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Afghan general prosecutor summons ex-warlord
Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:58am EST
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's office of the general prosecutor has ordered an ex-ethnic Uzbek warlord and current senior armed forces officer, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, summoned over allegations he beat a former ally.
3rd bombing hits southern Afghanistan
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A car bomb exploded near a police compound Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, killing at least one civilian and wounding four, a police official said. It was the third attack in Kandahar province in as many days.
Canadians were warned about bomber: Afghan governor
Brian Hutchinson, National Post (Canada) Tuesday, February 19, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The governor of Kandahar province said a bombing that killed dozens of Afghans and wounded four Canadian soldiers Monday could have been avoided had Canadian soldiers heeded his warnings
Group protests Afghan reporter detention
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - A media rights group is urging the U.S. military to charge an Afghan journalist held at the Bagram military prison with a crime or set him free.
Oldest Oil Paintings Found in Afghanistan
Rosella Lorenzi, Discovery News
Feb. 19, 2008 -- The oldest known oil painting, dating from 650 A.D., has been found in caves in Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley, according to a team of Japanese, European and U.S. scientists.
"Empire" beer fuels UK troops off to Afghanistan
19 Feb 2008 13:41:08 GMT
LONDON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - A British pub is brewing a special beer for soldiers headed to Afghanistan called "Every Man an Emperor", a name unlikely to sit well with Afghans sensitive about foreign troops in their land.
Australia to send military trainers to Afghanistan
Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:48pm IST
1 of 1Full SizeCANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia will send military trainers to help build up the Afghan army, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said on Tuesday, as part of his push for a new international strategy for Afghanistan.
More Pakistanis Flee to Afghanistan
By PAULINE JELINEK
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Pakistanis fleeing to eastern Afghanistan to avoid violence in their country has risen to about 10,000 in recent weeks, a U.S. military official said Tuesday.
Czech prime minister to visit Ottawa for talks on Afghanistan
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - The prime minister of the Czech Republic will be in Ottawa next week to talk about Afghanistan with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Panel Frustrated in Marine Shooting Case
By ESTES THOMPSON
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — Col. Barton Sloat was frustrated. For weeks he had heard testimony about a Marine special operations company accused of killing Afghan civilians, but still wasn't sure how many had actually died.
UNHCR distributes winter aid for 200,000 Afghans
KABUL, Afghanistan, February 19 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency is distributing emergency aid to more than 200,000 Afghan returnees, internally displaced and other vulnerable people as part of a coordinated response
Pak-Afghan border sealed
Daily Times (Pakistan) Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The two main border posts between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been closed as a security measure during Pakistan’s parliamentary elections on Monday, officials said.
‘Candidates hire Taliban look-alikes as security guards’
Daily Times(Pakistan) Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Many candidates in North Waziristan “hired” services of “security guards” who “looked like Taliban” on the polling day, eyewitnesses and officials said.
Leaderless jihad
Washington Times, DC By Joshua Sinai February 19, 2008
Radical Muslims represent a minority within the Muslim world. Since most Muslims are not extremists, why are so many young Muslims drawn to extremist interpretations of Islam as the basis for establishing radical regimes in their societies?
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Afghan general prosecutor summons ex-warlord
Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:58am EST
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's office of the general prosecutor has ordered an ex-ethnic Uzbek warlord and current senior armed forces officer, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, summoned over allegations he beat a former ally.
Police briefly surrounded the luxury Kabul villa of Dostum early this month after he entered the house of Akbar Bay with some 50 gunmen and beat him up in a drunken rage, according to police and Bay.
They say Dostum, a fierce warlord who has changed sides and alliances many times during Afghanistan's 30 years of war, also shot a bodyguard of Bay.
The office of the general prosecutor has ordered Dostum's suspension from his current symbolic position as chief of staff of the high command of the armed forces until he shows up for investigation, officials said on Tuesday.
It has warned it will arrest Dostum, a one-time presidential candidate, if he fails to appear, officials added.
Dostum, who has denied the accounts by police and Bay, could not be contacted for comment on Tuesday.
Bay was active in Dostum's campaign during presidential elections in 2004 when the general gained 10 percent of the votes.
