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August 17, 2007 

Suicide attack kills Afghan governor, three children
Fri Aug 17, 6:15 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - A suicide attacker blew himself up Friday outside the house of a district governor in southern Afghanistan, killing the official and three of his children, officials said.

The attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body as the Zhari district governor, Khairuddin, and his children left their compound in the volatile southern city of Kandahar, police and the interior ministry said.

They were going to take part in the traditional slaughter of a sheep and distribution of its meat to the poor of the area, they said.

Two of the governor's sons and one of his daughters, all aged under 10, were also killed, said a police officer at the scene, Abdul Ghafar.

"All four were martyred immediately," he said, adding another son and daughter were wounded.

Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary confirmed the attack but said three civilians were wounded.

The body of the suicide attacker was torn to pieces, with flesh flung onto walls and vehicles, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Khairuddin, who went by only one name, had a home in Kandahar city but was the administration chief of Zhari district just west of the city.

Zhari has seen some of the worst violence in the Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban's insurgency, including major attacks on international troops with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Kandahar has been a hotbed of violence ever since the Taliban militia emerged from the city and the surrounding region in the early 1990s to take control of government by 1996.

They were driven from power in late 2001 by a US-led coalition for failing to hand over their allies in Al-Qaeda, the extremist network behind the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Taliban insurgents are today waging an increasingly bloody campaign that is backed by Al-Qaeda and carries out regular attacks against Afghan officials and soldiers, as well as the international troops here to support the government.

The ISAF reported 66 suicide attacks in Afghanistan in the first six months of this year, compared to 47 for the whole of last year.

The violence has intensified lately with rebels repeatedly ambushing troops in the south of the country in recent weeks, in one case trying to overrun a military base.

US and Afghan soldiers have meanwhile been conducting an operation against militants said to be holed up in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, where the Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was last spotted in 2001.

Local media reports have said militants have suffered heavy casualties but this has not been confirmed by officials. The coalition will not comment on an ongoing operation.
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Traumatised SKorean hostages return home
Fri Aug 17, 4:44 AM ET
SEOUL (AFP) - Two female aid workers freed by Afghanistan's Taliban returned home Friday to South Korea, after learning for the first time that two fellow captives were killed during the nearly month-long ordeal.

Kim Gi-Na and Kim Kyung-Ja looked shocked and traumatised when they briefly appeared before TV cameras after landing at Incheon airport west of Seoul.

"I'm sorry for causing so much concern for the people," Kyung-Ja, 37, said in mumbled remarks. "I hope all the remaining hostages return home at the earliest possible date."

Gi-na, 32, added: "I only hope all the remaining people will be immediately freed."

The pair were among a group of 23 South Korean aid workers, including 16 women, who were seized by the Taliban on July 19 while travelling by coach through insurgency-plagued southern Afghanistan.

The guerrillas shot dead two male hostages to press their demands for the release of Taliban prisoners, a demand rejected by the Kabul government.

The women, who were freed Monday, were told only when they started their journey home that the two men had been shot dead, a government official who accompanied them told Yonhap news agency.

"They learned of the two deaths only after they began heading for home on August 16," the unidentified official said. "They were shocked and traumatised at the news and were lost for words for a while.

"They wept for half an hour."

The hostages had been separated into small groups and moved frequently to frustrate any rescue mission.

The women met their brothers on board the plane before heading into the terminal, YTN TV reported. After their brief remarks, they were seen walking hand-in-hand to an ambulance which took them to a military hospital for check-ups.

Gi-Na and Kyung-Ja were released in what the insurgents called a "goodwill gesture" after the Taliban had begun negotiating directly with South Korean government representatives in Afghanistan.

The pair underwent medical check-ups at a Korean military base at Bagram in Afghanistan before flying home.

Foreign media were barred from the terminal. Officials have said they want to limit the women's exposure to the media for fear of jeopardising the safety of those still in captivity.

Gi-Na and Kyung-Ja were admitted to a VIP room at the army hospital and kept incommunicado, Yonhap reported.

Negotiations Thursday for the release of the remaining 19 made no progress, according to the Taliban, and an aid agency official involved in facilitating dialogue said there was little chance of any talks Friday.

The South Koreans were on an aid mission organised by Saem-Mul Presbyterian church at Bundang in suburban Seoul. Its leaders have apologised for organising what critics called a reckless trip.

