Afghanistan News February 14, 2005

February 14, 2005

NATO Urges Afghanistan to Decide Poll Date Soon
By David Brunnstrom Sun Feb 13, 5:59 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - NATO urged Afghanistan on Sunday to fix a date for parliamentary elections as soon as possible to give the alliance time to plan reinforcements to send to the country for the vote.

Speaking after a regular command handover for Afghanistan's NATO-led peacekeeping force, a senior alliance official said that unless the polls were held by the first week of July, troop rotations meant it would be better if they were delayed until September.

The repeatedly delayed polls were supposed to be held this spring, but while President Hamid Karzai says he wants them as soon as possible, the election law means they cannot now be held before mid June and most diplomats see July as more realistic.

"We count on the Afghan government and the international agencies involved to decide as soon as possible on the election time schedule," said German General Gerhard Back, the commander of NATO's Allied Joint Forces Command who is in overall charge of Afghanistan's multinational peacekeeping operation.

"The earlier we can start to prepare fully for these elections, the better," he told a ceremony for the transfer of command of the NATO-led multinational International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from French Lieutenant-General Jean-Louis Py to Turkey's Lieutenant-General Ethem Erdagi.

It was the second time a Turkish general has taken command of ISAF since it was established after the overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban regime in late 2001.

Hikmet Cetin, NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, told reporters that if the election was delayed beyond the first week of July, there was a risk of a clash with the next six-monthly rotation of ISAF troops.

FURTHER DELAY POSSIBLE
If the vote was not possible by the first week of July, he said, "better for it to be postponed until September and beyond."

Back told reporters NATO needed to be able to plan reinforcements to protect the polls alongside Afghan forces and an 18,000-strong U.S.-led force fighting Taliban remnants and allied militants.

NATO now has 8,400 troops in Afghanistan. This month it agreed to establish two new Provincial Reconstruction Teams and to take command of two more, which will require 500 extra troops.

NATO already commands five PRTs, units charged with helping maintain provincial security and assisting reconstruction. Back said NATO expected to reinforce each of its provincial units with a company, or 100-120 troops, for the election, and to deploy an additional quick-response battalion. But he said the priority was more aircraft to boost the mobility of the force.

Cetin said the additional aircraft envisaged included F-16 fighters, other fixed wing aircraft and helicopters.

NATO members have in the past been reluctant to commit expensive assets such as aircraft to Afghanistan but Back said he was "very confident" about getting the resources required.

Logistical problems, security fears and political deliberations have delayed the parliamentary elections, which were originally supposed to be held last June alongside a presidential vote eventually held in October and won by Karzai.

Much work is still needed, including the setting of electoral boundaries at least 120 days before the polls.

Afghanistan has seen a decline in attacks by Taliban guerrillas since the presidential elections, but both the militants and the continued existence of factional militias pose a threat to the more complex parliamentary polls.

Crashed Afghan Jetliner Recorder Found
Sun Feb 13, 8:12 PM ET By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO and Afghan troops retrieved the flight recorder from a crashed Afghan airliner Sunday, an Afghan official said, 10 days after the plane smashed into a mountain in a snowstorm killing all 104 people on board.

The first clear weather in nearly a week allowed helicopters to ferry troops and investigators to the crash site, 10,000 feet up a snow-covered peak about 20 miles east of the capital, Kabul, officials said.

Maj. Gen. Mohammed Moeen Faqir, an Afghan army commander, said the teams were not yet able to recover bodies. But Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Zaher Azimi said the flight recorder had been found.

"It is in the hands of the investigating commission," Azimi said.

He gave no further details.

The Boeing 737 crashed into the mountaintop east of the capital, Kabul, on Feb. 3 after approaching from the western city of Herat. Authorities have declared all 96 passengers and eight crew dead, including more than 20 foreigners, in the country's worst air disaster.

Bad weather had previously allowed only a brief inspection of the crash site, which is covered in deep snow, but NATO officials said a team of de-miners was able to spend four hours on Sunday making sure that a makeshift landing pad near an old military lookout on the summit was safe.

Afghan officials said their troops planned to erect a tent to hold remains before they can be flown out by helicopter, though they have warned that the recovery operation could take several weeks.

The Afghan government has said the cause of the crash remains unknown and have called in U.S. experts to help investigate.

The Afghan transport minister has said the plane disappeared from radar screens shortly after it was cleared to land in Kabul, though the private airline, Kam Air, says the pilot had turned away from the capital to seek an easier landing in Pakistan.

Recovery Work From Afghan Crash Begins
Sun Feb 13, 9:44 AM ET By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO and Afghan troops on Sunday began an operation to recover the bodies of 104 people killed in the crash of an Afghan airliner 10 days after it smashed into a mountain in a snowstorm.

The first clear weather in nearly a week allowed helicopters to ferry NATO mountain troops and Afghan soldiers to the snow-covered peak 20 miles east of the capital, Kabul, said Lt. Gen. Ethem Erdagi, the NATO force's Turkish commander.

Sunday's search ended before the teams could recover any bodies.

