More information on 2008 Taliban talks in Mecca

With the possibility of talks between the Afghan government and its Taliban foes now taking a central role, it is worth taking a look at an article by Hamid Mir, published in The News, which gives the fullest account published so far of the talks that took place in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in September 2008.
According to Mir:
"The Afghan Taliban in the Makkah talks were represented by their former foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, former minister Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, and Afghanistan’s last ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef. It is said the trio had travelled to Makkah to perform Umra, but sources said they were hosted as official guests of the Saudi government. They were also among those who attended the Iftar-cum-dinner party of King Abdullah on September 29, 2008. The Afghanistan government delegation was led by former chief justice Maulvi Abdul Hadi Shinwari and included, among others, Abdul Salam Rocketi, a Taliban commander under Mullah Omar who eventually surrendered to the US."
Mir says the talks foundered over Taliban demands that all US and foreign forces leave the country before they would consider such questions as handing over Osama bin Laden or signing up to support the Afghan constitution.
He also says that Prince Turki al-Faisal played an important role in convening the talks. Prior to the talks, the Saudis also sent an emissary to North Waziristan to meet with the Afghan Taliban leadership. At one point it was hoped the emissary might be able to meet with al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri. The meeting never took place and only lower-level Taliban leaders made themselves available, possibly for security reasons.
The make-up of the Taliban delegation to Mecca explains how the Taliban can claim that no official representatives were present at the talks. All three men are former Taliban ministers who live under the Karzai regime and have renounced violence, but who retain links with their former comrades.

How Karzai outsmarted the diplomats

Haseeb Humayoon's report for the Institute for the Study of War on President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan elections, The Re-election of Hamid Karzai, answers a number of questions that have been bugging me for some time.
Why did US Ambassador Eikenberry ostentatiously visit the office of rival candidates during the election campaign and why did US Special Representative Richard Holbrooke press so hard for a run-off against Abdullah Abdullah? Most fundamentally, why did the US allow the media and public to believe that it was against a Karzai victory in the elections? Humayoon argues cogently that most Afghans were against such a run-off.
He says that US diplomats underestimated President Karzai's grip on the political machine in Kabul. Karzai was able to outsmart US diplomats because he had formed alliances (documented by this blog, but not by many writers) with a select group of regional and local leaders, including Ismail Khan, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, Haji Mohammad Muhaqiq and Gul Agha Sherzai. He says that the choice of vice president and defence minister Marshal Fahim was critical to the success of Karzai's campaign.
Karzai's political machine also included the nucleus of a new political elite, savvy and connected, whose reach to areas outside Kabul, says Humayoon, "is much greater than generally recognised. Often their influence beyond the capital exists through personal, commercial, family, and political networks, rather than through official institutions that are easily recognizable to the international community."
Humayoon says that the Kabul regime has not so much been losing out to insurgents in more remote parts of Afghanistan. Instead, both Kabul and the insurgents have been competing to fill political vacuums, where there has been no political life for more than a generation. This makes perfect sense and is a perceptive insight.
The corollary is that although the insurgency has been expanding, few people have noticed the extent to which Karzai and his allies have also been extending their political networks outside the capital.
It therefore follows that there is little point in trying to explain events in Afghanistan by using such terms as 'corruption', 'fraud' or 'warlords'. This form of analysis belongs to a different era. Of course, corruption continues to exist, but concentrating on this hides the growing commercial interests and the rise of an "ambitious, wealthy and influential political class".
Although Afghanistan's political set-up may give the appearance of fragility, it has some strengths. Humayoon says it now needs to develop a national political culture, a state bureaucracy (with separate interests from the political players) and a system that can deliver economic and social reform.
Overall, this is an excellent report. It is significant that it has been written by an Afghan, who is able to follow the twists and turns amongst the political elite in Kabul.
Already, we can see that Karzai's efforts to lead from the front on the question of reintegrating Taliban supporters is not necessarily an action that stems from political weakness, but from a wilyness and political acumen that have so far been much underestimated. There's life in the old fox yet.

