contractor attacks in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan  The message, very often, is sent with bloodshed.There was the suicide bombing last week on a fortified Kandahar guesthouse shared by Western contracting companies, killing four Afghans and injuring several Americans. There was the Afghan engineer, shot dead in March as he helped inspect a school not far from the Pakistan border. Or the Afghan woman, an employee for a U.S.-based consulting firm, shot by motorbike-riding gunmen as she returned home from work in this southern city.

As the United States presses ahead with an Afghan counterinsurgency strategy that depends on speeding up development of one of the world’s poorest countries, the U.S. contractors, construction companies and aid organizations needed to rebuild Afghanistan have faced a surge in attacks that puts the plan in jeopardy.

Overall figures for contractor attacks remain elusive, since the employees come from dozens of nations and work for hundreds of different organizations.But the death toll has jumped precipitously in the months since President Barack Obama launched a massive troop surge last December.

Of the 289 civilians working for U.S. contractors killed between the start of the Afghanistan war in late 2001 and the end of last year, 100 died in just the last six months of 2009, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.To a degree, those killings have mirrored an increase in U.S. service member deaths, which roughly doubled in the first three months of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009.

Many of the recent attacks against civilian contractors have been around Kandahar, the one-time Taliban capital where the U.S. is poised to launch a major operation in the coming weeks, but the rash of violence has spiked across Afghanistan.”The insurgents are trying to say ‘You can’t do it,'” Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in a speech last week in Paris, shortly after two bombings shook Kandahar. “I think we’ll see that for months as they make an effort to stop progress. But I don’t think that they’ll be successful.”

In some ways, though, they already have been successful.Although contractors say they are not leaving the country, the attacks have forced them to retreat even further behind blast walls and heavily armed security perimeters. The security drives up costs, makes it more difficult to interact with regular Afghans and slows reconstruction projects.

The attacks have forced many contractors, aid groups and Afghan officials to retreat even further behind blast walls and heavily armed security perimeters. The security drives up costs, makes it more difficult to interact with regular Afghans and slows reconstruction projects.

“We have become the targets of the Taliban,” said Azizullah, the owner of a construction company that builds bridges and irrigation projects in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, strongholds of the militant Muslim fighters. “If we travel, they try to kidnap us and hold us for huge ransoms. If we don’t pay, they kill us,” said Azizullah, who like many Afghans has only one name.

His workers now travel in U.S. military convoys whenever possible, he said, to give them additional protection.That doesn’t surprise Gulali, a tribal elder from Kandahar province.”Of course the Taliban are against any of these people working for the Afghan government or the Americans or other foreigners,” said the elder, who also uses only one name.

He believes many of the recent attacks are by militants simply looking for softer targets. While nearly all foreign companies in Afghanistan now work out of guarded compounds, they do not have the massive fortifications and overwhelming firepower found at nearly any American military installation.The Taliban “want to use the easiest option,” he said.But the attacks are challenging a key part of America’s aims in Afghanistan.

Washington’s counterinsurgency plans call for aggressive development to build up everything from Afghanistan’s roads to its sewer systems to its irrigation networks. Much of the actual work is paid for by USAID, the government’s main international aid agency, then contracted through corporations that often subcontract the actual the work to smaller companies. On the ground, many employees are Afghans overseen by small groups of Western administrators.

The attacks “are not about armed confrontation. They are about subversion of the government,” said Terrence K. Kelly, a senior researcher at the Washington-based RAND Corporation who has studied how rebuilding efforts work in war zones. America’s strategy counts on development work to increase the legitimacy and reach of the Karzai government. With these attacks the Taliban can “turn off the delivery of services – which makes the government look bad,” he said.USAID insists it will not scale back its work in Afghanistan because of the attacks, according to Rebecca Black, the agency’s deputy mission director for Afghanistan.

