NYT Columnist Roger Cohen: A Once and Future Nation

October 22, 2007

QALAT, Afghanistan

Once upon a time there was a country, more a space than a nation, landlocked, mountainous, impoverished and windblown.

There resided many peoples, including Pashtuns and Tajiks and Uzbeks and Turkmen, and a new tribe called the Americans.

They had come, the Americans, after 30 years of bloodshed, to bring peace to this land called Afghanistan. But what did they know — what could they know — of life behind burkas, or on the other side of mud walls, or inside minds made mad by war?

Past goat herds and yellowing almond trees, the helmeted Americans drove armored Humvees. Beside lurching stacks of battered tires children gathered in villages and, unlike those in another broken land called Iraq, they smiled and waved.

The Americans talked about empowering Afghans. Sometimes they took to Blackhawk choppers and swooped along the dun-colored river beds and sent goats scurrying for cover.

The 26,000 U.S. troops meant well. They wielded billions of dollars. They calculated “metrics” of progress. They had learned, to their cost, how this faraway place — invaded and used and at last abandoned to pile rubble upon rubble — could nurture danger.

Not only was it once home to the American-financed Islamists who humbled the Soviet empire. It also housed their jihadist offspring, who, like sorcerers’ apprentices, turned on a distracted sponsor and brought the dust of two fallen towers to Manhattan.

To help forge a better Afghanistan — or merely an Afghanistan — the Americans involved their NATO friends. An alliance forged to defend the West against the Soviets was transformed into an agent of democratic change in southwest Asia.

How strange! The enemy now was Taliban Islamofascists rather than Kremlin totalitarians. On a hillside in south-eastern Afghanistan rose “Camp Dracula,” a garrison of 700 Romanian soldiers on this NATO mission.

It would take a great fabulist to make up such stories. Yet they wrote themselves after reports that the cold war’s conclusion marked the end of history proved greatly exaggerated.

And so, one recent morning, Lt. Col. James Bramble, a reservist from El Paso, Tex., with a job there as a pharmaceuticals executive, found himself visiting the Romanian forces and then going to the nearby village of Morad Khan Kalay.

Nations are built one village at a time. Or so Colonel Bramble has come to believe. He is a thoughtful man, commanding a NATO provincial reconstruction team, one of 25 across the country, at a base in Qalat, between Kandahar and Kabul. His team is supposed to deliver the development and good governance that will marginalize the Taliban.

That’s the theory. The practice looks like this. Seven armored U.S. Humvees form a “perimeter” on the edge of the village and newly trained members of the Afghan police — the “Afghan face” on this mission — are dispatched to bring out village elders.

Looking apprehensive, the Afghans appear swathed in robes and headgear whose bold colors mock dreary U.S. Army camouflage. Staff Sgt. Marco Villalta, of San Mateo, Calif., steps forward: “We would like to ask you some questions about your village.”

The following is elicited: There are 300 families using 25 wells. Their irrigation ditches get washed away in winter. A small bridge keeps collapsing. They send their children to a school in nearby Shajoy, but it’s often closed because of Taliban threats to teachers.

Sergeant Villalta takes notes. “We’ll share this information with the governor and make sure that something is done.”

“No! No!,” says Sardar Mohammed. “We don’t trust the governor. If he gets food, he gives it to 10 families. He puts money in his pocket. We trust you more than him. Bring aid directly to us.”

Bramble’s view is that the governor is as good as officials get around here. The U.S. officer, like his country and NATO, is caught in the hall of mirrors of contested nation-building. The exchange at the village has traversed cultures, civilizations and centuries. For Western soldiers trained to kill, and now in the business of hoisting an Islamic country from nothing as fighting continues, that’s challenging.

Still, Bramble thinks this first contact will lead to others and perhaps he can arrange for the bridge to be bolstered soon. Another community will be brought around in “the good war” against death-to-the-West Islamists.

This process will be very slow. The West’s stomach for investing blood and treasure here for another decade is unclear. But I see no alternative if Afghanistan is to move from its destructive gyre and the global threat that brings.

The children’s smiles suggest hope still flickers. To lose Afghanistan by way of smile-free Iraq — and do so on the border of a turbulent nuclear-armed Pakistan — would be a terrible betrayal and an unacceptable risk.

That, alas, is no fairy tale.

