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Suicide bombers hit Afghan southeast, 4 dead: police
Thu Dec 4, 8:36 am ET
KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Suicide bombers killed at least four people when they attacked two government offices in the southeastern Afghan town of Khost on Thursday, a police officer said.
Governor of key Afghan province sacked
By Noor Khan Associated Press Thu Dec 4, 3:09 am ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The governor of Afghanistan's key southern Kandahar province said Thursday he was sacked by the central government and complained that powerful people in his region had been sabotaging his work.
Quran in mass Afghan grave unlocks 30-year mystery
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer – Thu Dec 4, 10:02 am ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – A small golden Quran helped Afghan authorities identify the body of a president killed in a coup three decades ago that led to 10 years of Soviet domination, officials said Thursday.
Body of Afghan leader identified
Thursday, 4 December 2008 BBC News
The body of first Afghan President Mohammad Daud Khan has been identified three decades after he was killed in a Communist coup, officials say.
AFGHANISTAN: Weapons cache discovery underscores risks to civilians
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, 4 December 2008 (IRIN) - Nearly 3,000 metric tonnes of military hardware, which had been posing a potentially serious risk to local people, have been discovered in Shirin Tagab District, Faryab Province, northern Afghanistan, posing a potentially serious risk to local people.
Afghanistan says it will sign cluster bomb treaty
By Walter Gibbs and Kirk Semple The International Herald Tribune Thursday, December 4, 2008
OSLO: In a last-minute change, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan agreed on Wednesday to join some 90 other nations signing a treaty banning the use of the cluster munitions that have devastated his country in recent years.
RCMP to double number of trainers in Afghanistan
The Canadian Press December 4, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The Afghan Uniformed Police will be getting more help now that the number of civilian police team members in Kandahar province is being doubled.
Kidnapped French aid worker freed in Afghanistan
December 3, 2008
KABUL (AFP) — A French aid worker kidnapped a month ago in the Afghan capital Kabul was released on Wednesday, a week after he was seen pleading for his life in a hostage video, officials said.
Afghan women leaders face growing Taliban threats
By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writer – Thu Dec 4, 3:09 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – The women gave a news conference but requested that no one take pictures of their faces. The office of one of them asked reporters not to publish her name.
Gunmen kill 2 Afghan tribal elders who met Karzai
The Associated Press December 4, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - Gunmen killed two tribal elders in western Afghanistan following their meeting with President Hamid Karzai, a police spokesman said Thursday.
12 states invited to Paris meeting on Afghanistan
Dawn (Pakistan)
PARIS, Dec 4: France has invited a dozen states to a conference on Afghanistan on Dec 14 to enlist the support of neighbouring countries in a stepped-up effort for peace, officials said on Thursday.
Pakistani air strikes kill 30 Taliban militants: security official
Wed Dec 3, 2:08 pm ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – At least 30 Taliban militants were killed Wednesday during military air strikes in a restive Pakistani tribal district bordering Afghanistan, security officials said.
Afghanistan Promotes Crop More Profitable Than Poppy
By Barry Newhouse Voice of America 03 December 2008
Afghanistan's most famous crop is also its most notorious. Opium poppies thrive in sun-baked fields across lawless areas of the country, accounting for more than 90 percent of the world's opium supply.
Measles deaths drop worldwide, report estimates
By MIKE STOBBE Associated Press December 4, 2008
ATLANTA (AP) — Measles deaths worldwide declined dramatically to about 200,000 a year, continuing a successful trend, global health authorities reported Thursday.
Militants killed by locals while planting bomb
Written by www.quqnoos.com Wednesday, 03 December 2008
Gunfire sets off bomb and kills three militants in Paktia province
Three insurgents were shot at by local inhabitants while planting a bomb.
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Suicide bombers hit Afghan southeast, 4 dead: police
Thu Dec 4, 8:36 am ET
KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Suicide bombers killed at least four people when they attacked two government offices in the southeastern Afghan town of Khost on Thursday, a police officer said.
One bomber targeted the department for counter-narcotics, the officer said. The second detonated explosives inside the main intelligence headquarters a few hundred meters away, Guldad said.
"The bomber had managed to get inside the intelligence department by wearing the agency's uniform," he said.
