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More Horrific Records Set: UNAMA Documents another Peak Year Of Civilian Casualties
More than eleven thousand civilians were killed or injured in the conflict in Afghanistan last year, setting a grisly new record – the highest number of civilian casualties recorded by UNAMA in any year since it started systematic documentation in 2009. In its 2016 annual report on the protection of civilians in the conflict, UNAMA also revealed that last year was the deadliest for children nationwide, and for Kabulis of all ages. UNAMA also recorded the most civilians killed and injured in ground engagements, suicide and complex attacks, and aerial strikes in any year. There were falls in civilian casualties resulting from targeted killings and IEDs, reports AAN Senior Analyst Kate Clark, but they were not enough to offset an overall increase in numbers. The UNAMA statistics of war in 2016 How many killed and injured 11,418 civilian casualties (3,498 deaths, 7,920 injured), increase of 3% compared to 2015 (2% reduction in deaths, 6% increase in injuries) 1,218 women civilian casualties (341 deaths, 877 injured), decrease of 2% 3,512 child casualties (923 deaths, 2,589 injured), increase of 24% Since 2009, the armed conflict in Afghanistan has claimed the lives of 24,841 civilians and injured 45,347 others How they were killed and injured (in order) ground engagements: 4,295 civilian casualties (1,070 deaths and 3,225 injured), increase of 3% compared to 2015, highest recorded since documentation started in 2009 IEDs: 2,156 civilian casualties (700 civilian deaths and 1,456 injured), decrease of 9% suicide and complex attacks: 1,963 civilian casualties (398 deaths and 1,565 injured), increase of 7%, highest recorded targeted and deliberate killings by anti-government elements: 1,118 civilian casualties (574 deaths and 544 injured), decrease of 16% targeted killings by pro-government forces: 106 civilian casualties (81 deaths and 25 injured), increase of 52% explosive remnants of war: 724 civilian casualties (217 deaths and 507 injured), increase of 66%, highest...
CHINA WATCH [JANUARY 31- FEBRUARY 6] CHINESE FIRMS INTERESTED IN PAKISTAN
Chinese firms have shown an increasing interest in investing in Pakistan. Pakistan has reiterated its invitation to India to join the multi-billion dollars project of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). China has said that it supports Pakistan’s counter-terrorism strategy. Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms, Ahsan Iqbal, has said that Pakistan will be capable of repaying the soft loans to China in the future. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China to enhance transparency in projects of the CPEC. Pakistan has welcomed Egypt’s proposal to join the CPEC. Leader of the Awami National Party (ANP), Asfandyar Wali, has warned the central government against the denial of share to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in the CPEC. Chinese Firms Eye Pakistan: A report by Reuters found out that after signing two major deals in recent months, many Chinese firms are interested in acquiring new businesses and land in Pakistan so as to expand the footprint of Chinese investments in the country.[1] The news agency quoted executives of some of Pakistan’s top firms as saying that the Chinese companies were interested in the cement, steel, energy and textile sectors, the bedrock of Pakistan’s economy. A Chinese consortium recently bought 40 percent strategic shares in Pakistan Stock Exchange and Shanghai Electric Power acquired Karachi-Electric Power, one of Pakistan’s biggest energy producers. It is a positive development for Pakistan’s economy as the foreign direct investment tumbled sharply from the peak of $5.4 billion in 2007-08 to $1.9 billion in 2015-16. China has already been engaged in carrying out the $46-$55 billion project of the CPEC that can be pivotal in opening up Pakistan’s economy to foreign investments and businesses. India Invited to Join CPEC: Pakistan has reiterated its invitation to India to join the multi-billion dollars project of CPEC. Pakistan’s Minister for Planning, Development and...
