A Deadly Day | 68 Killed Across Afghanistan

The Associated Press is reporting that 18 civilians were killed after NATO aircraft bombed houses in support of a joint Special Forces night raid. The raid in Logar province was targeting a local Taliban leader. NATO is disputing the figures.

In Kandahar three bombs killed 22 in a busy market in Kandahar City. The Taliban took responsibility for the attack that targeted Afghan security forces outside a sprawling NATO base in the southern city.

The Afghan Interior Ministry reports that the “Afghan army and police, backed by the NATO-led coalition forces, have eliminated 26 Taliban insurgents during cleanup operations within the past 24 hours…”

NATO also reports that two soldiers died in a helicopter crash in an undisclosed location.

Alissa J. Rubin and Taimoor Shah have a sobering summary in the NYT’s of the years deadliest day for civilians.

Records kept by Xinhua, based on figures released by Afghan Interior Ministry, reveal that around 400 insurgents have been killed, 120 wounded and nearly 450 others detained since May 1 during military operations across the insurgency-hit country. Xinhua is the official press agency of the People's Republic of China.


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Just last week the United Nations announced a decline in civilian deaths for the first time since they started keeping track. The figures were reported during a press conference in Kabul. The report has yet to be released publicly.

The Associated Press reported.

“The number of Afghan civilians killed has dropped 36 percent so far this year compared with last, the U.N. said Wednesday, the first time the death toll has declined over multiple months since the United Nations started keeping track.”

Afghan deaths reached a record high in 2011.

Civil society organizations have been united in their appeal that in conjunction with the removal of foreign forces and disarmament efforts, there needs to be an inclusive political process to address the roots of conflict.

In fact, the recent report Unheard Voices: Afghan Views on the Peace Process finds just that.

“Many people see the obstacles to the peace process as external to the country, whereas solutions are more readily identified as internal. Locally, specific conditions in localities such as Marjah and Qadis, in Helmand and Badghis, showed distinct perspectives on questions related to Taliban demands and government strength respectively.”

Earlier in the month the NGO safety Office did release the finding of their monitoring finding that levels of violence from all actors in Afghanistan decreased except for the Afghan security forces which is increasing.

Afghanistan NGO Safety Office | First Quarter Data Report

“Armed Opposition Groups (AOG) attack volumes have decreased by 43% in comparison to Q1 2011 providing the first reliable indicator that the conflict may be entering a period of regression after years of sustained, and compounded, growth by all actors in the field. Despite this, one must still consider them an ascendant power, as they themselves clearly do, and a key question remains as to whether this lack of activity is a deliberate act and if so, why. As last year was characterised by AOG doing more earlier; this year has begun with them doing less later.



Of course, the same could be said for all actors in the field, as this years comprehensive incident volumes are 32% lower than Q1 2011, suggesting a level of synergy between the various parties to the conflict. An exception to this would be the ANSF, who are increasingly shouldering a heavier burden as the ISAF presence wanes, all part of the ongoing processes of withdrawal and transition. There are hints that this fundamental shift in responsibility may result in positive developments, particularly at the tactical level. This apparent willingness between the remaining players to reach local agreements may ultimately result in a broader space within which the NGO community is able to operate, as the volume of actively contested space shrinks.”

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“Ultimately, the first quarter of this year raises more questions than it answers by providing numerous indicators of the increasingly fluid nature of the conflict. A new phase in the evolution of the context is being realised, though how this will play out in the coming months, and years, is unclear and only with further analysis of the interplay between the various groups will this new reality become apparent.”

What Does the New Agreement on Night Raids Mean?

The new agreement signed over the weekend between the US and Afghanistan establishes guidelines for the continuation of night raids by Special Forces. Follow the link for the full text.

The agreement sets out a new chain of command for ordering and conducting special operations. They must first be approved by a new all-Afghan body called the Afghan Operational Coordination Group (OCG), and then conducted by Afghan Forces, with support from US Forces in accordance with Afghan laws.

The US will continue to play a vital role.

Kate Clark with Afghanistan Analysts Network has the details. She focuses on the Afghan gains in control over night raids noting that it will put the government more at the forefront of the anti-Taliban struggle politically and militarily.

The embrace of this controversial program – and the associated targeted killings - is no victory for those calling for alternatives to violence. It does however offer hope that Afghans can hold their government responsible and accountable for future actions. It has proven impossible in the past to hold the international forces accountable for actions they see as part of war.

At the same time, she cautions that the agreement allows Afghan Special Forces to arrest people who can then be held without trial. The text of the agreement is included.

“The Afghan government is delighted with the MoU, rightly seeing it as a huge gain for Afghan sovereignty. President Karzai is now, at least nominally, in charge of one of the most politically and militarily significant and controversial aspects of the war and will probably continue to insist that US forces take a back seat. How far the Afghan government actually achieves sovereignty however remains to be seen: one can imagine ‘US support’, for example, meaning US forces and advisors remaining in de facto command, with Afghan colleagues being deferential to their wishes and expertise. However, the MoU does give Afghans the means to actually take some sort of command and control.