Remarkable film about Hekmatyar's mujahideen

Just watched award-winning film-maker Najibullah Quraishi's remarkable film Afghanistan: Behind Enemy Lines, shown tonight on Channel 4. At enormous personal risk, Quraishi spent two weeks with a mujahideen group from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezbe-Islami in the north-east of the country, around Baghlan and Kunduz.
Besides being the the first account from the standpoint of the insurgents of the situation in this part of Afghanistan, the film is absolutely gripping.
Quraishi somehow managed to obtain access to the mujahideen group, who spoke openly to him, almost as if the camera was not there. They talked about the Chechens, Uzbeks and Arabs that fought with them, the way they organised, the tactics they used. Quraishi kept his camera running throughout, even as he was being questioned by a suspicious fighter.
He was asked if he would take a gun in his hand and join in an ambush. "My camera is my gun", he replied in a swift and confident retort that could have saved his life.
We watched as members of the group lay in ambush, waiting for an American tank on a low-loader to pass. They missed it twice in the morning fog. They argued when bombs did not explode and then jumped with surprise when someone dialled a mobile number as a test - and the bomb exploded.
A senior figure told Quraishi that he commanded around 4,000 fighters - more in the summer when Pashtuns from the south arrived to fight. The fighters appeared to have easy and open access to the local villages. One stated that they had no problem blocking the road. Coalition forces in the area - mainly German - seldom engaged them. The fighters were confident, cocky even.
In a brilliant move, after he left the muhahideen group, Quraishi travelled the same stretch of road on which he had filmed the ambush and spoke to Afghan police about security. They told him the mujahideen were never anywhere near the road due to constant patrols. Quraishi filmed one confident policeman standing over a dead mujahid. Three days later he filmed the corpse of the policeman.
Quraishi worked with producer James Doran on the documentary. The two men go back to 2003, when Doran made the remarkable film Afghan Massacre: The convoy of death, about the 2001 murder of several thousand Taliban prisoners by troops loyal to General Abdul Rashid Dostum. According to Doran, US military personnel knew what was happening and refused to stop it. He has alleged that film exists of US forces present during the massacre, but this is strongly denied by the Pentagon.
Quraishi's film is deeply unsettling and will certainly have a major impact on public perceptions of the war in Afghanistan. I have little doubt that he will pick up an armful of awards for a courageous piece of film-making. He had to leave the mujahideen when two men arrived from Pakistan and began to ask how he had obtained permission to film. That of course is the real question here. Who is financing Hezb-Islami and its 4,000 fighters?

A source for stats on Afghanistan

For anyone with a bent for statistics, the Afghanistan Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in Post-9/11 Afghanistan, is a great resource. Published by the Brookings Institution, it contains detailed stats on security, governance and rule of law, economic and quality of life indicators and polling and public information.
It also complements similar sets of data for both Iraq and Pakistan.
So if you want to find out the cause of death of US troops in Afghanistan, annual recruitment figures for the Afghan Army, where Afghans choose to take different types of legal case, annual poppy cultivation, Afghanistan's rank in Transparency International's annual corruption perceptions index, annual inflation, the number of telephone users, the results of various public opinion surveys and a lot more besides, this is the place for you.

