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ASDADABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) - Ten civilians were killed when Taliban rebels fired rockets at a US base in eastern Afghanistan Friday, while two Afghan soldiers died in a suicide bombing outside Kabul airport.
The attacks were the latest in the war-torn country that have targeted international troops combating the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist movement but ended up claiming the lives of Afghans instead.
The 10 civilians died and another five were wounded when militants fired rockets at the US-led coalition base in eastern Kunar province's Chawkai district which hit a nearby village, police and officials said.
"The Taliban fired several rockets over the base but the rockets fell short and landed on civilian homes," police official Abdul Sabour Allahyar told AFP. Government officials described the attack as "intense."
The coalition, which has around 12,000 troops mainly in eastern and southern Afghanistan on counter-terrorism duties, confirmed that its base came under attack but could not provide information on casualties.
"There's a base up there (Chawkai) which received 10 rounds in indirect fire. We did not return any fire," coalition spokesman Sergeant Dean Welch said.
Earlier in the day, a suicide attacker rammed his explosives-packed car nose-to-nose with an international military vehicle which was leaving the heavily secured NATO military gate of Kabul International Airport.
The vehicle did not explode immediately and the foreign car sped off before the blast, which caught a group of Afghan soldiers preparing to fly to Italy for military training, witnesses said.
One of the soldiers, aged in his late 20s, was killed, said Sergeant Aminullah, an Afghan soldier who witnessed the attack. Another died later of his wounds, a defence ministry official said.
About nine other Afghans, including two civilians, were wounded, government officials said.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said the incident injured five of its troops.
The 37-nation ISAF does not give the nationalities of its casualties but Brussels and Berlin said they were four Belgians, who had been guarding the gate, and a German.
Blood-spattered military boots and caps littered the scene where the other soldiers, who numbered about 30 and appeared shocked, waited with their bags, an AFP reporter said.
Aminullah said the soldiers had been due to spend a month in Italy being trained in the mountains.
The Islamist Taliban movement, waging an insurgency against the government, claimed responsibility for the suicide blast.
Attacks in Kabul are relatively uncommon but the last such blast around a week ago wounded three foreign troops and four Afghan civilians.
Another suicide attack on a police bus on June 17 that killed at least 35 policemen was the worst in Afghanistan since the Taliban launched an insurgency following their ouster from government in late 2001 by US-led forces.
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Suicide bomber strikes near Kabul airport
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives near an entrance to the Afghan capital's airport on Friday, killing two Afghan soldiers and wounding a dozen people, allied forces and witnesses said.
The blast occurred at the NATO controlled side of the combined civil and military airport, they said. An Afghan airport official said civilian flights to and from the airport continued as normal.
Hours after the suicide attack, a mortar raid aimed at a U.S. base in the eastern province of Kunar killed at least 10 Afghan civilians, including women and children, a provincial official said.
Taliban guerrillas who are fighting Western troops and the Afghan government claimed responsibility for the Kabul suicide attack, the latest in a spree over the past 19 months -- the bloodiest period since the Taliban were driven from power in 2001.
"The bomber was in a car and tried to get into the airport through an entrance under the control of ISAF," said senior police official Ali Shah Paktiawal, referring to NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
The bomber crashed his car into an armored NATO vehicle, and the explosives detonated a while later, said an Afghan soldier who witnessed the attack.
ISAF said two Afghan soldiers were killed and five alliance soldiers in the vehicle were wounded in the blast. Four Afghan troops and at least two civilians were also wounded.
The last suicide attack in Kabul occurred a fortnight ago and was aimed at a NATO convoy. Three alliance soldiers were wounded in that attack.
Copying Iraqi insurgents' tactics, the Taliban largely rely on suicide attacks and roadside bombs as part of their campaign against the Afghan government and foreign troops.
U.S.-led coalition forces have clashed with Taliban fighters almost daily in the south, where the insurgents are most active, and say they have killed hundreds in recent months.
On Friday, six Taliban guerrillas were killed in an operation involving U.S. soldiers in Ghazni province, a provincial official there said.
Later in the day, six mortar rounds hit a residential area close to a U.S. base in Chawki district in Kunar province, which lies close to the border with Pakistan, district chief Mohammad Zahir said.
"So far we have seen 10 dead bodies. There are perhaps more. Our search is continuing," Zahir said by telephone.
He said the attack was the work of "Afghanistan's enemies," a term often used by many Afghan officials to describe the Taliban and other allied militants.
A U.S. military spokesman confirmed the mortar bomb attack, but said none of the rounds fell inside the base. He had no information about any civilian casualties. The Taliban could not be reached for comment.
The coalition said on Thursday it killed two dozen Taliban fighters in two separate clashes in the southern provinces of Helmand and Uruzgan, which in turn comes after they said 100 insurgents were killed earlier in the week.
(Additional reporting by Noor Rahman in Jalalabad and Sher Mohammad in Ghazni)
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South Koreans leave Afghanistan after hostage ordeal
By Simon Gardner Friday, August 31, 2007
KABUL (Reuters) - Nineteen newly-freed South Korean hostages headed home on Friday after a six-week kidnap drama in Afghanistan following a deal with Taliban insurgents critics fear could spur more abductions.
The South Korean Christian volunteers, part of a group of 23 missionaries kidnapped in southeast Afghanistan in mid-July, arrived in Dubai on a chartered United Nations plane from Kabul, airport and security officials in Dubai said.
They are expected to spend the night in the Gulf Arab city before leaving on Saturday for Seoul.
The Taliban killed two male hostages, while two women released earlier as a goodwill gesture have already flown home. The insurgents however have vowed to abduct more foreigners.
Some of the released hostages told a small pool of South Korean media in Kabul on Friday they lived in constant fear for their lives and were split up into small groups and shuttled around the Afghan countryside to avoid detection.
One Taliban member would tend to a farm by day and then grab a rifle and stand guard over hostages at night.
"At the beginning I had writing supplies so I kept a diary, but the Taliban kept searching us and took them away," Seo Myung-hwa, 27, was quoted by South Korea's Yonhap news agency as saying.
"Fortunately I was wearing white trousers, so I rolled them up and started writing on July 24." Another freed hostage apologized to South Korea's government and people for causing trouble.
Foreign media was barred from talking to the hostages in line with South Korean government policy.
The last batch of hostages released to the Red Cross outside Ghazni town late on Thursday looked pale, the women covering their faces with scarves. However, Afghan officials said they were in good health.
The kidnapping was the largest in the resurgent Taliban campaign against foreign forces since U.S.-led troops ousted the Islamists from power in 2001.
The Taliban decided to free the hostages after Seoul agreed to pull all its nationals out of the central Asian country.
RANSOM PAID?
Some Afghan officials say South Korea also agreed to pay a ransom during negotiations with the Taliban, which one foreign diplomat said started out as a demand for $20 million, an allegation the Korean government has denied.
Critics say negotiating with the Taliban sets a dangerous precedent and could spur more abductions.
In Washington, the United States welcomed the release of the hostages but strongly condemned the Taliban for taking them in the first place.
"We hope that this firmly brings to a conclusion this incident and that there will not be similar ones that occur in the future," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.
In New York overnight, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was "deeply concerned for the safety and welfare of the other nationals who are being held against their will in Afghanistan," including a German and four Afghans, a spokeswoman said.
Taliban fighters seized two German aid workers and five Afghan colleagues in a separate incident in mid-July in Wardak province, southwest of the capital Kabul. They killed one German. One Afghan escaped.
"To those Taliban who were responsible for this crime, I say shame on you," Tom Koenigs, Ban's special representative for Afghanistan, said in a statement. "What honor is there in kidnapping and mistreating women, and so many of them?"
South Korea had already decided before the crisis to pull its 200 engineers and medical staff out of Afghanistan by the end of this year. Since the hostages were taken, it has banned its nationals from traveling there.
The freed hostages are expected to face a cool reception at home. Some South Koreans say the group are partly to blame after they ignored their government's own advice not to travel to areas where the Taliban are active.
(Additional by Hamid Shalizi in Kabul, Jack Kim in Seoul and Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations and Dina al-Wakeel in Dubai)
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Afghanistan: Man Felt 'Duty' To Deliver Korean Hostages To Freedom
August 31, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Haji Zahir Kharoti is an Afghan tribal elder from Ghazni Province who served as a mediator between the Taliban and the Afghan government during the six-week South Korean hostage crisis.
Kharoti played a key role in establishing the face-to-face talks between South Korean negotiators and the Taliban -- talks that led to the release of the last 19 hostages on August 30. Moreover, with the exception of the two South Korean men killed by the Taliban, Kharoti personally drove all of the hostages to freedom in his own car -- transporting them in small groups from the hands of their captors to officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Asmatullah Sarwar interviewed Kharoti about the experience immediately after he had delivered the last group of hostages to freedom.
