MMU is brought to you by:
Moby Group, www.mobygroup.com
A dynamic, Afghan owned and operated company that can implement every stage of the media and communication process-- Proud owners of Afghanistan’s most popular and recognisable brands:
● TOLO TV ● Afghan Scene Magazine ● ARMAN FM ● Lapis ● LEMAR TV ● Kaboora Production ● TOLOnews TV ● Alef Technology ● ARAKOZIA FM ● Barbud
For more information, or to advertise with Moby Media Updates, contact: +93 (0) 799 321 010
Advertisement
STARA-E-AFGHAN (Afghan Star)
One of the most iconic music programs in the history of Afghan television and acknowledged as a major unifier of this diverse population, Afghan Star showcases the best in new talent. The internationally acclaimed Afghan Star – now in its Seventh gigantic season is on TOLO each Friday from 9:00pm.
19 February 2012
FEATURE STORY
Beginning of the End
BUSINESS
No articles featured today
NATION
Interior and Finance Ministers Summoned by Parliament
Cleric: Karzai sought help to mediate Afghan Taliban talks
In Struggle With Taliban, on Guard for Charlatans
Bodyguards and business secure peace in Afghan west
Afghan Women Fear Backsliding As President Karzai Negotiates With Taliban
US Intelligence Officials Offer Bleak View of Afghan War
Redrawing the map of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan: Independence for the Balochi people
Afghanistan hopeful of Pakistan's help in peace drive
Extremism in Afghanistan, Pakistan is Major Threat to Region, Karzai Says
Afghanistan's toxic cocktail of drugs, graft, mafia
The End of American Intervention
Talks With Taliban Without Afghan Input Would Fail, Former Spy Chief Says
1,400 graduates join army in N. Afghanistan
Afghan Basti — a question mark on city managers’ performance
PRESS RELEASES
No articles featured today
Back to Top
FEATURE STORY
Beginning of the End
New York Times
Editorial
February 18, 2012
Like most Americans, we are eager to see an end to the war in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s announcement that American forces would step back from a combat role as early as mid-2013 was welcome.
The Pentagon’s intention is to try to shift more responsibility to the Afghan security forces while the Americans are still in the country to provide help with planning, transport and intelligence, and to bail the Afghans out in a crisis. That shift is already happening in less volatile regions. And with the United States and NATO committed to bringing nearly all of their troops home by the end of 2014, the Afghans need to learn to take the lead.
If there is any chance of pulling this off, the United States must improve the quality of the Afghan army and police and strengthen central and local governments. We have yet to see a comprehensive plan for an orderly transition.
More than 1,700 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan over the last decade, and the financial cost for this country, more than $450 billion, is staggering. It did not have to be this way. In order to pursue his misguided war in Iraq, President George W. Bush denied his commanders in Afghanistan the necessary troops and support.
President Obama has done better. He poured more resources into training the Afghan army and police, and a “surge” of an additional 50,000 American troops has weakened the Taliban’s fighting forces. Stepped-up intelligence efforts have led to the deaths of Osama bin Laden and scores of Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. The Taliban have recently said they want to talk.
Whether these gains can be maintained is far from clear. What is certain is that there is little time and a huge amount to be done to increase the chances that Afghanistan will not implode once most of the American troops are gone. Here are some areas that must be addressed:
•
GOVERNANCE There have been some improvements at the federal and regional levels, but the country — hampered by illiteracy and corruption — still lacks a fully functioning government and banking system. After spending huge sums on failed development projects, the State Department is working to better focus and design how it spends these critical dollars. It needs to move quickly.
Since Mr. Obama put in a new diplomatic and military team, public clashes with President Hamid Karzai have declined. But serious frictions remain. Washington and its allies must work harder to get Mr. Karzai to carry out reforms that will encourage credible candidates to run in 2014, when he is supposed to step aside. He must be pressed to take on high-profile corruption cases. He and his ministers need to focus a lot more attention on improving basic services, including the delivery of electricity. To attract foreign investors, Parliament needs to approve a solid legal framework for commercial relations.
TRAINING AND FINANCING AFGHAN FORCES The United States and its allies have spent tens of billions of dollars building an Afghan army and police force from the ground up. They have turned out 330,000 troops, but because of illiteracy, conflicting political loyalties and other problems, there are far too few reliable units.
NATO and the Pentagon are now talking about reducing the Afghan force to 230,000. We don’t know if that is a sound assessment of what is needed or an acknowledgement that Afghanistan and its backers cannot afford to maintain such a large force. The United States will spend $11 billion this year on the 330,000 troops; the cost is expected to drop to around $4 billion annually if the number of troops is reduced and American involvement lessens.
Weeding out less competent soldiers, or corrupt ones, makes sense. But putting tens of thousands of fighters back on the streets could be disastrous. One possible solution would be to shift them to a less costly reserve force.
Afghanistan will not be able to foot the bill for even a smaller force, and Washington will very likely bear most of the cost for years to come. It should not have to do that alone. The Obama administration should use the NATO summit meeting in Chicago in May to press allies to make concrete commitments now. And then hold them to it.
TALKING TO THE TALIBAN Most of the Republican presidential candidates insist the United States must “beat” the Taliban. That sounds good on the stump, but American military commanders say it is impossible now: it would take too many troops, too many years. The best hope is for some kind of political solution.
The Taliban have signaled what they say is a serious interest in negotiations; whether they mean it is anyone’s guess. Still, the administration is right to try. At a minimum, the fact that the Taliban leadership is talking will make more fighters on the ground — and those tempted to join them — question whether the battle is worth it.
The United States has laid down several principles for a settlement: The Taliban must renounce terrorism, cut all ties with Al Qaeda and eventually lay down their weapons and accept the Afghan Constitution — including rights for women. Both Washington and the Afghan government must stick to those principles.
American officials say they are open to a Taliban request for some “confidence-building measures,” including transferring a small number of prisoners from Guantánamo to house arrest in Qatar and lifting some sanctions on individual Taliban negotiators. In return, the Americans must, at a minimum, get assurances that the prisoners will not return to the battlefield, and that the Taliban will renounce terrorism and seriously engage in peace talks.
ECONOMIC SUPPORT Paying for the army is not the only financial problem. Afghanistan faces a potentially devastating economic slowdown when American and coalition troops and aid workers depart. The World Bank estimates that an extraordinary 97 percent of the country’s $28 billion gross domestic product comes from military and development aid and the in-country spending of foreign troops.
At a conference in Bonn, Germany, last year, President Karzai requested $10 billion a year in foreign support through 2025. The United States and its partners promised to help. Vague promises are not enough. Housing prices, salaries, store sales and factory orders are already dropping as coalition troops and aid workers prepare to withdraw. The allies need to have a concrete plan — a mix of aid and investment in the minerals industry and other private projects — in place in time for the NATO meeting.
