 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
News
Archives
|
||||||||||||
|
|
Pashtuns
protest Pakistani meddling in Afghanistan
By Saeed Ali Achakzai November 7, 2006
CHAMAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Several thousand ethnic Pashtuns rallied
in a Pakistani town near the Afghan border on Tuesday, accusing
Pakistan of meddling in Afghanistan's affairs.
The protesters, Pakistani Pashtuns and some Afghan Pashtun refugees,
accused Pakistan of providing sanctuary to Taliban militants, who have
this year unleashed the most intense violence in Afghanistan since
their 2001 ousting from power.
"We demand the government of Pakistan stops playing its game in
Afghanistan," Hamid Khan Achakzai, a leader of a Pakistani Pashtun
nationalist party and a former member of parliament, told the rally in
the southwestern town of Chaman.
"This duplicitous policy poses serious danger to the entire world,"
Achakzai said.
Pashtuns live on both sides of the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border.
Afghan complaints that Taliban insurgents are operating from safe
havens on the Pakistani side have seriously strained relations between
the neighbours this year.
Pakistan nurtured the Taliban after they emerged from Pashtun tribal
lands along the border in the early 1990s, but officially ended support
after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
PAKISTAN DENIALS
A major ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, Pakistan denies helping the
Taliban but says some militants are able to cross the porous frontier.
Protesters at the rally in Chaman shouted "Down with terrorism in
Afghanistan" and "Down with the policy of interference in Afghanistan".
Afghan President Hamid Karzai last month asked two ethnic Pashtun
Pakistani politicians, including the head of an Islamist group, for
help to stem the Taliban insurgency.
Pakistan accuses its old rival India, which has close relations with
Karzai, of stirring ethnic unrest in Pakistani areas on the Afghan
border.
The border areas have traditionally been strongholds of conservative
Islamist groups but Pashtun nationalist parties, which want the merger
of Pashtun areas on both sides of the frontier, also have support.
Pakistani forces have been battling Islamist militants in Pashtun
tribal areas on its side of the border over the last few years and
hundreds of people have been killed.
In the latest violence, militants fired at least six rockets at a
paramilitary base in the town of Wana, in the South Waziristan region,
to the north of Chaman, but there were no reports of casualties, a
security official said.
Two rockets landed near the base when the governor of North West
Frontier Province, Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai, was meeting tribal elders
there.
Govt again says 'no' to border fencing
Zubair Babakarkhail Translated and edited by Daud Khan
KABUL, Nov 7 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghanistan once again rejected the fencing of the Durand Line and said the step would divide the people living on both sides of the line between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Addressing his weekly press briefing, presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi said fencing the border or erection of separation wall would not end terrorism. Rather it would divide the people living on the two sides of the Durand Line.
"We are against erection of any kind of separation wall and will never accept it," said Rahimi, who added the proposal was already rejected by the people living on the two sides of the divide.
Pakistan, Afghanistan and the international community should strike at the root causes to eliminate terrorism, said Rahimi, who was responding to the fresh statement of Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri regarding the border fencing.
Kasuri, during talks with his Dutch counterpart Bernard Bot, who paid a visit to Islamabad two days back, renewed the border fencing proposal and said it would help putting an end to terrorism and infiltration of miscreants.
Regarding President Karzai's talks offer to Taliban leader Mulla Omar and Hezb-i-Islami chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the spokesman said the government was ready to welcome any independent move, either by its supporters or opponents, to bring peace and stability to the country.
However, there should be no pre-conditions for such move or talks, the spokesman clarified.
About the proposed Jirga between tribal elders from both Pakistan and Afghanistan, Rahimi said preparations were in full gear to set modalities for the meetings on both side of the border.
To a question, he said they were trying their best to include true representatives of the people in the proposed Jirgas. The first Jirga will be held in Afghanistan and both President Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf are expected to attend it.
Regarding the mid-term elections in the United States and the effects of its results on the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan, Rahimi said terrorism was a global problem and any change in American government would have no effect on the struggle.
Afghanistan opposes fencing border with Pakistan
Xinhua / November 07, 2006
Afghanistan Tuesday repeated its firm opposition to fencing border with Pakistan.
"We are against fencing or erecting barriers on the Durand Line and would not accept it," Afghan Presidential spokesman Mohammad Karim Rahimi told newsmen at a press briefing.
He made these remarks just days after suggesting fencing border with Afghanistan by Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmoud Kasuri.
Khurshid Kasuri, according to media reports at a joint press conference with his Dutch counterpart Bernhard Bot on Sunday, stressed the need to seal the border with Afghanistan saying it could be fenced and jointly monitored in order to check terrorist activities.
Spokesperson of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry Tasneem Aslam, according to media report, also said Monday that Islamabad had proposed fencing and selectively mining the 2,500 km porous border with Afghanistan.
"Fencing the Durand Line or erecting barriers cannot curb terrorism except dividing the inhabitants of the people living on the both side of the line," Rahimi emphasized.
Demarcated in 1893 by the erstwhile British Empire, the Durand Line divides the Pashtun tribe which used to live on the both sides of the line over the past centuries.
Afghanistan's successive governments have not recognized the line as international border with the neighboring Pakistan.
Karimi also stressed that eliminating terrorism requires joint and coordinated struggle among Afghanistan, Pakistan and international community to target the root cause and breeding centers of terrorism but declined to name any specific country as the breeding center of terrorism.
Afghanistan officials often say that Taliban militants usually cross the Durand line and after conducting subversive activities go back to Pakistan, and such claim is rejected by Islamabad as groundless allegation.
Afghan police arrest Taliban commander
People's Daily - Nov 07 6:04 AM
Afghan police captured a key Taliban commander in the eastern Paktika province Tuesday, provincial governor Akram Khapalwak said.
"We arrested a Taliban key commander Khan Mohammad from Paktika's provincial capital Sharan today," Khapalwak told Xinhua.
Khan Mohammad was involved in the anti-government activities in Paktika and surrounding areas, the provincial governor added.
"Wearing women dress to escape but vigilant police identified and took him into custody," the governor further said.
Paktika and the neighboring provinces of Khost and Paktia along the border with Pakistan have been the scene of increasing insurgency over the past two years.
Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces captured five suspected al- Qaeda operatives from Khost province early in the week.
Source: Xinhua
Afghan unrest fuels tensions ahead of NATO summit
by Pascal Mallet Tue Nov 7, 4:12 AM ET
BRUSSELS (AFP) - NATO urged the European Union and United Nations to do more to rebuild strife-torn Afghanistan, where a Taliban insurgency and waning international support are complicating the alliance's mission.
The appeal, by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, was a new sign of the increasingly public tensions between the transatlantic alliance and international organisations three weeks ahead of its summit in Riga, Latvia.
"NATO is doing a lot but we are neither a relief organisation nor a reconstruction agency," he told a conference in Brussels. "Now is the time for the international community to step in and help push Afghanistan further in the right direction."
NATO agreed in late September to expand the military operations of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) it is leading in Afghanistan into the east of the troubled country, giving it a toe-hold there at all points of the compass.
But a dogged Taliban-led insurgency, particularly in the volatile south, has frustrated the alliance in its most ambitious operation ever, as it tries to establish secure conditions for rebuilding to go ahead.
NATO officials fear that if reconstruction is too slow, ordinary Afghans could turn back to the radical Islamic Taliban movement, which was forced from power by a US-led invasion in late 2001 for harbouring Osama bin Laden.
In an interview with Tuesday's edition of French newspaper Le Monde, de Hoop Scheffer took particular aim at the 25-nation EU.
"NATO's mission is not to 'resolve' the problems of Afghanistan because there are no military solutions. The real problem is that Afghanistan is not sufficiently on the EU's radar screen," he said.
"There must be concerted planning between NATO and the European Union," he warned. He added that he would "insist on this question at the summit in Riga", on November 28-29, given that 19 of NATO's 26 states are also EU members.
In an article in Monday's International Herald Tribune, de Hoop Scheffer said the participants of an informal meeting between NATO and international organisations on October 2 had agreed that the EU needed to do more.
But a NATO diplomat told AFP: "The main thing to come out of the meeting was that the United Nations must play the central role."
Across the Atlantic, the United Nations -- through its representative in Afghanistan, Tom Koenigs -- has warned NATO to step up its efforts to keep the Central Asian country from sinking further into chaos.
"The conflict cannot be won by military means alone but NATO must not lose it," Koenigs said in Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, calling for an "enormous military effort" against the insurgents.
