April 11, 2005

Mystery surrounds empty black box in Afghan air crash
Sun Apr 10, 9:28 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - US analysts found no information recorded on the black box on board the Afghan Kam Air Boeing 737 that crashed in February, killing all 104 passengers on board, officials said.

The flight data recorder was sent to the United States for analysis as Afghanistan lacks the technology to open and analyze the device.

"Due to technical errors the flight data recorder had nothing recorded," said Afghan defense ministry spokesman Mohammed Zahir Azimi on Sunday.

The second black box, the cockpit voice recorder, which records the conversation between the pilot and the air control tower, was never found.

Both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder are designed to be resistant to the impact of a plane crash and to send out signals so they can be traced and found.

Afghan officials were unable to say what technical hitches had prevented the data recorder from working or why the cockpit voice recorder was never found.

"The device had no records on it 25 hours before the crash time and the reason for that is not known," said Qurban Mohammed Badakhshi, flight safety director at the Afghan Ministry of Transportation.

The examination of the device in the United States was completed on March 14 in the presence of Afghan officials, said Azimi.

The jet airliner was en route from the western city of Herat to Kabul when it hit a 3,300-metre (9,900-feet) mountain peak during a snowstorm on February 3. Twenty-four of the victims were foreigners.

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Barrier is broken in Afghan province
Habiba Sorabi, the nation's 1st female governor, confronts varying expectations in Bamiyan region
By Kim Barker Chicago Tribune  April 10, 2005
BAMIYAN, Afghanistan -- The new governor sounds like a typical politician, promising paved roads, electricity, jobs and water, just like the last governor.

But the new governor of Bamiyan is anything but ordinary. Habiba Sorabi is a woman, the first female provincial governor in Afghanistan's tortured history. Her appointment by the president marks a step forward for Afghan women, oppressed even before the Taliban forced them to stop working and beat them for showing skin.

"Thank God a thousand times," said Massoma, a woman of about 40, who like many Afghans does not have a last name, as she sat near an unpaved road in Bamiyan, hoping that someone would give her a ride.

"Women are more powerful than men in this country," added her daughter, Marzia, 22. "If God wills it, they'll do better things."

Long way to go

Although the Taliban regime fell in late 2001, women still suffer in Afghanistan. Most, like Massoma and Marzia, are illiterate. Many die in childbirth. Teenage girls are still forced to marry old men. Many women are not allowed to work. One educated woman in Kabul recently complained to a visitor that her husband never let her leave home, even to visit family.

But the new constitution declares the sexes are equal, and several women in Kabul have been pushing for more rights.

In Kabul, women broadcast the news and run for political office. Three of the 30 Cabinet members are women, in charge of minor ministries.

"I want women to have confidence that they can have high positions in the government," said Sorabi, a former women's affairs minister. "Women in Afghanistan have been isolated. Men don't allow women to do things. Men want to have all the power."

Sorabi, 48, will be the first woman to leave relatively progressive Kabul to run the remote province to the west. She hails from the same ethnic Hazara minority as most of Bamiyan, but she still faces a huge challenge. She worries that some people will expect too much, believing that her international appeal will bring more aid to one of the poorest provinces in Afghanistan. She also faces problems from people who expect too little. They do not think she can do the job.

"You say women's rights are equal to men's," said Ziauddin, 25, a farmer in Watapor, a village in Bamiyan province. "But it's not happening outside the cities. Men are losing their skin to work hard. Women are just sitting at home."

"For men, it's shameful to see our women work," added Hafizullah, 26, another farmer.

If Sorabi does not deliver on her promises, this will have bigger implications than on her political career. Some people will blame any shortcoming on her sex.

After she was appointed, about 200 people showed up in the town of Bamiyan to protest her selection. Three Afghan newspapers ran editorials questioning whether the country was ready for a woman governor. One suggested that the government would be better off fighting violence against women than naming a token woman governor.

Why not a woman?

But Bamiyan province has been friendlier to women than most. A few days after the anti-Sorabi protest, a few hundred people rallied in support of her.

