Afghanistan News September 16, 2005

September 16, 2005

Bush calls Karzai on upcoming vote
Thu Sep 15, 9:13 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to express support for Aghanistan's weekend legislative elections, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

"The president called President Karzai to express our support for the Afghan people and wish them well as they prepare to hold elections this Sunday," McClellan told reporters.

"President Karzai said that the nation was ready to vote, and expressed to the president that the people of Afghanistan were enthusiastic about the upcoming election and eager to cast their vote," said McClellan.

Asked whether Karzai had invited Bush to address the parliament that will result from the elections, McClellan replied: "He did an extend an invitation. The president expressed his appreciation for the invitation."

The Afghan leader also offered condolences for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and Bush thanked him for Afghanistan's offer to donate 100,000 dollars to help in the killer storm's aftermath, the spokesman said.

Taliban urge Afghans not to vote, warn of violence
KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban on Friday called on Afghanistan's 12.5 million voters to boycott Sunday's landmark elections, saying they were an American plot, and warned Afghans they could be hurt in attacks on foreign troops if they vote.

The Taliban has previously said they would not target polling stations, but guerrilla spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said that if Afghans went to vote they would do so at their own risk.

He said the guerrillas would target foreign "occupation" troops on election day, and these attacks could hurt ordinary Afghans.

"The Taliban shura council appeals to the Afghan people not to take part in the September 18 elections as this election farce is also an American plan," he said, referring to the guerrillas council of clerics.

"Therefore, not only should the Afghan people stay away from the elections, they should also try to sabotage them," he told Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.

"The Taliban have always tried not to hurt the common Afghan people, but they could get hurt during attacks and blasts at places where there are foreign troops.

"If the Afghan people go to the polling stations for voting, they would themselves be responsible for any damage caused to them. However, the Taliban will try to ensure that only foreign troops are targeted and that the Afghan people remain safe."

Militant violence has been the main worry in the run-up to Sunday's landmark elections for a national assembly and for councils in all 34 of the Muslim country's provinces.

More than 1,000 people have been killed this year, most of them militants, but including 49 U.S. troops. It has been the bloodiest period since the Taliban's fall in 2001.

Violence has continued in insurgent troubled central and southern provinces in the days leading to the election, but there has been no dramatic spike in incidents.

About 100,000 troops, including 22,000 U.S.-led troops and 10,000 NATO-led peacekeepers, will provide security for voters. Polling station security will be provided by Afghan police and troops with foreign forces providing support as needed.

Afghan and U.S. officials have warned that the Taliban might try to sabotage the vote, the next big step in Afghanistan's difficult path to stability, but would not be able to derail it.

The Interior Ministry said on Thursday police had foiled more than 100 insurgent plots in the past month, including plans for bombings and suicide attacks, and had arrested a number of culprits including some foreign nationals, such as Pakistanis.

The Taliban have killed several candidates ahead of the elections, but have largely stuck to their policy of attacking government officials, religious leaders, soldiers and police.

On Wednesday, gunmen shot and wounded a woman candidate as she campaigned in the eastern province of Nuristan and an Afghan interpreter for U.S. forces was killed and three U.S. soldiers have been wounded in roadside bomb attacks since then.

The U.S. military said U.S. and Afghan forces killed four guerrillas in one such attack in Kandahar province on Wednesday.

US ambassador says no decision on Afghanistan troop cuts
September 15, 2005
KABUL (AFP) - The United States has not yet decided whether to reduce its military forces in Afghanistan, the US ambassador to Kabul said, following a report that numbers could be cut by up to 20 percent.

"The US has not made its final decision about troop levels in Afghanistan," Ronald Neumann told reporters in the Afghan capital.

"If you're asking me if there's some serious planning process, if there's some immediacy to the idea that we're gonna reduce, the answer is no."

Neumann's comments came a day after US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld played down a New York Times report that the Pentagon is considering plans to scale back US forces in Afghanistan by as much as a fifth by spring 2006.

"You're just chasing the wrong rabbit, frankly," Rumsfeld told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with his NATO counterparts in Berlin, which discussed plans to expand the alliance's role in Afghanistan.

Around 20,000 US troops are currently in Afghanistan hunting Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Along with 11,000 NATO-led peacekeepers and some 100,000 Afghan police and soldiers, they are also providing security for Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in more than 30 years, which are being held on Sunday.

But while Washington is pushing for closer ties between NATO forces in Afghanistan and its own, it has run into reservations from European allies, notably Germany, France and Turkey, which have rejected a full merger.

Afghan woman election candidate attacked, wounded
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Sept 15 (Reuters) - An Afghan woman candidate in Sunday's elections was wounded in a gun attack, officials said on Thursday, the latest in a string of violence against people taking part in the polls.

Afghans will vote for a new national assembly for the first time since 1969, as well as councils in all 34 of the country's provinces. Gunmen open fire on the woman candidate for a national assembly seat, Hawa Nuristani, while she was campaigning in the eastern province of Nuristan on Wednesday.

"She's OK now, she's in stable condition," said Abdul Wakil Attak spokesman for the provincial governor. She had suffered two wounds to her arms and one on the side of her head, he said.

Attak said terrorists were responsible but no suspects had been arrested. The election commission in the capital Kabul confirmed the attack and said two reporters had been kidnapped at the time of the attack. The governor's spokesman said he had no information about any missing reporters.

Violence has surged in the run-up to the election but Afghan government and U.S. officials say they are confident the vote will not be seriously disrupted. Six candidates have been killed and Taliban insurgents, who have condemned the vote, have claimed responsibility for at least three of the deaths. Several candidates have been wounded in violence.

Three civilians, three suspected Taliban killed in Afghan province: governor
KABUL, Afghanistan - (AP) Police killed three suspected Taliban rebels who attacked their post, and a roadside bomb blast killed three civilians and wounded four others as violence continued in southern Afghanistan days before legislative elections, a top official said Thursday.

About 40 gunmen attacked a police post on a road in the mountainous Char-Chilo district of Uruzgan province late Wednesday, provincial Governor Jan Mohammed Khan said. Police killed three of the attackers and arrested one after a two-hour gunbattle, he said. The others escaped.

There were no casualties among 20 police manning the checkpoint, Khan said. Earlier Wednesday, a bomb exploded along a road frequently traveled by U.S.-led and Afghan army forces near Tirin Kot, the provincial capital, blowing up a civilian vehicle and killing three passengers, he said.

Three other men and a child riding in the vehicle were seriously wounded, Khan said. He blamed both attacks on Taliban rebels, saying the roadside bomb was probably aimed at U.S.-led or Afghan forces.

Taliban insurgents have stepped up attacks in volatile southern Afghanistan and vowed to subvert landmark legislative elections on Sunday seen as a major step toward democracy and stability in Afghanistan after a quarter-century of war.

Fighting has left more than 1,200 people dead in the past six months, including five candidates and four election workers, and Khan blamed the Taliban for the killings of seven men whose bodies were found in the province Tuesday along with their voter ID cards. About 20,000 U.S.-led troops and 11,000 NATO troops are to help provide security for the vote, and U.S. and Afghan officials have said they are confident it will be successful despite the violence and threats.

Afghans, US say Taliban can't derail election
By Sayed Salahuddin Thu Sep 15,12:46 PM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas will fail if they try to derail this weekend's elections in     Afghanistan, the government and its U.S. backers said on Thursday.

Militant violence has been the main worry in the run-up to Sunday's landmark elections for a national assembly and for councils in all 34 of the Muslim country's provinces.

The hardline Islamic Taliban, who have battled U.S.-led and government forces since they were overthrown as rulers in 2001, are opposed to the U.N.-backed polls and have killed several candidates, but have pledged not to attack polling stations.

Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said police had foiled more than 100 insurgent plots in the past month, including plans for bombings and suicide attacks, and had arrested a number of people including some foreign nationals.

