U.S., Afghanistan Agree on Night Raids
By Dion Nissenbaum
Updated April 8, 2012, 10:16 a.m. ET
The Wall Street Journal
KABUL—Afghanistan and the U.S. on Sunday signed a deal that would give the Afghan government greater oversight of controversial night raids, setting the stage for sealing a long-term bilateral partnership agreement next month.
In addition, Afghan forces will take the lead in all such raids, according to an Afghan official, and the agreement states that U.S. Special Operations forces should aim to no longer enter Afghan homes during them.
President Hamid Karzai has long called for an end to U.S. Special Operations Forces night raids, a tactic that the coalition says is critical in the fight against the Taliban.
The agreement, signed Sunday by U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the coalition forces commander, and Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, gives the Afghan government broad new judicial powers to regulate the operations.
Under the deal, officials said, a special committee of Afghans will have the power to reject requests for most Special Operations raids before they proceed. In limited circumstances, according to Afghan officials, the courts will be asked to approve operations within 72 hours after a raid.
"It's a great day," U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said after Sunday's ceremony. "We clearly have some critical momentum. Now the hard stuff is behind us."
The night-raids agreement was signed after the negotiators ironed out a last-minute dispute over the interrogation of detainees.
Alongside the issue of the Bagram detention facility, resolved last month, the night raids were the main stumbling block to the partnership agreement that the U.S. and Afghanistan hope to conclude by next month's North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Chicago.
The partnership agreement will outline what presence the U.S. will maintain in Afghanistan after most foreign forces leave in 2014.
Though Sunday's agreement states that American Special Operations forces should aim to no longer enter Afghan homes during the operations, Afghan forces currently are too few to ensure that no U.S. forces enter homes. The intent is to reach the point where Americans are no longer searching Afghan homes, according to Afghan officials.
The very act of entering Afghan households is often taken as a sign of disrespect and dishonor in the conservative culture that prides itself on privacy, especially for women and children.
The agreement states that Afghan forces are now to take the lead in all such raids. "From this hour on, they are 100% Afghan-led," said an Afghan official. Presently, he said, about 75% of the operations are led by Afghans, and 40% are conducted without coalition support.
The U.S. military will still play a major role in the operations by providing intelligence, helicopter airlift to the raids and other critical elements.In the final round of talks, Americans had wanted to retain the authority to question detainees after the operations. But Afghan negotiators resisted the idea.
The final deal, according to Afghan officials, prevents U.S. forces from directly interrogating Afghan detainees. Instead they will be questioned by Afghan interrogators in cooperation with U.S. forces.
American forces will retain the ability to hold on to any non-Afghans caught in the raids.
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Deal Reached on Contested Afghan Night Raids
By Alissa J. Rubin
Published: April 8, 2012
The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan and the United States signed an agreement on Sunday on night military raids that would hand responsibility for carrying out the operations to Afghan forces but allow continued American involvement.
The agreement clears the way for the two countries to move ahead with a more comprehensive long-term partnership agreement, Afghan and American officials. The signing of a memorandum of understanding on the night raids between Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan minister of defense, and General John R. Allen, the American commander, was hailed by the men as an indication of both Afghanistan’s sovereignty and the growing abilities of its special operation forces.
“This is an important step in strengthening the sovereignty of Afghanistan,” Mr. Wardak said, adding that it was “a national goal” and “a wish of the Afghan people” that raids be conducted and controlled by Afghans.
General Allen said the signing meant that the two countries were “ready to look forward to a successful summit in Chicago in the wake of the signing of the strategic partnership agreement.”
The strategic partnership agreement commits the United States to another decade of involvement in the country in areas like economic development and education. The meeting in Chicago is a NATO summit at which countries involved in the war are expected to commit to continuing financial contributions to Afghanistan as well as committing to train and equip the forces.
The deal on night raids was the second of two contentious issues that the two countries resolved to solve ahead of work on the broader pact. The other issue involved the handover to the Afghans of the main United States detention facility in Parwan. That memorandum of understanding was signed on March 8.
