Afghanistan News February 10, 2002

February 10, 2002

Transparency and security top priorities at first Afghan aid meeting
Wednesday April 10, 3:29 PM

Afghanistan was hosting a two-day meeting of foreign donors and aid agencies to consider how billions of dollars should be spent on regenerating the war-torn country.

Interim leader Hamid Karzai on Wednesday was expected to address delegates at the start of the first meeting of the Afghan Implementation Group which was set up following a donors' conference in Tokyo in January where 4.5 billion dollars was pledged over the next five years.

The government has since been drawing up its plans to spend the first 1.8 billion dollar tranche which was pledged for the coming financial year.

Karzai's chief adviser Ashraf Ghani, who is executive director of the Afghanistan Assistance Coordination Authority, said the government wanted to convince donors of its determination to make aid yield effective results.

"People do not just give a country cash to do as they please," he told reporters Tuesday.

"We are emphasising values of accountability, transparency and efficiency. These values are shared by the donor community."

Ghani said the government's main priorities included assistance for returning refugees, health, education, reconstruction as well as encouraging trade and investment.

"We are laying the foundation for a major programme of investment and infrastructure and we have proposals for using aid as a magnet for trade and investment and for formation of our skills that would enable us to move forward."

According to the European Union's special representative for Afghanistan, Klaus-Peter Klaiber, the international community had to demonstrate its support for the government by matching its pledges with hard cash.

"This government deserves a speedy response from the international community to show the people that things are moving forward," he told a press briefing.

"I think there are firm intentions to (make) the future reconstruction work as open as possible with the international community ... This is an important time for the government to show transparency and openness."

Klaiber added that continued financial support from the EU was "conditional to the continued political progress."

The British aid organisation Oxfam said it backed the EU's view that guarantees for security were vital for the success of the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

"Our number one priority, and I think I speak on behalf of the vast majority of NGOs, is security," policy adviser Ian Woodmansey told AFP.

"If security is not there the refugees will not come back and there will not be a solid base for reconstruction. Let's not start building a house on sand."

Woodmansey said that the conference needed to find a greater role for women in the rebuilding programme and better coordination between aid agencies, the international community and the interim administration.

The implementation group features representatives from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the Islamic Development and the Afghan Support Group which is currently chaired by Norway.

British commandos on covert Afghan combat missions By John O'Callaghan

Wednesday April 10, 1:45 PM

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (Reuters) - British forces revealed on Tuesday that commando teams had secretly been taking part in combat missions in Afghanistan.

Britain leads an 18-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which is meant to keep the peace in Kabul, while commandos have also been helping to guard Bagram Air Base near Kabul, a key operational centre for U.S.-led forces.

But the British army's role in Afghanistan is changing.

It is expected to hand over leadership of ISAF soon to Turkey, while preparing for a combat role by flying in hundreds of commandos this month to help to track down remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda guerrillas.

On Tuesday, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported Britain had already started to take part in some combat operations in eastern Afghanistan, helping the U.S. military to secure mountain caves once used by militants from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda movement.

A British military spokesman confirmed that commandos had taken part in a few operations outside Bagram, but said they had not encountered enemy fighters or suffered any casualties.

"It's true," Royal Marines spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Harradine told reporters. "Members of 40 Commando have been involved in combat operations other than guarding Bagram Air Base."

Harradine confirmed a Guardian report that troops from 40 Commando Group and a mortar team from 1st Parachute Regiment had secured caves used by al Qaeda fighters around the Zawar Khili Valley in eastern Afghanistan, before a U.S. infantry operation.

He said British troops had also taken part in a "a few" other missions, but did not give details.

The U.S.-led coalition engaged al Qaeda and Taliban troops in the largest ground battle of the Afghan war in eastern Afghanistan last month, but Afghan commanders said many of the rebels could have slipped away during and after the fighting.

HUNT IS ON

The hunt is now on to track down small groups of militants hiding out in Afghanistan's rugged and inhospitable mountains, as well as to examine evidence from the caves they vacated.

The Guardian, whose reporter and photographer stumbled onto the covert operation around Zawar Khili, said the commando team discovered documents, weapons and human bodies before handing over the area to U.S. infantry from the 101st Airborne Division.

"The Americans blew up the caves, which contained bedrooms, jails and warehouses, after collecting five binbags full of documents," the paper said.

U.S. soldiers returning from a six-day mission around Zawar Khili on Saturday reported seeing an elaborate network of caves, some reinforced with steel ceilings and concrete floors.

Some said they were told by villagers that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden may have sought refuge there after his forces were routed during March's heavy fighting in the nearby Shahi Kot Valley.

But U.S. military spokesman Major Bryan Hilferty said he knew of no evidence senior al Qaeda leaders had used the caves.

Hundreds of rough-terrain specialists from 45 Commando Group have already assembled at Bagram for "Operation Jacana".

More are expected soon as the British force rises to 1,700, the country's largest combat deployment since the 1991 Gulf War.

"We will be at full operational capability by mid-April," Harradine said earlier on Tuesday.

Washington blames the al Qaeda network for the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The Taliban movement, which ruled most of Afghanistan for five years under a strict interpretation of Islam, was also blamed for harbouring bin Laden and his forces. The Taliban were driven from power late last year.

British ISAF soldier killed in Kabul: Ministry of Defence
Wednesday April 10, 7:31 AM

A British peacekeeper was accidentally shot and killed while serving for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, the British Ministry of Defence announced.

"It occurred during a foot patrol in Kabul. The casualty was taken to the French hospital facility at the military side of Kabul airport. He has since died," an MOD spokeswoman told AFP.

"The matter is under full investigation by the royal military police. That investigation is continuing but we are satisfied that this incident did not involve any party outside of ISAF," she added.

