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Afghan commission says US troops fired on first
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan army commander told a government investigative commission that U.S. and Afghan troops were fired on first from the Afghan village where the commission says scores of civilians
Reborn Afghan air force takes off
by Herve Asquin Sat Aug 30, 11:51 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - At the south end of the runway at Kabul's international airport, a large hangar covers three helicopters that make up the "presidential squad" reserved for the country's leader Hamid Karzai.
1 NATO soldier killed in southern Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO says a roadside blast in southern Afghanistan has killed one of its soldiers.
Report: Obama plans troop shift to Afghanistan
By Pamela Hess Associated Press via Philly.com - Aug 31 12:44 AM
WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama reportedly told the top military commander in Iraq that some U.S. forces should be pulled out of Iraq and deployed to Afghanistan.
Canadian-designed tool will save Afghan lives
August 31, 2008 By Tobi Cohen THE CANADIAN PRESS
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Canadian Forces medical mentors are hoping a simple contraption they’ve created will help save the lives of seriously injured Afghan soldiers and police officers who are dying in large numbers
MPs criticise Khurram's Olympic ban
www.quqnoos.com Written by Tamim Hamid Saturday, 30 August 2008
Private TV banned from broadcasting live return of national hero
MEMBERS of Parliament have strongly criticised the minister for information and culture, Abdul Khurram, for his decision to ban live broadcasts of the country's first Olympic medalist as he returned to Kabul.
Taliban ambushes threaten Nato's vital logistics route into Afghanistan
Taliban fighters are trying to strangle Nato's mission in Afghanistan by stepping up attacks on convoys in the Khyber Pass, the perilous mountain trail that carries most supplies into the country.
Barking Afghanistan warriors in it for tennis balls
August 31, 2008, 5:32 pm
CAMP BASTION, Afghanistan (Reuters) - They always follow orders, they'll eat canned food and all they want to do is work, work, work -- they're the unsung dogs of war.
U.S. battalion bolsters Canada's Afghan mission
Their role under Canadian command is to control insurgent hub near Kandahar
Scott Deveau, Canwest News Service Sunday, August 31, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The U.S. 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.
Afghanistan's opium crop sowing misery for women
A few find help beating addiction and getting jobs
By JAMES PALMER Newhouse News Service Aug. 30, 2008, 6:00PM
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Under a wine-colored burqa that flows from the crown of her head down over her body, Khadija sat cross-legged, spinning the wheel of a sewing machine and methodically
Romanian soldier killed in Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-31 23:40:21 Print
BUCHAREST, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- A Romanian soldier was killed and another four were injured while on patrol in Afghanistan on Sunday, the Romanian Defense Ministry said.
German Army Convoy Comes Under Attack in Afghanistan
31.08.2008 Deutsche Welle
Four days after an attack on a German Army patrol in Afghanistan claimed one soldier's life, a Bundeswehr patrol came under attack when a roadside bomb exploded on Sunday. No one was injured.
Bundeswehr Considers Building New Afghan Railway
30.08.2008 Deutsche Welle, Germany
The German military are mulling plans to build a 67-kilometer (42-mile) railway in Afghanistan to haul in supplies from nearby Uzbekistan, a German newsmagazine reported.
Shooting prompts calls for Germans to leave Afghanistan
Sunday, 31 August, 2008, 08:28 AM Doha Time
BERLIN: A tragic incident in which German soldiers shot dead three Afghan civilian occupants of a car prompted calls in Germany yesterday to pull German troops out of Afghanistan.
Pakistani Taliban vow to strike during Ramadan
By Kamran Haider Sunday, August 31, 2008; 10:35 AM
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani Taliban will continue attacks during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, rejecting a government announcement it would halt military action in the northwest, a Taliban spokesman said on Sunday.
Army told to switch its Afghan tactics
UN's warning after rise in civilian casualties
The Guardian Mark Townsend The Observer Sunday August 31 2008
Senior British military commanders in Afghanistan have been told to change their military tactics in the face of mounting civilian casualties.
Afghanistan-Ir an-Pakistan book exhibit underway in Kabul
Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug 31, IRNA
The joint Iran-Pakistan- Afghanistan book fair opened in Kabul on Sunday.
Highway repair work will 'improve security'
www.quqnoos.com Written by Ghafoor Saboory Saturday, 30 August 2008
Governor urges residents to protect road crews from insurgent attacks
WORK to re-surface a 110km section of the Gardez-Khost highway began this week amid hopes that the new road would increase security and business in the south-east.
'Gov't squandered money on low quality books'
www.quqnoos.com Written by Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Sunday, 31 August 2008
Students and teachers say new school books are difficult to read
STUDENTS and teachers in Kabul have complained about the poor print quality of new school books.
Car crash kills three and injures five, police say
www.quqnoos.com Written by Noorullah Rahmani Saturday, 30 August 2008
Car on its way to Baghlan collides head on with another car
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Afghan commission says US troops fired on first
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan army commander told a government investigative commission that U.S. and Afghan troops were fired on first from the Afghan village where the commission says scores of civilians were killed, a report released Sunday said.
The chief of staff for the Herat corps of the Afghan army told the head of the government's investigative commission that shots were fired from the village of Azizabad at U.S. and Afghan troops in the early morning hours of Aug. 22.
But the report, released by the office of President Hamid Karzai, did not specify who fired the shots.
"When the ANA (Afghan army) and coalition troops got close to the village, firing started after the ANA unit stopped, and the coalition forces conducted the operation in the village," the report said.
However, the report also said that, according to the people in Azizabad, security institutions and "the eyewitnesses of the delegation," all of the victims of the operation were civilian.
