Afghanistan News February 24, 2005

February 24, 2005

Afghanistan's president arrives in India
Wed Feb 23, 5:52 AM ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in the Indian capital on a three-day state visit to seek greater trade and investment ties.

He will hold talks with President Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and ruling Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi.

Karzai, who heads a delegation including eight cabinet ministers, is making his first visit to India since he won elections in October. Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh visisted Afghanistan on February 15.

India, along with Iran and Russia, backed Afghanistan's Northern Alliance against the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban.

Since the ousting of the Taliban by US-backed forces in late 2001, India has been helping the country develop infrastructure, civil aviation, transport, industry, health facilities and educational institutions.

It is currently building the Salma Dam project near the western city of Herat, laying power lines from the northern city of Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul and constructing the Zeranj-Delaram road near the Iran-Afghanistan border.

Afghanistan also wants to open a trade corridor with India through Pakistan since most goods now travel via Iran.

Afghan president says he is in talks with Pakistan for trade corridor with India
Wednesday February 23, 5:20 PM AP
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told Indian leaders on Wednesday that he has asked Pakistan to allow its territory to be used as a transportation route for Indian goods being sent to Afghanistan, officials said.

Currently, shipments from India to Afghanistan of aid and other goods must travel on a circuitous route through Iran because of strained relations between India and Pakistan.

But with ties between the two South Asian nuclear powers thawing in recent months, New Delhi hopes Islamabad will soon allow direct shipments through its territory.

Karzai told India's foreign minister, K. Natwar Singh, that he has urged Pakistan's government to explore the possibility of allowing its territory to be used as a trade corridor between India and Afghanistan, said Navtej Sarna, Singh's spokesman.

Karzai is in India on a three-day visit to boost economic cooperation and express thanks for India's assistance in rebuilding his war-shattered nation.

India supports Afghanistan's decrepit health and education system and has supplied dozens of trucks and jeeps to Afghanistan's new U.S.-trained army. It is also involved in building roads and a multimillion-dollar dam near the western city of Herat. ADVERTISEMENT

During his talks with Singh, Karzai also sought more teachers and doctors from India, Sarna said.

Karzai's trip comes about a week after Singh visited Afghanistan's capital. Karzai at that time urged New Delhi to back a gas pipeline from Central Asia through impoverished Afghanistan.

India is weighing whether to meet its expanding energy needs with pipelines from Turkmenistan or Iran, both of which would pass through archrival Pakistan, or alternately from Myanmar in the east.

Karzai was to hold talks on Thursday with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, leader of the governing Congress party. He also is to address Indian businesspeople and attend a forum looking at India's future.

Karzai has long had links to India, especially with the northern city of Simla, where he was a student at the time Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

Karzai wants more Indian teachers in Afghanistan
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE Thursday, February 24, 2005 at 0127 hours IST
NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 23: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai today told India that he had taken up with Islamabad the issue of a trade corridor from India passing through Pakistan. So far, Pakistan has not allowed transit rights for Indian goods to reach Afghanistan.

Karzai, who is here on a working visit, briefed External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh today on his talks with Islamabad. The Afghanistan President expressed interest in getting more Indian teachers and doctors to Afghanistan. The Ministry’s spokesperson said the two sides reviewed bilateral relations during the meeting.

Karzai, who will hold delegation level talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tomorrow, also sought Indian expertise in establishing a telemedicine project for Afghanistan, given the difficult terrain in that country. Afghan Health Minister Sayed Mohammad Amin Fatimi is likely to attend an international conference on this project here in March. The Afghan President is here on a three-day visit and is leading a high-powered delegation including eight cabinet ministers.

During the 40-minute meeting, the Prime Minister briefed the Afghan President on his visit to Pakistan and discussions held here with Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi.

Singh, who had recently made a brief visit to Kabul, had promised India’s continued assistance to Afghanistan in its rebuilding process, including that of its Army, and offered to train its doctors and paramedics.

Karzai met Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy today while he will meet UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi tomorrow.

Indian Airlines is expected to resume its service to Kabul and this would be finalised after talks between Karzai and Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel tomorrow. A host of agreements are also expected to be signed tomorrow in the presence of Afghan President and the Prime Minister.

Afghans say assembly would have to approve U.S. bases
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Afghanistan is keen for a long-term military, economic and political partnership with the United States, but establishing permanent U.S. bases in the country would need parliamentary approval, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

Leading U.S. Senator John McCain called for permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan after talks on Tuesday with President Hamid Karzai.

Asked to comment on McCain's remarks, Karzai's spokesman Jawed Ludin said: "A long-term strategic partnership on economic, military and political issues is a positive thing."

"The United States of America is eager about this and Afghanistan is earnestly keen on it too. This will be for the benefit of Afghanistan."

However, Ludin said Karzai would have seek the approval of a parliament expected to be elected later this year for any move to establish a permanent U.S. military presence.

The issue is sensitive in Afghanistan, which has a tradition dating back centuries of resisting the presence of foreign troops, whether they were 19th century British colonialists or Soviet forces who occupied the country from 1979-1989.

McCain, an Arizona Republican, said permanent military bases would be in the interests of long-term regional security and the Afghan and U.S. people.

U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 and overthrew the Taliban after they refused to hand over Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda figures responsible for Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

IRANIAN BORDER
More than three years later, some 18,000 U.S.-led foreign troops remain, pursuing Taliban guerrillas and their militant allies, including bin Laden, who remains at large.

While Washington says it wants to prevent Afghanistan ever being used again as a "breeding ground for terrorists", the country has an additional strategic significance, not least given its border with Iran, a country the United States has warned not to attempt to produce nuclear weapons.

However on Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman said a move to establish permanent military bases in Afghanistan was not something currently under consideration.

