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UN accuses US-led troops in deaths of Afghans
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - The United Nations said Tuesday it has found "convincing evidence" that U.S. coalition troops and Afghan forces killed some 90 civilians, including 60 children, in airstrikes in western Afghanistan.
Afghanistan demands end to Nato air strikes on villagers
UN backs Karzai concerns over loss of civilian life in allied raids
David Pallister and agencies guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 26 2008 13:17 BST Article history
Tensions increased today between Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, and US and Nato troops, with the government ordering a review of foreign military activities amid claims that dozens
Russian FM urges parties to Afghan conflict to adhere to int’l law
26.08.2008, 06.39
MOSCOW, August 26 (Itar-Tass) -- All parties to the Afghan conflict should observe international la, including its humanitarian component, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday following the death of 89
UN: Opium cultivation drops in Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.N.'s anti-drug office says opium poppy production in Afghanistan was down 19 percent this year compared to 2007 due to successful campaigns in the north and east though
Bad weather, prices drive down Afghan drug crop
Tue Aug 26, 2008 2:46pm By Jonathon Burch
KABUL, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Opium production dropped in Afghanistan this year for the first time since 2001, the United Nations said on Tuesday, but that may have more to do with the weather than international efforts to cut the drug crop.
France may send special forces back to Afghanistan: minister
PARIS (AFP) — France may send special forces back to Afghanistan to bolster its presence there, even after 10 soldiers were killed last week, Defence Minister Herve Morin said in an interview published Tuesday.
Russian official warns NATO transit to Afghanistan at risk
Tue Aug 26, 2:07 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - NATO should not be able to use Russian routes to transit supplies and equipment to Afghanistan because Russia has suspended military co-operation with the Western alliance
Russia won't block NATO transit to Afghanistan: envoy
MOSCOW (AFP) - Moscow does not plan to suspend NATO's use of Russian land routes to transit non-military supplies and equipment to the alliance's troops in Afghanistan, Russia's NATO envoy said Tuesday.
Japanese aid worker freed in Afghanistan: interior ministry
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's interior ministry said a Japanese national had been freed 10 hours after he was kidnapped Tuesday but his release was not confirmed by the aid worker's employer.
Kyodo News: Japanese abductee not yet released in Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-26 21:46:33
TOKYO, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese Embassy in Afghanistan said Tuesday that the report of the Japanese abductee's release was "erroneous," Kyodo News reported.
Afghans clash with abductors of Japanese aid worker
Tue Aug 26, 5:53 AM ET
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan police clashed with the kidnappers of a male Japanese aid worker in eastern Nangarhar province on Tuesday, freeing the man's local driver, a police spokesman said.
U.S. builds new detention center in Afghanistan
By Gordon Lubold Tue Aug 26, 4:00 AM ET
Washington - In an effort to lay to rest some of the controversy surrounding its Afghanistan detention program, the US is building a new detention facility there designed to be on par with one in Iraq that came to be seen by many as a model program.
Taliban put the squeeze on Afghan capital
Tue Aug 26, 2008 8:38am EDT By Jon Hemming - Analysis
KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban were very clear about their strategy this year, declaring it for all to see on their Web site in March; more suicide bombs, isolating Kabul and hitting troop supply lines. So far they have not disappointed.
U.N. Envoy’s Ties to Pakistani Are Questioned
By HELENE COOPER and MARK MAZZETTI The New York Times August 25, 2008
WASHINGTON — Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, is facing angry questions from other senior Bush administration officials over what they describe as unauthorized
Setback for Pakistan's terror drive
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Aug 27, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
KARACHI - The resignation of Pervez Musharraf as president a week ago was an opportunity for his Western allies to take the "war on terror" a step forward by working with the five-month-old civilian coalition government in Pakistan.
Defence minister dishes out $16 M during surprise visit to Afghanistan
The Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Ottawa says it will spend $16 million to establish a staff and language training centre for junior officers of the Afghan National Army in Kabul.
Thousands flee Pakistan offensive: UN
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - The military offensive against Taliban militants in a restive Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border has displaced more than 260,000 people, UN and local officials said Tuesday.
Pakistan Shells Militant Hideouts Near Afghan Border, Kills 5
KHAR, Pakistan (AFP)--Pakistani gunship helicopters shelled militant hideouts Monday in a troubled tribal region near the Afghan border, killing five rebels, unnamed officials said.
'Too few' troops confront Taliban
Brendan Nicholson The Age, Australia August 27, 2008
ONE of Australia's most experienced military officers believes the war in Afghanistan will be won only when the number of coalition troops is increased significantly.
Ottawa wants Vancouver organizers to include Afghan veterans in torch relay
PATRICK BRETHOUR August 26, 2008 Globe and Mail, Canada
VANCOUVER -- Ottawa is urging the Vancouver Winter Olympics organizing committee to put the Afghanistan war at the heart of the symbolically laden torch relay, saying that the first torch carriers
SMALL GAINS IN AFGHANISTAN
Canadian Forces in Afghanistan juggle their combat, peacekeeping, humanitarian aid roles
Scott Deveau , Canwest News Service Monday, August 25, 2008
NAMARDZI, Afghanistan - On a blazing hot summer day in the Zhari district of Kandahar last week, three tribal elders from the little village of Namardzi collected under the shade of a tree to conduct a shura
Afghan Officials Detain American Boy, U.S. Says
Mother Held by U.S. as Al-Qaeda Suspect
The Washington Post - Nation By Carol D. Leonnig and Candace Rondeaux Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, August 26, 2008
U.S. authorities said yesterday that Afghan officials have detained since mid-July an 11-year-old U.S. citizen, the son of a Pakistani woman accused of firing at Afghan and U.S. personnel there.
£10m to clear Afghanistan landmines
The Press Association
The Government is to spend more than £10 million on clearing up landmines in Afghanistan.
Karzai names new attorney-general
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 25 August 2008
Deputy catupluted into number one spot after predecessor gets the boot
PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai has nominated Mohammad Ishaq Aloko as attorney general to replace his predecessor, Abdul Jabar Sabit, who was booted out from office after announcing his intention to run for president.
Winter fuel prices soar
www.quqnoos.com Written by Ghafoor Saboory Monday, 25 August 2008
Traders warn that cost of wood and coal may jump again before winter sets in
THE PRICE of wood in Kabul has increased by 31% this year, according to traders.
Beheaded body found in northern city
Written by www.quqnoos.com Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Police discover decapitated corpse and head in separate parts of the city
THE BEHEADED corpse of a man the Taliban accuse of spying for the government has been found in the provincial capital of Balkh, police said.
Drought 'devastates third of Takhar crop'
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 25 August 2008
Water department in north says wells and river beds have dried up
(PAN) Drought has destroyed about 30% of Takhar province’s harvest this year, officials in the area say.
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UN accuses US-led troops in deaths of Afghans
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - The United Nations said Tuesday it has found "convincing evidence" that U.S. coalition troops and Afghan forces killed some 90 civilians, including 60 children, in airstrikes in western Afghanistan.
The U.N. said it based its findings solely on the testimony of villagers and meetings with Afghan officials, and did not provide photos or evidence that its investigators saw any graves.
President Hamid Karzai's government, in a harshly worded statement, ordered its ministries of foreign affairs and defense to regulate the presence of foreign troops and try to negotiate an end to "airstrikes on civilian targets, uncoordinated house searches and illegal detention of Afghan civilians."
The U.S. coalition has said it killed 25 militants and five civilians in an operation in Shindand district of Herat province on Friday.
Karzai's statement appears to be aimed at both international forces operating in Afghanistan: the U.S.-led coalition, which conducts special forces counterterrorism operations and trains the fledgling Afghan army and police, and the U.N.-mandated NATO-led force tasked to provide security for the war-ravaged nation.
The accusation from the world body will likely fuel tensions among the U.S. coalition, the U.N. and the Afghan government.
