Afghanistan News January 1, 2005

January 1, 2005

Afghans Arrest Suspect in Deadly Bombing
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Security forces have arrested a Tajik suspected of organizing the deadly car-bombing of a U.S. security firm in the Afghan capital and believe he was acting on the orders of al-Qaida, an Afghan official said Saturday.

The suspect, Mohammed Haidar, confessed to his leading role in the Aug. 29 car-bomb attack, which killed about 10 people, including three Americans, Afghan state television reported. A spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service, Mohammed Nader, said the report was accurate but declined to discuss the details.

Haidar also admitted organizing an Oct. 23 suicide attack on a Kabul shopping street that killed an American woman and an Afghan child, the TV report said. The attack was allegedly carried out by a Kashmiri militant.

American military officials say al-Qaida cells could still be operating in several Afghan cities, three years after U.S. forces entered Afghanistan to pursue members of Osama bin Laden's organization in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

U.S. and Afghan forces killed nine people and detained at least 18 others in a monthlong sweep against al-Qaida suspects late last year, and one American general has suggested the Kabul car-bomb was the work of a militant group with links to the radical Islamic network.

It was unclear when Haidar, a bearded man of about 30 shown briefly during the evening news, was detained. The report said Haidar told investigators that he had traveled to the Pakistani city of Peshawar to meet an alleged al-Qaida member called Attaullah who gave him the instructions to carry out the attacks.

Attaullah supposedly paid Haidar $7,000 to buy a car and explosives, the report said. It didn't say when the meeting supposedly took place. the car bomb devastated the main office of Dyncorp, a private security contractor which supplies bodyguards for Afghan President Hamid Karzai and is training the country's police force.

The suicide attack, carried out by a young man laden with hand grenades, apparently targeted a group of Icelandic soldiers as they visited a carpet store. Three of them were slightly injured.

Afghan police arrest former Taliban commander
A former Taliban commander has been arrested by Afghan police in a remote area in southern Afghanistan, a police chief said Saturday. Mulvi Nida Mohammed was captured after a tip-off on a road in the district of Shoravak, 180 kilometers (111 miles) southeast of Kandahar, on Thursday, said Khan Mohammed, the province's police chief.

He was a deputy of the Taliban's former Defense Minister Mullah Ubaidullah, and had been involved in "various activities against the government," said Mohammed without elaborating.

Police seized a satellite phone and an assault rifle from him. Mulvi Nida Mohammed was being questioned Saturday, the police chief said. Kandahar was the stronghold of Afghanistan's former hardline Taliban regime, which was ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001.

US says Taleban may be freed soon
BBC – Andrew North in Kabul – 12/31/04
The commander of the US-led military coalition in Afghanistan says many suspected militants in US bases could be released in the new year. The move would be part of efforts aimed at persuading Taleban members to abandon their insurgency. The US is holding more than 500 people at its two main bases here, Bagram and Kandahar. That is a big rise on earlier in the year. However the US has again ruled out an amnesty for the leader of the Taleban.

In an interview with the BBC, Lt Gen David Barno also said that fewer detainees were now being transferred to the controversial US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He rejected criticism that the US has been slow to investigate cases where detainees have died in custody.

They are held as suspected militants, but without charge because the US has designated them "enemy combatants" - a status still not recognised under international law. But Gen Barno said the numbers in detention was "probably going to come down", when a US and Afghan government amnesty offer to the Taleban gets underway in the New Year.

He wouldn't give definite figures, but said it would have an impact on the number of people in custody. It will depend on the response to the amnesty though, details of which are still being finalised. The key issue is who will be excluded. Top of the excluded list will be the fugitive Taleban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Latest reports are that between 30 and 40 other senior figures will still be classified by the US and Afghan authorities as wanted terrorists. In the past, President Hamid Karzai has talked of as many as 150 being excluded. The idea is that the rest of the Taleban movement will no longer be targeted by US and Afghan forces if they hand in weapons and agree to abide by Afghanistan's new constitution.

