Afghanistan and Pakistan face decisive year at now

Fighting in Afghanistan is due to intensify as more US troops arrive

People in the South Asia region will be holding their breath in the new year. If both nations fail to achieve a modicum of political stability and success against extremism and economic growth, the world will be faced with an expansion of Islamic extremism, doubts about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and major questions about US prestige and power as it withdraws from Afghanistan. The challenges for both countries are deeply interlinked and enormous.The primary task is whether both countries can work together with the Western alliance to roll back the Taliban and al-Qaeda threat they face. That in turn rests on the success of the US and Nato’s new strategy in both countries over the next 18 months as President Barack Obama has pledged to stabilise Afghanistan’s political and economic institutions and start handing over Afghan security to the Afghan armed forces, starting in July 2011.

Karzai undermined

For that to happen much will depend on whether the West is able to find effective government partners in both Islamabad and Kabul.

So far the prospects are not all that hopeful.President Hamid Karzai has emerged as the victor after intensely controversial elections that undermined his domestic and international credibility, while the Afghan army is still far from being able to take over major security responsibilities.

There will be renewed political wrangling as the West and the Afghans have to decide whether to hold parliamentary elections in the new year. The Afghan army is still undermanned, undertrained and has yet to be equipped with heavy weapons and an air force.

The Afghan army also suffers from 80% illiteracy and a lack of recruits from the Pashtun belt, which are essential if the army is to be effective in the Taliban-controlled southern and eastern parts of the country.

In the midst of what will certainly be a hot and possibly decisive summer of fighting in 2010 between Western forces and the Taliban, the other primary tasks of providing jobs and economic development, while building sustainable capacity within the Afghan government to serve the Afghan people, will be even more important and difficult to achieve. The Taliban strategic plan for the summer is likely to be to avoid excessive fighting in the south and east which is being reinforced with 30,000 new American soldiers.

Instead, the Taliban will try to expand Taliban bases in the north and west of the country, where they can demoralise the forces of European Nato countries that are facing growing opposition at home about their deployment. The militants will also stretch the incoming US troops – forcing them to douse Taliban fires across the country – while they try to create greater insecurity in Central Asia.

Pakistan crisis

At the same time the Pakistan military, which now effectively controls policy towards India and Afghanistan, shows no signs of giving up on the sanctuaries that the Afghan Taliban have acquired in Pakistan.Without Pakistan eliminating these sanctuaries or forcing the Afghan Taliban leadership into talks with Kabul, US success in Afghanistan is unlikely.

Pakistan itself faces a triple crisis
acute political instability – President Asif Ali Zardari may soon be forced to resign, which could trigger long-term political unrest
an ever-worsening economic crisis that is creating vast armies of jobless youth who are being attracted to the message of extremism
the army’s success rate in dealing with its own indigenous Taliban problem.

The key to any improvement rests on the army and the political forces coming to a mutual understanding and working relationship with each other and providing support to Western efforts in Afghanistan. However, for the moment that appears unlikely while the army is hedging its bets with the Afghan Taliban, as it is fearful about a potential power vacuum in Afghanistan once the Americans start to leave in 2011.

Other neighbouring countries – India, Iran, Russia and the Central Asian republics – may start thinking along the same lines and prepare their own Afghan proxies to oppose the Afghan Taliban, which could result in a return to a brutal civil war similar to that of the 1990s. Pakistan’s fight against its own Taliban is going well but that is insufficient as long as the army does not move militarily or politically against the Afghan Taliban or other Punjab-based extremist groups now allied with the Taliban.

Impasse

Pakistani calculations also involve India – and the failure of both nations to resume the dialogue halted after the 2008 attacks in Mumbai (Bombay).

India fears that extremist Punjabi groups could launch another Mumbai-style attack and are demanding that Pakistan break up all indigenous extremist groups that fought in Indian-administered Kashmir in the 1990s.

Islamabad is refusing to do so until Delhi resumes talks with it. The Obama administration has so far failed to persuade India and Pakistan to resume a dialogue or settle their differences and if that remains the case in the new year, Pakistan is more than likely to continue defying US pressure to help with Afghanistan.

There is growing anti-Americanism in Pakistan despite Washington’s pledge of an annual $1.5bn aid package for the next five years. With the present lack of security in Pakistan – and the volatile mood towards the US and India that is partly being fuelled by the military – it is difficult to see how US aid can be effectively spent or how other economic investments can take place.

At present there is an enormous flight of local capital from both Afghanistan and Pakistan that has increased since the Obama plan was announced.
The recent arrests in the US and Europe of suspects linked to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region indicate that the world could face a wider extremist threat if it fails to effectively stabilise Afghanistan and help Pakistan towards a quick economic and political recovery.

Karzai orders investigation into cousin's slaying

Hamid Karzai

KABUL  Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that he has asked the Interior Ministry to investigate the slaying of a young relative in a possible revenge killing connected to a family feud.The October killing of 18-year-old Waheed Karzai in southern Afghanistan had apparently attracted little attention in Afghanistan before it was reported this week by the New York Times, but Karzai was asked about it during a news conference with the visiting NATO chief. The report raised questions about whether Karzai’s administration was trying to downplay the killing and whether powerful families could escape investigation, a sensitive issue amid rising concerns about corruption and impunity in Karzai’s government.

