as many students as Afghanistan would wish to send here on scholarship.”
“As you progress in these sectors you must remember the background of your great civilization on this earth,” Karzai said while pointing towards India’s fast rising development in industrial and technological sectors.
This is Mr Karzai’s second visit to India in the last six months.
India is playing a key role in Afghanistan reconstruction and has invested more than US $2 billion in Afghan infrastructure, including highways and hospitals and rural electricity projects.
New Delhi is hoping to gain some influence in the country after 2014, when Western troops exit Afghanistan completely and Afghan forces become responsible for the country’s security.
Afghan Security Forces Capable Enough To Take Charge of Security: ISAF Commander
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi 20 May 2013
The Commander of ISAF, General Joseph F. Dunford said that Afghan forces have the capability to take charge of security from the foreign forces and make arrangements for the upcoming Presidential elections.
All the Police Chiefs of Afghanistan got together at a conference in Kabul with the ISAF Commander.
General Joseph Dunford is confident that Afghan security forces can take charge of all military operations from June, 2013 onward.
Afghan Interior Minister, Ghulam Mojtaba Patang said that Afghan police should be equipped with all necessary weapons to keep all the achievements made intact.
The issue of lack of police equipments, evaluating the challenges faced by the police and providing security for the upcoming Presidential elections in 2014 were discussed at the conference.
Patang pointed out all of the achievements that Afghanistan had made in the last decade at the conference.
"Democracy, an elected government, a Parliament, human rights, progress within the army and security intelligence are the segments where success has been achieved and all this should be used to bring peace in the country," Ghulam Mojtaba Patang said.
Meanwhile, General Joseph Dunford believing on the ability of Afghan security forces said, "You have given your lives for the people of Afghanistan, your commitment for a better future in Afghanistan gives me hope. When people ask me where we are in a campaign? I respond by answering three fundamental questions: Can Afghan forces soon assume a lead for responsibility for security this June? The answer is yes. Can Afghan forces provide a secure environment within which to conduct elections in 2014? The answer is yes. And will we be able to effect full security transition in December 2014? The answer is yes."
The comment from the General clearly showed the level of confidence he has on the Afghan security forces.
"The Army and police have some defects. We should tactfully rectify them," Afghanistan Chief of Staff Sher Mohammad Karimi said.
Afghan security forces are passing through a sensitive phase, security transition and upcoming Presidential elections are some of the major challenges.
Afghan peace lost in transition worries
Washington Post By Pamela Constable Tuesday, May 21, 2013
KABUL - Amid the scattered but steadily mounting carnage of the Taliban’s annual spring offensive, including a suicide bombing Monday that killed a provincial council head, hopes of stirring life into peace talks with the Islamist insurgents seem to be dying here with each new suicide attack, kidnapping and roadside bombing.
Even as this fragile nation of about 30 million holds its breath, fearing catastrophe could follow the presidential election and NATO troop pullout next year, both the Afghan government and its armed opponents seem to think that time is on their side. A once-acute feeling of urgency to end the war seems to have been overtaken by uneasy, tenuous maneuvering in a vast political fog.
“Everything in Afghanistan seems very ambiguous now,” said Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban diplomat and a member of the government-appointed peace council. “There are a hundred questions to be answered, but nothing is clear, and we have no magic formula.”
Failure of initiatives
Just a few months ago, momentum seemed to be building for rapprochement. In December, Afghan officials, political opposition figures and Taliban leaders held private discussions in Paris. Several participants described the meetings as a breakthrough, yet no concrete actions or agreements emerged from them.
A planned Taliban office in Qatar, where the insurgents could meet with Afghan and foreign officials to talk about peace negotiations, did not get off the ground before the summer fighting season began this year. Although President Hamid Karzai, who had balked at the idea, finally reached agreement with Qatar in April, the Taliban — which has insisted that it will talk only with the Americans and not with Karzai — has expressed little recent interest in moving forward.
Talks between the Americans and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, ended early last year, and a tentative deal to exchange prisoners and implement other confidence-building measures fell apart. Those discussions have not resumed, according to Obama administration officials.
The common denominator that played a part in undoing both initiatives, observers said, was the deep hostility and mistrust between Taliban leaders and Karzai. The Taliban does not recognize the Kabul government as legitimate, calling it a Western-installed puppet. The group has demanded a new constitution and says it prefers to negotiate with a wide range of Afghans and foreign interlocutors.