He said that while diplomatic and humanitarian aid was essential, attacks mounted by the Taliban, and backed by drug runners and war lords, had to be stopped.
"Otherwise the entire NATO alliance is absurd and not usable for peacekeeping in the Third World," Koenigs said.
Amid what appears to be buck passing, the NATO diplomat noted: "It is likely, ahead of Riga, that a few cracks appear. But it is important not to blame each other for the difficulties in Afghanistan."
One particular shortfall is Afghanistan's police force.
The main task for reconstituting the force falls to Germany. But with little real progress made so far, de Hoop Scheffer said the EU should be "taking over the training and equipping of the Afghan police".
Asked about its role, the spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the bloc was analysing a report compiled by an assessment team sent to Afghanistan around six weeks ago.
"No immediate decision is expected," she said.
Asfandyar to Musharraf: All Pashtuns are not Taliban
Daud Khan
PESHAWAR, Nov 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) is going to organise a grand jirga comprising Pashtun leaders from all parts of Pakistan to develop unity among the community living on the other side of the Durand Line and stop bloodshed in their areas.
The announcement was made by ANP central president and member of Pakistan Senate Asfandyar Wali Khan while talking to journalists at Bacha Khan Markaz, headquarters of the party, in Peshawar.
The ANP leader informed that they would invite Pashtun leaders from all over the country to the jirga (meeting), which is scheduled to be convened on November 20.
The move, said Asfandyar, the elder son of late Abdul Wali Khan, was aimed at promoting unity among Pashtuns on the Pakistani side of the Durand line, which was crucial to stop bloodshed in the country.
He said invitations would be sent to all Pashtun leaders whether political, social, secular or religious. "We are ready to forget our differences with the religious parties for the sake of Pashtun unity and expect the same from them," he added.
He said the existence of Pashtuns was at stake unless they united and fought its enemy. "President Pervez Musharraf and the US have taken advantage of our differences and the ANP is resolved to put them aside, at least for the time being," said the nationalist leader.
Lashing out at the policies of Pervez Musharraf, the ANP leader said the Pakistani president continued to make the West believe that unless the Taliban were crushed, al-Qaeda would exist and that all Pashtuns were Taliban. "In short, people at the helm of affairs continue targeting Pashtuns to keep them away from mainstream politics," he alleged.
He believed that the Pakistani government was caught unaware by the Bajaur Agency air strike and that the explanations from the army spokesman were self-contradictory. "If the government was monitoring activities at the madressa, how come they held peace talks with its administrator Maulana Liaqat during the evening before the strike?" he questioned.
The ANP chief said his party had come to the conclusion that if Pashtun politicians did not unite, Bajaur-like attacks would continue and more Pashtuns would die. "After Bajaur, Khyber will be the next target after which fire will enter the settle areas of Bannu, Swat and Tank," he said, adding he urged the religious parties to set aside their differences with the ANP and join them for the sake of Pashtuns.
He said the jirga would try to bring peace to the tribal areas on both sides of the Durand line. He believed no jirga could be successful without the participation of the religious parties and that the Pakistani government should stop trying to decide who all would take part in the jirga proposed by Afghan and Pakistani leaders to discuss peace in Afghanistan.
Analysis: Musharraf strategy in tatters
By SHAUN WATERMAN UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's strategy of cutting peace deals with local leaders on his country's border with Afghanistan lies in tatters, after the U.S. strike last week on a religious school in the area, and charges that a terror plot was hatched there.
"It is in tatters, but there is no alternative," Pakistani analyst Husain Haqqani told United Press International Monday. Musharraf adopted the strategy under pressure from army leaders who saw the effort to pacify the notoriously lawless and inaccessible border region by military force alone as doomed.
The architect of the strategy, retired Gen. Ali Muhammad Jan Orakzai, the governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, has threatened to resign, and Musharraf will hold a meeting with senior army staff Tuesday to allay their fears about the deal's collapse, according to local reports.
Over the weekend, the Dawn newspaper -- citing an unnamed senior investigator -- reported that the leader of a shadowy Uzbek extremist splinter group, the Islamic Jihad Group, had given the go-ahead for a planned series of attacks in Islamabad last month.
The attacks were foiled when a number of artillery shells, wired to be detonated by mobile phones, were found by authorities less than a mile from the parliament building and Musharraf's residence, on Oct. 5.
The Uzbek was named by Dawn as Nadzhmiddin Kamilidinovich Janov. The enwspaper said he used the aliases Yakhyo and Commander Ahmad and was based in Mir Ali, in North Waziristan -- one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal agencies that lie on Pakistan's lawless and inaccessible border with Afghanistan. Dawn said Janov was the leader of a splinter from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
The Islamic Jihad Group has been designated a terror group by the U.S. government, but little is known about it. The group claimed responsibility for several attacks in Uzbekistan in April 2004, but has not been heard from since.
Eleven people have been charged in the plot and Dawn said interrogations had revealed the link to Janov. "While the fingers were in Islamabad, the tail was in Mir Ali," the anonymous investigator told the newspaper.
"If this report is true," Haqqani said, "it would be a very serious breach of the agreement" signed between Pakistani authorities and local leaders in the agency Sept. 5.
Under the agreement, the leaders, who included prominent members of the local Taliban shura or council and the heads of tribal militias, were supposed to expel any foreign militants who did not adopt what the deal called "a peaceable life," and prevent cross-border attacks against NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
But U.S. military officials said that attacks in the Khost province of Afghanistan had increased since the deal was signed, and many analysts have been skeptical of the deal.
The Dawn report comes days after a strike Oct. 30, widely believed to have been carried out by a U.S. predator drone, killed more than 80 people, including several children, at a religious school or madrassa in the Bajaur agency, another of the tribal areas.
The strike destroyed a deal scheduled to be inked in Bajaur that day with local leaders, the second in what was planned as series of such agreements building on the North Waziristan accord. One of the leaders who was due to sign it narrowly escaped death in the attack.
Former Indian intelligence official B. Raman reported that Orakzai had threatened to resign because he was angry at being blindsided by the strike.
Newsweek reported Sunday that at least six middle-ranking Pakistani Army officers had been court-martialed for refusing orders to fight in the area, and the pressure from the military that led Musharraf to adopt the strategy has not abated.
But the Bajaur strike suggests that the United States has lost faith in the approach, and the allegations in the Dawn report, if they are borne out, show that the strategy has failed to stop militants planning operations even very close to home.
"There are only rocks and hard places for Musharraf now," said Haqqani.
Afghan violence leaves five dead, including NATO soldier
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - The latest in a wave of attacks blamed on Taliban fighters in Afghanistan has left five people dead, including a foreign soldier, police and the NATO-led military force said.
A Taliban-style suicide attack meanwhile wounded a district governor and two police guards near the border with Pakistan.
The soldier with NATO's International Security Assistance Force was killed Monday when a bomb struck a military vehicle travelling through the southern province of Kandahar, the force said.
"One ISAF soldier died and two were injured when the vehicle they were travelling in was struck by an improvised explosive device (IED) in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar yesterday," it said in a statement.
ISAF does not release the nationalities of its casualties before announcement from the soldiers' home country.
Most of the soldiers in Kandahar are from Canada, which has about 2,300 troops in Afghanistan, but the Canadian military said it was not involved.
More than 115 foreign troops have been killed in combat in Afghanistan this year, about half of them Americans. Nearly 180 have died in total, but this includes those in aircraft crashes, accidents, and from health problems.
The attack was in the Panjwayi district about 35 kilometres (19 miles) west of Kandahar city, which in September was the focus of ISAF's biggest anti-Taliban offensive yet, an operation the force said killed around 1,000 rebels.
An Afghan army soldier was killed the same day when another IED struck a military patrol in the Gereshk area of neighbouring Helmand province, ISAF spokesman Captain Andre Salloum said.
"A vehicle went over an IED which was on the road. One vehicle was damaged and had to be destroyed," he said.
ISAF soldiers destroyed the vehicle because it was not salvageable and contained military equipment and intelligence, he said.
In the eastern province of Khost meanwhile, Taliban insurgents attacked a highway police post just after midnight Monday, sparking off a gun battle that killed two Taliban and a policeman, provincial police said.
Also in Khost, a suicide attacker on Tuesday detonated explosives strapped to his body near the vehicle of the chief of the Tanai district on the border with Pakistan, an official said.