Almost half the Bamiyan voters in the presidential election last fall were women. A couple dozen women were seen walking on a recent afternoon on the main streets of Bamiyan town--many more than in other provinces. Some even wear simple head scarves, instead of the burqa, which covers a woman's face and is worn through much of the countryside.

Many men in Bamiyan also welcome the change. They complain about the past governor, a former militia commander who they say did nothing. These men are also practical, reasoning that the international community will be more likely to send money to the country's first female governor than to a minor warlord. Nothing else has worked--why not a woman?

"Women are very kind, very nice," said Mohamadullah, 50. "Maybe they can bring lasting peace."

Since the fall of the Taliban, this central province has been relatively peaceful, except for security problems with drug traffickers.

But the people demand a lot. Many like to say they have lost everything. Scores were killed by the Taliban and buried in mass graves. Even the giant Buddhas that once brought tourists here were destroyed.

The town of Bamiyan is nothing but dusty, bumpy roads, small beige homes and sleepy stores. Fields are plowed by cattle dragging large pieces of wood. Farmers travel on the backs of burros. Much of Bamiyan looks as if the 19th Century never arrived, let alone the 21st.

"Anything that people need to live, the people of Bamiyan do not have," said Abdulkhalegh Zaligh, the deputy governor. "We don't have roads. We don't have schools. We don't have electricity. We don't have doctors. We don't have engineers."

Sorabi will live in a modest home of three rooms, plus a room to wash herself, an outhouse and a guard house. There is no running water, no electricity. Many other provincial governors live in nice homes, even mansions, with manicured lawns.

She has spent only a week in Bamiyan since being named to the post early last month. Now, Sorabi is in Kabul, getting ready to move and waiting for her house to be finished.

Her two sons and husband will stay in Kabul. Her daughter is in college in India. "Gender equality," Sorabi said.

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Hard times for Afghanistan's drug smugglers
Monday April 11, 12:03 PM  AFP
Rivers flooding, US soldiers at the border and corrupt militias losing their jobs and weapons -- life as a drug smuggler in southern Afghanistan isn't what it used to be for Ahmed Jan.

Getting convoys of 60 or 70 off-road vehicles, each filled with a ton of dry opium resin, through a day's drive from southern Kandahar city to the border with Iran has become complicated in recent months, he tells AFP.

"It is much more difficult to get stuff out of the country so it's only a few secret routes that are running, like rivers of drugs," says Jan, a rotund man in his 40s using a pseudonym.

His problems are an indication that Afghanistan's fight against narcotics is paying off. President Hamid Karzai came to office last year pledging to wage a 'jihad' or holy war on drugs, backed by the US and other western governments.

With between 40 to 60 percent of Afghanistan's economy generated by opium in 2004, both the US and the UN have warned that the country is tottering on the brink of becoming a "narco-state".

After three years of focusing on battling the Taliban as the Afghan opium industry spiralled, the US has pledged 780 million to battle narcotics in the country over the next year, and tightened security along the border.

Border checkpoints in Afghanistan, previously staffed by militia commanders in the pockets of the smuggling mafia, are now manned by US forces and American-trained soldiers from the fledgling Afghan army.

Opium prices have dropped sharply because traffickers can't move their vast stocks out of Afghanistan.

Last year, dry opium resin was selling for 142 dollars per kilo at the farm gate at harvest, according to UN figures.

Now it sells for around 100 dollars, according to Attatullah, an opium grower in Zhare district, about 30 minutes' drive outside Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement.

"The American soldiers are blocking the routes," 36-year-old Attatullah tells AFP, standing knee-deep in a field of poppies which are beginning to burst into flower.

Afghanistan's extreme weather has also helped stem the drug trade. After seven years of drought, the landlocked nation has finally seen rain and many smuggling routes which crossed dry riverbeds en route to Pakistan and Iran are now blocked by flowing water.

A third factor has been the disarmament of militias, which after fighting the Soviets and then joining the US against the Taliban have now been removed from their posts as part of a UN-backed drive.

