In Afghanistan, Gates Stresses U.S. Is Committed to the Fight

Mr. Gates said at a news conference that it was too early to assess whether the Taliban would come to the negotiating table and disavow ties to Al Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden, the terrorist organization’s founder, who had personal connections to some top insurgent leaders.

On his 12th and final visit to Afghanistan as defense secretary, Mr. Gates said the allies must take full advantage of political opportunities from President Obama’s deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, which has increased pressure on the insurgency.

“The enemy has absorbed serious losses — in leadership, manpower and territory — over the last year and a half,” Mr. Gates said. He argued that the mission should be given time to force the Taliban to lay down their arms and negotiate an end to the war.

Mr. Gates expressed hopes that the Kabul government could open significant reconciliation talks with the insurgency “toward the end of this year.” At that point, he said, the United States might “at least be in a position where we can say we’ve turned the corner here in Afghanistan.”

He warned that “making any change prior to that time would be premature.”

Mr. Gates said the administration was unwavering in its pledge to begin withdrawing the 30,000 “surge” forces beginning in July, based on conditions on the ground; no decision on numbers or pace of the drawdown has been made. All foreign combat troops are to be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Fiscal constraints in Washington, and the death of Bin Laden, have prompted some in Congress to call for swiftly ordering a smaller troop commitment — one focused on hunting terrorists and insurgents, with fewer personnel and less money devoted to rebuilding Afghanistan’s economy and corrupt government institutions. Some administration officials also have favored this more contained mission.

In answer, Mr. Gates said, “The most costly thing of all would be to fail.” At the same time, he acknowledged, “You can’t be oblivious to the growing war-weariness at home and the diminishing support in the Congress.”

A rapid American withdrawal also might be used by allies as a reason to order their forces home, he warned. “We certainly don’t want to precipitate a rush to the exit by our partners,” Mr. Gates said.

At the news conference, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, repeated his condemnation of raids by American-led NATO forces that resulted in civilian deaths. “While we are partners and allies in the war, the people of Afghanistan do not wish or want to see their houses being bombarded, civilians being killed and lives lost,” Mr. Karzai said. “This is the people’s expectation, and demand.”

Mr. Gates noted “that the vast majority of civilian casualties are caused by the Taliban.”

View the original article here

News Analysis: Bin Laden’s Death and the New Unknown in Afghanistan

For the Taliban, the jury is still out: they say their insurgency was never solely dependent on Bin Laden, and they could survive his demise, but the American raid that killed him has raised the possibility that even the movement’s top leaders may not be safe in Pakistan.

Many leaders in Europe, though, see Bin Laden’s death as another reason to pull out of a war they have promised to quit anyway in the next three years. And in Washington, administration officials say they believe that Bin Laden’s death offers them a unique opportunity to unnerve the Taliban leadership and engage them in a political negotiation they have so far resisted.

“If you are Mullah Omar,” one of President Obama’s top advisers said of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Afghan Taliban’s spiritual leader, who operates from Pakistan, “you’ve got to wonder whether the next set of helicopters is coming for you.”

The mystery now is whether the removal of Bin Laden as the central, mesmerizing figure in the battle between fundamentalists and the West is truly a tipping point, as the White House is betting, or whether it will prove more consequential to the debate in the United States about the pace of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, set to begin this summer.

That may depend on a series of events that have yet to unfold: whether Al Qaeda strikes back for the killing of its leader, whether the American military force in Afghanistan remains at its current strength and whether Afghanistan’s own military proves more capable than it has been so far in taking the lead in contested areas of the country.

All last week, Mr. Obama and his aides emphasized that their goal was to defeat Al Qaeda — the Taliban, officials have argued since 2009, simply need to be “degraded” as a force, so that Afghans can fight them and the United States can leave. The president made the distinction clear on Friday during his visit to Fort Campbell, Ky., where he met the Navy Seal team that killed Bin Laden.

“We’re making progress in our major goal, our central goal, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that is disrupting and dismantling — and we are going to ultimately defeat Al Qaeda,” he said. “We have cut off their head, and we will ultimately defeat them.”

