Afghanistan News January 9, 2005

January 9, 2005

Islamabad, Kabul rush more troops to border
Behroz Khan (Pak - Jan. 9 2005)
PESHAWAR (The News) - Uneasy calm prevail on the Pak-Afghan border, as Islamabad and Kabul have increased the number of troops on both sides of the porous border amid reports that coalition forces have come under fresh attack in Khost province of Afghanistan on Saturday.

Reports reaching from eastern Khost province of Afghanistan suggest that a military jeep of the collation forces was destroyed in a remote-controlled mine, known as Improvised Explosive Devices, at Matoon Ghwar area causing damage to the vehicle and inflicting casualties on the US and its allies. Some reports suggest that four personnel of the coalition forces were either killed or injured in the attack carried out on Saturday morning.

However, the reports could not be verified from the US and independent sources. In another relative development, Afghan security guards defused eight missiles and two artillery shells connected to batteries in Pathan district of Khost province.

Sources close to Khial Baz, chief of security of the 25th Division, said that more than 150 troops have been sent to the Pak-Afghan border on Saturday, where the two sides clashed this week resulting in the killing of one Pakistani militia man Shah Hussain Turi and injuring two others, while in retaliation, Pakistani officials dealing with the situation at the border, claimed to have inflicted more damage and killed many Afghan soldiers to revenge the unprovoked firing from Afghan forces.

However, Afghan Consul-General in Peshawar, Abdul Khaliq Faahi has denied the killing of Afghan soldiers and termed it a minor incident. The Afghan security chief for the area, Khial Baz has been quoted as confirming the killing of three of his men due to retaliatory firing opened by Pakistani militia the same day.

The presence of military vehicles on roads and areas in Pakistan’s North Waziristan agency, bordering Khost province of Afghanistan, sources said was also indicative of the fact that tension has still not been subsided between the two sides.

It was also learnt that people in Miranshah, headquarters of North Waziristan agency, feared that US planes might take action or bomb the area on the Pak-Afghan border because of the happening in Khost, wherein an US spy plane was seen intruding into Pakistani air-space and hovering in the air for about 15 minutes. Pakistani or the US officials have not confirmed the reports.

Personnel of the Frontier Corp, sources said, fired 80 mortar shells and used as many as 23 cannons for more than two hours on January 4th to hit the Afghan security posts in retaliation to fire opened by Afghan National Army on the Frontier Corp personnel visiting Saidgai area of North Waziristan agency to salvage the wreckage of US spy plane, which had crashed in the area the previous night in mysterious circumstances.

Taliban or any other group has so far not claimed responsibility of downing the plane. Both the US and Pakistani military officials had visited the area and decided to allow US air force to destroy the wreckage of the crashed drone, it was learnt.

"The drone is equipped with a very sensitive and expensive camera, and I believe the Americans did not want the Pakistani or any body else to get that," said an official of the secret services, pleading anonymity.

The price of the camera, the source said was about Rs 30 million and the crashed spy plane, he said, was bombed because that no one is able to get access to the images captured by the drone.

The camera from another US drone, which also crashed at Machikhel area, situated between Bannu and North Waziristan agency, the sources claimed, went missing, but the US forces were able to destroy the wreckage of the drone, which crashed in Dandi area of North Waziristan this week.

Taliban Receives Support From Pakistani Militants
Daily Afghan Report - January 7, 2005 - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
A Pakistani militant leader has said that neo-Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan will have the continued support of jihadi outfits in Pakistan, the Afghan Islamic Press news agency reported 6 January. Addressing followers in Pakistan, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, leader of the Islamic Clerics Society -- Fazlur Rahman Group and chairman of the Pakistani Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), an umbrella group of Islamic opposition parties, said his organization has long provided the Taliban with political and moral support and will do so in the future.

"A number of people say that MMA Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal have been supporting the Taliban, but that it is tight-lipped regarding the army operations in Wana North Waziristan, Pakistan," he said. "The answer is that we have supported the Taliban politically and morally and will continue to do so." The organization supported the Taliban during its rule of Afghanistan and strongly opposed the U.S. overthrow of the regime in 2001. Afghan authorities have long complained that Pakistan has done too little to stop Pakistanis from aiding insurgents who move back and forth across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. MR

Judge arrested over Afghan bombs
BBC
Afghan authorities have arrested a judge in connection with a car bomb attack on an American security company in Kabul which killed nine people.

The district judge, Naqibullah, is accused of sheltering the two suspects believed to be behind the August blast. The pair - suspected of al-Qaeda links - are also alleged to have organised a suicide bombing in Kabul in October.

The Taleban claimed responsibility for the August car bomb - among the deadliest in the capital in 2004. Three Americans were among those killed when a car loaded with explosives was detonated outside the offices of US security company, DynCorp. The group provides bodyguards for President Hamid Karzai and training for the local police.