"People who were disarmed had a very good business running checkpoints so now they will be compelled to find other forms of income like drug-running," Jan says.

"Because of disarmament it's much harder to get enough guns for our convoys."

The convoys are always heavily armed. Each of the 60 or so 4x4s travels with five to 10 people who are paid between 1,600 and 2,200 dollars each for the risk involved.

As a lower-ranking smuggler, Jan equips four or five vehicles to travel with the larger convoy while the bigger operators provide up to 10 vehicles each.

"There is over a ton of opium in each Land Cruiser, and we expect them to defend the cargo with their lives," said Jan.

But for all the inconveniences now facing smugglers and the corrupt officials who help them, it is farmers used to planting nothing but opium who stand to lose out most from the crackdown.

An internationally backed eradication team arrives in Kandahar province in mid-April to tackle the poppy fields.

According to a joint UN-Afghan government survey Kandahar is one of five provinces where opium cultivation has risen since the new year, despite plummeting production in the rest of the country.

New police chief Lieutenant General Mohammed Ayoub Salangi, installed by Karzai last month to stem the province's drug trade and growing lawlessness, said an eradication strategy was being worked out.

"We will have a meeting with government officials, the army and the eradication force to decide whether and how much to eradicate," he told AFP.

However the farmers will lose a year's income if their crops are wiped out, while a government strategy to provide them with alternative livelihoods is only in its infancy.

Smuggler Jan warned that widespread eradication could fuel support for the Taliban insurgency in the south.

"People can't rise up themselves if their fields are destroyed but they can lend support to the Taliban who are all still living in the suburbs of Kandahar," he said.

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Security concerns halt Afghan bazaar
Rocket attacks on U.S. base force closure of weekly market
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes  Mideast edition, Sunday, April 10, 2005
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — A pair of rocket attacks last month caused only minor damage on base.

And no one was injured.

But the damage to the local economy might be a bit more severe: The weekly bazaar on Bagram Air Base has been canceled until the security situation improves.

“Security for the installation equates to economic stability for everyone around here,” said Col. Robert Algermissen, commander of Task Force Eagle, the equivalent of a base support battalion.

When a bazaar is canceled, a local village could lose about $200.

“If they don’t know who fired the rockets at us, they certainly ought to,” Algermissen said, noting the local culture revolves around tight-knit communities where everyone knows what everyone else is doing. And strangers stand out.

That’s true across the country.

So humanitarian assistance programs at Shindand in western Afghanistan have been temporarily shut down as well.

They’ll resume if local citizens help apprehend those who have been launching attacks on the base there.

Friday marked the third week in a row that the bazaar was canceled at Bagram.

So local merchants are out thousands of dollars and most local villages have lost money as well.

Villages normally receive the entry fee a merchant pays in order to participate in the bazaar. Each of the 100 or so villages near the base receives the money on a rotating basis. Village elders access the money after telling the local governor how they plan to spend it.

Algermissen said that when the bazaars operate, they benefit merchants, villages and servicemembers.

“There are some soldiers who don’t get off the base,” he said.

And many of those who do get off base don’t have the opportunity to shop for local goods.

Merchants offer a variety of products made from wood, stone, metal and fabric. Bootleg DVDs featuring American TV shows and groups of movies for only a few dollars, are also popular.

Algermissen said a determination would be made in a few days on whether the bazaar will be held next week.

A suspect for the first rocket attack has been identified.

And another village determined where the second attack occurred.

But he said if security concerns aren’t alleviated, the bazaar would still be on hold.

During a previous rotation, the bazaars were put on hold for more than three months.

So servicemembers might have to start rationing their DVDs.

“There are probably plenty of them to go around,” Algermissen said.

Stars and Stripes is a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community.

