Milan Il Sole: “Italian Soldiers Engaged in Battle; They Are Fighting 400 Jihadis From Helmand”

Italian Report Details Battle Between Afghan Forces, ‘Jihadis’ in Farah Province

[Report by Gianandrea Gaiani: "Italian Soldiers Engaged in Battle; They Are Fighting 400 Jihadis From Helmand"]

The Taliban have entered in great numbers the sector of Western Afghanistan that is controlled by NATO troops under Italian command. On Monday [ 29 October], around 400 jihadis coming from the southern province of Helmand entered Gulistan District, in Farah Province, the hottest of the four provinces entrusted to NATO’s Regional Western Command, led by Alpine Regiment General Fausto Macor.

According to Abdol Rehman Sarjang, the Gulistan chief of police, the Taliban joined local guerrillas in order to take over the district capital, where “they shot at the local population, killing seven.” Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, has confirmed the conquest of the district, which has 55,000 inhabitants, 80% belonging to the Pashtun ethnic group, while the rest are Tajiks.

Sarjang reported that his officers suffered three losses, but that they killed or injured around 20 Taliban before withdrawing because of the enemy’s greater numbers. “We have had to make a tactical withdrawal,” but the officer confirmed that Afghan and NATO troops are fighting to “regain total control of the district.” This statement could confirm the involvement of the Italian troops deployed in Farah along with 200 US soldiers from the Provincial Reconstruction Team and a Green Berets division — special forces that are, however, under the command of Enduring Freedom.

Precisely in order to oppose Taleban advances, since last year the Italian command has deployed around 100 infantry soldiers from the Rapid Reaction Force and some special forces detachments. So far, no official Italian source has given any information regarding the operations that are under way. According to leaks, Italian troops are not directly involved in the clashes for the time being, but they are thought to be supporting an Afghan Army battalion and the police divisions engaged in the fighting.

The vehicles available include three CH-47 transport helicopters, two unmanned Predator recognition aircraft (which are able to maintain a systematic surveillance of the land for longer) and five Mangusta fighter helicopters (two of which were recently moved from the airport in Herat to the base in Farah).

If the figures given by the police are confirmed, the Taliban offensive under way in Gulistan is the largest in the sector under Italian command. For this reason it seems unlikely that Italian and allied troops are not involved in the fighting, particularly given the weakness of the government’s troops and the fact that Italian and American military advisors train Afghan battalions and accompany them into action.

Gulistan District was previously occupied by the Taliban, who were kicked out of there after heavy fighting in September 2005. This follows the usual tactic of taking control of a district and then withdrawing when allied reinforcements arrived. This is with the exception of Musa Qala, in Helmand [Province], which has been in the hands of Mola Omar’s men for a year now.

[Description of Source: Milan Il Sole-24 Ore (Internet Version-WWW) in Italian -- leading financial and economic daily. OSC EUP20071031058009 31 Oct 07]

Il Giornale: “No Vehicles for Italian Soldiers: This Is How the Budget Helps the Taliban”

Italian Commentary Fears Effects of Defense Budget Cuts on Afghanistan Mission

[Commentary by Fausto Biloslavo: "No Vehicles for Italian Soldiers: This Is How the Budget Helps the Taliban"]

This time the wall of silence surrounding the armed forces and our most difficult missions abroad has been broken. This was ensured by General Fabrizio Castagnetti, the army’s chief of General Staff, who denounced the shortcomings of the new budget. “If we go on like this, we risk not being able to replace the vehicles that the Taliban blow up,” the top officer said, referring to the worrying cuts planned for the defense budget.

A few hours later, at the NATO summit in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, there came another blow for the Prodi government’s low profile policy on Afghanistan, which is dictated by his governing majority’s pacifist blackmail. The NATO secretary, the Dutchman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, wants all member countries to rotate on the front line against the Taliban in the hostile southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. So, sooner or later, Italian soldiers will also be involved in the bloodiest part of the mission.

For the time being, given the dark forecasts for the budget, it will already be a success if we continue to be fully operational in Afghanistan. Gen Castagnetti, speaking in Turin yesterday morning at the opening of the academic year of the army’s practical school, opened up a can of worms. It will be the army, with its 7,000 men engaged abroad, that will suffer most from the cuts. Thinking about Afghanistan, the general’s quip must have been spontaneous: “If we go on like this, we risk not being able to replace the vehicles the Taliban blow up.”

The latest of these are the Puma armored vehicles, which have fallen prey to several ambushes in the Musay Valley, on the outskirts of Kabul. There are still too few of the new Lince vehicles — which, according to the soldiers on the ground, are better equipped to survive bomb ambushes. Furthermore, according to the magazine Analisi Difesa, there are no funds to purchase either additional towers for the Pumas or the second version of the vehicle, to which further armor can be added.

The remark by General Castagnetti was not only a quip, because there are reportedly problems with the replacement parts for the five Mangusta attack helicopters, which have been operational for only a few months in Herat. In Afghanistan, vehicles are affected by wear and tear more than elsewhere. The ceremony in Turin was also attended by Defense Undersecretary Marco Verzaschi — who was kind enough to agree about the lack of funds. Despite belonging to the ruling coalition that will present a budget of blood and tears for our soldiers, he pointed out the following: “For the third year in a row, cuts are expected for the Armed Forces. These cuts limit training, education, and safe vehicles.”

Castagnetti also pointed out that if the security package — which is being blocked at the Council of Ministers by tit-for-tat vetoes — is not approved swiftly, “there is a risk of thousands of people being left without permanent employment, young people who, after they have ended their stint of voluntary enrolment, need to be sent home.” He was referring to the section in the package that reintroduces the so-called “transit,” that is, the possibility for army volunteers to join the police.

The informal meeting of NATO defense ministers — including Arturo Parisi [Italian defense minister] — which was held yesterday in The Netherlands poured cold water on the ultra-pacifist expectations held by fringes in our government. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that he “would like to see more rotation” of troops on the hottest fronts of the Afghan conflict. In the south and east, only Dutch, British, Canadian, and American soldiers are fighting on the front line. De Hoop Scheffer would like the other allies, too, to share the responsibility, on rotation, for the most difficult and bloody part of the ISAF mission.