The burly and mustachioed general played a key role in helping U.S.-led forces drive the Taliban from power in 2001.
He rose to command ethnic Uzbek fighters allied to the Soviet Union during the 1979-89 occupation, then switched sides as Soviet troops withdrew.
The pro-federalist and self-proclaimed leader of Afghanistan's Uzbeks then formed and broke alliances several times during the ensuing civil war.
At the height of his power, he ran a mini-state in the north and his well-equipped army kept even the Taliban at bay until 1997.
He printed his own money, set up his own airline, drove an armored Cadillac and vowed never to bow to a government that banned whisky and music.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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3rd bombing hits southern Afghanistan
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A car bomb exploded near a police compound Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, killing at least one civilian and wounding four, a police official said. It was the third attack in Kandahar province in as many days.
The car bomb was apparently triggered remotely, said police officer Jan Mohammad, who was at the bombing scene in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan's largest city and the Taliban's former stronghold.
More than 100 people were killed by a suicide bomber just outside Kandahar city Sunday, while 38 died Monday at a market near the border with Pakistan when a suicide car bomb explosion targeted a Canadian military convoy.
The death toll from those two bombings, about 140, made it the deadliest spate of militant attacks in post-Taliban Afghanistan. The back-to-back blasts could also indicate that insurgents are now willing to inflict high civilian casualties to further weaken the Kabul government.
Christopher Dell, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said the increase in terror attacks by insurgents showed the Taliban's "fundamental weakness."
"Because they cannot stand and fight and because they have been rejected by the people, they are increasingly relying on terror to pursue their agenda," he said during a visit to the central province of Wardak.
Though attacks occasionally have killed dozens, insurgents in Afghanistan have generally sought to avoid targeting civilians, unlike attacks that have scarred Iraq in recent years.
The stretch of bombings comes amid warnings that Afghanistan this year could fall victim to even more violence than in 2007, when a record 6,500 people — mostly militants — were killed. The U.S., with a record high 28,000 soldiers in the country, is sending 3,200 more Marines in April.
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Associated Press writer Fisnik Abrashi in Wardak, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
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Canadians were warned about bomber: Afghan governor
Brian Hutchinson, National Post (Canada) Tuesday, February 19, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The governor of Kandahar province said a bombing that killed dozens of Afghans and wounded four Canadian soldiers Monday could have been avoided had Canadian soldiers heeded his warnings that a suicide bomber was moving about the area.
For the second time in two days, suicide bombers attacked security forces inside an area of Canadian military responsibility, killing dozens of civilian Afghans.
The latest attack occurred at 2:30 p.m. local time Monday and was directed at a small convoy of Canadian armoured vehicles conducting a routine patrol alongside the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in Spin Boldak district, about 100 kilometres southeast of Kandahar city.
Driving a civilian vehicle that carried explosives, the assailant approached the Canadian convoy and detonated "in close proximity" to it, said Lt.-Cmdr. Pierre Babinsky, a Canadian Forces public affairs officer based in Kandahar.
"The blast resulted in approximately 30 Afghan civilians being killed and approximately the same number being injured," he added.
Other reports put the number of Afghans killed at either 35 or 38.
Four Canadian soldiers were wounded.
"They are in good condition," said Lt.-Cmdr. Babinsky. "They all notified their families themselves."
The injured Canadians were flown by military helicopter to hospital at Kandahar Air Field; three were soon released from care. One was kept overnight for observation.
In a surprise statement, the governor of Kandahar province said the bombing could have been avoided had Canadian soldiers heeded his warnings.
Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid told reporters he had tried to discourage Canadian officers from sending their troops on patrol in Spin Boldak.
Mr. Khalid said he knew of a suicide bomber in the border area, and that he had passed his information to Canadian and NATO forces as early as Sunday. He said he repeated his warning to them five times but was ignored.
"We regularly receive threat warnings," said Lt.-Cmdr. Babinsky, when asked about the governor's statements. "And obviously we go where we want to, when we want to, in our area of operation. We obviously take notice of the warnings but our aim is to operate freely within our area of operation, despite threats."