Karzai's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said Tuesday that the decision was made after Afghan officials "lost patience" with foreign forces, and the killings and detentions of civilians during raids in remote villages.
"We do not want international forces to leave Afghanistan until the time our security institutions are able to defend Afghanistan independently," Hamidzada told reporters Tuesday.
But the presence of those forces has to be based "within the framework of Afghan law with respect to international law," Hamidzada said.
Hamidzada says circumstances have changed. "Afghanistan of 2001 is different from Afghanistan today," he said. He said the government has not discussed any timetable for the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan.
Capt. Mike Windsor, a spokesman for the NATO-led force, said the force had seen media reports about the government's decision but had not received "any official notification so far."
He pointed out that NATO's "mission is based on a U.N. mandate and carried upon the invitation of the Afghan government."
There was no immediate comment from the U.S.-led coalition.
The U.N. finding backed up the government claim. The U.N. said their investigation "found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men."
"Fifteen other villagers were wounded or otherwise injured," the U.N. said in a statement.
U.S.-led coalition troops, which were supporting Afghan commandos during the raid, said they believe that 25 militants, including a Taliban commander, and five civilians were killed during the Friday raid in Azizabad village of Herat province. The top coalition commander in the country has ordered an investigation.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters Monday that foreign forces in Afghanistan "take every precaution to try to avoid innocent civilian casualties."
Asked about Karzai's concerns about civilian casualties, Fratto said an investigation was under way. He said the Defense Department believes "it was a good strike."
NATO and U.S. officials insist that they take great care in their targeting and accuse the militants of hiding in civilian areas, thus putting innocent people at risk.
The decision also comes a year ahead of Afghanistan's presidential elections amid growing criticism that Karzai's government is unable to contain the insurgency and deal with the deep-rooted corruption that afflicts officials in the government.
Karzai has said he will run in the election. No date has been set yet.
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Afghanistan demands end to Nato air strikes on villagers
UN backs Karzai concerns over loss of civilian life in allied raids
David Pallister and agencies guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 26 2008 13:17 BST Article history
Tensions increased today between Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, and US and Nato troops, with the government ordering a review of foreign military activities amid claims that dozens of civilians have died in raids and air strikes over the past week.
The ministries of foreign affairs and defence said they would seek to regulate raids with a status of forces agreement and a negotiated end to "air strikes on civilian targets, uncoordinated house searches and illegal detention of Afghan civilians".
The UN mission in Afghanistan has backed the government. Afghan and foreign soldiers entered the village of Nawabad in Shindand district last Friday and called in air strikes, villagers told UN investigators.
The UN special envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said in a statement that an investigation "found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men. Fifteen other villagers were wounded.
"The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident with seven to eight houses having been destroyed, with serious damage to many others," Eide said. "Local residents were able to confirm the number of casualties, including names, age and gender of the victims.
"This is matter of grave concern to the United Nations. I have repeatedly made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must be considered above all else during the planning and conduct of all military operations.
"The impact of such operations undermines the trust and confidence of the Afghan people in efforts to build a just, peaceful and law-abiding state."
The US military has launched an investigation after saying it was unaware of any civilians killed. An American spokesman said the strike targeted a known Taliban commander and killed 30 militants.
Captain Mike Windsor, a spokesman for Nato, said the force had not received any official notification about the government decision. He said Nato's mission was based on a UN mandate and carried out at the invitation of the Afghan government.
In an angry statement, the government said officials had "repeatedly discussed the issue of civilian casualties with the international forces and asked for all air raids on civilian targets, especially in Afghan villages, to be stopped".
"The issues of uncoordinated house searches and harassing civilians have also been of concern to the government of Afghanistan, which has been shared with the commanders of international forces in Afghanistan," it said.
"Unfortunately, to date, our demands have not been addressed. Rather, more civilians, including women and children, are losing their lives as a result of air raids."
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Russian FM urges parties to Afghan conflict to adhere to int’l law
26.08.2008, 06.39
MOSCOW, August 26 (Itar-Tass) -- All parties to the Afghan conflict should observe international la, including its humanitarian component, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday following the death of 89 peaceful citizens, including 19 women and 50 children, as a result of a U.S. Air Force strike in Herat on August 22.
Moscow “is seriously concerned about a new case of mass death of civilians in Afghanistan and expresses sincere condolences to the families of those killed”.
The ministry “urges the command of the foreign military contingents deployed in Afghanistan to take all measures to prevent such ‘indiscriminate’ strikes that lead to the loss of human life among civilians”.
In 2007 alone, 240 people who had no relation to the Taleban were killed as a result of NATO’s air and land strikes. In 2008, about 200 of 600 people killed in Afghanistan fell victim to coalition troops raids.
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UN: Opium cultivation drops in Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.N.'s anti-drug office says opium poppy production in Afghanistan was down 19 percent this year compared to 2007 due to successful campaigns in the north and east though fields in the south remain awash in the heroin-producing crop.
Efforts to eradicate opium poppy fields in the south failed miserably, and the Taliban stand to earn tens of millions of dollars from the trade.
Still, the U.N. and other drug officials say they're cautiously optimistic.
Last year farmers cultivated 476,903 acres; this year, they cultivated 388,000 acres.
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Bad weather, prices drive down Afghan drug crop
Tue Aug 26, 2008 2:46pm By Jonathon Burch
KABUL, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Opium production dropped in Afghanistan this year for the first time since 2001, the United Nations said on Tuesday, but that may have more to do with the weather than international efforts to cut the drug crop.
Afghanistan broke all records and produced 93 percent of the world's opium in 2007. This year, 157,000 hectares grew opium poppy, compared with 193,000 hectares in 2007, a 19 percent decrease, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said.
But production fell by only 6 percent, from 8,200 tonnes last year to 7,700 tonnes in 2008 as crop yields went up and more of the production was concentrated in the more fertile south, some two-thirds of it in Helmand province.
"The country might have turned the corner. The situation has finally started to improve," Antonio Maria Costa, the head of UNODC, told Reuters.
"But whether this is a long-term, permanent reduction, the answer is hard to say ... the situation is vulnerable to a relapse."
The number of poppy-free provinces grew to 18 from 13 last year. Most of the gains were in northern Afghanistan, with 98 percent of poppy cultivation now restricted to seven provinces in the south and west where Taliban insurgents and criminals are most active, the UNODC said in its annual report.
"This geographical overlap between regions of opium and zones of insurgency shows the inextricable link between drugs and conflict," it said. "Since drugs and insurgency are caused by, and effect, each other, they need to be dealt with at the same time -- and urgently."
Afghanistan has seen a surge in violence this year with the Taliban launching more daring and deadly attacks on Afghan and foreign forces and killing more troops than ever before.
BAD WEATHER
Since 2001, international donors have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into stopping cultivation, processing and trafficking of opium which is processed into highly addictive heroin. But this year's drop in cultivation was largely due to a drought and a fall in the price of opium.
"The reduction this year that we're seeing overall, we think, is probably largely due to the weather, the climate and economics," said a senior anti-narcotics official at the British Embassy in Kabul.
Large parts of the country, particularly the north and northwest where cultivation is mostly rain-fed, suffered droughts this year resulting in widespread crop failures.
Steady falls in the price of opium also provides less incentive for farmers to grow poppy, said Belgrove. The price of fresh opium in Afghanistan dropped to $70 per kg this year, down from $283 in 2003, the UNODC says.
Combined with the rise in global food prices, this has narrowed the income ratio of opium to wheat from 10:1 in 2007 to 3:1 in 2008 which may provide further incentive for farmers to switch to legal crops, the U.N. said.
"The economic foundations of the opium economy have finally been undermined," said Costa. "That is a solid foundation for progress."
Some success in reducing poppy production this year can be attributed to strong local government, particularly in the case of Nangarhar province, experts say. In 2007 Nangarhar, was the second highest producer of opium, this year it is poppy free.
"Judging from the fact that there are now 18 opium-free provinces, a growing number of governors are really playing by the rule book," said Costa.
