NATO Looks to Enduring Afghanistan Force

NATO Planners Look to Enduring Force In Afghanistan

BRUSSELS --- With just 23 months until the end of the International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan, Afghan forces are poised to move into the lead operationally, and NATO and partner nations are discussing the scope and missions of the enduring presence force that will remain in the country.

The conversations within NATO are about this transition, a senior NATO officer, speaking on background, told reporters today. The alliance’s chiefs of defense, including Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are here for meetings.

“It has been less a conversation about numbers than it has been about capabilities and requirements,” the senior officer said of discussions concerning NATO’s role going forward in Afghanistan.

“Milestone 2013” is the shorthand NATO uses referring to Afghan forces taking the security lead. Last week, President Barack Obama and Afghan President Karzai announced this will occur in the spring.

This milestone marks a long road for the Afghan national security forces, the officer said. In 2012, Afghan forces demonstrated their battlefield abilities and proficiencies. Now, he said, the need in Afghanistan is for NATO support forces and advisors rather than the combat troops Afghanistan needed in the past.

The post-2014 needs are a training-and-advising capability and a focused counterterrorism capability, the officer said. How to execute those missions at various troop levels are the conversations that are going on within NATO, in Afghanistan and in the capitals of partner nations, he told reporters, adding that ISAF has not been asked to provide advice with respect to a zero-troop option.

The way forward can be seen with an eye to the past, the officer said. The nature of the enduring-presence force will be to facilitate an Afghan national security force that will still be conducting counterinsurgency operations, he added.

Just a year ago, the officer noted, people asked when ISAF was going to shift the main effort in Afghanistan from Regional Command South to Regional Command East. They didn’t realize the main effort was already shifting, he said, because that mission was shifting to Afghan forces.

For a counterinsurgency to succeed, the officer said, indigenous forces have to be the lead. Foreign forces can provide the breathing space for these forces to develop their capabilities, but ultimately it is up to local forces to work with the people. “That’s been what has been happening over the last 18 months,” he said.

The drawdown of U.S. surge forces in Afghanistan created the space and necessitated innovation for Afghan forces. “They are doing corps-level operations today using counterinsurgency type tactics, techniques and procedures, with us firmly in an advisory role,” he said.

Afghanistan: withdrawal maximum security

The planned withdrawal of the French armies engaged in Afghanistan since 2008, is accelerating. More than 2000 men and 2000 tons of material have already left the country. To perform this maneuver logistics to its end, or the summer of 2013, freedom of action and security areas are essential.

The process of lightening the French forces began in 2011. In May 2012, François Hollande, president and army chief, calls for the acceleration of the movement. During the year 2012, the armies proceeded to withdraw about 2,100 troops and 2,000 tons of equipment. To allow convoys reach Kabul, security zones and areas is a key element. A security driven primarily by Task Force La Fayette 6 (TFLF 6) , commanded by Brigadier-Hautecloque Raysz between April 14 and November 25, 2012, and composed of groupings arms tactics (CATF) Steel , Wild Geese and Helicopter Battalion 

From May to July, tactical operations chained themselves to maintain the security of the axis Vermont, only practicable route between Kabul and Tagab. In April, " the insurgency led harassment actions in the area of Tagab , "says Colonel LAROUZIERE, commander GTIA Steel. Before starting the withdrawal of Tagab, sub-GTIA Tagab and Nijrab supported combat operations to the Afghan National Army (ANA), in Kapisa. The goal: to create a bubble of security around the FOB to perform the removal in a safe manner optimal. "  In five months, forty operations were mounted and we went more than thirty times in the fire , "says Captain H., unit commander of the sub-GTIA Tagab. And Colonel LAROUZIERE added: "  We were in contact to disrupt the insurgency and disrupt. While leading the ANA twenty-two transactions per month, we took over. "

For Afghan Policewomen, Sex Abuse Is A Job Hazard

"Anywhere you ask for a job in the police force, they either ask you to give yourself or bring them  girls" 

The image of Afghan women wearing police and army uniforms is meant to inspire pride and hope for a future where the rights of women will be protected in Afghanistan.

