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Taliban defeat will take years: US general
Wed Feb 20, 7:31 AM ET
MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan (AFP) - It will take "a few years" to defeat the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, the top US general in the country said, reiterating US support for the fight.
NATO chief in Afghanistan on unannounced visit
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-20 23:25:14
KABUL, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit to the war-torn country, an official of the Afghan presidential palace said Wednesday.
Nato chief calm on Afghan visit
By David Loyn BBC News, Kabul Wednesday, 20 February 2008, 06:03 GMT
The Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is in Afghanistan as the military alliance faces unprecedented tension over its mission there.
Canada leader confers with Karzai over Afghanistan mission
Wed Feb 20, 3:57 AM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper conferred with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the future of NATO's Afghanistan mission, his spokeswoman said.
Ottawa proposing Manley as UN boss in Kabul
BRIAN LAGHI From Wednesday's Globe and Mail February 20, 2008 at 2:00 AM EST
OTTAWA — The federal government is floating the name of former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley as the United Nations' new “super envoy” to co-ordinate aid and reconstruction in Afghanistan.
Manley denies Canada proposing him as UN envoy in Afghanistan
OTTAWA (AFP) - Former Canadian deputy prime minister John Manley denied Wednesday media reports suggesting the government is proposing him as the new UN envoy to coordinate aid and reconstruction in Afghanistan.
US coalition troops detain 22 suspects in two raids in southern Afghanistan
By FISNIK ABRASHI,Associated Press Writer Thursday, February 21
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops detained 22 suspected insurgents and discovered nearly half a ton of heroin during separate operations in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said Wednesday.
AFGHANISTAN: Millions vulnerable to spring floods
20 Feb 2008 13:34:54 GMT
KABUL, 20 February 2008 (IRIN) - As temperatures gradually rise towards the end of a harsh winter in Afghanistan, concerns are mounting that thawing snows and spring rain will threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions
AFGHANISTAN: Psychological scars of violence on children
20 Feb 2008 10:14:53 GMT
KABUL, 20 February 2008 (IRIN) - Hundreds of schoolchildren who witnessed a deadly explosion and its aftermath in Baghlan Province, northern Afghanistan, on 6 November are suffering mental and psychological scars, health specialists and affected residents say.
Afghan farmers earn about $1 bln from opium: IMF
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghan farmers earned about $1 billion from opium production in 2007, by far the country's largest cash crop, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.
Afghan refugee teaches Hindi to tots in India
20 Feb 2008 14:12:35 GMT
NEW DELHI, India, February 20 (UNHCR) – It's a room bathed in sunlight up a narrow flight of stairs. Sounds of children learning Hindi, one of India's many languages, filter down. It sounds like a typical class in urban India
Militants abduct 2 staff of education department in W Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-20 15:11:41
KABUL, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Militants have abducted two staff of education department in Afghanistan's western Farah province, said a press release of Afghan Interior Ministry received here Wednesday.
Two supervisors of the Education Department
Afghan police kill 15 Taliban fighters including 2 commanders
February 19, 2008
Afghan police have killed 15 Taliban insurgents including two of their local commanders over the past two weeks, a press release of Interior Ministry issued Tuesday said.
Afghanistan's 'Hidden' Art Treasures on Exhibit in Amsterdam
Amsterdam 19 February 2008 Voice of America By Lauren Comiteau
The Taliban's destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan in March 2001 was the most dramatic expression of their mission to obliterate all "idolatrous" images from Afghanistan's pre-Islamic past. Along with the Buddhas
Afghan tribes plan manifesto of dissent
Government can't contain violence, document says, after Taliban attack on Canadian convoy kills 38 civilians
GRAEME SMITH From Tuesday's Globe and Mail February 19, 2008 at 5:16 AM EST
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — A groundswell of anger over the rising violence in Kandahar has prompted the major tribes to consider a manifesto expressing a lack of confidence in the Afghan government
Slipping into darkness
February 20, 2008 Washington Times
By Harlan Ullman - With elections in Pakistan two days ago, John McCain's emergence as the presumptive Republican presidential candidate and the political dogfight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for Democratic
Clothing IDs friends for military
By JAMES HANNAH, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 20, 3:22 AM ET
DAYTON, Ohio - When Taliban forces attacked a police checkpoint in central Afghanistan under dark of night in late 2006, special-operations Master Sgt. Andrew Martin called in air support and then slapped a high-tech
Marines rescue Afghan girls hit by rocket
Hannah Strange and agencies Times Online February 20, 2008
The British marine who helped save the life of two young Afghan girls seriously wounded in a rocket attack spoke today of his horror at the involvement of children in the ongoing conflict between militants and coalition forces.
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Taliban defeat will take years: US general
Wed Feb 20, 7:31 AM ET
MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan (AFP) - It will take "a few years" to defeat the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, the top US general in the country said, reiterating US support for the fight.
Major General David Rodriguez, head of the US-led coalition force, said the US military would stay in the country "as long as they are needed."
"We definitely think it will take a few years for the Afghan people and the Afghan leaders supported by the coalition forces to defeat them," he said in a response to a question from a journalist.
An insurgency led by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001, has been growing in the past two years with a spike in suicide attacks and roadside bombings.
The deadliest blast struck outside the southern city of Kandahar on Sunday, leaving more than 100 people dead. The Taliban denied involvement but officials said they were to blame.
On Monday another suicide blast -- this time claimed by the Taliban -- killed nearly 40 people in Kandahar province's border town of Spin Boldak.
