James Jomo and Lee Jay Walker

Modern Tokyo Times

In 2011 many political convulsions have challenged nations in North Africa and the Middle East. The optimism of the so-called “Arab Spring” remains to be unfulfilled because you have so much uncertainty in nations like Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Tunisia. At the same time the death of Osama bin Laden wasn’t the decisive blow to international terrorism because recent events in many nations show that this menace is still potent. This notably applies to the recent slaughter of Christians in Nigeria by Islamists belonging to Boko Haram.

Images of Christians, Muslims, and secularists, celebrating political change in Egypt seems like a distant dream. After all, many Coptic Christians have been killed and a sizeable minority of Muslims supported an Islamic party which seeks to restrict the role of Christians in Egypt.

President Obama, much like the ethical policy of Tony Blair (past leader in the United Kingdom), showed his hand clearly by announcing a huge military deal with Saudi Arabia. Therefore, any notion of democracy and supporting human rights was thrown out the window. In fairness to Obama this is a systematic reality within the body politic of America. However, it makes a mockery of his ethical stances because in the land of Saudi Arabia not one single Buddhist temple is allowed or Christian church and of course all apostates from Islam face death in this nation.

Meanwhile the Euro crisis and the foundations of the European Union have been challenged to the hilt. This applies to one economic crisis after another and monetary issues will continue to be a major issue in the early months of 2012. At the same time political leaders have lost power in Greece and Italy and European technocrats who have been unelected now rule the roost in these two nations. Therefore, the “Arab Spring” appears to be ushering in “a non-democratic new dawn” while in Europe new leaders can obtain power despite being unelected – not a pleasant thought.

On a more positive note you now have a new nation called South Sudan and providing the international community supports this new entity, then some “rays of sunshine” will have happened in 2011. However, the path ahead is fraught with danger because Arab Islamists in Khartoum still desire to rule the many different African ethnic groups which comprise of Sudan. This means that bloodshed will continue in 2012 in places like Darfur and the fear is that the Khartoum government may seek to create instability in South Sudan because of the delicate nature of this new nation. Given this, the international community must develop mechanisms with political leaders in South Sudan in order to help this new nation and to guarantee its future, while major obstacles are being challenged by central forces in Juba.

The Russian Federation and Kazakhstan are entering 2012 with certain levels of uncertainty. This applies to political challenges and outside meddling from international powers which seek to cause mayhem internally. Therefore, the world is waiting to see if Putin can remain all powerful alongside Medvedev or if “the house of cards” will collapse because of external and internal agitation.

The forgotten Serbian Orthodox Christians in Kosovo still face a bleak future because they can’t freely travel around Kosovo. At the same time, power processes are against the Serbian Orthodox Christians of Kosovo and political leaders in Belgrade have to walk a tightrope – but, if the current leaders could abandon their brethren in Kosovo, it would appear that they would do so in order to enter the EU club. However, internal events and a backlash could alter the political landscape in Serbia and this is the main concern of the current political leadership in Belgrade. This means that the ghettoization of an entire religious and ethnic group will continue in the heart of Europe and what does this tell us about the new Europe?

In Myanmar the international media is focusing on current positives because political elites in this nation appear to be opening up. Yet, despite this, many minority ethnic and religious groups are still being persecuted and Free Burma Rangers continues to highlight the reality on the ground. The fear is that these minority ethnic groups will be further abandoned in order to establish short-term goals. Also, if the regime turns away from China – then minorities have much to fear from further abandonment and isolation.

Therefore, the mainly Christian Karen elites and other ethnic groups like the Shan and Chin will continue to face an uncertain future. At the same time, the majority of the international media will give scant coverage outside of issues related to Aung San Suu Kyi and issues related to the current leaders of Myanmar.

Madness sadly hit Norway in 2011 when Anders Breivik killed 77 people in Oslo. The reason for this barbaric attack was then manipulated like a political football but the truth is that this individual was clearly deranged. He was neither a Bible thumping individual nor a regular churchgoer but this didn’t stop the anti-Christian brigade from having a field day. However, the bare fact is that the majority of people he killed were white Norwegians and Christian – this hardly matches the “mad racist” and “devout Christian” image which was being brandished about. Indeed, Breivik stated that  ”I’ve always been very pragmatic and influenced by my secular surroundings and environment.”

Sadly, the gruesome murder of innocents was lost and the massacre committed by Anders Breivik was clearly aimed at a political party he detested. The events of this day will never be forgotten in Norway because it highlighted the weakness of security agencies because one individual managed to throw the entire nation into deep shock. Hopefully, Anders Breivik will never be released from prison and different ethnic and religious communities will work more closely together in order to show the real spirit of Norway.

Natural disasters hit many nations, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, and many others. Therefore, tens of thousands of people died because of natural disasters. The March 11 tsunami which hit Japan was felt all over the world because of the harrowing scenes which were caught on camera. Also, Japan became the first nation in history to be hit by a devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis, at the same time.

The reverberations of the nuclear crisis can still be felt today in Japan and throughout the world. Therefore, the nuclear energy issue became a hot topic and nations like Germany did a u-turn without much thought, irrespective if individuals agree with Germany or not. Ironically, this u-turn will not stop Germany utilizing the nuclear power stations in France but this is a different issue. Meanwhile, the government of Japan is caught between realism, business issues, energy concerns, the green movement, power shortages, a general public which is still divided, and other important factors related to the nuclear sector.

The March 11 earthquake which unleashed the tsunami was truly devastating because tens of thousands of people died. Also, the speed of events shocked people because the tsunami literally destroyed towns and villages that were in its path. Therefore, even today many people are still missing and vast numbers of people are without proper homes in areas hit by the tsunami.

Residents who reside (and who resided) near the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima continue to face a bleak future. Also, the tourist industry, fisheries, and other important areas which created jobs have been hindered by the devastating events of March 11. Given this, the central government needs to work closely with local governments and various agencies in order to get the region back on its feet.

It isn’t all doom and gloom because many communities have started to fight back and rebuild and this also applies to attracting new investment. Therefore, the picture is very mixed but clearly all positive mechanisms need to work together in order to resolve the major obstacles which people and the local business community still face.

2011 isn’t only based on negative events but clearly the political, economic, and natural disasters, have all unleashed convulsions which still can be felt. In this sense, the early period of 2012 will be a natural continuation. After all, the nuclear ill wind in Japan remains unresolved when it applies to radiation and its impact on the natural environment and on local people. The economic crisis in Europe remains and the same applies to other parts of the world but some positive signs can be felt in some nations. Also, the so-called “Arab Spring” may turn out to be truly democratic in the long-term or it may be a false dawn where Islamists take control and new despots emerge – it is impossible to say either way with confidence.

Nations like Nigeria and Somalia will continue to face the menace of radical Sunni Islamic terrorist attacks and attacks against central forces will continue. Issues related to democracy in China will be monitored more deeply given the current political climate and North Korea will probably remain on the same footing. However, North Korea may implement some economic reforms and the new leader may turn out to be more independent minded. Meanwhile, the political merry-go-round will continue in Japan whereby political leaders in the two main political parties will face internal struggles.

