Afghanistan News November 25, 2006

November 25, 2006

Taliban, convicts may be Afghan recruits
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Taliban militants and common criminals may have infiltrated an Afghan program that trains thousands of men affiliated with local militias to fight the country's growing insurgency.

The formation of the Afghanistan National Auxiliary Police reflects the growing questions about the ability of the existing security force's to beat resurgent Taliban rebels and other militants challenging government authority in parts of the country.

But though the training of the local militia members could give Afghanistan up to 11,000 on-call policemen to increase the ranks of security forces during times of need, some question the quality of the recruits and their effectiveness.

"There are criminals and drug users among them," said Col. Mohammed Hussain Andiwall, a senior police official in Kandahar province who coordinates between the Ministry of Interior and foreign experts training the auxiliary police force.

"Our constitution does not really provide "for these sort of people in our security forces," Andiwall said earlier this week. "The fact that they wear the same uniform as a regular police is very problematic."

Fighting between insurgents and NATO-led and Afghan government troops have halted development and reconstruction and endangered the efforts to normalize a country that once provided shelter for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.

Afghanistan, with its weak central government whose authority does not extend to some regions, has throughout years of war and conflict relied on its militias and warlords to serve as de facto regional security forces. That changed when the Taliban rose to power in 1996 and promised to rid the country of warlords.

Ross Davies, a Canadian police officer involved in the training of the auxiliary force in Kandahar province, said that despite a vetting process conducted by Afghan authorities, police trainers still "do not know really who these people are."

"We know that we are probably training some of the bad guys," he said, using an expression reserved mainly for the insurgents.

When Kandahar province held its first training session for the auxiliary police last month, some 200 men — most with long beards and turbans — showed up. But by the end of the 10-day course, only 77 remained.

Some were kicked out after they were found with hashish and heroin. Others had marks on their hands from injecting the drugs. Others refused orders to clean toilets, make their beds or take care of common areas. Dozens went back home for a religious holiday and never returned.

The 77 who did complete the training committed to a one-year contract with the auxiliary force. They can join the regular police force after a year if they choose.

The 10-day training course includes lessons on the Afghan constitution, human rights, the use of weapons and basic police tactics. At the end of the course the recruits are given an automatic gun and sent to their home districts, largely in provinces most affected by the insurgency, in the country's south and east.

Village elders and local strongmen eager to protect their own interests in the face of the growing insurgency are providing the men for the new force, which will wear regular police uniforms and is meant to have 11,000 members by next year.

The auxiliary officers will receive $70 a month, the same amount the regular police receives, Zarifi said.

Gen. Nasrullah Zarifi, the commander of southern Afghanistan's police training center, asked cadets at the end of their training in Kandahar to swear on Islam's holy book that they will serve their country and not harass its people. The fear of God is Zarifi's only leverage.

"They swear on the holy Quran that they will behave when they go to their home districts," he said.

NATO patrol escapes suicide attack in Afghanistan
Sat Nov 25, 7:19 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-filled car close to a NATO and police patrol near the Afghan capital, wounding at least two Afghan passers-by, police said.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force could not immediately confirm the attack in the province of Logar which came hours after a bomb hit an army vehicle in Kabul but caused no casualties.

The suicide attack shattered the passenger car carrying the bomb but did not affect the patrolling troops, a local police commander, Abdul Majid Latifi, told AFP by telephone.

Two passers-by were injured, he said. The blast was in Charkh district about 70 kilometres (43 miles) south of Kabul.

"It was a suicide bombing carried out by the enemies of Afghanistan. The attacker was killed but thank God the troops were not hurt," Latifi said on Saturday.

The interior ministry, which handles police matters, confirmed the attack but had no details.

The officials were not able to say who might have been behind the attack but similar ones have in the past been blamed on the Taliban extremist movement, which has claimed most of around 100 suicide blasts in the country this year.

Suicide blasts spiked this year but have dropped off in recent weeks.

A separate attack in the capital earlier in the day was also the first in weeks.

The bomb struck an Afghan army pick-up truck carrying Afghan National Army officers, police criminal investigation chief Alishah Paktiawal said.

"An ANA car was struck by a bomb but luckily there were no casualties," he told AFP.

The explosive device had been planted at the side of the road and was remotely detonated, one of the occupants said, refusing to give his name because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

"The front of the cabin is damaged but nobody has been wounded or killed," the officer said.

