Afghanistan News June 6, 2004

June 6, 2004

8 Militants Killed As U.S. Strikes Kabul
Sat Jun 5, 8:17 AM ET AP
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. troops and warplanes attacked Taliban rebels besieging a remote checkpoint in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official said Saturday. Eight militants were killed.

American forces also skirmished with guerrillas who attacked them with rockets near the country's eastern border, the U.S. military said, part of an insurgency threatening plans for landmark national elections in September.

The battle for the checkpoint was in Daychopan district of Zabul province, about 200 miles southwest of the capital Kabul, provincial military commander Naimatullah Khan said.

Khan said Afghan troops used a satellite phone to call for help when a band of 200 Taliban crept down from the mountains and opened fire on the checkpoint in an area called Hazar Boosth.

"Coalition planes bombed the area, and after a four-hour gunfight, the Taliban pulled back into the mountains," Khan said. "Eight of them were killed. We've gathered up their bodies and guns."

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Tucker Mansager confirmed that a group of Marines backed by warplanes had clashed Friday evening with a "fairly substantial number of militants."

He had no word on any casualties or details of the fighting.

Meanwhile, militants fired two rockets and fired on U.S.-led forces near Nangarlam in eastern Kunar province Thursday, Mansager said. Warplanes came to their aid, ending the engagement.

No Americans were hurt and there was no information on enemy casualties.

In another incident, gunmen opened fire on a car carrying a government official in Uruzgan province, wounding him seriously and killing three of his guards, police said.

Mullah Abdul Ghali, the deputy mayor of Girishk in Helmand province, was riding through his hometown, Deh Rawood, when the attackers struck.

Three more soldiers guarding Ghali were also injured, Girishk police chief Haji Bir Jan said. He said the assailants, who escaped, were Taliban.

News of the latest fighting comes after the U.S. military said another fierce battle killed 17 militants in the mountains of southern Afghanistan on Thursday, the bloodiest clash in almost a year. Three Marines were slightly wounded.

It also follows the slaying of five aid workers, including three foreigners, on Wednesday in a previously peaceful northern region, the deadliest assault on international relief agencies since U.S. forces drove the Taliban from power in late 2001.

Violence across Afghanistan has killed more than 400 people this year, including election workers and foreign troops as well as dozens of Afghan soldiers, casting doubt on the country's readiness for national elections slate for September.

The United Nations has registered about 3 million voters so far, or about one-third of the Afghans eligible. But it has yet to venture into remote districts of the south and east because of poor security.

Explosion rocks Afghan Interior Ministry
Xinhua 06/05/2000
Kabul - An explosion on Saturday mourning jolted Afghanistan's Interior Ministry and created panic among those in the nearby. Ruling out the possibility of sabotage in the incident, authorities described it as an accident caused by mistakes at an ammunition depot of the ministry.

"It was not a bomb. It was an explosion caused by fuse detonation at an ammunition depot at 10 o'clock this morning," the Interior Ministry's spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told Xinhua. The depot, according to him, contains arms and ammunition collected by police from irresponsible persons in the past.

"No one was injured and no office was damaged due to the explosion," he stressed. Meanwhile, Karim Khan, a passer-by, said the explosion was so strong that all the people in the nearby were terrified and took refuge behind the walls in the area.

It was the first time that such incident had taken place inside a heavily guarded government compound in downtown capital amid increasing insurgency in the south and southeast Afghanistan. Remnants of Taliban and their allies al-Qaeda have threatened to disrupt the upcoming elections slated for September and evict the US-led troops by Jihad or holy war from Afghanistan.

U.S. Forces in Afghanistan Call in Planes
Associated Press Saturday June 5, 5:17 PM
U.S. forces called in warplanes during two separate battles with Taliban-led insurgents, the military said Saturday.

The Marines called in airstrikes during a clash late Friday near Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan province, 250 miles southwest of Kabul, military spokesman Lt. Col. Tucker Mansager said.

The American troops fought a gunbattle with a "fairly substantial number of anti-coalition militants," Mansager said. He had no word on any casualties or details of the fighting.

Meanwhile, militants fired two rockets and rained gunfire on U.S.-led forces near Nangarlam in eastern Kunar province on Thursday.