Deputy US ambassador Christopher Dell, who accompanied Rodriguez on a trip to meet officials in the town of Maidan Shahr, west of Kabul, said that Taliban used terror tactics because they had little support among people.
"They are simply trying to terrorise them to play with fear in order to achieve their objectives," he said.
The coalition works alongside a larger NATO-led force and the Afghan military.
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NATO chief in Afghanistan on unannounced visit
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-20 23:25:14
KABUL, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit to the war-torn country, an official of the Afghan presidential palace said Wednesday.
The official, who declined to be named, confirmed the NATO chief's arrival with Xinhua but gave no details.
The NATO's decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, led by Scheffer, is visiting Afghanistan from Jan. 19 to 21 and will hold meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to a NATO statement released from Brussels.
A 43,000-strong multi-national force is deployed in Afghanistan under the flag of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force(ISAF), fighting militants and ensuring security.
Editor: Mu Xuequan
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Nato chief calm on Afghan visit
By David Loyn BBC News, Kabul Wednesday, 20 February 2008, 06:03 GMT
The Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is in Afghanistan as the military alliance faces unprecedented tension over its mission there.
Many of the nations with troops in Afghanistan prevent them serving in the most dangerous areas in the south.
Forthcoming elections in Canada and the Netherlands, two of the nations who do send troops to fight in the south, could raise further questions.
But Mr de Hoop Scheffer denied tensions over the mission would destroy Nato.
Canada has already signalled that it will have to pull its troops out next year if more forces are not sent to Kandahar, scene of Afghanistan's worst suicide attack when 80 were killed on Sunday.
'Realist'
Speaking on his plane to Kabul, Mr de Hoop Scheffer told the BBC that he was "following the Canadian debate with great interest".
He said that that he was not happy about the "caveats" - the limitations on troop deployment imposed by some countries - but that he was a realist and realised that "we do not expect soon to see Germans or Italian forces in the south, except for the occasional emergency".
Map of main troop deployments
He said he was trying to convince some countries to send more troops, but that it was best done privately.
In recent weeks the US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made a series of very public speeches, warning that if Nato was allowed to become a "two-tier" organisation, with only a few countries willing to put troops in harm's way, then that "would in effect destroy the alliance".
Training
While preferring a more discreet debate about this issue, Mr de Hoop Scheffer denied that the tensions over the Afghan mission would destroy Nato.
"In my long career, Nato has been declared terminally ill or dead six or seven or eight times. So I am not worried about that," he said.
"I am also not worried that we are losing in Afghanistan. We are not losing. The challenges are huge, but we are not losing. We are making tremendous progress."
He said that the important thing was to improve training of Afghan troops and police, as well as better training for Nato troops in counter-insurgency warfare.
There has been an increasing emphasis from the international community in recent months in Afghanistan on securing political progress as well as fighting insurgents.
Political strains
The expulsion of two European diplomats, and President Hamid Karzai's very public row with Britain and blocking of the appointment of Lord Ashdown as UN envoy, all testify to strains over the speed of progress.
Mr de Hoop Scheffer said that President Karzai realised the need for dialogue with some Taleban elements, but "it is his nation not ours.
"I think he realises very well that in Afghanistan some sort of political process has to take off. You do not of course talk to people who are beheading people and hanging them and burning schools.
"But everywhere in the world where there is a conflict at a certain stage, a form of political process has to start."
Countries contributing more than 1,000 troops (6
February 2008):
|
Australia - 1,070
Canada 2,500
France 1,515
Germany - 3,210
Italy - 2,880
|
 |
Netherlands - 1,650
Poland - 1,100
UK - 7,800
US - 15,000
|
Figures approximate
Source: ISAF
Source: ISAF
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Canada leader confers with Karzai over Afghanistan mission
Wed Feb 20, 3:57 AM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper conferred with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the future of NATO's Afghanistan mission, his spokeswoman said.
Speaking by telephone, Harper told Karzai that Canada wishes to extend its deployment of 2,500 troops in battle-scarred Kandahar province to 2011, but only if NATO allies send reinforcements.
To that end, Harper has in recent weeks urged the heads of France, Germany and Australia to boost their troop deployments in southern Afghanistan.
Defense Minister Peter MacKay told NATO defense ministers Ottawa's demand for an extra 1,000 troops in Kandahar to fight alongside Canadian soldiers against insurgents was "not a negotiable item."
Otherwise, Canada would withdraw from Afghanistan at the end of its current mandate in February 2009, said Harper.
Canada's parliament is expected to vote next month on whether to extend its combat mission in the volatile south.
In his discussion with Karzai, Harper "confirmed that he is in contact with NATO allies regarding additional troops and expressed his hope that Parliament will support a motion that would see an extension of Canada's mission to Afghanistan," his spokeswoman Sandra Buckler said in an email.
"President Karzai reconfirmed his support for the Canadian mission, a message he will carry to NATO in the coming weeks," she added.
Harper also announced Tuesday he will meet with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek in Ottawa on February 28 and 29 to discuss Canadian-Czech cooperation in Afghanistan.
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Ottawa proposing Manley as UN boss in Kabul
BRIAN LAGHI From Wednesday's Globe and Mail February 20, 2008 at 2:00 AM EST
OTTAWA — The federal government is floating the name of former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley as the United Nations' new “super envoy” to co-ordinate aid and reconstruction in Afghanistan.
Sources have told The Globe and Mail that Mr. Manley is being suggested as a replacement for former British politician Paddy Ashdown, who was originally nominated for the job. Mr. Manley is the recent chair of a panel that recommended Canadian troops remain in Afghanistan, but only if NATO is able to come up with 1,000 more troops, as well as helicopters and unmanned aircraft.
