MMU: Pakistan’s Musharraf Has Been Accused of Knowing Osama bin Laden’s Hideout, 15 February 2012

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15 February 2012

FEATURE STORY

Pakistan’s Musharraf Has Been Accused of Knowing Osama bin Laden’s Hideout

BUSINESS

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NATION

I Would Not Approve Transfer of Any Taliban Inmates: Panetta
Iran Is Ready to Talk
Refugee to role model for Afghan cricketer
A grim future for Afghanistan
Taliban will not talk peace with Karzai government, spokesman says
Pakistan allows NATO to ship food to Afghanistan, sign of thawing tension after airstrikes
Afghanistan's foiled 10-year-old suicide bombers come back for more
US sports diplomacy's latest target: Afghanistan
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Freedom of Expression Should be Protected, MoIC Says
Valentine's Day comes into light in Afghanistan

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FEATURE STORY

Pakistan’s Musharraf Has Been Accused of Knowing Osama bin Laden’s Hideout

Gen. Ziauddin Khawaja, an ex–security chief for Pakistan, accuses former president Pervez Musharraf of knowing where bin Laden was hiding and saying nothing.

The Daily Beast
By Bruce Riedel
Feb 14, 2012

Ever since the Navy SEALs found Osama bin Laden hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan, less than a mile from the country’s national military academy, the question haunting American relations with Pakistan has been: who knew he was there? How did the most-wanted man in human history find a hideout in one of Pakistan’s most exclusive military cantonment cities and live there for five years without the Pakistani spy service finding him? Or did it know all along?

Now there is an explosive new charge. The former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) says former president Pervez Musharraf knew bin Laden was in Abbottabad. Gen. Ziauddin Khawaja, also known as Ziauddin Butt, was head of the ISI from 1997 to 1999. A four-star general, he fought in the 1965 and 1971 wars with India. He was the first head of the Army’s Strategic Plans Division, which controls the country’s nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made him director-general of the ISI in 1997 and promoted him to chief of Army staff on Oct. 12, 1999, when he fired Musharraf from the job. Musharraf refused to go and launched a coup that overthrew Sharif. Ziauddin spent the next two years in solitary confinement, was discharged from the Army, and had his property confiscated and his retirement benefits curtailed. So he has a motive to speak harshly about Musharraf.

Bearing that in mind, here is what the former spy chief claims. Ziauddin says that the safe house in Abbottabad was made to order for bin Laden by another Pakistani intelligence officer, Brig. Gen. Ijaz Shah, who was the ISI bureau head in Lahore when Musharraf staged his coup. Musharraf later made him head of the intelligence bureau, the ISI’s rival in Pakistan’s spy-versus-spy wars. Ziauddin says Ijaz Shah was responsible for setting up bin Laden in Abbottabad, ensuring his safety and keeping him hidden from the outside. And Ziauddin says Musharraf knew all about it.

Ijaz Shah is a colorful character. He has been closely linked to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born Kashmiri terrorist who was imprisoned in India in 1994 for kidnapping three British citizens and an American. Saeed was freed when Pakistani terrorists hijacked an Indian airliner to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 2000, a plot masterminded by bin Laden and assisted by the ISI and the Afghan Taliban. Saeed was part of the plot two years later to kidnap Daniel Pearl and turned himself in to Brigadier Shah. Musharraf nominated Shah to be ambassador to Australia, but Canberra said no thanks. So he got the intelligence-bureau job.

Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto accused Shah of being behind the attempt to murder her when she returned from exile in late 2007. She was, of course, killed in another attempt later that year. Shah fled to Australia for a time while the situation cooled off.

Ziauddin says Ijaz Shah was responsible for setting up bin Laden in Abbottabad and Musharraf knew all about it.

Without a doubt, Ziauddin has an ax to grind. But he is also well tied in to the Pakistani intelligence world. When he was DG/ISI, he set up a special commando team to find and capture bin Laden with U.S. help. Elite commandos from the Special Services Group, Pakistan’s SEALs, were put on the hunt. Musharraf disbanded the group after he took power. Ziauddin’s successor at the ISI, Gen. Mahmud Ahmad, refused American requests to go after bin Laden right up to 9/11. Then Musharraf had to fire him because, even after 9/11, he did not want to do anything to bring bin Laden to justice.

We don’t know who was helping hide bin Laden, but we need to track them down. If Mush, as many call him in Pakistan, knew, he should be questioned by the authorities the next time he sets foot in America. The explosive story about him, which was first reported in the must-read Militant Leadership Monitor, is more than an academic issue. If we can find who hid bin Laden, we will probably know who is hiding his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the rest of the al Qaeda gang.

Bruce Riedel, a former longtime CIA officer, is a senior fellow in the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. At President Obama’s request, he chaired the strategic review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009. He is author of the book Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of the Global Jihad and The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology and Future.

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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NATION

I Would Not Approve Transfer of Any Taliban Inmates: Panetta

TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 15 February 2012

The US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Tuesday that he would not approve the transfer of any Taliban inmates held at the US-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, unless he was sure the detainees would not return to the battlefield.

His comments come as President Barack Obama's administration has confirmed tentative discussions with the Taliban insurgency on a possible transfer of five inmates from Guantanamo Bay to Qatar.

Recently the CIA Director General David Petraeus has told a congressional committee that he believes Afghan forces should not enter Pakistan to destroy the sanctuaries that the Taliban leaders allegedly enjoyed in that country.

But the US Defence Minister struck a cautious tone at a senate hearing, saying he was legally bound to ensure the release of an inmate would not pose a security threat.

Mr Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "absolutely no decisions have been made along this line."