"The enemy will try before and during the elections to bring about a situation to frighten people," he said. But he added they did not have the resources to "block the election process."

As he spoke, news came through that a woman candidate campaigning in the east had been shot and wounded and later the U.S. military said an Afghan interpreter was killed and two U.S. soldiers wounded in a roadside bomb attack in Zabul province.

Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said the guerrillas carried out the Zabul attack. U.S. military spokeswoman Lieutenant Cindy Moore said the Americans were in stable condition.

Thursday was the last day of the campaign. Candidates' vehicles covered in posters and with loudspeakers blaring crawled through Kabul's clogged and dusty streets.

U.S. ambassador Ronald Neumann said the vote might not be perfect, but would still represent a historic achievement.

"I think it is very likely there will be some violence," he told reporters. "I can't rule out that there could be some large violence, but I don't think there will be any kind of violence that will stop the success of the election."

SURGE IN VIOLENCE
More than 1,000 people have been killed in the run-up to the vote, most of them militants but including 49 U.S. troops. It has been the bloodiest period since the Taliban's fall.

About 100,000 troops, including 22,000 U.S.-led troops and 10,000     NATO-led peacekeepers, will provide security for up to 12.5 million Afghans to vote.

The U.S. lobby group Human Rights Watch said intimidation by insurgents and warlords -- some of whom were standing for election -- had undermined the campaign, and that international forces should not cut troop levels too quickly after the polls.

The     United Nations said it too was worried about attacks, but that Afghans had nevertheless been able to exercise their political rights.

The elections are being held on a partyless basis, with all candidates standing as independents, and an electoral system that gives voters only one vote in multi-member constituencies.

Critics say the system can be unrepresentative. One think-tank calls it a lottery.

Emma Bonino, a former European commissioner heading an EU observer mission, told Reuters: "It is the long-standing position of the European institutions that the system is not conducive to creating a viable political organization ... but I have a positive expectation."

A spokesman for the governor of Nuristan province in eastern Afghanistan confirmed Wednesday's attack on Hawa Nuristani, a woman contesting a national assembly seat.

"She's okay now, she's in stable condition," he said, adding that she been wounded on her arms and the side of her head.

On Wednesday night, security forces killed three Taliban fighters in the insurgent-troubled central province of Uruzgan, bringing the number of deaths there to at least 13 in 24 hours.

Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi confirmed the losses, but said the guerrillas had killed seven police.

(Additional reporting by Robert Birsel and David Brunnstrom)

Pakistani general blames U.S., Afghan forces for surge in rebel attacks in Afghanistan
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - (AP)A senior Pakistan army commander on Thursday blamed a lack of control by U.S. and Afghan forces over parts of Afghanistan for a rise in Taliban rebel attacks ahead of crucial parliamentary elections.

Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, who is leading thousands of troops in a hunt for militants in northwestern Pakistan along the Afghan border, claimed that no fighters are entering Afghanistan from Pakistan. He said the surge in Taliban attacks in Afghanistan, ahead of Sunday's vote, is due to a lack of authority by the Afghan National Army and the U.S.-led coalition in parts of the country.

"They have not given the effort to (secure) the east and south that they have to the center and west of Afghanistan," he said. Attacks by Taliban rebels have been particularly numerous in the east and south, much of which border Pakistan.

U.S. and Afghan officials have said Taliban militants enter Afghanistan through Pakistan's tribal regions.Hussain said an additional 5,000 Pakistani troops were deployed in July to secure the border before the Afghan vote. That is in addition to more than 70,000 troops already in frontier areas to track down terror suspects.

"There is no infiltration going on from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Afghanistan should take equal measures to see that infiltration does not happen on either side of the border," he said.
Patrolling along the Afghan border has been increased, and troops are in posts that have been set up every 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) on the 600-kilometer (370-mile) part of the frontier under his command, Hussain said.

Hussain's comments came after a major offensive against militant suspects in North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan. He said 21 suspects, 11 of them believed to be foreigners, were arrested.

He added that no senior terror figure, such as al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, could be in the area. Any such target would be "a fool" to stay in the tribal areas because they have been "so well sanitized," or cleared of militants and their supporters, he said.

Pakistan was a close ally of the Taliban before it switched sides following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and became Washington's ally in the war against terrorism. A U.S.-led military campaign ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Pakistan busts tribal region's biggest Al-Qaeda base
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Sept 15 (AFP) - Pakistan has busted the biggest Al-Qaeda base in the tribal zone of North Waziristan and recovered 15 truckloads of arms and ammunition in a swoop that will cut violence in neighbouring Afghanistan before key elections, a general said Thursday.

The militant den was in a madrassa, or Islamic school, and a nearby compound owned by the son of a former minister of the hardline Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan until late 2001, Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain told reporters.

He said the owner, Sirajuddin Haqqani, whom he described as a senior Al-Qaeda insurgent, managed to escape from a nearby hideout which was also raided. "The raid on the Haqqani madrassa and compound is still going on but we can say we have busted the biggest Al-Qaeda terrorist den in North Waziristan," Hussain, who commands troops in northwestern Pakistan, told reporters in the city of Peshawar.

The general first gave details about the raid, during which 21 militants were arrested, on Tuesday but this was first time he revealed the scale of the suspected hideout. "We have recovered 15 truckloads of ammunition and weapons from there and arms and ammunition are still being recovered," he said. He said 11 of those arrested were foreigners.

The operation would help to reduce bloodshed blamed on Taliban militants in the run up to Afghanistan's parliamentary elections on Sunday, the general said. Militants are suspected of crossing from Pakistan into Afghanistan to launch attacks.

"Naturally it will reduce violence in Afghanistan," he said. "We also busted a communications centre which was used to coordinate operations in Afghanistan." Hussain said the border between the countries had been completely sealed and 763 guard posts had been established to prevent militants moving from Pakistan to Afghanistan.

On the day of the elections, Pakistan would conduct "extensive air surveillance with helicopters", he said. However Afghanistan had only set up 120 posts on the border, he said. "They need to do more to stop infiltration," he said.

Pakistan pushed tens of thousands of troops into the tribal regions early last year to crack down on Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled there after the hardline Islamic Taliban regime was ousted by US-led forces in 2001. Last week Pakistan said it was sending 9,500 more troops to the border before Afghanistan's elections, bringing the total to 80,000.

Hussain said Pakistani forces had killed 353 militants in the tribal areas since March 2004, including 175 foreigners such as Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmens, Chechens and a few Arabs. Nearly 270 Pakistani troops have also died and more than 670 have been wounded, some losing limbs.

Haqqani's father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was a former anti-Soviet fighter who later served as the Taliban's minister for frontier regions. He has not been found since the Taliban fled. Hussain said an official who tipped off Sirajuddin Haqqani and allowed him to escape had been arrested.

AFP INTERVIEW: UN warns Afghan democracy imperiled by poor government
KABUL, Sept 15 (AFP) - Afghanistan's transition to democracy is threatened by the frustration of ordinary Afghans who have seen little benefit from the four-year process, the UN's top official in the country said in an interview.

"They are frustrated with the civil administration. They are frustrated with the police and they are immensely frustrated with the justice system," UN special envoy Jean Arnault told AFP. "At the end of the day, many Afghans feel that the Bonn process has been disappointing," Arnault said.

The war-ravaged country on Sunday holds its first parliamentary elections in 30 years, the latest step in a tough path to democracy embarked on soon after the hardline Islamic Taliban regime was toppled in a US-led campaign in 2001.

At a UN-sponsored conference in the German city of Bonn that year, rival Afghan factions agreed on a power-sharing administration to replace the Taliban.

The administration was headed by Hamid Karzai, who was elected president in October last year. Sunday's polls, being organised with the help of the United Nations, will establish provincial and national parliaments.