Along with security prisoners (which was the subject of an MoU which was signed last month), the contentious issue of night raids has been a major stumbling block to getting a strategic partnership deal between the two countries. To secure this MoU, the US has conceded a great deal, while Karzai has gained ground.

At the same time, from the international side, the agreement may help address the enduring complaint of the US and its allies that the president does not sufficiently ‘own’ the war: that he criticises his allies and international forces while occasionally speaking sympathetically about the Taleban, as if he sat above and outside the conflict. In the future, if civilians are killed in raids, or there is alleged theft of valuables or if homeowners feel dishonoured by fellow Afghans or their invited US allies, barging into their houses, it will now be his responsibility. He will no longer be able to behave as if this is a conflict he has no part in.”

Click here for the article link.

Tags: Night Raids

Near Agreement on Night Raids | Kill Capture Policy

AP is reporting that the U.S. is close to reaching its goals in advance of the NATO summit in Chicago.

“The United States and Afghanistan are close to an agreement over how to handle the hotly contested issue of night raids but still are at odds over how long coalition forces can detain prisoners, such as those captured during the operations, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.

The agreement would call for the Afghans to take the lead in night operations and set up a timely, warrant-like judicial process for the raids. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.”

The agreement on prisoners last month and an imminent agreement on guidelines for night raids are seen as the cornerstones of a future US-Afghan strategic partnership. That agreement would spell out the legal basis of a long-term US military presence in Afghanistan beyond the 2014.

In May, more than 50 heads of state will meet at the NATO summit to discuss progress on ending the war, future strategy and support for a US-Afghan Strategic partnership. US Special Forces, bases, arms transfers, training and the funding of an Afghan security force are expected to form the basis of the partnership.

A bi-lateral agreement between occupier and occupied undercuts the critical need for a comprehensive regional solution, and the role of international law in providing the framework of a peace process.

The NYT focuses on the anger and distrust that the night raids have created among Afghan’s. Pointing out that the killing of 17 unarmed and sleeping people by a US soldiers is seen by many as a ‘night raid’.

"Finding a way to continue the raids is also considered essential for the post-2014 plan that is shaping up. The plan, in essence, envisions the United States’ leaving behind a small force that would focus on counterterrorism. For that kind of mission to work, the force would probably need to be able to carry out night raids."

Background:

On March 22 at hearing before the Senate Armed Service Committee, General Allen confirmed that in 2011 there had been 2,200 night raids. He states that of the total 9,200 night raids 27 people were killed or wounded.

“… This last year we had about 2,200 night operations. Of those 2,200 or so night operations, on 90 percent of them we didn't fire a shot. On more than 50 percent of them we got the targeted individual and 30 percent more we got the next associate of that individual as well. So 83 percent, roughly, of the night operations we got either the primary target or an associate."

"...But after 9,200 night operations, 27 -- 27 people were killed or wounded in night operations. That would argue for the power of night operations preserving life and reducing civilian casualties in all other kinds of operations, than necessarily being a risk of creating additional civilian casualties. That's in my mind, sir, as we go through the process of negotiating an outcome for the Afghanization, if you will, of night operations.

It’s an astonishing claim.

One that has been challenged by researchers with the Afghanistan Analysts Network who documented the impact of kill/capture campaigns using NATO own press releases. This is what they found.

The number of ‘leaders’ and ‘facilitators’ killed equals approximately 5% of the total deaths.

The number of ‘leaders’ and ‘facilitators’ detained equals approximately 13% of the total detentions.


Additional Resources:

Key Issues for Loya Jirga

Night Raids and Militia Forces

Summit for Peace and Economic Justice

Taliban Suspend Talks | Karzai Demands US Back to Bases

The decision by the Taliban to suspend talks, and the demand by President Karzai that all US and NATO troops leave the village-centered forward-operating bases, are fundamental rejections of current US policy.

The murder last weekend of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier is being used by President Karzai to demand (once again) that US and NATO forces vacate the forward-operating bases scattered across the country. These bases are the launch pads for kill/capture operations and night raids that have angered Afghans across the country.

The map above does not show all the bases that the US and NATO have in the country but it gives a sense. Last week Nick Turse documented the real number as more than 450.

In early 2010, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had nearly 400 bases in Afghanistan. Today, Lieutenant Lauren Rago of ISAF public affairs tells TomDispatch, the number tops 450.

Kate Clark has an analysis of the Taliban statement released yesterday. It should be no surprise that the presence of foreign troops it at the core of their demands.

