June 10, 2004

Eleven Chinese construction workers shot dead in northern Afghanistan
Thursday June 10, 10:49 AM AFP
At least 11 Chinese construction workers were shot dead when gunmen launched a night-time raid on their compound in northeast Afghanistan, Chinese officials said.

Up to 20 armed men stormed the site near the city of Kunduz and opened fire in what the Chinese embassy described as a "terrorist attack". Up to six Chinese nationals were also injured in the shooting.

"Eleven people were killed this morning in Kunduz," the official, who gave her name as Ms. Tant, told AFP Thursday. "They were killed by terrorists."

She said the gunmen attacked at 1:00 a.m. (2030 GMT Wednesday), while China's official Xinhua news agency said security guards returned fire. It was not clear if any of the attackers were killed or injured.

The Chinese embassy said the victims were among 100 people working on the construction of a road for the China Railway Construction Shisiju Group Corporation. Many of the workers only arrived in Afghanistan in the past week.

China's ambassador to Afghanistan Sun Yuxi was still in Kabul but planned to head to the scene, some 250 kilometres (150 miles) north of the capital, an official at the embassy, who did not want to give his name, told AFP.

It was not clear what had prompted the attack on the site some 36 kilometres (24 miles) south of Kunduz, he added.

Northern Afghanistan is considered one of the most stable areas of the country with militants more active in the former Taliban strongholds of the south and southeast.

Kunduz is seen as a particularly safe area of Afghanistan as some 200 German peacekeepers are based in the town.

The attack follows a spate of attacks targetting aid workers and foreigners by what the government believes are militants loyal to the former Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime aimed at disrupting planned national elections in September.

Just over a week ago, three Europeans and two Afghans working for Medecins Sans Frontieres were shot dead as they travelled in northwestern Baghdis province by suspected Taliban, prompting fears that militants had moved out of their traditional areas ahead of the elections.

Beijing formally reopened its embassy in Kabul in 2002 after evacuating the diplomatic compound in 1993 during heavy fighting in the Afghan civil war.

This is the most serious incident involving nationals from China, which shares a 40-kilometre border with Afghanistan, since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

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U.S. military allows Afghan jail visit
By Sayed Salahuddin Wednesday June 9, 9:47 PM
KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military, accused of abusing prisoners in Afghanistan, will allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit one of its detention centres in the south, a U.S. military spokesman says.

The ICRC made an informal request three weeks ago to visit the centre near the southern city of Kandahar, where the Americans have a military base.

Details of the visit would be worked out between the ICRC and the U.S. military, said spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tucker Mansager on Wednesday.

"It was not something that was hastily considered," Mansager told a news briefing in Kabul, when asked why it took three weeks to accept the ICRC's request.

"I would say that the ICRC and the coalition, the Afghan people...are better served by (a) deliberate, considered decision and we stand by that."

The ICRC knew the centre was there, and visited Kandahar between December 2001 and June 2002 when it was used to hold Islamic militant suspects for longer spells.

But the ICRC understood that after June, 2002, the Kandahar detention centre was only a transit post, through which suspects passed on their way to the main U.S. prison in Afghanistan at Bagram, just north of Kabul. The ICRC visits Bagram regularly.

When evidence emerged that the Americans were again holding suspects for longer periods at Kandahar, the ICRC asked to be allowed to visit the centre again.

Jessica Barry, a spokeswoman for the ICRC in Kabul, said her organisation was planning a visit, but she had no specific date. Mansager described Kandahar as a transit holding centre.

About 380 prisoners, including militants from Afghanistan's former Taliban regime toppled from power by U.S.-led forces in late 2001, and their al Qaeda allies are being held at about 20 detention centres spread around the country.

Secrecy shrouds many of the centres, which are located mainly in the south and east of the country where U.S. soldiers have forward bases and regularly encounter Islamic insurgents.

Human rights organisations and former prisoners have accused U.S. soldiers of mistreatment of Afghan detainees, including beating, sleep deprivation and sexual abuse, similar to the treatment of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

At least three detainees have also died while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. An inquiry into two deaths at Bagram remains open 18 months after the young men died having suffered "blunt force injuries", according to medical reports.

Separate to the inquiry, the U.S. military is carrying out a sweeping review of its prison system in Afghanistan, and vows to take immediate but unspecified action if there is proof that detainees have been abused.

Mansager said Lieutenant-General David Barno, commander of 20,000 U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, would reveal the details of the overall review by mid-June.