Warplanes came to their aid, ending the engagement, Mansager said. No coalition forces were hurt, he said. There was no information on enemy casualties.

News of the latest fighting comes after the military said another fierce battle killed 17 militants in the mountains of southern Afghanistan on Thursday, the bloodiest clash in almost a year. Three Marines were slightly wounded.

It also follows the slaying of five aid workers, including three foreigners, on Wednesday in a previously peaceful northern region, the deadliest assault on international relief agencies since U.S. forces drove the Taliban from power in late 2001.

Karzai to cut Afghan cabinet to 20 in reform drive
Reuters 06/05/2000 By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai, facing autumn elections, plans to cut the size of his fractious cabinet to 20 from 29 as part of his first major reform drive since taking office late in 2001, an official said on Saturday.

But the plan needs the approval of the cabinet, some of whose members are drawn from armed factions that have defied Karzai's orders in the past.

"The proposed plan consists of two parts," a palace official, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters.

"Initially, ministries will be cut to 20 from 29 and later on the cabinet size will be further reduced. The overall aim is to bring coherence and effectiveness in the government."

Some ministries will be merged as part of the plan, he said, expressing the hope there would be no opposition to the reform, the first major overhaul since Karzai came to power in 2001 after U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban.

Only a handful of cabinet members are technocrats, and most other positions are held by members of the Northern Alliance, formed from factions that helped U.S.-led forces to oust the Taliban and now control key government portfolios.

Karzai has managed to push through some changes in the structure of the defence and interior ministries, but most of the power still lies with the Alliance.

His plan to streamline the cabinet was worked out several months ago, but he is keen to implement it, starting with a cabinet debate on Sunday, before landmark elections due in September.

Karzai, who is seen as a favourite of the U.S. government, has vowed to stand in the poll, taking place two months before the U.S. presidential election in November.

Observers believe Bush is keen to show Afghanistan as a success story to counter the negative impact on public opinion of the U.S. military grappling with insurgents in Iraq.

Afghan Taliban say to hang man they accuse as spy
06 Jun 2004 07:46:55 GMT
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan, June 6 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's ousted Islamic Taliban have threatened to kill an Afghan they accuse of spying for the United States, the group's spokesman said on Sunday.

Taliban spokesman Mullah Abdul Latif Hakimi told Reuters by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location that the group has arrested an Afghan, Dost Mohammad, and seized communications equipment and other documents showing he was a spy.

"He used to inform the American soldiers about the location and activities of the Taliban and al Qaeda," Hakimi said. "Because of him the activities and Jihadi operations of the Taliban suffered badly."

He said Mohammad was arrested from a village in the province of Zabul, about 300 km (186 miles) southwest of the capital, Kabul, and was being interrogated.
"After the investigation is complete the Taliban will hang him to death and it will happen quite soon," he added.

No other details were immediately available about the man the Taliban have accused of spying, but Hakimi said Mohammad had a son who was working in the foreign ministry in Kabul.

The Taliban, ousted from power after the U.S. attack on Afghanistan late in 2001, have increased their deadly attacks on Afghan army and U.S.-led coalition forces hunting for al Qaeda members and Taliban remnants.

Since August, the bloodiest period since the fall of the Taliban, at least 750 people have been killed including militants, Afghan and U.S.-led troops and aid workers.
In recent weeks the Taliban have also stepped up attacks ahead of presidential elections slated to be held in September.

Musharraf vows to eliminate Al-Qaeda from Pakistan's tribal belt
Sat Jun 5, 1:26 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has vowed to eliminate Al-Qaeda-linked fighters hiding in rugged tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Musharraf said "we have to eliminate Al-Qaeda" from the tribal areas in an interview aired by Dubai-based private ARY One television channel late Friday.

"The aim is very clear in everyone's mind. This is a popular demand of Pakistan" to eliminate Al-Qaeda, he said.

Musharraf threatened punitive action against tribesmen who have so far failed in their promise to handover foreign militants sheltering in South Waziristan.

"If they fail (to deliver foreign militants), there is no doubt in my mind that the military is the answer.

"We wish this is not done, it is not a joke that you destroy someone's house, this will be done as a last resort," he said.

"We can destroy their shops according to frontier regulations, we will also do this punitive action."

Musharraf however said excessive use of force might not achieve results and that any military action had to be carefully thought out.

