Afghanistan News Februray 7, 2005

February 7, 2005

NATO Troops Reach Wreckage of Afghan Plane
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO troops reached the wreckage of an Afghan airliner Monday, four days after it crashed into a snowy mountain peak with 104 people on board, and began the gruesome task of sifting through the remains, an alliance spokesman said.

Officials hold out little hope for finding any of the 96 passengers and eight crew — including more than 20 foreigners — alive. Six American were believed to be aboard the flight.

Clear skies allowed helicopters to drop a small team of medics, mountaineers and explosives experts near the site, 20 miles east of Kabul, on Monday morning, an alliance spokesman said. There was no immediate word on what they saw.

"The weather is much better today, which allowed them to get to the top," Maj. Joseph Bowman said. "They're looking for survivors and trying to make the site secure" for more forces to join the operation, he said.

The Boeing 737-200, flown by Kam Air, Afghanistan's first post-Taliban private airline, vanished from radar screens Thursday afternoon as it approached Kabul airport in a snowstorm from the western city of Herat.

NATO helicopters spotted parts of the wreckage some 11,000 feet up Chaperi Mountain on Saturday, but freezing fog, low cloud and up to eight feet of snow had prevented alliance and Afghan forces from reaching the site by air or on the ground.

If the fatalities are confirmed, it will be Afghanistan's worst air disaster.

At Kabul airport, Slovenian mountain troops from Afghanistan's NATO-led peacekeeping force loaded supplies into helicopters heading to the crash site.

At the town of But Khak, German and French soldiers ran mine-detecting equipment over a makeshift landing pad that Afghan officials said would be used as a staging post once the first bodies are found and flown out.

Afghan soldiers set up a checkpoint on the nearby road to stop relatives and media from traveling to the foot of the mountain and getting in the way of the recovery operation.

They decided against halting one truck, full of relatives furious at the slow pace of the rescue operation, who insisted on mounting their own search for their loved-ones, but persuaded others that it was futile.

Awaz, an Afghan traveling along with 14 other family members in two sports-utility vehicles that stopped at the checkpoint, said he wanted to bring back the body of his 22-year-old brother, Baz Mohammed, before it was harmed by the extreme cold and by scavenging birds.

"I will know his face, or his shalwar kameez (baggy pants and shirt) or I will find his ID card in his pocket," said Awaz, who like many Afghans goes by one name.

On Saturday, the alliance released a photo of the plane's white tail fin jutting from the snow on a bleak ridge. No other wreckage or bodies could be seen, though NATO soldiers near the scene said larger sections littered the other side of the mountain.

Alliance officials said they were talking to local people to try to find a "back trail" through the daunting peaks for forces to reach the site on foot.

Afghan officials say air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane just after it was given permission to land. But the airline believes it turned away from Kabul toward Pakistan in search of an alternative air strip before it hit the mountain.

The mainly Afghan passengers included an army general and several businessmen.

Nine Turks, six Americans and three Italians were also believed to have taken the flight, though a final list has yet to be released. Airline officials say the crew was made of up of six Russians and two Afghans.

Afghanistan's most recent commercial crash was on March 19, 1998, when an Ariana Airlines Boeing 727 slammed into a peak south of Kabul, killing all 45 passengers and crew. The U.S. military has suffered a string of deadly air accidents in Afghanistan, most involving helicopters.

First bodies recovered from Afghan plane crash site
KABUL (AFP) - NATO-led and Afghan troops have recovered the first bodies from the site where a passenger jet carrying 104 people hit a snow-covered mountain four days earlier.

Three corpses were found Monday by search teams amid the wreckage of the Kam Air Boeing 737-200 in a remote area near Kabul, after previous efforts to get there were thwarted by bad weather.

"They have found three bodies," Afghan army general Ahmad Pia Wastali told an AFP reporter on board a reconnaissance helicopter flying over the site at Chaperi Ghar.

Troops from the Afghan national army and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) contingent of peacekeepers based in Afghanistan (news - web sites) could be seen on the peak of the mountain.

General Wastali said the chief of staff of the Afghan national army was also going to the site.

Search teams finally got to the wreckage by helicopter at around 10:00 am (0530 GMT) on Monday, officials said.

"Rescuers have reached the crash site. They are starting to secure the site and looking for survivors," said ISAF spokesman Major Joseph Bowman.

The jet went missing on Thursday during a flight from the western city of Herat to Kabul. Among those on board were 24 foreigners -- six Americans, one Iranian, three Italians, nine Turks, a Canadian and four Russian crew members.

Its wreckage was spotted Saturday 30 kilometres (20 miles) east of the capital at an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,900 feet) after an intensive search.

The US embassy said Sunday that all those aboard were dead and the Afghan interior ministry said the previous day that it did not believe there were any survivors.

Kabul is surrounded by mountains. Afghanistan's rugged landscape, 40 percent of which is 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) or more above sea level, presents a challenge to pilots.

Kam Air is the first privately run Afghan airline and was launched in November 2003 with a fleet comprising a Boeing 767, a Boeing 727, an Antonov 24 and the Boeing 737 which crashed.

The airline connects several towns in Afghanistan and also has international flights to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Bad weather hampers search for Afghan plane crash victims
Monday February 7, 3:57 AM AFP
Bad weather forced foreign peacekeepers and Afghan police and troops to abandon efforts to reach the spot where a plane carrying 104 people crashed in snowclad mountains east of Kabul, as the US embassy said all those aboard were dead.

The weather hampered helicopter flights to the area and Afghan ground troops had been told to try to reach the site, although deep snow and the rugged terrain were hindering efforts three days after the crash, officials said.

"We have called off the search," said a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Poulain.

ISAF rescue teams had to be airlifted off the mountain and back to Kabul due to deteriorating weather.

"We could not reach the site by air and ground operations also failed. Operations will resume tomorrow as soon as it is day if weather permits," he said.

"So far the best way to get there is by air but the weather is against us."

US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad expressed deep sadness at the crash. Six Americans were among the dead.

"104 people perished in this crash, among them fellow American citizens who were helping to build a better Afghanistan," he said in a statement.

Colonel Poulain however would not say the passengers were all dead.

"As long as we don't have people on site we cannot say it," he said.

A Western security source who wished to remain anonymous said pictures of the plane showed very scattered debris.

This indicated a powerful impact against the mountain with very little chance the passengers could survive such a violent crash, the source said.

The Kam Air Boeing 737-200 went missing on Thursday during a flight from the western city of Herat to Kabul. Among those on board were 24 foreigners -- six Americans, one Iranian, three Italians, nine Turks, one Canadian and four Russian crew members.

Its wreckage was spotted Saturday 30 kilometres (20 miles) east of Kabul at an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,900 feet). The interior ministry said Saturday it did not believe there were any survivors.