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Pakistani forces clash with foreign fighters near Afghan border
Wednesday June 9, 8:18 PM AFP
Pakistani troops killed at least eight foreign militants in a gunbattle in a tribal village near the Afghan border where hundreds of Al-Qaeda-linked fighters are hiding.

The fighting, which broke out in Shakai village near the South Waziristan district capital Wana after a dawn rocket attack on army posts, could signal the start of the army's threatened second major offensive this year against the Al-Qaeda-linked fighters.

"We have eight militants dead," the tribal territory's security chief Brigadier Mahmood Shah said Wednesday.

Heavy weapons were being fired between paramilitary troops and a band of foreign militants holed up in a house in Shakai, he said.

"They are using mortar, heavy machine guns and rockets. We are also using heavy weapons but not rockets," Shah told the private Geo television channel.

"This action will continue for some time but later we will have to go for an offensive against them," he said.

Since winding up a disaster-fraught offensive in the same region in March, Pakistani forces have been trying to persuade several hundred Al-Qaeda-linked fighters to lay down arms and register with authorities, under an amnesty deal that would allow them to live in the area.

But the foreigners, mainly Chechen and Uzbeks with some Chinese and Arabs among them, have refused to register. Local tribal elders have said they were scared of being photographed and identified.

Military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan earlier blamed the dawn rocket attack on "miscreants and terrorists."

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Increasing attacks on US troops sign of Taliban's better regrouping
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, May 30 (Xinhua) -- The intensifying attacks by suspected Taliban fighters against US-led foreign troops over the last two weeks in Afghanistan is an indication of the group's better regrouping, Afghan observers here believe.

At least four US soldiers have been killed and over 10 others were injured in Taliban related militancy since May 20 in the troubled southern and southeastern provinces of the war-torn country.

"Pounding US bases with rockets and ambushing their convoys is a sign of Taliban's better regrouping and better equipment," observed retired Colonel Mohammad Jihangir.

In the latest attacks of a series of violent insurgency, four US soldiers were killed in the southern Zabul Province Saturday in action with the suspected Taliban remnants.

Earlier on Thursday evening, two US soldiers were wounded in firefight with the militants in the southeast rugged Paktika Province along the border with Pakistan.

Another eight US soldiers were injured on May 20- 21 in Khost.

"Taliban's continued attacks on foreign troops, aid workers and government interests is not only a proof to the US-led coalition's failure in curbing terrorism but would also cast shadow over the landmark elections slated for September," maintained the former Afghan army officer.

The continued Taliban-linked insurgency forced the US military leadership to increase the strength of its troops from 13,500 to 20,000.

Contrary to expectations and predictions, the US army and its western allies have so far failed to stamp out the remnants of the former fundamentalist regime and pave the way for the smooth first democratic elections in post-war nation.

President Hamid Karzai which came to power over two years ago has put off the presidential and parliamentary elections from June to September due to security concerns.

Mullah Mohammad Omar, the fugitive leader of Taliban who eluded the US hunt, has termed the election as a toll to "legitimize US Occupation of Afghanistan" and vowed to sabotage the process by all means.

The warning and his loyalists' activities undermined the voters ' registration process as the process is too slow to meet the date set for the elections.

Over 2.7 million out of 10.5 million population eligible for vote have registered since the inception of the process in last December.

In two separate attacks against elections process, five election workers were injured in east Afghanistan early this month.

The suspected Taliban besides attacking US troops have also targeted the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF) as well as Afghan troops over the last two weeks.

As a result of such militancy, a Norwegian soldier of ISAF was killed and one of his comrades was injured in a fatal attack taking place last weekend in Kabul.

During this period, according to officials, around 30 people including 20 Taliban fighters, three government soldiers and seven civilians were killed.

"Taliban would further be encouraged to increase their activities if the US and government troops fail to check their movement," observed Inamul Haq, a Kabul-based educationist.

"The US military has been boasting for the last two years about its victory over Taliban and terrorism but it appears in vain as the insurgency is getting momentum," he further said.

Besides threatening more attacks against US troops, a pamphlet apparently issued by Taliban and found in some parts of the country urged Afghans to boycott the elections run under US clout.

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Afghan returnees running misery life at home
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Contrary to much expectations, many Afghan refugees that have returned home over the past two years have been living in misery as shortage of shelter and unemployment blanketing the war-battered nation.

High rate of unemployment, lack of accommodation and lapse of security are the main factors affecting the returnees' life in their post-Taliban motherland.

"I have not received a penny since my return two years ago except 100 US dollars and a bag of wheat at the reception center in Kabul," complained Moin Khan who has been living at a makeshift camp here.