RFE/RL: As a result of your efforts, the Korean hostages have been transported to freedom. How do you feel about this now that they are free?
Haji Zahir Kharoti: I'm very happy. In fact, my goal was to do work that benefits the Afghan people, the government, and all Afghans. I have heard in recent days that some Afghans doing business in South Korea -- and even some Muslims praying in the mosques there -- have been confronted by Koreans asking how Afghan Muslims can take hostages. And I've heard that Afghan Muslims in Korea have had shoes thrown at them because of this.
That is why I felt pain about what was happening and felt I had to do something to help them. We did this for the sake of those Afghans who have been confronted in South Korea. I felt this was my duty -- to do my best to solve this problem.
RFE/RL: You knew from the start that this was a dangerous task because you have had to have the trust of both sides -- the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan. Were you afraid of being accused by one side or the other of having a bias?
Kharoti: I was in contact with the government of Afghanistan -- especially Afghanistan's National Security Department. And they gave me permission to do this job. That's why I was involved with this. The first time I was going into Taliban controlled territory, I had the support of Afghan tribal leaders. And through these tribal leaders and elders, I could contact the Taliban and talk to them directly.
[The Taliban] spoke with us and listened very well to what we were saying. They were really cooperating with us. They are human. They are Muslims. They didn't create barriers to communication. And [the Taliban] also gave me permission to resolve this problem in the best way. And I told them that I am doing this for the sake of the people of Afghanistan. I told them I was in contact with the government of Afghanistan. And they said I had permission to talk with the government as well.
RFE/RL: In the beginning, the Taliban was demanding the release of Taliban prisoners. But the Afghan government refused. The government refused to even talk directly with the hostage takers. What was the reaction of the Taliban at that time, and how did they eventually agree to release [21 of the 23] South Korean hostages?
Kharoti: [At the end of the crisis] I was talking to the South Korean negotiators in person and then speaking with the Taliban by telephone. The Taliban finally understood that the South Korean government had no influence over the Afghan government about the release of Taliban prisoners. Therefore, they came to the realization that there was no reason to pressure the Korean negotiators on this issue. They also realized in the end that it was not good that they had abducted women. It is against Islam. Therefore, they decided in respect of Islam to accept another deal with the Korean government negotiators.
RFE/RL: When you were speaking to the Korean negotiators, which language did you use? Which language did the Koreans use when they spoke with the Taliban? Were they talking through a translator?
Kharoti: The representative of the government of [South] Korea in these negotiations was speaking to us and to the Taliban in Persian. Sometimes he was speaking to the Taliban in English as well.
RFE/RL: Who was supervising the negotiations?
Kharoti: We sometimes spoke outside of the headquarters of the provincial reconstruction team [PRT] headquarters [in Ghazni Province]. The Koreans were staying there. [At first] they were coming out to my car [outside the compound]. We would sit in my car and talk. And sometimes I was going inside the PRT to speak with them. Once the Koreans were speaking directly with the Taliban [at the local headquarters of the Afghan Red Crescent Society], nobody was inside the room except those two sides. I sat outside of that room while those talks were going on. Red Cross and Red Cresent officials and I were not involved in [the face-to-face] talks [between the Taliban and the South Koreans].
RFE/RL: What was the behavior of the Taliban like when you were involved in the earlier negotiations -- especially in mid-August, when they released two South Korean women who were ill?
Kharoti: They were behaving very well when they released the ill South Korean women. They had very good manners. They were very polite. In the last group of Korean women to be freed, there was one woman who had been given a Muslim name by the Taliban -- Halema. She was speaking in Persian. She had spent two years in Afghanistan with time in Mazar-e Sharif, so she spoke Persian. At the moment that this last group of women was being released, these women and the Taliban were saying goodbye to each other as if they were members of the same family. It was very good.
RFE/RL: When they were going to be released, we saw that all of these ladies were carrying similar handbags. Was it a gift to them from the Taliban?
Kharoti: No. But the Taliban did give each of them a colorful veil made of silk. And one of the Korean hostages -- a man -- was using his mobile phone to film the moment when the Taliban gave these silk veils to the women.
RFE/RL: How did you get the idea to serve as a mediator in this hostage crisis?
Kharoti: My family was feeling very sad for these hostages. This is our family history. We are always trying to be mediators and to help resolve tribal problems, family problems, and the release of prisoners -- problems like this. I always help people. I am a businessman. I have a trading company. We are doing reconstruction work. And I am also buying and selling real estate. I have given people rides in my own car when they were in need without asking for money. I do this for God's sake. And that's why I had the idea to help resolve this crisis.
RFE/RL: When these hostages were released, you drove them in your car in small groups to the Red Cross headquarters in Ghazni Province, what was that experience like?
Kharoti: The first two ladies, when they were freed and we told them they would be handed over to the [South] Korean government, they were happy and they were laughing. And when they faced the journalists and the officials from the Red Cross, they just started crying. They cried very much. They were very happy. The second, third, and fourth group -- when they were released -- they also were happy. But they weren't as ecstatic as the first two ladies.
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Negotiations Questioned After Taliban Releases Hostages
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
August 31, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The negotiations that led to the release of 19 South Korean hostages this week by their Taliban captors are being described as a "triumph" for the Taliban by some western politicians and analysts.
But others argue that the Afghan government demonstrated strength by refusing to meet directly with the Taliban and by rejecting their demands to trade hostages for Taliban prisoners.
The last remaining hostages were transported to freedom on August 30 after South Korean negotiators struck a deal with the Taliban captors.
The Taliban "succeeded in being treated as a negotiation partner by a sovereign government... From the Taliban's point of view, they demonstrated they can play a role on the international stage."
The negotiators promised that Seoul would withdraw its 200 soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of this year -- a move that already had been decided before the kidnappings. They also promised that South Korea would not send any more "Christian missionaries" to Afghanistan.
Incentive For More Kidnappings?
Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller has expressed fears that civilians now face greater threats because of that deal. He says terrorists could be encouraged to seize more hostages in order to try to dictate the foreign policies of other countries.
In Germany, an opposition Green Party spokesman, Winfrid Nachtwei, said the fact that South Korea negotiated directly with the Taliban was nothing less than "a political triumph," in which all of the Taliban's "extortionate demands" appeared to have been met.
Kabul itself did not deal with the hostage takers. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office rejected suggestions that the negotiations with South Korea meant a propaganda victory for the Taliban.
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan today that South Korean officials did not agree to the terms of their deal with the Taliban until after they had consulted the government in Kabul.
"We are very happy they were released. We were working together with Korean officials to win their safe release so [the hostages] could go back to their homes," Spanta said. "In the last six weeks, we were in contact with the South Korean government in all matters. And all of the steps that they took were done in coordination with the Afghan government."
The Taliban killed two men from the original group of 23 South Korean aid workers kidnapped on July 19. They freed two ill women in mid-August when direct talks with South Korea began, after the failure of negotiations with Afghan mediators. The remaining 19 hostages were freed this week after the deal was reached with South Korea.
Kabul consistently rejected the kidnappers' main demand for Taliban prisoners to be freed in exchange for the South Koreans.
Political Recognition For The Taliban
Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan and director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, told RFE/RL that the deal was a "tactical success" for the Taliban, but said its significance should not be overstated.
The kidnappings prompted protests in Seoul calling for troops to withdraw"It is not a turning point in the history of Afghanistan or the history of NATO or the Western world. It just means [the Taliban] had a tactical success in gaining some political recognition by capturing some hostages -- in the course of which they also committed a war crime by executing two of those hostages," Rubin said. "They succeeded in being interviewed by the press and being treated as a negotiation partner by a sovereign government -- though not a major one. It doesn't signal anything about the political policy of anybody."
Rubin also said it is wrong to suggest that the Taliban achieved everything that it had hoped for when militants seized the South Korean aid workers from a bus in Ghazni Province.
"All their demands weren't met, because they were demanding the release of Taliban prisoners. But I think from the Taliban's point of view, the most important thing was that they demonstrated that they can play a role on the international stage," Rubin said.
"The Taliban did behave as a coherent negotiating partner. They formulated a position. They negotiated. They reached an agreement. And they have implemented that agreement. They have succeeded in legitimizing themselves somewhat more as a political organization," Rubin continued. "But there is a tendency on the part of the media and politicians, when something gets in the headlines, to overinterpret it and [to] think that because they are paying attention to this event, it is a big turning point. It is not."
Demands Not Met
Haji Zahir Kharoti is an Afghan tribal elder in Ghazni Province who attended the negotiations as a mediator and who eventually transported most of the South Korean hostages from their Taliban captors to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Kharoti told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that the Taliban dropped their demands for the release of Taliban prisoners in order to save face after they realized Kabul would not trade hostages for Taliban prisoners.
