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

November 7, 2007 

Afghan president announces three days' mourning
Wed Nov 7, 2:13 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced three days of national mourning after a suicide blast in the north of the country that he said killed at least 41 people, six of them lawmakers.

"We announce three days of national mourning starting from today," a solemn-looking Karzai told reporters in Kabul at a press briefing called after Tuesday's blast. "The flags of the country will be at half mast."

The president said his information was that 35 people had been killed as well as the six lawmakers but this toll was still being finalised.

The head of hospitals in the northern province of Baghlan, Yousuf Faiz, told AFP late Tuesday that 40 people were killed and 120 wounded. Most of the casualties were children, he said.

This makes it the deadliest suicide attack in Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents have in the past three years dramatically stepped up their use of such bombings in a campaign against the government.

Almost all of the country's television stations abandoned normal programming Wednesday to broadcast recitations from the Koran, religious music and analysis of the attack.

Karzai said the killed MPs -- who included Mustafa Kazimi, a former commerce minister who was a key figure in the opposition -- would be given a state funeral.

The parliament had requested that they are all be buried near the parliament building as a memorial, he said, and this was being debated.

"I want to offer my condolences to the nation via the media," Karzai said.

"The Afghan nation is much stronger than the enemy thinks. Such incidents will not deter us from our goals," he said.

Karzai said the incident would be thoroughly investigated.

The Taliban has denied it was behind the attack but has before rejected involvement in incidents with a high civilian toll.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghans mourn victims of worst suicide attack
By Yousuf Azimy
BAGHLAN, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghans began three days of mourning on Wednesday for 52 people, many of them children, killed in the country's worst suicide attack.

The blast, in the relatively peaceful north, has shaken public confidence in the ability of the government and the 50,000 foreign troops in the country to provide security more than six years after the Taliban were ousted from power.

"In the very miserable incident which took place yesterday, six of Afghanistan's hard-working, honest members of parliament were martyred, and Afghan people including school teachers, students and children were also martyred, and many were wounded," President Hamid Karzai told a news conference in Kabul.

The governor of Baghlan where the attack took place said the death toll had risen to 52 and about 100 people were wounded.

The Taliban have carried out more than 130 suicide bombings in Afghanistan so far this year, but the insurgents denied responsibility for Tuesday's attack on visiting parliamentarians as they were being greeted by schoolchildren and elders.

The bomber approached the parliamentary delegation on foot as children lined up to welcome them on a visit to a sugar factory in Baghlan. Large crowds had also turned out to see the deputies.

There were still pools of blood at the site on Wednesday morning as police collected body parts and put them in plastic bags. School notebooks and children's sandals lay strewn on the ground.

"We are treating the wounded and the condition of some is very critical," said Dr. Mohammad Rokai at the local hospital. "The dead and wounded are mostly children."

BULLET WOUNDS
Baghlan residents peered glumly at the bomb site from behind police cordons. "One of my brothers is missing, he's 12 years old. We don't know if he's alive or dead," said Shafiqullah.

Some of the dead and wounded appeared to have suffered bullet wounds and some residents said Afghan security forces began shooting wildly after the blast.

"This attack was carried out by the Taliban, but only 10 people were killed by the blast. The rest of the victims are from gunfire from the security forces," said Abdul Qadir, pointing to what appeared to be a bullet hole in his dead son's neck.

Other Baghlan residents made similar charges.

The Baghlan governor said authorities were investigating accusations that police had opened fire after the attack.

A Taliban spokesman said the insurgents were not behind Tuesday's attack. The rebels usually distance themselves from attacks that largely kill civilians.

The insurgents' strategy is aimed at convincing Afghans that Karzai's government and its Western backers are unable to bring security to the country, which has already suffered nearly three decades of almost constant war.

As often happens after suicide attacks, many ordinary Afghans blamed the government for failing to prevent the bloodshed.

"I lost my cousin in this attack," said shopkeeper Sakhi Ahmad. "He was a school student and had gone to the ceremony. We will never forget this tragedy and we ask the government to find the culprits instead of announcing days of mourning."

The United States condemned the bombing.

"The terrorist attack today in Afghanistan is a despicable act of cowardice and it reminds us who the enemy is -- extremists with evil in their hearts who target innocent Muslim men, women and children," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Northern Afghanistan has been relatively peaceful and prosperous compared with the south and east, where Taliban suicide attacks are all too common and insurgents are locked in almost daily battles with Afghan and foreign forces.

NATO commanders say the Taliban are not a unified organization, but a number of factions operating under loose guidelines handed down from a governing council. Al Qaeda and at least one other insurgent group are also active in Afghanistan.

(Additional reporting by Tahir Qadiry in Mazar-i-Sharif and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul, writing by Jon Hemming, editing by David Fogarty)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Bush urges Karzai to "stay strong" after bombing
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Wednesday called Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the aftermath of the country's worst suicide attack and urged him to "stay strong," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"The president said the murderous act reminds all of us about the brutality of the enemy we are facing," she said. "The president said that America cares deeply about the Afghan people and he urged President Karzai to stay strong."

Afghans began three days of mourning on Wednesday for the dozens of people, many of them children, who were killed by the blast.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Eyewitness: Deadly Afghan bombing
Wednesday, 7 November 2007 BBC News
Asadullah Noorzay is a soldier working for the Afghan National Army in Kabul.

He was on holiday, visiting his parents in Baghlan on Tuesday, when he witnessed scores of people being killed in what is described as the country's worst suicide attack at a factory ceremony.

"I was on my way to the bazaar to buy food, when I had to stop where the ceremony was held.

There were many people gathered there: schoolchildren, members of parliament, journalists and local people.

The traffic was pretty bad and I thought I'd stop for a while to watch the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Then there was a big explosion.

I do not have enough words to describe what I saw. There were dead bodies everywhere and the ground was covered in blood. Pieces of human bodies were scattered around.

I was in shock and I just stood there in silence, for God knows how long.

I realised that I was myself covered in blood when I was taken, together with scores of injured people, to the hospital. I even thought that I was injured myself. But there was nothing wrong with me so they let me go.

I went home realising how lucky I was. I heard on the news that 40 people had died. There were definitely many more than that.

At first I thought that the Taleban is behind the attack. But they denied it and I believe them, since they have taken responsibility for every other suicide attack. I don't know who is to blame - it's something political that I don't understand.

This is the first suicide attack in Baghlan and the local people are really worried that there might be more. They have asked President Karzai to send a special team to investigate and find those behind it.

I am a soldier and I have been close to death before. Last summer I witnessed - and survived a suicide attack. A bomber blew himself up just in front of our truck. He died and three of my fellow soldiers were injured.

But this is nothing compared to what I saw in Baghlan. It reminded me of what's happening in Iraq almost every day, where a single attack is able to claim the lives of a hundred people. I hope Afghanistan won't turn into Iraq."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan rocked by northern bombing
By M K Bhadrakumar Asia Times Online November 8, 2007 edition
The killing of Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, the 45-year-old Hazara Shi'ite leader from Parwan province of Afghanistan, to the northwest of Kabul, bears all the hallmark of a political assassination.

The blame for the suicide bomb attack on Tuesday in the town of Pul-i-Khumri in the northern Baghlan province, some 150 kilometers from Kabul, will almost inevitably be placed at the doorstep of the Taliban. This is only natural. The denial of involvement by the main Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, is unlikely to be taken seriously.

But the incident once again draws attention to the problem that under the guise of the Taliban insurgency, many forces are operating.

