Talks Bog Down On US-Afghan Agreement
by The Associated Press [via NPR]
Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report
March 5, 2012, 02:59 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Negotiations over a long-term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan have bogged down over issues of detainees, night raids and quarrels within the Afghan president's inner circle, throwing the whole deal into question.
The arrangement would formalize a U.S. role after NATO's planned pullout in 2014. The deadlock reflects growing hostility on the part of the Afghan leadership and increasing exasperation in Washington.
Trust has eroded in recent days with anti-American protests over Quran burnings at a U.S. base, a rising number of U.S. troops gunned down by Afghan security forces and election-year demands to bring the troops home.
Karzai met Monday evening with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, but a Karzai spokesman did not return phone calls requesting details about their talks. Karzai has scheduled a news conference on Tuesday; it is unclear whether he will discuss the negotiations.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall would not disclose any information about the meeting.
Earlier, Sundwall said that despite the dragging negotiations, the U.S. was committed to a strategic partnership with the Afghan people. However, he also said it was more important to get the right agreement than to get an agreement.
The pact is expected to provide for several thousand U.S. troops to stay and train Afghan forces and help with counterterrorism operations. It aims to outline the legal status of those forces, their operating rules and where they will be based. The agreement, which was supposed to be completed before the next NATO summit in May in Chicago, also is seen as means of assuring the Afghan people that the U.S. does not plan to abandon the country, even as it withdraws its combat forces.
NATO's nighttime raids targeting insurgents are an especially touchy matter.
As part of the agreement, Karzai has said that Afghans should be the only ones conducting the night raids, because the invasion of privacy from troops entering a family's home is compounded when the soldiers are Westerners. He has also complained that too many raids have resulted in the detention of non-insurgents or civilian deaths. NATO argues that no shots are fired in more than 85 percent of the raids.
An even thornier issue is detentions. Karzai is demanding that the United States transfer control of its main prison in the country — the Parwan Detention Facility, which adjoins Bagram Air Field in eastern Afghanistan — to Afghan control. Karzai thinks having the United States running prisons in his country is an affront to Afghan sovereignty. First he demanded that the prison be handed over by early February, then extended the deadline to this Friday.
The Obama administration has said that the Afghan judicial system is not yet capable of taking over responsibility for dangerous battlefield detainees. The U.S. is willing to work with the Karzai government to complete a transition of detention operations "in a manner that is safe and orderly and in accordance with our international legal obligations," Sundwall said.
Afghan officials say privately that a U.S. proposal to hand over the facility in six months would be acceptable to some members of the Karzai government, but the president had not embraced the idea.
Karzai tried to bolster his argument by citing the incident on Feb. 20, when Qurans and other Islamic texts from a library at the Parwan Detention Facility were burned. He said that if Afghans had been running the prison, Muslim holy books would never had been sent to a garbage burn pit.
The incident, which Afghans viewed as evidence that foreign forces disregard their culture and Islamic faith, prompted six days of anti-American protests across the nation. During the demonstrations, 30 people died, including six U.S. troops who were killed when Afghan security forces turned their guns on the Americans.
On Monday, the Taliban took responsibility for a suicide bombing outside Bagram that killed two people, saying it was revenge for the Quran burnings.
In other violence Monday, the Interior Ministry said one civilian was killed and 11 people wounded when a man blew himself up at a police checkpoint in Jalalabad in the east.
Karzai has been stubborn about his demands — apparently so much so that he is losing the backing of some of his own top aides.
An Afghan government official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said that more than two months ago National Security Adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta submitted his resignation after disagreements erupted between him and Karzai over the strategic partnership document.
Spanta, who is heading the talks, wants Karzai to compromise on night raids and detentions.
Karzai did not accept Spanta's resignation, but kept the letter.
Spanta was on a trip to China and not available to comment, but Moradian said the resignation threat was part of an effort to pressure Karzai into a compromise.
"There is a possibility that if that tactic didn't work he would resign," said Moradian, assistant professor of political science at American University in Kabul.
Moradian, who was the chief policy adviser to Spanta when he was foreign minister, said he thinks Washington is considering waiting to negotiate the deal with Karzai's successor. Karzai is set to leave office after his second term ends in 2014.
___
Saturday, April 7, 2012
China goes after oil in Afghanistan
Khaama Press: China's CNPC wins first Afghan oil extraction contract.
Friday, April 6, 2012
How many al Qaeda fighters are in Afghanistan?
Long War Journal's Bill Roggio finds NATO's arithmetic off. From a September 2011 report with links to other reports on the topic.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
UN report on opium hoarding by Afghans gives insight into level of fear about NATO pullout
Afghans store opium as hedge against uncertain future: U.N.