Two intelligence officers and two police officers were killed and at least nine others wounded in the attack among officials in the intelligence department.
Gunfire also erupted inside the building, an official source said. It was not clear whether foreign troops were hit in either of the attacks.
Afghan and foreign troops had cordoned off the area and at least one helicopter belonging to foreign troops was hovering overhead, residents said.
Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the strikes, saying that three members of the Islamists group were involved and their target was the head of intelligence in Khost and his deputy, a Taliban spokesman said via a website.
A surge of violence in Afghanistan this year has marked the bloodiest period since the Taliban's removal in 2001. The violence has raised fears about Afghanistan's stability despite an increase in the number of foreign troops.
Regrouping in 2005, the al Qaeda-backed Taliban have carried out a number of high-profile attacks this year, including several in the capital, Kabul.
These included an assassination plot against President Hamid Karzai during a military parade near his palace. Officials say some members of the security forces helped the insurgents in that incident and in several other major attacks.
Separately on Thursday, authorities began a search of two prison cells where Taliban prisoners are held in the key Pul-i-Charkhi jail on the eastern outskirts of Kabul, the deputy justice minister said.
The aim of the search was to disarm prisoners possibly holding guns or knives, Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai told Reuters.
The prison has been the scene of a series of bloody riots in recent years. Thursday's search was the second this year.
In a major attack several months ago, Taliban fighters freed several hundred of their jailed comrades along with many other prisoners in the southern province of Kandahar.
A prisoner from the jail in Kabul telephoned Reuters to say that Afghan forces had opened fire during the operation and that there were some casualties among the inmates.
The sound of gunfire could be heard in the background. Hashimzai said he was not aware force had been used or if casualties had been reported.
(Writing by Sayed Salahuddin and Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Paul Tait)
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Governor of key Afghan province sacked
By Noor Khan Associated Press Thu Dec 4, 3:09 am ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The governor of Afghanistan's key southern Kandahar province said Thursday he was sacked by the central government and complained that powerful people in his region had been sabotaging his work.
Rahmatullah Raufi, a former army general, was appointed as governor of Kandahar province in August, replacing a powerful but controversial former governor, Assadullah Khalid. But after only three months, Raufi told The Associated Press that officials in the capital said he must go.
"Last night I received a call from Kabul saying that you are fired," Raufi said.
"Personally I do not want to work either, because some of the powerful people (in Kandahar) were creating problems in my job," Raufi said, without elaborating. He did not identify who in the government told him he was sacked.
Barna Karimi, an official with Afghanistan's Independent Directorate for Local Governance in Kabul, confirmed Raufi was fired, but did not provide other details.
The southern provinces are the center of the Taliban-led insurgency and Kandahar province is the spiritual heartland of the Taliban. The power base of President Hamid Karzai. Karzai's brother is the head of the provincial council. The province is also Afghanistan's second-leading producer of opium poppies, behind neighboring Helmand province.
In eastern Khost province, a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew up explosives he was carrying at the intelligence service building in Khost town Thursday, killing two police and wounding nine other people, officials said.
A car parked next to the building also exploded shortly after the initial blast, said Khost's deputy governor, Taher Khan Sabarai.
Two police were killed and nine other people were wounded, said Gul Mohammadin Mohammadi, a provincial health department official.
The bomber was wearing an Afghan police uniform, said Col. Greg Julian, the U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan.
In western Afghanistan gunmen killed two tribal elders Wednesday, said Rauf Ahmadi, a police spokesman.
The elders were shot in Herat city, a day after they met the Afghan president in Kabul as part of a delegation of elders from Herat province, Ahmadi said. Two other people in the car they were driving in when attacked were wounded, he said.
Ahmadi called the killings "a terrorist act" and said authorities were investigating whether Taliban militants were involved.
Karzai condemned the killings and urged authorities to arrest and punish the perpetrators, a statement from his office said.
Karzai is running for re-election next year, and the support of tribal elders is essential for his chances of winning at a time when his popularity has been sliding.
Separately, in the northern Jowzjan province Taliban militants ambushed a police convoy Wednesday, killing an officer and wounding two other policemen, said Khalil Aminzada, the provincial police chief.