‘… the Afghan issue has two main dimensions; one is internal and the other external… Until and unless the external dimension is settled which rests entirely in the hands of the foreigners, discussing the internal dimension is meaningless and is nothing more than a waste of time. Therefore the Islamic Emirate considers talking with the Kabul administration as pointless.’ - Taliban Statement

Taliban Suspend Talks

“There has been a worrying lack of urgency from the Americans about the opportunity for talks provided by the Taleban’s opening on 3 January of a political office in Qatar. The move, which necessarily had been approved by Washington, was proof of some political courage by both sides, something tangible emerging from their months’ long dance of comments which had appeared aimed at somehow encouraging the other or mitigating their fears (for detail, see AAN blog). However, the timing of the Qatar office opening was always going to be tricky. Early January did not give much time to come up with something more solid before the Taleban had to either decide to keep talking or start rousing the rank and file to go back into battle after their winter rest.

The Taleban have now suspended the political process unilaterally. The statement, unusually for the Taleban holds back on the rhetoric and insults and instead concentrates quite soberly on making political points. They said the US envoy in his latest meeting presented new conditions which contradicted an already agreed memorandum of understanding. The Americans, were they said, ‘wasting time’. (The full text of the Taleban statement can be seen at the end of this piece).

The statement says the ‘diplomatic office in Qatar was opened with the purpose of ‘reaching an understanding with the international community’ and of ‘addressing some specific issues with the American invaders.’ It said the Taleban wanted to be able to have face-to-face dialogue in ‘complete freedom’ and ‘away from danger’ and to silence critics who said the Taleban had no address (where they could be spoken to) or was just a ‘warring faction’ which had no political or administrative capacities and wanted to harm other nations. To this end, the statement said, they ‘started holding preliminary talks with the occupying enemy.’

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Ahmad Rashid writing earlier this week in the financial times raised the same point. Arguing that the Government of Afghanistan can’t seek a long-term US military presence and peace with the Taliban.

“The Afghan president’s desire to seek a strategic partnership agreement with the US is becoming more and more unacceptable to the Afghan people. At the same time he also wants to make peace with the Taliban, but they have no desire for a pact with Washington. His dilemma, which he still refuses to understand, is that he can either ask for a long-term US presence or peace with the Taliban, but not both.”

It is based on this fact.

“Increasing numbers of Afghans would agree with what the Taliban have been arguing for almost a decade: that the western presence in Afghanistan is prolonging the war, causing misery and bloodshed.”

He ends with the challenges ahead.

“After the spate of incidents this year, there should be no doubt in Washington that seeking a negotiated settlement to end the war with the Taliban as quickly as possible is the only way out. Mr Obama has to put his weight behind this strategy to ensure an orderly withdrawal and to give the Afghan people the chance of an end to this war. A power-sharing formula with the Taliban, which now appears increasingly unavoidable, and an accord with neighbouring states to limit their interference, will be key.

In 1989 it was America and Pakistan who refused to allow a political solution to end the fighting because they wanted not just the Soviets gone but also Moscow’s Afghan protégées led by Mohammad Najibullah. Instead he hung on for three years, resulting in a civil war. America cannot again leave Afghanistan with a civil war as its bequest to the Afghans. Washington, and Nato, must seek an end to the war before withdrawing their forces. Despite the tragic death of so many innocent children, this is still possible if there is a concerted diplomatic and political push.”

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Additional analysis: Taliban

War Crimes, Apologies, Immunity | 16 Killed by US Soldier

Over the weekend a US Soldier burst into several Afghan homes killing 16. Nine of the dead are children and it appears the bodies were set on fire. Extensive coverage from AP, NYT, and Reuters for details.

U.S. Strategy

There are currently over 90,000 US troops, 40,000 other foreign forces, and 133,866 private contractors working with the U.S. military in Afghanistan. These figures also do not account for U.S. Special Forces, the CIA, CIA trained Afghan forces, US armed militias or the Afghan Local Police.

The U.S. NATO strategy has been to create and train a standing army of 240,000 soldiers with the addition of 160,000 police. Theoretically, these forces will facilitate the removal of combat forces when the NATO mission ends in 2014 to be replaced by a US-Afghan strategic partnership that will allow the U.S. to continue its military presence through the search and destroy tactics of the special forces. See Ann Jones here.

Alternatives

"We feel that, surely, governments need to resolve this conflict through diplomacy and move away from the failed military strategy that has resulted in all that we are witnessing today," says the Kabul-based peace activist who goes is the coordinator for Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers.


Juan Cole puts it in a broader historical context.

“In the history of anti-colonial struggles (which is how the anti-US forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan see the war), almost accidental minor incidents frequently became rallying cry.”

Afghans to US Military: Be at Least a Little Ashamed

This is one Afghanistan newspaper’s reaction today to the story of the massacre by a US staff sergeant of 16 villagers, including 9 children, near Qandahar. It is a medley of photographs of US troops in the country. Note that the source, Afghanpaper.com, in Dari Persian, is considered an “independent” news source by the US government; it is not a Taliban operation, and has usually been balanced. The headline is, “Let us be at least a little bit ashamed.”