However, although word of the amnesty has been around for over a month, attacks by suspected Taleban militants have continued. Gen Barno admitted the hardline movement still has "a sting and a military capability".

But he said intelligence reports suggested the Taleban "leadership and many in their rank and file are debating internally how to deal with this new opportunity. "I think most of the rank and file if they had the chance would put down their weapons and come back into the economic growth and political growth inside Afghanistan."
Many analysts here will see his admission that fewer people are being taken to its Guantanamo Bay prison camp as a sign of the US seeking to dampen the relentless criticism it has faced over the practice.

In private, some US officials here admit the Cuba base and the practice of interning detainees without charge has become an embarrassment. But pressure is growing over further revelations of alleged abuse of prisoners here by US personnel. The Pentagon recently admitted eight detainees have died in US custody in Afghanistan since 2002, two more than previously thought.

At least two of these deaths are believed to have been happened as a result of a practice known as "hanging and hitting" - according to a US Army investigation recently leaked to the Baltimore Sun newspaper in America. Prisoners were shackled to the ceiling and then repeatedly hit or kicked, the report said.

But Gen Barno denied accusations from groups like Human Rights Watch that the US has dragged its feet on investigating and prosecuting those involved. "Of those eight cases, two of them have been resolved, three are currently under investigation and three of them have resulted in judicial proceedings against individuals who are now being charged."

Human Rights Watch says no one has yet paid any penalty for these deaths, with some cases going back to 2002. It also says abuses, including treatment widely regarded as torture, have continued.

The US commander said he could only speak for his time in Afghanistan and that he had seen "zero evidence that any of those practices have taken place" in his 15 months here. Gen Barno is under pressure though to release an internal investigation he ordered in May into US detention procedures.

He promised parts of the report - carried out by one of his senior officers - would be made public by the end of the summer. But its release is being held up at the Pentagon.

Although they have sought to play down the issue, the number one priority for the US military in Afghanistan remains the capture of Osama Bin Laden. In a BBC interview in January, the general said al-Qaeda's leader would have been brought to justice by the end of 2004, setting off a frenzy of speculation that his capture was imminent.

He would not say why he had made such a bold prediction. Nor would he say when US forces had last had any evidence of Bin Laden's whereabouts. But he said the hunt went on, with "a very focused intelligence effort that operates 24 hours a day".

Gov.-Gen praises Canadian troops in year-end msg
Adrienne Clarkson in Kabul
CTV.ca News Staff – Kabul 01.01.05
Governor General Adrienne Clarkson praised Canadian troops "past and present" in her New Year's message after ringing in the new year with them on Camp Julien in Kabul.

She reminisced on the sacrifices of veterans she met with in Italy and France during 2004's Second World War commemorations. "Such sacrifices permit us to do good in the world as our forces are doing here in Afghanistan," she said, "That is why it is so important to try to bring a bit of Canada to the 900 members of Operation ATHENA.

She added, "I can see they are making a real difference, not only building peace but promoting development and helping with the free election for the Afghan people," she said.

Clarkson and her husband John Ralston Saul have visited Canadian troops abroad in locales such as Kosovo, Bosnia and the Arabian Gulf. Clarkson's travelling plans were kept under wraps for security reasons.

It is her custom, as Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces to visit with troops during the holidays. After a recent trip to visit Canadian troops at Camp Julien, military ombudsman Andre Marin said most are overworked.

Mental health nurse Capt. Brian Harvey says those working conditions make it difficult for troops to get into the holiday spirit, particularly beause they are away from home.

"Quite frankly, it's hard to get into the Christmas mood. It's hard to get in the Christmas mood in Canada if you're busy, but it can be really hard here at times," he said recently.

The Governor General has come under fire in the past for her spending habits, particularly for her travelling expenditures. Clarkson announced that she would be cutting several programs and initiatives in her office in December after budget restrictions imposed by Parliament.