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ANA Accepts Responsibility for Western Provinces
Combined Forces Command - Afghanistan Coalition Press Information Center (Public Affairs) April 10, 2005
HERAT, Afghanistan – In a ceremony held here Thursday, the remaining members of the Afghan Militia Force’s 4th Corps handed over official authority for the protection of Herat, Badghis, Farah and Ghor provinces to the 207th Regional Corps of the Afghan National Army.

The 207th Regional Corps was actually commissioned Sept. 28, 2004, and, as far as the Ministry of Defense is concerned, this exchange had happened months before, but, according to Maj. Michael Perry, an operations advisor to the 207th, it was an important ceremony nonetheless. “Basically, it was an acknowledgement by the AMF that they no longer exist,” Perry said.

During the ceremony, the commanders of both units exchanged flags, signifying the ANA’s acceptance of the responsibility for western Afghanistan. “The exchange of flags between the old army and the ANA was done very enthusiastically and very patriotically,” said Maj. Mohammad, a member of the regional command’s staff.

Sgt. Abdul Quduz, who returned from Pakistan to “take responsibility for (his) nation,” believes that the passing of the AMF serves as a sign of a new stability for Herat and all of Afghanistan. “Now we have a president who is the head of the new army and we are under the command of one person,” he said. “We will act according to the law and the rules.”

Capt. Mahboub Bullah, a former member of the AMF, said that the time had come for the nation to unify under a national authority and this handover was another sign that it was taking place.

The AMF, he said, had been too segregated—units were made up of single ethnic groups and fell under the control of warlords, acting at their whims. In fact, the first ANA soldiers to arrive in Herat Province were sent in August 2004 to quell fighting between AMF troops under the control of local commanders.

Bullah said this kind of fighting could not happen with a national army. “The new army, the ANA, is based on all Afghan ethnicities,” he said. “It belongs to all Afghans.”

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American escapes kidnap attempt in Afghan capital
Monday April 11, 2:53 AM  AFP 
An American man narrowly escaped from kidnappers who had attacked him and bundled him into the back of a car in the heart of the Afghan capital's embassy district, officials said.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry told AFP that "a group of unknown men attempted to kidnap him and put him in the trunk of a 2002 model white Toyota Corolla".

The unnamed American managed to prize open the trunk of the moving car and jump out onto the road, he said requesting anonymity.

"The car and the kidnappers managed to escape," the official added.

The US embassy confirmed that a US citizen had been abducted and had escaped but was unable to give further details about what the man was doing in Kabul.

"I can tell you that he was not here in an official US government capacity," embassy spokesman Jeff Raleigh said.

A western security source said the man had been staying at a house rented by humanitarian flight operator PACTEC.

"The man was punched and then thrown into the boot of the car where he found a wrench and managed to open the boot and get out in Wazir Akbar Khan," he added.

Bob Schauf, acting director of PACTEC, said the American national did not work for the organization.

"I can say that he was not an employee of PACTEC but I can't give you any other information," he told AFP.

Foreigners in Kabul have been on alert following a series of incidents that have raised fears that Afghanistan could be hit by a wave of Iraq-style kidnappings and killings.

Last month, British development worker Steve MacQueen was gunned down by men in two landcruisers as he drove home from the popular Elbow Room restaurant in a targetted hit that has yet to be solved by police.

MacQueen's murder reignited jitters which were sparked by the abduction of three foreign UN workers overseeing Afghanistan's first presidential election who were seized in Kabul on October 28 and held for 27 days before being released unharmed.

The abductions were thought to have been carried out by a criminal gang in league with Islamic militants.

In October 2004 an American woman and an Afghan girl were killed in a suicide bombing on a popular shopping strip which also injured three Icelandic peacekeepers and five locals.

The murder, suicide bombing and abductions sent shockwaves through the foreign community and led many aid agencies and companies to bolster security for their staff.

Taliban militants have been attacking mainly Western and Afghan targets since they were ousted in late 2001 by US-led forces for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

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Racy Afghan TV show hits a raw nerve
By Kim Barker Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent
The two men spend several minutes debating which came first, the chicken or the egg. They argue over whether people dream in color.

