Afghanistan News December 4, 2005

December 4, 2005

Afghanistan Hosts 2-Day Economic Meeting
Sunday December 4, 2005 By Steve Gutterman, Associated Press
Afghanistan Hosts Regional Economic Conference to Enhance Security, Promote Development
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai opened a regional economic conference Sunday with a pitch for closer cooperation, casting his country's fragile new stability after decades of war as a crucial chance to boost trade and growth.

Greeting officials from 12 nearby nations at a two-day meeting co-chaired by Britain, Karzai expressed satisfaction "that Afghanistan now is peaceful and stable enough to host its neighbors and its friends and countries in the region."

"Afghanistan is privileged and happy to have the opportunity, after 30 years of suffering, to consider itself a partner, a contributor -- though in a very small way -- to the economic growth of the region," he said.

Karzai said political interests have dictated for decades other nations' relations with Afghanistan, whose people suffered as pawns in power games played by neighbors and outsiders, ranging from the Cold War superpowers to al-Qaida.

"Today, my appeal to you is to take a different look at Afghanistan, to take an economic look at Afghanistan," he said. "Afghanistan's roads, Afghanistan's airports, Afghanistan's borders are totally at your disposal for economic activity."

Karzai said neighboring countries have already enjoyed a peace dividend since the ouster of the hard-line Taliban in 2001 -- citing huge increases in their exports to Afghanistan, and calling for more.

The conference brought officials from the six nations bordering Afghanistan -- Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Pakistan and China -- as well as India, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Karzai offered Afghanistan as a conduit for regional trade and a market for energy and skilled labor to fuel its reconstruction efforts.

The country is buying electricity from several neighbors and will need to import it for at least a decade, he said.

British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said cooperation is crucial for the region.

He said Afghanistan has made "dramatic progress" since 2001 and called the conference "a wonderful opportunity to put this part of the world back on the world map" -- but he warned that concrete plans and hard work are needed.

Afghanistan is still plagued by violence, with a Taliban-led insurgency that has left nearly 1,500 people dead this year. Political and border disputes have hampered relations in the region, and some countries have been slow to implement economic reforms.

Global capital is "looking for security, predictability and consistency, and we have to think about that at this conference," Howells said, suggesting the region's nations need to improve security and business climates.

He said foreign investment in Afghanistan has reached nearly $1 billion and is likely to keep rising, but that its "licit export remains fairly limited" despite resources including water and iron ore.

Afghanistan is the world's largest supplier of opium and heroin, its major exports. Both Howells and Karzai said battling the drug trade and other organized crime in the region is crucial to security and economic development.

Afghanistan urges cooperation to fight crime, build prosperity
December 4, 2005
KABUL (AFP) - President Hamid Karzai has urged countries at the first major economic conference war-ravaged Afghanistan has hosted to band together to fight crime and "terrorism" and build trade and prosperity.

After decades of war, Afghanistan was ready to begin contributing to the region, the president told the start of a two-day meeting attended by about 300 ministers, officials and other delegates from 12 countries.

The country could be a "facilitator of trade," he said on Sunday, alluding to a government push for a revival of the ancient Silk Route that once linked Europe and Asia and passed through this Central Asian nation.

"Afghanistan's roads, Afghanistan's airports, Afghanistan's borders are totally at your disposal for economic activities," he said, reiterating the need for streamlined customs and visas procedures between nations.

Another example of cooperation could be in the trade of electricity, which Afghanistan could alone only provide for six percent of its population and would need to import for at least another 10 years, Karzai said.

The countries should also cooperate in fighting crime, notably drugs and terrorism, he said.

Experts have warned Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, is in danger of becoming a narco-state because of its illicit export of opium, which makes up about 87 percent of the global supply and about half of its gross domestic product.

"Without fighting crime, especially crime of this nature which can criminalise our economies which can aid terrorism and anarchy, our economies in real terms have little chance of legitimate growth," the president said.

Afghanistan's development since the fall of the hardline Taliban government in 2001 had already seen good dividends for the region, he said. Pakistan's exports for example had increased from around 26 million dollars in 2001 to about 1.2 billion.

Britain's junior foreign minister Kim Howells said Afghanistan was "put back on the world map".

While its licit exports were limited, including in fruit and carpets, it had great potential, including because of its rich mineral deposits, he said.

Countries at the meeting, facilitated by the G8, included regional giants such as China, India, Iran and Turkey.

Pave My Road and You'll Get Your School
By CARLOTTA GALL The New York Times December 4, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan
AFTER two and a half tortured decades - Russian invasion, civil war, Taliban rule, a hunt for members of Al Qaeda and a war to oust the Taliban - Afghanistan is finally getting a glimpse of what representative national rule will look like.

The results of elections held in September are now in. The winners are the same broad and often bickering array of forces, largely inspired by Islam and often led by men who were called warlords, who fought the Soviet invasion in the 1980's, with a sprinkling of former Communists thrown in.

Their large egos, divisions, rivalries and clan and ethnic interests survive and promise new clashes. But this time the hope is that the quarrels can be contained in the halls of Afghanistan's first nationally elected legislature, which is scheduled to convene on Dec. 18, rather than spilling onto the battlefield in yet another round of civil war.

Still, President Hamid Karzai will have his work cut out for him as broker in chief.