Authorities arrested four suspected Taliban fighters who were involved in the attack, he said.
Taliban attacks are rare in Jowzjan and the Wednesday assault suggests militants are expanding the areas where they operate away from their centers in the south and the east of the country.
More than 6,000 people have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press tally of figures provided by Afghan and Western officials.
___
Associated Press reporter Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.
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Quran in mass Afghan grave unlocks 30-year mystery
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer – Thu Dec 4, 10:02 am ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – A small golden Quran helped Afghan authorities identify the body of a president killed in a coup three decades ago that led to 10 years of Soviet domination, officials said Thursday.
The body of President Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan was among dozens discovered at two mass graves in the Pul-e-Charkhi area, east of Kabul, six months ago, said Ahmad Farid Raaid, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health.
Daud Khan and 17 family members and associates were executed inside the presidential palace in Kabul during a communist-inspired coup in 1978, Raaid said.
Their bodies were taken to a secret location east of the capital and their whereabouts remained a mystery for nearly three decades until a former army general who was involved in the burial came forward earlier this year and identified the spot, Raaid said.
The killings ushered in an era of Soviet domination over the country that lasted for a decade.
Soviet troops rolled into Afghanistan in late December 1979. They occupied the country for 10 years and were forced to leave as the Soviet Union was collapsing in 1989.
Following the discovery of the mass graves in July, current President Hamid Karzai formed a commission to determine whether some of the remains were those of Daud Khan and his family.
Teeth molds were used to identify the late president's body but the key was a small golden Quran that was found with his remains, Raaid said.
"This Quran was given to him as a gift by the king of Saudi Arabia when he went on a trip" to the kingdom, Raaid said.
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Body of Afghan leader identified
Thursday, 4 December 2008 BBC News
The body of first Afghan President Mohammad Daud Khan has been identified three decades after he was killed in a Communist coup, officials say.
The discovery was made by members of a government-appointed commission during excavation at a military base outside the capital, Kabul.
Daud Khan overthrew the last king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, in 1973.
His death five years later ushered in a decade of Soviet occupation followed by the rise of the Taleban.
The former president is to be given a special funeral ceremony by the government.
Teeth moulds
A spokesman for the Ministry of Health told the Associated Press news agency that the former president's body was among dozens discovered at two mass graves in the Pul-e-Charkhi area, east of Kabul, six months ago.
The spokesman said that Mr Khan and 17 family members and associates were executed inside the presidential palace in Kabul during a communist-inspired coup in 1978.
He said that teeth moulds were used to identify the late president's body but the determining factor was a small golden Koran that was found with his remains.
"This Koran was given to him as a gift by the king of Saudi Arabia when he went on a trip to the kingdom," the spokesman said.
Correspondents say that many Afghans see Mr Khan's murder as one of their country's darkest days, because it was followed by 10 years of Soviet occupation, civil war and the rise of the Taleban, who themselves were toppled by US-led troops in 2001.
It is estimated that about two million people have been killed since the 1978 coup and more than six million have fled the country.
Mr Khan is remembered for his efforts to counter the influence of Islamists and for establishing a republic. He introduced wide ranging reforms and towards the end of his life favoured relations with the West over the Soviet Union.
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AFGHANISTAN: Weapons cache discovery underscores risks to civilians
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, 4 December 2008 (IRIN) - Nearly 3,000 metric tonnes of military hardware, which had been posing a potentially serious risk to local people, have been discovered in Shirin Tagab District, Faryab Province, northern Afghanistan, posing a potentially serious risk to local people.
The discovery was made by the Afghanistan New Beginnings Programme (ANBP) [http://www.undpanbp.org/], which is jointly managed by the government and the UN Development Programme.
"We have discovered a number of caches of weapons amounting to over 2,900 tonnes of munitions and ammunition," Mohammad Shafi Rahimi, ANBP's regional manager in the north, told IRIN.
The weapons were buried in caves in the countryside and "posed a very serious threat to local communities", he said, adding that this year at least one person had lost an eye and a hand as he tried to carry off a warhead.
It is unclear who dumped the weapons, which include hundreds of warheads, but ANBP experts said all were left over from the past three decades of conflict.