"We are in Afghanistan for the mission that we're conducting, which is to continue to root out the Taliban and continue to help with the Afghan government as it emerges through its own period of electoral process," Lawrence Di Rita said.

U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said in December that some level of foreign troop presence could remain in Afghanistan indefinitely and Karzai said in October foreign forces would be needed for "some years".

In an interview with India Today magazine published last week, Karzai said the U.S. military presence was essential to Afghanistan's stability.

"Until Afghanistan stands on its feet and has its own economy and education capability, we will need help from the U.S. and the rest of the world," he said.

As well as the force pursuing militants, Afghanistan also hosts a separate NATO-led force of 8,500 peacekeeping troops.

U.S. military trainers say a new Afghan army now being created would reach full combat strength by the end of next year and training of the overall force of 70,000 should be completed by the end of 2008.

McCain scrambles to clarify Remark on Afghan bases at issue
Source: AZ Central.com (Arizona, USA)
Republic Washington Bureau Feb. 23, 2005 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain's office scrambled Tuesday to clarify that the Arizona Republican is not calling for "permanent" U.S. bases in Afghanistan as a way to safeguard American interests in the region, which includes Iran, Pakistan and China.

International reports quoted him as saying otherwise during a visit earlier in the day at the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul. As McCain's office later sought to clarify his remarks, a Pentagon spokesman insisted there are no plans to establish permanent U.S. military bases in Afghanistan.

McCain has been leading a bipartisan group of five U.S. senators, including New York Democrat Hillary Clinton, on a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001. McCain was quoted as telling reporters after the group's talks Tuesday with President Hamid Karzai that continued long-term U.S. support for Afghanistan was in the interest of both countries.

When asked about specific support, McCain was further quoted by the Associated Press, Reuters and other news services as explaining: "We mean by that economic assistance, technical assistance, military partnership, including - and this is a personal view - joint military permanent bases."

McCain, who is scheduled to take over the chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee in two years and is considered a potential 2008 presidential candidate, reportedly did not elaborate. Karzai also did not address the issue at a later news conference.

But after McCain's comments hit the national and international news wires, his Washington office issued a statement to clarify the senator's position:

"His purpose was to assure the Afghan people and government that the U.S. understands its responsibilities to the development and security of their country, and will continue to provide Afghanistan with economic, political and military assistance. The U.S. will need to remain in Afghanistan to help the country rid itself of the last vestiges of Taliban and al-Qaida."

But the statement added: "While that is a long-term commitment, he did not mean to imply that would necessarily require permanent U.S. military bases in Afghanistan.

Other members of the U.S. delegation, which earlier had stopped in Baghdad and Islamabad, also said in Kabul that they backed long-term U.S.-Afghan ties, but reportedly gave no specifics. The group includes Clinton, a possible presidential contender, Russ Feingold, D-Wis.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.;

Afghan violence drops amid bitter cold, Taliban talks: US military
Thursday February 24, 12:10 PM AFP
Violence has sharply declined in Afghanistan in recent weeks because of freezing cold and reconciliation talks with Taliban militants, the US military said.

"We have seen a seasonal decrease -- it is tougher and harder to fight in the winter. That may be part of the reason we are seeing a decrease in attacks," US military spokesman Major Steve Woolman told AFP.

Afghanistan is suffering its bitterest winter for nearly decade with the Taliban hotbed of Zabul province and other parts of the normally violent south buried under metres of snow.

Since the new year at least 47 people have been killed in political violence compared with 65 people in the same period last year, and two US soldiers have been killed in combat compared with nine a year earlier.

Woolman also believed that reconciliation talks between the Afghan government and some former officials of the ousted Taliban regime contributed to the decline in the level of violence.

"I think the insurgents got the message that most of the people are tired" of fighting in the war-ravaged country which has endured almost a quarter century of war, he said.

Afghan authorities last week met with four former senior Taliban leaders, who are thought to be moderate members of the ousted regime, in a bid to get more hardened fighters to lay down their arms.

The Taliban's former unofficial envoy to the UN Abdul Hakim Mujahid, former deputy higher education minister Arsullah Rahmani, one-time deputy minister of refugees, Rahmatullah Wahidyar, and Habibullah Fawzi, ex-charge d'affaires at the Afghan embassy in Saudi Arabia, met with authorities in Kabul.

"The coalition fully supports the government of Afghanistan in its ongoing peace process -- I think (that) the Taliban are talking to the government is very positive sign," Woolman said.

Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have been waging a three-year-old revolt in southern and southeastern Afghanistan, operating from hideouts along the porous Pakistani-Afghan border.

However after repeated pledges by the Taliban to derail Afghanistan's first presidential election in October, the polls passed off without major bloodshed and President Hamid Karzai offered an olive branch to footsoldiers of the ousted regime after he took office.

US military and Afghan government officials believe there are a few thousand low-level militants who might take advantage of Karzai's arms-for-amnesty offer. They say they would only exclude 100 to 150 senior members believed to have links to terror networks or to have committed war crimes.

There are 18,000 US-led soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, hunting down remnants of the Taliban regime which was toppled at the end of 2001 for refusing to hand over 9/11 attacks mastermind, Osama bin Laden.

However despite the reconciliation process the threat from the Taliban fighters still remained with militants still eager to carry out attacks on US and pro-Afghan government forces, Woolman said.

"The coalition continues their operation to maintain pressure on those who wish harm to Afghanistan and we still find evidence of that threat," he said.

US-led coalition forces support talks between Afghan govt, Taliban
KABUL, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) - The US-led coalition forces will continue to support the Afghan government-launched peace process and negotiations with the hard-line Taliban militias, the US military said Wednesday.

"I think establishing contact between Taliban and Afghan government is a positive sign towards reconciliation," Steve Wallman, a spokesman of the coalition said at a news briefing here.

However, he denied any role of the US military in the talks between Taliban and the Karzai administration.

