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Bush to seek $7-8 billion for Afghan support: report
US plans big spending boost for Afghanistan
Bush meets incoming NATO chief in Afghanistan
U.S. extends tour of troops in Afghanistan
NATO sending new brigade to Afghanistan
U.S. to urge allies to boost Afghan support
Afghan govt. won't spray poppy crops
UK fears Afghan poppy backlash
Afghan, Pakistan, NATO armies to open first intelligence hub
Pakistani Premier Faults Afghans for Taliban Woes on Border
AFGHANISTAN: Returnees need urgent assistance
The winter of the Taliban's content
Nato force gunfire kills Afghan civilian
Afghan warlord urges youngsters to lay down arms
Pakistan arrests over 300 Afghans deported from Saudi
Pakistan’s Lack of Border Control
Afghan coal mine burning for 20 years
Afghan rugs leave lasting impression at US exhibition
Afghan man given temporary stay in Japan after refugee status denied
PR ready to enhance railway links with Iran, Afghanistan
Taliban Tagged as Vicious Losers
2 Afghan children killed, 4 wounded
Neighborhood watch for Afghan schools
Durrani says Pakistan has done more than anybody else in counterterrorism, rejects media allegations
Geopolitical Diary: Considering Mullah Omar's Location
Steps needed to protect wildlife
Smears for Fears
Polyclinic opens in Kabul
Committee to guide farmers on saffron cultivation
Family dispute claims four lives in Herat
Jirga commission members to visit different zones
Esmat replaces Bakhshi as new director prisons
Bush to seek $7-8 billion for Afghan support: report
Thu Jan 25, 1:11 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration will ask Congress in a forthcoming budget request for $7 billion to $8 billion for security, reconstruction and other projects in Afghanistan, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing U.S. officials.
The efforts are aimed at countering an expected offensive by the Taliban, who were driven from power in 2001 by U.S. forces, the paper said, quoting senior U.S. officials.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that U.S. officials said the administration could seek $5 billion to $6 billion in a supplemental budget request to Congress that would cover a stepped-up effort to train the Afghan military and police as well as improve infrastructure.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has some 32,000 troops in Afghanistan and last year encountered some of the worst violence since the 2001 invasion.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected on Friday to urge European allies to contribute more development aid to Afghanistan and tell them that this year could be instrumental to subduing the resistant Taliban-led insurgency and advancing reconstruction work, a senior U.S. official told reporters on Wednesday in Brussels.
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US plans big spending boost for Afghanistan
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States is planning a sharp increase in spending on security and reconstruction in Afghanistan to counter an anticipated offensive by Taliban forces this spring, the Washington Post has reported.
The White House will ask Congress for seven to eight billion dollars on top of already budgeted funds for Afghanistan in its upcoming budget proposal, the Post said, citing unnamed officials of the administration of President George W. Bush.
The military is also extending by four months the Afghanistan tours of 3,500 troops of the 10th Mountain Division to keep up the strength of US forces.
The move comes after the administration conducted a sweeping review of US policy in Afghanistan, starting from the middle of 2006, as violence across the country rose sharply.
It also comes as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to discuss coalition troop strength in Afghanistan with European allies at a meeting Friday in Brussels of NATO foreign ministers.
A senior administration official told the Post that Rice wants to show European governments that the US is not trying to abandon the Afghanistan effort to NATO partners while Washington focuses on the Iraq war.
The Europeans have "serious questions across the board" about the US commitment to the Afghanistan fight, the official said.
The alliance has some 33,000 troops fighting the Taliban, some 10 percent less than NATO members have promised.
On Wednesday Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Volker said Rice would press her counterparts for a more vigorous effort both to fight the Taliban, which is expected to launch a new offensive this spring, and to bolster reconstruction efforts.
"We want to have our own offensive and it should be civilian and military, it should be broad gauged, it should be reconstruction, development, it should be counter-narcotics and it should be security and military as well," he said.
The first Afghan, Pakistan and NATO intelligence sharing centre is due to open formally in Kabul in a drive to improve coordination in the protracted fight against the Taliban and other extremists.
The joint intelligence and operation centre is staffed by six intelligence agents from each of the Afghan, Pakistan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) militaries -- all fighting the resurgent Taliban.
"The centre will allow the sharing of information and reports to be able to better coordinate military operations," Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.
"Now how useful and significant it will be -- we will wait for the results. Lots has been discussed in the past, lots of commissions and meetings were formed. We will wait and see if this will be useful," he said.
Commanders of the three militaries already meet every two months in a Tripartite Commission.
The intelligence centre's establishment comes amid growing tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan over the Taliban-led insurgency, which has grown steadily stronger since its launch after the hardliners' rout from government in 2001.
Afghanistan has been joined by Western sources in saying elements in Pakistan, including in its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, are backing the insurgency, which was its bloodiest last year with 4,000 dead -- most of them rebel fighters.
President Pervez Musharraf has angrily rejected the accusations.
"I take extremely strong exception to anybody (accusing) ... any government agency of Pakistan of cooperating with these extremist forces and sending them into Afghanistan," Musharraf said Wednesday.
ISAF spokesman Brigadier Richard Nugee said this month the new centre was an "extremely significant step forward" against the extremists, who also carry out attacks in the Pakistan border areas.
Nugee said that the Afghan and Pakistan militaries would be brought "much closer together" by sharing intelligence information.
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Bush meets incoming NATO chief in Afghanistan
Thu Jan 25, 12:22 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush discussed efforts to crush Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan with the new commander of NATO's forces there, the White House said.
Bush met with US Army General Dan McNeil, the first US officer to hold the job, on Wednesday to "discuss the importance of success in Afghanistan as it relates to the war on terror," spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.
"The United States is fully committed to providing the necessary resources to President (Hamid) Karzai," she said.
Later, Bush was to hold talks with the US joint chiefs of staff and leaders of US combatant commands around the world as part of an annual get-together that includes an Oval Office meeting and dinner at the White House, she said.
"This is an opportunity for the president to commend the senior defense leaders for their hard work and accomplishments in fighting the war on terror, defending our homeland, and maintaining a strong joint force," she said.
"I expect they will discuss progress to date on the new Iraq strategy, and then the continued efforts to counter the Taliban in Afghanistan. He'll also talk about budgetary issues and working with Congress to ensure that they have
the needed support" for military operations, said Perino.
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U.S. extends tour of troops in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 3,000 U.S. troops will stay in Afghanistan longer than planned, the Pentagon said on Thursday, as NATO commanders seek to boost combat power ahead of an expected spring offensive by Taliban militants.
The 3,200 troops from the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, were due to complete a year-long deployment next month, defense officials said. But their tour has been extended by up to 120 days, the Defense Department said in a statement.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week on a visit to Afghanistan that U.S. and NATO commanders had asked for more troops and that he was sympathetic to their request.
By keeping in place both the brigade and the soldiers who have arrived to replace them, commanders can significantly boost the size of U.S. forces, which form part of a NATO force charged with stabilizing Afghanistan.
"This extension will provide military capability for NATO to maintain the initiative and build upon the success achieved in promoting stability and security, while denying safe haven for the Taliban," the Pentagon said.
There are some 24,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including both those whose tours are being extended and those originally intended to replace them, defense officials said.
The NATO force of more than 33,000 troops engaged in fierce and deadly battles last year with a resurgent Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
U.S. commanders have said they expect the Taliban to try to increase the level of violence again in spring. Fighting in Afghanistan traditionally subsides in the winter but picks up again after the snows melt.
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NATO sending new brigade to Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO-led troops battling resurgent Taliban militants will shortly be reinforced with another combat brigade, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan said Thursday.
Gen. David Richards said the brigade will consist of members of different nations participating in NATO's International Security Assistance Force. A brigade is typically 1,500 to 3,500 soldiers; Richards did not specify how many additional troops were expected.
"I anticipate at least another brigade of combat troops from ISAF nations coming here shortly and more after that," Richards said.
The announcement came one day after the Defense Department said 3,200 soldiers from the New York-based 10th Mountain Division already in the country would have their tour extended by four months.
The NATO-led force, which is bracing for renewed fighting with Taliban militants this spring, is about 20 percent short of the troops levels pledged by its contributing nations.
Richards made the comments at the opening of a joint operations center in Kabul that will be manned by officers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO. The three are trying to increase coordination in their counterinsurgency efforts.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have deteriorated recently, with top officials trading accusations on which side is responsible for the increase in Taliban attacks. Some 4,000 people died in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan last year, according to numbers from Afghan, U.S. and NATO officials.
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U.S. to urge allies to boost Afghan support
By Mark John Wed Jan 24, 1:50 PM ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States will urge European allies to match it in injecting more development funds into Afghanistan at high-level talks set for Friday, a senior U.S. official said.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will tell NATO and EU counterparts that 2007 could emerge as a key year in efforts to subdue the stubbornly resistant Taliban-led insurgency and push forward with often patchy reconstruction work.
"We've got to kick up our investment. The U.S. is going to do that and we'd like to see our allies do that. 2007 is a year in which we can make a profound difference," the official, who requested anonymity, told reporters on Wednesday.
"We've made a lot of promises to Afghans and a lot of promises to ourselves."
The push reflects a U.S. policy review that concluded Afghanistan needs more resources from the United States and others both to fight the Taliban and to win local support with tangible benefits like roads, schools and electricity.
U.S. officials have said the Bush administration could seek $5 billion to $6 billion in a supplemental budget request to Congress that would cover a stepped-up effort to train the Afghan military and police as well as improve infrastructure.
It was too early to say whether Rice would be able to announce additional funds on Friday, the senior official said.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has some 32,000 troops in Afghanistan and last year encountered some of the worst violence since the U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban from the country in 2001.
