Source: Reuters
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Afghan security forces will be more than capable of safeguarding the country, the government said on Sunday, repeating in some of its strongest criticism yet that troublesome Western private security units should be disbanded.
Siyamak Herawi, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said the push to scrap firms employing tens of thousands of private security guards was linked to Karzai's 2014 timetable for Afghan forces to take over all security and operational responsibilities from U.S. and NATO-led forces.
"The government wants to deal thoroughly with the companies and now that the capacity of the Afghan government is gradually increasing those entities in need of security individuals can use organised and educated Afghan soldiers," Herawi told Reuters.
Private security companies competing for contracts worth billions of dollars have long been an irritant for Afghan and U.S. and NATO forces in the country after a series of scandals.
The companies, who the Afghan government estimates employ 30,000-40,000 guards, work mainly for Western enterprises in Afghanistan. Last year, the U.S. government said it did not know how many contractors, of any kind, it employs in Afghanistan.
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For more on Afghanistan click [ID:nAFPAK]
or see http://link.reuters.com/syx62d
Afghan blog: http://blogs.reuters.com/afghanistan/
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Karzai has criticised private security guards often in the past but launched a stinging attack at the weekend, saying they were too costly and were "daily creating miseries".
"They trample our people's rights and disrupt security," Karzai told the Civil Services Institute in a speech on Saturday.
"We ask the international community to dissolve these private security companies because Afghanistan no more has the ability to afford these companies."
INSTABILITY
More than 140,000 foreign troops, and some 300,000 Afghan security forces, are battling the Taliban in an insurgency that has reached its worst point since the Islamist militants were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001.
Casualties for troops and civilians have reached record levels but U.S. President Barack Obama, who has committed an extra 30,000 troops to the fight, wants to begin a gradual reduction from July 2011.
Herawi said Karzai was drawing up a plan to convince his allies the companies were causing instability.
Karzai's government tried unsuccessfully last year to register all of the firms, find out the amount of arms they had and where they came from, and how much money the industry was worth, an Afghan security source said.
Some of the firms also have ties with Afghan regional power brokers who are involved in multi-million dollar reconstruction projects by foreign forces. Afghans particularly see them as accumulating wealth and power rather than caring for Afghanistan.
The former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, said in April the use of private contractors to support military and security operations in conflict zones had gone too far.
This came soon after Washington said it was looking into accusations of a rogue unit using contractors to help hunt militants in Afghanistan.
The U.S. State Department said last year it would review its use of contractors at overseas embassies after a scandal over sexual hazing by security guards at the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
Also last year, U.S.-trained Afghan forces stormed the police headquarters in southern Kandahar province to remove a prisoner and killed eight police, including Kandahar's top policeman.
(Editing by Paul Tait) (For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)
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Afghanistan shuts down private security firms
03 Oct 2010 15:03:58 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Eight foreign and local companies in first batch
* List includes Xe, formerly known as Blackwater
* Karzai decree in August ordered firms to disband
(Adds details and quotes from Karzai spokesman)
By Sayed Salahuddin and Jonathon Burch
KABUL, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Afghanistan said on Sunday it had begun disbanding private security companies and confiscating their weapons, starting with a group of eight Afghan and foreign firms.
President Hamid Karzai issued a decree in August calling for all private security companies to disband within four months, part of an ambitious plan for the government to take over all security responsibilities from 2014.
Karzai has been critical of the firms, saying they had been responsible for horrific accidents. Many Afghans see them as operating with impunity, and they have been accused of a series of killings, crimes and scandals but have rarely been convicted.
On Sunday, Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer said the government had begun shutting down eight Afghan and foreign companies.
"The minister of interior today, in the national security meeting, announced the disbandment of eight private security firms. The process of dissolving and disbanding ... is very well under way," Omer told a news conference.
Omer said only operations involving the training of Afghan security forces or protecting the premises of international organisations would be allowed to continue after announcing the names of some of the first batch of firms affected.
The companies compete for contracts worth billions of dollars and employ up to 40,000 armed guards, mostly Afghans but including many foreigners.
Some train Afghan security forces and are also used to guard convoys, embassies and other mainly Western interests.
"We would like to be able at some point to provide security for embassies and international organisations and we would like to be in a position where we would no longer need security companies to train our national security forces," Omer said.
"But until that happens, that's not going to be in the focus of this programme."
WEAPONS SEIZED
Among the eight companies affected initially was U.S. firm Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, Omer said. Xe could not immediately be reached for comment.
Blackwater's reputation in Iraq suffered mainly over an incident in 2007 when its security guards were involved in a shooting in which 14 civilians were killed.
Blackwater has since changed its name to Xe and has several contracts in Afghanistan.
In January, two U.S. security guards working for Paravant LLC, part of Xe, were arrested in Afghanistan accused of murdering two Afghans in Kabul and wounding a third.
At least two other international firms -- White Eagle Security Services and Four Horsemen International -- were also among the first group of companies, Omer said.
At a separate news conference, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said more than 400 weapons had been seized and the government had already closed down an Afghan security firm with 75 employees, as well as several smaller groups.
Bashary said he had no estimate of the total number of companies but 52 were registered with the government, half of them foreign.
Karzai's government tried unsuccessfully last year to register the firms, establish how many weapons they had and where they came from, and how much money the industry was worth, an Afghan security source has said.
When Karzai issued the deadline for the closure of the firms in August, the Pentagon called the deadline "very challenging" but said Washington would work with Kabul and try to improve oversight and management of private security companies. (Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison and Andrew Dobbie) (For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)
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Afghanistan shuts down 150 Afghan, foreign aid groups
09 Nov 2010 09:39:53 GMT
Source: Reuters
(For more on Afghanistan, click on [ID:nAFPAK])
By Jonathon Burch
KABUL, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Afghanistan has ordered around 150 aid groups, including four foreign organisations, to shut down for failing to submit reports on their projects and finances, a government official said on Tuesday.
