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12 April 2012
FEATURE STORY
In Afghanistan, who follows Hamid Karzai?
BUSINESS
No articles featured today
NATION
Australia-Afghan Strategic Agreement Drafted for Nato Summit
A Stable Afghanistan Is Still Possible
Elite female night raiders break down barriers in Afghanistan
Band Aid
US In Afghanistan For the Long Run: Grossman
Afghanistan Plans to Sell Scandal-Scarred Kabul Bank in June
Taliban Wages a Poppy War to Protect a Cash Crop
Rasmussen Hails Afghan Commandos in Kabul Visit
Post-ABC News poll shows drop in Republican support for Afghan war
French left preps NATO allies for fast Afghan exit
Parliament Calls for Deputy Finance Minister to be Sacked
Trade Through West Afghan Province on the Up
Putin signals support for NATO Afghan supply hub
Husband Arrested in Investigation into Beheaded Woman
US not keeping Pakistan in the dark: Grossman
Afghan Officials Request US to Remain Beyond 2014
Chief warns against cutting troops after Afghan war
Afghanistan: Shia Clerics Ban Marriage Payments
Ex-Taliban envoy 'bound for UAE'
The long and winding road to the presidential election
Turkmenistan Will Deliver Gas to Afghanistan for 30 Years
PRESS RELEASES
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FEATURE STORY
In Afghanistan, who follows Hamid Karzai?
The Washington Post
By David Ignatius
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Americans are clamoring to speed up the 2014 security transition in Afghanistan so that U.S. troops can come home sooner. But the buzz in Kabul is about the political transition to a post-Karzai government — and whether that handover should be accelerated.
Under the Afghan constitution, a presidential election must take place before the end of 2014 to choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai, who won a second term in 2009. But there’s growing talk about moving up the election to 2013, when more NATO troops will be there to provide security.
“There are perfectly good arguments why 2013 would be a good time” for the presidential election, William Patey, Britain’s ambassador in Kabul, said in an interview with the Guardian newspaper last week. He added that the British “wouldn’t have any objections.” Afghanistan’s independent election commission would have to approve any change.
One argument for an earlier election is that it would focus attention on the political transition ahead — rather than on just the military situation. An emphasis on military issues at the expense of politics and governance has plagued the U.S. effort in Afghanistan since the beginning.
“We have a very detailed and micromanaged security transition plan, but we don’t really have any functional plan for the transfer of political power,” complains one adviser to the NATO mission in Kabul.
The Obama administration is assuming the election will take place as scheduled in 2014. But regardless of the polling date, some top U.S. officials agree it’s time to focus more on politics and a bit less on the military handover that gets the headlines. Already, Ryan Crocker, the veteran U.S. ambassador in Kabul, is expanding his outreach to Afghan politicians in the hope of encouraging a new generation of leaders, post-Karzai.
I don’t know where this sort of political outreach fits in the toolbox of U.S. power. Some would argue that it should be a CIA function, since it may involve covert contacts and money. But why not do this political work openly, through the embassy? It seems crazy to have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to stabilize Afghanistan, and then pretend Washington isn’t interested in shaping the political landscape and encouraging a strong and popular successor to Karzai.
A U.S. focus on Afghan politics might confound the Taliban. Right now, the insurgents seem to think that if they can outlast the planned withdrawal of NATO combat troops, who will give up their lead role in mid-2013, then they’re home free. The Taliban might be less sanguine, and more eager to bargain, if they saw the United States encouraging new political leaders.
“There is little doubt in my mind that the U.S. government needs to make an effort to support key moderate leaders in each of the groups,” argues one prominent Afghan business leader. A deal with the Taliban before there’s a new Afghan government “will end in tears,” he warns.
Here are some of the political prospects mentioned by U.S., European and Afghan analysts: Farooq Wardak, a Pashtun who is education minister; Hanif Atmar, a Pashtun former interior minister; Ashraf Ghani, a Pashtun former finance minister who is now helping manage transition efforts; Amrullah Saleh, a Tajik former intelligence chief; Atta Mohammad Noor, the popular Tajik governor of Balkh province; Shukria Barakzai, a Pashtun member of parliament who speaks out on women’s issues; and Razaman Bashardost, a Hazara former planning minister who campaigns against corruption.
Any of these Afghan politicians (and there are a dozen more I could have mentioned) would give the country a more dynamic political face — less corrupt and more competent than the mercurial Karzai has proved to be. “We need a new political dynamic that is stable and aligned with our security interests,” stresses the NATO adviser.
With an election ahead to decide Afghanistan’s political future, why is the U.S. government trying so hard to negotiate a deal now with the Taliban? That’s a good question. Perhaps the Obama administration simply started the process of outreach to the enemy a year too soon, before a new leadership team was forming in Kabul.
The deadlocked negotiations with the Taliban are another reason to focus more on politics — so that a more popular and less tainted Afghan government could bargain over the country’s future with an enemy that, however potent its roadside bombs, is widely disliked.
“Karzai’s departure may very well allow us to press the ‘reset’ button,” says the Afghan businessman. The sooner the better.
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BUSINESS
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NATION
Australia-Afghan Strategic Agreement Drafted for Nato Summit
TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Afghanistan is on the cusp of signing a strategic agreement with Australia following the visit of Australia's Defense Minister to Kabul on Wednesday.
Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith said Australia is interested in forging a strategic partnership with Afghanistan during his meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the Presidential Palace, according to a statement from Karzai's office.
The draft of the strategic partnership document has been given to the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs for review and is expected to be signed by the leaders of the two nations during the Nato conference in May, the statement said.
"Smith stressed that Australia is also interested in long-term cooperation with Afghanistan and gave assurances that the international community would not leave Afghans alone beyond 2014," it said.
Smith had visited Australian defense forces in southern Afghanistan before the meeting and told Karzai he believed Uruzgan province was "fully prepared" for the third phase of security transition.
Karzai's office said the President thanked Australia for its assistance and cooperation with Afghanistan, especially in building education in Uruzgan, and that the government would review the draft agreement quickly in order for it to be approved by the time of the Nato summit.
Afghanistan is also expected to sign a long-term strategic agreement with the United States at the Nato summit.
It has already signed similar agreements with the United Kingdom, Italy, France, and India.
Australia is the largest non-Nato contributor of foreign soldiers to the Nato-led mission in Afghanistan. It has 1550 soldiers mainly based in Uruzgan province.
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A Stable Afghanistan Is Still Possible
The insurgency persists, but if the U.S. doesn't withdraw prematurely, Afghan security forces will be able to contain it by 2014.
Wall Street Journal
By MICHAEL O'HANLON And BRUCE RIEDEL
April 11, 2012
There is no easy victory in sight in Afghanistan, but we are closer to accomplishing our goals than many assume. By late 2014 it will no longer be necessary to keep significant numbers of combat troops there.
The recent accord transferring main night-raid responsibility to Afghan forces, while perhaps a bit hurried at Afghan insistence, nonetheless reflects progress and is welcome news. At a time when discussion of the war has become very negative in the U.S., we need to bear these points in mind—and resist self-fulfilling fatalism and a premature withdrawal.
The good news is that the Obama administration appears unlikely to waver anytime soon. Its officials have declared that no further draw downs will be considered until the current one, bringing U.S. troops down to 68,000 from 100,000 by the end of September, is complete. In particular, we need to see how conditions evolve in the east, where this year's main anti-insurgency efforts will likely occur. However, the more worrisome news is that in a political year, with electoral pressures rising, a steady policy hand in the White House should not be assumed indefinitely into the future.
Overall, while NATO and the Afghan government have plenty of problems, the Taliban have been losing the war on the battlefield and remain hugely unpopular among the Afghan population. Our problems pale next to the enemy's. It can still win by exploiting our vulnerabilities, but only if we let it.
