Deseret News : In our opinion: Letting Afghanistan revert to pre-9/11 condition would be dangerous

In our opinion: Letting Afghanistan revert to pre-9/11 condition would be dangerous

December 5, 2013

Twelve years of U.S.-led fighting in Afghanistan is on the verge of being wasted because of the pride of one man.

Hamid Karzai convened a council of respected elders, known as a Loya Jirga, to advise him on a proposed agreement with the United States to allow a residual force to remain in place after 2014. The council advised him to sign it. And yet now Karzai is saying he will let Afghanistan’s next president decide whether to sign after elections in April.

But even that deadline now seems uncertain, given that Karzai said this week he would like to postpone April’s elections in order to avoid heavy snowfall.

The Obama administration has said that without an agreement in place by the end of this year, it would pull out all troops and let the Afghan security forces fend for themselves. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said he will have no choice but to also withdraw forces from a training and advisory mission unless an agreement is reached with the Americans.

No doubt the United States would feel somewhat of a sense of relief if it no longer had to worry about losing lives in what has become an unpopular conflict in a far-away land. But the United States has lost more than 2,200 of its people in Afghanistan since the conflict began following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. They should not be allowed to have died in vain.

The conflict was waged to overthrow the Taliban — the ruling party that had terrorized Afghan citizens and created a safe haven for terrorists. The 9/11 terror attacks were plotted there under Taliban cover. And while the United States and coalition forces succeeded in forcing the Taliban from power, they never have succeeded in forcing a surrender. Nor has Afghanistan’s new government, led by Karzai, succeeded in gaining sufficient strength to withstand Taliban insurgents on its own.

An agreement with the United States had snagged over U.S. demands that its soldiers be granted immunity from Afghan laws. U.S. soldiers would remain subject to U.S. laws and justice for any crimes committed. That conflict seemed to have been settled to the satisfaction of both sides before Karzai suddenly decided to be stubborn.

Many observers believe Karzai still holds a grudge for what he feels was a lack of U.S. support for his re-election 2009. His behavior lately, however, seems to cross the line into petulance. Reports over the weekend said he was accusing U.S. forces of withholding fuel supplies from Afghan forces.

Without the help of U.S. and coalition forces, Afghanistan’s army has little chance against the Taliban. The Loya Jirga understands this, as do many Afghanis. Were the Taliban to regain control of Afghanistan, there is little reason to believe it would not simply pick up where it left off before 9/11, reinstating harsh laws and harboring terrorists.

More than just a sad failure for the West, that would put the United States at risk.

Guardian : US will appoint Afghan 'prime minister' to bypass Hamid Karzai

US will appoint Afghan 'prime minister' to bypass Hamid Karzai

White House plans new executive role to challenge corrupt government in Kabul

Julian Borger in Brussels and Ewen MacAskill in Washington | March 22, 2009

The US and its European allies are ­preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has learned.

The creation of a new chief executive or prime ministerial role is aimed at bypassing Karzai. In a further dilution of his power, it is proposed that money be diverted from the Kabul government to the provinces. Many US and European officials have become disillusioned with the extent of the corruption and incompetence in the Karzai government, but most now believe there are no credible alternatives, and predict the Afghan president will win re-election in August.

A revised role for Karzai has emerged from the White House review of Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by Barack Obama when he became president. It isto be unveiled at a special conference on Afghanistan at The Hague on March 31.

As well as watering down Karzai's personal authority by installing a senior official at the president's side capable of playing a more efficient executive role, the US and Europeans are seeking to channel resources to the provinces rather than to central government in Kabul.

A diplomat with knowledge of the review said: "Karzai is not delivering. If we are going to support his government, it has to be run properly to ensure the levels of corruption decrease, not increase. The levels of corruption are frightening."

Another diplomat said alternatives to Karzai had been explored and discarded: "No one could be sure that someone else would not turn out to be 10 times worse. It is not a great position."

The idea of a more dependable figure working alongside Karzai is one of the proposals to emerge from the White House review, completed last week. Obama, locked away at the presidental retreat Camp David, was due to make a final decision this weekend.

Obama is expected to focus in public on overall strategy rather than the details, and, given its sensitivity, to skate over ­Karzai's new role. The main recommendation is for the Afghanistan objectives to be scaled back, and for Obama to sell the war to the US public as one to ensure the country cannot again be a base for al-Qaida and the Taliban, rather than the more ambitious aim of the Bush administration of trying to create a European-style democracy in Central Asia.

Other recommendations include: increasing the number of Afghan troops from 65,000 to 230,000 as well as expanding the 80,000-strong police force; ­sending more US and European civilians to build up Afghanistan's infrastructure; and increased aid to Pakistan as part of a policy of trying to persuade it to tackle al-Qaida and Taliban elements.

The proposal for an alternative chief executive, which originated with the US, is backed by Europeans. "There needs to be a deconcentration of power," said one senior European official. "We need someone next to Karzai, a sort of chief executive, who can get things done, who will be reliable for us and accountable to the Afghan people."

Money and power will flow less to the ministries in Kabul and far more to the officials who run Afghanistan outside the capital – the 34 provincial governors and 396 district governors. "The point on which we insist is that the time is now for a new division of responsibilities, between central power and local power," the senior European official said.

No names have emerged for the new role but the US holds in high regard the reformist interior minister appointed in October, Mohammed Hanif Atmar.

The risk for the US is that the imposition of a technocrat alongside Karzai would be viewed as colonialism, even though that figure would be an Afghan. Karzai declared his intention last week to resist a dilution of his power. Last week he accused an unnamed foreign government of trying to weaken central government in Kabul.

"That is not their job," the Afghan president said. "Afghanistan will never be a puppet state."

The UK government has since 2007 advocated dropping plans to turn Afghanistan into a model, European-style state.

Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who will implement the new policy, said it would represent a "vastly restructured effort". At the weekend in Brussels, he was scathing about the Bush administration's conduct of the counter-insurgency. "The failures in the civilian side ... are so enormous we can at least hope that if we get our act together ... we can do a lot better," he said.

WaPo : U.N. Finds Airstrike Killed 90 Afghans

U.N. Finds Airstrike Killed 90 Afghans

Most of Fatalities In U.S.-Led Attack Said to Be Children

By Candace Rondeaux and Karen DeYoung | Washington Post Foreign Service | August 27, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 26 -- United Nations officials in Afghanistan said Tuesday that there was "convincing evidence" at least 90 civilians -- two-thirds of them children -- were killed in a U.S.-led airstrike last week that caused the Afghan government to call for a review of U.S. and NATO military operations in the country.

Kai Eide, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, said local officials and residents in the western province of Herat corroborated reports that 60 children and 30 adults had been killed in an Aug. 21 military operation led by U.S. Special Operations forces and the Afghan army.

In a statement, Eide called the incident a "matter of grave concern to the United Nations" and said he had "repeatedly made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must be considered above all else during the planning and conduct of all military operations."

U.S. forces in Afghanistan have increased their reliance on air power since last year, causing a corresponding increase in civilian deaths. The Herat assault appears to have caused the largest civilian loss of life attributed to U.S. forces since the war began in late 2001.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said military commanders in Afghanistan continued to believe that the attack in Herat "was a legitimate strike on a Taliban target."

Whitman promised a detailed investigation. "This has a lot of people's interest, and my sense is they want to be thorough and complete. We're doing it as expeditiously as we can."

The U.N. findings came as the government of President Hamid Karzai demanded more coordination between Afghan and international security forces and called for greater accountability on the part of U.S. and NATO troops operating in the country. Afghanistan's Council of Ministers called Monday for a halt to aerial bombings and to what it called overly aggressive house raids and illegal detentions. The council demanded an agreement with U.S. and NATO forces that would define the parameters of international military operations in Afghanistan.

Afghan officials and independent investigators say more than 165 civilians have been killed in four airstrikes in the past two months. The deaths have angered Afghans, who are pressuring Karzai to seek greater control over foreign troops even as resurgent Taliban fighters increase their attacks on the international presence in Afghanistan.

Sultan Ahmed Baheen, spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, said his office and the Afghan Defense Ministry have been working to draft a document that would require more coordination between Afghan security forces and international troops to minimize civilian deaths and damage from military operations. About 60,000 troops from 40 nations are in Afghanistan, including 32,000 from the United States.

At the United Nations on Tuesday, Russia introduced a sharply worded draft statement expressing concern about reports that U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan had caused "numerous civilian casualties, including women and children."

U.N. diplomats said the Russian text stood little chance of being adopted in the Security Council, where the United States wields veto power. They interpreted the Russian action as a signal that it would pursue a more confrontational approach with the United States in response to Washington's criticism of the Russian intervention in Georgia.