“The Taliban say Karzai is the biggest obstacle to peace,” said Waheed Mojda, a political analyst and former Taliban ministry employee. “They discovered in Paris that they have a lot in common with some of his opponents, and they have the same questions everyone else does about 2014. Once Karzai is gone from power, they want to be in communication with other parties and movements.”
Aides to Karzai, however, said they are convinced that despite the more-moderate tone being adopted by Taliban leaders today, they remain ruthless extremists who want to forcibly turn Afghanistan into a pure Islamic state. Karzai, who shares ethnic and tribal roots with the Taliban, was once fond of calling the group’s members “brothers,” but his comments have taken a harsher, more exasperated tone of late.
“We need a just and enduring peace, not a quick deal with the Taliban,” said Ismael Qasimyar, a longtime Karzai aide and peace council member. “The Taliban talk about girls’ education and political pluralism now, but they think that after the NATO troops withdraw, they can conquer and rule us again. . . . We will never sacrifice a single Afghan’s rights just to get a settlement with the Taliban.”
Mounting concerns
Several other factors have contributed to deepening pessimism about prospects for peace. Most dramatic is a renewed surge in Taliban violence this spring, which has left hundreds of Afghan police officers, soldiers and civilians dead, along with 57 coalition troops, from March to May. The southern-based insurgents have staged small attacks and bombings across hundreds of miles and more than a dozen provinces.
In the latest attack, a suicide bombing killed 14 people Monday, including the provincial council head of Baghlan, a relatively peaceful and secure province in the northeast. The attacker approached the official, a known anti-Taliban figure, as he talked with a group outside his office in the city of Pul-i-Khumri. The Taliban swiftly asserted responsibility for the bombing.
NATO and Afghan officials point out that most attacks are still confined to a few small areas of the country and that the insurgents lack the capacity to confront Afghan and coalition troops, who far outnumber them. But the growing number of attacks on civilians this year has alarmed Afghans and international observers, and many express concern that Afghan troops will not be able to provide security in many regions during the election next year.
Another widely shared concern here is whether Pakistan, a powerful neighbor that many Afghans mistrust, will hinder the peace process and take advantage of a tumultuous transitional year to weaken the Kabul government. Afghan officials say Pakistan wields strong influence over the Taliban and is in no hurry to bring the group to the negotiating table.
Pakistan “does not want a strong Afghan government; it wants a slice of the cake of Afghan power,” Qasimyar said. “Pakistani officials repeatedly say they want peace and stability for Afghanistan, but Pakistan is a nursery and exporter for extremism. Taliban leaders living in Pakistan need to get out of there, so they will be free to think and be independent and engage in peace.”
Beyond any single source of worry, though, analysts and officials here said the broad questions associated with the upcoming transition seem to have overwhelmed the narrower demands and conditions for peace. Who will govern the country? Will the defense forces hold together or disintegrate into ethnic factions? Will the war economy collapse? Will the neighbors interfere? Will any Americans stay beyond 2014, and what will be the function of those troops?
“For everyone, 2014 is the big nightmare,” Mujahid said. “There is a great gap between the people and the government, but I see little chance for a legitimate election that will bring stability. As long as the future is not clear, I think there is nothing we can do for peace.”
Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
Afghan archaeology site faces rocky future
Ancient ruins of Mes Aynak threatened by planned Chinese mining project.
Aljazeera By Jennifer Glasse 20 May 2013
Mes Aynak, Afghanistan - Ruins dot each hilltop in mountainous Mes Aynak, an hour's drive south of the capital Kabul. Buddhist monasteries stood here for hundreds of years, and Afghan workers under the supervision of archaeologists are racing to uncover remnants of the past.
The four-square-kilometre site contains the remains of 2,000-year-old villages, but archaeologists say they believe the area has likely been inhabited for 5,000 years. Green-tinged rocks are everywhere: in the ancient walls, jutting out of the ground. That's because this is one of the most copper-rich spots in the world.
It's also why archaeologists have a sense of urgency to uncover Mes Aynak. The mining rights to the area have been sold to a Chinese company in a $3bn deal, Afghanistan's largest commercial contract.
The prospect of mining threatens the ancient site.
"The copper will be extracted from this area. They will blow up these mountains to get to it," explains Afghan archaeologist Mohammed Rabi Sabiri.
