Dan Roberts, Spencer Ackerman in Washington, Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul — Guardian.co.uk June 18, 2013

The US is to open direct talks with Taliban leaders within days, it was revealed on Tuesday, after Washington agreed to drop a series of preconditions that have previously held back negotiations over the future of Afghanistan.

In a major milestone in the 12-year-old war, political representatives of the Taliban will shortly meet Afghan and US officials in Doha, the capital of Qatar, to discuss an agenda for what US officials called “peace and reconciliation” before further talks take place with Afghan government representatives soon after.

Senior US administration officials speaking on background said they believed the Taliban had agreed to issue a statement committing itself to “oppose the use of Afghan soil to threaten other countries” – an important first step to severing ties with al-Qaida, according to Washington. The Taliban confirmed they were opening an office in Doha, and wanted “good relations” with other countries.

The US has agreed that a formal rejection of al-Qaida by the Taliban leadership would now be a “negotiating aim” rather than a precondition for talks. It will also seek a commitment from the Taliban to end its insurgency in Afghanistan and recognise women’s rights in the country.

“This is an important first step but it will be a long road,” said one senior US official. “We have long said this conflict won’t be won on the battlefield, which is why we support the opening of this [Doha] office.”

White House officials say they believe the Taliban delegation at the talks represents the movement’s leadership, and includes more radical groups such as the Haqqani network. Officials said the US would have a direct role in the talks starting starting this week in Doha, but the substantive negotiations over the future of Afghanistan would then be led by the Afghan government.

“The core of this process is not going to be US-Taliban talks – we can help the process – but the core is going to be among Afghans,” added the US official. “The level of trust is extremely low so this is not going to be easy.”

A Taliban spokesman said the group was opening the Doha office to “reach understanding and initiate talks with countries of the world for the purpose of improving relations with them”, and to support a peaceful, political solution to end the “occupation of Afghanistan”.

The proposal for a Doha office has been on the table since 2011, and several senior Taliban figures have been living in Qatar for many months now, but the group had not publicly embraced plans for peace talks.

In Kabul, Afghan president Hamid Karzai said a delegation from the High Peace Council would travel to Qatar to discuss peace talks with the Taliban. “We hope that our brothers the Taliban also understand that the process will move to our country soon,” he added, although US officials stressed that moving talks to Afghanistan would take time.

Karzai also announced that Afghan forces would begin taking the lead from the Americans on domestic security on Tuesday, with a complete security transition by the end of next year when US forces are due to pull out.

Barack Obama is understood to have informed G8 leaders of the breakthrough at a dinner at the Northern Ireland summit on Monday night.

The deal on talks with the Taliban was partly brokered by Pakistan and the emir of Qatar after “months of diplomatic spadework” also involving Germany, Norway and the UK. In 2011, Hillary Clinton suggested that Taliban leaders would have to renounce violence for a peace process to work.

“Over the past two years, we have laid out our unambiguous red lines for reconciliation with the insurgents: they must renounce violence; they must abandon their alliance with al-Qaida; and they must abide by the constitution of Afghanistan,” she said. “Those are necessary outcomes of any negotiation. This is the price for reaching a political resolution and bringing an end to the military actions that are targeting their leadership and decimating their ranks.”

But on Tuesday, that position appeared to have soften somewhat. “We don’t expect them to break ties with al-Qaida [immediately],” said one of the US officials speaking on an off-the-record conference call. “That is an outcome of the process.” He said the expected Taliban statement opposing the use of Afghan soil for foreign attacks was “a first step in distancing them from international terrorism”.

The news comes on the day Nato handed formal responsibility for Afghan security to the country’s own troops and police, although foreign soldiers are still fighting in many areas. The Taliban have long demanded that foreign troops leave as a precondition to talks.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who has always said he would prefer talks to take place in Afghanistan, was initially lukewarm about the Qatar plans, but has visited the state twice this year, apparently paving the way for today’s breakthrough.

Additional reporting by Mokhtar Amiri in Kabul

Source

Annie Machon — Russia Today May 7, 2013

An Afghan farmer collects raw opium from poppies in Balkh province, Afghanistan. Heroin production in the country has increased significantly in recent years. Click to enlarge

With both the CIA and MI6 secretly providing ‘ghost money’ bribes to the Afghan political establishment, it’s likely that Afghans will increasingly support a resurgent Taliban and the drug trade will be further propped up.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, has recently been criticized for taking ‘ghost money’ from the CIA and MI6. The sums are unknown – for the usual reasons of ‘national security’ – but are estimated to have been in the tens of millions of dollars. While this is nowhere near the eye-bleeding $12 billion shipped over to Iraq on pallets in the wake of the invasion a decade ago, it is still a significant amount.

And how has this money been spent?  Certainly not on social projects or rebuilding initiatives.  Rather, the reporting indicates, the money has been funneled to Karzai’s cronies as bribes in a corrupt attempt to buy influence in the country.

None of this surprises me. MI6 has a long and ignoble history of trying to buy influence in countries of interest.  In 1995/96 it funded a ‘ragtag group of Islamic extremists,’ headed up by a Libyan military intelligence officer, in an illegal attempt to try to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi.  The attack went wrong and innocent people were killed. When this scandal was exposed, it caused an outcry.

Yet a mere 15 years later, MI6 and the CIA were back in Libya, providing support to the same ‘rebels,’ who this time succeeded in capturing, torturing and killing Gaddafi, while plunging Libya into apparently endless internecine war. This time around there was little international outcry, as the world’s media portrayed this aggressive interference in a sovereign state as ‘humanitarian relief.’

And we also see the same in Syria now, as the CIA and MI6 are already providing training and communication support to the rebels – many of whom, particularly the Al Nusra faction in control of the oil-rich north-east of Syria are in fact allied with Al-Qaeda in Iraq.  So in some countries the UK and USA use drones to target and murder “militants” (plus villagers, wedding parties and other assorted innocents), while in others they back ideologically similar groups.

Recently, we have also seen the Western media making unverified claims that the Syrian regime is using chemical weapons against its own people, and our politicians leaping on these assertions as justification for openly providing weapons to the insurgents.

Other reports are now emerging that indicate it was the rebels themselves who have been using sarin gas against the people. This may halt the rush to war, but not doubt other support will continue to be offered by the West to these war criminals.

So, how is MI6 secretly spending UK taxpayers’ money in Afghanistan? According to Western media reporting, it is being used to prop up warlords and corrupt officials. This is deeply unpopular amongst the Afghan people, leading to the danger of increasing support for a resurgent Taliban.

There is also a significant overlap between the corrupt political establishment and the illegal drug trade, up to and including the president’s late brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai. So, another unintentional consequence may be that some of this unaccountable ghost money is propping up the drug trade.

Afghanistan is the world’s leading producer of heroin, and the UN reports that poppy growth has increased dramatically. Indeed, the UN estimates that acreage under poppy growth in Afghanistan has tripled over the last 7 years.  The value of the drug trade to the Afghan warlords is now estimated to be in the region of $700 million per year.  You can buy a lot of Kalashnikovs with that.

