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Bomb in Afghan capital, clashes kill dozen rebels: officials
KABUL (AFP) - A suicide car bomb exploded near international troops in the Afghan capital Saturday, leaving one wounded, while soldiers killed more than a dozen militants in clashes elsewhere, authorities said.
Body of killed Japanese aid worker returned home
Sat Aug 30, 5:14 AM ET
TOKYO (AFP) - The body of a Japanese aid worker who was killed by Taliban rebels in eastern Afghanistan earlier this week was returned home on Saturday, officials said.
Five million Afghans need food aid: Oxfam
Fri Aug 29, 9:28 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Five million Afghans face serious food shortages with winter drawing near, but donors have put forward less than a fifth of the money needed to cope, development charity Oxfam warned Saturday.
Afghan child mortality linked to uneducated mothers
By Tan Ee Lyn Sat Aug 30, 3:53 AM ET
HONG KONG (Reuters) - High child mortality rates in conservative Afghanistan are linked not just to war but to mothers being uneducated and having little or no say when their children need medical help, a study has found.
Afghanistan will free son of Pakistani scientist 'soon': minister
KABUL (AFP) - The young son of Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui will be returned to his family "soon" by Afghanistan after he was arrested with her more than a month ago, Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said Saturday.
German army admits civilian shootings in Afghanistan
Berlin, Aug 30, IRNA
German soldiers rained gunfire on a carload of innocent civilians in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz late Thursday evening, killing a woman and two children, the German army announced on its website on Friday.
Joint Afghan-US-UN probe launched into deadly raid
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led coalition, Afghan government and the United Nations will launch a joint probe into last week's deadly raid in a village in the country's west, a top NATO official said Saturday.
New Claims Of Afghan Civilians Killed In US-led Strikes
August 30, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP)--Two senior Afghan police officers alleged Saturday that the U.S.-led coalition killed five civilians in air strikes aimed at Taliban insurgents, but the force denied causing any civilian casualties.
Afghan official 'saw bodies of 50 children' killed in US strike
By Agence France Presse (AFP) August 30, 2008
KABUL: An Afghan politician told AFP Friday how he had helped dig out the bodies of women and children after US-led air strikes a week ago, reiterating with another official that around 90 civilians were killed.
FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan, Aug 30
Aug 30 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 0800 GMT on Saturday:
Taliban targeted in Pakistan, Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Airstrikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan killed more than 30 Taliban militants in the two countries, military officials said Saturday.
Pakistan suspends militant operations for Ramadan
By Augustine Anthony
ISLAMABAD, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Pakistan announced on Saturday a suspension of military operations against Islamist militants for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, but a senior official said security forces would respond if attacked.
German military proposes new Afghan rail link
Reuters / August 30, 2008
KABUL: The German military is considering building a railway line in northern Afghanistan to ease transport of NATO supplies to the country and boost economic activity in the area, a German news magazine reported on Saturday.
Envoy has insider's view of Afghanistan
Retired Ambassador Peter Tomsen speaks at NPS
Monterey County Herald, CA By KEVIN HOWE Herald Staff Writer 08/29/2008
Despite its tumultuous, often anarchic, history and ethnic diversity, Afghanistan is very much a country with a strong national identity and has been since 1747, according to a diplomat with long experience there.
Archaeologists unearth Buddha statue's head in Afghanistan
[ANI] Islamabad, August 30 : French and Afghan archaeologists have unearthed the head of a Buddha statue and a precious coin in the province of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.
Thousands more Afghan school books torched: ministry
KABUL, Aug 29, 2008 (AFP) - Unknown attackers torched about 8,300 new textbooks headed for schools in northeastern Afghanistan, the education ministry said Friday, days after 100,000 were destroyed in a similar incident.
American battalion to help Canadian forces in Afghanistan
Scott Deveau, Canwest News Service Saturday, August 30, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The United States has deployed a much-needed battalion of 800 troops to assist Canadian and Afghan Forces in Kandahar and to try to tame the province's Wild West.
Traffic at military hospital tells tale of Taliban toll
Santa Barbara News Press, California - World
GLORIA GALLOWAY August 29, 2008 Scripps Howard News Service
KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan-If there is a gauge by which the toll of the Taliban can be measured, it is here at the military hospital tucked just off the runway at the Kandahar Air Field.
Aussies dismiss Afghan abuse charges
Press TV (Iran) Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:38:42 GMT
The Australian military investigators have cleared its combat troops of beating or humiliating prisoners detained in war-torn Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's Poppy Fields
Drugs and the insurgency feed each other so they must be fought together if the western forces are going to succeed, officials say
Canada.com, Canada Scott Deveau Canwest News Service Friday, August 29, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - An old man waits with his two sons outside of a United Nation's distribution centre on a scorching hot August day in Kandahar City.
FM: Afghanistan wants enhancing relations with SCO member states
www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-30 18:50:04
KABUL, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said Saturday that Kabul wants to develop bilateral relations with the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
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Bomb in Afghan capital, clashes kill dozen rebels: officials
KABUL (AFP) - A suicide car bomb exploded near international troops in the Afghan capital Saturday, leaving one wounded, while soldiers killed more than a dozen militants in clashes elsewhere, authorities said.
The Taliban insurgent movement said it had carried out the bombing -- the latest in Kabul in a surge of unrest linked to an insurgency led by the militia that was in government between 1996 and 2001.
A suicide attacker blew up a bomb-filled vehicle in the west of Kabul, city police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi told AFP.
"There was a suicide bombing against international forces... Thank God there were no casualties. The bomber died and the vehicle is in pieces," he said.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed an improvised explosive device had blown up near a convoy and said it had one soldier wounded. It would not give the nationality of the affected troops.
Kabul has seen several deadly attacks this year by militants from the Taliban or other radical outfits trying to drive out the nearly 70,000 international troops helping the Afghan security forces.
The defence ministry said meanwhile that more than 10 militants were killed in battles in the southern province of Helmand that erupted after insurgents attacked an Afghan army patrol.
About 14 other militants were detained in other operations by Afghan troops in the eastern province of Khost near the border with Pakistan, it said in a statement.