Several local people said the discovery was a big relief for them in the sense that at least the hazardous material would now be disposed of safely.
The ANBP has discovered 8,000 metric tonnes of munitions in 940 caches over the past three years in northern provinces, Rahimi said. It hands over usable weapons to the army and destroys the remainder, with the assistance of demining agencies.
Landmines, cluster bombs
The existence of explosive remnants of war poses serious threats to people in many areas, and dozens, mostly children, have fallen victim to them, according to mine-clearing agencies. Landmines claim about 40 victims a month, demining organisations say.
Afghanistan joined the anti-cluster-bomb treaty on 3 December. "We are delighted to be among other nations that oppose the use of cluster bombs," Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen told IRIN.
"We applaud the government of Afghanistan on its decision to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions," the UN Mine Action Center for Afghanistan said in a statement on 4 December. The treaty would help facilitate the clearing up of the remaining cluster bombs, it added.
Cluster bombs scatter a number of smaller sub-munitions and/or bomblets which can remain undetected for a long time, and often kill, maim and injure civilians. They were used by the Soviet army in the 1980s and also by US-led forces in 2001, according to the Human Rights Watch.
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Afghanistan says it will sign cluster bomb treaty
By Walter Gibbs and Kirk Semple The International Herald Tribune Thursday, December 4, 2008
OSLO: In a last-minute change, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan agreed on Wednesday to join some 90 other nations signing a treaty banning the use of the cluster munitions that have devastated his country in recent years.
The decision appeared to reflect Karzai's growing independence from the Bush administration, which has opposed the treaty and, according to a senior Afghan official who spoke on the condition of anonymity following diplomatic protocol, had urged Karzai not to sign it.
"Until this morning, Afghanistan was not going to be a signatory," said Jawed Ludin, Afghanistan's ambassador to the Scandinavian countries and the leader of its delegation here. He said the president's change of heart came as a result of pressure by human rights organizations and cluster-bomb victims, including Soraj Ghulam Habib, a 17-year-old from the city of Herat who lost both legs when he accidentally stepped on an explosive cluster remnant seven years ago.
Ludin's announcement was greeted by raucous cheers in Oslo's City Hall, where the signing ceremony began Wednesday after two years of diplomatic work by Norway. By the end of the day, more than 90 nations - including 18 of 26 NATO members � had signed the treaty, called the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bars adherents from using, producing, selling or stockpiling cluster munitions.
Norway's foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere, said he expected several more nations to sign on Thursday. Among them, however, will not be the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan or several Middle Eastern nations. But Gahr Stoere said universal compliance was not necessary for the cluster-bomb treaty to work.
"What we've adopted today is going to create profound change," he said. "If you use or stockpile cluster weapons after today, you will be breaking a new international norm."
Whether dropped from aircraft or fired from artillery, cluster bombs can scatter dozens or even hundreds of smaller explosives across an area the size of a football field. Some bomblets fail to explode upon hitting the ground and, like land mines, can remain a deadly hazard to children, farmers and others long after a conflict ends.
"This is the weapon that just can't stop killing," said Thomas Nash, the coordinator of the Cluster Munition Coalition, a London-based group of organizations that would like to see cluster bombs outlawed. Campaigners said cluster bombs should follow mustard gas, land mines and hollow-point "dum-dum" bullets that expand on impact into a closed chapter of the history of warfare.
Nash said Laos was the country most saturated with unexploded cluster munitions, including types that attract children because they look like "little baseballs." They are a legacy of the United States' bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War. Georgians, he said, face their own cleanup problem following what human rights groups say were cluster-bomb exchanges during the recent conflict with Russia.
Israel fired significant numbers of cluster bombs into southern Lebanon during a monthlong conflict with Hezbollah in 2006. Afterward, United Nations peacekeepers reported unexploded munitions strewn across the landscape.
"Quite frankly, if Israel hadn't done that, we might not have a cluster treaty today," said Jody Williams, who won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for coordinating the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and has condemned cluster bombs with equal fervor.
In recent months, Karzai has sharpened his public criticisms of the American mission in Afghanistan. He has spoken out against aerial bombings and other operations by the American-led forces in the country that have caused civilian casualties, offended cultural sensitivities and undermined popular support for the war that routed the Taliban in late 2001.
