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Taliban no longer pose threat to stability of Afghanistan: FM
Wednesday September 3, 10:25 AM AFP
Despite a surge in military action by the Taliban in recent weeks which has left dozens dead, Afghanistan's foreign minister said he believes the militia no longer pose a threat to the stability of his war-torn country.
"They can hamper, they can try to alter how the situation in Afghanistan is seen, but they cannot pose a major threat to the stability of the country," Abdullah Abdullah told a news conference Tuesday following talks with his Portuguese counterpart Antonio Martins da Cruz.
"In Afghanistan the course of history was reversed as a result of the action by the international community, but they (Taliban) don't want to admit their big defeat," he added. "These incidents do not reveal a setback."
US-led forces launched a war in Afghanistan in October 2001 to remove the radical Islamic Taliban regime, which harboured the extremist al-Qaeda network, from power.
But some 20 months after the fall of the Taliban, members of the militia continue to stage regular attacks on coalition and Afghan government troops, as well as aid workers, in an apparent bid to undermine the government of President Hamid Karzai which replaced them in power.
The attacks have increased in frequency in recent weeks as the remnants of the Taliban regime appear to have regrouped.
Two US soldiers were killed in a firefight in southeastern Afghanistan on Monday, bringing the death toll from a week of fighting against suspected Taliban to 85.
The rising level of violence prompted Washington on Tuesday to bar US diplomats in Kabul from any unofficial travel in the Afghan capital.
The United Nations meanwhile warned last month that security in Afghansitan needs to drastically improve in order for presidential elections to be held as scheduled in June 2004.
The UN is scheduled to begin a drive to register some 10 million Afghan voters in October but is concerned over the lack of security, especially in the south of the country.
Abdullah said the government was doing everything it could to ensure the vote takes place as scheduled.
"We are all determined to wark hard and be on time," he said.
The Afghan foreign minister was in Portugal to take part in a two-day international conference on terrorism which ended Tuesday.
Rumsfeld Heads to Iraq, Afghanistan
Alex Belida Pentagon 02 Sep 2003, 17:07 UTC VOA
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to travel to both Iraq and Afghanistan this week. Details are being kept secret for security reasons, but Mr. Rumsfeld's trip comes amid continuing violence in both countries despite efforts of U.S. troops to restore security.
Another bombing occurs in Baghdad, this time at a police station. In Afghanistan, meanwhile, Taleban fighters attack government security forces, killing and capturing several of them. In addition, two U.S. soldiers are fatally wounded.
The Baghdad bombing is the fourth in a month. The Afghan skirmishes appear to reflect what one Pentagon spokesman terms a "regrouping" of Taleban forces, two years after their ouster from power.
But that spokesman and other defense officials remain optimistic about the pace of efforts by the more than 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and the 10,000 others in Afghanistan to root out resistance forces like Saddam Hussein loyalists and the Taleban.
In Iraq, for example, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Cassella says U.S-led coalition forces are getting more and better intelligence that is enabling them to carry out more precision raids against Saddam's remaining supporters and other groups staging attacks.
Colonel Cassella, a Pentagon spokesman, tells VOA the military still needs more intelligence, especially in the wake of a series of four terrorist bombings in the past month, against the Jordanian embassy, the U.N. headquarters, a Shiite holy shrine and now a police station.
He says the blasts are under investigation but he says military experts believe they reflect a shift in tactics by opponents of the U.S.-led coalition. Though there continue to be what he calls harassment attacks on coalition soldiers, those types of attacks appear to be diminishing, apparently, he says, because they were not working - hence the shift to terrorist type bombings claiming more Iraqi than American lives.
More and more Iraqi security forces are being stood up to take over more responsibility for guarding strategic and other sites, including borders. But Colonel Cassella admits attacks may continue because he says every potential target in Iraq cannot be guarded 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
As for Afghanistan, though Taleban forces may be regrouping and trying more attacks, defense officials, including Pentagon spokesman Cassella, say every time they show themselves, they are smashed - whether by U.S.-led coalition forces or by Afghanistan's new national army or provincial militia.
The apparent surge in attacks may indicate what Colonel Cassella calls a miscalculation by the Taleban and its supporters. He says if they believed U.S. attention on Iraq has lessened the American commitment to Afghanistan, then the Taleban have made a mistake.
He says U.S. forces remain dedicated to building both a new Afghanistan and a new Iraq.
Taliban Said Teaming With al-Qaida Again
Tue Sep 2, 3:55 PM ET By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The Taliban are no longer on the run and have teamed up with al-Qaida once again, according to officials and former Taliban who say the religious militia has reorganized and strengthened since their defeat at the hands of the U.S.-led coalition nearly two years ago.
The militia, which ruled Afghanistan (news - web sites) espousing a strict brand of Islam, are now getting help from some Pakistani authorities as well as a disgruntled Afghan population fed up with lawlessness under the U.S.-backed interim administration, according to a former Taliban corps commander.
"Now the situation is very good for us. It is improving every day. We can move everywhere," said Gul Rahman Faruqi, a corps commander of the Gardez No. 3 garrison during the Taliban's rule.
"Now if the Taliban go to any village, people give them shelter and food. Now the people are tired of the looters and killers," Faruqi told The Associated Press, referring to regional warlords aligned with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government.
In most parts of Afghanistan regional powers operate with relative impunity, terrorizing residents, extorting money, dealing in drugs and running lucrative smuggling routes.
"Before people didn't believe the Taliban were around. They thought we were finished so they were afraid. But now they see that we are active and they see there is no other alternative to the looters and killers," said Faruqi, who was interviewed Monday in neighboring Pakistan.
"We know they don't like the Taliban, but they hate the looters and killers even more."
In the Afghan capital, a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the religious militia, working with al-Qaida, has regrouped, changed tactics and now operates in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
Faruqi scoffed at suggestions that coalition forces have them on the run.
"We have new bases all over Afghanistan. We have just reached to Faryab province. There are 10,000 American soldiers. They can't be everywhere. We are not afraid.... we know we can move freely," Faruqi said.
The Taliban have appointed military councils in each Afghan province, re-established military bases in the country, developed a command structure and injected discipline into the ranks, he said.
On the newest battlefield in southeastern Zabul province — where U.S. special forces, the 10th Mountain division and Afghan government soldiers are waging "Operation Mountain Viper" — Faruqi said the Taliban's military command structure is fixed: Abdul Jabbar, a former aide to the Taliban's Balkh governor, is in charge. His field commanders are Amir Khan Haqqani and Ghulam Nabi. All three are from Zabul province.
The Zabul provincial chief of intelligence for Karzai's government, Khalil Hotak, agreed that the Taliban have strengthened.
"The Taliban are regrouping, having meetings in districts. In Zabul province 80 percent of the people in every district are loyal to the Taliban," Hotak told AP on Tuesday.
"They are uneducated people," he said. "They are close to the religious people. The Taliban are preaching in the districts and have convinced people that the U.S. people are infidels and that the Afghan government is supporting infidels against Islam."
An incident one month ago in a village in southern Afghanistan was evidence of the Taliban's propaganda campaign.
When the U.S. military entered the village to search for suspected Taliban, residents wrapped copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in white cloth and hid them in a dry riverbed. They were frightened the American soldiers would arrest or kill them because they were Muslims, said a U.S. military statement.
American soldiers reassured village elders that they had nothing to fear because of their religion.
In recent months the Taliban have targeted Afghan police, blowing up their vehicles, ambushing their patrols and attacking their stations.
Before attacking a police station, the Taliban send a letter. "We tell them that the Americans are their enemy and that they should let us cross. If they say yes we don't attack if they say no we attack," Faruqi said.
He said they draw support from some conservative tribal people and from some in the Pakistani military and intelligence community.
"There are some in the army who are under the influence of the CIA (news - web sites) and they will hand us over, but there are many who are Muslims and will not," he said.
About two months ago, the Pakistani military captured several Taliban, including a former deputy governor.
However, Faruqi said, "One of the big intelligence men in Pakistan sent a letter to a local ISI (Pakistan's spy agency) person and said 'If you are Muslim you will release the Taliban you have arrested and if you don't release them then know that you are still a human being and they will kill you.' They remain in jail, but Faruqi said, "I can tell you that they will be released."
Small training camps exist in Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said.
"We don't need to learn about jihad, we know how to fire our guns. It is to teach about explosives, and bombs and ambushes," he said.
The theory of bomb making is taught in camps in Pakistan, he said, gesturing to indicate the explosions are carried out in Afghanistan.
A second former Taliban, who speaks Arabic and identified himself only as Abdullah, was interviewed in northwest Pakistan, where he had come from Afghanistan to buy old, broken radios and televisions and circuitry to use in making remote-control devices.