Balancing Critical Choices
What are the key factors in sustaining workable stability in Afghanistan in the wake of dwindling US interest to back up financially and militarily the war-ravaged country? With each passing day, the question is assuming more urgency due to the unpredictable Afghan policy of the new US administration and the recent traction in India–Pakistan proxy war in Afghanistan. The India, Pakistan and Afghanistan triangle is widely considered critical in firming up an acceptable framework for shared governance by all Afghan factions. This school of thought believes that India and Pakistan’s proxy war is the main hindrance in raising the prospect for national reconciliation between the Afghan Government and Taliban. It may not be the whole truth when seen in the backdrop of the recent re-set in regional alliances such as Pakistan aligning itself with Russia and China, and US supporting full steamed Indian role in Afghanistan. More complication sneaked into the Afghan dilemma when Afghan National Unity Government reverses its policy and started promoting India as a replacement of Pakistan in the strong hope that India would help bring peace in the country. Missing from this debate, however, are the deft diplomatic moves of Taliban towards Russia, Iran and tactical area adjustments with different rising ISIS groups against the Afghan Government and US troops. In this context, the development to watch is how tribal affinities and Narco money will outmaneuver political loyalties among Afghan political elites and warlords. Based on my interaction with Afghan members of the Parliament, university teachers and students as well as representatives of civil society in the last two months, "Pakistan averse" elements are far greater in number across all ethnic communities in Afghanistan. Though public anger has acquired momentum of its own, its sustenance hugely depends upon negative statements of Afghan leaders. However, more than in the past, public is ready to accept the government...
Over 10,000 People Killed, Wounded in Past Five Months
On average 70 people were killed and wounded daily in the past five months in Afghanistan, with a third of causalities happening in October. But causalities declined later on as the fighting season came to an end. According to Pajhwok Afghan News reports based on different sources, 5,887 people were killed and 4,410 wounded in 777 attacks in the last five months of 2016. Most of these causalities resulted from face-to-face fighting and airstrikes. Reports showed of each 17 casualties, one was killed or wounded in suicide attacks and one in targeted attacks. Of every 12 casualties, one was caused by roadside bombings and other types of blasts. Defence Ministry’s deputy spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammad Radminsh said the surge in causalities from face-to face-fighting and airstrikes showed Afghan forces had become stronger, inflicting more casualties on the enemy. “One thing I want to make it clear is that Afghan security personnel suffered causalities only in landmine explosions,” he added. Gen. ® Zalmai Wardak, a defence analyst, said a large number of personnel from both parties to the conflict were involved in the fighting and it was the reason behind the surge in causalities resulting from hand-to-hand combat. “It is true the Afghan Air Forcehas emerged strong, but at the same time some of its personnel are inexperienced and sometimes they are provided wrong reports, leading to raids on residential areas and unintended targets. This causes causalities,” he said. Level of insecurity in provinces According to reports, half of the 777 attacks took place in Nangarhar, Helmand, Kandahar, Faryab, Kabul and Farah provinces and 50 percent in 25 other provinces of the country. Pajhwok did not get violence-related report from Panjsher, Bamyan and Daikundi during the period. About the provinces where more raids took place,the MoD spokesman said: “These provinces were strategically important. For instance, trafficking of arms, drugs and human is underway in Helmand and the...
Official: U.S. ‘Aggressively’ Targeting ISIS, Al-Qaida in Afghanistan
U.S. forces in Afghanistan continue to target al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Khorasan, steadily decimating their ranks over the last 12 months. This time last year, American troops were given authority to go after the Islamic State in Khorasan, or ISK, which is part of the Islamic State movement that’s active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Brig. Gen. Charlie Cleveland, a top spokesman for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan. Then, there were close to 3,000 ISK members operating in 10 or 12 districts in Nangarhar province near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Cleveland said. Now there are about 1,000 in two districts, he said. The U.S. counterterrorism mission also eliminated about 200 al-Qaida fighters in 2016. “We view that as pretty successful,” Cleveland said. He declined to provide specifics about the counterterrorism mission, but he did say the U.S. “aggressively” targets members of the two terror groups. “What we can do is as soon as we identify individuals as members of [those organizations], we have the authority to try to capture or kill them,” he said. But even as the U.S. cites progress in its counterterrorism mission, conditions overall in Afghanistan appear bleak, according to a new report from John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR. In his first report to the Trump administration, Sopko, whose office monitors billions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan, said the Afghan government controls barely half the country, its security forces numbers are on the decline, and drug production is on the rise, the Associated Press reported. Sopko did note a noticeable drop in corruption when procuring goods and services, the AP reported Feb. 1. He also called for “continued donor support, plus mentoring and limited tactical support from the U.S. military.” Training and advising For the U.S. troops deployed to train, advise and assist the Afghan National Security Forces, a mission that is often overshadowed by the ongoing...
