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13 February 2012
FEATURE STORY
Long Neglected, Camps in Kabul Get a Deluge of Aid
BUSINESS
No articles featured today
NATION
Afghan Officials’ Relatives Appointed by Ministry of Foreign Affairs
How Afghan Peace Talks Are Splintering the Taliban
Afghan Govt Will Not Introduce Remaining Cabinet Members, ACSF Says
Mullah Obaidullah Akhund Has Died in Pakistan, Taliban Confirms
Afghan private security handover looking messy
Afghan Cops and Special Forces
US gambles on special forces in Afghanistan strategy
The fog of Afghan war
Pakistan Not Backing Afghan Taliban: Gilani
2 Boys With Suicide Vests Are Arrested in Afghanistan
AIHRC Concerned Over Increasing Violence Against Women
Charges against president "politically motivated": Pakistan PM
Religious leaders oppose reopening of Nato route
7 Militants Killed, 18 Detained in Afghan Operation
PRESS RELEASES
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FEATURE STORY
Long Neglected, Camps in Kabul Get a Deluge of Aid
New York Times
By ROD NORDLAND
February 12, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan
The 6,000 refugees living in the Charahi Qambar camp did not object when American soldiers came by Saturday to deliver 1,100 blankets for the families there. Nor did they mention that the day before, an Afghan aid group, Aschiana, had also made a delivery of blankets, and was planning to come back on Sunday with clothing — at least the third such donation in a few days, the others coming from businessmen.
And two Afghan aid groups financed by the German government brought about $187,000 worth of charcoal, milk and hot water bottles on Sunday, while the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees planned to give each family three more blankets on Thursday.
The Charahi Qambar site is one of the camps where shortages of food and fuel have led to young children dying of the cold during severe weather over the past month, and news coverage of the deaths has galvanized the aid community and the government here, as well as donors abroad. There are 40 camps in Kabul housing repatriated refugees and other displaced Afghans.
But the response has been chaotic and disorganized, with some camps receiving little aid and others being deluged with duplicated aid. “We don’t know who’s done what and where; it’s mad,” said Federico Motka, whose organization, Welthungerhilfe, a German aid group, has had a long-term presence in the camps.
“We have to do something about the duplication,” acknowledged Mehr Khuda Sabar, an official with the Afghan government’s disaster relief and development agency.
Much of the disorganization is a result of many new agencies joining the effort that had not worked in the camps before, said Aidan O’Leary, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “People are anxious to do something and that’s all very, very positive,” he said.
Despite the Afghan government’s early skepticism that any children were dying of the cold, last week President Hamid Karzai asked embassies and donors to provide emergency aid. Relief agencies that had previously not been involved rushed out winter emergency programs, including the United States. Emissaries of the Afghan president visited Sayid Mohammad, a father who recently lost the eighth of his nine children, this one to the cold, promising to bring him to the presidential palace for an audience, Mr. Mohammad said.
On Sunday, two deaths were reported in the Parwan-e-Do camp, housing refugees from northern Baghlan Province, as were two more in the Parwan-e-Se camp. The victims were all 2 or younger, according to the parents and camp leaders. In all, The New York Times has confirmed the deaths of 28 children in the camps since mid-January.
Charitable groups working in the camps confirmed a major increase in donations. “People are writing from all over the country wanting to send their winter clothing and baby sweaters, etc. to us,” said John Bradley, head of the Lamia Afghan Foundation in the United States, which moved quickly to deliver warm clothing it had already shipped to Afghanistan on military transports. The Afghan aid group Aschiana, which has the largest full-time presence in the camps, reported raising more than $17,000 in a few days from small donors in the United States through its American branch.
Individual Afghans pitched in as well. Ramazan Bashardost, a member of Parliament and well-known gadfly, visited the Nasaji Bagrami Camp, where 16 children died of cold, and handed out 1,000 Afghanis (about $20) to each of the 250 families there. He was shocked by the conditions of the tent-and-mud-hut camps, most of them within Kabul and many next to comparatively well-off neighborhoods. “It is not a life for a human, it is a life for animals,” he said.
The turnabout among government and international agencies was drastic, though all had explanations for why they had not previously paid attention to the camps. The United Nations refugee agency said it had focused on providing winter aid to 200,000 people in rural and remote areas. The World Food Program said its Kabul programs targeted the most vulnerable: widows and disabled people. And the American military does not normally distribute humanitarian aid in the camps; this one, however, was organized by the chaplain’s office at headquarters in Kabul.
The United States aid agency, U.S.A.I.D., by far the largest aid donor in Afghanistan, said that its winter efforts in have been in remote areas like Badakhshan Province, where winters are very harsh. “Being prepared for a disaster is one of the most difficult things to do,” said S. Ken Yamashita, the agency’s director in Afghanistan, “because by definition you do not know when a disaster will strike.”
Mr. Yamashita declined to say where those distributions would take place because the groups providing aid on behalf of the agency did not want it known in which camps they were working. In addition, he confirmed that the aid was not being identified as coming from the United States, in case it might pose some risk or discomfort to the recipients.
Lane Hartill, a spokesman for Save the Children, which delivered some of the American agency’s assistance on Saturday, said the organization preferred to distribute aid without identifying the source. “Our ability to provide help in a place like Afghanistan relies on us being neutral and being perceived as neutral,” Mr. Hartill said.
Aid groups with experience in the camps found the extra attention a mixed blessing. Mr. Motka, with the German aid group, said the increased donations had enabled his organization to schedule a second distribution of firewood to all the residents in 17 camps, which should take place in the next few days and should get them through until March.
On the other hand, he said, he was concerned that focusing on the humanitarian emergency would distract attention from the need for long-term solutions, such as finding the displaced Afghans land and adequate housing.
The outpouring of aid “will keep them alive,” Mr. O’Leary, of the United Nations, said. “But we can’t afford to lose sight that there has to be a better solution going forward, so we are not dealing with this situation every time winter comes about.”
