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Afghan President Leaves For Islamic Summit In Malaysia
The Associated Press 10/15/2003
KABUL -Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other dignitaries left the capital on Wednesday to attend the summit of Islamic countries being held this week in Malaysia, the Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry said Karzai will deliver a speech "highlighting Afghanistan's renewal and recovery" since the fall of the hardline Taliban regime.
Also in Karzai's delegation are Foreign Minister Abdullah and Women's Affairs Minister Habiba Sorabi.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference summit is scheduled to be held in the Malaysian city of Putrajaya on Thursday and Friday.
This week's summit is the first since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. and subsequent U.S.-led wars here and in Iraq.
Chretien could visit Afghan capital on post-APEC tour
Tue Oct 14,12:17 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien will make official visits to China and India following next week's Asia-Pacific leaders' summit in Bangkok, officials said.
Officials would not comment, however, on reports that Chretien would also visit Kabul to see Canadian troops. Canada has the largest contingent in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
Chretien will leave Ottawa on Friday and make a technical stop in Pakistan on Saturday before travelling on to Bangkok for the October 18-21 meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.
He will then pay an official visit to China October 21-24 and India October 24-25.
Terrorism is expected to be a major topic at APEC and Canadian officials, who declined to be identified, said regional problems -- including terrorism -- would likely be on the agenda when Chretien meets with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
In China, political talks are likely to include North Korea's nuclear programme.
The officials also suggested Chretien might make a sales pitch for China to buy more Canadian-designed CANDU nuclear reactors.
One of the officials, noting that China already has two CANDU reactors, said "we would like to see more CANDUs built in China.
Chretien will visit Beijing and Shanghai and in India go to New Delhi and Chandigarh.
The Bangkok summit will be Chretien's last APEC meeting before his retirement next February.
Seven Taliban Killed During Two-Day Fight
Wed Oct 15, 3:49 PM ET By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Afghan soldiers backed by U.S. troops and helicopters have killed seven Taliban and captured 12 others during a raid in southern Afghanistan, a police chief said Wednesday.
Three Afghan soldiers also died and five were wounded in two days of fighting in the mountainous Chaar Cheno district, about 90 miles northeast of Kandahar, said police chief Haji Mohammed Akhtar.
The operation, which involved hundreds of Afghan soldiers, was a success, he said. It was not immediately clear if any important Taliban were among the dead or captured.
Akhtar said the captured men were being interrogated in Uruzgan, the province where Chaar Cheno is located.
The raid was launched on the suspected Taliban hideout Monday, sparking a shootout which ended Tuesday. About 500 Afghan soldiers armed with heavy machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles and rocket launchers participated in the operation.
Col. Rodney Davis, a spokesman at the U.S. military's headquarters at Bagram, just north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, has confirmed in an e-mail that U.S. troops were involved, but refused to provide details.
Remnants of the Taliban, whose government was ousted in late 2001, are believed to have stepped up attacks against government troops, aid workers and U.S.-led coalition forces in recent months.
Some 11,500 coalition forces, mostly American, have been helping Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government track down suspected Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives in Afghanistan.
U.S., Afghan Troops Flush Out Taliban Group
Wed Oct 15, 4:28 AM ET By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. and Afghan forces have driven Taliban guerrillas from a village in the central province of Uruzgan after a day of intense fighting in which more than a dozen people were killed, an official said on Wednesday.
Dozens of U.S. troops scoured the village of Darwan in Char Cheny district on Wednesday, a day after 10 Taliban fighters were killed by U.S. helicopter gunships and in joint American and Afghan ground strikes, the official said.
"Our casualties do not exceed two dead and six wounded," said the official, who asked not to be named.
"The Taliban forces overnight escaped from Darwan because they could not resist the fighting and now American soldiers are conducting house-to-house searches to find out if any Taliban members are hidden among ordinary people."
U.S. military spokesman Colonel Rodney Davis confirmed U.S. air and ground forces responded to a request for assistance in Uruzgan but declined to give details except to say there were no U.S. casualties.
"We are continuing to monitor the situation," he told a briefing in Kabul, adding: "This was another excellent example of Afghan security forces working in close cooperation with the coalition."
The fighting began on Monday a day after a Taliban ambush killed four Afghan soldiers in the Char Cheny area. U.S.-led forces intervened soon after.
The U.S. military leads an 11,500-strong multinational force hunting Taliban and al Qaeda remnants in Afghanistan.
Uruzgan was part of the main heartland of the Taliban regime overthrown by U.S.-led forces in late 2001.
The volatile province has been the scene of repeated Taliban raids since the radical militia fell. The latest clash comes amid an apparent guerrilla resurgence in the south and southeast.
More than 300 people, including civilians, government troops, local aid workers, American soldiers and many guerrillas have been killed and scores wounded in violence since early August, the bloodiest period since the Taliban fell. (Additional reporting by Mirwais Afghan and David Brunnstrom)
Germany decides to deploy troops to northern Afghanistan
BERLIN, Oct 15 (AFP) - The German government decided Wednesday to deploy for the first time troops to an area outside the Afghan capital Kabul and said an advance contingent could be in place in the northern city of Kunduz this month.
The decision, which has to be ratified by parliament possibly as early as next week, would see a total of 450 Bundeswehr peacekeepers deployed to Kunduz to provide security for civilian reconstruction teams.
While the decision is likely to pass through the Bundestag lower house of parliament, it has met with opposition from the conservatives who fear that German troops could be caught up in a battle with drug runners in the region.
Around 1,600 German soldiers are serving in Afghanistan with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which operates in and around Kabul only, and a further 200 in neighbouring Uzbekistan.
Late on Monday, the UN Security Council voted to authorise ISAF to deploy into the provinces if necessary.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer hailed the extension as being "of great importance for the establishment of a new order in Afghanistan."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, UN officials and relief agencies have been calling for more than a year for the peacekeepers' mandate to be extended, citing rampant factional fighting and guerrilla attacks in outlying regions.
On Tuesday, a defence ministry spokesman said that a first contingent of 40 to 70 German troops could deploy in northern Afghanistan within weeks.
Afghanistan: Analysts Say Enforcement Of Law On Political Parties Will Test Karzai
By Ron Synovitz Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
In a move considered critical to creating conditions for free and fair elections in Afghanistan next year, Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai has approved a law that bans Afghan political parties from having their own militias or affiliations with armed forces. RFE/RL spoke with analysts who say Karzai's success in enforcing the new law will be a critical test for both his presidency and the internationally backed Bonn Process.
Prague, 15 October 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Afghan Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai has passed a new law aimed at preventing Afghan warlords from using their private militias to intimidate voters during elections next summer. The law was formally approved by Karzai on 11 October. Justice Minister Abdul Rahim Karimi says it will be officially published by early next week.
Correspondents who have obtained the text of the legislation report that it bans political parties from having their own militias or affiliations with armed forces.
The law also reportedly bans judges, prosecutors, officers, and other military personnel, police, and national security staff from being members of any political party during their term of office.
Vikram Parekh is an expert on Afghanistan who works out of Kabul for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. He tells RFE/RL that the ability of Karzai to enforce the new political parties law is a critical test for the Transitional Adminstration chairman.
Parekh says the expansion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) into provinces of Afghanistan that are now controlled by different militia factions could help encourage disarmament and foster the environment needed for free and fair elections. But to achieve those goals, Parekh says the number of ISAF troops sent into warlord-controlled territory must be substantial.
"I can say what members of the various factions in Mazar-i-Sharif have concluded -- which is that an international force of 1,000 might be enough to create a neutral space in which security-sector reforms and disarmament can actually be carried out [there]. And those are also the types of numbers we need to be talking about if there is going to be an electoral process that allows parties which don't have force of arms to participate -- and to enforce the new political parties law that prohibits individuals and parties that have the force of arms from taking part in the elections," Parekh said.
The new political parties law was approved by Karzai following a particularly bloody battle last week near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The tank and artillery duel was one of many recurring clashes between the private militias of ethnic Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum and ethnic Tajik Commander Atta Mohammed, also known as Commander Mohammed Atta.
Factional leaders within Karzai's coalition cabinet who control the rival militias have gathered with radical Islamist leaders in Kabul at least twice this month in a bid to unify behind a single candidate to oppose Karzai in next year's presidential elections.
Although no official candidate has been named, the talks have highlighted the political divisions between Karzai and the factional leaders in his cabinet.
