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Three German peacekeepers wounded in northern Afghanistan
KABUL, Nov 27 (AFP) - Three German peacekeepers were injured when a bomb planted by suspected Taliban militants exploded close to their vehicle in northern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday.
The attack occurred as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops were patrolling near the airport at Kunduz city late Friday, provincial police chief Mutalib Bik told AFP.
The Germans were wounded by a mine planted on the road to the airport, he said, adding: "It is the work of Taliban."
ISAF confirmed the incident happened shortly before 8:00 pm (1530 GMT) during a routine patrol by two vehicles.
"The ISAF soldiers were treated at the Kunduz Provincial Reconstruction Team hospital for hearing difficulties after the explosion. One of the vehicles was damaged," ISAF said in a statement.
A note found at the scene near the remotely detonated, improvised bomb did not suggest the troops were a specific target, it added.
There are more than 8,000 NATO-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan responsible for patrolling Kabul and some quieter northern provinces.
Meanwhile 18,000 US-led coalition troops are hunting remnants of the hardline Islamic Taliban regime ousted in late 2001 and other militants, mostly in the south and southeast of the country.
French soldier kills an Afghan
Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- A French soldier shot and killed an Afghan after the man opened fire at the soldier's car in Kabul, the coalition military command reported.
Officicals said the unidentified Afghan opened fire at the vehicle at Camp Phoenix in Kabul.
There were two French soldiers in the car who returned fire. One of them shot and wounded the Afghan as the shooter moved from away from the rock he had been hiding behind,
The wounded man was evacuated to Bagram air base near Kabul, where he died of his wounds.
The French soldiers are attached to the 18,000-strong U.S.-led coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan since the collapse of the Taliban regime three years ago.
Afghan opium farmers say crop spraying made them sick
Saturday November 27, 3:42 PM AFP
Instead of the handful of people with skin diseases he usually deals with, Dr. Mohammed Rafi Safi says he has recently treated 30 Afghan farmers who allege their opium crops were sprayed with poison.
The flood of patients in the past two weeks has come since farmers in part of eastern Nangarhar province alleged their opium poppies were sprayed with poison from the air earlier this month, destroying food crops and leaving many feeling ill.
"Other illnesses such as eye and respiratory problems have also increased," said the doctor at the 20-bed Khogyani District Hospital.
The Afghan government on November 18 launched a probe into claims unidentified foreign troops sprayed fields in Hakimabad and neighboring villages in Khogyani, Shinwar and Achin districts, in one of the country's biggest poppy-growing regions.
The US military has denied any involvement, although the United States has indicated it intends to take a tougher stance in future against the drug trade in the war-torn country.
"US troops are not involved are not involved in eradication, which would include the spraying of poppy fields which we do not do," US military spokesman Major Mark McCann told AFP last week.
But Nangarhar provincial governor Din Mohammed said there was "no doubt that an aerial spray has taken place."
"I don't know who might be behind this but you know the fact that the airspace of Afghanistan is under the control of the United States," he added.
Opium production in the country leapt by 64 percent in 2004 from the year before, according to a United Nations report released last week. Afghanistan now produces more than 70 percent of the world's opium and heroin and 90 percent of the heroin on Europe's streets, it said.
Hazrat Mir, a farmer in Hakimabad village, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the provincial capital Jalalabad, told AFP: "I got this sickness when I touched the chemicals sprayed from the air on our fields."
"My back, my arms and my legs, my entire body aches -- it is very hard," the 38-year-old said as he queued at the only hospital in the village to get free treatment.
Villagers said they became sick after a plane sprayed chemicals on their fields, destroying not only poppies but also fruit and vegetables.
"I got this disease after I touched the spinach plants in our fields," said a burqa-clad woman named Kamina, while displaying her bony hands to a doctor in the hospital.
In the fields angry farmers pointed to ruined crops.
"See here," Abdul Qadir said furiously, pointing to a wilting green onion patch next to a poppy field where the shoots of the coming year's opium crop were also dying.
"The onions are destroyed, the spinach is destroyed, the wheat and vegetables are destroyed," he said.
Fellow villager Zarawar Khan claimed to have seen "a huge plane flying very low" overhead spraying a snow-like substance on the fields.
"I saw the plane. They sprayed this thing on the fields," he said, putting his finger on a sticky substance which was slightly lighter than the earth around the seedlings.
A team of experts dispatched from Kabul on November 16 has completed investigations in the three districts and has taken crops samples to the capital to be analysed.
Villager Khan said he had voted for President Hamid Karzai in the country's October 9 presidential election, but was disappointed.
"We voted for Karzai in the elections to rebuild us but he destroys us," he said.
His comments highlight the dilemma Karzai faces in stamping out the drugs trade, which generates two-thirds of the country's gross domestic product and employs an estimated 2.3 million-plus farmers, many of whom remain near the poverty line.
Karzai has said stemming the trade would be a top priority for his government and that he intended to prevent the country becoming a "narco-state".
But farmers desperate for cash to fund house repairs or their children's education can make 10 times more money growing drugs than other cash crops, while there are few roads to transport other goods.
Foreign aid workers said eradication drives such as crop spraying were only likely to drive opium prices higher by lowering yields -- putting more money in the hands of dealers and traders and hitting impoverished farmers at the bottom of the chain the hardest.
Afghans question Briton over release of UN workers
Reuters 11/26/2004 By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL - Afghan authorities have detained a former British soldier and journalist for questioning over his role in efforts to free three U.N. election workers held hostage for nearly a month in Afghanistan, a friend said on Friday.
Veteran war cameraman Peter Jouvenal, who now runs a guesthouse in Kabul, was detained on Thursday, two days after the release of the trio from 27 days in captivity, said the friend, who did not want to be identified.
An Afghan official confirmed the Jouvenal had been detained but declined to give details.
Kosovan businessman Behgjet Pacolli, a family friend of one of the hostages, said before their release that Jouvenal travelled on his behalf to the Pakistani city of Peshawar to make contact with a Taliban splinter faction Jaish-e Muslimeen (Army of Muslims) that claimed to be holding the trio.
The hostages -- Annetta Flanigan of Northern Ireland, Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo and Philippine diplomat Angelito Nayan -- were abducted from a Kabul street on Oct. 28 after helping run presidential elections won by U.S.-backed incumbent Hamid Karzai.
The government said it believes the workers were kidnapped by a "criminal" gang which may have been hired by Jaish. It said they were "abandoned" in a Kabul park on Tuesday, and denied any deal with the hostage takers.
It also said it was not aware of any deal by a third party. Pacolli has denied paying any ransom.
Jouvenal could not be reached on Friday.
But he was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying on Thursday he had travelled to the Pakistani city of Peshawar and contacted Jaish leader, Akbar Agha, through "old friends".
He said his mission had helped secure the release of the hostages, but he was not asked to deliver any ransom and did not know if any was paid.
Akbar Agha has said Flanigan and Nayan were freed in return for an agreement to release 24 Taliban prisoners, and Hebibi after an appeal by Pacolli.
The hostages have not given any details about who they believe held them or how they were freed.
But Nayan told reporters after arriving back in Manila on Thursday that the kidnappers had treated them well, feeding them generously, allowing them to listen to pop music and giving them playing cards to pass the time.
Philippine foreign affairs undersecretary Jose Brillantes said his government believed the Afghan authorities had neither paid a ransom nor released prisoners.
Authorities have said they have detained some suspects but the hunt was still on for members of the kidnap gang.
The abductions raised fears among the 2,000-strong foreign community in Kabul that local militants were copying the tactics of insurgents in Iraq. The United Nations has urged a full investigation of the kidnapping.
Some security sources in Kabul suspect a ransom may have been paid despite a warning from the United States that compromises would only provoke more kidnappings.
Trial for Commander Massouds Murder Suspects
27.11.2004 World News
French anti-terrorism judges have ordered four radical Islamic suspects committed for trial on charges they forged and obtained the false documents that enabled two suicide killers posing as journalists to approach and murder Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Massoud.
They also ordered the trial of three Islamists accused of training recruits for fighting on the Taliban side in Afghanistan.
Massoud, known as the Lion of Panjshir, was the military leader of the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban. He was killed only two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, which many commentators have said was more than a coincidence.
Investigators have said the camera used by the fake journalists — Tunisians travelling on stolen Belgian passports — was found to have been stolen from a photojournalist in France.
Anti-terrorism judges Jean-Louis Bruguiere and Jean-Francois Ricard have said they were not investigating Massouds killing per se, but the extensive support network backing the assassins.
One of the four suspects, Abderahmane Ameroud, a 24-year-old Algerian, was accused of forging false visas, and according to sources close to the investigation, allegedly knew weeks in advance about the plot to kill Massoud.
Also committed for trial were Youssef el-Aouni, 28, a French citizen of Moroccan descent; Mehrez Azouz, 34, a Franco-Algerian and Abdel Tebourski, 38, a French citizen of Tunisian origin.
They have been scheduled to go on trial in March.
