December 5, 2005

Afghanistan, Neighbors Pledge Cooperation
Associated Press / December 5, 2005
Afghanistan and Neighbors Pledge Closer Cooperation in Bid to Boost Regional Economy
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghanistan and its neighbors vowed Monday to work more closely together, ending what a British official called a groundbreaking conference to boost economic cooperation in a region reaching from China to Turkey and the Persian Gulf.

Following a two-day meeting billed as Afghanistan's debut as host of a major economic conference after decades of war, delegations from 12 nations pledged cooperation in areas including electricity trade, water resource management and counternarcotics.

They also vowed to seek investment by improving the regional business climate, an undertaking British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells called "absolutely central" to its prosperity. Britain co-chaired the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference as current holder of the G-8 presidency.

Howells called the conference "historic and groundbreaking" and said the declaration, which assigned the Kabul government a leading role in following up on its decisions, marked "the moment when Afghanistan has become a real player in bringing peace and stability to this region."

The meeting brought together 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.

Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said that the ouster of the Taliban from power in 2001 ended a long period in which "Afghanistan was considered an obstacle and presented a threat" to its neighbors and the world.

"The time has come for Afghanistan and the region to seize the opportunity" presented by its relative stability, Abdullah said. He said the delegations worked "in a climate of close cooperation."

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Hearing set for only officer charged in Afghan prisoner abuse
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL Associated Press Dec 5, 2005 : 9:36 am ET
FORT BLISS, Texas -- The only officer charged in an investigation into prisoner abuse in Afghanistan could face a court-martial for failing to properly supervise his soldiers and not taking corrective action after a prisoner died.

The military equivalent of a grand jury hearing was scheduled for Monday to determine whether Army Capt. Christopher M. Beiring should face a court-martial on charges of dereliction of duty and making a false official statement.

The Article 32 hearing is scheduled to last three days.

Army prosecutors say Beiring, who led the Cincinnati-based 377th Military Police Company, failed to properly train and supervise his troops and did not follow an order to take corrective action after a prisoner died.

Beiring also is accused of lying about "sustainment training" he claimed his soldiers received after each shift.

Ten of Beiring's soldiers have faced criminal charges in the abuse cases, which primarily revolve around two detainees who died at the Bagram detention center in 2002.

Charges against two of them were dropped, while three others, all sergeants, were acquitted by military juries. Three were either convicted or pleaded guilty to abuse charges, and two are still awaiting trial.

Pfc. Damien M. Corsetti, a military intelligence interrogator from the 519th MI Battalion at Fort Bragg, N.C., is also scheduled to appear in court this week to face abuse charges. His Article 32 hearing is set for Tuesday.

Prosecutors have accused Corsetti of repeatedly abusing prisoners during interrogation by sitting on them, throwing trash and cigarette ashes at them and, in some cases, threatening sexual assault.

Corsetti is charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, assault, wrongful use of hashish and performing an indecent act with another person.

Three other interrogators from the 519th MI Battalion already have pleaded guilty to abuse charges.

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'Enemy fire' forces down Chinooks
Monday, 5 December 2005 BBC News
Enemy fire forced down two US Chinook helicopters in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, the US military said on Monday.

Five US and one Afghan soldier were injured when the helicopters made emergency landings at separate locations in the south.

A US military statement says both helicopters had been involved in combat operations against "enemy forces".

US-led coalition forces have come under mounting attack from Taleban and other insurgents in the south and the east.

The latest incidents bring to seven the number of US helicopters brought down by hostile fire or involved in accidents in Afghanistan this year.

In June, 16 US military personnel died when the Chinook they were travelling in was shot down by militants in the eastern Kunar province.

A sandstorm was blamed for a US helicopter crash in April that killed 18 soldiers - the single heaviest loss of life for US troops since they entered Afghanistan in 2001.

Five US soldiers were injured in one of Sunday's incident, north of Kandahar, when a Chinook made a hard landing, leaving the aircraft a write-off.

One Afghan soldier was hurt in the other, at a forward operating base south of Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province when the helicopter returned to the base after coming under fire.

None of the injuries is serious, the US military statement said.

On Sunday, a man claiming to speak for the Taleban said its supporters had brought down the helicopter in Kandahar.

'Suicide bomb'

In a separate incident on Sunday, at least two people were killed in a suspected suicide bomb attack in the southern city of Kandahar, police said.