The international community in March 2002 pledged 8.2 billion dollars for post-Taliban reconstruction, far short of the estimated 27 billion dollars necessary to rebuild the war-shattered country's infrastructure.

But, Arnault insisted, money is not the central problem in the minds of many Afghans. "I think that the collapse of the democratic experiment will come sooner from the popular disappointment with the lack of dividends from democracy before it comes from the fact that there is not enough money to go around," he said.

A key source of anger in the vastly underdeveloped nation is that the road and power network remains in poor shape despite the billions of dollars of aid. There are also concerns about corruption and government inefficiency, with many officials said to have links with local warlords, drug barons, or both.

"A top priority is the creation, at local level, of state services that deliver in a manner that is not corrupt or biased," Arnault said. Despite the setbacks there has been some progress, he said, particularly in strengthening the authority of the central government over regional warlords who continued their decades-old power struggles after the Taliban fell.

"If you look at the country today, you will see that while the elements of militarisation continue to exist and to exert an influence at a local level, at the national level that element is clearly no longer there in the same magnitude as it was in 2003," Arnault said.

A key challenge for the future will be coping with the withdrawal of dozens of international organisations that moved into the country to help with post-Taliban reconstruction.

More attention must be paid to "issues of sustainability so that in three, five or 10 years, when the international community begins to disengage, it doesn't leave behind it something which is bound to collapse under the weight of the wage bill," Arnault said.

EU elections observer blasts Afghan poll: report
HONG KONG, Sept 15 (AFP) - Afghanistan's parliamentary election this weekend will fail to instill a lasting culture of democracy and the voting process is flawed, the head of EU election observers said in Thursday's Financial Times.

"I simply don't think this election is going to produce a sustainable form of political debate and a healthy political life," Emma Bonino told the newspaper. "I'm not totally negative about the process, but things could have been done a lot better."

Bonino said her team of 60 independent election observers for Sunday's first parliamentary election in Afghanistan in decades had been prevented from working in five of the country's 34 provinces because of a violent insurgency.

"It is a major political issue that part of the country is not under control. It is more than intimidation. Violence and clashes are scaring people. There's a war going on one way or another," she told the paper. "This should be a major worry for the international community."

The Taliban -- the hardline Islamic militants who ruled the country before their ouster in a US-led war after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States -- have vowed to sabotage preparations for the polls.

Six candidates have died in political violence since early July, when some 5,800 men and women signed up as candidates. On Tuesday, Taliban militants shot dead seven Afghan civilians after finding a registration document for the elections in their car.

Bonino also criticised the fact that some candidates are backed by warlords, and said President Hamid Karzai had marginalised political parties in what the paper cited analysts as saying was a bid to split parliamentary opposition.

Sore losers may pose biggest Afghan threat
NAKA DISTRICT, Afghanistan, Sept 15 (AFP) - It's been the bloodiest year since the Taliban fled Kabul in their signature pickup trucks in 2001 and merged into Afghanistan's rugged mountainscape.

But few expect the newly resurgent Islamic rebels to launch attacks during Sunday's parliamentary and provincial council elections. Instead, experts say, the bloodshed is likely to come after polling day.

"In the run-up to the vote, we will see violent incidents but too many factions have too much to gain to disrupt the polls," said Christian Willach of the Afghanistan NGO Security Organisation.
That includes the Taliban, who have vowed not to attack polling booths on election day despite an increasingly organised insurgency that has left 1,000 people dead this year, including 50 US soldiers. The reason is that some are running for parliament themselves.

In the militant stronghold of Naka district, nestled in the southeastern province of Paktika, US Captain Joseph Geraci told AFP that some former militants who had been implicated in attacks on the US were standing for polls.

"Some of them may have come over to the government side," Geraci said while on patrol in the restive district, where US troops are frequently targeted by roadside bombs. Meanwhile, veterans of the Taliban's former opponents from the Northern Alliance, the group of one-time anti-Soviet warriors who helped topple the regime in 2001, are also standing.

"The Taliban, and everyone else who has arms, are simply waiting to see whether they win at the ballot box," said a diplomat in Kabul. "If they don't, then we'll see violence." More than 5,700 candidates are standing for the councils and for the 249-seat lower house of parliament -- meaning a lot of losers in a country where many militia commanders still hoard large arms caches.

Afghanistan's voting system favours individual candidates above political parties, so there are far more people standing for election than there would be in a two-party democracy like the United States. "The voting system is an Achilles heel. It means that you'll have 5,000 very angry people who may not want to accept the result," said a western analyst in Kabul.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group has termed it a "lottery" because some candidates will be elected with thousands of votes while others, especially women for whom places are reserved, could win with only dozens. The electoral law also states that if a candidate cannot take their position for any reason, the person with the next number of votes will automatically take their place, the only proviso being that only a woman can take the seat of a woman who drops out.

Rights groups have called it the "assassination clause." "It is a pretty dangerous piece of legislation," said Sam Zarifi, Afghan researcher for Human Rights Watch. "The only other place it has been used is Cambodia, where it resulted in the assassination of a number of candidates, which could also happen in the Afghan environment," he said.

Security experts in Afghanistan said violence could surge at the point in the two- or three-week vote-counting period where it becomes clear who the losers are. "I call the couple of weeks that come after the elections the free-fire period," said a western security source. "In the aftermath of the vote we'll see a lot of violence, not directed at the international community but basically a shake-down to see who sits where."

If Taliban-linked candidates win a large number of seats in southern and eastern Afghanistan, it will be much easier for them to create bases within the country, rather than across the border in Pakistan's tribal areas. "After the election, central government control in some areas could be much weaker, and the insurgents will be able to create safe-havens," the security expert said.

Some pin hopes on Afghan business revival
by Rachel Morarjee
KABUL, Sept 15 (AFP) - Karim Siddiqi looks through the mirrored blue glass on the eighth floor of Kabul's tallest building and onto the bustling city below, where some of the poorest people in the world scrape a living.

"When you come here you don't feel as if you are in Afghanistan. It was all built by foreign engineers," says Siddiqi, 55, a month after he and a partner threw open the doors of the Kabul Business Center for the first time. "I built this office block because we must rebuild our own country and do as much as we can to persuade people to come back and invest," he said.
The air-conditioned, three-million-dollar development shows the confidence that some Afghans have in the future of the war-scarred country as it prepares for landmark parliamentary polls on Sunday.

Four years ago the Taliban were still beating women for not wearing burqas, but now hip young Afghans in the big cities avidly watch heavily made-up female presenters on newly-launched music video channels. Women work and go to school while the young are learning English to improve their chances of doing business. But that's only one side of Afghanistan.

Most of its estimated 28 million people scrape by on under two dollars a day, over 40 percent of economic growth comes from the opium industry, and life has changed little for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Concerns are mounting that, despite the veneer of progress, the billions of dollars of foreign aid that has flooded into the country since 2001 are not trickling down to the masses. "At present, 15 percent of the population receives 80 percent of the benefits of growth," World Bank director for Afghanistan Jean Mazurelle said earlier this year.

Even within Kabul and other major cities like Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat, there is a yawning wealth gap between those who have benefited from the international presence in the country and those who have fallen by the wayside.

For one thing, there are not enough jobs. "I came back from Pakistan because I heard on the radio from President Karzai that there would be jobs, housing, a new life here, and I left behind a business in Quetta," said day labourer Mohammed Nasir, whose family lives in the squalid remnants of a bombed out Kabul building.

Afghanistan's main economic activity remains opium growing and the country still produces 87 percent of the world's supply, despite a 21 percent drop in the area under cultivation this year.

Farmers can't be persuaded to drop lucrative, durable opium poppies for other crops, while the drug mafia is interwoven with the highest levels of national and provincial government.
Most of the country's infrastructure is also in ruins after back-to-back Soviet and civil wars followed by the US-led toppling of the Taliban. Bringing the country out of the past is a process that will take years, said the World Bank's Mazurelle.

