U.S. taxpayers paid millions for Afghan payroll system that doesn’t work as intended, DOD audit says
The Washington Post: In 2016 the Defense Department began paying a Kabul-based tech company millions of dollars to create a new payroll system for the Afghan government, part of an ambitious effort to prevent fraud by tracking the flow of funds down to individual soldiers and police officers. But in visits to Afghanistan last year, Defense Department auditors found problems: The system didn’t connect to other Afghan government computer systems. Click here to read more (external link).
Traffic Accident In Kandahar Leaves Six Dead
Tolo News: At least six people were killed, 12 others were wounded in a traffic accident in Kandahar highway on Saturday morning, local officials said. The incident happened in Maiwand district, the deputy head of provincial Traffic Department, Sardar Mohammad Naseri, said. Click here to read more (external link).
Uzbekistan Experiences The Pitfalls Of Peacemaking In Afghanistan
Bruce Pannier
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 24, 2019
Fostering peace is a complicated process, and Uzbekistan just received a strong hint that best intentions can be interpreted as unwanted actions.
Tashkent is trying to help promote peace in Afghanistan. Other parties are too, but the outcome of events in Afghanistan has a direct bearing on Uzbekistan, which shares an approximately 160-kilometer border with Afghanistan.
Uzbekistan hosted a regional security and development conference in November 2017 that focused heavily on Afghanistan, and a conference specifically on Afghanistan in March 2018.
Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov has been shuttling between Kabul and Doha (Qatar) to meet, respectively, with Afghan government officials and representatives of the Taliban to convince the two parties to conduct peace negotiations in Uzbekistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani agreed to this at the end of March.
“Uzbekistan is ready to host the talks if Taliban is ready to directly talk with the Afghan government,” Kamilov said at the time, naming the ancient city of Samarkand as the venue.
The next step, of course, was to convince the Taliban to send representatives to such talks.
On August 8, a delegation from the Taliban’s political office in Doha, led by deputy Taliban leader Mullah Beradar Akhund, met with Kamilov in Tashkent.
The Afghan Foreign Ministry released a statement on August 10 saying that, while Kabul appreciated international and regional cooperation, the “formal reception of Taliban representatives by the Republic of Uzbekistan and the dynamics of the talks do not help in facilitating peace talks between the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban.”
Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry called on “all countries, particularly our neighbors, to respect the leadership and ownership of the people and government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in the Peace Process.”
The Taliban Go Sightseeing
The “reception” the Taliban delegation received in Uzbekistan was indeed cordial.
Kamilov met the delegation at Tashkent’s airport. Then they held talks at the Foreign Ministry.
The Taliban delegation stayed well beyond the talks.
On August 9, they went to Samarkand, met with Samarkand Provincial Governor Erkinjon Turdimov, and toured that city, including the mausoleum of Kusam ibn Abbas, who is credited with bringing Islam to the Samarkand area in the seventh century.
On August 10, the Taliban delegation went to another ancient Silk Road city, Bukhara, where they met with Provincial Governor Uktam Barnoev and visited local holy sites.
On August 11, the delegation was back in Tashkent to observe the Kurban Bayrami Muslim holy day at the central mosque.
For Kabul, it probably looked to be an excessively warm welcome for the delegation of a group with which Afghan government forces are locked in battle throughout Afghanistan.
But there are some things worth considering from Uzbekistan’s point of view.
Whether a peace deal is reached or not, the Taliban are likely to be in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.
Safe Haven
The Taliban has been Uzbekistan’s neighbors in the past, in the late 1990s, and the Uzbek government then took a hostile attitude toward the group. The Taliban made multiple claims of Uzbek interference when Taliban forces were trying to capture areas in northern Afghanistan near the Uzbek border.
Uzbekistan was among the first Central Asian countries to offer the use of its military bases to the U.S.-led coalition that attacked the Taliban following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.
During the few years that the Taliban controlled northern Afghanistan, it allowed a terrorist group from Uzbekistan — the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) — to use Afghan territory as a safe haven where they could regroup and rearm to attempt to carry out their goal of toppling Uzbekistan’s government.
Such contacts as the Uzbek government had with the Taliban during the latter’s final months in control of much of Afghanistan were focused on convincing the Taliban to hand over IMU militants.
The situation in Afghanistan now is much more complicated than it was in the late 1990s. The IMU as a group no longer exists, but its fighters have been dispersed around northern Afghanistan. Some have joined with the Taliban, but others have joined other groups in Afghanistan, among them the so-called Islamic State of Khorasan (ISK), an offshoot of the radical group that has waged brutal combat in Iraq and Syria for much of this decade.
Uzbekistan would not be the only party trying to broker a peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban that sees ISK as the greater regional threat, though the ISK ranks are thought to be far less numerous than the Taliban’s.
So it is natural that Uzbekistan might try different tactics in its dealings with the Taliban than those Tashkent pursued 20 years ago. And after all, Uzbek authorities were hoping to bring representatives from the Afghan government and the Taliban to meet and discuss peace in Samarkand, and the Taliban delegation said during the visit that they were interested in such a meeting.
