TIME Magazine
December 9, 2007
Tony Karon
The spectacle of fierce fighting around a dusty Afghan town, with well-armed Western troops, backed by helicopters and Afghan allies, bearing down on hundreds of dug-in Taliban fighters, would seem to date from late 2001. The fact that it's unfolding this weekend at Musa Qala in southeastern Afghanistan — a full six years after the Taliban was first routed by coalition forces — is a reminder of how difficult the war is proving for the the U.S. and its allies.
The town, where some 2,000 Taliban fighters are believed to be holed up, was surrounded on Friday by British and Afghan forces, in preparation for an airborne assault by U.S. troops expected overnight in a drive to recapture the town. Musa Qala was captured by the Taliban in February of this year, without a shot being fired — they simply rolled into town and planted their flag after British forces withdrew, having brokered an agreement with local tribal elders to keep the peace. And the radical movement fighting to expel foreign forces from Afghanistan and reimpose its harsh brand of Islamic rule has held the town ever since.
The battle to own Musa Qala is expected to be intense, because of its value to both sides. For the Taliban, there's major symbolic value in being able to hold a town in a country ostensibly under the control of more than 40,000 NATO troops and their Afghan allies. Musa Qala is also at the center of the opium industry whose revenues fuel the Taliban insurgency, and its location near the mountains north of Helmand make it a useful command center for an insurgent army. For all the same reasons, it's important to NATO to dislodge the Taliban. That, and the fact that it's a do-over, correcting what many officials see as a mistake by the British forces that allowed the Taliban to take control in the first place.
The problem for NATO, however, is that Musa Qala may be a very visible Taliban position, but it's only one of hundreds — by some estimates, today, there is a permanent Taliban presence in more than half of Afghanistan, and NATO — struggling to expand its troop strength from reluctant European nations — is not well-placed to roll it back. The breadth of the territory across which the Taliban now operates across southern Afghanistan all the way up to the capital reflects the extent to which the uncommitted civilian population is hedging its bets. With the harsh winter coming, Musa Qala may be one of the last major engagements of the current fighting season. But next spring's thaw is expected to bring the war in Afghanistan quickly back to the boil.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Friday, December 7, 2007
The Assassination of Massoud
"... bin Laden was not the real hero of the Afghan war; Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir and the commander of the Northern Alliance, was. "By all accounts," writes Rodenbeck, "Massoud was the most brilliant and charismatic of Afghan guerrilla leaders. [A]s far back as the late 1980s, bin Laden expressed resentment and mistrust of Massoud, perhaps because he was a pure Afghan nationalist with little liking for Arab interlocutors and little time for al-Qaida's romantic notions of forging a puritan pan-Islamic state."
From Peter Bergen's well-researched account, "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda's Leader," we glean that bin Laden was in fact considered reckless, if courageous, in battle. He and his "brigade of Arab recruits" "had no meaningful impact on the conduct of the war," other than to assassinate the man who won the war against the Russians. Bin Laden dispatched al-Qaida suicide bombers posing as a television crew to kill Massoud." ( WorldNetDaily: Calling bin Laden's bluff )
****
The suicide bombing attack on a charismatic Afghan guerrilla leader Sept. 9 appears to have been a preemptive strike by Osama bin Laden and his supporters to eliminate a CIA-backed opponent who could have been a powerful ally on the ground in any U.S. retaliation for the terrorist assaults two days later on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, intelligence sources said over the weekend.
Two assassins, reportedly Algerians masquerading as television journalists, mortally wounded Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the principal resistance group in Afghanistan opposing the Taleban religious militia and its fugitive guest, Mr. bin Laden.
In its timing and other details, the attack on Mr. Massoud, whose death was confirmed late last week, bears telltale marks of being the work of Mr. bin Laden and his supporters, according to U.S., European and Arab intelligence sources.
