Serving you since 1998
August 2007 :   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

August 20, 2007 

German captive freed in Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Four suspected kidnappers were captured Monday as Afghan police freed a German aid worker who had been snatched from a restaurant while she ate with her husband, officials said.
 
Hundreds of police freed the 31-year-old woman in a raid after midnight in western Kabul, not far from the area where she was taken captive on Saturday, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemerai Bashary.

He said authorities arrested and are interrogating "four suspects who are directly involved in this case." He said more than 300 police took part in the operation.

Police are searching for other accomplices, Bashary said.

Preliminary investigations indicate that it was a criminal gang — and not Islamic insurgents — who carried out the kidnapping, and that they demanded $1 million for the woman's release.

A video broadcast Sunday said the kidnappers were demanding a prisoner swap.

Amrullah Saleh, the head of the Afghan intelligence service, said the leader of the criminal gang had been freed from a northern Afghan prison two months earlier.

Saleh and Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Muqbal oversaw the operation, which involved police and intelligence officers.

A spokeswoman for Germany's Foreign Ministry in Berlin confirmed the woman was "in safety at the German Embassy" in Kabul. She declined to give any further details.

Earlier in the day, the captive, who identified herself as Christina Meier, appeared on a video broadcast by a local television station.

Meier, who worked for the Germany-based Christian organization Ora International in Kabul, was taken by four men who pulled up to the restaurant in a gray Toyota Corolla. One went inside and asked to order a pizza, two others waited outside the restaurant, and a third remained in the car, intelligence officials investigating the incident said.

The man in the restaurant pulled out a pistol, walked up to a table where Meier was sitting with her husband and took her, the officials said on customary condition of anonymity. The husband was not abducted.

Police spotted the speeding car and opened fire, but hit a nearby taxi and killed its driver.

In the video broadcast Sunday, Meier was shown sitting on the floor inside a room, her head covered with a white scarf.

She was prompted to make remarks both in English and in the Afghan language Dari by a man speaking in broken English. The man then instructed her to show a copy of her German passport and an ID card issued by the aid group she works for.

Tolo TV, which broadcast the video, did not say how it obtained the footage.

"I am fine. There are no threats against me. I want my country to do what it can for my release," she said in Dari, reading from a piece of paper, occasionally looking toward the camera.

A male voice off camera prompted her to say, "to help" and told her to also use the word "urgent."

"Please help for my release, and help me," she said.

A man wearing sunglasses, and his head covered with a scarf, later appeared in the video and demanded that the Afghan government release a number of unidentified prisoners. He said a member of their group would provide the government with a list.

Authorities, meanwhile, detained a suspect involved in the murder of two German journalists, killed last October in the northern province of Baghlan, Bashary said.

The suspect was detained last week in the same province where the murder happened, Bashary said, without elaborating.

Karen Fischer and Christian Struwe, freelance reporters working for Deutsche Welle, Germany's state-owned broadcast outlet, were shot to death outside a small village where they had set-up a tent to spend the night.

In southern Afghanistan, dozens of Taliban insurgents attacked an Afghan army compound, and the ensuing gunbattle left 10 suspected militants dead and four others wounded, an official said Monday. There were no casualties among Afghan troops.

The clash began Sunday night when the Taliban fired on the compound in the Sangin district of Helmand province, said Eizatullah Khan, the district chief.
___
Associated Press writers Amir Shah in Kabul and Melissa Eddy in Berlin contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan TV shows kidnapped German woman
By AMIR SHAH Associated Press Sun Aug 19, 10:05 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan television on Sunday broadcast what it said was video of a kidnapped German aid worker — prompted by a man off-camera — calling for the release of prisoners, but police said Taliban militants were not behind the woman's brazen daytime abduction.

The woman, shown sitting on the floor inside a room, her head covered with a white scarf, identified herself as Christina Meier. She said "I am OK" and then read a letter in the Afghan language, Dari, calling for the release of unknown prisoners.

She was prompted to make remarks both in English and in Dari by a man speaking in broken English.

The private Tolo TV, which broadcast the video, did not say how it obtained the material.

"I am fine. There are not threats against me. I want from my country to do what it can for my release," she says in Dari, reading from a piece of paper, while seated, occasionally looking up toward camera.

A male voice off-camera prompts her to say, "to help" and tells her also to use the word "urgent."

"Please help for my release, and help me," she says.

A man, his head covered with a scarf and wearing sunglasses inside a room, appears afterward and demands from Afghan government to release a number of unknown prisoners. He says a member of the group would provide the government with the list.

"We are not bad people. We are a special network," the man says at the end of the video. He does not identify the group or say whether it is linked to the Taliban or other insurgents operating in Afghanistan.

In recent weeks, the Taliban have offered media interviews with their foreign hostages, apparently hoping to appeal to public sentiment and thereby pressure the Afghan government to release Taliban prisoners. In such cases, the hostage's comments and message are controlled by the captors and the statements are made in that context.