There are several ways to think about the rifts within this Parliament. If one were to look for a principal division, it would be territorial, roughly between north and south - with the half a dozen ethnicities of the center and the north more or less united in competition against the largest single ethnic group, the Pashtuns, in the south and east.

If there is a primary ideological division, it is between those who fought the Soviets and those who collaborated with them or sat out that war in exile.

Many commanders who resisted the Soviets and later the Taliban took on the roles of warlords in their districts, with their militias exerting control in the absence of a strong central government. Many amassed wealth and power virtually unchecked, as smuggling and poppy cultivation flourished. Now, many militias have been disarmed, with their leaders put in offices like police chief or governor.

While their inclusion in Parliament now offers a chance to integrate in a system based on central authority, it also poses a challenge to that system: one big point of contention is expected to involve efforts to call some commanders to account for past war crimes, and in some areas armed groups continue to sow fear.

A third division is between those formally allied with Mr. Karzai and those in opposition. There will also be competition among local districts for favors, power and funds. There are already demands for roads, schools and clinics and calls for help for farmers willing to change how they use their land - a crucial factor in eradicating the cultivation of opium poppies.

The ethnic division goes back to the founding of the Afghan state by a Pashtun in 1747. Except for two turbulent periods, Pashtuns have ruled. The Taliban was a predominantly Pashtun movement, and although it had Pashtun enemies, too, it was battling primarily Hazara, Uzbek and Tajik forces in the north when the United States helped overthrow it in 2001. Now, those tribes want a share of central power.

In fact, the main opposition to Mr. Karzai is expected to center around three colorful characters: Muhammad Yunous Qanooni, a Tajik; Muhammad Mohaqeq, a Hazara Shiite, and Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, who did not run for Parliament, but is the unrivalled leader of the Uzbeks and Turkmens and is expected to influence their representatives.

Those three command an estimated 60 to 80 seats in the 249-member lower house. They are expected to stand together on matters involving the amount of services and representation their minorities get.

Mr. Karzai's fellow Pashtuns number 118, nearly half the house. But they are a varied group. Political analysts say that Mr. Karzai's true loyalists hold only about 65 seats.

The largest grouping is the 100 free agents aligned neither with Mr. Karzai nor the opposition. They include some 20 ex- Communists, as well as tribal and religious leaders, businessmen and many of the 68 women elected as representatives. For his economic agenda, Mr. Karzai may have to bargain hard with them as individuals.

If ethnicity is not considered, the politics can be divided between parties and people who date to the anti-Soviet resistance and represent almost half of the house, and those who do not. This split will matter on issues of religion and culture - since many resistance members are conservative Islamists - and prosecution of war crimes.

Where are the likeliest bargains to be made? Yet another pattern comes to mind: the old habit of forming alliances of convenience, on the basis of who can offer the best deal, or pay the highest bribe, on any given day. Already rumors are swirling about large sums of money being offered in the race for speaker of the Parliament.

Provincial governors and police chiefs will continue to wield enormous power locally, and groups outside the government, including drug traffickers and Taliban insurgents, will remain at large.

If the legislators really want to seek out figures operating at or beyond the margins of the law, they may not have far to look: One Western diplomat, who spoke anonymously for fear of antagonizing the government, estimated that there are 17 drug traffickers and 24 people with criminal links among the members of Parliament themselves - a reminder, at the very least, of how deep into Afghanistan's government such influences have reached in the past.

Suicide Bomber in Kandahar Kills Civilian
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS December 4, 2005
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- A suicide bomber detonated explosives Sunday on a street in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, killing himself and a civilian and wounding two passers-by, a police official said.

The bombing took place on a main street after a U.S. military convoy had passed by, Kandahar deputy police chief Abdul Hungar said. He said it was possible the bomber was targeting the convoy.

Afghan MP dies after gun battle
Sunday, 4 December 2005 BBC News
A former militia commander elected to Afghanistan's new parliament has been killed in a gunfight along with at least two supporters, officials say.

Esmatullah Muhabat was shot in a row over a fire allegedly caused by one of his followers at a wood yard in Laghman province, the Interior Ministry said.

He is the first member of parliament to be killed since results in the landmark poll were announced last month.

Seven election candidates were killed in the run-up to the 18 September vote.

Another candidate was killed in early October while ballots were still being counted.

Police cordon

Mr Muhabat won one of Laghman province's four seats for parliament's lower house.

The shoot-out started after a local merchant said wood stocks at his yard had been set on fire by one of Mr Muhabat's men, the Interior Ministry said.

A spokesman for the provincial governor said police had sealed the area and fighting had stopped.

Mr Muhabat was a commander in the mujahideen which fought against occupying Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The September 2005 parliamentary election was seen as the latest key step in efforts to bring democracy to the country since US-led forces ousted the Taleban in 2001.

Afghan Health Minister Urges People To Be Tolerant to HIV/AIDS Patients
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
December 3 2005 – Afghan Health Minister Sayed Mohammad Amin Fatemi has urged people in Afghanistan to be tolerant to people with HIV/AIDS. He has also said that breaking the stigma of HIV/AIDS will be important to preventing its spread in Afghanistan.