South Korea has since made unauthorised travel to Afghanistan an offence punishable by a jail term, and has urged other aid groups in the country to leave as soon as possible.

Newspapers said office worker Kim Kyung-Ja had told her family before she left for Afghanistan a month ago that she was heading to Dubai, in order to spare them anxiety.

She used her annual leave to make the trip.

Kim Gi-Na teaches computer animation at an occupational college but spends her spare time teaching children at the Saem-Mul church.

South Korea has said it has little scope to meet the Taliban demand for a prisoner release. It has called on other parties to be "flexible" but has not publicly asked the US or Afghan government to arrange a prisoner swap.

President Roh Moo-Hyun earlier this week urged a redoubling of efforts. "We shouldn't relax until the last moment," he said.
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Taliban says no immediate hostage talks
Fri Aug 17, 2:36 AM ET
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) - Chances appeared slim that talks on the fate of 19 South Korean hostages held in Afghanistan by the Taliban would resume Friday after the militants complained of a lack of progress.

After meeting the South Korean negotiating team in the small town of Ghazni on Thursday, Taliban representatives said their leaders had not yet decided on their next move.

"The Taliban leading council has not made any specific decisions," a Taliban commander from Ghazni province, Abdullah Jan, told AFP Friday.

Face-to-face talks would not resume immediately, he said, without ruling out the chance of developments later in the day.

An official of the International Committee of Red Cross involved in facilitating the sensitive dialogue also said there was "very little probability" of talks resuming Friday.

The South Korean team had contacted the Taliban by telephone, Jan said.

"The Taliban are still insisting on the release of their prisoners," he said said, referring to earlier demands that Taliban prisoners be freed from prison in exchange for the hostages' liberty.

The Afghan government has repeatedly rejected the demand.

The Taliban and South Koreans met face-to-face for the first time on August 17 after negotiations between the militia and the Afghan government apparently stalled.

The Al-Qaeda-influenced insurgents killed two of the 23 South Korean aid workers who were seized in Ghazni on July 19 and have threatened to kill more if their demands are not met.

Two women among the group, released on Monday in an apparent "good will gesture," arrived in Seoul on Friday.
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Billions In U.S. Aid Wasted In Afghanistan
Lara Logan Reports That On The Reconstruction Burden When Projects Go Unfinished
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Aug. 16, 2007-(CBS) American doctor Dave Warner is on a mission in eastern Afghanistan to show people back home how billions of taxpayer dollars sent here are being wasted.

“When I was here in December,” Warner told CBS News chief forign correspondent Lara Logan. “This was full so you can see they've dug another pit over here.”

Rotting bio-waste is dumped in the hospital's backyard because as Warner and the hospital director showed us next — the new waste incinerator donated by the U.S. government is completely useless. Even if the hospital knew how to run it, they can't afford the fuel.

“It’s not used very often … at all,” he said.

It was a gift from the American people.

“Isn’t that nice?” Warner said.

Warner is a public health expert from San Diego who's taken it upon himself to do what no one else in Afghanistan seems to be doing — documenting the failures in reconstruction. He says the system can't be fixed unless those responsible first admit that it's broken.

But it's a hard sell. Warner says he has tried to report his findings to officials at the Pentagon.

“I was brought aside and they told me, don't tell that story,” Warner said. “I said why not. And they said well, this is one of our success stories.”

A success story that quickly turned to disappointment for the hospital when they discovered that this septic truck donated by the United States with brand new tires and a new coat of paint wasn't new at all — in fact it's at least 60-years-old.

The hospital's plumbing system is new, and certified as complete by the U.S. agency who funded it. But it's a disaster. Blood poured out of an open drain when Logan was there.

Open drains should have been covered — a fact Warner pointed out more than a year ago to those in charge of the project but no one would take responsibility and finish the job. Warner says leaving it to the Afghans is unrealistic.

“They have no resources, so every time we leave something 80 percent of the way, that more than overwhelms their capacity,” he said.

It's inside the hospital that you really see how overwhelmed the hospital is. Surgical instruments are sterilized in a pressure cooker.

Babies are kept two or three to one bed. And critically ill babies have to share oxygen — there's barely enough power to run these two machines.

Newborns with jaundice also have to share fluorescent lights because of the limited power.

“This is what the people have,” Warner said, referencing average Afghanis. “Yes, when you are talking about hearts and minds, these are the hearts.”