Germany's Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the video.

Police earlier Sunday said that the Taliban militants were not responsible for the abduction of the woman, who was seized Saturday as she dined with her husband at a restaurant in Kabul.

Ali Shah Paktiawal, head of police criminal investigations in Kabul, said authorities had launched a large-scale manhunt for those behind the kidnapping of the 31-year-old woman.

Paktiawal ruled out involvement of the Taliban in the abduction, but would not say who was responsible.

Kabul provincial police chief Esmatullah Dauladzai said it was premature to say who was involved, but that he was "very, very optimistic" that the woman would be released soon. He would not explain the reason for his optimism.

In Saturday's kidnapping, four men pulled up to a restaurant in a gray Toyota Corolla, and one went inside and asked to order a pizza, intelligence officials investigating the incident said.

They said two other men waited outside, while another remained in the car.

The man in the restaurant pulled out a pistol, walked up to a table where the couple was sitting and took her from the restaurant, the officials said on condition of anonymity due to agency policy. The husband was not abducted.

Police spotted the speeding car and opened fire, but hit a nearby taxi and killed its driver.

The woman and her husband, also a German, have worked for the Christian organization Ora International in Kabul since September 2006, said Ulf Baumann, a spokesman for the group.

Baumann did not disclose the woman's name or her husband's. He said she was fluent in Dari.

Abduction fears have risen after 23 South Koreans and two Germans were taken hostage in separate incidents last month in central Afghanistan.

One of the German men was shot to death. The other remains in captivity.

Two of the South Koreans were shot to death, and two were freed. A Taliban spokesman said Saturday that negotiations for their release had failed.

In southern Afghanistan, a NATO soldier was killed escorting a convoy in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, while four Afghan security guards died in a suicide attack.

Violence has risen sharply during the last two months in Afghanistan. This year more than 3,700 people — most of them militants — have died, according to an Associated Press tally of casualty figures provided by Western and Afghan officials.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan celebrates independence from Britain
Sun Aug 19, 10:06 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - President Hamid Karzai led Afghanistan's Independence Day celebrations on Sunday with a call to the country's young people to educate themselves to preserve their freedom.

Karzai told tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital's sports stadium that Afghanistan's youth should "spend every second of their lives in learning" to maintain the country's cherished independence.

"To maintain Afghanistan's independence the youth of the country the youngsters must spend every second of their lives in learning, and better learning," Karzai told the gathering.

An enthusiastic Karzai asked the crowd to repeat after him "we want to learn and live better."

"Do you want to learn, become engineers, doctors and experts?," Karzai asked the crowd. "Say yes, loudly, Yes," Karzai exhorted. The crowd applauded and shouted: "yes, yes, we do."

Reiterating condemnation of Taliban attacks on the 88th anniversary of full sovereignty from Britain, he warned there were still "plots against our independence by the enemies of this land."

Karzai denounced "the killing of innocent people -- men, women and children," referring to the 15 victims, including 11 civilians, killed in a Taliban-linked suicide bombing in southern Afghanistan on Saturday.

Although Afghanistan was never a full colony of Britain, London under a treaty controlled its foreign affairs until agreeing to allow full independence on August 19, 1919.

Afghans had earlier fought three wars against the British, the first starting in 1838 and the last ending months before the 1919 agreement.

Russia invaded the country in December 1979, kicking off a 10-year rebellion that eventually forced the Red Army to withdraw in 1989. The Soviet withdrawal heralded a civil war that killed tens of thousands of civilians.

The emergence of the Taliban brought about a brief period of stability after civil war had soured a rebel victory over a Soviet invasion force, but the Islamist extremists' sponsorship of Al-Qaeda eventually led to their overthrow in the US-led invasion in late 2001.

"Taliban and terrorists had captured Afghanistan under a plot which was defeated with the support of international community and Afghan sons," Karzai said.

Sunday's ceremony included a military parade by the newly-trained Afghan national army and police being trained under an internationally-backed effort to help the Central Asian nation stand on its own feet after decades of conflicts.

Some 5,000 British troops currently form part of a 50,000-strong international force deployed in Afghanistan to combat a Taliban insurgency.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Ahmadinejad felicitates Afghanistan National Day
Tehran, Aug 19, IRNA
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday congratulated the Afghan government and people on the occasion of the country's National Day.

Ahmadinejad congratulated his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in his congratulatory message.

According to the Information and Media Bureau of the Presidential Office, the Iranian president expressed hope that Iran and Afghanistan ould expand their friendly relations in light of political will of the two Muslim an brotherly nations.
Back to Top
Back to Top
10 Taliban said killed in base attack
Mon Aug 20, 4:37 AM ET
 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Dozens of Taliban fighters attacked an Afghan military base in restive southern Afghanistan but pulled out after losing 10 of their fighters, an official said Monday.