"Tanai district chief Badi-ulzaman and his two police guards were wounded in a suicide attack today," Qasim Jan, the provincial governor's secretary, told AFP.
The men were seriously injured and transferred from a public health hospital to that of the US-led coalition, another official said.
The incidents are part of a pattern of guerrilla-style strikes by the Taliban and other Islamist groups trying to destabilize Afghanistan by attacking military and government targets, as well as aid workers.
This year has also seen some of the most intense battles between the military and rebels since the Taliban were toppled in 2001 but there have been no announcements of heavy fighting in the past few days.
The relentless violence has frustrated Afghans and undermined support for President Hamid Karzai. But international and Afghan officials have warned it will take several years to stabilize the war-torn country, with reconstruction essential to the project.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer repeated on Monday calls for the European Union and United Nations to do more to rebuild the destitute nation.
"Now is the time for the international community to step in and help push Afghanistan further in the right direction," he told a conference in Brussels.
The appeal pointed to tensions among NATO members and its partners ahead of the alliance's late November summit in Latvia that is likely to be dominated by the Afghan military mission, the most ambitious in NATO's history.
Over 130,000 Afghans registered in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Nov 7, 2006 (Xinhua) -- More than 130,000 Afghan citizens have so far been registered in the largest scale registration conducted by the Pakistani government and the UN refugee agency, Pakistani and UN officials said on Tuesday.
At a press briefing in Islamabad, the officials of the Pakistani government and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that the pace of registration was picking up after a slow start, urging more Afghans to come forward for registration before the exercise ends on Dec. 31.
Since the start of the registration of Afghan citizens in Pakistan on Oct. 15, more than 136,000 Afghans have been registered in Pakistan, according to UNHCR.
Women constituted 48 percent of those registered so far, and children below the age of 14 years were 50 percent.
"This is not a registration to deport or exclusively repatriate Afghans. The exercise will gather information and seek to provide a much awaited solution to their protracted situation," said UNHCR 's Representative in Pakistan Guenet Guebre-Christos.
Secretary of the Pakistani Ministry of Statas and Frontier Regions Sajid Hussain Chattha said that registration was important for the management of the Afghan population in Pakistan.
"This exercise is great in terms of challenges," said Saleem Moin, chairman of the implementing agency National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).
"We're doing it through centers all over Pakistan. In some areas, they don't even have basic services like electricity. But we will leave no stone unturned to make sure the exercise is a success," he said.
The 10-week registration exercise has mobilized 2,500 NADRA staff and 1,000 staff from the Commissioner for Afghan Refugees and UNHCR in 70 registration centers and mobile registration vans.
Only Afghans counted in the 2005 census can register after having their names checked against the census database.
NADRA is increasing its equipment to smoothen the verification process. Responding to some resistance against the photographing of Afghan women, the authorities have hired more female staff to handle photography while persuading those concerned that photographs are mandatory for the Proof of Registration (PoR) card.
The registration exercise is a follow-up to the 2005 census of Afghans in Pakistan. Those registered will receive a PoR card valid for three years that recognizes them as Afghan citizens temporarily living in Pakistan.
There are an estimated 2.4 million Afghans living in Pakistan.
Literacy cuts hit Afghan women
By David Loyn BBC News, Kandahar Tuesday, 7 November 2006
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has been forced to cut almost all non-emergency aid to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
The cuts come as they struggle to cope with the emergency needs of almost 100,000 people displaced in recent fighting.
Women's literacy programmes, where women received food in return for attending classes, are being hit hardest.
Many of the women who have been attending the classes are widows.
Vital development tool
One, whose husband was killed when the Americans bombed Kandahar in 2001, said that the lessons had made a huge difference to her life.
Another, whose husband was the victim of a suicide bomber, appealed for the aid to be restored.
"For two months now we have not been given any aid here. We have problems living, and that aid really matters."
Women's education, in this deeply conservative society, could be a vital development tool.
In traditional pashtoon society, the identity of women is completely subservient to men.
But this could change. Any joined-up international approach to tackling Afghanistan's security problems, should see this kind of clever development as a vital component.
And there are leading Afghan Muslims who support the rights of women to be properly educated.
"If we have educated women in society, I think it will bring an 80-90% solution to the problems of society," a Sufi cleric, Haji Musa Kaleem Agha, said.
But the Taleban, who have growing influence again, are opposed to almost all forms of women's education, and there is very strict security for the schools.
Useful inducement
All of the women need to be searched for bombs or concealed weapons before they are allowed into class.
They travel together for protection, happy enough when they arrive to discard the shapeless blue burqas that cover them completely in the streets.
While their children are taught in a separate class downstairs, the women, of all ages, learn how to read and write, as well as learning a skill such as sewing, so that they can earn money and support themselves.
For those women who are married, and who have been able to persuade their husbands to let them attend the classes, the promise of a bag of food in return was a useful inducement.
The head of one of the schools, Parizad Sadada, said that the failure to deliver food aid is a breach of promise by the international community.
"The people who need this help are widows and poor people. Why should they be denied their rights? This aid is not coming out of somebody's personal pocket.
"The World Food Programme and big countries give aid to the people of Afghanistan. So why is the aid not reaching the women now?"
But despite the need, there has been a shortfall in funding for WFP programmes this year.
Only around 30% of requirements have been fulfilled.
There have been problems bringing aid in safely amid a worsening security situation in the south, and local partners, who are essential for the delivery of aid, are becoming increasingly worried.
The threats are real. The most prominent advocate of women's rights in the south of Afghanistan, Safia Ana-Jan, was shot dead outside her home in Kandahar on 24 September.
Abdul Baqi Topal, the director of the Kandahar literacy programme, said he set it up in the teeth of strong opposition.
"We are in fear for our lives doing this work," he said.
But five years after the fall of the Taleban government, the failure of the international community to make aid work is now having real consequences.
Italian Foreign Min To Travel To Afghanistan For Talks
November 7, 2006
ROME (AP)--Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema will travel to Afghanistan in the next few days to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai and other top officials, the ministry said Tuesday.
D'Alema will also meet with U.N. envoy Tom Koenigs, and the European Union representative to the country, Francesc Vendrell.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Pasquale Ferrara, didn't disclose the date of the trip, but said it would be in the next few days.
Italy has about 1,800 troops in the 30,000-strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led force in Afghanistan.
Is Pakistan an ally?
Musharraf's agreement with Taliban-friendly tribesmen has proven to be just as bad as Afghanistan warned.
EDITORIAL The Los Angeles Times November 6, 2006
PREVENTING AFGHANISTAN from falling to a resurgent Taliban must be a top priority for the Bush administration and the new Congress in the next two years. To succeed, more will have to be asked of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. .
Despite Pakistan's claim to have stopped supporting the Taliban after its 2001 ouster, the evidence is now overwhelming that the Pakistani security service — the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI — and probably the senior military leadership are tolerating, if not backing, Taliban forces. Washington has been turning a blind eye to this problem, reluctantly concluding that there is no alternative but to support the flawed but friendly Musharraf as the only practical bulwark against a radical Islamist takeover of a crucial nuclear state.
Islamabad is clearly hedging against what it sees as a hostile, pro-India government in Kabul and an inevitable Western abandonment of Afghanistan by keeping its old Taliban ally as a viable option. The respected Jane's Intelligence Digest last week cited independent reports confirming what Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been fuming about for months: ISI-sponsored Taliban training camps and jihadist madrasas have multiplied along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Moreover, we now know that the agreement the Pakistani government signed with tribal leaders in North Waziristan on Sept. 5 sold out Afghan and U.S. interests.
Musharraf told Washington that under the deal, tribal leaders promised to call a halt to the cross-border attacks into Afghanistan in return for the Pakistani army withdrawing from the tribal areas to its bases. Perhaps he didn't expect his Western friends to read the agreement in the original Urdu. According to those who have, Islamabad's official representative signed an agreement not just with Waziristan tribal leaders but with the "local mujahedin" — a vague term — and with the Taliban. The agreement spells the plural of the word "Taliban," which means students, in the Arabic way, as "Talaba" — a ruse that the Pakistanis are using to claim that they didn't actually inhale.
In fact, if President Bush has any red lines left, he should be furious that Pakistan is legitimizing the very Taliban it has pledged to eradicate. It should come as no surprise, we should add, that the Taliban has not kept its part of the bargain. Attacks have multiplied since the deal was signed.