Stronger Relations Between Russia, US Bring Hope for Peace in Afghanistan
As of November, the Afghan government could only claim to control or influence 57 percent of Afghanistan's 407 districts, according to US military estimates released by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a US watchdog which monitors the funds allocated for reconstruction of Afghanistan, in its quarterly report to the US Congress. That represents a 15 percent decrease in territory held compared with the same time in 2015, the agency said. Commenting on the released data, the former governor of the country's Herat province Mohammad Yunus Fakur blamed the US and NATO who have failed to stabilize the country throughout the long-term presence on the ground. "There is an ongoing fight against terrorists in Afghanistan headed by NATO and the US. The Afghan government is operating solely under their control," he told Sputnik. "The war in our country has been raging for a long time, and still there is no peace as such in almost any province," he added. The former governor further elaborated that at the same time neither drug production nor its illegal trafficking have decreased, and some provinces have witnessed a sharp increase in the production of opiates. "The Afghan people are convinced that it is the fault of the US and NATO who were either unable to prevent this or have not made it their aim," Mohammad Yunus Fakur said. However he further noted that it is impossible to throw them out of Afghanistan as the country's government has signed a Security and Defense Cooperation Agreement, under which both US and NATO military contingents have the right to be stationed on Afghan territory. In a separate comment on the issue, an economist from the capital Kabul Jamsheed Shahabi recalls that it was the USSR which developed the country's major industries. For example, he says, it constructed, among others, a 71-meter-long canal in the Eastern province of Nangarhar with the only dam in the province, the Duranta Dam constructed by the Soviet...
Afghan Weekly (Jan 27 - Feb 02, 2017)
Afghanistan has been experiencing a surge in returning refugees from Pakistan, Iran, and Europe which is exasperating the government's capacity to absorb refugees in an already hard milieu of high unemployment and internally displaced people after decades of war. According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, almost 700,000 Afghans returned home from Pakistan in 2016.[1] The report further anticipated that up to 2.5 million refugees will follow over the next 18 months, which will add nearly 10 per cent to Afghanistan’s population. This is a massive influx calling for enormous resources. CEO Abdullah Abdullah said at the Council of Ministers Meeting that Afghanistan will need more humanitarian aid this year in order to deal with the flood of thousands of return refugees as well as all the internally displaced people. This comes after the Afghan government recently called on the international community to help with $550 million USD which is needed to address the problem.[2] Upon Trump’s arrival in the White House, former president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai urged the incoming U.S. President to keep their promises on ending terror camps in Pakistan that President Obama had failed to do.[3] Meanwhile, the former American General and Commander of US forces in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, suggested that sustained commitment of US forces in Afghanistan is the only way to prevent the country from becoming a terrorist sanctuary once again. Of pledges, the United Nations, too, reassured its firm commitment to Afghanistan and its people, as stated by Miroslav Jenča, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, following a four-day visit to Afghanistan this week.[4] On the economic front, Kabul is doing pretty well as the government recently signed $55.8 million worth of electricity supply contracts for Logar, Paktia and Khost provinces.[5] The Afghan government has also approved contracts worth 7.4 billion American Forces Network (AFN) during a meeting of...
What Is India’s “Cold Start” Military Doctrine?
Last week India celebrated its 68th Republic Day, the highlight of which is an elaborate parade to show off India’s military might (pictured). Soldiers goose-stepped and tanks rolled down Rajpath, New Delhi’s main ceremonial thoroughfare, as India's president, Pranab Mukherjee, and this year’s guest of honour, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, looked on. Fighter jets screeched overhead. The annual display was particularly pointed this year, coming barely three weeks after Bipin Rawat, India’s new army chief, acknowledged in an interview the existence of the country’s “Cold Start” military doctrine. What is Cold Start and why did General Rawat, who took office on December 31st, mention it in public? Cold Start is the name given to a limited-war strategy designed to seize Pakistani territory swiftly without, in theory, risking a nuclear conflict. It has its roots in an attack on India’s parliament in 2001, which was carried out by terrorist groups allegedly used as proxies by Pakistan’s powerful intelligence services (ISI). India’s response to the onslaught was a flop: by the time its lumbering Strike Corps were mobilised and positioned on the frontier, Pakistan had already bulked up its defences, raising both the costs of incursion and the risk that it would escalate into a nuclear conflict. Cold Start is an attempt to draw lessons from this: having nimbler, integrated units stationed closer to the border would allow India to inflict significant harm before international powers demanded a ceasefire; by pursuing narrow aims, it would also deny Pakistan a justification for triggering a nuclear strike. Yet India has refused to own up to the existence of the doctrine since it was first publicly discussed in 2004. Nor was its rumoured existence enough to stop Pakistani terrorists from launching devastating attacks in Mumbai in 2008, killing 164 people. One reason for India to keep its cards close to its chest is that it may not be capable of...