Paktiawal said the attack was "another attempt by enemies of peace and stability to destabilise Afghanistan".

The term is generally used to refer to the Taliban movement, which launched an insurgency after being toppled from government five years ago. Other groups are however also involved in regular unrest in Afghanistan.

The interior ministry said meanwhile that 12 alleged Taliban were captured on Friday in southern Uruzgan province.

They included an alleged area commander and an intelligence chief, the ministry's media office said.

Afghanistan has this year gone through the bloodiest phase of the insurgency with around 3,700 people killed, four times the number last year. Most of the dead are insurgents but around 1,000 civilians are also estimated to have died.

Bomb hits Afghan army vehicle in capital, no casualties
Sat Nov 25, 12:57 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A bomb struck an Afghan army pick-up truck in the capital but caused little damage and no casualties in an attack police blamed on the "enemies of peace and stability".

The blast hit the four-by-four vehicle carrying Afghan National Army officers, police criminal investigation chief Alishah Paktiawal said.

"An ANA car was struck by a bomb but luckily there were no casualties," he told AFP on Saturday.

The explosive device had been planted at the side of the road and was remotely detonated, one of the occupants said, refusing to give his name because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

"The front of the cabin is damaged but nobody was been wounded or killed," the officer said.

Paktiawal said the attack -- similar to others that have struck the heavily secured capital -- was "another attempt by enemies of peace and stability to destabilise Afghanistan".

The term is generally used to refer to militants from the extremist Taliban movement that launched an insurgency after being toppled from government five years ago, although other groups are also involved in regular unrest.

The attack was the first in the city in weeks.

Kabul saw relatively little of the insurgency until September, when seven bombings in little more than a month killed nearly 40 people including five foreign soldiers.

NATO force tells Afghans to avoid its convoys
Sat Nov 25, 5:50 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's NATO force warned Afghans to keep clear of its convoys on Saturday after several incidents in which troops fired at civilians in the mistaken belief they were under attack by suicide bombers.

Violence has surged in Afghanistan this year to its worst level since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. As well as hundreds of attacks and ambushes, suicide bombers have struck more than 80 times, mostly at foreign and government troops.

In the latest incident of mistaken fire, NATO soldiers shot at a van that had been seen "driving suspiciously" near a convoy on the outskirts of Kabul on Wednesday. The van crashed and an Afghan doctor was killed.

NATO said on Saturday large red signs had been fitted to its vehicles across the country bearing keep-clear warnings in Afghanistan's two official languages -- Dari and Pashto.

"Locals are asked to obey these signs by maintaining a safe distance when near ISAF vehicles, and to also obey any hand signals and verbal warnings given by ISAF troops," the force said.

"Failure to adhere to the sign's message and troop warnings may result in ISAF troops opening fire," it said.

On Saturday, a suicide car-bomber tried to attack a NATO convoy south of Kabul. Two civilians were wounded. No NATO troops were hurt, the force said.

NATO said in a report last month 142 civilians had been killed in suicide bombings this year. Forty Afghan soldiers and police and 13 foreign troops had been killed.

Suicide bombings were virtually unheard of in Afghanistan before last year when there were 17 such attacks, according to a tally of incidents reported by Reuters.

The new signs on NATO vehicles will be of no use to drivers who can not read. Nearly half of all Afghan men and nearly 80 percent of Afghan women are illiterate.

Two Pakistani journalists held by Taliban in Afghanistan
Sat Nov 25, 7:24 AM ET
KARACHI, Pakistan (AFP) - Two Pakistani journalists have been held by Taliban in southern Helmand province of Afghanistan and put on trial for unknown reasons, a newspaper report said.

Quoting family members, The Star, a local evening paper, said that its reporter Saleem Shahzad and another journalist Qamar Yousafzai have been detained by Taliban commander Matiullah.

"According to the message received on the telephone by his family this morning, he (Shahzad) said that he has been put on trial by the Taliban after his arrest on November 21," it said on Saturday.

"He has been arrested by Taliban and put on trial for unknown reasons and unknown charges," the newspaper said and added that Shahzad reached Helmand on November 19 via southwest Chaman border to cover the insurgency in the region.

"Saleem was planning to cover the activities of Taliban inside Afghanistan," the report said.

Shahzad's wife has appealed to the Taliban high command to immediately release her husband as he had committed no crime and was known for fair and professional journalism, it said.

