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Afghans shift independence celebration to secret venue
By Sayed Salahuddin Sun Aug 17, 4:43 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has changed the venue for its independence celebration on Monday to an undisclosed location, an official said, after President Hamid Karzai survived an attempt on his life by Taliban
Police step up security in Afghan capital
KABUL (AFP) - About 7,000 police launched a massive security operation in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday, the interior ministry said, amid an increase in militant attacks and crime including kidnapping.
88 die in Afghan violence; police deploy in Kabul
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan police commanders on Sunday ordered 7,000 officers onto the capital's streets, including the country's youngest cadets, to secure Kabul ahead of Independence Day celebrations.
Afghan blast kills 10 policemen: commander
Sun Aug 17, 5:20 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - A roadside bomb struck a police vehicle in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar overnight, killing 10 policemen, their commander told AFP Sunday.
Remains of ex-Afghan president's relatives found in mass grave
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan authorities announced Sunday they had found mass graves containing the remains of nine relatives of ex-president Mohammad Daud Khan, shot dead in a Soviet-backed coup three decades ago.
Pakistan arrests brother of Afghan opposition leader
Islamabad, Aug 17, IRNA
Pakistani authorities have arrested the brother of top Afghan opposition leader engineer Gulbuddin Hekmatyar from the northwestern city of Peshawar, Afghan sources said Sunday.
US to take over Afghan mission
Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter The Sunday Times (UK) August 17, 2008
The United States is planning to take control of all military operations in Afghanistan next year with an Iraq-style troop surge after becoming frustrated at Nato’s failure to defeat the Taliban.
US Marines stretched for training of Afghan troops: commander
by Kimberly Johnson Sat Aug 16, 10:18 PM ET
NIJRAB, Afghanistan (AFP) - The US Marine Corps will not be able to increase military training teams needed to bolster security forces in Afghanistan unless it draws down in Iraq, the force's top commander has warned.
Controversial Afghan leader praised after he quits
Sat. Aug. 16 2008 2:01 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
There was nothing but praise for Kandahar's former governor during his replacement's inauguration ceremony on Saturday.
Stay the course in Afghanistan
Calgary Herald Sunday, August 17, 2008
The murder of three aid workers and their driver in Afghanistan this past week is a tragedy and one that should make all decent people the world over both melancholic and angry. The aid workers and escort
Taliban threaten more attacks on Canadians
GLORIA GALLOWAY Globe and Mail Update August 17, 2008 at 10:04 AM EDT
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The Taliban issued an open letter to Canada Sunday saying more Canadians will be killed like the aid workers who were gunned down near Kabul last week if troops are not pulled out of Afghanistan.
Taekwondo - Afghanistan wants medal to heal home wounds
Reuters - Sports By Ian Ransom Sun Aug 17, 2008
BEIJING-Afghanistan's cashed-strapped taekwondo team present the only hope of bringing home the country's first Olympic medal.
ISI praised for ‘defending national interest’
* Canadian journalist says ISI was Third World’s most efficient, professional intelligence agency before Musharraf took over as military dictator
Daily Times, Pakistan By Khalid Hasan Sunday, August 17, 2008
WASHINGTON-As resistance to the United States-led occupation of Afghanistan intensifies, the increasingly frustrated Bush administration is venting its anger against the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
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Afghans shift independence celebration to secret venue
By Sayed Salahuddin Sun Aug 17, 4:43 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has changed the venue for its independence celebration on Monday to an undisclosed location, an official said, after President Hamid Karzai survived an attempt on his life by Taliban in a military parade in April.
Afghanistan has seen an upsurge of violence since 2006 when the ousted Taliban relaunched their insurgency and Kabul has suffered a series of major raids this year, including the attack on Karzai.
Several security officials have been arrested for having links to the attack on Karzai, leader of the country since U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001.
"The (independence) venue has been changed to a secret site. It will not be held in public as it was (in recent years)," defence ministry spokesman Zaher Azimi said.
"It has been changed in order to not cause disruption in the traffic and people's movement," Azimi said when asked if the move had any link to security fears or the April attack on Karzai.