Italy and Germany do not even want to hear about it, but the issue will come to the fore at the NATO conference called for November, aimed at sending more troops to the “hot” areas, too.

[Description of Source: Milan Il Giornale (Internet Version-WWW) in Italian -- right-of-center daily owned by the Berlusconi family. OSC EUP20071025058006 25 Oct 07]

Tirana ATA: More Albanian soldiers to Herat

Defense Minister Says Albania Ready To Send Military Experts to Afghanistan

Tirana, 26 October (ATA) — The Minister of Defense, Fatmir Mediu, confirmed Albania’s willingness to send military experts to Afghanistan, who will assist to enhance professionalism of the Afghan Army and Police. This is the current NATO’s and ISAF priority regarding Afghanistan.

The Press Office in the Ministry of Defense reported on Friday (26 October) that on October 24, Minister Mediu attended the meeting of defense ministers of the NATO and partner nations, that take part in ISAF mission in Afghanistan, held in Noordvijk of Holland.

Mr.Mediu stressed that “Albania will stand in Afghanistan up to completion of ISAF mission. This is a serious and constant commitment to build a democracy through peace and stability.”

He acquainted the participants with the reforms the Albanian government has implemented in the threshold of NATO summit in the coming spring in Bucharest, where our country is expected to get membership invitation in the North Atlantic Alliance.

“In Riga summit, the NATO Secretary General demanded additional contributions by the participating nations in ISAF mission in Afghanistan. Albania responded immediately to this appeal, through sending additional companies under Italian command in Herat,” said Mr.Mediu, while he announced that “actually, Albania is present in Afghanistan with three important contributions, one squad under Turkish command in Kabul, a company in Herat and the joint medical team in the framework of the Adriatic Charter under Czech command.”
[Description of Source: Tirana ATA in English -- government press agency. OSC EUP20071026005009 Tirana ATA in English 1231 GMT 26 Oct 07]

Herat TV: Afghan foreign minister says relations with Iran expanding

At 1710 gmt on 16 October, Herat’s state-owned television channel broadcast a recorded speech delivered by Afghan Foreign Minister Dr Rangin Dadfar-Spanta at a meeting of provincial administration officials, MPs, religious scholars, intellectuals and local reporters. The meeting was held in Herat Province on Monday evening, 15 October.

To start with, the minister greeted the participants and expresses happiness over the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) meeting which is scheduled to be held in Herat city between 17 to 20 October.

He then moved to talking about the meeting’s importance, stressing that officials have focused on Herat to show the world that there are many important issues worth paying attention to including the geographical position of Herat Province and its historical monuments as well as its people’s vigour and resilience in dealing with hardship and rebuilding their city and standing on their own feet.

He said: “During any international meeting or conference, one of the programmes is to see the historical monuments. So if we take a tour of the city, we can show our guests many parts which were destroyed but the people rebuilt them… We should all be proud of our history and civilization “

Touching on the members of the Economic Cooperation Organization, Dr Dadfar-Spanta stressed that the Afghan government has good, friendly relations with all ECO members, specifically Iran and Pakistan and Turkey.

He said: “We have extraordinary relations with the Republic of Turkey, which is above the normal relations between the two governments, for there are personally good relations between the two presidents and between me and the Turkish president and many Turkish top officials We would like to expand these relations and Turkey has already invested in Afghanistan ”

Among other things, the minister concentrated on the allegedly controversial ties with Iran. He said: “The Islamic Republic of Iran shares a common religion, language and civilization with us. It has been fully active in the reconstruction of Afghanistan We are expanding our relations contrary to the rumours. There can be some misunderstandings, but this should not affect our friendship and we should remove them for the sake of our young and future generations…”

Talking about the current relations with Pakistan, the minister said: “Fortunately, there have been some slight changes in favour of us in our relations with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan We emphasize that terrorism must not be used as a tool in a country’s foreign strategy since it may eventually affect that country. We have always advised our Pakistani friends about this and our hope is that the Pakistani officials will understand the good will of our government and people “

The foreign minister then thanked the government for providing 500,000 US dollars for the ECO meeting, the German and Italian governments for their cooperation and donation and the central and provincial government officials for their concerted, strenuous efforts for the meeting.

He closed his speech by thanking the officials and the Herati people yet again and expressing hope the meeting will be held effectively.

[Description of Source: Herat Herat Television in Dari -- state-run television. OSC IAP20071016950131 1710 GMT 16 Oct 07]

Spiegel Online: THE DISCOUNT WAR–ISAF Is Failing in Effort to Secure Afghanistan on the Cheap

SPIEGEL ONLINE – October 10, 2007, 05:29 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,510674,00.html

By Ralf Beste, Konstantin von Hammerstein and Alexander Szandar

Germany’s parliament votes this Friday on whether to extend Berlin’s participation in the military mission in Afghanistan. The country is on the brink of disaster, but German politicians have chosen to ignore Afghanistan’s real problems.

Italian Brigadier General Fausto Macor is the ideal star witness to make the situation in Afghanistan dramatically clear to German politicians. The wiry general from the northern Italian city of Turin has been in charge of the Regional Command West of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan since July. He and his men are deployed in what is considered the quietest and safest part of the country.

Macor and his men are barricaded into an area near the airport in Herat, an old trading city of 250,000 inhabitants that has long served as a gateway to nearby Iran. Heavily armed Albanian soldiers guard the entrance to the camp, which is protected against enemy fire by a 1-meter-thick wall of boulders.

On Tuesday of last week, the general met with Eckart von Klaeden, the foreign policy spokesman of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Von Klaeden had traveled to the city with the German ambassador to Afghanistan, Hans-Ulrich Seidt.

The general is slightly delayed, having attended a memorial service for two Spanish soldiers who were killed the day before in a bomb attack 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the south. The service was broadcast live on Italian television to a distressed nation. NATO troops have just liberated two kidnapped Italian intelligence officers from Macor’s contingent. One of the Italians suffered serious injuries during the raid.
The commander sits in a chair, his back to the television set, and points to a military map on the wall. “You see,” he says, “I am responsible for an area half the size of Italy.” Then he rattles off the relevant statistics. Of the 1,800 soldiers under his command, only 270 can go on patrol. If he sends two units out on patrol, they can easily find themselves operating 400 kilometers (249 miles) apart. “It’s as if one of them were in Turin and the other in Venice,” says the general.

