Afghanistan News February 14, 2006

February 14, 2006

Afghanistan Pressing Pakistan on Taliban
Associated Press / February 14, 2006
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's president will urge Pakistan to crack down on Taliban rebels based on its side of their mutual border when he visits Islamabad on Wednesday, the leader's spokesman said.

"A lot of action is being taken against al-Qaida in Pakistan. We want the same thing to happen to the Taliban who we believe are in Pakistan," said Khaleeq Ahmed.

He said there were 650 militant attacks last year in Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan and that "most of these were by people who came across from the other side of the border."

"We want honest, sincere and intensive cooperation in tackling the Taliban and terrorism coming into Afghanistan," Ahmed said.

Afghan officials have repeatedly claimed that the Taliban and other militant groups have training bases in Pakistan and are receiving support from that side of the border — an accusation Pakistan denies.

Pakistan has more than 70,000 forces in its tribal regions along the rugged 1,470-mile-long frontier and they regularly battle militants.

Despite this, violence has increased in Afghanistan's southern and eastern regions that border Pakistan, with some 1,600 people killed last year and an unprecedented spate of about 25 suicide bombings in the past four months.

President Hamid Karzai will hold talks with Pakistan's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, on Wednesday, before meeting Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Thursday. He is scheduled to return to Kabul on Friday.

Hopes ride high as Afghan leader set to visit Pakistan
By Daud Khan
KABUL, Feb 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Hopes ride high as President Hamid Karzai is embarking on his three-day visit of the neighbouring Pakistan on Wednesday.

This is Karzai's first state-sponsored visit to the neighbouring country since his assuming power as an elected head of state as a result of his landmark victory in October 2004 Presidential Elections in this Central Asian country.

He will be accompanied a high-level delegation, including governors of Kandahar, Khost, Nangarhar and Uruzgan provinces. Besides, five ministers and four members of the Afghan parliament will also be part of Karzai's entourage. The ministers for foreign affairs, commerce, finance, defence and national security will also be reaching Islamabad on Wednesday.

As partners in the US-led international war on terror, the two sides is expected to discuss host of issues with a special focus on the recent re-emerging insurgency in the southern and southeastern parts of Afghanistan and the more than 20 suicide attacks in the troubled Kandahar and neighbouring provinces in the past four months.

Pakistan and its secret agency ISI came under severe criticism from some Afghan officials and several demonstrations were staged against the neighbour for its alleged support for terrorists in Afghanistan soon after a suicide attack in Spin Boldak border town of Kandahar that killed about two dozen civilians.

Ill-feeling once again overcame the off-again-on-again relationship between the two countries as the terrorists continued with their heinous designs, attacking the military and civilian installations in this war-shattered country, which is struggling to attain lasting peace and stability under President Karzai.

While Pakistan says it has deployed more than 70,000 troops to guard the 2,300 kilometres porous border between the two countries and stop miscreants' infiltration from its tribal areas, the Afghan authorities doubt the claims in face of the rising attacks on foreign and Afghan troops in the border areas.

Pakistan says the country itself is victim of international terrorism and three life attempts had been made on President Pervez Musharraf for his tough stand against al-Qaeda, Taliban and other terrorist organisations.

In the present scenario, activities of Taliban and acts of terrorism in Afghanistan, is the issue that overlap the parleys between President Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf.

The meeting between the two leaders, who are partners in war against terror, is of immense importance as for as the lingering issue of terrorism and the ongoing blame-game between the two countries is concerned. It is a great opportunity for the leaders to deliberate on the two issues and settle it once and for all in the best interest of their respective countries and people.

As both the leaders (Karzai and Musharraf) are sincerely trying to get rid of the menace of terrorism and develop moderate societies in their respective countries, there seems no hurdle which stop them from bringing together and joining hands to achieve lasting peace in Afghanistan as well as root out the remnants of al-Qaeda and Taliban from the tribal areas in Pakistan.

Being close neighbours and dependent on each other in every sphere of life, the two countries can't be separated and antagonized by a few hundred desperate elements. That is the message the two leaders should ponder on and work out a plan to remove all the pity differences in the best interest of their respective people, who are inseparable from each other.