Speaking at a ceremony marking the World Aids Day Fatemi said that even though there are only 49 registered cases of the estimated number of people with the virus is 1300 to 1500. Fatemi went on to say, “according to the culture we have in Afghanistan, people who are affected will not come to health facilities or to doctors because they think that society considers this a very bad sickness”. Fatemi also asked the Afghan society to be more tolerant “And my advice to…the society is that it shouldn’t see the affected people in such a bad light,” Fatemi said.

To emphasize the point he gave the example of an Afghan refugee that contracted the disease when he tooth was pulled. Fatemi said “ Nobody should blame him, because he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

According to recent survey that Fatemi quoted, 920,000 people in Afghanistan use drugs and 200,000 are in danger of getting HIV. He also said that at least 15 people who tested positive have left the country. Fatemi was speaking at belated World Aids Day ceremony.

Two killed in Pakistan-Afghan border clash
December 4, 2005
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - A soldier and a suspected militant have been killed after troops and militants traded fire in a restive Pakistani tribal area near Afghanistan border, the military have said.

"A soldier and a suspect were killed on Sunday in Shakai valley of South Waziristan" some 60 kilometres (37 miles) southwest of Miranshah, Pakistan's military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP.

"The soldiers traded fire with miscreants during a search operation which had been launched after an improvised explosive device exploded in the area," Sultan said.

Local intelligence officials said that a suspected militant had been captured by troops who cordoned off the area after the blast.

In a separate incident, suspected insurgents fired about five rockets at government and paramilitary installations in Mirali, some 25 kilometres east of Miranshah but caused no damage.

"A rocket hit the main electricity line late Saturday after which the power supply to the area was suspended," a local administration official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf Saturday said that a leading Al-Qaeda figure, Egyptian Hamza Rabia, had been killed near Mirali.

Officials have said that Rabia was killed along with four other militants while handling explosives late Wednesday.

US officials believe Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and other key militants have been sheltering somewhere along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Details Emerge on a Brazen Escape in Afghanistan
By ERIC SCHMITT and TIM GOLDEN The New York Times December 4, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - The prisoners were considered some of the most dangerous men among the hundreds of terror suspects locked behind the walls of a secretive and secure American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan.

Their escape, however, might as well have been a breakout from the county jail.

According to military officials familiar with the episode, the suspects are believed to have picked the lock on their cell, changed out of their bright orange uniforms and made their way through a heavily guarded military base under the cover of night. They then crawled over a faulty wall where a getaway vehicle was apparently waiting for them, the officials said.

"It is embarrassing and amazing at the same time," an American defense official said. "It was a disaster."

The fact of the escape was disclosed by the American authorities shortly after it set off an intense manhunt at Bagram, 40 miles north of Kabul, on the morning of July 11. But internal military documents and interviews with military and intelligence officials indicate it was a far more serious breach than the Defense Department has acknowledged.

One of the four suspects was identified as Al Qaeda's highest-ranking operative in Southeast Asia when he was captured in 2002, a fact that emerged only during an unrelated military trial last month. Another, a Saudi, was also described by intelligence officials as an important Qaeda operative in Afghanistan.

The detainees planned their breakout meticulously, United States officials said, apparently studying the guards' routines, getting themselves moved into a cell that was less visible to the guards and taking advantage of construction work that was intended to expand and improve security at the prison.

"Based upon the findings of the investigation, it appears that the detainees had a clear understanding of the operating procedures of the guards inside the facility," said the chief spokesman for United States military forces in Afghanistan, Col. James R. Yonts.

One American intelligence official said the prisoners also took advantage of "a perfect storm" of mistakes by the military guards. The escape is believed to have been the first from one of the detention centers established by the United States for people suspected of being terrorists after 9/11. Military officials, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the incident are classified, said there was still much they did not know about how the men escaped.

Although an American military police guard was initially suspected of having helped the prisoners, he was eventually cleared. Half a dozen other soldiers, including officers and sergeants, have received administrative punishments, a senior military official in Afghanistan said.

"It was bizarre to me," said Maj. Gen. Peter Gilchrist of Britain, who served at the time as the deputy commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan in Kabul. "I don't understand how it could happen."

Military officials have often cited the danger posed by the prisoners at Bagram and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as a reason for the extreme security measures and harsh conditions there. Prisoners are typically shackled by their hands and feet when outside their cells and rarely move without an escort of at least two guards. During interrogations, they have often been forced into uncomfortable "safety positions" or chained to a bolt on the floor.

The two prisoners believed to have led the escape, Omar al-Faruq, a Kuwaiti who was the former Qaeda operative in Southeast Asia, and Muhammad Jafar Jamal al-Kahtani, the Saudi, had for months been awaiting transfer to Guantánamo Bay, officials said. For reasons they have not explained, the military authorities gave different names for both men in announcing the escape last summer.

At the time of Mr. Faruq's arrest in Jakarta, Indonesia, in early June 2002, he was considered one of the most important Qaeda figures ever captured by the United States. Three months later, he told C.I.A. interrogators at Bagram that he had been sent to the region to plan large-scale attacks against American Embassies and other targets there.

Intelligence officials gave differing views on the importance of Mr. Kahtani. One official described him as having been responsible at one point for maintaining Al Qaeda's operational support structure in Afghanistan; another said he was an important Qaeda fighter, but not a senior-level operative.

