Monday, June 12, 2006
EDITORIAL: The ‘other’ failure in Afghanistan
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...12-6-2006_pg3_1
Pakistan Army helicopters bombed a militant hideout in a village in North Waziristan Saturday in a pre-dawn raid, killing up to 20 militants. The ISPR director general, Major General Shaukat Sultan, said the militants at the hideout were believed to be foreigners and their Pakistani allies. A private TV channel reported that Uzbeks, Tajiks and Chechens were believed to be among the dead. Another source stated that three Uzbeks and some Afghans were killed in the raid and their bodies had been taken to a hospital. But other reports said there were no foreigners among the dead, and a local Taliban spokesman, Abdullah Farhad, called up reporters on the telephone from an undisclosed location, saying that those killed were all locals.
Pakistan began fighting Al Qaeda in FATA in 2003 and is still nowhere near declaring closure on the operations. In fact things have gone from bad to worse and Waziristan has been overwhelmed by Talibanisation after the terrorists killed 150 important local leaders who were inclined to support Islamabad. The disease is spreading to other parts of the country. At the time of writing, armed bands have begun patrolling the streets of Bara in the Khyber Agency where a sectarian war just ended last month. If there was a policy of hunting Al Qaeda and supporting the Taliban it is clearly coming apart. But ambiguity has enveloped Islamabad’s thinking on Afghanistan and on developments there under NATO military control.
As a Pakistani writer on the subject recently remarked, the NATO-US policy in Afghanistan is going nowhere and, noting its potential fallout, Afghanistan’s neighbours are hedging their bets about collaborating. If the Americans are going to leave the Karzai government in the lurch, the neighbours will be inclined to look to their own interests. Pakistan has time and again objected to the anti-Pushtun nature of the political arrangement in Kabul and has been locking horns with President Karzai over the issue of Taliban incursions from across the Pak-Afghan border. Pakistan has also denied that it is allowing the Taliban to stay and train in Balochistan and FATA, but credible eyewitnesses have never stopped alleging that the main headquarters for the Taliban marauders continues to be located in Quetta. Yet the evidence in North Waziristan is to the contrary. And that may be because it is here that the Al Qaeda and the Taliban merge.
The United States must take the blame for much of what is happening. Reconstruction in Afghanistan has not taken off, its economy once again dominated by poppy and heroin production and now supplying over 80 percent of all heroin consumed globally. Washington wants to withdraw its troops, and the troops coming from Europe are under too many combat restrictions to count for much against a force that increasingly enjoys freedom of movement in at least four provinces (Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan) in the poppy-growing south, as one expert recently wrote: “The Afghan government has shown a fatal incapacity to deliver services to its people, and the West has failed to deal with interfering neighbours, such as Pakistan and Iran.”
Reports say, as recently as a year ago, the Taliban were composed of a few dozen fighters; now “each group includes hundreds of heavily armed men equipped with motorbikes, cars and horses”. They have killed approximately 1,500 Afghan security guards and civilians in 2005 and hundreds already in the current year. Because of their “interface” with the Sunni terrorists in Iraq, the Taliban have also taken to suicide-bombing. There have been 40 suicide-bombings in the past nine months, compared to five in the preceding five years. Some 295 US soldiers and four CIA officials have been killed in Afghanistan since September 11, 2001. American writer Barnett Rubin has stated that all of Afghanistan’s neighbours — Iran, India, Russia, and the Central Asian Republics — oppose a long-term US presence and are funding their own Afghan proxies just as they did during the civil war in the 1990s: “They are waiting for the Americans to leave!”
What the foreign experts say about Afghanistan may be a bit off the mark but no sane person in Pakistan can agree that Islamabad’s support to the Taliban will ever pay off strategically. Pakistan’s policy of not controlling (or inability to control) the Taliban runs counter to its resolve to bring the state of Pakistan under legal jurisdiction. For too many years has Pakistan let large swathes of its territory remain outside the pale of municipal law. Indeed, this period of time may have strengthened the case for those who want to live in semi-independence from the administered territory. If Islamabad is worried about Al Qaeda and knows it to be its enemy number one, it simply can’t think otherwise of its “Pushtun brethren” from across the Pak-Afghan border.
A part of Pakistan’s policy that Washington may not like could belong to that area of state interest where there can be no negotiation. Pakistan has always the right to guard its self-interest inside “the coalition against terrorism”, but what it must reconsider is the yardstick on which it judges this self-interest. If it sees India active in Afghanistan on the side of the Northern Alliance, it cannot afford to yield to the reflex of joining up with the Taliban simply to produce a counterforce against India. It must be able to perceive that its India policy in Afghanistan will go against its policy in Waziristan. The affairs of Balochistan too need deeper analysis. The presence of the Pushtun Taliban there may produce a counterforce against the rebellious Baloch sardars, but it will sow the seeds of an inter-ethnic civil war that Pakistan will not be able to handle. *
Full Version: Bush Failure To Secure Afghanistan
Heavy fighting in Afghanistan stokes suspicions about Taliban in Pakistan
Canadian Press
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/st...0776f09&k=96867
Sunday, June 11, 2006
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - When Taliban militant Syed Azizullah died during fighting in southern Afghanistan, his body was sent to his native Pakistan where a provincial official gave a eulogy before hundreds of Pashtun tribesmen. A flag of the Islamist militia fluttered by the grave.
Pakistan strenuously denies granting sanctuary to the Taliban, yet their cause still finds succor among Pakistani Pashtuns and Islamic hardliners, fueling suspicions jihadi leaders may be plotting their campaign of violence from southwestern Pakistan, with militants crossing the long, porous border to launch attacks.
Pakistan denies that and insists it does all it can to combat militancy.
It has deployed 80,000 troops to fight al-Qaida and local Taliban militants in its own Waziristan tribal areas farther north - a suspected hiding place of accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden - and has lost hundreds of soldiers in fighting there.
But it appears far less active in tracking down Taliban in Baluchistan province, where Azizullah was buried opposite southern Afghan regions where recent months' surge in attacks has sparked the heaviest fighting since the Taliban's ouster from power in late 2001.
Afghan officials accuse Pakistan's intelligence agencies, former supporters of the Taliban regime, of being behind the violence that has seriously shaken Afghan President Hamid Karzai's feeble authority in a former Taliban heartland.
Western diplomats doubt there's Pakistani state backing for the militants but with NATO forces from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands deploying in the Afghan south and facing suicide attacks and roadside bombings almost daily, diplomatic pressure is growing on Pakistan to crack down on its side of the arid, lawless frontier.
The NATO forces said Pakistan's security forces currently appear more concerned with stamping out Baluch tribal militants, who are disrupting crucial natural gas supplies in the province with guerrilla attacks.
"The government is forceful in FATA (federally administered tribal areas, including Waziristan) and appears to be turning a blind eye in Baluchistan," one Islamabad-based diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
"The message is sent to the government of Pakistan that a lot more could be done."
That message, however, is a mixed one, tempered by respect for Pakistan's anti-terror successes against al-Qaida in the last four years, arresting hundreds of militants, including key figures like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the planner of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
When the chief of staff for British forces in southern Afghanistan told the Guardian newspaper last month Baluchistan's capital Quetta was the Taliban militant campaign's "headquarters," the British Embassy in Pakistan swiftly moved to distance itself from the comments.
The presence of Taliban leaders in Quetta, which is heavily populated by Afghan migrants, is hard to substantiate. The clearest public sign was the arrest there last October of a Taliban spokesman, Latif Hakimi, who lived in the city with his family.
One Afghan with ties to the Taliban said Taliban provincial commanders for southern Afghanistan spend most of their time in Quetta and have regular "shuras" or councils to discuss the insurgency with district commanders.
The Afghan, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing concerns for his safety, said he had attended a shura two months ago in the city, along with 120 Taliban and three young men volunteered for "suicide attacks against infidels."
He also claimed the Taliban hold training camps in Quetta to train militants on how to make and plant bombs.
Afghan officials enraged Pakistan by publicizing similar allegations in February, when Karzai handed Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf a dossier on the reported whereabouts in Pakistan of alleged terror training camps and Taliban and al-Qaida suspects.
Pakistan said most of the information was wrong or old and did not lead to any significant arrests.
"As far as we are concerned, there are no Taliban leaders there (in Quetta)," said Pakistan's army spokesman, Maj.-Gen. Shaukat Sultan.
"If anyone has actionable intelligence, they should provide it and we will act on it."
A second western diplomat said the possibility Taliban leaders are in Quetta does not mean it is their hub of operations for southern Afghanistan, where more than 400 people have died in fighting in three weeks, many in U.S. air strikes.
"We can't conclude that a Taliban shura in Quetta is running the campaign in Afghanistan. If you can put in a force big enough to get 80 killed in Kandahar, the simplest explanation is that they are running their campaign there," he said.
Like the first diplomat, he requested anonymity.
"Maybe they (Taliban leaders) are in Pakistan, maybe they're in Afghanistan. Most likely they keep moving around," he said.
"Neither government controls the (border) area."
But the open, pro-Taliban sympathies of Pashtun tribesmen and religious hardliners - illustrated at the May 23 funeral of Syed Azizullah - inspire little confidence in Pakistani government declarations that it does all it can to curb Taliban militancy.
Among the speakers at his funeral at the village Bagarzai, 50 kilometres north of Quetta, was Maulana Abdul Bari, public health engineering minister in Baluchistan's provincial government.
He extolled Azizullah for "fighting in the way of Allah" and "against infidel forces in Afghanistan," said local businessman Asghar Khan, who added he heard the eulogy.
Information Minister Matiullah Agha also attended. Both are members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a hardline Islamic party that is the dominant partner a coalition government in Baluchistan, the poorest of Pakistan's four provinces.
Maulvi Noor Mohammed, a JUI legislators, said it is every Muslim's duty to support the Taliban in fighting the United States and its allies in Afghanistan, although the party itself wasn't sending people to fight and offered the militants only moral and political backing.
Asked why JUI leaders attended the funeral of Azizullah, who was reported to have died in a U.S. air strike on a village in Kandahar province that killed dozens of militants, Mohammed explained: "He was a local person, he was martyred by infidels and he was a Muslim brother."
Canadian Press
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/st...0776f09&k=96867
Sunday, June 11, 2006
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - When Taliban militant Syed Azizullah died during fighting in southern Afghanistan, his body was sent to his native Pakistan where a provincial official gave a eulogy before hundreds of Pashtun tribesmen. A flag of the Islamist militia fluttered by the grave.
Pakistan strenuously denies granting sanctuary to the Taliban, yet their cause still finds succor among Pakistani Pashtuns and Islamic hardliners, fueling suspicions jihadi leaders may be plotting their campaign of violence from southwestern Pakistan, with militants crossing the long, porous border to launch attacks.
Pakistan denies that and insists it does all it can to combat militancy.
It has deployed 80,000 troops to fight al-Qaida and local Taliban militants in its own Waziristan tribal areas farther north - a suspected hiding place of accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden - and has lost hundreds of soldiers in fighting there.
But it appears far less active in tracking down Taliban in Baluchistan province, where Azizullah was buried opposite southern Afghan regions where recent months' surge in attacks has sparked the heaviest fighting since the Taliban's ouster from power in late 2001.
Afghan officials accuse Pakistan's intelligence agencies, former supporters of the Taliban regime, of being behind the violence that has seriously shaken Afghan President Hamid Karzai's feeble authority in a former Taliban heartland.
Western diplomats doubt there's Pakistani state backing for the militants but with NATO forces from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands deploying in the Afghan south and facing suicide attacks and roadside bombings almost daily, diplomatic pressure is growing on Pakistan to crack down on its side of the arid, lawless frontier.