A senior Afghan prosecutor, Abdul Fatah, told the Associated Press news agency that the two men organising the attack "stayed at his [Naqibullah's] house all the time, from the beginning to the end of their mission".

Mr Fatah said the 65-year-old judge was accused of both harbouring the men in his Kabul home and of failing to inform anyone of their plans. Intelligence agents said they had also discovered explosives hidden at the judge's home.

Last week police announced they had arrested two men over their alleged role in the deadly attacks. One of them - Tajik national Mohammed Haidar - admitted organising the attack last August, according to Afghan television.

The second suspect was detained for his part in a bombing in Kabul's busy Chicken street on 23 October 2004 which killed one woman and a child.

Intelligence officials say that Haidar organised the attacks on the instructions of an Iraqi national and al-Qaeda member called Attaullah, based in neighbouring Pakistan.

Judge tells Pajhwok that Al Qaeda suspect came to his house
Safia Milad
KABUL, Jan 9 (Pajhwok Afghan News) - The judge arrested for his involvement in last year's bombings in Kabul told Pajhwok that his house had been visited by a bombing suspect, who has confessed to membership of Al Qaeda.

Judge Nakibullah's son, Abdul Ahad, is already in custody, accused in connection with the October 23 suicide bombing, which killed two women and injured three Icelandic members of ISAF.

An attorney for national security, who declined to give his name, revealed that grenades and other explosive materials – suitable for use in suicide bombings – had been taken out of Nakibullah's Kabul house and later seized at other premises.

He said the house, at Qala Mir Mahmud in the Bibi Mahro district, had been used as a centre for Al Qaeda. Nakibullah's son, aged 30, is one of the two bombing suspects recently revealed to have been in custody since last year.

The other suspect, Tajik national Ahmad Haideri, aged 31, last week admitted, in another prison cell interview with Pajhwok, that he was responsible for the Chicken Street attack and for the August 29 DynCorp bomb.

Arrested three days ago by national security officials, Qazi Nakibullah, aged 65, and with a long white beard, told how previously he had been denying to the police interrogators that he knew Haideri.

But the judge, speaking to a Pajhwok reporter in a cell somewhere in Kabul, said that when Haideri had been brought in front of him, he confessed that he had seen the man at his house.

Nakibullah, dressed in white clothes and waistcoat, and a skull cap, explained that, when questioned by the police, "I said that Haideri was coming to ask about my son."

The judge, originally from Tagab district in the central Kapisa province, but now a judge in nearby Logar province, spoke to the reporter calmly, in a very friendly, fatherly fashion.

But later he began shaking, saying that he was suffering from hypertension and that speaking further would be harmful for him. He said he was carrying medicine with him, adding that "because of my sadness and concern, my sickness increased."

Both the bombings took part in the centre of the capital: Chicken Street is the main shopping area for tourists; the earlier bombing, in the Shahr-e-Naw district, which killed at least ten people, and injured 24, had been outside the compound of DynCorp, the American security company which provides guards for President Hamid Karzai. The national security attorney added that the case continues under investigation.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Initially Pajhwok reported that the judge admitted his house had been used by Al Qaeda foreigners. In fact only security officials stated that the judge's house had been used.

Afghanistan to retrieve hijacked military planes in war from abroad
KABUL, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- As part of efforts to strengthen the fledgling Afghan National Army (ANA), Afghan government would soon begin talks with its neighbors to get back over two dozen military aircraft hijacked during the anti-Soviet war and civil strife, Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday.

"Defense Ministry would soon begin talks with Pakistan and Uzbekistan to retrieve Afghan aircrafts," Zahir Azimi told journalists here at a news briefing.

Military personnel hijacked twenty-six former Soviet-made military planes, including thirteen jet fighters and nine helicopters of Afghan army during the wars in the past 25 years. Of these hijacked aircraft, according to the spokesman, 19 have been held in Pakistan and the others in Uzbekistan.

German defence ministry sees greater danger in Afghanistan: report
DPA 01/08/2005 - BERLIN - Berlin is worried that German forces in Afghanistan will be exposed to greater danger this year as a result of the aim of the United States and Britain to move more aggressively against drug warlords, the weekly magazine Der Spiegel reports.

In its latest issue, the magazine said that German intelligence had cautioned the military to expect greater danger at the German bases in Kundus and Faisabad in north-eastern Afghanistan if the drug warlords start to feel threatened.

The magazine said that before the Christmas holidays, Defence Minister Peter Struck had already ordered a strengthening of security precautions at the German camps in bracing for possible trouble.

Sometime in January he is to talk with parliamentary factions about "more robust" German military operations in Afghanistan, including increasing troop strength from the current 2,250 soldiers and sending special forces to beef up security.

