International community supports phased Afghan control over security

At the Kabul conference yesterday the international community expressed its support for President Karzai's objective that the Afghan National Security Forces should lead and conduct all military operations in all provinces of Afghanistan by 2014.

The Kabul International Conference, hosted by the Government of Afghanistan and the UN, took place Tuesday 20 July 2010.

It was attended by representatives from around 70 partner countries including the UK, international and regional organisations and financial institutions.

The conference was opened by President Hamid Karzai, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and was co-chaired by Foreign Minister Rassoul and UN Special Representative Staffan de Mistura.

Foreign Secretary William Hague meets Provincial Governor Nuristani in Herat, Afghanistan, ahead of Tuesday's conference

The communiqué issued from the conference states:

"The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the international community held a historic meeting today in Kabul to renew their commitment to the Afghan people.

"The Conference marked a new phase in their partnership, the Kabul Process, and a heightened commitment to a secure, prosperous and democratic Afghanistan."

The communiqué goes on to define measurable benchmarks for the Afghan government's programme on areas including Governance; Rule of Law; Human, Gender and Children's Rights; Economic and Social Development; Regional Cooperation; and Counter-Narcotics.

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Pictures: Crown Copyright & Eric Kanalstein/United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)]

Karzai reaffirms 2014 date for Afghan-led security

By Deb Riechmann & Rahim Faiez, Businessweek

President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday reaffirmed his commitment for Afghan police and soldiers to take charge of security throughout the nation by 2014 and urged his international partners to spend their money on Afghan priorities not "quick-impact" projects.

Afgan President Hamid Karzai (C), US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (R) and UN chief Ban Ki-moon (L) pose following the International Conference on Afghanistan in Kabul, on July 20, 2010. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Karzai spoke at an international conference on the future of Afghanistan where representatives of 70 nations and organizations were endorsing a plan for how Afghan security forces would eventually take charge, but it's still unclear when the transition would actually begin.

"I remain determined that our Afghan national security forces will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country by 2014" -- more than three years after President Barack Obama's date for the start of an American troop drawdown, Karzai said. "Our goal is to transfer the three organs for national security forces into trusted national institutes dedicated to fulfilling their constitutional duty of ensuring the integrity and security of our country."

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance will never allow the Taliban to topple the government of Afghanistan. But he said that transition to Afghan-led security would be based on "conditions, not calendars."

Karzai also expressed his government's desire to take charge of more of its affairs. He asked his international partners not only to channel 50 percent of their foreign assistance through the government within two years, he urged them to align 80 percent of their projects with priorities that have been identified by Afghans.

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McChrystal - changing perceptions of Afghan people is key to success

Afghan President Hamid Karzai (left) shakes hands with General Stanley McChrystal, Commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, Picture: Mass Communication Specialist Chad J McNeeley

Changing the perceptions of the Afghan people about the coalition, their own government and the Taliban will be key to success in that nation, the Commander of the International Security Assistance Force and US forces in Afghanistan said last week.

American Army General Stanley McChrystal told reporters that achieving more progress in the counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan will be a slow, deliberate endeavour, because changing perceptions is challenging.

Efforts in the country will be directed toward "changing not only the dynamics of security, governance and development, but also the attitudes of a population long pressured by insurgents," he said.

The strategic priority in the country is the development of the Afghan National Security Forces, General McChrystal said:

"While both the army and police have demonstrated considerable growth, significant challenges remain. The bottom line is there's much more work ahead to mature Afghan security forces. But I'm pleased with the progress made thus far."

The operational centre in the country will be in southern Afghanistan, the General said. The area, including Kandahar and Helmand provinces, is the hub for the insurgents and an economic engine for the country as a whole:

"Ten months ago, we began a series of operations into Taliban-controlled parts of the central Helmand River valley, expanding the Afghan Government's influence in key areas," General McChrystal said. "There's been considerable progress in security and governance. But as is expected in counter-insurgency, progress is often slow and deliberate."

The operational fight will be centred in and around Kandahar City. The General said there will not be a 'D-Day' for the operations to begin in the city because it is a uniquely complex environment that requires as much governmental and political pressure as military involvement. He said:

"This effort is being led by the Afghans, and will focus on the complex political and governance aspects of Kandahar."

U.N. head Ban to attend Afghanistan conference

Picture: Reuters
By Reters reporters

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will attend a conference to be held in Kabul in July to bolster international support for President Hamid Karzai's plans to reintegrate Taliban combatants.

Ban made the pledge during a personal call with Karzai on Saturday, the president's office said in a statement.

