Afghanistan News November 29, 2004

November 29, 2004

Afghan child dies in anti-U.S. protest
Sunday November 28, 8:18 PM
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A little girl has been shot dead during protests by thousands of tribesmen in eastern Afghanistan against detentions by U.S.-led forces, officials say.

Up to 6,000 protesters blocked about five kms (three miles) of the main road link from the eastern city of Jalalabad to Pakistan to protest against the arrest of several locals, including a woman, on Friday night, police said.

Faizanulhaq, a spokesman for the provincial government, said there had been some shooting during the protest in Bati Kot district in which a child died and a protester was wounded, but security forces had not been involved.

"The child was not from among the protesters," he said. "It's not clear who fired the bullet that killed her, but it did not come drom the security forces."

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted Bati Kot district chief Sayed Rehman as saying that the child, a young shepherd girl, was killed in an exchange by the protesters and guards of a Pakistani firm working to upgrade the highway.

The protesters had attacked the offices of the firm and broken some windows, he said.

The protesters were mainly ethnic Pashtuns from the Shinwari and Mohmand tribes. Provincial police chief Hazrat Ali said they dispersed after being told that three people detained by U.S.-led forces, including the woman, had been released.

Major Mark McCann, a spokesman for the U.S.-led force hunting Islamic militants in Afghanistan, said it had detained some people in an operation against suspected al Qaeda hideouts near Jalalabad on Friday, but several had been freed.

U.S. forces also raided suspected al Qaeda hideouts in Bati Kot a week ago. They said several Arabs were among 4 militants killed and others captured, but have not identified them.

U.S.-led forces have been in Afghanistan since 2001 pursuing remnants of the former Taliban regime as well as their Arab al Qaeda allies, including Osama bin Laden, blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Arab al Qaeda fighters are still thought to be operating with local support from sanctuaries in the tribal border areas with Pakistan, where U.S. officials believe Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar may be hiding.

Two aid workers killed in southern Afghanistan attack
KABUL, Nov 28 (AFP) - Two Afghan aid workers were killed and several security officers were injured in a pre-dawn attack on an Afghan-run aid agency in southeastern Afghanistan, officials said Sunday.

A third employee of Voluntary Association for the Rehabilitation of Afghanistan was missing following a raid by some 20 insurgents who stormed their office in Delaram district of southeastern Nimroz province, Najmuddin Mujadidi, head of the non governmental organisation (NGO) told AFP.

"Two of our staff were killed, one is missing and three security force soldiers were also injured in the attack which occurred early in the morning," he said.

Mujadidi said that more than 20 insurgents in six vehicles attacked the office with machineguns and rockets, killing a cook, a guard and leaving another employee missing.

The security forces were part of a road construction firm who were based near to the NGO office and were called for help after the attack started.

"The security forces were not part of our office -- they were part of a road construction company," Mujadidi said.

He was not able to say who might have been behind the attack -- no Afghan officials were available for comment.

Southern Afghanistan is a stronghold for loyalists from the ousted Taliban regime and similar attacks in the past have been blamed on Taliban militants.

Afghanistan has become steadily more dangerous for both Afghan and foreign aid workers in recent months as they have become specific targets for insurgents or have been attacked as a result of local power disputes.

In July, Nobel-prize-winning medical charity Medecines Sans Frontieres (MSF) pulled out of Afghanistan following the brutal murder of five of its staff in western Afghanistan a month earlier.

After 24 years in the country, MSF said that it had become impossible to deliver neutral humanitarian aid now that aid workers had become direct targets for militants and pointed the finger at US-led forces here, accusing them of blurring the lines between humanitarian and military work.

The US-led coalition has more than 18,000 troops in Afghanistan mostly hunting militants in the south and southeast of the country, but has also engaged in building schools and digging wells, which aid agencies said make their lives less secure.

Taliban and other insurgents have begun to target unarmed aid workers and after the kidnapping of three United Nations staff who were released Tuesday after almost a month in captivity, there are fears Afghanistan might suffer a wave of Iraq-style kidnappings.

Over 30 people have been kidnapped and killed by militants in Iraq.

Taliban Attack Afghan Aid Agency, Kill Three
Sun Nov 28, 6:54 AM ET By Mirwais Afghan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Dozens of Taliban guerrillas attacked the compound of an Afghan aid agency with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns on Sunday, killing three guards, officials said.

The two-hour attack on the compound of the Voluntary Association for the Rehabilitation of Afghanistan in Delaram, a town in the western province of Farah, began before dawn.

The aid group's director Najmuddin Mojadidi said two guards of the agency were killed along with another working for an Indian firm that shares the compound.

He said one his guards was missing and three working for the Indian firm upgrading the town's main road link were critically wounded. He declined to name the Indian firm.

A Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakmim, confirmed the guerrillas had carried out the attack, but said the intended target was a military post next to the aid agency compound.

Mojadidi said 20 guerrillas took part in the attack about 620 km (390 miles) southwest of the capital Kabul. An official of the Afghanistan NGO Security Office said as many as 40 guerrillas could have been involved.

"They fired heavy machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades," Mojadidi said.

The Afghan aid agency has been running agricultural projects in Farah funded by various U.N. agencies since the 1990s and has been attacked in the past by suspected Taliban guerrillas.

The radical Islamic Taliban movement has declared a holy war against U.S.-led foreign forces in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai's government and local and foreign aid workers.

More than 1,000 people, including dozens of aid workers, have been in killed in militant-related violence since August last year that has severely disrupted aid work in the south and east where the Taliban and their Islamic allies are most active.

The Taliban vowed to disrupt presidential elections held last month and won by U.S.-backed incumbent Hamid Karzai, but these passed off relatively peacefully.

However, the militants have stepped up attacks of late.

Last Wednesday, two U.S. soldiers were killed and one wounded in a blast caused by a improvised bomb while they were on patrol in central Afghanistan. Three German peacekeepers were slightly hurt on Friday when a similar device exploded near their vehicle in the northern town of Kunduz.

Last Tuesday, three foreign U.N. workers who had helped run the presidential election were freed from nearly four weeks in captivity, an incident that raised fears among the foreign community of a wave of Iraq-style kidnappings. (Additional reporting by Yousuf Azimy and Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL)

Afghanistan seeks billion dollars for landmine programme
NAIROBI, Nov 28 (AFP) - Afghanistan on Sunday appealed for a billion dollars towards programmes aimed at clearing landmines and helping some two million victims of the deadly devices, officials said in Nairobi.

"The task of clearing mines and helping victims is enormous," said Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Haider Reza.

"We need international community support. ... There are about two million victims," he said just before the official opening in the Kenyan capital of a week-long international summit on landmines.

Reza said his government had tried to help the victims but its success was so far limited.

"We need as much as a billion dollars to have the whole business of landmines done," Afghan Deputy Justice Minister Mohammed Qasim Hashimzai also told AFP in an interview.

"Nearly the whole country is covered by mines, from the Soviet war to the Taliban times," he said.

"We really need help to rebuild our country. People at home want to live at peace and we hope those people who care about us are going to support us," Hashimzai added.

The conference will carry out the first review of the 1997 international treaty banning anti-personnel mines, which kill or maim a person every 22 minutes somewhere in the world, on average.

There has been a significant fall in the number of landmine victims, from 26,000 a year in the 1990s to the current figure of 15,000 to 20,000.

Four governments have used anti-personnel mines since 2003: Georgia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal and Russia, according to the 2004 edition of the Landmine Monitor Report, compiled by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

At the opening session in Nairobi, landmine victims from Afghanistan as well as Iraq called for the end of the use of mines.

Afghans threaten more abductions as hostages leave
By David Brunnstrom
KABUL, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Two U.N. workers freed from weeks in captivity in Afghanistan left the country on Sunday, while the group that said it held them threatened more abductions unless a promise to release Taliban prisoners in exchange was fulfilled.

The group, the Jaish-e Muslimeen, threatened to kidnap more foreigners if authorities did not release 24 members of the former Taliban regime now being held in jail. It said the prisoners were to have been released in exchange for the freedom of the three U.N. workers last week.

Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland and Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo left Kabul on a U.N. flight in the morning and would spend a few days on holiday before joining their families, U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said.

A third hostage, Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan who was freed with the women last Tuesday, returned to Manila last week. None of the them has given details about their captivity or how they came to be freed.

Akbar Agha, head of the Taliban splinter faction that had claimed to hold the hostages, complained that 24 Taliban prisoners in return for the three foreigners had yet to be freed.

"Right now it appears we have been deceived and there is a 50 percent chance of the release of our prisoners," he told Reuters. "If we are disappointed about the release of our prisoners, then, in 15 days, we will take some action that will compel the Afghan government to release our prisoners.

"This includes kidnapping some foreigners," he said. "And to kidnap a foreigner is a very easy job because a large number of our colleagues are in Kabul and other cities across Afghanistan."

The three workers were abducted from a Kabul street on Oct. 28 after helping run presidential elections won by U.S.-backed incumbent Hamid Karzai, raising fears among the foreign community in Afghanistan of a wave of Iraq-style kidnappings.

The government says it does not believe the trio were ever held by Jaish, but the group may have hired a criminal gang that carried out the abductions. On Friday, a former British journalist who runs a guest house in Kabul said he had helped negotiate the release of the hostages by passing on an offer of a $1.5 million ransom to Jaish from Kosovan businessman Behgjet Pacolli via an intermediary.

However, the former journalist, Peter Jouvenal, said he did not think the money had been paid and Jaish has denied receiving any ransom, or demanding one. Pacolli has denied paying any ransom.

A government official said last week he understood the hostages were freed after the payment of a ransom, but he did not know by whom it was paid or to whom.
The United States had warned against any compromise with the hostage takers, saying any deal would provoke more kidnappings. The Interior Ministry has denied that any deal was struck.

The Jaish leader Agha, whose group announced a breakaway from the mainstream Taliban earlier this year saying it no longer recognised the authority of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, said there were no differences between them.

"The goals of our Mujahideen (holy warriors) are the same, only the organisations are different," he said. "Mullah Omar is a great Mujahid who has never compromised on Islamic principles."

However, he did say that a commander of Jaish, Mullah Sabir Momin, who had claimed to speak for the group during the hostage standoff, had been removed from the organisation by its shura, or council, for secret relations with the U.S.-backed government.

"A decision against him was taken by the entire Shura because he used to get Taliban Mujahideen arrested," he said, without elaborating. The mainstream Taliban loyal to Omar has denied any part in the kidnapping, saying holding women as hostages was un-Islamic.

19 escape from Afghan torture cell
Staff Report Daily Times
MULTAN: Nineteen Pakistanis, including eight women artistes, who were forced by the Afghan police to spend their time in a torture cell in a fort in the Afghan city of Herat, finally managed to flee their captors and safely reach home.

Thirty-five-old Kalsoom, who was one of the artistes hailing from Sargodha forcibly kept in Hert’s Islam Fort, revealed that an Afghan agent had taken her and seven others to Afghanistan to dance in front of an audience of foreigners in October. “Just before leaving for Peshawar, a police party raided the venue and arrested them but let the audience go free. They kept us in a torture cell in the Islam Fort, with 12 other Pakistanis already held, without allowing us to appear before a magistrate,” Ms Kalsoom said.

“Then, the torture cell in-charge and his colleagues asked us to dance for them while they indulged in a booze-up. When we found them heavily drunk, we stole the cell door keys, freed other Pakistanis and escaped. The fort’s superintendent, Muhammad Bilal Khan who had come to his senses tried to stop us from running away. Later, we entered the Iranian territory where security forces caught but allowed us to go to Pakistan after investigation,” she added.

Pakistan denies forces pullout from Afghan border area
11/28/2004 1:30:00 PM GMT Al Jazeera
Pakistan denied on Sunday that it is pulling out its security forces from the main town in the tribal area near the Afghan border.

A military spokesman said on condition of anonymity that "there is no pull out of troops from South Waziristan Agency or any other area of Federal Authorized Tribal Areas (FATA) and actions will be taken as and when required if there is credible information about presence of foreign miscreants in the area or their involvement in the terrorist activities,"

Only the check posts in the area would be handed over to local tribesman but there was no withdrawal of forces, the spokesman added.

On Saturday, the Pakistani media has quoted Pakistan Army's Corps Commander Lt-Gen Safdar Hussain as saying that the forces would be pulled out from Wana sub division following guarantees by local tribesmen that they would not harbor fighters.

But Defense Spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sutan said on Sunday that the forces would not be withdrawn from the troubled region.

The military spokesman also said that military operations would resume in Mehsud area of South Waziristan where some of the wanted suspects have not turned themselves in.

The spokesman also explained that there were three reasons for deploying security forces in the Federal Authorized Tribal Areas (FATA): secure the western borders, help the political administration in carrying out the development activities and hunt for foreign and local suspects hiding in some of these areas.

Foreign fighters and their local supporters have disrupted the development activities in South Waziristan, he said, adding that those fighters were also involved in carrying out attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.

Some of the areas have been wiped out of fighters, and the government, with support from local tribesmen, would ensure that there is no re-emergence of rebels in these areas, he said.

Pakistan has carried out many operations near Wana during the past year. It has damaged hideouts and training camps used by rebels linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

Military officials said that Pakistan deployed some 75,000 regular forces into the area to search for at least 600 Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters believed to have infiltrated from Afghanistan. They said that some 100 of the estimated 600 foreign fighters are still hiding in Pakistan, while others have either been killed or escaped to Afghanistan.

Pakistan rejects CIA report on leaks
11/27/2004 11:30:00 AM GMT – Al Jazeera
Pakistan denied on Saturday a newly released CIA report accusing top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan of assisting Iran's nuclear weapons program than it was previously disclosed. Pakistan described the CIA accusations that A Q Khan provided design of nuclear weapons to Iran as a writer's own "creative insertions."

Referring to a report that was published recently in the New York Times, Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesman Masood Khan said, "the writer of the report has spun a strange web, based on flimsy evidence, hearsay, and snippets of conversations." "The CIA report does not mention any 'designs for weapons or bomb making components".

"In the past year, Pakistan has conducted an inquiry to unearth an illicit network of international black-marketeers, dismantled it and shared the results of the inquiry transparently with the people of Pakistan," Khan said. "Pakistan has been cooperating with the IAEA and the international community to thwart international black-marketeers from proliferating sensitive nuclear technology." "We pay full attention to formal communications. We have received no such communication", the Pakistani FM said.

A Q Khan admitted in February that he passed nuclear technology to other countries. However, he was pardoned by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who cited his service to the nation, as he lead the development of Pakistan's nuclear deterrent against India. Abdul Qadeer Khan is currently under virtual house arrest in Islamabad.

Last week, the CIA posted on its website an unclassified report to Congress, "Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions." The report cited efforts by Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria to obtain chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons technology.

The report said that "Iran's nuclear program received significant assistance in the past from the proliferation network headed by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan". "The A.Q. Khan network provided Iran with designs for Pakistan's older centrifuges as well as designs for more advanced and efficient models and components."

"Even in cases where states took action to stem such transfers, knowledgeable individuals or non-state purveyors of WMD- and missile-related materials and technology could act outside government constraints," the report added. "The exposure of the A.Q. Khan network and its role in supplying nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea illustrate one form of this threat."

According to The New York Times the CIA report claimed that that bomb-making designs provided by Khan's network to Iran in the 1990s were more significant than it was previously disclosed.

The New York Times cited former CIA director George J. Tenet as saying that Khan was "at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden" citing his role in providing nuclear technology to other countries.

Iran-EU nuclear parleys break off
Dawn
VIENNA, Nov 27: Informal Iran-EU talks to rescue an agreement on a promised Iranian freeze of key nuclear fuel-making activities broke off on Saturday, opening the door to possible UN sanctions against Tehran, diplomats said.

"We have no progress. It is up to the Iranians now to ponder what they will do," a European diplomat close to the talks told AFP. "They have a very serious decision to make." "If there is not soon a verification of full suspension (of uranium enrichment by Iran), then we'll be in a different ballgame from then on," he added.

Diplomats said this could mean that the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation board of governors would fail to pass a resolution based on the suspension when it resumes meeting in Vienna on Monday. The suspension was intended to show Iran's good faith in the face of US accusations that Tehran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

This would set the stage for movement towards a tougher resolution, one closer to the US call for Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council for possible economic sanctions as Washington accuses Iran of having hidden sensitive nuclear activities for almost two decades.

Iran and EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany had been conferring in Vienna and in their respective capitals to save an agreement on freezing uranium enrichment, struck in Paris on November 7. The deal was to have been finalized and verified by the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, in time for a meeting in Vienna which began on Thursday.

The two-day meeting of the 35-nation IAEA board of governors was extended until Monday after Iran said that despite the freeze it would continue research with 20 centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium to make nuclear fuel but also what can be the raw material for atomic weapons.

The European trio categorically rejected any modification of what was supposed to be a total halt in enrichment and all related activities. A diplomat close to the talks said the European trio had in fact given Iran until only on Sunday to agree to put the 20 centrifuges back into the freeze or "they would table a much different resolution on Monday."

The diplomat said the Europeans were furious after Iran told them it would yield on the centrifuges if a clause were dropped from the resolution that held Iran accountable. The clause says IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei should "report without delay to the board should the agency find that the suspension is not fully sustained."

Such a trade-off is "blackmail," another diplomat said. Diplomats said the IAEA board might adjourn its proceedings without a resolution. But a US diplomat said this would be unacceptable to the United States since it had been backing the European trio's conciliation effort with the idea of settling the issue at the current board meeting.

"We want this settled here and now and that was what the Europeans sold us on," the US diplomat said. The diplomat said the break off in the talks "seems to reinforce our view that we were right to be sceptical" about Iran meeting its promise to fully suspend key nuclear fuel activities.-AFP

US tells Iran not to underrate its power
DOHA, Nov 27: A top US commander has warned Iran and other countries never to underestimate US air and naval power, discounting concerns that US forces are too tied down in Iraq to respond to challenges elsewhere.

"To deter a nation state you should never underestimate the air and naval power of the United States," General John Abizaid, the commander of US forces in the Middle East, told AFP in an interview late Friday.

"Why the Iranians would want to move against us in an overt manner that would cause us to use our air or naval power against them would be beyond me. We have an incredible amount of power," he said.

Gen Abizaid made the comment in response to questions about whether the United States, with the bulk of its ground forces tied down in Iraq, had the means to meet other contingencies such as a conflict with Iran.

"If you ever even contemplate our nuclear capability, it should give everybody the clear understanding that there is no power that can match us militarily," he said, speaking as he flew to his headquarters here from Afghanistan. "And so we can generate more military power per square inch than anybody else on earth, and everybody knows it," he said.-AFP