Officials say around 1,000 Afghan police and soldiers are involved in the operation to reach the site.

"There is about one to two meters of snow and we estimate that another 50 centimeters of snow fell overnight. The landing zone is very difficult due to steepness, snow and the general terrain," said ISAF spokeswoman Major Karen Tissot van Patot.

She said it was forecast to be minus 3.0 degrees Celsius (27 Fahrenheit) overnight in Kabul with temperatures only rising to plus 3.0 on Monday with snow expected.

"But you have to bear in mind that we are at 6,000 feet and that they are at 10,000," she said.

Some local media reports said there could be a minefield in the area but the spokeswoman could not confirm that.

ISAF soldiers and Afghan forces launched the hunt for the aircraft after it disappeared from radar screens on Thursday. Its wreckage was spotted during a joint search.

"So far we don't think there are any survivors," interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said on Saturday. "The plane is completely destroyed."

But Transportation Minister Anayatullah Qasimi told a press conference that the search and rescue operation would continue.

Kabul is surrounded by mountains. Afghanistan's rugged landscape, 40 percent of which is 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) or more above sea level, presents a challenge to pilots.

Crews Struggle to Reach Afghan Plane Wreck
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press February 6, 2005
CHENARI, Afghanistan - NATO helicopters and hundreds of police officers struggled to reach the wreckage of an Afghan commercial airliner Sunday, three days after it rammed into a snow-covered mountain peak, apparently killing all 104 people on board.

Fog, freezing temperatures and up to eight feet of snow thwarted efforts to reach the crash site of the private Kam Air Boeing 737-200, which was found Saturday about 20 miles east of Kabul.

Officials believe none of the 96 passengers and eight crew — including at least 24 foreigners — survived the crash, expected to be Afghanistan's deadliest commercial air disaster.

On Sunday, NATO said its helicopters ferried Slovenian mountain rescue teams to the site, some 11,000 feet up Chaperi Mountain, but by late afternoon had failed to land.

The alliance released a photograph of what appeared to be part of the plane's white tail fin jutting from the snow. No other wreckage or bodies could be seen.

"The landing zone is very difficult due to the steepness of the terrain as well as the snow," NATO spokeswoman Maj. Karen Tissot Van Patot said.

About 18 inches of snow fell overnight, adding to the 6 1/2 feet already covering the mountainside, and the temperature dropped to about 10, Patot said.

Gen. Mahbub Amiri, an Afghan police commander coordinating the search from a village at the mountain's base, said he had more than 300 officers in position but could not send them up the slopes because of poor visibility.

"For the time being, there is nothing we can do," Amiri said.

The plane flown by Kam Air, post-Taliban Afghanistan's first private airline, vanished from radar screens Thursday while approaching Kabul airport in a snowstorm from the western city of Herat.

The airline believes the plane turned toward the Pakistani border city of Peshawar, searching for an easier landing, but encountered more bad weather. There was no indication that the scheduled flight was hijacked or brought down by a bomb.

"Maybe the pilot was not familiar with the area and he was in a lower position than he should have been," said Feda Mohammed Fedayi, Kam Air's deputy director. "The only reason we can suggest at this time is the weather."

Afghan transport minister Enayatullah Qasemi said Saturday the cause of the crash remained a mystery, and U.S. Department of Transportation experts and representatives of the foreign victims would help investigate.

President Hamid Karzai was "deeply saddened" and prayed for the victims when the crash was confirmed, his office said in a statement issued Sunday.

Kam Air began flying in November 2003. Its flights on leased Boeing and Antonov planes are popular with Afghan businessmen as well as aid and reconstruction workers. However, there have been concerns about the safety of its planes and its routes through the mountains near Kabul.

Qasemi said the plane carried passengers from at least five foreign countries.

U.S.-based Louis Berger Group Inc. confirmed that two of its engineers took the flight. Company manager Fred Chace identified them as Mark Humphries, from Texas, and Gianluigi Barattin, an Italian citizen. Both were helping rebuild a key Afghan highway.

Five other Americans were believed on board, including three staff of Management Sciences for Health, a nonprofit group based in Cambridge, Mass.

At Italian U.N. worker and a navy captain also were feared lost, along with nine Turks and the eight crew members — six Russians and two Afghans.

The Afghan passengers included Gen. Qasi Mohammed, commander of the Herat border brigade, as well as the brigade's finance director and a bodyguard, said Gen. Abdel Wahab Walizada, the top army commander in Herat.

Afghanistan's most recent commercial crash occurred March 19, 1998, when an Ariana Airlines Boeing 727 slammed into a peak south of Kabul, killing all 45 passengers and crew.

Chinese FM condoles loss of lives in Afghan air crash:
New Kerala, India
[World News]: Beijing, Feb 6 : China has condoled the death of 102 people on a crashed Afghan airliner, the state media reported today.
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing in a condolence message yesterday to his Afghan counterpart, Abdullah Abdullah, expressed his sympathy over the tragedy.

The Kam Air Boeing 737 airliner that went missing on Thursday was confirmed crashed and the wreckage of the plane was found yesterday.

The airliner, carrying 96 passengers, was travelling from the western city of Herat in Afghanistan to Kabul. On board the plane were also six Russian crew members and two Afghan staff. PTI

Relatives of passengers on crashed plane wait with fear and hope
Pajhwok Afghan News 02/06/2005
KABUL and HERAT - In front of Kam Air's Kabul office a queue of desperate people has formed. A Kabul-bound plane of the country's first private airline, Kam Air, disappeared on Thursday afternoon. It was not till Saturday that security forces were able to locate the wreckage of the plane. With searches continuing at the time of writing there was little hope of any survivors.

The lack of any definite information over three days has however left relatives and friends of the passengers frantic with hope, fear and longing.

Hamidullah, from Mazar-e-Sharif waits desperately in front of the office of Kam Air to get news about his relatives who were on the flight. Hamidullah is still hoping that they might have survived Thursday's crash.

"I hope the airplane has taken off somewhere safely and the passengers are safe," said Mohammad Nadir who has joined the queue. He had two relatives on the ill-fated Heart-Kabul flight, he says- Abdul Majid and Dawod.

Ahmad Zaki, a young man from Kabul, said he was waiting for Mirwais, his cousin who was to return from Herat where he had traveled in connection with his video cassette business. Standing in front of the Kam Air office in Qala-e-Fathullah, Zaki hoped he would get to see Mirwais, whether dead or alive.

Tears rolling down his face, Mohammad Reza said his uncle was on the flight. The government should monitor the weather conditions and not allow any flights in bad weather. Reza was one who had little hope. "I am waiting for the body of my uncle," he sobbed. "We have been waiting for several days and we still have not got the bodies of our relatives," Reza said. A Kam Air official said a delegation had been dispatched to the area and that all questions would be answered once the investigation was complete.