"The Taliban finally understood that the South Korean government had no influence over the Afghan government about the release of Taliban prisoners," Kharoti said. "They therefore came to the realization that there was no reason to pressure the Korean negotiators on this issue.
The Taliban "also realized in the end that it was not good that they had abducted women. It is against Islam. Therefore, they decided, out of respect for Islam, to accept another deal with the Korean government negotiators," Kharoti said.
But in telephone interviews since the releases, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusef Ahmadi has been telling journalists that more foreigners will be abducted in Afghanistan -- particularly those from countries that have military forces in Afghanistan. Ahmadi says Seoul's decision to negotiate directly with the Taliban made the kidnapping of the South Koreans a success.
(RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan correspondents Asmatullah Sarwan and Saliha Ishaqzai Khaliqi contributed to this report.)
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No ransom paid for released Koreans in Afghanistan - embassy
MOSCOW. Aug 31 (Interfax) - No ransom was paid for the release of South Korean hostages in Afghanistan, the South Korean embassy in Moscow told Interfax.
Taliban members captured a bus carrying 23 South Koreans on a humanitarian mission to Afghanistan in July. They demanded that the South Korean military contingent be withdrawn from the country and their comrades released.
Two South Korean were later killed, while two seriously ill women were released. The others were released following talks between South Korean officials with Taliban representatives on August 28.
South Korean Foreign Minster Song Min-soon, currently visiting Russia, thanked Russia for its assistance and support in releasing the Koreans.
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Ransom paid for SKorean hostages: report
Thu Aug 30, 11:32 PM ET
TOKYO (AFP) - South Korea paid two million dollars to Taliban extremists in Afghanistan to secure the release of 19 hostages, a Japanese newspaper reported Friday.
Citing unidentified sources in Afghanistan, the respected Asahi Shimbun said Afghan mediators persuaded South Korea's ambassador in Kabul that there was no other way to end the six-week kidnap ordeal.
"Two million dollars were paid to release all 19 people," an Afghan mediator was quoted as telling the influential Japanese daily.
The Asahi Shimbun said both a South Korean official and a Taliban spokesman contacted by the newspaper denied any payment.
The Taliban, who earlier killed two of the hostages, freed the 19 Christian aid workers this week after South Korea promised to withdraw its military from Afghanistan as planned and ban missionary groups from the Islamic country.
South Korean officials have not commented on whether a payment was made to any party to help secure the release.
Asked about the Asahi report, a presidential spokesman told AFP Friday that there had been no discussions with the Taliban apart from those on the troop withdrawal and the missionary issue.
The foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Canada have criticised South Korea for negotiating directly with the insurgents, saying it could embolden them.
The Taliban had initially demanded the release of captured fighters from Afghan jails in return for the hostages' lives, but the government in Kabul refused.
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South Koreans Apologize for Hostage Ordeal in Afghanistan
Voice of America 31 August 2007
Two of 19 South Koreans released by Taleban kidnappers in Afghanistan have apologized to the South Korean people and government for the ordeal.
At a news conference in Kabul Friday, one of the hostages, Yu Kyeong-sik, described losing sleep over the agony they caused to the country.
Yu described their July 19 abduction, saying the group of 23 church volunteers was on a chartered bus in southern Afghanistan when their driver picked up two locals. He said about 20 minutes later, the men began shooting and stopped the bus.
Yu said the Taleban split the hostages into groups. He said his own group changed locations 12 times throughout the six weeks of captivity, moved by motorbike or on foot.
The Taleban began releasing the 19 hostages on Wednesday, after striking a deal with South Korean negotiators. Two male hostages were executed last month and, then, two female hostages were released during talks with the Taleban.
Officials say the South Koreans are now on their way to Dubai.
As part of the deal to free the hostages, South Korea agreed to withdraw 200 of its non-combat troops from Afghanistan by year's end - which it had already planned to do - and to suspend missionary work in the country.
Some reports say South Korea paid a substantial ransom to the Taleban, but both sides deny any money was exchanged.
The deal has been criticized by some Afghan officials who say it will only encourage more abductions.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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Reform of Afghan police hindered
ByAunohita Mojumdar in Kabul August 31 2007 The Financial Times
Crucial reform of the Afghan police has been hindered by its neglect by the international donor community, according to a Brussels-based think-tank, resulting in the emergence of a corrupt, inefficient and politicised force.
In a report released on Thursday, the International Crisis Group says that even though they are being paid less than the army, the police are being used in anti-insurgency operations for which they are ill-trained and badly equipped, rendering them as vulnerable targets to anti-government forces. Last year (May 2006-07), 406 police officers were killed compared with 170 soldiers, it says.
There have been some improvements, at least the “hardware” of equipment and buildings, the report says, but the “return on invested human and financial capital is modest”.
The ICG criticises the lead nation approach to the security sector whereby different donor countries were made responsible for a particular sector - the US for the Afghan National Army and Germany (recently replaced by the EU Police Mission to Afghanistan) for the police. This, it says, results in the “absence of a comprehensive strategy” and a failure to grasp the “centrality of comprehensive reform of the law enforcement and justice sectors”.
The Afghan National Army “received the lion’s share of attention though a reformed police and judiciary would have had far more impact on the average citizen’s life and perception of the government’s legitimacy”.
The result has been the emergence of a force which citizens view “more as a source of fear than of security”, the ICG says, noting that currently even the numbers of Afghanistan’s police force on duty are not known.
The report documents a highly politicised appointments procedure in the police with factional networks and those linked to the drugs world competing for posts especially those that oversee smuggling routes. It says the Karzai government lacks the political will to tackle a culture of impunity and end political interference, resorting to reshuffling police chiefs from one province to another in response to complaints.
Humayun Hamidzada, presidential spokesperson, said : “I have not seen the report as yet, but in general I can say the president and the government are trying seriously to reform the police. The president on Friday called a meeting of police chiefs and spoke of the urgent need of building confidence and regaining trust of the people. The president said the governor was chief in the province and the international and national forces and the PRTs were there to help them.
Ali Wardak, a senior researcher with the Centre for Policy and Human Development, who has also not seen the report but has been working on the issue of rule of law, said: “One of the problems with the Afghan national police is that it does not operate as an integral part of the justice system and has little to do with prosecution.The judicial system should be one system in its entirety.”
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Police 'threat' to frail Afghan democracy
Brendan Nicholson September 1, 2007 The Age, Australia
BADLY trained police in Afghanistan are spreading fear on behalf of political masters instead of protecting the community, the International Crisis Group has warned.
The independent group set up to resolve conflict said in a report released yesterday the Afghan police had become a "coercive tool" of the governing elite. It said the exploding narcotics trade was a major corrupting influence and factional networks and drug alliances were competing for positions in the police, particularly lucrative ones that oversaw drug-smuggling routes.
The group, headed by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, said insecurity would worsen and democracy could fail in Afghanistan if the police were not reformed and depoliticised.
The report said that in the early stages of the international intervention in Afghanistan the police force was neglected in favour of building the army.
The group's senior analyst in Afghanistan, Joanna Nathan, said rooting out corruption and ensuring operational autonomy, with proper oversight, was critical to Afghanistan's security.
"Instead of increasing coercive power and force size with poorly trained recruits, the Government and its partners need to focus on increased accountability, ethnic representation and professionalism," the report says.
In Kabul this week, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson reportedly told 12 Dutch MPs that if their country withdrew its major force of troops from Afghanistan, Australia would have to consider pulling its own soldiers out.
The Dutch Government has faced considerable public concern about its involvement in Afghanistan and the issue has been voted on several times by the Dutch Parliament.
The 970 Australian troops involved in reconstruction work rely on the Dutch for air support and some protection.
The report says Afghanistan's citizens often view the police more as a source of fear than security.
The US decision to give a leading role in its police programs to its Defence Department had helped blur the distinction between the military and the police.
"It is counter-productive to treat police as an auxiliary fighting unit battling the insurgency as has been happening with increasing frequency in the troubled south," it says.
"Afghanistan, like any other democracy, requires police service more than police force."
President Hamid Karzai's Government lacked the will to end political interference in appointments and operations.
The report says new systems and structures have given the police at least "a shell of professionalism", but a lot more had to be done.
The creation of an auxiliary police force had blurred distinctions between the agencies and put having police — any police — on the ground over building up professionalism.
A trusted police force would help nearly everything that had to be achieved in Afghanistan, from security through to gender and minority rights to building investor confidence and development goals, the report says.
The newly freed South Korean hostages were expected to fly out of Kabul yesterday following a deal critics fear could spur more abductions.