"We were searching and looking but unfortunately we couldn't find any bodies," said Maj. Gen. Mohammed Moeen Faqir. "It was very, very cold and there is a lot of snow, but we will try again tomorrow."

The Boeing 737 crashed into the mountaintop east of Kabul on Feb. 3 after approaching the capital in a blizzard from the western city of Herat.

Authorities have declared all 96 passengers and eight crew dead, including more than 20 foreigners, in the country's worst air disaster. But bad weather has allowed only a brief inspection of the crash site.

The Afghan government says the cause of the crash remains a mystery. It's called in U.S. experts to help investigate. The plane's flight recorder has yet to be located.

The Afghan transport minister has said the plane disappeared from radar screens shortly after it was cleared to land in Kabul, though the private airline, Kam Air, says the pilot had turned away from the capital to seek an easier landing in Pakistan.

Officials say the wreckage lies scattered in deep snow at an altitude of about 10,000 feet, and that it could take weeks to collect the bodies. The plane hit near an old military lookout and is believed to be mined.

Elsewhere, Turkey began a six-month command of NATO-led troops in Afghanistan on Sunday during which the alliance plans to relieve U.S. forces in the west and help provide security for the first post-Taliban parliamentary elections.

The NATO force is separate from the 18,000-strong U.S.-led coalition hunting Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts mainly in the south and east, though alliance members are discussing how to combine the forces. Some American forces in the west are expected to come under NATO control.

Afghanistan says militia commanders may be forced to disarm
KABUL, Feb 13 (AFP) - Afghanistan's defence ministry warned Sunday that warlords who fail to disarm and disband their private armies will be forced to do so.
So far, 38,887 militiamen have laid down their arms as part of a UN Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programme but certain factions and commanders have resisted giving up their weapons.

"The Afghan defense ministry warns those commander who have not had good cooperation with the DDR process," said ministry spokesman General Mohammed Zahir Azimi.

"We warn them to start their sincere cooperation with the process, otherwise their concessions will be withdrawn and they will be disarmed as part of the soon-to-begin general weapons collection process," he added.

The UN programme gives private militia commanders of officer rank 350 to 650 dollar pensions per month plus concessions for their men which include cash, vocational training and loans for small businesses.

So far, 33,352 former fighters have begun a reintegration package which gives them vocational training such as teacher training, agriculture, small business skills and demining. Much of the country is awash with arms and many regions are under the sway of local militia commanders after 23 years of war.

Afghans Say Find Taliban Commander Hiding in Well
Mon Feb 14, 2005 04:56 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A commander of Taliban guerrillas in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan was captured last week while trying to hide in a well and handed over to U.S. forces, the provincial governor said on Monday.

Mullah Mohammad Naeem was captured by Afghan forces in the village of Sia Sang in Uruzgan's Deh Rawud district on Friday, Jan Mohammad Khan told Reuters.
"The raid was conducted on a house in Deh Rawud," he said. "The Taliban commander was hiding in a well."

Khan said Naeem was a senior Taliban commander in the province and had been planning attacks on U.S.-led forces.

He said Naeem was handed over to the Americans.

A spokesman for the 18,000-strong U.S.-led military force pursuing Taliban and allied Islamic militants said he would check the report but was not immediately able to confirm it.

Khan said Naeem was close to Mullah Brother, one of two top military aides to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, and was responsible for many guerrilla attacks.

U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001 after the Islamic fundamentalists refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Both bin Laden and Mullah Omar remain at large despite an intensive three-year hunt.

Afghanistan has seen a decline in Taliban attacks since the guerrillas failed to make good their vow to disrupt presidential elections held last October, but the militants are still seen as a threat to more complex parliamentary polls due later this year.

Pakistan Proposes Preferential Trade Pact With Afghanistan
Monday February 14, 8:38 AM Asia Pulse
ISLAMABAD, Feb 14 Asia Pulse - Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan has proposed signing of a preferential trade agreement (PTA) leading to a free trade agreement (FTA) with Afghanistan in the near future to increase the volume of bilateral trade between the two countries.

The minister made this proposal in a meeting with Afghan Finance Minister Dr Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi here recently.

Both sides agreed to enhance the present level of economic and trade cooperation.

Mr Khan stressed that both the countries should form a group to study each other's tariff regimes as well as complementaries of the two economies so that businessmen of the two countries might be able to make informed business decisions.

He informed the Afghan minister that a high-level delegation, comprising commerce secretary and CBR chairman, would soon visit Afghanistan to discuss various trade issues, including six remaining items in the negative list of Afghan transit trade.

The commerce minister said that Pakistan was interested in setting up industrial zones between Kandahar and Jalalabad once the security issues were resolved in Afghanistan.

Canada to Nearly Double Afghan Troops
By DAVID RISING
MUNICH, Germany (AP) Canada will nearly double its troop strength in Afghanistan to about 1,100 by this summer, Defense Minister Bill Graham told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Canada currently has 600 troops serving in the Afghan capital of Kabul with NATO's International Security Assistance Force and plans to put a provincial reconstruction team, or PRT, in the southern city of Kandahar by August, Graham said.

