December 24, 2005

Portuguese PM make surprise visit to Afghanistan
LISBON, Dec. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan Saturday to meet Portugal's peacekeepers in the country, local media reports quoted a government official as saying.

Socrates was being accompanied by Defence Minister Luis Amado and top military officers on his first visit to the country, said the reports.

He dined with Portuguese troops responsible for running Kabul's airport. Socrates is also scheduled to hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The first batch of Portuguese troops arrived in the war-torn Asian country in 2002. Portugal currently has 156 troops with the 10,500-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

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Reed to visit Iraq and Afghanistan
December 24, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP)-- U-S Senator Jack Reed will make a week-long visit to Iraq and Afghanistan next month to gauge progress in the two recovering countries.

Aides say the Rhode Island Democrat plans to visit government officials, military commanders, aid workers and Rhode Island troops during the trip.

The visit will mark Reed’s sixth trip to Iraq and his fourth to Afghanistan. He departs January Second and returns seven days later.

Senate Democrats have recently called on Reed, who has a military background, to counter the Bush administration’s Iraq policies.

Reed has asked Bush to announce a clearer strategy for success in rebuilding Iraq.

The senator formerly served as a company commander in the 82nd Airborne Division.
via wpri.com

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Al-Qaida deputy leader says Taliban controls large land in Afghanistan
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Al-Qaida's deputy leader said in an audiotape aired Saturday that Taliban's fighters control large areas in Afghanistan and are fighting American forces and the U.S-backed Afghan government.

It was not clear when the tape purportedly by al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri was recorded. Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, which aired about 30 seconds of the tape, said al-Zawahri did not refer to any new events in the speech.

The tape's authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but the voice resembled that of al-Zawahri's confirmed in past recordings.

Al-Zawahri said the Taliban movement is controlling large sectors of east and south Afghanistan and are"waging a guerrilla war against the crusaders and their cronies."

The last tape by al-Zawahri emerged on Dec. 11, though it was believed to have been recorded in mid-September. In it, the Egyptian-born militant urged all Muslims to take up arms to fight against "the Cross and Zionism" and warned that the Islamic world had "no hope for victory" until all Muslims signed on to the al-Qaida-led jihad.

That tape dealt with similar issues as the recording aired Saturday. In the Dec. 11 tape, al-Zawahri credits toppled Taliban leader Mullah Omar with leading a three-year campaign "against the Crusaders and apostates in Afghanistan" and purportedly taking control of "extensive parts of eastern and western Afghanistan."

Mullah Omar is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan, where Taliban forces continue to launch regular attacks but do not control large swaths of territory.

U.S.-led forces toppled the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001 when it refused to turn over bin Laden and stop providing a haven to the group blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Al Zawhari appeared about eight times this year to address al-Qaida followers and other Muslim militants while bin Laden has not appeared in a video for more than a year. In a video recorded in September, al-Zawahri said bin Laden is still alive.

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No School Today
Girls in Kandahar are being denied an education because of tradition and security concerns.
By Wahidullah Amani in Kandahar (ARR No. 198, 23-Dec-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Wazhma is in the seventh grade at Zarghona Ana High School in Kandahar. This makes her an exception in this conservative southern province and Taleban stronghold, where, according to some estimates, less than one girl in ten receives even a primary education.

“There are 60 or 70 houses in my neighbourhood,” said the solemn 16-year-old. “But there is only one other girl who goes to school. Many of my friends want to go but their fathers won’t let them. Our neighbours make fun of us, of my family, and say that we are not good people because I’m going to school. I don’t listen to them.”

According to the Afghan constitution, education is a universal right and obligation. Parents are required to send both boys and girls to school up to the 12th grade. But in practice the law is almost universally flouted, and the government appears powerless to do anything about it.

“Yes, it is true that the constitution guarantees the right to education,” said Hayatullah Rafiqi, head of the department of education for Kandahar province. “But we cannot send soldiers to people’s houses to demand that fathers send their daughters to school. If we tried, nobody would send their children to school, because the government would be pushing them. It would be counterproductive.”

Under the Taleban, girls were banned from education, and girls’ schools were closed. Since the regime’s demise more than four years ago, the government has put money and effort into getting girls back into the classroom. Indeed, female school attendance is hailed as one of the new administration’s major accomplishments.

Rafiqi insists that Kandahar is doing well in this regard: According to his figures, 70 per cent of school-age girls in the provincial capital are attending school. Across the province, Rafiqi said 40 per cent are doing so.

“A lot more people are ready to let their daughters go to school than in the period before the Taleban,” said Rafiqi. “The department of education has programmes on television promoting female education, to convince parents that school is not a bad place. We have a lot of refugees returning from Pakistan and Iran – they saw educated women there, and are ready to let their daughters study.”