Three members of a group known to police as "the campers" also were committed for trial for organizing paramilitary sessions allegedly aimed at selecting recruits to go to Afghanistan.
The training was alleged to have taken place in the Fontainebleau forest south of Paris and in the French Alps. Other members of the group have been exonerated.
Afghanistan's Drugs
The Washington Post, Editorial 11/27/2004
PRESIDENT BUSH visited Colombia on Monday to celebrate that nation's progress in the war on drugs. With the help of U.S. money and military equipment, the Colombians have attacked traffickers, extradited dozens of their leaders and fumigated thousands of acres of coca crops; the result is that coca cultivation has fallen by around two-fifths over the past three years. The Bush administration now hopes to repeat this success in Afghanistan. Last week it asked Congress to fund a $780 million offensive against Afghanistan's opium trade.
The Afghan challenge is tougher by some measures than the Colombian one. In the Colombian case, drug revenue amounts to about 3.5 percent of legal economic output; in Afghanistan the share is more than 50 percent. The opium trade has boomed since the fall of the Taliban regime three years ago, generating payments to farmers of $2.2 billion in 2002-03, 15 times more than in the two years leading up to the Taliban's departure. A determined counternarcotics offensive, particularly one that focuses on crop eradication, risks generating a backlash against the fragile democratic government.
It's a risk that must be taken, however. Drugs are a poisonous basis for development: The profits that flow to ordinary farmers are outweighed by those that enrich traffickers who buy off government officials, retain private armies and undermine the legitimate authority of the state. The more time goes by, the more traffickers are likely to entrench themselves, investing in extra processing factories and so capturing a larger share of the profits. There are signs that this is happening already: In 2002 traffickers captured half of opium revenue, with the other half going to farmers. In 2004 the traffickers' share is around four-fifths.
The United States must press ahead with its counternarcotics strategy before the traffickers' position grows even stronger. That means first and foremost targeting the traffickers and their protectors, who include prominent government figures as well as warlords with whom the United States has worked in tracking down Taliban and al Qaeda remnants. The hunt for terrorists must continue, but not at the expense of consolidating Afghanistan's emerging status as a narco-state.
The death of a little street-seller
Pajhwok Afghan News 11/27/2004 By Borhan Younus
KABUL - A month after the suicide attack which killed an American woman and a 13-year-old Afghan girl, the crowds are only slowly returning to Chicken Street, a normally busy shopping area in the centre of Kabul.
As well-off Afghans and foreign shoppers trickle back to its carpet and gift stores, the children who aggressively sell books, maps, newspapers, and magazines have followed.
But life has changed forever for the family of Feriba, the young girl who died. The third-grader, who attended the Rahman Mina girl's school in the morning and hawked mainly English-language publications on the street in the afternoon, was the main means of support for her four younger siblings, her mother, aunt and ailing grandfather.
Her death on October 23 was the first fatality for a family that had managed to survive over two decades of war. "She was not like [the typical] female member of the family," moaned Feriba's mother, Laila, as she pointed to a picture of her daughter selling newspapers. "She was providing food sufficient for all eight members of the family."
There had been official warnings about the potential danger of shopping on Chicken Street. Laila recounted how Feriba had left her home a little early that October day, expecting to make enough money to buy food for a special Ramadan evening dinner at which her grandmother would be a guest.
"She told me 'Mother, don't bother yourself today. I will bring you bread and other things for this evening's dinner'," Laila recalled. "Before the explosion, she had already received 10 US dollars from a foreigner for a book she sold."
The suicide bomber had strapped hand grenades to his waist, and detonated them after approaching a four-wheel-drive vehicle marked with ISAF insignia, according to Sami Ullah, a carpet shop owner.
"A bearded man dressed like a beggar approached a group of uniformed peacekeepers and blew himself up with grenades, near my shop," he said. "The bookseller girl [Feriba] had earlier come here to try to sell books to the foreigners."
Mohammad Yousuf Wahib, who represents shop owners on Chicken Street, said Feriba's main customers were foreigners, especially soldiers with the International Security and Assistance Force, ISAF. And the soldiers loved her, he said.
Some of the ISAF soldiers later visited the family to express their sorrow at her death.
Afghan intelligence officials revealed this month that the suicide attacker was Matiullah, a former member of the militant faction led by Maulavi Younus Khalis, who later joined the Taliban movement.
He had travelled from the Shamshatu refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, to carry out the attack, which also killed an American woman translator and injured three ISAF soldiers from Iceland.
Feriba's father, Talibshah Khaksar, 40, who had been working in Iran for three years, said he returned home four days after the death of his daughter. He had been sending money home, but what little he earned was not enough to meet household expenses.
He now has a small roadside kiosk near their home in a dusty south-eastern suburb. He said the government gave his family 2,200 dollars following Feriba's death, but claimed this was not even enough for the mourning period. Talibshah vowed he'd never let his other children be vendors like Feriba. She was not the first Afghan child to fall victim of an attack aimed at foreigners.
At least two children were casualties of a car bomb explosion in the centre of the capital in late August. The bombing had targeted DynCorp Inc., the American security firm providing guards for President Karzai.
But despite the dangers, child vendors continue to ply their trade, to help their families survive. It's a competitive business. They swarm the foreigners they find strolling Kabul's main shopping streets or entering and leaving hotels and guesthouses.
Many destitute families in Kabul send their children to the streets as vendors. Most of don't go to school because alleviating the family's poverty is top priority. Feriba was fortunate to be able to do both.
Rohullah, 10, who sells maps and stationery on Chicken Street, said he was not scared of working there. His father was killed in 1995 during the civil war, and he said the money he earned from foreigners was too important. Sima Gul, 12, who sells sunglasses, said: "I fear nothing. I need to provide food for my family; otherwise we will die of hunger."
The elephant chicken
The Baltimore Sun 11/26/2004 By Will Englund
Thanksgiving abroad: Tales of an American holiday from around the globe
TALOQAN -- Two weeks earlier, Abdullah Mohammed Massin had been cooking plain lentils for Taliban commanders who didn't appreciate good food anyway. Now, he was cooking up a turkey, Afghan-style, for a homesick American and a small group of colleagues. The dinner he laid out was lacking in cranberry sauce and stuffing and potatoes and other items that the homesick American's wife calls the non-negotiables of Thanksgiving. But Mr. Massin was a self-confessed happy man, and how could that not rub off in a catch-as-catch-can place such as Afghanistan?
Mr. Massin worked at a restaurant here run by Sufi Mumim, a happy man himself now that the Taliban had left town, because his business was up sixfold. Mr. Mumim's restaurant did a steady trade in grilled lamb, lamb meatballs and rice with lamb, but he enthusiastically agreed the evening before Thanksgiving to put on a different sort of spread for this new breed of foreigners.
Just come back tomorrow morning at 8, he said, and we'll find a turkey. Promptly at 8 -- or, technically, closer to 9 -- five journalists showed up in an old gray Russian UAZ van and picked up Abdul Vadood, a young relative of Mr. Mumim's working for him as a waiter, and off they went.
First, just on the off chance, they stopped by a poultry lot in the city's market, but no luck there. So off they went into the countryside, heading from village to village, each one smaller than the last. Mr. Vadood would say, "Wait here," hop out and run across a field to a gate in a wall made of mud and straw, bang on it for a while, learn there were no turkeys at hand and race back to the van. He seemed to know where to try, but it also seemed that turkeys were more than a little scarce.
Finally the van reached the outskirts of a village called Puli Tok, and here everyone got out. It was about a half-mile walk into the village, down a winding lane with a cloudy stream on one side and mud reshaped into houses on the other. A goat bleated, a donkey brayed. A few little boys joined the entourage. A couple of ducks splashed in the stream, which seemed like a good sign.
Mr. Vadood banged on a gate, one that had a mark on it signifying that the farmyard was clear of mines, and Abdul Habib, 20, opened it a crack. The 18-year-old waiter asked him whether he had a filmorgh, which in Dari means "elephant chicken." Mr. Habib ducked away and was back in a minute with what might be described as a smallish bird.
He asked how many turkeys were wanted. The homesick American replied that maybe two would be good. "Well, this is the only one I've got," Mr. Habib replied. "I suppose one will do," the American allowed.
That, of course, was not the end of the transaction, because there followed a rather long conversation about turkeys. "A lot of people say they're harder to raise than chickens, but they're a lot more profitable," said Mr. Habib. This didn't seem like a very good way to start bargaining.
Mr. Habib went on to say that what he likes about turkeys is that they lay bigger eggs than chickens, and they have more meat on them. He feeds them greens, rice, rye and wheat. Typically, he said, he and other farmers keep turkeys for their eggs and eat them only when they get old.
This one was just 6 months old, but Mr. Habib said he was willing to part with it because it had laid 20 eggs in the past 20 days and all were being tended to by chickens. "What's the difference?" he asked. "A chicken doesn't know the difference."
Then the conversation got around to price, and Mr. Habib said he wanted 150,000 Afghanis, which -- depending on which of three currencies in circulation here was meant and at what exchange rate they were obtained -- then was worth somewhere between $3 and $5.