He is helping preserve what is being uncovered here. "It's clear there is pressure, but we continue to work here. The work you see here should have taken 10 years, but we have done it in four years, and we keep on working."
Buddhist statues of all sizes have been found in the dozen monasteries, some with astonishing details - one is colourful, still vividly painted on the front and back. Another has its centuries-old gold gilding largely intact.
A selection of statues, pottery and other articles found is on display at the National Museum in Kabul. They are made of wood, clay, copper and gold. Many artefacts remain in storage. There are plans to build another museum in Logar province, close to Mes Aynak, but building has not begun.
At the site itself, life-size clay statues are kept under plastic, protecting them from snow, wind and rain until archaeologists can apply special chemicals to harden the clay so they can be safely moved intact. The monasteries are dotted with ancient stupas, constructed with intricately laid rock. The bases of these Buddhist shrines were likely once home to relics, the painted plaster that once covered them has mostly worn off. Here and there, some clay details remain.
Historical significance
Archaeologist Philippe Marquis, with the French organisation DAFA (La Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan), has been excavating since the site was reopened in 2009. He says Mes Aynak is crucial to understanding what was happening in the region from the first to seventh centuries AD.
"We know there was a very important commercial network in this area which is called the Silk Road. So we think that this Silk Road could also have been a Buddhist road - and could have been also a copper road," Marquis explains.
That is what makes the site unique, he says. "What is specifically very interesting on this site is connection between the Buddhist monasteries and the copper mining. Until now it's something that had never really been worked on.
"So I think that everything we are getting from this site is going to be fresh information, very new data about a period, philosophical movement, Buddhism, and specifically it's going to add a lot of things about the ancient history of this country."
With prospects of copper mining looming large, its a race against time for the archaeologists. But it seems they would have more time than they had orginally thought. There's already a camp of white buildings with bright blue roofs surrounded by hectares of green fencing dotted with guard towers. It all sits empty right now. There's no electricity or water supply to the camp; the guard towers are empty. The area still needs a main road and a railway to get the copper out, and there's no sign that construction is under way.
The United Nations' cultural arm, UNESCO, is also stepping in to help the excavation project.
"We want to preserve and protect the maximum possible what is there," says UNESCO director general Irina Bokova. "At the same time we understand that economic development is a problem for the country. The good news is, I think, we have some time, probably some three years to work on this."
On a two-day visit to Afghanistan in May 2013, Bokova secured the cooperation of the Afghan Ministries of Culture and Mining, as well as funding from the World Bank, to ensure preservation continues at Mes Aynak.
The 'Pompeii of Afghanistan'?
The site has the potential to become the Pompeii of Afghanistan, where visitors could walk through the monasteries and the nearby communities that supported this once-thriving area. But the planned mine and the precarious security situation in Afghanistan makes that an impossibility for now.
Afghan archaeologist Omar Sultan first visited Mes Aynak in the 1970s, when he says everything was still under the soil. He's now the liaison between the Afghan government and those at the site, and is realistic about what can be achieved here.
"In order to save this we have to remove all of these things ... so that the people of Afghanistan can see that this is what it was, and this is what we saved."
Sultan says there's nothing wrong with allowing mining to progress here, even if it means the ancient structures of Mes Aynak will be destroyed. The key, he says, is to learn as much as possible from the site and ensure the information and as many artefacts as possible are preserved and shown to the people of Afghanistan.
But even that will be a challenge, Marquis says. "One of the problems of today's Afghanistan is there is still not enough capacity locally to deal with management of cultural heritage," he explains.
"Cultural heritage is something which is fragile - something that needs to be cared about. And if we don't care about [it] properly, I would say it is all part of a memory which are going to be erased, but erased forever."
Afghan president Hamid Karzai to seek military aid as he arrives in India
Karzai is expected to ask India for help with 'military needs and shortages' during three-day visit to subcontinent
The Guardian By Jason Burke 20 May 2013
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has arrived in Delhi on a three-day visit during which he is expected to ask India to boost its assistance to Afghan armed forces.
The request would heighten tensions in the region, and raise concerns among western observers of a fierce battle for influence in Afghanistan after the bulk of US forces are withdrawn next year.
Key Karzai aides said last weekend the Afghan leader would be asking India to help "with military needs and shortages".