Kabul and Washington have agreed to the establishment of a Taliban office in Qatar and stressed that the talks have to be led by Afghans.

But the main precondition of the Taliban to hold talks is the release of Taliban prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

Previously, there were reports that three high profile Taliban prisoners were released from Guantanamo Bay detention centre and transferred to Qatar.

The transfer of Taliban detainees was strongly criticised by top US Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss.

President Karzai's National Security Advisor Dr Rangin Dadfar Sapanta in his recent Exclusive Interview with TOLOnews, said that Taliban are the murderers of Afghan people and servants of foreigners.

Mr Spanta said one should not expect humane behaviour from the Taliban.

He said if government tries to bring Taliban to power, he will feel ashamed to be part of it.

Killing is the art of the Taliban and if anyone calls Taliban leaders as "heroes" will be a traitor and enemy of Afghanistan, Mr Spanta continued.

He emphasised that Taliban propaganda must not cause the Afghan government to lose the war that it has to win.

Mr Spanta believes that the Taliban can be considered the main problem for Afghanistan in the last 10 years.

He called Taliban's Qatar office is only an address to the militant group, and not a political office.

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Iran Is Ready to Talk

New York Times
By DENNIS B. ROSS
Op-Ed Contributor
February 14, 2012
Washington

SPECULATION about an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities is rife, but there is little discussion about whether diplomacy can still succeed, precluding the need for military action.

Many experts doubt that Tehran would ever accept a deal that uses intrusive inspections and denies or limits uranium enrichment to halt any advances toward a nuclear weapons capability, while still permitting the development of civilian nuclear power. But before we assume that diplomacy can’t work, it is worth considering that Iranians are now facing crippling pressure and that their leaders have in the past altered their behavior in response to such pressure. Notwithstanding all their bluster, there are signs that Tehran is now looking for a way out.

Much has changed in the last three years. In January 2009, Iran was spreading its influence throughout the Middle East, and Arab leaders were reluctant to criticize Iran in public lest they trigger a coercive Iranian reaction. Similarly, Iran’s government wasn’t facing significant economic pressures; Iranians had simply adjusted to the incremental sanctions they were then facing.

Today, Iran is more isolated than ever. The regional balance of power is shifting against Tehran, in no small part because of its ongoing support for the beleaguered government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The Assad regime is failing, and in time, Iran will lose its only state ally in the Arab world and its conduit for arming the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran’s Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf, and even the United Nations General Assembly, no longer hesitate to criticize Tehran. Gone is the fear of Iranian intimidation, as the Saudis demonstrated by immediately promising to fill the gap and meet Europe’s needs when the European Union announced its decision to boycott the purchase of Iran’s oil. Even after Iran denounced the Saudi move as a hostile act, the Saudis did not back off.

Iran cannot do business with or obtain credit from any reputable international bank, nor can it easily insure its ships or find energy investors. According to Iran’s oil ministry, the energy sector needs more than $100 billion in investments to revitalize its aging infrastructure; it now faces a severe shortfall.

New American penalties on Iran’s central bank and those doing business with it have helped trigger an enormous currency devaluation. In the last six weeks, the Iranian rial has declined dramatically against the dollar, adding to the economic woes Iran is now confronting.

Grain is sitting on ships that won’t unload their cargoes in Iranian ports because suppliers haven’t been paid; Iranian oil is being stored on tankers as Iran’s buyers demand discounts to purchase it; and even those countries that continue to do business with Iran are not paying in dollars. India plans to buy 45 percent of its oil from Iran using rupees, meaning that Iran will be forced to buy Indian goods that it may not want or need.

The Obama administration initially sought genuine engagement with Iran, but it understood that if Iran’s leaders rebuffed such efforts, America would have to apply unprecedented pressure to halt Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Beginning in 2010, Washington worked methodically to impose political, diplomatic, economic and security pressure, making clear that the cost of noncompliance would continue to rise while still leaving the Iranians a way out. This strategy took into account how Iranian leaders had adjusted their behavior in the past to escape major pressure — from ending the war with Iraq in 1988 to stopping the assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe in the 1990s to suspending uranium enrichment in 2003.

The Obama administration has now created a situation in which diplomacy has a chance to succeed. It remains an open question whether it will.

Israel worries that it could lose its military option, and it may be reluctant to wait for diplomacy to bear fruit. That said, Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have consistently called for “crippling sanctions,” reflecting a belief that Iran’s behavior could be changed with sufficient pressure. The fact that crippling sanctions have finally been applied means that Israel is more likely to give these sanctions and the related diplomatic offensive a chance to work. And it should.

Still, it is unclear whether Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose regime depends so heavily on hostility to America, is willing to make a deal on the nuclear issue. Nonetheless, Iran is now signaling that it is interested in diplomacy. Its foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, has declared that Iran will resume talks with the five permanent members of the Security Council and the Germans. He recently said that Iran would discuss Russia’s step-by-step proposal to defuse the nuclear standoff, which Iran refused to entertain when a variation of it was first broached last year.

Now, with Iran feeling the pressure, its leaders suddenly seem prepared to talk. Of course, Iran’s government might try to draw out talks while pursuing their nuclear program. But if that is their strategy, they will face even more onerous pressures, when a planned European boycott of their oil begins on July 1.

Moreover, given Mr. Obama’s stated determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Iran’s leaders may actually be making the use of force against their nuclear facilities more likely by playing for time.

Iran can have civilian nuclear power, but it must not have nuclear weapons. Ultimately, Ayatollah Khamenei will have to decide what poses a greater threat to his rule: ending his quest for nuclear weapons or stubbornly pursuing them as crippling economic pressures mount.