RESIDUAL AMERICAN FORCE Defense Secretary Panetta told Congress last week that the United States was close to signing an agreement with Mr. Karzai to allow an undefined number (perhaps 15,000) Special Operations soldiers to remain after 2014. These forces would hunt down militants, and would provide air cover, intelligence, logistical support and training for Afghan forces.
We would like to see all American troops gone. But continuing to pound Al Qaeda, and increasing the odds that the Taliban do not again seize power, are in Washington’s strategic interest. The agreement would also send a message to the region that this time the United States plans to stay engaged. Two issues are blocking the deal: Mr. Karzai’s demand to immediately take control of American-run detention facilities and of nighttime raids that he says have killed too many civilians. The United States should keep insisting that Afghans can take over the raids only when they are capable. The detention facilities should be shut down.
DEALING WITH PAKISTAN Islamabad’s continued collusion with the Taliban and other extremist groups is the biggest threat to Afghanistan’s long-term stability. A decade after the Bush administration ordered them to pick sides, the Pakistanis are still cynically playing all sides.
Billions in aid have not changed their thinking. Nor has the recent suspension of some of that aid. Nor has the fact that the extremists seem nearly as eager to bring down Pakistan’s government. The Army and intelligence services are still determined to use the extremists as proxies in their endless competition with India.
The fact that Pakistan did not stop the Taliban from agreeing to negotiations with Washington may be a rare positive sign. But with Islamabad there are never any guarantees. As frustrating as it is, the administration must keep trying to cajole and pressure Pakistan into cooperating. The United States really has no choice, not least because a collapse in Pakistan — with 100 plus nuclear weapons — would be even more disastrous than a collapse in Kabul.
Back to Top
BUSINESS
No articles featured today
Back to Top
NATION
Interior and Finance Ministers Summoned by Parliament
TOLOnews.com
By Saleha Sadat
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Afghan Parliament summoned Interior and Finance ministers on Sunday to answer their questions in connection with what some MPs called incompetence of the ministries.
Some MPs believed that the ministers should have been disqualified, but they weren't because some MPs were allegedly bribed and given bullet-proof vehicles.
Some also accused the Parliament of having been turned into a business place for the MPs.
The ministers should have talked about security situation in the country as well as budget related issues.
Some MPs accused the executive committee of the Parliament of supporting the ministers.
"It' was pre-planned by administrative committee to prevent MPs to ask questions, especially those who have evidences against the ministers," Abdul Rahim Ayoubi, representative of Kandahar in parliament, said.
"As an MP, I don't expect anything from this parliament," Representative of Kunar province in Parliament, Wajma Sapi said. "They are only here for their persoanl business."
Meanwhile, Finance Minister, Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal, said that major achievements of the ministry have been to increase government incomes.
He also said that nearly 5 million Afghanis was saved from the normal budget this year.
The Interior Minister said that there has been a major decrease in civilian casualties.
He blamed foreign troops for the death of 8 Afghan children in Kapisa province.
"We are still investigating, if our police is guilty in the incident, they will be punished." Interior Minister Besmellah Mohammadi told MPs.
Mr Mohammadi also called the role of Afghan local police very important in maintaining security, citing its success in Baghlan and Paktika provinces.
He said the local police was established based on a Presidential decree with the aim of improving security in different parts of the country.
Back to Top
Cleric: Karzai sought help to mediate Afghan Taliban talks
CNN
By Reza Sayah
February 18, 2012
Islamabad, Pakistan
Afghan President Hamid Karzai asked a Taliban-linked cleric based in Pakistan Saturday to help mediate talks with the Afghan Taliban, the cleric told CNN.
Maulana Samiul Haq said he told Karzai he was prepared to help bring Taliban leaders to the table if the Afghan president and his government had specific offers and demands.
"What can I convey to the Taliban if their demands and offers for solutions are not clear?" Haq said.
"Unless there's a concrete process in place, then things can't move forward."
Karzai has not yet commented on the cleric's remarks.
Haq -- known as one of the spiritual leaders of the Taliban movement -- met with Karzai during the final day of the Afghan president's visit to Pakistan.
The religious leader and former Pakistani senator runs an Islamic seminary in northwest Pakistan that produced many of the Afghan Taliban's leaders during the Afghan jihad against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
Haq says he is in contact with senior leaders of the Taliban but he didn't say who.
He said the Taliban have two key demands -- the exit of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and the release of Afghan Taliban prisoners from detention centers in Guantanamo Bay and Bagram Air Base.
"Thousands of people have been killed in Afghanistan. Why should the Taliban start a dialogue without a guarantee that foreign forces will leave the region?" Haq said.
Haq said the Taliban are reluctant to negotiate with Karzai because they view him as a supporter of U.S. policy in the region.
"He needs to change that impression," Haq said.
Haq's comments come after the Taliban rejected a reported claim Thursday by Karzai that the movement was taking part in secret talks with the Afghan government.
The statement followed a report in the Wall Street Journal in which Karzai said, "There have been contacts between the U.S. government and the Taliban, there have been contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and there have been some contacts that we have made, all of us together."
Karzai's assertion suggested a change in course for peace efforts, because the Taliban has long publicly refused to meet with Karzai's government, and Afghan officials have complained they were largely sidelined in talks taking place between the United States and the Taliban.
"The last cards are with us. So far, it has been a U.S.-Taliban business. We have not been involved in this so I cannot say what was discussed," an Afghan government official told CNN last month.
Last June, Karzai said the United States was involved in peace talks with the Taliban, and that representatives of the government and insurgents had been in touch, but that no high-level meetings had taken place.
Karzai arrived Thursday in Pakistan for discussions with President Asif Ali Zardari on improving relations between the two countries and peace efforts in Afghanistan.
Journalist Nasir Habib contributed to this report.
Back to Top
In Struggle With Taliban, on Guard for Charlatans
New York Times
By ROD NORDLAND and ALISSA J. RUBIN
February 18, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan
In an insurgency, everyone is an imposter. The enemy wears no uniform and carries no identity card.
Just so with a mullah in Kandahar named Noorul Aziz. After trading his job as a Taliban commander for a cushy post as an Afghan government official, the story goes, he was taken last month by the military coalition on a tour of his old bases, where he made speeches to persuade the locals not to support the insurgency.
Except the locals say they never heard of him.
Then there was the Afghan “senator” who instead may have been a Taliban operative. In January, he conned his way into getting a V.I.P. tour of some of the most secret locations in Kandahar, with briefings from the American-backed provincial governor, Tooryalai Wesa, the local head of the Afghan intelligence service and the governor of the strategic district of Dand.
He did not even bother to adopt a real senator’s name. “There was no senator by that name in the entire senate,” said Bismillah Afghanmal, who is a real senator, from Kandahar.