"There will be more explosions," the man said. "You should know we will not stop. We are stronger."
Afghan Taliban Says It Sends 300 Reinforcements
Tue Sep 2,11:29 AM ET By Saeed Ali Achakzai
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Taliban has sent 300 more fighters to the southern province of Zabul to help battle Afghan government and U.S.-led troops, a commander from the ousted militia said Tuesday.
Maulvi Faizullah, a senior Taliban commander involved in fighting in Zabul, said a fresh wave of militants had been deployed in Dai Chopan district to join up to 1,000 others who have been fighting in the area for the last eight days.
The reinforcements were being led by former Taliban Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, Faizullah told Reuters. They had been sent from Khost province in the east bordering Pakistan, he said.
Zabul provincial intelligence chief Khalil Hotak said Afghan government forces backed by U.S.-led troops were searching in the Koh Larzab area of Dai Chopan, where he said Taliban militants were believed to be hiding in caves.
There were no air attacks from U.S. and allied jet fighters and helicopter gunships early Tuesday and no direct contact with the Taliban fighters, he added.
According to a U.S. military spokesman, soldiers from the 20-nation force hunting remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden clashed with small enemy units of five to 10 men Tuesday and trapped one group in a cave.
Suspected Taliban guerrillas and their supporters, who the U.S. military says have been scattered, are using small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades against U.S.-led troops and their Afghan allies.
HOLY WAR
The Taliban has declared a "jihad," or holy war against foreign forces, aid organizations and allies in Afghanistan.
Afghan policemen, soldiers and aid workers have borne the brunt of the attacks, with Taliban officials calling them spies for foreign organizations or supporters of the United States and the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
The battle in Zabul helped make August the bloodiest month since the Taliban was toppled from power by U.S. air power and Afghan ground forces in late 2001.
Afghan officials and commanders say more than 90 Taliban fighters have been killed, most of them in air raids, while the Taliban say its losses are far lower. The U.S. military has reported at least 37 Taliban losses in the Zabul fighting.
There were no fresh casualties reported by either side on Tuesday.
A U.S. embassy spokesman in Kabul said resurfacing work on a highway from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar was continuing despite a string of recent killings along the road.
Early Monday four policemen were killed, four were wounded and four went missing after a raid on their checkpoint 115 miles northeast of Kandahar in Zabul province.
Indian contractors working for U.S. company Louis Berger Group Inc came under small-arms fire in a guest house nearby.
In a separate attack, two of the company's security guards were shot dead when assailants opened fire on their vehicle.
Two more attacks were carried out late Sunday or early on Monday in Zabul and the neighboring Uruzgan province, taking to 11 the number of people killed in the area.
The highway is the largest reconstruction project in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, and its progress is seen as a barometer of the success or otherwise of the central government in stabilizing the country.
Afghan warlord's aide arrested
Reuters 09/02/2003
KABUL - Afghan authorities have arrested a former mujahideen commander loyal to renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a senior police official says. Kabul's deputy police chief, Khalil Aminzada, said commander Qalam of Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami faction was arrested in a raid along with four colleagues in the city on Sunday night.
Hekmatyar has declared jihad, or holy war, against U.S.-led foreign forces in Afghanistan.
Government officials charge that Hekmatyar has allied with remnants of the former Taliban regime ousted in late 2001 and the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Hekmatyar and the other groups have been blamed for rocket and bomb attacks in Kabul and other parts of the country since the fall of the Taliban.
Aminzada said the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul also took part in the raid and Qalam was being interrogated by Afghan intelligence officials.
An ISAF official said arms and ammunition were found in Qalam's possession.
Qalam served as a key commander of Hekmatyar's forces in the Sarobi area to the east of Kabul in 1990s.
The whereabouts of Hekmatyar, a former prime minister of Afghanistan who rained rockets on Kabul during factional clashes in the 1990s, have not been known since Iran expelled him last year.
Pakistan says Taliban backbone broken, rules out regrouping
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistani officials said that the backbone of the Taliban had been broken and dismissed as baseless reports that the ousted Afghan militia was reorganising in Pakistan. "There is no regrouping of the Taliban on the Pakistani soil, absolutely none," foreign office spokesman Masood Khan told a weekly press briefing on Monday.
"Our assessment is that the backbone of Taliban has been broken." There are some "splinter groups" of Taliban in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and "all efforts are being made not to allow them to regroup," he added.
"Our campaign against the Taliban is very intense," he said, referring to the recent arrest of about two dozen Taliban suspects in southwestern Baluchistan.
Afghan officials have recently charged that Taliban loyalists were regrouping on the Pakistani side of the porous 2,400-kilometer (1,488-mile) border and organising attacks inside Afghanistan. The war-shattered country is facing a surge in violence against aid workers, soldiers and government targets, blamed largely on resurgent Taliban fighters.
"There is heavy concentration of Taliban on the Afghan side because the Taliban come from Afghanistan and they have sympathisers there too," Khan said. He described elements of the hardline militia a "common problem" for both Pakistan and Afghanistan and called for increased cooperation between the neighbours to tackle the issue.
Khan said the issue came under discussion when Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri visited Kabul last month and held detailed talks with Afghan leaders, including foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. "The general sense was that the right thing to do was to share intelligence and information," Khan said.
US and Afghan forces have launched a fresh offensive against suspected Taliban resurgents holed up in the Daychopan mountains in southeast Zabul province. The provincial military chief General Garni has reportedly claimed that the Taliban's spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who has eluded a 22-month hunt by the US-led military coalition, may be hiding in the mountain of Zabul.
Afghan Road Work Goes on Despite Deadly Attacks
Tue Sep 2, 3:20 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Construction work on the Kabul-Kandahar highway has continued uninterrupted despite deadly attacks on Afghan government checkpoints and employees of a U.S. company, a U.S. embassy spokesman said on Tuesday.
"Road work continued today," the embassy spokesman said in Kabul. "This was not a good situation, but the road is still working."
He added that security had been beefed up along the 480 km (300 mile) road linking Kabul with the main southern city of Kandahar.
The attacks in the early hours of Monday happened around 180 km (110 miles) northeast of Kandahar in the province of Zabul, where up to 1,000 Taliban militants have been fighting Afghan forces backed by U.S. troops and air support.
A spokesman for the U.S. Louis Berger Group Inc, which was awarded the contract to repair the vital road link last year, said on Monday that four policemen were killed, four wounded and four missing after an attack along the highway.
After the checkpoint had been overrun, the assailants opened fire on a guest house where Indian contractors for the company were staying.
In a separate attack, two Afghan security guards working for Louis Berger were killed when their vehicle was shot at. All of the fatalities were Afghans, the spokesman said.
The attacks were a blow to the central government, which has made the road project a top priority.
It is the largest single reconstruction project in the war-ravaged country, and its success is seen as symbolic of the success or failure of President Hamid Karzai to unite his country and impose stability outside Kabul.
Taliban shop in Pakistan for guns to fuel war
Daily Telegraph 03/09/2003
Tribes on the Afghan border are giving fighters sanctuary, reports Ahmed Rashid in Gulanai
Just a few miles from the Afghan border in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal agency, Haji Ahmed Khan stocks everything a Taliban or al-Qa'eda fighter might want.
His shop in Gulanai is packed to the rafters with Chinese-made Kalashnikovs for as little as £150, pallets of ammunition, sleeping bags, water bottles and flak jackets.
The Taliban's renewed offensive in Afghanistan is being fuelled by fighters, arms, money and logistical support from Pakistan's border areas of North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan.
Pathan tribesmen there are overwhelmingly opposed to the presence of American forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan and deeply sympathetic to the Taliban, who are fellow Pathans.
That sense of Pathan brotherhood is even stronger in the seven federally administered tribal agencies which run north to south in a 750-mile-long wedge between Afghanistan and the settled areas of the North West Frontier Province.
The agencies are under the control of Pakistan, but the tribes have been semi-autonomous since the British Raj. They have always carried arms and sold arms to everyone in the region, from Tamil Tigers and Kashmiri militants to the Taliban.
"The Taliban are clean, honest, believe in Islam and will rout the Americans," said Shakirullah, another shopkeeper in Mohmand. "Anyone fighting the Americans is our friend."
Isolated from mainstream Pakistan and the media, misinformation is rampant. In dozens of interviews it is clear that the people of Mohmand still refuse to accept that al-Qa'eda carried out the September 11 attacks. They believe they were carried out by "the CIA and the Jews".