The Taliban’s refusal to hand over Bin Laden led to the American invasion in 2001, of course. And separating Al Qaeda from the Taliban has always been an American requirement for any negotiation.

But there is an alternative possibility heard in Kabul: the Taliban may take heart from the death of Bin Laden if they sense that his demise — and Al Qaeda’s infighting — is likely to accelerate an American withdrawal from the region.

The mood in the Taliban’s main leadership organization in Pakistan, the Quetta shura, is calm, according to people who have spoken to some of the members there. Taliban members were passing around a message from Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s No. 2 and Bin Laden’s possible successor, saying that “killing Osama bin Laden is just like taking a single grape from a bunch of grapes.”

A Taliban commander in Kunar Province, Zar Mohammed Ghairat, projected a similarly resolute air. “He was a leader and a man, but there are hundreds of other Osama bin Ladens left behind,” he said.

Though the Taliban and Al Qaeda have been entwined, their aims are believed to have differed. The Taliban’s primary goal has been to control Afghanistan, whereas Al Qaeda has wanted to establish a global terrorist network.

The question for the United States, then, is how many resources — and how many American casualties — should be devoted to dealing with what is essentially a local insurgency, now that Bin Laden is gone?

Most important to the future of that insurgency may be the choices made by Pakistan’s military and its top intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, which have been the Taliban’s prime sponsors.

Pakistani officials were angered and humiliated by the American raid that killed Bin Laden, and Pakistan is likely to remain a difficult partner, reluctant to eliminate the financing and sanctuaries it has provided to the Taliban.

Pakistan’s support, the survival of Mullah Omar and the reluctance so far of Taliban fighters to join the Afghan government make it unlikely that the movement’s energy will be sapped overnight. Similarly, the Taliban’s leaders have not been free to sit down with President Hamid Karzai and work out a deal without running afoul of their Pakistani hosts.

“It is very early,” said Rangin Spanta, the national security adviser to Mr. Karzai. “On the one hand, losing a charismatic leader is good, but we have to think forward and bring a corrective to our strategy in addressing the sanctuaries and choosing our allies.”

Moreover, Al Qaeda’s importance to an insurgency that is far from uniform across Afghanistan, particularly in terms of financing, has waned, Western and Afghan intelligence analysts said.

Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and David E. Sanger from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Carlotta Gall from Islamabad, Pakistan; Ruhullah Khapalwak and Sharifullah Sahak from Kabul; Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan; and an employee of The New York Times from southern Afghanistan.

View the original article here

Costly Afghanistan Road Project Is Marred by Unsavory Alliances

Subcontractors, flush with American money, paid Mr. Arafat at least $1 million a year to keep them safe, according to people involved in the project and Mr. Arafat himself.

The money paid to Mr. Arafat bought neither security nor the highway that American officials have long envisioned as a vital route to tie remote border areas to the Afghan government. Instead, it added to the staggering cost of the road, known as the Gardez-Khost Highway, one of the most expensive and troubled transportation projects in Afghanistan. The 64-mile highway, which has yet to be completed, has cost about $121 million so far, with the final price tag expected to reach $176 million — or about $2.8 million a mile — according to American officials. Security alone has cost $43.5 million so far, U.S.A.I.D. officials said.

The vast expenses and unsavory alliances surrounding the highway have become a parable of the corruption and mismanagement that turns so many well-intended development efforts in Afghanistan into sinkholes for the money of American taxpayers, even nine years into the war. The road is one of the most expensive construction projects per mile undertaken by U.S.A.I.D., which has built or rehabilitated hundreds of miles of Afghan highways and has faced delays and cost overruns on similar projects, according to the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction.

After years of warnings that Mr. Arafat was making a small fortune playing both sides in the war — and after recent queries by The New York Times about payments to him — American officials said they had finally moved to cut him off in April.

Despite the expense, a stretch of the highway completed just six months ago is already falling apart and remains treacherous. The unfinished portion runs through Taliban territory, raising questions about how it can be completed. Cost overruns are already more than 100 percent, all for a road where it was never certain that local Afghans wanted it as badly as the American officials who planned it.

