Violence

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Violence, Political Uncertainty Plague Post-Jirga Afghanistan

June 12, 2010 in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Peace Talks, Political, Violence | 1 comment

Since Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s much anticipated peace assembly earlier this month, the Taliban has launched a series of high profile attacks.  Analysts say these attacks show the Taliban will not back down as coalition and Afghan forces prepare for a major offensive to drive them from their southern stronghold in Kandahar province.

Just this week, Afghan authorities blamed the Taliban for an attack on a wedding in southern Afghanistan, which killed nearly 40 people.  The Taliban denied responsibility, but the groom had links to anti-Taliban groups.  Also, Monday was the deadliest day so far this year for international forces in Afghanistan. Ten NATO soldiers, seven of them Americans, were killed in separate attacks in the eastern and southern parts of the country that day.

With this new violence, the director of Afghanistan’s Center for Research and Policy Studies, Haroun Mir, told me that he believes next month’s scheduled international conference in Kabul might not happen.

“I don’t think that it would be appropriate for a foreign minister from Europe to attend the Kabul conference when we know that there’s a huge risk, tremendous risk, that they could be eliminated by one rocket attack,” said Haroun Mir. “All we need is one rocket attack, and all these ministers are flying back to their homes and that would be a big humiliation.”

Even the top U.S. commander in the country, General Stanley McChrystal, said this week he expects the Kandahar offensive to take longer than anticipated.

“There are going to be tough days ahead,” said General McChrystal. “Violence is up, and I think violence will continue to rise, particularly over the summer months.  It is necessary that we roll back Taliban influence as we move toward increased security in the future.”

But McChrystal said that despite the violence, he thinks the perception of the insurgent’s momentum is reversing.  It’s this reversal in momentum that President Karzai and analysts hope will convince the Taliban to sit down for peace talks.

Amrullah Saleh has a different idea.  Saleh is the former head of the Afghan National Directorate of Security.  He resigned from the post, along with the country’s interior minister, following the insurgent attack on the peace jirga earlier this month.

Saleh criticized Mr. Karzai for wanting to reconcile with the Taliban.

“I want a dignified peace, a peace which will not reverse our achievements, a peace which will not undermine our constitution, a peace which will not allow a small terrorist group to dominate the political scene in Afghanistan,” said Amrullah Saleh. “Therefore, I am in favor of peace, but I am against bowing to the Taliban.”

He also has said that he believes President Karzai is taking a softer approach toward Pakistan in a bid to negotiate with the Taliban.  Saleh referred to Pakistan as Afghanistan’s enemy number one for its alleged support of the Taliban.

Ayaz Wazir is Pakistan’s former ambassador to Kabul.  He told me that he disagrees with Saleh, and he wonders about his motives for making these statements now, especially after his resignation.

“Had Pakistan been the ‘enemy number one’, then why was the intelligence chief not saying so before?  Now when he is resigned, he is accusing a neighboring country,” said Ayaz Wazir.

In another blow to the coalition, Britain’s newly elected government says it will not pledge more troops, despite being one of America’s biggest partners in the country since the toppling of the Taliban-led government in 2001.

Haroun Mir with Afghanistan’s Center for Research and Policy Studies says all these factors teach the Taliban an important lesson.

“You know with one or three rocket fires, they were able to get the resignations of two important ministers, and now the NATO  countries have lost their will,” he said.

He also says it seems unlikely that the Taliban will want to negotiate if they believe they have the upper hand against a coalition in flux and what Mir calls a dysfunctional government.

Do you think the Taliban has the upper hand?  What do you think needs to come out of the Kabul conference?

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On the Scene: Afghan Peace Jirga Under Siege

June 3, 2010 in Afghanistan, On the Scene, Political, Terrorism, Violence | 1 comment

It didn’t take long before Taliban insurgents, in typical fashion, made their voices heard regarding Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s National Consultative Peace Jirga.