But his numbers just do not add up, insist education workers.

“The government gives these numbers to show their success,” said Rangina Hamidi, head of Afghans for Civil Society, a non-government organisation. “But it is just not true.”

Hamidi estimates that no more than ten per cent of girls in the provincial capital are in school, and that the numbers are far lower in rural areas.

Even Rafiqi acknowledges that only 24,000 of the 130,000 students in Kandahar’s schools are girls. There are only 12 girls’ schools in the entire province, compared with 328 for boys.

Abdul Wahed is principal of the Zarghona Ana school. He has 1,600 students and 60 teachers, three them men. Zarghona Ana is one of only four high schools in Kandahar that educates girls, and it caters for the daughters of government employees and businessmen.

“We are running out of room - we have some of our classes in tents,” said Wahed. “But we do not reject anyone. We provide transport for girls who live far away from the school. People are worried about security but we still are getting more and more girls every day.”

But the pull of tradition is strong in Kandahar, the area where the Taleban movement first took off, still a bastion of conservative Pashtun tradition.

Mahmad Omar, 35, has a small business selling gas. He has seven children - three boys and four girls. One son works with him, the other two are in school. But all his daughters are at home.

“School is not for girls,” he said. “I don’t let them go. Girls should be at home. If they go to school, people will see them on the street, and that would be very shameful for me.”

Omar is convinced that education runs contrary to Islamic tradition, “After they go to school, girls think that they can go anywhere, that they do not have to wear the hijab [head covering], and that they don’t have to hide their faces. Islam does not accept that.”

Asefa, 18, is one of the lucky few that are in school. But she has to run the gauntlet of condemning looks every day.

“Men in the street laugh at me, and call me names,” she said. “They say, ‘Why are you going to school? You’re a girl and you don’t need this.’ But I begged my family for months to let me go, and they finally did.”

Many of her friends have dropped out of school, unable to face the stares and the jeers, she said.

Even those who are theoretically in favour of female education are nervous about the security situation. Kandahar is unstable and, some say, getting worse, with a rise in suicide bombings and armed clashes between insurgents and the security forces. The Taleban may be gaining ground thanks to a rising tide of discontent with the foreign troop presence.

“I like school,” said Amanullah, 52. “I have five children, two girls and three boys. The boys are going to school, but the girls are not.

“I’m uncertain about their security - I can’t allow something to happen to them in the streets or in school. I know that educated people are good and I want to educate my children, but not now. My daughters beg me every day to let them go to school. I say, ‘If the situation improves, I promise I will let you go.’”

That promise may not be realised soon. In the past year, 150 schools have closed throughout the province, said an education worker with a local non-government agency who asked not to be identified. One school principal has been killed and teachers have been threatened. In several districts “night letters” - covertly distributed pamphlets - have been distributed warning parents not to send their daughters to school and threatening violence to those who do not heed the warning. At least seven schools have been set on fire.

In one district, Maruf, all the schools have been closed for the last nine months following a campaign of intimidation. In others, such as Dand, Maiwand, and Panjuai, they are open only intermittently, depending on the security situation.

Much of the strife is attributed to the Taleban. But, maintains Hamidi, the anti-education tradition predates the fundamentalist group.

“When my family were refugees in Quetta [Pakistan] 20 years ago, we received the same kind of warnings,” said Hamidi, who grew up and was educated in the United States. “My father had to take us out of school. There was no Taleban then.”

The only solution is for the government to get more serious about education, say observers. A concerted effort by officials, education professionals, and religious scholars is needed if female education in Kandahar is to make any headway. But these same observers say the government does not have the resolve to go against tradition and prejudice.

“The government does not care about education,” said one worker with a non-governmental agency who declined to be identified. “They could open the schools if they wanted to.”

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

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Growing Sense of Insecurity
The recent spate of suicide bombings has put much of Afghanistan on edge.
By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 198, 23-Dec-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Officials in Washington and Kabul claim that a measure of peace and security has finally taken root in Afghanistan - but try telling that to Abdul Hadi, a resident of the southeastern city of Kandahar.

Hadi had just recently witnessed a recent suicide bombing that left one dead and three injured, in addition to the bomber himself. Although the bomber may have been aiming to hit a passing convoy of United States-led Coalition troops, his victims were all Afghan civilians.

“In Kandahar, we are afraid of the trees, of the air, of the ground we walk on,” said Hadi as he gestured helplessly at his surroundings. “This is no life.”

Abdul Halim, 29, a Kandahar policeman, was on duty when the bomb went off on December 11.