The incident also catches attention as the deadliest suicide attack since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001. According to initial reports, close to 50 people were killed, including five members of Parliament, including Kazimi. An 18-member delegation of lawmakers was visiting a sugar factory in Baghlan when the attack took place.

Kazimi appears to have been the main target. He was the rising star of the Afghan political scene. Foreigners who knew him in the heyday of the anti-Taliban resistance in the 1990s would vouchsafe that he was destined to rise high in the political arena. His mujahideen pedigree was impeccable. He was relatively young and had a modern outlook.

Along with "Ustad" Abdul Ali Mazari and Karim Khalili, he was one of the founders of the Hizb-e-Wahdat Islami Afghanistan, the main Hazara Shi'ite mujahideen group, which was supported by Iran in the Afghan jihad of the 1980s against the Soviet Union.

Kazimi was a rare combination of brilliant organizer and suave spokesman. For his community, which was traditionally bereft of such talented leaders, he was a great asset. It came as no surprise that when the so-called National United Front, Jabhe-ye-Motahed-e-Milli, an assorted coalition of erstwhile mujahideen leaders (and former communists) in political opposition to the government of President Hamid Karzai took shape in March, Kazimi was appointed its main spokesman.

Kazimi's role in the National United Front was tacit recognition of his consistent stance that Afghan politics must cross ethnic and regional boundaries. In the exasperating internecine tensions within the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in the late 1990s, Kazimi often played a key role, bridging ethnic, personal rivalries among various groups.

But for Kazimi's tireless role, it is doubtful if rapprochement between the Tajik groups led by the late Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Hezb-e-Wahdat would have been possible within the framework of the Northern Alliance. The mutual antipathies of the two sides were well-founded as Tajik forces had killed about 1,000 Hazara women and children in a massacre in the west Kabul district of Afshar, a predominantly Hazara area, during the mujahideen rule in 1993.

Kazimi had an easy way of working with political adversaries, which is uncommon in Afghanistan.

Evidently, those who plotted his assassination had a grand design. The Taliban lack the political sophistication to work with such foresight and planning. Of course, the Taliban have an old feud with the Hazara Shi'ites dating to the murder of Mazari in March 1995, when the Taliban, already approaching Kabul, entrapped him after inviting him for peace talks. He was tortured and murdered before his body was thrown out of a helicopter somewhere near Ghazni.

Observers of the Afghan scene may have forgotten the incident, but what comes readily to mind is that the suspicion still lingers that Mazari's murder was the handiwork of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The finger of suspicion must once again turn to the ISI over Kazimi's killing, which raises the issue of what would be gained by removing him from the political landscape.

First, he comes from a region of Afghanistan which is very sensitive. Those who know the Afghan chessboard would acknowledge the supreme importance of controlling the provinces of Baghlan and Parwan. They form the gateway to the northern Amu Darya region, the Panjshir Valley to the east and the central Hazarajat region respectively.

Control of the mountain passes to the west of Baghlan was bitterly contested between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. The hub was extremely important strategically. In political terms, it is possible to say that without exercising control of the hub, there can be no effective unity between the non-Pashtun ethnic groups of Tajiks and Hazaras (and even the Uzbekis).

Baghlan connects the predominantly Tajik areas with the Hazarajat region and is also on the main communication line between Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif in the Amu Darya region. Baghlan itself is a mosaic where Pushtuns, Tajiks and Hazaras have traditionally vied for influence and control.

Kazimi hailed from Parwan and did much of his political work in his early years in Baghlan province, where he was quite popular. There is no better way of creating volatility, if not mayhem, in that sensitive region than through a political assassination. The ISI has used targeted political assassinations with devastating effect in Afghanistan many a time at critical junctures on the battlefield.

Kazimi's killing is a tell-tale sign that a master plan to destabilize the northern regions of Afghanistan is in the works. It could only mean that we are about to witness the calibrated extension of the insurgency to the northern regions, which have remained relatively tranquil, apart from a few sporadic incidents.

The implications could be very serious for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) contingents located thinly on the ground in the northern regions.

Kazimi's killing throws the National United Front into confusion. This is unfortunate since it was a coalition of non-Taliban opposition elements. In any future "intra-Afghan dialogue", the coalition would have optimized its bargaining strength simply by being a collective body. Kazimi would have been vital glue for the disparate elements of the front to be able to collectively bargain for political space in any future set-up in Kabul that strove to accommodate the Taliban.

There are already signs that elements within the National United Front have begun seeking accommodation at the individual level. The weakening of the front at this stage, just as there are signs of talks with the Taliban gaining a formal shape, works entirely to the advantage of the Taliban.

The ISI has always worked against the forging of any unity by the non-Pashtun ethnic groups in the central and northern regions.

And the Hezb-e-Wahdat takes a devastating blow with Kazimi's death. His absence will be keenly felt in protecting Hazara interests. Tehran, too, has lost a good Afghan friend.

The probability is that Tuesday's attack was staged by the Hezb-i-Islami under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, which has close ties with the ISI. Hekmatyar has pockets of influence in the Baghlan area. His field commanders were active in the area even after he fled Afghanistan in 1996 following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.

The ISI game plan could be to create an operational base for Hekmatyar in the northern region. There could be no better turf than Baghlan, from where he could expand his political activities.

NATO forces in Afghanistan face the specter of multiple fronts. There are disquieting signs already. So far the insurgency has been concentrated in the southern region.

On Tuesday, in what could be a harbinger of events to come, a few dozen Taliban riding motorcycles and pick-up trucks overran the district center of Kajran in central Daikundi province, which borders the volatile provinces of Uruzgan and Helmand, the scene of heavy fighting this year. The attack was preceded by artillery firing into the town from a mountain overlook for the past five days.

This is the third district overrun by the Taliban outside of the southern region in the past week. On Monday, the Taliban seized control of Gilistan and Bakwa provinces in western Farah province near the Iranian border.

The developments once again bear testimony to the harsh ground reality as to how next to impossible it will be for the United States and Britain to tighten the screws on Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf simply because the general wants to rule his country on his own terms.

It is not only that some 90% of NATO's supplies in Afghanistan go through Pakistan, but also that the ISI controls many strings within Afghanistan. NATO has become hostage to the goodwill of Pakistani security agencies.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
Back to Top
Back to Top
Death toll hits 60 in Afghan blast
By AHMAD SEIR and AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writers
NEW BAGHLAN, Afghanistan - The death toll from a suicide blast targeting a group of lawmakers and children rose to 60 on Wednesday, the deadliest attack in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Hundreds of mourners gathered at a mosque near the site of the bombing in the town of New Baghlan, 95 miles north of Kabul, before moving to a simple hilltop graveyard to bury the dead.

The attack happened Tuesday as the lawmakers were being greeted by children on a visit to a sugar factory in Afghanistan's normally peaceful north.

"My son was supposed to finish school this year, but yesterday I had to peel off his blood-soaked clothes, and today I buried him," said an elderly man who broke down in tears on top of a grave site. He didn't give his name.

Fifty-four people were buried in Baghlan province, said Mawlawi Sarajuddin, the head of the provincial council, while the bodies of six lawmakers were flown to Kabul.

Sarajuddin said most of the 54 were schoolchildren who had gathered to greet the visiting delegation. The Ministry of Education confirmed that at least 18 schoolchildren had been killed.

After the bombing Tuesday, shots were fired at the scene by lawmakers bodyguards, said Dr. Narmgui, a doctor at the New Baghlan hospital who witnessed the blast. Narmgui, like many Afghans, goes by only one name.

