Afghan police secure the area around the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 19.

The 2007 was the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in late 2001. The country saw a record level of violence that killed more than 6,500 people, including 110 US soldiers--the highest in Afghanistan so far--and almost 4,500 Taliban militants.
Among the leading nations fighting the militants Britain lost 41 soldiers, while Canada lost 30.
Other nations lost a total of 40. The Afghan national army and police’s loss were about 1,000 men.
Taliban militants changed tactics in 2007 and avoided head-on battles with the US, NATO and Afghan forces, resorting instead to ambushes by small forces, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and suicide attacks.
Another menacing development was the introduction of more foreign fighters in 2007. A fact confirmed by Afghan Defense Minister General Abdul Rahim Wardak.
“There are more foreign fighters in Afghanistan now than ever before. They are coming mainly from Pakistan, but there are others of Arab origin, and some from Central Asia, Russia and Chechnya,“ said Wardak two months ago. He said the militants had been flooding in over the past two to three months, since Pakistan began an offensive in pro-Taliban areas in the mountainous border region straddling the two countries.
While the Afghan army is improving its ability to counter the threat, principally through US help, Gen. Wardak also said the effectiveness of the national police and court system was weak, as were efforts to disarm and integrate the former members of the Afghan military.
Gen. Wardak, who was trained by US forces in the 1970s, is one of the key Afghan officials for the success of the international effort to neutralize the Taliban insurgency and to stabilize the war-torn country.
In this regard his views are very important, and we continue to quote them:
“The US took the lead on creating the Afghan national army, which has been a success. The Italians took the justice system, [but] they have not dedicated any resources to it, so still that is a problem. A lot of the time, people are sent to the courts, and then they are released, perhaps through corruption. On the police reform, the Germans were supposed to be leading; they have not dedicated much effort and resources. Furthermore, in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former Afghan forces the Japanese did a 50-50 job.’’ He said in late October while visiting Washington for more US support. On the increased threat of the Taliban he said that the terrorists were operating in much smaller groups and a much wider area, and that they were relying heavily on IEDs and suicide bombings, which in some cases had stretched Afghan army’s capabilities to the limit.
As the general aptly pointed out then, the Taliban have increased suicide attacks against Afghan politicians, security forces and government officials as well as aid workers and foreign troops led by NATO and the US military in 2007.
They also made extensive use of IEDs last year. Needless to say, both the use of IEDs and the suicide attacks are hallmarks of the insurgents in Iraq, and it seems that “Iraqi hallmark’’ has spread to Afghanistan and the Taliban have been increasingly inspired by the Iraqi insurgency. That is, of course, a very serious and menacing development for international forces in Afghanistan.
While we were writing this, news of a new suicide bombing came in on the wires. This time a suicide bomber attacked a convoy carrying a group of Indian road engineers in Nimruz province, in the southeast of the country on Thursday. Six police officers and an Indian engineer were killed, said the governor, Ghulam Dastair.
This attack is, of course, a harbinger of more evil attacks as Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman vowed few days ago that they would increase suicide attacks, ambushes and IEDs against their enemies.
2007 was the bloodiest year for our friend Afghanistan. May Allah protect and help her in 2008. Fikret Ertan
TODAYSZAMAN.COM

What will happen in Iraq when America elects a new president? Pollsters have revealed that the candidates’ policy towards Iraq is one of the three major issues affecting voter choice, with the relative importance varying according to the demographics of each state.
So what is likely to change in 2009, when the new president takes over?
At first glance the difference may seem simple: the Democratic candidates support what they claim to be significant changes in policy while the Republican candidates largely argue for fine-tuning of the existing strategy.
Clinton, Biden and Edwards are all Democrat converts who supported the call for war in 2002 but have since fallen in step with the American electorate’s disillusionment. Obama has the advantage of being against the war throughout.
Richardson called the war “a disaster“, while Dodd outlined how there will be “no military victory in Iraq“.
In policy terms, while supporting continuing to fight al-Qaida, most Democrat candidates argue for a quickening of the pace of troop withdrawal and no permanent bases left in the country, with rapid reaction forces potentially operating from Kuwait as an insurance policy.
Most agree on regional engagement, with political capital invested in a regional conference and a beefed-up UN role in the country.
So what will the new president inherit? George Bush’s line is likely to be: “Why snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? The surge is working ...“.
The reality is somewhat different. Firstly, any stability in Iraq is precarious at best, with no guarantee which direction it will go in 2008.
Turkish forces are engaged in regular attacks into the north.
Kirkuk simmers following the postponement of its referendum and the surge is increasingly squeezing violence into previously safer parts of Iraq.
Barham Salih, the Kurdish Iraqi deputy prime minister, departed from his traditional toeing of the US line late last year when he warned that the impact of the surge was “more of a ceasefire than a peace“.
In Baghdad, partition continues with a patchwork of security walls, checkpoints, segregated neighbourhoods, vehicle bans and curfew.
Residents of separate Shia and Sunni districts recently protested against plans to reopen the Tigris Bridge that used to connect them. Islamic conservatism is the order of the day.
Plans to move forward on constitutional reform, oil and federalism laws continue in limbo, despite the space for politics that the urge was designed to create.
Electricity, water, health and education provision is wretched and despite the return of some refugees more than a million are still externally displaced with more than two million estimated to be internally displaced.
The irony over Democratic proposed changes in policy is that most of their recommendations and those of the Iraq Study Group are currently being implemented in some form or other.
The UN is bolstering its presence in the country and General Petraeus has shown that pragmatic recognition of local realities in a bottom-up approach is far more successful than Bremer’s top-down method that proved a catalyst for so much violence in the country.
The main difference is that in 2009 Bush will no longer be the leader of the US.
The UN, affronted by the manipulation and bugging of its members in the run-up to war, may be able to act as an effective honest broker to the myriad of challenges that Iraq faces.
Bush will be gone but Petraeus may remain.
The general has promised to reduce troops to pre-surge level by the middle of the year. Similarly to how prime minister Brown found it easier to disengage than his predecessor, the next US president may be able to inherit a similar timetable that combines reduced expectations with leaving Iraqis to deal with Iraqi problems.
The single biggest threat to potential improvements in Iraq comes from the spectre of victory for John McCain, who seems more Bush than Bush, arguing for a bigger troop surge and that any bad news coming out of Iraq is a communication strategy failure. America be warned.
GUARDIAN.CO.UK