Christopher Langton, of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, agrees that the decision by the UN Security Council this week to expand ISAF beyond Kabul Province could bolster enforcement of the new political parties law.
But Langton tells RFE/RL that the chances for its successful enforcement vary in different parts of Afghanistan. He says the governor of the western province of Herat, Ismail Kahn, has said ISAF is not welcome in Herat. "So, if they're not welcome -- and, of course, [Ismail Khan] has a huge number of people under his command who are armed -- it's hard to see how ISAF can actually deploy there. Mazar-i-Sharif is feasible, even though the situation between Mohammed Atta and Dostum is somewhat insecure. I think [ISAF] is welcomed in Kandahar, so [the ban against warlords in political parties] can be enforced -- but it's dangerous. In Herat, [Karzai] can't enforce it. And Mazar-i-Sharif probably is the place where it most likely could succeed."
Langton says he remains skeptical about long-delayed programs aimed at disarming the militias of Afghanistan's regional warlords -- particularly if rival militias are not disarmed simultaneously. But he says the new law on political parties, combined with substantial ISAF deployments in the north, could lead to at least a token start on disarming the militias of Dostum or ethnic Tajik leaders like Defense Minister Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Commander Atta.
"It will have some impact, maybe at the lower end of the armament spectrum where it doesn't matter," Langton says. "People like Fahim and Mohammed Atta will not wish to be seen to be dragging their feet in front of the international community. Nor will Dostum. But at the same time, they are not going to disarm more than they need to."
Langton says some aspects of the Bonn Process itself could unravel if Karzai fails to enforce the new political parties law. And certainly, he says, Karzai's credibility will suffer from failure.
"It could add up to undermining the Bonn Process at least partially. What [failure] really [would do] is undermine Karzai himself and reduce his credibility -- certainly amongst Afghans, and to some extent within the international community," Langton says.
In the final analysis, Langton says Karzai's political future in Afghanistan depends upon his ability to bring together the divided ethnic Pashtun clans in the south and east of Afghanistan -- especially as the country heads toward a Constitutional Loya Jirga, originally scheduled for this month but already pushed back to December.
"The real problem is that Karzai's power base was fairly small at first and is really no bigger, and is probably more delicate now than it has been for some time. So we're really on a knife's edge as we go towards a Loya Jirga -- whenever it may be. And it depends to some extent on whether Karzai can give unity of voice to the Pashtun majority in the country, because if he can't, then the Loya Jirga is going to be dominated by the Tajik factions. And if they get their way on all the various issues and the constitution, then it basically isolates the majority ethnic population in the country, which does not bode well for the electoral processes," Langton says.
Other Afghan experts agree that international donors will not be well disposed toward providing additional financial support for the reconstruction of Afghanistan if Karzai is seen to be failing.
Finland contemplating additions to forces in Afghanistan
UN approves expansion of operations outside Kabul
Source: Helsingin Sanomat (Finland) October 15, 2003
According to reports from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Finland is pondering the sending of additional peacekeeping and reconstruction forces to Afghanistan. Markus Lyra, Head of the Political Section at the Foreign Ministry, confirmed to Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday that decisions on the deployment of a further detachment of around 50 men were to be expected in the next few weeks.
The group could be deployed also outside the Afghan capital Kabul, explained Lyra. The new troops would nevertheless be engaged in the same kind of reconstruction work as those Finns already taking part in the work of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul. There are currently some 50 Finns serving in Afghanistan.
The moves follow a unanimously approved resolution passed on Monday night in the United Nations Security Council to expand the deployment of NATO-led ISAF troops into regions outside the capital and throughout Afghanistan.
The sending of a further Finnish peacekeeping unit and the expansion of the area of operation will require separate decisions in Finland. According to Lyra, these are to be expected without delay.
At present, a Finnish detachment of around 50 peacekeepers is engaged in civilian and military cooperation work in Kabul. In practice this means the Finns are repairing infrastructure in the form of local schools, daycare centres, hospitals, and administrative buildings, and also installing wells and water pumping facilities.
The expansion of the ISAF remit will not have any direct impact on the work of the troops currently on the ground in Afghanistan, said the commander of the Finnish unit Col. Hannu Forsman. Forsman was reached by telephone in Kabul on Tuesday.
The Security Council noted that peacekeeping units should be moved rapidly and over a large area. Thus far the operations of the 5,500-strong ISAF force have been limited to the capital and the immediate surrounding area. The majority of the ISAF troops on the ground at present come from Canada and Germany.
NATO officials and representatives of the interim administration in Afghanistan, among them the President Hamid Karzai, have long sought an expansion like this to improve security in rural areas, where Taliban and al-Qaeda rebels have been launching increasingly bold attacks in recent months, targeting police stations, killing aid workers, and confronting U.S. troops in increasing numbers.
US Treasury says Pakistani charity a terror front
WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday accused Al Akhtar Trust International, a Pakistan-based charity, of helping Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and trying to finance attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq.
"Shutting down this organization will cripple yet another source of support for terrorists and possibly help undermine the financial backing of terrorists staging attacks against American troops and Iraqi civilians in Iraq," Treasury Secretary John Snow said in a statement.
By placing the group on a list with 320 other individuals, groups and businesses, the department is requiring U.S. banks to examine their records and freeze any assets found in the group's name. The United States will also submit the list to the United Nations in an effort to make the freeze global.
A Web site for "Al-Akhtar Trust International" described the group as "a nonprofit, non-government organization involved in humanitarian and relief projects in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
The group's projects range from providing rice to flood victims to building mosques and religious schools, according to the site. The section which allows for donations was closed Tuesday, although it was not clear when this occurred.
Treasury said the Karachi-based group was founded in November 2000 to provide financial assistance for Islamic religious fighters and financial support for Afghanistan's now- deposed Taliban rulers."
Treasury officials said the charity had taken over many operations previously performed by the Al Rashid Trust, which the United States put on its terror finance list in September 2001.
"It was al Rashid morphed, and morphed into something more malicious," said Treasury general counsel David Aufhauser at a press briefing.
According to Treasury, the al Akhtar organization secretly treated members of al Qaeda wounded in fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001.
Treasury also said it had information as of March 2003 that an unidentified associate of the group was attempting to raise money to finance "jihad" in Iraq, which means attacks on U.S. forces and Iraqis allied with them.
Aufhauser also said one of the group's principals -- Saud Memon -- loosely tied the group to the murder last year of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The compound where Pearl was killed was owned by Memon, a known financier of militant groups, Treasury said, citing an article in the Wall Street Journal.
Afghanistan to buy more electricity from Turkmenistan
October 15, 2003
Ashgabat. (Interfax) - The Turkmen Ministry of Energy and Industry will sign an additional electricity export agreement with the Afghan Ministry of Water Resources and Energy.
The Turkmen ministry told Interfax that 165 million kWt/h of electricity a year will be exported from Turkmenistan's Imamnazar to Andkhvoy in Afghanistan and another 160 million kWt/h a year from Serkhetabat in Turkmenistan to Afghanistan's Turgundi and Herat.
Taking into account the financial situation in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan will charge $.02 per 1 kWt/h of electricity. The total cost of annual contracts will reach $6.5 million.
To implement joint Turkmen-Afghan power projects, the Turkmen ministry will open a representation office in Kabul.
The Turkmen ministry also intends to sign an additional agreement with Turkish electricity supplier TETAS on selling 300 million kWt/h a year to Turkey at $.0345 per 1 kWt/h at the border between the Iranian and Turkish power grids.
The ministry noted that this agreement is an appendix to the main power supply contract that Turkey and Turkmenistan signed in May 1999.
Taking into account that power will be supplied to Turkey via Iran, the Turkmen ministry will sign an additional transit contract with the Iranian power provider Tavanir and Turkey's TETAS. Iran will receive $.0065 for transiting 1 kWt/h. The transit charge will be paid from the money Turkmenistan will receive for power exports to Turkey.
Hospital closure could leave Paktika without health care
SHIRAN, 15 October (IRIN) - Sitting in the waiting room at the provincial hospital, Bibi Bakhtewazir told IRIN she had travelled several hours by car to reach the facility in Shiran, the principal city of the southeastern province of Paktika, to get medical care for her malnourished child.
"The doctor told me to take him to Ghazni [a neighbouring province around 250 km from Shiran] as the province's only hospital is closing down due to lack of funding," the mother-of-12 said. Bakhtewazir said she was from Barmal, a border district of Paktika, where there was no health facility or medical doctors.