•

Blog: www.iht.com/passages.

Globe and Mail: Some Canadians wish they had chosen Herat instead of Kandahar for PRT

Ex-minister denies Martin to blame for Kandahar mission
ALAN FREEMAN AND MICHAEL VALPY
From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail
October 16, 2007 at 4:10 AM EDT

OTTAWA and TORONTO — Bill Graham denied yesterday that indecisiveness by former prime minister Paul Martin led to Canada deploying troops in Afghanistan’s bloody Kandahar province, but he conceded that lengthy discussions within the government meant other NATO partners succeeded in being posted to less dangerous parts of the country.

Mr. Graham, foreign affairs minister and later defence minister, refused to take sides in the dispute touched off by former prime minister Jean Chrétien, who accused his successor Mr. Martin of putting the lives of Canadian soldiers in danger by taking too long to decide where the troops should be positioned in 2004-2005.

Mr. Graham pointed out that it was Mr. Chrétien himself who committed Canadian troops to Kabul and committed soldiers through NATO to the support and rebuilding of Afghanistan.

But he also said he believed Mr. Chrétien would not have agreed to send troops to Kandahar if he had remained prime minister. “Mr. Chrétien was very careful that way.”
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In the second volume of his memoirs appearing over the weekend, Mr. Chrétien said that because Mr. Martin took so long to make a decision, Canadian troops wound up being sent south to fight the Taliban “in the killing fields around Kandahar.”

Mr. Graham said in an interview: “I wouldn’t describe it as dithering. There was certainly a lot of discussions that went on at the lower levels about where Canada should be committed for a PRT [provincial reconstruction team to assist in rebuilding Afghanistan].

“And you can make the case for saying that because it took so long other people took other places that were more attractive from a security perspective and therefore there were fewer choices available when it came time for Canada to say yes.”

Kenneth Calder, at the time the assistant deputy minister of defence for policy, who is now retired, put the case more strongly, saying in an interview yesterday that there was no delay in decision-making either by Mr. Martin or defence and foreign affairs officials.

The issue, he said, moved forward rapidly.

Mr. Graham said the PRT choice at the end was between Herat in the western part of Afghanistan, where Canada would have served with Italy, and Kandahar province in the south.

Kandahar has showed itself to be much bloodier than Herat, but Mr. Graham said that was not the way it looked when the decision was taken in the spring of 2005.

“Kandahar didn’t have anywhere near the violence it does today,” he said, noting that “somebody had to be in the south.”

Nonetheless, the various accounts of what lay behind the Kandahar deployment pose major questions.

Mr. Chrétien in his memoirs writes that what led to troops being sent to Kandahar was Mr. Martin taking too long to make up his mind about whether Canada should extend its term with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) positioned in Kabul and its environs.

Yet the book The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar, co-authored by University of Toronto scholar Janice Gross Stein and former top Liberal aide Eugene Lang, makes clear that Canada was only committed to ISAF for one year ending in the summer of 2004, a decision made when Mr. Chrétien was prime minister.

Prof. Stein, director of the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies, said in an interview yesterday that at no time was a significant extension of Canada’s commitment to ISAF under consideration.

Moreover, after Mr. Martin became prime minister in December of 2003, ISAF was being absorbed into NATO with Canada’s support.

The second question is how Mr. Martin could not have known for a whole year that his government’s delay in deciding where to locate its PRT was inevitably leading to Canadian troops being sent to Kandahar.

Prof. Stein says the issue of committing combat troops was not on the agenda during the year that officials in the departments of Foreign Affairs and Defence debated where to put the PRT (although one senior defence official says it was always on the agenda). And the location of a PRT was not high on anyone’s priority list – either for officials dealing with the Afghanistan file (there were far more important issues, such as bringing NATO into the country) or for the prime minister’s team preoccupied, among other things, with the Quebec sponsorship scandal.

The issue of combat troops in Kandahar went to the prime minister for decision only after General Rick Hillier became Chief of the Defence Staff in February, 2005, and recommended a Canadian commitment to Afghanistan much broader than a PRT.

He placed his proposal before Mr. Martin in March and the prime minister gave his approval in May.

Mr. Graham said Gen. Hillier was a keen backer of the Kandahar deployment, contingent on the Canadians being accompanied into the south by the British and the Dutch, who now serve in neighbouring provinces.

