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6 killed in Afghan blast
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer Tue Feb 26, 6:23 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying five policemen and a child in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing all six, officials said.
NATO may follow if Canada exits Afghanistan
by Michel Comte Tue Feb 26, 2:02 AM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's defense minister urged parliament to keep its 2,500 troops in Afghanistan until 2011, warning that an earlier withdrawal could lead its NATO allies to abandon the shaky nation too.
France to send troops to Afghan combat zone: report
PARIS (Reuters) - France may send hundreds of ground troops to eastern Afghanistan where NATO-led forces are fighting al Qaeda-backed insurgents, Le Monde newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Norway to send troops to southern Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-26 18:26:29
STOCKHOLM, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- Norway's Defense Minister Anne-Grete Stroem-Erichsen said her country will send more troops to the troubled southern Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, according to reports reaching here Tuesday.
U.S. Struggles to Find Envoy, Hindering Effort to Stabilize Afghanistan
By Michael Abramowitz and Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, February 26, 2008; Page A13
The White House has been pushing since early fall to install a powerful new foreign envoy to oversee international reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. Last month it looked as though it had finally found its man: After a meeting in Kuwait
Biden warns of failure in Afghanistan
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer Mon Feb 25, 8:31 PM ET
NEW YORK - Sen. Joseph Biden on Monday called for more U.S. aid for Afghanistan and deeper NATO involvement there, saying failure could also have dire consequences for neighboring Pakistan.
If Afghanistan fails, Pakistan could follow: Biden
By Michelle Nichols Mon Feb 25, 5:55 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States must focus on securing and rebuilding Afghanistan because if it fails then neighboring Pakistan could follow, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden said on Monday after returning from a tour of both countries.
Afghan Farmers Turn to Cannabis as Cash Crop
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson NPR
All Things Considered, February 25, 2008 · Frustrated by government attacks on their opium poppy crops, a growing number of farmers in Afghanistan are turning to a lucrative alternative that is just as illegal: cannabis, the source of marijuana and hashish.
Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq top index of weak states
By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Somalia, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq are the four weakest states in the world, according to an index of fragile nations released by two U.S. think tanks on Tuesday.
Ariana Afghan Airlines Resumes Flights To Europe From Kabul
Tuesday February 26, 04:20 PM
KABUL, Feb 26 Asia Pulse - Following a two-year break Ariana Afghan Airline Company on Monday resumed its flights to Germany, officials said Monday.
AFGHANISTAN: Domestic violence against children widespread - study
26 Feb 2008 14:09:56 GMT
KABUL, 26 February 2008 (IRIN) - Corporal punishment of children by their parents is widely practiced across Afghanistan and is commonly accepted as a form of discipline, says a new study by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU)
US plans special centres on the Afghan side near border
By Our Correspondent Dawn (Pakistan)
NEW YORK, Feb 25: US officials are quietly planning to expand their presence in and around the tribal areas of Pakistan by creating special coordination centres on the Afghan side of the border where US, Afghan, and Pakistani
Pakistan's extremism starts at the top
By Chietigj Bajpaee Feb 27, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
Pakistan's election results have challenged the misplaced fear in the international community that Pakistan could fall under the control of Islamic extremists. However, this does not rule out the possibility of Pakistan's descent into an abyss of instability.
U.S. works to build Afghan army
Tuesday, February 26, 2008 By JIM LANDERS / The Dallas Morning News
KABUL MILITARY TRAINING CENTER, Afghanistan – When new recruits arrive at this boot camp, Afghan drill sergeants make sure to mix them with soldiers from other parts of the country.
Afghanistan: Journalist On Death Row Gives First Interview
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
RFE/RL's - A 23-year-old Afghan journalism student -- sentenced to death for printing and handing out an Internet article that questioned interpretations of the role of women in Islam -- says he was not allowed to have a lawyer
Boy escapes from Taliban's captivity
Pajhwak News Agency 02/25/2008 Sher Ahmad Haider
GHAZNI CITY - A young boy Friday succeeded in running away from the captivity of militants where he was instigated to execute suicide attack on troops in the Chenar village of restive Ander district in the southern Ghazni province, an official said.