Mournful relatives of the passengers are also waiting for any news about their missing loved ones in Herat, from where the Boeing 737 took off for Kabul. Standing before the closed doors of the Kam Air office in Heart, Ali Reza, a 27-year old says his cousin was on the plane. Two members of his family fainted when they heard about the crash. "Now I am shuttling between the Kam Air office and the hospital (to see whether any injured persons had been brought in)," Reza said.

Mohammad Gul also from Herat was shocked by the bad luck of a close relative who was returning home from Iran after a sentence of execution was lifted. "He survived the sentence and was coming home to see his family but…," Gul mumbled.

Obaidullah who lost his niece in the incident said the accident was an act of God.

Karzai replaces provincial governors
Dawn
KABUL, Feb 5: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has replaced six provincial governors after promising to rein in the powers of regional warlords, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

"The new appointments are to improve administrative reforms and to put the right persons in the right positions," Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the interior ministry said.

"The reforms in other provinces will continue," Mr Mashal said.

Mr Karzai won a landslide victory in Afghanistan's first democratic presidential elections in October.

The US-backed president had pledged before the election to bring reforms within his government and to the provinces where the regional warlords hold sway.

The latest shake-up occurs in some of the northern and South-eastern provinces.-AFP

Afghan president seeks World Bank aid for anti-drugs drive
February 6, 2005
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on the World Bank to do more to fund alternative livelihoods for farmers hit by the anti-drugs drive in Afghanistan, the world's biggest producer of opium and heroin, his office said on Sunday.

The U.N. says drug exports account for more than 60 percent of Afghanistan's economy and despite the government's efforts at a crackdown, Afghan opium output has surged to near-record levels since U.S.-led troops toppled the Taliban government in 2001.

Karzai made the aid request in a telephone call to World Bank President James Wolfensohn, a Presidential Palace statement said.

Karzai said his government was determined to eradicate the cultivation of poppies which are used to make opium and heroin, but said international assistance was needed.

"The president specifically requested the World Bank to prioritise the provision of alternative livelihoods to the affected communities in its reconstruction and development assistance programmes for Afghanistan," it said.

Karzai has made the fight against the "dishonour" of drug production a priority of his new government, urging provincial governors and regional commanders to destroy poppies by all means necessary.

Diplomats and aid workers in Afghanistan report a marked drop in poppy planting this year. But that may be due to producers hording stocks until prices recover following a market glut.

Some 30 non-governmental organisations active in Afghanistan last week urged the United States, which strongly backs the Afghan poppy eradication programme, to do more to promote alternative livelihoods for farmers and arrest traffickers.

They said in an open letter to the U.S. government that a fierce programme of eradication would create instability in the fledgling democracy and line the pockets of drug lords who would benefit from higher prices as they sold off their stockpiles.

NATO Forces Struggle to Reach Afghan Plane Wreckage
Sun Feb 6, 9:52 AM ET By Yousuf Azimy
CHENARI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - NATO-led troops on Sunday failed to reach the icy mountain peak where an Afghan airliner crashed three days ago with 104 people on board, a spokeswoman for the peacekeeping force said.

All aboard the Kam Air Boeing 737 are feared to have died on the 11,000 feet mountain, blanketed in thick snow after two weeks of bad weather. If the deaths are confirmed, it would be the worst crash in Afghan aviation history.

Most of the passengers were Afghans but also aboard were nine Turks, four Americans, an Italian navy officer, two other Italians, an Iranian and the eight crew, four of them Russians.

Helicopters from Afghanistan's NATO-led ISAF peacekeepers were grounded on Sunday morning due to bad weather, but flew over the site later, though they failed to land anyone on the mountain top before calling off the search as night fell.

"Helicopters have been flying all around the area, but we haven't been able to get any troops in ... the cliffs are so steep," said ISAF spokeswoman Karen Tissot van Patot.

Ground troops also struggled against the treacherous terrain and the precipitous cliffs to try to reach the wreckage on the Shapiri Ghar mountain above the village of Chenari some 19 miles southeast of the capital, Kabul.

"The troops will camp overnight and set out again in the morning," said Van Patot.

The first picture of the crash site, taken from a NATO helicopter on Saturday, showed only the white tail fin of the doomed aircraft sticking upright out of the snow.

The plane had been flying to Kabul on Thursday from the western city of Herat, a busy route for Afghan businessmen and foreign aid workers returning to the capital for the weekend.

But a snow storm prevented the plane from landing and it disappeared off radar screens minutes later.

Kabul airport is on a high plain surrounded by mountains, forcing pilots to do a sharp turn immediately before landing even in good conditions. It also lacks sophisticated electronic equipment to guide pilots trying to land in bad weather.

Afghan airline Kam Air opened as Afghanistan's only private airline in November 2003. It flies leased aircraft between Kabul, Dubai and Istanbul and operates several domestic routes. (Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin and Jon Hemming in Kabul)

NZ troops arrive for Afghanistan election mission
07.02.05 1.00pm By Ash Sweeting in Afghanistan New Zealand Herald, New Zealand
Lance Corporal Sas Winikrei arrives at Bamiyan airport as part of the fifth contingent of New Zealand soldiers to be sent to Afghanistan. Picture / Ash Sweeting

The fifth and largest contingent of New Zealand soldiers to be sent to Afghanistan arrived on the snow-covered strip of dirt that is Bamiyan airport in Afghanistan to the sounds of a haka.

The new 121-member New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team will help communities in Bamiyan Province as well as assist in the country's April parliamentary elections.

Two police officers have also been added to the contingent to assist with the training of the local police force.

The changeover ceremony for the NZPRT took place last week. Bamiyan Governor Mohamed Rahim Aliyar thanked the outgoing contingent for their work.

Lying deep within the Hindi Kush, Bamiyan is one of the most rugged parts of Afghanistan, and is referred to as "wild west" by Patrol Commander Major Roger Earp.

The New Zealand patrols have had to deal with deep snow trying to cross passes higher than Aoraki (Mt Cook), intense cold in the winter, burning heat in the summer, dust that wreaked havoc with equipment and roads that make the standard farm track seem like a highway.

But according to Major Earp, the biggest challenge was "understanding the politics, culture, inter-relationships and trying to identify the Afghan solution to the problem".

For the members of the outgoing contingent, the highlight of their tour is almost universally last October's inaugural Afghan presidential elections. The New Zealanders provided security throughout the province.

They also assisted with transporting ballot boxes, many of which had to be carted on donkeys for more than two days to the nearest road.

"Election day was an amazing event. There had been 10cm of snow overnight and people were lining up at polling booths at 3am in the snow," said Commander Colonel Mick Alexander.

Other major achievements of the soldiers have been the location, collection and destruction of more than 25 tonnes of illegal munitions from 10 caches and the construction of six bridges and three schools.

