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Anand Gopal | Sep 5th, 2009 | The Wall Street Journal
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By Anand Gopal and Yochi Dreazen KABUL — An American airstrike on militants in northern Afghanistan killed an unknown number of local villagers, dealing a fresh blow to the U.S. campaign and adding fresh political pressure on NATO members struggling to defend an increasingly unpopular war. The strike on a pair of hijacked fuel trucks in Kunduz Province sparked an immediate investigation by U.S and Afghan officials. It underscored the American military’s continuing struggle to prevent civilian deaths, just days after guidelines were issued to troops reminding them of that responsibility. Two Western military officials acknowledged in interviews that early indications suggested significant numbers of civilians had died in the attack, though the number hasn’t been determined. Afghan officials said that up to 90 people died in the attack, including a large number of villagers who had been trying to siphon away fuel from the stalled trucks. |
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Anand Gopal | Aug 27th, 2009 | The Wall Street Journal
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KABUL — The Taliban are attempting to exact revenge on Afghan voters and disrupt the ballot count — part of a campaign to exploit the political uncertainty after last week’s presidential election and try to undermine the results. Since the Aug. 20 election, Taliban fighters have launched nearly a dozen attacks. They have severed the fingers of voters, stolen ballot boxes, and murdered government officials. Afghan police have been reluctant to move into Taliban-controlled areas to quell the violence. In Wardak province, west of Kabul, local officials say the insurgents have been setting up checkpoints to look for voters who are easily identifiable by the blue ink marks on their fingertips. In one such incident in Saydabad district, the Taliban killed three voters, according to witnesses. Also in Wardak, insurgents chopped off the fingers of four people who had voted at the provincial capital, according to local tribal elder Maualem Ghulab. Human-rights officials reported a similar attack in Kandahar shortly after the election. |
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Anand Gopal | Aug 24th, 2009 | The Wall Street Journal
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KABUL — Reports of fraud and intimidation from election-monitoring groups are mounting, undermining the legitimacy of Afghanistan’s presidential vote and posing a challenge for the U.S. and its Western allies, who initially declared the vote a success. A linchpin of the international community’s strategy here, Thursday’s election was supposed to shore up the credibility of the Western-backed Afghan government threatened by a spreading Taliban insurgency. Rolling back Taliban advances and reinvigorating Afghanistan’s development are the key goals of President Barack Obama’s administration, which has poured tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops into the country in recent months. But now, as rivals of President Hamid Karzai allege widespread ballot-stuffing in his favor, the poll may have produced some unintended consequences. Allegations of fraud could end up eroding Afghanistan’s stability, fracturing the part of the Afghan society that is opposed to the Taliban — and making it even more difficult to contain the insurgency, say those tracking the election. “The Obama administration’s policy hinges on whether a legitimate leader emerges from this election,” says Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think tank, who observed the Afghan vote. “Without a legitimate civilian leadership here you’ll have a shaky foundation for the whole policy.” |
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Anand Gopal | Aug 21st, 2009 | The Wall Street Journal
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QALA CHA, Afghanistan — Shershad Muhammad almost didn’t get to vote. As the 60-year-old baker pedaled his bike toward a polling station in this village on Kabul’s outskirts early Thursday, a group of police officers forced him to dismount, tackled him and nearly arrested him. His offense: carrying a large black bag. It was full of bread to give to election workers, but anxious police mistook the bag for a bomb. “I decided to give the bread to the police officers instead, and they were happy and let me go,” he said. Afghans went to the polls for their second presidential election with their country on edge. Those who exercised their democratic rights had to defy Taliban threats and hew closely to the social mores of this conservative Islamic country, which, for one, dictate when and how females leave their homes. |
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Anand Gopal | Aug 21st, 2009 | The Wall Street Journal
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By Matthew Rosenberg, Anand Gopal and Yochi Dreazen KABUL — Amid dozens of election-day Taliban attacks that claimed 26 lives, Afghans voted for president Thursday — but reports of low turnout and fraud made it unclear whether bombs or ballots would ultimately emerge the day’s victor. Taliban militants had stepped up attacks for a week and threatened to target polling places with suicide squads to disrupt the vote and force voters to stay home. In the end they managed 73 attacks across the nation amid massive security efforts. The dead included a U.S. soldier and a British soldier. U.S. and Afghan officials portrayed the day as positive because international troops were never called in to maintain security and there were no major attacks; many of the incidents caused little harm. Still, the violence was expected to result in voter turnout clearly below the 70% registered in the last election five years ago. Election officials in a number of provinces reported turnout only a fraction that high, and in Taliban strongholds voters reported many polling stations were shuttered. “Everything is closed,” said lawmaker Roshanak Wardak by telephone from the southern province of Wardak. “Right now, I am hiding in my house. There are rockets and explosions outside.” |
