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April 29, 2007 


Afghans protest after U.S. raid deaths
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Hundreds of angry protesters chanting "Death to Bush" demonstrated in eastern  Afghanistan after six people — including a woman and a teenage girl — were reportedly killed when U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces raided a suspected car bomb cell early Sunday.

The U.S. said four militants were among the dead, but it was the civilian deaths that infuriated the protesters, who carried five bodies to a main highway and blocked traffic with felled trees during the demonstration. The bodies of the women were entirely covered by sheets, while the men's faces were revealed.

Afghan officials have repeatedly pleaded with the United States and  NATO to take care during operations that might harm civilians, and the latest violence is sure to deepen distrust among Afghans, whose support for international forces and the shaky U.S.-backed government is waning.

"It is extremely unfortunate that militants put others' lives in danger by hiding among their families," said U.S. Army Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman.

The protest was held on the same highway where a U.S. Marines convoy, fleeing after being hit by a suicide car bomb on March 4, fired indiscriminately on vehicles and pedestrians, killing 12 people.

Abdul Mohammad, a Nangarhar police investigator, said the operation early Sunday left five civilians dead, including two women. The differing figures could not immediately be reconciled, and it could not be verified if the dead men were militants or not.

The protesters focused their anger on  President Bush and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, as well as the governor of Nangarhar.

Acting on a tip indicating that the cell was planning three suicide car bomb attacks against coalition forces in the coming weeks, coalition and Afghan forces jointly raided the compound, the coalition statement said.

The coalition said that after being fired upon, the coalition forces returned fire, killing four militants, an adult woman and a teenage girl. Another child and teenage girl were also wounded during the gunfight and are being treated at a coalition facility.

Coalition forces found several guns and bomb-making materials, and detained one man from the compound for questioning.

The coalition said it arrested four other suspects and discovered more bomb-making materials elsewhere in the area Sunday.

Mohammad, the Nangarhar director of police criminal investigations, said the operation targeted three houses and that six people were arrested.

In the March 4 shootings, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said the Marines, after being hit by an explosives-rigged minivan, violated international humanitarian law by using excessive force when they opened fire at civilians along a 10-mile stretch of road, leaving 12 people dead.

A U.S. military commander has also determined that the Marines used excessive force and referred the case for possible criminal inquiry.

The troubled eastern provinces along the Pakistan border are known to be home to insurgents from the Taliban and other militant groups.
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Karzai seeks more control over Afghan aid
Sunday April 29, 03:15 PM By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday sought more control over the billions of dollars of foreign aid pledged to his war-ravaged country.

Speaking at an Afghanistan Development Forum in Kabul, Karzai also called on donor nations to better coordinate rebuilding projects and the fight against the illegal drug trade in the world's leading producer of heroin.

Devastated by decades of war, Afghanistan relies almost entirely on foreign money and troops to tackle the resurgent Taliban and their Islamic allies.

Since the Taliban's ouster in 2001, donor countries pledged $30 billion over 10 years for reconstruction - $13 billion of which had been spent by March this year, according to the finance ministry.

But Afghans received only a third of the sum spent so far and many say life has not improved for most ordinary people.

"Please bring us more of the resources, let the Afghan government take more responsibility in decision making ... and in the allocation of resources and disbursement and expenditure of the resources," Karzai told donors' envoys attending the forum.

Karzai's senior economic adviser, Ishaq Nadiri, told the forum the degree of destruction was badly underestimated at various conferences held since the Taliban's fall.

Karzai pointed to a lack of coordination among parties involved in the projects and spoke of corruption in his government, aid groups and the international system leading the projects.

Relying on contractors and sub-contractors was another problem, Karzai said.

"We have to think as to how better we can bring coordination and better management of resources and the issues of contracting," he said.

"It is all of us knowing what the other one is doing. What is the Afghan government doing? What is the European Union doing? What is the United States doing? What are other donors doing?"

Karzai said his government was determined to fight rampant corruption and red tape, but said it would take time.

He said the illegal drugs industry - turning out record crops in the past two years - continued to be a major problem and stoked the insurgency, now at its strongest since 2001.

To fight the menace, Karzai called on coordination among the various government agencies, foreign troops and donors tasked with wiping it out.
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Pakistan-Afghanistan talks going ahead: official
Sun Apr 29, 4:06 AM ET
ANKARA (AFP) - A summit between Pakistan and  Afghanistan aiming to cool bilateral tensions in the fight against the Taliban insurgency will go ahead as planned, officials here said Sunday.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is expected to arrive in the Turkish capital at 1100 GMT and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai at 1400 GMT.

Some reports had earlier suggested Musharraf could return home after a suicide bomber killed 24 people and wounded Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao at a political rally in northwest Pakistan on Saturday.

Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer will host a dinner for the two leaders before Monday's summit, the president's press office said.

Mutual recriminations have clouded relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, both key US allies in the fight against terrorism.

Most Afghan officials, including Karzai, blame Pakistan for failing to prevent Taliban-led militants from attacking their country from bases in Pakistan's tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan; some say Pakistan supports them.

Islamabad says it has taken effective measures and accuses Kabul of shifting the blame for its own failures in tackling the Taliban, a booming drug trade and the warlords undermining government authority in the country.
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Freed French hostage to leave Afghanistan 'soon'
Sun Apr 29, 3:08 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A French woman freed by Taliban after 24 days in captivity was due to leave  Afghanistan "soon", the French embassy in Kabul said Sunday amid calls for the release of her four male colleagues.

The young woman, identified only as Celine, spent the night in the French embassy in Kabul where she made a tearful appeal late Saturday to the Taliban to show mercy and release the French man and three Afghans captured with her.

"She will be leaving soon," the embassy told AFP without giving further details.

Celine, whose exact age has not been disclosed but is between 20 and 30, faced the international media hours after her release in the southern province of Kandahar Saturday to deliver a message from the Taliban.

"Approach this message for the entire world, especially Europe: how the innocent people have been killed," she read in a barely audible and tearful voice.

"Celine, now we want from the French to leave our country, it is our right," said the message from the Taliban, which calls itself the Islamic Emirate.

The Taliban said in a statement Saturday that it wanted France's 1,000 troops in Afghanistan to leave, or a response from the government about an "exchange of prisoners."

It said it would give authorities a week to respond to the demands.

After thanking the Taliban for releasing her and treating her with respect, Celine made an impassioned plea for the freedom of her colleagues.

"Eric came, like me, to Afghanistan as a friend. Hashim, Rasoul and Azrat are Afghans. They are Muslims, they are their brothers. They have children who are waiting for them," she said.

"I have told them before leaving that my freedom is nothing without theirs. Release them."