Besides, taking stock of the security issues, the two sides ponder over boosting trade ties and take further steps to open their borders for free flow of exports to each other's countries. While Afghanistan is the best market for Pakistani products like cement, poultry, iron, vegetables etc, the latter can benefit by importing fresh and dry fruits and herbs from Afghanistan on cheaper prices.

Other sectors, which had been left unaddressed and which can prove helpful in cementing people to people ties and boost confidence-building between the two countries are frequent exchanges of sports, culture and media delegations.

Afghanistan is on the path of progress and besides other fields, concentration is also focused in promoting sport activities like cricket, hockey, football, table-tennis, squash etc. Pakistan should offer to train Afghan players in those fields.

Exchange of cultural troupes between the two countries can prove beneficial for their friendly ties. Those messenger of peace can promote good-feeling for each other between people of the two countries.

The third area, which needs official patronage, is the exchange of media delegations and more understandings between journalists of the two countries. Afghan journalists can benefit from the expertise of their brethren on the other side of Durand Line, where press is comparatively more developed and enjoy some extent of freedom.

Those are the few steps which can improve the atmosphere and develop confidence if taken with sincerity by President Karzai and his counterpart Pervez Musharraf during their parleys.

School set ablaze in Ghazni
Sher Ahmad Haidar
GHAZNI CITY, Feb 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Unidentified armed men last night torched a school in the Geelan district of the southern Ghazni province, officials said on Tuesday.

District police chief Mohibullah Samim told Pajhwok Afghan News the school was set on fire last night in the Agho Jan village. He said locals arrived at the scene and extinguished the fire which saved several rooms from gutting.

However, a student of 11th class, who did not want to identify himself, said the building was completely gutted. He said the flames could be seen from distance but no one in the village dared to go nearer for fear of Taliban, said the unidentified student.

Confirming the incident, Director of Education Department Fatima Mushtaq said a delegation had been sent into the area to get a factual report.

No one claimed responsibility for the criminal act but Taliban are usually blamed for such incidents. The students' militia considers English education against the teachings of Islam.

Taliban claim success after four US soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Tue Feb 14, 7:14 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's Taliban rebels said a battle in which they killed four US soldiers in a bomb blast and then took on American and Afghan troops showed their military capability is strengthening.

The soldiers died on Monday in Uruzgan province, one of the hotbeds of an insurgency launched by the Taliban after they were removed from government in a US-led operation four years ago.

An exchange of small arm and rocket-propelled grenade fire erupted after the explosion, and the coalition called in helicopters and planes to help the US and Afghan forces on the ground, a coalition statement said on Tuesday.

A purported Taliban spokesman said the battle showed the rebels were capable of conventional battle, despite claims to the contrary by Afghan officials.

"Our men took positions in the area and were prepared in advance. We blew up one of their vehicles with a bomb and then we attacked the convoy from two sides," the spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, told AFP.

"Our forces fought and exchanged fire with them for half an hour and later they got air support -- helicopters and other planes appeared and we had to leave."

"We have become more organised and stronger now. We can engage in direct fighting with them, we can fight on fronts," he said.

Afghan security officials have long argued that a recent rash of suicide attacks -- previously rare in Afghanistan -- showed the rebels were becoming desperate in their drawn-out campaign against the new government and its foreign allies.

They have charged that the fighters were resorting to suicide blasts, of which there have been about 25 since September, because they were unable to confront Afghan and foreign security forces in conventional warfare.

Analysts have also said that the suicide blasts and car bombings pointed to new tactics possibly adopted from insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban's long-time friend, the Al-Qaeda terror network.

The unrest, also fed by Afghanistan's massive drugs trade and domestic rivalries, has become more increasingly deadly since the Taliban were overthrown in a US-led operation in 2001 for not surrendering Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for the September 11 attacks.

The violence is blamed for the majority of about 1,700 killings last year, with most of the dead militants killed by security forces. The toll is double that of 2004.