The murder seemed designed to decapitate and disrupt Mr. Massoud's loose organization of tribal groups, known as the Northern Alliance, to prevent them from playing a role in a major U.S.-backed military drive — which now seems probable — against the Taleban. (Assassination of Massoud Removed a Potential Key Ally for U.S. : Did bin Laden )
***
Ahmed Shah Massoud. [Source: French Ministry of Foreign Affairs]Worried about intercepts showing a growing likelihood of al-Qaeda attacks around the millennium, the CIA steps up ties with Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban. The CIA sends a team of agents to his headquarters in a remote part of northern Afghanistan, seeking his help to capture or kill bin Laden. Massoud complains that the US is too focused on bin Laden, and isn’t interested in the root problems of Taliban, Saudi, and Pakistani support for terrorism that is propping him up. He agrees to help nonetheless, and the CIA gives him more aid in return. However, the US is officially neutral in the Afghan civil war and the agents are prohibited from giving any aid that would “fundamentally alter the Afghan battlefield.” [Washington Post, 2/23/2004] DIA agent Julie Sirrs, newly retired, is at Massoud’s headquarters at the same time as the CIA team (see October 1998). She gathers valuable intelligence from captured al-Qaeda soldiers while the CIA agents stay in their guesthouse. She publishes much of what she learned on this trip and other trips in the summer of 2001. [Washington Post, 2/28/2004]
***
General Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, is assassinated by two al-Qaeda agents posing as Moroccan journalists. [Time, 8/4/2002] A legendary mujaheddin commander and a brilliant tactician, Massoud had pledged to bring freedom and democracy to Afghanistan. The BBC says the next day, “General Massoud’s death might well have meant the end of the [Northern] alliance” because there clearly was no figure with his skills and popularity to replace him. [BBC, 9/10/2001; BBC, 9/10/2001] “With Massoud out of the way, the Taliban and al-Qaeda would be rid of their most effective opponent and be in a stronger position to resist the American onslaught.” [St. Petersburg Times, 9/9/2002] It appears the assassination was supposed to happen earlier: the “journalists” waited for three weeks in Northern Alliance territory to meet Massoud. Finally on September 8, an aide says they “were so worried and excitable they were begging us.” They were granted an interview after threatening to leave if the interview did not happen in the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, the Taliban army (together with elements of the Pakistani army) had massed for an offensive against the Northern Alliance in the previous weeks, but the offensive began only hours after the assassination. Massoud was killed that day but Northern Alliance leaders pretend for several days that Massoud was only injured in order to keep the Northern Alliance army’s morale up, and they are able to stave off total defeat. The timing of the assassination and the actions of the Taliban army suggest that the 9/11 attacks were known to the Taliban leadership. [Time, 8/4/2002] Though it is not widely reported, the Northern Alliance releases a statement the next day: “Ahmed Shah Massoud was the target of an assassination attempt organized by the Pakistani [intelligence service] ISI and Osama bin Laden.” [Radio Free Europe, 9/10/2001; Newsday, 9/15/2001; Reuters, 10/4/2001] This suggests that the ISI may also have had prior knowledge of the attack plans.
***
The Murder of Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud
(Autumn 2001) Just two days prior to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 Arab terrorists with Belgian passports, posing as journalists, killed one of Afghanistan's most effective leaders, Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud.
Not only was a charismatic Afghan leader murdered, but a devious strategy was also divulged. With the murder of Commander Massoud the terrorists, directed and controlled by Osama bin Laden, had eliminated a most important leader and the most effective opponent to the Taliban regime.
Ambassador Farhadi (Northern Alliance's ambassador to the United Nations) believed that "the attack on Massoud was directly linked to the terrorist attacks in the United States and that his government offers immediate strategic support to the United States." Continuing, he said: "The Northern Alliance in Afghanistan led by President Rabbani controls more than 20 percent of Afghanistan. We assre the Americans that 99 percent of all Afghans are against the Taliban and also against Osama bin Laden. They are also conscious of the fact that since Osama bin Laden came to Afghanistan in 1996 from Sudan, he has done a lot of harm to the Afghans," Ambassador Farhadi said.
From Peter Bergen's well-researched account, "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda's Leader," we glean that bin Laden was in fact considered reckless, if courageous, in battle. He and his "brigade of Arab recruits" "had no meaningful impact on the conduct of the war," other than to assassinate the man who won the war against the Russians. Bin Laden dispatched al-Qaida suicide bombers posing as a television crew to kill Massoud." ( WorldNetDaily: Calling bin Laden's bluff )
****
The suicide bombing attack on a charismatic Afghan guerrilla leader Sept. 9 appears to have been a preemptive strike by Osama bin Laden and his supporters to eliminate a CIA-backed opponent who could have been a powerful ally on the ground in any U.S. retaliation for the terrorist assaults two days later on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, intelligence sources said over the weekend.
Two assassins, reportedly Algerians masquerading as television journalists, mortally wounded Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the principal resistance group in Afghanistan opposing the Taleban religious militia and its fugitive guest, Mr. bin Laden.
In its timing and other details, the attack on Mr. Massoud, whose death was confirmed late last week, bears telltale marks of being the work of Mr. bin Laden and his supporters, according to U.S., European and Arab intelligence sources.