According to a classified, one-page military report on the escape that was reviewed by The New York Times, those two detainees - along with a Syrian prisoner identified as Abdullah Hashimi and a Kuwaiti named Mahmoud Ahmad Muhammad - were being held with four other men in Cell 119, on the ground floor of the Bagram prison.

A senior military official said each of the prisoners who escaped was moved into the cell in the days before his escape after causing problems with other detainees. The main cells at Bagram are large wire cages that can be easily surveyed by guards patrolling the catwalks above them. Cell 119, by contrast, was somewhat apart and out of the way, officials said. Asked whether the prisoners might have fabricated the disturbances to be moved together into Cell 119, the senior official said, "The investigation revealed credible factors that support this theory."

After a head count of prisoners at 1:50 a.m. on July 11, the military report states, the sergeant of the guard on duty at the detention center, now called the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, reported all of them accounted for, the report states.

About two hours later, at 3:45 a.m., as the detainees were being roused for the morning prayer, the four detainees were discovered missing from their cell. The military police battalion on duty at the prison, Task Force Cerberus, immediately locked down the prison and began a search, the report said.

How the men got out of their cell remains a mystery, officials said. Two senior military officials said some equipment was temporarily moved beside the cell, partly obstructing the guards' view. One senior military official said investigators believe the prisoners managed to pick the lock with implements they had fashioned while detained.

There were also suspicions that one of the American military guards, who had had disciplinary problems, might have deliberately left the door open, two senior officials said. But those suspicions were eventually discounted and the guard was never charged, they said.

The four men escaped out the southeast door of the main prison building, the report said. Military and intelligence officials said the detainees left behind their bright orange prison uniforms, apparently changing into less conspicuous blue prison garb that they might have somehow hidden in their cells or knew where to find elsewhere.

At the time, several officials said, construction crews had been working to expand and reinforce the prison, a cavernous aircraft machine-shop built by the Soviet military during its occupation of Afghanistan and converted by the American military into its primary screening center for terror suspects captured overseas. The breakout took place only days before a series of tougher security measures, including surveillance cameras and brighter lighting, were to be put in place.

The American forces have released more than 250 Taliban and other prisoners from Bagram this year as part of an Afghan national reconciliation program. Still, they have had to refurbish the prison to hold the roughly 500 detainees who remain.

The escapees also appear to have taken advantage of the construction work to move through an exercise yard and out of the prison compound. Another indication that the four men might have received help in their escape, officials said, was the apparent speed with which they found their way through a maze of buildings and roads to a small, damaged section of the perimeter wall surrounding the vast Bagram Air Base.

Once they found the faulty section of the packed-dirt wall, officials said, the detainees were able to crawl beneath the concertina wire that topped the barrier and drop down on the other side in an area of agricultural fields and abandoned homes.

"There were three or four points where they could have been caught," one American intelligence official said. "The escapees got very lucky." Within minutes of the escape, American forces began fanning out across and outside the prison, concentrating on the area near the faulty section of the wall. As the base sirens blared an alert and Cobra and Black Hawk helicopters hovered overhead, American soldiers and Afghan policemen scoured fields and homes in the area.

The district police chief, Colonel Assadullah, said in an interview in Bagram that he was asked to have his men search for a yellow pickup truck, which was apparently seen leaving the area. The district governor, Kabir Ahmad, said the Afghan authorities set up checkpoints on the highway leading to Kabul and other roads in the area, but turned up nothing suspicious.

Military officials said American soldiers questioned laborers who had been working at the prison, as well as local Afghan officials. But no arrests were made, and neither Afghans working at the base nor American officials said they knew of any laborers fired as a result of the inquiry.

In a recent interview, a former Bagram prisoner, Moazzam Begg, said he had heard during his detention there that American intelligence officers had once proposed staging an escape to release a detainee whom they wanted to act as a double agent against Al Qaeda. He said he had no knowledge that any such scheme had been carried out, and several American officials strongly dismissed the idea that that had happened with Mr. Faruq and the others.

In a videotape delivered to the Pakistan bureau of the Arab-language satellite television station Al Arabiya, Mr. Kahtani boasted about the preparations for the escape, suggesting that they had been painstaking.

"We decided to escape on Sunday because that is the day off for the nonbelievers," he said on the tape, which was broadcast Oct. 18. "To escape we studied the plan very carefully."

Sultan M. Munadi and Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting from Bagram, Afghanistan for this article.

Two CH-47 Chinooks make emergency landings in southern Afghanistan ; six injured
December 4, 2005 COMBINED FORCES COMMAND – AFGHANISTAN COALITION PRESS INFORMATION CENTER
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Two U.S. CH-47 Chinook helicopters made emergency landings today in separate locations in southern Afghanistan resulting in the injury of five U.S. soldiers and one Afghan National Army soldier.

In the first incident, an emergency landing at a Forward Operating Base south of Tarin Kowt occurred with one Afghan National Army soldier injured and evacuated to a nearby U.S. military treatment facility. He is listed in stable condition.

The second incident, in which five U.S. soldiers were injured, occurred north of Kandahar and resulted in severe damage to the aircraft. The injured were evacuated to a nearby U.S. medical facility for treatment, and all are reported in stable condition. None of the injuries were reported as serious.

Afghan and U.S. forces are conducting recovery operations.