U.S. officials in Washington said they have been anticipating that Karzai will demand a formal status-of-forces agreement with the United States; the Bush administration is finalizing a similar accord with Iraq after protracted negotiations. Although U.S. troops participate in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan under a U.N. mandate, the bulk of U.S. forces fall under Operation Enduring Freedom, a U.S.-only force governed by an exchange of diplomatic notes signed with the Afghan government in May 2003.

At least 90 percent of all aircraft being used in the Afghan war belong to U.S. forces operating under their own command structure. "Civilian deaths are not a NATO problem," said Marc Gerlasco, a military analyst at New York-based Human Rights Watch. "Civilian casualties are primarily being caused in airstrikes in support of the counterterrorism mission that the United States is running completely separate from the NATO-run counterinsurgency conflict," said Gerlasco, who has compiled a report on civilian deaths from airstrikes to be published next month.

Last year, as Taliban attacks increased, the number of civilian deaths caused by airstrikes spiked sharply, from 116 killed in 2006 to 321 in 2007, according to figures issued by the U.S. Air Forces Central Command. The number of sorties increased by about one-third in 2007, and the amount of munitions that were dropped more than doubled, according to the data.

Gerlasco said the amount of bombs dropped by U.S. airstrikes in June (317,000 pounds) and July (270,000 pounds) is equivalent to the total tonnage dropped in 2006. The vast majority of the strikes, Gerlasco said, are unplanned missions called in by U.S. Special Operations ground forces fighting Taliban units or because a "target of opportunity" is located through on-the-ground intelligence.

Unlike in Iraq, where U.S. forces frequently use 250-pound bombs to make attacks more precise, Gerlasco said American troops in Afghanistan "are still using a lot of" 2,000-pound bombs.

The Herat bombing occurred around midnight after U.S. Special Operations forces and Afghan troops led a raid on a compound in the town of Azizabad where they said they thought a Taliban commander was holding a meeting with supporters. U.S. military officials said at least 30 insurgents were killed, including the commander, who is known as Mullah Siddiq.

Afghan officials in Herat said the bombing occurred as dozens of villagers gathered for a memorial ceremony for a villager who was killed last year. Ahmed Dehzad, one of the province's parliamentary representatives, said that local officials had received reports of Taliban activity in the vicinity several days before the ceremony but that coalition forces did not issue a warning before the attack on a compound near where the ceremony was held.

A spokesman for the Afghan army's western command said Saturday that an army investigation into the incident confirmed that about 60 children and 19 women had been killed in the airstrike. The spokesman, Raouf Ahmedi, said there was no evidence that any of those killed had ties to the Taliban.

The U.N. investigators found that at least 15 people were injured in the operation.

A little more than a day after the raid, a U.S. military spokeswoman dismissed as "outrageous" the Afghan government's assertions that scores of civilians had been killed in the attack. Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green said U.S. forces who inspected the site afterward found that five civilians had been killed.

A U.S. official in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Taliban has become adept at spreading false intelligence to draw U.S. strikes on civilians. "The fact is that the Taliban now has pretty good insight into where we're picking up information and how we're developing it into actionable intelligence," the official said. "They've figured out a way to misguide us."

DeYoung reported from Washington. Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations and special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report.

Boston Globe : Karzai denounces US-led air strike that killed civilians

Karzai denounces US-led air strike that killed civilians

About 70 die in Afghanistan

By M. Karim Faiez | Los Angeles Times | August 24, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai yesterday denounced an air strike by US-led forces that his government said killed more than 70 Afghan civilians.

Karzai said his government would soon announce "necessary measures" to prevent more civilian casualties but provided no details.

Civilian deaths are an extremely sensitive subject in Afghanistan, where the government repeatedly has pleaded with Western troops to exercise greater care to avoid hurting and killing noncombatants. Karzai broke down in tears during one such appeal.

The US military initially put the number of dead in Friday's air strike at 30, describing all those killed in a remote part of Herat Province as Taliban militants. Yesterday, US spokesmen said allegations of a much higher and predominantly civilian death toll would be investigated.

Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said Friday the aerial bombardment killed 76 civilians, including scores of women and children.

Government officials who traveled yesterday to Azizabad in Herat Province, where the operation took place, said the death toll had risen to 95, including civilians. That makes it one of the deadliest bombing strikes on civilians in six years of the war.

Accounts of the fighting provided by Afghan authorities, human rights groups, and the US military have varied widely, and the remoteness of the area made it difficult to determine exactly what happened.

The United Nations envoy in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, called for the operation to be investigated "thoroughly and quickly."

The US military said it staged the air strike near Afghanistan's western border to target a senior Taliban commander. Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said the commander targeted in the raid, Mullah Siddiq, was among those killed in the air strike.

Local authorities reported villagers threw stones at Afghan soldiers who arrived in Azizabad yesterday to distribute aid, and that soldiers eventually fired into the air to disperse the protesters.

Ghulam Azrat, 50, the director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies Friday morning after the bombing.

"We put the bodies in the main mosque," he told the Associated Press by phone. "Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them."

Azrat said villagers threw stones at Afghan soldiers when the troops tried to give food and clothes to them. He said the soldiers fired into the crowd and wounded eight people, including one child critically injured.

"The people were very angry," he said. "They told the soldiers, 'We don't need your food; we don't need your clothes. We want our children. We want our relatives. Can you give it to us? You cannot, so go away.' "

An Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission researcher visited Azizabad and found that 15 houses had been destroyed and others were damaged, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, the group's commissioner.

Nadery said the information was preliminary and the group would publish a final report. He did not provide a breakdown of how many were civilians or militants, and said 20 women were among the dead and that children also were killed.

Nadery confirmed reports from villagers that a memorial ceremony was being held for a deputy militia commander allied with the Afghan police named Timor Shah, who had died in a personal dispute several months ago. Because of the memorial, relatives and friends from outside Azizabad were staying overnight in village homes, he said.

An AP photographer who visited Azizabad yesterday said he saw at least 20 graves, including some graves with multiple bodies in them. He said he saw about 20 houses that had been destroyed.

The US said it would investigate the conflicting reports.

"Obviously there's allegations and a disconnect here. The sooner we can get that cleared up and get it official, the better off we'll all be," said US coalition spokesman First Lieutenant Nathan Perry.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

ABC : Rights Group: 78 Afghans Killed; US to Investigate

Rights Group: 78 Afghans Killed; US to Investigate

Human rights group says 78 Afghans killed; US to investigate civilian death claims

By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ | Associated Press Writers | August 24, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Scores of Afghan civilians who had gathered in a small village for the memorial ceremony of a militia commander were killed when U.S. and Afghan soldiers launched an attack in the middle of the night, officials and villagers said Saturday.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the early Friday operation in western Afghanistan and said most of the dead were civilians. The U.S. coalition, however, said it believed only five civilians were among those killed and said that it would investigate the Afghan claims.

An Afghan human rights group that visited the site of the operation said Saturday that at least 78 people were killed. The Ministry of Interior has said 76 civilians died, including 50 children under the age of 15, though the Ministry of Defense said 25 militants and five civilians were killed.

Meanwhile, a school principal and police official said Afghan soldiers tried to hand out food and clothes Saturday in Azizabad — the village in Herat province where the operation took place. But villagers started throwing stones at the soldiers, who then fired on the villagers and wounded up to eight people.

An Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission researcher visited Azizabad in Herat province and found that 15 houses had been destroyed and others were damaged, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, the group's commissioner.

Nadery said the information was preliminary and the group would publish a final report. He did not provide a breakdown of how many were civilians or militants, and said 20 women were among the dead and that children also were killed.

Nadery confirmed reports from villagers that a memorial ceremony was being held for a deputy militia commander allied with the Afghan police named Timor Shah, who had died in a personal dispute several months ago. Because of the memorial, relatives and friends from outside Azizabad were staying overnight in village homes, he said.

An AP photographer who visited Azizabad on Saturday said he saw at least 20 graves, including some graves with multiple bodies in them. He said he saw around 20 houses that had been destroyed.

The U.S. said it would investigate.

"Obviously there's allegations and a disconnect here. The sooner we can get that cleared up and get it official, the better off we'll all be," said U.S. coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry. "We had people on the ground."

The competing claims by the U.S. coalition and the two Afghan ministries were impossible to verify because of the remote and dangerous location of the battle site.

Complicating the matter, Afghan officials are known to exaggerate civilian death claims for political payback, to qualify for more compensation money from the U.S. or because of pressure from the Taliban.

Still, the U.S. has killed dozens of civilians in past strikes even though it first denied any civilians had been hit.