This was agreed to, the money was handed over and then Mr. Habib said he needed 100,000 Afghanis more. This seems to be a fairly typical Afghan bargaining technique. The after-the-fact ploy, it might be called. Everyone around knew that it was anyone's guess where the next turkey might be found. The money changed hands.
By this time, seven onlookers had crowded around just to watch. They were satisfied. Mr. Vadood carried the docile turkey upside-down back to the van.
Back in town, it was agreed that the turkey would be slaughtered and plucked at noon. The execution was carried out by Mr. Mumim in the restaurant's back yard, a black wasteland strewn with old bones and rotten carrots. He was dismayed by the small size of the bird but worked with particular care while an assistant and two boys stood by. Behind him, a small man delivered a large load of firewood.
Indoors, the restaurant staff was asleep on the tables. Because of Ramadan, the place wouldn't open until sundown. Out front, as a sort of advertisement, two sets of sheep's lungs were nailed to a tree.
At 3 p.m., Mr. Massin came in to start cooking the dinner. He was the kind of cook who has a plain and open face and can't stop smiling. He worked behind a wood-burning oven with five large wells for various dishes and one huge well for pilaf. The ceiling and upper walls of his kitchen were black with soot.
Mr. Massin said he would cook the turkey for about an hour with oil and onions, with the lid on, then add black pepper and a turmeric-like spice called zarchuba and cook for another 20 minutes. After that he would add water and cook for about an hour more.
Helpers began cutting a big pumpkin into slabs -- the pumpkin had been the American's suggestion, one enthusiastically embraced by the cook. For knives they used sharpened hunks of old shell casings. Mr. Massin said he planned to make a dish called burhoni, in which the pumpkin is cooked with "red oil," then drained and left on a low flame with a little new oil added, and then served with homemade yogurt.
"There's no particular occasion for eating turkey in Afghanistan," Mr. Massin said from behind the oven. "But it's delicious, and I love to eat it myself."
He said he had been working much harder since the Taliban left because of the boom in business. People were willing to go out now where they weren't before.
"Then, you couldn't speak freely, and it was very quiet. If you had 10 people in here, and some Taliban came in, they'd all quietly get up and leave. They were afraid. They didn't want to say the wrong thing by accident. And the Taliban might threaten them anyway.
"The thing about the Taliban," Mr. Massin said, "is that they were not interested in good food." They mostly ate plain lentils or sometimes a dish called bomya, which is lentils in oil.
By late afternoon, as the war was starting to heat up on the front line just west of Taloqan, the turkey was simmering away. By 5 p.m., the war had cooled down again, at least for the evening, and soldiers and journalists streamed back toward town.
At 6 p.m., the happy group had gathered. There were three Americans, three Russians, two Tajiks, a Welshman and an Australian, all sharing the diminutive centerpiece. Mr. Mumim had made available an upstairs private room just for the occasion. The walls were pockmarked, candy wrappers littered the floor, it was unfurnished except for floor mats on which the customers could sit, and the waiters had to climb in and out of a window to serve the food.
Suffice it to say that the turkey was tender and extraordinarily succulent, the pumpkin was startlingly good, a turkey soup that no one had expected was bursting with flavor and the promised potatoes had been forgotten. An apologetic Mr. Mumim threw in a couple of skewers of lamb shish kebab to make up for it.
A grinning Abdullah Mohammed Massin came up to see how things were going, to the cheers of the celebrators. The occasion was a reminder that the things to be thankful for can be found in the most difficult of places, and come in the most unexpected of guises -- and that there's nothing like an elephant chicken to make the table a merry one.
Will Englund was on temporary assignment to Afghanistan as a foreign correspondent for The Sun when a previous version of this article was published Nov. 23, 2001. He is now The Sun's associate editorial page editor.
Public health awareness campaign launched
Pajhwok News Agency 11/26/2004 By Frozan Danish Rahmani
KABUL - Doctors attended a two-day seminar in the capital Kabul designed to train them on how to educate and raise public health awareness among rural communities. Forty physicians from regional provinces attended the USAID sponsored program that was organized by the Afghan health ministry.
The main focus of the conference was the prevention of maternal mortality rates on the increase in Afghanistan according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report published recently.
Afghanistan is said to have the second highest figures for infant-mother deaths, said the health organization. The WHO report estimates that out of a 100,000 pregnant women 1,600 die during child birth in Afghanistan.
Dr Fahim, attending the seminar from Sari-e-Pul, in northern Afghanistan said, the aim of the seminar is to educate the public and bring Afghan medical standards to meet international standards and to reduce maternal mortality during child birth.
"We want to encourage women to deliver their babies in the hospitals." It is a common cultural belief among rural Afghans that it is better for women to deliver their babies at home.
But another participant from the Jalalbad hospital Dr Muqaddasa warns of the dangers involved in home births: "Women in rural areas don't go to doctors during their term of pregnancy, so when they get to the hospital the delivery time is very near and they are extremely weak."
She added that pregnant women should have proper pre-natal advice and care prior to the delivery so that any abnormalities can be detected and dealt with.
Pashtun Azfar the head of the medical training department with USAID said that the maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan rises day by day due to lack of access to medicine, shortage of clinics and hospitals around the country.
But community aid workers believe the women are reluctant to go to hospitals because of pressure from family members not to go and the stigma attached in seeing a doctor in a public place.
Many of the Afghan doctors attending this seminar spent time discussing their experiences and talking about measures that could be taken to improve the health facilities in the country and providing a better health care system for the public.
AFGHANISTAN: Demining dogs responsible for half of all cleared land
BAKHSHIKHAIL ( AFGHANISTAN), 26 November (IRIN) - //Att. Subscribers, This report is part of a comprehensive set of features, background reports, interviews and other resources on landmine-related issues titled ‘IRIN Web Special on Humanitarian Mine Action, published ahead of the 2004 Nairobi Summit on a Mine Free World. This web special is accessible at http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/hma/default.asp//
Sniffing the dry soil of a mined road in Bakhshikhail village, Suzi, a demining dog, sat and immediately looked back, indicating that she had detected explosives under her feet just two metres from her handler, Shahzada.
"It's a landmine," the 35-year-old shouted. "It takes a day to clear just two square metres by manual detection, but just minutes by mine dog," Shahzada, team leader of the Mine Detection Dog Centre (MDDC) NGO, told IRIN on a minefield in the city of Charikaar, around 90 km north of the capital, Kabul.
Dogs such as Suzi are in the vanguard of Afghanistan's efforts to rid itself of landmines - the legacy of decades of conflict. A German Shepherd, Afghan-born Suzi is one of 250 dogs involved in the clearance of landmines throughout the country. While several thousand Afghans are working as mine-clearance operatives, mine dogs are proving more effective in this, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
Most of the millions of landmines that litter Afghanistan were laid between 1980 and 1992 during the Soviet occupation and subsequent communist regime. Landmines were also used extensively in fighting between armed factions after 1992, particularly in Kabul and its outskirts.
The problem was exacerbated by mines and booby traps reportedly used by the Northern Alliance, Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters, and by unexploded cluster munitions and ammunition scattered from storage depots hit by air strikes following the late 2001 US-led battles to unseat the Taliban from power.
Demining these huge areas is complicated by the fact that many of the mines are plastic and cannot be detected by manual means. "We train these dogs to sense explosives no matter if it is in a metallic or plastic container. They are very efficient and cost effective," Shah Wali Ayubi, MDDC operations manager, told IRIN. "We have some areas where dogs are very suitable for demining.
For example, dogs are very efficient at clearing roads." Most of the Major highway rehabilitation projects, including the Kabul-Kandahar highway,
have been cleared by mine dogs.
The safety record of the dog teams speaks for itself. "Since the Beginning of our operation in 1989, we have only had 30 incidents that killed 10 [dog] handlers while there have been several hundred incidents Involving manual detection teams," Ayubi added.
According to Shah Zaman, a dog trainer at the school, it takes the Agency nearly two years to train a puppy before it is deployed to the field. "We have two kind of dogs: those that we produce here in our breeding centre and those that we import from Thailand, Germany or other countries," Zaman told IRIN.
One imported puppy costs the agency US $4,500 while a local dog costs Only $1,500. "We produce 60 puppies a year and these dogs can work for Nearly 10 years before they are too old."
The demining dogs have an impressive record, responsible for around Half the entire area demined in Afghanistan to date. "From 1994 until now, Our mine dog groups have cleared 120 sq km which is 50 percent of all the Area cleared by demining operations in Afghanistan."
According to the United Nations Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (UNMACA), so far 2.8 million explosive devices, including mines and unexploded ordnance (UXOs), have been cleared from 320 sq km of land. But around 800 million sq m of land must still be cleared to ensure the Safe return of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs).
The UNMACA strategy is implemented by 15 national and international organisations. Afghanistan is expected to be clear of mines in 10 years as required by the Ottawa treaty, but that's only if the campaign can secure funding of around $60 million per year to continue the programme.
