Commander Cites Progress and Frustration in Afghanistan

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON – The commander in charge of southern Afghanistan acknowledged on Wednesday that “we are not yet where we need to be” in the farming zone of Marja, the site of a major offensive in February that sought to flush out the Taliban. The commander, Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, also said that a more complex military operation was on schedule to begin in the city of Kandahar in June.

General Carter, the commander of British forces in Marja and of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, was effectively asking for more time to show results in Marja, where clashes between the Taliban and American, British and Afghan forces continue. In February, General Carter predicted that it would take three more months to determine if government efforts after the end of the fighting had won over residents.

Speaking from Afghanistan by video teleconference to reporters at the Pentagon, General Carter said Wednesday of Marja that “we’re making progress,” but “in counterinsurgency, it takes time, it takes patience and it’s frustrating.” He said the Taliban were still intimidating local residents and that the council of the newly appointed district governor, Hajji Abdul Zahir, “is not genuinely representative of all of the people of Marja.”

On the positive side, General Carter said that 8 of 15 schools in Marja were open, the Marja bazaars were functioning and that the 600,000 people in central Helmand Province could move freely between villages and towns. Before February, General Carter said, the Taliban were so entrenched in Marja that NATO forces did not fly helicopters over the area for fear of being shot down.

In Kandahar, General Carter said there were 500 to 1,000 insurgents who had the ability to control the population in districts around the city. “They will be a military challenge to resolve,” he said. But in an echo of other top commanders, General Carter said that much of the military operation in Kandahar would consist of rolling governance and police protection into a chaotic hub of nearly one million people.

“If you go to the city today, you’ll find a thriving, bustling commercial environment, with bazaars and businesses and people earning a living,” he said.

But electricity, sanitation, health care, education and political control were all limited, the general said. “The mayor’s office is not much more than one man deep, and similarly the governor’s office,” he said.

Over the next six months, General Carter said American, NATO and Afghan forces would try to cut off insurgents’ movements by establishing a security perimeter around the city. “This is not going to be terribly exciting for you chaps in the press to look into,” he said.

Karzai’s brother to scale back role in Kandahar: NATO

By Dan De Luce

WASHINGTON – NATO commanders expect the controversial brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to “stand out of the way” and play a less important role in Kandahar province, a top general said Wednesday.

Ahmad Wali Karzai

The NATO-led mission’s strategy in the pivotal Kandahar region aims to have Ahmed Wali Karzai, widely accused of corruption, gradually cede power to the governor of the province, Tooryalai Wesa, said British Major General Nick Carter.

“I think he will increasingly stand out of the way and allow the governor to do that governing. That is the strategy that we’re encouraging,” Carter told reporters by video link from Kandahar.

“And the early indications are that he is creating the space for the governor to fill,” Carter said.

The Afghan president’s younger half-brother, who serves as chairman of the provincial legislative council, is seen as a powerful figure in the Kandahar region and has been dogged by allegations he has links to the lucrative opium trade and private security firms.

He denies the charges but Western officials and analysts view him as a potential obstacle to winning the trust of local Afghans in Kandahar, amid a major operation by US and Afghan forces to break the Taliban’s influence in its spiritual heartland.

Carter, who leads the southern regional command for the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, sidestepped allegations swirling around the Afghan president’s brother but alluded to his tainted reputation.

“He would tell you — and he’s either a candidate for an Oscar, or he’s the most maligned man in Afghanistan — that he is trying to help his country, that he’s trying to help us and he’s trying to help his people,” Carter said.

Ahmed Wali Karzai also maintains that he would rather be watching his favorite English football club Chelsea than help rule Kandahar, he said.

“Now whether you believe it not, the key to this is if you make it clear to him, that it’s the governor that’s going to govern.”

The general said he expected the role of the governor of the province to gradually expand while Karzai and other members of the provincial council would play more of an advisory role.

“That is what is currently underway. And we will very much judge success by the extent to which that balance switches,” he said.

Kandahar is a make-or-break battleground in US-led efforts to defeat the Taliban insurgency after more than eight years of war, with foreign troops focusing their attention on the city and province of the same name.

While the Taliban does not control Kandahar city, it dominates some rural areas to the south and NATO and Afghan forces face a “military challenge” in clearing out the insurgents from those districts, he said.

