US Marine Gen John Allen — AP Photo

WASHINGTON: The US general leading Nato forces in Afghanistan acknowledged on Thursday that the Taliban could be traced to more “insider attacks” against Western troops than previously acknowledged, accounting for about a quarter of the cases.

The increasing number of killings of Nato soldiers by Afghan security forces, or those impersonating them, have eroded trust between Western forces and their Afghan allies and threaten to complicate plans for a transition to Afghan security within two years.

Last week, the Pentagon, citing Nato data, said only about 11 per cent of so-called “insider attacks” by Afghans against Nato troops are due to Taliban infiltration, with the rest caused by other motives, such as personal grudges.

But Marine General John Allen said the figure was actually closer to 25 per cent.

“Our view is it’s about 25 per cent,” Allen said. “If it’s just pure Taliban infiltration, that is one number. If you add to that impersonation, the potential that someone is pulling the trigger because the Taliban have coerced the family members, that’s a different number.”

Allen’s Nato-led force later issued a clarification, suggesting that Allen’s data and the 11 per cent figure did not contradict each other, however it did not provide a year-by-year breakdown.

It said Allen was referring to data going back to 2007. The lower figure released last week looked only at insider attacks that occurred so far in 2012, Nato said in a statement distributed by the Pentagon.

There have been 32 insider attacks so far this year involving 36 shooters that have led to 40 coalition deaths, with 25 of them Americans. Some 69 coalition troops have been wounded. That is a sharp increase from 2011, when, during the whole year, 35 coalition troops were killed in such attacks, 24 of whom were US troops.

Many of the attacks have been claimed by the Taliban as evidence of insurgent reach and infiltration.

Allen declined comment on Afghan claims that foreign spies were the biggest culprits.

In a video briefing from Kabul, he said he wanted to see the intelligence supporting remarks by Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office that foreign spies were behind most of the attacks, including those from “neighboring countries” – an allusion to Pakistan and Iran.

“I’m looking forward to Afghanistan providing us with the intelligence that permits them to come to that conclusion,” Allen said, adding he “could add that into our analysis.”

Allen said he could not provide his opinion about the claim until he saw that intelligence. But his comments did not appear to endorse the Afghan government’s view. Allen insisted the attacks defied simple explanation, saying “the reasons for these attacks are very complex.”

Allen said he did not believe the spate of insider attacks should prompt American forces to pull back in their contact with Afghans “at this juncture.”

Nato commanders have largely played down the threat of infiltration, blaming most of the shootings on stress or personal differences between Afghans and their Western advisers that ended at the point of a gun, a frequent occurrence in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon announced last week it was expanding counterintelligence staff in Afghanistan and the Afghan government said on Wednesday it would re-examine the files of 350,000 of its soldiers and police to help curb rogue shootings of Nato personnel.

Nato supply trucks. — File photo

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD: The United States and Pakistan appear to be close to resolving the dispute over the reopening of Nato supply routes to Afghanistan, official sources in both the capitals told Dawn on Sunday.

The sources pointed out that two new developments — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and the presence of a high-level US delegation in Islamabad — had raised hopes that the dispute might soon be resolved.

According to informed sources in Islamabad, an important meeting between the two sides took place on Sunday shortly after the arrival of Commander of International Security Assistance Force General John Allen on his second visit to the country in four days.

The Pakistani side at the talks included Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, while the US side was represented by Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, Isaf Commander General John Allen and US Ambassador Cameron Munter.

The meeting coincided with Secretary Clinton’s call to Raja Pervez.

While congratulating Mr Ashraf on assuming the office of prime minister, she said Pakistan and the United States were partners in the war on terror and would succeed in defeating the common enemy.

Official sources in Washington said that “both sides are rapidly moving towards resolving this issue” but refused to give details for fears that “a media leak at this stage may derail the process”.

A US team, which includes senior members of the White House National Security staff, is believed to have come with the draft of a proposal that “meets Pakistan’s demand for an apology without embarrassing” the Obama administration, the sources said.

The sources in Washington are linking Secretary Clinton’s call to the prime minister to these developments.

Washington’s diplomatic and political circles say that the State Department is strongly supporting the proposal to accept Pakistan’s demand for an apology over the Nov 26 US air raid that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Initially, US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta and other officials said that the Pakistanis were focusing on increasing tariff rates for using the supply routes – from $250 to $5,000 per container.

But the Pakistanis later made it clear that this was not their focus and that they were even willing to give up the demand for a tariff increase if the US apologised over the Salala incident.

The Americans, however, insisted that they could not tender a one-sided apology as their own investigations showed that US and Pakistani soldiers based near Salala were both responsible for the incident.