Taliban insurgents freed the remaining seven South Korean Christian volunteers late on Thursday. They are part of a group of 23 kidnapped in mid-July.
The Taliban agreed to release the remaining hostages after Seoul agreed to pull all its nationals out of the country.
Some Afghan officials say South Korea also agreed to pay a ransom during negotiations with the Taliban, which one foreign diplomat said started out as a demand for $20 million. Critics say this set a dangerous precedent.
With REUTERS
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United States does nothing about Afghanistan’s booming opium production
31.08.2007 Source: Pravda.Ru
According to the UN 2007 World Drug Report, opium production in Afghanistan has increased by nearly one hundred times since 2001, the year when the Taliban regime was overthrown by U.S.-led coalition forces. The poppy crop is on the rise in complete connivance with the occupying forces – locations of drug labs and traffic routes are an open secret. The United States and Britain seem to be trying hard to pour tons of opiates into the markets of competing countries. In today’s world, any armed conflict or aggression not only has an impact on the situation in the area of a conflict, it can also make waves that hit the regions lying thousands kilometers away from the epicenter of a conflict.
The occupation of Iraq set fire to the entire Middle East region, which was consequently split into supporters and opponents of the aggression. The occupation of Iraq also put diplomatic and territorial disputes between the neighboring Arab countries into a phase of direct confrontation. Likewise, it created conditions for incessant military operations which could be carried out by the United States and its allies in the region. The war in Iraq and U.S. plans for launching an attack against Iran posed a threat to the economy of European and East Asian countries. A global energy crisis may be looming on the horizon.
A different kind of problem for the whole world took shape following the attack against Afghanistan. Compared to the issues mentioned above, the problem is much more complex, it is very far-reaching, and it is virtually insoluble. The problem concerns a global geopolitical catastrophe waiting in the wings. The catastrophe may have a devastating impact on many generations of human beings.
According to official data contained in UN’s 2007 World Drug Report, released by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan accounts for 93 percent of the illicit global opium crop. Last year saw a one-third increase in Afghanistan’s opium harvest. Opium production in the country increased twofold in the last two years.
It is worthy of notice that the dramatic increase in opium production has been taking place with the connivance of NATO forces, if not with their knowledge. The UNODC report says that the value of the crop in Helmand province alone, where thousands of British troops are stationed, accounts for more opium than was produced in three of the world’s other leading countries, Colombia, Morocco, and Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). Last year opium production in the province shot up by 30-50 percent, according to estimates.
The United States and Britain commenced their “counterterrorist” operation against al-Qaeda’s international terrorist network in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. The allies failed to reach the objectives of the occupation, by and large. Opium production in Afghanistan soared following the U.S-led invasion of the country and the defeat of the Taliban regime.
The Afghan poppy crop skyrocketed by 1,400 percent in 2002. In fact, the 2002 poppy crop bounced back to production figures registered in the mid-1990s, a period when Afghanistan accounted for 70 percent of poppies cultivated in the planet. In 2001, the last year when the Taliban were still in control, 185 tons of poppies were harvested; poppy crop produced in 2002 totaled 1,900-2,700 tons; more than 7,000 tones of poppies or 87 percent of global heroin market and nearly 100 percent of Europe’s heroin market were produced in 2003. The amount of opium produced in Afghanistan in the last years totals more than 15,000 tons. The amount is sufficient for producing 810 tons of pure heroin.
A highly efficient infrastructure which includes production, credit facilities and banking operations has been put in place by those involved in Afghanistan’s drug trade over the last five years. The infrastructure covers the full production cycle of opiates from poppy harvesting and storing to morphine processing to heroin manufacture and shipping.
Opiates had been traditionally produced in the world’s three regions, namely, the so-called Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran), the so-called Golden Triangle area of southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand and Laos), and Central and South America (Columbia, Venezuela, Bolivia). However, opium producers in the Golden Triangle area went bankrupt following a huge increase in poppy crop and heroin production in Afghanistan, which became the world’s top heroin producer in 2002.
In the early 2000s, wholesale price of heroin reached $10,000 per kilo in Bangkok, whereas pre-shipment price of one kilo of heroin was a mere $650 on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The question is: What are the United States and Britain trying to accomplish in Afghanistan? Are they seeking to make enormous profits by pouring tons of opiates into the illicit drug markets of the countries they deem enemy or rival? Are they trying to gain control over traffic routes and deny any responsibility for the consequences in the end? Is there any other possible reason for keeping their eyes closed to the problem? How else could we explain why they are conniving at the formation of the Afghan opium empire? The point is that poppies are being cultivated and transformed into morphine right under the noses of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s vast fields on which the poppies are cultivated can be easily spotted by satellite and aerial reconnaissance. The location of drug labs has long ceased to be a secret. The same applies to major state-controlled and private chemical facilities in Pakistan e.g. a number of pharmaceutical companies in Peshawar province supplying chemicals required to transform opium into morphine. Shipping large consignments of drugs by road involves the use of numerous vehicles, which cannot but draw attention in Afghanistan, a country with extremely poor road network.
The coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan seem to have forgotten an old proverb that says: “They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.” Afghan-produced heroin already accounts for 35 percent of U.S. illegal drug market. Up to 80 percent of all illicit drugs consumed in the UK are drugs produced in Afghanistan. No doubt about it, the United States and Britain are going to reap the whirlwind in several years.
Vladimir Anokhin Pravda.ru
Translated by Guerman Grachev
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Afghans should join the legal opium system
September 1, 2007 Sydney Morning Herald
People who grow opium are bearded Afghans in turbans and long shirts, selling their resin to Taliban-linked dealers, or Wa hill tribesmen in Burma under the thumb of Chinese drug warlords.
The raw product is refined in illicit factories and smuggled by Nigerian couriers or dupes like the Bali nine, or hidden in commercial cargoes. Eventually it is cut, packaged and injected into the arms of addicts in rich countries.
Actually, not always. Opium growers can be farmers in woolly jumpers in Tasmania, where about 1500 landowners are licensed to produce the opium poppy, or similar respectable counterparts in Britain, France and Hungary.
Their crops are processed by pharmaceutical companies and the products used in codeine pills for minor aches, and diamorphine drips for the excruciating pains of cancer and serious injury. There is a global shortage of these drugs.
Demand for opium-based illicit drugs is pretty level in rich countries. The real growth is in half-way economies like Iran and Russia with high aspirations and high unemployment.
Which must make you wonder whether our leaders are not pursuing entirely the wrong strategy in dealing with the explosion of opium cultivation in Afghanistan, on which most of the media are reporting without question the official line that this requires more military-backed eradication.
This week the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated the latest opium poppy crop in Afghanistan at 8200 tonnes - an increase of 2000 tonnes on last year. Planted areas in provinces such as Helmand along the Pakistan border - stronghold of the Taliban - have expanded by nearly half.
As you might expect, an organisation with a name like UNODC takes a tough, policing approach to its subject, as do anti-narcotics agencies in the US Government. The prohibitionist approach is strong in Australia, too. Witness the controversies over safe injecting rooms and methadone.
Clearly this approach is failing in Afghanistan. Since the US and its allies intervened at the end of 2001, it has become a more important supplier of illegal opiates to the world. The trade is said to be financing the Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgency.
To the extent they burn and spray poppy fields, international and Afghan Government forces are no doubt pushing the ethnic Pashtuns of southern Afghanistan closer to the Taliban (even though the Talibs banned opium when they were the government).
So why not think outside the square, as the world (including the US) did successfully in the 1970s with Turkey, previously the "Golden Horn" of heroin supply.
Turkey now has licensed opium cultivation, sharing a guaranteed 80 per cent of the US pharmaceutical market with India. Tasmania has access to the other 20 per cent, along with non-American markets.
In the monkey-infested corridors of India's Finance Ministry is a room called the Opium Office, a vestige of the East India Company monopoly set up to solve Britain's trade deficit with China (created by weaning the working classes off gin and onto tea).
Why not induct the Afghans into the net of licensed opium production? The US spends about $US600 million ($735 million) a year on opium eradication in Afghanistan, out of its $US10 billion a year effort to stabilise the country. Britain is spending almost as much. That is a total of $US1.2 billion by these two governments alone.
On the recent reported price of $US86 a kilogram for raw opium given to Afghan farmers, the cost of buying up the entire crop of 8200 tonnes would be $US705.2 million - 59 per cent of what the US and Britain spend ineffectively on eradication.
Meanwhile, The Times reports, Britain has authorised the planting of 3000 hectares of opium this year by its farmers, compared with 422 hectares in 2002, to boost the manufacture of diamorphine by Macfarlan Smith, the Edinburgh-based pharmaceutical division of the listed giant Johnson Matthey.