The Olympics in London in 2012 offer a positive note because this event will be watched by billions of people. Also, you have signs that China and Japan will focus on greater economic initiatives which will strengthen cooperation between these two powerful neighbors. Overall, 2012 looks like another stuttering year whereby economic issues and political convulsions will continue to create new major problems.

leejay@moderntokyotimes.com

http://moderntokyotimes.com

By The Jamestown Foundation

Kazakhstan has experienced an unusual wave of political violence in the oil-rich western part of the country. The deadly clashes between protestors and Kazakhstan’s security forces that left 15 dead and 110 injured took place just a month before the parliamentary elections scheduled for January 15, 2012.

Violence erupted in the western Kazakh city of Zhanaozen on December 16, the day the country marked 20 years of independence, leaving 14 dead and over 90 injured, according to official information. The police clashed with a crowd that disrupted the Independence Day celebrations by burning down several buildings, including the mayor’s office, the ruling Nur-Otan party quarters, and the offices of the state oil and gas company KazMunaiGas. The rioters wore jackets with the logo of KazMunaiGaz indicating they belonged to the oil workers who have been on strike since May. Many of those who lost their jobs at KazMunaiGaz subsidiary OzenMunaiGaz have protested on the main city square throughout the summer and fall.

The unrest continued on December 17 when protesters blocked the railway station in the village of Shetpe, near Zhanaozen and not far from Aktau, a key transportation hub for the Northern Distribution Network, which provides transit of non-lethal supplies for US troops in Afghanistan. One person was killed and 11 were wounded during clashes with police (Interfax, December 18).

A peaceful demonstration in support of the striking oil workers took place in Aktau on December 18. The protesters made demands to the authorities to stop the violence, restore peace in the region and resolve the labor dispute. It appears that negotiations between the protestors and the local authorities have begun (K-Plus TV, December 18).
Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev has announced a state of emergency in Zhanaozen until January 5, 2012, during which time a curfew is imposed and public gatherings are prohibited.

The clashes in the western city of Zhanaozenare were related to the oil workers’ strike, but at this point it is not clear whether the oil workers started the violence or if their strike was exploited for political purposes. However, in the aftermath of 15 civilian deaths and over one hundred injured, some people in western Kazakhstan accuse the security forces of using lethal force against rioters and blame the authorities for failing to resolve the labor dispute at OzenMunaiGas. Disturbing videos of the police shooting at fleeing rioters and beating them up have caused deep concern among foreign governments and human rights groups. The Kazakh Ambassador to the US, Erlan Idrissov, stated that the video images were shocking and his government is investigating the events (RFE/RL, December 22). “Everyone who is guilty of starting the violence or exceeded his powers in dealing with the rioters will be held responsible,” he said in a press conference in Washington on December 22. The Kazakh Minister of Interior Kalmukhambet Kasymovhas acknowledged that the police would have to put in place better contingency planning for the deployment of nonlethal crowd control techniques (Moscow Times, December 20). 

In a rare move for any of the Central Asian republics, on December 22, Kazakhstan’s prosecutor-general Ashat Daulbaev invited the United Nations to take part in investigations into the deadly clashes between security forces and protesters in the oil-rich west (RFE/RL, December 22).

In addition, President Nazarbayev said on December 22 that he would sack the head of the sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna, Timur Kulibayev, who is also his son-in-law (Reuters, December 22). The heads of the state oil and gas company KazMunaiGas and its London-listed subsidiary KazMunaiGas Exploration Production were also replaced, as well as the governor of Mangystau region where the events took place (Lada – News from Aktau, December 22). The Jamestown Foundation is closely following developments in Kazakhstan and will provide thorough analysis as more information becomes available.

http://jamestownfoundation.blogspot.com/2011/12/political-violence-in-western.html

Please visit The Jamestown Foundation at http://www.jamestown.org for more in depth reports from this highly acclaimed think tank.

Photo source: Eurasia.net which was published with the article by The Jamestown Foundation

Murad Makhmudov and Lee Jay Walker

Modern Tokyo Times

The United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and a host of other nations, keep on sending economic support to Afghanistan and how do the leaders of this nation respond?  Yes, they still support an ongoing Islamic inquisition whereby every Muslim convert to Buddhism, Hindusim or Christianity faces the death penalty.

In truth, the policies of Karzai and the Taliban are not so different because both sides support killing apostates from Islam, the prevention of non-Muslim places of worship, continuing discrimination against women and rigid stratification of Afghanistan. Therefore, any positive images of Kabul being shown in the media, is just “a hidden disguise of reality” and corruption is endemic alongside the heroin trade.

Afghan converts to Christianity and other faiths also face persecution outside of Afghanistan and if de-Islamization of culture isn’t installed into the younger generation via the education system, then what is the point?

Therefore, the mosque and Islamic Sharia law needs to be kept out of all major institutions and reformist Muslim organizations should be supported. After all, how can commerce, pluralism, religious freedom, female emancipation, the rights of homosexuals, and so forth, happen under the prevailing conditions of modern day Afghanistan?

Secularism, credit unions to help business initiatives, a growing liberal media network, a judiciary which is free from religious dogma and an educational system based on liberal values is needed. Of course, other important areas need changing and this applies to restrictions on dress and challenging the power base of traditional rulers who care little about modernity.

This Sunni Islamic version of Islam in Afghanistan is mainly ultra-conservative and based on preserving inequality and the subjugation of non-Muslims, women, and maintaining stratification. The Islamic enlightenment in this country is a million miles away. Therefore, the current Western policy appears to be based on the status quo and allowing another generation of girls to be chained by an oppressive society.

If the option is the Taliban who recently stoned a woman to death for so-called immorality, yes, Mohammed married a child of 6 years of age and consummated the marriage with Aisha when she was 9 years old, and by this time Mohammed was over 50 (Obviously morality is conditional on individuals and not their own prophet); or the Karzai government which is corrupt and supports killing apostates via the state; then what option is this?

Trillions of dollars have been spent on Afghanistan and the return on all this money is you have schools which teach basic education to girls. However, this educational system is uneven and in more conservative areas it is still disliked.

Therefore, what are NATO forces and American troops dying for? Why are the sons and daughters of democrats being thrown to “the jaws of radical Sunni Islam” and the complete corruption and hypocrisy of the Karzai regime?

Once Buddhism and Hinduism nurtured the land of Afghanistan but the Islamic inquisition after countless invasions changed everything and one day all Buddhists would disappear because of many factors. These factors apply to dhimmitude, massacres, pogroms, and once the power shift became dominated by Islamic forces then Buddhism was doomed to just being a shell.

However, the Taliban didn’t even like a shell, therefore, the forces of conservative Sunni Islam turned against all Buddhist images. At the same time, the forces of radical Sunni Islam then turned against the Shia and slaughtered them in the thousands but of course Osama Bin Laden believed that this policy was both Islamic and a jihad.

This madness, and it is madness, which desires to kill apostates to Buddhism, apostates to Christianity, kill homosexuals, stone women to death for adultery, and so forth; isn’t being challenged by “the light of democracy;” on the contrary it is being challenged by appeasement and the corruption of the Karzai regime which also supports killing all apostates and not allowing any other religion in Afghanistan.

If Western political leaders just desire the status quo then surely they should stop wasting the lives of military people who are dying for nothing. Also, tax-payers money shouldn’t be thrown at a county which is undemocratic and corrupt.

America likes to rebuke North Korea but women at least have a million times more freedom in this nation than Afghan women. The same also applies to Saudi Arabia where women can’t drive cars and shop freely with men and so forth.

