Afghanistan News March 21, 2005

March 21, 2005

HAPPY NEW YEAR 1384
SALEA NAW MUBARAK 1384

Afghan election date set
By Simon Cameron-Moore Sunday March 20, 11:06 PM
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, delayed by widespread security problems and logistics in conducting a complex vote, will be held in September nearly a year after originally scheduled, officials say.

The vote will require a major security operation to guard against violence by Taliban insurgents and intimidation by regional warlords vying for power in the fledgling democracy.

Provincial assembly elections will also take place on September 18, Bismillah Bismil, chairman of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), told a news conference on Sunday.

But district council elections have been put off, necessitating a stop-gap arrangement for the new parliament's upper house until those elections can be held.

The parliamentary polls were to have taken place at the same time as a presidential election won by Hamid Karzai last October but have been put off several times.

Karzai, installed as transitional leader after U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001, does not have a political party.

Members of his reformist cabinet will need the approval of the new parliament to keep their jobs. Several are unknown to most Afghans, having fled abroad during Afghanistan's quarter century of conflict.

TEMPORARY UPPER HOUSE
Problems with census data and unfavourable weather have been given as reasons for delaying the polls but there are also many security worries.

The Taliban failed to disrupt the presidential election and there has been a lull in attacks in recent months, although a bomb on Thursday killed five people and wounded 32 in the southern city of Kandahar.

More than 10.5 million people will be able to vote in elections for a 249-seat lower house, the Wolesi Jirga.

"It's the wish and will of our people to have their voice heard on the future of their country," Bismil said.

But the JEMB decided to put off voting for the district councils due to unresolved disputes over boundaries.

Under Afghanistan's constitution a 102-member upper house, or Senate known as the Meshrano Jirga, would be composed of representatives from district councils, provincial councils and members nominated by the president.

Until the district council elections take place a temporary 51-member upper house will be convened, comprising 34 representatives from the provinces and 17 chosen by Karzai.

Fifty political parties, many run by former mujahideen holy warriors who fought Soviet occupying forces in the 1980s, and later the Taliban, have registered to contest the polls.

The election commission has asked donor countries for $148 million to fund the election, and estimates it will need about 8,000 staff to prepare for the polls and 180,000 on voting day.

Afghanistan's successful presidential election in October was seen by analysts as a foreign-policy boost for U.S. President George W. Bush. The United States hopes Afghanistan's successes can be repeated in Iraq.

There are 18,000 U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban insurgency and hunting for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who may be hiding on the rugged border with Pakistan.

There are also more than 8,000 NATO-led peacekeepers, concentrated in Kabul and some northern areas.

Pakistan police hunt bomb clues
BBC News
Pakistani police are investigating a bomb attack at a Muslim shrine that killed at least 30 people. The blast happened as thousands gathered in the village of Fatehpur, about 300km (185 miles) from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the bombing. Correspondents say the attack does not fit into Pakistan's pattern of sectarian violence, as both Sunnis and Shias were among the casualties. Some reports said the explosion was a suicide attack - others that a time-bomb had been planted.

"We are trying to ascertain whether it was a suicide bombing, because the body of a man close to the blast site had been ripped into small pieces," said Balochistan police chief Chaudhry Muhammad Yaqub.

Thousands of worshippers were settling down to an evening meal when the bomb exploded, leaving a crater six feet (2m) deep. "The food was being handed out amongst the devotees when there was a huge, loud blast," said pilgrim Mohammad Midhal.

"Everyone was wailing, they were covered in blood, staggering around and lifting up people to see if they were injured or even alive." A second bomb was found at the shrine and safely removed. Balochistan has a history of violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims - nearly 50 Shias were killed during an important religious procession a year ago - and it has also seen increased attacks by tribesmen fighting for more autonomy.

But correspondents say Fatehpur is in an area which has not seen sectarian violence. The blast occurred during the annual pilgrimage to the shrine of a saint, Raqil Shah, revered by devotees of Sufism - a mystical branch of Islam.

"This is the biggest gathering in Balochistan. Everyone comes here, even Hindus. There is no distinction here between a Shia and a Sunni," said the shrine's caretaker, Syed Sadiq Shah. "God's curse be on those who did this. They have killed innocent people."