Most also believe that the Americans hate all Pathans. "Bush has said many times that all Pathans are evil because the Taliban are Pathan," said Haji Baram Khan, the owner of a hotel and shop in the town. In fact President George W Bush has never criticised the Pathans.
After the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Pakistani army entered the tribal agencies one by one at the request of American forces, who are patrolling on the Afghan side of the border looking for al-Qa'eda units.
In August, at the behest of the Americans, thousands of Pakistani troops occupied the Mohmand agency for the first time.
"Pakistani troops are all along the border now and we are co-operating with the US coalition forces in Afghanistan," said Lt Gen Mohammed Ali Jan Orakzai, the corps commander on the north-west frontier.
But the army has not stopped the flow of guns and fighters to the Taliban.
For 10 days, up to 1,000 Taliban have been fighting a similar number of American and Afghan government troops in southern Afghanistan.
Yesterday, the Afghan army launched assaults on Taliban forces which have infiltrated the barren mountain ranges of Paktia, Zabol and Oruzgan in recent months.
Rather than retreat, the Taliban are pouring in more recruits from Pakistan to take on the Americans, who are trying to beat them back with heavy air bombardment.
About 300 Taliban reinforcements, led by Anmir Khan Muttaqi, the former education minister, pushed across the Pakistan border into Afghanistan overnight, a senior commander said.
The Taliban are striking at Afghan and American positions all along the border. Three Americans, 20 Afghans and 100 Taliban have died in the heaviest fighting in the past two years.
US curbs diplomats' travel in Afghanistan, warns citizens
Tue Sep 2, 9:34 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has restricted the travel of its diplomats in Kabul and warned US citizens in Afghanistan (news - web sites) of ongoing security threats in the country after a week of fierce fighting with suspected Taliban, the State Department said.
The restrictions, which took effect on Monday and will stay in place indefinitely, bar US diplomats in Kabul from any unofficial travel in the Afghan capital, the department said.
"The United States embassy in Kabul has imposed a mission-essential-only travel restriction on embassy employees effective immediately," it said.
"We urge the American community in Kabul to limit all non-essential activities outside your home and to stay away from public areas frequented by foreigners," it said in a notice distributed to US citizens in Afghanistan.
"We remind the American community of continuing threats ... and urge you to take appropriate measures to safeguard your security," it said.
The notice gave no specific reason for the imposition of the restrictions but reiterated advice given in the most recent US travel warning for the country, which was released by the State Department on July 28.
The July 28 alert said the "security threat to all American citizens in Afghanistan remains high" and "strongly" warned against any travel there, noting that remnants of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaeda network remain active.
"The security environment remains volatile and unpredictable," it said, adding that travel "in all areas of Afghanistan" is unsafe due to military operations, landmines, banditry, terrorist attacks and tribal conflicts.
The US embassy in Kabul has imposed similar restrictions on its employees in the past -- the last time on July 21, due to the threat of attack from improvised bombs.
The new restrictions were imposed a day after two US soldiers were killed in a firefight in southeastern Afghanistan amid growing instability in the country as the death toll from a week of fighting against suspected Taliban rose to 85.
On Monday, the US military announced the start of a fresh offensive against suspected Taliban militants in the mountains of violence-wracked southeastern Afghanistan.
The Pakhtunistan bogey
Aslam Effendi The News: Jang (Pakistan) September 1, 2003 OPINION
A former Pakistani army chief Gen Aslam Beg recently expressed his fear about the revival of the Pakhtun demand for Pakhtunistan. Reference to Pakhtunistan and the Durand Line always crops up whenever there is tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan as happened recently. A result of a lot of misunderstanding and bungling by the bureaucracy over these issues, the NWFP is the only place on earth that has no name.
Not very long ago the Pakhtun areas that are a part of Pakistan today were a part of Afghanistan and all the Pakhtuns considered themselves as Pakhtuns first and everything else afterwards. My forefather King Sher Ali Khan and the British Indian government clashed over this very issue, for King Sher Ali claimed the territories of Bajaur, Chitral, Dir, Swat, etc as parts of Afghanistan. Lord Mayo, the British Viceroy, had verbally told Sher Ali that these territories would be returned to Afghanistan if and when the British quit India, but Mayo’s successor, the arrogant British Viceroy Lord Lytton, said that he would not recognise what was agreed between Sher Ali and Lord Mayo. As a result, the Second Afghan War took place. Even before this, the British had deprived the Afghans of Peshawar and this was during the reign of my great grandfather King Dost Muhammad Khan, who used to say that Afghanistan is incomplete without its gateway, Peshawar.
Way back in 1945 I met Marshal Shah Mahmud Khan, the uncle of King Zahir Shah and Prime Minister of Afghanistan, at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, now called Mumbai. He was on his way to spend a week with my father Prince Abdur Rahman Effendi in Srinagar, Kashmir. Marshal Shah Mahmud Khan told me that on his way to Kashmir, he would be discussing with British Viceroy about the future of those Afghan territories that British India had usurped. The important point to note here is that secret negotiations between the then Afghan and British authorities had been going on over these disputed territories as far back as 1945 and maybe even earlier.
And when the creation of Pakistan was most dramatically and unexpectedly announced, the Afghan government was shocked, felt betrayed by the British, and to express resentment, cast a vote against Pakistan in the United Nations. This vote would have been cast even against India, had it inherited the disputed Pakhtun areas. The British had played the same mischief in the case of Afghanistan as they did in the case of Kashmir. Instead of including Afghanistan in the referendum which was to decide the future of the disputed Pakhtun areas, Afghanistan was not included and thus was laid the foundation of suspicion in the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And this explains why Pakistan always suspected Zahir Shah of being anti-Pakistan, not knowing that when the UN vote was cast against Pakistan in the United Nations, Zahir Shah’s powerful uncle, Marshal Shah Mahmud Khan, was the Prime Minister of Afghanistan. After Marshal Shah Mahmud Khan’s death, Zahir Shah reversed Afghanistan’s anti-Pakistan policy over territorial disputes. For example, during the 1965 Pak-India War, the Soviets requested Zahir Shah to allow Afghanistan’s air space to be used against Pakistan, a request which was turned down, leading to unfriendly relations between Zahir Shah and the Soviet leaders. Zahir Shah’s removal of his extremist Pakhtun cousin, Daud Khan as Prime Minister of Afghanistan, because of his anti-Pakistan policy, led to a joint Soviet-Daud alliance that brought about the downfall of Zahir Shah. And yet another example of Zahir Shah’s desire of good relations between him and Pakistan was his refusal to protest against President Ayub Khan who referred to him as "His Highness" instead of "His Majesty" in his book, Friends Not Masters. Instead, Zahir Shah’s special envoy came to Swat and I arranged a secret meeting between the envoy and late Begum Naseem Aurangzeb, who was to convey to her father the error in the book so that the issue could be hushed up without involving the Afghan Foreign Office. No wonder, a former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan JN Dixit in his recent book has said that Zahir Shah was closer to Pakistan than India.
But despite all these facts, ignorance about the background of the Durand Line and Pakhtunistan persists. The British, with the cooperation of their foreign Secretary Sir Mortimer Durand, created the Durand Line — this artificial frontier is so named after him. The British had three aims by creating the Durand Line: first, to mark the boundaries of the Afghan Kingdom, using Afghanistan as a buffer between their Indian colony and Czarist Russia. Secondly, to weaken the volatile and unruly Pakhtuns on both sides of the Durand Line. And thirdly, to force Afghanistan to give up its territorial claim over Chaman, Chagai, Khyber, Waziristan, Bajaur, Buner, Chitral, Chilas, Dir, Swat, Peshawar, etc. The Durand Line agreement was signed between the then Muhammadzai dynasty King, Abdur Rehman Khan, and British India in the year 1893. King Abdur Rehman had no way to refuse, for his refusal would have meant British Indian embargo on arms and ammunition supplies to Afghanistan.
Today, according to international law, the Geneva Convention and the Charter of the UN, the Durand Line treaty is void because it was signed by an Afghan King under duress. However, whether one accepts the Durand Line or not, the Pakhtuns and gypsies have been crossing and re-crossing the long, porous and mountainous frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan, year after year, and century after century, without any visas and passports and it is impossible to seal such a border. No wonder, the famous Pakhtun leader Badshah Khan expressed his desire to be buried inside Afghanistan rather than his hometown in Pakistan just to prove that the Durand Line is only an artificial wall like the Wall of Berlin and that Afghanistan is the mother of all the Pakhtun tribes. Moreover, despite creating the Durand Line, the British did not enjoy a single peaceful night in the tribal areas. For example, during 1937-38 the British had to deploy 5,000 troops, supported by air power, to control just one small tribe, the Mahsuds. Now imagine what would have been the fate of the British if all the tribes, all armed to the teeth, had revolted. Relations have been peaceful between the Pakhtun tribes and Pakistan only because of a common religion and not because of Pakistan’s diplomatic skill.