Indeed, you have more Christian churches in North Korea than in both Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. What does this tell us about Western policy and the nature of conservative Sunni Islam? Also, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia are deemed to be allies but from the point of view of democracy, religious freedom, equality of the sexes, and so forth, it certainly doesn’t look like it.

It is time to stop coddling up to despotism and for greater accountability.

http://www.aina.org/news/20111116185325.htm  (Recent article about apostates in Afghanistan)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060380/Afghan-mother-daughter-stoned-shot-dead-Taliban-accused-moral-deviation-adultery.html  (Woman and daughter stoned to death)

leejay@moderntokyotimes.com

http://moderntokyotimes.com

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 8 Issue: 194

Farkhad Sharip

The Jamestown Foundation

(Source: The Guardian)

On October 6, the regional court of Aktobe in western Kazakhstan announced verdicts on four members of a terrorist gang. The men were accused of killing two policemen and a special task force officer during shootouts between a group of armed local residents and the police last July in the villages of Kenkiyak and Shubarshi in Aktobe region (see EDM, July 22). Kazakhstan’s most sensational legal case involving terrorism to date lasted more than two months. The court sentenced two of the accused to six- and 14-year jail terms and the other two, recognized as ringleaders of the group, were sentenced to life imprisonment. The closed court proceedings took place in the building of the investigation ward, heavily guarded by special task forces and snipers placed on rooftops. The accused, residents of Aktobe, were charged with setting up criminal groups and the illegal possession of firearms (KTK TV, October 6).

To the majority of the public it remained unclear whether the accused were sentenced for a politically motivated terrorist act or religious extremism, as the court definition was not explicitly formulated. It is reminiscent of a similar court case in Aktobe region in February 2010, when two local residents received six- and seven-year prison terms for allegedly plotting a terrorist act in Dagestan, Russia. They were detained on the border with Russia on July 24, 2009 for allegedly intending to join rebel forces fighting Russian troops in the North Caucasus; but later they were suspected of spreading the ideology of Sayid Buryatski. A prominent spiritual leader of rebel fighters, Buryatski had declared a “holy war” against Russian troops.

On September 23, 2009, six members of the alleged terrorist group who planned to blow up oil installations near Kandyagash settlement in Aktobe region were sentenced to 12 and 17 years in prison. Simultaneously, the accusations of belonging to a Wahabi group were linked to them. 

Yet, the trouble is not limited to the complications about legal definitions currently used in Kazakhstan, which frequently fail to draw a clear line between political terrorism and religious extremism and in some cases target innocent people. In addition, constantly changing laws and regulations initiated in the upper echelons of power frequently conflict with the norms and standards accepted by international democratic institutions. This is illustrated by a bill regulating the activities of religious associations, which was passed by the Senate (upper chamber) of Kazakhstan’s Parliament on September 29, and signed into law by President Nursultan Nazarbayev on October 13. 

The law, engineered by the Agency for Religious Affairs, triggered of a wave of indignation from non-governmental organizations (NGO) in Kazakhstan as well as from international human rights organizations. Janez Lenarcic, the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), has warned that the new Kazakh law will restrict religious freedom (Interfax-Kazakhstan, September 30).

According to the law, to be registered with the Agency for Religious Affairs, local religious communities should have no less than 50 members, and for regional and national levels the minimum number should be 500 and 2,500, respectively. Commenting on the new regulations, which practically deny registration to small religious groups, Kairat Lama Shariff, the head of the Agency for Religious Affairs said Kazakhstan as a secular state must take urgent measures to stem the inflow of religious sects who propagate extremism. But Absattar Derbisali, the Chairman of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Kazakhstan believes that Article 7 of the law is harshly restrictive. Article 7 forbids believers from praying in government offices, as well as on the premises of educational and health service institutions. Furthermore, according to the new law, prayer at railway stations and airports is restricted for believers – mostly Muslims – to designated prayer rooms. Absattar Derbisali fears such restrictions will complicate the interrelationship and trust between believers and the state (www.islamnews.ru, October 3).

Kazakhstan’s NGOs were unanimous in their protests against the adoption of the much-criticized law. However, they face equally strong resistance from conservative circles who want the law in effect in order to safeguard the regime against the impact of popular revolutions in the Arab world. Many of the diehards in parliament and government share the view of the presidential advisor Yermukhambet Yertysbaiev, an ardent advocate of harsh measures: “I see no violation of the constitution whatsoever in this law, I categorically reject the opinions voiced by certain human rights campaigners” (www.zakon.kz, October 7).

After the terrorist attacks in Aktobe region in July, President Nazarbayev expressed anxiety in his speeches over the threat of religious extremism in Kazakhstan and tasked the Agency for Religious Affairs with drafting a new law on religion. It was carried out with great haste – within the space of one month – and it appears to completely disregard the prevailing mood among religious groups. The mounting tension provoked by the controversial law shows that the means chosen by the authorities hardly justifies the political ends of stability and peace in the society.

 http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=38559&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=56ac3fb578d26137524039a0a05a21b5

Please visit The Jamestown Foundation at http://www.jamestown.org for more in depth reports from this highly accliamed think tank.

(Source: Central Asia Online)

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir is yet to win the presidency formally next year, but he has already laid out ambitious foreign policy plans in regard to former Soviet states, Russia’s “traditional sphere of influence,” as the Kremlin often defines it. In his recent op-ed piece in Izvestiya, Putin proposed deepening the integration of former Soviet states within a newly proposed Eurasian Union (www.izvestia.ru, October 3).

Putin sees the Eurasian Union as an extension of the CIS and the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union, arguing that it will be a long-term project that intends to function independent of political regime changes in its member states. Putin also pledges that the new union, “connecting Europe and the Asia-Pacific region,” will promote the development of domestic industries and expand trade ties between its members.

The Russian leader, however, denies that the new union will be a mere restoration of the USSR. Instead he compares the potential union with the EU Schengen zone and promises that labor migrants would be free to move across borders without having to match their skills to existing migrant quotas in Russia. Europe needed 40 years to integrate, while the Customs Union requires much less time to gain traction, he says.

For Putin, the Customs Union’s main architect, the grouping has already become an instrument of both regional and international politics. Union membership is regarded as an indicator of political alignment with and support of the Russian leadership in the post-Soviet space. Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are being pressurized to join the club.

Moscow easily convinced Belarus and Kazakhstan to support the idea of a common market. The isolated Belarusian economy is deeply dependent on Russian credits, and President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s domestic political support is contingent upon his relations with his much larger neighbor.

For Kazakhstan, on the other hand, the Customs Union is more a symbol of good neighborly relations with Russia rather than of economic integration. Unlike Belarus, Kazakhstan’s biggest trade partner continues to be the European Union, and the country is also expanding its economic cooperation with China and the United States. Kazakh experts, however, link 12 percent inflation in the country over the past few months with the union agreement.

By contrast, Ukraine’s current pro-Moscow leadership has been reluctant to join Putin’s project as a full member, proposing collaboration with the union in a special “3+1” format. President Viktor Yanukovych has said that Ukraine is interested in collaborating with the union, but full membership would undermine the country’s current benefits derived from serving as a transit state for Russian gas (www.rbc.ua, August 26). Russian President Dmitry Medvedev rejected the idea outright, however, stating that Russia will only accept Ukraine as a full member.

While Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have shown interest in becoming members of the Customs Union, both countries face strong domestic opposition against joining the grouping. If Tajikistan joins the Customs Union, Russia will have the right and responsibility to station its border guards on the Tajik-Afghan border to control all cargo passing through to the union’s border. According to Moscow, Tajikistan’s military lacks sufficient capacity to prevent the transit of drugs across the border. Russian border guards are already posted on the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border to check trucks crossing that frontier. Since withdrawing from the Tajik-Afghan border in 2004, Russia has been trying to reestablish its military presence in the country.

Since entering into force last year, the Customs Union has implemented several key trade agreements, but its members remain divided on a number of policies. The union forces Russia to relax some of the retaliatory trade bans Moscow imposed in 2006 on Georgian products. As the Customs Union is designed to erase trade barriers among its members, Georgian products banned in Russia will inevitably make their way to the Russian market once they pass through intermediary countries that have not imposed similar trade bans. Although Belarus has imposed sanctions on Georgian products, Kazakhstan freely sells Georgian wines and mineral water.

The Customs Union’s future beyond its three members is uncertain. Putin’s new Eurasian project will survive should the current members show their political support. Other Russian-led initiatives have been similarly supported by regional players, only to fizzle out later. According to the Kremlin, before announcing his plans, Putin had not consulted with the union’s other members (www.kommersant.ru, October 4).

Please visit The Jamestown Foundation at http://www.jamestown.org  for more in depth reports from this highly acclaimed think tank

According to an analysis by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Afghan Taliban and its affiliates such as the Haqqani network and Gulbuddin Heckmatyar’s Hizbe-Islami (HI) attempted to launch three big attacks on strategic targets in Kabul since the responsibility for the internal security of Kabul was transferred by the US-led NATO forces to the Afghan security forces three months ago. In two of these attacks, the Afghan security forces were taken by surprise. Only in one, they were able to thwart the attack.

2. The two successful attacks by the Taliban and its affiliates were one in June when seven people were killed in an attack on the Inter-Continental Hotel and another in August when insurgents stormed the British Council HQ, killing 12 people.

3. There was a third attack on September 13. It began at about 13:30 local time when a car carrying insurgents was stopped at a checkpoint about 300 metres from the US Embassy. There were several large explosions and the insurgents, who were thwarted from raiding the US Embassy, entered a nearby nine-storey building under construction and from there opened fire with rockets and mortars.

4. Haroun Mir, Director of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies, has been quoted as saying that it was the first time that four groups of militants had attacked in four different places— near the US Embassy, on a Police Station and an attempt at forced entry into the airport which was foiled. The identity of the fourth target is not clear.

5.The insurgents used a mix of modus operandi consisting of commando-style attacks with explosives and hand-held weapons near the US Embassy and suicide attacks in the other three places. While the attacks were spectacular in their planning and execution, they were not very lethal as seen from the low figures of fatalities—less than 10, four of them policemen. No casualties were reported from the US Embassy. The total number of insurgents involved in the attack in the US Embassy area is estimated at around 10.

6. In view of the location of the US Embassy in the area attacked, it is saturated with state-of-the-art CCTV cameras given by the US, but these were of no help in detecting the arrival of the insurgents. It is suspected that the insurgent had cached the hand-held weapons beforehand in the building under construction and launched their raid only with explosives. In the confusion caused by the explosions, they entered the building, retrieved the hand-held weapons and started exchanging fire with the security forces posted in the area.

7.The reports on the attacks received so far reflect somewhat poorly on the Afghan and NATO intelligence both of which failed to give advance warnings, but speak well of the reflexes of the Afghan security forces, which recovered quickly from the initial shock and managed to deny a strategic victory to the insurgents.

8.Tactical surprise scored by the insurgents due to poor Afghan and NATIO intelligence, but a successful fight-back by the Afghan Security Forces after recovering from the initial surprise and shock have been a defining characteristic of recent attacks in Kabul. Till now, the largely US-trained Afghan Security Forces have been able to stand up to the Taliban and its affiliates much better than the US-trained forces of South Vietnam were able to do against the Vietcong in the 1970s.

9. However, what should be of real concern is not the reach of the Taliban and its affiliates into Kabul, but their continuing hold in the interior areas despite the counter-insurgency operations with modern weapons and technology launched by the US last year.

10.The Afghan Taliban managed to carry out a catastrophic attack on a US helicopter on August 5,2011, carrying 30 US troops including 22 Navy SEALS, belonging to the same unit which had killed Osama bin Laden in a raid at Abbottabad in Pakistan on May 2 —killing all of them. It was the largest fatality in a single incident ever suffered by the US during its military operations in Afghanistan launched in 2001 and the largest fatality ever suffered in a single incident by the Joint Special Operations Command, which controls the operations of the Navy SEALS since the JSOC was set up. Seven Afghan troops and an interpreter also died in the incident.

11. Subsequently, at least two Afghan civilians were killed and up to 77 non-Afghan soldiers – thought mostly to be American – were injured when a suicide bomber in a lorry attacked a NATO base in the Wardak province on September 11, the 10th anniversary of Al Qaeda’s 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US homeland.

12. These incidents in Kabul and the interior underline the continuing ability of the Afghan Taliban and its affiliates to take NATO/Afghan forces by surprise. The US intelligence capability vis-a-vis Al Qaeda in the Af-Pak region might have improved, but not its capability vis-a-vis Taliban and its allies or affiliates. The US ground intelligence inside Afghanistan—preventive as well as disruptive— is as poor as ever. HUMINT in particular is weak quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The Afghan intelligence has not been able to compensate for the USA’s poor HUMINT capability.

13. The USA’s analysis and assessment capability is below par. It does not have a correct measure of the Taliban and its affiliates. The US may be making headway against Al Qaeda, but it is not against the Taliban. If one considers the totality of the picture in the Af-Pak region—anti-terror, anti-insurgency—- the US is far from prevailing in Afghanistan.

14. The US troops after 10 years in Afghanistan are in the same position as the Soviet troops after eight years were in 1987—victory increasingly elusive.

15. The US strategy in Afghanistan needs a re-visit. So too the Indian strategy. Despite all our support, the Najib Government in Kabul collapsed in April 1992.A similar fate might befall the Karzai Govt.

16.We had a Northern Alliance option after Najib fell. We do not have a similar option in Afghanistan today. Post-1992, India, Russia and Iran jointly countered Pakistani machinations. Today, Pakistan has moved closer to Russia and the Central Asian Republics in an attempt to prevent a convergence of Indian and Russian objectives in Afghanistan. The implications for the security of this region and for our internal security if the Taliban and its affiliates, with Pakistani support, manage to impose a no-win situation on the US-led NATO forces need to be carefully examined by us and necessary correctives introduced in our Af-Pak policy. (14-9-11)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies.)