Negotiating with the Taliban - report

A new publication from the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics provides a useful summary of the background to the discussion on negotiating with the Taliban.
Negotiating with the Taliban: Toward a solution for the Afghan Conflict, is largely written by Talatbek Masadykov, together with Antonio Giustozzi and James Michael Page.
Masadyakov is currently Chief of the Political Affairs Division of the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA). In order to prepare this paper he took four months research leave in 2008, which he spent as a Visiting Fellow at the Crisis States Research Centre and travelling around the region.
One section of the report stands out and I will quote it at length:
"(The United Nations') List 1267 − expanded after September 11, 2001 and last updated on October 10, 2008 − now features 142 individuals associated with the Taliban,and 243 individuals and 113 entities or other groups and undertakings associated with Al Qaida. Despite reconciliation with the Karzai government by senior listed Taliban such as Mullah Mutawakil, Mullah Zaeef, Mullah Salaam Rocketi, Mullah Khaksar and others, none has been de-listed, largely as a result of differences among permanent UNSC members.
"Up to one third of those Taliban now on the Consolidated List also feature on ISAF and OEF target lists. Several have been killed in combat. Under heavy pressure from the US and the UK,Pakistan has placed a small number of anti-government elements under house arrest in Quetta and elsewhere. This has not prevented them from continuing to exercise authority in their respective organisations.
"The vast majority of insurgent commanders now operating in Afghanistan are not listed: they are too young to have participated in the Taliban regime. Apart from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani themselves, almost no Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin or Haqqani network commanders feature on the Consolidated List."
A very useful and timely publication, particularly in the light of reports that the UN head of mission in Afghanistan, Kai Ede, met with representatives of the Taliban in Dubai earlier this month. Today, the Taliban's Leadership Council denied the reports: " The Leadership Council considers this mere futile and baseless rumours, being a machination against Jihad and Mujahideen who are waging Jihad against the invaders. The Leadership Council once again emphasises continuation of Islamic Jihad against all invaders as a means to frustrate these conspiracies."

Splits develop within Pakistan Taliban

Even if a growing number of reports saying that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan leader Hakimullah Mahsud is dead are not true, problems are growing for the organisation. In Bajaur, near to the Khyber Pass, splits are opening up. Dawn reports that Maulana Faqir Mohammad - deputy chief of the TTP and once a close associate of former TTP leader Baitullah Mahsud - has been replaced as leader of the Bajaur TTP.
The report says he has been replaced by Maulana Mohammad Jamal, aka Maulvi Dadullah. Faqir Mohammad's supporters, who are in the minority, continue to claim he is leading the TTP in the region, but this is strongly denied by Maulvi Dadullah's supporters.
The origin of this split appears to have emerged last summer when Faqir Mohammad told his followers not to resist government troops who were advancing towards the militant stronghold of Varr Mamond. He was opposed by a majority of the local TTP shura.
At the time, other senior commanders, including Qari Ziaur Rehman and Maulana Inayet Rehman, intervened and worked out a compromise.
However, the split has now broken into the open. In the last few days there has been heavy fighting in the area between the Pakistan Army and militants, with the Army claiming to have killed at least 15 of the militants.
If these reports about splits are true it will be a massive setback for the TTP. Maulvi Faqir Mohammad has been a central figure in the organisation for some time. Born in 1970 in the Bajaur Agency, he is a member of the Mohmand tribe. Formerly affiliated with the TNSM led by Sufi Mohammad, he has publicly stated that he has close ties to al-Qaeda's No 2, Dr Ayman Zawahiri.
After Baitullah's death in August last year, Faqir Mohammad first announced that he had assumed temporary command of the TTP, but later declared that Hakimullah had been elected leader by a TTP shura of 42 men. Amongst other things, he is accused of orchestrating the 8 November 2006 suicide attack on an Army training centre at Dargai in NWFP which killed 45 recruits of the Punjab Regiment Centre.
As for Hakimullah, almost nothing has been heard from him since the TTP admitted that he had been injured in a drone strike on 14 January. They issued a tape recording of his voice, but it sounded weak. Now the reports say that he died in the last few days while being looked after at the house of his second wife's father in Mamozai village in Orakzai Agency.