Both aircrafts were involved in combat operations against enemy forces in southern Afghanistan .

The causes of the incidents are under investigation.

Radio Free Afghanistan Interviewed Mohammed Akbari for the Tough Questions series
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - December 3, 2005
Radio Free Afghanistan broadcaster Ahmad Takal interviewed Mohammed Akbari for the Tough Questions series. Mohmand Akbari is the head of Afghanistan National Islamic Unity Party. Before this he was the head of a faction Inside the National Unity Party of Afghanistan. Karim Khalili vice-president now leads this party which split up in the 90s. He was a deputy leader of National Unity Party of Afghanistan until its break up. Its party members were involved in the Afghan Civil War during the 90s. Akbari was born in Waras district of Bamiyan province in Central Afghanistan. He spent most his life studying theology in Afghanistan and in Iraq and was also teaching theology in Afghanistan. After the Soviet occupation he joined the resistance. After the Taliban took power is Afghanistan he joined the Taliban. After the fall of Taliban regime he rebuilt a private militia. In parliamentary election in 2005 25,000 people voted for him in Bamiyan which won him a seat in the lower house of the Afghan Parliment (Wolesi Jirga).

Question: For the past four years you were in isolation, what was the reason?

Answer: After Taliban attacked I was resisted against the Taliban but in August 1998 after all our positions were destroyed I joined the Taliban for three years. After the new regime took power I came to Kabul but I did not try to gain a position in the government. Also two people in Karzai government were against me.

Q: Yes, you look at this issue from this point of view but your rivals say you were a part of the Taliban?

A: They are political rivals and they only look at the dark side and they accuse me of all sorts of things. In the beginning I was in the resistance and I sacrifised a lot. During the time when Taliban occupied Hazarajad (Central Afghanistan) I stayed among the people. I did it because if I did something unthoughtfull and I did not do that there might of been a massacre.

Q: With this kind of pessimismistic points of view that you face from people inside the government and maybe there are more people in the political circles, with this environment of opposition what would you focus on in the Parliament?

A:I do not have many rivals or oppnents. When I go to the parliament I will work inside the frame of the constitution and I can play a positive role for national reconciliation in the country.

Q: Did you give you weapons to the DDR Program?

A: Yes, 90 per cent of our heavy and light weapons were collected during the Taliban. After the Taliban my militias joined government forces and I do not have any weapons except two or three weapons that are registered in the Ministry of Interior.

Q: You say that you have given up your weapons but your commanders are accused of being involved in clashes between rival commanders in Diakundi (Central Afghanistan).

A: I came to Kabul in November 20 th 2001 and I attended the ceremony of transition of power to Karzai. After that if there were any clashes I do not have any connection with them. Uruzgan and Diakundi had there own responsible people. The clashes were of a local nature.

Q: What makes you angry?

A: False accusations or if there are atrocities commited between people.

Q: What makes you happy and satisfied?

A: When justice is done and when people are content and there is no power that threatens people’s lives.

Q: How tolerant are your in listening to views opposing you?

A: I have learned in my religious studies that If I have an opinion others do too.

Q:Suppose if tomorrow international forces leave Afghanistan and once again there is regime in Afghanistan like the Taliban would support it again?

A: In light of Islam I will decide what I will feel is my duty as an “Afghanistani Muslim”

Q: In the Afghan constitution the Afghan citizens are called Afghans not Afghanistanis? (Note: Political parties in Afghanistan which do not recognize Pashtoon rule in the country call themselves Afghansitani)

A: I do not see …….any problem in it because when you call Afghans the citizen of Afghanistan you can them Afghani or Afghanistani and I think these terms are interchangeable.

Q: But the Afghan constitution definition of an Afghan is like that and you are a member of the parliament and soon you are due too…

A: This definition is also okay if one says Afghan not Afghanistani I would say yes but I agree with the definition of the constitution as a muslim Afghan.

'Four killed' in Afghan attacks
Saturday, 3 December 2005 BBC News
Militants have killed the head of a district administration and three police officers in two attacks in southern Afghanistan, officials say.

The head of Shah Wali Kot district in Kandahar province, Ayatullah Popal, and two security officers are said to have died in a bomb attack.

Three other policemen were injured in the attack, officials say.

At least one police officer was killed and five others wounded when the vehicle they were travelling in was ambushed in neighbouring Helmand province.

Officials say suspected supporters of the former Taleban regime carried out the attacks.

Blast 'kills al-Qaeda commander'
Saturday, 3 December 2005 BBC News
Pakistan says a top al-Qaeda commander has been killed in the country's tribal belt along the Afghan border.

Egyptian-born Abu Hamza Rabia, described as al-Qaeda's operational commander, was among five militants killed in a blast in North Waziristan.

Officials said the men died when their own explosives blew up, though local people say their house was fired on.

Tens of thousands of Pakistani soldiers are deployed along the border as part of the hunt for al-Qaeda militants.

The killing was first reported in Pakistan's English-language Dawn newspaper on Saturday.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has since confirmed the report when asked if it was true.

"Yes indeed, 200%. I think he was killed the day before yesterday if I'm not wrong," he told journalists in Kuwait as he arrived for an official visit.

Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid says he was head of the group's international operations.

"He was very important in al Qaeda. He was maybe Number Three or Five," the minister told Reuters.