He also said that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had been pressing for a broader NATO presence in the south that was not simply American.

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

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]

Corriere della Sera: Secret Agent Seriously Injured in Afghan Rescue Raid Returns to Italy

Sept. 27, 2007

[Report by Fiorenza Sarzanini: "Calipari's Widow: Was Afghan Raid Necessary?"]

Rome — Attached to the machine which is keeping him alive, the SISMI [Italian Intelligence and Military Security Service] agent kidnapped and then seriously injured in Afghanistan arrived in Italy just after 1900 [ 1700 gmt] and was taken to the Celio military hospital. Waiting for him there was his family, including his young wife. The soldier is 33 and has three children, the eldest being just three. The other secret agent, who is 53, will return home tomorrow. With him, on board the plane set to leave from Herat, will be the Afghan interpreter who accompanied them on their mission. He is the third survivor of Sunday’s [ 23 September] dawn raid to free the hostages.

However, there is no trace of the driver, who allegedly betrayed them. He was reported to be dead, but he apparently managed to escape. According to some information coming from Kabul, he could even have disappeared immediately after selling the Italians to the gang.

“At the time of the release and evacuation operation,” Defense Minister Arturo Parisi told the Senate, “the information available suggested that there were three prisoners: two Italians and an Afghan. They were handcuffed and blindfolded inside one of the two cars in which the kidnappers were escaping.” “Eight or nine” kidnappers were killed but no-one is able to confirm whether among them was the Taliban commander Abdul Ahmid Ishaqzai who, according to the Afghan agency Pajkwok, was involved in the kidnapping and was killed by the ISAF. “The fact that I have come to tell you that the number of kidnappers killed was eight and not nine, as I told the Chamber of Deputies on Monday [ 24 September],” Parisi took pain to specify in his address to the Senate, “means that we treasure human lives. One less person killed makes a difference. When I tell you that we are bringing back to Italy all those kidnapped — the two Italians as well as their Afghan aid — it means that their lives have value, regardless of their nationality.”

It appears to have been confirmed that one of the two bullets which injured the less severely hurt man in the collarbone came from a NATO weapon. Ballistic tests will provide confirmation of this, but, after initial assessments, Italian experts are leaning toward this hypothesis. This risk had been factored in when it was decided to give the go-ahead to the raid.

ISAF is providing a different version. According to Major Charles Anthony, “there are witness testimonies according to which the Taliban, after running away from the cars, in which they were keeping the hostages, in order to save themselves from the raid, suddenly turned round and shot at the cars. The two Italians were injured by the kidnappers and we have evidence that they were Taliban.”

The officer mentioned witness testimonies, but did not refer to the ballistic tests. Also, he did not clarify what evidence has been gathered about the kidnappers. The information available so far has consistently supported the thesis by which they were a gang of bandits and that it was decided to act in order to prevent the hostages from being delivered to another group.

Gianfranco Fini, the leader of the AN [National Alliance] once more defended the government’s decision to authorize the raid, describing it as “necessary,” while the Democrats of the Left’s parliamentarian [Senator] Rosa Calipari — the widow of the SISMI agent killed in Iraq after rescuing the Il Manifesto journalist Giuliana Sgrena — wonders whether “armed intervention was the only option available and why such an option was ruled out in the case of Daniele Mastrogiacomo [journalist, former hostage in Afghanistan].”

[Description of Source: Milan Corriere della Sera (Internet Version-WWW) in Italian -- leading centrist daily; largest circulation of Italian dailies. OSC EUP20070927058004 Milan Corriere della Sera 27 Sep 07]

La Repubblica: PDCI Leader Diliberto Calls For Plan for Withdrawal From Afghanistan

September 24, 2007

[Report by "V. L. M.": "Diliberto: Plan for Pullout. Left Wing Divided"]

Rome — “Let’s pull the troops out immediately.” No, “the priority is to liberate the soldiers who have been kidnapped.” The Italian mission in Afghanistan is once again the focus of political debate. There was cross-party solidarity with the families of the two Italians who have gone missing in Herat. But while the leader of the PDCI [Party of the Italian Communists], Oliviero Diliberto, issued a new call for the soldiers to be brought back home, there was a unanimous appeal to postpone the discussion, so as to favor actions to rescue them.