By Jack Kimball
Thu Apr 5, 2012 10:01pm IST
Reuters
(KABUL) - Opium is emerging as a new gold standard in Afghanistan, where traders and farmers are hoarding the drug as a source of ready cash t o hedge against the risk of a power vacuum when foreign troops leave, the country's U.N. drugs tsar said.
Fear is mounting amongst Afghans and foreign governments alike that the planned pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014 and Afghan national elections in the same year could see the country engulfed in more conflict.
"You see suddenly people are rushing to opium and cannabis as in the euro zone we were rushing to the Swiss franc before the euro," Jean-Luc Lemahieu, head of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, told Reuters in an interview.
"It is hedging for a very insecure future indeed, it's basically an economic reflex, understandable by itself, toward a very insecure question mark, what will I be, where will I be, how will I be and my family too," he said.
Afghanistan supplies about 90 percent of the world's opium, from which heroin is made. Corruption also infects many aspects of life and the buoyant drug trade flourishes.
The poppy economy in Afghanistan, which provides an income for insurgents, grew significantly in 2011 with soaring prices and expanded cultivation, according to a U.N. report.
In 2011, the farm-gate value of opium production more than doubled from the year previously to $1.4 billion and now accounts for 15 percent of the economy, the UNODC said.
Despite a recovery in the poppy crop after an outbreak of disease in 2010, opium prices remain high even as supplies increase without a rise in demand because Afghans throughout the drug supply chain fret over future stability, Lemahieu said.
"A lot of people were buying the opium and the cannabis as a kind of gold standard, as a kind of security, financial guarantee for a very insecure future," Lemahieu said.
"Wall Street principles are being applied by the Kandahar farmers every day," he said of one of Afghanistan's top poppy producing provinces.
With foreign combat forces leaving by end-2014, and with much of their cash and air power expected to go with them, the Afghan government will need more help fighting poppy cultivation, experts say.
Afghanistan holds national elections in 2014 but President Hamid Karzai is barred from standing again, upping the stakes for political elites vying for power in a society riven by ethnic divisions and myriad feuds.
That uncertainty will help fuel an expected increase in opium production over the coming years as people seeking to influence politics scramble for more cash to fund patronage networks, Lemahieu said.
"The unclear political transition post 2014 is a major driver for an increase of the informal, illicit economy, in which the narco industry forms an essential part," he said.
"That insecurity, that instability, that uneasiness with this big question mark post 2014 is driving so many people towards making sure that they have the war chests filled, because we just don't know what the future is to bring."
(Editing by Alison Williams)
By Jack Kimball
Thu Apr 5, 2012 10:01pm IST
Reuters
(KABUL) - Opium is emerging as a new gold standard in Afghanistan, where traders and farmers are hoarding the drug as a source of ready cash t o hedge against the risk of a power vacuum when foreign troops leave, the country's U.N. drugs tsar said.
Fear is mounting amongst Afghans and foreign governments alike that the planned pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014 and Afghan national elections in the same year could see the country engulfed in more conflict.
"You see suddenly people are rushing to opium and cannabis as in the euro zone we were rushing to the Swiss franc before the euro," Jean-Luc Lemahieu, head of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, told Reuters in an interview.
"It is hedging for a very insecure future indeed, it's basically an economic reflex, understandable by itself, toward a very insecure question mark, what will I be, where will I be, how will I be and my family too," he said.
Afghanistan supplies about 90 percent of the world's opium, from which heroin is made. Corruption also infects many aspects of life and the buoyant drug trade flourishes.
The poppy economy in Afghanistan, which provides an income for insurgents, grew significantly in 2011 with soaring prices and expanded cultivation, according to a U.N. report.
In 2011, the farm-gate value of opium production more than doubled from the year previously to $1.4 billion and now accounts for 15 percent of the economy, the UNODC said.
Despite a recovery in the poppy crop after an outbreak of disease in 2010, opium prices remain high even as supplies increase without a rise in demand because Afghans throughout the drug supply chain fret over future stability, Lemahieu said.
"A lot of people were buying the opium and the cannabis as a kind of gold standard, as a kind of security, financial guarantee for a very insecure future," Lemahieu said.
"Wall Street principles are being applied by the Kandahar farmers every day," he said of one of Afghanistan's top poppy producing provinces.
With foreign combat forces leaving by end-2014, and with much of their cash and air power expected to go with them, the Afghan government will need more help fighting poppy cultivation, experts say.