But local tribesmen describe him as a low-level activist.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says it is not clear how important Hamza Rabia was in al-Qaeda.

'Explosion'

Officials said three of the five militants killed were foreigners, including Hamza Rabia.

They said they were killed when an explosion, apparently caused by bomb-making material, destroyed their house.

But a report in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper quoted local tribal residents as saying the house was destroyed after missiles were fired from an unmanned "air vehicle" or drone.

Abu Hamza Rabia is described as the operational commander of al-Qaeda.

He is believed to have worked closely with Libyan Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the head of al-Qaeda's international operations wing, until the latter's capture in May.

Hunting militants

Hundreds of militants and more than 250 Pakistani soldiers have died in the tribal areas in the past two years.

The Pakistan army has shifted its focus to North Waziristan this year, saying it had cleared the more southerly parts of the area.

Thousands of troops have been deployed to tackle militants in the Afghan border region in the past two years.

Many al-Qaeda and Taleban militants are believed to have slipped into Pakistan after the US forces entered Afghanistan in 2001.

Afghanistan: Blood on the tracks
Kanchan Lakshman Financial Express (Bangladesh) 12/3/2005
Ramankutty Maniyappan, a 36-year-old from the southern Indian state of Kerala and an employee of the Indian Border Roads Organization (BRO), was abducted November 19. His beheaded body was found four days later on a road between Zaranj, the capital of the Nimroz province, and an area called Ghor Ghori. Following his abduction, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, had claimed that the group had given the BRO an ultimatum to leave Afghanistan within 48 hours, failing which they would behead Maniyappan.

Maniyappan was among an estimated 300 Indians working on the strategic 218-kilometer road in southwestern Afghanistan, which will link the main Kandahar-Herat highway to the Iran border. The US$84 million project, funded and executed by India, will provide Afghanistan a shorter route to the sea via the Iranian port of Chabahar than is currently available through Pakistan.

Iran, India and Afghanistan had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in January 2003, to improve Afghanistan's access to the coast. Under this agreement, Iran is building a new transit route to connect Milak in the southeast of the country to Zaranj in Afghanistan, and has already completed an important bridge over the Helmand River.

On its part, India is building a new road connecting Zaranj to Delaram, which is on the main Herat-Kandahar road. These projects will shorten the transit distance between Chabahar and Delaram by more than 600 kilometers. According to the MoU, Afghan goods will have duty-free access to the Iranian port and will have to pay not more than what is applied to Iranian traders for using its territory for transit purposes.

India is to enjoy similar benefits as Afghanistan at Chabahar port and for transit. Furthermore, India and Iran have also agreed to build a railroad from Chabahar to the Iranian central railway station, thus creating a link to the Karachi-Tehran railway line, which goes further westwards. While Afghanistan gains access to realize its trade potential, India will be able to prevail over hurdles posed by Pakistan in refusing to allow the transit of Indian goods en route to Afghanistan.

The project, consequently, has direct ramifications for three countries, and impacts on Pakistan by default. Afghanistan, the host country that is still a long way away from recovery, continues as a playground for competing foreign policy agendas and a "new great game" is evidently being played out on its soil.

Apart from the BRO-executed project, some 2,000 Indians are involved in a diverse array of reconstruction projects, prominently including the building of a 220 KV double circuit transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri in eastern Afghanistan to Kabul ($111 million); a sub-station at Kabul; the reconstruction of the Salma dam power project in Herat province ($80 million) being executed by the Water and Power Consultancy Services (India) Ltd.

India is also assisting in the reconstruction of the Habibia school, which boasts alumni such as Afghan President Hamid Karzai and former king, Zahir Shah. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated the school during his visit to Kabul in August. India has pledged $550 million to the reconstruction of Afghanistan in sectors that include basic infrastructure, health, education, agriculture, industry, telecommunication, information and broadcasting.

The Maniyappan incident is not the first of its kind involving the abduction of an Indian in Afghanistan by the Taliban. In 2003, two Indians, Murali and Varada Rao, working for a private construction company, were abducted in Zabul province and subsequently released after 19 days in captivity.

The Taliban detests India's proximity with the Karzai regime and leaders of the erstwhile Northern Alliance. On November 19, the day Maniyappan was abducted, India had announced that it was awarding the prestigious Indira Gandhi Peace Prize for 2005 to Karzai, a gesture intended to convey India's commitment to Afghanistan. Indian firms involved in the reconstruction effort, including the Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd, C&C Constructions and WAPCOS, have, despite the Maniyappan murder, ruled out any scaling down of activity in Afghanistan.

These projects, however, do not affect Pakistani ambitions to the degree that the building of the Zaranj-Delaram road would. Although India's External Affairs Ministry, in a statement from New Delhi, stated that "The Taliban and its backers bear the responsibility for the consequences of this outrageous act", an unnamed Afghan government official was more unqualified in his confirmation of the Pakistani role in the killing of the BRO worker: "It was not to Pakistan's liking that India was helping to construct this road [the Zaranj-Delaram highway]. Obviously, they would try to disrupt the project." Subsequently, on November 27, India's National Security Adviser, M K Narayanan also asserted that Pakistan had a role in Maniyappan's killing, and had conspired with the Taliban to engineer this "ill-motivated act".

