His shop sells stationery but the shopkeeper saw an opportunity in the many anti-Western demonstrations that take place across Pakistan.

He supplies US and Israeli flags for the protesters to burn. Nasir Hassan wrote about this shop owner in Rawalpindi, in an article for Pakistan’s Express Tribune.

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Marco Werman: One store owner in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi knows all about adapting to uncertain economic conditions. His shop sells stationery but the shopkeeper saw an opportunity in the many anti-Western demonstrations that take place across Pakistan. He supplies US and Israeli flags for the protesters to burn. Nadir Hassan wrote about this shop owner in Rawalpindi, in an article for Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper. Mr. Hassan is in Islamabad right now. Are these flags any different from other flags? Are they more flammable [laughs]? Or is it simply that the flags sold are of nationalities that inspire rage in Pakistan?

Nadir Hassan: No, the flags themselves aren’t more flammable. It’s just certain countries are considered more flammable in Pakistan [laughs].

Werman: [Laughs] Figuratively flammable.

Hassan: Yes. The US and Israel and, I guess, the United Kingdom are always in demand, so to speak. Occasionally, you get a certain country in the news where their flags will not be readily available and this is where the shopkeeper steps in. So for Denmark, for example, during the controversy over the cartoons, there was a sudden demand for Danish flags and he stepped in to fill that void.

Werman: How much do these flags go for?

Hassan: Usually about 300 rupees per flag. That’s a bit more than $3.

Werman: Right. Okay.

Hassan: But if you buy in bulk, as many political parties do over here, he offers a small discount for that.

Werman: So, basically, this guy is making a profit from people’s hatred of certain nationalities. Does he seem like a hateful guy himself, or just a smart businessman?

Hassan: No, I think he’s just a smart businessman who happens to have some good connections with political parties here. So he has become the vendor of choice in the area.

Werman: Do you think the success of this flag business is a good way of measuring anti-US and anti-Israeli sentiment?

Hassan: I think to some extent it is, but you could use other metrics for that than out at rallies, the rhetoric you hear from politicians. I think what makes this interesting is someone finding a unique business opportunity and fulfilling it regardless of his ideology.

Werman: What about selling dummies that you can burn an effigy; dummies of reviled political leaders? That might be a growth industry.

Hassan: It could. What I have actually noticed a lot over here, in protests, is they take dolls of cartoon figures and burn those. Winnie-the-Pooh, for some reason, seems to be quite popular.

Werman: Winnie-the-Pooh!

Hassan: Yeah.

Werman: That’s just sacrilegious [laughs]!

Hassan: [Laughs] Well, that’s the thing. I think no one has yet thought of producing effigies of, say, George W. Bush and selling them. So, it’s certainly a potential market for someone.

Werman: Is anyone else manufacturing or selling flags for burning? Or, is this guy alone?

Hassan: I am pretty sure in other cities there must be, because you have a lot of large protests in Karachi too. So, I am sure there must be someone, simply on the principle that if the demand exists a supplier will always step up.

Werman: What was the oddest flag you saw for sale at the shopkeeper’s stationery shop? I mean, a country that really shouldn’t be there, like the Maldives. Were they in there?

Hassan: No, I’d say Norway.

Werman: Norway?

Hassan: Yeah, because they are one of the largest providers of aid to Pakistan, and at the same time they don’t really make any demands on us. So I have no idea who’d ever want to burn that.

Werman: Nadir Hassan of the Express Tribune newspaper speaking to us from Islamabad.

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Marco Werman: Much of the news reported from Pakistan has to do with the country’s north-western regions, along the border with Afghanistan. That’s where tribal militant and the Taliban are actively challenging the Pakistani government’s control. But Islamabad may also be losing control of the nation’s biggest province, Balochistan. It’s located on south-west Pakistan, bordering both Afghanistan and Iran. There’s a bloody insurgency going on there, one aimed at creating an independent Balochistan. Declan Walsh of Britain’s Guardian newspaper knows Balochistan well. He’s now in Islamabad. Declan, how widespread is support for independence in Balochistan?

Declan Walsh: Well, I think it’s pretty widespread at this point. There has been no opinion polls, but when you go speak with Balochistan, what’s certain is that there’s a very deep sense of grievance. People feel that their province has been neglected by the state, ever since Pakistan was set up in 1947. In many respects, they’re right. It’s a huge province. It covers 44% of Pakistan’s land mass, and yet it has a very small population. And it gets a very small share of the national wealth, if you like.

Werman: And militarily, how strong is the insurgency in Balochistan?

Walsh: It’s not very successful militarily. It’s relatively small. It mostly carries out small hit and run ambushes on army or Frontier Core, that’s the paramilitary force, on Frontier Core outposts. It has also carried out some targeted killings of people it says are supporting the state. And that leads us to the problem here in Balochistan, which is that, because there is no open warfare, the military and its intelligence agencies, have used abductions and torture of suspected Balochi separatists as their way of trying to quell this insurgency.

Werman: Apparently the rebels can be pretty brutal too, with non-Balochi people? Apparently there’s a university professor, non-Balochi female professor, killed in April, right?

Walsh: That’s right. One of the very regrettable things about the insurgency is that it seems to have brutalized people on both sides of the coin. So we’ve seen a very, kind of, hard nationalist sentiment growing in Balochistan. When I started covering the conflict about six years ago, the people who were leading the fight said that they wanted autonomy from Pakistan. They wanted a greater say in their own affairs. But now, as it has become more brutal, those people have now started to call for complete independence. And that has also seen a much harsher type of violence.

Werman: I know you said, militarily, the insurgency isn’t that impressive, but I’m wondering if there’s any  indication that militants in south-west Pakistan and Balochistan are speaking with militants in north-west Pakistan, forming a potentially more dangerous force that could challenge the Pakistani military.

Walsh: This is one of the strengths, and weaknesses, I think, of the Balochi nationalist movement, that they have very few links with the Islamist militant groups that are so powerful in the rest of Pakistan. But I think that what’s very significant for outside countries, is that this conflict speaks to the internal divisions within Pakistan, among Pakistanis about what their country should be and how it treats its own people. There are multiple ethnic groups and regional groups in Pakistan who feel very alienated from the center. They feel alienated from the military, which is the most powerful force here in Pakistan. And the Balochi are really the most extreme manifestation of that sense of alienation and I think it’s something that really threatens, if not the short-term, at least the medium or long-term stability of Pakistan.

Werman: Declan Walsh of the British newspaper The Guardian in Islamabad, filling us in on the troubles facing Pakistan’s biggest province, Balochistan. Declan, thanks so much.

Walsh: My pleasure.

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• Video: The story of Mohammed
• Video: Saving Mohammed
• Michigan State University: MSU Today

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MARCO WERMAN:  A very different medical story now.  It involves a 13-year-old Iraqi boy named Mohammed.  He just spent a year getting medical treatment in Michigan.  The many who made Mohammed’s journey possible is Major David Howell.  He served in Iraq with the Michigan National Guard.  Back home, he’s a physician’s assistant in a hospital emergency room.  In 2008 Major Howell was deployed in Ramadi, Iraq, when he noticed Mohammed in a crowd of women and children.

DAVID HOWELL:  He just kept looking at me, and looking at me, and looking at me.  And I just thought it was a little bit unusual.

WERMAN: Mohammed had sustained severe burns in a house fire as an infant.  The disfiguring injuries affected his head, the left side of hi face and his left arm.  That night Major Howell couldn’t stop thinking about him.  Two days later he tracked him down and brought him back to his combat outpost.

HOWELL: That’s when I found out that not only could he speak English, but that his father had been an interpreter for the United States Marine Corps at one of the combat outposts and that three years earlier, in 2005, the insurgents had discovered what his father was doing and had come to the family home and had slain him.  The following day when his uncle went down to the Ramadi General Hospital to identify the body, the insurgents were waiting for his uncle and they killed him as well. So once I learned that, and I saw how poor the family was, that really motivated me to try to find a way to help this family.

