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Over 40 Taliban killed in Afghan clashes
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 22, 6:19 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led troops attacked a compound where Taliban leaders were meeting in western Afghanistan, killing 30 militants, American and Afghan officials said Friday. Another 11 militants reportedly died in a separate clash in the south.
Pressure mounts for review of anti-terror strategy in Afghanistan
by P. Parameswaran Fri Aug 22, 9:30 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Pressure is mounting for a review of the "war on terror" in Afghanistan following heavy foreign troop casualties but Washington does not expect the losses to spark any immediate troop pullout.
US skeptical of Afghan civilian deaths claim
CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) - The White House on Friday reacted skeptically to the Afghan interior ministry's charge that a US-led strike in western Afghanistan had killed 76 civilians, including 50 children and 19 women.
Coalition soldier, five civilians killed in Afghanistan
Fri Aug 22, 7:48 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A soldier with the US-led coalition died in a bomb blast in Afghanistan Friday and the Afghan defence ministry said five civilians and 25 militants were killed in clashes involving air strikes against the Taliban.
Pakistan kills 20 militants near Afghan border
Fri Aug 22, 6:08 AM ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani troops killed 20 Taliban militants Friday in operations near the Afghan border, a day after a double suicide bombing killed 64 people at a major arms factory, officials said.
Behind the Taliban Surge
By ARYN BAKER / KABUL Fri Aug 22, 4:50 AM ET
The unprecedented audacity of Tuesday's attack on one of the largest U.S. bases in Afghanistan reflects the growing confidence of the Taliban: Six men wearing suicide bomb-vests attempted to rush
Airlines reduce ticket prices after heavy fines
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 21 August 2008
Transport Ministry fines airlines for increasing airfares by as much as 70%
Still short of equipment and facing a more confident enemy, British frustration grows
Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian Friday August 22 2008
As more and more British soldiers are killed and wounded, their commanders are becoming increasingly frustrated by the failure to make a breakthrough in Afghanistan. Morale is being further undermined
Iranian truck carrying Afghans crashes; kills 30
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 21 August 2008
Dozens die as truck packed with illegal Afghan migrants overturns
A TRUCK crammed with illegal Afghan migrants crashed in Iran on Thursday, killing 30 people, Iran's Fars News Agency reported.
'Millions of dollars spent on bribes every year'
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 21 August 2008
UN envoy urges government to increase efforts to eradicate corruption
Now even the Afghan president is poking fun at Gordon Brown's leadership troubles
This is London - News www.thisislondon.co.uk 22.08.08
Gordon Brown faced embarrassment on his tour of Afghanistan, when the country's president joked about his leadership troubles.
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Over 40 Taliban killed in Afghan clashes
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 22, 6:19 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led troops attacked a compound where Taliban leaders were meeting in western Afghanistan, killing 30 militants, American and Afghan officials said Friday. Another 11 militants reportedly died in a separate clash in the south.
The coalition was striking back against insurgents opposed to the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai who have stepped up attacks on foreign and Afghan troops.
In the bloodiest incident, the coalition said its troops called in airstrikes on the compound in the Shindand district of Herat province on Thursday.
Some 30 militants were killed and five others were detained, spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry said. The troops found a haul of weapons and ammunition inside the compound, he said.
An Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman, Gen. Mohammad Zaher Azimi, confirmed the clash but said five of the 30 dead were civilians.
It was not immediately possible to explain the discrepancy.
The operation was launched after an intelligence report that a Taliban commander, Mullah Siddiq, was inside the compound presiding over a meeting of militants, Azimi said.
Siddiq was one of those killed during the raid, Azimi said.
A roadside bomb in the country's east, meanwhile, killed a U.S. coalition service member on Friday, the U.S. military said in a statement. The coalition did not provide other details on the incident or the victim's nationality.
Another roadside blast Friday hit an Italian army's armored vehicle some 12 miles north of Kabul, wounding three Italian soldiers Friday, the Italian Defense Ministry said.