Eradication the aim of Nairobi landmine summit
Reuters 11/26/2004 By C. Bryson Hull
NAIROBI - A landmine ripped apart Edgar Moreno's left leg as he herded cattle through a gate in Colombia in 1992. Another destroyed Saba'a al-Jaradi legs as she collected firewood near her Yemeni village in 1990.
In 1982, Saleh al-Dahyani was 12 when a landmine stole both his legs while he took his last carefree boyhood walk with his friends through the Yemeni mountains.
But the blasts were just the start of their agony. Dahyani only lost consciousness after five hours, when he reached a hospital. Jaradi lay bleeding in a taxi racing toward help in the city of Sanaa for just as long.
Moreno, in the back of a beer truck, reached a hospital after three days' drive through the jungle, twice held up by rebels who believed he was an injured Colombian soldier.
Now all three are working to make the difficult journeys they took back to normalcy easier for other victims. Moreno is a gold medal paralympic cyclist, Dahyani a lawyer with the Yemeni government and Jaradi a counselor for mine victims.
"Automatically after I lost my leg, I became an anti-mine activist," Moreno said.
From millions of stories like these -- most without such fortunate endings -- springs the Nairobi Summit for a Mine Free World, to be held Nov. 29-Dec. 3 in the Kenyan capital.
Leaders from 143 nations who have signed the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines, plus hundreds of anti-mine activists and mine victims, are coming to map future efforts to eradicate the pernicious weapons.
The chief goal of the conference is to raise money to fund mine-clearing work, enhance medical, psychological and social care for victims and boost education.
Particular attention will be paid to those countries that are required by the treaty to clear all mines by 2009 -- most among the poorest on Earth.
BILLIONS SPENT, THOUSANDS KILLED AND INJURED
The conference itself is mandated by the Ottawa Convention, which the treaty has often been called since 123 countries signed it in the Canadian capital in December 1997, as a review of the progress so far.
Since it entered into force in 1999, $2.7 billion has been spent on mine clearance, destruction, education and victim aid. Thirty-seven million mines have been destroyed and 126 nations no longer have any stockpiled.
The number of new mine victims each year is down to around 15,000-20,000, which activists says is good but not enough.
Cambodia, Angola and Afghanistan, among the most mine-affected countries in the world, have joined and are clearing their minefields.
But millions remain scattered across the world's old battlefields, and Africa in particular is littered with them from decades of civil war.
Paying for clean-up and victim rehabilitation is a problem.
"The World Bank and other development actors ought to play an increasing role in these efforts," said Wolfgang Petritsch, the veteran Austrian diplomat leading the summit.
One of the world's biggest donors to the effort, the United States, is among the three military powers that have not signed on, along with Russia and China.
Even though they would rather have them party to the treaty, mine activists say the United States has not used mines since 1991 and China has not since 1997.
"The United States is spending lots of money on action. In many ways, the U.S. is adhering to some of the principles of the mine ban," Petritsch said. He called it a hopeful sign that China, which has a moratorium on mine exports, is sending an official to the conference.
Russia, meanwhile, is among 12 non-signatory nations that have used mines since 1997, including Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Israel and Vietnam, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
The treaty has one important weakness, organizers admit: it does not bind stateless organized military groups. For example, Colombia is a party to the treaty, but rebel groups there continue to plant the explosives.
"The problem is, in an age of asymmetric conflict, it is very important to keep in mind that this is not just state parties who pose the problem, it is non-state parties as well," Petritsch said.
Getting rid of the sources of landmines will help eliminate the problem posed by armed groups, he said. So far, the best efforts in that respect have been made by non-governmental organizations signing armed groups like rebels in southern Sudan and the Philippines to a commitment against the weapons.
Pakistan: Radio programme helps Afghans decide when to return
QUETTA, 26 November (IRIN) - The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is producing a programme with Radio Pakistan to help Afghan refugees in the country make informed decisions on repatriation.
"The programme is running throughout Balochistan province for some 300,000 refugees living in 13 refugee camps, as well as in urban and rural settlements," Babar Baloch, a spokesman for UNHCR, told IRIN from the southwestern city of Quetta, capital of Balochistan.
The 10-minute programme, aired twice a week on Wednesday afternoon and Sunday night, broadcasts details of the latest developments inside Afghanistan and provides updates on UNHCR's voluntary repatriation programme.
"We inform them about the latest happenings in Afghanistan in different sectors of health, education, water, shelter and the road network. We also air interviews with Afghan delegations visiting Pakistan to inform refugees about the situation inside their country," Baloch said.
The views of returned Afghans are also included in the programme so that people themselves have an idea about the situation there, Baloch added.
"The programme is quite popular amongst refugees, as well as the Afghan population inside Afghanistan, according to feedback we receive in the form of letters and calls. It is very encouraging," Sohail Jaffar, a producer on the programme from Radio Pakistan Quetta told IRIN.
"It is a package of 32 programmes running since mid-September, with nine programmes every month," Jaffar said. Jaffar further said that Sunday night transmission reaches up to almost all the Pashto-speaking areas of Afghanistan but Wednesday's programme could be heard only as far as Kandhar province. "We've hired presenters who speak Afghani Pashto instead of Pakistani Pashto," he added.
UNHCR earlier this year also established an information centre for Afghan refugees in Quetta to increase their access to factual information about the changing conditions inside Afghanistan.
"As the repatriation process is voluntary in nature, it is up to the refugees to decide when they can move back to their country. UNHCR for its part, tries to provide them with the maximum realistic information about their country of origin," Baloch said.
The radio programme is part of UNHCR's mass information campaign for refugees that also includes the compilation of a bi-monthly bulletin in the Afghan capital, Kabul, distributed to Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran in Afghan languages. More than 2.3 million Afghan refugees have returned home from Pakistan under the UNHCR-facilitated voluntary repatriation programme since 2002 with more than 375,000 so far in this year.
The UN refuge agency is running the programme under a tripartite agreement between the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UNHCR.
Night School opens in Herat
Pajhwok News Agency 11/26/2004 By Khalida Khursand
HERAT - Over five-hundred post-graduate students battled to pass a university entrance exam to enroll on the first ever night school to be opened in the eastern Afghan province of Herat.
The university doors will be open to students of economy, law, primary education, agriculture, literature and Islamic law, the Dean of the University, Abdul Rauf Miukhlis told Pajhwok News Agency.
The competition is high because anyone with a full-time job wants to attend night school. So, the program will be open to people from all walks of life. The university will be open from six o'clock in the eveningto ten o'clock in the night, said the head of admissions.
An examination was held on Sunday at the campus and it was adjudicated by a delegation from the education ministry of Kabul.
"Because of financial problems, I have a full time job and therefore can only study in the night," said a 30-year old student, Nazir Ahmad.
"I have 6 children and can't attend school daily, so I will take the evenings classes on a part-time basis," said 50-year old Rona.
A report published by the British charity organization Oxfam suggests that nearly half of Afghan school children don't attend primary school.
Many people above school going age who have key gaps in their education are now trying to make up for lost time.
The setting up of night schools is seen as a positive step towards raising the standards of education in Afghanistan, said one of the students.
Pakistani and Afghan forces exchange fire
Staff Report Daily Times
CHAMAN: Pakistani and Afghan security forces exchanged fire when several people were seen illegally crossing the Chaman border on Friday night.
The Frontier Constabulary (FC) said their personnel shot in the air when they saw people attempting to cross into Pakistan from the Chaman border.
Afghan security forces present at Ashraf Than Check Post also started firing. Both sides continued firing for a while.
Later, two bodies identified as Gala Lai and Eisa Mohammad – both residents of Chaman – and two injured, Abdul Rauf and Rehmatullah, were handed over to Pakistani authorities by Afghanistan.
The injured were admitted to Bolan Medical Complex in Quetta. Balochistan FC Inspector General Maj Gen Shujaat Zamir Dar has formed a team led by the Pishin Scouts commandant to investigate the incident. Maj Gen Dar also told the victims’ families that the FC personnel, if found involved in the incident, would be punished.
Pakistan takes troops off streets in main Al-Qaeda hunt town
Sat Nov 27, 6:42 AM ET South Asia - AFP
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan has withdrawn soldiers from the streets of the main town in a tribal area near the Afghan border after months of bloody offensives against Al-Qaeda-linked militants, officials said.
Military checkpoints in Wana, capital of troubled South Waziristan district, are being handed over to police after tribesmen pledged their territory would not be used for violence, military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said on Saturday.
But soldiers are still hunting insurgents in the rest of the tense region and the military said the scaling-down in Wana was largely a symbolic move to reward one of the area's two dominant tribes, the Wazir, for their help.
"The Wazir tribesmen have given guarantees that no foreign militants will be given shelter in the area and they will not support any militant activity," Sultan told AFP.
"The checkposts will now be manned by local security people so that no intruder enters into their areas."
The troops would remain in nearby barracks, Sultan said, adding: "The purpose of sending the army into the area was not just to conduct operations but also to do development works and secure the western border."