The first British fatality of the Afghan conflict had been part of a patrol in a dangerous western part of the city earlier Tuesday when he received a gunshot to the head at 10:50 am (0620 GMT).

He was not hit by "hostile fire" but it was not known whether any colleagues were involved in the incident.

British troops patrolling in western Kabul have twice come under fire in the past two weeks in an area where violent crime has been on the increase, although no one was injured in either incident.

Two chinese-made rockets were fired early Sunday morning at the base of the multinational security force in Kabul but there were no injuries, officials said.

The ISAF has said it believes disgruntled soldiers of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance soldiers may be behind the attacks.

The dead soldier was a member of the Royal Anglian 1st Battalion based in Pirbright, Surrey, part of the 2,000-strong British contribution to the force helping to police Kabul.

The incident came as other members of the regiment held a sombre ceremony at their Kabul base to mark the Queen Mother's funeral.

Some 300 soldiers said prayers and listened as bagpipes and bugles were played during the ceremony at a former wheat factory just off the dusty Jalalabad road.

The Queen Mother was honorary colonel-in-chief of the regiment from its formation in 1964.

Afghanistan is to hold a Loya Jirga, or traditional Afghan grand assembly, to select a new government to take over from the current interim administration in June.

Last week Afghan authorities arrested more than 250 people in connection with an alleged bomb plot against the current administration, raising fears that simmering tribal differences could return Afghanistan to civil conflict.

West Afghan fighting threatens refugees' return By Parisa Hafezi

Tuesday April 9, 10:08 PM

ISLAM QALA, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Fighting in western Afghanistan threatened to stall attempts to return refugees from Iran on Tuesday as rival warlords struggled for control of lucrative border security posts.

The fighting came as Iran and the U.N. refugee agency began a programme on Tuesday to repatriate some of the roughly two million Afghan refugees inside Iran.

The return of tens of thousands of Afghan refugees from Pakistan also largely ground to a halt after farmers pelted cars with stones in protest at government plans to stop them growing poppies used to make opium and heroin.

Abdolkarim Barahui, warlord in control of Zaranj, the provincial capital of Nimruz province in southwest Afghanistan, said forces loyal to rival Jalil Nourzai from Farah province attacked and captured two of his security posts early on Monday.

"The attack started early on Monday and fighting lasted for about two hours," Barahui told Reuters by satellite telephone. "There was serious fighting and they took control of two security posts about 80 km (50 miles) north of Zaranj."

Two of Nourzai's fighters and one of his own men were wounded in the clashes, but no one was killed, Barahui said.

No refugees crossed the border at Zaranj on Tuesday because of the fighting, the UNHCR said.

But at Iran's northern border crossing with Afghanistan at Islam Qala, 146 Afghans returned home as part of the UNHCR programme and thousands more queued in Tehran to register for the assisted repatriation programme.

SECURITY KEY TO AFGHANS' RETURN

The U.N. agency said it was monitoring the Afghan security situation along the borders which would affect the plan to return some 400,000 refugees from Iran by the end of this year.

"This kind of news and the continued insecurity in Afghanistan can influence the return of refugees from Iran," UNHCR Iran spokesman Mohammad Nouri told Reuters.

The violence -- including the protests by poppy farmers and demonstrations against electricity cuts on the eastern border with Pakistan and the factional fighting on the western border with Iran -- was holding up about 40,000 refugees, a spokesman for the U.N. agency in Kabul said earlier on Tuesday.

Barahui, a former anti-Soviet mujahideen fighter loyal to Herat warlord Ismail Khan, took the impoverished border town of Zaranj from the Taliban in November.

He accused Nourzai, who he said was the security chief of Farah province to the north of Nimruz, of launching the attack in order to plunder the local population.

The rugged southwest corner of Afghanistan is a key route for drugs smuggled out of the country through Iran and onto lucrative markets in Europe and rich Arab states in the Gulf.

"They have taken these security posts to steal the money and property of the people," he said.

He said he had sent some 500 of his forces to try to recapture the two outposts where fighting was now raging between the two groups.

"Our forces wanted them to come out peacefully and avoid fighting, but they refused and are still stationed there," he said. "By tonight or tomorrow we will retake these places."

He called on international forces to intervene to establish peace in the area.

Sculptor to rebuild Bamiyan Buddha

Wednesday, 10 April, 2002, 10:03 GMT 11:03 UK

The reconstruction will take five years

An Afghan sculptor is planning to reconstruct one of the giant statues of the Buddha destroyed last year by the Taleban in northern Afghanistan's Bamiyan province.

The statues had stood for nearly 2000 years

The Taleban blew up the statues a year ago amid widespread international condemnation because they believed that they were un-Islamic idols.

The sculptor, Amanulah Haiderzad, has arrived in Bamiyan to launch his ambitious project.

Mr Haiderzad set up the Fine Arts Department at Kabul University in the 1960s, but has lived in exile for the last 20 years.

The rebuilding of one of the Buddhas is a huge task - a five year project - but one which Mr Haiderzad said the Afghan spirit was fully equal to.

Monuments

The town of Bamiyan is dominated by the absence of the two Buddha statues.

The niches stand like empty tooth sockets in the cliffside overlooking the town.

From the high plateau on the other side of the valley, Mr Haiderzad, described his plans.

He wants to keep the smaller niche as it was - a monument to what he called barbarism - but to rebuild the larger statue.

Local people wanted it, he said.

They felt uncomfortable with the empty niches, and it would be good for the economy, bringing work and eventually tourists.

Mr Haiderzad is the first Afghan sculptor to be trained in the modern era - the first, he thinks, since the Buddha statues were first carved into the rockface at Bamiyan more than 1,300 years ago.