He said, "The coalition is not involved in any direct way in this negotiation."

A four-member Taliban delegation is presently in Kabul to hold talks with government officials and expedite the ongoing peace process.

The Afghan government and the US army last year announced an amnesty for the armed opposition groups including Taliban hard-line movement, which the movement's elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar described as a plot to divide his loyalists.

Omar, who has escaped the US manhunt for the last three years, last week rejected any talks with the Karzai government, saying his followers will continue Jihad or holy war until the US-dominated foreign troops leave Afghanistan.

Talks between Karzai, Gulbadin underway
Taliban holding talks with Afghan govt
PakTribune (Pakistan)
KABUL, February 23 (Online): Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and head of Hizb-e-Islami group, Gulbadin Hikmatyar is reportedly to have been engaged in indirect talks.

Talks have been underway between Kunar province Asadullah Wafa and the Hizb-e-Islami chapter representative, Haji Kashmir Khan, said report of Tehran Radio.

Hizb-e-Islami has put forth some conditions for holding talks with Karzai. The conditions include expulsion of all foreign including US troops from Afghanistan, release of all Hizb-e-Islami prisoners and inclusion of that group's members in the forthcoming parliamentary poll, the report told.

It is to be mentioned here that a Hizb-e-Islami member Juma Khan Hamdard has been appointed as governor of Baghlan province.

Meanwhile, A 12-member group of Taliban leaders are holding talks with Afghan government in presidential palace of Kabul.

It is said that the group comprises of former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, senior Taliban leader Abdul Hakim Mujahid, Taliban spokesman Abdul Samad Zaeef, Mullah Mohammad Razik, Mullah Rocketti, Mullah Ghaus, Mullah Abdul Rahman, Irsal-e-Rahmani, Rehmatullah Wahidyar and Naeemi Kochi.

Earlier, Taliban spokesman refuted any kind of talks of his group with Afghan government and announced that if the government was holding talks with Taliban leaders, it should announce their names.

Meanwhile, unofficial Kabul based newspaper IRADA in its article published on Sunday criticized Afghan government talks with Taliban leaders. The newspaper added that if Taliban are ready to cooperate with the government then they should shun lawbreaking, accept human rights and quit their close ties with foreign elements.

US, Afghan authorities fail to lure Taliban leaders
Behroz Khan, the News International
PESHAWAR: Claims about further splits within the dismembered Taliban movement and counter claims continue to make headlines these days, but the reality on ground indicate that no major breakthrough has been made by the US and Afghan authorities to lure top ranking Taliban leaders to its fold at the moment.

The slow pace of negotiations being held secretly at undisclosed locations with those Taliban leaders having severed relationship with Mulla Muhammad Omar-led faction of the movement since the fall of the Taliban regime, is hardly some thing new or alarming. Taliban ousted supreme leader, Mulla Omar, its three spokesmen, Latif Hakimi, Muhammad Yasir and Mulla Ubidullah have belied the claims of US and Afghan officials that a faction of the mainstream Taliban movement was in contact with the Afghan government to broker peace and convince them (Taliban) to join Hamid Karzai government or at least denounce militancy. Even Mulla Omar has challenged the Afghan and US governments to come up with facts and disclose names of those Taliban holding peace and reconciliatory talks, but no response has been shown to the demand made by the Taliban chief.

However, some Afghan government officials pleading anonymity said that names of these Taliban leaders holding peace negotiations would be made public ‘very soon’, as according to them disclosing their names at this stage could pose a threat to their lives as well as derail the process. However, sources within Gulbaddin Hekmatyar-led Hezb-I-Islami Afghanistan conceded that Afghan government was in contact with some of the party top commanders loyal to Hekmatyar for a possible patch up between the two sides. Hekmatyar has been declared as terrorist by the US government and wanted to Washington either dead or alive. Hekmatyar was forced to leave Iran under US pressure soon after the removal of Taliban from power in December 2001, when the Hezb chief, now in hiding, gave the statement calling for jihad against the US and its Afghan allies to liberate Afghanistan from foreign occupation.

Hezb-I-Islami sources said that Commander Kashmir Khan was in contact with Governor Kunar, Asadullah Wafa to negotiate peace on behalf of Hekmatyar, but it was difficult to predict outcome of the talks at this stage. Kashmir Khan is the strong man of Hekmatyar and has survived several raids to escape arrest at the hands of US forces in his native Kumar province, while US and Afghan authorities suspect that the wanted Hezb-I-Islami chief might be hiding in Kunar. US has set up a military base in Asdabad, provincial capital of Kunar and several areas of the province have been bombed and houses raided, but to no avail.

Asadullah Wafa, a Kandahari by origin, has recently been appointed as Governor Kunar after he was assigned the new task to engage Hezb’s people in peace negotiations while earlier Wafa was governor of the eastern troubled Paktia province of Afghanistan. Observers say that such campaign was launched by the US and Afghan authorities before holding the Presidential elections and the same were being repeated now ahead of the scheduled parliamentary elections. The key player from the former Taliban leaders at the moment is Abdul Hakim Mujahid, Taliban former envoy to New York, who parted ways with Mulla Omar and founded a new splinter group called, Khudam-ul-Furqan along with Amin Mujadaddi, Rehmatulla Wahidyar and other low key Taliban leaders. These leaders were in contact with the Afghan government since the start of 2002, but their military prowess and political clout is unlikely to overshadow Omar’s influence.

The desertion of the Taliban camp by Mulla Biradar, Mulla Dadullah and the military commanders of their ilk is bound to cause major dent within the Taliban hierarchy, if the reports prove correct that they too have distanced themselves from the mainstream Taliban movement. Mulla Dadullah has in a recent interview denied such reports, but Mulla Biradar has not spoken publicly about the claims so far. Biradar was the military chief of the Taliban for western zone of the country during the Taliban regime and is considered as a strong man in the region. He belongs to southern Uruzgan province.

