Afghanistan News December 4, 2005

January 4, 2006

Headmaster killed in Afghanistan
Wednesday, 4 January 2006 BBC News
A head teacher has been decapitated in an attack in the southern Afghan province of Zabul, local officials say.

Provincial education director Mohammad Nabi Khushal blamed Taleban militants for the killing, which took place in the Zabul capital, Qalat.

The dead man, Abdul Habib, was the headmaster of the Shaikh Mati High School in Qalat.

Reports of the attack come after a similar incident in another southern province, Helmand, 10 days ago.

Correspondents say violence against teachers has been linked to opposition from Taleban groups against girls attending school.

Attacks linked to insurgency, mostly in southern and eastern Afghanistan, left more than 1,400 people dead in 2005 - the country's bloodiest year since US-led forces ousted the Taleban in late 2001.

Militants Behead Headmaster In Afghanistan
Via Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty
4 January 2006 -- Afghan officials say that suspected Taliban militants have beheaded a teacher in central Afghanistan.

Ali Khail, a local government spokesman in Zabul Province, said Malim Abdul Habib was killed inside his house in the provincial capital Qalat on 3 January.

Habib was the headmaster of a high school attended by some 1,300 boys and girls.

The killing is the latest in a string of attacks on teachers and schools in the region. In October, gunmen shot dead a headmaster in front of his students at a boys school in Kandahar province.

Nabi Khushal, the director of education in Zabul Province, has blamed the Taliban for the killing, saying that "only the Taliban are against girls being educated."
(AP)

Elite troops bound for Afghanistan
Allies consider backing out of dangerous mission
National Post Chris Wattie, Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The Canadian Forces is sending up to 100 commandos from its elite Joint Task Force 2 to Afghanistan this month, the largest contingent of special forces Canada has ever sent overseas, the National Post has learned.

Between 75 and 100 soldiers of JTF-2 will arrive just ahead of a 2,000-member Canadian battle group that is deploying to the restive southern province of Kandahar amid growing warnings of high casualties and a looming enemy offensive in the region.

Defence sources familiar with the mission said the commandos will arrive in the Kandahar region by the end of the month, part of an unprecedented surge of troops by the secretive JTF-2. "They're coming in in a big way," one source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "This is more boots on the ground than they've ever had in one place before."

Captain Stephanie Godin, a military spokeswoman, would neither confirm nor deny the unit's deployment to Afghanistan. "We can't confirm the numbers or specific missions of JTF-2 for reasons of operational security," she said.

But military experts said it only makes sense to "flood the zone" with special forces after new warnings from key NATO allies to expect high casualties from the Kandahar mission.

"The situation's going to get more hazardous there, so they'd be foolish not to flood the whole area with special forces in advance of the deployment," said John Thompson, the director of the MacKenzie Institute, a Toronto-based think-tank specializing in defence and security issues. "The first few weeks of any deployment is one of the most dangerous times for the troops."

British officials have warned the public to expect high casualties from the mission to Kandahar, a hotbed of support for Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers and their al-Qaeda allies.

The Dutch, who were to provide a third of the troops for the Canadian-led Task Force Aegis in Kandahar, may pull out of the mission entirely. And Australia, which has an estimated 190 special forces in Afghanistan, is considering delaying a 200-strong military reconstruction team that was to be sent to the south.

However, Alain Pellerin, director of the Canadian defence lobby group Conference of Defence Associations, said the Dutch will likely join the mission despite their misgivings.

But he said the dangers should not be understated. "In the south of Afghanistan you're really moving into bandit country," he said. "The Americans have lost more than 100 soldiers there in the past year -- the war is not over in the south."

"There's bound to be encounters with fairly large groups of Taliban. ... The Canadians and other NATO troops will be a magnet. They'll be tested as soon as they arrive, I'm sure."

The large Canadian force will be comprised of soldiers from the Alberta-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, the same regiment that served in Afghanistan in 2001-02.

