Afghanistan News October 13, 2003

October 13, 2003

Afghan Warlords Are Banned From Politics
By DANIEL COONEY, Associated
KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan government banned warlords Sunday from taking part in politics, a move that would prevent some of the country's top leaders from participating in next year's pivotal elections. The new law is seen as crucial to helping the country become a stable democracy, as Afghanistan has long been dominated by private militias whose rivalry kept the country at war for 23 years.

"Nobody with armed forces behind them can continue their political activities," Justice Minister Abdulrahim Karimi told a new conference Sunday. The law, if enforced, is likely to affect several of the nation's leaders. The Northern Alliance, which supported Hamid Karzai in becoming president after the ouster of the Taliban in late 2001, is a collection of warlords — many of them provincial governors or national politicians.

There are also warlords in Karzai's Cabinet. Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim, for example, maintains one of the largest private armies, and many of his soldiers are based in the capital, Kabul.

Fahim is an ethnic Tajik and seen as a potential political rival to Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun. It was not clear how the government, which has little power outside Kabul, would enforce the law. Approved by the government Saturday, the law also dictates that a political party must have at least 700 members before it can be registered. "This is another important step toward democracy," Karimi said.

The measure comes as political leaders start to position themselves for general elections in June. Karzai's government is a coalition of several ethnic groups and political factions; it will be a major challenge for him to keep it together. Fahim and other members of the Northern Alliance met earlier this month in the capital while Karzai was overseas, and are believed to have discussed withdrawing their support for the president.

Karzai's administration appears to be becoming less tolerant of criticism as the polls draw closer. On Saturday, it shut down the country's second most-popular newspaper, state-run Armon Mali, apparently after it ran a series of critical articles.

Deputy Information Minister Abdul Hamid Mubarrez denied the government closed the newspaper to end the criticism and said it was because there were now enough privately run papers for the public to read.

Taliban Kill Eight Policemen in Afghan Attack
KABUL (Reuters) - Up to 100 Afghan Taliban guerrillas attacked a district office in the volatile southern province of Zabul early Sunday, killing eight policemen and wounding two others, a local official said. The latest attack by a resurgent guerrilla movement occurred in Zabul's Arghandab district shortly before 2 a.m., district officer Haji Qudratullah told Reuters.

He said up to 100 Taliban fighters were involved, who burned down the district office and destroyed four vehicles. Qudratullah said he had no figure for Taliban casualties, though he had heard that some of the attackers had been killed.

"People said they took dead bodies with them," he said. Government forces had reoccupied the area after dawn. The attack was just the latest in a series by the Taliban movement, ousted from government by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 for sheltering the al Qaeda network blamed for Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that year.

The period since the start of August has been the bloodiest in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, with more than 300 people killed, many of them in guerrilla attacks.

The dead have included Afghan aid workers, government soldiers, policemen and U.S. troops from the 11,500-strong U.S.-led force still searching for Taliban remnants and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Sunday's attack follows an audacious escape by 41 Taliban prisoners from the main jail in Kandahar province, Zabul's neighbor. Among the escapees was Mawlavi Abdullah, brother of former Taliban defense minister Obaidullah, and a commander named Aziz Agham who officials say mounted a number of guerrilla attacks in the months before his capture earlier this year.

Afghan and U.S. forces pursuing Islamic militants accuse neighboring Pakistan, the main backer of the Taliban until the September 11 attacks, of providing sanctuary for the guerrillas and allowing them to slip across the border to mount attacks. But Pakistan says recent operations it has launched against militants in its tribal borderlands are proof of its commitment to the "war on terror."

In another incident involving suspected militants, a soldier from the U.S.-led force was slightly hurt in a gunbattle on the outskirts of Kabul Saturday night.

U.S. Soldier Wounded in Afghan Firefight
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. troops fought a gunbattle with three suspected rebels on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, the U.S. military said Sunday. One American solder was slightly wounded and an insurgent was captured. The firefight occurred Saturday near a training center for the Afghan army in the northeast part of Kabul, the U.S. military said in a statement from Bagram Air Base, the military headquarters north of the capital.

It said the U.S. troops were observing a training exercise at the center when insurgents attacked them. The American troops returned fire and called for backup from the International Security Assistance Force, a 5,500-strong NATO-led peacekeeping mission charged with keeping the peace in Kabul.