In Kandahar city, with a population of about 500,000, Afghans face chaotic conditions marked by crime, a shortage of electricity and the absence of a reliable local government or police force, he said.

In Kandahar, “it’s a problem more of criminality and disorder than it is a problem of Taliban and insurgency,” he said.

Carter said he hoped that military and political efforts underway would show results by the fall, with Afghans in Kandahar enjoying improved security and services from their local government.

In the neighboring province of Helmand, a coalition offensive around the district of Marjah in February had freed up travel on main roads once controlled by the Taliban, allowed eight of 15 schools to reopen and launched a new local government, the general said.

But reviving government services and winning the trust of local residents was a slow, “frustrating” process, with the Taliban still exerting “subtle” intimidation to discourage Afghans from siding with the new authorities, Carter added.

Musharraf stopped from travelling over security threat

NEW YORK: Former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf was stopped from travelling on a flight to London on Tuesday night after authorities discovered that a passenger of Middle Eastern descent had a one-way ticket, according to local media reports.

The Trentonian, a New Jersey newspaper, said officials advised the 66-year-old former president not to travel on the Virgin Atlantic flight and according to another newspaper, he was shifted to a local hotel, while security agencies inspected all luggage from the plane at Newark airport in the neighbouring state of New Jersey. The search was completed on Wednesday morning and the flight eventually departed without Musharraf.

Facebook fuels American flag business in Pakistan

KARACHI – In Pakistan a row about Facebook, censorship and religious sacrilege means booming demand for replica American and Israeli flags to go up in flames at protest rallies.

This photo taken on May 21 shows activists of Pakistani coalition of Islamic groups torching a US national …

That means one thing for 31-year-old Mamoon ur Rasheed — business — and he is working long into the night to churn out the paraphernalia beloved of Islamic activists taking to the streets.

“I have nothing to do with any political party, but it is really enjoyable when you see your work on TV screens,” a laughing Rasheed told AFP.

“I’m busy every day making banners and placards for different religious and political parties, but work gets a boost — especially when international controversy concerning Muslims breaks out,” he said.

When a Facebook user decided to organise an “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day” competition to promote “freedom of expression”, it sparked a major backlash among Islamic activists in the South Asian country of 170 million.

Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous and the row sparked comparison with protests across the Muslim world over the publication of satirical cartoons of Mohammed in European newspapers in 2006.

Several thousand Pakistanis have taken to the streets at the behest of right-wing religious groups, who turn to Rasheed when they need flags to burn and banners to write.

“Generally, we receive orders for banners for a couple of demonstrations a day, but due to the blasphemous drawings issue, the number of orders for flags and banners has increased by 10 to 12 per day,” said Rasheed.

“Flags are made for burning. They symbolise what our clients want to express and we are paid for it, so I’m happy to see our work go up in flames.”

Rasheed owns a workshop where he employs four craftsmen to paint flags and write calligraphy, and a small printing press.

“We have received continuous orders for American and Israeli flags. Normally we paint them but when demand surges into the hundreds we print these flags to get them to our clients in time,” he said.

In the wake of the Prophet Mohammed controversy, Pakistan blocked hundreds of web pages to limit access to “blasphemous” material, banning access to US-based Facebook and YouTube — the two most popular websites in the country.

A court in the eastern city of Lahore ordered the block on Facebook until at least May 31, when it is scheduled to hear a petition from Islamic lawyers.

Although none of the protests has mobilised the masses, sporadic demonstrators have continued to vent anger in Karachi and other cities.

Rasheed runs his business on times of stress. Different periods mean demand for the flags of India — Pakistan’s deepest rival with whom the country has fought three wars — Norway and Sweden, and former colonial ruler Britain.

Four years ago, widespread protests broke out in the conservative Muslim nation over satirical cartoons of Mohammed that were published by a Danish newspaper and then reprinted in other European countries.

Then in 2008, thousands of Pakistani Islamists rallied against an anti-Koran film made by a far-right Dutch lawmaker. Another focal point for anger has been Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who etched a blasphemous caricature.

Whenever elections approach or protests start, wholesalers stock huge quantities of cheap cloth and reap handsome rewards.

“We are getting bigger orders from scores of painters and printers nowadays,” cloth merchant Mohammad Siddique said.