Afghanistan, increasingly the "forgotten frontier" of the "war on terror", has witnessed a substantial increase in violence during 2005, claiming at least 1,500 lives, including 84 American troops, the highest toll since 2001. Last year, the death toll was about 850.

Aid workers are an obvious target in Afghanistan. According to the Afghanistan non-governmental organization (NGO) Safety Organization, 30 people involved in aid projects have died in 2005, as compared to 24 the previous year. Worse, three suicide attacks in November indicated a shift towards "Iraq-style tactics" by the Taliban.

Close to nine such attacks have taken place nationwide since September 28, when a uniformed man on a motorcycle detonated a bomb outside an Afghan Army Training Center, killing nine persons. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi confirmed such a shift in strategy: "It is true that we have started a series of suicide attacks mainly against foreign troops who have invaded Afghanistan." Expressing surprise at the turn of events, a senior UN official said, "We never imagined we would still be talking about a Taliban insurgency four years on."

The US, which has conferred "frontline state" eminence on Islamabad, has a strange take on the Pakistani strategy. The Report on the Status of the 9/11 Commission Recommendations, published by the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, unequivocally stated:

... challenges facing the country [Afghanistan] are still formidable: Taliban and other extremist forces stepped up attacks against the Karzai government in spring and summer of 2005, and attacks continue; new fighters are being drawn from Pakistan. More than sixty US military personnel have died in combat in 2005 and the insurgency is not going away. Karzai has not extended his authority throughout the entire country.

[President General Pervez] Musharraf does not appear to have lived up to his promises to regulate the madrassas [seminaries] properly or close down all those that are known to have links to extremist groups. Taliban forces still pass freely across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and operate in Pakistani tribal areas. Terrorists from Pakistan carry out operations in Kashmir ...

At the other end, there are reports that Americans are attempting, assisted, not surprisingly, by Pakistan, to accommodate the Taliban leadership of Mullah Omar within the power structure in Afghanistan. Islamabad, on its part, is interested in ensuring the Taliban's representation in the future governance of Afghanistan in order to reframe its quest for "strategic depth".

Afghanistan has consistently expressed concern over Islamabad's continuing attempts to interfere in and regain control over events in the country. The head of Afghanistan's reconciliation commission, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, told reporters in Kabul on November 12:

We have not seen any direct military interference except from our Pakistani brothers ... I don't know why they have not stopped their inhumane interference in Afghanistan so far ... Pakistan or its ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] have given them [militants] plans to implement in Afghanistan, have provided them with weapons and facilities and warned them if they do not do it [execute terrorist operations in Afghanistan] they will be handed over to Americans as al-Qaeda activists.

Back in Pakistan, Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, a stalwart of the Islamist movement and one of the most prominent patrons of the Taliban, confirmed in an interview to Adnkronos International on November 24 that it was "a fact that the Taliban are Afghan nationals and they are still studying in Pakistani madrassas".

And for the seminaries that spawn the Taliban it is "business as usual". Musharraf's campaign to get madrassas registered by December has, by all accounts, fizzled out due to a "lack of cooperation" from the apex bodies of religious schools. The Wafaq-ul-Madaris, Pakistan's main confederacy of seminaries, which runs approximately 8,200 institutions, has refused to follow the Madaris Registration Ordinance 2005, along with two other bodies -- the Tanzeemat-e-Madaris Deeniya and the Tanzeem-ul-Madaris Ahle Sunnat -- saying the process was intended to curb the "independence and sovereignty" of the madrassas.

There have been a series of high-profile arrests and incidents that indicate that the Taliban continue to maintain a vibrant presence in Pakistani territory, especially in the provinces of Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Pakistani authorities have fitfully and selectively acted against some Taliban elements from time to time, though there are continuous reports of very substantial freedom of movement and activity granted to the main body of the force and its leadership.

Mullah Abdul Mannan Hanafi and Mullah Mohammad Akbar, former Taliban provincial governors and military commanders, for instance, were shot dead by "unidentified assailants" in Peshawar on November 8. Incidentally, Hanafi was the "military commander" in Bamiyan when the Taliban demolished the two Buddha statues there.

After the Taliban defeat, Hanafi was arrested in Balochistan by Pakistani authorities and detained for a few months, but was eventually set free due to "lack of evidence" of his involvement in terrorist activity. Earlier, Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, Pakistan's interior minister, informed the media on October 4, in Quetta, capital of Balochistan, that they had arrested Abdul Latif Hakimi, Taliban's chief spokesperson, and five others, from the province.

Hakimi was in regular contact with the media, speaking by satellite telephone from undisclosed locations and often made claims of inflicting huge casualties on US and Afghan troops. In June, when an MH-47 helicopter was shot down in the Kunar province bordering Pakistan, killing all 16 US troops on board, Hakimi claimed the incident even before US or Afghan officials acknowledged it. While some of his claims have been fanciful, there was no doubt that Hakimi was aware of several Taliban operations, and was based in Pakistan -- more often than not, in Balochistan.

Although this has been adequately documented in global reporting, it merits repetition here that the Taliban have regrouped rather well, although it may still be incapable of launching an Iraq-type insurgency. This is particularly the case in the Afghan countryside, particularly in provinces dominated by the Pashtuns along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The Pakistani and Taliban stratagem is favored further by the unfortunate fact that the Karzai regime has little control over southern and eastern Afghanistan. Sources indicate that the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Hizb-e-Islami operatives, functioning from sanctuaries in and around Balochistan, have amplified their activities since March.

