# The Sandbox and Area Reports Thread August 2013



## The Bread Guy (31 Jul 2013)

*The Sandbox and Area Reports Thread August 2013  *               

*News only - commentary elsewhere, please.
Thanks for helping this "news only" thread system work!*


----------



## GAP (5 Aug 2013)

*Articles found August 5, 2013*

 Watchdog: US spending $772M on aircraft Afghans 'cannot operate or maintain'
Published August 05, 2013 FoxNews.com
Article Link

The chief watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction warned in a recent audit that the Pentagon is moving forward with a $772 million purchase of aircraft that the Afghan army "cannot operate or maintain." 

The latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction cited the aircraft purchases among its top concerns. The IG's office had earlier issued a report in June detailing how "the Afghans lack the capacity -- in both personnel numbers and expertise -- to operate and maintain" existing and planned fleets. 

The findings are likely to contribute to the budget debate on Capitol Hill over the funding. The bulk of the purchase is a $554 million contract for 30 Mi-17 helicopters from Russian firm Rosoboronexport. 

Senators already are trying to strip funding for those contracts, out of concern for the company's ties to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Before Congress went on recess, a Senate budget panel signed off on a spending bill that guts funding for the Mi-17 choppers. 
More on link

 Taliban holding unofficial talks with Afghan government in effort to restart peace process
Published August 05, 2013 Associated Press
Article Link

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan –  The Taliban have held secret talks with representatives of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to try to jumpstart a peace process that stumbled and stalled at the starting gate, according to Afghan officials and a senior Taliban representative.

The discussions with members of the Afghan High Peace Council have so far been unofficial and preliminary, seen as an attempt to agree on conditions for formal talks. But they do suggest an interest on both sides in proceeding, or at least toying, with a peace process that has been mired in controversy since the official opening of a Taliban political office in June in the Gulf nation of Qatar.

Habibullah Fauzi, a former Taliban diplomat who is now a member of Karzai's High Peace Council, told The Associated Press that "some individuals (on the peace council) have met Taliban on an individual basis," though he would not say who or when. He also said he'd heard reports of meetings in Saudi Arabia between High Peace Council members and Taliban who were in that country to perform the Islamic pilgrimages of Umrah and Hajj.

"The Afghan government certainly is in contact with certain leaders and certain figures among the Taliban," Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Musazai said Sunday at a news conference in Kabul.
More on link

 Flash floods kill more than 50 in Afghanistan
Published August 04, 2013 Associated Press
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan –  Heavy rains swept across eastern Afghanistan, leveling homes and killing at least 58 people in five provinces, while an estimated 30 others remain missing, officials said Sunday.

Provincial spokesmen in Nangarhar, Kabul, Khost, Laghman and Nuristan said that all the floods struck early Saturday. Flash floods are common in those provinces and all are fed by rivers that eventually intersect in Nangarhar.

In Kabul's Surobi district, police chief Shaghasi Ahmadi said 34 people were killed in a remote and mountainous area. He said 22 of the bodies from Surobi were later found downstream in Laghman.

Surobi has a number of rivers running through it. It is also rife with Taliban activity.

Ahmadi said food, tents and other emergency supplies were being sent to the district from the capital.
More on link

NATO helicopter mistakenly kills 4 Afghan troops, officials say
Published August 01, 2013 Associated Press
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan –  Afghan officials say a NATO helicopter mistakenly killed four Afghan troops in the east while a Taliban ambush left an official and three other people dead in the country's south.

Spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai says a NATO helicopter called in as air support following an attack on an Afghan checkpoint in eastern Nangarhar province's Bati Kot district accidentally killed four Afghan troops Wednesday night.

A NATO spokesman, Sgt. Bryan Gatewod says the incident is under investigation.

In southern Uruzgan province, spokesman Farid Ayel says the Taliban ambushed local education official Hadi Khan, killing him, his two sons and a bodyguard on Wednesday afternoon.

In northwestern Faryab province, Governor Ahmadullha Batash says a roadside mine exploded on Thursday, killing two policemen and a prosecutor, and wounding seven people in Bilchiragh district
end


Army won’t suspend contracts with Al Qaeda-tied companies, citing 'due process rights'
Article Link
By Judson Berger Published August 05, 2013 FoxNews.com

The U.S. Army is refusing to suspend contracts with dozens of companies and individuals tied to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups out of concern for their "due process rights," despite repeated pleas from the chief watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction. 

In a scathing passage of his latest report to Congress, Special Inspector General John Sopko said his office has urged the Army to suspend or debar 43 contractors over concerns about ties to the Afghanistan insurgency, "including supporters of the Taliban, the Haqqani network and al Qaeda." 