Among other things, Canadians are tasked with conducting reconnaissance and intelligence gathering missions from a forward operating base a few kilometres from the town of Spin Boldak. They also liaise with the Afghan national army, Afghan national police, and Afghan border police.
Asked if he felt Mr. Khalid was attempting to shift blame for the latest carnage in Spin Boldak, Lt.-Cmdr. Babinsky said: "it's not for me to speculate."
There is talk that the governor is feeling pressure to finally resolve the lack of security in Kandahar, and that he is unhappy with some aspects of Canada's military mission. Specifically, he is said to believe that Canadian and coalition soldiers sometimes operate without putting the safety of Afghans first.
That is not the Canadian position.
"We're fully committed to working with the Afghan authorities and security forces to further strengthen security in our area of operation," said Lt.-Cmdr. Babinsky. "While we see progress in the security situation, we unfortunately also witness continued indiscriminate targeting of Afghans by anti-government elements."
Unfortunately, he added, "we've had two incidents in two consecutive days."
Witnesses said the explosion ripped through a roadside market, killing helpless fruit and vegetable vendors and their customers, and damaging 20 small shops. The area is adjacent to a major border crossing that's usually jammed with people travelling to and from Pakistan; however, the crossing was closed because of Pakistan's general election.
One Canadian armoured vehicle "sustained the blast [and] was damaged to a certain extent," noted Lt.-Cmdr. Babinsky. The vehicle was a Coyote, a light armoured reconnaissance vehicle usually equipped with sophisticated surveillance devices.
The bombing came less than 30 hours after an even deadlier suicide attack. On Sunday morning, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a dog-fighting rally just outside Kandahar city.
That incident claimed the lives of at least 100 Afghans, including a senior Afghan auxiliary police commander and five or more of his officers.
It was initially thought that 80 Afghans were killed on Sunday. It was the worst terrorist strike in Afghanistan since Taliban insurgents were removed from power in 2001.
A Taliban spokesman calling himself Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told Canwest News Service that his group did not co-ordinate the first suicide strike, but took responsibility for the second. The suicide bomber was a Kandahar resident named Abdul Rahman, he said.
Mr. Ahmadi went on to claim, incorrectly, that the blast had killed only Canadian soldiers and Afghan National Security Force members. "There were no civilian casualties," he insisted.
Direct insurgent assaults on Canadian troops in Spin Boldak district are rare, but suicide attacks on Afghan police are not. In early January, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the town of Spin Boldak, the district's main centre. He killed one border police officer and injured six others. And in October, a motorcycle bomber killed seven border police officers and four civilians.
Watching his brother-in-law recover in hospital from head wounds sustained in the Sunday attack, one local Afghan called for a higher power to intervene.
"Against Islam and humanity, the insurgents have killed innumerable innocent people," said Abdul Qaum. "God will punish them. We can't."
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Group protests Afghan reporter detention
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - A media rights group is urging the U.S. military to charge an Afghan journalist held at the Bagram military prison with a crime or set him free.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it was "greatly concerned" by the detention of Jawed Ahmad, a journalist for Canadian Television. Ahmad was detained in the southern city of Kandahar in October over allegations he had contacts with Taliban militants.
"We are deeply troubled that Jawed Ahmad has been secluded in a U.S. military base for nearly three months without charge," Joel Simon, executive director of the New York-based group, said in a statement Monday.
"The United States military must explain the reason for his detention and accord him due process. If he is not charged with any crime then he must be released immediately."
Maj. Chris Belcher, a U.S. military spokesman, acknowledged Tuesday that Ahmad is being held at the Bagram facility but said he could not discuss details of the case.
Ahmad, 22, was detained because of allegations that he had phone numbers of local Taliban fighters, his brother, Siddique Ahmad, told The Associated Press. He said no U.S. military official had provided detailed information about his brother's case.
It is common for journalists in Afghanistan to have contact information of Taliban fighters so they can seek militants' comments for news stories.
Siddique Ahmad said the International Red Cross helped him talk with his brother through a videophone connection it has set up with prisoners in Bagram for family members.