With Iran reeling from sanctions, the proper environment now exists for diplomacy to work. The next few months will determine whether it succeeds.

Dennis B. Ross, a former State Department and National Security Council official, was a special assistant to President Obama for the Middle East, Afghanistan and South Asia from 2009 to 2011.

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Refugee to role model for Afghan cricketer

AFP
By Shahid Hashmi
15/02/2012

He is the rugged face of Afghan cricket with a story fit for the big screen, and he embodies not only his nation's turbulent past, but its hopes for a brighter future.

When Nawroz Mangal led Afghanistan against Pakistan last week, it was the end of a long journey which started with his family's flight from Soviet troops, and continued when he picked up bat and ball as a young refugee.

According to Mangal, now 27, the enduring legacy from those tough days in hard-scrabble Pakistani border camps is a love of cricket which has now blossomed into a successful international career.

"That period was difficult for all the family," the Afghan captain told AFP in an interview. "We were financially hit and living in refugee camps was very tough on us.

"The best part of those ugly days was that I learnt this beautiful game of cricket."

It was "this beautiful game" which pitted Mangal's Afghanistan against Pakistan for their first top-level one-day international in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, with the debutants losing by seven wickets.

Regardless of the result, it was a landmark event greeted with high excitement in the war-wrecked nation -- even by members of the Taliban -- which has taken cricket to its hearts.

Mangal is the figurehead for Afghanistan's cricket revolution as the most recognisable player of a squad which learned the game on rudimentary pitches in the Pakistani camps.

But he says the biggest obstacle to his cricket career was his father, who wanted him to follow his two brothers by becoming a doctor and looking after the injured soldiers and civilians in his war-ravaged homeland.

It took skilful persuasion from coach Taj Malik -- one of the pioneers of cricket in Afghanistan -- who travelled to the border camp to convince Mangal's father of his son's talent.

Mangal calls those early days "hard to forget".

But once the Taliban were overthrown by US-led troops in 2001, Mangal and his family returned home and the Afghanistan cricket team was founded. He was then selected for the Asian Cricket Council Trophy in Oman in 2004.

"It was a dream come true for me," said Mangal. "While playing in the dusty refugee camps I never realised that I could make it that big, and in Oman I was playing with some top ranked players and I performed."

Although Afghanistan were knocked out in the quarter-finals, Mangal finished as leading scorer for his team with 271 runs. Three years later, he was named captain of his country.

"With the recognition by International Cricket Council and help from the ACC (Asian Cricket Council) we managed to get tours and facilities and gradually our team improved before we achieved our biggest target in 2009," Mangal recalled.

That year, Afghanistan became the first affiliate nation to gain full one-day status when they finished fifth in the World Cup qualifying event held in South Africa, only narrowly missing a berth at the 2011 tournament.

The success prompted President Hamid Karzai to form the national cricket board, allocating grants and promising facilities to further harness talent.

And in 2010, Afghanistan won a qualifying tournament to compete alongside the world's top 10 nations at the World Twenty20 event in the West Indies. Afterwards, crowds thronged Kabul airport to welcome their newest heroes.

"Qualifying for the World Twenty20 was a great achievement and we were on cloud nine as everyone was talking of our achievement. I think that lifted cricket in Afghanistan more than any other thing," said Mangal.

By 2010 cricket overtook football as Afghanistan's most popular game, according to the Afghan board, with more facilities and children now playing on the street -- something that was unthinkable under the Taliban.

"It has changed totally," said Mangal. "Now you can see kids playing cricket on the streets, something unimaginable in the past.

"With more and more facilities and the team achieving more milestones I think cricket will attain more heights in Afghanistan."

According to Afghanistan team manager Shafiq Stanakzai, Mangal will play an important part in that success.

"You need role models for every sport and Mangal is ours in cricket. He is cool, wise and inspiring so with him in our team more and more youth will follow the path he and his team-mates have carved," said Stanakzai.

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A grim future for Afghanistan

ABC Online
By Amin Saikal
15 February 2012

The United States has announced that it intends to withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan a year earlier than it had originally declared. This is in sync with an earlier French pullout, but confusing for the Afghan government and music to the ears of the Taliban and their supporters.

Meanwhile, a leaked secret NATO report has presented a very grim picture of the situation in Afghanistan. It clearly establishes the links between Pakistan's notorious military intelligence, the ISI, and points to the Taliban's growing strength and alludes to the militia's ability to regain power.

The report makes very uncomfortable reading for the Karzai government and Washington. Yet these are not altogether new revelations.

It is a presidential election year in the US. President Barack Obama wishes to be seen as having fulfilled his pre-election promise to end America's involvement in the trillion-dollar wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. An indication of an early withdrawal from Afghanistan could also mean that Washington is preparing for a military showdown with Iran over the country's nuclear program, as the US remains conscious of not allowing too many American troops to become Iran's target in Afghanistan.

As for the NATO secret report, it essentially confirms what some Afghanistan specialists (including myself) have repeatedly been saying: Pakistan's notorious military intelligence service, ISI, continues to leverage the Taliban and their affiliates, the so-called Haqani network, with a clear aim of securing a receptive government in Kabul in the wake of the US-led NATO troop withdrawal.

It also reinforces the view that the Taliban, as fractured as they may be, are doing a lot better than the Karzai government in winning over an increasing number of the Afghan people, especially among the ethnic Pashtuns, who form about 42 per cent of the Afghan population, with even some of the people within the Karzai government ready to jump ship. This is for a number of reasons. Chief among them are three.