Parliament trimmed her budget by 10 per cent for the final quarter of the fiscal year 2004-2005 upon recommendations from a government committee. The Governor General's five-year term is up next fall.
[Go to the following URL to watch the Governor General’s New Year’s message from Kabul as provided by CTV: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1104596607544_67/?hub=TopStories#

About 30 kilograms of drugs confiscated on Tajik-Afghan border
DUSHANBE, December 31 (Itar-Tass) -- A unit of the Tajik Drug Control Agency and Tajik border guards confiscated about 30 kilograms of drugs, one-third of them heroin, on the Tajik-Afghan border on Thursday, head of the agency’s PR center Avaz Yuldashev told Itar-Tass. He said it was the first joint operation against smugglers in the Pamirs zone since the withdrawal of Russian border guards.

The agency found 10 kilograms of heroin, a grenade launcher and munitions in the Moskovsky district near the Tajik-Afghan border on Thursday.
All in all, the Tajik police and Russian border guards confiscated over eight tonnes of drugs, nearly two-thirds of them heroin, in 2004.

Karzai victory plants seeds of hope in fight to kick Afghan opium habit
April's harvest will show whether campaign to stop farmers growing poppies has curbed world's biggest heroin supplier - Declan Walsh in Pachir wa Agam - Saturday January 1, 2005

Snow drifted across the sawtooth peaks of Tora Bora, the mountain redoubt where three years ago Osama bin Laden wriggled through an American dragnet as soldiers reached his secret cave complex.

Today the al-Qaida leader is on the run and his Taliban allies have scattered. But further down the wooded slopes a potent new threat to Afghanistan's future is quietly pushing to the surface. Tens of thousands of tiny green poppies, sown in the winter soil last month, are growing fast. The innocent-looking plants are the raw material for a drugs boom that experts say could turn Afghanistan into a lawless narco-state.

Almost 90% of all heroin will come from Afghanistan this year, according to a UN report. The $2.8bn trade accounts for 40% of the country's economy, employs 10% of the population, and has fuelled the rise of drug lords who threaten to upend the fragile democratic transition. The province of Nangarhar, along the Pakistani border, is the heroin heartland. Here drug production is not limited to a criminal minority; it is a community endeavour. Four out of five families are involved in opium and the province grew 23% of the most recent national crop. The economics are simple, said Haji Silamer, a Pachir tribal leader: "We grow a field of wheat and make $300. We grow opium, we earn $3,000."

Tackling the trade is a priority for the newly inaugurated president, Hamid Karzai. Last month hundreds of tribal leaders gathered at his fortress-like palace to hear him make an impassioned appeal. Opium cultivation was a "cancer", even worse than the Soviet occupation, he said. "Please stop this disgrace and dishonour. I want respect and honour for my country."

Some are listening. Significant numbers of farmers in Nangarhar have spurned opium for wheat in some districts, said the deputy governor, Muhammad Asif Qazi Zada. Diplomats in Kabul have received reports of a similar drop in Hilmand, another top drugs province.

The claims can only be fully verified during April's harvest. But in three areas visited by the Guardian, there was real evidence of change. In Pachir wa Agam, a few miles from the Pakistani border, Shah Wazir stood on a plot that was carpeted with poppies last year. Now there is wheat. "When we voted for Karzai we promised to stop the poppy in return for irrigation and good roads," he said. "We are keeping our side of the bargain. Now he must keep his."

Civic spirit is not the only factor in the change of heart in this remote district. Crop disease last year turned some farmers from opium. Others have been scared by a concerted anti-opium drive by the governor and provincial police chief. The area's Pashtuns are also hoping international promises of help will finally come good.
The US recently donated 500 tonnes of wheat seed, but after a sevenyear drought farmers say much more is needed. If new wells, roads and irrigation systems do not materialise soon, they would resort to their "insurance policy", said Mr Silamer.

"If the government doesn't keep its promises, we go back to poppy," he said. The drug dealers are actually thought to favour a cut in production. This year's bumper crop sent prices plunging and forced dealers to hoard their stocks. Now, thanks to the recent crackdown, prices have leaped fourfold and are still rising.