US soldiers form the bulk of the 20,000-strong coalition based mostly in eastern and southern Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan, to hunt down insurgents.

There were more than 630 attacks in the border provinces last year, the president's office said Tuesday.

Three other US soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year, two of them in hostile fire, and more than 130 have been killed in action since 2001.

Washington is due to cut the number of its troops in the coalition by around 3,000 in the coming months as a separate NATO-led force moves into the south, initially expanding to number about 16,000 with commitments from a range of countries including the United States, Canada and The Netherlands.

The upsurge in attacks will be the focus of Hamid Karzai's visit to Pakistan Wednesday, with the president expected to urge his neighbour to do more against Taliban and other militants on Pakistani soil, his office said.

Afghan officials privately accuse Pakistan of not doing enough to root out militants believed to have fled across the border when the regime was toppled.

"We want an honest, sincere and intensive fight against terrorism from Pakistan in cooperation with Afghanistan," a presidential spokesman said Tuesday.

Mounting concern over Afghanistan
By Scott Baldauf / The Christian Science Monitor / February 14, 2006
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - Grim phrases are on the lips of diplomats, government officials, and aid workers in Kabul when describing Afghanistan these days. Narco state, political disillusionment, military stalemate, donor fatigue, American military pullout.

Tie it all together, and it's a picture that suggests Afghanistan could be reverting back to a failed state. None of these issues is new, with the exception of the US decision to start drawing down its forces in Afghanistan and the expected arrival of NATO forces this summer. Yet four years after the government of President Hamid Karzai came to power, these various factors seem to be converging, with explosive results.

"This is what I keep explaining to the international community, these things feed each other, they are related," says Habibullah Qaderi, Afghanistan's minister for counternarcotics affairs. "There are two elements in terrorism. One is internal corruption, and the other is external interference. That is why we have problems. We have a corrupt administration, a corrupt government, and that is why people can't cooperate with us."

The cartoon protests of the past week - which have been the deadliest in the Islamic world - are largely a barometer of domestic frustrations. In the streets of Kabul, Laghman, Maimana, and Bagram, protesters turned their anger on the US, the West, and "the dog-washers" - a derisive term for the expatriate Afghan technocrats who have returned to top posts in the government.

Protests are not uncommon in Afghanistan, but it takes a certain threshold of anger for protests to turn violent, which these did, leaving 11 Afghans dead. If conditions were good or improving - if the fundamental factors of food, shelter, and income were being met - then the protest over a few cartoons would have faded quickly here, say analysts.

poll finds goodwill not gone

At first glance, the latest opinion polls from December 2005, showed reasons for the Karzai government to be optimistic. The vast majority still prefer the present order over the Taliban, and 77 percent thought the country was moving in the right direction.

Yet that same poll also indicated that substantial problems existed for a majority of Afghans. Sixty percent of the respondents had no electricity in their homes. Seven out of 10 Afghan adults have had no more than an elementary education, and half have household incomes of just $500 a year. It doesn't take much of a spark to change public opinion when the fundamental aspects of life - food, shelter, jobs - are in such a precarious state.

"What do people want? A clean and accountable government, food on the table, jobs," says Paul Fishstein, director of Afghan Rehabilitation and Evaluation Unit (AREU), a Kabul think tank. When they don't get even those basic amenities, he says, their faith in government declines.

For this reason, Afghan officials are concerned with some of the economic and security measures here:

• Afghanistan's illegal drug economy (mainly opium and heroin) accounted for an estimated $2.7 billion in 2005, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. That's more than 50 percent of the size of the legal gross domestic product.

• Afghan officials estimate that 400,000 farming families benefit from opium poppy cultivation. Many of these participated in alternative livelihood programs last year, but expressed anger at the $2 a day short-term projects like clearing irrigation ditches that offer little stability.

• Afghan officials estimate that there are 50,000 heroin addicts in Afghanistan.

• Between 250,000 and 400,000 civil servants are working within the Afghan government, according to a study by the AREU. (The 150,000 margin of error speaks volumes about government disarray). Afghan officials estimate that perhaps 100,000 of these are directly benefiting (through transportation fees, profits, or bribes) from the drug trade.

