http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/afgh-s20.shtml

Afghanistan election: a mockery of democracy
By Peter Symonds
20 September 2005

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With the US-led occupation of Iraq sinking further into the quagmire, determined efforts have been made by the Bush administration and the international media to present last Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Afghanistan in the best possible light.

US President Bush hailed the poll as “a major step forward” for the country’s democratic process. British Prime Minister Tony Blair sounded a similar note, congratulating “the people of Afghanistan for turning out in such numbers” despite Taliban threats. EU external affairs commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner pronounced the election to be “a further milestone on the road to peace and stability”.

The international press dutifully followed suit with headlines declaring the election to be “a historic step” or “a milestone” and praising the Afghan people for “defying”, “braving” or “refusing to be deterred” by Taliban threats of violence.

Washington is no more creating peace, democracy and stability through its military occupation of Afghanistan than it is in Iraq. The presence of 30,000 US and allied troops in Afghanistan precluded any genuine democratic choice by the country’s voters. The election was staged, with the blessings of the UN, to provide a democratic figleaf for the regime in Kabul and to further entrench the position of Washington’s puppet—President Hamid Karzai.

Under the Afghan constitution, in which Washington had a major hand in drafting, the lower parliamentary house or Wolesi Jirga has limited powers to initiate legislation and to review the budget and government policy. Power is concentrated overwhelmingly in the hands of the president who heads the cabinet and the military, and can appoint and dismiss all ministers, judges and senior officials.

Despite the ineffectual character of the Wolesi Jirga, Karzai was determined to ensure that the body would be in no position to challenge his administration. Against the opposition of UN advisers and most diplomats, he insisted on an electoral system that undermined political parties and thus the ability for an opposition to emerge.

None of the 5,800 candidates for the Wolesi Jirga or provincial councils were able to identify themselves with a party on the ballot. Furthermore, the voting system based on a single non-transferable vote (SNTV) virtually ruled out the organisation of party slates. The consequence was a farce, particularly in a country where a large segment of voters are illiterate and thus reliant on identifying candidates by symbol. In Kabul, for instance, voters were confronted with a seven-page ballot paper with 390 names and symbols arbitrarily chosen by lot.

The election result will inevitably be a deeply-divided parliament dominated by “independents” chosen on the basis of local loyalties rather than policies. With Washington’s backing and control of the purse strings, Karzai has clearly calculated that such a body would be more malleable. Commenting on Karzai’s insistence on the SNTV system, a diplomat told a Sydney Morning Herald correspondent: “He wouldn’t budge. He claims he can manage a big bunch of independents, and the shifting coalitions they will form, better than a small group of parties who will work the parliament.”

Yeah, everythining is a mockery to those folks.

Over 1,000 bombs seized in Kunar


ASADABAD, September 20 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Officials in the eastern Kunar province Tuesday said they had seized 1,150 bombs and arrested two people.

The bombs were captured while three people were trying to cross a river from Sarkano district into Shorik area. It seemed to be remote-controlled and powerful devices, officials said.

Kunar governor Asadullah Wafa told Pajhwok Afghan News three people of the Manogai district were located by police while crossing a river along with the explosive devices packed in bags.

As police approached them, they opened fire. After exchange of fire for some time, police succeeded in detaining two of the criminals while their third colleague managed to escape. A number of fuses and 10 bundles of wire were also been recovered from the sacks.

Elsewhere in Jalalabad, capital of the neighbouring Nangarhar province, police recovered and later defused two missiles fitted to target the city. Press officer for Nangarhar police Abdul Ghafar told Pajhwok Afghan News the missiles were fitted on top of a hill in Lalma area of the Chaparhar district.

Two rockets were fired on the city early morning hitting information and culture department and a residential house in Mandai area. One security guard was injured in the attack and vote counting was suspended for security reasons.

Faridullah Hassam and Ezatullah Zawab

jh/by/dk


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1106

Truth blows your cover doesn't it?

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/...ent_3516050.htm

KABUL, Sept. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- The counting of legislative polls would be postponed in Jalalabad, the capital city of Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, as two rockets hit the city early Tuesday morning, an Afghan official said.

One rocket hit the culture and information department around 6:20 a.m. this morning, two policemen were injured during the blast, Khalilullah Ziaee, police chief of Nangarhar province, told Xinhua.

Another rocket exploded in a resident area but causing no casualty, he added.

Due to security reasons, the counting of legislative polls, which is set to start from Tuesday, would be postponed in the city, said the police officer.

No one has claimed the responsibility for the attacks so far.

On Monday, a UN vehicle carrying ballot boxes was hit by roadside bomb in the Khogiani district of Nangarhar province, but the ballot boxes were undamaged.

Another failed BushCo adventure turning sour. Wait until we can't pump $millions and $billions into these countries to get foreign relation's welcome mat photo ops for disguising all that wonderful Western Democracy success.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050920/ap_on_...HE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Karzai Wants End to U.S.-Led Operations

By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press WriterTue Sep 20,10:47 AM ET

President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday challenged the need for major foreign military operations in Afghanistan, saying air strikes are no longer effective and that U.S.-led coalition forces should focus on rooting out terror bases and support networks.

Karzai also demanded an immediate end to foreign troops searching people's homes without his government's authorization.

"I don't think there is a big need for military activity in Afghanistan anymore," he told reporters in Kabul. "The nature of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan has changed now.

"No coalition forces should go to Afghan homes without the authorization of the Afghan government. ... The use of air power is something that may not be very effective now."

In suggesting a new approach to fighting militants, Karzai said foreign governments should "concentrate on where terrorists are trained, on their bases, on the supply to them, on the money coming to them" — a veiled reference to alleged support that the militants get from neighboring Pakistan.

Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of aiding Taliban rebels and other militants, a charge Islamabad vehemently denies.

Karzai's comments came amid the biggest resurgence in Taliban violence since U.S.-led forces ousted the hard-line regime in 2001. More than 1,200 people have been killed in the past six months, many of them suspected rebels slain in coalition air strikes, according to information from Afghan and U.S. officials.

Afghan female athletes leave for Iran


KABUL, September 20 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghan female athletes Tuesday left for Iran to participate in the fourth round of Daha-i-Fajir competitions scheduled to begin from September 22.

Female athletes from 27 other Islamic countries would join the event which would be held in Tehran, capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Shamsul Hayat Alam, chief of the Afghan Female National Olympic Committee told Pajhwok Afghan News the 15-day competitions would continue till the sixth of next month.

Afghan athletes will participate in taekwondo, karate, volleyball, badminton, swimming, and a number of other competitions.

A team comprising 27 Afghan female athletes including a coach and a trainer will join the event from Afghanistan, while 29 other immigrant Afghan females living in Iran, will also take part in the games. Afghan athletes will open their day with badminton, volleyball and judo, competitions.

Frozen Danish Rahmani

aqm/r/amm/dk


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1092

Ten injured in Kunar mishap


ASADABAD, September 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Ten people were wounded as a passenger vehicle flipped over in the Watapur district of the eastern Kunar province on Wednesday morning.

The mishap occurred due to failure of the tie-rod of the ill-fated vehicle. The pick-up swerved off the road and overturned resulting in injury to the passengers.

Witnesses said the vehicle was on way from Deozee area to Watapur when it met the accident in the Chaghan area. The injured also included two women.

The wounded have been rushed to Asadabad civil hospital where condition of two of the injured is stated to be serious. Asadullah Afzali, head of the public health department, said two injured, including a woman were in serious condition.

Hafizullah, one of the wounded, said the accident happened as tie-rod of the speedy vehicle was broken.
Faridullah Hassam

jh/by/dk


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1132

Road tragedy claims 10 lives in Kunduz


KUNDUZ CITY, September 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): At least 10 people were killed and six others sustained injuries when a private vehicle plunged into a ditch on Kunduz-Imam Sahib highway on Tuesday afternoon.

The victims also included five children and two women. The Surf jeep was on way from Imam Sahib to Kunduz City. The accident happened when the driver tried to avoid a bicycle.

Thirteen passengers were traveling in the vehicle. The injured were ferried to a hospital in Kunduz, where their condition is stated to be out of danger.

Dr Humayun Khamosh, a doctor at the hospital, told Pajhwok Afghan News four children died on the spot, while a woman and another child succumbed to their injuries in the hospital.

An officer of the traffic police Colonel Mohammad Naeem said the dead included five children, two women and three men, adding the tragedy happened on Kunduz-Imam Sahib highway.

Ainuddin (40), a resident of Kunduz city, said the vehicle first hit their bike and then skidded off the road and fell into a ditch. About 300 traffic accidents have so far been registered in Kunduz during the current year, killing 28 people.

Rohullah Arman

sh/amm/dk


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1156

Two-year ban slapped on players visiting Pakistan


KABUL, September 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghanistan Cricket Federation Wednesday slapped a two-year ban on players who visited Pakistan's Karachi for cricket competitions without prior permission.

A cricket team, including some Under-19 players, is visiting Karachi to play matches with some local teams there. Led by Khaliqdad Nuri, the squad disguised as official team of Afghanistan.

However, secretary general of Afghanistan Cricket Federation Taj Malook told Pajhwok Afghan News they did not represent Afghanistan. He said the ban had been imposed on all those players during an emergency meeting of the federation.

"They didn't inform the concerned authorities before leaving for Pakistan, neither have they represented the Afghanistan Cricket Federation," Taj Malook clarified.

The federation's advisor Allah Dad Nuri, when approached for comments, said they had also informed the Afghanistan Olympic Committee to take serious steps in recalling the team.

He added the team also included some Under-19 players of the national squad and they too would be disallowed to take part in any national or international competition.

Chief advisor of the Afghanistan Olympic Committee Din Mohammad Safi told this scribe the committee was going to dispatch a message to cricket authorities in Pakistan about the players, who presented themselves as official squad of Afghanistan.

He said they would also consult the Foreign Affairs Ministry as to how the players managed to go into another country without permission from the authorities concerned.



http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1162

Lagham turn out exceeds last year presidential polls


MEHTARLAM, September 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) Wednesday said the turn out in the eastern Laghman province remained seven per cent more than last year's presidential elections.

Gayatri, a JEMB official in the province, told Pajhwok Afghan News the voting ratio of women was far better than men at Qarghayee and Alingar districts. He added 2,300 eligible nomads also used their right to vote there.

Counting had been started on Wednesday afternoon here, he said, adding three ballot boxes had yet to arrive from some remote areas.

Revealing the cause behind suspension of ballot counting for a day, a polling official in Daulat Shah district, who opted not to be named, said a security officer mistreated Adbullah, an officer of the JEMB at the regional centre which led to the delay.



Reported by Abdul Moeed & translated by Rahman


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1165

Pakistan seeks renewal of Durand Line agreement


ISLAMABAD, September 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A senior official of the Pakistani government Wednesday dropped the border fencing proposal floated by President Musharraf but asked for renewal of the Durand Line agreement between the neighbours.

Speaking at a news conference, Governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province Commander Khalilur Rehman said the fencing was impracticable and unacceptable to tribal living on both sides of the divide.

Instead, the two countries should renew the Durand Line Agreement first, which had been expired, suggested the governor. The step would pave way for fencing the border, Rehman said, adding he had also deliberated on the issue with the president.

"After renewal of the accord, we hope the tribal people living on the two sides will not object to the fencing," said Khalilur Rehman, who is representing the centre in NWFP, which is ruled by a six-party religious alliance.

Discussing the Sunday's parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, which unexpectedly remained peaceful, Khalilur Rehman opined the attacks were made by fugitive warlord Gulbadin Hekmatyar.

"Hekmatyar and his allies are fully aware of the fact that there will be no place for them in Afghanistan once democracy takes roots there," the governor said, adding: "This is why they often try to sabotage the peace."

Pakhtun Sahar

by/dk


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1166

Ballot counting starts in Nangarhar


JALALBAD, September 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Vote counting was resumed in the eastern Nangarhar province which was suspended after a rocket attack on Tuesday morning.

Officials said although ballot boxes had yet to arrive from the remote Nuristan and Kunar provinces in the regional centre but the process had been launched. Kunar and Nuristan are the two provinces where count centres had not been established.

An official of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) told Pajhwok Afghan News not a single box had reached to the regional centre from Nuristan province, while ballot boxes from only four of the 10 centre from Kunar had arrived here.

Hidayatullah, a JEMB official, said the boxes delivery had been delayed because they would be first collected in the provincial centres and then would be transported to the regional centre at Jalalabad.

Khalilullah Ziai, police chief of Nangarhar, said security had been beefed up in the city and ballot boxes from far-off areas would be received later in the day.

Muhammad Iqbal, a hopeful for the Wolesi Jirga seat, said the late arrival of vote boxes at the regional centres was mounting suspicions about the transparency of the whole process.

Ezatullah Zawab

rh/dk


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1167

JEMB says voters turn out remained 53 per cent


KABUL, September 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) has said that countrywide turnout remained 53 per cent during the Sunday's polls.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, JEMB operation chief Peter Erben said a total of 43 per cent female and 57 per cent male electorates used their right to vote.

He said in Kabul, 36 per cent voted which he said was less than some of the remote provinces, where people are little educated and have comparatively little knowledge of the electoral process.

He said 95 per cent ballot boxes had been collected from all across the country and the figures based on those ballots showed that 53 per cent people used their right to vote.

Peter Erben said ratio of female voting remained encouraging in Laghman and Takhar provinces. He said although ballot boxes from some areas in Daikundi, Badakhshan, Baghlan, Ghazni, Nuristan and and Kunar provinces were yet to arrive, polling had already been launched in the respective regional polling centres.

He said of the 12.4 million registered voters in Afghanistan, 6.6 million voted while among them were 43 per cent female candidates.

Asked about the delay in transportation of ballot boxes, Peter Erben said it was caused by logistic problems. He said it was affected by transport problems and remoteness of the polling stations.

He said some more days will be required to deliver ballot boxes from Nuristan province to the regional centre set up for counting in Nangarhar.

Regarding the polling results, he said while the final results would be declared on October 22, it would be displayed on daily basis from the next week at the regional centres.

He said each observer would be given two hours to observe the counting. To a question the JEMB official said as ballot boxes had been received from almost all areas, it would accelerate the counting process.

Reported by Makia Monir and translated by Daud


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1192

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050922/ap_on_...ghan_us_taliban

BAGRAM, Afghanistan - Responding to complaints by
Afghanistan's president, a top U.S. general said Thursday that airstrikes have been decisive against insurgents and that American troops usually search homes jointly with Afghan soldiers.


Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, the U.S.-led coalition's operational commander, said American forces need air power as they expect to be battling Taliban rebels well into next year after fierce fighting that killed more than 1,200 people in the six months before Sunday's election.

President Bush expressed similar sentiments in Washington, saying the 18,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan have not finished the mission that began with the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001. "There are still terrorists who seek to overthrow the young government," he said.

Their comments appeared at odds with President Hamid Karzai, who on Tuesday questioned the need for major military operations by foreign troops, saying his government did not think a "serious terrorist challenge" remained. He also said airstrikes were no longer effective.

Karzai said the U.S.-led coalition should focus "on where terrorists are trained, on their bases" — a veiled reference to support that Afghan militants allegedly get in neighboring Pakistan.

But Kamiya told reporters at Bagram, the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan, that while "part of the problem may extend from Pakistan," the insurgency is largely fueled internally.

Widespread poverty and a lack of government authority in rural areas have prompted youths to join the insurgents, he said. Until reconstruction projects bring jobs and other opportunities and the rule of law prevails, the violence will persist, he said.

People stopped from staging protest on fencing issue


KABUL, September 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Officials in the southern Zabul stopped people who want to carry out protest rallies and stage demonstration against remarks of Pakistani authorities regarding border fencing with Afghanistan.

Pakistan Pervez Musharraf floated the suggestion of fencing the 2,400-kilometre porous border to end the blame-game between the two countries once and for all.

Gulab Shah Alikhel, spokesman for Zabul governor, said the government blocked the people from staging protest demonstration to avoid any untoward incident.

Tough security measures had been adopted across the country to discourage insurgents from carrying out attacks to disrupt the elections or counting process which is presently underway in 32 provinces.

He said they feared if the Pakistani authorities continued with their fencing rhetoric, it might cause unrest in the province, which is in proximity with Pakistan.

He said people of the bordering provinces had rejected the fencing proposal but they banned them for fear that Taliban might not cash the opportunity to carry out terrorist attacks.

Reported by Aziz Zahid

rh/dk


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1212

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/23/opinion/edborde.php


The Taliban loom once more as a threat

Constance Borde and Patricia Lalonde International Herald Tribune

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2005

KABUL Last Sunday, more than 50 percent of the Afghan population braved threats from the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalist groups to vote for the 249 members of Parliament whom they hope will make their dream of a democratic future a reality. The votes are being counted now and - given the demographic and logistic complications - final results will come in within three weeks or a month.

The elections were immediately hailed as a success by the United States and by the international news media. But there were inherent problems in the process that led up to that election, which reflect deep problems in the country itself. It is important for the international community to recognize this.


But dangers lurk. In Afghanistan, you also see a lot of Taliban. Some are still insurgents killing candidates and threatening voters, some have been liberated from Guantánamo and welcomed in Kabul under the so-called "national reconciliation" program, and some of the worst perpetrators are even running for seats.

National reconciliation is a necessity, but it is a grand process that doesn't take place overnight by simply declaring it. In South Africa, national reconciliation was part of an enormous country-wide movement, structured around months of hearings and manifestations, of testimonies and even emotional celebrations. None of this took place in Afghanistan.

Most people - including those from the former Northern Alliance, who fought the Russians and the Taliban and helped the United States topple the Taliban - support President Hamid Karzai. But they are fearful of a Taliban comeback.

Citizens across the country share this fear, and question what the president and current government has done to protect Afghanistan from a return to the fundamentalism that held them hostage for so long. And people around the world who were radically affected by the violent terrorism that came out of Afghanistan should be asking why Afghanistan is once again facing this horrendous fate.