India and Afghanistan signed a strategic agreement two years ago and a number of Afghan army officers are being trained at Indian institutions. Officials in Kabul have repeatedly stressed that they are short of planes, heavy weapons, armoured vehicles and a range of other military supplies.
However, any transfers of Indian arms to Kabul would be seen as deeply provocative by neighbouring Pakistan, where senior military decision-makers have long been concerned about Indian influence in Afghanistan.
Indian officials told the Guardian they saw the statements from Kabul as "messaging", rather than a serious proposal.
"There are mechanisms to discuss those kind of issues. We are already providing equipment and assistance within our modest capabilities," one senior official said.
He also stressed that Delhi was also aware of "regional sensitivities".
Over the coming months, Indian policymakers will have to balance a desire to bolster influence in Kabul with hopes to improve relations with Islamabad. The election of Nawaz Sharif for a third time as Pakistan's prime minister 10 days ago has been broadly welcomed in Delhi.
Sharif, a rightwing businessman, has said he wants to see better ties with his country's giant eastern neighbour.
Afghan officials have explicitly linked the appeal for military assistance to a series of recent clashes between Pakistani and Afghan border guards and even suggested that they might ask India for artillery. Both Kabul and Islamabad accuse each other of harbouring militants who launch cross-border raids.
The Afghan ambassador in Delhi last week said that Karzai would seek further co-operation to tackle "terrorist groups".
"The Afghans are sending a very clear signal to India saying they are looking for more commitment. They are looking at the situation post-2014 and telling the Indians: show us that you are serious," said Raja C Mohan, a respected Delhi-based analyst.
Karzai's visit to Delhi, ostensibly to collect an honorary degree, follows that of Li Keqiang, the Chinese prime minister, in a hectic few days for diplomacy in the Indian capital.
Though Li made India the first destination of his maiden overseas trip, talks with Indian officials were overshadowed by a recent standoff between Indian and Chinese troops at a remote disputed point on their long and often ill-defined border. The confrontation in Ladakh, in the western Himalayas, was resolved only two weeks ago. Though both Li and his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, emphasised their desire to focus on trade between the two emerging economic powers, tensions were evident.
Indian officials told the Guardian that the border dispute had prompted a review of the relationship with Beijing.
"It was best to indicate that upfront as an area of concern," one said.
Li will travel on Tuesday to Islamabad, underlining another dynamic in the region with the potential to cause instability. Though the depth of the relationship is sometimes exaggerated, Pakistan and China have built closer links in recent years. India is also concerned about Beijing's relationship with Sri Lanka and its presence in Bangladesh.
Sharif Calls for Peace Talks With Pakistani Taliban
VOA News Ayaz Gul May 20, 2013
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif, who is set to become prime minister for a third time after his party won recent parliamentary elections, on Monday called for peace talks with domestic Taliban extremists, saying “this is the best option” to fight militancy.
Addressing newly elected federal and provincial lawmakers of his Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party in Lahore, Sharif described terrorism as “the most serious challenge” facing the country.
Without eliminating this “menace” and establishing peace in Pakistan, he added, attempts to revive the national economy and overcome a deepening energy crisis will not succeed.
The presumptive prime minister has in the past favored peace talks between the militants and the government, but Monday’s statement was the first time he has done so publicly since his party scored a resounding victory in May 11 national elections.
Sharif says he has long called for resolving the issue of militancy through peaceful negotiations because using “guns and bullets only” can never be a solution to the problem. The “offer should be taken seriously,” he says, if Taliban militants are ready to engage in a peace dialogue with the government.
He was referring to a recent offer of peace talks by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, which is an alliance of Islamist groups waging a bloody insurgency against the Pakistani state.
Sharif says that the bloody war has killed more than 40,000 Pakistanis and caused billions of dollars in losses to the national economy.
He says there is nothing wrong in sitting across the table and engaging in talks with militants. “If it can help bring peace to the country, in my view it is the best option,” the former prime minister added.
Pakistan’s partnership in the U.S.-led counter-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan and military offensive against Taliban bases in the northwestern border regions over the past decade has prompted retaliatory suicide and other terrorist attacks in the country.
Recent media reports quoted a Taliban spokesman as saying they may declare a ceasefire if the Sharif party demonstrated seriousness in holding peace talks.
Critics are skeptical about the success of any future talks between Pakistani authorities and the Taliban. Previous peace deals with the militants, they say, have only allowed the insurgents to regroup.