A Kenyan man holds his arms high as he is approached by two policemen in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 5.

Let’s say you’re an African country. Here’s your New Year’s choice: Democracy or development? Which is more important? Which should be pursued first? This might seem like a silly question--both are important and should be pursued in tandem, right?
Well, it’s a harder question than it might seem. The experience of developing countries over the past 50 years offers conflicting evidence: countries like Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan developed quite rapidly in the years after World War II under military or one-party rule, while some multi-party democracies like India and Peru crept forward, posting persistently anemic rates of growth.
On the other hand, military dictatorships in places like Burma and North Korea have produced nothing but economic ruin. Countries that have bounced between multi-party democracy and dictatorship--Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan--exhibited no consistent correlation between governance model and growth.
Even looking at Africa, you can argue that the countries that have recently gotten praise for combining democracy with growth--Ghana, Senegal, and Kenya--transitioned in slow stages from strongman or single-party rule to competitive electoral democracy.
The chaos that has erupted in Kenya over the past week provides some strong evidence that democracy and development go hand in hand, and that economic growth does not necessarily reinforce weak political institutions.
Kenya didn’t choose development over democracy. It chose to be a democracy, hoping that economic growth would follow.
Indeed, the past 5 years have seen impressive and sustained economic growth.
Yet, when the Kenyans who were left out of the country’s expansion attempted to use their franchise to vote out the incumbents and vote in their champions, Kenya’s ruling elite appears to have responded by stealing the election.
The weakness of Kenya’s political institutions means that those from whom the election was stolen have zero confidence in the willingness of the courts to intervene to protect a democratic process in the face of self-interested tampering by those in power.
Accordingly, the result has been predictable, but misdirected violence, literally shutting down the country and leading to tribal massacres eerily reminiscent of Rwanda’s genocide in 1994.
The ramifications of this disastrous turn of events demonstrate that where neither democracy nor economic development are adequately advanced, nations and regions can fall into devastating conflict in a matter of hours.
Similarly, Kenya’s recent choices will have many downstream effects. Here are some of the repercussions, both immediate and far-reaching, of Kenya’s debacle:
1)Fuel. Shortages are spreading across Kenya and will spread to neighboring countries that rely on its ports. Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda are particularly susceptible.And don’t forget, that fuel provides much of the region’s electricity as well.
2)Tourism. The world’s largest industry is Kenya’s cash cow, but for the time being and for years to come, it will be seriously impacted. Since many package tours to Kenya include visits to neighboring countries, regional tourism will be hit hard as well.
3)International organizations. Nairobi is home to offices of the United Nations and to virtually every international organization to be found in East Africa. Increased insecurity over the last several years has imposed an enormous tax on doing business there.
4)International investment. Investors have flocked to Kenya because of its vibrant-in-spite-of-corruption private sector. The prospect of seeing investments demolished by violence and instability will deter future investment.
Furthermore, it will force investors to think again before considering capital investments in nations where democracy and development are not flourishing.
Kenya has long been regarded as stable and safe.
It’s been a tourist destination for decades, giving millions every year a gorgeous glimpse of African wildlife.
Some are seeing, with alarm, a replay of the Rwandan genocide.
If you rely on the foreign press, the parallels with Rwanda may appear striking: violence committed by one tribe against another rioting characterized by intense brutality and seemingly indiscriminate murder; most horrifically, hundreds of sanctuary seekers burned to death in a locked church.
What is happening now is terrible and horrifying, but it is not the 1994 Rwandan genocide; something else is occurring, a failure to accompany economic development with a concomitant strengthening of the institutions of political democracy.
And we need to fight it. Rwanda’s genocide was fostered over decades, beginning with the identity cards that Belgian authorities forced the public to carry--cards that identified each citizen as Hutu or Tutsi.
The hatred that recognition brought about was only one manifestation of a state-sponsored attempt to wipe out an entire ethnic group.
Although it too has roots in the past, it is not controlled or sponsored by the government, which is trying to stop the killing, not promote it.
Josh Ruxin
NYTIMES.COM