President Hamid Karzai declared three days of mourning for victims and ordered an investigation into the attack.

"There is no doubt this was a terrorist attack," Karzai told a news conference in Kabul.

He blamed the bombing on "the enemies of peace and security," a phrase often used for the militant Taliban, and directed authorities to conduct a thorough investigation. Such a spectacular attack also could have been the work of al-Qaida. The Taliban denied involvement.

The White House called the attack "a despicable act of cowardice."

Video obtained by AP Television News of the scene just before the blast shows schoolchildren, tribal elders and government officials lining the streets to greet 18 lawmakers as they were about to enter the sugar factory.

Some of the children shook hands with the guests and one teenager handed red and pink roses to lawmaker Sayed Mustafa Kazimi — a former Afghan commerce minister and a powerful member of the opposition party National Front.

Moments later, Kazimi was dead.

At least 42 of the 81 wounded were schoolchildren, Mohammad Yousuf Fayez, a doctor at Baghlan's main hospital. Several children were among the dead.

The video does not show the explosion. After the blast, the video shows dead and wounded schoolchildren on the ground. Shoes, sandals, hats and notebooks were scattered about.

Two men carried the bloody body of a boy by his limbs and put it on the hard-packed dirt. Men placed another body next to four others already laid out under a tree. Elsewhere, a body with a severed arm was lying amid rubble.

Many victims were taken to the hospital, their legs and faces stained with blood. The video shows a woman leaning over a child lying motionless in a hospital bed. A boy, his legs bandaged, cried on a gurney that looked to have been left in a hallway.

The video also shows an Afghan man holding the head of what he claimed was the suicide attacker, shouting "Look at this (expletive)! This is the guy who destroyed everything! This is the guy who killed us!"

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, and a purported Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied the militant group was involved.

"The Taliban doesn't target civilians," he said.

Taliban attacks typically target Afghan and international security forces or government leaders but often kill civilians nearby. Most of their attacks are in the country's south or east. Taliban bombers have killed regional governors in the past, but never so many public figures at once.

Two parliamentarians were killed in attacks in Kabul earlier this year, which is already Afghanistan's deadliest since the fall of the Taliban. More than 5,700 people have been killed in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Western and Afghan officials.

The northern region where the blast happened is known for tensions between the mainly ethnic Tajik government leadership and remnants of the militant group Hezb-i-Islami, whose fugitive leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an ethnic Pashtun, has joined the Taliban and al-Qaida in fighting the Afghan government though he denies direct links.
___
Associated Press writers Jason Straziuso and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Tehran condemns terrorist act in Afghanistan
Tehran, Nov 7, IRNA
The Islamic Republic of Iran has condemned recent terrorist act against the Afghani people and members of parliament, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said on Wednesday.

Hosseini added that illogical approaches prompted terrorists to target innocent people and MPs, and that such criminal acts run counter to Islamic tenets and human values.

He expressed concern about the willingness of certain governments to cooperate with terrorists, adding that ignoring international principles and goals in campaign against terrorism would encourage terrorist elements in the region.

The spokesman also hoped that the bitter incident, which claimed the lives of a number of people including representatives of the noble Afghan people, would not weaken the determination of the Kabul government and nation to confront terrorism.

Hosseini expressed regret over the death of former trade minister and Head of Economic Commission of Afghan Parliament Mostafa Kazemi, who had a brilliant record of struggle for independence of Afghanistan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Suspicion And Distrust High After Deadly Attack On Lawmakers
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
November 7, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Speculation is rife in Kabul about who carried out a bomb attack in northern Afghanistan on Tuesday (November 6) that killed six members of the Afghan parliament and at least 35 other people. The Taliban has not only denied involvement but also has condemned the bombing. While details of the attack remain unclear -- including a final death toll -- observers say there is a lot of tension, distrust, and suspicion across the country about the ramifications of the violence.

Afghans today began three days of national mourning for those killed by the blast in the northern Afghan province of Baghlan. Six members of parliament who were killed, along with tribal elders and many schoolchildren.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai today told journalists that the attack has created a miserable situation in the country:

"We are investigating this whole incident, [this] unfortunate incident. We will take account of all the factors in it, and then we will let you know. A team has already gone for forensic studies of the scene, and another team will go to investigate fully."

The attack in the relatively peaceful north has shaken public confidence in the ability of the Afghan government and some 50,000 foreign troops in the country to provide security.

Many ordinary Afghans have told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that they see the violence -- initially reported as a suicide bombing -- as an assassination targeting Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, an influential opposition lawmaker and a former minister of Commerce.

Kazemi was heading a group of lawmakers from parliament's National Economic Committee on a visit to a new sugar factory in Baghlan when he and the other victims were killed by the bomb.

He was one of the highest-ranking ethnic Hazara and Shi'a members of the Afghan parliament. He also was the spokesman for the United Afghan National Front -- an opposition political group that was formed last year by northern Afghan militia commanders who had once fought together against the Taliban regime.

Jean MacKenzie, the Kabul-based Afghanistan country director of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), says it was unusual for a Shi'a to be such a strong figure of unity in Afghanistan. She also says the bombing has exacerbated tensions and suspicions between northern Afghans and the central government in Kabul:

"This is bad news for the north, which has been quite peaceable and where development has been going on at quite a rapid pace. It is also very bad news for the central government. It is not clear who has done this," MacKenzie said. "The Taliban has very strongly denied it. It is also not clear that it was a suicide bomber. There is a lot of mistrust around the versions coming out about this. People in Kabul are talking about conspiracies. They are talking about plots to assassinate Kazemi, who was in opposition to the government. Other people are talking about Hizb-e Islami. But at this point, there is a very high level of distrust and tension throughout the country about the possible ramifications of this. Is this a sign that there are major splits within the government or that there are opposition groups that we do not know about?"

Indeed, Baghlan province is a stronghold for illegal armed militia fighters from Hezb-e Islami -- an Islamist mujahedin movement headed by the renegade warlord and former Afghan prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

NATO and UN officials say they have received numerous complains in recent months that militia fighters in the north have been hoarding weapons to avoid UN-backed disarmament programs.

"Jane's Foreign Report" -- a publication of the London-based Jane's Defense Group -- says Hekmatyar recently has taken a leading role in spreading antigovernment and anti-Western sentiments in northern Afghanistan.

Currently thought to be hiding in the mountainous northeastern regions of Afghanistan that border Pakistan, Jane's has reported that Hekmatyar consistently sends messages to influential commanders in northern Afghanistan -- inviting them to join him in battle against Western forces.

But parliamentarian Amin Wiqad, a former deputy chairman of Hizb-e Islami and a member of Kazemi's opposition United Afghan National Front, told RFE/RL that he rules out the possibility of a Hizb-e Islami militant carrying out a suicide attack because suicide is against the group's ideology.

Meanwhile, Najia Iamaq, a member of parliament from Baghlan Province, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan today that she had repeatedly complained to Afghanistan's central government about the growing security threat posed by illegally armed local militia fighters:

"Security has been getting worse and worse every day. We, as witnesses, have complained several time and raised the security issue with governmental officials. I personally talked to the interior minister. Residents of Baghlan, tribal leaders and elders have been complaining all the time. Unfortunately, the government never seemed to take those complaints seriously. And their lack of attention has resulted in such a big problem. We can't say exactly who is behind this -- whether it was the Taliban or local gunmen. We know that residents of some districts hold illegal weapons. And they control some districts -- like Nahren and Andarabb. These illegal gunmen have been involved in other crimes in the area. We have seen many murders here that have never been investigated by government or by security forces."