Contractors insist they are also staying.The Louis Berger Group/Black & Veatch, a joint venture building major infrastructure projects across the country, was among the companies based in the Kandahar guest house attacked last week.In a statement, the joint venture said they were “currently conducting a comprehensive review of the recent events in Kandahar to assess what changes, if any, are required to continue our work.”(AP)

bomb that is controlled remotely detonated near a family who was traveling in southern Afghanistan

Kandahar, Afghanistan A bomb that is controlled remotely detonated near a family who was traveling in southern Afghanistan Wednesday, killing at least 13 people and wounding about 40, said some NATO officials and Afghanistan. Previous reports from the area, said that a suicide bomb attack on foot sparked an explosion near a group of local officials who are distributing seedlings to villagers as part of a program to persuade people not to plant opium.

A NATO officials and a spokesman for the provincial governor of Helmand said 13 people were killed and 40-45 people were injured in the blast. NATO officials said, a military helicopter flew the Afghans are injured from the scene, some of them died later of their wounds. He added that the incident happened in a district of Helmand province – the Nahr-e-Saraj or Gereshk.

In the past, the Taliban claimed responsibility for attacks in Afghanistan, where they led a rebellion against the government of Afghanistan and foreign troops. Last year, according to the UN, a large number of civilians were killed in that war, mostly due to guerrilla attacks.

The NATO commander has warned Western countries that are ready to face falling victim because they’re implementing a strategy to end the eight-year war in that country. U.S. Marines currently heads the 15,000 U.S. soldiers, NATO and Afghanistan in Operation Mushtarak which aims to quell the militants, which was launched before dawn Saturday (13 / 2) to pave the way for the Afghan government to control more areas of Helmand producer of opium.

Offensive was reportedly getting fierce resistance from the Taleban, who launched the attacks from behind human shields and put bombs on roads, buildings and trees. President Hamid Karzai has warned that the army had to take all steps necessary to protect civilians.

Currently there are more than 120,000 soldiers internationally, especially from the United States, which deployed to Afghanistan to assist the administration of President Hamid Karzai to overcome rebellion fought by the remnants of the Taliban. Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan since 1996, fomenting rebellion since ousted from power in that country by US-led invasion in 2001 because it refused to hand over leaders of al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden, accused of being responsible for attacks on American soil that killed about 3,000 people at 11 September 2001.

International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) led NATO force of more than 84,000 soldiers from 43 countries, which aims to restore democracy, security and rebuilding Afghanistan, but is still trying to quell the Taliban and its allies. The violence in Afghanistan reached its highest level in the war for more than eight years with Taliban insurgents, who broadened the rebellion from the south and east of the country to the capital and the regions that previously peaceful.

Eight years after the overthrow of the Taliban of power in Afghanistan, more than 40 countries preparing to increase the number of soldiers in Afghanistan until it reaches approximately 150,000 people within a period of 18 months, in a new effort to combat the guerrillas.

Approximately 520 soldiers foreigners were killed during 2009, which made that year as the year the deadliest for international troops since the US-led invasion in 2001 and create public support for the West against the war slump. Taliban insurgents rely heavily on the use of roadside bombs and suicide attacks against Afghan government and foreign troops stationed in that country. Homemade bombs known as an IED (improvised explosive) resulted in 70-80 percent casualties among foreign troops in Afghanistan, according to the military.(Reuters)

NATO airstrike in southern Afganistan killed at least 21 civilians

KABUL A NATO airstrike in southern Afganistan killed at least 21 civilians, the Afghan Interior Ministry said Monday, in an incident that could inflame already heightened sensitivities over noncombatant casualties.NATO forces confirmed in a statement that its planes fired Sunday on what it believed was a group of insurgents in southern Uruzgan province on their way to attack a joint NATO-Afghan patrol, but later discovered that women and children were hurt. The injured were transported to medical facilities.

The Afghan government and NATO have launched an investigation.Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the Sunday morning airstrike hit three minibuses traveling on a major road near Uruzgan’s border with central Day Kundi province. There were 42 people in the vehicles, all civilians, Bashary said.The NATO statement did not say how many people died or whether all the occupants of the vehicles were civilians.