Previous independence celebrations were held in the presence of top government officials and foreign military commanders as well as diplomats, in a sports stadium several hundred meters away from the presidential palace and adjacent to the site of April's military parade.
Afghanistan secured its independence from Britain in 1919 after two wars with the world's then most powerful empire.
U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban's radical Islamic government after its leadership refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders accused of orchestrating the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Violence since 2006 has been the bloodiest since the Taliban's removal from power and comes despite the increasing size of foreign forces, now numbering more than 71,000, and over 140,000 Afghan forces.
Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are still at large, and foreign forces under the command of the U.S. military and NATO say they will be in the country until the Afghan government manages to stand on its feet.
The al Qaeda-backed resurgent Taliban scoffed at the government's independence plans, saying Afghanistan was under foreign occupation now.
In a commentary posted on its Website, the Taliban also repeated that its campaign would continue until the withdrawal of foreign forces.
"The independence anniversary ... comes at time that the country is actually under foreign invasion by the armies of Britain and America among 40 other infidel countries," the Taliban said.
Frustration is growing among many Afghans over rampant corruption, insecurity, and the booming heroin trade, as well as civilian casualties in the fighting against the militant insurgents.
(Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Police step up security in Afghan capital
KABUL (AFP) - About 7,000 police launched a massive security operation in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday, the interior ministry said, amid an increase in militant attacks and crime including kidnapping.
The operation, described by the ministry as the biggest in Kabul since the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime, comes a day after the education minister escaped a roadside bomb and on the eve of Afghanistan's Independence Day.
Police who are already on the ground -- including those from the counter-terrorism, counternarcotics and anti-crime units -- will step up searches, patrols and other activities.
"The aim of this operation is to clear certain areas of Kabul ... create an environment of trust, disrupt bombings and seize narcotics," the ministry said in a statement.
Education Minister Mohamad Hanif Atmar was not hurt in a blast that struck his convoy on the outskirts of the city on Saturday. A driver was wounded in the explosion.
Two separate bombings in the city this month have killed two foreign soldiers and about seven Afghans. There has also been a surge in kidnappings for ransom in recent months.
Officials said separately that a traditional annual high-profile event to mark the defeat of the British 89 years ago would on Monday be replaced with a more low-key commemoration.
The last major parade in the capital, on April 27, was disrupted when militants opened fire on a stage where President Hamid Karzai, ministers, diplomats and other senior officials were seated.
Karzai survived but three people as well as three of the attackers -- said to be from the Taliban militia -- were killed.
Kabul sees some Taliban-linked unrest but most of the violence occurs in the southern and eastern parts of the country bordering Pakistan.
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88 die in Afghan violence; police deploy in Kabul
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan police commanders on Sunday ordered 7,000 officers onto the capital's streets, including the country's youngest cadets, to secure Kabul ahead of Independence Day celebrations.
The unprecedented blanket of security came amid a spike in violence around the country — more than 90 people were reported killed in clashes and attacks — and served as an indication of how militants pose a growing threat to the capital.
Clashes in Afghanistan's south and east killed 73 Taliban fighters and nine private security guards, while a roadside blast killed 10 policemen, officials said.
The security increase in Kabul came a day before the country celebrates the 89th anniversary of its independence from Britain. The Interior Ministry said the capital's police would search buildings and cars to "create an environment of trust and prevent any disruptive actions by the enemy."
Any breach of security during the celebration would be an embarrassment for President Hamid Karzai's government. In April, gunmen fired on Karzai at a military parade in Kabul from a rented hotel room several hundred yards from the review stands where dignitaries sat. The attack killed three people, including a lawmaker.
The location of Monday's ceremony was not announced in advance in an effort to minimize the risk of insurgents again disrupting a national celebration.
Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said more than 5,000 extra police had been drafted for what he described as the biggest operation of its kind in Kabul since 2001, when U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban government. He declined to discuss whether officials were worried that militants are now at the city's gates.
A lawmaker from Kandahar who is critical of Karzai's government said the police deployment has more to do with protecting the government's reputation than winning people's confidence.
"Unless they bring some comprehensive changes in the security, this deployment will not affect people's confidence," Khalid Pashtun said.
Pashtun said there has been a steady increase in kidnappings of Afghans, robberies and other criminal acts this year. "People are afraid to leave their house after 7 p.m.," he said.