Since early this year Pakistan, a key US ally in its war on terror, has conducted several major operations near Wana. It has destroyed hideouts and training camps of militants linked to Osama bin Laden's terror network.
Sultan said offensives were continuing in neighbouring areas which are dominated by the region's other main tribe, the Mahsud -- one of whose key members masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers last month.
One-legged former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Abdullah Mahsud is among Pakistan's top targets after the hostage crisis, which ended with the killing of one of the Chinese in a rescue operation.
"The operation continues in the areas under Mahsud tribes till the time either those wanted men surrender or they follow the suit of their Wazir colleagues," Sultan added.
Security officials said the relaxation in Wana followed a deal signed two weeks ago by five militant commanders pledging they would not indulge in any subversive activity or harbour foreign fighters.
In return the government has granted them pardons and decided to release all tribesmen taken into custody during the operation, an official said without disclosing how many would be freed.
Pakistan pushed some 75,000 regular troops into the area to hunt up to 600 Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters believed to have crossed from Afghanistan after the late 2001 ousting of the hardline Islamic Taliban regime, officials have said.
"Pakistan has done its bit," military general Safdar Hussain, who commands troops in the country's northwest along the porous border with Afghanistan, was quoted as saying in English language daily Dawn on Friday.
"It is the other countries, specially Afghanistan, which need to do more," Hussain said.
Troops killed 303 militants in 42 operations since March this year, according to Hussain. The security forces suffered 202 deaths and 467 injured.
Military officials say less than 100 of the estimated 600 foreign militants are still in Pakistan, while others have either been killed or fled to Afghanistan.
Iran exports $18m worth of medicines to Afhganistan
TEHRAN (IRNA) – Iranian pharmaceutical companies exported medicine worth $18 million to Afghanistan last year, Iran’s Aftab Daily reported.
According to Reza Mehrzadi, managing director of an Iranian pharmaceutical company there are suitable grounds for the exports of Iran’s pharmaceutical products to neighboring Afghanistan.
“However, due to lack of advanced banking systems, the Afghan companies still trade through traditional means and thus they cannot make payment sooner than two or three months. If this problem is solved, then the rate of Iran’s pharmaceutical exports to Afghanistan may hit $100 million.” Mehrzadi added.
Afghanistan waits for tourists
The Washington Times / November 27, 2004 By Nathan Hodge / COX NEWS SERVICE
KABUL, Afghanistan — In the 1960s and 1970s, Afghanistan was part of the hippie trail, a magnet for stoned backpackers seeking nirvana. Well-heeled tourists also came to visit. Afghanistan's rugged terrain was ideal for mountaineering expeditions and hunting trips, and rich collectors could stock up on antiques and fine carpets.
Then came the Soviet invasion and its long occupation and war against guerillas, followed by the grim rule of the Taliban and, in 2001, the U.S. invasion following the September 11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.
Three years after an American-led coalition ousted the Taliban regime, the State Department still warns U.S. citizens against visiting Afghanistan. A low-level insurgency continues on the border with Pakistan, and rival warlords occasionally clash. Al Qaeda's chief, Osama bin Laden, remains at large, believed to be somewhere in the region. Still, adventurous tourists are returning to this wild and exotic landscape. It is not a vacation spot for the fainthearted.
Charles Clapham recently drove to Afghanistan from Bristol, England, in a 1961 Land Rover. After crossing Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India, he headed north to Afghanistan, planning to drive back to Europe through the former Soviet Union. He stopped for a few days at a guest house in Kabul and spent a few days cycling around the capital. Contacted later by e-mail in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he was waiting for a visa to Uzbekistan, Mr. Clapham said he encountered no problems crossing the Torkham border post between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but saw few signs of other solo motorists on the same route.
According to the border register, "mine was the fourth foreign vehicle to cross the Torkham border this year," he said. Hessamuddin Hamrah, president of the Afghan Tourism Organization, is confident that foreign visitors will come back. But since the fall of the Taliban, his agency has hosted only 35 tour groups, comprising 247 individuals from around the globe, mostly from Western Europe and Japan. "We hope a lot of tourists will come," he said, "because it's really important to us for economic revival." Admittedly, Afghanistan's reputation as a haven for terrorists — and as one of the most heavily mined places on the planet — has been a poor advertisement for tourism. "The news they hear from Afghanistan is bad," Mr. Hamrah said. "But the security in Afghanistan now is not bad. ... We send groups out, they go there and come back very happy."
Lonely Planet, the bible of budget travelers, published a section on Afghanistan in the latest edition of its Central Asia guidebook — previous editions said simply: "Don't Go!" Other guidebooks plan to include information and advice about the country. Haji Sefat Mir remembers the golden age of Afghanistan as a tourist destination. He recalls a day in 1968 when he worked as a guide for a wealthy European hunter, who dropped two wild rams with one shot at 150 yards. They were in the Wakhan Corridor, a mountainous sliver of land in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to the border with China. His client, a member of the Rothschild banking family, was stalking the Marco Polo sheep, a sought-after trophy for big-game hunters. He was pleased with his day and gave his guide a watch and several hundred dollars.
Mr. Sefat Mir still has an outdoorsman's robust physique, but he last led a hunting expedition in 1978, a year before the Soviet invasion began two decades of ruinous war. During the Soviet-Afghan conflict, Mr. Sefat Mir fought with the mujahideen under the late, legendary Tadjik guerilla commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. With a tenuous peace taking hold in Afghanistan, he is hoping the government will resume the big-game hunts. "Maybe next year," he said. Entrepreneurs are also counting on a revival of Afghan tourism.
Volodymyr Yakovliev, general director of Mandryk & Co., a company based in Kiev, organizes "extreme tours" for newly wealthy Ukrainians. He recently visited the Afghan Tourism Organization to get approval for an expedition to Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold. "These are people who are adrenaline addicts," he said of his clients. "They love the thrill of danger." Mr. Yakovliev's next tour group is scheduled for early January — not the most hospitable time of year. "It's mostly businessmen," he said. "They've already been on the beach a bunch of times, in Bulgaria or Turkey or wherever, and it's not interesting to them anymore." For some of Mr. Yakovliev's clients, it's not their first trip to Afghanistan. Others are veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war, now returning for a nostalgic trip.
Mr. Yakovliev said there had been a Soviet headquarters in Kandahar, "so we know the place very well." Mr. Yakovliev, sporting impressive sideburns and a fedora, said Afghans harbor no ill will toward Ukrainians, despite the wartime experience. "We're brothers, in the sense that we were occupied by one and the same country — Bolshevik Russia," he said.
"As soon as I explain that to Afghans, they're my best friends." Expatriates now working in Afghanistan visit weekend getaway spots. Bamiyan, the site of monumental Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban, is a favorite. The Panjshir Valley, Mr. Massoud's base during the Soviet-Afghan war, is just a few hours' drive from Kabul. Najibullah Rassa, a radio and television newscaster and native of the Panjshir, said the region's spectacular scenery makes it ideal for tourism.
"It's the best place for tourism in Afghanistan because it's close to Kabul," he said. "We have every kind of hunting, some very nice places to rest. And on the top of the mountains, we have natural streams and lakes." But the region also has poor roads and no electricity. "If we had an electrical terminal, we could build mountain cabins," Mr. Rassa said hopefully. Encouraging tourists to return may not be as simple as running power lines. Continuing violence deters tourists — particularly after recent attacks aimed specifically at foreigners. Shortly after the Oct. 9 presidential elections in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber hit Chicken Street, Kabul's main tourist thoroughfare. A young American woman and an Afghan girl were killed along with the attacker.
More recently, kidnappers from a group called the Jaish-e-Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of three U.N. workers in a residential district of Kabul. The hostages were released on Tuesday.
Still, Mr. Sefat Mir hopes the big-game hunters will return. That, of course, may alarm conservationists: The rare sheep are already threatened by poachers. But if the government gives the go-ahead, Mr. Sefat Mir could be leading expeditions as early as next year. The license fee? "Now, if the hunters come, they should pay $20,000," Mr. Sefat Mir said.
Commander tees off first Afghan Open in 30 years
Reuters 11/26/2004 David Brunnstrom
QARGHA - At a resort that became a battlefield, Afghans teed off on Friday in their country's first open golf tournament in more than 30 years. As is still the way in Afghanistan, the first shot of the day at the Kabul Golf Club went to the local militia commander, applauded by his men with shouldered Kalashnikovs.
But organisers say they hope their tournament, contested by 40 local caddies in a picturesque valley just outside the capital, will help bring a new era in which the only risks are from golf balls, not bullets, flying down the fairways.
The club describes itself as the best and only course in Afghanistan and promises "golf with an attitude". Hazards are unorthodox, from the bombed out club house below the dramatic first tee on a ledge high up the valley, to the odd spent shell or scurrying lizard.
Club pro Mohammad Nazir Popal insists there is no danger, even though the nine-hole course became a battlefield in the 1990s when rival Mujahideen factions fought amongst themselves over overthrowing a Soviet-backed regime.