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The fairness or unfairness of the contextless collage below is irrelevant to its emotional impact on Afghans whose sense of national sovereignty is being injured by the more-than-a-decade US occupation of their country. Going into homes where there are unveiled women, and exposing them to the gaze of 18 year old strange American men, is always going to anger Afghans. I’ve had US government people almost shout at me that such considerations cannot be allowed to come into play when you are doing counter-terrorism, that the chief thing is to find the weapons caches. But this kind of thing is why the Iraqi parliament voted the US troops right out of their country as soon as they could, and if the Afghan parliament had any real power, it would, too (some parliamentarians have already called for a jihad against the US over the Qur’an burning fiasco).

The Qur’an-burning scandal and this soldier going berserk are in many ways tangential to the Afghanistan War, but this does not mean they are unimportant. In the history of anti-colonial struggles (which is how the anti-US forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan see the war), almost accidental minor incidents frequently became rallying cry. The Dinshaway incident in Egypt in 1906 is a famous example. Some 13 years later there were hundreds of thousands of Egyptians in the streets demanding a British departure, which was achieved in 1922.

The US is hoping to be mostly out of Afghanistan by the end of 2013. But there is a plan for special forces to remain in the long term. The Peshawar-based Frontier Post calls this plan a “wild goose chase” for the US, and says it almost certainly doomed to failure.

Additional Resource:

Afghans for Peace are organizing vigils around the world.

US Military to Transfer Control of Largest Prison to Afghans

AP has the details on the last minute deal to gradually turn over US held prisoners at Parwan detention center to Afghan control. Parwan is the largest US run prison in the country and the site where religious items, including Quran’s, were destroyed last month.

U.S. and Afghan officials have said this is a major step towards a strategic partnership agreement that would outline the legal status of US military forces beyond 2014. The governments want the agreement before the May NATO summit in Chicago.

The deal will allow the US military to monitor operations and continue to “provide logistical support for 12 months, and a joint U.S.-Afghan commission will decide on any detainee releases until a more permanent pact is adopted, according to U.S. officials involved in the negotiations — a setup that will essentially give U.S. officials power to veto any release.”

In addition.

“The U.S. also operates what it has described as temporary holding pens for gathering intelligence from detainees in Afghanistan; officials have confirmed anonymously that some detainees have been held at these centers for up to nine weeks. The agreement does not appear to address these sites.”

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“KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. military and the Afghan government sealed an agreement Friday on the gradual transfer of control of the main U.S. prison in the country, a last-minute breakthrough that brings the first progress in months in contentious negotiations over a long-term partnership.

The compromise deal came on the day Afghan President Hamid Karzai had set as a deadline for the Americans to hand over the Parwan prison.

The agreement gives the U.S. six months to transfer Parwan's 3,000 Afghan detainees to Afghan control. However, the U.S. will also be able to block the release of prisoners, easing American fears that insurgents or members of the Taliban could be freed and return to the fight.

The deal removes a sticking point that had threatened to derail talks that have been going on for months that would formalize the U.S.-Afghan partnership and the role of U.S. forces in Afghanistan after NATO's scheduled transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan government at the end of 2014.

On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama and Karzai discussed the stalled security pact talks in a video conference. White House press secretary Jay Carney said the two leaders noted progress toward completing an agreement "that reinforces Afghan sovereignty while addressing the practical requirements of transition."

Another major sticking point in the negotiations remains unresolved: night raids by international troops on the homes of suspected militants. Karzai has demanded a halt to the raids, which have caused widespread anger among Afghans.

U.S. and Afghan officials have said that they want a strategic partnership agreement signed by the time a NATO summit convenes in Chicago in May.”

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“The deal gives the Americans the extension they wanted for Parwan, a U.S.-run prison adjoining its Bagram military base north of Kabul, but also spells out an American commitment to a firm transfer date for the first time. Previously, the U.S. has always offered "target dates" rather than deadlines.

Under the deal, an Afghan general will be put in charge of Parwan within days, but the Americans have a six-month window to transfer detainees to Afghan oversight, according to presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi.

The U.S. military will still be able to monitor operations. It will continue to provide logistical support for 12 months, and a joint U.S.-Afghan commission will decide on any detainee releases until a more permanent pact is adopted, according to U.S. officials involved in the negotiations — a setup that will essentially give U.S. officials power to veto any release. The Afghans also have agreed to grant human rights groups regular access to detainees. Last year, the United Nations found evidence of torture at a number of Afghan-run prisons.

The officials, who spoke anonymously to discuss confidential talks ahead of the signing, said the first 500 detainees are expected to be transferred in 45 days. The U.S. government had already handed over a few hundred detainees to the Afghans before the agreement was signed.

The officials said the deal does not apply to the approximately 50 non-Afghans at Parwan, who will remain in U.S. custody.

The officials also said that they still need to work out how to handle new detainees. Currently, the U.S. military assesses whether people captured on the battlefield are a threat and then either lets them go, hands them over to Afghan authorities or sends them to Parwan.