Celine and Eric Damfreville and the three Afghans work for non-government organisation Terre d'Enfance (A World For Our Children) which has one project in Afghanistan -- a small children's programme in Zaranj, on the border with  Iran.

The town is the capital of Nimroz province, where the hostages were captured while travelling by road on April 3.

Terre d'Enfance said Saturday it was relieved Celine had been freed. It called on the kidnappers to spare the lives of the men, and on the French and Afghan authorities to do all it could for their release.

The extremist Taliban, in government between 1996 and 2001, has beheaded several of its Afghan hostages and some Indians and Turks. It claimed responsibility for the killing of a British hostage in 2005.
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Freed French hostage makes tearful appeal for other captives
by Bronwen Roberts Sat Apr 28, 2:45 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A French woman freed by Afghanistan's Taliban Saturday made a tearful appeal for the release of one French and three Afghan colleagues as she delivered a demand from the rebels that France withdraw its troops.

The aid worker, whose name has only been given as Celine, read out the message at a night-time press conference at the French embassy in Kabul hours after she was freed following more than three weeks in captivity.

The Taliban told her to deliver the message to the "entire world, especially Europe," she read from the letter.

The group demands the departure of about 1,000 French troops with the  NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, which clashes regularly with fighters for the movement that was in government between 1996 and 2001.

"Now we want from the French to leave our country, it is our right," she read.

Shaking and weeping, Celine then begged the rebels to free the Frenchman, whose name has been given only as Eric, and three Afghans who were also abducted in the southwestern province of Nimroz on April 3.

All five work for French non-governmental organisation, Terre d'Enfance (A World For Our Children), which has a small children's project in remote Nimroz on the border with  Iran.

"Eric came, like me, to  Afghanistan as a friend. Hashim, Rasoul and Azrat are Afghans. They are Muslims, they are their brothers. They have children who are waiting for them," she said.

"I have told them before leaving that my freedom is nothing without theirs. Release them."

She also thanked the Taliban, who she said "kept their promise and returned me to my parents" and "treated me with respect."

A Taliban statement posted on its website Saturday said it wanted French soldiers to leave "or a response about exchange of prisoners."

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP the movement had "indirectly" handed over names of prisoners it wanted released in the latest kidnapping saga but "the government has not said anything about it so far."

The aid workers were captured about a fortnight after an Italian journalist was freed by Taliban militants.

Kabul had handed over five Taliban prisoners, some of them high-profile figures, in a much-criticised deal the government vowed would never be repeated.

The militants beheaded the Italian's Afghan driver and Afghan interpreter.

The movement's statement Saturday said it had given the French government another week to respond to its demands -- after the first deadline expired Saturday -- because it was aware that France was busy with the May 6 presidential poll.

Celine's release was aimed at showing claims the Taliban "have no respect for women rights," were propaganda, it added.

The hardliners were known for their ill-treatment of women during their time in government, refusing them access to education or employment and forcing them to wear an all-covering burqa.

The Taliban have beheaded several Afghan hostages and some foreigners -- most of them Indians and Turks involved in road construction in the south.

It claimed responsibility for the slaughter of a British engineer in September 2005.

Driven from power by a US-led coalition in 2001 for sheltering the Al-Qaeda network, the rebels target mainly troops and government workers in a growing campaign that has claimed around 1,000 lives this year, by an AFP count. Most of the dead were rebels.
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Ex-Diplomat: Afghan's Karzai Faltering
CBS News and Associated Press
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Apr. 28, 2007 (AP) Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government, tarnished by corruption and unable to control large swaths of its own territory, is rapidly losing the support of ordinary Afghans, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke said Saturday.

Holbrooke said NATO, which has committed 36,000 troops to Afghanistan, was at risk of losing the war against the Taliban. The United States has deployed an additional 11,000 troops in the eastern border region with Pakistan.

"I can sense a tremendous deterioration in the standing of the government. Afghans are now universally talking about their disappointment with (President Hamid) Karzai. Let's be honest with ourselves ... the government must succeed or else the Taliban will gain from it," he told the Brussels Forum, an annual trans-Atlantic security conference.

Taliban guerrillas have vastly expanded their activities during the past year. Insurgents have now returned to many regions outside their traditional strongholds in the east that were rebel-free since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Afghan and NATO forces clashed with Taliban militants Saturday in the east and south, killing 21 suspected insurgents, officials said, including 11 who died in a NATO airstrike in Khost province's Alishar district.

NATO-led forces are in the midst of an operation in southern Afghanistan to root out militants in Helmand province's opium-producing heartland.

Separately, a NATO service member was found dead in his barracks Friday, the alliance said in a statement. In eastern Afghanistan, another NATO soldier died and one was injured from non-combat causes Saturday, a separate statement said. Neither statement provided further details.

In Brussels, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter Mackay said the fate of the allied operation in Afghanistan _ in which 54 Canadian soldiers have died so far _ hangs by a thread.

"While I don't want to sound alarmist, I think there is going to be a tipping point unless we are able to stabilize (southern Afghanistan), unless we are able to get on with" building the economy, rule of law and government institutions.

He said Canada has been disappointed by a lack of solidarity within NATO to share the burden of the Afghan operation.

But Daniel Fried, an assistant U.S. secretary of state, said the situation in Afghanistan is not as "dire" as Holbrooke presented it.

"There are some serious challenges (but) efforts are under way to address the problems Ambassador Holbrooke has identified," Fried said.

Holbrooke, who was instrumental in formulating U.S. policy toward the United Nations, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, remains best known for his role as the architect of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the war in Bosnia.

He said the U.S.-financed effort to train Afghan police has produced a force that is corrupt and incompetent.

"I don't want to appear negative, but unless we are honest about the problem we will continue saying year after year that we are making progress, but have lost ground. We all know where that leads," he said.
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Mix-up over body parts of British airmen killed in Afghanistan
Sun Apr 29, 1:09 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - The Ministry of Defence confirmed news reports Sunday that the body parts of British airmen killed in the crash of a reconnaissance plane in  Afghanistan had been put in the wrong coffins.

An MoD spokesman said there had been a "regrettable incident" but that families of the dead had been made aware of the mix-up in time for it to be sorted out for the funerals.

Trish Knight, whose 25-year-old son Ben was among those killed, was quoted in The Observer weekly as saying she had thought of cancelling her son's funeral and raised concerns of a wider problem.

The Observer said the error occurred after a Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft, suffering from an apparent technical fault, crashed near Kandahar in September last year, killing 14 airmen, a soldier and a Marine.

The men's bodies were returned home in a moving repatriation ceremony at the Royal Air Force base at Kinloss in Scotland.

But the Observer reported that at least one victim's body parts had ended up in the coffin of another.

"We don't know how many mistakes were made over this but body parts were found in a wrong coffin and there may well have been more parts mixed up," the mother of Ben Knight told the weekly.