Sopko wrote that the Army "rejected" every single case. 

"The Army Suspension and Debarment Office appears to believe that suspension or debarment of these individuals and companies would be a violation of their due process rights if based on classified information or if based on findings by the Department of Commerce," Sopko said, summing up the Army's position.

The Army claims that Sopko's office did not provide enough evidence to support its claims. 

"The Army Procurement Fraud Branch did receive and review the 43 recommendations late last year, but the report did not include enough supporting evidence to initiate suspension and debarment proceedings under Federal Acquisition Regulations," an Army spokesman said in a written statement. 
More on link


----------



## GAP (10 Aug 2013)

*Articles found August 10, 2013*

Afghan EOD Take The Losses And Get It Done
Article Link
August 9, 2013:

 Afghan troops have largely taken over from Americans in doing the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) work to get rid of all the terrorist (and increasingly gangster) bombs and mines. About half the 300 Afghan police and soldiers who get killed each month are the victims of the roadside bombs and mines the EOD teams don’t know about or don’t get to in time. NATO troops suffer a slightly lower rate of loss to these bombs, which indicates that the Afghans are able to be competitive in this area. The Afghan EOD troops have plenty of work. Right now most Afghan EOD teams are accompanied by a few of their American counterparts, to advise, warn, and tutor.

By American standards the Afghans are quick learners but brash and sometimes undisciplined. But each time these bad habits get an Afghan EOD tech killed or hurt, the word gets around and attitudes are adjusted a bit. Many Afghans believed the American EOD men were some kind of magicians but the work is all about precision and discipline. To some Afghans that is still magic, but it’s a form of magic an Afghan can acquire.

Right now the Afghan military has about 400 EOD technicians. The Afghan army and police are taking over security responsibility for all of Afghanistan, and currently all but the most violent areas in the south and east are protected by Afghans. That means Afghan EOD teams are taking care of most of the bombs. Afghanistan will need about a thousand of these specialists to replace the departed American and NATO EOD specialists. Currently, two or three bombs go off each day and kill three or four Afghans on average. NATO has set up an EOD school staffed with 190 EOD experts and providing 19 different courses. Much of this training prepares soldiers and police to better spot bombs and call in EOD to deal with it.

The EOD training is long (eight months) and arduous because the work is dangerous. The casualty rate is higher than being in the infantry but the pay is better and you get a lot of respect, which is a big deal in Afghanistan. The danger is not a totally negative thing because EOD always attracted the adrenaline junkies, who were skilled and disciplined enough to get through the training.

The Afghans have adopted the American attitude that only the best recruits will do and that the skills must be mastered before the new EOD techs are turned loose on the real thing. Trainees take quickly to this arrangement and all the details (of different kinds of bombs) and equipment (robots, sensor, and the full body protective suit) the job involves. Many of the new Afghan EODs already have experience working on the demining teams that have been clearing Afghanistan of all the mines and old munitions left behind by the Russians in the 1980s.

One downside of the American approach to EOD is the use of a lot of expensive equipment (special bomb suits, robots, jammers, and sensors). While the U.S. will leave a lot of this stuff behind, the Afghans are worried about keeping it maintained. 
end

 Afghanistan's middle class: What will happen to us when the US leaves?
Article Link
After the Taliban's ouster in 2001, thousands of Afghans found high-paying jobs in Kabul. As Westerners leave ahead of 2014, many Afghans' new middle-class lifestyle may be in danger.
By Halima Kazem, Correspondent / August 2, 2013 

It’s an hour before sunset and 30-year-old Besmellah Khurram is feverishly texting his group of friends to find out which Kabul restaurant they should meet at to break their day-long fast.

“Ramadan is a great time for me because sometimes I break the fast with my family and sometimes with a large group of friends at one of Kabul’s busy restaurants,” says Mr. Khurram.

Khurram and his friends are enjoying some of the luxuries that have popped up in the past decade for the middle class in Afghanistan, such as disposable income to spend on eating out and purchasing the latest mobile phones, laptops, and even cars.

However, much of this newly established and mostly urban middle class is in danger of rapidly shrinking once again as more international aid projects and nongovernmental organizations shut down ahead of the 2014 transition, when most international security forces will leave Afghanistan and the country will be expected to govern itself without the direct help of the international community.

“Young working Afghans like me and my friends are who sustain the local businesses. If we lose our jobs, many of these local businesses will fail,” says Khurram, a graduate of Kabul University’s school of economics.