"Leave that to military experts how they use the military, please leave it to them -- how to use minimum force and achieve objectives."

The Pakistani army launched its fiercest operation against militants suspected to be in the rugged area in March. At least 46 troops were killed in a 12-day siege and search operation.

The government then changed its strategy and agreed to seek a political solution to the problem.

Under a deal brokered by tribal elders in April, the government allowed an estimated 500 foreigners, suspected to be Al-Qaeda-linked militants, to stay in the area if they renounced militancy and registered with the authorities.

However, despite the expiry of several deadlines, none has registered.

Troops last week erected road blocks and shut down thousands of shops in the markets of the main tribal town of Wana to enforce an economic blockade to pressure local tribes to hand over the foreigners.

Musharraf also pointed the finger at Al-Qaeda while responding to questions about sectarian violence in the southern port city of Karachi where some 50 people have died during the last month.

"We are addressing the root causes, these are either sectarian or linked with the people who want to destabilise us," he said.

"Who wants to destabilise us? This is Al-Qaeda, (because) we are after them to expel them.

Musharraf said he thought remote-controlled car bomb attacks were beyond the capability of sectarian militants.

"In my view this is a bigger game, we have to see all these things."

Musharraf also said Al-Qaeda masterminded the two assassination attempts on him last year.

Security officials last week said Pakistani militant Amjad Farooqi, wanted over the murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl murder and alleged mastermind of two attempts to kill Musharraf, is Al-Qaeda's kingpin in Pakistan.

"Amjad Farooqi is the planner, he has contacts with Al-Qaeda ... and strong linkages with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad," Musharraf said.

Farooqi had close contact with Mohammad, Al-Qaeda's number three and the alleged chief planner of the September 11, 2001 attacks who was arrested in March 2003 near Islamabad.

Musharraf last month made the startling revelation on television that Al-Qaeda-linked extremists infiltrated his military to try to kill him.

Afghan economy begins recovering: finance minister
KABUL, June 5 (Xinhua) -- The impoverished economy of the war-ravaged Afghanistan has begun recovering from the war aftermath over the last two years, a report issued by the Finance Ministry said.

According to the report read by Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, the government resources in the past two years totaled 1. 54 billion US dollars. Of these 348.6 million was collected through domestic revenue and the remaining 1,186.9 million received through international assistance.

The report covers government resources from the fourth quarter of Afghan year 1380 or December 2001 to the end of the 1382 or 20th of The March of 2003, indicating the expenditure over the past two years as high as 978.5 million dollars.

During the said period, the Afghan transitional government also paid 47.3 million US dollars to the World Bank (WB) to clear its debt arrears.

As the leading lending agency, the World Bank has provided over 350 million US dollars to the US-backed Afghan government since its induction after the fall of Taliban regime in late 2001.

Around 3.07 billion dollars, the report added, was directly disbursed by donors to UN agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or to private contractor during this period.

Another 1.2 billion dollars in assistance during the said period were provided directly to the government.

In the report, the annual budget for the fiscal year of 1383- 1384, which covers March 21, 2004, to March 20, 2005, has been allotted 609 million dollars. But the government, according to the finance minister, would increase the annual budget to 1.5 billion dollars if the present economic trend continues.

Economic growth was registered at 23 percent last year as against 30 percent in 2002.

Domestic revenue, according to the report, reached 201 million US dollars last year but the target for this year has been set at 309 million dollars.

Afghanistan, which received a pledge of 8.2 billion dollars over The next three years by international community at Berlin Conference in early April, needs 27.5 billion dollars for its rebuilding over the next seven years.

Iranian authorities kill 58 traffickers, seize 50 tons of drugs
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iranian police have killed at least 58 drug smugglers and confiscated more than 50 tons of narcotics in the past two months, state-run radio reported Saturday.

The drug traffickers were killed and the narcotics were seized in 116 separate operations in eastern Iran in April and May, the radio quoted General Mahdi Abouei, a top anti-drug police official, as saying.

Seven police officers were killed in the raids, he said.

``The huge amount of narcotics seized is demonstration of a crisis caused by mass production of various types of drugs in neighboring Afghanistan,'' Abouei was quoted as saying.