On paper, Afghanistan has the strongest growth in south Asia with non-drug GDP surging by 29 percent in 2002, 16 percent in 2003, and a projected 15 percent this year, according to the World Bank.

But foreign direct investment, which underpins growth in emerging economies, has lagged far behind at around two percent per year due to security fears stoked by an insurgency in the south and east of the country. "The rate of investment is ridiculous compared to the growth of the population," said Emmanuel de Dinechin, manager of Kabul-based Altai Consulting.
But Dinechin is optimistic that successful parliamentary elections could usher in change. "Afghanistan is virgin territory for business," he said. "If the elections go well there could be a frenzy of investment, but safety remains the number one concern."

Afghan candidates' meeting displays fragile peace, fledgling democracy
By STEVE GUTTERMAN
GULBAHAR, Afghanistan - (AP) As a teen, Abdul Qodos fought Soviet forces in this town on the sun-baked plains northeast of Kabul. He was back Wednesday for an experiment in democracy, one of hundreds of elders and community leaders who came to hear candidates running in Afghanistan's landmark legislative elections.

From across Kapisa province, they streamed into a former movie house ringed by rocky mountain slopes. Their mission: listen, ask questions, then go home to advise people how to vote Sunday in what is seen as a key step toward stability after 25 years of conflict.

"I want to see who is good, I want to hear what the candidates say," Qodos said. As candidates gathered on the stage, boys in white vests moved along the aisles, pouring water for rows of men in flat-topped brown felt hats, white skullcaps and turbans. A row of women sat in the back, the hoods of their blue burqas thrown back to expose their faces.

The meeting was organized by Kapisa Governor Satar Murad as part of government efforts to assure people the elections will be free and fair and that they can vote for whomever they choose without fear of pressure from warlords who still wield strong influence.

"People are tired," said Qodos, 37, who claimed he commanded a small group that battled the Taliban after fighting against the Soviets. "We do not want any more war." But the tensions that seethe nearly four years after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban boiled to the surface when critics of one candidate, Abdul Hadi, alleged he had led Taliban fighters and accused him of killings and other crimes.

Hadi stormed out with several followers in tow. Tense shouting matches erupted outside before he agreed to return, underlining the challenge in breaking with Afghanistan's turbulent past and building democracy.

Human rights activists say some warlords involved in the bloodshed of the past quarter-century have slipped through a U.N.-backed review to become candidates and fear their participation in the vote could undermine its goals.

There are also concerns that the elections of a national parliament and 34 provincial assemblies may simply cement existing rifts in society, with voters casting ballots along traditional ethnic, tribal and religious lines rather than for specific policies.

"It is quite likely that communities will vote for people they know and for traditional leaders," said Trevor Martin, head of office for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan for the country's central region.

"It's important that a political process take place, so that candidates or parties can begin to develop political agendas that can be expressed and debated," he told The Associated Press. "Clearly it will take some time to achieve this."

Martin also said recent history has made many Afghans mistrustful of politicians. That was reflected in the largely respectful but sometimes raucous exchanges between candidates and the audience on an array of key issues _ women's rights, foreign policy, a persistent Taliban insurgency and the presence of U.S. and NATO forces.

One questioner wanted to know what a parliament is _ sparking a lengthy response from a professor who is seeking a seat. A white-bearded elder drew some of the loudest applause when he told another candidate that if elected, he must work for the people, provide health care and build schools, and not just "eat and make your stomach big."

Afghan ballots carry mullahs, jihadis, women
By Scott Baldauf, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Thu Sep 15, 4:00 AM ET
TORKHAM, AFGHANISTAN - A mullah, a feminist, a jihadi, and a communist: It sounds like the start of an Afghan joke, but instead, it is the makings of Afghanistan's first-ever elected parliament.

These are some of the 5,700 candidates running for seats in parliament and provincial assemblies around Afghanistan. Their diversity is both an endorsement of democracy, and a challenge to its very existence.

When Afghans line up to vote on Sunday, choosing 249 men and women from these thousands, they will be selecting from candidates who hold conflicting views over concepts as fundamental as the very definition of democracy itself.

"This is a project of decades and generations, not months and years," says Kit Spence, a senior analyst at the National Democratic Institute in Washington. "The good thing is that people are buying in to the concept in a strong way."

Kabul and most towns are papered over with campaign posters, a sign that the Afghans are taking this election seriously. It is the presence of so many faces - of men and women - that serves as a striking reminder of how much has changed since the days of the Taliban, when depictions of the human face were forbidden.

Yet this campaign has also seen spates of violence, reminders that Afghanistan is still emerging from 23 years of occupation and civil war. Six candidates and four election workers have been killed thus far, and scores continue to receive death threats. In Uruzgan Province, Taliban fighters killed seven people for carrying voting cards, according to Gov. Jan Mohammad Khan.

Safiya Sadiqi, an energetic liberal candidate from the conservative province of Nangrahar, was attacked with Kalashnikovs, grenades, and rockets last week. None of her campaign workers were hurt, but some villagers were injured. She now travels less openly and with government gunmen.

Yet her moderate Islamic, antiwarlord message remains as strident as before.

"Those people who rob you, who kill your children, if they give you food, will you give him your vote?" she says to a small group in the town of Torkham, mocking a nearby rally of a warlord where some 5,000 people have gathered with the promise of free food. "If you elect him ... the winner will be the one who killed your rights."

Perhaps her bravest words, and the ones that stick in the craw of many ethnic Pashtuns here, are when Mrs. Sadiqi - an official from the Ministry of Rural Development - talks of the cruelty of many Afghan traditions toward women.

She describes seeing a pregnant woman being driven to the hospital. According to tradition, the male relatives sat in front, and the pregnant woman was forced to sit, obviously under great pain, in the trunk. "I asked the men, how can they do this? This is not right. Show me where in the Koran it says you should do this."

The crowd of around 300 men clap politely. Sadiqi's case may seem hopeless, but she is probably one of the strongest female candidates in her province, and is seen as a likely winner of one of the four seats here that are reserved for women.

But if she wins, so will many others with completely different visions.

Some, like former Taliban deputy interior minister Mullah Khaksar, want to bring back sharia, where major decisions are made according to Islamic scripture, as interpreted by religious scholars.

Some, like Kabir Ranjbar - a former advisor to pro-Soviet President Najibullah - want to bring a more equitable distribution of resources to the poor, borrowing pages from the former Soviet Union.

Some say that Afghanistan must be ruled by technocrats, while others, like mujahideen leaders Younus Qanooni and Abdulrab Rasul Sayaaf, say it must be ruled by those who fought the jihad, no matter their educational achievement.

Many, perhaps the majority, pose as opponents of President Hamid Karzai, and some demand the removal of US troops as a sign that Afghanistan can now run itself.

With such ideological diversity, parliament is likely to be much better at staking out positions than in getting anything done.

"Today, power is still held by warlords," says Mr. Ranjbar, the head of the Union of Lawyers of Afghanistan, and a parliamentary candidate from Kabul. "In the new parliament, most of the time will be spent getting your own people into the cabinet, and this fighting will take Afghanistan backward."

Meanwhile, high up in the Paghman valley above Kabul, a very different man with a very different vision for Afghanistan is speaking in a mosque full of some 3,000 men. Surrounded by gunmen, Abdulrab Rasul Sayaaf strokes his long white beard and speaks of a glorious future for Afghanistan, led by "men of good Islamic character" who have fought nearly 23 years to get rid of men like Ranjbar.

"Those who fought for the freedom of this country are worthy to take part in its government," says Sayaaf, after a long discourse on Islamic government. "If the mujahideen are not able to act in a political way, those people who looted Afghanistan before ... will play the same roles."

Almost everyone agrees that the first few months, if not years, of Afghanistan's experiment with democracy will be messy. The fact that so many political factions remain armed makes it possible for political disputes to turn deadly.

