October 7, 2005

This Week in Afghanistan Watch:

• Second Suicide Bomber in a Week
  
• First Election Results In
  
• France Opposes Combining NATO & U.S.-led Forces
  
• Featured Report: Recommendations for Afghanistan Four Years After the Invasion
  
• Crisis Group: Strengthening Parties is Key to Reform in Pakistan

Suicide bomber strikes convoy in Kandahar
The second reported suicide attack in the past week (the fourth reported attack since May) suggests a tactical shift is occurring among insurgents in Afghanistan (which had only five suicide attacks in the proceeding three and a half years). Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan had rarely experienced suicide attacks.

KABUL, October 5 (Reuters)—The dangers in the south were illustrated on Wednesday when a suicide attacker tried to ram a car bomb into convoy of Afghan and foreign troops, killing himself, a 10-year-old boy and wounding at least one Canadian soldier. The attack took place near a base of Canadian troops on a road leading to the airport from the southern city of Kandahar.

Canadian forces recently accelerated the replacement of their fragile jeeps with armored Mercedes G-Wagons-and just in time. The bomb caused minor injuries to three soldiers, but could have been much worse. "For a lot of us here, it's renewed our faith in the vehicle," said Warrant Officer Mike Gauley, commander of the reaction team sent to the blast site.

September 28 Suicide Bomber Identified as Yemeni National
Last week's attack by a suicide bomber killed 12 people, making it one of the deadliest attacks since the fall of the Taliban. The bomber, dressed as an Army lieutenant, crashed his motorcycle into a bus full of Afghan soldiers near a training center in Kabul. The incident let the U.N. to restrict travel of its personnel. Authorities claim to have identified the attacker as a Yemeni.

KABUL, October 7 (SANA)—A week after a suicide bomber killed at least nine Afghan army recruits here, an intelligence official claimed the assailant was a Yemeni national. On 28 September, the bomber crashed his explosive-laden bike into a bus that was carrying army trainees from the Kabul Military Training Center (KMTC) at 4:30pm in Pul-i-Charkhi, east of the central capital.

The intelligence official told Pajhwok Afghan News the attack had been plotted in abroad. He added more details of the bombing would come to light after the investigation was wrapped up. A day after the blast, Defence Ministry informed the attacker was wearing a military uniform, and that his head had been found. The source would not conjecture about who provided the Yemen national with the motorbike and explosives. The powerful blast had left the bus ruined while partially damaging three others vehicles parked in the vicinity. The site of the explosion is close to a vote-count centre in Kabul.

First election results released
Results from Nimroz and Farah are in. The complete tally will be done by Oct 22. Now we'll see a series of vote challenges begin...

KABUL, October 6 (IRIN)—With the announcement of provisional results from two provinces in Afghanistan, the physical process of counting ballots across the war-ravaged country has been completed, Peter Erben, head of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), said on Thursday in the Afghan capital Kabul.

France says opposes combining forces in Afghanistan
PARIS, October 4 (Reuters)—France said on Tuesday it opposed combining NATO-led forces and U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan under one command, putting it at odds with visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai. . .

"The problem is not a political problem," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei told a regular Foreign Ministry media briefing. "It is really, in our eyes, a technical problem, which is that these missions have different objectives. . ." NATO is now exploring a so-called "dual-hatted" solution to the command arrangements that would give one ISAF commander overall control of operations but would strictly separate the ISAF mission from the tougher counter-insurgency work being undertaken by the U.S.-led coalition.

This dispute is about NATO autonomy and is unlikely to unravel the expansion. As ISAF spokesman Major Andrew Elmes argued: "It's not problematic, it's a discussion on agreeing how the command and control structure will look . . . All parties have agreed on the necessity and concept of expansion. What needs to be finalised is the future command and control structure."

Featured Reports:

Afghanistan: Four Years After the Invasion
October 4 (Center for American Progress) by Caroline P. Wadhams—This excellent report assesses progress and makes recommendations in four areas: security, governance, narcotics, and economic development. The report highlights a number of key issues which deserve consideration in the Bonn successor agreement, which will structure the international communities engagement for years to come.

Authoritarianism and Political Party Reform in Pakistan
September 28 (International Crisis Group)—This report warns that "instability is worsening, and sectarian conflict threatens to spin out of control" and argues that mainstream parties in Pakistan "can be the most effective safeguard against the religious lobby's manifestly anti-Western agenda, but only if allowed to function freely in a democratic environment. They need outside help but must also get more serious about reforming themselves."

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Afghanistan Watch is prepared by Carl Robichaud, a program officer at The Century Foundation.

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