Such a move, if successful, would make it doubly difficult for the Canadian government to withdraw from the combat mission, because a pullout would be seen as a humiliation for a country that has one of its own as the special representative. Having a Canadian in such an influential role would also help to sell the mission in Canada, where voters are divided over it.
Sources said that other candidates are in the running, including one from a Scandinavian country.
Mr. Ashdown withdrew from the post last month after opposition from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was reportedly concerned that the former British politician would have too much influence in the country. Some Afghan officials have difficulty with the idea of a special representative, saying there is a “negative atmosphere” in the country created around the notion.
Installing Mr. Manley in such a role would also make life difficult for the Liberals, who would be hard-pressed to oppose the mission if one of their own was acting in such an influential role.
Sources said it would be unheard of for the government to have suggested Mr. Manley without the former deputy prime minister's approval.
It was unclear whether the government has broached the idea with the UN. Mr. Manley was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
“He would have to give his nod to have his name floated,” said a source.
Typically, an appointment of this type would be forwarded to the Canadian ambassador and staff at the United Nations, who would then attempt to get the ear of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The UN Security Council would also be asked to weigh in.
If the UN is looking for someone with clout, Mr. Manley would be a strong candidate, given that Canada has troops in Kandahar, the country's most dangerous province. But Mr. Manley would also have to be careful to not wield too much influence, lest it appear that Mr. Karzai was being dictated to by foreign powers.
“This isn't like sending a special representative where you're not sure who the sovereign authority is,” a source said.
While the envoy would be stationed in Kabul, a good portion of the job would be flying to various world capitals to get countries to fulfill commitments to the rebuilding process. The envoy would also have to work with the military presence in Afghanistan, which is operated by NATO.
An official with Canada's Foreign Affairs Department said yesterday that the individual who ultimately gets the job would have to enjoy the strong support of the Afghan government and the international community.
“There is an urgent need for stronger UN leadership and better co-ordination of the international community in support of the Afghan government,” Lisa Monette said in a statement.
“The countries that are carrying the heaviest loads, Canada among them, are obviously eager to see this appointment occur as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoke with Mr. Karzai Tuesday to express his sympathies for the recent loss of Afghan lives in a suicide bombing, while Mr. Karzai did the same for injuries sustained by Canadian soldiers in an IED attack Monday.
Mr. Harper also reviewed the Manley panel recommendations with Mr. Karzai.
“The Prime Minister confirmed that he is in contact with NATO allies regarding additional troops and expressed his hope that Parliament will support a motion that would see an extension of Canada's mission to Afghanistan,” Sandra Buckler, the Prime Minister's director of communications, said in a statement. “President Karzai reconfirmed his support for the Canadian mission, a message he will carry to NATO in the coming weeks.”
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Manley denies Canada proposing him as UN envoy in Afghanistan
OTTAWA (AFP) - Former Canadian deputy prime minister John Manley denied Wednesday media reports suggesting the government is proposing him as the new UN envoy to coordinate aid and reconstruction in Afghanistan.
Earlier, the daily Globe and Mail, citing unnamed sources, said the Conservative government is floating the name of Manley, of the opposition Liberal Party, as a replacement for British diplomat Paddy Ashdown, whose nomination to the UN post was rejected by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
However, Manley told AFP through his law offices: "I am not a candidate and I have not consented to my government advocating for me to take on this responsibility."
Manley recently headed a panel of experts who recommended that Canada prolong its 2,500-strong military mission in Afghanistan beyond February 2009 only if NATO deploys 1,000 troop reinforcements, helicopters and drones.
The Globe and Mail said Manley's nomination would make it more difficult for Canada to withdraw its troops, saying it would be "a humiliation for a country that has one of its own as the special representative."
The Liberal Party would also be hard pressed to oppose the mission if one of their members held the UN post, the Canadian newspaper said.
Canada's parliament is expected to vote in March whether to extend its combat mission in the volatile south to 2011. If it fails to pass its motion, the minority Conservative government would fall, resulting in snap elections -- the third ballot in four years.
Other candidates for the UN post, including one from a Scandinavian country, are in the running for the post which had been held until recently by the German Tom Koenigs, the Globe and Mail said.
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US coalition troops detain 22 suspects in two raids in southern Afghanistan
By FISNIK ABRASHI,Associated Press Writer Thursday, February 21
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops detained 22 suspected insurgents and discovered nearly half a ton of heroin during separate operations in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said Wednesday.
The joint forces detained 11 suspected insurgents Wednesday and discovered 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) of heroin north of the town of Musa Qala in Helmand province, the coalition said in a statement.
A large weapons cache and a heroin processing lab were destroyed during the operation, it said.
Taliban militants were in control of Musa Qala for much of 2007, before Afghan, U.S. and British troops regained control of the town and its surrounding areas in December.
Officials estimate that up to 40 percent of the proceeds from the drug trade are used to fund the insurgency.
In Zabul province, meanwhile, coalition and Afghan troops raided a compound Tuesday and detained 11 men with links to a suspected insurgent leader, the coalition said.
During the raid in the Daychopan district, coalition aircraft bombed the area "to suppress several suspected insurgents during the search," but there were no deaths or injuries, it said in a statement.
The joint forces were targeting a local Taliban leader suspected of attacking coalition forces and giving weapons and financial support to insurgents, the statement said.
