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16 August 2012

 

 

 

FEATURE STORY

Is the Taliban wearing out its welcome in Afghanistan?

 

 

BUSINESS

No articles featured today

NATION

Lawmaker: Nimroz Bombers Were Iranian
As Afghanistan turns
CHANGE IN TACK FOR PAKISTAN ARMY.
NDS Detains Three Assassins in Herat
Afghan attacks on allies alarm departing nations
Insurgents Attack Pakistani Air Base, 8 Dead
The Women of Afghanistan
Taliban Commander Killed in Takhar Raids
Pakistan to move against Taliban in border tribal areas
President says Attacks on Afghanistan Impacting Relationship with Pakistan
In Afghanistan, Scandal Erupts Over Changing Street Name To Honor Iranians
Afghan self-defense groups give communities new freedoms
ISAF Suspends more than 100 Companies Over Corruption Charges
Olympic medal helps unify torn Afghanistan
The U.S. Plot to Blow Up the Afghan Ministry of Defense
General reassures Marines after Afghan attacks
Bomb Blast Shakes Herat Bazaar

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FEATURE STORY 

Is the Taliban wearing out its welcome in Afghanistan?

Tuesday marked the most violent day in Afghanistan this year, while Afghans are starting to show that they're tired of violence and fed up with the Taliban.

Christian Science Monitor
By Tom A. Peter, Staff writer
August 15, 2012
Kandahar and Ghazni, Afghanistan

After US Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales allegedly walked off a US base in Kandahar last March and went house to house, killing a total of 17 Afghan civilians, many worried that the Taliban would capitalize on the incident and the long restive province would revert to violence.

Yet more than five months later, violence in Kandahar remains at record lows. Compared with the same time last year, the Kandahar governor’s office reports that insurgent attacks and activity are down 75 percent.

Marking a new development, not only did the Taliban fail to use the shooting spree as a propaganda tool to renew their momentum, but a growing number of residents say they’ve grown frustrated with the group and increasingly intolerant of its activities.

“The bad behavior of the Taliban with the local people – when they use their fields, houses, mosques, and streets as their battlefield, when they put landmines in roads and in their fields – has shifted the sympathy of the people toward the government. People are very unhappy with the Taliban about these issues,” says Haji Fazel Mohammad, the district governor of Panjwayi, where the Bales incident occurred.

Throughout Afghanistan, many locals are losing whatever sympathy they may have once had for the Taliban. In Ghazni Province in eastern Afghanistan, a group of locals in Andar district rose up against the extremist group after it shut down a majority of schools in the area.

The uprising, which began in May, failed to spread beyond Andar and there are a number of indications that local politics and power struggles may have had just as much, if not more, to do with the uprising than frustration with the Taliban. Most evidence points to a conflict between Afghanistan’s Hezeb-e Islami, a more moderate Islamic group, and the Taliban that has reportedly been taking place in Wardak and Ghazni for some time now.

Still, as US and NATO forces work to hand over security responsibilities to their Afghan counterparts ahead of the 2014 deadline to end their combat operations, there is hope that evaporating support for the Taliban may lay the foundation for long-term stability in Afghanistan.

“Much like what happened in Iraq where there was a turning point after Al Qaeda in Iraq had killed so many of the people and done so many beheadings and intimidated so many, the people finally got tired of it and stood up and fought back. That was the turning point in Iraq. The same type of turning point can occur and will occur here,” says US Army Lt. Col. Praxitelis “Nick” Vamvakias, commander of the 2-504 Parachute Infantry Regiment in Ghazni Province.

Taliban have got the message

Unlike in Iraq, locals say the Taliban received the message after the uprising in Ghazni’s Andar district and backed off from some of its more aggressive behavior.

“The situation is becoming normal again after the uprising. There are no Taliban in the area where the uprising happened. In the other areas of Andar where there was no uprising, the Taliban’s behavior with the people has changed. They are a little softer,” says Shahbaz, a farmer in Andar district who, like many Afghans only has one name.

Additionally, throughout Afghanistan, as in Kandahar and especially Ghazni, the Taliban remain a considerable threat. Despite being an area of focus for the US military this past year, with NATO forces tripling there, many areas of the province remain restive and dangerous.

Within the Afghan government, the Parliament has been so frustrated with its military’s inability to reign in violence and stop assassinations that it forced the resignation of the country’s minister of defense and interior.

Afghans more pro government?

Even if the Taliban continues to lose the support of the population, it does not necessarily mean the local population is now siding with the Afghan government and international forces.

With the security situation and political future of Afghanistan still far from stable or certain – yesterday marked the deadliest day of 2012 for Afghan civilians – many analysts say that Afghans, especially those in rural areas appear to be hedging their bets.

That the US military and NATO will end their combat mission here in 2014 is no secret, making many Afghans weary of looking to international troops for enduring support. The Afghan government’s reputation for pervasive corruption has also made a number of locals hesitant to place their allegiances there.

“There are lots of people here in Kabul who want to brand it as a kind of uprising that has ceased the nation, but I think that’s too simplistic,” says Alex Strick van Linschoten, an independent researcher and author of “An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/Al-Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan.”

Speaking about recent security improvements in Kandahar, he adds, “It seems that people are happy with the situation and they don’t want it to go back how it was before, yet at the same time that doesn’t mean they think the government is the greatest thing ever.”

Possible trend?

Amid this climate, many Afghan observers say that its unlikely widespread frustration will translate into a nationwide uprising, or even sweep through the rest of Ghazni Province.

Few Afghans possess the means to revolt. It is among the 10 poorest countries in the world and has a per capita GDP of $528. Facing this level of destitution, for Afghans living hand-to-mouth, abandoning their fields or jobs to fend off the Taliban is simply not an option.