An interview conducted by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan with Safia Siddiqi, a female member of parliament from Nangarhar Province, has fueled further speculation in Kabul about the bomb attack.

Siddiqi was meant to be with Kazemi's parliamentary delegation when the explosion occurred. But she says she arrived late at the event because of car problems -- and watched from a distance as the lawmakers entered the sugar factory. She also says that explosion sounded like an incoming missile attack rather than a suicide bombing or improvised explosive device.

(By RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz / RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Suicide attack strikes once peaceful northern Afghanistan
The attack on a sugar mill killed five Afghan members of parliament.
By Jon Boone | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
Kabul, Afghanistan - A senior Afghan opposition politician was among scores of people killed Tuesday by a suicide bomb attack in a previously peaceful northern province of Afghanistan.

Reports of the number of people killed or injured varied from as low as 13 to as many as 100. But because many of the victims were young children, observers say, the attack was one of the most devastating to hit Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Hamidullah Tarzi, a former finance minister, said Tuesday's attack was a clear attempt by the Taliban to show that they can operate with impunity outside Afghanistan's ethnic Pashtun belt – the extreme Sunni movement's southern heartland.

Baghlan Province had largely been spared much of the insurgent activity that has engulfed the country's southern provinces and has recently shown signs of spreading into the western regions.

"They are trying to make the government look weak and to prove that the international troops in Afghanistan are not capable of stopping this sort of operation," said Mr. Tarzi.

Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, a former Afghan commerce minister and spokesman for the United National Front, the country's largest opposition group, was the most senior of the five members of parliament who died during the attack on a sugar mill in Baghlan Province.

A deputy agriculture minister as well as prominent female parliamentarian Shukria Barakzai were among the wounded. Abdurrahman Sayedkhail, the provincial security chief, said the bomber was "carrying a massive amount of explosives" and got very close to the delegation of parliamentarians as they were being greeted by schoolchildren and local officials.

Questions surround the perpetrators

Despite the high level of certainty among government officials that the Taliban were behind the bombing, a spokesman for the Taliban denied that the jihadi group was responsible. The Taliban have targeted regional governors and members of parliament in the past, but never have so many senior officials been attacked in a single assault.

"It might have been carried out by their rivals in the parliament," said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahed. "These parliamentarians were all mujahideen in the past, and killed lots of civilians. Maybe someone was trying to take revenge."

The United National Front is dominated by former members of the Northern Alliance, the coalition of fighters drawn from the north of the country who worked in the 1990s to prevent the Taliban from taking over all of Afghanistan.

Some analysts, including Wadir Safi, a law professor at Kabul University, agreed that the attack was a political assassination.

But Western observers in Kabul cast doubt on that idea, saying that the Taliban have previously distanced themselves from attacks involving large numbers of innocent people.

Al Qaeda operatives are also active in Afghanistan, as are remnants of the militant group Hezb-i Islami, whose fugitive leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an ethnic Pashtun, is allied with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, but has denied organizational links.

A spokesman for the US military said the blast was similar to those often carried out by the Taliban.

Attack may shake confidence in government

Whether or not the Taliban do eventually take responsibility, Tuesday's bombing may feed popular fears that the Afghan government and the international military forces that support it are unable to control the insurgents, observers say.

More than 200 people have died in more than 130 suicide attacks this year amid signs that public confidence in the future of the country is starting to slip.

The International Security and Assistance Force, the NATO-led military coalition, says the Taliban have come to rely on terror tactics because they are too weak to hold territory, although the insurgents continue to target poorly defended provincial districts.

On Monday, it was reported that insurgents had captured the Karjan district in central Daikundi Province, a day after they claimed to have overrun two districts in the west of the country.

The direct attack on members of parliament may also alarm Western countries who see Afghanistan's young democratic institutions as a fragile sign of progress since the overthrow of the Taliban six years ago.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan blast, Pakistan turmoil show extremist threat: Karzai
Wed Nov 7, 4:20 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's deadliest suicide bombing and the turmoil in neighbouring Pakistan have demonstrated the gravity of the threat from extremism in the region, President Hamid Karzai said.

Karzai declared three days of national mourning following Tuesday's bombing in the northern town of Pul-i-Khumri which killed around 40 people, including six lawmakers and several children.

The bombing and the upheaval in Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency at the weekend, showed "the seriousness and gravity of the situation," Karzai said.

"We are once again reiterating that the best way for stability in this part of the world, in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, is an effective, sincere, very, very serious fight against extremism and terrorism," Karzai said.

"Unless we do that, we'll continue to suffer; unless we do that, we'll continue to be unstable," he said.

Karzai and US officials have regularly said that militants waging an insurgency in Afghanistan are armed and trained across the border in Pakistan.

The Afghan president has in particular accused his neighbour of not doing enough against extremists who have found sanctuary in lawless tribal areas along the common border.

Islamabad, which itself has seen a surge in extremist attacks, says it has deployed tens of thousands of troops on the border to stop rebels moving into Afghanistan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Democracy In Pakistan Would Help Afghan Stability
PRAGUE, November 7, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Washington is strongly urging President Pervez Musharraf to restore the democratic process in Pakistan following his declaration of emergency rule. U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman told RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel on November 6 that one reason is Washington's conviction that building democracy in Pakistan would also contribute to stability in Afghanistan, where NATO-led troops continue to battle Taliban insurgents.

RFE/RL: Washington has registered its displeasure with Musharraf's government for declaring emergency rule and effectively putting on hold plans for general elections. You, yourself, had originally planned to visit Pakistan during your current foreign tour, but that stop has been cancelled as part of the negative U.S. response. What would Washington have preferred to see happen in Pakistan?

Eric Edelman: We are deeply disturbed as a government, as are others, by the issuance of the so-called provisional constitutional order. I think it would have been our preference that Pakistan stay on the course that it was on of having elections and moving towards a more firmly rooted constitutional form of government, rooted in the voice of the people as registered at the polls. And I think what we would like to see now is, as quickly as possible, for Pakistan to get back on that course, to hold the elections that were meant to be held in January, for President Musharraf to give some indication about his intentions in terms of taking off his uniform and returning Pakistan to civilian rule and making sure that this provisional constitutional order is an event of very short duration. Our preference would have been, quite frankly, that he not issue it at all.

RFE/RL: Is Washington confident that if we go through elections in Pakistan that the result will be as strong an ally in the war on terror as President Musharraf has been?

Edelman: Well, this is obviously one of those difficult problems in the world, where you have to balance a lot of competing interests. We have many in Pakistan. One interest, of course, is to continue the close work we have done together with Pakistan in fighting terrorism. I was in London yesterday [November 5] and both Britons and Americans face a common challenge, there is a lot of plotting against our respective homelands that is going on in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and parts of the Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan, so that's a matter of great concern because of the Al-Qaeda presence there.

We have a great concern as well, we and the U.K., but also the other NATO allies who are represented in [the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force] ISAF because of the Taliban presence in the same area which comes across the border and ends up killing NATO troops and Afghan civilians.

And of course Pakistan has nuclear weapons, it is a nuclear-weapons state, so its stability is a matter of great concern not just to us but to its neighbors and the rest of the world. So it is a very important part of the world, a very important country. We think the long-term stability of the country is best guaranteed by a political process that is moving it in the direction of accountable government and constitutional rule and that is what we hope will happen.

