Karzai abandona el diálogo de paz con los talibanes

El Pais/

El presidente de Afganistán, Hamid Karzai, dijo ayer que renunciaba a las conversaciones de paz con los talibanes, iniciadas en junio junto con Estados Unidos.

Karzai manifestó ante un grupo de líderes religiosos que el asesinato del expresidente afgano Burhanuddin Rabbani, mediador y encargado de las negociaciones con los talibanes, le convenció de que el único interlocutor posible para la paz es Pakistán.

“Un mensajero se hace pasar por un miembro del Consejo Talibán y mata [a Rabbani], y ellos ni lo confirman ni lo niegan. ¿Dónde está el Consejo Talibán? ¿Dónde está [el mulá Omar, líder de los talibanes]? No podemos hallar la cúpula. Por lo tanto, no podemos hablar con nadie salvo con Pakistán”, afirmó el presidente afgano, en unas declaraciones televisadas hoy por el canal afgano Tolo Tv.

Continuar leyendo >

Captura en Afganistán a un jefe de la red Haqqani

ElPais

La misión de la OTAN en Afganistán ha informado hoy de la detención en el este del país de un importante dirigente de la red terrorista Haqqani, un activo grupo insurgente afgano que EE UU considera ligado a los servicios secretos paquistaníes. Haji Mali Khan es "el tío de Siraj y Badrudín Haqqani... uno de los máximos jefes de la red Haqqani y uno de los ancianos más reverenciados en el clan Haqqani", ha dicho la Fuerza Internacional de Asistencia a la Seguridad (ISAF) en un comunicado.

Continuar leyendo >

EEUU anuncia la muerte del 'número 2' de Al Qaeda

Leer >

Military: Taliban Who Shot Down U.S. Helicopter Killed In "Kinetic Strike"

Full story >

Breaking news: Militants Ship Bomb Materials in NATO Trucks

While coalition forces in Afghanistan wage a battle against improvised explosive devices, a Military.com investigation has revealed Pakistani officials are turning a blind eye toward smugglers who deal in the main ingredient used to make the deadly weapons. Much of the supply has been carried across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in trucks contracted by NATO.
Full Story...

Afghanistan: Petraeus stepped down while Taliban stap up

By Fred KaplanPosted Monday, July 18, 2011, at 4:11 PM ET

Afghan President Hamid KarzaiGen. David Petraeus stepped down as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan on Monday, just as the Taliban's strength seems to be on the rise. The militants' growing power comes not from conventional military victories—on that score, Petraeus has racked up considerable advances in the past year—but, rather, from what may be a shift in the real war that's going on: the war for the favor (or at least complicity) of the Afghan people.

The high-profile assassinations this past week of President Hamid Karzai's brother and one of his close associates send a clear message to Afghan people who are sitting on the fence: If Karzai and the American military can't protect powerful guys like this, they certainly can't protect you. If this perception deepens, it may be game-over not just for Karzai's regime but for the U.S.-NATO war effort.

Most insurgency wars are wars for the allegiance or control of the people. They are, in part, fought the same way all wars are fought, with combatants on two or more sides trying to kill one another. But the metrics of success are very different. These wars, ultimately, are not about conquering territory (insurgents hold no territory) or winning battles (insurgents fight battles of their choosing and can simply melt into the population if they figure the odds are against them). The "center of gravity," as strategists put it, is the population.

Read more...

The Afghan Army: Is it fit for Purpose?

newnations BULLETIN
The transition from NATO to Afghan leadership in the security sector officially started in July 2011, with a few locations being handed over to Afghan control. It was a muted beginning of the transition: all the locations transitioned to the Afghans were comparatively quiet and safe ones. It is well known that ISAF's outgoing commander, Gen. Petraeus, was very tepid towards the transition, although he would not openly elaborate on his motives. It is also known that Afghan president Karzai, President Obama and the European governments were more supportive of a transition as fast as possible. At the centre of the debate on the viability of transition in the medium and long run is the question of whether the Afghan security forces are really ready to take the lead and eventually to fight it out on their own. In particular, it is the Afghan army that will be the cornerstone of efforts to Afghanise the conflict. If the Afghan army cannot do the job, transition is not going to be the road to success.

