EA WorldView: EA Afghanistan-Pakistan

Afghanistan Opinion: Why the US-Afghan Pact is a Victory for Kabul

Josh Shahryar — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:34:27 +0000

President Barack Obama quietly flew into Afghanistan last week on a significant mission ---- to join Afghan President Hamid Karzai in signing the Strategic Partnership Agreement between the two countries. The text still needs to be ratified by the US Congress and the Afghan Parliament, but at face value, it is quite an achievement for Afghanistan.

For such a grand agreement, with Afghanistan designated as a "major non-NATO ally" like South Korea, Israel, and neighbouring Pakistan, the document is only nine pages long. It leaves out many important details that will likely be discussed and hammered out at a later date, but Kabul's declared status provides a new level of protection.

The biggest advantage the Taliban have had in the fight against the central government has been their ability to convince fighters inside and outside the country that the pull-out of foreign troops would leave Karzai standing alone. That message boosted the confidence of elements inside Pakistan's security forces who are tacitly supporting the insurgents.

Taliban casualties appear to be several times higher than those of the Afghan National Security Forces and international troops combined, but the logic has been simple: hold ground and fight back until the foreigners leave. Absorb the losses by recruiting more members willing to die for the cause.

This pact erodes some of the Taliban's advantage, making a commitment that some US troops will remain in Afghanistan until 2024. The 12-year timeframe lessens the weight of any declaration of victory against foreign troops.

The bad news for the Taliban does not end there.

As a "major non-NATO ally", the Afghanistan National Security Forces will likely receive a boost through US funding. That's a significant motivation, and it follows the recent events in Kabul when ANSF was largely responsible for repelling Taliban attacks, with heavy casualties to the terrorists and lighter ones to the capital's defenders.

The ANSF is not as weak as it has been perceived. With further Americann funding and US tactical and strategic support on the ground, it can be at least as formidable a force as the Taliban.

The pact is also food for thought for those elements inside Pakistan who have supported the Taliban in the hope that when the US leaves, they could push insurgents back into Afghanistan and then deal with the elements remaining in Pakistan. The US commitment in the pact could mean that Islamabad now has more to gain from a joint fight with Kabul against the Taliban.

I await the final details of the pact to assess how crucial they may be. But for now, Afghans can take heart that they do not face the crisis of a near-term American withdrawal.

Afghanistan Follow-Up: Sunday's 18-Hour Battle in Kabul (Al Jazeera English)

Scott Lucas — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:00:14 +0000

Al Jazeera English reports:

Gun battles between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters in the capital, Kabul, have ended after almost 18 hours of fierce fighting, according to government and police officials.

"The latest information we have about the Afghan parliament area is that the attack is over now and the only insurgent who was resisting has been killed," Hashmatullah Stanikzai, the Kabul police chief's spokesman, said on Monday.

There are conflicting reports regarding the number of casualties in the co-ordinated attacks that targeted mainly western installations in Kabul, which the Taliban described as the launch of a "spring offensive".

Defence ministry said 32 gunmen and three Afghan soldiers were killed in the operation against the multiple assaults, Reuters news agency reported.

However, AFP news agency said 36 fighters and eight members of security forces were killed and 44 others were wounded in the gun battle.

Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Kabul, said: "They [Taliban] have been able to strike right in the heart of the city, supposedly the most well protected part of Afghanistan."

"There are now of course, serious questions about intelligence failings that allowed the Taliban to effectively lay siege of the city for almost 18 hours," he said.

The Afghan capital awoke on Monday to a second day of explosions and heavy gunfire as a joint operation by Afghan and international forces worked to defeat the fighters holed up in one building in the heart of the city and another near the Afghan parliament.

As darkness turned to dawn, Afghan-led forces fired one rocket-propelled grenade after another into a building in the centre of the city, where gunmen began the co-ordinated attacks on Sunday in the capital and three eastern cities.

The attacks on Sunday, which targeted embassies, government buildings and NATO bases, underscored the security challenge facing Afghan security forces as their US and NATO allies plan to leave by the end of 2014.

These were the the worst attacks in the capital since the Taliban was overthrown 11 years ago.

A Taliban spokesman said the violence marked the start of their annual spring offensive which heralded the fighting season, adding that "a lot of suicide bombers" were involved.

It said the main targets were the German and British embassies, and the headquarters of Afghanistan's NATO-led force, all in Kabul.

Bombers struck across Afghanistan in co-ordinated attacks, with explosions and gunfire shaking the diplomatic area of Kabul as Taliban fighters took over nearby buildings and tried to enter parliament.

The assault appeared to repeat the tactics of an attack in Kabul last September when fighters entered construction sites in several places to use them as positions for rocket and gun attacks.

Some legislators grabbed weapons and started fighting when gunmen fired on the parliament building.

On Monday morning, Al Jazeera's Smith reported from Kabul that police had been seen removing bodies from the site of an assault on Taliban attackers who had been holed up in a construction site next to the Kabul Star hotel.

Afghan security forces, who are responsible for the safety of the capital, were scrambling to reinforce areas around the so-called "Green Zone" diplomatic section of the city centre.

Afghanistan Latest: Taliban Launch Multiple Attacks in Kabul and East of Country (New York Times)

Scott Lucas — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 11:20:21 +0000

Alissa J. Rubin, Graham Bowley, and Sangar Rahimi report for The New York Times:

The Taliban staged multiple and sustained attacks across Kabul and eastern Afghanistan on Sunday hitting the heavily secured diplomatic neighborhood of Kabul and the Parliament area as well as Afghan government installations in at least two provinces.

A NATO spokesman confirmed multiple attacks had occurred across Kabul, potentially in as many as seven locations.

The attack in the city began at about 1:35 p.m. and was still under way more than an hour and 15 minutes later. The Kabul police said that two attacks were under way, one near the Zanbak Square entry to the Presidential Palace and one near Parliament.

