"Don't count on a peace deal with Taliban"

"Don't count on a peace deal with Taliban"
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
May 26, 2011 6:14 a.m. EDT

[CNN] Editor's Note: Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, is the director of the national security studies program at the New America Foundation. His latest book is "The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and al-Qaeda." This article is based on testimony that Bergen gave Tuesday before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

> Peter Bergen says hopes of a peace deal with Taliban are unlikely to be realized
> He cites nine obstacles standing in the way of a negotiated settlement
> He says Taliban's Mullah Omar has taken extreme stands, resists reasonable compromises
> Bergen says engaging Taliban in peace talks makes sense even if chances of a deal are remote

Washington (CNN) -- Recently, both The Washington Post and the German magazine Der Spiegel have reported on meetings between U.S. officials and representatives of the Taliban that have taken place in Germany to discuss some form of peace negotiations.

Talking to the Taliban makes sense, but there are major impediments standing in the way of a deal.

First, who exactly is there to negotiate with in the Taliban? It's been a decade since their fall from power, and the "moderate" Taliban who wanted to reconcile with the Afghan government have already done so. They are the same group of Taliban who are constantly trotted out in any discussion of a putative Taliban deal: Mullah Zaeef, their former ambassador to Pakistan; Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, their foreign minister; and Abdul Hakim Mujahid, who was the Taliban representative in the United States before 9/11. This group was generally opposed to Osama bin Laden well before he attacked the United States.

Bin Laden told intimates that his biggest enemies in the world were the United States and the Taliban Foreign Ministry, which was trying to put the kibosh on his anti-Western antics in Afghanistan. And today the "moderate" already-reconciled Taliban don't represent the Taliban on the battlefield, because they haven't been part of the movement for the past decade.


The key Taliban figure is still their leader, Mullah Omar, aka "The Commander of the Faithful." The title indicates that Mullah Omar is not just the leader of the Taliban, but also of all Muslims. This suggests that Mullah Omar is not only a religious fanatic, but also a fanatic with significant delusions of grandeur. Negotiations with religious fanatics who have delusions of grandeur generally do not go well.

Almost every country in the world -- including the Taliban leader's quasi-patron, Pakistan -- pleaded with Mullah Omar in the spring of 2001 not to blow up the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan's greatest cultural patrimony. But he did so anyway. After 9/11, Mullah Omar was prepared to lose his entire regime on the point of principle that he would not give up bin Laden to the United States following the attacks on Manhattan and the Pentagon. And he did.

(Senior U.S. military officials tell me that it is their view that Mullah Omar is living at least some of the time in the southern Pakistani megacity of Karachi. President Obama has indicated he would be willing to launch another operation, along the lines of the one that killed bin Laden, if another major target such as Mullah Omar were located.)

Since his regime fell, Mullah Omar has also shown no appetite for negotiation or compromise. He is joined in this attitude by some senior members of his movement, such as Maulavi Abdul Kabir, a Taliban leader in eastern Afghanistan, who said in January, "Neither has there been any peace talk nor has any of the Islamic Emirate (the Taliban) shown any inclination towards it."

Second, the Taliban have had ten years to reject bin Laden and all his works, and they haven't done so. For this reason, Saudi Arabia, which has hosted "talks about talks" in Mecca between Afghan government officials and some Taliban representatives, has soured on the process.

Third, "the Taliban" are really many Talibans, and so a deal with one insurgent group doesn't mean the end of the insurgency writ large. It's not clear that even Mullah Omar can deliver all of the Taliban that he nominally controls in southern Afghanistan, because they are often fissured into purely local groups, many of whom are a long way from Taliban HQ across the border in Quetta, Pakistan. As Amb. Richard Holbrooke commented three months before he died, "There's no Ho Chi Minh. There's no Slobodan Milosevic. There's no Palestinian Authority." Instead, there are several leaders of the various wings of the insurgency, from the Quetta Shura in southern Afghanistan, to the Haqqani Network in the east, as well as smaller insurgent groups, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami in the northeast.

Fourth, the history of "peace" deals with the Taliban in Pakistan shows that the groups can't be trusted. Deals between the Pakistani government and the Taliban in Waziristan in 2005 and 2006 and in Swat in 2009 were merely preludes to the Taliban establishing their brutal "emirates," regrouping and then moving into adjoining areas to seize more territory.

Fifth, the arrest in Pakistan last year of Mullah Baradar, the Taliban No. 2 who had been negotiating directly with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, shows that the Pakistani military and government want to retain a veto over any significant negotiations going forward. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, as certainly Pakistan's legitimate interests in the post-American Afghanistan must be recognized, but it also demonstrates that negotiations with the Taliban will not be as straightforward as just having the Afghan government and the insurgents at the negotiating table.

Sixth, other key players in any negotiations with the Taliban are the former leaders of the largely Tajik and Uzbek Northern Alliance, who fought a bitter several-years war with the Taliban and who now occupy prominent positions in Afghanistan -- for instance, the minister of the interior, Bismullah Khan, and Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai's main rival for the presidency in 2009, who is -- at least for now -- the most likely candidate to succeed Karzai in the 2014 presidential elections. These leaders are not going to allow all they fought for to be reversed by a deal with the Taliban that gives them significant concessions on territory or principle.

Seventh, the several meetings over the past three years between Afghan officials and Taliban representatives in Mecca and in the Maldives to discuss "reconciliation" have so far produced a big zero. A senior U.S. military officer dismissed these talks as "reconciliation tourism," while an Afghan official joked with me that in landlocked Afghanistan, "Everybody wanted to go to the Maldives for a meeting."

Eighth, the debacle involving Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour last year shows how much of a fog surrounds the whole reconciliation process. Mullah Mansour was portrayed as one of the most senior of the Taliban leaders, who was in direct negotiations with the Karzai government in the fall of 2010. Except it then turned out he wasn't Mullah Mansour at all, but a Quetta shopkeeper who had spun a good yarn about his Taliban credentials so he could pick up what a British government report characterizes as "significant sums."