The radio also said police have detained 20,000 drug smugglers and distributors, as well as 41,000 drug addicts since April.

Iran is a major route for shipment of drugs from Afghanistan to the Gulf region and Europe. Confiscation of huge amounts of narcotics is common in Iran.

'Hawala' nets Fremont man 27 months
Afghan businessman gets reduced sentence for unlicensed money transmitting business
By Josh Richman Daily Review
Saturday, June 05, 2004 - OAKLAND -- A popular businessman in Fremont's Afghan community who operated one of the area's only traditional money exchanges with associates in Afghanistan won a small victory with a reduced federal prison sentence Wednesday.

Although he went into court facing 46 to 57 months in federal prison, Qader Qudus, 45, ultimately was sentenced to 27 months for his conviction on two counts of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.

He has pleaded guilty to a money-laundering count in a separate case in Maryland, a crime punishable by 30 to 37 months in prison, for which he will be sentenced this December. But federal prosecutors have agreed to recommend that sentence run concurrently with the one handed down Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong of Oakland.

And Qudus -- who must serve 85 percent of his sentence before he's eligible for release -- gets credit for the time he already has served in the federal prison at Dublin since Aug. 29, when agents arrested him at his home.

He was indicted in September inMaryland along with 11 other men in connection with what prosecutors say was an international heroin trafficking conspiracy. He pleaded guilty in January to a single count of money laundering, admitting his money exchange business, or "hawala," moved $30,000 the government says was linked to drug sales.

Hawalas are a traditional Middle Eastern system of transferring money between trusted associates. Somebody in Fremont could bring Qudus $200, and for a 5 percent commission he would tell a business associate in Afghanistan to give a recipient the money. The transaction would later be followed up with a wire transfer between Qudus and his associates.

The East Bay's sizable Afghan community used to have several hawalas, but most closed under federal pressure. Soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the resultant U.S. military response, the government feared they could be conduits funding terrorists. As his local associates disappeared and as Afghanistan's population became desperate for aid, Qudus found himself transferring $600,000 to $700,000 per month.

Armstrong initially seemed unsympathetic to Qudus' attorney's argument for a lighter sentence under federal sentencing guidelines. Attorney Jeffrey Nevin argued that Qudus began and expanded his business as a community service, providing a conduit through which refugees such as himself could provide a lifeline of money to relatives left behind in a war-torn country.

The judge initially said she didn't see how Qudus' actions were all that altruistic if he was making a comfortable living from the commissions on his transfers. She also questioned whether there were legal alternatives to hawalas. Nevin told her Western Union and all other formal international banking institutions pulled out of Afghanistan after Sept. 11, leaving hawalas the only option.

After excusing herself for a five-minute recess that turned out to last about an hour, Armstrong returned and said her rereading of case law -- as well as several letters of support from people and organizations in the Afghan community -- persuaded her Qudus had no ill intent in running his business.

She noted that he held local and state business licenses and had consulted a lawyer who erroneously told him he was doing nothing wrong.

A crowd of about 50 supporters wept and applauded as Armstrong announced she was granting a lighter sentence, in the 27-to-33-month range instead of the 46-to-57-month range. Moments later she announced she would sentence Qudus to the 27-month minimum.

UN Convoy Attacked in Southeastern Afghanistan
KABUL (Reuters) - A convoy carrying members of a U.N.-sponsored body working on Afghan presidential elections was attacked in southeastern Afghanistan Sunday but escaped unhurt. U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said a U.N. convoy was attacked but none of the 15 international and local members of the commission traveling between the provinces of Khost and Paktia was hurt.

He said one explosion happened in front of the first vehicle but it was not damaged and the convoy continued its journey. Armed men fired at the convoy after a second explosion nearby.

"The assailants fired with small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades on the convoy and the passengers took cover," the spokesman said.

"The police escorting the convoy exchanged fire with the attackers, who fled, and the primary report I have says that the staff are returning."

A Western source, who asked not to be named, said U.S. air support was called in to help after the attack but he did not know if there was any air raid.

"This incident happened around lunch time in an area called Gerdi Sari. We have sent troops to the area to find out what is going on and see if there are any casualties," Paktia's governor, Assadullah Wafa, had said earlier.