Gunfire followed by several explosions broke out in an area near the German and British Embassies and a major NATO military camp, usually a heavily guarded area of the Afghan capital at just after 135 p.m. on Sunday. Rockets landed near the British and Canadian Embassies and World Bank office.

The last major attack on a diplomatic installation in Kabul was by suicide bombers on the American Embassy that lasted for 19 hours in September and was blamed on the Haqqani network.

In the upscale residential neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan, police rushed past a supermarket a couple of hundred meters from the roadway that leads to the German Embassy and Camp Eggers, a major NATO camp that includes many of the top officials that run the NATO training mission.

There were several explosions that sounded like bombs followed by explosions from several rockets. Sirens sounded at nearby embassies warning people to “duck and cover and get away from the windows.”

With each explosion, windows shook in nearby houses. Smoke could be seen rising from some buildings, and witnesses told Reuters that smoke appeared to be billowing from the German embassy.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, blasted a text message to reporters saying: “We sent suicide bombers to Kabul and they are now taking over Parliament, US Embassy and all diplomatic buildings.”

In Paktia Province, three gunman wearing suicide vests stormed into a building opposite the police training center in Gardez, said Abdul Rahman Mangal, deputy provincial governor of Paktia. They were shooting at the academy with light and heavy weapons. At least four people have been wounded.

In Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, gunmen armed with suicide vests entered Afghan National Army corps headquarters, which is near the airport and were shooting, the Nangahar police chief, Abdullah Stanekzai, said.

And in Logar Province, also east of Kabul, officials said four suicide bombers had entered the Mining Ministry building while two others had occupied another building in an effort to target the nearby governors office and the National Directorate of Security office, the Afghan intelligence department.

Afghanistan Feature: Why The Names of the Kandahar Dead Matter

Josh Shahryar — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 08:06:24 +0000

Anar Gul gestures to the body of her grandchild, killed by Sergeant Robert Bales in Kandahar (Photo: AP)

On 11 March, United States Army Staff Sargeant Robert Bales went on a killing spree in Afghanistan. He barged into two houses in the pre-dawn hours and killed a total of 16 civilians, including nine children and several women. He then gathered and burnt some of the bodies then and there.

In the past 12 days, we have learned about everything that can be dug up about Robert Bales, including the blogposts his wife wrote about his lengthy tours. Huffington Post blogger Dean Obeidallah has written has written about the information overload regarding SS Bales and given quite extensive examples.

The process is called humanization. It's where the media takes someone in the news and inform the readers about everything you can possibly find about that person to paint a picture that the ordinary citizen can relate to. It's done so that you - the reader - can better understand the story.

But it's only reserved most of the time for...you guessed it --- humans.

And while I agree ---- no matter how terrible his crime, he's still human --- what disgusts me as an Afghan is the degree to which the victims of this massacre have been ignored. Imagine if this was a serial killer who committed this crime in a suburb of Chicago? By now, you'd have pictures of every victim, published in neat collages in every major newspaper in the US.

You'd have extensive interviews with family members, videos of the child's playground, his toys, his school books... But in this case, you don't. The mainstream media here has almost entirely ignored the victims. I mean, forget pictures, google search for their names and the only story you'd stumble upon in a large media outlet is on Al Jazeera - written by an Afghan reporter simply fed up with that situation.

As an Afghan reporter, I'm going to do just the same and simply republish the names here from the original article by Qais Azimy:

In honoring their memory, I write their names below, and the little we know about them: that nine of them were children, three were women.

The Dead:

1. Mohamed Dawood son of Abdullah
2. Khudaydad son of Mohamed Juma
3. Nazar Mohamed
4. Payendo
5. Robeena
6. Shatarina daughter of Sultan Mohamed
7. Zahra daughter of Abdul Hamid
8. Nazia daughter of Dost Mohamed
9. Masooma daughter of Mohamed Wazir
10. Farida daughter of Mohamed Wazir
11. Palwasha daughter of Mohamed Wazir
12. Nabia daughter of Mohamed Wazir
13. Esmatullah daughter of Mohamed Wazir
14. Faizullah son of Mohamed Wazir
15. Essa Mohamed son of Mohamed Hussain
16. Akhtar Mohamed son of Murrad Ali

You could add that Masooma means "innocent girl" and Payendo means "long-lasting". And Al Jazeera's Afghan journalists went further. They went on the ground and documented the suffering of the people They even went to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's meeting with those families to let the world know of the helplessness of not just the Afghan people, but also the Afghan Government is challenged by this tragedy.

The US mainstream media has people on the ground in Afghanistan. They also have access. Yet they have not documented names or pictures or stories. Afghan tragedies have been left for Afghans to cover, even when that tragedy is caused by an American.

Is it so difficult to republish just the names that from Al Jazeera in The New York Times? Or The Washington Post? Maybe put them on the back pages of CNN's website?

An incident like this leads Afghans to think that maybe the US media and elite --- including those running the Government --- don't look at Afghans the way they look at other peoples. While people need to know everything about a mass murderer, they might not require knowledge of the victims because they belong to a culture that is too primitive.

Yes, "primitive". That was the word used by National Review Online in an editorial, referring to Afghans and Afghan culture, as it pondered the Kandahar Massacre a few days ago.

An American soldier goes to Afghanistan and massacres 16 civilians inside their homes, then burns their bodies. And we are the ones who are primitive.

I have a world of respect for US soldiers in uniform. They are the best America has to offer. I think of my friend Ben, who served in Iraq and whose humorous stories on Facebook I greatly enjoy. Ben's the sort of guy you don't ever have to meet to love and respect. There are others, too, including those whom I have seen playing with Afghan children and making them laugh, But this post isn't about US soldiers. It is those for whom those young men and women are dying, but who are dying themselves. Is it too much to ask that they are treated with some respect by the US media?