Finally, and most importantly: What do the Taliban really want? It's relatively easy to discern what they don't want: international forces in Afghanistan. But other than their blanket demand for the rule of Sharia law, the Taliban have not articulated their vision for the future of Afghanistan. Do they envision a democratic state with elections? Do they see a role for women outside the home? What about education for girls? What about ethnic minorities?

While these obstacles show that reaching an accommodation with the Taliban is going to be quite difficult, that doesn't mean that it isn't worth trying. Even if peace talks are not successful they can have other helpful effects, such as splitting the facade of Taliban unity.

Even simple discussions about the future shape of negotiations can help sow dissension in the Taliban ranks, while if such discussions do move forward in even incremental steps, more intelligence can be garnered about what exactly is going on inside the shadowy Taliban movement. Also, getting the Taliban to enter into any negotiations means that they will no longer get to occupy the moral high ground of fighting a supposed holy war, but will instead be getting their hands dirty in more conventional political back-room deals.

Audrey Cronin of the National Defense University has systematically examined how and why terrorist/insurgent groups come to some kind of peace deal and has laid out some general principles about what that usually takes, which are worth considering in the context of Afghanistan.

First, there must be recognition on both sides that a military stalemate has been reached. (In the early 1980s the American academic William Zartman coined the term a "mutually hurting stalemate" to describe the moment when combatants will start considering a peace settlement.)

That precondition may now exist to some degree, given that over the past six months or so the Taliban have taken heavy losses in their heartlands of Kandahar, while the U.S. public has increasingly turned against what is already America's longest war. In December, 60% of Americans said the war was "not worth fighting," according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll -- up from 41% in 2007.
An important shift in the Obama administration's stance on Taliban negotiations was recently signaled by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. While giving the Richard Holbrooke memorial lecture at the Asia Society in New York on February 18, Clinton said that previous American conditions for talks with the Taliban -- that they lay down their arms, reject al Qaeda, and embrace the Afghan Constitution -- were no longer conditions that the Taliban had to meet before negotiations could begin, but were "necessary outcomes" of the final peace process.

Judging by the lack of media attention in the United States to this shift, this subtle but important distinction was probably also not well grasped by the Taliban, but it does represent a somewhat more flexible American position.

Similarly the Afghan government has now adopted "reconciliation" as its official policy, setting up a "High Peace Council" in the fall to help facilitate those negotiations, a body that is made up, in part, of a number of leaders from the former Northern Alliance, who are less likely to act as spoilers of a peace process if they feel they are a part of it.

Successful negotiations often require a capable and trusted third party sponsor. This condition seems also to be lacking right now: The Saudis are, at best, lukewarm about facilitating talks with the Taliban; the Pakistanis are not really trusted by any of the parties in the conflict, even by much of the Taliban; and while the United Nations may have some role to play in negotiations, Taliban attacks on U.N. personnel in Afghanistan last year don't suggest this avenue has much immediate promise. (Murmurings about a role for Turkey in facilitating a deal may have some potential, given that Turkey has an Islamist government and is also a key member of NATO.)

A peace deal also generally requires strong leadership on both the government and insurgent sides to force a settlement. Neither Hamid Karzai nor Mullah Omar fits this particular bill. Finally, Cronin explains that the overall political context must be favorable to negotiations for a deal to succeed. Here there is some real hope: While fewer then one in ten Afghans have a favorable view of the Taliban, a large majority is in favor of negotiating with them. Nationally, around three-quarters of Afghans favor talks, while in Kandahar the number goes up to a stratospheric 94%.

All that said, the bottom line on the Taliban reconciliation process is that nothing of any real note is currently happening. According to a Western official familiar with the record of discussions with the Taliban, the chances of a deal with the Taliban similar to the Dayton Accords that ended the Balkans war in the mid-1990s, or the Good Friday Agreement that ended the IRA campaign against the British government, are "negligible" for the foreseeable future. The official says that Mullah Omar needs his council of ulema (religious scholars) to sign off on a peace deal and there is "no sign of this right now."

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Peter Bergen.

Two reports on the indispensible Abdul Raziq

U.S. Lt. Col. William Clark, second from left, talks with Gen. Abdul Razik, the border police commander for southern Afghanistan, during a joint patrol along the border with Pakistan, on the outskirts of Spin Boldak, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

I'll start with the December 27, 2010 Canadian Press/AP report because it's a good introduction to Raziq (also spelled Razziq and Razik) and because it contains this declaration:

"What is little understood about the Afghan war is that the Taliban are largely supported by the powerful Noorzai tribe ..."

Darn tootin it's little understood. But golly gee isn't it nice someone got around to letting us know? After all these years?

Sigh.

NATO bullish, Canadians wary of Afghan warlord Raziq
by Murray Brewster
Associated Press/The Canadian Press via Nato World News
Monday December 27, 2010 12:22 PM ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — He reportedly makes no apologies for killing his "enemies" on sight and has been instrumental in NATO's attempt this fall to pacify Kandahar one brutal step at a time.

There are those in Afghanistan who have labelled Col. Abdul Raziq a "butcher" in the past, and some have accused him of profiting from the burgeoning illegal drug trade.

Yet others in the provincial government and western armies hail him as a hero who is helping to bring stability to a troubled land, with a series of lightning-style raids deep in Taliban enclaves.

There is no doubt the prominent Achakzai border police commander's influence has been significant in wrestling key pieces of the province away from insurgent influence.

It began with a raid in Mehlajat, on the outskirts of the provincial capital last summer, but Raziq's operations have taken on a life of their own.

He has been all over the war-wasted province this fall to the enthusiastic applause of American commanders who regard him as "tremendously respected among the Afghans" and "a great partner" for NATO.

Knowing his history, Canadian officers are more circumspect.

"He's been extremely effective," Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, the commander of Canadian troops, said in a recent interview. "I think you always have a few concerns because he's had some challenges in the past."

Over the last five weeks, The Canadian Press has conducted dozens of interviews with Afghan officials, ordinary citizens and military commanders about this shadowy proxy war within the war.