He can expect little support from the Afghan army, which has only 400 armed troops in the western sector. As a result, the general is left to his own resources as far as entire regions are concerned. He has no illusions. There is no power vacuum in Afghanistan: Taliban fundamentalists, armed tribal warlords or criminal gangs control the areas where there are no international troops.

In fact, the rule of law ends only a few hundred meters from Macor’s headquarters, where the commander of the Herat airport complains about his situation. Outside, the warm late autumn sun shines on the Italians’ gray Hercules transport aircraft. The mustachioed police colonel keeps his office cooled to a chilly 19 degrees Celsius (61 degrees Fahrenheit). The law requires that no armed soldiers be allowed on the airport grounds. The police colonel complains that his men, armed with only 30 old Kalashnikov automatic rifles, are poorly equipped to uphold the law at the airport.

This isn’t nearly enough firepower to deter the city’s powerful men, who often appear on the tarmac with scores of bodyguards armed with pistols, rifles and mobile grenade launchers. In front of the parked aircraft, rival private armies occasionally engage in violent gun battles, while the airport commander’s men are forced to look on helplessly.
Welcome to Afghanistan in the sixth year following the Western intervention. Welcome to a country that ranks, sadly, in eighth place in the 2007 edition of the “Failed States Index” compiled by the US magazine Foreign Policy — just behind Sudan, Iraq, Somalia and Zimbabwe. Welcome to Afghanistan, the country NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has proclaimed a test case for the future operability of the world’s most powerful military alliance.

A troop withdrawal would be a “serious defeat for international law and the international community,” warns Peter Struck, the floor leader of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), while German Chancellor Angela Merkel believes that her country’s commitment to the operation in Afghanistan is “the only way to demonstrate that we fight terrorists, and that we do so with great resolve.” Welcome to one of the most controversial issues in German foreign policy.

This Friday, Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, will vote on whether to extend two of the three German military mandates in Afghanistan, currently the Bundeswehr’s most dangerous mission. Twenty-one German soldiers have already lost their lives in Afghanistan, and last Friday three Germans were lucky to escape from a suicide attack with only minor injuries. The Bundestag will decide the fate of up to 3,500 soldiers and six Tornado reconnaissance aircraft operating in Afghanistan under the auspices of NATO’s ISAF force.

Parliament’s approval of the mission is considered a done deal, with a broad majority in both the ruling grand coalition and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) likely to vote in favor of keeping the troops in Afghanistan. Even a number of Green parliamentarians intend to support the measure, despite the party’s recent decision not to. Only the Left Party is strictly opposed to the Bundeswehr’s Afghanistan mission.

The future of Germany’s more controversial involvement in the US-led antiterrorism Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) will not be decided until November, after the SPD convention in Hamburg.

Relatively few members of parliament have traveled to Afghanistan in recent months to get a first-hand impression of the situation in the war-torn country, despite the fact that members of the German Bundestag are normally known for their love of travel. Apparently only very few of Germany’s elected representatives feel that Afghanistan is worth a visit.

The ones who choose to stay at home are acutely aware of why they do not want to be associated with the country. The mood among the German public has changed dramatically since the grand coalition took office two years ago. Whereas 60 percent of poll respondents approved of the Bundeswehr’s Afghanistan mission in the past, considerably more than half are openly pushing for a withdrawal today.
Although officials at the Chancellery insist that the country is at the top of the chancellor’s agenda, Angela Merkel studiously avoids being tainted by unpopular issues like Afghanistan. She expresses her support for Germany’s commitment to the shattered country from time to time, perhaps out of a sense of duty, but she has already withdrawn to the sidelines of the debate.

Her predecessor, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, made two trips to the crisis-plagued region. Photo ops from Afghanistan were still considered desirable at the time. Merkel, on the other hand, prefers being portrayed as a climate change crusader, posing for the cameras in front of a glacier in Greenland or visiting a school in Ethiopia. But she has yet to make an appearance in Afghanistan. There have been many excuses for her apparent decision to shun the country, ranging from kidnappings to SPD conventions to a busy schedule.

The news that reaches Berlin from Afghanistan these days is simply too horrific. Members of parliament who have visited the country describe a place on the verge of collapse. Instead of declining, the problems of poverty, corruption, violence and sheer hopelessness are on the rise. Government institutions are virtually nonexistent in many parts of the country, the police are corrupt and overworked and the military isn’t in much better shape. The effects of Western development aid go largely unnoticed by much of the population.

The security situation is also becoming more and more precarious. More than 5,000 people were killed in attacks or combat during the first nine months of this year alone. According to a United Nations report, acts of violence have increased by close to 30 percent this year. Three-quarters of the attacks are directed against Afghan soldiers, police officers and foreign troops, “in a deliberate and calculated effort to impede the establishment of legitimate government institutions,” the UN report states.

The situation on the military front is unclear. In a Sep. 18 classified report labeled “Urgent” to the governments of European Union member states, the EU’s special envoy in Kabul, Spain’s Francesc Vendrell, identifies a “paradoxical trend.” “While ISAF is achieving significant military successes against the insurgents, especially as a result of targeted attacks on Taliban commanders,” Vendrell writes, “the unsafe zone in which the insurgents operate is growing.” Even a weak Taliban presence is sufficient, Vendrell continues, to bring “normal government activities to an end” and to bring large segments of the population under the influence of the insurgents.

Vendrell’s conclusions coincide with the results of a study by the Senlis Council, an international think tank, which conducted a survey in March of 12,000 Afghan men in the southern and eastern sections of the country, regions which have seen fierce fighting. The study’s conclusions were devastating. In late 2001, the vast majority of Afghans believed that the Taliban had been defeated once and for all. Today only half of those surveyed are convinced that international forces will win the war against the insurgents in southern Afghanistan. It appears that although the Taliban is unlikely to win the war militarily, it is increasingly emerging victorious in the battle for public opinion.