British-led efforts to scuttle the opium trade have been helped by a pledge of $780m (£405m) from the US. Mirwais Yasini, head of the Afghan government's anti-drugs team, said a paramilitary antinarcotics force trained by SAS officers had destroyed 50 heroin laboratories and confiscated 60 tonnes of the drug since January. US officials are also training 15 judges to hear cases in a drugs court that is due to start work within weeks.

Some in the west favour aerial spraying of opium crops with herbicide, as has happened in anti-cocaine campaigns in Colombia. The idea makes Afghan officials and farmers livid.

Last month, Nangarhar residents said a mystery plane flew over at night, spraying their crops with small gray pellets. Mr Karzai summoned the British and American ambassadors for an explanation. Both denied any involvement.

"How can nobody know? No plane passes in this sky without coalition permission," said Mr Silamer. Farmers are an easy target, but smugglers further up the chain pose a thornier challenge, partly because many have close links with the administration. "Some governors, police chiefs, even cabinet ministers - all of them are involved," said one diplomat in Kabul.

More embarrassing for Mr Karzai are persistent allegations that his Kandaharbased brother Ahmed Wali Karzai - who helped finance his recent election campaign - is involved in the trade.

The former interior minister Taj Mohammad Wardak is among the accusers. "There is no direct proof but everyone knows," he told the Guardian. "If you ask the people in the bazaar, four out of 10 will tell you that Karzai's brother is exporting drugs."

Mr Wardak was the running-mate of Yunus Qanooni, Mr Karzai's main rival in the October election. Walid Karzai vehemently denies the allegations, and officials say they lack evidence. "In the west people are very careful about defaming others. You have to have proof that is advisable in the courts," said Mr Yasini.

The US military has strong links with regional governors, who help them to flush out the Taliban, but some of whom are also involved in drugs running. In some cases, the US pays the warlords' soldiers to provide security escorts - soldiers who, villagers say, are involved in extortion, gunrunning and smuggling.

But there are warnings that tackling opium in Afghanistan may be even more difficult than the intervention in Columbia. Here, opium is not just part of the economy; aside from international aid and military spending, it is the economy.

Taxation, construction and the currency are all propped up - "there is a product that keeps people afloat," said Barnett Rubin of the New York-based Centre on International Cooperation, who carried out a recent study of the trade. "It is one of the key reasons that Afghanistan is more stable than Iraq."

Where has the aid money gone?
The international community defends the projects it has undertaken in the country but some Afghans feel there is little to show for the billions being spent. By Abdul Baseer Saeed in Kabul (ARR No. 155, 30-Dec-04) Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Despite the enormous amount of international aid being pumped into Afghanistan, some people in the country feel there are few visible signs of improvement. It is estimated that Afghanistan has received nearly 14 billion US dollars in the past three years. Yet roads and buildings are still in ruins; power supplies are irregular; medical facilities are poor; school construction is lagging; and there is not enough fresh drinking water.

After the fall of the Taleban regime in 2001, the international community came together in Bonn, Germany to discuss rebuilding the country. Each of the participants pledged to inject huge amounts of money, although specific figures were never mentioned.

Meanwhile the number of the non-governmental organizations, NGOs, operating in the country, which had numbered in hundreds during the Taleban era, rose to thousands. International aid workers flooded into the country.

With them came scores of specialists - civil engineers, telecommunications experts and utility workers. Now, three years on, people are asking: What has been achieved and where is the money going?

"The only improvement I have seen is the rebuilding of the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway," said Rahiim of Kabul, "and that was only carried out as a matter of expediency.

"But there is no sign of work on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway, whereas this road is much shorter than the one to Kanadahar, and is one of the country's main arteries. "If all these dollars had been used to fill in the potholes in Kabul, it would have been put to better use."