The U.S. also operates what it has described as temporary holding pens for gathering intelligence from detainees in Afghanistan; officials have confirmed anonymously that some detainees have been held at these centers for up to nine weeks. The agreement does not appear to address these sites.”

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“The U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership is expected to provide for several thousand U.S. troops to stay and train Afghan forces and help with counterterrorism operations. It would outline the legal status of those forces, their operating rules and where they would be based.

The agreement is also seen as a means of assuring the Afghan people that the U.S. does not plan to abandon their country, even as it withdraws its combat forces.”

Additional Resources:

The ICRC in Afghanistan

The ICRC has been visiting detainees at the Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP, formerly the Bagram Theater Internment Facility), located on a US military airbase north of Kabul, since January 2002, three months after the conflict in Afghanistan began in October 2001. As of the end of 2011, the ICRC had carried out a total of 160 visits at the detention facility. Of the approximately 3,000 detainees currently held there, most are Afghans captured by the US-led coalition in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Since the beginning of 2008, the ICRC has also had access to detainees at several US-run field detention sites in Afghanistan where they are held temporarily before being released or transferred to the DFIP.

As part of a planned gradual decrease in the US military presence in Afghanistan from 2011, the DFIP and many of the persons held there are to be transferred over time to the Afghan government authorities. The ICRC maintains a constructive dialogue with the US and Afghan government authorities on how to conduct this transfer process in a way that reflects humanitarian concerns, respects detainee rights and adequately prepares the Afghan judicial and penitentiary authorities for handling the additional detainee population.

The Generals Visit | Night Raids and Militia Forces

William McRaven, commander of US Special Operations Forces, gave a rare interview in Kabul over the weekend. Defending two of the most controversial US/NATO war tactics he pledged to continue the kill/capture program being carried out through night raids, and gave his support to expand the Afghan Local Police, a paramilitary force.

It's a dangerous and deadly path.

As commander of US forces in Afghanistan before taking over as head of the CIA David H. Petraeus said in hearings before the US Senate Committee on Armed Services that the arming of the private militias was “… in essence, a community watch with AK–47s”

Most Afghans understand the program to be the creation of unaccountable militia armies. Bringing back memories of the terrible violence of the civil war fought between foreign armed militia armies.

In September Human Rights Watch said the initiative was "a high-risk strategy to achieve short-term goals in which local groups are again being armed without adequate oversight or accountability."

The Wall Street Journal reports

The U.S. military is preparing to triple the number of local fighters in the program over the next two years, with 30,000 members set to fan out in 99 districts, said Col. John Evans, deputy commanding officer of Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command in Afghanistan.

There is a sobering link with the US policy of arming the Sunni Awakening in Iraq and the legacy it left behind. The awakening is estimated to still have between 50,000 – 80,000 armed members, and are resisting Iraqi government demands that they disarm by the end of the year.

The New York Times observes

With two weeks left before the United States military completes its withdrawal from Iraq, these units, known broadly as the Sunni Awakening, still remain outside the new Iraqi police force and army. Ragtag groups of men wearing jeans and carrying rifles at dusty checkpoints throughout western Iraq, they are a loose end left by the United States.

For more background: Afghanistan 101 posts on Afghan Militias, Night Raids, and the Afghan experience with war.

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Mural Image: What's Left of Kabul


Created by Guilford College Community and Hanna Swenson, Courtney Mandeville and Layth Awartani

Windows and Mirrors: Reflections of the War in Afghanistan

US Helicopters and Aircraft Kill 24 Pakistani Soldiers

Late Saturday evening, US attack helicopter gunships and jet fighters killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in a cross border raid. There are conflicting accounts of what happened, with US/NATO forces claiming the attack originated from Pakistan and Major General Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for the Pakistan military, stating "I cannot rule out the possibility that this was a deliberate attack by ISAF…"

Pakistan has responding by shutting down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan and giving the U.S. 15 days to remove the Central Intelligence Agency from the Shamsi air base that is a key facility for drone strikes in both countries. Nearly half of the US/NATO land shipments travel through Pakistan.

Steven Lee Meyers writing today in the NYT’s looks at the US military strategy, noting that “[A] major offensive last month involving 11,000 NATO troops and 25,000 Afghan fighters in seven provinces of eastern Afghanistan killed or captured hundreds, many of them using Pakistan as a base.” The attacks are symbolic of the US policy of “fight, talk, build” which seeks to try and negotiate while still fighting.

Eric Schmitt and Salman Masood have a good summary of the US diplomatic response in the NYT’s and the Global Post has a good summary of the Pakistan response.

One of the demands that came out of the recent Loya Jirga on a long-term US military presence was a prohibition on allowing US forces to attack bordering countries from bases in Afghanistan. It is certainly a demand the Afghan Parliament will makes as well.

Additional resources from Afghanistan 101 Pakistan posts.

Key Issues for the Traditional Loya Jirga

The long anticipated loya Jirga officially convened this morning in Kabul.