"He just told me to tell all the journalists: 'Please, help me, because I'm a journalist, and I'm innocent. Try to help me to get out of Bagram,'" Siddique Ahmad said.
The media rights group quoted Robert Hurst, president of CTV News, as saying the company asked NATO, Canadian and U.S. military officials about Ahmad's detention but received no information.
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Oldest Oil Paintings Found in Afghanistan
Rosella Lorenzi, Discovery News
Feb. 19, 2008 -- The oldest known oil painting, dating from 650 A.D., has been found in caves in Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley, according to a team of Japanese, European and U.S. scientists.
The discovery reverses a common perception that the oil painting, considered a typically Western art, originated in Europe, where the earliest examples date to the early 12th century A.D.
Famous for its 1,500-year-old massive Buddha statues, which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, the Bamiyan Valley features several caves painted with Buddhist images.
Damaged by the severe natural environment and Taliban dynamite, the cave murals have been restored and studied by the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo, as a UNESCO/Japanese Fund-in-Trust project.
"Since most of the paintings have been lost, looted or deteriorated, we are trying to conserve the intact portions and also try to understand the constituent materials and painting techniques," Yoko Taniguchi, a researcher at the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo, told Discovery News.
"It was during such analysis that we discovered oily and resinous components in a group of wall paintings."
Painted in the mid-7th century A.D., the murals have varying artistic influences and show scenes with knotty-haired Buddhas in vermilion robes sitting cross-legged amid palm leaves and mythical creatures.
Most likely, the paintings are the work of artists who traveled on the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China, across Central Asia's desert to the West.
The researchers analyzed, with different methods, hundreds of samples. Three different centers -- Tokyo's National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France and the Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute -- carried out the tests.
Infrared microscope, micro X-ray diffraction, and micro X-ray fluorescence produced accurate chemical images of the paintings. Gas chromatography confirmed and refined the identification of organic compounds.
"We discovered that a particular group of caves were painted with oil painting technique, using perhaps walnut and poppy seed drying oils. They also have multi-layered structure as if they were like canvas paintings of Medieval period," Taniguchi said.
Synchrotron beam analysis made it possible to identify the compounds used in the different layers of painting.
"These layers are very thin, and it was really important to analyze each of them selectively. Indeed, the paintings are done with a mixture of several ingredients. They are never present as a pure compound," Marine Cotte, a researcher at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, told Discovery News.
Analysis showed the layers were made up of natural resins, proteins, gums, oil-based paint layers and, in some cases, a resinous, varnish-like layer.
"It is amazing how the ancient people knew the nature of materials well, such as protein, gum, resin, oil, pigments and dyes, and also how to prepare and combine them effectively," Hidemi Otake, a painting conservator at the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties of Japan, told Discovery News.
Murals in many of the Bamiyan caves featured various painting materials and techniques that had been employed through the ages.
"Some caves have rough wall surfaces and matte finishes, and others have very smooth surface, and some have a transparency and shininess. Some paintings have glaze-like layers on top of paint," Otake said.
According to top Afghan archaeologist Zemaryalai Tarzi, president of the Association for the Protection of Afghan Archaeology, the discovery is important as it testifies Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage.
"My Japanese colleagues are conducting scientific research and an inventory of these fragments with courage and perseverance. But the discovery is yet not as important or significant as what the murals of Bamiyan used to be before their disappearance and destruction," Tarzi said.
Tarzi was Afghanistan's director general of archaeology and preservation of historical monuments until 1979, when he was forced to flee the country a few months before the Soviet invasion. He believes further research is necessary to establish the possible role of India and China in developing the technique.
"It would be very important to know if one can attribute this invention to Bamiyan alone," Tarzi said.
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"Empire" beer fuels UK troops off to Afghanistan
19 Feb 2008 13:41:08 GMT
LONDON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - A British pub is brewing a special beer for soldiers headed to Afghanistan called "Every Man an Emperor", a name unlikely to sit well with Afghans sensitive about foreign troops in their land.
The Fox and Fiddler pub in Colchester, a town north of London where Britain's elite Parachute Regiment is based, launched the specially commissioned beer this week, ahead of the regiment's deployment in April.