Afghans are also astonished over the amnesty announced by the Afghan origin American national and US ambassador in Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad instead of leaving the job to Afghan President, Hamid Karzai. The announcement, observers believe was made by Khalilzad because that according to them, Karzai’s promises and pledges with the people would not be reciprocated due to his lose hold over the government. The role of former Taliban foreign minister, Maulavi Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil is also dubious and according to his close circles, Mutawakil would not be ready to join Karzai’s government, but can extend a helping hand to him. Mutawakil had no military powers even then. As far as Hikmatyar is concerned, he need to be absolved from the charges and given the chance to play his role in the restoration of peace, provided he agrees to the terms and conditions to be put forward for the proposed agreement. But his recent call to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan to wage jihad, leave little room for his reconciliation with the US and Karzai government.

Gunmen Kill 2 Aid Workers in Afghanistan
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press February 23, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan - Gunmen stopped a car carrying two Afghan aid workers in the country's south before shooting them in the head, a senior official said Wednesday, a brutal slaying sure to set back the rebuilding of the war-stricken country.

Health Minister Mohammed Amin Fatemi told The Associated Press that the sports-utility vehicle used by the two employees of medical relief group Ibn Sina had disappeared but said it was unclear whether militants or robbers carried out the attack.

Fatemi said the two aid workers were forced from the vehicle in a desert area of Helmand's Sangin district, 220 miles southwest of Kabul, on their way to deliver medical supplies to several clinics in the province.

"The were brutally murdered by the enemies of the Afghan nation," Fatemi said.

The dead men — driver Mohammed Nader and official Mohammed Zaher — "are our martyrs and our heroes," he said.

The minister said the attack happened on Friday, though Helmand government spokesman Mohammed Wali thought it had occurred on Tuesday.

Wali also said the identity of the attackers and the motive for the attack were unclear and that investigators had been dispatched to the area.

Helmand is a former stronghold of the Taliban movement and has seen a steady string of attacks on aid workers as well as American and Afghan security forces partly blamed on followers of the ousted hardline militia.

However, it is also beset by bloody feuds between factions also within the security forces and is a focus of a U.S.-backed crackdown on illegal narcotics production.

Drug traffickers kill three policemen in Afghanistan
KABUL, Feb 23 (AFP) - Three policemen have been killed during gunbattles with suspected drug traffickers amid an ongoing crackdown on Afghanistan's booming narcotics industry, officials said Wednesday.

Two officers were shot dead on Monday when they tried to close in on a suspected drugs gang in northeastern Takhar province, interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP.

Another police officer was killed in a similar gunfight in western Herat province on Tuesday night, provincial spokesman Ahammadullah Afzali said, adding that one smuggler was wounded and another arrested.

"We strongly believe that they were drug traffickers," Mashal said of the incident in Takhar. Afghanistan is the world's largest opium producer, providing 87 percent of the world's supply of the illicit drug, according to United Nations figures.

Both Takhar and Herat lie on major routes for smuggling drugs abroad. Takhar, some 250 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of Kabul, borders Tajikstan and while Herat is close to the Iranian frontier.

Officials said Tuesday that Afghanistan's fledgling anti-drugs force seized and destroyed more than four tonnes of drugs and detained 10 people in a recent operation in the south, officials said Tuesday.

Afghan arrested in Pakistan for suspected links with Taliban militia
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) Police raided a home in a southwestern Pakistani town and arrested an Afghan who is suspected of having links with the Taliban militia, an official said Wednesday.

The man was arrested Tuesday night in Kuchlagh, a small town about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, said Ghafoor Kasi, a police superintendent in Quetta.

The 35-year-old suspect was identified as Adam Khan. Police also seized an assault rifle, a satellite phone and some documents during the raid, Kasi said. Kasi would not specify the documents. He said the arrest was made following surveillance of Khan's home where ``suspicious'' people had visited.

``We suspect that he (Khan) has links with the Taliban. But it can be confirmed after investigation,'' Kasi said. remnants of the vanquished Taliban militia which was ousted from power in Afghanistan in late 2001 are believed to hide in Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan.

Last month, police arrested 17 other Taliban suspects in raids in Quetta where thousands of Afghan refugees are also living. A U.S.-led coalition dismantled the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida, which is blamed for the Sept.11, 2001, attacks in America. Thousands of American troops are in Afghanistan trying to track down Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives.

Kabul Appoints Three New Governors
RFE/RL
President Karzai on 20 February appointed Abdul Jabar Taqwa as the governor of Parwan Province; Abdul Satar Morad as the governor of Kapisa Province; and Tamim Nuristani as the governor of Nuristan Province, Radio Afghanistan reported. Parwan and Kapisa are located north of Kabul and Nuristan is in northeastern Afghanistan. AT

NATO to consider radar at Afghan airport after crash
KABUL, Feb 23 (AFP) - NATO-led peacekeepers are considering whether to equip Kabul airport with radar, an official said Wednesday, three weeks after a plane trying to land there hit a mountain in Afghanistan's worst air disaster.

The airport's radar was destroyed during the 25 years of war in Afghanistan and its air traffic is currently controlled by Bagram Air Base, the US-led coalition headquarters in the country.

International Security Assistance Force spokeswoman Major Karen Tissot Van Patot said the commander of its air task force had held talks with Afghan transport officials on how it could best support the airport.

"The issue of prevision of radar to Kabul International Airport has been discussed also with the NATO level," she told reporters in Kabul. “Over the next few weeks we will have more specific information about the outcome of those discussions." she said, adding that talks were continuing with Afghan officials.

The spokeswoman told AFP she did not know if the move was linked to the fatal February 3 crash of a Kam Air Boeing 737, which was flying to Kabul from the western city of Herat when it struck a frozen peak near the capital.