More than 2,000 invited politicians, tribal leaders, and clerics have gathered for four days of debate on critical issues facing the country. In addition to relationships with Afghanistan's neighbors, the future US-Afghanistan strategic partnership and a consensus for a path towards negotiations with the Taliban are the key issues.

The gathering is not without controversy. Members of Parliament have called it unconstitutional and political groups are boycotting the gathering.

In preparing for the Jirga, the commission’s spokeswoman Safia Sediqi highlighted that this was a ‘traditional’ Jirga.

"...the decisions of this particular jirga are not binding. The traditional loya jirga will only provide the Afghan government with general advice."

Kate Clark from the Afghanistan Analysts Network has a good summary of day one and the presidents vision. This is an excerpt.

Traditional Loya Jirga: The President's Vision

"President Karzai said the jirga would deal with nothing but the strategic partnership agreement and peace talks, thereby denying rumours that he might use the jirga to change the Constitution to lengthen his term in office or allow him to run again. He also repeated many times that this was an ‘advisory jirga’ and the government needed the ‘people’s advice’ to allow them to make the right decisions about Afghanistan’s future. In other words, the jirga is not a decision-making body.

There was almost nothing new of substance in the speech and journalists, looking for news, have been struggling to report on the jirga in an interesting way. Possibly the only fresh line was a reference to Iran being a little more reasonable (aqlani) than the US in the dealings between the two countries.

The aim of the jirga appears not to be to deliver fresh policy, but to get political cover, so that the President can cite it as evidence that the people supported a deal with the Americans and that his government is not, to use Sighbutullah Mujadiddi’s term, watan frush, sellers out of the nation (more below).

Using repetition, homely similes and bonhomie, the President tried to hide the unpleasant fact at the heart of his policy: Allowing permanent US military bases – or ‘institutions and establishments’ as he described them – on Afghan territory will inevitably compromise national sovereignty. Yet the President repeatedly emphasised that he wanted both the strategic partnership and independence. The inherent tension in this came across in contradictions and convoluted messaging..."

115 Dead After 7 Day NATO Assault in Kunar

The Associated Press is reporting that "NATO and Afghan forces have killed at least 115 insurgents over the past week as part of an ongoing operation in a northeastern Afghanistan province."

“NATO said the operation has been going on since around Oct. 15 and has included the use of fighter jets and long-range bombers.”

Last week, a study of NATO press releases by the Afghanistan Analysts Network found that 5% of the casualties from NATO attacks were 'leaders' or 'facilitators'.

NATO continues to claim they are deliberate in their targets.

"The fact is, we target bad guys," said Nicholas Conner, NATO Spokesperson. In tandem with NATO's Afghan partners, "we go after them wherever they are; whoever they are."

The details of the on-going campaign coincides with a surprise visit by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who is in Kabul urging Afghan officials to continue negotiating with Pakistan and the Taliban.

NATO Strikes Retaliate for Helicopter Attack

This morning it was announced that those responsible for the shooting down of a US Chinook helicopter on Saturday 6 August have been killed by NATO-led airstrikes.

The helicopter was shot down while conducting a night-raid in Wardak province. Thirty US troops, including 22 Navy SEALs, an interpreter, and seven Afghan special operations soldiers were killed. It was the largest loss of life for foreign forces in a single incident since US forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

The commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan was more blunt saying "that the Taliban insurgents who shot down [the] U.S. military helicopter... [had] been hunted down and killed by allied forces.


Abubakar Siddique has some lessons learned in Radio Free Europe.

As the U.S. military and civilian leadership come to grips with the loss and await the results of an investigation into its contributing factors, there is a short list of potential lessons already emerging:

1) Taliban Stingers?

Although outside observers and Afghan military experts speculate that the insurgents might now have access to sophisticated antiaircraft weapons, a U.S. administration source described the Chinook downing as a "last lucky shot." But the Taliban subsequently claimed to have shot at and struck another Chinook in the mountainous Zurmat region of the southeastern Paktia Province on August 8. NATO acknowledged that one of its helicopters made a "hard landing" but denied Taliban claims that militants had killed 33 foreign troops in the attack.

Afghan military specialist Amrullah Aman says the insurgents constantly change their tactics. "In Afghanistan's neighboring region, Taliban are helped with weapons and logistics," he claims. "Eight years ago, they were not in a position to fight pitched battles."

The fear is that insurgent access to sophisticated antiaircraft weapons risks a recast version of what's been dubbed Charlie Wilson's War, when U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles rendered the Soviet air force ineffective. In the current conflict, NATO relies on its superior air force to counter insurgents' use of their native terrain and control over parts of the population.

2) Night-Raids Backlash

Helicopters are the primary means of transportation for the many night raids U.S. troops routinely conduct across Afghanistan. In what is considered a repeat of the Iraqi model of dismantling insurgent networks, U.S. Navy SEALs frequently descend on remote mountain villages to kill or capture insurgency leaders. Successive U.S. military commanders consider such raids a weapon of choice against battle-hardened enemies and have increased their frequency.