The NATO forces said Pakistan's security forces currently appear more concerned with stamping out Baluch tribal militants, who are disrupting crucial natural gas supplies in the province with guerrilla attacks.
"The government is forceful in FATA (federally administered tribal areas, including Waziristan) and appears to be turning a blind eye in Baluchistan," one Islamabad-based diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
"The message is sent to the government of Pakistan that a lot more could be done."
That message, however, is a mixed one, tempered by respect for Pakistan's anti-terror successes against al-Qaida in the last four years, arresting hundreds of militants, including key figures like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the planner of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
When the chief of staff for British forces in southern Afghanistan told the Guardian newspaper last month Baluchistan's capital Quetta was the Taliban militant campaign's "headquarters," the British Embassy in Pakistan swiftly moved to distance itself from the comments.
The presence of Taliban leaders in Quetta, which is heavily populated by Afghan migrants, is hard to substantiate. The clearest public sign was the arrest there last October of a Taliban spokesman, Latif Hakimi, who lived in the city with his family.
One Afghan with ties to the Taliban said Taliban provincial commanders for southern Afghanistan spend most of their time in Quetta and have regular "shuras" or councils to discuss the insurgency with district commanders.
The Afghan, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing concerns for his safety, said he had attended a shura two months ago in the city, along with 120 Taliban and three young men volunteered for "suicide attacks against infidels."
He also claimed the Taliban hold training camps in Quetta to train militants on how to make and plant bombs.
Afghan officials enraged Pakistan by publicizing similar allegations in February, when Karzai handed Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf a dossier on the reported whereabouts in Pakistan of alleged terror training camps and Taliban and al-Qaida suspects.
Pakistan said most of the information was wrong or old and did not lead to any significant arrests.
"As far as we are concerned, there are no Taliban leaders there (in Quetta)," said Pakistan's army spokesman, Maj.-Gen. Shaukat Sultan.
"If anyone has actionable intelligence, they should provide it and we will act on it."
A second western diplomat said the possibility Taliban leaders are in Quetta does not mean it is their hub of operations for southern Afghanistan, where more than 400 people have died in fighting in three weeks, many in U.S. air strikes.
"We can't conclude that a Taliban shura in Quetta is running the campaign in Afghanistan. If you can put in a force big enough to get 80 killed in Kandahar, the simplest explanation is that they are running their campaign there," he said.
Like the first diplomat, he requested anonymity.
"Maybe they (Taliban leaders) are in Pakistan, maybe they're in Afghanistan. Most likely they keep moving around," he said.
"Neither government controls the (border) area."
But the open, pro-Taliban sympathies of Pashtun tribesmen and religious hardliners - illustrated at the May 23 funeral of Syed Azizullah - inspire little confidence in Pakistani government declarations that it does all it can to curb Taliban militancy.
Among the speakers at his funeral at the village Bagarzai, 50 kilometres north of Quetta, was Maulana Abdul Bari, public health engineering minister in Baluchistan's provincial government.
He extolled Azizullah for "fighting in the way of Allah" and "against infidel forces in Afghanistan," said local businessman Asghar Khan, who added he heard the eulogy.
Information Minister Matiullah Agha also attended. Both are members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a hardline Islamic party that is the dominant partner a coalition government in Baluchistan, the poorest of Pakistan's four provinces.
Maulvi Noor Mohammed, a JUI legislators, said it is every Muslim's duty to support the Taliban in fighting the United States and its allies in Afghanistan, although the party itself wasn't sending people to fight and offered the militants only moral and political backing.
Asked why JUI leaders attended the funeral of Azizullah, who was reported to have died in a U.S. air strike on a village in Kandahar province that killed dozens of militants, Mohammed explained: "He was a local person, he was martyred by infidels and he was a Muslim brother."
FUBAR
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan...
Once optimistic, the country is ripe for another Taliban takeover
Jun. 11, 2006. 01:00 AM
PAUL JAY
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...ol=991929131147
In the spring of 2002, I shot a documentary film in Afghanistan called Return To Kandahar. It told the story of an Afghan-Canadian woman returning to the beleaguered country to search for her lost friend. During our travels from Kandahar to Kabul and to Mazer-e-Sharif, I found the mood of people to be guardedly optimistic, hoping that allied promises of reconstruction and democracy would turn out to be real.
How things have changed.
Even though most television news outlets covered the riots in Kabul last week that followed a traffic accident caused by a U.S. military convoy, in which three people were killed and 16 injured, none of them recognized the sea change the disturbances represented.
Accounts of the riot showed images of angry crowds pelting American military vehicles with stones and demonstrators shouting "death to Karzai" (the elected president of Afghanistan, Hamid) and "death to the U.S." It was the largest protest of its kind since the fall of the Taliban four years earlier.
In 2002, to my surprise, there was very little anger at the American bombing of Kabul. The hatred for the Taliban was such that many people said it was an acceptable price to pay. In fact, the only thing that rivalled their disdain for the Taliban was their fear of, and contempt for, the country's warlords.
These warlords were the leaders of various mujahedeen factions that, backed by the U.S., had fought the Russians in the 1980s. After the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan and the Americans lost interest, these "leaders" turned on each other and fought for power and control of the narco-trade, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process.
They orchestrated a reign of terror and chaos that created the conditions for the ascension of the Taliban, who rose to popularity with a promise of law and order. After the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, it was to these warlords that the U.S. handed much of the power, in order to avoid using American troops.
During the spring of 2002, I found that people across Afghanistan had one primary demand: that NATO or UN forces disarm the warlord armies. Instead, the warlords are today ensconced in power, Karzai has to turn a blind eye to the drug trade or risk their wrath, and corruption runs rampant throughout the country. Afghanistan has become one of the world's major narco-states and, as everyone knows, with narco-economics goes narco-politics.
Poverty and child mortality rates in Afghanistan continue to be among the worst in the world. Poverty drives men and boys into the armies of the warlords or the Taliban — paid for by bumper poppy crops. The suffering of the Afghan people is extreme, but most television news reports for years have carried official statements about the "Afghan success story and the march to democracy."
Four years ago, it seemed almost impossible that the Taliban could make a comeback. On an 18-hour drive from Kabul to Kandahar, we spent the night in Ghazni at a UN mission that helped resettle refugees returning from Pakistan.
Bettina, a young French woman, ran the mission. She served us food and drink, and we talked into the night with her Afghan colleagues about the future. They, too, believed that if only the West would get serious about economic reconstruction, there was hope for Afghanistan. They talked about the return of educated Afghans from around the world who could help rebuild their homeland.
A few months after we returned to Canada, I read the following release from the UN:
"Bettina Goislard, 29, was shot dead Sunday by two suspected Taliban while she was in a marked UNHCR vehicle in the bazaar in Ghazni town, 130 kilometres (80 miles) southwest of Kabul. She was the first UN worker to be killed in Afghanistan since the toppling of the Taliban regime two years ago."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`The indications are
that the resistance
could transcend a simple Taliban-led insurgency to evolve into a powerful Islamic movement'
Syed Saleem Shahzad
Pakistan bureau chief,
Asia Times Online
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was reported that the people of Ghazni were furious and beat the shooters until police arrived to make arrests. People wanted reconstruction. They wanted jobs. They wanted real democracy, and they welcomed foreign assistance. Afghans were ready and willing to sacrifice and work, hoping against hope that the West would commit the kind of resources President George W. Bush had promised in the early days of the war against the Taliban.
Instead, resources have been far less than needed and the reconstruction effort is mired in warlord corruption. Ghazni province and much of the territory around Kandahar is now mostly under the control of the Taliban. Aid workers have left and the general population lives in fear, or supports the Taliban, which now has more soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan that it ever has since 2001, according to a recent Globe and Mail article.
Syed Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan bureau chief of Asia Times Online, wrote on May 29 that "... the indications are that the resistance could transcend a simple Taliban-led insurgency to evolve into a powerful Islamic movement."
Shahzad interviewed Pakistani army general Hamid Gul, who for many years worked with Afghan resistance groups against the Russians.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg you are watching; this situation will further escalate as the whole environment is now conducive to resistance," Gul told Shahzad. "Russia is annoyed with the Americans, Iran is hostile to Western interests, and Pakistan is no more in a position to adhere to American directives."
Added Gul, "The trade of raw opium [in Afghanistan] has reached U.S. $2.4 billion, and the trade of narco-drugs has reached up to $4 billion. Where are the drugs going? Of course, they come from Afghanistan and go to Russia. Even if 10 per cent of the trade is used for arms purchases, it serves the purpose of the resistance."
Shahzad ends his article with these observations: "At least seven different tribal jirgas (traditional, influential meetings of tribal elders) are meeting on a daily basis among the Afghan population.
"Miranshah Bazaar in North Waziristan is once again full of posters of Osama bin Laden and (the pro-al Qaeda warlord Gulbuddin) Hekmatyar, while slogans are written in support of the Taliban.
"The jirgas are unanimous: There should be all-out war in Afghanistan."
Television news pays little attention to the consequences of Western foreign policy that angers the population and strengthens pro-Taliban and al Qaeda forces.
That policy is now creating the conditions for a political perfect storm in Afghanistan. Once again, it is the people of that country who will pay the terrible price, while the rest of the world will reap the "blowback," as it came to be known after 9/11.
Surely, if bin Laden is in Pakistan, he is smiling.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Jay is chair of TheRealNews. com, a non-profit, independent news and documentary TV/Web network-in-development.
Once optimistic, the country is ripe for another Taliban takeover
Jun. 11, 2006. 01:00 AM
PAUL JAY
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...ol=991929131147
In the spring of 2002, I shot a documentary film in Afghanistan called Return To Kandahar. It told the story of an Afghan-Canadian woman returning to the beleaguered country to search for her lost friend. During our travels from Kandahar to Kabul and to Mazer-e-Sharif, I found the mood of people to be guardedly optimistic, hoping that allied promises of reconstruction and democracy would turn out to be real.
How things have changed.
Even though most television news outlets covered the riots in Kabul last week that followed a traffic accident caused by a U.S. military convoy, in which three people were killed and 16 injured, none of them recognized the sea change the disturbances represented.
Accounts of the riot showed images of angry crowds pelting American military vehicles with stones and demonstrators shouting "death to Karzai" (the elected president of Afghanistan, Hamid) and "death to the U.S." It was the largest protest of its kind since the fall of the Taliban four years earlier.
In 2002, to my surprise, there was very little anger at the American bombing of Kabul. The hatred for the Taliban was such that many people said it was an acceptable price to pay. In fact, the only thing that rivalled their disdain for the Taliban was their fear of, and contempt for, the country's warlords.
These warlords were the leaders of various mujahedeen factions that, backed by the U.S., had fought the Russians in the 1980s. After the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan and the Americans lost interest, these "leaders" turned on each other and fought for power and control of the narco-trade, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process.
They orchestrated a reign of terror and chaos that created the conditions for the ascension of the Taliban, who rose to popularity with a promise of law and order. After the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, it was to these warlords that the U.S. handed much of the power, in order to avoid using American troops.
During the spring of 2002, I found that people across Afghanistan had one primary demand: that NATO or UN forces disarm the warlord armies. Instead, the warlords are today ensconced in power, Karzai has to turn a blind eye to the drug trade or risk their wrath, and corruption runs rampant throughout the country. Afghanistan has become one of the world's major narco-states and, as everyone knows, with narco-economics goes narco-politics.
Poverty and child mortality rates in Afghanistan continue to be among the worst in the world. Poverty drives men and boys into the armies of the warlords or the Taliban — paid for by bumper poppy crops. The suffering of the Afghan people is extreme, but most television news reports for years have carried official statements about the "Afghan success story and the march to democracy."