This has happened before in America's wars. As General William Westmoreland's assessed the lives of Vietnamese in the documentaryHearts and Minds:

The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner...We value life and human dignity. They don't care about life and human dignity.

My friend Ahmad Shuja recently wrote for UN Dispatch:

The debate following the Kandahar massacre shows that Americans at home and in Afghanistan still don't quite understand the meaning of events in that country... Misreading the public reaction after repeatedly observing an overwhelmingly peaceful population means the international mission has some serious difficulties connecting with the people and drawing the right lessons.

Well, how do you connect with a people when most of your media does not seem to even regard them, well, as people?

*Since this article was drafted, The Wall Street Journal has published a story, with the names and the circumstances of some of the victims' deaths.

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Afghanistan Opinion: The Kandahar Killings and America's "Soviet" Mistakes

Josh Shahryar — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:06:33 +0000

One Site of the Kandahar Killings (Mammon Durrani --- AFP/Getty)I remember having a heated debate with a diplomat friend, over some of the finest Bavarian beers, about the value of life. He ended the discussion, "Sometimes, in the grand scheme of things, even great tragedies become somewhat immaterial when you consider the circumstances."

The tragedy in Kandahar yesterday, which took the life of 16 innocent civilians --- nine of them children --- might fit that descript.

Whether the US army sergeant responsible for the crime is mentally unstable or did this out of blind hatred will take some time to clarify. But what's more appalling is that that the incident resurrects a question, rearing up as recently as last month with the Qur'an burning, and yet remains unanswered: why is the US shooting itself in the foot in Afghanistan over and over again?

Even before America stepped into the scene in the latter part of 2001, many Afghans were wondering if the US knew what it was getting into. One does not simply enter Afghanistan with a large army and expect the people to respect them, honor them, love them or even accept them without giving some serious thought to the experiences Afghans have been through.

I'm not talking the crushed empires of era before Christ or even the 19th century humiliation of the British. As much as Stanford grad students and "three-cups-of-tea"-drinkers might wish it were true, Afghans have suffered too many tragedies in the recent past to give too much thought to what they have endured in the previous 3000 years.

What I am talking about is the Soviet Union. The collective psyche of the Afghan still has that story etched on its frontal lobe. Yes, we remember the Mujahideen destroying Kabul. We also remember the Taliban's reign of theo-terror. But none of that would have been happenly had not the Soviet Union so brazenly violated our sovereignty to get to those damned warm waters. The Soviet invasion was and is still considered the causes belli of the never-ending war in Afghanistan --- the spark, if you will, that burnt the whole country to the ground and is now kicking the ashes in its people's faces.

How do you deal with the emotions Afghans have for a large, Western army that enters Afghanistan to tell its people what they should or shouldn't do?

Americans are not the only people who are addicted to generalisng peoples and countries based on their appearances and locations; however, if your average American can easily mistake Afghans for Arabs and Afghanistan for Saudi Arabia, you should be prepared for Afghans to at least draw some similarities between the Soviets and the Americans.

Let's see…

You're both White. You both speak a European language. You drink a lot of alcohol and "shamelessly" walk around with your women without making them wear burkas.

You both put men in power who are corrupt and are perfectly fine with making people's life miserable with militias. You both "mistakenly" bomb villages and kill dozens of people. You both take our men to prisons where they disappear for years. You both seem to have little regard for our holy book. And you both have soldiers that rape our women and kill entire families whenever they please?

Okay, the US is not nearly as ruthless when it comes to dealing with Afghans as the Soviets were. But like the American, the Afghan makes mistakes when comparing peoples that look similar in a lot of ways. And when you've had 33 years of war and a 10-year-long repression from another Western power, it doesn't take a truckload of Qura'ns to be burnt and stomped on on the streets of Kabul for people to start suspecting Americans of being disrespectful to their religion. It doesn't take 100 incidents of mass murder by a mentally ill soldier to make people think, "Hey, maybe they're all like that?" It doesn't take 1,000 rapes --- five or ten will do.

Most Afghans welcomed and are still okay with the NATO presence in the country. In return, is it too much to ask for America and its allies to try and not invoke the memory of the Soviets time and time again? After all, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans with doctorates are using their collective über-brains to support the US actions here. Why is it so difficult for them to get across the simple message that you have to be extremely careful here, given the hatred that exists towards the Soviets?

I wish there were easy answers to what the US should do in the case of the Kandahar Massacre. But here's a starting thought: maybe once, the US should ask the Afghans what might calm their anger a little bit.

I'm not talking about throwing the perpetrator --- who in my opinion deserves a humane trial, no matter the gravity of his crime --- to the victims' families. Instead, US authorities should give the locals affected by this tragedy some options as to how they want the situation to be dealt with so at least they won't go out holding banners in protest that simply state in bold lettering: "United States = Soviet Union". Those options could be anything from generous compensations to a trial held in the area where the crime occured. This is not your average crime. It was brazen. It was committed by an individual clearly linked to you. It was not a mistake. You can't just apologise and move on.

If you attempt that token apology, the Taliban won't need to tweet about it --- the Afghans affected by this crime and by similar incidents will lose their minds. Given how many of tthese incidents have occured recently, that will be a lot of Afghanistan. You don't need that while you're trying to sign a strategic agreement to allow for a long-term US presence.

For starters, here's something you could stop doing that haunts the memory of every Afghan, no matter where he or she lives, to this day: Soviet soldiers, sometimes with their Afghan comrades, broke our doors late at night, walked in with guns, and took our brothers, fathers, sons, and cousins away from us, sometimes forever.

So, after the rhetoric subsides about the lone Kandahar soldier who in no way stands for the American forces in Afghanistan, have a think about your "night raids". And think why you might want to demonstrate that the "United States does not equal the Soviet Union".