The raids conducted by Raziq and up to 400 hand-picked fighters, alongside U.S. Special Forces soldiers, are playing with ethnic fire, according to some Afghan officials, who -- despite giving the raids their approval -- worry about the potential fallout.

The attacks fuel suspicion and threaten to reignite the hatred that four years ago layered a bloody tribal war on top of an already violent insurgency in western Kandahar.

Since the raid into Mehjalat in late August, Raziq's militia has acted as a roving disruption force for NATO, striking at hardened Taliban redoubts such as Zangabad, Bandi Taimoor in far-flung Maiwand district and pockets of Arghandab district.

There is little warning, even for allies.

Canadian ground commanders in Panjwaii had no idea he was coming into their sector in October until his convoy of heavily armed fighters "tripped one of the spike belts" along a newly constructed east-west road in the district, according to a senior military source.

Raziq's mission was to hunt down and kill senior Taliban commanders as well as known bomb-making cells. He went in ahead of American and later Canadian troops in the Horn of Panjwaii.

A farm owner in Zangabad, Haji Noor Muhammad, said the militia force gunned down an insurgent who wasn't from the area.

"He was an Afghan from another province," Muhammad said in an interview, with the help of an interpreter. "As long as he doesn't kill anybody from Zangabad there is no problem."

Fear that Raziq's operations could rekindle a tribal war between Raziq's Achakzai militia and the Noorzai, the dominant tribe in southern Afghanistan, are never far from the surface.

"It depends on the activities (of) Mr. Raziq," said Haji Agha Lalai, who ran a re-integration for Taliban fighters in Kandahar city.

"If he acts positively then the war will not start between (tribes). If he uses harsh words and shows that he's targetting (Noorzai) instead of anti-government forces, then it will start again."

Canadians have watched the developments with an uneasy eye.

Many of them remember all too well the late summer of 2006, when frustrated provincial council members gave Raziq the green light to lead his Achakzai militia into Panjwaii to counter a growing buildup of Taliban fighters. That was before Operation Medusa routed up to 1,000 insurgent fighters.

What is little understood about the Afghan war is that the Taliban are largely supported by the powerful Noorzai tribe, rivals to the Achakzai.

The hatred runs deep because, during the reign of the Taliban, the Achakzai were slaughtered and many fled to Pakistan until the U.S. ousted the hard-line Islamist movement in 2001.

Raziq's father was killed, while his uncle was hanged from the barrel of a Taliban tank, according to a Kandahar provincial councillor.

As he led his militia into Panjwaii in 2006, the then 28-year-old was believed to have a score to settle and word spread among the rival tribesmen that Raziq was out for Noorzai blood. His raid turned in to a fiasco, with dozens killed, when the force was ambushed at the district centre outside of Bazaar-e-Panjwaii.

"This was a bad idea to bring in Abdul Raziq," Haji Qassum, a provincial council member, told the Globe and Mail in 2006. "One village had 10 or 20 fighters against the government, and the next day maybe 200."

Today, district officials like Panjwaii governor Haji Baran sing a different tune.

"Raziq is my brother," said Baran, an elder of Noorzai blood. "Concern about him is only what we see in the media."

After the 2006 gunfight in Bazaar-e-Panjwaii, the Canadians were happy to see Raziq retreat to the border region, where he was given the title of border police commander and largely left alone to grow wealthy, thanks to his control of the porous Spin Boldak crossing.

His rehabilitation as a military commander began in 2009 when the U.S. 5th Stryker Brigade took over the Canadian forward operating base in the district. American Lt.-Col. William Clark, commander of the brigade's 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, cultivated a friendship with Raziq.

But it wasn't until the murder of a police chief in Daman district last summer that Razik was fully unleashed on the Taliban.

The New York Times reported that a furious Ahmed Wali Karzai complained to his brother, Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who in turned invested provincial governor Tooryalai Wesa with the powers of a commander-in-chief.

They turned to Raziq to lead a 1,700-man force in Mehlajat.

Milner said it's understood by everyone that the militia leader is a polarizing figure among Kandaharis.

"He understands, he can only do so much, but the bottom line is the people are very supportive of his actions," said Milner.

Milner said people have to be careful about how much they make use of Raziq. "I think Gov. Wesa understands that. You can lean on him only so much."

That may be an understatement.

When asked what sort of rules of engagement apply to Raziq, NATO officials responded that he fights the Afghan way. Even a generous interpretation of that means there are few restrictions on what he and his men can shoot at.

There is also a political embarrassment in the making.

Training competent Afghan security forces is supposed to be the alliance's primary goal, yet the provincial administration is compelled to turn to a militia leader to carry out its counter-terrorism operations.

Now on to The Washington Post; the following photo and maps are taken from their report. These quotes from the report reached out and grabbed me:

To reduce opportunities for graft, the U.S. and Canadian governments are spending $20 million to build a new customs facility that is separate from the border police station. They eventually hope to have truckers pay duties electronically, a tall order in a nation where inspections still are conducted by jabbing a wooden stick into the cargo compartment.

"How are you?" [Razziq] said to every shopkeeper as he reached over to hug them. "Do you need any help?"


Washington Post, October 4, 2010

Afghan colonel vital to U.S. despite graft allegations
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer

IN SPIN BOLDAK, AFGHANISTAN When Abdul Razziq, a colonel in the Afghan Border Police, walks through the chockablock bazaar in this sand-swept trading hub on the frontier with Pakistan, he is mobbed by a crowd that deferentially addresses him as General Razziq. Young boys want his photograph. Gray-bearded men offer him tea. Merchants refuse to sell him anything - if he wants a bottle of cologne, he gets it for free.

U.S. officials say Razziq, who is illiterate and just 32, presides over a vast corruption network that skims customs duties, facilitates drug trafficking and smuggles other contraband. But, he also has managed to achieve a degree of security here that has eluded U.S. troops elsewhere in the country: His force of 3,000 uniformed policemen and several thousand militiamen pursue the Taliban so relentlessly that Spin Boldak has become the safest and most prosperous district in southern Afghanistan.

