The US and the Middle East: September 2012

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Al-Qaida threatens attacks on US diplomats

http://news.yahoo.com/al-qaida-threatens-attacks-us-diplomats-091835292.html

Al-Qaida's branch in North Africa on Tuesday called for attacks on U.S. diplomats and an escalation of protests against an anti-Islam video that was produced in the United States and triggered a wave of demonstrations and riots in the Middle East and beyond.

While demonstrations have tapered off in nations including Egyptand Tunisia, protests against the film turned violent in Pakistan and Indian-controlled Kashmir and hundreds of people rallied inIndonesia and Thailand.

In Kabul, the Afghan capital, a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a mini-bus carrying South African aviation workers to the airport, killing at least 12 people in an attack that a militant group said was revenge for the film "Innocence of Muslims," which was made by an Egyptian-born American citizen.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the attack killed eight South Africans, three Afghans and a Kyrgyzstani.

Twelve protesters have died in riots in several countries, bringing the total number of deaths linked to unrest over the film to at least 28. That figure includesChristopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans killed in an attack there.

The White House said the violent protest in Libya appeared to have been sparked by the film, but that the matter was still under investigation and the assessment could change.

U.S. officials describe the video as offensive, but the American government's protection of free speech rights has clashed with the anger of Muslims abroad who are furious over the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud, womanizer and pedophile.

In a statement, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb praised the killing of Stevens in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11. The group threatened attacks in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco andMauritania, and condemned the United States for "lying to Muslims for more than 10 years, saying its war was against terrorism and not Islam."

The group urged Muslims to pull down and burn American flags at embassies, and kill or expel American diplomats to "purge our land of their filth in revenge for the honor of the Prophet."

Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula recently issued a similar call for attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities. It is al-Qaida's most active branch in the Middle East.

An Islamist militant group, Hizb-i-Islami, claimed responsibility for the attack in Kabul. The group is headed by 65-year-old former warlord Gubuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister and one-time U.S. ally who is now listed as a terrorist by Washington. The militia has thousands of fighters and followers across the country's north and east.

In Pakistan, hundreds of angry protesters broke through a barricade outside the U.S. Consulate in the northwest city of Peshawar, sparking clashes with police that left several wounded on both sides, said police officer Arif Khan. The demonstrators threw bricks and flaming wads of cloth at the police, who pushed them back by firing tear gas and rubber bullets and charging with batons. The protest was organized by the youth wing of the hardline Jamaat-e-Islami party.

In Kashmir's main city of Srinagar, a strike shut down businesses and public transportation as marchers burned U.S. flags and an effigy of President Barack Obama. When the protesters tried to march into the main business district, police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse them, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. Protesters hurled rocks at the troops, he said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

An alliance of Kashmiri religious groups called the strike in response to the anti-Islam film. The shutdown was supported by the bar association, trade unions and separatist groups in the volatile region, where strikes are a common tactic to protest against Indian rule.

In Indonesia, about 200 people from various Islamic groups torched an American flag and tires outside the U.S. Consulate in the third largest city of Medan. Some unfurled banners saying, "Go to hell America," while others trampled on dozens of paper flags. Also Tuesday, about 100 Muslim students in Makassar, a city in central Indonesia, called for the death penalty against the filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.

Some 400 people protested peacefully outside the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand's capital. Protesters carried signs and banners saying, "We love Prophet Muhammad" and "Stop insulting our religion," and chanted, "Down with America" and "Down with Israel."

The government in Bangladesh blocked YouTube on Monday to prevent people from seeing the video. Mir Mohammaed Morshed, a spokesman for the state-run Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd., said the decision will remain effective until further notice.

Google has blocked access to the video in Libya and Egypt following violence there, and in Indonesia and India because it says the video broke laws in those countries.

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Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan and Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India contributed to this report.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Eleven Years After 9/11, Afghanistan Still Matters

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/eleven-years-after-911-afghanistan-still-matters/?ref=middleeast

My family and Iwere refugees in Pakistan on Sept. 11, 2001. Like most Afghan refugees, we did not pay particular attention to world news. In fact, many refugees did not even own a television so they could watch what was happening in the world. Little did we know that the tragic events of that day would drastically change the lives of millions of Afghans.