The club was forced to close because of the fighting and then when the Taliban swept to power all hope of playing golf, which the hardline Islamic regime associated with wealthy Western diplomats, was lost.
It reopened this year, but only after it was thoroughly checked for mines and other unexploded ordnance. Popal, 50, said the aim of the Afghan Open, was to select players who could eventually go on to represent Afghanistan in international tournaments.
"There are 40 of them and we would like to pick out the best," he said. "We are holding this tournament for the first time after 30 years of war. The boys are so happy they can play."
A lack of water means there is not a patch of grass to be seen and the greens are actually "browns" made from oiled sand, yet the course has become popular with a few dozen hardy souls among Kabul's 2,000-strong foreign community.
Security remains a worry -- particularly after the kidnapping of three foreign U.N. workers this month who were thought to have been held in a nearby area. Some foreigners take the precaution of bringing along armed bodyguards as caddies.
The club, which opened in 1967, is short of funds for everything from clubs to course maintenance equipment and eagerly accepts donations from its international members.
"We still don't have a proper green and we still need more facilities," said the other club pro, Mohamad Afzal Abdul. "Some of our international members have promised to help us reconstruct our greens and donate equipment."
Abdul has dedicated his life to his beloved game and has suffered for it too.
He was arrested after the communist takeover in the 1970s and jailed for six months for having links with foreign diplomats who played the course.
He was imprisoned again by the Taliban in the 1990s for three months after admitting he used to work with foreigners. The Kabul Golf Club might not be the smartest in the world, but it is certainly affordable, with a green fee of $10 and annual membership just 7,500 afghanis ($160).
A surrounding park is also attracting fresh interest. Former refugee Zabir Sidiq is rebuilding a restaurant and nightclub overlooking the course, which he visited as a young child.
"In the past there was a lot of killing going on here," he said. "Right now we are trying to fix up this area and give people some hope to understand a better life."
Choosing Clothes, but Not Husbands
By JOSEPH BERGER November 28, 2004 The New York Times
y all appearances, Ashrat Khwajazadah and Naheed Mawjzada are thoroughly modern American women.
Long-haired and dark-eyed, they spurn the headscarves and modest outfits customarily worn by Afghan women, preferring hip-hugging slacks. Both of them are in their early 20's and both of them have taken a route still somewhat controversial among Afghans in Flushing, Queens - going to college to pursue professions. Ms. Khwajazadah studied speech pathology at Queens College and Ms. Mawjzada majors in political science at Adelphi University. Both also defy the ideal of a reticent Afghan womanhood, with Ms. Mawjzada speaking up forcefully when men talk politics at the dinner table.
But there are incongruities. Both of them, by design, have never dated. Like most young women in their Afghan enclave in Flushing, they are waiting for their parents to pick their spouses.
"It's been drilled into your head since you were a little girl: 'Don't talk with guys, don't ruin your reputation, everyone will gossip about you,' " said Ms. Khwajazadah, a high-spirited woman who came here as a 2-year-old with her refugee parents. Nevertheless, she added, "I'm happy with my decision."
"I'm very close with my family and that helps me because they want to do what's best for me," she said.
In testing how far they can go in forsaking tradition, these women illustrate the delicate balance younger Afghans, particularly women, have had to strike as they grow up in a comparatively freewheeling society with parents - often uneducated and unable to speak English - who have held tight to their Afghan conventions.
To be sure, the Afghans' transition is an old immigrant story - one that could be told about the Irish, Italians and Jews of the 19th century or the newer groups that have seasoned New York City's stew. Those newcomers too looked on with anger or resignation as their children gradually (and their grandchildren more cavalierly) adopted the prevailing culture.
But the Afghan version has its own endemic twists, community advocates say. Older Afghans, particularly women, often have had no schooling whatsoever. Even today, some families insist that girls, whose non-Afghan friends roam freely, return home immediately after school. It is not uncommon for girls to be engaged as young as 13 and be married by 16.
The Afghan story in New York has garnered more than the usual curiosity because Afghanistan has drawn so much attention on the world stage, first in the military response to Sept. 11 and now as the fragile government of President Hamid Karzai tries to establish democracy, including expansion of women's rights.
There are 5,446 Afghans in New York City and over 9,100 in the metropolitan area, according to the 2000 census. A large proportion came here with grants of asylum after treacherous odysseys to escape either the Soviet occupation of 1979 or Taliban rule that began in 1996.
Manizha Naderi, the 28-year-old director of Women for Afghan Women, which offers counseling and instructional programs, remembers how at 4 years old she crossed the desert into Pakistan on a single motorcycle that also carried her parents, her 2-year-old brother, 9-month-old sister and the driver.
The two largest enclaves of Afghans are in Flushing - north of Queens College and in the largely Chinese and Korean area north of Northern Boulevard. Flushing has four Afghan mosques, a half-dozen kabob houses and the Kouchi Market, which besides native spices and breads carries Afghan mandolins (rababs) and billiards-like board games (karams).
New Yorkers commonly encounter Afghan men in the fried chicken restaurants they own and in the ubiquitous sidewalk coffee carts of Midtown. But women are more out of sight. A quarter of Afghan women have never been to school and only half have completed high school, according to a study by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College, and Kaisa Hagen, a student there. Only one quarter work outside the home, compared with 60 percent for other New York women.
Ms. Naderi said that "Afghanistan has a very patriarchal culture and women don't have rights," and those views migrate here.
"Men have corrupted views of Islam and actually believe women are second-class citizens and are there to take care of them," she said. "They don't let them go to school or to work."
Afghans from the capital, Kabul, are less bound by tradition than those from the villages and those who fled the Soviets are more conservative than those who fled the Taliban. Some Afghan Muslims who have been here for decades are so acculturated they put up Christmas trees, but in general Afghans here are trying to sustain crucial remnants of their culture.
For more than a few families even the notion of educating their daughters beyond high school is regarded as daring, Ms. Naderi said. But more leaders are encouraging it. Mohammed Sherzad, the imam of Masjid Hazrat-I-Abubakr Sadiq, on Union Street in north Flushing (there is a similarly named mosque nearby from which Imam Sherzad was ousted) looks favorably upon women who postpone having children until they finish college.
"A good woman is one who is educated, both for her children and her society," he said.
Dr. Tahira Homayun, a gynecologist whose husband is an economic adviser to President Karzai, said some Afghan girls have more successful school careers than their brothers because struggling families often press boys to work.
Ms. Naderi said that as a result of the community's lingering patriarchal structures, violence toward wives is much more common than the community admits.
"There's a saying that the food your husband feeds you doesn't come for free," she said. "And men actually think they have a right under the Koran to beat their wives."
But no characteristic seems more ironclad than the convention of having parents arrange their children's marriages.
"Afghan people can't meet each other prior to getting engaged," said a 65-year-old mother of six who was taking English classes given by Women for Afghan Women. She asked that her name not be used because seeing her name in print made her uncomfortable. "It's an embarrassment for the family."
Much of that stigma derives from the treasured principle of family honor. If a daughter chooses to find her own spouse, her father's stature will be diminished, the family name tainted by gossip, and her sisters may find it harder to marry.
"The girl is a trophy piece," said Ms. Mawjzada, the daughter of a coffee vendor who in addition to studying at Adelphi works in customer service at Geico insurance. "If the girl has a good reputation, the family has a good reputation."
Parents are more willing to close their eyes to a teenage Don Juan, and marriage customs for a man are also more lenient. Bashir Rahim, a 29-year-old computer technician, says if he meets a girl that interests him at a family gathering he might ask her for her address, then send his parents to her home to start a conversation about marriage.
Girls learn by trial and error how far they can stretch tradition, but defying the code outright exacts a steep price. Ms. Naderi was married at 16 to a man she chose on her own. Her mother and grandmother did not speak to her for 10 years.
"My mother still tells me she can't look at people because they know her daughter married in this way," she said.
Masuda Sultan, a 26-year-old Flushing woman who is doing graduate work in public administration at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, was not even 16 when her father, the owner of a fried chicken restaurant in Harlem, contrived with an acquaintance to have her married to a doctor twice her age. She got to see her future husband three times before the wedding.
"I actually thought it could work," she recalled. "When your actions are limited and you're from a certain world and you're young and you respect your family, you go along with their wishes even if you have extreme doubts."
Key issues like how far she could go in school were left murky. But when it became clear after the wedding that Ms. Sultan wanted to put off having children until she finished college, the tensions became irreconcilable. Ms. Sultan lapsed into what she called a deep depression, and after three years she and her husband agreed to divorce, a rare and humiliating event in the Afghan community and one that often attaches blame to the woman. Ms. Sultan, who moved back with her parents into the same room she had shared with her sister, recalled that female friends found it so difficult to believe that she could leave her husband for the reasons she did that they asked if he beat or betrayed her.
"The core issue was really a different philosophy of what it means to be Afghan and what it means to be American," she said. "Ultimately I was being treated as a child and my role was set and I was told what I could and couldn't do."