Separately, Afghan and international troops clashed Thursday with militants in Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province, killing 11 militants, said provincial police Chief Juma Gul Himat.
Three Afghan troops were wounded in the fight, Himat said.
Authorities recovered the bodies of the dead militants, he said.
While most of Afghanistan's violence affects the southern and eastern regions that border Pakistan, militants have also been active in western areas bordering Iran.
In another clash Thursday involving airstrikes, the U.S.-led coalition said its forces killed "multiple militants" in the northern Kapisa province.
The operation in Tagab district targeted a Taliban commander involved in weapons smuggling and suicide attacks against Afghan and foreign troops, the coalition said.
Tagab is close to where militants killed 10 French troops on Tuesday in the deadliest ground attack on foreign troops since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001.
More than 3,400 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to figures from Western and Afghan officials.
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Associated Press writers Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
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Pressure mounts for review of anti-terror strategy in Afghanistan
by P. Parameswaran Fri Aug 22, 9:30 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Pressure is mounting for a review of the "war on terror" in Afghanistan following heavy foreign troop casualties but Washington does not expect the losses to spark any immediate troop pullout.
This week alone, 18 foreigners, including 10 French, three Poles and three Canadians, were killed in largely Taliban militant attacks on soldiers grouped under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom.
"The number of United States and NATO casualties is mounting so quickly, that unless something happens soon this could be the deadliest year of the Afghan war," warned the New York Times in a scathing editorial "Afghanistan on Fire."
"Kabul, the seat of Afghanistan's pro-Western government, is increasingly besieged," it said. "There is no more time to waste."
Unless the United States, NATO and its central Asian allies move quickly, the paper warned, "they could lose this war."
The killing Monday of the French paratroopers by nearly 100 Taliban forces and a coordinated assault by nearly a dozen suicide bombers on one of the largest US military bases the next day were seen as the militant group's most complex and audacious attacks of the war since 2001.
The deaths have sparked a French media debate about President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to send more troops to fight alongside US and other NATO forces in Afghanistan amid polls showing a large majority of French opposing the move.
"My understanding is that there is no strong move to withdraw the French troops but rather to look at the strategy and what we seek to accomplish there, which is a valid point," a senior US State Department official told AFP.
"There is nothing wrong with that but the resolve to keep the troops there seems to be pretty solid," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
About 70,000 international troops -- 40,000 of them with a NATO-led force -- are fighting alongside Afghans against Taliban insurgents whose regime was ousted in a US-led invasion launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The ISAF and Afghan forces, the State Department official said, were determined "to take the battle aggressively" to the Taliban in a bid to secure more areas for development that could draw crucial public support for President Hamid Karzai's government.
Karzai has come under increasing criticism from the international community for failing to crack down on corruption in his administration and a flourishing opium trade fuelling the Taliban insurgency.
"The demonstrated failure of the central government to be able to manage issues itself again adds to the doubts that people have, and so many people are ambivalent as to whether their loyalty should live with the international community and the Kabul government or with the insurgency," said Marvin Weinbaum, a former Afghanistan expert at the State Department.
"I don't think anybody believes that there is this great love for the insurgency but people are just doing what we call the prudential thing -- they are doing what they have to do for their own security," he said.
Weinbaum said the Taliban militants were desperately stepping up attacks on foreign troops so that higher casualties could eventually result in foreign troops packing up and returning home.
"It is to create a siege mentality on the part of the Afghans that they are going to be in a situation where they are going to have to stand by themselves without the international community and it's being done obviously for psychological effect," he said.
Foreign aid groups are also reviewing their operations in Afghanistan as threats of murders and kidnappings limit their work.
Gunmen last week pumped bullets into a marked vehicle of the International Rescue Committee, killing three Western women aid workers and their Afghan driver in the deadliest attack on aid workers in years.
