afghan dispatch

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Pinned down in a series of "Alamos" across the north of Helmand, British soldiers became magnets for attacks from Taliban, drug gangs and locals

Back in 2005, the Blair government committed itself to rebuilding Afghanistan's Helmand province, with a vision that went far beyond what proved possible as revealed in the original planning document released to the BBC.

Helmand has proved by a long way to be the Afghan war's bloodiest ground.

It is the poorest province in one of the world's poorest countries. But some in Whitehall thought they could transform it into something closer to Belgium when Britain deployed there in the spring of 2006.

The hope was that not even a shot would be fired with troops home in 2009.

Instead, 323 British servicemen and women have so far been killed in Helmand, 9,500 British troops are still there and the vision has been revised to the development level of Bangladesh, at best, in another 20 years.

According to Mark Etherington, the planning team leader, they were confronted with a challenge on the ground of "biblical proportions" that bore no relation to what people in Whitehall had in mind.

It is easy to see why. A declassified copy of the Joint UK Plan for Helmand from December 2005, released to the BBC by the Foreign Office reveals:

"The state is largely absent in Helmand, providing little by way of security, infrastructure or public services."

Joint mission
Instead, Helmand's economy was based largely on heroin production - it provided up to half the global supply.



Profound challenges were identified in the report.
The current governor, chief of police and director of education are illiterate. 70% of the population is estimated to be illiterate.
The dominance of opium fuels a growing internal addiction problem and pervades public life through the influence it buys. Many prominent public figures are alleged to be involved in the trade, including those charged with suppressing it. The chief of the counter-narcotics police in Helmand has 20 staff and two ageing vehicles to cover a province three times the size of Wales with a population of more than one million.
The police force is widely thought to undermine the safety of the population rather than secure it. Reform of the police, perceived by the population as untrained, uneducated, unprofessional, drug-taking and corrupt…will require years to compete.
Provincial government in Helmand is dominated by patronage networks, tribal affiliation and alleged links to the narcotics trade. Interlocutors in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah complain about the corruption of key government officials and the sale of government land for private gain.
The security situation is perceived to have deteriorated over the last six months. The insurgency has been targeting government officials and Coalition forces. There is collusion between insurgents and narcotics traders. Illegally armed groups proliferate, particularly in inaccessible regions. Afghanistan's porous borders with Pakistan and Iran enable relatively unhindered transit through Helmand of insurgents and drug traffickers alike."
As a result, much of the province was controlled by warring drugs gangs and corruption reached practically every part of the administration.

Helmand was to be a joint military-civilian mission to extend the authority of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Protected by troops, civilians would build up the economy and the justice and education systems. The idea was to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Afghans away from the Taliban who were setting up their own shadow local administrations.

But after an initial assessment of the task, the planners returned to London in December 2005 and told Whitehall officials that their vision for Helmand was "not achievable in three years".

We were told that "was not an acceptable conclusion," said Minna Jarvenpaa, the governance adviser to the mission and a member of the planning team.

The vision in Whitehall was for levels of governance, growth in the economy and security occurring "without substantial security support from the international community" - a goal that is still a long way from being realised even today.

When the planners said they did not yet know enough about Helmand to put together a workable plan, a senior member of the secret intelligence service (MI6) is reported to have responded: "We know all we need to know".

Intelligence failure
In fact, the Joint UK Plan for Helmand shows precisely the reverse - in particular just how little was known about the complex dynamics of Helmand's tribal, criminal, religious and political factions.

And the military intelligence assessment failed to anticipate the scale or speed of the violent response from Taliban and other anti-British forces.

But the military momentum was unstoppable. Britain was going to Helmand, come what may.


323 British servicemen and women have so far been killed in Helmand
Because the mission was about reconstruction, only around 800 soldiers of the 3,300 deployment were "bayonets" - or fighters. The rest were mainly admin and logisticians.

So the mission was to be limited to a central area of Helmand around the capital Lashkar Gar and would slowly build out.

Except, that ambition was derailed almost from the start.

The report had highlighted a deteriorating security situation with attacks on government officials and coalition forces and collusion between insurgents and narcotics traders.

From the moment British troops arrived, Helmand's new governor, Mohammed Daoud, warned that his authority was being undermined by gunmen in the north of the province.

He urged Britain to deal with them by setting up extra bases.

Despite an initial judgment that even one extra base was "unsustainable", the military bowed to political pressure and by late June four additional bases had been established in Now Zad, Musa Qala, Kajaki and Sangin.

 

 

Sunday 19 June 2011

Third British soldier fatally wounded in three days

British soldier has died after being shot in Helmand province.

The serviceman, from the 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment (Staffords) was on patrol in the southern Nahr-e Saraj district when he came under fire from insurgents yesterday.The soldier had been sent on a patrol with the Afghan National Army to meet with people who had recently reoccupied the Haji Tor Aga Kalaycorrect area of the district.

He was part of a protective cordon guarding the meeting when he was shot by insurgents and fatally wounded.