London conference goes according to plan

The press tent at the London conference

The London conference on Afghanistan finished today with the expected communique, which you can read here. All the main points had been well leaked in advance - the reintegration plan aimed at the Taliban and supported with a $140 million Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund provided by Britain and Japan; the decision to expand the Afghan National Army and police to reach reach 171,600 and 134,000 personnel respectively by October 2011; the plan to hand over power to the Afghans on a district-by-district basis; the decision to call a loya jirga before the next conference, which will be held in Kabul later this year.
The Afghan government also agreed to train 12,000 civil servants by the end of next year, to show greater respect for human rights and make Afghanistan "a place where men and women enjoy security, equal rights, and equal opportunities in all spheres of life".
On the question of corruption, which is rampant in Afghanistan, the Karzai government agreed within the next month to empower an independent High Office of Oversight to investigate and sanction corrupt officials, and during 2010 to establish a statutory basis for related anti-corruption bodies, including the Major Crimes Task Force and the Anti-Corruption Tribunal.
There were no complaints about the decision to postpone elections in Afghanistan, which must have received US backing before it was announced.
On women's rights, which Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been insistent upon, the conference welcomed the Afghan government's "commitment to strengthen the participation of women in all Afghan governance institutions, including elected and appointed bodies and the civil service". It is a pity then that there were no women amongst the official Afghan delegation to the conference.
Afghan women who travelled to the conference under their own steam issued a statement saying they were concerned about the absence of women's perspectives on proposals being discussed in London and produced a series of recommendations that were handed out to journalists attending the event.
So what was it all about in the end? It's not that the conference itself was unique in any way - there have been several such conferences in the past. Nor was there any major statement from the Americans, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to cheer up the 1100 journalists (including yours truly) who attended and who had very little to excite them.
Probably the best way to understand the event is as a public statement of support for the Karzai government, but also a warning that it had better clean up its act and begin to create a government that can work.
A lot of politics in the West is riding on success in Afghanistan, not just in Britain, but also in America and Germany, where Mrs Merkel has announced an extra 500 troops in a move that will not be popular with German voters.
Over the last few days President Karzai has been paraded through London's newsrooms alongside the prime minister, as if to emphasise the importance of success in Afghanistan and to make it clear, in public, that Mr Brown expects him to keep his end of the bargain.
And with an election in the offing in the UK, there was no harm at all in Mr Brown appearing statesman-like on the world stage.
Update:
You can find the Afghan Taliban response to the conference here.

Sedwill explains his new role in NATO

It was a sell-out last night and the packed audience who turned up at the Frontline Club to see the UK's ambassador to Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, were in for a surprise. Sedwill came straight from Brussels, where that afternoon he had been appointed as NATO's senior representative in Afghanistan. You can listen to a podcast of my interview with Mark Sedwill - and the many questions from the audience - here.
He explained to the audience at the Frontline Club that he would be relinquishing his ambassadorship and that hs replacement, yet to be named, would arrived within the next couple of months. The rumours had been circulating for several days that Sedwill would get the job, even though he has only been the UK's ambassador to Afghanistan for less than a year.
His job will be to ensure that aid from NATO's 44 member states reaches those parts of Afghanistan in which it is most needed. And because this is a NATO job, that also means tying aid into the military context. He will work closely with NATO military commander, General Stanley McChrystal.
Sedwill also talked about the importance of the London Conference on Afghanistan, to be held tomorrow.
Interesting to note that while the Frontline put the whole event live onto Livestream, the Foreign Office tweeted it. Here are their three tweets:

"I think we'll have a Nato presence for the next 10 - 12 years" new Nato rep Mark Sedwill ahead of #afghanconf http://ow.ly/10GMM
Mark Sedwill: "focus on delivering immediate needs. Security and justice are vital." #afghanconf

Mark Sedwill: my priority over the next 18 months is stabilisation. We need to tackle poverty.#afghanconf #afghanistan

Incidentally, #afghanconf is the hashtag for the conference.

An evening with the UK ambassador to Afghanistan

Tomorrow night at 7pm I will be at the Frontline Club in London, chairing a session with the UK's Ambassador to Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, in advance of the international conference on Afghanistan, taking place in London on Thursday. Details of the event can be found on the Frontline's website. But you better hurry as most of the tickets have already sold.