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 8 Issue: 165

By: Dario Cristiani  

The Jamestown Foundation

ENI rig in Kashagan, Kazakhstan (Source: ENI)

 

Kazakhstan and Italy are developing a major strategic partnership that is rapidly altering ties between the two countries. For Italy, one of the main and constant aims of Italian foreign policy – regardless of the political orientation of its government – is to guarantee the stability of its energy supplies. Italy imports about 85 percent of its energy. This need explains, in part, the cool reaction of the Italian government toward a military intervention in Libya (I-Italy.Org, February 25). It also explains the importance of ENI, the country’s largest natural gas and oil company, in Italy’s foreign relations strategy. The company, even though it cannot be considered an independent actor, enjoys larger degrees of autonomy in pursuing its strategies worldwide. As a major importer of energy, Italy is in a near constant search to strengthen its ties with countries that can serve as reliable sources of stable and relatively convenient energy supplies. Its relationship with Russia, however, has fallen under scrutiny, given the publication of some diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks concerning Rome’s relations with Moscow (Corriere della Sera, Nov 29, 2010). Less known and analyzed, however, is the strong relationship that exists between Italy and Kazakhstan, which has received greater impulse during the past several months.

During the latest meeting of the Kazakh-Italian intergovernmental working group for industrial and economic cooperation and exchange, Timur Suleimenov, Vice Minister of Economic Development and Trade, said that Italy has become the “main strategic partner of Kazakhstan in Europe” (Gazeta.kz, May 27). On this occasion, it has been noted that trade between the two partners has increased by 30 percent year on year in 2010 and that Italy is one of the biggest European investors in Kazakhstan (KazInform, May 27).

Recently, the Italian Defense Ministry has also opened a Defense Attaché Office under the Embassy of Italy in Astana, a move that will also boost political and strategic ties (KazInform, May 26). These developments have followed the Kazakh Senate’s ratification of the treaty on strategic partnership, which was agreed to by President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Italian Prime Minister, head of a centre-right government, Silvio Berlusconi in 2009 (Tengri News, March 31). This was the latest bilateral meeting between the two countries and a very important diplomatic step toward strengthening their cooperation.

In December 2010, the Italian Prime Minister flew to Astana to attend the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit organized by Kazakhstan, which held the presidency of the organization that year. During the meeting, Berlusconi took the floor to express his deepest admiration for the Kazakh President, stating that “polls made by an independent authority assigned Nazarbayev 92 percent of respect and love from Kazakh people” and that such a consensus can be explained as based “on nothing but facts” (Rai News 24, December 2, 2010). At first glance, such words can at best sound eccentric, especially considering the persistent remarks of the international community toward Kazakhstan’s standards of democracy, human rights and freedom of speech. Yet, Berlusconi’s remarks can be explained by the massive geopolitical and energy interests Italy has in Kazakhstan. For example, ENI is a major player in the development of the Kachargan and Kashagan oil fields in Kazakhstan (http://www.eni.com/it_IT/eni-nel-mondo/kazakhstan/attivita-eni/attivita-eni.shtml).

ENI faced several significant obstacles to developing Kashagan. In late 2010, ENI subsidiary Agip Kazakhstan North Caspian Operating Company (Agip KCO) was accused of $110 million in fraud in alleged overcharges associated with the construction of the Bolashakin oil installation in the Kashagan project (Sole 24 Ore, November 19, 2010). ENI denied the allegations, stating that such an investigation started already in 2007 and that Kazakh authorities did not provide any further details since then. Likely, some more immediate political interests lurked behind this legal issue, such as the fate of 19,000 employees. Largely Kazakh citizens, these employees’ contracts were to be terminated as the first phase of the construction was nearing its completion and the ongoing negotiations to start the second phase of the development of Kashagan field progressed. This is only the latest example of the troubles ENI currently faces in Kazakhstan. Several other times in the past, ENI was on a collision course with Kazakh authorities. In 2007, for example, the Italian prime minister at that time – head of a center-left coalition – Romano Prodi, had to meet with Nazarbayev in order to solve the dispute sparked by allegations concerning ENI activities in the country. The Italian company was accused of disrespecting Kazakh norms of environmental protection (Corriere della Sera, 8 October, 2007). This dispute ended with the re-negotiation of the Kashagan project agreement whereby ENI ended up selling part of its stakes – 8.4 percent – to the national Kazakh Company Kazmunaigaz and lost its role as sole leader of the consortium (Sole 24 Ore, January 14, 2008). In 2009, the company signed additional contracts concerning the development of the fields of Isatay and Shagala, as well as the Pavlodar refinery. The CEO of ENI, Paolo Scaroni, used very optimistic words to describe this result, saying that “that is a wide agreement and a large part of Kazakh oil and gas could come under our influence” (Sole 24 Ore, November 6, 2009). This mix of positive developments and harsh blows represents a consistent record for ENI in the country.

Kashagan is a very critical project not only for Italy, but for ENI as well. In May 2011, during a meeting with Nazarbayev, Paolo Scaroni assured that the first oil is expected in December 2012 or two to three months later than that (Tengri News, May 18). In the past few weeks, however, several problems have arisen and there is a serious risk of further delays. The second phase of the project will be headed by Shell, which will replace ENI as leading company of the project. The Kazakh government has rejected a new lower-cost design for this second phase. Karim Massimov, Kazakhstan’s prime minister, clearly told the Financial Times that the issue with the consortium developing the field is about costs (Financial Times, May 22). As a result, Shell has decided to shut its offices in Aktau (Tengri News, May 31).

As previously mentioned, ENI’s repeated disputes with Kazakhstan over the development of the field represent “normality,” and they have caused constant delays and problems. Production has not started yet, and some members of the consortium, such as ExxonMobil, are tempted to bail out of this project. This would also be a very worrisome development for the other companies involved. Yet, given Kazakhstan’s ambitious economic growth goals and the need to increase its oil output, it is likely that Kazakh authorities will try to meet part of the requirements of the consortium to avoid a major blow to these development projects (Milano Finanza, May 26).

Over the coming years, Kazakhstan will represent a growing geopolitical interest for Italy. In general, Italy will try to deepen its presence among the CIS energy producers, since the countries of this area are considered less volatile than the Mediterranean producers. As noted above, improving its relationship with Kazakhstan has been a consistent element of Italian foreign policy, regardless of the political orientation of Italian governments. ENI, even though it suffered some blows to its activities in the country, will still represent a key player in this relationship. Astana, as well, has an interest in increasing its relationship with Rome. Italy is now considered the main strategic partner within the European Union. Kazakhstan needs to increase its oil exports to get cash to boost and diversify its economy, as well as to increase its international status. Even though Astana is also diversifying its foreign policy by boosting its relationship with China, the European link will remain fundamental, and Italy will play a major role within this context.

The Jamestown Foundation

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By Sally McNamara

The Heritage Foundation

Publication: China Brief Volume: 11 Issue: 15

By: Jagannath P. Panda

The Jamestown Foundation

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit at Astana on June 15, 2011 signalled Asia’s regional security order is slowly shifting as Afghanistan appears to be angling to become a new observer member in this decade-old Central Asian body (Ria Novosti, May 16). The Sino-Afghan relationship looks to be establishing the contours for an institutional linkage between Afghanistan and the SCO. Three factors coincide in this emerging relationship: withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan; the SCO’s tenth anniversary; and the debate about expanding the SCO’s mandate and membership. Although China shares only a 46-mile long border with Afghanistan, Chinese investment in that country is increasing consistently to exploit Afghanistan’s energy and mineral resources. Yet going beyond the conventional strategy of engaging Afghanistan bilaterally, Beijing is considering an alternative SCO-based approach that could ease regional concerns while still serving Chinese interests. The prime medium in this context is the SCO. While Afghanistan’s observer membership in the SCO will combine both the strategically important Central and South Asian region together to address regional security issues, the question arises as the United States draws down: is Beijing following a multilateral mode for engaging Afghanistan vice the normal bilateral one?

