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Twenty U.S.-designated terrorist organizations operate in the Afghanistan-Pakistan sub-region; seven of the 20 organizations are in Pakistan. So long as these groups maintain safe haven inside of Pakistan they will threaten long-term stability in Afghanistan. Of particular concern to us is the Haqqani Network (HQN) which poses the greatest threat to coalition forces operating in Afghanistan. General Joseph Votel, Posture Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 2017.

The Taliban and the Haqqani network are the greatest threats to security in Afghanistan. Their senior leaders remain insulated from pressure and enjoy freedom of action within Pakistan safe havens. As long as they enjoy external enablement, they have no incentive to reconcile. The primary factor that will enable our success is the elimination of external sanctuary and support to the insurgents. General John Nicholson, Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Situation in Afghanistan, February 2017.

After 15-plus years, the war in Afghanistan remains a strategic stalemate because defeating an enemy requires taking away its capacity and will. The Coalition and Afghan forces have hit the enemys capacity year after year but the Talibans willtheir senior leaders, support, resources, rest, regeneration, and armscontinue to benefit from sanctuary and support from Pakistans security establishment. In his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) in February of this year, the theater commander, General John Nicholson, stated that he believed the war in Afghanistan was a stalemate. It has been a strategic stalemate for at least the last ten years and arguably for the last 15 years. As early as 2003 the then-top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General John Vines, stated publicly that the Taliban were benefiting from Pakistans sanctuaries to regroup. So despite suffering many losses in leaders and capacity inside Afghanistan year after year, the Taliban have not quit, and are resilient in regenerative capacity. Tactical and operational momentum have ebbed and flowed throughout the war. The Coalition and its Afghan partners have made some errors, but they have improved and adapted during the course of the war. The Afghan security forces have grown in quantity and improved in quality, and have led the fight for several years. During the peak numbers of exogenous forces for the war in 2010-2011, the Coalition forces, along with their Afghan partners, achieved marked tactical gains and operational momentum. To be sure, Coalition and Afghan forces have undertaken many counterterrorism and counterinsurgency actions that have punished, disrupted, and displaced the Taliban and the Haqqani leadership and infrastructure, year after year.

Yet these gains at the tactical and operational levels have been short-lived and have generally lacked meaning in the face of the most conspicuous impediment to strategic success: Pakistans sanctuary and support for the enemy. Killing, capturing, disrupting, and displacing insurgent and terrorist enemies, fighting season after fighting season, absent genuine strategic momentum, have made this a perpetual war. It is beginning to seem like a Groundhog-Day war where fulfilling the purpose remains elusive. In theory, the purpose of war is to serve policy; in practice, if war is not linked to strategic rationale and momentum, the nature of war is to serve itself. Fighting year after year within the context of a strategic stalemate is essentially violence and war serving themselves and not policy.

General Nicholson has conceived a laudable idea for an operational method to help break the stalemate by about 2020. His idea is to invest in those forces that have demonstrated the best capacity to outfight the Taliban in most engagements: the Afghan Special Security Forces (ASSF) and the Afghan Air Force (AAF). In his recent SASC testimony, he explained his operational idea to grow the ASSF and AAF to build an overmatch in offensive capacity vis--vis the Taliban, to ultimately achieve tactical and operational momentum. The idea is to create an offensive punch that will outmatch the Taliban and break the stalemate. An offensive overmatch in the best Afghan security forces will create a tactical and operational capacity to hit the Taliban hard, disrupting, capturing, and displacing their leaders and infrastructure. This concept will create operational momentum by taking away Taliban capacity and by increasing the Afghan governments control over more key population areas. But tactical gains and operational momentum alone will not break the stalemate. Offensive punch and tactical overmatch will set the enemy back, but without strategic change in reducing the enemys external sanctuary, these gains will be impermanent. There were marked tactical gains and discernible operational momentum during the uplift of forces period in 2010-2011, but they did not break the strategic stalemate because Pakistan continued to provide sanctuary and support.

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To Break the Stalemate in Afghanistan, America Must Break Pakistan's Pathologies - The National Interest Online (blog)

Disabled people say they face social prejudice and government inaction.