RFE/RL: As you mentioned, there is a lot of cross-border movement and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are active on both sides. Often we look at this as principally an Afghan problem, because the fighting is in Afghanistan. But more recently we also are seeing fighting inside Pakistan's tribal areas. Is there a danger that the fight with the Taliban, with Al-Qaeda, could escalate into a larger regional problem?

Edelman: There is clearly an insurgent group in the area, it operates both across the border and inside Pakistan and I think it is not in anybody's interest for the situation to go on in the way that it has. It is something that we have been concerned about and have had ongoing discussions with our Pakistani colleagues about, and our hope is that we can help provide them with the kind of successful counterinsurgent strategy that they are going to need, which is going to involve a lot more than just military activity. It is going to require a lot of economic, social, and political development.

We, in the Department of State as well as in the Department of Defense, have been looking to provide Pakistan over a period of years in the future with funding in order to be able to help them put together that kind of strategy and we want to go forward with that but, of course, the [U.S.] Congress provides oversight for us and we will have to answer questions that are already being raised in Congress [about Musharraf's emergency rule], and we have some legal issues that we will have to work our way through because of various legal prohibitions that might come into effect as a result of the situation there. It's one reason why we think it's best to get back onto a path of elections and constitutional rule as quickly as possible.
Back to Top
Back to Top
AFGHANISTAN: NGOs vulnerable to criminal violence and insurgency
07 Nov 2007 15:16:17 GMT
More  KABUL, 7 November 2007 (IRIN) - Civilians working for NGOs in Afghanistan say their work is being constrained by insecurity as criminal groups and Taliban insurgents target aid workers.

Ahmad Shah Shierzai quit his job as a doctor with a local NGO as soon as he was released by Taliban insurgents on 20 October in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan. He and two others, who had been working at a district medical facility on 16 October, were abducted outside Kandahar city by armed men linked to Taliban rebels.

"We implored the Taliban that we are only health workers and that we only wanted to help destitute patients," he said. "They wanted to kill us because they said anyone working for the government of Hamid Karzai and foreign organisations deserved death," Shierzai added.

Only mediation by tribal elders and a hefty sum paid by Shierzai's family led to his safe release, he told IRIN.

Before letting him go, the Taliban forced him take an oath. "I swore that I would no longer work for the government and foreign NGOs," he said.

Unprecedented attacks
Since January 2007, 106 crime and conflict-related security incidents have involved NGOs across the country, the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) reported in October.

Anja de Beer, director of the NGO umbrella organisation ACBAR, says NGOs have been attacked by criminal groups as well as by anti-government forces.

Although Taliban insurgents have been involved in most reported security incidents against NGOs, ANSO figures show that criminal activities - mostly with economic motivation - have increasingly affected NGOs even in the relatively peaceful north and northeastern parts of the country.

Due to weak law enforcement, criminal groups allegedly involved in attacks and security incidents against NGOs often remain beyond the rule of law and prosecution.

"Criminal impunity in the north and northeastern provinces is an equal threat to NGOs as is insurgency in the south and southeast," Nic Lee, director of ANSO, told IRIN in the capital, Kabul, on 7 November.
Abductions
According to Lee, in almost all armed looting and robbery incidents affecting NGO convoys and facilities, shooting and abduction of NGO workers had been rare. This year, however, that trend has changed significantly.

"Opportunistic abductions have become more popular," said Lee. "Criminal groups have increasingly engaged in economically motivated abductions of NGO workers."

Anti-government forces have abducted more than 60 NGO workers compared with 20 by criminal gangs so far in 2007, according to ANSO.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that between January and September 2007 seven international and 34 Afghan aid workers were killed after being abducted by unidentified men.

NGO security
Many aid agencies operating in Afghanistan rely on communities and non-military and non-government procedures for their security and protection.

"We believe acceptance by communities is our form of security," said De Beer of ACBAR.

Most NGOs have repeatedly resisted the offer of armed escorts by Afghan government forces, fearing this would turn their neutral and independent status into a "legitimate target" for warring parties.

However, there have been calls for the government to step in. "We ask the government of Afghanistan to ensure our security," said Gunendu Roy, programme coordinator for a Bangladeshi development organisation, BRAC, in Afghanistan.

BRAC, which implements health, agriculture and microfinance projects in 25 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, with more than 3,500 Afghan and 180 Bangladeshi staff, lost one international staff member in northeastern Badakhshan province on 12 September in a security incident. A second Bangladeshi staff member has been held by unidentified abductors since 15 September in Logar province, the agency said.

"We demand the government secure our kidnapped staff member's release," said Roy.

Uncertain future

The UN, NGOs and several other international organisations agree that, in terms of security, 2007 has been the worst year for aid workers in Afghanistan.

Growing insecurity in different parts of the country has brought problems of inaccessibility, which, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN, drives millions of impoverished Afghans into an unwanted humanitarian emergency.

For Lee, who closely monitors NGO security, the situation is deteriorating and there could be worse scenarios ahead.

De Beer of ACBAR says the situation has the potential to go either way. "Let's hope that security will improve," she said.
Back to Top
Back to Top
German cabinet backs extension of Afghan mission
BERLIN, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet on Wednesday approved an extension of Germany's Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) mission in Afghanistan, an unpopular deployment that will go before parliament later this month.

Under the one-year extension agreed by the cabinet, Germany would be able to deploy up to 1,400 troops, down from 1,800 in the previous mandate.

The deployment includes some 100 special forces that could be used in anti-terrorism operations and has been far more controversial here than the 3,500-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mandate that was renewed last month.

A parliamentary debate on the OEF mission is scheduled to begin on Thursday and is likely to be heated. (Writing by Noah Barkin; Editing by Stephen Weeks)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan troops arrest 6 suspected terrorists 
www.chinaview.cn  2007-11-07 20:20:20      Print
KABUL, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan forces have captured six persons on charge of having link with terrorist networks, a statement of the Afghan Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

"Acting on intelligence report the government troops launched an operation in Andar district (in the central Ghazni province) Tuesday and arrested six militants who were involved in terrorist activities," the statement added.

However, it did not say if there were any important figures of Taliban and al-Qaida operatives fighting the government in Afghanistan.

Militancy and conflicts have claimed the lives of more than 5,600 people including over 1,200 civilians so far this year in the war-torn Afghanistan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan: Karzai Administration Needs to Remember That All Politics is Local
Terry Friel 11/06/07 EurasiaNet, NY
Record drug harvests, a weak government, a flagging economy and mounting civilian deaths are stoking support for Islamic militants in Afghanistan. To reverse the current trend, President Hamid Karzai’s administration, along with its foreign supporters, must do a better job in delivering basic social services on the grassroots level, experts and politicians say.

Underscoring the escalating mayhem in Afghanistan, a suicide bombing on November 6 in Baghlan Province killed or wounded upwards of 100 people, according to local reports. Among the dead were at least five members of parliament who had travelled to the region to tour a sugar factory. It is one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Afghanistan since a US-led coalition forced the radical Islamic Taliban government from power in Kabul in late 2001.

More than 5,000 people have died so far this year, mainly militants, but including possibly hundreds accidentally killed in air strikes carried out by the US military and by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

And as the Taliban and affiliated rebel groups return to traditional guerrilla warfare after last year’s failed bid to take on foreign and Afghan troops in conventional pitched battles, the fighting is spreading to areas once considered relatively safe, including regions such as Baghlan Province north of the capital, Kabul.