CASUALTIES
Alliance officials insist that despite taking heavy casualties last year, they are broadly satisfied with military progress. But they acknowledge the reconstruction effort must be accelerated to help Afghans facing dire humanitarian conditions.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer reaffirmed in talks with new U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at NATO on Wednesday that "there was no military solution" for Afghanistan, de Hoop Scheffer's spokesman told a news briefing.
However basic security is a priority amid expectations of a fresh Taliban offensive as the weather improves. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week he was looking favorably on requests by NATO commanders for more troops.
An alliance source said any reinforcement could involve the deployment of around 1,000 new troops to help out as needed -- the additional reserve battalion requested by NATO commanders last year but for which they are still waiting.
NATO countries vowed at an alliance summit in Riga last November to make their ISAF troops more mobile and ready to help out other national contingents in times of emergency.
But there is little appetite among other NATO allies to step up their military presence for the time being.
British officials have so far played down media speculation they could send up to 1,000 more soldiers and diplomats say France has pointed out its army is already stretched by peace missions in Africa, Lebanon, the Balkans and elsewhere.
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Afghan govt. won't spray poppy crops
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's heroin-producing poppies will not be sprayed with herbicide this year despite a record crop in 2006 and U.S. pressure to allow the drug-fighting tactic, officials said Thursday.
President Hamid Karzai's Cabinet decided Sunday to hold off on using chemicals for now, said Said Mohammad Azam, spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Counter Narcotics.
"There will be no ground spraying this year," Azam told The Associated Press.
Azam said there would be an increased effort to destroy poppy crops with "traditional" techniques _ typically sending teams of laborers into fields to batter down or plow in the plants before they can be harvested.
"If it works, that is fine," Azam said. "If it does not, next year ground spraying will be in the list of options."
Fueled by the Taliban, a powerful drug mafia and the need for a profitable crop that can overcome drought, opium production from poppies in Afghanistan last year rose 49 percent to 6,700 tons _ enough to make about 670 tons of heroin. That's more than 90 percent of the world's supply and more than the world's addicts consume in a year.
Karzai told foreign and Afghan officials this week that if Afghanistan's poppy crop is not reduced this year he would allow spraying in 2008, according to a Western official who requested anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.
He had been pressured by several senior members of his government not to allow spraying, the Western official said.
Several Afghan officials on Thursday said herbicides pose too big a risk of contaminating water, killing produce and harming local residents. Any chemicals would have been spread at ground level, not by planes.
The decision caps months of behind-the-scenes pressure from the U.S. for Karzai to allow a technique already used in countries such as Colombia, and comes one month after the top U.S. anti-drug official said that Afghanistan would spray poppies.
John Walters, the director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said last month that that poppies would be sprayed, although he did not say when. Walters, on a visit to Kabul, said Afghanistan could turn into a narco-state unless "giant steps" were made toward eliminating poppies.
However, no top Afghan officials have said publicly that the government would carry out spraying.
Joe Mellott, the spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, said the U.S. still "stands ready to assist the Afghans if they want to use herbicide."
"We always said that the ground-based spraying is a decision for the Afghans to make," he said. "We understand they are going to focus on a robust manual and mechanical program to eradicate poppies this year."
Underscoring Afghans' unease with herbicide, Asadullah Wafa, the governor of Helmand province, said herbicides negatively affect crops and animals. More poppy is grown in Helmand than anywhere else in the world.
"There is another way to eradicate, like launching operations through all the districts, and I hope the international community will give us tractors and provide more troops to destroy poppies," Wafa said.
Walters, during his December visit, emphasized to Afghan media members that a common herbicide _ sold commercially as Roundup in the United States _ would be used and was safe for other crops and animals.
U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann said this week that Afghanistan already has eradicated nearly 1,500 acres of poppies this year _ compared to none during the same period last year. U.S. and Afghan officials agree that eradication must be matched with a crackdown on traffickers and programs to help farmers switch to legal crops.
"We have done an enormous amount of alternative livelihood, but you are not going to have a full meaning of alternatives until we build a rural economy and until you can move a crop to the market," Neumann said.
Few crops in Afghanistan can be transported far without spoiling or damage. By comparison, poppy resin, the main ingredient in heroin, is robust and can keep for years.
Afghan farmers have sometimes turned to violence to protect the precious poppy plants, whose profits are believed to flow partly to Taliban militants.
Police said two members of an Afghan government eradication team were shot and wounded by unidentified gunmen as they destroyed poppies in western Herat province on Wednesday.
___
Associated Press writers Fisnik Abrashi and Amir Shah contributed to this report.
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UK fears Afghan poppy backlash
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent January 25 2007 The Herald (UK)
THE Afghan government is to launch a poppy eradication campaign in Helmand province which UK military commanders fear will antagonise farmers and drive them into the arms of the Taliban.
The drive to wipe out 20,000 acres of opium poppies is to be carried out near Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, by 300 American-trained local counter-narcotics officers, supported by Afghan police units.
British commanders have distanced themselves from the initiative, but still fear a backlash against the 5200-strong UK garrison because the Kabul authorities have ruled out compensation for crops.
continued...
One said: "The whole thing is being driven by the US, which has become impatient with the lack of progress in cutting poppy cultivation and opium production.
"Our concern is that local villagers tend not to differentiate greatly between armed and uniformed strangers sent by their own government and armed and uniformed strangers from abroad. All they can see is someone in authority destroying their livelihood.
"When that happens, everyone perceived to be involved becomes a target."
Adam Isacson, an analyst at Washington's Centre for International Policy, said the US was applying the flawed template of Plan Colombia, the seven-year campaign to eliminate cocaine from the central American narco-state, to Afghanistan as a quick fix.
"If Afghanistan begins to eradicate on the same scale, five or six years down the line you'll have just as much poppy being grown and a lot more angry people who don't trust their government," he added. "It will be a disaster."
The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, itself accused of involvement in an opium trade worth between £1 and £2bn a year, has forbidden aerial spray defoliants. The Afghan force sent in to destroy poppies has been ordered to use tractors and hand tools.
Critics say endemic police corruption means that farmers able to pay bribes to clearance teams will escape loss, while the poorest villagers will be left destitute and embittered.
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Afghan, Pakistan, NATO armies to open first intelligence hub
Thu Jan 25, 3:30 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - The first Afghan, Pakistan and NATO intelligence sharing centre is due to open formally in Kabul in a drive to improve coordination in the protracted fight against the Taliban and other extremists.
The joint intelligence and operation centre is staffed by six intelligence agents from each of the Afghan, Pakistan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) militaries -- all fighting the resurgent Taliban.
"The centre will allow the sharing of information and reports to be able to better coordinate military operations," Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.
"Now how useful and significant it will be -- we will wait for the results. Lots has been discussed in the past, lots of commissions and meetings were formed. We will wait and see if this will be useful," he said.
Commanders of the three militaries already meet every two months in a Tripartite Commission.
The intelligence centre's establishment comes amid growing tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan over the Taliban-led insurgency, which has grown steadily stronger since its launch after the hardliners' rout from government in 2001.
Afghanistan has been joined by Western sources in saying elements in Pakistan, including in its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, are backing the insurgency, which was its bloodiest last year with 4,000 dead -- most of them rebel fighters.
President Pervez Musharraf has angrily rejected the accusations.
"I take extremely strong exception to anybody (accusing) ... any government agency of Pakistan of cooperating with these extremist forces and sending them into Afghanistan," Musharraf said Wednesday.
ISAF spokesman Brigadier Richard Nugee said this month the new centre was an "extremely significant step forward" against the extremists, who also carry out attacks in the Pakistan border areas.
Nugee said that the Afghan and Pakistan militaries would be brought "much closer together" by sharing intelligence information.
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Pakistani Premier Faults Afghans for Taliban Woes on Border
The New York Times By KATRIN BENNHOLD and MARK LANDLER January 25, 2007
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 24 — Pakistan’s prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, acknowledged Wednesday that people sympathetic to the Taliban were active in the frontier regions near the border with Afghanistan. But he insisted that the root of the problem was the Afghan government’s weak authority, not Pakistani support of the Taliban.
“We believe the core of the problem is in Afghanistan,” Mr. Aziz said, in an interview at the World Economic Forum here in Davos.
Mr. Aziz also said three million Afghan refugees were crowded into Quetta, Peshawar and other Pakistani cities close to the 1,700 mile-border between the countries. Despite what he described as stepped-up Pakistani efforts to root out extremists, the refugee population remains a recruiting pool for the Taliban insurgency, Mr. Aziz said. But he dismissed allegations that his country was supporting the militants.
“This notion that Pakistan may be in some way or other supporting these people or giving them safe haven is ridiculous,” he said.
As for suspicions that elements in Pakistan’s intelligence service, the I.S.I., might be acting independently in support of the Taliban, he said, “That’s equally ridiculous.”
“The Pakistani intelligence service is a disciplined service, and they act in line with the government,” Mr. Aziz insisted.
On Sunday, a correspondent for The New York Times, Carlotta Gall, reported that she had found anecdotal evidence in and around Quetta to support charges by Western diplomats and Pakistani opposition figures that the Pakistani intelligence agencies were encouraging the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
While reporting in Quetta, Ms. Gall was assaulted by plainclothes intelligence agents in her hotel room, and her photographer, Akhtar Soomro, was detained. Their computers, notes and cellphones were taken, and since then Pakistani agents have tracked down their sources. Ms. Gall said her visa to report in Pakistan had no restrictions.
Mr. Aziz said Ms. Gall “should not have been where she was, legally,” and that she had violated the terms of her visa by visiting Quetta without authorization from the government. He added that it was “regrettable she got bruised in that interaction” and said the government was investigating the matter.
“We don’t condone behavior that is physical harassment,” Mr. Aziz said. “That’s not on.”