Shahzad also worked for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online.

Meanwhile, Hameed Haroon, chief of Dawn Group, which owns The Star, urged international organisations to intervene and get both men released from Taliban.

"They are currently being tried by a Taliban Court in Helmand and my strong suspicion is that their lives are in danger unless international organizations intervene to help," Haroon said in an email to AFP.

The Pakistani embassy in Kabul and the NATO-led International Security Force (ISAF) officials said they had no information about the reported arrests.

40 Taliban militants killed in Afghanistan
Kabul, Nov 25 (Xinhua) At least 40 Taliban insurgents were killed in an operation by the Afghan police in Uruzgan province of southern Afghanistan, an interior ministry official said Saturday. 'The police carried out an operation in Deh Rawad district Thursday, killing at least 40 Taliban fighters,' the official said on condition of anonymity. Three militants were captured and three policemen injured during the operation, he said. Uruzgan province has been a hotbed of Taliban insurgents, who have frequently clashed with Afghan and NATO-led forces. Over 3,700 people, mostly Taliban militants, have been killed in this volatile country this year.

Afghan police arrest man intimidating girls not to attend schools
People's Daily - Nov 25 12:19 AM
A man has been detained in Afghan capital Kabul for intimidating girls not to go to schools, a local newspaper reported Saturday.

"The police took into custody a young man named Jaffar in Kabul on Wednesday while he was posting pamphlets on the walls of a girls'school, warning them of dire consequences if they continue to attend classes," The Daily Afghanistan quoted a police official Fahim Kohdamani as saying.

Jaffar admitted he had posted anti-government and anti-girls' education leaflets at several girls'schools and Kabul University, Kohdamani said.

The newspaper did not say what pushed Jaffar to carry out such activities.

However, Taliban militias, who have staged a violent comeback in Afghanistan two years ago, banned education for girls and confined women to their houses during its five-year reign before being toppled in late 2001.
Source: Xinhua

Afghanistan look at higher horizons
Hindustan Times 11/24/2006
Out here in the perimeters, there are no stars. Out here it's just sport. And in sport at its purest, there's no geo-political divide, no factionalism or a smacking of atavism that revolves around war and survival. Sport can rise above hatred.

"Sport is different. It is perhaps one medium through which the world can be united," says Saleh Mohammad, a former World No 2 in snooker. He is part of a three-member Afghanistan snooker team on whom the expectations of a troubled nation rest at the Asian Games in Doha.

The other Afghan teams that have come to India for a short practice-cum-exposure trip are boxing, judo, karate and wrestling squads. They are here on the initiative of their government and the Olympic Council of Asia. The snooker team is the only one that is practising in Delhi at the Delhi Billiards and Snooker Association premises in Malviya Nagar. The others teams have proceeded to Patiala.

Despite making an obvious effort to remain calm, Saleh couldn't conceal his enthusiasm at representing his country at the Games for the first time in his 16-year career. Saleh, who had shifted to Pakistan 30 years ago has represented his adopted country since 1992. He even won a bronze for Pakistan at the Bangkok Asian Games in 1998.

Right now, though, he is focussed on winning a medal for his country. "I was planning to retire, but my friends and relatives in Kabul coaxed me into representing my country of origin in snooker, where we have a good chance of winning a medal," says a confident Saleh.

Though the other members of his team lack international experience, he says: "They need to start somewhere. Though they haven't played any international events till date, I feel they will do well. The sport is becoming very popular in Afghanistan. And it's not confined to snooker alone. After a very long time, we'll be represented by more than 200 players in Doha," says the three-time national champion of Pakistan.

Recollecting the horror days when bombs and gunfire sent tremors through Afghanistan, he says with a tinge of sadness: "Though we were in Peshawar, I have lost many friends out there. It is sad. But now the city is coming back to normalcy. We had four snooker parlours then but around 150 parlours have mushroomed around the city." Hopefully, he believes, Afghanistan will rise as a sporting nation.

Afghan Drug Boom Fuels Child Addiction Rates
IWPR 11/24/2006 By Sadeq Behnam and Sudabah Afzali in Herat
Doctors estimate that there are more than 2,000 drug-addicted children in the western city of Herat alone.

Idris, 16, sells cigarettes for a living. Walking along the road in Herat with a wooden box hanging from his neck, he confesses that he had moved onto stronger substances.