UN list provides clues to Taliban leadership

It had not occurred to me before, but for anyone interested in the leadership of the Taliban in Afghanistan - and that includes the Haqqani faction as well as the Quetta Shura - then the list of banned individuals posted by the United Nations is a good starting point. While the actual composition of the Quetta Shura of the Taliban (QST) appears to be unknown, most of them are likely to appear on this list.
Amongst those on the list of 144 Taliban leaders are, for example, Ubaidullah Akhund, formerly the Taliban minister of defence, who is described as "one of the deputies of Mullah Omar, and a member of the Taliban's leadership, in charge of military operations". Sayed Esmatullah Asem is named as a member of the Taliban's leadership as of May 2007, and a member of the Taliban council of Peshawar. Abdul Ghani, aka Mullah Barodar, the Taliban's former deputy defence minister, is described thus: "Belongs to Popalzai tribe. Senior Taliban military commander and member of Taliban "Quetta Council" as of May 2007. Believed to be in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area."
The list itself is clearly important to the QST. They have made it clear that they want to see it lifted as a precondition for negotiations with the Karzai government and the United States. At the moment, QST members who want to travel out of Afghanistan or Pakistan do so on Pakistani passports issued through the ISI. This is what happened, for example, when representatives of the QST travelled to Saudi Arabia for talks last year.
Earlier today, Kai Eide, the outgoing UN representative in Afghanistan, told the New York Times that some of the Afghans should be removed from the UN list. "If you want relevant results, then you have to talk to the relevant person in authority," Eide said. "The time has come to do it," he said, adding that the US should also carry out a review of the detainees held at the Bagram American military prison to see if any of them could be released.
The UN list itself can be found here. Only one person, General Rahmatullah Safi, the Taliban's former representative in Europe, has ever been removed from the list, in 2005. He died the following year.
Last week, according to the NYT, US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said “Some of the people on the list are dead, some shouldn’t be on the list and some are among the most dangerous people in the world. I would be all in favor of looking at the list on a case-by-case basis to see if there are people on the list who are on the list by mistake and should be removed, or in fact are dead”.
All UN member states are required to a) freeze funds and any other financial assets of anyone on the list; b) Prevent the entry into or the transit through their territories; c) Prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of arms and related material, to the individuals, groups, undertakings and entities placed on the Consolidated List.
Update: On Wednesday, the day before the London Conference, the UN lifted sanctions on five former Taliban officials, including former foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil. The four others were the Taliban's deputy commerce minister, Faizl Mohammed Faizan; Abdul Hakim Monib, the deputy minister of frontier affairs who later renounced the Taliban and became a provincial governor; Mohammad Musa Hottak, the deputy planning minister who was later elected to parliament; and a former press officer, Shams-ul Safa Aminzai.

Mahsud tribe surrender claim refuted

Reports yesterday that the Mahsud tribal elders had agreed to hand over Tehreek-e-Taliban leader Hakimullah Mahsud and 378 other wanted men (see below) appear to have been exaggerated. Today the same papers that reported the jirga decision were rapidly backtracking.
"How can we surrender Hakimullah and his dreaded men to the government? It is not possible even if we want to do so," a prominent Mahsud tribal elder who attended the traditional Jirga in Tank on Wednesday told The News.
The News continued: "Like other members of the Jirga comprising Dre Mahsud (the three main divisions of the Mahsud tribe) - Balolzai, Shaman Khel and Manzai - South Waziristan chieftain Malik Mahsud Ahmad Abdullay was also surprised by the banner headlines in national dailies about their claim."
One Mahsud elder claimed that the local political agent had told the tribesmen to make a promise about handing over Hakimullah Mahsud and his men. He added that the jirga had told him it was not the proper time for such a "silly demand".
What seems to be behind this spat is the future of the almost 300,000 displaced Mahsud tribespeople, who are now wondering when they will be able to return to their summer homes in the interior of South Waziristan. Traditionally, they would be returning in April, after the worst of the winter was over.
However, over recent weeks the TTP has been attempting to prevent the return, telling members of the tribe that this would limit their ability to fight against the Army. At the same time, government political agents have been putting pressure on the IDPs to return.
At Wednesday's meeting - which was well attended, despite TTP threats - the political agent tried to extract some kind of concession from the tribal elders in exchange for helping them return and rebuild their destroyed towns and villages. He may have believed he had got an agreement, but events since show that he had over-estimated the willingness - and the ability - of the tribe to deliver.