The German parliament's mandate for the Bundeswehr's participation in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission expressly rules out use of the German troops in anti-drugs operations.

However, the German forces indirectly support such efforts by providing US and British troops with surveillance work, supplies and occasional shelter in German camps, the report said.

Afghans prepare doctors, dried fruit to help tsunami survivors, ask for U.S. transport
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) Afghanistan has readied 11 doctors and 10 tons of supplies to send to Sri Lanka to help survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami, officials said Sunday, and appealed to the United States to help with transport.

Ahmad Zia Aftali, a senior official at a military hospital in the Afghan capital, said the doctors part of a 20-strong emergency team hoped to leave Tuesday for India en route to Sri Lanka. He said they would take five tons of medicine and equipment and five tons of dried fruit and stay for 15-20 days.

Defense ministry spokesman Gen. Zaher Mohammed Azimi said a request was made Saturday to the U.S. Embassy for help with transport for the team, which also includes staff from the Afghan Red Crescent.

However, a spokeswoman for the embassy was unable to confirm that the request had been received or say how American officials would respond. President Hamid Karzai ordered his impoverished country's military to organize the relief effort earlier this week, and has appealed to Afghans to donate blood for victims of the Dec. 26 disaster, which claimed more than 150,000 lives in 11 countries.

An Australian relief organization began collecting blood from volunteers on Wednesday in Kabul which health officials say should be taken to Indonesia, the worst-affected country.

Afghans in Kunduz and Jalalabad give blood to Tsunami victims
JALALABAD, Dec 09, (Pajhwok Afghan News) -- Many Afghans living in the regional provinces of eastern Jalalabad and northern Kunduz, have gathered to donate blood for the Tsunami earth quake victims in South Asian countries.

A watchseller in Kunduz province told Pajhwok Afghan News that he felt sorry for the victims of Tsunami, and the only thing he could offer them, was his blood.

Dr Fazel Ahmad Ebrahimi, head of public health of Nangarhar province told Pajhwok Afghan News that the collecting of blood from Afghans living in eastern provinces, had started on January 7, and was still continuing. He added: "In the past two days, nearly 71,000CCs (cubic centimeters) of blood was collected by the Jalalabad hospital."

Mohammad Aref Mamlawal, a resident of Jalalabad told Pajhwok Afghan News that as a member of the world-wide community, they also share the sorrows of the Tsunami victims.

He added: "As the international community has helped Afghanistan in all the disasters it suffered, we also want to donate our blood to the Tsunami-hit population."

Motaleb Baig, security chief of Kunduz province told Pajhwok that so far, nearly 1,000 policemen have donated 500CCs of blood each, and all 1,800 police officers working in the province are prepared to give blood.

Director of the provincial hospital in Kunduz, Dr Humayoon Khamosh said that people were still giving blood. He added that the number of volunteers was too high and it would take several days to complete before the blood is sent to Kabul.

Mohammad Mobin, a policeman, speaking to Pajhwok, form the hospital while he was giving blood, said that he donated blood out of love for fellow-beings.
The donation of blood started throughout Afghanistan after President Hamed Karzai asked the nation to help the victims of Tsunami in the south Asian countries.

Prior to this, a team of medical doctors was dispatched by the ministry of defense, and the Afghan Red Crescent Society had sent dried fruit and blood to the region.

Political parties say August elections are more realistic than spring
By Mohammad Younus Mehrin
KABUL, Jan. 09, (Pajhwok Afghan News) -- A number of political parties in Afghanistan have said holding parliamentary election as planned, in four months time, is not practical.

According to Karzai's government and the recent announcements made by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the elections are scheduled to be held in either March or April of 2005.

But some political parties argue the presence of warlords in the country, along with the 'unaccomplished' UN-sponsored Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Program (DDR), will contribute to the election not being held as timetabled.

The leader of the Afghanistan National Party, Abdul Rashid Aryan, said the political situation across Afghanistan is not conducive to holding parliamentary elections. He said that, in the case of the provincial districts, sufficient ground work has not been carried out to hold elections.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, Aryan pointed out that the failure of the national Afghan program to collect weapons from across the country had contributed to this.

"People's expectations for holding successful parliamentary elections will remain an empty dream unless the last gun [in the country] is collected," he said.

The leader of the United Afghanistan Party, Wasel Rahimi, believes the countrywide presence of warlords, who want to influence the parliamentary election process in one way or another, are a major challenge for the central government, UNAMA and other involved parties. He said: "Holding elections in August or September seems more realistic."

Mr Rahimi said the main hurdle is the issue of disarmament and the pace at which the DDR program is operating. These factors mean it is more realistic to assume that the program will be completed by late August or September. In addition, with the appointment of new governors and district heads, the grip of commanders will be loosened.