His death came as two other British fatalities were named by the MoD. Craftsman Andrew Found, of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, and Corporal Lloyd Newell, from the Parachute Regiment, died in separate incidents on Thursday.

 

Nine people were killed Saturday when three attackers armed with suicide vests and machine-guns stormed a police station in the heart of the Afghan capital Kabul,

Nine people were killed Saturday when three attackers armed with suicide vests and machine-guns stormed a police station in the heart of the Afghan capital Kabul, officials said.
The militants, at least one of whom was in army uniform, got into a compound housing the police station in the crowded main central market area, near the Afghan presidential palace, defence ministry and other official buildings.
Five civilians were among the dead along with three policemen and one officer from Afghanistan's intelligence agency, interior ministry spokesman Najib Nikzad said. Ten civilians and two police were wounded.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest embarrassing breach at a supposedly secure location in Kabul, which comes weeks before limited foreign troop withdrawals are due to start from Afghanistan.
One of the attackers detonated his explosives at the entrance to the compound, allowing his two accomplices into the building, the interior ministry said.
Once inside, they fired at police, sparking a gun battle which lasted for around two hours before the pair were killed.
"Three suicide attackers with weapons and explosive vests attacked the police station," Nikzad said.
"One of them detonated himself in front of the gate of the station and two others were killed following a firefight with police,".
"In this incident, three policemen, one intelligence officer and five civilians were killed and two police, along with 10 other civilians were wounded." he added.
The finance ministry said two of its employees who worked nearby were among those who died.
Parts of the city centre were sealed off following the attack and hundreds of people were evacuated.
At least one of the men was dressed in Afghan army uniform, according to local television which showed pictures of what it said was his dead body.
The Taliban have carried out similar brazen attacks in the past against Afghan security forces in Kabul.
These have often been committed by attackers in military uniforms, highlighting the problem of Taliban infiltration of the fast-growing Afghan security forces which are taking increasing control as foreign forces start to withdraw.
Six people were killed at a military hospital by a suicide bomber in military uniform last month, while three died in April when another uniformed attacker opened fire inside the defence ministry.
Control of security in Kabul is already the responsibility of Afghan forces but there is a heavy foreign military and civilian presence in the city.
Foreign forces in seven other parts of Afghanistan are expected to start handing control of security and other official functions to their Afghan counterparts from July.
This will allow the start of a limited withdrawal of foreign troops, although the full extent of this is not yet clear.
US President Barack Obama, whose country provides some 90,000 of the 130,000-strong foreign force in Afghanistan, is expected to announce soon how many will leave from July amid mounting pressure for a big withdrawal.
All international combat forces are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Monday 13 June 2011

Police Recruits Impose Islamic Tax on Afghans

Ghulam Hazrat should be a poster boy for the peaceful reintegration of insurgents who want to switch sides. Six months ago he was a Taliban commander in the troubled Imam Sahib district of northern Kunduz Province. Now he and 10 of his followers are in the process of becoming police officers, at which point the government will start paying them salaries.
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In the meantime, however, Mr. Hazrat is raising money the same way he did as a Taliban commander, by imposing an “Islamic tax” on people in his district.

“The government is telling me to fight the Taliban and protect your area so we must ask people for help in order to take care of myself and my friends,” he said in an interview. He and other militiamen who have declared for the government and hope to join the local police, a group known as arbakai, insist that people give the money voluntarily.

Judging by the public outcry, however, the donors see things differently. They are often forced to hand over a tenth of their earnings, just as they were when the Taliban ran things. In Kunduz, where the police training program has been operating since late last year, radio talk shows have been flooded by angry callers complaining about the arbakai militias, meetings of elders have denounced their behavior, and even provincial government officials have expressed concern.

The American-financed program aims to convert insurgents into village self-defense forces called Afghan Local Police, distinct from the existing national police force. It is a favorite initiative of the NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who considers it a key part of his counterinsurgency strategy.

Afghan police officials see it as an inexpensive way to beef up their forces, particularly in remote areas. The Afghan Local Police are organized and trained by American Special Forces units in cooperation with the Afghan authorities and, working at the village level, are paid half of what national police officers earn.

So far the program has trained 6,200 officers in 41 districts, and aims to recruit 30,000 in 100 districts in 14 provinces by the end of the year.

But it has aroused concern among aid workers and United Nations officials, who say it risks empowering local warlords who have little regard for human rights or proper behavior.

Many Afghans fear a return to the warlord days of the civil war years, from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, even more than they fear the Taliban, who came to power in large measure because people were fed up with feuding local militias. A recent study by Oxfam and three other nongovernment groups concluded that the program had “in all cases failed to provide effective community policing,” and has instead produced forces that have “generally been feared by the communities they are supposed to protect.”

A United Nations report in March noted that while the program was still too new to render hard judgments, “Concerns have been raised regarding weak oversight, recruitment, vetting and command-and-control mechanisms.”