Afghanistan holds national elections in 2014 but President Hamid Karzai is barred from standing again, upping the stakes for political elites vying for power in a society riven by ethnic divisions and myriad feuds.
That uncertainty will help fuel an expected increase in opium production over the coming years as people seeking to influence politics scramble for more cash to fund patronage networks, Lemahieu said.
"The unclear political transition post 2014 is a major driver for an increase of the informal, illicit economy, in which the narco industry forms an essential part," he said.
"That insecurity, that instability, that uneasiness with this big question mark post 2014 is driving so many people towards making sure that they have the war chests filled, because we just don't know what the future is to bring."
(Editing by Alison Williams)
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Amin Saikal projects consequences of early ISAF exit plan and analyzes three key factors in Afghan Taliban's staying power
This analysis was published five days before the Koran burning incident at Bagram Airfield, which touched off widespread rioting in Afghanistan and 'green on blue' murders in the ANSF.
A grim future for Afghanistan
Amin Saikal
February 15, 2012
ABC (Australia), The Drum Opinon
The United States has announced that it intends to withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan a year earlier than it had originally declared. This is in sync with an earlier French pullout, but confusing for the Afghan government and music to the ears of the Taliban and their supporters.Meanwhile, a leaked secret NATO report has presented a very grim picture of the situation in Afghanistan. It clearly establishes the links between Pakistan's notorious military intelligence, the ISI, and points to the Taliban's growing strength and alludes to the militia's ability to regain power. The report makes very uncomfortable reading for the Karzai government and Washington. Yet these are not altogether new revelations.
It is a presidential election year in the US. President Barack Obama wishes to be seen as having fulfilled his pre-election promise to end America's involvement in the trillion-dollar wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. An indication of an early withdrawal from Afghanistan could also mean that Washington is preparing for a military showdown with Iran over the country's nuclear program, as the US remains conscious of not allowing too many American troops to become Iran's target in Afghanistan.
As for the NATO secret report, it essentially confirms what some Afghanistan specialists (including myself) have repeatedly been saying: Pakistan's notorious military intelligence service, ISI, continues to leverage the Taliban and their affiliates, the so-called Haqqani network, with a clear aim of securing a receptive government in Kabul in the wake of the US-led NATO troop withdrawal.
It also reinforces the view that the Taliban, as fractured as they may be, are doing a lot better than the Karzai government in winning over an increasing number of the Afghan people, especially among the ethnic Pashtuns, who form about 42 per cent of the Afghan population, with even some of the people within the Karzai government ready to jump ship. This is for a number of reasons. Chief among them are three.
First of all the Karzai government has remained extremely weak, dysfunctional, corrupt and untrustworthy. Most Afghans do not know what it precisely stands for: is it a perverted form of a politically pluralist Afghanistan with an Islamic face, with which most Afghans cannot identify, or a kind of tribalised authoritarian Muslim Afghanistan, with some distorted democratic trappings, which have proved to be very confusing to most Afghans?
As for the Taliban's stance, it is easily discernable by the mostly illiterate, conservative Muslim Afghan population: defence of Islam, country and honour.
Secondly, the US and its allies have pursued a strategy that has been inappropriate for Afghanistan's conditions. The shift from counter-terrorism to counter-insurgency under president Obama has been more in name than substance.
In the absence of a credible Afghan partner on the ground, no strategy can achieve its objectives. The US and its allies have certainly sunk a lot of money and energy into building the Afghan National Army and Police Force.
It all looks good in terms of numbers, but their ability to grow as coherent national forces able to take over security operations from foreign troops is highly doubtful. They remain very much captive of the dynamics of the mosaic nature of the Afghan society, with little or no identification with a central government for which they could fight.
Besides which, like the Karzai administration (if one can call it an administration), they are penetrated, at all levels, by the Taliban as well as an array of foreign intelligence services, most importantly the ISI.
Thirdly, there is no regional consensus on Afghanistan. The US and its allies have not given this a top priority, largely due to US-Iranian hostilities and an American inability to rein in the Pakistani military/ISI.
As long as these factors remain in place, the Taliban and their Pakistani backers have good reason to remain hopeful about their chances of succeeding in the end, but a Taliban takeover of power also carries the serious risk of non-Pashtun Afghan population clusters taking up arms once again to defend themselves, with Iran, India and Russia providing support. This would be a development that could plunge Afghanistan into a wider bloody conflict.