He denied the bomb could have been linked to an alleged dispute within his family over custody of the shrine. Recent clashes between Baloch nationalists and security forces left more than 20 people dead, according to local authorities. But the BBC's correspondent Paul Anderson in Islamabad says the rebels' targets have usually been security forces and the power and rail infrastructure, not large gatherings of civilians.

Suspected Pakistani suicide bomber held in Afghanistan
The News International, Pakistan
KHOST: A suspected Pakistani suicide bomber, who planned to target foreign troops and senior Afghan officials, has been arrested in Khost province, officials said on Sunday. "We had arrested a Pakistani national Shahbaz on Friday near Khost city after a tip off that some foreign suicide bombers have entered the province," said Khost border forces commander Almar Gull Mangal. He added, "Shahbaz, who hails from Sialkot, was arrested in Zirai Tarkha area, two kilometres off Khost city and speaks Punjabi, Urdu and Pashto fluently. He had a 2,300 UAE Dirham cheque on him when he was arrested from a mosque. We are looking for another four (suspected) bombers who are in Khost province and they might have some Afghan allies as well who have guided them in the province."

Afghan Crime Wave Breeds Nostalgia for Taliban
The Washington Post 03/18/2005 By N.C. Aizenman
Child Abductions in Kandahar Crystallize Discontent With Governing Ex-Warlords
KANDAHAR - "We are savage, cruel people," the kidnappers warned in a note sent to Abdul Qader, demanding $15,000 to spare the life of his son Mohammed, 11. The construction contractor quickly borrowed the money and left it at the agreed spot. But the next morning, a shopkeeper found the boy's bruised corpse lying in a muddy street.

A wave of crime in this southern Afghan city -- including Mohammed's killing two months ago and a bombing Thursday that killed at least five people -- has evoked a growing local nostalgia for the Taliban era of 1996 to 2001, when the extremist Islamic militia imposed law and order by draconian means.

Residents reached their boiling point last week, after a second kidnapped boy was killed. Hundreds of men poured into the streets, demanding that President Hamid Karzai fire the provincial governor and police chief. Some threw rocks at military vehicles and chanted, "Down with the warlords!" Witnesses recalled some adding, "Bring back the Taliban!"

Both provincial officials are former militia leaders -- commonly called warlords in Afghanistan -- whose fighters reportedly preyed on residents before they were driven out by the Taliban. They regained power, like a number of other current officials, by joining the U.S.-led military forces that defeated the Taliban in late 2001.
In response to the protest, Karzai dispatched a top security aide to Kandahar and promises were made to bolster the local police force with reinforcements from the capital. There were also reports that Karzai might transfer the police chief to another province. But residents are demanding more action by Karzai, who was elected in October after making campaign pledges to remove the warlords from power.

"We don't want any more promises on paper," said a landowner and tribal leader who, like many residents, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the government. "We want Mr. Karzai to keep his word."

The Kandaharis' complaints echo those of Afghans across the country. Last Monday, demonstrators in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif called for the resignation of Gen. Attah Mohammad, the strongman who governs their province, complaining that he had stolen people's land.

Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based advocacy group, charged last week that numerous former warlords, who hold many provincial governorships and top police jobs, "have been implicated in widespread rape of women and children, murder, illegal detention, forced displacement, human trafficking and forced marriage." There are also allegations that some militia leaders and civilian officials are involved in drug trafficking.

The rising discontent in Kandahar could prove particularly problematic for Karzai, who was born here and has drawn much support from the region's Pashtun ethnic group to which he belongs. Many Kandaharis, once alienated by the harsh rule of the Taliban, say their early support for Karzai is now giving way to a grudging nostalgia for the Taliban era.

At that time, many said, a person could walk around the city carrying quantities of cash and drive roads long after dark without fear. Today holdups are common, few people venture out after sunset, and many are haunted by a sense of vulnerability.

Nazar Khan, who sells television sets in a bazaar, said that as a teenager, he hated the Taliban for banning music and forcing him to listen in secret to his favorite singers. "But at least under the Taliban we had security," Khan said.

Because of the kidnappings, Khan now drives his four older children to school and takes them to his stall afterward to keep a close watch on them. The 2-year-old stays with him all day. "One moment I'm making a sale," he said. "The next minute I'm turning around and wondering: Where did my son go?"