Bakhtewazir is one of thousands in the border province who will soon have to go to neighbouring provinces via unpaved roads to reach the nearest health facility as the province's only hospital in Shiran is due to close soon. "We don't have a car nor can we afford to take a special taxi to Ghazni," she stressed.
According to local doctors, the hospital in Shiran - run by a Kuwait-based NGO - was one of the best in the southeastern region, but they said the hospital started losing staff when the agency's funds were frozen by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for suspected links with Al-Qaeda earlier this year. "We have already run out of funds, we have to close, as no other agency has taken this responsibility," Hasibullah Nikzad, one of the three remaining doctors at the hospital, told IRIN.
The chair of the UNSC Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Heraldo Munoz, told IRIN in Kabul that he was not aware of the specific case of the Kuwaiti NGO's involvement with Shiran hospital, but he emphasised that the committe was able to de-list NGOs where sufficient evidence existed that they were not linked with the two terrorist organisations. "We will look into it. We will have to get information and perhaps a judgement will be made by the committee to revise it but I cannot anticipate that right now."
Resolution 1267 of October 1999 imposed sanctions on Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda for their alleged roles in terrorist acts, including the bombing of US embassies in East Africa, and on the Taliban for harbouring Al-Qaeda. Countries are supposed to enforce a travel ban, a freeze on financial assets and an arms embargo against individuals and groups on a council list of suspected members of the two groups. Munoz chairs the council's committee that monitors compliance with 1267 and Resolution 1455, adopted in January 2003, which tightened the sanctions on the two groups.
Nikzad said the very modern, well-equipped hospital had no money left to cover any further daily expenses, but that he and his colleagues were still visiting patients. "We cannot undertake operations and hospitalise patients as before, because we are losing our doctors and professional support staff," he said.
The 70-bed Shiran hospital began operating at the start of 2003. "Since June we have been trying to find another donor to support operating costs, Nikzad said, adding that the hospital needed a minimum of US $6,000 per month to run.
Government officials in the province told IRIN that they could not run the hospital unless an aid agency covered running costs. "The Ministry of Public Health has said it is too weak to meet all the operational costs of the hospital," Dr Abdul Kabir, the head of the Paktika public health department, told IRIN. Abdul Kabir complained that the government was ignoring the isolated province, and that aid agencies had largely written it off as a security risk.
The ministry acknowledged that getting qualified doctors to work in places like Paktika was difficult. "The most serious challenge with regard to provinces is paying incentives for doctors. Without that we cannot force them to go to provinces, and also security is another impediment which prevents access to many places like Paktika," Dr Mir Azam Mehraban, the Afghan deputy health minister, told IRIN adding that his ministry's budget could not stretch to pay anything more than normal salaries.
Mehraban expressed the hope that the Saudi government would support the operational costs of the hospital. "We are discussing it with the Saudi embassy in Kabul," he said.
According to the deputy minister, Kabul was working on a strategy to pay incentives for doctors throughout the country. "We are pledged by USAID, the World Bank and European Commission to provide incentives for doctors and health workers throughout the country next year," he said adding that the ministry had allocated $4.5 per individual in the provinces for health care, assuming donor support was forthcoming.
Top Al Qaida leader believed to have died in army operation
Islamabad |By Shahid Hussain | 16-10-2003 Gulf News
A top Al Qaida leader is believed to have died in a recent operation launched by the Pakistani army in the northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said yesterday.
"We cannot disclose his name until we reach a conclusion but we believe he was among around a score of Al Qaida figures who are on the FBI list of most wanted people," Sheikh Rashid told Gulf News.
The man had a price on his head, the minister said. He did not mention the amount, but a security source said it was $5million. During the October 2 operation two Pakistani soldiers were also killed while 18 Al Qaida suspects were arrested.
The gunfight erupted when army commandoes besieged a suspected Al Qaida hideout in mud-walled tribal homes five kilometres from the border in Angoor Adda in South Waziristan tribal district.
The armed fighters had been observed by the authorities crossing back and forth from Afghanistan's Paktika province near the Taliban-controlled district of Barmal and the Afghan border town of Shkin.
The militants were believed to have been involved in attacks on US troops which left one US soldier dead earlier this month, army officers said.
On the other hand authorities in South Waziristan stopped a delegation of Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) religious alliance from visiting the site of the army operation. Leader of the MMA team, Liaqat Baloch, said in a statement that political authorities in South Waziristan had told them the visit could not be allowed because of an existing ban on political activities in tribal areas.
After being turned back the MMA delegation addressed a gathering in a mosque in the area and voiced their anger over the restrictions. "FBI agents are freely moving in the tribal areas but elected representatives of the people are being denied access," Baloch told the people.
"We will raise the issue in the parliament," he said.
Meanwhile a federal cabinet meeting in Islamabad under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali discussed and approved a series of measures to improve the law and order situation in the country.
Sheikh Rashid told reporters that banned militant organisations trying to resurface under changed names would be sternly dealt with.
Jamali directed provincial governments to focus on strengthening vigilance system to pre-empt acts of violence, he said.
The minister said cameras would be installed at exit and entry points of major urban centres in the country and security agencies would be geared up to keep anti-social elements under constant watch.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat briefed the Cabinet about progress in the investigation into the recent assassination of MP Maulana Azam Tariq.
Taliban getting money increasingly from drugs, U.N. official says
(AP) - KABUL, Afghanistan - The al-Qaida terror network and Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime are managing to find new sources of funding despite global economic sanctions, the head of a U.N. committee overseeing those sanctions said Tuesday.
Increasingly, the Taliban have turned to drug revenues to pay for their insurgency against Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government, said chairman Heraldo Munoz, who is the Chilean ambassador to the United Nations.
He was in Afghanistan to meet with President Hamid Karzai and other leading Afghan officials to discuss ways to improve intelligence gathering on individuals and companies linked to both the Taliban and al-Qaida.
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of poppy - the raw material used to make heroin. Before it fell, the Taliban enforced a ban on poppy cultivation, but business is booming in the power vacuum that has followed. Many feel local warlords loyal to the government are also profiting from the trade.
"Many of these commanders of the Taliban are cashing drugs for weapons, so there is a strong suspicion of the link between drug trafficking and increased Taliban activity," Munoz said at a news conference.
He said individuals in several Middle Eastern countries are also suspected of backing both the Taliban and al-Qaida, but did not elaborate.
According to Munoz, the U.N. sanctions committee has already frozen more than $120 million around the world from several hundred people and organizations identified as having ties to the two groups.
Al-Qaida and the Taliban, however, are aggressively finding ways to work around them.
"Transfers of money have become more sophisticated," he said. "Al-Qaida has started to adapt to our sanctions."
Munoz said the global effort had changed al-Qaida's structure, with more power falling to individual terror cells.
"It is less hierarchical and more horizontal," he said. "Their units have more autonomy to gain access to funding and weaponry. This makes detection more difficult."
But, he warned: "As they change methods, we as a committee will also be looking at other distribution channels of money."
Munoz said Karzai promised that the Afghan government would meet a requirement to submit a report on al-Qaida and Taliban activities - required from all 191 U.N. member states - by the end of the year.
Munoz also expressed hope that Pakistan and Afghanistan would work together to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida, and said improved intelligence information from Afghan authorities will help the Pakistanis crack down on any Taliban and al-Qaida elements in their territory.
Afghan and Western officials say the two groups have little trouble hiding in the mountains that straddle Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that they sometimes receive safe haven from sympathetic Pakistani officials. The Pakistanis say they are doing all they can against the groups.
The sanctions committee was established by the Security Council in 1999.
The council shifted sanctions from the government of Afghanistan to terror leader Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and remnants of the Taliban in January 2002, after a U.S.-led force ousted the Taliban.
All nations are required to impose an arms embargo and a travel ban and freeze the assets of individuals and groups on a list compiled by the council committee monitoring sanctions.
Drugs Are Good for War
Income from opium is on the rise, fuelling the Taliban resurgence, helping fund Al Qaeda and keeping Afghan warlord armies in the field
By Ahmed Rashid/Lashkargah Far Eastern Economic Review October 16, 2003
In early October, Sher Mohammed Akhunzada, governor of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, called an urgent meeting. With thousands of Helmand's cash-strapped farmers due to start planting poppies later in the month for next year's opium crop, Akhunzada summoned his administration and invited the United States military, the United Nations and Western non-governmental agencies to ask them for help in money, aid projects and law enforcement to persuade farmers not to go ahead. Until the late 1990s, Helmand produced 40% of Afghanistan's opium, which is refined into heroin.
