KABUL — Some powerful Afghan politicians and tribal leaders have expressed doubts that more U.S. troops can turn the tide of the war, as President Barack Obama prepares to unveil a new Afghanistan strategy Tuesday.
President Barack Obama has been briefing allies about his plans for Afghanistan. He’s expected to tell the public — and lawmakers — how many more troops he’ll send and that it’s not an open-ended commitment. Video courtesy of Fox News.
“We should focus on building the Afghan security forces, not sending more troops,” said Sebgatullah Sanjar, the chief policy adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
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KABUL — The U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan government are launching an initiative to persuade Taliban insurgents to lay down their weapons, offering jobs and protection to the militants who choose to abandon their fight.
While President Hamid Karzai’s government has been trying to woo these insurgents for years, the new program marks the first time that the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces are systematically reaching out to Taliban fighters.
The tactic comes as the U.S. prepares to announce Tuesday how many additional troops it will send to Afghanistan as part of a new strategy aimed at bringing the eight-year war to a successful end. U.S. officials also hope America’s European allies will raise their troop contributions as part of the new push.
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By Yochi Dreazen and Anand Gopal
KABUL — The collapse of security in the southeastern Afghan province of Khost is highlighting the difficulties of trying to contain the Taliban.
In 2007 and early 2008, troops from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division waged a long, bloody and seemingly successful campaign to push Taliban fighters and their allies from the Haqqani terrorist network out of Khost. Diplomat Richard Holbrooke, now President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the region, wrote an op-ed calling it “an American success story.”
Today, Khost is one of the most dangerous provinces in Afghanistan. Afghan officials say the number of militant attacks in the province is up at least 31% so far this year.
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By Anand Gopal and Joe Lauria
KABUL — President Hamid Karzai failed to win a decisive majority in Afghanistan’s election, an official familiar with the ballot counting said, a development that has the two top candidates stepping up power-sharing talks to avoid a protracted runoff.
Results of an audit of suspect votes from the August polls are expected Saturday, Afghan authorities said. Investigators at the U.N.-backed Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission are expected to discard enough votes as fraudulent to trigger a runoff between Mr. Karzai and lead challenger Abdullah Abdullah in coming weeks.
According to Afghan and Western officials in Kabul, Mr. Karzai and Dr. Abdullah are exploring a deal to end the country’s political crisis by forgoing a second round and crafting a power-sharing arrangement.
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KHAS KUNAR, Afghanistan — U.S. and Pakistani troops recently planned a pincer movement to catch insurgents crossing the border from Pakistan into this troubled corner of northeastern Afghanistan. The U.S. would block the narrow mountain passes while the Pakistani army attacked militant positions on the other side of the border.
The operation failed. The reason, according to the Americans: Their partners in the Afghan Border Police had informed the insurgents, allowing them to slip away.
“Every time we tried it, there was a leak,” says Lt. Ryan Keogh, a company commander who helped to plan and execute the operations. “If we can’t rely on the Afghans in this fight, then we are going to be here for a long time.”
Counting on Afghanistan’s security forces to help stabilize the nation is seen as vital if the international force is to turn around a deteriorating security situation.
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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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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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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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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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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.
Counting Ballots
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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