There is much about Kandahar that underscores how far it has progressed since the Taliban's ouster. Bazaars are filled with merchandise, from photos to VCRs, that would have been unthinkable during the Taliban era. Picking through the wares are scores of women -- most of them veiled because of tribal custom, but far more numerous than they would have been in the days when the Taliban morals police prowled markets with leather whips.

Above the streets, satellite dishes peek out from rooftops. At the soccer stadium where the Taliban once staged public stonings of alleged adulterers, painters prepare the grounds for a youth tournament.

Still, residents say, the outward trappings mask entrenched problems, from lack of jobs to street crime. Many said they personally knew someone whose motorbike, car or other property had been stolen, often at gunpoint. Zahir Jan, 35, a stadium painter, said he longed to find a better job but would be satisfied with the government if it weren't for the kidnappings.

"Imagine how things are, that we are wishing for the Taliban again," he muttered. Khalid Pashtoon, a spokesman for Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai, said reports of kidnappings were greatly exaggerated. In most cases, he said, children reported missing had merely wandered off.

"Sometimes people in Kandahar get confused," Pashtoon said. "They've been raised amid continuous fighting, and they have a very pessimistic mindset. . . . But most of this is just rumor." As for the street protest last week, Pashtoon said there were signs that members of a Taliban splinter group were involved.

Khan Mohammed, the police chief, said that since he took office six months ago, the number of robberies in Kandahar has dropped dramatically. "If before we had five to 10 robberies a week, now that's what we have in a month," he said.

Mohammed said that apart from the two boys killed recently, the police had received "no reports of kidnappings at all" and had made no arrests. But several residents said they personally knew of other children who had been kidnapped for ransom.

Members of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission noted that many kidnappings may not be reported to police. The logbooks at Kandahar's independent radio station indicated that it had received 10 to 15 requests per month to broadcast reports of missing persons, most of them children. But the station does not keep track of the circumstances of each child's disappearance or whether they are found.

Whatever the facts may be, there is a widespread perception here that children are frequently kidnapped. Furthermore, some people suggested that instead of tracking down the culprits, the police themselves may be involved. Mohammed, the chief, categorically denied the accusation, and no residents could provide hard evidence. Instead, they pointed to suspicious circumstances.

Abdul Qader, for example, said a friend's young son had been kidnapped several months ago and then released. "Now, every time that boy sees men in uniform, he becomes afraid," Qader said. "Why would he act that way unless some officials were involved?"

Then there was Qader's own experience with the police. He did not report his son's disappearance, he said, because he believed the police would not help him. Instead, he broadcast appeals for information on television and radio.

After news of his son's death became public, Qader said, the governor called him in for a meeting. Qader said Shirzai promised to track down those responsible. Instead, he said, national intelligence police arrested one of Qader's cousins and two of his brothers.

Pashtoon said police had obtained evidence that one of the brothers, who remained in custody, was a member of an organized crime gang from Pakistan. Qader said that the charges were baseless and that, after two weeks, he finally persuaded the police to release his brother. "The governor said he would help me, but instead he caused me even more pain," Qader said.

the power and rail infrastructure, not large gatherings of civilians.
US's Rice urges democracy for ally Pakistan, end to nuke network
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged key ally Pakistan to follow the path of democracy and said the United States wanted to crush a black market run by the country's disgraced nuclear hero.

But Rice, returning to Islamabad from a half-day trip to Kabul, took a soft line on President Pervez Musharraf's broken pledge to quit as army chief and his refusal to allow foreign questioning of rogue scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Rice held talks with her counterpart Khurshid Kasuri, having met military ruler Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz late Wednesday.

"We did talk about the importance of democratic reforms in Pakistan, about getting on the road to democratic reforms that will in fact lead to free and fair elections in 2007," she told a joint press conference with Kasuri on Thursday.

"This is not the Pakistan of September 11. It is not even the Pakistan of September 11, 2002 and it is a credit to Pervez Musharraf, his advisers and indeed the Pakistani people that progress is being made," Rice added.

The United States has relied on General Musharraf's hold on power in its bid to crack down on world terrorism and Islamic extremism following the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington which killed around 3,000 people.

US officials believe Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden and other key militants are hiding on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Pakistan has also captured key figures including September 11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ahmad Khalfan Ghailani, wanted for the 1998 bombing of US embassies in East Africa. Most have been handed over to US custody.