So why would female police officers in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif be ashamed to admit they wear the badge?

"Except my very close family members, no one really knows that I am a police officer," said one woman at a NATO training session.

The woman, who asked not to give her name, says she tells most of her family that she works with a foreign aid organization. That's because the rumors about sexual abuse in Mazar-e-Sharif's police force are so widespread that many of these women are ashamed to say they're cops.

 Afghan female police officers are trained by Afghan police and NATO soldiers in eastern Afghanistan's Ghazni province on Sept. 12. In the culturally conservative country, women serving in the security forces say they face systemic sexual coercion and even rape by male colleagues

Profound Inequality

Protection of women's rights in Afghanistan remains a focal point for the West — and American officials regularly tout the fact that the Afghan security forces now include hundreds of women. In northern Afghanistan alone, about 300 women are serving in the police force.

But in a culture that is not fully comfortable with women working outside the home, these women face significant risks. An NPR investigation in the city discovered disturbing allegations of systematic sexual coercion and even rape of female police officers by their male colleagues.

The women at the recent training session at a huge base outside Mazar-e-Sharif hardly looked like victims as they assembled and loaded assault rifles. But none dared to give their names as they alluded to what is an open secret in the city.

"Some women are being promoted only if they agree to give sexual favors," said one female officer.

Most of the female police have many children, and most are poor. Though they say they'd like to serve their country, just as many say they joined the police because the pay — about $300 a month — is better than working as a maid or a teacher. The threat of job loss is a powerful one.

None of the policewomen on the training course — which consisted of a mix of men and women — would admit to being victims of sexual coercion.

Shocking Stories Of Rape

But privately, several told of terrifying experiences. The women agreed to speak on the condition that their names be withheld, and the only place they felt safe enough to talk with a reporter was in a car moving around the city.

"It's a fact. Women in the police are being used for sex and as prostitutes," said Ann — not her real name — who is in her mid-30s.

"It's happened to me. Male cops ask for sex openly because they think women join the police just to work as prostitutes," she said.

What do you think? what is the reason of increase in attacks of Afghan national army on Nato Isaf

Asian Defence News

Afghan transit: possible use of Russian aircraft (NATO)

Russian planes could be used in the transit of NATO cargo to Afghanistan, said Wednesday RIA Novosti the head of the Moscow office of the North Atlantic Alliance Robert Pshel.

"In my opinion, there is a strong possibility that the transfers are made ​​by Russian planes. However, this depends on the agreements appropriate commercial., but I want to reiterate that the chances are very strong, "the official said.

Russia reported in March its willingness to expand its participation in the transit cargo for the NATO

NATO Secretary General Stresses Commitment to Afghan Strategy

NATO is fully committed to its strategy in Afghanistan despite recent challenges, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told journalists in Brussels on 18 September.

“We remain committed to our strategy and we remain committed to our goal of seeing the Afghans fully in charge of their own security by the end of 2014,” he said in answering journalists’ questions after meeting Albanian President Bujar Nishani at NATO Headquarters.

In response to elevated threat levels in Afghanistan, the commander of ISAF, General John Allen, has put in place temporary reinforced measures to reduce the risk to international forces.

“I have spoken to General Allen about the measures that he has put in place to protect our troops. These measures are prudent and temporary, in response to the current situation,” the Secretary General said.

Two Nato personnel killed in Afghanistan helicopter crash

A Nato helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two coalition personnel, the military said.
Taliban insurgents claimed to have shot down two helicopters in Logar province, just south of the capital Kabul, but Nato said the cause of the crash was under investigation. The militants are known to exaggerate their claims.
“An Isaf helicopter has crashed in eastern Afghanistan, resulting in two Isaf fatalities. We are investigating the cause,” a spokesman for Nato’s US-led International Security Assistance Force told AFP.
The administration in Logar said the area is largely under Taliban control and 13 kilometres (eight miles) north of the provincial capital Puli Alam.