WERMAN: Well now Mohammed has had five surgeries in Michigan in the past year.  Tell me about the medical treatment and what it was like for him.

HOWELL: Well as you said, he had five surgeries and during that time he had his scalp completely reconstructed, his nose reconstructed, his left ear reconstructed and he had some skin grafts that now allow him to close his left eye.  And then he had two surgeries on his left hand so that his left hand has been restored to the extent that he can play baseball and do other things that kids can do.  I think that the surgeries really boosted his self esteem.  I think he’s going to have a much different life now that he’s back in Ramadi.

WERMAN: Was there a lot of culture shock for Mohammed that year in Lansing?

HOWELL: That was one of my concerns and so after I came back I went and met with some of the leaders at the Greater Lansing Islamic School and also the East Lansing Islamic Center and they were very helpful and they introduced me to a local family of Iraqi Americans with several children.  They became the host family so that when Mohammed, when I did bring him back here to the United States, he was able to live with a family that spoke Arabic, he was able to go to a school where Arabic was taught and he was able to continue to worship at a mosque.

WERMAN: Now one thing you probably had not anticipated from all of this was that you ended up by making some new friends, Muslim friends, in your own community in Michigan.

HOWELL: You know, I had served a previous combat tour over in Iraq in 2005 and at that point when we went on patrols, we always went in our armored humvees.  This time around, in 2008, we had much more interaction with the Iraqi people because we were on foot patrols, but our rules of engagement forbid us from going anywhere near any mosque or religious buildings.  So it was a new experience for me to go to a mosque.  And I can’t say enough good things about the Islamic community in Dearborn and in Lansing.  I’ve made some lifelong friends in the Islamic community which is kind of a twist for a soldier in the United States Army to be saying that.

WERMAN: How did Mohammed and his family relate to you as a member of the U.S. military and has that changed over the past year?

HOWELL: Actually when I first met Mohammed and he told me the story about how his father had been slain, he also told me how a group of Marines at a combat outpost then basically took him in and became a surrogate parent to him and allowed him to visit the combat outpost.  That’s where he learned to speak English.  But his family was extremely poor, the insurgents has told his mother that if she had any more contact with U.S. forces that they would come back and kill her and all six children, so he was very reluctant to have any contact with U.S. military forces, but I was able to convince her that I was serious about offering help and over a series of several meetings, she was able to trust me.  But as far as Mohammed went, he was very comfortable around men and women in uniform.

WERMAN: You know Major Howell you speak about your relationship with Mohammed in pretty sober terms.  You know, I brought him here and really wanted him to get better, but I imagine that spending a year with him, you must have grown very close to him.

HOWELL: Well he became another member of the family and so taking him back to his family, although that was always the initial plan and that was always my promise to his mother, that I would bring him back to her, it was really tough taking him back.  But we’re still maintaining our contact with the family and I hope someday down the road to be able to help Mohammed come back to the United States and maybe continue his education here.

WERMAN: I guess you miss him a lot.

HOWELL: I sure do.

WERMAN: Major Howell thank you very much.

HOWELL: Thank you.

WERMAN: Major David Howell spoke to us from Michigan.  He’ll be deploying to Afghanistan soon.  Michigan State University has been documenting Mohammed’s story.  If you want to see some scene’s from Mohammed’s year in the U.S. we’ve got a link to some videos at the world dot org.

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• BBC Iraq coverage
• The logistics of withdrawing from Iraq
• Ben Gilbert’s photos from FOB Q-West

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.  The war in Iraq is not over and we as a nation will be dealing with it’s aftermath for a long time.  In a few minutes we’ll hear about the unpredictable costs of caring for injured veterans.  First though, there’s a sense that the conflict in Iraq is winding down.  The conflict is still officially dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Now in its eighth year, it’s known as Operation Iraqi Freedom Eight or OIF8.  The U.S. Army’s Third Infantry Division’s 164 Armor has been in Iraq from the very beginning.  It was the first unit to enter Baghdad in 2003.  Some of its members who were there then are back in Iraq now.  Reporter Ben Gilbert was embedded with the unit at a small combat outpost south of Mosul.  He spoke to some of the soldiers about how they feel about what could be their last deployment to Iraq.

DAVID SHUMATE:  My name is David Shumate.  I’m from Palm Bay, Florida.  And I’m 27 years old.  I’m from Alpha Company, 164 Armor.  This is my fourth tour in Iraq.  I’ve been in the invasion, OIF3, OIF5 and OIF8.  I was active Army right after September 11.  Then I deployed to Kuwait.  A few months after a lot of training we invaded Iraq.  So yeah, we lost two guys and had 18 wounded.  But I mean really, once we got into Baghdad, basically it was kind of over.  It was, once we got there it all stopped basically.  I was kind of amazing.  When I was on my first combat, a couple of my first patrols into Baghdad was amazing.  I was actually getting flowers from people.  Bouquets of flowers from women and they were happy and they were cheering that we were there.  A lot has changed from the first few weeks into Baghdad.  A couple weeks, couple months after that when the insurgency really started its affect on the people.

MIKE BAILEY:  My name is Mike Bailey.  I’m from Bell Chase, Louisiana.  I’m 27 years old.  This is my fourth time to Iraq.  The first time I was here with First Marine Division was down in Babel Province.  The second round I switched over and came as part of First Marine Regiment in February 2004.  We went to just outside of Fallujah in Anbar Province and the word of the day was IED’s.  They were everywhere.  People were more worried about what was going on on the side of the roads then what was going on on the roads.  That one definitely started off with a bang with the four Blackwater contractors that got killed two or three weeks after we got there.  Not too long after the Blackwater contractors were killed, we moved into the city of Fallujah with several battalions and started basically rooting out the guys that were coming out to fight us, and there was a lot of them.  A whole lot of them.  It seemed like everybody had an RPG or a gun in Fallujah back then.  You couldn’t get very far into the city before you started hearing booms and ricochets coming off vehicles and stuff like that.  They definitely wanted to fight us hear on.

JAMES AUSBENDER:  My name is Staff Sergeant James Ausbender.  I’m 32.  I live at Fort Stewart with my wife and kids, that’s home.  I was with the First Battalion, 18th Infantry, 1st ID.  We were based in Tikrete, just south of here.  We saw the end of all the major combat and the beginning of all the IED’s.  There was new armor on our vehicles so that made it very interesting times.

BAILEY:  This was back before armored Humvees right?

AUSBENDER:  Yeah.  So we had all the soft skin Humvees with all the Secretary of Defense trying to get us all the armor in a rush.  To their credit, nobody knew what the IED threat was until we hit it.

BAILEY:  Did you guys hillbilly armor your vehicles?

AUSBENDER:  Oh yeah, plywood, sheet metal, sandbags, everything you could think of we put on there.  Some of it worked.

SHUMATE:  I was 20 when we invaded, now I’m fixing to turn 28.  Big chunk of the twenties.  Wow, it’s from OIF3 to today is night and day.  The Iraqi Army is a lot more established.  We no longer really can go into the cities without Iraqi escorts.  We can’t go into an Iraqi house without an Iraqi escort and without a warrant or permission.  It’s night and day.  So basically OIF3 was, if we felt that house was suspicious or something was going bad in that house, we went in the house and we took care of business.  And so now, basically the Iraqis have control over everything and we’re just here to support them.

BAILEY:  You get the feeling that it’s the last deployment.  We were basically told you guys are going to turn the lights off on the way out the door.

GILBERT:  How much time have you spent in Iraq?

BAILEY:  Let’s see here, three years in my twenties have been spent in Iraq.  Parts of me is sick of coming here, being away from a toddler.  My daughter was just born, I actually missed her birth the last time I was here, and being away from my wife of eight years, but this is what I signed up to do when I was 18 years old and this is what I know.  My wife came into it and we know that its one of those things that’s going to happen and we’re prepared for it.