Asked whether opium production will ever be extinguished, Costa said security on the ground was key.
"Generally speaking it takes 12-25 years, a generation, to wipe out opium cultivation in a country," said Costa.
"In Afghanistan, until and as long as it and those assisting it do not have full control of the territory, (opium eradication) will remain a far-away mirage." (Additional reporting by Mark Heinrich in Vienna; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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France may send special forces back to Afghanistan: minister
PARIS (AFP) — France may send special forces back to Afghanistan to bolster its presence there, even after 10 soldiers were killed last week, Defence Minister Herve Morin said in an interview published Tuesday.
"I have... asked the chief-of-staff of the army to prepare some proposals for me," the minister was quoted as saying in Le Parisien newspaper.
"Among those could be sending some special forces."
He said the reasoning for sending special forces is "not for conducting military operations as such, but to improve intelligence to help our troops better understand the environment they find themselves in."
Morin's comments came a week after 10 French soldiers were killed and 21 wounded in the deadliest ground battle for international soldiers that arrived in Afghanistan in 2001 to topple the Taliban regime and root out extremists.
France withdrew its special forces from Afghanistan in January 2007.
Lawmakers were due to question Morin and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in the National Assembly on Tuesday, amid a renewed debate about France's role in Afghanistan.
France has 3,000 troops serving in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a UN-mandated force that currently numbers around 53,000 troops from 40 countries.
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Russian official warns NATO transit to Afghanistan at risk
Tue Aug 26, 2:07 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - NATO should not be able to use Russian routes to transit supplies and equipment to Afghanistan because Russia has suspended military co-operation with the Western alliance, the country's ambassador to Kabul argued in an interview published Tuesday.
Speaking to The Times from the Afghan capital, Zamir Kabulov said increased tensions between Russia and West over the former's recent assault on Georgia could lead Moscow to review other such agreements.
Asked by the newspaper if Russia's suspension of military co-operation with NATO invalidated an April agreement on the transit of supplies to Afghanistan, Kabulov said: "Of course. Why not? If there is a suspension of military cooperation, this is military cooperation."
"No one with common sense can expect to co-operate with Russia in one part of the world while acting against it in another," he added.
He insisted, however, that Russia was not seeking to derail NATO efforts in Afghanistan, telling The Times: "It's not in Russia's interests for NATO to be defeated and leave behind all these problems."
"We'd prefer NATO to complete its job and then leave this unnatural geography.
"But at the same time, we'll be the last ones to moan about NATO's departure."
NATO leads the 53,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is tasked with spreading the influence of Kabul's weak central government across the country.
But five years after taking charge, ISAF is struggling to defeat a tenacious Taliban-led insurgency, in part commanded from across the porous mountain border with Pakistan.
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Russia won't block NATO transit to Afghanistan: envoy
MOSCOW (AFP) - Moscow does not plan to suspend NATO's use of Russian land routes to transit non-military supplies and equipment to the alliance's troops in Afghanistan, Russia's NATO envoy said Tuesday.
"As far as overland transport to Afghanistan is concerned... we do not plan to touch this," Dmitry Rogozin told journalists in Moscow.
Rogozin listed a number of areas of cooperation with NATO that will be frozen as a result of its support of Georgia in an ongoing stand-off with Russia.
But he said an agreement signed in April on the land transit of non-military freight destined for Afghanistan would not be affected.
"The position of the leadership of the country is that Afghanistan is a shared problem," he said. "The Taliban has recently has demonstrated maximum activity."
NATO leads the 53,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is tasked with spreading the influence of Kabul's weak central government across the country.
But five years after taking charge, ISAF is struggling to defeat a tenacious Taliban-led insurgency, in part commanded from across the porous mountain border with Pakistan.
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Japanese aid worker freed in Afghanistan: interior ministry
KABUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's interior ministry said a Japanese national had been freed 10 hours after he was kidnapped Tuesday but his release was not confirmed by the aid worker's employer.
Kazuya Ito, 31, was snatched at about 6:30 am as he was going to inspect a canal building project in the eastern province of Nangarhar.
"The Japanese national who was captured this morning was freed in a police operation," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.
"He was found in mountains," he said, adding the aid worker was "healthy."
Bashary said that about 500 villagers had helped police to search for the man in the mountains between Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.
However the nongovernment group that employed Ito, Peshawar-kai (Peshawar Medical Services), would not confirm he had been released.
"We have no information he is freed. There is confusion over one person they have arrested who looks Japanese," Noor Zaman, deputy manager in the city of Jalalabad, told AFP.
The Nangarhar province government also said it did not have information that Ito was freed.
The aid worker was taken with his Afghan driver, who was later released.
The extremist Taliban movement said it had captured the men.
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Kyodo News: Japanese abductee not yet released in Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-26 21:46:33
TOKYO, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese Embassy in Afghanistan said Tuesday that the report of the Japanese abductee's release was "erroneous," Kyodo News reported.
The report reversed the earlier confirmation made by Japan's foreign ministry that that the embassy had received information that Kazuya Ito, the 31-year-old abductee from Japan's Shizuoka Prefecture, had been released.
Ito was kidnapped along with the driver at around 7:00 local time (0230 GMT) near Jalalabad after their car was surrounded by alleged Taliban militants, Kyodo News reported.
The Japanese foreign ministry confirmed his abduction earlier in the day, saying that a report from UN affiliates reached the Japanese embassy in Afghanistan at 7:40 local time (0310 GMT), saying that a male member of Peshawar-kai, a nongovernmental organization, was abducted in eastern Afghanistan.
The ministry set up an emergency headquarters in the afternoon to seek quick and safe release of the Japanese national, said a foreign ministry press release.
The nongovernmental Peshawar-kai was established by Japanese doctor Tetsu Nakamura in 1983. Headquartered in Fukuoka City, Japan, the organization provides medical supports and runs clinics in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Editor: Wang Hongjiang
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Afghans clash with abductors of Japanese aid worker
Tue Aug 26, 5:53 AM ET
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan police clashed with the kidnappers of a male Japanese aid worker in eastern Nangarhar province on Tuesday, freeing the man's local driver, a police spokesman said.
The Japanese aid worker was seized earlier on Tuesday while he worked on a construction project in the Daraye Noor area of Nangarhar, provincial police spokesman Ghafour Khan said.
"In the clash, one kidnapper was also wounded and efforts are underway to release the Japanese," he said.
Provincial spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai earlier described the abductors as unidentified armed men. Taliban insurgents, who have been behind a series of abduction of Afghans and foreigners in recent years, said they had no information about the incident.
Japan does not have troops in Afghanistan, but its navy runs a maritime refueling operation in support of U.S.-led military operations in the country.
Japan's foreign ministry said in a statement that it was looking into the possible kidnapping of the aid worker after its embassy in Kabul had received information about the incident from a U.N. body.
The man worked for a Japanese non-governmental organization called Peshawar-kai, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency.
Peshawar-kai, based in southern Japan, was set up in 1983 and provides medical services in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to its website.
The group could not be reached immediately for comment.
Japan's refueling mission is set to become a focal point of a session of parliament to be convened next month.
Unpopular Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda wants to extend the mission in the Indian Ocean after legislation expires in January.
But the opposition-controlled upper house will almost certainly reject a new bill to do so and the junior partner in the ruling coalition is wary of upsetting voters, many of whom oppose prolonging the mission, by forcing through the bill.
(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds in JAPAN and Mohammad Rafiq in JALALABAD; Editing by Paul Tait)
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U.S. builds new detention center in Afghanistan
By Gordon Lubold Tue Aug 26, 4:00 AM ET
Washington - In an effort to lay to rest some of the controversy surrounding its Afghanistan detention program, the US is building a new detention facility there designed to be on par with one in Iraq that came to be seen by many as a model program.
Construction has begun on a new facility for as many as 1,100 detainees to be run by Americans at a US airbase at Bagram 50 miles north of the capital of Kabul.