On the one hand, we have Western governments bankrupting themselves to fight the ‘war on terror,’ breaking international laws and murdering millions of innocent people across North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia, while at the same time shredding what remains of our hard-won civil liberties at home.

On the other hand, we apparently have MI6 and the CIA secretly bankrolling the very people in Afghanistan who produce 90 percent of the world’s heroin. And then, of course, more scarce resources can be spent on fighting the failed ‘war on drugs,’ and yet another pretext is used to shred our civil liberties.

This is a lucrative economic model for the burgeoning military-security complex. However, it is a lose-lose scenario for the rest of us.

Source

Annie Machon is a former intel­li­gence officer for MI5, the UK Secur­ity Ser­vice, who resigned in the late 1990s to blow the whistle on the spies’ crimes with her ex-partner, David Shayler.

Also see: At Heroin’s Source, Taliban Do What ‘Just Say No’ Could Not

Melanie Hall — Telegraph.co.uk May 1, 2013

The soldiers were killed while travelling in a Mastiff armoured patrol vehicle, once described by Prime Minister David Cameron as offering “the best-known protection” against bombs, after it was struck by an improvised explosive device in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province.

It is the first time British soldiers have been killed while travelling in a Mastiff armoured vehicle, the Ministry of Defence said today.

The £1m Mastiff is widely used by the British Army in Afghanistan, with around 180 in service. It is favoured by troops because it is regarded as being highly resistant to mines and roadside bombs.

Lord Dannatt, the former Army chief of staff, said: “The Taliban have found a way of countering the protective qualities and characteristics of the Mastiff.

“It would seem that this was an extremely large bomb that was so powerful that actually it was able to cause fatalities within the vehicle itself,” he told BBC Radio 4.

“I’ve not seen a technical report but my understanding in talking to the Ministry of Defence is that in all probability it was a very large device in terms of the amount of explosive and it may well have physically lifted up the vehicle and possibly even turned it over.”

He added: “One has to accept tragically that, as in any cycle of conflict, there’s invention and counter-invention.”

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, has called for a review into the protection offered by the Mastiff.

Mr Clegg said: “It shows that, even with some of the best equipment in the world, and we have provided a lot of significant protection for our forces, you are dealing with a very ruthless enemy in the Taliban.

“They have at their disposal explosive devices which can even do damage to our soldiers in those protected vehicles,” he told LBC Radio.

The Ministry of Defence would not say whether the device had broken through the Mastiff’s armour or simply turned it over.

A spokesman said: “It is wrong to suppose the men died because the bomb penetrated the vehicle. They could have died because it rolled over.

“If a man is sticking out of the top, half in, half out the vehicle and it rolls, chances are that man will be seriously injured or die. If you have an explosion that’s big enough to lift a vehicle and roll it, you always have the possibility that it will lift and [soldiers will be] killed.”

He added: “You can never armour a vehicle enough to withstand every kind of blast you can have. There is no way you can protect everyone, all of the time. To armour a vehicle from any blast would take 200 tonnes of armour.”

Mastiffs have been in service since 2007. The heavily armoured, six-wheel drive patrol vehicle was ordered for urgent use in Afghanistan and Iraq in August 2006 because of high numbers of casualties amongst soldiers travelling in the Cold War-era Warrior armoured vehicle and the soft-sided Snatch Land Rover.

It is based on the US Cougar vehicle, built by Force Protection, and carries a roof-mounted machine gun, Bowman radios and electronic counter-measures. It has a top speed of 90kph and can carry eight passengers.

The soldiers were from the Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, based in Penicuik, Midlothian. They deployed to Afghanistan in March and were on a routine patrol.

It is the highest single loss of British lives in the country since the deaths of six soldiers travelling in a Warrior armoured vehicle in March last year.

Prime Minister David Cameron said this morning: “We have paid a very high price for the work we’re doing in Afghanistan.

“It is important work because it’s vital that country doesn’t again become a haven for terrorists, terrorists that can threaten us here in the UK. But today our thoughts should be with the families and friends of those that have suffered.”

Source

Huffington Post UK — April 25, 2013

nistan Drone missions over Afghanistan have been flown by RAF pilots operating on British soil for the first time, it emerged on Thursday.

Until this week, RAF crews who control armed drones in Afghanistan have been operating from the USA Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

Last year the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced that the UK was doubling the number of armed RAF drones in Afghanistan to 10 with the five new aircraft to be operated remotely from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.

On Thursday the MoD confirmed the new aircraft, known as 13 Squadron, which were officially “stood up” in October, started flying missions over Afghanistan this week.

The hi-tech Reaper drones are primarily used to gather intelligence on enemy activity on the ground, but they also carry 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles for precision strikes on insurgents.

An MoD spokesman said they had been carrying out missions including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, but would not comment on exactly what individual missions had been flown in the past week by drones piloted from the UK.

Chris Nineham, vice-chair of the Stop the War Coalition, said in a statement to the Guardian: “Drones are being used to continue the deeply unpopular War on Terror, with no public scrutiny.

“They’re using them to fight wars behind our backs. These remote-controlled killing machines should be banned.”

Source

Introduction — April 15, 2013

The following Guardian article makes absolutely no mention of the fact that under the Taliban the growth of opium producing poppies had been outlawed. Following the passage of legislation that outlawed the cultivation of poppy crops in July 2000 the country’s once lucrative drugs trade went into a rapid decline.

By May 2001, the New York Times was reporting that Afghanistan’s drugs trade seemed to be finished.

“…the Taliban had, in one growing season, managed a rare triumph in the long and losing war on drugs. And they did it without the usual multimillion-dollar aid packages that finance police raids, aerial surveillance and crop subsidies for farmers…

this spring’s poppy crop seems to have died a relatively quiet death.”

It wasn’t to last however. Less than six months later the Western allies embarked on the invasion of Afghanistan, ostensibly because the Taliban were shielding Osama bin Laden.

Of course they didn’t catch bin Laden in Afghanistan but the invasion did help revive the country’s drugs trade. In fact, this writer believes that this was the REAL reason for the invasion and claims that the Taliban were harbouring the alleged “9/11 mastermind” were simply a ruse.

Afghanistan: high expectations of record opium crop

Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul — guardian.co.uk April 15, 2013

An Afghan farmer collects raw opium from poppies in Balkh province, Afghanistan. Heroin production in the country has increased significantly in recent years. Click to enlarge

Twelve years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan is heading for a near-record opium crop as instability pushes up the amount of land planted with illegal but lucrative poppies, according to a bleak UN report.

The rapid growth of poppy farming as western troops head home reflects particularly badly on Britain, which was designated “lead nation” for counter-narcotics work over a decade ago.

