Afghan President Karzai seeks support for Kandahar security operation

Afghanistan’s Karzai seeks support for Kandahar op

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai called Sunday on community leaders in Kandahar to support a NATO campaign to bolster security in this Taliban stronghold, urging people to work with his government to “bring dignity back.”

NATO has already begun an operation to ramp up security in Kandahar, and the campaign is expected to accelerate the coming months. Many of the estimated half-million Kandahar residents are skeptical of the operation, fearing it will lead to more bloodshed.

Karzai told the assembled group that the operation will be led by Afghan forces and will not include any aircraft, according to a statement issued by the president’s office. Though civilian deaths from NATO forces have been decreasing, air strikes continue to be the main cause of civilian deaths by the military alliance.

He said the operation will start in Kandahar city and spread out to surrounding districts, according to the statement.

Presidential spokesman Waheed Omar said Karzai would call the campaign a “process of stabilization” to bring better governance, services and new development to the area.

During a meeting in a stuffy conference hall in Kandahar city, several hundred people including tribal chiefs and religious leaders cheered as Karzai denounced corruption among police and local powerbrokers.

He pounded the podium as he said corruption was undermining security as his government and its international partners struggle to turn back a resurgent Taliban.

The majority of the audience stood and raised their hands as Karzai asked for their support — a move local officials considered an endorsement of the NATO campaign. Kandahar’s mayor, Ghulam Haider Hamidi, said he thought as many as 90 percent of those in the room backed the security campaign but some were loyal to corrupt figures and the insurgents.

“Please give me your hand to bring dignity back,” Karzai said. He appealed again to the Taliban to lay down their weapons and reconcile with the U.S.-backed government.

“Step by step we can go forward,” he said. “Let’s cooperate. Let’s coordinate.”

It was only Karzai’s second visit in recent years to Kandahar, the biggest city in the south and the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. U.S. commanders believe control of Kandahar is the key to wresting the ethnic Pashtun south away from the Taliban, who have exploited public discontent with the central government to win broad support in the strategic region.

Insurgents have responded to NATO plans with a rash of attacks against those who support the government and its international partners. So far this month, at least 39 international troops have been killed in Afghanistan, including 27 Americans.

Six Afghan policemen and three NATO service members died Saturday in separate roadside bomb blasts. In addition, 39 insurgents were killed Saturday in two operations — one in Kandahar province and the other in Uruzgan province, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The top U.S. and NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who accompanied Karzai, and other officials have taken pains to avoid describing the Kandahar operation as a military offensive, a term that has made the residents wary about what was to come.

McChrystal said after the meeting that he was pleased that Karzai made such a “strong, clear call” for unity and displayed “extraordinary ownership” of the operation.

Karzai’s influential half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, considered among Kandahar’s most powerful figures, said the favorable response from those at the meeting amounted to a green light for the security operation.

“The military operation is always a concern,” he said. “The way the president described the military operation, there will no longer be a concern from the people.”

The Afghan official in charge of local governments, Ghulam Jilani Popal, said the audience generally supported Karzai but some skepticism remained.

“In Afghanistan, people first see and then believe,” Popal said.

But one of the community leaders, Tour Jan Agha, complained that the meeting was “not useful” because the government could rely only on the mayor and the provincial governor, and two men could not solve all the problems.

During his remarks, Karzai sought to address issues often raised by Kandahar community leaders — notably corruption that has driven many southern Pashtuns into Taliban ranks.

As the representatives sat cross-legged on a large red carpet, Karzai spoke about this month’s national conference, or peace jirga, in Kabul, saying it showed the Afghan people were united in their desire for peace. Addressing the Taliban, Karzai said “please respect this call from the people of Afghanistan.”

Karzai said people detained by the U.S. and Afghan government for suspected insurgent links should be freed unless there were compelling evidence against them. “God willing in the coming weeks … they will be released,” he said.

He also called on his Western allies to work through the Afghan government, rather than create parallel programs in the provinces that could undermine its authority, according to his office’s statement.

NATO officials had hoped that Karzai, who was born near Kandahar, would use his influence to encourage support for the security operation here. His visit was seen as a major step toward forging links between disaffected southerners and the central government in Kabul.

“This process of reaching out to Kandahar can only be led by the president,” said Tony White, spokesman for the chief NATO civilian official. “It can’t be led by us. It’s important for him to address the senior leadership — tribal and religious — and show his support for the effort.”

White said Kandahar was isolated and disconnected from Kabul.

“Karzai can’t get it back into the fold without the (the local leaders),” White said. “We anticipate that he will reassure them that there’s no military offensive planned.”

As part of the effort to accelerate a political solution to the war, the United Nations announced that a U.N. committee is reviewing whether certain people could be removed from a blacklist that freezes assets and limits travel of key Taliban and al-Qaida figures. That was a recommendation of this month’s peace jirga.