The July 20 conference is a follow-up to a London summit in January, when donors pledged some $160 million for Afghanistan's plans to reintegrate and create jobs for Taliban fighters who renounce violence.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other Western diplomats are also expected to attend the Kabul talks. They will follow a grand assembly of Afghans on May 29, when Karzai will seek advice on how to reconcile with the insurgents.

Karzai's government will present a draft to the assembly for making peace with the insurgents, which includes removing the names of militants leaders from a U.N. sanction list and offering them asylum in a third country.

Nine years after U.S.-led troops toppled their government, the Taliban have made a comeback and have inflicted heavy losses on foreign and Afghan forces.

Washington hopes to start the process of withdrawing its soldiers in July next year. The Taliban have repeatedly turned down past peace overtures from Karzai, saying they group will engage in peace talks only when all of the 140,000 foreign troops leave Afghanistan.

Karzai considers introducing Afghan conscription

BBC News


Afghan President Hamid Karzai has told a conference of the world's top defence officials in Germany that he is considering introducing conscription.

The Afghan president said at the summit in Munich he wants to build an army and police force of 300,000 by 2012.

His comments come as US-led forces are poised to launch a major offensive in Helmand province against the Taliban.

The Nato commander, General Stanley McChrystal, said the operation would "send a strong signal".

Mr Karzai told the Munich conference that a number of Afghan community leaders had urged him to consider conscription.

"Afghanistan should be able to provide security for its people, so we are no longer a burden on the shoulders of the international community and the partners that are there with us today," he said.

The idea of reintroducing a military draft - which was used in Afghanistan until 1992 - has been suggested before.

Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said last week there was no need for conscription as the army had no lack of recruits.

'Prepare for casualties'

The Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen McChrystal, promised a major offensive about to begin in central Helmand would send a "strong signal that the Afghan government is expanding its security control".

Thousands of coalition and Afghan troops are converging for the operation to capture the town of Marja, a Taliban stronghold.

The attack - codenamed Moshtarak, which means "together" in the Pashtun language of southern Afghanistan - is expected to begin any day.

UK Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth said on Sunday the British public should be ready for military casualties once the offensive begins.

"We shouldn't deny or pretend to people that ... casualties are not a very real risk on these kind of operations and people have to be prepared for that," he said.

Planning has been under way for weeks, with Nato helicopters dropping leaflets on the area warning residents to flee.

Provincial officials said about 35,000 residents of Marja were taking the advice and heading to other parts of Helmand.

One Marja resident, Gul Muhammed, told AFP news agency why he had left town.

"There are Taliban all over the place and foreign troops around Marja," he said. "So I was scared that we might get hurt."

Brown vows new push to defeat Taliban

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown vowed a renewed effort to defeat the Taliban insurgency during a visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, hailing the next few months as critical.

Brown was on an unannounced visit two weeks after ordering 500 extra British troops into the war alongside a surge of 30,000 American forces as part of a sweeping new US strategy to turn around the eight-year war.

He held talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a military base in Kandahar, the southern province where the Taliban were born and one of the deadliest battlefields for NATO and US troops since the 2001 US-led invasion.

"The combined effort of allied forces with the Afghan government is the way we will defeat the insurgency, the way we will stop Al-Qaeda having any space to operate in Afghanistan," he told a news conference with Karzai.

"I think the next few months are obviously critical," Brown had earlier told reporters travelling with him.

"What we need to show is... a determination to take on the Taliban and weaken them," Brown said.

The extra deployment, which will boost the number of British forces in Afghanistan to more than 10,000, would arrive "in the next few days", he added.

The prime minister held over an hour of talks with Karzai, who is under huge Western pressure to clamp down on corruption and form a transparent government after winning a fraud-tainted election in August.

Karzai, who has yet to unveil his new cabinet nearly a month after being inaugurated for another five-year term, pledged do "a lot more" in building an accountable administration.

"Sure, Afghanistan needs to do a lot more, primarily for the Afghan people," he said.

"We need to have a government that is responsive to the needs of the Afghan people. That's our responsibility and we will be taking a lot more measures."

The British leader welcomed his remarks.

"Of course, people will judge what happens by results, but I think we have seen a determination on the part of President Karzai to take new action against corruption," Brown said.

The visit is Brown's third to Afghanistan this year and comes in the run-up to Christmas, which many troops will spend away from their families fighting a war that is increasingly unpopular at home.

British losses so far this year stand at 100, making 2009 the deadliest year for the country's armed forces since the 1982 Falkland's War. Brown admitted it had been "a difficult year" but said morale was high among troops.