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Anand Gopal | Aug 15th, 2009 | The Wall Street Journal
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KABUL — Slipping by his rivals with a platform of security and reconstruction that resonated with war-weary voters, a new president of Afghanistan was elected this week: the baby-faced, 20-year-old Munir Farahmand. Who? That, at least, is how things unfolded on “The Candidate,” a reality TV show that pits young Afghans against each other in a mock election. Fans of the show watched over the last two and a half months as the young, make-believe candidates developed policies and campaigned. Viewers placed votes by sending text messages from their cell phones. Afghanistan’s real elections, scheduled to be held on Aug. 20, have been marred by insurgent violence, privilege-peddling and questions over candidates’ associations with warlords. Leading candidates, including incumbent Hamid Karzai, have avoided developing detailed platforms. They instead rely on patronage and tribal and political networks to win support. But viewers of “The Candidate” have been treated to an entirely different experience. Young contestants have carefully cultivated policy proposals to curry favor with viewers. The winner got a laptop and office supplies to encourage him to set up a campaign office and get involved in politics in the real world. |
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Anand Gopal | Aug 13th, 2009 | The Wall Street Journal
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Commission chief struggles to keep the process honest; ‘You do the best given the circumstances.’ KABUL — Afghanistan’s presidential election next week is proving to be a complicated exercise in democracy. A raging insurgency threatens to close voting centers. Some of the 38 candidates maintain ties to armed militias. Others have threatened violence if they lose. And reports of widespread fraud endanger the poll’s credibility. It is Grant Kippen’s job to keep the process honest. Mr. Kippen heads the Electoral Complaints Commission, an independent body given the task of receiving complaints about candidates, auditing the process for fraud, and, when necessary, imposing sanctions on violators to try to ensure the vote is as credible as possible. “It’s a challenge, an enormous challenge,” Mr. Kippen says. “We expect thousands of complaints and allegations by Election Day. You do your best given the circumstances.” |
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Anand Gopal | Aug 12th, 2009 | The Wall Street Journal
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By Anand Gopal and Yochi Dreazen KABUL — The Afghan and U.S. governments have launched a new effort to enlist tribal fighters from many of the country’s most violent provinces in the war against the Taliban, hoping that a tactic first used in Iraq can help turn the tide here as well. Thousands of armed tribal fighters from 18 Afghan provinces will initially be hired to provide security for elections on Aug. 20, officials from both countries said. If the security is effective, Afghan officials say they will try to give the tribesmen permanent jobs protecting their villages and neighborhoods. The tribal initiative is being run by a new branch of the Afghan government called the Independent Directorate for the Protection of Highways and Public Property. In coming days, officials from the agency will ask tribal shuras, or councils, in participating provinces to organize armed militias to guard polling places, roads and public gathering spaces. |
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Anand Gopal | Aug 8th, 2009 | The Wall Street Journal
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The unpopular Afghan President’s talent for deal-making and conciliation are expected to pave way for another 5-year term. By Matthew Rosenberg and Anand Gopal KABUL — When the U.S. and its allies first anointed Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan’s president nearly eight years ago, he was seen at home and abroad as an adept politician uniquely suited to forge compromises among the country’s warring factions. As Afghanistan has deteriorated, so has Mr. Karzai’s reputation. The same traits that once earned him praise are now criticized as signs of a mercurial and vacillating leader. He publicly denounces the U.S. presence. He is widely blamed for all that ails Afghanistan: the rampant corruption, the flourishing opium trade, the Taliban’s resurgence. And, until he began campaigning for re-election when the nation goes to the polls Aug. 20, he rarely ventured beyond the confines of his palace. At a rally on Friday he made only a brief appearance, speaking for about six minutes. Yet the deeply unpopular Mr. Karzai, 51 years old, is heavily favored to win another five-year term. The reason, according to allies, foes and diplomats: Despite his many shortcomings, Mr. Karzai has become a passive strongman, a leader whose deal-making touch and conciliatory instincts have allowed him to sideline rivals or turn them into allies. That is expected to translate into victory at the polls, in a system in which voters tend to follow their traditional and ethnic leaders. |
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Anand Gopal | Jul 23rd, 2009 | The Wall Street Journal
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by Peter Wonacott and Anand Gopal KABUL — Afghanistan is expected to put its rough-edged new democracy on display in a televised debate between candidates vying to lead one of the world’s poorest, most turbulent countries. But only three of the 41 presidential candidates were asked to appear for the event Thursday evening, and only one looked certain to show up, reflecting the disarray of a nascent system that still lacks political parties and general ground rules for debates. On Wednesday evening, a spokesman for the heavily favored incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, said the president wouldn’t participate because he didn’t have enough notice and more candidates weren’t invited. |
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