Some 50 provincial officials showed up, as did a U.S. civil-affairs officer and members of the U.S. special forces. But the meeting included no UN official and only one representative from the international NGO community, which has been forced to drastically curtail travel and aid projects in Helmand due to rising violence by the Taliban and drug traders. Only two days earlier, seven of the governor's troops had been killed by a rocket-propelled grenade fired at their car in northern Helmand-apparently by drug traffickers.
The failure to curb poppy cultivation threatens Afghanistan's stability. UN and U.S. diplomats admit that drug income is fuelling the Taliban's resurgence, helping to fund Al Qaeda and keeping Afghan warlords' armies in the field. "A good deal of the revenue raised through drugs goes to the coffers of warlords and terrorists," says Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime in Vienna. These beneficiaries of the drug trade also earn income from smuggling and from customs and agricultural taxes that are collected but not delivered to the central government.
Not surprisingly, the meeting in Helmand failed to bring the governor-or the province's farmers-substantial aid or any alternative to planting poppies. "In the past two years, nothing significant in reconstruction has been done in Helmand, even though it is most strategic for the country's stability," Akhunzada told the meeting. He pointed out that in the two years since the fall of the Taliban, he has reduced the poppy crop in Helmand, "but while the Taliban are paying their fighters $1,000, I only have promises to offer people, not aid."
In 2002 Afghanistan produced 3,400 tonnes of opium, making up 76% of the world's heroin production. This year's harvest figures, due soon, are likely to see an increase, and next year's crop will be determined by how much is planted in the next few weeks.
The situation has been largely ignored due to lack of money or international will. The 11,500 U.S.-led coalition troops in the country and the 5,300 Nato-led peacekeepers in Kabul are not mandated to destroy drug laboratories, disrupt trafficking or help President Hamid Karzai's government take action.
"A dangerous potential exists for Afghanistan to progressively slide into a 'narco-state' where all legitimate institutions become penetrated by the power and wealth of drug traffickers," the International Monetary Fund said in a September report on the Afghan economy.
On a visit to Kabul in September, U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld was asked what the U.S. was doing about drug production. In a rare moment of uncertainty, he replied, "You ask what we're going to do and the answer is, I don't really know."
U.S. Army officials, who have the authority and money to carry out small-scale development projects, say it takes the Pentagon three months and 12 signatures from higher officials to clear the smallest of projects, such as digging a well.
Without military support, the UN Office of Drugs and Crime has virtually thrown up its hands. Instead, it spends more money tightening border controls in Central Asian states that border Afghanistan than in Afghanistan itself. The agency estimates that last year's opium production was worth $20 billion, earning farmers $1.2 billion. In 2002, the official Afghan economy grew 30%, but adding the opium trade would raise the figure to 60%, according to the IMF.
The 300,000 residents of Lashkargah, in the Helmand River valley, live with no electricity, running water or paved roads, cloaked in a permanent pall of dust. But the poverty is deceptive. In the centre of town, thousands of vehicles sit ready for sale-the latest four-wheel drives, pick-up trucks and Mercedes-Benz luxury cars. Pashtun men, surrounded by bodyguards, buy several vehicles at a time, paying cash.
The Helmand River valley is the key to preventing poppy production. In the 1950s the U.S. Agency for International Development built a dam on Kajaki Lake, where the river starts in north Helmand. It was a highly successful project. Millions of hectares of land on either side of the Helmand River became immensely fertile and Helmand became the fruit-and-bread basket for Afghanistan. Hundreds of Americans and their families lived in Lashkargah in the 1950s and 1960s; the former U.S. AID building still boasts a dance floor, a cinema, a bar and a library-all now in disuse.
During the war with the former Soviet Union in the 1980s, Helmand's irrigation system collapsed and farmers began planting poppies, which had always been produced in Afghanistan in small quantities for use in traditional medicine. By the mid-1990s, Helmand was producing 40% of the country's crop.
In the 1980s, "Helmand became a poppy laboratory as its farmers spread their knowledge to other provinces," says Steve Shaulis, who heads the Central Asia Development Group (CADG), an agency carrying out agricultural reconstruction. "Today, poppy production is a countrywide activity."
Shaulis, the only Western civilian at the governor's meeting, is trying to turn the tide by providing farmers the means to grow cash crops, process them to add value and then export them. "We can't stop farmers growing poppies, we can only take their arguments for growing poppies away one by one, by offering real alternatives," says Shaulis.
CADG, with U.S. and British aid money, has tripled cotton production in Helmand with new seeds and expertise, and Helmand almonds and dried apricots are now sold in Europe and the Far East. The profits are ploughed back into the projects, while separate U.S. funds go to community work.
Farmers are being encouraged to grow two cash crops a year and to plant orchards-which take time to grow but are highly lucrative-to make up for the loss of income from poppies. "We follow an integrated approach to developing agricultural products, developing infrastructure and marketing in one package," says Shaulis.
But continuing with poppy production is easiest when the country's agriculture has been shattered by 23 years of war, and a recent drought. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that Afghanistan's arable land area fell by 37% during the war from 1979. To make matters worse, 60% of Afghanistan's cattle died in the 2000-02 drought.
Until Western countries and military forces help the Kabul government with law enforcement, more money directed at agricultural restoration and a strong message of zero tolerance for drug trafficking, the efforts of NGOs are a drop in the ocean. Nato, which has recently committed to expanding peacekeeping outside Kabul, has yet to decide whether it will intervene in drug trafficking.
"Farmers are waiting to see what message is given by President Karzai, the international community and the U.S. military about incentives not to plant poppies," says Shaulis. "If there is no tough message, no aid and no law enforcement, farmers will shrug and go ahead."
Blacks in US Congress united against 87 billion for Iraq
Wed Oct 15, 6:50 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Some three dozen African-Americans in the US Congress are opposed to the White House request for 87 billion dollars to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that the funds are needed in disadvantaged communities across the United States.
"This request has been made at a time when we have yet to rebuild America's schools and other critical infrastructure" said Elijah Cummings, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, at a press conference.
Members of the group said they were troubled that the White House has failed to provide answers to questions submitted by lawmakers on the specifics of the funding request, which further consolidated their opposition to the spending measure.
"We are of one voice on our response to this request for 87 billion," said Representative Maxine Waters a California Democrat in the group.
"We are leading this Congress and the Democratic Caucus in saying no to the president."
Barbara Lee, another Californian in the Democrat-dominated Black Caucus, said the funding request reflects an abdication by the George W. Bush administration on social spending issues.
"We have not ... developed our own infrastructure in America, we have not provided the resources for our schools, our health care system, 44 million uninsured," she said.
"So, yes, I believe the United States is morally responsible for repairing the damage and making whole the people that were hurt, and injured in the bombing and families of those that were killed -- but certainly not long-term reconstruction efforts, whether it be loan or grants," Lee said.
Meanwhile the leader of Democrats in the US House of Representatives also announced Wednesday that she opposes the emergency spending request, and urged other lawmakers to reject the bill as well.
"The President's Supplemental budget request is an 87 billion dollar bailout for his failed policy," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
"It is time for the Bush Administration to be held accountable for its policy, which miscalculated the risk in post-war Iraq, misunderstood the challenge, and misrepresented the facts," she said, urging lawmakers to back substitute a Democratic bill in its place.
Nevertheless, lawmakers in both the House and Senate were expected to approve the massive White House request to fund stabilization operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this week, with the greatest controversy centered on 20 billion dollars intended to rebuild Iraq. Several members of the Black Caucus insisted that the 20 billion dollars for Iraq's redevelopment ought to be in the form of a loan, rather than a grant.
A 67-billion dollar request earmarked to support US troops was expected to sail through both the House and Senate by week's end.
Cummings added there is a good deal of support within the caucus for using Iraq's oil reserves to finance its rehabilitation.
"It has the second largest oil reserves in the world, worth between 2.8 trillion dollars and 5.5 trillion dollars at the current world market rate," the Maryland Democrat said.
House panel to begin Afghanistan hearings
WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- The House Committee on International Relations will hold hearings Thursday on U.S. policy in Afghanistan.
A classified, closed-door CIA briefing was to immediately precede the public hearing.
