Mohammad Umer Daudzai, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s chief of staff, said 25 November that foreigners should stay out of the delicate negotiations going on between Afghan authorities and the Taliban. “The last lesson we draw from this: International partners should not get excited so quickly with those kind of things. . . . Afghans know this business, how to handle it”, Daudzai said.
A man purporting to be Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, a senior Taliban leader, is actually a shop-keeper from Quetta, Pakistan, according to Afghan intelligence reports. Mansour was helped by Nato forces to meet top Afghan officials, including Karzai. British intelligence officials reportedly arranged the meetings, according to a New York Times article earlier this week, while US officials kept their distance. One Western diplomat is quoted as saying that “we gave him a lot of money”.
Mansour held a post in the Taliban government before it was toppled by the US invasion in 2001. The British embassy in Kabul has refused to comment on the reports.
Links to other sites: BBC, Washington Post
The high-level peace talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and senior Taliban leaders are little more than “exchanges of cash and prisoners”, according to the Guardian. It is not unusual, experts say, that fighting and talking go on simultaneously, and war has traditionally been conducted this way. Also, the US military needs to show that it is making progress in the war ahead of a strategic review in December, according to Alex Strick van Linschoten, a Taliban expert. He suggested that the extensive media play was in part to confuse the Taliban leadership.
Richard Holbrooke, the Obama Administration’s senior diplomat to the region, has stated that he has no information regarding the Pakistan army or intelligence services opposing peace talks, according to India Express. He warned in a CNN interview 24 October not to put too much store by the so-called peace talks. The leading US general in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, told the media that Nato and US forces were guaranteeing safe passage of Taliban officials to peace talks.
Pakistani security officials have stressed that there can be no lasting peace in Afghanistan without their input, and have complained that US and Afghan officials have been sidelining them in the peace process. An unnamed high-ranking official told the Washington Post, “We cannot be insignificant in this war. If somebody is trying to keep us out and is striving for sustainable peace, good luck to them.”
Links to other sites: CNN, Guardian, Indian Express, Washington Post
US TV talk show host Larry King was told by Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai in an exclusive interview that his government is holding “unofficial” talks with the Taliban in order to advance peace talks. He cited a new High Peace Council, led by former President Buhanuddin Rabbani, with the goal of bringing the Taliban into the family fold of Afghans.
Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, has pointed a finger at the United Nations, and in particular at Peter Galbraith, the then deputy head of the UN mission Afghanistan, as the source of “massive” election fraud in 2009. The disputed presidential elections, which Karzai won despite having a high number of votes for him rejected by Western officials, were the centre of international attention with heavy suspicions of fraud. Karzai also blamed the European Union for being behind the fraud, in remarks made Thursday 1 April.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, BBC
Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, has announced that he now has the power to appoint all five members of the country’s Electoral Complaints Commission, a body that has had until now three foreigners appointed by the United Nations. Western governments are expressing their dismay at the move. The commission played a key role in 2009 in exposing electoral fraud, forcing a second round of presidential voting.
Suicide bombers and commando-style Taliban militants have attacked several targets in the centre of Kabul, Afghanistan, leaving at least five dead and dozens wounded. The militants targeted government buildings and banks in the centre of the city 18 January, and Afghan security forces initially struggled to respond and restore order. Two central shopping centres are reported to be on fire, and Taliban militants have sought refuge in a cinema complex from which gunfire can still be heard.
A Taliban spokesman said that a suicide bomber had detonated a bomb near the entrance to the presidential palace, as President Hamid Karzai was swearing in new members of his government.
The US administration condemned the attacks as “desperate and ruthless”. Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the region spoke to reporters in New Dehli, India, hours after leaving Kabul earlier, saying “the people doing this certainly will not survive the attack, nor will they succeed. But we can expect this sort of thing on a regular basis,” reports Reuters.
Karzai was expected to announce a plan to integrate Taliban fighters into normal life at an aid conference in London, UK later this month.