• Afghanistan's colleges and universities graduate 38,000 college students each year, and the revitalized primary and secondary school systems in the countryside will see those numbers rise. But nearly 70 percent of the population of Kabul is jobless, and there is almost no job creation to absorb these college graduates.

• Aid groups are working in almost every district, but Afghan officials say that there are 21 provinces (out of 34) where it is unsafe to travel at night, either because of insurgency or crime.

Perhaps most telling is the US State Department's "warden message" in January warning US citizens not to travel to Afghanistan. "The ability of Afghan authorities to maintain order and ensure the security of citizens and visitors is limited.... Travel in all areas of Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul, is unsafe due to military operations, landmines, banditry, armed rivalry among political and tribal groups, and the possibility of terrorist attacks, including attacks using vehicular or other Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), and kidnapping."

These problems aren't isolated from each other, say some Afghan officials and foreign observers, who note that the the drug trade is encouraging corruption, corruption is creating public distrust, and public distrust is leading to at least tacit support for insurgency and criminality. "The villagers know when someone has come from Pakistan, they know whose house they're sitting in," says Mr. Qaderi, the counternarcotics minister. "But they don't trust the police. They don't trust the government. They will hand them over, and then a few days later, someone will pay money and the police will release them."

Qaderi says that Afghan villagers have all the information that would be needed to shut down a terrorist ring, or a cell of insurgents, or even the organizers of the cartoon protests. After all, few Afghans are literate enough to read inflammatory news stories about the clash between East and West.

Dollar a day vs. drug profits

Instead, the clash is something that many Afghans feel in their gut. The average salary of a government worker is $40, but more than 70 percent of the population is unemployed. Overall, the median monthly income for Afghan wage-earners is around $35, according to the US military. That's just over a dollar a day, and most wage-earners here tend to have 10 or more family members to support.

"You had a window of opportunity in 2002, when the Taliban were gone and the people were ready to support you and make sacrifices," says one foreign consultant with long experience in Afghan aid projects. "But now, that moment is lost. The people have given up on this government. I don't see how you solve it now."

While wage levels remain stagnant for ordinary Afghans, there has been an ostentatious construction boom in Afghan cities that shows the growing economic appetite of the new Afghan elite, including government bureaucrats who could not afford such luxuries on their $50 to $100 monthly salaries. Foreign aid workers, living in large compounds and driving around expensive four-wheel drive SUVs, are increasingly seen as part of a privileged elite.

"These are time bombs," says the foreign consultant, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's just a matter of time before the anger starts to take some form."

Solutions: commitment and jobs

The way to turn Afghanistan around, diplomats and government officials agree, is to honor the promises made in the past, and to get the legal economy moving.

On Feb. 8, 22 former State Department officials and Afghan experts signed a letter to congressional leaders in the US, calling on the US to stay committed to Afghanistan.

"Much has been accomplished ... but Afghanistan is still a nation at risk, and success in turning it into a functioning democracy and an economically viable state is not assured," the letter read.

Referring to the new "Afghan Compact" signed this month by the US and 60 other countries, which generated $10 billion in donor pledges, the letter writers called for the US to consider its $1.1 billion pledge for next year to be the "floor, not the ceiling" of US commitments.

"The government would not last two months without external support," says Houmayun Assefy, a former presidential candidate who largely supports the Karzai government. "I told this to a minister friend of mine and he said, 'No, it will not last one week. You'll have fighting in the streets."

Privately, US officials are now beginning to admit that military action cannot succeed without a coherent political plan. After a year of serious US military victories against insurgents last year, it is clear that the Taliban are unable to defeat the US in a frontal assault. But this has not brought greater security. The Taliban have simply changed tactics. Now they attack poorly defended Afghan police checkpoints; leave roadside bombs for poorly equipped Afghan National Army patrols; or assassinate pro-government mullahs, teachers, and Afghan aid workers.

However, most attacks against NGOs appear to be pure criminality. "Right now, it is quite clear that these attacks are not being targeted for political reasons," says Christian Willach, manager of the Afghanistan NGO Safety Organization, which advises aid agencies on security issues.