Despite the allegations of graft, which he denies, Razziq represents the Obama administration's best hope for maintaining stability in this important part of Afghanistan. Keeping Spin Boldak quiet, which allows more U.S. and Afghan forces to be employed elsewhere, is critical to fulfilling the president's pledge to begin withdrawing U.S. troops next summer.

"Is it a long-term solution? That's for others to decide," said the top NATO commander in the south, British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter. "But it is a pragmatic solution. . .He's Afghan good-enough."

Meanwhile, U.S. and NATO officials have begun an ambitious plan to reform Razziq, hoping they can turn him into a more savory strongman. They are attempting to chaperone him, to offer incentives aimed at improving his behavior, and to set down new rules to compel him to put less money in his own pocket and more in the national treasury.

"We're trying to promote integrity by watching his operations a whole lot more closely, but we don't want him to stop doing all of the good things that he's doing," said U.S. Army Special Forces Col. Robert Waltemeyer, who runs a border coordination center here with representatives of the Afghan and Pakistan security forces. "We want to capitalize on his leadership."

The question of what to do about Razziq has vexed U.S. and NATO officials. Some have advocated for his ouster to demonstrate a hard line against graft, while others have argued that he be left alone because his force, which is more than five times the size of the U.S. military presence here, provides vital security for NATO supply convoys heading into Kandahar.

"If we didn't have him, we'd be screwed," a U.S. Army officer said during a visit here in August. "It wouldn't be this quiet."

Razziq, a lanky man with a close-cropped beard, is the chief of the Achakzais, one of the two principal tribes in this part of southern Afghanistan. His position as local strongman could have sparked the kind of conflict over power and resources that has driven people in other places to ally themselves with the Taliban. But thus far, Razziq has managed to spread the spoils deftly to avoid an open rebellion by the rival Noorzai tribe.

"He's like this Robin Hood figure who appears from nowhere, takes money and uses it to meet [the people's] needs," said Lt. Col. Andrew Green, the commander of a U.S. Army infantry battalion in Spin Boldak. "He picks favorites, for sure, but he's smart enough not to make too many enemies, which isn't something you can say about every power broker in Afghanistan."

Razziq has begun to extend his influence west toward Kandahar, the country's second-largest city and the site of major U.S. military operations against the Taliban. Dozens of his men have participated in Afghan-led operations in recent weeks to flush the insurgents out of sanctuaries to the north and south of the city. One Afghan official said that Razziq's force is prized by the government because its well-paid members fight more ably than most Afghan soldiers.

Razziq and his men also are valued because he is fiercely loyal to President Hamid Karzai and his half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the chairman of the Kandahar province council. Razziq owes his job and control over the border crossing to the president, and several U.S. officials said he repays that debt by funneling proceeds from corrupt activities to people linked to the Karzai brothers.

The officials also said they have credible reports that Razziq countenanced widespread fraud in support of the Karzais in last year's presidential election and last month's parliamentary election. Several boxes stuffed with identically marked ballots for President Karzai were stored in his house overnight for what he deemed "safekeeping."

"Razziq is the poster child for all that is wrong with Afghanistan's government," said a civilian adviser working for the U.S. government in Afghanistan who opposes working with him. "He's a militia leader who denies people the right to vote. What sort of message are we sending by keeping him in power?"

Stabilizing force

That concern prompted senior officials at the NATO military headquarters in Kabul to call for Razziq's removal late last year as the first step in the overall campaign to improve the quality of government in Kandahar and surrounding areas.

The commanders in Kandahar pushed back, citing Razziq's cooperation with international forces and his willingness to conduct independent operations against the Taliban, which few Afghan units are able or willing to do. "If we pulled him out of there, our control of the border would have collapsed," said a senior U.S. official who advocated for Razziq.

Ultimately, it was the need to ensure that trucks bearing military equipment could travel to Kandahar unimpeded that led then-Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, to decide that Razziq could stay. The general traveled to Spin Boldak twice to meet with the self-proclaimed general and deliver a mixed message: You need to help us, and you need to reform.

U.S. officials then told Razziq not to interfere in the customs process. Duties and other fees would have to be collected by authorized personnel, not his men. He also was warned to keep his force operating within the border police's mandate, which allows independent operations along the frontier but not into other parts of the country.

To reduce opportunities for graft, the U.S. and Canadian governments are spending $20 million to build a new customs facility that is separate from the border police station. They eventually hope to have truckers pay duties electronically, a tall order in a nation where inspections still are conducted by jabbing a wooden stick into the cargo compartment.

In an interview at the main U.S. base here, Razziq insisted he is not corrupt and denounced allegations of malfeasance as "just rumors."

"I don't need money," he said. "I have everything I need. Everyone likes me and respects me."

Confronting 'enigma'

The centerpiece of the new American approach has been an attempt to watch over him by assigning him a mentor. After concluding that the previous U.S. battalion commander in Spin Boldak had grown too close to Razziq, senior American officials sent in Waltemeyer. His goal, which he spelled out in a memo to his superiors, was to "redirect [Razziq's] energies from day-to-day influence at the. . .border crossing point" to more traditional law-enforcement activities.

As Razziq walked through the main market in Spin Boldak on a recent morning, there was little indication that his sway has been attenuated. A throng of well-wishers and supplicants gathered around him as he walked from stall to stall.

"How are you?" he said to every shopkeeper as he reached over to hug them. "Do you need any help?"

One man complained about the erratic supply of electricity. Another asked about the construction of a new school. Several merchants thrust business cards in his hand, imploring him to find jobs for their relatives.

"He is responsible for everything good here," said Mohammed Qasim, a television vendor.

As the merchants spilled out of their shops to greet Razziq, one asked another to keep watch on his wares. "Don't worry,'' Razziq said. "The thieves do not dare steal in front of me."

An aide followed behind with a phone glued to his ear. He said Razziq has seven mobile phones, one of which is a dedicated line for top officials from Kabul and Kandahar.