The Taliban narrative goes something like this: President Hamid Karzai's government is a corrupt puppet that will fall once NATO troops depart. NATO nations are irresolute infidels, looking for any excuse to leave a war they know they can't win. The massacre of 17 Afghans by U.S. Sgt. Robert Bales last month is more proof that Westerners don't care about the Afghan people. All security trends favor the Taliban, as spectacular attacks—like the assault last September on the U.S. Embassy—from Kabul to Kandahar to Kunduz reveal over the last two years.
Every point in this account is something between a huge exaggeration and a cynical lie:
In fact, Kabul is a fairly safe city—and it's safe largely because Afghan forces protect it. Less than 1% of all enemy-initiated attacks occur there; statistically it is far less dangerous than Iraq's Baghdad or Pakistan's Karachi. Yet the narrative reinforced by Taliban media releases emphasizes the spectacular attacks. There hasn't been one in months, but the daily news cycle tends not to note such favorable trends.
Violence in the south is down by a third to half, despite the Bales tragedy and a recent "green on blue" incident in which an Afghan killed two British soldiers. Many if not most Taliban weapons caches are gone, NATO officials say, and governance has improved substantially in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. The north and west are worse than they were in 2002-07 but somewhat better than in 2009-10. The situation in these regions is no longer deteriorating.
Afghan security forces are leading 40% of operations nationwide. According to the commander of U.S. forces, Gen. John Allen, these soldiers are "better than we thought." The Taliban are acutely aware that Afghan security forces are now 330,000-strong and much improved. That is why the Taliban are desperate to disrupt their partnership with NATO.
Mr. Karzai is still a challenge. We cannot afford a repeat of the 2009 undemocratic presidential election. Mr. Obama's handling of that process was his biggest mistake in the war. But the huge news is that Mr. Karzai has firmed up his plans to step down in 2014. We now need to get on with supporting Afghan political parties, opposition candidates and parliament to create the ingredients for a good 2014 election to replace him.
The Taliban may talk with bravado, yet they have been decimated in many ways. Sanctuaries in Pakistan provided by that country's Inter-Services Intelligence organization still protect Taliban leaders. But we have been taking hundreds of local Taliban commanders off the battlefield per year, with the result that the average age of those who remain has declined to 23 or so, from 35. In short, we are hurting, but the enemy is hurting more. Their actions demonstrate it. For instance, While it is regrettable that the Taliban have suspended peace talks, their mere interest in such talks is unprecedented. It probably reflects their own, and Pakistan's, sense of their vulnerabilities.
Afghanistan still has huge problems, and no clear victory is within reach by 2014. We lost that opportunity years ago, and the insurgency is likely to persist. But the goal can and should be that Afghan forces will increasingly contain and combat it on their own. At that point, perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 foreign forces can suffice—to mentor Afghan units in the field, and for air power and intelligence support, training and special operations.
Moving to such a small force prematurely, however, would leave the country's east too infiltrated by insurgents. It would also prevent the partnering and apprenticeship work with Afghan units in the field—which requires NATO combat formations, not just advisers. Things are better than many realize. We have an exit strategy that is already being implemented. So it is important not to rush it.
Mr. O'Hanlon is co-author, with Martin Indyk and Kenneth Lieberthal, of the new book, "Bending History: Barack Obama's Foreign Policy" (Brookings). Mr. Riedel is the author of "Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of the Global Jihad (Brookings, 2011). Both are senior fellows at the Brookings Institution.
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Elite female night raiders break down barriers in Afghanistan
Reuters
By Mirwais Harooni
11/04/2012
KABUL
Crouching behind a wooden barrier, 27-year-old Sergeant Sara Delawar fires her M-4 rifle at a target showing the silhouette of a man, part of a training exercise for Afghan special forces.
Anxious to defuse tensions stoked by foreign male soldiers raiding Afghans' homes at night in what is a conservative Muslim country, Afghanistan has begun training elite female troops to join Afghan male soldiers on operations.
"Before we joined this unit, our operations were done by foreign troops and they did not know our culture. People were critical so we joined to help out," Delawar, a former policewoman in Jowzjan province, said.
"I have already fought the Taliban. My comrades were martyred in fights with the Taliban and we have killed them too, but during the night raids I haven't fought insurgents yet."
Fluent in four local languages, Delawar is one of only 12 female soldiers who has been trained to fight and conduct searches in what is an attempt to pay greater respect to cultural sensitivities.
Surprise night raids in pursuit of militants have long stoked anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan, with many locals seeing them as assaults on their privacy and on women's privacy in particular.
In conservative southern areas of the country where the Taliban is strong, such raids have created even more ill will.
On Sunday after months of tense negotiations, Afghanistan and the United States agreed that only Afghan forces would search residential homes or compounds.
As well as seeking to assuage cultural sensitivities, the new strategy is aimed at lowering civilian casualties and shoring up President Hamid Karzai's popularity at a time when foreign combat troops are handing over to Afghan forces.
"It's unacceptable for us to see male soldiers body-searching females. Men are not allowed to touch females," third-lieutenant Binazir, 24, said.
"I'm proud to say that I'm here to serve my country side by side with my brothers. I'm proud that Afghan girls are here and I hope more girls join in order to provide better services for brothers and sisters in the battlefield and save lives."
NO EASY TASK
At a training facility on the outskirts of Kabul, the Afghan capital, suspected militants inside a mock-up house are advised to leave the building via loudspeaker. A hijab-wearing woman cries and asks where the soldiers are taking her brother.
Female soldiers lead her by the arm away from the scene.
"The training they've already received in this unit has had a good outcome during night raids," Captain Mohammad Khalid, head of training at the special forces, said.
"In order to launch our operations in a good manner we have to have 100 female officers in our forces."
The program began two months ago and drew women from the Tajik, Uzbek, Turkmen and Hazara ethnic groups, but not from the Pashtun where the Taliban recruit most of their fighters.
The task of finding women has become even more important ahead of a pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014.
Afghanistan is still recovering from the strict social conservatism of the Taliban, whose hardline laws during their 1996-2001 rule marginalized women, stripping them of the right to work, study or move freely.
The country remains one of the world's worst places for women and setting up female special forces was not an easy task.
Recruitment is especially tricky. Women are put off by the prospect of social rejection and disapproval from their families.
Traditionally confined to their homes, women also face problems their male comrades do not.
"My children were attending school in Jowzjan, but here they don't because I'm not at home and they can't go by themselves," said Delawar, a mother-of-two and a widow.
"I hope there is support for them to get educated especially when I'm out of my house on the duty."
(Writing by Jack Kimball; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
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Band Aid
Teaching Afghan soldiers to play in sync
The Atlantic
By Brian Mockenhaupt
May 2012 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE
“My family doesn’t know what I’m doing out here,” says Bashordost, a sergeant in Afghanistan’s 205th Corps. He asks to be identified by a single name only, because he fears that if his family knew that he’s in the Afghan army, someone might tell a neighbor, and the Taliban might kill him. As a cover for their real jobs, he and several fellow troops from the southern city of Kandahar have pooled their money to buy a taxi. “We don’t know our enemy. They are everywhere,” he says. Nonetheless, three times each week, Bashordost and his colleagues head to an army base near Kandahar Airfield, where they train with their American counterparts. As with nearly every aspect of the war these days, the hope is that such partnering exercises will enable the Afghan forces to eventually take full responsibility for their mission.
