Atlantic Council

Hakimullah Mehsud makes an eloquent practical argument for development of the East-West Corridor that runs from the Black Sea to the Caspian, across Georgia and Azerbaijan.  His Taliban guerillas are attacking NATO supply convoys traveling from Pakistan to Afghanistan and they recently struck a major logistics depot in the Pakistani town of Peshawar. 

Former Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani -- a member of the Atlantic Council's International Advisory Board -- calls for a Marshall Plan for his country in an op-ed in today's Independent.   He argues that "The Obama Presidency provides a second chance to get Afghanistan right" and that the way to turn around this failed state is to invest in its people.

The Taliban is in de facto control of an increasing part of Afghanistan, Jason Straziuso and Amir Shah report for the AP. The Taliban has long operated its own shadow government in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, but its power is now spreading north to the doorstep of Kabul, according to Associated Press interviews with a dozen government officials, analysts, Taliban commanders and Afghan villagers.

Pakistan has diverted troops away from anti-terrorist operations in order to safeguard against an attack from India.  Meanwhile, India and Saudi Arabia are calling for "joint action" against terrorists.  BBC: The Pakistani military has scaled down its operations against Islamist militants in the north-west following tensions with India, officials say.

Echoing similar measures used in Iraq, the U.S. will begin funding militias in remote areas of Afghanistan to help fight the Taliban. 

Hopes are high that a new Afghanistan strategy and 30,000 extra U.S. troops will prove to be a turning point in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, much as similar measures changed the nature of the counterinsurgency in Iraq. 

NATO must "find a political voice or collapse," says Times of London defense editor Michael Evans.  "It has become so multi-tasked, so desperate to get involved in everything from cyber warfare to anti-piracy and missile defence, let alone a hugely draining and complex campaign in Afghanistan, that it has lost its way."

Britain announced that it could withdraw its 4,100 remaining troops from Iraq by June 2009 if Iraqi elections in January go off peacefully. The withdrawal will mark the end of a six-year campaign, and the conclusion of an unpopular war both at home and abroad.

According to the BBC, UK troops will begin pulling out of Iraq in March 2009:

The UK has been negotiating the legal basis on which its forces can stay in the Gulf state when its UN mandate expires at the end of the year.  It still has 4,100 troops in Basra but defense chiefs plan a withdrawal over the next year if Iraqi elections in January pass off peacefully.

A withdrawal could allow resources to be diverted to Afghanistan.  Prime Minister Gordon Brown has indicated that almost all British troops should leave Iraq by the middle of next year, with a few hundred possibly remaining to train Iraqi security forces.

UK government sources have said that helicopters, intelligence officers, and gradually troops will be transferred to Afghanistan after the Iraq withdrawal.  The Times reported that around 400 British Troops will remain in Iraq:

Under present planning, the reduced British force of about 400 will include the Service personnel who are based in Baghdad, with the exception of the SAS squadrons.  Some British personnel will remain in the south to continue training the Iraqi Navy at Umm Qasr port, after a specific request for them to do so by the Baghdad Government.

As recently as last month, the UK said it is willing to send an additional 2,000 troops to Afghanistan, where the Taliban and militant forces are stepping up their attacks.  As my colleague Neil Leslie notes, "High time for other NATO members to contribute their fair share."

NATO forces are looking into alternative supply routes for their increasingly over-stretched forces in Afghanistan, and could turn to countries such as Ukraine and Belarus to provide them. The Guardian:

Four serious attacks on US and Nato supplies in Pakistan during the past month, including two in the past three days, have added to the sense of urgency to conclude pacts with former Soviet republics bordering Afghanistan to the north. Nato is negotiating with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to allow supplies for Nato forces, including fuel, to cross borders into Afghanistan from the north. The deal, which officials said was close to being agreed, follows an agreement with Moscow this year allowing Nato supplies to be transported by rail or road through Russia. The deal could allow more fuel for Nato forces to be transported from refineries in Baku, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. Most of the 75m gallons of fuel estimated to be used by Nato forces annually in Afghanistan comes from refineries in Pakistan.

[...]

Nato officials said yesterday that the organisation is negotiating with Ukraine and Belarus for a land route which, though long, would avoid Pakistan and the pirates of the Gulf of Aden. The officials yesterday played down the strategic significance of Sunday's attack in Peshawar, the Pakistani town on the main transit route through the Khyber pass. But independent analysts described it as a well-planned move, with 100 militants torching more than 100 trucks.

According to a British defense official the attacks haven't made a huge dent to supplies, mainly due to the large amount of traffic passing through the area. Additionally, the contractors NATO hires to deliver supplies to troops are local Pashtun businesses, and it is believed the Taliban could risk a backlash if they continue to target them. More than 70% of the supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan land at the port of Karachi and are taken to Peshawar, then through the Khyber pass to Kabul. More important cargos are flown in:

More urgent or valuable supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan are flown in to the Bagram air base near Kabul, and the Kandahar base, which can take large C-17 transport aircraft used by the US and Britain. Hercules aircraft, the workhorse of the RAF, can also land at the British base Camp Bastion, in Helmand province.

But even with extra land routes from the north, more attacks on the overland routes to southern Afghanistan could exacerbate Nato's existing lack of "strategic airlift", UK officials said yesterday.