While several Afghan officials interviewed Wednesday said that the United States did not publicly press the Afghans to reject the treaty, an official in the Karzai administration said that throughout the process that led to the treaty, the Americans made it clear "that they would prefer that Afghanistan stay out of it."
Afghan officials said that the government had opposed the treaty for the past two years because of concern that it would hamper the fight against the insurgency.
Ludin, the Afghan ambassador, said his country's reversal was made possible by an article in the treaty that permits signatory nations to engage in military operations with nonsignatory nations like the United States.
The United States defended its decision not to sign the treaty. James Lawrence, director of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement of the State Department, said cluster bombs were sometimes more humane than conventional bombs. As an example, he said that antennas on a roof could be taken out efficiently with a cluster bomb, without bringing the building down.
In a June 2008 policy memo, Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered all United States military services to gradually replace their least reliable cluster bombs. He said that by 2018 only munitions with a failure rate of less than 1 percent would be employed.
The United States has not used any cluster bombs since 2003, said Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst for Human Right Watch, who was at the event in Oslo. A NATO policy banning the use of cluster munitions in Afghanistan has been in place since 2007.
American officials said the United States would continue pursuing measured restrictions on the use of cluster bombs by trying to amend the 1980 United Nations convention on conventional weapons. The members of that treaty include Russia, China and most of the others that have refused to sign the Oslo treaty.
The cluster munitions convention will not take effect until six months after 30 nations have officially ratified it - a milestone that Norwegian organizers said could be achieved by 2009. Signatories agree to destroy their stockpiles within eight years of the treaty taking effect. Each signer also promises to make "its best efforts to discourage" nontreaty countries from using the weapons.
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RCMP to double number of trainers in Afghanistan
The Canadian Press December 4, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The Afghan Uniformed Police will be getting more help now that the number of civilian police team members in Kandahar province is being doubled.
RCMP Superintendent Joe McAllister said the number of officers, who will mentor AUP officers, is increasing from 12 to 24.
A batch of new mentors has arrived from training and will be in Kandahar city and the Canadian forward operating bases in the Zhari and Panjwaii districts for the next year.
Supt. McAllister said the training of the AUP failed in the past because they were given only a brief amount of instruction and then left on their own to deal with the Taliban.
He said the police remain what he calls a “soft target” for the Taliban but that there is still no lack of volunteers to join and wear the uniform.
Supt. McAllister said that the 60-per-cent dropout rate of a few years ago has declined to about 10 per cent today.
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Kidnapped French aid worker freed in Afghanistan
December 3, 2008
KABUL (AFP) — A French aid worker kidnapped a month ago in the Afghan capital Kabul was released on Wednesday, a week after he was seen pleading for his life in a hostage video, officials said.
Dany Egreteau, who worked for the Solidarite Laique (Secular Solidarity) charity, was safe at the French embassy in Kabul late Wednesday but there were few details on the circumstances of his release.
"Yes, he's free. He has been freed with the efforts of the Afghan security forces," said Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary. He declined to elaborate.
President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed the news in Paris and said the aid worker would be flown back home to France late Thursday.
Egreteau had been in Afghanistan only a week, on his first mission to the country, when he was seized by three armed men as he walked through a residential district of Kabul on November 3.
An Afghan who tried to stop the abduction was shot dead.
French authorities last week received a video showing Egreteau with guns pointed at his head and explaining that he was unable to move and forced to wear a blindfold most of the time.
A French foreign ministry spokesman said in Paris that the aid worker "appeared in good health, although he has been shaken" by the ordeal.
Egreteau, who worked in education programmes, had spoken to his parents, said Frederic Desagneaux, the spokesman.
The head of the Solidarite Laique group Egreteau worked for insisted that no ransom had been paid to the kidnappers.
"Dany was freed around 7:00 pm (1430 GMT) after quite long negotiations with his kidnappers. He straight away told me that he wanted to speak with his parents to tell them that he was free," Roland Biache told journalists in Kabul.
"There was no ransom demand and no ransom was paid. The kidnappers realised that we are a group of modest means and that Dany is an aid worker and took account of the fact that his health was deteriorating," he said.