In Bashordost’s case, that mission is to play the trumpet. After tea and snacks, the Americans and Afghans in this stripped-down barracks break into groups—trumpets, trombones, euphoniums, drums—and the space fills with a sound that drifts between coherent music and an off-key racket. “Just like sixth-grade band class,” says Staff Sergeant David Proctor, a trombone player with the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division band. Today, the Afghan band is practicing a few Russian-inspired military marches. An interpreter helps with instructions, but the Americans have also developed a few communication shortcuts. Specialist James Leggett, a trumpet player, learned a few Pashto phrases for the training sessions: Everyone play together. Louder. Stronger. Breathe. He’ll also play a tune the right way and give a thumbs-up, then play it wrong and give a thumbs-down.
Military bands no longer lead formations into battle, as they did for centuries, but they still serve their original larger purpose: boosting morale and esprit de corps. The 10th Mountain Division has sent soldiers to play at dining facilities and ceremonies and to tour remote outposts, entertaining troops with Avalanche, its six-piece rock band; Task Force Dixie, a New Orleans jazz-and-blues band; and Bunker Brass, a quintet. They’re a talented crew: U.S. soldiers must audition to be Army musicians. Those who make it include some promising high-school graduates, but a good number have studied music in college. After learning in basic training to shoot rifles and throw grenades, they have 10 weeks of band practice and advanced music theory.
Many of the Afghan soldiers, by contrast, become army musicians knowing almost nothing about music. Some are moved more by the prospect of a $400 monthly paycheck than by any deep interest in the subject. But the band’s troubles run deeper than talent, as is true of other parts of the Afghan security forces. While the army’s main band, in Kabul, has 90 members and a full complement of instruments, its other five bands are ragtag, lacking instruments, training, and possibly motivation. This one, the 205th Corps band, which is based outside Kandahar City, has just 11 members. When Chief Warrant Officer Tim Wallace, a trumpet player and the leader of the 10th Mountain Division band, first met the Afghan musicians six months ago, they were poorly equipped and poorly trained. Their instruments were dented, with pieces of tape covering air leaks. The band could play one song, and not very well.
Because few of the Afghan soldiers could read music, the band’s leader, Major Mohammed Khetab Nejrabi, had been teaching by repetition and memorization. Nejrabi graduated in the early 1980s from Kabul’s military music school and served in the army for the next 14 years, first as an office assistant and then as a company commander. He later worked as a cook and a construction laborer. Five years ago, he rejoined the army as a bandleader, using his musical training for the first time. He mostly taught his men the instrument he knows best, which is how the band came to have one man on trombone, one on euphonium, one on cymbals, one on snare drum, one on bass drum, and six on trumpet.
In the months since the Americans began joining their counterparts at the 205th Corps’ weekly formation, the Afghans have mastered six marches and their national anthem. Most of the soldiers have also learned to read rudimentary sheet music. And with money from a special U.S. fund for outfitting Afghan security forces, Wallace bought the band new instruments. He skipped woodwinds, American favorites that would likely be ruined by Kandahar’s dry, searing heat, and instead added a French horn and a tuba, though no one knows how to play them.
And yet Wallace, like other military mentors across Afghanistan, is learning that many of the stubbornest deficiencies here are not material, but institutional. A vivid illustration of the problem comes midway through practice, when Nejrabi tells me he doesn’t hold high aspirations for his band.
“They don’t really like to be musicians,” he says, nodding toward his men, who sit a few feet away, listening. “It’s an easy job, and they’re not going out on missions. They come out here to pass the time, make some money, and be safe.”
As Nejrabi speaks, Wallace stares at him in disbelief. “He doesn’t know the first thing about leadership,” Wallace tells me later. “Why is he saying that in front of them?” He shakes his head. “I have my work cut out for me.” Brian Mockenhaupt is a writer and former infantryman.
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US In Afghanistan For the Long Run: Grossman
TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
The imminent signing of the Afghanistan-US long term pact should signal to Afghans, insurgents and the regional nations alike that the United States is in Afghanistan for the long run, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, said on Tuesday.
The long-term agreement was just part of the message that there will be a US presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014, Grossman said in a speech at the US Institute of Peace in Washington DC.
"The sooner we can sign the [strategic partnership deal] with Afghanistan, people then will have to realise that there is going to be an American presence in Afghanistan for some time to come," he said.
"So Afghans, the Taliban, the region, including Iran, will then say, 'Aha, well now, how do I react to that?"
The negotiations for the pact, which will govern when, where and how the US troops will be deployed after 2014, were well underway, he said.
He pointed out that the transfer of responsibility for Bagram military prison and night operations to Afghan security forces had ensured the finalisation of the long-term agreement soon.
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Afghanistan Plans to Sell Scandal-Scarred Kabul Bank in June
Bloomberg
By Eltaf Najafizada and James Rupert
April 11, 2012
Afghanistan’s government plans to sell the country’s biggest commercial bank in June after seizing it in 2010 from owners who lost more than $800 million of depositors’ money through illegal insider loans.
“We expect to sell Kabul Bank in June” following a tender process, Noorullah Delawari, governor of Afghanistan’s central bank, said in an interview April 10 at his Kabul office.
The scandal led the International Monetary Fund to halt its loans to the country in 2010, prompting the U.S. and other governments to suspend aid on which President Hamid Karzai’s administration relies for most of its budget. The IMF said it sought the sale of Kabul Bank, as well as prosecution of Kabul Bank founders who lent money to themselves and to Karzai allies.
The IMF resumed lending to Afghanistan in November, saying it did so on the expectation that prosecutions and a recovery of lost assets would be accelerated this year.
Karzai ordered April 3 the establishment “at the earliest” of a special prosecutor and tribunal to pursue criminal charges against “those who have illegally taken loans from Kabul Bank,” his office said that day in a statement. Karzai and top aides, including Delawari, “set a two-month deadline for the full repayment of the loans illegally received” from Kabul Bank, the statement said.
Any recovery of the loans will take longer, Delawari said in the interview. “The illegal borrowers so far have admitted to receiving about $361 million and have promised to repay those loans within the next five years,” Delawari said in his office at the central bank headquarters, adjacent to Karzai’s presidential palace in central Kabul. Karzai ‘Deadline’
Karzai’s announcement of a “deadline” was not a demand for full repayment, but rather an offer that “if people pay the loans in the next two months, they will not be charged interest on those loans,” Delawari said.
The central bank, or Da Afghanistan Bank, has paid between $925 million and $935 million to bail out Kabul Bank, Delawari said, mostly to replace deposits that its former ousted chairman, Sherkhan Farnood, and chief executive officer, Khalilullah Ferozi, used to make insider loans.
In July, Deputy Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari said the two men had been arrested and charged with “embezzling more than $900 million.”
As of January, authorities had recovered about $77.5 million from Kabul Bank, about $40 million coming from repayment of illegal loans, Delawari said. IMF Deputy Managing Director Nemat Shafik said in November that “asset recovery and legal actions against the architects of the fraud have lagged and need to be pursued more forcefully” before the fund’s next review of its lending program, scheduled for May. Budget Rejected
The government’s difficulties in raising money for the bailout were underscored April 10 when its lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, rejected Karzai’s proposed budget for a second time in two weeks as legislators complained about an $80 million allocation for the bank rescue, the Pajhwok and state-run Bakhtar news agencies reported.
Delawari headed Da Afghanistan Bank from 2004 to 2007 before being named to run the Afghan Investment Support Agency. He worked for more than 20 years at U.S. commercial banks, serving as vice president of Lloyds Bank California, according to his biography on the investment agency website.
Karzai sent Delawari back to the central bank in November after the previous governor, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, fled the country amid government infighting over the Kabul Bank scandal. Fitrat, a U.S. citizen, returned to his home in suburban Washington saying he had received threats over his calls for the prosecution of Kabul Bank officials.
Karzai’s office said at the time Fitrat had fled after being summoned for questioning over his role in managing the aftermath of the scandal.
