Qatari Poet Sentenced for ‘Threatening to Overthrow the Regime’ Loses Final Appeal

Qatar’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest judicial body, upheld a 15-year prison sentence earlier this week for poet Muhammad Rashid al-Ajami, who goes by the poetic name Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb.

The Qatari citizen had been seeking a retrial after he was first convicted by a lower court last year of “inciting the overthrow of the regime” with his poetry and given a life sentence, which was then reduced by the Appeals Court in February to 15 years in jail.

India: Indo-Pacific’ ties tighten at ASEAN summit

While last year has been an annus horribilis for New Delhi on the political and economic fronts, G Parthasarathy looks ahead to a brighter future as India strengthens links with its ASEAN partners, though with some concerns about China.

The year 2012 was a virtual nightmare for India’s political and diplomatic establishment. Over the past decade, international attention on India has largely focused on what was seen as an almost irreversible process of annual 8 per cent economic growth. As the economy grew rapidly and trade and investment ties across the globe and particularly in its eastern neighbourhood expanded significantly, India was seen as an emerging player in the world economy.

But, as internal discontent increased, especially amongst its poor and expanding middle class, due to manifestations of growing corruption, spiralling inflation and declining growth rates, the Manmohan Singh Government was seen internationally and domestically as an administration under siege, wading through an economic mess created by its fiscal profligacy.

India’s domestic problems soon assumed external dimensions. The international media highlighted the seriousness of corruption issues in India, which had adversely affected the communications and coal sectors — key sectors in India’s robust economic growth.

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War on terror: West must beware of Afghanistan part deux

As the West faces Islamic radicalism in Mali and Algeria, David Watts considers the real agenda on both sides and stresses the importance of keeping a sense of perspective.

The ‘War on Terror’ (WOT) comes to Africa or is it more to do with the competition with China for the resources of the continent?

Either way, as in Libya, it was the French who were the first out of the traps with their air attacks on jihadist rebels threatening the government of Mali, a former French colony.

In reality this is not the first time that the WOT has come to the continent; there were strong hints of it at the end of the war on Muammar Gaddafi, and indeed the weaponry and training showered on the rebels by the West, and their Gulf monarchist allies, is now fuelling the latest iteration of the conflict. Many of the fighters are graduates of the Libyan campaign just as others went on to the conflict in Syria.

The apparently sudden, unilateral decision to intervene by François Hollande, the new French president, runs counter to his declared policies of disengagement on the international front as evidenced by his, also unilateral, decision to pull French troops back early from Afghanistan.

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Global security: Avoiding the wars that never end

George Friedman examines how, in the light of ongoing geopolitical shifts, America is drawing back from its role as the world’s ‘policeman’.

 

US President Barack Obama recently announced that the United States would transfer the primary responsibility for combat operations in Afghanistan to the Afghan military in the coming months, a major step towards the withdrawal of US forces. Also in early January, France began an intervention in Mali designed to block jihadists from taking control of the country and creating a base of operations in France’s former African colonies.

The two events are linked in a way that transcends the issue of Islamist insurgency and points to a larger geopolitical shift. The United States is not just drawing down its combat commitments; it is moving away from the view that it has the primary responsibility for trying to manage the world on behalf of itself, the Europeans and its other allies. Instead, that burden is shifting to those who have immediate interests involved.

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Despite US aid, little progress in monitoring Kabul airport cash flow

WASHINGTON: Afghan officials are stonewalling US efforts to help regulate the billions of dollars in cash being flown out of Kabul airport every year, a US watchdog said in a report on Tuesday.

Follow up:

The officials are apparently not using cash-counting machines at the airport more than a year after they were provided by the US government to try to get some oversight of the currency fleeing the country, said the report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

Afghan VIPs still get to bypass customs screenings altogether. In fact, a ‘Very, Very Important Person’ (VVIP) lounge for high-ranking officials has been introduced at the airport in addition to the regular VIP lane, the report said. US-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly pledged to curb corruption in order to keep attracting aid from international donors as a planned transition from US-led NATO forces to Afghan leadership takes place by the end of 2014.

What future faces Afghan women after U.S. forces depart?

THE SLAYING Monday of a women’s advocate in Afghanistan underlined one of the greatest dangers of the approaching withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops: that the fragile gains of women in the 11 years since the downfall of the Taliban will be reversed.

Follow up:

Though the international mission in Afghanistan has fallen short of many of its goals, the lives of the country’s women have improved: Some 3 million are now in school, compared to none in 2001; 10 percent of the judiciary and 20 percent of university graduates are female.

However, with its ability to challenge NATO and Afghan troops diminished, the Taliban is increasingly targeting people like Najia Seddiqi, the director of the women’s affairs department in the eastern province of Laghman, who was gunned down as she headed to work. Her predecessor was also murdered, by a bomb planted under her car, after she protected a young woman who refused to marry a man she had been promised to. Such attacks can be expected to intensify as U.S. troops withdraw from provincial areas in favor of an Afghan army that, according to the Pentagon’s latest report, is unprepared to defend the country on its own.
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Rising violence is not the only threat. Both the Obama administration and the Afghan government are seeking negotiations with the Taliban in the hope of reaching some kind of political settlement before the end of 2014, when all U.S. combat troops are due to be withdrawn. Advocates for women fear that women’s rights will be “traded away in the transition,” as Amnesty International puts it.

U.S. force in Afghanistan may be smaller than expected after 2014

The Obama administration plans to keep 6,000 to 9,000 troops there despite requests from military commanders for a larger presence.

Follow up:

By David S. Cloud,
December 11, 2012, 6:50 p.m.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans on keeping 6,000 to 9,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014, fewer than previously reported, and will confine most of them to fortified garrisons near the capital, leaving Afghan troops largely without American advisors in the field to fight a still-powerful insurgency, U.S. officials said.