The ruling by a government-backed commission which monitors aid groups includes 145 domestic organisations and has immediate effect, said a spokesman for the Economy Ministry, which heads the commission.
The commission was established as part of an anti-corruption drive by President Hamid Karzai, who has long been critical of foreign organisations in Afghanistan and says they have been involved in widespread graft.
"The commission has decided the organisations should be dissolved because they have not submitted reports to the Ministry of Economy for the past two years," ministry spokesman Sediq Amarkhil said.
Amarkhil said he did not know why the NGOs had failed to submit reports, but suggested it may be because they were not registered with the government.
According to Afghan law, non-government organisations (NGOs) must submit reports every six months to the ministry, disclosing details about their funding and activities, Amarkhil said.
WARNING LETTERS
None of the NGOs ordered to close had submitted those reports despite warning letters from the ministry, Amarkhil said, adding government institutions and other donors had been informed not to provide any funding to the groups.
Laurent Saillard, director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an umbrella group for NGOs in Afghanistan, said they were presented with the list of groups and had no objections to their closure.
"The government is simply implementing the law. We don't even know if some of these NGOs on the list even exist at all," said Saillard, adding none of the groups came under ACBAR.
He said there were around 1,300 NGOs in Afghanistan, including 360 foreign organisations, employing 45,000 people.
In May, the commission shut down 172 NGOs, including 20 foreign groups, for the same reason. The government later that month suspended the activities of two Western aid groups on suspicion of proselytising. [ID:nSGE64A0L6] [ID:nSGE64U0DV]
The latest ruling also comes after a decree by Karzai in August calling for all private security firms to be disbanded, a move which spurred concern in Washington that aid work could suffer.
Last month, Karzai offered a small concession to those firms guarding aid projects by extending the deadline from December until next February. [ID:nSGE69Q0LN]
But ACBAR has said the ban would only affect profit-oriented development companies which rely on security guards for protection and would not hit the work of not-for-profit NGOs. (Editing by Paul Tait and Ron Popeski)
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To start with Black water is working under eight new names. It is starnge that United Nations accepts the use of mercenaries by the Americans in their efforts to control their occupied territories. I seriously doubt the sincerety and honesty of Hameed Kharzai who was installed by the Americans. The Kharzai family starte to minvest huge sums of money in the Arab Gulf Region and in California where he used to work for UNOCAl before becoming president. The Americans should remove their troops, mercenaries and all the Afghani corrupt traitors, similar to what had happened in Vietnam.
Obama and US efforts are falling apart!
Obama is facing real challenges in Afghanistan as his aides and military commanders started to doubt his ability to represent the real America as a strong, brutal, barbaric and uncivilised force.
The current situation for Obama may be summarised as follows:
The Taleban are in control of 75% of the country.
Hameed Kharzai and his family are labelled as a corrupt incorporation.
Gen. Petreus' call for talks with the Taleban has been rejected.
The US and NATO casualties are mounting.
The US-Pakistani relations is close to a break up.
There is a doubt about Hillary Clinton ability as a foreign minister.
Netanyahu has been making a mockery out of Obama, Biden and Clinton.
To add insult to injury, most of Obama aides are deserting him.
Thanks to the Taleban, to the Iraqi resistance and to Netanyahu defiance for putting America on its knees.
Didn’t they say that Al-Qaeda is finished!!!!
The latest warning on 03.10.10 by the US administration for Americans travelling in Europe because of possible Al-Qaeda attacks deserves a pause. According to most ‘Terror Expert’ the likes of MI-6 Gardner, CIA Beyer and the Sanjay brothers, frequently interviewed on TV, Al-Qaeda is on the decline and its members don’t exceed few hundreds at most. But the reality on the ground is something completely different. After the US attack on Afghanistan in October 2001, Al-Qaeda address in Tora Bora caves was moved to more than one country. We have now Al-Al-Qaeda in the Arab West (Al-Maghrab Al-Arabi) headed by Abu Musaab Abdul Wadood. Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (Al-Jazeera Al-Arabia) headed by Nasser Al-Wahaishi. Al-Qaeda in Iraq led by Abu Umar Al-Iraqi. Al-Qaeda in the African Horn represented by Al-Shabab Movement. More addresses for Al-Qaeda may soon be established in Lebanon, Gaza and Egypt.
So after nine years of the American war on terror, two wars, a loss of $one trillion, close to 5000 dead and scores of unmanned drones’ attacks, the Americans are warned from Al-Qaeda attacks in Europe, mostly in countries supporting the war on terror/Islam; these are Britain, Germany and France. In other words, the Americans and their allies have lost. The increase in military and financial allocations worked like pumping air in a punctured tyre.
It is rather unfortunate that Obama followed closely Bush-Cheney’s strong-arm approach instead of dealing with the causes of terror or the reasons for the expansion of Al-Qaeda membership. To start with, the Americans are supporting Arab autocrats who are oppressing their own people. That is coupled with the American unlimited support for Israeli crimes and atrocities. It is a recipe for disaster. The Americans must call on the Israelis to abide by 39 UN Security Council Resolutions they ignore and to insist on pro-American Arab autocrats to adopt democracy and to give freedom of speech to their own people.
The Americans should not be surprised if Osama Bin Laden installs himself as a Caliph for a number of Arab and Muslim countries. The Arabs and Muslims are looking for a saviour (Grand Salvatore) from the Israeli Nazi-style atrocities supported by the Americans.
Adnan Darwash, Iraq Occupation Times
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