Achievements and failures
When Gen. Caldwell, the head of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan, took over the job of training Afghan Army and Police, he portrayed what had been done by his predecessors in a very negative light; even the basic training course, which accounted for almost all of the American training effort, had major flaws and was producing privates of very low quality. Caldwell set out to reform the basic training effort and start tackling the issue of forming the army's leadership. While basic training improved qualitatively and expanded quantitatively, leadership formation was still in its infant stage by mid-2011. It is obvious that forming a military leadership is a much more complex task than putting together a basic training effort. It is also a task that takes much longer (several years) to start bearing fruit. That the Americans only started dealing with the problem eight years into their involvement with training the Afghan National Army casts serious doubts over their long term planning. The formation of a new leadership for the Afghan army is made all the more difficult by the limited ability of the Ministry of Defence to attract educated Afghans; the overwhelming majority of the recruits are illiterate and very few high school graduates join the army, not to speak of university graduates. Arguably, this is one more reason why the problem should have been paid attention earlier.

Since the Afghan army has already been fighting a war for some years, a new leadership should by now be emerging from the ranks; involvement in the conflict should by now have weeded out the incompetent officers and refined the skills of the competent ones. Unfortunately this has actually happened only a small scale, for two main reasons. The first reason is that ISAF has been very protective of its Afghan partners, rarely allowing them to fight without the support of a NATO unit and almost never without being accompanied by a unit of NATO mentors, who often take over as the commanding officers when the Afghan counterpart is judged not to be up to the task. Although ISAF has by now a fairly good idea of who are the competent Afghan officers and who are not, the practice of sheltering the Afghan Army from the risk of tactical defeat has made it very difficult to argue for the removal of ineffective commanders. This leads us to the second reason why the officer corps has not been growing professionally as much as it should have done: political nepotism.

Many officers enjoy political protection and indeed that's the reason why they were appointed in the first place. Such protection comes from one of different political networks within the army, of which the two main ones are linked to former army chief of staff Bismillah Khan and to Minister of Defence Rahim Wardak. The competition between the two networks makes it difficult for meritocracy to take hold. Things in this regard might in fact have got worse, because Bismillah Khan had a preference for battle tested tactical commanders, which his replacement Karimi has not.

A very rough estimate of the quality of the Afghan officer corps, coming from ISAF mentors, would place the number of at least relatively competent officers at about half of the total. There are, however, problems with this half too. They have little or no experience of working together. Without the support of ISAF; very few senior officers can plan relatively large scale operations. Battalion level officers are inevitably even worse in planning. By and large the army is not trained to fight in small units. Although the Americans are now forming many logistical units, the quality of the staff leaves much to be desired: it is difficult to conceive a logistical system run mostly by illiterate people.

In July 2010 the army tried to carry out an offensive operation on its own, without any support from ISAF. The operation was launched from Mehterlam, Laghman province, and was battalion size. It was about capturing a village from the Taliban, but ended in complete failure after the raiding party landing behind enemy lines and the main force as well, were both ambushed. The battalion carrying out the operation was one of the best in the army. This incident highlights how the army as it is, might not be able to cope with the opposition even under the best circumstances: a pre-planned operation against an objective of the army's own choice.



Read more...

Ahmed Wali Karzai, Afghan President's Brother, Assassinated

The Huffington Post
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai says his half brother's assassination reflects the suffering of all Afghan people.
Karzai said Tuesday in a press conference that Ahmed Wali Karzai's death is a pain he shares with all Afghans.
Officials say Ahmed Wali Karzai was assassinated by a bodyguard at his home in Kandahar.
The president says "in the houses of the people of Afghanistan, each of us is suffering and our hope is, God willing, to remove this suffering from the people of Afghanistan and implement peace and stability."
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai's powerful half brother, a lightning rod for criticism of all that is wrong with the Afghan government, was assassinated by a bodyguard Tuesday at his home in the southern province of Kandahar, officials said.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was head of the Kandahar provincial council, had become a political liability for the Karzai government after a series of allegations, including that he was on the CIA payroll and involved in drug trafficking. He denied the charges, and the president repeatedly defended him, denouncing accusations that his brother was involved in criminal activities in the restive south.
Ahmed Wali Karzai's death was confirmed by Zalmai Ayubi, the spokesman for Kandahar province, and Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior. A member of Karzai's private security team killed him with an AK-47, according to a person who witnessed the killing. The individual declined to be identified.
Rangina Hamidi, a resident of Kandahar and daughter of the city's mayor, said Ahmed Wali Karzai is survived by five children – two sons and three daughters. She says his youngest son was born about a month ago.