Teams of police stopped vehicles at checkpoints around the city on Sunday. Kabul so far has been spared the drumbeat of violence that has afflicted other parts of the country, though it suffered spectacular bomb attacks this year against an international hotel and the Indian Embassy.
One policeman deployed near a wide avenue where gunmen shot at Karzai in April was a 22-year-old police recruit.
"I am still a student but this was an order from the commander of the academy that we should come out and search the vehicles. That is why I am here now," Farid Ahmad said.
The decision to deploy the force came after a string of recent high-profile attacks indicated the resurgent Taliban and other militant groups have gained a foothold in neighboring provinces.
In an ambush last week, insurgents wielding assault rifles gunned down three female aid workers about an hour's drive south of Kabul.
To the west, insurgents have been regularly attacking U.S.-led coalition and NATO supply convoys, burning fuel trucks and killing NATO and coalition soldiers. To the east, the Tag Ab valley of Kapisa province has become the scene of near-daily clashes and airstrikes by the U.S.-led military coalition.
Afghan and NATO officials insist that the nearly seven-year effort to bring stability to Afghanistan is progressing.
However, the security operation in Kabul is the second time this year that authorities have taken extraordinary measures to reassure Afghans that the Taliban are not able to assail a major city.
In June, Afghan and NATO commanders scrambled thousands of troops to clear militants from a strategic valley within striking distance of Kandahar, Afghanistan's main southern city.
Overall, insurgent attacks jumped by 50 percent in the first half of 2008, according to recent data from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, a Kabul-based group that advises relief groups on security.
More than 3,200 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Western and Afghan officials.
Most of the violence still takes place in the south and east, where Taliban sympathies run strongest and militant bases in neighboring Pakistan are closer at hand.
In the latest violence:
• Zabul Deputy Gov. Gulab Shah Alikheil said 32 Taliban fighters died during a four-hour battle Sunday. Alikheil said the militants ambushed a NATO supply convoy escorted by private security, sparking the battle. Afghan soldiers responded to the ambush, the reason the Taliban toll was so high. The Interior Ministry said nine private security guards died.
• In Kandahar province, a roadside blast killed 10 police officers on patrol Saturday, said Matiullah Khan, the provincial police chief. Khan blamed the Taliban. Militants have increased their attacks against Afghan police, who are often poorly equipped and poorly trained. More than 1,000 police died in insurgent attacks last year.
• Taliban insurgents attacked police checkpoints in Nad Ali district of southern Helmand province Friday, sparking clashes that killed 23 militants, the Interior Ministry said Sunday. Four police were wounded and 13 other militants were detained, it said.
• Afghan and foreign troops clashed with militants Saturday in a mountainous area of Zabul province, killing seven militants, said district chief Fazel Bari.
• In eastern Paktika province, police clashed with militants Saturday in Shwak district, killing four insurgents, said Ruhulla Samon, spokesman for the provincial governor. Three police were wounded. Afghan and foreign troops clashed with insurgents in the same area on Thursday, killing seven militants, the Defense Ministry said.
___
Associated Press reporters Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
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Afghan blast kills 10 policemen: commander
Sun Aug 17, 5:20 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - A roadside bomb struck a police vehicle in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar overnight, killing 10 policemen, their commander told AFP Sunday.
Kandahar police chief Mutillah Khan blamed the bombing in the province's Shah Wali Kot district on the "enemies of Afghanistan" -- a phrase most Afghan officials use to refer to Taliban militants.
"A roadside bomb struck a police vehicle. There were 10 policemen in the car who were all killed," Khan told AFP.
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Remains of ex-Afghan president's relatives found in mass grave
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan authorities announced Sunday they had found mass graves containing the remains of nine relatives of ex-president Mohammad Daud Khan, shot dead in a Soviet-backed coup three decades ago.
The body of Khan, also killed in the 1978 military coup, is thought to be among those recovered from the two graves on the outskirts of the capital that were found to contain 29 bodies, deputy public health minister Faizullah Kakar told reporters.
"We have identified nine members of Mr. Daud Khan's family but not that of himself," said Kakar, head of a commission appointed by President Hamid Karzai in April to locate the body of Khan, Afghanistan's first president.