NATO Confronts Surprisingly Fierce Taliban
Militia Undermines Rebuilding Efforts in Southern Province of Uruzgan
By Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, February 26, 2008; A01
TARIN KOT, Afghanistan -- Lt. Col. Wilfred Rietdijk, a 6-foot-7 blond Dutchman, took command of his military's reconstruction team in the southern Afghan district of Deh Rawood in September. Tranquil and welcoming
'Afghanistan can govern itself soon'
Press TV (Iran) / Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:20:16
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Spanta who has started a visit of Nordic capitals says his country will govern itself "in a few years."
General: Obama's Story Is Believable
By ANNE FLAHERTY The Associated Press Tuesday, February 26, 2008; 1:41 PM
WASHINGTON -- Gen. George Casey, the Army's chief of staff, said Tuesday he has no reason to doubt Barack Obama's recent account by an Army captain that a rifle platoon in Afghanistan didn't have enough soldiers or weapons.
Afghanistan: America Wrong, Europe Right
Washington Post, United States By William M. Arkin February 25, 2008
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is again beating up on Europeans for not doing more in Afghanistan, a now familiar theme in his blame-anybody-but-us strategy.
Winter and eradication could curb Afghan drug crop
Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:44am EST By Jon Hemming
KABUL (Reuters) - A particularly harsh winter that killed poppy seedlings and efforts underway to eradicate the plants as they sprout could curb Afghanistan's record-breaking opium crop, the acting anti-drugs minister said on Tuesday.
AFGHANISTAN: Ousted By Iran, Afghan Refugees Languish At Home
By Anand Gopal
KABUL, Feb 26 (IPS) - Thousands of Afghan refugees, forcibly repatriated by Iran, have been living in makeshift camps across Afghanistan.
Shabana's story of hope against the odds
By Dawood Azami BBC News, Rome Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Shabana, a three-year-old Afghan girl, was born with a potentially deadly facial tumour.
Women's lives worse than ever
By Terri Judd The Independent (UK) Monday, 25 February 2008
Grinding poverty and the escalating war is driving an increasing number of Afghan families to sell their daughters into forced marriages.
Pakistan arrests militant linked to Bhutto attack: minister
ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistani security forces have arrested a militant with links to Osama bin Laden in connection with an October assassination attempt on Benazir Bhutto, the interior minister said Tuesday.
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6 killed in Afghan blast
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer Tue Feb 26, 6:23 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying five policemen and a child in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing all six, officials said.
Taliban militants have increasingly aimed their attacks at police, killing more than 925 officers in 2007 alone. Afghan police often work in small groups in remote and dangerous territory, where they are outnumbered and outgunned by insurgents.
The blast happened in the eastern Khost province close to the border with Pakistan, said police chief Gen. Mohammad Ayub. He blamed the attack on Taliban militants.
The victims included five policemen and a 3-year old child, said Lutfullah Babakarheil, a local government official. They were traveling in a private vehicle, he said.
The lack of an effective training program for the police is often cited as one of the West's biggest failings in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime for harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida bases.
Police here are poorly paid, and many complain that superior officers skim from their paychecks or that they are not paid at all.
The U.S. began a new training program this year that will see small teams of American soldiers mentor and train police officers over the course of several months. The program, which also gives the police upgraded weapons and equipment, is expected to last four years.
Insurgent violence in Afghanistan flared last year, when a record 6,500 people — mostly militants — were killed, according to figures from Western and Afghan officials.
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NATO may follow if Canada exits Afghanistan
by Michel Comte Tue Feb 26, 2:02 AM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's defense minister urged parliament to keep its 2,500 troops in Afghanistan until 2011, warning that an earlier withdrawal could lead its NATO allies to abandon the shaky nation too.
"This is perhaps the most important debate facing our parliament and our nation today," Defense Minister Peter MacKay said at the start of a parliamentary debate on whether to extend the military mission or exit.
"The consequences of pulling Canada's military out of Afghanistan could have a far-reaching effect or a domino effect on others," he said. "If we were to pack up and leave Afghanistan, why wouldn't other nations follow suit?"