Hamid Karzai’s inauguration for a second term as president of Afghanistan has come with unusually high security in the capital Kabul, and renewed pleas to step up the fight against corruption, from former US President Bill Clinton and other world leaders. Regular flights in and out of the city have been cancelled, citizens urged to take a holiday and stay home, and heavier than usual patrols are out on the streets to ward off a possible Taliban attack.
Pakistan attack kills 15
Over the border in Peshawar, Pakistan, a suicide bomber killed 15 people and injured scores at a court building not far from the Pearl Continental Hotel where nine people died in June. Al Jazeera links the latest blast to a new military push: “The military launched its offensive nearly three weeks ago, pitting about 30,000 Pakistani troops against an estimated 10 to 12,000 Taliban fighters in South Waziristan.”
Links to other sites: Aljazeera,
Japan has pledged $5 billion in additional assistance to Afghanistan’s government just days before US President Obama arrives in Tokyo for an official visit on Friday, 13 November. The increase in aid will go towards building schools, demining, training policement, and rehabilitating Taliban fighters. Obama is to announce a new strategy for the US presence in Afghanistan after he has finished with consultations, perhaps before the end of the week.
The US has said it will expect Afghan President Hamid Karzai to meet clear measures to reduce the corruption that is seen to plague his administration. Western countries have increasingly seen corruption and a lack of transparency as undermining the the government’s legitimacy, putting a brake on development and giving the Taliban a political opening among the population. AFP, Bloomberg, New York Times
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said at a news conference in Kabul 20 October that there will be a run-off election 7 November between himself and his nearest opponent Abdullah Abdullah. Bowing to unprecedented international pressure, he said he accepted the revised results of the Independent Election Commission, which last week received the results of an investigation into massive fraud in the first round which invalidated up to a third of the votes. BBC, CNN, Reuters
Update 17:00 Reports from Kabul say that the Electoral Complaints Commission has finalized its tally and, discarding fraudulent ballots, the new total vote for Afghan President Hamid Karzai gives him 48 percent, less than the 50 percent necessary to avoid a run-off. The new results have been communicated to the Independent Election Commission, which has not yet decided whether to accept them. Nor is it clear what the reaction will be in the president’s office. AP, New York Times
Pressure is mounting on Karzai to accept a run-off election between him and the runner-up in last August’s elections, or to agree to some sort of power-sharing deal. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has been holding talks with both sides, and John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was also in Kabul this past weekend, 17 and 18 October. The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has been witholding the results of its investigation into massive electoral fraud, which may rob Karzai of his first-round victory. Karzai won with 54 percent of the vote.
A run-off election must be held within two weeks by law, but winter is closing in quickly in Afghanistan and would greatly hamper the logistics of a new election. The US administration is debating whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan to fight an increasingly powerful Taliban insurgency. On Sunday, 18 October, a top aide to US President Obama said that the Afghan government needed to be “a credible partner” for the US to be able to deal with it. CBS News, Christian Science Monitor, Reuters
The investigation of vote-rigging and fraud in Afghanistan’s recent presidential election 18 August is concentrating on thousands of votes allegedly cast by women. The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (EEC) has charged the Independent Election Commission (IEC) with an extensive audit of its staff, especially in remote rural regions, which returned suspiciously high numbers of female votes in favour of incumbent President Hamid Karzai. In one province, Paktya, thousands of women votes were counted, although there was only one female IEC representative in the province. Paktya voted 91.7 percent in favour of President Karzai.