The rebels fled into a nearby building before one of them was captured, the statement said. It did not say what happened to the two other attackers. The name of the wounded U.S. soldier was not released. He returned to duty after being treated. Taliban and al-Qaida rebels have been launching increasingly bold assaults in recent months, raiding police stations, killing aid workers and confronting U.S. troops in growing numbers.

Taliban Suspects Escape an Afghan Prison
By CARLOTTA GALL – New York Times
kABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 11 — Up to 40 Taliban suspects and other prisoners escaped from a prison in the southern city of Kandahar, Afghan officials said Saturday. The prisoners, among them the brother of one of the country's most wanted men, had dug a well-constructed 30-yard-long tunnel from their cell and made a clean getaway at midnight Friday, said the deputy provincial governor, Muhammad Anas.

Two important Taliban members were among those who escaped, he said. They were Mullah Abdul Hadi, the brother of the former Taliban defense minister, Maulavi Obeidullah, and Aziz Agha, who was believed to have been behind a recent campaign of burning schools and laying mines in Kandahar, he said.
Not all of the prisoners who escaped were Taliban suspects. Some were members of another anti-government party, Hesb-e-Islami, and some were common criminals, another official said.

The escape will be a huge blow to the government and the newly appointed governor of Kandahar, Yusuf Pashtun, as well as to the American forces based just outside the city. The Taliban have carried out increasingly daring attacks in the region in recent months, severely testing the ability of the local security forces to maintain control.

Recently, the authorities and their American allies have received intelligence that the Taliban are preparing "larger" and "more spectacular attacks," the American special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, has said.

Many of the men who escaped were fighters captured in a recent American-led military campaign in the mountains of neighboring Zabul Province. American forces took some of those captured into custody, but most of the prisoners were taken by the Afghan police to Kandahar.

A senior Afghan commander, Haji Muhammad Naeem Granei, who has been leading the recent fighting against the Taliban, accused the police of being involved in the escape.

"I am very angry and very disappointed that these Taliban escaped from the prison," he said. "Just now, I told the governor that we are going up and spending days and nights in the mountains, suffering extreme cold and extreme heat, and we arrest people and put them in prison, and then the police are bribed to let them go. I am sure the police, they are hand in hand with them."

The Taliban have managed, through intimidation and propaganda, to impress on local communities that they intend to regain power, and to wear down the American resolve to keep troops in the country.

Suggestions have been made that in desperation, C.I.A. agents have engaged members of the Taliban in discussions, in an effort to persuade them to stop their campaign of violence and support the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Mr. Khalilzad called those reports a deliberate disinformation campaign and denied that there were any negotiations with the Taliban, but said that individual contacts might have taken place between Afghan officials and Taliban members.

The police chief denied responsibility for the jailbreak, saying that the prison had been transferred to a government department and was no longer under his control. Troops and police officers were searching for the escapees and had blocked the roads out of the city, he said.

Mr. Anas, the deputy governor, said, "It is a disappointment and a problem for the government because we arrested them and now they escaped."

Pak’s role in terror war under duress: Sinha
Press Trust of India
On board special aircraft, October 12: Voicing serious concern over the re-grouping of Taliban in Afghanistan, India on Sunday charged Pakistan with acting under "duress" in the fight against terrorism.

"As far as the fight against terrorism is concerned on all fronts, whatever cooperation Pakistan is extending to anyone is under duress," External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, who accompanied Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on his two-nation tour of Indonesia and Thailand, told reporters on board the special aircraft while returning to India.

Sinha said, "India has repeatedly expressed concern about the situation in Afghanistan including regrouping and activities of Taliban". Without naming the United States, the minister said all those who have taken upon themselves the responsibility of security in Afghanistan should stand up and take note of the developments.
Replying to questions on the growing activities of Taliban, Sinha said, "That is why we are in touch with those who have taken responsibility for the security of Afghanistan". Observing that India did not have a leading role in this regard, the minister said the security responsibility lay with the Karzai government. "India is not participating in it (security)," he said.

Police May Have Aided Escape of Taliban Detainees
VOA 10/12/2003
The governor of Afghanistan's Kandahar province said local security officers helped in the weekend jail break of prisoners connected with the country's former Taleban regime. Kandahar Governor Yusuf Pashtun said local police may have had a hand in the escape of 41 political prisoners, who fled from a local jail via a makeshift tunnel.

