ENB - Afghan update 23-02-2010

NATO airstrike kills 33 Afghan civilians
Afghanistan Sun Monday 22nd February, 2010
(IANS)
A NATO airstrike in Afghanistan killed 33 civilians, including women and children, and wounded 12, the president's office said Monday.
The incident took place Sunday in Dai Kundi province when three vehicles carrying the civilians were targeted from the air, provincial Governor Sultan Ali Uruzgani told DPA.
The cabinet of ministers chaired by President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack 'in strongest terms possible', it said.
The ministers urged 'the NATO forces to closely coordinate and exercise maximum care before conducting any military operation,' the statement said.
The governor had earlier said that 27 people were killed in the air raid, but Karzai's office later put the death toll to 33 and said that 12 others were injured.
The civilians were coming from the Kejran district of Dai Kundi, and the attack occurred in Zerma, a village near the border with the neighboring province of Uruzgan, he said. The vehicles were en route to the southern province of Kandahar.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said its forces used airborne weapons to target a group of suspected insurgents 'believed to be en route to attack a joint Afghan-ISAF unit,' resulting in 'a number of individuals killed and wounded'.

'After the joint ground force arrived at the scene and found women and children, they transported the wounded to medical treatment facilities,' ISAF said in a statement.
A joint investigation was underway, it said.
The incident happened a day after Karzai appealed to NATO troops to avoid civilian casualties.
'We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives,' US General Stanley McChrystal, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in the statement Monday.
'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 re-double our efforts to regain that trust,' he said.

The statement also said that McChrystal apologised to Karzai Sunday night.
Civilian casualties have become the main source of tension between the Afghan government and international military forces. Afghan officials have repeatedly said that such deaths have sapped public support for more than 113,000 foreign troops and the central government.

The palace statement Monday said that such 'mistakes' have been 'a major obstacle for an effective counter-terrorism effort'.

McChrystal has said protecting civilians was a key element of his war efforts against the Taliban, and he ordered NATO troops to restrict the use of airstrikes.

In the southern province of Helmand, Operation Mushtarak, the largest NATO offensive since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 entered its second week with continued Taliban resistance.


From The Times February 22, 2010
Dutch confirm Afghan troop pullout sparking fears of domino effect

A Dutch platoon commander speaking to a village elder in Uruzgan David Charter, The Hague, and Tom Coghlan Nato was left in fear of further troop withdrawals from Afghanistan yesterday after the Dutch Prime Minister conceded that he could not prevent his forces being pulled out this year after the collapse of the Government in The Hague.
Jan Peter Balkenende lost the argument over extending the deployment at a 16-hour Cabinet session, in the first big reversal for the recently appointed Nato leader, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who had publicly requested a continued Dutch commitment.

“Our task as the lead nation [in Uruzgan province] ends in August,” Mr Balkenende said. After a three-month draw-down, the Dutch will be completely out of Afghanistan by the end of the year.
There are concerns that other countries where public opinion is turning against the Afghan campaign could follow, notably Canada, which has had the biggest proportional casualty rate and is committed to withdrawing its 2,800 troops by the end of next year. Another concern is the continued presence of 1,000 Australian troops. The Canberra Government has repeatedly refused to take over the lead role in Uruzgan if Holland leaves, demanding that a big Nato power provide the main share of troop numbers.

Just as important is the impression that European countries are struggling to find their share of the 10,000 extra troops requested by US General Stanley McChrystal to join 30,000 extra US troops in Afghanistan, with France ruling out more forces and a fierce debate in Germany.

The Times understands that the Dutch forces in Uruzgan will be replaced by US troops, diverting them from the surge operation against the Taleban.

Asadullah Hamdam, governor of Uruzgan, said that peace and reconstruction efforts would suffer, telling the BBC that the Dutch played a key role in building roads, training Afghan police and providing security for civilians. “If they withdraw and leave these projects incomplete, they will leave a big vacuum,” he said.