This deep concern is implicitly tied to another fundamental, electoral one: transparency. Yunus Qanooni, a Tajik and a moderate man with an educated wife, is becoming the main democratic opponent to Karzai. He wants to play the game of democracy and follow all its rules, but he fears election fraud and the influence of the Taliban. He is vastly popular and many share his fears, but he and others have been prevented from expressing their views on these subjects.

Five months ago, Qanooni asked the government three things: to accept that people of all parties be designated to follow the ballots boxes during their transport to the tallying places; to appoint a committee that could be alerted at any moment during the whole process to supervise the regularity of the elections; and to see that no one could be a candidate if it was proved he had perpetrated atrocities with the Taliban. But the Joint Elections Management Board refused all these points.

The Karzai government and the Bush administration, who have a say in the election board's decisions, have a short-sighted view of the situation. Are they trying to buy an appearance of peace by allowing the reintroduction of Islamic radicals in Afghanistan? Can you trust the good faith of the Taliban and Islamic radicals, simply by proclaiming "national reconciliation"? As renewed violence spreads across Afghanistan, isn't it clear that this tactic has already failed?

For now, America and the Afghan government still have the support of the Afghan people. But they will lose faith if they don't step up to the plate now with qualified inspectors to assure the fairness of the election count and if they don't recognize the dangerous role that Islamic radicals could play in the new government.

Afghans know that the Taliban are on the threshold of taking power again. European experts and news media are observing the same phenomenon. Why can't the United States face this fact squarely?

Emma Bonino, a former European commissioner who was sent as an observer during the elections by the European Union, has said she was concerned "that this election was not going to produce a sustainable form of debate and a healthy political life." Bonino is being diplomatic in her statement. But the message is there for us all to hear. Afghan voices from within the country are more wrought with anxiety. Is anyone hearing them?

Uruzgan battle leaves 10 Taliban dead


KABUL, September 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Ten insurgents were killed as coalition forces backed by attack helicopters pounded a militant hideout north of the Deh Rahod district of the volatile Uruzgan, said a press release issued from the US Bagram airbase on Friday.

This is the bloodiest encounter between coalition forces and the rebels after the Sunday's elections. The release said an Afghan National Army soldier was killed while one US service member wounded in the operation.

The injured soldier was evacuated to a nearby medical facility where his condition is stated to be out of danger, said the press release. The coalition and Afghan forces were still in the area and assessing the situation.

A joint patrol comprising the ANA and coalition forces was searching the area when they came under attack from a group of militants using heavy machineguns, mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades.

The coalition and Afghan forces retaliated and called air support. The fight continued for several hours leaving 10 Taliban dead. An Afghan soldier also killed while a US soldier sustained injuries.

The coalition forces air strikes came at a time when Afghan President Hamid Karzai had called for an end to unauthorised searches and air raids by coalition just two days back. In an instant reaction, a top coalition officer in Afghanistan justified the air raids saying the strikes had been proved decisive in curbing insurgency.

Meanwhile, a senior official in Uruzgan said the fight erupted after reports that a key Taliban commander Mulla Dadullah, along with some 20 Taliban, was hiding in the area.

However, coalition forces did not confirmed the presence of any Taliban commander. But said the number of attacking guerillas was around 20.

Taliban confirmed the clash but denied the number of casualties. The militia's purported spokesman Latifullah Hakimi said only six fighters had been killed. He added six US and 10 government soldiers had also been killed in the clash that occurred on Thursday.



Reported by Daud Khan


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1218

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/...ent_3526235.htm

MADRID, Sept. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced Wednesday that all the 500 Spanish troops on humanitarian mission in Afghanistan will be brought home by Oct. 12.

Addressing the parliament, Rodriguez Zapatero said the withdrawal began on Sept. 21 because the troops have accomplished their mission including protecting the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections from disruption in the Asian country.

Mourning the death of 17 Spanish soldiers killed in a helicopter crash in August in Afghanistan, Rodriguez Zapatero said they sacrificed their lives for the UN mission.

EUP team calls Afghan legislative vote a success


Pajhwok Report

KABUL, (Pajhwok Afghan News): A six-member European Union Parliamentary (EUP) team Monday described Afghanistan's legislative election as a success and pledged long-term support to the Karzai-led government.

Robert Ewnis, head of EUP delegation that arrived here earlier in the week to observe the landmark parliamentary elections, made the observation at a meeting with President Hamid Karzai at the Presidential Palace here.

In a press statement issued after the meeting, Robert Ewnis said the polls - held in a peaceful manner - were a success of the Afghan government. The six-member team, which visited a number of polling stations, said the elections were held in a free, fair and transparent fashion.

Karzai thanked the EUP delegation for its all-out support to his government in organising the legislative elections, which took place without any major disruptions despite threats of violence from insurgents.

Robert Ewnis assured Karzai of full assistance to the parliament coming into being as a result of the legislative ballot, in which more than 50 percent of Afghans turned out to vote.




http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?id=1056

Pakistan hails elections in Afghanistan


ISLAMABAD, (Pajhwok Afghan News): Pakistan has voiced its pleasure over the 'successful' holding of key legislative elections in Afghanistan, hoping the vote would pave the ground for peace and stability in the region.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, commenting on the landmark ballot that passed off peacefully despite threats of attacks from Taliban, lauded on Monday Afghans' participation in the polling.

"The polls represent an important step towards democracy in Afghanistan and they will bring in their wake peace and stability," the minister said in a press statement.

He greeted the Afghan government, led by President Karzai, and the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) for peacefully organising the parliamentary elections in the face of warnings from Taliban and other miscreants to disrupt the democratic exercise.

"The high voter turnout is reflective of the trust Afghans repose in the incumbent government and the system it has put in place," said the interior minister, who sounded optimistic of the war-weary nation's transition to democracy.



Reported by Pakhtun Sahar & translated by Mudassir

http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?id=1040

National unity, tolerance tops Sayyaf's priority list


KABUL, September 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Former jihadi commander and candidate for Wolesi Jirga (lower house of the Afghan National Assembly) Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf said presence of large number of candidates on the ballot paper and lack of awareness among electorates left many people in a quandary as how to choose candidates of their liking.

In an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News, Sayyaf said only 20 per cent of voters would have cast their votes to people whom they want to elect. But he expressed optimism about the future Afghan parliament, saying the elected representatives would be good people.

Sayyaf, who changed his party's name from Ittehad-i-Islami to Dawat-i-Islami to ensure his joining the run up, said if people did not want the jihadi leaders in the new parliament, they would use their right to vote in large number.

"If it was so, people will participate in large number to use their vote against the jihadi leaders," said Sayyaf, who is also reckoned among such people.

Asked about the low turn out in contrast to the last year's presidential polls, Sayyaf come out with the strange logic that people at that time had to elect a single leader while number of candidates was much more this time.

He hoped the new parliament would house honest and patriotic people who would keep the country's interest supreme. "The new set up will be a success for the whole nation."

Regarding foreign military presence in Afghanistan, Sayyaf said they must stay here as long as the country stands on its own feet. He said decision by the new parliament will be crucial in this regard.

About his priorities if elected to the house, Sayyaf said he would keep constitution and national unity at the top of his priority list. "Afghanistan needs unity, stability and tolerance in all spheres of life to push the Afghanistan towards progress and prosperity," said the veteran of the Afghan jihad.



Reported by Habibur Rahman Ibrahimi and Translated by Borhan





http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?id=1164

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16709246-23109,00.html

Taliban storm prison, two dead

From: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Khost, Afghanistan

September 24, 2005


AN insurgent and a prisoner were killed early today after suspected Taliban insurgents stormed a prison and police headquarters in southeastern Khost province, officials said.
Suspected Taliban insurgents attacked the district headquarters of Ali-Sher with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, blew up a weapons stock and killed a detainee in police custody.

"In last night's exchange of fire one detainee in police captivity died in the Taliban attack and two soldiers were wounded," Naqeebullah Asmati, the deputy intelligence director said.

The authorities could not ask for support because the district had lost all communication links with the provincial capital, Mr Asmati said.

Provincial police chief Mohammed Ayoob said that police had also killed a rebel overnight in Ali-Sher district.

Khost is an insurgency-hit province which shares a long porous border with neighbouring Pakistan. Afghan officials have accused militants of crossing over from Pakistan to launch attacks in Afghanistan, a charge Pakistan denies.

Afghans enjoy successful election day


BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – The people of Afghanistan woke up this morning to a brighter future, after successfully voting in their new leadership in a day marked by limited violence near only a handful of voting stations.

Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police and international military forces ensured more than 12.5 million registered voters had an opportunity to participate in the National Assembly Elections in a relatively safe and secure environment.

Jahwedolah, an ANP patrolman said, “It’s a historical day that we have today…it will be good for our future and we will have a good future.”

“The election results will not be known for several weeks,” said Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, Commander of the Combined Joint Task Force 76. “However, we believe the real winners in this process are the people of Afghanistan who courageously took a stand against years of violence and oppression and took a major step forward toward peace and prosperity.”

“Let there be no doubt that the success of the National Assembly Election has strengthened the resolve and commitment of U.S. and Coalition Forces. We will relentlessly continue security operations, in partnership with Afghan National Security Forces, to keep the enemy on the defensive and to continue to bring security, reconstruction, and development to the Afghan people on behalf of their central government. ”

There are about 30,000 members of the Afghanistan National Army and 50,000 Afghanistan National Police in uniform providing security to its people and participating in operations designed to quell any resurgence of Taliban or other terrorist organizations.

“For three decades everything has come apart and been destroyed by war. No one had the freedom to vote for the President or the National Assembly. So today is the day we vote…it’s a very important day,“ Said Asem explained at a polling site in Parwan yesterday.

Mazi Rashidi, another voter from the same area added, “We vote today for candidates to the National Assembly. And when we have problems in the village or the district, these elected representatives will take those problems to the government.”

Since Afghanistan ’s last successful election, when the Afghan majority democratically elected President Hamad Karzai into office, the strength of the government has increased. It will only grow stronger as it will now be fueled by legitimately elected provincial representation from across Afghanistan .


http://www.centcom.mil/CentcomNews/Stories/09_05/35.htm

Afghan Army garrison opens in Herat

By U.S. Army Sgt. Mason T. Lowery Office of Security Cooperation-Afghanistan Public Affairs

HERAT , Afghanistan — Afghan Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak cut the ribbon of the new Afghan National Army garrison in Herat recently, opening its doors for use by the ANA’s 207th Corps.

“Though this is the third ANA garrison to open, today is especially significant because this is the first garrison outside of Kabul to be opened,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. John Brennan, chief of the Office of Security Cooperation-Afghanistan, during the opening ceremony “This event is even more significant because, of the 11 garrisons (being) built outside of Kabul, this garrison was the last to be started but today we celebrate it as the first permanent corps headquarters to open.”

Wardak spoke to the assembled ANA soldiers about their role in Afghanistan ’s unity and how they are a truly national army, representing all of their country’s ethnic tribes.

“You might be from different provinces speaking different languages, but you’re one nation and you represent one Afghanistan . You all have one goal and objective, which is strengthening of the national unity.

“When you are trapped in a mine field, none of your family members or your relatives will be there to help you. The one who will help you is your (Tajik, Pashtun, Uzbek, Turkman or Hazara) friend. Friends in battle are closer than real brothers.”

The garrison cost $66.8 million to build, employed approximately 1,000 Afghan construction workers, and took 13 months from contract to ribbon cutting. The garrison was constructed by local Afghans working for Contrak International, a civilian construction contractor, under the management and supervision of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It will be home to the headquarters of the ANA’s 207th Zafar (Victory) Corps and its 1st Brigade. Also located on the compound will be the garrison headquarters and five kandaks (battalions) from the 1st Brigade.

The construction of ANA garrisons provide power projection platforms that allow ANA soldiers from Afghanistan’s five regions to defend their entire country, explained U.S. Army Col. Christopher J. Toomey, commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers- Afghanistan, highlighting the garrison’s contributions to Afghanistan’s defense and stability.

“I think the garrisons are a great step in the right direction. An army needs a power projection platform,” he said. “This is also a recruiting tool – these garrisons have better living conditions than many Afghans have at home. It’s bringing them up in life.”

Afghans don’t travel to different parts of their country as much as people from nations with better infrastructures do in their countries. Building the garrison in Herat localizes the ANA for Herat residents, Toomey explained. “It also infused the local economy with money. We employed locals – it’s good for the community.”

The Afghan workers got more than jobs while they worked on the garrison. “They learned trades while working in Herat . Jobs with our contractors are higher paying and more secure (than many other jobs in Afghanistan ),” Toomey said. The Afghan construction workers’ jobs didn’t end with the ribbon cutting; during construction they were also trained to maintain the facility.

Building the garrison consisted of mine clearing, topographic surveys, demolition and grading, building a waste water treatment facility and sanitary sewer collection system, as well as the design and construction of new buildings. The new buildings include a main dining facility; corps, brigade and garrison headquarters complexes; five kandak complexes; parking areas and maintenance facilities.

With the completion of the Herat Garrison, the engineers, construction companies and Afghan workers will next focus their efforts on completing brigade garrison complexes for the ANA’s 209th and 203rd Corps in Mazar-e-Sharif and Gardez.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.centcom.mil/CentcomNews/Stories/09_05/32.htm

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/092005H.shtml
Monday 19 September 2005

The war against the Taliban is a long ghost hunt. They spring up, strike, and disappear, taking advantage of an open border, of secure refuge in Pakistan, of interlaced valleys, and of multiple tribal complicities. In Gardez, the very dusty capital of the entrepreneurial Paktya province, three hours by car from Kabul, the army and police are everywhere. The electoral campaign, however, transpired peacefully there. Invaded by posters, the little city has been furrowed by the 83 candidates' cars for the last three weeks, the cars' loudspeakers shooting out decibels at shoppers. Mirza, a pharmacist on the main square, says he's "very happy" with yesterday's legislative elections. "I hope they'll allow for reconstruction and a fresh start and will give us a better life," he adds, without conviction. Security? "Is good. We can go anywhere in the province."

But the shoemaker does not see the future through rose-colored glasses. "What reconstruction? What has changed here [since the end of the Taliban]? Still no work. Not a single street has been paved. Look at this dust; we're breathing it in constantly." A passerby interrupts: "Where did the Western countries' money go? Into the pockets of those who were already rich, the government people."

In Gardez, the popularity of President Hamid Karzai and his cabinet is in freefall. They reproach him with his intimates' corruption and with "doing nothing." Now Paktya, with a Pashtun majority, is a strategic province at the gates of Kabul. The central government will only maintain itself there if it is accepted by the tribes. That is the case today, inasmuch as Karzai has largely favored the Pashtuns in the present government. What is difficult to assess, on the other hand, is whether his outstretched hand to the Taliban - "national reconciliation," a pardon in return for a farewell to arms - has been a success. Should we believe Mohammed Darwash, director of Gardez's television station, who asserts that "75 Taliban commandants in the region have renounced armed operations?" The number seems exaggerated, without even counting the fact that turning coat is an Afghan specialty. "Here, it's not Zabol province (the Taliban fief in the south of the country)," Darwash insists. "There you can't go 5 kilometers without encountering problems."

Tribal

If only a single district of Paktya experiences sporadic problems today, it hasn't always been that way. In 2002, fights between factions shook up the province. Four local commandants promoted by the Northern Alliance (the party of the deceased Commander Massoud) opposed others, supported by the Americans. With no tribal base and little-loved by the population, the former were arrested. Two of them are rotting in Guantánamo, the third was disarmed, and the fourth rejoined the national army. An American victory. Special Forces based in the neighboring village of Khost wanted total victory and wanted to arrest or kill the great tribal chieftain Patcha Khan, who fomented the 2002 troubles and whom they supported for a while, but who, later, had a CIA agent assassinated. Now Patcha Khan has given up his arms, joined the political process - he's a candidate - and could strengthen the "anti-Taliban barrier." His arrest or death would risk setting off a new round of unrest.

Violent

Further south, in the neighboring province of Paktika, security is deteriorating. Reappearing at the end of 2002, the guerrilla movement has been gaining strength continuously since then. Two movements: the Taliban and Hezb-e islami (the Islamic party). The former, who depend upon religious networks, are on the plain; the latter, more modern, are in the mountains. "They don't rely on preliminary demands," explains a Western specialist who works for the UN. "They are, above all, ideological and more and more violent; they don't hesitate to kill community leaders. For the moment, the guerrilla has failed in Afghanistan; it was unable to prevent the elections. But it complicates the government's task by preventing it from developing these regions. Even if it is low intensity, it will persist for five or six years."

This analyst sees the solution coming from Pakistan: "We expected a change in Islamabad's policy after Karzai returned power to the Pashtuns [Pakistan has always been hostile to non-Pashtuns in the Kabul government]. We saw the opposite. The Islamist networks still have offices in Pakistan, in northern Waziristan and in Quetta (capital of Baluchistan). Islamabad doesn't close those offices and doesn't arrest their leaders. If it were possible to draw an iron curtain between the two countries, the problem would be resolved." If, in Paktya as in Paktika, the tribes remain faithful to Kabul, the situation remains fragile nonetheless. "Two years from now, the scales may shift in the opposite direction," the same specialist maintains. "Don't ever forget," Hadji Qadir, one of the great chieftains of eastern Afghanistan, confided once before his assassination, "that the tribes can change sides in a day. Be pro-American in the morning and anti- in the evening."

200 Australian troops to aid Afghan rebuilding bid


Pajhwok Report

KABUL, September 24: Australia has promised to deploy another 200 soldiers to Afghanistan next year to set up a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in the war-torn country, where a number of civil-military bodies are already active in different regions.