The US-led coalition said separately its soldiers, working with Afghan troops, had killed "several" militants after coming under attack in Kapisa, an area near Kabul where insurgent activity has increased in recent months.
Air strikes were called in against a rebel compound after civilians were cleared from the area, the force said in a statement.
The coalition was accused of killing around 90 civilians in strikes in the western province of Herat a week ago but disputes the number, insisting that five civilians died.
The Taliban-led insurgency was launched soon after a US-led invasion toppled the hardline government in late 2001. Unrest has steadily picked up since then.
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Body of killed Japanese aid worker returned home
Sat Aug 30, 5:14 AM ET
TOKYO (AFP) - The body of a Japanese aid worker who was killed by Taliban rebels in eastern Afghanistan earlier this week was returned home on Saturday, officials said.
Kazuya Ito's body arrived by commercial airplane at Centrair airport in central Aichi prefecture and was met by his parents.
The 31-year-old, who had worked in Afghanistan since 2003, was found shot dead on Wednesday, a day after being seized in Nangarhar province en route to inspect an irrigation project.
His body was accompanied by Tetsu Nakamura, head of Peshawar-kai, an aid group for which the victim worked as an agricultural specialist.
The Japanese government will continue collecting information related to the killing to specify the suspects and elements behind the murder, with help of the Afghan government and local police, officials said.
The hardline Taliban militia, which is behind a growing insurgency in Afghanistan, claimed its men had taken Ito and said he was killed in clashes with security forces chasing them. Officials said he was shot several times.
At least 25 other aid workers have been killed in violence this year, three of them Western women who were gunned down about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Kabul earlier this month.
Japan is one of the largest donors to post-Taliban Afghanistan.
On Thursday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned as "inhumane" the murder of Ito, adding: "Such attacks will not deter the process of international assistance to Afghanistan."
Japan has said it was ready to extend a controversial mission backing the US-led "war on terror" in Afghanistan despite the murder.
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Five million Afghans need food aid: Oxfam
Fri Aug 29, 9:28 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Five million Afghans face serious food shortages with winter drawing near, but donors have put forward less than a fifth of the money needed to cope, development charity Oxfam warned Saturday.
Time is running out to avert a humanitarian crisis, the British-based group said, urging governments to respond to an emergency humanitarian appeal launched in July.
"Up to five million Afghans face severe food shortages, yet the appeal for Afghanistan has a huge funding shortfall, with less than a fifth of the 404 million US dollars needed to respond," Oxfam said in a statement.
"Large parts of Afghanistan are facing crisis as a result of the cumulative effect of factors including the harsh winter, high food prices, drought, and increasing and spreading insecurity."
One of the hardest-hit provinces is central Daikundi, where an Oxfam assessment shows people may be facing the worst conditions in more than 20 years.
"As it is almost impossible to deliver aid to rural areas during the harsh Afghan winter, concerted action is needed now to avert the crisis," it said.
"This is a race against time, the international community needs to respond quickly before winter when conditions deteriorate," said Oxfam's head of policy in Kabul, Matt Waldman.
"The health of one million young children and half a million women is at serious risk due to malnutrition," he said in the statement.
The charity also said there not enough United Nations staff in the country to coordinate the massive aid effort required.
In a letter to development ministers around the world, Oxfam called for help to meet the funding shortfall and to support Afghanistan's agriculture sector and ability to cope with disasters.
"We believe the current situation requires a major humanitarian response," the letter said.
"If the response is slow or insufficient, there could be serious public health implications, including higher rates of mortality and morbidity, which are already some of the highest in the world," it said.
Such a response could also cause displacement and civil disturbances that may undermine security, the letter said.
Security is precarious in Afghanistan due to a Taliban-led insurgency that is hampering internationally funded efforts to rebuild the country after decades of war.
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Afghan child mortality linked to uneducated mothers
By Tan Ee Lyn Sat Aug 30, 3:53 AM ET
HONG KONG (Reuters) - High child mortality rates in conservative Afghanistan are linked not just to war but to mothers being uneducated and having little or no say when their children need medical help, a study has found.
Child mortality rates in Afghanistan are among the highest in the world, and one out of every five Afghan children (or 191 out of every 1,000 live births) will not survive beyond age five.
The study of 2,474 children from 1,327 households in Kabul province found that diarrhoea (32.5 percent), acute respiratory infection (41 percent), emaciation (12.4 percent) and stuntedness (39.9 percent) were among the most common health problems, said the article published in the latest issue of BioMed Central Public Health.
"As in other countries, the primary caregivers of small children in Afghanistan are their mothers; however, in this country, mothers are subject to a number of restrictions in the decision-making process regarding child healthcare," said the article published by a team of Afghan and Japanese researchers.
The researchers said they interviewed mothers of the children and found the problems correlated most closely with mothers not having any autonomy (79.1 percent) and education (71.7 percent).
Up to 18.3 percent of the mothers also delivered their first child before they were 16, which meant they were married when they were still children, the researchers wrote.
A shortage of basic material needs was also observed in 59.1 percent of the households.
The researchers defined a lack of maternal autonomy to mean mothers requiring permission from the head of the household to bring a child to the doctor, or if she required another person - usually a male relative - to accompany her to a clinic with the child.
Afghanistan is deeply conservative and women's movements are still restricted in many parts of the country.
The researchers defined a lack of education as not having attended school for at least a year.
"The poor economic and educational status of these women, and their overall immaturity caused by a lack of learning opportunities may have resulted in difficulties in preventing illness in their children," they wrote.
They called for change in Afghan society. Families needed to be educated and the government must play its part, they said.
"Culturally appropriate programmes with multifaceted approaches that provide families and communities with education and reproductive health services can help stop child marriage," they wrote.
They said while an effective healthcare system was urgently required in Afghanistan, changes were also needed in the behavior of men toward women in their families and in the community.
"Current country-wide efforts to ensure that all women have access to formal education, the elimination of poverty and the improvement of sanitary conditions should be further enforced."
