May 3, 2005

Afghan munitions blast 'kills 28'
Monday, 2 May, 2005 BBC News
A massive blast at an illegal munitions store in northern Afghanistan has killed 28 people and injured a number of others, officials say.

The explosion was in the village of Bajgah, in the province of Baghlan some 120km (80 miles) north of Kabul.

An interior ministry spokesman said the whole area around the munitions dump had been destroyed.

He said the dump belonged to a former militia commander who said he had disarmed under a government scheme.

The spokesman, Lutfallah Mashal, said most of the injured had been evacuated but that casualties were expected to rise.

Massive stockpiles

Mr Mashal told the BBC the ammunition belonged to Jalal Bajgah. Some reports said he was killed in the blast.

He was supposed to have disarmed under a nationwide programme aimed at removing all weapons from the control of private militias.

"He had secretly retained some of his weapons. We didn't know about this," Mr Mashal said.

The head of security for the province of Baghlan, Gen Mangal, told the BBC: "He'd kept some of his ammunition near where he lived and it caught fire this morning. Eight people from his family have been killed."

The exact cause of the explosion is not yet known. Investigators are already at the site, police said.

The ammunition included artillery and tank shells, as well as rocket propelled grenades and smaller ammunition.

The country still has massive stockpiles of weapons and ammunition left from almost 25 years of war.

The government's disarmament campaign, started by the United Nations 20 months ago, has already resulted in 45,000 men giving up their guns.

It is unclear how many private soldiers there are, but the UN scheme began with the target of disarming 60,000 of them.

The UN expected to reach its target by the end of June, a spokesman for the programme said.

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Two Afghan students expelled on blasphemy charge
May 2, 2005
HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two Afghan university students have been expelled after they were accused of "humiliating" Islam, an education official said on Monday.

The two, Atif Jawed and Tariq Walipur, were dismissed by the chairman of Herat University following complaints from classmates and a teacher about comments they made about Islam during a religious debate, the official said.

"They have both been expelled," said Mohammad Dawood Munir, dean of the Languages Department of Herat University.

Munir did not elaborate on what led to the accusation of blasphemy.

Afghanistan is a deeply conservative Islamic country but since the ouster of the hardline Taliban in late 2001 there has been debate between conservatives and liberals about the role of religion in public life.

A new constitution does not stipulate a punishment for blasphemy.

Munir said the university in the western city had referred the case to the prosecutor's office, which could make a decision about the pair, who were in their fourth year of a journalism course and in their early 20s.

One of the accused, Walipur protested against the expulsion and denied making any blasphemous statement.

"We raised some questions in the class which were misinterpreted by the teacher and classmates. The expulsion decision is an oppression," he told Reuters.

In 2003 authorities detained two journalists on similar charges but they managed to flee from detention in Kabul and were later given asylum in Canada.

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Two Police Killed In Southern Afghanistan
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
2 May 2005 -- Afghan police say a remote-controlled mine today killed at least two police and wounded four others in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar.

Police said the two police were killed on the spot and the four wounded police were evacuated to Kandahar for medical treatment.

Police also said that another improvised explosive devise went off near a U.S-led Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar, but caused no casualties.

Insurgents have stepped up their military attacks on U.S. and Afghan troops recently.
(DPA/AP)

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Ex-inmates share Guantanamo ordeal
By Haroon Rashid / BBC News, Peshawar Monday, 2 May, 2005
A stream of visitors has been coming to the door of Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost in Pakistan's city of Peshawar.

But they are not visiting because it is a traditional festival season - Abdul Rahim is being welcomed back because he has returned from Guantanamo Bay.

The 42-year-old was one of a batch of 17 Afghans released last month from the controversial American prison in Cuba.

Abdul Rahim's younger brother, Badar Zaman Badar, was also at Camp X-Ray, but was freed six months earlier.

Both hold Pakistani nationality as well.

They say they spent three difficult years in US custody and that they had done nothing wrong.

Censored

While Abdul Rahim entertained his guests , Badar sat in their library talking about their ordeal.

The small room was full of Islamic books, many spilling on to the floor through lack of space.

Among the old leather volumes was a black plastic binder full of carefully stacked letters they wrote while in the US military prison.

Most were painstakingly scrutinised and censored.

"They would censor sentences written by us saying that we would all be free soon," said Badar.

Badar said he and his brother were arrested by the Pakistani secret agency, ISI, and police during a raid on their house in November 2001.

The two were kept in solitary confinement for two months, then transferred to the US military base at Bagram, near Kabul.

Finally, they were taken to Kandahar and on to Cuba.

The brothers, both journalists and part-time gemstone dealers, said they had been arrested on false accusations from political rivals.

They denied any contacts with either the Taleban regime or al-Qaeda.

"Although we did not have any links with the Taleban we did support them in our writings," said Badar.

Prolific writer

The brothers said the Americans shaved the inmates' beards and screamed and swore during the frequent interrogations.