Keeping the foregoing facts in view, General Aslam Beg’s fears can only become real if the wise bureaucrats in Pakistan deal in the same fashion as the wise men in Washington have been dealing with Afghanistan and Iraq. My personal opinion is that the only way to kill the Pakhtunistan bogey is for Pakistan and Afghanistan to trade with each other for mutual benefit and not to interfere with the internal affairs of the Pakhtun tribal society, either directly or on behalf of any other power.
The writer is great grandson of Afghan King Dost Muhammad Khan, founder of the Muhammadzai dynasty
20 army officers face probe: Links with Al Qaeda
Dawn (Pakistan) September 1, 2003 issue
ISLAMABAD, Aug 31: Over 20 armymen, including six to seven officers up to the rank of lieutenant colonel, are facing investigation in two different cases for their alleged links with Al Qaeda and an enemy country.
Well-placed army sources disclosed that two groups of armymen were taken into custody at different times and for different reasons. One of the groups is under investigation for links with Al Qaeda, while the other, which is larger in size, was taken into custody for its connection with a neighbouring enemy country.
The group facing investigation for Al Qaeda connections was arrested some months ago in Rawalpindi after a lead was provided by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who was arrested from the residence of a Jamaat-i-Islami activist. The arrest of another Jamaat-i-Islami man from Mirpur, Ahsan Aziz, is also linked with the Al Qaeda group.
The sources said the family of Ahsan Aziz filed a habeas corpus petition in the Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi Bench, but no government department admitted that he was in its custody.
The family told the court that they had met Ahsan Aziz while he was in custody of an agency. The sources close to the family said that Ahsan Aziz was not being released as he was refusing to turn "approver" against certain officials.
ISPR Director-General Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan confirmed that three to four officers were in custody for their links with extremist organizations, but said he was not in a position to comment about the second group of officers. He denied that the armymen were arrested from Afghanistan by the US FBI.
The second group was arrested from Sindh by the Field Intelligence Unit for their contacts with an enemy country. The government is keeping the arrests secret as it is trying to bust the entire net. In the second group, the officers are not above the major rank.
Taliban backbone is broken says Islamabad
(Gulf Daily News) - ISLAMABAD: Pakistani officials said yesterday that the backbone of the Taliban had been broken and dismissed as baseless reports that the ousted Afghan militia was reorganising in Pakistan.
"There is no regrouping of the Taliban on the Pakistani soil, absolutely none," foreign office spokesman Masood Khan told a weekly Press briefing.
"Our assessment is that the backbone of Taliban has been broken." There are some "splinter groups" of Taliban in Afghanistan and "all efforts are being made not to allow them to regroup," he added.
"Our campaign against the Taliban is very intense," he said, referring to the recent arrest of about two dozen Taliban suspects in southwestern Baluchistan.
Afghan officials have recently charged that Taliban loyalists were regrouping on the Pakistani side of the porous 2,400km border and organising attacks inside Afghanistan.
Khan conceded that Al Qaeda chief and terror mastermind Osama bin Laden may be hiding in the rugged tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
"Osama bin Laden's presence anywhere in that area cannot be ruled out," he said.
"But if anybody knows about the whereabouts of OBL (Osama bin Laden), they should get in touch with the intelligence agencies either here in Pakistan or in Afghanistan or with US agencies," Khan said.
He was responding to a statement by the US ambassador to Pakistan, Nancy Powell, in local newspapers last week that Bin Laden might be hiding in the semi-autonomous tribal region in northwestern Pakistan.
Meanwhile, at least 11 Afghans, two of them guards for a US company, were killed overnight by suspected Taliban guerillas as US forces launched a fresh assault on hundreds of militants in the restive Afghan province of Zabul.
Afghan officials said seven policemen and two soldiers were killed by fighters from the ousted Islamic regime in three raids in Zabul and neighbouring Uruzgan province.
Four of the seven policemen died when a checkpoint set up to guard reconstruction work on the Kabul-Kandahar highway came under fire, Zabul's intelligence chief, Khalil Hotak, said.
Afghan officials yesterday denied there were any negotiations taking place with the Taliban, led by Mullah Omar, to end fighting in the southeast province of Zabul where around 80 militants have been killed in the past week.
"I completely deny that," presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said when asked about a report that officials were in talks with the Taliban.
"There is absolutely no negotiations going on with anyone," he told reporters.
Zabul officials also denied any talks were taking place.
Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press earlier yesterday claimed that President Hamid Karzai's government had started negotiations with Taliban officials in several parts of Zabul.
Confessions of a Terrorist
Author Gerald Posner claims an al-Qaeda leader made explosive allegations while under interrogation
By JOHANNA MCGEARY Sep. 08, 2003 issue of TIME magazine
By March 2002, the terrorist called Abu Zubaydah was one of the most wanted men on earth. A leading member of Osama bin Laden's brain trust, he is thought to have been in operational control of al-Qaeda's millennium bomb plots as well as the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000. After the spectacular success of the airliner assaults on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, he continued to devise terrorist plans.
Seventeen months ago, the U.S. finally grabbed Zubaydah in Pakistan and has kept him locked up in a secret location ever since. His name has probably faded from most memories. It's about to get back in the news. A new book by Gerald Posner says Zubaydah has made startling revelations about secret connections linking Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and bin Laden.
Details of that terrorism triangle form the explosive final chapter in Posner's examination of who did what wrong before Sept. 11. Most of his new book, Why America Slept (Random House), is a lean, lucid retelling of how the CIA, FBI and U.S. leaders missed a decade's worth of clues and opportunities that if heeded, Posner argues, might have forestalled the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Posner is an old hand at revisiting conspiracy theories. He wrote controversial assessments dismissing those surrounding the J.F.K. and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations. And the Berkeley-educated lawyer is adept at marshaling an unwieldy mass of information—most of his sources are other books and news stories—into a pattern made tidy and linear by hindsight. His indictment of U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies covers well-trodden ground, though sometimes the might-have-beens and could-have-seens are stretched thin. The stuff that is going to spark hot debate is Chapter 19, an account—based on Zubaydah's claims as told to Posner by "two government sources" who are unnamed but "in a position to know"—of what two countries allied to the U.S. did to build up al-Qaeda and what they knew before that September day.
Zubaydah's capture and interrogation, told in a gripping narrative that reads like a techno-thriller, did not just take down one of al-Qaeda's most wanted operatives but also unexpectedly provided what one U.S. investigator told Posner was "the Rosetta stone of 9/11 ... the details of what (Zubaydah) claimed was his 'work' for senior Saudi and Pakistani officials." The tale begins at 2 a.m. on March 28, 2002, when U.S. surveillance pinpointed Zubaydah in a two-story safe house in Pakistan. Commandos rousted out 62 suspects, one of whom was seriously wounded while trying to flee. A Pakistani intelligence officer and hastily made voiceprints quickly identified the injured man as Zubaydah.
Posner elaborates in startling detail how U.S. interrogators used drugs—an unnamed "quick-on, quick-off" painkiller and Sodium Pentothal, the old movie truth serum—in a chemical version of reward and punishment to make Zubaydah talk. When questioning stalled, according to Posner, cia men flew Zubaydah to an Afghan complex fitted out as a fake Saudi jail chamber, where "two Arab-Americans, now with Special Forces," pretending to be Saudi inquisitors, used drugs and threats to scare him into more confessions.
Yet when Zubaydah was confronted by the false Saudis, writes Posner, "his reaction was not fear, but utter relief." Happy to see them, he reeled off telephone numbers for a senior member of the royal family who would, said Zubaydah, "tell you what to do." The man at the other end would be Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernized nephew of King Fahd's and a publisher better known as a racehorse owner. His horse War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby in 2002. To the amazement of the U.S., the numbers proved valid. When the fake inquisitors accused Zubaydah of lying, he responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-bin Laden triangle.
Zubaydah, writes Posner, said the Saudi connection ran through Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom's longtime intelligence chief. Zubaydah said bin Laden "personally" told him of a 1991 meeting at which Turki agreed to let bin Laden leave Saudi Arabia and to provide him with secret funds as long as al-Qaeda refrained from promoting jihad in the kingdom. The Pakistani contact, high-ranking air force officer Mushaf Ali Mir, entered the equation, Zubaydah said, at a 1996 meeting in Pakistan also attended by Zubaydah. Bin Laden struck a deal with Mir, then in the military but tied closely to Islamists in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (isi), to get protection, arms and supplies for al-Qaeda. Zubaydah told interrogators bin Laden said the arrangement was "blessed by the Saudis."