Women vote separately from men in Afghanistan, and in rural areas very few women are allowed to vote in person. Registration cards issued to women voters do not have photographs because it is deemed impolite to show one’s face to a stranger. Gulf Times, The Times
Related: Chapatte
Afghan President Hamid Karzai claimed victory in Afghanistan’s presidential election as preliminary results released by the independent election commission (IEC) showed he had enough votes to avoid a run-off with his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. Karzai praised the Afghan people for their courage in the face of Taliban intimidation. But observers increasingly point to fraud on a scale that might put the results in doubt. The election complaints commission, headed by Canadian Grant Kippen, is charged with investigating cases of electoral fraud and has ordered a recount of ballots from some districts. Abdullah, in an interview with the BBC 8 September, said the IEC was anything but independent, and that the election was being stolen from the Afghan people. Afghanistan News, BBC, Toronto Globe & Mail
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UN officials and US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry are pressuring Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, to let the country’s independent Election Commission look into increasingly credible allegations of vote fraud during the recent presidential election. Karzai needs at least 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff and US State Department officials say that the commission needs to determine which votes can be counted. Karzai, in an interview published Monday by French newspaper Le Figaro, says he will respect the work of the Election Commission, 22 of whose staff were killed during the elections, but that he will not be a puppet of the US government. CNN and Figaro (Fre) interview with Karzai
Results from last week’s presidential elections in Afghanistan show President Hamid Karzai leading his main opponent, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, 43 percent to 34 percent with about 17 percent of the votes counted. The Afghan election commission has delayed releasing further results from the presidential vote and is concentrating on counting the provincial assembly vote that was held concurrently. The US special envoy Richard Holbrooke to Afghanistan and Pakistan had an “explosive” meeting with Karzai Thursday 21 August about the credibility of the elections, the BBC reports. Aides to both sides deny reports the meeting was stormy.
The US is worried that allegations of voter fraud and low voter turn-out diminish the legitimacy of the vote, and would like it to go to a second round in October. This would happen only if the front-runner got less than 50 percent of the vote. BBC, Reuters
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was the first to claim victory in the Afghanistan presidential polls Thursday 20 August, though this was immediately disputed by his main opponent, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Karzai’s election team based its claim on preliminary results from its poll workers in almost 29,000 polling stations around the country. The main opposition candidate said that based on its results, Abdullah had won 63 percent against 31 percent for Karzai.
Election officials asked candidates to refrain from making predictions until the final tally was in. Officials confirmed that counting for the presidential election was complete. The elections were also for provincial assemblies. Observers had expected a turbulent election, possibly disrupted by violence promised by the Taliban, but they turned out to be reasonably peaceful. Election officials said 26 people had died in violence around the country. BBC, CNN
A man working undercover for the BBC news service in Kabul, Afghanistan has found instances of voter fraud involving the sale of voter cards and offers to buy blocks of votes for cash, days ahead of the country’s presidential and provincial council elections 20 August. Some people reportedly have been issued multiple voter cards to enable them to vote several times. President Hamid Karzai is running against 30 other contenders in the election. Late Monday 17 August General Abdul Rashid Dostum arrived in Afghanistan from exile in Turkey to throw his weight behind Karzai, increasing concerns in the US and at the United Nations “that Dostum could return to government. Washington said he may have been responsible for human rights violations” according to Reuters. Western observers are currently saying that Karzai will not achieve the 50 percent vote needed to avoid a run-off.
Insurgent Taliban militants have vowed to disrupt the electoral process, and many parts of the country are inaccessible to government officals. The US military forces in Afghanistan have vowed to ensure security for the elections, but attacks in Kabul and elsewhere on coalition forces have increased over the past few days. Two rockets hit the presidential palace early 18 August, slightly injuring one person. CNN, Reuters, The Times, UK
Updated [TSR (Fre) camera crew report and background report/briefing 12 August by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, US special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the Center for American Progress, plus a blog reaction to Holbrooke's talk from the editors at Foreign Policy magazine ] Taliban-prompted violent incidents have been increasing, with promises from the former ruling group to disrupt Afghanistan’s presidential and provincial counselor elections 18 August, international media report. Incumbent Hamid Karzai, with support mainly in the south of the country, shows a 45 percent lead in polls, but does not have enough support for a clear majority, with his former foreign minister and rival Abdullah Abdullah running hard against him in the final hours. Al-Jazeera, Reuters