"We were not subjected to any physical torture as such but even shaving our beards and taking off our clothes is a form of cruelty," said Abdul Rahim.

He said a number of Arab prisoners had still not spoken to their investigators after three years to protest at the desecration of the Koran by guards.

Abdul Rahim is a prolific Pashto writer.

His brother showed us copies of three pro-Taleban magazines - Ahsan (Justice), Zeray (Good News) and Dawat (Invitation) - he edited before his detention in Peshawar.

Abdul Rahim said he had once been a member of Afghan rebel leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e Islami party, but severed ties to the group.

In detention he kept his sanity by writing poems. In his first months of confinement, Abdul Rahim's poetry was full of despair.

At first, deprived of paper and pen, he memorised his best lines or scribbled them secretly on paper cups.

He recited a verse: "What kind of spring is this where there are no flowers and the air is filled with a miserable smell?"

Later, he was provided with writing materials only to have all but a few of the documents confiscated by the US military upon his release.

"They should return us our work," he said.

However, the poems he wrote in letters back home were kept by his oldest son.

Precious stones

The two brothers did not see each other for 14 months during their confinement. Later, they were housed in adjacent cages.

The US government has declared all such prisoners "enemy combatants" subject to indefinite detention and ineligible for many of the rights accorded to prisoners of war.

Hundreds have now been freed as they are considered unimportant or not a threat to US interests.

There are now about 520 prisoners from some 40 countries.

Badar said the number of Pakistanis was down from 70 or 80 to only three.

Abdul Rahim did not seem interested in seeking any compensation but his younger brother disagreed.

"If they don't compensate us then we might seek justice in court," Badar said.

"My business suffered because of my arrest and my family suffered as well, having two members taken there.

"We also demand the return of millions of rupees of precious stones taken by the Pakistani police and the ISI."

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16,000 Afghan refugees repatriated from Khuzestan prov
Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA)
Abadan, Khuzestan prov, May 2, IRNA - Some 16,000 Afghan refugees residing in this southwestern province have been so far repatriated to their homeland voluntarily, a provincial official said Monday.

Mohammad Hassan Paravar, head of the provincial Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs (BAFIA) added that the remaining Afghan refugees, some 8,000, living in the province, have to leave Iran by May 5, 2005, otherwise they will be deprived of social services.

He further stressed that the Afghan refugees may use this legal opportunity to return home since Afghanistan's political and security condition has been improved recently.

The refugees were sent back to their country in accordance with a tripartite agreement signed in Geneva by representatives from Iran, Afghanistan, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in April 2002 for voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees.

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Pakistan, UNHCR census finds 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan
May 2, 2005 Associated Press
Just over 3 million Afghans live in Pakistan, according to a census conducted by Pakistani authorities and the U.N. refugee agency earlier this year, a government official said Monday.

Millions of Afghans have fled to Pakistan to escape wars and poverty in their homeland. Some have been living in Pakistan since Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

On Monday, Sajid Hussain Chattha, a government official, told reporters in Islamabad that the census, carried out from late February to early March, counted 3.04 million Afghans across the country.

He said the government conducted the census with technical and financial assistance from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

This was the first official census of Afghans living in Pakistan. Earlier estimates said between 2.8 million and 3.2 million Afghans were in the country.

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When Cops Become Robbers
Residents of several provinces complain that law-enforcement officials are little better than the criminals they’re supposed to be driving out.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
By Bashir Babak in Nangarhar and Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 170, 29-Apr-05)

While the Afghan police say thousands of bandits have been disarmed in recent years, many in the provinces insist their lives are still ruled by armed men. The trouble now, these people say, is telling the bandits from the police.

Most complaints come from herders and farmers whose crops and flocks are “taxed" by local gunmen. Local residents say these gunmen use threats, beatings or torture and operate under the protection the local police.

“Armed men still rule in some areas, and the police don’t want to sever their relations with their old friends,” said Qayoum Babak, a political analyst in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

About 450 kilometres to the southeast, in Kunar province near the Pakistan border, herdsmen fought a three-day skirmish in March against the forces of local commander Haji Sardar. Fed up with his tithe of every twentieth goat and every tenth sheep, they burned his compound and ran him out of their village, Mazar Dara.

"There were no casualties, but their centre was set on fire, and the commander escaped along with his friends," village elder Malik Gulan told IWPR.

Kunar governor Asadullah Wafa said he didn't mind that the herders had taken the law into their own hands. He said his priority was getting rid of armed gangs, whether they enjoyed local police protection or not.

"The communities must help us take them out," he said.

IWPR has turned up similar complaints in the eastern provinces of Laghman, Kunar, Nuristan and Nangarhar, as well as Faryab and Sar-e-Pul in the north.

“Our only hope was the police, but now we see that the local police are largely supporting the local commanders,” said Mohammed Asef, who helped form a committee in Faryab province to submit a complaint to the interior ministry.