Zubaydah said he attended a third meeting in Kandahar in 1998 with Turki, senior isi agents and Taliban officials. There Turki promised, writes Posner, that "more Saudi aid would flow to the Taliban, and the Saudis would never ask for bin Laden's extradition, so long as al-Qaeda kept its long-standing promise to direct fundamentalism away from the kingdom." In Posner's stark judgment, the Saudis "effectively had (bin Laden) on their payroll since the start of the decade." Zubaydah told the interrogators that the Saudis regularly sent the funds through three royal-prince intermediaries he named.
The last eight paragraphs of the book set up a final startling development. Those three Saudi princes all perished within days of one another. On July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed was felled by a heart attack at age 43. One day later Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, 41, was killed in what was called a high-speed car accident. The last member of the trio, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, officially "died of thirst" while traveling east of Riyadh one week later. And seven months after that, Mushaf Ali Mir, by then Pakistan's Air Marshal, perished in a plane crash in clear weather over the unruly North-West Frontier province, along with his wife and closest confidants.
Without charging any skulduggery (Posner told TIME they "may in fact be coincidences"), the author notes that these deaths occurred after cia officials passed along Zubaydah's accusations to Riyadh and Islamabad. Washington, reports Posner, was shocked when Zubaydah claimed that "9/11 changed nothing" about the clandestine marriage of terrorism and Saudi and Pakistani interests, "because both Prince Ahmed and Mir knew that an attack was scheduled for American soil on that day." They couldn't stop it or warn the U.S. in advance, Zubaydah said, because they didn't know what or where the attack would be. And they couldn't turn on bin Laden afterward because he could expose their prior knowledge. Both capitals swiftly assured Washington that "they had thoroughly investigated the claims and they were false and malicious." The Bush Administration, writes Posner, decided that "creating an international incident and straining relations with those regional allies when they were critical to the war in Afghanistan and the buildup for possible war with Iraq, was out of the question."
The book seems certain to kick up a political and diplomatic firestorm. The first question everyone will ask is, Is it true? And many will wonder if these matters were addressed in the 28 pages censored from Washington's official report on 9/11. It has long been suggested that Saudi Arabia probably had some kind of secret arrangement to stave off fundamentalists within the kingdom. But this appears to be the first description of a repeated, explicit quid pro quo between bin Laden and a Saudi official. Posner told TIME he got the details of Zubaydah's interrogation and revelations from a U.S. official outside the cia at a "very senior Executive Branch level" whose name we would probably know if he told it to us. He did not. The second source, Posner said, was from the cia, and he gave what Posner viewed as general confirmation of the story but did not repeat the details. There are top Bush Administration officials who have long taken a hostile view of Saudi behavior regarding terrorism and might want to leak Zubaydah's claims. Prince Turki, now Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Britain, did not respond to Posner's letters and faxes.
There's another unanswered question. If Turki and Mir were cutting deals with bin Laden, were they acting at the behest of their governments or on their own? Posner avoids any direct statement, but the book implies that they were doing official, if covert, business. In the past, Turki has admitted—to TIME in November 2001, among others—attending meetings in '96 and '98 but insisted they were efforts to persuade Sudan and Afghanistan to hand over bin Laden. The case against Pakistan is cloudier. It is well known that Islamist elements in the isi were assisting the Taliban under the government of Nawaz Sharif. But even if Mir dealt with bin Laden, he could have been operating outside official channels.
Finally, the details of Zubaydah's drug-induced confessions might bring on charges that the U.S. is using torture on terrorism suspects. According to Posner, the Administration decided shortly after 9/11 to permit the use of Sodium Pentothal on prisoners. The Administration, he writes, "privately believes that the Supreme Court has implicitly approved using such drugs in matters where public safety is at risk," citing a 1963 opinion.
For those who still wonder how the attacks two years ago could have happened, Posner's book provides a tidy set of answers. But it opens up more troubling questions about crucial U.S. allies that someone will now have to address.
Christiane Amanpour: Violence in Afghanistan on the rise
CNN 09/02/2003
At least eight Afghan soldiers were killed Monday after an ambush by suspected Taliban forces, a day after two U.S. troops died in clashes near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
These events are the latest examples of some of the fiercest fighting taking place since the fall of the Taliban government in late 2001, CNN Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour said.
Amanpour spoke Monday with Anchor Soledad O'Brien about the situation in Afghanistan, from where she recently returned. She discussed her findings from London, England.
AMANPOUR: Well, there's no doubt that over this summer the violence in Afghanistan, particularly in the south and in the east, has been on the rise. We're talking now two years into the war [on] terror in Afghanistan, and really the violence is increasing there. And it's a very, very troubling development both for U.S. forces there [in] Operation Enduring Freedom, who are trying to combat the Taliban and al Qaeda remnants, to see that there's been a resurgence of those elements over the last several weeks.
A U.S. spokesperson tells us that this now brings the total [to] 34 American soldiers dead and 167 wounded over the last two years or so. But, of course, in the last couple of weeks it's been some of the worst violence that they've had since the U.S. toppled the Taliban back in November of 2001.
Now we did speak to the commanding general of U.S. forces there, Gen. John Vines. We spoke to him when we were there a couple of weeks ago, and he was quite worried about this resurgent Taliban and elements of al Qaeda. He insisted that they cannot regain territory, he said, but they can cause a lot of trouble, influencing local Afghans, harassing U.S. troops, harassing Afghan government forces and elements of the U.S.-backed central authority there.
(VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. JOHN VINES, COMMANDER, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM: . . . [P]erhaps some are still in Pakistan, some are attempting to come into parts of the country, particularly around Kandahar. We're seeing that. We had a decisive engagement on the eastern border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where about 20 anti-coalition forces were killed. A few of those were, in fact, not Afghan or Pakistani; some of them were Arab. And some of those probably were affiliated with al Qaeda.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So we talked to a lot of people, military officials, diplomatic officials, U.S., Afghan and other internationals who were there, and people are concerned. This kind of violence is not meant to be happening two years into the war in Afghanistan, two years just about since the Taliban has been toppled.
It's affecting aid organizations and their work. It's also having a direct effect on the U.S.-backed central government there of Hamid Karzai. And of course, it's all going to be in quite dramatic play when there are elections next year. The U.S. obviously [is] very concerned that security be proper and stability be proper there to ensure the re-election of their favored candidate, Hamid Karzai. So it's a very precarious situation right now.
O'BRIEN: Christiane, there's some new reports out about Osama bin Laden. What information are you getting about Mullah Omar and also Osama bin Laden, officially?
AMANPOUR: Well, we asked, as I say, a number of officials both on the U.S. side and the Afghan side, and they are absolutely convinced, in the absence of any other evidence, that both are alive and both continue to encourage their supporters. We get varying answers depending on who and when as to where they may be.
Most are saying that probably Osama bin Laden could be in the Pakistani mountains on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Others say that Mullah Omar may be with him. But whatever is happening, what they're doing is encouraging their people to take these now sort of opportunistic attacks against the U.S. and, indeed, Afghan government forces inside Afghanistan. And it is, according to officials we've been talking to there, a rather troubling development. So certainly the fact that they are not caught is something that's giving additional life to both the movements, al Qaeda and Taliban, there.
Pakistan to train Afghan police
Tuesday, 2 September, 2003, 12:07 GMT 13:07 UK BBC News
Pakistan has agreed to train 800 Afghan policemen in three of its training centres, an official from Afghanistan's Interior Ministry says.
Pakistan will also provide stipends to the Afghan police cadets during their training, the official, Mohammad Akbar Ahmedzai, told reporters in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar.
He was speaking after talks there between a visiting Afghan delegation and the Pakistani authorities.
General Ahmedzai said 500 Afghan cadets would be trained in Pakistan's North Western Frontier Province, 200 in the Punjab and 100 in Baluchistan.
He added that the policemen would form part of the 70,000-strong Afghan police force that he said his ministry aimed to form over the next three years.
Nine Taliban suspects freed, 19 still held
By Azizullah Khan - Daily Times - Pakistan
QUETTA: Law enforcement agencies on Tuesday released 9 suspected Taliban soldiers and continued investigations against 19.
Sources said the nine suspects were released after the authorities were unable to prove their involvement with the Taliban. Sources said two suspects were arrested on the border and the other 26 were arrested from a house near a religious institution. The Frontier Corps have installed searchlights and hidden cameras to monitor the border. Sources said four Afghan soldiers were arrested at the border for entering Pakistan illegally.
During interrogation, some suspects confessed to their involvement in an attack on a check post in Spin Boldak.