Eleven years later, there are many Afghans who barely know anything about the Sept. 11. They don’t know that the attacks were the reason for the huge United States and NATO presence in Afghanistan. They don’t know that they led to the ousting of the Taliban. What they do know is that Afghanistan has been fundamentally transformed since 2001.

Most Afghans are oblivious to the day-to-day developments in America. There are other problems — lack of security, abject poverty, negligible government services and a myriad of other challenges — that affect them on a daily basis.

A growing number of Afghans complain that Washington has invested in only a select few regions of their country over the years, and that while some people have benefited from war, those benefits have largely bypassed most citizens. For many, their lives have not changed and in some cases have gotten worse since the war began. A large portion of the billions of dollars in aid money funneled to Afghanistan to help Afghans and support meager gains in education and health services has been squandered.

Nonetheless, over the past decade there have also been countless gains by the United States, NATO and the Afghan government. The country is experiencing a new view of politics under an increasingly curious public, with the skeleton of democratic rule and a vibrant news media. The Afghan Army and the police force are now 350,000 strong despite the many challenges they face, includinginsider attacks on NATO and Afghan units. More than eight million Afghan children — some 40 percent of them girls — defy serious threats on a daily basis to attend school. Kabul is now home to more universities, television stations and Internet cafes — once banned under Taliban rule — than could have been imagined in the past, and the Afghan people have welcomed them enthusiastically. Finally, with the increase in functioning medical facilities, Afghan women now have access to basic health services. This is only a small list of improvements that many Afghans fear are at risk.

Yet this war, so much a part of daily life in Afghanistan, has become largely invisible in Washington. At this critical moment, as the United States and NATO draw down troops and leave the Karzai government on its own, there is virtually no discussion in Washington about what should be done to ensure stability and avoid the turmoil of the 1990s.

This undue silence is particularly noticeable on the presidential campaign trail. At the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., Afghanistan — a country at the center of the longest war in American history — was mentioneda mere four times over three days. (The Democrats mentioned it 21 timesduring their convention.) Of all the prominent speakers, Senator John McCain alone made a subtle reference to express his frustration with the president’s public timetable to end the combat mission and extract most troops by the end of 2014.

But most critically for a Republican Party that often calls for a more robust military, neither Mitt Romney, the presidential nominee, nor his running mate, Representative Paul Ryan, had anything to say about the Afghan war at the convention. Mr. Romney did deem it important to discuss the threat posed by Iran, revealing that there is no recognition in Washington — on either the right or the left — that Afghanistan could be strategically vital in containing Iran. Like Mr. Romney, President Obama, too, is speaking little on the stump about the war, except to tout his decision to approve the mission that killed Osama bin Laden and his timetable to end the combat mission by 2014.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney each have their own reasons for staying silent on Afghanistan, but there is little doubt that it is driven largely by the fading public support for the Afghan war. An Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in May found that 66 percent of respondents opposed the war, with only 27 percent supporting American military efforts there. Yet these numbers should not result in turning a blind eye to a war that continues.

Washington recognizes that a secure and stable Afghanistan is in its best interest. Afghanistan still poses a major threat to the United States as a potential safe haven for anti-American elements. Continuing to ignore Afghanistan also means risking American and Afghan sacrifices in blood and treasure, and many hard-won gains – including a nascent democracy. Most important, it means giving up the chance to debate what happens next in Afghanistan, after the bulk of NATO forces leave and the Karzai government takes full responsibility for national security. What if the government collapses and anarchy prevails, or if the Taliban returns? What then?

Republicans and Democrats may be deeply divided over many issues. But Afghanistan appears to be one area where there is potential consistency. Continued reticence on Afghanistan will not make the war or the instability there go away. The two sides must at least discuss what ought to be done in a way that makes the subject more salient to American voters. Washington must remember that Afghanistan still matters.

Javid Ahmad, a native of Kabul, is a program coordinator with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, D.C. The views expressed here are his own.