Witnesses were expected to include William Taylor Jr., the State Department's coordinator for Afghanistan; Peter Rodman, assistant secretary for international security affairs in the Department of Defense; and James Kunder, deputy assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Committee representatives said they want to determine, among other things, what progress has been made on the implementation of the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of 2002, how secure is the United States' military victory in Afghanistan and whether the peace is sustainable under current U.S. strategies and policies.
Afghans yet to lay down arms
A deadly skirmish between warlords last week points to the perils of slow disarmament.
By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The tank battles that claimed nearly 60 lives up in Mazar-e Sharif last week were some of the fiercest since the fall of the Taliban two years ago.
Unlike most recent fights in Afghanistan, this one did not take place between Afghan forces and the resurgent Taliban, but between the armies of two warlords who in theory both owe allegiance to the Afghan Defense Ministry, to the Northern Alliance, and to the US-led forces. In practice, however, Gen. Rashid Dostum and Gen. Atta Mohammad are bitter rivals, and their personal enmity could end up destabilizing a region which has traditionally been a major engine of the Afghan economy. For diplomats and Afghan officials, it was just another sign that the country's effort to disarm warlords is moving too slowly, giving factional commanders the power to speed up or slow down the country's reconstruction at will.
"The lesson of this last week is that without a strong disarmament program, any political conflict or petty feud can be militarized very quickly," says Vikram Parekh, a Kabul-based security analyst at the International Crisis Group, an independent think tank based in Brussels. "The peace process in Mazar has failed because there hasn't been any good faith by the two sides, and there is nothing to compel the two sides to comply."
Afghanistan remains a land controlled by private armies, militias, and armed gangs, each with its own ethnic power base and ambition to get a piece of the national pie. Efforts to demobilize, disarm, and reintegrate militia fighters - numbered at 600,000 by the Defense Ministry - have been studied and planned, but have yet to actually begin. The reason is two fold: America still needs many of these armed groups to maintain security and fight Al Qaeda; and Afghanistan has yet to figure out how to reintegrate a generation of men who have known no other job than war.
It's a situation that could be at least as troublesome to US diplomats, military forces, and aid workers here as the resurgent Taliban itself. "What we're trying to do is undo a part of this country's history that does not fit with today's nation-building goals," says Omar Samad, spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry. "But it has to be a gradual process. On one hand, we can't just let these people loose into society. On the other hand, we can't keep them in these military formations forever. Where do you start, and how do you keep from tilting the balance of power from one region to the other?"
"The people are tired of this fighting," says one senior Interior Ministry official, who helped negotiate last week's cease-fire. "They said, 'We want disarmament. What is the use of these two corps if all they do is fight each other?'"
Excuses for the slow process of disarming Afghanistan - known as disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, or DDR - are as numerous as the various tribal, ethnic, and private militias themselves. First, the process of recruiting and training a new Afghan National Army is painfully slow. Only about 5,300 of the needed 70,000 troops have been trained, and with salaries as low as $50 a month, desertions are rampant.
Second, there is no mechanism for punishing those commanders who fail to disarm their troops - the only peacekeepers in Afghanistan number just 5,500, and they are restricted to Kabul. But most important, the political situation is still so unstable between all the rival ethnic groups and ambitious individuals that it is virtually impossible to convince all the various factions to put down their arms at the same time.
"By demobilizing these militias, you don't want to create a vacuum," says Manoel de Almeida e Silva, spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan. But in the meantime, the process of DDR should not be so slow that it allows militias to hang on forever, he adds.
Last month, the last major roadblock to disarmament was removed when President Hamid Karzai announced a massive shakeup within the top echelons of the Ministry of Defense. Twenty senior leaders in the ministry, all members of the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance militia, were removed in favor of a broader mix of professional military men who reflect the ethnic mix of Afghanistan. Non-Tajik commanders had been reluctant to disarm with the Northern Alliance dominating the Defense Ministry.
President Karzai seemed to have new leverage with the Defense Ministry, as the Japanese government withheld nearly $41 million in aid until the reforms were completed. But even so, the two top ministers, Mohammad Fahim and his deputy, Bismillah Khan, remain top leaders in the Northern Alliance.
With those reforms in hand, Karzai announced that the first phase of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration will start Oct. 24 in the relatively peaceful northern city of Kunduz. Under the Kunduz pilot program, 1,000 fighters selected by their own commanders will be disarmed and channeled to different jobs, such as policemen, civic officials, or common laborers, depending on their skills.
UN officials say that the first six pilot DDR cities will show to Afghan civilians that disarmament has begun. "But 1,000 soldiers is not so large a number that certain factions will feel that they are being targeted," says one senior UN official. "That's the theory, anyway."
At the Ministry of Defense, where the portrait of assassinated Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masood adorns every wall, senior officials say that disarmament will soon make battles like the one last week in Mazar a thing of the past.
Already, a voluntary (and unmonitored) disarmament has occurred in parts of the north, says one Defense Ministry spokesman, with many of the fighters simply returning to their villages to return to their prewar lives. Even so, it may take time for the violent undercurrents of Afghan history to subside.
"The fighting in Mazar has deep roots, this started back during the war against the Soviets between two mujahideen commanders," says Brigadier Meer Jan, spokesman for the Defense Ministry. "You cannot undo all that in a day," he says.
US explores its Afghanistan exit options
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times
KARACHI - With Afghanistan daily slipping into more anarchy and chaos, United States authorities, aware that they are unlikely to ever bring stability to the country by military means, continue to explore political avenues that ultimately could pave the way for them to withdraw from the country.
First there were the talks at the Pakistan Air Force base in Quetta with "moderate" elements of the Taliban (which immediately failed due to the US insistence on the sidelining of Taliban leader Mullah Omar). Then came the formation of Jaishul Muslim, a formal grouping of lesser Taliban lights (which failed even to enter into Afghanistan), and moves to pry some of the more powerful mujahideen commanders from the anti-US resistance movement.
And last week, former Taliban foreign minister Mullah Abdul Wakeel Mutawakil was released from US custody in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, where he had been in detention since handing himself over to the US in February last year.
Mutawakil has often been described in the Western media as a more "respectable" face of the Taliban. Shortly before the US sent troops to Afghanistan in late 2001, he reportedly had a major disagreement with Mullah Omar over sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. It was reported that Mutawakil led a group of Taliban who wanted bin Laden to leave Afghanistan to avoid US reprisals against the regime for sheltering al-Qaeda. Before becoming the Taliban foreign minister, Mutawakil is believed to have served as a spokesman and personal secretary to Mullah Omar.
The US has been forced to pursue different tactics in Afghanistan as a result of the failure of their hand-picked man, interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, to significantly establish his writ (ie, the US writ) over the country, let alone the capital, Kabul. Similarly, the carefully chosen (ie, compliant) governors in the southern provinces have proved incapable of stamping their authority in their regions, which have now become hotbeds of resistance.
The real power pillars of the Kabul regime, including the Northern Alliance and General Abdul Rasheed Dostum, have now clearly marked the boundaries of their interests, and they are at complete odds with those of the US. Pakistan, too, has shown leanings toward those who are not favored by the US right now.
The current role of Pakistan
A few weeks ago, a top US diplomat visited the Pakistani port city of Karachi, and in an informal meeting told this correspondent that the US was very satisfied with Pakistan's role in cracking down on al-Qaeda. "Pakistan really helped us in arresting them," the envoy said. However, with regard to the Taliban, Pakistan's role was altogether another matter, and it could not be fully trusted, the diplomat said.
Over the past months, Pakistan has supported select Afghan commanders with whom it had forged links during the former USSR's invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. These were covert operations, but now Islamabad is openly telling the US that it will "tame" these mujahideen if the US considers them important enough in Afghanistan's power structure.
Well before the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in early 2002, Pakistan did its level best to create an alternative force to fill the looming power vacuum, but unfortunately its choices, including the Hizb-i-Islami, Afghanistan of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, were not acceptable to the US. As a result, Pakistan had to digest the bitter pill of a pro-India, Iran and Russia Northern Alliance being given the dominant slice of power in Kabul.
But now, with the US's first choice proving so poor, US authorities are keen on soliciting Pakistan's assistance in sorting out the mess in Afghanistan, which includes the "moderate" Taliban concept, which initially the US found repugnant.
This initiative has increased with the release of Mutawakil, who is now expected, with help from the Pakistanis, to be given a senior position in the local government in Kandahar, the former spiritual headquarters of the Taliban.