The effect of the latest attack, in Logar province about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Kabul, "is already being felt in Afghanistan," Michael Kleinman, who has worked for humanitarian agencies in Afghanistan, Africa and Iraq, said in a report Thursday.
"When I worked there in 2004 and 2005, Logar province was considered relatively safe. Now, it's quickly becoming a no-go zone," Kleinman said, adding some aid agencies were "considering suspending operations in the province entirely."
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US skeptical of Afghan civilian deaths claim
CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) - The White House on Friday reacted skeptically to the Afghan interior ministry's charge that a US-led strike in western Afghanistan had killed 76 civilians, including 50 children and 19 women.
"I would say that the United States and NATO have taken great steps to avoid any civilian loss of life. I would also caution on first reports out of Afghanistan," spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters.
"Often the Taliban and extremist groups are very quick to get out there. And violence that they perpetrated, they blame on the United States or our allies," he said as President George W. Bush spent time on his Texas ranch.
"And so I think it's very important to assess these situations, because the United States and NATO take very seriously our obligations to avoid civilian casualties," said Johndroe.
The US-led coalition in Afghanistan earlier confirmed it carried out an operation that included air strikes in the western province of Herat but said 30 Taliban rebels were killed only and said it knew of no civilian deaths.
The Afghan defense ministry meanwhile gave yet another toll -- five civilians and 25 rebels dead.
It was impossible to independently verify what happened in volatile Shindand district, but the conflicting reports highlight the difficulty in establishing facts in the mounting clashes between troops and rebels.
"Seventy-six people, all civilians and most of them women and children, were martyred during the operation by coalition forces in Shindand district of Herat province," the interior ministry said in a statement.
The dead were "19 women, seven men and the rest children all under 15 years of age," it said.
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Coalition soldier, five civilians killed in Afghanistan
Fri Aug 22, 7:48 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A soldier with the US-led coalition died in a bomb blast in Afghanistan Friday and the Afghan defence ministry said five civilians and 25 militants were killed in clashes involving air strikes against the Taliban.
The new violence comes amid a spike in attacks linked to a spiralling insurgency by the extremist Taliban militia and their allies, including from the Al-Qaeda network.
The coalition announced the killing of its soldier in eastern Afghanistan in a statement that gave few details, including the nationality of the casualty. Most soldiers in the east are American.
It has been a particularly bloody week for international troops with 10 French soldiers killed Monday in the deadliest ground fighting for the foreign forces since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban.
Eight foreign soldiers including three Poles and three Canadians died in various incidents on Wednesday, most of them in bomb strikes.
The coalition said separately 30 insurgents were killed in the air strikes in the western province of Herat, which it said followed an ambush on Afghan and coalition soldiers as they were going to arrest a Taliban commander.
It however rejected claims of civilian deaths.
"The ANA (Afghan National Army) and coalition forces killed 30 insurgents," it said, adding a "known" Taliban commander was among the dead.
Two civilians were wounded but "No other civilian or friendly casualties were reported," it said.
Five men were arrested and an arms cache consisting of Kalashnikov assault rifles, more than 4,000 rounds of ammunition and bomb-making materials was discovered.
But the Afghan defence ministry said however that five civilians -- three women and two children -- had died.
"Planes bombed the area and in the result 25 Taliban were killed including two famous commanders," ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.
"Unfortunately five civilians were killed and one woman and a boy were wounded."
There are regularly conflicting claims about who is killed in air strikes in Afghanistan with military forces aiming for extremists but locals often alleging they hit civilians -- claims that are sometimes verified.
In other violence, police in the southern province of Uruzgan said that 11 Taliban were killed overnight after they attacked Afghan police and soldiers.
And two Afghan soldiers were killed in Badghis province Friday when their vehicles hit a bomb, an Afghan army officer said.