Work to identify Khan's body was underway, he said.
The nine included Khan's wife, a son, two daughters, his sister and an 18-month-old grandchild as well as other relatives, Kakar said.
They were identified through their clothing, teeth, height and other characteristics, he added.
"We're 100 percent sure about our findings," he said.
Some of the other 29 bodies in the graves, where they were neatly placed side by side, were in military uniform, he said.
Khan and 18 members of his family were shot dead on the night of April 27-28, 1978 when Soviet-backed communists stormed into the presidential palace in the centre of Kabul.
Their bodies were secretly buried and the graves were found after tip-offs from former soldiers.
The following year the Soviet Union invaded, occupying Afghanistan for a decade before they were defeated by an Afghan uprising.
Khan, who died when he was 68, had himself gained power in a coup, toppling King Zahir Shah, his cousin, in 1973 to end the monarchy and establish a republic.
Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, died last year in Kabul.
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Pakistan arrests brother of Afghan opposition leader
Islamabad, Aug 17, IRNA
Pakistani authorities have arrested the brother of top Afghan opposition leader engineer Gulbuddin Hekmatyar from the northwestern city of Peshawar, Afghan sources said Sunday.
Shahabuddin, 52, was arrested on Saturday when he was in Peshawar with female members of his family, the sources told IRNA.
A Pakistani security official also confirmed the arrest but did not give any further details.
Shahabuddin had been living in an Afghan refugee camp near Peshawar with his family for 20 years and has no links with Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Isalmi party, Afghan sources said.
According to the sources the authorities may question him about the whereabouts of Engineer Hekmatyar, who is believed to be hiding somewhere in Afghanistan.
Hekmatyar, who has also served as Afghan Prime Minister in 2006 before Taliban took over Kabul, is wanted by the US.
Afghan sources said that Shahbuddin has never involved in politics had no links with Hizb-e-Islami and has no contacts even with his brother since he has gone into hiding since 1996, when he had quit Afghanistan.
Shahabuddin has worked with a NGO in Peshawar and run a shop in the city.
Pakistan had also arrested Ghairat Baheer, son-in-law of Hekmatyar, in islamabad in 2002 who was later handed over to the US authorities.
He was freed by the Americans two months ago after four years at Bagram air base.
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US to take over Afghan mission
Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter The Sunday Times (UK) August 17, 2008
The United States is planning to take control of all military operations in Afghanistan next year with an Iraq-style troop surge after becoming frustrated at Nato’s failure to defeat the Taliban.
Plans are being drawn up to send as many as 15,000 extra troops to Afghanistan with a single US general always in command, as in Iraq, defence sources said.
The Pentagon is also pushing for a permanent “unified command” in the south of the country that would sideline the Dutch and the Canadians.
At present, control of the south is rotated between the British, Dutch and Canadians, the three countries that provide the bulk of the troops.
From October next year, when the UK will take over from the Dutch, command of the south is expected to alternate between the British and the Americans.
Although final decisions cannot be made until the new US administration takes over in January, plans are being drawn up to send two to three US combat brigades – a total of between 8,000 and 12,000 men, the sources said.
Lawrence Korb, a defence expert at the Centre for American Progress, a Democratic think tank in Washington, said: “There is no doubt that the US wants to change the command structure as things have deteriorated in Afghanistan.”
Both Barack Obama, the Democrat presidential candidate, and John McCain, his Republican opponent, have spoken of using “two to three [combat] brigades for the surge, amounting to 8,000-12,000 troops”, Korb said. “There will be a US general and the forces will be under US command.”
The surge will also see US and other coalition special forces, which operate separately from the Nato command, absorbed into a single US command for the whole of Afghanistan.
A report written by Barry McCaffrey, a retired US general, that is highly critical of the command structure in Afghanistan is circulating at senior levels within the Pentagon. “There is no unity of command in Afghanistan,” it says.
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US Marines stretched for training of Afghan troops: commander
by Kimberly Johnson Sat Aug 16, 10:18 PM ET
NIJRAB, Afghanistan (AFP) - The US Marine Corps will not be able to increase military training teams needed to bolster security forces in Afghanistan unless it draws down in Iraq, the force's top commander has warned.