Although the facility will be built on a far smaller scale than the main facility in southern Iraq, Pentagon officials hope that the new center will address widespread concern among human rights groups and independent experts over alleged secret detentions and prisoner mistreatment at Bagram.
Reports of detainee mistreatment first arose in 2002.
The Bagram Theater Internment Facility has come a long way since then but is still not as suitable as it should be for holding detainees for any length of time, defense officials say.
"We think it's really going to build on our best practices and lessons learned from our operations in Iraq, but recognizing that it needs to be tailored to the local Afghan population," says Sandra Hodgkinson, who oversees detention policies for the Pentagon.
The new center will effectively replace the existing center at Bagram, which is currently holding more than 630 detainees.
Current plans do not call for an operation anywhere near the size of the one in Iraq, a reflection perhaps of the US's evolving view about what its role will be in Afghanistan in the coming years. The new facility's relatively small size indicates that, compared with Iraq, the US is not planning for a large population of detainees. But it is also a sign of a long term commitment to holding detainees overseas.
Center will be larger, with more amenities
The new facility will be designed to house about 650 detainees, but could be "surged" to hold as many as 1,100 if the need arises, says Ms. Hodgkinson.
If that were to happen, the square footage for each detainee's cell would shrink from 80 square feet per person to about 50 square feet per person, but this is well within international standards, Hodgkinson says.
Like Iraq's Camp Bucca and Camp Cropper, the new facility at Bagram will have recreation areas, a large family visitation center, and other amenities to raise the quality of life for detainees, Hodgkinson says.
That will be an improvement over current conditions. Maj. Gen. Doug Stone, the commander of the task force overseeing operations in Iraq who was instrumental in successfully revamping the detention program there, was asked to go to Afghanistan earlier this year to assess detainee operations there.
The contrast was stark, says one official.
"The conditions [in Afghan detention centers] were brutal," says the defense official who spoke on background due to the sensitive nature of the issue. "The big thing that he came out of there with is they were doing a warehouse operation."
Joanne Mariner, counterterrorism director for Human Rights Watch, interviewed several former detainees who had been held at Bagram in her most recent visit to Kabul this spring. She said that her interviews seemed to indicate that the abusive treatment of detainees in Afghanistan is a thing of the past.
Their complaints related largely to the way in which they were being held, not abusive conditions or mistreatment.
"The problem seems to be more the detention than the treatment," says Ms. Mariner.
Many of the former detainees with whom she spoke said they didn't know why they were being held or didn't understand the legal process that would determine their future. The International Committee for the Red Cross also highlighted this issue in a report it prepared June.
Although she has no personal experience with detention operations in Iraq, she said her organization has found that detention operations in Afghanistan have generally trailed improvements in Iraq.
The only other substantial holding facility in Afghanistan is the Afghan National Detention Center near Kabul which is Afghan-run. Afghan nationals previously held at Guant??namo Bay have been transferred to one high-security wing of that facility, known as Pol-e-Charki. Although the legal future of US-held detainees remains unclear, detainees can be transferred to Pol-e-Charki and tried in the Afghan criminal court system.
The Iraq experience
In building a new facility in Afghanistan, the Pentagon is taking a page from General Stone's success in Iraq.
After the human rights and public relations disaster that grew from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, defense officials knew they had to build a better system there.
Ultimately, the US military built a reasonably modern facility at Camp Cropper near Baghdad and Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. But riots, escapes, and attacks on guards were still commonplace. US officials became concerned they were creating conditions for a "mini-insurgency" inside the confines of the detention facility.
But by the summer of last year, the military officials were able to get control of the violence within the prison under Stone's direction. They separated extremist detainees from the moderate ones, brought moderate imams from Baghdad to teach the detainees, and created visitation hours for families of detainees.
In addition, each detainee was given a regular review of his case to keep him informed of the basis on which he was being held. Now all but those whom officials consider to be the most extreme of about 20,000 detainees are being released over a period of time.
US officials have already tried to incorporate some of the measures that worked in Iraq at Bagram. Several video teleconference sites have been established to link family members around the country with detainees held in Bagram.
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Taliban put the squeeze on Afghan capital
Tue Aug 26, 2008 8:38am EDT By Jon Hemming - Analysis
KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban were very clear about their strategy this year, declaring it for all to see on their Web site in March; more suicide bombs, isolating Kabul and hitting troop supply lines. So far they have not disappointed.
Given the firepower behind 70,000 foreign troops and 130,000 Afghan forces, long-haired bands of Taliban militants cannot be expected on the streets of the capital anytime soon. But the Taliban do not have to win, only wait for their enemies to lose.
"For besieging the Afghan and foreign forces in Kabul, we have begun the initial work on the main roads leading to Kabul from four directions," senior Taliban leader Mullah Brother said in an interview posted on the militant Web site.
Three of the four main roads out of Kabul are no longer safe for government employees, aid workers and foreigners to travel.
The Taliban even declared they would launch large attacks in the area where 10 French troops were killed last week after one French general admitted "we were guilty of overconfidence".
The Taliban may not be able to control territory in the face of better armed and trained NATO troops, but neither does NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have enough soldiers to hold all the ground and deny it to the insurgents.
U.S. calls for NATO allies to send more troops have, with the exception of the French, fallen on deaf ears.
CLOSING IN
An effective stalemate has now settled in on the ethnic Pashtun Taliban heartlands of the south and east where mainly U.S., British and Canadian troops have been engaged in cat-and-mouse warfare with Taliban bands for two years now.
Militants have already killed 42 foreign soldiers this month, putting August well on track to become the worst month yet for international troop casualties, passing the 45 killed in June.
Undaunted by their heavy losses, certainly numbering in the thousands, the Taliban have been slowly closing in on Kabul for more than a year, attempting to copy the successful stranglehold enforced by the mujahideen against Soviet troops in the 1980s.
Supply trucks have been torched by the dozen on roads into Kabul and foreign aid workers killed close by, then just last week militants scored their greatest success yet, killing the 10 French troops in Kabul province itself.
That was the biggest single loss for international forces in combat since U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban after the September 11 attacks of 2001 and came only a month after several hundred Taliban fighters attempted to overrun an isolated base and killed nine U.S. troops in the northeast.
"Two events do not necessarily make a change or a shift in strategy, but it's certainly something that we're going to continue to watch," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
If not a new strategy, the attacks do seriously undermine NATO claims that the Taliban have to resort to suicide and roadside bombings as they are no longer capable of fighting 'toe-to-toe' with foreign or Afghan government troops.
WAITING GAME
While clashes edge close to the capital, there have actually been fewer suicide attacks in Kabul this year. They have hit higher profile targets, notably the July bombing of the Indian Embassy that killed 58 people, and that has instilled a greater sense of fear and foreboding in an already edgy populace.
With major roads through the city now blocked off and new concrete barriers springing up each week, Kabul is increasingly taking on the air of a city under siege.
"By erecting concrete blocks and putting up sandbags, they think they are doing a good job; on the contrary this creates fear and concern among people," said analyst and Afghan former diplomat Ahmad Saeedi.
The Taliban's goal is not to defeat NATO troops in battle, but to slowly bleed dry Western support for keeping soldiers in Afghanistan by inflicting a steady stream of casualties.
Secondly, the militants aim to weaken Afghan support for the government by relentlessly demonstrating President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers cannot bring security and that the only alternative is the Taliban's ruthless brand of law and order.
In doing so, the Taliban are already making progress.
The deaths of the French troops has already led to Paris calling an extraordinary session of parliament to debate France's presence in Afghanistan and opinion polls there and in most European countries consistently back pulling out troops.
Ordinary Afghans, meanwhile, are caught in the middle. Faced with increasing insecurity, no or low levels of development and rampant official corruption, their loyalty to Karzai, democracy and the help from the West is being put severely to the test.
The Taliban, wrote Anthony Cordesman of the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, "do not need to defeat the U.S., NATO/ISAF, and Afghan forces. They only have to outlast them."