Four years ago, it seemed almost impossible that the Taliban could make a comeback. On an 18-hour drive from Kabul to Kandahar, we spent the night in Ghazni at a UN mission that helped resettle refugees returning from Pakistan.
Bettina, a young French woman, ran the mission. She served us food and drink, and we talked into the night with her Afghan colleagues about the future. They, too, believed that if only the West would get serious about economic reconstruction, there was hope for Afghanistan. They talked about the return of educated Afghans from around the world who could help rebuild their homeland.
A few months after we returned to Canada, I read the following release from the UN:
"Bettina Goislard, 29, was shot dead Sunday by two suspected Taliban while she was in a marked UNHCR vehicle in the bazaar in Ghazni town, 130 kilometres (80 miles) southwest of Kabul. She was the first UN worker to be killed in Afghanistan since the toppling of the Taliban regime two years ago."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`The indications are
that the resistance
could transcend a simple Taliban-led insurgency to evolve into a powerful Islamic movement'
Syed Saleem Shahzad
Pakistan bureau chief,
Asia Times Online
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was reported that the people of Ghazni were furious and beat the shooters until police arrived to make arrests. People wanted reconstruction. They wanted jobs. They wanted real democracy, and they welcomed foreign assistance. Afghans were ready and willing to sacrifice and work, hoping against hope that the West would commit the kind of resources President George W. Bush had promised in the early days of the war against the Taliban.
Instead, resources have been far less than needed and the reconstruction effort is mired in warlord corruption. Ghazni province and much of the territory around Kandahar is now mostly under the control of the Taliban. Aid workers have left and the general population lives in fear, or supports the Taliban, which now has more soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan that it ever has since 2001, according to a recent Globe and Mail article.
Syed Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan bureau chief of Asia Times Online, wrote on May 29 that "... the indications are that the resistance could transcend a simple Taliban-led insurgency to evolve into a powerful Islamic movement."
Shahzad interviewed Pakistani army general Hamid Gul, who for many years worked with Afghan resistance groups against the Russians.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg you are watching; this situation will further escalate as the whole environment is now conducive to resistance," Gul told Shahzad. "Russia is annoyed with the Americans, Iran is hostile to Western interests, and Pakistan is no more in a position to adhere to American directives."
Added Gul, "The trade of raw opium [in Afghanistan] has reached U.S. $2.4 billion, and the trade of narco-drugs has reached up to $4 billion. Where are the drugs going? Of course, they come from Afghanistan and go to Russia. Even if 10 per cent of the trade is used for arms purchases, it serves the purpose of the resistance."
Shahzad ends his article with these observations: "At least seven different tribal jirgas (traditional, influential meetings of tribal elders) are meeting on a daily basis among the Afghan population.
"Miranshah Bazaar in North Waziristan is once again full of posters of Osama bin Laden and (the pro-al Qaeda warlord Gulbuddin) Hekmatyar, while slogans are written in support of the Taliban.
"The jirgas are unanimous: There should be all-out war in Afghanistan."
Television news pays little attention to the consequences of Western foreign policy that angers the population and strengthens pro-Taliban and al Qaeda forces.
That policy is now creating the conditions for a political perfect storm in Afghanistan. Once again, it is the people of that country who will pay the terrible price, while the rest of the world will reap the "blowback," as it came to be known after 9/11.
Surely, if bin Laden is in Pakistan, he is smiling.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Jay is chair of TheRealNews. com, a non-profit, independent news and documentary TV/Web network-in-development.
TROU ---
FUBAR so long as Bush is the one leading...but not beyond repair --- only beyond Bush's reach to repair...
FUBAR so long as Bush is the one leading...but not beyond repair --- only beyond Bush's reach to repair...
We did exactly what Osama wanted us to do. FUBAR.
Yes --- but I do believe a solution is possible --- maybe beyond all/any recoginition...
But not repair...
Yes we did what Bin Laden wanted.
We made him prescient in his followers minds...
How easy is it to motivate the strongest nation in the world to take the action you want them to take?
Get a weak president with an agenda in power...that's how easy it is...
But not repair...
Yes we did what Bin Laden wanted.
We made him prescient in his followers minds...
How easy is it to motivate the strongest nation in the world to take the action you want them to take?
Get a weak president with an agenda in power...that's how easy it is...
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Jun 13 2006, 10:17 AM)
Yes --- but I do believe a solution is possible --- maybe beyond all/any recoginition...
But not repair...
Yes we did what Bin Laden wanted.
We made him prescient in his followers minds...
How easy is it to motivate the strongest nation in the world to take the action you want them to take?
Get a weak president with an agenda in power...that's how easy it is...
But not repair...
Yes we did what Bin Laden wanted.
We made him prescient in his followers minds...
How easy is it to motivate the strongest nation in the world to take the action you want them to take?
Get a weak president with an agenda in power...that's how easy it is...
We will be "repairing" this for generations. And that's only if we are lucky enough to have that much time. We are not even a Republic anymore. FUBAR.
The Times of India Online
Printed from timesofindia.indiatimes.com > World> Rest of World
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
US launches anti-Taliban operation in Afghanistan
[ Thursday, June 15, 2006 06:42:27 pmIANS ]
RSS Feeds| SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates
KABUL: The US-led coalition forces and the Afghan army have launched a massive anti-Taliban operation in the volatile southern province, a US military press release said on Thursday.
"Operation Mountain Thrust is moving forward with large-scale operations in southern Afghanistan. This operation is a successive phase of an ongoing campaign to disrupt enemy forces," it said.
Southern provinces of Kandahar, Zabul, Helmand and Uruzgan, the hotbed of Taliban fighters, became scenes of unexpected skirmishes over the past two months during which some 500 people lost their lives.
According to the press release, the new operation involving more than 10,000 Afghan and coalition forces will put heavy pressure on insurgent sanctuaries.
The operation has been launched in the wake of increasing attacks on Afghan and foreign troops.
Meanwhile, operation "Mountain Lion" which was launched in mid May is still continuing with similar objective in the eastern region.
"There is no scheduled end to Mountain Thrust. The coalition will continue operations well into the summer and until objectives are met," the press release added.
More than 800 people including 40 foreign soldiers with some 30 Americans were killed in Taliban-linked insurgency since the beginning of this year.
Printed from timesofindia.indiatimes.com > World> Rest of World
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
US launches anti-Taliban operation in Afghanistan
[ Thursday, June 15, 2006 06:42:27 pmIANS ]
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KABUL: The US-led coalition forces and the Afghan army have launched a massive anti-Taliban operation in the volatile southern province, a US military press release said on Thursday.
"Operation Mountain Thrust is moving forward with large-scale operations in southern Afghanistan. This operation is a successive phase of an ongoing campaign to disrupt enemy forces," it said.
Southern provinces of Kandahar, Zabul, Helmand and Uruzgan, the hotbed of Taliban fighters, became scenes of unexpected skirmishes over the past two months during which some 500 people lost their lives.
According to the press release, the new operation involving more than 10,000 Afghan and coalition forces will put heavy pressure on insurgent sanctuaries.
The operation has been launched in the wake of increasing attacks on Afghan and foreign troops.
Meanwhile, operation "Mountain Lion" which was launched in mid May is still continuing with similar objective in the eastern region.
"There is no scheduled end to Mountain Thrust. The coalition will continue operations well into the summer and until objectives are met," the press release added.
More than 800 people including 40 foreign soldiers with some 30 Americans were killed in Taliban-linked insurgency since the beginning of this year.
Powerful explosion in Afghanistan
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411749/750528
Jun 15, 2006
A powerful explosion has killed more than 10 people and wounded 15 in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
The target appeared to be a mini-bus carrying labourers working for United States-led military forces, which was hit during rush hour in the heart of the city.
More than 900 people have been killed in violence in Afghanistan this year during the worst wave of violence since the Taleban were ousted in 2001.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411749/750528
Jun 15, 2006
A powerful explosion has killed more than 10 people and wounded 15 in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
The target appeared to be a mini-bus carrying labourers working for United States-led military forces, which was hit during rush hour in the heart of the city.
More than 900 people have been killed in violence in Afghanistan this year during the worst wave of violence since the Taleban were ousted in 2001.
Posted on Thu, Jun. 15, 2006
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news.../printstory.jsp
Meanwhile, Afghanistan deteriorates
Taliban forces return after incomplete American success
JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
This week, the Bush administration has been accentuating the positive in Iraq with Camp David Cabinet sessions, a five-hour presidential drop-by in Baghdad's Green Zone, a rare Bush news conference and Republican moves in Congress to fend off demands for debate on the war and seize a little high ground ahead of the fall election campaigns.
It's all about the spin and trying to pick up a little bounce in the polls off the death of al-Qaida's branch manager in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the fact that after only five months of haggling, the new Iraqi leadership finally managed to appoint ministers of the interior and defense.
Meantime, while everyone has their eyes on the effort to show that Iraq is going in a better direction, no one appears to be noticing that Afghanistan -- remember Afghanistan, the poster child for Bush administration success in the global war on terrorism? -- is heading south at an alarming pace.
On the comeback trail
Mullah Omar's Taliban are on the comeback trail with a vengeance this summer, operating in well-armed and disciplined battalion-size units in the south. Drawing on the experience of the Iraqi insurgents, the Taliban forces are employing more sophisticated improvised explosive devices as well as mines and ambushes against Afghan government forces and foreign military and aid officials.This is happening just a month before U.S. forces are scheduled to begin turning over responsibility for that volatile region to some of our NATO allies.
To be sure, American air strikes have wreaked havoc on the larger Taliban units when they come out to fight. But the collateral damage, the death and destruction visited on nearby civilians, has grown as well.
The developments already have caused the Pentagon to delay or cancel plans to draw down U.S. forces by a brigade, or about 3,000 troops out of the estimated 18,000 now deployed in Afghanistan.
Many villagers in that impoverished region, fed up with waiting for things to get even a little bit better under the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, have welcomed the return of the Taliban.
Why is this happening now, almost five years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, led to our invasion of Afghanistan and the quick overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban regime?
Job One forgotten
No one questioned the need for swift and decisive action in response to al-Qaida's terrorist attack on the United States. Job One was cleaning out the Taliban regime that had sheltered and supported Osama bin Laden's plot that left more than 3,000 Americans dead.
It can be fairly argued that the Bush administration failed to send enough American forces to Afghanistan to do a thorough cleanup of the bad guys. Not enough were sent to block al-Qaida's escape routes into Pakistan. Not nearly enough was done to build a credible Afghan army and police force to begin securing the country. Not enough was done to begin rebuilding a country shattered by a quarter-century of war and civil war.
What got in the way of doing those things was an American administration hell-bent on jumping into a much higher-profile war in Iraq -- a war that would signal to evildoers that American muscle was back, spread democracy in the Middle East and make the world a safer place.
Before 2001 even ended, the administration began siphoning off some of the resources needed to finish Job One in Afghanistan to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. Predator drones and special operations forces, troops, money and planners were diverted from the unfinished Job One to Job Two.
Afghanistan would languish as a backwater, an afterthought, a "victory" in the global war on terror to be trotted out occasionally to take people's minds off Iraq.
If there was one place where we should have maintained full focus, it was Afghanistan. If there is one place where you never take your eye off the ball, it is Afghanistan. That's a lesson learned the hard way by invading armies from Alexander to the British Empire to the Soviet Union.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers. Write him at P.O. Box 399, Bayside, TX 78340, or by e-mail at jlgalloway2@cs.com.
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news.../printstory.jsp
Meanwhile, Afghanistan deteriorates
Taliban forces return after incomplete American success
JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
This week, the Bush administration has been accentuating the positive in Iraq with Camp David Cabinet sessions, a five-hour presidential drop-by in Baghdad's Green Zone, a rare Bush news conference and Republican moves in Congress to fend off demands for debate on the war and seize a little high ground ahead of the fall election campaigns.