(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Valerie Lee)
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Afghanistan will free son of Pakistani scientist 'soon': minister
KABUL (AFP) - The young son of Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui will be returned to his family "soon" by Afghanistan after he was arrested with her more than a month ago, Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said Saturday.
Ahmed Siddiqui, 11, was captured in the central province of Ghazni on July 17 with his mother who was suspected to be planning a suicide attack. She was later accused of trying to kill US officials and is on trial in New York.
"We'll hand the child over to his family very soon," Spanta told reporters, without giving details.
The boy is being held by the attorney general's office in Kabul, government officials told AFP, also refusing to comment further.
New York-based Human Rights Watch this week urged the Afghan government to free the child, a US citizen.
The arrest of Aafia Siddique, on a 2004 US list of suspects with links to Al-Qaeda, was the first time in five years she had been seen publicly.
Her family and lawyers allege she had been held captive since disappearing -- possibly in a secret US or allied prison. US officials have denied the charge.
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German army admits civilian shootings in Afghanistan
Berlin, Aug 30, IRNA
German soldiers rained gunfire on a carload of innocent civilians in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz late Thursday evening, killing a woman and two children, the German army announced on its website on Friday.
"Based on what we know now, evidence has been obtained at the scene suggesting that the shots fired at the vehicle came from German guns," the army was quoted saying.
"Whether shots were fired at the vehicle from the other side has yet to be conclusively clarified," the military added.
Four more children were injured when German troops shot at the car which ignored an order to stop at a checkpoint near Kunduz, Afghan police announced earlier in the day.
The German army stressed for the time being there were "no grounds to accuse any of the German soldiers of wrongful conduct." German civilian prosecutors have been updated on the deadly shooting and have reportedly launched a probe of the incident.
On Wednesday, a German soldier was killed and three others injured during a remote-controlled roadside bombing near Kunduz.
Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung conceded earlier this week a worsening of the security situation in northern Afghanistan, where German troops are based.
Germany has deployed around 3,500 soldiers in northern Afghanistan and Kabul as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in addition to police instructors and civilian reconstruction workers.
Some 28 German soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since January 2002, according to official statistics.
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Joint Afghan-US-UN probe launched into deadly raid
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led coalition, Afghan government and the United Nations will launch a joint probe into last week's deadly raid in a village in the country's west, a top NATO official said Saturday.
Afghan and U.N. officials says some 90 civilians, most of them children, were killed in the village of Azizabad in the western Herat province on Aug. 22. The U.S.-led coalition maintains that 25 militants and five civilians died.
The incident has caused an outrage in Afghanistan, where the issue of civilian casualties has been a long standing point of contention between President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers.
So far, neither side has produced conclusive evidence to support their claim.
Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, the chief spokesman for the NATO-led force said Saturday that the Afghan government, U.S.-led coalition and the U.N. mission here have agreed to a joint probe.
"We are hoping to have a quick unfolding of this investigation so we can ... basically reconcile these numbers which are way too far apart right now," Blanchette told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
"It is obviously a case where all three have received different bits of information and they need to reconcile this," he said. "Obviously there is somebody that does not have the right information."
Blanchette is the spokesman for the NATO-led force, which is headed by a four-star American Gen. David McKiernan and is separate from the U.S.-led coalition, whose troops were involved in the raid. It was not clear why Blanchette was releasing the information.
Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, confirmed that sides have agreed to a joint investigation.
"As we have already said we support the idea of a joint investigation in which all relevant institutions are involved. This must be a broad based investigation. We believe this is a right way forward and we will be open and cooperative," McNorton said.
The details were still to be worked out, McNorton and Blanchette said.
Afghan government officials were not immediately available to confirm the decision, which Blanchette and McNorton said was reached late in the afternoon.
Evidence from all sides regarding the raid has been scant, with no conclusive photos or video emerging to shed light on what happened in Azizabad. But the claim of high civilian casualties by the Afghan government, which is backed by the U.N., is causing new friction between the Afghan president and his Western backers.
Karzai has castigated Western military commanders over civilian deaths resulting from their raids, saying they create anger among Afghans that the Taliban and other insurgents use as leverage to turn Afghans away from the government.
The U.S. military says civilians are never deliberately targeted and that forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.
Claims of civilian deaths also can be tricky. Relatives of Afghan victims are given condolence payments by Karzai's government and the U.S. military, providing an incentive to make false claims.
"Everybody is willing to find the truth and to do this you got to get to the facts and compare information that everybody has received," Blanchette said.
Three Afghan officials said Thursday that U.S. commanders were misled into striking some 15 houses in Azizabad.
They said U.S. special forces troops and Afghan commandos raided the village while hundreds of people were gathered in a large compound for a memorial service honoring a tribal leader, Timor Shah, who was killed eight months ago by a rival clan.
The officials said the raid was aimed at militants who were supposed to be in the village, but they said the operation was based on faulty information provided by Shah's rival, whom they identified as Nader Tawakal.
Afghans targeted in U.S. raids have complained for years of being pursued based solely on information given by other Afghans who sometimes are business rivals, neighbors with vendettas or who are simply interested in reward money for anti-government militants.
A top NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the results of the U.S. investigation have not been released, said last week the U.S. and Afghan troops were fired on first when they moved into the village before dawn.
He said combat spanned several hours, during which troops called in airstrikes from Apache helicopters, AC-130 gunships and Predator drones.
The clash destroyed or damaged 15 houses, the official said. Afghan officials give similar accounts of the extent of the damage on the property.
The U.S. and Afghan troops stayed in the village until 8 a.m. and counted 30 dead — 25 militants and five civilians, the NATO official said. The target of the operation, a militant named Mullad Siddiq, was killed, and there were no reports of mass casualties among civilians, the NATO official said.
The Afghan military gave similar accounts of the clash soon after the raid, but within hours Afghan civilian officials were saying many civilians had been killed.
U.N. officials later said that up to 90 civilians may have been killed.
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New Claims Of Afghan Civilians Killed In US-led Strikes
August 30, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP)--Two senior Afghan police officers alleged Saturday that the U.S.-led coalition killed five civilians in air strikes aimed at Taliban insurgents, but the force denied causing any civilian casualties.