"Afghan National Security Forces found six of the detainees, one of whom was identified as a Taliban leader, hiding in a concealed room in a mosque on the compound," said coalition spokesman Army Maj. Chris Belcher.
The coalition did not identify the insurgent leader or other individuals detained during the raid.
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AFGHANISTAN: Millions vulnerable to spring floods
20 Feb 2008 13:34:54 GMT
KABUL, 20 February 2008 (IRIN) - As temperatures gradually rise towards the end of a harsh winter in Afghanistan, concerns are mounting that thawing snows and spring rain will threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions of Afghans, aid workers and government officials warn.
At least 21 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces are considered "vulnerable" to seasonal floods, which usually start in March and last until May, according to the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD).
Flooding and landslides killed dozens of people and damaged thousands of houses in different parts of the country in 2007, according to Afghanistan's National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA).
A rapid change in weather conditions may cause severe flooding even worse than last year because of the recent heavy snow in many parts of the country, experts say.
The Afghan government and UN agencies have started work on a number of preparatory measures to protect and assist people.
Gabion boxes
"This [flooding] is an issue that the government of Afghanistan and UN agencies take extremely seriously. Every effort that can be made to prevent loss of life will be made," Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN in Kabul.
To protect rural communities considered exposed to flood risks, 62,500 gabion boxes will be sent to 21 provinces, of which 6,500 have already reached their destination, the MRRD said in a statement. Gabions are cages, cylinders, boxes or "mattresses", (often made of heavy-duty wire mesh or netting) filled with earth or sand that are commonly used to stabilise shores against erosion.
Gabion boxes will be used to create resistance walls across and/or near to riverbanks and other risky locations to prevent flooding. They will be sent by trucks to provinces and filled with earth or sand on site, officials said.
Pre-positioning of supplies
Food and non-food aid items will also be stocked in several vulnerable locations which will be ready for urgent distribution should the need arise, Rick Corsino, the World Food Programme (WFP) representative in Afghanistan, told reporters in Kabul on 19 February.
Winter problems this year had contributed to a huge increase in staple food prices, which according to WFP, had pushed over 2.5 million Afghans into "high risk food insecurity".
The Ministry of Public Health said adequate measures would be taken to prevent any outbreak of seasonal diseases such as diarrhoea during the flood season.
Despite preparations by aid agencies and the Afghan government to mitigate the impacts of winter disasters, over 1,000 people died due to cold weather and diseases in the past three months, ANDMA's statistics indicate.
Officials said there was uncertainty about the severity, timing and exact location of spring floods, which complicated their preparation efforts. "The unfortunate reality is that with natural disasters you cannot offer any guarantees," said Aleem Siddique of UNAMA.
"However, plans are well under way and every effort that can be made will be looked at," he said.
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AFGHANISTAN: Psychological scars of violence on children
20 Feb 2008 10:14:53 GMT
KABUL, 20 February 2008 (IRIN) - Hundreds of schoolchildren who witnessed a deadly explosion and its aftermath in Baghlan Province, northern Afghanistan, on 6 November are suffering mental and psychological scars, health specialists and affected residents say.
Over 48 people, including at least 18 children, died in the blast - and the subsequent indiscriminate shooting by armed bodyguards of some high-profile members of parliament (MPs) who were visiting a sugar-cane factory in Baghlan city - according to the Ministry of Education. Dozens of children and adults were injured.
Over 1,000 schoolchildren, boys and girls, had been brought to the welcoming ceremony, the provincial department of education reported.
"Since that explosion my son often screams in his dreams and has increasingly lost weight," said the father of a 12-year-old boy, Mohammad Nawab.
"I see horrible scenes and cacophonous sounds of explosions while I am sleeping," said a 13-year-old student who had been slightly injured but did not want to be identified.
Frozan Esmati, a mental health specialist working for the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), who has conducted preliminary assessments of the impact of the blast on affected people, told IRIN that many traumatised schoolchildren and their parents suffered from paranoia, dizziness, stress and sleeping disorders.
"Some of them need extended medical care and treatment to fully recover," Esmati added.
Psychological counselling
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has earmarked about US$50,000 to implement a four-month psychological counselling and treatment project for traumatised schoolchildren in Baghlan.
"The project will train local health workers on mental counselling and will also provide needed medications," said Ahmad Javid Siddiqi, a UNICEF specialist in Kabul.
UNICEF's project will be implemented in close collaboration with HealthNet International, a non-government organisation which runs several medical aid projects across Afghanistan.
At the end of the project a report will be presented to the Ministry of Public Health and UNICEF recommending whether or not the affected children require further medical assistance, HealthNet said.
Widespread problem
The psychological impact of armed conflict on peoples' mental health is not confined to one part of the war-ravaged country.
Mental health experts say many children in conflict-affected southern and southeastern provinces could suffer deep scars of war.
On 17-18 February over 110 people, including several children, were killed in two separate security incidents in Kandahar Province, the Interior Ministry said.
However, unlike relatively secure provinces in the north, in Kandahar and other southern parts of the country insecurity and violence have hindered access to, and delivery of, health and humanitarian services, which has compounded peoples' problems, say aid workers in Kabul.
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Afghan farmers earn about $1 bln from opium: IMF
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghan farmers earned about $1 billion from opium production in 2007, by far the country's largest cash crop, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.
The IMF said opium production in Afghanistan had spiraled up to 8,200 tons in 2007 from 185 tons in 2001.
It said Afghanistan's share of world supply increased to about 93 percent in 2007 from 52 percent in 1995, making it the world's largest opium producer despite efforts to bring production under control since the fall of the Taliban six years ago.