New anti-terror steps
Dawn editorial
The National Security Council meeting on Thursday reportedly decided to take some new measures to deal with terrorism. Even though no information was given on what precisely those "new" measures would be, the announcement serves to underline not only the government's determination to pursue the war on terror but the gravity of the situation created by it.
The very day that the NSC meeting was held, an Al Qaeda suspect was killed and two of his accomplices held in an encounter in Lahore. The militants, who were well armed, put up resistance, and threw grenades at the police.
What is amazing is that the clash did not take place in some remote part of the country; the shootout occurred in Lahore. The quantity and variety of ammunition and bomb-making material seized are staggering.
These include rifles, hand-grenades, hundreds of bullets, fuses and batteries, besides CDs and religious literature. This goes to show that the Al Qaeda network might have been crippled but it is still in a position to operate even in the heart of Pakistan. And its supply system somehow continues to feed and arm its operatives. The same day in Peshawar, the security agencies presented three militants before the press. Ignoring for the moment the advisability of parading suspects before the media, their arrest, like the clash in Lahore, shows the tentacles of terrorist networks in Pakistan.
Those caught in Peshawar include Hussain, a 12-year boy. Whether the ethnic Tajik from Afghanistan is a madressah product is unclear, but his presence among militants shows how innocent youths are brainwashed into becoming activists of militant groups.
As the Peshawar corps commander put it, youths as young as Hussain "cannot even wipe their noses" but they are used by terrorist groups for their evil purposes. These suspects had received training in Tajikistan also.
This only makes the anti-terrorism job even more difficult and emphazises the need for cooperation with Central Asian states to unearth and destroy terrorist training centres there.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said the madressah issue was not discussed by the NSC meeting. One wonders why not. There are hundreds of thousands of others like the 12-year-old Hussain who are exposed to brainwashing.
Not all those who attend madressahs are among likely recruits by terrorist groups; nor are all madressahs run by militant fanatics. Most are doing their traditional job and producing imams for the community. But some madressahs do indeed have links with terrorist organizations. It is this latter category that needs to be monitored and purged of those trying to turn their institutions into training and recruiting centres for religious militants.
Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Frontier Chief Minister Akram Durrani did not attend the NSC meeting. This is in keeping with the MMA's reservations about the NSC's composition and powers.
There is much sense in their demand that it is the prime minister who should preside over this body. Under the chairmanship of a president who is also the army chief, the NSC seems designed to subordinate the elected civilian leadership to the military.
This goes against the fundamental principles of democracy. The responsibility for drawing up economic and security polices is always that of the elected government, for it is the elected representatives and not people in uniform who know the electors' minds and are, thus, in a better position to respond to popular aspirations.
Bush tells CIA to get more spies
Friday November 26, 10:21 AM AFP
US President George W. Bush has ordered the CIA to get more spies on the ground to step up the war on terror -- while resignations of key staff have increased a sense of turmoil at the world's biggest intelligence agency.
The president last week gave Central Intelligence Agency director Porter Goss 90 days to draw up a timetable and budget to increase by 50 percent the number of spies on the ground, and take on extra analysts and language specialists.
Bush, according to his memorandum made public this week, also wants to double the number of agents in the research and development department tracking weapons of mass destruction.
The extra staff are one part of the recommendations made by the official investigation into the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
The CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were criticised for their slow reaction to signs of an Al-Qaeda attack before the hijackers struck on September 11 -- as well as the information on weapons of mass destruction used to justify the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. No weapons have ever been found.
The commission called for widespread reforms. It said the CIA strayed from its central mission of recruiting spies and infiltrating groups such as Al-Qaeda. The commission report said the intelligence agency relied too much on information from other governments.
When the Al-Qaeda members attacked at the heart of the US establishment in New York and Washington, there was no CIA agent in Afghanistan even though Osama bin Laden was known to be in the country.
The CIA is the biggest of a network of US spy agencies. It has 17,000 staff and has an annual budget of 3.1 billion dollars.
In the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the CIA reduced the number of spies on the ground and made more use of technology to secure information.
Numbers have gone up again since September 11, but the administration seems to want this process accelerated. Several thousand new agents could be taken on in years to come.
Goss became CIA director this year after the long-serving George Tenet resigned in June. But agency morale has reportedly been hit by the resignations of several top officials in apparent protests at the changes being carried out by the new director.
John McLaughlin, the deputy director, is retiring. Stephen Kappes, head of the Directorate of Operations, the main clandestine service, and his deputy, resigned this month. The New York Times said Thursday that the chiefs of the Europe and Far East divisions have also stepped down "in the latest sign of upheaval" at the CIA.
But Bush has also stepped up pressure on the agency by ordering another report from the CIA director and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on whether the CIA's paramilitary intelligence activities should be transfered to the Defence Department.
Who controls US intelligence is now at the centre of a battle in the Republican Congress, which has held up the first post-September 11 reform legislation.
The law would create a new national intelligence director with authority over 15 agencies. Republicans are uneasy about putting military intelligence under the director. The Defence Department currently controls about 80 percent of the 40 billion dollars spent each year on intelligence by the United States.
Rumsfeld has made the case that the same piece of information can have military as well as national intelligence consequences.
"The Pentagon does not want to give up authority," said Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA official who is now a consultant on international security affairs. "The whole dispute is about control".
But Cannistraro has insisted it is "necessary to have one person responsible for the entire intelligence budget, in order to make rational, independent, objective decisions about which resources go to which agency."
But Helmut Sonnenfeldt, an expert at the Brookings Institution think tank, said the Defence Department's worries were "genuine" and not just political.
"This is not just a question of the Defence Department wanting to dominate the system. It is a problem of the Defence Department being responsible for military activities, combat activities."
The September 11 commission criticised the various agencies for not being able to work together. Rumsfeld said a little inter-agency competition is healthy. According to Cannistraro, the battle will go on and even if the national director is appointed "there is still going to be bureaucratic fighting."
Young Afghan heart patient, once deathly ill, leaves Canada in good health
Sat Nov 27, 2:49 PM ET Canada - AFP
TORONTO (AFP) - A 10-year-old Afghan boy saved from death after being airlifted to Canada for emergency heart surgery has flown home with a new lease on life.
Djamshid Djan Popal was flown to Canada in July after he was discovered by a Canadian military doctor in his Afghan village, desperately ill from defective heart valves.
The boy became a media darling during his time in Canada, and thousands of Canadians and Muslim families donated money for his treatment.
"I came in a wheelchair, and I am going home on foot," the boy told CBC television through a translator before leaving Toronto airport on Friday night.
Canadian forces played a leading role in Afghanistan, in the International Security Assistance Force, responsible for keeping the peace in Kabul and limited areas outside the Afghan capital.
Nawaz in talks with Benazir
Dawn
ISLAMABAD, Nov 26: PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif has suggested to PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto that their parties should sign a code of conduct aimed at starting a new democratic era in Pakistan.
In a statement issued here on Friday, PML-N Information Secretary Siddiqul Farooque said Mr Sharif had discussed the proposal during a telephone call he had made to congratulate Ms Bhutto on the release of her husband Asif Ali Zardari.
He said the agreed code of conduct would then be presented to other parties in the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy for consideration. The PML-N chief told the PPP leader that both parties as major democratic parties shared a responsibility to steer the nation out of the present morass, and the lay foundation for a new democratic culture based on mutual respect and tolerance.
Both parties should develop consensus on fundamental issues like the framework for fair and free elections in the country so that results were accepted by all and the party in power could complete its tenure while opposition enjoyed its constitutional rights.
"We should also agree on a package of reforms to ensure supremacy of constitution and parliament, independence of judiciary, strengthening of democratic institutions and delivery of good governance to the people. Likewise, we should not accept each other's deserters into our folds to end the turncoat politics," Mr Sharif suggested.
The PML-N leader informed her that he was constituting a two-member committee comprising party Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq and Chief Coordinator Ahsan Iqbal to discuss the package with the PPP leadership which, if both parties agreed, could be finalized before Dec 31. Mr Farooque said that Ms Bhutto had agreed to the proposal and promised to designate a two-member committee to discuss it with the PML-N.
US-Pakistan relations in post-poll period - By Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi (DAWN opinion)
The US presidential elections generated a lot of interest in Pakistan and other states in Asia and Africa. The leaders and the informed public in these countries keenly observed the elections because hardly any state has escaped the fallout of US unilateralism and the use of overwhelming military power to pre-empt perceived terrorist threats to American citizens, territory and interests.
A large number of governments expressed reservations of varying degrees on this policy but the US leadership paid no heed to their concerns. The government of Pakistan is delighted with the re-election of George W. Bush because the Pakistani leadership and the Bush administration have been working together in the global war against terrorism since September 2001. The official interaction between Pakistan and the US is smooth and there is a common perspective on stability in Afghanistan and the containment of terrorism.
Top officials of the two governments meet frequently to discuss matters of mutual interest and General Pervez Musharraf is said to have developed a personal equation with President George Bush and outgoing secretary of state Colin Powell. In the post-election period, both sides can build on what they have already achieved.