"We just thought 'how can we go ahead if we are not sure if it's Ben's body in there or maybe somebody else's?'" she added.
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 In Afghan village, a Taliban challenge
By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press Writer Sat Apr 28, 1:08 PM ET
KHAKAR, Afghanistan - There isn't a single foreign aid worker helping this village of illiterate have-nots. Visits by U.S. troops to dole out medicine, cooking oil and teddy bears are rare events. And when they leave, the Taliban move in from the mountains to undo their work.

Khakar is what the Americans call a "swing village." Given sustained security and assistance it might well side with the government; without them, it goes the way of the insurgents.

"This is commonplace. They're kind of sitting on the fence to see how things go," says Lt. Col. Karl Slaughenhaupt, a senior U.S. adviser to the Afghan National Army. "They are willing to support the government, but at this point in time we simply don't have enough contact with the people to push the anti-government elements out."

Slaughenhaupt's assessment speaks to one of the core problems of the conflict. Five years after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban regime, the government and outside world have provided neither enough bread nor guns to undercut the resurgent militants.

Zabul, a backwater province in southeastern  Afghanistan, offers a dramatic example.

"The economy is the key solution. If it is good, there will be no Taliban. But now I cannot even support my brothers in Zabul with a piece of bread," said provincial governor Dalbar Ayman, picking up a slice of local flat bread from his plate.

By U.N. standards, up to 80 percent of the province's 300,000 people, mostly subsistence farmers and pastoralists, are short of food.

There are only two midwives and no obstetricians, in fact most of the 11 districts have no medical facilities at all.

Women aren't much better off in the deeply conservative region than when the Taliban was shuttering females in their homes. Fewer than 10 percent of girls go to school and only some 5 percent are literate. In 2005 elections, 11 percent of Zabul women voted, compared with the national average of 40 percent.

Aid and reconstruction depend on security, officials say. Otherwise the classic formula for a successful counter-insurgency — one part military muscle to four parts political, economic and propaganda operations — can't be applied.

"The people are not confident that we can protect them," the governor said. He wants 30-40 percent more troops. "Hopefully we won't go backward if we don't get them, but we certainly won't move forward."

Haji Fezal, a farmer and transport business owner, agrees.

"In our hearts we don't support the Taliban, but people have no choice because the government can't provide them with security," he said. The Taliban are "pouring across the border from Pakistan, and the government can't control what is happening in the districts."

Zabul has some 600 Afghan army troops and 1,000 from  NATO, including a contingent from Romania. That's one for every 7 square miles of the Connecticut-sized province.

Khaki Afghan district, where the insurgents recently overran local government headquarters, has no troops at all.

"Foreign troops came to Afghanistan to carry out a task so why are they not made stronger to finish it?" said Ayman, the governor.

U.S. officers make the same point.

"This is a huge area to care for with just three small platoons," says Maj. Christopher Clay, of St. Louis, who commands B Company, 1st Regiment, 4th Infantry Regiment — the main U.S. military unit in Zabul.

There is some evidence of development. USAID has installed 4,300 electrical connections in Qalat, the provincial capital, and more roads are being hacked into the rugged interior. The United Arab Emirates has built a hospital in Qalat, although it still lacks nurses and supplies, and some doctors have left after Taliban threats.

Less than a year ago, Clay said, when the province began to look like a success story, resources were diverted elsewhere and the "fragile foundations started to crumble."

U.S. soldiers and officers also complain that the war in  Iraq and Taliban strongholds like Helmand and Kandahar provinces are hogging resources.

"I haven't even been able to get a spare part for my vehicle since I got here," says Clay's executive officer, 1st Lt. Keith Wei of San Francisco,

Getting help to the people can be difficult and delicate.

"If we build a school, the Taliban will come in, beat up the children and burn it down. If we show too much presence it will attract too much attention from the Taliban. So we have to find the happy medium," said Capt. Christopher Green, taking part in the humanitarian operation at Khakar.

Green, of Palm Beach, Fla., said ample food also can't be provided to the village's 150 inhabitants lest it becomes "a grocery store for the Taliban."

About 90 Afghan and U.S. troops recently laid down a barbed-wire enclosure at the base of mountains an hour's drive from the provincial capital, Qalat. The villagers entered for medical treatment and handouts. A U.S. Army doctor with a pistol on her hip and stethoscope around her neck, treated the mostly veiled, shy women in a tent.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Kevin P. McGlaughlin, a former B-52 pilot who until recently headed the military's Provincial Reconstruction Team in Zabul, says rebuilding requires an international commitment over 20 years or more.

"We're a flash in the pan. This is not our bread and butter, rebuilding things," he said of the military.

Currently, no civilian foreign aid worker dares work in the province for fear of the Taliban.

Seth G. Jones, of the U.S.-based RAND Corporation think tank who traveled to Afghanistan earlier this year, sounds a warning.

"NATO and the U.S. will win or lose in Afghanistan in the rural villages and districts of the country, not in the capital city of Kabul," he said in an interview. "In Afghanistan, all politics is local."
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AP correspondent Denis Gray recently spent three weeks embedded with U.S. troops in Zabul province. AP's Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
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Tackling Afghanistan's opium problem
BY Alastair Leithead BBC News, Helmand province Saturday, 28 April 2007, 19:55 GMT 20:55 UK
The lush fields of Helmand's river valley flash by from the vantage point of an open back door of a British military Chinook transport helicopter.

But the greenery clinging to the river banks is an oasis for the farmers and the smugglers who are producing more opium poppies than ever this year, and making more heroin for Britain and Europe.

There is guerrilla war waging in the province, but there is still plenty of time to harvest the gum from the poppy bulbs and set the traffickers in motion.

Britain has the lead in Afghanistan for dealing with the drugs problem - liaising with the government to bring the production levels down.

But in the south it has never been as bad - in the next few weeks Helmand province is expected to harvest more poppies than the rest of the country combined, making it the biggest opium producing area in the world.

Growing alternatives

The strategy is persuading farmers to grow something else, by improving markets, suggesting new crops, bringing economic growth and development - roads and markets.

Eradication is being used as a consequence - to increase the risk to farmers of losing their annual crop, while helping them switch to growing alternatives.

In the eastern province of Nangahar, Massoud Azizi has responsibility for counter narcotics.

He joined in the eradication of one small poppy plot on poor land, swinging his wooden stick alongside the policemen and members of the eradication force, chopping the bulging poppy pods clean off their stalks.

But again it has not worked - after two years of record decline in poppies in this province, the wheat has again been replaced and the opium is back.

"We have cleared many more fields than last year," he said, "but there has been an increase."

"It will take time," said the outgoing British Ambassador to Kabul, Stephen Evens.

