AFP: Afghan troops and ISAF repulse Taliban from Khak-i Safid district

HERAT, Afghanistan, Nov 5, 2007 (AFP) – Taliban extremists briefly captured a third district in western Afghanistan early Monday but were driven out by Afghan forces and their international allies, officials said.

Taliban fighters in about 40 vehicles stormed into Khaki Safed district in the province of Farah around 1:30 am and took the administration headquarters, police and government officials said.

“Government authorities, police and the governor made a tactical withdrawal of the district administration centre,” said General Ekramuddin Yawar, police commander for western Afghanistan.

“Later Afghan police, army and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) went back to the district and retook control at 3:30 am,” he told AFP.

Farah province, which borders Iran, had its Gulistan and Bakwa districts seized by Taliban rebels last week after intense fighting.

Yawar said the rebels had fired some rockets at the district administration building, which was slightly damaged, but there were no casualties to the government forces.

The Farah government spokesman, Mamnoon Rashidi, said it took 90 minutes for troops to take back Khaki Safed.

“Bakwa and Gulistan are in Taliban hands now. The forces are getting ready to retake control of those districts as well,” he said.

The Taliban, in government between 1996 and 2001, have previously overrun several districts in remote parts of Afghanistan but have been easily ejected with the help of the international forces on which the country relies.

They have, however, held the district of Musa Qala, close to Gulistan, since February and the area is considered a Taliban base.

President Hamid Karzai said at the weekend that the capture of remote districts was a result of the weaknesses of his own security forces.

The head of the Farah provincial council, Abdul Kader Daqiq, said his province had warned Kabul that the security forces were not capable of withstanding the Taliban.

“There are not enough police in these places and the army is not doing anything,” he said. “There is an emergency situation in Farah and the government should be careful.”

Farah is a strategic province in Afghanistan because of its border with Iran, across which opium and weapons are smuggled. A key road linking southern and western Afghanistan also runs through the province.

Reuters: Taliban capture third district in Farah

By Sharifuddin Sharafiyar
Reuters
Monday, November 5, 2007; 4:59 AM

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Taliban insurgents have captured a third district in western Afghanistan, local officials said on Monday, defying Western assertions the rebels are unable to mount large military offensives.

The hardline Islamist Taliban relaunched their insurgency two years ago to topple the pro-Western Afghan government and eject the 50,000 foreign troops, expanding their operations further from the mainly Pashtun south where they are strongest.

Western forces say the Taliban’s greater reliance this year on suicide and roadside bombs is a result of heavy battlefield casualties they and Afghan troops have inflicted on the rebels and the insurgents’ inability to hold ground.

But in the last week, the Taliban have captured three districts in the western province of Farah, bordering Iran, forcing lightly armed Afghan police to flee and defying Afghan and foreign forces to retake the lost ground.

First, Taliban rebels captured the Farah district of Gulistan a week ago, then on Wednesday took nearby Bakwa. On Sunday, the insurgents seized Khak-e Sefid without a fight.

“Khake-e Sefid district fell into Taliban hands yesterday without any resistance from Afghan forces,” Qadir Daqiq, a Farah provincial council member told Reuters. A provincial official who declined to be named also confirmed the report.

Taliban forces had been building up around Khak-e Sefid for some days, a Western security analyst said. The rebels in Farah have been receiving arms through a Taliban leader based close to the Iranian border, he said on condition of anonymity.

“There are many Iranians and Pakistanis fighting among the Afghan Taliban,” Farah provincial police chief Abdulrahman Sarjang told Reuters.

POLICE MORALE LOW

Afghan and Western officials have often said the Taliban’s ranks are reinforced with foreign fighters, but have said they have no proof of any assistance at an official level.

Poor morale among Afghan police meant that up to 38 officers had defected to the Taliban in the last week in Farah, the security analyst said, and those that remained were unwilling or unable to put up much of a fight.

“As soon as the Taliban attacked in numbers they did their best to make a tactical withdrawal — they basically got out of there as quick as they could,” he said. “Their motivation is not there to fight.”

Local residents have complained that NATO-led troops, under Italian command in western Afghanistan, have not helped Afghan forces to retake the districts.

“The residents are complaining that foreign forces do not assist Afghan troops to retake the districts,” Maolavi Yahya, district chief of neighboring Delaram told Reuters. “They have been complaining for a week now.”