Mahsud tribe on the verge of surrender?

Several Pakistani newspapers are reporting that the Mahsud tribe held a jirga yesterday at which its elders agreed to hand over Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan leader Hakimullah Mahsud and 378 other wanted men to the government.
The jirga, meeting at the Political Compound in Tank in South Waziristan and consisting of around 300 senior members of the tribe, also agreed to meet all seven conditions put forward by the Pakistani government as a precondition for halting the military offensive into the Mahsud tribal lands. The government had said that yesterday was a deadline for agreement on the seven conditions.
According to The News, "The government conditions included surrender of 378 wanted persons, a ban on display of arms, acceptance of Collective Responsibility Clause of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) and abstaining from giving shelter to foreign militants. The jirga announced to accept all the conditions and pledged to extend all possible help to the authorities in purging the area of militants."
Several Mahsud elders told the jirga that their tribesmen had no intention of fighting against the Pakistani Army and that they wanted the restoration of peace in South Wazirstan. They said Pakistan was their own country for which their ancestors had given numerous sacrifices. They added that they were patriotic citizens and wanted to see progress in South Wazirstan. They said they hoped that the government would help to rebuild the area and to compensate internally displaced persons (IDPs), who had to leave their homes in the region.
It was also agreed that another jirga should be held on 10 February. Addressing the jirga, South Waziristan Political Agent Syed Shahab Ali Shah said the government would provide all-out support to the tribal people affected by the operation. He lauded the cooperation of the jirga elders. Senator Maulana Salih Shah also attended.
If this story is accurate, it will be fascinating to see how it plays out. Does it mean that Hakimullah, Waliur Rahman, Qari Hussein and the other wanted men will surrender to the jirga? If not, will the jirga take up arms against them? Either way it could be a major disaster for the TTP, which is largely made up of Mahsud tribesmen.
Inevitably, there will be speculation that the wave of ten or more US drone strikes aimed at the TTP leadership since the suicide bombing of the CIA base at FOB Chapman in Khost on 30 December is behind the jirga decision. The strikes have been remarkably successful in killing senior leaders of the TTP - as well as foreign militants - and even injuring Hakimullah himself. The missiles appear to have broken the back of the Mahsud resistance.