"I think the policy is right but it is not something that is going to deliver this year or next year.

"Ten or 25 years to have a serious impact on narcotics production and trafficking here, I think that would be realistic."

Legalise it

The models of places like Thailand also suggest it will take many years, but the international community wants instant gratification, and the pressure is on Britain to come up with a better plan, as each harvest breaks a new production record.

The Americans want to use aerial spraying to destroy the fields, but the British view is that could drive thousands of angry farmers to join the insurgency.

The British military working under the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) make it clear to local people. "We are not here to destroy your poppy crops," their radio propaganda broadcasts and leaflets say.

They know that the counter-insurgency strategy of winning hearts and minds relies on turning a blind eye to the way most people in Helmand make a living.

The lack of success so far has also given life to another argument - legalise and license the poppies and turn them into medicines rather than heroin.

It is an idea being pushed by the Senlis Council, a non-governmental organisation working in southern Afghanistan.

Mixed messages

The Tory MP Tobias Ellwood has taken their views to the House of Commons and even made a case directly to Tony Blair.

"This is a pilot scheme, on a limited basis, to license the cultivation of poppies into codeine and morphine," he said.

"This would be a way to win over the hearts and minds of farmers and will deny the terrorists the money they're getting for sale of heroin and opium. It will also help create a market so they can be moved onto other products as well."

But British ambassador Stephen Evans disagrees: "It won't work. It's not the silver bullet and there are a lot of reasons why it's not the silver bullet. The economics are all wrong for a start.

"You can't regulate in an environment where security is uncertain where judicial and legal processes aren't really working."

And it does not look like that is going to change in Helmand any time soon.

The British government may want to desperately reduce opium production, but the British military - the only ones with the access to the biggest producing areas - are not interested.

It is all sending a very mixed message to Afghan farmers.
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NATO chief to visit Pak in May for discussing Afghanistan, security
By ANI Sunday April 29, 11:54 AM
Islamabad, Apr 29 (ANI): NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer will visit Pakistan early next month for consultations with the country's top leadership on matters pertaining to Afghanistan and security co-operation.

An official said Scheffer will be in Pakistan on a two-day official visit and high on his agenda would be the security scenario in Afghanistan, where the alliance is commanding the 32000 strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

"The NATO Secretary-General will be in Pakistan on a two-day official visit from May 7 to 8. High on the agenda would be Afghanistan where NATO commands the 37-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)," the Dawn quoted a diplomatic source as saying.

According to the paper, Scheffer's visit will take place just a week after Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf meets his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Ankara, Turkey.

During his stay in Islamabad, Scheffer will call on General Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. He will also meet Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri.

Discussions would focus on the common security challenges faced by Pakistan and NATO on the Afghanistan front with the presence of militants on both sides of the Durand Line.

Emphasis during the talks would be on the need for a comprehensive strategy for success in Afghanistan that includes political, economic and military aspects. NATO is likely to offer military training and technical assistance to Pakistan, the official said. (ANI)
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Afghan Urges Iran To Stop Refugee Repatriation
April 29, 2007 -RFE/RL - Afghanistan today called on neighboring Iran to stop repatriating tens of thousands of Afghan refugees, saying it cannot afford to resettle them.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Bahin said Kabul expects the Iranian government to refrain from forcing out refugees in big numbers.

UN officials say more than 25,000 Afghans have been sent back by Iranian authorities since April 21.

Meanwhile, U.S.-led coalition forces raided a suspected car bomb cell in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar Province early today.

The coalition said the ensuing gunbattle in the Bati Kot area left four militants and two female civilians dead.

But Afghan police said the dead were all civilians.

Hundreds of Afghans blocked a main road near the provincial capital, Jalalabad, in an angry protest.

"They are committing so many operations against us," said one protester. "We do not want them. We do not want this kind of life in the future. America is our enemy. America is our enemy! Karzai is our enemy! Karzai is our enemy!"

U.S. Major Chris Belcher said in a statement that the U.S. army is saddened at the loss of civilian life. He said it is "extremely unfortunate that militants put others' lives in danger by hiding among their families."
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85 killed in 2006 Afghan school attacks
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - At least 85 students and teachers were killed last year in attacks blamed on insurgents who oppose education for girls and teaching boys anything other than religion,  Afghanistan's education minister said Sunday.

Insurgents also burned down 187 schools, while 350 closed because of security concerns, Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said.

"The enemy of our nation ... has targeted our education system through destruction and inhumanity," Atmar told thousands of students at a stadium in Kabul in a speech marking Education Day. Militants are "killing our innocent teachers and students and burning our schools."

The number of students attending school has skyrocketed since the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime, which banned girls from going to school and boys from studying anything other than Islam.

But more than half of Afghan children still lack the means to go to school, while 60 percent of those enrolled "study under tents, in the shade of walls and trees or in some cases, under the hot sun," Atmar said.

About 5.4 million students were enrolled in school last year, up from less than 1 million during Taliban rule. Thirty-five percent of children enrolled were girls.

Atmar said 1,100 schools were being constructed or were planned, and the ministry expected 800,000 new students to enroll in this school year.

Atmar also condemned the videotaped execution of an alleged Taliban traitor by a boy who looked about 12 years old.

"The enemy again committed another crime — instead of sending a child to school they made him behead a man," Atmar said.

Taliban militants oppose government-funded schools for boys because they teach subjects other than religion. Targeting schools is also considered a tactic to shake the authority of the U.S.-backed government.

Earlier this month, militants in eastern Khost province burned tents used by 600 students, the Interior Ministry said. Insurgents also set fire to a school in northern Takhar province, destroying 6,000 textbooks.

New York-based Human Rights Watch reported at least 190 bombing, arson and shooting attacks on teachers, school officials, students and schools last year — up from 91 such attacks reported in 2005.
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Poppy eradication team attacked in southern Afghanistan; 4 wounded
The Associated Press Sunday, April 29, 2007
TIRIN KOT, Afghanistan: Afghan and U.S. security officials were attacked with small arms, rocket-propelled grenade and mortar fire Sunday as they hacked away at opium poppies in southern Afghanistan.

"We are taking fire!" said a panic-stricken voice over a radio.

The Afghan and U.S. agents involved in the poppy eradication operation fled on foot, all-terrain vehicles, and helicopters. Four Afghans were wounded in the attack, said NATO's International Security Assistance Force at a base in southern Uruzgan province.

An Associated Press Television correspondent was filming when the attack took place.

"They are Taliban. They are fighting us," an Afghan agent said as bullets whizzed past.

Sunday's attack underscores the danger the counter-narcotics teams face in the south after the eradication operation was launched a day earlier in the area.

Afghanistan is the biggest producer of opium poppy in the world, yielding enough to produce 90 percent of the world's supply of heroin.