The suspected bomber was killed, as was a civilian. Two passers-by were hurt.

There were no reports of casualties among Canadian members of the US-led coalition who are thought to have been the target of the attack.

Suicide bombings in Afghanistan have risen this year, a number of them in the former Taleban stronghold of Kandahar.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in violence linked to militancy in Afghanistan this year, most of it in the south and east of the country.

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Three U.S. soldiers injured by IED near Deh Chopan
December 5, 2005 COMBINED FORCES COMMAND – AFGHANISTAN  COALITION PRESS INFORMATION CENTER
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Three U.S. soldiers were injured yesterday when an improvised explosive device detonated as their convoy conducted combat operations southwest of Deh Chopan.

The injured soldiers are being treated at Kandahar Airfield and are in stable condition.

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Afghan, Coalition forces break up IED cells
December 5, 2005 COMBINED FORCES COMMAND – AFGHANISTAN  COALITION PRESS INFORMATION CENTER
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Afghan National Police and Coalition forces broke up two improvised explosive device assembly and emplacement cells and arrested five individuals in separate raids conducted near Bagram and Ghazni yesterday and Friday.

Both raids were planned and executed by ANP forces after they received tips regarding the IED cell’s locations.

“These were ANP planned, led and executed operations,” said Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara, spokesman for the Coalition’s Combined Joint Task Force 76. “The success of these operations is indicative of the level of professionalism and dedication we routinely see among ANP and Afghan National Army forces. Had these two cells continued to operate they could have been responsible for the deaths of untold innocent Afghan men, women and children.”

The first operation, near Ghazni, resulted in the confiscation of an undisclosed amount of explosive materials and documents outlining the assembly and emplacement of IEDs. The second raid netted enough explosives to assemble one IED and included a large amount of IED assembly materials.

The five suspects are in Afghan custody.

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German ministry probes what govt knew on CIA error
By Louis Charbonneau
BERLIN, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Germany will look into a report that a government minister was told about the mistaken U.S. detention of a German man in Afghanistan but kept quiet about it at the request of the U.S. ambassador.

The Washington Post reported at the weekend that Daniel Coats, then U.S. ambassador to Germany, told previous Interior Minister Otto Schily in May 2004 that Khaled el-Masri had been wrongfully held but would soon be released. "We are looking inside the Interior Ministry itself to find out what information we can get," ministry spokesman Bruno Kahl told a news conference.

He added later: "We want to find out what, if anything, was said."

Schily has been unreachable for comment. Opposition leaders have demanded a thorough investigation of the allegation.

The suggestion that a German minister and other members of the government of ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder may have been involved in a cover-up to protect Washington from embarrassment comes at a sensitive time for the new chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Merkel has been in office for less than two weeks and heads a power-sharing "grand coalition" with her former rivals. She is trying hard to repair ties with Washington, which never forgave Schroeder for his vocal opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Berlin later on Monday for talks with German and other European leaders where the topic of the CIA's treatment of prisoners is one of the main items to be discussed.

Last month, the Post reported that the CIA used German airports to help fly terrorism suspects across the continent to secret detention centres. This has sparked demands by German politicians for an explanation, although the government has said Washington is not under any time pressure.

AN ALLY IN AFGHANISTAN
While Merkel has ruled out sending troops to Iraq, Afghanistan is a different matter.

In September, the German parliament voted overwhelmingly to extend the country's peacekeeping mandate in Afghanistan and to increase the number of German soldiers there to 3,000 from 2,250.

At the news conference, various ministry spokespeople were bombarded with questions about who else might have known about the mistaken detention of Masri -- Schroeder, his former top aide and current Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier or ex-Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.

Government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm's response was that the new government does not know what happened: "Neither I nor this government have any information at the present time about any such confidential meeting (between Schily and Coats)."

Masri, a German national who was arrested in Macedonia on Dec. 31, 2003, has said he was handed to U.S. officials and flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was held in appalling conditions and interrogated as a terrorism suspect.

He has said he was returned to Europe five months later when the CIA realised they had the wrong man. Details of his case began to emerge through the media in January this year, eight months after the reported conversation between Coats and Schily.

On Tuesday, Masri plans to file suit against the CIA -- the same day Rice meets in Berlin with Merkel.