China, Afghanistan and the SCO: The Reckoning 

Both the SCO and China have shown great interest in Afghanistan recently: both strongly support the construction and political stabilization of Afghanistan. As expressed at the Astana summit, the SCO is looking for deeper engagement in Afghanistan. This year is a stepping stone for the SCO’s role as there are plans to launch a five-year counter-narcotics strategy to tackle drug production in the region, which would probably require Kabul’s involvement. While Afghanistan has been keen to join the SCO as an observer, China has been keen to receive Afghanistan. This is not surprising given the Afghanistan’s geopolitical situation and at a time when the SCO is on the verge of expansion. One of the key questions is whether China is trying to use Afghanistan to facilitate its greater Central and South Asian interests. Eventually, Beijing may consider Afghanistan for a full-membership, especially if the SCO’s scope is expanded to South Asia. This has to be understood in the broader Chinese policy planning context. Afghanistan is a member in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) along with India and Pakistan where Beijing is requesting membership. Whether through Central Asia or South Asia, Beijing intends to keep Afghanistan engaged and stay connected at every possible level in order to deny the strategic advantages Afghanistan offers to other powers.

In Afghanistan, most powers’ strategic interests converge, whether China, the United States or India: create and maintain stability so Afghanistan’s metal and mineral reserves can be extracted. Extracting Afghanistan’s mineral resources also aids stability by providing Afghan youths job opportunities and creating tax revenues. The China Metallurgical Corporation’s (MCC) investment of roughly $4 billion in Afghanistan’s Aynak copper mine is the largest foreign direct investment so far in that country. If fully implemented, it will be a larger commercial investment than all other current foreign investments put together. The proposal includes the construction of a freight railway, a power plant, housing, a mosque and a hospital. (Defensestudies.org, May 14, 2010; Xinhua, May 22).

Furthermore, Chinese economic assistance for Afghanistan’s rehabilitation since 2002 has been more than $130 million. In 2009 China announced a $75 million aid package for Afghanistan’s reconstruction in the next five years (Xinhua, March 24 2010). Chinese companies like ZTE and Huawei have partnered with the Afghan Ministry of Communications to install digital telephone switches, providing about 200,000 subscriber lines. Other projects like the Parawan irrigation project, restoring water supply in Parwar province, reconstruction of the public hospitals in Kabul and Kandahar show the wide-ranging and vibrant Chinese engagement in Afghanistan (Niklas Norling, “The Emerging Afghan-China Relations,” Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Analyst, May 14, 2008). China’s leadership has constantly asked for greater international aid for Afghanistan and has advocated coordinating this role through the UN (Xinhua, March 18). 

The driving factor in the Sino-Afghan relationship has been the growing political maturity and trust between the two countries. President Hamid Karzai stated Afghanistan would follow “America’s democracy and China’s economic success” (Norling, “The Emerging Afghan-China Relations”). Implementing this formula, he finalized three specific deals during his previous trip to Beijing in March 2010: economic cooperation, technical training and granting of preferential tariffs to select Afghan exports to China (Xinhua, March 25, 2010). Afghanistan and other countries involved in its reconstruction all see China as a major player in stabilizing Afghanistan.

Beijing is concerned with three Afghanistan-related security issues: terrorism, drug trafficking and cross-border crimes (China Daily, June 11, 2010). China has provided some training to the Afghan police and military officers since 2006 and some reports indicated China planned to give $4 million this year in logistical and material support (Stina Torjesen, “Fixing Afghanistan: What Role for China?” Norwegian Peace Building Centre, No. 7, June  2010). An array of factors like the potential for Taliban resurgence, NATO’s failed counter-narcotic policy with poppy cultivation rising and, most importantly, the not-so-stable regime contribute hugely to China’s fear that Afghanistan’s instability spill into Central Asia. For example, Kyrgyzstan is powerless to police its border with Afghanistan, making the country vulnerable to drug traffickers. Such factors make the SCO a viable means to address security concerns more directly.

Discussions with various Chinese experts give the impression that Beijing currently is considering using the SCO and other multilateral mechanisms as an option for approaching Afghanistan in the context of U.S. troop reduction in the region. The quandary however is, while direct and strong security measures by China analogous to the Western presence would probably help stabilize Afghanistan, an extended Chinese security presence in region could strongly antagonise potential competitors and upset regional relations. Consequently, Chinese officials do not discuss the parameters of SCO engagement in Afghanistan in isolation from its regional context.

The SCO as a Potential Medium

Notably, most of Afghanistan’s neighbours are either SCO members or observers. Beijing—at least, according to Sun Weidong, the Deputy Director-General of the Minstry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) Asian Department—envisions that the SCO should play a bigger and productive role in Afghanistan’s reconstruction process, (Khaleej Times, June 8, 2010). In Beijing’s formulation, Afghanistan is a vitally strategic location that connects South Asia and Central Asia and that both China and the SCO must take seriously. Some argue China should even discuss a more direct security role in Afghanistan and consider using cities like Kashgar and Urumqi as logistical hubs for NATO’s operations in Afghanistan or even deploying troops to the country (D.S. Rajan, “China: Xinjiang’s Wakhan corridor as US base,” South Asia Analysis Group, No. 3579, December 2009; Torjesen, “Fixing Afghanistan”). This, however, is unlikely to happen even if the Russians accepted such Chinese activity, but what is important here is Beijing’s willingness to consider different approaches.

Establishing closer linkages with the region through the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group is one such method. China understands this group is an interesting SCO initiative, which could be used to discuss various security issues beyond the Sino-Afghan bilateral framework. Seeing this initiative as an opportunity to strengthen institutional linkages within the region, Zhang Deguang, the first SCO Secretary General, hoped the SCO would work with this group to address the Afghanistan issue (China Daily, February 4, 2010). At the same time, the future US presence in Afghanistan remains a vital factor behind China’s seriousness on Afghanistan. Chinese experts contend “the United States overall strategy on Afghanistan and South Asia deserves even greater attention than the withdrawal plan.” They mostly hint at the US strategy of preparing a “comprehensive plan” for Afghanistan that includes political, military and diplomatic elements (Beijing Review, July 21, 2011). Hence, Beijing’s intention is to develop a similarly comprehensive strategy. Yet, the recent Chinese reach in Central Asia is seen more as a “revival tactic” of its old Silk Road policy than anything new (Xinhua, June 15). Beijing’s current focus is to integrate the region economically with China’s West by prevailing over Central Asian reservations to removing trade barriers (New York Times, January 2).

Regional stability will push China’s progress both in economic and strategic terms to Afghanistan and the adjacent region of Central Asia [1]. China has been facing security problems in Xinjiang and Tibet Autonomous Region. To resolve these, China may opt for multilateral engagement with Afghanistan through the SCO rather than only banking upon bilateral contacts. Interacting with Chinese experts gives the impression that if the SCO’s mandate and membership expands, Beijing would like to use the SCO to influence Afghanistan.

In the view of Chinese analysts, the SCO has become a mature organization with global reach and influence (Beijing Review, June 24, 2010). At the Astana summit, Hu Jintao urged fellow SCO-member heads of state to “make all-out efforts to build the SCO into a regional cooperation organization that features sound institutions, smooth coordination, comprehensive cooperation, openness and harmony” (People’s Daily, June 16).