"Among the victims, there is not any foreign or internal Taliban," the report said.
The commission found that 90 people were killed in the Azizabad operation: 15 men, 15 women and 60 children. That finding was backed by a preliminary U.N. report. The commission said eight houses were destroyed and seven damaged.
The U.S.-led coalition maintains that 25 militants and five civilians died in the operation. The U.S. has said it is investigating the incident.
The top NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the U.S.-led coalition, Afghan government and U.N. would launch a probe into the raid in Azizabad. A U.N. spokesman, Dan McNorton, said details of the investigation were still to be worked out.
The statement from Karzai's office on Sunday did not mention any joint investigation, and no Afghan government officials have confirmed that the government would participate.
Ahmad Nader Nadery, the head of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, has said that a villager named Reza, whose compound bore the brunt of the attack, had a private security company that worked for the U.S. military at nearby Shindand airport.
Villagers and officials have said the operation was based on faulty information provided by Reza's rival, Nader Tawakal. Attempts to locate Tawakal have failed. Aziz Ahmad Nadem, a member of parliament from Herat, has told the AP that Tawakal is now being protected by the U.S. military.
The report released Sunday did not appear to be the commission's final findings, but rather the thoughts of the chief of the delegation, Neyamatullah Shahrani, Afghanistan's minister of religious affairs.
The ANA chief of staff in Herat told the delegation that around 45 commandos — the Afghan army's most elite soldiers — went with the U.S. forces to Azizabad. But he said the Afghan units did not enter the village.
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 90 civilian deaths by the Afghan government and U.N. has caused new friction between Karzai and his Western supporters.
Karzai has castigated Western military commanders over civilian deaths resulting from their raids. The Taliban and other insurgents use the deaths as leverage to turn Afghans away from the government, he says.
But claims of civilian deaths 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.
Afghan officials say U.S. special forces 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 Tawakal. Reza, who was killed in the Aug. 22 operation, is Shah's brother.
___
Associated Press reporter Amir Shah contributed to this report.
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Reborn Afghan air force takes off
by Herve Asquin Sat Aug 30, 11:51 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - At the south end of the runway at Kabul's international airport, a large hangar covers three helicopters that make up the "presidential squad" reserved for the country's leader Hamid Karzai.
The gleaming Mi-17s come with VIP cabins, comfortable sofas, large leather armchairs, satellite telephones and flat screen TVs. Their crew and mechanics are Afghans, but the instructors are American.
Also under cover are about 30 other aircraft. This is the Afghan National Air Corps, the embryo of the country's future air force.
The helicopters are a symbol of the rebirth of a force that had its moment of glory at the time of the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
The country then had several hundred military aircraft -- transport and attack helicopters, fighter jets, bombers -- enough air power to worry its neighbours.
But the retreat of the Soviets was the death knell of this force, quickly reduced to a handful of aircraft left in the hands of the anti-Soviet Northern Alliance under the late Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Taliban.
The last craft were destroyed in the US offensive launched in October 2001 against the Taliban regime, following the September 11 attacks on the United States.
In a few weeks, however, the Afghan Air Corps is due to move into a new base built by the United States on the other side of the runway -- the north of the airport.
The cost is 183 million dollars, a bill that reflects the scale of the plan.
"Basically, it's a self-contained city that we are building here," said one US officer.
The 1,300 or so residents of the base will benefit from modern installations: barracks, an Mi-17 flight simulator, hospital, post office, electric generators and a conference centre.
Still empty, two gigantic hangars -- designed to American standards and to resist seismic activity -- will accommodate the aircraft of the Afghan National Army, the interior ministry and the presidency.
As Moscow once did, Washington provides everything and looks after everything. The Afghan pilots are trained here and abroad -- in Ukraine and the United States.
A number of them are pure products of the Soviet flying school, hence the decision to initially put them in aircraft from the ex-Soviet bloc.
"They are very well trained," said the instructor of the presidential flying team, Captain Nick Noreus.
"I have been training them like Westerners. So they're able to navigate with a map, talk on the radio," he said.
"They would have no problem flying in a US formation. They use Western style flying. They are good pilots. They have been flying since the Russian times."
For the time being, the Afghan Air Corps has 17 MI-17 transport helicopters and three MI-35 attack helicopters as well as six Antonov transport planes.
From now until 2011, this fleet is expected to grow to 49 Mi-17 and 18 Italian C-27A transport planes, which will replace the Antonovs.
So as not to be relegated to troop transportation and medical evacuation, the Afghan air force should receive between now and 2012-2013 small combat planes with single motors and propellers capable of carrying rockets and bombs.
In the meantime, and as a souvenir of its glorious past, the force has to be content with two L-39, Czech-made training jets that are unarmed and fly only on military parades.
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1 NATO soldier killed in southern Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO says a roadside blast in southern Afghanistan has killed one of its soldiers.
A statement by the military alliance says the soldier died of wounds sustained in the roadside bombing Sunday.
NATO did not release the soldier's nationality or the exact location of the attack.
Southern Afghanistan is the center of the Taliban-led insurgency.
More than 3,700 people _ mostly militants _ have died in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan this year.
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Report: Obama plans troop shift to Afghanistan
By Pamela Hess Associated Press via Philly.com - Aug 31 12:44 AM
WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama reportedly told the top military commander in Iraq that some U.S. forces should be pulled out of Iraq and deployed to Afghanistan.
At their July meeting in Baghdad, Gen. David Petraeus did not disclose his opinion on moving troops from one war to the other, according to an article in the Sept. 8 issue of the New Yorker magazine.
But Petraeus will soon be in a position to oversee such a move if President Bush decides to shift some forces.
