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Karzai prepares for presidential elections and 2014 withdrawal of U.S. troops
Attack comes a day after a deadline given by Afghans for U.S. special operations forces to withdraw
Security concerns scrapped joint Hagel-Karzai news conference

(PhatzNewsRoom / AP/ CNN Security) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai is not in an enviable position.

The man who has led the country for nearly 10 years is a difficult politician to deal with for the most part.

Beyond his seemingly outrageous comments toward the United States, he has also been called corrupt and often impossible to predict.

In his latest eyebrow-raiser following a bomb blast in Kabul that killed at least nine people, Karzai said on Sunday there are “ongoing daily talks between Taliban, American and foreigners in Europe and in the Gulf states.”

The comment effectively claimed the United States was trying to foment continued violence inside Afghanistan.

The top commander of U.S. and allied forces, Gen. Joseph Dunford, quickly denounced the remark.

“We have fought too hard over the past 12 years. We have shed too much blood over the past 12 years. We have done too much to help the Afghan Security Forces grow over the last 12 years to ever think that violence or instability would be to our advantage,” he said.

It cannot be denied Karzai has timing. He made the comment as the new U.S. defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, made his first visit to Afghanistan.

Hagel met with Karzai and assured him the United States was not engaged in a deal with the Taliban to continue violence inside Afghanistan.

In fact, Hagel seemed to understand why Karzai made the statement.

“I know these are difficult issues for President Karzai and the Afghan people,” Hagel said after a meeting with him.

“I was once a politician, so I can understand the kind of pressures that especially leaders of countries are always under. I would hope, again, that we can move forward and I have confidence that we can and will deal with these issues,” Hagel said.

He may not have been far off base.

“A lot of times, he has to say these things because he is playing to his domestic base, especially the Pashtuns in the East and the South who are his constituency and who are concerned that he is only acting at the request of the international community,” says Javid Ahmad, program coordinator at the Washington-based policy analysis group German Marshall Fund.

“He (Karzai) has to give that internal audience the message that he’s still president and still in charge, especially now that he has to ensure his legacy,” Ahmad said.

But amid the continued drumbeat against the United States and NATO allies, Karzai’s comments continue to chip away at allied support.

“It is unfortunate that President Karzai chose to make remarks that are so unfounded,” says Kimberly Kagan, who leads the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

“It is possible for American’s to overreact to those comments, which President Karzai aims at an international audience, at our senior leaders as well as a huge domestic audience, when he is engaged in negotiation with us over really important issues,” Kagan said.

The Karzai government is in the middle of discussions to gain full access to the main detention facility at Bagram Air Base as well as a bi-lateral agreement on keeping a security agreement with Afghanistan after the 2014 withdrawal of U.S. forces.

In another recent decree, Karzai prevented Afghan troops from calling in NATO air support under “any circumstances” which reflects his bigger problem, according to Mark Jacobson, a former NATO adviser in Afghanistan.

“Karzai, rather than seeking a “mature” discussion of the issues, acted reflexively and issued a decree barring Afghan forces from asking “for the foreigners” planes for carrying out operations on our homes and villages,” Jacobson wrote in an opinion piece for CNN.com.

“His unfair and irresponsible characterization that “foreigners” are the threat to the Afghan population, and that it is “foreigners” who wage war on Afghan homes, threatens to weaken the coalition that has helped build Afghanistan’s capacity to secure its future,” according to Jacobson.

And to muddy the waters a bit more, it is not entirely clear where Karzai’s comments come from.

“He has opted to act this way, to take the NATO allies to task, because he believes western officials and Americans don’t take him seriously and they fail to listen to him during private meetings,” Ahmad said.

But Ahmad says the Karzai aides that he has spoken with say the Afghan leader will often say publicly exactly what his advisers tell him without thinking it through.

“Strategic communication is very important. But when he surrounds himself with such an unholy alliance of people, it’s really hard to gauge where his comments are really coming from,” Ahmad said.

Regardless of what Karzai thinks and says, the United States cannot ignore him.

“It is vital to continue having a relationship with Afghanistan precisely because it is vital to ensure there is no return of al Qaeda, there is a stable government and that the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan and Central Asia does not become a bout of civil war or instability,” says Kagan.

“The relationship between the U.S. and Afghanistan is essential, but we have to recognize the uncertainty,” Kagan said.

WASHINGTON — The harsh reception Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel received this weekend in Afghanistan on his first trip abroad owes as much to key transitions the country faces than any new rift in its relations with the United States, analysts say.