The claims come after the coalition was also accused of killing more than 90 people, including 60 children, in air strikes in the west a week ago - a charge it denies.
"Five civilians, including two women and a child, were killed in an air strike by coalition forces early this morning," Sayed Sakhidad, criminal investigation police chief for Kapisa province outside Kabul, told AFP.
Five Taliban were also killed, he said.
Kapisa's deputy provincial police chief Abdul Hamid Hakimi also said "five civilians and as many rebels, including a militant commander, were killed in the strikes."
He gave the names of the civilian dead, whom he said were from the same family and included two females and three males, one of them 17 years old.
The coalition dismissed the allegations. "There were no civilian casualties in that incident," a spokesman said.
The coalition said in a statement earlier that "several militants" were killed in the operation in Kapisa's Nijrab district, which started Friday.
Troops were looking for a Taliban commander involved in smuggling weapons and attacks on foreign soldiers when they came under attack from a compound, the coalition said.
The troops then ordered militants to leave the compound.
"Several women and children exited the compound and were moved to a safe area at which time coalition forces again came under AK-47 and RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) fire," the statement said.
"Coalition force responded with precision air strikes, killing several militants."
Allegations of civilian casualties are difficult to verify.
Investigations teams from the United Nations and Afghan government have said more than 90 civilians were killed in the western province of Herat a week ago in what would be one of the deadliest incidents in the past seven years.
But the coalition rejects the number, admitting though that five civilians were killed.
Kapisa, where French troops have recently deployed to reinforce U.S. soldiers, has seen an uptick in unrest, as has much of Afghanistan, despite the presence of nearly 70,000 international soldiers in the fight against rising extremism.
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Afghan official 'saw bodies of 50 children' killed in US strike
By Agence France Presse (AFP) August 30, 2008
KABUL: An Afghan politician told AFP Friday how he had helped dig out the bodies of women and children after US-led air strikes a week ago, reiterating with another official that around 90 civilians were killed.
The US-led coalition disputes the number and says only five civilians died along with 25 Taliban. US officials have also reportedly questioned the figure because of a lack of physical evidence.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity to the Associated Press, US defense officials said that the Afghan and UN counts of the civilians killed in the raid were overstated. The sources said that the US administration was pushing for a joint probe into the incident in order to reconcile the conflicting accounts of the incident.
"I saw with my own eyes bodies of 50 boys and girls under 15 years of age," said Herat provincial councillor Naik Mohammad Ishaq.
"I saw 19 women and seven men. I helped locals to dig them out [of rubble] the first day," he told AFP.
He said he went to the area of the August 22 strikes in the district of Shindand hours after the attack and he was told that more bodies had been found the day after, taking the toll to 91.
"We lined up the bodies of 76 civilians the first day in the local mosque and the Afghan intelligence department took a video recording as proof that most of them were women, children and all civilians," he said.
Ishaq said, however, that he did not have pictures of the dead.
The head of a delegation sent by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to investigate also defended the toll figure, similar to one reached by a United Nations team.
"There is no doubt that 90 civilians were killed in the US-led air strike," said Mohammad Eqbal Safi, the head of the Lower House's national defense committee.
The team had a list of the names and ages of all those killed, he said, and had interviewed locals and seen eight houses that were destroyed as well as fresh graves.
He claimed body parts - which he said were from civilians - were still at the site when his team arrived two days later.
The 2:00 a.m. strikes had hit people ahead of an event due the following day to mark the anniversary of the death of a fellow villager, Safi said.
"It was public knowledge that it was a gathering for the ceremony and there were no Taliban there."
Safi said locals believed "agents" had deliberately given wrong information to the US-led and Afghan troops involved in the operation.
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FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan, Aug 30
Aug 30 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 0800 GMT on Saturday:
HELMAND - Afghan soldiers killed more than 10 insurgents in Nad Ali district of southern Helmand province on Friday after coming under heavy gunfire, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
KAPISA - U.S.-led coalition forces killed several militants with air strikes in Nijrab district of Kapisa province, northeast of the capital, Kabul, on Friday after coming under attack, the U.S. military said in a statement.
KABUL - A suicide car bomber, targeting foreign soldiers, detonated his explosives in the capital Kabul, killing only himself, head of criminal investigation at Kabul police Ali Shah Paktiawal told Reuters. There were no other casualties. (Compiled by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Valerie Lee) ((Kabul newsroom +93 799 335 284))
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Taliban targeted in Pakistan, Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Airstrikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan killed more than 30 Taliban militants in the two countries, military officials said Saturday.
In Pakistan, officials said a jet fighter attack resulted in 30 militants killed, one of whom was an alleged high-ranking Taliban leader, CNN reported Saturday.
Meanwhile in neighboring Afghanistan, U.S-led coalition forces said airstrikes Friday in Kapisa province killed several Taliban militants north of Kabul. A military spokesman told CNN air support was called in after a search for a Taliban commander in a compound resulted in coalition forces coming under heavy fire.
"Several women and children exited the compound and were moved to a safe area at which time coalition forces again came under AK-47 and RPG fire," a coalition statement said. "Coalition forces responded with precision airstrikes, killing several militants."
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Pakistan suspends militant operations for Ramadan
By Augustine Anthony
ISLAMABAD, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Pakistan announced on Saturday a suspension of military operations against Islamist militants for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, but a senior official said security forces would respond if attacked.
Violence has intensified in Pakistan in recent weeks with the military battling militants in three different parts of the northwest. The militants have responded with bomb attacks on the security forces.
Deteriorating security has coincided with a faltering economy and political upheaval, with the resignation of the unpopular Pervez Musharraf as president last week followed within days by a split in the ruling coalition.
Worry about security and politics has unnerved investors who have sent Pakistani financial markets skidding lower. The country's main share index has fallen about 36 percent this year.
The government's top Interior Ministry official, Rehman Malik, said security forces would suspend operations from Sunday night for the month of Ramadan, which ends at the beginning of October, but would retaliate if attacked.
"If militants take any action the security forces will respond with full force," Malik told reporters in the eastern city of Lahore.
Pakistani Taliban spokesmen were not immediately available for comment.