Officials said Brown's visit, which saw him stay overnight Saturday on the base at Kandahar, marked the first time a British prime minister had spent a night in a theatre of war in living memory.

Facing serious questions at home about the equipping of the British mission, the second-largest behind the US contingent, the British government has sent more military hardware to Afghanistan including helicopters.

Referring to the increase in equipment, some of which he inspected, Brown said: "These things are being done in a way that is calculated to weaken the Taliban and show they can't win this campaign."

British troops are based in Helmand, the heartland of opium production in Afghanistan which has become one of the deadliest battlegrounds in the country.

Brown said the Afghan army, currently 90,000 strong, will increase over the next year to around 135,000 and some Afghan districts could be handed over to local control in 2010.

Gordon Brown visits UK troops and Afghan leader

Gordon Brown has been visiting British troops in Afghanistan to show his support in the run-up to Christmas.

The prime minister inspected new equipment and held talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kandahar.

He said the next few months would be "critical" and urged the Afghan government to take a bigger role in confronting the Taliban.

Unusually, Mr Brown spent the night in the country, rather than flying in and out in one day.

He slept in "basic quarters" at the Kandahar air base, the headquarters of Nato troops in the south of the country.

There are currently about one or two attacks a week by Taliban in the Kandahar area.

The prime minister said: "I wanted to be here with the troops to thank them for what they are doing.

"I wanted to see what it was like working with them."

This year alone, 100 British service personnel have been killed in Afghanistan.

In a joint press conference with Mr Karzai, the prime minister acknowledged that casualty numbers had been high and paid tribute to their "bravery, professionalism and dedication".

He said: "I feel for all of those families who have lost loved ones, particularly as we move towards Christmas.

"I know this has been a difficult year."

Mr Brown said he felt more confident about the conflict following decisions by the US and Britain to send in more troops.

He insisted Afghanistan's border regions were "the epicentre of global terrorism" and operations there were directly related to security on British streets.

Both leaders denied suggestions of a rift between them.

Click here for the full report on BBC online

Abdullah pulls out of Afghan vote

President Hamid Karzai's rival in the second round of the Afghan presidential election has announced in Kabul that he is withdrawing from the poll.

"I will not participate in the election," Dr Abdullah told supporters, saying his demands for ensuring a fraud-free election had not been met.

But he stopped short of calling for a boycott of next Saturday's vote.

Mr Karzai had rejected his demand that election officials who presided over the first round should be dismissed.

President Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omar said the withdrawal was "very unfortunate", but the election should go ahead as planned.

"The process has to complete itself, the people of Afghanistan have to be given the right to vote.

Earlier, the US said a pull-out would not invalidate the vote's legitimacy.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in the United Arab Emirates: "We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination of reasons, one of the candidates decides not to go forward."

But the BBC's Andrew North, in Kabul, says Abdullah Abdullah's withdrawal means this is uncharted territory, and it is unclear what will happen next.

For the full story click here for the BBC web site

Karzai, Abdullah at 40 percent in partial returns

President Hamid Karzai and top challenger Abdullah Abdullah both have roughly 40 percent of the nationwide vote for president with 10 percent of ballots counted, the country's election commission said yesterday.

The commission said Karzai has 40.6 percent and Abdullah has 38.7 percent in the country's first official returns since the nation voted for president last Thursday.

The early returns are based on only 10 percent of the country's ballots. The commission plans to release partial results each day the next several days. Final, certified results won't be made public until mid or late September.

The commission said it had based the count on 524,000 valid votes after throwing out about 31,000. Less than 2 percent of Kandahar votes have been counted, and no votes in Helmand have been counted, the commission said. Karzai would expect to do well in both provinces, suggesting his returns could go higher.

If neither Karzai or Abdullah gets more than 50 percent of the votes, the two will face each other again in a run-off.

Karzai supporters have already said that the president won close to 70 percent of the vote, but Abdullah has alleged that massive fraud has been carried out in favor of the president.

"If the widespread rigging is ignored this is the type of regime that will be imposed upon Afghanistan for the next five years, and with that sort of a system, a system that has destroyed every institution, broken every law," Abdullah said at a news conference just before the results were announced.

Six Afghan presidential candidates, including one being floated as a potential "chief executive" for the next government, warned Tuesday that fraud allegations threaten to undermine the recent election and could stoke violence.

Low voter turnout and allegations of fraud have cast a pall over the election. In particular, some worry that supporters of Abdullah could vent fury if he comes in second with no chance at a runoff.