"You can see the enigma he presents," Waltemeyer said.

Razziq scoffed at U.S. attempts to confine him to security patrolling along the border. "My duties are universal," he said.

Some U.S. officials said Razziq has been emboldened by a lack of coordination among international troops. U.S. Special Operations Forces have encouraged him to conduct the very sorts of combat missions that other officers have told him to avoid, the officials said. "Our messages to him are not consistent," the U.S. Army officer here said.

Because Razziq's speed-dial includes everyone from Karzai to senior U.S. officers, he has not been timid about trying to change the terms of his relationship with his foreign partners. After repeated requests to work with someone other than Waltemeyer - Razziq wanted a "partner" with more forces at his disposal, not a "mentor" - commanders in southern Afghanistan recently assigned the task to a U.S. Army colonel who has more soldiers. But that colonel also has less time to watch over him than his previous minder.

With security a non-issue in Spin Boldak, U.S. and NATO officers seem willing to forgo some of the supervision they once envisioned. "As long as we don't catch him moving trucks full of opium through the desert, we'll let him slide," the Army officer said. "If his men are shaking people down on the highway, well, that's just the way it's done here. It's no different from toll booths on the highways back home."

Afghanistan's rivers, their regional strategic importance

Published on the Afghanistan Embassy's website

Afghanistan’s Rivers


Surface water is a key resource for a country with an agriculture-based economy. Afghanistan has four major river systems with substantial hydroelectric and irrigation potential.

The legendary Amu Darya (2400 km; "darya" means "river" in Dari), known as the Oxus in ancient times, runs through the northern plains. It is a navigable river, with tributaries originating in the Pamir Knot glaciers. It once fed the Aral Sea, but now often runs dry in its lower reaches due to excessive irrigation under Soviet administration .

The Kabul River (700 km), a major tributary of the Indus River, traverses the capital and crosses the eastern border into Pakistan. A water treaty assuring Pakistan a share of the Kabul's volume is currently being drafted, prior to the construction of a dam on Afghanistan's side of the border.

The capital's 2.3 million inhabitants depend on Kabul River for water. It ran dry during the recent five-year drought. Thanks to strong rains, it returned in 2003, heralding cleaner water and more electricity for an ever-growing population.

The Helmand River (1,150 km), fed by streams from the Hindu Kush, flows south and southeast into Iran. It drains 160,000 square km, and is used extensively for agriculture. Iran and Afghanistan are presently reviewing a water-sharing treaty, as the river is much needed for irrigation by both countries.

Finally, in northwest Afghanistan, the Hari Rud (1,130 km; "rud" means "river" in Farsi) irrigates the fertile Herat Valley, historically renowned for dense cultivation.

Drought has been frequent in Central and South Asia, so demand for water is high. Afghanistan shares its river systems with neighbouring, lower riparian countries Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Iran. Thus, irrigation and hydroelectric projects inside Afghanistan may affect the flow of water to those countries. Water sharing treaties, such as those being negotiated with Iran and Pakistan, aim to ensure a fair distribution of this precious resource to the region.

Four options

August 1, 2010, Guardian:

Afghanistan: which way now?
As the British and US governments ponder their next move, the Observer's foreign affairs editor Peter Beaumont examines the four most likely scenarios

Peter Beaumont
The Observer

Basra Option
During the latter period of the British occupation of the Iraqi city of Basra, two questions emerged: whether the high profile of British troops actually provided a target and made the violence worse? And whether the escalating conflict in that area was a direct result of primarily military efforts to bring security to it?

Soldiers in Afghanistan have raised these questions too. They have noted that, the more they go out on operations, the more they are hit; and how, with each escalation on the side of the US and ISAF, far from dampening the conflict, it has been exacerbated.

So will a reduction, perhaps to the point of withdrawal, lead to less violence? Of all the ideas bubbling around potential alternative strategies for Afghanistan, this is the most radical – the antithesis of the present counter-insurgency strategy, designed by the new US commanding officer General David Petraeus with his predecessor, Stanley McChrystal. The latter strategy, criticised by some both inside and outside the military, has been based on increasing the number of soldiers on the ground in the short term to improve security in the hope that political benefits will follow.

What would it look like?

A reverse of the surge ordered by Barack Obama, it would see troops increasingly concentrated in large civilian centres and bases, a policy tried by the British, leading to a gradual withdrawal.


How would it work?

Its proponents, few as there are, have suggested that by putting the Afghan government and forces on the spot, it might create the opportunity for an Afghan solution to an Afghan problem, avoiding all the collateral political issues created by foreign forces supporting Hamid Karzai's government.

It argues, too, that it is the presence of foreign forces that is the catalyst both for a conflict that has succeeded in presenting itself, like the war against the Soviets, as an anti-occupation struggle, as well as standing in the way of inter-ethnic reconciliation.


What are the objections?

As a military strategy, it is based on something of a paradox. Conventional thinking focuses on the control of operational space. By withdrawing, it would potentially hand that space to the Taliban. Then there is the al-Qaida question. Conventional wisdom has it that such a strategy would allow al-Qaida to return and establish new bases, although some have argued that the Taliban of 2010 is not the Taliban of the late 90s and might not be inclined to replicate a relationship that led to its first downfall.

Equally problematic is precisely what Afghanistan's neighbours – Pakistan among them – might do, confronted with such a potential vacuum.

The covert war option
Several variations of this option have popped up in the past few weeks, chief among their proponents Jack Devine, former CIA deputy director of operations, who was also head of the covert Afghan Task Force during the Soviet occupation. Another supporter is David Rieff, an international affairs analyst, writer and member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Devine, pictured, agrees with some of the thinking behind the Basra option: that the "large and visible occupying army" in Afghanistan is the wrong force in the wrong place. "Our presence in Afghanistan," he argued recently, "is better left unseen. Most Afghans, even those willing to deal with us, would rather we get our military out of their country. A covert action program would address this concern. It would also cost less than a military effort in treasure and lives, and allow the US to continue to protect its interests and the interests of the Afghans."