“Poppy cultivation is not only expected to expand in areas where it already existed in 2012 … but also in new areas or areas where poppy cultivation was stopped,” the Afghanistan Opium Winter Risk Assessment found.

The growth in opium cultivation reflects both spreading instability and concerns about the future. Farmers are more likely to plant the deadly crop in areas of high violence or where they have not received any agricultural aid, the report said.

Opium traders are often happy to provide seeds, fertilisers and even advance payments to encourage crops, leaving farmers who do not have western or government agricultural help very vulnerable to their inducements.

At the same time the more powerful figures in the drugs trade, from traffickers to corrupt government officials, who take over half the profit from each kilo of opium, have shrinking opportunities to earn money from Nato or international aid contracts – and may be preparing a war chest for upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.

“Opium cultivation is up for the third successive year, and production is heading towards record levels,” said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, Afghanistan head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. “People are hedging against an insecure future both politically and economically.”

Just 14 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces are now “poppy free”, down from 20 in 2010. In three provinces, the spring sowing was the first time this decade that farmers had risked an attempt at growing opium.

The only figures showing a fall in cultivation, for western Herat province, may actually be due to a statistics blip. The UN was forced to use external data last year instead of the satellite images that are usually the basis of poppy growing calculations, and local officials protested heavily that the opium crop there had been overestimated.

If this year’s poppy fields are harvested without disruption, the country would likely regain its status as producer of 90% of the world’s opium. Afghanistan’s share of the deadly market slipped to around 75% after bad weather and a blight slashed production over the past two years.

But the decline in opium production also drove up prices, to a record $300 a kilogramme. Prices have now slipped by over $100 but are still far above historic levels, helping tempt more farmers to turn land over to poppy.

It seems unlikely that the poor harvests of the last year will be repeated; there have been no reports of blight and the exceptionally bitter winter of 2011-12 was followed this year by a milder one, creating expectations of a large crop.

The increase has come despite a marked improvement in Afghanistan’s specialised counter-narcotics units, Lemahieu said. Fear of eradication has become a far more significant reason for farmers to stick to legal crops than in the past, the report found.

But overall the government and aid community has not prioritised efforts to cut back a crop and trade that feeds global markets for heroin, Lemahieu said, despite its corrosive effect on security, corruption and trust in Kabul.

Typical of the official neglect are the 22 “national priority programmes” drawn up by Kabul to focus aid money and diplomatic efforts on its key development concerns including justice and education. Counter-narcotics was not one of them, nor has it been put at the heart of the other programmes.

“We need to have counter-narcotics dealt with seriously by the entire government as well as the aid community,” Lemahieu said. “One of the big missing links here is providing for the communities themselves.”

Eradication programmes that do not provide farmers with benefits such as healthcare and education, and support growing other crops will just push the Taliban or other insurgent groups that do tolerate or encourage poppy production, he added.

Source

This has been heroin’s great heartland, where the narcotic came to life as an opium resin taken from fragile buds of red and white poppies. Last year, 75 percent of the world’s opium crop was grown in Afghanistan, with the biggest yield sprouting from here in the fertile plains of the country’s south, sustained by the meander of the Helmand River.

But something astonishing has become evident with this spring’s harvest. Behind the narrow dikes of packed earth, the fields are empty of their most profitable plant. Poor farmers, scythes in hand, stoop among brown stems.

Mile after mile, there is only a dry stubble of wheat to cut from the lumpy soil.

Last July, the ruling Taliban banned the growing of poppies as a sin against the teachings of Islam. The edict was issued by Mullah Muhammad Omar, referred to as Amir-ul-Momineen, the supreme leader of the faithful.

Almost every farmer complied, some grudgingly, some not. ”Even if it means my children die, I will obey my amir,” said Nur Ali, sitting in his fields, sipping tea. Like most Afghan men, he wore a turban coiled around his head like a holy bandage. ”And the day my amir says I can grow poppy again, I will do that too,” he said.

The world is unused to good news coming from Afghanistan, known these days as a womb for global jihad and an unsafe preservation site for Buddhist statues.

But American narcotics officials who visited the country confirmed earlier United Nations reports that the Taliban had, in one growing season, managed a rare triumph in the long and losing war on drugs. And they did it without the usual multimillion-dollar aid packages that finance police raids, aerial surveillance and crop subsidies for farmers.

”We used a soft approach,” said Abdul Hamid Akhundzada, who heads the Taliban’s anti-poppy program. ”When there were violations, we plowed the fields. At most, violators spent a few days in jail, until they paid for the plowing.”

The Taliban, of course, are not considered softies. They whip women for exposing flesh at midcalf. They jail men for trimming their beards. They hold public executions in stadiums full of cheering people.

But this spring’s poppy crop seems to have died a relatively quiet death.

”No one dared disobey,” said Saleh Muhammad Agha, a farmer with seven children and a meager wheat field. ”If they catch you, they blacken your face and march you through the bazaars with a string of poppies around your neck.”

The ban was carried out through the chain of command. The wisdom of the Holy Koran guided Mullah Omar. He in turn communicated with his provincial governors, who informed their district administrators. The administrators then explained the ban to local mullahs and tribal elders, who passed the news to the farmers.

Violators were few. In the village of Loay Bagh, one elderly man tried to conceal his poppies in a patch of onions. The camouflage proved inadequate.

”He apologized, and we plowed his field and did nothing else,” said Mullah Shah Wali, the administrator in Nadali District. He was seated on the roof of his headquarters, not far from a 35-millimeter antiaircraft gun. He eagerly showed off his right leg, atrophied from a war wound.

Haji Din Muhammad, a tribal elder in the village of Passao, owns 150 acres. His land is nourished by an irrigation system built a half century ago with American aid. Poppies were his best crop, and he still sees nothing wrong with them. After all, he said, he just grew the drugs. He never urged anyone to use them.

”But I have readily accepted the ban,” he insisted, seated on a fine carpet that only a wealthy man could afford. His four wives — the maximum allowed under Islamic law — were busy with his 18 children. ”I would never go against Amir-ul-Momineen. And I have no fear. God will provide.”

Mullah Omar hails from southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban began their conquest of the country in 1994 as a ragtag group of students and mullahs. They first fought against local warlords who had busied themselves with thievery, rape and murder. The Taliban took Kabul, the capital, in 1996, and they now control 80 to 90 percent of the country. While their stern version of Islam often encounters resentment in the cities, they remain heroes in the countryside.

Most farmers think of Mullah Omar as an Allah-appointed savior whose religious zeal has prompted the poppy ban even in the face of mass hardship it would cause.

The country is in the fourth year of a calamitous drought. More than one million people face an ”unbridgeable” shortage of food and water before summer’s end, according to the United Nations. The relatively drought-resistant poppy would have provided some of them with vital income. Instead they have parched and stunted wheat.

”A lot of us simply left the land untilled,” said Ghulam Muhammad in the village of Shin. ”The harvest can’t make up for the costs of the planting.”