The United States and other allies have been concerned the government led by assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's party might be less committed to the unpopular war against militancy after the resignation of firm ally Musharraf.
Washington says al Qaeda and Taliban militants are based in sanctuaries in northwest Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal areas on the Afghan border, where they orchestrate attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and plot violence in the West.
TOURIST VALLEY
But the offensives by the military have eased the worry.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week after talks with Pakistan's army chief he was encouraged by the Pakistani efforts.
Some of the most intense fighting in recent weeks has been in the Swat Valley, about 150 km (100 miles) northwest of the capital, Islamabad, where the military said nearly 40 militants were killed in the latest clashes.
The military used jet fighters and helicopter gunships to attack militant positions in the Matta area on Friday, with the assault continuing into Saturday. Nearly 40 had been killed in the past 24 hours, a military spokesman said.
The mountain valley was one of Pakistan's main tourist destinations until last year, when Pakistani Taliban infiltrated from sanctuaries in lawless areas on the Afghan border to support a radical cleric campaigning for hardline rule.
The military is also battling militants in the Bajaur area on the Afghan border, across mountains to the west of Swat, and in the South Waziristan region.
In a separate incident on Saturday, a missile hit a house in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, killing five people, said a resident who saw the bodies taken out of the rubble.
The house was owned by a man known to have militant links, residents said. A security official said two of the dead were foreigners.
It was not immediately clear who fired the missile but U.S.-operated pilotless drones have attacked in Pakistani border regions several times this year, killing dozens of militants.
The fighting in the northwest has displaced about 250,000 people, most of whom are staying with friends and relatives.
But nearly 100,000 are staying in camps, some set up in schools or in open areas with little or no sanitation, raising fear of disease and concern the government might soon face a humanitarian crisis on top of its many other problems. (Additional reporting by Junaid Ali in Mingora; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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German military proposes new Afghan rail link
Reuters / August 30, 2008
KABUL: The German military is considering building a railway line in northern Afghanistan to ease transport of NATO supplies to the country and boost economic activity in the area, a German news magazine reported on Saturday.
Apart from a short stretch from Uzbekistan, Afghanistan has almost no functioning railways, with less than 25 km (15 miles) of track in the entire country. A number of railways leading towards Afghanistan stop short of the border.
The proposed 67 km (42 mile) stretch would link the northern city of Mazar-I-Sharif with the Uzbek town of Termez, where the German air force has a base, Der Spiegel magazine reported.
Germany currently has an agreement with Moscow permitting it to transport supplies via rail through Russia to Afghanistan. The new link would greatly ease supplies to Germany's biggest Afghan base at Mazar-I-Sharif.
The cost of the proposed railway has not been calculated but the military is hoping for financial contributions from Germany's development agency and from international organisations, stressing the economic benefits, Spiegel said.
The line would connect with an existing Soviet-built rail and road bridge crossing the Amu Darya River which separates the Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. The bridge, built in 1982, was closed by the Taliban in 1997 after they took control of the area and was reopened in late 2001.
Germany has more than 3,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of a NATO-led force, mostly stationed in the north.
An Iranian-funded 200 km (125 mile) railway has been under construction since 2006 linking Iran's western city of Mashad and Herat in western Afghanistan. Various proposals also exist to connect Pakistan by rail with Afghanistan in the east.
(Writing by Jonathon Burch; editing by Robert Hart)
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Envoy has insider's view of Afghanistan
Retired Ambassador Peter Tomsen speaks at NPS
Monterey County Herald, CA By KEVIN HOWE Herald Staff Writer 08/29/2008
Despite its tumultuous, often anarchic, history and ethnic diversity, Afghanistan is very much a country with a strong national identity and has been since 1747, according to a diplomat with long experience there. Retired U.S. Ambassador Peter Tomsen was at the Naval Postgraduate School on Thursday to address a session of the Leadership Development and Education for Sustained Peace program's three-day cultural awareness seminar. The conference is designed for officers and senior enlisted leaders of the Georgia Army National Guard's 48th Brigade Combat Team for their upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan enjoyed 45 years as a monarchy progressing toward democracy before a failed communist coup in 1978, followed by the Russian invasion in 1979 to bolster the "revolution," Tomsen said.
The invasion and resulting insurgency, he said, destroyed what had been built up over 45 years.
Its king, Zahir Shah, was "an enlightened monarch," he said, and Afghanistan had two democratic elections, in 1965 and 1969. A coup, followed by a coalition government including the communists, ended that in 1973, and the communist takeover attempt and invasion followed.
Generations of technocrats who were running the country were massacred, the nation was chopped up into free-fire zones and the infrastructure was systematically obliterated.
When the Russians left, the Taliban completed the destruction, he said.
"We shouldn't talk so much about reconstruction as construction," Tomsen said. Living in a "shattered zone" is nothing new to the Afghans, he said. Genghis Khan destroyed Balkh, "the mother of all cities" in Central Asia, on his path to conquest, devoting two weeks to massacring every man, woman and child in the city.
"It's a disadvantage to be the crossroads of Asia," Tomsen said.
Afghanistan has absorbed and repelled a series of invaders fighting to keep out others: England against Russia, Pakistan against India, Russia against the United States.
While various groups and tribes have fought one another, Tomsen said, Pashtuns, Uzbeks and Tajiks in the country all consider themselves Afghans and have no desire to live under the rule of Iran, Uzbekistan or Tajikistan.
Now Pakistan, still smarting from its loss of Bangladesh, is looking at the Afghan border country with trepidation, fearing Afghanistan will seek to develop a bridge between 25 million Pashtuns living in Pakistani territory and 12 million Pashtuns on its side of the border.
"The Afghans claim they have no such intention," he said. "The Pakistani military isn't buying it."
The frontier between the two nations is "the jihadi infrastructure," he said, "lots of Arabs, al-Qaida, the Islamic Movement of Uzbeks. The Pakistani military is not interested in disarming it."
Tomsen was President George H.W. Bush's special envoy on Afghanistan, with the rank of ambassador from 1989 to 1992. He later served as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and as ambassador to Armenia.