The murder seemed designed to decapitate and disrupt Mr. Massoud's loose organization of tribal groups, known as the Northern Alliance, to prevent them from playing a role in a major U.S.-backed military drive — which now seems probable — against the Taleban. (Assassination of Massoud Removed a Potential Key Ally for U.S. : Did bin Laden )
***
Ahmed Shah Massoud. [Source: French Ministry of Foreign Affairs]Worried about intercepts showing a growing likelihood of al-Qaeda attacks around the millennium, the CIA steps up ties with Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban. The CIA sends a team of agents to his headquarters in a remote part of northern Afghanistan, seeking his help to capture or kill bin Laden. Massoud complains that the US is too focused on bin Laden, and isn’t interested in the root problems of Taliban, Saudi, and Pakistani support for terrorism that is propping him up. He agrees to help nonetheless, and the CIA gives him more aid in return. However, the US is officially neutral in the Afghan civil war and the agents are prohibited from giving any aid that would “fundamentally alter the Afghan battlefield.” [Washington Post, 2/23/2004] DIA agent Julie Sirrs, newly retired, is at Massoud’s headquarters at the same time as the CIA team (see October 1998). She gathers valuable intelligence from captured al-Qaeda soldiers while the CIA agents stay in their guesthouse. She publishes much of what she learned on this trip and other trips in the summer of 2001. [Washington Post, 2/28/2004]
***
General Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, is assassinated by two al-Qaeda agents posing as Moroccan journalists. [Time, 8/4/2002] A legendary mujaheddin commander and a brilliant tactician, Massoud had pledged to bring freedom and democracy to Afghanistan. The BBC says the next day, “General Massoud’s death might well have meant the end of the [Northern] alliance” because there clearly was no figure with his skills and popularity to replace him. [BBC, 9/10/2001; BBC, 9/10/2001] “With Massoud out of the way, the Taliban and al-Qaeda would be rid of their most effective opponent and be in a stronger position to resist the American onslaught.” [St. Petersburg Times, 9/9/2002] It appears the assassination was supposed to happen earlier: the “journalists” waited for three weeks in Northern Alliance territory to meet Massoud. Finally on September 8, an aide says they “were so worried and excitable they were begging us.” They were granted an interview after threatening to leave if the interview did not happen in the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, the Taliban army (together with elements of the Pakistani army) had massed for an offensive against the Northern Alliance in the previous weeks, but the offensive began only hours after the assassination. Massoud was killed that day but Northern Alliance leaders pretend for several days that Massoud was only injured in order to keep the Northern Alliance army’s morale up, and they are able to stave off total defeat. The timing of the assassination and the actions of the Taliban army suggest that the 9/11 attacks were known to the Taliban leadership. [Time, 8/4/2002] Though it is not widely reported, the Northern Alliance releases a statement the next day: “Ahmed Shah Massoud was the target of an assassination attempt organized by the Pakistani [intelligence service] ISI and Osama bin Laden.” [Radio Free Europe, 9/10/2001; Newsday, 9/15/2001; Reuters, 10/4/2001] This suggests that the ISI may also have had prior knowledge of the attack plans.
***
The Murder of Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud
(Autumn 2001) Just two days prior to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 Arab terrorists with Belgian passports, posing as journalists, killed one of Afghanistan's most effective leaders, Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud.
Not only was a charismatic Afghan leader murdered, but a devious strategy was also divulged. With the murder of Commander Massoud the terrorists, directed and controlled by Osama bin Laden, had eliminated a most important leader and the most effective opponent to the Taliban regime.
Ambassador Farhadi (Northern Alliance's ambassador to the United Nations) believed that "the attack on Massoud was directly linked to the terrorist attacks in the United States and that his government offers immediate strategic support to the United States." Continuing, he said: "The Northern Alliance in Afghanistan led by President Rabbani controls more than 20 percent of Afghanistan. We assre the Americans that 99 percent of all Afghans are against the Taliban and also against Osama bin Laden. They are also conscious of the fact that since Osama bin Laden came to Afghanistan in 1996 from Sudan, he has done a lot of harm to the Afghans," Ambassador Farhadi said.
Nick Meo in Kabul
Almost half of Afghanistan is now too dangerous for aid workers to operate in, a leaked UN map seen by The Times shows.
In the past two years most foreign and Afghan staff have withdrawn from the southern half of the country, abandoning or scaling back development projects in rural areas and confining themselves to the cities or the less risky north. The pullback compounds the problems of the Government in Kabul, which has struggled to extend its authority to the regions and provinces, which are increasingly lawless or Taleban controlled.
Development has always been touted as a key factor in Western efforts to win over Afghans and bolster support for President Karzai but in the past six years little has been done on the ground in the critical south and east.
The failure to help ordinary Afghans or to rebuild areas damaged by fighting in provinces such as Helmand has caused huge resentment and is exploited by Taleban propaganda.
The unpublished map, acquired by The Times in Kabul, is for UN staff and aid workers and illustrates risk levels across the nation. It shows a marked deterioration in security since 2005, when compared with a similar map from March of that year.
Then only a strip along the Pakistan border and areas of mountainous Zabul and Uruzgan provinces in the south were too dangerous for aid workers. Now nearly all the ethnic Pashtun south and east is a no-go zone categorised as high or extreme risk and there are even pockets in the north of the country that are becoming dangerous for aid workers.
In the past two years nearly 40 Afghan and several foreign aid workers have been killed. The threat comes from the resurgent Taleban, which increasingly targets projects, and from bandits.
The map has emerged after a row in Kabul about just how much of the country the Taleban now controls.
A report by the Senlis Council, a think-tank, last week claimed that the rebels have a presence in half the country. An opinion poll published on Monday found that only 42 per cent of Afghans rate US efforts positively compared with 68 per cent in 2005, and also suggested that support for the Taleban was growing.
Brigadier-General Carlos Branco, an ISAF spokesman, insisted yesterday that the Taleban controls only five out of fifty-nine districts in southern Afghanistan. But the withdrawal of aid workers is undeniable.
Matt Waldman, the Kabul-based Oxfam policy adviser, said that the organisation had withdrawn all its staff from southern Afghanistan in June because of safety fears. He said that the decision had been a painful one, adding: “Peace in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without more determined efforts to reduce poverty, and urgent measures must be taken to enhance aid effectiveness.”