ISAF and Australian military Commanders farewell five fallen Australian soldiers on their last journey home from Tarin Kot, Afghanistan to Australia.

Twin suicide attack on Nato Afghan base kills 12

Ten civilians and two police were killed and dozens more were wounded Saturday in a Taliban twin suicide attack targeting a US-run military base in central Afghanistan, officials said.
The first bombing was carried out by a militant on foot, followed by a huge blast from a truck bomb that destroyed much of a local bazaar near the military outpost in Wardak province’s Sayedabad district, police said.
“The number of wounded is so high that it can hardly be counted. Lots of people have been wounded and much of the Sayedabad bazaar has been destroyed,” Wardak police spokesman Abdul Wali told AFP.
Ghulam Farouq Mukhlis, the provincial public health director, told AFP that at least 43 civilians were admitted to local hospitals. Ten people were evacuated to the capital Kabul for “serious injuries”, Mukhlis added.
A Western military official close to the Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) who spoke anonymously told AFP that two Isaf soldiers were wounded in the blasts.
“There were no Isaf fatalities,” an Isaf spokesman told AFP separately, confirming the twin blast.
Shahidullah Shahid a spokesman for the provincial administration confirmed the attack, describing the truck-bombing as “massive”.

NATO Official: Most Insider Attacks In Afghanistan 'Personal'

Despite a recent spate of insider attacks, most U.S. and Afghan deaths at the hands Afghan security forces have not been organized by the Taliban as part of a larger insurgency, and coalition forces are continuing to make progress in the country, a senior NATO official said Aug. 29.

Thus far in 2012, more than 40 coalition deaths have been attributed to insider attacks, compared with 35 for all of 2011.

“There are a variety of reasons that these attacks have occurred over the last few years,” said Alexander Vershbow, deputy secretary-general of NATO. “The majority still are viewed as having been the result of personal grievances or clashes between Afghan personnel and coalition personnel, and only a small percentage may have been engineered by the Taliban.”

‘Pakistan-linked’ attack on Kabul foiled: officials

Afghan and Nato forces foiled a series of suicide attacks on Kabul planned for Sunday when they captured five insurgents allegedly linked to militants in Pakistan, officials said.
The group was “finalising plans for an attack in the capital” and a large cache of explosives, suicide vest parts, weapons and ammunition were seized in the overnight operation, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said.

Pakistan resumes Nato supply into Afghanistan

Pakistan on Saturday resumed Nato supplies, allowing 14 containers to cross into Afghanistan from its northwestern border at Torkham, officials said.

 
Pakistan had temporarily stopped Nato supplies over security concerns on July 24 after gunmen attacked a convoy of Nato trucks, killing a driver, in the town of Jamrud on the outskirts of the main northwestern city Peshawar.
“The Nato supplies have been resumed from today and we sent 14 containers” for international troops in Afghanistan,” a local administration official told AFP on condition of anonymity because he is unauthorised to speak to media.
A local intelligence official also confirmed resumption of supplies and the departure of 14 Nato containers to Afghanistan.

Pakistan suspends Nato supply route over security

Pakistan has temporarily stopped Nato supply trucks crossing its northwestern border into Afghanistan over security concerns due to fears of attacks, officials said Thursday.
Gunmen on Tuesday attacked a convoy of Nato supply trucks, killing a driver, in the town of Jamrud near the main northwestern city of Peshawar, in the first such attack since Pakistan lifted a seven-month blockade of the border.
“Movement of Nato vehicles has been temporarily suspended since Wednesday evening to beef up security,” a paramilitary official told AFP.
“We have launched a search operation in the hills surrounding Jamrud,” the official added.
On Wednesday officials at the northwestern Torkham crossing had said traffic was picking up for the first time since the blockade ended, with more than 100 vehicles crossing in recent days.
Local administration official Bakhtiar Khan confirmed Thursday the supply route had been suspended due to “security reasons”.

