An Afghan pledge to take over national security by 2014 plays into the hands of Western supporters eager to pull their soldiers out of an unpopular war, but there are no guarantees of success.
Western leaders have welcomed the latest promises from Afghanistan to take responsibility for security, control spending of billions of dollars in aid and broker a peace process to end a nine-year Taliban insurgency.
Observers, however, said the true focus for the West is withdrawing their soldiers from of a war increasingly unpopular with voters who are tired of pouring their taxes into the country.
“Now the focus is very much on transition and donors being able to tell their voters when their soldiers are coming home,” said Ashley Jackson, head of policy and advocacy for Oxfam International in Afghanistan.
“I think this truly is the last strategy that will get this kind of backing from donors. Patience and support are running out,” she said.
Tuesday’s Kabul conference drew representatives from about 80 countries and organizations to endorse a proposal by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that Afghan forces take over responsibility for national security by 2014.
Karzai also won a concession for the government to control within two years 50 percent of aid, up from the previous 20 percent. There was support too for his plan to talk peace with the Taliban, and possibly include them in government.
The conference decisions were hailed by US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron in Washington.
Obama said it was a “major step forward” for the future of Afghanistan while Cameron, who was in Washington, described 2014 as a “realistic” timeframe.
Benchmarks for Afghanistan’s progress on pledges were set by the international community, but there were no sanctions in case they are not met, officials and diplomats said. However, no such safeguards apply to targets for building up the army and police to take over from foreign troops, though the timetable is punishingly fast and has been widely criticized as aiming for quantity not quality.
Meanwhile, Cameron said yesterday that Britain could start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan as early as next year.
“The faster we can transition districts and provinces to Afghan control, clearly the faster that some forces can be brought home,” he said told BBC Radio 5 Live.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
RSS