Hearts that the United States is failing to win, Warner says, because the system is failing them.
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Ottawa vows to open up about the Afghan mission
Aug 17, 2007 04:30 AM bruce campion-smith ottawa bureau chief via Toronto Star,  Canada
OTTAWA–The federal government will begin regular briefings on its Afghan mission in a bid to boost public awareness not only about the work of the military but also on development efforts in the troubled country.

The first media briefing will be held Sept. 4 in Ottawa and the sessions will be conducted every three weeks after that, a source told the Star.

There's been a push for more regular updates about Canada's mission in Afghanistan. Just recently, the Conference of Defence Associations, an Ottawa lobby group, publicly called on the government to put high-ranking officials "in front of the camera" to better explain the mission and progress made so far.

Yesterday, in a significant move, senior government officials agreed and put a plan into motion for those regular briefings to take place.

"The whole goal is to provide information. It's important to get out," the source said.

The media briefings will include senior officials from agencies involved in the mission, including the defence department, foreign affairs, the Canadian International Development Agency and even the RCMP, which has its own police officers doing mentoring work in Kandahar.

The first briefing, in just over two weeks, will also feature Canada's ambassador in Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, who is expected to call in from Kabul.

Since the Conservative government came to power in February 2006, there have just been three briefings in Ottawa in which representatives from all departments were available to answer questions about the broad scope of the Canadian mission in Kandahar.

And sources say it took high-level arm twisting to convince officials to go along with this plan for regular briefings and blamed in-fighting between the departments for the failure to hold regular briefings until now.

The move comes just days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper shook up the government's focus on Afghanistan with a cabinet shuffle that shifted Peter MacKay to defence and Maxime Bernier to foreign affairs.

The move was clearly seen as an attempt to better sell Ottawa's Afghan message at a time when Canadians are deeply divided on the mission and the future of Canada's military presence in the country is coming up for debate.
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Afghanistan's ball back in Pakistan's court
By M K Bhadrakumar Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
In May, when Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles arrived in Kabul as the new British ambassador, there was intense speculation about London's choice of a senior diplomat of the highest caliber for an assignment in a losing war.

This was natural, since within the Anglo-American condominium in Afghanistan, Britain has all along been the "brains trust". The intriguing question was, what was there in the war at that point for

Cowper-Coles to salvage at all for Britain? However, soon after taking over in Kabul, in an interview with BBC Radio 4, Cowper-Coles firmly rejected all suggestions that the coalition forces were losing the fight against the Taliban.

The ambassador took a big step further last week when he termed the four-day peace jirga, which concluded in Kabul last Sunday, a historic occasion. "There was a palpable sense of relief, pleasure, and of history being made," he told The Guardian newspaper.

Significantly, British Defense Secretary Des Browne forcefully echoed the ambassador's optimism by asserting in a media interview last week that the situation in southern Afghanistan had reached a "turning point".

What warrants such optimism? The jirga itself, comprising more than 600 representatives of Pashtun tribes, originated as an idea from Afghan President Hamid Karzai a year ago with the backing of the administration of US President George W Bush - as an experimental effort to employ the vehicle of traditional Afghan assembly for fostering good-neighborly relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Engaging the Taliban
It was to have been held last December in Jalalabad. Pakistan was lukewarm about it. And, when it finally got under way in Kabul, there was considerable skepticism. But it ended on a high note. The jirga authorized a 50-man team to be drawn equally from the two countries to hold regular monthly meetings and to work to "expedite the ongoing process of dialogue for peace and reconciliation with the opposition".

In plain terms, the jirga has launched an intra-Afghan peace process with a comprehensive approach that aims to include the Taliban and its ally Hezb-i-Islami. Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, who attended the closing session of the jirga, said after his return to Pakistan that the proposed 50-member team should "engage warring forces in Afghanistan to bring terrorism and extremism to an end".

Musharraf played his cards astutely. Addressing the jirga, he admitted with disarming candor that, yes, the Taliban enjoy support from Pakistan. "I realize this problem goes deeper; there is support from these areas," he told delegates. Karzai, who sat beside the general, nodded in approval.

There was no acrimony over Musharraf's dramatic turnaround from his consistent plea that the Taliban are an indigenous Afghan force. Musharraf added, "There is no doubt Afghan militants are supported from Pakistani soil. The problem that you have in your region is because support is provided from our side."