“I saw the head of the bomber,” he said. “It was lying in the road, but the Americans picked it up and put it on the pavement.” Halim said he could not tell whether the bomber was Afghan or not, but he was sure he was a member of the Taleban.

Halim has seen attacks of this type proliferate over the past few months.

“As a policeman, I go on duty in the morning never knowing whether I will live to go home in the evening,” he said.

Saifal Maluk, 70, was nearby when the bomb went off. “American soldiers were passing by. I heard a loud noise and saw smoke. I ran to where the noise was, and saw my friends,” he said.

Maluk blames the government in Kabul for failing to get control of the security situation.

“[President Hamed] Karzai has no idea what we are going through,” he said in disgust. “He does not bring light – just more darkness every day.”

Kandahar has certainly had more than its share of attacks in recent weeks. In early December, a suicide bomber blew himself and a motorcyclist up when he tried to detonate his explosives in the middle of a passing military convoy.

Reports deemed credible by local security agencies warn that 10 Arab and Afghan insurgents have infiltrated the city and four Toyota Corollas packed with explosives have been roaming the city. A cleric was shot and killed on December 14, and the following day a Coalition soldier was killed in yet another attack.

Every day brings new reports and new terror in the streets of Kandahar. The population is on edge.

“There isn’t a corner left that has not had some incident,” said taxi driver Alauddin, 18.

Local police officials said they had no time to discuss the issue with reporters, and the governor’s office brushed aside concerns about the security situation.

“These kinds of attacks happen everywhere – in Kabul, in other provinces and in other countries,” said Ghulam Faruq Farahmand, chief of staff in governor’s office. “It’s not a big problem.”

Farahmand is right about one thing: the attacks are, indeed multiplying. Since the start of the year, more than 125 Coalition soldiers have been killed, and more than 1,500 Afghan civilians, making 2005 the bloodiest year since the fall of the Taleban in 2001.

The US administration touts Afghanistan as an overwhelming success story, pointing out that the country now has a constitution, a president and a parliament. Few would argue with the fact that the country has already gone a long way toward emerging from the isolation it found itself in under the Taleban.

Afghanistan is being hailed as a model for post-conflict Iraq. “We will succeed in Iraq, just like we did in Afghanistan,” US vice-president Dick Cheney said in June.

But there are also signs of a reverse effect, where the tactics used by insurgents in Iraq are adopted by forces opposed to the Kabul government.

Habibullah Rafi, a member of the Afghan Academy of Sciences and a political analyst, sees a clear link between the types of attacks now occurring in Afghanistan and the resistance tactics employed in Iraq.

“Suicide tactics worked in Iraq - they caused US forces a lot of trouble,” Rafi told IWPR. “So now we see suicide attacks in Afghanistan.”

Rafi is convinced that foreign-trained or foreign-backed insurgents are carrying out these attacks. “This has never been the Afghan way. Afghans have always fought face-to-face,” he said.

Suicide attacks have multiplied over the past six months, ever since a bomber detonated an explosive device in a Kandahar mosque in June, killing himself and 20 others, including the Kabul police chief Mohammad Akram Khakrizwal.

Even heavily guarded and relatively peaceful Kabul has become increasingly vulnerable.

In mid-November, two cars packed with explosives drove into the middle of a convoy belonging to the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, killing eight people including a German soldier and injuring 14 civilians. On December 16, another suicide bomber blew himself up trying to attack an ISAF convoy in Kabul, injuring three Afghan civilians.

The situation in the northern provinces, where Taleban activity had previously been rare, has also become more perilous recently. In late November, a bomb attack against an ISAF convoy in Mazar-e-Sharif killed a Swedish soldier and seriously injured another. The attack came one month after a British soldier was killed in the city.

Spokesmen for the international forces are reluctant to acknowledge that the situation is getting worse. Instead, they seek to put a positive spin on developments.

“We do not consider that the overall security situation in the country has deteriorated on a permanent basis,” said ISAF spokesman Major Andrew Elmes. “We are concerned, obviously, about the most recent attacks, but we do not consider this a permanent trend. And this year there has been a significant campaign by the American-led Coalition to contest the insurgents where they are.”

Elmes insists that things are getting better.

“We should be focusing on the creation of robust, capable and effective national security forces, like the Afghan National Army and the police, and this is happening day by day and week by week. We are seeing an increase in successful operations,” he said.

The Afghan authorities agree. “We have control over the security situation in the entire country, and our forces are now able to stabilise security all over Afghanistan,” said General Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the defence ministry. “The opposition is no longer able to fight face to face – this is why they carry out suicide attacks.”