It's all about the spin and trying to pick up a little bounce in the polls off the death of al-Qaida's branch manager in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the fact that after only five months of haggling, the new Iraqi leadership finally managed to appoint ministers of the interior and defense.
Meantime, while everyone has their eyes on the effort to show that Iraq is going in a better direction, no one appears to be noticing that Afghanistan -- remember Afghanistan, the poster child for Bush administration success in the global war on terrorism? -- is heading south at an alarming pace.
On the comeback trail
Mullah Omar's Taliban are on the comeback trail with a vengeance this summer, operating in well-armed and disciplined battalion-size units in the south. Drawing on the experience of the Iraqi insurgents, the Taliban forces are employing more sophisticated improvised explosive devices as well as mines and ambushes against Afghan government forces and foreign military and aid officials.This is happening just a month before U.S. forces are scheduled to begin turning over responsibility for that volatile region to some of our NATO allies.
To be sure, American air strikes have wreaked havoc on the larger Taliban units when they come out to fight. But the collateral damage, the death and destruction visited on nearby civilians, has grown as well.
The developments already have caused the Pentagon to delay or cancel plans to draw down U.S. forces by a brigade, or about 3,000 troops out of the estimated 18,000 now deployed in Afghanistan.
Many villagers in that impoverished region, fed up with waiting for things to get even a little bit better under the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, have welcomed the return of the Taliban.
Why is this happening now, almost five years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, led to our invasion of Afghanistan and the quick overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban regime?
Job One forgotten
No one questioned the need for swift and decisive action in response to al-Qaida's terrorist attack on the United States. Job One was cleaning out the Taliban regime that had sheltered and supported Osama bin Laden's plot that left more than 3,000 Americans dead.
It can be fairly argued that the Bush administration failed to send enough American forces to Afghanistan to do a thorough cleanup of the bad guys. Not enough were sent to block al-Qaida's escape routes into Pakistan. Not nearly enough was done to build a credible Afghan army and police force to begin securing the country. Not enough was done to begin rebuilding a country shattered by a quarter-century of war and civil war.
What got in the way of doing those things was an American administration hell-bent on jumping into a much higher-profile war in Iraq -- a war that would signal to evildoers that American muscle was back, spread democracy in the Middle East and make the world a safer place.
Before 2001 even ended, the administration began siphoning off some of the resources needed to finish Job One in Afghanistan to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. Predator drones and special operations forces, troops, money and planners were diverted from the unfinished Job One to Job Two.
Afghanistan would languish as a backwater, an afterthought, a "victory" in the global war on terror to be trotted out occasionally to take people's minds off Iraq.
If there was one place where we should have maintained full focus, it was Afghanistan. If there is one place where you never take your eye off the ball, it is Afghanistan. That's a lesson learned the hard way by invading armies from Alexander to the British Empire to the Soviet Union.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers. Write him at P.O. Box 399, Bayside, TX 78340, or by e-mail at jlgalloway2@cs.com.
Anyone listening to the GOP inspired "debate" on Iraq? Barney Frank just slammed them on Afghanistan......
Afghan Recovery Report
http://www.iwpr.net/?p=%3Cp%3ENo%20item%20...&apc_state=henh
Special Report
Afghanistan: A Long, Bloody Summer Ahead
The US and its allies engage in a new offensive in the south, but the insurgents are already on the move in other parts of Afghanistan.
By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 219, 15-Jun-06)
As the United States-led Coalition and Afghan army gear up for a new push against insurgent forces in the south, the country looks set for a long season of intense fighting. The offensive focusing on Helmand and Uruzgan provinces comes as the Taleban extend their attacks to northern and western areas well beyond their traditional stamping ground.
Daily reports of clashes, suicide attacks, schools burned down and civilians killed have long since ceased to shock anyone. While the Afghan conflict may be overshadowed by news from Iraq, the violence is serious - and spreading.
Helmand, Uruzgan, Zabul and Kandahar provinces, all of which border on Pakistan, are commonly referred to as “restive” or “volatile” - but these descriptions now also apply to places like Wardak, a mere 40 kilometres from the capital Kabul.
Even Kabul is no longer the safe haven it was thought to be just a few weeks ago. Street riots on May 29 which left at least 17 dead and close to 200 injured, put paid to the notion that the capital was secure.
Recent reports from the north and west of Afghanistan suggest that the insurgents have a much longer reach and broader support than was formerly thought possible.
Officials in charge of providing security have been slow to acknowledge the Taleban’s growing presence.
OPTIMISM ABOUT SOUTHERN OFFENSIVE
US military spokesman Colonel Tom Collins on June 14 announced that the second phase of Operation Mountain Thrust, which began last month, would be a determined effort to root out Taleban forces from stronghold areas in the mountains of northern Helmand and adjoining parts of western Uruzgan.
A massive force has been deployed for the operation, consisting of 3,500 members of the Afghan National Army, ANA, 3,300 British troops from the force newly deployed in Helmand, 2,300 more from the US and 2,200 Canadians.
The aim is to hit insurgent-held areas all at once so they cannot slip away to other provinces. The operation will also target pockets of insurgents in Kandahar and Zabul.
Speaking prior to the latest announcement, Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi admitted, “The situation in the south is not good. But we have security plans for the region, and I hope that there will be a positive change within the next two months.”
Azimi said the main problem was the insurgents’ changing tactics.
“It is very difficult to control suicide attacks,” he said, “but we are trying to make the intelligence services more active so as to stop these attacks before they happen.”
Interior ministry spokeman Mohammad Yousuf Stanezai was similarly optimistic, saying, “Yes, there is a lack of security, but this is a last-ditch effort by the enemies of the people. Our security bodies are getting stronger day by day.”
ON THE GROUND, A GRIMMER PICTURE
According to Stanezai, the insurgents’ capacity for military engagement has been depleted. “The Taleban used to fight us face to face, and now they can’t,” he told IWPR.
This is a well-rehearsed argument, but it does not seem to be borne out by reports from the ground. The insurgents are no longer confining their efforts to suicide attacks, and appear confident about mounting bolder attacks including set-piece battles.
In recent months there has been a rise in Taleban attacks on police and army checkpoints in many provinces, and in some places they have won control of whole areas for days at a time. Clashes have occurred in places like Nimruz, Nuristan and Wardak – all outside the main Taleban areas. Most recently, insurgents captured and held a district in Uruzgan for four days.
A recent report by the Senlis Council, an international think-tank, suggested that the Taleban had retaken control of southern Afghanistan. The report said 80 per cent of the population in Helmand now viewed the foreign troop presence in the province - where the British have taken over from the Americans - as the oppressors, and supported the Taleban against them.
“The nature of instability in Helmand has shifted from random insurgency to a state of prolonged and organised violence that threatens the very foundations of the new Afghanistan,” said the report. “The nature of the insurgency has changed and [it] is now perceived by the local population as the accepted power holder.”
While few of those running security operations in the south would agree with the Senlis Council’s bleak assessment, it is hard to argue with the view that the situation has deteriorated rapidly over the past six months.
“If we look at the security situation, we have security problems and threats everywhere,” said Major Luke Knittig, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, the NATO-led peacekeeping body that operates separately from the Coalition.
“But most Afghan people want security. Those creating problems are limited in number. But the problem is not only in the south, it’s other places as well.”
INSURGENCY SPREADING
Interviewed before he announced the latest offensive, Colonel Collins said it was not true that the insurgents were now operating across the country.
“If we look at the four parts of Afghanistan, in the north and west the situation is completely quiet. Where there are incidents, most are due to criminal activity, drug smuggling, especially in the south. We cannot attribute all incidents to the Taleban,” he said.
The media, continued Collins, bears some responsibility for the perception that things are getting worse, “The Taleban take responsibility for every single thing. Then they get their message out through the media, trying to show that the situation is getting worse.
“But we have been and are successful.”
However, it does appear that the Taleban are on the move in areas where they would not have been active, say, a year ago.
Take Wardak, a central region with a largely Pashtun population that borders on Kabul province.
The interior ministry’s Stanezai insisted, “Wardak province is completely under police control. Police are patrolling the whole province.”
But residents tell a different story, especially after a spate of attacks on fuel tankers shuttling between the Coalition’s main base at Bagram near Kabul and other US facilities close to the Pakistani border.
People in Wardak, a province from which some of the drivers came and through which the Kabul-Kandahar highway runs, said as many as 20 were killed in the attacks on tankers on May 26 and 27. The Afghan interior ministry has confirmed only four deaths, but relatives insist the higher figure is closer to the mark. The exact number is unclear, they say, because not all the bodies have been recovered.
“My cousin was killed by the Taleban,” said one resident of Shekhabad, a town in Wardak. “They shot his face off. His son is still missing. Is he dead? Captured? We don’t know.”
The insurgents in Wardak are working to classic guerrilla tactics designed to cut the American troops’ fuel and supply lines, and to intimidate the local population and erode cooperation with the foreign troops, and with the central Afghan government they protect.
“The Taleban warned my cousin many times not to transport supplies to the Americans. He didn’t stop, and they finally killed him,” said the Shekhabad man.
Another resident of Shekhabad said six bodies had been brought back to Wardak province, although he had only seen three of them.
“They buried them at night, because the Taleban had issued a night letter [covertly distributed leaflet] warning people not to say prayers for those who work for the Americans. They said anyone who took part in their funeral services would be in trouble,” he said.
The “night letters” are a common tactic used by the insurgents to spread fear among the population.
Stanezai dismissed them, saying no one really takes them seriously.
“Night letters are just the work of people who are afraid and unable to show themselves,” he said. “They use the cover of darkness to spread fear, but the people know that and they aren’t afraid.”
But a shopkeeper in Shekhabad interviewed by IWPR offered a different perspective, saying, “They stuck a night letter on my shop. I can’t read, but other people read it out to me, and it said those who work for the government in Kabul should leave their jobs and return. I am afraid.”
The insurgents, he went on, have imposed an informal curfew in the province, “They wrote that people should not leave their houses after ten at night. If there is an emergency and you have to take someone to hospital, you must carry a light with you and announce yourself very loudly.”
According to many Wardak residents, mullahs in the province are taking the side of the insurgents, using prayer gatherings to preach jihad and urging locals to take part in the struggle against the government and the Americans.
But many people are willing to risk these dangers, because they have few other options.
“There are no other jobs,” said the cousin of one of the dead truck drivers, who himself drives fuel and supplies between Bagram and Paktika. “I’m making a lot of money.”
Since the Americans pay danger money for drivers willing to enter risky areas, this man said four trips between Paktika and Bagram would net him 6,000 US dollars.
“I’m going to do this as long as I can,” he added.
On June 14, the driver of a truck used to supply Coalition forces was shot dead in Wardak. A defence ministry press release issued on June 15 said another tanker driver was killed and the vehicle set on fire by a roadside bomb in Uruzgan.
WESTERN REGION SEES RISE IN VIOLENCE
The ancient city of Herat, in the west, has long been considered one of the most stable of Afghanistan’s major centres. But in recent months, it too has witnessed an upsurge in insurgency-related violence.
“In the last three months, there have been three suicide attacks in Herat and 25 bomb explosions, as well as 10 people killed in private quarrels,” said police spokesman Abdulrauf Ahmadi.
The most spectacular attack occurred in April, when a suicide bomber exploded a car in front of the offices of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, PRT, in Herat, killing five people and wounding nine.
Military-run PRTs located in many Afghan urban centres facilitate reconstruction work and provide security through a mix of army and civilian personnel. Most, like the one in Herat, operate under NATO/ISAF rather than Coalition command.