“Our people are very poor. They are always worried about covering their daily expenses and surviving. As long as they are uncertain about whether their children can survive, how can they be ready for an uprising? Economically, if they are supported and they are more secure financially then I think in that case they will start to rise up against the Taliban,” says Mohammad Isa Khan, a former attorney general and independent analyst in Kandahar.

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NATION

Lawmaker: Nimroz Bombers Were Iranian

TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Lawmakers condemned the deadly Nimroz attacks, alleging that the bombers who targetted a civilian hospital in Zaranj city and a crowded Bazaar in the same area killing 29 were Iranian Balochs.

According to Nimroz MP Freshta Amini, the "three suicide bombers arrested yesterday were Iranian Balochs and the matter will be discussed with the Iranian embassy."

The MPs also said that if Iran, like Pakistan, starts sending terrorists to Afghanistan, it will create major issues for Afghanistan and Afghan security forces should prevent these infiltrations.

Five other would-be suicide bombers were killed by Police and three others detained. The nationalities of the dead and detained attackers have yet to be confirmed.

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As Afghanistan turns

The shake-up in Karzai's government portends the nation's divided future.

Los Angles Times
By Sarah Chayes
Op-Ed
August 16, 2012

In a raucous session that brought lawmakers to blows this month, the Afghan parliament passed a no-confidence vote against the country's top security officials: the ministers of defense and interior. With Afghanistan struggling to take on more challenging pieces of its own defense burden from international troops, the decision came as an ill-timed surprise. Just as surprising was President Hamid Karzai's quick agreement that the two should go.

It is always hazardous to claim to see through the complexities of Afghan politics, but the ousters were clearly rooted, at least in part, in a fierce struggle for positioning in a post-America Afghanistan that may well implode.

One reason cited by officials and the media for the no-confidence vote is that the lawmakers had grown exasperated by the security forces' inability to stem or respond to artillery fire that has been pummeling Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan. It's certainly true that people are frustrated by the shelling, but whether that is the reason or the excuse for the vote is less clear. Short of a declaration of war on Pakistan, an eminently political decision that would require at least some international coordination, it's not clear what the army could do.

A second reason cited for the ousters is that Karzai wants to demonstrate that he is at last taking action against corruption in his government, and the record of police and military personnel is particularly poor. However, having worked for two commanders of international military forces as well as for the Joint Staff on anti-corruption policy in Afghanistan, I have not observed Karzai, since 2003, make a good-faith move to address the institutionalized graft that plagues his country. Rather, he has obstructed anti-corruption efforts, directing ministers to shut down investigations, ordering detained suspects set free, and reportedly helping arrange the 2010 escape from Afghanistan of a former minister of religious affairs indicted on charges of corruption. It seems unlikely that high-mindedness is motivating the president now.

A third reason frequently cited for the vote is that the members of the Afghan parliament — far from immune to corruption themselves — were irritated at their inability to obtain some of the jobs and lucrative contracts the two ministers hand out. Though all of these possibilities probably contain elements of truth, and may have helped stoke lawmakers' enthusiasm for the vote, this third one rings truest.

But to understand the move's greatest significance, you have to examine the ouster of the interior minister, Bismullah Khan Mohammadi.

Mohammadi, an ethnic Tajik, was a key commander in the northern resistance to the Taliban during the civil war that raged in Afghanistan from 1994 through the fall of that regime in 2001. For the first eight years of the Karzai government, he served as chief of staff of the Afghan national army. Senior U.S. and Afghan military officers once described to me how shrewdly he calculated his appointments, especially at the crucial middle-management level, larding the officer corps with lieutenant colonels and colonels loyal to the old northern commanders.

As minister of the interior, a position he assumed in June 2010, he aggressively pursued the same policy within the Afghan national police while retaining the personal loyalty of many ranking army officers. In 2011, NATO's International Security Assistance Force Joint Command, which manages the day-to-day running of the war, was tracking the way he gerrymandered police zones in the north so as to build what amounted to a region that excludes ethnic Pashtuns. He also rapidly expanded the arming of local militias in the north.

Most Afghans and experienced observers I know say a plausible scenario upon the large-scale departure of international troops in 2014 is either disintegration into civil conflict or a de facto division of power along ethnic lines, with a Pakistan-backed Pashtun bloc in the south and east lining up against one or more northern non-Pashtun blocs that might well gain military support from India and Uzbekistan, if not Iran. Recent signs indicate that many key players are already rushing to consolidate their positions within this framework, already operating, for all intents and purposes, in a post-2014 world.

It is in this context that Mohammadi's dismissal is to be understood. He is a key northern bloc asset. And in the same way international forces stepped up their campaign to capture and kill Taliban commanders, northern military leaders are being neutralized at a rapid rate, regardless of their official positions in the Karzai government. Before Mohammadi, it was key Uzbek former commander Ahmad Khan Samanghani, killed in a blast at a wedding in mid-July.

The other minister voted out of office this month, Abdul Rahim Wardak, is far less consequential. Though described as a Karzai loyalist and appreciated by international officials, he was known to be the butt of verbal abuse by Karzai in Cabinet meetings and was reputed to be a heavy drinker with little real control over the Afghan army. Karzai typically removes officials in pairs to provide the appearance of ethnic or tribal evenhandedness. In this case, Wardak would be the fig leaf for Mohammadi's removal.

This reading of events suggests that Karzai will end up aligning himself with the Pakistan/Pashtun, Taliban-tolerant bloc. While as president he has often criticized Pakistan, he also has expressed understanding for the Taliban and has pardoned dozens of Taliban prisoners. In 1994, when the Taliban took power in southern Afghanistan, Karzai was a strong supporter. The regime selected him to serve as its ambassador to the United Nations, though it never got a seat in the world body. So perhaps we should not be surprised if he lines up that way again today.

Sarah Chayes, former special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a resident associate at the Carnegie Endowment and a contributing writer to Opinion.

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CHANGE IN TACK FOR PAKISTAN ARMY.