Afghan FM rebukes Pakistan over attacks
Daily Times - Pakistan
LISBON: Afghanistan’s foreign minister accused Pakistan on Tuesday of not doing enough to prevent Taliban attacks on his country. Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said during a visit to Lisbon, Portugal, that Taliban forces are attacking Afghanistan from "safe havens" outside the country in an attempt "to give the sense that they are not being defeated" by Afghan and US troops. Taliban leaders driven out of Afghanistan "have been very active" in Pakistan, Abdullah said in an interview with Portuguese state radio Radiodifusao Portuguesa. —AP
Afghanistan nabs 7 for Indian consulate attack
Sun Network, India
Sep 02 - Seven persons involved in the attack on the Indian consulate at Jalalabad in Afghanistan have been arrested by the Afghan security forces.
"At around 8 pm on August 30, an individual travelling on top of the leading mini truck of a two-truck convoy lobbed a device that exploded in the drain near the side entrance of our consulate," said an external affairs ministry spokesperson on Monday.
"There was no damage or casualties. Those involved have been apprehended by the Afghan security forces. We await the results of their interrogation," he added.
Official sources said there have been repeated intelligence reports about Pakistan ISI's plans to derail the security of Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar
German Airline Criticized for Kabul Flights
Deutsche Welle (Sep 1, 2003)
LTU now flies from Düsseldorf to Kabul once a week
German airline LTU became the first western carrier to resume non-stop flights to Afghanistan in August. But a German pilots' group says the flights are reckless because the planes are exposed to shoulder-fired missiles.
LTU's once-weekly flight from Düsseldorf to Kabul takes six hours and has been welcomed by Germany's 300,000-strong Afghan community. But the airline has come under scrutiny from pilots' association Cockpit, which has described the flight as irresponsible and unsafe because the company's have no protection against shoulder-fired missiles known to be in the hands of Taliban fighters and al Qaeda in the region.
LTU's spokesperson Marco Dadomo said the criticism from the Pilots' Association Cockpit is one-sided and arbitrary. He said terrorist attacks could happen anywhere in the world and Afghanistan isn't the most endangered country.
"We've been working together with the State Department and local authorities for more than a year," he said, stressing that "(LTU) believes the security system in Kabul is of a standard that allows us to operate this flight."
According to Dadamo, there's no heightened security problem in Kabul. "Security measures are very tight in Kabul," he said. "The operation is as safe as it can be at the moment. Our security measures are similar to what they would be on flights to Saudi Arabia or Nigeria. There are security problems everywhere in the world at the moment."
Cockpit stresses risks
Speaking at a recent press conference, Michael Schmunk, the German government's special coordinator for Afghanistan, said he hoped the flight would herald a fresh wave of international engagement, while LTU flight operations director Josef Moser maintained that the situation in the country is now stable enough to attract business and politicians.
But Georg Fongern of the Pilots Association Cockpit countered Schmunk's claims, saying that not even the German air force would fly into Kabul without missile warning systems on their planes. Factional fighting continues in Afghanistan, and there have been sporadic strikes on U.S.-led coalition forces in the country. So far, security in Kabul has been provided by an international peacekeeping force currently commanded by Germany and the Netherlands.
According to Fongern no passenger airline in the world other than Israel's El-Al is equipped with a missile detection system. Nor, he claimed, does LTU's Airbus 330-200 have the appropriate navigational equipment for taking off or landing in Kabul's rugged terrain. Visibility at Kabul's airport is often obstructed by bad weather and pilots can't even always see the runway, increasing the risk of hitting a mine in the surrounding area.
"According to the German Air Force, there are mines about 20 meters parallel to the runway," he said. "Just imagine what would happen if an aircraft ran into a minefield."
Fongern also expressed concern that security is insufficient at the Kabul terminal. "Anybody can enter the restricted area without being checked. For many reasons, it's dangerous flying into Kabul," he warned. He went on to accuse LTU of failing to operate according to international standards for civil aviation.
But LTU spokesman Dadomo said the company would continue to operate its flights as long as the security situation in Kabul remained stabile. "We're in daily contact with the State Department, the Department of Defense and military authorities," he stressed. "If we have any indication that security is deteriorating, we will stop our flight immediately."
Iran denies forcing women to divorce Afghan husbands
Source: Payvand / (Iran) August 31
The Islamic Republic of Iran`s Embassy in Kabul on Sunday strongly dismissed as "sheer lie" the claim by certain segment of the Afghan press that Tehran forces Iranian women to divorce their Afghan husbands, IRNA reported from Kabul.
Iranian Embassy in a letter to Afghan Foreign Ministry, released on Sunday, said the reports published in the dailies `Eradeh` and `Arman-e Melli` to that effect are "untrue and sheer lie."
The Embassy said that Iran has not made such a decision but on the contrary has provided certain facilities for such families. It said that Tehran recommends Iranian and Afghan couples to register their marriage at notary offices based on the Islamic Republic of Iran`s regulations.
Eradeh and Arman-e Melli recently claimed that the Iranian government plans to separate more than 4,900 Afghan men from their Iranian wives. Iran`s Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh too in an interview with IRNA last week strongly refuted the claim on separation of Iranian and Afghan couples.
More than two decades of war in Afghanistan has forced more than two and half a million Afghans to seek refuge in Iran and within more than two decades of residence, scores of the Afghans have married Iranians and have children.
Pakistan Will Let Iran-India Pipeline Use Its Territory
KARACHI -(Dow Jones)- Pakistan is willing to let a proposed Iran-India natural-gas pipeline use its territory, a govenment statement said Monday. A feasibility study for the project has been conducted by Australia-based resources conglomerate BHP Billiton Ltd .
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told Philip Aiken, president of BHP Billiton Petroleum, that Pakistan was committed to facilitating the project by providing territory, the statement said. According to the statement, Aiken said BHP has completed the technical feasibility study for the project, and has submitted it to the Iranian government, which is in talks with New Delhi about the project.
India has in the past has refused to take part in any energy pipeline involving Pakistan because of security concerns. Military tensions, which brought the two countries to the brink of war last summer, have eased in recent months, but formal peace talks have yet to begin.
The statement also quoted BHP's Aiken as saying the company has completed phase one of the Zamzama Gas Development program four months ahead of schedule. The first phase of the project, which is situated in the south of Pakistan, cost $150 million.
The project will produce 320 million cubic feet a day in the first phase, while the output will rise to 500mcf a day in phase two. Aitkin expressed BHP's keen interest in making further investment in Pakistan's oil and gas sector, the statement said.
New ambulance service opens in Kabul
Source: ICRC 1 Sept 2003
As of last week, Kabul residents can call an ambulance. A new service has been set up with the support of the Norwegian Red Cross, and last week the ICRC handed over to the Ministry of Public Health five ambulances donated by the Kuwait Red Crescent Society.
Until now, Kabul has had no permanent system for calling an ambulance, leaving the sick and injured at risk. The ambulance service forms an important addition to ICRC health projects in Afghanistan, and will focus on surgery, trauma management and first aid. The control room is at the Ibn Sina Emergency Hospital, which the ICRC has supported throughout decades of conflict in Kabul.
"Years of war have caused extensive damage throughout Afghanistan, and the emergency health service has been no exception. The ICRC has a long history of co-operation with the Afghan health sector and today history meets the future", said the ICRC's head of delegation in Afghanistan, Pierre Wettach.
Few people in Kabul have phones at home, so radio call points have been installed at 20 locations around the capital, enabling the public to call for assistance. Drivers and nurses have been recruited and staff have received training.
As of last week, the service was operational from 8.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m., seven days a week. More ambulances will arrive in the coming weeks, and the service will eventually operate 24 hours a day every day, including public holidays.
The Ministry of Public Health will run the Kabul Ambulance Service, which will form an important part of its Emergency Medical Service.
Court-house blast in Afghanistan
via News Interactive (Australia) September 2, 2003
TWO small explosions shattered windows and caused other minor damage at a courthouse in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad early Tuesday, police said. No injuries were reported.
The explosions occurred on the lawns of the High Court in Jalalabad, capital of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, Haji Ajab Shah, the city's police chief, said by satellite telephone.
No injuries occurred in the explosions, he said. The bombs went off at 5 a.m, three hours before the court was to open, Shah said.
Shah blamed Taliban insurgents for the attack, but offered no evidence.
The radical Taliban militia was ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001.
"This is the work of terrorists and Taliban. They do all the terrorist activities," Shah said. No arrests have been made.
Over the weekend, attackers hurled a hand grenade at the Indian consulate in Jalalabad, damaging a wall of the building and shattering windows, said Gul Karim, chief of police for Nangarhar. There were no injuries in that attack.