Marine Corps Commandant James Conway said Washington's problem is that as the Afghan Army grows, so will the need for advisory teams
"If we were asked for more training teams, that would be really hard for us to do. We're just about capped out at what we're providing now," he told AFP.
He said his men would likely have to turn to a partnering system in Afghanistan, whereby a portion of a Marine unit geographically adjacent to Afghan troops would embed as advisors.
This strategy differs from the current piece-meal approach of sending advisors, which often allows for the force to cherry pick officers vital to deploying units.
Conway's comments came as he wrapped up a visit to Afghanistan, where he met some of the 3,500 Marines in the field, a few hundred of whom in advisory positions. There are around 24,000 Marines in Iraq.
Advisory work goes beyond teaching Afghan soldiers military tactics, said Colonel Jeff Haynes, who commands the 201st Regional Corps Advisory Command Central, based near Kabul.
"We're teaching them to be self-sufficient," he said during a visit to a remote outpost in Nijrab northeast of Kabul.
Haynes leads a unit of 730 international troops acting as advisors across 11 provinces, including 151 Marines positioned between Kabul and the Pakistan border. And he does not mix his words when it comes to how the Afghan army will improve.
"We have these pity parties in Kabul about how much [the Afghan soldiers] need. No. They need good leadership," Haynes said.
The Afghans also need a new road, he added.
Many imported products coming in by truck from Pakistan must stick to highways going through the Jalalabad Pass, a treacherous road laden with switchbacks that can take 12 hours to drive through.
Improving a more direct existing road that bypasses Jalalabad would help jumpstart development, Haynes said. That economic development, in turn, would help sever existing insurgent rat lines.
"We're doing a little bit of nation building, but that's OK because it's going to help us with counter-insurgency," he said.
But that nation-building requires help from outside the Marine Corps, Conway said.
"He's asking his military people to provide those kinds of services and knowledge base for things they (his troops) may not be very expert in," Conway said, reflecting on Haynes' strategy.
"We do that where we have to," Conway said but added that what was really needed were people who were experts in fields outside the military, such as in agriculture and crops. "That's what we see is more of the answer," he said.
The new road will be an asset giving residents easier access to a hospital and making them "closer to the government," said Major Khairmohammed Jochi, acting commander of about 650 Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers.
"We are providing the security for this road, then the contractors will come and they can start their work," he said.
Daniel Markey, an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations South Asia, welcomed economic development projects as a counterinsurgency tool but cautioned that it was critical to follow it through.
"Such ambitious plans, as long as they are complemented by sustained resources and a realistic assessment of timelines, are not a bad thing," he said in an e-mail.
"The real problem comes if ambitious rhetoric is unmatched by funding or long-term commitment, since that raises local expectations and leaves them frustrated."
But keeping up a military presence is key, with security -- generally said to be deteriorating -- essential to development.
"None of these projects will be sustainable if the military pressure lets down, if the US pulls out, the ANA isn't getting funding, training or expansion, or if the Pakistani side of the border becomes increasingly unstable," Markey said.
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Controversial Afghan leader praised after he quits
Sat. Aug. 16 2008 2:01 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
There was nothing but praise for Kandahar's former governor during his replacement's inauguration ceremony on Saturday.
Asadullah Khalid, who handed over the governorship of Kandahar province and five other provinces to Major-General Rahmatullah Raufi, the former chief of the Afghan National Army, had been mired in corruption and torture allegations for much of his tenure.
In fact, Canada's former Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier committed a major faux pas earlier this year when he publicly raised questions about Khalid. Bernier had called on Afghanistan President Hamad Karzai to replace the controversial figure.
But on Saturday, Canadian officials had kind words for the former head of the province where the majority of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are stationed.
Elissa Golberg, Ottawa's top civilian in Kandahar, said Canada has had a good a relationship with Khalid and wished him well in his future endeavors.
However, during his tenure there were allegations that Khalid was personally involved in the torture of prisoners and that he did not do enough to counter the Taliban insurgency in areas under his control.
The Globe and Mail's Gloria Galloway told CTV Newsnet on Saturday it's difficult to determine if anyone could have been more effective at countering the insurgency.