According to ANSO, 12 aid workers were killed in 2003, 24 were killed in 2004, and 31 were killed in 2005. This last number does not include the seven parliamentary candidates and four election workers who were killed during last year's parliamentary election.

And if, as many US Defense Department officials say, the Taliban are taking a cut from the drug trade, then they can sustain a guerrilla insurgency for quite some time.

"I don't think there is a pure military solution here," says Mr. Fishstein with the AREU. "In your military activities, you have to be more nuanced and sophisticated about how life goes in a rural environment, and try to build legitimacy for the government without creating more enemies."

While the US military is handing over command of the restive south to NATO forces, US troops will continue to remain in Afghanistan for some time.

But the nature of the US presence in Afghanistan still has a short-term feel to it. The US journalist David Halberstam once wrote that America's habit of sending diplomats to Vietnam on one-year rotations meant that the US didn't have 10 years of experience in Vietnam; it had one year of experience, 10 times. Many longtime foreign observers here say the same habit is being repeated in Afghanistan.

"In short tours, basically people go out to the countryside and by the time they figure out not to eat with their left hands, it's time to leave," says Fishstein, who has been coming to Afghanistan on aid projects since the 1970s.

Officials From Afghanistan, India, Pakistan In Turkemnistan For Gas Talks
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
ASHGABAT, February 14 2006 -- Energy officials from Afghanistan, India, Pakistan are in Turkmenistan to discuss a project to build a pipeline to ship Turkmen natural gas to their countries.

Yesterday, the officials were taken to the Dauletabad field, one of the world's largest. It is believed to contain nearly 3 trillion cubic meters in gas reserves.

The 1,680-kilometer pipeline project has been on hold since the 1990s, when the Taliban movement came to power in Afghanistan. The project is expected to cost $3.5 billion and would be able to ship 33 billion cubic meters of gas a year.

Afghanistan Erupts Over Danish Cartoons
The extreme reaction to caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper demonstrates the faultlines in Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy.
By Wahidullah Amani and Amanullah Nasrat in Kabul (ARR No. 203, 14-Feb-06)
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK

A week of violent protests has left a dozen people dead and scores injured in Afghanistan as demonstrators expressed their anger over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad initially published in a Danish newspaper. The row has shown the gulf between the views held by a majority of Afghans and the moderate, Western-leaning government headed by President Hamed Karzai.

Karzai’s response also stands in sharp contrast to the views expressed by other parts of the Afghan government.

The president has appealed for calm and forgiveness in interviews both with the foreign press and with Afghan journalists.

“As much as we condemn [these cartoons], we as Muslims must have the courage to forgive this and not make it a matter of a dispute between religions and cultures… this does not mean that cartoons insulting Islam must continue to appear. They must definitely stop,” he said.

The president also tried to tone down the anti-Danish sentiment in the country.

“When I was in Denmark [in January], the prime minister, Mr [Anders Fogh] Rasmussen, spoke to me about this and he very much regretted what happened with the Danish newspaper. But he said, ‘Look, you understand that the press is free, what a newspaper does is not representative of the view of the people or government of Denmark,’” he said.

But this relatively mild reaction did not play well at home. Freedom of the press is not accepted as an explanation or excuse for the perceived insult to Islam, and Karzai’s statement made him seem out of touch with the mood of his people.

“Karzai does not reflect the sentiments of Afghans,” said Habibullah Rafi, political analyst and member of the Afghan Academy of Sciences. “People do not listen to him. They are disappointed in him.”

More in tune with the public’s general attitude is the harsh response by the country’s highest judiciary body.

“This act by the Danish press is in clear conflict with Islamic law and is an insult to our religion,” said Abdul Wakil Omari, head the Supreme Court’s publications department. “We are not satisfied with an apology from the newspaper; the government of Denmark should officially apologise to Muslims, and it should not allow its media to insult other religions in the future."

According to Omari, the Supreme Court was issuing an official statement to this effect.