The loss of confidence in and respect for the international community has political consequences. EU envoy Vendrell reports, with some concern, on a written memo from the Afghan interior minister to all provincial governors and police commanders, in which they were instructed to refrain from visiting international aid organizations and civilian and military reconstruction teams in the future.

Although the consequences of the order would not be significant in practice, writes Vendrell, many of his Afghan contacts are concerned about the impression it conveys, namely that the level of trust between the government and the international community is declining. They also fear that “officials with connections to organized crime could gather incriminating material against non-corrupt officials because of harmless contacts.”

There is an odd disparity between the reality in Afghanistan and the political debate in Germany. Seemingly oblivious to the information coming from the country, both the Bundestag and the political parties become embroiled in heated debates over technical details that are in fact irrelevant in Afghanistan. The Green Party and the SPD, in particular, spent weeks in an enthusiastic debate about OEF, ISAF and the Tornado jets.

For many Greens and Social Democrats, the OEF anti-terrorism operation is the epitome of a merciless US-led bombing war that they claim is practically driving Afghans into the arms of the Taliban. At the Green Party convention in the central German city of Göttingen, the party base decided that it would no longer vote in favor of extending the Bundeswehr’s Afghanistan mission. The SPD’s leadership has scheduled the discussion of Afghanistan at its upcoming convention in Hamburg in late October for Saturday evening, timed to coincide with the popular sports broadcast “Sportschau” — apparently in an attempt to divert delegates’ attention away from the debate over OEF and the ISAF.

The debates being conducted in Berlin are essentially ersatz discussions — a not-uncommon tactic among German politicians. Last year, a swarm of self-proclaimed naval experts spent weeks debating the marginal issue of whether the German navy’s deployment off the Lebanese coast should remain outside a three-mile or a six-mile zone.

The important questions in the Afghanistan debate are also being ignored. For instance, how does one define success for the mission? Can a discount war — one that is being waged with a relatively minimal financial commitment — succeed in the long run? Shouldn’t the West, including Germany, increase its commitment to the mission? Should its goals be redefined? Or is it enough to provide the Afghan people with electricity, running water and a little freedom of opinion?

At least some politicians — those who focus on foreign affairs — are offering clear answers to many of these questions. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, for example, says that the goal in Afghanistan is, of course, not to establish a “Westminster democracy” with the corresponding benefits of a social welfare state. Christian Democratic parliamentarian Ruprecht Polenz, the chairman of the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, consciously sets the bar low when he says: “The goal is to ensure that no more threats originate from within the Afghan state.”
In truth, this objective would represent a dramatic reversal of German policy. In 2002, then Chancellor Schröder insisted that the Afghans ought to be compensated for their “return to the civilized world” by providing them with an adequate “prosperity dividend.” The goal of the intervention, the Schröder administration explained, was to achieve human rights, democracy and prosperity for Afghanistan.

These noble objectives are rarely mentioned today. But which criteria must be fulfilled before the mission can be considered a success and the German troops and their allies can return home? No one knows. An exit strategy is “currently not in sight,” says one German NATO general.

“We won’t let the foreigners leave until our roads are built, our schools, electricity are built, until our police and army are better,” Afghan President Hamid Karzai said recently. Some at NATO perceive this statement as a threat. “Our assistance ends,” says German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, “when Afghanistan can find its way to a positive future on its own two feet.”

“NATO will have successfully completed its mission when the Afghan government and its security forces can take responsibility throughout the entire country,” NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told SPIEGEL in a recent interview. But Scheffer is unwilling to make any predictions, except to say: “NATO will have to stay for the foreseeable future.”

Faced with a difficult situation, the allies are now placing their hopes on the plan to train 70,000 soldiers and 82,000 police officers by the next parliamentary election, in three years. The new mantra of the NATO member states, says Scheffer, is “training, training, training.” “Those who do not invest in training now,” says German General Egon Ramms, who runs the ISAF mission from the NATO command center in the Dutch town of Brunssum, “will have to stay that much longer.”

The Germans are eager to distance themselves from the United States in public debates, insisting that, unlike the Americans, the Germans are mainly involved in civilian reconstruction assistance. But this is precisely where Germany has failed miserably — in developing the Afghan police force, for example, for which Berlin has assumed primary responsibility. After visiting Afghanistan in the summer, a delegation of members of the Bundestag concluded that the work of the German contingent has been disastrous.

Germany, supposedly a “lead nation” in ISAF, has taken a leisurely approach to the Afghanistan effort. In January 2002, a team of high-ranking experts traveled to Afghanistan and recommended sending three German officials to Kabul to serve as advisors to the Afghan interior ministry. The German team, apparently convinced that this would be sufficient, envisioned the trio developing courses for senior bureaucrats and helping the Afghans improve their police academy. It recommended a one-year stint for the three officials. Aside from that, the experts concluded, the Afghans lacked equipment, cars and, most of all, weapons.

But weapons were precisely what the Afghans eventually acquired in abundance. It was an “absurdity,” said FDP parliamentarian Elke Hoff, that Berlin planned to supply Afghanistan with up to 100,000 firearms while denying the Afghan police simple equipment like handcuffs. Germany’s interior and foreign ministries refused to provide countries that fail to fully satisfy German constitutional standards with equipment designed to “exercise direct coercion.”

This defect is only being remedied now — a full five years after Germany launched its Afghan police training program. According to an internal report by the German foreign ministry, “500 officers of the Kabul riot police will soon be equipped with body armor, helmets, shields, gloves, batons and pepper spray.”

Even when the German team of advisors was later expanded to include 60 officials, generally only 40 of them were actually at work at any one time. In the wake of this embarrassing staffing debacle, officials at the interior ministry and chancellery are now quietly examining the possibility of developing a permanent team of specially trained police officers, federal prosecutors and administrative experts that could quickly be deployed to failed states to deal with similar crises. But this is little more than a pipe dream at this point.

Besides, the Americans aren’t interested in waiting for Germany to get its act together and have already taken over from the Germans in many respects. While Berlin agonized over the “further training of mid-level and senior officials” and “salary and rank reforms,” Washington deployed 2,500 troops as police trainers, backed up with hundreds of contractors working for DynCorp, a private security firm.