"Given the spread of Taliban control in this country ... it is difficult to know how much anyone could have done to push back the Taliban," Galloway said in a telephone interview from Afghanistan.
Opposition politicians in Canada said Khalid probably would have been replaced sooner had it not been for Bernier's gaffe. There is speculation that Karzai wanted to get rid of Khalid earlier this year, but held off because Bernier's comments became public.
"Mr. Bernier's comments several months ago may have put the government of Afghanistan in a bit of tight spot. Obviously they have to be seen as making these decisions on their own, in their own time and in their own way," Bob Rae, the foreign affairs critic for the Liberals, said on Friday.
"There have been real issues around corruption in Kandahar ... so any steps we can take to deal with that are important steps."
Galloway said Raufi has promised to make security a top priority in the areas under his jurisdiction.
With files from The Canadian Press
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Stay the course in Afghanistan
Calgary Herald Sunday, August 17, 2008
The murder of three aid workers and their driver in Afghanistan this past week is a tragedy and one that should make all decent people the world over both melancholic and angry. The aid workers and escort -- including Canadians Jackie Kirk of Outremont, Que., and Shirley Case of Williams Lake, B.C. -- died when Taliban terrorists attacked their convoy southeast of Kabul.
Kirk was in Afghanistan to help with teacher-training programs; Case was in the country to help manage education programs for children with disabilities. The killings bring to 23 the number of aid workers killed in Afghanistan this year in addition to the 15 employees of non-governmental organizations who died last year at the hands of the Taliban. But such facts should not be used as an excuse by some in this country to ramp up their rhetoric about a need to withdraw from Afghanistan. Nor should the murder deter Canada or other nations from keeping firm in their commitments to Afghanistan. Absent our soldiers and those from other countries, Afghanistan would fall back into the abyss.
Recall the repression under Taliban rule, including the desecration of other religions -- such as when Taliban militants used rocket launchers to blast two sandstone Buddha statues into the historical oblivion. Those statues, at 36.5 metres high and 53.3 metres high, were the remnants of a thriving Buddhist community in Afghanistan at the time of the statues' carving in about the third to fifth centuries.
Beyond cultural terror, there were other attacks upon the dignity of the Afghan people. In 1992, eight thousand undergraduates -- all women -- were dismissed from Kabul University; a similar number of female teachers in Afghanistan were fired and all female civil servants were dismissed from their government jobs. In addition to such misogyny, any Canadian who advocates an end to the Afghan mission should remember the Taliban's many murders. Recall the infamous scene in November 1999, of a woman in a pale blue burqa kneeling in the centre of the Kabul soccer stadium with a Kalashnikov rifle to her head. The woman, identified only as Zarmeena, was a mother of seven and was executed in front of cameras and a chanting crowd.
In addition to the mayhem and murder in Afghanistan as a result of Taliban rule, the rest of the world also paid a price. The Taliban's sheltering of al-Qaeda allowed the terrorist organization to prepare for 9/11, with the resulting deaths of 2,974 people from more than 90 countries, including 24 Canadians.
Since the U.S. ousted the Taliban, and since Canadian troops and others are striving to provide a modicum of security for the majority of Afghans who have no wish to see the Taliban return, Canada has helped feed more than 6.7 million Afghans.
Then there is the future: by the end of 2009, Canada's goal in Afghanistan is to eradicate polio by immunizing seven million children under the age of five.
In June, Ottawa announced a $550 million commitment to Afghanistan, including more aid for women's and girls' initiatives. Jackie Kirk and Shirley Case were part of such efforts. Their deaths would be in vain if their murders lead to our withdrawal. Canada must stay the course in Afghanistan.
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Taliban threaten more attacks on Canadians
GLORIA GALLOWAY Globe and Mail Update August 17, 2008 at 10:04 AM EDT
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The Taliban issued an open letter to Canada Sunday saying more Canadians will be killed like the aid workers who were gunned down near Kabul last week if troops are not pulled out of Afghanistan.
