abdul rahim wardak

Remember how I wrote yesterday that the next round of Afghanistan/Pakistan/U.S. trilateral talks would be held in Washington on May 5 to 7? According to a release from the Afghanistan embassy, I was off by a day. Here’s a list of some Afghan officials coming to town:
* Second Vice President Mohammad Karim Khalili (April [...]

Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak spoke at a forum last month organized by the Center for a New American Security. He wanted sustained American support for the Afghan National Army, which, he noted, was growing its end-strength ahead of schedule. “We will reach 86,000 by March 21,” Wardak said, a mile marker along the [...]

Consider this one unverified, but The Australian (h/t Small Wars Journal) is reporting that Capital-T Taliban leader Mullah Omar has reversed his position on negotiating a peace deal with the Karzai government:

“Mullah Omar has given the green light to talks,” said one of the mediators, Abdullah Anas, a former friend of Osama bin Laden who [...]

Via Abu Muqawama, let’s presume for the sake of argument that we know everything we need to know about the Obama administration’s forthcoming shift in Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy from this report from the Associated Press:
The U.S. goal in Afghanistan must be to protect Kabul’s fragile government from collapsing under pressure from the Taliban — a goal [...]

Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak might have been wary of it, but Interior Minister Mohammed Hanif Atmar gave a forceful defense of the Afghan Public Protection Force — an auxiliary security force that some worry amounts to a remobilization of private militias.

Two key Afghan officials, in Washington for discussions with the Obama administration about the future of the Afghanistan war, urged the U.S. against scaling back its ambitions in Afghanistan.

Interesting luncheon at the White House today. A host of Afghan cabinet officials dropped by to brief the Obama administration’s Af-Pak strategy review.

A couple weeks ago, a dispatch from The Associated Press reported that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had delivered an “11-point plan” to U.S. and NATO officials for “greater Afghan involvement in operations, Afghan approval of where U.S. and NATO troops can be deployed, and an end to arrests and house searches by foreign troops.” Laura [...]

I noticed last week that the Afghan Defense Minister, Ahdul Rahim Wardak, and the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, signed an accord to better integrate military planning in the war effort. It was unclear to me, though, where the cooperation would take place — way up at the ministerial/NATO [...]

One of the points that Defense Secretary Bob Gates emphasized — arguably, in fact, the key point — in his Senate testimony last month is the abundant need to put an “Afghan face” on all aspects of the war. Today’s a good day for him, then. Gen. David McKiernan, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and [...]