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Pakistan kills 20 militants near Afghan border
Fri Aug 22, 6:08 AM ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani troops killed 20 Taliban militants Friday in operations near the Afghan border, a day after a double suicide bombing killed 64 people at a major arms factory, officials said.
Pakistan's shaky coalition government is struggling with an upsurge in Taliban bloodshed, with Thursday's attack near Islamabad being the second big attack since Pervez Musharraf resigned as president on Monday.
Police said fifteen rebels, including several would-be suicide bombers, were killed in return fire when they attacked an army checkpost near the restive town of Hangu on Friday.
"The army stopped a vehicle carrying these militants at the checkpost, but they hurled grenades and opened fire at the soldiers," local police officer Sher Bahadur told AFP.
"In the ensuing gunbattle, 15 militants were killed and one was arrested alive."
Chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas confirmed the clash but said he did not have details of casualties.
Taliban militants besieged a police station and kidnapped several government officials in Hangu in July.
Meanwhile, in the adjoining region of Bajaur, one of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal zones bordering Afghanistan, military helicopter gunships killed another five rebels, officials said.
A major military offensive in Bajaur in the last two weeks has left more than 500 people dead, most of them militants, officials say.
Three died when gunships destroyed their vehicles as they were driving outside the region's main town of Khar on Friday, a senior security official said on condition of anonymity.
Two more militants were killed when gunships targeted a compound in Salarzai village, the official added. In another strike near the same village 11 suspected militants were injured.
A Taliban spokesman said Thursday that the double bombing at the army's main munitions factory in Wah, near Islamabad, was in revenge for the military operation in Bajaur and in the northwestern tourist region of Swat.
Separately, Taliban militants fired rockets overnight at a police station in Bada Bahr, near the northwestern city of Pehsawar, killing one policeman and wounding two others, police said.
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Behind the Taliban Surge
By ARYN BAKER / KABUL Fri Aug 22, 4:50 AM ET
The unprecedented audacity of Tuesday's attack on one of the largest U.S. bases in Afghanistan reflects the growing confidence of the Taliban: Six men wearing suicide bomb-vests attempted to rush the entrance gate of Camp Salerno in Khost Province. But unlike most suicide bombers, these men were not simply looking to blow themselves up in order to kill those within range of their blasts; instead, they were the human battering ram of a kamikaze infantry attack, sent to blow a breach in the security barrier for the fighters following in their wake to penetrate the base and spread maximum devastation inside a well-protected concentration of American power.
That mission failed after three suicide bombers were shot dead and the other three detonated prematurely. But the Camp Salerno assault was just one of a slew of attacks across Afghanistan and Pakistan this week that underscore the perilous decline in security on both sides of the border.
The Khost attack was the second in as many days: Two other suicide bombers driving explosive-laden cars detonated themselves near Camp Salerno's entrance on Monday, killing 10 Afghans and wounding another 13. A more dramatic strike came in Kabul province, just 30 miles from the capital, where more than 100 militants ambushed a French patrol on Tuesday, killing 10 and wounding 21 in the single worst ground attack on foreign forces since the U.S. invasion in 2001. A Wednesday attack on a road construction crew in Khost was subdued, but such setbacks haven't slowed the growing momentum of the Taliban.
Over in Pakistan, five major bombings over the past week - the latest, on Thursday, claiming 63 victims at a munitions factory in Wah, near the capital - have accompanied the political vacuum in Islamabad created by the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf on Monday. The militants claim they're retaliating for a counterinsurgency sweep by government forces in Bajaur. While that campaign reflects a continuation of Musharraf's policy of cracking down on militants in the tribal areas, the government remains under pressure from a Pakistani public that prefers negotiations with the militants, viewing the counterinsurgency campaign as Pakistanis killing other Pakistanis at the behest of the U.S.
