US open to Afghan peace deal including Haqqani: Clinton

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday signalled that the United States remains open to exploring a peace deal including the Haqqani network, the militant group that US officials blame for a campaign of high-profile violence that could jeopardise Washington’s plans for withdrawing smoothly from Afghanistan.

“Where we are right now is that we view the Haqqanis and other of their ilk as, you know, being adversaries and being very dangerous to Americans, Afghans and coalition members inside Afghanistan, but we are not shutting the door on trying to determine whether there is some path forward,” Clinton said when asked whether she believed members of the Haqqani network might reconcile with the Afghan government.

“It’s too soon to tell whether any of these groups or any individuals within them are serious,” she said in an interview with Reuters.

Inclusion of the Haqqani network in a hoped-for peace deal — now a chief objective in the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy after a decade of war — is a controversial idea in Washington.

Officials blame the group for last month’s attack on the US embassy in Kabul and a truck bombing that injured scores of American soldiers.

The State Department is facing heat from Capitol Hill for refraining, at least so far, from officially designating the Haqqani group, which US officials say is based in western Pakistan, as a terrorist organisation.

The White House has backed away from assertions from Admiral Mike Mullen, who was the top US military officer until he retired last month, that Pakistani intelligence supported the Haqqani network in the September 13 embassy attack.

But President Barack Obama and others have put their sometimes-ally Pakistan on notice that it must crack down on militants or risk severing a key relationship.

According to media reports, US officials have held meetings with Haqqani network representatives as part of their efforts — which have not yet yielded any visible results — to strike a peace deal, but the State Department declines to discuss details of the reconciliation process.

In recent months reconciliation has become a more prominent feature of Obama’s Afghan strategy even as US and Nato soldiers continued to battle the Taliban and Haqqani militants in Afghanistan’s volatile south and east.

Earlier this year, Clinton advanced a peace deal as a key plank of regional policy for the first time, saying Washington would support a settlement between the Afghan government and those militant groups that meet certain requirements, including renouncing violence and supporting the Afghan constitution.

Fighting, talking

Despite the conciliatory signals, Clinton said the United States would stick to its military campaign that the White House hopes will make militants more likely to enter serious negotiations.

“Now, it is also true that we are still trying to kill and capture or neutralise them (the Haqqani network),” Clinton said. “And they are still trying to, you know, kill as many Americans, Afghans and coalition members as they can.”

“In many instances where there is an ongoing conflict, you are fighting and looking to talk,” Clinton said. “And then eventually maybe you are fighting and talking. And then maybe you’ve got a cease-fire. And then maybe you are just talking.”

It is unclear how quickly a peace deal could be had, as it remains unclear how military commanders can achieve and defend security improvements as the foreign force in Afghanistan gradually grows smaller.

While parts of the Taliban’s southern heartland are safer than they were, Obama will be withdrawing the extra troops he sent to Afghanistan in 2010 just as commanders’ focus turns to the rugged eastern regions where the Haqqani group are believed to operate.

Clinton did not directly address the question of designating the Haqqani network as a ‘foreign terrorist organisation,’ but suggested the United States would want to keep its options open as it seeks peace in a region known for historic merry-go-round of political and military alliances.

“It’s always difficult in this stage of a conflict, as you think through what is the resolution you are seeking and how do you best obtain it, to really know where you’ll be in two months, four months, six months,” Clinton said.

“We are going to support the Afghans and they want to continue to see whether there is any way forward or whether you can see some of the groups or their leaders willing to break with others.”

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/12/us-open-to-afghan-peace-deal-clinton.html

Ex-naval chief Bokhari named to head NAB

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari named on Sunday Admiral (retd) Agha Fasih Bokhari, former chief of Pakistan Navy, as chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to fill the office lying vacant for several months and make the country’s premier accountability organisation functional.

The nomination of Admiral Bokhari surprised many observers in the capital because some other persons were reportedly being considered for the post. The NAB became dysfunctional on July 20 on the orders of the Supreme Court which said that the organisation could not function in the absence of a chairman.