An announcement to the effect came at a news conference jointly addressed by visiting Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill and his Afghan counterpart Abdul Rahim Wardak here on Saturday.

Hill said the PRT would be established in a province after consultations with the Afghan government and other teams of the kind engaged in the ongoing reconstruction effort. A final decision in this regard will be taken after talks.

Wardak told journalists Australia had agreed to support the training of Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers. He added Australia was desirous of greater links with the Afghan government.

Endorsing Wardak's view, Hill observed: "Besides military cooperation, we want to continue helping Afghanistan in building its economic base, expanding its education opportunities, improving health care and reconstruction of infrastructure."

It will be pertinent to recall that Australia contributed 150 troops to the US-led invasion that toppled the Taliban in late 2001. By late 2002, however, it pulled out all its troops, leaving just one soldier tasked with clearing land mines.

The visiting minister, who arrived here on Friday to meet Australian troops stationed in Afghanistan, is believed to have held meetings with high-ranking Afghan officials. "We have quite a substantial aid programme now."




http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1262

http://www.bakutoday.net/afps/english/shar...9.k8ue465p.html

Five soldiers killed in US military chopper crash in Afghanistan

September 25, 2005, 14:00 gmt

KABUL (AFP) - Five US soldiers were killed when a military helicopter crashed in strife-torn southeastern Afghanistan, but there were no signs it was brought down by hostile fire, the US military said.

Five US soldiers were killed when a military helicopter crashed in strife-torn southeastern Afghanistan, but there were no signs it was brought down by hostile fire, the US military said.

Meeting on Afghanistan's rebuilding tomorrow


PESHAWAR, September 25 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A meeting on reviewing the progress made in Afghanistan under the Karzai-led administration in the wake of the historic Bonn Agreement will be held in NWFP's capital city on Monday.

The September 18 parliamentary elections to a 249-seat Wolesi Jirga (lower house) and 34 provincial councils in the strife-torn country marked the culmination of the accord signed in Germany after the Taliban regime's ouster in 2001.

Ahmad Saeedi, a senior official at the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Sunday the meeting would confer on the headway achieved by the incumbent rulers and major reconstruction projects executed so far.

Saeedi said Afghanistan's deputy education minister Sadiq Patman, deputy water and power minister Eng. Mohammad Amin Munsef and senior officials of foreign and commerce ministries had been invited to the event being organised by the consulate.

Speakers would brief the participants on the rebuilding effort and the measures taken for the promotion of trade and agriculture in Afghanistan, said Saeedi, who added some of the invitees had already reached Peshawar while the rest would arrive tomorrow.

Confirming the meeting, a Peshawar-based official of the Foreign Office, Nadeem, told this news agency the Pakistan government had given the Afghan Consulate the go-ahead for arranging the session.



Reported by Janullah Hashimzada & translated by Mudassir

http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1305

Election day passes peacefully

(Read the bit about the 130 year old man voting)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30322

Paragraph seven looks a bit disappointing. Including the fact that seven election candidates have been killed.

Political cartoon - Re: Osama

Porn War
Saturday, September 24, 2005

http://www.post-gazette.com/robrogers/default.asp?id=1

Romanian forces to join reconstruction effort


KANDAHAR CITY, September 27 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Romania Tuesday announced its forces would also start participating in reconstruction effort by the next year.

The announcement was made by Romanian Defence Minister Akanasiu during a press conference here. He is visiting Afghanistan to meet the 400 Romanian forces stationed here as part of the US-led coalition.

He said besides strengthening security, the Romanian forces would also join the reconstruction efforts in the war-devastated country. The forces would also provide free health facilities to thousands of Afghans, he added.

The minister said his visit was aimed to boot the morale of Romanian forces, who were performing the tough job to root out terrorism and provide a peaceful and secure society to Afghans.

Speaking on the occasion, Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid said Romania had assured its all out support in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.



Reported by Saeed Zabuli & translated by Daud


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1449

Unofficial poll results from 18 provinces announced


Pajhwok Report

KABUL, September 28 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) Wednesday announced unofficial results of the parliamentary elections from 18 provinces.

JEMB Operations chief Peter Erben told a news conference here the results were not final at this stage and further scrutiny might change the official announcement due on October 22.

He added 50 percent of the total votes had been counted as the process was completed in the western Farah province. With 21 percent of the votes counted in Kabul, the tally will be completed in two days in Zabul, Nimroz and Uruzgan provinces.

In Kabul, Haji Muhammad Muhaqiq has bagged 7,599 votes, Muhammad Yunus Qanuni 4,839, Ramzan Bashar Dost 4,828, Ustad Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf 1,395 and Syed Mustafa Kazmi 1,302 votes.

Among the women aspirants in the capital city, Malalai Shinwari obtained 380 votes, Fatima Nazri 329 and Shukrya Barkazai 297 votes.

In northern Balkh province, Muhammad Yusaf Ghazanfar gained 1,612 and votes Alam Khan Azadi got 1467. Among women hopefuls, Saifora Niazi obtained 707 while Shafiqa Alam bagged 277 votes.

According to results received from Bamyan, Haji Frotan secured 912 votes, followed by Ustad Muhammad Akbari with 749 and Marzai Muhammadi (woman contestant) 202 votes.

In the central Daikundi province, Siddiqi Zada Nali secured 1,805 votes, Muhammad Noor Akbari 778 and Shireen Mohsini 350.

According to JEMB, in the western Farah province, where the counting is still on, Muhammad Naeem Farahi polled 6,730 votes, Abdullah Hilali 5,178, Malalai Joya (woman candidate) 4,887.

In Jawzjan, Faizullah Zaki stood first while Haji Abdul and Wahab shared the second position. Among women contestants, Fahima Sadaat was in the lead.

Al-Haj Abdul Bashir Yaqubi, Dr Dadullah Sadaat Haleem and Tahira Parsa Nazri are leading the race in the northern Kapisa province.

Al-Haj Bismillah Mangal came first and Syed Muhammad Gulab second in the southeastern Khost province. Among the women hopefuls, Sahira Sharif was top of the list.

In eastern Kunar province, Maulvi Shahzada Shahid secured first and Muhammad Ali Rahmani got second position. Sapi, a woman candidate of the same province stood first in the September 18 polls.

In eastern Laghman, Asmatullah grabbed 864 ballots, Haji Mosam Sherzad 619 and Parveen Wafala 263. In Nangarhar, Hazrat Ali is leading the way, followed by Haji Muhammad Daud. On the distaff side, Safia Siddiqui and Noorzai Atmar are outdoing their rivals.

In southwestern Nimroz, Haji Muhammad Sarwar is number one and Saliha on top among women. In northeastern Nuristan, Maulvi Ahmadullah Mowahid has gained 1,759 votes and Hawa Alam Nuristani 1,226 votes.

Badshah Khan Zadran, in the southeastern Paktia province, polled 5,080 votes, Muhammad Daud Zazai 2,875 and Sharifa Zarmati 1,014 votes.

In Parwan province, north of Kabul, Muhammad Ilyas has obtained 3,249, Sadiq Ahmad Usmani 1,303 and Samia Azizi 1,593.

Ahmad Khan and Muhammad Qasim Zandi of Samangan province share the first position as Zaboora Aryanfar is on top among female candidates.

Similarly, in the southern Uruzgan province, Abdul Khaliq secured first position, Muhammad Hashim Watanwal second and Fatima Naeemi was number one among women.

Haji Akhtar Muhammad Tahri, in Maidan Wardag province, was first and Haji Hotak second. Among women contestants, Dr Roshank Wardag is top of the list.

At the news conference, Peter Erben said overall the counting process was going well, but was a bit slow in some provinces, which needed new staffers to replace the old ones.

"We want to speed up the counting process in these provinces by replacing the old staff," he observed, urging the candidates to be tolerant and accept the results whole-heartedly.









http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1532

20,000 families in Herat set to get power facility


HERAT CITY, September 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): More than 20,000 families in the Kuhsan district of the western Herat province will be electrified in the next three months.

The project, under which power will be supplied to the district from the Tabiat city of the neighbouring Iran, will cost 337 thousand US dollars.

Director of the power department Nisar Ahmad Faizi told Pajhwok Afghan News they would erect 280 electricity poles. He added the project also included installation of ten transformers in the district.

Abdul Karim Niamati, a resident of the district said they were paying rates as high as 20 afghanis per kilowatt at present. If the project was materialised, they would pay only two afghanis per kilowatt, he hoped.

It merits a mention here that people living in the rural areas have no access to electricity in Afghanistan as the whole infrastructure has been shattered by years of war.

Ahmad Ihsan Sarwaryar

sh/amm/dk

http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1596

http://www.thedailystar.net/2005/09/30/d5093001117.htm

Bangladeshi Brac staff shot near Kabul
His Afghan colleague killed
Agencies, Kabul

A Bangladeshi aid worker was shot and wounded and his Afghan colleague killed when they were ambushed outside Afghanistan's capital, the interior ministry said yesterday.

Unidentified attackers opened fire on the men as they were travelling on a motorbike Wednesday in Parwan, which adjoins Kabul, ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai told AFP.

It was not clear who had attacked them, he said. The injured, working for Brac, was being treated in a Kabul hospital.

Afghan news agency Pajhwok says the Bangladeshi aid worker was identified as Shaheedullah.

Arif Islam, project manager for the Brac, told AFP that it was unclear who carried out the attack that came a day after a Bangladeshi UN worker was wounded by a roadside bomb in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Another Bangladeshi national, who worked for the UN, was wounded in a similar ambush at the weekend in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Earlier the United Nations said it had restricted movements of its staff in Kabul after a suicide bombing killed at least 10 people while Taliban said it had 45 more suicide attackers awaiting orders to strike.

Wednesday's bombing at a military training centre set up by US-led forces to train a new national army was the worst suicide attack in the capital since the Taliban's 2001 overthrow.

What Not to Learn
from Afghanistan



WILLIAM R. HAWKINS



“For you all love the screw-guns—the screw guns they all love you!
So when we take tea with a few guns, o’course you will know
what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an’ surrender—it’s worse if you fights or you runs:
You may hide in the caves, they’ll be only your graves,
but you can’t get away from the guns!”
— Rudyard Kipling
“The Screw Guns”

The “screw guns” to which Kipling refers were rifled artillery pieces with longer range and more penetrating power than the older smooth-bore guns. They gave British troops a substantial edge over local forces in the colonial wars of the Victorian empire, just as American bombers do for US troops today. Artillery would continue to improve in explosive power, versatility (gas, smoke), and indirect bombardment, leading to its dominant role in World War I. Yet no serious military strategist of Kipling’s day would have suggested that the British Army disband its infantry and cavalry regiments and reorganize into only artillery brigades.

The great wars of the 20th century were won by maneuver, not just firepower. Technology has increased the range and precision of firepower, but the question about maneuver force planning posed by the prominent German tactician of World War I, General Wilhelm von Balck, is still central: “How much infantry will be required to utilize the success of the fire of the artillery?” Nothing in the violent decades since has changed von Balck’s conclusion, “There are no longer principal arms. Each arm has its use, all are necessary.”1

The principal lesson of modern war is the need to operate in combined arms teams to win decisive victories that yield beneficial political change. There are

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no “silver bullets” that can win wars by themselves, even if fitted with satellite guidance. Nor is war just about blowing things up. War is “politics by other means” with the aim to determine how territory and people are governed, and to what ends rulers direct their resources. This cannot be done from 15,000 feet in the air.

Yet there are those who would argue, on the basis of the air campaigns in the Balkans and Afghanistan, that the United States should restructure its armed forces to rely almost entirely on bombers, with some special forces and perhaps some other light troops (preferably foreign) as auxiliaries. This line of argument has been around since Billy Mitchell claimed in his 1925 book Winged Defense, “It is probable that future wars again will be conducted by a special class, the air force, as it was by the armored knights in the Middle Ages. Again, the whole population will not have to be called in the event of a national emergency, but only enough of it to man the machines that are the most potent in national defense.”2

Airpower did play a major role in the wars that followed, but as part of a larger war effort that aimed at the destruction of enemy regimes by conquest, and the remaking of their societies in the image of the liberating armies. From World War II to Vietnam, democracies were established where American troops prevailed and dictatorships where communist troops took hold. But nowhere was the promise of “victory through airpower” alone borne out.

In the Gulf War, which airpower advocates cite as the rebirth of their doctrine, the decision to halt the ground offensive after only four days and without advancing on Baghdad left Saddam Hussein in power. A decade of air strikes and “no fly zones” has not prevented Hussein from undermining the Gulf War coalition by diplomacy while developing weapons of mass destruction.

Mitchell might well have considered his own analogy of fighter pilots to medieval knights more carefully. Though the armored horseman was singularly the most powerful “weapon system” of his day, performance on battlefields from the Holy Land to Crecy did not always support his claim to glory. The knight was often frustrated, even defeated, by steadfast infantry, archers, and more agile light cavalry. He was at his best when he fought in an army that had its own contingents of these other arms in mutual support.

Unfortunately, the unreflective appeal of Mitchell continues to be strong and may be infecting the future military planning of the Bush Administration.

President Bush purged the strategic malaise of the 1990s when he said at The Citadel on 11 December 2001, “When the Cold War ended, some predicted that the era of direct threats to our nation was over. Some thought our military

25/26

would be used overseas—not to win wars, but mainly to police and pacify, to control crowds and contain ethnic conflict. They were wrong.” He reiterated the stand he took immediately after 11 September: “Every nation now knows that we cannot accept—and we will not accept—states that harbor, finance, train, or equip the agents of terror. Those nations that violate this principle will be regarded as hostile regimes.” And he noted that many of these “rogue” nations are developing missiles and weapons of mass destruction. “For states that support terror,” he vowed, “it’s not enough that the consequences be costly—they must be devastating.”

The problem arises from relying too much on the “lessons” of the recent military campaign in Afghanistan as providing the template for meeting these future threats. President Bush noted that the combination of “real-time intelligence, local allied forces, Special Forces, and precision air power” shattered the Taliban regime. Fair enough. He was too hasty, however, in saying that this kind of strategy had not been used before, and that “the conflict in Afghanistan has taught us more about the future of our military than a decade of blue-ribbon panels and think tank symposiums.”

America is fortunate that Osama bin Laden chose to locate in Afghanistan, a country without ballistic missiles or weapons of mass destruction—or for that matter, even a conventional army of any size. Taliban and al Qaeda forces numbered about 50,000, one-tenth the size of the Iraqi forces engaged in Desert Storm, but about the same size as Serbian forces in Kosovo. US forces could attack Afghanistan with impunity. The only real challenge was the remote geography and lack of existing agreements with neighboring states regarding base rights. The military victory over the Taliban rabble looked easy because it was.

This is not to diminish in any way the valor of those Americans who fought and died in the campaign, because war is never easy at the individual level. But in terms of national effort, the war was as one-sided as anything in the annals of Queen Victoria’s “little wars” of the 19th century. American leaders should not expect the next war to be as undemanding.

There may be the temptation to group the Afghan war with the Balkan interventions of the 1990s, but it would be a case of mixing apples and oranges, as the war aims were different. The US-led NATO air campaigns against Serbia in 1995 and 1999 were acts of coercion in support of diplomatic settlements. The first air campaign, lasting from 30 August to 20 September, led to the Dayton Accords, which effectively partitioned an independent Bosnia into Serbian, Mus-

26/27

lim, and Croatian sectors under a confederation government. The second, and longer, air campaign (24 March to 9 June 1999) was meant to force Serbia to accept the terms of the Rambouillet agreement for autonomous Albanian rule in Kosovo. Both air campaigns were exercises in limited war.

The campaign in Afghanistan, in contrast, was an exercise in decisive warfare. As a result of the strategic review Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conducted upon taking office, a new paradigm of “winning decisively” was emerging even before 11 September and had been incorporated into the Quadrennial Defense Review. Winning decisively has been defined as the ability to march on an enemy capital, with the intent of overthrowing its regime. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz added to this concept at a 16 August 2001 press briefing, saying, “We want to have a major war capability to impose whatever terms—‘win decisively,’ I guess is the terminology. It was called ‘unconditional surrender’ in World War II.”3

The objective in Afghanistan was the elimination of the Taliban regime and the destruction of the al Qaeda terrorist network which had been built with Taliban cooperation. The scale of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed some 3,000 people, required nothing less. There was no question from the start of the campaign that ground forces would be needed to overthrow Taliban rule and sweep the country of al Qaeda terrorists.

Ground troops had also played a role in the Balkan campaigns. The offensive by Croatian troops from May to early August 1995 recaptured substantial territory and changed the balance of power. The offensive was renewed in western Bosnia during the NATO bombing campaign. Though the air campaign is widely credited with breaking Serbian resistance and bringing the Milosevic regime to the peace table, the resulting distribution of land between the Croat, Muslim, and Serb factions in Bosnia was little different from what the armies of each factor had been able to seize or hold during the ground campaign preceding the Dayton conference.4

By the end of May 1999, the threat of a NATO ground invasion was increasing as impatience grew about the indecisive effects of the bombing campaign and the mounting humanitarian costs of the massive refugee flight from Kosovo.5 The introduction of NATO troops could have shifted the war from the limited objective of a negotiated settlement to the “decisive” objective of the removal of Slobodan Milosevic from power and his arrest on war crimes charges. Subsequent events have certainly proven out any fears Milosevic may have had about the escalating hostility of NATO toward him personally.

In Afghanistan, the decision was made to support local forces in a civil war against the Taliban. The difficulties of deploying American forces were both physical and political. The United States had no bases in Central Asia, nor was there sufficient infrastructure to support a major deployment. There was also a political risk that introducing American troops would provoke an anti-Western backlash favoring the Islamic extremists. Though the resulting operation looked similar to the 1995 Bosnian strategy, it was not the same. In 1995, NATO air

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strikes were not integrated with the Croat-Muslim offensive, let alone directed by US special forces serving with the local combat units.6

Afghanistan was not the first time this strategy was used. Indeed, it was one of the first strategies ever used by the United States in an overseas operation.