Poppy was not only profitable; it spread the money around. The work was labor intensive. Landowners had to hire field hands to turn the soil and collect the opium paste. The ban has denied jobs to hundreds of thousands.

Many of these laborers have now fled to Pakistan or Iran or the huge camps that have filled up like arenas near the city of Herat. Others are found eating roots and grass. In some villages, flour is considered too precious to be used in bread; it lasts longer if mixed with water and cooked as a soup.

”The only money in my life is the money I owe,” said a weathered old man named Jamaluddin. He was tarrying around a wheat field, hoping to trade a few hours of work for a cup of tea. ”Life is unbearable,” he said.

International reaction to the poppy ban has largely been skeptical.

Inspection teams, including the American one, have found little or no poppy. But many critics question the Taliban’s motives. In earlier years, the poppy harvest had multiplied. Why did Mullah Omar finally now decide to just say no?

Some suspect political artifice: only three nations, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, officially recognize the Taliban as a government. Perhaps the poppy ban was a push for legitimacy.

Recent swoons in opium prices are also mentioned. The Taliban stopped poppy cultivation, but they have not outlawed the drug’s possession or sale. Stockpiles exist. With the price quadrupling, and more, Mullah Omar’s edict has handed some a windfall.

But aid workers in Afghanistan tend to regard the ban as straightforward and commendable. ”Most anyone else would have said: we’ll do this if you’ll do that,” said Leslie Oqvist, coordinator for the United Nations regional office in Kandahar. ”But the Taliban acted unilaterally, and now they’re rightfully concerned that no assistance is forthcoming.”

Taliban officials stress that the poppy ban is rooted in religious principles and not in any quid pro quo. Nevertheless, they are well aware that wealthier nations often gratefully compensate third world allies in the drug war. American assistance to Colombia, Peru and Bolivia is mentioned by example.

”A fair reply to what we have done would have been some acknowledgment of the achievement,” said Mullah Muhammad Hassan, the governor of Kandahar Province and one of the Taliban’s top figures. Like many of the leaders, he was maimed in the 1980′s in the jihad against Soviet troops here. Mullah Omar lost an eye in the war; Mullah Hassan drags a peg along the floor instead of a right leg.

”Our people are very needy,” the governor said, speaking softly but pointedly. ”They have given up the poppy crop, and timely financial assistance is very important.”

Little aid has arrived for the poppy farmers. Last week, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced a $43 million grant for drought relief in Afghanistan. His statement mentioned ”those farmers who have felt the ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban that we welcome.”

But most of that money is likely to be directed to emergency food and shelter. Torn by war hunger, Afghanistan is a bottomless well of need, and poppy farmers will become poppy refugees unless they find something else to plant that will feed their families.

”People require seed, fertilizer and pesticides — the things that will again make them successful farmers,” said Bernard Frahi, who oversees the Afghanistan situation for the United Nations Drug Control Program. ”We must provide roads, water and bridges or the poppy will come back.”

But the betting is that the ban will hold up. On a dusty lane in Kandahar, where a few dozen narrow stalls make up the city’s main opium bazaar, the traders not only talk of the poppy farmer in the past tense, but also themselves as well.

”It’s obvious our stocks are going down, and they won’t be replaced,” said Muhammad Sadiq, a drug dealer in a gold prayer cap. He sat with a handful of friends, all of them pouring tea out of small green pots.

The smarter traders, like Mr. Sadiq, have squirreled away their opium and now have the look of men watching straw spun into gold. Last year, a kilo (2.2 pounds) of the drug sold for $110; now it is as high as $500.

Mr. Sadiq reached behind a hanging white blanket at the rear of his stall and opened two metal chests. Inside were heavy bags of opium stuffed into heavy brown plastic. He pulled a few out.

”The days of the poppy in Afghanistan are over,” he said. ”Opium will get scarcer, the price will get higher. I’m holding on to this as long as I can.”

Source

British soldiers fighting in Afghanistan are part of a campaign that attempted to “impose an ideology foreign to the Afghan people” and was “unwinnable in military terms”, according to a damning report by the Ministry of Defence.

The internal study says that Nato forces have been unable to “establish control over the insurgents’ safe havens” or “protect the rural population”, and warns the “conditions do not exist” to guarantee the survival of the Afghan government after combat troops withdraw next year.

The report, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, says that when troops leave, Afghanistan “will be left with a severely damaged and very weak economic base”, which means that the West will have to continue to fund “large-scale support programmes” for many years to come.

Even if the internal situation were stable, the Afghan government may not survive the destabilising activities of its neighbours. “Regional players do not have a vested interest in the success of the Kabul government”, states the document in a clear reference to Pakistan.

The report, Lessons from the Soviet Transition in Afghanistan, is an internal research project produced in November last year by the MoD’s think-tank, the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC). Based in Shrivenham, Wiltshire, the DCDC’s reports “help inform decisions in defence strategy, capability development and operations” across all three branches of the armed forces.

The study examines the “extraordinary number of similar factors that surround both the Soviet and Nato campaigns in Afghanistan” and highlights lessons that military commanders could learn.

“The highest-level parallel is that both campaigns were conceived with the aim of imposing an ideology foreign to the Afghan people: the Soviets hoped to establish a Communist state while Nato wished to build a democracy,” it says. “Equally striking is that both abandoned their central aim once they realised that the war was unwinnable in military terms and that support of the population was essential.”

It continues: “Both interventions have been portrayed as foreign invasions attempting to support a corrupt and unpopular central government against a local insurgent movement which has popular support, strong religious motivation and safe havens abroad. In addition, the country will again be left with a severely damaged and very weak economic base, heavily dependent upon external aid.”

In unusually frank terms, it goes on: “The international setting for both campaigns has significant similarities with world opinion judging both as failed interventions. Both faced a loss of confidence in their strategic world leadership and increasing domestic and financial pressure to abandon the enterprise.”

Turning to lessons for the armed forces, it says: “The military parallels are equally striking; the 40th Army [of the Soviet Union] was unable decisively to defeat the mujahedin while facing no existential threat itself, a situation that precisely echoes the predicament of Isaf [the Nato-led security mission]. Neither campaign established control over the country’s borders and the insurgents’ safe havens; both were unable to protect the rural population.”

The report states that the Soviet withdrawal plan was handicapped by a publicly announced timetable. Western commanders have blamed the British and American governments for publicly presenting just such a timetable.

It adds that the success of the withdrawal in Afghanistan “is likely to be judged on the same criteria as those used to objectively judge the Soviet transition”, which includes “the longevity and effectiveness of the incumbent central government”.

An MoD spokesman said: “We are in Afghanistan to protect our national security by helping Afghans to take control of their own. We are not trying to build a perfect Afghanistan – rather one that does not again provide safe haven for international terrorists.

“A key purpose of the DCDC is to produce research which tests and challenges established doctrine and its papers are designed to stimulate internal debate, not outline government positions.”