AUSBENDER:  I’m one of those guys I want to see it all the way through.  I’d rather stay here another year or two and get it done right then leave too early.  I was us to leave and for this to work out, not for us to leave and the country have issues.

WERMAN:  The voices of non-commissioned officers who have been in Iraq off and on since 2003 and 2004.  Reporter Ben Gilbert collected their stories while embedded with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, 164 Armor unit near Mosul.

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• Ben Gilbert’s photos from FOB Q-West
• Ben Gilbert on joint patrols in Iraq
• The struggle for Iraq

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.  President Obama has pledged to remove U.S. combat troops from Iraq by August.  The withdrawal will be, among other things, a logistical nightmare.  Millions of dollars have gone into housing, dining halls, gyms, and swimming pools.  The military is already packing up and preparing to hand over what remains to the Iraqi military.  At the Contingency Operating Base, Q-West, near Mosul in northern Iraq, the last U.S. service members to leave will the Logistics Brigade.  Ben Gilbert reports.

BEN GILBERT:  There’s a hug gravel yard here at Contingency Operating Base Q-West that’s about the size of a football field.  On the perimeter of the yard are dozens of shipping containers.  In the middle sit white cardboard boxes, about a square yard wide and tall.  They contained the detritus of seven years of war.  Sergeant Damaris Van Zandt is a soldier with the Logistics Unit responsible for sorting through everything here.

SERGEANT DAMARIS VAN ZANDT:  We’re taking all excess stuff, we’re bringing them here to the yard and basically what happens in the yard is we separate it into five categories.

GILBERT: Those five categories pretty much break down into two big ones.  Stuff keep and use again and stuff to throw out.  In preparation for the transfer of this base to Iraq control, all the U.S. military units are cleaning out their storage rooms.  Everything they don’t need they drop off at this yard to be sifted through by the military logistics team.  Basically, Sgt. Van Zandt and his crew are dumpster diving.  A huge olive green forklift moves the white boxes, filled with just about anything imaginable.  There are phones and fax machines, tires, uniforms, antennas, ammo clips and orange traffic cones.  Sergeant Rob Strain is the public affairs officer for the U.S. Army’s 15th Sustainment Brigade.

SERGEANT ROB STRAIN:  This is like the precursor to transferring the base.  Getting everything that we have here so we know what we have and we get it out of here as much as possible before we actually transfer the base over.  Trying to get ahead of ourselves, basically.

GILBERT: The 15th Sustainment Brigade will oversee the handing over of this base in the fall.  Q-West is currently home to 8,000 troops.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL PAULA LODI:  Q-West is essentially a small city.

GILBERT: Lt. Col. Paula Lodi commands the unit responsible for turning off the lights at Q-West.  She’s currently trying to figure out what to do with the miles of concrete blast walls that snake nearly 10 miles around the base.  One thing she’s sure of is that the fire trucks and ambulances must stay until nearly the last day.  One of the biggest challenges is inventorying and transferring thousands of shipping containers that have been converted to sleeping quarters, called CHU’s which stands for containerized housing unit.

LT. COL. LODI:  Right now we are in the process of accounting for how many CHUs we have here and then sending that list up to U.S. Forces Iraq so that it can be sent to the Department of State, Department of Defense.  They all get to look at the list and see what’s available and determine if there is a need elsewhere.

GILBERT: Lt. Col. Lodi says the key to closing down the base is ensuring there is no interruption to the combat units that will have to operate out of here until the last day.  She says there is a basic blueprint for how to close down a base.  Q-West isn’t the first to close in Iraq, but she says each base does have its own challenges.

LT. COL. LODI:  We’re ending this mission with pride.  We’re not leaving in a hurry.  We’re not leaving in a state of chaos.  We’ve got a plan and we’re executing that plan.

GILBERT: And as bases like Q-West in Iraq are closed down, the bases in Afghanistan are being built up.  At this base in Kandahar a Navy construction battalion was building a new command center and barracks for an American unit’s expansion.  Ensign Richard Hendricks directed the construction.

ENSIGN RICHARD HENDRICKS:  We’ll build offices, living quarters, there will be everything.

GILBERT: So how long do you estimate that will take to build on this piece of land right here?

ENSIGN HENDRICKS:  Probably two months, yes sir.

GILBERT: You guys are working from sun up to sun down?

ENSIGN HENDRICKS:  Yes sir.  Ten, or about 11, 12 hours a day.

GILBERT: Many of the items being shipped out of Iraq will end up on bases like this.  Already air assets and vehicles have been sent to Afghanistan from Iraq to provide for the 30,000 U.S. surge troops arriving this spring.  For The World, I’m Ben Gilbert.

WERMAN: You can see some of Ben Gilbert’s photos of Q-West base at the world dot org.

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• Picture gallery
• Ben Gilbert’s election coverage from Kirkuk

• Ben Gilbert’s photos from Kirkuk
• Ben Gilbert’s election coverage
• BBC coverage

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman, this is The World.  Results from yesterday’s Parliamentary elections in Iraq won’t be known for several days.  After all, about 6,000 candidates competed for more than 300 seats.  But the important thing is that the election seemed to have been free and fair.  The vote was a test of Iraq’s fragile democracy.  It’ll help determine whether the country can overcome its sectarian divides.  It will also help determine whether the U.S. can reduce its troop presence on schedule.  General Ray Odierno is the top American military commander in Iraq and he says he’s optimistic.

GENERAL RAY ODIERNO:  As I look out at today, we think we’re on track to be down to 50,000 and change our mission.  We obviously have contingencies in place and we’ll take a look at that, but there’s nothing today that tells us that we don’t think the Iraqi’s will be able to form this government in a peaceful way and begin to move forward so we are certainly believe that we will be able to go to 50,000 by the first of September.

WERMAN: General Ray Odierno speaking today in Baghdad.  In a moment we’ll consider what the Iraq elections mean for the Middle East and for Washington.  First though, we go to Ben Gilbert in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

BEN GILBERT:  An American military convoy drove United Nations and American Embassy officials to Kirkuk’s central counting center this morning.  But all they found were ballot boxes and just a few workers.  The center’s deputy, Firaz Jamal, said most of the top election officials weren’t there.

FIRAZ JAMAL:  We are waiting for them because all the night they were working, so actually they need some rest.

GILBERT: Machine gun fire may also have kept the poll workers up.  Celebratory gunfire erupted a few hours after the polls closed.  Tracers filled the air at the U.S. Air Force base on the outskirts of Kirkuk.  Personnel were told to take shelter due to the danger of falling lead.  But the party went on outside the base’s tall concrete walls.  Yesterday was noisy from the start.  In the morning music played from a car near a polling station as men in traditional Kurdish baggy pants, and women wearing green and yellow dresses walked to cast their votes in Kirkuk.  Among them was 70-year-old Latif Khooder.  This is a very good morning and we are really excited about it because we see the future of Iraq in this election he said.  Unlike the days of Saddam Hussein, several Iraqi’s took pride in not telling me how they voted, including 28-year-old Shlair Ibrahim.

INTERPRETER:  I don’t want to answer you.  I voted for whoever I wanted.

GILBERT: U.S. and international election observers say the vote pretty much went smoothly and was well organized.  They say that so far there have been no game-changing allegations of fraud.  Mark Hambley monitored the elections as part of a delegation from the Next Century Foundation.  Hambley says the vote was a positive step for Iraqis.

MARK HAMBLEY:  They’re masters of their own fate and that’s something they can be at least proud of despite some difficulties we had in the past.  The loss of life on both sides has been huge, but the potential here is greater and I think that these elections can turn into a government that’s a little more effective.  Move ahead on some of these difficulties and be better for everybody.