THE FINANCIAL TIMES ‘A’ LIST COMMENT
By AHMED RASHID
15/08/2012
LAHORE

For the first time the Pakistan army has admitted to the dangers of growing Islamic militancy in Pakistan and warned that if the entire nation does not unite against it ‘’we’ll be divided and taken towards civil war.’’

Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani made the forthright comments in a speech in front of army officers celebrating Pakistan’s Independence Day on August 14. ‘’We realize the most difficult task for any army is to fight against its own people but ….no state can afford a parallel system or a militant force,’’ he said.

After years of denial that militancy posed a threat to Pakistan but at the same time blaming outsiderssuch as India, the US and Israel for backing terrorist groups in Pakistan, Kiyani finally admitted that ‘’the fight against extremism and terrorism is our own war and we are right in fighting it.’’

His comments are a complete departure from what the army, the government and the political elite have offered as explanations for rising militancy and sectarian killings in the past that have almost bought the nation to its knees. 10-30 people are killed everyday in multiple acts of violence – most of it by Islamic extremists of one kind or another - but there is no accountability for the perpetrators and few are every caught or punished.

Kiyani also made it clear that the army will not tolerate a dual system of governance by the militants and he asked for the civilian government’s support for army operations, which has been sorely lacking in the past. ‘’It is imperative that the entire nation is united in this context because the army can only be successful with the co-operation of the people,’’ he said.

His statement comes as US pressure continues to pile up on Pakistan. US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta said that the Pakistan army was ready to go into North Waziristan, a key militant base area, to root out terrorists. Some US Congressmen are also trying to fix Pakistan with the label of state sponsor of terrorism, which could result in Pakistan becoming the equivalent of North Korea.

Kayani’s positive words will now require more answers. The army has pursued a dual policy allowing Afghan Taliban in particular the Jalaluddin Haqqani network to operate freely out of Pakistan and attack US forces in Afghanistan. Similarly the army and its Interservices Intelligence (ISI) have allowed those Pakistani Taliban to operate freely, who do not turn their guns inwards butkill Americans. This has infuriated the US military.

The ISI has also helped mobilize dozens of religious parties and militant groups who have launched an anti-American crusade on the streets in recent months. The ISI has also been accused of harassing, intimidating and even killing journalists, human rights workers and others – something that it strongly denies.

Critics have long argued that the ISI needs to be bought under some civilian jurisdiction and that Pakistan needs a holistic counter terrorism strategy that treats all extremists as a potential threat, but tries to reconcile with as many as are willing to do so.

To date the army has never had a strategy. Instead it has approached the issue tactically – such as the recent deliberate whipping up of anti-Americanism by Islamic groups to try and put pressure on Washington during the seven month stand off when Pakistan closed the US and NATO supply route for Afghanistan.

There are other unanswered questions which the military has never answered, such as what was Osama BinLaden doing in Pakistan before he was killed last year and who was supporting him. A whole host of militants from China, Turkey, the Central Asian Republics, Arabian Gulf states, Western Europe and other places are active with the Pakistani Taliban and more foreigners continue to come for training. All the countries affected now openly criticize Pakistan’s inability or refusal to deal with these threats, placing the country into deep isolation.

Nevertheless Kayani has certainly set the ball rolling and it is hoped that his comments will be followed by a genuine military counter terrorism strategy as well as encourage the government and civilian politicians to come out more openly against the extremist threat.

The end.

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NDS Detains Three Assassins in Herat

TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Three insurgents attempting to assassinate a provincial Ulema Council member by placing explosives in the scholar's car were detained by the National Directorate of Security personnel, according to the provincial spokesman Mahiuddin Noori.

"These individuals confessed that they were planning to kill religious scholars in Herat province," Noori said.

Noori also added that a prominent Taliban commander was killed in an Afghan-led operation in Kuzra district of Herat.

Afghan National Army Special Forces conducted the operation in the Haft Darband areas of the Kuzra district to eradicate a Taliban's hideout. Three Taliban fighters, including their commander Faiz Mohammad, were killed and 8 other Taliban fighters were injured.

Multiple explosives devices were seized at the time of operation.

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Afghan attacks on allies alarm departing nations

The Washington Times
By Ashish Kumar Sen and Rowan Scarborough
Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Western nations preparing to withdraw from combat in Afghanistan increasingly are alarmed by Afghan security forces turning their weapons on allied troops, attacks that the Taliban claim as proof of their sway over local troops.

Five such attacks have occurred in the past week — the deadliest on Friday, when six U.S. troops were killed by Afghan security personnel in two separate incidents.

Called “green-on-blue” attacks in reference to colors of Afghan uniforms and coalition helmets, the assaults heightened tensions and frayed nerves among coalition troops as international forces aim to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

“Probably the biggest area of frustration is the continued lack of trustworthiness of many members of the Afghan National Army [ANA], as demonstrated by the disturbing frequency of green-on-blue violence,” said Paul Pillar, a CIA veteran and former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia.

“The overall combat effectiveness and ability of the ANA to operate independently is obviously a focus of major concern and effort. But in terms of outright frustration, I would think the tenuous loyalties of members of a force that is supposed to be our ally would rank most highly,” he said.

As of Monday, there have been 29 green-on-blue attacks this year and a total of 37 coalition deaths, 21 of which have been Americans, according to statistics provided by the Pentagon.

At a Pentagon briefing Tuesday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta expressed concern that such attacks occur, in part because of the “potential damage to our partnership efforts.”

The attacks also are taking a toll on troop morale.

“For our service members operating in the field hearing about these attacks, it is only natural to be concerned about their welfare and that of their buddies, and to have a heightened sense of awareness,” said Navy Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a Pentagon spokesman. “Anyone in that position would do the same, and we don’t discount the impact of these tragedies on individual morale.”

In a letter Tuesday to commanders in Afghanistan, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos sought to soothe the rattled nerves of troops. He said such attacks show that the U.S. is winning the war against Taliban insurgents.

“When faced with the stark reality of what has just happened, it would be easy to give in to the belief that these attacks indicate we are losing the fight,” Gen. Amos wrote in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. “In fact, the opposite is true.

“These attacks are occurring because we are winning the fight in [regional command southwest],” he said. “Over the last four years, we have steadily improved the security situation in Helmand [province]. Historical casualty levels have steadily declined. Afghan security forces have made dramatic improvements in dependability, capability and performance.”

Countering the attacks

The Marines suffered their worst so-called “green-on-blue” fatalities on Friday. An Afghan police officer fatally shot three Marines he had invited to dinner in Helmand province. That same day, three Marines assigned to a training unit were killed by an Afghan policeman in Helmand.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks, often exaggerating their success and citing the assaults as proof of their infiltration of Afghanistan’s security apparatus.

Military leaders and defense analysts have downplayed the Taliban’s self-proclaimed role in the attacks, some of which have occurred after personal conflicts between Afghan and allied troops. Defense officials say the attacks have had no operational impact.

“We are certainly concerned” about green-on-blue attacks, said Cmdr. Speaks, the Pentagon spokesman.

“But it is important to remember that the 31 shooters in incidents this year make up less than 1/100th of 1 percent of all [Afghan security] personnel,” he said. “These insidious attacks are designed to sow doubt among the coalition forces and our Afghan partners, but we will not be deterred,” he added.

In his letter to Marine commanders, Gen. Amos said: “Faced with our undeniable momentum and his own failure, the enemy is increasingly forced to resort to spectacular attacks. I am confident that these recent attacks were carefully crafted to drive a wedge between us and our Afghan partners. This is a common theme in the latter stages of a counterinsurgency operation. We saw the same thing in Iraq after the balance had tipped in our favor.”

To stop the attacks, the military is taking several steps, including increasing counterintelligence and putting into place an eight-step vetting process for Afghan security forces recruits.

The huge financial investment made by the U.S. and its NATO allies in Afghanistan’s security forces is being undermined not only by green-on-blue attacks, but by rampant corruption, nepotism and divided loyalties within these institutions.

Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the House Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations last month that similar “divided loyalties” opened the door to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, years of civil war and eventually the collapse of the Soviet-backed government in Kabul in 1992.

“Even high-level military officers and government officials left to join the same Pashtun, Tajik, or Hazara Islamist militias that they had only recently been fighting against,” he said.

“The threat that similar divisions could split the current Afghan central government must be taken seriously, given the rise of a new Northern Alliance and factional divisions among Pashtuns,” he added. The Northern Alliance is made up of non-Pashtun ethnic groups, mainly Tajiks and Uzbeks, who joined forces to fight the predominantly Pashtun Taliban.

U.S. and Afghan officials readily acknowledge these problems, but a solution remains elusive.

Other challenges

“There are fault lines in [Afghan] institutions based on ethnicity, and that is the painful history of Afghanistan,” said Said T. Jawad, who served as Afghanistan’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2003 to 2010. “There is definitely a need to focus on the morale, the commitment and the loyalty of the troops so that their loyalty lies with the Afghan flag.”

Mr. Jawad has been mentioned as a potential successor to Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, who resigned as defense minister last week after receiving a vote of no confidence from the parliament. Mr. Jawad lacks military experience, but is well-connected in Washington, where he is based.

Others whose names have been floated for the position are former Interior Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, former Deputy Defense Minister Atiquallah Baryalai and Education Minister Farooq Wardak.

One of the biggest challenges for the next minister will be to negotiate a status-of-forces agreement with the U.S. that will determine the conditions for the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

“It will be a hard sell for both countries to their own people,” said Shahmahmood Miakhel, the Afghanistan-based country director of the U.S. Institute of Peace.

President Obama intends to leave a small follow-on force in Afghanistan that would focus on training the Afghan military to full capacity and conducting joint counterterrorism operations after 2014.

The U.S. administration will have its work cut out trying to win Congress’ approval for such a force, said Mr. Miakhel. The Afghan government will have the challenge of justifying the presence of these troops to the Afghan people, determining the role they will play under Afghan law and managing the reaction of Afghanistan’s neighbors who look warily on a U.S. presence in the region, he added.

Meanwhile, the coalition faces the challenge of turning the Afghan National Security Forces into a professional and cohesive fighting force.

Joshua Foust, a fellow at the American Security Project, said the Afghan National Security Forces‘ performance is probably the biggest source of frustration for Afghanistan’s allies.

“Some units have lived up to the hype and performed admirably, but there remain serious shortfalls in performance and retention that need to be addressed,” he said.

Part of the challenge is the high expectations of U.S. trainers, who demand performance from Afghan recruits that are probably unrealistic, he said.

“But the other challenge is the occasionally misleading reports of progress from [the NATO training mission]. Soldiers have complained for years that the training is not long enough or tailored closely enough to the needs of Afghan recruits to perform to the standards the U.S. demands. As a result, there is growing frustration about reality not meeting either expectations or public brags by the leadership,” he said.

Afghan forces have taken the lead in 40 percent of conventional operations, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to improve their capabilities in areas such as logistics and other specialized warfare.

Mr. Cordesman warned lawmakers that a realistic assessment of the Afghan security forces‘ capabilities is crucial as the Obama administration draws down U.S. troops.

“‘Spinning’ positive reports to the neglect of real problems at the strategic level is a recipe for defeat, regardless of how well the [Afghans] perform militarily,” he said.

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Insurgents Attack Pakistani Air Base, 8 Dead

TOLOnews.com
Thursday, 16 August 2012

Armed with guns and rocket launchers, insurgents stormed a Karma Air Base in Minhas, Pakistan on Thursday and started heavy clashes that killed eight people, including two security officials, authorities said.

The Pakistani Geo News reported that a Pakistani Air Force spokesman said that "all eight were killed while one body of a suicide bomber, a foreigner, strapped with explosives has been found close to the impact area."