Source

In the latest insider attacks, an Afghan police officer opened fire on a gathering of Afghan and Coalition forces officers in eastern Afghanistan, killing 5 local policemen and 2 U.S. Special Forces personnel.

Monday’s attack is one of deadliest so-called ‘green-on-blue’ attacks this year.

‘Green-on-blue’ incidents have become an increasingly frequent in the Afghan war, sowing suspicion between international Coalition forces and their local counterparts and underlining Taliban claims that the international forces are an army of occupation.

The attacker was killed in the shootout that followed.

An International Security Assistance Force spokesman said later that a further 10 American soldiers and 12 Afghan military personnel were wounded in the shooting.

On the same day in southern Afghanistan a helicopter crash left 5 American soldiers dead. The helicopter went down in an area where there has been little Taliban activity and a NATO spokesman says an investigation into the cause of the crash is underway.

The latest ‘green-on-blue’ attack comes amid rising tension between the Karzai government and their international allies.

The day before President Karzai had accused the Americans of conspiring with the Taliban.

In a provocative speech Sunday President Karzai accused America of colluding with the Taliban in order to justify a continued International Security Assistance Force presence in Afghanistan.

”The bombs that were detonated in Kabul and Khost were not a show of force; they were serving America,” he said in the televised speech, referring to two earlier suicide blasts in which 19 people were killed.

President Karzai accusations follow earlier reports that U.S. negotiators met with Taliban representatives in the gulf state of Qatar.

The deteriorating relations between President Karzai and his Western allies have overshadowed US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel’s first trip to Afghanistan.

A joint press conference that was to have been addressed by President Karzai and the new US Defence Secretary was cancelled, with US officials saying an unspecified “security concern” was responsible.

Defence Secretary Hagel later tried to play down tensions with Mr Karzai, saying after they met for private discussions and dinner that he was pleased to renew an old friendship.

”He has his ways,” Mr Hagel said.

The Afghan Taliban and the United States have been holding talks in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Sunday.

The Taliban suspended the talks one year ago, blaming “shaky, erratic and vague” U.S. statements.

The U.S. government has said it remained committed to political reconciliation involving talks with the Taliban but progress would require agreement between the Afghan government and the insurgents.

“Senior leaders of the Taliban and the Americans are engaged in talks in the Gulf state on a daily basis,” Karzai told a gathering to mark International Women’s Day.

But the Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan, Zabihullah Mujahid, denied that negotiations with the United States had resumed and said no progress had been made since they were suspended.

“The Taliban strongly rejects Karzai’s comments,” he said.

U.S. officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

The Kabul government has been pushing hard to get the Taliban to the negotiating table before most U.S.-led NATO combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

Afghan officials have not held direct talks with the militants, who were toppled in 2001 and have proven resilient after more than a decade of war with Western forces.

U.S. diplomats have been seeking to broaden exploratory talks with the Taliban that began clandestinely in Germany in late 2010 after the Taliban offered to open a representative office in Qatar.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is in Afghanistan to visit U.S. troops.

Hagel, who arrived on Friday for his first trip abroad as defense secretary, is also due to hold talks with Karzai, whose recent orders to curtail U.S. military activity highlights an often tense relationship with the 66,000 American forces here.

Hagel’s visit also coincides with the passing of a deadline imposed by Karzai for U.S. special forces to leave the province of Wardak, after Karzai accused them of overseeing torture and killings in the area.

U.S. forces have denied involvement in any abuses and it was not clear if they were leaving Wardak by the deadline.

Regional power Pakistan indicated a few months ago that it would support the peace process by releasing Afghan Taliban detainees who may help promote the peace process.

But there have been no tangible signs the move advanced reconciliation.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded Sunday the withdrawal of US special forces from Wardak within two weeks, accusing them of fuelling “insecurity and instability” in the volatile province neighbouring the capital Kabul.

“In today’s national security council meeting… President Karzai ordered the ministry of defence to kick out the US special forces from Wardak province within two weeks,” said presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi.

“The US special forces and illegal armed groups created by them are causing insecurity, instability, and harass local people in this province,” he told a press conference.

The announcement would be another blow to the prestige of US-led forces as they prepare to withdraw combat troops from the war against Taliban Islamist insurgents by the end of next year.

The bulk of NATO’s 100,000 troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

A US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) spokesman said he was aware of the reported comments by Faizi.

“We take all allegations of misconduct seriously and go to great lengths to determine the facts surrounding them,” he said.

“Until we have had a chance to speak with senior (Afghan) officials about this issue we are not in a position to comment further. This is an important issue that we intend to fully discuss with our Afghan counterparts.”

More than 3,200 NATO troops, mostly Americans, have died in support of Karzai’s government in the war since the Taliban were ousted by a US invasion in 2001, but relations between the president and the US are often prickly.

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Drone manufacturers have often emphasized the low cost of production as an advantage over traditional aircraft. But where fighter jets and other warplanes are often used for years, it seems the drones get lost or abandoned in much shorter order.

At least if the British government is anything to go by. Defense Ministry officials confirmed that they have lost 450 drones over the past several years in Iraq and Afghanistan, with most of them caused by “operator error.” The other common causes were technical failures and a decision to just abandon them because they’re too inconvenient to recover in certain areas.

Officials did not reveal the overall cost of these 450 drones, but confirmed that one cost over $20 million and nine others were $2 million each. The losses were a meaningful chunk of the British drone fleet, and officials say they are trying to improve training for the remote operators to prevent further losses since the fleet has less and less capacity to spare.

It also adds to questions from groups that have been fighting against schemes to use the drones domestically, especially since the smaller spy drones more likely to find use in law enforcement seem to be the ones most often careening out of the sky for no apparent reason.

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British troops in Afghanistan are now using 10-centimeter-long 16-gram spy helicopters to survey Taliban firing spots. The UK Defense Ministry plans to buy 160 of the drones under a contract worth more than $31 million.

The remote-controlled PD-100 PRS aircraft, dubbed the Black Hornet, is produced by Norwegian designer Prox Dynamics. The drone is a traditional single-rotor helicopter, scaled down to the size of a toy. British troops use the drones for reconnaissance missions, sending them ahead to inspect enemy positions.

Each drone is equipped with a tiny tillable camera, a GPS coordinate receiver and an onboard autopilot system complete with gyros, accelerometers and pressure sensors, which keeps it stable in flight against winds as strong as 10 knots, according to reviews. The tiny aircraft is agile enough to fly inside compounds, and is quiet enough not to attract unwanted attention. If detected, the drones are cheap enough to be considered expendable.

The auto-pilot either follows a preprogrammed flight plan or receives commands from a manual control station, which is about the size of a large smartphone. The drone’s camera can feed compressed video or still images to an operator up to a kilometer away, and its rechargeable battery provides power for about 30 minutes of flight.

In addition to the drone and the controller, each system comes with a ground base station, which houses the operating system, main electronics, internal batteries and chargers. It also protects the drone while being transported. The weight of the entire kit is about a kilogram, easily portable in the field.