Nato has taken on much development work in dangerous areas through provincial reconstruction teams, in which soldiers build schools or dig wells as part of a “hearts and minds” programme. Aid professionals say that much of their work is poor. The other main method of carrying out development work in the south is through for-profit corporations whose staff venture out only in armed cars protected by heavily armed mercenaries.
Nic Lee, from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, said: “It is getting worse. The Taleban are making significant inroads in provincial centres.”
In the past two years most foreign and Afghan staff have withdrawn from the southern half of the country, abandoning or scaling back development projects in rural areas and confining themselves to the cities or the less risky north. The pullback compounds the problems of the Government in Kabul, which has struggled to extend its authority to the regions and provinces, which are increasingly lawless or Taleban controlled.
Development has always been touted as a key factor in Western efforts to win over Afghans and bolster support for President Karzai but in the past six years little has been done on the ground in the critical south and east.
The failure to help ordinary Afghans or to rebuild areas damaged by fighting in provinces such as Helmand has caused huge resentment and is exploited by Taleban propaganda.
The unpublished map, acquired by The Times in Kabul, is for UN staff and aid workers and illustrates risk levels across the nation. It shows a marked deterioration in security since 2005, when compared with a similar map from March of that year.
Then only a strip along the Pakistan border and areas of mountainous Zabul and Uruzgan provinces in the south were too dangerous for aid workers. Now nearly all the ethnic Pashtun south and east is a no-go zone categorised as high or extreme risk and there are even pockets in the north of the country that are becoming dangerous for aid workers.
In the past two years nearly 40 Afghan and several foreign aid workers have been killed. The threat comes from the resurgent Taleban, which increasingly targets projects, and from bandits.
The map has emerged after a row in Kabul about just how much of the country the Taleban now controls.
A report by the Senlis Council, a think-tank, last week claimed that the rebels have a presence in half the country. An opinion poll published on Monday found that only 42 per cent of Afghans rate US efforts positively compared with 68 per cent in 2005, and also suggested that support for the Taleban was growing.
Brigadier-General Carlos Branco, an ISAF spokesman, insisted yesterday that the Taleban controls only five out of fifty-nine districts in southern Afghanistan. But the withdrawal of aid workers is undeniable.
Matt Waldman, the Kabul-based Oxfam policy adviser, said that the organisation had withdrawn all its staff from southern Afghanistan in June because of safety fears. He said that the decision had been a painful one, adding: “Peace in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without more determined efforts to reduce poverty, and urgent measures must be taken to enhance aid effectiveness.”
Nato has taken on much development work in dangerous areas through provincial reconstruction teams, in which soldiers build schools or dig wells as part of a “hearts and minds” programme. Aid professionals say that much of their work is poor. The other main method of carrying out development work in the south is through for-profit corporations whose staff venture out only in armed cars protected by heavily armed mercenaries.
Nic Lee, from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, said: “It is getting worse. The Taleban are making significant inroads in provincial centres.”
Monday, December 3, 2007
AFGHANISTAN: RESURGENT TALIBAN SLOWS AID PROJECTS, RECONSTRUCTION
The past year has been the deadliest for U.S. and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime fell in late 2001. But while the number of suicide bomb attacks and civilian deaths has risen, perhaps the most disconcerting development is that the violence has set back major reconstruction projects aimed at significantly improving the lives of millions of Afghans.
Of more than 14,000 reconstruction works under way, NATO officials have described the Kajaki hydroelectric dam in Helmand Province as the project with the most strategic and psychological significance. NATO announced in early 2007 that its key objective in the south was to secure the area around the Kajaki dam.
In March, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer even suggested that progress on security in Afghanistan in 2007 could be measured by NATO’s ability to keep Taliban fighters away from Kajaki to allow workers to build a new road to transport a giant power turbine to the dam site. "When the turbine in that dam is [installed], it will give power to 2 million people and their businesses" from Helmand Province to Kandahar, de Hoop Scheffer said. "It will provide irrigation for hundreds of farmers. And it will create jobs for 2,000 people. The Taliban, the spoilers, are attacking this project every day to [try to] stop it from going forward."
By the beginning of June, when NATO declared that a combined U.S.-British assault called Operation Axe Handle had killed most Taliban fighters in the Kajaki valley or forced them to withdraw, reaching that goal still appeared possible. U.S. civilian officials working on the Kajaki project had also told RFE/RL that they hoped residents of Kandahar city would start receiving electricity from Kajaki’s new turbine by early 2008.
But despite NATO’s declarations of battlefield success, Taliban fighters have been able reinfiltrate the area -- causing enough havoc to delay construction of the road meant to link Kajaki to the town of Gereshk.
By late November, the road still was not complete. Without the road, workers have not been able to transport the power turbine to Kajaki -- leaving British and U.S. forces unable to claim success on that key objective of 2007.
Emboldened Insurgents
Still, security for the reconstruction of the Kajaki dam is not the only measure by which foreign troops have failed to meet their stated objectives.
A secret White House report leaked to the "Washington Post" in November concluded that the 2007 war effort in Afghanistan had not met the strategic goals set by the U.S. military. That National Security Council document reportedly says that while U.S. and NATO-led troops have been successful in individual military battles against the Taliban, the militants still appear able to recruit large numbers of fighters. It also says that while many foreigners, especially Pakistanis, are joining the Taliban, the main source of new recruits seems to be unhappy Afghans.