As special envoy on Afghanistan, Tomsen worked with tribal leaders, commanders and ulema, or Islamic legal scholars, who today are involved in the country's transition back to peace and self-governance. He was one of the last foreign visitors to meet Ahmed Shah Masood before Masood was assassinated Sept. 9, 2001. Tomsen has been the guest of Afghan President Hamed Karzai in Kabul and was with Karzai when he was ambushed in Kandahar.
After his retirement in November 1998, Tomsen taught advanced courses on American Foreign Policy and Eurasia at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is based in McLean, Va., where he is writing a book on Afghanistan, "Afghan Briarpatch," a history "of previous invaders."
Kevin Howe can be reached at 646-4416 or khowe@montereyherald.com.
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Archaeologists unearth Buddha statue's head in Afghanistan
[ANI] Islamabad, August 30 : French and Afghan archaeologists have unearthed the head of a Buddha statue and a precious coin in the province of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.
The statue's head belongs to the period when Buddhism thrived in the central province and the coin dates back to the time of Alexander and the Greek empire, according to Najeebullah Ahrar, the director of the information and culture department in the province.
According to a report in Pak Tribune, the team of Afghan and French archaeologists is working under the supervision of Professor Zemaryalai Tarzi, an Afghan archaeologist.
Bamiyan hit world headlines in 2001 when the Taliban destroyed the enormous Buddha statues that for centuries stood in carved niches in the cliff faces around the main town.
The town of Bamiyan is situated on the old Silk Road and became a meeting point of eastern and western cultures.
Buddhism arrived in Bamiyan in the third century with the spread of the Kushan Empire.
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Thousands more Afghan school books torched: ministry
KABUL, Aug 29, 2008 (AFP) - Unknown attackers torched about 8,300 new textbooks headed for schools in northeastern Afghanistan, the education ministry said Friday, days after 100,000 were destroyed in a similar incident.
The books were unloaded from two trucks on Thursday and then set alight, ministry of education spokesman Hamid Elmi told AFP. The drivers were unharmed, he said.
"More than 8,300 school books were torched when the trucks entered (Nuristan province)," he said. "The religious books were included in those torched by the opposition of the government."
The term "opposition" refers to Taliban and other radical Islamic factions involved in a wide-ranging insurgency that targets troops as well as government institutions and development projects.
About 100,000 books were destroyed in a similar attack in the central province of Ghazni on Monday.
Insurgents have particularly targeted schools, one of the successes of development since the fall of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime which neglected the education sector and refused to allow girls into lessons.
Violence left 220 pupils and teachers dead in 2007, the education ministry said last month. The UN's children's organisation UNICEF said in April that there had been 236 attacks on schools in 2007.
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American battalion to help Canadian forces in Afghanistan
Scott Deveau, Canwest News Service Saturday, August 30, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The United States has deployed a much-needed battalion of 800 troops to assist Canadian and Afghan Forces in Kandahar and to try to tame the province's Wild West.
While the battalion has been active in Kandahar since early July, it has only just begun its operations in the past few weeks in the Maywand district, which borders on Helmand province to the west, and will serve as its new home.
Until now, insurgents have been using Maywand as a corridor to move soldiers, money, and weapons into Kandahar from Pakistan, through the Helmand River Basin. A lack of security in Maywand has helped feed the insurgency in such hotly contested areas as Zhari and Panjwaii in Kandahar, which have been the epicentre of the fighting here this summer.
The new troops come from the 2-2 Infantry Battalion assigned to the third brigade of the first infantry division of the U.S. army and are based in Fort Hood, Tx. The battalion is better known as the "Ramrods" or the "2-2s".
The battalion, which will now fall under the command and control of the Canadian Forces, will serve a vital role in disrupting the activities of insurgents in Maywand, which has lacked a permanent presence by Coalition and Afghan forces due to a lack of personnel, according to Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, Canada's top soldier in Kandahar.
"This district is a key district. It's key as a logistics hub for the movement of insurgent fighters, arms and money, and the presence of 2-2 infantry will disrupt these activities and have a real impact on the security picture here in Kandahar," Brig.-Gen. Thompson said a news conference at the Kandahar Air Field Saturday morning.
He added that the new U.S. troops will assist the Canadian and Afghan forces by "choking off" this vital lifeline for the insurgency.
In order to take control of Zhari and Panjwaii, Brig.-Gen. has already asked Kabul for 4,000 trained police officers, up from the 1,000 currently trained here, and another battalion of Afghan National Army troops, in addition to more support from Canada's NATO allies.
The new U.S. troops got their first look at Maywand in early August as part of a recent operation in the district led by Canadian and Afghan forces that yielded caches of weapons, opium, and materials for building IEDs.
"The biggest challenge we now face is getting a feel for the area, because no one has been out there for so long," said Lt.-Col. Daniel Hurlbut, commanding officer of the Ramrods.
The battalion's 15-month deployment in Kandahar comes at a time when both Brig.-Gen. Thompson and Defence Minister Peter MacKay have been lobbying Canada's NATO allies for more support in the volatile region of Afghanistan, where the bulk of Canada's 2,500 troops here are stationed.
Brig.-Gen. Thompson called the Ramrods' presence in Kandahar an "interim measure" while Ottawa decides how it will meet the recommendation contained in the Manley report, which, among other things, called for an additional 1,000 troops on the ground in Kandahar.
The Ramrods' presence in Kandahar has been one of the more poorly guarded secrets here, but was one that could not be reported earlier due to security reasons.
Its 800 troops will be deployed here in a combat capacity and will add to the 1,000 infantry and combat armed soldiers Canada has in the province.
Lt.-Col. Hurlbut said the battalion has been meeting with the locals in Maywand over the past few weeks in order to establish what will be needed to win their loyalty for the Karzai government and to reject to the Taliban.
"100 per cent of them say security," he said, adding that agricultural support for crops other than poppies is a close second.
"The system that does function, is the illicit system, which we are clearly staying away from," he said. " It will be a challenge to get a legal crop and agricultural system up and running."
He said the population of Maywand is essentially split down the middle over the troops' presence in the district.