First of all the Karzai government has remained extremely weak, dysfunctional, corrupt and untrustworthy. Most Afghans do not know what it precisely stands for: is it a perverted form of a politically pluralist Afghanistan with an Islamic face, with which most Afghans cannot identify, or a kind of tribalised authoritarian Muslim Afghanistan, with some distorted democratic trappings, which have proved to be very confusing to most Afghans? As for the Taliban's stance, it is easily discernable by the mostly illiterate, conservative Muslim Afghan population: defence of Islam, country and honour.

Secondly, the US and its allies have pursued a strategy that has been inappropriate for Afghanistan's conditions. The shift from counter-terrorism to counter-insurgency under president Obama has been more in name than substance. In the absence of a credible Afghan partner on the ground, no strategy can achieve its objectives. The US and its allies have certainly sunk a lot of money and energy into building the Afghan National Army and Police Force.

It all looks good in terms of numbers, but their ability to grow as coherent national forces able to take over security operations from foreign troops is highly doubtful. They remain very much captive of the dynamics of the mosaic nature of the Afghan society, with little or no identification with a central government for which they could fight.

Besides which, like the Karzai administration (if one can call it an administration), they are penetrated, at all levels, by the Taliban as well as an array of foreign intelligence services, most importantly the ISI.

Thirdly, there is no regional consensus on Afghanistan. The US and its allies have not given this a top priority, largely due to US-Iranian hostilities and an American inability to rein in the Pakistani military/ISI.

As long as these factors remain in place, the Taliban and their Pakistani backers have good reason to remain hopeful about their chances of succeeding in the end, but a Taliban takeover of power also carries the serious risk of non-Pashtun Afghan population clusters taking up arms once again to defend themselves, with Iran, India and Russia providing support. This would be a development that could plunge Afghanistan into a wider bloody conflict.

The Taliban and their Pakistani patrons are aware of this, and this is a challenge that they may try to address by enticing Karzai and some of his ministers, who are more keen to protect their interests than those of Afghanistan, to join them.

In this, the 10,000-20,000 troops that the US may leave behind to man a few bases in Afghanistan for 'above the horizon' operations until 2024 may prove to be of little use in saving what Washington claims to be the momentum of stability in Afghanistan.

Amin Saikal is professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the ANU. A new edition of his book Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival will be published in April. View his full profile here.

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Taliban will not talk peace with Karzai government, spokesman says

CNN
By Nick Paton Walsh and Masoud Popalzai
February 14, 2012

The Taliban have met with U.S. officials to discuss possible peace talks, but do not want to negotiate with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government, a Taliban spokesman said Tuesday.

The spokesman's comments, rejecting a key American condition, could potentially derail American efforts for Afghans to reach a negotiated end to the decade-long war.

In an e-mail response to questions from CNN, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid denied previous reports that the Taliban had been invited to meet with the Karzai government in Saudi Arabia, saying that talks with what he called a "puppet" government would be pointless.

"We have never been asked to attend talks with Karzai administration officials in Saudi Arabia, but even if we are asked to attend, we won't because (the) Karzai government is a puppet and unauthorized, and meeting with them will not be beneficial in solving the issue," Mujahid wrote in a message from an e-mail account regularly used by the Taliban to issue statements.

The spokesman, in answers that he said had taken some time to consider, said the Taliban wants direct discussions with the Americans.

"The issue is ... who is powerful and has got the power to make a decision, and who hasn't, and everyone around the world knows that the one who has got the authority in opposition to the Mujahideen (the Taliban) is America," he wrote.

The e-mail also contained the Taliban's first open recognition that they have met with U.S. officials in Qatar -- talks that senior American officials also confirmed.

The talks with the Taliban are aimed at establishing what the senior U.S. officials called "confidence-building measures" to lay the groundwork for negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, with the United States possibly serving in a mediation role.

U.S. officials have been trying to jump-start peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan officials through discussions over the past year.

The nascent process has been marred by dissatisfaction from Afghan government officials that they were not included at the start. Karzai's advisers have complained that U.S. officials were going behind Kabul's back in talking to the Taliban.

After initially opposing U.S.-Taliban talks, Karzai has since given his blessing, paving the way for a meeting last month between U.S. envoy Marc Grossman and Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar, senior U.S. officials said.

The Taliban's demand to talk with U.S. officials and not the Karzai administration could throw a wrench in the U.S. State Department's demand that all talks be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned.

Another meeting between U.S. officials and Taliban representatives could happen this month, the senior U.S. officials said.

The officials said the likelihood of reaching a deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban is slim. The talks could sow discord in the Taliban ranks, between those who want to negotiate and those who don't, the senior U.S. officials said.

On Tuesday, Mujahid said that the Taliban sought confidence-building measures from the Americans for talks to proceed.

"The trust-building phase is totally up to Americans," the spokesman wrote, "and they have to take measures and our conditions are as follows: Exchange of Guantanamo prisoners, the establishment of political office (in Qatar), removing the sanction lists of the UN (against Taliban figures)."

American demands for the Taliban include requiring them to renounce terrorism and to distance themselves from al Qaeda, senior U.S. officials said. Taliban representatives seemed organized, professional and willing to meet those demands during the Qatar talks, according to the senior U.S. officials.

CNN's Elise Labott contributed to this report.

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Pakistan allows NATO to ship food to Afghanistan, sign of thawing tension after airstrikes

Associated Press
February 14, 2012
ISLAMABAD

Pakistan announced Tuesday that it has temporarily allowed NATO to ship perishable food to its troops in Afghanistan, a sign of thawing tensions following American airstrikes last year that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Pakistan closed its Afghan border to NATO supplies in response to the deadly Nov. 26 attack on two of its border posts. The closure has been a headache for coalition forces, who have had to spend much more money to get goods to Afghanistan using alternative routes.