Musharraf tried to make amends by ordering airstrikes on one Taliban-run madrasa last week, triggering a bloodbath and angry protests against the United States. But it will take far more to persuade the American public and Congress of the wisdom of providing Pakistan with $3 billion in military and other aid each year while Pakistani territory, tribal or not, gives sanctuary to Taliban fighters who kill U.S. and NATO soldiers and destabilize the Afghan government.
Make a drug deal with Afghanistan
Los Angeles Times By Johann Hari
More Afghan farmers will turn to the Taliban if the U.S. doesn't stop eradicating the country's poppy crop.
JAMILLA NIAZI is a 40-year-old woman with a freckly face and high cheekbones. When she arrives in a refugee camp in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan to speak to me via Internet camera phone, her features are hidden behind the blue burka she is forced to wear in the scorching summer heat. She peels back the gauze and smiles. She doesn't do this much anymore — not since the death threats began to come every night, pledging to burn her in acid. To jihadis, Niazi has committed an intolerable offense: She is the head teacher of a school for girls.
"The Taliban have come back," says the aid worker with Niazi. "They control this area now."
The night before our conversation, they burned down a school in nearby Nabili, and Taliban fighters even planted a landmine in the playground of another girls' school. They may be coming for Niazi next.
One main thing has brought the Taliban back to life to terrorize Afghanistan's women: drugs. Or, more accurately, George W. Bush's war on them.
This summer, Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of the Senlis Council, an independent, Brussels-based think tank, commissioned more than 30 researchers to ask why so many southern Afghans were turning to the Taliban when they had cheered their defeat just five years ago. He found that "the Taliban revival is directly, intimately related to the [poppy] crop eradication program. It could not have happened if the U.S. was not aggressively destroying crops. This is the single biggest reason Afghans turned against the foreigners."
The Afghan people are rebelling because the U.S. government is currently committed to destroying 60% of their economy. In the name of the "war on drugs," a U.S. corporation, Dyncorp, is being paid to barge into the fields of some of the poorest people in the world and systematically destroy their only livelihood.
These Afghans are growing poppies — from which heroin is derived — out of need, not greed. A quarter of all Afghan babies die before their fifth birthday. The Senlis Council warns that if Western governments continue this program of economic destruction — and the negative propaganda bonanza it creates — the Taliban may be sufficiently rejuvenated to march on Kabul, depose President Hamid Karzai and pin up a "Welcome home, Mr. Bin Laden" banner.
There is an alternative to this disastrous spiral. The world is suffering from a shortage of legal opiates. The World Health Organization describes it as "an unprecedented global pain crisis." About 80% of the world's population has almost no access to these painkillers at all. Even in developed countries, for cancer care alone there is an unmet annual need for 550 metric tons more opium to make morphine.
Afghan farmers continue to produce the stuff, only to be made into criminals because of it. Meanwhile, in a Kabul hospital, half the patients who need opiates are thrashing about in agony because they can't get them, while in fields only a few miles away opium crops are being hacked to pieces.
The solution is simple. Instead of destroying Afghanistan's most valuable resource, Western governments should buy it outright and resell it to producers of legal opiate-based painkillers on the global market. Instead of confronting Afghan farmers about their crop, our representatives should be approaching them with hard cash.
This has been successfully tried before. In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration began to demand that the opium farmers of southern Turkey destroy their crops. Every attempt at destruction — carried out by reluctant Turkish prime ministers coerced with threats of cuts in U.S. military aid — failed. Eventually, Turkey was considered to be such a crucial Cold War ally that the U.S. granted it an exception. So Turkey joined India as a legal supplier of opiates for pain-control purposes, and it remains so today. Isn't Afghanistan even more important today than Turkey was in the 1970s?
It is a strange truth that if President Bush really wants to live up to his rhetoric about saving Afghanistan, he must urgently launch the biggest drug deal in history.
Niazi knows what will happen if he doesn't. In a low, sad voice, she says, "My school will be destroyed forever." She pauses. "All women love their freedom. Who wants to be a prisoner and to be illiterate? Not Afghan women. You promised you would not let this happen to us again. You promised."
Johann Hari is a columnist for the Independent in London
EU open to bigger role in Afghan police training
BRUSSELS, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The European Union is studying a possible takeover of training of Afghanistan's police force as part of moves to stamp out widespread corruption plaguing reconstruction efforts, EU officials said on Tuesday.
NATO, battling a violent insurgency in the country, is pushing for the 25-member bloc to expand a German-led training operation which the military alliance says has made little progress so far.
An EU team travelled to Afghanistan in September to assess EU help for security reforms and its findings were currently under discussion by member states, one EU official said.
"If there is added value in an EU contribution, we will evaluate that in a favourable light," said the official.
"There is no conclusion yet. It's in the process of being evaluated," added the official, who requested anonymity.
A second official said any such move would first require Germany and Italy -- the other European country involved in existing efforts -- to request an EU operation, and for the other member states to agree to it.
NATO, which has acknowledged it underestimated the scale of violence it is facing in Afghanistan, says the conflict cannot be settled by military means alone and has stepped up calls on international partners to do more in the civilian domain.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told an audience in Brussels on Monday that the EU was ideally suited to providing police training in the country and urged it to assume full management of the operation.
While the top of the Afghan judiciary and interior ministry had been shaken up with reformers committed to the rule of law, the alliance sees a need to train and equip judges and police and to build administrative capacity -- areas of EU expertise.
An official for the European Commission noted the bloc was the largest payer for Afghan police training and salaries, and said NATO had made no specific request to EU officials during a meeting on Afghanistan hosted by the alliance last week.
NATO officials say corruption in the Afghan police and judiciary is undermining local confidence in President Hamid Karzai's government and his efforts to extend the rule of law.
NATO's top commander of operations, U.S. General James Jones, in September highlighted police reform as one of the major weaknesses of U.N. reconstruction efforts.
Iran Launches Plan To Expel Illegal Afghan Workers
via Payvand Iran News - Nov 07 8:09 AM By Golnaz Esfandiari
Iran has begun a new plan to expel illegal Afghan workers from the country. Officials have said that the plan will help solve the country's unemployment problem. Press reports say the first phase of the plan -- to identify illegal workers -- began on October 28. Iran has hosted more than 2 million refugees from Afghanistan for more than three decades. But since the fall of the Taliban, Iranian officials have repeatedly said that it is time for Afghans to return home.
PRAGUE, November 6, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The repatriation plan comes amid increased restrictions aimed at forcing Afghans in Iran to return to their country.
Iranian officials say that along with the 960,000 Afghans who are registered as refugees in Iran, between 1-2 million Afghans are in the country illegally.
Few Legal Afghans
According to Iran, only some 1,000 Afghans living in Iran have a valid work permit. The rest are considered illegal workers.
Under the new initiative, those Afghans workers who are illegally residing in Iran will be deported. Iranian employers will face fines if they don't lay off illegal workers.
Illegal Afghans workers that have a valid residence permit will not be expelled from Iran. They will, however, not be allowed to work. But their employers could apply for six-month work permits for three sectors: brick-making plants, construction, and agriculture.
Mohammad Youssef Etebar is the first consul at the Afghan Embassy in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashad, which has a large Afghan population. He tells RFE/RL that Iranian officials have begun screening for illegal Afghan workers.
"Through my contacts with [Iranian] officials I know that for now there is no problem for refugees with documents," he said. "But assessments have begun on those who don't have documents in factories, workplaces, or with their employers. We have to wait and see the results."
Refugee Rights
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) says it is monitoring the situation. Astrid van Genderen, the UNHCR's spokesperson in Geneva, told RFE/RL that her agency wants to ensure that refugees are not among those who are expelled.
"We are, of course, concerned about the people who are refugees and who cannot, at this stage, return to Afghanistan," he said. "Regarding illegal workers who are not refugees, it's very difficult for UNHCR -- it's not our mandate, we cannot control it -- it's a sovereign action [by] a government. But over the past few years when such actions happened, we always monitored if there were no refugees or people who sought asylum and we've not come across such cases."
Iranian officials say Afghan workers are taking job opportunities away from Iranians. They claim the new initiative will revive some 300,000-400,000 jobs that are currently held by Afghans. Iran's official unemployment rate is about 10 percent. But the real rate is thought to be at least 20 percent.
Many Afghans living in Iran resort to hard labor in construction and at factories to support their families. Afghans and some Iranian observers say Afghans tend to be paid less and Iranian workers are not willing to take those jobs with the same wages.