These are hardly isolated cases. In September, a man posing as a Taliban peace envoy traveled from Kandahar to Kabul to meet the head of the High Peace Council, and used a bomb hidden in his turban to assassinate him. The year before, a scammer who persuaded the Americans that he was a high-ranking Taliban official who wanted to talk peace was flown in by a NATO helicopter to meet with President Hamid Karzai, and paid handsomely for his time. In late 2009, a CIA informer who turned out to be a Qaeda plant killed eight people in a suicide attack at an agency outpost.
Mr. Aziz, the supposed Taliban commander, showed up in Kandahar last year with 30 armed men and a letter from the Taliban leadership in Pakistan showing that he had just been appointed the shadow governor of Kunduz Province in the north.
His story was that he did not like it up north so was turning himself in as part of the government’s reintegration program, in which former Taliban fighters are offered access to community and jobs programs. The reintegration program has been off to a slow start, so to get a shadow governor of a province to walk in was a big deal. Governor Wesa and other officials greeted him with bear hugs.
In southern Afghanistan, officials say fewer than 300 Taliban insurgents have turned themselves in under the two-year-old program; many are believed to be opportunists looking for government handouts.
“We have two kinds of Taliban, fake Taliban and real Taliban,” Amanullah Hotaki, the chairman of the Oruzgan Provincial Council, said of those who have turned themselves in there. “The fake are 60 or 70, but the real ones are only five.”
In an interview last year, Mr. Aziz insisted he had been the Taliban commander in the district of Nad Ali in Helmand Province, once one of the most violent places in Afghanistan.
Elders there, however, said they had never heard of him. “We don’t know a Taliban commander by the name of Noorul Aziz,” said Haji Mirwais Khan, a tribal elder. “Maybe he has been called by a pseudonym?”
Western military intelligence officials have also cast doubt on Mr. Aziz’s bona fides. “We don’t know who he is,” said one.
Nonetheless, after his surrender, Mr. Aziz managed to become the provincial director of the Department of Hajj and Religious Affairs, a plum job that in many parts of Afghanistan has been a font of corruption. He was appointed by Governor Wesa, who reportedly also arranged the visit of the mysterious non-senator.
In the senator case, a man calling himself Muhammad Asif Sarhadi said he was a senator from Ghor Province who wanted to start a new museum and open a Kandahar branch. The governor, according to local officials, then gave him introductions to district officials, where he met with police, intelligence and government officials.
“He was not here officially and we did not deal with him officially,” said Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for Governor Wesa. He conceded, however, that “Mr. Sarhadi” talked with officials about security issues as well as museums.
Mr. Aziz, the supposed former Taliban, went on tour last week in Helmand Province, visiting what he said were his former bases from his insurgency days, and meeting NATO coalition soldiers there.
“Meeting face to face with a former Taliban commander gave me mixed feelings to begin with,” said Maj. Kaido Kivistik, commander of an Estonian Army company.
Mixed feelings about Mr. Aziz are common. “We don’t know him, “ said Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, the spokesman for the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. “He’s a sick man and he’s an imposter.”
Emma Watkins, a spokeswoman for the southwest regional command of the NATO-led coalition, which includes Helmand, disputed that Mr. Aziz was not genuine. “I am informed that Mr. Aziz continues to be the director of Haj in Kandahar and in particular he made a speech at the Kandahar peace conference in September last year,” she said.
Turning against the Taliban, whether sincerely or not, has become something of a family business for Mr. Aziz, who was rewarded with a house, bodyguards, money and a job. At least four of his brothers and a father have also turned themselves in — one of them, Abdul Aziz Agha, claimed to have been the Taliban commander in Panjway District, a Taliban stronghold just outside of Kandahar.
In Panjway, no one had ever heard of Mr. Agha, either.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Sharifullah Sahak from Kabul.
Back to Top
Bodyguards and business secure peace in Afghan west
AFP
By Claire Truscott
19/02/2012
Afghan businessman Seros Alaaf paid a $300,000 ransom to free his uncle from the clutches of the mafia who once stalked Herat. Now he takes no chances, with five bodyguards at his side.
Recalling the most troubled days in Afghanistan's western city, the powerful figure in the Herat Chamber of Commerce and Industry casts around his plush office, part of the business boom that is helping to safeguard the city.
"There are far fewer kidnappings these days, but it hasn't stopped, and the only reason it's less is that whoever has money can also pay for five to 10 bodyguards," said Alaaf, blaming weak governance for the mafia's rule.
But seven months after Italian troops handed responsibility for the city to Afghans, as part of the first phase of returning control to local security forces nationwide by the end of 2014, the government says security has improved.
The Taliban are not the main threat in Herat. Instead rivalries for power and influence in the city fuel much of the trouble, with gunmen loyal to mujahideen leaders Ismail Khan and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar still at large.
Although it is early days and political opponents challenge claims of an improvement, Herat could be considered an example of how managing factions and a relatively flourishing economy can keep a region largely free of violence.
But under the surface, there are also signs of the festering rivalries, ethnic and political, that experts consider the potential undoing of a future political settlement.
The province's religious leader, Maulavi Khudadad Saleh, a conservative popular among Herat's Pashtuns, is at loggerheads with the city's Westernised technocrat governor Daud Shah Saba, a Tajik.
Government is dominated by those affiliated with the Jamiat-e-Islami Islamic party, which Ismail Khan led in the western region during the Soviet war and subsequent civil conflict.
But they are kept in check at least partly by Saba, who although from Herat has had a career in international development and is disconnected from the main local power factions.
Unlike the checkpoints and blast walls of the Afghan capital, Herat's roads are free from military intrusion and its police largely unarmed.
Only 320 police work in Herat city, while in the province's most remote district of Farsi, 160 kilometres (100 miles) away, just 42 patrol.
"It's below any kind of standard you may imagine," says Saba. "Still security's pretty good."
Sayed Ahmad Sami, the region's police chief and a fellow Tajik, agrees.
"Before transition there were a lot of problems like abduction and organised crime. Now it's close to zero. For the past month there have been no abductions," he told AFP.
Change has come piecemeal and one deal at a time. Three years ago the police force was divided into factions loyal to Ismail Khan and religious leader Saleh, and kidnapping was the biggest racket in town, with ransoms fetching up to $600,000.
The capture of a well-known money changer in late 2008 led to a shopkeepers' strike, and ultimately the sacking of 12 police commanders and the former governor who was accused of being in league with the kidnappers.
Government officials say security along major highways is improving and plans for major economic projects bring promise of future dividends.
The Italians are agreeing a $150 million soft loan to help make Herat a "transport hub" by building up the airport and creating a bypass road around the city.
Security for a major hydroelectric dam project was being provided by a protection racket whose members were extorting money from villagers. Kabul intervened last summer and the security setup was changed.
In October 2009, former Herat mayor Ghulam Yahya Akbari, dubbed the "Tajik Taliban", was killed and although his son still fights the government, officials claim insurgents are being reconciled.
But the rosy view is challenged by Ahmad Behzad, an MP for Herat and second deputy speaker for parliament, who represents the growing influence of the Hazara community in the area, and says peace is confined to the city limits.