Afghanistan Developing: US Soldier Kills Civilians --- At Least 17? (Al Jazeera English)

Scott Lucas — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 09:29:54 +0000

Al Jazeera English reports:

A US soldier has killed more than a dozen civilians in a shooting spree in southern Afghanistan before being detained, officials say.

A member of the Kandahar provincial council who visited the site of the shooting in Panjwai district told Al Jazeera that at least 17 civilians were killed when the soldier left his base early on Sunday morning and opened fire.

Captain Justin Brockhoff, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) could not confirm any fatalities in the incident.

“This is a horrific incident, and our thoughts are with the families of the affected. Our initial reports indicate multiple civilians - between four and six- are wounded. Those civilians are receiving care at coalition medical facilities," he told Al Jazeera.

"At this point we do not have an indication - we can not speculate about the individual's motives."

Sediq Seddiqi, the spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry, told Al Jazeera the incident was under investigation. He could not confirm any reports of casualties.

l Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Herat, said the soldier opened fire on civilians around the base.

"We are now being told by the police sources that the US soldier left his base at three o clock this morning. It would have been pitch-black wherever he walked," he said.

Civilian casualties have been a major source of friction between President Hamid Karzai's government and US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Anti-American sentiment had already been running high before news of the latest civilian casualties.

Anger gripped the country after US soldiers burned a large number of copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, at a NATO base last month, which NATO said was a tragic blunder.

At least 30 people were killed in protests.

Afghanistan Opinion: The How, Why, and Hope Around the "Quran Burning" Protests

Josh Shahryar — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 07:39:04 +0000

Photo: Akhtar Soomro (Reuters)It is very difficult when every day you wake up and write and talk about revolutions in the Middle East, where people live and die for freedom, justice and, democracy, while your country is a 100 years behind. Make that 200 when your country happens to be Afghanistan.

It is hard as a journalist to remain unbiased, avoiding emotion when you see your people die over the accidental burning of the Qur'an.

Let me say this clearly: the burnings must be condemned. It is against the spirit of respect for religions not to be careful when handling their holy books. It doesn't matter whether this the Quran, the Geeta, the Torah, or the Bible

In the case of this burning, though, there remains a sense of grief and shock, not just among foreigners but also Afghans. In almost a week of protests, more than 30 people have died because of anger unleashed on the Afghan government and foreigners. While the violence should be deplored --- there have been apologies by even the most minimally involved --- it is important to examine why this has happened.

Anger and Frustration

Afghans, like people of any other nation, are human beings. They don't like being oppressed, even if most of the men are pretty OK with oppressing women. They don't like justice not to be served. They don't like their government to be corrupt. They don't like living under the shadows of warlords with their militias. Most of all, they don't like not having work --- unemployment in Afghanistan is almost 35%.

They also don't like going home to their kids and seeing them without the prospect of proper schooling, starving, and dying of cold. And that younger generation feels the same about the word "change" as other peoples around the world standing up for their demands. After ten years of promises from the government and the international community, people want a change from where they were in the early years of the millennium.

Every Afghan I've spoken to desires this deeply. The trouble is, desiring something and attaining it require struggles and sacrifices. Those struggles and sacrifices in turn require planning and leadership. That's where the problem lies.

Lack of Intellectual Leadership

Some part of Afghanistan, often the majority of the country, has been engulfed in armed conflict for more than three decades. Add terrorist attacks, attacks against terrorists, and infighting among Afghan warlords during the past 10 years, and even the relative peace achieved after the US onvasion looks pretty damn non-peaceful.

This warfare resulted in an exodus of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Afghans out of the country with each twist in the conflict. At one point in the late 1990s, there were 8 million Afghan refugees --- the largest such crisis after 1945

It is true that, every time there was an exodus, it was followed by a large influx as relative peace arrived. Twice, the influx was massive, in the 1990s when the Russians left, and then in 2001-2005 when the US invasion allowed a rather stable government to be established. The second influx was also helped by the fact that Afghanistan's neighbors, Iran and Pakistan, had tired of hosting millions of Afghans on their soil for two decades and wanted them to go back home and stop being an economic burden.

What many don't seem to understand is that although much of the Afghan refugee populations returned, from Pakistan and Iran, the intellectual class --- if you can call it that --- largely escaped to the West. This was true in the 80s, the 90s, and, with the increase in violence, in the 2000s and 2010s. Smart, educated, slightly progressive Afghans do not want to live in a country where ignorant, illiterate and violent warlords rule under the protection of a corrupt and reactionary government. They want better economic and political opportunities which Afghanistan in its current condition cannot offer.

The recent exodus is of men and women who were mostly raised in the neighboring countries and returned to Afghanistan with more education than their compatriots. They are joined by the generation who grew up in the 2000s and were able to attain what little they could in the few early years of relative prosperity from the fractured education system of the country.

This group may not consider themselves better than the the average Afghan, but their presence is intolerable to not just the Taliban, but also to many inside the country who would rather Afghanistan remain as conservative as possible. That conservatism in turn can be exploited to continue ruling the population under the guise of Islam, even though the rulers may be as far removed from actual Islamic values as possible.

More than 30,000 Afghans applied for asylum abroad last year alone. This year, the number may eclipse last year's. In essence, you have a country where the elder intellectuals have already disappeared, and the up-and-coming ones are slowly having to run away for economic, political and other reasons.

Mullahs to the Rescue

This brain drain has left the people with three choices for leadership --- the corrupt government, the violent warlords, and the mullahs.

As strange as it may seem to outsiders, seven years of brutal Taliban rule and almost a decade of suicide attacks have not been enough to erase the deep mark of Islam, ingrained on the hearts of Afghans over almost 1300 years. The government and the warlords don't want to lead people to protest for political change --- they're pretty okay with being in power. The mullahs, on the other hand, have had their powers curbed to an extent after the fall of the Taliban and they face a new political atmosphere which further threatens that power with a certain degree of freedoms, education for women, and rapid Westernization of the younger generation in the large urban centres.