Abdul Rabb Rasul Sayyaf, head of the conservative Islamic party Dawat-e-Islami and a prominent member of parliament, called the publication a criminal act, and demanded a strong response.

“Muslims should react in such a way that in the future, no one else will ever dare to do anything like this again,” he told IWPR. “Muslims respect all religions and no one has the right to insult any of these religions,” he said.

Sayyaf called on the United Nations Security Council to condemn Denmark and any other countries that published the cartoons.

The lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, passed a resolution on February 4 calling for the offending editor to be put on trial. The resolution also condemned in strongest terms the country in which the offending caricatures first appeared.

“We call on the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to express the deepest hatred of Afghans for Denmark,” it said.

Many Afghans have heeded the call. Protests have exploded all across the country, from Maimana in the northern province of Faryab to Qalat, the provincial capital of the volatile south-eastern province of Zabul.

“This is not a simple case,” said Ghulam Hanif, who bears the honorific title “Maulawi” or high-ranking mullah. He was part of a demonstration in Mazar-e-Sharif, in the north of the country. “Denmark, the world Jewish community and the West are involved in a plot to show Islam as a backwards religion, a religion of terrorists.”

Maulawi Nasim Akhundzada, caretaker of the Kharqa shrine in Kandahar, said the protests would continue for a very long time.

“We will not stop the demonstrations until the editors of the papers are put on trial. It was a very bad thing that the Afghan president went to Denmark and met officials there,” he said.

In Herat, demonstrator Mohammad Nabi shouted anti-Danish slogans and called on Karzai to demand the removal of Denmark’s troop contingent from Afghanistan.

“Those who insult Islam should not be in our country. If the government does not do this, we will kill Danish troops anywhere we see them,” he said.

There are currently some 160 Danish troops in Afghanistan. NATO has not announced any immediate plans to withdraw them.

In Kabul, schoolteacher Shahnaz called for the editor’s execution, "If Muslims keep silent, there will more disrespect and violence against our religion and Prophet. Therefore a court in an Islamic country must execute this [editor.]”

Some have blamed the violence that has accompanied the demonstrations on “foreign elements” - shorthand for Pakistanis – whom they accuse of inciting peaceful demonstrators. In Zabul, the site of some of the worst demonstrations, police arrested more than 40 Pakistanis and charged them with having orchestrated the protests.

But others blame the deaths on lack of experience on the part of both police and protesters.

“In Afghanistan, people get killed in demonstrations because the police do not have enough experience of crowd control,” Rafi told IWPR. “They should be prepared for demonstrations, but they aren’t - they are sleeping. They should have tear gas and water tankers but they don’t.

“People here don’t know how to demonstrate, either. They throw stones, they break windows, and sometimes they have guns. Firearms are everywhere.”

Wahidullah Amani and Amanullah Nasrat are IWPR staff reporters in Kabul. Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif, Saleh Muhammad Saleh in Kandahar, and Ehsan Surwar Yar in Herat also contributed to this report.

Afghan hockey team receives equipment from NWFP-HA
PESHAWAR, Feb 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The NWFP Hockey Association (NWFPHA) handed over hockey equipment, including sticks, shoes, balls and kits to the Afghanistan hockey team the other day.

The support is meant to contribute in promoting the sports in Afghanistan, said President of the NWFPHA Malik Mohammad Saad while addressing the handing over ceremony of the equipment worth Rs100,000. The tools were handed over to President of the Afghanistan Hockey Federation Rahmatullah Nuristani.

Saad observed the recent tour of the Afghan national hockey team to NWFP and its matches against the local squads would not only prove helpful in improving techniques of the Afghan players but also boost up bilateral ties between the two countries.

He assured his full cooperation in promoting hockey in Afghanistan and asked the players to take advantage of the facilities in the Frontier province. He said the Afghan players and the hockey federation can any time visit this province and ask help from the regional associations.

Speaking on the occasion, President of the Afghanistan Hockey Federation Rahmatullah Nooristani appreciated the cooperation of the NWFPHA for promotion of hockey in the war-ravaged country. Nuristani asked the NWFPHA to arrange a tour of the local teams to Afghanistan.