Wafa blamed Afghanistan's "enemies" for the attack. Afghans usually use the term "enemy" or "terrorist" for members of the ousted Taliban and their al Qaeda allies.

The Taliban has threatened to disrupt the election, which was delayed from June partly because of a spurt of militant attacks in parts of the south and east, where more than 750 people have been killed since last August.

The attack comes days after the killing of three foreign and two national employees of a Western-funded aid agency, Medicins Sans Frontieres, in the northwestern province of Badghis.

UN program to disarm soldiers in Afghanistan "big failure"
The Globe and Mail 06/05/2000 By Hamida Ghafour
KABUL - Taj Mohammed picked up a gun when he was 18. First he fought Soviet troops, then the Taliban, in the Panjshir Valley -- the heart of Afghan resistance against foreign occupation.

He killed enemies for 21 years. But he was also known as "doctor" because he became skilled at treating his comrades' wounds.

"We took the patients and wounded by donkey," said Mr. Mohammed, who now commands a militia division in Kabul. "I amputated legs, hands and I was even sawing the legs with a piece of wood, because there was nothing else. . . .

"There was bombing by Russians overhead and they were launching rockets. We received medicine from Pakistan once a year and that was only in the summer because in the winter the valleys were blocked by snow."

Mr. Mohammed is among 100,000 soldiers and commanders who have been told to hand in their weapons and return to civilian life under a $225-million United Nations plan to disarm and demobilize former fighters and reintegrate them into the civilian world.

But the project, which began last fall and includes $14-million in assistance from the Canadian government, has faltered badly. Powerful warlords are reluctant to co-operate, soldiers feel betrayed, and the probability is receding that Afghanistan will be secure by September, when voting is to occur.

"It's a big failure," said Andrew Wilder, head of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit think-tank, adding that there is little hope of rebuilding Afghanistan when the rule of the gun prevails beyond Kabul, the capital.

Under the three-year program, regional commanders give the UN a list of candidates for disarmament. The fighters hand over a functioning weapon, usually a Kalashnikov automatic rifle, in exchange for $200 (U.S.) in cash and a bag of food. This is meant to tide them over while they are interviewed for jobs such as ditch digging and mine removal, or taught the skills of farming or small business.

The UN plan envisioned that 40,000 fighters would have disarmed by now, but the figure is only 6,000. Two decades of civil war have left Afghanistan in a state akin to medieval Europe, where regional warlords provide arms, food and wives to townsmen in exchange for allegiance. The most powerful -- men such as Abdul Rashid Dostum, Atta Mohammed, Mohammed Daoud and Ismael Khan -- are reluctant to surrender weapons or fighters, fearing a serious loss of power.

"This was not well understood," said Noel Cossins, an adviser to the government's UN-funded disarmament and reintegration commission. Some commanders demanded that their disarmed followers turn their $200 payments over to them, and the UN withdrew some offers of payment. "Now the big commanders are saying, 'See? You can't trust the UN,' " Mr. Cossins said. At the same time, the United States appears unwilling to challenge the warlords, who support it in the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in southern and eastern Afghanistan. That leaves them free to dabble in the drug trade or urban crime.

Afghan's deputy defence minister, General Rahim Wardak, called on the U.S. government to crack down on regional commanders. "They were created by the United States after [Sept. 11, 2001] and it is their responsibility to deal with them," he said.

Mr. Wilder said the commanders have become bolder in recent months. "In the first six months after November, 2001, the warlords wouldn't have thumbed their noses," he said. "But now they know the United States has problems in Iraq and feel they don't have to listen."

The program has also had trouble finding jobs for soldiers who know little other than warfare and are illiterate or too ill-disciplined to join the Afghan National Army.

Mr. Mohammed, the resistance commander, has handed over 200 of his soldiers and about 50 heavy weapons. He said he supports the project but is reluctant to go further because his fighters' prospects as civilians are unclear.

"The mujahedeen who were disarmed last year have not been given professions -- they have been walking around without anything to do," he said. "When my soldiers leave, there should be [the] possibility of jobs in the private sector, or the Afghan police or army. They haven't offered us an alternative."

The country's continuing political instability also makes it hard to disarm, he said.

"If mujahedeen [are] disarmed in the south and [the] Taliban came again, who will be there to stand against them?" he asked. "Who can say the United States will stay for a long time?"