Sharif is seen as a conservative Muslim and has always enjoyed the support of right-wing forces in the country. His party is expected to form a stable government at the federal level and in two of the country’s four provinces, including Punjab, the power base of Pakistan.
Applying Early Lessons to Build Afghan Security
The New York Times By Thom Shanker Military Memo May 20, 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan - As a young Army Green Beret major in December 2001, Don Bolduc fought shoulder to shoulder in an offensive against Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital, with a little-known Pashtun resistance commander named Hamid Karzai.
The offensive was nearly aborted when a 2,000-pound bomb dropped from a high-altitude American B-52 fell on their position, a friendly fire catastrophe that killed three Green Berets and five Afghan militiamen — and could have ended the life of the future Afghan president.
His hip damaged in the blast, Major Bolduc declined medical evacuation. He tended to the grim task of gathering the remains of the fallen soldiers, and, resuming their advance, Mr. Karzai’s militia and the Army Special Forces advisers swept into Kandahar, routing the Taliban in retaliation for supporting Al Qaeda in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
That campaign sealed the success of the American invasion, an early example of the emerging new way of war in which tiny bands of Special Operations forces successfully trained and organized larger units of local fighters to advance a grander, shared security agenda.
The young major spent five years deployed to Afghanistan after the fall of Kandahar, and is now a brigadier general. But in the more than 11 years since that offensive the war at times shifted to a conventional fight even as it became a sideshow after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Today, though, as the deputy commander of all Special Operations forces in the country, General Bolduc is reapplying lessons of that first victory, creating a program to train Afghan villagers to protect their homes from insurgents.
“What inspired me was my first rotation here into Afghanistan, where I learned how to use the tribes and other ethnic groups to secure local and rural areas with small numbers of people,” General Bolduc said.
“I saw the power of this culture in protecting itself at the local level, which I believe is the secret to security in Afghanistan — at the district level and below,” General Bolduc said. “You can be very effective, but in a way that is traditional, and congruent with how they have protected themselves for hundreds of years.”
Critics say the initiative, called Afghan Local Police and now with a roster of 22,150 in 55 village districts across the country, risks creating rogue militias that could turn against the central government. And some local policemen indeed have been responsible for atrocities.
But supporters, including senior Afghan Interior Ministry officials and some high-profile provincial governors, say the program is the key to a long-term security strategy that requires building layer upon layer of defense from the borders inward to Kabul, and from the village up to the provincial capitals. But they demand that it fall under strict government control.
General Bolduc is quick to point out that despite early misgiving by the leadership in Kabul, the Afghan Local Police program is officially approved in a lengthy order — 9 chapters and 49 articles — signed in April by the Afghan government.
And he says that any successes are a tribute to what he learned about “Afghan mud-hut diplomacy” from Mr. Karzai and from Gul Agha Shirzai, the first governor of liberated Kandahar, as well as to the continuing ongoing efforts by the more than 50 small teams of Marines, Navy SEALs and Green Berets now in the field training local police units.
But as General Bolduc prepares to leave Afghanistan after his ninth tour, the Afghan Local Police program will be his legacy. “Don Bolduc is the godfather of the A.L.P.,” said Maj. Gen. Tony Thomas, the senior Special Operations commander here.
Statistics compiled by the Special Operations headquarters show an unexpected resilience within the Afghan Local Police force, which had higher casualty rates but lower attrition last year than the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.
But, like those larger security organizations, it has been found guilty of gross misbehavior. The most horrific was a case in which four members of a local police unit in the insurgent-contested province of Kunduz were convicted in November in the rape of a shepherd’s 18-year-old daughter.
General Bolduc said 96 allegations of misconduct by Afghan Local Police members had been investigated, with 77 found valid, resulting in administration release from the program or jail time. The International Committee of the Red Cross is now deeply involved in the 21-day training program for recruits, conducting programs in human rights as well as first aid.
From the capital to the provinces, senior officials now embrace the Afghan Local Police program, with the caveat that it must remain folded under the authorities of the official Interior Ministry police forces.
In an interview at his Kabul headquarters, Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahman, the Afghan deputy interior minister, described the Afghan Local Police program as “the most beautiful ingredient” in the emerging, multilayered security architecture for the nation. And out in the far west, the governor of Herat Province, Daud Shah Saba, said, “The A.L.P. will be ‘the’ solution, so long as the police department supports the program and remains in firm control over its activities.”