Beijing is debating deepening both security and economic cooperation in the SCO. On the former, apart from the regular joint counter-terrorism exercises, China has suggested developing “joint warning” and “joint law enforcement” mechanisms to tackle possible security threats. According to Ji Zhiye, a senior Ministry of State Security-affiliated scholar, these threats may come from the resurgence of radical Islamists after the United States withdraws troops from Afghanistan. On the latter, China is planning to propose a new mechanism to develop economic cooperation after it takes over SCO’s rotating presidency in June 2011 (China Daily, June 9). Besides granting financial assistance to SCO members, China wants to push the infrastructural linkages among SCO countries. For example, Director of the SCO Studies Department at the MFA-linked China Institute of International Studies, Chen Yurong, believes that “one of the SCO’s priority economic cooperation programmes is restoring the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway links. China has rebuilt a Kirghiz section of the railway … it has a direct bearing on fostering economic and personnel exchanges in Central Asian countries.” China plans to make the year 2012 “the year of neighbourliness and friendship” among SCO member states (Xinhua, June 8).

South Asia as a Factor

Chinese foreign policymakers are well aware of the strategic opportunities and challenges Afghanistan offers after the U.S. troop withdrawal. To seize those opportunities, “multiple considerations” are being considered in China currently. One of those considerations is how to employ Afghanistan as a common factor for broader Central Asia and South Asia policy. The reference point here again remains the USA. Chinese experts are concerned about the USA’s proposal of tying the Central Asia and South Asia together through the trade and energy corridors (Beijing Review, July 21). When China would prefer to develop the similar strategy like the United States, the most appropriate option for the Chinese at the moment seems to be establishing a strong connection between Central Asia and South Asia by granting SCO membership to Afghanistan. Hence, SCO expansion is a matter of utmost importance in China today. 

From the beginning, China has played safe by stating that the membership expansion debate in the SCO is a “complicated process” and any plan to expand SCO membership should be carried on the basis of “consensus.” Even previously, when the Russians unilaterally proposed SCO expansion, Beijing rejected the idea as “excessive expansion” (Times of India, June 9, 2010). Jiang Yu, spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, once stated that “on the SCO enlargement, the organization is now mainly involved in pragmatic cooperation with its observers and partners.… However, enlargement is a complicated issue which bears on the further development of the SCO” (in.china-embassy.org 2010).

Though China has never taken an exclusive position over SCO expansion, Pakistan remains a natural choice for Beijing if SCO membership is expanded in future. Apart from having an “all-weather relationship,” Pakistan facilitates Chinese strategic objectives in various ways. For example, China and Pakistan have a great intelligence-sharing relationship to monitor and prevent any possible linkages between Uyghur separatists in China and radical extremists and terrorist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In addition, China wants to use Pakistan to ensure safety of its energy supply routes; hence, Beijing is investing heavily in Gwadar and other areas in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) (Torjesen, “Fixing Afghanistan”; Japan Times, June 9). With respect to India, given the complex bilateral relationship, Beijing wants to consider various strategic factors before even minimally supporting India for SCO membership. The Chinese are well-aware of the strategic advantage India carries in the Central Asian region and the Russian support which goes in favour of India for the prospective SCO membership. Broadly, while the Chinese are aware of India’s rising interests in Central Asian affairs, geographic density and dynamism of the adjacent region of South Asia induces China to consider the benefits of SCO expansion—whether it would help China to exercise greater influence in the Central Asia–South Asia region.

Given the SCO probably will be expanded to South Asia, China realises the importance of India, Pakistan and particularly of Afghanistan in the SCO which will not only radically change the regional power politics but also the political dynamics within the SCO itself. In order not to lose its pre-eminence either at the regional level or within the SCO itself, Beijing would like to institute closer relationship with Afghanistan apart from Pakistan in the region. To facilitate this design, Beijing will try to reach and sway Afghanistan in its favour at multilateral level rather than limiting the option only at bilateral level before the SCO expansion takes place. Beijing’s future agenda and strategy corresponds with the SCO at a wider level, and the broader plan sets the stage for this Central Asian body to play a constructive role in Afghanistan.

Notes:

1. Pan Guang. “A Chinese Perspective on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” in Alyson Bailes, J. K., Pal Dunay, Pan Guang and Mikhail Troitskiy, “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization”, SIPRI Policy Paper No. 17 (May 2007), p. 46.

Publication: China Brief – The Jamestown Foundation

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Afghanistan Taliban Carries Out A Catastrophic Strike Against US Navy Seals

2. It was seen as a joint operation by the followers of the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the Pakistani Taliban followers of the late Baitullah Mehsud to jointly avenge the death of Zarqawi in Iraq and Baitullah in South Waziristan. They blamed the CIA for the death of their leaders.

3.In an operation reminiscent of the catastrophic Khost attack on the CIA by Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban has managed to carry out a catastrophic attack on a US helicopter on August 5,2011, carrying 30 US troops including 22 Navy SEALS, belonging to the same unit which had killed Osama bin Laden in a raid at Abbottabad in Pakistan on May 2 —killing all of them. It is the largest fatality in a single incident ever suffered by the US during its military operations in Afghanistan launched in 2001 and the largest fatality ever suffered in a single incident by the Joint Special Operations Command, which controls the operations of the Navy SEALS since the JSOC was set up. Seven Afghan troops and an interpreter also died in the incident.

4. Latest reports indicate that the catastrophic incident, which has been greeted with shock and disbelief by the JSOC and the Navy SEALS, was the outcome of a trap successfully laid by the Afghan Taliban, which has claimed responsibility for bringing down the helicopter.

5. Afghan authorities seem to suspect that the attack was in retaliation for the successful raid by the Navy SEALS on the hide-out of Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad in Pakistan on May 2, which resulted in his death, but the Taliban itself in its claim of responsibility, has not so far projected the attack as in retaliation for the death of OBL. It was not even clear whether the Taliban was aware of the presence of Navy SEALS from the same unit that killed OBL in the copter that it brought down

6. The Agence France Presse (AFP) has reported as follows on the trap:

“ The Taliban lured US forces into an elaborate trap to shoot down their helicopter, killing 30 American troops in the deadliest such incident of the war, an Afghan official said on August 8.

“A total of 38 people — 30 US troops, many of them special forces, plus seven Afghan commandos and an interpreter — were killed when their Chinook came down during an anti-Taliban operation late Friday ( August 5).

“The crash marked the biggest single loss of life for American and NATO forces since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban in late 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks.

“The senior government official told AFP on condition of anonymity that a Taliban commander, Qari Tahir, lured US forces to the scene by tipping them off that a Taliban meeting was taking place.

“He also said four Pakistanis helped Tahir carry out the strike.

“Now it’s confirmed that the helicopter was shot down and it was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander,” said the official, citing intelligence gathered from the area.

“The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take,” he added.

“That’s the only route, so they took position on either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. It was brought down by multiple shots.

“The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss the issue, also said President Hamid Karzai’s US-backed government “thinks this was a retaliation attack for the killing of Osama bin Laden.”

“The Taliban themselves did not make such an assertion on claiming responsibility for the attack, which took place in the Taliban-infested Sayd Abad district of Wardak province, just southwest of Kabul.

“US media has reported that the dead included members of the Navy’s SEAL Team Six, the secretive unit behind the daring raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan in May.

“US administration sources interviewed by AFP said the casualties did not include anyone who took part in the bin Laden raid on May 2.”

7.The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement that the CH-47 Chinook helicopter was fired on “by an insurgent rocket-propelled grenade while transporting the US service members and commandos to the scene of an ongoing engagement.”

8.According to the statement, the operation had begun when ISAF troops searching for a Taliban leader in the Tangi Valley, surrounded by rugged mountains in central Maidan Wardak province about 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Kabul, were fired on by insurgents.

9.Several of the insurgents were killed before assistance was requested. “As the insurgents continued to fire, the combined force on the ground requested additional forces to assist the operation,” the ISAF statement said.

10.”Those additional personnel were in-bound to the scene when the CH-47 carrying them crashed, killing all on board.”

11.US media has quoted a spokesman of the Naval Special Warfare group as saying: “There’s no precedent for this. It’s the worst day in our history by a mile.” Of the 22 Naval Special Warfare members killed, 17 were SEALs and five were direct support personnel.

12.Since the US military action began in Afghanistan in October, 2001, this is the second time that the Taliban has brought down a US helicopter. In an earlier successful strike by it in the Kunar province on June 28,2005, eight SEALS and eight other military personnel were killed when their copter was brought down by the Taliban. Another three SEALs were killed during a firefight on the ground.

13. An estimated 383 foreign troops have been killed so far this year, almost 50 of them in the first week of August. The catastrophic attack underlines the undamaged capability of the Afghan Taliban to take the NATO forces by surprise and inflict heavy casualties on them and its determination to make the US withdrawal from Afghanistan a humiliating retreat and not a successful withdrawal. ( 9-8-11)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail:)

International Crisis Group

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 8 Issue: 147

By: Roman Muzalevsky 

The Jamestown Foundation

(Source: RIA Novosti)

July 1 marked the launch of the now “fully operational” Customs Union (Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia) fueling debate on the future of the post-Soviet space and even the grouping itself. Indeed, ruptures have already revealed themselves among existing members (such as the recent “tariff wars” between Russia and Belarus over dairy and oil imports), inviting substantial opposition from local and foreign audiences who view the union as Moscow’s tool to project its influence in what is increasingly a non-Russian backyard.

Against the stalled World Trade Organization (WTO) accession process, Russia’s gamble on the Customs Union is widely viewed in economic and psychological terms given Moscow’s traditional need to bolster its image as a great power. Understandably for Moscow, however, the Customs Union is also grounded in political and security concerns about the “Middle Kingdom’s” economic expansion in the Far East and Central Asia. While many foreign observers are fixated on Russia’s related steps in the framework of its alleged stand-off against the West, many local ones increasingly interpret Russia’s push in the Customs Union in the context of Sino-Russian economic rivalry in energy-rich Central Asia.

With India, Pakistan, and Iran seeking membership in the Sino-Russian-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Moscow pays more attention to its Central and South Asian perimeter. In WikiLeaks, the Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan, Chen Gopin, offered his view of China’s position on Russia to his US counterpart: “I will have to cautiously balance between our growing cooperation in the region and Russian interests. However, we cannot harm our interests because of Russia. In Sino-Russian relations in Central Asia, there is both cooperation and competition. Our policy is to co-exist here, and we need to maintain a dialogue” (www.km.ru, June 14).

For Central Asia, China’s economic expansion and Russian-led integration schemes can be both a blessing and a curse. The region’s countries need China and Russia to develop as transit, trade, and production centers, but they cannot afford to become overly dependent on either. A standard guideline for the countries is not to yield to the extreme pressures of the two giants, one of which is increasingly on the defensive, and the other – more frequently on the offensive. In the context of the much-discussed Customs Union, doing just that is far from easy, particularly for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which are currently weighing the pros and cons of accession.

Both are poor countries, highly dependent on fuel imports (in the 90 percent range) and migrant remittances (billions of dollars) from Russia to sustain their fledgling economies. They also rely on “Silk Roads” visions to generate revenues from re-export and transit of Chinese goods. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have recently seen fuel price hikes after Russian imposed restrictions on fuel exports. The Kyrgyz Prime Minister and the Presidential candidate, Almazbek Atambaev, already visited Moscow in an effort to secure more steady gas supplies. He has also called for Kyrgyz membership in the Customs Union (www.rferl.org, July 18).

Membership may help Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan improve their bargaining position on energy imports, but it could also trigger a strong social backlash as a result of higher unemployment, increased prices, and reduced capacity to re-export Chinese goods (www.rosbalt.ru, July 1; www.pravda.kg, May 23). Kyrgyzstan is now a major regional transit point for Chinese products, with up to 75 percent of imports from China being re-exported. Tens of thousands of workers in the country are engaged in re-export activities. Two Kyrgyz large markets (Dordoi and Kara-Suu) generate about 33 percent of the country’s GDP (www.freemarket.kg). The Head of the Markets Association, Sergei Ponomarev, stated that the trade turnover involving Dordoi alone has already declined almost twofold following the launch of the Customs Union (www.pravda.kg, May 23). The trade turnover between Kyrgyzstan and the WTO was 48 percent in 2010, while between Kyrgyzstan and the Customs Union was only 1.9 percent (www.cacianalyst.org, July 6).

Bishkek and Dushanbe, as well as others in the region, look to China to overhaul their badly crippled Soviet-era economic infrastructures and revitalize economic flows across regions. In 2009, China offered $10 billion in loans to the SCO members “to shore up the struggling economies” in response to the global financial crisis (www.chinadaily.com.cn, June 16, 2009). Trade between China and Central Asia grew from $0.5 billion in 1992 to $25.9 billion in 2009. General Liu Yazhou of the People’s Liberation Army, says that Central Asia is “the thickest piece of cake given to the modern Chinese by the heavens” (www.the-diplomat.com, Accessed on July 26). The region is a platform for China to maintain its energy security, trade expansion, and territorial integrity. There is already a growing spree of infrastructure development funded by Beijing, which includes energy pipelines, roads, railways, and trade links connecting China with Eurasia through Central Asia.

For some, anchoring the regional economies to the controversial Customs Union would enable Moscow to deal with such a flurry of Chinese activity in Russia’s zone of “privileged interests.” For Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, the Customs Union is a logical step on the way toward creating a single economic space and a Eurasian Economic Union (www.dw-world.de, May 20). But whether Russia can achieve this remains an open question. Andrei Grozin, the head of the Middle Asia Department of the CIS Institute, believes that Russian policy toward Central Asia has experienced many setbacks in recent years (www.newsland.ru, April 19). For another expert, Sergei Chalogo, Russia’s designs in the post-Soviet space are a sham: “The [Eurasian Economic Community] EurAsEc’s anti-crisis fund is one’s own small IMF, the single economic space  – one’s own EU, the Customs Union – one’s own WTO, while the [Collective Security Treaty Organization] CSTO – is one’s own NATO. That is, everything is as it should be with adults; only that nothing works” (www.dw-world.de, May 20).

It remains to be seen to what extent China is capable of affecting the Russian-led Customs Union agenda in Central Asia, where Sino-Russian ties are likely to enter a more completive mode.

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