A British security source said: “This is a big setback because the Dutch are very highly rated. It is also a psychological blow, because as soon as one country leaves it starts making the public in other countries worried.”

Although the Dutch endured some sniping from bigger Nato powers about their perceived lack of aggression after they deployed to Uruzgan in 2006, their “population centric” strategy was a precursor of “The McChrystal Doctrine” adopted by British and American forces.

Mr Balkenende faces a general election in May after his main coalition partners, PvdA, the Labour party, walked out rather than break a promise to withdraw the 1,950 Dutch troops this year. Wouter Bos, the Labour leader, said: “A plan was agreed to when our soldiers went to Afghanistan. Our partners in the government did not want to stick to that plan, and on the basis of their refusal we have decided to resign.”
Mr Balkenende’s Christian Democrats and Labour are forecast to lose seats in the 150-member parliament. The two big gainers are forecast to be the ultra-liberals D66 and the right-wing Party of Freedom of the anti-Islamist MP Geert Wilders. Both oppose the Afghan mission.
A recent poll put support for keeping Dutch troops in Uruzgan at 35 per cent compared with 58 per cent for withdrawal, after 21 Dutch deaths.
The Dutch mission in Afghanistan was due to end in 2008, but the Government extended it until August 2010 — a decision made while the head of Nato was Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a former Dutch defence minister.
In October Mr Rasmussen said: “I would regret a Dutch withdrawal. We are at a critical juncture, where there should be no doubt about our firm commitment. Any doubts will simply play into the hands of those who want us to fail.” This month he issued a letter to The Hague requesting that Dutch troops stay for another year in a reduced training role, a gesture that may have been designed to be helpful by ending their frontline role, but which ended up dividing the Cabinet.

February 22, 2010
Dutch Pull-Out From War Expected After Government Collapse
By NICHOLAS KULISH
BERLIN — A day after his government collapsed, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Sunday that he expected Dutch troops to come home from Afghanistan before the end of the year.

A last-ditch effort by Mr. Balkenende to keep Dutch soldiers in the dangerous southern Afghan province of Oruzgan instead saw the Labor Party quit the government in the Netherlands early Saturday, immediately raising fears that the Western military coalition fighting the war was increasingly at risk.

Even as the allied offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marja continued, it appeared almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops would be gone from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The question plaguing military planners was whether a Dutch departure would embolden the war’s critics in other allied countries, where debate over deployment is continuing, and hasten the withdrawal of their troops as well.

“The moment the Netherlands says as sole and first country we will no longer have activities at the end of 2010, it will raise questions in other countries and this really pains me,” Mr. Balkenende told the Dutch television program “Buitenhof” in an interview on Sunday, according to Reuters.

The collapse of the Dutch government comes as the Obama administration continues to struggle to get European allies to commit more troops to Afghanistan to bolster its attempts to win back the country from a resurgent Taliban. President Obama has made the Afghan war a cornerstone of his foreign policy and, after months of debate, committed tens of thousands more American troops to the effort.

“If the Dutch go, which is the implication of all this, that could open the floodgates for other Europeans to say, ‘The Dutch are going, we can go, too,’ ” said Julian Lindley-French, professor of defense strategy at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda. “The implications are that the U.S. and the British are going to take on more of the load.”

Dutch leaders had promised voters to bring most of the country’s troops home this year. But after entreaties from the United States, Mr. Balkenende tried to find a compromise to extend the Dutch presence, at least on a scaled-back basis. Instead, the Labor Party pulled out of the government after an acrimonious 16-hour cabinet meeting that ran into the early hours of Saturday.

Mr. Balkenende told Dutch television on Sunday that he now expected Dutch troops to leave Afghanistan as planned. "If nothing else will take its place, then it ends," he said, according to Reuters.

The Dutch troops have been important to the war effort, despite their small numbers, because about 1,500 of them were posted in Oruzgan.