Ramazan Bashar Dost, the former planning minister in the transitional government, and an outspoken critic of NGOs, agrees. "Quite simply, the government, the United Nations and the NGOs have not been spending this money in ways that will benefit the people," he said. "Around 67 million dollars was allocated to reduce unemployment, but the number of unemployed has risen.

"The government must explain its policies on aid. Our engineers are paid 60 dollars a month but the government brings in people from abroad at vastly inflated salaries with no knowledge of the country to undertake projects that don't meet the needs of the people. "They simply take the money and run," he charged.
Members of the international community, however, defended their current aid programs and said their decisions were guided by the priorities established by the Afghan government.

John Myers, director general of the European Commission's humanitarian aid organization, ECHO, said, "We structure projects via the NGOs according to the policies of the government. "These projects can involve us working with the United Nations, international NGOs and the Red Cross.

"Whether or not all of the schemes we have undertaken are successful or not I cannot say but we will carry on until the government is in a position to take over. "One of the major problems we have is that we cannot force NGOs into areas where there is no security."

He said the European Commission had provided 102 million dollars in aid in 2002, 74 million dollars in 2003 and 49 million dollars in 2004. Myers said the Commission expected to provide 22 million dollars in aid in 2005. He said the overall amount of aid being provided was declining because additional assistance was coming from other donors.

Patrick Fine, mission director of US Agency for International Development in Afghanistan, said his agency spent 1.2 billion dollars on the country last year. "We work on projects in collaboration with the government," said Fine. "And by the same token we work in conjunction with around 800 NGOs. "In general terms, we are satisfied that they carry out their functions properly. We are constantly evaluating their work."

Japanhas contributed 900 million dollars for reconstruction, according to Norihiro Okuda, Japan's ambassador to Afghanistan. He said his country plans to provide an additional 128 million dollars in humanitarian aid. Okuda provided a breakdown of the assistance provided by his government.

"Of our total contribution 8.2 million dollars were spent on the registration of the voters; 8.8 million dollars went to the government to run the parliamentary election; and 46 schools were built all over the country," he said.

"We have worked widely in the security sector and working with the ministry of defence; 2,5000 [militia members] have gone through the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration, DDR, process."

"We are very pleased with what has been achieved and at how our contributions are used," he said. "But there is still so much more to be done."

Mirco Kreibich, the first secretary for development, cooperation and humanitarian Aid at the German embassy, said his country had pledged 110 million dollars in assistance. Much of that money will go to train Afghan police officers and to improve security in the country.

Other major projects being paid for by the German government include improvements to the power and water supplies. In addition, Kreibich said, his government is working to improve Afghanistan's schools. "We are keen for teachers to learn the skills of basic training techniques in order that more children have the chance of acquiring even an elementary education," he said.

And how successful are these projects? "Twenty years of war has left Afghanistan with much to rebuild and I cannot say that everything we attempt will be guaranteed one hundred per cent success," he said. "But we have to keep on trying, don't we?"

A Dark Anniversary in Afghanistan
By Jean MacKenzie – The Moscow Times.com 12/31/04
Amid the bells and baubles of the holiday season, few in the West will pause to mark one of the year's darker anniversaries. Twenty-five years ago this month, the Red Army invaded Afghanistan, opening a Pandora's box whose effluvia include Osama bin Laden and leader of the Taliban Mullah Omar.

Afghanistan has largely slipped from the collective consciousness since the U.S. bombing of 2001, which toppled the Taliban and brought a precarious, internationally enforced peace. But, as centuries of history have shown, it is dangerous to underestimate this turbulent land, whose mountains have swallowed the ambitions of more than one great power.

The events leading up to the Christmas attack were as banal as they were brutal: In April 1978, Afghan President Mohammed Daoud, along with his entire family, was murdered in a military coup. Sympathy for the martyred Daoud can be tempered by the fact that he had gained power by throwing his cousin, King Zahir Shah, off the throne five years earlier.