The PDCI secretary guaranteed efforts “to see to it that no stone is left unturned” with a view to releasing them, but “once this question has been resolved, I will call on [Foreign Minister] D´Alema to come up with a plan which sets out the timescale for the withdrawal.” In the view of the PRC [Communist Renewal] floor leader in the Senate, Giovanni Russo Spena, “if necessary” there could be negotiations so as to “guarantee their return home,” but “immediately afterward” there should be an acknowledgement of the “impossibility of resolving the situation by means of weapons.” “Right now, all the political parties must be united, and avoid polemics,” stressed Anna Finocchiaro, the Olive Tree floor leader in the Senate: the Greens’ floor leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Angelo Bonelli, agreed. “It is not possible that every time an incident takes place” in an area where our contingent is deployed, said an angry Enrico Boselli, the SDI [Italian Democratic Socialists] secretary, “people call for a withdrawal.”

The center-Right was united against the “irresponsible” Diliberto. “[Prime Minister] Prodi must issue a denial of his statements, and isolate him,” urged the secretary of UDC [Union of Christian Democrats of the Center], Lorenzo Cesa. “The split in the government coalition is unbelievable,” stressed Fabrizio Cicchitto, the deputy coordinator of Forza Italia. “It is not the time for speculation,” pointed out the spokesman of AN [National Alliance], Andrea Ronchi, who added: “Diliberto ought to be ashamed.” “At the most delicate times,” commented the Northern League’s Roberto Calderoli, “thanks to this governing coalition, one finds out that Italy is always walking on the edge of a precipice.”

[Description of Source: Rome La Repubblica (Internet Version-WWW) in Italian -- moderate left-of-center daily. OSC EUP20070924058003 Rome La Repubblica (Internet Version-WWW) in Italian 24 Sep 07]

Famiglia Cristiana: Italian Chief of Army Staff Castagnetti Discusses Afghanistan, Defense Spending

Sept. 23, 2007

[Interview with Italian Chief of Army Staff General Fabrizio Castagnetti by Alberto Chiara; place and date not given: "'Always Prepared for Peace'" -- first paragraph is Famiglia Cristiana introduction]

Our troops’ missions in Afghanistan and in Lebanon? “We did not go there to make war,” said General Fabrizio Castagnetti, while calling for more men and means to allow our country to continue playing its role of pacification in the world’s hotspots. [passage omitted]

[Chiara] Our men are under fire in Afghanistan, General…

[Castagnetti] There have been several attacks. The more we step up our commitment and our activities, the mose those who are opposed to Karzai’s policy respond in irritation.

[Chiara] To whom are you referring?

[Castagnetti] They range from the Taliban to tribal militia groups, and from Al-Qa’ida to drug traffickers. We did not go there to make war. If anything, when we are attacked, we defend ourselves. As the Afghan Army and police personnel increase in number, so their patrols increase too. And we go out with them. But we must not forget the rest: We build or restore schools, hospitals, bridges, and roads.

[Chiara] But it is full fledged war in the southern provinces, on the border with Pakistan…

[Castagnetti] NATO is quite rightly responding to Taliban offensives in the south with more robust operations, in which Italian troops are not directly involved however. Our troops operate in Kabul and in the west, in the province centered on Herat. Our aim, in compliance with the UN mandate, remains that of helping the legitimate government of Afghanistan regain control over the whole country, and of lending it a hand to put that country back on its feet in a framework of responsibility fairly shared out among the countries which have activated and which include four countries identified as “group chiefs”: the United States for training the new Army; Germany for rebuilding the police force; Italy for setting up a legal system based on rights; and the United Kingdom to combat opium and heroin.

[Chiara] Be that as it may, General, you surely recall the controversy. We sent only a very few heavily armored vehicles to Afghanistan initially, whereas we sent an abundance of them to Lebanon. A few more have been sent since. Is that sufficient?

[Castagnetti] The equipment that a contingent brings with it depends on the tasks that it is called on to perform, and those tasks are what I have just explained to you. Following the NATO strikes, rebels, terrorists, or mere criminals have been trying to flee to the north, to the east, and to the west. So we sent in Mangusta helicopters, Dardo’s (new-generation armored combat and troop transportation vehicles), and Lince’s (appropriately armored light multirole tactical vehicles).