(Editing by Bill Tarrant)
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U.N. Envoy’s Ties to Pakistani Are Questioned
By HELENE COOPER and MARK MAZZETTI The New York Times August 25, 2008
WASHINGTON — Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, is facing angry questions from other senior Bush administration officials over what they describe as unauthorized contacts with Asif Ali Zardari, a contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan.
Mr. Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Mr. Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, several times a week for the past month until he was confronted about the unauthorized contacts, a senior United States official said. Other officials said Mr. Khalilzad had planned to meet with Mr. Zardari privately next Tuesday while on vacation in Dubai, in a session that was canceled only after Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, learned from Mr. Zardari himself that the ambassador was providing “advice and help.”
“Can I ask what sort of ‘advice and help’ you are providing?” Mr. Boucher wrote in an angry e-mail message to Mr. Khalilzad. “What sort of channel is this? Governmental, private, personnel?” Copies of the message were sent to others at the highest levels of the State Department; the message was provided to The New York Times by an administration official who had received a copy.
Officially, the United States has remained neutral in the contest to succeed Mr. Musharraf, and there is concern within the State Department that the discussions between Mr. Khalilzad and Mr. Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, could leave the impression that the United States is taking sides in Pakistan’s already chaotic internal politics.
Mr. Khalilzad also had a close relationship with Ms. Bhutto, flying with her last summer on a private jet to a policy gathering in Aspen, Colo. Ms. Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan in December.
The conduct by Mr. Khalilzad, who is Afghan by birth, has also raised hackles because of speculation that he might seek to succeed Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan. Mr. Khalilzad, who was the Bush administration’s first ambassador to Afghanistan, has also kept in close contact with Afghan officials, angering William Wood, the current American ambassador, said officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter of Mr. Khalilzad’s contacts. Mr. Khalilzad has said he has no plans to seek the Afghan presidency.
Through his spokesman, he said he had been friends with Mr. Zardari for years. “Ambassador Khalilzad had planned to meet socially with Zardari during his personal vacation,” said Richard A. Grenell, the spokesman for the United States Mission to the United Nations. “But because Zardari is now a presidential candidate, Ambassador Khalilzad postponed the meeting, after consulting with senior State Department officials and Zardari himself.”
A senior American official said that Mr. Khalilzad had been advised to “stop speaking freely” to Mr. Zardari, and that it was not clear whether he would face any disciplinary action.
In 1979, Andrew Young was forced to resign as the American ambassador to the United Nations over his unauthorized contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Administration officials described John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, and Mr. Boucher as angry over the conduct of Mr. Khalilzad because as United Nations ambassador he has no direct responsibility for American relations with Pakistan. Those dealings have been handled principally by Mr. Negroponte, Mr. Boucher and Anne W. Patterson, the American ambassador to Pakistan. Mr. Negroponte previously was the United Nations ambassador, and Ms. Patterson the acting ambassador.
“Why do I have to learn about this from Asif after it’s all set up?” Mr. Boucher wrote in the Aug. 18 message, referring to the planned Dubai meeting with Mr. Zardari. “We have maintained a public line that we are not involved in the politics or the details. We are merely keeping in touch with the parties. Can I say that honestly if you’re providing ‘advice and help’? Please advise and help me so that I understand what’s going on here.”
This is not the first time Mr. Khalilzad has gotten into trouble for unauthorized contacts. In January, White House officials expressed anger about an unauthorized appearance in which Mr. Khalilzad sat beside the Iranian foreign minister at a panel of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, and a request from Mr. Khalilzad to be part of the United States delegation to Davos had been turned down by officials at the State Department and the White House, a senior administration official said.
Richard C. Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton, said the administration was sending conflicting signals. “It is not possible to conduct coherent foreign policy if senior officials are freelancing,” he said.
It has long been known that Mr. Zardari, who has been locked in a power struggle with Mr. Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister whose party left the governing coalition on Monday, planned to run for president, administration officials and foreign policy experts said.
“I know that Zardari’s interest in becoming president has been clear for quite some time,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, a Pakistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The Bush administration has long been uneasy with the idea of Mr. Sharif as a potential leader of Pakistan, and now that Mr. Musharraf is out of the picture, the administration, despite public protestation of neutrality, is seeking another ally.
“It distresses me that the U.S. government has not learned yet that having ‘our guy’ is not a winning strategy in Pakistan,” Ms. Schaffer said. “Whoever ‘our guy’ is isn’t going to be the only guy in town, and if we go into it with that view, we’ll bump up against a lot of other guys in Pakistan.”
A senior Pakistani official said that the relationship between Mr. Khalilzad and Mr. Zardari went back several years, and that the men developed a friendship while Mr. Zardari was spending time in New York with Ms. Bhutto.
The Pakistani official said the consultations between the men were an open exchange of information, with each one giving insight into the political landscape in his capital.
“Mr. Khalilzad, being a political animal, understood the value of reaching out to Pakistan’s political leadership long before the bureaucrats at the State Department realized this would be useful at a future date,” the official said. The ambassador “did not make policy or change policy, he just became an alternate channel,” the official said.
Of Mr. Khalilzad’s Pakistan contacts, Sean I. McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said, “Our very clear policy is that the Pakistanis have to work out any domestic political questions for themselves.” Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said, “The Pakistani elections are an internal matter for the Pakistani people.”
Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and Mark Mazzetti from New York.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 26, 2008, on page A1 of the New York edition.
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Setback for Pakistan's terror drive
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Aug 27, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
KARACHI - The resignation of Pervez Musharraf as president a week ago was an opportunity for his Western allies to take the "war on terror" a step forward by working with the five-month-old civilian coalition government in Pakistan.
But that administration has now been thrown into confusion following the withdrawal on Monday of its second-largest partner, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) of former premier Nawaz Sharif. The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of Asif Ali Zardari has enough support in parliament to maintain a simple majority, but with Sharif now on the opposition benches, its days are numbered.
Sharif withdrew his party because of what he said were Zardari's broken promises to reinstate dozens of judges sacked last year by Musharraf.
With Sharif's move, ideological divides between liberal-secularists (PPP) and right-wing conservatives (PML-N) that had been blurred during Musharraf's nearly nine-year tenure have resurfaced. Former backers of Musharraf, the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-i-Azam, and the PML-N have already made contact to work on a "joint future political strategy".
Sharif's PML-N has now proposed its own candidate (former chief justice Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui) to challenge Zardari, widower of another former premier, Benazir Bhutto, on September 6, when parliament chooses a new president.
In another development, the Jamaat-i-Islami, an Islamist political party which boycotted February's general elections, has invited Sharif to join the All Pakistan Democratic Movement, an opposition alliance, which Sharif is likely to do.
This fragmentation has blown apart Western plans to make Pakistani domestic politics useful in the "war on terror" as the opposition, which is also opposed to Pakistan's involvement in the "war on terror", will provide strong resistance to Islamabad's decision to increase military operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan's tribal areas.
New face against the Taliban
As things stand, Zardari, backed by a coalition of secular and liberal parties, will hold the presidency. This is important as the president is also the supreme commander of the armed forces with hiring and firing powers.
Zardari, with the Americans breathing down his neck, will be expected to control the often defiant secret service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), as well as the military, regularly accused by the West of not doing enough against militants, if not supporting of the Taliban. Neither task will be easy, if not impossible.
On Monday, Pakistan "declared war" on the Taliban. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the main Taliban militant umbrella group, was banned, its bank accounts and assets frozen and it was barred from appearing in the media. It was also announced that "head" money would be placed on prominent leaders of the TTP.
The stage is now set for yet another round against militants in Pakistan, seen as key to defeating the insurgency in Afghanistan, which draws heavily on its bases in Pakistan's tribal areas to sustain its fighting capabilities.