Pakistani Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said the government would only allow NATO to ship perishable items for a limited time and has asked the coalition not to order any more. He did not indicate when the approval was given.

The U.S. and Pakistan still disagree over who should be blamed for the November attack, but there have been growing signs that relations are improving.

There was a temporary hiccup in that process Tuesday when Pakistani police briefly detained a U.S. Embassy employee after bullets were found in his luggage at an airport in the country’s northwest. But the man was handed over to American officials after a couple hours.

The move to allow food items to enter Afghanistan could be a precursor to opening the border altogether.

Pakistan’s parliament is expected to vote on a revised framework for relations with the U.S. this week that could pave the way for the government to reopen the supply line.

Also, senior Pakistani officials have said in recent days that the government should fully reopen its border to NATO supplies as long as it can negotiate better fees from the coalition.

Pakistan security forces met with their NATO and Afghan counterparts Tuesday to discuss improving security for the upcoming coalition convoys, said spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps Saeed Ahmed. They met in the city of Chaman in southwestern Baluchistan province, one of Pakistan’s two Afghan border crossings.

For most of the 10-year war in Afghanistan, 90 percent of supplies shipped to coalition forces came through Pakistan, via the port of Karachi. But over the past three years, NATO has increased its road and rail shipments through an alternate route that runs through Russia and Central Asia. The northern route was longer and more expensive, but provided a hedge against the riskier Pakistan route.

Before the accidental American airstrikes on Nov. 26, about 30 percent of non-lethal supplies for U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan traveled through Pakistan.

The U.S. has since increased the amount of supplies running through the northern route, but this has cost it a lot more money. Pentagon figures provided to the AP in January showed that the alternative transport was costing about $104 million per month, $87 million more per month than when the cargo moved through Pakistan.

The U.S. Embassy employee detained at an airport in the city of Peshawar had 13 bullets in his luggage, said police officer Dost Mohammad Khan. It was unclear why the bullets were there. The man was scheduled to fly to Islamabad.

A U.S. official said the man was an embassy employee and had diplomatic immunity. He said the U.S. Embassy was in contact with the Pakistani authorities “about the details of the case.”

The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized by Washington to be named in the media.

There is a large U.S. consulate in Peshawar, which is close to the Afghan border.

The presence of American diplomats inside Pakistan emerged as a sensitive issue after a CIA contractor killed two Pakistani men in the eastern city of Lahore a year ago. U.S. officials insisted the shooter had diplomatic immunity, but Pakistan held him in jail for around two months, causing severe strain in U.S-Pakistan ties.

The unilateral American-raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani army town in May last year also led to a fresh wave of suspicion against Western diplomats by the Pakistani security establishment, which was apparently stung by the realization that the CIA agents were operating in the country without its knowledge.

___

Associated Press writer Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, Matiullah Achakzai in Chaman, Pakistan, and Chris Brummitt in Islamabad contributed to this report.

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Afghanistan's foiled 10-year-old suicide bombers come back for more

Los Angles Times
Opinion
February 14, 2012

What do you call a 10-year-old boy in Afghanistan? Apparently, a suicide bomber.

The Times reported Tuesday that two 10-year-olds who had been arrested for trying to carry out suicide attacks, then released last year, had been rearrested -- for trying to carry out suicide bombings.

Provincial spokesman Zalmay Ayubi said the boys each had a vest full of explosives when they were detained along with three adults suspected of being militants, and that they told intelligence officers they had been recruited for suicide missions.

A statement from provincial officials quoted one of the boys, named Azizullah, as saying the pair had undergone training at a madrasa, or religious school, in Pakistan. The mullahs there told the boys they would be unharmed when they set off their bombs, Azizullah reportedly said.

News of the boys' arrest came the same week that Muslim militant Umar Patek appeared in court in Indonesia to answer charges related to deadly bombings a decade ago in Bali that killed 202 people in a nightclub. Oddly enough -- or perhaps not -- he was captured last year in Abbottabad, the Pakistani town where Osama bin Laden was hiding.

But unlike the 202 people killed in the bombings, Patek gets a lawyer. And surprise, he downplayed his client's role: "His involvement in the Bali bombing ... [was] not as big as is being described. We will challenge that in a defense plea next week."

Also this week, a radical Islamic preacher, Abu Qatada, who had been under detention in Britain for most of the last 6 1/2 years, was released from jail Monday.

British officials consider him extremely dangerous, saying he encourages suicide attacks and terrorism, and they want him sent back to Jordan to face terrorism charges.

But Abu Qatada also is being given the benefit of the doubt in some legal circles. Last month the European Court of Human Rights blocked his deportation, saying he could face conviction on the basis of evidence obtained by torture.

And what do these cases have in common?

They show the difficulty -- perhaps even the futility -- of trying to fight terrorism within the judicial system.

When religious leaders find it acceptable to use children as bombs, it says something terrible about the values of our enemies.

And although it's a tribute to modern society that we remain committed to legal rules, those same legal rules can be -- are being -- manipulated by those committed to our destruction.

It would be nice if there were an easy answer. Perhaps the madrasas that are training children to be terrorists should be shut down?

Not likely. As the recent controversy in the U.S. over health insurance coverage for contraceptives shows, government interference in religious freedom is a tough sell everywhere.

No, we're stuck. We must stick to our legal system. We must allow freedom of religion.

And we must fight our enemies and safeguard our soldiers and our nation.

But it would be nice if we could keep 10-year-olds out of the fight.

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US sports diplomacy's latest target: Afghanistan

NBC News
13/02/2012
KABUL

For Malalai Anwari, there’s only one way to live life in Afghanistan and that’s by playing basketball.