Similar attacks have targeted aid workers and U.N. agency offices in Jalalabad.
AAP
Rumors of Bin Laden's Lair
Some believe life on the run has made it impossible for Osama bin Laden to control and lead Al Qaeda. In Afghanistan's Kunar province, people tell a different story
By Sami Yousafzai And Ron Moreau Newsweek Magazine September 8, 2003 issue
Gray-bearded and almost toothless, Khan Kaka lives in a mud house with a weather-beaten pine door beside a little plot of corn and vegetables. But to his neighbors in this corner of Afghanistan's remote Kunar province, the gangling, tobacco-chewing old man is one of the most respected figures in the Pech River valley.
IT'S ALL ABOUT connections: since 1996 Kaka's son-in-law, an Algerian named Abu Hamza al Jazeeri, has been a special bodyguard to the man Kaka calls loar sheik--"big chief"--Osama bin Laden.
Every two months or so, al Jazeeri comes down from the mountains to visit his wife and three sons, who live with Kaka. "He appears and disappears like lightning," Kaka says. "I never know when he's coming or going." The old man and his neighbors listen eagerly to the latest news from the Qaeda leader's hideout. On a visit in January al Jazeeri reported that one of bin Laden's daughters-in-law had recently died in childbirth, and that bin Laden spoke at her funeral, blaming America for her death. Only a few dozen mourners could attend, not the thousands who would ordinarily pay their last respects. Bin Laden blamed America for that, too. "I had enough riches to enjoy myself like an Arab sheik," bin Laden said, according to al Jazeeri's account. "But I decided to fight against those infidel forces that want to sever us from our Islamic roots. For that cause, Arabs, Taliban and my family have been martyred." Kaka and his neighbors have memorized the eulogy. Asked where bin Laden is now, Kaka grins and waves without a word toward the 12,000-foot peaks surrounding the valley: up there.
No one seems to have a better answer. Two years after the September 11 attacks, the world's Most Wanted terrorist remains free. "We don't know where he is," says U.S. Army Col. Rodney Davis, spokesman for America's forces in Afghanistan. "And frankly, it's not about him. We'll continue to focus on killing, capturing and denying sanctuary to any anti-Coalition forces, whether they are influenced by bin Laden or not." Some U.S. officials speculate that life on the run has made it impossible for bin Laden to communicate with his followers, effectively turning him into a figurehead. "Bin Laden's operational role is not as important as it was to Al Qaeda and the Taliban," says a senior U.S. diplomat in Kabul. "But symbolically he is still very important."
He's more than that, according to senior Taliban officials contacted by NEWSWEEK in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They say bin Laden remains directly engaged as a strategist and financier for Al Qaeda, the Taliban and related groups. In April, shortly after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the Qaeda leader convened the biggest terror summit since September 11 at a mountain stronghold in Afghanistan. The participants included three top-ranking representatives from the Taliban, several senior Qaeda operatives and leaders from radical Islamic groups in Chechnya and Uzbekistan, according to a former Taliban deputy foreign minister. He got the details from a Taliban colleague who was there. Bin Laden, in a fiery mood, appointed one of his most trusted lieutenants, Saif al-Adil, to be Al Qaeda's chief of operations in Iraq. The leader handed the Egyptian-born al-Adel a letter of introduction, asking all religious leaders, businessmen and mujahedin to give him any support possible. Al-Adel left Afghanistan immediately. A few weeks later he was reported to be in neighboring Iran, where he is said to be under house arrest. The Taliban official nevertheless insists, contrary to American intelligence assessments, that al-Adel made it to Iraq and is organizing anti-U.S. operations.
At the same meeting bin Laden said he was working on "serious projects," another ranking Taliban source tells NEWSWEEK. "His priority is to use biological weapons," says the source, who claims that Al Qaeda already has such weapons. The question is only how to transport and launch them, he asserts. The source insists he doesn't know any further details but brags: "Osama's next step will be unbelievable." The plan was reportedly delayed and revised after the March capture of Al Qaeda's operations chief, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. U.S. intelligence officials say no one disputes bin Laden's interest in germ warfare. Nevertheless, they argue, his main priority is to kill Americans by any means readily at hand--and most bioweapons are harder to get and use than many of the alternatives.
No one but bin Laden himself knows exactly what he's planning. So where is he? "Up there," says Pashtun Momand, the police major in charge of Kunar province's counterterrorism office. He's pointing at the thickly forested mountains east of the tiny provincial capital. A few people deny that bin Laden is living there. The province's governor, Said Fazel Akbar, insists that U.S. and Afghan forces are in hot pursuit. "He may come to Kunar," Akbar says, "but he can't stay for long." His opinion is not widely held.
Bin Laden seems to be in good health, according to both the former Taliban deputy foreign minister and an Afghan named Haroon, who claims to have visited the Qaeda leader in June. Three of bin Laden's sons are said to be with him, sworn to kill their father rather than let him be captured alive. Two of his wives are said to be living nearby in the mountains, but not with him; he visits them when security allows. Taliban sources say the Qaeda leader communicates with his friends and followers via handwritten letters and computer disks delivered by relays of messengers. Each carrier knows only where to find the next link in the chain. The system is slow, but it keeps the Americans from using electronic intercepts to find him.
Bin Laden could hardly ask for a better hiding place. Even some American officials agree that Kunar is a likely refuge. The sparsely populated province isn't big--less than two thirds the land area of Connecticut--but it offers more comfort and protection for bin Laden than any other part of Afghanistan. "There is no effective central government control in the mountains beyond the capital," says Kunar's chief of police, Col. Abdul Saffa Momand (no relation to the major). The mountain roads are almost impassable; his men have no radios, and their families barely survive on their monthly salary of $14--when the paychecks come at all. "A soldier on patrol at night is risking his life for nothing," the colonel says. "It's impossible to access the areas where Al Qaeda is hiding," he adds. "Even from a helicopter you only see mountains, rocks and trees." Unlike the desert ranges that are typical in Afghanistan, Kunar's mountains are covered with evergreens and shrubs, and the terrain is crisscrossed with smugglers' trails leading over the border into Pakistan.
Kunar's population is, likewise, congenial to bin Laden. In recent decades the province has become home to more than a thousand Arab men, many of whom--like bin Laden's bodyguard al Jazeeri--have intermarried with local Afghans, gaining strong family ties in the region. At the height of the war against the Soviets in the 1980s, the CIA effectively ceded Kunar to the Arab volunteers who were pouring in to join the mujahedin. "We preferred that they operate in their own fief, and out of our way," says Edmund McWilliams, a retired State Department officer and Congress's special representative to the mujahedin during the late 1980s. In the last two years the mujahedin veterans have been joined by hundreds of Qaeda members and supporters uprooted from other parts of Afghanistan.
Bin Laden and his followers are living in relative comfort, officials in Kunar believe. Some may be huddled in the caves that honeycomb the mountains, but Major Momand's intelligence sources say others live openly in stone and mud houses built against the steep slopes, hidden by the trees and underbrush. Many of the dwellings have been renovated in the last two years. The Arabs share the mountains with Afghan nomads whose flocks of sheep and goats graze there. Shali Khan, together with his wife and two children, tends a herd of 150 sheep and goats, and often encounters columns of heavily armed Arabs traveling on horseback or on foot. He says he's glad to see them. "These Arabs are good people fighting the jihad," says Khan, who takes evident pride in his pointed mustache, despite his tattered clothes and mended sandals. "They pay me well for my animals and milk."
Bin Laden apparently feels safe enough to receive visitors--with precautions. In May an Afghan named Haroon asked permission to see the Qaeda leader. The young man is active in the Taliban's anti-U.S. resistance, and he had guided bin Laden from the besieged cave complex at Tora Bora to safety in the Shahikot Valley during the U.S. bombing in late 2001 ("How Al Qaeda Slipped Away," Aug. 19, 2002). The month after sending his request, Haroon got a message directing him to a place in the mountains north of his home in Paktia province. From there, he was taken higher into the mountains by a series of guides, each one greeting the next with a whispered password. After three days he was turned over to a group of Arabs. They strip-searched him, placed his ring, watch and shoes in a bag and closely inspected the buttons on his shirt.
He spent the night barefoot in a nearby cave. At sunrise two armed Arabs, their faces covered by scarves, escorted him to an old mud-and-rock house and told him to sit there and wait. Haroon says he felt afraid. Suddenly bin Laden arrived and spoke in Arabic, slowly and quietly, urging the young man to keep fighting. "The deserts of Afghanistan are being irrigated with the blood of mujahedin," he told Haroon. "But the jihad will never dry up." After about 15 minutes the visit ended. "Please don't try to see me again," bin Laden said.