Daoud was replaced by Noor Mohammed Taraki, a Moscow-friendly thug representing the more radical wing of the Afghan Communist Party. Taraki instituted a series of highly unpopular reforms that provoked rebellion and led to his murder in September 1979. Next at bat was the more moderate, if largely ineffectual communist, Hafizullah Amin. The hapless Amin had just three months to enjoy his preeminence, before he, in turn, fell to a Soviet-orchestrated coup.

The whys of the Soviet incursion are still being debated: a desire for warm water ports? A fear of Islamic radicalism on its southern flank? A helping hand to a communist regime in trouble?

Whatever the reasons, the facts are clear: The Soviet Army began inserting operatives into Afghanistan on Christmas Eve, 1979. By Dec. 27, they had completed their first phase; they disposed of Amin and installed a more compliant Babrak Karmal as head of state. On the surface a short, successful operation, but it would take another 10 bloody years before the Soviets admitted defeat.

We all know the legend: Soviet soldiers and their Afghan proxies, backed by a mighty superpower military machine, could not subdue the brave, bearded mujahedin, waging a desperate jihad to save their land from the communist infidel. But those legendary mountain men were on a generous allowance from Uncle Sam, and their donkey carts often concealed missiles provided by the Americans or their Pakistani proxies.

By the time the last Soviet tank had slunk back up the Salang Highway toward Russia in 1989, millions of Afghans were dead and half the population displaced. More than 15,000 Soviet soldiers had been killed, countless more injured. The Soviet Union itself would crumble in just two years. The United States, having aided in the humiliation of its Cold War rival, grew bored with the mujahedin, until the collapse of the World Trade Center's twin towers brought Afghanistan back onto center stage.

But it was in Afghanistan in the 1990s that the events of Sept. 11 originated. While the Americans focused on domestic sex scandals and the Russians tried to build a viable country out of Soviet flotsam, Kabul tried to clean up the mess the superpowers had left behind.

The mujahedin morphed into avaricious warlords. Generals like Ahmed Shah Massoud, Rashid Dostum, or the American darling Gulbuddin Hekmetyar, battled among themselves for power and gain, reducing much of Afghanistan to rubble in the process.

From the Pashtun-dominated south came a movement of religious students known as the Taliban, determined to rout the warlords and return the country to Islamic purity. They were partially successful, and a regime even more repressive came to power, driving women under the burqa, banning photographs and kite flying, and holding public executions of sinners in the central sports stadium in Kabul.

The Taliban found a soul mate in a deep-pocketed Saudi who had been driven out of his own country for his radical views. Osama bin Laden found shelter and succor in Afghanistan; he was allowed to run his training camps and plan his attacks from mountain strongholds in the wilds between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In September, 2001, he struck. When the Taliban refused to give bin Laden up to American justice, the bombs began to fall. Once the dust had cleared, the United States and its allies set about molding Afghanistan into an acceptable partner.

But Afghanistan is no more likely to yield to its new conquerors than it was to the old. Kabul today has little about it that suggests a functioning capital city. Electric power can best be described as sporadic, the water is toxic and the air heavy with what is charmingly described as "fecal dust." Life in the provinces is harsher still. Aid workers in rural Afghanistan often head to Kabul for some much needed R and R.

Despite hardship, the Afghan people are proud, gracious, hospitable and warm. But there is violence just under the surface, which lends even the most casual relationships an air of danger.

A stroll down Chicken Street, for instance, is a delightful way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Numerous carpet sellers beckon you into their shops; in other doorways, fur coats and buzkashi whips alternate with embroidered wall hangings and hookah pipes. It is a popular spot for foreigners, at least until the suicide bombing in October, which killed a young Afghan girl and an American woman, in addition to the bomber himself.

I cannot resist the lure of the shops, but every time a figure in a burqa grabs my hand asking for "baksheesh," I can't help but wonder if she has a belt of plastic explosives under her sky-blue robes.

