Afghani assembly backs US security pact

An overwhelming majority of delegates at a traditional national assembly on Saturday backed calls from Afghanistan’s president for a long-term security pact with the U.S. on some conditions, including an end to unpopular night raids by military forces searching for insurgents. By midday, more than two-thirds of the delegates attending the meeting had expressed support for President Hamid Karzai’s call for a security pact that will govern the presence of U.S. troops after 2014, when most international forces are to have left or moved into support roles. More than 2,000 delegates attended the four-day assembly, known as a Loya Jirga, and were divided into 40 committees to discuss negotiations that are currently under way. More than 30 committee heads had endorsed Karzai’s call for an agreement by noon. Karzai was expected to address the meeting at the end of the day. The jirga’s findings are not binding, but they are likely to bolster Karzai’s negotiating position with the United States during talks for a written U.S-Afghan agreement, which the U.S. calls a Strategic Partnership Document. Karzai does not need the jirga’s permission to broker a pact, but he wants its approval to strengthen his position at the talks. Both sides visualise a force of several thousand, which would train Afghan forces and help with counterterrorism operations. But the legal status of that force, how it would operate, where it would be based, and what it could or could not do has held up the talks. Washington sees the document as a nonbinding set of principles guiding the two nations’ future relationship. The Afghans want a strong and binding agreement to govern the presence of American forces in the country after 2014. Afghan politicians are under pressure to uphold the country’s sovereignty, but also see the agreement as a key bulwark against both homegrown insurgents and some of its neighbors, including Iran and Pakistan - which has been accused of maintaining ties with some Afghan militant groups. “Regarding the strategic partnership with the United States, everyone said it is a must for the Afghans. It is the only way for Afghanistan to survive,” said Mahmoud Karzai, a businessman and the president’s brother. “Our independence depends on it and we are in an area which is probably the worst in the world, surrounded by countries which are in the mode of confrontation and not in the mode of peace and economic development,” he said. But as much as it says it needs the agreement, Afghan’s government also wants to show that it can rein in American operations. President Karzai has said he will demand an end to nighttime “kill-or-capture” raids which citizens of this deeply conservative country say intrude on their privacy, and has asked that all detention centers in the country come under Afghan control. The U.S.-led coalition has given no indication that it is willing to stop the raids. It says night operations are conducted with Afghan security forces and are an effective way to keep pressure on militants. The coalition estimates that an average of 12 operations are conducted every night in Afghanistan. And although Karzai often plays to anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan by denouncing the U.S., he needs America’s military and financial strength to back his weak government. Delegates also backed Karzai’s effort to make peace with the Taliban through reconciliation talks, although many said a peace council set up last year should be broadened. Talks have made no headway, and efforts were brought to a halt following the Sept. 20 assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading the Afghan government’s effort to broker peace. Rabbani was killed at his Kabul home by an assassin posing as a peace emissary from the insurgent group. Rabbani has not been replaced as head of the 70-member council, which is made up former Taliban, ex-warlords, members of parliament, top tribal elders and clerics. Critics have said that it is too heavily packed with Taliban opponents. “We should appoint people who are more popular with the communities and are fully supported by the people. They should be able to go to villages, to remote areas,” Gul Pascha Majudi, a Pashtun parliamentarian from the eastern province of Paktia, where Afghan and international military forces have been battling insurgents. The meeting took place under tight security and the Taliban had vowed to carry out attacks to disrupt the gathering. On Thursday, two rockets were launched at the structure housing the meeting on the outskirts of the capital. One rocket landed on a hillside about half a mile (kilometer) from the meeting site, while the other landed farther away in an open area, wounding a couple of civilians and shattering a few windows. Separately, Afghan and NATO authorities said two Afghan policemen died in a friendly fire incident late Friday outside the city of Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan. Ghazni provincial governor Musa Akbar Zada said two other policemen were wounded in the incident at a checkpoint. According to Zada, NATO forces were conducting an operation that was not coordinated with Afghan forces and that when the coalition forces ignored Afghan police orders to stop, shots were fired and the policemen were in killed in a gunbattle. The U.S.-led military coalition said a joint Afghan and NATO force called for air support and tried several times to identify themselves as friendly forces. When they were unable to stop the threat, they engaged in self-defense, killing the two. NATO also said one of its soldiers was killed late Friday during an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan. No other details were released and the death brought to 19 the number of foreign troops killed this month, for a total of 509 since the start of the year. Police in Tarin Kot, the capital of the southern province of Uruzgan said a roadside bomb killed four people Friday night, including three children.