"I just wanted to do a little something myself to send them on their way," the pub's landlord, Jeff Wright, said in a statement distributed by the Ministry of Defence, which has given its full backing to the initiative.
The name "Every Man an Emperor" was taken from a speech that Field Marshall Montgomery made about the Parachute Regiment in 1944 and has since become an unofficial motto of the force.
Wright said 30 pence from every pint of the beer sold would go towards a charity of the Paras' choosing.
"I think it's a fantastic idea," said Major Paul Blair, a commander in the regiment.
"It's important to the Parachute Regiment to make close links with our local community and I think this is a sign of the success of that bond."
But while the beer may go down well at home, its name may not raise such a big cheer among Afghans.
Afghanistan was a target of Britain's imperial ambitions throughout most of the 19th century and any mention of Britain and empire in the country, where 7,700 British troops are deployed fighting the Taliban, can cause offence.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who recently objected to British statesman Paddy Ashdown being named a new envoy to the country, is said to have turned him down partly because of Lord Ashdown's "viceroy"-style role.
An official at the Afghan embassy in London said he didn't think the name would go down well in Kabul, but declined further comment.
Asked about the choice of the beer's name, a barman at the Fox and Fiddler appeared nonplussed. "To be honest, I don't think anyone thought about that," he said.
Britain's Ministry of Defence said there should be "no suggestion of British imperial designs over Afghanistan".
"It's an independent, locally generated initiative to support the troops," a spokesman said.
It is not just the associations with empire that may cause offence, but that an alcoholic drink is being used to support troops in a military campaign in a Muslim country.
While alcohol is available in Afghanistan, its consumption is frowned upon and religious and government authorities have made efforts to clamp down on its distribution. (Reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Kate Kelland and Mary Gabriel)
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Australia to send military trainers to Afghanistan
Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:48pm IST
1 of 1Full SizeCANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia will send military trainers to help build up the Afghan army, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said on Tuesday, as part of his push for a new international strategy for Afghanistan.
But Fitzgibbon ruled out increasing Australia's overall military contribution to Afghanistan, saying Australia would maintain its reconstruction team and special forces, both working in the restive Oruzgan province.
"The war in Afghanistan is at a crossroads and the time for making difficult decisions is upon us," Fitzgibbon told Australia's parliament on Tuesday.
Australia is not a NATO member, but Fitzgibbon has criticised the NATO-led international operations in Afghanistan for lacking a coherent strategy, for making poor progress in training Afghan troops, and for failing to stamp out drug crops in Afghanistan.
Australia, a close U.S. ally, was one of the first nations to commit forces to the U.S.-led war on terror, designed to oust Afghanistan's then Taliban rulers, following the Sept. 11, 2001 airliner attacks on the United States.
Australia has about 1,000 troops in Afghanistan, mainly working with Dutch forces, including special forces commandos who are hunting down Taliban militants.
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More Pakistanis Flee to Afghanistan
By PAULINE JELINEK
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Pakistanis fleeing to eastern Afghanistan to avoid violence in their country has risen to about 10,000 in recent weeks, a U.S. military official said Tuesday.
Commanders had reported last month that the number was only between 300 and 400 families. But Army Col. Jeffery Johnson, the U.S. command surgeon in eastern Afghanistan, said thousands more had crossed over the border and been taken into the health care systems in Khost and Paktika provinces.
"That was really a response to some of the turmoil that was taking place inside of Pakistan and the people there understood that their lives potentially could be better if they were in Afghanistan," Johnson told a Pentagon press conference via video hookup from Afghanistan.
Pakistan, particularly its northwest, has been wracked by Islamic militant violence, with bombings targeting the military or top officials, and clashes between security forces and pro-Taliban fighters.
Violence also has increased in Pakistan over months of political upheaval, including unrest leading to parliamentary elections that could threaten the rule of President Pervez Musharraf, a key American ally in the war on terror. Final results from Monday's vote had not been announced early Tuesday.
Musharraf in late October declared emergency rule for six weeks — a move he said was necessary to combat rising Islamic extremism, but was widely seen as a ploy to prolong his own presidency. Thousands of his opponents were rounded up and Supreme Court justices fired.