Sadiqi has survived one such attack, but says she will press on. "I trust in my vision," she says. "The day before yesterday, they attacked us, but we are here today."

Strange! Mulla Zaeef Talks About International Norms and Standards
Editorial/Daily Outlook Afghanistan
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former ambassador of the Taliban to Islamabad is released from the notorious US naval detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mulla Zaeef is one of the high ranking Taliban leadership. He was also a key media person during the US offensive to crush the terrorist installations from Afghanistan by overthrowing Taliban/Al Qaeda regime. He had the tough job of bluffing on behalf of the Taliban chief Mulla Omar. He was calling the campaign of the US led anti terrorist coalition as the part of the US expansionism. He kept busy hundred of media agencies for couple of weeks.

Mulla Abdul Salam Zaeef, like the majority of the Taliban leaders, belongs to Kandahar. He was born in Panjwai district of Kandahar which is still one of the trouble areas of the southern Afghanistan. He served on senior posts in various important ministries like defense, transport and industries during the terror rule of the Taliban, but he got his fame as the last Taliban's ambassador to Islamabad, with his almost daily anti American press conferences during the US air strikes on Kandahar, the iron gripped headquarters of the Taliban.

After the collapse of the Taliban/Al Qaeda regime, Mulla Zaeef tried to use his diplomatic immunity and decided to stay in Pakistan, but soon he was handed over to the US forces. He was shifted to Guantanamo Bay detention center and since last four years was detained there.

Since couple of months, Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Commission, headed by ex-president professor Sibghatullah Mujaddadi is busy mediating between the Taliban and the Karzai administration. Tens of notorious Taliban leaders were brought to Kabul under the same reconciliation program by labeling them as moderate Taliban.

The government sponsored commission claims that Mulla Zaeef was released from detention by their efforts. It is to be mentioned here that hundreds of the Taliban until now have been released from various US detention centers inside Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

Mulla Zaeef was received in Kabul as a high profile guest and showed on state TV meeting with the various officials (AP). After reaching here in Kabul, he accused Pakistan of handing him over to the US by violating all the international norms and standards. He said, "The Pakistan government, which gave me a diplomatic visa, had formally allowed me to live there after the Taliban government's fall in 2001 and Islamabad had firmly assured me for a safe stay in Pakistan."

It is to be remembered here that Kabul could not yet gain any specific achievement through its reconciliation policy toward the Taliban. Even those Taliban leaders who were released from various US prisons by the direct influence of Kabul are reluctant to show their support to President Karzai's government. On the other hand, there are daily news of bloody confrontations between the US led coalition and Taliban/Al Qaeda insurgents. The soft corners shown for so called moderate Taliban and the royal treatment accorded to them did not help in bringing down the scale of violence.

It was really strange when Mulla Zaeef talked about the international norms and standards. How could he forget the rule of terror over Afghanistan under the black period of Taliban/Al Qaeda rule? How could he forget the systematic massacres of thousands of innocent Afghans with the charges of being related to one or the other community and religion? How could he forget that they were the prime exporters of the terror throughout the world? How could he forget that their hands are stained with the blood of thousands of innocents from Afghanistan to New York and from Russia to Uzbekistan?

How could he forget that they converted Afghanistan into a big prison for women? How could he forget that they were not bound to any declarations and conventions to respect human rights and humanity? Abiding by which norms and standard they tortured and summarily murdered Abdul Ali Mazari, the head of Wahdat party, on March 12, 1995? How could he forget that they killed Dr. Najibullah the last Soviet backed president of Afghanistan, in the most brutal way by pulling him out of the UN compound in Kabul by force and hanged his body on a post for several days?

God know where this so called reconciliation process will end. What does the Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Commission want by collecting all the war criminals and giving them the protocol of national heroes? This is reconciliation with killers and murderers.

The most important point in all this deal is that the US led anti terrorism coalition by releasing these war criminals not only does not help stability and peace but bring under question the whole process of war on terror.

Election Gives Group That Battled Taliban Chance at a Comeback
By N.C. Aizenman Washington Post Thursday, September 15, 2005; A20
BAZARAK, Afghanistan -- The green-domed mausoleum housing the tomb of Afghanistan's legendary guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Massoud sits atop a windblown cliff with a breathtaking view of the lush Panjshir Valley. This was Massoud's northern redoubt over two decades of fighting against a succession of enemies, beginning with invading troops from the Soviet Union and ending with the extremist Taliban militia.

But the vista seemed lost on the hundreds of grim-faced men who trudged up the peak on a recent morning to pay their respects on the fourth anniversary of Massoud's assassination by two al Qaeda suicide bombers posing as journalists -- a strike that came just two days before the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

"If Massoud were still alive, we would not be living like this," proclaimed an enormous black banner carried by the crowd, as a handful of parliamentary candidates looked on solemnly.

"We feel so sad and alone," said Nader Khan, 22, wiping away tears. Khan is a former mujaheddin, or holy warrior, in Massoud's militia who is now unemployed. "Massoud loved the mujaheddin. Today, nobody cares for us."

As leading members of a coalition of northern ethnic militias that joined forces with the United States to topple the Taliban rulers after the Sept. 11 attacks, Massoud's Panjshiri successors were a dominant force in Afghanistan's first post-Taliban government. But over the last year and a half, the ethnic Tajiks of the Panjshir Valley have watched with dismay as President Hamid Karzai, a member of Afghanistan's majority Pashtun ethnic group, has replaced some of their most prominent leaders with Pashtuns and welcomed former Taliban officials back into the country as part of a reconciliation program.

Now, many Panjshiris see Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, to be held Sunday, as their chance at a comeback.

As in the rest of Afghanistan, campaign posters with pictures of the contenders have been affixed to every conceivable surface of the Panjshir Valley -- shop doors, tree branches, even the rusting Soviet tanks that still litter the area. But here, where Massoud's image has become synonymous with the past Tajik glory, many of the advertisements also feature portraits of "the Lion of the Panjshir," as Massoud is widely known. His pictures are as large as, if not larger, than those of the candidates themselves. One candidate, Saleh Registani, is handing out an entire brochure of moody photographs of himself with Massoud during the years of the Soviet war.

Speaking in the tidy, modest living room of his house about a mile from Massoud's tomb, Registani, 42, complained that "right now the role of non-Pashtuns is too weak. We want the government to be a broad-based government for all Afghans." Most of the policies he proposes involve amending the constitution to transfer authority from the presidency to the provinces, a move that would considerably enhance the power of Afghanistan's ethnic minorities.

Registani may get his way. Yonus Qanooni, a polished former deputy to Massoud and the runner-up in presidential elections last October, is leading a coalition of 14 parties fielding approximately 500 candidates from provinces across the country for Sunday's vote -- the first legislative elections in Afghanistan since the 1960s. Many candidates who are not officially part of the bloc say they also support Qanooni.

Their bid presents a double-edged challenge for Karzai, who has enjoyed relative freedom to maneuver since he won the presidency with 55 percent of the vote: If Qanooni and his allies win a majority of seats, the president will likely face a highly combative parliament. If Qanooni's bloc fails to make a strong showing, Karzai may have to contend with the wrath of a sizable swath of voters convinced that the election was stolen.

Although international observers signed off on the results of last year's presidential election, Qanooni and many of his supporters still maintain that he was the true victor.

"I only accepted the results for the sake of national stability," Qanooni said in a recent interview.

Foreign election officials have privately expressed concern that Qanooni's recent complaints about the vote-counting procedures planned for the legislative elections are an attempt to lay the groundwork for claiming fraud again if he is unhappy with the results.

Interviews with registered voters from several villages in Panjshir suggest that Qanooni would find a receptive audience for his concerns.

"This is their last chance," Del Agha, 30, a wiry, sandy-haired veteran of Massoud's militia, warned darkly. "If they steal our votes again, it will be time for us mujaheddin to do something."