By Farid Tanha

Fazluddin, a tall, thin 25-year-old who lives in Dolana, central Parwan, has a whole household to support on nothing more than disability stipends.

He himself lost his right eye and suffered multiple injuries aged just two when the family was caught in a Taleban bombardment. His mother, who now lives with him, lost her right arm in the same attack.

Fazluddin also has to support his 55-year-old aunt Suraya, who was paralysed in a grenade strike during the Russian occupation of the 1980s.

"We live in a house that stays cold all winter. We eat once a day, he told IWPR, explaining that the whole family, including his wife, had to live from the 900 US dollars the household received annually in disability payments.

We pay 50 dollars rent per month. I still owe money from my wedding. Tell me, what can I do?" he continued.

Despite an impoverished childhood, Fazluddin finished high school and has qualifications in English and computer skills. But he has been unable to find work, he said, because of his disability.

"I went everywhere. When they noticed that I was blind in one eye, they not only refused me work but also made fun of me. I tore up all my school certificates in frustration," he said, adding, "You need either powerful relations or money to achieve your basic rights in this country."

His aunt Suraya said that her experience of decades of living as a paraplegic had shown her that government assurances of aid were meaningless.

"Ive received nothing from the government except the monthly stipend, which I get with a lot of difficulty, since the day I was paralyzed, she said, adding that even reaching the bank or accessing other public buildings was often impossible due to the lack of disabled access. They promised to provide me with a plot of land to live on, but I have not yet received it. They made me many promises, but I received nothing."

Disabled people in Parwan province, just north of Kabul, say that the government has failed to meet its obligations to them despite legislation guaranteeing their rights. Local officials, in turn, say that they are doing their best with the resources available to them

Afghanistan has ratified several international conventions on disability rights, and according to its own Law of Rights and Privileges of Persons with Disabilities, government offices are supposed to fill at least three per cent of their posts with disabled people.

Wakil Ahmad Suhail, the director of labour, social affairs, martyrs and the disabled in Parwan province, admitted that this law had yet to be enforced.

Suhail said that 5,140 disabled people were registered with their office, including 300 women. All received government stipends.

But he said that the only disabled employee he knew of in a local government office was a woman in his own department.

Suhail acknowledged that the government was also committed to a number of other measures including improving education provision and providing low-cost housing for disabled people, although little progress had been made.

But other local officials said that their departments were doing the most they could to support disabled people and their families.

The director of Parwan department for refugees, Aqa Shirin Khalil, said that his office had arranged the distribution of five blocs of residential land plots to refugees, each containing 1,200 residential plots, in the Bini Arsak and Barikab areas of Bagram district.

Out of this number, 650 plots were reserved for disabled people and would be transferred to them free of charge, he continued.

"Residential plots have also been considered for disabled people in the departments future plans as well, although the number is not yet clear," Khalil said.

Parwans deputy director of education, Nizamuddin Rahimi, said that they had distributed 664 plots of land to teachers in the Hufyan Sharif area in central Parwan, including 20 plots for teachers with disabilities.

"The disabled people received the plots for free, he said.

Mirajuddin Majid, the director of guidance and hajj in Parwan, said that the ministry had allocated 523 places for Parwan residents to make the pilgrimage last year.

This quota included five disabled people, although he noted that applicants had to pay for their own hajj.

DEMANDING CHANGE

"We have always campaigned on this issue, Ahmad Zia Langari, a representative of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), told IWPR. We also always highlight the problems of disabled people to the government in our annual reports.

The government needs to read our reports. The parliament should also see our reports and in turn put pressure on the government. We bring up the issue of disabled people in every meeting and gathering and in strategic and lawmaking fields and will continue campaigning."

Parwan provincial council secretary Sahmsulhaq Shaikani acknowledged that disability rights had been the subject of numerous meetings between officials and activists, but said that the government simply lacked the budget to address these problems.

"Disabled people have high expectations, Shaikhani said. The government addresses their needs to the extent we are able. Weve met government officials to discuss the problems of the disabled several times and shared their concerns. The officials promised to address the issues."

He added that when private or state institutions provide aid, disabled people were given priority.

Activists say this is far from enough.

Abdul Hakim Hamdard, the chairman of social council of the disabled people in Parwan, lost both his legs in a mine blast in 1991. He said that the problem was that national and international laws related to disability provision were simply not implemented.