To contact the reporters on this story: Eltaf Najafizada in Kabul at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; James Rupert in New Delhi at
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Taliban Wages a Poppy War to Protect a Cash Crop
New York Times
By TAIMOOR SHAH and ALISSA J. RUBIN
April 11, 2012
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
So focused are the Taliban on securing this year’s opium poppy crop — and the support of the farmers tending it — that in the early days of their spring offensive in the south, they are targeting not only the officials trying to eradicate the plants, but also the tractors they use.
This year, the poppy fields that are so beautiful right now, carpeted with lithe red blossoms, are also sown with land mines — the product of the increased cooperation between poppy farmers and the militants they see as protectors of their economic interests, government officials say.
“This year there is more poppy cultivation in Helmand, especially in places where people have confiscated the government lands and in places that were desert,” said Daoud Ahmadi, the spokesman for the governor in Helmand Province. “The reason is that the Taliban promised and persuaded farmers to grow poppy and told them they would protect them.”
One suicide attack this week in Helmand Province, the poppy-growing capital not just of Afghanistan but of the world, was indicative of the far larger fight being taken up to control the crop across the southern opium belt, say government officials and the people who live there.
The multifaceted attack included a team of three suicide bombers, wearing police uniforms, who entered the Musa Qala district police headquarters intent on killing the police chief, who has been aggressive in his poppy-eradication efforts. Four officers died, and the chief was injured.
In the bazaar outside, other Taliban fighters strategically positioned two motorcycles loaded with explosives as close as possible to the tractors used in the anti-poppy campaign, said Niamatullah Khan, the Musa Qala district governor. A third explosives-laden motorcycle detonated elsewhere in the bazaar, killing three more police officers.
In Helmand, the government has embraced eradication as part of a comprehensive program to discourage farmers from growing poppies and to subsidize alternative crops. The program has been most successful in the Helmand River valley, and the Musa Qala district is far from the heart of the effort.
The program has been met with hostility by many local residents who say they are reduced to poverty without the income from the poppy crop. A study by the sociologist David Mansfeld, a researcher for Tufts University, noted that families who grow poppies eat meat more frequently and are more likely to be able to afford to marry off their children — weddings often come with crippling costs in Afghanistan, where relatives far and near must be hosted and fed.
“No one wants to see his poppy field destroyed. A farmer is even ready to fight for his poppy field,” said a merchant in Musa Qala who asked not to be named because the subject was so delicate. “If a son of a farmer is in the government and wants to destroy his father’s poppy field, the father would be happy if his son is killed by Taliban.”
Complicating matters is the hold that poppy profits have on government officials. Local farmers say that eradication is selective, meaning that officials often exempt the fields of relatives or of people who bribe them sufficiently.
In Musa Qala, the police chief — who is known locally only as Koka — has a reputation as a ruthless fighter against the Taliban. He has made it a cause to destroy their poppy fields, but not necessarily those of others, like the policemen who work for him, said several local residents.
While only a small part of the total income from poppies goes to the Taliban — roughly 10 percent, according to estimates by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime — but that adds up to a lot in a $4 billion-plus harvest.
“The police chief made a plan to eradicate the poppy fields of Taliban commanders first and then kill the poppy fields of those who are sympathetic with the Taliban, like landlords who help Taliban or those farmers whose sons or relatives are with Taliban,” the merchant said. “This decision really infuriated Taliban commanders, and by any means the Taliban wanted to kill Koka, so that’s why yesterday they made a big effort. You cannot imagine how lucky he was to survive.”
Mr. Khan, the district governor, described a chaotic scene: after the suicide bombers made their way into the police headquarters — their initial attacks muffled by silencers on their pistols — the chief burst out of his office. But then he hesitated, evidently confused by the attackers’ police uniforms.
One of the chief’s officers shouted, “They are not the real police,” Mr. Khan said. The chief pulled out his pistol and shot one of the attackers; as he did, the man’s suicide vest exploded, wounding the other two bombers and the chief himself. The chief was taken to a NATO hospital, local government officials said.
Mr. Ahmadi, the spokesman in the Helmand Province governor’s office, said the police chief did not give preferential treatment to some farmers while going after the Taliban, but he admitted that the government had found such a pattern in Marja, in central Helmand, with members of the police and the local council being allowed to grow poppies. That has since changed, he said.
He said that the militant leadership known as the Quetta Shura, in need of cash, had instructed the Taliban to plant poppies.
“The only means of income they are relying on now is the poppy in Afghanistan, especially in Helmand Province, so that’s why they are planting mines in poppy fields, staging direct attacks, ambushing the eradication campaign and sometimes engaging in prolonged firefights,” Mr. Ahmadi said.
The intense resistance to eradication means that there will be a substantial poppy harvest in Helmand and that the campaign may create dangerous resentment, Mr. Ahmadi said.
“I do not think it will be possible for the eradication campaign to destroy all the poppy fields in Helmand,” he said. “And any person whose fields are destroyed, he is becoming Taliban.”
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Rasmussen Hails Afghan Commandos in Kabul Visit
TOLOnews.com
Thursday, 12 April 2012
Nato's chief has made the endorsement of Afghan Special Forces a focus of his first trip to Afghanistan in more than a year.
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen arrived in Kabul late Wednesday evening and visited an Afghan Commandos training base just outside Kabul on Thursday morning, ahead of his meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the afternoon.
"Just visited Afghan Special Forces outside Kabul. Remarkable skills, they make a difference for Afghan security," he said via his official Twitter handle.
He said that he was confident the transition to full Afghan security responsibility was fully on track to be completed by the end of 2014.
While at the base, Rasmussen told those present that Afghan special forces were "some of the best in the world" and "the backbone of our strategy for handing over", according to an AP report.
His one-day visit comes six weeks out from the Nato summit in Chicago where decisions will be made on the strategy for the full security transition of Afghanistan to local forces before 2014 when foreign troops withdraw.
Nato countries are also expected to review the alliance's commitments to Afghanistan beyond 2014.
Rasmussen said in a news conference last week that for the transition to Afghan forces to be done by the end of 2014, nationwide control must be handed to Afghans by the middle or the second half of 2013.
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Post-ABC News poll shows drop in Republican support for Afghan war
Washington Post
By Scott Wilson and Jon Cohen
Thursday, April 12, 2012
A majority of Republicans say for the first time that the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll that comes as the continuing U.S. presence in that country is emerging as a key point of contention in the presidential race.
The poll findings are likely to present a challenge for Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, who has said that the goal in Afghanistan should be to defeat the Taliban on the battlefield.
President Obama stepped back from that goal during his 2009 strategy review and has set the end of 2014 as the departure date for all U.S. combat forces.
Overall, the Post-ABC News poll reflects a country bone-weary of war after more than a decade of fighting in Afghanistan and, until late last year, an almost nine-year engagement in Iraq.
Public support for the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan has fallen to an all-time low, with only 30 percent of respondents saying it has been worth fighting.
Since the 2001 invasion, almost 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed and more than 15,000 have been wounded in Afghanistan. According to the poll, two-thirds of Americans think the war has not been worth fighting, equaling the most negative public assessments of the U.S. war effort in Iraq.
Although foreign policy has been a peripheral issue in the presidential campaign, the poll’s findings highlight the difficulty Obama and Romney face in explaining U.S. policy to an increasingly war-weary electorate.
Obama, who announced the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan at the end of 2009, is now drawing down those forces with the goal of turning over security responsibilities to Afghan troops by the end of next year. The president intends to bring home all U.S. combat troops by the end of 2014 — and he is tapping into the nation’s war fatigue on the campaign trail.
“For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq,” Obama told an audience in Hollywood, Fla., at a campaign fundraising event Tuesday. “And we’ve begun to transition in Afghanistan to put Afghans in the lead, bring our troops home.”