Pakistan has come under increasing criticism from NATO officials and Western leaders for not doing enough to clamp down on terrorist networks. This month, in his most recent threat assessment, the American director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, said Al Qaeda continued to operate from “their leaders’ secure hide-out in Pakistan.”
Mr. Aziz said the Pakistani government did not know the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda’s leader, or of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban. But he said, “Certainly they are not in Pakistan.”
On Wednesday, President Pervez Musharraf dismissed allegations that Pakistani officials were sheltering the head of the Taliban, and said the United States-led war in Afghanistan could not be won without Pakistan’s help, Reuters reported from Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.
“The fight against terrorism and extremism, whether it is Al Qaeda or Taliban, can never succeed without Pakistan’s cooperation and Pakistan is the only country that has delivered the maximum on both,” Mr. Musharraf said at a news conference in Abu Dhabi.
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AFGHANISTAN: Returnees need urgent assistance
25 Jan 2007 13:07:54 GMT
More PANJWAYI, 25 January (IRIN) - Thousands of Afghans uprooted by the war against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan have begun to return home, although many returnees find life in their devastated villages very hard.
According to the United Nations, 90,000 people fled Panjwayi and Zhari districts in Kandahar province in September 2006 when NATO-led forces launched a military operation against Taliban fighters. Afghan authorities say in recent weeks about 28,000 people have returned to the two districts.
Said Mohammad, 53, and his 17-member family were forced to flee Lakanai village in Panjwayi district, 30 km west of Kandahar city, when heavy fighting erupted. "I have lost everything, including a garden [full] of grape [vines], which was the only source of income for supporting my family, during the fighting," Mohammad told IRIN in Panjwayi.
"We have received very little food and have a few blankets from the government which is not enough for us. We need shelter and more food [to survive on] until our houses and farming land are rehabilitated."
Mohammad returned home after he heard from other villagers that the fighting was over and the government had started several relief and development projects for local people.
Fazal Rahman, 35, who returned on Sunday to his village of Sperwan in Panjwayi district, said the returnees needed urgent help. "First we need shelter and food, because we have lost our home, crops and even our fields during the fighting," he said.
Agha Mohammad Nazari, deputy director of Refugees and Repatriation Department of Kandahar, acknowledged the problem. "Undoubtedly, the most significant problem of returned people [to Panjwayi and Zhari districts] is currently the lack of shelter," he said.
Few aid agencies are working in the southern region due to insecurity and statistics are hard to come by, but many returning families are said to be in a similar situation.
Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) in Kabul, said the UN was stepping up efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghan families displaced by the insurgency in Kandahar province.
"The UN agencies are currently pushing ahead to help local authorities deliver essential humanitarian assistance to the displaced families," Siddique said. The World Food Programme (WFP) has provided 2,000 metric tonnes of food; the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) have contributed 4,000 blankets, 2,000 plastic sheets, and 2,000 family kits containing kerosene lamps and other essential cooking utensils. "This distribution started 14 days ago and will continue over the next three to four weeks," Siddique said.
Assadullah Khalid, governor of Kandahar, said the districts of Panjwayi and Zhari had been cleared of Taliban insurgents during recent military operations. "Now all displaced families living in Kandahar city can return to their homes and villages without any fear or threat," he told IRIN.
But some returning residents in Panjwayi said they feared that fighting could resume.
"We are very afraid … the Taliban will again come to our village and there will be fighting again, so we hope the government will take strict measures to avoid the infiltration of Taliban in our areas," Khalil Ahmad, 43, who returned to his home in Zangawat village in Panjwayi district on Monday, told IRIN.
About 16,800 people have returned to Sperwan and Tolokan villages and 8,400 people to Zangawat in Panjwayi, while about 3, 600 people have gone back to Zhari district in recent weeks, according to Khalid.
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The winter of the Taliban's content
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online
KABUL - Like two snowmen trapped immobile in winter's grip, NATO-led forces and the Taliban-led insurgency eye each other icily, watching and waiting for the thaw that will allow them to renew what both believe could be the decisive battle for control of Afghanistan.
As soon as the snow starts to melt within a few months, Afghanistan will be locked in a titanic battle that will initially be centered along the key artery running across the south of the country from Herat in the west, through Kandahar and on to the
capital Kabul in the east. This will become the highway to hell, or, if the Taliban win, the highway to the paradise on Earth that they promise for the country.
With the onset of winter last year, both sides had time to reconsider their positions, especially in view of the Taliban's most successful spring offensive since being ousted in 2001. About 4,000 people died last year, a fourfold increase over the previous year.
In southwestern Afghanistan, the Taliban emerged powerful and confident, both on the political and military fronts, clearly no longer the timid rats hiding in mountain holes from where they would come out randomly and try to bite their enemies.
All the same, the Taliban failed to force the withdrawal of any of the 31,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in the country, something the alliance calls "a failure". The Taliban response is that last year was just a "warm-up". This year will be for real, they say.
Where they stand
Through the eyes of the US and NATO, the accepted view of the Taliban, given their initial performance in the field, was of a bunch of poorly organized troops whose only hope was to increase the number of their recruits, who in turn would become cannon fodder.
This all changed last year in the southwest when the Taliban, after being rejected by the masses, were asked down from the mountains to join in with the population. This provided the Taliban with essential grassroots support and logistics.
At this point, the Taliban abandoned their one-dimensional guerrilla tactics and developed a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, militants would seize the main access points around Kandahar - the former Taliban spiritual headquarters in the province of the same name - and on the other, Taliban leaders would foment a popular armed uprising aimed at joining with the militants in the capture of Kandahar.
This is what happened in the mid-1990s when the Taliban emerged and seized power in the chaos following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989: once the southwest was secured, eastern Afghanistan followed, and the two regions combined for the final assault on Kabul.
NATO commanders are now taking this possibility seriously, so much so that they see a foreign hand behind the planning - Pakistan or, more specifically, retired Pakistani army personnel.
One example, which was handed over to Islamabad by NATO, involved a prominent retired officer and former Pakistani diplomat who met with top Taliban commander Mullah Akhtar Osmani in Helmand province, only 10 days before Osmani was killed last month in a NATO air strike. In a protest note, it was claimed that Pakistani intelligence services were using retired officers to support the Taliban.
Be that as it might, the brains behind the Taliban's war is a veteran Afghan mujahideen commander against the Soviets, Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani. He organized the Taliban to keep NATO forces engaged across Afghanistan through guerrilla raids, the use of improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks, while at the same time steadily beefing up the Taliban's presence in carefully picked corridors for use in the battle for Kandahar.
Too quick off the mark
From September through November last year, the Tagab Valley northeast of Kabul fell into the hands of the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the mercurial mujahid with political ambitions who for now is fighting alongside the Taliban against NATO forces.
To the south of Kabul, the Musay Valley became a focal point for fighters loyal to the Taliban and the HIA. On the grand chessboard of Afghanistan, these were tactical moves aimed as backup for a mass mobilization of Taliban troops.
Meanwhile, the Taliban increased their presence along the corridors from Kandahar to Herat and Kandahar to Kabul. Altogether, thousands of men were ready to flood into Kandahar and Kabul. All they were waiting for was reinforcements in northern Afghanistan.
In October, Commander Gholam Hossain of Bamyan, a Shi'ite, had traveled to Baghran in Helmand province and, along with another Shi'ite commander from northern Afghanistan, had promised that as soon as the Taliban launched their mass attack, they would join forces and provide as much logistical support as possible from the north.
But leading Taliban commanders wavered, believing they needed more men. They wanted to wait until March. With the date uncertain, men began to drift from key pockets, and the moment was lost.
NATO takes heart
"Everything turned out to be Taliban rhetoric as they failed to seize Kandahar and Kabul, despite their tall claims," NATO spokesman Mark Laity told Asia Times Online at the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters in Kabul.
"It is a fact that the Taliban cannot fight any decisive battle against NATO. They just cannot stand against the military strength of NATO forces. At the end of 2006, the Taliban tried to capture some strategic points and tried to carry out a conventional sort of warfare against NATO forces, but when NATO carried out operations, they could not withstand," Laity said.
"NATO carried out operations in southwest Afghanistan, such as Baaz Tsuka [in the Zari and Panjwai districts, south of Kandahar on either side of the Arghandab River], and there were cleanup operations of insurgent hideouts around Kabul. After such operations, the Taliban are no longer a threat to carry out any conventional armed strategy," Laity said.
He added that after Baaz Tsuka, the Taliban were forced to leave their positions near Kandahar. "They refused to fight with NATO and withdrew from the Panjwai and Zari districts and in some
cases they even left their ammunition behind," Laity said.
Standing by a map on the wall, Laity pointed to the Musay Valley. "That valley had become a hub for insurgents from where they used to send suicide attackers to Kabul. We carried out massive operations and arrested a number of Taliban commanders and diehards. Now the valley is clear. The Tagab Valley in the northeast was also in the hands of insurgents. We carried out another massive operation to clean up and now the valley is clear of insurgents," Laity said.
Laity listed other NATO successes and told Asia Times Online of plans for the involvement of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police.
The point is, though, that Afghanistan is not as simple as one operation such as Baaz Tsuka. There is always another side to the story.
For instance, the Taliban don't see their withdrawal from the Zari and Panjwai districts as a reversal. They say they only pulled out after striking an agreement under which control of the area was handed over to tribal elders sympathetic to the Taliban.
This is similar to the deal struck in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province last September - NATO and the Taliban pulled back after power was handed to pro-Taliban tribals (see Rough justice and blooming poppies, Asia Times Online, December 7, 2006).
Such agreements are now common throughout southwestern Afghanistan, and clearly benefit the Taliban more than they do NATO, despite the NATO interpretation.