"How would history judge us if Canada walked away from Afghanistan?"
Previously, the main opposition Liberals agreed with the ruling Conservatives on the need to maintain troops in Afghanistan to 2011 only if NATO allies send reinforcements soon.
But they differed on whether Canadian soldiers should continue hunting insurgents beyond their current mandate of February 2009, or stick to a non-combat role in Kandahar province.
The stalemate could have led to snap elections in March if all three opposition parties united to topple the minority Conservatives over its motion to extend the mission.
Now, the Liberals seem onside with the Conservatives after the motion was tweaked, but still want clarification on some nuances in the government's new plan that differ from their own.
Liberal leader Stephane Dion said he believed that helping Afghanistan rebuild after decades of war is in Canada's "national interest" and "can be successful."
But, he said, the government's wish for NATO to contribute a mere 1,000 additional troops to bolster Canadian forces in Kandahar province by next year, and its proposed end date of December 2011, rather than sooner, must be vetted.
"If the explanation is reasonable and logical our party will not oppose it," said Dion.
If both parties agree, the plan will be presented to parliament for ratification shortly, before a NATO summit in April, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.
And if it is adopted, Canada would focus on training Afghan forces and providing security for reconstruction.
However, if NATO does not send reinforcements, medium lift helicopters and drones soon, as requested, Canada will pull out at the end of its current mandate of February 2009, the motion states.
Canada deployed 2,500 troops in Afghanistan's volatile south as part of the 50,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) battling Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters.
Like a dozen countries represented in the south, where opium cultivation is flourishing, Canada too is taking heavy casualties that are feeding public dissatisfaction at home.
Since 2002, 78 Canadian soldiers and a senior diplomat have died in roadside bombings and in fighting with the insurgents.
The main contributors to post-Taliban Afghanistan -- notably Britain and the United States -- have called for more "burden-sharing" in the grueling fight against the rebels.
NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said last week that ISAF has swollen by 8,700 soldiers over the past year and he was confident of more support in the coming year.
So far, only France and Poland have hinted to Ottawa they may send help.
"We do not want to abandon the Afghan people or turn our back on the international community," said MacKay. "Staying in Afghanistan is not the easy thing to do. But staying there is the right thing to do."
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France to send troops to Afghan combat zone: report
PARIS (Reuters) - France may send hundreds of ground troops to eastern Afghanistan where NATO-led forces are fighting al Qaeda-backed insurgents, Le Monde newspaper reported on Tuesday.
It said the move would be part of a new Afghan policy being worked out by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisers.
France has about 1,900 soldiers under NATO's Afghan command, most of them based in relatively calm Kabul, and Le Monde said the fresh troops would be deployed outside the capital.
"Their destination would be zones of potentially fierce fighting, preferably the eastern region of Afghanistan close to the tribal areas of Pakistan," it said.
Early last year, France withdrew 200 special forces soldiers who had been operating under U.S. command in Afghanistan, but Le Monde said Paris was now expected to sanction the return of the special forces. About 50 remained to train Afghan commandos.
A presidential spokesman declined to confirm or deny the newspaper report. "The president has not made a decision. We are in discussion with our partners, inside NATO but not exclusively," he said.
Washington is heading a campaign for what it calls a fairer sharing of the burden in the fight against Taliban insurgents. Britain, Canada, Poland and others have backed the U.S. demand.
Germany, Italy and Spain have troops in relatively secure areas and have refused to send troops to southern and eastern provinces where the militants are most active.
At a meeting in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius earlier this month, NATO defense ministers with troops fighting the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan backed calls by the United States for more countries to send forces there.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said last week the alliance's future rested on its mission in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, senior Canadian officials had talks in Paris on a possible offer of French support for 2,500 Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan.
Le Monde said Sarkozy would announce France's extended military commitment at a NATO summit in Bucharest in April.
Since his election in May, he has sent more combat aircraft to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and beefed up French efforts to train the Afghan army.
(Reporting by Andrew Dobbie; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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Norway to send troops to southern Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-26 18:26:29
STOCKHOLM, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- Norway's Defense Minister Anne-Grete Stroem-Erichsen said her country will send more troops to the troubled southern Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, according to reports reaching here Tuesday.