"At this moment, the Taliban and insurgent groups are feeling very emboldened -- they feel a momentum behind them," Joanna Nathan, the Kabul-based director of the International Crisis Group’s Afghanistan program, told RFE/RL. "That then drives many other factors in conflict. For the most part, those involved in the fighting are joining in because of disillusionment and disenfranchisement. They are feeling left out of government or administration, or they feel that their tribal community is [being left out] and they are not being heard. They feel they haven’t seen the international assistance that was offered. All these other things now feed into [the problem]. And the Taliban are very clever at working on local fissures and conflicts."
Nathan added that the Taliban’s resurgence does not mean that it has the ability to capture and control cities. But its guerrilla tactics have slowed reconstruction and humanitarian projects.
"I’m really hoping now that the world is beginning to wake up to the seriousness of what is happening in Afghanistan today," Nathan said. "We really are seeing almost half the country -- in the south and east now -- being terrorized. These are guerrillas. It’s not some sort of large standing army that is controlling and administering those areas. But they are making those areas largely inaccessible to humanitarian assistance and to development -- which stops the government’s outreach."
Public Outrage
Officials in Kabul say ordinary Afghans are becoming increasingly angry about the hundreds of civilian deaths caused by NATO or U.S.-led coalition air strikes that have gone awry. Authorities say their anger makes it easier for the Taliban to recruit new fighters. On the other hand, Afghans also are put off by more than 140 suicide bombings carried out by extremists in the past year that have killed more than 200 civilians -- the worst year of suicide bombings in Afghan history.
Christine Fair, a researcher who studied suicide attacks in Afghanistan during 2007 for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, says recruitment for suicide bombers extends across the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan, and that madrassahs play a major role. "But there is a larger point that most Afghans are not familiar with," Fair said. "There are Afghans who are involved, not only in the capacity of suicide attackers, but they are also involved obviously in safe houses. They are obviously involved in the production of bombs. They are involved in getting bombers to targets. At every point of the provision of suicide attacks, an Afghan is necessary. This is something the Afghans...need to deal with."
Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said during a visit to Kabul in November that both the Taliban and foreign troops in Afghanistan are responsible for mounting civilian deaths. Arbour accused the Taliban of deliberately targeting civilians in suicide bombings -- including teachers and humanitarian workers -- in a bid to destabilize the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Arbour also said the number of civilians accidentally killed by NATO or coalition air strikes had reached "alarming levels" during 2007. "In my discussions with ISAF commanders, I am persuaded that they are well aware of the significance of this problem [of civilian casualties] and were receptive to the call that they should have methodologies that will act as preventive measures so as to diminish the civilian exposures to their activities," Arbour said.
Foreign Casualties
Meanwhile, casualties in 2007 among foreign troops in Afghanistan climbed to the highest level since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001. More than 240 foreign soldiers were killed during the first 11 months of this year.
The NATO Secretary-General admits that one of the biggest failures of the alliance during 2007 was in the area of training and equipping Afghan government troops, who are meant to eventually take over security operations from U.S. and NATO-led forces.
"We are not doing enough as NATO allies and NATO partner nations in what should be one of our main priorities," de Hoop Scheffer said. "And that is training and equipping the Afghan National Army."
With some NATO countries showing reluctance to increase troop deployments to Afghanistan, military commanders of the alliance now say they would like predominantly Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East to help train Afghan security forces.
As for reconstruction, NATO is now taking a new tack. Major General Garry Robison, the NATO-led ISAF mission’s deputy commander for stability, said today that the Western military alliance is now seeking to distance itself from the reconstruction projects that it carries out.
Partly, he said, the tactic is aimed at increasing an Afghan "sense of ownership" in the work, and partly to avoid the projects being blown up by the Taliban.
Robison, who has overseen ISAF’s reconstruction work for the past 12 months, said foreign aid works best when it has an "Afghan face" and responds to real local needs.
"What we’re wanting to do is to help and deliver in line with local priorities," Robison said. "And by engaging local development councils for their priorities, by engaging local employment and contractors, we try and give the community a sense of ownership."
Posted December 1, 2007 © Eurasianet
Ron Synovitz
Of more than 14,000 reconstruction works under way, NATO officials have described the Kajaki hydroelectric dam in Helmand Province as the project with the most strategic and psychological significance. NATO announced in early 2007 that its key objective in the south was to secure the area around the Kajaki dam.
In March, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer even suggested that progress on security in Afghanistan in 2007 could be measured by NATO’s ability to keep Taliban fighters away from Kajaki to allow workers to build a new road to transport a giant power turbine to the dam site. "When the turbine in that dam is [installed], it will give power to 2 million people and their businesses" from Helmand Province to Kandahar, de Hoop Scheffer said. "It will provide irrigation for hundreds of farmers. And it will create jobs for 2,000 people. The Taliban, the spoilers, are attacking this project every day to [try to] stop it from going forward."