There has been a series of kidnappings in the Afghan capital, mostly by criminal gangs seeking thousands of dollars in ransom, and three expatriates were shot dead in attacks last month.
Canadian journalist Mellissa Fung was freed last month after four weeks in captivity in a prisoner swap arranged by Afghan intelligence for the family of her abductors.
Afghanistan has seen record levels of violence this year as the hardline Islamist Taliban step up their campaign to overthrow the Western-backed Afghan government and regain power.
The Taliban had said however it was not involved in the kidnapping of the Frenchman.
There are hundreds of international aid organisations in Afghanistan trying to help the country recover from three decades of war.
An NGO security watchdog, ANSO, has said attacks against humanitarian groups are at their highest this year since the extremist Taliban regime was toppled in a US-led invasion in late 2001.
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Afghan women leaders face growing Taliban threats
By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writer – Thu Dec 4, 3:09 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan – The women gave a news conference but requested that no one take pictures of their faces. The office of one of them asked reporters not to publish her name.
It was a lot of secrecy for a media event, but it is a dangerous time to be a powerful woman in Afghanistan.
Police Maj. Colonel Sediqa Rasekh and a number of high-profile women spoke Thursday at the event to highlight the continuing threat of violence against females in Afghanistan eight years after the hardline Taliban regime was ousted.
Taliban assassins gunned down a senior policewoman in southern Afghanistan in September, and female government officials regularly report receiving threats from the hard-line Islamists.
So a photo in a newspaper can make a woman a target.
"At some point, we can become the target of an enemy attack, whether it is shooting, or spraying acid, kidnapping or anything. If they don't have pictures of us, they will not be able to pick us out," said Rasekh, who gave express permission for her name to appear in print after her office requested anonymity.
Rasekh said the Taliban have re-emerged as a threat in several parts of Afghanistan.
"The danger has increased significantly," she said.
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they ordered women to stay home and tend to their families. Girls were banned from schools and women could only leave the house wearing a burqa covering their body and accompanied by a male family member.
The Afghan government and Western donors have made a major push to increase opportunities for women in recent years, but those females who buck tradition to join the government or the military or just speak out about women's rights put their lives on the line.
"If a woman doing that is taken by the Taliban, of course her head will be taken off," said Massouda Jalal, whose Jalal Foundation works for women's rights in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, Jalal agreed to speak publicly and allowed her photograph to be taken.
"My philosophy is that you are born, and one day you will be dying. So why not die while being an ideal for others?" she said.
The September assassination of the policewoman in Kandahar followed the 2006 killing of a women's affairs official in the same province. The Taliban claimed responsibility in both attacks.
Women who take prominent positions have to take extreme security measures. Marya Bashir, the country's only provincial female chief prosecutor, has an armored car and six bodyguards provided by the United States. She said she feels much more in danger than she did when she was appointed about two and a half years ago when she had a more standard setup — an unarmored vehicle and three policemen as bodyguards.
"From the time that I was appointed to now, the situation has completely changed. Every day is getting worse" with death threats and attacks, she said. About a year ago, an explosion outside Bashir's house injured two of her bodyguards.
"My children cannot go to school because I have got this position," Bashir said. She has kept them home for the past 18 months out of fear they will be attacked.
Women's activists say the Taliban target girls' schools as part of a campaign to show that programs supported by the West are failing.
Last month, militants riding motorbikes squirted acid from water bottles onto female students and teachers walking to school in the southern city of Kandahar. Several girls suffered burned faces and were hospitalized and one teenager couldn't open her eyes for days after the attack.
There are signs of hope. Central Bamiyan province, one of the more peaceful regions, has a female governor. And a few women in parliament regularly appear on television campaigning for women's rights, despite threats.
Rasekh said many of Afghanistan's female police officers see their uniforms as a public statement against the type of passive protection offered by a burqa. A woman under one of the flowing blue robes is rendered anonymous, even her eyes hidden by a fabric mesh.
"The uniform itself is a sign of courage for women. It shows that we are not afraid," Rasekh said.
___
Associated Press reporter Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.