General Bolduc agrees that oversight of the A.L.P. is “a valid concern.”
“We don’t want to put guns in the hands of people and not have them accountable,” he added. He said the whole program was expected to report to the government through the Ministry of the Interior.
“We’ve moved through different periods of this war, applying different types of combat power,” General Bolduc said. “But it wasn’t until we came to grips with the fact that this was a counterinsurgency, it was rural based, that we had to start thinking about the center of gravity, which is the populace, and conducting operations that complement each other.”
General Bolduc acknowledges there is a “back to the future” feel to the Afghan Local Police effort, not only because it draws on the lessons from the initial offensive to topple the Taliban but also because it is related to a traditional core mission of Army Special Forces; since their founding, the Green Berets have specialized in training partnerships with indigenous security forces. That has been a shared effort of General Bolduc and his two brothers, raised on a maple syrup farm in New England: One brother was also among the Green Beret units to first land in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, and the other continues to serve as a Special Forces officer.
As he prepares to depart for a senior assignment with the military’s Africa Command, General Bolduc is most concerned about ensuring the Afghan Local Police effort becomes what is termed a “program of record” with long-term support from the central government.
“Some of the mistakes we’ve made over here is that we have created things they can’t sustain,” General Bolduc said. “The A.L.P. is a program they can manage over time by themselves.”
Upgrading Air Force and Stopping Terror Activities on High Priority: MoD
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian 20 May 2013
Based on the information received by the Ministry of Defense (MoD), all Madrasas (religious schools) which previously were the hotspots for terror activities in Pakistan have been closed and all the students of these Madrasa are now being sent to Afghanistan to carry out insurgent activities.
Spokesperson of the Ministry, General Zahir Azimi said that even though the Taliban activities have increased in the country but the Afghan National Army (ANA) has the ability to eliminate these threats.
Meanwhile, the National Security Council has ordered Ministry of Finance to buy five Russian Antonov cargo and transportation planes for the Ministry of Defense at a cost of $100 million.
General Zahir Azimi said, "Our information indicates that all madrasas which could give boost terrorism have been shut and now in order to keep the terror activities going the students are being sent to Afghanistan to carry out suicide attacks. But our security forces like always have the ability to remove all these threats and keep the situation under control."
In the meantime, Afghan security forces are facing numerous challenges including lack of facilities in Afghan Air force which was emphasized by the MoD.
General Zahir Azimi said, "The main challenge is to upgrade the Afghan Air Forces for which the Minister of Defense has expressed his concerns and the National Security Council decided to buy five Russian Antonov cargo planes."
Najeebullah Manilai Advisor to the Ministry of Finance said, "The Ministry of Finance will discuss the issue with the Ministry of Defense and money for buying these planes will be sanctioned."
It seems that government's concentration on the upgradation of the Air Force is high on pirority.
Meanwhile, ISAF called its training sessions for the Afghan security forces to be in line with Nato standards. ISAF Spokesperson General Gunter Katz believes that in the upcoming years, Afghan pilots would be able to match the level of a Nato pilot in terms of competency.
General Katz said, "I am a pilot and I went to training facilities in Shendand and Kabul and I flew MI17 planes. As a Nato pilot I can tell you what I have seen, those young student pilots are doing extremely well and each of those student pilots from Afghanistan could be a NATO pilot in the future because of high standards that I have seen in the Shendend and Kabul facilities. You can be very proud of your Air Force and your pilots who will protect you in the future. On top of it this is a moment as the first female pilot recently graduated from Shendend, which is yet another success story for the Afghan Air Force."
Air force is known to be an important part of defense forces for each country. Afghanistan is endeavoring to own a fully equipped and powerful air force but still there exists some major challenges.
Correction: TOLOnews apologies for misspelling the name of the ISAF Spokesman Gen Gunter Katz.
With end of Afghan war in sight, Europe pushes business
Reuters By Amie Ferris-Rotman 20 May, 2013
Herat, Afghanistan - The European Union threw its weight behind developing Afghanistan's small but promising private sector this week, in the hope that business can usher in stability and peace once foreign troops leave by the end of next year.
In the largest ever EU visit outside the capital Kabul in 12 years of war, a 21-country delegation of envoys jetted to the western city of Herat on Sunday, whose flurry of business activity is largely seen as a rare success story in desperately poor, insurgency-plagued Afghanistan.