Petraeus takes over U.S. Central Command next month, where he will have responsibility for military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the Middle East. In the meantime, he is expected to recommend a modest cut in troop levels in Iraq to the president in the next few weeks, a reflection of the improved security situation.
There are currently 15 combat brigades in Iraq and a total of 146,000 troops, including tens of thousands that perform support, rather than direct combat, functions.
Obama has made bolstering the war effort in Afghanistan a central campaign point and has criticized the Bush administration for diverting troops and attention to Iraq.
"I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan," the Illinois senator said in his nomination-acceptance speech in Denver on Thursday.
Petraeus told Obama his goal was to get U.S. forces out of the daily Iraq fight as soon as possible and said military commanders needed politicians to give them the flexibility to manage the pace of the drawdown, the magazine reported.
The magazine describes the meeting based on interviews with Petraeus and Sen. Jack Reed (D., R.I.).
Obama has called for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops along a 16-month timeline. He favors leaving a force behind to help counter terrorists, protect U.S. facilities, and train Iraqis.
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Canadian-designed tool will save Afghan lives
August 31, 2008 By Tobi Cohen THE CANADIAN PRESS
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Canadian Forces medical mentors are hoping a simple contraption they’ve created will help save the lives of seriously injured Afghan soldiers and police officers who are dying in large numbers compared to coalition troops, often because they haven’t got the tools needed to handle a medical emergency.
It all started in February, just weeks after the latest batch of Canadian troops arrived in Kandahar. An Afghan soldier accidentally set off a rocket-propelled grenade inside a bunker at a base in Zhari district while cleaning his weapon following a patrol.
Three of the four soldiers who died that day bled out because they didn’t have tourniquets, a simple device used to cut off circulation to an injured limb, effectively stopping the bleeding.
While tourniquets are controversial, even in western countries, as they can lead to loss of limb if kept on too long, they’re considered essential on the battlefield.
“I was pretty pissed off about it,” said Capt. Mike McBride, a member of Canada’s Operational Mentor and Liaison Team who is helping to train Afghan medics as well as infantrymen in tactical first aid.
“Most of us are carrying two, three, four (tourniquets) with us in our kit. These poor guys didn’t have any. They had a rifle and there was no way for them to make an expedient tourniquet. It just wasn’t in their training.”
By the time Canadian soldiers arrived on scene there was little they could do.
“Massive injuries like that, it doesn’t take long for someone to bleed out,” McBride said.
Following the incident, McBride’s medical team looked into the cost of acquiring Canadian army-issued tourniquets, enough for the brigade of 3,900 plus training stock, but at $33 apiece, they had to come up with a less expensive alternative.
“Nobody was going to come up with (the money). We decided to design our own and see if we could get them manufactured in Kandahar City,” he said.
“It covers a lot of bases. One, it saves lives, and two, it pumps some money into the local economy.”
The medics reviewed the types of materials available in Kandahar, consulted with a materials technician and parachute riggers and determined it would be possible to produce a simple tourniquet locally.
It consists of a piece of army green nylon webbing with two loops sewn in using high quality thread. It’s wrapped around the limb above the wound, McBride and a colleague demonstrated, and is tightened using a section of a C7 rifle cleaning rod which acts as a windlass. It costs a mere $3.
The design was finalized in April and an initial production run of 100 tourniquets was introduced to the first aid training program.
About 1,900 of them have already been distributed among Afghan soldiers and police who are being mentored by Canadians and there are some 8,000 in the pipeline. McBride is hoping the project will be extended throughout the Afghan security force.
The Canadian tourniquets also come with a simple pictorial instruction chart and practical training session.
“We wanted to make it very simple. Pictures work well for these guys because literacy is a huge issue,” McBride said.
“We actually put them on the clock and the goal is to get it done in 30 seconds or less to save the limb.”
In the middle of a firefight, McBride said that’s about as much time a soldier has to save an injured comrade from bleeding to death before he has to pick up his rifle and continue fighting the enemy.
“It’s amazing what a bag of Jolly Ranchers will do,” he said. “There’s prizes for the top student of the morning. They’re very competitive once you get them spooled up.”
Using photographs of a western model as opposed to an Afghan for the instruction sheet was also a conscious decision, McBride said.
If Afghans see coalition forces using the tourniquets, they’re more likely to use the same piece of equipment.
“They’re looking for role models,” he said. “It’s funny. They try to emulate us. If they see something that we think is cool, they think it’s cool too.”
Training the Afghan police and army so they can take over responsibility for the country’s security is key to Canada’s 2011 combat exit strategy from Afghanistan.
Soldiers receive three days of basic medical skills training and the Afghan medics get three weeks of first aid training aimed at bringing them to combat life saver standard.
McBride’s team mentors a company of about 72 medics who will accompany infantry patrols much the same way Canadian medics do.
While the Afghan army’s medical capabilities have “increased incredibly,” since McBride’s team began working with them, he said they continue to rely heavily on their mentors for air lifts and advanced medical care.
Properly training intensive care nurses and trauma surgeons will take years, he said, noting Canada does seem to have a “reasonable plan” in place to get the Afghan security force to where it needs to be.
Still, he believes a major impediment to the process, at least from his perspective as a medical mentor with 33 years of experience and seven overseas operations under his belt, is Canada’s six-month rotation.
“There’s a lot of turmoil in their life and we keep switching up mentors,” he said, noting a nine-month rotation would make more sense.
“Socialization is a huge part of being a mentor and it takes a couple of months to get into their head space and timing and for them to get into yours.”
