Key Afghan elders' grand council convenes in Kabul

[November 16, 2011]  KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Afghan president told tribal elders on Wednesday that any ongoing partnership with the United States would need to include an end to widely unpopular nighttime raids by NATO and on the international forces handing over control of detention centers to Afghan troops.

Hamid Karzai spoke at the opening of a grand council, or "loya jirga," during which the elders are to consider the terms of the U.S. presence in their country in the coming years.

Karzai told the roughly 2,000 delegates to keep in mind both the need for international help and the need to make sure Afghans are setting the rules in their own country.

"We want to have a strong partnership with the U.S. and NATO, but with conditions," Karzai said. "We want our national sovereignty, and an end to night raids and to the detention of our countrymen. We don't want parallel structures alongside our government."

The jirga will be meeting over four days to discuss the proposed strategic partnership with the U.S. that would oversee the American military presence here as troops draw down, as well as possible peace talks with the Taliban.

The jirga holds no legal authority, but if the group backs Karzai's demands, it could give him extra leverage in negotiations over the deal to keep some American troops in Afghanistan another decade despite opposition from his people and the war-weary U.S. public.

The roughly 100,000 U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan operate without any bilateral agreement governing their actions, though the majority of them are under a U.N. mandate.

Karzai's terms for the partnership that have so far been unacceptable to American officials, according to those familiar with the discussions.

U.S. officials have said that they support the jirga and its attempt to make sure that tribal leaders are ready to accept a partnership agreement.

Karzai noted that the Afghan government is also working on partnerships with France, Britain, Australia and the European Union but that with the large U.S. presence in Afghanistan it was particularly important to get input from tribal leaders on the accord with the Americans.

Few expect the four-day loya jirga to produce much of substance, both because it can make no binding declarations and because there is no draft accord to present to the assembled elders.

Parliamentarians say the meeting is unconstitutional because it sidelines the legislature, which should be the body to consider such national issues.

Karzai stressed that this meeting is only to serve as an advisory gathering in an apparent attempt to calm these critics. He also called on delegates to stay focused on the two designated topics.

"This jirga is only for the partnership and peace, nothing else," Karzai said, addressing concerns that he might use the gathering a way to gain backing for a constitutional amendment that would allow him to run for a third term.

The Taliban have condemned the meeting as an attempt by the U.S. to justify a permanent presence in Afghanistan, promising to launch attacks to disrupt it.

Much of Kabul went into a security lockdown ahead of the meeting, with extra roads closed and intelligence agents swarming around the meeting hall on the outskirts of the city. At the last such meeting -- a "peace jirga" held last June -- Taliban insurgents fired into the tent, disrupting the gathering but causing no casualties. Since then, a new hardened structure has been built that should in theory be less vulnerable to incoming fire.

Separately on Wednesday, NATO said without providing further details that three of its service members died in attacks in southern Afghanistan. At least 14 international troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far this month.

Afghan officials said one policeman and two civilians, including a child, were killed on Tuesday, when bombs loaded on a donkey exploded in northern Afghanistan.

Abdul Satar Barez, the deputy governor of Faryab, said 17 other civilians were wounded in the blast, which occurred shortly before noon in Ghormach district of Badghis province, which is governed by officials in neighboring Faryab province.

[Associated Press; By HEIDI VOGT and RAHIM FAIEZ]

Associated Press writer Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.

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