Rieff echoes some of Devine's concerns, arguing – in an article for the New Republic – that he would rather see much less fighting in Afghanistan and more drone strikes in Pakistan, and intelligence missions on home soil against potential terrorist threats.


What would it look like?

In some respects, it would look like other theatres of what used to be known as the "war on terror", where drone and missile strikes have been used to target wanted suspects. Devine's model is the CIA's covert actions of the 80s and 2001, when its officials rebuilt their networks among tribal leaders to help topple the Taliban.


What are the objections?

Well, the CIA's covert interventions in the 80s hardly left a stable Afghanistan. And a strategy that concentrates on cross-border drone raids is deeply problematic, both because of the unpopularity of the attacks in Pakistan and because the intelligence has not prevented large numbers of civilian casualties.


The save the north option

Unlike the Basra option, this strategy has more visible support, most recently from Robert Blackwill, a former deputy national security adviser to George Bush and former US ambassador to India. Blackwill is among the growing group challenging the present counter-insurgency strategy which, he said in a comment piece for the FT earlier this month, is "likely to fail".

A policy that could also be called "give the Taliban the south", it is pessimistic, arguing that on the ever-shortening political timeline for finding a successful outcome in Afghanistan, it will be impossible to sufficiently weaken the Taliban to get them to the negotiating table.

Another prominent champion of a similar-looking plan is the Pakistani author and journalist Ahmed Rashid, who has suggested reconfiguring the mission in Afghanistan to easier objectives: providing security for large numbers of Afghans in the province around Kabul, where the Taliban is weak and support for the government is strong.

How would it work?

This strategy would see coalition forces abandon the south to the Taliban to prevent the west and north of the country falling to them, too. It would require a long-term military commitment of perhaps tens of thousands of troops. Its aim would be to prevent the further spread of the Taliban while concentrating on the twin tasks of strengthening a weak central government and potentially laying down the ground for future negotiations with the Taliban which – as Rashid argues – would have the south as a future bargaining chip in any political settlement.


What are the objections?

It risks opening up not only the issue of partition but the even more dangerous question of whether there should be a Pashtun homeland – Pashtunistan. When it is discussed, the issue of the Pashtuns living on the other side of the border in Pakistan is invoked.


The steady as she goes option
Given the inherent problems in the other strategies, you might think this was the least problematic. The recent revelations from the WikiLeaks document dump of the faltering progress of the war confirm the futility of just soldiering on.

The counter-insurgency strategy has become increasingly unpopular with soldiers on the ground and its lack of quick successes have led to criticism. Most problematic is that it now has a use-by date, when troops will begin, at least partially, to withdraw.

The relative failure of operations linked to the surge to improve security for more than short periods of time, and at high cost, suggests that a strategy that envisages a similar operation for the Taliban heartland of Kandahar may be fraught with difficulties.


What does it look like?

All too familiar, is the answer. Expect more large-scale operations. An increasing emphasis, too, will be put on training the Afghan security forces, in the hope that they'll take over in around four years' time.

What are the objections?

With June the worst month for coalition casualties since 2001, the evidence remains questionable that the Taliban is being substantially weakened or that ISAF operations have succeeded in improving security in the south and east.

The new emphasis on training – as a US report revealed last month – comes after billions of dollars have been spent. Nonetheless, little headway has been made in creating an army and police force capable of taking on the Taliban.

Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan: Background reports

A trio of reports from Asia Times:

Helmand's poppy growth surges

Trail of Afghanistan's drug money exposed

Heroin lab menace grows in Afghanistan

Fairy Tale

What follows is a limited but remarkably frank assessment of the failures of U.S. (and international) aid to Pakistan's school system. The remarks, by a fellow at Heritage Foundation, were part of testimony given to a congressional committee. What is most striking about the remarks is their conclusion: after decades of very clear evidence that the aid approach had not worked the recommendation was for -- more aid.

U.S. Aid to Pakistan: Countering Extremism Through Education ReformPublished on June 8, 2007 by Lisa Curtis Lecture #1029

Delivered May 9, 2007

A strong and effective education system in Pakistan will help to ensure that the country steers toward a path of stability, moderation, and prosperity in the years to come, and should therefore be a top priority for Washington in its relations with Islamabad. Lack of adequate education opportunities in Pakistan has contributed to the development of extremist ideologies that have fueled terrorism and sectarian tensions as well as stifled economic growth. Fostering development and reform of the public education system will not only contribute to Pakistani economic prosperity and social tolerance, it will help improve the image of the United States by demonstrating American interest in the human development of average Pakistani citizens.

Today I will focus my remarks on the strengths and weaknesses of current U.S. assistance programs to Pakistan's education sector, as well as the role of the madrassa (Islamic religious school) in contributing to militancy in Pakistan over the last decade.

Pakistan's Failing Education Sector

Pakistan's public education system has suffered from neglect and politicization over the last 30 years. The overall adult literacy rate for the population above the age of 15 is about 43.5 percent, while the rates for Sri Lanka and India are 92 percent and 61 percent, respectively. Female literacy rates in Pakistan are abysmal, standing at about 32 percent. Barely 10 percent of children complete 12 years of schooling. With a population growth rate well over 2 percent, Pakistan is set to add another 100 million people to its current population of 160 million over the next 25 years. About half of this population will be under the age of 18. These demographic trends demand that Pakistan implement significant reforms to its education system and raise literacy rates and skill levels so that these young people can play a productive role in the future economy.

The World Bank and a number of donor agencies spent billions of dollars on a "Social Action Program" for Pakistan during the late 1980s through the 1990s. After a decade, the program failed to achieve basic objectives such as increasing school enrollment rates at the primary level and bringing education to remote parts of the country. The program failed because it did not address problems such as corruption and inefficiency within the Pakistani education bureaucracy. The World Bank's experience should serve as a cautionary tale to the U.S. and other international donors by demonstrating that merely throwing resources at the education sector is unlikely to bring positive results, and that convincing the Pakistani government to reform its own institutions is a necessary part of the process.