"I couldn’t live without basketball," Anwari, a member of the Afghanistan Women’s National Basketball team, told NBC News. "Basketball is my life." Anwari’s sentiments reverberated across the campus of Ghazi Olympic Stadium in Kabul last week, where young Afghans were given the chance to practice their favorite sport with senior United States coaches and sports administrators.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul working with the Amateur Athletic Union brought in eight sporting officials, including the National Basketball Association's Cares program, to mentor and train both Afghan athletes and coaches in a sports diplomacy initiative.

About 170 children from 10 different provinces in Afghanistan participated in the four-day event.

Matt Wall, a U.S. embassy public affairs spokesman, said the sporting clinic went beyond shooting hoops in the gym.

“I think there are cultural barriers that we are trying to overcome,” Wall said. “Sports isn’t about religion, females and males, it is about kids who just want an outlet to exercise to play with others.”

At the end of the four-day training camp, each athlete earned both an AAU coaching certificate, and an NBA Cares certificate of completion.

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Unexploded Mines Still a Threat in Afghanistan

TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Unexploded mine in many areas of the war-torn Afghanistan are still a threat to the country, Head of Afghan Demining Organisation said on Tuesday.

Head of the Demining agency, Mohammad Seddiq Rashed said that around 43 development projects in Afghanistan are faced with the threat of unexploded mines.

He warned that implementation of the development projects in Afghanistan will be faced with a lot of challenges if the lands are not demined.

According to Mr Rashed, around one million Afghans live 500 meters away from mine fields.

Agriculture has also been affected by the presence of mines in many areas, he added.

"Three hydropower plant projects in Kunar and Laghman, and the Kabul-Mazar railway that is planned to be built will be faced with danger of mines," head of the demining agency, Seddiq Rashed, said.

Meanwhile, Gen. Walter D. Givhan who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Plans, Programmes, and Operations, in the US Department of State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs has also said that mines threaten every aspect of the country's development and that mine clearance is a key step in Afghanistan's rehabilitation after three decades of war.

"As you know mines and other remnants of war, hampers stability and growths by affecting virtually every aspect of a country's development," he has said.

He stressed on eradication of mines and added that the presence of mines prevents children from attending school, makes lands and roads unusable and forces people to leave their homes.

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NATO offers condolences for airstrike deaths in Afghanistan

CNN
By the CNN Wire Staff
February 15, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan

NATO expressed "deep regret" Wednesday following a coalition airstrike that killed eight Afghan youths last week.

The International Security Assistance Force offered condolences, and said it is investigating the strike on a village in Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul.

"While the exact circumstances of this tragic incident remain to be determined, ISAF is taking appropriate action to ascertain the facts, and prevent similar occurrences in the future," NATO said in a statement.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned the strike last week.

Civilian deaths as a result of action by the NATO-led international coalition have long caused anger in Afghanistan, adding pressure on international forces to withdraw.

The international force has said avoiding civilian casualties is a high priority, a pledge it repeated following the recent deaths.

"My command's mission is to protect the civilian people of Afghanistan," said Gen. John R. Allen, commander of the international force. "I take very seriously the loss of every Afghan life. We will continue to do all we can to ensure the safety of the Afghan population."

The number of ISAF-caused civilian deaths decreased by nearly 17% from 2010 to 2011, the coalition force said in its December monthly report.

Insurgents caused more than 85% of civilian deaths and injuries in 2011, according to the report.

CNN's Jennifer Deaton contributed to this report

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Snowstorms Take A Toll In Afghan Refugee Camps

NPR
By Quil Lawrence
February 14, 2012

Kabul's fourth snowstorm in the past month brought children out to play across the city, including those in the Charahi Qambar refugee camp in the western part of the capital.

Many of the children in the camp don't remember any other life outside of this mud-brick shantytown. Most of their parents fled the southern province of Helmand when the war heated up there four years ago.

Opening the plastic sheet that serves as a door to her one-room home, Ram Bibi's hands shake from arthritis and the cold. She left Helmand four years ago after a bombardment that killed her husband. Now her home is a room about 10 by 20 feet wide, where she says 13 people sleep, most of them children.

"This is the worst winter we've had," she says, noting that the families in the area came from the warmer areas in southern Afghanistan. "The kids don't realize that playing in the snow and getting wet can leave them with a deadly chill as night falls."

Still Dependent On Aid

Despite a decade of substantial Western aid, Afghanistan remains one of the world's poorest countries, and this winter is testing the government's ability to help its citizens in need. The cold has claimed the lives of at least two dozen children so far.

At another house in the Charahi Qambar refugee camp, Aw Muhammad pulls back the curtain on an even smaller room where he, his wife and his children sleep. There were nine in the family, he says, until the last storm hit. His daughter Naghma was just 2 years old — and was beautiful and healthy until this winter.

"She got really, really sick when the ground was really cold," he says. "She died at night while she was sleeping, and [when] we woke in the morning, she was dead."

Muhammad points to snow that is melting off his makeshift roof. The water soaks the floor and makes it impossible to feel warm at night, even next to the family's small, smoky wood stove.

"This is the coldest winter in many years, some would say decades," says Ken Yamashita, who directs the U.S. Agency for International Development in Afghanistan. He says that media reports about the deaths in the camp have inspired a flood of donations.

A Slow Government Response

The Afghan government, however, was slow to react to the problems in the camps. Dayem Kaakar, director of Afghanistan's National Disaster Management Authority, says the government still isn't ready to handle a crisis on its own, and probably won't be for years to come.

There is also a political dimension to the camps. The government and international organizations have resisted setting up permanent shelters or aid distribution for fear of making the camps more permanent. Even as the aid started to flow, some leaders in the camp were angry.