Although Afghan disability law mandates that ministries, government offices, transportation facilities and all new public construction should include facilities for the disabled in their design, this is rarely the case.

Hamdard explained that his advocacy work meant that he needed to access local government offices on a daily basis. This in itself was an enormous struggle as there were no facilities for disabled people, Hamdard explained.

"Sometimes, people help us. They take our hands or carry us up. The major problem for disabled people is how to go up and down the stairs."

Despite this lack of basic provision, some disabled people manage to overcome the considerable obstacles to pursue successful careers.

Mushtari Danish, 34, a resident of Chanki Ulya village of Sayyidkhel District in Parwan, was paralysed in childhood as the result of polio.

Nonetheless, she has been working as a teacher for the last nine years, although she said it had proved terribly hard to find work.

After graduation, she said, "I went to an office and applied to be a teacher. They told me, Go away my child. Even healthy people cannot find a job and you are disabled. I was so disappointed."

Undeterred, she not only went on to find work in her chosen field but also drives and has a Corolla car, adapted by the Red Cross to have a hand-operated accelerator and brake. Last year, she completed a degree in Islamic theology in night classes at Parwans Alberuni university.

This report was produced under IWPRs Promoting Human Rights and Good Governance in Afghanistan initiative, funded by the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan.

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Afghanistan: Fighting for Disability Rights - Afghanistan | ReliefWeb - ReliefWeb

Security concerns remain as one of the primary reasons behind Indonesian businesspeople's decision to avoid investment opportunities in Afghanistan, Vice President Jusuf Kalla has said.

Very few businessmen are interested in investing in areas with high security issues, said Kalla as quoted by Antara after meeting with Afghanistan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani in Jakarta on Thursday.

Kalla made the statement in response to the Afghanistan governments call for Indonesia to invest in the Central Asian country. They [Afghanistan delegation members] are scheduled to meet with our businessmen. It is likely there will be such [investment] offers in the meeting, but its better to start it with trade cooperation [talks] first, he said.

After having accepted Kallas honorary visit, President Ghani is scheduled to open an Indonesia-Afghanistan business meeting in Jakarta. Dozens of Afghanistan business delegates, Trade Minister Airlangga Hartarto and Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) officials will attend the meeting.

The Afghanistan government will reportedly offer investment opportunities in oil and gas, copper mining and gemstones.

Commenting on the issue of security, Kalla said President Ghani wanted to learn from Indonesia on how best to resolve domestic conflicts.

They want to learn from Indonesia on how to maintain peace and solidity of national unity. Its very important because its very difficult to maintain peace in Afghanistan, said Kalla.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and Indonesian Ambassador to Afghanistan Arief Rachman accompanied Kalla in his one-hour meeting with President Ghani. (rdi/ebf)

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Security concerns scaring off Indonesian investors in Afghanistan: VP Kalla - Jakarta Post

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When I graduated from West Point in 2009, the war in Afghanistan was one of the hottest topics. President Barack Obamas campaign and young presidency had been defined, in large part, by the debate about what should be done in Afghanistan. Should the US adopt a limited counterterrorism and training mission or a more comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign demanding tens of thousands more troops on the ground? After thoroughly considering the options, Obama chose a version of the latter. As a newly minted Army officer, I recognized the careful consideration he gave to the issue, and it inspired confidence. I could hardly wait to set foot on Afghan soil and contribute to the effort.

I was ultimately deployed to Afghanistan twice, spending a total of 16 months in various intelligence positions. And now, the war rages through its sixteenth year. Ive lost friends to the conflict, and other friends have lost limbs. The US has made an immense financial investmentin 2014, it was reported the US had spent more on reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan than it spent on the Marshall Plan, which brought Europe back from the brink after WWII. Yet the American commander in Afghanistan recently described the war as at a stalemate. Indeed, Americas path forward in Afghanistan is as unclear as ever.