They have also helped to train local police and, along with NZAID, provided vocational training to hundreds of soldiers who had given up their guns to live a peaceful civilian life.

In an unprecedented step, the team worked with UNHCR and UNICEF, which generally try to distance themselves from any association with the military. Together they handed out winter clothing donated from New Zealand, Japan and the United States to the children of 1500 poor families in the drought-ravaged province. It was a significant act as the nearby German contingent had retreated to their base and hid during violent riots in the city of Faizabad last September.

The largest challenge for the incoming soldiers, who have been preparing for this mission since October, will be the upcoming parliamentary elections, said their commander, Group Captain John Duxfield.

Security will be an issue during the run-up to the elections - the second step on the plan to democracy - as deep rivalries within the province are likely to emerge.

"To maintain stability we need to build relationships, build trust," he said. "We can't operate without the consensus of the population."

One of the first tasks will be disarming the militias of a few rogue commanders in the south of the province.

Captain Sara Harrison, the first female patrol commander deployed in Afghanistan, said she had "probably the best job in the New Zealand Defence Forces at the moment".

She regards her biggest challenge as "keeping up morale over the tour".

The 104 departing soldiers are relishing getting home to family and friends. For gunner Private Kelly French, his first time out of New Zealand has been an amazing experience. "Afghanistan is really different. It's a real war-torn country with lots of poverty," he said.

"Some [Afghans] look a lot like Maori - they could pass as my uncles or as my little cousins."

Afghan Militia Leaders Inflated Troop Numbers to Get Salaries
Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Afghan militia leaders inflated the size of their forces in order to collect salaries for an estimated 50,000 militiamen who didn't exist, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said.

Officials handling the disarmament program that began more than a year ago now estimate a total of 50,000 militiamen have to be disarmed. More than 36,000 have handed in their weapons to date, the UN said.

``The other 50,000 never existed, except on the Ministry of Defense payroll,'' Ariane Quentier, senior public information officer for the mission, said yesterday at a briefing in Kabul, according to the agency's Web site. ``This is because a number of commanders who wanted to collect more salaries than they had soldiers had purposely swollen the number of military personnel under their command.''

Afghanistan is preparing to hold parliamentary and local elections between April and May, 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 earlier this month.

The disarmament program has decommissioned 130 military units, the UN said.

``With the one-by-one decommissioning of units, genuine numbers of soldiers were eventually established,'' Quentier said yesterday, according to the UN.

Security Forces
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 9,000 soldiers in the UN- authorized International Security Assistance Force responsible for security in the capital, Kabul.

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, the main engine of economic growth in Afghanistan, increased 64 percent in 2004, the UN said in November. The opium poppy is the raw ingredient in producing heroin.

Afghanistan last month created its first unit that will be part of a national task force to fight drug trafficking, Agence France-Presse reported at the time. The group includes 10 police investigators, seven prosecutors, three judges and four prison officers, the news agency said. The full task force, scheduled to be operating this year, will involve 85 people, including 15 judges, AFP reported.

Ending Dependence

The UN is undertaking a $25 million, five-year project aimed at ending the dependence of Afghan farmers on cultivating the opium poppy. Afghan opium exports are worth $2.8 billion, the Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report in November.

The Afghan government estimates it needs $27.5 billion over the next seven years to help rebuild and curb farmer's dependence on growing opium poppies. The International Monetary Fund said the illicit drug revenue is equivalent to about 60 percent of the country's non-drug gross domestic product.

Karzai yesterday asked the World Bank to help the campaign against drugs by providing alternative sources of income for poppy farmers in the country, AFP reported, citing a government statement issued in Kabul.

Karzai made the appeal during a telephone called with James Wolfensohn, the World Bank president, AFP said, citing the government's statement.

First independent women-managed radio inaugurated in Maimana, Afghanistan
Source: Internews Network Inc. 03 Feb 2005
Radio Quyaash, Maimana's first independent women-managed radio station, was officially inaugurated this week. The station broadcasts on 89 MHz in Dari, Pashto and Uzbek and reaches almost 3000 people in the capital city of Faryab province.

Rona Sherzai, the manager of the station, congratulated the citizens of Maimana for gathering to celebrate their first independent station: "Today's ceremony has brought the community together to celebrate independent radio. It lets people know we are a neutral non-political voice. People now feel comfortable expressing their thoughts freely to us on the radio."

The Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (IMPACS) supports Radio Quyaash through on-going financial, journalism and management training, with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). In its role as technical partner, INTERNEWS, with funding from USAID, provides the equipment to operate the station, and as well, offers on-going technical assistance.

The official inauguration of Radio Quyaash was attended by Canadian Ambassador Christopher Alexander, the Director of USAID, Patrick Fine, the Deputy-Minister of Culture and Information, Said Aqa Hossein Soncharaki, and the Governor of Faryab Province, Abdul Latif Ebrahimi.

Ambassador Alexander told a crowd of more than 200 supporters who attended the opening that radio stations like Quyaash are tools that help build the nation: "It is a great privilege for me as a Canadian to witness more women joining together to help rebuild Afghanistan. I would like to congratulate the women of Radio Quyaash as they join their sisters across the country as pioneers of women-managed radio."

Radio Quyaash is the fourth women-managed radio station established outside of Kabul by IMPACS, with the assistance of Internews. It joins Radio Rabia Balkhi in Mazar-i-Sharif (launched in March 2003), Radio Sahar in Herat (October, 2003), and Radio Zohra in Kunduz (March 2004).

USAID Director, Patrick Fine, congratulated the community of Maimana for working together to open the station. "In English we have a saying that information is power. I hope this radio station will make Maimana a more powerful place by offering people easier access to information."

The staff of Radio Quyaash join IMPACS and Internews in thanking the many organizations that have assisted the station, including Intersos, IOM, World Food Program, UNDP and the Maiman Provincial Reconstruction Team.

Afghan embassy plans to build community centres and schools
Gulf News
Abu Dhabi: Lack of community schools and cultural centres is a major challenge for about 200,000 Afghans living the UAE, Afghanistan's ambassador has said.

During an interview with Gulf News, the new ambassador, Abdul Farid Zikria, who was posted as Afghanistan's first full ambassador to the UAE, said it was time the strong Afghan community here have their own schools and cultural and social centres.

Zikria, who was Chief of Protocol in the Foreign Ministry in Kabul, arrived here more than two months ago to assume his ambassadorial duties.
He comes from the Mohammadzai clan of the Durrani tribe in Kandahar.

He is a nuclear engineer by profession.

Talking about his first experience as ambassador, Zikria said: "Despite decades of war, political crises and natural drought in Afghanistan, the government in Kabul and its dip-lomatic missions abroad were able to make progress on many fronts.

"Here in the UAE we have our diplomatic missions involved in further cementing the growing brotherly relations between the two countries.