The rebels left their dead comrades on the battlefield and "escaped after tough resistance" Sunday night at the base in the Taliban-dominated Sangin district of southern Helmand province, district chief Ezatullah Khan said.

"After two hours of intense fighting, 10 Taliban were killed and the rest of them escaped," Khan said. Four militants were injured, he said.

The troops from the newly-trained internationally-sponsored Afghan national army did not suffer any casualties, he said.

The hardline Taliban are active in Sangin, a poppy-cultivating region reclaimed by the government early this year.

Almost six years after being overthrown from power in a US-led military offensive, the Taliban are waging an insurgency of attacks, suicide bombings and Iraqi-style kidnappings.

The insurgency which is being resisted by Afghan security forces and a 50,000-strong international force has intensified in the past two years.

Thousands of people, mainly rebels, have died.

The focus of the Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban unrest is on mountainous regions across southern and eastern Afghanistan near the long border with Pakistan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan: In Hostage Talks, NGOs Walk Tightrope
By Jeffrey Donovan Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
August 19, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Call it the deadly dilemma.

Terrorists or militants take a civilian hostage. But the government won't negotiate, saying that giving in to their demands would only encourage further abductions. So the life of the hostage is left hanging in the balance.

Enter the NGO.

In times of war, such as in Afghanistan, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been used to fill the vacuum left by reluctant governments and talk to hostage takers, such as the Taliban.

The results have been mixed, at best. But then again, nobody ever said hostage negotiation is an easy business.

'Complicated Situation'

"Getting involved in such things can be very tricky," says Carlo Garbagnati, vice president of Emergency, an Italian NGO that runs hospitals and first-aid points across Afghanistan, including in the violent southern regions that have witnessed a dramatic resurgence of the Taliban insurgency.

"It's never clear. Nobody ever wants the same thing, even among the kidnappers. So, getting involved in such a complicated thing is tough, and it's not even what we do for a living," Garbagnati says.

Because of its unique presence and contacts in those areas, the NGO was asked by the Italian government in the spring to help secure the release of Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a well-known Italian journalist whom the Taliban had taken hostage.

Garbagnati says Emergency gladly accepted, since the NGOs raison d'etre is about saving lives.

No 'Rewarding' Terrorists

But he acknowledges that an NGOs outlook is not always the same as a government's. As former White House spokesman Scott McClellan put it last year in discussing U.S. policy on talking to terrorists: "We put them [terrorists] out of business. The terrorists started this war, and the president made it clear that we will end it at a time and place of our choosing."

So it came as little surprise that the United States denounced the deal that Emergency brokered to secure Mastrogiacomo's release. Under the deal, five jailed Taliban militants -- three of them high-level -- were freed in exchange for the reporter.

The United States, Germany, Britain, and the Netherlands all complained that the deal put NATO troops in danger and rewarded kidnappers.

It also was seen as a blow to the prestige of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who reportedly signed off on the deal, but later vowed publicly that there would be no more deals with terrorists.

Indeed, Garbagnati says that in the talks, the Taliban seemed more interested in sullying Karzai's reputation than in securing the release of its own prisoners or receiving ransom money.

"They didn't want to know anything about money. It irritated them to talk about it," he says. "They exclusively sought the release of their prisoners. But did they really care what or how many prisoners were released? Or was it really more about winning some political game with the Karzai government? The latter point was probably it."

Carry-Over Effect On Korean Negotiations

In recent days, it's seemed that the Mastrogiacomo affair has hung over the talks South Korean officials have conducted with the Taliban in a bid to win the release of 19 civilian aid workers.

Afghan officials have spoken little about the talks. Ghazni Province Governor Merajuddin Pattan told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan this week that officials had allowed the Koreans to meet with the militants.

"We haven't met with [the Taliban] face-to-face. On the request of the Korean delegation, to secure the release of the Korean hostages, we have given the Taliban the chance of face-to-face talks with the Korean delegation," Pattan said. "Otherwise, they are always hiding in holes."

Apparently, that's all the government has been willing to concede so far.

Indeed, on August 18, the Taliban said the talks had failed and that they are now deciding the fate of the 19 Koreans. A Taliban spokesman said the Korean negotiators apparently did not have the power to persuade Kabul to meet demands for the release of its members from prison.

Kabul, this time, appears unwilling to give in to the Taliban's demands.

Different Priorities

Garbagnati acknowledges that governments, especially in times of war, have a different set of priorities than NGOs:

The NGOs' "approach values life differently than does, say, a government. It's understandable," he says. "Governments have armies. They make war. They have a horizon of values that is different, even if they want the same thing. I believe the Afghan government would be quite happy if the Korean hostage situation were resolved favorably. But while it's willing to do some things, it's not willing to do many other things."

The Taliban, who originally abducted 23 Koreans, have killed two of them and released two others. Now they are threatening that their final price will be very high if their demands aren't met.