The US Defence Department, once considered a traditional ally of the Pakistani establishment, however, opposed the proposed apology. The US Congress not only opposed apologising to Pakistan but also demanded punitive actions against the country for allegedly sheltering Osama bin Laden, backing the Haqqani network —charges that Pakistani strongly rejects — and for jailing Dr Shakil Afridi.

But since the State Department backed the Pakistani demand for an apology, it made sense for Secretary Clinton to take a lead in resolving the dispute.

Pakistan’s Ambassador Sherry Rehman and her team also played a key role in this process.

They held dozens of meetings at the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon and in the Congress over the past three weeks, strongly advocating Pakistan’s case.

Diplomatic sources in Washington, however, warn that the dispute is far from resolved and even a small glitch can derail the whole process as it has happened at least three times in the past two months.

Recently, a US team spent weeks in Islamabad, discussing various aspects of the dispute but returned to Washington earlier this month without an agreement.

But both US and Pakistani officials later said that this team of US experts had finalised all technical details of the Nato routes dispute with their Pakistani counterparts.

“What both sides need now is a political will, so we are now waiting for a political decision,” a senior US official told Dawn in a recent meeting.

Diplomatic observers in Washington say that Secretary Clinton’s call to Prime Minister Ashraf “perhaps indicates that both sides are now coming close to this political will needed to resolve the dispute”.

The top US commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen.—File Photo

ISLAMABAD: The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, US General John Allen, is likely to visit Pakistan on June 27 to review border coordination measures with Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, the military said in a statement on Monday.

Islamabad and Washington are locked in difficult talks to repair badly frayed ties, at their lowest point in years after a cross-border Nato air strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November last year.

Pakistan blocked overland supply routes to Nato forces in Afghanistan to protest against the strike.

The statement comes the same day the Pakistan Army said seven of eleven Pakistani soldiers abducted by Afghan militants had been beheaded. The soldiers had been kidnapped the previous day in a cross border attack by the insurgents, which had resulted in the killing of six other personnel.

The foreign ministry said it had lodged a strong protest with the deputy head of Afghan mission, on “the intrusion of militants from the Afghan side into Pakistani territory.”

Commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen.—File Photo

KABUL: The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan said on Friday that a deadly attack on a hotel on the outskirts of Kabul bore the signature of the Taliban-linked Haqqani group which he said continued to operate from Pakistan.

Elite Afghan police backed by Nato forces ended a 12-hour siege at the popular hotel, leaving at least 20 dead after Taliban gunmen stormed the lakeside building, bursting into a party and seizing dozens of hostages.

“Afghan National Security Forces and coalition military sources acknowledge that this attack bears the signature of the Haqqani network, which continues to target and kill innocent Afghans and blatantly violate Afghan sovereignty from the safety of Pakistan,” General John Allen said in a statement.

Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani in a group photo with the participants of 35th meeting of Tri Partite Commission held between military authorities of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Isaf. – Online Photo

RAWALPINDI: Top military commanders of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) met here on Sunday and shared ideas on establishing a credible communication and coordination mechanism to obviate recurrence of Salala-like incidents that seriously affected Pakistan-US relations and also strained Islamabad’s ties with Kabul.

Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Afghan military chief General Sher Mohammad Karimi and Isaf Commander General John Allen led their sides at a meeting of the Tripartite Commission.

“The talks focused on border control measures and mechanisms put in place to avoid untoward incidents on both sides of Pakistan-Afghanistan border,” a press release issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations said.

It was the first meeting of the commission which is a forum to raise and process contentious issues and facilitate settlement since the Nato attack on two military checkposts in Mohmand Agency in November 2011, leaving around two dozen Pakistan troops dead.

Sources told Dawn that the Pakistani side briefed the meeting on the steps taken by it to control transportation of material which could be used to manufacture improvised explosive devices and proposed measures to curb the menace on the other side of the border.

Pakistan has rejected as baseless claims that the attack on the checkposts was a result of misunderstanding. The attack led to stopping of Nato supplies. Relations with Afghanistan were also strained because its territory had been used for the attack.

The commission’s meeting took place a day after the Isaf commander had held a meeting with General Kayani and two days after Nato Secretary General Andres Fogh Rasmussen hinted that Pakistan could miss out on the Nato summit to be held in Chicago on May 21-22 if it did not reopen Nato supply lines.

A set of recommendations on new terms of engagement with the US and Nato were prepared by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security and presented to parliament. The parliament has set various conditions for reopening Nato supply routes.

The issue is also expected to top the agenda of a meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet on Tuesday.

After the 6th core group meeting of the three countries last month during the visit of US Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Marc Grossman, Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani had announced that Islamabad, Washington and Kabul had agreed to provide ‘safe passage’ to Taliban militants willing to join reconciliation talks and set up a working group to settle modalities for their unhindered movement.