­Prox Dynamics started working on the nano-drone in 2008, and released a video of the first prototype in flight a year later. The manufacturer initially planned for it to be put to civilian use, to scout sites of natural or man-made disasters for survivors and provide intel to rescue teams. A marketable version of the Black Hornet was first presented at the Counter Terrorist Expo in London in April 2012.

The British Ministry of Defense announced last November that it was awarding Prox Dynamics a contract to supply the drones to its troops in Afghanistan. The initial contract is worth about $4 million, but will likely be expanded to more than $31 million.

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Insurgents killed a total of 23 policemen across Afghanistan within 24 hours, officials said Sunday, reflecting the increasing police role in the war before the withdrawal of Nato troops.

Thirteen died in roadside bomb blasts, while 10 were killed in a suicide attack. A powerful bomb killed eight police officers along with three suspected bombers they had detained on the outskirts of the troubled southern city of Kandahar, provincial spokesman Jawed Faisal said. 

“Our police had an operation in Pero Qalacha area last night. They detained several suspected insurgents,” Faisal said.

“On the way back to the city (centre), their vehicle struck an IED (improvised explosive device). Eight police were killed and three suspects that they had detained during the operation were killed,” Faisal said.

Six other officers and one suspect on board a second vehicle were wounded in the blast, he said.

Police spokesman Ghorzang Afridi described the bomb as “very, very powerful”, saying it was an artillery shell attached to a detonator and possibly set off remotely.

The officials blamed the bombing on the “armed opposition”, a reference to the Taliban who have waged an insurgency against the Western-backed government since being ousted from power by a US-led invasion in late 2001.

Three other policemen were killed in another roadside bombing in neighbouring Helmand on Sunday and two died in a similar attack in Farah in western Afghanistan overnight, police spokesmen said.

The incidents followed a suicide bombing in the northern city of Kunduz on Saturday that killed 10 policemen including two senior officers.

Afghan security forces are increasingly targeted by the Taliban as they take greater responsibility for security before the pullout of US-led Nato combat troops next year.

Source

British forces are to be armed with a new combat sidearm for the first time in forty years. The Glock 17 was chosen after extensive trials and will replace the Browning Hi-Power pistol, which came into service when ‘Beatlemania’ was still at its height.

The new pistol is lighter than the Browning, can be drawn faster, within a second or so, and it can carry more rounds.

Firearms experts view the Glock 17 as a better choice for close quarters combat.

The move to replace the older Browning comes after a spate of so-called ‘Green-on-Blue’ attacks in Afghanistan, where Afghan service personnel have turned their weapons on their Western counterparts.

In 2012 60 western servicemen and women were killed in such attacks, up from 33 the year before.

Being ‘faster on the draw’ than the ageing Browning, the Glock is simpler to use in close quarter shoot-outs where a split second can mean the difference between life and death.

The Ministry of Defence has ordered 25,000 Glocks for all three services and although not general issue, enough of them will be sent to Afghanistan to ensure all personnel serving there will have access to the weapon if necessary.

A female Afghan police officer shot dead a foreign civilian adviser inside Kabul police headquarters on Monday, officials said, in the first “insider” attack to be carried out by a woman.

It was the latest in a series of such attacks that have seriously undermined trust between NATO forces and their Afghan allies in the fight against hardline Islamist Taliban insurgents.

A spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the victim, a civilian adviser, died of his wounds and the female police officer who shot him had been detained.

Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Seidiqqi confirmed the incident and said an investigation was under way, while a senior security official speaking to AFP anonymously said the victim was a male adviser from NATO.

A police officer at the scene who refused to give his name told AFP the shooting happened in the courtyard of the heavily-guarded headquarters in central Kabul.

“I heard gunshots and than I saw the shooter — a woman wearing police uniform — running and firing into the air with her pistol,” the officer said.

“I ran after her, jumped on her and put my gun to her head and told her not to move. She gave up and I arrested her and I took her weapon.”

NATO is aiming to train 350,000 Afghan soldiers and police by the end of 2014 as it transfers all security responsibilities to President Hamid Karzai’s local forces.

The Afghan conflict has seen a surge in insider attacks this year, with more than 50 ISAF troops killed by their colleagues in the Afghan army or police, though most have happened on military bases and not in the capital.

US special forces suspended training for around 1,000 Afghan Local Police recruits in September to re-investigate current members for possible links to the Taliban, after the rise in insider attacks.

Training for the national police was not affected.

The Washington Post reported that the suspension came amid concerns that recruitment guidelines were not being followed properly in the rush to swell local police numbers.

NATO says about a quarter of insider attacks are caused by Taliban infiltrators, but the rest stem from personal animosities and cultural differences between Western troops and their Afghan allies.

In the most recent previous attack, a British soldier was killed by an Afghan soldier on a base in the restive south on November 11.

The unprecedented number of attacks, referred to as “green-on-blue” by the military, comes at a critical moment in the 11-year war as NATO troops prepare to withdraw by the end of 2014.

NATO top brass have admitted the seriousness of the phenomenon.

ISAF commander General John Allen has said that just as homemade bombs were the signature weapon of the Iraq war, in Afghanistan “the signature attack that we’re beginning to see is going to be the insider attack”.

Efforts to tackle the issue include orders that NATO soldiers working with Afghan forces should be armed and ready to fire at all times, even within their tightly protected bases, and the issuing of cultural guidelines.

The insider attacks have added to growing opposition to the war in many Western countries providing troops to the US-led NATO force, with opinion polls showing a majority want their soldiers out as soon as possible.

NATO has said, however, that the attacks will not force it to bring forward its scheduled withdrawal of all combat troops by the end of 2014.

Source

Update – Dec 24, 2012

Meanwhile, in a separate incident an Afghan police officer is reported to have killed five of his colleagues in another so-called ‘green-on-blue’ attack.

The shooting is reported to have occurred in northern Afghanistan on Sunday.

More than fifty members of the NATO led coalition forces have been killed in such attacks this year alone.

In September the U.S. halted training programs for Afghan police recruits after a spate of ‘green-on-blue’ attacks.

Although the Taliban haven’t claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack in Kabul, they have claimed credit for Sunday’s shooting. According to the group’s spokesperson, the shooter is a police commander who evaded capture and is now with the Taliban.

In a further development, Russia Today reports that Afghan authorities say the policewoman who killed the U.S. civilian contractor in Kabul is an Iranian.

She came to Afghanistan 10 years ago with her husband and obtained a fake ID through him, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said Tuesday.

On Monday Sgt. Nargas shot Joseph Griffin, 49, of Mansfield, Georgia, who was advising the Afghan police force in Kabul. The US-based security firm DynCorp International described Griffin as a US military veteran who had earlier worked with law-enforcement agencies in the US.

The last head of state of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, has warned the US of an imminent Soviet-like collapse if Washington persists with its hegemonic policies.