The leader of the Republican Party, Sebghatullah Sanjar, said: "Besides such challenges as undertaking administrative reforms, appointing new governors who don't have factional trends and the complete disarmament of the local commanders, we also need to find solutions to political and factional differences and the establishment of a healthy and powerful central administration. Without these, it won't be possible to create an appropriate atmosphere for the national assembly parliament."

"Most of the commanders have links with the international mafia and many fear they will use drug money in the parliamentary elections in a way to favor their own interests and the interest of other groups that are dominant in the remote villages," he added.

Sanjar insisted that the seats in the Afghan parliament have to be divided between the political parties and independent candidates. But election law does not differentiate between independent candidates and candidates representing political parties.

Some government officials still believe that holding elections in the middle of the current year is highly likely. According to the director of Afghanistan Radio and TV, Ghulam Hassan Hazrati, President Hamid Karzai's government is making preparations for the parliamentary elections, to ensure the elections take place in April or May.

He also highlighted the wide publicity campaign in Afghan Media, through social and political programming broadcast on radio and TV, to educate and make people aware of the forthcoming elections.

Jawan Sher Haidari, head of cinematographers union, also thinks the role of warlords has been weakened so they can not influence the political changes in Afghanistan and the hope exists that the parliamentary elections will be held in their set time-frame.

Businessmen donate money to improve the looks of southern Afghan province
By Saeed Zabuli
KANDAHAR, Jan 09, (Pajhwok Afghan News)—Two businessmen from southern Kandahar, Saturday 8, donated 2million Afghanis (Around US$ 40,000), and five thousand plants to make the city look greener and more aesthetically pleasing, Saturday 08.

Businessman, Haji Azizullah who runs a private business gave this money to the governor of Kandahar, Gul Agha Sherzai, at his office. Azizullah said: "I have donated this money for improving the looks of Kandahar city and solving people's problems."

Another businessman, from the same city, Haji Atiqullah, who donated 5,000 plants to the municipality, said he also wanted to take part in making the city more beautiful.

The governor of Kandahar, Gul Agha Sherzai said he appreciated their assistance: "The government can do so much work, with the help of citizens and residents." He encouraged other countrymen to follow their example and cooperate with the Afghan government.

No fire department in Kunduz, so shops burn all night
By Amin Salarzai
KUNDUZ, Jan 6, (Pajhwok Afghan News) – More than a dozen shops full of clothes and other goods were burned out on the night of January 5 in Kunduz -- because the province has no fire department.

The fire started around 8.30 in the evening and the shops – beside the currency exchange - were in flames until about 4.00 in the morning, by which time the shopkeepers and others, alerted by television, finally brought it under control with water buckets.

Kunduz province does not have a fire department. The authorities sought help from the fire department in the neighbouring province of Takhar, but the fire engines did not have water, and by the time this was found, the shops had burned. Some 16 shops were destroyed, with losses were put at a million Afghanis (over $20,000).

One shopkeeper, Rozi Khan, claimed he had lost not only clothes worth 80,000 Afghanis, but 150,000 Afghanis and 20,000 Pakistani Caldars he had collected to pay back a loan. Another, Habibullah, said he had lost clothes and materials worth 180,000 Afghanis.

According to the night guard at the bazaar, an electricity short caused the fire; the provincial authorities blamed the shopkeepers for taking insufficient care; the shopkeepers said the cause was still unclear. The shopkeepers blamed the provincial government for not providing a fire department.

Sayed Daoud Hashemi, Kunduz province deputy, said the help from Takhar did not arrive in time. He explained that they had been in touch with the Interior Ministry, asking them to provide facilities for a fire department in Kunduz.

More ambulances to serve residents of Kabul and the suburbs
Zarghona Salehi
KABUL, Jan. 6, (Pajhwok Afghan News) -- The emergency services in the capital Kabul, providing ambulances say they aim to create four new sub stations, to provide an efficient emergency service, within the coming two weeks, officials said Thursday 6.

With funding from the Norwegian Red Cross, the Kabul Ambulance Center has been operating since spring this year, with nine ambulances in service, and as many as 100 employees.

The administrator for the center, Abdul Qadir Bigi said: "We want to create more centers in the future." The people of Kabul city will definitely welcome the expansion of the ambulance services, because they feel there is a clear shortage to the current service.

An official at the health ministry, Dr Ahmad Shah Kharoti, said there are a total number of 18 ambulances in Kabul, to serve a population of four million, and this is not enough.

Mr Bigi added that the locations for the four centers had been allocated in Khairkhana, Arzan Qimat, Dasht-e-Barchi and Ali Abad suburbs and each area will be served by two ambulances that will start operations in ten days.