The Guardian UK
Sunday 27 April 2008
Karzai says US and British troops are undermining his authority and stopping insurgents from laying down their arms.
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has called on British and American troops to stop arresting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, saying that their operations undermined his government's authority and were counter-productive.
The stinging attack, made in an interview with the New York Times published yesterday, is the latest in a series of rows between Western governments with troops in Afghanistan and the elected leader of the country. Western diplomats expressed surprise at the Afghan leader's criticism and the Foreign Office played down the row yesterday.
'We fully support the Afghan government and continue to work with it, President Karzai and the international community in the interests of the Afghan people and the long-term peace and stability of Afghanistan,' said a spokesman.
Karzai is facing re-election next year and may be hoping to bolster flagging support with a populist stance. However, in recent months relations have deteriorated seriously, with Western officials openly doubting the ability of the Afghan president, who was heavily backed by the US and the UK in 2001 after the fall of the Taliban regime, to manage rampant corruption and combat drug trafficking in the war-wracked southwest Asian state.
Karzai said he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban members and their supporters, saying that fear of arrest and their past mistreatment were discouraging them from coming forward to lay down their arms. 'It has to happen,' he said. 'We have to make sure that when a Talib comes to Afghanistan ... he is safe from arrest by the coalition.'
Efforts at winning over Taliban fighters or sympathisers are mired in confusion: Nato allies in Afghanistan are divided over the exact nature of the amnesty or 'reconciliation programme' for insurgents. British policy, despite official insistence that 'there are no negotiations with the Taliban', is to weaken the radical Islamic movement by splitting off foot soldiers tempted by money or misled by tribal chiefs, religious leaders and ideologues from a 'hardcore' of leaders.
'We fully support efforts to bring disaffected Afghans into society's mainstream, providing they renounce violence and accept Afghanistan's constitution,' said the Foreign Office spokesman. 'We have always said there is no military solution in Afghanistan - a fully comprehensive approach is needed ... and that will involve reconciliation of those Taliban prepared to integrate into the new Afghanistan.'
However, Washington is more sceptical of such efforts, and has been fiercely critical of some British tactics aimed at winning over key Taliban commanders in the past, as has Karzai himself.
Karzai also attacked the number of civilian deaths inflicted by the coalition. Although levels of 'collateral damage' inflicted by Nato operations have dropped substantially, deaths still continue. Two women and two children were killed recently in an air raid by Nato troops on a suspected Taliban position after a firefight. Up to 9,000 civilians have died since 2001.
'I want an end to civilian casualties,' the Afghan president said in the interview. 'And as much as one may argue it's difficult, I don't accept that argument.'
Relations between Karzai and London were strained last month by the Afghan premier's rejection of Lord Paddy Ashdown, the favoured candidate to take up a post as 'aid tsar' in Kabul with a brief to coordinate the international aid flowing into the country. Karzai blocked the appointment amid negative local press coverage, a historic popular distrust of the British and advisers' fears of a potential crackdown on corruption.
With casualties and costs mounting and little obvious progress, Western governments are looking increasingly for an exit from Afghanistan, where 94 British servicemen have been killed since 2001. 'Nato now wants a way out which is not failure,' said Mike Williams, of London's Royal United Services Institute. 'They need to redefine the situation which will allow them to leave without failing.'
A key problem for policymakers is 'battle fatigue' among Western populations. 'We are going to get bored of the war long before the Taliban are,' said one Nato official.
Karzai Escapes an Assassination Attempt
By Carlotta Gall and Sangar Rahimi
The International Herald Tribune
Sunday 27 April 2008
Kabul, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai survived an assassination attempt at a military parade in central Kabul on Sunday, when suspected Taliban insurgents fired mortars and bullets at the dignitaries assembled in the spectator stand.
One person was killed and 11 injured in the incident, General Zaher Azimi, a military spokesman, confirmed soon after the incident. Two parliamentarians in a section of the stands not far from the president were seen to fall from their chairs on television footage as gunfire rang out. Loud explosions could be heard some distance from the parade ground.
The president was whisked out of the back of the stand and quickly left the scene in a convoy of black armored vehicles as spectators scrambled for cover and security guards opened fire in every direction, witnesses said. The American ambassador Bill Wood also left unharmed, a spokesman told news agencies. Afghan state television, which was showing the ceremony live, cut its footage as people fled the scene.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and said that it had targeted Karzai, his cabinet and other officials to show that no one was safe, Al Jazeera reported. Karzai has survived at least three previous assassination attempts, but this is the first time there has been an attempt on him in the capital.
He appeared on television within an hour of the attack and told the country that everything was fine.
"The enemy of Afghanistan, the enemy of the security and development of Afghanistan, tried to disrupt the celebration and tried to create fear," he said. "Fortunately, the Afghan security forces surrounded them and some of the suspects were arrested, and, thank God, now everything is all right and the people of Afghanistan should be calm and confident."
Karzai was attending a military parade in front of the Eid Gah Mosque for the national day known as Mujahideen Day, which celebrates the victory of the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. Cabinet members, parliamentarians, ambassadors and other guests were assembled in stands as Karzai and Defense Minister Rahim Wardak inspected the military and police units from open-topped military vehicles.
Then they returned to main stand and stood as the national anthem was played and an artillery gun salute was fired. After the first four or five volleys, a mortar round slammed into a main street outside the parade ground. It was followed by a second mortar and then gunfire, a military general who had been standing close to the president said. He described the scene but asked not to be named.
Two parliamentarians, sitting some 20 meters from Karzai, could be seen falling to the ground as the gunfire rang out on television footage. A fellow member of parliament, Sharifa Zurmati, later named two parliamentarians wounded as Muhammad Daud Zazai and Fazel Rahman Samkanai, both legislators from Paktia province, in southeastern Afghanistan.
A group of gunmen was firing from the roof of a nearby three-story hotel toward the parade ground, according to an eyewitness, Hayatullah, 45, the owner of a small tea house across the street from the hotel. Police stormed the building and arrested some men, he and another eyewitness, Hamidullah, 20, said. Security officials at the scene, speaking on condition of anonymity, said three people had been killed and nine arrested in the raid.
The military spokesman, Azimi, confirmed that a number of suspects had been arrested. A military officer at the scene was overhead reporting the incident on a telephone and said that 12 men had gathered at a restaurant on the main street near the parade ground and had stashed Kalashnikov rifles and mortar in the restaurant before the event. He said two had been killed and the others arrested.
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