By the beginning of June, when NATO declared that a combined U.S.-British assault called Operation Axe Handle had killed most Taliban fighters in the Kajaki valley or forced them to withdraw, reaching that goal still appeared possible. U.S. civilian officials working on the Kajaki project had also told RFE/RL that they hoped residents of Kandahar city would start receiving electricity from Kajaki’s new turbine by early 2008.
But despite NATO’s declarations of battlefield success, Taliban fighters have been able reinfiltrate the area -- causing enough havoc to delay construction of the road meant to link Kajaki to the town of Gereshk.
By late November, the road still was not complete. Without the road, workers have not been able to transport the power turbine to Kajaki -- leaving British and U.S. forces unable to claim success on that key objective of 2007.
Emboldened Insurgents
Still, security for the reconstruction of the Kajaki dam is not the only measure by which foreign troops have failed to meet their stated objectives.
A secret White House report leaked to the "Washington Post" in November concluded that the 2007 war effort in Afghanistan had not met the strategic goals set by the U.S. military. That National Security Council document reportedly says that while U.S. and NATO-led troops have been successful in individual military battles against the Taliban, the militants still appear able to recruit large numbers of fighters. It also says that while many foreigners, especially Pakistanis, are joining the Taliban, the main source of new recruits seems to be unhappy Afghans.
"At this moment, the Taliban and insurgent groups are feeling very emboldened -- they feel a momentum behind them," Joanna Nathan, the Kabul-based director of the International Crisis Group’s Afghanistan program, told RFE/RL. "That then drives many other factors in conflict. For the most part, those involved in the fighting are joining in because of disillusionment and disenfranchisement. They are feeling left out of government or administration, or they feel that their tribal community is [being left out] and they are not being heard. They feel they haven’t seen the international assistance that was offered. All these other things now feed into [the problem]. And the Taliban are very clever at working on local fissures and conflicts."
Nathan added that the Taliban’s resurgence does not mean that it has the ability to capture and control cities. But its guerrilla tactics have slowed reconstruction and humanitarian projects.
"I’m really hoping now that the world is beginning to wake up to the seriousness of what is happening in Afghanistan today," Nathan said. "We really are seeing almost half the country -- in the south and east now -- being terrorized. These are guerrillas. It’s not some sort of large standing army that is controlling and administering those areas. But they are making those areas largely inaccessible to humanitarian assistance and to development -- which stops the government’s outreach."
Public Outrage
Officials in Kabul say ordinary Afghans are becoming increasingly angry about the hundreds of civilian deaths caused by NATO or U.S.-led coalition air strikes that have gone awry. Authorities say their anger makes it easier for the Taliban to recruit new fighters. On the other hand, Afghans also are put off by more than 140 suicide bombings carried out by extremists in the past year that have killed more than 200 civilians -- the worst year of suicide bombings in Afghan history.
Christine Fair, a researcher who studied suicide attacks in Afghanistan during 2007 for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, says recruitment for suicide bombers extends across the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan, and that madrassahs play a major role. "But there is a larger point that most Afghans are not familiar with," Fair said. "There are Afghans who are involved, not only in the capacity of suicide attackers, but they are also involved obviously in safe houses. They are obviously involved in the production of bombs. They are involved in getting bombers to targets. At every point of the provision of suicide attacks, an Afghan is necessary. This is something the Afghans...need to deal with."
Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said during a visit to Kabul in November that both the Taliban and foreign troops in Afghanistan are responsible for mounting civilian deaths. Arbour accused the Taliban of deliberately targeting civilians in suicide bombings -- including teachers and humanitarian workers -- in a bid to destabilize the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Arbour also said the number of civilians accidentally killed by NATO or coalition air strikes had reached "alarming levels" during 2007. "In my discussions with ISAF commanders, I am persuaded that they are well aware of the significance of this problem [of civilian casualties] and were receptive to the call that they should have methodologies that will act as preventive measures so as to diminish the civilian exposures to their activities," Arbour said.
Foreign Casualties
Meanwhile, casualties in 2007 among foreign troops in Afghanistan climbed to the highest level since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001. More than 240 foreign soldiers were killed during the first 11 months of this year.
The NATO Secretary-General admits that one of the biggest failures of the alliance during 2007 was in the area of training and equipping Afghan government troops, who are meant to eventually take over security operations from U.S. and NATO-led forces.
"We are not doing enough as NATO allies and NATO partner nations in what should be one of our main priorities," de Hoop Scheffer said. "And that is training and equipping the Afghan National Army."
With some NATO countries showing reluctance to increase troop deployments to Afghanistan, military commanders of the alliance now say they would like predominantly Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East to help train Afghan security forces.
As for reconstruction, NATO is now taking a new tack. Major General Garry Robison, the NATO-led ISAF mission’s deputy commander for stability, said today that the Western military alliance is now seeking to distance itself from the reconstruction projects that it carries out.
Partly, he said, the tactic is aimed at increasing an Afghan "sense of ownership" in the work, and partly to avoid the projects being blown up by the Taliban.
Robison, who has overseen ISAF’s reconstruction work for the past 12 months, said foreign aid works best when it has an "Afghan face" and responds to real local needs.