Aid workers in the camps were confident that the worst of the crisis was past. “It is enough now that no more children will die,” said Mohammad Zahir Haslam, who was supervising the German charcoal aid delivery.
Many of the camp residents said they were not so sure. Mr. Mohammad, whose 3-month-old son, Khan, died Wednesday, was contemptuous of the clothing distribution he received from the Afghan Red Crescent — much of it consisting of thin scarves and summer blouses, some so gossamer they were culturally inappropriate, and none very warm.
With many of his neighbors, Mr. Mohammad spent Sunday worrying about another snowstorm, currently under way and expected to last through Monday, with temperatures predicted to drop even lower — to 5 degrees Fahrenheit — than the historic lows of the past month.
“What can we do?” Mr. Mohammad asked. He did not mention that he and everyone else in the camp had just received a bag of the German charcoal; on the other hand, they apparently had little or no food.
Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting.
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BUSINESS
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NATION
Afghan Officials’ Relatives Appointed by Ministry of Foreign Affairs
TOLOnews.com
By Shakeela Abrahimkhil
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Relatives of some Afghan high-ranking officials and powerful figures have been appointed in key posts in the Afghan Ministry of Affairs, experts said on Sunday.
Experts warn that politicising the positions in the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that appointment of Afghan officials' relatives in the Ministry will damage national interests of Afghanistan.
"Not only the Afghan government's domestic policy, but also its foreign policy is also affected by this disease," Lecturer of Kabul University, Faizullah Jalal, said citing appointments of Afghan officials' relatives as ambassadors, deputy ambassadors and secretaries.
Mr Jalal said many of such people who are appointed by the Afghan embassies get involved in personal business rather than the embassy affairs.
Experts urge the Afghan government to clear government organisations of unprofessional employees and unqualified diplomats.
The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dismissed the reports and stressed that all staff and diplomats for the Afghan embassies had been employed based on their merits and qualifications.
The Ministry said it has set up a special commission to interview those who are employed by the Afghan embassies.
It comes as recently a physical clash has occurred among the staff at the Afghan embassy in Washington.
According to reports, Haroon Alako, the son of Afghan Attorney General, who is the counsellor of the embassy, has reportedly beaten the Afghan Ambassador and one of the embassy staff. But the Ministry denied that any physical clash had taken place at the embassy in Washington, saying that it will investigate about it.
It comes as on Saturday Afghan senators said that that Afghan Minister of Immigration had employed some of his relatives in some positions in the ministry.
Head of the Afghan Senate's Complaints Commission, Zalmai Zabuli, presented some documents showing that some people who have been employed by the Afghan Ministry of Immirgration are not even literate enough to fit the positions.
Nematullah and Noor Murad are apparently two relatives of the minister who have been employed for the salary of 40 to 60,000 Afghanis as advisors to the ministry.
"The minister's niece who is from Andkhoi and does not have a command in Persian, Pashtu or Uzbek language, has been employed as marketing advisor, because he only speaks in English and Urdu languages and gets a salary of 60,000 Afghanis," Mr Zabuli said.
But Afghan Minister of Immigration, Jamahir Anwari, dismisses the claims saying that the staff have been employed based on the rules of the ministry and agreement of the ministry of finance.
"Three people who have been employed were interviewed by a commission consisted of a representative from the ministry and a representative from the UNHCR," Mr Anwari said.
Mr Zabuli said that some senators have also complained to the President about the issue.
It comes as the Afghan High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption has said that 70 high-level cases of corruption had been referred to the Attorney General's Office and that cases of some ministers were also among them.
Around 251 corruption cases have been recorded out of which 32 cases have been referred to the Attorney General's Office, according to the Oversight office.
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How Afghan Peace Talks Are Splintering the Taliban
Will the Taliban survive talking with the Americans? Many fighters say no.
The Daily Beast
By Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau
Feb 13, 2012
Ever since he was 20, Ahmad Jamal has been a loyal follower of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. He became a supporter back in 1996, the year Omar’s mujahedin marched to power in Kabul, and until late last year he was an active combatant in the war against U.S. and Afghan National Army forces. Even so, something changed when he heard about the secret peace talks between the Americans and the Taliban in the Gulf state of Qatar. Although at first he dismissed the tales as enemy propaganda, the more he heard, the more his worries grew. “Those rumors raised questions in my mind for days and nights,” Jamal says. And eventually he had to admit to himself that the news was true. “When I realized the Taliban was really talking face to face with the Americans—the worst enemies of Islam!—my dream of the holy jihad was washed away,” he says.
That’s when he decided to do something he had never dreamed of: abandon the fight. You don’t tell the Taliban you’re quitting—not if you want to keep living. Still, he had to say goodbye to his 25-year-old kid brother, Ahmad Bilal; the two had been fighting side by side for four years. “I’m not going to risk making my four children orphans and my wife a widow so some Taliban leaders can share power with the American puppet [President Hamid] Karzai in the Presidential Palace,” Jamal says he told Bilal late one night. Then he got rid of his weapon and headed off to rejoin his family in Pakistan, their home since the days of the Soviet occupation. On the way, he passed through Kabul, where he spoke with a Newsweek reporter. “I fought to kick out the infidels from my country and to restore our Islamic regime, not to give up our ideals,” Jamal said as they sat together at a kebab shop. “I cannot trust my leaders anymore.”
Disclosure of the leadership’s secret talks in Qatar—confirmed and driven home by the group’s opening of a liaison office in the emirate’s capital, Doha—has devastated the insurgency’s ranks. The previously unified movement is splitting, if not shattering, as doubts grow among its members about the logic of their once-unshakable commitment to jihad. Many formerly loyal fighters like Jamal have become confused and demoralized. Although there have been no reports so far of any large-scale desertions, some ranking Taliban admit they’re worried about the possibility. “I fear there is a serious risk of defections,” says a Taliban logistics officer. Intentionally or not, Washington’s decision to put out serious peace feelers to the group has sowed dissension among the insurgents, even before the talks have made any real progress.