"If there's real transition, the Taliban will advance. Apart from the provincial capital Herat city, the other parts are all insecure. Provincial MPs are always escorted with a large number of guards," he said.
Fears of a return to the civil war of the 1990s loom large and nobody expects corruption to end -- only for more deals to be done.
In three of 15 Herat districts that remain under overall control of NATO's Italian-led coalition force, competition remains fierce between Hezb-e-Islami and Jamiat-e-Islami forces.
But in 2004, Khan moved to the capital and was given the national energy and water ministry, although some of those who lost jobs with his departure have continued to wage jihad against the local government.
Hekmatyar is also engaged in peace talks with the Kabul government, which could conceivably end in him laying down his weapons.
His group is putting pressure on Kabul for "more power and jobs inside government. It's good that they are talking," said journalist Basir Bigzad. "People are worried about another civil war after foreign troops leave."
Governor Saba is confident that there will be no Taliban return to Herat "because times have changed" since the 2001 US-led invasion brought down their regime.
"The only thing that may threaten Herat is infiltration and political interference," said Saba, referring to the threat posed by commanders in neighbouring provinces, and across the western border in Iran.
Back to Top
Afghan Women Fear Backsliding As President Karzai Negotiates With Taliban
As President Hamid Karzai confirms U.S.-Afghan negotiations with the Taliban, women’s rights are likely to get left in the dust.
The Daily Beast
By Magsie Hamilton Little
Feb 19, 2012
“There was a piercing cry, then nothing,” says Jamila, large tears welling up in her dark eyes. “They were beating her legs with a long metal pipe. When I asked what her crime had been, they said she should have been at mosque, not walking alone down the street.”
Jamila is recalling images from her past that she would much rather forget. Despite all the years that have passed, such memories of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan continue to haunt her.
Now, with the news that U.S. and Afghan officials are holding peace talks with Taliban leaders, the women of Afghanistan are filled with dread at what those negotiations might herald for them and their families. A recent report by global NGO ActionAid found that 86 percent of women questioned were deeply concerned about the prospect of a new Taliban-influenced government. And in the urban areas the figure increased to 92 percent. Women in Afghanistan are concerned that president Hamid Karzai will seek peace at any price. If that means kowtowing to the Taliban on women’s rights, his administration will likely do so, they fear, and then the entire country will take a huge step backward.
Since the U.S. army arrived in Afghanistan a decade ago, women there have witnessed positive changes in the rights attributed to them under the Afghan constitution. Now almost three million girls are in full-time education (although many more do not have access to schooling at all). There are 69 female MPs and many more members of development councils. The pupils at Mirwais Hotaki School in Kabul are, of course, too young to remember the time when young mothers were dragged out and stoned in the Ghazni stadium for adultery. These young women are bright, hardworking, chatty and full of hope. As I tell them that, where I come from, all girls go to school, and can make their own choices about their lives, their eyes light up. Although none of them has heard of London, all of them are delighted to tell me they know who Harry Potter is.
There are just nine women out of 70 members of the High Peace Council designated to spearhead the peace discussions.
They are undoubtedly the lucky ones. The fact is that Afghanistan remains a very hard place to live as a woman. Oppression is still rife, particularly in the south. Eighty-seven percent of women suffer violence at home and medical care is so poor that one woman dies every half hour in childbirth. Only 13 percent of women are literate (compared with almost 33 percent of men). Although educational opportunities have improved in some areas, in other, mainly rural, parts of the country, girls attending school have been attacked and their classrooms burned to the ground. Women holding prominent public positions live in constant fear of their lives, and some have been murdered, such as Malalai Kakar, the journalist Zakia Zaki, and councillor Sitara Achakzai. Charities and aid organizations working in Afghanistan must keep the details and whereabouts of their projects secret, for fear of reprisals. In these circumstances, it is difficult to see how doing a deal with the Taliban is going to improve matters.
These days not all women wear the burka in Afghanistan, but many still have no choice but to submit to it, just as they submit to their husbands. Thousands are killed or injured every year in road accidents because the burka forces women to walk slowly and restricts vision and movement. Nowadays women have become creative with wearing it. They are conscious of the shapes they cut. Touches of individuality make a fleeting impression—a dash of kohl and turquoise on a heavily cloaked face. They say that if a man sees a burka he knows if she is beautiful from the way she moves. But if a Taliban-sympathetic line is taken with the talks, such tiny expressions of femininity will be sure to disappear once again. A husband will recognize his wife because he buys her shoes for her.
Will women have a say in the peace talks? Jamila herself is skeptical. “The prospect seems unlikely,” she says, shaking her head gravely. She might well be right. There are just nine women out of 70 members of the High Peace Council designated to spearhead the peace discussions. Many men on the Council themselves dismiss the presence of the women, arguing that the women are only there to keep up appearances. The fact that their hosts are Saudi seems even more worrying to them. Saudi Arabia is well known to offer little freedom of opportunity to its own women, who are not permitted to even drive cars.
To ensure effective progress is made on all fronts, Afghan and U.S. leaders must ensure women are actively involved in a settlement that protects the rights accorded to them in recent years. We do not face a fight for just the future of Afghanistan, but a fight for human rights. And it is a future that for the women of the country now more than ever hangs in the balance.
Magsie Hamilton Little is the author of The Thing About Islam, which was published by Max Press in February.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Back to Top
US Intelligence Officials Offer Bleak View of Afghan War
TOLOnews.com
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Senior US intelligence officials offered a pessimistic assessment of the war in Afghanistan, a view they acknowledged was less upbeat than that of military commanders on the ground, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee at its annual worldwide threat hearing: "I would like to begin with current military operations in Afghanistan, where we assess that endemic corruption and persistent qualitative deficiencies in the army and police forces undermine efforts to extend effective governance and security."
He also said that the Afghan army is still completely reliant on international troops in terms of logistics, intelligence and transportation.
He added: "Despite successful coalition targeting, the Taliban remains resilient and able to replace leadership losses while also competing to provide governance at the local level. From its Pakistani safe havens, the Taliban leadership remains confident of eventual victory."
James Clapper, director of national intelligence, also testified. He said the Taliban lost group last year "but that was mainly in places where the International Security Assistance Forces, or Isaf, were concentrated, and Taliban senior leaders continued to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan."
The officials were also asked about a recent National Intelligence Estiamte on Afghanistan that questioned whether the government would survive after international troops withdrew by the end of 2014.
Mr Clapper said: "Without going into the specifics of classified National Intelligence Estimates, I can certainly confirm that they took issue with the NIE on three counts, having to do with the assumptions that were made about force structure - didn't feel that we gave sufficient weight to Pakistan and its impact as a safe haven, and generally felt that the NIE was pessimistic."
The NIE's bleak findings prompted Isaf Commander General John Allen and the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, to write sharp refutation.