GILBERT: But Iraq is still not safe.  At least 30 people died in mortar and grenade attacks in Baghdad yesterday despite the tight security.  But all of Iraq’s major religious groups did take part in this election for the first time.  That includes Sunni Arabs.  Many Sunni’s boycotted the vote in 2005.  President Barack Obama said he has great respect for the millions of Iraqis who refused to be deterred by acts of violence and who exercised their right to vote.  Mr. Obama has set a September deadline for all combat troops to be out of Iraq.  Whether more troops can be withdrawn after that will depend on the formation of Iraq’s next government.  That could take a while.  No single party is expected to win a majority in Parliament and negotiations among the parties are likely to be contentious.  For The World, I’m Ben Gilbert in Kirkuk, Northern Iraq.

WERMAN: You can see Ben Gilbert’s photos of the vote in Kirkuk at the world dot org.

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Violence as the voting begins

At least 14 people were killed in Baghdad on the first day of voting. The day before, three suicide bombers attacked police and a hospital in Baquba, killing at least 30 people. Reporter Ben Gilbert accompanied an American embasssy election observer team in Kirkuk. (aired March 4)

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The role of Kirkuk

Nearly 1.5 million Iraqis living began casting their votes on March 5, while, people inside Iraq voted on March 7. The northern city of Kirkuk is ground zero for a potential conflict following the planned US withdrawal: the struggle between Arabs and Kurds over a large part of the country’s north. In his second story, reporter Ben Gilbert looks at the role Kirkuk plays in the vote. (aired March 5)

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• Ben Gilbert’s photos from Kirkuk
• BBC coverage

Counting underway

The voter turnout in Iraq’s general elections was 62%, officials say, despite attacks that killed 38 people. Preliminary results are not expected for several more days but the turnout figure is down from the 75% who voted in the 2005 general elections. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s State of Law Coalition is widely expected to win the most seats. (aired March 8)

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• Ben Gilbert’s first report from Kirkuk
• Iraqi voters discuss election
• The struggle for Iraq

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman, this is The World.  Iraq holds a key Parliamentary vote on Sunday.  The outcome will determine who controls the government in Baghdad as U.S. troops continue to prepare for withdrawal.  Militants have tried to derail the run up to the vote with several deadly attacks and there could be more violence this weekend.  But today, voting began for Iraqis living outside the country.  Turnout was reported to be high among the many Sunni Iraqis now in Syria and Jordan.  Sunni Arabs enjoyed a privileged status under Saddam Hussein.  Other groups resented that.  Since the war Shiites and Kurds have dominated at the ballot box and the Sunnis resent that.  The northern city of Kirkuk sits right on the fault line that divides Iraq’s many religious and ethnic groups.  Ben Gilbert reports on what Sunday’s vote looks like from there.

BEN GILBERT:  The ethnically mixed and volatile city of Kirkuk is divided between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen with a sprinkling of Christians.  In the past violence has flared between Kurds and Turkmen or Arabs, but now there’s an added element; a new Kurdish political party called Goran, or change.  Campaign anthems blare from loudspeakers on Kirkuk streets.  Campaign posters have plastered the walls here since about a second after campaigning officially began last month.  The new party, Change, is up against two large traditional Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, and the Kurdish Democratic Party, or KDP.  Those two fought violent civil wars against each other in the 1980′s and 90′s.  Jalal Jawri was once a fighter for the PUK.  Now he’s the head of the Change party in Kirkuk.  He says the new party will do away with the corrupt, rigid ways of the old parties.

INTERPRETER:  Those groups, especially the PUK, they have a mentality, a way of thinking that doesn’t allow the others to be in the political process with them.  They only want to control everything by themselves.  So that’s why they’re tearing down our posters, intimidating people and telling them to stop trying to be in politics.

GILBERT: Raffat Hamarash, the PUK leader in Kirkuk, and Jowri’s cousin, denies targeting the Change party supporters or political advertising.  He says his party has been the victim of intimidation and vandalism coming from the Change party’s ranks.  But despite the tensions, he says Kurds will not fight against each other again.  There will be no bloodshed between the Kurds, Hamarash said.  The Kurd had a very hard time in the past.  The whole leadership has decided not to repeat this experience because what happened in the past is considered shameful and it will not happen again.  But even if Kurds back away from violence, tensions are high here.  Last week tempers flared when a Turkman politician narrowly escaped assassination in downtown Kirkuk.  Arshaat Asalahee, head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front in Kirkuk says the Kurd were to blame.

ARSHAAT ASALAHEE:  They wanted to strike down the powerful voice of the Turkmen, especially the Turkmen Front.  One was the assassination program and then they attacked the Turkmen Front headquarters but we were wise and dealt with the situation in a wise way to contain the problem.

GILBERT: But the fix may be only temporary.  Kurds claim Northern Iraq and Kirkuk as their ancestral homeland.  They were kicked out of the oil rich region by Saddam Hussein in an effort to Arabize the city.  The Kurds have returned but the status of Kirkuk is still undecided.  The Iraqi Constitution requires that a referendum be held to determine Kirkuk’s status, but it keeps getting put off.  The Turkmen politician Arshaat Asalahee says an eventual vote could cause civil war.

ASALAHEE:  This could lead us into a hurricane and the Americans are giving the impression that they are backing the Kurds up in their quest to have Kirkuk included in Kurdistan.

GILBERT: Asalahee, wants a transitional shared government responsible for Kirkuk until demographic and property issues can be determined.  Rafaat Hamarash, the PUK leader in Kirkuk says he still envisions a day when Kirkuk is part of a state called Kurdistan, but realizes it’s not possible now.

INTERPRETER:  We believe that the current circumstances in Iraq allow for returning Kirkuk to the Kurdistan regional government and creating an independent state.  But let’s think about that.  If we’re going to do that, then we see Kurdistan bordered by Iran, Turkey and Syria.  Doing this would be suicide.

GILBERT: For now, U.S. troops are acting as peacemakers in the Kurd on Kurd and Kurd versus Arab, or Turkmen disputes.  They patrol the streets with Iraqi police and Iraqi soldiers.  Colonel Larry Swift with the First Brigade of the First Armored Division says things are looking good for Sunday’s elections.

COLONEL LARRY SWIFT:  There’s a very competent Police Force and a very competent Army doing great things every day to keep it that way and right now we’re really an enabler for them.

GILBERT: But that could change quickly depending on the election results.  It’s widely believed that U.S. combat troops will stay in Kirkuk and the surrounding areas longer than any others in Iraq; possibly well beyond the September deadline President Obama has outlined.  For The World, I’m Ben Gilbert in Kirkuk, Northern Iraq.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• Ben Gilbert’s photos from Kirkuk
• BBC coverage
• On The World: Suicide attacks in Iraq ahead of vote (Wed)

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman; this is The World.  Early voting started today for Iraq’s parliamentary elections.  Most Iraqis go to the polls Sunday.  Today was a chance for those who work on Sunday, mostly police and the military, to cast their ballots.  Unfortunately, the start of voting was met by violence.

WERMAN: At least 17 people died after suicide bombers targeted polling stations in Baghdad today.  Violence was widely expected before these elections.  Now there’s concern that the attacks will keep voter turnout low on Sunday.  Ben Gilbert is embedded with the U.S. Embassy Election Observer Team in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, and has this report.

BEN GILBERT: Although violent attacks occurred in Baqubah yesterday and Baghdad today, the voting in the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk was peaceful, if not always quiet.

GILBERT: That’s a patriotic army song blasting from an ambulance near a voting station in Kirkuk.  Some thousand soldiers lined up to vote here this afternoon.  One of them, 28-year-old First Sergeant Mookdad Salah Alawi says he thought things were going smoothly.

INTERPRETER: The best we can hope for is that the people are safe, and that whoever wins the election deserves to win.

GILBERT: Another voter, Shamal Khader, an employee in a maintenance office on an army base, said the elections were successful and clean.

INTERPRETER: Everything was good, and no one asked me to vote for a list.  I was free to vote for the candidates I wanted.