President Hamid Karzai has long been at odds with the American military over the raids, which the Americans have described as a crucial tool in the fight against insurgents. The raids until recently were primarily conducted by American special operations forces. Afghan families, however, have objected strenuously to the raids which they say violate cultural norms, humiliate them and expose their women to the eyes of strangers.
Mr. Karzai, who renewed calls for an end to the raids after an American soldier was charged with 17 counts of murder in the shootings of Afghan civilians on March 11, has insisted that control over the raids is a matter of sovereignty.
“This is what the president has wanted for years,” a presidential spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said of the agreement.
Plans to complete the deal were expected earlier this week, but a last-minute glitch over how long the Americans could hold detainees for questioning after the completion of a raid tied up the final agreement. The impasse was broken over the last two days.
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Showing posts with label night raids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label night raids. Show all posts
Monday, April 9, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Post-2014 stategic pact negotiations: night raids
U.S. Offers Concessions on Afghan Night RaidsBy Adam Entous
March 20, 2012
The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is offering to cede some control over nighttime missions into Afghan village homes, U.S. officials say, in a bid to ease tensions with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that took on new urgency with the deadly rampage in a Kandahar village last week.
The administration's most significant proposed concession on night raids would subject the operations to advance review by Afghan judges, U.S. military officials said. One option under discussion in U.S.-Afghan talks would require warrants to be issued before operations get the green light.
The so-called night raids by U.S. special-operations forces have long been a source of division between President Barack Obama and Mr. Karzai, and have been a stumbling block in negotiations on the role of the U.S. in Afghanistan after most troops pull out at the end of 2014.
The U.S. military says it considers night raids to be the most effective way of degrading the Taliban's command-and-control infrastructure, with minimal civilian casualties. There were nearly 2,500 such raids in the last year, military officials said.
Mr. Karzai has said repeatedly that the raids must stop, calling them an invasion of Afghan homes and a violation of taboos about Afghan women mingling with unrelated men. They also create a heightened risk of civilian casualties, he says.
U.S. officials say they don't know if the proposed concessions will satisfy Mr. Karzai, especially after the shooting rampage and other incidents in which U.S. service members urinated on Taliban corpses and burned Qurans, the Muslim holy book.
The massacre that killed 16 Afghan villagers on March 11 infuriated Afghans and led Mr. Karzai to call for new restrictions on Western military operations in the countryside.
"The threshold for agreements with Karzai may have gone way up," said a senior U.S. defense official.
Afghan officials in Kabul and the U.S. couldn't be reached for comment on Monday on the negotiations.
Reaching a deal on night raids became the top priority for U.S. negotiators after a March 9 agreement was announced to transfer the main U.S.-run detention facility to Afghan control over the next six months.
U.S. officials said the shooting rampage two days later set back the talks on a so-called strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan. The Obama administration wants such a strategic partnership in time for a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in May.
Mr. Obama and top military leaders have in the past rebuffed previous demands by Mr. Karzai to stop night raids. But with the U.S. now drawing down troops, a senior military official said "both sides understand the importance of finding a way ahead here that meets both sets of requirements."
Top commanders have sharply expanded the number of hunt-and-kill teams in recent years in a bid to take militant leaders off the battlefield and make it harder for the Taliban to mount attacks.
A senior U.S. military official said a shift to a warrant-based approach to the raids was meant to address Mr. Karzai's demands for the U.S. to respect Afghan sovereignty.
U.S. officials said they are talking to the Afghans about what type of legal panel could be set up to process these requests in a timely way.
A senior defense official said the options under discussion weren't in direct response to recent events that have soured relations. "Night operations have been of concern to certain Afghan officials, notably President Karzai, for some time," the official said.
Officials compared the proposed changes to the transition in Iraq, where in 2009 the U.S. agreed to seek legal approval before targeted raids.
"The idea is to start to transition not only to an Afghan lead, but to more of a law-enforcement approach," the official said. "It's very much in keeping with the rule of law that any sovereign nation ought to have."