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MPs criticise Khurram's Olympic ban
www.quqnoos.com Written by Tamim Hamid Saturday, 30 August 2008
Private TV banned from broadcasting live return of national hero
MEMBERS of Parliament have strongly criticised the minister for information and culture, Abdul Khurram, for his decision to ban live broadcasts of the country's first Olympic medalist as he returned to Kabul. This week, the ministry, headed by Khurram, banned all television stations from broadcasting live pictures of Olympic hero Nikpai Rohullah’s triumphant homecoming after the taekwondo superstar won bronze at the Beijing games.
Only the state-owned RTA channel was allowed to run the pictures on live television.
On Sunday, the ministry banned Tolo TV from broadcasting a meeting which all other television stations were allowed to show, drawing strong criticism from MPs and journalism unions.
Head of the union for free media Sediqullah Towhidi said: "The Imam Azam seminar was broadcast on all TV stations apart from Tolo.
"If the information and culture ministry believes it can increase the viewers of the national television by creating such bans, then it has failed."
Member of Parliament for Herat, Maulawi Gul Ahmad, said: "This is against the law to create bans against a TV channel, and not to allow it to publish a report."
MP for Badakhshan, Fouzia Kofi, said: "When a TV channel does not allow another TV channel to enter a conference it means that the wrongs of the pasta re being repeated.
"It means that a special group, person, minister or deputy minister stands against free media and the freedom of speech."
Analysts say the media and journalists have faced many barriers in Afghanistan over the past year, including government threats to switch off "un-Islamic" programmes and physical harrassment.
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Taliban ambushes threaten Nato's vital logistics route into Afghanistan
Taliban fighters are trying to strangle Nato's mission in Afghanistan by stepping up attacks on convoys in the Khyber Pass, the perilous mountain trail that carries most supplies into the country.
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom By Nick Meo in Peshawar, Pakistan 31 Aug 2008
Using age-old guerrilla tactics, they hijack or destroy the ponderous lorries creeping up the narrow road and sell the contents in local bazaars to finance new raids.
A prominent, independent tribesman from the Khyber region, who cannot be named for his own safety, told The Sunday Telegraph that the Pakistani army was close to losing control of the pass.
"You see vehicles destroyed by rockets on the side of the road," he said. "The wreckage isn't there for long, the army soon removes it to make it look as if they are still in control of the road. But they are on the verge of losing it."
The number of attacks on supply convoys is a military secret, but the tribesman claimed they were occurring almost daily. Earlier this year 42 oil tankers were destroyed in one attack.
Drivers are paid high wages to risk their lives. One driver, Momin Khan Darwish, said: "If there is a more dangerous job in Pakistan, I would like to know what it is." Others describe finding threatening letters from the Taliban pinned to their lorries.
About 70 per cent of the fuel, clothes and food needed by Nato's mission is transported in civilian Pakistani trucks through the Khyber Pass, a vulnerable point in a long route to Kabul which begins in the Pakistani port of Karachi.
The route is too risky to transport weapons and munitions, and most British supplies travel on the southern route from Quetta to Helmand.
There were hopes that Russia would ease Nato's difficulties by granting access through its territory later this year, but that is now in doubt after the war in Georgia.
"If Nato lost control of the pass, there is no doubt that other routes would be found," said Matthew Clements, the Eurasia analyst for Jane's Country Risk. "But they are more difficult and expensive. It would interfere with the smooth running of the operation."
Brigadier-General Richard Blanchett, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, acknowledged the raids, but denied they were affecting the mission. "There is certainly some enemy action on this supply route," he said. "But it has no impact on our mission in Afghanistan."
However, the tribesman said things were much worse now than in the past. "You used to see a lot of oil tankers that were damaged but the chassis and the engine were fine," he said. "Now it's different."
The lorries' cargoes are then sold in Peshawar's thieves' bazaars, where looted US Army and Marines Corps uniforms and equipment are openly displayed for sale.
Before being shooed away by an angry stallholder, The Sunday Telegraph saw a uniform with the surname "Franklin" emblazoned on the right breast and a book called "On Killing" with a photo of a soldier in Iraq on the cover.
Maps, entrenching tools, US military rations packs and even US medals turn up in stalls set up in a labyrinthine warren where the road heads out of Peshawar city and into a tribal area. US Army helmets are popular with motorcyclists and cricketers.
Farzana Raja, a spokeswoman for Pakistan's interior ministry, insisted that security forces will hold the Khyber Pass. She said: "The government is aware of these attacks on convoys in the Khyber region and it is one of the reasons why we have had a major military operation there in the past few weeks."
The Taliban's tactics are similar to those used by Mujahideen guerrillas in the 1980s who crippled the Soviet Army by attacking supply convoys.
The militants carrying out the attacks are a rag-tag bunch of heavily-armed warlords waiting outside Peshawar's city gates. Most have only recently begun calling themselves Taliban.
Pakistani journalists in Peshawar say the private armies are well-financed and armed, and will receive a fresh infusion of money next month when donations rise during Ramadan.
The Pakistan Army meanwhile is suffering from low morale and high desertion rates, especially because after years of being indoctrinated to fight Hindu Indian soldiers they are now being sent against fellow Muslims in a bloody war that looks unwinnable to many Pakistanis.
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Barking Afghanistan warriors in it for tennis balls
August 31, 2008, 5:32 pm
CAMP BASTION, Afghanistan (Reuters) - They always follow orders, they'll eat canned food and all they want to do is work, work, work -- they're the unsung dogs of war.
When British troops go on patrol in Afghanistan , they're increasingly taking specialist canine teams along with them, trained to sniff out buried bombs, concealed explosives or suspected Taliban militants hiding in the undergrowth.