Back to Top
Redrawing the map of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan: Independence for the Balochi people
OpEdNews.com
By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali
February 18, 2012
Ten days after he chaired a Congressional committee's hearing on Balochistan, Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher Friday (2/17) introduced a concurrent resolution in the congress, calling for an independent state for the Balochi people living in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
The resolution said "the people of Balochistan that are "currently divided between Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country and they should be afforded the opportunity to choose their own status among the community of nations, living in peace and harmony, without external coercion."
In a statement from his office, Rohrabacher, who is also the Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, said, "The Balochi, like other nations of people, have an innate right to self-determination. The political and ethnic discrimination they suffer is tragic and made more so because America is financing and selling arms to their oppressors in Islamabad."
The press release further added that Balochistan is "rich in natural resources but has been subjugated and exploited by Punjabi and Pashtun elites in Islamabad, leaving Balochistan the country's poorest province."
About the Iranian Balochistan, the resolution said " a popular insurgency is also under way in Sistan-Balochistan and being met by brutal repression by the dictatorship in Iran which has added religious bigotry to tyranny."
The resolution also pointed out that historically Balochistan was an independently governed entity known as the Baloch Khanate of Kalat which came to an end after invasions from both British and Persian armies. An attempt to regain independence in 1947 was crushed by an invasion by Pakistan.
Congressman Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, and Steve King, an Iowa Republican, have also signed on as original co-sponsors of the resolution. Not surprisingly, Congressman Gohmert last month called for carving out Balochistan from Pakistan to fight Taliban.
February 8th hearing
Friday's resolution was a follow up of the February 8 hearing by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher on the situation in Balochistan. While many witnesses in their testimonies focused on the human rights violations, retired Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters, the architect of the 2006 New Middle East map that showed a truncated Pakistan, called for the balkanization of Pakistan. It may be recalled that in his article accompanying the map -- Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look - published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, he argued that Pakistan is an unnatural state and a natural Pakistan should lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi. "Pakistan's Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren. Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Balochistan.
Peters' testimony was buildup on his New Middle East map with truncated Pakistan as he said "Pakistan's borders make no sense and don't work." He went on to say:
"The Durand Line, delineating the state's border with Afghanistan, was just a convenient inheritance from British India: Originally, it established how far the British believed they needed to push out a buffer zone west of the Indus River to protect "the Jewel in the Crown," British India, from tribal warfare and imperial Russian machinations. The Durand Line marked a military frontier, but the "real" frontier of British India and its rich civilization was the Indus."
Supporting the creation of Pashtunistan by separating the northern Pashtun tribal belt along the border with Pakistan, Peter argued that why not forty million Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan have their own state? "Of course, determining the final boundaries of such a state would be problematic, but why shouldn't the Pashtuns have their own country?" He went on to say that our allegiance to today's boundaries exacerbates the conflict. He argued:
"The Durand Line arbitrarily divided tribal territories for British (and now Pakistani) convenience. It would be hard to devise a more dysfunctional international border. Along with the rupture of minor ethnic groups, it split the substantial Pashtun and Baluchi populations between the artificial constructs that emerged as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Also for convenience, the rest of the world agreed to pretend that these are viable states. Yet, Afghanistan is little more than a rough territorial concept: Its historical rulers controlled, at best, major cities and the caravan (now highway) routes between them. At its birth sixty-five years ago, Pakistan was a Frankenstein's monster of a state, cobbled together from ill-fitting body parts to award the subcontinent's Muslim activists a state of their own."
Repeating his argument of the New Middle East, Peters said at present, the Baluchis are divided between southwestern Pakistan, southern Afghanistan and southeastern Iran--all because of those artificial borders that were convenient for someone else. "At least ten million and perhaps twice that number suffer intolerable levels of discrimination, dispossession and state violence," he said adding:
We need to ask honestly why Baluchis are not entitled to a Free Balochistan, why the Pashtuns--despite their abhorrent customs--are not entitled to a Pakhtunkhwa for all Pashtuns, why forty-million Kurds aren't entitled to a Free Kurdistan, or why its eastern provinces must remain part of the geopolitical monstrosity we call "Congo."
Not surprisingly, "Pakistan as a failing empire" was the title of Peters' testimony in which he argued that Pakistan is not an integrated state, but a miniature empire that inherited its dysfunctional and unjust boundaries from Britain's greater, now-defunct empire. "We must set aside our lazy Cold-War-era assumption that Pakistan is a necessary ally, he said and concluded by saying: it's time to abandon Pakistan and switch our support wholeheartedly to India.
The resolution a boon to separatists
Friday's resolution will give a boost to Baloch nationalists. Balochistan National Party, a leading Baloch political party, in a tweeter message, welcomed the resolution. A BNP delegation also attended the February 8 hearing in Washington and handed over a letter of thanks on behalf of the people of Balochistan.
Addressing the chair and members of the committee, BNP chief Sardar Mengal wrote: "On behalf of my party and the people of Balochistan, let me sincerely thank you and members of the committee for the timely attention and understanding of human rights situation in Balochistan. Taking notice of the plight of the Baloch people by civilized world is need of the hour as situation for them is grave and serious."
While the Baloch nationalists hailed the resolution and Congressional hearing, many in Pakistan were claiming that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has embarked on a Southern Sudan-style split of Balochistan from Pakistan.
Retired Brigadier Farooq Hameed Khan wrote under the title "Our traitors their heroes,"
the Americans have finally shown their Balochistan card. "They definitely crossed the red line in relations with Pakistan. By openly talking about an independent Balochistan on pretext of so called human rights violations, the US Congress Sub Committee under Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has violated international norms and principles of non interference and respect for sovereignty and integrity of other independent states."
"US Ambassador Cameron Munter's declaration last year that "Balochistan was very significant for the United States' exposed the failing superpower's grand designs in the context of their "Great Game' in Pakistan's biggest but sparsely populated and perhaps most mineral rich province," Brigadier Farooq said adding:
While the US State Department may deny any Administration's support for the Congressional hearing, yet this event held at Capitol Hill was undoubtedly held in coordination with anti-Pakistan lobbies including few Baloch dissidents, their India's RAW/CIA sponsors and certain their newly converted US loyalists in Pakistan. Well aware of the pattern and sequence of US psychological operations that precede their grand designs, this hearing was aimed to exploit their own created Balochistan insurgency and internationalize the issue.
Brigadier Farooq asked? Does Congressman Dana Rohrabacher have the moral courage to hold similar hearings on grave human rights violations and atrocities by the 500,000 strong Indian Occupation forces in Indian Occupied Kashmir? Do U.S. Congressmen have the guts to expose Israeli brutalities against Palestinians? Why has no hearing been conducted to condemn the killings of unarmed and innocent Pakistani tribal victims of US drone attacks?