The emergency order was barely lifted when opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday, throwing the nation into chaos as enraged crowds rioted across Pakistan.
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Czech prime minister to visit Ottawa for talks on Afghanistan
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - The prime minister of the Czech Republic will be in Ottawa next week to talk about Afghanistan with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Mirek Topolanek will be bringing along his defence minister for the visit on Feb. 28 and 29, which will also include a later stop in Toronto. In a statement, Harper said Canada and the Czech Republic enjoy a strong bilateral relationship, including co-operation in the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan.
Harper has been canvassing NATO allies looking for an extra 1,000 troops to bolster the Canadian army in Kandahar - and warning that Canada will withdraw unless reinforcements are forthcoming.
The French expressed an interest in supplying part of the troop commitment, but they have made it clear a final decision won't come until April at the NATO leaders summit in Romania.
Harper has been working the telephone with other allied leaders, including Germany, Australia, Britain and the U.S., explaining Canada's position and looking for commitments of support.
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Panel Frustrated in Marine Shooting Case
By ESTES THOMPSON
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — Col. Barton Sloat was frustrated. For weeks he had heard testimony about a Marine special operations company accused of killing Afghan civilians, but still wasn't sure how many had actually died.
Sloat, who with two other senior Marine officers was part of a panel investigating the events, was told that only a few of more than 160 Afghan witnesses told the same story. The little hard evidence collected was either lost or left behind in Afghanistan.
"We're not sure of anything," Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent David Kurre testified.
"That's the most accurate statement I've heard in the court so far," Sloat said.
As early as this week, Sloat and his two colleagues who make up the special Court of Inquiry — a rarely used administrative fact-finding process — could recommend whether two company officers should be charged criminally.
If a senior general agrees, Maj. Fred C. Galvin and Capt. Vincent J. Noble could stand trial on charges that include failure to obey a lawful order and dereliction of duty.
War crimes prosecutions have been made before — 11 U.S. soldiers were convicted and five officers disciplined in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, for example. But the experience of the Court of Inquiry demonstrates the enormous challenge of piecing together a crime scene on the field of battle.
"These cases are murky by definition," said Alex Roland, a military history professor at Duke University. "It's frustrating for everybody. It's frustrating for the court, for the leadership of the military and for the people who are accused."
In the latest case, all agree on a single basic fact: An explosive-packed minivan exploded near the unit's convoy last March 9, as the squad was returning to its base near Jalalabad from a patrol to the Pakistan border.
No one seems sure about much of anything else, including the number of civilians killed. Accounts vary from at least 19 to no more than five. When hearing testimony about the number of injured, court president Col. John O'Rourke told one Afghan doctor to stop reading his records because they were so vague as to be useless.
"Jalalabad CSI wasn't open that day," quipped Galvin's civilian attorney, Mark Waple.
Citing witness accounts, Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission concluded the Marines fired indiscriminately at vehicles and pedestrians in six different locations on a 10-mile stretch of road. Nearly a dozen Marines told the court they heard gunfire after the bombing, calling the unit's fire a disciplined response to a well-planned ambush.
The Marines themselves told different stories about what they heard and saw through the narrow armored windows of their Humvees. They couldn't agree on the exact response of two gunners who fired, including when they fired and for how long. The gunners were not given immunity and declined to testify.
Investigative agents arrived at the scene two months after the incident, and then had only 60 minutes to examine the site. No autopsies were performed because no bodies were recovered. Even shell casings collected from the bomb site — which could have been used to corroborate the Marines' story that their unit took small arms fire from Afghan attackers — were lost.
The Court of Inquiry was given more than 5,000 pages of documents to review and heard hours of classified testimony during sessions not open to the public.
But throughout the hours of open hearings, Sloat and the other court members didn't bother to hide their contempt for what they had to work with.
"The location and the setting and circumstances of the incident are so remote and unfathomable in the best of circumstances that it's virtually impossible to recreate the courtroom standards that we apply domestically to an incident like this," Roland said.