The weather is always a factor in the military calendar of Afghanistan. "The enemies know they only have a few more months left to fight before winter, so they are focusing all their energies on the provinces that will be inaccessible due to snowfall on the passes between Pakistan and Afghanistan," says Maulvi Nasrullah Qasemi, a respected religious leader who has joined a delegation of tribal elders from Khost in Kabul to discuss the security crisis with President Hamid Karzai. But officials in Afghanistan blame the surge in Taliban attacks on the political upheaval in Pakistan, which NATO believes is the sanctuary from which the militants run their insurgency.
"As you know, Khost has a long border with Pakistan, so it is easy for insurgents to get across," says provincial police chief Col. Abdul Qayum Baqizoi. Khost shares a border with Bajaur Agency, a lawless stronghold of militancy, where Pakistani forces have this week been waging a counterinsurgency offensive. Bajaur had been an important staging ground for the U.S.-backed jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, allowing militants supported by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to inflict key defeats on the Red Army in Khost. Today, the militants are hoping to revive the Bajaur-Khost jihad partnership against NATO and the Pakistani and Afghan governments, and many in Afghanistan say the ISI remains involved, hoping to restore a pliant regime in Kabul. Karzai recently told TIME, "The ISI ... must stop using radicalism and extremism as an instrument of policy. Unless the use of these young men as tools of radicalization, and as weapons to promote whatever agenda they have stops, we will have continued attacks."
On the ground in Khost, however, residents are not convinced that a change in Pakistan's policy would alter the situation. The genie of militancy has been unleashed from the bottle, say local tribal elders, and the influence of any rogue elements of the Pakistan security forces is eclipsed by that of al-Qaeda - the deadly attack on the Wah munitions factory was a reminder that the Pakistani security forces themselves are among the militants' prime targets today. A spokesman for the Tehrik-i-Taliban, a Pakistani militant umbrella group, claimed responsibility for the blasts, telling Agence France Press that the Wah attack was "in reaction to military operations in Swat and Bajaur." He threatened further attacks in major Pakistani cities.
According to Qasemi, Tehrik-i-Taliban is active on both sides of the border, and is behind several attacks in Khost as well. There are two militant groups operating in Khost, says Qasemi, one lead by the former Afghan mujahedeen leader (and erstwhile U.S. ally) Jalaluddin Haqqani, and the other commanded by Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban. Both men are alleged to have been supported by the ISI, but they have split recently over disagreements in fighting style: Haqqani's group targets U.S. and Afghan security forces, whereas Mehsud's also seeks to undermine the traditional tribal structure by attacking local leaders and moderate mullahs. Mehsud's men are also more likely to blow up schools and clinics and symbols of development. While Haqqani does use suicide bombers, says Qasemi, the tactic has become a signature of Mehsud's group, which runs training centers in Bajaur and Khurram, another Pakistani tribal area. "The suicide bombers are trained for 40 days," says Qasemi. "They stay in the same room, and every day are told that if they make jihad on the foreigners they will go to paradise. They are told that the Afghan soldiers have converted to Christianity. At the end of 40 days, all of them are asked, who wants to make jihad? All of them raise their hands."
The elders from Khost say Karzai gave them a sympathetic hearing on the deteriorating security situation, offering to help pay salaries for village-level self-defense groups. But not all were reassured by the president's promises. "All of us are afraid," says one, who asked that his name not be used. "But what are the people to do? They can't go to Kabul, because it is too dangerous there. Pakistan is also in flames, so that is not possible. We can do nothing."
Qasemi looks on the bright side, citing the militants' failed attack at Camp Salerno. "I don't think they will try that tactic again," he says offering what may be cold comfort: "They will have to try something else."
- With reporting by Omar Waraich/Islamabad
Time.com
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Airlines reduce ticket prices after heavy fines
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 21 August 2008
Transport Ministry fines airlines for increasing airfares by as much as 70%
PRIVATE airline companies have reduced ticket prices by 25% under pressure from the Ministry of Transportation.
Transport Minister Hameedullah Qaderi announced the cuts, which come weeks after private passenger airlines increased airfares by as much as 70%, after a meeting on Wednesday.