"If you are interested in growing poppies you must have free-draining soil, have a pH [a measure of acidity] over seven and have on-floor drying system," Macfarlan Smith says encouragingly on its website.
The Senlis Council, a European non-government organisation with field offices in several parts of Afghanistan, has explored a "poppy-for-medicine" scheme in which licensed growers supply a central operation making codeine, morphine and other painkillers for export to other developing countries. This would allow Afghanistan to capture some of what they say is a 4000 per cent mark-up between growing costs and the consumer price of opiate-based drugs in the West.
Trying to counter this argument, the US State Department's Inspector-General says there is "no realistic possibility of outspending economic incentives in the narcotics industry" given the estimated $US38 billion street value of Afghanistan's poppy crop if it were all converted to heroin.
This is unconvincing. Afghanistan has a competitive advantage in growing the remedies for our headaches. Washington's prohibition approach looks like (a) a failure, and (b) agricultural trade protection for farmers in places like Tasmania and Britain.
The producer price is now low enough to give leeway to bid against the illicit trade. The heroin cartels need massive margins to beat the system. Heroin cannot have completely elastic demand, especially in markets like Iran and Russia. Afghan growers would surely welcome a legitimate livelihood, free from the risk of being sprayed with Agent Orange or having narcotics troopers storm in and burn their crops.
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Afghans lack infrastructure to legalize poppy crop: diplomat
Mike Blanchfield, CanWest News Service Canada.com August 29, 2007
OTTAWA -- Britain's top diplomat in Canada has dismissed a poll, commissioned by the international think-tank that is championing the legalization of Afghanistan's contentious opium poppy crop, which shows that Canadians overwhelmingly support for the use of Afghan opium for medicinal purposes.
"It is a surprise that people reach for silver bullets," British High Commissioner Anthony Cary said in an interview Wednesday.
Cary was responding to the release of an Ipsos Reid survey of 1,000 Canadians, conducted on behalf of the Senlis Council, which found that nearly eight in 10 Canadians (79%) want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to get behind an international pilot project that would help transform Afghanistan's illicit opium cultivation into a legal source for codeine, morphine and other legitimate pain medications for the international market.
The poll release comes two days after the United Nations' latest audit of the poppy farming trade found that Afghanistan's production of opium, the key ingredient in heroin, has reached record levels in the six years that western nations have controlled the country.
Britain is a key Canadian ally in southern Afghanistan. It is responsible for Helmand Province, where the UN report found that poppy cultivation has increased 48%, making it a bigger opium producer than any other single country in the world.
In neighbouring Kandahar province, where Canada's 2,500 troops are stationed, poppy cultivation rose by 32 per cent, the UN study found.
Cary noted that while opium production has been licensed in such places as Thailand and Turkey, it took 15 years to achieve such a system. Afghanistan simply lacks the infrastructure and regulatory framework to cultivate opium legally and to keep it out of the hands of drug dealers, he said.
The European-funded Senlis Council, headed by Canadian lawyer Norine MacDonald, has been a longtime proponent of legalizing Afghanistan's massive poppy-farming and opium-cultivation trade. Their proposals are widely rejected by the United Nations, NATO and their various western allies. The Canadian government and other western allies also oppose the legalization of the opium trade on grounds that the Afghan government in Kabul views it as un-Islamic.
This week, the UN said for the first time that the illicit trade is directly linked to funding of the Taliban insurgency that threatens Canada and its military allies.
MacDonald suggested the anti-drug policies of the United States are being foisted on the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "We don't believe the Afghan government is a free agent in this regard," she said.
The Senlis survey, conducted by the same Toronto-based polling firm used by the CanWest News Service, shows overwhelming support for legalizing the Afghan poppy in Canada.
The poll, conducted Aug. 14-16, also found that 82% of respondents opposed the U.S.-led policy of chemical spraying to eradicate poppies, while seven of 10 respondents said they would be willing to use "fair trade" Afghan-made morphine, as long as it conformed to international standards. The survey has a margin of error of 3.1%, 19 times out of 20.
"Prime Minister Harper has to listen to Canadian people who are looking for a common-sense solution," MacDonald told an Ottawa news conference held to release her organization's findings. She urged the government to move quickly on the issue because the next Afghan poppy planting season begins in October.
The Liberal Opposition supports the Senlis proposal as a sound alternative to the poppy problem.
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Afghan refugees' camp 'extended'
Friday, 31 August 2007 BBC News
Afghan refugees in Pakistan's largest camp have been given another six months to relocate, local media reports say.
The Jalozai camp, near Peshawar city, was planned for closure on Friday but the refugees have been given an unofficial extension, say journalists.
The UN refugee agency earlier appealed to Pakistan to postpone the closure, warning that "tens of thousands" of Afghans were being pressured to leave.
Pakistan's government has not yet commented on the reports.
But it has said that the "voluntary repatriation" of the refugees will continue and that the camp in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) must be closed.
Reluctant
Local journalists say the refugees will have to re-locate to three designated camps in six months.
Till a few months ago, there were 109,000 refugees in Jalozai. Of these, 20,000 have left for Afghanistan and some have moved to other camps.
But most of the remaining are reluctant to leave.
The Pakistani government says that some of the camps - mostly inhabited by people who have fled decades of fighting in Afghanistan - have been used as a safe haven by Taleban and al-Qaeda militants.
But the UN said that refugees in Jalozai had been given a "very short deadline" to leave, and that it would be "impossible to manage a safe, voluntary and sustainable repatriation operation".
The agency has warned that camp closures late in the year result in "secondary internal displacement" with returnee families living in inadequate and makeshift shelters over the winter.
The UN says that the closure of Jalozai should be suspended until 2008 to permit a more "dignified and controlled conclusion to the process".
Correspondents say many refugees do not want to return because they do not have land, shelter or jobs in Afghanistan.
Some have lived all their lives in Pakistan.
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NATO seek extension of Dutch mission in Afghanistan
The Associated Press Friday, August 31, 2007
TIRIN KOT, Afghanistan: "Don't fight the enemy, make him irrelevant."
That slogan, summing up the tactics of the 1,500 Dutch troops in Afghan's Uruzgan province, once raised concern in other NATO nations whose troops are battling the resurgent Taliban in neighboring southern regions.
Now NATO is wooing Dutch politicians to ensure an upcoming parliament vote in the Netherlands won't lead to the withdrawal of troops who have been praised for playing a key role in the alliance's strategy by boosting security in Uruzgan, a hotbed of Taliban activity.
"They've done exceptionally well, not only with the security but also the stability aspect," said Gen. John Craddock, NATO's top operational commander who visited the Dutch base on the edge of Tirin Kot this week.
"Recent Dutch actions have gained the respect and trust of the people and the Taliban now know that that region is not theirs, so they have performed admirably. We want them to stay."
The decision by the Dutch parliament on whether to extend the mission beyond its planned August 2008 end date could be influential for other nations such as Canada where the government is also under pressure to curtail its deployment in the face of heavy casualties.
Craddock is struggling to persuade the 26 NATO member nations to provide more troops to the Afghan mission, particularly for the southern battlefields, and NATO commanders fear the withdrawal of key nations could threaten what progress has been made.
"Any time gaps are created, every time we have to adjust and move around forces and thin the ranks, it can be very difficult," Craddock said. "We're all locked arm-in-arm. If one of those arms comes loose, we've got to get in pretty quick, and that's the hard part."
In their sprawling camp overlooking a rare strip of fertile land between the desert and the parched mountains of central Afghanistan, Dutch officers explained their approach.
They seek to talk to local tribal leaders — even those suspected of links with the Taliban — to resolve local disputes, support economic development and undermine potential support for the militants. Rather than measuring success by the number of insurgents killed, the Dutch point to a revival in local commerce and development projects that have brought clean water and electricity to remote areas.
Summing up the Dutch approach, one local commander said the Dutch will fight and kill hard-core Taliban fighters and their foreign al-Qaida supporters — he said Arab, Pakistani and Chechen fighters were active in the area. However, he made a distinction between the committed militants and local men who may take up arms because they are paid or coerced by the Taliban.
"If we kill a farmer, we get three more enemies, his brother, his uncle and his uncle," explains Lt. Col. Gino. In line with Dutch military practice, officers asked that their family names not be used.
Gino said Dutch troops will disengage where they can if they come under uncoordinated fire which they believe to be from such "day fighters."
But he says a major battle which Dutch troops fought in June with hundreds of Taliban insurgents for control of the district of Chora showed they will fight when necessary. Dutch and Afghan troops, backed by air power, fought off the Taliban assault killing up to 70 militants, including two key leaders, Dutch officials say.