U.S. officials have said they are working to have almost all night raids led by Afghan troops—part of a hand-over of security responsibility to the Afghans, now due to assume the combat lead in 2013. U.S. officials say the shift should be done gradually as Afghan personnel become better trained.
The U.S. wants Afghan commandos, not U.S. forces, to enter Afghan homes and compounds whenever possible, U.S. military and administration officials said.
The U.S. wants to preserve the authority to go after al Qaeda cells, preferably in partnership with Afghan forces but also unilaterally, if the terrorist group tries to make a comeback in Afghanistan after U.S. combat troops leave at the end of 2014, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. currently has the right to conduct military operations in Afghanistan whenever it wants. An agreement on night raids would amount to a pledge not to exercise that authority unilaterally.
U.S. officials cautioned that night-raid negotiations were particularly sensitive because of the recent tensions, and that a deal depended largely on whether Mr. Karzai can be persuaded to accept what the U.S. is offering.
American officials said they believed they were close to a deal on night raids before the alleged rampage by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.
The officials said they believed the terms of a proposed agreement on night raids has the support of Afghan military leaders, who have indicated to U.S. counterparts that they agree on the value of such operations in taking out mid- and high-level Taliban leaders and fighters.
Several officials said they remained cautiously optimistic that a binding memorandum of understanding on night raids would be reached with Mr. Karzai within weeks, clearing the way for the sides to complete the strategic partnership agreement.
"Both sides are negotiating in good faith despite this tragedy," a senior defense official said.
The biggest wild card may be Mr. Karzai, who has railed repeatedly in recent days against the U.S.
U.S. officials say Mr. Karzai has sought to use the strategic partnership talks to push through restrictions on what U.S. and NATO forces can do in Afghanistan between now and the end of 2014.
Earlier this month, the U.S. and Afghanistan agreed to transfer the main U.S.-run detention facility in the country to Afghan control over the next six months. The U.S. had initially sought more time to make the transition. Officials said the U.S. might have to make similar concessions on night raids.
Administration officials said the proposal to give Afghans greater say over night raids would fit with a broader transition that would see U.S. and NATO troops assume a support and advisory role next year before most of them leave the country at the end of 2014.
Afghan security forces already have the lead in providing security in large swaths of the country.
U.S. military officials dispute Mr. Karzai's contention that the raids kill too many civilians. In the nearly 2,500 nighttime operations conducted in the year ended in February, they said, 10 civilians were killed.
"These [nighttime operations] are enormously successful in terms of rolling up the kinds of people we need to be rolling up. And they work," a senior military official said. "But we want to Afghan-ize these types of operations." —Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.
March 20, 2012
The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is offering to cede some control over nighttime missions into Afghan village homes, U.S. officials say, in a bid to ease tensions with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that took on new urgency with the deadly rampage in a Kandahar village last week.
The administration's most significant proposed concession on night raids would subject the operations to advance review by Afghan judges, U.S. military officials said. One option under discussion in U.S.-Afghan talks would require warrants to be issued before operations get the green light.
The so-called night raids by U.S. special-operations forces have long been a source of division between President Barack Obama and Mr. Karzai, and have been a stumbling block in negotiations on the role of the U.S. in Afghanistan after most troops pull out at the end of 2014.
The U.S. military says it considers night raids to be the most effective way of degrading the Taliban's command-and-control infrastructure, with minimal civilian casualties. There were nearly 2,500 such raids in the last year, military officials said.
Mr. Karzai has said repeatedly that the raids must stop, calling them an invasion of Afghan homes and a violation of taboos about Afghan women mingling with unrelated men. They also create a heightened risk of civilian casualties, he says.
U.S. officials say they don't know if the proposed concessions will satisfy Mr. Karzai, especially after the shooting rampage and other incidents in which U.S. service members urinated on Taliban corpses and burned Qurans, the Muslim holy book.
The massacre that killed 16 Afghan villagers on March 11 infuriated Afghans and led Mr. Karzai to call for new restrictions on Western military operations in the countryside.
"The threshold for agreements with Karzai may have gone way up," said a senior U.S. defense official.
Afghan officials in Kabul and the U.S. couldn't be reached for comment on Monday on the negotiations.