In early July, U.S. bombs killed 47 civilians walking to a wedding party in Nuristan province, according to the findings of a government commission.

The U.S. military originally said it believed only combatants had been killed, and suggested that reports of civilians deaths were based on propaganda from militants. The U.S. later acknowledged that there may have been civilian casualties but never gave a specific number.

Civilian deaths creates massive amounts of pressure on Karzai, and on Saturday the president said his government would soon announce "necessary measures" to prevent civilian casualties, but provided no details.

Ghulam Azrat, 50, the director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies Friday morning after the bombing.

"We put the bodies in the main mosque," he told The Associated Press by phone, sometimes pausing to collect himself in between tears. "Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them."

"The people were very angry," he said. "They told the soldiers, 'We don't need your food, we don't need your clothes. We want our children. We want our relatives. Can you give it to us? You cannot, so go away.'"

A spokesman for Afghan police in western Afghanistan, Rauf Ahmadi, confirmed that the demonstration took place against the soldiers, who he said fired into the air. Ahmadi said two Afghans were wounded by the gunfire.

The early Friday operation was led by Afghan National Army commandos, with support from the coalition, Nielson-Green said.

It was launched after an intelligence report that a Taliban commander, Mullah Siddiq, was inside the compound presiding over a meeting of militants, Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said. Siddiq was one of those killed during the raid, Azimi said.

More than 3,500 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to figures from Western and Afghan officials.

On Saturday, a roadside bomb killed 10 civilians as they rode in a small bus in southern Kandahar province, according to an Afghan police chief, Matiullah Khan. Roadside bombs are typically aimed at Afghan and NATO troops but often are triggered early and kill civilians.

On Sunday, U.S.-led coalition troops clashed with a group of Taliban fighters in northern Afghanistan, killing six militants, said Rahimullah safi, an Afghan provincial official.

The troops were attacked by militants while on patrol in the volatile Tagab valley of the northern Kapisa province before returning fire, said 1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a coalition spokesman. Perry said "multiple militants" were killed.

Tagab is close to where militants killed 10 French troops on Tuesday in the deadliest ground attack on foreign troops since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NYT : Afghan President Assails U.S.-Led Airstrike

Afghan President Assails U.S.-Led Airstrike

By CARLOTTA GALL | August 24, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned on Saturday a coalition airstrike that he said killed up to 95 Afghan civilians — including 50 children — in a village in western Afghanistan on Friday, and said his government would be announcing initiatives to prevent such heavy loss of civilian life in the future.

“Afghanistan takes every necessary measure to avoid and stop such tragic accidents happening in the future and Afghan initiatives for avoiding loss of civilian lives will soon be announced,” he said.

Government officials who traveled to the village of Azizabad in Herat Province on Saturday said the death toll had risen to 95 from 76, making it one of the deadliest bombing strikes on civilians in six years of the war.

The account by Afghan officials conflicted with that of the United States military, which said Friday that coalition forces had come under attack and had called in airstrikes that killed 25 militants, including a Taliban leader, and five civilians. On Saturday, the military said it was investigating the episode.

“Coalition forces are aware of allegations that the engagement in the Shindand District of Herat Province Friday may have resulted in civilian casualties,” a statement issued from Bagram air base said. “All allegations of civilian casualties are taken very seriously. Coalition forces make every effort to prevent the injury or loss of innocent lives. An investigation has been directed.”

The tensions between Afghan officials and the coalition are rising amid an increase in Taliban attacks recently.

The airstrike in Herat was the second time in six weeks that Mr. Karzai had condemned the coalition for strikes that he said had caused civilian casualties, and represented a growing frustration among Afghan officials at the high civilian toll from American-led operations and the failure of American commanders to address Afghan concerns.

He criticized an airstrike on July 6 that killed 27 people of a wedding party, most of them women and children, including the bride, in eastern Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, said civilians, including children, were brought to a provincial hospital in the town of Jalalabad. The American military is still investigating that episode, and has not acknowledged that civilians had been killed.

Mr. Karzai’s announcement of new initiatives to put an end to the high casualties from military operation was a sign of growing frustration, the presidential spokesman, Mr. Hamidzada, said. He said previous requests to American forces for greater care concerning civilian casualties had had little effect. He said civilian casualties had been declining over the past several months but that the recent airstrikes had reversed that trend.

“This puts us in a very difficult position,” said one government official, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. “It provides propaganda to the Taliban and if they don’t take responsibility, it actually helps the Taliban.”

Another Afghan official said the government would demand broader, strategic-level cooperation on military operations. There have also been calls among members of the Afghan Parliament and Western analysts to bring Special Forces, who have often been involved in calling in airstrikes on civilians, under stricter constraints.

After the Afghan government said Friday that more than 70 civilians had been killed, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, the commander of coalition forces, ordered an investigation into the episode, the public affairs officer, First Lt. Richard K. Ulsh, said.

Mr. Karzai has also sent a delegation comprising the minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs, Nematullah Shahrani, and a number of parliamentarians to the region. The governor and police chief of Herat Province were already visiting the village on Saturday.

Colonel Rauf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the police chief of the western region, emphatically denied that there were any Taliban in the village at the time of the strikes. “There were no Taliban,” he said by telephone. “There is no evidence to show there were Taliban there that night,” he said.

A presidential aide said that both the Ministry of Interior and the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, had also reported from the region that there were no Taliban present in the village that night. The Afghan National Army, whose commandos along with American Special Forces trainers called in the strikes, were unable to clarify their original claim, he said. A spokesman for the Afghan Army refused to comment on Saturday.

“Shindand is a difficult area,” the aide said. “You cannot say there are no Taliban at all, but were they in that village at that time?” he asked.

BBC : Afghan survivors tell of wedding bombing

Afghan survivors tell of wedding bombing

July 13, 2008

The BBC's Alastair Leithead is the first journalist to reach the scene of a US air raid which Afghan authorities say killed about 50 civilians in the east of the country on 6 July. He reports on what he found:

On a hillside high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan there are three charred clearings where the American bombs struck.

Scattered around are chunks of twisted metal, blood stains and small fragments of sequinned and brightly decorated clothes - the material Afghan brides wear on their wedding day.

After hours of driving to the village deep in the bandit country of Nangarhar's mountains we heard time and again the terrible account of that awful day.

What began as celebration ended with maybe 52 people dead, most of them women and children, and others badly injured.

The US forces said they targeted insurgents in a strike. But from what I saw with my own eyes and heard from the many mourners, no militants were among the dead.

Bombing children

A big double wedding was taking place between two families, with each exchanging a bride and a groom.

So Lal Zareen's son and daughter were both getting married on the same day.

He gave the account with his son, a 13-year-old groom, sitting at his feet.

"This is all the family I now have left," he said in a disturbingly matter of fact sort of way.

From his story and from those of other survivors, it appears the wedding group was crossing a narrow pass in the mountains which divides the valleys where the two families live.

From nowhere a fast jet flew low and dropped a bomb right on top of the pass near a group of children who had impatiently rushed ahead and were resting, waiting for the women to catch up.

Lal Zareen was waiting expectantly for the guests to arrive when he heard the explosion and began to climb up the steep mountain track to the pass.

Shah Zareen was part of the group up on the path - he had narrowly escaped being caught in the first bomb and told the women to stay where they were as he rushed to help the children.

Second blast

Shah Zareen picked up one of the injured, ran down to the village and on his way was calling his local member of parliament on a mobile phone to say they had been attacked.

But then he heard the second blast - the bomb had been dropped on top of the women and almost all of them had been killed.

Three girls escaped, among them the bride, but as they ran down the hillside a third bomb landed on top of them.

Shah Zareen explained to me how one of the many new graves contained just body parts of two or three people and the graves that had been dug and not filled were for those still missing - once their remains had been found.

The BBC team I was with were the first outsiders to see where the bombs hit - even the Afghan investigators did not climb up the steep mountainside - and there was much evidence to support the story.

The fact we could travel to the area in local cars was proof that Taleban insurgents, al-Qaeda operatives or foreign fighters were not present in the valley.

The local people said they had not seen militants, but admitted there could have been people crossing the high pass as the next ridge along leads to Tora Bora, the notorious insurgent area.

Costly mistakes

The US military says it is investigating the incident and it is understood they may have some aerial footage from hours earlier showing insurgents moving nearby.

But it is obvious a huge mistake was made on 6 July. A US statement about the bombing said "any loss of innocent life is tragic".

"I assure you we do not target civilians and that our forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties," said Lt Nathan Perry.

The US no longer insists the dead were insurgents, as it did for two days after the bombing, but it could be some time before the investigation is complete.