Tellingly, the Balochistan independence resolution came as the President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and President Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari were holding a summit meeting in Islamabad. The three presidents agreed "not to allow any threat emanating from their respective territories against each other and commence trilateral consultations on an agreement in this regard." Amid a growing likelihood of an Israeli or US attack on Iran, President Zardari assured President Ahmadinejad that Pakistan will not provide Americans airbases to launch attack on its neighbor.
Back to Top
Afghanistan hopeful of Pakistan's help in peace drive
Reuters
By Michael Georgy
Sat Feb 18, 2012
ISLAMABAD
Afghanistan is optimistic that regional power Pakistan will help the Kabul government advance a reconciliation process with the Taliban, the Afghan president's spokesman said Saturday.
Pakistan, seen as crucial to efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, has repeatedly said it wants peace in its neighbor.
Afghans, however, have always been suspicious of Pakistani intentions because of historical ties between Pakistani intelligence and insurgent groups like the Afghan Taliban.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan were strained for months after the assassination in September of Afghan peace envoy and former president Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Afghan officials blamed Pakistan's intelligence agency, allegations angrily denied by Islamabad.
But talks this week between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani leaders in Islamabad were encouraging, said Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi.
"We noticed a big change among the Pakistanis. The atmosphere is much better," Faizi told Reuters in Islamabad. "We are more optimistic than before that they will support us."
Faizi said Karzai made several demands when he met top Pakistani officials.
He would not list them but Afghanistan is known to want access to Taliban leaders belonging so the so-called Quetta Shura, named after the Pakistani city where it is said to be based.
They would be the decision makers in any substantive peace negotiations.
CHANGE IN MOOD
Pakistan has consistently denied giving sanctuary to insurgents and denies the existence of any Quetta Shura, or leadership council.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said after a recent trip to Kabul that a lot of ill will between Kabul and Islamabad had eased.
And she indicated Pakistan would encourage militant groups seeking to topple the U.S.-backed Kabul government to pursue peace if asked by Afghanistan.
The apparent change in mood comes at a critical time when the Afghan government is exploring ways to reach the next stage of reconciliation -- negotiations with the Taliban. So far, there have only been contacts, Afghan officials say.
The Afghan Taliban announced last month it would open a political office in Qatar, suggesting it may be willing to engage in negotiations that could likely give it government positions or official control over much of its historical southern heartland.
Karzai's government supports any talks that take place in Qatar, but it wants to widen the reconciliation process to other countries because that could make the effort more comprehensive.
Faizi said Afghanistan had a preference for holding the next phase of the reconciliation process in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
"We want these two countries to facilitate the real (formal) talks," he said.
Saudi Arabia has had some influence in Afghanistan since it supported mujahideen fighters against Soviet occupation forces in the 1980s. It has maintained a close relationship with Pakistan.
During his trip to Islamabad, Karzai also met opposition politicians and religious leaders.
Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, a cleric who heads a Pakistani seminary where senior Afghan Taliban members studied in the past, suggested Karzai asked him in talks Saturday to urge the Taliban to pursue peace negotiations.
"Karzai is well aware of our contacts with the Taliban," he told Reuters.
An Afghan official confirmed the meeting took place.
"The Afghan position these days is to have good relations and take on board all the parties and political sides of Pakistan and not just the government," he said.
"Sami-ul-Haq comes across as one of the main parties."
(Additional reporting by Serena Chaudhry in ISLAMABAD; and Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Back to Top
Extremism in Afghanistan, Pakistan is Major Threat to Region, Karzai Says
TOLOnews.com
By Rezwan Natiq
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Growing extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan is endangering the region, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told students at the National Defence University of Pakistan on Friday night, his office said in a statement.
In his address, Mr Karzai stressed that the two countries should co-operate to fight terrorism together to bring stability to the region.
"Extremism is growing in Afghanistan and Pakistan, particularly [along] the two sides of the border," Mr Karzai told the assembled students. "It endangers the region and the two countries."
He said that a well-educated youth was vital in tackling extremism.
Mr Karzai added that despite some achievements, there are still obstacles and problems ahead that the two countries must address. He said it was necessary for the two countries to put their misunderstandings behind them and move forward.
"It's the two countries' duty to get rid of misunderstandings. Afghanistan should not be afraid of Pakistan, and Pakistan should not be afraid of Afghanistan," President Karzai said.
The president said business and trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan have vastly improved. He also said that the leaders' visits to each other's country had increased in frequency, another sign of improved relations.
Expanding trade and transportation links are vital to strengthening relations between the two countries, he added.
For a stable Pakistan, an educated Afghanistan with a strong economy and army is important, the president added.
President Karzai was in Pakistan for a trilateral meeting with Pakistan and Iran. He also held discussions with senior Pakistani civilian and military leaders. He also met the leader of Pakistan's Muslim League Party, Nawaz Sharif.
Back to Top
Afghanistan's toxic cocktail of drugs, graft, mafia
AFP
By Joris Fioriti
18/02/2012
It's below freezing, but the Afghan lies rigid in the snow of Kabul. He doesn't move. His arms and legs are bare. He has overdosed on heroin. He only lives to see another day because of a charity.
"Every night I feel I'm going to die. I sleep in the cold. I suffer," said Zaman, whose clear blue eyes stand out from his bony, filthy face as he stands shivering in the snow near the fallen addict.
"After taking heroin, I feel good. It doesn't take away the pain, but it reduces it. It's like medicine. I'm ill."
He was a policeman in southern Helmand province, a Taliban flashpoint, when he got hooked on opium. From there, it was a quick descent into heroin and after three years in Iran, he's back in Kabul "where drugs are easier to find".
A team from international charity Doctors of the World revive the man lying in the snow, but have no choice but to leave him to fend for himself down by Pul-i-Sokhta bridge, where the heroin addicts flock in their hundreds.
"Every morning we find one or two bodies," says Abdul Raheem from the charity. The pitiful state of the men seen and questioned by AFP leaves little doubt about their inability to survive through several such harsh winters.
Between 2005 and 2009, the number of Afghan heroin addicts tripled to 150,000, according to the United Nations, with 230,000 people now using opium.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged Afghanistan to make fighting drug trafficking a priority, as opium harvests soared last year by 61 percent and ministries are at loggerheads over how best to contain the crisis.
The top drugs official at the health ministry openly accuses the counter-narcotics ministry of corruption, while the counter-narcotics ministry accuses of the health ministry of failing to appreciate the bigger picture.
Trapped in the middle is Doctors of the World, which in 2010 started a pilot methadone programme for 200 patients, only for the counter-narcotics ministry to block it six months later.
Still responsible for 71 patients, the charity now has to fight on a daily basis just to get permission to import methadone.
"A lot of research has been done in Afghanistan. There are no reasons why they should refuse, apart from the linkage between the drug mafia and the ministry for counter-narcotics," said health ministry official Sayed Habib.
In an interview with AFP, he said that the illegal drug trade is worth $3.5 million a day in Kabul alone.