Taking a Longer Historical View

When President Thomas Jefferson decided to confront the Barbary pirates 200 years ago, US strategy also relied on offshore bombardment and local forces led by only a handful of American “special operators.” In 1804, after the pirates had seized the frigate Philadelphia, Navy Captain Stephen Decatur led a commando raid in Tripoli harbor to burn the ship. Commodore Edward Preble later sailed into the harbor and bombarded the town and the Barbary fleet. The most notable parallel of that war with the current conflict, though, is the land campaign.

A former Army captain, William Eaton, was US consul to Tunis. With only eight marines, a Navy midshipman, and 100 mercenaries, Eaton left Alexandria, Egypt, to restore Hamet Karamanli to the throne of Tripoli and overthrow his usurper brother. Picking up more adherents along his 600-mile march, Eaton’s force stormed the city of Derna with the support of a naval bombardment. This direct threat to his rule persuaded the bashaw of Tripoli, Yousuf Karamanli, to make peace and ransom the crew of the Philadelphia.

The campaign against the Barbary pirates was interrupted by the War of 1812, a much larger and more important conflict, for which the United States was ill prepared. President James Madison had taken a harder line in foreign policy, but had not created the military muscle to back up his diplomacy. An Army deployed to defend against marauding Indians and a Navy oriented toward protecting commerce from pirates was not ready to face a major power like the British Empire. In 1814, the British captured Washington, D.C., and burned several government buildings, including the White House.

A century later, the British themselves would find that armed forces designed for colonial warfare were inadequate—both in numbers and in doctrine, to meet the army of Imperial Germany in a contest for European supremacy. The British Empire was defended mainly by native troops, with a hard core of veteran

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British professionals armed with more advanced weapons. They were in action almost continuously. Yet the Boer War at the turn of the century surprised the British as to its scale and duration, taxing the empire’s military resources and calling into question its military capabilities in the eyes of other powers.

The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sent to France in 1914 was well trained and well equipped. On a man-for-man basis it was arguably the best fighting force in Europe, but at only four infantry divisions plus some cavalry brigades, it was smaller than the army of “neutral” Belgium. Though the BEF gave a good account of itself, it was chewed up in high-intensity combat. The hastily mobilized mass army that followed in 1915 suffered heavy losses due to inadequate training and lack of support from a defense industry that had found mobilization even more difficult than had the military.

The lesson that should be learned by those who have been urging a restructuring of the US military toward lighter forces, whether for peacekeeping duties during the years of the Clinton Administration or anti-terrorism operations now, is that it is difficult to rapidly upgrade forces designed for the low end of the conflict spectrum to handle larger wars. And it is usually the larger wars that have the higher stakes.

World War I found the United States as well as Great Britain unprepared for large-scale war. General John J. Pershing was given command of the American Expeditionary Force. Pershing had just come back from chasing Pancho Villa’s guerrilla band, which had made raids into New Mexico and Texas.

Pershing’s punitive expedition into Mexico initially involved only 5,000 Regular troops, while homeland defense was entrusted to the Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona National Guard. Pershing pioneered the use of his era’s high-tech systems: biplanes, radios, and trucks. When his command reached 11,000 soldiers, it became the largest body of troops any then-active American officer had ever led. The US Army did not have a single active unit of division size when President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war.

The Germans knew resorting to unrestricted submarine warfare would bring the United States into the conflict, but they believed that American unpreparedness would give Berlin time to win the war before US troops could intervene. The Germans were wrong in their analysis, but not by much. American troops went into combat armed with French machine guns, tanks, and fighter planes because US industry could not gear up fast enough to supply such weapons. And American troops suffered heavy casualties because they lacked adequate training for large-scale, high-intensity operations.

The Afghan operation was more of a punitive expedition than a real war. The outrage Americans felt in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon—which killed more people than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—does not change the fact that terrorism is the tactic of the weak. There was no surge of enemy conquests across vast areas of the world like those the Japanese launched after 7 December 1941. Al Qaeda was not a major

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power, nor could it upset the balance of power in the world. Osama bin Laden did have a plan to change the face of the Middle East, by driving the United States out of the region and overthrowing those Muslim states which had cooperated with Washington, but his resources fell far short of his mad ambitions.

The United States must make sure its resources do not fall short of its needs when confronting menaces that do threaten the balance of power or the security of entire regions. Osama bin Laden is not America’s only adversary. The threats that existed before 9/11—from rogue states to a rising China, are still there and still need to be faced.

Shaping the Future Force

There was already talk of further downsizing the US armed forces, particularly conventional ground forces, even before the Afghan campaign. A review of strategy conducted by the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment emphasized the military leverage afforded by long-range bombers and space systems. Early drafts of the review didn’t even mention ground forces.7 The Army has already been cut from 18 divisions at the time of the Gulf War to ten divisions today. Some would like to see it cut further, to eight divisions or even six. The money saved would be reallocated to fund more long-range, precision-strike systems.

The opinion fad of the moment holds that only Special Forces are needed to serve as target spotters for the bombers and as liaisons to local ground forces. Yet the notion that the United States doesn’t need an Army with the capability of imposing decisive defeats on enemy forces, marching on capitals, and overthrowing hostile regimes falls into the same category as those opinions of myopic critics who say that the threat of terrorism means resources should not be spent on missile defenses despite the fact that many of the states that support terrorism have missile programs.

The United States cannot always rely on local troops to prevail in combat, even when supported by American airpower. In Korea, Vietnam, and Kuwait, American intervention—numbering in each case around 500,000 men, was needed precisely because local allies could not halt aggression from more powerful neighbors on their own. There were no local, armed allies available when Washington intervened to remove the regime of Manuel Noriega in Panama, nor could massive bombing be used since the general population was friendly.

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The Bush Administration is contemplating deposing other regimes that support terrorism or are developing weapons of mass destruction. In his speech on 17 April at the Virginia Military Institute, the President again talked of the “axis of evil” and said that the Taliban was only “the first regime to fall in the war against terror.” Taking the war to larger, more established states will be even more difficult. At the top of the list is Iraq, but Iran is not far behind with its support of terrorist groups operating in Lebanon under the protection of Syria. North Korea also remains a menace. Battles waged against the forces of any of these rogue states would be of a scale and intensity far beyond what has been seen in Afghanistan, and well beyond the capabilities of any ad hoc local “militia.”

It should be remembered that the first Bush Administration expected local forces (Kurdish and Shiite rebels or a military coup) would finish off Saddam Hussein after his defeat in Kuwait. US ground troops did not advance on Baghdad to remove the Iraqi regime, but relied on others to finish the job. That outcome did not happen.

Even in the Afghanistan operation, reliance on local forces had its disappointments. Many Taliban leaders and their followers evidently were allowed to escape through battlefield deals that exchanged the peaceful surrender of territory for the safety of defeated commanders. Such deals may have been necessary because the Northern Alliance and anti-Taliban Pashtun tribes were too weak to win a decisive battle. This seemed particularly true at Kandahar. The anti-Taliban forces lacked the numbers, weapons, and training to either take or besiege a stoutly defended city. Islamic militants consequently have been able to withdraw back into sympathetic communities in Afghanistan or escape to neighboring Pakistan, to fight another day.

Belatedly, US ground troops were deployed to make up for local Afghan deficiencies. Marines established a base south of Kandahar to interdict escape routes to Pakistan, and then were rushed forward to occupy Kandahar airport. Soldiers from the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne divisions were then brought in to help bring the conflict to a successful political conclusion by hunting down enemy leaders and remnant forces.

Airpower in support of Northern Alliance fighters had led to the initial retreat by Taliban and al Qaeda forces from Kabul back to Kandahar. Air strikes also harassed that retreat, but without better armed and more mobile ground troops to encircle Kabul, the enemy could not be “bagged” while still concentrated. The deployment of even one airmobile brigade, or the equivalent of one of the Army’s proposed fast-moving interim brigades, would have made a major difference in the campaign right then.

In 2000, the Quadrennial Defense Review Working Group at the National Defense University prepared a report on the use of allied forces in major theater wars. It concluded that “very few allies possess substantial combat capability (ground maneuver brigades, combat aircraft) that would allow for a reduction of US combat forces.”8 The United States has the best-trained, best-armed,

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and most-capable military on the planet. As Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz has said of adversaries, “They have learned from the Gulf War that challenging American forces head-on doesn’t work—so they have turned increasingly to developing asymmetric capabilities,” like terrorism.9

It would be foolish to dismantle those elements of national strength that have pushed adversaries into the margins. Indeed, the strategy of “decisive warfare” plays to America’s conventional strength. It is the basis for the strategy of taking the war to the enemy, rather than trying to defend every US asset from every possible form of attack.

To improve the Army’s capabilities to win wars, not just “police and pacify,” the Afghan campaign has served to speed up the transformation process. The Army must be able to field a balance of units effective in operations from the heavy to the light ends of the conflict spectrum. Some lighter-equipped units are needed for certain missions and as a rapid reaction/deterrent/vanguard force. At the same time, larger, heavier-equipped units also must be retained and be capable of timely deployment. The Army transformation initiative is designed to achieve just that. By reequipping a number of interim brigades with light armored vehicles to provide a rapidly deployable, highly lethal, mobile ground force, while also retaining heavier armored units, the Army will be able to quickly deploy reinforcing units of increasing combat power.

Victories are precious things, paid for in blood and treasure. They must not be thrown away. When the enemy is beaten or in retreat, they cannot be allowed to survive and regroup. Enemies with determined leaders and an indomitable agenda must be destroyed when the opportunity exists to do so, because such opportunities are fleeting—and expensive to recreate.

Asymmetrical strategies cut both ways. It is still better to be strong than weak, and to be rich rather than poor, when waging war. And when vital interests are at stake, America should be ready and willing to take matters into its own hands, which means the use of ground troops. Only then can the United States be sure that the outcome of the struggle is a victory that fulfills American objectives.


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NOTES

1. Jonathan H. House, Combined Arms Warfare in the Twentieth Century (Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 2001), p. 60.

2. William Mitchell, Winged Defense (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925), p. 19.

3. Paul Wolfowitz, Briefing on the Defense Planning Guidance, 16 August 2001, internet, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2001/t0...1_t0816dsd.html.

4. Mark C. McLaughlin, “Assessing the Effectiveness of Deliberate Force: Harnessing the Political-Military Connection,” in Deliberate Force: A Case Study in Effective Air Campaigning, ed. Robert C. Owen (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air Univ. Press, 2000), p. 195. This is the Final Report of the Air University Balkan Air Campaign Study.

5. Operation Allied Force: Lessons for the Future, Rand Research Brief RB-75-AF (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2001), internet, http://www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB75.

6. According to the Final Report of the Air University Balkan Air Campaign Study, any support the air campaign gave to anti-Serbian ground operations was “unintentional.” McLaughlin, p. 195.

7. Loren B. Thompson, “Saved by Reality: The Army Finds a Future,” Defense Week, 9 October 2001.

8. Robert Holzer, “Report: Allies No Substitutes for U.S. Troops,” Defense News, 28 August 2000, p. 1.

9. Paul Wolfowitz, “Building a Military for the 21st Century,” Prepared Statement for the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, 3-4 October 2001.


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William R. Hawkins is Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the US Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation, following five years on the staff of Representative Duncan Hunter, then Chairman of the House Armed Services Military Procurement Subcommittee. Before going to Washington, he taught economics at Radford University and Appalachian State University.

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Paramet...mer/hawkins.htm

UK pledges troop expansion to southern Afghanistan


Zubair Babakarkhel

KABUL, October 1 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Visiting British Defence Secretary Dr. John Reid announced Saturday his country would expand peacekeeping troops to the shambolic southern and eastern zones of Afghanistan.

Mainly positioned in the capital and northern cities at present, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has frequently been urged by Afghan and US authorities for an expansion to the restive countryside, where a Taliban insurgency is on the rise.

"We will send two more Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) to two provinces in the near future," Reid said while referring to the proposed deployment of ISAF's civil-military bodies. Britain is due to take control of the mission in May 2006.

The UK has deployed about 1,000 troops to Afghanistan, serving mainly under the UN-mandated ISAF's PRTs based in northern Faryab and Balkh provinces.

At a news conference he jointly addressed with his Afghan counterpart Gen. Rahim Wardak at the conclusion of their official talks, Reid assured Britain - having no long-term ambitions in Afghanistan - remained committed to helping the country stand on its own feet.

"What we have done in Afghanistan so far is not enough and will continue supporting the Afghan government and people as long as they need our cooperation," vowed the secretary, who underlined the imperative of improved security in the strife-torn country.

With reference to last week's deadly suicide bombing that killed 10 people in front of Kabul's military training camp, he said: "In Afghanistan, such incidents can't change our security plans."

Speaking on the occasion, Defence Minister Rahim Wardak lauded the planned expansion of British forces, saying that was what Afghanistan wished and needed. The move would help beef up security arrangements in the restive regions, he hoped.

At their meeting preceding the press conference, Wardak said, they conferred on training of the fledgling Afghan army. "We agreed on further strengthening the army and raising its strength to the envisaged level," the minister added.




http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1619

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/143...C9AD3D3EE72.htm

Bodies of 500 Afghan soldiers found

Friday 30 September 2005, 8:13 Makka Time, 5:13 GMT

Bodies of 500 soldiers were found in eastern Afghanistan

Afghan authorities are investigating a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of more than 500 soldiers of the Afghan communist regime toppled in 1992, the Interior Ministry said.

Ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanekzai said an assessment team had been sent to the site of the grave in the eastern province of Paktika - discovered last month after shoes, jackets and uniforms rose to the surface.



Stanekzai said on Thursday that the grave is believed to contain the bodies of Afghan soldiers of the communist government of former President Najibullah who were killed after surrendering to mujahedeen fighters.



Another Interior Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media, said the grave contains more than 500 bodies. He did not know who had found the grave and alerted authorities.

Karzai's four-day visit to France from Sunday


KABUL, September 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghan President Hamid Karzai is scheduled to head to France on Sunday on a four-day visit as part of his campaign to muster foreign support for his strife-torn country after the Sept 18 legislative elections marking culmination of the Bonn process.

He will also attend the general assembly of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris and urge the agency to play a robust role in rebuilding Afghanistan's education and cultural sectors.

Khaleeq Ahmad Khaleeq, assistant spokesman on international affairs for Hamid Karzai, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Friday the president would meet his French counterpart Jacques Chirac, Defence Minister Michle Alliot-Marie and Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Monday.

"He will ask the French government not to abandon Afghanistan after the implementation of the Bonn Accord because the reconstruction effort has not yet come to an end; rather it needs further help," said the spokesman, who added Karzai would also go to other countries to seek their assistance.

According to the spokesman, the president will hold talks with his hosts on continuation of French support for Afghanistan's reconstruction, security, economy and cultural revival. France is already putting in efforts to help the South Asian nation map its route to stability.

On Tuesday, Karzai will deliver a speech to French Parliament before attending the UNESCO general assembly on Wednesday. He would meet the president of the French National Assembly, Khaleeq added.

France has been one of the major supporters of Afghanistan's reconstruction and the post-Taliban political process. Also a key partner in the US-led war on terror, Paris was part of the coalition that ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001.



Borhan Younus



http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1604

British minister arrives in Kabul for security talks




KABUL, September 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): British Defence Secretary John Reid arrived Friday morning in Kabul for talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, officials said.

Following his arrival, Reid accompanied a British military patrol in the Afghan capital and meet British troops placed under the US-led coalition and the NATO-headed international peacekeeping force.

A spokesperson for the British military in Kabul told Pajhwok Afghan News Reid, here on a four-day official trip, would meet President Hamid Karzai and Defence Minister Rahim Wardak on Saturday.

Security and other issues of bilateral interest will figure at the meetings, which are likely to focus on a planned expansion of the ISAF into the troubled southern zone, where an insurgency is on the rise.

After official talks, the visiting dignitary and his Afghan counterpart would address a joint news conference at the Defence Ministry here in the morning, the embassy spokesman said.

He would review the UKs contribution to international efforts to create a stable and prosperous future for Afghanistan, the British embassy said in a press release. "Today, on the first day of the visit, Dr Reid toured the streets of the capital with the Kabul Patrol Group (KPC), commanded by Major Marcus Reedman of the 2nd Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles."

The KPC is responsible for helping the Afghans maintain security in three of Kabuls 16 Police Districts and operates in the southeast of the city.

During patrols with the KPC, Reid said: The troops in the KPC are doing a tremendous job helping the Afghans maintain security in Kabul. By patrolling on foot and in open top vehicles, and wherever possible mixing with the local population, they are helping to build trust and understanding giving everyone in the city a chance to rebuild their lives following decades of war.

"As part of the ISAF mission, UK Armed Forces personnel are also involved in training the Afghan National Army, helping to develop a crucial component of Afghanistans security, now and in the future. I am delighted to see at first hand the very real progress that is being made by UK and international troops on the ground."

Later Reid met troops from the 2nd Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, as well as the 1st Battalion Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire, Wiltshire Light Infantry.

At Kabul's international airport, Reid was received by the UK ambassador here and the commander of British forces in Afghanistan. Currently, there are around 800 British troops deployed to Afghanistan - most of them with the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) - to maintain security in Kabul and some northern provinces.

Some of them are part of the coalition forces, which are hunting al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

Borhan Younus

mud


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1605

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1472427.htm

October 1, 2005. 0:00am (AEST)
Roadside bomb injures US troops in Afghanistan

Four US troops were wounded when their armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb blast in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar.

The US military says the wounded soldiers, from a unit that had returned from defusing a similar bomb in the area, are in a stable condition.

Insurgent violence has picked up in Afghanistan since the Taliban guerrillas and their Islamic militant allies failed to derail legislative elections held on September 18.