At the same time, options are being explored to recruit other powerful former Taliban ministers into the central cabinet in key positions, including that of defense. On the one hand, they would then be in a position to cool the anti-US resistance, and also serve as a counterweight to the Northern Alliance, which the US is now finding somewhat recalcitrant.
The main problem would remain, though: the big names among the field commanders who have a large and loyal following among the masses. This is where Pakistan comes in, and it is working on behalf of the US to "convert", for example, the legendary mujahideen Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani.
Soon after September 11, 2001, Pakistan authorities invited Haqqani to Islamabad, where he was offered inducements by US authorities to change sides. He refused, and gave up his high position in the Taliban regime to take up arms as a guerrilla against the US-led invading army.
He currently commands a large force in the Paktia, Paktika and Khost regions where the resistance is at its fiercest. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, according to Asia Times Online sources, has assured the US that sooner or later Haqqani will be on their side. Close aides of Haqqani, though, dismiss out of hand such talk. Which leaves the US no closer to breaking the deadlock in the country.
Some well placed sources have confirmed to Asia Times Online that contact between the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan, Dostum and two powerful hardline Islamic parties of the Northern Alliance - the Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan led by Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani and the Ittahad-i-Islami Afghanistan, led by Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf.
Apparently, recent anti-US skirmishes in Sarobi, Logar and Imam Sahab were the result of this new nexus. Such an alliance would further undermine US interests.
Many supporters of former monarch Zahir Shah, who initially backed Karzai in the hopes of royalists being allowed back into government, have become disillusioned as they believe that Karzai wants to become the unequivocal, and long-term leader of Afghanistan.
Karzai did have some support in Kandahar, but the latest mass escape of Taliban prisoners there illustrates that the network in the local administration has deep roots. Ever so slowly, events continue to turn against the US.
But even as the US attempts new approaches to counter these developments, such as talking to moderate Taliban, there is a growing awareness that the Taliban are not the real issue. They became US targets after September 11 for the simple reason that they were providing bin Laden and al-Qaeda sanctuary. The Taliban, therefore, were one of the first real casualties of the "war on terror".
Now, al-Qaeda's network in Afghanistan has effectively been broken, and it poses no threat to the US in that country. Thus, a growing argument runs, since there is no threat, should the US really care who rules the wasteland that is Afghanistan, be it the Taliban or the Northern Alliance or a combination thereof? Better that the US pull out its troops and leave the Afghanis to themselves.
Taking this reasoning a few steps further, one can only speculate how long it will be before the US begins dialogue with Mullah Omar.
Afghan gemstone traders' capture local market
(Dawn - Pakistan) - PESHAWAR - Afghan gemstone traders have captured the local market which is flooded with precious stones smuggled from Afghanistan.
Talking to Dawn, sources said after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, precious stone traders migrated to Peshawar where after sometime they captured almost 75 per cent of the market.
"Local gemstone traders are required to pay the taxes, while the Afghans are exempted from any tax, which allows them to capture the local market," they said.
Large-scale smuggling of precious stones from Afghanistan also helped the Afghan traders to get a complete hold of the Namak Mandi gems market, the sources maintained.
Normally, precious stones are smuggled from Kunar province through the porous border in Bajaur tribal agency. According to official sources, only once an Afghan trader declared precious stones he was carrying to the customs checkpoint at the Torkham border to pay the tax.
"The customs officials had no idea that how much tax should be levied as it was for the first time a trader had brought precious stones to the checkpoint for paying tax," officials at the Torkham border told this correspondent.
"Tax on precious stones varies from 5 per cent to 25 per cent depending how precious a stone is," they said.
"There is no rule to stop Afghan traders from dealing in gemstones in Peshawar. But for export, they have to send their consignment through their Pakistani business partners," the sources said.
"Under an Statutory Regularity Order (SRO) we are exempted from the import duty," Imran Nazir, chief of the organizing committee of the four-day 10th Pakistan Gems and Mineral Show that ended on Tuesday, said.
"According to the SRO, there is no restriction on bringing gemstones from any country," Mr Nazir asserted. But a customs officer of deputy collector rank said the SRO was issued for the free movement of gemstones within the country. For bringing any stone to Pakistan, traders had to pay import duty, he added.
At the gems and mineral show, which is supposed to promote the local industry, many Afghan traders had set up stalls where they had put on display precious stones both from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The organizers of the show said they had allowed only Pakistani traders to set up their stalls, but later they handed over their stalls them to their Afghan partners.
The organizers admitted that about 25 per cent precious stones of Afghan origin were on the display at the show, but they insisted that all of them had been brought after paying duty.
"None of the gem traders has paid the tax on the precious stones being displayed at the show. They will have to take them back to Afghanistan when the exhibition ends," Collector Customs Liaquat Ali Agha said.
Emeralds, lapis lazuli, garnets and kansites mainly from Afghanistan were on display along with other precious stones of Pakistan, particularly ruby, aquamarine, topas, peridot and flourite.
Mr Nazir said the gem traders had booked export orders worth millions of rupees from the dealers from Brazil, China, France, Thailand, Germany, Iran, US and England, whose representatives visited the show.
He added that since the 9/11 incident, gemstones export had dropped drastically and the situation was still the same.
Afghanistan's hour of reckoning
The Globe and Mail, Canada 10/15/2003 By Vikram Parekh
The UN Security Council's decision this week authorizing NATO to expand its 'peacekeeping' operation in Afghanistan will mean far greater danger to the men and women serving there, says VIKRAM PAREKH
International peacekeepers in Afghanistan are about to face great risks of more casualties as they move beyond Kabul to confront increasingly violent warring factions that stand in the way of rebuilding the country. The factions, which have increased their attacks on government and coalition forces, aid workers and even children's schools, are determined to make Afghanistan both ungovernable and indefensible.
But, however great the risks -- and the recent loss of two Canadian soldiers in a mine explosion is a sobering reminder that peacekeepers are working in the face of this danger -- there is no alternative to an expanded international force.
Creating the conditions for a stable and pluralistic government to emerge in Afghanistan, and preventing either a renewed descent into the chaos that spawned the Taliban, or the emergence of a state dominated by an unhealthy mix of religious extremism and narcotics' trafficking, depends upon it.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday hailed the United Nations' decision to allow the international peacekeeping force -- called the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) -- to expand beyond the capital of Kabul and into key areas in some of Afghanistan's most-lawless provinces dominated by insurgent feuding warlords and Taliban rebels. Over the past two years, President Karzai, the United Nations and aid groups have clamoured for an expansion of the international force, arguing that the country's dominant armed factions would otherwise hijack political and economic reconstruction.
But throughout Kabul, there remains much skepticism about the depth of international commitment to Afghanistan's security, and fears that what has been deployed so far -- small coalition-led, civil-military unions called Provincial Reconstruction Teams - cannot adequately respond to the pressing and considerable security needs outside the capital.
Indeed, much more than the 5,500-member current NATO mission and the 450 additional soldiers Germany has pledged to send to the northern district of Kundaz, will be needed to quell violence elsewhere in the country.
The northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif is a case in point. Since the Taliban's defeat in November, 2001, tensions between rival generals, Abdul Rashid Dostum, and Atta Mohammad, have periodically erupted into skirmishes.
Last week, things took a turn for the worse, when General Dostum responded to the disappearance of two of his top commanders by positioning troops and heavy artillery around Mazar-e-Sharif, which is largely controlled by Gen. Mohammad. Some 50 to 60 casualties were reported in fighting between the two factions.
Stabilizing the North requires international peacekeepers in sufficient strength and numbers to militarily secure Mazar-e-Sharif and create a neutral space in which non-factional police can be recruited and trained.
Neither of the warring generals is likely to risk incurring the political liability -- locally or internationally -- of confronting an international force, nor would either have the capacity to do so. In fact, in the rare cases where the coalition has actively backed attempts by President Karzai to extend his authority, resistance has been minimal.
More daunting challenges face peacekeepers in southern Afghanistan and parts of the east. Operating from bases in Pakistan and domestic redoubts, Taliban forces and the loosely allied Hizb-e-Islami troops of former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar have stepped up attacks on government and coalition targets, aid workers and girls' schools. They have done so using a variety of tactics and instruments: ambushes, rocket-propelled and hand grenades, and remote-detonated explosive devices.