He spoke from his guard hut at a munitions depot next to a rushing river at the foot of a narrow valley. Around him were stacks upon stacks of forest green ammunition boxes, alongside several dozen shipping containers packed with small arms.

The arms and ammunition should have been sent to the capital, Kabul, months ago under a U.N.-run program to demobilize armed groups in Afghanistan. However, while the militia's leaders have handed over about 150 heavy weapon pieces to the government -- including tanks and Scud missiles -- they have so far proved reluctant to relinquish their ammunition stocks, according to U.N. officials.

Agha said he understood his superiors' reluctance to comply. A fighter since the age of 17, Agha said he remained haunted by memories of war: the back-breaking weight of the rockets he used to carry across freezing mountain passes, the eyes of a wounded enemy fighter his comrades urged him to shoot at point-blank range, the terror he felt as his truck plummeted down a steep ravine one night, and the pain of multiple surgeries in India to repair his spine.

The thought of handing control of the weapons amassed during those years to the central government fills him with bitterness.

"Most of those officials were off having fun in European capitals while my brothers were dying," he said.

The Panjshiris' resentment is compounded by their impression that they have received less foreign aid than southern and eastern provinces that were former strongholds of the Taliban.

Western observers acknowledge that there is some truth to these complaints. For instance, while the United States spent $190 million to build a road connecting Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar in 2004, work on a $26 million U.S.-funded project to pave the narrow main road through the Panjshir Valley did not start until last month. Officials said the delay was caused by a plan, since scrapped, to use the project to train Afghan officials and companies in road-building.

Also, because former fighters in the Panjshir were slow to disarm, they did not receive the financial compensation and job training called for in the program as quickly as counterparts in other provinces.

But analysts also say that the Panjshiris' sense of grievance is overstated.

Last month, for example, the U.S. military agreed to contribute an additional $4 million to the Panjshir road project. And this year, the government declared the valley a province, granting it separate representation in the new parliament even though its population and land area are far smaller than those of many existing provinces.

Also, while Karzai has sidelined top Panjshiri leaders such as the former defense minister and vice president, Mohammed Fahim, and the former head of national intelligence, Muhammad Arif Sarwari, many other Panjshiris remain in prominent positions -- including Foreign Minister Abdullah, army chief Bismillah Khan and the new head of intelligence, Amralluah Saleh.

"In fact, I think you'll find that the top positions are way oversubscribed by Panjshiris given their percentage in the population," said a foreign diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Still, the diplomat said, whatever the outcome of the elections, the government will have a strong interest in placating Panjshir's residents for some time to come. "In a place where there are tens of thousands of tons of weapons, it's not a good idea to have people alienated from the government," he said.

Return of a Power From the Past
The return of controversial general Shahnawaz Tanai on the eve of elections stirs memories and raises questions over links to Pakistan.
By Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada in Kabul (ARR No. 187, 14-Sep-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Coup plotter, eminence grise of Pakistani military intelligence, political kingmaker or scheming opportunist? The rumours have swirled around Shahnawaz Tanai since his return to Afghanistan ahead of its elections.

The 55-year-old former general is not even standing as a candidate in the September 18 poll. But with a background in the murkier corridors of power, Tanai is widely seen as still having an influential role despite having spent 15 years in exile.

Tanai, who admits mounting a failed 1990 coup against the then communist regime, and is widely believed to have been among the plotters who engineered the successful one which brought the communists to power 12 years earlier, told IWPR he had returned "at this momentous time" because he wanted to create a united party.

"I have come to consult with the candidates during campaigning for the elections. I want to have close discussions with those parties which are bound together by the same opinion, so that we get together in a united party," he said.

After the 1978 coup in which president Mohammad Daoud Khan was ousted and killed, Tanai was appointed head of military intelligence. He survived through the years of coups and bloodshed that followed, being appointed Kabul garrison commander, then army chief of staff and in 1988, defence minister.

In was from this position that he mounted his failed coup in 1990 and had to flee to Pakistan where, in exile, he set up his Afghanistan Peace Movement, Da Afghanistan Da Solay Ghorzang Gond.

Now registered as a party in Afghanistan, Tanai's movement has agreed with the National Party, Milli Gond, and the National Unity Party, Milli Yavali, to form a coalition which, he claims, has some 200 candidates standing for parliament and the councils.

Appropriately, as a defence minister from the communist era, Tanai welcomes visitors at an apartment in Kabul's Macrorayon district, a development of Moscow-style housing blocks built for government officials during the Soviet occupation.

The flat belongs to relatives, as Tanai's own home was also in Macrorayon but has changed hands several times since he fled by helicopter to neighbouring Pakistan after his coup failed against President Najibullah fifteen years ago. He has yet to decide what to do about his home.

Of medium height, urbane and elegantly turned out in traditional Afghan clothes, the moustachioed Tanai's political acumen is evident. He speaks smoothly, acknowledges he has many enemies but points out he has many supporters too.

Born in 1950 in the village of Dargai in the southern province of Khost, Tanai followed a classic military career, attending military academy and then university, specialising in infantry tactics, and later travelling to the Soviet Union to study leadership. He married in 1978 and has a daughter and two sons – the family is still in Pakistan.

Tanai rationalises his bid to seize power and denies it was inspired by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, ISI.

"Pakistan had no role in the coup d'etat that I launched against the president. It knew nothing about it, and nor did the mujahedin parties," he told IWPR, referring to rumours that the radical Hezb-e-Islami group conspired with dissidents in the Najibullah administration.

He says he did not fall out with Najibullah's views, but rather with his policy on the military.

"Najibullah was transferring all the privileges of his army to the tribal militias and in particular to his special guard. I was against this because the Afghan army was losing efficiency," he said.

Political analyst Abdul Karim Khurram said Tanai tried to oust Najibullah both because he disagreed with his views and out of pure ambition. "Tanai… wanted to take the lead in affairs himself, but failed," he said.

Another analyst Mohammad Qaseem Akhgar suggests that Tanai may also have had a hand in Najibullah's murder by the Taleban after they captured Kabul in September 1996. The former leader was seized from the United Nations compound where he had lived since the mujahedin toppled his regime in 1992, and hanged from a lamppost in Kabul city centre.

"After the coup, he went gone to Pakistan with the help of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami, and [subsequently] joined the Taleban. It seems that Tanai was one of the people who had a hand in the killing of Najibullah," said Akhgar.

Rejecting this charge, Tanai says bluntly, "This matter had nothing to do with me."

Akhgar questions Tanai's motives in returning just ahead of the elections, "ISI has a close link with Tanai and the Taleban. Considering Pakistan's interference in Afghanistan, it is possible he may have come back to the country to pave the way for more meddling by Pakistan."

Tanai dismisses charges that he is an agent for Pakistan, which is seen in Kabul as failing to crack down on extremists supporting the current Taleban insurgency.

One reason he offers as to why some people think this way is that "after the coup attempt and then my escape to Pakistan, lots of people thought that I had a link with Pakistan's ISI, and in consequence many people think my return is at the orders of Pakistan".

Other political leaders have their own views about Tanai but say they want to try to look beyond the past.

Asked for his opinion of the ex-general Mohammad Yunus Qanuni, a parliamentary candidate and leader of the New Afghanistan party, Hezb-e-Afghanistan-e-Naween, he would only say, "I don’t talk about the personality of a person… we might [be able to] create a situation in which all Afghans live together."

An open critic of Pakistani interference in Afghan affairs is Haji Mohammad Muhaqeq, who heads the former mujahedin faction Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami Mardum Afghanistan.

"Pakistan has its own people in the [Afghan] cabinet, in the administration. It has been greatly involved in wars, and in the fighting which is still going on. And the Taleban who have joined the [present] government have been sent by Pakistan," said Muhaqeq. "If we take all this into account, then Tanai too has been sent by Pakistan."