Meanwhile, some observers say those awaiting demobilization are not exactly on their best behaviour.

"Many of them have been . . . involved in factional fighting, which is a continuing cause of instability -- and of suffering for the communities affected by it," Jean Arnault, the UN's special envoy to Afghanistan, said last month.

Afghan medical students find grave solution to skeleton shortage
Sun Jun 6, 4:07 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Armed with shovels, bags and flashlights, five students creep through a dark Kabul cemetery on a gruesome midnight hunt they hope will help them in their studies.

Lacking cash to buy medical skeletons, the medical students have been forced to extreme measures in order to continue the lessons they hope will turn them into Afghanistan's next generation of doctors.

With more than 80,000 people killed in the 1992-96 civil war, many of the victims were hastily buried in this west Kabul cemetery and it is their bones the students search for to help them learn anatomy.

"It was a scary and risky thing to do," one of them said. "But we had no other choice, we were told we could not attend the next anatomy lesson if we didn't have skeletons.

"We knew we would have few facilities or permission to work on bodies for autopsy at our university, but at least by digging up graves we can find skeletons," he said.

Much has changed in Afghanistan since the fall of the hardline Islamic Taliban regime in late 2001, but for medical students, procuring a skeleton remains a major problem.

The Japanese government recently donated some much-needed anatomical models to Kabul University, including a male and a female skeleton and models of musculature and other organs.

But medical students still need to buy or otherwise obtain a skeleton for use during their course, an academic at the university's Medical Institute who requested anonymity told AFP.

Lacking the funds to buy a set of bones, many students are forced to turn to desperate means to supply their need, second-year student Saleh Ahmad confirmed.

And outside the capital the situation is similar in medical schools in places like eastern Nangarhar.

"I still have my skeleton that me and my friends got from digging in Nangarhar province," first-year medical student Mohammed Rafi told AFP. "Most students still have to provide skeletons for themselves."

Mohammed Shafi, who took part in a midnight skeleton grab four years ago, said then their institute did not have a single skeleton and they had little choice but to rob a grave and risk heavy punishment if caught by the Taliban.

Apart from the risk of being caught, their efforts were sometimes in vain.

"First we opened three graves and that was a useless effort -- they were too old and the bones had all worn out so we had to open several others," said Mohammed Homayoon. "Then we opened four graves and managed to get four sets of skeletons," he said.

Some of the bones bore the scars of the war-ravaged country's violent past.

One of the skulls they dug up was totally blackened, indicating the victim had been burned, he said.

"God knows how cruelly he was killed by fighters in the civil war," he said.

Once they had the bones in their possession, the students then had to clean, sterilize and varnish them. Without professional skills or equipment they undertook the grisly task in their homes.

"I was not aware that this boiling skeleton would make a terrible smell," said Shafi.

"My mother came out to the backyard and saw the skull and bones boiling in the pan with this terrible smell and when saw me and my friend standing there she immediately fainted."

Police make arrest in beating of Afghan man
The Oakland Tribune 06/05/2000 By Ben Aguirre Jr.
Assault charge filed in beating of Afghan
FREMONT - Police have made an arrest in a nearly two-week-old beating case that left one man with a fractured jaw after being hit with a wrench.
Daniel Alonzo Reyes, 35, was arraigned Friday at the Fremont Hall of Justice on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, Detective Bill Veteran said. Reyes was arrested on a warrant at his Milpitas home late Wednesday evening, Veteran said.

The arrest came 11 days af-ter an Afghan man was chased by a group of men and beaten with a mallet. Detectives tracked down Reyes based on license-plate information that the victim's wife wrote down, Veteran said.

The victim, a 28-year-old Fremont man whose name has been withheld by The Argus because the man fears for his safety, was with his family at Central Park on May 22 about 6 p.m. The man said two juveniles began yelling racial epithets at the victim's wife, who was wearing Muslim head garb, and her child.

The beating victim was using a restroom near Lake Elizabeth at the time and returned to his family moments later to find her in tears, he said.

The man said he scolded the juveniles for their words toward his family and that he and his wife decided to leave the park.

As the couple left the park in their car, they noticed they were being followed by a group of Latin men in a white pickup truck.

During their trip home, the pickup truck cut them off, causing them to brake.

