The railroad connecting Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, with the Uzbekistan border town of Hairatan, has opened, putting into operation a key node of the U.S. military's overland transport route through Central Asia to Afghanistan. reports Central Asia Online:
TASHKENT – Service began last weekend on the long-awaited Hairatan-to-Mazar-i-Sharif railway.
Uzbekistan Railways (UTY) built the route, which was scheduled to open in July before contingencies forced a postponement.
“We have been working out the route’s status as well as who will run it and how (since early July),” said Rasul Holikov of UTY.
Uzbekistan and Afghanistan signed a three-year cortract August 4 under which Uzbekistan will provide commercial services and operate the 75km railway.
Curiously, the report doesn't mention the military origins of the railroad, even though the website is run by US Central Command. It does, at the end, refer lightly to the security issues related to operating a train in Afghanistan:
“I drove a locomotive through all of the stations up to Mazar-i-Sharif,” said Umid Hursandov, a UTY engineer. “Like all other the new railways built by our company, (it) is reliable and meets all standards. Many railway workers in our country are worried about their safety if they work this route. Of course, it would be foolish not to recognise that tension in the region persists, but I saw sound security along the entire railway and soldiers were guarding every crossing and important railway yard.”
It's also curious that no one else seems to be reporting this, but anyway, for more on the military aspect, see this previous post.
Just how hazardous is it to report in Afghanistan? A graphic new picture of the sometimes lethal dangers facing journalists, mostly Afghan, over the past ten years details what we’ve all expected – it’s bad and getting worse.
The interactive map -- which highlights cases of harassment, beatings, kidnappings and other dangers, including murder – was just released by Nai, a media development organization based in Kabul. Nai collected the data on the 266 security incidents recorded (so far).
Each event includes a suspect: On May 27, 2006, for example, a male journalist from Aina TV was beaten on his way to parliament in Kabul, allegedly by the “president’s security officers.” In fact, sundry government officials are accused of carrying out a majority of the physical attacks, and issuing the most threats, the data shows.
“This interactive map enables us to tell the story of the struggles journalists face daily in Afghanistan, reaching potentially millions of people across the world - at a glance!” said Mujeeb Khalvatgar, Director of Nai. “Prior to this our detailed records of threats against journalists were published in reports and through radio, but could not convey the message so simply and succinctly,” said Khalvatgar.
Mousing over the map, for example, gives users the historical trend for a particular area where an attack has occurred. Data can be filtered by year, and viewed by province. The site also provides easily accessible information on the number of attacks, the media organization and gender of those targeted, and a safety index.
Kazakhstan's Afghanistan deployment may have been abandoned, but its (almost) neighbor Mongolia is increasing its troop contribution. Within the next couple of months, the country will be adding about 120 soldiers to its contingent in Badakhshan province, in Afghanistan's far northeast (bordering Tajikistan) where the German military leads operations. According to AFP (in German), the new Mongolian troops will amount to one company of infantry, snipers and medics and will patrol (but not participate in "offensive operations") in addition to its current mission of guarding the German camp.
NATO public relations has a video report on the Mongolian deployment in Afghanistan, though they use some different numbers -- AFP says there are now 74 Mongolian soldiers in Afghanistan, while this report says it's 200 (though NATO's own numbers support the AFP figure):
Be sure not to miss the display of "traditional combat skills" at the end of that video.
A new railroad in Uzbekistan, used extensively as part of the U.S.'s transportation network shipping military cargo to Afghanistan was built using low-quality steel and goes through such mountainous terrain that when the train gets to the bottom of the mountain crossing, the wheels are glowing red from the friction of so much braking. That's according to a new U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks and the Washington Post.
The Post published a story today on this transportation system, the Northern Distribution Network, and while readers of this blog won't find much new in it, the Post did publish a few Wikileaked cables in conjunction, and they shed a bit more light on the NDN.
All the cables are from 2009, the early days of the NDN. The juiciest is the one that described the new rail line. The Soviet-era line that ran from Karshi to Termez, on the Afghanistan border, dipped into Turkmenistan. So Uzbekistan built a new line that stays entirely within its territory -- but there was a reason the Soviets routed theirs through Turkmenistan. The alternative is apparently through terrain that is borderline dangerous, according to the U.S. embassy's source, whose identity was redacted, but was someone "heavily involved" in the new rail line's construction
1st Lt. Kathleen Ferrero, U.S. Air Mobility Command Public Affairs
A U.S. tanker flies over the Arctic Ocean en route from the U.S. to the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan
The U.S. air force has made its first trip over the Arctic Ocean in support of its troops in Afghanistan, the fruit of negotiations over the last two years with Russia and Kazakhstan to steadily expand the Northern Distribution Network. From a U.S. military press release:
A KC-135 Stratotanker flew north until it started flying south, June 21 to 22 -- cutting a new pathway over the Arctic Circle and the North Pole between Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., and the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan. It was the first time an Air Force air refueling tanker has ever flown this route.
The mission followed another historic flight that took place June 5 to 6 when a C-5M Super Galaxy traversed the Arctic Circle to fly the first direct delivery airlift mission from Dover Air Force Base, Del., to Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan.
A 2009 U.S.-Russia transit agreement helped make the new arctic routes possible, according to U.S. Transportation Command. The KC-135 flight over the North Pole alone saved the Air Force approximately 4.5 hours and $54,000.
The possible scuppering of Kazakhstan's planned deployment to Afghanistan appears to be a result of genuine parliamentary opposition to the move, heightened by the still-mysterious and probably unrelated bombing in western Kazakhstan. That's the analysis of Roger McDermott, a very knowledgable source on Kazakhstan military issues, writing in Jamestown's Eurasia Daily Monitor.