In another attack in May, added Ahmadi, one American and one Afghan were killed, “Suicide attacks are very difficult for us to predict or control.”
But provincial officials insist that the situation is not as bad as it is being painted.
“In a city of two million, it is impossible to ensure security one hundred per cent,” said Ghulam Sarwar Haidari, the provincial security chief. “But taking into account all the problems, the police have done remarkably well.”
Some of the city’s residents find this less than reassuring.
Abdul Salam Noori, who lives near the PRT that was bombed in April, is uneasy about having foreign troops so close to his home.
“They came to our country to ensure our security, and now we have to protect them,” he said. “It’s is a big disgrace for the Americans that they cannot get rid of the terrorists.”
The PRT in Herat was formerly run by US forces but Italian troops have been in charge here for more than a year.
Noori added that many people living near the PRT had left their houses, heeding warnings put out through the media by self-styled Taleban spokesmen that attacks on foreign troops would be stepped up in western Afghanistan.
Analysts here trace the roots of the problem to outside influences. Herat is on the border with Iran, and some see the hand of America’s old foe in the current unrest in the city.
“Iran does not want American troops on its borders,” said Abdul Ghani Khesrawi, a political analyst and lecturer at Herat University. “America has been Iran’s enemy for a long time. Defeating America in Afghanistan is one of Iran’s biggest hopes.”
TALEBAN BELIEVED TO HAVE A HAND IN INCIDENTS IN NORTH
Taleban activity has spread even further north, to the formerly secure provinces of Balkh, Jowzjan, Sar-e-Pul, and even remote Badakhshan in the northeast – historically the only part of Afghanistan the Taleban never conquered.
In late May, two people were killed and two injured in an attack on a non-government organisation, NGO, in Badakhshan. Four employees of Action Aid, an NGO helping with the national reconstruction programme in the north, were killed in Jowzjan, also in late May.
Arson attacks on schools are also on the rise in the north: six have been burned down since the end of April, three in Sar-e-Pul, two in Balkh, and one in Faryab.
It is not always possible to ascertain which armed group was involved in such attacks, but Colonel Mohammad Ibrahim, the head of security in Jowzjan who is investigating the murders of the Action Aid employees, suspects the Taleban played a part.
“We have arrested four people in this case,” he told IWPR. “These people are residents of the area where the attack took place. But we believe the Taleban told them to carry out the attack. It’s possible the Taleban are giving money to people to start attacks in the north, and maybe there are some Taleban here as well.”
Colonel Ibrahim insisted that the security forces were on top of the situation.
General Markus Kneip, the German army officer in command of ISAF forces in northern Afghanistan, also said there were indications the Taleban were present.
“We have received reports that there are small groups of Taleban in the north of Afghanistan,” he said. “Most of them are in places where poppy is being grown, and are in league with drug smugglers.”
Kneip added that NATO is working with the Afghan army and the police to create security in the north.
“The best way to improve security is with the help of the population,” he said. “And in any case, the north is not comparable with the south.”
COALITION TO FOCUS ON RECONSTRUCTION AS WELL AS COUNTER-INSURGENCY
When Colonel Collins announced Operation Mountain Thrust, he indicated that the combat operation would be followed by efforts to carry out reconstruction projects in troubled parts of the southern provinces.
Speaking to IWPR earlier in June, he said, “The military should adopt a new tactic. The problem cannot be solved by the military alone… we want to run reconstruction programmes to give people hope for their future.”
While the PRTs dotted around Afghanistan have run such reconstruction and development projects, the Coalition’s main emphasis has been on search-and-destroy missions against the Taleban and associated forces including al-Qaeda and Hizb-e-Islami.
Counter-insurgency operations have obstructed efforts to win people’s confidence in the south, where the Coalition is often viewed as an alien presence supporting an Afghan government that has made little tangible change to livelihoods.
Fazal Rahman Orya, an Afghan political analyst, believes that not even the deployment of “millions of NATO and Coalition forces” can effect a purely military solution. And he insists the decision to shift the emphasis of the Coalition effort in favour of reconstruction is too little, too late.
"Afghanistan's problems cannot be solved by economic or military means. As the Americans step up military operations, people’s animosity towards them increases,” he said.
Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul. Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi contributed to this report from Mazar-e-Sharif, and Sadeq Behnam and Sudabah Afzali contributed from Herat.
http://www.iwpr.net/?p=%3Cp%3ENo%20item%20...&apc_state=henh
Special Report
Afghanistan: A Long, Bloody Summer Ahead
The US and its allies engage in a new offensive in the south, but the insurgents are already on the move in other parts of Afghanistan.
By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 219, 15-Jun-06)
As the United States-led Coalition and Afghan army gear up for a new push against insurgent forces in the south, the country looks set for a long season of intense fighting. The offensive focusing on Helmand and Uruzgan provinces comes as the Taleban extend their attacks to northern and western areas well beyond their traditional stamping ground.
Daily reports of clashes, suicide attacks, schools burned down and civilians killed have long since ceased to shock anyone. While the Afghan conflict may be overshadowed by news from Iraq, the violence is serious - and spreading.
Helmand, Uruzgan, Zabul and Kandahar provinces, all of which border on Pakistan, are commonly referred to as “restive” or “volatile” - but these descriptions now also apply to places like Wardak, a mere 40 kilometres from the capital Kabul.
Even Kabul is no longer the safe haven it was thought to be just a few weeks ago. Street riots on May 29 which left at least 17 dead and close to 200 injured, put paid to the notion that the capital was secure.
Recent reports from the north and west of Afghanistan suggest that the insurgents have a much longer reach and broader support than was formerly thought possible.
Officials in charge of providing security have been slow to acknowledge the Taleban’s growing presence.
OPTIMISM ABOUT SOUTHERN OFFENSIVE
US military spokesman Colonel Tom Collins on June 14 announced that the second phase of Operation Mountain Thrust, which began last month, would be a determined effort to root out Taleban forces from stronghold areas in the mountains of northern Helmand and adjoining parts of western Uruzgan.
A massive force has been deployed for the operation, consisting of 3,500 members of the Afghan National Army, ANA, 3,300 British troops from the force newly deployed in Helmand, 2,300 more from the US and 2,200 Canadians.
The aim is to hit insurgent-held areas all at once so they cannot slip away to other provinces. The operation will also target pockets of insurgents in Kandahar and Zabul.
Speaking prior to the latest announcement, Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi admitted, “The situation in the south is not good. But we have security plans for the region, and I hope that there will be a positive change within the next two months.”
Azimi said the main problem was the insurgents’ changing tactics.
“It is very difficult to control suicide attacks,” he said, “but we are trying to make the intelligence services more active so as to stop these attacks before they happen.”
Interior ministry spokeman Mohammad Yousuf Stanezai was similarly optimistic, saying, “Yes, there is a lack of security, but this is a last-ditch effort by the enemies of the people. Our security bodies are getting stronger day by day.”
ON THE GROUND, A GRIMMER PICTURE
According to Stanezai, the insurgents’ capacity for military engagement has been depleted. “The Taleban used to fight us face to face, and now they can’t,” he told IWPR.
This is a well-rehearsed argument, but it does not seem to be borne out by reports from the ground. The insurgents are no longer confining their efforts to suicide attacks, and appear confident about mounting bolder attacks including set-piece battles.
In recent months there has been a rise in Taleban attacks on police and army checkpoints in many provinces, and in some places they have won control of whole areas for days at a time. Clashes have occurred in places like Nimruz, Nuristan and Wardak – all outside the main Taleban areas. Most recently, insurgents captured and held a district in Uruzgan for four days.
A recent report by the Senlis Council, an international think-tank, suggested that the Taleban had retaken control of southern Afghanistan. The report said 80 per cent of the population in Helmand now viewed the foreign troop presence in the province - where the British have taken over from the Americans - as the oppressors, and supported the Taleban against them.
“The nature of instability in Helmand has shifted from random insurgency to a state of prolonged and organised violence that threatens the very foundations of the new Afghanistan,” said the report. “The nature of the insurgency has changed and [it] is now perceived by the local population as the accepted power holder.”
While few of those running security operations in the south would agree with the Senlis Council’s bleak assessment, it is hard to argue with the view that the situation has deteriorated rapidly over the past six months.
“If we look at the security situation, we have security problems and threats everywhere,” said Major Luke Knittig, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, the NATO-led peacekeeping body that operates separately from the Coalition.
“But most Afghan people want security. Those creating problems are limited in number. But the problem is not only in the south, it’s other places as well.”
INSURGENCY SPREADING
Interviewed before he announced the latest offensive, Colonel Collins said it was not true that the insurgents were now operating across the country.
“If we look at the four parts of Afghanistan, in the north and west the situation is completely quiet. Where there are incidents, most are due to criminal activity, drug smuggling, especially in the south. We cannot attribute all incidents to the Taleban,” he said.
The media, continued Collins, bears some responsibility for the perception that things are getting worse, “The Taleban take responsibility for every single thing. Then they get their message out through the media, trying to show that the situation is getting worse.
“But we have been and are successful.”
However, it does appear that the Taleban are on the move in areas where they would not have been active, say, a year ago.
Take Wardak, a central region with a largely Pashtun population that borders on Kabul province.
The interior ministry’s Stanezai insisted, “Wardak province is completely under police control. Police are patrolling the whole province.”
But residents tell a different story, especially after a spate of attacks on fuel tankers shuttling between the Coalition’s main base at Bagram near Kabul and other US facilities close to the Pakistani border.
People in Wardak, a province from which some of the drivers came and through which the Kabul-Kandahar highway runs, said as many as 20 were killed in the attacks on tankers on May 26 and 27. The Afghan interior ministry has confirmed only four deaths, but relatives insist the higher figure is closer to the mark. The exact number is unclear, they say, because not all the bodies have been recovered.
“My cousin was killed by the Taleban,” said one resident of Shekhabad, a town in Wardak. “They shot his face off. His son is still missing. Is he dead? Captured? We don’t know.”
The insurgents in Wardak are working to classic guerrilla tactics designed to cut the American troops’ fuel and supply lines, and to intimidate the local population and erode cooperation with the foreign troops, and with the central Afghan government they protect.
“The Taleban warned my cousin many times not to transport supplies to the Americans. He didn’t stop, and they finally killed him,” said the Shekhabad man.
Another resident of Shekhabad said six bodies had been brought back to Wardak province, although he had only seen three of them.
“They buried them at night, because the Taleban had issued a night letter [covertly distributed leaflet] warning people not to say prayers for those who work for the Americans. They said anyone who took part in their funeral services would be in trouble,” he said.
The “night letters” are a common tactic used by the insurgents to spread fear among the population.
Stanezai dismissed them, saying no one really takes them seriously.
“Night letters are just the work of people who are afraid and unable to show themselves,” he said. “They use the cover of darkness to spread fear, but the people know that and they aren’t afraid.”
But a shopkeeper in Shekhabad interviewed by IWPR offered a different perspective, saying, “They stuck a night letter on my shop. I can’t read, but other people read it out to me, and it said those who work for the government in Kabul should leave their jobs and return. I am afraid.”
The insurgents, he went on, have imposed an informal curfew in the province, “They wrote that people should not leave their houses after ten at night. If there is an emergency and you have to take someone to hospital, you must carry a light with you and announce yourself very loudly.”
According to many Wardak residents, mullahs in the province are taking the side of the insurgents, using prayer gatherings to preach jihad and urging locals to take part in the struggle against the government and the Americans.
But many people are willing to risk these dangers, because they have few other options.
“There are no other jobs,” said the cousin of one of the dead truck drivers, who himself drives fuel and supplies between Bagram and Paktika. “I’m making a lot of money.”