"This [Zari and Panjway] is a success of the Afghan people, who at the end of the day got peace through this agreement, and establishing peace is the actual purpose of NATO forces in Afghanistan," Brigadier-General Richard Nugee, a NATO spokesman at ISAF headquarters in Kabul, told Asia Times Online.
"We spoke to the tribal elders and told them the merits of cooperating with NATO forces, which would promote a lot of reconstruction work in the area, including health facilities, roads and schools, and the demerits of cooperating with the Taliban, which would only bring devastation to the area and the Taliban would always lose whenever they fought.
"As a result, the Taliban elders were compliant and struck the peace agreement. Now we will support the Afghan National Army, the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Auxiliary Police to move into the area and establish the writ of the Afghan government," Nugee said.
"Now the Taliban don't have much room for their strategy and asymmetrical attacks are the only way for them. These attacks do not harm NATO forces much. Eighty percent of the victims of these attacks are Afghans, and that is why various polls show that Taliban popularity has gone down to less than 10% in Afghanistan," Nugee said.
Not so fast ...
But just as the Taliban see their withdrawal from the Zari and Panjway districts as benefiting their long-term plans, they are not too concerned about the touted NATO success in the Tagab Valley northeast of Kabul, where they say the resistance is far from eliminated.
The valley is in Kapisa province, which is predominantly ethnic Tajik, and connects with the harsh terrain of Kunar province, which lies opposite Pakistan's Bajaur tribal agency. During their 10-year occupation of Afghanistan, the Soviets never controlled this area.
Obviously, the Taliban could not withstand the NATO bombardment of the area, so they simply melted into the forests of Nooristan province, the mountains of Kunar province and the plains of Bajaur.
They are now waiting, as they were last year, for the green light from southwestern Afghanistan, at which point they will emerge from their hiding places to join the planned mass rebellion. This could be any time after March, once the weather warms up.
NATO is all too aware that time is short, and also that after five years, many of which saw US forces raining bombs on Afghanistan, hard military aggression is not an option - it simply increases support for the Taliban.
NATO accepts that "Taliban" is a "generic name" for the insurgency, which includes most segments of Afghan society in the southwest of the country. Rather than bombs, a political solution is needed.
For instance, the British in Helmand call their mission a "security task" under which they aim to provide security to the people, rather than chase the "enemy" from its hideouts. All the same, they do clear pockets of Taliban along routes around Kandahar.
NATO has also redefined the Taliban into two categories - "reconciliatory" and "irreconciliatory". According to its information, southwestern Afghanistan comprises 80% reconciliatory Taliban with whom it has already started negotiations.
A new governor in Helmand province, an expert in tribal affairs, will attempt to invoke tribal traditions for rapprochement with the Taliban. At the same time, money and resources are being pumped in for infrastructure and reconstruction projects to help win hearts and minds.
This battle might already have been lost. The Taliban want all foreign forces out of the country, and they will fight to the last to achieve this once battle resumes over the next few months.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
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Nato force gunfire kills Afghan civilian
Dawn (Pakistan)
KABUL, Jan 24: Warning shots fired by Nato-led troops killed an Afghan passer-by in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, the force said, in the latest in a string of similar incidents.
International Security Assistance Force troops fired warning shots at the ground after a vehicle travelling at high speed did not stop at a road block in volatile Helmand province, a statement said.
“Unfortunately, the shots ricocheted and hit a local passer-by. The civilian was treated by an ISAF medic, but died at the scene,” it said. It did not say which troops were involved in the shooting, but most of the troops in Helmand are British.
The province last year saw some of Afghanistan’s worst Taliban-linked violence, which included nearly 140 suicide blasts nationwide.
There have been several cases in past weeks in which soldiers have killed civilians who have not heeded warnings to stop at checkpoints.—AFP
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Afghan warlord urges youngsters to lay down arms
Wed. Jan. 24 2007 11:07 PM ET Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Canadian efforts to pacify a swath of parched farmland west of Kandahar city have received a boost from a powerful tribal leader and former warlord.
Mullah Naqib, a grey-bearded former mujahedeen commander widely respected since he fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, told The Canadian Press in an interview that he's urging young, unemployed Afghan men in the Panjwaii and Zahri districts to resist insurgent recruiters who are expected to come knocking again this spring.
"I suggest for them to not to join Taliban,'' he said.
"I don't think that the youngsters of Panjwaii and Sperwan will join Taliban,'' he added confidently. "I think they will live their lives.''
In a society where tribal ties often trump most things including the rule of law, the Alokazai tribal leader's "suggestion'' carries a lot weight. It may prove crucial as NATO presses forward with a campaign to separate hard-core extremists from softer supporters of the Taliban.
"If they don't join, it will be great and good,'' said Naqib, who holds sway over the Arghandaub region near Kandahar.
"If they join, it will create a lot of problems for them and their families. They will not be able to feed their families.''
Destitute farmers outside Kandahar were coerced into fighting or churned up into a religious frenzy last spring by bellicose Taliban commanders, many of whom moved into the area from sanctuaries in Pakistan. Their clashes with Afghan and heavily-armed NATO forces ended with the slaughter of hundreds of young men. Many militant commanders fled back across the border.
Afghans say that poverty, and not ideology, drives the majority of Taliban foot soldiers.
With U.S. warnings of more fighting ahead this spring in an anticipated Taliban offensive to retake Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, Canadian troops and government reconstruction staff have been rushing to woo potential insurgent fighters with aid and short-term make-work projects.
Naqib predicted that full-fledged insurgent attacks this spring will be "rare,'' mostly because of apparent in-fighting among the senior ranks of the Taliban.
"Yes, they are divided in different groups because everybody wants to be a leader,'' he said in the interview conducted last week through a translator.
Naqib's credentials and connections among the militants were impeccable.
A Pashtu elder, Naqib was close to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar and was once governor of Kandahar. It was Naqib's decision to quit the city with his fighters in 1994 that allowed the Taliban's rise to power to begin. And it was Naqib to whom Omar turned when he surrendered control of the city in December 2001 as Northern Alliance and U.S. forces were closing in.
Naqib is now an ardent supporter of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose government is backed by NATO forces including the Canadian contingent in Kandahar province.
Canadian troops fought fierce battles with the Taliban in the Panjwaii and Zahri areas last fall.
Deference for Naqib within the Taliban remains strong to this day.
The Globe and Mail newspaper reported last month that militants consulted him before planning any action in Arghandaub. He was reported to have tried to talk them out of attacks on allegedly corrupt local police.
Naqib is also the tribal leader who reportedly interfered in the Afghan police investigation of Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry's murder to get a member of his tribe released from custody.
Naqib says Pakistan's intelligence service fostered the divisions within the Taliban by convincing individual commanders that they could be "the next leader'' -- someone who will replace Omar.
Rumours of strife in militant ranks are the subject of hot gossip in Kandahar. Naqib could offer no proof beyond an assessment of what his own contacts tell him. But even Canadian commanders claim to have heard about it.
"I have heard stories but I have nothing concrete to base that assessment on,'' Brig.-Gen Tim Grant, commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
"I have heard stories there are members of the Taliban, who could be referred to as Tier 1, who are tired of the life they're leading. If that's the case, that's great news.''
The current governor of Kandahar, Assadullah Khalid, was coy when asked whether any hardliners would join the less committed insurgents in laying down their arms. He said the national reconciliation program to integrate former extremists into society is proceeding "and we are expecting a positive result.''
Signs that something is happening within the Taliban became evident this week when the group announced they intended to open schools in areas under their domination.
During its time in power, the Taliban closed schools and barred women from attending classes.
A year ago, the Taliban were still burning schools and beheading teachers, especially those who educated women. Such attacks have been cited by Afghans as a reason to fear a return of their extremist rule.
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Pakistan arrests over 300 Afghans deported from Saudi
Thu Jan 25, 5:51 AM ET
KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistani police have arrested over 300 Afghan nationals in the southern city of Karachi who had gone to perform the Muslim Haj ritual on fake Pakistani passports, an official said on Thursday.
The Afghan nationals were arrested at Karachi's airport after they were deported from Saudi Arabia, Abdul Malik, a senior immigration official told Reuters.
"They are in our custody and are under investigation," he said.
Immigration authorities arrested 183 Afghan nationals on Wednesday night and another 122, including women, on Saturday.
The government says there are more than three million Afghan refugees living and working in Pakistan, amongst the largest concentrations of refugees anywhere in the world.
More than a million Afghan refugees have been registered by the government since last October in a drive to provide them with official identification.
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Pakistan’s Lack of Border Control
January 24, 2007 Council on Foreign Relations Prepared by: Carin Zissis
The frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan serves as the flash point for tensions between the two countries as Kabul grows increasingly critical of Islamabad's seeming inability to control cross-border raids by Islamic militants. The solution proposed by Pakistan last month to mine and fence the roughly 1,500-mile Durand line (VOA) did little to reassure Afghans, who have long disputed the boundary. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose criticism was echoed by Washington and the United Nations, said Islamabad should instead eliminate terrorist sanctuaries (BBC) within Pakistan rather than separate families who live in the border region. Pashtun tribal leaders on both sides of the boundary warn if Pakistan carries out the plan they will remove any barriers or mines (Pajhwok Afghan News).
Pakistan, under U.S. pressure to stop Taliban incursions into Afghanistan, has sought to place blame across the border. In a Washington Post interview, a Pakistani military spokesman said his country has made genuine attempts to control the border and that Afghanistan also plays a role in cross-border raids by insurgents: "If 25 percent of the problem lies on our side of the border, 75 percent of it lies on the Afghan side."