Garbagnati knows what he would do. "The idea [is] to try and obtain salvation -- which means that a person, or in this case, about 20 people, rather than dying, live," he said. "Well, it's in the DNA of an NGO to try do what it believes in."

It seems that in such situations, there are two choices, and both are unacceptable.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Price of Dependence on America
By Doug Bandow The Korea Times (South Korea) August 19, 2007
Korea has joined the first rank of nations. You wouldn't know it, however, listening to the Korean public's reaction to the kidnapping and murder of Korean aid workers in Afghanistan.

It’s America's fault.

In the view of many Koreans, the U.S. is to blame because the Republic of Korea sent troops to Afghanistan. And the U.S. is to blame because Kabul has not conceded the Taliban's demands for a prisoner swap.

Family members met with U.S. diplomatic personnel to request American aid. Protestors held candlelight vigils outside of the U.S. Embassy.

Signs included such messages as ``Bush: Don't kill, negotiate’’ and ``Americans = human beings; Koreans = flies.’’ A parliamentary delegation raced to Washington to lobby for U.S. action.

Moreover, the issue has become a campaign issue. Chung Dong-young, a candidate of what is left of the ruling party, wrote President George W. Bush requesting that the president ``save the hostages.’’ Chung explained: ``Koreans believe that, since this crisis is a part of the war on terror, the U.S. is the main party and not a third party.’’

Five years ago a U.S. military vehicle hit and killed two school girls, sparking nationwide protests which helped elect Roh Moo-hyun president. Chung and others running for his party's nomination hope for a similar electoral effect today.

Obviously, the hostage-taking is a tragedy. But swapping military captives for civilian hostages increases the Taliban's incentive to grab foreigners. For this reason the U.S. and its allies criticized Kabul for releasing Taliban prisoners earlier this year in exchange for an Italian journalist.

If the captives don't come home alive, some South Koreans predict substantial damage to the U.S.-ROK relationship. Relations have been rocky for some time, especially given differences over policy towards Pyongyang.

North Korean intransigence has sapped some enthusiasm for the North, but President Roh will soon meet North Korea's Kim Jong-il in a second intra-Korean summit. The Afghan kidnappings could push Seoul's relations with America into another downward spiral.

The fact that so many South Koreans blame Washington for the Afghan hostage-taking provides another reason to end the current alliance, which locks the South into a dependent position.

As long as the ROK plays junior partner to the U.S., South Korea is going to be pressed to follow America's lead and South Koreans are going to blame America when policies go wrong.

Since the Korean War the ROK has raced past the North; the former now possesses twice the population and about 40 times the economic strength of Pyongyang. With the end of the Cold War, China and Russia have forged friendly relations with Seoul.

North Korea possesses a quantitative military lead, but its decrepit forces would fare poorly in battle. Nor is the South locked into a position of numerical inferiority. The ROK does not do more because it sees no need to do more.

It's time for Washington to end the blame game. That means ending Seoul's dependence on America. This doesn't mean terminating the wide-ranging relationships between the two nations; to the contrary, both countries should promptly ratify the proposed free trade agreement. But there's no need for Washington to defend the South.

South Korea's economy is among the dozen largest in the world, its companies range the globe doing business, and its people, as illustrated by the ill-starred aid workers, are taking Korea to the world. Serious nations have an obligation to defend themselves.

Ending America's security guarantee and troop deployment would leave the ROK's future in its hands. The South could decide whether to intervene in a nation like Afghanistan without worrying lest a negative decision trigger Washington's displeasure.

Obviously, it is frustrating for South Koreans to see their fellow citizens kidnapped and murdered. But the Korean government made a sovereign decision to send troops to Afghanistan; the 23 Korean Christians made personal decisions to travel to Afghanistan.

The Korean public should hold its politicians and fellow citizens, not the U.S. government, responsible for their actions.

More important, by ending its dependence on the U.S., the ROK could take over the lead in fashioning policy towards the North and other neighboring states.

No longer could Washington plan a war without bothering to consult with South Korean leaders, as did President Bill Clinton, for instance. The ROK would set the Korean agenda.

Americans and South Koreans alike should hope and pray for the safe return of the hostages. But the tragic problem belongs to South Koreans, not Americans.

Washington should announce that it is turning responsibility for the ROK's defense back to Seoul. The South has become a leader among nations. It is time South Korea acted accordingly.

Doug Bandow is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and the author of several books, including ``Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire’’ (Xulon Press) and ``Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World’’ (Cato Institute). He is vice president for policy of Citizen Outreach.
Back to Top
Back to Top
War on polio hits a wall in volatile Afghanistan
Two-decade effort gaining elsewhere
By John Donnelly The Boston Globe August 19, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The nearly two-decade, $5 billion campaign to eradicate polio has made significant gains in reducing the virus's strongest strain, but the global battle is in a difficult end game: Fighting in Afghanistan has kept vaccinators from reaching about 100,000 children for nearly a year, allowing the disease to flourish in the remote region.