Officials say the Taliban are raking in millions of dollars through poppy taxes. The U.S. government estimates the opium trade generates US$3 billion (€2.28 billion) a year in illicit economic activity.

Afghanistan's opium crop grew a record 59 percent in 2006 to 407,000 acres (164,700 hectares), yielding enough to make 610 tons of heroin. Western and Afghan officials say they expect a similar crop this year.
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Raul Gallego is an Associated Press Television correspondent
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Others languished as warlord rose As ex-warlord advanced, others languished
Boston Globe 04/28/2007 By Farah Stockman KABUL
At least five people were held for years at Guantanamo Bay prison partly because they allegedly had ties to Pacha Khan Zadran , an Afghan warlord who had clashed with US troops -- though Zadran himself was never sent to Guantanamo Bay.

In fact, Afghan president Hamid Karzai pardoned Zadran and allowed him to run for parliament. He won, and now, in one of the greatest ironies of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, he lives in an ornate mansion in Kabul as a police-protected member of Afghanistan's lower house.

The story of Zadran's audacious rise from a renegade who attacked US troops and Afghan civilians to a respectable role in Afghan politics highlights a double injustice that prevails today in Afghanistan: Powerful warlords accused of grave abuses have risen to the highest level of government here, while some villagers accused of far less serious offenses have languished for years in US custody at Guantanamo Bay.

"This is the whole problem with Guantanamo," added Vincent Warren , executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which coordinates the legal representation of detainees. "In Afghanistan, being picked up often had more to do with your relationships with rival factions . . . than any real link to Al Qaeda."

John Sifton , a senior researcher on terrorism at Human Rights Watch, said his investigations have shown that many of the Afghans held at Guantanamo Bay were not brought there because of alleged ties to terrorism, but to armed factions fighting for power who were seen as "spoilers" in the Afghan political process.

Over the past five years, the Afghan government has tried to coax these spoilers into the government by giving them top jobs and allowing them to run for office. But at the same time, dozens of villagers accused of working for them have been held for years at Guantanamo Bay.

For example, the Afghan government has sought to reconcile with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar , the leader of Hezb-e-Islami , a fundamentalist group that has attacked US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan since the Taliban fell in 2001. Yet at least seven detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been imprisoned for years based on alleged ties to the same group, according to transcripts of military hearings.

Even senior Taliban leaders have been brought back into the government. Mullah Salam Rocketi , once a senior Taliban military commander, now serves as a member of parliament after spending only about eight months in US custody. Meanwhile, dozens of lower-level suspects, some accused of working as cooks or drivers for the Taliban, spent years at Guantanamo Bay, according to military transcript.

J. Alexander Thier, a senior adviser at the US Institute of Peace, a Washington-based conflict resolution think tank, said the strategy of bringing such opponents into the government makes sense, but he acknowledged that it produces "a terrible discrepancy in treatment that doesn't seem on its face justifiable."

No case is a starker example of this double standard than the story of Pacha Khan Zadran, who has been called one of Afghanistan's most mercurial warlords.

Zadran, an influential tribal leader, initially forged a close friendship with US troops after the 9/11 attacks. The US government provided him with money and two satellite phones to help track down Al Qaeda fighters in the southern provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika. In November 2001, he attended a conference in Bonn to help set up the new Afghan government.

There, he said in a recent interview at his home in Kabul, he was promised leadership of the three provinces for participating in the conference. But allegations that Zadran used the satellite phones to call in US air strikes on his rivals -- killing more than 60 tribal elders in a strike in December 2001 and dozens of innocent people at a wedding later that month -- helped spark local opposition to his rule.

Karzai appointed a new governor in the region, prompting Zadran to reject the Karzai government and take up arms against it. By the spring of 2003, Zadran was openly launching rockets at civilian homes in Paktia and battling US forces and the Afghan government. Americans killed Zadran's bodyguards and one of his sons in an attack, and arrested another son.

But the Karzai government and some US officials considered him too important a political figure to kill. Even after Zadran was arrested in Pakistan in early 2004 and handed over to the Afghans, Zadran was not sent to Guantanamo Bay. Instead, Karzai announced that he had forgiven Zadran, and appointed the son who had been arrested by US troops to be head of a district in Zadran's home area.

"That has been the overarching political strategy from the start, to bring in every armed faction," said Thier, who also served as an adviser to Afghanistan's ministry of justice in 2003 and 2004. "As a political actor and a political player, Pacha Khan's involvement and support has always been sought by the Afghan government and the US government."

But detainees at Guantanamo Bay who were accused of working for Zadran were treated far more harshly. Four were arrested in January 2002, when Zadran was still friendly with US troops. Two years later, US military officials listed alleged ties to Zadran among the key reasons for the men's detention, according to transcripts of their military hearings that describe Zadran as a "renegade" commander who "has been conducting military operations" against Afghan and US troops.

Three of the men were released in 2005. But two were held until 2006 -- long after Zadran was pardoned and elected to parliament.

Thomas Ruttig , the head of the UN mission in southern Afghanistan in 2003, said it was a good thing to bring Zadran into the government.

Zadran had been so upset by the death of his son, Ruttig said, that he vowed to drive the Americans out of southern Afghanistan. But Ruttig advised him not to create more violence, and instead to run for parliament.

Now, Zadran has traded in the belt of bullets he once wore across his chest for a suit coat, which he wears over his salwar kameez, a traditional outfit. He busies himself with debates over Karzai's budget, the ongoing war against the Taliban, and the considerable effort it takes to stay alive.

He has been targeted twice by suicide bombers over the past year. He keeps the twisted wreck of an SUV in his driveway as a reminder.

He said he considers himself a firm ally of Karzai and American forces. In fact, he denies ever having fought them.

"I was never against the American forces," he said in a recent interview as he rested on a stack of silky red pillows in his living room. "I helped them, but they killed my bodyguards. They attacked my cars, arrested my son. The reason is not known to me. They didn't have any reason."

He shows no sympathy for the lowly farmers who were detained in his name.

"Whoever is in Guantanamo, all of them are criminals," said Zadran, his thick black mustache twitching as he chewed gum. "The American forces do not arrest innocent people . . . Those guys were never in my armies. They do not belong to me."

Yet Abib Sarajuddin was accused of "recruiting" soldiers for Zadran and accepting money from him, among other offenses, according to the military transcript of his hearing. Pacha Wazir was accused of securing a town for Zadran. Military officials heavily questioned Sarajuddin's son, brother, and neighbor about their own ties to Zadran.

But even the US military officials who were conducting the hearings seemed confused about which side Zadran was on. The officials repeatedly asked the detainees whether Zadran was currently a friend or an enemy of the United States.