A US soldier and a US Marine were killed in militant attacks on Monday, a day after a US helicopter crashed on an anti-militant operation killing all five crewmen.

Monday's deaths brought US combat fatalities in Afghanistan this year to more than 50, making it the bloodiest so far for US forces in the country.

Afghanistan Four Years On:
An Assessment



SEAN M. MALONEY

“The transformation of a traditional society could only be achieved extremely
slowly, and certainly not by wrecking its existing structure and relationships.
Even in the Soviet Union there had been the ‘great mistakes’ of the 1920s and
1930s. As a Soviet official in Moscow was also reported as saying [in 1981],
‘If there is one country in the world where we would not like to try scientific
socialism at this point in time, it is Afghanistan.’”
— Martin Ewans, Afghanistan (2001)


In Spring 2004, Parameters published “Afghanistan: From Here to Eternity?” which explored the situation in Afghanistan in early 2003, or a little over one year after the Taliban regime was removed from power. The tone of the piece was guardedly pessimistic and in effect reminded readers that though there had been progress, the possibility remained that overenthusiastic and emotional responses by the international community in the follow-on phase of the campaign could scuttle that success. That article also laid out a number of challenges that would have to be addressed to avoid what the critics increasingly referred to as “another Vietnam.”

In 2005, the situation in Afghanistan has progressed to the point where guarded optimism is justified. Unfortunately, the perception of the situation on the ground has become distorted through the prism of American partisan politics, particularly during the run-up to the 2004 election. The focus of this rhetoric was and remains issues related to narcotics production and a number of spin-off arguments related to it. Afghanistan is apparently no longer looked at as “another Vietnam”; now it is perhaps “another Colombia.”1

Though the narcotics issue is critical to the future of Afghanistan, public discussion of it in American fora has overridden acknowledgment of

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other areas of success, areas which are in fact more important than any single issue and which will, in the long run, have a positive effect on counternarcotics operations in the region anyway. This article examines how the situation in Afghanistan has dramatically changed since 2003, and why. It will also suggest that there are new areas for concern which policymakers may wish to focus on beyond the currently salient narcotics problem.

Where Did We Stand in 2003?

Combined Forces Command Afghanistan or “CFC Alpha” (CFC-A) is the American-led Coalition headquarters for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Established in late 2003 to rationalize a convoluted command structure, CFC-A is now the focal point of the Coalition military effort. The situation in-country in July 2003, according to CFC-A, was characterized by these elements: a Coalition force with a counterterrorist focus; an enemy which had sanctuary in Afghanistan conducting operations against Coalition forces; a neutral population; an Afghan National Army that was in training; only four Provincial Reconstruction Teams; and minimal support from Pakistan. There was no constitution, no political process, and minimal sovereignty was exercised by Afghanistan.2

With the exception of the overly simplified portrayal of the enemy forces, these points were generally accurate,3 but they require some elaboration. In 2003, the primary problem was the embryonic nature of the interim and transitional Afghan governments and the possibility that fragile structure could be destabilized and toppled before it could get to work. Connected to this was the questionable legitimacy of the government’s leader, President Hamid Karzai. On the ground, Karzai was variously portrayed as a pawn of the United States or in the pocket of southern anti-Taliban fighters of Pashtun ethnicity, or implicitly controlled by the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance exerted explicit control over Kabul and the associated political processes by dint of its 27,000-man military contingent based in the city and its environs. There was no countervailing federal governmental coercive power in Kabul, let alone throughout the rest of the country. This power was in the hands of local leaders, anti-Taliban chieftains which the media pejoratively labeled “warlords.” Remnants of the Taliban, supported by the remnants of al Qaeda’s military forces,

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were by this time in the process of transitioning from a conventional guerilla war to a low-level terrorist campaign, and the possibility of a return to the destructive post-Soviet era infighting between the chieftains existed in numerous locations, including Kabul. The Afghan population outside of the Pashtun areas was, in the main, not openly hostile toward the international forces, but it generally was not overtly supportive either except in certain cases.4

International forces in Afghanistan at that time included the 18,000 members of the American-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the 4,500-strong European-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). OEF was evolving into a mature counterinsurgency force, operating mostly in the southeast and eastern parts of Afghanistan, while ISAF was confined to Kabul. ISAF had a muddled mandate and, without the resources to carry it out, functioned as a nearly symbolic European presence in Kabul, a green-uniformed island in a tan-uniformed sea. A pilot program intended to coordinate OEF efforts with those of the provincial chieftains and the embryonic Afghan National Army, called the Joint Regional Teams, was established in Gardez by mid 2003 (in time, the Joint Regional Teams were renamed Provincial Reconstruction Teams, or PRTs).

The Afghan National Army program was, at the time, convoluted, and little progress had been made because of the inability of ISAF to support the task effectively and the reticence of OEF to take it over completely pending clarification of the responsibilities of both forces vis-à-vis the emerging transitional government. Infrastructure damage after 25 years of war was another impediment to extending federal government control over the provinces. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were intimidated in insurgency areas, which had a spill-over effect in secured areas: the insurgents targeted NGOs in the southeast knowing that the organizations would pull out of the whole country if enough casualties were taken by aid workers. OEF operations against the insurgents were complicated by the sensitive matter of Pakistani territorial sovereignty and the volatile political scene in that country.5

In sum, the Afghan transitional government had questionable legitimacy among the people (though not necessarily on the international scene), it was subject to coercion by better-armed entities, and it was dependent on international forces in every way. Without security, there can be no reconstruction, and with no reconstruction there would be no nation-building, thus leaving Afghanistan susceptible to continued instability and penetration by international terrorism. On the plus side, the insurgency was forced by OEF operations to alter its methodology, which in turn made insurgent operations less effective. There were clear indicators that the Afghan population did not and would not support the continuation of Taliban influence (and consequently al Qaeda) in the country.

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The Situation in 2004-05

There are, essentially, three enemy forces operating against the Afghan government and its Coalition partners. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) organization, still seeking to influence the brokerage of power in Kabul, operates from areas east of the city and still mounts usually ineffective attacks on ISAF, OEF, and Afghan National Army forces in the capital. Taliban military formations have been completely reduced by OEF operating methods and appear to have shifted from guerilla warfare to pinprick terrorist attacks, usually in ethnically Pashtun areas in the southeast. Al Qaeda provides training and equipment to both HIG and the Taliban. Additionally, al Qaeda mounts its own limited raids on Coalition forces located on the border with Pakistan. These raids appear to employ the well-equipped remnants of al Qaeda’s “conventional” formations which worked with the Taliban prior to 2001. Unlike HIG and al Qaeda, the Taliban are still trying to create a parallel government to garner popular support in Pashtun areas with the aim of retaking the country. At this point, the synergy of HIG, the Taliban, and al Qaeda has been unable to significantly influence the direction that the Afghan people are taking under the Karzai government.6

The importance of Karzai’s election in this milieu cannot be underestimated. It is a truism that government legitimacy and the support of the population are absolutely critical in the fight against guerilla and terrorist organizations. By most indications, this has been achieved for the time being in Afghanistan. The elections were fair and carefully monitored: the voter turnout, more than 80 percent, should put the citizens of the United States and Canada to shame with regard to their respective voter turnouts during elections in 2004. Attempts by enemy forces to use terrorism to interfere with the Afghan election process were crushed before they could bear fruit, particularly in Kabul, where ISAF and OEF forces operated together with Afghan police and military forces in a coordinated fashion.7

The success in containing the insurgency and suppressing other elements posing challenges to the Afghan reconstruction effort is attributable to several “moving parts,” all of which are interdependent. First, the American-led Coalition, OEF, is the repository of mobile striking power in Afghanistan. In the past, OEF special operations forces used direct action against high-value targets and worked closely with various chieftains’ militia forces, while airmobile light infantry was brought in to hit concentrations of enemy fighters and sweep support areas. Most OEF operations were conducted in the eastern part of the country. This approach has, in some ways, changed. A prototype regional team concept, established in 2003, deployed a small coordination cell to Gardez to assist with information collection, limited civic action, and NGO coordination in

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conjunction with the local militia force commanders. These regional teams were originally in support of the sweep and raid operations conducted by the airmobile and special operations forces, and were renamed Joint Regional Teams. Each was expanded in numbers and capability to encompass broader reconstruction coordination and security tasks, and they were then again renamed as Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). By late 2004, the emphasis on mobile sweep and raid operations in the east shifted to supporting the 18 PRTs, which were located in every significant populated area in the country. In addition, each concentration of PRTs required a Forward Support Base with helicopters, medical resources, and reaction forces. The effects of establishing a PRT and Forward Support Base network throughout Afghanistan, however rudimentary in the early days, provided a firm basis to extend Afghan government influence once the nature of that influence could be determined.8

The main cog here was the development and expansion of the Afghan National Army (ANA), the second “moving part.” By late 2003, the ANA support process from the international community had become much more rational. ISAF (pre-2003) had dropped the ball in the training scheme and it was picked up by OEF, but the direction taken in the design of the Afghan National Army was initially haphazard and impeded by the chieftains in Kabul and their militia forces. In time, high-quality instruction provided by American, Canadian, and British Embedded Training Teams established a significant confidence level in the fledgling Afghan Ministry of Defence and, most important, in its fighting units. The Afghan National Army expanded from three experimental “kandaks” (battalion-equivalents) toward a goal of 26. With an expanded ANA, the Afghan government has forged a power-projection tool to take advantage of the expanded Coalition presence throughout the country. ANA garrisons now exist in most urban areas. The development of the ANA, however, is still very much a work in progress.9

The third “moving part” was the ISAF in Kabul. ISAF in its pre-NATO configuration had a vague but potentially competing mandate with OEF and possessed virtually no resources or firepower to provide significant influence in the city of Kabul, its designated area of operations.10 The NATO summit in Istanbul in 2003 and the acceptance by NATO of ISAF command dramatically altered this state of affairs.11 Under Canadian influence, the vague ISAF mandate evolved to a statement specifically supporting the interim government and establishing security in Kabul. This depended on an improved ANA capability to offset the military capabilities of at least two heavily armed chieftains who controlled the city and its security forces, which in turn had a countervailing influence on the Afghan political process. ISAF’s area of operations was expanded to encompass the entire province of Kabul, not just the city, and coordination between ISAF and OEF was improved, particularly in the special

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operations realm. ISAF was able to keep an eye on potential problem factions, assist in the hunt for HIG and al Qaeda-trained infiltrations, and facilitate a wide variety of local projects which synergistically assisted the security efforts by building trust with the population.12

Yet another “moving part” is the institution-building and coordination efforts between OEF, ISAF, the Afghan Ministry of Defence, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), and police forces in Kabul. Proceeding simultaneously with the OEF effort in the field, ISAF in Kabul, and the ANA training activities, experienced Afghan military and security leaders were asked to provide their leadership to the central government. This was no easy task, as some had fought each other in previous years. Consensus-building, however, has had some success, and the mentoring programs provided by private military corporations like MPRI have professionalized in some respects the bureaucratic mechanisms needed to handle national army and security forces and have assisted in their coordination with OEF and ISAF. All of this had to be done without generating the perception that the result was being imposed from the outside by foreign entities.

OEF takes on the organized insurgents, while ISAF assists with security of the capital. PRT expansion provides bases for the extension of central government power into the outlying areas. These ambitious programs did not proceed without challenges. Clearly, the primary antagonists, all supported by al Qaeda, continued in their efforts to disrupt and derail in a broad sense the direction being taken by the Karzai government. The real nub, however, are the chieftains and their militia forces. How, exactly, can a central government be established and its power expanded without a return to the bad old days of 1993-1996? Can a civil war be prevented?

A simplistic analysis would have us believe that the main encumbrances to stability and peace in Afghanistan are “the drug-fueled warlords” and that there aren’t enough American troops on the ground in Afghanistan to confront them because of operations in Iraq.13 Such politically motivated critiques ignore the historical realities of Afghanistan, however, specifically that a large infusion of outside forces would place us in the same position that the Soviets found themselves in during the 1980s. They also are a slap in the face to those Afghan commanders and soldiers loyal to the Afghan government who have engaged in combat against those seeking to topple it. A large infusion of Western soldiery is not necessary; indeed, less is more, when handled adeptly. Having limited resources demands that subtlety and thought be employed rather than brute force. Brute-force solutions will not work in Afghanistan.14

The necessary subtlety is currently employed through the “chess game,” a coordinated effort using a variety of tools to incrementally lessen the power that regional chieftains have and supplant it with central government in-

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fluence while at the same time avoiding fighting.15 Essentially, these are influence tools of differing coerciveness. The “chess game” would be impossible without the high-end coercive resources that OEF and ISAF bring to bear, but that factor is in the background and builds on the psychology of OEF’s four-year firepower demonstration against the Taliban, plus the overall goodwill engendered by the special operations forces, civil affairs teams in the provinces, and ISAF operations in Kabul. Other mechanisms wielded in the “chess game” include the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) program; the Heavy Weapons Cantonment (HWC) program; “soft entry” deployments of the Afghan National Army; the proliferation of a variety of police forces to a region; and the “lateral promotion” of recalcitrant militia leaders.

Broadly speaking, the DDR program is used to demobilize personnel, while HWC cantons heavy weapons from machine guns to tanks and artillery. They are separately funded programs with different lines of control.16 DDR is now used as a verb: to “DDR” a militia formation is to incrementally demobilize it and canton the weapons. DDR may be employed bluntly as a threat, while at the same time DDR is an ongoing process throughout the country.

On the police front, militia forces under chieftain command previously provided security of all types in an unsystematic fashion. Now, border police, highway patrol police, and municipal police, all trained in Kabul, are incrementally introduced to professionalize and systematize the application of law at the local level. To a certain extent, law and order remains relative, but the concept behind an incremental transfer of power applies. The method of establishing a small Afghan National Army garrison, building it up slowly, and having its personnel develop relationships with militia forces provides yet another mechanism for progress.17

Militia forces are leadership-dependent. The main issue in this regard is one of “face.” The outright removal of an uncooperative chieftain is too abrupt and, in any event, if he no longer has a stake in the reconstruction process because he is out of power, than why should he and his remaining followers not take to the hills? Instead, chieftains have been brought into the central government in all manner of portfolios and assigned staffs to mentor them in governance. Second-tier militia leaders are promoted to become police commanders—but in another province, with other forces funded by

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Kabul. Rather than taking a moralistic Western stance and labeling them all drug-dealers and war criminals and then demanding Nuremberg-like trials, it has proven to be far better to assume everybody is “dirty” after 25 years of war and to start anew. Yes, some militia leaders will remain dirty, and mechanisms will have to be found to deal with that. However, the avoidance of civil war and a resurgence of Taliban influence is the objective, not show trials using Western laws or our version of international law.

It is critical to emphasize that this “chess game” is not something imposed from the outside: it is a coordinated effort between the Karzai government and the international entities operating in Afghanistan. Indeed, the United Nations, NATO, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the prolific number of American agencies working there are cooperating in various degrees in this direction and with varying levels of effectiveness. It would be easy to label this a “CIA plot” if it were not so transparent and multifaceted. It is clear to objective observers that President Karzai is not a pawn in the game.18

It would be foolish to argue that this “chess game” works perfectly. Indeed, the modeling of third- and fourth-order effects is not up to speed, and there can be unintended consequences when the relationships between certain key personalities are not taken into account.

The situation in Herat in the summer and fall of 2004 was a test case for the “chess game.” Ismail Kahn was a popular but recalcitrant chieftain who had in fact employed substantial revenues generated by cross-border trade with Iran to beautify Herat and its environs, but his militia commanders were not really interested in going along with the central government’s plans for power-sharing. Over time, the militia forces were incrementally “DDR’d” to the point that they were unable to offer serious resistance when Kabul ordered two Afghan National Army battalions into the area. Despite a small firefight, the national army forces were able to convince local militia forces to back off. Factions in Ismail Khan’s forces then attacked each other. Khan was “laterally promoted” to a post in Kabul. The confidence level built up after the Herat affair permitted the Karzai government to conduct a similar action with Fahim Khan’s militia forces in Kabul, which in turn neutralized a significant coercive force in the capital. As a consequence of such effective actions, the fall elections of 2004 were conducted in an atmosphere nearly devoid of Taliban, HIG, or militia coercion.19

New Challenges

The main supporting effort of the “chess game” mechanism will be police and judicial reform. In time, the incremental deployments of central government people to the outer reaches of Afghanistan will have to be backed up with a functioning legal system. Italy is in charge of assisting the Afghan

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government in this area. Though Italy brings to bear substantial experience in combating organized crime, the reform process has been slow and cultural differences are significant. The same can be said of police training. Germany is the lead nation in this regard, and for reasons most likely related to the Afghan budget, progress is slower than anticipated. At some point, it will no longer be desirable for the Afghan government and Coalition entities to continue to use military force to police the country.

This takes us to the narcotics problem. The assumption among some international entities operating in support of the Afghan government in 2004 suggests that the removal of chieftains engaged in narcotics cultivation and trafficking via the “chess game” may have two effects. It may result, in the worst case, in better networking under the guise of legitimate government activity. Second, the removal of the prominent leadership will devolve power to second-, third-, and even fourth-tier local personnel engaged in narcotics production, trafficking, and protection. By no means are all of these personnel former militia force personnel, which complicates attempts to identify and deal with them. Though this works to the advantage of the Afghan government in that the traffickers’ ability to organize a “narco-insurgency” is severely reduced, the lack of police and judicial capacity means that Kabul cannot yet target these dispersed, low-level groups. Similarly, an anti-corruption force will have to be formed to police the chieftains and others in the government to ensure that they remain uninvolved in narcotics production and distribution. In effect, Afghanistan will become like every other nation trying to take on organized crime (and not a Colombia-like narco-insurgency), but only if the right tools are forged and brought to bear.