McDermott suggests that it was the combined effect of public opposition to the deployment -- in particular by veterans of the Soviet Afghan war -- and the apparent terror attacks:
In isolation, such campaigning stood little chance of success. What no official had foreseen was an unexpected terrorist incident in Aktobe, on the country’s Caspian coast....
The confluence of several factors, partly predictable and unforeseen developments, influenced senators to draw back from approving the bill. In the hiatus between announcing the agreement and seeking to conclude the ratification process, explanations offered to the wider society did not eliminate the misperception that Astana may become a direct combatant.
McDermott adds, however, that the parliamentary rejection is "neither final nor outright." There is a provision in the country's constitution which requires decisions like this to be made by a joint session of parliament, not by two separate votes by the two houses:
It appears that Kazakhstan has gotten cold feet about its proposed deployment of four officers to Afghanistan. Last week, the upper house of the parliament rejected the bill authorizing their deployment, but that move seemed like it could have been a bit of political theater. Now the lower house of parliament -- which approved the bill a month ago -- has now said it won't support the bill. RIA Novosti quotes one member of the lower house, Nurtai Sabilyanov:
"Given the opinion of the senate and the public, the Majilis [lower house] will return the agreement to the government and it will have no legal effect because of the non-ratification by parliament," Sabilyanov said.
Majilis ratified the agreement with NATO on May 18 but the upper house turned the bill down on June 9 pending a decision from a joint parliamentary session.
"We must not send [our] military to Afghanistan, it is clear to all," he said.
Another MP, Tasbay Simambayev, wrote in the government newspaper Liter that senators "breathed a sigh of relief" when the bill was voted down: "Our country should not be dragged into someone else's wars." His piece (not online, via BBC Monitoring) focused on the threat of terror that Kazakhstan would expose itself to. But there also was an intriguing reference to "ambiguous reaction from our close partners":
Many arguments were voiced in favour of the need to increase the Kazakh military's combat experience, that we need a closer cooperation with the North Atlantic alliance, that we are bound by agreements and so on. But the point is that no international, foreign policy activity should harm Kazakhstan's reputation and security.
Kazakhstan's proposed deployment of a handful of officers to Afghanistan has hit a snag; the country's upper house in the parliament has rejected the bill to send the troops, a couple of weeks after the lower house approved it.
RT quotes a couple of parliament members who suggested public opinion was part of the reason:
Astana should not get involved in the military activities in Afghanistan, said Svetlana Dzhalmagambetova, a deputy of the upper house. “The Senate has taken a right decision not to ratify the bill on sending troops,” Interfax quoted her as saying. Deputies had heated discussions in the parliament’s committees, the deputy said.
Now that the US is considering withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, it would be unacceptable for Astana to send servicemen after refraining for so long, Dzhalmagambetova noted. The move would tarnish the country’s reputation as a peaceful state, she believes.
Another senator, Tasbay Simambaev, said during the meeting that Kazakhstan had all the grounds to reject the ratification. The country should maintain a balanced foreign policy and neutral position, he stressed. Public opinion was also against the agreement with NATO, he said.
But Kazakhstan's parliament is generally regarded as a mere rubber stamp; all of its members are from the party of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. So there's likely something more behind it. I asked my EurasiaNet colleague Joanna Lillis for her take on the politics of the issue, and she had several theories:
1. it's pure political theater, meant to make it appear as if the parliament does actually have a say. In this case the bill might be reworked slightly and would pass again.
The Pentagon agency responsible for getting supplies to US troops in Afghanistan has been quick to touch base with newly appointed ambassadors in Central Asia. Two recent meetings play into the theory that Washington lets the decade-old war dictate the shape and scope of its diplomatic activity in the former Soviet republics near Afghanistan. Perhaps, though, new rules for transparency in government tenders will do some good in one of the world’s most corrupt regions.
Krol reportedly said, “It’s important for USCENTCOM, US Transportation Command, DLA and any other entity that has an interest in the Northern Distribution Network [NDN] to coordinate their operations.”
Likewise, before Pamela Spratlen, the new US ambassador in Bishkek, even landed in Kyrgyzstan she had an April 20 meeting with Thompson to be reminded just how critical “embassy support” is because DLA does “business in Kyrgyzstan in support of military operations in Afghanistan.”
While DLA oversees the running of the NDN through some of the most corrupt countries imaginable, it’s the Department of State that usually finds itself on the receiving end when things go wrong.
Georgia appears to be planning to add at least 625 additional soldiers to the 925 it already has in Afghanistan, according to a statement from the White House. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili yesterday in Rome, and according to the official White House account of the meeting, "The Vice President expressed his appreciation to President Saakashvili for Georgia's significant new contribution of forces to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, which will make Georgia the largest non-NATO contributor to ISAF."
Civil.ge does the math, and finds that the top current non-NATO contributor is Australia, with 1,550 troops. So that presumably means that Georgia is planning to top that:
It means that Georgia, which currently has 925 soldiers in Afghanistan, most of them stationed in Helmand province, has to send additional more than 625 servicemen to exceed Australian troop number and to become the largest non-NATO contributor to the ISAF mission.
There's really not much to be said about Saakashvili's devotion to the West and its security organizations that hasn't already been said. But in a terrific analysis of the U.S.-Russia reset in The Nation, Stephen Cohen provides some useful context. In particular, he notes the blatant hypocrisy in Biden and Saakashvili's respective description of the "sphere of influence" in Georgia:
