 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
Qanooni says district campaign official killed in west Afghanistan
KABUL, Oct 5 (AFP) - Leading presidential candidate Yunus Qanooni said Tuesday that one of his campaign organisers had been killed in western Afghanistan.
"We condemn the killing of Abdul Aziz who was campaiging for us in Shindand," Qanooni told a rally of some 2,000 supporters in a Kabul football stadium, four days before the country's first direct presidential election.
Qanooni is the chief rival to President Hamid Karzai. He did not say when Aziz was killed in Shindand, which lies 125 kilometers (78 miles) south of the main western city of Herat.
Herat police chief Ziahuddin Muhmoodi said a body was discovered in Shindand but he could not say whether he had been campaigning for Qanooni.
Qanooni also accused Karzai's followers of intimidating his supporters in the northern provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan by jailing them.
"They threw our supporters into the jails. We condemn this act and we ask the UN and the government to release those people who have been sent to the jails for no reason but supporting us."
He said the vote on Saturday will mark Afghanistan's "transition from dictatorship to democracy and elected government".
Karzai, Qanooni, and 16 other candidates are contesting the election.
Facts and figures for Afghanistan's upcoming election.
Wednesday October 6, 8:29 AM AP
CANDIDATES _ 18, including interim leader Hamid Karzai, ethnic Tajik former Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni, Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum, and Massooda Jalal, the only female candidate.
FAVORITE _ Karzai is widely favored to win, but it is not clear if he will garner the outright majority necessary to avoid a second round against the runner-up.
STAKES _ The vote is Afghanistan's first-ever direct presidential vote and first national ballot since the fall of the Taliban. Karzai is hoping a victory will solidify his rule and allow him to take bolder steps to rebuild the country and fight the influence of warlords that still hold sway in much of the countryside.
DATE _ Saturday, Oct. 9, 2004, though organizers have left open the possibility some voting might be allowed on a second day.
POLLS OPEN: From 7 a.m. until 4 p.m. (0230 GMT to 1130 GMT).
VOTING CENTERS: 4,807, each of which will have separate polling booths so that men and women may vote apart to respect the country's Islamic customs.
VOTING STATIONS: There are 21,521 stations within the voting centers. Of these 12,354 will be for men, and 9,187 for women.
MONITORS _ More than 16,000 domestic observers but only about 225 international monitors will be involved in overseeing the vote to guard against fraud and intimidation _ a turnout which has disappointed the United Nations.
VOTERS _ Some 10.5 million people have registered within Afghanistan, about 740,000 in Pakistan, and there are believed to be another 400,000 to 600,000 eligible voters in Iran. 41 percent of those registered in Afghanistan are women, but that ratio is lower among Afghan refugees in Pakistan and in the deeply conservative Pashtun belt in southeastern Afghanistan.
POPULATION _ There are believed to be about 25 million people in Afghanistan, though there has been no reliable census since decades of ruinous war forced millions to flee. Many have since returned.
RESULTS _ Election officials say it will take two weeks to count the vote because of the remote terrain of much of Afghanistan and a lack of experience with democratic votes. They hope to have partial results sooner, but say they don't know when a winner will be announced.
Afghan President, Rival Campaign Despite Threats
By Simon Cameron-Moore / October 5, 2004
KABUL (Reuters) - The two main rivals in Afghanistan's first presidential election threw themselves into campaigning Tuesday, drawing crowds of supporters four days before a vote that many hope could be a turning point for the war-torn nation.
President Hamid Karzai, who has not campaigned since he escaped an assassination attempt last month, was on a rare campaign trip to the town of Ghazni, southwest of Kabul, to address a rally.
His main rival among the 17 other candidates, Yusuf Qanuni, was on the stump in the capital itself.
Qanuni, a former education minister who has fallen out with Karzai, addressed about 4,000 cheering supporters in the city's main stadium and said he was the man to back.
"Dear brothers and sisters, you are the ones who will elect the president of Afghanistan," he said. "I want your support, I want your vote."
All this is very new to Afghanistan, which has been torn by 25 years of war and has not held any form of election since the late 1960s. More than 10.5 million people have signed up to vote in the country itself, from a population of about 28 million.
Almost 750,000 Afghan refugees in neighboring Pakistan who fled the violence in their homeland have also registered. An estimated 400,000 to 600,000 are eligible to vote in Iran as registered Afghan refugees.
Saturday's election is being claimed as a foreign policy success by President Bush, who ousted Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist Taliban rulers in late 2001 for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden after his al Qaeda network attacked the United States that September.
Violence is still the overriding concern of the election, however. The Taliban and al Qaeda have warned of attacks to try to disrupt Saturday's vote.
Officials hope they will be thwarted by a security effort involving a national army of more than 17,000, about 25,000 police, 18,000 U.S.-led coalition troops and a NATO-led International Security Assistance Force of more than 8,000.
Monday, Afghan troops killed at least seven Taliban gunmen in the southern province of Uruzgan, a provincial spokesman said.
BUSH HOPES ELECTION WILL BE MODEL
Bush, who faces re-election himself next month, hopes that a smooth election in Afghanistan could provide the model for polls in Iraq that are scheduled for January.
Many in Afghanistan are also hoping for a peaceful vote.
"We are so happy. This is the first time we can elect our president," said Ibrahim, a 33-year-old plumber who returned to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.
"The people want peace here in Afghanistan," he said, adding that his family had fled to Pakistan to escape the Soviet occupation in the mid-1980s. He said he would be voting for Karzai.
Lima Azimi, a third-year undergraduate student who had just been taught by a U.N. volunteer how to vote, was also focused on the right to vote.
"I feel very happy that we have the chance to go side by side with our brothers and elect our president and our future," she said. "This is a historical time in the history of Afghanistan."
Azimi did not wear a veil, although a scarf was draped over her head. The Taliban did not permit women in public without the all-enveloping chador and severely restricted their movements. Girls were not allowed in school.
Karzai is the favorite to win, but it is unclear if he will get the 51 percent majority needed for an outright win. If no one gets a majority, the top two candidates will fight a runoff in November.
Karzai said in Berlin during a weekend visit that he hoped the vote would be decided in the first round. He told Germany's n-tv channel that the vote heralds a new era for Afghanistan but added the presence of foreign troops was crucial.
Analysts have said voting is likely to be along ethnic lines.
Karzai is a Pashtun, a member of the group of traditional rulers of Afghanistan. Qanuni is an ethnic Tajik, a community that has taken many senior posts since the mostly Pashtun Taliban were ousted.
Other major candidates include ethnic Uzbek leaders Abdul Rashid Dostum and Abdul Satar Serat and Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, a Hazara.
More than 40 percent of Afghanistan's population is estimated to be Pashtun, with Tajiks accounting for 27 percent, Hazaras form 9 percent and Uzbeks another 9 percent. The rest are Turkmen, Baluch and Aimak.
Karzai braves rally outside Kabul
BBC News / Tuesday, 5 October, 2004
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has attended his first campaign rally outside the capital, Kabul, just four days before landmark elections.
He flew to Ghazni, 100km south of Kabul to address a crowd of about 10,000.
Two other leading presidential candidates also held rallies - Yunus Qanuni in Kabul and General Abdul Rashid Dostum in Mazar-e-Sharif.
There was massive security for Mr Karzai - violence by the Taleban has hampered campaigning in many areas.
Mr Karzai's only other campaign foray outside the capital last month was abandoned when a rocket was fired at his helicopter.
Killing condemned
The BBC's Andrew North in Ghazni says a lively crowd holding colourful banners and portraits of Mr Karzai gathered to hear him speak on Tuesday.
He urged people to support him and help the country recover from decades of war.
"Brothers and sisters, I ask you to vote for me freely, with no pressure. We want a proud Afghanistan, a stable Afghanistan, a peaceful Afghanistan," he told the crowd.
His arrival was accompanied by massive security, with Apache attack helicopters and A-10 tank buster aircraft guarding the president's helicopter.
After the rally, the president mingled with the crowd to the discomfort of his US guards.
He shook hands with an old man, telling his guards: "Don't push him! Don't push him! This is democracy. This is emotion!"
One of Mr Karzai's leading rivals, Mr Qanuni, told 2,000 people at a Kabul football stadium the election would be a "transition from dictatorship to democracy and elected government".
He condemned the killing of one of his campaign organisers, Abdul Aziz, in Shindand, western Afghanistan.
Mr Qanuni also accused Mr Karzai of intimidating his supporters.
"They threw our supporters into jails. We condemn this act and we ask the UN and the government to release those people who have been sent to jails for no reason but supporting us."
General Dostum's rally drew thousands in the northern town of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Crowds of men singing and chanting filled the city centre. Others packed into trucks, driving through town waving photos of General Dostum and shouting at bystanders to use their vote.
Our correspondent in Mazar, Monica Whitlock, says the general, an Uzbek, is very much a northern, not a national figure.
She says to lose here would be disastrous for his credibility but securing a sizeable vote would give him political credentials and perhaps a voice in the country as a whole.
Refugee voters
Campaigning ends on Wednesday, ahead of Saturday's election.
The registration of refugee voters in Iran and Pakistan is now complete.
A four-day drive in Pakistan ended on Monday with the organisers, the International Organisation for Migration, saying around 740,000 refugees there could now vote on Saturday. Up to 600,000 may vote in Iran.
"We are happy with the total," said Belquis Ahmadi, senior Afghan adviser to the IOM. "We are also happy that no major security incident happened."
Security in Afghanistan itself remains a massive concern in the run-up to the election.
On Tuesday, Afghan security forces raided a Taleban hideout in southern Oruzgan province, killing seven suspected insurgents in a three-hour gun battle, Afghan officials said.
Provincial chief of police, Matiullah Khan, said the insurgents had earlier attacked a police checkpoint about 40km from Tarin Kowt.
Five insurgents were arrested in the raid. There were no casualties in the Afghan forces, Mr Khan said.
Taleban violence and threats against candidates and voters have hampered the election campaign in many parts of the country, especially the south and east.
Twelve people were killed in election-related violence over the nine-month registration campaign. Hundreds have died in militant attacks in the last year.
Afghan strongman turned presidential candidate, Dostum in fight for political life
Wednesday October 6, 8:21 AM AP
He ruled northern Afghanistan as a personal fiefdom under the law of the gun, enjoying foreign support as a bulwark against the former hardline Taliban regime.
Now, strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum faces the first real test of whether his penchant for brutality and bluster resonates with Afghans voting Saturday in the nation's first direct election for president. While he isn't expected to win, his showing could reinforce his position as a powerbroker of the north _ or expose him as a man who people follow only out of fear.
"It will be clear very soon who is a warlord and who is the people's lord," Dostum said Tuesday at a rally of several thousand supporters in Mazar-e-Sharif, the main city in the north.
He appeals to fellow ethnic Uzbeks as a champion of their minority rights, especially after winning recognition of the Uzbek language in Afghanistan's post-Taliban constitution.
Wearing his trademark dark robe, Dostum ended Tuesday's rally by mounting a brown horse _ the symbol of his election bid and a nod to the Uzbek game of buzkashi, where riders fight to drag the headless body of a calf across a goal line. Buzkashi's apparent anarchy is often evoked to symbolize politics across Central Asia, where Dostum has consistently proved a survivor.
He was trained by the Soviets during their occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and fought on their side before switching to the mujahadeen who drove out the Red Army. He then plunged into the civil war among Afghanistan's factions, before allying with foes to battle the Taliban.
When the Taliban began their conquest of Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, Dostum's militia held them back for a time and turned Mazar-e-Sharif into a cosmopolitan enclave exempt from the harsh interpretation of Islamic law enforced in the rest of the country. He was finally chased out in 1997 and took refuge in Turkey.
After the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, Dostum was on horseback again _ joined in the saddle by U.S. special forces _ and led the liberation of northern Afghanistan from the Taliban. Still, his status in Mazar-e-Sharif was diminished, and he now holds court in his nearby hometown of Shibergan.
Dostum has been pushing interim President Hamid Karzai to give him a plum job Kabul, with many people believing he would like to be defense minister. But his political future depends on the outcome of Saturday's election, in which Karzai is the favorite.
"For the first time, you'll have a clear dictation of what political backing these factions have," said Megan Gilgan, senior field officer at the United Nations' mission in northern Afghanistan. "How (Dostum) performs at the ballot box will determine what the future of those negotiations will be."
Karzai has railed against warlordism as one of the plagues hindering Afghanistan's recovery and he has recently taken steps to clip the wings of those who defy him.
Most notable to fall was Ismail Khan, removed as governor in the western city of Herat. Karzai also dropped from his election ticket Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim, who inherited the bulk of the arsenal from the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance that ousted the Taliban.
Dostum claims to no longer command his militia, but the thousands of fighters are still believed to be under his control, and they have been involved in repeated clashes with supporters of his rivals in the north.
At the rally Tuesday, Dostum urged people to vote their minds and not feel they should choose a candidate because of perceptions someone is backed by the international community _ a swipe at Karzai, who is perceived to be the foreign favorite.
"Vote independently and don't fear anyone. It's your right to vote and no one will force you to do anything," Dostum said.
Afghanistan needs more than just elections:
[World News] By Kanchan Gupta New Kerala - Tuesday Oct 05 12:51 PM SGT
On Oct 9, Afghanistan takes the first tentative but brave step towards democracy, three years after the fall of the antediluvian Taliban regime that had converted the nation into a sprawling graveyard of human hope and desire.
The long shadow of Osama bin Laden and his band of rabid, bloodthirsty middle-aged, balding students (taliban) of Islamic theology may not disappear entirely with the casting of the last ballot on that eventful day of modern Afghan history. But it shall definitely begin to lift.
Remnants of the Taliban, along with disgruntled warlords, have been trying their best to scuttle the twice postponed presidential election - originally scheduled in June and then again in September. Last month's deadly bombing in Kabul is indicative of their determination to once again drag Afghanistan back into the dark days of mullah power.
Undeterred by waning American interest in securing Afghanistan's future and increasing international attention on Iraq, interim President Hamid Karzai has demonstrated immense capacity to ward off his detractors both at home and abroad. By staying the course, he has emerged as the best bet for Afghan voters.
Although there are 18 contestants for the president's office in the coming election, including a woman, Masouda Jalal, it is a more or less foregone conclusion that Karzai and his vice-presidential running mate Ahmad Zia, brother of Ahmad Shah Masood, the slain leader of the Northern Alliance, will win with more than a handsome majority.
It is nobody's case that the Oct 9 election will be either free or fair. The ground reality has prevented proper voter registration and enumeration. There are credible reports of voter registration card fraud and possible electoral malpractice on voting day.
According to the UN, an estimated 9.8 million eligible voters have registered as against nearly 11 million voter registration cards or more issued.
If reports are to be believed, women have been in the forefront of registration card fraud since like any other official document in a country witnessing transitional politics, this piece of paper, too, commands a handsome price. But nobody is complaining, least of all Afghans excited by the prospect of deciding their own destiny.
However, the good news about Afghanistan's slow but till now sure march along the path of democracy (parliamentary elections are now scheduled for April 2005) is overshadowed by bad news about everything else that has been going utterly wrong. The larger share of the blame for this squarely rests on the USA, which has transgressed far and wide from its post 9/11 Afghanistan policy.
It is a pity - some would call it a shame - that while the Bush administration, which may yet get to flash its lone, post-9/11 foreign policy success with the holding of the Oct 9 presidential election in Afghanistan, chose to fritter away its resources by waging war in Iraq. The unbound stupidity of the American misadventure in Iraq has impacted on Afghanistan in a manner than could yet undo the incipient success of the last three years.
The Bush administration's failure to carry the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban regime to its logical conclusion has been aptly commented upon in the '9/11 Report': "Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters have regrouped. . . . Warlords control much of the country beyond Kabul. . . . Economic development remains a distant hope. . . . The narcotics trade is again booming."
Given the Bush administration's strange fixation with Iraq, it is unlikely that Washington's focus will shift from Baghdad to Kabul if the Democrats were to be trounced in the coming US presidential election. Greater responsibility, therefore, devolves on the international community, led by the UN, to prevent Afghanistan's slide back to the dark days of the 1990s.
As soon as the Oct 9 election is over and an elected president takes charge of Afghan affairs, concerted and coordinated effort is called for on three fronts.
First, the internal security situation, which in the best of times during the last three years has been grim, needs to be improved to create proper conditions for democracy to strike root and unhindered conduct of its attendant activities. If this means augmenting the International Security Assistance Force, at present led by NATO, by changing its composition and its command structure, the world community should force the UN to do so. If this were to anger Washington, so be it.
Second, the UN programme to contain and neutralise the untrammelled powers of warlords, who have proved to be Afghanistan's bane, has to be implemented ruthlessly so that the powers and authority of Kabul are shored up.
Karzai has shown the way by defanging the strongman of Herat, Ismael Khan. To achieve this goal, the task of demobilising some 60,000 private militia owing allegiance to the warlords has to be taken up in right earnest. President Bush and his men have singularly failed in this task.
Third, the drug trade, which is booming again, has to be crushed. There are entrenched interests that can be traced to both Islamabad and Washington behind the re-emergence of Afghanistan as a leading trafficker of opium and heroin.
Linked to all three is the rebuilding of the economy and infrastructure of Afghanistan. The 'Marshal Plan' promised by President Bush has turned out to be an unkept promise. The UN must now lead from the front in raising the money - estimated by World Bank at $28 billion over the next seven years - for rapid reconstruction.
India, as the world's fourth largest economy and an immediate neighbour of Afghanistan, can and should play a leading role in the reconstruction efforts. Not because India should bother about securing the US from possible - and potential - future assault by Osama bin Laden's men, but because it is in India's interest to ensure that Afghanistan does not once again become the incubator for terrorists.
(Kanchan Gupta, who has worked in the previous Vajpayee administration, has recently returned from an assignment in Cairo. He can be reached at mail2kgupta@yahoo.co.in)
--Indo-Asian News Service
Afghan President Says Election Is Key Step
Tue Oct 5, 2:00 PM ET World - AP By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
GHAZNI, Afghanistan - Watched over by American bodyguards and sharpshooters, Afghanistan's eternally optimistic interim president told a campaign rally of 10,000 people Tuesday that this weekend's election is a key step in their recovery from decades of war and hardship.
The gathering was one of three big rallies by leading presidential contenders on the most active day yet in a campaign that has mostly been waged behind closed doors, with the candidates courting the support of tribal elders who can influence how whole villages vote.
It was only President Hamid Karzai's second campaign trip out of the capital since an assassination attempt by Taliban rebels last month, and security was tight. Truckloads of Afghan police lined the road leading to the dusty field, and everyone attending the rally had to pass through security checkpoints as U.S. helicopters flew overhead.
Karzai, the overwhelming favorite among the 18 contenders, said Saturday's election is an opportunity to build a new future for a country that has known nothing but war, drought and poverty for a quarter century.
"Brothers and sisters of Afghanistan, I ask you to vote for me freely, with no pressure," Karzai told the crowd in Ghazni, about 75 miles south of Kabul. "We want a proud Afghanistan, a stable Afghanistan, a peaceful Afghanistan."
After the rally, he mingled in the crowd, shaking hands with an old man who pressed closer to meet him.
"Don't push him! Don't push him!" Karzai told his security detail when they tried to keep the man away. "This is democracy. This is emotion!"
People in the crowd danced and sang, while drummers beat out a traditional song.
Karzai's main rival, former Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni, addressed more than 2,000 people at the Kabul sports stadium to appeal for support. Qanooni, an ethnic Tajik, is expected to finish second but hopes to hold Karzai below the majority vote needed to avoid a runoff.
In the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum told several thousand people that Karzai's government had fallen short on promises of reconstruction and improved security. Afterward, Dostum mounted a brown horse — his electoral symbol — as the crowd pressed in around him, chanting his name.
In the conservative south, about 500 leaders of Karzai's ethnic Pashtun kinsmen joined one of Karzai's brothers at a tribal council in a village near Kandahar to endorse the interim leader.
Speakers lauded Karzai as the only man to stop infighting among Afghan warlords, keep Taliban rebels at bay and maintain the world's interest in helping the country.
"He doesn't smoke and nobody ever heard him use bad language," said Maulawi Obeidullah, a white-bearded cleric. "He's a Muslim, a holy warrior and a great Afghan."
The lackluster campaigning has been in part a product of Afghan-style politics, and in part due to fears that Taliban and al-Qaida rebels could attack campaign gatherings.
On Monday, Afghan soldiers and police raided a hideout where Taliban militants were suspected of preparing attacks to disrupt the presidential election, prompting a three-hour battle that killed seven insurgents, officials said Tuesday.
Seven police officers were reported killed Tuesday when their vehicle struck a land mine close to the Pakistani border, and police said gunmen shot at a U.N. vehicle, wounding three Afghan election workers.
The Taliban, which was driven from power by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001, has staged a string of attacks on election workers, made frequent rocket assaults on U.S. bases and sprung occasional ambushes.
But the rebels have not launched the major assault that many people had feared in the days leading up to the vote. Officials said they were confident the rebels would not be able to mount attacks capable of stopping the vote.
"The elections will be secure, not so much because the remnants of the Taliban or the terrorist forces are saving their energies to launch attacks on the day of the election," said Jawed Ludin, a spokesman for Karzai. "Our intelligence is that in fact there is not much energy left there."
In neighboring Pakistan, the International Organization for Migration, which organized a four-day voter registration drive among Afghan refugees, said about 740,000 had signed up to vote in the election. It said about 28 percent were women, who had been pressured in Pakistan's conservative tribal areas not to register.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans living in refugee camps in Iran will also take part in the election.
__
Associated Press reporters Stephen Graham in Kandahar and Paul Haven in Kabul contributed to this report.
Afghan election notebook 4 - Lonely road
Tuesday, 5 October, 2004 By Andrew North / BBC correspondent in Zabul
"I've been scared, I don't mind telling you."
Chris Humphries is honest about living and working in one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan - Zabul province, where attacks by the Taleban are a regular occurrence.
Well, almost.
He admits he hasn't told people back home exactly where he is.
"I don't want my family to worry."
So do they have any idea of his location?
"No," he laughs. "They think it's part of Iraq."
The reason Mr Humphries is there, inside a fortified camp in the middle of the desert, is that he works for US construction firm Louis Berger.
It is responsible for a $250m project to rebuild the nearly 400km (250-mile)-long Kabul to Kandahar highway through southern Afghanistan.
It is almost complete. But despite employing hundreds of armed guards, Louis Berger has lost over 30 staff during the 18-month project, most to attacks by militants.
Mr Humphries oversees a particularly isolated 85km stretch of road, surrounded by empty desert and mountains.
And he and fellow American Mike Jennings, a security specialist, are the only Westerners living there.
Although in this most volatile province, the construction camp is also used occasionally by US soldiers.
Much of the remaining work involves replacing sections finished in a hurry, in response to pressure from Washington to get the road open by December last year.
It is no surprise that it has been dubbed the George Bush highway.
The White House was desperate to have a major US-funded project in Afghanistan to talk about, and to head off criticism that its reconstruction efforts here were stalling.
"It's the most political project I've ever done," says Jim Myers, head of Louis Berger's Afghan operations.
Improvements
The road is now making a big difference though.
"It used to take two or three days to get to Kabul, now it's just a day," says Hamidullah, a truck driver about to start another journey from Kandahar.
Yet roads are just as political an issue inside Afghanistan, especially as elections approach on October 9.
But in the north, you will often hear people complain that all the US investment in roads has gone south, because that is where President Hamid Karzai is from.
Perhaps hoping to dampen such criticism, the Afghan leader made a point of travelling to open a new road project in the north last month.
He was then attacked for using a government trip for campaigning purposes.
There is another concern now, according to Jim Myers - that US funds originally committed for Afghan road-building are being diverted to Iraq.
But Patrick Fine, director of the US Agency for International Development in Kabul, which provides the cash, rejects this.
"That is just not an accurate characterisation either of the way the US government allocates funds, or of any reality," he says.
The US will see through all the projects it has committed to, he says.
"I would challenge you to find any place where roads are being built faster under the conditions in which we are working here," he adds.
Car accidents
And if, as everyone assumes, President Karzai wins the election, one of the things Afghans will be hoping for is that he can speed up road and other reconstruction projects across the country.
But as always, every action has consequences.
With the Kabul-Kandahar now largely open, a new problem has emerged - speed.
Now that drivers can cruise at over 120km/h for much of the way, there has been an upsurge in accidents.
"We've seen some horrific injuries round here," says Chris Humphries.
In response, he and Mike Jennings have spent their own money to build a roadside clinic. They pay for all the drugs and the doctor's salary.
What is not clear, though, is what will happen to the clinic when the road work is finally done.
Candidates speed up campaigns four days before elections
MAZAR-E-SHARIF , 5 October (IRIN) - Election campaigns are reaching a climax in the capital Kabul and the provinces, just four days before Afghanistan's first ever direct presidential election on Saturday.
Wednesday is the last day of campaigning and in almost every Afghan city candidates or their supporters are holding gatherings and rallies, while at the same time meeting tribal elders, local commanders or influential community leaders in a bid to guarantee more votes.
In Mazar-e-Sharif hundreds of people - mostly shopkeepers, teachers, civil servants and even children from surrounding schools - gathered under the sunshine in the yard of the famous blue shrine of Hazrat Ali, considered a centre piece of this northern Afghan city, for a rally by Younus Qanuni, one of 18 presidential candidates and reportedly the most serious competitor of the US-backed Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
Hundreds of Qanuni's supporters held his posters, while young supporters with handheld loudspeakers shouted pro-Qanuni slogans. But some of the students said they had been forcibly sent by their schools to attend the event.
Amena, a 36-year-old civil servant, said she had attended all the rallies held in Mazar-e-Sharif over the last two weeks. "This is a big change when I see people holding rallies with speeches against a president or a powerful person. This has never happened before," the mother-of-four and a worker at the Kood-e-Barq electricity plant told IRIN, noting however that many people still didn't know a lot about the candidates' platforms. "We have only seen their posters. People want to know more before they make a choice," she explained.
Qanuni was the second candidate after Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq of the ethnic Hazara minority to come to Mazar-e-Sharif for his presidential campaign.
"Elections are the first democratic experience for our people. Therefore, we have many weak points and shortcomings," Qanuni told IRIN as he arrived in the city.
Election campaigns were a challenge and yet a new experience for Afghans, citing a lack of awareness amongst the population, a very short period to campaign, and the threat of Taliban and Al-Qaida, calling the later major concerns, he added.
According to the candidate, people did not have an understanding of the culture of elections. "Anyway, it is very interesting that the first democratic experience has been received very well. This crowd indicates they want to go towards democracy."
Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai attended his only campaign rally outside the capital, Kabul, just four days before Saturday's elections, flying to Ghazni, 100 km south of Kabul to address a crowd of thousands.
There was massive security for Karzai as the risk of violence by the Taliban has already hampered campaigning in many areas. His only other campaign visit outside the capital last month was quickly abandoned after a rocket was fired at his helicopter.
The northern Uzbek warlord, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, held his rally in Mazar-e-Sharif on Tuesday, drawing crowds of thousands to the city.
Candidate Aims to Unify Karzai Opposition
The Associated Press 10/04/2004 By Burt Herman
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan - A leading opposition contender in Afghanistan's upcoming landmark presidential elections said Monday he was talking with other top candidates about joining forces against incumbent Hamid Karzai in Saturday's vote.
Addressing a crowd of several hundred supporters in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Yunus Qanooni said he was talking with 14 of the 18 candidates in the race - including Hazara leader Mohammed Mohaqeq and Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum - and was hopeful they would agree to back him.
But representatives of Mohaqeq and Dostum denied talk of a coalition.
"That is not true, we are campaigning independently and we are not in talks to join with anyone," said Mohaqeq spokesman Aziz Royesh, who was attending a noisy campaign rally in the capital, Kabul.
Dostum's spokesman, Sayed Noorullah Agha, said, "Gen. Dostum has not supported any other candidate."
Karzai, who is backed by the United States, is heavily favored to win Saturday's election. But Qanooni told a rally at Kabul's Hazrat-e-Ali shrine, one of the holiest sites in Afghanistan, that "if we are able to introduce one candidate, we could win."
The fervent crowd pressed toward the speaker's podium, often interrupting Qanooni's speech with the Islamic prayer cry of "Allahu Akbar!" or "God is great!"
The vast field of 18 contenders has raised speculation that even the popular Karzai will not win outright on Saturday, prompting a run-off election between the top two vote-getters.
Qanooni acknowledged the difficulty of building a consensus among the factions and said they might only whittle the number of candidates down to two or three, but he expressed confidence the coalition candidate would prevail even during a second round.
Qanooni has said he hoped the other 17 candidates would band together in a second round and back whomever emerges to challenge Karzai. Qanooni said Karzai asked for his backing and his withdrawal from the race, but Qanooni rejected those requests after consulting with elders.
Qanooni told the crowd Monday that no single candidate had the explicit backing of the international community. He said diplomats and foreign officials told him "they are supporting the poll of the people. They are not supporting a single candidate."
However, the crowd was small, showing why Qanooni is pondering a coalition to expand beyond the support he enjoys from ethnic Tajiks in the ethnically diverse north.
Qanooni was joined at the rally by Atta Mohammed, a former ethnic Tajik warlord recently named governor of Balkh province, where Mazar-e-Sharif is located, by Karzai. That move is considered an attempt by Karzai to placate the ethnic Tajik vote after he spurned his powerful ethnic Tajik defense minister, Mohammed Fahim.
Dostum, once the most powerful figure in the north who ran the region as his own fiefdom when it was the last bastion outside Taliban control, has held rallies in the north that have drawn thousands of people.
Meanwhile, international observers were moving into position to monitor the vote across the rugged countryside. The head of one of two European-based missions said Monday the teams will not pass judgment on the war-battered nation's first attempt at democracy.
"We are not here to issue a soundbite about the election," said Ambassador Robert Barry of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "We are not going to say whether it is free and fair, or free, fair and flawed or whatever ... but we will be making recommendations which we hope will be useful."
Barry said expecting a perfect vote was unrealistic.
"If you look at the regulations for this election, and if you were to examine the implementation of every one of these regulations, it is completely impossible (that they will be met) because the regulations are much too demanding for a country at this stage of the training and development of election administrators," he said.
Some 10.6 million registration cards have been handed out in this nation of 25 million people, but even United Nations officials in charge of the registration drive acknowledge that the number has been inflated by endemic double-registration.
Associated Press reporter Paul Haven in Kabul contributed to this report.
US envoy accused of being the power pulling Karzai's strings
The Times 10/04/2004
As Afghanistan heads to the polls, there is growing suspicion that the fix is in, writes Catherine Philp in Kabul
AS Hamid Karzai stepped forward to cut the ribbon across the entrance to Kabul's rebuilt national museum, a tall grey-haired man in a sharp suit stood beside him. The same man was present when the Afghan President opened a new dormitory at Kabul university. And he was there again as Mr Karzai arrived by helicopter in a dusty northern province to open a new road.
He is the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been nicknamed "The Viceroy" for the influence he wields over the Karzai Government.
In recent weeks, candidates in the presidential election to be held on Saturday have accused the US envoy of taking on a new role -- that of campaign manager for Mr Karzai -- in an exercise whose success is vital for the re-election hopes of George W. Bush.
Mr Karzai has long been seen as the US's man, and his backers have done little to challenge that perception. In the past week, the US ambassador has appeared three times at Mr Karzai's side at the opening of US-funded reconstruction projects, even when they have not been completed.
The museum's end wall stood unfinished and unplastered as the ribbon was cut. The new road to Shibarghan petered out into rubble long before it reached the town, so the ceremony was held in the middle of the desert.
Rival candidates have complained to Afghanistan's election commission over the legality of the support the US provides to Mr Karzai, from Chinook helicopters to his well-armed bodyguards.
Most serious of all, opposition candidates are claiming the US is pressuring them to drop out of the race or seek deals. They contend that such interference could damage the credibility of what is being hailed as the first truly democratic election in Afghanistan's troubled history.
Leading candidate Mohammed Mohaqiq was preparing to launch his presidential bid when Mr Khalilzad offered him a deal to pull out of the election in return for cabinet posts for his men.
Mr Mohaqiq asked the Americans to pay for a road through his tribal heartland. He said Mr Khalilzad readily agreed. When he decided against the deal, he claimed the ambassador called his party colleagues and tribal associates and asked them to help persuade him.
"I am not the only one he has visited -- he has done the same thing with many other candidates," he said. "We all know the Americans are not interested in a real election, they just want Karzai to win."
Mr Khalilzad denies claims he has offered candidates deals in return for their dropping out of the race.
The candidates say that since the allegations became public, US officials have made strenuous efforts to assure them Washington has no favourites. But few are convinced, giving rise to the growing perception that the election will be a US fix.
"It is very shameful what the Americans are doing," said Mohammed Qasim, a vice-presidential candidate on an opposition ticket. "They came here to end terrorism, not to interfere in our elections and impose their will on us."
Mr Karzai's frenzy of ribbon-cutting has angered those with less tangible achievements to show off. After two years of doling out reconstruction funds, the Bush administration has pumped in an extra $US1.76billion ($2.44 billion) this election year.
But Mr Karzai's image as the US's man cuts both ways with Afghans: to those who strongly resents the US presence he is Washington's stooge, to the more pragmatic, his close relations with the wealthy West are a boon.
Mr Karzai would probably be a runaway favourite without any US meddling, but the perception that the election is a done deal is gaining currency among the educated elite, fuelling cynicism and apathy.
"It's a dangerous game the Americans are playing," Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit analyst Andrew Wilder said.
"The American ambassador accompanying him everywhere is undermining his credibility. It confirms to the Afghans that Khalilzad is the real power in the country and that there is more interest in the outcome than in having a meaningful process."
Heading the Afghans: a dangerous mission
By Simon Cameron-Moore Dawn
KABUL: Whoever wins Afghanistan's election should beware. Assassinations and coups go with the territory - almost every amir, king and president of the country has met an unfortunate end.
Hamid Karzai has already survived at least two attempts on his life and depends on US bodyguards to protect him. Amir Yakub Khan had been in the job for just eight months when he abdicated in 1879 saying he "would rather be a grass cutter in an English camp than ruler of Afghanistan".
The risks did not diminish in the 20th century. In 1919, Amir Habibullah was murdered while he slept and his brother Nasrullah named himself amir. Habibullah's son, Amanullah, soon took over, tried Nasrullah for the murder and had him sentenced to life imprisonment. Habibullah's killing was never satisfactorily explained and many believed Amanullah himself was involved.
Amanullah's efforts to westernise the country, introducing western dress and education for women, that lost him popular support so that when a Tajik bandit known as Bacha-i-Saqao led a revolt in 1928, Amanullah fled in a Rolls Royce through the snow drifts to British-ruled India.
The violent rule of Bacha-i-Saqao, or "son of a water carrier", lasted nine months before he was overthrown by Nadir Khan, a former military commander who returned from the south of France with his brothers to rally tribal support. Bacha surrendered, was executed and the commander, who renamed himself Nadir Shah, was proclaimed king.
King Nadir Shah ruled firmly, repressively even, for four years. In 1933, he was shot dead in revenge for the execution of one of his political enemies. His son, Zahir Shah, took over the throne at the age of 19.
The four decades he ruled are regarded as the most stable period of modern Afghan history. In 1973, he was overthrown by his cousin Sardar Mohammad Daoud, a former prime minister, and went into exile in Italy for decades.
Five years later, in 1978, President Daoud was killed, along with most of his family, after a coup lead by Marxist. Nur Muhammad Taraki became president of the communist government. Just over a year later, Taraki followed Daoud to the grave, killed in a palace shootout by gunmen loyal to his prime minister and defence minister Hafizullah Amin.
Three months later, in December 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan and Amin was killed in an assault on the palace, although there were also rumours he was poisoned or committed suicide by poison.
Babrak Kamal was installed as head of Moscow's puppet government at the start of the 10-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Moscow dumped Kamal in 1986 and installed Muhammad Najibullah, a former secret police chief with a reputation for brutality. Kamal died in exile 10 years later, of natural causes.
Najibullah's regime survived more than two years after the Soviet army quit Afghanistan in 1989. Its end finally came when rival mujahideen commanders converged on Kabul in April, 1992. Najibullah took refuge in the UN compound in Kabul.
In the ensuing civil war, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who had been a mujahideen leader, emerged as president and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, became his prime minister, but the civil war raged on. Out of the chaos emerged the Taliban who took Kabul in 1996 and executed Najibullah and his brother. -Reuters
Former Guantanamo detainee announces support for Karzai
KABUL, Oct 4 (AFP) - An Afghan tribal leader and former Taliban sympathizer Monday announced his support for President Hamid Karzai in the upcoming election just days after being released from the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
Mohammed Nayeem Kochai, who has wide support among a regional branch of the nomadic Ahmmadzai tribe, spent 21 months in the jail in Cuba where the US holds terror suspects.
'I and all my tribe are going to support President Hamid Karzai in the elections,' he told a press conference attended by dozens of his supporters in Kabul.
'Karzai is the only figure among the candidates who has all necessary qualities,' he told AFP later. 'He is a mujahid (holy warrior), a non-allied moderate figure, a Muslim intellectual with a transparent past.'
Kochai was arrested for having links with the Taliban but he says his detention was based on false information given to the Americans. Karzai Monday also received a pledge of support from Pir Sayeed Ahmed Gailani, a former anti-Soviet fighter and the leader of the National Front political party.
On Sunday, former president Burhanuddin Rabbani who led another faction against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, announced he would also back Karzai in the October 9 presidential election.
The pledges of support are considered important boosts for Karzai, who has previously failed in a bid to strike agreements with former mujahedin groups. Seventeen other candidates are standing for election, but former education minister Yunus Qanooni, 47, is seen as Karzai's only serious challenger.
Afghanistan was set on course for the elections by the US-led invasion in 2001 which ousted the former hardline Islamic Taliban regime after the September 11 terror attacks.
Rural Afghans lack awareness on elections
PAGHMAN, 5 October (IRIN) - Sitting around a wood fire oven in a village bakery in Dar-e-Zargar, Magul and her fellow women know very little about the first ever direct presidential elections to be held in less than a week's time. Although all eligible members of her family had voting cards, they still didn't know who was who amongst the 18 presidential candidates.
"We have neither radio or TV, nor can we go outside our homes to listen to the candidates in public," the 45-year-old housewife told IRIN in the Paghman district, 26 km west of the capital, Kabul.
While there is no lack of enthusiasm among many Afghans, a lack of information has already prompted many rural inhabitants to seek advice from village leaders, commanders and shuras (local community councils) on who they should vote for. "I will vote for whoever my husband votes for and he will vote according to the decision of our village elders," Magul conceded.
There have been only a handful of rallies and debates. Most of the rallies and debates have taken place in Kabul and just a few other cities. Instead, candidates have spent most of their time meeting tribal elders who can guarantee to deliver hundreds of votes.
Noorulhaijan, another resident of Paghman, told IRIN that all his villagers had agreed to vote unanimously for the person they believed could deliver prospects for a better future. "We agreed to vote for anyone who is a Muslim and who brings national unity and a good economy," the former Jehadi commander told IRIN.
However, none of the villagers said exactly who they would vote for. Some said they would vote for ex-king Zahir Shah, who is now called the father of the nation. But he is in his late eighties and is not running in the election.
According to Aghajan, a prominent religious leader in Paghman, after decades of war and political crisis most Afghans need assistance and information in order to practise the first ever democratic exercise. "In my observation, 80 percent of the people seek advice from imams, shuras and often local commanders on who they should vote for," the 70-year-old clergyman told IRIN.
Aghajan said he had preached in community gatherings and mosques about the elections over the past weeks. "I advise people to be very careful about who they vote for. They should ask for information but not listen to any orders or requests."
He said he was receiving frequent requests from some of the presidential candidates or powerful people supporting them to encourage voters in their favour. "I was told today by one of the presidential candidates to encourage people towards his cause," he said. Meanwhile, Aghajan had received a letter from a powerful warlord asking him to meet one of the presidential candidates. "I am sharing all of these things with the public along with alerting them to be very careful."
While voter registration numbers have been widely touted, voter education has been given neither the time nor the resources it required, according to a new survey by the Kabul-based Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium (HRRAC).
"Only 14 percent of the 700 Afghans we interviewed in five major Afghan cities said they had received any voter education. Only half of the people who answered our questionnaire can name even two candidates for the presidential polls," Horia Mosadiq, HRRAC's deputy project director, told IRIN.
The HRRAC survey calls for an increase in civic education so that Afghans are able not only to cast their votes in full awareness of the issues, but also to begin to fulfil the rights and responsibilities that citizenship entails.
Afghan warlords 'threaten women'
Tuesday, 5 October, 2004 BBC News
By Andrew North / BBC correspondent in Kabul
Threats on women by the Taleban and warlords are undermining their participation in Afghanistan's upcoming elections, a human rights group says.
The US-based Human Rights Watch says in a report that very few women have registered to vote on Saturday in areas where the Taleban are active.
The report says even campaign workers have received death threats for raising women's issues.
More than 40% of Afghanistan's 10.5 million registered voters are women.
The US government has claimed that the rights of Afghan women have improved after the Taleban were removed in 2001.
The Human Rights Watch report offers little hope from Saturday's election.
It says very few women are expected to turn out to cast their ballots on polling day.
Sensitive issue
The report highlights instances where campaign workers have been harassed and received death threats for raising women's rights issues, such as making it easier for them to divorce.
Such an issue remains highly sensitive and most of the candidates running for the election, including President Hamid Karzai, have done their best to avoid it.
There is no doubt that life has got better for Afghan women with the removal of the Taleban and their harsh restrictions.
More than a million girls are now at school.
Many are working, all of this underpinned by a new constitution enshrining equal rights with men.
But for many women, things have barely changed.
Many are still not allowed to work by their families, while many suffer violence at the hands of husbands and other relatives.
Far too often, they find the authorities unable or unwilling to protect them because of deep-rooted social attitudes.
Afghanistan's Women's Affairs Minister Habiba Sarabi says stronger laws are not enough.
"Education is also very, very important. It's a fundamental thing. Changing attitudes of men, rather than women, because this is a male-dominated country and men should change their minds towards the women," she says.
US and Afghan troops join hands on patrol
Tue Oct 5,12:33 PM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Two American light armoured cars lead the way, two more take up the rear, in the middle a truck is loaded with newly-trained Afghan soldiers: the mixed bag of troops are on patrol in Afghanistan's unruly south.
At dawn one recent Sunday, at the gates of Kandahar, the biggest city in southern Afghanistan and the former headquarters of the Taliban, 15 US troops have an appointment with 22 young Afghan recruits from the fourth division of the new Afghan National Army.
The mission: to patrol a zone of the old city that they have never visited before.
On the ground, only a handful of Americans are present. Captain Ken Lowe and chief sergeant Carlos Martinez lead the patrol, while their Humvees protect the group from a distance.
In this province where Taliban militiamen are active, the Americans are on alert. At the slightest suspicious sound of trucks or motorbikes, common means of attack in Afghanistan, they raise their assault rifles.
Yet since they have been accompanied by their Afghan colleagues, the missions are easier: they have had stones thrown at them, but "the reaction of the population has changed since we started the patrols with the Afghan army," Lowe said.
The desert beige uniforms of Lowe, 35, and Martinez, 47, on their first overseas posting, mix with sombre greens of the Afghans, proud in their new uniforms and brandishing polished AK-47s.
Conversations with the people are non-existent and there are some jibes: "You are welcome, but not with the foreigners," yells a woman to the Afghans.
Generally however "the situation is pretty quiet, there is some animosity but it does not manifest physically," Martinez said.
Sometimes the Afghans act as intermediaries. On Sunday Lowe offered a bottle of water to a young girl. She refused... until he gave it to an Afghan soldier who gave it to her.
Thanks to these ground reconnaissance trips, the US army can also more easily take the pulse of the people and carry out intelligence gathering alongside the patrols, according to Lowe.
At the same time, they are a training mission: about 320 of these soldiers sent from the US national guard have been deployed in Afghanistan to instruct and build a strong Afghan army, considered crucial if the central government is to extend its authority into the provinces.
"These troops, they are fearless. They are ready to die for their country," said Lowe.
The Americans teach them "organizational skills," he explained. "We are trying to transform them from a guerrilla into a more modernized army."
The United States soldiers have also accompanied their Afghan colleagues on combat missions.
In mid-August, Lowe and Martinez were deployed with their Afghan colleagues in the vast western province Herat to curb clashes between the rival militias of governor Ismael Khan and warlord Amanullah Khan.
"The ultimate goal is to let them go out alone," said spokesman Captain Michael Eckart.
Inexperienced, under-armed and increasingly often in the front line against Taliban, dozens of Afghan soldiers have died in recent months.
Lowe and Martinez, who are aware they face similar risks while serving with local troops, hope to return to Indiana in 10 months.
Suspected Taliban injure three electoral workers in Afghanistan
October 5, 2004
KABUL (AFP) - Three Afghan electoral workers were injured in an attack by suspected Taliban in the southeastern province of Khost in the latest attempt by militants to disrupt presidential polls, an official said.
"In an ambush by Taliban three electoral workers were injured near Jaji Maidan district," military commander Khyal Baz Khan said on Tuesday.
Khan was unable to provide any further information on the attack Monday on the three men near the Pakistani border. He blamed remnants of the Taliban.
Twelve electoral workers were among hundreds of people killed in Taliban-related attacks this year, and more than 30 electoral staff have been injured.
Taliban militants killed a girl and injured three others in a rocket attack in the village of Tira in Khost, Khan added.
In a separate attack Monday in central Uruzgan province Afghan security forces killed seven suspected Taliban during a two-hour gunbattle after they ambushed a battalion of government troops some 40 kilometers (24 miles) east of the provincial capital Tirin Kot.
"Seven Taliban were killed during the fighting which lasted for two hours," provincial administrative chief Fazil Rabi told AFP by phone.
The fighting erupted after more than 100 Taliban rebels attacked troops with small arms and machine guns in the insurgency-hit district of Khas Uruzgan.
"More than 100 Taliban attacked our troops. We killed seven of them," Rabi said.
The troops pursued the rebels in the mountains throughout the night.
"Our troops are still there and we hope to kill or capture more Taliban that we believe are hiding in the mountains."
Uruzgan, some 360 kilometers (223 miles) southwest of Kabul, is a hotbed of insurgency by loyalists of the Taliban regime which was ousted by a US-led military campaign in 2001.
Several US military helicopters followed overhead to support Afghan soldiers on the ground, Rabi said.
In a separate battle Sunday US-led soldiers captured 16 insurgents after a day-long firefight near the southeast border town of Spin Boldak. Six of the insurgents were injured in the fighting, but the US-led coalition said there were no injuries among its forces.
More than 18,000 US-led troops are in Afghanistan, hunting down Taliban militants and their Al-Qaeda allies across southern and eastern provinces.
The Taliban, who have vowed repeatedly to disrupt October 9 presidential elections, have been attacking troops, electoral workers and officials.
Nine suspected militants, seven police killed in violence in southern Afghanistan
Wednesday October 6, 12:42 AM AP
Afghan soldiers and police raided a hideout where Taliban militants were suspected of preparing attacks to disrupt this weekend's presidential elections, prompting a three-hour battle that left seven insurgents dead, officials said Tuesday.
In a string of reported incidents adding to security fears for the vote, a mine killed seven police officers, a bomb killed two men who were loading it onto a motorcycle, and gunmen shot at a U.N. vehicle, injuring three Afghan election workers.
The firefight broke out at about 3 p.m. Monday in a mountainous area of southern Uruzgan province, hours after rebels had attacked a police checkpoint, said Matiullah Khan, the provincial chief of police.
Police followed the rebels into the mountains, where they came across dozens of other Taliban fighters. Seven rebels were killed, and five others arrested. The Afghan forces suffered no casualties.
Matiullah Khan said officials believe the men were plotting to launch attacks ahead of Saturday's landmark presidential elections, though he gave no specifics on what they might have been up to.
"We have increased our security all over the province because of the election," he said. "We don't want any of the Taliban to be in a position to attack polling sites."
The official said authorities found five missiles, as well as automatic weapons, after a search of the hideout. The remaining rebels fled deeper into the mountains.
The police officers died Tuesday when a mine devastated their vehicle during a security patrol in Maruf district of Kandahar province, deputy police chief Salim Khan said.
He said the mine appeared to have been freshly laid and blamed Taliban militants for the attack.
"It's not far from the mayor's office, and the police are always patrolling in this area," he said. "The vehicle was totally destroyed."
Later Tuesday, Salim Khan also reported that two men were killed in Kandahar by a bomb they were apparently trying to load onto a motorcycle. It was unclear if they were preparing to carry out an attack in the city.
An Associated Press photographer saw two bloody corpses at a city hospital and a civilian being treated for head injuries from the blast. Pools of blood lay in the alley where the bomb went off.
The U.N. vehicle came under fire in Khost province on Monday, injuring three Afghan election workers, said Mirza Jan Nimgarai, the local police chief. He said the attackers fled over the border into nearby Pakistan.
The Taliban has kept up a steady drumbeat of violence ahead of the vote, with attacks on election workers, frequent rocket assaults on U.S. bases, and occasional ambushes.
The threat of violence has kept many of the 18 candidates, especially interim President Hamid Karzai, largely off the campaign trail. Karzai survived an assassination attempt in September when Taliban rebels fired a rocket at his helicopter on one of his few forays out of the capital. His vice president was targeted later, surviving a bomb attack on his convoy in northeastern Afghanistan.
The rebels have not yet been able to launch the high-impact assault many had feared in the days leading up to the vote. Officials say they are confident the vote, the first time Afghans will be asked to directly choose their president, will go forward.
__
Eds: Associated Press Writer Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
Seven insurgents killed in clash in southern Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) Afghan soldiers and police raided a hideout where a large group of suspected Taliban militants were suspected of preparing to disrupt this weekend's presidential elections, prompting a three-hour firefight that left seven insurgents dead, officials said Tuesday.
The fighting broke out at about 3 p.m. Monday in a mountainous area of southern Uruzgan province, hours after rebels had attacked a police checkpoint, said Matiullah Khan, the provincial chief of police.
Police followed the rebels into the mountains, where they came across dozens of other Taliban fighters. Seven rebels were killed, and five others arrested. The Afghan forces suffered no casualties.
Khan said officials believe the men were plotting to launch attacks ahead of Saturday's landmark presidential elections, though he gave no specifics on what they might have been up to.
``We have increased our security all over the province because of the election,'' said Khan. ``We don't want any of the Taliban to be in a position to attack polling sites.''
Khan said authorities found five missiles, as well as automatic weapons, after a search of the hideout. The remaining rebels fled deeper into the mountains.
The Taliban has kept up a steady drumbeat of violence ahead of the vote, with attacks on election workers, frequent rocket assaults on U.S. bases, and occasional ambushes.
The threat of violence has kept many of the 18 candidates, especially interim President Hamid Karzai, largely off the campaign trail. Karzai survived an assassination attempt in September when Taliban rebels fired a rocket at his helicopter on one of his few forays out of the capital. His vice president was targeted later, surviving a bomb attack on his convoy in northeastern Afghanistan.
The rebels have not yet been able to launch the high-impact assault many had feared in the days leading up to the vote. Officials say they are confident the vote, the first time Afghans will be asked to directly choose their president, will go forward.
US forces detain allied Afghan commander
KHOST, Afghanistan, Oct 4 (Reuters) - U.S. forces have detained an Afghan militia commander helping them to hunt Taliban fighters after accusations he was misusing his power to repress opponents, a state-run radio station reported on Monday.
Commander Afzal, who controls hundreds of fighters, allegedly arrested personal enemies while helping U.S.-led forces in Khost, one of the southeast provinces where the Taliban insurgency is strongest. Khost Radio said the commander was taken to Kabul for questioning after the provincial government gave its approval for him to be detained.
The U.S. military in Kabul declined to confirm the report immediately. Afzal's arrest comes amid rising complaints by locals in Khost that U.S. troops and their Afghan allies are arresting and harassing innocent people in their hunt for militants.
An official in Khost said Afzal's forces were expected to continue to cooperate with U.S.-led forces. U.S.-led troops toppled the Taliban's radical regime after it refused to hand over al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Separately, Khost residents said there were leafletsin circulation warning them not to vote in Afghanistan's landmark election for a president on Saturday. The leaflets described the first direct vote for a leader in Afghan history as a "plot and sham" aimed at helping U.S. President George W. Bush win re-election in November.
Uzbek Foreign Ministry: Security in Central Asia depends on stability in Afghanistan
Tuesday October 5, 10:47 PM AP
Security in Central Asia depends directly on peace and stability in Afghanistan, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said Tuesday after talks with a senior U.S. diplomat.
Tashkent and Washington cooperate actively to help Afghanistan's political and economic revival, the ministry said in a statement following the meeting between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs Lincoln Bloomfield and Uzbek Foreign Minister Sadyk Safayev.
On Saturday, Afghanistan will hold its first presidential election since a U.S.-led invasion following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in America.
Uzbekistan became a key ally in the U.S. war on terror, and hosts hundreds of American troops on a base in the southern part of the country, supporting operations in neighboring Afghanistan.
On Aug. 16, 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush announced a restructuring of U.S. military forces overseas.
Top Pentagon officials said then that the United States would make greater use of training and logistics bases on the soil of new allies such as Uzbekistan, Poland and Romania, while closing some U.S. installations in Europe to consolidate forces at larger bases there.
Bloomfield's visit to Uzbekistan is part of U.S. defense consultations with friends and allies, the U.S. Embassy in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, said.
Bloomfield also met with President Islam Karimov and Defense Minister Kadyr Gulyamov.
Survey: One in Six Afghan Children Die Under Five
Tue Oct 5, 2004 09:48 AM ET
GENEVA (Reuters) - One of every six Afghan children dies before their fifth birthday despite vaccination and education campaigns that have lowered mortality rates, a survey said on Tuesday.
The first nationwide study of health and human rights issues affecting women and children since 1996 also found the national illiteracy rate among Afghans aged over 15 was 71 percent.
The results come just days before Saturday's presidential vote in Afghanistan, an impoverished country of 25 million where the Islamist Taliban rulers were ousted in late 2001 by U.S.-led troops after the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities.
"We still have some way to go in making Afghanistan a country that is truly fit for children," said Waheed Hassan, a representative for UNICEF, the U.N. Children's Fund.
More than 20,800 households in 32 of the 34 provinces took part in the survey carried out by UNICEF and Afghanistan's central statistical office.
Since partial data collected four years ago, estimated infant mortality of children under one has fallen to 115 deaths per 1,000 live births from 165, according to UNICEF.
The estimated under-five mortality rate has dropped to 172 deaths from 257 per 1,000 live births -- meaning one in six will not survive until that age. Ninety percent of births take place at home without properly trained attendants, it said. Immunization campaigns and wider access to safe water have improved chances of survival, but diarrheal disease and acute respiratory infections remain the main infectious illnesses preying on children, and treatment is often limited.
"We need to improve communication ... so that for example hygiene practices are improved in the home, so that more girls are able to attend school, and more children are immunized against preventable diseases," Hassan added.
Some 45 percent of all Afghan primary school age children are not enrolled, although enrolment has increased rapidly since the fall of the Taliban, the survey said.
Some 40 percent of primary school age girls attend classes, against just 14 percent a few years ago.
South Waziristan ceasefire agreed
Tuesday, 5 October, 2004 By Zaffar Abbas / BBC correspondent in Islamabad
Pakistani security forces and Islamic militants in the tribal region of South Waziristan have agreed an unofficial 10-day ceasefire.
The ceasefire, from Monday night, is to allow a group of mediators to work for a settlement to end fighting.
However, the ceasefire suffered a blow on Tuesday when a land mine exploded, killing at least one soldier.
The army began major operations against al-Qaeda fighters and tribesmen supporting them in the region in March.
The army says it has killed 150 militants since then. The Pakistani military has lost more than 100 troops.
Mediation
Islamabad wants the tribesmen to hand over hundreds of suspected al-Qaeda fighters living in the area, but local tribal leaders have refused, saying the few foreigners living there are former mujahideen not involved in any militant activity.
The ceasefire seems to be holding apart from the incident on Tuesday morning in which a military vehicle hit a landmine, killing at least one soldier and injuring seven.
The artillery and mortars that have fired over the past few weeks have fallen silent and helicopter gun ships have stopped flying over the mountains where most of the armed militants are believed to be hiding.
The ceasefire is the latest in a series of efforts by local politicians to find a negotiated settlement.
One of South Waziristan's two MPs is leading the group that is mediating between Pakistani authorities and tribal militants.
However, even though the two sides have welcomed the move, they are standing firm on their respective positions.
The Pakistani security forces say the military operation is aimed at flushing out foreign militants and will continue as long as there are al-Qaeda suspects in the area.
The tribal militants insist the foreigners in the area are not linked to al-Qaeda and should not be evicted.
Earlier efforts to achieve peace by persuading tribesmen to register foreigners with the authorities were not successful.
Local politicians said tribesmen feared the authorities might use the registration to arrest or extradite some of the foreigners.
Qaeda leaders probably in Afghanistan - Pakistan
DUBAI, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao dismissed on Monday U.S. statements that senior al Qaeda leaders were most likely hiding in Pakistan and said they were probably be in Afghanistan.
Last month, Lieutenant-General David Barno, the U.S. commander of 18,000 foreign troops hunting militants in Afghanistan, told Reuters in an interview that senior al Qaeda leaders were most likely hiding in Pakistan.
But Sherpao told Al Jazeera television that Osama bin Laden and other top leaders would have a difficult time hiding in Pakistan. "I don't know what credible information they (Washington) are basing their statements on," he said.
"We have forces on the border and forces in Waziristan, so its hard for al Qaeda leaders to be in Pakistan. They are familiar with Afghanistan's lands and familiar with their supporters there because they have been there for a long time."
"If they are alive, they would be there (Afghanistan)," he said.
Dozens of al Qaeda-linked militants have been captured or killed in Pakistan in recent months, including Amjad Hussain Farooqi, also wanted for failed assassination attempts on Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf.
Bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar are believed to be hiding near the Afghan-Pakistan border and have eluded capture since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities.
The world needs to step it up in Afghanistan
Madeleine K. Albright and Robin Cook International Herald Tribune 10/5/04
WASHINGTON WASHINGTON With the presidential election in Afghanistan less than a week away, the international community should take a hard look at where we have come since a U.S.-$ led coalition began a military campaign to rid that country of the Taliban and its terrorist allies. The picture is deeply disturbing.
.
Instead of the stability promised three years ago, Afghanistan continues to stumble along, barely one level above that of a failed state. Armed warlords reign throughout the countryside; booming opium production is helping to finance terrorists; the Taliban is resurgent and remains a “real threat” according to a recent United Nations report. A pervasive lack of security is undermining efforts by the Karzai government to extend its authority, hindering the ability of the Afghan people to lead normal lives and causing fearful humanitarian aid workers to leave the country.
.
This unacceptable state of affairs is sure to jeopardize the credibility of the election, and it threatens not only Afghanistan's stability and recovery but also the security of Europe and the United States.
.
The turmoil may be traced to two realities. First, the world community has never given Afghanistan the priority it deserved. Second, tactics used in Afghanistan have been inconsistent with our long-term objectives of stability and democracy.
.
That Afghanistan is still too low a priority is evident in the numbers. For example, there are about seven times more U.S. troops in Iraq than in Afghanistan, despite the threat posed by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. After much talk of expansion, the additional security forces pledged for Afghanistan at NATO's summit in June amount to less than 0.1 percent of total NATO land forces. And this year's Berlin donor conference for Afghanistan generated pledges for less than half of the $27.6 billion requested by the Karzai government for the next seven years.
.
There have also been positive numbers, certainly, like the more than four million children enrolled in school this year and the millions of Afghans who have registered to vote. But the gains will be fleeting if our strategy and supporting tactics for the country's recovery are unsound.
.
The world should have given the warlords a choice: reform or retire. Instead, we put them on the payroll. U.S. forces rely on local militias for assistance against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This enhances the power of militia leaders, undermining the government's efforts to rein in organized military groups. And it validates the tradition of regional groups competing for money and power by “rule of the gun.” It also leaves U.S. security strategy dependent on allies who are neither reliable nor necessarily loyal to the cause of defeating terror.
.
With the security situation already so poor, the Taliban have vowed to increase attacks for the elections, a claim they have begun to make good. Yet NATO allocated only 3,500 added troops to provide election security in the face of these challenges.
.
What's more, the international community seems to have fallen into the trap of believing that elections equal democracy. But real democracy will take root only after the rule of law is established and the president is able to extend his authority across the country. That time has not yet come, and international disarmament efforts have lagged. Nearly three years after the Taliban's defeat, 70 percent of the estimated 50,000 illegal militiamen in the country retain their arms.
.
The U.S.-led coalition and the international community need to do what we failed to do after the overthrow of the Taliban government. We must formulate and implement an integrated strategy for recovery, one that does not skimp on manpower, resources or focus; one that takes into account the full gamut of threats rather than addressing some challenges at the expense of others.
.
This will mean making up for inadequate commitments and resolving inconsistencies within current operations. To this end, more appropriate troop numbers are required. NATO must step up in this regard with a dramatic increase in its security presence. A U.S. reassessment of its relationships with warlords is required. And a more effective approach to combating narcotics is essential.
.
A stable, democratic and secure Afghanistan is critical to defeat Al Qaeda and prevent the resurgence of extremism in Central Asia and around the world. The U.S. and international troops who have been risking their lives every day on our behalf in Afghanistan deserve help. And the Afghan people deserve at long last a commitment that can be measured in real accomplishments, not just more promises. The challenge is one that the U.S., Britain, NATO and the rest of the international community can and must take on - with renewed vigor, and with the full force of our military, political and economic might.
.
Madeleine K. Albright was U.S. secretary of state from 1997 to 2001; Robin Cook was Britain's foreign secretary from 1997 to 2001
Aid groups urge Britain's prime minister not to abandon Afghanistan
LONDON (AP) Fourteen British aid organizations urged Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday not to pull military and financial resources from Afghanistan after the country's first democratic presidential election this weekend.
The groups including Oxfam, CARE International U.K., Christian Aid and the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development warned Blair in a letter that the election Saturday should be seen as a first step toward Afghan democracy and not a ``final benchmark.'' They called call on Blair to devise a long-term strategy for stabilizing the war-torn country.
American-backed interim President Hamid Karzai is expected to handily defeat 17 challengers in the vote. The aid groups' letter warns that any progress made since an American bombing campaign ousted the Taliban in 2001 could be reversed if the elections are not fair and peaceful.
``Unless we dramatically step up efforts to strengthen the Afghan voice and engage ordinary Afghans in decision-making, there is the grave risk the Afghan people will become dangerously disillusioned with the international effort,'' the letter says.
``The possibility of discontent should be taken very seriously, as it could lead to greater violence and political instability.'' The groups also call on Blair to coordinate a cooperative international effort to improve security and economic well-being in Afghanistan.
There are mixed signals about the country's readiness for its landmark elections. Millions of Afghans have registered to vote, and thousands have been trained to administer the elections.
But political violence has continued in the country, and the voting could provide a new focal point for militant attacks. Three Afghan soldiers and two militants were killed this weekend, bringing the total killed in political violence this year to about 950, according to an Associated Press review.
Large cities such as the capital, Kabul, seem to be establishing a solid infrastructure for the elections. But an insurgency remains in the south and east, and regrouped Taliban rebels are expected to mount coordinated attacks before the elections.
Because of the threats, many of the hundreds of aid workers helping prepare for the elections have been forced to leave the country, which could further complicate the election process.
Pakistan urges Afghan drug aid as Hoon visits
By Tahir Ikram
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) - The West must do more to help Afghanistan's neighbours combat the flood of narcotics from the country, Pakistan's anti-drugs chief said during a visit on Tuesday by Defence Minister Geoff Hoon.
Speaking after a ceremony attended by Hoon to torch more than $75 million (42 million pounds) of heroin, hashish and opium, Major-General Naveed Ahmed said Afghanistan, where Britain leads an international anti-drugs drive, still lacked law enforcement capability.
"The international community should realise that the law enforcement capacity of the surrounding countries should also be improved," he told reporters at the event in Rawalpindi, a garrison city adjoining the capital Islamabad. "We are not just fighting our war but also your war, so therefore you need to help us more."
Ahmed heads Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force, which is charged with intercepting huge quantities of drugs produced in Afghanistan, the world's top producer of opium and its derivative, heroin.
Britain has faced criticism from the United States and others for lack of dynamism in its efforts to help control Afghan drug production, which has soared back to near record levels since the overthrow of the Taliban regime by U.S.-led forces in late 2001.
Hoon said Britain recognised the destabilising influence Afghanistan's narcotics production could have on its neighbours. "We know that many parts of Afghanistan are subject to control by those who engage in the drugs trade," he told reporters.
"It is a difficult challenge in Afghanistan. I am not in any way suggesting we have succeeded, but we are working hard to eradicate the problem of drugs in Afghanistan."
He spoke after witnessing the burning of a pyre of drugs, which included 190 kg of heroin, 134 kg of opium and 21 tonnes of hashish. Ahmed said Afghanistan produced 360 tonnes of heroin last year, out of which 60 tonnes was intercepted in neighbouring countries.
Another 40 tonnes was consumed by drug abusers in these countries leaving 260 tonnes unaccounted for, which most likely made its way to Europe and the United States, he said.
Hoon arrived in Pakistan from neighbouring India and was due to hold talks with President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz before returning to New Delhi on Wednesday.
He did not respond when asked whether he was on a special mission to push peace efforts between the countries, saying his visit was part of a regular series of defence contacts with Pakistan, a key ally of the West in the U.S.-led war on terror.
However, he said it was important for India and Pakistan to maintain "the excellent dialogue which is developing". "We as friends, both of Pakistan and India, are delighted that our friends are engaging in this process and we will do whatever we can in whatever small way we can to support it."
Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India have gone to war three times since their independence from Britain in 1947, twice over Kashmir. The two countries have embarked on a peace process to try to resolve decades of enmity, although progress has been slow.
Iran Says It Has Increased Missile Range
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Tuesday its missiles now have a range of more than 1,200 miles, a substantial extension of their previously declared range. The old version of Iran's Shahab-3 missile had a range of 810 miles, capable of reaching Israel and various U.S. military bases in the Middle East.
In August, Iran tested a new version of the Shahab-3, and Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said the country was trying to improve the range and accuracy of the missile in response to efforts by Israel to upgrade its missile system. Several days ago, Iran said it had added a "strategic missile" to its arsenal after a successful test.
"Today we have the power to fire missiles to a range of 2,000 kilometers" — about 1,250 miles, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani said Tuesday, according to a report by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. "Experts know that a country that possesses this can obtain all subsequent stages" in missile production, Rafsanjani told staff at the Aerospace Research Institute in Tehran.
Rafsanjani, who still wields great power in Iran, did not elaborate, but appeared to be saying that Iran can make missiles of any range it requires. "Today, we possess the basic technology to produce and launch satellites," Rafsanjani added. In January, Iran forecast it would put a satellite into orbit with a locally made rocket within 18 months.
Israel and the United States have developed the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system. The Arrow is one of the few systems capable of intercepting and destroying missiles at high altitudes. Its development followed the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles that struck Israel.
Arrow was developed by Israel Aircraft Industries and Boeing Co. at a cost of more than $1 billion. The Shahab, which means shooting star in Farsi, is Iran's longest-range ballistic missile. The country launched an arms development program during its 1980-88 war with Iraq to compensate for a U.S. weapons embargo. Rafsanjani said the Iranian missile program grew out of the 1980-88 war.
"We started thinking of producing missiles when we were attacked by missiles," he said. During the war, Iraq, then ruled by Saddam Hussein, fired missiles that landed in Tehran, but Iran was unable to retaliate. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane.