This hardly seems like the most controversial TV show in Afghanistan. But in between the polite chitchat, these men--the Afghan version of MTV veejays--play music videos, which sometimes feature heaving bosoms, dancing women and sexually suggestive lyrics.

Such videos have turned the show "Hop" into one of the most popular programs on the Afghan capital's most popular new television station, Tolo TV. They also have drawn the ire of the country's clerics and the scrutiny of the government.

"Watching a woman with half-naked breasts and a man and a woman sucking each other's lips on TV, like on Tolo, is not acceptable," said Abdul Malik Kamawi, spokesman for the country's Supreme Court.

The debate over programming on the five private TV stations in Kabul highlights a major difficulty facing the new Afghanistan: trying to balance democratic freedoms and a largely conservative Islamic society. The constitution protects freedom of expression and prohibits anything that is against Islam. That inevitably leads to conflict, because what is against Islam often depends on who is watching.

Several new stations are pushing the limits in the land where the Taliban once banned TV sets and forced women to be hidden. They are playing Indian movies, which mostly focus on love and sexy couples dancing and singing. Some have shown movies from the United States, such as "Conan the Barbarian," with sex scenes.

Tolo TV, which premiered in October, features women as veejays on "Hop" and as commentators on other programs. At some point, the women will take off their head scarves--shocking in a country where women still cover their hair with scarves or wear burqas, which cover everything, even a woman's eyes.

Even moderate government officials question the speed at which TV is moving.

"Our advice is, we need to be careful," presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said. "Some media tend to take the radical route. It always pays to take it a step at a time."

On Tolo, people Rollerblade and fly kites at a New Year's celebration. Men and women talk to each other, even laugh together. Jennifer Lopez videos are shown frequently, and commercials tout the benefits of chicken bullion and dandruff shampoo. In many ways the station shows a vision of Kabul not as it necessarily is, but as many young people would like it to be.

A short makeover feature takes ordinary Afghans off the street and turns them into fashionable young people who would blend into any Western city. Think of it as "Hip Eye for the Traditional Afghan Guy." On one recent show, a young Afghan man with a beard, an uneven haircut and the typical Afghan knee-length shirt and matching pants got a shave, a haircut and a shower and was dressed in jeans and a modern shirt.

`Sense of hope' for young

Station director Saad Mohseni said Tolo TV--"tolo" means "dawn" in the Dari language of Afghanistan--offers something for everyone. He said Afghans, tired after 23 years of war, want change.

"It's important for us to provide young people with some sense of hope," said Mohseni, an Afghan-Australian. "At least, deceive them that things are going to get better."

But the mullahs are demanding change of a different kind. They want the TV stations to stop showing cleavage, women singing and dancing, and anything resembling sex.

The national Ulema Council, a government agency of religious scholars, recently issued a statement accusing Tolo TV and private station Afghan TV of "broadcasting music, naked dance and foreign films, which are against Islam and other national values of Afghanistan." The council asked the government to stop what it called immoral and un-Islamic broadcasts.

Mullahs also complained about "Hop" to the ministry responsible for licensing TV stations, said S.A.H. Sancharaky, deputy minister of information and culture.

"It has put a lot of pressure on us," he said. "But we have not censored or banned that program yet."

Instead the government is asking Tolo to "improve" the show. Sancharaky said the videos are too racy and the veejays talk too casually. In one episode, he said, a male veejay complimented a female veejay's shoes.

"He says, `Your shoes are very good. Can you hold up your legs so everybody can see how good your shoes are?'" Sancharaky recalled. "`Hold up your legs' has a very bad meaning in our language."

A government commission is investigating whether TV stations are complying with the country's laws. In February, members singled out "Hop" for criticism but took no action.

In reality, the clerics are trying to dam a river with a pencil. Satellite dishes are allowed in Afghanistan. Cable TV includes stations from India. There are pornographic DVDs and messages sent on mobile phones featuring cartoon couples having sex.

Post-Taliban backlash

After living under the Taliban, many Afghans are tired of being told how to live.