Civilian casualties are not new to Nangarhar province - last year a convoy of US Marines was hit by a bomb attack and in the chaos they opened fire in a bazaar killing 19 people.

They were sent home and their officers charged, but a subsequent ruling cleared them of any responsibility for the deaths.

Mirwais Yasini, a local MP and the deputy speaker of Afghanistan's lower house, made the point that civilian casualties widen the gap between the people and the government, and the international forces.

As another memorial service took place in the mountains, Lal Zareen told me: "I want President Karzai to make sure the people responsible for this face justice."

That will depend on the US findings and how the Afghan government acts.

These mistakes are incredibly costly in a counter-insurgency campaign which relies on winning people over, not forcing them against the authorities.

I wonder how many enemies have been created in Nangarhar as a result of the latest bloodshed?

NYT : Afghans See Link to Qaeda in Plot to Shoot Karzai

Afghans See Link to Qaeda in Plot to Shoot Karzai

By CARLOTTA GALL and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA | May 1, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan — The attempt to kill President Hamid Karzai on Sunday was the work of militants who had infiltrated Afghanistan’s security forces and had ties to groups linked to Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas, the Afghan intelligence chief said Wednesday.

The claims emerged after a day of heightened alarm in which Afghan security forces killed and captured a number of suspects involved in Sunday’s assassination attempt, raiding three safe houses in Kabul, the capital. An eight-hour siege with one cell left seven people dead, including a child and three security officials.

One of those killed was a militant named Homayoun, who assisted in the attack on President Karzai as well as in the bombing in January of the Serena Hotel in Kabul, killing seven people, Amrullah Saleh, the intelligence chief, said at a news conference.

Afghan intelligence officials say they have linked Homayoun through an intermediary to Jalaluddin Haqqani, a mujahedeen commander who is based in Pakistan’s tribal areas and has long had ties to Al Qaeda.

The statements by Afghan officials suggested that militants linked to Al Qaeda and based in Pakistan were working closely with the Taliban to threaten the Karzai government, bringing a new level of sophistication to attacks in and around the capital.

American counterterrorism officials in Washington, however, said it was not yet clear what role, if any, Al Qaeda might have played in the attack against President Karzai on Sunday, even while acknowledging Mr. Haqqani’s past links to the group.

Afghan and Western intelligence officials have warned for more than a year that Taliban and Qaeda militants were using their sanctuary in Pakistan’s tribal areas to fortify their links, recruit new fighters and expand their ranks of suicide bombers.

The tightening alliance has been felt not only here, but also in Pakistan, where militants linked to Al Qaeda have carried out scores of suicide attacks over the past year, and have pushed Pakistan’s new government into fresh talks aimed at a truce. It has also alarmed American and Western officials who report a rise in cross-border attacks from Pakistan in Afghanistan this year.

“Once again our country was attacked from Pakistani soil,” Mr. Saleh, the chief of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, said at a joint news conference with the defense and interior ministers. “This is clear like the sun, and we have all the evidence to show that.” That evidence included cellphone calls from the militants to Pakistan up until their final moments, he said.

The unraveling of the plot here, the officials said, came after the Interior Ministry arrested some of its own men, who had been under investigation since the Serena Hotel bombing.

One of them confessed to involvement in the attack on a military parade on Sunday, which killed three and wounded 11, and he gave information on other groups in Kabul who were planning more attacks, Mr. Saleh and other officials said.

The ministry informant confessed to receiving money in return for weapons for the group and providing cover for them through his job. A second suspect also confessed to supplying the weapons for the attacks, Mr. Saleh said.

Members of the police and a high-ranking officer of the Defense Ministry are also accused of helping the group, according to a member of the intelligence service who did not want to be identified because he is not permitted to speak to the press.

Mr. Saleh called the men traitors and said more would be revealed about them after a full report was delivered to the president. Both the interior minister and defense minister admitted that the security services had been infiltrated.

“From the investigation so far it has become clear that the enemy to some limit infiltrated our security forces,” Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said. “Those who were involved have also been arrested.”

Within an hour of the confessions, the security forces had narrowed their search to a single house in the Kabul neighborhood of Guzargah and surrounded it on Wednesday, Mr. Saleh said.

When security officials tried to enter, they came under fire from gunmen and a woman barricaded in the basement. Three intelligence officials were killed in the ensuing battle. The security forces finally set off explosives, which killed all those inside — two men, a woman and a child — Mr. Saleh said.

In addition to the militant Homayoun, the two other adults killed in the house were a married couple and were not Afghan, Mr. Saleh said. He said he suspected that the child would have also been used in a suicide attack they were planning in Kabul. The group had been armed with guns, rocket-propelled grenades, mines and suicide vests, he said.

Six others suspects were arrested in a village on the eastern edge of the capital, he said, adding that another raid in a suburb of eastern Kabul was under way.

Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Muqbil said that his ministry had been watching a group of police officers suspected of involvement in the attack on the Serena Hotel and that they had been arrested. Mr. Saleh said none of the suspects arrested were from the intelligence service.

The group members killed inside the house had been in telephone contact with people in Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, as well as Bajaur, another tribal region of Pakistan, and with people in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. They were using Pakistani subscriber identity module cards in their cellphones, Mr. Saleh said.

“Some contacts were made back and forth, and we have some evidence that they were receiving orders from the other side of the border until the last moments,” he said. “Whether these orders were given through the government of Pakistan, we have no evidence,” he added.

On Monday, Mr. Saleh told Parliament that the group of three gunmen who fired on the parade just as Mr. Karzai was preparing to speak had also been in contact with a central base through text messages, and that they were being urged to carry out their task.

Earlier this year after the attack on the Serena Hotel, Afghan government officials said that the mastermind, Homayoun, was receiving orders from a militant based in Pakistan’s tribal region of North Waziristan.

In particular, they named Mullah Abdullah, who they said had ordered the Serena attack, and who is a senior lieutenant of Mr. Haqqani, the mujahedeen commander, who is based in Pakistan’s tribal region of North Waziristan.

Western military officials in the region have confirmed that the little-known Mullah Abdullah has links to Al Qaeda and ordered suicide attacks in Afghanistan from his base in North Waziristan.

After the attack on the Serena Hotel, Homayoun escaped to Pakistan and called his wife from there the next morning, said one senior Afghan government official, who asked not to be named. The call was monitored by Afghan officials, and his telephone number was passed on to counterparts in Pakistan’s intelligence service, but without result, the official said.

The attack on the Serena Hotel, mounted by a two-man team wearing police uniforms, was a new development in Afghanistan in its sophistication and planning, and it was probably not the work of the Taliban, but more likely an operation by militants linked to Al Qaeda, Afghan and Western officials have said.

The first attacker, a suicide bomber, blew himself up at the gate, killing or wounding the security guards and opening the way for the second attacker. He then entered the hotel and shot and killed people in the lobby and the hotel gym before hiding his weapons and trying to walk out with the hotel employees.

He was caught inside the hotel, and intelligence officials were able to trace the plot back to Mullah Abdullah, partly through 14 phone calls he made to Pakistan in the minutes before his capture, and through his own confession, Afghan officials say.

Pakistani military and government officials have denied that they have any knowledge of Mullah Abdullah or that the Serena attack was planned in Pakistan.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.

NYT : Karzai Escapes Attack in Kabul by Gunmen

Karzai Escapes Attack in Kabul by Gunmen

By CARLOTTA GALL and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA | April 28, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan — A well-coordinated assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai by suspected Taliban insurgents at the Afghan national day military parade in central Kabul has turned into a moment of national embarrassment for the government, which has been pressing to take over responsibility for Kabul’s security from foreign troops.

Three people were killed Sunday in the brazen assault, ruining what was supposed to have been a proud moment for Afghan security forces. The ability of the attackers to get so close to Mr. Karzai, who escaped unhurt, suggested they had inside help.

The dead included a tribal chief and a member of Parliament who were in the reviewing stands near Mr. Karzai, and a 10-year-old boy caught in the cross-fire as militants and security forces aimed at each other, officials said. Eleven people were wounded, among them army officers, police officers and civilians, hospital officials said. Several suspects were arrested later.

The attack sent officials and foreign diplomats scrambling for cover in the stands and hundreds of soldiers running off the parade ground in disarray. Mr. Karzai was whisked out the back exit, and the ceremony was abandoned after Afghan security forces had spent weeks preparing and rehearsing.

The military, police and intelligence services, all of them involved in security for the ceremony, quickly began laying blame on one another for failing to thwart the attack. The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying its aim had been to disrupt the ceremony and show that it could strike in the heart of the capital.