Karzai Sees Second Life For Bases

Afghan leader demands NATO stop dismantling facilities as forces leave

KABUL - President Hamid Karzai and Afghan lawmakers called on the NATO coalition this week to stop demolishing Western military bases, saying that the facilities could be converted to schools, clinics and government offices.

As NATO troops continue their withdrawal from Afghanistan, U.S. and coalition officials have begun to identify and dismantle bases that the Afghan army lacks the capacity to inherit or that are no longer operationally significant. Dozens more of the facilities, which range from one-room checkpoints to large operating bases, could be bulldozed over the next two years.

Nato supply trucks surge at Pakistan border

The flow of trucks supplying Nato troops in Afghanistan has surged at a key Pakistan border crossing in recent days, officials said Wednesday, despite a deadly attack and protests.
Few containers had trickled across the border since Islamabad reopened the routes three weeks ago, but officials at Torkham, in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal district of Khyber, said more than 100 had crossed in the last two days.
Islamabad closed its land routes to Nato convoys in November following botched US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, but reopened them on July 3 after Washington said sorry for the deaths.
“More than a 100 trucks have crossed Torkham border in the past two days, a total of 140 have so far crossed into Afghanistan,” Obaidullah Khan, a customs official at Torkham, told AFP.

Taliban militants executed five civilians near Kabul for working with Nato troops, authorities said on Sunday, the latest in a series of militant activities in villages around the capital.

The news of the incident in Wardak province’s Jalrez district, 40km south of Kabul, came a day after the insurgents publicly lashed two Afghan men and just weeks after the public execution of a woman for adultery.
In Jalrez, the militants captured six Afghans returning home from work at a Nato base. The bodies of five of them were found on Sunday, all booby-trapped with explosives, a statement from the provincial governor’s office said.
Their hands were tied behind their backs, a witness said.
The sixth man fled his captors, the statement added, blaming the killings on the Taliban.
The militants are particularly active across the southern and eastern provinces, and appear to have stepped up efforts to impose their version of Shariah laws.

NATO's Open Door Policy Reaffirmed in Skopje

The NATO Deputy Secretary General, Ambassador Alexander Vershbow visited Skopje on Wednesday, 18 July 2012, as part of a visit to the three countries in the Balkans that aspire to NATO membership.

“The Chicago Summit made clear the importance that NATO continues to attach to the Open Door Policy and to the Western Balkans region. We want to move enlargement forward” the Deputy Secretary General said. "Courageous political decisions are needed so that your country's strategic goal of NATO and EU membership can be achieved. Because the future of this whole region is integration in the Euro-Atlantic family" he added.

Nato helicopter crashes in Afghanistan; two injured

A Nato helicopter crashed on Wednesday in western Afghanistan, injuring two troops serving with the US-led military coalition, Nato said.    