GILBERT: The voting process did appear smooth and orderly at three polling stations.  The Voting Manager at this spot said some of the soldiers’ names were missing from the voting list, but the problem was being resolved.  Similar problems were reported in other voting stations in the country.  But generally the voting appeared to go off without a hitch.  Up to 800,000 people registered for what’s called ‘special needs voting’ for the infirm, prisoners, police and soldiers.  Overall voter registration is near 18 million, up from 13 million in 2005.  This Sunday’s election results and formation of a new government will be a major indicator for how well Iraq’s competing parties will get along.  Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari made clear that the elections will likely be a major factor in determining the speed of President Obama’s planned withdrawal of remaining American combat troops from Iraq that’s slated for September 1^st.

HOSHYAR ZEBARI: If we succeed, yes, that will be the end of the American presence.  If there are setbacks, if there is a deterioration in the security, if there would be people who would challenge the outcome, who would resist, who would resort to violence – no, it would be another story.

GILBERT: Despite the calm, it’s still dangerous here.  And the U.S. military and State Department still operate with extreme caution.

[SOUNDS OF GUNFIRE]

GILBERT: U.S. soldiers test fired their guns today as they left an American base in Kirkuk.  The Army uses heavily armored vehicles to escort U.S. Embassy Observer Teams to polling stations. U.N. and American election observers wore helmets and body armor inside the polling stations.  Compared to Baghdad, Kirkuk has always been relatively safe, but it is also an area where both Al Qaeda affiliated insurgents and tensions between political parties, ethnicities and religions could result in violence.  American officials warned that as the rest of Iraq has calmed, the tensions in the north between Kurds and Arabs remain the most volatile.  They fear disagreements over the status of Kirkuk, which sits atop huge oil reserves, could lead to renewed fighting.  For The World, I’m Ben Gilbert in Kirkuk, northern Iraq.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• BBC coverage
• The struggle for Iraq

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  U.S. and Iraqi officials have been warning of insurgent attacks as Parliamentary elections draw closer.  Those warnings were vindicated today.  Suicide bombers killed more than 30 people in the city of Baquba.  The timing is worrisome.  The elections are scheduled for Sunday.  The balloting will decide who will govern Iraq as U.S. forces withdraw.  The vote will also help determine whether Iraq can overcome the sectarian tensions that continue to divide the nation.  This is a campaign song for one of the candidates.  The first singer asks will you vote?  The response is yes I will vote and I will defy terrorism despite the swords that have fought me.  Yes, some Iraqi’s are enthusiastic about the upcoming election, but reporter Sahar Issa with McClatchy Newspapers in Baghdad says other Iraqis are skeptical.

SAHAR ISSA:  They find it very funny, actually.  They laugh that there are elections and that they would go to elect, to repeat what they believe has been a very unproductive four years.

WERMAN: So you’re saying people are kind of chuckling about this.  Are they making jokes about this election?

issa: You can’t imagine the jokes.

WERMAN: Tell me one.

ISSA: Like, for instance, the posters that are being posted.  There are very many secular women on the slate this election and many of them are very beautiful.  They have make up on and tinted hair and others that are in the traditional cover, the hijab.  And I spoke to one gentleman who said if winning the elections depends upon how long people stare at posters, I am sure this young lady will win.  And she was, certainly, very beautiful.

WERMAN: Do you think the humor is healthy or is it a sign of cynicism?

ISSA: It is a good thing when it is lighthearted, but at the base of it, yes there is cynicism.  People have simply lost their belief.  They are disenchanted.  The feel that they have gone through one period and after electing and being enthusiastic about the people they are electing and what happen, they are so let down.  And so yes, there is cynicism behind it.

WERMAN: Hundreds of candidates were banned just before the elections because of their links to the Bathists.  How do you feel about all those alleged Bathists being told you can’t run?

ISSA: To be fair, a lot of the candidates whose names were banned were people who are newcomers to the political scene.  And therefore they were investigated and according to the constitution and to the accountability and justice law, they were banned.  But, not all of them were new.  There are faces who have been on the Iraqi political scene for years and they are well know, they are liked by some, they are hated by others.  Nevertheless, they have been there.  They have made names for themselves and they have a following.  And these people suddenly, after so many years, to be thrown out at the time when their followers will be left adrift, this is the thing that points to, how do you say, unclean intentions on the part of the people who banned them weeks before the elections.  It’s unbelievable.

WERMAN: You know, in a country where democracy is trying to flourish, we’ve heard a lot about the ways candidates are attempting to appeal to voters.  Handing out goods and things, everything from sneakers to gold watches to chicken dinners.  Have you seen a lot of evidence of this stuff?

ISSA: And blankets and rice and cooking oil to the degree Marco that the spokesman for the Iraqi government comes out with a statement on their website that warns against this.  He says the Merjariya, which is the highest religious authority for the Shiite have banned this practice.  So be careful lest you be one of the people who go for eternal hell because you are doing something that is prohibited.

WERMAN: Is this kind of a season of door prizes in the lead up to the election or do Iraqis, if they receive these gifts, feel an obligation to vote for the candidate that gave the that thing.

ISSA: I will tell you what happened in the last elections.  The Iraqi people took the presents and voted for someone else.

WERMAN: They voted for who they wanted to vote for.

ISSA: Yes, in the first place.  This is what happened.  And this time they are laughing at it, those of the people who are being offered these prizes.  If they need them, they will take them.  If they don’t need them, they will not take them.  But I doubt if it will sway their vote one way or the other.

WERMAN: What does democracy then mean in Baghdad today?  If you were to walk up to the average person on the street and say there are 100,000 troops here in Iraq, but what in your mind does democracy mean?

ISSA: Marco, democracy is a new concept for Iraqis.  We are the culture and the society that has the father figure.  The father figure in the family, the father figure in the tribe, even the father figure in the state and people are quite happy, unfortunately, because this is the way the society is built, the tribal society.  They are quite happy to do what their elders tell them to do.  Now you throw at them a concept that is totally alien and foreign to them.  What is democracy for the Iraqis?  They don’t believe in democracy inside their families.  They don’t know what democracy truly means.  It is not part of their culture.  I think because democracy is a context that should be built from the base upwards, it will take quite a while for Iraqis to really understand and this is Iraqis on the streets, I’m not speaking about college professors, I’m not speaking about politicians or doctors or engineers, I’m speaking about the man on the street, the farmer, the mechanic, the man who works at the petrol station, the man who makes sandwiches in the vendor.  They don’t know really what democracy is.  They are happy to be able to speak out loud now.  They are happy to have the freedom of speech that for a long time they didn’t have.

WERMAN: Are they happy to go to the polls this weekend and vote?

ISSA: They are happy to be able to.  Yes.  Yes they are happy to be able to.  Yes I believe so.

WERMAN: Sahar it’s clear despite the three bombings in Baquba today that violence in Iraq has dissipated, but tell us to what extent the people are still fearful.

ISSA: The people are tentative.  Although, how do you say, the barriers have come down somewhat.  People are going out; life in Baghdad has come back.  But people, how do you say, if a tire blows, you see faces go pale.  If a balloon blows, faces go pale.  If something breaks, some glass or like a plate or something, people instantly almost have a heart attack.  It will take time Marco.  It will take time to erase.  It’s difficult to erase, but at least to lessen the effects of the violence that Iraq has gone through.

WERMAN: Sahar Issa with McClatchy Newspapers in Baghdad, very good to speak with you again.  Thank you.

ISSA: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

The final communique from the London summit said it welcomed Afghanistan’s goal of taking charge of the “majority of operations in the insecure areas of Afghanistan within three years and taking responsibility for physical security within five years.” It said the international community would continue to improve the capabilities of the Afghan security forces, boosting the army to 171,600 and the police to 134,000 personnel by October 2011. The summit said the Afghan government had acknowledged that it had to tackle corruption.

Earlier this week, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan said increased troop levels could bring a negotiated peace with the Taliban. General Stanley McChrystal told the UK’s Financial Times newspaper that there had been “enough fighting”. He said a political solution in all conflicts was “inevitable”. His remarks came as the top UN envoy in Kabul said it was time to talk to the militants.