Since roadside bombs laid under pressure plates have become one of the Taliban 's most-favoured and most-lethal weapons, the eager four-legged warriors and their handlers have become an indispensable aid in the grinding seven-year-old conflict.
"They're out there every day, on the frontlines," said Major Chris Ham of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, who commands a unit of 20 handlers and dogs in Helmand, a violent province of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban remains strong.
"If the infantry are out on the ground, then the dogs and handlers are out there in front of them, making sure it's okay to go ahead. They're basically saving lives."
Dogs have played a part in British military operations at least since World War Two, but since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , where crude explosive devices have been put to ever deadlier effect, their use has more than tripled.
Six years ago there were barely 100 dog handlers in the military, now there are around 350, according to Ham, and demand is growing all the time as commanders realise the impact the highly-trained dogs can make in sniffing out bombs, checking suspicious vehicles, guarding and chasing down militants.
"This is asymmetric warfare, with the enemy hitting us with improvised explosive devices," said Ham. "There's nothing out there that can find those things as quickly and efficiently as a dog can. Technology isn't as good in this environment."
DOG DAY AFTERNOON
The dogs may have to live in a war zone and in heat that can soar to 45 degrees centigrade, but otherwise it's pretty much a dog's life for the Labradors, Springer spaniels and German shepherds that make up the canine unit.
They each live in a large, air-conditioned pen that costs 50,000 pounds and are fed twice a day to keep their energy levels up. They may have to work every day for up to two years on the trot, but it's work the handlers say they love.
"With dogs, if they don't like it, they won't do it," said Ham. "You can't force a dog to work."
Of course, the job also comes with its dangers for them. Last month a handler and his dog were killed by a Taliban -fired rocket-propelled grenade in northern Helmand. There are concerns their effectiveness has now made them militant targets.
As well as explosives, there are dogs trained to detect fighters hiding out in bushes or buildings, capturing their scent on the wind. Others find drugs and weapons stashes.
If it's exceptionally hot or they have to operate in areas where there are sharp rocks, shrapnel or broken glass, the dogs wear little boots to protect their paws.
The handlers, who stick to one dog to maximise teamwork, can't say how many lives they may have saved, but they are quick to list successes. A few weeks ago a dog found a linked chain of bombs that could have destroyed several vehicles at once.
With training taking 4-6 months and costing around $100,000 per dog, building a canine team doesn't come cheap. What's more, some dogs get to Afghanistan , find they can't handle the heat and have to be sent home, tail between their legs.
But most of them take to the work enthusiastically, tireless in their desire to sniff out the smallest inkling of explosive, or chase down the speediest of fleeing Taliban .
And one of the great things, handlers say, is that they don't expect much in return. For most, the only reward they want at the end of the day is a tennis ball to be thrown.
"It's amazing," said Sergeant Andy Dodds, one of the handlers. "They're out there saving lives and all they're really after is a ball."
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
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U.S. battalion bolsters Canada's Afghan mission
Their role under Canadian command is to control insurgent hub near Kandahar
Scott Deveau, Canwest News Service Sunday, August 31, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The U.S. 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. 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 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."
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 infantry will disrupt these activities and have a real impact on the security picture here in Kandahar," Brig.-Gen. Thompson said at a news conference yesterday.
He added that the new U.S. troops will assist by "choking off" this vital lifeline for the insurgency.
In order to take control of Zhari and Panjwaii, Thompson 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 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 NATO for more support in the volatile region of Afghanistan.
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Afghanistan's opium crop sowing misery for women
A few find help beating addiction and getting jobs
By JAMES PALMER Newhouse News Service Aug. 30, 2008, 6:00PM
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Under a wine-colored burqa that flows from the crown of her head down over her body, Khadija sat cross-legged, spinning the wheel of a sewing machine and methodically stitching a seam into a flowing stream of white cloth.
The 42-year-old mother of five was working to burn off a consuming and deadly habit that again is blooming across Afghanistan.
Until a few days ago, Khadija, who like many Afghans uses only one name, slipped opium in her tea twice a day to combat depression.
"It was," Khadija said, "more important than food."
Just as the Taliban have been reborn in Afghanistan, so have the opium crops.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said Afghanistan now produces about 93 percent of the world's opium, yielding an estimated $3 billion a year. The money typically benefits local warlords, corrupt government officials and the Taliban, which once famously banned production of the crop.
The UNODC statistics also indicate the amount of opium cultivated here has increased every year since 2001, when the U.S. military first deposed the Taliban.
Growing demographic
It's now estimated that 1 million of Afghanistan's 32 million people are addicted to narcotics, yet there are only three dozen treatment and rehabilitation facilities throughout the country's 250,000 square miles.
Among those seeking help, "the number of addicted women coming to us requesting help is increasing every day," said Rona Threen, who heads the government's Women's Affairs Office in Kandahar. While statistics suggest women remain a sliver of all addicts — estimated at only about 2 percent — the center has become an important outlet for women who have no access to psychiatrists, counselors or other drug treatment professionals.
"We want to teach them a craft with the hope they'll respond positively and overcome their drug habits," said Shazia Safi, 36, a tailor who teaches at the center. "I'm always telling them to look closely at what people are wearing in their neighborhoods because they can make those styles of clothes and earn money selling them."
There are currently 35 inpatients at the center battling addictions. They learn sewing, embroidery and carpet making so they later can work from home to hopefully alleviate financial burdens.
The center also provides job training to women who aren't addicted but want to learn skills so they can work at home. In addition to the training, the women receive wheat, flour and 1,000 Afghanis monthly — slightly more than $20 — to cover commuting costs.