"It has been three years since I have been here [at Guantanamo], so I don't know," replied Wazir.
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Afghan amnesty shows warlord's clout
Many are now politicians, shielded by the new law from government prosecution on charges of war crimes and atrocities.
By Henry Chu Los Angeles TimesStaff Writer April 29, 2007
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — If there's one thing Abdul Rasul Sayyaf knows, it's how to guard an exposed flank.

As one of many warlords battling for control of Kabul in the early 1990s, Sayyaf ordered his fighters to protect their positions and press for advantage — which they did by shelling civilian neighborhoods and slaughtering members of Afghanistan's oppressed ethnic Hazara minority, human rights groups say.

Sayyaf is still watching his back. But now he's doing it as a member of Afghanistan's parliament.

Last month, he joined other lawmakers in approving a controversial amnesty bill that, in effect, shields him and other warlords-turned-politicians from government prosecution for alleged war crimes and atrocities such as rape and kidnapping.

Supporters call it a necessary step to unshackle Afghanistan from its violent past. But critics say the measure, signed by President Hamid Karzai, deals a blow to this country's struggling democracy, allowing people accused of brutality to get off scot-free — or, worse, remain in positions of power.

It was the latest sign that Afghanistan's former warlords and commanders, some of whom continue to maintain private armies, are still among the country's most powerful forces, despite Karzai's famous declaration six years ago that the "era of warlordism is over."

The new law has dismayed rights groups, the United Nations and Afghans such as Haji Aminullah, whose teenage son was killed by rebel fighters after being falsely labeled an informer.

"If I could face Karzai, see what I would tell him," said Aminullah, 76. "I will never accept or forgive the people who killed my son."

This is a nation whose last 25 years are steeped in blood from the rebel mujahedin's battle against Soviet domination, the civil war among warlords and the U.S.-led overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban in late 2001. Tens of thousands of Afghans died in the crossfire; whole swaths of Kabul, the capital, were reduced to rubble.

Many of those who led the fighting — and allegedly allowed or committed such atrocities as summary execution, torture and rape — now serve as government ministers or members of parliament. Some are acclaimed as heroes and have lashed out at anyone daring to question their wartime conduct.

"Whoever is against the mujahedin is against Islam, and they are the enemies of this country," Sayyaf thundered at a Feb. 23 rally in support of the bill.

The demonstration drew 25,000 people to Kabul's G Stadium, the scene of mutilations, stonings and other horrors during the Taliban's reign of terror. Attending the rally were several prominent leaders whom Human Rights Watch has identified as among the worst perpetrators of abuses who should be brought up on charges of war crimes, including Sayyaf, Vice President Karim Khalili and Abdul Rashid Dostum, chief of staff to the head of the Afghan army.

The gathering was clearly intended as a signal to lawmakers that Afghanistan's former warlords and commanders could still marshal vociferous and even fearsome support. Emphasizing that point, young men marched through the streets shouting, "Death to Malalai Joya!" a female legislator who has spoken out against the warlords.

The amnesty law was approved a few weeks later. It excuses the state from going after those suspected of human rights violations; individuals, however, are still permitted to file criminal charges against those they accuse of having harmed them.

That is not enough, critics say. It is the government's duty to protect and stand up for its citizens, they argue, and the fact that many of the alleged offenders continue to hold power virtually guarantees that no individual will sue for justice, out of fear for his or her own safety.

"The state has a legal obligation to investigate, prosecute or extradite individual perpetrators of serious crimes such as serious breaches of the Geneva Conventions," said Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. "A state cannot absolve itself of its responsibilities to take action against perpetrators of such crimes."

Other countries have granted limited amnesties, including post-apartheid South Africa. But in that country, those seeking immunity from prosecution were required to first confess their offenses before a truth and reconciliation commission.

Karzai gave his assent to the bill at a time of mounting pressure from powerful factions within parliament. His office managed to add the provision about an individual's right to file charges, amending what was virtually a blanket amnesty.

But disillusionment with his government still runs high as Afghans struggle with unemployment, lack of basic services such as electricity and with rising violence from an invigorated Taliban insurgency.

Some commentators describe the amnesty as crucial to building confidence among politicians who not long ago tried to kill one another on the battlefield. But rights activists scoff at that line of reasoning.

"The high level of corruption in the government today, the lack of confidence in government institutions, is a direct result of this policy of 'Let's forget and move on.' People do not see a break with the past. They see the same faces in power," said Ahmad Nader Nadery of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

For national reconciliation and reconstruction to take place, the country must face up to its past, not bury it, Nadery said, and a culture of impunity needs to give way to the rule of law.

In a survey by the commission three years ago, 76% of those questioned agreed that bringing war crimes suspects to account would bolster peace and stability. Ninety percent wanted the government purged of those involved in rights violations.

But rather than being sidelined, former rebel fighters and warlords were welcomed into the political system and have consolidated their power bases.

"Being realistic, we have never asked for immediate prosecution of these people," Nadery said. "The immediate thing we want is the process of marginalization and removing these people from power. It would help good governance, help in the war on terror, help in the building of the government."

It would also help mitigate the anger of Afghans such as Aminullah, a white-turbaned, white-bearded driver who is still haunted by what happened to his son 24 years ago.

The 16-year-old never came home from a trip to Pakistan to get a replacement prosthesis for the leg he lost in a childhood accident. His father says he finally learned from mujahedin commanders on both sides of the border that his son was handed over to the mujahedin during his journey by an unscrupulous relative who said the boy was an informant for Afghanistan's Soviet-backed communist government. The youth had one leg, the relative claimed, because he lost the other fighting the mujahedin.

The accusations apparently sealed Hashmatullah's doom. A rebel fighter admitted to Aminullah that the boy was executed in a prison run by the mujahedin near Peshawar, the northern Pakistani city at the other end of the road leading from Kabul through the Khyber Pass.

"At night, when I think about how they took such a decision to kill a 16-year-old who had only one leg … it pains me," Aminullah said.

The amnesty law, he says, has deprived him of hopes of justice through peaceful, legal means.

But those responsible for his son's death — especially the head of intelligence for the mujahedin, who he says allowed his son to be imprisoned and killed — deserve the ultimate punishment, Aminullah declared, and he vowed to stop at nothing to bring about that retribution.

"I will do whatever it takes to find a way to take my revenge on them."
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Marriage of Inconvenience
The case of a woman whose “husband” is a six-year-old child highlights the problems of childhood betrothals in Afghanistan.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By IWPR trainees in Helmand (ARR No. 251, 27-Apr-07)
Gulghoti is a beautiful young woman of 25. Her dark eyes soften, then fill with tears as she looks at Hekmat, a quiet, skinny six-year-old who lives with her.

“I have brought him up since he was three,” she said, her voice breaking. “I even used to feed him.”

The boy is not her child, her brother, or even her stepson. He is her husband.