NATO says the Dutch stand against the Taliban in Chora boosted support from local people who, Dutch officers say, have little empathy for their former rulers but sometimes line up with the insurgents out of fear of reprisals, or because of offers of money or grievances against Afghan police or government officials.
One Dutch solider was killed in the battle for Chora and 10 have been killed in total in Afghanistan, the most recent a sergeant blown up by a roadside bomb on Sunday.
Despite the Dutch successes, those casualties have damaged public support for the mission in the Netherlands where many are demanding that the government stick to a plan to limit the mission to two years and bring the troops home in 2008. NATO has flown Dutch parliament members out to Tirin Kot ahead of the debate on the mission's future expected in the next few weeks.
Mark Rutte, leader of the opposition Liberal party, was impressed by what he saw, but says the Dutch need more support before he will endorse an extension of the mission.
"As a small nation we are engaged now on this mission, arguably the most difficult of Afghanistan," Rutte said in an interview as he flew back from Afghanistan. "Is it fair, within the NATO setting, that no other country is willing to take over?"
He will consider supporting a prolonged mission if the government boosts defense spending and more NATO nations agree at least to send troops to work alongside the Dutch in Uruzgan.
If not, the Dutch may be forced to pullout.
"What would that mean for what we have achieved in the last couple of years? That's the dilemma that we have to solve," he said.
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U.S.: Military alone can't beat Taliban
By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 30, 10:02 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - Military force alone is unlikely to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, a top U.S. commander said Thursday, noting that most insurgencies end with a political solution.
Maj. Gen. Robert Cone, who is in charge of equipping and training Afghan security forces to take over from international troops, said the local units were making good progress, but declined to say when they would be strong enough to allow foreign forces to go home.
Meanwhile, a senior Taliban leader was killed in a clash with Afghan and foreign troops in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan army officer said.
Violence is soaring in Afghanistan despite years of counterinsurgency operations by international troops and millions of dollars spent in equipping the country's army and police units.
Cone cautioned that military force alone would likely not be enough to beat the Taliban and other militants battling foreign and Afghan government troops.
"You can say you defeated them in a single campaign ... but again given the complex nature of this environment, they might be back again the very next year," he told a media conference in the capital Kabul. "I think the real issue is probably not a military solution in the long term."
President Hamid Karzai earlier this year said he had met with unspecified Taliban militants to try to reach a political settlement, but he did not elaborate on the extent of the contacts.
Cone, who arrived in Afghanistan in July, said the "military will have a significant impact on the overall solution, but in reality most insurgencies are dealt with by political solution in the end."
Hundreds of former members of the hard-line Taliban regime, including a sprinkling of former senior commanders and officials, have reconciled with the government since they were ousted from power in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
But current rebel leaders have apparently refused to hold talks, and in the past year, thousands more fighters have joined the insurgency, which this year alone has left more than 3,900 people dead, especially in southern and much of eastern Afghanistan. The exact number of insurgents is unclear.
There are more than 42,000 Afghan Army soldiers, and some 75,000 police members, with plans to create a 70,000-man army and 82,000-strong police force by the end of 2008. There also are more than 50,000 foreign troops in the country, including U.S.-led coalition and NATO-led forces.
Formal talks with the Taliban would be politically very sensitive because of the close relationship top commanders are believed to have with al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden.
In the southern Helmand province, meanwhile, senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani, known as Mullah Brother, was reported killed during clashes with Afghan and foreign troops, said Maj. Gen. Ghulam Muhiddin Ghori, an Afghan army officer.
The report could not be independently verified, and a NATO official in southern Afghanistan said that they were not aware of the clash.
Ghani was one of the top leaders of all Taliban forces in the country, when the hard-line Islamist movement ruled Afghanistan, and a close associate of Taliban's reclusive leader Mullah Omar. His current role in within the reconstituted Taliban movement was not clear.
If confirmed, his death would deal a serious blow to the militants, who have made a comeback since their ouster.
In neighboring Uruzgan province, the U.S.-led coalition called in airstrikes to repeal an attack on their base by a large group of insurgents, leaving up to 11 suspected insurgents dead Thursday, a coalition statement said.
Also Thursday, unidentified assailants Thursday killed a British soldier and wounded two others in a routine patrol in the southern province of Kandahar, the British Ministry of Defense said. An Afghan interpreter working with the troops also was killed, it said.
On Wednesday, Afghan soldiers and coalition forces found and destroyed an insurgent-run drug lab after a brief fight in Helmand province, according to a statement. The opium lab was the second of its kind found in the past four days in the province.
A significant portion of the profits from Afghanistan's booming drug trade are thought to flow to Taliban fighters who tax and protect poppy farmers and drug runners.
___
Associated Press Writer Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
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Turkmens' happy Afghan return
Thursday, 30 August 2007 BBC News
Pakistan is closing its large Jalozai camp, which has housed thousands of Afghan refugees for nearly three decades. Many refugees returning home from Pakistan and Iran have had a very difficult time, especially those who are poor.
But there are brighter spots, too - found for example at a settlement for returned ethnic Turkmen families about 20 minutes' drive from the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, as the BBC's Charles Haviland discovered on a recent visit to Balkh province.
Under a canopy between two squat houses, men in checked turbans sit on mats, in vigorous conversation with visiting officers from the UN refugee agency.
These are the baking plains of northern Afghanistan which stretch for hundreds of miles into the interior of Central Asia. Outside the shade, the surroundings look bleached white. On the edge of it, boys and girls hover, fascinated. Some of the men hold children - women are nowhere to be seen.
This is a "shura", a gathering like a traditional village council. But this shura is new: men who years ago fled to Pakistan from different villages in this region, now brought together in this settlement for returned refugees.
Village, tribal and religious leaders tell the visitors about the latest needs.
At the moment the 100-odd families here share just one pump which gives salty water. The government brings them a big tankerful each week, but it's not enough. They say lack of water is stopping families moving here, and even those who have bought plots of government land here for $180 are deterred.
They would like a clinic and a school.
They would appreciate financial help to back up their trades like carpet-weaving, welding and carpentry.
Visiting UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) programme officer Alex Mundt can give some reassurance.
"They will soon be prospecting for fresh water, and they are reasonably sure of finding it," he said.
Barren soil
So enthusiastic is the UN that it now wants to set up a system of small loans for carpet-weavers.
A new village is being born here.
There are 53 houses built of mud and brick in the traditional style with much of the material supplied by the UNHCR. Each has a small, neat toilet house.
Several dozen other families who did not qualify for UNHCR help are in any case building their own houses, some of which are going up as we visit. One man who works at a nearby industrial park has hired other returned refugees as builders.
At one end of the settlement a mosque is being built. A man returns home with his herd of sheep and a donkey, while the sound of cars sweeps across the barren soil from the nearby highway.
Father-of-three Khodai Berdy showed me around the house he and his family took six months to build.
Like the others here, they came back to Afghanistan three or four years ago. They couldn't return to their home village, not far away, because someone else had taken his land.
But Khodai's situation has now eased. His was one of the families that received UNHCR help, and they built it with their own hands.
"At first when we came here, at least three people in this place got ill because of the heat, and died," he says. "Now we've built this house. It's very good. It's resistant to water and the rays of the sun. We feel very good now - the only problem is water."
'Good earnings'
Khodai is relieved not to be living in a tent any more, or having to stay with relatives.
One of his two main rooms is devoted to carpet-making - a trade he pursues alongside keeping a small shop.
Nearby, Doord Bibi works with her grand-daughters. She, too, is making carpets - it is a craft traditional to the Turkmen ethnic community from which they come.
A tiny, spirited widow of 70, Doord has none of the shyness many Afghan women have.
The work is fiddly and she says her eyes and hands have suffered. But she's been weaving carpets since her teens and is positive.
"I get designs from traders and businessmen," she says. "Those are what I weave. The work is very good - we get good earnings for it."
What's clear is that there is a spirit of self-help here. That heartens the UNHCR's Alex Mundt, who would like to see the place diversifying.
"The government here in Balkh had a real interest in regenerating the carpet weaving industry here," he says.
"We would like to take advantage of that interest and actually start to build out, so that you don't have 1,000 carpet-weaving families but you have landless families who have other skills to contribute.
"So maybe some teachers will come here, some health workers, so you'd form a real community, just as you find in any village."
At the settlement's single pump, children laugh and play as men pump the water in the evening light.
This community keenly hopes to find a deep source of fresh water nearby. Providing that happens, with plenty of land to expand, the several dozen families here anticipate an influx of new neighbours - and the emergence of a new and viable settlement of people who, whatever their difficulties, are glad to be home again.
"I lived in Pakistan 15 years," says Doord Bibi. "I came back four years ago. And I love it here because it is my home country."