“We cannot say Afghanistan is free,” Zabiullah Mujahed, a Taliban spokesman, said when contacted by telephone. “Afghanistan is still under the domination of infidels.”

The last time Kabul was hit by such a well-coordinated terrorist attack was in January. Six people were killed when militants with links to Pakistan’s tribal areas tried to storm a five-star hotel in coordination with a suicide bomber who breached the gate security and a gunman disguised as a police officer who shot at civilians in the lobby.

Afghan security forces in Kabul have mostly faced lone suicide bombers and car bombings in the last several years and appeared to have been surprised by the brazenness of Sunday’s attack on such an auspicious occasion. The attackers apparently worked in two teams, one firing mortars and the second firing guns into the V.I.P. stands from a nearby hotel.

It was not clear how the gunmen had managed to bring weapons so close to the parade ground, but the Taliban claimed to have received help from within the government forces.

“The full responsibility goes to the security ministries,” said Noor ul-Haq Uloomi, a former general who is chairman of the parliamentary security committee. “It’s because they always think about the quantity, and not the quality, of the forces.”

In the days before the parade, Kabul was flooded by police officers and intelligence agents who blocked roads and checked cars. Police officers were stationed at the hotel used by the gunmen, but apparently did not search individual rooms.

The gunmen were firing from a third-floor room of a three-story hotel 500 yards from the parade ground, according to a witness, Ahmad Naweed, 35, who lives behind the hotel and heard the firing and saw gun flashes. The police quickly surrounded the hotel and fired at a window covered by plastic sheeting instead of glass, he said.

“There were security measures, but not precise measures,” Mr. Uloomi said. “Still, we cannot claim that we have security forces of quality to take over the security of Afghanistan.”

Mr. Karzai has survived at least three previous assassination attempts, but this was the first in the capital.

He appeared on television within an hour of the attack and told Afghans that everything was fine.

“The enemy of Afghanistan, the enemy of the security and development of Afghanistan, tried to disrupt the celebration and tried to create fear,” he said. “Fortunately, the Afghan security forces surrounded them, and some of the suspects were arrested, and, thank God, now everything is all right and the people of Afghanistan should be calm and confident.”

The military parade was staged in front of the Eid Gah Mosque for the national day known as Mujahedeen Day, which celebrates the victory of the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. Cabinet members, Parliament members, ambassadors and other guests were assembled in the stands as Mr. Karzai and Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak inspected the military and police units from open-roof military vehicles.

Then they returned to the main stand and stood as the national anthem was played and an artillery gun salute was fired. After the first four or five volleys, a mortar round slammed into a main street outside the parade ground. It was followed by gunfire and then a second mortar, said a general who had been standing close to the president. The American ambassador, William B. Wood, was also at the ceremony but not harmed, a spokesman told news agencies. Afghan state television, which was showing the ceremony live, cut off coverage as people fled.

In television images, two Parliament members sitting 30 yards from Mr. Karzai could be seen falling to the ground as gunfire rang out.

The leader of an ethnic minority known as the Qizilbash, Nasir Ahmad Latifi, was killed by bullet wounds to his chest, a relative confirmed later.

Fazel Rahman Samkanai, a member of Parliament, died in the hospital of his wounds, a doctor at the military hospital confirmed, asking not to be named for fear of retribution. A second legislator, Muhammad Daud Zazai, was wounded but was out of danger, he said. Both victims were from Paktia Province, southeast of Kabul.

Three army officers, police officers and civilians were among those wounded. Four of the wounded were in critical condition, the doctor said.

Security officials at the scene, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that three people had been killed and nine arrested in the raid on the hotel.

The military spokesman, Gen. Zaher Azimi, confirmed that a number of suspects had been arrested. A military officer at the scene was overheard reporting the incident on a telephone and said that 12 men had gathered at a restaurant near the parade ground before the attack and had stashed automatic rifles and mortars there. He said two had been killed and the others arrested.

Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting.

NYT : Afghan Leader Criticizes U.S. on Conduct of War

Afghan Leader Criticizes U.S. on Conduct of War

By CARLOTTA GALL | April 26, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly criticized the British and American conduct of the war here on Friday, insisting in an interview that his government be given the lead in policy decisions.

Mr. Karzai said that he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban and their sympathizers, and that the continued threat of arrest and past mistreatment were discouraging Taliban from coming forward to lay down their arms.

He criticized the American-led coalition as prosecuting the war on terrorism in Afghan villages, saying the real terrorist threat lay in sanctuaries of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The president said that civilian casualties, which have dropped substantially since last year, needed to cease completely. For nearly two years the American-led coalition has refused to recognize the need to create a trained police force, he said, leading to a critical lack of law and order.

The comments came as Mr. Karzai is starting to point toward re-election next year, after six years in office, and may be part of a political calculus to appear more assertive in his dealings with foreign powers as opponents line up to challenge him.

But they also follow a serious dip in his relations with some of the countries contributing to the NATO-led security force and the reconstruction of Afghanistan, and indicate that as the insurgency has escalated, so, too, has the chafing among allies.

Complaints have been rising for months among diplomats and visiting foreign officials about what is seen as Mr. Karzai’s weak leadership, in particular his inability to curb narcotics trafficking and to remove ineffective or corrupt officials. Some diplomats have even expressed dismay that, for lack of an alternative, the country and its donors may face another five years of poor management by Mr. Karzai.

He was quick to reject such criticism, pointing out the “immense difficulties” that he and his government faced — “What is it we have not gone through?” — while trying to rebuild a state that was utterly destroyed.

He called instead for greater respect of Afghanistan’s fierce independence, and for more attention to be paid to building up the country, than doing things for it.

“For the success of the world in Afghanistan, it would be better to recognize this inherent character in Afghanistan and work with it and support it,” he said, speaking at his presidential office. “Eventually, if the world is to succeed in Afghanistan, it will be by building the Afghan state, not by keeping it weak.”

Mr. Karzai said he was fighting corruption, a problem that is among the chief complaints heard frequently by diplomats and Afghans alike. Mr. Karzai said he had just fired an official the previous day and would be firing more soon.

Yet the president explained that Afghanistan had never had so much money and resources pouring in, or seen such disparities in salaries, and was simply not capable yet of preventing the corruption.

He admitted that “lots of things” in the last six years could have been handled better and singled out policies led by the United States, namely tackling terrorism and handling the Taliban, both as prisoners and on the battlefield.

On terrorism, he repeated a call he has made for several years, that sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan be closed off.

“There is no way but to close the sanctuaries,” he said. “Pakistan will have no peace, Pakistan’s progress will suffer, so will Afghanistan’s peace and progress, so will the world’s. If you want to live, and live in peace, and work for prosperity, that has to happen. The sanctuaries must go, period.”

The deaths of civilians in the fighting have also been a big problem, he said. “It seriously undermines our efforts to have an effective campaign against terrorism,” he said. While NATO says civilian casualties have declined in the last six months, Mr. Karzai said that was not good enough.

“I am not happy with civilian casualties coming down; I want an end to civilian casualties,” he said. “As much as one may argue it’s difficult, I don’t accept that argument.”

He added, “Because the war against terrorism is not in Afghan villages, the war against terrorism is elsewhere, and that’s where the war should go,” referring to the Taliban and Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan.

He said the issue had caused tension between him and American officials. “While those moments were very, very difficult, I must also be fair to say that our partners in America have recognized my concerns and have acted on them in good faith.”

One of the biggest mistakes of the last six years has been the handling of the Taliban, he said, and the failure of his government to guarantee former members the amnesty that Mr. Karzai promised when the movement was toppled in December 2001.

He blamed mistreatment by some warlords and American forces for driving the Taliban out of the country, to Pakistan, where they regrouped and took up weapons again.

“Some of the warlords, and the coalition forces at times, in certain areas of the country, behaved in a manner that frightened the Taliban to move away from Afghanistan,” he said. “That should not have happened.”

The weakness of his own government meant that he learned only much later of some of the things that were occurring, he said.

He gave an example of a former member of the Taliban who was quietly running a paint shop in Kabul and had been arrested three times by American and Afghan security services.

“We have to make sure that when a Talib comes to Afghanistan, that he is safe from arrest by the coalition,” he said. “And we don’t come to know when the coalition arrests them; it is a major problem for us, a problem that we have spoken about repeatedly without solution.”

Asked if he could stop American forces from arresting suspected Taliban or their sympathizers in Afghanistan, he said, “We are working hard on it, very hard on it.”

He added, “It has to happen.”

Mr. Karzai said he had not complained to the Americans about their treatment of people in their custody, despite long detentions, because he did not have details of specific cases.