But Romney, whose résuméis thin on foreign-policy experience, has criticized Obama’s management of the Afghanistan war.
In particular, the former Massachusetts governor has said that he would have listened more closely to his commanding generals, who have urged Obama to keep troops in place longer, and not set a specific timeline for withdrawal. Romney says that Obama’s doing so has allowed the Taliban to simply wait out the U.S. military.
“The governor’s position is that Americans are understandably tired of this war, and he recognizes that, in the end, the Afghan people have to prevail,” Richard S. Williamson, a senior foreign policy adviser to the Romney campaign, said in a recent interview. “But we have handicapped them by setting early withdrawal dates, by not being able to forge a more stable NATO coalition and by not broadening the political base in the country.”
The war effort has been rocky, and Obama at times has had trouble convincing his political advisers that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is a trustworthy partner in a risky endeavor to change the course of the war.
As public support for the war has faded — except for the ephemeral bump that followed the killing of Osama bin Laden — Obama heads toward November with Afghanistan as an uncertain asset in his reelection bid.
The Post-ABC News poll found that 48 percent of the public support his handling of the war and that 43 percent disapprove.
Almost two weeks after he outlined his surge policy at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in December 2009, a Post-ABC News poll found that a slight majority approved of Obama’s management of the war.
For Romney’s campaign, the slip in Republican support for the war could pose political difficulties, placing him outside the majority view of his party. For the first time, more Republicans and GOP-leaning independents oppose the war than support it, with 55 percent saying it has not been worth the costs.
The findings come a month after a U.S. soldier is alleged to have killed 17 Afghan civilians in what witnesses said was a house-to-house rampage. The soldier, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, had deployed three times to Iraq before arriving in Afghanistan in December.
The poll found that Americans are unsure about what, if anything, the incident reveals about the toll of the war on U.S. troops.
But eight in 10 of those polled say there should be limits on how long service members can be deployed to combat areas.
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French left preps NATO allies for fast Afghan exit
Reuters
By Brian Love and John Irish
Wed Apr 11, 2012
PARIS
France's Socialists will pull all combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2012, a year ahead of an accelerated withdrawal planned by the government, and has already discussed this with Britain and the United States, their chief defense adviser says.
In an interview, Jean-Yves Le Drian, chief defense aide to Socialist presidential frontrunner Francois Hollande, also told Reuters France would press for a review of long-standing demands for a bigger say in the U.S.-led NATO alliance's integrated military command structure.
Le Drian, tipped as probable defense minister in a left-wing government, said Hollande believed French combat troops had no business in Afghanistan now and a pullout should be executed within eight months if he wins an election where the final runoff takes place on May 6.
"NATO has announced a withdrawal date of 2014. We believe it's time to leave now," said Le Drian, who visited Washington and London in the past few weeks to discuss the message with France's main NATO partners as election day looms.
"I can't say I was greeted with cheers of applause in London or the United States but I don't think on the other hand that either of those two parties was surprised either," he said. "This is the position and it will be implemented."
Le Drian's comments came as President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is seeking re-election but expected to lose to Hollande, described the Socialists' end-2012 target for combat troop pullout as "totally irresponsible, and even dangerous".
After the killing of several French soldiers in Afghanistan by a rogue shooter, Sarkozy announced in January that he planned to accelerate a pullout of combat troops to 2013 from 2014.
Le Drian declined to elaborate on the details of how such a delicate troop pullout would be managed but said France would remain supportive of the broader political transition in the country after the withdrawal.
"This doesn't mean we're abandoning Afghanistan. We are determined to continue cooperation on a technical front," he said, citing training of Afghan military and police and also education and sanitation work in the country.
Defense analysts say it may prove technically complicated to withdraw by the end of the year without putting remaining troops in danger.
As well as some 2,200 combat troops, France has about 14 helicopters, 400 vehicles and 1,000 containers that would need to be shipped out. It would need to negotiate authorizations from Uzbekistan and Pakistan for road passages as well as agreements to hire planes large enough to carry such loads.
Preliminary U.S. estimates of pullout costs were circulating and one of those ballpark guesses was that the pullout might cost in the region of $150 million in France's case, said Le Drian.
NATO GRIPE
Hollande has also expressed reservations about Frances's 2008 decision under Sarkozy to rejoin NATO's integrated military command, from which President Charles de Gaulle withdrew France in 1966.
Le Drian, a veteran politician from the Brittany region who has known Hollande for nearly 30 years, said France under left-wing leadership would also seek reassurance on existing demands for a greater say in NATO, as Sarkozy had sought back in 2008.
The two key, and still outstanding, demands were that France be given a bigger say as a result of its decision to rejoin the military command structure and that the move would facilitate work on a European defense entity.
"France is not going to change foot on such important things every two weeks," he said.
If Hollande wins the election that takes place in two rounds on April 22 and May 6, one of his first big international dates will be the successive summits of G8 and NATO leaders on May 18 and 20 respectively.
"He (Hollande) will say 'Here I am, I am not going to break anything'."
(Additional reporting by Cyril Altmeyer; Editing by Myra MacDonald)
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Parliament Calls for Deputy Finance Minister to be Sacked
TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Afghanistan's House of Representatives called for the Minister of Finance to fire his deputy on Wednesday, or the House would call for the Finance Minister to take responsibility for his deputy's "disrespectful" comments.
Deputy Finance Minister, Mustafa Mastor, reportedly told journalists that parliamentary members had rejected the federal budget put forward by the Finance Ministry because they were not happy with their monthly salary.
Afghan legislators said such comments were not true and were disrespectful against the country's lawmakers.
Speaker for the House Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi said the Finance Minister Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal had until Saturday to fire the deputy minister and "restore the parliament's honor".
A number of parliamentarians said the statement was irresponsible and must be brought to the attention of the Attorney General.
Kabul parliamentary representative Shukria Barekzai said: "Vilification is itself a crime according to our laws and we call for the deputy minister to be fired as the law says."
The Parliament has twice rejected the budget proposed by the Finance Ministry for the current fiscal year, saying it was unbalanced in its allocation of funds to different provinces and for the allocation of $80 million to bailout Kabul Bank, among other things.
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Trade Through West Afghan Province on the Up
Traders say exports rising thanks to better business climate and security.
IWPR
By mohammadali.jawed, Harun Hakimi
11 Apr 12
Afghanistan
Exports from the western Afghan province of Herat have leapt by over a third as a result of a relaxation of customs rules, better international trade links and improved security, businessmen said.
Herat lies on ancient trade routes linking the Middle East with Central and South Asia, and borders on Turkmenistan as well as being Afghanistan’s major gateway to Iran.
The province produces saffron, rugs, cumin, marble, animal skins and wool, and should be prospering. But as in much of Afghanistan, businessmen frequently complain that free trade is hampered by continued conflict, endemic corruption, poor government policies, and a lack of markets abroad.
That situation is now improving, according to businessmen and officials, who credit a reduction in red tape and a supportive provincial chamber of commerce.
Officially-recorded exports from Herat province amounted to more than 30 million US dollars between March and September 2011, a 36 per cent increase on the figure reported for the same period of 2010, according to Amrullah Qalandarzoi, head of exports at the provincial customs department.
Some of the goods were bound for neighbouring Iran and Turkmenistan, while others were heading for the Middle East, India, Turkey and Europe.
Mohammad Rasul Fayeq, head of the rug makers’ association in Herat, said the carpet industry, which employs some 3,000 workers, most of them female, in western Afghanistan, had benefited significantly. Nearly 60 per cent more rugs were exported to Iran and on to Europe between March and September 2011 than in the same period of 2010.
The boom has prompted Herat’s biggest carpet trader, Abdol Zaher, to raise the wages he pays his workers from 60 to 300 dollars a month.