But even if its intentions are sincere, Pakistan's ability to contain militancy appears increasingly in question. The government of President Pervez Musharraf has proven unable to halt terrorist activities in the autonomous tribal areas near the border. Critics view the government's treaty with the North Waziristan tribal region as a concession to the Taliban and other militants active there rather than a victory for Islamabad. A briefing by the United States Institute of Peace looks at the gap between Pakistan's will and its ability to carry out anti-terrorist activities, saying Pakistan cannot meet the demands of Kabul and the international community because Musharraf lacks credibility.
The likely complicity of Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) in sheltering militants—and Musharraf's incapacity to stop the agency from doing so—serves as another obstacle to securing the border. Carlotta Gall, a New York Times journalist who was assaulted by ISI agents while covering the agency's support of an Islamic insurgency, offers this report on ISI's backing of Taliban incursions into Afghanistan. Her article appeared days after Taliban spokesman Mohammad Hanif, captured by Afghani agents near the border, said Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is hiding out (Guardian) in the Pakistani city of Quetta under the ISI's protection. Omar has remained elusive since fleeing the U.S.-led Afghanistan campaign in 2001. Islamabad denies harboring the Taliban or Omar, and claims the cleric is in Afghanistan heading the insurgency (Hindustan Times) against NATO-led forces.
Pakistan also has repeatedly rejected U.S. claims that it shelters al-Qaeda operatives. Islamabad's foreign ministry spokeswoman recently said, "In breaking the back of al-Qaeda, Pakistan has done more than any other country in the world." As if to punctuate the point, the Pakistani army claimed responsibility for a strike on a suspected al-Qaeda hideout near the Afghan border on January 16. The bombing, which killed eight alleged militants, coincided with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates' recent visit to Kabul, where he expressed concern over the rise in the number of cross-border attacks (Bloomberg).
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Afghan coal mine burning for 20 years
Middle East Times, Egypt Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi January 25, 2007
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan -- There is an abandoned village at the foot of Black Mountain, in the northern Afghan province of Samangan. It used to be home to workers in the Darra-ye-Suf mines, but now the collapsed walls and roofs of dozens of houses testify that many residents have fled.
They fear explosions from the mines, parts of which are on fire and have been burning for most of the past 20 years.
No one knows exactly how the fire started. Local legend has it that villagers were excavating the mine illegally, and someone brought in a kerosene lamp to light his way. A random spark set the coal alight, and no one has been able to put it out since.
Darra-ye-Suf is one of Afghanistan's largest seams, producing over 60,000 tons of coal annually - approximately 15 percent of the country's total output. According to surveys conducted decades ago by geologists from the former Soviet Union, the mine has reserves of 102 million tons of coal.
Darra-ye-Suf is still active, with the Afghan government claiming that the fire poses no danger to workers in the other, "safe" mines, but residents are not convinced.
"The government keeps saying that this fire is not dangerous," said Abdullah, who lives in the area. "But they have taken no action to extinguish it, and hundreds of families have left. I moved away right at the beginning, because the lives of my family are more important to me than anything else."
At present, according to provincial officials, there are about 900 miners at Darra-ye-Suf. Residents say that a dozen or so people die every year when tunnels damaged by the ongoing fire collapse.
Noor Mohammad, a miner who has witnessed several deaths, described one such incident. "Two years ago, I smelled smoke when I entered the tunnel. I managed to get out, but two of my relatives died when the walls caved in," he said.
Noor Mohammad suffers from asthma, which he is convinced is a result of the smoke he inhaled during the accident. He said that many people in the area are afflicted with the same problem.
"In previous years there weren't many opportunities to get treatment, so people died of coughs and asthma. We thought it was tuberculosis, but later we found out it was because they had breathed in the smoke from the coal fire," he said.
Now, say residents, the danger has increased and they fear that the fire will trigger a massive explosion.
"Over the past year, the level of smoke has risen, and we have heard small explosions from inside the mine," said local resident Mohammad Ishaq. "This has never happened here before."
Locals draw on memories of past explosions, which killed 140 people over two decades up until 1981 at the Karkar coal mine, in the Baghlan province. They say they are frightened and that if something is not done soon, everyone will leave.
"People are convinced that there's going to be a big explosion," said Noor Mohammad. "They think the mountain is just one big bomb."
Health experts are also concerned about the ongoing effects of the fire.
"Constant inhalation of carbon dioxide damages the lungs and causes diseases such as asthma," said Dr. Ghausuddin Anwar, deputy director of the department of public health in Mazar-I-Sharif. "Over prolonged periods, it can cause death."
The governor of Samangan, Abdul Haq Shafaq, recently paid a visit to the mine, and said that he, too, was gravely concerned. "There are two aspects that worry me," he said. "Firstly, if the mine explodes, the entire area will be covered in ash. Secondly, a huge chunk of our national income is burning away."
However, the governor insisted that locals had not asked for help with evacuation, and few had actually left. "People have got used to it," he said.
He has requested assistance from the central government, which has allocated $2 million to extinguish the blaze. Shafaq maintained that all illegal excavation had been curbed.
Khugman Olumi, spokesman for the ministry of mining and manufacturing, confirmed that the government had already allocated the funds. "As soon as we get the money, we will begin work on putting out the fire," he said. "It will take approximately two years to get the situation under control," he added.
"For the past 20 years there has been no government in this country, and no experts at our ministry," he said. "That is why no one has tried to put out the fire up until now."
Since the fire is underground, the ministry has been unable to estimate precisely how much of the mine has been consumed, but Olumi believes the losses are significant.
Still, he downplayed talk of an explosion. "An explosion is unlikely, because the fire is underground and there's insufficient oxygen to cause the mine to blow up. Besides, we are also now beginning the work of putting the fire out," he said.
He added with a smile, "The mine has not exploded in the past 20 years - it will wait a few more years."
But despite such reassurances, local residents are growing more and more worried.
"When the Karkar mine exploded, many people died," said Shamsullah, who lives in Samangan. "Who compensated people for their losses? I am afraid that the same thing will happen to us."
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Afghan rugs leave lasting impression at US exhibition
NEW YORK, Jan 25 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The highly acclaimed rugs from Afghanistan left a lasting impression among the visitors at the International Area Rug Show last week.
The exhibition last week titled "Afghan Impressions: Area Rug Artistry and Inspiration" served as latest development in the ongoing bilateral initiative to link Afghan producers with US buyers in support of economic prosperity in Afghanistan.
"We are proud to see Afghanistan's esteemed products on display in the US and available to interested buyers. We look forward to continuing our joint efforts to promote such opportunities, allowing the US consumer to witness first-hand the beauty, quality and art of an Afghan-made rug," said the Afghanistan Minister for Commerce and Industries Dr Mir Mohammad Amin Farhang.
The minister was accompanied by a delegation of ten senior executives of Afghan rug producing companies and representatives of the newly-established Export Promotion Centre of Afghanistan, said a statement released by the Afghan embassy.
Speaking on the occasion, US Deputy Secretary of Commerce David Sampson reiterated the Commerce Department was committed to increasing bilateral business ties and stimulating trade and investment between the two countries. This would lead to significant improvements in the welfare of the Afghan people, he said.
"A smart step towards this goal is to help Afghanistan export their impressive hand-woven rugs, among the cultural products they are known for around the world," Sampson said.
Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States Said T. Jawad encouraged the audience to let the art of rug weaving. "Afghan rugs connect you to thousands of years of history, a group of talented artists halfway around the world, and a reconstruction process that is helping millions of people find security, prosperity, education and new hope," he said.
This exhibition follows the successful July 2006 visit by a separate Afghan business delegation to the United States. During this visit, the delegates gained greater understanding of the international textile industry through meetings with government and business leaders on how Afghan rug makers can market and sell their unique hand-made rugs in the American market, the statement said.
The exhibition was organized by the Economic, Trade and Investment Department of the Embassy of Afghanistan, in collaboration with Export Promotion Centre of Afghanistan, the US Department of Commerce and America's Mart Atlanta.
Lalit K. Jha
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Afghan man given temporary stay in Japan after refugee status denied
Thursday January 25, 9:26 PM
(Kyodo) _ An Afghan man who lost a lawsuit seeking refugee status was given special permission to stay in Japan for one year by immigration authorities, sources familiar with his case said Thursday.
Abdul Aziz, a 34-year-old who belongs to an anti-Taliban Hazara ethnic group, has sought asylum, arguing he would be persecuted by the Taliban if he returned home.
Special permission is granted at the discretion of the justice minister. A Justice Ministry official refused to comment on the case, citing privacy.
Entering Japan in June 2001 at Fukuoka airport, Aziz applied for refugee status in November that year, but the application was rejected. He later filed a lawsuit with the Hiroshima District Court.
The district court granted the status in its March 2005 sentence, saying the circumstances in Afghanistan warranted his fear of possible persecution by remnants of the Taliban.
But the high court overturned the district court sentence in July 2006, saying there was no threat of persecution because the Taliban government had already collapsed in February 2002 when the Justice Ministry denied him refugee status.
Aziz did not appeal the high court ruling and the sentence was finalized.
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PR ready to enhance railway links with Iran, Afghanistan
The Pakistan Link
RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Railways (PR) is ready to enhance railway-links with neighboring countries of Iran and Afghanistan by connecting Chaman with Spin Boldak and Quetta with Taftan, Federal Minister for Railways, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said here Thursday.
He was speaking at a lunch hosted by him for journalists of the twin cities at Rawalpindi Railway Station in connection with the re-introduction of Dinning Cars in Express Trains.
The minister said that PR had made all necessary preparations to link Chaman with Spin Boldak in Afghanistan and added that it was waiting green signal from Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
He said that railway links between Quetta and Taftan were also on the cards and added that he would be visiting Iran next month to hold talks with Iranian officials in this regard.
He expressed the hope that with Iran's cooperation the service would be started soon. He said, execution of these links would revolutionize the railways, adding that Pakistan would get access to Europe through Iran by this service.