Officer for Central Asia on behalf of the International Hockey Federation Zahid Ali hoped the recent tour of the Afghan squad would prove helpful in development of the game in Afghanistan.

He said the Afghan players had a lot of talent and they were eager to improve their techniques and prove themselves on the international level. He said the matches played against the district clubs would improve the skills and experience of the guest players.

Blair looking at legacy of disaster in Muslim world
BILL JACOBS / The Scotsman (UK) / February 14, 2006
THE weekend video of British troops beating up four unarmed Iraqi teenagers will raise the possibility of more attacks on UK forces in the country.

The sight of the youngsters - three without shoes - being punched, kicked and hit with a stick will enrage many Iraqis, extremist and moderate.

With the 20th Armoured Brigade - the unit the eight servicemen caught on film came from - due back in Iraq in April, the possibility of reprisals is real.

The fact that Saddam is defiantly denouncing his trial in Baghdad as a sham at the same time increases the pressure. No matter how swiftly and ruthlessly the military authorities investigate the incident and punish those responsible, the damage has been done.

The film has been going out every hour on the hour on Al-Jazeera, fanning the flames of anti-Western feeling not just in Iraq but across the Middle East. The fear is this will be just another recruiting video for the extremists.

And no matter how much the Iraqi government calls for swift investigation and retribution, they too will face an angry backlash.

With many Labour backbenchers and the Liberal Democrats horrified at the continuing death toll in the country, it's domestically bad news for Tony Blair. The Prime Minister's pledge that a new, democratic Iraq is being built is looking increasingly hollow.

No amount of accusing new Tory leader David Cameron in the Commons of "flip flopping" over the issue can hide the growing public disillusion with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Worry over whether US President George Bush or the Israelis are preparing missile strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities are increasing the disquiet.

With Britain also bogged down in Afghanistan, our forces are getting badly overstretched. The new deployment of more than 3000 troops in the dangerous southern Helmand province has led Army commanders to warn Mr Blair and Defence Secretary John Reid that they are now dangerously short of manpower to fulfil all their commitments around the world.

In Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban, the amount of opium being smuggled to the West has actually increased. And with no sign of violence abating there or in Iraq, the prospect of a wider confrontation with the more extreme aspects of Islam are also increasing.

And with the road map to peace in the Middle East comprehensively derailed by extremist group Hamas's Palestinian election victory and Israeli President Ariel Sharon's health collapse, tensions there are also growing.

Throw in the Iranian nuclear stand-off and the potential for an explosion of violence across the region is immense.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq looks more and more unwise as every week passes.

Former Defence and Foreign Affairs minister Doug Henderson - not one of Labour's group of usual suspects for rebellion and criticism - is very gloomy.

He sees the Iraqi occupation fuelling anti-western violence in the country, the region and the world. But he also says that a sudden withdrawal of US and UK forces would be a disaster.

He believes the discredited Iraqi government would fall within months leading to a chaotic break-up of the country into a Shia south, a Sunni middle and a Kurdish north.

The latter would create immediate problems with Turkey which could lead to conflict. And the Shia-controlled south would be an open invitation for the extremist Iranian government to intervene in Iraq.

That could result in conflict with the Sunnis, with the cruel and tyrannical Saddam Hussein regime starting to look like a golden age.

Mr Reid and the Ministry of Defence have been drawing up plans for a phased withdrawal. But whatever he and Mr Blair choose, the results look equally dire. Growing violence and instability in Iraq and the Middle East with a steadily rising death toll of UK troops.

Or cutting and running, leaving Iraq to burn in a racial and religious conflagration.

Neither is exactly the result Mr Blair intended when he joined President Bush in the ill-fated invasion. Neither is the legacy the Prime Minister wants to leave to history.

Afghan preparations for marines
BBC News / Tuesday, 14 February 2006
Preparations are under way in Afghanistan ahead of the arrival of 150 Royal Marines Commandos, marking the start of an enlarged UK deployment.