The overall effort to wipe out the most severe strain of the polio virus has registered a dramatic turnaround in only a matter of months, however. Just 146 cases of that strain have been reported so far this year worldwide, compared with 1,667 in all of last year.

If that trend continues, the global campaign this year will record the fewest number of type 1 polio cases ever, health officials said in interviews.

When the eradication campaign began in 1988, the crippling, sometimes deadly virus was still being transmitted in 125 countries, paralyzing more than 1,000 children a day. Today, only four countries -- Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan -- have significant rates of transmission, and just 2,000 cases were reported worldwide last year.

Still, it was the highest number of reported polio cases in seven years. Some critics have questioned whether public health advocates could reach the goal of complete global eradication of the disease, like the elimination of smallpox.

The recent success, coming after a string of disappointing years during which the disease rebounded, can be traced to changes in strategy made in 2006. The most important decision involved using vaccinations targeted at a specific strain of polio, instead of a vaccine that targets all three strains at once, organizers said.

Type 1 not only paralyzes people at higher rates than the two other types, but also is more easily transmitted and spread. Genetic tests on cases in far-flung regions are almost always found to be type 1 polio.

Organizers also scheduled vaccination campaigns closer together to increase the immunity of children under age 5, especially in densely populated parts of India's Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states, where about 20 million children are immunized in each effort.

"By late last year we were after a shift in the tools and tactics. More of the same wasn't going to get it finished," said Bruce Aylward, director the polio eradication initiative at the World Health Organization.

Overall, 345 polio cases have been reported worldwide of types 1 and 3 this year, compared with 872 at this time in 2006. But the dropoff in type 1 polio cases is even more dramatic.

The state of Kano in northern Nigeria, for instance, had 303 cases of type 1 polio in 2006, but has had no cases this year. In 20 districts in urban western Uttar Pradesh state in India -- considered by veterans of the campaign as perhaps the most stubborn area of polio resistance in the world -- just three cases of type 1 have been reported so far this year.

Last year, all of Uttar Pradesh had 548 type 1 cases.

Still, the eradication campaign faces other stiff challenges, including funding gaps, the rise of one of the other strains of polio, and the lack of access to children in parts of Afghanistan.

The program needs $60 million from global donors by November, and an additional $355 million by the end of next year to continue. It received one major break in June when GAVI (formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization), which supports immunization efforts around the world, contributed an advance of $100 million to support the eradication campaigns; the group had set the money aside to buy large quantities of the vaccine in the event that eradication was achieved.

Transmission of type 3 polio, meanwhile, has shown no signs of abating, with 199 cases so far this year, compared with 331 last year. Organizers said it was due to the focus on combating type 1; several recent rounds of vaccinations aimed at type 3 polio have begun recently in several areas.

The last known case of type 2 occurred in India in 1999.

The problem in Afghanistan seems especially troublesome because there is no immediate fix. The country has recorded seven polio cases so far this year, and while that represents a small number, officials worry the figure could jump quickly.

Dr. Tahir Mir, the WHO team leader on polio eradication in Afghanistan, said by phone from Kabul that bursts of fighting between NATO-Afghan troops and Taliban-Al Qaeda forces have made areas of Helmand Province too dangerous for his teams of vaccinators. The ongoing combat has made the region inaccessible for nearly a year, he said.

"Our campaigns are going down and down because of this almost-war situation in Helmand," he said. "We haven't been able to access all the children. We are totally stuck in the southern region."

While the Afghan government and the NATO-led International Assistance Security Force are willing to commit to a cease-fire during planned vaccine campaigns, Mir said, he cannot strike a similar deal with Taliban and Al Qaeda forces because their leaders are often impossible to reach.

"In some places, there's no visible leadership," Mir said. "Where we can talk with them, it's a mixed response. Some help, some don't."

The result, he said, is that polio will flourish in southern Afghanistan without a negotiated breakthrough. "It looks to be a very happy virus," he said. "Unfortunately, we cannot attack it."
AFGHANISTAN: Dealing with the Taliban on humanitarian issues
KABUL, 19 August 2007 (IRIN) - Unlike big international aid organisations in Afghanistan, young volunteers working for the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) in central Ghazni Province are easily able to reach and assist needy people.

"We do not have problems with the Taliban," Ghulam Mohammad Mujahid, the director of ARCS in Ghazni, told IRIN.

"Our volunteers have always delivered available humanitarian aid to the people affected in natural disasters and conflicts," Mujahid added.

In a country where large swaths of territory remain inaccessible to the UN and other aid organisations owing to security restrictions, the poorly equipped ARCS volunteers are responding to humanitarian challenges in their impoverished province.

Drought, poor health services, widespread poverty, armed conflict and acute vulnerability to sporadic flooding are major problems which have kept thousands of people in Ghazni on the threshold of a complex humanitarian emergency, experts say.

Staying safe is of paramount importance to volunteers and makes it all the more important that they adhere to their guiding principles of neutrality and impartiality.