Veteran commanders are at a loss to explain to their troops exactly what’s happening in Qatar, let alone what the senior leadership is thinking. According to Taliban sources, at least one senior member of the group’s main military council could only throw up his hands in response to his subordinates’ questions, saying, “I don’t know more than I’ve heard on the radio.” That kind of talk is anything but reassuring to the group’s fighters and subcommanders. In the past two years the Taliban’s former strongholds have been hit hard by the Americans’ troop surge and by the Special Operations Forces’ night raids. Now many Taliban worry that after so much hardship and sacrifice, their leaders may be in the process of selling them out. “Mullah Omar has always said fight, fight, fight until the Americans withdraw their troops,” says Rahmatullah, a former insurgent (like many other Afghans he uses a single name). “Suddenly he’s talking to the Americans. How can Mullah Omar cross out 18 years of resistance? It’s impossible for Taliban to understand.”
In the frozen mountains of Maidan-Wardak province, just west of Kabul, Jamal’s younger brother is fighting on—and yet he too harbors doubts about the insurgency’s future. “We were shocked and stunned by the news,” says Bilal, referring to the secret discussions. “I’m afraid these peace talks are a conspiracy to destroy the Taliban, to silence the barrels of our guns,” he says. “Our guns are our beauty and strength,” he continues. “Without them we would be lost forever.” He believes there’s no choice but to keep fighting. “We have to restore our Islamic regime with our weapons, not talk about peace with the infidels,” he says. He keeps telling himself that Omar will never compromise the movement. “I can’t believe that Mullah Omar would sell the blood of our martyrs,” he says. “The Taliban will not stop the jihad until we get a clear message from him.”
Commanders and fighters alike are waiting for some word—any word—from Omar. The reclusive leader hasn’t issued a single verifiable audio or video statement since he was driven from power in late 2001. But considering the disarray in his ranks, he needs to. “Everyone is waiting for a statement from Mullah Omar,” says a Taliban intelligence officer. “They have to hear something from him. And soon.” In fact, there are unconfirmable reports that he did send word orally to several senior commanders via the grapevine late last month. “I will not betray you and compromise the sacrifice of your blood,” the somewhat ambiguous message said, according to one senior Taliban commander who requests anonymity. “My target is to achieve the goal of every Taliban, as we have fought so hard and suffered so much.”
Around the same time, the ruling Quetta Shura’s leadership council sent out a written dispatch—apparently an effort to calm the insurgents’ nerves. A subcommander in Laghman province tells of having attended a meeting where a letter from the council was read aloud. It acknowledged that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (as the Taliban call their defunct national government) was in the process of opening an office in Qatar. “Apart from continuing the jihad, we want to have a process of negotiations to win the release of prisoners,” the letter said. “We assure you we will not compromise our jihad’s main goal of forcing the U.S. to leave Afghanistan.”
The idea of giving the peace talks a chance may not have much support in the field, but it has traction among rear-echelon Taliban officials and former fighters who continue to believe in the cause. Negotiating with the enemy is not contrary to Islamic teachings, they say. “The Prophet Muhammad talked with and traded with his enemies,” says Rahmatullah, who was arrested in a 2007 night raid and spent two years in U.S. and Afghan detention facilities. “We must talk and reason together.”
Many of these pragmatists want to regain power, but don’t believe it can be done by force of arms. “The talks can help us get politically what we have been trying to win militarily,” says a former senior Taliban minister. They welcome what they see as the American recognition of the insurgency as a viable political force. “It’s good that the U.S. seems ready to end this war and to give the Taliban a role in the future Afghan political system,” says Qazi Habibullah Fauzi, who was the regime’s chargé d’affaires in Saudi Arabia when the Taliban held power. “The question is, after 10 years of fighting has the Taliban gained a political vision that will allow it to take advantage of this opportunity?” says a former senior Taliban diplomat who declined to be quoted by name. “As a former Taliban, my answer is, regrettably, no.”
Everyone, whether for or against negotiations, insists that the insurgents haven’t been brought to the peace table by force. “I’m leaving the jihad not because the Taliban are weak, but because they are dishonoring our ideology,” Jamal says. Rahmatullah agrees. “The Taliban are not weak,” he says. “They can create security problems anywhere, any time. They will slowly come back.” NATO analysts evidently share that view. “Though the Taliban suffered severely in 2011, its strength, motivation, funding, and tactical proficiency remains intact,” says a classified report issued early this year, based on the interrogations of 4,000 Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners. “Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban.”
All the same, the insurgency has clearly lost the momentum it had two years ago, before the American surge. Battlefield setbacks in the south, east, and north are believed to be largely responsible for the Taliban’s agreeing to talk. “In the key provinces of Helmand and Kunduz, the Taliban doesn’t exercise one meter of control,” says the Taliban logistics officer, who supports the talks. “We can’t hold ground, and we can’t stop construction and progress, even with IEDs and suicide bombings. It’s time for someone to persuade Mullah Omar to show some flexibility, before we lose everything.”
Nevertheless, there’s no guarantee that even a direct order from Omar himself could get his commanders and fighters to honor a ceasefire. Never mind whether they would go along with the confidence-building measures that are believed to be under discussion. Some Taliban voice doubts that anyone can stop the fighting. “Mullah Omar may not be able to answer his fighters’ questions,” says the Taliban intelligence officer. “Many are addicted to the ideology and the war. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for them to change.”