Afghanistan was a practically non-existent topic during the campaign and the presidential debates. As a candidate, Donald Trump provided only sporadic suggestions that he would begrudgingly maintain a troop presence in Afghanistan. Now in office, the Trump administration has offered little clarity. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer indicated that the administration is reviewing Afghanistan policy, and military leadership seemingly supports a troop increase, though Defense Secretary James Mattis has not decided what his recommendation will be. But amidst all of the Trump administrations controversies, this issue has suffered from a severe lack of executive attention. On a matter of war, America deserves more from the White House than infrequent, subdued references.

Trump, for his part, shows little interest in the war in Afghanistan. Since assuming office, he has seldom even uttered the countrys name in public, much less offered any substantive statements about the conflict. Despite inheriting more deployed troops in Afghanistan than any other combat zone, the president, who has crowned himself champion of veteran and military causes, seems unmoored from the reality that the US is still engaged in this war. His silence is beginning to draw attention on Capitol Hill, where members of Congress are eager to learn what the presidents plans are. Even the Afghan government is doing what it can, including highlighting its mineral wealth, to get Trumps attention.

If Trump really wants to honor veterans and the military, he should exercise his responsibilities as president and commander in chief. That is, he should encourage an honest and public debate about Afghanistan and then deliver an informed policy decision, as his predecessor did. Trump owes at least this much to the wars veteransfallen, wounded, and forever changed alikeand especially to those who serve there now or will in the future.

Trump also owes it to himself to keep diplomatic instruments on the table as he deliberates. His budget proposal suggests that he cares only for military might and disregards the value of diplomacy and foreign aid. Yet approaching Afghanistan with this attitude forces a binary choicean exclusively military solution or nothing at all. What savvy business leader would remove potentially useful tools before even meaningfully contemplating a strategy? After all, a collection of retired generals and admirals has vouched for the value of soft-power mechanisms, explaining, many of the crises our nation faces do not have military solutions alone. And General Joseph Votel, the Commander of U.S. Central Command, said in a recent Senate hearing that the U.S. cannot achieve lasting positive effects in his region of responsibilitywhich includes Afghanistansolely through military means.

I write not to prescribe a solution. Many sides of the debate have merit and involve important interests, but thorough discourse, which remains open to all options, is the best way to reach a thoughtful policy. And admittedly, the war can be difficult for the country to discuss, especially for veterans who struggle to reconcile their good-faith efforts with the hard truth that the war has so far been unsuccessful. But its the presidents jobas a leaderto elevate the discussion, marshal resources, navigate difficult discussions, and provide an answer to veterans, service members, and the nation. Whatever the eventual decision, President Trump needs to give Afghanistan the attention it deserves. And his usual excuse for not articulating a policya suggestion that he has asecret planwont suffice.

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The US Public Deserves More than Trump's Silence on Afghanistan - Just Security

KABUL (Pajhwok): NATOs Resolute Support (RS) mission in Afghanistan on Thursday said their goal in the year 2017 was to defeat Daesh or Islamic State (IS) militants in the conflict-torn country.

William Slavin, a spokesman for the US-led RS mission in Afghanistan, told a joint press conference with Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri in Kabul: We know 2017 will be full of challenges, but we will continue to train, advise and help the Afghans so they are able to stabilize their country.

He said the Afghan forces were 20 percent stronger than they had been in 2016, with the Afghan air force recently obtaining four more A-29 aircrafts.

Our goal in 2017 is to defeat the IS so the militant group in other parts of the world refrain from considering Afghanistan as a safe haven. We warn them they would be either killed or arrested if they come to Afghanistan, Slavin said.

He said 200 Daesh and Al Qaeda militants had been killed in 79 airstrikes in Nangarhar province since March 21.

Daesh lost 50 percent of its fighters and 2/3 part of the territory they previously controlled in Afghanistan, he said.

The spokesman said the RS had allocated $2.7 million for reconstruction of the Sardar Daud Khan Military hospital in Kabul.

At least 49 people were killed and over 50 others wounded in the March 8 terrorist attack on the 400-bed hospital.

To a question, Slavin said if Russia or any other country wanted to support Afghanistan in the fight against terrorism, they should support the country through legal ways, not by backing the Taliban.

He said any type of help extended to the Taliban was against the interest of Afghanistan.

mds/ma

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2017 goal is to defeat IS in Afghanistan: NATO - Pajhwok Afghan News (subscription) (blog)