Reaching a deal on night raids became the top priority for U.S. negotiators after a March 9 agreement was announced to transfer the main U.S.-run detention facility to Afghan control over the next six months.
U.S. officials said the shooting rampage two days later set back the talks on a so-called strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan. The Obama administration wants such a strategic partnership in time for a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in May.
Mr. Obama and top military leaders have in the past rebuffed previous demands by Mr. Karzai to stop night raids. But with the U.S. now drawing down troops, a senior military official said "both sides understand the importance of finding a way ahead here that meets both sets of requirements."
Top commanders have sharply expanded the number of hunt-and-kill teams in recent years in a bid to take militant leaders off the battlefield and make it harder for the Taliban to mount attacks.
A senior U.S. military official said a shift to a warrant-based approach to the raids was meant to address Mr. Karzai's demands for the U.S. to respect Afghan sovereignty.
U.S. officials said they are talking to the Afghans about what type of legal panel could be set up to process these requests in a timely way.
A senior defense official said the options under discussion weren't in direct response to recent events that have soured relations. "Night operations have been of concern to certain Afghan officials, notably President Karzai, for some time," the official said.
Officials compared the proposed changes to the transition in Iraq, where in 2009 the U.S. agreed to seek legal approval before targeted raids.
"The idea is to start to transition not only to an Afghan lead, but to more of a law-enforcement approach," the official said. "It's very much in keeping with the rule of law that any sovereign nation ought to have."
U.S. officials have said they are working to have almost all night raids led by Afghan troops—part of a hand-over of security responsibility to the Afghans, now due to assume the combat lead in 2013. U.S. officials say the shift should be done gradually as Afghan personnel become better trained.
The U.S. wants Afghan commandos, not U.S. forces, to enter Afghan homes and compounds whenever possible, U.S. military and administration officials said.
The U.S. wants to preserve the authority to go after al Qaeda cells, preferably in partnership with Afghan forces but also unilaterally, if the terrorist group tries to make a comeback in Afghanistan after U.S. combat troops leave at the end of 2014, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. currently has the right to conduct military operations in Afghanistan whenever it wants. An agreement on night raids would amount to a pledge not to exercise that authority unilaterally.
U.S. officials cautioned that night-raid negotiations were particularly sensitive because of the recent tensions, and that a deal depended largely on whether Mr. Karzai can be persuaded to accept what the U.S. is offering.
American officials said they believed they were close to a deal on night raids before the alleged rampage by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.
The officials said they believed the terms of a proposed agreement on night raids has the support of Afghan military leaders, who have indicated to U.S. counterparts that they agree on the value of such operations in taking out mid- and high-level Taliban leaders and fighters.
Several officials said they remained cautiously optimistic that a binding memorandum of understanding on night raids would be reached with Mr. Karzai within weeks, clearing the way for the sides to complete the strategic partnership agreement.
"Both sides are negotiating in good faith despite this tragedy," a senior defense official said.
The biggest wild card may be Mr. Karzai, who has railed repeatedly in recent days against the U.S.
U.S. officials say Mr. Karzai has sought to use the strategic partnership talks to push through restrictions on what U.S. and NATO forces can do in Afghanistan between now and the end of 2014.
Earlier this month, the U.S. and Afghanistan agreed to transfer the main U.S.-run detention facility in the country to Afghan control over the next six months. The U.S. had initially sought more time to make the transition. Officials said the U.S. might have to make similar concessions on night raids.
Administration officials said the proposal to give Afghans greater say over night raids would fit with a broader transition that would see U.S. and NATO troops assume a support and advisory role next year before most of them leave the country at the end of 2014.
Afghan security forces already have the lead in providing security in large swaths of the country.
U.S. military officials dispute Mr. Karzai's contention that the raids kill too many civilians. In the nearly 2,500 nighttime operations conducted in the year ended in February, they said, 10 civilians were killed.
"These [nighttime operations] are enormously successful in terms of rolling up the kinds of people we need to be rolling up. And they work," a senior military official said. "But we want to Afghan-ize these types of operations." —Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.
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