Mr. Thompson said the JTF-2 is being sent in such large numbers to help the Princess Patricia's deal with the Taliban threat.

The deployment to Kandahar would represent between a third and half of JTF-2's total strength. The military has never officially acknowledged the total strength of the special forces unit, based in a facility just outside Ottawa, but most observers place their numbers at between 200 and 250 soldiers.

Aid Worker Shot Dead In Southern Afghanistan
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
January 3 2005-- Suspected Taliban gunmen have killed an Afghan aid worker in the south of the country. The attack happened on Monday in the town of Lashkargh in

Helmand province.

The deputy governor of the insurgency-hit province, Moheedin Khan, said the victim was praying in a mosque when two men rode up on a motorcycle, walked inside the building and shot him in the head with a pistol.

The man was an engineer working for the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, which builds schools, roads and clinics in rural Afghanistan. No one has claimed responsibility for the murder but local officials say they suspect Taliban rebels

Annan picks Koenigs as new U.N. envoy for Afghanistan
Wednesday January 4, 2006
(Kyodo) _ U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has decided to appoint Tom Koenigs of Germany as his special representative for Afghanistan and head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Koenigs will replace Jean Arnault of France, who will complete his assignment next month, the spokesman said.

Koenigs is currently serving in the German Federal Foreign Office as the federal government commissioner for human rights policy and humanitarian aid.

From August 2002 to December 2004, he was special representative of the secretary general for Guatemala and head of the U.N. Verification Mission in Guatemala, established to monitor the peace agreement signed in 1996 between the parties to the civil war.

Ex-CIA agent says US missed bin Laden in Afghanistan
Financial Times January 3 2006 23:34 By Peter Spiegel, Defence Correspondent
US military commanders were told that Osama bin Laden was hiding in the mountainous Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in early December 2001 but failed to send troops to block his escape, according to a new account by the CIA officer who ran the agency’s operations in the country.

Gary Berntsen, a CIA veteran who headed a paramilitary team called “Jawbreaker” during the Afghan war, said in a book published last week that one of his Arabic-speaking operatives found a radio on a dead al-Qaeda fighter during the Tora Bora battle and heard the terrorist leader repeatedly try to rally his troops.

“After the Spectre [gunship aircraft] cleared the area, Bilal heard a voice he recognised from dozens of tape recordings,” Mr Berntsen wrote, using a pseudonym for an Arab-American former Marine who was part of the CIA team. “It was Osama bin Laden telling his troops to keep fighting.”

Later on the same captured radio, “Bilal” and a second CIA agent, another American of Middle Eastern origin, reported hearing Mr bin Laden apologising for getting his men trapped in the mountains and killed in large numbers by American bombing, Mr Berntsen wrote. The book, titled Jawbreaker, was heavily edited by CIA censors.

Mr Berntsen also wrote that on the recommendation of a former Special Forces officer who was part of his team as a CIA contractor, he made a formal request for 800 US army Rangers to be deployed along the Pakistani border to prevent Mr bin Laden’s escape, a request that was never granted.

The issue of whether senior US commanders failed to capture Mr bin Laden at Tora Bora because of an over-reliance on unreliable Afghan warlords became an issue in the 2004 presidential campaign when Democratic challenger John Kerry accused the Bush administration of allowing the al-Qaeda leader to escape by not sending American troops to the battlefield.

At the time, retired general Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central Command who ran the Afghan campaign, denied that the military knew of Mr bin Laden’s presence and accused Mr Kerry of relying on “distortions of history”.

“We do not know to this day whether Mr bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001,” Gen Franks wrote in the New York Times during the presidential race. “Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr bin Laden was never within our grasp.”

Mr Berntsen disputes this account, saying he told senior commanders of Mr bin Laden’s presence and arguing that Afghan allies who had militia fighters in the region allowed Mr bin Laden to escape with about 200 Saudi and Yemeni fighters into Pakistan.