Since the Americans pay danger money for drivers willing to enter risky areas, this man said four trips between Paktika and Bagram would net him 6,000 US dollars.
“I’m going to do this as long as I can,” he added.
On June 14, the driver of a truck used to supply Coalition forces was shot dead in Wardak. A defence ministry press release issued on June 15 said another tanker driver was killed and the vehicle set on fire by a roadside bomb in Uruzgan.
WESTERN REGION SEES RISE IN VIOLENCE
The ancient city of Herat, in the west, has long been considered one of the most stable of Afghanistan’s major centres. But in recent months, it too has witnessed an upsurge in insurgency-related violence.
“In the last three months, there have been three suicide attacks in Herat and 25 bomb explosions, as well as 10 people killed in private quarrels,” said police spokesman Abdulrauf Ahmadi.
The most spectacular attack occurred in April, when a suicide bomber exploded a car in front of the offices of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, PRT, in Herat, killing five people and wounding nine.
Military-run PRTs located in many Afghan urban centres facilitate reconstruction work and provide security through a mix of army and civilian personnel. Most, like the one in Herat, operate under NATO/ISAF rather than Coalition command.
In another attack in May, added Ahmadi, one American and one Afghan were killed, “Suicide attacks are very difficult for us to predict or control.”
But provincial officials insist that the situation is not as bad as it is being painted.
“In a city of two million, it is impossible to ensure security one hundred per cent,” said Ghulam Sarwar Haidari, the provincial security chief. “But taking into account all the problems, the police have done remarkably well.”
Some of the city’s residents find this less than reassuring.
Abdul Salam Noori, who lives near the PRT that was bombed in April, is uneasy about having foreign troops so close to his home.
“They came to our country to ensure our security, and now we have to protect them,” he said. “It’s is a big disgrace for the Americans that they cannot get rid of the terrorists.”
The PRT in Herat was formerly run by US forces but Italian troops have been in charge here for more than a year.
Noori added that many people living near the PRT had left their houses, heeding warnings put out through the media by self-styled Taleban spokesmen that attacks on foreign troops would be stepped up in western Afghanistan.
Analysts here trace the roots of the problem to outside influences. Herat is on the border with Iran, and some see the hand of America’s old foe in the current unrest in the city.
“Iran does not want American troops on its borders,” said Abdul Ghani Khesrawi, a political analyst and lecturer at Herat University. “America has been Iran’s enemy for a long time. Defeating America in Afghanistan is one of Iran’s biggest hopes.”
TALEBAN BELIEVED TO HAVE A HAND IN INCIDENTS IN NORTH
Taleban activity has spread even further north, to the formerly secure provinces of Balkh, Jowzjan, Sar-e-Pul, and even remote Badakhshan in the northeast – historically the only part of Afghanistan the Taleban never conquered.
In late May, two people were killed and two injured in an attack on a non-government organisation, NGO, in Badakhshan. Four employees of Action Aid, an NGO helping with the national reconstruction programme in the north, were killed in Jowzjan, also in late May.
Arson attacks on schools are also on the rise in the north: six have been burned down since the end of April, three in Sar-e-Pul, two in Balkh, and one in Faryab.
It is not always possible to ascertain which armed group was involved in such attacks, but Colonel Mohammad Ibrahim, the head of security in Jowzjan who is investigating the murders of the Action Aid employees, suspects the Taleban played a part.
“We have arrested four people in this case,” he told IWPR. “These people are residents of the area where the attack took place. But we believe the Taleban told them to carry out the attack. It’s possible the Taleban are giving money to people to start attacks in the north, and maybe there are some Taleban here as well.”
Colonel Ibrahim insisted that the security forces were on top of the situation.
General Markus Kneip, the German army officer in command of ISAF forces in northern Afghanistan, also said there were indications the Taleban were present.
“We have received reports that there are small groups of Taleban in the north of Afghanistan,” he said. “Most of them are in places where poppy is being grown, and are in league with drug smugglers.”
Kneip added that NATO is working with the Afghan army and the police to create security in the north.
“The best way to improve security is with the help of the population,” he said. “And in any case, the north is not comparable with the south.”
COALITION TO FOCUS ON RECONSTRUCTION AS WELL AS COUNTER-INSURGENCY
When Colonel Collins announced Operation Mountain Thrust, he indicated that the combat operation would be followed by efforts to carry out reconstruction projects in troubled parts of the southern provinces.
Speaking to IWPR earlier in June, he said, “The military should adopt a new tactic. The problem cannot be solved by the military alone… we want to run reconstruction programmes to give people hope for their future.”
While the PRTs dotted around Afghanistan have run such reconstruction and development projects, the Coalition’s main emphasis has been on search-and-destroy missions against the Taleban and associated forces including al-Qaeda and Hizb-e-Islami.
Counter-insurgency operations have obstructed efforts to win people’s confidence in the south, where the Coalition is often viewed as an alien presence supporting an Afghan government that has made little tangible change to livelihoods.
Fazal Rahman Orya, an Afghan political analyst, believes that not even the deployment of “millions of NATO and Coalition forces” can effect a purely military solution. And he insists the decision to shift the emphasis of the Coalition effort in favour of reconstruction is too little, too late.
"Afghanistan's problems cannot be solved by economic or military means. As the Americans step up military operations, people’s animosity towards them increases,” he said.
Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul. Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi contributed to this report from Mazar-e-Sharif, and Sadeq Behnam and Sudabah Afzali contributed from Herat.
15 June 2006
http://euronews.net/create_html.php?page=d...le=364176&lng=1
15/06
18:41 CET Afghanistan Taliban uses Iraq-style attacks against workers in Afghanistan
Fears that Afghanistan is sliding towards a violent insurgency similar to the one in Iraq seem truer every day. A van carrying Afghan workers to an American army base in Kandahar where they worked was blown up. Ten of them were killed. The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack.
As in Iraq, the victims were soft targets - the kind of people difficult to protect around the clock. Kandahar in southern Afghanistan is considered the heartland of the Taliban rebels.
This latest bombing is a reminder that they are building up just five years after they were removed from power by US-led forces. Acknowledging the threat from the Taliban, Western troops along with Afghan soldiers are planning a major counter-offensive against the rebels in their mountain hideouts.
http://euronews.net/create_html.php?page=d...le=364176&lng=1
15/06
18:41 CET Afghanistan Taliban uses Iraq-style attacks against workers in Afghanistan
Fears that Afghanistan is sliding towards a violent insurgency similar to the one in Iraq seem truer every day. A van carrying Afghan workers to an American army base in Kandahar where they worked was blown up. Ten of them were killed. The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack.
As in Iraq, the victims were soft targets - the kind of people difficult to protect around the clock. Kandahar in southern Afghanistan is considered the heartland of the Taliban rebels.
This latest bombing is a reminder that they are building up just five years after they were removed from power by US-led forces. Acknowledging the threat from the Taliban, Western troops along with Afghan soldiers are planning a major counter-offensive against the rebels in their mountain hideouts.
Not at home in homeland
Nearly 5 years after Taliban's fall, Afghans who returned are seeking to leave again
By Kim Barker
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published June 15, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...nationworld-hed
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Ahmad Rahimi came back from Iran just after the Taliban fled. But Rahimi, a baker, cannot find a job in the country where he was born. He cannot get his house back from the people who moved in while he was gone.
So six weeks ago, Rahimi gave up on the new Afghanistan. He started spending two mornings a week at the Iranian Embassy, trying to get a visa so he can leave.
"Even if we live in golden castles in Iran, we do not feel at home," said Rahimi, 56, waiting outside the embassy on a recent morning. "This is our country. If I had a small home and security, I would be happy here. But I don't. Of course I'm disappointed."
Many refugees still are returning to Afghanistan. Since the Taliban fell in late 2001, more than 4.5 million Afghans have returned. But many live in squalid refugee camps or sleep in abandoned buildings. And an increasing number say they want to leave Afghanistan because they just cannot live here anymore. The lines outside the Embassies of Iran and Pakistan have been growing longer in recent months.
"Last year I helped about 50 people every day," said Mohammed Ayob Arafi, who earns money writing visa applications for illiterate Afghans outside the Iranian Embassy. "Now, I help 100."
Police at both embassies say they have noticed an increase. At the Embassy of Pakistan, people once showed up at 5 a.m. to get in line. Now they come at 3 a.m.
This fall will mark five years since the world committed to building a new Afghanistan, since the new government told Afghan refugees that it was time to come home.
Now, the new Afghanistan seems to be facing its biggest test. Taliban remnants and other insurgents are mounting their biggest challenge to foreign troops since 2002. The Taliban control some parts of southern Afghanistan. Poppies and the heroin trade are booming. Corruption in the government is endemic. Jobs are scarce.
Kabul riots on May 29, sparked by a traffic accident involving a U.S. military truck, only highlighted the hopelessness many Afghans feel.
The evidence of people leaving Afghanistan is largely anecdotal. Embassy officials do not ask why Afghans are traveling. Iran's Embassy issues about 600 visas a week, and Pakistan's hands out between 200 and 250 visas a day, regardless of how many people show up.
Not all leave forever
Not everyone is leaving for good; some people are going for medical treatment, and some are visiting family. But others are clear about why they will not stay here. Sayed Reza Yazdanpana, 48, fled Afghanistan for Iran after the Soviets invaded in 1979. He came to Kabul four months ago to see whether he could move his Tehran clothing factory to Afghanistan, but he decided he could not.
"I couldn't make as much money here," he said. "I also need power for my machines, for my irons. There's still no electricity here."
Mohammed Safar Rahmati, 25, moved his family's carpet factory from Pakistan to Afghanistan just after the fall of the Taliban. He hired 150 Afghans. But last year, he moved most of his business back to Pakistan because of problems with exporting carpets, banking and dealing with Kabul authorities.
"I'm very optimistic about the future of my country," he said. "We don't want to blame our government ... But if the situation gets worse, I'll take the whole factory to Pakistan."
Afghan officials say lines at embassies do not mean anything. They blame recent troubles on political opponents. And they say Afghans are taking advantage of the same opportunities available to people in other countries.
"It's a very normal situation that people go from one country to another country to find better opportunities," said Abdul Jabar Sabit, a top official in the Interior Ministry. "It does not mean the situation is alarming. That's not the case. I don't believe people who came back here are going back again."
The challenges facing Afghanistan would be daunting for any administration. Even before years of war destroyed Afghanistan, rural areas were backward, with no power, no running water. Kabul was never a boomtown. Afghanistan was never rich.
And after the fall of the Taliban, many Afghans were unrealistically hopeful.
Jawed Ludin, President Hamid Karzai's chief of staff, said life had improved for most Afghans in the last five years. He said he would be shocked if five people out of everyone in a half-mile stretch of downtown Kabul said their lives were worse now than five years ago.
A Tribune reporter walked such a distance in the capital and asked people whether their lives were better now or five years ago, under the Taliban. Eighty said their lives were better now. But 49 said they preferred the Taliban. Only nine of those responding were women, and two favored the Taliban.
"There was no looting, no theft back then," said Mohammed Yaqub, 60, who was selling jewelry on the street. "Everything was peaceful. Everything was under the control of the government."
Poll shows support
An ABC News poll of Afghans late last year went better for the current government. In a random sampling of 1,039 Afghans, 77 percent believed their country was headed in the right direction, and 91 percent preferred the current government to the Taliban. But 64 percent said their own households' financial situation was bad.
Rahimi, waiting in line at the Iranian Embassy, said he hoped to come back to Afghanistan at some point. He also hoped that his name would be read off that day so he could leave.
The police officer called name after name, 100 in all. About 200 men huddled around the police, who shoved them back. Rahimi squatted next to a ditch. Every man whose name was called jumped up as if he had won the lottery.