All 104 people on board died. The victims included 24 foreigners -- six Americans, one Iranian, three Italians, nine Turks, a Canadian and four Russian crew members.

Investigators are still probing the cause of the disaster. They are currently examining one of the airliner's "black boxes" found at the scene of the crash, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Kabul. the US military has repeatedly denied that the plane had asked to land at Bagram before it crashed.

Afghanistan avalanches kill 15
Source: News24, South Africa - 23/02/2005 15:14 - (SA)
Kabul - At least 15 people were killed when avalanches hit their mud-brick villages in snowbound western Afghanistan, an official said Wednesday.

The deaths happened over the past week in mountainous areas of Ghor province which are cut off by heavy snowfalls, deputy provincial chief Ikramuddin Rezaie said by telephone.

In the worst incident, five people were buried alive in their house in Pasawand district, he said.

"Altogether 15 people have died in avalanches during the last one week," he added.

Earlier on Wednesday Afghanistan's public health minister said 90 children under five had died in Ghor from diseases sparked by the worst winter in a decade.

They were among at least 211 youngsters who have perished across the country in the cold snap.

Dozens of people have died in other avalanches and road accidents caused by the heavy snowfalls, including ten people who were killed when an avalanche struck in northern Panjshir valley on February 15.

Afghanistan faces disastrous floods from melting snow: WFP
Thursday February 24, 4:56 PM AFP
The World Food Program in Afghanistan is preparing for the risk of potentially catastrophic floods after the snow melts from the worst winter in a decade, in which scores of people died, the UN body said here.

"We are already working on the risk of floods when the snow will melt and we are trying to identify the areas that could be isolated if bridges break or because of swollen rivers," Charles Vincent, country director for the World Food Program (WFP) in Afghanistan, told AFP.

"If the snow melts fast, it could be a catastrophe," he said.

The preparations include stockpiling food in regions that could be isolated by flood waters, which would rise quickly if the weather warmed up sharply in March and melted snowdrifts.

Afghanistan is suffering from the worst winter in almost a decade, with snowdrifts isolating entire regions.

The health ministry said at least 370 people had been confirmed dead but several hundred other deaths might not have been listed as communications with some affected regions were difficult because of the weather.

The dead include at least 211 children under five due who suffered from diseases linked to the freezing weather, like pneumonia, according official health ministry figures.

After seven years of drought many Afghan families have not stockpiled traditional stores of food to get them through the harsh winter months, Vincent said.

"In certain areas they had not seen snow in 25 years so some people had stopped doing it (stockpiling). They did not expect such a winter," he said.

And, with little wood available to use for fuel, people cannot keep themselves warm in the worst-affected regions, such as the remote, high-altitude provinces of Ghor in Badakhshan in the northeast, Vincent said.

In September the WFP put 21,000 tons of food in regional distribution centers around the country in order to reach isolated areas.

In recent weeks it has been working with Afghan authorities and US- and NATO-led soldiers and humanitarian aid agencies to air-drop supplies.

"We have acted fast and there is a strong mobilisation of everybody -- the government, the US coalition and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force)," he said.

The World Food Program has rushed convoys with thousands of tons of food to the worst affected areas.

"We have convoys almost everywhere and as soon as the roads are open, we go," Vincent said.

Afghanistan's new beginning leaves refugees in the cold
Tue Feb 22,10:44 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Mohammed Ismael would never have come back from Pakistan if he knew what lay in store for him in his homeland -- no work, no home, no fuel to heat the tent and keep his newborn baby alive.

"The child was only 15 days old. A boy. There were icicles on the inside of the tent when we woke up. How can a baby survive that?" he asks, cradling one of his two surviving sons in the bombed-out shell of a technical college on the outskirts of Kabul.

His youngest died after a snowfall three weeks ago, before the government moved the refugees from a tented camp to a number of ruined buildings around western Kabul, in the hope it would be easier to keep the cold out.

Previously many refugees in Kabul were living in tents with nothing to insulate them from the cold damp ground, and little fuel or heating.

Afghanistan is suffering its worst winter in a decade. Officials put the number of children dead as a result of the freezing weather at over 120 but aid agencies estimated that up to 1,000 might have died in the last month.

"There are 3.8 million refugees that have come back from Iran and Pakistan and life has got worse for them. They still face problems with shelter and a lack of jobs," said Mohammed Nasim Rasooli, head of resettlement at Afghanistan's Ministry of Refugees.

As he sat crouched on the floor in the room furnished only with three cushions, a spartan floor mat and a dirty Winnie the Pooh cuddly toy, Ismael told AFP: "I was in Pakistan for 21 years, and I had a vegetable shop and we rented a house that had gas, electricity, a television, everything.

"But we sold everything to come back."

Millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees in the years of conflict which followed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, but many have begun returning home since the fall of the hardline Islamic Taliban regime in late 2001.

For Ismael and thousands of others like him, the dream of their own homeland drew them back but what has awaited them bears little relation to the optimistic announcements they heard on the radio abroad after the fall of the Taliban.

The United Nations reported in its first ever development survey of the country Monday that Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest places, ranking 173 out of 178 countries.

There had been "remarkable" progress since US-led forces toppled the Taliban regime, but without help the country could easily "tumble back into chaos", according to the report.

"His Excellency President Hamid Karzai promised us shelter, jobs and prosperity and since we were in a strange country we decided to return home. We thought we would find our own home, but we haven't seen any of his promises made good," Ismael says.

After 25 years of conflict, Afghanistan has struggled to its feet and most of the returning refugees do not feel that violence prevents them from coming home.

Their more basic concerns however, are not being met. There is a lack of jobs, shelter and clean drinking water in this country where much of the infrastructure has been bombed back to the stone age.