[Chiara] Are you happy with that…

[Castagnetti] Clearly there is no such thing as a 100 percent safe vehicle. This, also because the methods of attack change rapidly. Today, for instance, the jammer system with which some of our vehicles are equipped is a valid form of protection. As the vehicle moves forward, it prevents the use of cell phones in the vicinity and it disturbs radio frequencies, thus reducing or even nullifying the possibility of causing remote-controlled devices to explode. But know also that some people are already working on alternative attack methods.

[Chiara] Let us turn to military expenditure. The 2007 Finance Bill provided for a significant increase in spending, and Defense Minister Arturo Parisi said that he does not want to hear any talk of cuts for 2008. Indeed, quite the contrary.

[Castagnetti] And he is right. NATO considers it necessary for each member state to invest 2 percent of its GDP in defense. Italy today earmarks barely 0.97 percent. I would be happy if that figure were to rise to 1.1 percent.

[Chiara] The Navy wants a second aircraft carrier, while the Air Force has its sights set on JSF F-35 fighter-bombers. How about the Army?

[Castagnetti] I do not want to polemize with anyone. Rather, I would like to point something out that applies to all the various branches of our Armed Forces: As things stand today, some 70 percent of our revenue goes on staff, 18 percent on investment, and 12 percent on training. Well, the best breakdown would be 50 percent, 25 percent, and 25 percent. Staff must be safeguarded at any price, but it would be wrong, all the same, to think that the Army no longer has any need of heavy vehicles or weaponry. For instance, our current 350 tanks and 350 pieces of artillery, which is about the lowest level we can tolerate as it is, need to be maintained in a state of efficiency, and sooner or later they will need to be replaced. [passage omitted on recruiting]

[Chiara] Certain people, such as Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, have been calling for the Army to intervene in certain areas in Italy…

[Castagnetti] We are always ready.

[Description of Source: Milan Famiglia Cristiana in Italian -- Italy's top-circulation weekly news magazine. OSC EUP20070924058014 Milan Famiglia Cristiana in Italian 23 Sep 07 pp 34-37.]

La Stampa: ‘Sources’ Allege Mullah With Iran Ties Behind Abduction of Italians

September 25, 2007

["Behind-the-scenes" article by Syed Saleem Shahzad: "One Abductor Was Linked to Iran"]

Karachi — The matter of the abduction of the Italian soldiers in north-western Afghanistan underlines, once again, the fact that the Taliban are not the only ones who are perpetuating violence; there are also the warlords, and the interest of neighboring countries such as Iran in fomenting the rebellion and the multiplication of problems for their Western rivals present in Afghanistan.

The history of this abduction revolves around two figures: Mullah Akhtar, who issues his proclamations from the Shindand district of Herat, and Mullah Khuda-i-Dad, in the province of Farah. Independent sources claim that there is no rancor against the Italian forces, which, in south-west Afghanistan, devote themselves only to the work of reconstruction, and which have rarely been involved in war operations. The aim of the abduction seemed to be the payment of a ransom. From the context, it was immediately apparent that it was aimed at further destabilizing that area, so as to create a nuisance for the Western coalition which operates in Afghanistan.

According to independent sources, the chronology of the events would suggest that the soldiers were abducted from the area of Azizabad, in the district of Shindand. “It was a joint operation, planned by two warlords in the area, who in the past used to belong to the Taliban regime, and who are still close to the movement, Mullah Akthar and Mullah Khuda-i-Dad — these sources told me — They had their sights set on a ransom. The soldiers were taken away from Shindand and moved, later on, to the unruly province of Farah.” When I contacted Mullar Khuda-i-Dad to have confirmation of this version, he denied, however, that he was involved in the abduction.

The shadow of these two figures explains the events behind the abduction. Mullah Akhtar is in hiding, and is wanted by NATO. He comes from the pashtun tribes in Shindand, who protect him. At the beginning of this year, NATO carried out a major attack on the villages in that district, killing many civilians. The NATO commanders explained to the inhabitants that the operation had been carried out because the local tribes offered a safe refuge to Mullah Akhtar who, according to them, was linked to the Taliban. However, when I met with the tribal leader Haji Nasru, in the summer, he refuted NATO’s version, claiming that Mullah Akhtar had belonged to the Taliban regime up until 2001, like all Pashtuns, but after the defeat of the Taliban, the local tribes had withdrawn their support, and he had done so too. According to Haji Nassru, Mullah Akhtar now lives in Shindand as a peaceable citizen.