The Taliban and their Pakistani patrons are aware of this, and this is a challenge that they may try to address by enticing Karzai and some of his ministers, who are more keen to protect their interests than those of Afghanistan, to join them.In this, the 10,000-20,000 troops that the US may leave behind to man a few bases in Afghanistan for 'above the horizon' operations until 2024 may prove to be of little use in saving what Washington claims to be the momentum of stability in Afghanistan.
Amin Saikal is professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the ANU. A new edition of his book Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival will be published in April. View his full profile here.
A grim future for Afghanistan
Amin Saikal
February 15, 2012
ABC (Australia), The Drum Opinon
The United States has announced that it intends to withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan a year earlier than it had originally declared. This is in sync with an earlier French pullout, but confusing for the Afghan government and music to the ears of the Taliban and their supporters.Meanwhile, a leaked secret NATO report has presented a very grim picture of the situation in Afghanistan. It clearly establishes the links between Pakistan's notorious military intelligence, the ISI, and points to the Taliban's growing strength and alludes to the militia's ability to regain power. The report makes very uncomfortable reading for the Karzai government and Washington. Yet these are not altogether new revelations.
It is a presidential election year in the US. President Barack Obama wishes to be seen as having fulfilled his pre-election promise to end America's involvement in the trillion-dollar wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. An indication of an early withdrawal from Afghanistan could also mean that Washington is preparing for a military showdown with Iran over the country's nuclear program, as the US remains conscious of not allowing too many American troops to become Iran's target in Afghanistan.
As for the NATO secret report, it essentially confirms what some Afghanistan specialists (including myself) have repeatedly been saying: Pakistan's notorious military intelligence service, ISI, continues to leverage the Taliban and their affiliates, the so-called Haqqani network, with a clear aim of securing a receptive government in Kabul in the wake of the US-led NATO troop withdrawal.
It also reinforces the view that the Taliban, as fractured as they may be, are doing a lot better than the Karzai government in winning over an increasing number of the Afghan people, especially among the ethnic Pashtuns, who form about 42 per cent of the Afghan population, with even some of the people within the Karzai government ready to jump ship. This is for a number of reasons. Chief among them are three.
First of all the Karzai government has remained extremely weak, dysfunctional, corrupt and untrustworthy. Most Afghans do not know what it precisely stands for: is it a perverted form of a politically pluralist Afghanistan with an Islamic face, with which most Afghans cannot identify, or a kind of tribalised authoritarian Muslim Afghanistan, with some distorted democratic trappings, which have proved to be very confusing to most Afghans?
As for the Taliban's stance, it is easily discernable by the mostly illiterate, conservative Muslim Afghan population: defence of Islam, country and honour.
Secondly, the US and its allies have pursued a strategy that has been inappropriate for Afghanistan's conditions. The shift from counter-terrorism to counter-insurgency under president Obama has been more in name than substance.
In the absence of a credible Afghan partner on the ground, no strategy can achieve its objectives. The US and its allies have certainly sunk a lot of money and energy into building the Afghan National Army and Police Force.
It all looks good in terms of numbers, but their ability to grow as coherent national forces able to take over security operations from foreign troops is highly doubtful. They remain very much captive of the dynamics of the mosaic nature of the Afghan society, with little or no identification with a central government for which they could fight.
Besides which, like the Karzai administration (if one can call it an administration), they are penetrated, at all levels, by the Taliban as well as an array of foreign intelligence services, most importantly the ISI.
Thirdly, there is no regional consensus on Afghanistan. The US and its allies have not given this a top priority, largely due to US-Iranian hostilities and an American inability to rein in the Pakistani military/ISI.
As long as these factors remain in place, the Taliban and their Pakistani backers have good reason to remain hopeful about their chances of succeeding in the end, but a Taliban takeover of power also carries the serious risk of non-Pashtun Afghan population clusters taking up arms once again to defend themselves, with Iran, India and Russia providing support. This would be a development that could plunge Afghanistan into a wider bloody conflict.
The Taliban and their Pakistani patrons are aware of this, and this is a challenge that they may try to address by enticing Karzai and some of his ministers, who are more keen to protect their interests than those of Afghanistan, to join them.In this, the 10,000-20,000 troops that the US may leave behind to man a few bases in Afghanistan for 'above the horizon' operations until 2024 may prove to be of little use in saving what Washington claims to be the momentum of stability in Afghanistan.
Amin Saikal is professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the ANU. A new edition of his book Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival will be published in April. View his full profile here.
U.S. still relying on Pakistan despite securing new supply exit routes from Afghanistan: the wages of a hasty retreat
The emphasis in the following report is mine.