On the other hand, some former Taliban think the men on the ground could be persuaded to hold their fire—for a while, anyway. When dealing with recalcitrant commanders and fighters, the group’s political operatives are taking the line that the Taliban’s popularity with Afghan villagers would actually be strengthened if the shooting stops and peace comes. “Let’s have and observe a ceasefire and see what happens,” says one Taliban liaison officer. “In the end the Afghan people will support us.” Fauzi agrees. “If the Taliban can show discipline and political maturity during a ceasefire, there’s a strong chance they would gain lots of support in the countryside,” he says.
To do that, the insurgents would have to accept that Afghanistan is not the same as it was 10 years ago. “The Taliban should change and compromise,” says Rahmatullah. “Because the people have changed. Afghans have seen development, technology, and the benefit of knowledge over these past 10 years.” He believes that most Afghans—in the villages, at least—are still undecided about which side to back, and that a cessation of hostilities would favor the insurgents. “The majority of people are not talking but are watching and waiting.”
Breakthroughs at the talks seem vanishingly unlikely in the near term. Any talk of prisoner releases and ceasefires is premature at best; even Taliban who support the negotiations understand that much. “It has taken us months to decide to open an office in Qatar,” says the former Taliban cabinet minister, who is still close to the insurgency. “It’s just the beginning, and we have a very long and difficult way ahead.” The important thing is that some Taliban are finally setting out on that journey.
Sami Yousafzai is Newsweek's correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he has covered militancy, al Qaeda, and the Taliban for the magazine since 9/11. He was born in Afghanistan but moved to Pakistan with his family after the Russian invasion in 1979. He began his career as a sports journalist but switched to war reporting in 1997.
Ron Moreau is Newsweek’s Afghanistan and Pakistan correspondent and has been covering the region for the magazine the past 10 years. Since he first joined Newsweek during the Vietnam War, he has reported extensively from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
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Afghan Govt Will Not Introduce Remaining Cabinet Members, ACSF Says
TOlOnews.com
By Shahla Murtazaie
Sunday, 12 February 2012
The Afghan Civil Society Forum on Sunday said that government may not introduce the remaining cabinet members even by the end of the announced deadline.
Head of the Afghan Civil Society Forum, Azizullah Rafie, said that despite several promises by the government, the remaining cabinet members have not been introduced to the Afghan Parliament to win vote of confidence.
"Unfortunately, the government is playing a long game, it has been more than one and a half years that acting Cabinet and High Court members are working," Mr Rafie added.
He also said that there will be a meeting at the presidential palace on Wednesday to discuss about appointment of the Independent Human Rights Commission members.
"We are concerned about appointment of unprofessional people in the Human Rights Commission," Mr Rafie said.
Several ministries including Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Transport and Aviation, Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Energy and Water, Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Communication and Technology and Ministry of Urban Development are still being managed by acting ministers.
Recently, Afghan Parliament decided not to approve next year's budget unless the government introduces the remaining ministers and members of the High Court and Attorney General.
Some of the MPs believe that even if the budget is approved, some ministers within Afghan cabinet are not competent enough to spend it properly.
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Mullah Obaidullah Akhund Has Died in Pakistan, Taliban Confirms
TOLOnews.com
Monday, 13 February 2012
Former Taliban Defence Minister, Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, had died on March 5th 2010 due to a heart attack in one of the Pakistani prisons in Karachi, Taliban confirmed on Tuesday.
Mullah Obaidullah Akhund was captured on January 3rd 2007 by Pakistani security forces in Quetta city of Pakistan.
He served as the Taliban's Defence Minister from 1996 to 2001.
Taliban's government was toppled by US-led operation in 2001 after deadly attacks targeted World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
Details of the controversial death of Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, are still unclear, Taliban said in a statement.
The statement called on Pakistani officials to provide full details about the death.
His death might have occurred due to torture at the prison or an heart attack, the Taliban added.
Several high ranking Taliban officials have been captured by Pakistani security forces which made landmarks in the fight against insurgency.
Taliban who are accused of having strong ties with al-Qaeda have lost their key leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan since the start of Nato-led mission in Afghanistan.
Mullah Mohammad Omer Mujahid, Aymen al-Zawahiri and Taliban leaders have been placed at the top wanted list of the US Bureau Of Investigation (FBI).
This comes as, al-Qaeda Leader, Osama Bin Laden, was killed in a US special operation in the garrison city of Abbottabad near Pakistani capital Islamabad.
Most of the Taliban leaders have been killed in US drone strikes in Waziristan area of Pakistan where hideouts of most of the Taliban and other insurgent groups exist.
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Afghan private security handover looking messy
Associated Press
By Heidi Vogt
Sunday, February 12, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan
The push by Afghanistan’s president to nationalize legions of private security guards before the end of March is encouraging corruption and jeopardizing multibillion-dollar aid projects, according to companies trying to make the switch.
President Hamid Karzai has railed for years against the large number of guns for hire in Afghanistan, saying private security companies skirt the law and risk becoming militias.
He ordered them abolished in 2009 and eventually set March 20 of this year as the deadline for everyone except NATO and diplomatic missions to switch to government-provided security.
Afghan officials are rushing to meet the deadline with the help of NATO advisers. But with less than six weeks to go, it’s likely that many components still will be missing on March 20. Even when everything falls into place, higher costs and issues of authority over the government guards will remain.
The change imperils billions of dollars of aid flowing into Afghanistan, particularly from the United States.
In a country beset by insurgent attacks and suicide bombings, the private development companies that implement most of the U.S. aid agency’s programs employ private guards to protect compounds, serve as armed escorts and guard construction sites.
On March 21, about 11,000 guards now working for private security firms will become government employees as members of the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF). They will be working in the same places with the same jobs, except they will answer to the Interior Ministry.
“We don’t want to have security gaps. This is really important to our customers and to us,” said Deputy Minister Jamal Abdul Naser Sidiqi, the head of the APPF.
It will happen, he said, because the presidential order says it has to.
Everyone is officially optimistic. “The APPF is now open for business,” a U.S. Embassy official said, speaking anonymously to discuss private agency contracts.
Still, many are worried that the entire plan could crumble.