As the Pentagon prepares to remove half of its remaining 66,000 troops over the next year — and virtually all of them by the end of 2014 — Afghan President Hamid Karzai faces national elections next year to choose his successor. Those factors helped prompt Karzai to make critical remarks, says James Dobbins, a former special U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and director of Rand’s International Security and Defense Policy Center.

Karzai blamed bombings — one within earshot of Hagel — in Kabul that killed 17 people over the weekend on the U.S. military and the Taliban who he said were conspiring to convince Afghans that foreign troops will be needed in Afghanistan beyond 2014. The top commander there, Marine Gen Joseph Dunford, and officials flatly denied that. U.S. officials scrapped a news conference with Hagel and Karzai over security concerns, which the Afghan government said were unfounded.

Karzai has recently called for U.S. special operations forces to be expelled from Wardak province, a restive area near Kabul. Two U.S. troops were killed there Monday by a gunman wearing the uniform of an Afghan police officer.

Expect more tantrums, Dobbins says.

“These outbursts will probably become somewhat more frequent,” Dobbins says. “They’re more likely to continue because of the converging transitions.”

They also work — to a degree, according to Dobbins. They often occur after Karzai has raised concerns to U.S. officials in private but feels they aren’t adequately addressed. The outbursts can focus attention on an issue — night raids, for instance, that are resented by many Afghans. Karzai appears to his domestic audience as a champion of Afghan sovereignty.

The downside is that pushing too hard and causing a more rapid U.S. withdrawal could force ill-trained Afghan security forces to contend with an insurgency they can’t handle.

Seth Jones, another Rand analyst who has advised U.S. special operators in Afghanistan, says Karzai’s bouts of pique may stem from concerns that U.S. diplomats may be seeking to negotiate separately with the Taliban. In 2010, Karzai said he might join the Taliban because he bristled at pressure to change his government.

“There appears to be a growing angst within the presidential palace that Afghanistan is vulnerable to foreign governments and groups, such as the Taliban, U.S. and Pakistan,” Jones said in an e-mail. “President Karzai will periodically lash out at these groups and occasionally lump them together – such as condemning both Pakistan and the Taliban together. Now he has lumped the Taliban and U.S. together.”

David Barno, a retired Army lieutenant general and former top commander in Afghanistan and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said Karzai’s brash comments erode trust among the U.S.-led military coalition and support for the war among Americans in general.

Hagel said he was once a politician and understands the pressure Karzai is under.

Monday’s attack also killed two Afghan policemen, and the shooter was killed.

So-called insider attacks have plunged this year compared with last. There have been three attacks this year, killing four troops. Last year, 47 attacks killed 62 people. The military credits better vetting of Afghan recruits and greater vigilance about the threat with helping reduce the number of attacks.

The military, Barno said, has done a “phenomenal job” in reducing the threat.

Outside Kabul, U.S. troops fired on a truck approaching their military convoy, killing two Afghan men inside it.

The incident in the eastern Wardak province and others like it have threatened to undermine the U.S.-Afghan alliance when the forces need to work increasingly close together in order to hand over responsibility as planned next year.

The attack came a day after the expiration of the Afghan president’s deadline for U.S. special operations forces to withdraw from the province after accusations of abuse by those under their command.

In Monday’s attack, an Afghan police officer stood up in the back of a police pickup, grabbed hold of a machine gun and started firing at the U.S. special operations forces and Afghan policemen in the police compound in Jalrez district, said Deputy Police Chief Abdul Razaq Koraishi.

The assailant killed two Afghan policemen and wounded four, including the district police chief, before he was gunned down, Koraishi said.

The U.S. military said in a statement that two American servicemembers were killed in the shooting.

Five Afghan police officers were being held for questioning by the Americans, Koraishi said.

In the convoy shooting, U.S. forces spokesman Jamie Graybeal said the Afghan driver failed to heed instructions to stop as his truck came close to the American convoy near Kabul.

“The convoy took appropriate measures to protect themselves and engaged the vehicle, killing two individuals and injuring one,” Graybeal said in an e-mail. He said an assessment is underway.

Associated Press video shows a U.S. major cursing one of his soldiers and slapping him over the head with his cap as Afghans pulled dead bodies from the truck. In the video, the major appears to be upbraiding the soldier for not using a laser to warn the approaching truck.

The two dead men were employees of a company that repairs police vehicles, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi. Another man was wounded in the shooting, said Col. Mohammad Alim, the police commander overseeing Kabul highways.

Contributing: Associated Press

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