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Millions in aid gone astray, group says
Funding hasn't translated into substantial help for suffering Afghan population, think tank concludes
GLORIA GALLOWAY - From Thursday's Globe and Mail August 30, 2007
OTTAWA — The Canadian government has done little to relieve the suffering of the Afghan people, says a policy group that cites the disappearance of millions of aid dollars, an absence of oversight, and thousands of refugees who have been left to starve.
The Canadian International Development Agency says Canada has committed to spending $1.2-billion between 2001 and 2011 to foster the reconstruction of Afghanistan. By its own accounting, it transferred $39-million last year to the volatile Kandahar district, where Canadian troops are stationed, and another $100-million to the country at large.
But the Senlis Council, an international think tank that examines security and development issues, has been working in the country for two years and says it is hard-pressed to find positive results from that expenditure.
“We were not able to see any substantial impact of CIDA's work in Kandahar and, as a matter of fact, we saw many instances of the extreme suffering of the Afghan people,” Norine MacDonald, the council's president and lead field researcher, told a press conference Wednesday morning.
When the Senlis Council originally complained that Canadian aid was ineffective, CIDA officials offered a list of Afghan projects that the agency had funded and asked that researchers be dispatched to check them out, Ms. MacDonald said.
What they found this month were an overcrowded and filthy hospital in Kandahar city that could provide few services to patients; refugee camps that had gone without food aid for 11/2 years; a construction project that employed child labour, and a displaced population struggling to survive.
The development agency said earlier this year that it had given $350,000 to UNICEF to establish a maternal waiting home at the hospital, plus a grant of $5-million to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which had specifically appealed for money for the medical facility. A later e-mail announcement reduced the $5-million figure to $3-million.
But “we could not find evidence of CIDA's work, or CIDA-funded work that matched the information given to us by CIDA” at the hospital, Ms. MacDonald said.
The maternity project was supposed to have been operating in a temporary tent on hospital grounds. But the tent was empty on the day the Senlis researchers arrived. And the next day it was gone.
CIDA officials say UNICEF had set up a temporary maternity project that is no longer running but will be re-established on a permanent basis with much more funding. Ms. MacDonald said she was told that it had simply never existed.
Inside the hospital, the ward for malnourished babies had 14 beds for 26 children. There was a lack of basic medical equipment, housekeeping and ventilation. One doctor interviewed on film said he and his colleagues were paying for medications out of their own pockets and did not have the ability to perform even routine blood tests.
Bev Oda, who recently took over as minister for CIDA, said Canadians will always wish that things could be better for the Afghan people.
“As far as the accountability of the dollars, I am quite confident that the dollars we're committing to support Afghanistan is beneficial. We have real results that we can show,” Ms. Oda said.
Canada is not directly responsible for the hospital, she said, and all of the countries working in Afghanistan are giving money to the ICRC to help run it.
The council's report says part of the problem is that there are too few CIDA employees on the ground and their movement is restricted so they can't see for themselves how the Canadian aid dollars are being spent.
The development agency responds there are three Canadian CIDA workers in Afghanistan, plus eight local workers, and they say they have made several trips to the hospital.
Ms. Oda said the number of CIDA people in the country will be increased this fall to eight and it is important to note that much of the oversight work is done by locals. It is “our intent … to build the country and the population up so that they are going to be able to sustain the quality of life that we all expect.”
When the Senlis Council originally complained that Canadian aid was ineffective, CIDA officials offered a list of Afghan projects that the agency had funded and asked that researchers be dispatched to check them out, Ms. MacDonald said.
What they found this month were an overcrowded and filthy hospital in Kandahar city that could provide few services to patients; refugee camps that had gone without food aid for 11/2 years; a construction project that employed child labour, and a displaced population struggling to survive.
The development agency said earlier this year that it had given $350,000 to UNICEF to establish a maternal waiting home at the hospital, plus a grant of $5-million to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which had specifically appealed for money for the medical facility. A later e-mail announcement reduced the $5-million figure to $3-million.
But “we could not find evidence of CIDA's work, or CIDA-funded work that matched the information given to us by CIDA” at the hospital, Ms. MacDonald said.
The maternity project was supposed to have been operating in a temporary tent on hospital grounds. But the tent was empty on the day the Senlis researchers arrived. And the next day it was gone.
CIDA officials say UNICEF had set up a temporary maternity project that is no longer running but will be re-established on a permanent basis with much more funding. Ms. MacDonald said she was told that it had simply never existed.
Inside the hospital, the ward for malnourished babies had 14 beds for 26 children. There was a lack of basic medical equipment, housekeeping and ventilation. One doctor interviewed on film said he and his colleagues were paying for medications out of their own pockets and did not have the ability to perform even routine blood tests.
Bev Oda, who recently took over as minister for CIDA, said Canadians will always wish that things could be better for the Afghan people.
“As far as the accountability of the dollars, I am quite confident that the dollars we're committing to support Afghanistan is beneficial. We have real results that we can show,” Ms. Oda said.
Canada is not directly responsible for the hospital, she said, and all of the countries working in Afghanistan are giving money to the ICRC to help run it.
The council's report says part of the problem is that there are too few CIDA employees on the ground and their movement is restricted so they can't see for themselves how the Canadian aid dollars are being spent.
The development agency responds there are three Canadian CIDA workers in Afghanistan, plus eight local workers, and they say they have made several trips to the hospital.
Ms. Oda said the number of CIDA people in the country will be increased this fall to eight and it is important to note that much of the oversight work is done by locals. It is “our intent … to build the country and the population up so that they are going to be able to sustain the quality of life that we all expect.”
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Militants capture over 120 Pakistani soldiers
By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) - A Pakistani official says more than 120 soldiers seized by Islamic militants near the Afghan border soon will be released after the intervention of local tribal elders.
However, a militant leader says nearly 300 soldiers are being held, a claim that could not be independently verified, and there has been no decision on whether to release them.
A security official speaking on condition of anonymity says the troops were travelling in a 16-vehicle convoy providing security for trucks hauling food in the South Waziristan tribal area when bad weather forced them to stop and set up camp.
The soldiers - who were travelling between Wana, the main town in South Waziristan and Ladha, another town in the region - were surrounded by militants who believed they were conducting a military operation.
The incident comes two days after militants freed 18 soldiers and a Pakistani government official who were kidnapped in the region earlier this month.
It also occurred amid rising violence in the country, including a militant attack on a military checkpoint before dawn that killed two soldiers.
No fighting occurred in the capture of the soldiers, said a senior army officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Tribal elders have intervened at the request of Pakistani authorities to try and free the soldiers, the security official said.
"This misunderstanding has been removed," the official said.
"The missing soldiers have been traced and they are safe and would return to their base soon."
A pro-Taliban militant leader whose men seized the soldiers claimed far more troops were involved than authorities reported.
"About 300 soldiers were present in our areas. We captured them, snatched their weapons and later shifted them to different places," the militant said in a telephone call.
The militant, who refused to give his name and spoke from an undisclosed location by mobile phone, confirmed elders had reached out.
"We have taken no decision to free the soldiers," said the militant.
Meanwhile, dozens of Islamic militants attacked a military checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan before dawn Friday, killing at least two soldiers and wounding six others, police said.
The attack happened in Gul Bagh, a village in the Swat valley, about 240 kilometres northeast of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, said Mohammed Hafeez, the region's police chief.
As the injured and dead were being transported to a hospital, a car bomb went off near a police vehicle escorting the ambulances but it was not clear whether there were any casualties from the blast, he said.
Violence blamed on Islamic militants has spiked in recent weeks in northwestern Pakistan, including in the North and South Waziristan tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
The rising violence also comes amid increased U.S. pressure on Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to do more to crack down on militants near the frontier, where a recent U.S. intelligence report suggested al-Qaida may be regrouping.
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China donates 1.5 mln USD to Afghan refugees
August 31, 2007 People's Daily - Aug 30 5:46 PM
The Chinese government donated 1.5 million U.S. dollars of goods and cash to Afghan authorities on Thursday to assist poverty-stricken refugees in this country.
Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan Yang Houlan handed over 200, 000 dollars of cash to Afghan acting refugee minister Abdul Qader Ahadi and signed an agreement to confirm the donation of 1.3 million dollars of goods, which would cover infrastructure, education, health and so on.
Ambassador Yang said, "China has been a longtime supporter and an active participant in Afghanistan's reconstruction. The Chinese government and people will stand firmly with Afghan friends and provide whatever assistance in its capacity."
About 4 million Afghan refugees have returned home from abroad over the past five years after the Taliban regime's collapse, but many are still leading a hard life due to poverty and insecurity.
Millions of Afghans are still living in neighboring Pakistan and Iran as refugees nowadays.