The IMF said it was not well qualified to comment on Afghanistan's opium production, and cited figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime that estimate the total value of the opium harvest in Afghanistan was worth about $4 billion in 2007, compared with $2.7 billion in 2005.
"Given the size of the opium economy, clearly a good part of it is injected though either consumption or higher savings in the economy," Mohamad Elhage, mission chief for Afghanistan, told a conference call with reporters.
While opium production has flourished in the south and west of the country, Elhage said the worsening security situation in Afghanistan was having a broad impact on the overall economy, in particular on foreign direct investment.
"We have seen a reduction to some extent in foreign direct investment and implications on the budget because more spending will be allocated to security either through the central government budget or through the external budget, which is funded by donors," Elhage said.
"So clearly the security situation is not in terms of achieving fiscal sustainability in the period ahead and also it is having an impact on the investment climate," he added.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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Afghan refugee teaches Hindi to tots in India
20 Feb 2008 14:12:35 GMT
NEW DELHI, India, February 20 (UNHCR) – It's a room bathed in sunlight up a narrow flight of stairs. Sounds of children learning Hindi, one of India's many languages, filter down. It sounds like a typical class in urban India, except the children are refugees from Myanmar and their teacher, Naina, is a refugee from Afghanistan.
Naina is in charge of a crèche in west Delhi for Myanmar refugees and teaches Hindi, a language she has learnt in India. The UN refugee agency supports crèches for refugee children in the Indian capital through the New Delhi YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association), which in turn empowers refugees to run these nurseries.
In her mid-20s now, Naina came to India in 1994. Her story is perhaps typical of refugees who fled the mujahideen and the Taliban regimes in Afghanistan. She was born to a Sikh family in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan. Her early memories are fraught with trauma – of a severed head falling at her feet in a bomb blast; of her father's strict orders not to go out; of being confined in her home at an age where children normally would be playing on the streets.
Their escape was equally horrific – she got separated from her family as they desperately tried to get onto a Kabul-bound helicopter that her father and many others had paid for.
"People were pushing, it was worse than cattle being squashed in a truck," she recalls. "I got separated and I was the only one of my family who got onto the helicopter." She spent two months alone in a Sikh temple in Kabul before her family found her. She was only 10. The family then fled to India via Pakistan.
Like thousands of Afghan refugees in India, the family made a new life for themselves in New Delhi. The family also now can apply to become naturalized Indian citizens as they have lived in the country for more than 12 years. Naina's brothers work as salesmen in a shop in Delhi, while she earns an income teaching refugee children and supervising the crèche.
"I love teaching and I love children," she says with a shy smile. She believes that as a refugee it is her duty to help other refugees, to give something back to the community she is part of.
The young woman makes no distinctions among refugees and is delighted to be able to help those from Myanmar. "It makes me very happy, very proud when I hear them bargaining with shop keepers in Hindi. It gives me immense pleasure that they can now be understood."
Some 160 children use her nursery, which also doubles as a centre for language classes for older children and tuition classes for those who need help with school work. Teachers from the Myanmar refugee community teach English, music and mathematics, and are paid a monthly stipend by UNHCR.
For Naina, life has come full circle. She married an Indian last December 2007.
Around 11,400 refugees benefit from under UNHCR's protection and assistance in India. Some 9,200 are Afghan, 1,800 are from Myanmar and the rest are a myriad of nationalities ranging from Palestinian to Somali.
By Nayana Bose in New Delhi, India
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Militants abduct 2 staff of education department in W Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-20 15:11:41
KABUL, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Militants have abducted two staff of education department in Afghanistan's western Farah province, said a press release of Afghan Interior Ministry received here Wednesday.
Two supervisors of the Education Department of Farah province, busy in visiting schools in Bakwa district, was kidnapped by armed men of militant leader Mullah Ibrahim, on Feb. 18, the ministry said.
Targeting schools and murdering students and teachers are the acts of the enemies of Afghanistan and must be checked, it further said.
The ministry said Afghan police would do its best to ensure the safe release of the two abductees.
Over 140 pupils and teachers have been killed by Taliban insurgents over the past 10 months, according to latest education ministry statistics.
Editor: Bi Mingxin
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Afghan police kill 15 Taliban fighters including 2 commanders
February 19, 2008
Afghan police have killed 15 Taliban insurgents including two of their local commanders over the past two weeks, a press release of Interior Ministry issued Tuesday said.
Afghan police have eliminated Mullah Hanif and Mullah Dadgul, two local commanders of Taliban outfit, along with 13 of their comrades in Deh Rawad district of southern Afghanistan's Uruzgan province, the ministry said.
The operation launched two weeks ago is still continuing, it said.
Uruzgan like its neighboring provinces of Helmand, Zabul and Kandahar in south Afghanistan has been considered a hotbed of Taliban militants.
More than 150 people, almost all of them civilians, have been killed in three suicide and car bomb blasts over the past three days in Kandahar.
Source: Xinhua
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Afghanistan's 'Hidden' Art Treasures on Exhibit in Amsterdam
Amsterdam 19 February 2008 Voice of America By Lauren Comiteau
The Taliban's destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan in March 2001 was the most dramatic expression of their mission to obliterate all "idolatrous" images from Afghanistan's pre-Islamic past. Along with the Buddhas, the Taliban destroyed 2,500 other cultural gems from Kabul's National Museum of Afghanistan. But thanks to the heroic efforts of the museum's curators, not all was destroyed. A traveling exhibit that recently opened in Amsterdam has brought some of what has survived under one roof. Lauren Comiteau visited the exhibit at Amsterdam's Nieuwe Kerk - or New Church - and files this report.