But he added, "I know Tanai as an Afghan national. I want Afghanistan to forget its past and open a new chapter."

Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

All Quiet as Western City Heads for Poll
Candidates in Herat claim some of their rivals are seeking to gain unfair advantage, but campaigning has generally been free of intimidation.
By Abdul Baseer Saeed and Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada in Herat (ARR No. 187, 14-Sep-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting
In her campaign headquarters on a quiet tree-lined street in Herat, 32-year-old Fauzia Sadaat studies one of the colourful posters that she hopes will get her elected to the new Afghan parliament.

"Rule of law, industry and agriculture. A free, developed and secure Afghanistan is our hope," says her poster.

A short walk away, in a largely deserted area of shops available for rent, Kamaluddin Nezami, 33, a candidate for Herat’s provincial council, sits behind an old table in his store. A simple black-and-white flyer bears his brief campaign motto, "Your Trust is Our Pride".

The campaign styles of the two candidates, and the amount of money they are spending, could hardly be more different, but both believe their methods will bring them victory on September 18.

Sadaat rents a three-roomed house as an office for 200 US dollars a month, a fraction of the 10,000 dollars she expects to spend on her campaign. She has had 130,000 posters, flyers and business cards printed in nearby Iran, where she spent her high school years.

She and her husband are meeting all the costs without outside help, said Sadaat, speaking in the casual manner of one accustomed to money.

Like other candidates chasing the 17 parliamentary seats for this western province, Sadaat said she has had no trouble campaigning, which she does at mosques and at village meetings. Five of the seats in Herat province are reserved for women.

She says she has found a warm welcome everywhere, "One day while we were out shopping, people saw us and encircled our car, welcoming us more than I can say in words. Everyone was asking me for a poster and it was only with great difficulty that I was able to get home, without ever finishing my shopping.”

Sadaat tends towards hyperbole when discussing her campaign, "I went to one district for my election campaign, and 10,000 people had come to welcome us and… [they] formed a circle around us and showered us with flowers."

Her policy platform is simple - besides her campaign slogan, she says women’s rights are a priority.

She tells people, "I don't make promises, but in parliament I will defend your rights."

Sadaat has two daughters and four sons, with two of the children studying in Sweden.

In a downtrodden section of the city still waiting to come alive, where the old shops have been demolished to create a new traders' market, Nezami peered out as IWPR reporters arrived, apparently taking them for potential supporters.

His budget is much slimmer than Sadaat’s, but he welcomes visitors with the traditional tea and sweets. He too says he has no problem with security and that he campaigns in mosques and at public meetings to win support for his bid to secure one of the 19 seats on the provincial council.

"I am a graduate of a religious faculty and I could become a judge or a prosecutor," he said. "But when I saw that most of them take bribes, I decided I didn’t want to be a judge.

“I want to be on the provincial council so that I can campaign against corruption."

It's been tough going for Nezami, who has had to fund his campaign out of the income from his tailor's shop. He had to leave the business in the hands of apprentices during the day and return to work at night to help fulfil orders. But with little money coming in, he has been forced to limit himself to printing black-and-white posters, which cost him a total of 100 dollars.

Nezami would like more free airtime, and is critical of the Joint Electoral Management Body, JEMB, for limiting the media access available to candidates.

"Two minutes on TV or four minutes on radio is very little time, and means the candidates’ hands are tied in what they can tell people," he said.

Elsewhere, in one of the city's high-rise blocks, more than 100 people are waiting to listen to parliamentary candidate Sayed Mohammad Hussain Hussaini.

The black-bearded Islamic scholar talks simply and quietly, telling his audience that he felt it was his mission to stand because of the responsibility he felt towards people.

The 33-year-old, dressed in traditional Afghan long white shirt and trousers, told IWPR that a friend had let him use the office free of charge, and that most of those working on his campaign were also religious people - "reciters of the holy Koran".

He said he had encountered no security problems while pasting up posters, talking to people in the mosques, or in his campaign office.

Hussaini alleged that some government officials were interfering with the electoral process on behalf of particular candidates, a charge dismissed by Mohammad Ibrahim Ferozish, the local JEMB representative.

"If the government does not cheat in this election like it did in the one for the presidency, I will win," said Hussaini.

Another parliamentary candidate who appeared to be drawing plenty of attention is 26-year-old Qaida Afif. A crowd of people thronged the shop she is using as a campaign office as she presents her aims - to "defend women's rights, rebuild the war-ravaged country, and build democracy under the umbrella of an Islamic state".

She told IWPR she had seen no evidence of government officials interfering in the election, but that she had seen plenty of signs that candidates were offering bribe for votes.

"On many occasions, people have come to me too and asked for money, saying that they’d then vote for me. I don't accept that," she said.

Since she began her campaign, the cost of which is being met by her father and brother, Afif has not been bothered by security problems, although she had been threatened by phone twice.

"I think somebody was playing a trick on me. The caller was phoning from a public phone centre, so I didn’t take it seriously," she said.

Abdul Baseer Saeed and Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada are IWPR staff reporters in Kabul.

Ballot Papers Feature Unique System Of Candidate Symbols
Ron Synovitz - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Afghan voters go to polling stations on Sunday (18 September) to choose their first parliament in more than three decades. When they do, they will be choosing candidates identified on ballot papers not only by their names but also by a complicated system of symbols. The symbols are necessary because a large majority of Afghanistan’s voters are illiterate.

Kabul, 14 September 2005 (RFE/RL) – A cow, a duck, an ice cream cone, a bicycle, or a cell phone. These are some of the choices Afghan voters will see on their ballot papers alongside photographs of each candidate when they go to polling stations on 18 September.

UN and Afghan election organizers in the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) consider the symbols necessary to help illiterate voters identify the candidates of their choice.

“With 5,800 candidates standing, obviously one of the most challenging parts of the ballot-paper production was how do we present the candidates in a format that voters can locate and find and indicate the candidate they wish to vote for as quickly as possible," JEMB spokesman Aleem Siddique explained. "In Afghanistan, illiteracy has been a particular hurdle for us. With women, illiteracy rates can run as high as 85 percent in Afghanistan and with men it’s up to 55 percent. So one of the key features of the ballot paper to help voters is that we’ve introduced a symbol to find, locate the candidate on polling day with greater ease.”

As in the Afghan presidential election in October 2004, a photograph of each candidate will appear on the ballot next to his name and symbol. But in the presidential race, there were only 18 candidates. With so many candidates in the parliamentary elections, the JEMB says there is a significant chance that photographs may be very similar – causing confusion for voters (for a sample, see the JEMB's website here: http://www.jemb.org/cnlists/final/WJ/KABUL_WolsiJerga.pdf).

Siddique said the experience of using a numbering system during Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga process in 2003 also shows that many illiterate Afghan voters struggle to cope with more than a single-digit number. So the JEMB has created ballot papers for the parliamentary vote that combine photographs of each candidate with their name, a candidate number, and the unusual system of symbols.

“Another feature of the ballot paper that we’ve introduced is that a photograph of each of the candidates is listed alongside their name and number," Siddique said. "Both the symbol and the photograph, we think, will help [voters] to find the candidate of their choice quickly on polling day.”

Candidates have been busy trying to acquaint voters with the symbols they will use on the ballots by distributing leaflets and posters bearing the black-and-white marks alongside their photographs.

Some of the symbols are items that had been banned by the Taliban regime -- an audio cassette, a television, or equipment for sports like soccer and cricket.

In Kabul, Mohammad Siddiq Chakari’s posters feature a mobile telephone. Ayatollah Allahyar’s symbol is a camel while Abdul Ghafar Dawi’s is a horse. Anahita Adar, one of many women running for parliament in Kabul, has two pairs of scissors for her symbol.

Sayid Ilmi owns a small shop in central Kabul where he sells fabrics and hand-carved stone artifacts. Ilmi said the candidate symbols are a good idea.