Police sources in Kandahar tell VOA that some local security officers are also reported to have disappeared along with the fugitives. Most if not all of the prisoners are said to be members of Afghanistan's former, religiously extreme Taleban regime, which was deposed two years ago.

The escapees reportedly included the brother of the ex-Taleban Defense Minister, who is currently still at large and wanted by the central government. The escape is the latest in a series of incidents in an ongoing insurgency by remnants of the Taleban regime and other dissident militant factions.

Attacks by the insurgents in the country's north and east have increased in recent months, despite a military offensive against them, waged by Afghan forces and their American allies. U.S. ambassador-designate to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said a lack of central government control over the security situation in some provinces accounts for continued insurgency.

"The central government in some of those areas has not had much capability to look after the security needs and other needs and there is a bit of a vacuum in some of those areas, and Taleban and al-Qaida people have sought to exploit or take advantage of that," he said. Mr. Khalilzad said the United States believes the insurgency will intensify over the short term, but will eventually be defeated.

The Appearance of Progress
ABC News 10/12/2003 By Bob Woodruff
K A B U L, Afghanistan, Oct. 12— It has been almost two years since the Taliban was defeated in Afghanistan's capital, but much of the country remains in ruins. The Afghan government says it needs $15 billion in foreign aid over the next five years to rebuild roads, irrigation systems and other infrastructure. So far, only $4.5 billion has been pledged.

"The amount of aid is negligible — $4.5 billion won't even fix our roads," said the country's finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, who returned to his native country after the ouster of Taliban.

The main highway from Kabul to Kandahar is known as the "American Road" because President Bush promised to rebuild it by the end of the year. But it is still mostly dirt, and at least five collapsed bridges are in disrepair, which poses major economic problems, since it is a crucial artery for the Afghan economy.

The road is a perfect metaphor for what has happened all over Afghanistan. The international community has pledged less than the government says it needs, and it has received less than was promised. The result is that very little has been rebuilt.

According to some Afghan bus drivers, the "American Road" is also becoming too dangerous to use because armed thieves target the slow-moving traffic. Similarly, relief aid workers say the condition of the road is hindering their work.

"There have been a lot more incidents of people being attacked, bus being attacked, and aid workers being attacked. And that is obviously of concern to aid workers and is having a detrimental effect on aid work," said Sally Austin, assistant country director of CARE International in Afghanistan.

Such incidents are why President Bush wants the road to be paved by the end of the year — all 245 miles of it. But army engineers who have studied the project say that timetable does not provide enough time to rebuild it properly.

So in order to meet the tight deadline, the "American Road" will get just one layer of asphalt this year instead of the standard three. That way, the president's pledge will appear, at least on the surface, to be fulfilled in a country where even the appearance of progress is a big step forward.

U.N. short of funds for Afghan poll registration
Reuters 10/12/2003
KABUL - A U.N.-led project to register voters for Afghanistan's elections next year is more than $50 million short of its budget due to a failure of international donors to provide funds, the United Nations said on Sunday. Donors have contributed just $23.5 million of the $78.2 million budgeted for the project due to begin on December 1, U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva told a news briefing.

"Currently there are enough funds to start the registration process, but it's not sufficient to support the expansion of the registration from the cities into the rural areas," he said. "In fact the funds will only allow the project to run until the middle of February, so the ability to produce a credible voter register in time for the 2004 elections depends on sustained donor support."

Silva said he could not explain why donors had been so slow to provide funds for the elections, due to be held in June under Afghanistan's 2001 Bonn peace agreement. "I believe it's not a lack of interest as donors have repeatedly reiterated their support for the Bonn agreement and the registration of voters and the electoral process, which is a key element of the Bonn agenda," he said. The budget for the project has already been slashed from an original estimate of $130 million.

The U.N. spokesman also said that the first elections to pick delegates for a December national assembly meeting that will vote on a new draft constitution would be held in Badakshan province on Wednesday and Thursday.

He said the voting was being held there early to avoid difficulties in remote areas caused by the onset of winter. Elections for the constitutional meeting are to be held elsewhere at the end of November and early December.

Silva said registration of district representatives who will elect 344 of the 400 members of the Loya Jirga, or "Grand Assembly", was already complete in 11 provinces and would be finished countrywide by the end of November. The government has said it expects in the coming week to publish the constitutional draft on which the assembly will vote.