Azimi rejects claims that insurgents are learning from Iraq, or borrowing tactics and even personnel from the Iraq conflict. “That is propaganda by the enemies of Afghanistan,” he said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Yusuf Stanikzai, while admitting that there are still some security problems in the country, said that the overall situation was good and getting better.

“We do still have some difficulties because our police and army are still being trained,” he said. “But the present situation is better than it has been. The enemies of peace and stability always try to disrupt security, but they have failed,” he said.

But according to Rafi, domestic forces are part of the problem. “There are a lot of former combatants who are now in the police and the army,” he said. “They have fought each other many times.”

In the past few months alone, there have been several clashes between the army and the police. In Herat, an argument between members of the army and police erupted into violence in mid-October, leaving one soldier and one policeman dead.

“The police and army are themselves a threat to security,” said Rafi.

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR reporter in Kabul.

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Spiraling Fuel Costs Hit Home
The rising price of fuel has left many Kabul residents angry with the government.
By Abdul Baseer Saeed in Kabul (ARR No. 198, 23-Dec-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Abdul Jabar, 35, tries to provide for his family by selling vegetables from a street cart. But what his family has come to rely on most is the wooden boxes in which the produce is packed.

No longer able to afford fuel to heat their home, they have taken to burning the boxes as their only source of heat.

“My three children all have bronchitis,” said Jabar, rubbing his hands to keep warm in the cold morning air. “They can’t sleep because of the cold. And it is not even winter yet.

“Is this democracy? Is this the free market? When there is no law, when people can sell things for ten times higher than they cost, when poor people die, and the rich enjoy life?”

The cost of most fuels used for heating and cooking have soared over the past year. A litre of diesel fuel, which used to cost about 40 US cents now sells at twice that price. A kilo of liquified gas has risen from 50 cents to more than one dollar, while firewood which last year cost about 50 dollars for just over half a tonne now costs 80 dollars.

Because electricity is available to most private homes for only a few hours every two or three days, fuel is essential to daily life in the capital.

Afghanistan has few domestic sources of energy and relies on neighbouring countries to meet most of its energy needs. Wood is the major source of fuel for many people, but deforestation over the past 30 years means that the supply has steadily decreased.

“We are almost out of wood in eastern and southern Afghanistan,” said Jamal Naser, a timber trader in Kabul. “These are our main sources of wood. So now timber is being brought in illegally from Pakistan.”

Because importing wood from Pakistan is illegal, traders say they often pay bribes to police and customs officials to bring the contraband into the country which, along with transportation costs, further drives up the price.

“Officials along the way charge us money, and we have to rent trucks,” said Naser.

People used to use diesel to heat their homes during the winter, but now it has become so expensive that even taxi drivers are having a hard time making ends meet.

The price of diesel fuel has also risen sharply, not only making it more difficult for many to heat their homes but also threatening the livelihood of those who rely on the fuel to earn a living.

“I am tired of driving a cab,” complained Sayed Sharif. “Prices are now double what they were last year, and people are always fighting with us for overcharging.”

The fuel shortage had soured this taxi driver’s view of the current government, “I am tired of this regime. It was wrong of us to chase out the Russians. The socialist regime was humane. The worst regime is capitalism, in which a few rich people live well and the rest of the nation dies.”

The rise in the price of liquefied gas, which many people used for cooking, means that some have turned to other sources of fuel .

Gulab Shah, 40, who sells matches and toilet paper on the street, said that until last month he could afford liquefied gas for cooking but has now been forced to resort to charcoal.

“There is no government to control prices,” he fumed. “This is a city where everyone is irresponsible, and everyone can do as they please. Our businessmen are like dragons. When the Taleban were here, they could control these oppressors. No one would disobey the Taleban.”

Hamidullah Farooqi, head of the Afghan International Chamber of Commerce, ascribes the rise in local fuel prices to increases on the international market, the lack of proper fuel storage facilities in Afghanistan, and wrong-headed policies by oil-exporting countries.

“The policy of the fuel exporters has had a bad effect on the world economy. Afghanistan is linked into the world economy, so it has affected us as well,” he said.

Abdul Baseer Saeed is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

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'Landmine blast' in S Waziristan
Saturday, 24 December 2005 BBC News
Two soldiers have been wounded in a landmine explosion in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area, near the Afghan border, officials say.

Around a dozen men have been detained over the incident, the officials say.

The explosion took place when the security personnel were out on a routine patrol.

The injured soldiers have been shifted to a military hospital in the nearby town of Bannu. Their condition is said to be critical.

Tens of thousands of Pakistani security personnel have been hunting down al-Qaeda and Taleban militants and their supporters in the area for the past three years.