Underlining the importance for power generation for running fast-moving trains, the minister said that PR would establish five power generating stations with the help of private partnership in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Sukkkur and Quetta. He said, PR was moving fast to initiate work on doubling the track, which has not been done for the last sixty years, adding that track between Rawalpindi and Lahore would be straightened to minimize travel time by two and half an hours.
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Taliban Tagged as Vicious Losers
Strategy Page
January 24, 2007: The Taliban violence in Afghanistan last year did not make the Islamic radicals very popular among the very people they insist they are fighting for. This can be seen from the number of suicide bombers who are being arrested, usually as a result of tips from citizens. During a one week period in early January, eleven suicide bombers were captured around Kandahar, the southern city that is (or, rather, was) the "capital" of the Taliban movement.
A more telling sign is the recent Taliban announcement that they will set up their own schools. First for boys, and then for girls. The Taliban destroyed or damaged over 200 schools last year. The only schools the Taliban will allow are those that emphasize religious studies, and especially instruction in the benefits of dying for Islam. Most parents prefer the more modern approach, where practical subjects dominate the curriculum. The Taliban is trying, in its own bumbling way, to compromise. Last years operations were largely all about terrorizing villagers to not cooperate with the government. That included threatening thousands of teachers, beating many, and killing twenty of them. The teachers were popular, and the Taliban actions were not.
Another annoyance was the large number of the Taliban fighters who were from far away, mainly Pakistan. Al Qaeda also sent in some Arabs and Central Asians, and these guys were not very popular either. By the end of 2006, the Taliban tactics has terrorized many Afghans into compliance. But many others were actively resisting the Taliban, and providing information to NATO and Afghan troops. Over the Winter, the Taliban have continued to take a beating. This means the Taliban appear ready to enter this years Spring Offensive tagged as a bunch of vicious losers. The Taliban tactics have been more successful in generating fear, than recruits. Even across the border in Pakistan, it's getting difficult to get smart young fellows to sign up. Those guys with half a brain noted that most of those who went off to fight last year, either didn't come back, or came back wounded or ill. However, the Taliban fighters will be back, but the 2007 models will not be of the same quality as the 2006 ones.
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2 Afghan children killed, 4 wounded
KABUL (AP) - An old tank shell exploded at a military barracks in Kabul on Thursday, killing two children and wounding four others, police said.
The victims were playing on the grounds of an old, bombed-out military barracks currently used by the Afghan army as a base, said Ali Shah Paktiawal, a police official. Afghanistan is littered with mines and ordnance from 30 years of war, and Afghans are frequently hurt after accidentally setting the explosives off.
Elsewhere, five people, including a 2-year-old child, died in an avalanche in western Ghor province on Wednesday, said Goer's deputy governor, Crudding Rezazada.
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Neighborhood watch for Afghan schools
Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi IWPR January 25, 2007 via Middle East Times, Egypt
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan -- Unable to combat the rash of arson attacks across the country, the government is enlisting the public's help to safeguard schools and children.
Mohammad Gul used to dream of becoming a teacher. The 13-year-old attended a high school in the Maarja district, in the troubled southern province of Helmand. He worked hard to get good grades so that he would be able to go to university.
That was before his school burned down last year - torched by insurgents seeking to undermine the provincial authorities.
"I do not think I will fulfill my dream," Mohammad said. "If the government rebuilds the school, the Taliban will just burn it down again. That is how we all feel. The government has provided tents for the school, but we are afraid that we will be burned along with the tents."
Mohammad Gul is just one of thousands of children whose futures are being jeopardized by the rising tide of attacks on schools in Afghanistan.
Over the past year, more than 100 schools have been burned down. This threatens to reverse one of the key achievements of President Hamid Karzai's administration.
Throughout the country, but especially in the southern provinces, schools that opened to great fanfare after the fall of the Taliban are being quietly closed because parents and pupils fear retribution from armed insurgents.
Most people blame the Taliban, citing the fundamentalists' opposition to secular schooling, especially for girls. In statements made by various spokesmen, the Taliban have denied carrying out these attacks.
Regardless of who is torching the schools, it is having a widespread negative impact on education for a new generation of Afghans. Accurate statistics are hard to come by, but most experts estimate that no more than half of all school-age children are currently enrolled.
Afghan security forces have been overwhelmed by the problem, and the government freely admits that it lacks the capacity to protect all its schools.
"There is a limited number of police," said interior ministry spokesman Zalmai Bashiri. "So now civilians are helping the police protect their schools."
Bashiri was referring to the Education Protection Commissions - groups set up by the government to mobilize communities to defend their own schools.
Mohammad Seddiq Patman, the deputy minister of education, said the commissions were designed jointly by his ministry, the Afghan defense and interior ministries, and the national security department.
Each district will have a central commission staffed by the district government chief, the local security commander, the director of education, a cleric, and a village elder.
There will also be sub-commissions at lower levels, recruiting members from the local community. Residents of villages or school catchment areas will choose representatives to guard the schools at night, which is when most attacks take place. In the event of an attack, they will alert local residents by sounding an alarm or by phone.
According to Patman, the problem in the past was that there was no coordination with local people. Residents expected the security forces to protect them, so they did not assume responsibility for their own schools.
Now, since the central authorities are unable to keep the schools safe, local people will have to do it on their own.
Patman said that the new program was already bearing fruit. "We have seen fewer attacks in the past few months," he said. "Even when there are attempts, local people prevent the attacks by cooperating with the local authorities."
In one such incident in Helmand last month, the commission's guards alerted villagers when insurgents tried to burn down a school.
"They all rushed to the scene, and not only prevented the fire but captured the attackers as well," said Patman.
Local residents contribute either labor or money. If they cannot take their turn guarding their school, they provide funding to pay those who do. Most schools will have two or three people on guard each night.
Nazar Mohammad, a resident of the Chamtal district, in the north of Afghanistan, agreed that the scheme was working.
"Over the past year, several of our schools have been set on fire," he said. "We were all afraid that our children would get hurt." Now that the villagers themselves are providing the security, he said, parents can rest assured that even if an attack occurs, there will be someone around to prevent damage or injury.
"Three villagers are guarding the school which my children attend," he went on to say. "We are working with them, and we will help them if need be. We all have the phone number of the police, and if something happens we can contact them very easily."
Religious leaders are taking a more spiritual approach. The best way to ensure security, they argue, is to change attitudes.
Maulawi Abdel Maqsood, an Islamic scholar in the Sayyad district of Sar-e-Pul province, also in the north, where several schools have been set on fire in the past few months, said he and his colleagues have begun a campaign of religious teaching to discourage people from taking part in attacks.
"During the years of war, the enemies of Afghanistan have told people that schools are the places of infidels, and they are using some impressionable young people to torch schools," he said. "But we have to tell people that this is untrue."
According to Abdel Maqsood, clerics must use major gatherings such as weddings and prayer meetings to put their point across.
Ghulam Haidar Qanoon, the deputy director of education in Balkh, has toured most of the province's education protection commissions and is optimistic that they will be a success.
"When the commissions were set up, people willingly appointed [representatives] to safeguard their schools, and they mounted cultural and religious propaganda campaigns in most of the villages," he said. "They have even rebuilt some schools that were burned down, and these are now better than they were before."
But some observers are skeptical. For one thing, the civilian guards are not given weapons.
"Nothing can be done empty-handed," said Jan Mohammad Habibi, a newspaper editor in Balkh. "A few people sleeping in schools won't have a chance against armed attackers. If the government really wants to stop the school-burning, they must arm these guards legally."
Patman, the interior ministry spokesman, said that if it proved necessary, his ministry would provide guards with weapons. But in a heavily-armed society, many people have decided to take matters into their own hands.
"If I wait until the government arms me, nothing will ever happen," said one guard in the Charbolak district, who did not want to be named. "I have weapons at home, and I take a gun with me when I guard the school at night. I am now confident that I can protect both myself and the school."
This man added that he knew of many other districts where villagers were also arming themselves.
"If the government had told us earlier that they were not able to protect the schools, we would already have taken steps and the schools would not have been burned down," he insisted. "We know what to do."
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Durrani says Pakistan has done more than anybody else in counterterrorism, rejects media allegations
Associated Press of Pakistan Wednesday, 24 January 2007
WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (APP): Pakistan is fully committed to combating terrorism and has done more than any other country to fight the menace, Ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani stressed while strongly rejecting allegations in the media that “Pakistan was not doing enough.” The envoy termed “totally incorrect” a report in The New York Times which alleged that the Taliban insurgency had support in Pakistan.
“This is totally incorrect,” he said when asked to comment on the report at a briefing.
He referred to Pakistan’s consistent actions against terrorists over the years since 9/11 attacks and said the security organizations fully follow the counterterrorism policy of the government.
In this context, he reminded that hundreds of Pakistani soldiers have laid down their lives in the fight against terrorism.
He cited Pakistan’s cooperation with the coalition in Afghanistan and added that in view of the country’s help, its actions against the Taliban militants and its continuing anti-terrorism campaign, the allegations in the media that it is “not doing enough” are absurd and unfair.
Pakistan, he underlined, has been firm and categorical in its commitment to stamp out terrorism. “Pakistan has done more than anybody else in the fight against terrorism,” he said.
Durrani said terrorists’ attacks against Pakistani soldiers cannot deter the country from pursuing terrorists.
Replying to a question, the envoy said security on Pakistan-Afghanistan border is a joint responsibility and rebutted the misperception in the media that increase in the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is due to last year’s peace agreement in North Waziristan.
He pointed out that the border along North Waziristan is just about five per cent of the 2400 km long border.
“The insurgency in Afghanistan is overwhelmingly because of the situation inside that country “ the problem lies in Afghanistan,” he observed. Ambassador Durrani said he has been trying to remove the misperceptions.