Afghan investigators on the ground have collected 21 bodies and two people are missing. Fourteen others were wounded, he said.”We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives,” NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in the statement. “I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission. We will redouble our effort to regain that trust.”

McChrystal apologized to President Hamid Karzai for the incident on Sunday, NATO said.On Saturday, Karzai had admonished NATO troops for not doing enough to protect civilian lives. During a speech to the opening session of the Afghan parliament, Karzai had called for extra caution on the part of NATO, which is currently conducting a massive offensive on the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah in neighboring Helmand province.

“We need to reach the point where there are no civilian casualties,” Karzai had said. “Our effort and our criticism will continue until we reach that goal.”NATO has gone to great lengths in recent months to reduce civilian casualties — primarily through reducing airstrikes and tightening rules of engagement   as part of a new strategy to focus on protecting the Afghan people to win their loyalty over from the Taliban.

This is the largest joint NATO-Afghan operation since the Taliban regime was ousted from power in 2001. It’s also the first major ground operation since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan.But mistakes have continued. In the ongoing offensive against Marjah, two NATO rockets killed 12 people in one home and others have gotten caught in the crossfire. At least 16 civilians have been killed so far during the offensive, NATO has said, though human rights groups claim the number is at least 19.

Last Thursday, an airstrike in northern Kunduz province missed targeted insurgents and killed seven policemen.Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” that Marjah was the opening salvo in a campaign to turn back the Taliban that could last 12 to 18 months.But the continued toll of civilian lives will only make it harder for NATO in its goal to win over the support of local Afghans against Taliban militants in the south.

The newly appointed civilian chief for Marjah arrived Monday to begin the task of restoring government authority after years of Taliban rule even though NATO troops are still battling insurgents in the area.District leader Abdul Zahir Aryan will be flying into Marjah for the first time since the massive NATO offensive began Feb. 13. He plans to meet with community leaders and townspeople about security, health care and reconstruction, he said in a phone interview Sunday.”The Marines have told us that the situation is better. It’s OK. It’s good,” Aryan said. “I’m not scared because it is my home. I have come to serve the people.”

Pakistani military confirmed on Wednesday that the Taliban's top military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar had been captured

ISLAMABAD The Pakistani military confirmed on Wednesday that the Afghan Taliban’s top military commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, had been captured.U.S. and Pakistani officials who declined to be identified said on Tuesday Baradar had been captured in the Pakistani city of Karachi in a raid by Pakistani and U.S. agents.”At the conclusion of detailed identification procedure, it has been confirmed that one of the persons arrested happens to be Mullah Baradar,” the military said.It declined to say where he had been caught or to give other details, citing security reasons.The capture came as U.S. forces spearhead one of NATO’s biggest offensives against the Taliban in Afghanistan in an early test of U.S. President Barack Obama’s troop surge policy.U.S. officials and analysts said it was too soon to tell whether Pakistan’s cooperation against Baradar would be extended to other top militants on the U.S. hit list.The arrest followed months of behind-the-scenes prodding by U.S. officials who saw inaction by Islamabad as a major threat to their Afghan war strategy.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik had on Tuesday declined to confirm Baradar’s capture, saying a large number of people had fled operations by NATO forces in Afghanistan to Pakistan and many had been picked up.He denied that there had been any joint operation by Pakistani and U.S. agents.Though nuclear-armed Pakistan is a U.S. ally, anti-U.S. sentiment runs high and many people have long been suspicious of the U.S.-led campaign against militancy and oppose any U.S. security operations in Pakistan.

“HE IS WITH US”A Pakistani intelligence official said security agents had been searching for Baradar in the southwestern city of Quetta, where the United States says a Taliban leadership council is based.

“Sensing that he might be arrested, he somehow slipped out of Quetta and into Karachi, maybe in disguise. That’s where we arrested him, about four days back,” said the official, who declined to be identified.”He is with us and is being interrogated.”Asked if the United States was involved in the questioning, he said: “Yes of course. We have that sort of cooperation with them.”Baradar’s arrest comes amid a renewed drive for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.Asked if the Taliban commander could help with any reconciliation process, the Pakistani agent said: “It might lead to that eventually … Anything is possible but so far we have not come to that.”Pakistan is anxious to have a say in post-war Afghanistan in order to limit the influence of old rival India there.Anger in Pakistan toward the United States has been exacerbated by attacks by pilotless U.S. drone aircraft on militants in lawless enclaves along the Afghan border.