Speaking at a Thursday conference on the future of the Middle East and the Black Sea region in the Turkish city of Istanbul, Gorbachev noted that disintegration was the atonement that the former Soviet Union made for its mistakes and the same fate awaits the US if Washington continues to repeat similar blunders.

On 26 December, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world’s first and largest Communist state, was formally dissolved into fifteen independent republics, marking an end to the Cold War.

He said the Soviet Bolsheviks sought to undermine Islamic values while in power, and noted that during the Cold War era, the world powers used religion as a tool and a weapon.

Gorbachev denounced the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the Cold War era as an “unpardonable mistake” and pointed out that the US is now repeating the same mistake.

The United States and its allies launched the war on Afghanistan in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but after 11 years, the foreign troops have still not been able to establish security in the country.

ASH/HJL/MA

Source

This initial report from Reuters clearly indicates a “group of U.S. soldiers were responsible for the massacre. A number of eyewitnesses have reported the same.

At the time we noted the discrepancy in the number of those reportedly involved, the trial for the killings has only brought home that discrepancy.

To date only one man, Staff Sgt Robert Bales has been charged for the crime. Why? There are clear indications and multiple eyewitness accounts that a number of U.S. troops were involved.

If the U.S. Army is covering for the others involved in the atrocity it’s being assisted by a complicit corporate media and the courts. This is illustrated by an AFP report linked below, which makes absolutely no mention of eyewitnesses reporting “a group of U.S. soldiers” being involved.

Throughout the AFP entire report, more than ten paragraphs that detail the prosecution of Staff Sgt Bale there isn’t a hint of eyewitnesses reporting multiple gunmen. Check for yourself, the entire article is linked below.

The AFP report looks like another example of the corporate media “covering crimes”, literally. Ed.

Western forces kill 16 civilians in Afghanistan – Kabul govt

Ahmad Nadem – Reuters March 11, 2012

Body of child killed in the shooting. Click to enlarge

Western forces shot dead 16 civilians including nine children in southern Kandahar province on Sunday, Afghan officials said, in a rampage that witnesses said was carried out by American soldiers who were laughing and appeared drunk.

One Afghan father who said his children were killed in the shooting spree accused soldiers of later burning the bodies.

Witnesses told Reuters they saw a group of U.S. soldiers arrive at their village in Kandahar’s Panjwayi district at around 2 am, enter homes and open fire.

The incident, one of the worst of its kind since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, is likely to deepen the divide between Washington and Kabul.

The U.S. embassy in Kabul said an American soldier had been detained over the shooting. It added that anti-U.S. reprisals were possible following the killings, which come just weeks after U.S. soldiers burned copies of the Koran at a NATO base, triggering widespread anti-Western protests.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the rampage as “intentional murders” and demanded an explanation from the United States. His office said the dead included nine children and three women.

An Afghan minister earlier told Reuters that a lone U.S. soldier had killed up to 16 people when he burst into homes in villages near his base in the middle of the night.

Panjwayi district is about 35 km (22 miles) west of the provincial capital Kandahar city. The district is considered the spiritual home of the Taliban and is believed to be a hive of insurgent activity.

Haji Samad said 11 of his relatives were killed in one house, including his children. Pictures showed blood-splattered walls where the children were killed.

“They (Americans) poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them,” a weeping Samad told Reuters at the scene.

“I saw that all 11 of my relatives were killed, including my children and grandchildren,” said Samad, who had left the home a day earlier.

Neighbours said they awoke to crackling gunfire from American soldiers, whom they described as laughing and drunk.

“They were all drunk and shooting all over the place,” said neighbour Agha Lala, who visited one of the homes where the incident took place. “Their bodies were riddled with bullets.”

A senior U.S. defence official said Defence Secretary Leon Panetta “was deeply saddened to hear last night of this incident and is closely monitoring reports out of Afghanistan.” The White House also expressed concern.

The Afghan Taliban would take revenge for the deaths, the group said in an e-mailed statement to media.

U.S.-AFGHAN TIES LIKELY TO PLUNGE FURTHER

The U.S. embassy in Kabul said an investigation was under way into Sunday’s shooting and that “the individual or individuals responsible for this act will be identified and brought to justice”.

The commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) General John Allen said he was “shocked and saddened” by the shooting, and promised a rapid investigation.

The Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid, who is investigating the incident, said the soldier entered three homes, killing 11 people in the first one.

“The defence minister … is deeply shocked and saddened by the killings of 15 innocent civilians and the wounding of nine more at the hands of the coalition forces,” the Defence Ministry in Kabul said in a statement.

Civilian casualties have been a major source of friction between Karzai’s Western-backed government and U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The shootings could intensify friction between Washington and Kabul as NATO prepares to hand over all security responsibilities to Afghans by the end of 2014, a process which has already started.

The Koran burning and the violence that followed, including a spate of deadly attacks against U.S. soldiers, tested brittle ties between the governments of Karzai and President Barack Obama and underscored the challenges that the West faces even as it moves to withdraw.

All foreign combat troops will withdraw by end-2014 from a costly war that has become increasingly unpopular.

(Reporting by Ahmad Nadem in KANDAHAR and Hamid Shalizi in KABUL; Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman, Editing by Dean Yates)

Source

US soldier could face death over Afghan massacre

AFP – Nov 13, 2012

Prosecutors called Tuesday for a US soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers to face a full court martial and possible death sentence, as a pre-trial hearing ended.

They stressed the “brutality” of the alleged massacre by Sergeant Robert Bales, outlined during an eight-day hearing, while the soldier’s defense lawyer cited the defendant’s alcohol and medical problems as mitigating issues.

Continues …

It cannot be emphasised enough: drugs were the real reason for the invasion of Afghanistan and not to stop the production of narcotics but quite the contrary.

In May 2001, the New York Times reported that the Taliban, having outlawed the growing of poppies the year before, had all but shut down the country’s drug’s trade.

Prior to that Afghanistan had produced three-quarters of the world’s opium. Although the Taliban’s ruling briefly caused a dramatic drop in opium production, that was to change with the NATO led invasion a matter of months later.

With the toppling of the Taliban Afghanistan’s drugs trade was quickly restored and soon surpassed previous levels. By 2008 drugs production in the country reached record levels.

Then from 2010 to 2011 the amount of opium produced in Afghanistan increased from 3.6 million kg to 5.8 million kg, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Its December 2011 Opium Survey noted that the total area under opium cultivation had risen from 123,000 hectares in 2010 to 131,000 hectares in 2011.

So if the restoration of the drugs trade had been the real reason for the invasion of Afghanistan then the invasion has been a massive success.

Despite civilian deahts, coalition casualties and the havoc wrought by war, the invasion has achieved its aims. It was never about restoring democracy or overthrowing despots anyway.

Like the Opium Wars fought by the British Empire over a century before, the Afghan invasion was really about restoring the country’s lucrative drugs trade.