"We do not display any [Afghan] government or US markings when we deliver aid," Faez Ahmad, a volunteer, said, describing the secret of his ability to deliver relief to areas constantly under surveillance by both sides in the conflict.

Hostage crisis

On 19 July, Taliban fighters kidnapped 23 South Korean Christian aid workers who wanted to travel from the capital, Kabul, to Kandahar Province in the south by bus. Two of the hostages were murdered after Afghan authorities refused to comply with the Taliban's demand for the release of several of their prisoners from Afghan government jails.

Taliban representatives and South Korean diplomats held direct talks at the ARCS office in Ghazni town on 10 August - the first time Taliban representatives have attended a formal meeting to discuss their officially proscribed activities since their ouster from power in 2001.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and its Afghan partner, ARCS, facilitated the meeting which was designed to find "mutually beneficial" ways of safely releasing the 21 remaining South Koreans kidnapped by the Taliban. Since 10 August, representatives of the Taliban and South Korean diplomats have repeatedly held talks at the ARCS office in Ghani.

Three days after the first meeting, the insurgents handed over Kim Kyung-ja, 37, and Kim Ji-na, 32, to the ICRC.

"We are happy we managed to play this role and we are proud the early results are positive," said Reto Stocker, head of the ICRC delegation in Afghanistan.

Expanding accessibility

The ability of the ICRC and the ARCS to facilitate dialogue with the insurgents has prompted some Afghans to ask whether it might be possible to establish contacts with the Taliban for purely humanitarian reasons.

Many of those who distrust the insurgents, however, say that any effort to achieve Taliban consent for humanitarian and development operations will undoubtedly end in failure.

"The Taliban have always deliberately defied international humanitarian law and other rules applied in times of armed conflict," said a UN official, who preferred anonymity.

However, the Red Cross and its Afghan partner, who maintain contacts with both warring sides in Afghanistan, are trying to expand the limited humanitarian room for manoeuvre throughout the country.

"We think that, in terms of people needing our assistance because they have been affected by the conflict, who they are and where they are should not make a difference to our efforts to help them," Stocker told IRIN in his office in Kabul.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Germany weighs bigger Afghan deployment but counts cost
by Jean-Louis de La Vaissiere Sun Aug 19, 6:05 AM ET
BERLIN (AFP) - The killing of three Germans this week and the kidnapping of another three German civilians have triggered an anguished debate on the dangers and aims of Berlin's deployment in Afghanistan.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's left-right government has said the setbacks have only strengthened its resolve and that it is even mulling sending more troops to the strife-ravaged country.

The stance is politically risky, however, with a strong majority of Germans -- 64 percent -- calling for withdrawal, 10 points more than two months ago, according to a poll by the independent research group Infratest in early August.

And with a vote on the mandate due in October in the Bundestag lower house of parliament, opposition parties have tried to capitalise on widespread battle fatigue over an open-ended mission.

Germany is involved in training Afghan security forces, has contributed some 3,000 troops to the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force and has six Tornado reconnaissance planes helping to spot Taliban hideouts.

About 100 elite troops have a mandate to participate in the US-led anti-Taliban Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) but are not currently deployed against insurgents in the south.

Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung insists that the extension of all the missions is needed.

"We need three mandates in the future so that we can set up self-supporting security in Afghanistan," he told Friday's Bild newspaper.

"The terrorists must not be allowed to have any success with their perfidious attacks."

Deputy foreign minister Gernot Erler went further, saying there was a growing faction in parliament calling for a more robust German role in Afghanistan in the face of NATO demands for the country to take on responsibilities commensurate with its size.

"There is a broad consensus on the German political scene even after Wednesday's tragedy not to let such attacks throw us off track," he told Friday's Berliner Zeitung, referring to a bombing in Kabul that killed two German police officers and a foreign ministry employee.

Erler said this might include German soldiers training Afghan troops in the volatile south of the country, although he acknowledged that the German public was resistant to a stronger engagement.

"We must do more to make the direct connection between security in Germany and the success of the deployment in Afghanistan clear," he said.

In the five years since it deployed in Afghanistan after the ouster of the radical Taliban regime, Germany has lost 25 soldiers, three police officers and four civilians.

The past month has been particularly grim with the abduction of two German engineers by the Taliban, one of whom was shot to death. The other is reportedly ill and begging for his life.

And on Saturday, a German woman working for a Christian aid group was snatched by armed men in Kabul.

The conservative Welt am Sonntag on Sunday laid out the arguments for and against pulling German forces out of Afghanistan, but concluded that "withdrawal is not an option".

Each piece of bad news has proved traumatic for a country that has only in the last decade breached its postwar taboo against military deployments abroad.

Former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder offered "unlimited solidarity" to the United States after the suicide hijackings of September 11, 2001, staking his centre-left government on a commitment to helping stabilise Afghanistan.