Afghan and Pakistani leaders are in Turkey to discuss tackling the Taliban-led insurgency in their countries. This is the fourth such meeting initiated by Turkey, which has offered to broker talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Both Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, will attend an international conference on Afghanistan in London on Thursday.

Last week, Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers attacked buildings in the heart of the Afghan capital, Kabul, setting off explosions and sparking gun battles. Fighting erupted near the Serena Hotel and the presidential palace, the Taliban said 20 of its fighters had taken part in the attacks. Two civilians and three security personnel have been killed plus 71 others wounded, officials say. Seven attackers had also been killed, Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said.

General McChrystal, praised the work of Afghan forces in quelling Monday’s attack. “Afghan National Security Forces effectively dealt with the situation and should be commended. We convey our heartfelt condolences to the innocent victims of this cowardly attack,” he said in a statement issued by the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The Taliban fighters were armed with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, the ISAF statement said.

The World’s Matthew Bell on the implications of the brazen Taliban attack in Kabul (Jan 18)
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In December, General McChrystal told Congress that the United States will reverse Taliban momentum within a year and accomplish its mission in Afghanistan, but it will be “undeniably difficult” and costly. Appearing before the House Armed Services Committee a week after President Barack Obama announced his new Afghanistan strategy, McChrystal warned the mission would fail without more troops and praised President Obama’s decision to deploy more forces.

The World’s Katy Clark on the congressional hearing:
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On December 1st, President Barack Obama announced he was sending an additional 30,000 troops to help battle the Taliban insurgency. The Taliban reacted to the President’s speech by saying they will step up their fight in Afghanistan. A Taliban commander told the BBC that if more US troops came, more would die.

Coverage of the President’s speech on The World

Prior to his speech at West Point, the President said it was his intention to “finish the job” in Afghanistan. Marco Werman talks with Andrew Bacevich of Boston University, Monica Toft at Harvard University, Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation about “finishing the job” in Afghanistan.
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Taliban fighters

Coverage on The World:

• Katy Clark on building up Afghanistan’s own forces
• Katy Clark on what if the US loses in Afghanistan
• Jeb Sharp on the mission in Afghanistan
• American Influence podcast: Tough Choices for US in Afghanistan
• Inside the Taliban
• Jeb Sharp’s award winning series ‘How Wars End’

Hamid Karzai remains president

On Nov 19, 2009, Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghan president for a second elected term, saying he wants Afghan forces in charge of the nation within five years. In his inauguration speech, Mr Karzai announced a conference to tackle corruption and a national gathering to help bring peace to Afghanistan. He also invited his defeated rivals to join him in working for peace.

Kabul’s streets were almost empty as security forces set up numerous roadblocks ahead of the ceremony. The international airport was closed, a holiday was called and people were advised to stay indoors as part of the security lockdown. Dignitaries from about 40 countries were attending the ceremony, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband. The international community – including the US and Nato – congratulated Karzai on his inauguration, but warned that results were needed on tackling corruption and improving security.

Karzai was declared Afghan president after a second round run-off was called off when his sole remaining challenger pulled out, saying the vote could not be free and fair. Widespread fraud in the August 20 first round led to Mr Karzai being stripped of the outright win he appeared to have secured.

American Influence podcast: Tough Choices for US in Afghanistan

US Marines in Helmand

In July, US forces launched a major offensive in the southern province of Helmand. US Marines said Operation Khanjar, or ‘Strike of the Sword’, was intended to seize the lower Helmand River valley. More than 700 UK troops also launched a major offensive against insurgent strongholds in southern Afghanistan. The province of Helmand is considered to be the heartland of the Taliban insurgency. Operation “Strike of the Sword” is the first large-scale operation since President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of 17,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan, as part of a new strategy for winning the conflict. Many of them have been redeployed from operations in Iraq.

June 24, 2009: A BBC investigation into the treatment of former prisoners at a US detention center in Afghanistan uncovered allegations of physical and emotional abuse. Inmates held at the Bagram military base between 2002 and 2008 said they’d been beaten, deprived of sleep, threatened with firearms or dogs and hung from the ceiling.

The Pentagon has denied the charges and insisted that all inmates in the facility are treated humanely.

The Taliban in Pakistan

Throughout 2009 Pakistan has been hit by a string of attacks blamed on the country’s Taliban movement. The wave of attacks has left hundreds of people dead or injured:

Dec 15: At least 22 people have been killed in a bomb attack in a market in central Pakistan, officials say. About 50 others were wounded in the blast in Dera Ghazi Khan, which badly damaged a number of buildings.

Dera Ghazi Khan attack (12/15/2009)

Dec 7: Two bomb blasts ripped through a busy market in the center of Pakistan’s second largest city, Lahore, killing at least 30 people, police and medics say. The attack, which injured some 100 people, sparked a huge blaze at the city’s Moon Market. The blasts came just hours after a suicide bomber on a rickshaw killed at least 10 people in Peshawar when he blew himself up near the courthouse.

Dec 4: Militants are said to have killed at least 35 people, including 17 children, at a mosque near the Pakistani army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi. At least four attackers opened fire on worshippers during Friday prayers attended by many military staff in the garrison city. Security forces fought back in an hour-long gun battle before three attackers blew themselves up, reports say. The Pakistan Taliban later said they had carried out the strike.

Oct 28th: More than 90 people were killed after a huge car bomb ripped through a busy market in Peshawar, Pakistan. The attack, which injured at least 200 others, was the deadliest to hit Pakistan this year. Similar attacks killed more than 200 people in previous weeks, as the army carried out operations against Taliban militants in South Waziristan. The attack in October came as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began a visit to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Mrs Clinton told a news conference the US was “standing shoulder to shoulder” with Pakistan in its fight against “brutal extremist groups”.

Oct 15th: A series of attacks on security forces in Pakistan killed at least 38 people. The violence began in Lahore – Pakistan’s second-largest city. It was long spared the brunt of Pakistan’s unrest but has seen a number of attacks since the start of the year. Militants attacked offices of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), as well as two police training centers.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is under pressure to flush out militants as President Barack Obama is sending more troops to neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistani government forces launched an offensive earlier this year to crush a Taliban-led uprising in the Swat valley aimed at enforcing Sharia law. Taliban leaders promised to launch revenge attacks on major Pakistani cities.

Taliban in Afghanistan

Afghanistan has been declared the primary focus of American military operations. On May 6th, 2009 President Barack Obama vowed to “defeat al-Qaeda” and its allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghan police and soldiers, as well as American and other foreign troops belonging to the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF), are frequent targets of Taliban attacks. Southern Afghanistan is the main battlefront between the insurgents and Afghan and foreign forces, but there have been attacks elsewhere in the country, notably in eastern areas and also in the capital, Kabul. In April, President Barack Obama urged better use of NATO resources in Afghanistan, saying al-Qaeda is a greater threat to Europe than to the U.S. Speaking before a NATO summit co-hosted by France and Germany, he said the U.S. wanted to see a stronger Europe. However, NATO’s secretary general said members would be reluctant to send more troops if Afghanistan adopted a new law seen as violating the rights of women. In March President Obama confirmed a fundamental rethink of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan to combat an “increasingly perilous” situation. He said growing radical forces in the area posed the greatest threat to the American people and the world. He said an extra 4,000 U.S. personnel would train and bolster the Afghan army and police, and he would also provide support for civilian development. Pakistan would also be a focus, with a $7.5 billion program of “direct support”. But he said this support would not come as a “blank check”, and Pakistan would have to demonstrate its own commitment to rooting out al-Qaeda and associated forces. President Obama said his “comprehensive new strategy” was an outcome of a “careful policy review” which had consulted military commanders and diplomats, regional governments, partners, NATO allies, NGOs and aid organizations. The President painted a bleak picture of the situation, with insurgents increasing their control of territory in the region and attacks rising. He said American strategy must relate directly to the threat posed to the Americans by al-Qaeda and its allies – who, he reminded his listeners, were behind the 9/11 attacks on American soil eight years ago.

