Daily brief: experts raise doubts about Afghan minerals

Event notice: Join the New America Foundation and the Heinrich Böll Foundation Wednesday at 12:15 pm EST for a discussion with Pakistani journalist Imtiaz Gul, author of the new book The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan’s Lawless Frontier (NAF).

"The best news we have had over many years in Afghanistan"

Afghan and American officials remained optimistic about the potential for Afghanistan’s newly-publicized mineral wealth to turn the country’s fortunes around, with a Pentagon official saying that the estimated $1 trillion in untapped resources could give Afghanistan "economically sovereign capability to finance its own human and security needs" (NYT, Reuters, Times). Last month, Afghan President Hamid Karzai alluded to the value of minerals and other materials in Afghanistan ranging between $1 and $3 trillion (ABC).

Other experts sounded more cautionary notes about Afghanistan’s potential as a mining hotspot, pointing out an active insurgency, corruption, untested resource laws, lack of infrastructure or mining culture, and the fact that much of the minerals, including potentially massive stores of lithium, are in Taliban-dominated areas of the country (AP, Times, Independent, AJE). The potential difficulty of accessing, processing, and exporting resources is a key concern in Afghanistan, prompting one mining lobbyist to say that "Sudan will host the Winter Olympics before these guys get a trillion dollars out of the ground;" it will likely be years before any large-scale mining could occur (LAT).

The mineral announcement comes at a time of growing unease in Congress and the Obama administration over the slow course of the war in Afghanistan, as President Barack Obama’s stated goal of beginning to draw down troops in July 2011 draws ever closer (NYT, Wash Post). Gen. David Petraeus and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy will testify in the Senate today and the House tomorrow to discuss offensives in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

Crossed wires

A commander in the group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Qari Zafar, was reportedly killed near Miram Shah in North Waziristan last week when explosives being stored in his house accidentally detonated (The News). Zafar, who was allegedly involved in the deadly 2006 attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, had been previously reported killed in a U.S. drone strike earlier this year (The News, NAF). Elsewhere in the tribal regions, in Bajaur agency Pakistani security forces arrested seven militants while another 16 reportedly surrendered (Daily Times).

Yesterday, top commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal went to Islamabad to meet with Pakistani army chief of staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani (Daily Times, The Nation, Dawn). McChrystal frequently meets with Pakistani officials, and during the meeting he reportedly told Kayani that the Pakistani general would be informed about any new operations taking place in Afghanistan.

Violence continued in Karachi, with seven people killed in sectarian strife in the last 24 hours (Dawn, ET, Daily Times). And the Washington Post reported yesterday that the United States will object to a deal signed between a state-owned Chinese company and Pakistan to provide Pakistan with two nuclear reactors (Wash Post, ET).

New fall TV: The bin Laden Hunter?

An American man who said he was on a mission to kill Osama bin Laden was arrested in northwest Pakistan’s bucolic Chitral region near the border with Afghanistan’s Nuristan province, and police found in his possession a pistol, dagger, sword, and Christian literature (BBC, CBS, AFP, CNN, Dawn). Gary Faulkner, a middle-aged Californian, told police that he had been searching for bin Laden since 9/11, and allegedly said, "God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing him."