But over the years, more Germans have begun to ask why their soldiers are fighting and dying in central Asia.

The Left Party, an alliance of former communists and disaffected Social Democrats, has led calls for an immediate withdrawal, while the Greens and the pacifist wing of the Social Democrats, partners in the governing coalition, have demanded the end of the OEF mission.

"The US intervention in the south has not created more security but reinforces hatred and violence due to the number of civilian victims," the co-leader of the Greens, Claudia Roth, said.

The left-leaning Sueddeutsche Zeitung said that while the mandates were likely to be extended, Berlin needed to begin an honest debate on an exit strategy and its political goals for Afghanistan.

"No one who wants to be taken seriously will demand that Germany immediately withdraw but things cannot go on the way they are either," it said in an editorial this week.

"Therefore all three mandates should be extended, but the time until next year should be used to develop a new concept with the allies that the Afghans will accept. And moderate forces currently supporting the Taliban must also be included in the peace process."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Pak-Afghan Jirga: A Get-Together of Ruling Elites
Muhammad Khurshid American Chronicle August 19, 2007
It is not yet clear who are the parties in the jirga held in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Jirga is terminology of the tribal areas. It is held when there is a disputes among some parties on some issues. The elders of tribal areas gather and discuss the matters and solve the problem. Jirga is powerful institution at least in the tribal areas as the its decision must be accepted by the dueding parties.

But ironically in Kabul jirga there was no dispute and no party. One can say it is get-together of the ruling elites, but in real term it was not jirga. Niether the Pakistani officials nor the Afghanis have been knowing the meaning of the jirga. The officials asked some tribesmen to wear the constumes of the maliks, who are the members of the jirga. All the members for the jirga was picked by the officials. There was no real representative from the tribal side, the main party in the jirga. Some of the tribal observers said that it will be far better if the one party was tribesmen and the other the Americans.

A Pakistan official Mehmood Shah, who remained the secretary of FATA security who attended the jirg said that to say that the situation in Afghanistan is grave would be an understatement. Every passing day sees the US becoming mired ever deeper in Afghanistan à la Iraq, because of its faulty strategy. In its desperation, it is looking for supporting planks and is leaning more and more on Pakistan. Thus the mantra of “do more”.

Meanwhile, Kabul, the proverbial capital of intrigues, is bustling with renewed activities. People are talking about a new great game related to the oil and gas reserves of the Central Asian Republics and trade opportunities that mask the ambitions of the US and the new emerging superpowers. It is in the backdrop of this environment that Pakistan is getting sucked into the situation in the name of the peace jirga.

He said that he participated in the Pak Afghan Joint Peace Jirga in Kabul held from Aug 9 to Aug 12, 2007 with the aim of being useful, despite many people questioning the wisdom of such a jirga. Will the latter be able to achieve results or will it lead to Pakistan getting further sucked into a situation from which extrication would be difficult.

In its 60 years, Pakistan has suffered for 30 mainly because of the fallout from the situation inside Afghanistan. In this peace jirga, one saw the same old players with suspect loyalties and ambitions occupying front seats in new roles. They are the same Ustad Rabbani, Ustad Rasool Sayaf, Pir Sayyed Ahmad Gillani, Ismail Khan Toran, Rasheed Dostum and Pir Sayyed Mujadadi. Of course, the late Ahmad Shah Masud has been succeeded by Ameen Faheem and Younas Qanooni.

The main spokesman Abdullah Abdullah was co-chairing the jirga with Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao from Pakistan’s side. All the main Afghan speakers, well-prepared unlike their Pakistani counterparts, carried venom in their hearts against Pakistan — in spite of the lip service paid to long historical linkages and the hospitality of the Pakistani people towards five million Afghan refugees.Afghanistan’s hostile attitude towards Pakistan since its inception is not a new phenomenon. The attacks on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul and its consulates in Jalalabad on the slight pretext are well known and common.

Thus those who understand Pakistan-Afghan relations are justified in wondering as to who conceived this novel idea of the peace jirga and for what purpose. The men behind this are those who authored and brokered the infamous North Waziristan agreement.In an effort to sell the North Waziristan agreement, the role of the peace jirgas was overstated, and George Bush was prompt in observing that if these could resolve issues, why not have them between Pakistan and Afghanistan. We had to agree.

Pakistan realised the disastrous effects of the North Waziristan agreement after 10 months, after considerable damage to its writ and the resultant spread of the menace of Talibanisation to settled areas, right up to Islamabad.

Let us hope that our journey to this jirga does not land us into further trouble.

Talibanisation is an ideology and US operations in Afghanistan, instead of dealing with the threat posed by this ideology, are focused solely on getting hold of Osama Bin Laden, Ayman-al-Zawahiri, Mulla Omar etc. The stabilisation of society in Afghanistan does not seem to be high on their list of priorities. Thus the common man in Afghanistan, particularly in the Pashtun-dominated southern and eastern provinces, faces lack of security and the absence of service delivery.