As fighting in Afghanistan drags on, frustration is growing among ordinary Afghans that their government and its Western backers have not provided security six years after Afghan and U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in 2001 for not handing over al Qaeda leaders in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

NATO commanders admit they have a limited window in which to defeat the Taliban and provide much-needed development before the Afghan public turns against their presence and public opinion in the West, frustrated by growing casualties, calls for the troops to be withdrawn, handing victory to the insurgents.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Jon Hemming in Kabul)

AFP: Another District in Farah falls to Taliban

November 2, 2007

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) — Taliban fighters have overrun a second district in western Afghanistan, a district governor said Friday, warning the rebels could be planning to sweep into his own area.
The police and administration heads of the strategic Bakwa district in Farah province had fled after days of attacks by scores of rebels, the official said, after the militants late Monday took the adjacent Gulistan district.
Taliban insurgents have previously overrun several districts in remote parts of Afghanistan, including Bakwa, but are easily ejected by the international militaries here to aid the country’s own weak security forces.
They have, however, held the district of Musa Qala, close to Gulistan, since February and the area is considered a Taliban base.
Bakwa police had made a “tactical withdrawal” to Delaram district after a new Taliban attack late Thursday, said Delaram governor Yahya Riadth.
“Taliban have control over Bakwa district now and the police and district governor have retreated to our district,” he said.
Riadth warned his district, bordered by both Bakwa and Gulistan, could also be attacked.
“The government needs to reinforce our district urgently otherwise we have intelligence reports that the Taliban will attack us from both districts they have captured,” he said.
Bakwa district governor Mawlawi Janan said the district administration centre was burnt down in Thursday’s assault, which police said earlier was carried out by about 100 Taliban.
Officials had been forced to “temporarily” move elsewhere, he said, without confirming his whereabouts.
Farah police chief Abdul Rehman Sarjang said one policeman was killed and one wounded in the heavy fighting in Bakwa overnight. “An unknown number of Taliban were also killed and wounded,” he said.
Bakwa police chief Mohammad Hashim said the withdrawal had been on the orders of authorities but was not significant. “We are ready to take back the district,” he told AFP.
The main road to Iran, one of Afghanistan’s most important trading partners, runs through the volatile district, which has seen a surge in Taliban-linked violence in the past few months.
NATO-led and Afghan security forces were preparing a fresh attempt to regain control of Gulistan, police said.
The Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001, when they were driven from power for harbouring Al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks.
The hardliners have regrouped to wage an insurgency that is focused on southern and eastern Afghanistan but has gained footholds in other parts of the country, such as Bakwa.
The violence has claimed at least 5,000 lives this year, with most of the dead rebel fighters, according to a tally of tolls released by various officials.
In other attacks linked to the insurgency, a remotely detonated bomb blew up a police vehicle near the border with Pakistan, killing three policemen and wounding three more, Kunar province police chief Abdul Jalal Jalal told AFP.
Elsewhere in the same mountainous province, Taliban militants attacked a police post overnight and killed a policeman and wounded another, Jalal said.
A suicide attacker blew himself up in the eastern town of Sharan, wounding four civilians, most of them taxi drivers, Paktika province deputy police chief Farooq Sangari said.
“The suicide bomber has been torn into pieces and only his head is remaining,” he said.
The target of the blast was unclear as there were no security convoys in the area. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the Taliban have carried out scores of such attacks this year.

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]

Radio Sahar: Missiles fired at airport in Herat

Text of report by Afghan female-orientated community Radio Sahar on 30 October

[Presenter] Provincial security officials have reported that government opponents fired a number of missiles at Herat airport last night. It is said that the missiles targeted a police training site, but caused no damage.

[Correspondent] Gen Rahmatollah Safi, commander of the Border Brigade No 4, says that six missiles were launched at Herat airport on Monday night [29 October]. He says, however, that the attack has caused no damage.

Mr Safi added that the target was the police training camp to the east of the airport.

According to the commander, government opponents are organizing these offensives to prove that the situation is unstable. The police force is said to have launched an investigation to identify the perpetrators of the attack.

A self-proclaimed local Taleban commander in Herat Province called Hekmatollah has claimed responsibility for the missile attack, adding that their target was the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] military base at the airport.

This is the fourth time the airport has come under attack by unidentified armed men. The previous attacks did not cause any damage, either.

[Description of Source: Herat Radio Sahar in Dari -- local independent radio station in Herat run mainly by women. OSC IAP20071030950081 1230 GMT 30 Oct 07]

NYT: Afghan Ex-Militia Leaders Hoard Illegal Arms

October 28, 2007

By KIRK SEMPLE
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 27 — Many former militia commanders and residents in northern Afghanistan have been hoarding illegal weapons in violation of the country’s disarmament laws, giving the excuse that they face a spreading Taliban insurgency from the south that government forces alone are too frail to stop, Afghan and Western officials say.

After years of moderate success for government disarmament programs, rumors of widespread defiance in the north have arisen recently among government officials and intelligence agencies in Kabul and elsewhere. Although there is little hard evidence that commanders are greatly enlarging their arsenals, officials say, some have been thwarting government programs, refusing to disarm and possibly even remobilizing militias.

The talk of rearming underscores a deepening north-south ethnic divide that some diplomats and Afghan officials privately worry could lead the way toward a shift of power back to warlords — and toward a countrywide armed conflict — if left unchecked. And the situation poses a major challenge for President Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun from the south, whose administration has failed to win the confidence of many non-Pashtun leaders and northerners.

Prices on the weapons black market in the north have skyrocketed as residents, governed by suspicion and foreboding, have kept their firearms, driving down the supply.

“There is an environment of mistrust” in the government, Brig. Gen. Abdulmanan Abed, a Defense Ministry official who works with the government’s demilitarization program, said in an interview this month in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province. “There is a fear of the return of the Taliban.”

A prominent political leader from the north, speaking on condition of anonymity, put it this way: “The Taliban are coming toward us. What should we do? Who will defend us? Who will protect us? This is in the minds of the people in the north.”

Col. Mats Danielsson, the Swedish commander of a 450-man military unit helping to provide security in four northern provinces, said the Karzai administration and its international allies must find a way to roll back the Taliban threat and reassure northerners.

“We have to keep the window of opportunity open, but I feel that the window is closing,” he said.

The Taliban insurgency is strongest in southern and eastern Afghanistan. And while it has been able to bedevil Afghan and international troops in some other regions of the country, before this year its reach rarely stretched into the northern provinces.

But government officials report an increase in Taliban activity in the north this year, particularly in the northwest. The number of Taliban attacks on Afghan and international security forces in Balkh and the other relatively peaceful provinces of north-central Afghanistan has risen from last year, the authorities say.

Residents here in Balkh Province and elsewhere in north-central Afghanistan say they are beginning to feel encircled.

“The Taliban is trying to start up its old networks here,” Colonel Danielsson said in an interview in early October at his headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif. “We have to figure out how to stop this influence.”

Afghan and Western officials also say that in addition to an increase in Taliban activity, there has been an escalation in crime and, in some areas, tensions among rival northern political factions. These officials say it is often difficult to determine who is to blame for specific violent acts.

The most apparent signs of rearming, officials say, are in Faryab Province, in the northwest, where commanders have organized an armed militia to fend off a growing Taliban presence in neighboring Badghis Province that has gone largely unchecked by Afghan and international security forces.

Gen. Dan K. McNeill, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a recent interview in Kabul that he had received unconfirmed intelligence reports that small shipments of weapons had been smuggled across the border “from one or two countries to the north” and delivered “to receivers in some of the northern provinces.” But he declined to provide further details.

Afghan government officials also say that in certain northern districts, militia commanders have evaded government weapons inspectors by breaking down their stockpiles of illegal firearms and redistributing them throughout their communities, making them harder to find.

Afghan and Western officials say that weapons are hidden everywhere: in grain silos and closets, in mountain caves and in holes in the ground.

And though the government’s demobilization programs have gone some way toward dismantling many of the hundreds of illegal militias, and have removed nearly all the heavy weapons from those factions, former warlords still hold considerable sway.

“They have the power of a phone call to put hundreds, or thousands, in arms,” Colonel Danielsson said. “There are a lot of weapons up here.”

All the weapons in Afghanistan were supposed to be in the government’s hands by now, all the private militias were to be a thing of the past.

After the Taliban fell in 2001 and fighting erupted among rival warlords, the Afghan government began the first of two disarmament and demobilization programs that were principally intended to dismantle warlords’ militias and other illegal armed groups. In three decades of war, weapons had poured across the borders and authority was often established by the rule of the gun.

The programs, which are voluntary, have dismantled at least 274 paramilitary organizations, reintegrated about 62,000 militia members into civilian life and recovered more than 84,000 weapons, including thousands of heavy arms that had fallen under the control of regional warlords. Afghan and NATO forces have confiscated and destroyed many other weapons, officials said. But Afghan and international officials acknowledge that hundreds of illegal armed groups still operate in Afghanistan. And hundreds of thousands — maybe millions — of weapons remain in private hands, although they are mostly small arms rather than heavy weapons, the officials say.

Of the weapons that have been collected, they say, at least 40 percent were not functional.

“There is at least one weapon in each house,” said General Abed, who was an officer in the anti-Taliban mujahedeen. Government officials note that the demilitarization programs were not intended to collect arms and were instead focused on disbanding armed groups.

“I think it will take many, many years” to disarm the population, said Hameed Quraishi, manager of the government’s demilitarization program in the north. “It doesn’t matter how hard you try. It’s the level of confidence the people have in the government.”