"What we’re wanting to do is to help and deliver in line with local priorities," Robison said. "And by engaging local development councils for their priorities, by engaging local employment and contractors, we try and give the community a sense of ownership."
Posted December 1, 2007 © Eurasianet
Ron Synovitz
Do You Recall?
Memory is a curious thing. People tend to forget those things of which they are not reminded. Now that the US is embroiled in wars on two fronts, examining a timeline of US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq serves to refresh our memory of how we got to where we are. Here is a walk down memory lane.
In December 1997 members of the Taliban paid a visit to Texas to discuss with oil barons the possibility of building a pipeline through Afghanistan. Shortly thereafter, VP Dick Cheney, then CEO of Halliburton, said "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant.... It's almost as if the opportunities have arisen overnight." Coincidentally, Mr. Cheney was equally as interested in Iraq as Afghanistan, but for a different reason. The month after negotiating with the Taliban, in January 1998 Mr. Cheney signed his name to a document sponsored by The People for a New American Century. It read in part, "Saddam Hussein must go... [I]f the United States is committed... to insuring that the Iraqi leader never again uses weapons of mass destruction, the only way to achieve that goal is to remove Mr. Hussein and his regime from power. Any policy short of that will fail." The Taliban was worthy of being a business partner, but Saddam had to go.
This attitude carried over into the Bush administration in 2001. One of the first things President Bush did was fill his administration with members from that very same People for a New American Century who disliked Saddam but tolerated the Taliban. Those names include: Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Frank Gaffney, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. By February 2001, the newly inaugurated President Bush himself started saber-rattling against Saddam. "Our intention is to make sure that the world is as peaceful as possible and we're going to watch very carefully as to whether he (Saddam) develops weapons of mass destruction," Bush said. "If we catch him doing so, we're going to take appropriate action."
While all this attention was being focused on Saddam in early 2001, there was a man, an ally of the United States, who was trying with all his might to get the attention of Washington. His name was Ahmed Shah Massoud. On April 6, 2001, Massoud, the Defense Minister of the deposed but legitimate Afghan government and the man who lead the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda, addressed the European Union. He was asked if he had a message for President Bush. He replied, "My message to President Bush is the following: If he isn't interested in peace in Afghanistan, if he doesn't help the Afghan people to arrive at their objective of peace, the Americans and the rest of the world will have to face the problems.... If President Bush doesn't help us, these terrorists will damage the US and Europe very soon.."
Rather than heed Massoud's advice, the current administration decided a month later to give the Taliban a gift of $43 million. The gift, announced by then Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, made the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewarded that regime for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. The war on drugs trumped the battle for democracy in Afghanistan.
About four months later, in August 2001, Massoud told an Indian film crew his fear that the US would face "a terrorism beyond comprehension." In that same month, Pakistan told the US that it wanted to stay out of bin Laden "issues." Massoud had long linked the Taliban with Pakistan, something that should be remembered today since they are once again moving with impunity back and forth across the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Massoud's dire predictions came true. The next month brought the assassination of Massoud and, two days later, the 9-11 attack on the US. It was later written in a piece by journalist Mike Boettcher that a declassified cable from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency read: "Through Northern Alliance Northern intelligence efforts, the late commander Massoud gained limited knowledge regarding the intentions of the Saudi millionaire, Osama bin Laden and his terrorist organization, al-Qaida, to perform a terrorist act against the U.S., on a scale larger than the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania." Massoud is remembered now as an Afghan hero and a friend to the US. He should also be remembered as the voice in the wilderness whose warnings went unheeded.
After the 9-11 attack, President Bush was apparently still willing to allow the Taliban to remain in power. He sent them several messages stating that "time is running out" to surrender bin Laden and close al Qaeda's operations. The implication was that, had the Taliban handed over bin Laden and agreed to shut the terrorist training camps, they would have been allowed to remain in power. The Taliban resisted, demanding evidence that bin Laden was behind 9-11, and the US turned to Massoud's men in the Northern Alliance and began the proxy war which drove the Taliban underground and al Qaeda into Pakistan. Concurrently, and before the war in Afghanistan could succeed in its goals, a new war was begun.
After 9-11, the PNAC group who so urgently wanted the overthrow of Saddam back in 1998 saw their chance to voice their opinion once again. On September 20, 2001 they issued a statement which read in part, "...even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." The rest, as they say, is history. The US found itself at war on two fronts, and the outcome of either is anybody's guess.
Memory is a curious thing. If memory served us better, perhaps we could avoid in the future the same mistakes made in the past. Massoud warned that the Taliban and al Qaeda were inextricably linked. Both are active once again in Afghanistan. The snake has two heads, and both heads must be crushed.
Massoud knew that in 2001. He would tell us to remember his warnings now.
The top Marine, General Conway, thinks it's time to send the Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan. It is obvious that NATO alone cannot secure the country and that the 25,000 US troops there are not enough. There is resistance to this suggestion within the ranks of the Bush administration who prefers to remain fixated on Iraq. What will it take to remind them that the real enemy lurks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that they always have? How can their memories be jogged back to the summer of 2001 so that the warnings of Massoud are heard anew? The clock cannot be reset, but a now silenced voice from the past can still recall the future.