An Afghan woman living in Iran who wanted to remain anonymous told RFE/RL that many of the illegal workers are Afghans who had previously returned to Afghanistan.
Afghans Returning To Iran
"They say that we couldn't stay there; there was no education, our children were becoming illiterate, there was no security, and the houses are expensive," she said. "These are people who lived in Iran for some 20 years -- they didn't have a house there. So they were forced to return to Iran with lots of problems. They're here [illegally]. I don't know what will be the fate of this generation that is wandering here. Who is responsible?"
She says Afghans living in Iran are facing increasing pressure, including educational restrictions for their children. Nevertheless she says few Afghans are willing to return to their home country.
The UN agency says that while more than 1.5 million Afghans have returned home since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the number of those returning voluntarily has almost dried up.
UNHCR's van Genderen says there are different reasons why Afghans living in Iran do not want to return home.
The Time Is Not Right For Returning
"They come either from areas where security is not right or they come from areas where the economy has not properly developed and it's very, very difficult to reintegrate into the community and into the labor market," he said. "There are also other Afghans who lived all their life in Iran and have substantially contributed to the economy there; there are Afghans that were even born in Iran."
Etebar, the chief Afghan consul, says neighboring countries should be patient until the time is right for Afghans to return home.
"We are still facing many problems with respect to the economy, reconstruction, and providing them with jobs and a means of making a living," he said. "Our request and our expectation is that countries cooperate as they did in the past and be patient until the time when we can remove all the problems in Afghanistan."
Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi urged the international community last month (on October 11) to live up to its promise of investing in Afghanistan's reconstruction, which he said would enhance the prospects for higher return figures.
The Iranian press has reported that by the end of the Iranian year, on March 20, 2007, some 500,000 Afghans are due to be expelled from Iran.
Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce Convenes
Largest Conference to Promote Business and Investment in Afghanistan
[Press Release] U.S. Newswire Mon Nov 6, 10:31 AM ET
Contact: Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce, 703-442-5005
WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce (AACC), in conjunction with the Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce (AICC), convened its second annual U.S.-Afghan Business Matchmaking Conference Oct. 29-31, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The event was the largest conference focused on bringing U.S. and Afghan companies together to discuss business and investment opportunities. Over 200 representatives of major U.S. corporations, development organizations and government agencies attended and showed great interest in developing linkages with Afghan companies. AICC accompanied a delegation of several Afghan companies from Afghanistan that is active in various sectors including construction and agribusiness. Key sectors, including energy, mining, agribusiness and infrastructure were also highlighted through interactive panel discussions. The second day of the conference was complemented by an informational trade fair, showcasing companies and organizations based in the U.S. and Afghanistan and resources available from U.S. government agencies and multilateral institutions.
The conference began with welcoming remarks by AACC president Atiq Panjshiri thanking the participants for attending this unique event. He said, "Afghanistan has the capacity and potential to be a bridging nation connecting economies of India, Pakistan and Central Aisa and vice versa. Not that far in the future, with the right economic policies and environment, Afghanistan could evolve into a central hub for trade in the region."
Monday's keynote speaker, Afghanistan's Minister of Commerce H.E. Mohammed Amin Farhang, delivered remarks on reforms to promoted business and investment in Afghanistan. The president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), Robert Mosbacher Jr., announced OPIC's new program to "fast track projects for Afghanistan." "This U.S.-Afghan Matchmaking Conference is bringing together U.S. and Afghan companies. Afghan firms offer hard work and commitment and U.S. firms can offer technology, management and capital -- it is a great combination," said Tuesday's keynote speaker, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, who had visited Afghanistan earlier this year. Also on Tuesday, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicolas Burns in his keynote speech announced the administration's support for Reconstruction Opportunity Zones, which would offer duty free entry into U.S. markets for goods with a minimum level of value added in Afghanistan or in the border areas of Pakistan. This will help to create the jobs that are needed to reduce dependency on opium production and to help improve security.
AACC Chairman Ajmal Ghani provided the vision for AACC in 2007 and asked the State Department to officially open a visa issuing office in the newly built American embassy in Kabul to facilitate and expedite business related visas. He also stressed the need for substantial increase in development aid from the United States to be channeled thru the private sector for the rebuilding of Afghanistan in these crucial times.
Five years after the fall of the Taliban, great progress has been made in developing Afghanistan's institutions and economy. Continued donor support is needed, but the private sector is the key to sustaining Afghanistan's recovery. Training and jobs are needed to provide alternatives to opium production and demobilization efforts. This will lead to greater security for the country and region.
-----
AACC is the leading organization facilitating U.S.-Afghan business, investment and trade ties. AACC serves the interests of its members through numerous programs, advocates for a free and open market economy in Afghanistan and endeavors to strengthen U.S.-Afghan economic relations. AACC is a growing national organization, bringing together companies, organizations and individuals with a stake in helping Afghanistan succeed and developing opportunities in an emerging economy. For more information on the event, please contact info@a-acc.org, or 703-442-5005, or visit AACC's Web site at http://www.a-acc.org.
Kidnappers release three Afghan hostages, hold two
Mon Nov 6, 12:42 PM ET
KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) - The kidnappers of a team building a school in Afghanistan released three men, a day after their capture, but were holding two including an engineer contracted to a foreign group, the UN said.
The five Afghanis were kidnapped on Sunday in the eastern province of Paktia's Zurmat district where Taliban had reportedly warned foreign organisations they should not work.
Police said the abductors were from the extremist Taliban movement, which has in the past abducted several Afghans and foreigners working on reconstruction projects, and killed some of them.
One of the men still being held by the kidnappers was contracted to the International Organisation for Migration, a UN spokesman said. The other was the head of a local construction company, spokesman Aleem Siddique said.
Three daily labourers abducted with them had been released and were with tribal elders in the region, he told AFP. "They said they were kept blindfolded and in captivity since yesterday," he said.
Police said earlier four men were abducted by the Taliban.
The Taliban, which began an insurgency after being removed from government in 2001, target their insurgency at Afghan and foreign troops as well as UN and non-government organisation workers and government employees.
On Friday a 36-year-old Italian photojournalist, Gabriele Torsello, was freed after three weeks in captivity in the volatile south of the country.
His abductors had initially claimed to be from the Taliban but main spokesmen for the movement said they were not involved and reportedly even called for his release.
South and southeastern Afghanistan have been hard hit by a wave of violence linked to the Taliban. Al-Qaeda is also said to have a hand in the bloodshed, as are other Islamist factions.
AFGHANISTAN: Tribal elders reopening southern schools
07 Nov 2006 18:06:07 GMT
More LASHKAR GAH, 7 November (IRIN) - In an effort to reopen hundreds of schools, closed due to fear of attacks from insurgents in southern Afghanistan, local tribal elders in Helmand province have helped the government to open the doors of at least 20 schools in the past two weeks, local officials said on Tuesday.
The initiative came after local officials in the insurgency-hit south announced last month that more than 300 schools were now closed following attacks and threats from insurgents.
"Community leaders in Sangin and Nawzad districts have also raised their voices and support for reopening schools and now we hope that many other schools will be reopened for students in the near future," Saifal Maluk Noori, head of Helmand's education department, said.
The elders, who command considerable respect and power in their villages, have promised to guard and protect schools and mount a community-based protection network to counter the threats from militant groups.
Haji Abdul Sadiq, a tribal elder in Nad Ali district of Helmand province, said that they have helped the government to reopen 14 mixed schools in the district this week and were trying to reopen all the remaining schools in the area.
"Schools were in a very vulnerable situation here so all the tribal elders decided to work together and take strict measures to guard all the schools in the district," Sadiq asserted.
The initiative has widespread support in a region where girls' education increased markedly after the Taliban were removed from power in late 2001. "People were very happy and even some slaughtered cows during the opening of schools in their villages," Sadiq added.
Ali Mohammad, a student in the third year in Shekh Sori middle school in Nad Ali district is now studying under a tent after his school was set ablaze by insurgents five months ago.
"We love our studies and our school and hope it won't be closed again because we don't want to be illiterate and ignorant," Mohammad asserted. "We need not only a new building for our school but more and new books, chairs and desks here."
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) spokesman Aleem Siddique praised the initiative and called for its extension to other parts of southern Afghanistan where many schools are still closed due to fear of attacks.
"The news that schools are reopening in Helmand is encouraging. We hope that this trend will continue in other southern provinces of Afghanistan," Siddique told IRIN in Kabul.
"This underlines the vital involvement of the tribal elders and community leaders in helping to deliver real progress for Afghan people."