War and tens of billions of dollars in constant aid have made Afghanistan a ward of the international community, though vast potential mineral resources and pent-up business desire amongst educated youths mean the environment could be changing.
The EU chose Herat for its trip as "we are encouraged by the province's vision, its ability to attract foreign investment", the bloc's representative to Afghanistan, Vygaudas Usackas, told Herat governor Daoud Saba at his summer home overlooking the city, where high-rise apartments glistened in the sun.
Saba, appointed three years ago largely for his expertise in minerals, called his large and fertile province, one of 34 in the country, a "stand-alone island".
Herat's $1-billion a year economy, mostly from agriculture, industry and mining, led the province to contribute almost a fifth of the country's revenue last year.
"Afghanistan is slowly, slowly becoming another country, moving from the Kabul-centric way of things," Italian ambassador Luciano Pezzotti, whose embassy and military organised the EU trip to Herat, told Reuters.
The fourth-largest contributor to the NATO-led war, almost all of Italy's 3,000 troops are in Herat.
German ambassador Rudiger Koenig said Herat, which enjoys better security than the Taliban strongholds of the south and east, should serve as a "blueprint" for the rest of the country.
Despite Western sanctions denting the economy of much richer Iran, with which Afghanistan shares a long and porous border, Herat enjoys robust trade with its Muslim neighbour and is expected to more than double its output over the next decade, spurred by the private sector, Saba said.
In 2012, 8.4 percent of Afghanistan's annual GDP of around $20 billion was from the private sector, according to the Asian Development Bank, up 1 percent on the year before.
Its "made in Herat" goods, particularly white marble, own-brand Super Cola, and the country's most successful ice cream company, "Herat Ice Cream", have already come to symbolise quality beyond Herat's borders.
Britain-based firm Cashmere Fibres International Limited is expected to soon move its dehairing facility to Herat, the embassy said, in a bid to boost the private sector.
PepsiCo opens its first plant in Afghanistan in 2014
By MIRWAIS ADEEL - 20 May 2013, 9:30 pm Khaama Press
One of the largest global and multinational American food and beverage corporation PepsiCo plans to open its first plant in Afghanistan in 2014.
The investment by PepsiCo comes amid concerns regarding the economy of the country beyond 2014 after NATO troops leave the country after 13 years of war, which will leave hundreds of Afghans working for foreign troops unemployed.
However there are still optimisms regarding the investment by multinational companies specifically in mining sector which will boost the economy of Afghanistan and will contribute towards the self-sufficiency of the country.
Hamed Kakar, head of the marketing for Dubai-based Alokozay group of companies, which will partner with PepsiCo for the investment of the plant told Reuters News agency in interview, “It will go on stream in 2014.”
Alokozay group of companies will invest around $60 million to build the plant which will provide around 3,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The investment will also prevent import of Pepsi products from neighboring Pakistan.
According to reports Pepsi plant will be built in Kabul industrial zone near Coca-Cola plant which returned to Afghanistan in 2006 after almost a decade break.
US military praises Pakistan’s steps to curb fertilizers used in Afghanistan bombs
Associated Press May 20, 2013
Islamabad - Pakistan has taken a number of steps to prevent fertilizers made within its borders for agriculture from being used as explosives in roadside bombs that target American troops in Afghanistan, said a top U.S. military officer Monday.
Brig. Gen. Robert P. Walters Jr., deputy director of the U.S. military’s Joint IED Defeat Organization, spoke in a conference arranged by the Pakistani military in the capital of Islamabad on ways to counter the bombs — often referred to as improvised explosive devices — that account for the vast majority of casualties in Afghanistan.
Many of the homemade bombs used in Afghanistan contain materials derived from calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer produced in Pakistan at two factories. The fertilizer becomes a powerful explosive when mixed with fuel oil. The fertilizer issue has been a bone of contention between often wary allies, the U.S. and Pakistan.
The U.S. has pushed Pakistan for greater regulation of the fertilizer, which Pakistan says is necessary for its vital agriculture sector. The Lahore-based Fatima Group owns the two factories where the fertilizers are made.
Just last Friday, officials in Indiana withdrew state backing for a fertilizer plant being built in conjunction with the Fatima Group because state officials said they were concerned about whether the company’s owners were doing enough to keep the potentially explosive material from being used against U.S. troops.