But the killings have inadvertently promoted a younger generation of insurgents into leadership positions. These Taliban leaders espouse a harder line and sympathize with Al-Qaeda's global jihad. And they have spread panic among Afghanistan's ruling elite -- following the assassination of a number of senior Afghan officials this year, many Afghan government officials are now preoccupied with ducking would-be Taliban assassins.

3) Taliban Encircling Kabul

The downing of a U.S. helicopter so close to Kabul suggests the Taliban are inching closer to the Afghan capital -- the biggest prize in any Afghan war. In the past few years, Taliban fighters have systematically infiltrated rural communities in Wardak, Logar, Kapisa, Nanagarhar, and Laghman provinces, which nearly ring Kabul. The situations in Wardak and Logar, abutting the Afghan capital in the southwest and southeast, are particularly dire because the Taliban now dominates all aspects of life. A presence in these provinces is considered crucial to eventually taking over Kabul -- something the Taliban appear to have their sights set on.

4) The Costs Of War

Arguably the most significant thing to take away from the Chinook downing, though, is that war is still the order of the day in Afghanistan. The Taliban, with the help of its backers and allies, is trying to bleed Americans sufficiently to force them out of the country. Washington, on the other hand, believes that killing a large number of Taliban militants, leaders in particular, will force the Taliban to negotiate on favorable terms. Afghan civilians, already dying in significant numbers, will continue to suffer the price.

Petraeus’ Year-Long Air War | 5,800 Attacks

Copied in full from Noah Shachtman and Spencer Ackerman 5 July post to Danger Room.

When Gen. David Petraeus took command of the Afghan war effort a year ago, his officers insisted that there was no way he’d go back to the bad old days of bombing the country from the sky. This was a counterinsurgency campaign, they said; winning over the population was way more important than nailing any target. Airstrikes would be solely a “tactic of last resort,” as one general told Danger Room, used only if ground troops “cannot withdraw.”

A year later: never mind. The air war is back, according to U.S. military statistics, and in a major way. During Petraeus’ year on the job, coalition warplanes fired their weapons and dropped their bombs on 5,831 sorties. It’s a 65 percent increase from the 3,510 attack runs flown in the previous 12 months. And there’s no sign of a let-up. There were 554 lethal flights in June, compared to about 450 each in June of 2009 and 2008.

It’s yet another sign that the “population-centric” counterinsurgency straegy, popularized by Petraeus and executed almost too faithfully by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is being phased out in Afghanistan. Instead, the focus is on taking individual militants off the battlefield; “counterterrorism,” in military parlance. That means night raids by Special Operations Forces, 1,700 in the last year alone. That means death from above. And as the Obama team starts bringing troops home, expect this all to continue — especially in volatile eastern Afghanistan.

Sure, 33,000 ground troops are supposed to come home by next September. But the number of Special Operations Forces will likely grow. And the warplanes – they’re staying, too. During the week of June 26th, they made a staggering 207 attack runs — easily the most of 2011.

U.S. officials claim that the aggressiveness of the past year has helped break the Taliban’s momentum — especially in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand. Yet civilian deaths are up 20 percent over this time last year. And while things may be looking up in the south, the strategic center of the Afghanistan conflict — the east, which borders Pakistan — has been falling off the cliff. The solution won’t be more troops there, the White House says. It’ll likely be more air power.

According to Petraeus, the east will soon see a “shift of intelligence assets,” along with “armed and lift helicopters and perhaps the shift of some relatively small coalition forces on the ground.” Afghan forces will have to hold any territory against the Taliban and the Haqqani network, backstopped by coalition commandos, drones, warplanes and attack helicopters. Together, they’ll have to “slowly attrit the [Haqqani] network, and force their commanders back in North Waziristan to fill their spots,” says Jeffrey Dressler of the Institute for the Study of War. It’ll be a “challenge” to “keep that pressure on” from the sky.

Any of this sound familiar? When the insurgency began gathering strength from 2006 to 2008, the U.S. used airstrikes to compensate for its meager troop numbers. That resulted in outrage from Afghans, as the strikes would periodically wipe out dozens of innocents at a time, and a decision by U.S. commanders to scale back the air war in favor of a big counterinsurgency campaign.

Except that the new U.S. air war isn’t a replay of the old one. Thanks to an influx of spy planes, both manned and unmanned, American-led forces can observe (and listen to) suspected militants like never before. In the first half of 2009, the coalition flew 120 surveillance flights per week, on average. This past week, there were 687 spy sorties — almost a five-fold increase.

Advances in processing that data give the troops the ability to pounce quickly and surgically. It’s one of the reasons why the U.S. and its allies are now responsible for only 10 percent of civilian casualties, according to United Nations statistics, compared to 39 percent in 2008.