Analysts said that new elections in the Netherlands, as well as the departure of the Dutch troops, now appeared inevitable.

The war in Afghanistan has been increasingly unpopular among voters in the Netherlands, as in many other parts of Europe, creating strains between governments trying to please the United States and their own people.

But the tension in the Netherlands also reveals how deep the fissures over the war have grown within the NATO alliance.

As the number of Dutch military casualties has increased — 21 soldiers have died — the public back home has grown increasingly resentful at the refusal of some other allies, in particular the Germans, to join the intense fighting in the south.

The probable loss of the Dutch contingent and the continuing resistance to significant increases in manpower by other allies demonstrate the extent to which the dividend expected from the departure of President George W. Bush, who was so unpopular in capitals across the Atlantic, has not materialized, despite Mr. Obama’s popularity in Europe.

“The support for Obama was always double-faced,” said Stefan Kornelius, foreign editor of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. “It was never really heartfelt. People loved what they heard, but they never felt obliged to support Obama beyond what they were already doing.”

Since taking office, Mr. Obama has been pressing the non-American members of the coalition to increase their contribution, seeking up to 10,000 additional troops. While NATO has pledged around 7,000 troops, critics of the alliance’s efforts accuse it of fuzzy math: counting up to 2,000 soldiers who were already in Afghanistan but had been scheduled to leave after the recent election.

And even the 7,000 figure was notional; NATO is holding a “force generation conference” this week at which time official pledges will be made, and there are questions about whether it will reach that number.

The Dutch contingent is part of the roughly 40,000 troops from 43 countries who are aiding the United States in Afghanistan, most of those from NATO. The United States is fielding about 75,000 troops, but that number is expected to rise to about 98,000 by the end of the summer.

The Dutch troops were deployed to Oruzgan in 2006 and were originally supposed to stay for two years; that mandate already had been extended another two years to August 2010.

Analysts in the Netherlands said they expected the Dutch troops to leave on time because any deal to keep them there appeared all but impossible in the tumult following the government’s collapse.

“I don’t think there’s room, with a government falling and waiting for elections, for there to be a decision,” said Edwin Bakker, who runs the security and conflict program at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations.

Although American officials are concerned that an exodus by the Dutch could prompt other allies to follow suit, a sudden rush to exit seemed unlikely.

“There is a groundswell of distress in Europe, of feeling this isn’t working, but does that translate into electorates saying we’re going to vote you down? I don’t see that,” said Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

But the collapse of the Dutch government reinforced the difficulty of holding together an alliance made up of a multitude of countries, each with its own fractious domestic politics.

On Saturday, Mr. Balkenende informed Queen Beatrix, the country’s head of state, of the government’s resignation. According to the Dutch media, she was vacationing in Austria, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs said a decision about whether to hold new elections would probably be made in the next several days. By law the election would have to be held within 83 days of the queen’s decision.

The question of retaining troops in Afghanistan was far from the only issue pulling apart the parties in the governing coalition in the Netherlands; the parties were also divided over a controversial decision to increase the retirement age and the impending need for deep budget cuts. But the dispute over the troops brought relations to the breaking point.

“The majority of the Dutch people say, ‘Go, we’ve done enough. Let other countries do it now.’ That’s a big majority and also the majority in the Parliament,” said Nicoline van den Broek-Laman Trip, a former senator from the Liberal Party, who said she supported the Dutch mission but also believed that it was time to pull back most of the troops, leaving F-16s and perhaps trainers for local Afghan troops.

“They’ve got a small military,” said Mr. Lindley-French of the Netherlands Defense Academy. “The force has suffered a great deal of wear and tear. The Dutch have hung in there.

“The real failing is the ability of NATO partners and allies to rotate through the south and the east of the country, where the real center of the struggle exists.”

Dexter Filkins contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, Scott Sayare from Paris, and Thom Shanker from Washington.