In his characteristic way of mixing bravado and bluster, the general underscored the criticality of his government's role in the forthcoming intra-Afghan peace process. Again, Musharraf was forthright in asserting that any meaningful settlement will have to be on the basis of a political accommodation with the Taliban. He said, "The Taliban are part of Afghan society. Most of them may be ignorant and misguided, but all of them aren't diehard militants and fanatics who defy even the most fundamental values of our culture and our faith."

Clearly, an initiative that began as a modest effort aimed at defining the role of Pashtun tribes in mending Afghan-Pakistan relations seems to have galloped away. Sitting in the white tent where the jirga was held, the Guardian correspondent observed, "After four days of talk, the language was at times more Woodstock than Waziristan."

The jirga's agreement to push for reconciliation with the Taliban and other opposition groups constitutes a vindication of Pakistan's stand that options other than a military solution should be adopted in reaching a settlement in Afghanistan. The high drama surrounding Musharraf's appearance in Kabul at the concluding session of the jirga - allowing himself to be persuaded to attend by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who phoned him thrice - has enabled Pakistan to move to the center stage of the negotiations involving the Taliban.

Musharraf made it clear that the key to making success out of any conceivable Afghan peace process in the near future will be winning Pakistan's support, and that cannot be extracted through threats and exhortations. He underlined that the West can certainly aspire to make progress with him, provided Pakistan's legitimate concerns and interests are recognized.

Accordingly, the jirga proposed in a draft agreement that a 50-member team of tribal representatives should "immediately undertake the opening of negotiations with the resistance on how best and how soon to end the violence in the country". Furthermore, it said, as soon as the peace and conciliation jirga begins its consultations with the opposition, a ceasefire should come into effect between the Taliban and the US-led coalition forces for a period to be mutually agreed on.

The draft document continued, "This would give a respite to both the resistance and the [Afghan] government to consider coolly and dispassionately the grave situation confronting the nation and the likely options on how best to resolve the conflict."

Sanctity of the Durand Line
The most important gain for Pakistan is that the jirga affirmed that a key component for peace in Afghanistan would be the security and stability of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, commonly known as the Durand Line. "All possible measures, therefore, must be adopted to ensure that this becomes a border of peace and friendship bringing the two countries closer together."

Thus border-monitoring committees comprising tribesmen inhabiting the region of the Durand Line, with the assistance of Pakistani and Afghan officials, will undertake monitoring of the cross-border movement of people and identify the main routes for crossing the border. The two governments will also draw up a comprehensive Border Infrastructure Development Project and involve the international community for the speedy development of the region of the Durand Line. Pakistan has also sought the creation of a permanent body, the Pakistan-Afghanistan Peace and Friendship Commission, for fostering good-neighborly relations.

All in all, Pakistan has come nearer than ever in the past 60 years in securing a Pashtun affirmation of the sanctity of the Durand Line. The stamp of the international community (read the US and other major Western powers) guarantees the political gain for Islamabad.

The jirga's co-chairmen, interestingly, were Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao and former Afghan foreign minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah, who was a prominent leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance and a close aide of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud. Talking to journalists in Kabul, both Sherpao and Abdullah affirmed that the jirga will have a far-reaching impact on the restoration of durable peace in the region.

Abdullah, in particular, brings into the jirga's decisions a truly "bipartisan" Afghan character, given his prominent role in the democratic opposition to Karzai's government. The US has made a brilliant choice by calling on Abdullah to be a bridge-builder. He is partly Kandahari Pashtun and partly Tajik; he is a jihadi with impeccable pedigree; he belonged to the Jamiat-i-Islami (one of the original Islamist parties in Afghanistan) and is a staunch Afghan nationalist; and above all he is a forward-looking intellectual and accomplished politician who enjoys great credibility in the international arena.

New thinking on Pakistan
The heart of the matter is the recognition by the United States and other Western powers that it is only through recognition of Pakistan's long-standing national interests that the Afghanistan problem can be resolved. Indeed, influential Western opinion-makers on both sides of the Atlantic have been harping on three directions in which Pakistani interests must be accommodated.