"I didn't want to become addicted, but I started smoking since I was selling cigarettes," he said. "Then I tried hashish with other kids. Now I can't work unless I smoke hash two or three times a day."

Idris is an orphan who lost his family in fighting when the Taleban were attacking the forces of local leader Ismail Khan back in the Nineties. Homeless, he sells cigarettes during the day and sleeps in city parks at night.

There are many young people like him in Afghanistan, where families have been torn apart over decades of war.

Nur Ahmad, 15, makes his living by shining shoes on the street. He, too, is alone: after his father was killed, his mother remarried but his stepfather threw him out of the house.

"I started on snuff, moved on to cigarettes and now hashish," he told IWPR. "Now I smoke hashish with my friends every night."

Observers say that drug addiction among children has risen precipitously in recent years. This is especially true in western areas like Herat, because of the influx of returning refugees from neighbouring Iran, where addiction rates are high.

Dr Abdul Shukur Shukur, of the Shahamat Centre, a non-government institution that helps combat drug abuse, told IWPR that he had seen a 20 per cent rise in juvenile addiction over last year.

"We have children between the ages of six and 16 at our centre," he said.

There are many reasons why children start using drugs, said Dr Shukur, including the lack of parental supervision, the large number of children orphaned by war, the return of refugees from Iran, and Afghanistan's booming illicit narcotics industry, which means drugs are readily available.

Dr Shukur estimated that there are more than 2,000 drug-addicted children in the city of Herat alone.

A report issued by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime in late 2005 put the number of drug users in Afghanistan at 920,000, with 60,000 of them under 15.

This year and next, opium and its derivative heroin will be even more plentiful, as poppy cultivation is on the rise despite eradication efforts sponsored by the international community. UNODC estimates that 60 per cent more land was planted with opium in 2006, so that the harvest will hit 6,100 tonnes.

"Afghanistan is increasingly hooked on its own drug," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said after presenting the latest estimates for cultivation and production in September.

Abdul Hai Mahmudi, who heads the Khoja Abdullah Ansari orphanage in Herat, says homeless children are vulnerable to addiction and to exploitation as "mules" carrying drugs for the traffickers.

"We have provided shelter for about 1,000 children, but that's only 20 per cent of all the homeless children in the city. We just don't have the capacity to take them all," he told IWPR, saying some of the children in the orphanage were receiving treatment for their addiction.

Mahmudi said homeless children are targeted by smugglers because they make good couriers and arouse little suspicion with the police.

Nur Khan Nekzad, press spokesman for police headquarters in Herat, confirmed this.

"We have caught ten children who were being used to smuggle drugs," he said. "Through them, we have been able to arrest the traffickers standing behind them."

Another cause of juvenile drug addiction is the widespread use of opiates to keep children quiet, said Juma Khan Karimzada, head of a charity that provides assistance to disabled children in Ghor, a province east of Herat

"The real reason for drug addiction in children is the high volume of poppy cultivation in the province," he told IWPR. "Many parents use poppy paste to calm their children, and this then leads to addiction."

Karimzada's organisation is among several trying to combat the practice by getting the word out to parents, though the mosques and schools, but the problem persists.

Other people, including children, become addicted while harvesting the poppy crop through their long exposure to opium.

Mohammad Zarif, 17, who lives in the Braman district of Herat province, told IWPR that he became addicted while cutting poppy plants in nearby Farah province.

"I'm not happy that I'm an addict," he said. "But I can't stop - there is no treatment for me. There is no real employment, either, and I do anything I have to in order to get food and drugs."

Rajnath seeks PM's intervention on Sikh safety in Afghanistan
New Kerala (India) New Delhi, Nov 24
Accusing the Congress-led UPA of duplicity over issues related to different minorities, the BJP today sought New Delhi's intervention to ensure safety of Sikhs in Afghanistan following reports they were being attacked and abused there.

"The government of India should put diplomatic pressure on the Afghan government that it should ensure safety and dignity of Sikh and Hindu communities in that country," Singh told PTI over phone from Uttaranchal.

His comments came in the wake of news reports that Sikhs in the Taliban's stronghold Kandahar were subject to assaults and humiliation by the locals there.

"Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should answer why he has not yet reacted on such an issue hurting the sentiments of the entire Sikh community," the BJP chief remarked.

He accused the government of insensitivity towards issues facing Hindus and Sikhs outside the country.

"On the one hand it (the government) leaves not even the slightest chance to react on an issue even remotely related to sentiments of other minority communities, on the other it appears to be highly insensitive to any issue hurting the sentiments of Hindu or Sikh communities," Singh said.

He also referred to the demolition of a Hindu temple in Kazakhastan and the ban on Sikh turbans in state schools in France as part of Paris' anti-veil law.

"This is a stark evidence of the duplicity of the government's stand," he said.
--- PTI

Report: Danish defense minister criticizes some NATO members in Afghanistan
The Associated Press November 25, 2006
COPENHAGEN, Denmark: Denmark's defense minister criticized some NATO members, accusing them of shirking responsibility in Afghanistan, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Denmark has 290 soldiers serving in volatile southern Afghanistan and has pledged to increase the number. Previously, Britain, Canada and others who have troops fighting Taliban forces in the southern heartland have complained that Germany, Italy, Spain and France are keeping their soldiers in the more peaceful north and west.

"All countries should deliver," Defense Minister Soeren Gade was quoted as saying in the Politiken daily. "If we get hurt, are the others just going to stand there and watch?"

"This is, of course, unsatisfactory. It's also not a good signal to give the Afghan people, and it hurts NATO's credibility," he told Politiken.

Today in Europe
Before dying, ex-Russian spy accused Putin Officer kills man in Paris soccer mob Russia may risk WTO entry with EU meat ban
A NATO summit next week in Latvia is expected to focus on the alliance's Afghan mission.

On Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country remains committed to making NATO's mission in Afghanistan a success, and that it will play its part in a "joint strategy."

She did not refer directly to earlier criticism in her weekly podcast, saying only that Germany "is already committed in the north of Afghanistan, a part of the country in which 40 percent of the population lives."

NATO members, meeting Monday and Tuesday in the Latvian capital, Riga, are expected to discuss ways of strengthening the 32,000-strong force struggling to keep control in Afghanistan, which is racked by surging violence that has killed more than 3,700 people this year.

Czech troops arrive in Afghanistan to take command of Kabul airport
The Associated Press November 25, 2006
PRAGUE, Czech Republic: Czech troops who are part of NATO's peacekeeping force in Afghanistan arrived in Kabul Saturday to take command of the capital's international airport, an official said.

A unit of 47 specialists is scheduled to take command of the airport at the beginning of December for a period of four months, said Iva Ruskovska, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman.

The unit's arrival has increased the number of Czech troops participating in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to some 150.

The ministry plans to deploy up to 190 troops in the ISAF peacekeeping mission in 2007 but the move still has to be approved by the country's parliament.

Today in Europe
Before dying, ex-Russian spy accused Putin Officer kills man in Paris soccer mob Russia may risk WTO entry with EU meat ban
Some 120 Czech elite troops who served in the U.S.-led operation against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan known as Enduring Freedom ended their mission as scheduled and returned home earlier this week, Ruskovska said.

No redeployment of that force in Afghanistan was currently planned.

Afghan held with explosives
By Our Staff Correspondent Dawn (Pakistan)
QUETTA, Nov 24: Police on Friday arrested a suspected Afghan terrorist while he was coming to Quetta and seized explosives and other material, DIG (operation) Ghulam Qadir Thebo told a press conference.

He said that the arrested man, Shah Khan, belonged to Afghan army. He had illegally crossed into Pakistan three days ago through an unfrequented route. After spending three days in Muslim Bagh, he was on his way to Quetta in a mini-bus which was intercepted by police at Balili customs check-post, the DIG said.

During search of Khan’s belonging, he said, police found 15 rolls of high intensity explosives, 30 pencil timers, 29 detonators and wire used for blasts.

"During interrogation, the Afghan suspect gave information about his plan of subversion activities in Quetta," he said, adding that police had arrested two men on information provided by him. He did not disclose the name of the two.

Police produced the accused before journalists but did not allow them to ask him any question.

The DIG said that the suspect had come from Afghanistan's Paktia province to deliver explosives to his local contacts in Quetta to carry out terrorist attacks, adds AFP.

Two others, a Pakistani and an Afghan, were arrested later in Quetta after the suspect gave information about them to police, he said.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Terrorist Force conducted a raid in the Mach area of Bolan district and arrested four alleged activists of the banned Baloch Liberation Army.