As one enters the Hidden Afghanistan exhibit, a banner headline reads: "A Nation Stays Alive When Its Culture Stays Alive." A glimpse of that culture - and how it survived invasion, civil war, and even the Taliban - is what this exhibit is all about.
"I believe this exhibit is going to go and show the world that Afghanistan is not what they hear in the West, that it's Taliban and war and this and that," says Omar Sultan, Afghanistan's Deputy Minister of Information and Culture. "But that we have a cultural heritage that is not only belong to Afghanistan but it belongs to the world."
That's because the world so often came to Afghanistan.
Marlies Kleiterp, the Nieuwe Kerk's head of exhibitions, explains that because Afghanistan was located on the trade routes between East and West, it has historically served as a crossroads of civilization.
"Because of that, local traditions mixed up with those from east and west that were brought in, and from north and south. I think the thing people recognize best was influence of the Greeks. Alexander the great in the 4th century B.C. conquered large part of Asia and ended up in this river. And also Afghanistan was part of his empire during that time," says Kleiterp.
Chinese pilgrims passed through this territory on their way to India. Afghanistan's location on the Silk Road brought Buddhism, which also flourished there. The rich legacy of art and culture were also influenced by the great civilizations of China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, the Indian subcontinent and Rome.
Khalid Siddiqi fled Afghanistan during the war and now studies in Amsterdam. He says the exhibit shows the "beautiful side of integration."
"What we see today here in Amsterdam, Berlin, New York - all these great cities; all these different cultures - coming together is pretty much the same as Afghanistan 2,000 years ago," he says. "All different cultures coming together and leaving their traces behind."
But Afghanistan's geography has also had its downside, witnessed in the years of strife that left the country's cultural heritage on the verge of extinction.
The Soviets invaded in 1979, and during the war that followed, many priceless works of art were plundered.
What remains from the National Museum's collection has survived civil war, a rocket attack, fire, a collapsed roof, snow, and the Taliban. That anything is left at all is in large part due to the efforts of Museum Director Omar Khan Massoudi and his staff. In 1988, they secretly moved the highlights of the collection to a vault in the Central Bank at the presidential palace.
"They put them in crates and put them in a special safe in the Presidential Palace and locked the safe with in fact seven keys," Marlies Kleiterp explains. "And the seven keys were given to seven different persons. And the idea was that nobody could come back and open the safe without any of the other keys. And in the end, they gathered together. Unfortunately, not all the keys were there, not all the keys survived, and so they had to use mechanical techniques to open the safe. But they did, they succeeded."
Massoudi risked his life to preserve his country's cultural heritage. He was one of the seven men who had keys to the vault. He came to the exhibit's Amsterdam opening, talking modestly of his role in saving his country's art.
"During the civil war these people knew about the transfer of these pieces and never gave any information to anybody," he said. "Luckily, they keep it secret. "
It wasn't until 2003, more than a year after the overthrow of the Taliban, that the Afghan government confirmed the existence of the treasures and restoration work began.
The original collection numbered more than 100,000 pieces. Fewer than one-quarter survived.
"One of the best pieces is this crown. Extraordinary," says Kleiterp. "You can see Indian, eastern influences."
For now, this traveling exhibit is the only way for Afghans to see the museum's collection. Afghanistan is still deemed too unstable for the art to go home, and the museum itself remains badly damaged. The exhibit's catalogue, though, has been translated into the Afghan languages, Dari and Pashto, and will be distributed to every school in the country. And, Deputy Minister Sultan says if his country's art can survive the Taliban, he has no doubts about its future.
"And if they could have saved it at that time, I promise you we can save it for as long as we are alive," he says
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Afghan tribes plan manifesto of dissent
Government can't contain violence, document says, after Taliban attack on Canadian convoy kills 38 civilians
GRAEME SMITH From Tuesday's Globe and Mail February 19, 2008 at 5:16 AM EST
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — A groundswell of anger over the rising violence in Kandahar has prompted the major tribes to consider a manifesto expressing a lack of confidence in the Afghan government, even as another explosion killed at least 38 people.
Political talks are usually set aside during the mourning days that follow any major tragedy in southern Afghanistan, but an organizer of the meeting says the recent spike in violence leaves no time for such traditions. At least 100 people are feared dead after a massive blast on Sunday, and yesterday's suicide bomber injured four Canadian troops and turned a busy market into a bloodbath.
An unusual gathering of 27 powerful tribal elders is scheduled tomorrow in Kandahar city to approve a seven-point manifesto, which starts with a blunt declaration: "The problems are now so great, it's impossible for the government to control them," according to the draft text. "The people need to stand up."
The latest attack injured close to 30 people and destroyed about 120 small shops and vendors' carts as fire engulfed parts of Spin Boldak, a town near the Pakistani border, said provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib.
Canadian troops helped the wounded civilians and took their own injured for treatment at Kandahar Air Field. All the Canadians' injuries were minor, but the death toll is expected to rise because several Afghans are in critical condition.
Insurgent attacks in Afghanistan have climbed 64 per cent in the past year, from about 4,500 incidents in 2006 to about 7,400 in 2007, according to NATO statistics released yesterday in response to a query from The Globe and Mail.
Those numbers include insurgent attacks, ambushes, small or heavy arms fire, rocket or mortar fire, improvised explosive blasts, mine strikes and surface-to-air attacks.