First, by encouraging India to reduce its presence in Afghanistan. To quote Professor Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor, "Pakistan does not view Afghanistan through the prism of the 'war on terror', but in the context of its own vulnerabilities in the competition for power and influence with India. That's why Islamabad has everything to gain by playing the Taliban card ... to keep Kabul weak and southern Afghanistan free of Indian influence."

The jirga as such has not taken a view on this tendentious issue. Interestingly, Musharraf didn't press for it, either. But then the jirga also neatly sidestepped the sensitive issue of setting any timeline for the presence of foreign military forces in Afghanistan. It remains to be seen, therefore, how the diplomatic tango involving the US, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India will play out in the coming period.

Second, there has been a growing realization in Western capitals in the past year or so that the time has come to press Karzai's government to recognize the Durand Line. But Karzai would have a problem on this score if he didn't carry Pashtun opinion with him in any such venture. As it is, his Pashtun support base remains tenuous. It is in this respect that the Afghan jirga has kick-started a historic move in the direction of settling the Durand Line. The jirga's decision to strengthen the security and stability of the Afghan-Pakistan border is tantamount to a pan-Pashtun recognition of the sanctity of the Durand Line. At a minimum, there is scope to build up a consensus rapidly.

Third, the US has recognized the importance of constructively engaging the Taliban and offering them a role as "stakeholders" in Afghanistan. This becomes important for several reasons. A roll-back of the Pashtun tribal structures to their old modes (prior to the radicalization of the 1980s) cannot be achieved as long as the Taliban remain as the force of an irredentist opposition. That is to say, any reversal of the so-called "Talibanization" of Pakistan's tribal areas must begin with a rehabilitation of the Taliban in the power structures in Afghanistan. Again, an intra-Afghan settlement is a necessary prerequisite to enduring peace. It has become clear by now that there is no military solution to the Afghanistan problem.

Geopolitics of the war
Since the US intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001, 425 American soldiers and 226 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops have been killed. But the palpable sense of urgency in Washington in working for a settlement must be seen from different angles.

Of course, the prospect of a terrorist threat to the US and Britain remains very real. Second, the new imperatives in the geopolitics of the region cannot be overlooked. Washington has calculated that armed with the jirga's decisions, Karzai has a solid case to stall any attempt by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at its summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, this weekend to force its way into the arena of conflict-resolution in Afghanistan. Russia and China spearhead the grouping.

Besides, an intra-Afghan peace process of the kind mooted at the

jirga will remain exclusively under the control of the US, Britain and Pakistan. Iran and Russia remain excluded, despite their robust efforts in recent months to barge in. According to Browne, Iran in particular may have begun "backing every horse in the race" in Afghanistan.

The US would prefer to address China's concerns in Afghanistan separately, despite China's involvement in the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group. In fact, soon after the SCO summit in Bishkek, which Karzai will attend, Afghan Foreign Minister Dadfar Spanta proceeds to China on a four-day visit.

The prospect of a ceasefire can be expected to give NATO forces much-needed breathing space. This would enable NATO (under Washington's tutelage) to rethink its strategy toward Central Asia. Most of the supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan come via Pakistani territory. Therefore, the jirga's peace process, which will incrementally free Pakistan from the distractions over the frontier problems in its western region, will lead to more wholehearted cooperation from Islamabad for the consolidation of a long-term NATO presence in the region.

Given the fluidity of security in the Persian Gulf region, especially over Iran, the US and Britain have calculated that a Pakistan at ease with the integrity of its state will make a reliable ally for NATO in the medium and long terms.

Challenges ahead
But both Musharraf and Karzai have been weakened politically in the recent period. The main challenge for the emergent peace process arises on the Pakistani side rather than the Afghan one. The jirga carried moral authority, but is that sufficient for translating changes on the ground? First, to make the peace process work, the US and Britain will have to depend on the military leadership in Pakistan - Musharraf in particular. This has implications for the overheated Pakistani domestic politics. The jirga has raised dust within Pakistan.

The fact is, Musharraf has emerged from the jirga 10 feet tall. That isn't a pleasant sight for many in Pakistan at the moment. Musharraf, in turn, will have taken careful note of the extended standing ovation he received at the jirga. He was indeed the cynosure of all eyes last Sunday. He finds himself catapulted into the lead role as peacemaker in Afghanistan. To quote the New York Times, "His presence at the final ceremony of the jirga lent weight to the proceedings." No one is disputing his prerogative to call the shots. The name-calling by Kabul that used to be a daily occurrence has given way to a gush of camaraderie.