The camp, known as 'Chaman Hazori Refugees' near the Olympic Stadium, has been housing 300 families since its establishment two Years ago.

Moin, spokesman for some of the 1,200 displaced returnees at the camp claimed that no organizations even the Ministry for Refugees and Repatriation had ever paid any heed to their plight while usually passing them by.

The head of a six-member family who earn some 150 Afghanis (3 US dollars) daily through selling soft drink alongside the road said he sacrificed three members of his family in resistance against the former Soviet Union and the Taliban in late last century.

Due to a quarter century of war and civil strife, began with the invasion of former Soviet Union in 1979, over 1.5 million Afghans had been killed and another 5.5 million left the country, the majority of them went to Pakistan and Iran.

With the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001 and induction of internationally recognized Hamid Karzai-led transitional government, the Afghan refugees began returning home and since then, according to UN refugee agency (UNHCR), over 3 million resettled back in the country, the majority of whom in Kabul.

Only in 2002, nearly 2.5 million refugees have returned but the Trend of repatriation started going downward in the following years.

Around 400,000 refugees from both Iran and Pakistan returned home In 2003, So far this year, the number of returnees from both the Countries has reached to 250,000.

Just a handful educated expatriates and skilled laborers out of 3 million returnees have been absorbed by foreign agencies or government departments while the rest are wandering for job.

Today's Kabul, a devastated city is one of the most expensive Cities in the world, even costlier than New York City and other international metropolises.

The monthly rent of a five-room house in a relatively posh area is 4,000 US dollars which falls far beyond the reach of an ordinary man.

"Twelve persons including three children and three aged men have died due to the harsh winters in the poorly-arranged camp over the past two years but no one bothered to comfort their families," the poor Moin further added while disclosing the ordeal of the camp's inhabitants.

Responding to Moin's comment, another displaced man, Taza Gul, said that refugees even sold their children to sustain alive.

"A woman sold her child last winter and two others committed self-immolation to get rid of this living hell," the 75-year-old bearded Gul said while pointing his finger at the camp.

"None of our sons or daughters is going to school as from dawn to dusk they beg on streets or scavenge in garbage to find a usable item and sell it in order to keep their family alive," he said.

"We want the government to provide shelter, get enrolled our children to school and help them build their future," maintained Gul, his body shaking.

The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation in its bid to cope with the situation has sought UNHCR's support to build houses for returnees and the agency in response allocated 22 million US dollars for 2004 to support 20,000 families to build their shelters.

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Sounding the drum for al-Qaeda hunt
BBC News Wednesday, 9 June, 2004, 10:59 GMT 11:59 UK
By Haroon Rashid BBC correspondent in Peshawar
It is early morning and a man in his early thirties is beating a beautifully decorated drum in an open field in Wana, main town of Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region.

He is playing the drum as loud as possible. The intention is to let people know proceedings have begun.

Soon men of all ages with guns hanging from their shoulders start gathering around him.

A few of the young lose control and start dancing to the drums.

The occasion looks festive, but it definitely is not.

This is the gathering of the traditional militia called the Lashkar, made up of volunteers in the rugged, semi-autonomous South Waziristan region.

Warrior race

Soon these tribesmen will leave on a hunt for al-Qaeda militants hiding in their area, close to the border with Afghanistan.

The tradition of beating drums is as old as the Pathan race that lives in this part of the world.

The drum is known locally as the "dhol" and in tribal tradition its beating announces a danger or emergency.

The Pathans in this area are considered a warrior race, so the Lashkar is an inseparable part of their life.

Lashkar is a Pashto language word meaning a group of men raised to fight a war against a common enemy.

The term can be applied to both a dozen men going to a nearby village to exact revenge or to the thousands who poured into the Kashmir valley in 1947-48 to wrest it from Indian control.

Historians say the drum became an integral part of the Lashkar as a tool of communication.

"In the absence of modern means of communication it is used to gather people and declare war but also as a means of entertainment for volunteers," says Hazrat Khan, a tribal writer from the Mohmand tribal region.

"It is also useful in raising the soldiers' morale to make them fight better."

Surprise tactic

A 4,000-strong Lashkar has for the past few days been searching for al-Qaeda suspects in South Waziristan's remote Shakai area.

They have yet to catch any.

Much to the dislike of US forces in neighbouring Afghanistan, the Pakistani government has set two conditions for the tribesmen to clear their area of al-Qaeda suspects - either arrest them or make them leave the area.

The problem is that the al-Qaeda and Taleban militants enjoy a good deal of tribal support.

Consequently, some argue that it seems odd to use loud drums to lead a Lashkar for a surprise raid on al-Qaeda suspects.