Female Special Operators Now in Combat

Military.com|by Christian Lowe

Army Special Operations Command has deployed its first teams of female Soldiers assigned to commando units in Afghanistan, and military officials are assessing their initial performance in theater as "off the charts."
In a controversial move early this year, the Army created a new avenue for women to serve with front-line combat units in some of the most specialized and covert missions. The so-called "Cultural Support Teams" are attached to Special Forces and Ranger units to interface with the female population to gain vital intelligence and provide social outreach.
"When I send an [SF team] in to follow up on a Taliban hit … wouldn't it be nice to have access to about 50 percent of that target population -- the women?" said Maj. Gen. Bennet Sacolick, commander of the Army Special Warfare Center and School, which runs the CST program.

Read more...

Obama Wants To Negotiate?! Takeover Is The Taliban Plan For Afghanistan

by Walid Phares 

Before and after President Barack Obama announced the new U.S. strategy on Afghanistan, I engaged in a variety of media panels and private discussions with commentators and analysts from Arab and Muslim-majority regions of the world.

Some of the individuals I spoke with are close to the Taliban and others are critical of the Islamist militia. Contrary to the president’s assertions, all of these experts affirmed that Taliban morale is high and there is no sense of defeat among the jihadists.

The administration’s plan for Afghanistan may include reconciliation with the Taliban, but the latter have no plans that allow American gains, much less bilateral-negotiations to end the conflict.

Obama brings peace in our time?

It appears that the administration is tangoing with an imaginary partner. Neville Chamberlain’s wishful Sept. 30, 1938 proclamation, “I have returned to Germany with peace in our time,” should serve as a chilling reminder to those who are under the illusion that war is receding which in fact, it is about to escalate into global conflict.

The Taliban strategy is not obscure; most of it has been announced, publicized and is based in ideology, as has been the case with totalitarian movements throughout history. U.S. inability to grasp Taliban plans is not due to the jihadists’ highly-developed denial and deception skills, but rather to the unwillingness or inability of the U.S. and its allies to see it.

The Taliban long-term strategic plan is simple: practice taqiyya to gain terrain and power; resume jihad to eliminate the other forms of governance; and implement their version of Shariah to reverse democracy.

Al-Taqiyya

Al-Taqiyya has historical and, by some accounts, theological meaning. Originally, the term referred to a defensive tactic Shia dissidents employed to protect themselves from the wrath of the Sunni caliphate during times of war between the two sects in the early part of the seventh century.

Taqiyya sanctions deception to conceal intentions and affiliations to avoid retaliation by those in power. Today, Sunni Salafis and Shia Khomeinists have added to the meaning of the term making it an offensive tactic of war as well.

In contemporary usage, the term refers to subterfuge or dissimulation by war planners and commanders to deceive a foe regarding their ultimate aims. Used this way, Taqiyya is strategic deception, not much different that Cold War maneuvers used by the Soviets.

Negotiations take place “under the table” via third parties to lure administration officials into accepting the Taliban’s offer. To the U.S. the Taliban might respond, “We will accept a deal but we can’t say so in public.” But to their constituents they would assure: “Americans think we will cut a deal with them but the only thing we’re going to cut in pieces is our commitment to them.”

The bottom line: The administration will sail out of Afghanistan on an ocean of Taliban deception. With taqiyya, the Taliban can make Washington believe that jihadi militias have mutated into a soft AKP or a stealthy Muslim Brotherhood.

Jihad

As they deceive Washington policymakers, the Taliban have no compunction about pursuing jihad until their banner flies again on the presidential palace in Kabul. Why would they do anything else?

Jihadi ideology and planted hallucinations define the movement. If they abandon these tactics they will become marginalized warlords with no political identity.

The Taliban exists, intimidates, and attracts, because they practice jihad. There is no countermeasure in U.S. strategy in Afghanistan to counter the Taliban’s jihad strategy. The U.S. wants to bestow legitimacy upon the Taliban without a counter-radicalization strategy. The new administration counterterrorism doctrine is targeted strikes against Taliban leaders and units but does not include a counterinsurgency that mobilizes the general populace against the jihadists in order to isolate them. Jihad’s most important component, indoctrination, is not on U.S. radars anymore. But ironically it is the fuel of the Taliban’s war machine.