Khurram works as a manager for a private sector development project run by the German Society for International Cooperation, an aid organization. He says many of his friends also work for various international aid organizations or projects run by the US military and make anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 a month, putting them in Kabul's upper middle class. 

This is much higher than the average per capita income in Afghanistan, which according to the World Bank is $528. However uneven distribution of international aid and private investment have created large disparities between urban and rural income levels.

The high salaries, along with lucrative military and security contracts, have created a financial bubble in Afghanistan. Since 2001, this bubble has pushed up cost of living and contributed to the growth of the Afghan middle class, especially in urban areas.
More on link

 The Art Of Scam In Afghanistan
Article Link
August 6, 2013

 Corruption in Afghanistan can be astonishing at times. That’s because Afghans consider stealing from foreigners to be a laudable goal and this is a tradition that goes back thousands of years. An excellent example of this can be seen by a recent effort by some Afghan customs officials to scam the U.S. government out of over $70 million. This was basically an organized extortion effort carried out by customs officials. It first appeared in June, when American equipment (vehicles and cargo containers) leaving the country were halted at the Afghan border by demands for a document proving the equipment had entered Afghanistan. If this document was not available (and it never was), payment of a $1,000 fine (per violation) would allow the item to pass. This in itself was absurd because a 2002 agreement between Afghanistan and the United States exempted American military equipment from anything of this nature. Senior customs officials replied that the 2002 agreement was unfair and no longer applied. At this point the situation was becoming surreal and negotiations continued as U.S. officials climbed the Afghan government chain of command, finding that the original scammers had, as is usually the case, promised all their superiors a piece of the action and all were doing their best to make the extortion plan work. Finally the U.S. agreed, but with the understanding that these fines could be paid but that the amount would be deducted from foreign aid, plus large processing fees and fines. Sensing the game was up, the scam collapsed.

Many of these scams succeed, again and again. One of the best examples of this is the “dead goat scam” in which villagers lie about who was killed by a NATO bomb in order to obtain more compensation money, and to avoid Taliban retribution. This one is quite common and works like this. Often, when a smart bomb gets dropped in an isolated location (which describes most of Afghanistan), and there is any chance of civilian casualties the locals will often make a fuss about seeking to find who was hurt or killed. The village elders insist that outsiders (as in U.S. military personnel investigating the damage) stay away during this trying time. Even the foreign soldiers and Afghan police are put off (after a quick search for Taliban bodies, documents, and equipment is completed). Being good Moslems, the villagers bury the dead before sunset of the same day. The next day, the elders will claim as many civilian dead, killed by smart bombs, as they think they can get away with. Sometimes additional graves get a dead goat or other animal, so the proper stench permeates the mound of earth. Digging up graves is also against Islamic law, so the elders know the foreign troops have to take their word for it. The elders also know that the foreign troops, depending on nationality, will pay $1,000-$5,000 compensation per dead civilian. Not only is there a big payday, but the Taliban appreciate the bad publicity directed at the foreigners and usually show their appreciation by cutting this village or valley some slack in the future. The villages encourage this by offering the local Taliban a cut of the compensation money.

This scam works because there aren't many public records in Afghanistan. The only ones who know exactly who lives in a village are the people there and the elders speak for everyone. Investigators have a hard time interrogating individuals because the elders, and everyone there, has a vested interest in not being found out. Sometimes the elders get greedy. For example, despite an intensive investigation into a 2008 bombing in Azizabad (outside Heart), the villagers got paid for over 90 dead. Investigators, piecing together what information they could, were certain that there were only 15 dead civilians (plus Taliban). But you can't touch the graves, and even questioning the veracity of the claims gets you howls of indignation. 
More on link

 Why a dam in Afghanistan might set back peace
Article Link
A $200 million dam project will divert water from Iran. Afghan officials say they have no plans to negotiate water rights with Iran.
By Scott Peterson, Staff writer / July 30, 2013  Herat, Afghanistan

The water that grows western Afghanistan’s fresh produce, sprinkles its town parks with shade-giving trees, and slakes the thirst of war-weary Afghans, is becoming a point of tension with nearby Iran as a large dam under construction will constrict cross-border flow.

After nearly four decades of work, the Salma Dam – a $200 million project paid for and built by India, yet delayed by Afghanistan’s turbulent history of occupations, civil war, and insurgency – is slated to be finished by the end of 2014.

Afghan officials say they have no plans to negotiate water rights with Iran, although analysts and Western sources warn that lack of agreement could worsen Afghanistan’s already prickly ties with its Iranian neighbor.