Huddled under a snowy mountainside on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, the camp where Mohammed Ismael lives with his wife and two children is a testament to the decades of war.

Most of the children are barefoot and many adults are missing limbs or bear scars from battlefield injuries, while few have enough education to find work now that there are no labouring jobs in the winter months.

"I used to have a business in Pakistan but I haven't worked here in three months. If I could go back now I would but we sold everything to come here, and now we've nothing left," Ismael said.

His children, like most of the other adults and children in the building, are illiterate. There is no money for school fees and the families are struggling just to get enough food and fuel to survive.

One of his neighbours, 49-year-old Rahm-i-Khuda, echoes Ismael's sadness and disappointment having returned to Kabul last year after three years in Iran.

"We thought that when we came we would have a better life, and all we have is this," he says pointing to the plastic covering his windows, and the sputtering woodstove in the room he has lined with the eight carpets which amount to all his worldly possessions.

"We wanted to come back to Afghanistan but we haven't seen a single good thing," he said.

AFGHANISTAN: Preparations for new parliament
KABUL, 22 February (IRIN) - A new multi-million-dollar project aims to put in place the necessary democratic foundations for an Afghan legislature to be established following parliamentary elections scheduled for early spring. Funded by France, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will implement the two-year project designed to ensure the timely establishment of the Afghan parliament and support its functioning.

The first parliamentary elections in the country under the newly elected government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai are scheduled to be held in May. The election has already been postponed once since the autumn due to a lack of administrative preparedness and slow progress on a census of the country's population.

Support to the Establishment of the Afghan Legislature (SEAL) project will establish a secretariat to the parliament and secretariat staff to work effectively to support the new parliamentarians who will be coming from isolated Afghan rural areas with no knowledge of or previous experience in such a body.

"We recognise that establishing a parliament in Afghanistan is a new experience for everybody and creating an effective secretariat is vital before the parliament starts its work," Karen Jorgensen, UNDP senior deputy country director, told IRIN in the capital, Kabul, on Tuesday.

According to UNDP, more than 100 people will be recruited and trained to look after the work of the parliament and its members. "We are trying to support building a truly Afghan parliament that fits the culture and the objectives of the Afghan constitution," Jorgensen added.

The secretariat will start with eight Afghans who were sent to the French parliament for three weeks in December to become acquainted with how such a body works.

"In the next step, we are trying to hire 100 more people in the secretariat. They will be trained based on international standards as the basis for the establishment of the parliamentary secretariat," the UNDP official explained.

SEAL would also build the capacity of the parliamentarians who would come without any experience as to what they are expected to do. "We will also give them exposure to parliaments in other countries and help them understand what their roles as parliamentarians would be."

Jorgensen said SEAL would start with some US $2 million contributed from France and $750,000 funding from UNDP itself. "We have estimated that over the whole year we will need about 15 million dollars and we have a commitment from Germany for a further 1.5 million euros," she said, adding that donor interest in the project had proven strong.

UNDP and Afghan Civil Service Commission SEAL a deal for Parliament
Source: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
22 February 2005; Kabul Afghanistan: Today, UNDP solidified a partnership to support the establishment and functioning of the Afghan legislature. A day after the official launch of the first ever National Human Development Report for Afghanistan, which emphasizes the importance of efficiency, transparency and accountability in government as prerequisites for human development in Afghanistan, UNDP entered into an agreement with the Government of France and the Afghan Civil Service Commission that will ensure that the incoming parliament is given proper support to do its work.

Mr Zéphirin Diabré, Associate Administrator of UNDP, and Dr. Ahmad Moshahed, Chairman of the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission of Afghanistan, endorsed the project document for "Support to the Establishment of the Afghan Legislature" (SEAL) project.

SEAL is a two year, two phase project that aims to put in place the necessary stable democratic foundations for the Afghan Legislature. Phase one will focus on meeting start-up needs and costs for the Parliament before elections. Post-elections, Phase two focuses on continuing to support and to sustain the functions of the parliament in its role as legislator.

Dr. Moshahed addressed his remarks to the future Afghan parliament and referred to its responsibility to the people of Afghanistan. "With the establishment of a parliamentary system", he stated, "we hope that Afghanistan will witness the emergence of a modern and civil life and the establishment of peace and security."

Once elected, the Upper and Lower Houses of parliament will be situated at the former parliament compound on Dar-Ul-Aman road -- renovation and rehabilitation to the structures is underway through a project of the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing. While structural preparations for the incoming parliament proceed, the SEAL project aims to train a core group of civil servants to populate the parliament building, and to put in place the legal framework as well as the coordination and programming mechanisms that will support the new government. In order to facilitate proper communications with all branches of government, the new facilities will be outfitted with office equipment, information and communications technologies, and an effective public outreach strategy will be designed.

"I am pleased to continue to promote the important role of parliament", stated Mr Diabré, "Parliament is a place of debate and the foundation of what will ensure strong leadership in this country." Prior to his appointment as Associate Administrator of UNDP, and among his other leadership roles in his native Bukina Faso, Mr Diabré served as Minister of Finance and as a parliamentarian.

Together with several senior representatives from ministries, UN agencies and the donor community, the document signing was witnessed by His Excellency Jean-Pierre Guinhut, Ambassador of France to Afghanistan. While the Government of France is currently the lead donor for the SEAL project, His Excellency Guinhut promptly pointed out that, in terms of initiative towards democratic governance, "there is only one leading nation -- and it is Afghanistan."

Bulgaria Expands Force in Afghanistan
24 February 2005, Thursday Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria
Parliament approved a draft decision to send additional contingent of Bulgarian Armed Forces for participation in the operation of International Security Assistance Force ISAF in Afghanistan.

Parliament backed the proposal 117-7, 16 abstained.