Currently, more than 200,000 boys and girls in the south are deprived of education after some 150 schools were been set ablaze by insurgents this year, according to the Ministry of Education in Kabul.
Mohammad Salim, another tribal elder in Nad Ali district, called on government and aid agencies to rebuild burnt and destroyed schools and assist teachers and students in providing books and proper salaries.
Helmand is home to Taliban militants who are waging a deadly anti-government insurgency mainly in southern Afghanistan, following their ouster in late 2001 by the US-led coalition. The hardline militant group shut down all girls' schools and banned girls and women from work during their five-years of rule of the country.
There have been many attacks on educational institutions in the insurgency-hit south over the past 12 months. Suspected Taliban guerillas set fire to three primary schools in the Nawa district of Helmand in January this year. In December 2005, suspected militants dragged a teacher from his classroom and shot him at the gates of his school after he ignored warnings to stop teaching boys and girls in a mixed class in Helmand province. In Zabul province, also in the south, in another gruesome incident, a teacher was dragged from his home and beheaded in February.
Police recover six bombs in Kabul
KABUL, Nov 6 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Police said they had recovered six remote-controlled bombs from a place on the outskirts of this central capital.
Crime investigation chief of the Kabul police headquarters General Alishah Paktiawal told Pajhwok Afghan News the bombs were discovered in the Shewkai area on a tip-off last night.
Paktiawal said the bombs were fitted on a road which was used by civilians and the foreign troops. He added police had also recovered some documents containing information about future plans of the miscreants.
Four days back, police had busted a terrorist gang in the Qarabagh district of Kabul. Members of the gang were allegedly planning to plant explosives on roadside in the district.
Security has been beefed up in Kabul city and its surrounding areas after the last month suicide bombings that killed several civilians. Since then, several terrorist plots had been foiled in the city.
About a fortnight back, the intelligence directorate announced that they had detained several terrorists trained outside the country to carry out suicide attacks in Kabul and other cities.
Habib Rahman Ibrahimi
UN concerned at security, civilian casualties
KABUL, Nov 6 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Expressing concern over the deteriorating security situation in the country, the United Nations has asked the Afghan and foreign forces to improve the security.
Briefing journalists, spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) Aleem Siddique said security was worsening day by day which was a cause of concern for the UN.
He was also worried about the increasing number of civilian casualties during military operations and asked the NATO and Afghan forces to observe restraints while conducting operations in civilian areas.
He said President Hamid Karzai had some plans to help improve security in the country. The plans included launching of developmental projects, combating administrative corruption and waging war on drugs.
He said developmental projects could change the people's mind to start cooperation with the government. The spokesman added a UN monitoring delegation would visit Kabul next week to assess the situation in the country.
Lailuma Sadid
11 groups merged to form single party
KABUL, Nov 6 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Eleven political parties on Monday formally announced their merger into a single party to continue struggle for peace and stability in the country.
The merger was announced during a press conference attended by leaders of the parties here. The parties included Hezb Afghanistan-i-Wahid, Hezb-i-Traqi Milli Afghanistan, Hezb-i-Saadat Mardum-i-Afghanistan, Shura-i-Insijam Hezb-i-Wahid, Sazman Afghanistan-i-Naween, Sazman Democracy Barai Afghanistan, Aksariyat Osoolgira Wa Wahdatkhwa Hezb-i-Milli Afghanistan, Nahzat-i-Sulah Wa Democracy Afghanistan, Shurai Insijam Wa Democracy Barai Afghanistan, Shurai Maslihat-i-Milli Afghanistan and Ittehad Millat-i-Afghan Barai Sulah Wa Democracy.
The leaders said presence of more political parties was part of the democratic process but this was also pushing the society towards fragmentation.
Dr Mohammad Asif, one of the leaders, said they would choose a name for the new party as well as elect its leader and other office bearers through voting. Hundreds of supporters of the parties were also present on the occasion.
A joint statement issued by the leaders said the step was taken to develop unity and work for the welfare of the people of the country. It said talks were continued with leaders of some more parties for their merger.
"We have come together to promote peace in the country and not to become part of the conspiracies which are taking the country towards instability," said Mohammad Akbar, another leader.
He announced support for the foreign troops and said they were here to establish peace, fight drugs and administrative corruption and carry forward the reconstruction process.
Zubair Babakarkhail
Pakistan ponders more operations against jihadis
PESHAWAR, Nov 6 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Pakistani intelligence outfits have been directed to unmask elements supporting Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan and other areas of the NWFP, a well-placed source confided to Pajhwok Afghan News on Monday.
"More operations in the tribal region and certain settled areas of the NWFP will become inevitable if local support for militancy persists," said a senior official, seeking anonymity.
Maulana Sufi Mohammad of the Tehreek Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM) is ready to negotiate a Waziristan-like peace pact with the government, but the Jamaat-i-Islami is dead-set such a deal after a deadly air strike on a Bajaur seminary.
Given sharp differences between the TNSM and JI, two dominant forces in Bajaur Agency and Dir district, the problem would likely elude a negotiated solution, the official said.
He warned if the issue remained unresolved, the government would be left with no option but to use force against jihadi groups in Bajaur Agency, Dir, Swat, Shangla and some other areas of the NWFP.
The source added the Bajaur raid amply reflected the governments determination to curb the activities of miscreants. "The tribal belt, particularly Bajaur Agency, is the focus of intelligence agencies these days," he continued.
Miscreants, including Arabs, are allegedly backing the jihadi outfits in the areas, where some seminaries are believed to be offering them shelter.
The government, seeking to flush out the aliens, has made up its mind not to enter any agreement with the tribesmen still backing terror suspects. "Any agreement will be meaningless if the jihadis are allowed to continue with their activities in the region."
It is learnt the government, in a clear hardening of its stance, has resolved to deal with the problem in a decided manner by getting tough with the locals involved in harbouring outsiders.
"No group, including the Jamaat-i-Islami, would be allowed to blackmail the government on this question," the official reiterated, claiming the TNSM had signaled its willingness for negotiations.
The TNSM will enter peace talks with the authorities and shun support to the militants in return for a full stop to crackdowns on tribesmen both from Pakistani and American forces.
Meanwhile, Maulana Faqir Mohammad of the TNSM said they believed in a peaceful struggle for an Islamic revolution in the area and welcomed an offer from the government for a peace pact.
"We were on the verge of inking an agreement with the authorities but the seminary attack sabotaged the process. The government alone is responsible for scuttling the effort just when it was coming to fruition," he observed.
Another leader of the TNSM, commenting on the role of the Jamaat-i-Islami, accused the party of pursuing power politics. "While we are struggling for an Islamic revolution, the Jamaat is trying to expand its vote bank in the area."
Ministry signs MoU on IT facility
KABUL, Nov 6 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Ministry of Finance on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of Iran for provision of Internet and networking facility in the ministry.
Under the proposed arrangements, different offices and sections of the ministry would be connected through a networking system to get rid of the unnecessary paper-work.
The MoU was signed by Deputy Finance Minister Abdul Razzaq Samadi and head of the Iranian delegation Hussain Tahbaz Tawakuli, said the ministry's spokesman Aziz Shams.
The Iranian delegation, which is visiting Afghanistan, comprises officials from the ministries of Finance and Economy of that country. Finance Ministry will be the first to get networking facility.
Besides providing the networking arrangement, Iran will also train the ministry's staff on use of the facility. An estimated amount of $0.5 million will be spent on the project.
Shams said the new system would replace the traditional way of letter writing and despatch and would made communication easy among different offices and departments of the ministry.
Mustafa Basharat
MPs vote in favour of ministry
KABUL, Nov 6 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The lower house of parliament approved the existence of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs during its hectic session on Monday.
In this connection, a motion was approved with majority as 94 MPs were of the view that the ministry should not be abolished, while 79 members voted in negative. The legislators expressed their opinion through show of hand.
Opponents of the ministry, in their speeches, suggested that an independent department under the aegis of the Presidential Office should be established to deal with the parliamentary affairs.
They believed the existence of ministry was no more than wastage of budget and a burden on the national exchequer.
During the Monday's session, several MPs raised objections to the voting procedure. While many were supporting show of hand, other believed it should be through secret balloting. Later, voting was held through show of hand.
Makia Monir
Karzai's High-Risk Negotiating Plan
IWPR By Hafizullah Gardesh in Kabul
A traditional assembly planned as a way of achieving an Afghan-Pakistani consensus on peace, but critics say success depends on whether Islamabad attempts to manipulate the process.