Shariah

Clearly, the Taliban’s goal in Afghanistan is to implement Shariah on every square inch of land they bring under their authority. The imposition of Shariah is non-negotiable. “Talib ul Shari’ah” (English: “student of Shariah”) is the origin of the movement.

What this means is that communities under Taliban rule will be governed according to their laws as was the case before 2001. Women (especially girls), religious minorities, and secular political parties will be affected. Advances in liberty since the Taliban’s fall will be reversed.

Taliban’s Shariah is not just about divorce and inheritance; it is about eliminating all other forms of man-made law. The Taliban will transform the government into an emirate.

The Taliban plan for Afghanistan isn’t new; they will adapt it to the new U.S. plan for that country. It will be dominated by taqiyya, jihad, and Shariah.

-----------------------------------------

Dr Walid Phares is the author of “The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East.” He teaches Global Strategies in Washington D.C., and advises members of Congress and the European parliament. www.walidphares.com

In Afghanistan, A Week Of Crises Raises Troubling Questions

By Christian Caryl for RFE/RL

Afghanistan has been in chaos for the past 30 years, leaving little room for optimism. But the events of this past week have shocked even the most pessimistic observers.

On June 28, Taliban militants attacked a heavily guarded luxury hotel in Kabul, an assault that ended only after Afghan security forces called on their international allies for help.

The attack came just hours after the chief of the Afghan central bank fled the country and resigned. On June 27, he turned up in Washington, D.C., to denounce the government of President Hamid Karzai for its failure to clean up a smoldering banking scandal that has been threatening to derail government finances and destabilize an already fragile national economy.

The week before — on June 23 — a special court that had been commissioned to examine allegations of fraud during last year’s parliamentary elections declared that it was invalidating the mandates of 62 members of the 249-member parliament. That decision essentially suspended the assembly’s work until the lawmakers are replaced.

The court decision was one of the factors behind the creation, just a few days later, of a new anti-Karzai alliance that brings together all the major leaders of the country’s non-Pashtun ethnic groups — who happen to include some of Afghanistan’s most powerful warlords.

Taken together, these events prompt fundamental questions about Afghanistan’s underlying stability as the international community gradually moves to disengage itself from the troubled country.

Read more...

Obama's Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal

Obama's Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

By Nathan Hughes
U.S. President Barack Obama announced June 22 that the long process of drawing down forces in Afghanistan would begin on schedule in July. Though the initial phase of the drawdown appears limited, minimizing the tactical and operational impact on the ground in the immediate future, the United States and its allies are now beginning the inevitable process of removing their forces from Afghanistan. This will entail the risk of greater Taliban battlefield successes.

The Logistical Challenge

Afghanistan, a landlocked country in the heart of Central Asia, is one of the most isolated places on Earth. This isolation has posed huge logistical challenges for the United States. Hundreds of shipping containers and fuel trucks must enter the country every day from Pakistan and from the north to sustain the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied forces stationed in Afghanistan, about half the total number of Afghan security forces. Supplying a single gallon of gasoline in Afghanistan reportedly costs the U.S. military an average of $400, while sustaining a single U.S. soldier runs around $1 million a year (by contrast, sustaining an Afghan soldier costs about $12,000 a year).
These forces appear considerably lighter than those in Iraq because Afghanistan’s rough terrain often demands dismounted foot patrols. Heavy main battle tanks and self-propelled howitzers are thus few and far between, though not entirely absent. Afghanistan even required a new, lighter and more agile version of the hulking mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle known as the M-ATV (for “all-terrain vehicle”).
Based solely on the activity on the ground in Afghanistan today, one would think the United States and its allies were preparing for a permanent presence, not the imminent beginning of a long-scheduled drawdown (a perception the United States and its allies have in some cases used to their advantage to reach political arrangements with locals). A 3,500-meter (11,500-foot) all-weather concrete and asphalt runway and an air traffic control tower were completed this February at Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion in Helmand province. Another more than 2,700-meter runway was finished at Shindand Air Field in Herat province last December.