In December 1997 members of the Taliban paid a visit to Texas to discuss with oil barons the possibility of building a pipeline through Afghanistan. Shortly thereafter, VP Dick Cheney, then CEO of Halliburton, said "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant.... It's almost as if the opportunities have arisen overnight." Coincidentally, Mr. Cheney was equally as interested in Iraq as Afghanistan, but for a different reason. The month after negotiating with the Taliban, in January 1998 Mr. Cheney signed his name to a document sponsored by The People for a New American Century. It read in part, "Saddam Hussein must go... [I]f the United States is committed... to insuring that the Iraqi leader never again uses weapons of mass destruction, the only way to achieve that goal is to remove Mr. Hussein and his regime from power. Any policy short of that will fail." The Taliban was worthy of being a business partner, but Saddam had to go.
This attitude carried over into the Bush administration in 2001. One of the first things President Bush did was fill his administration with members from that very same People for a New American Century who disliked Saddam but tolerated the Taliban. Those names include: Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Frank Gaffney, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. By February 2001, the newly inaugurated President Bush himself started saber-rattling against Saddam. "Our intention is to make sure that the world is as peaceful as possible and we're going to watch very carefully as to whether he (Saddam) develops weapons of mass destruction," Bush said. "If we catch him doing so, we're going to take appropriate action."
While all this attention was being focused on Saddam in early 2001, there was a man, an ally of the United States, who was trying with all his might to get the attention of Washington. His name was Ahmed Shah Massoud. On April 6, 2001, Massoud, the Defense Minister of the deposed but legitimate Afghan government and the man who lead the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda, addressed the European Union. He was asked if he had a message for President Bush. He replied, "My message to President Bush is the following: If he isn't interested in peace in Afghanistan, if he doesn't help the Afghan people to arrive at their objective of peace, the Americans and the rest of the world will have to face the problems.... If President Bush doesn't help us, these terrorists will damage the US and Europe very soon.."
Rather than heed Massoud's advice, the current administration decided a month later to give the Taliban a gift of $43 million. The gift, announced by then Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, made the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewarded that regime for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. The war on drugs trumped the battle for democracy in Afghanistan.
About four months later, in August 2001, Massoud told an Indian film crew his fear that the US would face "a terrorism beyond comprehension." In that same month, Pakistan told the US that it wanted to stay out of bin Laden "issues." Massoud had long linked the Taliban with Pakistan, something that should be remembered today since they are once again moving with impunity back and forth across the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Massoud's dire predictions came true. The next month brought the assassination of Massoud and, two days later, the 9-11 attack on the US. It was later written in a piece by journalist Mike Boettcher that a declassified cable from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency read: "Through Northern Alliance Northern intelligence efforts, the late commander Massoud gained limited knowledge regarding the intentions of the Saudi millionaire, Osama bin Laden and his terrorist organization, al-Qaida, to perform a terrorist act against the U.S., on a scale larger than the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania." Massoud is remembered now as an Afghan hero and a friend to the US. He should also be remembered as the voice in the wilderness whose warnings went unheeded.
After the 9-11 attack, President Bush was apparently still willing to allow the Taliban to remain in power. He sent them several messages stating that "time is running out" to surrender bin Laden and close al Qaeda's operations. The implication was that, had the Taliban handed over bin Laden and agreed to shut the terrorist training camps, they would have been allowed to remain in power. The Taliban resisted, demanding evidence that bin Laden was behind 9-11, and the US turned to Massoud's men in the Northern Alliance and began the proxy war which drove the Taliban underground and al Qaeda into Pakistan. Concurrently, and before the war in Afghanistan could succeed in its goals, a new war was begun.
After 9-11, the PNAC group who so urgently wanted the overthrow of Saddam back in 1998 saw their chance to voice their opinion once again. On September 20, 2001 they issued a statement which read in part, "...even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." The rest, as they say, is history. The US found itself at war on two fronts, and the outcome of either is anybody's guess.
Memory is a curious thing. If memory served us better, perhaps we could avoid in the future the same mistakes made in the past. Massoud warned that the Taliban and al Qaeda were inextricably linked. Both are active once again in Afghanistan. The snake has two heads, and both heads must be crushed.
Massoud knew that in 2001. He would tell us to remember his warnings now.
The top Marine, General Conway, thinks it's time to send the Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan. It is obvious that NATO alone cannot secure the country and that the 25,000 US troops there are not enough. There is resistance to this suggestion within the ranks of the Bush administration who prefers to remain fixated on Iraq. What will it take to remind them that the real enemy lurks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that they always have? How can their memories be jogged back to the summer of 2001 so that the warnings of Massoud are heard anew? The clock cannot be reset, but a now silenced voice from the past can still recall the future.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Stagnation in Afghanistan
"We are stagnating in Afghanistan, if not backsliding," a senior U.S. military official tells ABC News.
Afghanistan More Dangerous Than Iraq
ABC News Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:00 PM PST
Danger for U.S. troops in Afghanistan is rising, with 2007 the deadliest year.
ABC News Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:00 PM PST
Danger for U.S. troops in Afghanistan is rising, with 2007 the deadliest year.
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