Learning a craft
Marzia Sherzada, 15 and one of the students in the jobs training classes, said any income from working at home will help her parents and six siblings.
"It was my decision to come here because I wanted to learn how to make things I can sell," Sherzada said as she sat behind a sewing machine in a room on the ground floor of the center. A gray headscarf with white embroidery was swathed around her head. "This is very good for my family's economy."
In a bright and stultifying room in the center where the ceiling fans hung idle on a sweltering July morning due to a cut in power, seven women sat barefoot on the carpeted floor. Each was positioned behind black sewing machines, diligently cutting and stitching pieces of white cloth — uniforms for girls in government-run schools.
Between their lessons, the women spoke about their addictions and what it was like to be severely judged for their transgressions because the standards for their behavior are far higher and less flexible than what men face in Afghanistan's patriarchal society.
Threen, the head of the women's center, said consequences for women who become addicted to opium are far harsher and explained that "when these women use drugs, they feel isolated from society. They think other people around them don't value them."
Hiding from family
Gulalai, another student who also uses only one name, has sharp brown eyes and striking black hair spilling past her shoulders under a brilliant emerald-green head scarf. The 30-year-old wife and mother also has a secret.
"They still don't know," she said of her family's lack of awareness about her opium addiction. As an excuse to travel to the center, she has told her husband she is seeking "to learn a craft so I could earn some money working at home."
Asked how she could afford to buy opium — about $5 per gram here — despite her family's economic woes, Gulalai said without further explanation, "I found the money one way or another."
Things sounded more desperate for a woman named Amina.
She explained that she decided to fight her opium habit only after her husband's addiction nearly killed him earlier this year. Now with no means to feed six children, the 25-year-old mother is in the midst of a desperate struggle for the survival of her family.
"My children already have many problems and I have to leave them home alone to come here," Amina said.
Though she said she takes personal responsibility for her abuse of opium, she attributes part of the blame on Afghan authorities for not curbing the bountiful accessibility of the drug on the streets.
"It's no problem to find if you have the money because there are so many people selling it," Amina said of the opium trade in Kandahar. "The government should stop this.
"It would be good if people couldn't find it so easily."
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Romanian soldier killed in Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-31 23:40:21 Print
BUCHAREST, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- A Romanian soldier was killed and another four were injured while on patrol in Afghanistan on Sunday, the Romanian Defense Ministry said.
"Troops of the 30th battalion Mountaineers Dragoslavele were on patrol on A1 (Qalat-Kabul) highway at about 20 km from Qalat. The third armored personnel carrier out of the four hit an improvised explosive device (IED). Senior sergeant Dragos Traian Alexandrescu was killed in the explosion," the ministry said in a press release.
The one who was killed had been working for the Defence Ministry since 2003.
The four injured, after receiving medical aid on site, were taken to the military hospital in the Lagman military base.
Dragos Traian is by now the eighth Romanian soldier killed in Afghanistan since Romania sent troops there in July 2002 -- the country's first military mission abroad after the Second World War.
Editor: Mu Xuequan
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German Army Convoy Comes Under Attack in Afghanistan
31.08.2008 Deutsche Welle
Four days after an attack on a German Army patrol in Afghanistan claimed one soldier's life, a Bundeswehr patrol came under attack when a roadside bomb exploded on Sunday. No one was injured.
A German convoy in Afghanistan was attacked Sunday, Aug. 31, the German military command in the eastern city of Potsdam said.
The patrol, which included several vehicles, came under attack on Sunday morning about 45 kilometers (30 miles) west of the northern city of Kunduz, in a region known to harbor Taliban militants.
No one was injured and the vehicles incurred only minor damage when the bomb went off, a spokesman for the command said.
On Wednesday, an eight-vehicle convoy patrolling the outskirts of Kunduz, where the German military has its base, was hit by an improvised explosive device, killing a German staff sergeant and injuring three other troops.
The German death took to 187 the number of international soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year. Forty-three have died this month alone, according to an AFP news agency count based on official figures.
The majority of the attacks have been concentrated in southern and eastern Afghanistan, but there has also been scattered violence in the country's north and west. Germany has some 3,500 troops stationed in northern Afghanistan.
Sunday's incident also came on the heels of Afghan and German troops on Friday killing two children and a woman by opening fire on cars that failed to stop at a checkpoint.
The civilians' death could "bring the perception that the Bundeswehr is an occupying force back into the foreground," Social Democratic defense spokesman Walter Kolbow told the weekly Welt am Sonntag ahead of Sunday's attack.
While the German soldiers had largely been seen as a stabilizing force, "now the role of perpetrator has reached us."
The mounting violence has fueled debate about the Afghanistan mission in Germany, where polls show the deployment is unpopular. A number of opposition politicians have also recently called the deployment of German troops to Afghanistan into question.
The Left Party's Gergor Gysi told news agencies that the deaths of Afghan civilians were the shared responsibility of German and Afghan forces and would "bring the situation to a head." He added that Germany "risked falling into a quagmire of a dirty war that does not fight terrorism but leads to a new inclination towards violence that impairs civil reconstruction efforts."
The deputy head of the Christian conservatives' parliamentary group, Eckart von Klaeden, said the Bundeswehr's mission served the security of Afghans as well as Germans.
"I think the way civilian victims are now being exploited by [opposition parties] to turn people against the deployment is tasteless," he said.
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Bundeswehr Considers Building New Afghan Railway
30.08.2008 Deutsche Welle, Germany
The German military are mulling plans to build a 67-kilometer (42-mile) railway in Afghanistan to haul in supplies from nearby Uzbekistan, a German newsmagazine reported.