"However, we have some challenges to meet. Despite a strong community of about 200,000, our children still don't have a school where they can learn in their mother tongues, nor have we a cultural or social centre in the country."

The ambassador said he met a number of community members to float the idea and initiate a project to start a school with the Afghan curriculum.

"We are in the process and discussing with the community members to have such entities here. Most probably we will start with a school in Al Ain, where close to 80,000 Afghans live," said the ambassador, who lived in US and returned to Afghanis-tan in December 2001 to serve his country.

Zikria also said he will discuss it with the Pakistani and Indian ambassadors separately to gain from their experiences on community schools and social centres. Currently Afghan children attend Pakistani, Indian and other private English schools.

He said such centres and schools are necessary for the community, providing them platforms to maintain unity and loyalty for their country through close interaction.
Millions of Afghans have been displaced for decades due to the Soviet invasion and wars.

The Afghan community in the UAE also includes those who came here from Pakistan, where they were living as refugees.

Thousands of these Afghans hold Pakistani passports.

Referring to the restoration of these peoples' citizenship, Zikria said 100 to 120 of them have been approaching the embassy each month since the middle of last year to get Afghan passports.

"Earlier, it was very difficult to change their Pakistani passport as the local authorities would not transfer their residence permits on the new passport.

"However, we took up the issue with the UAE Government and discussed it with them. Finally they agreed to it, and now with the cooperation of the Pakistan Embassy and local authorities we are able to restore former Afghan refugees' citizenship," the ambassador said. He said this was necessary to help former Afghan citizens to return to Afghanistan and play their roles in the reconstruction of their country.

Elaborating on UAE-Afghanistan relations, he said the relations between the two governments are very strong and likely to strengthen further.

He said the two countries enjoy the best of relations due to the personal keenness of President Hamid Karzai and the late Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
"In his [Shaikh Zayed] sudden death, the people of Afghanistan have lost a fatherly figure. He was the biggest supporter of Afghan during the Soviet invasion and for peace and tranquility in Afghanistan," he said.

"With the strong relations between the two countries, now the Afghan Government is keen to see a full-fledged UAE ambassador deputed to Kabul," the ambassador said.

Referring to Afghanis-tan's efforts to fight narcotics, Zikria said the government immediately after the elections initiated a campaign against drugs.

"It is the top priority of Hamid Karzai's government. I've personally recently visited Jalalabad and was really impressed to see 90 per cent of the poppy growers have decided to opt for other crops.

By the end of the year, the poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is set to fall by 50 per cent, though the target was 25 per cent," he said. He said Karzai's campaign to fight narcotics shows tremendous achievements.

Five die of food poisoning in Herat
Pajhwok Afghan News 02/06/2005
HERAT - Five members of a family have died of food poisoning in Herat city. The victims include a woman and her four children aged between 6 to 15 years.
The five who fell ill after consuming some fried snacks were shifted to a hospital in Iran after their condition worsened. However they could not be saved despite all efforts.

Dr. Zaher Niyazai, head of the pediatric ward of the Herat Hospital, said the highly spiced fried snacks was the cause of the incident. "These spicy foods often lead to a kind of liver inflation" he told Pajhwok.

Ghulam Sarwar, a resident of Heart, asked the authorities to impose a ban on the sale of such savories spice food items. Dr. Amin Haider, head of the Herat City Environmental Health Department, said, "our top priority is to get rid of the vendors selling these foods on the streets."

Afghan nation should think of Aryan as national bank: bank director
Tehran Times Economic Desk
TEHRAN ?In addition to boosting trade relations between Iran and Afghanistan, the Aryan Bank will pave the way for the reconstruction and economic development of this country, a fax released by the Bank Melli Iran said here Sunday.

Inauguration of the Aryan Bank during the Ten- Day Dawn celebrations is an auspicious beginning with which another golden page is turned in the joint long- lasting history of friendship of the two neighboring and Muslim nations? the report quoted the managing director of the Bank Melli Iran as saying.

The Afghan people should not regard Aryan Bank as a foreign bank operating in their country rather, they should consider it as the manifestation of the resolution of the two great Iranian and Afghan nations to furthermore expand their economic relations, the two nations that inherit and enjoy a profound joint culture and civilization, noted the managing director of the Bank Melli Iran.

The report also referred to Iran’s allocation of 500 million dollars for financial and developmental assistance to Afghanistan and asserted that Aryan Bank could play an effective role in directing and orienting portions of the fund delineated by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) to facilitate and boost the trade relations and commercial transactions between the two countries.

Elsewhere in the report, Seyf noted that Iranian nation has never thought of their Afghan brothers and sisters who during the past two decades of war and hostilities took refuge in Iran, as foreigners rather, they regarded them as their dear guests who in search of peace, tranquility and a decent life resided in their second home, Iran.

The Afghan nation should think of Aryan Bank as its national bank and assist it to materialize its objectives that are mainly, development of Afghanistan and facilitation of the trade relations between the two countries of Iran and Afghanistan.

Out with the old, in with the new
The Iraqi elections were designed not to preserve the unity of Iraq but to re-establish the unity of the west
Tariq Ali Monday February 7, 2005 The Guardian
The US, unlike the empires of old Europe, has always preferred to exercise its hegemony indirectly. It has relied on local relays - uniformed despots, corrupt oligarchs, pliant politicians, obedient monarchs - rather than lengthy occupations. It was only when rebellions from below threatened to disrupt this order that the marines were dispatched and wars fought.

During the cold war, money was supplied indiscriminately to all anti-communist forces (including the current leadership of al-Qaida); the 21st-century recipients are more carefully targeted. The aim is slowly to replace the traditional elites in the old satrapies with a new breed of neo-liberal politicians who have been trained and educated in the US. This is the primary function of the US money allocated to "democracy promotion". Loyalty can be purchased from politicians, parties and trades unions. And the result, it is hoped, is to create a new layer of janissary politicians who serve Washington.

This most recent variant of "democracy promotion" has now been applied in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it will hit Haiti (another occupied country) in November. Create a new elite, give it funds and weaponry to build a new army and let them make the country safe for the corporations.

The 2004 Afghan elections, even according to some pro-US commentators, were a farce, and the much vaunted 73% turnout was a fraud. In Iraq, the western media were celebrating a 60% turnout within minutes of the polls closing, despite the fact that Iraq lacks a complete register of voters, let alone a network of computerised polling stations. The official figure, when it comes, is likely to be revised downwards (according to Debka, a pro-US Israeli website, turnout was closer to 40%).

The "high" turnout was widely interpreted as a rejection of the Iraqi resistance. But was it? Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's many followers voted to please him, but if he is unable to deliver peace and an end to the occupation, they too might defect.