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Gunmen kill 2 Afghan tribal elders who met Karzai
The Associated Press December 4, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - Gunmen killed two tribal elders in western Afghanistan following their meeting with President Hamid Karzai, a police spokesman said Thursday.
The elders were shot in Herat city on Wednesday, a day after they met the Afghan president in Kabul as part of a delegation of elders from Herat province, said Rauf Ahmadi, a police spokesman. Two other people in the car they were driving in when attacked were wounded, he said.
Ahmadi called the killings "a terrorist act" and said authorities were investigating whether Taliban militants were involved.
Karzai condemned the killings and urged authorities to arrest and punish the perpetrators, a statement from his office said.
Karzai is running for re-election next year, and the support of tribal elders is essential for his chances of winning at a time when his popularity has been sliding.
In the northern Jowzjan province, meanwhile, Taliban militants ambushed a police convoy Wednesday, killing an officer and wounding two other policemen, said Khalil Aminzada, the provincial police chief.
Authorities arrested four suspected Taliban fighters who were involved in the attack, he said.
Taliban attacks are rare in Jowzjan and the Wednesday assault suggests militants are expanding the areas where they operate away from their centers in the south and the east of the country.
More than 6,000 people have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press tally of figures provided by Afghan and Western officials.
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12 states invited to Paris meeting on Afghanistan
Dawn (Pakistan)
PARIS, Dec 4: France has invited a dozen states to a conference on Afghanistan on Dec 14 to enlist the support of neighbouring countries in a stepped-up effort for peace, officials said on Thursday.
“Apart from Afghanistan and its immediate neighbours (Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan), India and China have been invited as countries from the region,” said a French foreign ministry spokesman.
The United Nations special representative for Afghanistan, Kai Eide, has been invited to the informal ministerial meeting along with representatives of the United States, Britain and Russia, he said.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was also due to attend the Paris talks, six months after a donors’ conference in France, which currently holds the EU presidency, raised $20 billion for reconstruction in Afghanistan.
French officials see Pakistan, alleged to be the staging ground for Taliban attacks, as key to stabilising Afghanistan, which remains mired in poverty and violence more than six years after US-led forces drove the extremist militia out of Kabul.
About 70,000 US and Nato-led troops are fighting the Taliban.
The Paris meeting comes just over a month before president-elect Barack Obama takes office on a promise to shift the United States’ strategic focus from the war in Iraq to Afghanistan.
—AFP
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Pakistani air strikes kill 30 Taliban militants: security official
Wed Dec 3, 2:08 pm ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – At least 30 Taliban militants were killed Wednesday during military air strikes in a restive Pakistani tribal district bordering Afghanistan, security officials said.
The strikes were carried out by Pakistani jets and helicopter gunships at militant hide outs in Mohmand tribal district bordering Afghanistan where the military is hunting Al-Qaeda linked Taliban militants.
"According to reports received here at least 30 militants were killed in the air strikes," a security official told AFP.
"Two militant centres, a militant training camp and an ammunition dump were also destroyed in the air strikes," he added.
The toll could not be confirmed independently as journalists are barred from going to the troubled region.
Pakistan is currently embroiled in a spiral of Islamic militancy.
Nearly 1,500 people have been killed since July 2007 in a wave of militant bombings and suicide attacks across the country.
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Afghanistan Promotes Crop More Profitable Than Poppy
By Barry Newhouse Voice of America 03 December 2008
Afghanistan's most famous crop is also its most notorious. Opium poppies thrive in sun-baked fields across lawless areas of the country, accounting for more than 90 percent of the world's opium supply. But as VOA's Barry Newhouse reports from Kabul, there is one crop that could be even more profitable than the poppies - if it can reach the right markets.
Afghanistan opium poppies - big business
Southwest Afghanistan is a hub of poppy production, accounting for nearly all of this year's $3.4 billion in illegal opium exports.
But the region is also home to another cash crop - one that foreign donors and Afghan officials are hoping can replace poppies without reducing farmers' incomes.
Pomegrantes sales, possible alternative
The pricey fruits are pomegranates - and in Afghanistan, there are 48 different kinds - including a seedless one. With rising demand for nutrient-rich pomegranate juice in wealthy nations, U.S. and Afghan officials are trying to connect foreign businesses with local growers.