"If we distribute methadone for free, there won't be any need for heroin and the market in Afghanistan will collapse," he said.
Organised criminals "are ready to do anything" to stop this happening and buy off the Afghan authorities responsible for the war against drug production and trafficking, suggests Habib, offering to provide tape-recorded evidence.
But Abdul Qayyum Samer, spokesman for the counter-narcotics ministry, hit back: "There is no evidence of such a claim."
Afghanistan grows about 90 percent of the world's opium, says the UN drugs and crime office UNODC. It estimates that export earnings last year from Afghan opiates were worth $2.4 billion -- equivalent to 15 per cent of GDP.
Those who fled abroad to escape war, poverty and unemployment in Afghanistan are particularly vulnerable to drug abuse and becoming addicts, said UNODC Doctor Mohammad Raza.
UNODC says the answer is more and varied drug treatments, in which methadone should be part of a package available for drug users.
But the health ministry official insists methadone is the best way to treat addicts, particularly intravenous users with HIV now his biggest concern.
"By stopping drug use, you stop HIV transmission in our community. It's the most important issue for us," said Habib.
Last year, 636 HIV positive people were registered from around the country. This year, the number has doubled to about 1,200, he said.
"Those are only people registered. We expect to have more than 5,000 HIV positive people, who will not come to our health facilities because of discrimination and they will spread HIV," he said.
Doctors of the World said it was pleased with the methadone programme.
"What is great," said Ernst Wisse, one of those running the programme "is to see them arriving in a terrible state at the centre and then several days later, they're already playing volleyball!"
Back to Top
The End of American Intervention
New York Times
By JAMES TRAUB
Opinion
February 18, 2012
FOR the last 20 years we have lived amid the furious clangor of war — and debates over how to wage it. The intense and urgent clashes in the 1990s over “humanitarian intervention” gave way to pitched battles over “regime change” and “democracy promotion” after 9/11, and then to arguments over “counterinsurgency strategy,” a new battle for hearts and minds, as Barack Obama ramped up the war in Afghanistan.
The foreign policy debate has often felt like an ideological cockfight. And now, although we have not yet realized it, that era has come to an end.
For proof, you need look no further than the Pentagon’s new “strategic guidance” document, issued last month in the wake of Mr. Obama’s pledge to cut $485 billion from the defense budget over the coming decade. It repeats many of the core objectives of recent American national security strategy: defeat Al Qaeda, deter traditional aggressors, counter the threat from unconventional weapons.
But it also states, “In the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States will emphasize nonmilitary means and military-to-military cooperation to address instability and reduce the demand for significant U.S. force commitments to stability operations.” It goes on to note that “U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations.”
With this paragraph military planners signaled an abrupt end to the post-9/11 era of intervention. Only a few years ago the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — wars of occupation, nation-building and counterinsurgency — looked like the face of modern conflict. Now they don’t. Americans don’t believe in them and can’t afford them anymore.
The strategic guidance hit one other very new note: While American forces will continue to maintain a significant presence in the Middle East, the planners wrote, “We will of necessity rebalance towards the Asia-Pacific region.” This is bureaucratic code for “we will stand up to China,” which, the Obama administration has concluded, has superseded Al Qaeda as the chief future threat to American national security.
To say this is not merely to assert that one region has taken precedence over another but that the traditional threat of the expansionist state has supplanted the threat of the stateless actor that emerged after 9/11. Of course, global problems like climate change, epidemic disease, nuclear proliferation and terrorism won’t go away. But in matters of war and peace, we seem to be returning to a more familiar world in which great powers maneuver for advantage.
We left that world behind, or so we thought, with the end of the cold war, which deprived America of its traditional enemy and thus raised the question of whether and when we would resort to force.
The answer came in the mid-1990s, when the Clinton administration felt compelled to respond to political chaos in Haiti and mass violence in the Balkans. Force could be used in the pursuit of justice. During the 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush vowed to put an end to these moralistic enterprises and to focus instead on great-power relations.
But 9/11 turned those plans upside down. Indeed, the Bush administration’s 2002 national security strategy asserted that “America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones.” Mr. Bush, far more than Mr. Clinton, yoked the use of force to a transcendent principle, insisting that America “must defend liberty and justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere.”
Those were fighting words, and not just abroad. The debate over the war in Iraq revived many of the old debates from the Clinton era. Liberal internationalists like the British prime minister, Tony Blair, joined American neoconservatives like William Kristol and Robert Kagan in arguing for the use of force to bring about transformative political change, while “realists” on the left and right warned of the danger of reckless adventures.
The era we have now entered will be a less ideologically charged one. The questions raised by China’s growing ambitions are categorically different from those provoked by 9/11. China is an emerging power, and once having found their footing, emerging powers usually seek to expand at the expense of their neighbors.
The world is accustomed to dealing with this kind of problem, which involves persuading the bumptious power that its interests lie in cooperation rather than in confrontation. And there is a fair amount of consensus in policy circles about how to deal with it. Conservatives have been sounding alarms about China’s military ambitions for several years, and the Obama administration has now begun to execute a “pivot” to Asia. On a visit to the region, President Obama announced that America would station 2,500 Marines in Australia, even as it decreased military commitments elsewhere.
WHATEVER policy the Obama administration or its successor adopts toward China, the broader East Asian region, unlike the Middle East, is filled with stable, and largely democratic, states. The United States does not have to defend liberty and justice there. Regime change, democracy promotion and nation-building will be off the table. So, for that matter, will war.
America is not about to go to war with China, or with anyone else in Asia. The struggle to balance Chinese ambition will be left mostly to the Navy and Air Force, and our allies in the region. And it will not be a metaphysical one: the very complicated relationship with China is much less a clash of worldviews than of interests.
Finally, there is the elemental fact that America can no longer afford its own ambitions. The failure of last year’s bipartisan effort to solve the deficit crisis triggered automatic cuts that are supposed to double the half-trillion dollars already scheduled to be sliced from the Pentagon budget.
In his 2010 book, “The Frugal Superpower,” Michael Mandelbaum argued that the contraction of the American economy meant that “the defining fact of foreign policy in the second decade of the 21st century and beyond will be ‘less.’ ” Mr. Mandelbaum, himself a leading realist, suggested that the chief victim of the new austerity will be “intervention.”
It may be so, though the NATO air campaign in Libya shows that humanitarian intervention is neither defunct nor doomed to failure. Such ventures, however, will be very rare, as the current stalemate over Syria implies. The coming years may well be a period of at least relative austerity, modesty and realism. Should we feel relieved?
It is easy enough to say that the United States should no longer fight wars of occupation in the Middle East, or seek to promote democracy through regime change, or undertake counterinsurgency campaigns on a massive scale. But in a world of weak and failing states, are we also to abandon ambitious hopes to help build stable and democratic institutions abroad? Is foreign aid to wind up on the junk heap of failed dreams?