Despite the many problems, Mr. Karzai expressed optimism over Afghanistan’s path, and said that the change of government in Pakistan could bring progress against terrorism. “We began on a very good note,” he said of relations with the new government, led by the party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in December.

“I am fairly confident of their good intentions,” he said. “If the current government has the full backing of the military and intelligence circles in Pakistan and with the good intentions that they have, things will improve.”

The president said he supported the Pakistani government’s efforts to make peace with Taliban there who were not a threat to the rest of the world.

“But if the deal is with those that are hard-core terrorists, Al Qaeda, and are bent upon sooner or later again causing damage to Pakistan, and to Afghanistan and to the rest of the world, then that’s wrong and we should definitely not do it.”

He said he did not know Baitullah Mehsud, the militant leader who has been accused of instigating Ms. Bhutto’s assassination, but said he would send him some advice: “All that he is doing is hurting his own people, that he shouldn’t do that.”

APP : Karzai urges U.S. to curb air strikes

Karzai urges U.S. to curb air strikes

APP | October 29, 2007

NEW YORK -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has demanded that the U.S. military curtail its use of air strikes against militants in his country because they are killing too many civilians.

In an interview with a major US television network, Karzai said he has already communicated this message privately to President George W. Bush.

“The United States and the Coalition Forces are not [killing civilians] deliberately. The United States is here to help the Afghan people,” Karzai tells Pelley.

“The Afghan people understand that mistakes are made. But five years on, six years on, definitely, very clearly, they cannot comprehend as to why there is still a need for air power,” he said on CBS network’s Sunday programme “60 Minutes”.

The Afghan president said there are “alternatives” to air raids.

“You’re demanding [a cutback]?” CBS correspondent Scott Pelley asked. “Absolutely,” said Karzai.

Karzai appears in a story correspondent Pelley reported on the death of nine civilians—four generations of one family—last March in the province of Kapisa. Their deaths were the result of two 2,000-lb. “That is a mistake. I know that,.A careless mistake, but not deliberate,” says Karzai.

The network said hundreds of civilians have been killed this year in NATO operations against Taliban militants, however the exact figure is impossible to establish as NATO forces dispute numbers given by aid workers and Afghan officials.

Detroit Free Press : Karzai says U.S., NATO air attacks are killing civilians

Karzai says U.S., NATO air attacks are killing civilians

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN: October 27, 2007

President Hamid Karzai is calling again for the United States and NATO to cut back on air strikes in the battle against Taliban and Al Qaeda, saying too many civilians have been killed.

Six years after the U.S.-led invasion, the Afghan people "cannot comprehend as to why there is still a need for air power," Karzai told the U.S. news program "60 Minutes" for a story to be broadcast Sunday.

At least 700 civilians have died in insurgency-related violence this year. About half were caused by U.S. or NATO military action, according to an Associated Press tally.

U.S. and NATO military spokesmen said precautions are taken to minimize civilian risk.

Times of India : Karzai wants US to stop use of air power in Afghanistan

Karzai wants US to stop use of air power in Afghanistan

October 29, 2007

NEW YORK: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has demanded that the US and coalition forces fighting al-Qaida and Taliban elements in his country stop use of air power because of mounting civilian casualties and rising anger of the people against the allies and the Kabul government.

Karzai told a television network that he had recently delivered the message privately to President George W Bush.

Asked if he was asking the American government to roll back the strikes, he replied, "Absolutely. Oh, yes, in clear words".

The United States and the Coalition Forces, he said, are not doing that (killing civilians) deliberately.

"The Afghan people understand that mistakes are made. But five years on, six years on, definitely, very clearly, they cannot comprehend as to why there is still a need for air power," Karzai explained.

A correspondent, who investigated at least one incident, said they were surprised to hear that while the "enemy" has killed hundreds of civilians the year, a similar number have been killed by American forces.

"With relatively few troops there, the US and NATO rely on air power. The number of civilians killed in air strikes has doubled," he reported.

But the telling example of increasing hatred against Americans because of rising civilian casualties came in a village in which nine members of a family were killed when the American warplanes were trying to target the head of the family suspected to be a Taliban supporters who was not in the structure destroyed.

Reuters : Karzai demands fewer airstrikes in Afghanistan-media

Karzai demands fewer airstrikes in Afghanistan-media

October 25, 2007

NEW YORK, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants the U.S. military to limit airstrikes against insurgents because they are killing too many civilians, the Afghan leader says in a U.S. television interview.

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan fuel resentment of foreign forces and Karzai's Western-backed government. He has repeatedly asked U.S. and NATO troops to do everything they can to minimize civilian deaths.

"The Afghan people understand that mistakes are made. But five years on, six years on, definitely, very clearly, they cannot comprehend as to why there is still a need for air power," Karzai told CBS program "60 Minutes," in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, according to a partial text released by the network.

Asked if he wanted less use of air power, Karzai said, "Absolutely. Oh, yes, in clear words and I want to repeat that, [there are] alternatives to the use of air force and I will speak for it again through your media."

More than 370 civilians have been killed this year in NATO operations against militants, according to estimates by aid workers and Afghan officials.

NATO disputes this figure but acknowledges some civilians have been killed, mostly when Taliban insurgents attack from civilian houses.

Karzai faces growing criticism over rampant corruption, insecurity, booming drug cultivation and a failure to raise living standards in the country. He has warned that more civilian casualties would destabilize his government and threaten the continued presence of foreign troops.

© Reuters 2007 All rights reserved

CBS : Karzai: Stop The Air Strikes

Karzai: Stop The Air Strikes

October 28, 2007

After six years, the liberation of Afghanistan has become a triumph without victory. The fighting is the greatest it has been since the beginning of the war and more civilians are dying. In fact, 60 Minutes was surprised to hear this: while the enemy has killed hundreds of civilians this year, a similar number of civilians have been killed by American forces. With relatively few troops there, the U.S. and NATO rely on air power. The number of civilians killed in air strikes has doubled.

60 Minutes wondered whether civilian deaths are undermining the effort to win the Afghan people. So correspondent Scott Pelley looked into one air strike from last spring. At the time, the Army said in a press release that there were unconfirmed reports that nine people died in an engagement with the enemy. But when we asked, the Army wouldn't tell us anything else, so we went to see for ourselves.

Our journey took us through Afghanistan, up the Shomali Plain north of the capital, Kabul. The Taliban are active in the area, so 60 Minutes hired Panjshiri mercenaries to cover our trip. The scene of the air strike is a village in the hills above Kapisa Province.

The 60 Minutes team found the dead buried in a cornfield. It appears there were no enemy combatants. It was four generations of one family, all killed in the air strike: an 85-year-old man, four women, and four children, ranging in age from five years to seven months. One boy survived. The night of the bombing, seven-year-old Mujib happened to be staying with his uncle, Gulam Nabi.

"Some of the bodies were missing a hand or a leg or half a head. We recognized one of them only by the clothes she was wearing," Nabi remembers.

Nabi recognized Mujib's mother among the dead,

"I saw my mom, my sisters, and my brother and my grandfather were dead. And our house was destroyed," the little boy remembers.

Mujib's father was not there. He's accused of being a local Taliban leader and the U.S. has been searching for him with no luck. The air strike came March 4th. An Army press release says it started after enemy forces fired a rocket at a U.S. base above the village. The rocket fell "causing no coalition casualties," in fact, "missing the fire base" altogether. Then U.S. pilots saw two men with AK-47 rifles leaving the scene of the rocket attack and entering a compound in the village.

The fort, which is on a hill, began raining down mortar fire on part of the village -- mortar fire that came down for about an hour. It was nighttime, and even though there were no U.S. forces in contact with the enemy on the ground, a decision was made after the mortars to call in an air strike. U.S. Air Force aircraft dropped two bombs on the neighborhood, each one weighing 2,000 pounds.

The bombs hit their intended targets. But when the smoke cleared there were no men with rifles -- just Mujib's family.

"During the Russian invasion we haven’t heard of 10 members of one family being killed by Russians in one incident. But the Americans did that," a villager remarked.

These Afghans, like many others, are deciding whether to support the U.S.-backed government. We expected anger, but we didn’t expect this.

"You can't be saying that the Soviets were kinder to your people than the Americans have been," Pelley remarks.

"We used to hate the Russians much more than Americans," the villager replied. "But now when we see all this happening, I am telling you Russians behave much better than the Americans."

Really, there's no comparison. The Soviets killed something like a million Afghans over ten years. But it's the kind of thing that Afghans are saying, because so far this year, 17 air strikes have killed more than 270 civilians according to the humanitarian organization Human Rights Watch.

It leaves Afghan President Hamid Karzai explaining to his people why they’re being killed by his allies.