However, the response of the ordinary people and political circles in Pakistan has been somewhat different. Most of them were disappointed that the US had re-elected George Bush.
This was mainly because of the widely shared perception in Pakistan (and other Muslim countries) that the Bush administration pursued anti-Muslim policies. Its policies on counter-terrorism placed the blame of terrorist attacks in the US on Islam and the Muslims.
Other factors that caused alienation in the Muslim world included the pro-Israel US policy on the Palestinian question, US military action in Afghanistan and Iraq and the US military occupation of Iraq.
Describing George Bush and his close associates as anti-Islam and anti-Muslim, ordinary folk in Pakistan were sympathetic towards John Kerry, hoping that he would soften the hard-line US approach towards the Muslim world and assign a greater role to the UN in coping with the Iraq problem.
America today suffers from a serious image problem in Pakistan and other Muslim countries. At the popular level, people fear the Bush administration in its second term will pursue a tougher line towards the Muslim world and resort to brutal means to curb the insurgency in Iraq. The attack by US troops on Fallujah is cited as the unfolding of this policy in the post-election period.
A similar approach may be adopted to crush opposition to the Karzai government in Afghanistan, to be followed by intense military pressure on Iran and Syria. The first statement of George Bush after his re-election makes no attempt to allay these fears.
Pakistan and the US reinvigorated their bilateral relations in the post-9/11 period because the former decided to join the US-sponsored global effort to combat terrorism.
Prior to such a dramatic shift in Pakistan's policy, Pakistan was under four types of US sanctions. First, all economic assistance and military sales were suspended to Pakistan in October 1990 when the US invoked the Pressler Amendment pertaining to Pakistan's nuclear programme.
Second, additional sanctions were imposed on Pakistan when it exploded nuclear devices on May 28 and 30, 1998. Third, new economic sanctions, described as "democracy sanctions", were imposed on Pakistan when General Pervez Musharraf assumed power on October 12, 1999.
Fourth, limited-scope sanctions were imposed in November 2000 for two years on some departments/agencies of Pakistan (i.e. Ministry of Defence, Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Organization), debarring them from business deals in the US, on account of receiving missile technology and equipment from China. These sanctions were extended in September 2001 (a few days before the terrorist attacks in the US) and March 2003.
The first three categories of sanctions were lifted in October 2001 because Pakistan's decision to join the US-led war against terrorism made it relevant to US global and regional security interests.
Direct US economic assistance to Pakistan since early 2002 has focused on fiscal support, debt relief, technical and commodity assistance, financial and technical support in the fields of education, health care, food, institutional capacity-building, especially the strengthening of democracy, elimination of child labour and narcotics control.
The US has also extended economic and technical assistance for strengthening security on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, improvement of communications and road building in the tribal areas, counter-terrorism measures, and record-keeping of people leaving or entering the country through different entry-exit points.
Furthermore, Pakistan also obtained economic assistance from the IMF, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank for various development projects, including poverty reduction. The Aid-to-Pakistan Consortium recommended its members in December 2001 to reschedule Pakistan's debts for 38 years.
The improved relations between Pakistan and the US enabled the government of Pakistan to convince the Bush administration in December 2003-January 2004 that it was not involved in the unauthorized transfers of some nuclear equipment and technical know-how from Pakistan by Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan.
The re-election of George W. Bush ensures that the momentum of the reinvigorated US-Pakistan ties will continue and that Pakistan will continue to get economic and technical assistance from the US and international financial institutions. Pakistan also expects to obtain military hardware from the US.
The government is keen to obtain F-16 aircraft to replace the 40 F-16 aircraft it obtained during 1983-87. The US has so far made no commitment about the supply of F-16s or any other sophisticated military aircraft.
The re-election of George Bush also guarantees that the $3 billion five-year assistance package, committed during President Musharraf's visit to the US in 2003 and approved recently, will continue.
The Bush administration is not expected to seriously press the president to step down as army chief, nor is it likely to make an issue of the democracy deficit in Pakistan.
However, if the current drift in Pakistan's domestic politics continues and the government is unable to assuage the opposition, one wonders if the US can stay indifferent towards this country's troubled political realities.
The Musharraf regime's continued confrontation with the opposition is likely to adversely affect its efforts to combat terrorism. The Bush administration may be left with no choice but to advise the Musharraf regime to go for political accommodation and liberalization of the polity.
Pakistan and the US can diverge on the precise strategies for combating terrorism. This can happen if the security situation deteriorates in Afghanistan and its newly elected government is unable to enforce its writ beyond Kabul and a couple of other cities. The US may seek greater Pakistani military support to cope with these challenges.
This may involve strict security measures in the tribal areas and punitive measures against Pakistani hard-line and fundamentalist Islamic groups that openly sympathize with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The Pakistan government may find it difficult to pursue its reluctant partnership with the MMA if the US government insists on effective implementation of its policy of enlightened moderation and containment of Pakistan-based militant Islamic groups.
The Musharraf government may be reluctant to step up military measures to contain terrorism in view of the serious difficulties in the conduct of the military operation in Waziristan, including its negative fallout on the Pakistani mainland in the form of increased bomb explosions and terrorist attacks.
Another potential source of divergence is the US policy towards India, especially the US-India partnership in the security field. Pakistan will be extremely unhappy if the Bush administration supports India for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.
The Bush administration describes its relations with India and Pakistan as two independent tracks because both countries are important for the US for different sets of reasons. However, this is not how India-US relations are viewed in Pakistan.
The unfolding of a strategic partnership between India and the US in disregard of Pakistan's security sensitivities can put strong domestic pressures on the Pakistan government to slow down its partnership momentum with the US.
However, the negative fallout of the stepped up US-India multifaceted cooperation can be coped with if Pakistan-India relations continue to improve and their bilateral dialogue results in resolution of contentious issues. The US can, therefore, reinforce its efforts to combat terrorism by facilitating conflict-resolution between Pakistan and India.
Despite the overall convergence between Pakistan and the US on the war against terrorism, there are points of divergence in their perspectives and policies that can cause strains in their interaction.
Both need astute diplomacy and an appreciation of each other's sensitivities if periodic problems in their relations are to be handled in a manner that shared interests and the areas of convergence do not shrink.
No gas line without MFN status: India
Daily Times
NEW DELHI: India has said that Pakistan’s refusal to grant Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India was coming in the way of the Iran-India gas pipeline, which could fetch Pakistan $600-$800 million in transit fees every year. In an interview shown by the CNBC, External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh said: “This is one element which is coming in the way of the gas pipeline.”
Pakistan on the other hand, is linking the MFN status to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. Natwar Singh hoped that he would be able to persuade Pakistan “because if this is the conditionality, then you cannot move forward.” When asked if it would be a “full stop” if this was the conditionality, he said “On this issue, yes.”
Observing that Aziz’s meetings with Indian leaders “went off well”, Mr Singh described the Pakistani premier as a “well informed, very articulate, distinguished banker and one who has facts on his fingertips”.
Asked about the verbal crossfire following Musharraf’s suggestion that some zones of Kashmir on both sides of the Line of Control could be delimitarised, granted independence or kept under joint control or UN mandate, he said the “misunderstanding” had been cleared with Mr Aziz and Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmud Kasuri, adding these were ideas meant for internal debate in Pakistan. Singh, however, felt that Musharraf’s proposal “in some ways is quite daring” as it did not mention plebiscite, UN resolutions, or speaking about the wishes of the Kashmiri people — a line often taken by Pakistan. “It was interesting”, he said.
Mr Singh said during the talks, the Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) made it clear to the Pakistani side that he did not have the mandate of the people to redraw the country’s map or cause a second partition. Within these parameters, New Delhi was willing to discuss anything.
Mr Singh said that Mr Aziz wanted India to look at some of Musharraf’s suggestions. “We said we are willing to look at any proposal. We are willing to discuss Jammu and Kashmir as long as you like.” The minister, however, felt that Pakistan would not make a formal proposal in this regard. “They had all the time to make it”. About Musharraf stressing that India should show flexibility, he said the composite dialogue was a process, not an event. “Flexibility includes flexibility with time... It is a long haul.”
Mr Singh said Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran would visit Islamabad on December 22-23 to work out a schedule for the second round of talks of the composite dialogue. The Indian premier will have a second meeting with Mr Aziz during the SAARC Summit in Dhaka in January. As part of the high-level contacts, the external affairs minister would be visiting Islamabad in February. About the proposed Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, he said the issue was being worked out to mutual satisfaction. “We are hopeful of working out all technicalities and we are very near a solution,” he said, indicating that it could be operational coming spring.
The minister said Indo-Pak relations were on a “steady course” and added “there is no going back to Agra, Kargil or aar paar ki larai”. He also questioned the importance being given by Pakistan to Hurriyat leaders. “In my opinion if they (Pakistan) think that only Hurriyat represents the people of Kashmir, then there is something fundamentally wrong with their understanding of realities in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Singh. He hoped that this would not be an “irritant” in bilateral ties.
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