No other information was disclosed about the crash in the relatively peaceful west. The crash is under investigation.
Separately, Nato reported that a service member was killed on Tuesday during an insurgent attack in the south. Insurgents are trying to regain territory they’ve lost during the past two years when tens of thousands of coalition and Afghan forces routed them from their strongholds in the south.
The trooper’s nationality has not yet been released.
So far this year, 238 coalition service members have been killed in Afghanistan, including at least 172 Americans.
On Tuesday, the Afghan Defence Ministry said that an Afghan soldier has been sentenced to death for killing four French troops earlier this year in eastern Afghanistan – one of the deadliest in a rising number of attacks in which Afghan forces have turned their guns on their foreign partners.
Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said a military court in the country’s capital on Monday ordered the soldier, Abdul Sabor, to be hanged. The soldier can appeal the sentence to higher courts, Azimi said. It was not clear when the soldier was convicted of the crime and Azimi did not have any other details about his case.
The four French soldiers were killed on Jan. 20 in Tagab district of Kapisa province. Just a month earlier, on Dec. 29, 2011, another Afghan soldier killed two members of the French Foreign Legion.
The French casualties prompted France’s new President Francois Hollande to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan earlier than planned. The decision to put France on a fast-track exit timetable sparked consternation among some members of the US-led military coalition, which is not ending its combat mission until the end of 2014.
France will pull 2,000 French combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and leave around 1,400 soldiers behind to help with training and logistics.
The death of the French troops was one of the latest cases of the so-called ”green-on-blue” attacks in which Afghan soldiers, or insurgents disguised in their uniforms, turn their weapons on coalition forces.
Such attacks have fueled distrust between US and other foreign troops and their Afghan partners. Last year there were a total of 21 ‘green-on-blue’ attacks that killed 35 coalition service members, according to Nato figures. That compares with 11 fatal attacks and 20 deaths the previous year. In 2007 and 2008 there were a combined total of four attacks and four deaths.
Besides targeting foreign forces, insurgents in Afghanistan have stepped up attacks on political and government figures.
On Monday, insurgents twice ambushed the convoy of Nuristan provincial Gov. Tamim Nuristani, but he escaped unharmed both times, said provincial spokesman Mohammad Zareen.

Anti-Nato Pakistanis march on Afghan border

Thousands of Pakistani activists marched towards the Afghan border Tuesday, condemning the government’s decision to end a seven-month blockade on Nato supplies into Afghanistan.
The march was organised by the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, a leading member of the Defence of Pakistan coalition of right wing and Islamist groups that have demanded mass protests against the July 3 lifting of the blockade.
Party leaders said 50,000 people would join the protest from the northwestern city of Peshawar to the nearby town of Jamrud, close to the Afghan border.
But around 8,000 people gathered in Peshawar late Monday and the crowd thinned to half overnight as they camped out in a park, witnesses said.
Banners in the park read “Yes to Peace, No to Nato” and “No more Nato, no more killings of Muslims”.
Pakistan announced on July 3 that it had decided to reopen overland routes to Nato convoys crossing into Afghanistan, after they were closed following US air strikes that killed 24 soldiers on the Afghan border last November.

Pakistan is pressuring NATO to clear out hundreds of Pakistani Taliban who have taken sanctuary in the eastern Afghan provinces of Nuristan and Kunar.