“President Zardari has nominated Admiral Bokhari and sent a summary to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for his appointment as NAB chairman,” President’s Spokesman Farhatullah Babar said.

“The president also sent a letter to Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan for consultation as required in the NAB ordinance,” he said. Sources said the law ministry had sent a summary nominating Admiral Bokhari for the post to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani a few days ago.

The prime minister accepted the summary and forwarded it to the president for approval. Under the NAB ordinance and directives of the apex court, the government has to consult the leader of opposition over the appointment of NAB’s chairman.

The leader of opposition has not taken any decision on the issue, but his party’s spokesman Mushahidullah said the opposition party would not accept the decision because NAB’s chairman should be a non-political person.

He also levelled allegations of corruption against the retired admiral. However, he later withdrew the allegations and said he had confused his name with that of another former Navel Chief.

The PML-N spokesman said his party’s leadership would hold a meeting to discuss the nomination.

He did not confirm that Chaudhry Nisar had received a letter from the president in this regard and said that his party would respond in accordance with the constitution.

It may be mentioned that the leader of opposition had rejected the name of Justice (retd) Syed Deedar Shah for the post but despite that the government appointed him as NAB chairman in October 2010. But three months later Justice (retd) Shah was removed by the Supreme Court which said he had been appointed without ‘meaningful’ consultations with the opposition.

Earlier, the government was considering the names of recently retired judges of the Supreme Court, Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Sardar Raza Khan and former chief justice (retd) Abdul Hameed Dogar and Punjab Governor Latif Khosa for the office.

But all these names were dropped in favour of Admiral (retd) Fasih Bokhari who retired as four star naval officer after serving as Chief of Naval Staff from 1997 to 1999.

He is a graduate of the French Naval War College and held several high posts in the navy.

The post of NAB chairman has been lying vacant since the removal of Deedar Hussain Shah in March this year.

NAB suspended its operations on July 20 after the expiry of the 30-day deadline given to the government by the Supreme Court to either appoint a chairman or wind up the organisation. The government ignored the deadline and pleaded in the apex court that it could not appoint NAB chairman till the apex court decided its petition seeking a review of the removal of Justice Shah.

The Supreme Court rejected the government’s plea and ordered that its June 21 judgment would prevail (under which 30-day deadline was given).

On June 22, a three-member bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, disposed of a constitutional petition filed by Al-Jehad Trust challenging the appointment of Javed Kazi as deputy chairman of NAB and told the government that if it failed to fill the vacant posts of the bureau’s chairman and prosecutor general in one month, the deputy chairman would be barred from exercising the delegated powers of NAB chairman and the bureau would become non-functional.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/10/ex-naval-chief-bokhari-named-to-head-nab.html

UK review identifies Afghan civil war risk

LONDON: A British government review of the Afghan conflict is to warn that there are “significant risks” of civil war or a Taliban takeover of the south and east of the country after Nato withdraws its combat troops at the end of the 2014.

On the 10th anniversary of the start of the war, military progress is patchy with fighting still intense in the east and in parts of Helmand province. Over the past few days, British troops have been sent in to the thick of a bloody, drawn-out struggle along the Helmand river valley, taking over a fiercely contested area from US marines a few kilometres south of Sangin town, the site of the UK’s heaviest losses since its forces moved into the province in 2006.

With three years to go until Afghan security forces are supposed to fight the insurgency without the help of foreign combat troops, the Afghanistan review will portray a country in turmoil. Last year’s 30,000-strong US troop surge and new counterinsurgency tactics have pushed the Taliban out of much of the territory it controlled a year ago, but with the widespread use of improvised mines and roadside bombs, as well as a campaign of assassinations, the insurgents have sought to paralyse the Kabul government and hinder western-backed development.

Retired US general Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), said the force was only “50% of the way” to achieving its goals in the country.

