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Russia is expected to host a second round of international talks on Afghanistan in Moscow on February 15, reports Russia's TASS news agency, with Afghanistan representatives invited for the first time.

Russia says it wants stability and cooperation in the fight against extremists in the region. But Afghan officials are not happy with Russias direct talks with the Taliban, which U.S. officials say are aimed at undermining their efforts.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the peace talks on February 7, during a visit by his Afghan counterpart, Salahuddin Rabbani.

China and Pakistan were at December talks in Moscow, while Iran, India and Afghanistan representatives are invited to participate at this weeks round for the first time.

It is not yet clear which representatives have accepted the invitation.

The Russian side will be represented by special presidential envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov and Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, reports TASS.

US not invited

The essence of these talks is to get together all the countries that have at least some influence in Afghanistan: on the government, or on any informal level, on the armed opposition level, and to work out a certain consensus, so that these countries could implement it in their policies, says the Center of Contemporary Afghanistan Studies Dmitry Verlhoturov.

The United States has not been invited to participate in the talks.

The exclusion of Afghanistan from the first round raised concerns among officials in Kabul as well as in the United States.

We should not overestimate [the] real ability of [the] Afghan government to control its territory, says Director of the Analytical Center at the Institute for International Studies at MGIMO University Andrey Kazantsev. And this was probably one of the reasons why [the] Russian government sometimes acted in cooperation with other players but not with Afghan government.

Russia wants security cooperation to fight against Islamic State terrorists gaining ground in Central Asia.

Afghanistan is a place where there are many international terrorists. Many of them are with Russian passports or they are Central Asians, Russian-speaking Central Asians, who can also represent a threat for Russia, says Kazantsev.

Taliban and Islamic State

While the United Nations says the Taliban is responsible for five times as many deaths and injuries, Islamic State group attacks are growing fast in Afghanistan with a ten-fold growth in 2016.

There is (Russian) expectation that the Taliban leaders could be talked into opposing the Islamic State and defeating them, says the Center of Contemporary Afghanistan Studies Verlhoturov. What is it for? So that Afghanistan wouldn't become a shelter for the leaders and militants of the IS who would flee in case of defeat in Syria and Iraq.

U.S. officials say Russias contacts with the Taliban, along with Irans and Pakistans, lends them legitimacy and support, while undermining the Afghan government and NATO efforts to fight the extremists.

On one hand it's absurd to say that Russia doesn't strive to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan, says Verlhoturov. On the other hand, the Russian leadership is very concerned that the U.S. has acquired several big air bases there that could be used for the deployment of nuclear bombers.

Russia also looks at the conflict in Afghanistan somewhat cynically, says Kazantsev.

We know that in some parts of Afghanistan, especially in the east of Afghanistan, there is a real war between Taliban and Islamic State. So, If one terrorist wants to kill another terrorist, why should we prevent this?

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan says thousands more U.S. troops are needed there to train Afghanistans forces to better handle threats to security.

Ricardo Marquina Montanana contributed to this report.

More here:
Moscow Expected to Host Afghanistan Talks - Voice of America

U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan are investigating reports that at least 18 civilians were killed in American airstrikes last week, officials said Monday.

The airstrikes occurred Feb. 9 and 10 in Sangin, a heavily contested district in Helmand provincewhere U.S. forces have been offering increased support to Afghan soldiers seeking to dislodge Taliban militants.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said over the weekend that initial inquiries suggest that the airstrikes killed at least 18 civilians, nearly all women and children.

Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, deputy chief of staff for the U.S.-led coalition, confirmed that the U.S. conducted airstrikes in Sangin last week and said investigators were looking into the reports.

The investigation is continuing and has not yet reached any conclusions, Cleveland said.

The U.S. airstrikes come amid a widening battle in Helmand, the poppy-growing province and Taliban haven that saw the most casualties among Afghan civilians in 2016and the most U.S. military fatalities since the 2001 American-led invasion.

In recent months, hundreds of U.S. troops, operating mainly in an advisory role, have been deployed to the province to assist Afghan soldiers in battling Taliban fighters who have claimed control of most of the districts.

A spokesman for the Afghan defense ministry, Dawlat Waziri, denied the reports of civilian casualties but said the ministry had sent a delegation to Sangin to investigate the incident.

Abdul Ghafar Akhund, a 54-year-old supervisor of polio vaccination programs and prayer leader at a mosque in Sangin, said his wife, two daughters, a son and a daughter-in-law were killed when an airstrike hit his house. A 9-year-old boy was injured, he said.

Akhund, who was away from home, returned to find his house destroyed. He denied that there were Taliban members in the area, saying U.S. troops had visited his neighborhood days before the incident.

The Americans have been taking revenge on us, he said. They dont differentiate between civilians and noncivilians, women and children. They must coordinate with the Afghan government.