In the latest strike, a U.S. drone fired a missile into the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, killing at least three militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.The drone targeted a militant compound in the village of Tapi, about 15 km (9 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in the region, which is a hotbed of Taliban and al Qaeda militants. It was the second attack on the village this week.There was no information about the identity of those killed or of three men wounded in the strike, they said.Pakistan objects to the drone strikes, saying they are a violation of its sovereignty and complicate its efforts against militancy.The Pakistani army has made gains against militants battling the state over the past 10 months but it has ruled out a major offensive against Afghan Taliban factions on its soil, saying its forces are already stretched.(Reuters)

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan U.S. and Afghan forces ringed the Taliban stronghold of Marjah

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan  U.S. and Afghan forces ringed the Taliban stronghold of Marjah on Thursday, sealing off escape routes and setting the stage for what is being described as the biggest offensive of the nine-year war. Taliban defenders repeatedly fired rockets and mortars at units poised in foxholes along the edge of the town, apparently trying to lure NATO forces into skirmishes before the big attack. “They’re trying to draw us in,” said Capt. Joshua Winfrey, 30, of Tulsa, Okla., commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. Up to 1,000 militants are believed holed up in Marjah, a key Taliban logistics base and center of the lucrative opium poppy trade. But the biggest threats are likely to be the land mines and bombs hidden in the roads and fields of the farming community, 380 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul. The precise date for the attack has been kept secret. U.S. officials have signaled for weeks they planned to seize Marjah, a town of about 80,000 people in Helmand province and the biggest community in southern Afghanistan under Taliban control. NATO officials say the goal is to seize the town quickly and re-establish Afghan government authority, bringing public services in hopes of winning support of the townspeople once the Taliban are gone. Hundreds of Afghan soldiers were to join U.S. Marines in the attack to emphasize the Afghan role in the operation. A Taliban spokesman dismissed the significance of Marjah, saying the NATO operation was “more propaganda than military necessity.”

Nevertheless, the spokesman, Mohammed Yusuf, said in a dialogue on the Taliban Web site that the insurgents would strike the attackers with explosives and hit-and-run tactics, according to a summary by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant Internet traffic. In preparation for the offensive, a U.S.-Afghan force led by the U.S. Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade moved south from Lashkar Gah and linked up Thursday with Marines on the northern edge of Marjah, closing off a main Taliban escape route. Marines and Army soldiers fired colored smoke grenades to show each other that they were friendly forces. U.S. and Afghan forces have now finished their deployment along the main road in and out of Marjah, leaving the Taliban no way out except across bleak, open desert – where they could easily be spotted. The Army’s advance was slowed as U.S. and Afghan soldiers cleared the thicket of mines and bombs hidden in canals and along the roads and fought off harassment attacks along the way by small bands of insurgents. Two U.S. attack helicopters fired Hellfire missiles at a compound near Marjah from where insurgents had been firing at the advancing Americans. Marines along the edge of the town exchanged fire with insurgents. There were no reports of casualties.

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.

The senior American general in Afghanistan is predicting success for President Barack Obama's

Gen. Stanley McChrystal

The senior American general in Afghanistan is predicting success for President Barack Obama’s revamped war strategy, telling Congress it’s the best available approach.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and his political counterpart, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, told House and Senate committees Tuesday that they fully support the Obama plan even though it does not reflect fully their initial preferences.

To probe further, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday was calling Eikenberry and Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander for the greater Middle East, to jointly testify on the new U.S. approach.

McChrystal told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that he believes the Taliban can be defeated; he defined that as weakening the militants to a point that they no longer are capable of threatening the Afghan government. His first objective, though, is to reverse the momentum the Taliban have acquired in recent years.