“My life is just one big problem,” she said. “Please tell other people not to do this.”

Six years ago, Gulghoti, who lives in southern Helmand province, married a young man to whom she had been betrothed since they were both children. Once the parents had agreed on the match and the terms, the deal was almost impossible to break, even after her fiancé was seriously injured in an accident.

Her father died when she was young, and her widowed mother did not have the means to resist pressure to honour the contract.

Gulghoti duly married her disabled fiance when she was 19, but he died after a year, leaving her a widow.

According to custom in this predominantly Pashtun region, once a woman marries, she remains more or less the property of her husband’s family. If she is widowed, she will commonly be married off to a relative of her deceased husband.

“I had to obey these rules, and marry my husband’s younger brother,” said Gulghoti.

This happened despite the fact that Hekmat was only three at the time.

“They forced me to marry this baby,” she said. “By the time he reaches adolescence, I will be an old woman.”

Hekmat does not understand that the woman who bathes him, looks after him, and prepares his meals is actually his wife. He calls her “khala” - “auntie”. He is small and shy, and shrinks away from strangers. He does not attend school – no one in his family is literate.

In Afghanistan, parents sometimes betroth their children almost as soon as they are born. There are cases of 10-day-old children being engaged or even married to each other, despite legal and religious prohibitions against underage marriages.

In most deals, a significant amount of money changes hands. The groom’s family provides a bride-price, along with gifts of clothing, jewellery, sometimes livestock. The transaction makes it difficult to renege on the contract later on.

The custom is dying out in certain parts of the country, but there are still many instances where people such as Gulghoti and Hekmat are caught in a situation they cannot control.

“I will never be happy,” said Gulghoti. “I will never be a real wife.”

The young woman lives in her husband’s home, as is customary, and trembles with fear that he father-in-law might hear that she has spoken to a reporter.

“But please give my message to others,” she begged. “Tell parents not to arrange marriages for their children when they are babies. It only leads to this kind of catastrophe.”

(Ghulgoti is not the interviewee’s real name.)

IWPR is implementing a journalism training and reporting project in Helmand. This story is a compilation of reports by the trainees.
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Drugs Court Gets Mixed Reviews
The government’s attempt to fast-track drug offenders has secured some convictions, though some suspect the big players are too powerful to be caught.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi (ARR No. 251, 27-Apr-07)
Ever since Afghan president Hamed Karzai declared a “jihad on drugs” early on in his term of office, the international community has been pouring money and training into the country to help put a stop to the growing opium industry.

Well over one billion US dollars has gone into the counter-narcotics effort to date. But at times it seems that the more money and effort are invested, the poorer the results.

More than two years on, Afghanistan is growing more opium poppy than ever. Many are pointing the finger directly at the police and the courts, who, they say, are falling down on the job of prosecuting drug traffickers.

In 2005, the government of Afghanistan, with generous international assistance, began setting up a special court system to try drug traffickers, in an attempt to speed up the process of prosecuting major offenders and circumvent the corrupt and overburdened regular courts.

The government has hailed the establishment of the drugs court in Kabul as a leap forward in the fight against drugs, but others allege it suffer from endemic corruption and is no better equipped than the normal courts to bring major drug traffickers to justice.

Afghanistan is the world’s major producer of opium poppy, and of the heroin that is derived from it. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, more than 90 per cent of the world’s heroin originates in Afghanistan.

According to the Afghan interior ministry, Iran is the primary exit route for smuggled drugs, while Pakistan and the Central Asian countries bordering Afghanistan come a close second. From these countries, heroin makes its way onward to European markets.

To date, the government has been powerless to provide the kind of security that would be needed to stem the flow, and the police and the judiciary are seen as almost hopelessly corrupt, a diseased chain that cannot begin to address the problem.

The new court falls under the oversight of the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, with the Supreme Court, the Prosecutor General, and the Ministry of the Interior playing an institutional role.

Judges and lawyers, as well as law enforcement officials, receive special training lasting from three weeks to two months. After passing special exams, they are accepted into the court system.

At present, the court has a staff of 141, which includes 22 judges, 55 attorneys and 64 police officers.

“Given the present situation, Afghanistan needs an organ or institution that can act independently and over a broad spectrum to address this important problem – drug trafficking,” said Zalmai Afzali, spokesperson for the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics. “The regular courts could also deal with these issues, but we are trying to speed up the trial procedure for drug dealers.”

The new court can facilitate the procedure because is groups together under one roof police, trial lawyers and judges, all specially trained to deal with these types of cases, he added.

“Therefore, cases are processed in a short period of time, and [we] are able to cut down on wasted time and duplication of efforts,” said Afzali.

The special court take on only the larger drug cases, according to its head Mohammad Zaman Sangari.

"This court is composed of two parts - a lower court and an appeals court,” he said. "We deal with those who are arrested with more than two kilograms of heroin or cocaine, more than 10 kilos of poppy paste or with more than 50 kilos of hash. Those caught with smaller amounts go through the regular court system.”

According to Sangari, counter-narcotics offices have been established in every province, and they coordinate all arrests involving drug traffickers.

“The local offices then report to us, and we take the detainees to a centre in Kabul, where they await trial,” he said.

To date, 349 people have been arrested for drug trafficking, of whom 317 have already been tried and sentenced, said Sangari.

General Daoud Daoud, the deputy interior minister in charge of counter-narcotics, told IWPR that those arrested have included civil servants, some of them quite high up the chain of command.

"We cannot deny that there are people inside the government who are allies of the drug traffickers, but we are trying to purge them from the system,” he said.

Daoud insisted that the new court system had accelerated the process of apprehending and convicting smugglers.

“We are serious about this problem,” he said. “We will root out this phenomenon, and no one will be granted immunity.”

But those caught up in the system complain that justice is applied arbitrarily.

“My brother was a shopkeeper, and he was buying and selling small quantities of poppy paste, like one or one and a half kilos,” said a resident of the northern province of Balkh, who did not want to give his name. “He was arrested and now he is in Pul-e-Charkhi prison. But those big smugglers who can pay the police don’t get bothered. They only arrest those who don’t have power.”

The Ministry of Counter Narcotics confirmed that corruption in the judiciary was making it more difficult to combat the drug problem.

“Smugglers are able to free themselves by giving money to judges and prosecutors, and even to the special court,” said General Khudaidad, deputy minister of counter-narcotics.

Observers hold out little hope that the special court can free itself from the corruption that pervades all levels of Afghan society.

“The judges and lawyers in this court did not fall from the sky,” said Nabi Assir, a political analyst in Mazar-e-Sharif. “They are a part of this corrupt system, and they are out to make more money. Smugglers are the richest class in Afghan society, and they can easily free themselves from any kind of charge or arrest.”