He said each company was fined $100,000 for failing to comply with government rules.
Roohullah Wahidi, the marketing head of Pamir Airways, said they had already reduced the price of tickets to Dubai from $680 return to $590.
But he said the Ministry of Transportation would negotiate a reduction in airline tax with the Ministry of Finance.
Roohullah Wahidi said airlines were currently taxed 10% compared to a p[revious tax of 2%.
He called the tax unfair and urged the Ministry of Finance to revise it.
Airlines increased the cost of tickets on month ago, arguing that the rising price of oil had forced them to do so.
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Still short of equipment and facing a more confident enemy, British frustration grows
Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian Friday August 22 2008
As more and more British soldiers are killed and wounded, their commanders are becoming increasingly frustrated by the failure to make a breakthrough in Afghanistan. Morale is being further undermined by the pressures on the defence budget. "They are fighting and dying, while at home they are talking about slashing and cutting," said a well-placed defence source.
Defence officials privately concede that British military planners were hopelessly optimistic when they decided to deploy 3,000 troops in southern Afghanistan in 2006. There are now over 8,000 there, and more are likely to be sent after cuts in the Basra base expected in the first half of next year.
Intelligence on the Taliban, their tactics and strength, was poor. British troops were deployed with inadequate equipment. Though armoured vehicles better able to withstand attacks from rocket-propelled grenades or roadside bombs were later ordered as an "urgent operational requirement" paid for by the Treasury, there are still not enough. The military and politicians alike complain about the slow-moving decision-making process in the Ministry of Defence.
Commanders have also been complaining for years about the shortage of helicopters and aircrew. The MoD recently agreed to deploy British air-sea rescue crews and lease helicopters from private companies. "It is too little, too late," said Colonel Christopher Langton, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Frustration at the perceived failure of other Nato countries to pull their weight prompted Des Browne, the defence secretary, recently to deliver a remarkably strong attack on the alliance's failings. There was "far too big a mismatch between our aspirations and what we actually deliver," he told an international security conference in Rome. He will host a meeting of Nato defence ministers in London next month, where Afghanistan will be high on the agenda.
In recent weeks, British soldiers have been killed by roadside bombs, a suicide bomber, and gunfire. The Taliban have not shifted their tactics so much as used the weapons at their disposal with more confidence and audacity, Langton suggested. "It seems the Taliban - the insurgency - are prepared to carry out more frontal kinds of operations," he said, referring to the recent attack on a jail in Kandahar and Tuesday's ambush and suicide bomber attacks on French troops and a US base in Khost. What was worrying, he observed, is the intelligence the Taliban had gathered about foreign troop movements.
By the end of the summer, Langton added, it may be possible to see if the Taliban had established sufficient presence on the Afghan side of the mountains bordering Pakistan to enable them to mount attacks through the winter.
The frustration is reflected in this comment from a very senior British army source. "The past two years," he said, "have achieved a stalemate."
For years, British commanders have been emphasising that there is no military solution to the problem. Yet there is still no effective international civil aid and construction programme, despite billions of dollars of foreign aid delivered or promised, they point out.
"The military alone has always been insufficient to counter an insurgency, which remains essentially a political activity," said Brigadier Ian Dale, a serving British officer, in the latest issue of the UK's Defence Academy's review. "A military coalition is a cumbersome weapon to use in a transnational counter-insurgency campaign and rudderless without a unified political coalition."
British soldiers are frequently attacked in their bases. They are even more exposed on scouting or "hearts and minds" patrols. They know many weapons used by their enemy are paid for by the opium poppy crop which surrounds them, but which they cannot destroy. If they do, farmers will accuse them of taking their livelihood - not the best way to make friends.
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Iranian truck carrying Afghans crashes; kills 30
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 21 August 2008
Dozens die as truck packed with illegal Afghan migrants overturns
A TRUCK crammed with illegal Afghan migrants crashed in Iran on Thursday, killing 30 people, Iran's Fars News Agency reported.