Two males jumped out of the truck and began running toward the victim, he said.

The man reversed his car and headed toward the police station on Stevenson Boulevard. The pickup continued to follow them.

On the way to the police station, the victim made a wrong turn and ended up in a dead-end road leading to an apartment complex near Fremont Boulevard and Bidwell Drive.

The victim said he got out of his car to confront the men and keep them from attacking the car and his family inside.

One of the attackers tried to hit him with a wrench and, as he blocked it, another man struck him in the face with a mallet.

The victim fell to the ground and the attackers continued to kick him until his wife intervened. He was taken to Washington Hospital, treated for multiple facial fractures and released five hours later.

Williams to honor expert in Afghan culture, history
By Christopher Marcisz Berkshire Eagle Staff Sunday, June 06, 2004
WILLIAMSTOWN -- Nancy Hatch Dupree, whose interest in Afghanistan dates back to a trip there in the late 1950s, said at least she doesn't have to explain as much about the country today when speaking to Americans.

"You all know where Afghanistan is," she said at an event at Williams yesterday morning. "In the old days when I was lecturing with my husband [the late archaeologist Louis Dupree], I had to explain where it was. Many people thought it was in Africa."

Dupree will be honored this morning with a doctor of humane letters degree from the college for her decades of work to preserve and explain Afghan history and culture. She spoke yesterday with Williams anthropology professor David Edwards, who spent three months in the country last year working on a film that he plans to complete this fall.

Social fabric pulled

Dupree explained that while the country's infrastructure is in disrepair, it is the social fabric of the country that is "being pulled so taut it is in danger of ripping." She describes a country that has been a battleground of competing ideologies for 50 years -- from the arrival of modernity, through communism, to Islamic fundamentalism, and now, with the help of the West, back to modernity.

"You can imagine that the people are confused," she said. "Particularly the young people who don't know what to do."

Dupree and her husband spent 15 years in the country excavating historic sites, and were expelled during the invasion by the former Soviet Union in 1978. Through the years, she has written more than 250 works on the country's history and archaeology, and on social issues like the status of women. Her husband died in 1989, and she now divides her time between Peshawar, in neighboring Pakistan, and the Afghan capital of Kabul.

She is a senior consultant with the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief's Resource and Information Center, which helps to organize assistance efforts. Among her major current projects is to move an archive of relief agency reports and documents from Peshawar to a permanent home in Afghanistan.

Despite the current turmoil, she said the country still has a distinct sense of national identity, built in large part by the decades spent by so many Afghans in refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran.

The country, about the size of Texas, is home to many ethnic groups, which she said have long gotten along together in a spirit of tolerance. Much of the trouble comes from outside.

"It's very easy for these countries on the perimeter of Afghanistan, who have their own political agendas, to stir the pot," she said, and that such meddling rouses national honor. "They are not intolerant people, but they can be pushed."

Years of war

Edwards said in light of America's commemorations of Memorial Day and the Normandy landings, he has reflected on how difficult it is for Americans to grasp what is happening in Afghanistan. This is because the United States has never endured decades of war in its own fields and villages, with constantly shifting motives and principles behind the fighting.

Both agreed that international reconstruction efforts have had mixed results. "The pace of development and reconstruction has been slow," Edwards said. "There have been results but they're scattered and modest."

Dupree said the efforts of nongovernmental organizations and western authorities to help have not been as effective as they should be. She explained how building a well in an isolated community needs to include building a spirit of community responsibility. For example, someone should be instructed how to take care of it and maintain it, she said, rather than just coming in to build some spectacular engineering feat that is likely to fall apart later on.

In his recent trip to Afghanistan, Edwards said he noted the differing opinions Afghans have of American troops and NATO forces concentrated in Kabul. He said many NATO troops have experience in conflict zones like Kosovo and Bosnia, and are well versed in how to handle tense situations.

And while he said he met many well-intentioned American troops, they had little support in their mission to rebuild the country. He said the American military is the best in history for destroying infrastructure to win wars, "but we don't know what to do with that when it's over."

They also explained other problems in the country, including how the Kabul-based government of Hamid is increasingly seen as a puppet of outsiders.

"The people are loosing faith in the fact that Karzai has a mind of his own and a say in the matter," Dupree said.