U.S. Education Assistance to Pakistan: Targeting Critical Areas

U.S. assistance to primary education and literacy in Pakistan has more than doubled--from $28 million in fiscal year 2004 to $66 million in fiscal year 2005. The impact of the findings of the 9/11 Commission report issued in July 2004 on the importance of educational opportunity in the Middle East and South Asia to uprooting terrorist ideology, and increased congressional oversight of U.S. aid programs to Pakistan contributed to the increase in education spending. The Fiscal Year 2008 State Department Congressional Budget Request includes $52 million for general education programs and an additional $50 million for earthquake reconstruction of schools and health facilities. The 2007 Emergency Supplemental Budget Request calls for another $110 million to develop Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), including the education sector. Through a program started in 2003, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) already is constructing and furnishing 65 primary, middle, and high schools in five agencies of the FATA. The Japanese government is partnering with the U.S. government on this project and constructing an additional 65 schools in the Tribal Areas.

USAID's education program in Pakistan provides training, technical assistance, and infrastructure for government officials, citizens, and the private sector to deliver high-quality education throughout the country. The program is currently focusing on selected impoverished districts in the Sindh and Baluchistan provinces in addition to the FATA. The Basic Education Program benefits over 367,000 Pakistani children and USAID has so far trained over 16,000 Pakistani teachers and administrators. USAID also provides funding for needs-based scholarships for higher education and grants for Fulbright scholarships for post-graduate degrees in the U.S.

USAID education programs also focus on empowering the local community by fostering partnerships between parents and teachers that improve accountability for the children's education. I had the opportunity to visit a USAID-funded girls' school on the outskirts of Islamabad in late 2005. Through a grant of only $1,500, USAID inspired the people of this community to establish a Parent-Teacher Association and to build a library for the school that serves over 500 students.

While this kind of outreach at the grassroots level is necessary, Washington also needs to encourage the Pakistani government to follow through on its own reforms. The government of President Pervez Musharraf launched its Education Sector Reforms (ESR) in January 2002, but has been unwilling to commit substantial resources to reforming the education sector. For example, the government has yet to follow through on its commitment to raise the education budget to 4 percent of GDP in line with United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization recommendations.

One of the major problems with Pakistan's public education sector has been the endemic corruption within the system, which has led to the phenomenon of "ghost schools," i.e. teachers not showing up to teach classes but only to collect their paychecks. The U.S. can help by supporting teacher training programs and encouraging greater accountability through community involvement, but the Pakistani government will have to do its part to limit corruption and inefficiency within the system.

Role of the Madrassa in Islamic Militancy in Pakistan

The role of the madrassa in Pakistan and its contribution to Islamic militancy has been the subject of intense debate in U.S. academic and policy circles. Observers have been unable to agree on the actual numbers of madrassas and madrassa students in Pakistan, and some studies reveal that the international media has exaggerated these figures during the last few years. A World Bank study from 2005, for example, says Pakistani madrassas account for less than 1 percent of total academic enrollment in the country. In April 2002, Dr. Mahmood Ahmed Ghazi, the former Pakistani Minister of Religious Affairs, put the number of madrassas at about 10,000, with 1.7 million students.

While most madrassas in Pakistan are not churning out terrorist foot soldiers, there are a handful of religious seminaries that promote anti-West, pan-Islamic, and violent ideologies. Many of the older madrassas have well-established reputations for producing serious Islamic thinkers, while others provide welfare services to the poor through free religious education, lodging, and food. A madrassa student learns how to read, memorize, and recite the Quran, and those with advanced theological training become Ulema (religious scholars). Each of the different schools of Islamic thought in Pakistan, including the Sunni Deobandis, Barelvis, Ahle-Hadith (Salafi), and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) as well as the Shiia, runs its own seminaries.

From a counterterrorism perspective, U.S. policymakers should focus their attention on the handful of madrassas in Pakistan that have well-established links to terrorism. These madrassas are likely well known to the Pakistani authorities and increasingly to U.S. intelligence and policy officials, and deserve special focus in our counterterrorism policies. The Darul Uloom Haqqania located near Peshawar in the Northwest Frontier Province, for example, served as training ground for Taliban leaders and a recruiting center for Pakistani militants fighting in Kashmir.

Other madrassas connected to violent militancy are located in the southern port city of Karachi as well as in the province of Punjab and have also contributed to sectarian tensions in the country. The banned Kashmiri militant organization Jaish-e-Muhammad (JEM, or "Army of the Prophet") and Sunni sectarian organization Sepah-e-Sahaba (SSP, or "Army of Companions of the Prophet") are headquartered in southern Punjab. These organizations have close institutional links with the Taliban and have been involved in terrorism against Indian and Western targets, including the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002; the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight that landed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1999; and the kidnapping and murder of five Western hostages, including American citizen Donald Hutchings, in 1995.

These madrassas and associated militant groups have an interdependent relationship in which the militant groups provide armed backing for the madrassas, and the madrassas in turn provide motivated recruits for the militant organizations. The recently jailed leader of a fertilizer bomb plot in England--British citizen of Pakistani-origin Omar Khyam--was reportedly inspired and trained by Pakistanis involved in militancy in Kashmir. In addition, one of the suicide bombers who carried out the July 7, 2005, bombings of the London transport system reportedly spent time at a Pakistani madrassa. Convincing the Pakistan government to completely close down these dangerous militant groups and to sever their links with the madrassas should be the centerpiece of our counterterrorism policies in Pakistan.

Madrassas in Pakistan are financed either by voluntary charity, foreign entities, or governments. The Saudi Arabian organization, Harmain Islamic Foundation, reportedly has provided substantial financial assistance to the Ahle-Hadith madrassas, which have provided fighters to the banned Kashmiri militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LET). The Ahle-Hadith madrassas emphasize the Quran and Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammed) and oppose folk Islam and practices such as celebrating the anniversaries of saints or the distribution of food on religious occasions. The large madrassa complex supporting LET is located in the town of Muridke outside of Lahore and is well known for preaching hard-line views on Islam. Since the Pakistan government officially banned LET in 2002, the group has changed its name to Jamaat-ul-Dawa and played a significant role in assisting victims following the October 8, 2005, South Asia earthquake, demonstrating its ability to operate freely within Pakistani society.