Development contractors for the U.S. Agency for International Development told the Associated Press that they were told explicitly not to discuss the changeover with reporters because media attention could endanger the delicate process. Everyone critical of APPF insisted on speaking anonymously for this article.
This month, the chairman of the House Oversight subcommittee on national security, homeland defense and foreign operations wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressing concern that the APPF may not be ready to take over security for aid projects.
Even so, no one expects that there will be a visible problem on March 21.
“The guys who guard our gates today wear a certain baseball hat, and on the 21st of March they’ll come wearing a different uniform. It should be pretty seamless,” said Bill Haight, head of an infrastructure-building project run by Louis Berger Group and Black and Veach.
He said his projects are nearly finished, so he doesn’t expect many problems.
But companies with long-running projects are worried. New contracts and operating rules probably will still be in the works when the deadline arrives.
The APPF still has not signed a contract for any of the nearly 75 companies expected to switch over to government guards in March, said Noorkhan Haidari, the APPF business manager.
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Afghan Cops and Special Forces
The Diplomat
By David Axe
February 12, 2012
David Axe is reporting from Afghanistan.
U.S. Special Forces and commandos from other nations are slated to remain in Afghanistan even after the coalition’s more than 100,000 conventional troops withdraw by the end of 2014. One of the Special Forces’ major responsibilities is training and leading Afghan police forces, widely seen as the first line of defense against Taliban infiltration.
One joint mission in Laghman Province in early February illustrates the relationship between Afghan cops and their international Special Forces advisers. A handful of U.S. and Romanian Special Forces led around 25 Afghan police from the Laghman Provincial Response Company on a mission to search houses in a valley outside the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam.
After sleeping on the ground through the freezing-cold night, the force broke into five elements, each led by a U.S. or Romanian commando. “B,” an American weapons sergeant, led his five Afghans into a blocking position to protect the troops searching the houses.
The Afghans’ morale couldn’t have been lower, B recalls. “They’re tired. And they’ve got terrible boots.” He decided to let the cops sleep an hour before continuing the mission. The nap made all the difference for the exhausted policemen. “It was like night and day,” B says.
B’s interpreter reported that he’d seen a man carrying a Rocket-Propelled Grenade. B had seen nothing, but took precautions anyway. He split off two of his cops for cover and led the rest in a maneuver meant to flank any Taliban fighters up ahead. Many international advisers are reluctant to turn their backs to their Afghan trainees, fearing the Afghans might attack them, but B says he trusts his cops “99.9 percent.”
Spotting three Taliban machine gun positions on high ground ahead of him, B ordered his policemen to halt. “I said, ‘Nope, we're not falling for that.” Their trap thwarted, the Taliban attacked. “A guy yells, ‘Allahu akbar!’ and starts shooting,” B recalls.
A bullet grazed B’s hand, slightly injuring him. He fired to keep one Taliban gunner’s head down, as the policemen suppressed the other two gunners. For five minutes the battle raged. Then U.S. aircraft arrived overhead, forcing the Taliban to flee.
B says he’s proud of his cops’ performance. “No one ran away. They all stood and fought.”
“It’s the way we integrate with the Afghans,” he explains. “They like me and they understand I’m putting myself out there, too.”
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US gambles on special forces in Afghanistan strategy
AFP
By Dan De Luce
12/02/2012
As it draws down troops in Afghanistan, the United States plans to rely heavily on its special forces, gambling the elite troops can serve as a firewall to prevent the Taliban seizing back power, experts and officials say.
Having backed a major troop buildup when he entered office, President Barack Obama is shifting course, opting for a scaled back military presence built around 9,000 special operations forces focused on training Afghan troops and striking insurgent leaders, officials said.
"It's a natural progression," said one defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"As the mission becomes more focused on training, it makes sense that special forces take on more importance. Training is one of their primary missions. That's what they do."
The approach reflects lowered expectations about what can be accomplished after ten years of war and carries an array of risks, analysts and former officials said.
"It's a policy calculation that these (conventional) troops won't be needed. I would bet there would be some challenges," said Jeffrey Dressler, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.
Obama's initial strategy was to knock back the insurgency in strategic areas in the south and east, gaining the upper hand on the battlefield to pave the way for handing over security to the Afghans and possible peace talks.
But while the Taliban lost ground in the south, NATO-led forces have yet to roll back the insurgents in the east and the war is still widely seen as a stalemate.
"The military mission is not complete," said Seth Jones of the RAND Corporation, a former adviser to special forces commanders.
A smaller NATO military footprint could allow the Taliban to gain back lost ground on the battlefield, especially in the southern Helmand province, possibly undermining Kabul's bargaining power in any peace talks with the insurgency, he said.
Obama's wager, however, has a chance of succeeding if the military aim is much narrower -- to avert disaster instead of fighting the Taliban in every corner of the country, Jones said.
"The only way this is likely to work is if the objectives begin to change," Jones said.
"If the US objectives are to prevent the Taliban from overthrowing the Kabul government, that may be something that is achievable."
Already, the United States no longer expects the central government in Kabul to provide security in every area. Instead, the US military has built up local police forces, leaving it to towns and villages to fend off the insurgents, he said.
It remains unclear how the drawdown of most coalition troops by the end of 2014 will affect the morale of Afghan forces as well as the West's uneasy relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Deploying and supplying special forces will require continued cooperation from the Afghan government, which harbors deep distrust of the special forces due to aggressive night raids and assaults that have claimed civilian lives.
If US economic aid and financial support for Afghan forces declines dramatically, Karzai and other leaders may choose to provide less than full cooperation to the Americans, said Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations.
"The special forces' presence in particular has been quite controversial for Afghans," Biddle said.
"We sort of assume that we can withdraw all sorts of other things that the Afghans want, and they'll still give us what we want," he said. "One needs to think carefully about the sustainability of that."