But court head Sangari insists that the institution is making progress.

“All of our trials are conducted according to the law. We are committed to the law,” he said. “The judges and lawyers in our court have taken many exams, and honesty is the number-one criterion for working here.”

The court does face a host of problems, many of them logistical, said Sangari.

“We do not have good transportation to transfer detainees to court proceedings,” he said. “Sometimes we have a trial beginning at 9 am, and we can’t get the accused there until four or five hours later.”

Prison facilities are also a problem. The court would like to have a separate building for its detainees.

“It is inappropriate to incarcerate smugglers together with other criminals, who have various links with dangerous gangs,” he said.

Afzali, from the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, also complains about the resources available.

“We cannot cope with the smugglers – they have the best cars, and we can’t even chase them in our old jeeps,” he said.

According to General Daoud, the international community has pledged more support.

“When we receive it, we will expand the courts into all regions of Afghanistan,” he said.

There are some positive signs that the court is having an effect.

Balkh district bazaar used to be one of the largest drug markets in the province, with many shopkeepers specialising in poppy paste. Now the substance has almost disappeared from the market.

“I have quit selling poppy paste,” said one shopkeeper. “The punishment outweighs the benefits. Many people have been arrested, and I don’t want to spend years of my life behind bars.”

Another resident of Balkh, however, said that the real problem lay higher up.

“I have seen trafficking done by people in police cars with tinted windows,” he complained. “These are the real smugglers. They arrest poor people just for show. How can we believe in this government?”

Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.
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Iran attack would be terrible mistake: Musharraf
The News International (Pakistan) / April 28, 2007
SARAJEVO: President Pervez Musharraf said a possible US attack on Iran would be a “terrible mistake”, in an interview published here on Friday.

“It will be a terrible mistake if President George Bush orders an attack against Iran,” Musharraf told Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz ahead of his visit to Bosnia. “I’m concerned about the possibility that a US attack on Iran (would cause) turbulence in the region,” he said, warning it would spark “radicalism”.

Musharraf reiterated accusations against Afghan President Hamid Karzai about Pakistan’s lack of readiness to fight terrorism. Afghan authorities “must stop spreading those bare-faced lies. President Karzai must stop deluding the world,” said Mussaraf.

He also denied accusations from Karzai that al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mulla Muhammad Omar were in Pakistan. in a separate interview with Al-Jazeera, President Musharraf on Friday said Afghanistan should stop accusing Pakistan about its internal situation and understand the realities where the Afghan people were now joining the ranks of Taliban.

The president rejected the baseless aspersions that everything in Afghanistan was happening from Pakistan. He said Afghan President Hamid Karzai should stop accusing Pakistan about the situation inside Afghanistan. He said the Taliban were Afghans, based inside Afghanistan, and now other non-Taliban leaders like Gulbaddin Hikmatyar were also joining the fight against the government and coalition forces.

On the Kashmir dispute and concessions being given by Pakistan, the president said, “We have moved well on confidence building measures (CBMs).Ó He added that the Kashmiri leaders need to move forward.

He said, “Whenever we go for compromise, it has to be a step-back by both sides.” He said if India was willing to step back, Pakistan was also ready to do so. About the accusations from India regarding support to terrorist activities, the president described these as unfortunate and without any substantial evidence. “They (Indian leaders) do not have any proof about Pakistan’s involvement in any act of terrorism,” he added. “Instead of accusing each other, let us coordinate and cooperate,” he added.

Referring to several bomb blasts and incidents of terrorism in Pakistan, Musharraf said Pakistan never accused any one prior to investigation. Replying to a question about Lal Masjid, the president said there was a need to look into ground realities before taking action on such issues. He added that the government was not taking any strict action, as the situation could deteriorate.

About the issue of uniform, Musharraf said he was allowed by the National Assembly with a two-thirds majority to hold the office till the end of this year and was in accordance with the Constitution of Pakistan. “We will hold the general elections by the end of this year and then I will make up my mind about the uniform,” he added.

He said the chief justice of Supreme Court was not sacked but a reference was filed against him which was referred to him by the prime minister. The president said the reference was based on accusations against the chief justice and had been referred to the Supreme Judicial Council in accordance with the Constitution to go through the legal process, he added.

He said the government did not take action against the people protesting in favour of the chief justice. He said there were never more than 500 lawyers in these protests out of the 4,000 lawyers present in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. In Lahore, only 500 protested out of 14,000 lawyers, he added.
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Mujaddedi: Prosecute elements behind mass graves
KABUL, April 27 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Afghan Senate chairman Friday called for the prosecution of people behind mass graves unearthed in different parts of the country and commemoration of the martyrs' week beginning from April 27.

The demand came at a gathering marking the bloody coup d'état that overthrew the government of Muhammad Daud on April 27, 1978, an event that ultimately paved the way for the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

In his address to the audience including members of parliament, jihadi leaders and relatives of martyrs, Sibghatullah Mujaddedi recalled the martyrdom and maiming of millions as well as the mass exodus of Afghans unleashed by the Soviet intervention.

Speaking to the gathering near a mass grave east of Kabul, Mujaddedi regretted the absence of some jihadi and ex-communist regime figures - now part of the incumbent government.

He specially railed against former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, Wolesi Jirga Speaker Younus Qanuni, Noorul Haq Ulumi and Syed Muhammad Gulabzoi. The Senate chairman observed they should have been in attendance to see with their own eyes their complicity in the grisly crimes.

"The communists committed mass murder not only in Kabul but also in Badakhshan, Herat and other provinces. Their hands are stained with the blood of thousands of Afghans," Mujaddedi alleged, regretting the large-scale killings were perpetrated in the name of Islam.

At least 183 people of his family had been martyred, pointed out the spiritual leader, who urged the global fraternity and the Afghan government to bring to trial the communist criminals - either in the government or living abroad.

In a not-so-veiled reference to the recently formed United National Front led by Rabbani, he said some people calling themselves jihadi leaders were still joining forces with the communists.

A newly discovered mass grave with 450 bodies in the northern Badakhshan province amply reflected the crimes committed by the communists, said Wolesi Jirga Secretary Abdul Sattar Khawasi. Similar outrageous acts had also happened in Kunar, Kabul, Herat and Paktia, he added.

Parliamentarian Abdul Jabbar, lashing out at a police reform plan executed by the Interior Ministry, said it was a ploy to cleanse the force of 'mujahideen.'

A charter of demands issued at the end of the meeting asked for the prosecution of the elements behind mass murder, construction of a monument to the martyrs at Pul-i-Charkhi, commemoration of martyrs' week and establishment of a school for the children of those who laid down their lives for Afghanistan's freedom.

Reported by Habib Rehman Ibrahimi
Translated & edited by S. Mudassir Ali Shah
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