“He was either badly misinformed by his own people or blinded by the fog of war,” Mr Berntsen wrote of Gen Franks’s claims and his insistence that Afghan militia were up to the task. “I’d made it clear in my reports that our Afghan allies were hardly anxious to get at al-Qaeda in Tora Bora.”

Media reports have cited accounts of Mr bin Laden’s presence at Tora Bora, but Mr Berntsen is the highest-ranking former official to publicly confirm that senior US commanders had been told the al-Qaeda leader was there during the battle.

Afghanistan troop cuts pose risks
The Mankato Free Press January 03, 2006
At a time when wars appear to be heavy on the U.S. plate, it was good news to hear of a plan to pull 2,500 of 19,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

The pullout will come later this summer and the troops are expected to be replaced by 6,000 NATO troops, officially known as International Security Assistance Force.

There are plenty of positives for pulling the U.S. troops and replacing them with almost double the number of international troops.

It’s a sign that the international community is willing to share in the burden of rebuilding and protecting Afghanistan. The U.S. needs help. So far it has spent $47 billion protecting Afghanistan since 2001. That comes on top of more than $100 billion for Iraq and several billion more for Hurricanes that devastated the Gulf Coast.

Still, some experienced and knowledgeable Afghanis worry that the international security force will be just that — a policeman who doesn’t go looking for trouble. The U.S. forces, by contrast, continued to target insurgents and Al Qaida with military strikes, keeping them at bay in the hills and providing some level of stability to Afghani communities that are rebuilding.

At the same time as the troop withdrawal, funding for Afghanistan infrastructure rebuilding will be cut 40 percent from $1 billion this year to $600 million next year. Such a large cut seems unwise, particularly at a time when the military strength will be modified to a protect versus attack mode.

Congress could appropriate more and probably should.

Afghanistan still needs a lot of help to become a self-sufficient democracy. Farmers need new roads to be able to sell crops other than opium. The U.S. has done little to scuttle the country’s leading drug trade in opium, and is leaving that to local officials. The country still needs schools, fresh water and other infrastructure.

Others worry the reduction in U.S. military presence will also provide no incentive for rural provincial officials to resist cooperating with rebels when it’s in their economic interest.

The Taliban was able to take a foothold in the country in the early 1990s after the Soviets left and the U.S. reduced its presence and aid.

We shouldn’t let that happen again.

Taj Mahal in wonder of world poll
Tuesday, 3 January 2006 BBC News
India's Taj Mahal is among 21 sites short-listed in a global poll to decide the modern world's seven wonders.

The New Seven Wonders Foundation, a privately-funded Switzerland-based organisation, is asking people to vote for their favourite during 2006.

The final seven sites will be announced on New Year's Day, 2007. Half the money raised will go towards restoration.

An early mission is to recreate the giant Buddha statues at Bamiyan in Afghanistan, destroyed by the Taleban.

Man-made heritage

The Taj Mahal and the other top 20 new contenders were on an original list of 77 sites whittled down by an expert panel headed by former Unesco chief Frederico Mayor.

The 17th century marble memorial, built by Mughal emperor Shahjahan for his wife, also figures in the UN cultural agency's World Heritage list.

The seven wonders of the ancient world were listed by Philon of Byzantium in 200 BC.

The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt is the only ancient wonder still standing - and the only one to be included in the new shortlist.

To be included on the new list, architectural wonders have to be man-made and completed by 2000. They also have to be in an "acceptable" state of preservation.

The Great Wall of China, Athen's Acropolis, the Coliseum in Rome, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Stonehenge in the UK, the town of Petra in Jordan and the Inca city of Machu Pichu in Peru also figure on the list.

More modern structures - like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Statue of Liberty in New York, Sydney Opera House and the Kremlin in Moscow - have made it to the shortlist.

The foundation says the global poll is aimed at alerting the world to the destruction of man-made heritage worldwide.