By relying on a limited troop presence and special forces, the US approach has come full circle, resembling the model employed at the outset of the war by former president George W. Bush and his controversial defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
Unlike the Rumsfeld era, fiscal pressures are partly driving the latest emphasis on a light footprint.
Circumstances in Afghanistan also are markedly different from 2001-2002, when the Taliban were in disarray, before the Islamist militants rebounded as a formidable insurgency.
"The problem now is without a sizable counter-insurgency effort, can the (Kabul) government persist in the face of a large, capable insurgency that did not exist in 2002?" Biddle said.
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The fog of Afghan war
The Age
February 13, 2012
Opinion
THE Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, once told us she had little interest in foreign affairs. She certainly seems to have a tin ear for it, and the Opposition Leader is no better, given their reaction to the Herald's report of a video showing a Taliban fighter gloating over an attack on Australian soldiers.
Pointing out the obvious - that the propaganda video contains the patently false claim that 12 Australians were killed in the attack (they were injured) - Gillard said "disgusting anti-Australian soldier propaganda anywhere in the world is offensive to me and to all Australians". Abbott echoed her disgust at the defector's "betrayal".
The problem with this kind of populist diatribe is that it does nothing to enlighten the public about the complexities of the situation. The Taliban does occasionally issue videos depicting the execution of prisoners, usually in a gruesome manner that properly induces disgust. By comparison, the account of the Afghan National Army defector who turned his guns on Australian troops is merely a traitor's version of the way he changed sides. The US has spent a decade trying to engineer defections from Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. All sides do it. Meanwhile, Australia's military regularly announces its "successes", including ambushes in which Taliban commanders are killed. The information war has always been part and parcel of military operations.
Given the complexity of Afghan politics, Australians may have only a vague notion of who, or what, they are fighting for. That is a problem for our politicians in arguing the case for the war. But few would deny that the soldier's defection and the casualties he caused were a win for the Taliban. Yet our politicians strike a shrill, emotional tone that typifies their inability to talk sensibly about the Afghan war. The US, which lost almost 3000 civilian lives on September 11, 2001, is starting a dialogue with Taliban representatives in the Gulf state of Qatar. Do Gillard and Abbott support this initiative, or should we boycott talks, given their disgust at the enemy's tactics?
When Australia sends troops to fight and kill in other countries it is a fair bet that some of the locals will try to resist it. When the Taliban achieve what they consider a victory they will exaggerate and publicise it. That is war. Australia has announced it will end combat operations in Afghanistan in 2014. The public knows the campaign has been less than a complete success, and is, we believe, tired of these two leaders' efforts to exploit our anger and pain.
A lack of diplomacy
THERE is a limit to how long you can rest on your laurels. Australia has long exceeded any reasonable period of complacency when it comes to our Asian neighbours. We have been so busy patting ourselves on the back over our economic fortune that we have forgotten we owe our prosperity as much to serendipity - our proximity to Asia's growth markets and their voracious demand for our natural resources - as to any particular effort on our part. In diplomacy we continue to imagine ourselves playing a unique role as a bridge between the West and the emerging powers of east Asia; peddling our insiders' knowledge of our Asian neighbourhood to our US allies, and vice versa, to elevate our standing. Half a century ago, in the 1950s and '60s, Australia did build a pool of academic, diplomatic and linguistic talent with a formidable knowledge of the region. In the 1980s, there was another trade-driven Asian languages and literacy push. But far too little has been done since. Australia's regional expertise is diminishing and our diplomatic, business, cultural and trade experts are stretched far too thin.
Last week the ANZ Bank called for more diplomatic postings in Asia, particularly China and India, in its submission to a parliamentary inquiry into Australia's representation overseas. It is hard to argue against that. And if we take one step back it is clear our diplomacy in Asia is part of a larger problem. Of the world's 30 industrialised nations only New Zealand, Slovakia, Ireland and Luxembourg have fewer representatives overseas. Between 1988 and 2008 - a time of extraordinary industrialisation and growth in Asia - Australia's overseas diplomatic corps was slashed by 35 per cent. Over roughly the same period the number of overseas trips made by Australians - who expect access to the consular services provided by our diplomatic missions - jumped from 12 to 31 per 100 people. We do not need a parliamentary inquiry to conclude that Australia's diplomatic deficit is putting our position in a globalised world at risk.
The question of diplomatic focus could be more effectively addressed by an adequately resourced, skilled and staffed diplomatic corps. There is no doubt that Australia's rapidly growing trade, education, tourism and family links to Asia demand our close and immediate attention. Asian literacy has been embedded in the new national school curriculum, which is a start if we are to rebuild our regional skills. But nothing beats the immersion method. We have to be willing to get out into the region and engage Asia in its (many) languages.
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Pakistan Not Backing Afghan Taliban: Gilani
TOLOnews.com
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yosuf Raza Gilani has said that his country is not backing the Afghan Taliban, and that ‘supporting the Tailban was not his job'.
Gilani has also said that it was up to the Afghan people to decide whether the insurgents should be part of any future government in Kabul.
It is up to the Afghans to decide the shape of the future dispensation in their country and Pakistan will only support any political reconciliation process that is Afghan-led and Afghan-owned, Mr Gilani has said during an interview with Al-Jazeera.
The Pakistani Premier said that Islamabad was "not supporting the Afghan Taliban".
"Why should we support {the Taliban}? That's not our job," said Gilani.
"It's the job of Afghanistan to decide about their future. Our role is as a facilitator, we are part of the solution and not part of the problems," he said.
It is in Pakistan's interest to have a "stable, sovereign, independent and prosperous Afghanistan," he said.
"The Nato, Isaf and the US will finally leave {Afghanistan} but we, as neighbours, we have to stay for the rest of our lives," the Premier said.
Mr Gilani made a three-day visit to Qatar last week and reportedly discussed peace talks with the Taliban with his Qatari counterparts.