Many have seen coalition forces establish a presence in the area, only to move on after a few weeks, leaving the district, and its people, in the hands of insurgents.
Backgrounder:
The Ramrods borrow their name from a drum baton that was presented to the regiment in 1843, which was built out of a rod used for packing and cleaning cannons. There was a silver knob attached the top of the baton inscribed with the regimental motto "Noli Me Tengere" or "Do not touch me." During the U.S.- Mexico wars in 1847, the baton was broken over the head of a Mexican commander and has since become the symbol of the regiment.
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Traffic at military hospital tells tale of Taliban toll
Santa Barbara News Press, California - World
GLORIA GALLOWAY August 29, 2008 Scripps Howard News Service
KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan-If there is a gauge by which the toll of the Taliban can be measured, it is here at the military hospital tucked just off the runway at the Kandahar Air Field.
The Role 3 medical facility, a collection of tents and aging, low-lying buildings, treated more patients in July than any other unit of its kind in Afghanistan or Iraq.
That is partly because the security situation in Iraq is improving. But it is also attributable to the increasing number of people -- soldiers and civilians, adults and children -- arriving at the Kandahar base with war injuries.
The exact numbers of casualties are not made public because the military doesn't want the insurgents to know just what kind of damage they have inflicted.
But Lt. Col. Scott McLeod, the health-services support commanding officer, estimates there has been a year-over-year increase in ''patient volume'' of about 20 percent to 30 percent.
''Most of our patients who come in as trauma patients have been exposed to either a blast injury from an IED (improvised explosive device) or some other explosive event, or a penetrating trauma from gunshot wounds or shrapnel or RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) or things like that,'' McLeod said.
''So we see amputations of arms and legs, we see penetrating trauma to the belly or the chest. And because we are also the neurosurgical capability for all of RC (Regional Command) South, we see a lot of head trauma here as well. And that again is also blunt trauma -- blast trauma as well as penetrating trauma from gunshot wounds.''
The records of all of those patients are kept in a U.S. database called the Joint Theater Trauma System, which lists every person who passes through a military hospital in Afghanistan or Iraq.
''For the month of July, for all of the reporting facilities, we had the highest number of casualties coming into our facility,'' McLeod said.
The increase is not attributable to a corresponding climb in casualties among Canadians. In fact, the military says the number of Canadians hurt during their tactical operations is on a slight decline.
''There are increased numbers of Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police casualties which would, from my perspective, be attributable to their increased role in operations,'' said Capt. Chris Quinlan, a staff operations officer in the current operations branch.
''I have a hard time saying there is any success or anything positive related to casualties. But I would say it's attributable to the fact that they (the Afghans) are doing their job better. They are going places they never would have gone before and taking a lead role that they would not have taken before.''
There is also an acknowledgment that the Taliban are more aggressive this year than they have been in the past and more civilians have been caught in the crossfire, or have accidentally walked into a trap set for coalition forces.
The Role 3 squeezes many highly trained medical professionals into tight quarters. It boasts general surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, maxillofacial (jaw and face) surgeons, critical-care internal-medicine specialists, critical-care nurses, a radiologist, psychologists, emergency physicians, family physicians, lab technicians, X-ray technicians and a host of others.
Despite the increase in patients, the specialists are here in about the same numbers as they were last year.
But McLeod says he and his staff have found a way of coping: ''We work hard.''
And most people who have been treated are not allowed to linger.
''If our hospital is full, we have to transfer patients out,'' McLeod said.
Coalition troops who need more care are quickly sent to hospitals in Europe. And Afghans are moved to the local ANA medical facility.
So, unless Afghans are in critical condition, they will be delivered in short order into the hands of their own doctors. That is true of both Afghan military personnel and civilians. And it is true of the large number of children who come in as victims of the conflict.
''These are the innocent people of any war and it's very traumatizing on a lot of nursing staff and the clinicians that are looking after kids on a daily basis,'' McLeod said, ''but these are medical professionals that know how to look after patients whether those patients are here or back home.''
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
AP-NY-08-29-08 1449EDT
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Aussies dismiss Afghan abuse charges
Press TV (Iran) Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:38:42 GMT
The Australian military investigators have cleared its combat troops of beating or humiliating prisoners detained in war-torn Afghanistan.
The inquiry by Colonel David Connery, in a report released Friday, found that medical evidence and witness statements did not support the allegations." Based on the evidence available to me I do not believe any of the detainees were beaten up, stripped naked or mistreated by the Australian FE (force element) on April 29-30, 2008."
He added while the men may have been "manhandled" during detention and tactical questioning, the lack of significant physical injuries led him to conclude that the force used against each detainee was "reasonable and humane."
The accusations related to the treatment of four suspected insurgents, including a 70-year-old man and a 25-year-old with only one leg, who were held in the southern province of Uruzgan following a battle with Taliban fighters.
Among the complaints leveled against the Australian troops were that the detainees were "stripped naked, beaten and mistreated" and that they had been subjected to "too rough" handling.
The Australian Defense Force was forced to investigate the claims after an Afghan army officer objected to the treatment of the prisoners and complained to a senior Afghan national army commander. The young officer had seen a an old man, who was not wearing trousers when captured, and a disabled man being detained and secured overnight in walled pens.
Australia has about 1,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Earlier, the Australian military had cleared its troops of any wrongdoing in a battle in Afghanistan last November during which two women and a baby were killed.
The report is bound to worsen relations between the Afghan government and the US alliance forces stationed in the country, analysts say.
The report also came after the Afghan government said on Monday it would renegotiate the terms of US-led troops in the country following hundreds of reports of civilian deaths by torture.The cabinet is also demanding US-led troops halt air strikes on civilians, illegal detentions and unilateral house searches.
According to an official count some 3,200 people have been killed in the violence-wracked country so far this year, most of them civilians.
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Afghanistan's Poppy Fields
Drugs and the insurgency feed each other so they must be fought together if the western forces are going to succeed, officials say
Canada.com, Canada Scott Deveau Canwest News Service Friday, August 29, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - An old man waits with his two sons outside of a United Nation's distribution centre on a scorching hot August day in Kandahar City.