“I export about 30,000 square metres of carpets to Italy every year,” he said. “A lot of people put food on the table because of this Afghan industry.”
One of his employees is Nuria, 36, who became the breadwinner in her family when she lost her husband six years ago.
Before the pay rise, she could barely pay the rent and her two sons had to work to support the family, one in a bakery and the other selling plastic bags.
With the pay increase, Nuria hopes to send both sons to school.
Gholam Sediq Nuri, who sells rugs, cumin and saffron to the Middle East via Iran, said the chamber of commerce in Herat had been a great help. In the past, he had difficulty getting visas for Iran and other countries, often having to make a large down-payment.
“When the chamber of commerce introduced me to the embassies, however, I was able to get visas very easily,” he said. “Our trade has grown because Arab and European countries have opened their doors to Afghan traders, because we are producing more, and because – relatively speaking – security is fine.”
Khalil Ahmad Yarmand, the chamber’s executive manager, said it had helped exporters to market their goods and held trade fairs to attract foreign buyers.
“If things continue like this, Herat’s exports and people’s incomes will increase massively,” Yarmand said.
Although the security situation remains volatile in Herat, officials estimate than one third of the insurgents in the province have been “reintegrated” to civilian life over the last year, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Economic analyst Mohammad Jawad Panahi predicted that a continued rise in production and employment would in turn improve the security environment and cut drug smuggling.
Panahi attributes these improvements to greater efficiency at the customs office, and says the finance ministry has also negotiated with Afghanistan’s neighbours to allow freer border trade.
Mohammad Qasem, a farmer from Gozara district, 20 kilometres south of Herat city, has expanded his business as export opportunities have increased.
He grew cumin for many years, but earned little from it because he could only sell to Iranian and Pakistani buyers at low prices. Now he can trade with countries further afield, and he has bought two tractors with the profits and gone into business with his two brothers, who have returned from Iran where they were working.
“In the past, we grew tired of working because no one would buy our products and we couldn’t cover our costs,” he said. “Our fields are worth working now.”
Despite the improvements, no one is under any illusion about the many obstacles to trade that still exist.
Fayeq pointed out that while increasing amounts of carpets are exported to Iran through legitimate routes, 95 per cent are still smuggled illegally into Pakistan.
Gholam Mohammad, a saffron trader in Gozara, said that although trade conditions were better than ever before, security and “massive corruption” remained major problems.
Officials continued to demand a percentage from legitimate businesses, he said, adding, “If you want to launch an import-export company, you need to bear in mind that you aren’t the only shareholder. Government officials are your shareholders as well.”
Mohammad Ali Jawed and Harun Hakimi are IWPR-trained reporters in Herat province.
Harun Hakimi is an IWPR-trained reporter in Herat province, Afghanistan.
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Putin signals support for NATO Afghan supply hub
Reuters
By Gleb Bryanski
April 11, 2012
MOSCOW
President-elect Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called NATO a relic of the Cold War but said he supported letting the alliance use a Russian airport as a supply hub in support of its mission in Afghanistan.
Moscow is studying a request from NATO for use of facilities at an airport in the Volga River city of Ulyanovsk as a transit point for shipments of non-lethal supplies to and from Afghanistan by air, rail and road.
Russia has allowed Afghan-bound NATO transport through its territory since 2009 as an alternative to convoys through Pakistan, which have been subject to militant attacks, but no permanent facility was involved.
"I consider NATO ... a throwback to the Cold War era. It was created at a time when there was a bipolar system of international relations," said Putin, who has frequently criticized the alliance and its eastward expansion. But, in his last address to parliament as prime minister before his return to the Kremlin next month, Putin dismissed fears that NATO's use of the Ulyanovsk facility could represent a threat in Russia's heartland.
"There will be no NATO base there," he said, but only "a hop over pad" for military cargo transit.
"Therefore I assure you that nothing unusual, not corresponding to our national interests, is happening there. On the contrary, everything that is being done in this sphere fully corresponds to the national interests of our people," he told parliament's lower house.
In remarks that suggested Russia does not intend to decrease cooperation in Afghanistan, Putin said "in some cases NATO is playing the role of a stabiliser in global affairs" and included the Afghan mission among such cases.
Moscow's support is crucial to the United States and NATO ahead of the pullout of most combat troops by the end of 2014.
Putin has used vocal anti-Western rhetoric in his presidential campaign, criticizing NATO over its operation in Libya last year and accusing the United States of fomenting protests against his rule. He employed some of that rhetoric on Wednesday, saying that NATO "often sticks its nose where it is not necessary and oversteps its authority".
Russia says it opposes a long-term Western military presence in Afghanistan, but has also expressed fears that the spread of drugs and Islamist militancy toward its borders could worsen if NATO forces leave without first ensuring stability.
"We don't want our soldiers to fight on Tajik-Afghan border," Putin said.
The Soviet Union fought a disastrous war in Afghanistan and Russia ruled out sending troops to aid the U.S.-led invasion after the September 11, 2001, attacks, but Putin - president at the time - offered the use of Russian airspace and other support.
(Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)
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Husband Arrested in Investigation into Beheaded Woman
TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
The husband of a woman found beheaded in Khost province has been arrested in the ongoing investigation into the case, local officials said.
The police of Ali Sher district in the eastern province arrested the husband for suspected involvement in the murder of his wife, but he has not been formally charged, provincial police chief General Sardar Mohammad Zazai told TOLOnews.
He said the woman had been dragged from her home by unidentified armed men and then beheaded.
Her decapitated body was found by the district's local police among some ruins.
The exact date of her death was not clear, and the investigation is underway, he said.
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US not keeping Pakistan in the dark: Grossman
DAWN.com
11/04/2012
WASHINGTON
The United States has not kept Pakistan in the dark on its efforts to seek a negotiated settlement to the Afghanistan, says Marc Grossman.
At a Washington forum on prospects for peace in Afghanistan, Mr Grossman also said that a new economic bloc that connects South and Central Asia – with Pakistan and Afghanistan in the centre – can play a key role in bringing peace to the region.
“I have many faults. But not keeping the government of Pakistan or the government of Afghanistan fully informed on what we were doing on the reconciliation side is not one of them,” he told a gathering at the US Institute of Peace.
“So I recognise that’s what people say, but I just want to tell you that I work very hard to make sure that people are neither in the dark or excluded,” said the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In his lecture, and later during the Q and A session, Mr Grossman pointed out that Pakistan had to have a central role in any solution to the Afghan problem.
When one of the discussants, Pakistani journalist and author Ahmed Rashid, noted that the Afghan issue as well as Islamabad’s relations with Washington had gotten entangled in Pakistan’s domestic politics, Mr Grossman urged the Pakistani government to disentangle itself.
“First, it’s the place to start where there’s a domestic issue in Pakistan, and they need to work on this issue. And that’s really true,” Mr Grossman said.
The central point of his talk, although, was linking Central and South Asian economies for bringing peace to Afghanistan and to the entire region.
“Let’s not forget also the economic aspects of this … which is to say that going forward to 2014 and after 2014, there’s also got to be a regional economic vision about connecting Central Asian economies and South Asian economies with Afghanistan and Pakistan in the centre,” he said.
The United States plans to withdraw all its combat troops from Afghanistan in three years and on Tuesday Mr Grossman met a high-level Afghan delegation in Washington to negotiate rules for US military activity in Afghanistan after 2014.
But in his talk at the USIP, Mr Grossman said that connecting the two economies will also play a very important role in success for these two transitions in 2014.
Mr Grossman pointed out that in 2011, the United States helped Pakistan and Afghanistan negotiate a transit trade agreement.
“What’s the biggest thing going between India and Pakistan? It’s trade, as you say. That number is going up. Why is that? Because people see exactly what you see, which is Central Asian economies connected with South Asian economies,” he observed.