I have a friend, Mirwais, who works as a guard in our house. One evening he and I were watching "Osama," an Afghan movie, which highlighted the atrocities of the Taliban years. I watched the film in open-mouthed horror, while Mirwais sat giggling on the other side of the room.

Mirwais, it turns out, had been a black-turbaned student in Kandahar, the seat of the Taliban. This gentle soul, to whom I entrust my possessions and my life, is a fan of some of the less appetizing practices of the Taliban years, like cutting off the hands of thieves. My predictable American take is that this is barbaric; his is that it cuts down admirably on recidivism.

"Americans are children," he said, smiling indulgently. "When I first came from Kandahar, I thought I would kill the first American I saw. But now I see that they can be good people, too." I smiled back, but inside I squirmed. I do hope Mirwais' sentiments have changed permanently.

Those of us spearheading the current aid worker invasion would do well to remember the lessons of Christmas past. Afghanistan absorbs unthinkable levels of punishment and keeps on going. It is the would-be Goliath who, as often as not, lies broken at the close of play. And in Afghanistan today there is no shortage of slingshots.

Jean MacKenzie is director of training for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in Afghanistan. She contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.

USAID to set up industrial park in northern Afghan town
Balkh TV 01/01/2005
Mazar-e Sharif - Balkh Province Governor Atta Mohammad Nur held a meeting with a visiting USAID delegation headed by Malik Mortaza, the director of USAID in Afghanistan. First of all Malik Mortaza spoke about the aims of his trip to Mazar-e Sharif. He singled out the setting up of industrial parks in Kabul, Balkh and Kandahar Provinces as the top projects of his office and said a project would be started in Mazar-e Sharif.

Welcoming the delegation, the Balkh governor spoke about reconstruction and said: God willing, the situation in Balkh province is calm now and security is good enough to implement projects.

The governor asked them to open an oil press in Mazar-e Sharif to provide more jobs for people. He instructed the chief of Industrial Parks of Balkh Province to allocate a piece of land to the USAID office and fully cooperate with the delegation.

The security chief of Balkh Province, the mayor of Mazar-e Sharif and the chief of the Industrial Parks Department attended the meeting. Via BBC Reporting

Afghan Turkmen set up cultural union
Pajhwok Afghan News 12/30/2004 By Ahmad Nayem Qaderi
MAZAR-E-SHARIF - The Afghan Turkmen, a Sunni Turkic-speaking ethnic group, at a meeting in northern Balkh province announced Wednesday 29, that they want to form a cultural union to promote their traditions and language.

Nearly seventy-five representatives from the Foundation of Cultural Development of Afghan Turkmen, who gathered in the capital Mazar-e-Sharif, would like books and newspapers printed in the ethnic language of Turkic.

The foundation also called for the conservation of artifacts belonging to their culture. The Afghan Turkic language has close affinities with modern Turkish and for the first time in Afghan history, the language was recognized as an official language.

The head of the foundation, Salih Mohammad Hasas, estimates that there are nearly five million Turkic speaking living in Afghanistan although this number has been disputed by other ethnic groups living in the country.

Hasas points out that under the new Afghan constitution; the government has a commitment to recognize the 12 tribal groups in the country and accommodate their needs.

The majority of the Afghan Turkmen are settled in the northern Balkh province and the eastern province of Herat but a smaller number are also to be found in Kunduz. Hasas added that the council, funded by Turkmen traders and cultural people, will soon open its offices in Kabul and other provinces.

Formerly a nomadic people, Turkmen tribes in Afghanistan are farmer-herdsmen, renowned carpet weavers and believed to have introduced karakul wool to Afghanistan, making them an important contributor to the Afghan economy.