"To hell with President Karzai," said Taj Muhhammad Khan, an elected leader of the Charahi Qambar camp. "They don't even treat us like we're from Afghanistan. The government just wants us to disappear."

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New Ministers Introduce to Afghan Parliament for Vote

TOLOnews.com
Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Afghan Minister in Parliamentary Affairs, Homayoun Azizi on Wednesday said that some changes have been brought in the Afghan cabinet.

Mr Azizi said that the list of ministers has been sent to Afghan parliament to win vote of confidence.

It comes after some MPs criticised the government for not introducing the remaining cabinet and Supreme Court members to win vote of confidence.

Several ministries including Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Transport and Aviation, Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Water and Energy, Ministry of Women's Affairs, Ministry of Communication and Technology and Ministry of Urban Development are still being managed by acting ministers since nearly two years.

The Afghan Parliament has said that MPs have 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.

The Afghan Civil Society Forum also criticised this week and said that the 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.

List of new ministers:

1- Obaidullah Obaid, Minister of Higher Education.

2- Engineer Najibullah Aazhang, Minister of Public Works.

3- Dr Hassan Abdulhai, Minister of Urban Development.

4- Wais Barmak, Minister of Rural Development.

5- Suraya Dalil, Minister of Public Health.

6- Mohammad Ismail Khan, Minister of Energy and Water.

7- Husn Banu Ghazanfar, Minister of Women Affairs.

8- Amirzai Sangin, Minister of Communication and Technology.

9- Daoud Ali Najafi, Minister of Transport and Aviation.

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Afghan government asks for headscarves, less make-up on TV

Reuters
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
Wed Feb 15, 2012
KABUL

An Afghan government request that female television presenters don headscarves and avoid heavy make-up angered journalists on Tuesday, who said the move was proof authorities expected the Taliban to regain a share of power.

Afghan and U.S. officials have been seeking peace negotiations with the Islamist group ousted over a decade ago as a means to ensure stability after foreign combat troops leave, though the talks are in a very fragile state.

In a letter distributed to media, the Ministry of Culture and Information said it had received complaints from members of parliament and families that female news presenters were not observing Islamic and cultural ethics.

"All female news presenters must avoid heavy make-up and wear a headscarf," Minister Sayed Makhdoom Rahin told Reuters by telephone, adding this applied to state and private TV stations.

The ministry's plea came as a surprise to some Afghan media. Journalists all female anchors appear with their heads covered, sparking suggestions the directive was designed to impress the Taliban by pandering to their ultra-conservative views.

"Since we are at the beginning of serious peace and reconciliation talks, the government wants to show they are like the Taliban," said Zarghoona Roshan, a radio journalist for 10 years before she joined media development group Nai.

"The request itself is useless," Roshan added, adjusting her two-toned black and grey headscarf. Nai, which also tracks media infringements, estimates there are around 120 female TV presenters across the country.

Nai's executive director Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar said the government had been piling pressure over the past year to restrict content and "keep the public away from the facts they need.

"We have concerns, fears, that this pressure is the beginning of media limitation and this is because of the Taliban. They are paving the way for them," he said.

Khalvatgar cited numerous examples of pressure on the press over the last year, including throwing acid on a veteran Afghan journalist and preventing a Turkish soap opera from being aired.

While Afghan women have gained back basic rights in education, voting and work since the Taliban was toppled in 2001, their plight remains severe and future uncertain as Afghan and U.S. officials seek to negotiate with the hardline group.

As the 2014 deadline looms for foreign combat troops to return home, some activists in and outside Afghanistan fear that women's rights may be sacrificed in the scramble to ensure the West leaves behind a relatively stable and peaceful state.

U.S. officials said last week they wanted to accelerate the talks so peace negotiations can be announced at a NATO summit in May. The Taliban's announcement last month that it was opening a political office in Qatar was seen as a prelude to peace talks.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Foreign powers hijack Afghan peace process

Examiner.com
By Michael Hughes Afghanistan Headlines Examiner
February 14, 2012

Instead of trying to broker a settlement between the corrupt Afghan government and the Taliban as the Americans make their way towards the exit door, they should simply leave – and bring Hamid Karzai with them.

Foreign meddling in Afghan affairs has done more damage than good over the past two centuries, especially since 1973 when King Zahir Shah was ousted in a bloodless coup due to the confluence of three external anti-nationalist phenomena: communism, pan-Islamic extremism and CIA intrigue.

Today the Afghans are trapped in a violent nexus between three other essentially non-indigenous forces: the Karzai regime, Karzai’s Western benefactors and the Taliban as other outside interlopers try to shepherd a peace process that exists in name only.

The Obama administration’s mercurial AfPak policy and misguided reconciliation strategy is obviously being driven by domestic politics. The U.S. went from killing and capturing Taliban leaders at a record clip under King David to practically begging Mullah Omar to engage in peace talks.

The U.S. has gone so far as to applaud the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar, without consulting the Afghans, which has carved a path for the Taliban to be recognized by the international community as a legitimate political entity.

Former Ambassador Peter Tomsen, who was a special envoy to the Afghan resistance in the 1980s, wrote an interesting piece last week in the L.A. Times about the perils and futility of foreign powers interfering in local Afghan politics.

Tomsen also mentions how American and German diplomats with “behind-the-scenes” Pakistani participation have been powering the Afghan peace process – a development he described as “problematic”. Tomsen elaborates:

Foreign forays into the forbidding Afghan political cauldron have invariably spawned greater disunity. They upset traditional tribal and ethnic consensus processes that Afghans informally use to resolve their differences.