Two other extremely important aspects of extending government influence to the provinces are sometimes overlooked in military assessments. These are the lack of roads and other infrastructure, coupled with the extremely high illiteracy rate. How does one provide anti-narcotics information to a nearly illiterate population? How does one deploy police and a legal system when the roads do not facilitate vehicular traffic? The deployment of PRTs, be they NATO or OEF, will assist in collecting information as much as they will assist in the local and provincial coordination effort, but how will Afghanistan “balance its books” in the reconstruction effort? And what priorities will be assigned? Politically motivated criticism in the Western media can interfere with the assessment and establishment of priorities. Demands by Western politicians and their mouthpieces for a huge and expensive counternarcotics force could divert the Afghan leadership’s attention from what they rightly view as their own established reconstruction priorities.

The seemingly constant demand by critics that more and more international troops need to be deployed to Afghanistan was addressed earlier.

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However, the PRT expansion program, whereby NATO members have in principle agreed to accept lead-nation status for several former American OEF-run PRTs, has stalled out because of a lack of contributors.20 The PRTs and their associated Forward Support Bases are supposed to be manned by approximately 5,000 personnel (100 per PRT, and 400 to 500 per FSB), yet NATO member nations can’t seem to come up with the additional personnel to meet this requirement. The reason is principally attributable to the stultifying euro-bureaucracy, but there also are serious problems in how ISAF is commanded as it expands to the provinces.

In 2004, the Eurocorps took command of ISAF, while the Franco-German Brigade was placed in command of ISAF’s Kabul Multinational Brigade. The relationship between the two French-led or dominated NATO headquarters with Combined Forces Command Afghanistan and certain American, British, and Canadian nations contributing forces to ISAF can be described in polite terms only as dysfunctional. The infighting, kept to a minimum under Canadian command last year but now detrimental to ISAF’s effectiveness, has reached the point where a new command concept should be considered. Steps were taken to conceptualize a NATO “Afghanistan Force” that would command both CFC-A and ISAF, but the lasting problem over the international command of American forces will prevent significant and effective movement in this direction for the time being.21 As usual, the demand by the French to command the planned NATO force grates on the sensitivities of other NATO members. The only entities to benefit from these fractures are France and al Qaeda.

An Afghanistan Force option was rejected by NATO in spring 2005. As it stands, the phased replacement of OEF PRTs with NATO PRTs will result in the transfer of some American-led PRTs to NATO command. Special operations forces engaged in the hunt for high-value targets will continue to operate in the region. The command relationship between those forces and the new, expanded ISAF is currently under discussion. In effect, ISAF will absorb elements of OEF, not replace them. SHAPE planners are, as of summer 2005, developing a campaign plan for the entire country. The problem of who will conduct the “robust” portions of that plan and what national restrictions will be placed on those forces will remain the main issues.

Another emerging challenge is the demands by international legal personalities for Balkans-style war crimes trials in Afghanistan.22 These demands appear to be rooted in simplistic notions that one size fits all when it comes to international law (other motives, like personal ambition and job security, cannot be ruled out). Afghanistan is not Bosnia, nor is it Kosovo. The Balkan wars were comparatively short in duration and had identifiable protagonists who could be singled out as instigators of mass crimes against humanity. Afghanistan, on the other hand, has had 25 years of war. The existing

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polity includes people who fought on both sides during the Soviet era but against the Taliban in more recent years. Milosevic-style indictments will not work in Afghanistan, where almost everybody may be guilty of violating some Western-based law. Indeed, if we are to have war crimes trials for Afghanistan, one should first call to the dock Soviet military and political leaders for acts of genocide, followed by every Soviet soldier who fought there, before moving on to any current Afghan leader or American soldier. A South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be the better tool. Afghanistan needs reconciliation, not a reprise of Nuremberg.

A disturbing trend is the belief among some in OEF that the Coalition is barely breaking even in the information war. Recent events in Jalalabad, where 15 people were killed during rioting over the alleged mistreatment of the Koran at Camp Delta in Cuba, coupled with the persistent ongoing hunt for another Abu Ghraib by media outlets, will require deft handling. We can assume the Jalalabad riots were externally stimulated, but if it can happen in Jalalabad, it could happen elsewhere. The best response is an effective and integrated Afghan response, not the imposition of OEF or ISAF troops to put down these information-warfare events. The Coalition, working closely with Afghan authorities, must become better at countering the more salacious allegations by media sources rather than remaining mute in an effort to ride them out.

Similarly, concerns within the intelligence community of the “migration” of tactics used in Iraq to Afghanistan are very real: in May 2005, a mosque in Kandahar was attacked with a significant death toll. In July, captured Afghan police were beheaded by insurgents, while a car bomb was used against the PRT in Kandahar. This new emphasis on mass civilian targets and gruesome terrorism against police indicate that while there has been success in countering the insurgency, there are still those who seek political change through violence. The best response, however, is an Afghan response.

Conclusion

There are grounds for optimism vis-à-vis the future of Afghanistan. As with any complex mechanism, however, the finer components may be damaged with wear and tear, not all the gears will mesh when we want them to, and the casing will be dropped from a great height time and again. There is an argument to made in the age of information operations that the simplistic metrics applied by the media and those seeking to make political fodder out of Afghanistan will always leave us with a perception that the country is on the brink of failure. The lack of historical context to these arguments, the ignorance of the effects of the high level of damage caused by 25 years of war, an underestimation of what the Afghan people are capable of, and the ruthless

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hunt for apparent failure will obscure the realities and complexities of reconstruction in this vast and diverse country.

Operation Enduring Freedom and the International Security Assistance Force continue to be critical instruments in buying the Afghan government time for security sector reform. NATO members, however, must live up to the high expectations they established in Istanbul.

Thus far, the path to reconstruction, though rocky, has been navigable, but not every hairpin turn can be anticipated, and there are still bandits on the road. The country we are dealing with is not Vietnam, not Colombia, nor is it Bosnia. It is Afghanistan, and it needs to be seen in its own light.


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NOTES

1. See, for example, T. Christian Miller, “Post-Invasion Chaos Blamed for Drug Surge,” Los Angeles Times, 4 October 2004; Robert Novak, “Lost in Afghanistan,” 31 May 2004, http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertn...20040531.shtml; Seymour Hersh, “The Other War,” The New Yorker, 12 April 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040412fa_fact; JohnKerry.com, “Afghanistan,” http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/national_security/asia.html; Barnett R. Rubin, “Road to Ruin: Afghanistan’s Booming Opium Industry,” Center for American Progress, 7 October 2004.

2. Combined Forces Command Afghanistan briefing to the author, Kabul, Afghanistan, 1 December 2004. Hereinafter “CFC-A briefing.”

3. The OEF operations conducted in 2003 were not strictly counterterrorist in nature. The enemy employed a variety of structures and methods which included terrorism, and OEF forces responded with a full range of synchronized activities to go after al Qaeda international terrorist remnants, al Qaeda light infantry formation remnants, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s organization, and Taliban insurgents who used terrorism, ambushes, and rocket attacks. From 2003 to 2005, enemy forces have operated from both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

4. These were the author’s observations on a research visit to Afghanistan in 2003.

5. OEF briefing to the author, 5 March 2003, Bagram, Afghanistan.

6. CFC-A briefing.

7. Confidential interviews.

8. CFC-A briefing.

9. Interview with General Zahir Azemi, Kabul, Afghanistan, 9 December 2004; Embedded Training Team briefing to the author, Kabul, Afghanistan, 12 December 2004.

10. “The International Security Assistance Force: The Origins,” Canadian Military Journal, 4 (Summer 2003).

11. NATO, “Istanbul Summit Communiqué, 28 June 2004, http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2004/p04-096e.htm; NATO, “NATO Update: NATO Expands Presence in Afghanistan,” 29 June 2004, http://www.nato.int/docu/update/2004/06-June/e0629a.htm.

12. ISAF Headquarters briefing to the author, Kabul, Afghanistan, 28 November 2004. Hereinafter “ISAF HQ briefing.”

13. One example among many is Hersh, “The Other War,” and the sort of “Monday morning quarterbacking” that Richard Clarke engages in.

14. Which was, of course, one of the lessons of Vietnam. It is truly bizarre to see those critical of today’s American effort in Afghanistan demand that more troops and more force be used in Afghanistan when some are the same ones who criticized the high levels of American force used in Vietnam.

15. My assessment of the “chess game” is based on personal observations and a wide variety of interviews conducted while on a research visit to Afghanistan in 2004.

16. ISAF HQ briefing.

17. I observed this process in Konduz province courtesy of the German ISAF contingent during November-December 2004.

18. Confidential interviews with personnel with access to the ambassadorial level of activity in Kabul.

19. Azemi interview; confidential interviews.

20. ISAF HQ briefing.

21. CFC-A briefing; confidential interviews.

22. BBC News, “Afghan Report Demands War Justice.” 29 January 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4218775.stm.


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Dr. Sean M. Maloney served in Germany as the historian for 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade, the Canadian Army’s Cold War contribution to NATO. The author of several works, including the forthcoming Enduring the Freedom: A Rogue Historian Visits Afghanistan (Potomac Books), Dr. Maloney has extensive field research experience in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. He currently teaches in the Royal Military College War Studies Programme.


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http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Paramet...umn/maloney.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1472427.htm

Saturday, October 1, 2005. 0:00am (AEST)
Roadside bomb injures US troops in Afghanistan

Four US troops were wounded when their armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb blast in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar.

The US military says the wounded soldiers, from a unit that had returned from defusing a similar bomb in the area, are in a stable condition.

Insurgent violence has picked up in Afghanistan since the Taliban guerrillas and their Islamic militant allies failed to derail legislative elections held on September 18.

A US soldier and a US Marine were killed in militant attacks on Monday, a day after a US helicopter crashed on an anti-militant operation killing all five crewmen.

Monday's deaths brought US combat fatalities in Afghanistan this year to more than 50, making it the bloodiest so far for US forces in the country.

Rebuilding Afghanistan’s
National Army



ALI A. JALALI


In May 2002, American Green Berets began training the first group of Afghan soldiers for the new Afghan National Army (ANA). This complex mission will take years to accomplish, yet it is expected to contribute greatly to the return of peace and normalcy to Afghanistan. The United States, the main sponsor of the effort, sees the project as an effective alternative to the expansion of international security forces to police the war-devastated country. Further, the United States expects that the ANA will aid in the multilateral struggle against terrorist activity in the region.

This is the fourth time in 150 years of Afghanistan’s turbulent history that the country is recreating the state military following its total disintegration caused by foreign invasions or civil wars.1 The process of rebuilding has always been influenced by the prevailing political and social conditions in the country. The current attempt is not going to be an exception. The profound social transformation of Afghanistan during more than two decades of a devastating war has drastically changed the traditional political and social landscape of Afghanistan. The rebuilding of a national army will have to be intertwined with the creation of a legitimate broad-based government, economic reconstruction, and the demobilization process.

This article looks at the challenges facing the creation of a new national army in Afghanistan as well as the opportunities for responding to these challenges. It reviews the experience of the past as well as the recent war-instigated social and political transformation to identify conceptual frameworks for building a national military establishment in Afghanistan.

Tribal Fighters and Government Soldiers

Few of Afghanistan’s armies have successfully monopolized the legitimate use of force. The Afghan army generally has not been the only military institution within a social system imbued with military pluralism. The country

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traditionally has relied on popular uprisings to fight foreign invasions and enlisted the aid of tribal levies to beef up the regular army to crush domestic rebellions. The situation reflects the evolving nature of state-society relations since the emergence of Afghanistan as a modern state at the end of the 19th century. It was then a loose conglomerate of tribes and ethnic communities over which the central government had varying degrees of control at different times.

Until the middle of the 20th century, the central government in Afghanistan was not strong enough to integrate the nation through a wide network of political and economic institutions. Society remained segmented and unmobilized. The lack of integration made the communities, particularly in tribal areas, semi-independent, mostly relying on their own resources and their own traditional institutions. This included local military forces that were mobilized during inter-tribal conflicts or foreign threats. The tribal militias also could be mustered in support of or against the central government during domestic disturbances. This nation-in-arms helped the country survive when the central government collapsed or the state army disintegrated in the face of foreign invasion.

These unique sociopolitical conditions favored the development of a national culture of guerrilla warfare.2 This was an indigenous form of guerrilla warfare, which in strategic terms was different from the one conceptualized by Mao Zedong. The latter aims at seizing state power through organizing “liberated zones,”3 while the Afghan model is defensive in nature and tactical in scope. Khushal Khan Khattak, the renowned 17th-century Pashtun national leader and thinker clearly detailed the guerrilla tactics of the Afghan highlanders:

When you fight a smaller enemy detachment you should decisively attack with surprise. But, if the enemy receives reinforcement [or] when you encounter a stronger enemy force, avoid decisive engagement and swiftly withdraw only to hit back where the enemy is vulnerable. By this you gain sustainability and the ability to fight a long war of attrition. . . . A war of attrition eventually frustrates the enemy, no matter how strong he may be . . . and that gives a chance of victory to a small force fighting against an invading army.4

It was in such a setting that the tribal warrior felt at home. It was quite a challenge to transform such a fighter into a soldier in a disciplined army ruled by a professional ethos and regulated by conventional military norms.

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The primacy of tribal and local loyalty among the soldiers impaired the army’s commitment to the government cause. The army was often crudely organized and led, inadequately armed, poorly trained, meagerly paid, and badly fed. Such an army was hardly capable of standing firm in the face of a determined foe. However, the same soldiers would fight with utmost determination with their kinsmen in their own space under the leadership of their local chiefs. A British observer of the Afghan society, Edward Hensman, wrote in 1881: “The Afghan does not lack native courage, and in hill warfare he is unrivaled, so long as it takes the shape of guerrilla fighting. But once he is asked to sink his identity and to become merely a unit in a battalion, he loses all self-confidence and is apt to think more of getting away than of stubbornly holding his ground as he would have done with his own friends led by his own chief.”5

The government’s legitimacy stemmed from dynastic rights or was based on military power. Both could be challenged by other contenders. This situation was detrimental to the army’s loyalty. Governments often invoked Islam and potential threats by “infidel” foreign powers to motivate soldiers to serve the Islamic ruler (padshah-e Islam) and his government.6 Although Islam united the society in common cause and jihad against alien powers and ideology, it did not politically weld the communities to create a religion-based ideal Islamic nation or umma. As T. A. Heathcote notes, the system, “which ordered the life of most people outside the city areas, was certainly as potent in political terms as the national state system of Europe in 1914. Men felt a fierce loyalty to their own tribe, such that, if called upon they would without hesitation assemble in arms under their own tribal chiefs and local clan leaders.”7

Recruitment for the regular army has always been difficult. Weak government control of the country and lack of resources hindered both compulsory and voluntary enlistment. In 1895, the government introduced a partial draft system called hasht nafari, whereby one man in eight was called to serve in the army. The recruitment quota was imposed on the population of a district or a tribal area. Under this system, the recruits, selected by drawing names (peshk), had the option of paying for exemption or they could choose to pay for a substitute (ewaz). The hasht nafari underwent several modifications after the turn of the 20th cen-

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tury, until it was replaced by a universal draft system in 1941. The draft was an extremely unpopular system and was never fully implemented. Many people even migrated to neighboring countries to escape the harsh enforcement of hasht nafari.8 Public discontent intensified in the 1920s when King Amanullah tried to firmly enforce the system. This move caused tribal unrest.9

In such a socio-political environment, the state armies were faced with two major challenges: creating a national loyalty among the soldiers that would surpass their tribal allegiance, and providing the military units with the skills to fight effectively in both counterinsurgencies and conventional wars. The response to both challenges was slow and unsteady. The pace of progress was linked to social and political development, expansion of government influence through economic modernization, and the availability of resources to increase the army’s professional effectiveness.

Evolution of National Armed Forces

In the mid-1860s, a deserting Afghan soldier justified his defection from the army by telling the beleaguered Amir Sher Ali: “Your kingship is unstable, the service incentives are unattractive, and I am longing for home.”10 The statement encapsulates the problems that Afghan governments have faced in raising and maintaining a regular army in a tribal society.

Traditionally the Afghan governments relied on three military institutions: the regular army, tribal levies, and community militias. The regular army was sustained by the state and commanded by government leaders. The tribal or regional levies (irregular forces) had part-time soldiers provided by tribal or regional chieftains under pre-negotiated contracts. The chiefs received tax breaks, land ownership, cash payment, or other privileges in return. The community militia included all available able-bodied members of the community, mobilized to fight for common causes under community leaders. Each of these institutions had certain strengths and weaknesses.

The combination of these military institutions created a formidable force whose components supplemented each other’s strengths and minimized their weaknesses. The regular army’s conventional military capacity was supplemented by the tribal levies’ skills in guerrilla warfare. The community militias were able to secure the army’s lines of communication in their areas and provide logistical support. On the other hand, disharmony or lack of cooperation among these institutions caused the regular army enormous difficulties.

The evolution of Afghanistan as a unified nation has been influenced by the interplay of the country’s different military institutions. Overreliance on irregular forces cost the government control of the tribes, while maintaining a strong military depleted the government’s limited resources, hindering the nation-building process.

During the turbulent years of the early 19th century, the government army in Afghanistan consisted of the followers of various tribal chiefs whose al-

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legiance to the Amir was unpredictable. Their shifting alliances with power-seekers kept the state politically unstable. Amir Sher Ali Khan (1863-78), is credited with founding the modern national army in Afghanistan. He tried to curb the influence of the tribal chiefs and their irregular forces by creating a modern army.11 He introduced a modern system of recruitment based on voluntary military service, as well as an ethnic balance of military units and the integration of some irregular troops into the state army.12

At the outbreak of the second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-80), the regular army was about 50,000 strong and consisted of 62 infantry and 16 cavalry regiments, with 324 guns mostly organized in horse and mountain artillery batteries.13 However, much of the organization existed only on paper. Poor training, lack of unit discipline, lack of unit cohesiveness, and inadequate officer education made the army a paper tiger. The army lost cohesiveness after initial clashes with invading British forces in 1878 and ceased to exist as an organized force after its defeat in Charasia, near Kabul. Yet elements of the fragmented army joined the tribesmen and civilian militia to put up a firm resistance against the British forces, forcing them out in 1880.