“Afghanistan has to try to have good relations with you, but if your government continues a reversed policy, the Afghans will be obliged to kill your nationals, in revenge for their brothers, their sisters, and their children. Events such as Logar will happen again, because occupied Afghanistan looks at all actors that are established in the interest of America with an eye of hostility,” the Taliban said in the letter that was signed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
“Therefore, you have to convince your government to put an end to the occupation of Afghanistan, so that the Afghans are not killed with your hands and so that you are not killed with the hands of the Afghans.”
Jackie Kirk of Montreal, Shirley Case of Williams Lake, B.C., and Nicole Dial, a dual citizen of the United States and Trinidad, were travelling with an Afghan driver near Logar south of Kabul last Wednesday when their white sport utility vehicle marked with the emblems of their organization, the International Rescue Committee, was riddled with bullets.
The vehicle was travelling in an area considered relatively safe. And the Taliban does not usually target western women for that type of brutal execution.
Neither the Canadian military nor Foreign Affairs officials in Afghanistan would comment Sunday.
“The Canadian people have to realize if their sisters, their brothers, and their children are being killed in Afghanistan, it is because of the wrong policy of the government of Canada and their falling under the influence of others when they sent occupation soldiers to Afghanistan,” said the letter.
“The Canadian people, when they express condolences for the death of two Canadian women in Logar in Afghanistan, and consider themselves grieved, they have to know that the Canadian forces, under American command, handicap tens among the Afghan people every day to this kind of condolence, and they kill, in addition to men, numbers of women and children, as well.”
The territory that is firmly under Taliban control in Kandahar province where the Canadians are stationed has expanded greatly over the past two years. Roads that were once safe for western officials to drive are now off limits because of safety concerns. And foreign aid workers have had to scale back operations in this country where the poorest and most vulnerable can simply not be reached.
“The Afghans did not go to Canada to kill the Canadians. Rather, it is the Canadians who came to Afghanistan to kill and torture the Afghan, to please the fascist regime of America. Your government did not take into account the national interests of Canada, and did not follow a neutral policy. It sacrificed its national and international respect and standing in service of the interests of America.”
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Taekwondo - Afghanistan wants medal to heal home wounds
Reuters - Sports By Ian Ransom Sun Aug 17, 2008
BEIJING-Afghanistan's cashed-strapped taekwondo team present the only hope of bringing home the country's first Olympic medal.
Rohulla Nikpai and Nesar Ahmed Behave make up half of the Afghan delegation, the other half being two 100-metres sprinters who have never trained on a proper running track in their home country.
"They have qualified here on their own terms. We did not need a wild card to compete," team head Ghulam Rabani said of the taekwondo team who boast a world silver medallist in 23-year-old Behave.
A former national taekwondo athlete and president of the country's taekwondo federation, Rabani came back to Afghanistan in 2002, after fleeing Taliban rule to live in Iran in the 1990s.
"Those years were terrible. Every day was hearing bad news," said Rabani.
Afghanistan has been torn apart by nearly 30 years of war, turning an already impoverished nation into one of the very poorest in the world. Life expectancy at birth is just 44 and nearly one in five children die before their fifth birthday.
The Taliban used the main sports stadium in Kabul, a modest concrete structure, to execute murderers in public, amputate the limbs of thieves and lash adulterers.
The Olympics team all know people who have been killed or had limbs blown off and tragedy still strikes with alarming frequency.
"I've just found out one of our athletes has been killed by the Taliban while driving on the road to Kabul from Kandahar," Rabani said.
Rabani has helped build a network of 700 taekwondo clubs across the country since the Taliban were swept from power after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
But facilities remain "less than zero", and most tournaments are still held "under the sunshine". National team athletes can expect a government subsidy of $10 a month.
Still, things are better than the days when the Taliban were in power, said Behave, who will compete in the men's 68-kg category on Thursday.
"Training in those days was terrible. There were bombs exploding around us and people would come in telling us to pray all the time," Behave said.
The team, whose Beijing adventure has been funded by the International Olympic Committee, boasts a Korean coach and is confident of breaking the country's medal duck.
A medal would help, not least in bringing a $50,000 bonus promised by an Afghan mobile phone tycoon and allowing the country's diverse people forget their differences for a time.
"There are many different faces, different languages here, so sometimes they don't like each other," Rabani said.