Unexpected sightseeing in Afghanistan capital, beyond
San Francisco Chronicle 10/03/2004 By Christine Delsol
Face it: Summer is over. But as beach lolling and family trips fade into memory, it's time to settle back with tomes that open a door on places you might never go (or even want to), but fuel fantasies to warm a fall or winter night. Here are some recent releases that are really out there, each in its own way.
"Kabul," by Dominic Medley and Jude Barrand (Bradt/Globe Pequot, 178 pages, $12.95). Yes, we know tour groups are already venturing into the war zone, and frankly, traveling with a posse is what we'd recommend. But those with business in the land of the Taliban and independent tourists who want to get there first would be well advised to pack their pockets with this mini-guide, written by English journalists who have worked and lived there since post-Sept. 11, 2001.
The book, which originated as a 16-page survival guide aimed at workers in Afghanistan and their visitors, covers practicalities most guides wouldn't need -- finding sports equipment or electrical goods, how to buy alcohol without attracting attention, locating landmarks in a city where everything has been endlessly renamed by successive regimes.
Security advice is blunt and specific. No "avoid places where foreigners congregate" -- you'll learn that the Chicken Street shopping area, any restaurant that sells alcohol and the UNICA Guesthouse are considered potential targets. The authors make abundantly clear the danger of wandering in the world's most heavily land-mined country and lay out when and how to obtain permission to travel outlying areas, including the Khyber Pass.
Yet they believe the war-ravaged capital can once again become an exotic, cosmopolitan city at the crossroads of Central Asia. They point to the returning population, an expanding Afghan Tourist Authority, revitalized neighborhoods, bustling bazaars, new guesthouses and restaurants, refurbished hotels and restoration of the Kabul Museum, National Gallery, National Archives and historic Babur Gardens.
A rudimentary phrasebook in Dari and Pashto (the two official languages), day trips, and directories of international organizations, government ministries and U.N. offices are helpful. More and better maps would have been more helpful still.
More troops deployed along Afghan border
By Syed Irfan Raza & Dilawar Khan Wazir Dawn
ISLAMABAD / WANA, Oct 5: Pakistan has stepped up security along its western border by deploying additional troops ahead of the Oct 9 Afghan presidential elections.
A press release issued by Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that security had been beefed up to foil any attempt aimed at disrupting the election process.
Security measures taken by Pakistan, it said, would also help curb infiltration into Pakistan through its porous border. Afghan refugees in Pakistan would also take part in Afghan presidential polls and they would cast their votes on the same day in 1,666 polling stations established in different parts of the country.
The government of Pakistan is collaborating with the International Organisation for Migration. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan has completed the registration process and about 650,000 Afghan voters have been registered in the country.
The ISPR announced that about 250 new check posts had been established in the border areas and a number of small sub-units of the Quick Reaction Force had been deployed in the border area to take immediate counter-measures, adding that aerial surveillance and patrolling had also been increased.
The army has beefed up the existing security all along the country's western border that falls in North West Frontier Province and Balochistan Province by deploying additional troops.
TWO SOLDIERS KILLED: Two soldiers were killed and six others injured in a landmine blast caused by a remote-control device near Jandola in the Tank area on Tuesday, only a day after the militants in South Waziristan agreed to a ceasefire in the volatile region.
Officials said a military convoy was going to South Waziristan from Dera Ismail Khan. When it reached near Jandola, one if its vehicles hit the landmine linked to a remote-control device, causing injuries to several troops.
They said a soldier of the Punjab Regiment died on the spot, while seven army personnel, including a Major, were wounded. The condition of four of them is stated to be serious.
The injured were shifted to a military hospital in Bannu by an army helicopter, where one soldier succumbed to his injuries, an official source said. The incident occurred at about 10.30am. Security forces later encircled the Jandola bazaar and blocked the Wana-Tank road.
The sources said that security forces had arrested four Khasadars, identified as Noor Mohammad, Misal Khan, Alam Khan and Wali Jan, on the charges of negligence.
Meanwhile, the South Waziristan region remained peaceful on Tuesday, following a 10-day ceasefire announced on Monday by militant leaders Abdullah Mahsud and Baitullah Mahsud.
Abdullah Mahsud has condemned the attack on the military convoy in Jandola. In another development, elected representatives of Fata have postponed their scheduled visit to South Waziristan. A group of Fata parliamentarians was due to arrive in Wana on Wednesday, but the trip was postponed at the eleventh hour.
Unidentified people distributed leaflets in Wana, the regional headquarters of South Waziristan, on Monday night, asking people to provide shelter to mujahideen. The leaflets, written in Pashto, called for continuing jihad against infidels and supporters of the United States.
Last week, the military had dropped thousands of leaflets from helicopters and planes in the North and South Waziristan regions, warning people against providing refuge to terrorists.
Afghan arrested for hoax bomb call
By Our Correspondent Dawn
PESHAWAR, Oct 5: The city police on Tuesday arrested an Afghan national for threatening to blow up the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Peshawar last week, officials told Dawn.
All UN offices in the city suspended their activities after the bomb threat on Thursday last. They were later re-opened on Tuesday after getting security clearance from the authorities concerned.
The sources said that an interpreter working at the UNHCR office, Ahmed Farid, had received two telephone calls from an Afghan national, Shah Mohammad, a resident of Logar province of Afghanistan. It was learnt that the man already knew the UN employee.
But during police interrogation, Ahmad Farid did not disclose the caller's name. The accused was identified after the interrogation of a public call office owner on the Nasir Bagh Road, from where he had made two calls.
Shah Mohammad, associated with the UNHCR, told interrogators that he had sought a job from the International Organization for Migration, but was not able to get a job there.
‘Karzai did nothing for welfare of Afghans’
By our correspondent The News International, Pakistan
PESHAWAR: The representatives of Afghan presidential candidate, Engineer Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai has said the people of Afghanistan would elect the Jihadi leader, Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai in the coming elections.
Speaking at a news conference here on Tuesday, Molvi Fayyaz and Dr Ahmad Gul Malang said their opponent Hamid Karzai had a lot of resources and money but he had no support among the Afghan nation. The special representative of Ahmad Shah, Abdul Zahir, Muhammad Akram, Shafiullah were also present on the occasion.
They criticised Afghan president Hamid Karzai saying the Afghan president did nothing for the welfare of the people during his government. Similarly, he failed to take any practical step for the enforcement of Islamic system in their war torn country. On the other hand, Ahmad Shah participated in the 25 years in Jihad and worked for the welfare of his people.
They complained that only the supporters of Hamid Karzai were being registered and that was why we have registered our complaints with the IOM.
It, they said, was only after their protest that such registration was stopped. Despite the irregularities in the registration process, they said they were sure that Hamid Karzai had no support of Afghan nation.
Rumsfeld says no 'strong, hard evidence' of Saddam-Qaeda connection
NEW YORK (AFP) – U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he has seen no "strong, hard evidence" linking former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein with Al-Qaeda, backing away from his pre-war assertions that contacts between the two went back over a decade.
"I have seen the answer to that question migrate in the intelligence community over a period of a year in the most amazing way," he told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations after being asked what Saddam's connection to Al-Qaeda was.
Rumsfeld said there were differences in the intelligence community as to what the relationship was.
"To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," he said.
The nexus between terrorism and the Iraqi regime was a key point in the U.S. effort to persuade the world that Saddam Hussein had to be dealt with after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
In September 2004, Rumsfeld said the United States had "credible" information that Al-Qaeda and Iraq had discussed safe havens and non-aggression agreements, and that Al-Qaeda leaders have sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons of mass destruction.
In his comments Monday, Rumsfeld said he had relied on the Central Intelligence Agency for his information in the past, and appeared to blame the intelligence reporting for the way the relationship between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein was portrayed.
"I just read an intelligence report recently about one person who's connected to Al-Qaeda who was in and out of Iraq. And it is the most tortured description of why he might have had a relationship and why he might not have had a relationship," he said.
"There are reports about people in Saddam Hussein's intelligence service meeting in one country or another with Al-Qaeda people for one person or another, which may have been indicative of something or may not have been," he said.
"It may have been something that was not representative of a hard linkage," he said.
Rumsfeld also raised the prospect that U.S. and Iraqi forces will launch more offensives to clear safe havens of insurgents like the one just completed in the city of Samarra.
Rumsfeld expressed confidence the United States would win a bloody test of wills with the insurgents but admitted that the cost in U.S. and Iraqi lives has been high.
"It is often, on some bad days, not a pretty picture at all. In fact, it can be dangerous and ugly," he said. He insisted, however, "Failure in Afghanistan or Iraq would exact a terrible toll. It would embolden the extremists and make the world a far more dangerous place."
To the question of how to win the struggle in Iraq, Rumsfeld pointed to the recently completed offensive by US and Iraqi forces to retake the city of Samarra, which has been held by insurgents since June.
At least 150 people, including an unknown number of civilians, were killed and scores wounded in two days of fighting there.
"What has to be done in that country is what happened in Samarra over the last 48 hours," Rumsfeld said.
"You cannot allow a series of safe havens or a consistent pattern of misbehavior, anti-social behavior, violence against the government of Iraq to go on over a sustained period of time," he said.
"You can't allow that, or you don't have a country, or people don't feel they have a stake in it," he said.
Rumsfeld said diplomacy backed by the threat of force was the preferred means to regain cities controlled by the insurgents, but it had not always worked.
"Finally you may have to use force, and that's what happened," he said.
"My guess is that's what you'll see in Iraq -- the government systematically deciding they are not going to accept the idea of safe havens, and foreign terrorists, and former regime elements running around threatening and killing people," he said.
Asked how elections can be held in January if major cities are not subdued, Rumsfeld said the Iraqi government would decide what to do.
"What judgments the Iraqi government would make at any given time is entirely up to them, not me, not the United States and not the coalition," he said.
Rumsfeld made waves last month by suggesting that elections may be held only in parts of the country that are secure.
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).