McChrystal cautioned against expecting immediate results, but he said progress should be evident within a year.”Ultimate success will be the cumulative effect of sustained pressure,” he said.

Eikenberry stressed the importance of widening the anti-Taliban effort to include more U.S. and NATO civilian contributions to stabilizing the country and building the credibility of the central government.

The ambassador offered words of caution about the outlook for turning around the war. “Our forces and our civilians are trying to help a society that simultaneously wants and rejects outside intervention,” he said.He also spoke cautiously of the Afghans as partners.

“In spite of everything we do, Afghanistan may struggle to take over the essential tasks of governance,” he said, adding, “If the main elements of the president’s plan are executed, and if our Afghan partners and our allies do their part, I am confident we can achieve our strategic objectives.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai needed to pay for larger army

Hamid Karzai

KABUL  Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday it will be at least 15 years before his government can bankroll a security force strong enough to protect the country from the threat of insurgency.

Speaking at a news conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Karzai repeated his claim that Afghan security forces would take the lead in securing the nation within five years. But Gates suggested the U.S. can’t wait that long.

“I would hope that we not only could meet the timelines that President Karzai has laid out, but that as more Afghans are trained we will be able to beat those timelines,” Gates said.Karzai’s comments come a week after President Barack Obama’s announcement that while the U.S. was sending 30,000 more troops, they will start coming home in 18 months.

The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has set the goal of building the Afghan security force to 400,000 by 2013 – up from roughly 94,000 Afghan police officers and 97,000 soldiers.

When asked whether he would be able to sustain a larger Afghan force, Karzai said financial backing from the international community would be needed for years.”For a number of years, maybe for another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force of that nature and capability with its own resources,” Karzai said.

Gates, the first member of Obama’s Cabinet to visit Afghanistan since the president’s announcement, said he and Karzai discussed how to recruit more Afghan soldiers and police to battle militants. “There is a realism on our part that it will be some time” before the Afghan security forces can stand on their own, he said.Gates has sought to assure the Afghans that the U.S. won’t abandon them, but at the same time impose a sense of urgency.

“On a gradual, conditions-based premise, we will be reducing our forces after July of 2011,” Gates said.He added that the U.S. expects the drawdown to be “a several-year process.””Whether it’s three years or two years or four years remains to be seen,” he said. “But as President Obama has made clear, this is not an open-ended commitment on the part of the United States.”

Gates also addressed a fear among the Afghan people that more troops in their country will result in more violence and civilian casualties.”Our top priority remains the safety of civilians,” he said.Just before the two leaders spoke, the Afghan government accused NATO forces of killing civilians during a pre-dawn strike Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan.

NATO said seven militants were killed, but no civilians were injured or killed. A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry said some civilians died in the attack aimed at a Taliban operative in Laghman province. Provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Karim Omeryar said 12 Afghans died, including one woman.

During the press conference, Karzai reaffirmed his commitment to fight corruption. The president, who won re-election to a second term in a ballot marred by fraud, is under intense international pressure to nominate a slate of reformists, and it will be the first test of his willingness to meet his pledge to reform the government.

“We will try our best as Afghans to present a Cabinet to the Afghan people that can also be appreciated and supported by the international community,” Karzai said.

Karzai said he was ready to send parliament 40 percent of his Cabinet nominees now, but that he would meet lawmakers’ demand to send a full, not partial, list to the assembly. He said he would send the full list to the parliament next Tuesday or Wednesday or earlier. He said ministers with proven track records of service would remain in the Cabinet, although he did not say if they would stay in their same posts.

Karzai has repeatedly argued that while there is corruption in the Afghan government, there is also corruption within international contracting processes.

Gates said the U.S. and other international partners bore some responsibility because the billions of dollars the international community has been spending in Afghanistan has enabled a climate of corruption.

“I think President Karzai has taken responsibility for dealing with the problem in so far as the Afghans are concerned,” Gates said. “We have to do what we can do to help make it more difficult for people to misbehave.”

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.