"But when we got the silver medal at the world championships, all Afghanistan was happy. I heard that even the Taliban was happy."
(For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" here; and see our blog at blogs.reuters.com/china)
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ISI praised for ‘defending national interest’
* Canadian journalist says ISI was Third World’s most efficient, professional intelligence agency before Musharraf took over as military dictator
Daily Times, Pakistan By Khalid Hasan Sunday, August 17, 2008
WASHINGTON-As resistance to the United States-led occupation of Afghanistan intensifies, the increasingly frustrated Bush administration is venting its anger against the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), according to a commentary published here.
Eric Margolis, a Canadian journalist who has visited the region several times, writes in Huffington Post that Bush administration officials even believe that the Inter-Services Intelligence may even be hiding Osama Bin Laden. He charges the administration with leaking to the New York Times, which has been acting as a “megaphone for the administration,” that the CIA had electronic intercepts proving the ISI was behind the recent bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul.
Margolis recalls that as one of the first western journalists invited into ISI headquarters in 1986. ISI’s then director, Lt General Akhtar Rahman, personally briefed him on Pakistan’s secret role in fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. ISI provided communications, logistics, training, heavy weapons, and direction in the Afghan War. ISI was primarily responsible for the victory over the Soviets, which hastened the collapse of the USSR. At war’s end, Gen Akhtar and Gen Ziaul Haq, both died in a sabotaged C-130 transport aircraft. “Unfortunately, most Pakistanis blame the United States for this assassination,” he adds.
ISI most professional: Margolis writes that on his subsequent trips to Pakistan he was routinely briefed by succeeding ISI chiefs. He maintains that before Gen Pervez Musharraf took over as military dictator, the ISI was the Third World’s most efficient, professional intelligence agency. “It still defends Pakistan against internal and external subversion by India’s powerful spy agency, RAW, and by Iran. ISI works closely with CIA and the Pentagon and was primarily responsible for the rapid ouster of Taliban from power in 2003. But ISI also must serve Pakistan’s interests, which are often not identical to Washington’s, and sometimes in conflict,” according to Margolis.
He points out that Washington has been forcing Pakistan’s government, military and intelligence services through secret payments and threats of war into policies that are bitterly opposed by 90 percent of Pakistan’s people.
According to Margolis, since 2001, ISI directors have all been pre-approved by Washington.
All senior ISI veterans deemed “Islamist” or too nationalistic by Washington were purged at Washington’s demand, leaving ISI’s upper ranks top-heavy with too many yes-men and paper-passers. Even so, there is strong opposition inside the ISI to Washington’s “bribing and arm-twisting the subservient Musharraf dictatorship into waging war against fellow Pakistanis and gravely damaging Pakistan’s national interests.”
He emphasises that the ISI’s primary duty is defending Pakistan, not promote US interests. Pashtun tribesmen on the border sympathising with their fellow Taliban Pashtun in Afghanistan are Pakistanis. Many, like Jalaluddin Haqqani, are old US allies and “freedom fighters” from the 1980s. When the US and its western allies finally abandon Afghanistan, as they will inevitably do one day, Pakistan must go on living with its rambunctious tribals.
Margolis argues that violence and uprisings in the Tribal Areas are not caused by “terrorism”, but result from the US-led occupation of Afghanistan and Washington’s forcing the Musharraf regime to attack its own people. The ISI is trying to restrain pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen while dealing with growing US attacks into Pakistan that threaten a wider war. India has an army of agents in Afghanistan and is arming, backing and financing the Karzai regime in Kabul in hopes of turning Afghanistan into a protectorate.
Pakistan’s historic strategic interests in Afghanistan have been undermined by the US occupation. Now, the US, Canada and India are trying to eliminate Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. The ISI, Margolis argues, has every right to warn Pakistani citizens of impending US air attacks that kill large numbers of civilians. The agency also wants to prevent the resurgence of the Pakhtunistan demand. “Washington’s bull-in-a-china shop behaviour pays no heeds to these realities. Instead, Washington demonises faithful old allies ISI and Pakistan while supporting Afghanistan’s Communists and drug dealers, and allowing India to stir the Afghan pot, all for the sake of new energy pipelines,” he concludes.
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