Such violence has been concentrated in the south, causing a rising discontent among the tribal elders of Kandahar who serve as a fulcrum of power in the southern provinces.
A group of 120 leading tribal leaders met quietly in Kandahar last fall to debate their response and selected a group of 27 representatives to continue the discussions. Last week a five-man drafting committee finished its manifesto, which will ultimately be presented to the full assembly of 120 for final approval.
"The foreign soldiers aren't helping, they're behaving like an occupying force," said Haji Mohammed Essa, Kandahar's former attorney-general and a leading organizer of the tribal gathering.
"You kicked out a government that called itself a legitimate government, but you didn't bring any better government."
The new council of elders does not intend to position itself as a rival to the existing provincial council, Mr. Essa said, but others involved in the project said it's an effort to circumvent a government that isn't working.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, who has served for years as chairman of the provincial council, said it's too early to draw conclusions from the tribal process because the draft manifesto hasn't yet been approved.
Asked whether the gathering of elders represents a challenge to his government's authority, he said: "No, no, not at all."
Mr. Karzai and his older brother Qayum Karzai sit on the council of 27 elders, and some observers say it's possible they may still exert a moderating influence on the group, possibly tempering the manifesto's language so that it's less critical of the government led by their brother, President Hamid Karzai.
As it stands, the document offers several pointed suggestions about how to stem the violence.
It repeatedly calls for an end to "discrimination" among the tribes, saying jobs and government offices should be distributed without favouring any tribe. That's a reference to the theory that the war has evolved into a tribal struggle between pro-government tribes and others disenfranchised from the political process.
Other parts of the document are less controversial, as the elders call for a stronger education system, a stand against narcotics, and an end to corruption.
The manifesto also endorses negotiations with "all sides" of the conflict, supporting the popular idea that Taliban fighters must be drawn into talks. President Karzai has called for negotiations with the Taliban, but he recently expelled two foreign diplomats who were reaching out to the insurgents.
But extreme acts of violence, such as the past two days of bombings in Kandahar, raise questions about the changing nature of the insurgency and whether any political solution is possible.
The events also appeared to strain relations between the Canadians and their local allies, as Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid told reporters that he warned the Canadians to stay away from the Pakistani border areas because of a specific threat of attack.
A Canadian military spokesman, Lieutenant-Commander Pierre Babinsky, retorted that the troops will travel anywhere they deem necessary.
"We regularly receive threat warnings and obviously we go where we want to, when we want to, in our area of operation," LCdr. Babinsky said.
On a conference call with reporters, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Afghanistan's worst bout of violence since 2001 does not represent a worsening of the situation.
"I wouldn't describe it as an escalation," Mr. MacKay said. "I would describe it as another example of, sadly, how determined the Taliban insurgents continue to be."
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Slipping into darkness
February 20, 2008 Washington Times
By Harlan Ullman - With elections in Pakistan two days ago, John McCain's emergence as the presumptive Republican presidential candidate and the political dogfight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for Democratic nominee swirling, there is much to write about. Why then return to Afghanistan? President Bush believes we, along with our NATO allies, are winning there, even if winning may be occurring more slowly than we would like.
The sadder prospect is that "we" — the Karzai government, NATO and the international community engaged in Afghanistan — are not winning. If we persist with this case of self-denial, conditions in Afghanistan will continue to deteriorate and the future of both the Afghan people and NATO cohesion will be bleak. A visit to Brussels and NATO headquarters last week reinforced this gloomy forecast.
On the positive side, NATO has roughly 42,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan under the command of U.S. Army Gen. Dan McNeill in the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF). NATO forces have not lost and will not lose a battle. But military force alone cannot win the war. Only reforms to the civil sector of Afghanistan from countering narcotics and corruption to creating jobs and a fair and functioning judicial and legal system can do that.
NATO's mandate does not extend that far. Indeed, within the alliance, there are profound differences over what it should and should not do regarding the military responsibilities ISAF has assumed. Out of 26 nations, only a few are engaged in actual combat. And Germany has resisted, so far, sending its forces into battle, although a well-placed former senior German official suggests that there may be a change of heart next year. That may be too late.
Within the European Union, NATO's long-term competitor rather than complementary companion, Afghanistan is not a priority reflecting the public mood questioning why NATO has engaged there in the first place. Afghanistan is seen as too distant and remote a land to be a real threat to European security. Hence, the EU focuses on nearby Kosovo and the Balkans and further away on Darfur, Sudan.
It is clear in NATO that given the attitudes of the member states' governments, there is no urgency or even likelihood that NATO would consider an expanded role to fill the huge gap that threatens Afghanistan — the absence of anyone or any organization in charge of coordinating and orchestrating the needed civil sectors reforms and the construction of a stable and relatively peaceful state. The Karzai government's demurral of Lord Paddy Ashdown as U.N. high representative was a further setback to moving forward on civil reforms in the near term.
Three reports on Afghanistan that were released late last month in the United States sounded the alarm and proposed remedial action. All were largely ignored. And NATO staffs were unfamiliar with heated hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee two weeks ago, when senators of both parties expressed extreme frustration over getting evasive answers to tough questions from administration officials.
The opportunity to raise these concerns and get NATO heads of state to focus on the consequences of continuing to treat Afghanistan as the invisible war will come in Bucharest, Romania, in early April at the summit. The chance that that will happen is arguably zero. Six weeks is an impossibly short time to coordinate what would be a major if not profound agreement to discuss Afghanistan with such intensity.