However Musharraf has faced considerable opposition at home after pushing through a controversial law in parliament last year enabling him to continue as military chief despite earlier promising to relinquish the position. Musharraf has said that hanging up his uniform would affect his ability to tackle Al-Qaeda and other militants.
Pakistan has also come under pressure after admitting last week that nuclear scientist Khan, regarded as the father of the country's atomic bomb, supplied Iran (news - web sites) with centrifuges, which can be used to enrich uranium for atomic warheads.

Khan confessed in February 2004 to leaking secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya after a government probe into nuclear proliferation. He was later pardoned by Musharraf but has been living under virtual house arrest.

"It is a network that we want to make certain that its tentacles are broken up as well," Rice told the press conference. She said the United States has had cooperation from Pakistan to try to ensure the network is broken up and to get as much information as possible.

"I do not doubt that we all have an interest in knowing what happened, that we all have (an) interest in making sure that this network cannot... continue to operate in any way," she added. Rice, who is on her first visit to the region since assuming office in January, said Washington still wanted to know how the network was able to operate.

"Most importantly we all have an interest in knowing how it happened, so that we can safeguard against this kind of black market entrepreneurship in the future," she said. Pakistan has repeatedly said it would not allow any foreign country or agency to interrogate Khan.

Washington believes the technology has enabled Iran to enrich uranium to a level required for making nuclear weapons. Rice had earlier brought up both the United States's promotion of democracy and efforts to tackle terrorism during her stopover in the Afghan capital Kabul, having left Islamabad early on Thursday. Rice has already visited India on her six-nation Asian visit and flies to Tokyo on Friday for talks with Japanese leaders, followed by South Korea and finally China.

Afghanistan's fabled Bactrian treasures to tour
CBC News, Canada - 19 Mar 2005
ATHENS - The National Geographic Society has a deal to organize a tour of Bactrian gold treasures from Afghanistan. The tour would be the first to display the gold artifacts, jewellery, weapons and everyday objects, considered Afghanistan's most revered treasure, outside of the country. The tour will begin in the United States.

The 20,000 pieces were first discovered in 1978 by Greek-Russian archeologist Victor Sarigiannidis. He announced the tour on Friday in Athens, according to Agence France Presse. The 2,000-year-old collection originated in the northern Afghanistan region formerly known as Bactria, considered a central stop on the Silk Road.

Museums from around the world had been vying to show the treasures, which resurfaced unexpectedly in a bank vault in Kabul in 2003. Afghanistan's national museum was in ruins after the fall of the Taliban and many of its antiquities were missing. It was thought the artifacts had been destroyed by the Taliban, which smashed many antiquities as contrary to Islam.

After the discovery, international experts went to Kabul to verify that the find actually was the fabled collection. "What we did was an inventory and an accounting of all of the items that were there," Dr. Frederik Hiebert of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology said in 2003. He had travelled to Kabul on behalf of the National Geographic Society.

The National Geographic Society did an inventory of the treasures and negotiated with Afghan authorities for the international tour. Sarigiannidis was brought in to verify that all of the collection was still there. Bactria was an ancient nation that covered parts of what is now Afghanistan. The gold artifacts were found in six tombs in the northern part of the country.

IA to mount 28 new flights to SE Asia, resume Kabul operations
Manorama Online 03/18/2005
New Delhi - Indian Airlines (IA) on Friday announced 28 new flights a week as part of expanding its operations to southeast Asian destinations from March 27 while Air Sahara said it will launch 14 flights a week from May.

IA is also launching one flight a week on Delhi-Kabul-Amritsar-Delhi route during the summer schedule which comes into effect from last week of March. The Kabul flight will resume for the first time after November 1989. The government-owned airline is also adding a daily flight on Mumbai-Sharjah sector, officials said.

There will be daily flights on Mumbai-Bangkok-Mumbai route and Delhi-Bangkok-Kuala Lumpur route, thrice a week on Hyderabad-Singapore-Hyderabad, Chennai-Bangkok-Chennai, Kolkata-Bangkok-Kolkata routes, twice a week on Bangalore-Bangkok-Bangalore and Hyderabad-Bangkok-Hyderabad routes besides once a week on Gaya-Yangon routes.

''There will now be 38 flights a week to Bangkok, 33 to Singapore, 14 to Kuala Lumpur and two to Yangon,'' said director for IA's public relations Manjira Khurana. To Bangkok, there will be 14 flights from Delhi, seven each from Mumbai and Kolkata, three from Chennai, two each from Bangalore and Hyderabad and one each from Gaya, Guwhati and Jaipur.