Managed by retired US generals, the DynCorp employees are training illiterate Afghans to work as police deputies in paramilitary crash courses. Their goal is to ensure that the men will be passable marksmen by the end of the training. The fact that many desert as soon as they complete the courses is seen as an unpleasant fact of life — but not as a blemish on DynCorp’s training statistics.

In the wake of their failures, the Germans are now trying to shift the responsibility for police training to the EU and distribute it among more countries. In May the EU formed its own police training mission, dubbed EUPOL, which has been managed so far by Friedrich Eichele, a German police general. Eichele, the former head of GSG 9, the counterterrorism unit of the German federal police, is a man of few words. His command of the English language is rudimentary and his diplomatic skills are considered limited.

Given such leadership, within only a few months EUPOL has already deteriorated into a directionless tangle of bureaucracy and financial weakness. EUPOL’s 195 EU police officers from 17 countries are not even scheduled to assume their new posts until next March. According to officials, this is the earliest possible date, since the group must first build new, and appropriately comfortable, lodgings for its officers.
All of two German police officers are currently assigned to assist the German reconstruction team in the provincial city of Kunduz, which includes more than 400 soldiers. EUPOL plans to replace the pair with five of its team members soon. The new team will be responsible for the training of 7,500 Afghan police officers in two provinces. In the face of such realities, Guido Westerwelle, the head of the FDP, couldn’t help but comment sarcastically on the program while visiting Afghanistan two weeks ago: “Well, that certainly takes care of police development.”

Despite the efforts of German and British advisors, the interior ministry in Kabul is considered a hotbed of corruption. It costs up to $150,000 in bribes to secure a position as a district police chief. But the investment is worthwhile. Once on the job, a police chief can easily recoup the money from his subordinates.

General Dan McNeill, the American commander of ISAF, likes to entertain visitors to his headquarters in Kabul with small anecdotes from the everyday lives of the Afghan police. He recently instructed his Afghan underlings to set up 20 checkpoints along the road between Kabul and Kandahar. “Which police checkpoints?” a wide-eyed Afghan asked McNeill a few weeks after the initial order. “Oh,” the Afghan quickly realized, “you mean the new tollbooths.”

Wherever one looks in Afghanistan, officials are busy skimming off their cuts. In fact, police officers often exist only on paper. Local police chiefs line their pockets by collecting funds from the international community’s coffers to pay the salaries of nonexistent officers. To add insult to injury, the officers that do exist are paid miserably to perform their life-threatening jobs. At the paltry salary of $70 a month, many police officers complete basic training and then promptly desert to join the private militias of wealthy warlords and drug barons, or even the Taliban. At $400 to $600 a month, the competition pays a lot more than the police.

The situation is hardly any better in the military. According to NATO statistics, 38,000 soldiers have already been trained with Western assistance, a process that will take years and is expected to eventually produce 70,000 soldiers. But these figures do not reflect the real situation.

Last Wednesday, for example, the US commander in charge of training gave a memorable performance at the NATO Council in Brussels. The NATO ambassadors attending the meeting asked Major General Robert Cone, who was in Kabul but was taking part in the session via videoconference, how many men in the Afghan army are now ready for combat.

The general responded that while the goal was to train 70,000 men, 50,000 are already being paid. But, he added, many of these men are simply AWOL (“absent without leave”). In other words, they are either deserters or men who occasionally choose to stay at home instead of appearing for duty. Besides, Cone added, he is having trouble retaining the men who have been trained. The actual force, he told the NATO officials, presumably consists of about 30,000 men, but he was unable to provide them with a more precise figure.

But the ambassadors were insistent. How many of those men are ready for combat? “I really can’t say,” the general said. Finally he admitted the truth: “To be perfectly honest — zero.”

In fact, Cone continued, not a single Afghan unit is capable of independently running an operation. According to Cone, the Afghan military lacks everything from artillery to helicopters, military hospitals, reconnaissance equipment and support personnel.

This explains why Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak tells every Western visitor that what he needs most are weapons. A few Leopard 1 tanks would be nice, the portly general told CDU parliamentarian von Klaeden two weeks ago in an effort to solicit more German support, but the modern Leopard 2 wouldn’t be so bad, either.

For NATO officers, Wardak’s tank fantasies are nothing short of ridiculous. The general, they complain, only wants the expensive combat machinery so that he can stage an impressive military parade. Besides, they add, experience has shown that most Western weapons deliveries to the Afghan army quickly end up on the black market.

The results of the international community’s reconstruction efforts have been so sobering that many, including Foreign Minister Steinmeier, are calling for a rethink of Germany’s commitment in Afghanistan. Berlin cannot afford to continue its current policy, he explained in the summer. He called for a stronger German commitment, saying that more troops, more police officers and more development aid are necessary.

But such calls for action have done nothing to change the situation. The state of the police training effort remains miserable, while Defense Minister Jung is obstructing efforts to increase the Bundeswehr contingent from 4,000 to 5,000 men — a move both the Foreign Ministry and the Chancellery have endorsed. The team of 400 military trainers Steinmeier wants to see sent to Afghanistan will likely be reduced to no more than 180. But he does see progress in reconstruction aid: The German government has increased its annual funding of the program from €80 million to €125 million.

For Bruce Riedel, a member of the National Security Council at the White House until 2002, all of these efforts, including those of other Western nations, are a disgrace. “We have tried to rebuild a country devastated by a quarter century of wars, invasion and terror on the cheap,” he said in a recent interview. “Instead of a massive economic reconstruction effort akin to the Marshall Plan of the 1940s, Afghans have gotten less economic aid on a per capita basis than Haitians or Bosnians.”

His verdict on the Bush administration’s approach? “Like trying to put a Band-Aid on a chest wound.”

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

AFP: Attack thwarted on ISAF change of command ceremony at Herat airport

(AFP)
10 October 2007KABUL – Gunmen opened fire on people praying in a remote village’s mosque in central Afghanistan, killing two men, while a mullah was gunned down separately in new Ramadan attacks, police said Wednesday.