Reports say that the Pakistani forces have overcome the attacks at Kamra Air Base and the search for others who may have been involved is ongoing.

An officer told AFP that he saw flames after waking up for his late night meal during the fasting month of Ramadan.

"There was an announcement by megaphone for soldiers not to move from the barracks and we were forbidden from going to the area where I saw the fire," he said.

According to reports, the base in Kamra was previously targeted on October 23, 2009 when a suicide bomber killed six civilians and two Pakistani Air Force personnel at a checkpoint.

On December 10, 2007, a suicide car bomber struck a school bus, wounding at least five children of base employees.

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The Women of Afghanistan

New York Times
Editorial
August 15, 2012

Afghanistan can be a hard and cruel land, especially for women and girls. Many fear they will be even more vulnerable to harsh tribal customs and the men who impose them after American troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

Womens’ rights have made modest but encouraging gains over the past decade. But these could disappear without a strong commitment to preserve and advance them from Afghan leaders, Washington and other international partners.

Severe restrictions imposed by the Taliban, on access to education, health care and work, before they were ousted from power after Sept. 11 have been lifted in government-controlled areas. Women have run for office, been named to government posts and become more involved in Afghan society; some operate their own businesses. The 2004 Constitution guaranteed equal rights. In 2009, a new law banned violence against women and set new penalties for underage and forced marriage, rape and other abuses. Many more girls are in school and maternity death rates are down.

Much, of course, remains to be done. More than half of Afghan girls are still not in school, and, of those who are, few will stay long enough to graduate. Intimidation is commonplace; girls have been attacked and even doused with acid to be kept from attending school. It is not uncommon, especially in rural areas, for families to trade daughters into marriage or prostitution to settle debts. Women abused by their husbands or families too often end up in jail instead of their abusers.

A recent study by Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 58 women and girls in prison, found that half were jailed for acts that any reasonable person would not consider a crime, like running away from abusive situations. People who force women into marriage, often at very young ages, or subject them to violence, are rarely prosecuted, the group said. Female victims get little support from police and judges, and they face the added injustice of being punished for committing “moral crimes,” like “zina” — sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. Criminalizing zina is contrary to Afghanistan’s international obligations, the group says.

There are rare victories. The Times reported on Saturday that an appeals court held up prison sentences of 10 years each for the in-laws who tortured a 13-year-old girl when she refused to become a prostitute or have sex with the man she was forced to marry.

President Hamid Karzai’s record on women’s rights is less than encouraging. While he has pardoned women accused of moral crimes, he has failed to vigorously enforce the violence against women law. In March, he signed off on a decree from the country’s highest religious council stating that women were secondary to men. With his government and the United States exploring peace talks with the Taliban, many activists worry that women’s interests will be sacrificed as part of a strategic deal.

The Obama administration has insisted that this will not happen, most recently at the Tokyo donors’ conference in July when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton promised that “the United States will continue to stand strongly by the women of Afghanistan.” She and other Western leaders will have to keep nudging Mr. Karzai in that direction, even as they invest in schools, teachers, shelters and rule-of-law programs. Right now, it appears as if Washington and other donors are chiefly interested in building up Afghanistan’s expensive Army and finishing infrastructure projects.

One bright spot is that more Afghan women seem to have found their voice and have not been timid about advocating for their own rights. But all Afghans should be invested in empowering women. As Mrs. Clinton has argued, there is plenty of evidence to show that no country can grow and prosper in today’s world if women are marginalized and oppressed.

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Taliban Commander Killed in Takhar Raids

TOLOnews.com
Thursday, 16 August 2012

A well-known Taliban commander, Mullah Anwar, was killed in an Afghan and Nato troops operatoin in the Ashkmash district in northern Takhar province on Wednesday, local officials said.

The raid was launched after it was found that "the commander was behind Monday's suicide attack in Ashkmash which killed five, including district mayor Haji Hashim," provincial spokesman Faizulllah Towhidi said.

Two of the commander's security guards were also killed.

There were no civilian casualties during the operation, he added.

Meanhwile, Isaf in a statement today said that in Ashkamash district of Takhar province, yesterday, an Afghan and coalition security force conducted an operation to find Mullah Anwar, a senior Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader.

During the operation, the security force was attacked by a group of insurgents. The force returned fire and conducted a precision airstrike.

After the strike, the force conducted a follow-on assessment and confirmed the strike had killed multiple insurgents including Anwar.

"Anwar is the senior IMU military leader in Burkah district of Baghlan province and was involved in the assassination of the Ashkamash district mayor on Monday," Isaf said in a statement.

The security force also detained two suspected insurgents and seised multiple weapons and explosives during the operation.

Ashakmash district borders Baghlan province where insurgents are active and often target local officials.

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Pakistan to move against Taliban in border tribal areas

Sydney Morning Herald
August 15, 2012
Washington

PAKISTAN will launch combat operations against the Taliban soon in a tribal area near the Afghan border that also serves as a haven for leaders of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Haqqani network, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta says.

The US has long been frustrated by Islamabad's refusal to target Afghan Taliban militants and their allies who use Pakistani territory to stage attacks against US and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

Many analysts believe Pakistan is reluctant to target groups with which it has strong historical ties that could be useful allies in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.

Mr Panetta said Pakistan's military chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, discussed the planned operation in recent conversations with the top American commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen.

Mr Panetta said he did not know when the Pakistani operation would start, but he said he believed it would be in the near future and that the main target would be the Pakistani Taliban, rather than the Haqqani network.