An expert on tribal traditions, Raj Wali Khattak, says: "It's not clear why they are using the drums in these searches.

"No doubt it is a tradition but now politics have also crept in. Maybe the tribesmen don't want to arrest the militants. Their policy might be only to let them clear the area."

But a tribal elder, who preferred not to be named, defended the use of the drums, saying they were a long-standing tradition.

"A Lashkar without dhol is incomplete. In the present circumstances, it's even more necessary. Making 4,000 people gather and then conducting them is not an easy task in our under-developed areas."

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Reagan arrives at US Capitol for long national farewell
Thursday June 10, 7:56 AM AFP
The body of the late president Ronald Reagan was welcomed at the US Capitol to be honored with a state funeral and two days of public viewing as the nation prepared to bid the former leader good-bye.

After a carefully executed, solemn procession through the streets of Washington, Reagan's coffin arrived at the Capitol building to the strains of "Hail to the Chief," a song reserved for presidents, and a 21-gun salute.

The welcome mirrored the one America's 40th president received at Andrews Air Force base earlier in the day and the send-off from his home state of California.

Some 800 dignitaries from all branches of the US government, including Vice President Dick Cheney were on hand to honor the late president at the white-domed Capitol building which houses the US Congress.

Twenty-one F-15s flew low over the city in the dramatic "missing man" formation in an aerial tribute to the late commander-in-chief.

An honor guard carried the casket up the steep steps to the Capitol Rotunda, where the body will rest on a catafalque built in 1865 for slain president Abraham Lincoln.

Earlier, the casket was borne through the city on a horse-drawn gun carriage to the beat of a muffled drum.

Following the casket was a riderless black horse with a sword on the empty saddle and Reagan's own boots reversed in the stirrups, a symbol of the fallen leader.

Tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets to see the cortege which started the first state funeral in Washington since former president Lyndon Johnson died in 1973.

Reagan's widow, Nancy, was warmly applauded by the crowd when she exited her limousine to watch her husband's body being moved from the hearse to the gun carriage. "God bless you Nancy," an admirer shouted from the crowd, sparking another burst of clapping.

After a ceremony at the Capitol, Reagan's body will lie in state until Friday and the public will be allowed to pass through the Rotunda and pay their last respects.

Earlier, the body was driven into the city at precisely 20 miles (32 kilometers) per hour from Andrews Air Force base, where it arrived on a blue-and-white Boeing 747 presidential jet from Reagan's home state of California.

A frail but composed Nancy Reagan, 82, accompanied the body of her husband of 52 years from his presidential library in Simi Valley, where it had lay "in repose" for two days, to the Point Mugu naval base, and onto the US capital city.

Also accompanying the body were Reagan's children Patti, Ron and Michael, as well as close friend and honorary pallbearer, US entertainer Merv Griffin.

Some 106,000 nostalgic admirers of the former president queued for hours on Monday and Tuesday to reverentially file past Reagan's coffin at his presidential library.

The emotional crowd overwhelmed Nancy Reagan and library staff who had expected just 45,000 to 60,000 people to come pay their respects to Reagan, who died Saturday aged 93 after a 10-year struggle with Alzheimer's disease.

"It's unbelievable what I'm seeing on television," Nancy Reagan said in a statement Tuesday. "The outpouring of love for my husband is truly amazing."

In Washington, mourners began queuing before dawn at the Capitol and braved sweltering temperatures to be among the 150,000 to 200,000 people expected to walk past the casket.

The viewing will continue around the clock until a few hours before Friday's funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral, which is to be attended by a host of world leaders as well as some of Reagan's allies and former foes from the end of the Cold War in the 1980s.

Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prince Charles will represent Britain. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, South African President Thabo Mbeki and Afghan President Hamid Karzai have also confirmed their attendance.

All four surviving former US presidents -- Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and the elder George Bush, who served as Reagan's vice president, will be present.

President George W. Bush and his father, and former prime ministers Margaret Thatcher of Britain and Brian Mulroney of Canada, will eulogize Reagan at the funeral.

Former Polish president Lech Walesa and ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev will also be at the cathedral. Reagan once called the Soviet Union the "evil empire" but struck up a friendship with Gorbachev after the collapse of communism.

A tribute recorded by Thatcher in February for her close friend and conservative soul mate will be played, and the former British prime minister is then expected to accompany Nancy Reagan and the casket back to California after the service for burial.

President Bush has ordered a national day of mourning for Friday. All but essential government departments will close, along with financial markets. Flags on public and military buildings will fly at half-mast for 30 days.