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UNHCR distributes winter aid for 200,000 Afghans
KABUL, Afghanistan, February 19 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency is distributing emergency aid to more than 200,000 Afghan returnees, internally displaced and other vulnerable people as part of a coordinated response to the harsh winter that has killed hundreds of people in recent weeks.
UNHCR plans to assist 37,460 Afghan families – numbering more than 200,000 people – with relief items such as tents, blankets, plastic sheets, sleeping mats, lanterns, jerry cans, kitchen sets and soap from the agency's stockpiles throughout the country.
The beneficiaries are a mix of recent returnees from Pakistan and Iran, internally displaced people (IDPs) and others at risk in the particularly cold weather.
The refugee agency's aim is to prevent the most vulnerable families from being forced to leave their homes and thereby adding to the 120,000 people previously displaced by conflict and drought within Afghanistan.
More than 85,000 Afghans have been assisted so far in different regions across the country. The bulk of the agency's contingency supplies have gone to the western region, which has been hardest hit by the severe cold.
Together with its sister agencies, UNHCR has provided 2,500 families with winter supplies in two IDP settlements in the western province of Herat. In addition, 5,030 blankets, 3,230 plastic sheets, 31,000 detergent soap bars, 2,500 metres of hygienic cloth, 930 plastic mats, 510 kerosene heaters and 2,500 jerry cans have been sent to the local Disaster Management Committees in Farah, Ghor, Badghis and Nimrooz provinces.
In the Central Highlands, one of the most severely affected regions, UNHCR has delivered relief items for more than 1,000 people to the Department of Refugees and Repatriation in Daikundi province for further distribution.
In the central region, the refugee agency has provided a combination of cash grants, non-food relief assistance as well as glass window panes (in addition to the regular UNHCR shelter programme) to some 2,000 of the most vulnerable returnees and IDPs in autumn and winter.
The beneficiaries include recently displaced communities in Kabul and Ghazni, recent returnees from camps in Pakistan that were closed, as well as returnees living in land allocation sites. Many of the new returnees are experiencing snow for the first time after nearly 30 years in exile.
Through UNHCR awareness raising and advocacy among agencies and private companies, many more families have received winterization assistance. At the same time, UNHCR is urging donors to direct their assistance to such outlying communities as IDPs in Ghazni and new returnees in Logar, some of whom are still landless and homeless.
In the south this week, the refugee agency delivered winter assistance packages to 780 women living around Kandahar city. Of the planned 5,500 families to be provided with winterization assistance in the southern region, 2,884 families have benefitted so far.
In the south-eastern region, 1,500 winterization packages of non-food items were distributed to some 10,000 Afghans living in Paktya and Khost. Similar distributions are underway in Mazar-e-Sharif in the north and Jalalabad in the east as UNHCR continues to work with UN agencies to support the Afghan Disaster Management Committee.
By Mohammad Nadir Farhad in Kabul, Afghanistan
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Pak-Afghan border sealed
Daily Times (Pakistan) Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The two main border posts between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been closed as a security measure during Pakistan’s parliamentary elections on Monday, officials said.
The Torkham and Spin Boldak posts, used by thousands of people daily, were shut on the request of Pakistan and for the “smooth” running of the elections, they said.
Torkham closed late on Sunday for all vehicle and pedestrian traffic and was due to reopen on Tuesday, the border police commander in the area Chitral Shinwari told AFP.
Spin Boldak, further south, would be closed for three days to vehicles, but would be opened on Tuesday and Wednesday for pedestrians, Kandahar border police commander General Abdul Razeq said.
“We have agreed with Pakistani authorities that the border be closed for three days for a smooth parliamentary elections in Pakistan with no security problems,” the commander said.
However, a suicide attacker blew up a car bomb near an international military convoy in a market area of Spin Boldak on Monday, killing at least eight civilians, police said. afp
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‘Candidates hire Taliban look-alikes as security guards’
Daily Times(Pakistan) Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Many candidates in North Waziristan “hired” services of “security guards” who “looked like Taliban” on the polling day, eyewitnesses and officials said.