Saying he had previously ''lost hope'' that Pakistan's military would take action in the North Waziristan tribal area, Mr Panetta welcomed General Kayani's initiative, even though the main target may not be leaders of the Haqqani network, whose fighters move back and forth across the border to launch attacks in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon chief said relations with the Pakistani military have improved ''a great deal'' lately, after a falling out over US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November and Pakistan's subsequent closing of border crossings used to move military supplies to US and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

''General Kayani did indicate that they had developed plans to go into Waziristan,'' Mr Panetta said. ''Our understanding is that hopefully they're going to take that step in the near future … They've talked about it for a long time. Frankly, I'd lost hope that they were going do anything about it. But it does appear that they, in fact, are going to take that step.'' AP

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President says Attacks on Afghanistan Impacting Relationship with Pakistan

TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 15 August 2012

In a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, Afghan President Hamid Karzai pressed him to take action to terminate of cross-border rocket attacks, President Karzai's office said.

According to the statement, the two presidents agreed that issue of rocket attacks should be tackled through a joint militarily task.

At the sideline of a summit in Saudi Arabia, Karzai said that "these attacks have had a negative impact on the relationship between the two countries."

Back in Kabul. the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) blamed Pakistan's intelligence department (ISI) for providing false information to the government of Pakistan.

"Paksitan's ISI is providing false information to government officials, which is concerning, so to protect themselves, they are firing rockets into another country," NDS Deputy Spokesman, Shafiqullah Tahiri said.

"According to the Afghan-US strategic agreement, US should defend Afghanistan from any foreign threat and invasion otherwise the agreement will lose its credibility," Afghan political expert Nasrullah Stanikzai told TOLOnews.

This comes and US Department of Defense has begun talks with Pakistan to resolve the issue of cross-border attacks.

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In Afghanistan, Scandal Erupts Over Changing Street Name To Honor Iranians

RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan
August 15, 2012
MAZAR-I SHARIF, Afghanistan

Provincial officials in northern Afghanistan have asked the central government in Kabul to decide whether a street in Mazar-e Sharif should be named after a group of Iranian diplomats killed there in 1998.

The move, announced in a statement by the Administrative Council of Balkh Province, comes after a scandal erupted over reports that the street with Iran's former consulate building in Mazar-e Sharif already had been renamed Martyrs of the Consulate of the Islamic Republic of Iran without approval from Kabul.

If the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture blocks the proposed name change, the affair is likely to rekindle an old dispute and damage relations between Tehran and Kabul.

But formal approval of the name change risks angering the many Afghans who view the Iranian diplomats as spies who had tried to divide Afghanistan along sectarian lines in order to create a Shi'ite-dominated buffer state on Iran's eastern border.

Eight Iranian diplomats and an employee of Iran's state-run IRNA news agency were killed at the Iranian consulate building in August 1998 when Mazar-e Sharif was overrun by Taliban fighters.

A senior Taliban official at the time -- Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil -- initially said Taliban investigators concluded that the Iranians were killed by "renegade forces" who acted without orders from the Taliban leadership. Later, the Taliban denied any involvement in their deaths.

Tehran has always blamed the killings on the Taliban, saying it also held Pakistan's government partly responsible because Islamabad had vouched for the safety of the diplomats before Mazar-e Sharif fell to the Taliban.

Angry Debate

Reports of the street name being changed to honor the slain Iranians emerged last week in an announcement by Iran's Foreign Ministry.

By August 12, the story had boiled over into an angry debate on the floor of the Afghan parliament.

"The people who were killed there may have been spies, but now they name the roads in their honor," said Mohammad Akbar Stanikzai, an independent member of parliament from Logar Province. "If you see how Afghans in Iran are not allowed to attend Friday Prayers, how they don't have permission to attend the religious schools, or how Iran executes innocent Afghans, it is shameful for us to rename our streets in honor of their spies."

In fact, the administrators of Balkh Province say the original request to change the name of the street was made by the Iranian government, which had itself renamed a street in Tehran after the slain Afghan anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Masud.

Balkh's governor, Atta Mohammad Noor, is said to have backed the change and forwarded it to the provincial council for their approval in order to recognize "the services and cooperation of the friendly country of Iran with the people of Afghanistan" during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and resistance against the Taliban regime.

'An Insult' To Afghan Culture

It was after the debates in parliament that Balkh's provincial council admitted the name change also requires approval from the Information and Culture Ministry in Kabul.

Afghan analyst Razaq Mamoon told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that a majority of the Afghan people oppose the name change.

"This is an extraordinary decision and it is not compatible with Afghanistan's laws," Mamoon says. "It will be opposed by a majority of the people. The reason is that the street named after Abu Muslim-i Khorasani [the current name of the street] is a central road of the city. Naming it to honor nine or 10 Iranian spies will be an insult to Abu Muslim-i Khorasani and Afghan culture."

Tehran has long been accused of playing a double game in Afghanistan -- helping Afghan Shi'ites while allegedly working to destabilize the larger Sunni Afghan community.

Relations between Kabul and Tehran have been strained in recent years due to Iran's toughened immigration policy, which has led to the repatriation of many Afghan asylum seekers.

Although Iran has hosted a large number of Afghan refugees since the early 1980s, it has tried to repatriate those still in Iran as soon as possible.

Angry demonstrations have been sparked in Afghanistan by public executions of Afghan citizens in the streets of Iran.

There also have been many reports alleging that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has been training Afghan militants inside Iran to carry out terrorist attacks back in Afghanistan.

Written by RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz in Prague, based on reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan in Mazar-e Sharif and Kabul

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Afghan self-defense groups give communities new freedoms

USA TODAY
By Carmen Gentile, Special for USA TODAY
15/08/2012
SIAH CHOY, Afghanistan

Only a few months ago, people in this small village were virtually prisoners in their own homes, resident Haji Galam says.

They were forbidden from traveling freely or using their cellphones. "They were placing IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in front of people's home so they couldn't go out at night," says Galam who spoke in front of a small mudbrick mosque where the Taliban used to sleep at night.

Today, villagers can come and go as they please. The Taliban has been driven from this area, a former insurgent stronghold west of Kandahar, thanks largely to Galam and his neighbors who joined the ranks of the Afghan Local Police (ALP), a U.S.-funded initiative to organize villagers into self-defense units.