Afghan government shuts down newspaper
DAILY TIMES
KABUL: The Afghan government has shut a state-run newspaper apparently after it ran a series of articles critical of President Hamid Karzai and his administration - the latest crackdown on an increasingly independent-minded press after years of censorship.

The newspaper, the Armon Mali - or Public’s Desire - was told late Saturday to stop publishing immediately, its chief editor Mirhaidar Motahar said Sunday. He said the government did not give a reason for canceling the paper’s license, which left 15 journalists and 17 other staff unemployed. But Motahar said he believed it was because political leaders were fed up with articles that highlighted the public’s frustrations with the US-backed coalition government.

"People tell us they are not happy with Karzai because he is not doing a good job and this is what we write," he said. Deputy Information Minister Abdul Hamid Mubarrez denied the government closed the newspaper to end the criticism. He said that scores of newspapers that have started publishing in the two years since the ouster of the Taliban meant there was no longer a need for four state-sponsored dailies and that the government had decided to cut one.

"In a country where only 35 percent of the public can read, 265 newspapers are too many," Mubarrez said. "So, we decided to decrease the number." Motahar said the Armon Mali gets part of its funding from the defence ministry, which is headed by Mohammed Fahim, a powerful ethnic-Tajik warlord. Fahim is also a possible political rival of Karzai, who is a member of the Pashtun ethnic group.

Fahim and other members of the mainly Tajik Northern Alliance grouping of warlords met earlier this month in the capital, Kabul, while Karzai was overseas, and are believed to have discussed withdrawing their support for the president in the run-up to elections in June. While the Dari-language Armon Mali is critical of Karzai, its regular readers say the paper rarely criticizes Fahim or others close to him.

In May, New York-based Human Rights Watch, said "press freedom in Afghanistan is under assault" after security forces allegedly arrested several local journalists and threatened some with death if they criticized powerful leaders.

In the latest crackdown, two reporters working for a weekly newspaper, Aftab, were arrested in June and detained for seven days on blasphemy charges after they published an article titled "Holy Fascism," which lashed out at top political leaders and accused them of going astray of Islam.

The two journalists fled Afghanistan after they were released from detention before their trial. Afghanistan’s media has sprung back from years of censorship during the Taliban regime, which only permitted state-approved newspapers to publish and tolerated no criticism. —AP

IDB to help ‘special’ nations
The NST News Team
PUTRAJAYA, Oct 12: THE Islamic Development Bank will pay “special attention” to member countries in dire need of financial assistance due to conflicts to help in their reconstruction.

Its vice-president Datuk Syed Jaafar Aznan said there were some countries which needed immediate attention thus the need for the IDB to release urgently required funds.
"Countries such as Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan require urgent humanitarian assistance and are considered as special cases.

"Funds would be released to the people of these countries to help in the development of their economy and social progress," he said yester-day, to outline IDB's agenda at the OIC Summit.

In the case of Palestine, Syed Jaafar said there was a special fund set up by the Arab League, managed by the IDB, since the country became an OIC member in 1976.
"No one is more worthy of immediate support than the people. We need to alleviate their tremendous sufferings and hardships.

"The occupation has strangled the country's economy and half of the population is now living in extreme poverty." On whether there will be special funds for Iraq and Afghanistan, Syed Jaafar said it would depend on donor countries' decision.

"IDB will assist the people of these countries through our own funds. But if the donor wants to set up separate funds and asks us to manage it, we will be happy to assist." Meanwhile, IDB deputy director of operations El-Mansour Feten said IDB had released an emergency assistance of US$2 million (RM7.6 million) for the Iraqi people through the Red Crescent and local societies.

Ridding Afghanistan of landmines could take 10 years
Last Updated Sun, 12 Oct 2003 21:15:22
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - One of the greatest dangers facing the general population, foreign forces and aid agencies in Afghanistan are the millions of antipersonnel and antitank landmines littered throughout the uneven Afghani terrain.

Planted indiscriminately in grazing areas, farm land, urban and rural districts, footpaths and water systems for the past 30 years, these mines continue to kill or injure about 200 people each month. Ridding the country of these mines is expected to cost $500 million US and take up to 10 years, according to the U.N.

In the meantime, the number of amputees inside the capital continues to grow. No one is immune and simple tasks, such as venturing outside to fetch drinking water, have become dangerous. The slow process of inspecting the land, detecting mines and exploding them has fallen on Afghanis, who have so far found more than 600 mines in an area suspected of holding 2,000 mines.