On his return from Kabul, he told the media in Islamabad, "The joint declaration and the formation of the 50-member committee [are] a step in the right direction, but it is not an end in itself, rather a beginning of [a] peace process." He gently flagged that his role is only beginning. That was a reminder to Washington that his position as Pakistan's leader is going to be highly critical in steering the peace process through.

Musharraf expressed confidence that the 50-member committee will engage the Taliban and push the peace process forward. But he held out a thinly veiled warning for the benefit of Pakistan's Islamic parties, which have lately become somewhat recalcitrant in their opposition to him. He hinted that it is he who will hand-pick the people to be included as protagonists in the peace process. He said his nominees should have "credibility and standing" - a tall order for Pakistan's Islamic leaders.

Not surprisingly, the two prominent Islamic leaders in Pakistan who claim to have strong political bases in North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan and who are strong supporters of the Taliban - Maulana Fazlur Rahman of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and Qazi Hussain Ahmad of Jamaat-i-Islami - were kept out of the jirga in Kabul. (A second jirga is expected to be convened in Pakistan.) Both have shown their frustration by resorting to anti-US rhetoric. Musharraf now has the upper hand in selectively "engaging" them, if he chooses to, which he can use to advantage in the broader lineup of political forces as Pakistan moves toward presidential and parliamentary elections.

But even detractors in Pakistan grudgingly admit the salience of the jirga. The former interior minister in Benazir Bhutto's government in the early 1990s, Naseerullah Baber, who is a retired general and often touted as the "Father of the Taliban", predictably criticized the jirga but was forced to admit, "The US has recognized the identity and political clout of the Taliban by inviting them to the jirga, which amounted to a confession of defeat on their part, for they had never accepted the Taliban as a party to the Afghan conflict."

Equally, liberal, secular-minded sections of the Pashtun community in Pakistan, especially the Awami National Party, have enthusiastically welcomed the outcome of the jirga. From this perspective alone, the jirga holds the potential to squeeze the jihadist culture out of Pakistan. Putting faith in Musharraf may still work.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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Arms seized in Nangarhar, Herat
JALALABAD, Aug 17 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Police in the eastern city of Jalalabad claimed recovering arms and ammunitions from a car on Friday.

Police spokesman in the eastern province of Nangarhar Colonel Abdul Ghafoor told Pajhwok the arms were recovered from a car in the centre of the city.

He said driver of the car and his colleague managed to escape. The arms included Russian-made Pika machinegun, Kalashnikovs, different types of other guns and an American-made pistol.

The arms were recovered during a search of the car at a check point. The smugglers managed to escape while their car was seized by the police, said the spokesman.

Separately, police in the western province of Herat said they had captured arms and ammunition during an operation on Friday.

Colonel Rahmatullah Safi, a police commander in the western zone, told Pajhwok the weapons were seized in Kashk Kuhna district located near the border with Turkmenistan.

No one had been arrested so far, said the police officer, who added investigations were underway.

Mueed Hashmi/Ahmad Qureshi
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Member of Afghanistan University Police Academy charged with assault
Aug 17, 2007 07:32 AM WIS News 10 Columbia
COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - An Afghanistan officer who was training in Columbia is under arrest. He's accused of sexually assaulting two women in the hotel where he's staying.

It happened at the Hampton Inn off Two Notch Road. The victims were housekeepers.

The officer was staying there while training with the Columbia Police Department.

Mohammad Arif Nabel, 42, is charged with kidnapping and assaulting a housekeeper.

Investigators say Nabel asked the woman to come into his hotel room, then he pinned her to the bed and sexually assaulted her before she fought him off.

The sheriff thinks Nabel may have also assaulted another housekeeper.

Nabel, a lieutenant colonel in the Afghanistan University Police Academy, was training with Columbia police, along with other Afghani officers.

The Columbia Police Department has suspended the two-week training because of the investigation.

The Afghan officers were supposed to finish this Friday and leave Saturday.

The sheriff says Nabel has no remorse and that he doesn't think he's done anything wrong.

The officer in charge of Nabel and other men training there had no comment.

The victim, however, did, "The actions of Lt. Col. Mohammed Nabel have destroyed my faith and trust in man and have taken away my true strength, my dignity as a woman and a US citizen."

Reported by Maggie Alexander
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