Most of the fighting in the volatile southern provinces is being done by troops from the U.S., UK, Canada and the Netherlands. Many U.S. allies, including Germany, France, Spain, Turkey and Italy, have refused to send significant numbers of combat forces there. The United States has more troops in Afghanistan than the other NATO nations combined. But not all of the U.S. forces are part of the 64,500-strong NATO-led ISAF command (see map below) – a large number of U.S. troops are on separate missions to hunt down al-Qaeda fighters as part of Operation “Enduring Freedom.” Most of the casualties suffered by troops serving with NATO troops have involved just four countries: the United States, Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands. Germany, Spain, and Italy all have troops in Afghanistan but due to “national caveats” – or restrictions – they are confined to more peaceful areas.

ISAF deployment map

According to NATO (Oct 2009) there are approximately 67,700 NATO-led troops operating in Afghanistan; the main troop contributors are: US (31,855), UK (9,000), Germany (4,245), Canada (2,830), France (3,070), Italy (2,795), Netherlands (2,160), Poland (2,025), Australia (1,200), Spain (1,000), Romania (990), Turkey (820), Denmark (700), and Norway (600). NATO assumed control of all allied military operations across the whole of Afghanistan on October 5th, 2006.

Taliban history


The Taliban emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. A predominantly Pashtun movement, the Taliban came to prominence in Afghanistan in the autumn of 1994. It is commonly believed that they first appeared in religious seminaries – mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia – which preached a hard line form of Sunni Islam. The Taliban’s promise – in Pashtun areas straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan – was to restore peace and security and enforce their own austere version of Sharia, or Islamic law, once in power. In both countries they introduced or supported Islamic punishments – such as public executions of convicted murderers and adulterers and amputations of those found guilty of theft. Men were required to grow beards and women had to wear the all-covering burka. The Taliban showed a similar disdain for television, music and cinema and disapproved of girls aged 10 and over from going to school. Pakistan has repeatedly denied that it is the architect of the Taliban enterprise. But there is little doubt that many Afghans who initially joined the movement were educated in madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan. Pakistan was also one of only three countries, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which recognized the Taliban when they were in power in Afghanistan from the mid-1990s until 2001. It was also the last country to break diplomatic ties with the Taliban. The attention of the world was drawn to the Taliban in Afghanistan following the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001. The Taliban in Afghanistan was accused of providing a sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda movement who were blamed for the attacks. Soon after 9/11 the Taliban were driven from power in Afghanistan by a US-led coalition, although their leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was not captured, neither was Osama Bin Laden. In recent years the Taliban has re-emerged in Afghanistan and grown far stronger in Pakistan, where observers say there is loose co-ordination between different Taliban factions and militant groups. The main Pakistani faction is led by Baitullah Mehsud, whose Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is blamed for dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks. Observers warn against over-stating the existence of one unified insurgency against the Pakistani state, however. The Taliban in Afghanistan are still believed to be led by Mullah Omar, a village clergyman who lost his right eye fighting the occupying forces of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Afghans, weary of the mujahideen’s excesses and infighting after the Soviets were driven out, generally welcomed the Taliban when they first appeared on the scene. Their early popularity was largely due to their success in stamping out corruption, curbing lawlessness and making the roads and the areas under their control safe for commerce to flourish. From south-western Afghanistan, the Taliban quickly extended their influence. They captured the province of Herat, bordering Iran, in September 1995. Exactly one year later, they captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, after overthrowing the regime of President Burhanuddin Rabbani and his defense minister, Ahmed Shah Masood. By 1998, they were in control of almost 90% of Afghanistan. They were soon accused of various human rights and cultural abuses. One example was in 2001, when the Taliban went ahead with the destruction of the famous Bamiyan Buddha statues, despite international outrage.

US invasion


On October 7, 2001, a US-led military coalition invaded Afghanistan and by the first week of December the Taliban regime had collapsed. However, Mullah Omar and most of the other senior Taliban leaders, along with Bin Laden and some of his senior al-Qaeda associates, survived the American onslaught. Mullah Omar and most of his comrades have evaded capture despite one of the largest manhunts in the world and are believed to be guiding the resurgent Taliban. Since then they have re-grouped in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, but are now under pressure in both countries, from the Pakistani army and NATO respectively. But Mullah Omar and most of his comrades have evaded capture despite one of the largest manhunts in the world and violence in Afghanistan has returned to levels not seen since 2001. Despite ever higher numbers of foreign troops, the Taliban have steadily extended their influence, rendering vast tracts of Afghanistan insecure. Their retreat earlier this decade enabled them to limit their human and material losses and return with a vengeance.

• BBC coverage
• The struggle for Iraq
• Profile of Chemical Ali

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MARCO WERMAN:  Baghdad had been relatively quiet in the past six weeks.  Then today, a series of car bombs shattered any sense of calm that residents of the Iraqi capital may have been feeling.  The first explosion happened near the Sheraton Hotel.  Two further blasts followed shortly afterwards near the Green Zone.  At least 36 people were killed and more than 70 people were wounded.  The attacks came as Iraq is preparing for General Elections in March.  The BBC’s Jim Muir is in Baghdad.  Jim, what happened today?

JIM MUIR:  Well this was obviously a coordinated triple suicide car bomb attack, or campaign almost, you would call it.  The first went off near the Sheraton Hotel which is close to where we are.  We had our building shaken, some windows blown out and dust thrown around and so on.  That was a suicide car bomb just by the Sheraton.  We believe 11 people were killed in that blast.  Then a short while afterwards another similar car bomb explosion near the Babylon Hotel which is a mile or two away.  And then another one at the Hamara Hotel which is where a lot of western journalists are based.  Heavy damage there, both to the hotel and adjacent buildings were a lot of journalists are stationed.

WERMAN: And how unusual is a well coordinated, three well coordinated strikes?

MUIR: Well they do seem to come in clusters.  That’s maybe why they take so much planning, because of the logistics involved.  The ones in August, October and December, involved double suicide truck bombings, almost simultaneously, but striking at Ministries and getting through the security to get at Ministries obviously took a lot of planning too.   So yes, there’s a lot of planning goes into these and obviously there are people out there who still have the logistics and the planning and the capability to carry out these attacks.  The government is accusing both remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Bathist Regime and Islamic Radicals are kind of getting together in a cooperative venture for these attacks.

WERMAN: Now, Iraqi’s go to the polls in March to vote for a new Parliament.  Iraqi’s are taking the lead role now on security this time around as opposed to international forces.  But I guess these bombings make one wonder if the country is secure enough.  Do you think the violence could actually derail March elections?

MUIR: I doubt very much if it would because the elections are nation-wide and the violence, as I say, is happening in this kind of concentrated way every two months.  I don’t think they have a big enough capability, the insurgents, to mount a kind of huge multiple campaign of a sustained nature that could actually derail the elections.  Certainly there will be more attempt as the day approaches.  There’s no question about that.

WERMAN: Jim, also today, one of Saddam Hussein’s most notorious henchmen, Ali Hassan Almajid, better knows as Chemical Ali, was executed.  Remind us briefly who he was and how Iraqi’s reacted to reminders of the Saddam era today and news like this of Chemical Ali’s execution.

MUIR: Well Chemical Ali, Ali Hassan Almajid, was the cousin of Saddam Hussein and he was the man that Saddam chose to spearhead his brutal campaigns of repression, both against the Kerds in the North and the Shiites in the South.  He lead what’s called the Anfal campaign against the Kerds in 1988, in which an estimated 180,000 Kerds died in what human rights watch and now they have called a genocide.  He got his first death sentence for that.  There were all together four death sentences.  The second and third were for crimes against the Shiites in the South, repressing their uprising there in 1991.  And again, another rebellion from the Shiites in 1999.  Then finally, of course, just eight days ago he received that fourth death sentence for Halabja, the town where he ordered his forces, the Air Force, to drop chemical bombs on the Kerds there killing something like 5,000 of them.  That, for the Kerds, was the big symbolic event which stood out as the kind of symbol of everything that was evil about the Saddam Hussein regime and the traumas it inflicted on them.  So they wanted to see him hang for that and that is exactly what’s happened.