President Hamid Karzai’s administration remains weak and corrupt, reliant on a loose coalition of warlords. The country’s biggest bank has been crippled by rampant embezzlement, and there have been a string of assassinations of high-profile Karzai allies, culminating last month in the killing of the government top peace envoy, Burhanuddin Rabbani.

The British government review, ordered by the prime minister David Cameron earlier this year and due to be delivered in mid-November, will warn of significant risks of the recent, hard-won progress unravelling and the very real threat of a multi-dimensional civil war between insurgent factions, regional and tribal groups, fuelled by neighbouring powers jockeying for position.

Talibanisation of the Pakhtun belt
Another possible outcome is referred to as the “Talibanisation of the Pakhtun belt”, in which the Pakhtun areas on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border slip permanently under the control of ultra-conservative militants, further destabilising Pakistan, an already fragile state armed with nuclear weapons.

The report, as described by officials, will make clear that these remain worst-case scenarios which can be avoided. But even the outcome judged by the report to be most likely after the 2014 transition, a precarious Afghan state with pockets of chronic violence, would leave the terrorist threat from the region as potent as it is today.

A senior British diplomat would not comment on the specifics of the review as it is classified and has yet to be finalised, but confirmed that “those sorts of scenarios are being studied”. “It is going to be a cold-eyed realistic appraisal,” the diplomat said.

The 20 September killing of Rabbani by a suicide bomber with explosives concealed in his turban, has set back hopes of a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. While senior Nato officials believe the evidence leads back to the Taliban’s Pakistan haven in Quetta, they do not think the assassination was specifically ordered by the top leadership, but rather was the work of an over-zealous second-tier commander. That leaves open the possibility that informal US contacts, begun last year, could resume.

But levels of distrust, both between Nato and the Taliban, and between Rabbani’s northern kinsmen and rebel Pakhtun tribes in the south, are now higher than ever.

“Anyone who is following the situation in Afghanistan is worried. A civil war is a real possibility,” said Martine van Bijlert of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network.

“There is a real feeling of instability, that the future is unsure. People don’t know who are their friends and enemies. So they try to make themselves ready for any eventuality, positioning themselves politically and worrying about how strong they are.
People are falling back on old networks and old loyalties.”

In Helmand, last year’s influx of 11,000 of US marines has suppressed the insurgency in several districts and reduced the pressure on British troops garrisoned in the province. But Barack Obama is now drawing down the surge, and the troops are going home or redploying to the eastern provinces to counter the threat of splinter jihadist groups.

Three hundred British soldiers are currently being deployed with Afghan troops along a particularly volatile stretch of the Helmand river south of Sangin, replacing a US marine battalion that was unable to make progress against the local insurgents and found itself under daily attack, suffering five deaths over six months and more than 80 wounded.

Danish forces stationed further south towards the town of Gereshk were forced to withdraw earlier this year from a forward base known as Armadillo as a result of an insurgent onslaught, dismantling the fortifications stone by stone and shipping part of it back to a military museum in Denmark.

Not a lot has changed
The newly-arrived British troops and their Afghan counterparts will be patrolling an area known as Qal Yeh Gaz, just 12kms south of Sangin town. One of the departing US marines, Captain Andrew Terrell told the BBC that “not a lot has changed” since he was deployed nearby with British commandos four years ago. “The situation is no better. The people here are not fed up with the fighting, they’ve not reached the limit of what they’re willing to accept from the Taliban,” Terrell said. “It’s easier for them to move out of the area and hope it settles down, but they don’t look much further than tomorrow.”

A coalition of Afghan and western aid agencies has published research suggesting that despite the influx of $57bn in foreign aid since 2001, progress in health, education and a public sense of security has been patchy and tenuous.

Farhana Faruqi Stocker, the director of Afghanaid said: “Investments have been made where there is the greatest insurgency rather than where there is the greatest need. Impoverished regions have been ignored because they are ‘secure’.” She added: “Afghan lives have improved but the gains are fragile and reversible.”—Dawn/Guardian News Service

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/09/uk-review-identifies-afghan-civil-war-risk.html