According to Human Rights Watch, only two of Afghanistan's twenty-nine provinces are believed to be free of landmines. The most heavily mined provinces are Herat and Kandahar, which is the stronghold of the Taliban and a likely focal point for armed conflict.

On October 2, two Canadian soldiers were killed and three others injured while on a routine patrol of Afghanistan's capital city. Investigators believe that blast was caused by at least one -- and possibly three -- anti-tank mines. Master Cpl. Jason Cory Hamilton, Cpl. Thomas Stirling and Cpl. Cameron Lee Laidlaw were hurt in the blast.

Sgt. Robert Allan Short, 42, and Cpl. Robbie Christopher Beerenfenger, 29, died in the blast. Since their deaths, Canadian infantrymen have been assigned eight-wheeled Bison armoured vehicles to patrol high-risk areas where they once travelled in light jeeps.

These new jeeps will allow Canadians to patrol rural areas that "are a little bit more dangerous and susceptible to terrorist activity," said Lt.-Col. Don Denne, the officer commanding the Canadian battle group patrolling Afghanistan's capital city.

"Everything I've asked for from Canada, I've gotten," Denne said. "The army has bent over backwards to give us what we need to complete our mission both safely and professionally.

National autonomy for Pukhtuns demanded
Dawn (Pakistan) October 12, 2003
PESHAWAR, Oct 11: The Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party said on Saturday that its political struggle was aimed at achieving maximum national autonomy for the Pukhtun nation rather than seeking a separate geographical unit for them.

Speaking at the national convention of the Pukhtun Students' Organization at the Nishtar Hall, PMAP Chairman Mahmood Khan Achekzai said his party was struggling for a better future for the Pukhtuns of the north and south Pukhtunkhwa, the tribal belt and parts of Punjab along river Sindh. Delegates of local and foreign students' organizations also attended the first session of the two-day convention.

Mr Achekzai said: "We don't want to break the country, instead we want to live like free people within Pakistan. We are opposed to every form of servitude in the name of religion or the nation. We want our rights and authority on our resources for the betterment of our people. We hold good wishes for other people living in Pakistan. We pray for their prosperity and happiness."

The Pukhtun youth, he said, would fight as the vanguard of their national movement as the state of affairs had put a great responsibility on their shoulders to meet the future challenges. He advised the youth to equip themselves with modern technological and scientific knowledge. He said a meaningful education system, reflecting the aspirations and requirements of the people, was the need of the hour.

The PMAP took politics as a struggle against oppression, he said. He said politics was not a game of sentiments, as propagated by some non-political entities, but a way of national and social service. He advised the students to play their due role in the national affairs.

He said all the local languages spoken from Kohistan to Quetta were dear to him and all the ethnic groups residing with the Pukhtuns would enjoy equal rights in the Pukhtunkhwa. Referring to the role of the bureaucrats, newsmen, politicians and judges, he said all the four pillars of the state were about to collapse.

He said the PMAP opposed the intervention of the armed forces and their agencies' network in political affairs. Besides the powerful Central Investigation Agency, the United States had one of the biggest armed forces, but no US citizen was ready to give a political role to the military generals and the spying agents, he said.

He said the armed forces had no political role to play in the country. They were doing unconstitutional and illegal acts in the name of national security, he said. He flayed the arrest of Wazir tribesmen in Southern Waziristan and urged the government to release them forthwith.

He denied that the Pukhtuns had been involved in any ethnic or sectarian violence in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The Sikhs, Hindus and Parsis had been living with the Pukhtuns in all parts of the Pukhtun lands, but they had not been killed on ethnic or religious basis, he said. The PMAP chief said his party was against the construction of the Kalabagh Dam and termed it a dacoity upon the river water of the northern Pukhtunkhwa.

Smuggled stones on display: Gems and mineral showt
Dawn (Pakistan) October 12, 2003
PESHAWAR, Oct 11: A good number of precious stones smuggled from Afghanistan were on display with the local gems at the 10th Pakistan Gems and Mineral Show held at a local hotel here on Saturday.

The best tourmaline of Pech district of Kunar and Paprak area of Nooristan, hachamnite from Badakhshan and ruby from Jagdark area of Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan were on the show. "These stones are being smuggled from Afghanistan in a large quantity to Peshawar, the main trading centre of gem stones in the region," Afghan refugee Ghulam Murtaza hailing from Kabul told Dawn at his stall.