Commander Blames NATO for Increased Drug Production in Afghanistan

Fars News Agency – Nov 12, 2012

An Afghan farmer collects raw opium from poppies in Balkh province, Afghanistan. Heroin production in the country has increased significantly in recent years. Click to enlarge

Commander of the anti-narcotics squad of Iran’s Law Enforcement Police General Ali Moayyedi blamed the NATO forces for increased drug plantation, production and trafficking in Afghanistan.

“The presence of the trans-regional forces in Afghanistan means the threat of drug production and trafficking will continue,” Moayyedi said in Tehran on Monday, adding that “the most important way to end the international dilemma is the withdrawal of those forces from Afghanistan”.

“The presence of the NATO and other foreign forces in Afghanistan has not decreased the production of drugs and has, rather, greatly increased it,” he added.

Eastern Iran borders Afghanistan, which is the world’s number one opium and drug producer. Iran’s geographical position has made the country a favorite transit corridor for drug traffickers who intend to smuggle their cargoes from Afghanistan to drug dealers in Europe.

Iran spends billions of dollars and has lost thousands of its police troops in the war against traffickers. Owing to its rigid efforts, Iran makes 89 percent of the world’s total opium seizures and has turned into the leading country in drug campaign.

The Iranian police officials maintain that drug production in Afghanistan has undergone a 40-fold increase since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.

While Afghanistan produced only 185 tons of opium per year under the Taliban, according to the UN statistics, since the US-led invasion, drug production has surged to 3,400 tons annually. In 2007, the opium trade reached an estimated all-time production high of 8,200 tons.

Afghan and western officials blame Washington and NATO for the change, saying that allies have “overlooked” the drug problem since invading the country 10 years ago.

In relevant remarks last week, Head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service Viktor Ivanov also blamed the US for a major part of the narcotics smuggled from Afghanistan to his country, saying that the volume of the drug cargos destined for Russia will decrease after the withdrawal of the US forces from the war-stricken country.

“I am convinced that the flow of (Afghan) drugs to Russia will decrease as soon as Americans withdraw from Afghanistan,” Ivanov told the Ekho Moskvy radio station.

Ivanov, who had also previously criticized the anti-drug measures taken by the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, strongly hailed the US withdrawal scheduled for the end of 2014.

He also said that more than 100,000 people aged 15-34 died of drug abuse in Russia in 2011.

Ivanov said earlier that 30 tons of drugs, mostly from Afghanistan in the form of heroin, are trafficked into Russia annually.

Source

Two British soldiers from the Royal Gurkha Rifles were shot dead in Helmand today by a man dressed in an Afghan police uniform.

The killings are the latest in a rash of ‘green-on-blue’ attacks, in which Afghan security forces turn their weapons on US-led foreign troopers.

Before today’s assault, 56 international troops had been killed in insider attacks from Afghan soldiers or police so far this year, according to the NATO military coalition.

Both soldiers were from 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles and were killed in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand Province.

A spokesman for Task Force Helmand, Major Laurence Roche, said: ‘I am saddened to report the deaths of two soldiers from 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles who were shot and killed by a man wearing an Afghan police uniform at a checkpoint in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand Province.

‘The loss of these soldiers is a huge blow to The Royal Gurkha Rifles and everyone serving in Task Force Helmand.  Our thoughts are with their families, friends and fellow Gurkhas at this time.’

The soldiers next of kin have been informed.

An Afghan police official in the southern province of Helmand said efforts were underway to apprehend the policeman involved.

So-called insider attacks on Western forces have undermined trust between coalition and Afghan forces as NATO prepares to withdraw most combat troops by the end of 2014.

Just last week two U.S. and one Australian soldier were shot and killed by a man in an Afghan police uniform.

The attacks come despite the Afghan government launching a large-scale push to re-screen thousands of security forces, trying to identify infiltrators or those who might not be considered secure.

The Taliban have said they are using the attacks as a specific strategy to drive a wedge between the international coalition and the Afghans.

Last Wednesday, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, released a statement saying insurgents would increase the number of insider attacks against coalition and Afghan forces.

In an emailed statement congratulating Muslims as they prepare to celebrate the Eid al-Adha holiday, Mullah Mohammad Omar urged ‘every brave Afghan in the ranks of the foreign forces and their Afghan hirelings … to strike them.’

‘Jihadist activities inside the circle of the state militias are the most effective stratagem. Its dimension will see further expansion, organization and efficiency,’ he said.

‘Increase your efforts to expand the area of infiltration in the ranks of the enemy.

The killings have stretched to the breaking point a partnership that U.S. and NATO officials consider a key part their exit plan – preparing the Afghans to take over responsibility for their country’s security in just over two years’ time.

The program, where Afghans and international troops are supposed to work ‘shoulder to shoulder,’ is now being re-evaluated.

Last week it was revealed two British soldiers shot dead in Afghanistan may have been the victims of a revenge attack by local police.

Corporal Channing Day, 25, of 3 Medical Regiment and Corporal David O’Connor, 27, of 40 Commando, Royal Marines, were previously thought to have been caught up in a so-called ‘friendly fire’ incident.

But after interviewing witnesses and recovering fragments of ammunition, Royal Military Police investigators have ruled out the theory that the pair were shot by British Forces.

A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman confirmed that the deaths were caused by ‘a third party… not UK personnel’.

And Defence Secretary Philip Hammond – asked whether the British personnel had been killed in a ‘green on blue’ attack, when Afghan personnel turn on their British partners – said: ‘There is a possibility that that is what has happened but it is not clear at this stage.’

Source

A Royal Marine and a woman soldier yesterday died from injuries received on patrol in Afghanistan.

The Royal Marine, from 40 Commando and the soldier, from 3 Medical Regiment, were on patrol in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province when they were killed, the Ministry of Defence said.

Their families have been informed. The soldier is a 25-year-old woman from Comber in Co Down, Northern Ireland, according to the Belfast Telegraph – although the MoD was unable to confirm this.

The pair are thought to have been killed by insurgents – but the BBC said an Afghan source claimed the deaths were from a ‘green on blue’ attack, where coalition troops are killed by their Afghan allies

A source said last night it understood the Taliban had issued a statement in Afghanistan suggesting the incident was a green on blue attack.

But the source said the details of the incident were still unclear because the people who knew what happened were not in a ‘state’ to write down witness statements or explain what they saw.

The source said the Marine and soldier appeared to have been killed by gunshot wounds by insurgents, but the details had not yet been confirmed.
Major Laurence Roche, spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said: ‘I am extremely sorry to announce the deaths of a Royal Marine from 40 Commando and a soldier from 3 Medical Regiment serving with Task Force Helmand.

‘This is dreadful news for all of us serving in Afghanistan. Our sincere condolences go to their families, friends and colleagues at this time of grief.’

Their deaths take the total number of UK service members to have died since operations in Afghanistan began in October 2001 to 435.

Source