Helping Afghan women be healthy
By Caroline Ryan - BBC News health reporter
Giving birth in a remote village in Afghanistan can be a lonely and frightening experience. Mothers-to-be often have no-one to care for them through their labour, because there are too few female doctors or midwives available.

Male doctors are not allowed to be present, and most women would not want them there anyway. The difficulties in providing care to women in childbirth highlight the problems which are still being faced in Afghanistan.

The country has the highest maternal death rate in the world, with 1,600 women out of every 100,000 dying in childbirth. An estimated 257 children per 1,000 die before the age of five.

Even three years after Taleban rule ended, there are very few hospitals in the country, and men and boys take precedence in those emergency departments which do exist. Women are often not allowed to see a male doctor at all. Campaigners are trying to improve the situation.

Teams now go to villages to educate women about how to care for and feed themselves during pregnancy, and their babies when they are born. They also counsel them to move away from unhygienic traditional practices such as birthing stones, kept in many rural houses, which women sit on to have their babies.

These stones are used whenever the woman has a child. Hulan Khatibi is the director of the Women's Activities and Social Sciences Association, one organisation working to improve healthcare for women in Afghanistan.

She has been part of a delegation led by the charity Action Aid which has visited the UK and US to raise awareness of the help the country still needs. She told the BBC News website: "During the Taleban's reign, it was impossible. Women weren't allowed to go out of the house. It was very difficult to have access to healthcare.
"We just didn't have female doctors because they weren't able to practice. "That is why the maternal mortality rate has been so high." Ms Khatibi said the organisation gives women information about how they can live more healthily.

"We give them information about how to bathe hygienically in the public baths that people in Afghanistan use, how to nourish their babies, and what they should be eating while they are breastfeeding. "We also train a midwife in each area so that they can go on to train other women."

The organisation also talks to men, to widen their understanding of what women need and the freedoms they now have. But she said a lack of clinics was still a major problem. "In one area, there is only one hospital which it takes two hours to fly to from the outlying parts of that region."

And poverty means that travelling by plane would be an impossibility for many, she said. Her organisation is now building smaller clinics which are more accessible for people in rural areas. Ms Khatibi, who lived in exile in Pakistan during the Taleban's rule, added: "We are happy. There has been improvement and there has been change. "You cannot expect massive change. That is going to take some time."

Afghanistan Hit by Floods; Coalition Helicopters Rescue People
March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan's central and western provinces were hit by floods caused by melting snow, forcing the U.S.-led coalition to use helicopters to rescue people, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said.

Coalition forces saved about 250 people trapped by flood waters last week near Dihrawud in the central province of Uruzgan, Ariane Quentier, a spokeswoman for the Assistance Mission, told a briefing in Kabul yesterday, according to the UN Web site.

More than 115 people may have died and thousands have been left homeless since March 18, Agence France-Presse cited Jan Mohammad, Uruzgan's provincial governor, as saying yesterday. At least 76 people died in the western province of Farah, Assadullah Falah, the region's governor, told AFP yesterday.

Afghanistan had its heaviest snowfalls in a decade last month that resulted in the deaths at least 580 people from avalanches and diseases such as flu, AFP reported at the time. Aid agencies last month began preparing for possible flooding, as snows melt, by bringing extra food supplies into provinces, the UN mission said at the time.

The World Food Program in recent days airlifted food into Uruzgan, Quentier said yesterday, according to the UN. Areas of Jawzjan province in the north and Paktia in the east were also hit by floods, she said.

Radio Broadcasts

The Afghan government is using public and private radio stations and some television broadcasters to alert people about potential flooding.

``The messages are broadcast in both Dari and Pashtu and provide easy-to-understand advice on flood preparedness and what to do in the event of flooding,' Quentier said. ``They urge people to look out for danger signs such as heavy rainfall or the discoloration of river waters.''

The floods have killed thousands of livestock, AFP cited the Interior Ministry as saying yesterday.

Two decades of civil war and drought in Afghanistan devastated the country and produced the world's largest refugee population of 3.5 million people, most of whom fled to Pakistan and Iran. The country is ranked 173 out of 178 nations on the UN Development Program's 2004 Human Development Index with only a few in Africa's sub-Saharan region listed lower, the agency said last month. Life expectancy in Afghanistan is 44.5 years, at least 20 years lower than in neighboring countries.