The PRT, which aims to boost stability by working on humanitarian projects such as building schools and clinics, would be part of an overall expansion of peacekeepers into the southern region later this year.

``Canada will be there for establishing a PRT in Kandahar in August, that will be the first step,'' Graham told the AP on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich. ``We will have the 600 in Kabul still, so that means we'll be up to the 1,000 to 1,100 range.''

At a NATO defense ministers' meeting in France on Thursday, Canada expressed willingness to take a leading role in the Kandahar area. That could include adding a brigade of 700-1,200 troops to the region in spring 2006, ready to participate in combat operations, in addition to the PRT, Graham said.

A final decision on whether to send the brigade has not yet been made. ``If we were to put the additional brigade in, obviously it would be part of Operation Enduring Freedom,'' he said, using the name of Washington's military operation in Afghanistan.

If the combat brigade is sent in, Graham said the Kabul-based peacekeepers would likely come home, although those being sent to Kandahar would remain. He emphasized, however, that the exact Canadian role in Kandahar will depend on many factors, including the stability of the region, and it ``is something that is being fleshed out at this time.''

Canada supports the U.S. push to integrate the NATO mission in Iraq with the U.S.-led mission currently fighting remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan but is still studying how closely the two forces should be fused, Graham said. `We would favor what's appropriate for the region,'' he said.

Afghan Militia Disarmament Program Is Completed in Jalalabad
Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan's militia disarmament program has been completed in the eastern region of Jalalabad, the second area to be cleared under a joint program organized by the United Nations and the Afghan government.

Decommissioning is continuing in seven Afghan regions, Ariane Quentier, senior public information officer for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said at a briefing yesterday in the capital, Kabul, according to the UN Web site.

``Although Jalalabad has been declared disarmed, about 300 personnel remain on duty in order to guard military equipment,'' Quentier said at the briefing.

The UN and the Afghan government began the program to disarm militiamen more than a year ago. More than 39,000 of Afghanistan's estimated 50,000 militiamen have handed in their weapons. The Mazar-e-Sharif region was declared disarmed in December, the UN said at the time.

Afghanistan is preparing to hold parliamentary and local elections this year, the second stage of its move toward democracy that began with last October's first direct presidential election. The Afghan National Army, formed since the Taliban regime was ousted in 2001, now totals more than 21,000 soldiers, with 17,800 of them having completed training, the U.S. military command in Afghanistan said in January.

Militia leaders inflated the size of their forces in order to collect salaries for an estimated 50,000 militiamen who didn't exist, the UN said last month.

The U.S. has 18,000 soldiers in Afghanistan hunting fugitives from the Taliban and the al-Qaeda terrorist network. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has 8,500 soldiers in the UN-authorized International Security Assistance Force responsible for security in the capital, Kabul.

NATO Expansion

NATO said last week it will expand its peacekeeping force in Afghanistan by about 900 soldiers to boost security for the parliamentary and local elections by allowing the force to extend control beyond the area surrounding Kabul.

The polls were scheduled to take place between April 21 and May 21, the UN said last month. The date will be 120 days after President Hamid Karzai issues a decree establishing the boundaries of electoral districts, Quentier said four days ago.

Karzai, 46, has made security and the fight against drug traffickers the priorities of his government. Afghanistan is the world's biggest opium producer. Poppy cultivation increased 64 percent in 2004, the UN said in November. The opium poppy is the raw ingredient in producing heroin.

French ISAF soldier commits suicide in Afghanistan
KABUL, Feb 12 (AFP) - A soldier belonging to the French contingent of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan has killed himself in Kabul, a spokesman from his batallion said Saturday.

"He was going about his activities as normal and then committed suicide with his weapon at about 9:00 am (0430 GMT)" Friday, said commandant Xavier de Maillard.

It was the first known suicide by a soldier from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. In February 2004, a Canadian soldier was left with a serious head injury after attempting to take his own life.

The identity, age and regiment of the French soldier would not be made public, Maillard said, adding that his suicide would be the subject of a police inquiry.

The French batallion of 600 men was newly rotated at the end of January and is charged with patrolling and security in the northeast of Kabul and around Chamali, north of the capital. The 8,300-strong ISAF force was deployed to Afghanistan to provide security after the overthrow of the Taliban by US army forces.

Bollywood movie in Afghanistan snowed off
Daily Times
KABUL: Snowstorms have delayed the planned premiere in Afghanistan of Bollywood adventure blockbuster “Bullet”, organisers said Sunday.

Abdul Latif Ahmadi, head of Afghan Films, said participants for the star-studded premiere had been unable to fly to the Afghan capital but there were plans to hold the ceremony on Thursday.

The film is directed by Afghan producer and major Bollywood player Asad Sikander.

It was set to premiere Saturday in Kabul’s Ariana Cinema and 14 other theatres across the country. Afghan audiences are ardent fans of Indian cinema but mostly rely on pirated video discs. Asad Sikander earlier told AFP that “a mega release” was planned with cabinet ministers, the stars of the film and delegates from various embassies set to attend. afp