It is also understandable that Kabul might view this recent visit by the Taliban delegation to Uzbekistan as the Uzbek government trying to bolster its own security by warming ties with the Taliban.
RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, known locally as Ozodlik, and Afghan Service, known locally as Azadi, contributed to this report. The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL.
Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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1TV Afghanistan Dari News – August 23, 2019
President Ghani says Afghanistan will survive after US troop withdrawal
Ghani
Press TV
August 23, 2019
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says a partial withdrawal of US troops from the country will not have a crucial impact on the lives of the Afghan people.
President Ghani told Afghanistan’s TOLOnews on Thursday that the withdrawal of some 5,000 troops from the country “will not bring basic changes in our lives.”
He said the remaining number of forces “will support our Air Force, our Commando Force, and other Defense and Security Forces and will help the Resolute Support to continue [its mission in Afghanistan].”
Currently, there are about 20,000 foreign troops, mostly American, in Afghanistan as part of a US-led mission to purportedly train, assist and advise Afghan forces.
Ghani further said he had called on US President Donald Trump in a letter seven months ago to reduce the number of US troops in Afghanistan.
“The number of troops has not been mentioned in the bilateral agreement [between Afghanistan and the US] and in multilateral agreement with NATO… Reduction or increase in the number of troops is conditions-based,” he said.
“Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” Ghani added.
It was reported that some 5,000 US troops will be withdrawn in 135 days from five bases in Afghanistan.
President Ghani said the bases are small and that they will be handed to the Afghan forces.
US, Taliban launch new round of talks in Doha
Ghani made the remarks as representatives from the US and the Taliban militant group resumed a new round of talks in Qatar’s capital city, Doha, on Thursday.
A senior US official said that American negotiator “Zalmay Khalilzad will inform the top Afghan leaders about the peace deal and then finalize a declaration to end the war in Afghanistan.”
Ghani, however, said previously that peace was only possible with an agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
The Taliban, which now control or have influence in about half of Afghanistan’s territory, have held several rounds of direct talks with US officials in the Qatari capital since October. The militants say they do not recognize the government in Kabul.
The negotiations take place almost 18 years after the US military invaded Afghanistan to overthrow a ruling Taliban regime.
The exit of foreign troops from Afghanistan is a condition set by the Taliban to extend the talks.
The Taliban’s five-year rule over at least three quarters of Afghanistan came to an end following the US invasion of the country in 2001.
American forces have since remained bogged down in Afghanistan through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and now, Donald Trump.
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U.S., Taliban Kick Off Ninth Round Of Afghan Peace Talks In Qatar
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 22, 2019
U.S. and Taliban negotiators have resumed talks in Qatar to firm up a peace deal to end the nearly 18-year conflict in Afghanistan, reports say.
U.S. officials and Taliban spokesmen were quoted as saying that the ninth round of talks started on August 22 in the Qatari capital of Doha.
A Taliban member said U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been leading the negotiations with the militant group since last year, also met one-on-one on August 21 with the Taliban’s lead negotiator, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Associated Press reported.
Khalilzad is scheduled to travel to Kabul to “inform the top Afghan leaders about the peace deal and then finalize a declaration to end the war in Afghanistan,” a senior U.S. official privy to the peace negotiations told Reuters.
Previous rounds of U.S.-Taliban negotiations have focused on issues including a U.S. troop withdrawal, a cease-fire, intra-Afghan negotiations to follow, and guarantees by the militant group not to harbor terrorist groups.
The Taliban has so far rejected holding direct talks with the Afghan government.
The United States formally ended its Afghan combat mission in 2014 but about 14,000 U.S. troops remain in the country, mainly training and advising government forces battling the Taliban, an affiliate of the Islamic State group, and other militants. Some U.S. forces carry out counterterrorism operations.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on August 20 that the U.S. military role in Afghanistan had basically turned into a “ridiculous” police force.
The next day, two U.S. service members were killed in action in the country, joining more than 2,400 U.S. service personnel who have died in the United States’ longest war, which started with the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to topple the Taliban.
With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters
Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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1TV Afghanistan Dari News – August 22, 2019
Ghani Accused Of Misusing His Authority After Palace Inauguration
Ashraf Ghani
Tolo News: President Ashraf Ghani’s rival candidates on Thursday accused him of misusing his authority and manipulating national assets for campaign purposes hours after the inauguration of Darulaman Palace, an imperial monument in the western part of Kabul that was heavily damaged the civil war in the country. Mr. Ghani at a ceremony inaugurated Darulaman Palace after its renovation on Wednesday evening. The renovation of the palace took almost four years. But there was no presence of prominent Afghan politicians even the Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. Click here to read more (external link).
Mohaqiq joins Abdullah’s election team
Mohaqiq
1TV: Mohammad Mohaqiq has joined Abdullah Abdullah’s election team after breaking alliance with candidate Hanif Atmar. His move comes following disagreement within Atmar’s team over creation of a prime ministerial post. Click here to read more (external link).
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