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2 Boys With Suicide Vests Are Arrested in Afghanistan
New York Times
By TAIMOOR SHAH and ALISSA J. RUBIN
February 12, 2012
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
Two boys equipped with suicide vests were arrested here over the weekend, less than a year after one of them had been pardoned by President Hamid Karzai for the same crime, and presented to reporters on Sunday.
The boys, named Nasibullah and Azizullah, were described by officials from the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, as 12-year-olds who had been trained in Pakistani madrasas. The officials refused to give their names for security reasons.
Both boys appeared calm and outspoken at the news conference, and it was unclear if they understood the gravity of what it would mean to carry out suicide bombings.
Azizullah said he went to a madrasa in Quetta. The teachers told him, “ ‘You won’t be hurt; just go and carry out a suicide attack,’ ” he said.
There have been a number of children caught in the last two years with the intention of carrying out suicide attacks. Most have attended madrasas across the border in Pakistan and told to detonate the explosives near foreign soldiers or Afghan government security forces. The indoctrination is intense, with heavy pressure at the schools to engage in a holy war against the foreigners, said the intelligence officials in Kandahar.
Azizullah said that from the school, he was ferried across the border. He was arrested with a suicide vest in Kandahar, he said.
“Now I am requesting the government to forgive me and let me join my family. I won’t go back to the madrasa,” said Azizullah, who is from Gardez in Paktia Province.
The other boy, Nasibullah, has already been forgiven once. He said he was pardoned by Mr. Karzai during Ramadan last summer, but then returned to a madrasa in Pakistan where he was persuaded for a second time to carry out a suicide bombing.
Mr. Karzai follows the tradition of pardoning criminals during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, and in 2011 he pardoned a dozen children who had been arrested either for planning or attempting suicide attacks. The children were mostly under the age of 12 and one was only 8, according to Afghan and foreign news reports.
“The last time I was arrested by officials, I was sent to Kabul and I was brought before President Karzai,” Nasibullah said at Sunday’s news conference. “Mr. Karzai asked me what had happened. I explained that the Taliban wanted me to carry out a suicide attack and they put a vest on me and said ‘you can carry out a suicide attack,’ but I was arrested by policemen. Karzai told me, ‘Don’t worry son, we will send you back home,’ and so he pardoned me.”
Nasibullah, who officials from the intelligence directorate said was originally from Pishin in the Baluchistan region of Pakistan, said he was hoping for a second reprieve. “I am again arrested by officials and now again I am requesting from the government to forgive me,” he said. “This time I won’t go back to the madrasa.”
Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, and Alissa J. Rubin from Kabul, Afghanistan.
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AIHRC Concerned Over Increasing Violence Against Women
TOLOnews.com
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission on Saturday warned that if the Afghan government does not prevent violence against women, the international community will consider Afghanistan unsuccessful in the field of human rights.
The commission believes that all achievements of the last ten years will come under question if the Afghan government does not take necessary measures to prevent violence against women.
The Commission urged Afghan government to bring committers of violence against women to justice.
Based on a survey done by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, there has been a 51-percent rise in violence against Afghan women in the first 9 months of this Afghan calendar year.
"Those who force under-age girls into marriage must be punished," a member of the Human Rights Commission, Latifa Sultani, said.
Meanwhile, some experts believe that the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs has had a symbolic role and that it has failed to do anything to improve the situation of Afghan women and girls.
But the Ministry of Women's Affairs dismissed the allegations.
"We want the cases to be addressed at a special court and based on laws to prevent violence against women," Head of Women's Rights Department at the Ministry, Fauzia Amini, said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Hajj and Pilgrimage has said all the mullahs have been instructed to preach against violence against women.
It comes as some Afghan experts believe that even organisations that work to promote women's rights and help children, have failed to provide any considerable services in Afghanistan and that women's rights has only been a slogan shouted by such organisations.
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Charges against president "politically motivated": Pakistan PM
Reuters
By Qasim Nauman and Chris Allbritton
Sun Feb 12, 2012
ISLAMABAD
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, in an interview broadcast on Saturday, said corruption charges against Pakistan's president were "politically motivated" and that the president had immunity as head of state.
In the wide-ranging interview with Al Jazeera television, he also criticised U.S. drone attacks on militants near the Afghan border as counterproductive and said Pakistan never authorized them.
Pakistan, he said, backed any Afghan-led peace plan to establish peace in the neighboring country and in no way supported Taliban insurgents.
Gilani's statements were aired on the eve of a hearing at which the premier faces indictment for contempt of court over his refusal to request the reopening of corruption cases against
President Asif Ali Zardari, co-chairman of the premier's Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
"There had been a lot of cases against him, and they were all politically motivated," Gilani said, referring to Zardari.
"He has got immunity. And he has not got immunity only in Pakistan, he has transnational immunity, even all over the world."
Asked if he would rather resign for the sake of the president, Gilani said if convicted of contempt, he would automatically lose office, so there was no need for him to quit.
"There's no need to step down," he said. "If I'm convicted, then I'm not supposed to be a member of the parliament."
Monday's expected indictment of Gilani pushes Pakistan's political crisis into a new phase. It is unlikely to lead to the fall of the government, but will continue to paralyze the country and further empower its military, analysts say.
"The Court is neither likely to trigger a collapse of the PPP government nor lead to military intervention," wrote Shamila Chaudhary in an analysis for Eurasia Group. "But the judiciary will remain a critical factor in Pakistani politics for the duration of the election cycle that ends in February 2013."
LENGTHY LEGAL PROCESS
The civilian-judicial confrontation stems from thousands of old corruption cases thrown out in 2007 by an amnesty law passed under former military president Pervez Musharraf.
Zardari is its most prominent beneficiary and the main target of the court, which voided the law in 2009 and ordered the re-opening of cases accusing the president of money laundering using Swiss bank accounts.