NATO has never accepted this point of view, claiming that it has convincing proof of Mullah Akhtar’s link with the Taliban. However, it has not been able to undertake an action against him, and it has never been authorized to enter the villages of Shindand so as to comb the area in the search for Taliban.

Mullah Khuda-i-Dad is an ally of Mullah Akhtar in the strategies of the warlords. He goes regularly to Iran, where he claims that he has financial and logistical support for his followers. His involvement in the abduction of the Italians indicates that Iran is interested in reinforcing the elements which are able to keep the Western coalition occupied in north-western Afghanistan, in such a way as to reduce their involvement in Iraq.

The abduction of the Italian soldiers in that zone indicates that there the rapid deterioration in law and order has strengthened the warlords, who can play any game: whether it involves the Taliban, Iran, or simply money.

[Description of Source: Turin La Stampa (Internet Version-WWW) in Italian -- leading centrist daily; owned by Fiat's Agnelli family. OSC EUP20070925058003 Turin La Stampa (Internet Version-WWW) in Italian 25 Sep 07]

AFP: Italian Soliders Freed After Kidnapping

September 24, 2007

 HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) — NATO freed two kidnapped Italian soldiers in western Afghanistan in an operation which left both troops wounded and up to nine of their captors dead, officials said.

But in a blow to multinational forces, two Spanish soldiers were killed in a bomb blast hours later in the same western province, which has seen a recent upsurge in Taliban-linked violence.

The Italian troopers were rescued in Farah province two days after going missing in the neighbouring province of Herat, bordering Iran, with their Afghan interpreter and driver.

An Italian-led contingent of troops from the International Security Assistance Force intercepted the hostages and their kidnappers early on Monday, an ISAF statement said.

“In the ensuing firefight the two Italian hostages were wounded, one of them seriously,” it said. One Afghan citizen was wounded while the fate of a second Afghan with the Italians was unknown.

“All the kidnappers were killed,” the statement said, adding that there were either eight or nine abductors.

“This successful operation is evidence of ISAF’s resolve to deal with acts of terrorism in Afghanistan,” said the force’s spokesman, Major Charles Anthony.

An Italian diplomat in the capital Kabul said it was not clear who abducted the men, while Italian Defence Minster Arturo Parisi told public television that an “an independent group” appeared to be responsible.

Police said the men were guerrillas from the Islamic extremist Taliban, which has waged a bloody insurgency since being toppled from government by US-led forces in late 2001.

A Taliban commander named Mullah Abdul Hamid took the Italians from near Herat’s Shindand district to Farah province, the police chief of criminal investigations for western Afghanistan, Ali Khan Husseinzada, told AFP.

Another police official, citing intelligence reports, said that the Taliban were trying to take them southwards to their stronghold in Helmand province, Afghanistan’s most volatile region.

But the main Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said he knew nothing about the kidnapping of the Italians. The militia has been behind several abductions, including of 23 South Koreans in July.

Diplomatic sources in Kabul said the Italians were warrant officers who had been on a routine mission.

There are about 2,000 Italian soldiers in Afghanistan with ISAF. They are involved in military as well as reconstruction work and some are believed to be intelligence officers.

The Taliban killed two of its Korean captives before freeing the remainder in August after direct talks with Seoul.

The hardline Islamic militia said afterwards the kidnapping of foreign nationals was an effective tool against the government.

At least three Italian nationals, all civilians, have been abducted in Afghanistan since 2005.

The most controversial case was in March this year and involved journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo.

He was freed after the government released five Taliban prisoners, but his interpreter and a driver were beheaded. Kabul later came under fire for negotiating with “terrorists.”

It is almost unheard of for foreign soldiers to be captured in Afghanistan as they usually move in heavily secured convoys or foot patrols that are backed with air power if attacked.

Two Spanish soldiers were killed and another two were badly injured on Monday when their convoy was hit by an explosion in Farah province’s Shewan district, the Spanish defence ministry said.

An Iranian interpreter working with them may have also been killed, the ministry added.

Western Afghanistan has experienced a recent rise in Taliban activity. In May a Spanish military commander said reinforcements were needed in the region.

The casualties mean that 171 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, according to an AFP count.