Nationwide, there are now 13,500 villagers in the self-defense groups, which are considered a critical part of efforts to turn security responsibility over to the Afghan government as U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan.

By the end of September, the number of U.S. forces will have declined to about 68,000 from a high of about 100,000 last year. Most U.S. troops will leave at the end of 2014 when Afghan forces will assume responsibility for securing the country. Afghan soldiers and the local self-defense groups are assuming an increasing share of responsibility for providing security.

U.S. officials say the Afghan Local Police are not independent militia but are tied into Afghanistan's government. "They are held accountable for their actions," says Army Lt. Col. Todd Harrell, a military spokesman.

Critics, including Human Rights Watch, say some groups have abused their authority, and their loyalties are questionable. Individuals receive only three weeks of weapons training, and the group doesn't have the same level of organization and leadership as the Afghan army.

"The ALP is fighting for the money, nothing else," says Afghan army Capt. Azzim Hotek, whose soldiers in nearby Nalgham village work alongside the local police, though they share a strained relationship.

Coalition officials say a key asset is their local knowledge. With the help of the ALP, about 150 IEDs, or roadside bombs, were pulled from the ground in a few square miles around Siah Choy over the past few months, says Lt. Col Jeffrey Howard, a battalion commander.

"They know the locals and have better interaction with the local population," Howard says. "They can tell us who is from here and who isn't."

Critics, including some in Afghanistan's army, question the professionalism and loyalties of local groups. Hotek accuses some of the ALP commanders in his area of having ties to the Taliban.

Coalition officers acknowledge that the groups have been divided by tribal and other disputes.

"During my first month there was a lot of infighting and power struggles among them," says Army Capt. Jose Armenta, a company commander.

The future of the program is not clear. Providing salaries, weapons and ammunition will be the responsibility of the Afghan government once American troops are gone.

Hotek said he doesn't believe the local units will remain loyal to the Afghan government. "When the Americans leave, the ALP is finished," he says.

For now, the groups have had an impact on security, Armenta says.

Here in central Zharay, the birthplace of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, the ALP is creating a security presence in an area where the Taliban once enjoyed freedom.

By March, the villages around Combat Outpost Nalgham had been cleared of Taliban infiltrators, as dozens of local police regularly patrol area villages and man checkpoints, according to leaders of the previous unit that first stood up the ALP.

"There used to be fighting here every day before the ALP came," says Ali Mohammed, a farmer in Nalgham. "Now, we have more security and can go out without fear."

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ISAF Suspends more than 100 Companies Over Corruption Charges

TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 15 August 2012

ISAF has suspended business with more than 100 national and international companies who have allegedly been involved in corruption since 2010, Brigadier General Ricky Waddell, Commander to the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force Shafafiyat said at a press conference on Wednesday.

More than thirty billion dollars worth of contracts involving more than fifteen hundred international and Afghan companies were reviewed General Waddell said.

"ISAF will continue the support of the Afghan Ministries, the provincial and local leaders and the Afghan security forces is an endeavor to deliver better governance and services to the people. It is an important note that the government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has taken an national steps to reduce the trade of corruption and increase transparency and accountability and build judicial capacity in the rule of law,"he added.

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Olympic medal helps unify torn Afghanistan

DW
15/08/2012

The Afghan taekwondo master Rohullah Nikpah won his second consecutive bronze medal at the Olympics. The country's six athletes received a warm welcome home on Tuesday from cheering crowds.

Crowds went wild in Kabul's Ghazi Stadium. Where once the Taliban used to carry out public executions, people cheered and waved flags to welcome home the country's six athletes who participated in the 2012 London Olympics. They cheered loudest for Rohullah Nikpah, winner of the bronze medal in taekwondo.

"The best part for me is not the medal itself but the peace, unity and fraternity it has created among my fellow countrymen," Nikpah said after returning home.

Hundreds of people went to the stadium, especially children and young adults, to celebrate Rohullah Nikpah and the medal he brought back for Afghanistan. One group of about 50 boys dressed in taekwondo uniforms stood in the staduim holding placards and portraits of the athletes and of national symbols of Afghanistan.

Positive attention

One of the boys named Majed said, "I want to win a medal, too, and go abroad and represent my country in competition. It makes me so happy to see Afghanistan getting positive attention."

Conidering the daily news, which is full of reports of attacks and killings, Nikpah's bronze medal is like balm for the soul of Afghanistan.

The enthusiasm for the games was quite novelty this year. People throughout the entire country celebrated when they saw the taekwondo champion holding the Afghan flag in London. This year, posters and placards with the athletes' pictures printed on them were hung up all over the country, contrary to the last Olympic Games, explained Afghan sports journalist Musadeq Parsa.

"The Beijing Olympics took place in 2008 without hardly anyone in Afghanistan noticing. No one expected Nikpah to win a medal. So this time, the suspence was all the greater - the people watched with great interest and showed their support for him."

Unity through patriotism

He said it was apparent that the Afghan people's enthusiasm for this year's Olympic games and for their country's athletes brought them closer together.

"One could say that the ethnic conflicts decreased by 90 percent during the games. The athletes received equal support from the Afghan people - no matter where in Afghanistan they were from or which ethnic group they belonged to. During the games there were no ethnic differences - there was just Afghanistan."

Speaking for this is the fact that Rohullah Nikpah is an ethnic Hazara - a group of people which usually faces discrimination. While it was good that the London Games were helping Afghans to forget their prejudices, Parsa said the government was not doing enough to invest in the country's sports infrastructure.

"Getting kids interested in sports is the government's responsibility. They don't allocate extra money for the training of competitive athletes. Foreign aid donors have also not given enough support for this important part of society."

But at least Afghanistan is preparing to introduce a football league based on the European model. Medal winner Nikpah is sure that sports will play a pivitol role in the peace process of his country.