The only force in Iraq the occupiers can rely on are the Kurdish tribes. The Kurdish 36th command battalion fought alongside the US in Falluja, but the tribal chiefs want some form of independence, and some oil. If Turkey, loyal Nato ally and EU aspirant, vetoes any such possibility, then the Kurds too might accept money from elsewhere. The battle for Iraq is far from over. It has merely entered a new stage.

Despite strong disagreements on boycotting the elections, the majority of Iraqis will not willingly hand over their oil or their country to the west. Politicians who try to force this through will lose all support and become totally dependent on the foreign armies in their country.

The popular resistance will continue. Many in the west find it increasingly difficult to support this resistance. The arguments for and against it are old ones. In 1885, the English socialist William Morris celebrated the defeat of General Gordon by the Mahdi: "Khartoum fallen - into the hands of the people it belongs to". Morris argued that the duty of English internationalists was to support all those being oppressed by the British empire despite disagreements with nationalism or fanaticism.

The triumphalist chorus of the western media reflects a single fact: the Iraqi elections were designed not so much to preserve the unity of Iraq but to re-establish the unity of the west. After Bush's re-election the French and Germans were looking for a bridge back to Washington. Will their citizens accept the propaganda that sees the illegitimate election (the Carter Centre, which monitors elections worldwide, refused to send observers) as justifying the occupation?

The occupation involved a military and economic invasion as envisaged by Hayek, the father of neo-liberalism, who pioneered the notion of lightning air strikes against Iran in 1979 and Argentina in 1982. The re-colonisation of Iraq would have greatly pleased him. Politicians masking their true aims with weasel words about "humanity" would have irritated him.

What of the media, the propaganda pillar of the new order? In Control Room, a Canadian documentary on al-Jazeera, one of the more disgusting images is that of embedded western journalists whooping with joy at the capture of Baghdad. The coverage of "elections" in Afghanistan and Iraq has been little more than empty spin. This symbiosis of neo-liberal politics and a neo-liberal media helps reinforce the collective memory loss from which the west suffers today.

Carl Schmitt, a theorist of the Third Reich, developed the view that politics is encompassed by the essential categories of "friend" and "enemy". After the second world war, Schmitt's writings were adapted to the needs of the US and are now the bedrock of neocon thinking. The message is straightforward: if your country does not serve our needs it is an enemy state. It will be occupied, its leaders removed and pliant satraps placed on the throne.

But when troops withdraw, satrapies often crumble. Occupation, rebellion, withdrawal, occupation, self-emancipation is a pattern in world history.

At the Nuremberg trials, Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, was charged for providing the justification for Hitler's pre-emptive strike against Norway. Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Jack Straw in a dock of the future? Unlikely, but desirable.

· Tariq Ali's latest book is Bush in Babylon: the Recolonisation of Iraq

Paktia Ulema pledge support to Afghan govt for reconciliation with opponents
KABUL - PakTribune, February 05 (Online): A Jirga of Ulema-e-Shora of Paktia province has announced support to the Afghan government's initiative for reconciliation with opponents, VoA reports.

Afghan president Hamid Karazai earlier announced pardon for those former Taliban fighters still engaged in anti-government activities in Southern parts of that country.

Tribal elders Maliks and Ulema on behalf of the government started peace talks with disgruntled people in Paktia, Paktika, and Khost provinces.
The Jirga of the Ulema was organized with Taliban support in Gardez city.

Several government officials and the head of the Provincial Reconstruction Commission and representatives of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan attended the Jirga.

Addressing the Jirga, Paktia Governor Asadullah Wafa said that the government do not want that its political leaders and religious leaders should not become tool of anti-government militants.

He said that there were several peaceful ways to express their opposition with the government policies.

How I entered the hellish world of Guantanamo Bay
Martin Mubanga went on holiday to Zambia, but ended up spending 33 months in Guantanamo Bay, some of the time in the feared Camp Echo. Free at last and still protesting his innocence, he tells the full story to David Rose
Sunday February 6, 2005 The Observer (UK)
Martin Mubanga can date the low point of his 33 months at Guantánamo Bay: 15 June, 2004. That sweltering Cuban morning, he was taken from the cellblock he was sharing with speakers of the Afghan language Pashto, none of whom knew English, for what had become his almost daily interrogation. As usual, his hands were shackled in rigid, metal cuffs attached to a body belt; another set of chains ran to his ankles, severely restricting his ability to move his legs. Trussed in this fashion, he was lying on the interrogation booth floor. The seemingly interminable questioning had already lasted for hours. 'I needed the toilet,' Mubanga said, 'and I asked the interrogator to let me go. But he just said, "you'll go when I say so". I told him he had five minutes to get me to the toilet or I was going to go on the floor. He left the room. Finally, I squirmed across the floor and did it in the corner, trying to minimise the mess. I suppose he was watching through a one-way mirror or the CCTV camera. He comes back with a mop and dips it in the pool of urine. Then he starts covering me with my own waste, like he's using a big paintbrush, working methodically, beginning with my feet and ankles and working his way up my legs. All the while he's racially abusing me, cussing me: "Oh, the poor little negro, the poor little nigger." He seemed to think it was funny.'

A few days later, Mubanga said, the same interrogator began to question him in one of the camp's 'hot rooms', where the heating was turned up to almost 100F. 'When you went for interrogation, you never knew whether they were going to take you to a booth where the air conditioning was turned up to the max, so it was really cold, or a hot room,' Mubanga said. 'This made life very difficult, because you only had two T-shirts in your cell, and if you wore just one in a cold room you'd be freezing, but wearing two in a hot room was almost unbearable. The thing was, once you were in there in your chains, it was impossible to take one off.'

After several hours of questioning, Mubanga felt severely dehydrated and begged for a bottle of water. Once again he was lying on the floor: the interrogation booth chair had been removed. As he tried to drink and cool himself by spraying a little water around his face and hair, Mubanga said, the interrogator turned violent: 'The guy started kneeling on me, and I was wriggling backwards to get away from him, trying to get in the line of sight of the CCTV camera so someone might see what was going on. Of course, he didn't want to let me do that, so he stood on my hair. It was painful, but I tried to keep moving. Then he stood on the leg chain, so my shackles dug in really deeply, cutting into my legs. But I just took the pain. I'm looking at him, the pain's getting worse but I wouldn't scream out. I just kept looking at him. From that day on, I refused to talk to any interrogator. I said nothing at all for the next seven months.'

Mubanga, 32, born in Zambia but brought up in London from the age of three, was describing his ordeal in an exclusive interview at a secret location in southern England last Friday - the first by any of the four men who returned to Britain from Guantánamo at the end of last month.

A lifelong Arsenal supporter, amateur boxer and former motorbike courier, he became Camp Delta's poet, dealing with his experiences in a series of vivid, rap-style rhymes, reminiscent of the prison blues from the American Deep South.