The controversy in Kunduz arose just as farmers began harvesting their crops, only to find that many of the new arbakai groups, armed and acting as a de facto police force before they had begun the training program, were demanding their tithe.

“We have many times said through local television that no one should give anything to anyone, and arbakai have no right to collect Islamic tax,” said Sarwar Hussaini, the spokesman for the Kunduz Province police chief.

But refusing to pay can have consequences.

The headmaster and assistant headmaster of the Haji Mir Alam girls’ school in the provincial capital, Kunduz city, refused. Two arbakai commanders with 30 armed men stormed the school on Wednesday, beating both men with rifle butts in front of the students until they fell unconscious, according to Muhammad Zahir Nazam, head of the provincial education department.

“The education department strongly condemns this attack, which was a clear attack on education,” he said. Both school officials were hospitalized and are in comas, he said, and the school has been closed.

A group of 100 tribal elders gathered afterward and denounced the attack. “The government should arrest and bring these people to justice,” said a spokesman for the group, Haji Nesar Ahmad. Mr. Hussaini, the police spokesman, said no official complaints had been filed over arbakai abuses.

But Mr. Nazam, the education official, said he reported the attack to security officials several times, and “no steps have been taken and no one arrested.”

 

Wednesday 8 June 2011

15 people have been killed in a US drone strike in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan

15 people have been killed in a US drone strike in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan, officials say.

They told the Associated Press news agency that the attack took place in Shawal region near the Afghan border.

The US says North Waziristan is home to several militant groups involved in attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Officials say the drone fired five missiles, destroying a fortress-like militant compound in Zoi village.

A vehicle in the area was also reported to have been hit. Officials say the death toll may rise. They said all those killed were militants, but their group affiliations are still unclear.

The media are denied access to the area and independent confirmation of the claims is not possible.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says the area is controlled by militants of the Haqqani network as well a group led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

Spate of attacks
Shawal is a forested area between North and South Waziristan tribal regions. North Waziristan has been a regular target of drone strikes in the recent past.

But four of the last five drone attacks have targeted South Waziristan - a leading al-Qaeda militant, Ilyas Kashmiri, was reported to have been killed there in a US strike over the weekend.

On Monday three drone strikes killed at least 18 people in South Waziristan.

Militants have vowed to avenge Kashmiri's reported killing, as well as the killing by US forces of Osama Bin Laden last month.

United States officials do not routinely confirm that they have carried out drone attacks, but analysts say that only US forces have the capacity to carry out such strikes in the region.

More than 100 raids were reported last year in tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Many militants, some of them senior, have been killed in the drone strikes, but hundreds of civilians have also died. The strikes are hugely unpopular among the Pakistani public.

Sunday 5 June 2011

UK soldier killed while on a security patrol in Afghanistan has been named.



Father-of-two Corporal Michael John Pike, 26, of 4th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland, died on Friday.

His commanding officer described him as "the perfect example of a Highland soldier- loyal and fiercely courageous".

The death of Cpl Pike, who was from Huntly, Aberdeenshire, brings the number of UK MoD deaths in operations in Afghanistan since 2001 to 369.

He had been sent with his unit to Pupalzay, along the Highway 601 in the Lashkar Gah area of Helmand province.

Cpl Pike was taking part in an operation to prevent the insurgents from "intimidating the local population" and attacking an Afghan police checkpoint.

His patrol came under fire from rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

'Loyal and courageous'
Cpl Pike, who had two children, Joshua and Evelynn, had been deployed to Afghanistan in April.

He joined the Army as a private in 2002. After a tour of Iraq, he served in Helmand province in 2008.

His commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel A J Aitken, said: "The loss of Cpl Mike Pike has been felt deeply by all ranks of the battalion.

"He was an enormously popular, charismatic and engaging character; a natural leader in every way. As a junior commander he was entirely dedicated to his soldiers, leading from the front with every step and they would follow him anywhere.

"A natural practical joker, his innate sense of fun was a constant source of amusement and relief for the whole platoon."


His death, saving the lives of the men he was devoted to, marks the tragic end of a life that has touched so many, so deeply that it seems almost unreal”

Lieutenant Robert Grant
Platoon commander
"He was marked out by his constant wry smile whether leading his company from the front at PT or pushing his section on when under pressure; simply unflappable," he added.

Eyewitnesses said Cpl Pike "didn't go down without a fight" and was offering covering fire when he was killed.

His platoon commander, Lieutenant Robert Grant, said his loss "strikes deep into the heart and soul of all those who knew him".

He said: "His death, saving the lives of the men he was devoted to, marks the tragic end of a life that has touched so many, so deeply that it seems almost unreal."

Cpl Pike's wife, Ida, said: "He would want everybody to know that he died doing a job he loved and that he loved our children with all his heart and soul."

Defence Secretary Liam Fox, said: "It is clear from the tributes paid to Cpl Pike by his friends and colleagues that he was a talented soldier with a bright future, a loving family man, and a great friend to so many.

"My thoughts are with his family, friends, and colleagues as they come to terms with his loss."

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