March 20, 2006

Afghan FM says Osama, Zawahri and Mulla Omar all in Pakistan
By Khalid Hasan Daily Times - Mar 19 3:39 PM
WASHINGTON: Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah claimed here on Sunday that Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and Mulla Omar are all together and in Pakistan, where other Al Qaeda figures have been found and apprehended.

Asked by CNN where Osama Bin Laden is, Abdullah replied that according to his country’s intelligence, the Al Qaeda leader is “outside Afghanistan and he might be in the same place where other members of Al Qaeda have been arrested.” He added that Ayman Zawahiri was also in the same place where Bin Laden was.

Asked pointblank if he was in Pakistan, the foreign minister replied that it was “more likely.”

To the question where Mulla Omar was, he replied that all these “friends” should be found together.

Abdullah said what is needed is greater cooperation between the two countries because they face a common threat. When asked to comment on President Pervez Musharraf’s harsh remarks about Afghan President Hamid Karzai in an earlier interview with CNN, the Afghan minister replied that Pakistan and Afghanistan have to work things out, and added that there are Taliban bases inside Pakistan.

Asked if that meant Pakistan is not doing enough to deal with the Taliban and other such elements in the tribal areas of Pakistan, he replied, “Yes of course they know about this.”

In answer to the question as to “how bad” the relationship between the two countries really is, the foreign minister said it was his hope that “we would put it behind us as soon as possible” and the two countries would deal with a threat which is common in a straightforward manner.

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US military changes tactic to fight militants in Afghanistan
KABUL, March 20 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. led collation troops have changed their tactics to effectively deal with the increasing insurgency and fight the Taliban-linked militants in Afghanistan, spokesman of the coalition said Monday.

"We also shift our tactics, we also shift our intelligence and our operational forces to combat the enemies," James Yonts said ata weekly press briefing here.

He made the remarks amid reports of change in Taliban tactics including conducting suicide attacks to sabotage security in the war-shattered nation.

"We have seen the Taliban and enemies of Afghanistan shift their tactics now to IED (improvised explosive device), against civilians and Afghan security forces," he added.

Over a dozen suicide attacks, mostly in the restive southern provinces have been reported since last November.

Three suicide attacks have claimed the lives of six persons including two Canadians and four Afghans in Kandahar and Kabul over the past one month, respectively.

The U.S. army spokesman, however, declined to disclose the troops' new tactics to combat militants.

"Well, there are something in our tactics but I cannot disclose due to security reasons," Yonts asserted.

However, he added that American forces are very aggressive in conducting operations against the rebels.

"We are very aggressive in our operations along with the Afghan security forces in the east and the south. So, we are denying the sanctuary to them and defeating them in these areas," the spokesman of some 20,000-strong force noted.

More than 1,500 people with a majority of them militants were killed in Taliban-linked insurgency in 2005 while the militants' attacks have claimed the lives of over 100 people including 12 Americans and two Canadian soldiers since January.

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Afghanistan to start bird flu cull on Wednesday
20 Mar 2006 10:19:11 GMT
KABUL, March 20 (Reuters) - Afghanistan hopes to begin culling chickens in areas infected by the H5N1 bird flu virus on Wednesday after the U.S. military supplied some protective suits for workers, an Agriculture Ministry official said.

The H5N1 virus was confirmed in two provinces last week and it has assumed to have spread to at least three others, officials said.

"The day after tomorrow we will start the depopulation of affected areas," Azizullah Osmani, chief of the Agriculture Ministry's veterinary department told Reuters.

Tests at a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) laboratory in Italy confirmed H5N1 had been found in the capital, Kabul, and the eastern province of Nangarhar.

The H5 subtype of bird flu had also been found in dead birds in Laghman province east of Kabul, Wardak to the west and in Kunar province, on the eastern border with Pakistan, Osmani said.

While tests had yet to determine if the strain in those three provinces was H5N1, experts were working on the assumption that it was, said a spokesman for the FAO.

Bird flu has killed about 100 people since late 2003, most of them in Asia. Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily between humans and trigger a pandemic that could kill millions.

There have been no human cases in Afghanistan but there is concern that with veterinary and health sectors still recovering from decades of conflict, the country could struggle to contain an outbreak.

Osmani said he was speaking by mobile telephone from a district to the west of Kabul where H5N1 had been confirmed, to explain Wednesday's cull, which is due to begin there, to village elders and municipal authorities.

He said the U.S. military in Afghanistan had provided 50 protective suits for cull workers.

A U.N. spokesman stressed the importance of quick action to contain the disease.

"It's clearly important to see action rather than just statements on this and we look forward to see what the government is coming up with," said the spokesman, Adrian Edwards.

"The imperative here is speed," he said.

Afghan and U.N. officials have stressed the importance of giving farmers compensation for their culled birds.

Afghanistan's poultry industry was decimated by several years of drought up to 2005 and is small-scale with only an estimated 12 million chickens in the country, another Afghan official said.

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Afghan Christian Could Get Death Sentence
By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer Sun Mar 19, 6:48 PM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan man is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death on a charge of converting from Islam to Christianity, a crime under this country's Islamic laws, a judge said Sunday.