They have been lured from the Arghandab district west of the city by the promise of a single bag of wheat to bring back to their impoverished family. He says he arrived here at 8 a.m., but four hours later he, along with dozens of others, still doesn't have his wheat, and he's losing his patience.
"This seed is not for growing," he explains, "It's for eating."
While he grows corn on his farm, he says he hasn't produced enough to feed his family.
So, it's not really surprising then when asked if he has ever grown poppies to help supplement his income, he hesitantly admits he has.
"If my children fill their stomachs, I don't care about the poppy," he says, asking not to be named because of the sensitive nature of the topic.
Not only are poppies difficult to grow, requiring much weeding and watering, but it's illegal to grow them here and drug use runs counter to his Muslim beliefs, he says.
But finding a market for other crops and affording the seeds in advance is beyond his means.
The opium smugglers in Kandahar, on the other hand, like everywhere else in the country, pay upfront for the poppy, and they come to collect the sticky opium tar afterwards.
The certainty of income and ease to market has proven too much of a temptation.
"I grow the poppy to feed my family," he says.
The head of the counter-narcotics efforts in Kandahar says if Canada and its NATO allies are serious about wiping out the opium trade in his province, they need to start providing short-term loans to farmers before the planting season begins in the coming weeks so they can afford to grow alternative crops this year, such as wheat.
"Our farmers have financial problems and they need things like good seed, tractors and other farm equipment," said Gul Mohammad Shukran - Kandahar's director of drug control. "If you can't get people to grow wheat, then they produce poppies, and we have more addicts, crime, and other social problems."
Shukran warns if Canada and its partners fail to provide these short-term loans, then the drug smugglers, and the insurgents they support, will be more than happy to.
Earlier this week, the UN released its annual survey of opium cultivation in Afghanistan. It found opium production was down 19 per cent compared to last year, and 18 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces are now opium-free. That's up from 13 last year, due in part to stronger local leadership and bad weather.
Those successes, however, were marred by some more troubling figures, in particular for Kandahar and six other provinces in the south - Helmand, Uruzgan, Farah Nimroz, Daykundi, and Zabul.
The UN says these provinces are responsible for 98 per cent of the opium produced in Afghanistan, and Helmand alone accounts for two-thirds.
With more than 90 per cent of world's heroin derived from Afghan opium, it's easy to see the impact the southwest corner of the country is having on the rest of the world, and Afghanistan itself.
"There is now a perfect overlap between zones of high risk and regions of high opium cultivation," said Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. "Since drugs are funding insurgency, and insurgency enables drug cultivation, insurgency and narcotics must be fought together."
The UN numbers also hide the fact the drop in opium production is largely attributable to a drought that hit several regions in the country this year, according to the Senlis Council, an international think-tank with offices in Kabul.
"With no crop to sell, many Afghan farmers now face a heavy burden of debt which can only be repaid by planting more poppy in the coming season," said Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of the Senlis Council.
While the think-tank has long advocated for using the Afghan poppy harvest for legal medicinal purpose, such as morphine, Shukran would rather see the poppy eradicated entirely from Kandahar and he advocates for more funding for farmers so that they are given a choice between wheat and other crops rather than poppies.
The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is already one of the largest donors to the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA), which provides small loans - often less than $1,000 - to Afghans across the country.
The loans are used to start new businesses, to buy land and animals, or to support the poor.
They are given to those who normally would be denied access to such services because they lack any collateral to cover the loans.
To date, CIDA has donated more than $96 million to MISFA, which was established in 2003, and has allocated another $40 million for this year alone.
As of June 2008, MISFA had a portfolio of $113 million in loans to more than 448 thousand Afghans, and the international community has lauded it for its efforts.
But Canadian officials readily admit hardly anything is being done in the rural areas of Kandahar, in part because it's still not secure enough to implement such a system.
Southern Afghanistan only accounts for two per cent of MISFA total savings and loans clients, according to CIDA figures.
In the north, however, where things are more secure, such loans are common.
Donors fear insurgents will harass or even kill farmers who take the loans in rural areas of Kandahar so that they won't be able to repay the loans, crumbling the fragile microfinancing system in Afghanistan as they do.
Canada has concentrated its efforts in fighting the opium trade in Afghanistan by making it easier for farmers here to grow and find markets for alternative crops.
In addition to building roads and starting major irrigation projects, such as repairing the Dahla Dam, they are active in trying to find markets for Afghan grapes, pomegranates, and wheat in neighboring countries like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and India.
Meanwhile, the Afghan National Security Forces have been left with the task of eradication.
Last year, the ANA led eradication campaigns in 10 of Kandahar's 17 districts and eliminated roughly 4,000 hectares of poppy, or about 40 per cent of the harvest.
However, it's not an easy task.
Seventeen armed Afghan National Army soldiers were gunned down earlier this year by insurgents in two separate attacks during their eradication campaign in the Maywand district in western Kandahar, Shukran says.
Nevertheless, Shukran - Kandahar's director of drug control - argues there are many areas in Kandahar that are secure enough to support short-term lending, such as Dand, Spin Boldack. Daman, and Takhtapool.
He argues if those districts, where the insurgents reside, see the progress that is being made in other more stable districts, it will provide an incentive for residents to oust the insurgents from their own backyard.
"They will look at these other districts and see the progress they are making and will not let the insurgents stay," he said. "If they have a choice of crops, they will choose something other than poppies."
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FM: Afghanistan wants enhancing relations with SCO member states
www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-30 18:50:04
KABUL, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said Saturday that Kabul wants to develop bilateral relations with the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
"We want to develop our bilateral relations with the member states of Shanghai Cooperation Organization and this is important for Afghanistan," Spanta told a news conference.
The Afghan top diplomat who accompanied President Hamid Karzai at the recently concluded SCO summit in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe also stressed that Kabul is in close contact and cooperation with SCO member states.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai attended the summit as observer where the situation in Afghanistan, war on terror and drug problem came under discussion. China, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are the members of the SCO while Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iran and Magnolia attended the summit as observers this year.
Editor: Bi Mingxin
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