The up to 30-stong unit will comprise officers, sergeants, intelligence and counter-intelligence teams, military police unit and medicine team, to be fully armed and equipped for the operation, which starts from February 15.

NATO defence ministers agreed during the February Nice meeting on a major expansion of the alliance's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, a key step in a plan to eventually extend NATO's mission across the entire country by 2006.

Bulgaria has committed to expand its participation in Afghanistan missions as the leading country to provide for the security of Kabul airport in June-September 2006.

Stolen military hard-ware seized by Afghan police in the north
Pajhwok Afghan News 02/23/2005
HERAT - Police in the eastern province of Herat have seized a freight container full of military equipment, tools and detained four men as they were unloading the components near the 4th Army division, in the First District of capital Herat city, police officials said Wednesday.

A spokesman for the provincial police department, Mohammad Mosa Rasuli said that various tools and parts that are used for building armored vehicles, tanks and 50 anti-tank missiles was discovered in the container. He did not go into detail about where the stolen equipment originated from.

"There were also items which could be used for building explosive devices," Rasuli told Pajhwok Afghan News.

However, Ghulam Mahbub Banayee of the crime control unit at the police station in Herat said that the items were stolen from the 4th Army Corps. Banayee also said the men stole the equipment just before the national disarmament process of this particular division was to be completed.

Banayee said the gradual disarmament procedure of the disbanded 4th Army division commenced two months ago and would be completed by next month.
In the meantime, a new army division made up of trained national soldiers have already been deployed to the province.

In a separate incident, two months ago, two vehicles loaded with tank machineries were seized en-route to Pakistan and four people were arrested for smuggling.

In Afghanistan, comedians joke their way to civic renewal
By Lane Hartill | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor from the February 23, 2005 edition
KHOST, AFGHANISTAN - Mubariz Bidar would give Robin Williams a run for his money. He's an Afghan comic who has this city - once ruled by severe Taliban - howling at their former oppressors.

His spot-on impressions of everyone from a Taliban soldier to an Afghan drug addict would have even Mullah Omar giggling into his turban.

At a recent impromptu performance, Mubariz wraps on a long black turban - a favorite Taliban accessory - and twists his face into a scowl. He grabs a Kalashnikov to complete the look.

Then he screams at the men to go to the mosque, physically prodding them with his rifle. He grabs one long-haired man and berates him for letting his locks grow - a Taliban pet peeve. His imitation is so precise that the audience can't stop laughing.

It's a disturbing sight for outsiders, but for Afghans who remember the hard-line regime and can finally laugh at it, it's a welcome release.

In a country that had been stung by successive violent regimes, humor has long been a trusted coping mechanism.

Even when in power, the Taliban were the butt of jokes - behind closed doors - that targeted everything from their spot checks for shaved armpits (a rule in Islam) to the radio call-in show where people dedicated songs by mullahs (minus the music, of course). Like others, Afghans have used humor to channel dissent, avoid aggression, and let people separate themselves from the ruling group, experts say.

From youth using humor to cope with - and eventually bring down - Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, to comedian Jay Leno's post 9/11 monologues of Osama bin Laden jokes, comedy is gaining legitimacy as a post-conflict healer.

In fact, stand-up comedians from the Arab world, Israel, and the Palestinian territories plan to travel to both Palestinian and Israeli locations this year to give comedy performances promoting peace.

"Humor is especially important in conflict and post-conflict countries, because it is a way of transcending or disengaging from the difficulties," says Don Nilsen, a member of the International Society for Humor Studies and a historian at Arizona State University who used to work in Afghanistan.

"The humor used by the Jews in Nazi concentration camps allowed the Jews to take a little bit of control of their own lives," he says. "Humor is a way of inverting the power system."

Back in Khost, Mubariz continues to thrill the crowd with impressions - this time with the fake, but flawless, twitter of a Chinese bride. Mubariz is one of the lead actors in Khost Theater, a small band of dedicated actors in this conservative eastern city that is taking comedy to the masses.

Comedy as civic education

Before last October's presidential elections, a Kabul-based nongovernmental organization hired the actors to promote voting in some of the country's most remote southern villages. Hundreds of people saw each show; the message stuck. Women's turnout in Paktia province, which borders Khost and is so traditional that women are rarely seen in public, was among the highest in the country.

The success of the shows, Afghan observers say, illustrates how effective humor and theater is for educating a public with a low literacy rate (only 64 percent of Afghans can read). It may be, they say, the best way to unify the country's four major ethnic groups that are still quietly split along ethnic lines - one of the major obstacles to lasting peace.

"Theater has a big role in the unifying the people in the country," says Mohammad Azim Hussain Zadah, the head of the theater and cinema department in the Fine Arts Faculty at Kabul University. "It's like a guide for the people."

In fact, says Mr. Zadah, "If officials want reconciliation and rehabilitation in the country and want to bring peace and stop ethnic tensions ... they should strengthen cinema and theater in the country."

Reading about unity in a book is one thing, he says, but, "we see it in theater. We reflect what unity means. We get better results when we see it."

Comedy in Afghanistan thrived from the 1800s until the 1960s, when Afghans held actors in high esteem, and Kabul's royal family frequented theaters.

But after the Soviet invasion of 1979, actors slipped out of the country and comedy declined. During the factional fighting in the early 1990s, mujahideen literally blew the roof off the once-stately theater that used to show Molière and Chekhov adaptations. And when the Taliban arrived in 1996, comedy came to a standstill.

Now, with more than $8 billion worth of reconstruction aid estimated to flow into the country during the next 3 years, comedy is finding its footing once again.

In fact, one of the most popular shows on Tolo TV, a private cable station in Kabul, is "Lahza Ha," (Moments). It's the Afghan equivalent of Candid Camera, where pranksters stop Kabulis on the street and con them with gags.

The show is so well liked that some Afghans pray early so they don't miss it, and jokes are rehashed the next day.