There were some 2,000 of us under a massive tent at the Polytechnic University in the western part of Kabul Wednesday morning:  1,600 delegates, members of the media and assorted foreign dignitaries.  (Some of my media colleagues came in late because:  1. we had to sit on the buses forever before the drivers took us to the event and 2. organizers split us into small groups for the long and thorough security process.)

Early in Mr. Karzai’s speech to open the three-day peace assembly, an explosion sounded outside the tent, briefly interrupting the president.  Watch how the situation evolved (also, click here for more info, along with my immediate phone interview with VOA’s Sarah Williams):

Everyone reacted calmly to the initial rocket, but the situation changed after President Karzai’s speech.

As my colleagues and I scrambled to conduct interviews with delegates outside the main tent, a piercing whistle sounded directly overhead.  My initial thought in the split second I heard the sound was “fireworks,” but then logic quickly hit me.  Instantly, I grabbed the camera and tripod (despite my interviewee still being attached by microphone), ducked and looked up, but by that time, we heard the explosion.

I understand that this rocket exploded closer than the first one.  Below is the picture I captured from the media center overlooking the jirga campus. 

The long white structure in the middle is the main jirga tent.  I’m told that the second rocket exploded near the outer green fence, close to the guard tower.

As you can see in my video above, jirga organizers were quick to usher journalists out, much to the amusement of delegates walking calmly among us.

It was a constant battle:  us journalists trying to talk to delegates and shoot video of the exterior of the event, and organizers and Afghan security forces rushing us away.

You could argue they were doing it for our safety.  Which is no doubt true… up to a point.  Once they took us outside the barricades of the jirga campus, they left us standing in the middle of a completely exposed parking lot.  The handful of Afghan policemen there seemed pretty unconcerned by the gunfire ringing out down the street.

I will give the organizers this though… while the buses took some time to show up, the drivers felt no need to hang around.

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Pakistan’s PM: South Waziristan Offensive is Over UPDATE

December 12, 2009 in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Terrorism, Violence | 4 comments

UPDATE:  Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has backtracked on his earlier comments.  Click here for the story.

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Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani says the military operation targeting Taliban militants in the South Wazirstan tribal region is over.

Pahari Sahib, Wikimedia Commons

Pahari Sahib, Wikimedia Commons

Mr. Gilani told reporters that Pakistan’s military is now focusing on the Orakzai tribal region in an effort to chase the Pakistani Taliban leadership that is believed to have fled there from South Waziristan.  Once fully launched, the operation in Orakzai will be the third major offensive against the Pakistani Taliban this year.

Here is a breakdown of the situation:

Part 1 –  How has Pakistan’s offensive against the Taliban evolved in 2009?

Part 2 — How successful has the military been?

Part 3 — How have the militants responded?

Part 4 — How is the public responding to the offensive?

U.S. officials have commended the Pakistani government for launching the South Waziristan operation.  But as the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan strengthens, Washington continues to urge Islamabad to expand its operations to take on the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida agents believed to be based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region.

The former security chief of the tribal regions, retired Brigadier-General Mahmood Shah, tells me that the United States’ priorities are very different than Pakistan’s.  The United States wants Pakistan to focus on militants that are part of a global network of terrorists.  But Shah says Pakistan wants to focus on its immediate threat: militants it believes have launched a series of high-profile attacks across the country.  Since the beginning of October, these attacks have killed more than 500 people.

If you click the map above, you can see that North Waziristan is between South Waziristan and the Orakzai tribal regions.  I told Shah it appears the militants escaped from South Waziristan through its northern neighbor — where the United States wants Pakistan to focus its forces.

Shah says the militants Pakistan is targeting have always had a presence in Orakzai.  He says the military chose to attack the Pakistani Taliban’s base in South Waziristan before broadening its campaign.  He says that he believes his country will be in a better position to help the United States and its allies once it takes care of its domestic insurgency.

Click here for the story.

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