In the west of the country, meanwhile, security forces discovered three rockets set to be fired on a ceremony attended by senior Afghan and NATO officials at a military air base outside the city of Herat.

The mosque attack happened late Tuesday in Sayed Abad district of Wardak province just south of the capital, Kabul, provincial deputy police commander Mohammad Asif Banwal told AFP.Two people, including a teacher, were killed while 10 others were wounded, all of them ‘innocent villagers’, he said.He blamed the attack on ‘enemies of peace’—a reference to the Taleban who have been waging an insurgency since their ouster from government in late 2001.Separately, unknown gunmen shot a mullah, or cleric, the same day in Logar province also bordering Kabul, the interior ministry said in a statement.The mullah died of severe wounds on his way to the hospital, it said, without saying who might have been behind the shooting.The Taleban said before Ramadan began mid-September that they would step up their attacks during the holy fasting month. They have since claimed responsibility for several deadly suicide attacks.Police have launched a hunt for the attackers in the surrounding villages, Banwal added.The ready-to-be fired rockets were found Wednesday as Afghan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) officials gathered to attend a change-of-command ceremony in Herat Air Base, police said.‘The rockets were apparently set to target the ceremony,’ local government official Ghulam Hazrat Hazrati told AFP. They were a couple of kilometres from the air base.The Taleban were removed from power in a US-led invasion six years ago.But they are the main group behind an increasingly bloody insurgency that is trying to topple the US-backed government in Kabul and force out tens of thousands of foreign troops here to help the administration.

DPA: Enthusiasm for Afghan deployment waning in many countries

Oct 10, 2007, 11:08 GMT

Almost 40 countries have committed troops, police and aid workers to the pacification and reconstruction of Afghanistan since the US- led operation to oust the Taliban began in October 2001.

As early as December of that year, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1386, setting up the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to secure the Kabul region.

But in the face of mounting death tolls, soaring poppy production and only scant evidence of progress on the reconstruction front, enthusiasm for the deployment is fading in many countries.

Apart from the costs – economic and human – many Europeans are concerned their countries could become targets for the kind of terrorist attacks seen in Madrid in March 2004 and London in July the following year.

NATO-led ISAF is the largest allied operation and was originally intended to provide security and reconstruction, although its mandate has been extended to include combat operations against the Taliban in the south of the country.

The US-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) is primarily an anti- Taliban operation, while there are other allied missions such as the European Union police mission.

In total, there are reported to be some 50,000 foreign forces of all kinds in Afghanistan.

The United States and Britain have the largest deployments – 23,000 and 6,700 respectively – and have taken the worst casualties. The US has lost 449 and Britain 82, but political support for the campaign remains broad-based in both countries.

The US has pressured Germany and France to play a larger role in combating resurgent Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan and to lift rules that limit troops to a peacekeeping role in relatively safe areas.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is firmly committed to the mission and plans to raise the number of British troops to 8,000 by the end of the year.

‘If the Taliban were to take over in Afghanistan, the whole of the civilized world would be affected,’ Brown said recently. ‘We must support American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.’

British commanders have spoken of a 30-year ‘marathon mission.’

The situation is very different in Canada. The loss of 71 soldiers, largely in heavy fighting in the southern province of Kandahar, from a relatively small deployment of 2,500, has led to a strong swing in public opinion against the mission.

Initially 80 per cent of Canadians were in favour, but the latest renewal of the mandate in 2006 just squeaked through parliament.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has assured the US that Canadian troops will remain at least until February 2009, but after that he faces parliamentary hurdles amid growing public resistance.

Germany has the third-largest deployment at 3,500, but its troops are confined to the relatively peaceful north away from the main anti-Taliban operations and to flying reconnaissance missions.

The Germans have lost 25, 14 to attacks and the rest to accidents. While the major political parties continue to back the deployment, polls show a small majority in favour of pulling the troops out, despite broad political backing for the mission.

France, which has its forces deployed mainly in the Kabul region, has lost a dozen. In August President Nicolas Sarkozy announced an increase in the French effort to train the Afghan army, raising the total to 1,150.

In a show of commitment that is increasingly rare among allies weary of commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan, Sarkozy said recently: ‘I am more determined than ever to continue the struggle against terrorism.’

Poland and the Netherlands are two countries with substantial numbers of troops committed, despite strong opposition among the general population.

Poland has some 1,200 troops deployed in the south-east, with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski committed to continuing the mission.

But public opposition is estimated at above 80 per cent, even though casualties have thus far been minimal.

Most Dutch want their almost 1,700 troops home by August next year, when the current mandate expires, with only 30 per cent backing an extension.

Against this background, parliament is to decide this month whether to renew the mission to the volatile Oruzgan Province south- west of Kabul, where 11 have been killed, six in hostile incidents.

The Australians have committed 970 troops, mainly to supporting the Dutch in Oruzgan. Political and popular support for the mission remain strong.

Italy has 2,300 soldiers deployed in Kabul and the western province of Herat on the Iranian border.

Parliament voted in March to extend the mandate, but Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s nine-party coalition government is divided, with leftists calling for a pull-out.

Keen to be seen as a staunch NATO member, Turkey’s political class is strongly behind continuing the mission of the more than 1,000 troops providing logistics and communications in the Kabul region.

But this remains true only as long as its forces stay out of the shooting war. There is little or no public debate on the deployment.

© 2007 dpa – Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Milan Corriere della Sera: Italian Agent Reveals Mission in Afghanistan, Recounts Abduction, Release

05 Oct 07

[Report by Fiorenza Sarzanini: "Second Agent Tells His Story: 'We Were Supposed To Negotiate With the Taleban Over the Construction of a Bridge'"]

Rome — The two intelligence agents from the SISMI [Intelligence and Military Security Service; now renamed Italian Agency for External Security and Intelligence (AISE)] who were abducted in Afghanistan were to be used for an exchange of prisoners. This was revealed, immediately after his release, by the agent who survived the blitz carried out by the British and Italian troops. He went back over the phases of the abduction, and revealed the purpose of their mission: to meet with a leading member of the Taleban. There are many details, but some understandable omissions in the reconstruction by the official, who, prior to his return to Italy, went through the so-called debriefing, the procedure envisioned in cases such as this, precisely to ensure that details which are official secrets are not revealed.