The fresh troops, including 50 Norwegian officers and soldiers, will be sent to Afghanistan in October to help training the Afghan troops, the minister told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.
"They will go with the Afghan force, wherever they are sent. This may mean that they will be engaged in fighting in all parts of Afghanistan, also in the south," the minister said.
The missions will last for up to three months, she added.
Last October, Stroem-Erichsen rejected NATO demand for deployment of Norwegian soldiers in southern Afghanistan, saying that her country should concentrate its troops in north of the war-torn country.
Norway has deployed around 500 troops in Afghanistan under the command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Most of the Norwegian troops are based in the peaceful northern province of Faryab.
Editor: Yao Siyan
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U.S. Struggles to Find Envoy, Hindering Effort to Stabilize Afghanistan
By Michael Abramowitz and Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, February 26, 2008; Page A13
The White House has been pushing since early fall to install a powerful new foreign envoy to oversee international reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. Last month it looked as though it had finally found its man: After a meeting in Kuwait, Hamid Karzai indicated he was ready to accept prominent British politician Paddy Ashdown for the assignment.
Less than two weeks later, the appointment collapsed after Karzai changed his mind -- the latest sign of tensions between the courtly Afghan president and the Western powers that have been seeking for nearly seven years to stabilize a country that was the breeding ground for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
U.S. officials have done little to disguise their displeasure with the recent turn of events, which has not only left them without a candidate but also imperiled their strategy of giving a single international envoy a robust mandate for Afghanistan. Over weeks of negotiations, the job has been whittled down from a statesman of stature who would influence decisions by NATO, the European Union and the United Nations to a more traditional role as envoy of the U.N. secretary general, according to officials familiar with the discussions.
"There's no ready, obvious replacement," said one senior U.S. official who is not authorized to speak publicly. "We thought [Ashdown] was best qualified, given his credentials and his experience and his ability to command attention, especially in European capitals."
Talking with reporters last week, Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South Asia, disputed the suggestion that the rejection of Ashdown meant that Karzai was obstructing progress.
"That is our partner and that's who we will work with, because that's who the people of Afghanistan chose," he said. "I think it's very clear that from our discussions with the Afghan government, even since Paddy Ashdown felt he had to withdraw his candidacy, that they, too, want to see better coordination, want to see strong international coordination."
U.S. and U.N. officials said they are still looking for an envoy. Among those said to be under consideration are Kai Eide, a senior Norwegian official with experience in the U.N. bureaucracy; Jan Kubis, the Slovak foreign minister; Hikmat Chetin, a senior Turkish diplomat with experience in Afghanistan; and Joschka Fischer, a former German foreign minister. President Bush discussed the search recently with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who will make the final appointment.
Still, Bush administration officials acknowledge that the episode has highlighted the inability of the United States and its allies to organize civilian reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, the focus of recent criticism by diplomats and a flurry of new reports.
Since the Taliban fell in 2001, the international community has provided about $15 billion to rebuild Afghanistan. But U.S. officials and outside experts say that there has been little coordination among the dozens of countries and international organizations helping to build roads and bridges, create a new police and justice system, and deal with narcotics production.
"There is a very clear need for a joining of the international military strategy with the international civilian strategy," said Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, who helped recruit Ashdown. "Countries that are extending assistance to Afghanistan are not extending assistance in a central, organized way right now."
The troubles with reconstruction are a companion to the more publicized military difficulties NATO is having in Afghanistan, where U.S. officials -- most prominently Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates -- have complained that some allies are unwilling to participate in the most violent fight against the Taliban. But many officials regard the civilian effort as perhaps even more critical to controlling Afghanistan's insurgency.
Asked recently to assess U.S. progress, a top U.S. official handling Afghanistan said: "Tactically on the security front, I would say we are winning."
"The challenge with Afghanistan is that's not good enough," added the official, who insisted on anonymity to speak more freely. "And it is on some of the other dimensions of the mission where we are not doing as well as we need to be. And mostly those have to do with the non-military . . . having to do with governance, economic development, reconstruction."