"We should not see Islam through the hole of a needle," said Daulat Khan Abidi, 32, who helps run a perfume shop in Kabul. "Islam is a big religion."

In Kabul, the generation gap is visible in fashion. Older people often wear traditional dress. Many young men wear jeans. A good number of young women wear jeans or black, flared pants, knee-length coats and head scarves. They wear makeup. They even send text messages by mobile phone to Shakeb Isaar, one of the "Hop" veejays, proclaiming, "I love u my dear" and "Will you marry me?"

Isaar, 22, is the closest thing to a celebrity in Kabul. He frequently is mobbed by fans. He believes the mullahs are his enemies and taunts them.

"Why shouldn't we be like this and have all the freedom like other people in other countries?" asked Isaar, sporting spiky hair, a German soccer T-shirt and jeans.

Most people on the street say Tolo TV is their favorite Afghan station. They like the news and the investigative reporting--new to Afghanistan. They like "Moments," a prank program similar to "Candid Camera." But most people, young and old, say their favorite show on Tolo is "Hop," which features videos from India, Iran, Turkey, the U.S. and Afghanistan.

"It's a good program," said Walid Shahbaz, 22, who was out shopping. "Mullahs are usually talking about things that are against Islam. But I don't think `Hop' is against Islam."

The TV station is planning to air a new program, one that station workers are certain will be a hit. It shows just how much the clerics are up against, and how much Afghanistan has changed since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

That show, modeled on a popular U.S. program, will feature men and women singing their way to fame. "Afghan Idol" will start shooting in a few weeks.

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Deaths of 5 charity workers illustrate Afghan lawlessness
By Carlotta Gall The New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Five employees of Doctors Without Borders were ambushed in June on their way home from a rural clinic in northwestern Afghanistan and shot to death in their car. Ten months later their killers remain at large, and the man suspected of being behind the attack has been reappointed police chief of his district.

The case highlights the lawlessness of much of Afghanistan, where crimes frequently go unsolved and where the armed and powerful get away with murder. A month after the ambush, Doctors Without Borders, one of the largest and most respected medical charities in the world, pulled out of Afghanistan to protest the government's failure to conduct a credible investigation.

Afghan government officials told the charity shortly after the attack that they had evidence that a local strongman was behind the killings, and also provided the names of two of the suspected gunmen involved, the organization said.

Yet the Afghan authorities have done little to bring the perpetrators to justice, said Kenny Gluck, the group's director of operations.

The killings were carefully planned, Gluck and Western diplomats have said. Two to four gunmen on motorbikes stopped the car used by the team from the charity's Dutch branch as it was making a trip to Qala-i-Nau, the capital of Badghis province, in western Afghanistan, from a clinic in the village of Khairkhana.

The gunmen shot the car's occupants, walking around the vehicle as they fired.

At the time, Amir Shah Nayebzada, the police chief of Badghis province, where the attack took place, blamed the Taliban, and a Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the killings.

But people who saw the incident said the gunmen worked for Hajji Yacoub, who had shortly before been removed from his post as police chief of Qadis district and had threatened that security would quickly deteriorate under his successor.

Afghanistan's interior minister, Ali Ahmed Jalali, confirmed that Yacoub was a suspect in the killings. But Yacoub was neither detained nor questioned in the months after the attack, Nayebzada said. Thirteen people were arrested soon after the killings, but the prosecutor's office released them without charge for lack of evidence, Nayebzada said. Yacoub was not among them.

Nayebzada, who is Yacoub's cousin, recently reappointed the suspect as district police chief and has argued that the charges against him are false.

Diplomats said they suspected not only that the central government was powerless to move against militia commanders in the region, but that it did not care to, whether for political reasons or indifference.

"They don't want to; they need the province," said one Western diplomat who has followed the case. He suggested that the government of President Hamid Karzai had wanted to keep certain regional officials in place before October's presidential elections because they could help secure votes for him.

"It is a low priority for the government," he said. "And as far as their international credibility goes, they don't care."