Amir Abdur Rahman Khan (1880-1901), who succeeded to the throne after the second Anglo-Afghan War, had to recreate the army from scratch. He faced the enormous challenges of reunifying the country, strengthening internal security, and subduing semi-independent chieftains. His main instrument in responding to these challenges was a powerful army subsidized by the British. Instead of the leader’s traditional reliance on military contingents provided by tribal chiefs or the feudal levy system, the Amir tried to create an army totally linked to the state.14 However, the enormity of the task far outstripped the government’s military capacity. The Amir was forced to rely on tribal militia that numbered up to 40,000 during the pacification of Hazarajat (1891-93).15 The Amir’s heavy-handed policy took its toll in later years when the simmering political discontent expressed itself violently on several occasions during the politically-relaxed reign (1901-19) of Amir Habibullah.

King Amanullah (1919-29) established the legitimacy of his reign by waging a successful anti-British war to regain full independence. However, he lost support among the tribes due to his drastic modernization reforms. Amanullah’s push for rapid modernization was not matched by efforts to build an effective military force to back his reforms. Counting on the nation’s martial

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qualities to deter foreign threats, the reformist monarch did not see a compelling need for a large army.16 His neglect had a disastrous impact. Most of the modernization plans were not implemented, the size of the military was ruthlessly cut, and troops were poorly trained and ineffectively led. The army soon shrank to 23,000 and eventually to 11,000 because of recruitment problems. His last-minute effort in 1928 failed to reverse the decline, and consequently the Afghan army failed to quell the 1928-29 rebellion that cost Amanullah his throne and plunged the country into civil war.

The modernization of the Afghan army that began in the first quarter of the 20th century was a slow and incremental process. The national army became more attached to the government and acquired a solid institutional identity as the country underwent a process of integration through a nationwide education system, economic progress, and political development.

Nadir Shah (1929-33) oversaw the reconstruction and improvement of the army as a key element in responding to security challenges and supporting a measured modernization process. By 1933, the army numbered some 70,000. The Afghan military college was reopened in 1930, and training was modeled on the old Turkish army. The development of a national recruitment system and the professional education of officers and NCOs were among the major achievements of the Afghan military in the first half of the 20th century. The introduction of modern weapons into the army—particularly combat aircraft, armored vehicles, artillery, and automatic weapons—brought a landmark shift in the correlation of forces between the center and the tribal areas. The superior firepower of the state army served to prevent domestic security challenges.17

In the mid-20th century, foreign policy exigencies and domestic needs to back rapid modernization of the society spurred a major reorganization of the armed forces. The partitioning of India in 1947 touched off an irredentist Afghan campaign demanding the creation of an independent Afghan-linked “Pashtunistan” in Pakistan’s Pashtun areas. These areas were part of Afghanistan before they were annexed by the British in the 19th century. The country also needed a modern army to support economic development and social reforms, including education and women’s issues. As the United States turned down Afghan demands for military assistance, Kabul turned to the Soviet Union for military and economic aid.

Soviet assistance enabled Afghanistan to improve the structure, armament, training, and command and control system of its armed forces. The strength of the military in the 1960s reached 98,000, with 90,000 in the army and 8,000 in the air force.18

Politicization and Disintegration of the Army

Despite the steady progress in modernizing and training the army and the development of the air force under King Zaher Shah (1933-73), the Afghan military establishment failed to reach the level of professional maturity necessary to

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resist politicization. Political naivete of the peasant-based officer corps allowed a handful of politically motivated mid- and low-level officers to stage two military coups in the 1970s that eventually brought the communists to power in 1978. Armed resistance to the “Saur Revolution” plunged the country into a devastating civil war leading to the Soviet military intervention (1979-89) and increased Western support of the Islamic-led anti-regime resistance forces, the mujahideen.

Simultaneous, rapid, and large-scale arming of opposing forces brought a major portion of the population under arms in the 1980s.19 The trend continued during the post-communist civil war (1992-2001), as neighboring countries and other international actors armed rival Afghan factions. The process gradually de-professionalized the armed forces and gave power to a variety of ethnic and regional factions, self-serving warlords, and criminal freebooters.20

The fall of the Moscow-backed communist regime in Kabul in 1992 disintegrated the state as well as the army. Bits and pieces of the fragmented military either disappeared or joined the warring factions that were locked in a drawn-out power struggle. The warring factions were composed of odd assortments of armed groups with varying levels of loyalties, political commitment, professional skills, and organizational integrity. Many of them felt free to switch sides, shift loyalties, and join or leave the larger group spontaneously. They possessed neither the strength of the anti-Soviet jihad warriors nor the discipline of regular forces. They were haunted by the weaknesses of both.

In 2001-02, exploiting the sudden fall of the Taliban to the US-led coalition air strikes, the Northern Alliance, the only organized anti-Taliban military faction in Afghanistan, moved swiftly to fill the vacuum. The absence of a credible political alternative to the Taliban blocked the emergence of an ethnically balanced post-Taliban government. The anti-Taliban Pashtun forces that took over in most of the southern provinces were too scattered to offer a counterbalancing bloc vis-à-vis the Northern Alliance.

Taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity, the noncommitted warlords were attracted by Western cash outlays and joined the fray for easy victories. Their militias expanded overnight. On paper the country now (in early summer 2002) has over 40 divisions and dozens of separate brigades. Many of the divisions

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are led by Panjshiri commanders.21 Many others are commanded by leaders closely connected with the Panjshiri faction. Out of the current eight “army corps,” the Northern Alliance controls six.22 Further, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Deputy Minister of Defense, maintains his own seven-division army in the north.23 Several divisions are under central command.24 Most of these units are composed of armed groups affiliated with warlords and their allies who jumped onto the anti-Taliban bandwagon as the radical militia crumbled under the weight of the coalition bombing campaign. The armed groups that occupied the military posts and localities deserted by the Taliban and their foreign supporters gained the status of military units from the Northern Alliance leaders who simply wanted to expand their allies. Now the Afghan Ministry of Defense provides funds to finance this extraordinary military inflation.25

Back to the Future

As Afghanistan begins to emerge from a long period of devastating conflict, the country sifts through the rubble of social and political destruction to try to piece together a peaceful future. Security is the essential prerequisite for the effort. It involves reconstruction of a national army and disbanding the factional militias and private armies. Rebuilding the Afghan armed forces cannot be done in a vacuum. Unless the issues that divided the country are addressed through the emergence of a legitimate, broad-based, effective, and internationally backed government, it will be hard to build a nationally oriented and professionally skilled army. The major challenge is to create a military loyal to the state.

Currently the country is politically and militarily fragmented. Ethnic warlords with questionable track records claim to represent different ethnic groups and geographic regions in the country. Despite their nominal support of the interim administration in Kabul, provincial strongmen and warlords maintain their private armies, sources of income, foreign linkages, and autonomous administrations. Even the Northern Alliance militia that controls Kabul is a partisan army with factional loyalties. Any solution that perpetuates the leadership of these warlords will be detrimental to long-term peace and stability. This will also hinder the development of national harmony that has suffered heavy blows during the long civil war in Afghanistan.

The first step toward building a national army in Afghanistan is broadening the base of the government, which will promote political stability, public trust, and security in the country. Such a government will be able to direct the re-creation of a nationally oriented, ethnically balanced, morally disciplined, professionally skilled, and operationally coherent Afghan army and force the local militias to disarm and disband. An army perceived as a means of furthering the ambitions of a single political or ethnic group, on the other hand, would not lead to an effective demobilization effort. Another condition needed for the emergence of a reliable military establishment is reconstruction of the Afghan economy, offering alternative employment for former combatants not integrated into the new army.

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Ethnic Balance

Given the ethnic politicization and polarization of the country, the new Afghan army has to be multi-ethnic at all levels. The pre-war Afghan army was an ethnically balanced force. Indeed, Afghanistan has a long history of providing for ethnic balance in the military establishment. The alternative—creating ethnically homogeneous military units—has proved in the past to be problematic. While soldiers of homogeneous units understood each other and easily worked together, their loyalty could not be trusted when the military moved against their home turf. In such cases the government usually disarmed units affiliated with the revolting area or tribe.26

The draft system in place after 1941 ensured ethnic diversity in army formations. Recruits from different ethnic and geographic communities were integrated into professional military outfits. The army was both a security force and a national educational institute where Afghan youth also received literacy and civic education. In fact, the army was the most significant integrating institution in the multi-ethnic Afghan society. The officer corps before 1963 was not all-inclusive, however, and was dominated by Pashtuns and Tajiks. But with the beginning of the democratic period in 1963, cadets for officer and NCO training schools were selected from all provinces and all ethnic communities under a quota system proportional to the population. The officer corps thus was ethnically diverse beginning in the late 1960s.

The draft system is not likely to work under current conditions, however, for political, professional, and economic reasons. First, the nascent postwar central government is not powerful enough to enforce a draft system. Second, an army of conscripts who serve for only a short time can hardly acquire the skills, experience, and cohesiveness needed to respond to the enormous security challenges of the current situation. Third, the economic hardship faced by the nation dissuades people from acquiescing to induction into a poorly paid draft army. Most of the young people are supporting their families and have to earn money.

While the Afghan government envisages an ethnically balanced army, there is a lot of suspicion that the Tajiks who now control the military are influencing the ethnic mix of the newly formed ANA battalions. There are reports that in newly formed units the Tajiks outnumber other ethnicities, including the Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.27 Persistence of such suspicions can undermine the demobilization of factional militias and will need to be addressed.

The greatest challenge facing the new army, however, is to integrate the multi-ethnic military units into unified professional outfits. This professional cohesion can be achieved through a “chemical” integration of the soldiers rather than their “physical” combination—“the bonding together of members of an organization/unit in such a way as to sustain their will and commitment to each other, their unit, and the mission.”28 Only with such cohesiveness will the soldiers’ professional loyalty surpass their ethnic, political, and regional allegiance. This can oc-

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cur only after a long period of joint training and experience when members of a unit deal with common challenges, fight together, suffer together, work together, and live together. The longer the association, the tighter the bonding. But it takes a healthy political and service environment, systematic training, and effective leadership to achieve such unit cohesion. A 1995 attempt to integrate factional fighters into professional military units failed because of political instability.29

Structure of the Military Establishment

The size, structure, and professional training of the army will depend on the nature of potential threats, the mission, the area of operations, and available resources. The immediate threats are expected to be domestic and concern internal security. Security threats may stem from anti-government armed challenges by political and religious militants, foreign-inspired rebellions, and infighting between local warlords. Further, Afghanistan is located in an important strategic area and has to face potential threats emerging from a volatile and dangerous neighborhood. Interstate conflicts coupled with religious militancy, organized crime, and smuggling constitute potential threats to the whole region.

Given the geopolitical situation and available defensive capacity, it is unrealistic to expect the ANA to respond to potential foreign threats. In the foreseeable future, Afghanistan will have to depend on international security arrangements and backing to deal with such external threats. The country has long suffered from outside interference and is still vulnerable to foreign instigation and support of renegade factions and militant forces. Afghanistan will need international protection against such foreign intervention. Afghanistan as a nation has a great potential for mobilizing its people to fight foreign invasions, but experience also suggests that the nationwide defensive capacity needs to be harnessed to support the continuity of the unified state in the current postwar period. With international support, Afghanistan has the potential to build a mobile, professionally effective regular military force that can then serve as a deterrent against direct foreign military threats.

The mission of the new Afghan army should be clearly defined in the context of the country’s new military doctrine.30 In the past, the lack of clarity in

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defining the army’s role caused a great deal of organizational and operational confusion. This ambiguity hampered the unit structure, equipment, and training of the army. As a result the army was neither an effective internal security force nor a reliable body for large-scale conventional warfare. Given the prevailing geopolitical setting and political environment in and around Afghanistan, the ANA is expected to provide military backing for the central government, which will entail offsetting the factional militias, disarming illegal armed groups, and backing up law enforcement agencies and other security forces in the country.

Given the nature of the threat, the army’s mission, and the extent of the possible area of operations across the country, Afghanistan needs a military force capable of rapid deployment to any part of the country. This requires an army with high maneuverability and effectiveness. Such an army needs to be composed of three elements: garrison troops, mobile contingents, and a central rapid deployment force. The garrison troops manning the regional bases of operation will facilitate local stability, maintain the lines of communication, and provide logistical support. The mobile troops—with airlift capability—will respond to security threats in their zone of deployment. The central rapid deployment force will serve as the central reserve, responding to crises in any military zone.

The size of the new Afghan army also depends on available resources. The international community has made generous commitments to fund the reconstruction of Afghanistan. However, few countries have pledged funds for building and training the national Afghan army and security forces. Since security is essential for restoring political stability and the reconstruction of the Afghan economy, the creation of the national army should be a top priority in allocating available funds. Afghanistan intends to build a 60,000-strong army, an 8,000-man air force, a 12,000-man border guard, and a 70,000-member police force.31 The cost of organizing, training, arming, and maintaining such a large force is phenomenal by Afghan standards. Insufficient funding will be devastating to the plan.

The cost effectiveness of the army is closely linked to the level of professional training of the military units. US Special Forces are conducting training courses for several 600-strong battalions over an 18-month period that began in May 2002. Each course lasts for ten weeks. The Green Berets are expected to train 9,600 soldiers for the regular army and 3,000 for the border forces before the Afghan instructors take over the training. Obviously this basic training is the first step. It will have to be followed up by long periods of subsequent instruction, specialized combat and combat support training, small and large unit maneuvers, and command and staff exercises.

To develop effective military cohesion, leadership—particularly at the small unit level—is of vital importance. This further signifies the need for a highly trained and professionally effective officer and NCO corps, which is currently conspicuously absent in Afghanistan. The former trained officers are getting old, and the young officers lack adequate professional training. Many are former guerrilla fighters with no education. Many are illiterate. It will take at

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least ten years for Afghanistan to build a qualified officer corps, one which can help restore the military culture and replicate the units trained by the international community.

Command and Control

As an instrument of politics, the Afghan armed forces should be subordinated to popular civilian control. This is going to be a major challenge in Afghanistan, where armed groups and militias have long been involved in politics. Also, the new Afghan army will be engaged mostly in conducting internal security missions. While external threats normally produce stable civil-military relations, involvement of the army in dealing with internal threats is conducive to unstable civil-military relations. The latter can be avoided by achieving and securing the participation of the people in politics, and blocking the dominance of special interest groups. Creating a national security council at the highest level of government and a civil-military council at the ministry of defense level might prove beneficial.

The operational command and control of the army should be assigned to a joint armed forces chief of staff (JAFCS), who will control not only the army and the air force but also the border guards. Six military zone (corps) commands need to be created to command and control the regional forces.32 These forces will include garrison troops, line of communication units, road construction units, and army aviation formations (transport aircraft and combat helicopters). Other elements will include heavy artillery units, logistics formations, and military education institutions. Depending on the level of threat, a number of mobile brigades could be attached to the zone commands. The newly formed battalions are to be grouped in combined-arms brigades, the main operational formation in the army under regional corps. The central rapid deployment force, with both army and air force components, will have to be placed under a separate command under the JAFCS.33

Traditionally a large portion of the Afghan army was deployed along the “Durand line.” This area, covering the Pashtun belt straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border, faced potential British military action in the 19th and early 20th centuries and was considered the front line during the “Pashtunistan” dispute with Pakistan in the second half of the 20th century. It is still the most unstable area in the region. The current distribution of military forces is not in conformity with strategic exigencies but is the outcome of the factional war. The bulk of the forces

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are now concentrated in the north and the west and less in the east and the south.34 A redeployment and reorganization of the corps will be needed.

Demobilization and Reintegration

The demobilization of the civil war combatants and their reintegration into the society is one of the greatest challenges facing postwar Afghanistan. According to Afghan government sources, there are over 200,000 irregular militia combatants and war veterans dispersed throughout the country. They include three types of armed groups: the “formal” factional militias that were involved in the civil war, the “bandwagoners” who seized the opportunity to join the winning side in the anti-Taliban war, and the freebooters who filled the vacuum created by the sudden demise of the Taliban. The first group of armed men is closely attached to the warring factions and loyal to the regional leaders. They are expected to survive longer than the others. The last two groups of fighters are mostly incorporated by local warlords.

Some local commanders have shown interest in downsizing their militias because they cannot pay them. But other local warlords, who have access to drug money and other resources, continue to expand their forces or draw freebooters to their ranks.35 In recent months limited disarmament attempts have been made in Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, and Smangan. Most of the disarmament has affected the freebooters who are not affiliated with local warlords. There are also reports that powerful local commanders are disarming their adversaries as a means to increase their influence.36

Random disarmament efforts, however, are not an effective approach. Unless a systematic demobilization program is put in place, the unemployed combatants will return to violence and banditry or join the holdouts of militant groups and terrorists. Creating opportunities for peaceful employment would encourage militia members to leave the warlords and thus help the national demobilization process. The United Nations favors an inverse model of the traditional sequence of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, suggesting instead a program of reintegration and demobilization that would provide alternative employment for the former combatants before they are actually disarmed. This requires funds for launching quick-impact and labor-intensive projects to absorb former combatants. With the restoration of the public work force (Qowaye Kar), agricultural assistance force (Qowaye Sabz) and creation of a demining army and a drug control force, tens of thousands of former militia members could be reintegrated and demobilized. The pace of demobilization also will depend on the process of building the new army and police force, the scope and speed of economic reconstruction, and the restoration of the education system and government bureaucracy.