Gilani and his advisers have refused to ask the Swiss to reopen the cases. The prime minister had appealed the court's decision to charge him with contempt, but on Friday that appeal was dismissed, paving the way for the indictment.
"There's no way Zardari will allow his party to write a letter that will incriminate him in any significant way," said Najim Sethi, editor of the weekly Friday Times. "And that's exactly what the Supreme Court wants."
The continued defiance could benefit the PPP ahead of a widely expected lower-house election in October, said Salman Raja, a Supreme Court lawyer and constitutional expert.
Raja said any proceedings against Gilani would likely take until July and result in a short jail sentence -- "no longer than a week or 10 days."
The party could then campaign on the notion of a biased court doing the work of the military and "persecuting an elected prime minister, and that rhetoric gets reemphasized."
PYRRHIC VICTORY
But a PPP win could be a Pyrrhic victory. Infighting and confrontations with the military have consumed the nuclear-armed country in recent years, preventing it from addressing poverty and other economic ills or containing a rampaging insurgency that is endangering the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan.
"It's a creeping kind of a coup," Raja said. "Effectively they've crippled the government."
Tensions between the military and the civilian government reached a fever pitch in December and January over a memo asking for U.S. help against a feared military coup in the aftermath of the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden by American special forces in a Pakistani town.
Those tensions have since subsided and a coup looks unlikely now. In the interview, Gilani said he had "good relations" with the military "at the moment."
But continued brinkmanship with the court, Sethi said, served the army's purpose of staying in power behind the scenes.
In the interview, Gilani said authorities in Islamabad gave no approval for U.S. drone strikes.
"I want to inform you that we did not allow or give permission to fly drones from Pakistan," he said.
"Number two, drones are counterproductive. And we had discussed thoroughly with the U.S. administration that we at times make a lot of efforts to very successfully isolate militants from the local tribes."
Asked about the future of Afghanistan, Gilani said Pakistan would support any Afghan-led peace initiative and did not back the Afghan Taliban to take over.
"We are not supporting them. It's not our job. Why should we support them?"
(Editing by Ron Popeski)
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Religious leaders oppose reopening of Nato route
DAWN.com
By Shamim-ur-Rahman
12/02/2012
KARACHI
Religious parties vowed on Sunday to hold a sit-in outside parliament on Feb 20 in protest against restoration of Nato supplies and warned to turn every square of the country into Tahrir Square if attempts were made to push the country to what they said US subservience.
From the platform of Difaa-i-Pakistan Council (DPC), the parties assailed US policies and their leaders and slogan-chanting supporters condemned the continuing drone attacks and “attempts to restore Nato supplies”.
The rally, held in a ground near the Quaid Mausoleum, warned the government against granting MFN status to India and said it would be tantamount to stabbing the Kashmiris in the back.
The leaders criticised the government for the situation in Balochistan and the plight of families of missing persons. They said the people of Balochistan should get the right to own their resources.
Maulana Samiul Haque of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (S) said the DPC wanted to protect the country from the aggression of the United States which was being defeated in Afghanistan and wanted to take revenge on Pakistan by fomenting unrest in Balochistan.
He said the religious alliance would continue to support Kashmiri freedom fighters and would support the people of Afghanistan against the US.
Syed Munawwar Hassan of Jamaat-i-Islami said the biggest challenge was the US interference because the US had assumed that Pakistan was an easy prey.
He said the DPC was formed to defend country’s territorial and ideological frontiers and would help people get rid of corrupt rulers. He said the rulers lied that Nato supplies had been stopped but the US ambassador had revealed that supplies were continuing through air routes.
Sahibzada Abul Khair Mohammad Zubair of Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan asked the army chief why he was silent over drone attacks if the government was in its favour in order to get money from the US.
Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhyanvi of Ahl-i-Sunnat Wal Jamaat said his ancestors had created Pakistan and now his people would save the country. Shaikh Rasheed Ahmed of Awami Muslim League said people would have to rise against corruption of the rulers and make the country Tahrir Square.
He said people should unite under the banner of the DPC to expel corrupt rulers and save the country.
Gen (retd) Hameed Gul of Tehrik-i-Ittehad Pakistan complained to the Supreme Court that he and his son were jailed for two weeks because they had fought for independence of the judiciary and it did nothing when US spy agent Raymond Davis was released.
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed of Jamaatud Dawa said the US wanted to avenge its defeat in Afghanistan and was exploiting the situation in Balochistan.
He said India was using Kashmir against Pakistan as a tool and had blocked the flow of water to Pakistan, but the DPC would not allow this to happen.
He said the people of Pakistan would stand by their armed forces and foil any conspiracy against the country.
Ijazul Haque of PML (Zia) said Pakistan was being ruled by people who were not well-wishers of the country.
The conference adopted a 10-point agenda for steering the country out of the crisis and to restore Islamic values.
The agenda mainly focused on ending US intervention and pressure on Pakistan to get drone attacks discontinued and Nato supplies from ground and aerial routes stopped.
It pledged complete support for the Kashmiri cause and respect and moral support for people resisting foreign occupation in Afghanistan.
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7 Militants Killed, 18 Detained in Afghan Operation
TOLOnews.com
Sunday, 12 February 2012
At least seven militants were killed and 18 others were captured in an operation by Afghan and Nato-led troops in the country in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Interior Affairs said.
The Afghan Minister of Interior Affairs said in a statement on Sunday that the troops launched nine joint operations in Kabul, Helmand, Uruzgan, Ghazni, Khost, Paktia and Herat provinces, it said.
The forces also seized many weapons during the operations, it added.
Afghan and Nato-led troops recently increased military operations in the country to clear militants.
It comes as on Saturday Isaf said that a Haqqani network leader was captured in a joint operation by Afghan and Coalition troops in eastern Khost province on Friday.
The leader operated a bomb-making cell in Mandozai district and planned attacks against coalition forces throughout the province, it said.
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