"This year, you haven’t seen the standing battles … the human waves of Taliban throwing themselves at foreign troops," said an International Crisis Group (ICG) Kabul-based analyst, Joanna Nathan. "They have returned to more asymmetrical techniques, so you have the suicide bombings, the hit and run operations, the roadside bombs.

"They are projecting themselves across a wider proportion of the country now."

Analysts are quick to point out the Taliban revival does not seriously reflect growing support for the radical group’s aims or ideology. Rather, it stems from anger and disillusionment with Karzai’s administration and its foreign backers, in particular the United States and European Union.

"I think it’s important to emphasise – I don’t think the Taliban themselves are wildly popular, I don’t think people want Taliban times back," said Nathan.

"It is a broad dissatisfaction with what is happening in the country now. I think the Taliban are very clever at appealing to people or groups that are locally disenfranchised or disempowered," Nathan continued. "So it’s not sort of a huge ideological movement as such, it’s more a protest movement in many ways – often, often very local, and I think that’s very important to emphasize."

Aid workers and Afghan officials estimate almost 400 civilians have been killed by foreign forces this year, mainly by aerial bombing. NATO disputes this tally, but says some civilians have died, often when militants attack its troops from village houses.

Reports of civilian deaths have eroded support for Karzai – who is derisively called in some circles "the mayor of Kabul" because his administration appears to exert little influence in Afghanistan’s provinces. "Six years on, the continuation of civilian casualties is something the Afghan people cannot understand, and rightly so," Karzai – once moved to tears in a public speech on the problem – said in a television interview with Britain’s Channel 4.

Beyond the violence related to the insurgency, Afghanistan’s weak economy presents another challenge for Karzai. Unemployment officially hovers around 40 percent, and most Afghans live in appalling conditions, with no electricity, running water or sewage. Power in the capital runs just a few hours a day.

"People thought democracy would give them everything – jobs, roads, electricity, water – but nothing of this sort has happened," said government adviser, analyst and former minister Hamidullah Tarzi, who often sports a silver pistol tucked under his coat.

"In fact, it’s getting worse. There is a lack of jobs, a lack of employment. Overall, nothing much has been done. The money that has come in has not been productive in relation to industrialization. In fact, we are losing what we had."

As the Karzai government and the international community struggle to spread the benefits of billions of dollars of aid down to ordinary Afghans, Taliban militants and criminal gangs are benefiting from year after year of record opium harvests.

"People … haven’t been able to tangibly touch and feel any positive changes in their lives," said Daoud Sultanzoy, an independent member of parliament. "One of the reasons that people are [feeling] as alienated as they are, to the level that they are, is not because Taliban [militants] are better and they are offering better alternatives, or that people are turning away from us, it’s because we have not done a good job at keeping the people on our side, as the state, as the government, as the international community."

NATO estimates up to 40 percent of the Taliban’s funds come from drug earnings (Afghanistan is virtually the world’s only supplier of opium, the raw ingredient of heroin) and production is booming. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The harvest soared more than 34 percent in 2007 to 8,200 metric tons from last year’s record 6,100 metric tons, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its latest annual report on the country’s crop.

The Taliban, which declared opium un-Islamic, all but wiped out production when the movement governed much of Afghanistan from 1996-2001. But radical Islamic militants are now working with drug lords to protect smuggling routes and take a share of profits, analysts say.

The Taliban also shelter and train in neighboring Pakistan, bolstered by tribal ties. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says there is no formal support for the rebels, once backed by Islamabad, but he is coming under mounting pressure to do more to seal the border and crack down on Taliban activities. The present domestic crisis in Pakistan – in which Musharraf imposed a state of emergency on November 3 and is now facing fierce opposition – calls into question Islamabad’s ability to contain rising militant sentiment on its side of the border. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Away from the battlefield, Afghan President Karzai is battling strong political efforts to cut back his powers, and is trying to balance demands of ordinary Afghans with those of the international community.

Relations with the parliament are strained, and in March a bloc of key Karzai allies joined some of his rivals to form a new National Front to trim the power of the presidency and create a new role of prime minister as a counterbalance. Among those killed in the November 6 suicide bombing in Baghlan was Sayef Mustafa Kazimi, a National Front leader.

The Front, made up mostly of militia leaders from the fight against Soviet occupation, is led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, who led a mujahideen government that collapsed into the 1990s civil war that ended with the Taliban taking power in 1996.

"While he means well, while he intends well, that’s not enough and we are suffering problems," said Sultanzoy, the MP. He went on to accuse Karzai of not being tough enough for the task of ruling a historically unruly nation.

Some analysts say Karzai is also hamstrung by the power the international community still wields, especially over spending in the country.

"We have an old saying: two kings cannot rule over one country. But this is what is happening," said Tarzi.

In six years, there have been some gains. A national highway linking major cities is almost complete – although many parts of the thoroughfare are dangerous to travel – and the power grid has been extended. In addition, more children, especially girls, are in schools.

Meanwhile, the army is building its capacity, although it will take years before the armed forces are capable of addressing security threats without the support of foreign forces, NATO commanders say.

Ultimately, despite the new army and the presence of tens of thousands of foreign soldiers, the solution here can never be military, analysts say. Instead, the country needs strong and transparent government, an end to corruption and the opium industry, more jobs and a better economy.

"You are not going to defeat them [Islamic militants] in the end. It’s essential to have a robust military force, but that is to create the space for political solutions to take place, so you have to see massive efforts to actually ensure there is something worth fighting for, to be putting something in place in terms of local government. You are not just fighting for the sake of fighting," said the ICG’s Nathan.

"You’ve got to be seen to be fighting for something. So the effort needs to go in from the Kabul government and backed by its international supporters into ensuring good local leaders and functioning service providers. That’s the bit that to us has been left out of the equation.

"Just building something doesn’t make them love you if there are not functioning systems, particularly in terms of justice and governance. These issues have been going on for years and there still doesn’t seem to be the political will behind it."

Editor’s Note: Terry Friel is a freelance reporter who specializes in Caucasus and Central Asian affairs.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban attacks fuel tactical worries
Near miss on MacKay, suicide blast suggest improved capacity to gather intelligence
GRAEME SMITH From Wednesday's Globe and Mail November 7, 2007 at 3:16 AM EST
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The Taliban are getting increasingly sophisticated as they try to assassinate leaders, analysts worry, after a suicide bomber killed six Afghan parliamentarians among scores of others and rockets landed near visiting Defence Minister Peter MacKay Tuesday.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi refused to say whether his men knew Mr. MacKay was visiting a small Canadian desert base, about 20 kilometres west of Kandahar city, when insurgents fired two rockets at the outpost.

But a local Taliban commander who operates in Zhari district, near Forward Operating Base Wilson, said his group received a phone call from their superiors in Pakistan earlier in the day with specific instructions to attack the base.

"We got information that a big Canadian leader came to Zhari," the low-ranking insurgent said. "So we attacked him."

 Taliban are prone to empty boasting, and a military spokesman said the Canadians have no reason to believe that Mr. MacKay was targeted personally. The minister wasn't hurt, although four Canadian soldiers suffered minor injuries.

The insurgents were more successful later, when a suicide blast killed at least 40 people and injured 120 others during a visit by dignitaries to a sugar factory in a northern province.

It was the deadliest attack since the 2001 invasion, and the most effective against high-profile targets. Among the dead is the head of the Afghan parliament's economics committee, and the injured include the country's deputy agriculture minister.