Few member states would be inclined to support this suggestion — with the great majority already atwitter over whether to admit Croatia, Albania and Macedonia to full membership, let alone welcome Ukraine and Georgia into the membership action program — a first step toward joining the alliance sometime well into the future and a step guaranteed to provoke a strong Russian response.
When senior NATO officials speak off the record, their optimism yields to a harsher assessment on Afghanistan. One such senior official heartily agreed with the conclusion of one the aforementioned reports that NATO was indeed losing in Afghanistan because of the failure of action in the civil sector. However, these officials, military and civilian, understand that politicians at home want them to "stay in their lane," ensuring a perpetuation of this cognitive dissonance.
Perhaps the art of the possible at the Bucharest summit is for NATO officials to bite the bullet and, if not confront then cajole the heads of state and their entourages at least to move more quickly with an on-the-ground, no-nonsense assessment of what is happening in Afghanistan across both the security and civil sectors. This may be the last chance for NATO to act. Simply waiting for the U.N. to find and gain approval of a high representative could take more time than Afghanistan has to give before slipping too far into chaos and disrepair.
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Clothing IDs friends for military
By JAMES HANNAH, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 20, 3:22 AM ET
DAYTON, Ohio - When Taliban forces attacked a police checkpoint in central Afghanistan under dark of night in late 2006, special-operations Master Sgt. Andrew Martin called in air support and then slapped a high-tech cloth-like device on his helmet for protection.
Fresh from labs at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the device transmitted light from a powerful light-emitting diode, or LED, that pulsed through a fiber optic bundle, giving off infrared signals visible to pilots wearing night-vision goggles.
"The pilots were able to very quickly pick it up," recalled Martin, who has since retired from the Air Force. "What didn't happen was additional questions from the pilots asking me my location."
The new technology — called Target Recognition Operator Notification system — was designed to easily identify friendly forces and avoid casualties from friendly fire.
Martin liked the equipment so much he used it on about 35 missions over six months. He said it is better than strobe lights, which can be mistaken for machine-gun fire, or reflective tape, which is difficult to see from the air.
"U.S. forces have been dogged by the difficulty of finding each other in the fog of battle," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. "What this new innovation allows is easy identification of friendly forces without helping the enemy do the same thing."
Brian Hunt, an engineer with the Air Force Research Lab, said he and his team were approached in 2004 and asked to develop such a system. Working with Lumitex Inc. of Strongsville, the effort was part of a rapid-reaction program where researchers were given up to $100,000 and one year to come up with a product.
"A lot of different units saw the need for something like this, to be able to clearly determine friend or foe," Hunt said.
The group produced 108 prototypes in six months. Each unit costs about $100.
Built in to the nylon-like cloth is a circuit board and a battery pack. The woven nature of the cloth emits light in a controlled way, creating a uniform surface.
The system can run 200 hours on two double-A batteries and weighs less than three ounces. It can be worn on tactical vests, around an arm or mounted to a helmet.
"You can put it anywhere," Hunt said. "It's got Velcro on the back. It sticks to everything."
The circuitry also allows the system to flash at different speeds. That enables pilots to identify different groups of friendly forces and see which group is under attack, which group is trying to circle the enemy, and who the reinforcements are, among other things.
Mike Sedillo, support contractor at the research lab, said he would like to see the system in the hands of all U.S. forces in the battlefield and become standard equipment in air-crew survival kits.
Sedillo said researchers are working to upgrade the system so it will transmit light in other parts of the spectrum, making it more difficult for enemy forces to detect with conventional night vision technology.
"Friendly fire incidents in general are declining, but in counterinsurgency or counter-terror warfare it's much harder to sort out our people from the other side because there are no front lines," Thompson said. "This invention is well-suited to a world in which all the old features of battlefield like secure areas and front lines are missing."
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Marines rescue Afghan girls hit by rocket
Hannah Strange and agencies Times Online February 20, 2008
The British marine who helped save the life of two young Afghan girls seriously wounded in a rocket attack spoke today of his horror at the involvement of children in the ongoing conflict between militants and coalition forces.
Marine Will Charters, himself just 19-years-old, carried one of the girls to get medical help after their terrified uncle brought them to the gates of the patrol base in Sangin, Helmand province, where the Bravo Company 40 Commando RM are currently stationed.
The girls had been badly injured when insurgents fired two rockets in an indiscriminate response to an earlier Royal Marines patrol, the Ministry of Defence said.
Marine Charters, from Exeter, Devon, scooped up one of the children in his arms and rushed her to the Bravo Company Sickbay. The pair were stabilised before being airlifted out to the main field hospital at Camp Bastion for further treatment.
“I’ve seen casualties before but it’s horrible when children are involved,” he said.
Company Medic Marine Martin McCaffrey, 24, from Runcorn, was on duty when the patients were brought in. “I gave fluids to both children and was able to stabilise them and dress their wounds while the Medical Emergency Response Team was called in,” he said.
”What happened to these girls is tragic but it’s the reality of fighting against people who don’t care who they attack.”
Within 30 minutes, a Chinook helicopter arrived to transport the children to Camp Bastion.
One of the girls lost her left arm while the other remained in a serious condition with severe head wounds today.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said the insurgents appeared to be stepping up attacks against local civilians in frustration at failing to dent the Marines’ achievements in the area.
Speaking through an interpreter, the girls’ uncle said the Royal Marines make local people feel more secure.
The Royal Marines from 40 Commando, based in Taunton, Somerset, are halfway through their six-month deployment to Afghanistan. One of the youngest in his troop, Marine Charters graduated from the Royal Commando Training Centre in Lympstone, Devon, at the age of 17.
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