"Why are so many Afghan civilians being killed by U.S. forces?" Pelley asks President Karzai.

"The United States and the Coalition Forces are not doing that deliberately. The United States is here to help the Afghan people. The Afghan people understand that mistakes are made. But five years on, six years on, definitely, very clearly, they cannot comprehend as to why there is still a need for air power," Karzai explains.

Asked if he is asking the American government to roll back the air strikes, Karzai says, "Absolutely. Oh, yes, in clear words."

Karzai told 60 Minutes he delivered those words, privately, to President George W. Bush. But he decided to take the message public in this interview. "And I want to repeat that, alternatives to the use of air force. And I will speak for it again through your media," he says.

"You're demanding that?" Pelley asks.

"Absolutely," Karzai says.

60 Minutes wanted to understand how these air strikes are planned. It turns out the mission that made Mujib’s neighborhood look like an ancient ruin was run through a futuristic-looking, classified control center. We were surprised to get into the facility because it has never been seen on television before. We promised the Air Force we wouldn’t reveal classified information, or the Persian Gulf country where the center is located.

Air Force Col. Gary Crowder is deputy director of the Combined Air Operations Center, which runs the air war over both Afghanistan and Iraq.

"You know, I'm curious. How often is an air strike prepared that's called off at the last minute?" Pelley asks.

"Thousands and thousands of times a month,” says Crowder. “We look very, very often, we tracked some of the insurgent leaders we will track for days and days on end. And we are prepared to strike them at any moment. But we can never get all of the criteria necessary to meet our rules of engagement.”

We learned there are two kinds of targets: deliberate targets which are analyzed for days and watched for patterns of civilians coming and going, and immediate targets, such as when troops are in combat and need air support. In both cases, civilian casualties are estimated in advance and it's up to the commander on the ground to decide whether the strike is worth the cost.

"We rely on those commanders to make the assessment at the time of what the requirement is. He assesses proportionality. He assesses the validity of the military target," Crowder explains.

Asked what he means by "proportionality," Crowder tells Pelley, "If we know that there is a sniper on a roof and the roof is in the middle of a mosque which is a protected site or in the middle of a very populated area, then dropping a 2,000 pound weapon on that would not be proportional to going after the sniper."

"Two men with AK-47s run into a house. Do you bomb the house?" Pelley asks.

"In some circumstances, we will bomb the house,” says Crowder. “It is entirely dependent upon the circumstances on the ground, and the ground commander's assessment of that particular situation.”

"There's this macabre kind of calculus that the military goes through on every air strike, where they try to figure out how many dead civilians is dead bad guy worth," says Marc Garlasco, who knows the calculus of civilian casualties as well as anyone.

At the Pentagon, Garlasco was chief of high value targeting at the start of the Iraq war. He told 60 Minutes his team was authorized to kill a set number of civilians around high-value targets -- targets like Saddam Hussein and his leadership.

"Our number was 30. So, for example, Saddam Hussein. If you're gonna kill up to 29 people in a strike against Saddam Hussein, that's not a problem," Garlasco explains. "But once you hit that number 30, we actually had to go to either President Bush, or Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld."

Garlasco says, before the invasion of Iraq, he recommended 50 air strikes aimed at high-value targets -- Iraqi officials.

But he says none of the targets on the list were actually killed. Instead, he says, "a couple of hundred civilians at least" were killed.

"The bombs that are dropped are really only as accurate as the intelligence behind them?" Pelley asks Crowder.

"That's true. But we have come a very long way in getting that intelligence to be more accurate," Crowder says. "We will collect human intelligence, signals intelligence, overhead full-motion video, all of that tied together, very often in real time. That gives us a better understanding and a significantly higher confidence that the targets we're engaging are in fact valid military targets."

Of course the Taliban are killing civilians too, targeting them deliberately. By contrast, 60 Minutes watched American airmen calculate how to minimize civilian casualties with the choice of timing, weapon, and direction of attack.

"I don't think people really appreciate the gymnastics that the U.S. military goes through in order to make sure that they're not killing civilians," Garlasco points out.

"If so much care is being taken why are so many civilians getting killed?" Pelley asks.

"Because the Taliban are violating international law,” says Garlasco, “and because the U.S. just doesn't have enough troops on the ground. You have the Taliban shielding in people's homes. And you have this small number of troops on the ground. And sometimes the only thing they can do is drop bombs.”

But why were bombs dropped on Mujib's house? As we said, the Army wouldn’t speak to us about it. An Air Force source says that Mujib’s house was a Taliban hideout. But through an interpreter, the villagers disputed that, and they said the U.S. should have known better.

"The Americans came here the day before they bombed, they searched the whole house and saw women and children in the house," says Mujib's uncle, Gulam Nabi.

"This is such an important point. Let me be sure I've got this. Who came the day before?" Pelley asks,

"The Americans came the day before," a translator explains.

We took their accusation to the military. And an Air Force source confirmed that U.S. troops searched the house the day before. We don’t know what those troops may have seen or reported. Marc Garlasco left the Pentagon in 2003 to become senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. He has examined this case and he told 60 Minutes that even if Mujib’s father was a local Taliban leader, the air strike backfired.

"You have to ask yourself, is a mid-level thug worth nine dead civilians? But it goes beyond that. You're not talking about just losing nine dead civilians. You're also talking about violent protests throughout the country, requesting a democratically elected government be taken down, you then take people who maybe were in a pro-government area, and all of a sudden you're turning them against you, and turning them towards the Taliban," Garlasco says.

"To return just for a moment to the bombing at Kapisa,” Pelley addresses President Karzai. “A rocket was fired at a U.S. base there. It missed. No one was hurt. And yet, the response was to drop 4,000 pounds of explosives on that neighborhood.”

"That is wrong," the president says.

"They hit what they were aiming at," Pelley points out.

"That is a mistake," Karzai says. “I know that. It may be at times careless. A careless mistake, but not deliberate.”

"There is one young boy who is the sole survivor from that house,” Pelley tells Karzai. “A seven-year-old boy named Mujib. We asked him what he thought of the Americans and as you might expect, he said, 'I hate them.’”

"Naturally," Karzai agrees.

"That doesn't bode well for the future," Pelley says.

"Yeah, it doesn't,” Karzai responds. “That's why I'm so strongly asking for rethink of the use of air force. And this little boy I will call to my office. I will share his pain with him, as do the rest of the Afghan people. And try to get him a future.”

Produced By Solly Granatstein | © MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Dawn : Karzai wants US to stop use of air power in Afghanistan

Karzai wants US to stop use of air power in Afghanistan

PPI | October 29, 2007

NEW YORK -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has demanded that the US and coalition forces fighting al-Qaida and Taliban elements in his country stop use of air power because of mounting civilian casualties and rising anger of the people against the allies and the Kabul government.

Karzai told a television network that he had recently delivered the message privately to President George W Bush.

Asked if he was asking the American government to roll back the strikes, he replied, “Absolutely. Oh, yes, in clear words”.

The United States and the Coalition Forces, he said.

Atlantic Free Press : US Ethnic Game Stokes up Anti-Western Feelings in Afghanistan

US Ethnic Game Stokes up Anti-Western Feelings in Afghanistan

by Ehsan Azari | August 15, 2007

In his two-day meeting with President George W. Bush in Camp David, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan tried to make mixed impressions: In a news conference in Mr Bush’s presence, in an upbeat mood, he declared that the Taliban had been defeated and that they no longer posed a threat to his government. While on the eve of the meeting, he set a downbeat mood in an interview with the CNN, saying the security situation in his country was deteriorating and the war on terrorism was nowhere close to Osama bin Laden’s hideout.

Mr Karzai’s mixed metaphors signal an unsavoury progress in the current Western strategy in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan. It also shows that the political conditions for peace in Afghanistan that the US was seeking after the overthrow of the Taliban hasn’t been reached. At the heart of the current roadblock lies a perceptual astigmatism about local realities that has traditionally shaped politics in Afghanistan.

Right from day one of the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Bush administration hasn’t taken a blind bit of notice to the local political and power culture. Such a misapprehension has been an outcome of negligence towards local political dynamics, especially bypassing the Afghan tribal system with its driving force within the Pashtun majority in the country. This has been the apotheosis of governance in Afghanistan, at least for the past three centuries.

Moreover, it seems that the present course of war in this country is fostering causes for the rise of insurgency. Despite being himself a Pashtun, Karzai’s government ostracised the Pashtun majority and instead offered a tantalising prospect for the Afghan ethnic minorities who now bite off more than they can chew. The growing resentment among the Pashtun tribes elicits popular sympathy for the Taliban in the restive and proverbially religious and conservative Pashtun tribes straddled on both sides of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, known as the Durand line.