U.S. airstrikes have been increasing in Afghanistan since former President Obama expanded the militarys authority to conduct operations against the Taliban and Islamic State. The U.N. reported last week that airstrikes caused 250 deaths and 340 injuries in Afghanistan in 2016, twice the number recorded the year before.

Special correspondent Faizy reported from Kabul and Times staff writer Shashank Bengali from Sofia, Bulgaria.

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia

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A US airstrike may have killed 18 civilians, 'nearly all women and children,' UN report says - Los Angeles Times

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Gun shy Afghanistan sniffer dog book to inspire new readers - BBC News

ISLAMABAD

Russia is hosting a conference in Moscow this week that will bring together Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, India and Iran to discuss a possible solution of the conflict in Afghanistan.

This meeting is part of Russia's effort at playing a more pro-active role in Afghanistan for the first time since the former Soviet Union's invasion of the country in 1979. Its efforts, however, have encountered controversies at the very outset.

The last conference Moscow hosted on Afghanistan in December included only China and Pakistan, prompting a strong protest from the Afghan government.

The one this week is more inclusive of the regional stakeholders, but excludes the United States or NATO, leading to speculation that Russia is more interested in undermining the Unites States than in solving the regional problems.

At a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, chairman Senator John McCain said Russia is propping up the Taliban to undermine the U.S.

Given how troubling the situation is in Afghanistan, any efforts by any outside stakeholder to look for regional solutions to the war there should be welcomed, said Michael Kugelman, deputy Asia director at the Washington based Wilson Center. The question he asked, however, was what is Russia trying to do.

Is it genuinely trying to rally the key players to come up with an actionable plan to wind down the war? Or is it just trying to scale up its role in Afghanistan to undercut U.S. influence?

Other regional analysts, however, are looking at the development with more optimism.

This framework does include all the regional players that have a major stake in Afghanistan, according to Amina Khan of the Institute for Strategic Studies Islamabad, a Pakistani government run think tank.

Terrorism is a global phenomena but I think regional countries need to play a more pro-active role, she added.

At the last trilateral, Russias primary focus was on the presence of the Islamist militant group Islamic State in Eastern Afghanistan. Moscow does not want its influence to spread to the Muslim population in the Caucasus bordering Russia.

However, Gen. John Nicholson, the man leading the U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee recently that Russia is trying to publicly legitimize the Taliban with a false narrative that the Taliban is fighting Islamic State, not the Afghan government.

However, Russia is not the only country in the region worried about IS influence and using the Taliban as a hedge. Iran also has started supporting the Taliban to keep IS influence away from areas bordering Iran. China has had contacts with the Taliban for a while, hosting several secret meetings between the Taliban and Afghan government officials or peace envoys.

Expectations from the upcoming conference, meanwhile, are low at this stage.

The fact that three countries have been added to the list at this point for the first time means it's still going to be in the initial stages of getting to know each other, and getting to hear each others narrative and try to make sense of it. I dont see anything big coming out of this, said Omar Samad, former Afghan ambassador to Canada and France.

Several similar efforts have fallen victim to the tension and mistrust between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Whether this process succeeds, will depend on whether Russia and China can persuade the two to work out their differences.

Read the rest here:
Russia Gathers Stakeholders, Sans US or NATO, for Afghanistan Conference - Voice of America

By Cait Flynn Staff Writer

Northern provinces in Afghanistan and Pakistan have been hit with nearly 10 feet of snow in the past week that has killed 106 people and injured scores more on both sides of the border.

The snow closed down highways and airports and spurred avalanches across the mountainous region.

Avalanches have buried two entire villages, a representative of Afghanistans Ministry of State Natural Disasters said, according to a BBC report.

After one avalanche, 53 died in the province of Nuristan in northeast Afghanistan, according to BBC. The same source reported that there were 13 deaths after an avalanche near the town of Chitral in Pakistan.

The death toll is expected to rise as continued snowfall has blocked access to remote towns, forcing the rescue efforts to rely on helicopters to search for survivors and deliver aid, according to Time magazine.

Hamid Karzai International Airport, the largest in Afghanistan, was forced to shut down after 2 feet of snow accumulated on the runway, according to NPR.

Likewise, snowfall on Kabul-Kandahar highway has stranded upwards of 250 vehicles. Motorists are trapped without food on the highway at least two motorists froze to death in their cars, BBC reported.

Most affected are women and children, said Hafiz Abdul Qayyom, Nuristan Province Governor. The area is completely blocked because of snow, so it is very difficult for us to send support, but we are trying our best, according to Al Jazeera.

American intelligence agencies and upwards of 13,000 NATO troops are currently in Afghanistan aiding in a so-called train, advise, assist mission, though it is unclear yet if they will be playing a role in recovery efforts, NPR reported.

The rest is here:
Avalanches in Afghanistan and Pakistan Claim More than 100 Lives - The Signal