Islamabad has evidently allowed the Taliban to regroup within its territory and to launch attacks across the border. Despite selective arrests, there is no indication that Pakistan is about to cut the Taliban's lifeline on its soil. The essential objective is to prevent the Karzai regime from stabilizing without a pre-dominant Pakistani role.

In many ways, this is an existential strategy as far as Pakistan is concerned: a strong and stable regime in Kabul would immediately put the Durand Line into question, and further destabilize north Balochistan and the NWFP. Pakistan, consequently, will continue its efforts to recover "strategic depth" in Afghanistan, using the Taliban as a proxy, but will do so within limits that do not invite US ire and reprisals. Maintaining a threshold level of violence and subversion is integral to this strategy in Afghanistan.

US civil rights group to sue CIA
Saturday, 3 December 2005 BBC News
A US civil rights groups says it is taking the CIA to court to stop the transportation of terror suspects to countries outside US legal authority.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says the intelligence agency has broken both US and international law.

It is acting for a man allegedly flown to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she'll comment on recent reports of alleged CIA prisons abroad before starting a visit to Europe on Monday.

Ms Rice has said she will provide an answer to a EU letter expressing concern over reports last month alleging the US intelligence agency was using secret jails - particularly in eastern Europe.

'Extraordinary rendition'

"The lawsuit will charge that CIA officials at the highest level violated US and universal human rights laws when they authorised agents to abduct an innocent man, detain him incommunicado, beat him, drug and transport him to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan," the ACLU said in a news release.

The release identified the jail as the "Salt Pit".

The group did not provide the name or nationality of the plaintiff, saying only that he would appear at a news conference next week to reveal details of the lawsuit.

The ACLU also wants to name corporations which it accuses of owning and operating the aircraft used to transport detainees secretly from country to country.

The highly secretive process is known as "extraordinary rendition" whereby intelligence agencies move and interrogate terrorism suspects outside the US, where they have no American legal protection.

It has become extremely controversial, the BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington reports.

Some individuals have claimed they were flown by the CIA to countries like Syria and Egypt, where they were tortured.

The US government and its intelligence agencies maintain that all their operations are conducted within the law and they will no doubt fight this case vigorously, our correspondent says.

He says they will not want to see US intelligence officers forced publicly to defend their actions and they will not want to see one of their most secret procedures laid bare in open court.

Pakistan to target 'Wild West' bazaar in crackdown on weapons
By Isambard Wilkinson in Dara Adam Khel The Telegraph (UK) - December 2, 2005
Pakistan is cracking down on one of the world's largest arms bazaars, forcing traders to sell only to those with licences and urging producers to switch to exporting hunting rifles.

Buyers in search of weaponry ranging from ancient flintlock muskets to rocket-propelled missiles, anti-tank guns and pen-pistols have shopped at Dara Adam Khel for more than a century.

But the government is now trying to turn the town's arms factories and market into something more mainstream.

Since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan has been awash with unlicensed weapons, in particular Kalashnikovs, and copies are produced en masse in Dara Adam Khel.

Under pressure from America, President Pervez Musharraf's government is trying to clean up the lawless North West Frontier Province used as a haven by al-Qa'eda.

The authorities also want to tackle the common shootings and bomb explosions that blight Pakistan.

"We want to legalise the market by allowing them to produce weaponry, in particular hunting rifles for the US, under licence," Shahzad Arbab, a senior administrator, said.

"We also intend to enforce a system in which weapons can be sold only to licence-holders and sellers log every sale to ensure that arms manufactured in Dara Adam Khel do not make their way to gangsters and terrorists.

"We hope the crackdown will lead to a reduction in kidnapping, smuggling and fake currency in the area."

Dara, a dusty, Wild West-type town, crawls with intelligence agencies, drug smugglers and gun-toting Pathan tribesmen.

Large slabs of hashish, parcelled in goatskin to ensure that it remains fresh, lean against shop fronts and shots can be heard as weapons are tested.

Dara-built Kalashnikovs, not known for their durability, sell for £20 to £30 alongside knuckledusters, shotguns with telescopic sights and twelve bores made to look like M16 assault rifles.

Much of the weaponry is made from scrap metal from shipyards. Neighbouring villages specialise in explosives, anti-tank and aircraft gun manufacture.

A previous attempt to regulate the Dara cottage industry ended in failure despite the government's attempts to lure the best gunsmiths to work for the state-owned defence industries at Wah.

Mohammed Hafiz sat in a workshop decorated with posters calling Muslims to embark on Jihad, making cartridge cases for £10 pistols. "Why would I work in the government factory for 2500 rupees (£25) a month when here I earn 4000 rupees," he said.

The new initiative is also meeting stiff resistance from Dara and local tribal leaders.

"The government wants to build an industrial plant but that has created disputes over land," said Iran Gul, a policeman.

"Land here is not owned by individuals but by tribes. Half agree and half don't."

Inim Ullah, a gun-seller, said: "We will not issue receipts as no one will accept them. If we do clamp down, the trade will only move deep into the mountains."