The optimism over the Taliban’s lightning demise soon diminished when the Taliban reconstructed themselves, since 2002, into a well positioned insurgency, and al-Qaida shifted its sanctuary from Afghanistan to Pakistan. It became an exchange of short term pleasure for long term pain. With the fall of the Taliban, neoconservatives came up with a new theory that the only way to crush the Taliban insurgency was to write off the traditional Pashtun-centred tribal power structure in Afghanistan. This self-destructive oversight of the local ground realities was reminiscent of the mistake the US made in Iraq—the disbanding and exclusion of the former Iraqi army and entire state-bureaucracy.

The US-led coalition leapfrogged its march on Afghanistan by hiring and enriching warlords and local militia, many of them private and remnants of the former communist militia who gradually turned into a major headache for NATO, in Afghanistan and a major triggering element in the rise of the Taliban insurgency. The fall of the Taliban left behind a power vacuum, which has never been filled by the militia leaders and warlords who controlled barely 5 percent of the Afghan territory in the run-up to the US-led invasion of the country.
The parasitic new elite has drawn on the Western military presence as the fixative for its privileged position in the country. The warlords use the Western support as immunity against the International Criminal Court for which Afghanistan still remains practically a no-go zone.

Such a haunting sectarian divide has set off a perilous chain reaction. Feeling oppressed and humiliated from losing their traditional status as the rulers of Afghanistan, the Pashtuns had no option other than uniting under the umbrella of the medieval Taliban. The unemployment among the Pashtun educated young people is staggering. Within the pro-Western elite the Pashtun share is a nominal and symbolic one. Recently, in the Afghan parliament a debate was raised on the ethnic imbalance in Mr. Karzai’s government. One example was the lucrative foreign ministry. A survey indicated that in the Foreign Ministry fifty percent of positions were taken by ethnic Tajiks, 30 percent by Pashtuns, and the rest by other ethnic groups. Another disturbing example is the state-run Afghan National Television in Kabul where only 100 employees out of 1800 employees belong to the Pashtun ethnic group.

Ramification of this ethnic imbalance have reached to Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries. The first beneficiary appears to have been Pakistani generals and their mullah supporters. By using a vast manoeuvring space, Pakistan is shedding crocodile tears over the predicament of the Pashtuns. Every time Pakistani top officials are having a temper tantrum on the Pashtun’s political and social marginalisation in Afghanistan, they, in fact, try to appease the Taliban. Al-Qaida is playing off the Pashtun rage and frustration to its own benefit. It continues to radicalise the Taliban in line with Wahabi fanaticism that justifies suicide bombings and mass murder of the non-Muslim people.

Upbeat over the fall of the Taliban, another beneficiary is Iran. By manipulating its old proxy the warlords of the Northern Alliance, and anti-Pashtun sentiment within some of the coalition forces, Iran is successfully trying to transform the Afghan cultural institution, media, and educational establishment into a pro-Iranian network. Religion is another aspect of Iranian influence. By sending weapon, despite Karzai’s denial, Iran is also a destabilising source for his country.

During the British colonial days, against all the odds, the Afghan tribal system remained intact. Russians too left untouched the Pashtun base power-structure in Afghanistan in the 1980s. There were 120,000 Russian combat troops and tens of thousands of communist party members, local mercenary militia, defence force and police in the country, but the Russians never showed a willingness to upset the Afghan traditional power structure. Afghanistan’s sensitive power ministries were never given to the Afghan ethnic minorities, despite the fact that most Russian casualties were inflicted by the Pashtuns in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The Pashtun political exclusion in Afghanistan is rapidly becoming a stumbling block, and Mr Karzai is failing to pull the Pashtun weight behind him. A Pashtun share of power in the Afghan political game on fair basis could help turn the current situation in the benefit of the war on al-Qaida terrorism and offer the best hope of reversing the rise of the Taliban.

NYT : Afghan Rebels Find a Haven in Pakistan, Musharraf Says

Afghan Rebels Find a Haven in Pakistan, Musharraf Says

By TAIMOOR SHAH and CARLOTTA GALL | Published: August 12, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 12 — Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, made a rare admission today that support for militants emanating from Pakistan has caused problems for Afghanistan, and that his country should work to secure peace on its side of their mutual border.

“I realize this problem goes deeper, there is support from these areas,” General Musharraf told hundreds of Pakistani and Afghan delegates at a grand tribal assembly here. “There is no doubt Afghan militants are supported from Pakistan soil. The problem that you have in your region is because support is provided from our side.”

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan nodded in agreement.

General Musharraf’s words, and his appearance at the final ceremony of the four-day meeting in Kabul, were a sharp reversal for him.

In the past, he has argued that the insurgency in Afghanistan is a homegrown problem and stems from dissatisfaction with the Afghan government. By contrast, Mr. Karzai has often asserted that the source of the Taliban insurgency lies in training camps and madrasas in Pakistan and that the insurgents take sanctuary there. Relations between the countries have deteriorated over the past two years as their presidents have repeated their conflicting accusations over and over.

As recently as Thursday, General Musharraf abruptly canceled his scheduled appearance at the opening ceremony of the jirga. At first the cancellation appeared to be a slight to Mr. Karzai, but it later emerged that domestic political problems kept him at home in Islamabad, where he met with aides to consider imposing emergency rule in the period leading up to elections. Enormous diplomatic and political pressure was brought to bear on the president over the issue, including a phone conversation with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about 2 a.m. Thursday that seemed to help persuade him that an emergency-rule decree was not necessary.

Pakistani news editors who met with General Musharraf on Saturday reported today in The News, an Islamabad paper, that the general described the phone call as the third Ms. Rice had placed to him that day, and that most of their discussion had been about Afghanistan and the jirga. At the end of the call, the report said, she asked about the rumors on emergency rule.

His presence today at the closing ceremony of the four-day jirga lent weight to the proceedings. The assembly, convened to try to bring peace and stability to the region, concluded with a pledge by the 650 delegates to continue an “extended, tireless and persistent campaign against terrorism” and not to allow terrorist sanctuaries and training camps in their territory.

They agreed to establish a smaller jirga, consisting of 25 representatives from each country, to work on peace efforts with the Taliban and other antigovernment insurgents on either side, and to continue a dialogue between the countries. They also agreed to urge their governments to combat the narcotics trade in the region.

The Peace Jirga, as it was called, was an initiative of President Karzai, intended to reach out to the tribes and populations of the troubled regions along the border of the two countries, where antigovernment insurgents hold sway. It was the first time in decades that tribal leaders from both sides of the troubled border region have gathered in such numbers. The organizers hope to mobilize traditional social structures to end the fighting and a drift toward extremism.

Taliban fighters who fled Afghanistan after the United States invasion in 2001, which ousted a Taliban-controlled government, have regrouped in Pakistan and mounted a sustained insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan, in areas that were former Taliban strongholds. They have also spread their influence in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

In recent months, Pakistan has also had to battle growing violence on its own soil from homegrown Islamist insurgents based in the same region.

General Musharraf said today that Pakistan did not seek to occupy Afghanistani territory, and stressed that it wanted prosperity and economic development for the region.

While the peace delegates met, the violence continued. Three American soldiers and their civilian interpreter were killed in a roadside bomb in Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan today, the United States military said in a statement. A British soldier was killed and several others were wounded in an attack in southern Afghanistan Saturday.

People's Daily Online : Terrorists are enemies of both Afghanistan, Pakistan: Karzai

Terrorists are enemies of both Afghanistan, Pakistan: Karzai

July 11, 2007

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday described Taliban militants and militancy as the enemies of both this country and Pakistan and called for joint fight against terrorism.

Those who kill Afghan sons and destroy Afghanistan have created Lal Masjid crisis in Pakistan, he told a press conference while referring to the Lal Masjid or Red Mosque Taliban confrontation with Pakistani law enforcing agencies.

A number of militants loyal to Taliban fanatic movement and religious extremists had occupied Lal Masjid in Pakistan's capital Islamabad for the last nearly two months wanting the government to impose Taliban-like strict Islamic law or Sharia.

Pakistani troops in a commando action launched Tuesday morning against militants in Lal Masjid, according to media report, had killed 60 insurgents including their leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

The government of Afghanistan cooperates with Pakistan in war on terror and hopes Pakistan to reciprocate and fight terrorism as it did in Lal Masjid, President Karzai noted.

Afghan president also denounced the terrorist suicide attack in Dehrawood district of Uruzgan province in south Afghanistan that left 17 civilian dead on Tuesday and adding the terrorists are the enemies of Afghans and the whole humanity.

Source: Xinhua