However, the war theater is stretching from the tribal areas to the main urban centers. After suicide attacks on an arms factory in Wah, 30 kilometers northwest of the capital Islamabad, and an unsuccessful bomb attack on a leading anti-terror police official in the southern city of Karachi, the Taliban called at the weekend for a ceasefire in Bajaur Agency. The Taliban attacks were in response to heavy bombing by the air force in Bajaur over the past few weeks.
The powerful adviser to the Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik, refused outright the Taliban offer and vowed to continue military operations against militants without any concessions.
The militants on Sunday showed their muscle in their second home after the Waziristan tribal areas - Karachi, the financial hub of the country. A container truck carrying two armored personal carriers out of Karachi port was attacked by about 25 armed youths and set on the fire. The carriers were on their way to North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan as part of one of the largest NATO consignments - 530 containers - to have arrived from Jabal-i-Ali in the United Arab Emirates en route to Afghanistan. (Asia Times Online broke the story that al-Qaeda planned to defeat NATO by cutting its supply lines in Karachi. (See New al-Qaeda focus on NATO supplies August 12, 2008.)
Asia Times Online has learned that top Taliban shura (council) commanders, including leader Mullah Omar's deputy, Mullah Bradar, Ameer Khan Muttaqi and Akhtar Mansoor recently visited Karachi, and some of them remained in the city to plan further attacks.
Washington had devised a plan with Islamabad under which the Pakistani military would independently coordinate with NATO operation commanders in Afghanistan to carry out actions against militants in Pakistan. But aerial bombings apart, any concrete military drives against the militants will be difficult, given that lower-level cadres are unwilling to fight against the tribals, mainly because of their ethnic Pashtun links.
Video footage made by the Taliban and seen by Asia Times Online shows military operations from August 2007 to early 2008 in the tribal areas. There is detailed footage of how easily the Pakistani armed forces laid down their arms. After surrender, once their commanders had been removed, they mingled with the militants.
This happens because most of the men deployed in the tribal areas are ethnically Pashtuns and unwilling to fight against local Pashtun tribals. The Punjabis, the majority population of the country and also in the armed forces, cannot perform in the tribal areas as they neither understand the language nor the area.
Indiscriminate aerial bombing intimidates and disrupts an area, as shown in Bajaur, but apart from sending the militants into temporary shelter the effectiveness is debatable. Pakistan claimed it had killed senior al-Qaeda leader Sheikh Saeed aka Abu Mustafa al-Yazeed, but it turned out not to be true; Saeed never lived in Bajaur to begin with. Indeed, the only casualty was the local population, with more than 250,000 people forced to leave the area and as a result hatred of the new government and the army is at an all-time high.
This could be the crux of the coming battle between Zardari and the militants - whether the army goes along with the man who would be president, or, as it has done so often over the years, turns against its political masters.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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Defence minister dishes out $16 M during surprise visit to Afghanistan
The Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Ottawa says it will spend $16 million to establish a staff and language training centre for junior officers of the Afghan National Army in Kabul.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay made the announcement Tuesday during a surprise visit to Kandahar. MacKay arrived in Afghanistan Monday with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to visit with troops and meet Kandahar's new governor.
He also used his visit to test out the new SUAV surveillance drones purchased by Canada for the Afghan mission.
His visit came just as President Hamid Karzai called on coalition troops to alter the rules of engagement in the wake of a massive American air strike that left some 90 civilians dead in Herat province.
MacKay says he's confident Canadian Forces soldiers are fully aware of the procedures they must follow on the ground and that he will work with coalition forces to ensure the safety of civilians.
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Thousands flee Pakistan offensive: UN
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - The military offensive against Taliban militants in a restive Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border has displaced more than 260,000 people, UN and local officials said Tuesday.
Pakistani forces moved into Bajaur, a known hub of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, earlier this month. The government says at least 500 militants have been killed since then, though this could not be independently confirmed.
"There are 264,011 people displaced by the military operation in Bajaur," a spokesman for the UN Resident Coordinator's office, Fawad Hussain, told AFP.
A provincial government official also confirmed that the military offensive had displaced 264,000 people over the last three weeks.
"The government is taking necessary steps to provide relief and shelter to these people," said Muhammad Ehsan, an official in the provincial relief commissioner office.
The UN has set up 34 camps in North West Frontier Province for those fleeing the violence.
"The UN will assist provincial government in accommodating 39,859 families who fled the military operation in the camps," the UN's Hussain said.
UN agencies plan to spend 10 million dollars on hygiene, health, education, food and rehabilitation of the displaced people.
The amount was allocated Monday night by the UN central emergency response fund in New York.
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Pakistan Shells Militant Hideouts Near Afghan Border, Kills 5
KHAR, Pakistan (AFP)--Pakistani gunship helicopters shelled militant hideouts Monday in a troubled tribal region near the Afghan border, killing five rebels, unnamed officials said.
Helicopters pounded rebel bases hours after Pakistan banned the main Taliban militant group, Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, and ordered its bank accounts and assets frozen.
"Helicopters gunships shelled militant hideouts in several villages in Bajaur tribal region today, which left five militants killed and 10 injured," a security official said on condition of anonymity.
Pakistan rejected a ceasefire offer made by the group Sunday.
Pakistani forces moved into Bajaur, a known hub of al-Qaida and Taliban militants, earlier this month. The two-week-old military operation has left more than 500 people dead.
The offensive has displaced nearly 200,000 people in the region so far.
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'Too few' troops confront Taliban
Brendan Nicholson The Age, Australia August 27, 2008
ONE of Australia's most experienced military officers believes the war in Afghanistan will be won only when the number of coalition troops is increased significantly.
In a speech to the conservative think tank Menzies Research Centre the recently retired Major-General Jim Molan said Australia should be doing more in Afghanistan and not leave the United States to carry the bulk of the burden.
Major-General Molan said the Taliban wanted to establish itself in Afghanistan's cities where fighting its insurgents would cause big civilian casualties.
The Afghan Government has announced it will review the presence of international forces and its agreements with allies such as NATO and the US after heavy civilian losses in military operations.
"The aim of the Taliban is to get into the cities and fight us like they are fighting us in Iraq," Major-General Molan said.
He rejected suggestions that the Australian Defence Force was overstretched. "Why do we have a defence force? I thought it was to use it, not to preserve it.
"I believe we can afford to put more troops in. I believe we can afford to sustain them," he said.
Afghan authorities said air strikes in western Afghanistan last week killed more than 90 people, most of them women and children. The US said the attacks killed five civilians and 25 militants but was investigating the claim that many more died.
Major-General Molan said that after 30 years of neglect followed by a decade of increased spending the ADF was still not well enough equipped to do its job properly and safely.
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Ottawa wants Vancouver organizers to include Afghan veterans in torch relay
PATRICK BRETHOUR August 26, 2008 Globe and Mail, Canada
VANCOUVER -- Ottawa is urging the Vancouver Winter Olympics organizing committee to put the Afghanistan war at the heart of the symbolically laden torch relay, saying that the first torch carriers could be veterans of the seven-year-old conflict.
The federal government is also pushing to have Canada's French and English "linguistic duality" highlighted by the relay, going so far as to propose a list of 83 communities that could be part of the run -- and provide a chunk of the roster of torch bearers, expected to number 12,000.
Both those proposals are put forward in an undated memo from the official languages group of the 2010 Federal Secretariat obtained by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin under an access-to-information request. The proposals on the torch relay follow revelations last week in The Globe and Mail that the Harper government provided $20-million for the opening ceremony of the Winter Games to ensure the event "adequately reflects" its priorities and "to achieve its domestic and international branding goals."
The Harper government and the Vancouver organizing committee have each insisted that Ottawa will be only a source of ideas for the opening ceremony, not a decision maker, despite its funding (including a separate $25-million grant for the relay).
Yesterday, VANOC confirmed that Ottawa had floated such proposals, but said the government's voice was one among many, and that no decision has been made on the design of the relay, including the route and who will be the first and final torch bearers. "All of the ideas are being gathered right now," said Renée Smith-Valade, vice-president of communications for VANOC.