Afghanistan drowning in corruption

It may be one of the world's poorest countries, but Afghans had to pay out $2.5 billion in bribes over the past 12 months – equivalent to almost a quarter (23 per cent) of Afghanistan’s GDP.
When added to the revenue generated by the opium trade in 2009 - estimated at $2.8 billion - this adds up to about half the country’s GDP.
The figures come from Corruption in Afghanistan: Bribery as reported by the Victims, published this week by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
To make things worse, in Afghanistan those entrusted with upholding the integrity of the law are most guilty of violating it.
Between 10-20 per cent had to pay bribes to judges, prosecutors, doctors and members of the government. A kickback is so commonly sought (and paid) to speed up administrative procedures, that more than a third of the population (38 per cent) thinks that this is the norm.
Just over half (52 per cent) of adult Afghans had to pay at least one bribe to a public official during the last 12 months. On average, victims of bribery reported they had to pay around five kickbacks per year. In three-quarters of cases bribes are paid in cash and the average amount paid was US$158 - in a country where average annual income is less than $500.
According to the UNODC, the sectors most affected by bribery are the police, courts and customs. When such officers are contacted by citizens they request a bribe in around half of all cases. Demands for bribes were slightly less frequent from municipal and provincial officers, members of the Government and land officers.
The amounts paid in bribes differ between categories of public officials: at the lower end (less than US$100 per bribe) are teachers, doctors and nurses. On average, officials from the police, local authorities, tax/revenue agency and land agencies requested bribes between $100-200. Judges, prosecutors, members of the Government and customs officers are at the higher end of the scale, with average bribes higher than US$200.
Public officials usually request bribes to speed up administrative procedures or to make their finalization possible.
The pervasiveness of such practices makes many citizens deeply worried: when asked to select the most prominent problem for the country, 59 per cent of those questioned mentioned corruption, followed by insecurity (54 per cent) and unemployment (52 per cent).
Corruption is perceived to be on the rise by many citizens, especially in rural areas: 80 per cent of rural dwellers reported that in their eyes corruption had significantly increased over the last five years.
The information for the UNODC report was gathered though interviews with 7,600 people in 12 provincial capitals and more than 1,600 villages around Afghanistan and is therefore statistically significant. The report includes a number of actual cases of bribery from interviewed citizens which provide a vivid portrait of the many forms of corruption common in Afghanistan:
"We sell different goods on the streets here. The head of the police for this area has appointed a person who is responsible for collecting money from us and give it to him."
"[The] permit office for the municipality is another corrupt department. Officials want about $18,000 from traders when they want to start a new business."
"Police heads are taking a percentage from each payroll of their subordinates."
"The mayor has distributed plots to his family members and he has taken a number of shops in the commercial markets for approving the construction of the building."
‘There are people known as Employed on Commission in front of each government building…They approach people saying that they can solve any kind of issue in a short time and then they quote the price. For example, if you need a passport or the driving licence or paying taxes and customs duties they can give you the final receipt which has been processed through all official channels in matter of days which takes usually weeks. Then he takes money and of course he will distribute it with those who are sitting inside offices."
"Officials from the Education Department are looting money for books and stationery that are supposed to be given to schools on provincial and districts levels."
Corruption is now high on the agenda of many donor countries and indeed President Karzai has said recently that his own government will fight all kinds of corruption. The signs so far are not good, with several of his nominees for Cabinet posts having reputations for bribe-taking.

Near-exact locations of US drone strikes in Pakistan

If you want to see where US drone missiles have been landing in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas on Google Maps, then look here. Very impressive and hat's off to Ben.

US Defense Dept releases list of Bagram detainees

The American Civil Liberties Union has obtained a list of 645 detainees held at Bagram Air Base Prison in Afghanistan. The list can be viewed here.
The list was issued by the US Department of Defense in response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, and is current at September 2009. It has been redacted so that vital information including their citizenship, how long they have been held, in what country they were captured and the circumstances of their capture, etc, cannot be seen.
The ACLU lawsuit was filed in September 2009, seeking the disclosure of documents related to the detention and treatment of prisoners at Bagram. In addition to a list of vital information about detainees being held there, the lawsuit seeks records relating to the rules and agreements that govern the facility and documents pertaining to the conditions of confinement and status review process afforded prisoners.
Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, said:
“Releasing the names of those held at Bagram is an important step toward transparency and accountability at the secretive Bagram prison, but it is just a first step. Hundreds of people have languished at Bagram for years in horrid and abusive conditions, without even being told why they’re detained or given a fair chance to argue for release. The information the government continues to withhold, however, is just as vital as the names of prisoners. Full transparency and accountability about Bagram requires disclosing how long these people have been imprisoned, where they are from and whether they were captured far from any battlefield or in other countries far from Afghanistan.
“The public has long been kept in the dark about what goes on at Bagram. It is time to shine a bright light on the secretive prison.”