Hence, when opportunities like this arise, they are quick to exploit them. This is not to say that the responsibility lies solely with the religious leaders, as a large part of the protests was made up of people who came out on their own initiative. However, at the crux of the demonstrations lies the thought of mullahs who have continued to rule mosques and communities through religious reverence.

These are the real thought leaders of Afghanistan. If Egypt has young bloggers, hungering for democrcacy, if Bahrain has Abdulhadi Alkhawaja and Nabeel Rajab, if Iran has Mousavi and Karroubi, Afghanistan has mullahs. They form a collective of thousands of anonymous domains, ruled not by wealth or force but by their almost complete monopoly over people's religious beliefs and feelings --- and because of the absence of secular intellectuals -- they are de facto leaders of Afghan hearts and minds.

iotas of Change

During the reaction to the news of Quran desecrations at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, when protests took the lives of more than a dozen Afghans in 2005, I remember walking to our paper's office. Everyone was slightly concerned. What depressed me was that no one was ready to ask the whys or the hows. The same was true in my conversations with family, friends, and ordinary Afghans --- the complete externalization of blame for something we were at least partly responsible.

Everyone was ready to condemn the foreigners for not respecting Islam; for not understanding Afghans. Few pondered if Afghans understood Afghans well enough. More importantly: no one considered if we were ready to ask tough questions and look for solutions.

Not much had changed when a similar incident took more lives last year, but there is a tiny, almost miniscule, shift this time, I have noticed a small number of young Afghan professionals quietly criticise the protests. Their voices are so faint, their numbers so low that this by no means can be considered an event. But, given the silence before this, it is a near-miracle.

What the coy this-is-not-right and we-shouldn't-be-protesting gave me and others like me is a glimmer of almost unreachable hope. Maybe this is the beginning of a small, on-line progressive movement that seeks a voice. Maybe it is just frustrated young men and women who will be bullied back into conformity, but it is a change.

It may not be the change we're all looking for. Not the jobs, not the education, not the human rights, not a clean government, the rule of law, or the disarming of warlords. But it is change nonetheless, and a positive one.

Afghanistan News: At Least 8 Killed in Protests over Qur'an Burning

Josh Shahryar — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:16:52 +0000

Photo: Ahmad Masood (Reuters)At least eight people were reportedly killed and almost two dozen injured today in protests in Afghanistan over the alleged burning of the Qur'an at the American airbase, Camp Bagram.

Protests were held in the cities of Jalalabad and the capital Kabul, as well as Parwan Province, where Bagram is located. Police clashed with protesters who threw rocks and burnt tires, blocking the highways in several parts of the country.

Afghan news agency Pajhwok reported that police opened fire in Parwan's Shinwari district whne protesters tried to storm government buildings, resulting in at least six deaths. One protester each was killed in Logar Province and in Jalalabad, in Nengrahar Province.

There was, however, confusion about the actual number of deaths. Wire reporter Subel Bhandari tweeted:

Oh vell. In Koran burning protests in Afghanistan, AP says 3 killed. Reuters says 4 killed. AFP says 5 killed. & dpa says 7 killed. So far.

In Kabul, protests were held in front of the US Embassy, and part of a compound housing foreign contractors in the capital was burnt by an angry mob. Demonstrators also gathered in front of the Parliament building where legislators reportedly discussed the situation.

The US and NATO have issued separate statements apologising for the incident. NATO Commander Gen. John R. Allen released a statement to Afghan media:

I offer my sincere apologies for any offense this may have caused, to the president of Afghanistan, the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and, most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan.

Allen said books had mistakenly been given to troops to be burned at a garbage pit at Bagram, north of Kabul:

It was not a decision that was made because they were religious materials. It was not a decision that was made with respect to the faith of Islam. It was a mistake. It was an error. The moment we found out about it, we immediately stopped and we intervened.

This morning US Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter met Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Bagram and apologised for the incident.

In 2005, more than a dozen Afghans died after police fired at protesters in Kabul who were angered at the alleged desecration of the Qur'an at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba. Newsweek, which ran the initial story of the desecration, later retracted it.

Last year, a dozen people died --- seven United Nations staff and five protesters --- died in protests in northern Afghanistan over US pastor Terry Jones' burning of a copy of the Qur'an in Florida.

Afghanistan Video: Controversial Footage of US Marines Urinating on Bodies of Insurgents

Scott Lucas — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:37:30 +0000

Expect a media furour today over this clip of American soldiers in Afghanistan, apparently urinating on the bodies of slain insurgents. Marine Corps Headquarters has issued a statement: "While we have not yet verified the origin or authenticity of this video, the actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our Corps. This matter will be fully investigated."

Al Jazeera English's coverage of the incident:

EA Video Feature: A Tribute to Journalist Gilles Jacquier, Killed Today in Syria

John Horne — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:07:15 +0000

Gilles Jacquier, a French journalist killed today in Syria. Image © AFP

Gilles Jacquier, a French journalist, was killed in Syria today, apparently when his vehicle was hit by an RPG. He was part of an official delegation of Western journalists, escorted by the Syrian Information Ministry, on a highly-controlled tour of the embattled city of Homs.

Jacquier leaves behind work, which reveals his bravery and dedication, in conflict areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Tunisia, Kosovo, Haiti, Zaire, Israel, Algeria, and Syria.

Jacquier was no stranger to the Arab Spring. Last year, he filmed a 45-minute documentary for France 2: Tunisie, la révolution en marche, presented with English subtitles:

Jacquier was honoured early in his career --- he and Bertand Coq won the prestigious Albert Londres Prize in 2003. They were recognised for a report in April 2002 from Nablus on the West Bank, after they and their crew were the only Western journalists who managed to get into the city following the Israeli attack during Operation Defensive Shield.

Watch the report....