The demobilization process will need to be supervised by a national commission of demobilization and reintegration. Until the national army becomes operationally effective, parts of the regional militias will have to be maintained as local security forces under strict control of the central government.

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They should be registered, trained, and reeducated in a professional ethos. Qualified combatants could be recruited for the national army and the police force. The militias’ heavy weapons are to be collected by the national commission and stored in secure depots.

The implementation of such an ambitious plan requires significant international support and cooperation from neighboring countries. This is an extremely challenging project. But there are no easy, inexpensive solutions to the process of demobilizing hundreds of thousands of combatants and armed men who know little more than fighting.

Conclusion

Rebuilding Afghanistan’s national army is not only an essential element in stabilizing the war-torn country but also a contribution to the effectiveness of the US-led international war on terrorism in South and Central Asia. It is a highly cost-effective project, but also an expensive and lengthy endeavor. Its success is linked to three major variables: the emergence of a legitimate broad-based government, the availability of resources, and time. A legitimate government will encourage the regional forces to dissolve their militias in the interest of creating a national army. Resources for the economic reconstruction of Afghanistan will provide favorable conditions for demobilization and reintegration of the combatants, and for building an effective military establishment. And, finally, the process will take time to reach fruition. Serious and continued US engagement, perseverance, and support is essential to build an effective national army in Afghanistan, one that will hold a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in support of empowering the central government and stabilizing the country.


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NOTES

1. In the 1870s Amir Sher Ali Khan recreated the Afghan army that disintegrated during the second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-80). In the 1880s Amir Abdur Rahman had to reestablish the army to unify the fragmented country. The army was remodeled under King Amanullah following the third Anglo-Afghan War (1919), but it met a fatal blow during the civil war of 1929. A new military establishment was created by Nadeshah after his accession in 1929. The Soviet-sponsored reorganization and modernization of the Afghan army began in the 1960s and continued through the Moscow-backed communist rule. It was totally disintegrated during the civil war of 1992-2001.

2. The British forces faced major challenges in responding to this mode of warfare in the tribal areas of the northwest frontier. See General Sir Andrew Skeen, Passing it On, Short Talks on Tribal Fighting on the Northwest Frontier of India (Aldershot and London: Gale and Polden, 1932), pp. 2-12.

3. See Peter Paret et al., Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1986), p. 841.

4. Khoshal Khan Khattak, Dastarnama, a classic treatise on norms and practice of leadership (in Pashto) (Kabul: 1967), p. 56.

5. See Edward Hensman, The Second Afghan War (London: 1881), p. 329.

6. Each soldier of the regular army under Sher Ali was issued a copy of the Koran. The soldiers were required to study the Holy Scripture with the company’s mullah, who led them in religious rituals during off-duty hours. L. N. Sobolev, Stranitsa iz Istorii Vostochnovo Voprosa (“A Page from the History of the Eastern Question”), cited in Istoriya Vorozhoniekh Sil Afganistana 1747-1977 (“The History of Armed Forces of Afghanistan 1747-1977”), ed. U. V. Gankovsky (Moscow: 1985), p. 45.

7. T. A. Heathcote, The Afghan Wars (London: 1980), p. 9.

8. Gankovsky, p. 65.

9. Rhea Talley Stewart, Fire in Afghanistan 1914-1929 (New York: Doubleday, 1973), p. 210.

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10. My conversation in Kabul in 1962 with an Afghan veteran who was quoting an eyewitness of the event in the 1860s in Kabul when Amir Sher Ali was supervising the payment of government soldiers before moving against his rivals.

11. It was probably the first time the Afghan army was being regularly trained, with the help of field manuals translated from English into Pashto and Dari. See Gankovsky, pp. 44-45.

12. Turkistanskii Vedomostii (“Turkistan Official Bulletin”) 1877, No. 25, in Gankovsky, p. 37.

13. The army had received 29,000 muzzle-loading and 5,000 breach-loading (Snider) rifles from the British government. The army also had 30,000 other firearms, mostly muzzle-loading muskets, smooth-bore and rifled. See The Second Afghan War 1878-80, Official Account, pp. 14-15, and Appendix 1, pp. 633-35.

14. At the death of the Amir the regular army consisted of 80 infantry battalions, 40 cavalry regiments, 100 artillery batteries, and 4,000 household troops. The overall strength of the army was 90,000.

15. Hasan Kakar, Afghanistan, A Study in Internal Political Development 1880-1896 (Kabul: 1971), pp. 165-66.

16. In July 1923 Amanullah told the people, “These are the days of the pen, not of the sword . . . therefore send your sons to school. Our martial qualities are sufficient, it is education that we lack.” Stewart, p. 209.

17. This, coupled with a state-funded education system and economic development programs, helped national integration and expansion of central government control. The situation enabled the army to successfully respond to simultaneous internal disturbances, including the Katawz rebellion in 1937-39, the Shinwari revolt of 1938, Alizai-Durani unrest in 1939, and the 1944-45 rebellion of the Safi tribe in eastern Kunar province.

18. The armed forces also included a 21,000-strong gendarmerie organized in battalions and regiments and a 25,000-strong Public Works Force organized in companies, battalions, and construction units.

19. The United States sent $5 billion worth of weapons to the mujahideen during 1986-90, while the Soviet Union provided an estimated $5.7 billion (US) worth of weapons to Kabul during the same period. See Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1995), p. 179.

20. In 1990-91 the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan increasingly relied on militia units or paramilitary forces. The regime was finally overthrown by the defection of the major militia formation to the mujahideen. See M. N. Azimi, Ordu wa Siasat dar Seh Daha-ye Akhir (“Army and Politics in the Last Three Decades”), (Peshawar: 1998), pp. 400, 417-23, 491, 512-32.

21. Ahmad Rashid, “Security Concerns Mount in Afghanistan As country Enters Critical Reconstruction Phase,” Foreign Policy in Focus, 19 March 2002.

22. The Central Corps (four divisions, all in Kabul), 1st Corps in Nangrahar (two divisions), 2d Corps in Kandahar (three divisions), 3d Corps in Paktia (three divisions), 4th Corps in Herat (three divisions and several new units made up of former mujahideen), 5th Corps in Charikar (three divisions), 6th Corps in Baghlan-Takhar (three divisions), 7th Corps in Mazar-e Sharif (four divisions). The total strength on paper is estimated at 700,000, while the actual strength is around 200,000. My interviews with several Afghan military officers in Kabul, March 2002.

23. The divisions are deployed in Mazar-e Sharif, Jawzjan, Sar-e Pul, Hairatan, and Mamaymaneh.

24. These divisions are 1st and 31st in Kabul, 34th in Bamian, 36th in Logar, 41st in Ghor, 42d in Wardak, 71st in Farah, 100th in Laghman, and 27th in Qalat. Twenty-seven Border Guard brigades are being formed.

25. Author’s conversation with several Afghan officials, including Defense Minister Qasim Fahim, Kabul, June 2002.

26. For example, in 1912 during a rebellion in Paktia, the Amir ordered the Mangal and Zadran regiments in Kabul and Jalalabad to be disarmed. Similarly, in 1938 the disturbances in the eastern district of Shinwar prompted the government to disarm Shinwari troops based in Jalalabad.

27. David Rohde, “Training an Afghan Army that Can Shoot Straight,” The New York Times, 6 June 2002.

28. Darryl Henderson, Cohesion, The Human Element in Combat (Washington: NDU Press, 1985), p. 4.

29. Recruits from five main political parties could stay together for only seven months before they deserted the government “army” in response to the instructions from the leaders of their quarreling parties.

30. Afghanistan has never had an official military doctrine defining the country’s defense policy and directing the creation of a strategic-technological infrastructure to support its implementation.

31. Michael Christie, “Afghanistan’s New National Army Slowly Takes Shape,” Reuters, Kabul, 2 June 2002.

32. These zones could be the central, eastern and southeastern, southwestern, western, northern, and northeastern zones.

33. The combined-arms brigade will consist of three light infantry battalions, a tank battalion, an artillery regiment, a reconnaissance company, a technical unit, an engineer company, a signal company, an air defense battery, and a logistical support unit.

34. Five corps are in the north and the west, and three corps are in the south and east.

35. International Crisis Group Report, “Afghanistan Briefing, Securing Afghanistan: The Need for More International Action,” Kabul/Brussels, 15 March 2002, p. 8.

36. UN General Secretary’s Report to General Assembly (No. A/56/875-S/22002/22278), The Situation in Afghanistan and Its Implications for International Peace and Security, 18 March 2002.


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Ali Ahmad Jalali is Director of the Afghan Radio Network Project and Chief of the Pashto Service of the Voice of America, in Washington, D.C. He is a former colonel in the Afghan army and served as a top military planner with the Afghan resistance following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He attended higher command and staff colleges in Afghanistan, the United States, Britain, and Russia, and has lectured widely. Mr. Jalali is the author of several books, including a three-volume military history of Afghanistan. His most recent book, The Other Side of the Mountain (1998), coauthored with Lester Grau, is an analytical review of the mujahideen war with the Soviet forces in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989.


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http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Paramet...tumn/jalali.htm

To get the original right from the horse's mouth, click Bush - The Sad Face of Depression

Bush's Depression: Been There, Reported That
By DOUG THOMPSON
Sep 28, 2005, 06:38

Depressed and demoralized White House staffers say working at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is “life in a hellhole” as they try to deal with a sullen, moody President whose temper tantrums drive staffers crying from the room and bring the business of running the country to a halt.

“It’s like working in an insane asylum,” says one White House aide. “People walk around like they’re in a trance. We’re the dance band on the Titanic, playing out our last songs to people who know the ship is sinking and none of us are going to make it.”

Increasing reports from the usually tight-lipped staff of the Bush Administration talk of a West Wing dominated by gallows humor, long faces and a depression that has all but paralyzed daily routines.

“If POTUS (President of the United States) is on the road you can breathe a little easier for the day, knowing that those with him are catching hell and the mood will be a little easier in the Wing (West Wing) until he returns,” says another aide.

Capitol Hill Blue began reporting on Bush’s mood swings and erratic behavior in June 2004 but the stories of an erratic, moody President circulating within the White House were ignored by the “mainstream media” until recently. Now more and more outlets have begun to report on what many administration staffers say is a President out of control.

“A president who normally thrives on tough talk and self-assurance finds himself at what aides privately describe as a low point in office, one that is changing the psychic and political aura of the White House, as well as its distinctive political approach,” Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker wrote in The Washington Post over the weekend. “Aides who never betrayed self-doubt now talk in private of failures selling the American people on the Iraq war, the president's Social Security plan and his response to Hurricane Katrina.”

That sentiment is echoed by former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

“I think the Administration realizes the larger system has failed,” Gingrich says. “They are not where they want to be on Iraq. Katrina was an absolute failure."

“It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS,” Evan Thomas wrote in Newsweek on September 19. Thomas talked to “several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president.”

Thomas went on to report “Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him…Late last week, Bush was, by some accounts, down and angry. But another Bush aide described the atmosphere inside the White House as "strangely surreal and almost detached." At one meeting described by this insider, officials were oddly self-congratulatory, perhaps in an effort to buck each other up. Life inside a bunker can be strange, especially in defeat.”

To regular readers of this web site, this should sound all too familiar. Here is what we reported on June 4, 2004:

“Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home. ‘It reminds me of the Nixon days,’ says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. ‘Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.’”

Last year, the naysayers said we got it wrong.

But they got it wrong.

Again.

And we got it right and ahead of everyone else.

Again.

Yes, we're gloating. We all too often read reports in the big boys and have a feeling of deja vu because we're already been there and reported that.

High-powered NATO team due for expansion talks


KABUL, October 3 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A high-level delegation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) - leading the peacekeeping mission in the strife-torn country - is due to arrive here this week for talks on ISAF's expansion to the troubled southern zone of Afghanistan.

Major Andrew Elmes, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, told reporters here on Monday the delegation would discuss with Afghan officials NATO's policy and operational issues concerning its mission in Afghanistan.

The delegation will meet senior officials of the Afghan government, the United Nations, the group of eight nations involved in reforming Afghanistan's security, the European Union, the US-led coalition and the ISAF to assess the alliance's future involvement in the country.

Andrew Elmes added the team would also discuss upgrading capabilities of the Afghan National Army and police so as to enable them to adequately meet the security challenge in the future.

The North Atlantic Council is NATO's most important decision-making body, whose visit comes at an important stage of Afghanistan's transition to democracy and soon after the legislative vote that marked culmination of the Bonn process.

It will be instructive to point out there are about 11,000 ISAF troops deployed to the Afghan capital and some northern provinces for security and reconstruction assignments.



Ahmad Khalid Mowahid

nd/by/mud


http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1751

Aside from a lot of Bush propaganda.... the real deal is explained in this article. It's about the truth and what Americans and their confused leaders must face in the now growing Afghan debacle.

http://www.heraldextra.com/modules.php?op=...ticle&sid=65486

Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 12:00 AM Printer friendly page | Send this story to a friend

Taliban has new guns, new drive

Scott Baldauf, Ashraf Khan and Rich Clabaugh CHRISTIAN SCIENCE M

KHOST, AFGHANISTAN; AND CHAMAN, PAKISTAN -- An internal debate within the Taliban -- whether to launch increasingly aggressive attacks against the US-led coalition or to allow the insurgency to bleed the Afghan government over time -- has been settled this year, according to a rebel commander and Afghan security officials.

In the most violent year of their insurgency to date, the Taliban have gone on the offensive, launching more pitched battles in an effort to persuade the international community and Afghans that this remains very much a nation at war, says Mullah Gul Mohammad, a front-line commander for Jaish-e Muslimeen, a recently reconciled Taliban splinter group.

"For the past many days we [the Taliban and the Jaish] have been fighting together against our common enemies," says Mullah Mohammad, who says he traveled from Afghanistan to Chaman, Pakistan, for an interview. The insurgents are flush with new weapons -- including surface-to-air missiles -- and cash, he says, and are pausing only to see if the US military decides to draw down forces following the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections. "If they stay, we would launch our attacks anew."

In the four years since the fall of the Taliban government, there have been many moments when it appeared that the Taliban insurgency had breathed its last breath. But this year was different. The Taliban have launched a series of attacks that has raised this year's death toll -- 1,200 civilians and military personnel so far -- to a wartime high. Their attacks show increasing sophistication, US and Afghan officials say, and a UN report now warns that the Taliban may be receiving tactical training from jihadists returning from Iraq.

With an apparently revitalized Taliban insurgency, the American military and its NATO allies must now decide whether their strategy needs retooling, and American diplomats could have increasing difficulty convincing NATO allies to take over leadership of the Afghan counterinsurgency campaign.

It could be a hard sell, indeed. Even US military commanders say it is too soon to count the Taliban out.

Vote count ends in Helmand & Kandahar provinces


Pajhwok Report

KANDAHAR CITY, October 3 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Vote count has ended in the southern Kandahar and Helmand provinces, electoral officials announced on Monday.

Qahir Wasefi, head of the regional office of the joint Afghan-UN electoral body, said physical tallying of votes had ended in the two provinces, where 300 ballot boxes - needing to be reviewed - remained 'quarantined.'

He told Pajhwok Afghan News 276 'quarantined' boxes from Kandahar would be checked by a delegation and then recounted. And on the 125 sealed ballot boxes in Helmand, a decision would be made by JEMB authorities in Kabul.

In Kandahar, former minister for tribal and frontier affairs Arif Noorzai, Noorul Haq Uloomi, Qayyum Karzai, Khalid Pashtun and Haji Amir Lalai are leading the race for Wolesi Jirga while Fariba Ahmadi Kakar, Shakiba and Rana Tarin are the top women candidates.




http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=1757

http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/000310.html


October 03, 2005
Afghanistan: Opium Farmers Sell Daughters To Pay Off Traffickers

In a report from today's Independent, opium farmers in Afghanistan, prevented from growing their produce have been forced to resort to extreme measures to pay off the drug traffickers - they have been made to hand over their daughters to the opium exporters.

Opium accounts for 60% of Afghanistan's economy, and the trade continues despite measures by NATO peacekeepers to curtail its production. The news of daughters being given away comes from Nangahar province, where the British who protect the region have claimed the largest success in banning the opium trade. While the nation's opium production fell by 21%, in Nangahar it dropped by 96%. Drug dealers had loaned farmers here money to buy opium seeds, but with no harvest, they seek compensation. Apparently, even though the opium trade has been virtually eradicated here, the authorities have given no assistance to farmers to produce other, legal, crops.

Suicide bomber identified as Yemeni national


Safia Milad

KABUL, October 6 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A week after a suicide bomber killed at least nine Afghan army recruits here, an intelligence official Thursday claimed the assailant was a Yemeni national.

On 28 September, the bomber crashed his explosive-laden bike into a bus that was carrying army trainees from the Kabul Military Training Center (KMTC) at 4:30pm in Pul-i-Charkhi, east of the central capital.

The intelligence official, who asked to be named, confided to Pajhwok Afghan News the attack had been plotted in abroad. He added more details of the bombing would come to light after the investigation was wrapped up.

A day after the blast, Defence Ministry informed the attacker was wearing a military uniform, and that his head had been found. The source would not conjecture about who provided the Yemen national with the motorbike and explosives.

The powerful blast had left the bus ruined while partially damaging three others vehicles parked in the vicinity. The site of the explosion is close to a vote-count centre in Kabul.

nd/amm/mud

http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=7171

http://www.borderlandnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl.../510060331/1001

Another charged with Afghan prison assaults

Chris Roberts
El Paso Times

Another soldier has been charged in connection with the beating of inmates at a temporary prison in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003, but this time the charges include indecent exposure and the use of drugs and alcohol.

Pfc. Damien M. Corsetti is accused of violating a lawful order, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of a prisoner, assault, wrongful use of hashish, indecent act with another, indecent exposure and indecent language. Corsetti is the 15th soldier charged in the incidents.