America has been and can continue to be a force for good in the world. But those of us who have championed an idealistic foreign policy have been deeply chastened by the failure of so many fine hopes and have been forced to recognize both how much harm the United States can do with the best of intentions and how very hard it is to shape good outcomes inside other countries. So we must accept, if uneasily, the future which now seems to lie before us: We will do less good in the world, but also less harm.
James Traub is a columnist at foreignpolicy.com, a fellow at the Center on International Cooperation and the author of “The Freedom Agenda.”
Back to Top
Talks With Taliban Without Afghan Input Would Fail, Former Spy Chief Says
TOLOnews.com
Saturday, 18 February 2012
The former head of the National Directorate of Security, Amrullah Saleh, said in an exclusive interview with TOLOnews that any kind of peace negotiations that lacked one of the three key players - the US, Afghanistan and the Taliban - would be a failure.
He also said that Pakistan and the Taliban have no interest in possible negotiations in Qatar, and does not see any change in the fundamental aims of Taliban.
He pointed out that the Taliban have not condemned armed extremism, have not renounce violence and do not believe in a multicultural Afghanistan.
"The Taliban feel safe in Pakistan and are looking to concentrate on their aims," Mr Saleh said. "So, the soft approach from the Afghan government and Nato raises questions."
He added: "Grossman meets with Taliban leaders; who represented the Afghan people in those negotiations? All the parties should be directly involved in Afghan solution." Marc Grossman is the special US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
He said that the current system of government and democracy in Afghanistan are an achievement of the Afghan people. He said that the establishment of a political for the Taliban in Qatar undermines the trust of Afghans in their government.
Afghan president Hamid Karzai recently said there have been secret three-way talks between his government, the US and the Taliban in an effort to end a decade long war in the country. The Taliban have denied any kind of negotiations with the Afghan government.
Karzai told The Wall Street Journal newspaper in an interview published on Thursday that he has seen enough signs to believe the Taliban are "definitively" interested in exploratory talks, seen by some as the best chance of ending the country's costly war, now entering its 11th year.
Back to Top
1,400 graduates join army in N. Afghanistan
Xinhua
Feb. 18, 2012
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan
A total of 1, 400 graduates were commissioned to the Afghan army in the country' s northern province of Balkh on Saturday, an army commander said.
"Today, after an eight-week training phase at Corps 209 Shahin Headquarters' training center in Mazar-i-Sharif city, a total of 1,400 graduates were commissioned to the Afghan National Army (ANA) to serve the nation," General Zulmai Weesa, commander of regional Corps 209 Shahin, told the audience at the graduation ceremony here.
The new graduates are prepared to be deployed to any part of the country to provide security for their people, Weesa said, adding the soldiers had received training under the U.S., NATO and Afghan trainers.
The Afghan government and NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan (NTM-A) have stepped up efforts to train and equip Afghan police and army as NATO-led forces have handed over the security responsibilities of several areas across the country to Afghanistan.
The process of handing over security responsibilities from over 130,000 U. S. and NATO-led forces stationed in Afghanistan to Afghan forces began in July, 2011 and would be completed by the end of 2014 when Afghanistan will take over the full leadership of its own security duties from U.S. and NATO forces.
Back to Top
Afghan Basti — a question mark on city managers’ performance
DAWN.com
By Syed Irfan Raza
18/02/2012
Removal of Afghan displaced persons from their main settlement in I-11 has always been a challenge for the Capital Development Authority (CDA).
It has been learnt that during the current visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Islamabad for trilateral summit– Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan– on peace and stability in Afghanistan, the issue of repatriation of refugees also came up. However, the Afghan delegation linked the repatriation of around 2.5 million refugees to restoration of peace there.
“We took up the issue of Afghan refugees with Afghan delegation but it was of the view that these refugees could not be repatriated unless the situation in the war-torn country gets normal,” said Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar.
Ill-planned Afghan Basti in Sector I-11 has been a question mark on the city managers’ performance since its establishment in early 80s, although they made many abortive attempts to shift it to some other place away from the main city area.
The shanty settlement on already allotted 200 plus residential plots in sector I-11 has become a source of concerns for the city developers and for the police but people living in the vicinity term it a blessing for them.
“Afghan Katchi Abadi provides us house maids,” said a Bank Manager Tanveer Malik who lives close to Afghan Basti.
He said people residing in sector I-10 and other areas in the vicinity had no problem with Afghans.
Old and young from the Afghan Basti also do cheap labour in Fruit and Vegetable Market in I-11.
“Most of Afghanis with wheel barrow are available for shifting fruits and vegetables within the market,” said a fruits dealer Mian Anwar.
The Capital Development Authority (CDA) and the local administration, in collaboration with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), have started a fresh survey to ascertain the exact number of the Afghan population in these areas.
Deputy Commissioner Amir Ali Ahmed said every year some Afghan families choose to avail the UNHCR financial support for `voluntary` repatriation. However, somehow most of them return to Islamabad again, he added.
A survey conducted last year in I-11 sector had found 287 Afghan families living in the main and largest Afghan Basti.
It may be noted that the Supreme Court had asked the civic agency to get vacated 20,000 acres of state land from adverse possession in various parts of the city. However, reclaiming the land occupied by the Afghanis has always been a very difficult task for the CDA.
The removal of Afghan settlement from the sector has become imperative especially after announcement of compensation for the villagers of Bokhra and Sorain villages in October 2010 for the development of the two new residential sectors.
The Afghan refugees started arriving in the capital after the invasion of their country in 1979 by the then USSR. Soon a large shanty town appeared in the area which became a big refugee camp known as Afghan Basti.
The situation became frustrating for people who had purchased plots in these sectors through public auction as well as those who were allotted plots under various government schemes, including 850 employees of the CDA itself who were given residential plots in the sectors in 1979.
“We always try to shift Afghans to outside the city area but it cannot possible without the help of the local administration and the UNHCR,” said a senior official of the CDA’s enforcement directorate.
But one has to realise that repatriation of Afghan refugees will not be as easy for Afghans themselves because they have adjusted themselves in Pakistans society and many of them doing respectable businesses.
“It is very difficult for any one to send all Afghans back to their country as their generation have grown up here and have almost become a part of our society,” said a senior office-bearer of Islamabad Citizens’ Committee Sufi Khalil.
On the other hand Islamabad police squarely lay blame for different crimes in Islamabad on Afghan refugees.
Once Afghan Basti used to be called a ‘den of criminals’ and police were of the view that after committing crime the culprits got refuge in the Basti and because of impending international criticism and reaction of UNHCR no action could be taken against them.
“Recently we have arrested five gangs of criminals of Afghans from Margalla Hills and recovered arms. They were also found involved in various crimes in the federal capital,” said Inspector Naeem Ahmed of Islamabad Police.
Back to Top
PRESS RELEASE
No articles featured today
Back to Top
Connect with MOBY