In March 2001, months before the rest of the West began paying attention to the plight of Afghanistan, Jacquier reported on the difficulties faced by many civilians, especially women.

Watch the report....

Gilles returned to Afghanistan several years lars and was once again honoured for his work. In 2009, he won the presigious Grand Prix Jean-Louis Calderon award for his report on an Afghan school, Afghanistan: ecole, le taleau noir.

Watch the report....

He can be seen here being interviewed by French television about his success:

Jacquier's death is a tragic loss to family and friends. As this small selection of his work illustrates, it is also a loss to a world which is forever in need of brave and diligent journalism.

Pakistan Feature: US Preparing for a Curtailed "Post-9/11" Relationship With Islamabad? (Schmitt)

John Horne — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 07:44:46 +0000

Writing for the New York Times, Eric Schmitt reflects on the future state of US-Pakistan relations after a year in an increasingly fractious "alliance": continued use of drones by the US military, Pakistani anger over the US Government's intervention for CIA agent Raymond Davis, accused of killing two locals, and the reaction to the assassination of Osama bin Laden

Schmitt cites a "senior United States official" who speaks of closing "the chapter on the post-9/11 period", trying to frame a decade of US actions guided by a necessary, perhaps even moral, campaign against terrorism.

The reality is murkier. Speaking of a "post-9/11 period" conveniently ignores not just the years after 2001 but the complications of decades before that, as it serves a US administration keen to bracket Bush-era foreign intervention as being exceptional, rather than business as usual. It is not as easy for the "post-9/11 period" to wash away the instability in the Pakistani system.

U.S. Prepares for a Curtailed Relationship With Pakistan
Eric Schmitt

With the United States facing the reality that its broad security partnership with Pakistan is over, American officials are seeking to salvage a more limited counterterrorism alliance that they acknowledge will complicate their ability to launch attacks against extremists and move supplies into Afghanistan.

The United States will be forced to restrict drone strikes, limit the number of its spies and soldiers on the ground and spend more to transport supplies through Pakistan to allied troops in Afghanistan, American and Pakistani officials said. United States aid to Pakistan will also be reduced sharply, they said.

“We’ve closed the chapter on the post-9/11 period,” said a senior United States official, who requested anonymity to avoid antagonizing Pakistani officials. “Pakistan has told us very clearly that they are re-evaluating the entire relationship.”

American officials say that the relationship will endure in some form, but that the contours will not be clear until Pakistan completes its wide-ranging review in the coming weeks.

The Obama administration got a taste of the new terms immediately after an American airstrike killed 26 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border last month. Pakistan closed the supply routes into Afghanistan, boycotted a conference in Germany on the future of Afghanistan and forced the United States to shut its drone operations at a base in southwestern Pakistan.

Mushahid Hussain Sayed, the secretary general of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, an opposition political party, summed up the anger that he said many harbored: “We feel like the U.S. treats Pakistan like a rainy-day girlfriend.”

Whatever emerges will be a shadow of the sweeping strategic relationship that Richard C. Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, championed before his death a year ago. Officials from both countries filled more than a dozen committees to work on issues like health, the rule of law and economic development.

All of that has been abandoned and will most likely be replaced by a much narrower set of agreements on core priorities — countering terrorists, stabilizing Afghanistan and ensuring the safety of Pakistan’s arsenal of more than 100 nuclear weapons — that Pakistan will want spelled out in writing and agreed to in advance.

Read full article....

Afghanistan: "This is Our Fate" --- An Encounter with My Friend Massoud Hossaini about Photography, Life, and a Suicide Bombing

Josh Shahryar — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:53:22 +0000

Photo: Farzana Wahidy (AFP)Formalities become meaningless when you call an old friend who has survived a suicide bombing that took the lives of dozens. My friend Massoud Hossaini understood that just as well as I did.

It had been years since I spoke to him. But last Tuesday, I saw his images of the aftermath of the suicide bomb at the Abul Fazl shrine in Kabul, a bomb that hit metres from where he was standing and killed and maimed those to whom he had spoken moments earlier.

Were we from a different country, I might have called to congratulate him on his photographs on the front pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and any other major newspaper you could name. But we are from Afghanistan, and I just wanted to know how he was. At the age of 30, the tenor of our discussion is not about celebration but about life amidst tragedy.

I started with the usual, "How are you?"

Massoud said, "I'm OK." in a way that translated, "About as well as a child who has just been orphaned."

We spoke about the incident. "The bomb went off 45 feet away from me," he said, "I lived only because there were too many people, between me and the bomb, who didn't." Were you injured? "No, I'm fine. There was shrapnel that went through my left hand --- just a flesh wound." He explained how that 'flesh wound' bled for hours while he was taking pictures of the casualties, blood kept dripping down his fingers, covering his camera.

He asks, "So who is publishing this interview?"

I reply, "Why? You thought I'd call an old friend so I could interview him for a newspaper?"

"Isn't that what we do?"

"I want to know how my friend is doing, not how the photographer that got published in all the major newspaper did his job while surviving death mere seconds ago."

He is insistent: "But that's what we do!"

And he's right. He went on to explain to me in detail what he has already explained to The New York Times and other publications. I listened intently, even though I'd already read those interviews.

"I don't care about the pictures, how are YOU?" I asked.

"I'm fine. I mean, I'm fine. I had a few nightmares about it. I see it here and there. It's hard to sleep, but I'm fine."

This isn't really the Massoud with whom I used to go to Chief Burger, a little restaurant that offered burgers and some Pakistani and Turkish cuisine, back in the day. A hangout where we would order chicken karahi, my favorite dish, and he always grumbled about how we never ate anything else. We would smoke cigarettes all the way from Shahre Now to Aina in Deh Afghanan, where we both worked. On the way, we would talk about how he would manage his photo agency in 10 or 15 years and how I'd be publishing my own newspaper, interspersed with comments about the colour and shape of the burkas that passed us by. He'd tell me I was going crazy with my consumption of vodka and I'd blame his girlfriend for his abstinence.