At one point, a police officer walked over with two men whose names were not on the list, who had not waited in line. "Take these guys, too," the officer said. The two men joined the others despite not following the rules, another example of the petty corruption that angers Afghans.
"What happened to my name?" Rahimi asked after the list was finished. "They didn't read my name."
"No one cares about you if you are here for two months," another unlucky man, Mohammed Azim, 18, told Rahimi. "If you don't have money, nothing will work here."
----------
kbarker@tribune.com
Nearly 5 years after Taliban's fall, Afghans who returned are seeking to leave again
By Kim Barker
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published June 15, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...nationworld-hed
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Ahmad Rahimi came back from Iran just after the Taliban fled. But Rahimi, a baker, cannot find a job in the country where he was born. He cannot get his house back from the people who moved in while he was gone.
So six weeks ago, Rahimi gave up on the new Afghanistan. He started spending two mornings a week at the Iranian Embassy, trying to get a visa so he can leave.
"Even if we live in golden castles in Iran, we do not feel at home," said Rahimi, 56, waiting outside the embassy on a recent morning. "This is our country. If I had a small home and security, I would be happy here. But I don't. Of course I'm disappointed."
Many refugees still are returning to Afghanistan. Since the Taliban fell in late 2001, more than 4.5 million Afghans have returned. But many live in squalid refugee camps or sleep in abandoned buildings. And an increasing number say they want to leave Afghanistan because they just cannot live here anymore. The lines outside the Embassies of Iran and Pakistan have been growing longer in recent months.
"Last year I helped about 50 people every day," said Mohammed Ayob Arafi, who earns money writing visa applications for illiterate Afghans outside the Iranian Embassy. "Now, I help 100."
Police at both embassies say they have noticed an increase. At the Embassy of Pakistan, people once showed up at 5 a.m. to get in line. Now they come at 3 a.m.
This fall will mark five years since the world committed to building a new Afghanistan, since the new government told Afghan refugees that it was time to come home.
Now, the new Afghanistan seems to be facing its biggest test. Taliban remnants and other insurgents are mounting their biggest challenge to foreign troops since 2002. The Taliban control some parts of southern Afghanistan. Poppies and the heroin trade are booming. Corruption in the government is endemic. Jobs are scarce.
Kabul riots on May 29, sparked by a traffic accident involving a U.S. military truck, only highlighted the hopelessness many Afghans feel.
The evidence of people leaving Afghanistan is largely anecdotal. Embassy officials do not ask why Afghans are traveling. Iran's Embassy issues about 600 visas a week, and Pakistan's hands out between 200 and 250 visas a day, regardless of how many people show up.
Not all leave forever
Not everyone is leaving for good; some people are going for medical treatment, and some are visiting family. But others are clear about why they will not stay here. Sayed Reza Yazdanpana, 48, fled Afghanistan for Iran after the Soviets invaded in 1979. He came to Kabul four months ago to see whether he could move his Tehran clothing factory to Afghanistan, but he decided he could not.
"I couldn't make as much money here," he said. "I also need power for my machines, for my irons. There's still no electricity here."
Mohammed Safar Rahmati, 25, moved his family's carpet factory from Pakistan to Afghanistan just after the fall of the Taliban. He hired 150 Afghans. But last year, he moved most of his business back to Pakistan because of problems with exporting carpets, banking and dealing with Kabul authorities.
"I'm very optimistic about the future of my country," he said. "We don't want to blame our government ... But if the situation gets worse, I'll take the whole factory to Pakistan."
Afghan officials say lines at embassies do not mean anything. They blame recent troubles on political opponents. And they say Afghans are taking advantage of the same opportunities available to people in other countries.
"It's a very normal situation that people go from one country to another country to find better opportunities," said Abdul Jabar Sabit, a top official in the Interior Ministry. "It does not mean the situation is alarming. That's not the case. I don't believe people who came back here are going back again."
The challenges facing Afghanistan would be daunting for any administration. Even before years of war destroyed Afghanistan, rural areas were backward, with no power, no running water. Kabul was never a boomtown. Afghanistan was never rich.
And after the fall of the Taliban, many Afghans were unrealistically hopeful.
Jawed Ludin, President Hamid Karzai's chief of staff, said life had improved for most Afghans in the last five years. He said he would be shocked if five people out of everyone in a half-mile stretch of downtown Kabul said their lives were worse now than five years ago.
A Tribune reporter walked such a distance in the capital and asked people whether their lives were better now or five years ago, under the Taliban. Eighty said their lives were better now. But 49 said they preferred the Taliban. Only nine of those responding were women, and two favored the Taliban.
"There was no looting, no theft back then," said Mohammed Yaqub, 60, who was selling jewelry on the street. "Everything was peaceful. Everything was under the control of the government."
Poll shows support
An ABC News poll of Afghans late last year went better for the current government. In a random sampling of 1,039 Afghans, 77 percent believed their country was headed in the right direction, and 91 percent preferred the current government to the Taliban. But 64 percent said their own households' financial situation was bad.
Rahimi, waiting in line at the Iranian Embassy, said he hoped to come back to Afghanistan at some point. He also hoped that his name would be read off that day so he could leave.
The police officer called name after name, 100 in all. About 200 men huddled around the police, who shoved them back. Rahimi squatted next to a ditch. Every man whose name was called jumped up as if he had won the lottery.
At one point, a police officer walked over with two men whose names were not on the list, who had not waited in line. "Take these guys, too," the officer said. The two men joined the others despite not following the rules, another example of the petty corruption that angers Afghans.
"What happened to my name?" Rahimi asked after the list was finished. "They didn't read my name."
"No one cares about you if you are here for two months," another unlucky man, Mohammed Azim, 18, told Rahimi. "If you don't have money, nothing will work here."
----------
kbarker@tribune.com
PrintSource: United States Institute of Peace (USIP)
Date: 14 Jun 2006
Afghanistan and its neighbors - An ever dangerous neighborhood
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900S...D6?OpenDocument
About the Report
The fate of Afghanistan and the success of U.S. and coalition efforts to stabilize Afghanistan will in large measure be affected by the current and future policies pursued by its varied proximate and distal neighbors. Most analyses of Afghanistan have focused on its internal dimensions or the policies pursued by U.S. and coalition partners. To date, there have been few analyses that situate Afghanistan’s future within the context of its region and the key players in this region. This is unfortunate because many states, including Pakistan, Iran, India, China, Russia, and the Central Asian republics, have an important ability to influence positively and negatively the course of developments in Afghanistan.
To address this analytical gap, the United States Institute of Peace, Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention requested Dr. Marvin G. Weinbaum to evaluate the courses of action Afghanistan’s key neighbors are likely to take and assess their importance for Afghanistan’s evolution toward a stable and robust state.
Marvin G. Weinbaum is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and served as an analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 1999 to 2003. He is currently a scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.
Summary
- Predatory neighbors have been a fact of life for the Afghan state throughout most of its history. In defense, Afghans have chosen both isolation and resistance. Today, openness and cooperation with regional powers offer the best prospects for security and economic progress for Afghanistan.
- Conversely, the region’s political stability and economic potential are broadly influenced by the ability of post-conflict Afghanistan to succeed in its recovery. . The region’s opportunistic states are liable to revive their interventions in Afghanistan in the event of a faltering Kabul government or an international community that reneges on its commitments to help secure and rebuild the country. Already there are some indications that the forbearance shown by neighbors in recent years may be flagging.
- Pakistan and Iran offer Afghanistan its most imposing and critical regional bilateral relationships. Whether they cooperate or create obstacles for Afghanistan’s recovery is greatly influenced by American strategic policies in the region.
- There is widespread belief among Afghans and others in the region that U.S. interest in the country will fade quickly once its major objectives in the region are realized. While an arguable expectation, perceptions alone are enough for many Afghan and regional power brokers to begin to hedge their bets in supporting the Karzai regime. . Afghanistan’s emergence as a regional crossroads for trade and resource sharing in a post-Taliban era remains a distant though hopeful prospect. Endemic economic and physical constraints and retrogressive political developments block progress toward the region forming a vital new economic entity.
Introduction
Landlocked and resource poor, Afghanistan is at risk of unwelcome external influences, its sovereignty and traditions vulnerable. The competition among external powers has at times enabled the country to enjoy their beneficence. More often, it has suffered at their hands. For more than a century, Afghanistan served as the classic buffer state between the British and Czarist empires. During the Cold War it was first neutral ground and then contested terrain between Soviet and surrogate American power. Under the yoke of the Soviet Union’s occupation during the 1980s, at least one-third of the population went into exile and most of the contested countryside lay in waste. The state itself suffered near disintegration in a following decade of civil war sponsored in part by regional powers. By the late 1990s, Afghanistan hosted the opening salvos in a war between radical Islamists and their designated, mostly Western enemies. A post-Taliban Afghanistan, still not free from conflict, extracts benefits for its recovery from international patrons and hopes for the forbearance of traditionally predatory regional states.
Framing the discussions in this study is the assertion that Afghanistan’s future and that of the regional states are closely bound. Constructive partnerships involving Afghans and their neighbors are essential to regional stability. Just as the capacity of Afghanistan to overcome its political and economic deficits will have deep bearing on the region’s security and development, the domestic stability and foreign policies of the neighboring states will affect the prospects for progress in Afghanistan. Many Afghans insist that outside forces drive the current insurgency in the country, while for the regional players Afghanistan remains a potential source of instability through the export of arms, drugs, and ideology. The study posits that over much of the last four years Afghanistan’s neighbors have assessed that support for a stable, independent, and economically strengthening Afghan state is preferable to any achievable alternatives. None have directly opposed the internationally approved Hamid Karzai as president or seriously tried to manipulate Afghan domestic politics. All have pledged, moreover, some measure of development assistance. Undoubtedly, the presence of foreign military forces and international attention has contributed to their restrained policies.
The strategic approaches to Afghanistan by its neighbors are, however, always subject to readjustment. No regional state is prepared to allow another to gain a preponderance of influence in Afghanistan. Moreover, each retains links to client networks that are capable of fractionalizing and incapacitating an emerging Afghanistan. States in the neighborhood may well sponsor destabilizing forces in the event that Kabul governments fail over time to extend their authority and tangibly improve people’s lives, or should Afghanistan’s international benefactors lose their patience and interest. More immediately, as described below, political currents in several regional countries may be overtaking the economic forces on which more optimistic projections for regional cooperation have been based. Poorly considered policies by international aid givers and the Kabul government have in some cases helped to increase suspicions and tensions with neighbors. This study first examines how Afghanistan has historically engaged and been impacted by neighboring states and other foreign stakeholders. The section looks at the way the country has at different times tried both to insulate itself and attract benefactors. A second section focuses on the dynamics of contemporary political and economic relations among countries of the region. It considers how as a regional fulcrum Afghanistan is leveraged by external powers pursuing competing interests. The two sections that follow focus on Pakistan and Iran, countries providing Afghanistan’s most imposing and critical regional bilateral relationships. For each country, the study describes motives and forces driving policies that have been at times obstructionist and at others constructive. A fifth section looks more briefly at the stakes and changing parameters of engagement for each of the other countries bordering Afghanistan as well as noncontiguous Russia and India. The study concludes with an examination of the broader international community’s contributions to the shaping of regional security. The section looks as well at how the international community can help create the opportunities and conditions that could foster cooperation in the region and safeguard against future instability. It also assesses briefly U.S. priorities and policies in the region and their bearing on the Afghan project of state building.