On Pakistan-US relations, he said, these are wide-ranging and referred to visits by Pakistani officials to further ties in various fields.
He said Chief of the Naval Staff had good meetings with US officials. Next month, he said, Chairman Higher Education Commission will lead a Pakistani delegation to advance bilateral cooperation in the fields of science and technology.
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Geopolitical Diary: Considering Mullah Omar's Location
stratfor.com January 23, 2007 00 01 GMT
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is not harboring Taliban leader in Afghanistan Mullah Muhammad Omar, a Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Monday. She added that Mullah Omar is probably in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar gathering fighters.
The denial comes a day after The New York Times published a report that details the role ISI played in supporting the Taliban resurgence. On Jan. 17, Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, released a video in which captured Taliban spokesman Abdul Haq Haqiq confesses to his role in the Pashtun jihadist movement and says Mullah Omar is hiding in Pakistan under the ISI's protection in the southwestern city of Quetta.
These are the latest in a flurry of recent statements alleging the Taliban leader is in Pakistan and that Islamabad supports the jihadist movement to maintain its influence over Afghanistan. U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte recently told a Senate committee hearing that al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are seeking refuge in Pakistan's frontier areas, namely Quetta. There are a few explanations for the sudden increase in discussion about the Pakistani connection to the Taliban and the whereabouts of Mullah Omar.
The Taliban are expected to resume their operations on a grand scale in spring. Given the problems that U.S., NATO and Afghan forces faced before the winter snow brought the fighting season to an end, Kabul and the West hope to increase the pressure on Pakistan to cooperate in order to help thwart Taliban attempts to strike.
Afghanistan and NATO also want to get as much cooperation as they can from Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf before his time is devoted to the upcoming elections. Musharraf needs to promote domestic political stability, and knows any U.S. action on Pakistani soil would stir up jihadist and Islamist groups inside Pakistan, as well as secular groups opposed to what they consider U.S. violations of Pakistani sovereignty.
The Pakistani Taliban are now regularly targeting Pakistani security forces. Both Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government and NATO think this threat could force Musharraf to cooperate in fighting the Taliban. The United States also hopes that U.S. airstrikes on jihadists inside Pakistani territory could further aid in pushing Musharraf into a corner during an election year.
Though Mullah Omar's location is not known for certain, he likely is in an area that affords him security as well as the ability to lead the insurgency. This means he can probably cross the Afghan-Pakistani border when needed. However, he is probably more secure on the Pakistani side of the border since it offers some protection from the Afghan and NATO forces searching for him.
However, Mullah Omar's likely location must also let him directly communicate with his commanders -- whose base of operations is in southeastern Afghanistan in the provinces of Zabul, Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan. Mullah Omar's hideout in Pakistan is likely near these areas -- he is not hiding in the North-West Frontier Province, and is unlikely to be in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas since it is the focus of global attention and the target of U.S. airstrikes and Pakistani operations. Mullah Omar also must be in a tribal and religiously conservative Pashtun region.
Taking all of these factors into consideration, only one area is left -- the Pashtun belt in the northwestern part of Pakistan's Balochistan province, as it is directly located opposite the Taliban stronghold areas in Afghanistan.
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Steps needed to protect wildlife
KABUL, Jan 22 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The skins of wolves and wild cats hang from the fur shops in Kabul, along with rabbit-skin rugs and full-length fox coats. Nearby stores offer carpets, Soviet belt buckles and old British pistols.
"This was killed two months ago," said a young trader as he produced a prized snow-leopard skin from a closet. Its head and paws were intact; its shiny grayish fur and long bushy tail left no doubt about its pedigree. The prices are $850, a bargain compared with one across the street for $1,400.
On Kabul's famous Chicken Street, almost anything is for sale, including the pelts of some of the world's most endangered animals, despite a nationwide ban on hunting and international laws prohibiting their trade. Foreign soldiers and aid workers who have come to protect and rebuild the country are the main buyers, according to conservationists.
"They check their ethics at the door," said Alex Dehgan, head of the Afghanistan programme for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society. He said he knew of one aid worker who had a comforter made from two or three snow-leopard skins. "It is stuff like that that gets us really worried," he said.
Dehgan, a former Spokane resident, and others from the Pacific Northwest are at the forefront of an effort to save the precious cats from extinction. But it is a tough battle in a country Dehgan likens to the Wild West.
Aside from poaching, poor herders kill the snow leopards to protect their valuable sheep and goats. The two-fold threat has left only 50 to 100 snow leopards in Afghanistan, where nearly three decades of war have taken their toll on natural areas and wildlife, conservationists said.
The snow leopard is very beautiful, charismatic and emblematic, said Brad Rutherford, executive director of the Seattle-based Snow Leopard Trust. "It's a great, flagship species."
Decline tough to gauge
Globally, the snow-leopard population is believed to be between 3,500 and 7,000, on a par with endangered pandas and tigers, according to Snow Leopard Trust. More than half of the leopards live in China. The rest roam the high, arid mountains of Central Asia, from Mongolia to Nepal.
Most scientists agree snow leopards are in decline, but how fast is not known, Rutherford said. The animals are elusive and live in remote mountain ranges, often on narrow ledges and steep slopes above 10,000 feet.
Scientists are trying to learn more about the secretive cats' range and habitat, partly through trapping and tracking. In November, a team of scientists led by the trust's conservation director Tom McCarthy of Redmond, caught a female snow leopard in northern Pakistan, just across the Afghan border.
A Global Positioning System (GPS) collar was attached to it to follow a snow leopard's movements via satellite for the first time. The cats' huge range means they regularly cross into Afghanistan.
That's one reason conservationists are pushing for the creation of an international park in a vast region, including Afghanistan's northeastern panhandle and parts of Pakistan, Tajikistan and China.
Because the cats are at the top of the food chain, their extinction would throw nature into imbalance in the region, wildlife experts said. Already the leopards' world has been compromised.
Their primary prey, the ibex, a type of wild mountain goat, and the Marco Polo sheep, are disappearing because of grazing competition from domestic herds. So, snow leopards have turned to eating marmots.
But when marmots hibernate in the long Afghan winters, the leopards turn to killing livestock.
Getting the word out
One immediate challenge is persuading impoverished, war-torn Afghans not to kill snow leopards even though a pelt and bones - used in traditional Chinese medicine - can fetch up to $1,000 on the black market. "They're living on less than a dollar a day," Rutherford said. "These people have no give."
In 2002, the Snow Leopard Trust paid Afghanistan's only environmental civic group, Save the Environment Afghanistan, to educate village elders and tribal leaders on the leopard's peril.
"We explained there were only a few left," said Ghulam Malikyar, the group's founder. He said villagers supported creating protected areas for the cats that might draw tourists and their money. One herder said, he would not kill it even if attacked his sheep, said Malikyar.
A ban on wildlife hunting in Afghanistan has reduced the supply of all wildlife skins by roughly 40 per cent, according to Malikyar. But government officials said they lack the resources to properly enforce such environmental laws, so wildlife activists also have targeted those who create the demand.
Three years ago, Malikyar lobbied the commanding officer of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, who ordered soldiers not to buy pelts from endangered species. But high turnover in the military means such orders have to be reinforced regularly, conservationists said.
This winter, the Wildlife Conservation Society made posters to hang up near military bases that warn that possession of a snow-leopard pelt is against the law in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
Business cards also have been tacked up in Kabul restaurants where foreigners go. The cards portray a snow-leopard cub under the caption, "My friends don't buy snow leopard pelts."
In addition, the Wildlife Society's Dehgan has talked to postal officials about improving the detection of illegal furs. At the moment, US troops can send skins home through the Army Post Office, skirting regular customs.
"It's just a few"
The good news is that wildlife laws are no longer so openly flouted in Kabul.
Soon after the fall of the Taliban regime, environmentalists reported widespread display of snow-leopard pelts. But recently, no exotic species could be found at the weekly markets at NATO forces' headquarters or at Camp Eggers, the US military base in Kabul.
When one trader was asked about such skins, he whispered: "Come to my shop."
Back on Chicken Street, a popular shopping strip for foreigners, traders are more cautious than they once were, thanks to periodic crackdowns. Snow-leopard pelts are usually hidden or kept off the premises. One exception is shopkeeper Haji Sahib Taj Mohammad, who has sold furs his entire life.
The pelts of two Persian leopards, also endangered, and a young snow-leopard skin were displayed prominently inside the shop.
Taj Mohammad, 62, claimed he has had those skins for 10 years. He offered the Persian leopards for $800 a piece. The snow-leopard skin was missing the tail. He offered it for $400.
"It's just a few," Taj Mohammad said of his stock. "It's not too much. The government doesn't have a problem with these. It's not for export."
But to Dehgan, the skins are far too many. "People don't realize how unique, how precious, the wildlife is," he said. "We should do everything to protect it."
Jeff Hodson is a reporter based in Thailand
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Smears for Fears
Wes Clark just got caught up in the rigged rules for discussing Israel-related issues in America.
The American Prospect By Matthew Yglesias January 23, 2007
Retired General Wesley Clark is, like me, concerned that the Bush administration is going to launch a war with Iran. Arianna Huffington spoke to him in early January and asked why he was so worried the administration was headed in this direction. According to Huffington's January 4 recounting of Clark's thoughts, he said this: "You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."
This, of course, is true. I'm Jewish and I don't think the United States should bomb Iran, but Thursday night I was talking to a Jewish friend and she does think the United States should bomb Iran. The Jewish community, in short, is divided on the issue. It's also true that most major American Jewish organizations cater to the views of extremely wealthy major donors whose political views are well to the right of the bulk of American Jews, one of the most liberal ethnic groups in the country. Furthermore, it's true that major Jewish organizations are trying to push the country into war. And, last, it's true that if you read the Israeli press you'll see that right-wing Israeli politicians are anticipating a military confrontation with Iran. (For example, here's an article (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/815273.html) about the timing of the selection of a new top dog in the Israeli Defense Forces; Benjamin Netanyahu is quoted as saying that the new leader "will have to straighten the army out, rebuild Israel's deterrence and prepare the defenses against threats, first and foremost, against Iran.")