U.S. Secures New Afghan Exit Routes
by Nathan Hodge
February 29, 2012
The Wall Street Journal
(WASHINGTON) The U.S. secured approval from several countries in Central Asia to move military cargo out of Afghanistan, the military's top logistics officer said, allowing for a withdrawal without relying mainly on Pakistan.Air Force Gen. William Fraser told lawmakers the U.S. had secured approval to move equipment through Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and was exploring routes to move out armored vehicles as well as nonlethal supplies."We now have two-way approval to move equipment back out of Afghanistan," Gen. Fraser told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, referring to agreements to bring cargo both into Afghanistan and out through Central Asia. Russia and Uzbekistan also endorsed reverse transit routes, Gen. Fraser told lawmakers.
Military logistics in Afghanistan have been complicated in recent months by rocky relations between the U.S. and Pakistan. Planners were forced to reroute cargo into Afghanistan late last year when Pakistan closed border crossings to U.S. and allied supply convoys after a U.S. airstrike killed Pakistani troops.
Much of the traffic shifted to the so-called Northern Distribution Network, a system of overland supply lines that begins at Baltic and Black sea ports and winds across Central Asia. But that network primarily moves cargo in one direction, into Afghanistan. U.S. officials have sought to persuade countries in the region to reverse the route.
Gen. Fraser, who heads the arm of the military that oversees logistics, said that moving equipment out of landlocked Afghanistan is a daunting task, and that reopening overland supply lines across Pakistan would be crucial to withdrawal.
"We need the Pakistan [ground lines of communication] open, because of the large numbers that we're talking about that we need to bring out in a timely manner," he said.
U.K. defense officials are also pursuing new exit routes from Afghanistan. U.K. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond signed an agreement in Kazakhstan on Monday allowing overflight access to move military equipment to and from Afghanistan, and the U.K. and Kazakhstan agreed to start negotiations on overland transit.Mr. Hammond was also scheduled to hold a series of meetings on the subject in Uzbekistan, according to a statement from the defense ministry. U.K. officials are also visiting Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
"It's vital that we secure the supply lines we need to get our equipment home as combat operations finish by the end of 2014," Mr. Hammond said in a statement. "We have a major logistical operation to undertake to get around 11,000 containers and around 3,000 armored vehicles back from Afghanistan and we will need to work with our partners in the region to do so."
******
U.S. Secures New Afghan Exit Routes
by Nathan Hodge
February 29, 2012
The Wall Street Journal
(WASHINGTON) The U.S. secured approval from several countries in Central Asia to move military cargo out of Afghanistan, the military's top logistics officer said, allowing for a withdrawal without relying mainly on Pakistan.Air Force Gen. William Fraser told lawmakers the U.S. had secured approval to move equipment through Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and was exploring routes to move out armored vehicles as well as nonlethal supplies."We now have two-way approval to move equipment back out of Afghanistan," Gen. Fraser told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, referring to agreements to bring cargo both into Afghanistan and out through Central Asia. Russia and Uzbekistan also endorsed reverse transit routes, Gen. Fraser told lawmakers.
Military logistics in Afghanistan have been complicated in recent months by rocky relations between the U.S. and Pakistan. Planners were forced to reroute cargo into Afghanistan late last year when Pakistan closed border crossings to U.S. and allied supply convoys after a U.S. airstrike killed Pakistani troops.
Much of the traffic shifted to the so-called Northern Distribution Network, a system of overland supply lines that begins at Baltic and Black sea ports and winds across Central Asia. But that network primarily moves cargo in one direction, into Afghanistan. U.S. officials have sought to persuade countries in the region to reverse the route.
Gen. Fraser, who heads the arm of the military that oversees logistics, said that moving equipment out of landlocked Afghanistan is a daunting task, and that reopening overland supply lines across Pakistan would be crucial to withdrawal.
"We need the Pakistan [ground lines of communication] open, because of the large numbers that we're talking about that we need to bring out in a timely manner," he said.
U.K. defense officials are also pursuing new exit routes from Afghanistan. U.K. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond signed an agreement in Kazakhstan on Monday allowing overflight access to move military equipment to and from Afghanistan, and the U.K. and Kazakhstan agreed to start negotiations on overland transit.Mr. Hammond was also scheduled to hold a series of meetings on the subject in Uzbekistan, according to a statement from the defense ministry. U.K. officials are also visiting Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
"It's vital that we secure the supply lines we need to get our equipment home as combat operations finish by the end of 2014," Mr. Hammond said in a statement. "We have a major logistical operation to undertake to get around 11,000 containers and around 3,000 armored vehicles back from Afghanistan and we will need to work with our partners in the region to do so."
******
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