But the talk about rearming is not entirely military. It also appears to be a means of pressing the Karzai government, which many northern leaders have accused of favoring the south, a region mostly populated by members of his Pashtun ethnicity.

“We selected Karzai to unify the country,” said a prominent politician from the north and former member of the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban. “But people who joined him have pushed him to being a Pashtun leader, not a national leader.”

Disproportionate amounts of aid money and weapons have flowed to the south to prop up the regional leadership and battle the Taliban. As part of this effort, the government has been trying to build an auxiliary police force among southern Pashtun tribes to confront the insurgency.

Many northern leaders say that they have been shortchanged in the distribution of development aid and worry about the militarization of the south as they are being asked to disarm.

“Northern commanders are saying: ‘We can’t disarm. This guy is trying to unite all Pashtuns. We have to defend ourselves!’ ” a European diplomat said in Kabul.

General McNeill doubts some of the northern claims. “There’s no question that there’s a hell of a lot of political posturing in the northern sectors,” he said. “Where they think they’re ignored in the reconstruction process, there often is a report: ‘They’re here! The Taliban! They got us surrounded!’ ”

In interviews, northern Afghan leaders said that in spite of their concerns about the central government, they were standing by Mr. Karzai. And most of them denied that any stockpiling of weapons was occurring.

“If we take up arms, it means the democratic process is defeated,” said Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, spokesman for the National Front, a political coalition mainly composed of non-Pashtun leaders from the north. “We want this government to survive its entire term because we don’t want the process to be defeated.”

IRIN: Attacks threaten girls’ schooling in Shindand

SHINDAND, 25 October 2007 (IRIN) – More than 1,500 female students have not attended classes for several days after unidentified assailants attacked their school in Shindand district in the western Afghan province of Herat, education officials told IRIN.

On 19 October, at around midnight local time, several grenades were thrown inside Naswan High School, breaking windows and causing minor damage to several classrooms, said Ghulam Hazrat Tanha, director of the Herat education department.

Officials say some students are gradually returning to school but locals are concerned about their children’s education, particularly for girls.

“Recent attacks on schools have frightened many parents and students,” said Tanha, adding that local residents had demanded the authorities ensure students’ security at schools.

Since 8 October, four attacks on schools have been reported in the restive district, none of which harmed students or school staffers, according to Haji Shah Alaam, Shindand district governor.

Two of the schools belonged to girls, Alaam said.

In Afghanistan, high schools are segregated, while universities do not follow this rule.

Shindand – with a majority of its population ethnically Pashtun – has been a hotbed of Taliban insurgency in the relatively calm Herat province.

Schools elsewhere in Herat, where the Taliban have a strong influence, have also experienced assaults.

Backtracking in Helmand

Meanwhile, education authorities in southern Helmand province gave warning about the shrinking numbers of functioning schools there.

In early October the director of Helmand’s education department told IRIN that more than 90 schools were functioning across the insurgency-torn province, while about 100 others, mainly in rural areas, were out of commission due to insecurity.

Three weeks later, officials say only 64 schools are open in Helmand – Afghanistan’s top opium-producing and most conflict-ridden province.

About 400 schools remain dysfunctional in southern Afghanistan, with tens of thousands of students deprived of education, concede officials in the Ministry of Education (MoE).

“Community schools and other local education facilities are closing down because of growing insecurity, Taliban attacks and lack of resources,” said Saeed Ibrar Agha, head of the provincial education department.

Immediately after the Taliban were ousted from power in late 2001, Afghanistan took significant strides in education and has increasingly admitted millions of students to formal schooling.

There are now more than six million students, 35 percent of them female, in over 11,000 schools and education facilities around the war-ravaged country, the MoE reported in 2007.

By 2020, boys and girls alike should be able to complete a full course of primary schooling, according to target number two of Afghanistan’s revised Millennium Development Goal.

Dormitories needed

As more and more students from insecure rural areas flock to schools in the provincial city, education officials complain about the lack of capacity to absorb all newcomers in Lashkargah, capital of Helmand.

Almost all the rural students coming to schools in Lashkargah are boys, local officials say. Students who commute daily between the provincial capital and their homes in rural districts are also exposed to the risk of being targeted by elements that oppose education.

Moreover, travel is an extra financial burden for already impoverished parents.

“We need to open a dormitory for students coming from rural areas to schools in Lashkargah,” said Ibrar Agha. “We look forward to donors to help us build one.”

Barnett Rubin’s assessment of regional politics

Barnett Rubin assesses regional relations in the aftermath of the ECO conference in Herat.

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.