Although it is not final, contours of the plan have become increasingly clear in the weeks since President Obama’s reelection. Officials close to the discussions say the final U.S. presence will be substantially smaller than the 15,000 troops senior commanders have sought to keepafter most of the 68,000 remaining American troops leave in the next two years.

The massive bases that the Pentagon built in Kandahar and Helmand, two southern provinces where the Taliban is strongest, probably will be turned over to Afghan control, the officials said. So will a string of U.S. combat posts near the eastern city of Jalalabad, a key staging ground for military operations along the Pakistani border.

The U.S. forces that stay behind are likely to operate mainly from Bagram air base, the sprawling installation 25 miles north of Kabul, and a few other bases near the capital. They and a smaller contingent of foreign coalition troops will mostly do small-scale training of Afghan army and police units, said the officials, who described internal discussions on condition of anonymity.

Bagram will become the hub for U.S. special operations teams charged with tracking and killing members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, the chief American military mission after the drawdown. Bagram also will be the main air base for U.S. drones and other combat aircraft in Afghanistan, the officials said.
In most of the country, Afghan troops and security forces will be left to fight on their own against the Taliban and its allies, as has been expected. The U.S. officials left open the possibility that U.S. forces still could send warplanes or other assistance to Afghan troops in emergency situations.

The plan already has sparked internal criticism at the Pentagon, where some commanders say more U.S. troops are needed.

“This will significantly limit what can be accomplished,” one official said. He contended that the proposed U.S. force is enough only to provide limited training of Afghans and to protect the U.S. Embassy complex and the presidential palace, both in downtown Kabul, in the event of a major insurgent attack.

But cutting the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is likely to win the support of President Hamid Karzai, who wants to sharply shrink the foreign troop presence in his country.

“One of the things that Obama and Karzai have always agreed on is the need for a reduced force presence,” a U.S. official said. “I could see them both wanting zero, but at the end of the day I don’t think that will happen.”

U.S. military commanders argue that a sizable military presence is needed in the south and east, where the insurgency remains the strongest, and to provide enough forces to protect American diplomats and aid workers outside Kabul.

The State Department operates a consulate in the western city of Herat and is considering options for keeping a permanent diplomatic presence in Kandahar, Jalalabad and Mazar-i-Sharif. Those sites now may be considered too dangerous.

Commanders also say a U.S. decision to slash troop levels will make it more difficult to persuade fiscally strapped allies in Europe to contribute more than a token number of troops.
U.S. officials were once hopeful that allies would contribute 5,000 troops to the post-2014 force, but several officials said reaching that goal is probably impossible if the U.S. contingent is cut to 6,000.

The Pentagon is making plans to supplement the troops with civilian contractors, who could deliver supplies and assist the Afghans with equipment maintenance and other support missions, in which they are likely to remain weak for years.

Gen. John R. Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, favors keeping most of the 68,000 U.S. troops through next summer to give Afghan forces as much help as possible before they take responsibility for battling the insurgency at the end of 2014. American units now deploying to Afghanistan serve almost exclusively as trainers and advisors, and are not leading in combat.

As many as eight newly designed units, called security force assistance brigades, will replace an equal number of U.S. Army brigade combat teams in Afghanistan by spring. Instead of the 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers in a normal brigade, they will be deployed in some instances with only 1,200 troops.

Despite tens of billions of dollars in aid, Afghanistan’s huge security deficiencies after 11 years of war are evident from a Pentagon report released Monday that showed only one of the Afghan army’s 23 brigades can operate independently without U.S. or allied air support and other assistance.

A senior Defense Department official who briefed reporters on the report acknowledged that the Afghan army and police could face enormous difficulties after most U.S. troops leave. More than 2,500 insurgent attacks were recorded every month from April to September this year, well above violence levels when Obama first took office in 2009.

Even U.S. officials do not expect the insurgency to wane by 2014.

“Is it going to be a challenge? I’d agree with you, yes,” the senior official told reporters. “Our objective is to work with the Afghan forces to give them the capability to defend their own territory…. That is going to be a big challenge, but we believe that it’s possible.”

 

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27 killed in fresh bout of violence in Afghanistan

KABUL: Twenty-seven people were killed and five others wounded in a new wave of violence in different parts of Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, officials said on Tuesday.

Follow up:

In central Kapisa province, four Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers were killed and two others injured during an operation in Tagab district, the police chief of the area, Col. Sher Shah Yousufzai, told an Afghan news agency.

However, the provincial police spokesman, Asadullah Hamidi, only confirmed injuries to two soldiers.

Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed eight security personnel suffered casualties during clashes in Jalukhel and Joybar areas of the district.

Nine militants were killed during a military offensive conducted in Ghorak district of southern Kandahar province, said the governor’s spokesman, Javed Faisal. He added the operation was conducted by Afghan forces in the Charposti area.

Militants blow up girls’ school

LANDIKOTAL: Unidentified militants blew up a girls primary school in Bara.

 

The unknown militants placed explosives which were later detonated that destroyed the government girls’ primary school in the Aka Khel area of Bara on Tuesday. The total number of the destroyed government schools in Khyber Agency has gone beyond 80, sources said.

 

 

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Pakistan, Iran to cooperate against human trafficking

 

ISLAMABAD: An a delegation of Iranian parliament led by Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman, National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Majlis-i-Shura, met with Pakistan’s Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Tuesday, DawnNews reported.

The meeting was also attended by Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leader Mushahid Hussain Syed.

During the meeting both the countries agreed to cooperate against human trafficking and to exchange name of agents involved.

Federal interior minister said that border control management was vital on the Pak-Iran border area

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