“They had long beard and hair and dressed like the Taliban. But they were not really Taliban men who generally fight the Pakistani security forces in Tribal Areas or the US forces in Afghanistan,” the eyewitnesses said, wishing not to be named. However, it was unclear who the highly armed men were, if not the Taliban. A senior official in the agency said he saw armed men with a Taliban outlook roaming around. “These people were carrying heavy weapons like rocket-propelled grenades to protect candidates,” he said. staff report
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Leaderless jihad
Washington Times, DC By Joshua Sinai February 19, 2008
Radical Muslims represent a minority within the Muslim world. Since most Muslims are not extremists, why are so many young Muslims drawn to extremist interpretations of Islam as the basis for establishing radical regimes in their societies? How do they become radicalized? Finally, how can violent radicalism be countered and defeated?
These questions are discussed in Marc Sageman's important book, "Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty First Century." Dr. Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and political sociologist, is also a former CIA case officer who worked with the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. He is also the author of the groundbreaking "Understanding Terror Networks," which was published in 2004 and has become one of the leading studies on the global Islamist terror movement.
In "Leaderless Jihad" Dr. Sageman, whom I know professionally, updates and expands his earlier work on what drives radical elements of a society to terrorism. Dr. Sageman's research is unique in the field of al Qaeda studies, in particular, because of his "evidence-based" approach. Here he has assembled profiles of individual operatives to generate insights about their personal characteristics and motivations, recruitment patterns, organizational formations and warfare.
According to Dr. Sageman, the al Qaeda-led Islamist social movement consists of several thousand members (out of a worldwide Muslim population of some 1.5 billion). It is "composed of social networks that mobilize people to resort to terrorism. These networks may become formal organizations, like al Qaeda or its Indonesian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah, depending on shifting circumstances."
Moreover, while al Qaeda "Central" is currently headquartered along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, its "social movement has spread far beyond the original organization." This makes it even more dangerous, according to Dr. Sageman, because as a social movement it has dramatically grown beyond its organizational origins.
Today's al Qaeda (and the social movement it has spawned) is the product of three historical waves, Dr. Sageman writes. The first wave consisted of the "old guard," the veterans of the anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan who joined Osama bin Laden in forming the core of al Qaeda Central in the 1980s. The second wave joined al Qaeda in the 1990s after training in its camps in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda "Central" was predominant during this phase, closely directing its operations around the world.
The third wave, however, is the post-2001 generation of radicals, who joined al Qaeda following the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq. Although it lost its safe haven and training facilities in Afghanistan, the al Qaeda-led social movement is even more pervasive because of its global reach as well as its links to al Qaeda "Central" along the Pakistan-Afghan border and on the Internet, where it has succeeded in radicalizing a new generation of activists, including many among second-generation Muslim immigrants in Europe and North America. This was the cohort, for example, that carried out the suicide attacks against London's transportation system in July 2005.
How are the members of al Qaeda's third wave mobilized into becoming "warriors for Islam?" Dr. Sageman writes that they view themselves (whether rightly or wrongly) as "heroes, fighting for justice and fairness" to transform their societies.
Moreover, Dr. Sageman asserts, the process of their radicalization depends on an individual's sense of moral outrage in response to perceived suffering by fellow Muslims around the world; how he might interpret such moral outrage within the context of a larger war against Islam; whether or not the sense of "moral outrage" resonates with one's own experience, for example, discrimination or difficulty in making it in Western society and, finally, being mobilized by networks that take one to the next level of violent radicalization in the form of terrorist cells.
To counter the social movement inspired by al Qaeda, Dr. Sageman proposes a strategy to "take the glory and thrill out of terrorism." Military operations against them should be conducted swiftly and precisely, with such terrorists considered "common criminals." The sense of "moral outrage" by young Muslims can be diminished by helping to resolve local conflicts that al Qaeda's propaganda highlights as injustices against the Muslim world. The young jihadists want to become heroes, so they need to be provided with alternative role models, such as Muslim soccer stars and other successful community leaders.
Dr. Sageman's incisive observations based on carefully examined evidence, astute insights and scholarship make "Leaderless Jihad" the gold standard in al Qaeda studies.
Joshua Sinai is program manager, counterterrorism studies at the Analysis Corporation in McLean.
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