“The symbols are very important for the people of Afghanistan because 80 percent of them cannot read or write," Ilmi told RFE/RL. "So these symbols are like pictures. They can see the symbols of their candidate of choice and know how to vote for them. [For example], I know that the symbol of the television is the symbol for [Yunos] Qanuni. Every day and night, the national Afghan television is giving information to help the people know which symbol is their candidate.”

In fact, candidate symbols also were used during the Afghan presidential election last year. In that election, each candidate was allowed to design their own symbol. But the JEMB decided to design the symbols for the parliamentary vote rather than allowing each candidates to do so.

Siddique explained that many would likely have chosen similar symbols – especially symbols of cultural and historical significance like the Afghan flag or the Koran. Use of religious or historical symbols was ruled out so that some candidates wouldn’t gain an unfair advantage.

Using the symbols of political parties also was ruled out because the parties are likely to support more than one candidate in many of the 69 different races -- so the symbols would not uniquely identify the candidates on the ballot. Party symbols also would cause problems for the many candidates who are running as independents.

Siddique said the JEMB also wanted to prevent the use of symbols that are culturally unacceptable to Afghans -- or that might incite and promote beliefs or behavior contrary to democratic values. “The symbols were allocated to the candidates at the candidate-nomination period," he said. "When the candidate stepped forward for nomination, they had a choice of three symbols which were literally pulled out of a hat by the candidate. And then the candidate could choose which symbol meant the most to them. And the other two symbols were put back into the hat. A lot of thought and consideration went into choosing these symbols. We held extensive focus-group research with communities across Afghanistan to ensure that they were culturally sensitive and appropriate to the people of Afghanistan.”

Mohammad Isaq, who is running for a seat in the Wolesi Jirga as an independent candidate from Kapisa Province, told RFE/RL that he is happy with the symbol he randomly drew. “The symbols that we have on our ballot papers were presented to us by the JEMB. They gave us three chances [to randomly draw symbols]. Fortunately, the choice I drew included a deer. So I am happy," he said. "But many candidates are unhappy about the symbols they drew.”

With so many candidates, the JEMB also had to double and triple the use of some symbols. So a candidate with the symbol of an apple will compete against others with two or three apples.

The symbol system has led to jokes amongst Afghans about voters who might mistakenly think they will get a car or an airplane if they vote for a candidate with that symbol.

Afghans' traffic tease
Stop at red? Go at green? Working signals are so rare that drivers hardly notice, the Tribune's Kim Barker finds.
Chicago Tribune / Published September 14, 2005 By Kim Barker, Tribune foreign correspondent, on assignment in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Officer Qudratullah stood in the middle of the intersection, trying to make people notice what had not been there before: traffic lights, the only ones in the city.

The traffic cop pointed at the signals. He blew his whistle at drivers. He jumped in front of some cars, but others moved too fast for him. Yellow cabs blasted through the lights. So did vehicles from the UN. An SUV with dark windows and police license plates sped through, the driver holding a can of Foster's.

"Do you see the light?" asked Qudratullah, 31, who uses one name, as many Afghans do.

"Swear to God I don't," replied a taxi driver, forced to stop right in front of Qudratullah and the signal. "Where is it?"

On and on it went, as Qudratullah tried to make drivers do what they had not been asked to do in years: Stop at red, and go at green. Drivers could hardly be blamed--the city has long had no traffic lights. The signals at this intersection in Kabul are on only at night, and they work only if there's electricity.

It is progress, of sorts, like the city's first escalator, which now runs in a fancy new shopping complex. Here, traffic has been regulated by roundabouts and traffic cops, who essentially act as human traffic lights.

Cynical about change

Many Afghans figure they should not get used to the signals. They are cynical about change, and they have been teased with traffic lights before. New ones were put up at 28 intersections two years ago, but most have not been turned on. Drivers remember the traffic light that was on for a couple of days last summer. Rumors swirl about others.

"It's good, but only if it's always on," said Tamim, 24, who voluntarily stopped for the signal. "This is only temporary."

These lights have lasted longer than others--they were on for two nights recently, but off the night after that, because of electrical problems. They were on the next two nights, and the following day, a holiday.

Traffic police insist that they will turn on all the lights soon, but they worry about complications. Electricity is sporadic. Traffic is a parking lot. Up to 400,000 vehicles ply Kabul's dusty streets, often narrow and more pothole than road. In 1992, about 120,000 vehicles were in Kabul, said Lt. Col. Abdulmatin Ahmadzai, a traffic official.

If the lights were turned on during workdays, cars would back up, choking other intersections, police said.

"If they don't stop all the new cars from coming to Kabul, by next year at this time, people would rather walk than drive," said Col. Mohibullah Amir, a traffic official in Kabul, adding that up to 1,400 new vehicles hit the streets every week.

Anything goes on the road

After 23 years of war and almost four years of reconstruction, there are no real rules of the road, except to get there now, regardless of how. Cars routinely drive over center lines, go the wrong way and park on sidewalks. Bikes weave through traffic jams. Carts pulled by donkey, horse or man vie for road space. One traffic cop has been killed; another lost a leg, and many have been roughed up by impatient drivers. Anything goes, despite alleged traffic fines: from 20 cents for riding a bike carrying three people to $60 for driving without a license.

Over the past six months, traffic officials have tried to rein in the chaos. They've put up more than 400 new signs, warning "Stop" or "No parking," but most of the signs are in English only. Workers have hand-painted 60 miles of white street lines and walkways, but most roads are too dusty or bumpy for paint. Some traffic cops have been known to puncture the tires or steal the license plates of illegally parked cars, beat bad drivers or demand money.

Qudratullah, who has worked the intersection of Cultural and Torabazkhan streets for five months, said he needs to show every driver the new signal and teach everyone how to use it.

His path is a difficult one. Qudratullah said he works 15 hours a day, for $52 a month. Whenever he sat down on a recent night, exhausted from standing for so long, most of the cars ignored the red light. The ones that stopped usually carried foreign passengers. The result: Dozens of close calls and screeching tires, as drivers hit their brakes.

The traffic cop tried to stand firm, brandishing a red paddle in his hand that said "Stop" on both sides. Only a few obeyed.

"Thank you, sir," said taxi driver Ahmad Ali, as he stopped. "Is the light working now?"

"Yeah, absolutely," Qudratullah told him. Two nights later, though, it was off again.

Afghanistan's Telecom Sector Attracts Record Investment
Friday September 16, 8:46 AM
KABUL, Sept 16 Asia Pulse - Afghanistan's telecom sector is set to attract a record US$80.2 million investment from two companies, Investcom Consortium and Watan Mobile, who emerged as the successful bidders on Thursday.

The bids were opened at a press conference during which Investcom Consortium with a total bid of $40.1 million was announced as the first winner followed by Watan Mobile Afghanistan with its $30.03 million bid.

The two companies will launch services in the next four months.

According to the set procedure, Watan will be awarded the licence after providing a written confirmation.

At present two Afghan companies, AWCC and Roshan are providing services across the country.

The Investcom bid is the highest amount attracted by the private sector in the history of Afghanistan.

Earlier, seven parties had filed applications of which five submitted their bids as two were disqualified for not fulfilling the criteria.

Jamal Ramadan, head of the Investcom, told Pajhwok Afghan News they would launch service by using the latest technology.

He added: "We will provide better services to the Afghan people because the company has ample experience and expertise in that sector."

Ahmad Ratib Popal, head of Watan Telecom Company, said they would try to provide better facilities to the consumers.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Telecommunication Amirzai Sangin expressed satisfaction over the successful bidding. He said as peace and stability were taking root in the country, more and more investment would pour in.

He said the launching of the two new services would create competition among those companies for providing better and cheaper services to the consumers. Presently, there are about 800,000 mobile consumers.
(Pajhwok Afghan News)