That was 2004.

He'd arrived from Iran and I from Pakistan, after spending most of our lives as refugees thanks to the never-ending civil war. It was a time when there was still hope in the air. Massood was always the hopeful one. Always talking about a new shot he'd snapped.

I ask him seven years later, "Remember that old waiter in Chief Burger? Is he still there?"

He answers, "I don't go to those places anymore."

"Where do you go these days?"

"Mostly to Serena or this place or that in Wazir Akbar Khan."

"I miss hanging out in Chief Burger."

"You left."

I asked him when he was leaving --- after all, what is left to do in Afghanistan anymore but wait for the civil war to move into Kabul when NATO leaves?

"Where should I go and what should I do?"

"I don't know, somewhere safe."

He says, "Farzanah [his fiancee] is in Canada. She's been looking for a job for three months. There's nothing there for her. I have looked for a scholarship to study abroad for years. I've found nothing. So I don't know. Circumstances are terrible here, but there's nothing for me to do out of here either. I'll just stay here, I guess."

I prodded him more.

He challenges, "Look. There are no jobs out there either, are there?"

I agreed.

"So what should I do if I come there?"

Mop the floors of a McDonald's, I thought.

"I work with AFP here. Will I get this kind of a job there?"

I told him about a friend, perhaps Afghanistan's most brilliant investigative journalist, who is now in Europe and has been reduced to blogging for an obscure newspaper. I told him about another friend who came here recently with a world of journalistic experience and is currently unemployed. I told him about how I'm now a character on Twitter - not a senior editor in Afghanistan's largest newspaper. I wanted to tell him more, but I didn't. He knew and I knew that he knew.

Instead I ask, "And how is it there?"

"I don't know. Every day, someone from Pakistan or Uzbekistan and I don't know, some other place comes here, kills people, then you can't find them. Then, more of them come, kill more of us, then nothing. It will go on forever like this. I'm where this is going on. What do you think it's like?"

I wanted to say things like, "But it will get better. There are new plans you know. This Bonn Conference and all." But I know better.

"This is our fate," he confirmed.

Massood's story is unique only if you are reading this outside Afghanistan. Otherwise, his fate is the same as that of much of the population. Hope, fear, suffering, more hope, more fear, more suffering --- a cycle we have all been stuck in for too long to remember. He is part of a generation that remembers nothing but a war that has been going on for three decades and is likely going to continue for many more years.

His answers were philosophical. Gone was my friend, replaced by someone I barely knew. Someone who lives, knowing that he's a suicide bombing away from death.

"You've been through this before, though, right?" I asked him as if he hadn't just cheated death, but as if he had been dumped by his girlfriend or something.

"Yeah, but this was too close. I could see it very clearly. It was too loud. Too many people died in front of my eyes. I took pictures."

"You take pictures in your sleep!" My attempted sense of humour, like his pragmatism, did not fool him.

And that was it. I did not ask him more about what had happened. He did not talk about it himself. He expected me to understand what had happened and I did.

Can I convey this so that anyone else who is not Afghan and does not have a fate tied to Afghanistan would understand? I hope not. The burden of that understanding means that Massoud Hosseini is now a subject about whom I write, not a friend whom I once knew and with whom I laughed.

We tried to find pleasantry in stories of my philandry. It didn't work. The conversation kept coming back to the same conclusion: Afghans are fucked.

"Yeah, it is our fate," I said, "Will you be okay?"

He paused, then laughed, "Yeah, I'll be okay, I guess."

And we hung up. I realised that I had forgotten to tell him, "Happy Birthday".

Editor's note (February 13): Massoud Hossaini's photos from the suicide bombing eventually did win him the First Prize in Pictures of the Year International (POY) contest and the Second Prize in the Spot News Singles category of the World Press Photo of the Year 2011 contest.

Pakistan Analysis: Will There Be a Coup? (And Why It Doesn't Really Matter)

Josh Shahryar — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:36:28 +0000

Asif Ali ZardariThe past few days has seen a frenzy of speculation about the fate of Pakistan's elected government, thanks in large to President Asif Ali Zardari's sudden trip to Dubai for medical treatment. If you believe the buzz, the all-powerful military has forced Zardari out of the country and he will resign soon --- on Friday, Minister of Interior Rehman Malik had to deny the rumours, "“The situation is not as complex as you are viewing it."

So the worrying scenario: the Pakistani military, fed up with the civilian leadership, is seizing power only three years after ceding it. This, however, is quite unlikely.

Two months ago, I was tasked to write an assessment of the possibility. on the very same subject with the question: how likely is another toppling of an elected Pakistani government by the military. I interviewed more than a dozen Pakistani journalists, political and military analysts, and former military officers --- including one whoknows the current head of the military, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani on a first-name basis.

The response to the projected take-over was overwhelmingly negative: "The military is not going to stage a coup any time soon." The two interviewees who were concerned thought that the possibility existed in case of a catastrophic turn in the political situation, but the chances of that happening were remote. "Memogate" --- in which the Government allegedly sent a note to the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, asking for American help to forestall a military coup --- would not be the pretext for Zardari's removal. The thought of another military general taking power and robbing people of the right to vote still seems too much to bear by ordinary Pakistanssi, according to almost every interviewee.

But beyond the headline issue, the truth is that it may only be symbolic. "There won't be a take-over of power by Kayani because well, he already rules," said one Pakistani analyst. The military has only ceded power to the elected government in name: all national security initiatives have to be run past the generals before they can be implemented by the government. Frequent meetings are held between the civilian officials and the military to decide matters such as the fate of Osama bin Laden, the flood disaster relief efforts, relations with Afghanistan and the US, foreign aid, terrorism within Pakistan, law and order, eand ven some aspects of the economy.