Date: 14 Jun 2006
Afghanistan and its neighbors - An ever dangerous neighborhood
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900S...D6?OpenDocument
About the Report
The fate of Afghanistan and the success of U.S. and coalition efforts to stabilize Afghanistan will in large measure be affected by the current and future policies pursued by its varied proximate and distal neighbors. Most analyses of Afghanistan have focused on its internal dimensions or the policies pursued by U.S. and coalition partners. To date, there have been few analyses that situate Afghanistan’s future within the context of its region and the key players in this region. This is unfortunate because many states, including Pakistan, Iran, India, China, Russia, and the Central Asian republics, have an important ability to influence positively and negatively the course of developments in Afghanistan.
To address this analytical gap, the United States Institute of Peace, Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention requested Dr. Marvin G. Weinbaum to evaluate the courses of action Afghanistan’s key neighbors are likely to take and assess their importance for Afghanistan’s evolution toward a stable and robust state.
Marvin G. Weinbaum is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and served as an analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 1999 to 2003. He is currently a scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.
Summary
- Predatory neighbors have been a fact of life for the Afghan state throughout most of its history. In defense, Afghans have chosen both isolation and resistance. Today, openness and cooperation with regional powers offer the best prospects for security and economic progress for Afghanistan.
- Conversely, the region’s political stability and economic potential are broadly influenced by the ability of post-conflict Afghanistan to succeed in its recovery. . The region’s opportunistic states are liable to revive their interventions in Afghanistan in the event of a faltering Kabul government or an international community that reneges on its commitments to help secure and rebuild the country. Already there are some indications that the forbearance shown by neighbors in recent years may be flagging.
- Pakistan and Iran offer Afghanistan its most imposing and critical regional bilateral relationships. Whether they cooperate or create obstacles for Afghanistan’s recovery is greatly influenced by American strategic policies in the region.
- There is widespread belief among Afghans and others in the region that U.S. interest in the country will fade quickly once its major objectives in the region are realized. While an arguable expectation, perceptions alone are enough for many Afghan and regional power brokers to begin to hedge their bets in supporting the Karzai regime. . Afghanistan’s emergence as a regional crossroads for trade and resource sharing in a post-Taliban era remains a distant though hopeful prospect. Endemic economic and physical constraints and retrogressive political developments block progress toward the region forming a vital new economic entity.
Introduction
Landlocked and resource poor, Afghanistan is at risk of unwelcome external influences, its sovereignty and traditions vulnerable. The competition among external powers has at times enabled the country to enjoy their beneficence. More often, it has suffered at their hands. For more than a century, Afghanistan served as the classic buffer state between the British and Czarist empires. During the Cold War it was first neutral ground and then contested terrain between Soviet and surrogate American power. Under the yoke of the Soviet Union’s occupation during the 1980s, at least one-third of the population went into exile and most of the contested countryside lay in waste. The state itself suffered near disintegration in a following decade of civil war sponsored in part by regional powers. By the late 1990s, Afghanistan hosted the opening salvos in a war between radical Islamists and their designated, mostly Western enemies. A post-Taliban Afghanistan, still not free from conflict, extracts benefits for its recovery from international patrons and hopes for the forbearance of traditionally predatory regional states.
Framing the discussions in this study is the assertion that Afghanistan’s future and that of the regional states are closely bound. Constructive partnerships involving Afghans and their neighbors are essential to regional stability. Just as the capacity of Afghanistan to overcome its political and economic deficits will have deep bearing on the region’s security and development, the domestic stability and foreign policies of the neighboring states will affect the prospects for progress in Afghanistan. Many Afghans insist that outside forces drive the current insurgency in the country, while for the regional players Afghanistan remains a potential source of instability through the export of arms, drugs, and ideology. The study posits that over much of the last four years Afghanistan’s neighbors have assessed that support for a stable, independent, and economically strengthening Afghan state is preferable to any achievable alternatives. None have directly opposed the internationally approved Hamid Karzai as president or seriously tried to manipulate Afghan domestic politics. All have pledged, moreover, some measure of development assistance. Undoubtedly, the presence of foreign military forces and international attention has contributed to their restrained policies.
The strategic approaches to Afghanistan by its neighbors are, however, always subject to readjustment. No regional state is prepared to allow another to gain a preponderance of influence in Afghanistan. Moreover, each retains links to client networks that are capable of fractionalizing and incapacitating an emerging Afghanistan. States in the neighborhood may well sponsor destabilizing forces in the event that Kabul governments fail over time to extend their authority and tangibly improve people’s lives, or should Afghanistan’s international benefactors lose their patience and interest. More immediately, as described below, political currents in several regional countries may be overtaking the economic forces on which more optimistic projections for regional cooperation have been based. Poorly considered policies by international aid givers and the Kabul government have in some cases helped to increase suspicions and tensions with neighbors. This study first examines how Afghanistan has historically engaged and been impacted by neighboring states and other foreign stakeholders. The section looks at the way the country has at different times tried both to insulate itself and attract benefactors. A second section focuses on the dynamics of contemporary political and economic relations among countries of the region. It considers how as a regional fulcrum Afghanistan is leveraged by external powers pursuing competing interests. The two sections that follow focus on Pakistan and Iran, countries providing Afghanistan’s most imposing and critical regional bilateral relationships. For each country, the study describes motives and forces driving policies that have been at times obstructionist and at others constructive. A fifth section looks more briefly at the stakes and changing parameters of engagement for each of the other countries bordering Afghanistan as well as noncontiguous Russia and India. The study concludes with an examination of the broader international community’s contributions to the shaping of regional security. The section looks as well at how the international community can help create the opportunities and conditions that could foster cooperation in the region and safeguard against future instability. It also assesses briefly U.S. priorities and policies in the region and their bearing on the Afghan project of state building.
Afghanistan --- another Bush failure.
If we had only secured Afghanistan before even thinking about Iraq this could be a blossoming democracy instead of a nightmare.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...4-6-2006_pg4_13
REGION:
Afghanistan calls for regional help in war on drugs
* Enforces strict ban on poppy production
* Poppy farmer dies protecting his crop
KABUL: President Hamid Karzai appealed on Tuesday to Afghanistan’s neighbours for help in ridding the country of the “evil” of opium production.
Karzai made the call in a message delivered to a meeting of officials from the region. Iran and Pakistan were prominent participants since they remain the main conduits for Afghanistan’s opium, most of which ends up in Europe.
Afghanistan wants better cooperation with its neighbours and the international community against drugs, the president said.
“We have always said that Afghanistan wanted to relieve itself of this plant. Help us in this struggle,” he said.
Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the opium consumed in Europe, where much of it is made into heroin. The drug has been trafficked mostly through Pakistan and Iran to the Central Asian states from where it heads north.
Afghanistan’s Narcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi said most of the chemicals required to turn opium into heroin come to Afghanistan from other countries, notably Pakistan.
“It’s a fact that the narcotics drug problem is so huge and complicated that one nation can’t eliminate it alone,” Qaderi told the conference. The region has increasingly become a profitable market for the drugs with about 10 million users in the region and one million in Afghanistan alone.
Some of Afghanistan’s neighbours have expressed frustration with the country’s drug output. Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rakhmonov said in May that Afghan farmers had not been given enough aid to move away from the crop.
Afghanistan has had international help, chiefly from the United States, in destroying poppy fields and encouraging farmers to grow other, less lucrative crops.
The police force has this year stepped up eradication efforts, sending groups of officers to opium-producing areas to plough up poppy fields with tractors.
This has sparked some clashes with angry farmers especially near harvest time.
In northern Badakshan province, a farmer was killed and three wounded on Monday after police opened fire on a group protesting eradication, a provincial spokesman said.
Farmers in the Gurm district had attacked the eradication team with sticks before the police began shooting, the Provincial Police Chief Emamuddin said
Gurm, one of the main opium-producing areas of Badakshan, was due to begin harvesting opium in late June.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Afghan government said in a report released in March that opium production was likely to jump this year since farmers remained uninhibited by facile government objections. afp
If we had only secured Afghanistan before even thinking about Iraq this could be a blossoming democracy instead of a nightmare.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...4-6-2006_pg4_13
REGION:
Afghanistan calls for regional help in war on drugs
* Enforces strict ban on poppy production
* Poppy farmer dies protecting his crop
KABUL: President Hamid Karzai appealed on Tuesday to Afghanistan’s neighbours for help in ridding the country of the “evil” of opium production.
Karzai made the call in a message delivered to a meeting of officials from the region. Iran and Pakistan were prominent participants since they remain the main conduits for Afghanistan’s opium, most of which ends up in Europe.
Afghanistan wants better cooperation with its neighbours and the international community against drugs, the president said.
“We have always said that Afghanistan wanted to relieve itself of this plant. Help us in this struggle,” he said.
Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the opium consumed in Europe, where much of it is made into heroin. The drug has been trafficked mostly through Pakistan and Iran to the Central Asian states from where it heads north.
Afghanistan’s Narcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi said most of the chemicals required to turn opium into heroin come to Afghanistan from other countries, notably Pakistan.
“It’s a fact that the narcotics drug problem is so huge and complicated that one nation can’t eliminate it alone,” Qaderi told the conference. The region has increasingly become a profitable market for the drugs with about 10 million users in the region and one million in Afghanistan alone.
Some of Afghanistan’s neighbours have expressed frustration with the country’s drug output. Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rakhmonov said in May that Afghan farmers had not been given enough aid to move away from the crop.
Afghanistan has had international help, chiefly from the United States, in destroying poppy fields and encouraging farmers to grow other, less lucrative crops.
The police force has this year stepped up eradication efforts, sending groups of officers to opium-producing areas to plough up poppy fields with tractors.
This has sparked some clashes with angry farmers especially near harvest time.
In northern Badakshan province, a farmer was killed and three wounded on Monday after police opened fire on a group protesting eradication, a provincial spokesman said.
Farmers in the Gurm district had attacked the eradication team with sticks before the police began shooting, the Provincial Police Chief Emamuddin said
Gurm, one of the main opium-producing areas of Badakshan, was due to begin harvesting opium in late June.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Afghan government said in a report released in March that opium production was likely to jump this year since farmers remained uninhibited by facile government objections. afp
/ News / World News русский o'zbekcha
International coalition ineffective in drug fight in Afghanistan, says Uzbek leader
15.06.2006 11:16:20
Troops of the international coalition in Afghanistan act ineffectively in fighting drugs in Afghanistan, Uzbek President Islam Karimov said on Tuesday, 15 June.
Speaking at a meeting of the Council of Heads of States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Islam Karimov expressed concern over an "escalation of drug production in Afghanistan".
He stressed that the troops of the international coalition "are showing a low effectiveness" in the anti-drug struggle in Afghanistan.
Karimov also criticised some states that are seeking to readjust the Asian region to their own interests and are guided by this motive in recognising the region's countries as democratic or non-democratic.
Speaking about general problems of the region, Uzbek President Islam Karimov called for the rational use of water and energy resources.
http://news.uzreport.com/mir.cgi?lan=e&id=13003
International coalition ineffective in drug fight in Afghanistan, says Uzbek leader
15.06.2006 11:16:20
Troops of the international coalition in Afghanistan act ineffectively in fighting drugs in Afghanistan, Uzbek President Islam Karimov said on Tuesday, 15 June.
Speaking at a meeting of the Council of Heads of States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Islam Karimov expressed concern over an "escalation of drug production in Afghanistan".
He stressed that the troops of the international coalition "are showing a low effectiveness" in the anti-drug struggle in Afghanistan.
Karimov also criticised some states that are seeking to readjust the Asian region to their own interests and are guided by this motive in recognising the region's countries as democratic or non-democratic.
Speaking about general problems of the region, Uzbek President Islam Karimov called for the rational use of water and energy resources.
http://news.uzreport.com/mir.cgi?lan=e&id=13003
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