(click here to enlarge image)

Meanwhile, a so-called iron mountain of spare parts needed to maintain vehicles and aircraft, construction and engineering equipment, generators, ammunition and other supplies — even innumerable pallets of bottled water — has slowly been built up to sustain day-to-day military operations. There are fewer troops in Afghanistan than the nearly 170,000 in Iraq at the peak of operations and considerably lighter tonnage in terms of armored vehicles. But short of a hasty and rapid withdrawal reminiscent of the chaotic American exit from Saigon in 1975 (which no one currently foresees in Afghanistan), the logistical challenge of withdrawing from Afghanistan — at whatever pace — is perhaps even more daunting than the drawdown in Iraq. The complexity of having nearly 50 allies with troops in country will complicate this process.

Read more: Obama's Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal | STRATFOR

Obama's troop withdrawal marks a dramatic—and risky—shift in strategy

From  Slate Magazine

By Fred Kaplan

President Barack Obama's decision to pull 33,000 troops out of Afghanistan by the end of next summer—10,000 of them by the end of this year—reflects a scaling back of U.S. goals and strategy in the war. Either that, or it doesn't make much sense.
The decision, which the president announced in a 15-minute national TV address Wednesday night, means that, over the next 15 months, all the "surge" troops that Obama ordered into Afghanistan in December 2009—one-third of the total number of U.S. forces in the country—will be going home. Their tours of duty would have been up by then anyway, but now they'll be replaced not by a fresh rotation of American soldiers or Marines but rather by Afghan security forces. And over the subsequent months, Obama said, the U.S. drawdown will continue at a steady pace—until the end of 2014, when Afghan troops will provide the mainstay of their country's security in every province.
 

READ FULL STORY 

30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan home by summer 2012: Obama

30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan home by summer 2012: Obama

Obama to Move US Closer to Leaving Afghanistan

WASHINGTON -- President Obama will move the United States a step closer to ending the war in Afghanistan when he announces plans Wednesday to bring thousands of American troops home, beginning next month.

Administration officials said the president was still in the final phase of a decision-making process that has focused not only on how many troops will come home in July, but also on a broader withdrawal blueprint designed to put the U.S. on a path toward giving Afghans control of their security by 2014.

Obama was given a range of options for the withdrawal last week by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan. The military favors a gradual reduction in troops but other advisers are advocating a significant decrease in the coming months.

While the president has said he favors a significant withdrawal, his advisers have not quantified that statement.

Obama is expected to make Wednesday's announcement in Washington. On Thursday, he will visit troops at Fort Drum, the upstate New York military base that is home to the 10th Mountain Division, one of the most frequently deployed divisions to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Full story...

Karzai: Afghanistan, US in Contacts With Taliban

Life in Northern Afghanistan as Taliban Take Control

Uploaded by PulitzerCenter on Jun 13, 2011

While the debate in Washington is focused on how soon and to which extent to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, insurgents are rapidly gaining ground in the country's north. This audio slideshow, the product of Anna Badkhen's second month-long journey through northern Afghanistan this spring, offers a glimpse into the life of Afghans as the Taliban take over their villages—swiftly, unchallenged, and barely noticed by the rest of the world.

Afghanistan Dispatch: When Compassion Is a Luxury

By   Anna Badkhen

Bibi Zarifshah, who lost her left leg and most fingers on her left hand when a landmine exploded near her house 15 years ago, is leaving her house in Zadyan, Afghanistan, to apply for disability. Image by Anna Badkhen, Afghanistan, 2011.

The petitioners arrive at dawn and climb the dirt path in silence. Men with arms missing. Veiled women with artificial limbs. Children with faces drawn and prematurely old solemnly leading blind relatives by the hand. Their grim procession staggers toward the provincial office of the Ministry of the Disabled and Martyrs to solicit an annual disability stipend of $120.
Among them is Lojward, emaciated in a black-and-white shawl and on crutches. She labors her way up the slope and, out of breath quickly, lowers herself onto a tall step outside the squat concrete building, her prosthetic leg outstretched in the packed dust at an awkward angle. Men and women file past, mute and mutilated. No one offers to help her. No one offers water in the heat. Compassion is a luxury no one here can spare.

Full story...

WH Holding Secret Meetings To Negotiate U.S. Staying In Afghanistan For Decades!

MOXNEWSd0tCOM

Commando: On the Front Line In Afghanistan with the Britsh Royal Marines

In Afghanistan with the Britsh Royal Marines.