Tomsen recommends that the U.S. withdraw from direct involvement in the intra-Afghan negotiations. However, the writing on the wall informs that direct, unilateral American meddling will continue, which is bound to undermine any genuine reconciliation efforts.

Meanwhile, rogue initiatives by certain U.S. politicians who have publicly supported the northern alliance could lead to political fragmentation within Afghanistan. These northern warlords are just as sadistic and have as much blood on their hands as the Taliban, not to mention a policy based on backing Panjshiri-led minority groups against the Pashtun majority is a formula for perpetual civil war.

The only argument I would make to Peter Tomsen is that the two main parties involved in the “intra-Afghan” discussions are not indigenous to Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai is seen as a Western puppet and the Taliban are nothing more than an extended expeditionary force of the Pakistani state.

Tomsen concludes, with wisdom, that the guiding principle for U.S. policy in Afghanistan going forward should be based on a statement special envoy Marc Grossman made in late January, who said: “Only Afghans can decide the future of Afghanistan.”

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Afghan Investors Scared by Kidnapping Wave

Businessmen suspect they make easy targets for organised criminals linked to government.

IWPR
By Mina Habib
14 Feb 12
Afghanistan

Afghan police and relatives of powerful officials have been linked to a wave of kidnapping and killing that threatens to scare away investors vital to economic recovery.

When Shour Niazi, a trader, was kidnapped in the capital Kabul on January 20, it was by armed men in the uniform of the National Security Directorate, the domestic intelligence agency.

Once inside the vehicle, they pulled a black mask over his face and drove him to a building where he was detained and beaten every day, while the kidnappers demanded a three million US dollar ransom from his family.

“When they realised they wouldn’t get the money, they wanted to kill me,” Niazi told IWPR. “I made a hole in the wooden ceiling of the room and escaped. I then informed the police, who arrested some of them.”

Niazi has little confidence the men will be punished. He says suspects in such cases are always released.

Kidnappings are nothing new in Afghanistan, but some fear the problem is escalating ahead of the 2014 withdrawal of American forces.

The Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, ACCI, says 85 of its members have been killed or abducted since late March 2011, 20 more than in the preceding 12 months.

Ahmad Shah Hakimi, deputy chairman of the Kabul Chamber of Commerce, believes police were complicit in an attack on his entourage while he was transporting three million dollars last July.

The assailants attempted to kidnap Hakimi and his brother, and killed two of his bodyguards. Although the abduction attempt failed, they made off with the money, held in a box inside Hakimi’s vehicle.

The circumstances of the attack made him suspicious.

“If government officials are not supporting these groups, how come they were able to kill two of my bodyguards and steal my money close to a police checkpoint?” he asked.

ACCI vice-chairman Khan Jan Alokozay told IWPR that his organisation believes senior officials and their relatives, rather than insurgent groups or ordinary criminals, are involved,

“These are officials who have positions in the government. High ranking officials support them and they use government facilities,” he alleged.

When the perpetrators of abductions are arrested, Alokozay says they are often released soon afterwards on the orders of corrupt officials.

“There are documents and evidence available that indicate that some kidnappers have been released by the legal and judicial authorities,” he said.

Alokozay said criminal proceedings against suspected kidnappers had been derailed by interference in Paktia and Logar provinces, and in Jalalabad city in Nangarhar province, all in eastern areas of Afghanistan.

“Investment has fallen by 30 percent because of these factors,” he added.

Alokozay said police were currently under pressure to release a man arrested last month for alleged involvement in a kidnapping. The pressure, he said, was being exerted by the suspect’s brother, a member of the Meshrano Jirga or upper house of parliament.

General Mohammad Zaher, head of criminal investigations at Kabul police headquarters, acknowledged that this was the case but insisted the force would not be swayed.

“The senator is exerting pressure on us to release his brother,” he said. “We have never released a criminal because he is a someone’s relative or client, nor will we ever do so.”

The general insisted the police had a good record on solving abduction cases.

“The police have acted successfully in every kidnapping case, and have arrested the criminals with all due haste,” he said.

His predecessor in the post, however, conceded that some members of the Afghan National Police had taken part in kidnappings.

“When I was head of criminal investigations at Kabul police headquarters, I arrested about seven police officers for involvement in such cases,” Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, now director of criminal investigations at the Afghan interior ministry, said.

Sayedzada said the courts needed to make more of an effort to ensure suspects were prosecuted.

“I would urge the legal and judicial bodies to act swiftly and seriously in solving these cases,” he said.

Officials at the prosecution service and Supreme Court declined to be interviewed on these matters.

Economists warn that increasing lawlessness targeting businesses is bad news. With international aid expected to decline following the withdrawal, domestic economic activity will become increasingly important. But crime and poor security could prompt an exodus of investors and their capital.

Economist Hekmat Samsor says poor security and suspicions of official complicity in criminality is already hitting businesses hard.

“When investors are kidnapped or assassinated, and when they don’t feel safe, they will undoubtedly freeze their capital and transfer it abroad,” he said. “I’ve personally witnessed the closure of dozens of companies and factories. They have all stopped working for this one reason.”

Businessman Babrak Sherzai is among those now considering leaving because of the lack of protection.

“Over the past decade, investors have faced many problems – interference by neighbouring countries, extortion by police on the highways, kidnapping, and assassination – yet the government has done nothing about it,” he said. “If security cannot be guaranteed for our capital, for ourselves and for our families, we will have to move abroad.”

After his kidnap experience, Niazi is considering leaving Afghanistan for a safer environment.

“I don’t think I will be able to continue living in this country under these circumstances,” he said. “I have to think of other options that will allow me to survive.”

Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained contributor in Kabul.

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US Needs Assurance Freed Taliban Would Not Return to Battlefield