“We have many projects in Afghanistan, and every project has its enemy. But unfortunately Salma Dam has three enemies,” says Fazl Ahmad Zakeri, the Ministry of Energy and Water’s acting director for the Harirud and Murghab River Basin, in Herat. “It’s not possible [to stop work]. We will complete this dam.”

One of those enemies, says Mr. Zakeri, is Pakistan. Islamabad is “trying to stop the work” because it is being built by strategic rival India. In April, Afghan intelligence officials announced they had thwarted a Taliban plot to blow up the dam with about 2,860 pounds of explosives. The plan, they claimed, was aided by Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

The other two “enemies” of the Salma Dam are Turkmenistan and Iran because it will diminish water flow to their own parched regions and dam projects. Afghan officials have often charged Iran with being behind dam-related attacks. When an Afghan district governor who had supported the project was killed in 2010, Afghan police officials suspected Iran’s involvement.

The head of the police unit guarding the dam claimed to have evidence that Iran funded a local Taliban commander and his 200 men who had “promised Iran that he will succeed in halting work on the Salma Dam,” according to a report by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

Likewise, two months ago, six of the dam’s security guards were killed by a roadside bomb. Without naming Iran, the provincial security chief said that the killings had “a political motivation. This is the work of those countries who don’t want Afghanistan to develop.”

But in Herat, water official Zakeri says that “we don’t have any data to give us information that Iran is creating some problem.” Iranian officials say they support Afghan development, and deny conducting any destabilizing actions in Afghanistan, despite credible reports of past, limited assistance to anti-US insurgents, including the Taliban.

“Yes, the Iranians are asking for negotiations. Always they are asking for negotiations [because they will get] much less water,” notes Zakeri.

But negotiation may be easier said than done, with so much at stake for both sides.
What Afghanistan wants

For Afghanistan, key facts are clear: The Salma Dam will increase cultivatable land from 35,000 hectares to 80,000 hectares. It will also produce 42 MW of electricity, lowering the region’s dependence on Iran (which now provides 80 MW, cheaply) and Turkmenistan (which provides 50 MW).

“It will change much, because this project is not just for Herat,” says Zakeri. “If we can produce more fruit, we can send this to Kandahar, to other provinces. This project might change the situation in all of Afghanistan.”

For Iran, too, key facts are clear: The dam will cut the flow of its own Harirud River water by 73 percent, even though the number of Iranians dependent on that water – including the shrine city of Mashhad – is almost three times as large as the number of Afghans.

“Iran has always criticized Afghanistan for its water policies on Helmand and Harirud Rivers,” says an Iranian analyst in Tehran who has worked on the issue of Helmand, a larger river flowing into Iran farther south, and asked not to be named. “Iran and Pakistan are both accused of sabotage [and] Mashhad depends on the water of the Harirud. So Iran has a big concern that dams in Afghanistan [will] reduce the water as [they have] on Helmand.”
The 'only way forward'

A 2010 report on Afghanistan’s water resources warned that “cross-border cooperation on water is not an option; it is the only way forward” with all neighbors. Lack of bilateral or regional agreements created “a serious threat to sustainable development and security in the region,” stated the EastWest Institute report.
More on link

 Afghan TV show brings officials face-to-face with ordinary people
Article Link
President Hamid Karzai and top ministers have appeared on 'Open Jirga,' giving Afghans a rare taste of accountability.
By Scott Peterson, Staff writer / July 28, 2013 Kabul, Afghanistan

Afghanistan's imperfect democracy is finding one of its purest forms over the television airwaves, where ordinary citizens are getting a rare chance to question their highest officials face-to-face.

A debate program named "Open Jirga" is for the first time bringing a studio audience from every corner of the country to directly question the powers-that-be, from President Hamid Karzai and his ministers to the army chief. Rampant corruption, “wasted” years, and security fears of what will happen after US-led international forces drawdown in 2014 are all fair game. 

A co-production of the BBC and state-run Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA), the program has given Afghans an unaccustomed taste of political accountability on a national stage.
More on link


----------



## GAP (14 Aug 2013)

*Articles found August 14, 2013*

Official: Bodies of 8 Afghan civilians abducted, then killed by insurgents, found by highway
Published August 13, 2013 Associated Press
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan –  A provincial official says the bodies of eight Afghans abducted last week and then killed by insurgents have been found, dumped along the country's main north-south highway.

Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, deputy governor of Ghazni province, said Tuesday the eight men were civilians snatched off a bus by insurgents during last week's Eid al-Fitr holiday that marked the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Insurgents regularly pull over buses travelling on the highway from the capital, Kabul, to southern Kandahar province looking for government employees, who they then either shoot or hold for ransom.

The Taliban have said government employees, Afghan troops and those who work for the NATO-led international coalition are targets.

Afghan civilian casualties have spiked this year as the Taliban stepped up their campaign of violence.
end

 3 American soldiers killed in eastern Afghanistan
Published August 11, 2013 FoxNews.com
Article Link

Three American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan on Sunday as the result of an indirect fire incident, a Department of Defense official told Fox News.

The deaths bring to 103 the number of foreign troops killed so far this year. Of those, 81 are from the United States.

Foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan at the end of 2014.

In other violence Saturday and Sunday, authorities said four explosions in the Charcheno district of southern Uruzgan province killed seven civilians.

Uruzgan provincial police chief spokesman Fared Ayel said a father and two of his children were killed Sunday when the motorcycle they were on hit a roadside bomb. He said that another three bombs in the same district on Saturday killed four people and wounded three.
Little More on link

 Pakistan's women can now dial-a-doc
Article Link
In a country where many struggle to access basic health services, a new telehealth service could provide Pakistanis the medical help they need.
By Annabel Symington, Correspondent / August 8, 2013 

Karachi, Pakistan

Pakistan’s largest city and commercial center, Karachi, is a city of extremes where the richest live alongside the country’s poorest. Perfectly coiffed women with foreign degrees and fancy handbags tour around the city’s designer malls. At the other end of the spectrum, a range of hurdles leave women from the poorest sections of society struggling to access basic services, particularly healthcare. 

But a recently launched telehealth service is hoping to change that by giving women in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city with a population of around 18 million, access to basic health advice for free from a mobile phone.

“This is a big opportunity to improve access to woman in urban areas who have no access to basic healthcare and information, particularly during pregnancy,” says Zahid Ali Faheem, head of the telehealth service run by the Aman Foundation, a Pakistan-based nongovernmental organization. Dr. Faheem oversees the 26-seat call center that has been working around the clock for the past 18 months.

According to the World Health Organization’s Global Health Observatory report, 40 percent of premature deaths in adults in Pakistan would have been preventable through early intervention. Though there is no official WHO breakdown by gender, experts say a significant portion of those premature deaths are women. Distance to hospitals and clinics, the cost of transport, and low levels of trust in government-run services leaves men and women unable to seek the medical help they may need.

A strict social code for many women presents an additional obstacle. Low literacy rates – 57 percent of women are illiterate in Pakistan compared with 26 percent of men – and a lack of basic health knowledge compound the problem. 

When women are able to travel to a clinic or hospital, they are usually accompanied by a male relative, leaving many unwilling – or unable – to explain their medical problem to the doctor. 

“Women don’t want to get healthcare services without their [male relative] presence,” explains Faheem, “But she cannot say anything when she goes to the facilities. The head of the family does all the talking.” 
More on link


----------



## GAP (25 Aug 2013)

*Articles found August 25, 2013*

 Afghanistan's Karzai says no rush to sign U.S. security pact
ReutersReuters
Article Link

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan is in no rush to sign a pact with the United States setting out how many U.S. troops will stay after a NATO mission ends next year and may even delay a decision until after a presidential election, President Hamid Karzai said.

Foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, when the NATO-led mission winds up and the responsibility for fighting Taliban insurgents is handed over to Afghan forces.

But NATO plans to keep a slimmed-down training and advisory mission in Afghanistan after 2014 although the United States and other NATO allies have been slow to provide detailed numbers of troops for the force.

The United States has been putting pressure on Afghanistan to finalize a bilateral security agreement (BSA), which will mandate how many, and where, U.S. soldiers will remain once the NATO mission ends.

U.S. diplomats have said they want the security pact signed by October, to prevent it becoming an issue in the campaign for next year's Afghan presidential election.
More on link

2 Kidnapped foreign aid workers freed in Afghanistan
Article Link
 August 23, 2013

Kabul, Aug 23 (EFE).- Two international aid workers - a Canadian and a Bangladeshi - who were kidnapped in Afghanistan three days ago have been liberated by security forces, the AIP news agency said Friday.

The workers were freed on Thursday afternoon, the governor of Bamiyan province, Habiba Surabi, told AIP.

Four suspected kidnappers have been detained, Surabi said.

The kidnapping took place on Tuesday near Bamiyan city, the provincial capital.

No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction, and security officials said it was probably the work of hostage takers since the area is not a stronghold of the insurgency.

The two foreigners were in Afghanistan with the Aga Khan Development Network, an international organization that does humanitarian work in developing countries.
More on link


----------