The meeting with the Taleban

“Ever since June — he said — we have dealt with getting information from collaborators and informants, so as to guarantee the security of the Italian military contingent.”

In actual fact, the prime objective was to allow the building of a bridge in the Zirko valley, an area where several groups and ethnic tribes live side by side, and where armed militias are also present. “With my colleague, I had entered into contact with all the main figures in the valley, including the Taleban, so as to ensure that during building work there were no acts of violence against employees of the construction firm.” The intelligence agent then revealed what the objective of his trip on Saturday 22 September was: “A ’source’ allowed us to enter into contact with a leading Taleban figure. In the morning I, Lorenzo, and the interpreter left, and on the way we also picked up the person who was to act as our go-between. We were bound for the Zirko valley, but he told us to change route, and not go through the city center, because they might recognize us. After a police road-block, we took a dirt track.”

The capture

A short time later, the trap was sprung. “We saw a number of men coming toward us. As soon as we got out, we were surrounded by armed people who took away our weapons and objects. They made me get inside the trunk of a car. I was alone, with a hood on my head. Then they made me get out and walk, I think I crossed a small stream. When we came to a halt they lifted off my hood, but I could only look down at the ground. We went up, into the mountains, I think. I could hear the interpreter and Lorenzo close by. I still had the hood on, and every so often I was kicked. I tried to talk to Lorenzo, who was trying to reassure me. At a certain point they went off to one side with Lorenzo, I don’t know what they said to him. They were asking him questions, I was some distance away, and I couldn’t hear. At dawn, they made us resume walking, still blindfolded, and then they led us into a kind of cave. They took the blindfold off, because they wanted to know who we were, and what we wanted. Lorenzo explained to me that I had to tell the truth, and I admitted that we were there to allow the commencement of construction work in secure conditions. The interpreter translated. Then I was blindfolded once again.” At the base in Herat the alert had already been triggered. The hypothesis that the two men had been captured was the prevalent one. Contacts were got under way to try to find out whose hands they had ended up in.

The exchange of prisoners

The abductors revealed to the two intelligence agents what was at stake. “The person who had questioned us began to beat us, accusing us of belonging to the secret services. They told us that it was their intention to exchange us for their prisoners.” After the “Mastrogiacomo affair,” Westerners have become a more and more valuable commodity to Afghan guerrilla fighters. The President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, said at the time that no concession would be made in the future to the terrorists. This firm stance was agreed with by Italy, and was reiterated in this case too. Then there was the aggravating factor that the hostages were secret agents, and so no negotiation would be possible. It was precisely in view of this situation that the government decided to immediately manifest its “agreement to a military intervention,” as was explained in parliament by Defense Minister Arturo Parisi.

The blitz

When evening descended, the prisoners were taken near a house. “They didn’t let us go inside — the intelligence agent revealed — but they forced us to sit down on the ground. That night, the man who had questioned us came back; he had a turban on, as before. He told us that he was happy, because the media had reported our abduction. He knew that we were military (?intelligence) personnel. We stayed bound and hooded until the morning. Lorenzo was also tied up. The next morning, at dawn I think, they made us walk again, still with hoods on. They forced us aboard a car, the same car which we were found in.”

At this point, the gang was located by the intelligence services. The blitz by the Western military forces was launched a short time after. “I was the last one to get in the back of the car — the agent recollected — They covered us with a canvas. I thought that we were going to die, we couldn’t breathe. Two hours later, we heard the noise of a helicopter. The car began to go faster, then it suddenly stopped. I heard two shots, and then a number of bursts of gunfire at the car. I flattened my body more, I began to shout, I showed my wrists. A Briton freed me from my hood and made me lie flat on the ground. The shoot-out was continuing. The abductors got out and opened the car doors. I don’t know where the shots were coming from, but not from the helicopter. I think that the abductors fired at the car. It all must have happened in the space of around two minutes. When I got out and began to walk, a British man helped me to get aboard the helicopter. Lorenzo was placed aboard by two people, because he was seriously injured. We were taken first to the hospital in Farah, and then to the British hospital. All the personnel I saw were British, and in the helicopter they were also British.”

[Description of Source: Milan Corriere della Sera (Internet Version-WWW) in Italian -- leading centrist daily; largest circulation of Italian dailies. OSC EUP20071005058008, October 5, 2007.]

Rijeka Novi List: Commentary Says Croatian Politicians Ignore War in Afghanistan, Danger to Troops

Sept. 26, 2007

[Commentary by Denis Romac in the column "Just in Case": "Who Will Declare That We Are at War"]

When the rebels captured them, there were two of them, dressed as civilians riding in a Japanese-made SUV together with an interpreter and a driver, both Afghans, who were released shortly afterwards. That happened last Sunday [ 22 September] in the vicinity of Herat, a town in western Afghanistan. The names of the persons who were kidnapped have never been released, although it is known that they are highly trained agents of Italian SISMI [Intelligence and Military Security Service; now renamed Italian Agency for External Security and Intelligence].

Right after they were captured — this was the first case of kidnapping of foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, although civilians are very frequently kidnapped in that country because of high ransoms — Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi launched a diplomatic action for the release and rescue of his soldiers. Italian diplomats took advantage of the ongoing session of the UN General Assembly in New York to request mediation in the release of the Italians. They asked Afghan mediator Hamid Karzai, as well as Iranian leaders in Teheran, for help but international forces in Afghanistan suddenly launched an operation for the release of the kidnapped Italians the day before yesterday. Result: the SISMI agents were released but they were seriously wounded during the action and one of them is currently fighting for his life, while nine Taliban kidnappers were killed.

War Zone in All of Afghanistan

The details of the kidnapping and release have still not been revealed, nor is it known whether the Italians were seriously injured by Taliban or allied bullets, like a year ago in Baghdad, when the Americans killed a SIMSI Commander Nicola Calipari, who was in charge of the operation for the rescue of abducted Il Manifesto reporter Giuliana Sgrena.