Will he ever be caught? For more than a year, Afghanistan has been sinking deeper into poverty, chaos and despair while the White House focuses on Iraq. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have not wasted the chance to regroup. Now the administration is promising to double Afghanistan's reconstruction aid to $1.8 billion. Even loyal Republicans fear that it's not nearly enough. They know what happened the last time America ignored Afghanistan. The anniversary is next week.
With Mark Hosenball in Washington
American women soldiers are opening Afghan eyes
Some members of Allentown unit see hints of change for the nearly invisible gender.
By Wendy Solomon Of The Morning Call BAGRAM, Afghanistan | September 2, 2003
Editor's note: Reporter Wendy Solomon traveled in Afghanistan with the Pennsylvania National Guard's 213th Area Support Group, with headquarters in Allentown.
Maj. Kathy Brill, a wisp of a woman, sat face-to-face with a local warlord shortly after a rocket struck Bagram Air Base on a warm summer night.
As she spoke to him, he shuffled and shifted in his seat. He avoided sustained eye contact. And for a man who often said little, he was more voluble than usual.
Brill conveyed the seriousness of the moment. Her tone was grave, the usual warmth gone from her voice. The Americans weren't happy and wanted to know who had fired the rocket and why.
Brill didn't get useful answers — she hadn't expected to. But she succeeded in putting an alpha male Afghan in close contact with a Western woman — a position more and more of his countrymen find themselves in since American-led troops toppled the Taliban regime nearly two years ago.
In Afghan society, women rarely are heard or even seen outside the home, let alone put in positions of authority. The increasing encounters between Afghan men and, to a lesser extent, Afghan women and Western women are eye-opening for all sides.
Brill's sit-down was calculated by the Americans because they knew it would unnerve and perhaps intimidate the warlord. They were realistic, however, about getting answers.
''We didn't expect he would tell us who did it,'' said Brill, of Philadelphia. A tactical intelligence officer with the 213th Area Support Group, she stands barely over 5 feet and is dwarfed by the uniform that bags around her bony frame.
Because they got no information, Brill's superiors canceled a weekly bazaar on the base.
The warlord's reaction to Brill was not unlike that of other Afghans around Western women, particularly women soldiers.
Before the repressive Taliban regime and its extreme interpretation of Islam, women in Afghanistan were allowed to go to school, to hold jobs and to participate in government.
But the Taliban jolted women's rights backward. According to a Human Rights Watch report released this summer, women in many parts of Afghanistan are still prohibited from getting an education, health care, or to even leave their homes.
Outside of Kabul, women, from pre-adolescents up, are rarely seen. And those who venture outside still wear the burka, a tent-like robe once mandated by the Taliban but still worn by many Afghan women.
''They're usually surprised I'm a woman,'' said Army Reservist Staff Sgt. Paula Loyd, 31, a reedy blond woman with a girlish voice who leads a 450th Civil Affairs team throughout Kandahar province. It's a poor, rural area in southern Afghanistan, a former stronghold of the Taliban where more people cling to more traditional and fundamentalist beliefs.
''Sometimes I'll be talking to the men in a village and they'll turn to the interpreter and say, 'Is that a man or a woman?' But I haven't had any problems with them. They've all been very nice,'' Loyd said.
As a member of an Army civil affairs team, Loyd delivers food and clothing to villages and helps oversee the reconstruction of schools, wells and clinics that are built with American money and Afghan labor.
Loyd said Afghans do not expect their societal norms to apply to her because she is not from their culture. ''So the fact that I'm a woman doesn't mean I need to be in a burka and they can't deal with me. They take me for who I am, they accept me for who I am. And they're willing to work with me,'' she said.
In her many forays into villages and cities in southern Afghanistan, Loyd has heard the frustrations of women and seen the results of a society that has marginalized them. One visit with the Balouch tribe in the Kandahar province was particularly memorable.
''I went to one woman's house and she said, 'We are screaming into the silence.' They all want to talk but they haven't had a chance to express themselves,'' Loyd said.
Loyd is often a requested speaker at school openings and graduations, where she addresses the importance of an education for girls. She still sees some villagers' resistance to allowing their girls to attend school. But she often brings up the idea of including girls, using the argument that the only way they will get female doctors is by allowing girls to get an education.
In Afghanistan, women are not permitted to be treated by a male doctor, although sometimes allowances are made if it's an emergency or if he knows the family. It's a tough country in which to survive and medical care is poor. There are so few doctors, many people, male or female, have never been treated.
Although Afghan women remain nearly invisible, there are hints of revolutionary change in Afghan society, as the central government attempts to improve women's legal, economic and political rights.
Loyd sees hopeful signs. ''The men here really do care about the women's health. A lot of times we'll sit down with the village elders and they'll emphasize they need a clinic. ''They say, 'We have a lot of problems with our women and we want to get them fixed.'
Remember Afghanistan's lessons in rebuilding Iraq
Tue Sep 2, 6:52 AM ET - USA TODAY
On the face of it, Iraq and Afghanistan offer a compelling contrast in U.S. approaches to postwar reconstruction.
Until recent days, inflexibility has defined Iraq. President Bush has erased any doubts about his determination to see the job through. Yet Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other senior Pentagon officials have added intransigence to that resolve by brushing off bipartisan calls for putting more U.S. troops in Iraq.
Afghanistan, on the other hand, now is benefiting from a belated dose of U.S. pragmatism. The administration is about to double aid to nearly $2 billion. It's sending more advisers to shore up the struggling government. U.S. reconstruction teams, guarded by their own security forces, are leap-frogging around the country to repair buildings and critical infrastructure.
Certainly, Afghanistan remains a dangerous place, as underscored by the deaths of two U.S. soldiers Sunday during a gun battle with fighters loyal to the ousted Taliban regime. But at U.S. urging, NATO last month took over command of a multinational force that has made the capital safer
In reality, the key difference between U.S. postwar operations in the two countries is time. A year ago, the administration was equally inflexible in Afghanistan. Only after Taliban members began regrouping and local warlords stepped up their attacks did the U.S. revise its plans.
The administration's 11th-hour conversion contributed to a turbulent year that has hampered Afghanistan's transition to democracy. It also points to the dangers that a similar policy of backs-to-the wall rebuildingcould pose in Iraq.
Recent events suggest the Bush administration finally may be taking steps to avoid repeating some of those prior mistakes in Iraq. Last week, in the wake of a deadly terrorist attack on the United Nations' headquarters in Baghdad, the U.S. signaled that it would consider allowing U.N.-backed forces to help restore peace. After Friday's car bombing in the holy city of Najaf, which killed a prominent Shiite Muslim leader and scores of others, U.S. military officials raised the possibility of creating an Iraqi force to help quell the violence wracking the country. At the same time, Bush has conceded that rebuilding Iraq will be far costlier than anticipated, highlighting the importance of gaining other nations' help in financing the Iraq mission.
A rethinking of the Iraq reconstruction plan makes sense, particularly in light of the hard-learned and equally applicable lessons for the U.S. in trying to rebuild Afghanistan. Among them:
The value of foreign help. Some 5,500 NATO-led peacekeepers have created security and goodwill in the Afghan capital of Kabul under a U.N. mandate. They operate separately from 9,000 U.S. troops that are hunting the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the southeast. Their success has prompted calls to send them to other parts of the country. Yet the U.S. has resisted this model in Iraq without assurances that it would keep full control over the military operation.
The importance of reconstruction. Chaos outside Kabul forced a grinding halt to reconstruction. The U.S. is now getting around that in a creative way. As troops provide security, groups of construction experts work on projects to get Afghans' lives and the economy back on track. A similar plan could work in Iraq, where havoc forced the aid organization Oxfam to pull out last week; it was only the latest in a string of humanitarian groups to leave because of persistent violence.
The need to keep up aid. Afghan President Hamid Karzai says his country needs $15 billion to $20 billion over five years. Yet international interest in helping has ebbed as the spotlight has faded. The U.S. is trying to rekindle global support, something even more important for Iraq's vastly more expensive rebuilding.
Certainly, Iraq and Afghanistan present different challenges. Iraq has a more advanced society and oil riches that can entice investors. Afghanistan is a backward nation run by warlords and bandits; its most lucrative export is opium.
Still, creating stable democracies in each is crucial to the U.S. war on terrorism.
After a troubled year, Afghanistan is showing encouraging progress. National police and army forces are being trained. A new currency is in circulation. A constitution is being written. And nation-wide elections are scheduled for next year.
A key ingredient to Afghanistan's renewed hopes is a recharged U.S. approach that can be just as valuable in Iraq.
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