"This shows the gravity of the situation," said Seth Jones, an analyst at RAND Corporation, who last visited Kandahar a few weeks ago. "The Taliban have improved their ability to gather live intelligence and execute on that information."

If a group of local Taliban did receive orders to attack Mr. MacKay, it would mark a departure from the insurgents' usual way of working, Mr. Jones said, because the Taliban are usually a loosely knit collection of fighting units. The insurgents get their strategic planning from above, but their masters don't often exert the sort of command and control found in a regular military operation.

In Ottawa, Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier said he did not think the attack was aimed at Mr. MacKay. "No, I do not believe he was targeted," he said. "These are things that occurred coincidentally in time and space."

Afghanistan's suicide bombers are also considered the worst trained in the world; a recent United Nations study found that although the number of suicide attacks increased sevenfold last year, the bombers often kill only themselves.

But the Taliban's co-ordination has been improving. In February, the insurgents learned of an unscheduled visit by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney and launched a suicide attack on a northern base during his short stay.

Last week's fighting in Arghandab district also showed a degree of sophistication, as the insurgents kicked up diversions in several other parts of the province to distract government forces from the main offensive north of Kandahar city.

Still, Mr. MacKay looked unruffled and calm as he talked about the rocket attack, describing it several hours afterward as a typical episode in the war.

"There was a rocket attack that I'm told is not unlike some other attacks we've seen in the past," the minister said.

The Taliban often launch old Russian 107-millimetre rockets at larger military bases in Afghanistan, but they usually lack any aiming devices for the weapons and they rarely inflict serious damage. An accurate hit on a small base is far less common.

"It's the first time, a shell like this," Colonel Stéphane Lafaut, commander of the Canadian military's Operational Liaison Mentoring Team, told reporters who accompanied Mr. MacKay, speaking during the first moments after the impact. Rocket fire has been aimed at FOB Wilson only one other time in the past month, Col. Lafaut said.

"Today it seems they have a special interest, I don't know why, eh?" he said with humour, although he added that it's unclear whether the attack was related to the minister's visit.

The first rocket landed around 11 a.m. local time, and a pool reporter for The Canadian Press saw Mr. MacKay's bodyguards scramble for their helmets, clutch their guns, and quickly summon a light armoured vehicle to serve as an improvised bunker for the minister.

"There was an explosion. It was a loud bang," Mr. MacKay said. "When it happened, we heard the explosion, we heard the whistle overhead, we were told to get down and we did." He continued: "Everything went like clockwork. We were taken out of harm's way very quickly, put in an armoured vehicle, the people who I'm travelling with are consummate professionals."

A second rocket arrived about 15 minutes later and hit the base itself, a concrete-walled compound roughly the size of a football field.

With a report from Alan Freeman in Ottawa
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan Struggle to Change Poppy Fields Into Roads
By WILLIAM GRIMES November 7, 2007 Books of The Times The New York Times
Joel Hafvenstein returned to Afghanistan in late 2004 armed with nothing but good intentions. Employed by Chemonics, a private company with a contract from the United States Agency for International Development, he was part of a team trying to discourage cultivation of the opium poppy by providing an alternative income for poor farmers.

Within months the mission was in disarray, its American workers huddled in a fortified bunker after eight of its Afghan employees had been murdered. The next year’s poppy harvest would be the largest on record.

The sobering dispatches in “Opium Season,” a wrenching account of lofty hopes and bitter disappointments, shed a dismal light on American efforts to improve the lot of ordinary Afghans. All over the country development projects are under way aimed at winning over the Afghan people, depriving the Taliban of popular support and propping up Hamid Karzai’s government. The obstacles are as steep as the surrounding mountains, as Mr. Hafvenstein discovered and ruefully recounts in this bitter but affectionate book about his three stints in Afghanistan from October 2003 to May 2005.

In Helmand Province, where Mr. Hafvenstein had his final tour of duty, the immediate plan was simple: hire local people for big public-works projects and put money in their pockets before the government started cutting down profitable poppy fields. This stopgap effort would be the prelude to large-scale infrastructure projects that would lift the local economy permanently. Easier said than done.

Getting a multimillion-dollar project up and running plunged Mr. Hafvenstein and his co-workers into a social, political and economic morass that eventually sucked them under. In a country with scant resources, every dollar shifted the local balance of power in unforeseen ways.

The influx of international development companies distorted the Afghan economy, driving up the cost of housing and drawing educated Afghans away from vital but poorly paid jobs in, for example, education. Local power brokers, whether government officials or tribal leaders, eyed the Americans askance, worried that their own influence might be diminished. Big landowners schemed to steer benefits in their direction.

Mr. Hafvenstein arrived eager but unprepared in a region known to the ancient Persians as “the land of the unruly.” Racing to set up a project office, he interviewed a long line of Afghans with spotty qualifications and modest expectations. One stated on his application that he looked forward to working in “a mullet-cultural environment.” Another, hesitant to accept a job that required him to travel with payroll money, said, “I would like a job where I will not be killed.”

The security situation was indeed tenuous. Early on Mr. Hafvenstein got a cold dose of reality when the company’s security officer rattled off a list of must-buy items for the offices. These included blast film for the windows, razor wires for the walls and a windowless safe room lined with sandbags “if things get ugly.” Nevertheless, before safes arrived, Mr. Hafvenstein carried around bricks of American, Afghan and Pakistani currency in the inside pockets of his waistcoat.

The cash-for-work program showed progress. Chemonics hired thousands of laborers to do roadwork or dig out the silt from canals in a huge irrigation system built in the 1940s by Morrison-Knudsen, the engineering company that built the Hoover Dam and the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Spurred on by an energetic, idealistic Afghan-American in the office, the company made every effort to extend its reach to remote valleys badly in need of development aid.

But the hard realities of the poppy economy quickly reasserted themselves. The local government would plow under the poppy fields belonging to poor farmers just enough to mollify the central government, while powerful landlords paid the police to pass them by. After a particularly heavy rain in Lashkargah, the provincial capital, Mr. Hafvenstein noticed a thriving poppy field directly across the street from the American military outpost, its existence revealed by a collapsed section of earthen wall.

Everyone in Helmand, directly or indirectly, depended on poppy income, including top officials. In June 2005 police raided the mansion of Helmand’s governor, Sher Muhammad Akhundzada, and found nine metric tons of opium. Mr. Akhundzada, who enjoys close family ties to Mr. Karzai, explained that he had seized the opium from traffickers and was merely waiting for the appropriate moment to dispose of it.

Mr. Hafvenstein and his team disturbed the status quo, although they were never clear precisely when or how. When several workers were victimized by a carjacking, informants blamed common thieves, but the act might have been retaliation for giving too many jobs to members of the wrong clan. Later, in the same area, two Afghan workers were ambushed and killed. A party that set out the following day to transport the dead bodies to a cemetery in Kabul was also ambushed and its members executed. One man, an ethnic Hazara (member of the Shiite minority) was shot through the eyes.

Local leaders blamed the Taliban. But the killings might have been ordered by poppy growers angry that the American project was depriving them of badly needed labor for the harvest. The police showed little enthusiasm for investigating the matter.

That was it for Mr. Hafvenstein and his American colleagues. They headed home, sadder and wiser. “We had come to Helmand thinking of opium as the local currency, and had tried to replace it with cash,” Mr. Hafvenstein writes. “But security was the real currency of Afghanistan. The traumatized population of Helmand would trade anything for it, follow anyone who could offer it.”