Will Zardari return to Pakistan and resume his role as "Mr. 110%"? We'll have to wait and see, but the reality is that such a development may not matter.

Afghanistan Audio: Scott Lucas with the BBC "The Bonn Conference and the Future"

Scott Lucas — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 07:25:47 +0000

UPDATE 1300 GMT: At least 54 people were killed and 150 injured in the Kabul explosion, according to the Ministry of Health. Four people died and 21 were injured in the Mazar-e Sharif bomb.

UPDATE 1000 GMT: A senior police officer has said more than 40 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in the Kabul bombing.

UPDATE 0830 GMT: A bomb has exploded at a Shi'a mosque in central Kabul as worshippers commemorated the religious occasion of Ashura. Journalist Jerome Starkey reported, "Dozens dead. Bodies all over the street." An AFP photographer also counted more than 30 dead.

Another attack has been reported in Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

Ten years after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan --- and ten years after the first Bonn Conference on the country's future --- Afghan leaders and foreign representatives have again convened in Germany. I spoke with BBC West Midlands last night about the conference, the prospects for progress, the absence of the Taliban from the discussion, and the possible motives for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's subsequent visit to London.

The item starts just before the 1:10.00 mark.

Pakistan Feature: A "Crisis in Relations" After NATO Kills 26 Pakistani Soldiers in Airstrikes?

Scott Lucas — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 07:33:34 +0000

Pakistanis Protest after NATO AttacksReading and comparing the coverage from websites in Pakistan, the US, and Britain over Saturday's NATO airstrikes that killed 26 Pakistani troops....

Dawn (Pakistan)

The United States stressed the “importance” of its ties with Pakistan after up to 26 soldiers were killed in cross-border Nato air strikes Saturday, plunging already frosty relations into crisis.

In a joint statement, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered their “deepest condolences” and said they backed “Nato’s intention to investigate immediately.”

“Secretaries Clinton and Panetta have been closely monitoring reports of the cross-border incident in Pakistan today,” the statement said.

“Both offer their deepest condolences for the loss of life and support fully Nato’s intention to investigate immediately.”

Islamabad has ordered a review of all arrangements with the United States and Nato, including diplomatic, political, military and intelligence activities, following the deadly cross-border strikes.

The US-led Nato force in Afghanistan admitted it was “highly likely” that the force’s aircraft caused the pre-dawn deaths, inflaming US-Pakistani relations still reeling from the May killing of Osama bin Laden.

Pakistan also told the United States to vacate a remote air base reportedly used as a hub for covert CIA drone strikes on areas bordering Afghanistan, though US officials have said no US military personnel are based there.

Read full article....

Geo TV (Pakistan) from AFP

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Sunday telephoned her US counterpart Hillary Clinton to convey Pakistan's "deep sense of rage" over cross-border NATO air strikes, the foreign office said.

Khar said that attacks like Saturday's strike on military outposts that left at least 24 Pakistani soldiers dead were "totally unacceptable" as they contravened international law and violated Pakistani sovereignty.

The Pakistani minister spoke to Clinton in the early hours of Sunday to inform her of decisions made by the Defence Committee of the Cabinet including blocking NATO supply routes, the foreign office said in a statement.

"The foreign minister conveyed to the secretary of state, the deep sense of rage felt across Pakistan at the senseless loss of 24 soldiers due to the NATO/ISAF attack on the Pakistani post," it said.

Khar said "such attacks are totally unacceptable. They demonstrate complete disregard for international law and human life, and are in stark violation of Pakistani sovereignty".

"This negates the progress made by the two countries on improving relations and forces Pakistan to revisit the terms of engagement," Khar added.

The statement said that Clinton offered her condolences over the loss of life, said she was deeply saddened by the event, and conveyed the US government's intention to work with Pakistan to resolve the issue.

The New York Times

Pakistani officials said on Saturday that NATO aircraft had killed at least 25 soldiers in strikes against two military posts at the northwestern border with Afghanistan, and the country’s supreme army commander called them unprovoked acts of aggression in a new flash point between the United States and Pakistan.

The Pakistani government responded by ordering the Central Intelligence Agency to vacate the drone operations it runs from Shamsi Air Base, in western Pakistan, within 15 days. It also closed the two main NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, including the one at Torkham. NATO forces receive roughly 40 percent of their supplies through that crossing, which runs through the Khyber Pass, and Pakistan gave no estimate for how long the routes might be shut down.

A NATO spokesman said it was likely that allied airstrikes caused the Pakistani casualties, but said an investigation had been ordered to determine the cause.

In Washington, American officials were scrambling to assess what had happened amid preliminary reports that allied forces in Afghanistan engaged in a firefight along the border and called in airstrikes. Senior Obama administration officials were also weighing the implications on a relationship that took a sharp turn for the worse after a Navy Seal commando raid killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad in May, and that has deteriorated since then.

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The Guardian

An attack by Nato aircraft on Pakistani troops that allegedly killed as many as 28 soldiers and looks set to further poison relations between the US and Pakistan was an act of self-defence, a senior western official has claimed.

According to the Kabul-based official, a joint US-Afghan force operating in the mountainous Afghan frontier province of Kunar was the first to come under attack in the early hours of Saturday morning, forcing them to return fire.

The high death toll from an incident between two supposed allies suggests Nato helicopters and jets strafed Pakistani positions with heavy weapons.

The deadliest friendly fire incident since the start of the decade-long war also prompted Pakistan to ban Nato supply trucks from crossing intoAfghanistan and to issue an order demanding the US quit the remote Shamsi airbase, from which the US has operated some unmanned drone aircraft.

A spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was "highly likely" that aircraft which had been called into the area to provide "close air support" to troops on the ground was responsible for causing casualties among the Pakistani soldiers.

For their part, a statement by the Pakistani military claimed that it was they who were attacked first, forcing them to respond to Nato's "aggression with all available weapons".

Read full article....