Arrest of crucial Taliban figures reflects mysterious

shift in Islamabad's policy: NYT
Afghanistan Sun
Tuesday 23rd February, 2010
(ANI)
Islamabad, Feb. 23 : While Pakistan's motive behind the recent arrests of top Taliban leaders Mullah Kabir and Mullah Baradar remains unclear, the shift in Islamabad's policy towards the Taliban is apparent, US military experts have said.

"This indicates Baradar was not a one off or an accident but a turning point in Pakistan's policy toward the Taliban," the New York Times quoted Bruce Riedel, a researcher at Brookings Institution and a former C.I.A. official, as saying.

"We still need to see how far it goes, but for Obama and NATO this is the best possible news. If the safe haven is closing then the Taliban are in trouble," he added.

Kabir, who is a member of the Quetta Shura, was detained a few days ago from Nawshera in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province.

For years, Pakistani military and intelligence leaders have supported the Taliban, even as Pakistan's leaders claimed to be allies of the United States.

The Pakistani interest in the Taliban has always been as a means to influence events inside Afghanistan, particularly if the Americans leave.

Meanwhile, Hajji Zaman Ghamsharik, who was accused of helping Osama bin Laden escape from the Americans at Tora Bora, was assassinated in a suicide bomber attack on Monday.

"He was a warlord, and he was fighting since 1980. He was bitterly disliked by very many people. And then there were business interests, too," Mirwais Yasini, a member of the Afghan Parliament from Nangarhar, said of Hajji Zaman.

When the Taliban regime collapsed, President Hamid Karzai appointed him military commander of Jalalabad and a large part of eastern Afghanistan, including Tora Bora.


UN's Afghan rep challenges Obama's surge, calls for talks with Taliban's Mullah Omar
Afghanistan Sun
Tuesday 23rd February, 2010
(ANI)
London, Feb.23 : Kai Eide, the United Nation's representative in Afghanistan has challenged US President Barack Obama's "carrot and stick" strategy of a military surge while offering jobs, retraining, resettlement and protection to Taliban figures who break away from Mullah Omar's insurgency, and demanded instead that talks be held with Omar.

Eide, who will demit office next month, said Obama's strategy could actually strengthen the insurgency, as the West has underestimated the number of Taliban fighters driven by conviction rather than simply money.
He warned that attempting to bribe them may actually backfire.
"Often, such motivation stems from a conviction that the [Afghan] government is corrupt and unable to provide law and order combined with a sense of foreign invasion - not only in military terms, but in terms of disrespect for Afghanistan's culture, values and religion," he told the Daily Telegraph.

The "Reintegration Trust Fund" announced at last month's London Conference would only help if offered alongside talks with the Taliban's political leadership, he said.

The fund was not a "game changer" but could help if combined with talks with those ideologically driven Taliban and "if at some point that process involves the political structures of the insurgency. If you want relevant and sustainable results, you will have to involve relevant people with authority in an appropriate way," he said.

He has proposed a series of confidence-building measures to improve the atmosphere for talks, including a pledge by Mullah Omar's Taliban to stop attacking schools and hospitals, freeing some Taliban figures from the American Bagram Detention Centre and removing Taliban leaders from the UN's sanctions list.

Last month US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there was no place in the reintegration scheme for Mullah Omar or his Taliban leadership.

Eide's challenge to the current strategy in Afghanistan follows dramatic developments in Pakistan in the last two weeks where the Taliban's military leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was captured in Karachi along with four other senior leaders.

The raids marked a new understanding on greater co-operation between Washington and the Taliban's former allies in Islamabad.

Michael Semple, a leading authority on the Taliban and a former European Union diplomat, welcomed Eide's comments but questioned whether the Karzai government was ready to talk about peace.

"Kai Eide's political process would specifically engage the Taliban who are committed to their movement and consider it a moral force. The political process to solve this conflict will have to be protected from spoilers on all sides including from those on the Kabul government side who so far have been content for the conflict to drag on, while the bulk of the military and fiscal burden is borne by the United States," he said.