These tactics are aimed not only at making the region ungovernable and indefensible, but also at diminishing the dividends for local civilians from the coalition intervention. To a large extent, they are succeeding. With aid agencies having withdrawn from most areas of the south, the mainly Pashtun population -- already alienated by northern dominance of the central government, heavy-handed coalition search operations, and pervasive corruption -- increasingly sees little to justify the continued international presence in Afghanistan.
The existing Afghan military cannot secure Afghanistan without the aid of strong international forces. The military is composed of factions of the former United Front, as well as other forces that were armed and financed by the coalition in its campaign to depose the Taliban. Most have diffuse command structures, lack proper training and are poorly equipped. Irregular or low pay has led to high rates of absenteeism and desertion. In many areas throughout the country, army and police units are little more than criminal bands engaged in robbery, extortion and smuggling.
The deployment last summer in the southeastern Paktia province of a battalion of the new Afghan National Army (ANA), under coalition command, enabled professional, centrally appointed police and army officers to take over leadership of provincial security institutions and pave the way for their reform and restructuring. The previous police commander, having unsuccessfully tried to recapture his post, was taken into custody at the Bagram coalition base, north of Kabul. The establishment of the new army has proceeded slowly, however, with only about 6,000 officers and troops trained to date by the U.S., Britain and France. For this reason alone, it's hard to foresee the ANA replicating its success in Paktia on a national level any time soon.
For Afghanistan, this is the hour of reckoning. The political process agreed to by the rival Afghan camps in Bonn in December of 2001 -- including the adoption of a new constitution by a loya jirga (National Assembly) scheduled for this December, and the holding of elections for a president and parliament, planned for next year -- has the potential to usher in a more representative and accountable government. But that will only be possible in a security environment in which individuals and parties committed to democratic governance are able to campaign openly.
At present, few are prepared to do so, because of the continued dominance of these armed factions that seek to control the political process, or threats from opposition elements that aim to prevent it. Time is unlikely to relax the influence of either camp, especially with a rapidly growing poppy trade providing lucrative sources of income and the means of purchasing arms and support. That's why Afghanistan needs the world now.
Afghan constitution evolves
The Baltimore Sun 10/15/2003
Today, Afghanistan begins electing representatives to a grand assembly - a Loya Jirga - that will meet in December to adopt a new constitution.
The Loya Jirga will have 500 members, 450 elected by voters and 50 selected by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The president plans to publish a draft of the new constitution, which will be the nation's seventh, within a week.
The first constitution was signed in 1923 by Amanullah Khan, the ruler who led the fight for freedom from British control in 1919. Though the constitution was conservative and followed Islamic law, Amanullah ordered women to take off the veil, antagonizing tribal leaders.
Amanullah's constitution was made more conservative in 1931 by King Nadir Shah. His son, King Muhammad Zahir Shah, presided over a more liberal constitution, written in 1963, which provided for a constitutional monarchy and established a more secular system of law.
King Zahir was removed in a coup in 1973, and his constitution was abandoned and replaced in 1976. That constitution, unlike the others, mentioned the rights of women.
Other constitutions were written in 1987 and 1990, as governments changed during the turbulent years of war and Soviet occupation and the chaos after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. The last constitution was written in 1990; when they Taliban took over, they operated without one.
King Zahir returned to Afghanistan last year from exile in Italy and was on hand in April to convene the commission writing the new draft constitution.
Translations of the constitutions can be found at the Afghanistan Web site, http://www.afghangovernment.com/
Following are excerpts from some of the earlier constitutions:
- Kathy Lally
1923 Constitution
Article 1: Afghanistan is completely free and independent in the administration of its domestic and foreign affairs. All parts and areas of the country are under the authority of his majesty the king and are to be treated as a single unit without discrimination between different parts of the country.
Article 2: The religion of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam. Followers of other religions such as Jews and Hindus residing in Afghanistan are entitled to the full protection of the state provided they do not disturb the public peace.
Article 13: Subjects of Afghanistan shall have the right to submit individual or collective petitions to government officials for the redress of acts committed by officials or others against the Sharia [religious law] or other laws of the country.
1963 Constitution
Article 1: Afghanistan is a constitutional monarchy; an independent, unitary and indivisible state. Sovereignty in Afghanistan belongs to the nation. ...
Article 21: In case the King dies before his successor has completed twenty years of life, the Queen shall act as regent until his successor reaches the stipulated age. In case the Queen be not living, the Electoral College, provided under Article 19 of this Constitution, shall elect someone from amongst the male lineal descendants of his majesty Mohammad Nadir Shah, the martyr, to act as regent.
Article 32: Afghan citizens have the right to assemble unarmed, without prior permission of the state, for the achievement of legitimate and peaceful purposes. ... Afghan citizens have the right to form political parties, in accordance with the terms of the law, provided that: 1) The aims and activities of the party and the ideas on which the organization of the party is based are not opposed to the values embodied in this constitution.
1976 Constitution
Article 2: The exercise of power by the people, the majority of whom consists of farmers, workers, the enlightened people and the youth.
Article 8: The elimination of exploitation in all its forms and manifestations.
Article 27: All the people of Afghanistan, both women and men, without discrimination and privilege, have equal rights and obligations before the law.
Article 41: Work is the right, honor and duty of every Afghan who has the capability of doing it. The major purpose of the laws that shall be promulgated to regulate work is to reach the stage in which the rights and interests of all toilers, farmers, workers and trades are protected, suitable working conditions provided, and in which relations between the worker and the employer are regulated on a just and progressive basis. The choice of work and vocation is free, within the terms determined by the law.
1987 Constitution
Article 2: The sacred religion of Islam is the religion of Afghanistan. In the Republic of Afghanistan no law shall run counter to the principles of the sacred religion of Islam and other values enshrined in this constitution.
Article 6: The National Front of the Republic of Afghanistan, as the broadest, sociopolitical organization, unites political parties, social organizations and individual members enrolled in their ranks for ensuring their active participation in the social, political and civic spheres on the basis of a common program.
Article 19: In the Republic of Afghanistan, state, mixed, cooperative, religious trust, and private property as well as properties of political and social organizations exist. The state protects all forms of lawful properties.
Article 21: The state shall assist strengthening and expansion of cooperatives and shall encourage the voluntary participation of the people to this end.
Article 23: The state guarantees the right of ownership of land of the peasants and other land owners in accordance with the law. The state shall adopt necessary measures for the realization of democratic changes in agriculture keeping in view the interests of peasants and other land owners. The state encourages the establishment of big agricultural and mechanized state, mixed and private farms and helps the reclamation of virgin lands.
Article 29: The hereditary right to property shall be guaranteed by law on the basis of Islamic Sharia.
1990 Constitution
Article 3: The Republic of Afghanistan is a nonaligned country which does not join any military bloc and does not allow establishment of foreign military bases on its territory.
Article 6: This article is abolished. ...
Article 38: Citizens of the Republic of Afghanistan, both men and women have equal rights and duties before the law, irrespective of their national, racial, linguistic, tribal, educational and social status, religious creed, political conviction, occupation, kinship, wealth, and residence. Designation of any illegal privilege or discrimination against rights and duties of citizens are forbidden.
Positioning Tactics for Elections - Can Karzai Ride on His Own Popularity?
Afghaniyat NewsGroup 10/15/2003 By Dr. G. Rauf Roashan
Abstract: Nobody with armed forces behind them can continue their political activities, Justice Minister Abdul Rrahim Karimi told a news conference Sunday. The government has published new election laws that ban warlords from runni ng for office. In the wake of the new developments and in anticipation of both the Loya Jirga in December 2003 and general elections in June of next year, parties and personalities have started positioning themselves for political action. It would seem that Mr. Hamid Karzai wants to ride on his own popularity. Would this be enough for him to win the elections?
"Nobody with armed forces behind them can continue their political activities," Justice Minister Abdul Rrahim Karimi told a news conference Sunday. The government has published new election laws that ban warlords from running for office. This is not the first time that President Karzai has attempted to bring about a distinction between military and political operations. But mainly because of the weakness of the central government and the delay and extremely slow development of the national army, Karzai's writ has remained limited.
When he was busy visiting the Untied States and Europe a few days ago, some leaders of the so-called mujahidin groups including Karzai's vice president and minister of defense Marshal Fahim, as well as education minister Qanooni together with leaders of the era of the war against the Soviet occupation met in Kabul. It was reported that the meeting discussed creation of a new party in favor of the jehadi groups. It was also reported but not confirmed that the meetings discussed a possible withdrawal of support from the government of Mr. Karzai. Faction and party leaders such as Mojadedi, Sayaf, and Gailani were also mentioned as participants.