In a country where violence trumps money every time, the United States, Mr. Hafvenstein suggests, will have to work out a different equation.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Wanted Afghan national held in Himachal town
Calcutta News.Net Wednesday 7th November, 2007 (IANS)
An Afghan national wanted in his own country was arrested in Solan town of Himachal Pradesh Tuesday, following a tip off by the Afghan embassy.

Noor Agha was arrested for several violations of the foreigners act in Solan, some 45 km from the state capital here, police said Wednesday.

'We have taken Noor Agha into custody late Tuesday in Solan under various sections of foreigners act. He is wanted in a major case in Afghanistan,' Solan's police chief Diljit Thakur said Wednesday.

'Following a tip off we arrested the man living in a rented house along with his wife and four children,' Thakur said.

He was reportedly living in Solan for the last six months.

'During questioning we found that Agha was granted exemption to stay in India till Dec 31, 2006. We're also verifying the veracity of the visa extension,' the police chief said.

The police have not ruled out Agha's connections with any terrorist group.

According to the police, the embassy of Afghanistan had informed the Himachal Pradesh police some time back that Agha was possibly hiding in the state.
Back to Top
Back to Top
ANA Saves Afghan, Coalition Forces Lives
11.07.2007 at 10:41AM dvidshub.net
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Afghan National Army soldiers disrupted the emplacement of an improvised explosive device near a Coalition base in the Helmand Province Nov. 5.

ANA soldiers engaged several insurgents with small-arms fire when they were in the act of placing an IED near a major road. The insurgents quickly fled the area. ANA and Coalition forces secured the site and recovered portions of the IED left behind.

“ANA troops decisively engaged the Taliban insurgents, disrupting another attempt to harm Afghan citizens and ANSF,” said Army Maj. Chris Belcher, Combined Joint Task Forces-82 spokesman. “The ANA have taken an active role in improving the security and stability within their region.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
Herat University to receive more than $2.5m in grant
HERAT CITY, Nov 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The Berlin University would train Herat University lecturers and offer them higher study courses in Germany, an official said on Monday.

Herat University Dean Dr. Muhammad Naeem Asadi told Pajhwok Afghan News they wrapped up an agreement of cooperation with the Berlin Technical University here on Sunday.

More than $2.5 million of the development aid granted by the World Bank to the Higher Education Ministry was meant for capacity-building of the staff and equipping the Computer Science Department, he explained.

Dr. Asad added an information technology (IT) system, linking the Computer Science Department with outside world, would be established soon. Seven lecturers would be sent to Germany for two and a half years to do their masters in computer science.

With 11 departments and more than 6000 students, 20 per cent of them females, the Herat University has linkage programmes with 17 international universities, including those in Germany and the US, according to the dean.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan-UAE cooperation council on the cards
KABUL, Nov 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Afghan Foreign Minister Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta will leave for the United Arab Emirates on a two-day visit in response to an invitation from his UAE counterpart.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen told Pajhwok Afghan News on Monday Dr Spanta would sign with the UAE foreign minister an agreement on establishing a joint cooperation commission

He revealed the commission - to be jointly headed by the foreign ministers - would meet at regular intervals to discuss issues of bilateral interest. Dates for the trip are yet to be firmed up.

Spanta will also discuss with his host the fight against terrorism and narcotics, UAE investment in Afghanistan, support for reconstruction projects and greater links between the friendly Muslim countries in the fields of education, culture and economy.

The spokesman informed the foreign minister would also meet other UAE government officials. For the rebuilding of the road network in Kabul, the Arab country had granted Afghanistan $30 million at the Tokyo conference.

At the subsequent Rome moot on justice sector reforms in Afghanistan, Abu Dhabi announced one million euros in aid to Kabul. The UAE and Afghanistan formally established diplomatic ties in 1971.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Ministers say emergency in Pakistan to affect Afghanistan
KABUL, Nov 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Muqbil Monday assured Afghan forces would soon retake the two districts of southwestern Farah province captured by Taliban militants last week.

The minister admitted there were security-related problems in the embattled southern provinces but the government, backed by its international allies, would resolve the issues in the near future.

Speaking to newsmen at the Kabul International Airport on his return from Germany, he said government forces would soon recapture Gulistan and Bakwa districts, where dozens of people were killed in recent clashes.

The two cities were overrun by the insurgents last week, with 50 Taliban and 15 policemen perishing in fierce battles. On Monday, Taliban claimed setting alight the Khak-i-Safid district headquarters in the same province.

Answering a query, Muqbil said his talks with the host leadership were mainly focussed on the fight against terrorism and Afghan police training. He revealed the German government had promised to provide another 20 million euros for training the Afghan police force on modern lines.

About the proclamation of a state of emergency by Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, he feared the development would have negative effects on Afghanistan. The situation in one country definitely impinged on the other, he acknowledged.

Muqbil added the neighbours had resolved to put up a joint front against terrorists and extremists, who have stepped up destabilising activities on both sides of the Durand Line.

Also present at the airport to receive the national cricket team, which won the Asian Cricket Council Twenty20 Cup in Kuwait this last Friday, Information and Culture Minister Karim Khurram also said Afghanistan would be affected by the emergency powers invoked by Gen. Musharraf.

In an exclusive chat with Pajhwok Afghan News, Khurram warned international peace could be imperiled if fundamentalists were allowed to come into power in the nuclear-armed South Asian country.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Eight Afghans, three Jordanians transferred from Gitmo
WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (Pajhwok Afghan News): The US military authorities have transferred 11 prisoners including Afghans to their home countries from the infamous detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, whose closure is reportedly under consideration.

Eight of the inmates were sent to Afghanistan and three to Jordan, the Defence Department said on Sunday. These detainees were determined to be eligible for transfer following a comprehensive series of review processes."

In a statement, the Pentagon said: The transfer is a demonstration of the United States desire not to hold detainees any longer than necessary. Around 320 terror suspects are still languishing in the detention camp, with 450 having been transferred since 2002.

Many of the inmates have been held for years without charge and subjected to harsh torture techniques, prompting strong protests from rights activists and civil society organisations. The Bush administration is now reportedly mulling winding up the detention centre and granting the remaining prisoners substantially greater rights.

The New York Times reported on Saturday one proposal being widely considered in the administration would overhaul the procedure for determining whether detainees are properly held by granting them legal representation at detention hearings and by giving federal judges the power to decide whether suspects should be held.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Czech Republic to send helicopters to Afghanistan 
www.chinaview.cn  2007-11-06 04:31:26
PRAGUE, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Czech military is to hand the first batch of helicopters to Afghan armed forces representatives at Prague-Kbely airport in the second half of November, the Czech Defense Ministry said on Monday.

The Czech Republic will donate six transport Mi-17 helicopters and six Mi-24 combat helicopters to Afghanistan, local media reported earlier.

All 12 helicopters will be supplied to Afghanistan by the end of 2008. They are to become part of the newly formed Afghan air forces.

The Czech government approved the decision to donate 12 surplus combat and transport helicopters to Afghanistan in April in response to a request from NATO.

Apart from the helicopters, the Czech government also approved donating 30,000 automatic rifles and 650 machine guns for more than 30 million crowns (about 1.61 million U.S. dollars) at the beginning of this year.

However, some leaders of the opposition party disagreed with the donation of machine guns. The non-governmental Amnesty International also criticized the decision. The critics expressed the fear that the Czech gift could end up in the hands of anti-government forces.

Afghanistan is expected to receive the automatic rifles and machine guns by the end of this year.
Back to Top

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