William Phillimore is a businessman whose company's "Pom Wonderful" branded juice has enjoyed a surge in sales from health-conscious consumers in the United States. He was invited to Kabul's International Pomegranate Fair to try the local fruit.
"The Kandahar pomegranate in particular is darker in color than most of the stuff you get in India, which tends to be lighter and sweeter with not as much acid. I think the quality is excellent," Phillimore said. "And I think that they've got a little work to do with the packing and sorting and grading and sizing for the international market because that's what the international market expects."
Pomegranates in Afghanistan are transported by the sackful along bumpy roads in trucks, which damages the fruit and reduces its shelf life. Less than five percent reach the lucrative export markets abroad. Afghan officials hope new storage facilities and better transportation can bring in more income for farmers.
"At this moment we have a problem of exports because very little investment has come into the processing of Afghan pomegranate," said Syed Suleiman Fatimi, who heads Afghanistan's export promotion agency. "We are especially looking into processing the Afghan pomegranate into concentrate for export or juices."
So far, most of the export efforts have focused on sending the finest fruit to upscale markets. This year, U.S. and Afghan funded programs helped send more than 2,000 tons of the fruit to supermarkets in Dubai.
More than two-and-a-half million trees have been planted in the last two years. The trees take up to five years to mature. But once they start producing fruit, USAID official Loren Stoddard says farmers are much less likely replace a productive orchard with poppies.
"Vegetable crops are great - the reason we like pomegranates long term is because vegetables you plant and replant and maybe replace with poppy," Stoddard stated. Pomegranates you never replace, so it really is the longer term solution."
Stoddard says farmers who export high-quality fruit can earn as much as $5,000 per hectare - about 15 percent more than poppies.
Pomegranate business slow now, but forecast looks promising
Few farmers are earning that much now. The industry is still dwarfed by billions of dollars in poppy exports and threatened by Afghanistan's deteriorating security.
But pomegranate farmers and buyers are hopeful.
In Kabul's main fruit market, vendors talk of the growing global demand for the fruit and rising prices. Hajji Argundabi is sending his end of the season Kandahari pomegranates to Tajikistan. Next year, he plans to ship them further.
"In the past, most of our product went to Pakistan. But now it is staying in Afghanistan and then going to Dubai and other countries. We will sell even more pomegranates in the new year," he said.
Afghan pomegranate prices nearly tripled in the past year when farmers produced about 50,000 metric tons. This year's harvest could yield as much as 60 percent more fruit - but officials say demand will still far exceed the country's supply.
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Measles deaths drop worldwide, report estimates
By MIKE STOBBE Associated Press December 4, 2008
ATLANTA (AP) — Measles deaths worldwide declined dramatically to about 200,000 a year, continuing a successful trend, global health authorities reported Thursday.
From 2000 to 2007, annual measles deaths dropped 74 percent, largely because of vaccination campaigns, according to a report from the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other organizations.
Measles has long been a leading cause of death of young children globally and still kills more than 500 a day. But health officials estimate 11 million deaths were avoided in the decline.
The most dramatic improvements were seen in Africa and in Greater Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, where measles deaths dropped by about 90 percent. The least progress was in Southeast Asia, where most of the world's measles deaths now occur.
The report appears this week in publications of the CDC and WHO.
It was released Thursday by the Measles Initiative, a global partnership. Last year it reported that worldwide measles deaths dropped 60 percent from 1999 to 2005.
The group's estimates come from a mathematical model that factors in vaccination rates and death rates for unvaccinated children.
Measles has been resurgent in the United States, where cases this year reached their highest level in more than a decade. "It's ironic," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
Measles deaths are rare in the United States. Cases are, too: This year's increased case count totals only about 130. Nearly half of the recent cases involved children whose parents rejected vaccination.
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Militants killed by locals while planting bomb
Written by www.quqnoos.com Wednesday, 03 December 2008
Gunfire sets off bomb and kills three militants in Paktia province
Three insurgents were shot at by local inhabitants while planting a bomb.
In the confusion, the bomb went off, killing all three, according to a Ministry of Defence spokesman.
The men were from a terrorist group led by Mohammad Gul.
The incident occurred in Janikhail district, Paktia province on Tuesday.
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