Karzai demands U.S. troops leave village outposts; Taliban suspends peace talks with U.S.
Ernesto Londoño and Greg Jaffe,
KABUL — President Hamid Karzai demanded Thursday that the United States pull back from combat outposts and confine its troops to military bases in Afghanistan, an apparent response to Sunday’s shooting rampage by a U.S. staff sergeant.
Meanwhile, the Taliban said it was suspending preliminary peace talks with the United States because of Washington’s “alternating and ever-changing position,” and accused U.S. officials of reneging on promises to take meaningful steps toward a prisoner swap.
The announcements followed a meeting between Karzai and U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta in Kabul, after which U.S. officials said the two sides had made progress discussing the contentious issue of night raids — but did not mention any discussion of a pullback.
Tension between the United States and Afghanistan soared last month after the burning of Korans by U.S. troops set off a wave of violent protests and retaliatory killings. Support for the war is slipping among Americans as well as Afghans. Sunday’s massacre of 16 civilians — and the transfer of the staff sergeant believed to be responsible to a U.S. base in Kuwait to await prosecution — further outraged the Afghan people.
The killings “damaged the U.S. and Afghan relationship,” Karzai’s office said. He said foreign troops must withdraw from village outposts and return to large NATO bases, and Afghan troops should assume primary responsibility for security by the end of next year--ahead of the time frame U.S. commanders have endorsed.
Karzai does not have the authority to enforce a pullback of foreign troops, however. And the United States has rebuffed previous demands that it halt night raids, ban private security companies and immediately transfer control of prisons to the Afghan government.
U.S. military officials tout the night raids on the homes of suspected militants, conducted by U.S. and Afghan Special Operations Forces, as essential to defeating the Taliban insurgency. Karzai has complained that the raids cause too many civilian casualties.
The Afghan government hopes the issue can be resolved through a memorandum of understanding, similar to a recent agreement that laid out the terms for the gradual transfer of U.S.-held detainees to Afghan custody. Karzai spokesman Aimal Faizi said the government is insisting that foreign troops be barred from entering Afghan homes and that soldiers obtain search warrants before storming the houses of suspected insurgents.
“There have been very good discussions,” Panetta said Thursday. He said he believes there is a way to “satisfy President Karzai’s concerns and meet our needs as well.”
Earlier, Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus, the senior Marine commander in southern Afghanistan, said further restrictions on night raids may not be possible. “I don’t know how much more accommodating we can be with what is a critical element of a counterinsurgency fight,” Gurganus said.
Panetta, in his news conference, made no mention of Karzai’s soon-to-be-issued pullback request. But officials later said they were aware of Karzai’s statement.
“This is something that we will continue to discuss through diplomatic channels,” said Lt. Lauren Rago said, a spokeswoman for the NATO command in Kabul.
U.S. officials suggested Karzai’s request was in synch with their strategy to gradually shift responsibility for security to Afghan forces over the next two years. “This is part of the transition plan to which both sides have agreed,” said a defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
NATO officials in Kabul appeared to have been caught off guard by Karzai’s statement. The alliance’s spokeswoman in Brussels, Oana Lungescu, issued a statement that did not directly address the president’s demand.
“Transition is underway and making progress,” Lungescu said. “NATO remains committed to enabling the Afghan Security Forces to take full responsibility for security as soon as practically possible.”
Karzai’s statement raised concerns on Capitol Hill. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a leading proponent of the war, told reporters he could not support continued military operations if the United States met Karzai’s demand.
“Fighting behind a wire, you can’t fight effectively,” Graham said. “If that’s going to be the plan, I would say it’s doomed to fail, because it failed in Iraq.”
The Taliban announcement included a statement that it would forgo opening a political office in Qatar, dashing already faint hopes about a negotiated settlement to the decade-long war.
The Taliban said that “the Americans initially agreed upon taking practical steps regarding the exchange of prisoners” and the opening of a Qatar office for the insurgents, but have since “turned their backs on their promises” and insisted on new conditions.
But U.S. officials said their position has been unchanged since talks began more than a year ago--that the prisoner exchange and formal establishment of the political office must be preceded by a Taliban statement supporting the political process in Afghanistan and renouncing international terrorism. The most recent, informal U.S.-Taliban meeting took place in Qatar in January, following a half-dozen meetings in 2011.
The administration has said that, once the Qatar office is formally open, the Afghan government will be brought into the talks. On Thursday, Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasool was on a visit to Qatar, which the Afghan government saw as a potential breakthrough in asserting a role for the Karzai administration.
But the Taliban statement repeated the group’s intention to negotiate only with the “American invaders.” The group said Karzai “cannot even make a single political decision without the prior consent of the Americans” and called negotiating with Karzai’s government “pointless.”
The Obama administration has been contemplating releasing five Taliban members held in the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, including four senior members of the militant group. The transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to a third country — in this case Qatar — would require congressional approval.
The Taliban’s bargaining chip in the swap has been widely assumed to be a U.S. citizen being held by the insurgents.
The plan appears to have gained significant traction: U.S. officials recently allowed an Afghan government delegation access to the inmates in Guantanamo to ascertain that they were willing to relocate to the wealthy Gulf Emirate. The prisoners supported the plan, a spokesman for Karzai said.
The Taliban implied that it would be willing to restart talks if and when the “Americans clarify their stance on the issues concerned and . . . show willingness in carrying out promises instead of wasting time.”
In Washington, a senior administration official described Taliban statement as “piling on” amid strained relations between the United States and the Karzai government. “They see an opportunity here,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “This is a normal part of negotiating. These things happen, and you just have to kind of try your best to stay with your plan.”
Panetta, in his briefing, focused on security gains that U.S. forces have made in battling the Taliban, as well as the current Pentagon strategy for gradually turning over primary responsibility for combat operations to Afghan forces by the middle of 2013.
“We are on the right path. I am absolutely convinced of that. But the key is to stay on that path,” Panetta said.
Still, his trip also highlighted the continued turmoil that exists here. Around the time that Panetta’s plane landed Wednesday, an Afghan interpreter stole a pickup truck and apparently tried to use it to strike a group of Marines waiting for the defense secretary on the runway.
The interpreter struck and wounded a British soldier while stealing the truck, officials said. He eventually crashed the truck some distance away from the runway and, apparently, set himself on fire, suffering injuries that proved fatal.
On Thursday, Afghan lawmakers denounced the U.S. transfer of the staff sergeant suspected in the Kandahar rampage to a military base in Kuwait, which U.S. officials said was standard procedure.
As part of an effort to knock down rumors that other U.S. troops might have been involved in the shootings, U.S. officials showed a surveillance video of the staff sergeant surrendering to Afghan security guards upon his return to his combat outpost.
The soldier will likely face prosecution on his home base, Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Wash, if he is charged. A decision on whether to convene a court-martial would be made by an Army general who is in the soldier’s chain of command.
Also Thursday, Lt. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, the No. 2 American commander in Afghanistan, told reporters U.S. troops would likely continue combat operations in the more violent areas of Afghanistan into 2014 — “in a more limited nature.” The Obama administration’s goal is to turn over security responsibility to Afghan forces by the fall of 2013 and for all U.S. and NATO combat troops to withdraw by the end of 2014.
Correspondents Karen DeYoung and Ed O’Keefe in Washington and Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul contributed to this report.
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