“There’s advantage there, and Pakistan and Afghanistan are in the centre of that.”
George E. Moose, Vice Chairman, USIP, also highlighted Pakistan’s role in bringing peace to Afghanistan.
“As is abundantly evident to all concerned, Pakistan is also a critical element in any calculation of the prospects for peace in Afghanistan,” he said.— Anwar Iqbal
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Afghan Officials Request US to Remain Beyond 2014
TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Afghan officials asked the Pentagon to keep a number of forces in Afghanistan beyond 2014 to help combat terrorism in the country during a meeting in the United States capital on Tuesday.
Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and Interior Minster Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, now in Washington to meet with US officials, urged the Americans to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014 and called their presence in the country "vital".
The long-term strategic pact between the two nations and the presence of US forces beyond 2014 are necessary to ensure stability of Afghanistan and give the right message to both its people and its enemies, Wardak said Tuesday in a meeting with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
"The number itself is not that much important," Wardak said. "The strategic implications will be more important than the physical number of troops."
Panetta assured the Afghan officials of the US commitment to training and supplying military support to the Afghan security forces after the withdrawal of the combat troops.
Panetta praised the gains of the Afghan police and called them essential to enabling the transition of power from foreign combat troops to the local forces.
During the meeting, Wardak and Panetta discussed plans put forward by international partners to reduce the number of Afghan National Army soldiers to 230,000 after 2014.
Wardak said the figure of 230,000 personnel had been agreed upon as a "conceptual model for planning purposes" but the actual size of the troops may change depending on the conditions "on the ground".
The issue of reduction comes as the US has already spent $12 billion annually to train, equip and feed Afghan security forces.
The US had previously called on the international community to contribute $1 billion a year after 2014 in order for the Afghan security forces to run.
A shrinking Afghan security force has previously been predicted by the Western allies, with French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet had suggested a reduction to 230,000, while Germany had also raised concerns in this regard.
The US is slated to withdraw its 33,000 "surge" troops by the end this year, while the entire 130,000 foreign force led by Nato is expected to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
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Chief warns against cutting troops after Afghan war
ABC News
By Naomi Woodley
April 12, 2012
The Chief of the Army has warned the Government it must not let the Army shrink after the war in Afghanistan.
The Government is planning to withdraw Australia's combat troops from Afghanistan by 2014, although forces are likely to be required for training and mentoring beyond then.
But already, Lieutenant General David Morrison is warning about the impact of the withdrawal on the defence budget.
Lieutenant General Morrison says he understands the Government faces a tough financial climate, but says it would be dangerous and counter-productive to allow the Army to reduce in size after it pulls out of Afghanistan.
"It's vital that we don't succumb to the sort of thinking that justified a serious reduction in the strength and capability of the army that we experienced in the wake of the withdrawal from Vietnam," he said.
Lieutenant General Morrison says the Army's current size of just under 30,000 regular soldiers, 17,000 reservists and 1,000 public servants is about right.
"Over the past decade the army has substantially enhanced its fire power, combat mobility and levels of protection," he said.
"This has reversed what I believe was a long-term, albeit gradual, decline in the fighting power of the army which took place in the period from the end of Vietnam until the strategic shock of the Timor crisis in 1999."
Lieutenant General Morrison says he will not comment on the defence budget, but during a speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra last night he did give this clear warning to any government contemplating a redirection of funds once the Afghanistan commitment is complete.
"History has clearly demonstrated that peace dividends invariably become peace liabilities when the military must restore its capabilities, often as it grapples with new operational challenges, at the cost of significant blood and treasure," he said.
The former commander of Australia's forces in the Middle East, Major General John Cantwell, has warned the 2014 deadline is political, and that Afghan forces may not be ready by then.
Lieutenant General Morrison would not comment on whether he thought there was a danger should Australian troops have to go back to Afghanistan in the future.
"I am paid well but that is way, way, way outside my pay grade," he said.
"While operational matters are not my remit, those issues are analysed within the Defence Department and within government at great depth and nothing is being taken for granted." Smith visit
Lieutenant General Morrison's warning comes as Defence Minister Stephen Smith visits Afghanistan to meet Australian troops and hold talks with the government.
Mr Smith says he discussed how Afghan forces will take increased responsibility for security.
He says Australian and Afghan forces continue to make good progress disrupting the insurgency in Uruzgan Province by targeting its leaders and stopping the flow of drug money.
He also visited the screening area where Afghan detainees are processed and interrogated.
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Afghanistan: Shia Clerics Ban Marriage Payments
Some women in Helmand say decision will reduce respect for them.
IWPR
By Gol Ahmad Ehsan
11 Apr 12
Afghanistan
Shia Muslim scholars in Helmand have ruled against the traditional payment of a “bride price”, a view that has also been supported by some Sunni clerics in the southern province.
The prohibition has proved unpopular amongst some Shia women, who say that if a marriage is not sealed by a financial transaction, brides will lose the respect of their in-laws and the wider community.
Although Helmand’s residents are mostly Sunni Muslims, there are an estimated 40,000 Shia in the province.
Among this community, the bride price ranges between 2,000 and 30,000 US dollars, whereas in other parts of Afghanistan, the payment is made in livestock.
Raising the cash imposes a heavy burden on families, and young men who want to avoid the real risk of remaining single are prepared to travel abroad to earn the money. Often travelling to Iran, these illegal migrants are vulnerable to imprisonment, deportation, injury and worse.
Shokria, a high school student in Helmand’s main town Lashkar Gah, said the size of the bride price would determine the value her future husband’s family would place on her. Lack of payment would raise questions about her virginity.
“If a family doesn’t get a bride price for their daughter, people will think the girl had poor morals and was a burden to her father,” Shokria said. “Paying a bride price protects a girl from such accusations. If my father doesn’t obtain a price for me, I won’t be prepared to get married.”
However, Qasem Ali Jafari, who chairs the Shia religious council in Helmand, disagreed with those who believed marriage payment determined a woman’s worth.
“If they think a woman’s value is in money, they are wrong,” he said. “Money does not reflect the value of women. A woman gains value through love and friendship, and the value of a husband and a wife comes only from love and trust.”
Jafari said the council believed the custom went against Islamic precepts, and predicted that the ban would ultimately win public support.
“We gathered all the religious scholars and tribal elders together and came to a decision that will benefit the public,” he said. “We made the decision because the cost of living has increased. People have been spending a lot of money, and it’s become a competition, with thousands of people invited to some weddings. The public will therefore welcome our decision.”
He said enforcing the ban would be easy, because it counted as a religious ruling.
“It also benefits the public, so they will put it into practice and support the decision themselves,” he added, noting that the council would be meeting every six months to discuss the decision and people’s response to it.
Some Sunni religious scholars in Helmand, like Maulavi Abdorrahim, agree that the practice went entirely against Islam.
“Receiving money for one’s daughter from her husband is like eating the flesh from dead bodies,” Abdorrahim said. “It is unlawful to use such money to buy food, to spend it or to do business with it.”
Abdorrahim said a woman’s value could not be quantified in cash.
“Are those girls who think the bride price enhances their value aware that many men have to kill, rob, smuggle and engage in other illegal activities to pay it?” he asked. “Have they thought about how they are going to live if their husband is in debt?”
In what was seen as an attempt to win popular support, the Sunni Taleban issued an edict in 2010 restricting the maximum bride-price in the Tagab district of Kapisa province, north of Kabul. (See Taleban Try Hearts-and-Minds Tactics .)
But others say the council has chosen to ignore practical issues.
Karima, a student at the Malalay high school in Lashkar Gah, said some families needed the payment in order to set their daughters up in married life. Sometimes the money was used to buy home appliances and thus it counted as part of the dowry of household goods which a bride is expected to bring when, as tradition dictates, she sets up home with the groom’s family.