Musharraf confirms military role
BBC
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has addressed the nation on television to confirm that he will stay on as head of the army. Gen Musharraf also accused his opponents of "threatening democracy".
He had earlier promised to give up the army role by the end of this year, while retaining the presidency. "I have decided to retain both offices... any change in internal or external policies can be extremely dangerous for Pakistan," he said.
The Pakistani parliament passed a controversial bill in November allowing Gen Musharraf to keep his dual role as president and army chief. In his address, he accused opponents of trying to make political capital from the uniform issue.
They have been staging protests in recent months, calling on him to leave the military. Hardline Islamist parties have led the protests. The president had made a deal with them to step down as army chief. In return they did not oppose a series of constitutional changes at the beginning of the year.
Some legal experts had said the November law could not override the requirement to step down and that the general was bound by the constitution.
But Gen Musharraf has said 96% of Pakistanis want him to stay as head of the army. He came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and has since become a key player in the US-led "war on terror". His term as president expires in 2007.

Justice Department revises torture definition
PRISON ABUSE:After charges in Iraq and Afghanistan, the memo stating that torture need not be limited to intense pain comes too late, critics say.
BY KEN GUGGENHEIM - ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - A prisoner doesn't have to undergo excruciating pain to be considered a victim of torture, the Justice Department now says. But it's not clear whether this revised, broader definition of torture will change the treatment of foreign prisoners.

The White House says a new Justice Department memo defining torture doesn't reflect a change in policy because the administration has always abided by international laws that prohibit the mistreatment of prisoners.

And critics of the administration, while welcoming the memo dated Thursday, say policies that seemed to condone abuse of prisoners in Iraq or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have already done their damage.

"They've been down there for three years, and they've squeezed everything out of these people, despite saying that they were treating them humanely," Mary Cheh, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, said of those detained in Cuba.

The memo's biggest impact could be on next week's Senate confirmation hearings for chief White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, who was nominated by President Bush to replace John Ashcroft as attorney general.

Gonzales and other administration lawyers wrote memos that said the president's wartime powers superseded anti-torture laws and treaties. Human rights advocates say those memos effectively condoned abuse and set the stage for the mistreatment of inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay.

The Justice Department in June specifically disavowed an August 2002 memo to Gonzales that said cruel, inhumane and degrading acts may not be considered torture if they don't produce intense pain and suffering.

That memo was replaced by the Dec. 30 memo from Daniel Levin, acting chief of the Office of Legal Counsel. It opens by bluntly stating: "Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international law." The 17-page memo does not address two of the most controversial assertions in the first memo: that Bush, as commander in chief in wartime, had authority superseding anti-torture laws and that U.S. personnel had legal defenses against criminal liability in such cases.

Levin said those issues need not be considered because they "would be inconsistent with the president's unequivocal directive that United States personnel not engage in torture." But the new document contradicts the previous version, saying torture need not be limited to pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." Instead, the memo concludes that anti-torture laws passed by Congress equate torture with physical suffering "even if it does not involve severe physical pain" but still must be more than "mild and transitory." That can include mental suffering under certain circumstances, but it would not have to last for months or years, as the previous document said.

The White House said Friday that the United States has operated under the spirit of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit violence, torture and humiliating treatment.

"It has been U.S. policy from the start to treat detainees humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions or under the spirit of the conventions where they do not apply," said White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy.

Walter Dellinger, who served as acting solicitor general in the Clinton administration, praised the memo's candor. "It expressly corrects what were seen as some of the sloppiest legal analyses of the earlier opinion," he said. He predicted the opinion "will certainly induce significant caution in the use of interrogation techniques."
Douglas Kmiec, a former legal counsel to President Reagan and the first President Bush, said the new memo "removes any doubt that the president meant what he said" in rejecting torture. He praised Gonzales for having "the courage even in the face of national embarrassment to admit error, and correct it" without undermining the president's authority.

But Michael Ratner of the New York Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents some detainees, said the repudiation of the earlier memos makes it clear that Gonzales' nomination should be withdrawn.

"That first memo took us back to the Middle Ages, and so it first makes you say, what are we doing putting this guy in as attorney general of the United States," he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union also called for a rigorous review to determine Gonzales' role in the earlier memos and his positions on the use of torture. "The new memo raises more questions about Mr. Gonzales than it answers," said Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU's executive director.