Everything Clark said, in short, is true. What's more, everybody knows it's true. The worst that can truthfully be said about Clark is that he expressed himself in a slightly odd way. This, it seems clear, he did because it's a sensitive issue and he worried that if he spoke plainly he'd be accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism. So he spoke unclearly and, for his trouble, got … accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism.
James Taranto, who writes the hack "Best of the Web" column for the online version of The Wall Street Journal's hack editorial page, likened Clark's views on this to the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Scott Johnson of the influential and moronic right-wing Power Line blog argued that "Clark's comments are not simply 'anti-Israel,'" and asked "[i]s it a only a matter only of parochial concern to American Jews that they are now to be stigmatized without consequence in the traditional disgusting terms -- terms that used to result in eviction from the precincts of polite society -- by a major figure in the Democratic Party?"
Needless to say, Clark did not stigmatize American Jews. Indeed, he went out of his way to note that the American Jewish community is divided on the issue. Michael Barone's sneering attack on Clark also managed, almost incidentally, to reveal Barone's own understanding that Clark's remarks are substantially correct. Barone observed that it's "interesting to see a Democratic presidential hopeful denounce 'the New York money people,' people whom Clark spent some time with in 2003-04."
And, indeed, it is interesting, for demonstrating the bizarre rules of the road in discussing America's Israel policy. If you're offering commentary that's supportive of America's soi-disant "pro-Israel" forces, as Barone was, it's considered perfectly acceptable to note, albeit elliptically, that said forces are influential in the Democratic Party in part because they contribute large sums of money to Democratic politicians who are willing to toe the line. If, by contrast, one observes this fact by way of criticizing the influence of "pro-Israel" forces, you're denounced as an anti-Semite.
Needless to say, the increasingly ridiculous Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, was swiftly located in order to ply his trademark tactic of accusing people of anti-Semitism that he knows perfectly well aren't anti-Semites. As The Jewish Week reported, "The ADL leader told Clark that he had 'bought into conspiratorial bigotry' that increasingly sees Israel, Jews and American Jewish organizations as the driving force behind U.S. involvement in Iraq and Iran." What's more, "Foxman said Clark’s comments are particularly worrisome because of the context, coming in the wake of," among other things, "a book by former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who accused Israel of pushing for war with Iran."
The context, I would say, is worrisome. "Israel" is not a unitary actor, but clearly some Israelis are pushing for war with Iran. More to the point, many American Jewish organizations are pushing for war with Iran. And before Foxman comes to lock me up, he might want to check out his own outfit's website, complete with a section on "The Iranian Threat." Meanwhile, over on AIPAC's site we can learn about the "escalating threat" from Iran. A group called The Israel Project has an Iran Press Kit page, linking only to alarmist takes on the Iranian nuclear issue and to a hawks-only set of expert sources. (Shockingly, none of these organizations are especially concerned that Israel won't join the Non-Proliferation Treaty Framework.)
For another example, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs gave Senator John McCain its "Scoop" Jackson Award in December; in his remarks accepting the award, McCain argued that "[t]he path to future success for Israel will not be an easy one, and there will be a number of difficult issues. Foremost on many minds, is, of course, Iran." He characterized "Tehran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons" as "an unacceptable risk" -- language clearly designed to lay the groundwork for war.
With this last bit, we not only see the accuracy of Clark's remark, but, once again, the stunning hypocrisy of the anti-anti-Semitism brigades. It's clear that McCain, just like Clark, sees American Jewish organizations as key players in the Iran-hawk movement in the United States, and also that he sees concern for Israeli security as motivating those groups. Nobody, however, is going to label McCain a Jew-hating conspiracy theorist -- because, of course, McCain wants to help these groups push the United States into a military confrontation with Iran. Thus, McCain gets an award, and Clark gets called an anti-Semite.
Since Clark would like to have a future in the politics game, he ended up backing down from his remarks, explaining he didn't mean what he said. Mission accomplished for those who smeared him. But would I ever suggest that Democrats have been unduly timid on the Iran issue because they fear crossing powerful "pro-Israel" institutions? Never. Only anti-Semites think stuff like that.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.
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Polyclinic opens in Kabul
KABUL, Jan 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Polyclinic at the Andrea Gandhi Hospital was inaugurated in Kabul, officials said on Tuesday.
The polyclinic cost $2 million. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, acting minister for Public Health, ambassadors of both the countries and other high ranking officials were attended the inaugural ceremony held in this regard.
Dr Faizullah Kakar said the hospital was built with the fund granted by India. He said it would prove one of the best hospitals of the country. Mukherjee said the hospital was symbol of the friendship of two countries. He reiterated his country support for Afghanistan in mother-child care.
Abdul Salaam Jalali, director of the hospital, told reporters the polyclinic had two sections which would provide health facility to 1200 patients a day. He said the hospital would also be equipped with diagnostic facility like CT-scan, MRI, echocardiography, electrocardiography, encephalography in six months at the cost of $3 million. He said India would grant fund for the project.
Zarghona Salihi
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Committee to guide farmers on saffron cultivation
KABUL, Jan 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation would soon establish a national coordination and support committee to provide technical consultancy to growers on saffron cultivation, officials said on Tuesday.
The officials said the committee would also help in attracting legal, governmental and international support.
Mohammad Saboor Shirzad, head of the Alternative Livelihood Department at the ministry, told Pajhwok Afghan News the committee would also work for enhancing saffron cultivation. He said the committee would also help in enhancing farmers activities and finding markets for their produces.
Union of the saffron growers, local and international research, agriculturists would be partners of the committee, he added. Pointing to the current challenges about poppy cultivation, he said replacing poppy crop with saffron would be a good choice.
According to the reports, saffron cost $280 per kilograms. He said saffron was cultivated in a number of provinces, but it was widely grown in the western Herat province. Saffron have been cultivated over 80 hector in the Herat province that resulted in yielding about 900 kilograms. He hoped saffron produce would be increased to about 4,000 kilograms next year.
Zainab Muhammadi
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Family dispute claims four lives in Herat
HERAT CITY, Jan 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Four members of a family were killed after two families clashed on some minor dispute in the western Herat province, security officials said on Tuesday.
Provincial police chief Maj Gen Mohammad Shafiq Fazli told Pajhwok Afghan News the incident occurred in Kalata-Nazar area of Shindand district the other day. He said families of two brothers clashed.
Anar Gul and Halim, two brothers fought with their cousins on some minor dispute, the police chief said. He said the police had pursued the culprits and had recovered two arms and a vehicle from their possession, however, the assailants fled.
Fazli said holding of illegal arms was the reason behind such incidents. He said they had started investigations in the incident. Spokesman for the interior ministry Zmaray Bashari said the interior ministry Zarar Ahmad Muqbil had visited the province to asses the security situation in the province. Surging violence in the province has claimed many lives in the province.
Ahmad Qureshi
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Jirga commission members to visit different zones
KABUL, Jan 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Members of the commission of Peace Jirga will pay a visit to eight zones across the country to create awareness among people about the upcoming Jirga of tribal elders from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
This was disclosed by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Farouq Wardak while addressing a news conference here on Tuesday.
He said members of the commission had been distributed into eight groups. Each group would have five members, who will visit different zones to talk to people about the holding of the upcoming Peace Jirga.
Regarding the nominees for the Jirga, the minister, who is also chief of the Peace Jirga secretariat, said they had received names of the nominees for the Jirga from the provinces and the names would be finalised in a week.
After finalisation of names of the members, the commission would organise seminars and workshops for to inform and educate them on the issues relating to the assembly of elders.
Wardak said the government of Afghanistan had made all the necessary preparations for the Jirga and the Foreign Minister had been informed to arrange communication links with the Jirga commission of Pakistan. He hoped the two sides would soon start contacting each other on relating issues.
The minister said the holding of the Peace Jirga would bear positive results, adding the international community was also supporting the step. He said efforts were on to convene the Jirga in the second week of February in Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf had agreed to convene Peace Jirga of tribal elders in September last year. The aim behind the step was to address the cross-border movement of militants, which is causing a deadlock in diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two Muslim neighbours and close allies of the United States in the war against terrorism.
Makia Monir
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Esmat replaces Bakhshi as new director prisons
KABUL, Jan 23 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Major General Abdul Salaam Esmat has been appointed as new director of prisons to replace Major General Abdul Salam Bakhshi, officials of the Ministry of Justice said on Tuesday.
The change was part of the programme to bring reforms and improve the conditions in prisons, said Deputy Minister for Justice Muhammad Qasim Hashimzai.
Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, Hashemzai disclosed that more such high-scale changes and transfers were on the anvil. On Monday, Major General Shah Amirpur replaced Qais Fasihi as superintendent of the Pul-i-Charkhi prison.
In a brief chat with this news agency, the newly-appointed director of jails Salaam Esmat vowed to improve the condition of prisons across the country.
His predecessor Salam Bakhshi remained on the high-profile position for five years. Several untoward incidents, including escape of Taliban prisoners and clash between guards an inmates at Pul-i-Charkhi prison, emerged during his tenure as director of jails.
The abrupt change is considered the backlash of the hunger strike staged by inmates at Pul-i-Charkhi jail about a fortnight back. The inmates accused the jail officials of mistreatment and keeping them in inhuman conditions. The five-day strike ended only after the Attorney General Abdul Jabbar Sabit assured the prisoners of redressal of their grievances and action against the responsible officials.
Habib Rahman Ibrahimi
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