The trial is believed to be the first of its kind in     Afghanistan and highlights a struggle between religious conservatives and reformists over what shape Islam should take here four years after the ouster of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime.

The defendant, 41-yer-old Abdul Rahman, was arrested last month after his family accused him of becoming a Christian, Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada told The Associated Press in an interview. Rahman was charged with rejecting Islam and his trial started Thursday.

During the one-day hearing, the defendant confessed that he converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, Mawlavezada said.

"We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law," the judge said. "It is an attack on Islam."

Mawlavezada said he would rule on the case within two months.

Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law, which is interpreted by many Muslims to require that any Muslim who rejects Islam be sentenced to death, said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Repeated attempts to interview Rahman in detention were barred.

The prosecutor, Abdul Wasi, said he had offered to drop the charges if Rahman converted back to Islam, but he refused.

"He would have been forgiven if he changed back. But he said he was a Christian and would always remain one," Wasi told AP. "We are Muslims and becoming a Christian is against our laws. He must get the death penalty."

After being an aid worker for four years in Pakistan, Rahman moved to Germany for nine years, his father, Abdul Manan, said outside his Kabul home.

Rahman returned to Afghanistan in 2002 and tried to gain custody of his two daughters, now aged 13 and 14, who had been living with their grandparents their whole lives, the father said. A custody battle ensued and the matter was taken to the police.

During questioning, it emerged that Rahman was a Christian and was carrying a Bible. He was immediately arrested and charged, the father said.

Afghanistan is a conservative Islamic country. Some 99 percent of its 28 million people are Muslim, and the remainder are mainly Hindu.

A Christian aid worker in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said there was no reliable figure for the number of Christians, though it was believed to be only in the dozens or low hundreds. He said few admit their faith because of fear of retribution and there are no known Afghan churches.

An old house in a war-wrecked suburb of Kabul serves as a Christian place of worship for expatriates. From the muddy street, the building looks like any other. Its guard, Abdul Wahid, said no Afghans go there.

The only other churches are believed to be inside foreign embassies or on bases belonging to the U.S.-led coalition or a NATO peacekeeping force.

Hakim, the human rights advocate, said the case would attract widespread attention in Afghanistan and could be exploited by Muslim conservatives to rally opposition to reformists who are trying to moderate how the religion is practiced here.

"The reformists are trying to bring about positive changes," he said. "This case could be fertile ground for extremists to manipulate things."

Muslim clerics still hold considerable power in Afghanistan, especially in rural areas where most women wear all-encompassing burqas and are dominated by men.

Hakim said that if Rahman was acquitted, it would be a propaganda win for the Taliban rebels, who have stepped up their insurgency in the past year.

In the months before U.S.-led troops ousted the Taliban in 2001, it claimed Western aid groups were trying to convert Afghan Muslims. They arrested eight foreign aid workers for allegedly preaching Christianity, but later released them unharmed.

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Afghan police demolish 40 heroin labs
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, March 20 (UPI) -- Afghan police have destroyed more than 40 heroin factories in the eastern Nangarhar province, security officials said.

Col. Abdul Ghafoor, spokesman for the provincial police headquarters, said Sunday that labs were demolished in Shinwari, Achin, Nazian and Spin Ghar districts during an operation carried out with the help of locals.

Two vehicles belonging to the owners of the heroin factories were torched during the operation, the police spokesman said.

The Nangarhar provincial council had sent a delegation to talk to elders on eradicating poppies in the Kot, Achin and Shinwari districts prior to the action against the drug factories.

The Afghan government has assured the international community of its resolve to eradicate poppy cultivation in the country, which leads the world in the illicit export of opium, the raw material for making heroin.

However, local farmers have complained about the government's failure to deliver adequate financial support or to introduce alternative crops.

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Afghanistan not "Canada's Iraq", says defense minister
OTTAWA, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan will not become "Canada's Iraq" as critics have suggested and Canada will carry on its mission in the country until the task is fulfilled, Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor said Sunday.

O'Connor rejected criticism that there is no exit strategy for Canadian troops, saying Canadian troops provide security and stability enabling Afghan military and police units to be trained,who then take over gradually.

Canadian soldiers are creating stability, transition and then exit, he said.

O'Connor also asserted that there will be no parliamentary voteon Canada's mission in Afghanistan and the military, which has been deployed since 2001, will carry through its commitment.

Canada took the command of coalition troops in southwestern Afghanistan recently. The increase in fatalities in recent weeks has also prompted mounting opposition against the motion. Some have doubted if the Canadian military, now engaging in combating the Taliban remnants, has swerved from its traditional role as peacekeepers.

Opposition New Democratic Party has called for a new debate to resolve growing concerns among Canadians about how the nature of the mission has changed.

O'Connor's remarks came after Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a surprise morale-boosting two-day visit to Canadian militaryin Afghanistan. The prime minister also asserted firmness in keeping on the deployment.

The defense minister also listed three reasons for Canadians tobe in Afghanistan. Firstly, it is in Canada's national interests because if Afghanistan was allowed to decay terrorists may come over to North America. Secondly as part of the world, Canada has to show some leadership in dealing with the world's problems and thirdly Canada needs to help rebuild Afghanistan.