Asef complained that police recently arrested but then quickly released a well-known outlaw named Samad, who had been accused of attacking local shepherds and stealing 40 sheep. Now, Asef said, Samad has become more brazen than ever, but the local authorities insist there’s nothing they can do.

"We still haven't received any documents or evidence against commander Samad," Colonel Sayed Hassan Ziarati, the Faryab provincial police chief, told IWPR.

Authorities in neighbouring Sar-e-Pul province likewise said they had received complaints against a gang leader named Manan, but not enough evidence to arrest him. But Sayed Mohammad Saami, head of the Human Rights Commission in northern Afghanistan, said his organisation had received 20 complaints about Manan alleging theft, looting and torture.

"The police were formed out of the local ex-militia group," said a resident of Tabar village in Sar-e-Pul, who asked his name not be given for fear of retaliation. "They've just put on the uniforms. They still can't disobey their ex-commander's orders."

In March, more than 50 lorry drivers alleged that they were beaten and robbed by police at a checkpoint on the highway between Mazar-e-Sharif and Jowzjan.

One of the drivers, Raz Mahammad, claimed that police beat him when he told them he had no money and that conditions were worse now than in the early Nineties.

"In those days, if you told the gunmen that you didn't have any money, they would release you," he said. "They wouldn't beat you like today's police."

The commander of the security post denied anyone was robbed. He said officers accused of wrongdoing were sent to Kabul for investigation.

On March 29, about 2,000 people demonstrated in Balkh for the arrest of a local leader, Baba Sayeed, whom they accused of collecting illicit taxes and looting.

The demonstrators were asked to put their complaints in writing, said General Khalilullah Ziayee, Balkh province’s security chief.

Abdul Ghafoor, a farmer and herdsman in the Barg-e-Metal district of the eastern Nuristan province, said some commanders were taking one-tenth of all crops in his area.

"We give them wheat, corn, cheese and opium," he said. "If we don’t, we will be beaten."

Gang leaders have financial arrangements with some village elders and maliks, the local administrative chiefs, he alleged.

"We are poor and helpless people. We can't say anything, and the commanders are paying shares to the elders and maliks," said Ghafoor. "That’s why they keep their mouths shut."

In Laghman province, nomadic herder Akhtar Mohammad said his local commander's take was one out of every 15 newborn lambs.

The shepherd also sees little point complaining to the authorities, since he sees no difference between them and the extortionists, "They are ears belonging to the same horse."

Bashir Babak is an IWPR staff writer in Nangarhar. Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff writer in Mazar-e-Sharif.

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Snowmelt Displaces Thousands
The effects of a hard winter take their toll as flooding hits rural areas.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
By Amanullah Nasrat in Chak and Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada in Kabul (ARR No. 170, 29-Apr-05)

Spring’s floods caused by the heaviest snowmelt in six years are being blamed for causing at least 14 deaths, leaving thousands homeless and swamping Afghanistan’s modest flood-prevention programme.

At least 19 of the country's 34 provinces sustained serious flooding, according to an emergency commission created by President Hamed Karzai before the current crisis.

The commission is funded with 11.4 million US dollars from the national budget and foreign aid organisations. Afghanistan's contribution - 6.2 million US dollars - was earmarked for emergency engineering works along the Amu Darya river, which runs along part of the northern border with Central Asia.

However, aid groups soon found themselves scrambling to provide blankets, food, medicine and shelter all over the country as people were driven from their homes by unrelenting floodwaters.

The Amu Darya, which flows from the Pamir mountains, this year swamped at least 168,000 hectares of land, washing away crops and orchards.

Agriculture Minister Obaidullah Ramin recently told Balkh provincial government officials that stabilising the river would take 12 years and cost about 240 million dollars. Each year, it threatens about 300,000 people living in low-lying areas.

Elsewhere, on March 18, the Helmand river flooded large areas of Uruzgan province. Then, on March 29, the Band-e-Sultan dam, north of Ghazni city, ruptured, killing at least six and sending floodwaters into the provincial capital, 30 kilometres to the south.

Meanwhile, several hundred residents of Chak, about 40 kilometres north of Band-e-Sultan in Wardak province, remain threatened by floodwaters building up behind a dam that is much larger than the one at Band-e-Sultan.

Engineers at Chak, 90 kilometres southwest of Kabul, are working to create a controlled release from the overflowing reservoir, trying to open floodgates that have remained locked during six years of dry weather.

At least 80 families are uncertain whether to return home, said Gulam Sakhi, 61, whose house sits just 200 metres from the dam and says that thousands of hectares of nearby farmland have been rendered useless for crops this year.

Meanwhile, the start of classes has been delayed at Chak’s primary school, built by the United Nations last year at a cost of 200,000 dollars, but now tilting dangerously due to the rising water table.

Amanullah Nasrat is an IWPR staff reporter in Chak. Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.