Mubanga is a tall man, with a build that remains athletic despite the years when the longest walk he took was the 10 yards from his cell to one of Guantánamo's tiny recreation yards. As he struggles to deal with the shock of his sudden and unexpected release, his words fall from his lips in a rapid, articulate torrent.

For many months after Mubanga was seized in Zambia with the help of British intelligence and sent to Guantánamo, the American authorities maintained that he was a dangerous 'enemy combatant', an undercover al-Qaeda operative who had travelled from Afghanistan on a false passport and appeared to be on a mission to reconnoitre Jewish organisations in New York. But documents obtained by The Observer now reveal that by the end of last October the Pentagon's own legal staff had grave doubts about his status, and had overturned a ruling that he was a terrorist by Guantánamo's Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

Like the other three men who were released last month, Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi and Richard Belmar, Mubanga was held for one night at Paddington Green police station on his return to Britain and questioned. He was released unconditionally, the police having concluded within just a few hours that there was no evidence to sustain charges of terrorism.

His allegations about his treatment at Guantánamo echo similar claims by other freed detainees, and information from American official sources. In December, US civil rights groups obtained more than 4,000 pages of documents under the Freedom of Information Act about the abusive treatment of detainees. They included memos by FBI men who visited Guantánamo, the US internment camp set up on American territory on the island of Cuba in early 2002 which still houses over 500 'enemy combatants' despite attracting international criticism, and reported their concerns to their superiors.

On Friday, another memo by the US military's Southern Command was leaked to the Associated Press. It described videotapes of assaults on prisoners by Guantánamo's 'Instant Reaction Force' or 'IRF', a riot squad deployed against prisoners deemed to have broken the camp's rules. One video showed guards punching detainees and forcing a dozen to strip from the waist down. Another showed a guard kneeing a detainee in the head.

Mubanga said that in his final months at Guantánamo - just as the military lawyers were having doubts whether he really was a terrorist - the IRF was used against him three times.

Mubanga was born on 24 September, 1972, and emigrated to Britain with his mother, brother and two elder sisters three years later, when his father died. He was 15, a pupil at St George's school near his home in Kingsbury, north-west London, when his mother died from malaria. Soon afterwards he left school with just two GCSEs. After an abortive attempt at a college course in engineering, he began to get into trouble, and at 19 was convicted of trying to steal a car and sent to Feltham Young Offenders' Institution. It was there that he began to take an interest in Islam. In 1995 he spent six months in Bosnia, working with a charity with Muslim victims of the Serbs' ethnic cleansing.

Mubanga left Britain for Pakistan in October 2000, where he says he was planning to study Islam and Arabic. After a spell in Peshawar he entered Afghanistan and attended two madrasahs (Islamic schools) in Kabul and Kandahar.

Mubanga had a flight back to Britain booked for 26 September, 2001, from Karachi, and says he had planned to return to Pakistan by bus. But after the terrorist attacks of 11 September, the bus stopped running. Hiding in Kandahar while the American bombing campaign began, he says he discovered that his British passport and his will were missing. 'I don't know if they were lost or stolen. I just realised one day they were gone.'

With the war still in its early stages, before the fall of Kabul, he found a middleman willing to take him back to Pakistan. Mubanga had dual nationality and says he then phoned his family in England to ask them to post his Zambian passport to him in Pakistan. Before returning to Britain, he decided to visit relatives in Zambia. In February 2002 he flew to South Africa. After a week in Johannesburg, he took a bus to Lusaka, where he was reunited with his older sister, who was also visiting from the UK. (She has asked us not to publish her full name.)

It was then that Mubanga's sister was phoned from London by her boyfriend, and informed that the Sunday Times had published a story on 2 March claiming that a man called Martin Mubanga had been in custody for at least two months after being captured by coalition forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Here, Mubanga thought, was the answer to what had happened to his passport. He travelled north from Lusaka to visit an aunt near the town of Kitwe. There, a few days after the article was published, he was arrested by the Zambian security service.

Mubanga's solicitor, Louise Christian, suggested that by this time the authorities must have realised they did not have Martin Mubanga in Afghanistan, and would easily have discovered that the real one had recently flown from Karachi to Africa.

Yet after the first two nights, Mubanga said, he was not held at a conventional police station or prison, but in a series of guarded motel rooms in and around Lusaka. There he says he was interrogated for hours at a time each day, at first by the Zambians. He recalls they asked him whether he wished to be Zambian or British. 'I chose British. I thought that might be safer. It seems that may have been a mistake.'

Within a few days, new interrogators arrived: an American female defence official and a British man. He said he was from MI6 and called himself Martin. 'Martin tried to bond with me by saying he supported Arsenal like me. It was pretty transparent. You didn't have to talk to him long to realise he hadn't spent very much time on the North Bank.'

On the third or fourth day, 'agent Martin' produced Mubanga's British passport, his will and two further documents, which, he claimed, had been found with the passport in a cave in Afghanistan. One was a list of Jewish organisations in New York, which, he suggested, Mubanga had been ordered to reconnoitre on behalf of al-Qaeda. The second was a handwritten military instruction manual, which he accused Mubanga of writing. Mubanga protested he had not seen them before, and that he had never been to any Afghan cave, pointing out that his own untidy hand was nothing like the manual's neat script. There was no proof that he had any connection to either document, but this remained the most serious accusation the Americans made against him.

At the same time, Mubanga said, both the American woman and 'Martin' tried to recruit him as an agent, asking him to settle in South Africa or, if that was too far, in Leeds. 'They wanted me to go where no one would know me, I suppose so I could be undercover. I refused.'

After three weeks of these sessions, the American told him one morning: 'I'm sorry to have to tell you this, as I think you're a decent guy, but in 10 or 15 minutes we're going to the airport and they're taking you to Guantánamo Bay.' Mubanga knew what this meant. 'Like everyone else I'd seen the pictures of the prisoners in their goggles and jumpsuits, kneeling in chains in the dust. They took me to a military airstrip, stripped me, did an anal search and then put me in a big nappy which they seemed to think was funny. They put on the blindfold, the hood and the earmuffs and chained me to a bed in the plane. We stopped somewhere, but in all the flight took about 24 hours.'

Mubanga arrived in Guantánamo at the beginning of May. For the first two months he was held with other English-speaking prisoners, including one of the three men from Tipton in the west Midlands released last March. 'He was planning to write a letter to Tony Blair complaining about our plight, and I suggested he put in a bit saying that Blair had said he would never talk to terrorists yet had negotiated with the IRA. Of course they [the Americans] read it. It seemed to make them mad, because for the next 18 months I was kept in cell blocks where the only people around me apart from the guards spoke only Arabic. I always thought one of the main things they were trying to do was break you mentally, make you go crazy. So I thought, either I sink or I swim. I decided to swim and that meant learning Arabic.'