Mubariz and his fellow unemployed actors in Khost City stick with comedy even though they aren't paid. They make do with fraying stick-on mustaches and ingenuity.

Indeed, the Afghan version of "Desperate Housewives," requires Mubariz to be the only forced drag queen in the country. Because women are stowed behind walls in this staunchly conservative city, he's left to don a scarf and screech the falsetto whine of a desperate Afghan housewife.

Getting into character

To study women, he cooks at home - a job strictly reserved for women here - and grills his 10 sisters-in-law for material. "I learned a lot of acting from them," he says. He also watches Mr. Bean, Jackie Chan, and Charlie Chaplin films, then practices in front of a mirror.

Mubariz's muses help him and the other actors perfect their delivery to communicate educational messages to audiences - such as the dangers of opium and the benefits of voting. Mubariz speaks fluently both official Afghan languages, Dari and Pashtu, and uses both in performances, a subtle way of reaching across the ethnic divide. This is a challenge for many actors in the country.

"The problem is the people aren't educated," says Mohammad Sharif, one of the actors at Kabul Theater, as he huddles around a tiny wood stove in the dank bowels of the complex. "They just think, 'this is a Pashtun. He's against me. I'm a Tajik. I'm against him.' The theater explains for the people that we are all brothers and can work together."

But ethnic reconciliation after years of war isn't always easy. During the presidential election, Gulmaki Shah Ghiasi, the head of Kabul Theater, put on plays encouraging people to vote. People flocked. She estimates that more than 1,000 people came to each of their 200 shows.

But in Jalalabad, a majority Pashtun city two hours from Kabul, angry locals attacked the actors during a performance, possibly because women were part of the cast.

"They're not going to kill me," Shah Ghiasi says, her nose ring winking in the afternoon light. "They just want to scare me. But I'm not afraid."

2,000 government workers set to begin census of Afghans in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 22 (UNHCR) – A two-week long nationwide census of Afghans living in Pakistan is due to start Wednesday in a bid to provide the first comprehensive picture of the Afghans who arrived in Pakistan in several waves since their country was engulfed in civil conflict a quarter of a century ago.

Some 2,000 government employees, in teams comprising one man and one woman, will record all Afghans who arrived in Pakistan since Dec. 1, 1979. The registration exercise will start in Peshawar and will spread to other areas over the following days.

In addition to providing a more accurate idea of the number of Afghans in the country, the census will record vital information such as date of arrival, place of origin in Afghanistan and current residence in Pakistan. It will also ask about repatriation intentions.

Pre-census estimates put the Afghan population in Pakistan at 1.2 million in the camps, plus an unknown number living in urban areas.

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, where there are currently 960,000 Afghan refugees, verification exercises to count refugees were carried out in 2001 and 2003. Around 3.5 million Afghans have returned to their home country since UNHCR began a voluntary repatriation programme in the spring of 2002, following the fall of the Taliban the previous year.

A high-level meeting in Brussels last week, involving Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran as well as major donor governments and financial and development institutions, resulted in a clear indication of support for continued humanitarian operations in the region, including the voluntary repatriation programme.

The meeting, which was jointly hosted by UNHCR and the European Commission, also indicated support for the integration of Afghans remaining in the neighbouring countries who do not wish to return to Afghanistan.

Iran and Pakistan – which have between them hosted millions of Afghans since the Soviet invasion in 1979 – recognize that a number of Afghans would have genuine difficulties returning to their country of origin.

Discussions about the future of Afghans abroad will continue at another high-level meeting in New York later in the year.

UNHCR News Stories

Afghan Infant Flown to U.S. for Surgery
Wed Feb 23, 4:34 AM ET By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - A 14-month Afghan boy with a serious heart defect began a potentially lifesaving journey to the United States on Wednesday for surgery at an Indiana hospital.

The U.S. military is flying Qudratullah, his impoverished father and a translator to Indianapolis for treatment unavailable in Afghanistan.

Medics from the Indiana National Guard discovered the boy in September in a camp for returning refugees in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and diagnosed him with a congenital heart condition called tetralogy of fallot, or TOF.

U.S. soldiers collected the boy and his father from the muddy camp on Wednesday and brought him to a nearby American base for a check-up. He was to travel to Bagram Air Field, north of the city, on Wednesday afternoon for a flight to Indianapolis via Germany.

"We are very excited that they are taking our child for treatment without charge," said father Hakim Gul, smiling in front of his family's tent as more than a 100 neighbors waited to see them off.

Dozens of men pressed forward to shake Gul's hand after he brought the pale-looking child, wrapped in a blue blanket, to a sports-utility vehicle and urged him to keep them informed of Qudratullah's progress.

Volunteer surgeons are to perform the open-heart operation at Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis, which has offered to fund the $50,000 surgery through donations, military officials said. The Rotary Club organization is covering other costs.

Like many thousands of Afghans, the boy's parents returned to Kabul from Pakistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 but have found shelter only in squalid camps or bombed-out buildings left over from the country's long wars.

Gul, a 31-year-old native of the northern province of Kunduz, said he had brought his wife and only child back six months ago from the Pakistani city of Peshawar, where doctors diagnosed the problem but said the treatment was expensive.

The boy's faulty heart reduces the flow of blood to the lungs and restricts the supply of oxygen to the rest of the body. It causes stunted growth and loss of brain function and eventually becomes fatal without correction.

The three Afghans are to stay at The Ronald McDonald House on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University before and after the operation.

Capt. Mike Roscoe, a medic at Camp Phoenix, which houses U.S. soldiers training Afghanistan's army, said the surgery was risky but was Qudratullah's only hope.

"He does have a good chance of living a normal lifespan, which is something that is not even a remote possibility without the surgery," Roscoe said. "The best that we have right now is giving Qudrat a chance of survival."