WERMAN: The BBC’s Jim Muir in Baghdad.  Greatly appreciate your time Jim.

MUIR: Most welcome Marco.

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• ‘The Poet of Baghdad’ – BBC video about Nabeel Yasin’s life
• BBC: the struggle for Iraq

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JEB SHARP: By the time the US invaded Iraq the so-called poet of Baghdad had been in exile for more than 20 years. Nabeel Yasin had upset Saddam Hussein’s regime so much that the words enemy of the state were stamped in his passport. He fled Iraq in 1980. He recently returned with political ambitions. Yasin is running for prime minister in the March elections. Today in Baghdad Yasin recalled how he first fell out of favor with Saddam Hussein’s regime.

NABEEL YASIN: The problem start in early ‘70s when I read my poem, The Poet Satirizes King. So they thought that the poem satirized Saddam Hussein himself.

SHARP: Was it your intent to satirize Saddam Hussein?

YASIN: My poetry satirized the dictatorship in Iraq and everywhere.

SHARP: And where did you go when you left Iraq 30 years ago?

YASIN: Actually it wasn’t easy for my son Yamam and for my wife Nada. My son was three years and it was awful for us to stay for example in Syria, two weeks in Lebanon, three months in France, three weeks … . So our home was luggage and after two years I was able to stay for a couple of years in Hungary.

SHARP: You are very popular as a poet in Iraq and people read your poetry and smuggled your poetry back in even when you were far away. I wonder if that translates now. You know is this a serious run for political office or are you making a point?

YASIN: I’m working in the political field as an amateur but I’m a professional poet. So I try to mix between my dream and my realistic idea.

SHARP: How different is it to be a poet among the people compared to being a politician among the people?

YASIN: To be a poet I think it’s very, very good to be very close to the people. The politics unfortunately is different than the poetry. Many, many politicians they don’t like to meet people. Just to get their votes. So this is the problem in Iraq now.

SHARP: So why really are you trying to be prime minister? Why run for office if you what you really want to do is be a poet?

YASIN: Iraq needs to be again part of the international society. Iraq now belongs to 200 years ago. Even the Iraqis watching the television, using the internet, but [INDISCERNIBLE] the situation still belongs to 200 years ago. So I think if I’m just one citizen in Iraq I couldn’t do anything. But if we have position as educated people so we can help the people to realize the real democracy in Iraq, I mean real democracy, which gives the people the hope and take care for their demands.

SHARP: You’ve been back in the country a little while now. Did you recognize it when you returned? Was it strange to you or still familiar?

YASIN: I went with friend from the house to get something from a small shop. I told my friend … . I said listen I’m walking in the same street which I walked 30 years ago but I have not the same feeling. I’m still feeling I’m stranger. And everything around me still strange.

SHARP: Do you remember it as a better place 30 years ago?

YASIN: Exactly, exactly. For me it was a paradise. Everything was normal. In my, inside my feeling, even they chasing me from the secret police even the situation was very dangerous, even I faced death several times, but inside me the situation was normal. But now I lost Baghdad twice. One when I left it and another one when I came back to live in Baghdad.

SHARP: Nabeel Yasin have you been writing poetry since you returned to Iraq and do you have something you could recite for us?

YASIN: If you like I can read something from Mesopotamia poem.

SHARP: Yes please.

YASIN: This poem is speaking about women in Iraq.

[READING POEM IN ARABIC]

SHARP: It’s so beautiful in Arabic and I don’t speak Arabic but I’d love to hear a little bit more about what you were saying.

YASIN: I’m saying does this woman who will take care for the flowers maybe she will waiting for somebody bringing something from Damascus or from Shiraz or some water from Mecca but in the end she was alone. She still remember how many people she had lost and say my God is there anyone to lose?

SHARP: Nabeel Yasin is one of Iraq’s most beloved poets and a candidate for prime minister. Thanks again.

YASIN: Thank you very much.

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• BBC coverage
• Full survey (pdf)

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JEB SHARP: This may strike you as counter-intuitive but Afghans are more optimistic about their country’s future than we Americans are about ours.  An opinion poll commissioned by the BBC, ABC, and ARD and conducted in Afghanistan bears this out.  Seventy percent of Afghans say their country is heading in the right direction.  Forty percent of  Americans feel that way.  And, get this, seventy-two percent of Afghans approve of the job President Hamid Karzai is doing.  President Obama’s approval ratings are about fifty percent. The BBC’s Mark Dummett is in Kabul.  Mark, we get lots of bad news from Afghanistan about violence, corruption, electoral fraud.  We’ve heard many interviews within individuals recently denouncing the foreign forces as occupiers much as the Soviets were seen.  How does this poll jive with your own reporting in Afghanistan?

MARK DUMMETT: Well, it surprised me. It surprised many of the Afghans who I’ve spoken to today as well be they people in the street or politicians or civil society activists who I’ve been able to interview. It surprised all of us because as you say the news has been so unrelentingly awful really for the past twelve months.  That’s why everybody is really so surprised by these results, but they are extremely interesting and revealing because what they seem to suggest is two things really. Now that the election process is basically out of the way, Afghans are prepared to fall behind President Karzai and they’re also relieved that that process ended without a return to a fully fledged civil war.

And secondly, there’s a belief maybe that General Stanley McChrystal’s new counter-insurgency strategy for Afghanistan is working because levels of support for foreign troops particularly U.S. troops has gone up. People blame them less than they did a year ago for civilian casualties and, of course, that has been one of his main drives really. So that seems to have paid off, and that could be one of the major reasons why people are feeling a bit more positive about the direction this country is going in.

SHARP: Mark, let me ask you specifically about that. What were the responses like in the poll to the international mission and especially attitudes toward the American forces.

DUMMETT: The BBC and ABC have been carrying out these surveys since 2005.  But in 2005 sixty-eight percent of Afghans said that the U.S. was either doing an excellent or good job here. That fell back to thirty-two percent last year, but it’s gone back up again to thirty-eight percent this year. Now, a small rise but the American military leadership here will no doubt be looking at these figures and thinking that the downward trend has been reversed, and we are becoming more popular. And that trend is replicated in some of the other statistics that come out of this survey. And as a reverse support for the Taliban has dropped this year.

SHARP: There’s an interesting detail on the Taliban. The approval has dropped but forty-three percent of Afghans want an Islamic state, and that’s ahead of the thirty-two percent who want a quote “democracy.”  What do you make of that?

DUMMETT: Well, I mean, that doesn’t really surprise me and this goes some way towards explaining this apparent contradiction between the high numbers of people who believe that President Karzai in some way or other stole his re-election. But those who still support him as president. I mean, a lot of Afghans as this survey shows believe that American style of democracy is just simply the wrong system of government for Afghanistan. I mean, people don’t think that simply works here. And, of course, you know this country has never really seen this before. It’s an experiment really which a lot of people here would argue is failing.

SHARP: Now the poll itself as you say they’ve interviewed people in all 34 provinces. They spent two weeks in December interviewing. The margin of error is plus or minus three percent. But there are regional differences, and there is terrible insecurity in parts of the east and the south.  Do we know that the people pollsters had access to would be representative of the places they were into?

DUMMETT: Well, they do admit. I mean, obviously there are some parts of the country which they simply couldn’t get to. So while they did visit everyone of the provinces, they couldn’t get into all of the districts. They couldn’t get to some of the villages, which they wanted to because either of extreme Taliban presence or because of fighting. But they do say that they were able as far as possible to speak to a genuine sample of Afghans including those living under the control of the Taliban.

SHARP: That’s the BBC’s Mark Dummett in Kabul. Thanks very much.

DUMMETT: Thanks.

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