The move that had come in conjunction with the three sides agreeing to coordinate their activities at the UN for removing Taliban leaders from the sanctions list of the Security Council was considered to be the biggest step forward for promoting reconciliation in Afghanistan since the core group was established a year ago for the sole purpose of advancing the peace process.

Moreover, the announcement came weeks ahead of the Nato summit in Chicago, which would review military efforts in Afghanistan and take stock of progress towards reconciliation.

The two steps were seen as a confidence-building move to put back on track the reconciliation process which had suffered a setback last month with the Taliban pulling out of the Qatar process.

AFP adds: US General John Allen said he was “very encouraged” by the talks.

“There was agreement these meetings are important to achieving continued progress towards… a peaceful Afghanistan so that Afghanistan can no longer be a safe haven for terrorists,” Mr Allen said, according to an ISAF statement.

Pakistan Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani– AP (File Photo)

ISLAMABAD: The commander of Nato-led forces in Afghanistan met Pakistan and Afghanistan army chiefs on Sunday for talks on border security, almost six months after US airstrikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

The November 26 airstrikes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border provoked a major crisis in Pakistani-US relations.

Pakistan retaliated by shutting its Afghan border crossings to Nato supplies – and the frontier remains closed.

But in a sign of easing tensions, US General John Allen, Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and Afghan army chief General Sher Muhammad Karimi led their respective delegations at talks Sunday in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.

“Talks focused on border control measures, and mechanisms put in place to avoid untoward incidents on both sides of the Pak-Afghan Border,” a Pakistan military statement said.

The talks are the most significant Pakistan has hosted with the international military alliance and the Afghan military for a year.

On Saturday Allen held preliminary talks with Kayani on how to improve security in volatile areas bordering the two countries.

Pakistani leaders are also scheduled to meet next week to discuss ending the nearly six-month blockade on Nato supplies into Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will convene the meetings which will also debate how to repair relations with the United States in time for a key Nato summit later this month.

Diplomats on both sides have been keen to resolve the impasse between Islamabad and Washington before the Nato summit on Afghanistan in Chicago on May 21-22.

General John Allen, commander of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). - AP (File Photo)

WASHINGTON: The US commander in Afghanistan said in an interview published Wednesday that American troops could stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, the latest signal of a possible open-ended US military role in the country.

General John Allen told the New York Times that negotiations with Afghan officials on a strategic partnership would “almost certainly” feature “a discussion with Afghanistan of what a post-2014 force will look like.” Afghan President Hamid Karzai had “in fact, just the other day talked about his desire to have conversations with the US about a post-2014 force,” Allen was quoted as saying.

“We would probably see some number of advisers, trainers, intelligence specialists here for some period of time beyond 2014,” the commander said.

Allen, who oversees the Nato-led force in the 10-year-old war, is the highest-ranking military officer to openly suggest the possibility of American forces remaining beyond 2014.

President Barack Obama’s administration has suggested combat troops would depart by the end of 2014 but left the door open to a residual force remaining on the ground.

The US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, said earlier this month that Washington would be ready to keep forces in Afghanistan if the Kabul government requested it.

With the United States now engaged in a gradual troop drawdown, Karzai said Sunday his government is negotiating the terms of a long-term US presence in the country that could involve American troops.

US-led troops, which toppled the Taliban in a 2001 invasion, have been battling the hardline religious insurgency for ten years and are due to hand over security duties to Afghan government forces by 2015.

The United States is withdrawing 10,000 troops this year, leaving 91,000 on the ground into next year. Another 23,000 are due to leave by the end of September.

Former Afghan officials and analysts have warned the country likely will slide into a civil war, with rivals India and Pakistan clashing through proxies, if US and allied forces withdraw at the end of 2014.

In Iraq, US and Iraqi leaders could not agree on the terms for a future US force and the withdrawal of American troops has been accompanied by sectarian political turmoil.

General John Allen, commander of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). - AP (File Photo)

KABUL: The top Nato commander in Afghanistan says he’s seeing signs of a possible lifting of Pakistan’s communications blackout imposed on the US-led coalition after Nato airstrikes killed two dozen Pakistani forces.

Marine Gen. John Allen tells reporters at a news briefing in Kabul that he recently spoke on the phone with Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. Allen says that by the end of the call on Monday, both expressed a commitment to work through the incident.

He says he believes Pakistan will soon send liaison officials back to Nato headquarters in Kabul that were pulled after the Nov. 26 incident. Allen says the two did not discuss when Pakistan would reopen its border crossings to Nato convoys transporting supplies for troops in Afghanistan.

General John Allen, commander of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). - AP (File Photo)

LONDON: Nato commanders are planning a substantial offensive in eastern Afghanistan aimed at insurgent groups based in Pakistan, involving an escalation of aerial attacks on insurgent sanctuaries, and have not ruled out cross-border raids with ground troops, The Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.