The truck, which overturned in Iran's southern Fars province, was carrying at total of about 125 people, the news agency said, citing the province's emergency services department.
Some 83 people were injured, it added.
A senior transport police official said the cause of the accident was being investigated.
Many Afghans cross into Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, in search of work or safety.
There are about 1.8 million Afghans in Iran. Iran deported about 100,000 between January and May.
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'Millions of dollars spent on bribes every year'
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 21 August 2008
UN envoy urges government to increase efforts to eradicate corruption
THE UNITED Nation’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, has said between $100 million to $250 million worth of bribes exchanges hands in Afghanistan every year.
Eide made the comment on Wednesday during a conference in Kabul to launch the UN’s anti-corruption report, which examines corruption among Asia-Pacific countries.
"Each Afghan family spends about $100 in bribes every year," he said.
"Corruption in Afghanistan is endemic, it hurts the poorest people disproportionately, pushes people away from the state and undermines our joint efforts to build peace, stability and progress for Afghanistan’s peoples."
About 70% of the population live on $1 a day, he said. Eide announced that a new anti-corruption commission will be set up to counter official corruption.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on a trip to Kabul on Thursday, said the Afghan government could look forward to the appointment of a new anti-corruption tsar in the next few days.
During the launch of the UN’s report, Finance Minister Anwar ul-Haq Ahadi said corruption weakened the government and created instability.
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Now even the Afghan president is poking fun at Gordon Brown's leadership troubles
This is London - News www.thisislondon.co.uk 22.08.08
Gordon Brown faced embarrassment on his tour of Afghanistan, when the country's president joked about his leadership troubles.
On a whistle-stop tour to meet British troops, the Prime Minister held talks with Hamid Karzai, in the capital Kabul.
Although Mr Brown praised troops as 'true heroes' and pledged £120million more in aid, journalists repeatedly asked whether his position was under threat from Foreign Secretary David Miliband, following recent speculation in Westminster.
Noticing Mr Brown's plight, President Karzai stepped in.
'Cabinet ministers plotting is nothing new,' he joked. 'We have it in Afghanistan – although not my Foreign Minister.'
Mr Brown looked irritated by the intervention and the persistent questions.
He insisted: 'It is a good relationship. We get on with the job.'
The Prime Minister made the 90-minute stopover at Camp Bastion, where UK forces are based, en route to the Olympic Games in Beijing.
He told troops they had displayed 'the same courage, professionalism and dedication' as the competitors in China.
Addressing about 300 troops from 16 Air Assault Brigade, he said the nation owes them a 'huge debt of gratitude' for fighting the Taliban.
'This week we are celebrating the Olympics where we have had great success,' he added.
'But this week also I believe that our Olympic athletes and everybody else in our country will remember that you have showed exactly the same courage, professionalism and dedication.
'You make our country proud every day of the week and every week of the year. You are truly the heroes of our country. You know that you are in the front line in the fight against the Taliban.
'You know that by what you are doing here, you prevent terrorism coming to the streets of Britain.'
Mr Brown also paid tribute to Corporal Barry Dempsey, 29, the latest British soldier to die, and visited a field hospital where he spoke to the injured.
The Taliban has switched to guerilla-style tactics, such as suicide bombs and roadside explosions, rather than 'headon confrontation' with troops, Mr Brown said.
Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, 116 British troops have died in the country. This week ten French soldiers were killed in a Taliban ambush 30 miles from Kabul.
On Wednesday, three Polish troops serving with Nato forces died in a roadside blast in the central province of Ghazni.
It was also reported that an American journalist investigating terrorists had gone missing in Pakistan.
Nicholas Shamble, who edits the U.S. magazine Smithsonian, has vanished. He was at a hotel in Karachi on August 12, and left for Islamabad on Monday, but never arrived.
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