Report: Militant Groups in Afghanistan Get Rich off Mineral Smuggling
The smuggling of Afghan minerals supplies millions of dollars to armed groups, insurgents and strongmen in the country, an Afghan anti-corruption watchdog reported Wednesday. The Afghanistan Anti-Corruption Network said in a report that militant groups last year received at least $46 million from minerals and precious stones illegally exported from eastern Nangarhar province to neighboring Pakistan. The report said up to 750,000 tons of marble and talc stones were smuggled in 2016 from various parts of the restive province, where Taliban and Islamic State fighters have been active in several districts. "Every day, 500 trucks carrying white stones pass through government-controlled roads and arrive in Pakistan from where the stones are shipped to European countries," Zaman Khan Amarkhail, president of the anti-corruption network, told Radio Liberty's Afghanistan service. "Each truck carries around 45 tons of stone." Talc, one of the most in-demand minerals, is used in the manufacturing of various products including cosmetics, plastics, ceramics and paints. Afghanistan has some of the world's richest mineral resources, including extensive deposits of world-class copper, iron, gemstones and precious metals. Surveillance of mines 'weak' Insurgent groups and local strongmen have taken over mining operations in many areas and put a levy on minerals smuggled out of the country, watchdog groups say. "Unregistered and illegal artisanal and small-scale mining operations continue to be a source of civil strife, unrealized government revenues, and lost economic output," the U.S. Special Inspector General for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (SIGAR) said last year in a report. "The unregulated and illegal excavation and trafficking of precious stones and other minerals has played a role in the fundraising strategies for militant groups and organized crime syndicates," the SIGAR report said. The Afghan government says fighting between Afghan forces and militant groups has led...
Sabawoon Showcase [January 30, 2017]
Show Title: The Significance of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Sehat Insaf Cards Program The latest episode of Jarga Maraka (debate and council) focused on the importance of KP government’s Sehat Insaf Cards program for the health security in the province. The show discussed the issuance of cards to poor families, health survey in KP to identify deserving beneficiaries, statistics about the progress of program, coordination between health and other departments, cards validity and utilization procedure, selection of hospitals, and the list of diseases that are covered by Sehat Insaf Cards program. Mr. Riaz Tanoli, Director Sehat Insaf Cards Program, Peshawar, was the in-studio guest. Mr. Tanoli said: “Five billion rupees have been earmarked for this two-year program. Accordingly, 1.8 million cards will be distributed in 25 districts on the basis of data collected by Benazir Income Support Program. Card holders will be awarded with Rs. 5,40,000 for the purpose of health security.” A radio report, part of the show, shared data about the Sehat Insaf Card. Twelve callers participated live in the show. They urged the government to distribute cards among the people of far flung areas as they had no access to proper health facilities. About Sabawoon Sabawoon airs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). It is designed to highlight the local issues and promote the fundamental governance values, such as democracy, rule of law, women’s rights, and equal citizenry. The show airs Monday through Thursday every week under four themes on FM-101.5 Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan 711 KHZ from 3:20 PM to 4:00 PM. On Monday, Jarga Maraka covers current affairs and important regional issues with an input from government and other senior officials. On Tuesday, Da Simay Jaaj gives an overview of the top stories from KP and FATA regions. Jwandai Jazbey airs on Wednesday and deals with issues of relevance to, and significance for, youth, students and women....
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I am also a member of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. Recently, we held a meeting with the Director General of Radio Pakistan and we told them to initiate such local programs (like Constituency Hour) in regional languages to educate and inform people. Even Indian Radio can be heard in FATA which is being used for propaganda purposes and must be closed. Therefore, we should launch some standard and quality programs like CRSS that will change the taste of the listeners.