The stage is set for a cross-border "jirga" or assembly to bring Pashtuns living on either side of the Afghan-Pakistani border together to agree a path to peace.
The thinking is that communities in southern Afghanistan who have been left out of the political process because of the continued Taleban insurgency will have a chance to offer their own solutions, while those on the Pakistani side of the frontier – where the militants are believed to be based – will be drawn into constructive peacemaking.
But local analysts, and many of the potential participants, warn that convening a jirga under present circumstances is fraught with dangers. With complex national interests at play, there is a risk the wrong people will be sent to the assembly, and there are few incentives on offer to make local communities buy into any deal.
The decision to hold a bilateral jirga was finalised when Afghan president Hamed Karzai met his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf, together with United States president George Bush in Washington in mid-September.
The meeting was a difficult one, as officials on both sides were continuing their war of words over who is to blame for the Taleban and the deteriorating security situation across southern Afghanistan. Musharraf suggested that the militants were an Afghan phenomenon and were mostly operating in that country, while Kabul insists that the movement recruits, trains and conducts its cross-border attacks from bases in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
It is clear that in the midst of the violence and the propaganda war between the Taleban and the Kabul government, alternative Pashtun voices from the south of Afghanistan remain largely unheard.
The jirga, an Afghan mechanism for bringing together tribal leaders, Muslims clerics and other notables, should offer a chance for these voices to be heard, and perhaps agree on ways in which the conflict could be defused, including steps to address some of the local concerns that fuel Taleban support ranging from poverty and opium eradication programmes to the perceived cultural insensitivity of foreign troops operating in the south.
President Karzai's spokesman, Karim Rahimi, said the agreement to convene such a meeting is a major step forward which he believes will produce a positive outcome. "We anticipate a positive response from this jirga, which will draw in tribal chiefs and [other] and influential leaders," he said.
It is believed that the jirga - a date has yet to be set - will consist of two meetings, one in each country, but Rahimi said the details had not so far been nailed down, "This process needs more work. Mechanisms for how it will function will be decided later on. For now, there's no more that can be said about the specifics."
But it is precisely these details that worry political analysts in Afghanistan, who argue that the government in Islamabad is not an honest and impartial broker, and will attempt to stuff the talks with its own people rather than genuinely representative figures from Pakistan's Pashtuns.
"Politicians have sometimes misused the name and meaning of jirgas. The components of this one are not clear yet. Will it be made up of ISI representatives, or define its own path?" warned Habibullah Rafi, a political analyst based in Kabul, referring to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency that helped shape the original Taleban movement - and still backs it, according to its detractors.
While he sees jirgas as an important tradition for the Pashtuns living on both sides of the border, Rafi fears Islamabad will try to direct the way the negotiations proceed. "Afghanistan must be prudent and avoid being cheated by false jirgas and decisions," he said.
Kabul University professor Mohammad Esmail Yoon agrees that it is essential for future decision-making to involve the Pashtuns. But he too believes an ill-conceived jirga could result in the meeting being packed with unrepresentative people - and possibly hijacked by the Taleban.
"The Taleban are not to be identified with the Pashtun people; they are an ideological militant movement," he said.
Political analyst Abdul Razaq Mamun expanded on the point, saying, "This jirga is designed to achieve formal recognition for the Taleban, as a crucial move by Pakistan to gain advantage in Afghanistan."
Mamun recalled how President Musharraf signed a ceasefire with community leaders in North Waziristan in September, pulling out the Pakistani military from this tribal agency in return from a hard-to-police agreement that the Taleban would not use the territory to launch raids into Afghanistan.
"The winner [in the jirga] will be the Pakistani government, which has done a lot of work on its own Pashtuns and on those on our side of the border, and will enter the jirga from a position of strength, while the Afghan government will go in with a weaker hand," he said.
These suspicions are shared by Maulawi Mohammad Sadeq, who heads the national council of the Gujjar tribe in Afghanistan, "I don't trust the intentions of Pakistan [which] has always sought the destruction of Afghanistan. The jirga will be pointless unless the international community demands a guarantee from Pakistan that it will not interfere in Afghan affairs."
Similar concerns have been raised by leading Pashtun politicians in northwest Pakistan.
Akram Shah, who heads Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami, a nationalist party, believes the Pakistan-based tribal chieftains selected to attend the jirga will be under the sway of Islamabad.
"The jirga will be fruitless unless it is removed from the [Pakistan] government's influence and real representatives of the people are invited," Akram Shah told the Pajhwak news agency.
Mohammad Sadeq Zharak, a leading Pashto writer in Pakistan, said that as well as tribal chieftains, the Pakistani contingent must also include Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami leaders, who would be better placed to put pressure on their own government to curb the violence.
Sayed Naim Pacha, the official responsible for the jirga within Afghanistan's ministry of tribal and border affairs, said the Kabul government recognised the dangers and would seek to ensure that the Pakistani delegates were genuine figures, not ISI plants.
He insisted the event was dependent on Islamabad's goodwill, "The success and effectiveness of this jirga will depend on the Pakistani government's intentions, because it is Pakistan that creates problems for Afghanistan, not the other way round."
However, Mamun pointed out another reason why the event could fail - the deteriorating economic situation in southern Afghanistan where people have seen too little benefit from international aid and reconstruction to have a stake in peace. "Jirgas on an empty stomach will not feed people or give them jobs," he said. "
"What have the people in the east, south and west [of Afghanistan] got to defend? They have nothing to lose in this battle. The economic foundations of these provinces need to be strengthened so that people will defend them. For the moment, people have become estranged from their government."
They'd rather die: brief lives of the Afghan slave wives
The Sunday Times, UK By Christina Lamb
THE first thing one notices about 16-year-old Gul Zam is her eyes, pretty and dark yet as watchful as a hunted animal's. But then the scarf covering her head shifts slightly, exposing a livid red scar on her neck. The hands that play nervously in her lap are ridged with pink burns that reach up her arms, across her chest and down her legs. Three months ago Gul Zam poured petrol over her body and set herself alight. To her it was the only way out of a marriage so abusive that her husband Abdul had beaten her until her clothes were soaked in blood.
"I felt all other ways were blocked," she whispered. "My husband and his family treated me like a slave. But I could not go back to my family because of the shame that would bring. So I crawled into the yard, poured a can of petrol over me and lit a match."
Five years after the Taliban were ousted from Kabul, the number of Afghan women setting fire to themselves because they cannot bear their lives has risen dramatically.
Gul Zam's husband and in-laws watched her burning and did nothing. She was saved by a neighbour who poured a bucket of water over her, wrapped her in a sheet and rushed her to hospital. After the doctors removed the sheet, tearing the blisters, she spent 10 days in a coma. Her head had been fused to her chest by the burns. She has endured several operations and will need at least six more before she can move her arms.
"This is a society where being born a woman is not a gift," said Alberto Cairo, an Italian doctor who runs the Red Cross clinic in Kabul where Gul Zam is being treated. His room is full of fairy lights and a laughing Christmas tree that he has kept up all year because "there didn't seem to be much happiness".
A report last week by the UK-based charity Womankind Worldwide said cases like Gul Zam's were becoming more common because between 60% and 80% of all marriages in Afghanistan were forced. More than half of all girls are married off before the age of 16, some as young as six. Many of these marriages are to settle debts or feuds between tribes. The women are regarded as commodities rather than wives and are often treated like slave workers by their new families.
Those who try to escape often end up in prison like 13-year-old Shabano, jailed in Kandahar for running away from the 50-year-old man to whom her father had sold her. "We don't have democracy in this country if someone wants a love marriage," she said, nibbling at grimy nails in the dark, dirty cell. "My father exchanged me for a teenage bride for himself."
Gul Zam was lucky. Not only was she saved, but unusually her family have decided to support her and her father demanded a divorce. But her story is an indictment of the international community's failure to improve the lives of Afghan women.
In 2001 the West's most-cited criticism of the Taliban regime was its oppression of women. Not only did the Taliban forbid women from working and girls from being educated, they also beat them for wearing lipstick or shoes that clicked on the ground. The all-encompassing burqa, with its ugly shape and cage-like grille over the eyes, became a symbol for a heartless regime.
Laura Bush, America's first lady, took over her husband's weekly radio address to highlight the plight of Afghan women. Cherie Blair made an impassioned speech at 10 Downing Street, saying: "Women could have their nails torn out for wearing nail polish."