"I wanted the people of Afghanistan to be happy with my performance and to come together and enjoy the games. God willing, this kind of patriotism will grow day by day."

Author: Waslat Hasrat-Nazimi / sb Editor: Shamil Shams

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The U.S. Plot to Blow Up the Afghan Ministry of Defense

TIME
By Mark Thompson
August 15, 2012

Times have gotten tougher in Afghanistan given the latest green-on-blue attacks, where Afghan troops – or at least killers clad like Afghan troops – have taken to killing U.S. and other allied personnel with firearms or suicide vests. Army Major David Fitzpatrick, who was deployed as a trainer for the Afghan military in Kabul from July 2010 to July 2011, knows how a high-profile attack – even when it fails – can change the everyday life of U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan.

He details some of those changes in this recently-posted June interview he did with the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Part of his job involved regularly going to the Afghan Ministry of Defense to mentor Afghan military personnel. But that got tougher after an insurgent penetrated that compound and came close to killing then-Afghan Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak. Highlights:

It was April of 2011, the Afghan MoD was infiltrated and there was a suicide bomber that made it into the main office of our MoD, who made it to the actual third floor and almost got to the Minister’s office, Minister Wardak, the actual Minister of Defense.

The suicide bomber made it to the minister’s office before he was shot. Yeah, our biggest incident was there so from there our force protection level went to the max…the suicide bomber didn’t detonate because he was killed before he could — he was halfway down the hallway before he would have detonated himself, before he was stopped.

From there, the tension between us and the Afghan were high. Afghans didn’t trust anyone anymore. There were rumors going around that the infiltrator was seen getting out of a black SUV and for some reason the Afghans thinks that the Coalition only drives black SUVs. [Laughter]

They were accusing us of bringing in the infiltrator. They were very suspicious of us. Before the attack, it would take us a minute to get through the main entrance; now it would take an hour-and-a-half to get through security because they would search us.

It was funny. They would stop us, search our vehicles when we did drive, search our persons but any Afghan vehicle coming in that was covered, like with a tarp on the back of the bed of the truck, or dark windows, they would just wave on through and didn’t even bother to stop them. It was like, “That’s how the suicide bomber got in, not through us. Why would we bring somebody in to blow up the Minister of Defense? That doesn’t make sense.”

…We even pointed out while we were being searched at the gate, “Look, you just let another truck in and he’s got a tarp on the back. Do you know what is underneath that tarp?” It was just rumors. They believed rumor quite a bit and so they were suspicious of us because they had heard a rumor. That was it.

Yeah, we were always kind of fearful because the guards were very — I am not going to say trigger happy but they were — yeah.

…I think they’re under a lot of pressure. The Afghans started putting Colonels and Generals down at the gates and main entrance to supervise, so the Afghan Soldiers manning the gates were feeling the pressure. I am sure the Generals and Colonels were telling the guards to search everybody except for certain individuals.

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General reassures Marines after Afghan attacks

The Washington Times
By Rowan Scarborough
Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Marine Corps‘ top officer is trying to soothe the rattled nerves of his troops in Afghanistan, who saw six of their comrades gunned down by Afghan security forces Friday.

Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, sent a letter Tuesday to commanders telling them the attacks show that, in fact, America is winning the war against Taliban insurgents.

“When faced with the stark reality of what has just happened, it would be easy to give in to the belief that these attacks indicate we are losing the fight,” Gen. Amos wrote in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. “In fact, the opposite is true.”

“These attacks are occurring because we are winning the fight in [regional command southwest],” he said. “Over the last four years we have steadily improved the security situation in Helmand [province] Historical casualty levels have steadily declined. Afghan security forces have made dramatic improvements in dependability, capability and performance.”

The Marines suffered their worst so-called “green-on-blue” fatalities in one day. On Friday, an Afghan police officer shot and killed three Marines with the 1st Special Operations Battalion. That same day, three Marines assigned to a training unit were killed by an Afghan policeman in Helmand.

The slayings come amid a rise in Afghan security forces turning on U.S. forces. The Taliban claims responsibility for infiltrating the Afghan army and police with assassins.

The command says there have been 26 Afghan-on-American attacks this year, resulting in 34 deaths.

Gen. Amos‘ letter to generals and commanders says:

“Faced with our undeniable momentum and his own failure, the enemy is increasingly forced to resort to spectacular attacks. I am confident that these recent attacks were carefully crafted to drive a wedge between us and our Afghan partners. This is a common theme in the latter stages of a counterinsurgency operation. We saw the same thing in Iraq after the balance had tipped in our favor.

“I need each of you to talk about these attacks with our young Marines — particularly those deployed. At the same time don’t miss the chance to discuss these attacks with our families who are undoubtedly anxious. Ensure [that] all concerned understand that these attacks are, ironically, a measure of our effectiveness — a clear demonstration of the fact that the enemy is off balance and increasingly desperate.”

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Bomb Blast Shakes Herat Bazaar

TOLOnews.com
Wednesday, 15 August 2012

A bomb said to be placed in a bicycle exploded at approximately 3 p.m. in Herat city in a crowded bazaar, authorities said.

Local hospital officials told TOLOnews that at least one person was killed and 18 others were injured.

No group has claimed the responsibility for the blast.

Yesterday, three suicide attacks targeted a civilian hospital and a crowded bazaar in southwestern Nimroz province killing as many as 29 people and injuring 110 others. The Nimroz blast is the deadliest this year.

Another suicide attack in Kunduz killed 18 civilians, the majority including women and children. The incident occurred in the Archi district of northern Kunduz province as the explosives packed inside a motorbike blew up.

No group, including the Taliban, has claimed the responsibility for these attacks.

The deadly incident on civilians comes a week after the United Nations released a report showing a 15 per cent decrease in the number of civilian casualties in the first half of 2012.

Isaf has recently said that insurgent attacks during the month of Ramadan were increased due to lack of poppy cultivation.

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