“There are people on the [Shia] religious council who are well-off and who don’t need money in return for their daughters,” she said. “They can give their daughters all the items they need once they are married. But my father has nothing, and he can’t afford to provide me with the things I will need in my future life.”
Shakila, a housewife, said the ban might encourage men to marry more than one woman and then treat them unfairly.
“If paying a bride price is forbidden, every man will marry two women because there will be no need for him to have money. And if a man has two or three wives, there will be big problems in the family,” she said, adding, “I would never let my husband get married again. If he insisted, I would leave.”
But those who face paying the bride price seem happier about the decision.
Abdolhaq, 28, said his life had been dogged by the pressure of trying to raise the sums required.
“My father-in-law asked me for 20,000 dollars,” he said. “I tried to raise the sum for a full five years. I went to Iran, where my friends and I were imprisoned for a year for having no passports. We then returned home and I did get married. But I still owe people for the bride price.”
Gol Ahmad Ehsan is an IWPR-trained reporter in Helmand.
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Ex-Taliban envoy 'bound for UAE'
The National
By Fareed Rahman
Apr 12, 2012
DUBAI
A former Taliban statesman has claimed he is emigrating from Afghanistan to the UAE to escape persecution at home.
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, former ambassador to Pakistan and inmate of Guantanamo Bay, said in a letter to the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) he wanted to move to Dubai for a secure life.
"Due to security reasons, I have been in search for the last two years to live a peaceful life in these areas or countries," he wrote. "My travel to Dubai is neither at the directives or with the support of anyone, nor on anyone's advice."
Mr Zaeef also wrote about his hopes for peace in Afghanistan, but said it was beyond his abilities to usher it in.
Earlier media reports claimed Mr Zaeef left the country after US forces twice attempted to raid his home in Kabul over allegations of involvement in an international terror plot. But a spokesman for the international coalition in Afghanistan said they were unaware of any alleged raids on his home.
The Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department could not be contacted, but Afghanistan's embassy in the UAE said it was not aware of the presence of Mr Zaeef in the country.
Mr Zaeef was the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan at the time of the September 11 attacks. He was arrested in Islamabad in late 2001, then detained at Guantanamo Bay for four years.
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The long and winding road to the presidential election
After two decades in Russia and Afghanistan, a serial expat rediscovers America — and all its warts — on the 2012 campaign trail.
Global Post
By Jean MacKenzie
April 11, 2012
The miles click by like beads on a rosary — 20, 50, 100, 500 — endless stretches of anonymous highway, punctuated by fast food restaurants and chain hotels. The choices are dreary: McDonald’s or Burger King? Best Western or Hampton Inn? I have only MapQuest, my odometer, and the broadening accents of the people I run into at the gas station to tell me that I making some sort of progress.
I am on a mission to reconnect with a country I left more than two decades before. In the run-up to the 2012 presidential elections, I want to form a picture of the hopes and dreams, the frustrations and fears, that will move my fellow countrymen to make what might well turn out to be one of the most important decisions of our lives.
It won’t be easy. While I was wading through history in Russia, Europe, Central Asia and Afghanistan, America has changed almost beyond recognition. I am, in the words of the old song, coming home to a place I’ve never been before.
When I left the United States in 1990, the internet had not yet been invented. Nobody carried cell phones and the computer I carried with me, a Macintosh Power Book, weighed about 50 pounds, had a black-and-white screen, and the most sophisticated function it could perform, after much coaxing, was sending faxes.
There were other changes, too: coffee had not yet become a national obsession, and the word “barista” was blessedly unknown outside of Italian bars. Religion and politics were worn more lightly, as was patriotism: America was, in the main, doing well.
Most importantly, perhaps, was the certainty of the bipolar world: There were only two major powers, the United States and the Evil Empire, also known as the Soviet Union. We were the good guys and they were the bad. There was a comfortable psychological equilibrium to the situation.
Now, as I talk to Americans in different parts of the country, in various social and economic situations, one thing is emerging: we are all in flux. Everyone is unhappy about something — health care, education, taxes, the predations of the rich or the greed and envy of the poor.
America is no longer sure of its unrivaled dominance in the world, nor is it totally convinced of its hero status.
Presidential contenders have seized on these worries to boost their positions and further their agendas.
Ron Paul — remember him? — calls us “aggressors” for waging pre-emptive wars around the globe. Rick Santorum fumes and insists that we are “liberators,” not invaders. President Barack Obama insists that we are not in decline, while Mitt Romney promises to restore our greatness.
The body politic is polarized to an extent I have not seen before. One’s choice can pit one against family, friends, neighbors. The rhetoric is fierce and ugly, with overtones of bigotry and hatred.
A congressman is dismissed on right-wing radio as “Obama’s homie” for wearing a hoodie on the floor of the House; a Georgetown student is dubbed a “slut” for asking that contraception be covered in her health insurance.
The president is called a “socialist,” the head of the Federal Reserve is termed a “traitor.”
Republican economic policies are labeled “social Darwinism,” although the slur may be lost on many voters.
The Supreme Court has just conducted several days of hearings in which health insurance somehow became inextricably entwined with broccoli.
The electorate, I suppose, may be excused for not paying close attention to the intricacies of an increasingly surreal debate.
But given the perilous state of much of the world, and America’s sometimes destructive centrality in it, the choice of leader is not one to be made lightly.
In general, the tenor of discussion reflects the mindset of my 7-year-old nephew Shea, who succinctly explained the situation the other day:
“Red is for Republican, and that is bad,” he said, his large blue eyes shining with fervor. Blue is for Democrats, and we need to vote for them.” He is, unfortunately, at least 11 years away from that pleasure, but he is undeterred.
Shea’s parents insist that he did not get his political views from them, which leaves me to wonder what kind of social studies they are teaching in second grade these days.
When his mother, Amanda, suggested in a half-joking way that Santorum might be preferable to Romney, Shea became almost enraged.
“Mom,” he said, fixing her sternly with that zealot’s gaze. “Santorum is a Republican. Republicans are stupid.”
Give the kid a microphone, and he could be a mini-Rush Limbaugh, albeit for the other side.
Over the next six months, I will try and flesh out the picture: What do voters in Louisiana have in common with Iowa farmers? What motivates the no-nonsense Michiganders of the Upper Peninsula, and are they really in the same country as the more freewheeling Californians?
Join me. It will be quite a journey.
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Turkmenistan Will Deliver Gas to Afghanistan for 30 Years
TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Turkmenistan will sell gas to Afghanistan for the 30 years following the construction of its trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline to India and Pakistan, Afghan Minister of Mines, Wahidullah Shahrani, said Wednesday.
Shahrani, who recently returned from Turkmenistan, said Turkmen President, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, has promised to deliver to Afghanistan around 500 million cubic meters of gas per year at "appropriate prices", and that the project would begin soon.
Shahrani added that in an economic meeting held in Kabul recently and attended by Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, Berdimuhamedov had indicated that he was satisfied with the progress of talks on gas prices and transit issues with India and Pakistan.
The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline agreement recognises Afghanistan has rights to a certain amount of gas.
Shahrani rejected the recent statement of Pakistan's Secretary Petroleum and Natural Resources, Muhammad Ejaz Chaudhry, that Afghanistan had given up its share of 500 million cubic meters gas.
Karzai has assured Turkmenistan that the Afghan government will strive to co-operate with the implementation of the TAPI project.
The TAPI pipeline is expected to transfer 33 billion cubic meters of gas each year. It will stretch for 1800 kilometres from Turkmenistan, through Kandahar and Chaman, to Pakistan and India.
The practical phase of the project will start by 2014.
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