The railway would connect the main German logistics base in Afghanistan, at Mazar-i-Sharif, with the town of Hairatan on the Uzbek border, where a bridge was erected by the Soviets in 1982 crossing the Amudarya border river, German weekly Der Spiegel reported on Saturday, Aug. 30.
This would enable a direct connection to the Uzbekistan rail network and to the Uzbek city of Termez, where the German air force has its main local logistics site for incoming supplies from Germany.
Germany has an agreement with Russia permitting it to transport supplies via rail through Russia to Afghanistan. The new link would make resupplying Germany's base in Mazar-i-Sharif, its largest in Afghanistan, less of a logistic challenge.
The newsmagazine said the military hoped that the German Aid Ministry and international organizations would contribute to the cost of building the line, since the link would also boost the economy of the region.
No costing estimates for the project had been made yet.
The idea for the railway route dated back to Soviet times, when engineers proposed a 200-kilometer line from Hairatan via Mazar to Pul-i-Khumri, but this was never built.
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Shooting prompts calls for Germans to leave Afghanistan
Sunday, 31 August, 2008, 08:28 AM Doha Time
BERLIN: A tragic incident in which German soldiers shot dead three Afghan civilian occupants of a car prompted calls in Germany yesterday to pull German troops out of Afghanistan.
German prosecutors have begun an inquiry to establish whether the soldiers who opened fire on Thursday evening were culpable in any way. The prosecutors from near Berlin said they had sent a request to the Justice Ministry in Kabul that it assist the investigation.
Defence officials said German troops had been nervous at the time after one of them had been killed by a suicide bomber this week.
A German news website, Spiegel Online, quoted German officers saying a warning had been circulated that an explosive-packed vehicle would be used to attack German troops on Thursday evening.
The German armed forces said a woman and two children were killed and two children injured when their car accelerated away from a checkpoint at Karuti near Kunduz. The checkpoint was manned by Afghan police and several of their German military-police trainers.
Germans in a Dingo armoured car opened fire at the moving car from a distance of about 100m.
A senior Green who is hostile to the military presence, Hans-Christian Stroebele, and the Left Party, which voted against the deployment in the first place, said in Berlin the troops should come home.
The Left caucus leader, Gregor Gysi, said in a newspaper interview that he feared Germany would become “bogged down in a dirty war that does not combat terrorism but creates a new inclination to violence”. – DPA
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Pakistani Taliban vow to strike during Ramadan
By Kamran Haider Sunday, August 31, 2008; 10:35 AM
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani Taliban will continue attacks during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, rejecting a government announcement it would halt military action in the northwest, a Taliban spokesman said on Sunday.
Violence has surged in Pakistan recently with the military battling al Qaeda- and Taliban-linked fighters in three areas in the northwest, and sporadic missile strikes, attributed to the United States, also aimed at militants.
One of those launched from a suspected U.S. drone hit on Sunday, killing five Uzbek militants and wounding seven of their Pakistani allies, intelligence officials and witnesses said.
Pakistani militants have responded to the military pressure with suicide and remotely detonated bomb attacks on the security forces and civilian targets.
Deteriorating security has coincided with a faltering economy and political upheaval, as the resignation of unpopular President Pervez Musharraf on August 18 was followed a week later by a split in the ruling coalition.
"It's a joke. It isn't a matter of holy or unholy. All months are holy. If they want to end fighting, it should be permanent," Muslim Khan, Taliban spokesman in the Swat Valley, said of the government announcement of the temporary halt in military operations.
"We want enforcement of Sharia laws and will continue our struggle. We haven't got instructions from our top leadership to stop fighting. If they do (order a halt) then we certainly will," he said by telephone.
Pakistan's government said on Saturday security forces would suspend operations from Sunday night for Ramadan, which ends at the beginning of October, but would retaliate if attacked.
Worries about security and politics have unnerved investors who have sent Pakistani financial markets skidding lower. The main share index has fallen about 36 percent this year.
According to government estimates, up to 300,000 people have fled from fierce clashes between security forces and violent militants in the tribal region of Bajaur on the Afghan border.
Many displaced people have moved to temporary shelters set up in various towns outside the region, where despite government and foreign aid agencies' efforts, shortages of food and medical supplies and poor sanitation are common complaints.
U.S. WORRIES
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 have been given shelter by Pakistani allies in ethnic Pashtun tribal lands on the Afghan border and from there not only carry out attacks on both sides of the border but plot violence in the West.
Missile strikes like the one on Sunday -- which according to intelligence officials struck a house in North Waziristan near the Afghan border, a known sanctuary for Taliban and al Qaeda militants -- are generally not confirmed or denied by U.S. or allied military officials in Afghanistan.
But intelligence sources say they are typically carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
The Sunday incident occurred about 10 miles east of Miranshah, the main town of the region. In July a similar strike killed a top al Qaeda official in South Waziristan province.
"We have reports of an explosion, but we don't know the nature of the blast," said Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas regarding the Sunday strike report.
Pakistan's military has been engaged in heavy fighting recently with militants in the Bajaur area on the Afghan border, across mountains to the west of Swat, and in South Waziristan.
In Swat and Bajaur especially, jet fighters and helicopter gunships have been used to strike militant positions. Several hundred people, mostly militants, have been killed in recent clashes, government officials say.
(Editing by Jerry Norton and Tim Pearce)
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Army told to switch its Afghan tactics
UN's warning after rise in civilian casualties
The Guardian Mark Townsend The Observer Sunday August 31 2008
Senior British military commanders in Afghanistan have been told to change their military tactics in the face of mounting civilian casualties.
Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, warned Nato-led coalition forces, including Britain, that rules of engagement need to be revised or the coalition risks losing the war.
There was a worrying but growing perception among Afghans that the foreign forces were responsible for 'indiscriminate killings' and 'mass rape'.
'The struggle in Afghanistan is quintessentially at a point where popular support is crucial,' Alston said. 'My view is that it is being significantly undermined by the strong perception among the Afghan public that the allied forces are killing significant numbers of civilians with no accountability at all, even if that perception is exaggerated.'
Nato's military command needed to alter its approach if it was to win popular support and triumph. Alston accused officials of blocking his attempts to discover details of the rules of engagement under which Nato troops were fighting.
'There has been no acknowledgement from Nato that there is a problem in relation to civilian casualties and how it is dealt with and still there is no transparency on the issue.'
Afghan president Hamid Karzai has ordered that any foreign military operations be subject to a new set of rules enforceable under international law.
The UN condemnation of international operations will deepen the unease in Whitehall that British forces risk losing the hearts of the Afghan public.
The Ministry of Defence is investigating a rocket attack in which British troops accidentally killed four civilians, including women and children.
A separate UN inquiry last week found 60 children had been killed in US-led coalition air strikes in western Afghanistan. British forces in Helmand province routinely call in American air strikes when they come under attack.
Internal US air force figures reveal that 272 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Afghanistan during June and July - the same amount dropped on the country during all of 2006. At least 500 civilians have died this year as a result of the actions of foreign forces.
'[The coalition] told me that their rules of engagement hadn't changed which is strange. If you look at the increased use of aerial bombing, the numbers don't seem to add up,' said Alston.
His chief concern was night raids by foreign intelligence agencies which appeared to take place without accountability to the Afghan government and left those subjected to them with three choices. 'They can either stay in their home and run the risk of being shot in their bed. Secondly, they could try and run, in which they would be shot, or thirdly, they fire back in which case they are treated as a terrorist and shot.'
A growing consensus was emerging among Afghans that foreign forces were raping women. 'There is also a cultural element which seems to be that if a male [soldier] goes into a female's bedroom it is perceived as the equivalent of rape.'
An MoD spokesman said: 'The UK military carry out detailed planning and use precision weapons when targeting enemy strongholds. Sadly, even with all these measures, there is still a risk of civilian casualties, particularly given the Taliban preference for basing themselves in public buildings.'
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Afghanistan-Ir an-Pakistan book exhibit underway in Kabul
Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug 31, IRNA
The joint Iran-Pakistan- Afghanistan book fair opened in Kabul on Sunday.
Some 60,000 copies of books have been put on display in 14 pavilions during the event.
The book are available in different languages including Persian, Dari Persian (Farsi-e Dari), Pashto and English.
Organized by Afghanistan Ministry of Information and Culture, Iran's cultural attache in Afghanistan and Pakistani Embassy in Kabul, the event will run until September 9.
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Highway repair work will 'improve security'
www.quqnoos.com Written by Ghafoor Saboory Saturday, 30 August 2008
Governor urges residents to protect road crews from insurgent attacks
WORK to re-surface a 110km section of the Gardez-Khost highway began this week amid hopes that the new road would increase security and business in the south-east.
The road, which runs between the provincial capitals of Khost and Paktia, began its facelift on Thursday, a project that is expected to last for 18 months.
The governor of Paktia, Jumma Khan Hamdard, said the road will improve business and security in the south-eastern province of Khost, Paktia and Paktika, where militant attacks rose during the first half of the year.
The Ministry of Public Affairs said the $85 million reconstruction work will be completed by India’s Louis Burger Company.
The deputy technical engineer at the Ministry of Public Affairs, Ahmad Wali Rasooli, said America’s state department had put forward the cash to repave the road.
Hamdard urged locals to help protect the road workers and engineers from militant attacks.
The porous border with Pakistan allows militants to cross the border into Afghanistan from bases in Pakistan with relative ease, according to NATO, Afghan and US officials.
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'Gov't squandered money on low quality books'
www.quqnoos.com Written by Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Sunday, 31 August 2008
Students and teachers say new school books are difficult to read
STUDENTS and teachers in Kabul have complained about the poor print quality of new school books.
They say the books, handed out to schools by the Ministry of Education, are printed on low quality paper and that paragraphs and pages are laid out in ways that make them hard to read.
Some say the education ministry has wasted money thousands of dollars on the books.
Although some say millions of US dollars have been spent on printing the books, the ministry of education says it has spent only Afg6.78 million ($135,000) on them.
A member of the religious affairs committee in Parliament, Deen Mohammad Azeemi, said there was no doubt the books were printed with mistakes and he criticised the government for its carelessness.
The ministry of education said it used low quality paper because it lacked a big enough budget.
On Tuesday, militants burned thousands of school books as they travelled to Kandahar in trucks.
Some non-governmental organisations have been forced to pull school books from classrooms because the Taliban say are too modern for pupils.
The books portray high-profile figures such as President Karzai and United Front commander Ahmed Shah Massoud as the country’s heroes.
The Taliban threatened some NGOs with school closures unless the school books were withdrawn from the classroom.
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Car crash kills three and injures five, police say
www.quqnoos.com Written by Noorullah Rahmani Saturday, 30 August 2008
Car on its way to Baghlan collides head on with another car
A TWO car crash has killed three people and injured five in the northern province of Baghlan, police said.
A car travelling from Kabul collided with a car travelling the opposite direction in the Khinjan district on Saturday at about 1.30pm, the district police chief, Muhammad Asif, said.
All the dead were travelling in the same car, he said.
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