“Pakistan is the country of protests and for this Karachi is undoubtedly its capital and our business gets a boost in such circumstances,” Siddique said.

Waqar Ahmed, owner of a printing press in Karachi’s southern neighbourhood Pakistan Chowk, says orders are flooding in for posters, pamphlets and placards, temporarily overtaking his main business in books and wedding cards.

“I get orders for pamphlets and posters in the event of controversies or elections,” Waqar says. May 15, when Palestinians marked Naqba day — the so-called catastrophe of Israel’s creation in 1948 — is another landmark.

“I got some orders to print flags of Israel and United States — 100 a piece — during Naqba rallies. We have also sold some American and Swedish flags during the protests against Facebook,” Ahmed said.

Facebook fuels American flag business in Pakistan

KARACHI – In Pakistan a row about Facebook, censorship and religious sacrilege means booming demand for replica American and Israeli flags to go up in flames at protest rallies.

This photo taken on May 21 shows activists of Pakistani coalition of Islamic groups torching a US national …

That means one thing for 31-year-old Mamoon ur Rasheed — business — and he is working long into the night to churn out the paraphernalia beloved of Islamic activists taking to the streets.

“I have nothing to do with any political party, but it is really enjoyable when you see your work on TV screens,” a laughing Rasheed told AFP.

“I’m busy every day making banners and placards for different religious and political parties, but work gets a boost — especially when international controversy concerning Muslims breaks out,” he said.

When a Facebook user decided to organise an “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day” competition to promote “freedom of expression”, it sparked a major backlash among Islamic activists in the South Asian country of 170 million.

Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous and the row sparked comparison with protests across the Muslim world over the publication of satirical cartoons of Mohammed in European newspapers in 2006.

Several thousand Pakistanis have taken to the streets at the behest of right-wing religious groups, who turn to Rasheed when they need flags to burn and banners to write.

“Generally, we receive orders for banners for a couple of demonstrations a day, but due to the blasphemous drawings issue, the number of orders for flags and banners has increased by 10 to 12 per day,” said Rasheed.

“Flags are made for burning. They symbolise what our clients want to express and we are paid for it, so I’m happy to see our work go up in flames.”

Rasheed owns a workshop where he employs four craftsmen to paint flags and write calligraphy, and a small printing press.

“We have received continuous orders for American and Israeli flags. Normally we paint them but when demand surges into the hundreds we print these flags to get them to our clients in time,” he said.

In the wake of the Prophet Mohammed controversy, Pakistan blocked hundreds of web pages to limit access to “blasphemous” material, banning access to US-based Facebook and YouTube — the two most popular websites in the country.

A court in the eastern city of Lahore ordered the block on Facebook until at least May 31, when it is scheduled to hear a petition from Islamic lawyers.

Although none of the protests has mobilised the masses, sporadic demonstrators have continued to vent anger in Karachi and other cities.

Rasheed runs his business on times of stress. Different periods mean demand for the flags of India — Pakistan’s deepest rival with whom the country has fought three wars — Norway and Sweden, and former colonial ruler Britain.

Four years ago, widespread protests broke out in the conservative Muslim nation over satirical cartoons of Mohammed that were published by a Danish newspaper and then reprinted in other European countries.

Then in 2008, thousands of Pakistani Islamists rallied against an anti-Koran film made by a far-right Dutch lawmaker. Another focal point for anger has been Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who etched a blasphemous caricature.

Whenever elections approach or protests start, wholesalers stock huge quantities of cheap cloth and reap handsome rewards.

“We are getting bigger orders from scores of painters and printers nowadays,” cloth merchant Mohammad Siddique said.

“Pakistan is the country of protests and for this Karachi is undoubtedly its capital and our business gets a boost in such circumstances,” Siddique said.

Waqar Ahmed, owner of a printing press in Karachi’s southern neighbourhood Pakistan Chowk, says orders are flooding in for posters, pamphlets and placards, temporarily overtaking his main business in books and wedding cards.

“I get orders for pamphlets and posters in the event of controversies or elections,” Waqar says. May 15, when Palestinians marked Naqba day — the so-called catastrophe of Israel’s creation in 1948 — is another landmark.

“I got some orders to print flags of Israel and United States — 100 a piece — during Naqba rallies. We have also sold some American and Swedish flags during the protests against Facebook,” Ahmed said.