NATO and the Afghans are reluctant to do this while Pakistan maintains a terrorist sanctuary on their side of the border (North Waziristan) and refuses to shut that place down. The Islamic terrorists in North Waziristan have long made attacks into Afghanistan, something Pakistani simply denies. This Pakistani hypocrisy has been going on for decades and the Afghans, Indians and Western nations, who are on the receiving end of Islamic terrorism from Pakistan, are beyond the end of their patience over the issue. Frustrated by this refusal of the victims to go along with Pakistani delusions, the Pakistanis have been firing rockets and artillery into Afghanistan, where they believe Pakistani Taliban bases are. This has killed a lot of Afghan civilians and caused more anger at the Pakistanis. Efforts to negotiate some kind of compromise keep tripping over Pakistani refusal to admit that they are providing sanctuary for Islamic terrorists. Meanwhile, Pakistan is having growing problems with Islamic terrorists who used to be under the control of the military (and the ISI intelligence agency). That meant that these groups did not attack Pakistani targets. That has changed in the last decade, and many Islamic terror groups have gone to war against Pakistan. This would seem stupid, as Pakistan offers sanctuary for Islamic terrorists, but the point of Islamic radicalism is to be righteous and kill those who are not sufficiently Islamic.
Once the Pakistani government agreed in 2001 to support the American campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan Islamic terror groups in Pakistan came under increasing pressure by their more radical (and less rational) members to declare war on Pakistan. That trend continues, as does Pakistani support (by the military, ISI, many politicians and their followers) for Islamic terrorism. Pakistani Islamic radicals run several large political parties and have lots of allies in the military and ISI. The main reason for this is that many Pakistanis still believe that Islamic radicalism (as in a religious dictatorship to run the country) would deal with the corruption and misrule that have created so much misery and poverty in the country. Those who oppose this are considered enemies of Islam and subject to attack. Even senior (and incorrupt) leaders who speak out against Islamic radicalism are murdered, and the killers are praised, not punished. Most Pakistanis are either believers, or too terrified to object. Pakistan has become the Republic Of Fear that has turned meaningful reform into a capital crime. The military, which has frequently mutinied and taken control of the government, is no longer seen as a viable solution to Pakistan's problems. For half the time since Pakistan was created in 1947, the army has been in charge. Pakistanis have noted that the military was as corrupt and inept (although more disciplined) than the elected politicians. The result is growing popularity for a religious dictatorship. But many Pakistanis have noted that this form of government has not worked in Iran or Sudan, and was a disaster in Afghanistan during the 1990s. The country remains politically divided, corrupt, mismanaged and violent. The outlook is not good.  
An example of how religious intolerance works in Pakistan can be seen in the treatment of Abdus Salam (Pakistan's only winner of the Nobel Prize). Salam won the prize in 1979 for physics. His work made possible the current search for the Higgs Boson, a particle that, when better understood, will explain much more about how the universe actually operates. But Abdus Salam is virtually ignored, and often maligned, in Pakistan. That's because he belonged to the Ahmadi (Ahmadiyya) sect of Islam. To Islamic radicals, the Ahmadi are considered heretics and are often attacked and even killed in Pakistan because of their beliefs. There are four million Ahmadi in Pakistan, and there has been sporadic violence against the Ahmadi for over a century, and groups like al Qaeda encourage even more killings. Abdus Salam moved to Britain to continue his research in the 1950s, but returned to Pakistan in the 1960s to establish Pakistan's nuclear power and weapons program. Although Salam left Pakistan in 1974 when Ahmadi Islam was outlawed, he continued working on the Pakistani nuclear program. He returned to Pakistan in 1979 to receive praise for being the nation's first Nobel Prize winner. But he had to leave quickly. In the 1970s Islamic radicalism was given massive government support, and with that came more violence against Amadi Pakistanis. When Salam died in 1996, his body was brought from Britain to be buried in Pakistan. But shortly thereafter a judge ordered that "Moslem" be removed from his gravestone. Despite his scientific prominence, Islamic radicals have seen to it that Salam's name is rarely mentioned in Pakistani textbooks or the media in general. Pakistanis have to consult non-Pakistani media to find out about the accomplishments of Abdus Salam. Amadi Moslems are still murdered for their beliefs in Pakistan, and the government does little to stop it.
Although Pakistan has reopened its border for NATO supply trucks headed for Afghanistan, the majority of NATO supplies will continue to come from the north. That's more expensive, but NATO does not trust Pakistan to keep the border open, and Islamic radical politicians in Pakistan are calling for demonstrations to close the border again. This might happen despite the fact that the United States made it clear that as long as the border is closed, American aid to Pakistan will be halted as well. By opening the border, Pakistan is now receiving $1.1 billion in blocked aid. Pakistan insists it should receive even more money, but the U.S. refuses to pay those funds which are based on corrupt practices. Much of the aid (military and economic) given to Pakistan is stolen by senior military and government officials. American attempts to stop the stealing have angered the Pakistanis, who deny any such crimes.
In Eastern India (Chhattisgarh) police commanders and local politicians are under pressure to reveal exactly what happened on June 29^th, when 17 civilians were killed when counter-terror police approached a village and mistook a group of civilians for armed Maoist rebels. At first the police tried to claim that the dead civilians were Maoists, but lie did not survive long.