At their worst, the failures have financed the very insurgents that NATO and Afghan forces are struggling to defeat. Some American officials and contractors involved in the project suspect that at least some of the money funneled through Mr. Arafat made its way to the Haqqani group, a particularly brutal offshoot of the Taliban.

Critics say that payoffs to insurgent groups, either directly or indirectly, by contractors working on highways and other large projects in Afghanistan are routine. Some officials say they are widely accepted in the field as a cost of doing business, especially in areas not fully under the control of the United States military or the Afghan government. As a result, contracting companies and the American officials who supervise them often look the other way.

“Does it keep the peace?” asked one United States military officer with experience in volatile eastern Afghanistan. “Definitely. If the bad guys have a stake in the project, attacks go way down.” The officer, like many of the people interviewed, did not want to be named for fear of retribution for criticizing a project that is considered a priority by the American and Afghan governments.

Some also suspected that Mr. Arafat had been staging attacks himself to extort more money for protection, a vicious cycle of blackmail that contractors and American officials acknowledged was a common risk.

In an interview, Mr. Arafat confirmed that he had been fired, but he called accusations that he had funneled money to the Haqqani group a “lie and propaganda,” and he denied staging attacks.

Lofty Goals, Lofty Price Tag

The possibility that American taxpayers’ money has been going to someone with ties to an insurgency that has killed American soldiers and Afghan civilians is just one of the many problems of the Gardez-Khost Highway.

From the beginning in 2007, no one thought that building the road would be easy. Traversing high, rugged terrain, the road rises to more than 9,000 feet. In winter, it is buried in deep snow. In summer, it is covered by a thick layer of chalky earth that engineers refer to as moon dust, which turns to mud in the rain.

But American officials judged the original price tag of $69 million to be worth the cost. The highway was seen as an important way to connect two mountainous provinces in southeast Afghanistan — Paktia and Khost — and wrest from the insurgents a route that they had long used to move money, men and guns into Afghanistan from Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Development officials hoped that the road would better link Afghanistan’s strategic border region to the central government in the capital, Kabul, and encourage commerce. The military hoped it would provide faster access for supplies and fresh troops.

Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul.

 

Afghanistan War Report Cites Progress By Troops

 

WASHINGTON — Tangible progress has been made in expanding security across Afghanistan, the Pentagon reported on Friday, saying that successes on the battlefield over the past several months could be attributed to the 30,000 additional troops sent to the war by President Obama.

But the optimistic tone of the report was tempered by assessments from senior officials in Kabul and Washington that the Taliban and other insurgent groups were expected to attempt spectacular counterattacks, perhaps in the near future.

Fighting across Afghanistan usually increases each year with the spring thaw, and Pentagon and military officials say they expect insurgent leaders to make a major effort soon to prove that their loss of territory to Mr. Obama’s troop increase could be reversed this year.

A senior Pentagon official agreed that the latest update’s tone was more optimistic, even if cautiously so, than that of previous reports, which since 2009 have described the security situation in Afghanistan as deteriorating. Congress requires the progress reports twice a year.

American, allied and Afghan forces have halted the insurgency’s momentum and have achieved “tangible progress in some really key areas,” the Pentagon official said.

Echoing a view often expressed by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Afghanistan, the official warned that the assessment clearly noted that the advances were fragile and reversible.

“It does show progress,” said the official, who briefed reporters under ground rules imposed by the Pentagon that precluded identifying him by name. “It also points out that we do have a resilient enemy,” the official added.

There remain significant shortages of foreign trainers, hampering the development of Afghan security forces, the official noted. And progress in economic development and governance has not kept pace with advances on the battlefield. In addition, corruption across all levels of government puts the military’s gains at risk.

“There is still a lot to do,” the official said. He agreed with military and intelligence officers who said that the public should “expect spectacular attacks” by the insurgency.