Chinook helicopters have been unloaded at Kandahar air base and reassembled to transport the 42 Commando troops, whose home base is at Bickleigh, in Devon.

The Ministry of Defence announced last month an extra 3,300 troops would be sent to southern Afghanistan.

Their focus is due to be reconstruction rather than counter-terrorism.

BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood reported that fitters worked round the clock for 48 hours to reassemble the helicopters that will cover vast expanses of desert between towns.

"They're also vital because of roadside bombs, which are an increasing threat," he said.

Bombings threat

The 42 Commando troops are bound for the country's volatile Helmand province, an area of major Taleban activity and opium production.

The troops will provide security to help Afghan forces fight the drugs trade, and also protect RAF and Army engineers setting up a base in the provincial capital Lashkar Gar.

Paul Wood said the Taleban had promised a wave of suicide bombings.

Senior British commanders say the large 'footprint' left on the ground by the impact of 3,300 new troops arriving will probably attract an increase in attacks, at least initially.

Lt Col Ged Salzano, commanding officer of 42 Commando, said: "The company group is robust enough to look after itself and protect the engineers.

"Conditions are expected to be tough but 42 Commando are well prepared for the task."

The UK takes control of Nato forces in Afghanistan in May.

As well as the main deployment of 3,300, a further 850 will conduct preparation work for that deployment and about 1,000 troops are to be sent to the Headquarters Group of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.

Defence Secretary John Reid has said the total number of UK troops in Afghanistan at any time will not top 5,700.

Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission currently numbers about 9,200 troops. It is expected to increase the overall number to about 15,000.

The Gitmo disgrace
EDITORIAL The Los Angeles Times / February 14, 2006
IT IS TIME TO CLOSE THE U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay. The detainees there, numbering about 500, should be tried in court or released. It is inhumane to hold them indefinitely in a place where torture is not uncommon and due process is absent.

These aren't our conclusions. They are those of a recent United Nations inspection team that spent 18 months investigating conditions at Gitmo. It's not necessary to endorse all of its recommendations — and it's hard to see how shutting down Gitmo would make the Bush administration any more amenable to respecting human rights and international conventions against torture — to observe yet again that the prison is a global embarrassment that does the U.S. more harm than good in the fight against terrorism.

In a report, revealed Monday by Times reporter Maggie Farley, the U.N. team found that conditions at the prison regularly violate international law. The detainees, captured abroad since 2002 in Afghanistan and elsewhere, were said to be enemy combatants picked up on battlefields. President Bush and his senior staff have consistently called them terrorists and soldiers who needed to be removed from the field of battle. They justify the prison as "a military necessity" and note that enemy combatants can be held without charges for the duration of hostilities.

Yet the U.N. team found little sign that any U.S. officials ever tried to determine whether the men were actually enemy combatants. The team also rejected the notion that a war on terror constituted continuing hostilities.

It is becoming evident that the majority of the men held in Guantanamo were not, in fact, captured in battle. A study of individual detainee cases published recently by the National Journal argued persuasively that more than half of the detainees currently in Guantanamo were abducted in the mountains of Pakistan by warlords who handed them over to U.S. forces for cash rewards, sometimes $1,000 a head. At a time when U.S. forces were unable to find Osama bin Laden, and were desperate to find enemy soldiers in the mountainous caves of Pakistan and Afghanistan, tribal informers apparently had a field day pointing to their own enemies as a way to supply human chattel, who ended up in Guantanamo.

Many of their individual case files suggest that government lawyers felt pressured to find, or invent, evidence that detainees actually knew something about Al Qaeda operations. One Yemeni prisoner was interrogated so roughly that, according to the National Journal, he finally said in exasperation, "OK, I saw Bin Laden five times: three times on Al Jazeera and twice on Yemeni news." His "admission" was duly recorded in a case file: "Detainee admitted to knowing Osama bin Laden."

His case is not uncommon. For detainees at Guantanamo, legal proceedings appear to resemble Salem witchcraft trials. Presumption of guilt and tarring by association abound, while the rules of evidence are perfunctory. These are not the American values our soldiers are fighting for.