Italian soldiers were abducted this time, even though that could have happened to the members of any of the 38 contingent participating in NATO’s ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] mission in Afghanistan. In other words, it could have happened not only to Italian or US, but also to Slovene or even Croatian ISAF members. Indeed, there are far more Italian than Croatian soldiers in Afghanistan: as many as 2,290 Italians and only some 200 Croatian soldiers, even though the number of Croatian ISAF members will soon rise to as many as 300.

The latest reports from Afghanistan seem to be materializing the darkest forebodings of the period of about a year ago, the beginning of a major operation, in the framework of which the Americans initiated the most extensive operation for the destruction of rebel forces ever, in which no occupying force has yet been successful, not even the US force six years ago or the British force a hundred years ago.

All of Afghanistan has become a war zone, a war inferno, and it is no longer just its southern or eastern parts, toward the border with Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is allegedly hiding, that are dangerous. Herat — an area where the Croatian soldiers are stationed and where they came under a serious attack by the Taliban — is under Italian command today. It was a peaceful zone only a year ago. Two Spanish soldiers were killed and another two wounded on the same day the special units were rescuing the Italians in the vicinity of Herat.

There has been a spate of violence in the country and even the Americans admit there is no difference between the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, apart from the fact that the bloodshed in Iraq receives widespread media coverage while the war in Afghanistan does not. This is probably due to the fact that there are far more Americans in Iraq than in Afghanistan but this could not be an excuse for the Croatian public that has been treating the conflicts in Afghanistan as something that is happening to somebody else far away from here.

Most Dangerous Job

Croatian soldiers were sent to fight in that war but Croatian politicians who sent them there do not seem to want to face up to the fact that there is war in Afghanistan. At the beginning of the mission several years ago, Croatian soldiers were hoping they would be building roads and rebuilding schools, which was supposed to win over the local population in the framework of the ISAF mission. However, the US offensive against the Taliban has made those plans obsolete and the Americans now exert enormous pressure on all national contingents, including the Croatian contingent, to abolish all restrictions and help the American in direct fighting with the Taliban. That has radically changed the character of the ISAF mission in Afghanistan but it has also changed the lives of Croatian soldiers there, as they suddenly found themselves in the dangerous southern region, as well as in high-risk operations of patrol and convoy escorts targeted by the Taliban. They also clash with the local opium dealers, which is considered the most dangerous job in that rugged country that is said to be among the most dangerous countries in the world.

Croatian soldiers are more and more often caught in artillery barrage and around planted bombs that go off in their vicinity, but that does not make the public more aware of the cruel war in which Croatian soldiers also take part. The case of kidnapping of the two SISMI agents has reopened the discussion on the withdrawal of the Italians from Afghanistan, while such discussions are already under way in Germany, as well as in other countries whose soldiers fight in Afghanistan.

[Description of Source: Rijeka Novi List (Internet Version-WWW) in Croatian -- independent, privately owned daily. OSC EUP20070926040002 Rijeka Novi List (Internet Version-WWW) in Croatian 26 Sep 07]

Madrid ABC: Afghan Police Source: Herat Crime Gangs May ‘Soon’ Turn Against ISAF Troops

[Report by M. Ayestaran and P. Cervilla: "Armed Gangs and Radical Clerics, New Threats for Spain"]

Herat / Madrid — Abduction is the latest buzz word in Herat. The local populace is being terrorized by an unprecedented crime wave: Scores are being settled, armed robbery is the order of the day… Such things are not standard practice for the Taliban, and local police suggest that they are the work of local gangs, who have taken to the streets to enforce their own law after realizing that the international forces are powerless. “All of this is happening, for the time being at least, alongside the Italian forces (which are deployed in the city’s downtown area — ABC editor’s note) and the Spanish forces, but we believe that it may soon turn against them,” an Afghan crime police officer said.

The most important gang has its headquarters in the district of Seyawshan, on the road to the airport some 20 kilometers from the city’s historic center, and where most of the Spanish forces are stationed. Its leader is one Gholam Yahya, who has been waging an open struggle against the government in Kabul since he was thrown out of high office in Herat’s municipal government a year ago. A former Mojahedin commander and right-hand-man to local warlord Ismail Khan, he now heads up the rebellion of those who are disenchanted with President Karzai and with the peace forces. His stance and his methods are beginning to attract recruits among the local populace, who can see how the situation in the country is becoming increasingly unstable as time goes by.

The presence of radical clerics has also helped to boost the local people’s mood of hostility toward the foreigners. Friday prayers in the sanctuary at Gazarqah, right in the middle of town, have turned into a full fledged rally, with people shouting and hollering against the central government and against the international forces.

Opium Traffic

The clerics’ sermons address a variety of issues ranging from the frivolity that has gained a foothold in the media since Karzai came to power, to the international forces’ alleged involvement in opium trafficking. But the message that is starting to get across increasingly strongly is a message of jihad, a message of holy war against “the new occupiers,” by which the preachers mean the international troops.

“That was not usual in downtown Herat, and no one is doing anything to prevent it. If the situation goes on deteriorating like this, we are going to get the point where people will be going down to Shewan (the location of the last attack on Spanish forces — ABC editor’s note) to plead with the Taliban to return in order to restore law and order,” a businessman who runs a hotel for foreigners in the city complained.

Meanwhile, the situation is starting to get more complicated for Spain. In addition to terrorist attacks, some of its units are now having to deal with technical problems. According to Afghan national television, a Spanish “Superpuma” helicopter reportedly failed last Tuesday [25 September] as it was preparing to evacuate four Afghan Army troopers injured when a car bomb exploded in Gormach. The Spaniards, who were asked for the helicopter that is part of the PRT [provincial reconstruction team] in Qala i Naw, cited “technical problems” preventing them from moving. While some sources hinted that it may have been an attack and that the aircraft did not have any technical problem affecting its rotor blade, the Defense Ministry has dismissed that version of events.

[Description of Source: Madrid ABC (Internet Version-WWW) in Spanish -- center-right national daily. OSC EUP20070927178002 Madrid ABC (Internet Version-WWW) in Spanish 27 Sep 07]