Waheed Karzai was shot to death in October in Karz, the president’s hometown in Kandahar province. He was the son of the president’s cousin, Yar Mohammad Karzai. The Times quoted relatives as saying they believed another cousin, Hashmat Karzai, shot the teenager as vengeance for a so-called honor killing allegedly committed three decades ago.

The report cites relatives as saying that Yar Mohommad Karzai had killed the father of Hashmat Karzai who was also one of the president’s cousins. Hashmat Karzai, in turn, reportedly denies any role in the October shooting of Waheed Karzai and suggests it was committed by drug dealers who targeted the teenager by mistake.

“Anything can be possible, so we will have to wait and investigate if the truth is this, that an accident occurred … or there is something else going on that’s more conspiratorial. We don’t know,” the Afghan leader said.”Both sides have contacted me within the family,” he said. “The Ministry of Interior is also investigating the issue. At this point that is all I can say.”

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Zemeri Bashary, said Karzai ordered the ministry to begin investigating the killing three days ago, the same day the newspaper report was published. He said counterterrorism police and criminal investigators were assisting local officials, who began looking into the killing earlier.

Hashmat Karzai heads the Afghanistan-based Asia Security Group, which provides security for five U.S. military bases in the country.Col. Wayne Shanks, a U.S. military spokesman, declined to comment on the feud allegations. He said Asia Security Group got the contracts because “it was judged to have the best service for the best cost.”

On Tuesday, NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen pledged that operations in Afghanistan will show “new momentum” in 2010 as more troops bolster the international force.”We will focus much more on protecting the population, protecting the roads and protecting development projects. We will train more Afghan army and Afghan police, and starting next year, they will start to take the lead where and when they are ready,” he said.The United States plans to send some 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and another 7,000 are expected from other countries.

Fogh Rasmussen pledged that foreign troops would protect the Afghan people until the country’s own security forces are able to prevent the Taliban from regaining control of the country and to root out al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.”We know that the price of inaction, the price of leaving too early would be far higher,” he said. “So we will stay the course. It is as simple as that.”

NATO, meanwhile, is seeking additional help in Afghanistan from Russia, which already has allowed supply routes from the north to supplement the main route through the Khyber Pass that had increasingly been targeted by militants. Fogh Rasmussen said that during a visit to Moscow last week, he made concrete proposals including Russian equipment for the Afghan army – most particularly helicopters – and training for pilots, police and anti-narcotics officers.”We did not conclude those discussions, and the Russians did not make any pledges during my visit,” Fogh Rasmussen said. The Soviet Union fought a disastrous 10-year war in Afghanistan before withdrawing in 1989.

Karzai reiterated his call urging the Taliban to enter negotiations, saying that foreign troops would not be needed in the country if there were peace.The Taliban has so far rejected proposals for talks, while resentment of the presence of international forces in Afghanistan appears to be rising and fueling support for the militants.

Also Tuesday, NATO reported that several militants had been killed in operations in two parts of the country. In a statement, it said several were killed Monday in Ghazni province as a joint Afghan-international force searched compounds where insurgent activity had been reported and that a joint force pursuing a Taliban commander in Kandahar province on Tuesday killed some militants. The statement did not give specific numbers or other details.

Karzai’s office said that he and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown held a telephone conversation about preparations for the international conference on Afghan security, governance and civilian engagement that is to be held in London on Jan. 28.

Afghanistan government will be given a timetable for securing British troop

The Afghanistan government will be given a timetable for securing British troop withdrawal at a conference in London next year.Gordon Brown today announced an International Conference on Afghanistan, to be held on January 28.The conference will be used to draw up a timetable for Afghan president Hamid Karzai to commit himself to boosting the country’s army and governance.

Speaking at the Commonwealth summit, in Trinidad and Tobago, Brown said this would pave the way for the Nato forces to gradually hand over control to the Afghanistan government and withdraw from the country.Karzai, who was recently re-elected for a second term as president, will be set benchmarks for recruiting 50,000 more troops, improving the capacity of the police and force and reducing regional level corruption.

The prime minster formally announced next year’s conference following discussions today with UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon.Foreign Secretary David Miliband will chair the talks, which will be attended by Karzai, Ki-Moon and other UN officials, along with representatives from the 43 nations involved in the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.Neighbouring countries, including Pakistan, have been invited, but the prime minister has ruled out any involvement of Taliban or former Taliban members.

Mr Brown said: “The purpose is to move forward our campaign in Afghanistan to match the increase in military forces with an increased political momentum to focus the international community on a clear set of priorities across the 43-nation coalition and marshal the international effort to help the Afghan government.“I believe we will be able to set a clear timetable for 2010 and beyond.“Within three months, our benchmark is that the Afghan government should have identified additional troops to send to Helmand province for training.“This is part of our idea that we will build up the Afghan army by nearly 50,000 over the next year.

“Within six months, we will want a clear plan for police training that means corruption is being dealt with and we have a police force that works with the local community rather than sometimes against it.“Within nine months, President Karzai should have completed the process of appointing 400 provincial and district governors.”He said that forces will hand back control “district by district” and that by the end of 2010 at least five Afghan provinces will have been transferred.A follow-up conference will be held in Afghan capital Kabul later next year to measure progress on the benchmarks set.The prime minster is also calling for an additional 5,000 Nato troops to be deployed to Afghanistan by the time of the London conference, although he declined to say which countries would supply them.He is currently waiting on a decision from President Obama on whether to commit 40,000 more US troops in a surge against the Taliban.