Deirdra McCracken, director of communications for 2010 Olympics secretary of state James Moore, said the documents were prepared for planning purposes, and that discussions concerning the torch relay were taking place in partnership with VANOC.
The memo from the 2010 Federal Secretariat also urges the Vancouver Olympics organizers to have two torch bearers -- one French, one English -- for the final leg of the relay, underscoring Canada's "diversity and linguistic duality" and replicating the approach of the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.
In other respects, however, the vision of the torch relay outlined in the memo is in sharp contrast to the approach of the previous two Olympics on Canadian soil: the Summer Games in Montreal and the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary.
In both, the choice of the first torch carrier, considered a particularly symbolic part of the relay, was decidedly non-controversial.
For Montreal, there were runners representing each of the provinces and (at that point) two territories. Calgary opted for two Olympic athletes, famed 1948 gold medalist figure skater Barbara Ann Scott-King, and Ferd Hayward, the first Newfoundlander to wear Canadian colours at a Games -- the latter a nod to the start of the relay in St. John's.
The 2010 relay also could start in St. John's, but the symbolism of a veteran from the Afghan war would be a more politically tinged symbol, with a substantial part of Canadian public opinion opposing participation in the conflict. Ms. Smith-Valade, while saying no decisions have been made, said the Vancouver organizing committee does not see the relay as a platform for political messages. "We have an opportunity to bring the country together."
Frank King, chairman and chief executive officer of the 1988 Games, said the Calgary committee's decisions on who became a torch bearer was based on highlighting Olympic athletes for the start and end; in between, a lottery generally determined who took part. He rejected the premise that Calgary should have based its decision on demographics.
"You're going off in a direction the Olympics don't go," he said. Stressing that he was commenting on only Calgary's experience, Mr. King said his organizing committee simply focused on highlighting Olympic excellence for the opening and closing legs of the relay. "We chose athletes; it didn't matter what language they spoke, what religion they were, what colour they were."
By contrast, VANOC is designing its relay as a "powerful and inclusive celebration" for the country; there will not be a random lottery. Instead, VANOC says it will select each torch bearer based on their articulation of Olympic ideals, and with the goal of representing the 21st-century nation through those thousands of faces.
"Canada has come a long way since 1976," said Ms. Smith-Valade. "It's come a long way since 1988."
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SMALL GAINS IN AFGHANISTAN
Canadian Forces in Afghanistan juggle their combat, peacekeeping, humanitarian aid roles
Scott Deveau , Canwest News Service Monday, August 25, 2008
NAMARDZI, Afghanistan - On a blazing hot summer day in the Zhari district of Kandahar last week, three tribal elders from the little village of Namardzi collected under the shade of a tree to conduct a shura - or town meeting - with Canadian Forces mentors and their Afghan counterparts.
Most of the other locals had already fled the village the day before after an air strike levelled a compound where insurgents were holed up in a gunfight with Afghan National Army forces.
The strike, which broke up a wedding ceremony in a nearby compound, marked the beginning of a three-day campaign through the heart of the Taliban stronghold west of Kandahar City.
The Canadian Forces' operational mentor liaison team, or OMLT (pronounced omelette around here), was tasked with the usual training of their Afghan counterparts during the mission. It also was there to help support them in guarding the western flank of the Zhari district while the battle group mowed through the centre of it, confiscating weapon caches, improvised explosive materials, and other Taliban communication equipment along the way.
But none of this mattered to the elders in Namardzi that day. They have seen enough conflict in the past three decades in Afghanistan to be bothered by a few bombs.
They were concerned about their animals and their crops - and they wanted to know when their families could come back to the village.
But before the shura could even begin, insurgents began lobbing mortars at the village, forcing the troops to rush to the nearest post where they engaged in an hour-long firefight. By the time they returned, the elders were gone.
The Canadian Forces often refer to the conflict in Afghanistan as a "three-block war," where soldiers juggle their combat role with peacekeeping and administrating humanitarian aid.
More often than not, however, those blocks work against each other, creating what is increasingly becoming a task worthy of Sisyphus.
Success is measured in small gains in Afghanistan, and the troops know this better than anyone.
Three days in Namardzi provided enough evidence of the struggles Canadian soldiers are facing in Afghanistan, fending off insurgents, training the Afghan forces, battling the drug trade, and all the while trying to win the "hearts and minds" of the Afghan people so that they will begin to trust the Karzai government and no longer fear the Taliban.
Namardzi is an impoverished village with no more than 100 people. The homes and fences are all constructed from packed and dried mud, which is common for the region.
It's a hand-to-mouth existence, but it's also clear that some have succumb to the temptation of the opium and marijuana trade to bolster their incomes.
The evidence is everywhere. Outside of the compound that was destroyed in the air strike sits a massive marijuana field the size of a football pitch, and the compounds of the village are littered with the remnant of poppy stocks.
The cash-up-front policy of opium dealers in Afghanistan is too much to pass up for the poor, even though they readily admit it runs counter to their Muslim beliefs.
In order to bring some stability, make some inroads into Zhari and to regain control of the region, the ANA and the Afghan National Police force numbers needs to be bolstered across Kandahar, according to Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, commander of the forces in the embattled province.
Thompson rolled into Namardzi with the troops Thursday morning, and said in an interview that the operation was not about regaining Zhari, but rather to disrupt the Taliban's operations there and to put a damper on the number of their IED strikes in the region by knocking out their command centres in the district.
In order to push the Taliban out of Zhari, the coalition and Afghan forces need to establish a permanent presence in the volatile district, he admits.
The Taliban know this, too. In an interview Monday, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said the insurgents have figured out that they can simply move from town to town when the coalition troops move into Zhari, because they won't be staying long.
"Later we can return to our locations," he said.
The locals know this too, and are hesitant to accept aid or to talk to the coalition troops for fear of retaliation from the Taliban. One elder said if those in Namardzi accepted the school bags, prayer rugs, radios, and other humanitarian aid the coalition forces offered them, the Taliban would "slit their throats" when the troops left the village.
The villagers did, however, end up taking what was offered and the ANA were deliberately used to distribute the goods in order to foster bonds between the Afghan troops and those living in the Namardzi.
Winning over the villagers is a very difficult task, as well. When the one elder, who remained in the village throughout its occupation, was approached by the Canadian troops to see what could be done to make things better for him and his family, he responded with the only English word he knew, "Post. Post. Post."
He was referring to the need for a police post in the area. The Afghan National Police used to have checkpoint nearby, but it was closed in May due to a "reallocation" of resources.
The elder said now that the checkpoint is gone, Taliban soldiers more frequently come into the town and steal food and lodging.
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Afghan Officials Detain American Boy, U.S. Says
Mother Held by U.S. as Al-Qaeda Suspect
The Washington Post - Nation By Carol D. Leonnig and Candace Rondeaux Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, August 26, 2008
U.S. authorities said yesterday that Afghan officials have detained since mid-July an 11-year-old U.S. citizen, the son of a Pakistani woman accused of firing at Afghan and U.S. personnel there.
In a letter to the family of Aafia Siddiqui, a suspected al-Qaeda operative who is in U.S. custody, federal prosecutors said photos and DNA tests strongly suggest that the youngster in Afghan custody is Siddiqui's son, Ahmed. The boy was detained July 18 when Afghan police arrested Siddiqui in what they described as a shootout near a government compound in Ghazni.
Siddiqui and her three children disappeared in Pakistan in 2003, and the case has been a cause celebre there ever since, prompting protests in Siddiqui's home town of Karachi and dozens of editorials in local papers. In the midst of an uproar over the disappearances of Pakistani suspects this summer, Afghan officials said they had captured Siddiqui after she fired on the compound. She is now in a federal prison in New York, charged with attempted murder.
The FBI had spent years seeking information on Siddiqui, a U.S.-educated neuroscientist who officials feared was an al-Qaeda operative with knowledge of biological weapons. During that time, federal prosecutors and FBI officials have told Siddiqui's mother, Ismat, they had no information on the location of Siddiqui or her children, an attorney for the family said yesterday.