President Musharraf's government has had little success with its attempts to assert greater government authority over the madrassas. In August of 2001, the Musharraf government promulgated the "Pakistan Madrassa Education Board Ordinance 2001" to establish three model madrassa institutions in Karachi, Sukkur, and Islamabad that would include English, math, computer science, economics, political science, law, and Pakistan studies in their curricula. Through the "Voluntary Registration and Regulation Ordinance 2002," the government promised funding to madrassas that formally registered with the government. In a more controversial step, the Pakistani government demanded that madrassas expel all foreign students by December 31, 2005. Islamist groups vehemently resisted the government's efforts, however, and authorities backed down and made public statements indicating that they would not use force or shut down noncompliant madrassas to enforce the directives.

The Minister for Religious Affairs, Ejaz ul-Haq, son of the late former President Zia ul-Haq, is responsible for implementing madrassa reform. It was Zia ul-Haq's Islamization policies in the 1980s that resulted in an expansion of the madrassa network to support the Afghanistan jihad against the Soviets and that incorporated militant interpretations of Islam into the public school curriculum. Minister Ejaz ul-Haq has so far been reluctant to confront the prominent religious parties that have ties to foreign-funded madrassas and are resisting government reform.

Recommendations for U.S. Policy

The U.S. should begin to program more funds for specific education and development projects rather than continue to provide the bulk of our economic assistance in the form of a direct cash transfer to the Pakistani government. Since 2004, the U.S. has provided $200 million annually to Pakistan in the form of direct budgetary support. We have established a consulting mechanism with the Pakistan government to try to ensure a portion of this money is spent on the health and education sectors. However, we cannot fully ensure that this U.S. taxpayer money is contributing to economic and human development in Pakistan. The U.S. also reaps very little public diplomacy benefits with the broader Pakistani population from this large amount of aid, which most Pakistanis view as mainly benefiting the Musharraf regime. Congress should require that at least two-thirds of our total economic support fund assistance be in the form of USAID project assistance related to education, health, and economic and democratic development.

While continuing to help train teachers and increase the quality of education in Pakistani schools, Washington also will need to encourage Islamabad to implement systemic reform of public education in order to make a significant impact on education outcomes, such as increased literacy and enrollment rates and decreased dropout rates. U.S. policymakers and aid officials need to take to heart the results of the failed World Bank efforts from the 1980s through the 1990s to avoid repeating similar mistakes. Pushing for systemic reform may require the U.S. to increasingly use benchmarks with the Pakistani government in order to encourage greater efficiency and transparency within the education bureaucracy.

Washington will need to encourage Pakistan to crack down on those madrassas that continue to promote extremist violence and sectarian policies that lead to terrorism and the destabilization of Pakistani society. The Pakistani authorities should clean house in any madrassas found to have links to international terrorist incidents and make clear that those individuals who provide protection or safe haven to al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorist groups will be held to account. The Pakistan government's refusal to detain or punish key terrorist leaders because of their links to the Kashmir militancy signals a degree of tolerance of terrorist activity and provides a permissible environment for groups that collaborate with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The Pakistan authorities likely know which madrassas are supplying militants for terrorist training. We should use skillful diplomacy to persuade the Pakistani government to reform or close down these schools.

The U.S. should refrain from getting involved in Pakistan's broader madrassa reform efforts and accept that many of the traditional madrassas serve a useful purpose in educating Islamic intellectuals and providing shelter and food for impoverished youth. While a few Pakistani madrassas represent an international terrorist threat and deserve American scrutiny and condemnation, most madrassas should be left alone.

To conclude, U.S. efforts to encourage education reform and development in Pakistan should be consistent, sustained, and multi-pronged. Ensuring transparency and efficiency in the education bureaucracy is equally important to encouraging local community involvement and accountability in the day-to-day functioning of individual schools, especially in poor, rural areas. The development of a strong and effective education system in Pakistan is central to promoting moderation, tolerance, and economic development. Convincing the Pakistani government to take firm action against the handful of madrassas supporting violent extremism also is necessary, not only for the future stability of Pakistan, but also to prevent future international terrorism.

Lisa A. Curtis is Senior Research Fellow for South Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation. These remarks were delivered in testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.

Uh Huh.

And just how does the USA, or the United Nations for that matter, plan closely monitor money that once given to Pakistan's government becomes its sovereign property? Never mind; it's a useless question.

April 21; Dawn:

Pakistan govt will be in charge of relief funds, says US
WASHINGTON: The United States has said the government of Pakistan will be in charge of more than $150 million it is donating for flood victims but Washington will closely monitor the process to prevent misappropriation.

“Who’s in charge of the relief effort? It is the government of Pakistan. We are working closely with the national disaster authority in Pakistan. We are following Pakistan’s lead,” State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley told a briefing in Washington.

The US, he said, was trying not only to meet the immediate needs of the Pakistani people, but also their long-term needs.

And in this effort, “we will be guided by how – what Pakistan feels is its most significant needs. So who is ultimately responsible? It’s the government of Pakistan to support and respond to the needs of its people. We are here to help Pakistan do that”.

When urged to send a clear message to the Pakistanis that the funds meant for the flood victims would not be misused, Mr Crowley said: “We will not tolerate corruption. The assistance that we are providing is for the people of Pakistan. We want to see this assistance get directly to the people of Pakistan.”

He said the US was working directly with Pakistani officials who were involved in relief operations after the 2005 earthquake and referred to a recent statement by a USAID official who praised those Pakistanis as honest and trustworthy.

“That helps us with the kind of cooperation and seamless support that we’re looking for. In terms of assistance,” Mr Crowley said.

“In terms of assistance, there are all kinds of assistance. Some of it is direct support through our military stocks directly to the Pakistani people. In some cases, it’s through non-governmental organisations,” he added.