But for Afghans weighed down by a decade of war, it may not matter much who is doing the killing. The U.S.-led coalition promised to bring some stability to Afghanistan. Every corpse is a sign that goal has gone unmet. Maybe that’s one reason why Afghan president Hamid Karzai has called for all but ending the airstrikes and the night raids. What’s Karzai’s alternative — to tell the Taliban to knock it off?

Besides, it’s not like Petraeus listened to Karzai’s pronouncement. All of the bombing from the last month happened after Karzai made his plea.

Kill-Capture Program | Killing Civilians

Kate Clark provides background on the Saturday bombing that killed 14 people on Saturday in Helmand Province.

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President Karzai has said he will no longer allow NATO airstrikes on houses because they are causing too many civilian casualties. The president’s ultimatum follows the pictures shown on Afghan TV on 29 May of distraught villagers in Helmand carrying the bruised and dusty corpses of their small children who had been killed in an air strike on 28 May. The following day, ISAF apologized, although it insisted its forces had been targeting a house from which insurgents had been firing. The deaths of children and women, whether in air strikes or night raids, usually bring prompt apologies from ISAF, but it seems many other cases are simply never admitted to. Not all allegations of civilian casualties are true, says AAN senior analyst, Kate Clark. But neither are all denials.

May 2011 has been a month of intensified bloodshed, with the Taleban implementing its asymmetrical summer ‘Badr’ offensive and the international forces keeping up a high number of night raids and airstrikes. Allegations of fresh civilian casualties have been directed against both the Taleban (see our previous blog on this issue) and the international military. The relatives of the children killed in Helmand who had driven through the night to Lashkargah to show the small bodies to the cameras and the world to prove that the dead were ‘innocent civilians, not…Taleban’ (as reported in the New York Times, link below) were offered ‘sincere apologies’ from ISAF the following day for ‘nine civilians’ killed. The apologies did not cover the full extent of the family’s claims – who said two women, two men and ten children – all civilians – had been killed after the wrong house was hit.

Additional Resources: Frontline Special Kill-Capture

Twelve Dead in Afghan Protests over NATO Killing of Two Women in Night Raid

Twelve people were killed and 80 wounded in violent protests this morning against the killing of two men and two women, accused of being insurgents, in a night-time raid by foreign troops in north Afghanistan, Afghan officials said.

Hours after the pre-dawn raid, more than 1,500 people carrying the bodies of the four dead marched into Taloqan, the regional capital of Takhar Province where the raid took place today

Local police and residents said the four people killed in the raid late on Tuesday night in Taloqan were civilians.

NATO-led forces said they were armed insurgents.

McClatchy reports...

"American forces entered a house in a village near Taloqan city, the capital of Takhar province, around 12:30 a.m. As a result, four people were killed. Two of the deaths are women," Abdul Jabar Taqwa, the provincial governor, told McClatchy in a telephone interview.

Afghans fear that U.S. forces, flush with success over the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistani, will increasingly rely on the tactic of swooping down in darkness on residential compounds.

With 150,000 foreign troops in the country violence across Afghanistan has reached its highest levels since the Taliban were overthrown in late 2001, with record casualties on all sides of the conflict.

The latest civilian deaths come at a time of high anti-Western sentiment. Last month, seven foreign United Nations staffers were killed when protests against the burning of a Koran by a fundamentalist U.S. pastor turned violent.

Additional Resource:

Michael Semple documents a NATO targeted killing (of the wrong person) in the same province that was featured in the Frontline special Capture/kill.

Night Raid Kills Afghan Child

On Saturday Sharifullah Sahak and Alissa J. Rubin reported that for the second time in three days foreign troops killed an Afghan child in a night raid. With the increased use of targeted killings to replace boots on the ground more Afghans will be killed causing more resentment.

KABUL, Afghanistan — For the second time in three days, a night raid in eastern Afghanistan by NATO forces resulted in the death of a child, setting off protests on Saturday that turned violent and ended in the death of a second boy.

“The district governor, Abdul Khalid, said he had feared a Taliban attack on the government center and had called for help from local Afghan security forces. At the same time, there was a raid, he said. “American forces did an operation and mistakenly killed a fourth-grade student; he had gone to sleep in his field and had a shotgun next to him,” he said.

“People keep shotguns with them for hunting, not for any other purposes,” Mr. Khalid said.

The boy was the son of an Afghan National Army soldier, according to Noor Alam, the headmaster of the school the student attended. Although the boy was 15, like many rural Afghans, he was in a lower grade because he had not been able to go to school regularly, local residents said.

When morning came, an angry crowd gathered in Narra, the boy’s village, and more than 200 people marched with his body to the district center. Some of the men were armed and confronted the police, shouting anti-American slogans and throwing rocks at police vehicles and the Hesarek government center, according to the district governor and the headmaster.

The police opened fire in an effort to push back the crowd to stop its advance to the district center. A 14-year-old boy was killed, and at least one other person was wounded, Mr. Khalid said.“

In February the Afghan government accused NATO of killing 60 in an attack in Kunar province - also in eastern Afghanistan.