The Taliban recently scored both a tactical and a propaganda victory with a major prison break of insurgent fighters. In anticipation of an increasing pace of attacks and bombings, the official contended that individual acts of insurgent violence would not be enough to derail the allied and Afghan campaign.

Noting advances made by allied and Afghan security forces, in particular in the insurgent heartland of southern Afghanistan, the official said that “the pushback of the Taliban out of these key areas in the last year is really a strategic defeat for the Taliban.”

“How they respond, whether it’s attacks there, attacks elsewhere, I don’t know,” the official said.?“But given that strategic setback that they’ve suffered, they’re going to try and send messages to the population in other ways that they’re going to be able to come back.? And that’s going to be a big challenge for the Afghan forces, for us, as those efforts are made.”

The report on progress and stability in Afghanistan again cited the harmful effects of the safe havens that insurgent fighters maintain across the border in Pakistan, allowing them to rest, plan and train before moving back into Afghanistan to mount attacks.

The report was released as General Petraeus was finalizing his proposals for how quickly to start withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan in July, as ordered by the president.

 

Blasts Kill 3 NATO Troops in Afghanistan, Joint Forces Kill 3 Top Insurgents

 VOA News ?April 24, 2011

An Army carry team carries the transfer case containing the remains of Army Sgt. John Castro, of Andrews, Texas, at Dover Air Force Base, DE Saturday, April 23, 2011

NATO says roadside bombs in southern Afghanistan have killed three of its personnel, while coalition and Afghan forces in the east have dealt a blow to the Haqqani insurgent group by killing three of its leaders.

The NATO alliance says the roadside bombings killed one of its service members Sunday and two others on Saturday. Another NATO service member died Saturday when a coalition helicopter crashed in the eastern province of Kapisa. The cause is under investigation. The nationalities of the four NATO personnel have not been disclosed.

NATO also confirmed Sunday that coalition and Afghan forces killed the three Haqqani network leaders in a joint operation Friday in eastern Afghanistan's Khost province. The group has close ties to al-Qaida and operates primarily in the Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktika and Paktiya.

The alliance named one of those killed as Salih Khan, whom it said trained bomb makers, organized car bombings and directed logistics and communications for Haqqani insurgents in the Nadir Shah Kot district of Khost. It said Khan led 20 fighters in two attacks on coalition bases in the past week.

NATO said coalition and Afghan troops have captured or killed at least 15 Haqqani leaders and 130 other Haqqani insurgents so far this year.

The coalition also said a combined force captured a Taliban insurgent leader and several of his associates in the northern province of Kunduz on Saturday. It said the senior militant provided weapons to insurgents in Kunduz and was responsible for attacks on multiple targets, including election sites last September.

In other violence, the Afghan government said a gunman assassinated a former top local government official in the southern province of Helmand late Saturday. It said Abdul Zahir was killed in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah. He had served as the civilian chief of Helmand's Marjah district.

[All VOA blogs...]

Going Green
Watch Rebecca Ward's report on the BP?Gulf oil spill - one year later.

 

World Briefing | Asia: Terrorism Suspect Is Captured in a Raid in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — A man believed to be a senior leader of the terrorist group the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was captured in Afghanistan this week during a joint Afghan and coalition operation in Kunduz Province, NATO officials said Friday.

The raid was the latest in a series conducted by coalition forces against the movement’s leaders in Afghanistan. The group, which is closely tied to Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, has played a role in the revitalized insurgency in northern Afghanistan, where it is believed to be responsible for multiple attacks on Afghan and coalition forces.

NATO does not release the names of captured insurgents. But in a statement, the alliance described the man as the movement’s top leader in Afghanistan. He was taken during a raid on Wednesday along with two associates in the Khanabad district of Kunduz Province. No shots were fired in the operation, NATO said.

Military officials called the man a central conduit between the movement and senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They said he assisted both groups by coordinating suicide and mortar attacks against Afghan and coalition forces throughout northern Afghanistan and helped coordinate insurgent training in both countries. He escaped from a Pakistani prison in 2010, officials said, and he is believed to have paid bribes to secure the release of other prisoners.