The country is recovering after the ousting of the Taliban regime in December 2001 in the U.S.-led war against terrorism. Hamid Karzai, who led the interim government that replaced the Taliban, won the first direct presidential election in October.

Karzai, 46, said last week that parliamentary elections will be held in September. The polls had to be delayed from May because issues such as refugee participation and creating electoral boundaries still have to be settled, Karzai said.

The election will be held on Sept. 18, Bismillah Bismil, head of the Afghan Election Commission, said yesterday, AFP reported from the Afghan capital.

4 accords to be signed with Afghanistan
By Qudssia Akhlaque Dawn
ISLAMABAD, March 20: Pakistan and Afghanistan are likely to sign four agreements, including a protocol on political consultations, during President Hamid Karzai's two-day visit to the country, starting on Tuesday.

Agreements in the fields of transportation, tourism and culture were also expected, sources told Dawn on Sunday. They said one of the agreements related to a bus service between Peshawar and Kabul.

The protocol on political consultation pertained to broad-based discussion at the levels of foreign ministers and secretaries for strengthening bilateral relations. The draft of the protocol was submitted to the Afghan government by Pakistan last year and it has been going back and forth between the two capitals.

There has been no major agreement between the two countries since the 1965 Afghan Transit Trade Agreement. The agreements would be signed after President Karzai's meeting with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday, the sources said.

The Afghan president will arrive here on Tuesday with a 30-member entourage, including the ministers for foreign affairs, defence, commerce, transport and tribal areas and the national security advisor of his country.

'Warthogs’ prove their mettle in Afghanistan
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Sunday, March 20, 2005
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — When American soldiers encounter the enemy in this country of seemingly endless mountains and rocky valleys, they can count on one thing their enemies can’t: air power.

Much of that power is supplied by a small group of pilots who fly A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, somewhat affectionately known as “Warthogs.”

They admittedly are not as elegant — or as fast — as their fighter counterparts, such as the F-15 or F-16. But the pilots taking the planes up daily into the skies over Afghanistan say they wouldn’t want to be flying anything else.

“I think this aircraft is perfect for what we’re doing here right now,” said Col. Warren Henderson, commander of the 23rd Fighter Group at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., and 455th Expeditionary Operations Group commander at Bagram.

And just what is that?

“The basic thing we do here is support the guys on the ground with whatever they need,” said Capt. Joe Scholtz, who had just finished a six-hour mission Saturday.

Sometimes, the mere presence of an A-10 overhead can discourage attacks, the Air Force pilots say.

Other times, soldiers on the ground who have called in help from the friends in the skies see their opposition quit fighting and take off.

“When [enemy forces] see the A-10 overhead, they know it’s time to disengage and run away,” Henderson said.

The planes are touted by some for their ability to destroy enemy tanks, but there are not a lot of armored vehicles for the A-10s to fire on in Afghanistan.

Instead, with the help of a new targeting system that allows pilots to see better at night, the aircraft are carrying out reconnaissance missions, as well as supporting convoys and visits by dignitaries to special events.

And those reconnaissance missions don’t always involve potential enemies. On Friday night, A-10s helped locate local residents threatened by floodwaters in western Afghanistan. The pilots then gave the coordinates to Army helicopters that swooped in and rescued hundreds of stranded citizens.

Pilots like Scholtz, Capt. Ron Oliver and Lt. Col. Tim Strasburger are in the air about every other day. But their squadron of planes is in the skies around the clock.

The planes that Scholtz and Strasburger flew Saturday would be ready for another mission in about an hour, they said.

The planes don’t complain, Oliver said.

“The more you fly them, the better they fly,” he said.

The pilots say they could have a busy spring, with anticoalition forces expected to mount more attacks on forces on the ground.

“I’d rather support a guy on the ground than get an air-to-air kill any day,” Strasburger said, acknowledging a difference between A-10 pilots and some of their fighter brethren.

“I guarantee you that at any Army post you go to, the A-10 guys drink for free.”

Of course, that doesn’t hold true in Afghanistan, where U.S. servicemembers are not permitted to drink alcohol.

But there might be a few rounds waiting in North Carolina when the pilots return to Pope and their Fort Bragg neighbors — in this case, members of the 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division — end their yearlong tour in Afghanistan.