Source: Xinhua
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Interpreters give their lives for little pay and no glory
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail August 29, 2007
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The interpreter shacks sit just beyond the famous "wire" here at Kandahar Air Field, past the gates, the observation posts and the entrance to the sprawling coalition base.
As a metaphor it couldn't be more perfect or poignant, for the young Afghan men who wait inside these dusty compounds to be called on by the soldiers of the NATO-led International Assistance Force to Afghanistan remain just a bit on the outside, too.
In the field, especially but not exclusively on combat missions, the interpreters and the individual soldiers with whom they work often become close as brothers.
The 26-year-old supervisor of the 700 interpreters who work in what's called Regional Command South - volatile and dangerous southern Afghanistan - for International Management Services, Inc., or IMS, says that he recently offered one of his "terps," as everyone calls them, a safe job inside the office, and that the young man replied, "I can't. My [Canadian] captain needs me."
Yet although the interpreters are dying at a faster rate than either Canadian or British troops - 64 terps have been killed in RC South this year alone, compared with 25 Canadian soldiers and 29 British ones - they remain faceless and nameless, even in death.
Last week, for instance, when a light armoured vehicle, or LAV III, hit a mine, two soldiers from Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment were killed, and another, as well a Radio-Canada cameraman Charles Dubois, seriously injured.
The dead soldiers, Master Corporal Christian Duchesne and Master Warrant Officer Mario Mercier, were honoured at the traditional brief but moving ramp ceremony two days later, Mr. Dubois and the unidentified Vandoo were flown to Landstuhl, Germany, for further treatment.
But the 26-year-old interpreter who was killed with them in the blast was mentioned only in passing in news reports and was quietly buried in the same shroud of anonymity in which he toiled.
He died three days from his 27th birthday. Even had the pace of operations allowed it, his new Canadian friends couldn't have attended his funeral, held the next day as is Muslim custom, for fear that their presence would alert the Taliban that he had been working for the coalition and thus cause his family to be targeted.
For the same reason, even now, the young man's name can't be made public. Single, he was nonetheless the chief, if not the only, breadwinner in his large extended family - his parents, six brothers, an unknown number of sisters, and an uncle.
His supervisor, who says the young man had been working with Canadians for the past three or four months, has told no one in his family, including his wife, what he does for a living. His wife believes, he says, that he is still attending school in Kabul, and although he quit field work a few months ago to become part of IMS management, he has been living and sleeping at the rudimentary shacks 24/7 ever since.
Interpreters, as well as district politicians, Afghan police and anyone seen as helping coalition forces - such as three local men working as de-miners, who were kidnapped then murdered earlier this month - are traditional targets for the Taliban.
Canadian army officials say that all interpreters are covered by Defense Base Insurance, the U.S. company that insures most private contractors working in either Iraq or Afghanistan. In addition, sources say a little-known payment is made by the Canadian government, likely a lump sum of about $10,000, to the families of interpreters who are killed on the job while working with Canadian troops.
None of the interpreters interviewed by The Globe and Mail voiced the mildest complaint about how they are treated by Canadian soldiers (or those from any other nation, for that matter) or even about their pay, which is less than they earn working for Americans.
General-level terps employed by Canadians earn about $600 (U.S.) a month, while specialists, such as those working with legal mentors or who have acquired a particular expertise, can earn as much as $1,200 (U.S.). But most of those working for the United States earn at least $1,000 (U.S.) a month. About 200 of the 700 IMS terps in the south regularly work with Canadians, and if anything, they tend to be grateful.
"Canadians have made a lot of sacrifices here," the supervisor says. "A lot of lives. They're shedding blood for someone else's prosperity and peace; it's amazing."
The Kandahar office of IMS is headed by a team of Afghan-American brothers who were born in Afghanistan but raised and schooled in southern California; the younger speaks English with a noticeable American accent. Just 23, he has been with the company only a short time and is still reeling a little from the shock of this place.
"In America," he says, "we don't see dead people. I got to see the first dead person in my life here; it's like bodies are everywhere - an explosion here, an explosion there."
He says the care given terps who are injured while fighting with Canadian troops is first-rate, both by medics at the scene and at coalition hospitals, such as the one at the main base in Kandahar. "They really take care of them," he says, "like their own soldiers while they're out on the job."
But unlike him, most interpreters - they usually learn English first at small private schools in Kabul or Kandahar and hone their skills on the job - can only dream of living in either the U.S. or Canada.
For those who work with Americans, that dream became more feasible this June, when U.S. President George Bush amended the National Defense Authorization Act to expand the number of special visas available for interpreters who have worked with U.S. forces either in Iraq or Afghanistan. This year and next, 500 of the special immigration visas will be available for those who have worked with U.S. forces for at least a year, have a letter of recommendation from the U.S. chain of command, and pass the usual security checks.
Denmark also recently made special arrangements to take its 60-member Iraqi staff with them when its soldiers pull out of Iraq. But Canada has no comparable program, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada said.
The IMS terp shacks at Kandahar Air Field sit in between the main coalition base and Camp Hero, home base for the 205th Corps of the Afghan National Army - like the men sitting inside them, not quite belonging to either place. At the entrance to the shacks, a sad but spirited little monkey on a short chain is the first sight the visitor sees - himself not a bad symbol of the men in the compound, waiting, behind him.
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Mysterious disease claims four lives in Paktika
KABUL, Aug 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Five people have died and 20 others are in coma due to a mysterious disease that has broken out in Warmami district of the southeastern Paktika province.
Governor Dr. Akram Khpalwak told Pajhwok Afghan News on Wednesday they had been informed of the disease. Public Health Department officials and doctors are trying to detect the cause of the ailment.
Khpalwak added the symptoms included nausea, vomiting and diarrhea that ultimately killed the patient. A woman, two children and two men died of the disease yesterday while 20 others were in coma, he revealed.
Situated at a distance of 200 kilometres from Kabul, the district has no reliable health clinic, said the governor, who pointed out: "We have approached the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) for sending in medicine and doctors."
Dr. Abdullah Fahim, spokesman of the Public Health Ministry, confirmed the spread of malady, opining it could be a form of vomiting or diarrhea. He said they had arranged medicines for dispatch to the affected area with the help of the NATO-led ISAF.
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UK pledges $110m in new assistance to Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Britain will grant the Afghan government $110 million in new assistance aimed at improving education and health facilities and stepping up other development projects.
The commitment came at a meeting between Finance Minister Anwarul Haq Ahady and visiting British Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander here on Wednesday.
Anwarul Haq Ahadi told a news conference here the money would be spent by the Afghan government on education, health, funding staff salaries and different development programmes over the next three years.
The minister added Afghanistan needed solid support from the international community to restore peace and speed up reconstruction plans.
The British government was ready to continue assisting Afghanistan, Douglas Alexander promised, admitting 30 year of war had destroyed the Central Asian country that deserved assistance from the world at large.
Over the last five years, the visiting dignitary added, progress made by Afghanistan had encouraged the international community to enhance its support. He cited the presidential ballot, parliamentary elections, the return of four million children to school and the construction of over 9000-kilometer roads as key developments.
According a press release issued by the Finance Ministry, Britain has given more than one billion dollars to Afghanistan since 2001. London will spend about $200 million in Afghanistan during the current year.
Mustafa Basharat
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Nepal thrash Afghanistan to lift ACC U-19 Cup
KABUL, Aug 29 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Nepal lifted the coveted Asian Cricket Council (ACC) U-19 Elite Cup, thrashing Afghanistan in an utterly one-sided final played at the Kinrara Oval Stadium in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.
After four successive triumphs that saw them book a berth in the final of the 10-day tournament, the finalists came tantalisingly close to the trophy at stake. Yet they could not grab the ultimate accolades, going down in the only encounter they lost in the Cup.
Afghanistan Cricket Federation (ACF) Secretary-General Taj Malik Alam said the junior cricketers were skittled out for 124 in 45.5 overs in response to 172 scored by Nepal in the allotted 50 overs. By virtue of the 48-run success, Nepal qualified for the World U-19 Cricket Cup.
Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News over the telephone from Kuala Lumpur, Alam added Nepal elected to bat first after winning the toss in the crucial outing. It was a right decision on the part of the opposition that walked away with a convincing success, shattering Afghan dreams to emerge champions.
The World U-19 Cricket Cup, to be organised by the International Cricket Council, was initially staged as a one-off event in Australia in 1988. But it has been held every two years since 1998.
Apart from Afghanistan, Nepal, Oman, Malaysia, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand participated in the 10-day event.
The contesting countries were divided into two groups. Included in Group A were Nepal, Thailand, Oman, the UAE and Singapore while placed in Group B were Afghanistan Malaysia, Hong Kong, Qatar and Kuwait.
Reported by Javed Hamim
Translated & edited by S. Mudassir Ali Shah
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