The lawyers and Siddiqui family members yesterday questioned the U.S. government's account that Siddiqui had resurfaced five years after disappearing with her three young children in Pakistan and that she escaped Afghan and U.S. agents after she was taken into custody.
Siddiqui's family contended that the young mother and children were imprisoned during at least some of that time at a secret site, possibly by Afghan or Pakistani officials working in concert with the CIA. Her two younger children, who are also U.S. citizens and were 6 months and 5 years old when they disappeared, are still unaccounted for.
"Something is really dirty here. Everything about the government's story smells," said Elizabeth Fink, Siddiqui's attorney, who said her client was psychologically traumatized over an extended period of time. "Whatever happened to this woman is terrible, and it's incumbent on us to find out what it was."
The CIA and the Justice Department denied that the United States had been holding Siddiqui or her children.
"As the Department of Justice has made clear, Ms. Siddiqui was not in U.S. custody before she was detained on July 17, 2008," said CIA spokesman George Little. "Any suggestion that the CIA would imprison her children is wrong and offensive. Had we known where Ms. Siddiqui was prior to her capture, we would have shared that information with our partners in this country and overseas. She was a fugitive from American justice."
Siddiqui, 36, studied behavioral sciences at MIT in the 1990s. By 2004, U.S. officials had dubbed her al-Qaeda's "Mata Hari" and admitted they began watching her as a possible terrorism suspect in 2001 while she lived in Boston with her husband. Soon after Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was captured in 2003, Siddiqui and her three children vanished from a street corner in Karachi.
Siddiqui's attorneys said they spoke with her after she was moved to New York earlier this month. Siddiqui will petition a federal court to have Ahmed placed in the custody of her brother in Texas, Fink said.
Fink and Elaine Whitfield Sharp, a lawyer for the Siddiqui family, said Aafia Siddiqui bears little resemblance to the woman in 2002 family photographs. Her nose has been broken, her lips and skin are deeply chapped, her face has a deathly pallor, and she is only periodically lucid, they said.
Ismail Jahangir, a spokesman for the governor of Ghazni province in Afghanistan, said Monday that the Afghan Interior Ministry took the boy into custody the same day Siddiqui was arrested. Jahangir said the governor's office was not aware of what happened to the boy after he was handed over to the Interior Ministry.
An Interior Ministry official reached by phone in Kabul said Ahmed was held by the ministry for a day, then taken into custody by the Afghan National Security Directorate, an intelligence agency.
"We kept the boy for 24 hours because we do not have a right to hold him longer than that," an Interior Ministry official said. "We sent him to the National Security Directorate, and I don't know what happened to the boy after that."
U.S. agents said the boy initially told them he was an orphan, according to the prosecutors' letter to Siddiqui's family.
The Afghan National Security Directorate has worked closely with CIA officials since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001. The agency has acted as the lead liaison in dozens of high-level detainee cases involving Afghan prisoners, including investigations involving detainees recently returned from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the U.S.-run prison at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's government, meanwhile, has made aggressive public appeals on Siddiqui's behalf. Earlier this month, the country's parliament passed a resolution calling for her immediate repatriation to Pakistan. Late last week, an official with Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the government plans to send a delegation to Washington to look into her case.
Rondeaux reported from Islamabad, Pakistan. Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
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£10m to clear Afghanistan landmines
The Press Association
The Government is to spend more than £10 million on clearing up landmines in Afghanistan.
International development secretary Douglas Alexander said the money would go to The Halo Trust, a Scottish-based charity with expertise in the area, over the next five years.
Afghanistan was one of the most heavily-mined countries in the world, a legacy of past conflicts, he told BBC Radio Scotland.
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Karzai names new attorney-general
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 25 August 2008
Deputy catupluted into number one spot after predecessor gets the boot
PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai has nominated Mohammad Ishaq Aloko as attorney general to replace his predecessor, Abdul Jabar Sabit, who was booted out from office after announcing his intention to run for president.
A presidential statement released on Monday said Aloko, the former deputy attorney-general, will start his job once the Lower House approves his appointment.
Aloko, a law graduate who has lived in Germany, is a relatively unknown figure in Afghanistan.
A few months into his term as deputy, Aloko left office for unknown reasons, only to return months later.
In July, Karzai removed Sabit from his post, which he had held for two years, after the country’s most senior prosecutor signalled his desire to run for president at the next elections.
"Sabit’s announcement that he will run for president is against the attorney-general’s code of conduct. So the announcement means that he has resigned and the president has approved this," a statement released by the presidential office said at the time.
Under the constitution, the president has the power to dismiss prosecutors if they become a member of a political party during their time in office.
Last month, a number of former government workers accused the attorney-general of corruption and demanded he face prosecution.
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Winter fuel prices soar
www.quqnoos.com Written by Ghafoor Saboory Monday, 25 August 2008
Traders warn that cost of wood and coal may jump again before winter sets in
THE PRICE of wood in Kabul has increased by 31% this year, according to traders.
Last year, the cost of 560kg of wood was Afg3,200 but this year the price has soared to Afg4,200. Coal prices have also risen dramatically.
Fuel sellers in Kabul say the main reason for the increase, especially in the cost of wood and coal, is the increase in the price of oil, which has risen sharply this year.
One coal seller said: "The tax paid for importing a sack of coal from abroad has increased from Afg50 to Afg120 this year."
Some Kabulis are concerned about the increase in the cost of basic materials as winter approaches.
One Kabuli said: "This is a big problem for us. We have to work for three months to find the money only to buy wood."
Fuel sellers say if oil prices do not decrease, the cost of wood prices will increase by a further 30% before winter kicks in.
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Beheaded body found in northern city
Written by www.quqnoos.com Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Police discover decapitated corpse and head in separate parts of the city
THE BEHEADED corpse of a man the Taliban accuse of spying for the government has been found in the provincial capital of Balkh, police said.
Police also found a severed head in a separate part of the city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Monday, the police chief of Balkh, Sardar Muhammad Sultani, said.
It is unclear if the head, found in the sixth district, and the body, found in the Nahar Shahi area, were part of the same man, Sultani said.
Police took both body parts to a nearby hospital in the city to find out who the body and head belonged to.
Dr Asadullah, one of the surgeons in the hospital, said his team of doctors were still examining the body parts..
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the militants group had beheaded a man in Mazar-e-Shariof ten days ago.
He said the man was spying for foreign and government forces.
But Sultani said it was unclear who the man was and who he was killed by.
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Drought 'devastates third of Takhar crop'
Written by www.quqnoos.com Monday, 25 August 2008
Water department in north says wells and river beds have dried up
(PAN) Drought has destroyed about 30% of Takhar province’s harvest this year, officials in the area say.
Head of the province’s water department, Muhammad Salim Akbari, said on Sunday that more than 20,000 hectors of land dried up because of a lack of rainwater.
He said Baharak, Darqad, Yangi Qala, Dashti Qala, Khowaja Bahawoldin and Bangi are among the worst hit districts.
River water levels have decreased and wells have dried up in the districts, he said.
Farmers were warned against planting crops that require a regular supply of water, but many ignored the warning, he said.
"If the farmers had cultivated plants which needed less water, their harvests would not have been destroyed, and also water would have been distributed equally to all of them," Akbari said.
He urged the government and aid agencies to deliver essential food to the most vulnerable people in the province who depend on crop production to survive.
Farmers in the northern province also said their land had been severely hit by drought this year because of the lack of water.
Joora Muhammad, a 44-year-old man who lives in Chanzai village of Bangi district, said: "I had cultivated all my land this year, and I had spent a lot of money on it, but the water in the river has dried up for the last 20 days, and now my harvests are destroyed.
“Now, if there is water, it is not useful to the land."
The United Nations launched an appeal last month for $404 million to feed Afghans hit hard by drought.
The charity CARE estimates that 6.5 million people suffer from food insecurity in the country.
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