In the months that followed, he became proficient in this language. Early last year, his spirits lifted dramatically when rumours swept the camp that six or seven British detainees - including Mubanga - were about to go home. He was transferred to a new block with the other British detainees, but when it came to getting on the plane Mubanga was left behind. Then the Americans moved him again - to a block where all the other prisoners spoke neither English nor Arabic, but only the Afghan lan guage Pashtu. 'I ended up feeling really abandoned, left behind. They were playing games with me.' As he recalled this dark time, for a moment Mubanga's eyes brimmed with tears. 'In my interrogations for a while after that they used to taunt me saying: "Those other boys have gone home. Do you think you know why you're staying here?" They wanted to make me think I would be there forever.'

It seems that one reason Mubanga was not sent home last year but interrogated with new vigour was that the Australian detainee, David Hicks, had made false allegations - since withdrawn - about him under the stress of his own interrogation.

Mubanga began to suffer still harsher conditions. In the terse, military abbreviations of Guantánamo, he was put repeatedly on 'Cl' (comfort item) loss, so that books, his cup, board games and anything else which might help pass the time were removed. Later, he endured 'BI (basic item) loss', when his thin mattress, trousers, shirts, towel, blankets, and flipflops were also taken away, leaving him naked except for boxer shorts in an empty metal box. 'You had to be calm, bottle up any anger you might feel, show you were prepared to be docile. If you did that, slowly you'd get your items back: first your flipflops, the next day your mattress, the next day your trousers, after that your blanket and shirts.'

Last autumn he was held in isolation in the punishment 'Quebec block', where blankets would be removed between 6am and 11pm. There, communication with other prisoners was almost impossible. It was in this period that he fell victim to the IRF for small acts of defiance, such as refusing to come in from his 15 minutes of recreation. Each time the squad forced him to the floor, knelt on him, and trussed him tightly so he could not resist.

Yet even as they intensified the harshness of his conditions, the Americans were beginning to recognise officially that Martin Mubanga might not be a member of al-Qaeda at all. In October his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, a panel of military officers which examines the evidence against detainees without any legal training or advice, decided he was an unlawful combatant, and should therefore continue to be detained at Guantánamo indefinitely.

But at the end of October, James Crisfield Jnr, an American military lawyer, found this decision deeply flawed. His report, which has been obtained by The Observer, shows that Mubanga had asked for his sister, aunt and brother to testify in his defence. They could prove, he said, that he had not travelled to Zambia on false documents for a terrorist mission. The tribunal officers claimed that these defence witnesses were 'not reasonably available' and that their testimony would be irrelevant. Crisfield disagreed, stating: 'Under the circumstances, the detainee's reasons for travelling to various countries was relevant. If the detainee's motive for travelling was to do something other than join or support al-Qaeda, that evidence could have sometendency... to make it less likely that the detainee joined or supported al-Qaeda.' In Crisfield's opinion, the tribunal hearing was 'not sufficient', and he ordered that attempts be made to contact Mubanga's family.

There is no way to independently verify Mubanga's account of why he travelled to Afghanistan. But after almost three years of rigorous and sometimes brutal interrogation, no evidence has been adduced that he was guilty of any involvement in terrorism.

For the last month before his release, Mubanga was taken to the supermaximum-security part of Guantánamo known as Camp Echo. 'There, you were in an individual bungalow without even a gap in the door, so even if you shouted out you couldn't talk to anyone. There was a camera in the room and they'd write down what you did every 15 minutes. If you went to the toilet, they'd write it down.

'I think it was one last attempt to get me to go crazy. One guy went back to Camp Delta after six months in Camp Echo. He'd lost his mind completely.' Mubanga remains deeply concerned about some of the prisoners he met in Guantánamo. One is a former al-Jazeera reporter arrested in Afghanistan whom he saw being assaulted brutally by the IRF, leaving him with black eyes which took weeks to go down. 'There's also a lot of people there who think they'll be killed if they ever went back to their own coun tries. They're in limbo. As far as they're concerned, it's open season for the American government.'

Yet Mubanga, though traumatised by his ordeal, believes he stayed sane partly because of his growing religious faith, and partly because of his rapping. He has a provisional title for the album he'd like to record: Detainee . He also has a stage name - 10,007, his Guantánamo prisoner number. The content of his work is strongly political. There were times, Mubanga said, 'that I wanted to explode. And when I did, I tried to remember Allah, not to use aggression in that way. I never fought any of the guards, I never spat at them, or like some prisoners did, threw a packet of faeces. A lot of the time you go on to autopilot and you just have to tell yourself you're still here, it is happening, it is real. The golden rule a lot of us had is, if you don't feel tired, don't force yourself to sleep, stay active. That's why I made myself learn Arabic.

'For three years, I was locked in a room where I couldn't walk as far as this chair that I'm sitting in to that window, and now suddenly I'm back in London. It's hard to adjust: all my friends have got engaged, their lives have moved on. Yet though it's so different, I still know London from my time as a courier. Last week a friend gave me a lift and I was giving him directions and I pinched myself: one week earlier I had been in Guantánamo.'

As he tries to rebuild his life, Mubanga has three wishes.The first is to record his Guantánamo raps, the second to acquire an Arsenal season ticket for the 2005-06 season. The third may be more difficult. When he was 18 to 19, he had a girlfriend in Acton called Angela. They had planned to move in together, he said, but that summer his older sister took him to Zambia because he was getting into trouble, saying he would be away two weeks. When they arrived, she told Mubanga they were going to stay seven months. 'I wrote to Angie, I really loved her. And when I got back the first thing I did was go round to her house. Her dad opened the door and he says: "Are you Martin?" I thought maybe he was going to hit me because he'd read my letters or because I'd broken her heart, but instead he started weeping, saying she'd gone to Kent and he didn't know where she was.'

Mubanga said he tried to track her unsuccessfully via friends, and although he realises she may now be married, he hopes that if she's not, she might read this article and get in contact.

He insisted he doesn't feel bitter: 'I've lost three years of my life, because I was a Muslim. If I hadn't become a Muslim and carried on doing bad things, maybe I'd have spent that three years in a regular prison. The authorities wanted to break me but they strengthened me. They've made me what I am - even if I'm not quite sure yet who that person is.'

Mubanga the poet

Martin Mubanga became Camp Delta's poet and wrote a series of vivid rap-style rhymes. Here are the choruses of two of them.

Dem labelled me a

terrorist

Calling me a thug.

Dem labelled me a terrorist

Calling me a slug... But I never did join bin Laden's crew anyway And now me know to be a Muslim is a hard core ting...

And I got no love for the American government

Dey can go suck and I don't mean peppermint.

Now hear da bombs drop

As de Muslim babies, dem a die,

Now hear de bombs drop

As de Muslim mothers dem a cry

Now hear de bombs drop

As de Muslim soldiers dem a fly

Why? Because dey no want fe die.