In the wake of the constitutional Loya Jirga and the plan for holding of elections in June of next year, political parties and groupings are busy positioning themselves. The Northern Alliance, one of the main power houses with military strength, and especially one of its leaders, Mr. Fahim who has the largest of private armies in the country seemed to be the main contenders for power. Other parties including a few newer ones too, started to take earnest action in an effort to position themselves for the elections. Reports about these meetings indicated that while the participants had discussed strategy regarding next Afghan elections, they had not come up with naming of specific candidates. However, Professor Rabbani's name appeared in the news as a possible candidate. Marshal Fahim reportedly did not seem interested in running for office, as his grasp on power is stronger in his present position as defense minister. Some commentators suggested he might be interested to run for prime minister' s position if the new constitution provides for a stronger role to be given to the prime minister as opposed to the president. However, this new development seems to have wiped out that possibility, because presently Marshal Fahim could not legally run for either of the two positions as he is leading a private army of his own.
Mr. Karzai presently seems not to have a party of his own and has not affiliated himself with any of the existing ones. It seems odd for a politician without party to stand for elections. However, many think that Mr. Karzai is gambling on his own, one-man popularity and hopes to win the elections. It may also be that he is assured of some degree of national support while enjoying full international backing especially by the United States.
Recent developments also brought to fore the important issue of the role of the so-called mujahidin groupings and those who had fought, in one way or another, in the Afghan jihad and would now like not only to be called mujahid (holy warrior) but also eligible for political and administrative positions because of their sacrifices in the way of the country's freedom.
Regarding this latter point, it is needed that either the constitution or the upcoming Loya Jirga come up with a definition of who is a mujahid and whether a mujahid be given extra-ordinary benefits in the country's social and political structure notwithstanding their professional and technical abilities.
There is also a need for clarification of the issue whether the mujahids fought for the freedom of their country and defense of their religion or for acquisition of worldly power and position? Furthermore, the position of the armed groupings that go under the name of Mujahidin or a variety of factions also need to be clarified. Are they to remain as parallel military powers with the elected governments of Afghanistan in the future? And if so, for how long? If not what is going to happen to their arms and heavy weaponry and who is to collect the same and with what power? A recent United Nations report suggested that one of the main recommendations of the Bonn meeting upon which the contemporary Afghan administration is based and which called for the demilitarization of Kabul had not been accomplished mainly because the heavy arms including tanks and rocket launchers belonging to factions and specifically those belonging to the deputy defense minister still remained in Kabul. Other armies run by Ismail Khan, Dostum, Atta Mohammad and a number of other provincial warlords also are to be considered. The UN report had come short of asking the fundamental question of why should individuals be allowed to keep armies and arms if they recognize and are part of the country's administration?
Under these situations and while many political movements and parties have started getting registered in the country, democratic process seems to have been launched. However, deep down signs are that many politicians who give it only lip service for propaganda purposes do not hail democratic process in its full scale. The government seems to have become intolerant to media that is critical of its actions or inquisitive regarding its achievements or the lack thereof. The closing of a public paper that had become famous for its critique of the government is cited as an example of the administration's intolerance of free expression.
Many observers look forward to the upcoming Loya Jirga, the process for the selection of deputies to which has already been launched. The document that the Loya Jirga would study and pass, the constitution, would lay the foundation of a new Afghanistan that would rise from the ashes of a quarter of a century of imposed wars. It would allow the nation to prepare for the election of a permanent government. One of the obvious candidates, Mr. Karzai has already acknowledged that he would run. But, except for the political move of banning military personnel and the warlords from running, he has not embarked on any party based grass roots efforts to gain support for his candidacy. A situation like this shows that his optimism for success may have its roots in the support he enjoys in the international community, or assurances he has received from national elders. Otherwise running only on his own popularity as the first president of the post-Taleban era may not be sufficient reliance for success especially considering lack of progress in the fields of reconstruction, development of a national army, wiping out of Taleban who have proven a great headache for his administration and the nation as a whole, and difficulty in gaining of a smooth transition from a militaristic approach of the warlord mentality to a civil society.
Intel: Muslims Who Back al-Qaida Eye Iraq
Associated Press Wednesday October 15, 5:01 AM
Sunni Muslim extremists who sympathize with the al-Qaida terror network intend to make Iraq their next battleground, as in Bosnia, Chechnya and Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, say U.S. intelligence officials monitoring their communications.
American intelligence experts estimate that several hundred to several thousand violent Islamic militants have entered Iraq to make war on U.S. and British forces. And the collective decision by so-called jihadists across the Islamic world suggests more are on the way, if they can make it to Iraq.
Whether enough will arrive to create a sustained guerrilla war is not yet clear, U.S. officials said.
"Iraq is emerging as the next jihad venue for Sunni extremists," according to one recent U.S. intelligence report obtained by The Associated Press. "Similar to Afghanistan, Chechnya and Bosnia, many extremists are rallying to join the fight."
For now, however, the greatest threat in Iraq remains the surviving members of Saddam Hussein's secular rule who are conducting guerrilla war and are suspected of carrying out terror bombings since the U.S. invasion, intelligence officials say.
There are scattered signs of contacts and cooperation between some foreign jihadists and Saddam's supporters, the officials say. But this appears to have emerged only recently and is not regarded as evidence of prewar collusion between Saddam and al-Qaida.
Still, U.S. officials acknowledge they don't have a good handle on what Americans face in Iraq. Major bombings, including the Aug. 19 strike at the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, remain unsolved.
Intelligence officials acknowledge the jihadists don't operate with a single will. The officials use the term _ jihad means holy war _ to describe Sunni Muslim extremists willing to travel from their home countries to fight. Many operate under the umbrella of the al-Qaida network. Some are members, others sympathizers.
The intelligence officials try to get a sense of attitudes by watching Internet chat rooms, Web sites and publications, and by following the words of religious leaders with a known extremist bent. Recent messages from Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's chief surviving deputy, have called for attacks against Americans in Iraq.
In previous conflicts that drew significant numbers of jihadists, the fighters used guerrilla tactics against technologically superior occupying forces. They became experienced fighters and established relationships with like-minded men from other countries.
The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was the genesis of al-Qaida. During the 1980s, Islamic fighters traveled to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Afghan resistance. After the Soviets left in 1989, bin Laden, who financed some of those fighters' travel and training, founded al-Qaida as a support organization for veterans.
Over time, the international connections hardened as bin Laden pledged to continue the Afghan jihad around the world.
Two of the fighters who took part in defending Bosnian Muslims from Serbs and Croats in 1995 were young Saudis named Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. They went on to play an organizing role in the Sept. 11 attacks and died on the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
In Bosnia and Afghanistan, the invading forces eventually left, after the jihadists found themselves on the same side as the United States and other Western powers. The fighting in Chechnya has led to terrorist attacks in Moscow.
The man running extremist operations in Iraq is thought to be Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian whom the CIA describes as a senior associate of bin Laden.
Zarqawi has been inside Iraq in recent months but his current whereabouts are unknown. He has supporters in Jordan, some of whom have probably moved to Iraq to take part in attacks on U.S. forces.
He is also tied to Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Islamic extremist group, U.S. officials say. The group was based in northern Iraq, in a region outside of Saddam's control, before the war, and was bombed by U.S. warplanes during the fighting. Its members can also move into nearby Iran, according to intelligence officials.
Now, surviving Ansar members serve as guides and fixers for foreigners entering Iraq, officials say.
"Ansar al-Islam is closely tied to al-Qaida and is an extension of the network in Iraq," the U.S. intelligence report says. On Tuesday, U.S. officials confirmed the capture of a man they described as the No. 3 operative in Ansar.
Jihadists began entering Iraq in significant numbers during the summer, officials have said. L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said last month that 19 al-Qaida members were among some 248 foreign fighters detained by U.S. forces in the country.
"There are some dangerous people in Iraq," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday. "Iraq has become the central front in the war on terrorism."
About half the foreign fighters are from Syria, with large numbers also from Iran and Yemen, Bremer said.
Elements of some of the bombings may be indicative of the work of al-Qaida and its allies.
The Aug. 7 car bombing at the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad may suggest the involvement of Zarqawi, who is accused of plotting other strikes against his home country, U.S. officials say.
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