The aim of offensive over next two years is to reduce threat represented by Pakistan-based groups loyal to insurgent leaders like Haqqani clan, Mullah Nazir & Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

Nato hopes to reduce level of attacks in the eastern provinces clustered around Kabul to the point where they could be contained by Afghan security forces after transition in 2014. The move is likely to add to already tense atmosphere following recent border post attack by Nato helicopters that resulted in death of 24 Pakistani soldiers.

While drawing down forces in Helmand & Kandahar, the US will step up its presence in eastern provinces bordering Pakistan, bringing long-festering issue of insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan tribal areas to a head. Message being given to Pakistan military is that if it cannot or will not eliminate insurgent havens, US forces will attempt job themselves, report said.

It is unclear to what extent killing of 24 Pakistan soldiers in Nato air strikes last Saturday will have on Nato strategy. An investigation is underway into the incident. As a consequence, Pakistan closed supply routes used by Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and barred the US from using a Pakistani air base to launch drones.

Isaf commander, General John Allen, said the need to confront sanctuaries in Pakistan was “one of the reasons we are shifting our operations to the east”.

In an interview in Kabul, Allen, a US marine, did not give specifics of strategy and said nothing about cross-border operations.

According to The Guardian, Allen said he did not know what long-term consequences of last Saturday’s clash would be, describing it as a “tragedy”, but made clear that push to the east would continue.

“Ultimately outcome we hope to achieve in the east is a reduction of insurgent networks to the point where Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) can handle them, reducing them in 2012, if necessary going after them in 2013,” Allen said.

“I won’t go into specifics of operations but as we consolidate our holdings in the south and as population centers there in Helmand River valley and in (Kandahar,) we will conduct substantial operations in the east idea being to expand security zone around Kabul. In particular we are going to pay lot of attention to south of Kabul, Wardak, Logar, Ghazni, Zabul.

Because in the end if you have a population in the south that feels secure and it’s secured by ANSF, and you have a population in east and around centre of gravity of Kabul, and those two are connected by a road so you have freedom of movement, you have a pretty good outcome.”

Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai (R), head of the Transition Commission, hands over the national flag of Afghanistan to Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers during a security transition ceremony in Parwan province on Thursday. – Photo by Reuters

CHARIKAR: Foreign troops began the second stage of a security handover that aims to put Afghans in charge of the whole country by the end of 2014 with a ceremony on Thursday in a small town on the plains north of Kabul.

This new phase of a years-long transfer programme will extend Afghan security coverage to half the population, and move beyond the largely showpiece areas chosen for the first stage.

Being able to say 50 per cent of Afghans rely on their own police and army for security is a key milestone for the government’s Western backers, who will attend a major conference on Afghanistan’s future in Germany next week.

With an economic crisis gripping Europe, smaller budgets in the US and electorates weary of a decade-long war, politicians are keen to show progress in leaving Afghanistan — without letting the country descend into civil war.

All foreign combat troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, with the rapidly expanding Afghan police and army assuming full security responsibility in their place.

At a handover event in Charikar in Parwan province, little over an hour’s drive from the capital Kabul, US troops ceremonially folded the American flag before passing control to their darker-uniformed Afghan counterparts.

“We have been monitoring areas in the first tranche (of transition) and note that violence has decreased, and in some areas has decreased significantly,” said the commander of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and US troops in Afghanistan, General John Allen.

He was speaking in the grounds of the Parwan provincial governor’s bombed-out compound, where a suicide attack in August killed a dozen people. All but two districts of Parwan will be handed over in this tranche.

Entire provinces where the handover formally begins this week are Balkh, Takhar and Samangan in the north, central province Daikondi, Nimroz in the south, and Kabul.

Districts within Helmand, Herat, Ghazni and other provinces will also be passed into Afghan control, ISAF said.

“For these areas and all the others in the second tranche, we will see the patchwork become whole … as pieces of Afghanistan are knitted together again by Afghan hands,” Allen said.

On Dec. 5, representatives of 85 countries will meet in the former German capital of Bonn to discuss Afghanistan’s future.

Not present, however, will be Pakistan, neighbour of Afghanistan and key to regional stability, which pulled out in response to a Nato cross-border attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday Pakistan’s decision to boycott the conference was “regrettable”, but she hoped to secure Islamabad’s cooperation in the future.

The US Senate voted on Wednesday to require President Barack Obama to devise a plan for accelerating the pullout of US troops from Afghanistan, signalling growing impatience in Congress with American involvement.

“Transition does not mean the international community is walking away from Afghanistan,” US ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker said at the event in Parwan.

Despite the presence of tens of thousands of Western forces in Afghanistan, the United Nations and other groups say violence is at its worst since US-led Afghan forces toppled the Taliban from power in late 2001.

Nato-led forces say they have seen a decline over recent months in attacks launched by insurgents against their troops.