"The recovery of Afghanistan must entail the restoration of rights of Afghan women," insisted Colin Powell, then the US secretary of state.
Five years on there is just one woman in government — the minister for women's affairs. Symbolic photographs of women throwing off their burqas after the Taliban had fled were no more than that. Apart from a small educated elite in Kabul, the overwhelming majority of women are still forced to cover their entire bodies and faces. The United Nations recently circulated a memo to all staff in Afghanistan, advising women to cover their heads even in Kabul.
Watching boys flying kites over the Bala Hissar fort or chattering girls streaming to school, white scarves over heads and rucksacks on backs, to say there have been no improvements since November 13, 2001, when the Taliban fled the capital, would be wrong. Millions of Afghans voted for a new president in 2004 and a parliament in 2005 in which 25% of the MPs are women. Five million children, of whom 1.5m are girls, are enrolled in school.
But there is a huge gap between the reality on the ground and the "remarkable progress" claimed by western diplomats who sit in fortified compounds behind guards and concrete blocks and who never leave Kabul. The only area in which the country could really be said to have made remarkable progress is in growing the poppy. Under British supervision, Afghanistan has become the world's biggest opium producer. Last year it produced 6,100 tons — 92% of world supply.
Afghanistan is engulfed in its bloodiest violence for 10 years. At least 3,000 people have been killed this year — more than twice last year's total.
For all the talk of girls' education, only 5% of those of secondary school age are enrolled. More than 300 schools have been burnt down this year or shut after threats from militants, leaving 200,000 pupils with nowhere to go.
There have been no significant water or power projects and two highways built with western aid have become almost no-go areas. The Kabul to Kandahar road is plagued by Taliban militants setting up fake checkpoints, killing Afghans accused of collaborating.
Two weeks ago I drove on the other new road from Jalalabad to Kabul, wearing a burqa because of warnings of foreigners being kidnapped. I was stopped at three checkpoints set up by police to extract bribes. As for the much-heralded parliament, it has more warlords and people charged with human rights abuses than women MPs. It has yet to create any legislation, though it has voted in pay rises for its members.
"Parliament is just a showpiece for the West," complains Malalai Joya, one of the female MPs. "Women do not have liberation at all. People in power, whether in government, parliament or governors, are warlords and jihadis who are no different in their outlook from Taliban."
The 27-year-old MP has received so many death threats for her outspokenness that she has to sleep in a different place every night. To meet her involves going to a spot, then following an old man on a motorbike. She will not give out her address. The house is surrounded by sandbags and guards who search visitors before they can enter.
Inside Joya sits in a room that is bare of decoration apart from a black and white photograph of King Amanullah, under whose reign in the 1920s women were given equal rights and strict dress codes were abolished. She tells me she has just returned from visiting a five-year-old girl who had been kidnapped and raped in Kabul by a local commander. "The killing of women is like killing a bird for these men," she said. "We have no value." When she tries to speak in parliament, she is physically attacked by fellow MPs. "When I speak, they pelt me with water bottles," she said. "One shouted, 'Take and rape her!' "The West talks of Afghan women having freedom and going outside without a burqa but I tell you the burqa was not the main problem for women. Look at the high rate of suicide among our women. The real problem is security and more and more are returning to the burqa."
In the south, Nato forces seem hell-bent on proving the alliance can fight at least as well as the Americans. What was supposed to be a reconstruction mission has morphed into combat producing high casualties.
But the violence is no longer confined to the southern and eastern provinces. Somehow the Taliban, who were driven out of Afghanistan by US-led forces and B-52 bombers in just 60 days, are creeping nearer the capital. According to a US military official, nine of the 21 districts in Ghazni, which is less than 60 miles south of Kabul, now have "significant Taliban influence".
Even Kabul, which was an oasis of calm, has become a jumpy place where people live behind high walls and sandbags after suicide bombs rocked the capital.
Although the number of foreign troops has risen to 37,000, it is generally accepted that it was too little too late and the distraction of the war in Iraq allowed the Taliban to regroup. Neighbouring Pakistan, from where the Taliban emerged, has proved an ideal haven and training ground.
"The desire for a quick, cheap war followed by a quick, cheap peace is what has brought Afghanistan to the present, increasingly dangerous situation," says the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
David Richards, the British general who commands the Nato forces, admits he was shocked by the lack of basic development when he arrived in Afghanistan in April.
He has created a Policy Action Group, a kind of war cabinet chaired by President Hamid Karzai, bringing together ministers and international donors to "bump-start" development. "If we don't act soon, we risk more and more people turning to the Taliban," he warns.
Aside from such grievances and the worsening security, the other main problem is corruption. Public institutions are weak or nonexistent. Where institutions do exist, they are so corrupt that people wish they were not there.
In the ante-room to Karzai's office, it is common to see people offering bribes to get relatives lucrative posts or arrange for them to be let off crimes. Karzai has refused to act against senior government officials or his own relatives, whom the international community says are involved in the narcotics trade.
"I am very unhappy," complained Younus Qanuni, speaker of the parliament. "The past five years we've had a golden opportunity in Afghanistan. Instead I feel once again terrorism is returning: narcotics, increasing daily corruption while in people's lives there are no changes. Things are moving in the wrong direction."
For girls like Gul Zam facing years of operations and stigma as a divorcee, the end of the Taliban was never meant to be like this.
Frontier police restricting Afghans to their camps
Daily Times 6 November 2006
PESHAWAR: Afghans living in the provincial metropolis have no option but to limit their movement as the NWFP police has started arresting them.
A police official deployed in the outskirts of the city, and who was about to dispatch a group of some two-dozen Afghan refugees in three different vans to Badhaber Police Station, said that the senior officials had ordered the police to arrest ‘suspicious’ people.
The policemen said the orders were issued two days after the Bajaur incident. “The government may be fearing a backlash after the Bajaur incident and they (the Afghans) can create problems,” he said.
Farhad Ghani, one of the arrested Afghans, said he was unaware why he had been arrested. He said that he was told to prove his identity through the elders of his camp, who he said had been told to furnish surety bonds to claim responsibility for any unlawful act he committed. “They just want to restrict us to our camps,” he added.
“We are restricting Afghans to their camps to avoid a law and order situation in Peshawar,” Senior Superintendent Police Peshawar Ifthikhar Khan told Daily Times on Sunday.
He added that there was a bomb threat in Peshawar and urged citizens not to pick unattended objects or bags and inform the police immediately.
Survey of 21 reservoirs to be launched soon: Minister
Mustafa Basharat
KABUL, Nov 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Ministry of Energy and Water is planning to launch a survey for the construction of 21 small and medium water reservoirs in nine provinces.
In this connection, the ministry inked a contract with an Indian enterprise, Technical Consultative Service Company. The survey will be completed at the cost of $2.3 million.
Minister for Energy and Water Mohammad Ismail Khan said the ministry would afford the cost of the survey work, which would be completed in 18 months. The survey will soon be launched in different districts of Kabul, Sar-i-Pul, Paktia, Herat, Ghazni, Kapisa, Daikundi, Paktika and Baghlan provinces.
The Indian company would provide detailed report to the ministry about the level, site and size of the proposed water reservoirs and their capacity after completion of the survey, he added.
The minister said the project would bring a landmark change in the country. "Survey of the 21 dams is a massive project being conducted in Afghanistan for the first time."
President of the Indian Company PK Chattarjee said they would conduct the survey in coordination with US and Afghan companies. He did not conceded more details about the companies and the type of cooperation.
Official admits corruption in ministry
Najib Khelwatgar
KABUL, Nov 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A senior official of the US-led coalition forces said misuse of authority and administrative corruption among police was creating chasm between the public and the law enforcers.
Brigadier General Gary O'Brien, a coalition commander, told a seminar here on Sunday the government must cleanse the police department to make it a people-friendly institution.
Head of the administrative affairs department of the ministry Major General Sakhi Ahmad Bayani admitted corruption was rampant in the ministry. Without revealing the name, he said a district chief would use to get salaries for 50 policemen while there were only 20 personnel.
He said the seminar would prove helpful in adopting measures against corruption as most of the participants were working in fields where corrupt practices of officials were rampant.
Citing another example of corruption in the ministry, he said part of the last year's budget was spoiled by corrupt officials in signing contracts with other agencies. Bayani said another type of corruption was the payment of huge sums of money to some provincial governors for keeping security. However, the practice had now been stopped, he added.
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).