The group is estimated to have 2,500 to 4,000 fighters in Pakistan’s tribal regions and in Afghanistan, according to The Long War Journal, a Web site that tracks the conflicts there. In the past two months, coalition forces have killed more than 20 insurgents within the group, including Bilal Konduzi, its top leader in Afghanistan. Mr. Konduzi and another of the movement’s leaders, Shad Mohammad, were killed in an airstrike in Samangan Province on March 10.

News of the capture came as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, was meeting with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, during a brief visit to Kabul on Friday. The trip came as tensions between Pakistan and the United States worsened over Pakistan’s demands that Americans end drone strikes in the tribal areas along the Afghanistan border, and the American insistence that Pakistan do more to deal with insurgents in the areas. Competing aims for the future of Afghanistan have added to the tensions.

Before arriving in Kabul, Admiral Mullen met with the Pakistani Army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in Islamabad. Mr. Karzai had also recently met with a senior Pakistani delegation, including Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who visited Kabul last Saturday.

It is not clear, however, if Admiral Mullen and Mr. Karzai discussed relations among the three countries in any detail on Friday. Waheed Omar, Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, said that while both men discussed their recent conversations with Pakistan officials, that was only one of a wide variety of issues touched on in the hourlong meeting.

“There was not a central focus,” Mr. Omar said. “It was really a general discussion about a range of issues.”

Also on Friday, Afghan officials said that NATO helicopters killed four security guards at a road construction site in an airstrike at 4 a.m. in the Sperra district of Khost Province, near the Pakistan border. A NATO spokesman said the helicopters came under attack from armed men and in the exchange of fire, four people were killed. NATO is investigating the episode.

Insurgents killed a coalition soldier in an attack in eastern Afghanistan on Friday. And five Afghan policeman were killed Thursday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Spinbaldak in Kandahar Province. Three police trainees were also killed on Thursday in Nangarhar Province when their vehicle struck a bomb.

And in the eastern province of Paktika, a combined Afghan and American force killed several insurgents after coming under fire in the Yahya Khel district, NATO officials said. Mukhles Afghan, spokesman for the governor of Paktika, said 12 insurgents were killed. The district has been one of the most volatile in the province. No civilians or Afghan or coalition forces were killed in the attack, Mr. Mukhles said.

Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting from Kabul, Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and an employee of The New York Times from Nangarhar Province.

 

Terrorism Suspect Is Captured in a Raid in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — A man believed to be a senior leader of the terrorist group the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was captured in Afghanistan this week during a joint Afghan and coalition operation in Kunduz Province, NATO officials said Friday.

The raid was the latest in a series conducted by coalition forces against the movement’s leaders in Afghanistan. The group, which is closely tied to Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, has played a role in the revitalized insurgency in northern Afghanistan, where it is believed to be responsible for multiple attacks on Afghan and coalition forces.

NATO does not release the names of captured insurgents. But in a statement, the alliance described the man as the movement’s top leader in Afghanistan. He was taken during a raid on Wednesday along with two associates in the Khanabad district of Kunduz Province. No shots were fired in the operation, NATO said.

Military officials called the man a central conduit between the movement and senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They said he assisted both groups by coordinating suicide and mortar attacks against Afghan and coalition forces throughout northern Afghanistan and helped coordinate insurgent training in both countries. He escaped from a Pakistani prison in 2010, officials said, and he is believed to have paid bribes to secure the release of other prisoners.

The group is estimated to have 2,500 to 4,000 fighters in Pakistan’s tribal regions and in Afghanistan, according to The Long War Journal, a Web site that tracks the conflicts there. In the past two months, coalition forces have killed more than 20 insurgents within the group, including Bilal Konduzi, its top leader in Afghanistan. Mr. Konduzi and another of the movement’s leaders, Shad Mohammad, were killed in an airstrike in Samangan Province on March 10.

