Reply #30: US tells Afghan warlords security needed for aid

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US tells Afghan warlords security needed for aid

MAZAR-I-SHARIF: US Undersecretary of Defence Dov Zakheim has told rival factions in northern Afghanistan they cannot expect reconstruction aid if they continue to fight each other.

Speaking after meeting faction leaders in the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday, Zakheim said there was a link between such aid and security. “Of course, if the conflict continues, it makes it very hard for the humanitarian efforts,” he said.

“They have seen that we have invested in places where there are no skirmishes.”

In Mazar, Zakheim met Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, his rival Ustad Atta Mohammad of the Jamiat-e-Islami faction, and a representative of the Shi’ite Hezb-i-Wahdat. Repeated clashes between Dostum’s and Atta’s forces in northern Afghanistan in recent months have claimed the lives of dozens of people, both soldiers and non-combatants.

Zakheim said he had received assurances from them that they would work to improve security to allow implementation of humanitarian and reconstruction programmes.

Last week, after a visit by the US special representative to Afghanistan Zalmai Khalilzad, the rivals agreed to start disarming their forces in the cities and remote areas.

Zakheim said relations between Dostum and Atta appeared civil.

“They seemed to be very comfortable together,” he said, adding that said they were working together to disarm and reduce the number of what they termed “skirmishes” between their forces.

Both Atta and Dostum are members of President Hamid Karzai’s U.S-backed government that came to power last year after the ouster of the former Taliban regime. However they have appeared more interested in pursuing regional interests than helping the central government establish its control.

Last month Karzai threatened to sack regional warlords and government officials if they continued to abuse their power.

Before his visit to the north, Zakheim met in Kabul with Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim to discuss US-backed efforts to rebuild the national army, ministry officials said. —Reuters

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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_3-11-2002_pg4_15

It was Karzai who declared at a February 26 joint news conference, with US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the occasion of his one-day visit to Kabul, that the Taliban were defeated and "as a movement does not exist any more." "They are gone," he said, attributing continuing violence to "common criminals", as opposed to politically driven insurgents.

These were the boldest public statements made by Karzai about the Taliban since he took office after the Taliban's ouster, in early 2002. Similarly dismissive of the group's capabilities, Rumsfeld stated: "I'm not seeing any indication the Taliban pose any military threat to Afghanistan." Only a week earlier, one of Rumsfeld's top aides at the Pentagon, Under Secretary of Defense Dov S Zakheim, contemptuously spoke of the "cowardly" nature of Taliban operations.

Such proclamations would normally arouse feelings of unbridled relief and joy among most Afghans and internationals working in Afghanistan - that is, if they did not contrast so sharply with recent events on the ground. More than 550 people have been killed over the past six months, making it the most violent period in the two years that have elapsed since the fall of the Taliban regime. Within 12 days, between February 14 and February 26, nine Afghan aid workers and one US soldier were killed in separate incidents across the country. Perhaps what is most alarming about this recent spate of attacks are the tactics that have been employed. Since December 28, 2003, there have been four suicide attacks in Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of eight people - six Afghan intelligence agents and two International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) peacekeeping soldiers.

The evidence does not support the notion of an overwhelmed and defeated enemy.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:Imcfb34lGvcJ:discuss.agonist.org/yabbse/index.php%3Fboard%3D1%3Baction%3Ddisplay%3Bthreadid%3D18492+zakheim+Fahim&hl=en

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http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+article+storyid-2609.html