Walters said Pakistan has reinforced its border to prevent the fertilizer from being smuggled into Afghanistan. He also said the Fatima Group has improved its distribution, packaging and tracking procedures to prevent fertilizers from falling into the wrong hands.
“The government of Pakistan has done several things to assist in this counter IED effort,” he said, although he cautioned that more work needs to be done.
At the same time, other ingredients are increasingly being used as the main ingredient in the bombs. Walters said 47 percent of the homemade IEDs used in Afghanistan are made with material derived from calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer. But he said that potassium chlorate is now the main charge in 45 percent of the bombs — an increase from 20 percent a year ago.
About 80 percent of the IEDs that the U.S. and its allies encounter are termed “homemade,” while others are made from old shells or other explosive ordinance.
Pakistan has at times bristled at the suggestion that it alone is responsible for the IED problem in neighboring Afghanistan, and pointed out that its own citizens and soldiers have suffered extensively from roadside bombs.
Pakistan has been battling an insurgency in the tribal areas in the northwestern part of the country bordering Afghanistan for years. Militants often target Pakistani troops or civilians using roadside bombs, and tens of thousands of people have been killed and maimed over the years.
Pakistan’s top military officer, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said that the focus on calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizers has created the perception that controlling that element alone will remove the “menace of IEDs.”
“There is evidence that as Pakistan tightens its control of use and distribution of CAN, terrorists simply switch to other precursors,” he said during the conference.
Afghanistan catching up with the Internet and modern lifestyle
Xinhua By Abdul Haleem May 20, 2013
KABUL - Some 12 years ago, it was unthinkable to have Internet cafes in Afghanistan. But today, Kabul, and some other cities and towns in the country, have Internet shops where Afghans, especially students, can surf and look for the information that they need.
"I go the Internet cafe usually twice a week to gather information about Afghanistan's contemporary history as well as on other topics, such as World War II and about Adolf Hitler," Mohammad Omar, a Kabul University student, said.
Although there is a public library in Kabul, the vast majority of students prefer to go to Internet shops where they can get the necessary information through search engines without any hassle.
Despite being a conservative country where tribalism is deeply rooted, Afghanistan has no recourse but to move towards modernization and join the computer age otherwise it will be left behind.
Even in Kandahar, once the bailiwick of the Taliban, there are universities, schools and Internet shops that are open to both men and women.
During the six-year Taliban rule, which collapsed after the invasion of the country by the U.S.-led military coalition in late 2001, the Internet was banned, schools for girls were closed, and men were forced to wear turban, sport beard and study theology.
The Taliban also confined women to their houses and forced them to wear burqa whenever they come out of their houses. They were not allowed to walk in the streets without male escorts.
Today, according to officials, nearly two million Afghans have access to the Internet. Around 22 million Afghans, or some 72 percent of the country's population, have now access to phone services, a tremendous achievement that would be unthinkable decade ago.
Now parents, even in rural areas, are sending their daughters to school, a practice that was taboo during the brutal reign of the Taliban.
"I want my daughters to become doctors and serve the patients particularly the female ones," Abdul Qadir, a villager in Baghlan province, said during a recent interview with Xinhua.
A farmer, Qadir, 41, said that he wants his three daughters to continue their studies until they become doctors, adding that by being medical practitioners, his daughters can best serve their fellow Afghans, particularly the poor.
Aside from dreaming big dreams, there is now a perceptible change in lifestyle and standard of living in Afghanistan, not just in Kabul but also in the countryside.
Some villagers who have adequate incomes have now abandoned their traditional mud houses but built concrete houses.
Afghans today, even in the remote areas, listen to music, watch television and enjoy European and Asian channels with the use of satellite disks, something that they could not have enjoyed just a decade ago under the Taliban.
Some villagers, when they come to Kabul to study, often abandon the turban that their fathers wear. They now wear plain clothes replacing the traditional pirahan-tonban.
Even the traditional burqa, an envelope-like dress worn by Afghan women is also being gradually replaced by Iranian or Arabic hijab or veil that only partially covers the woman's face.
"We are young people and living in modern world, so it is unnecessary for us to wear heavy turban and carry a gun," a college student from the southern Helmand province, Ziarat Gul, told Xinhua.
In the rural areas, it is customary for a man to carry a gun. This is a part of their culture.
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