The rank and file of the Taliban in Afghanistan is not only swelling but the effects of this phenomenon are spreading towards the adjoining tribal areas of Pakistan.

Owing to the Pakistani government’s inconsistent tribal policy that changes with the appointment of each new governor, the menace is spreading to the settled areas of Pakistan on hand and to the crossing of some Taliban into Afghanistan on the other, thus giving enough reason to Kabul to blame Pakistan for all its troubles.

Was the Pak Afghan Joint Peace Jirga beneficial to Pakistan? For an answer, it is imperative that the dynamics of the jirga system be clearly understood. The jirga is a formal forum to resolve issues in Pashtun tradition but it has certain prerequisites. First is the precise definition of the issue or issues that can be equated with terms of reference for the jirga.

Second is the nomination of the parties involved in the conflict and their willingness to submit to the jirga. This is known as “wak” or “ikhtiar”. These aspects were missing in this jirga.

The present issue is between Al Qaeda and the Taliban on the one side and the Afghan government and Nato forces on the other. Since neither side is willing to negotiate, one is at a loss to understand as to how a peace jirga between the people of the NWFP and Balochistan and the people of Afghanistan can resolve the issue, especially when the main contenders are not represented.

Whether non-state actors should be represented is an altogether different question. There are those who contend that this jirga would at least bring the two people together to get to know each other more. Do the people of the NWFP and Balochistan and the Afghans require further introduction?

Some nationalist elements in Balochistan and the NWFP and on the Afghan side question the validity of the Durand Line, the international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The government should be aware that such frequent meetings could give impetus to this dormant issue.

There are those who think that the new game is to “pretend” that there are issues between Afghanistan and Pakistan that need to be resolved. Such issues would subsequently be used as a pretext to involve Pakistan in the war in Afghanistan, thus paving the way for joint operations involving Pakistani territory.

All such theories need to be given due consideration by Pakistan before the government haphazardly peruses processes which have not been thought through.

As already mentioned, the Afghan side had prepared very well for this jirga, with the aim of putting the whole blame on Pakistan for the present situation in Afghanistan. They wanted the delegates from Pakistan to believe that all Taliban under Mulla Omar are Pakistanis or have been trained by Pakistan and are being financed and directed by it.

The speakers had been well selected and had prepared with proper speeches. On the Pakistan side, such preparations were hardly visible. The participants consisted of three main strands: nationalist parties like the ANP and Pashtun Khwa Milli Awami Party with their own ideologies, traders who wanted to establish/refresh links with their counterparts in Afghanistan, and simple tribesmen who did not know what to do and what to say.It was said that the Afghan delegates had more than 60 meetings to prepare for this jirga. On Pakistan’s side, there were hardly any preparations. Everyone was on his own, creating an embarrassing situation for the Pakistani delegation despite some last-minute efforts by Mr Sherpao to bring some sanity to the proceedings.

To quote just one example, the Afghan side was so consistent in its efforts that Abdullah Abdullah, known for his anti-Pakistan stance, was monitoring the progress of each subcommittee personally.

The attorney-general of Afghanistan, with a full team of lawyers, was the member of the first committee which was to deal with the main issue of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. This equated to allegations against Pakistan and the propaganda which the Afghan government carries out against it.

The proceedings of this committee started from 8am on Aug 11 and continued until 4am on Aug 12. The Pakistan side had no qualified person to draft the recommendations. The result was a diluted version of the recommendations which assumed the form of a trade agreement. These recommendations were never placed before the committee and were announced in the morning in a hurry.

The jirga also witnessed some ugly moments. At one point, the tribal leaders wanted to walk out and address a press conference on the plea that if the Pakistani delegation accepted the whole blame for the situation in Afghanistan, they would be the ones that would have to take action.

In fact, they would be required to stop cross-border incursions and that would mean the complete consent of their tribes which would be a tall order, particularly when they had not discussed the issue with them beforehand.

On another occasion, Hazrat Pir Sayyed Mujadadi, not satisfied with the venom that he had spewed against Pakistan from the rostrum in the main jirga hall, while leading the Friday prayers started talking against Pakistan in the khutba.

Some of the tribal elders from Pakistan stood up and refused to offer prayers behind him and forced him down from the pulpit.

In spite of all this, one must accept that the way the Afghan government and the people treated the guests from Pakistan was really praiseworthy. They had put in much effort to arrange accommodation, transportation and food, and their movements appeared to have been well coordinated and they remained very courteous in spite of provocations.

The British, after three costly wars, learnt that the best way to deal with Afghanistan was to leave it to its own fate and concentrate on controlling the borders between Afghanistan and the territories now representing Pakistan. This is the lesson available to the rulers of Pakistan. One wishes they would understand this plain logic. But then a wish is not a fish that one can fry and enjoy.
Back to Top

 Back to News Archirves of 2007
 
Disclaimer: This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).