'IT'S GOING TO BE A HOT SUMMER': Ambassador addresses violence
Keith Rogers
Las Vegas Review Journal
06/27/2006
On a visit Monday to Las Vegas, Afghanistan's
ambassador to the United States said the recent surge of Taliban
violence in his homeland is a temporary effort to defeat the
will of U.S. and NATO forces.
In the end, the Taliban's tactics of fear and
intimidation in remote areas of Afghanistan will lose out to
what Ambassador Said T. Jawad said he hopes will be a bigger
and better police force that will keep foreign fighters out
once they've been defeated by the U.S.-led effort.
The object, Jawad said, is to keep peace in these
areas so that construction of schools and clinics can take hold.
"What you're seeing is an increased role
of NATO. Their number of soldiers will increase from 9,000 to
something like 21,000," he said after speaking to the Las
Vegas World Affairs Council at the Four Seasons. The luncheon
at Charlie Palmer's Steakhouse was attended by Nellis airmen
who had returned from duty in Afghanistan earlier this year.
"The terrorists are trying to test the commitment
and capability of NATO forces. I think this is going to be a
temporary surge of violence," he said.
Coalition forces this month mounted their biggest offensive
since the Taliban fell five years ago during the U.S. invasion
to hunt down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden following the Sept.
11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Operation Mountain Thrust, as it
is called, focuses on five rural provinces in southern Afghanistan.
"We will be seeing more terrorist activities
in the few months coming up in Afghanistan. It's going to be
a hot summer in the country," he said, referring to "a
massive military operation."
"It's important to clear it and hold it and
then work together to build it and not allow terrorists to come
back," he said.
In less than a week, seven U.S. soldiers have
been killed in fighting in Afghanistan with the latest casualty
announced Monday by the Pentagon, Master Sgt. Thomas D. Maholic,
of Bradford, Pa., who was killed Saturday in Ghecko when his
patrol was attacked with small arms fire during a mission.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, eight U.S. military personnel with
ties to Nevada have died in the war effort in Afghanistan out
of 39 overseas casualties from the state in the nation's global
war on terrorism.
The last Nevadan killed in Afghanistan was 33-year-old
Army Sgt. John C. Griffith of Las Vegas. He died May 5 with
nine of his comrades when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter tumbled
down a mountainside and exploded in the rugged Kunar Province.
Before that, on April 21, Army National Guard
Capt. Clayton L. Adamkavicius, formerly of Las Vegas, was mortally
wounded while helping train Afghan soldiers at the site of a
weapons cache found near Dihrawud in Uruzghan Province.
Jawad acknowledged that remotely piloted Predator
spy planes, sometimes operated via satellite link from Nellis
and Creech Air Force bases in Nevada, have played a vital role
in monitoring Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. Often, Predators
work in concert with U.S. and NATO aircraft to snuff Taliban
attacks on coalition troops using Hellfire missiles.
He said his government is asking Pakistan to do
more to prevent terrorists from infiltrating the border with
Afghanistan.
Jawad noted that many hot spots for violence overlap
the farming lands where poppies are grown to support narcotics
traffic. Last year, he said, the Afghan government destroyed
143 metric tons of opium and 35 tons of heroin.
"One of the things narcotics does to a country is destroy
it, destroy the morals and the ethics," Jawad said.
Foreign fighters, he said, have infiltrated those
areas in the last six months to wage an Iraq-style war using
suicide bombers and sophisticated explosive devices.
"They are killing soft targets: teachers
and road builders," he said.
A key to victory is to establish a reliable police force but
the problem is that the force is understaffed and police are
underpaid.
"It's hard to fight terrorism and go out
against al-Qaida if you're only paid $40" a month, Jawad
said.
He said another problem is the psychological effect
of citizens watching police get shot at point blank by terrorists
because the rifles police are using often jam.
"It is a matter of resources, training and
equipment and also, of course, leadership," he said.
The police training effort that was started by
the Germans is now totally in the hands of U.S. personnel, he
said.
For 2007, he said the United States has allocated
$1.4 billion for training of the Afghan national army and the
national police force.
"We are building new training centers in
five provinces. We are also filling what are called 'embedded
trainers' with police officers. So once they are trained then
the U.S. trainer will stay with them when they are deployed
to make sure they perform properly," he said.
"What we need to do is just find a solution
for the short-term crisis we have right now," Jawad said
after his speech.
Regardless of the security challenges, he said
he believes Afghanistan is "on the right track."
"Despite the fact Afghanistan is a poor country
... the country is emerging as a model of successful state building,"
he said.
"If democracy means having an opportunity
to send your daughter to school, if democracy means having the
possibility of speaking your mind freely without having the
fear of the secret police or prison or jail, or if democracy
means having the opportunity to grow to your economic potential,"
he said, "this is something every human being demands and
deserves."