News of the capture came as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, was meeting with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, during a brief visit to Kabul on Friday. The trip came as tensions between Pakistan and the United States worsened over Pakistan’s demands that Americans end drone strikes in the tribal areas along the Afghanistan border, and the American insistence that Pakistan do more to deal with insurgents in the areas. Competing aims for the future of Afghanistan have added to the tensions.

Before arriving in Kabul, Admiral Mullen met with the Pakistani Army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in Islamabad. Mr. Karzai had also recently met with a senior Pakistani delegation, including Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who visited Kabul last Saturday.

It is not clear, however, if Admiral Mullen and Mr. Karzai discussed relations among the three countries in any detail on Friday. Waheed Omar, Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, said that while both men discussed their recent conversations with Pakistan officials, that was only one of a wide variety of issues touched on in the hourlong meeting.

“There was not a central focus,” Mr. Omar said. “It was really a general discussion about a range of issues.”

Also on Friday, Afghan officials said that NATO helicopters killed four security guards at a road construction site in an airstrike at 4 a.m. in the Sperra district of Khost Province, near the Pakistan border. A NATO spokesman said the helicopters came under attack from armed men and in the exchange of fire, four people were killed. NATO is investigating the episode.

Insurgents killed a coalition soldier in an attack in eastern Afghanistan on Friday. And five Afghan policeman were killed Thursday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Spinbaldak in Kandahar Province. Three police trainees were also killed on Thursday in Nangarhar Province when their vehicle struck a bomb.

And in the eastern province of Paktika, a combined Afghan and American force killed several insurgents after coming under fire in the Yahya Khel district, NATO officials said. Mukhles Afghan, spokesman for the governor of Paktika, said 12 insurgents were killed. The district has been one of the most volatile in the province. No civilians or Afghan or coalition forces were killed in the attack, Mr. Mukhles said.

Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting from Kabul, Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and an employee of The New York Times from Nangarhar Province.

 

Talks on U.S. Presence in Afghanistan After Pullout Unnerve Region

Afghanistan and the United States are in the midst of negotiating what they are calling a Strategic Partnership Declaration for beyond 2014.

Critics, including many of Afghanistan’s neighbors, call it the Permanent Bases Agreement — or, in a more cynical vein, Great Game 3.0, drawing a comparison with the ill-fated British and Russian rivalry in the region during the 19th and 20th centuries.

It is without doubt a delicate process, and one that comes at a critical time. Afghan officials have expressed concern that the negotiations could scuttle peace talks with the Taliban, now in their early stages, because the insurgents have insisted that foreign forces must leave the country before they will deal. That they are already talking is an indication they are willing to compromise on the timing of a withdrawal — but it is hard to imagine Taliban acceptance of a lasting American presence here.

Formal talks on a long-term agreement began last month under Marc Grossman, the official who has replaced Richard C. Holbrooke, the diplomat who died in December, as the Obama administration’s envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a delegation visited Kabul under the direction of Frank Ruggiero, a State Department official who ran the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team until last year.

The reaction regionally was immediate. The Iranian interior minister made a rushed visit to Kabul, followed shortly by the national security advisers of India and Russia.

The Russians, though generally supportive of NATO’s role in Afghanistan, were alarmed at the prospect of a long-term Western presence.

“The Russian side supports the development of Afghanistan by its own forces in all areas — security, economic, political — only by its own forces, especially after 2014,” said Stepan Anikeev, a political adviser at the Russian Embassy here. “How is transition possible with these bases?”

American officials have hastened to assure Russia and other neighbors about their intentions after 2014. Mr. Grossman made a visit late last month to Moscow to do so. And officials from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on down have insisted that any presence after 2014 would not mean permanent bases.

It is a “long-term framework for our bilateral cooperation,” Mrs. Clinton said in a speech to the Asia Society on Feb. 18.

“In no way should our enduring commitment be misunderstood as a desire by America or our allies to occupy Afghanistan against the will of its people,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding, “We do not seek any permanent American military bases in their country.”

The Russians, however, have complained that any talk of a foreign troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014 violates international understandings, including one made in a joint statement by President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev on June 24 supporting a neutral status for Afghanistan.

Afghan officials have acknowledged, however, that the talks do countenance some sort of long-term bases after 2014, if only for the purpose of continued training of Afghan troops. “What we’re discussing is a long-term strategic framework agreement,” said Ashraf Ghani, an adviser to President Hamid Karzai who is one of the Afghan negotiators. “The U.S. has many 10- to 25-year-long agreements, a wide range of agreements.”

“The important thing now is that the sense of abandonment that was in the air last year is gone now,” he said.

One person’s long-term base is another’s permanent base, however — and in the region many people took Mrs. Clinton’s assurances as proof that the United States was not leaving, whatever the bases are called.

“A 10- or 20-years agreement can be prolonged at any time,” Mr. Anikeev said. “And we have no guarantee they’re not permanent.”

“The Americans have not been honest about this, even among themselves,” said Mullah Attullah Lodin, deputy chairman of the High Peace Council of Afghanistan, which is charged with leading reconciliation efforts with the Taliban. “One says we are not building bases, another says we are building them, and it’s very confusing.”

The big concern, he said, was that if any such agreement were reached, it would make it that much harder to enter into serious peace talks with the Taliban. “That is the first thing the Taliban demand is the withdrawal of foreign troops,” Mullah Lodin said.

Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the national security adviser to Mr. Karzai, disagreed. “Reconciliation and a strategic relationship, they are not contradictory to one another. We have the same goals, peace and stability in Afghanistan, and elimination of sanctuaries and bases for terrorism, that is for the common good.”

Despite such worries, American and Afghan officials are negotiating on an accelerated timetable, with the Americans hoping to come to an agreement by July, when the first withdrawals of some American troops are to start, diplomats say.

“The Afghans are very worried about after 2014,” said a European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic delicacies. “They’re trying to extract from the West as much as they can now.”

Mr. Ghani said that Afghan officials were hoping to win agreement on the transfer of Provincial Reconstruction Teams, which dispense aid from the United States and NATO countries directly to projects in the Afghan countryside, to Afghan government control. In general, the Afghans want to see more aid money funneled through their government, and they also want to see a reduced presence of the United Nations.

Then there is the issue of how the Afghans will be able to pay for their greatly enlarged police and military, which by some estimates will require $10 billion a year to sustain come 2014 — 10 times the Afghan government’s annual tax revenues.

“The whole mindset is to get as much as possible in the course of the next couple years,” the European diplomat said. “They really understand that they won’t get as much as they used to get, and they’re desperate to get as much as they can.”

One regional diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity for similar reasons, said the Americans were equally concerned to keep a long-term or permanent foothold in Afghanistan for their own interests as well.

“There was a time when the Americans were struggling to find one base in Central Asia,” he said. “Here is a place where they can have all the bases they want, and Afghanistan is a place between two potential nuclear Islamic powers, Iran and Pakistan.”

“There are forces of reaction who are itching to fire the starting gun on Great Game 3.0, and the insurgents will try to exploit this,” said Mark Sedwill, the NATO senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, in a recent speech.

Reaching accord among the diplomats on a Strategic Partnership Declaration will only be a first step. Mr. Karzai has already said any such agreement would have to be put to a nationwide loya jirga, a tribal assembly that acts as referendum on important issues.

“In general, people in Afghanistan are against foreign forces,” Mullah Lodin, the negotiator, said. “I don’t think the loya jirga will ever support foreign forces in the country.”

Mr. Spanta recognized the difficulty. “We have to convince the Afghan people there is something for us in this,” he said.

 

Karzai: Afghanistan, Pakistan to Boost Taliban Peace Efforts

 VOA News ?April 16, 2011

Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, left, speaks with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai during a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, April 16, 2011

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani have agreed to boost joint efforts to make peace with the Taliban.

Gilani flew Saturday to the Afghan capital, Kabul, to hold talks with President Karzai. ?

At a news conference after their meeting, Karzai said Pakistan has upgraded a joint Afghan-Pakistan peace commission to the highest government level. He said the Pakistani prime minister is now leading the Pakistani side of the commission along with Pakistan's chief of army staff and the nation's intelligence chief. President Karzai indicated Afghanistan would enact a similar upgrade.

The commission is aimed at working out logistics for negotiations with the Taliban. Gilani said Pakistan supports an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process and said Kabul must set the parameters for any talks. He said imposing conditions or demands on the reconciliation process at this stage is not helpful.

In addition to peace efforts, trade issues and improving security were among the topics the two leaders were scheduled to discuss.

The talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan come at a time when U.S. relations with both nations are strained.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

[All VOA blogs...]

Now You Know
Watch Todd Grosshan's report - "What is Radioactivity?"

 

Suicide Bomber Strikes in Eastern Afghanistan, Killing 9

 Phil Ittner | Islamabad ?April 16, 2011

Afghan army forces stand guard as the view of the military base is seen in the background after suicide bomber has blew himself up at the entrance to the military base in eastern province of Laghman, east of Kabul, April 16, 2011

A suicide bomber, reportedly wearing an Afghan Army Uniform,? detonated explosives outside a military base near Jalalabad in Eastern Afghanistan.? Officials say at least five NATO service members and four Afghan soldiers were killed and another eight people , including four translators, were wounded in the attack.

The attack coincides with a number of efforts on the diplomatic front to bring a close to the nearly 10 year old conflict. ?

In what is one of the worst attacks on NATO forces in months a man reportedly wearing an Afghan uniform infiltrated security at the base outside Jalalabad in the early morning hours Saturday. ?

The attack comes just a day after another bomber claimed the life of the Police Chief of Kandahar in Southern Afghanistan.

Afghan Defense Ministry authorities say they are looking into whether or not the bomber was just wearing a uniform or if he had actually been in the military. A Taliban spokesman claims the bomber was a sleeper agent who had been in the army for over a month.

Infiltration into the Afghan military has long been a major concern for authorities? in the war zone.? Vetting of applicants remains a major priority.

Another concern is that uniforms are readily available in markets throughout Afghanistan allowing for a quick disguise for terrorists or Taliban.

Traditionally fighting escalates in Afghanistan as the weather turns warmer. The end of April or beginning of May is often referred to as the beginning of the ‘fighting season’.

But these attacks come also at a time when diplomatic efforts are mounting.; in an effort to capitalize on NATO and Afghan gains in the last year.

For Dr. Mohammed Omar Sharifi of the American Institute for Afghan Studies, it is no coincidence that the attacks come at the same time as Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani traveled to Kabul.

"It's not the first time actually happening when there is a diplomatic efforts there is always a show of force by the Taliban or their supporters, normally mean both attacks, in a sense, the terrorists and the Taliban are trying to show they are capable of mounting devastating attacks," he said.

Prime Minister Gilani’s trip to Kabul included meetings with Hamid Karzai and Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak.

Following those meetings Prime Minister Gilani said all parties, including the U.S. and Afghanistan, were of the same mind that there should be some sort of reconciliation with certain elements of the insurgency in order to bring about peace.

With Pakistan and Afghanistan sharing a porous border, the ongoing war effort is also affecting Islamabad’s authority. And Prime Minister Gilani quickly noted that in many ways the fight is a shared one.

"If there is a military action in our area then people go to Afghanistan, and if there is a military action from the NATO forces they come to Pakistan. Therefore we should have more intelligence cooperation and defense cooperation and political cooperation because we are both suffering, we are brothers, we are neighbors, and we should not suffer more," he said.

With the increase in violence and fighting expected in the coming weeks and months however authorities say it will take a concerted effort on all parties, Afghan, Pakistani and NATO to continue to put pressure on the Taliban to bring them to the table.

And, many say, for their part the Taliban will need to show that they are still capable of launching significant attacks so that they can come to the table from a position of strength as well.

And that may be why things appear to have escalated in recent days.

* Required By using this form you agree to the following: All comments will be reviewed before posting. Be aware - not all submissions will be posted. VOA has the right to use your comments worldwide in any VOA produced media. Terms & Conditions