The Taliban won't stop us from voting, say defiant Afghanis

By Jerome Starkey
http://twitter.com/jeromestarkey

Hordes of Taliban gunman are fighting just outside the city, but people in Lashkar Gah are defying insurgent threats by promising to vote in tomorrow's election.

The Taliban have vowed to attack the polling stations and warned that anyone who votes will have their ink-stained fingers cut off.

But the merchants and students in Helmand's capital are determined to have a say in who rules Afghanistan.

"Taliban threats are nothing new," said turban seller Zarma Khan, 65. "These things happen all the time in Afghanistan. People will vote, because the election is a good thing."

Interest here, at the sharp end of the insurgency, is in stark contrast to widespread apathy in Kabul.

Voter turnout in the south, where the Taliban are strongest, could decide the result. President Hamid Karzai swept to power in 2004 with 80 per cent of the Pashtun vote, but his supporters fear many of those people will be too scared to go to the polls a second time.

"Most people here are Pashtun," Mr Khan added. "They will vote for Karzai because he is a hard-working Muslim man. He is very experienced."

It is rare praise for a president whose government is among the most corrupt in the world. Huge parts of Helmand have been destroyed by fighting and the number of foreign troops here has gone from a few hundred in 2002 to more than 12,000.

"The situation's not good," said Haji Abdul Samad, 40, another Karzai supporter. "We can't even go outside the city because there's no security, but we have to vote. Helmand is our homeland, it's like our mother."

British troops suffered their bloodiest month just a few miles north of Lashkar Gah. The insurgents fighting outside the city routinely stash their weapons and travel into town unhindered. Yet, in many ways, Helmand remains a Karzai heartland. "He's our elder," said shopkeeper Haji Lala, 45.

Karzai is a Pashtun. Much of the province is populated by his Popalzai tribe. He has powerful allies, including drug traffickers and human rights abusers.

His brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, said some Taliban commanders had agreed local ceasefires to let people vote. But rocket attacks yesterday, and a suicide attack in Kabul which killed a Nato soldier, were proof the insurgents are still trying to undermine the polls.

Shazhada Khan moved into Lashkar Gah because of fighting in his village. "People support the Taliban because they are hungry and the Taliban give them money," he said. But he refused to vote for Karzai's main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, because "his face is no good".

Supporters for Dr Abdullah and the third-ranked candidate, Ramazan Bashar Dost, are hard to find.

Karzai's agents have been accused of buying up voter registration cards in parts of the province where security will stop people voting, to stuff ballot boxes elsewhere. But the fraud we encountered was different. "I'm too young, but I really want to vote," said 16-year-old Mohammed Yousuf. "I said I was 18 and got a registration card."

Despite Karzai's support in Lashkar Gah, people won't predict a victory, lest guessing the future is against Islam. "If the elections aren't rigged, then only God knows who will win," said government clerk Hekmatullah, 35. "But if it's rigged, then the winner knows already."

Up to 10,000 NATO troops for Afghan polls: secretary general

Between 8,000 and 10,000 international troops will join a NATO-led military force in Afghanistan for August elections, the outgoing NATO secretary general said on a farewell visit to Kabul Wednesday.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer steps down in August after five-and-a-half years in the job, during which he made regular trips to Afghanistan, leading NATO's deepening involvement in the insurgency-hit nation.

At a press conference after talks with President Hamid Karzai, Scheffer stressed the importance to the international community of presidential and provincial council elections on August 20.

The vote is a milestone in a Western-backed push for democracy adopted in the months after the extremist Taliban regime was removed in a US-led invasion in late 2001 for sheltering Al-Qaeda after the September 11 attacks.

With Taliban attacks at a record high, there are fears that the intensifying insurgency will affect the polls, Afghanistan's second-ever presidential vote.

"We are bringing in extra troops in Afghanistan for a protection role -- between eight and 10,000, if you want to know the numbers, will come on a temporary basis to Afghanistan," Scheffer said.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, which already numbers around 61,000 soldiers from about 40 countries, would also be protecting the observers of the election, he said.

Karzai is one of the strongest candidates in a field of 41 despite criticisms of his failure to stop the insurgency and rampant corruption in his government, with allegations of graft also touching his family.

Scheffer is due to meet on Thursday two other top contenders, former finance minister Ashraf Ghani and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Describing a sense of nostalgia on his last visit, Scheffer said the foreign military presence had been necessary in war-scarred Afghanistan to allow reconstruction to take root.

"When I mention reconstruction and development, I do that deliberately because we have never been here, we are not here, to achieve any form of military victory," he said.

"I do not know about any conflict in the world which did not end finally with a political solution and I think and I hope... that Afghanistan will see this day as well," he said.