Norway first suggested a super-envoy in the fall of 2006, but it was not until last summer, as reports mounted of problems in Afghanistan, that U.S. officials began warming to the idea.
U.S. officials focused on Ashdown, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats in Britain who impressed them with his service as the U.N. high representative in Bosnia from 2002 to 2006. The British quickly agreed.
But early on, U.N., U.S. and Afghan officials argued about how powerful the job should be. Sources said Zalmay Khalilzad, who is the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and is close to Karzai, detected reservations among Afghan senior officials -- but those reservations appeared to dissipate after the Afghan president met with Ashdown in Kuwait in January.
Ban then met with Ashdown in Madrid to seal the deal. But when Karzai returned to Kabul, he received criticism from members of his cabinet, while the media portrayed Ashdown as a potential pro-consul, akin to past British colonial rulers. Karzai, meanwhile, believed that Ashdown had planted newspaper stories in Britain suggesting that Karzai was a weak Pashtun leader atop a Tajik government, a remark Karzai viewed as "fanning ethnic tensions," said a senior U.S. official.
Said T. Jawad, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, suggested that there were worries about the powerful role Ashdown had played in the Balkans. "Based on his past experience in the Balkans, the Afghan cabinet and other officials raised some concerns," Jawad said. "President Karzai decided his role wouldn't be constructive."
By the time Karzai met with Ban and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in late January, the Afghan leader had soured on the choice. Ban had gone into the meeting expecting to announce Ashdown's appointment; instead, Ashdown soon issued a statement withdrawing from consideration.
It was not the first time in recent months that Karzai has clashed with his Western patrons. He has battled the United States over opium-reduction strategies, and in December he expelled two senior European officials for holding unauthorized talks with the Taliban.
Some analysts saw the Bush administration's inability to secure Ashdown's appointment as a serious setback. "The rejection of Ashdown by Karzai undermines the ability of the Afghan government to be moving more forcefully in the right direction," said Mark Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group, which has been critical of the reconstruction efforts. "When Karzai said he didn't want it, the U.S. didn't stick to its guns."
Senior administration officials say that there is no major rift and that Karzai, who has a monthly videoconference with Bush, is entitled to veto power over a position that could vastly influence his country.
Seth Jones, an Afghanistan expert with the Rand Corp., said Karzai, who is up for reelection next year, is reluctant to be identified too closely with the United States. "I don't think over the long term it's a significant blow," he said. But the failure to install Ashdown, he added, shows Karzai's sensitivity "to not be seen as being pushed around by the international community."
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Biden warns of failure in Afghanistan
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer Mon Feb 25, 8:31 PM ET
NEW YORK - Sen. Joseph Biden on Monday called for more U.S. aid for Afghanistan and deeper NATO involvement there, saying failure could also have dire consequences for neighboring Pakistan.
NATO must be "fully in the fight" in Afghanistan — nothing less than the future of the alliance is at stake, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told a luncheon crowd at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"Many of our NATO allies thought they were signing up for a peacekeeping mission, not counter-insurgency operations," said Biden, D-Del. "Many are fighting with incredible bravery in the south. But the so-called "national caveats" are making a mockery of NATO — and the notion of a unified mission."
Each nation that contributes troops operates under so-called national caveats that limit what its troops can do.
Nearly seven years after a U.S.-led invasion defeated the Taliban regime, NATO has about 42,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, 14,000 of whom are American.
Biden recently traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and he said the stakes are as high as they've ever been for the future of those nations.
"Afghanistan must never again become a safe haven for al-Qaida. But just as important, if Afghanistan fails, Pakistan could follow, because extremists will set their sights on the bigger prize to the east," he said.
With Pakistan's recent parliamentary elections swept by opposition candidates, President Pervez Musharraf seemed willing to leave office peaceably, Biden said.
"I think he will go gently into the good night," Biden said.
Musharraf's spokesman, Rashid Qureshi, told Dawn News television in Pakistan on Monday that the Pakistani leader would not respond to any suggestion by a U.S. senator that he should withdraw from the presidency quietly and gracefully.
Some Pakistani leaders and many media commentators also have called for Musharraf, a key U.S. ally against terrorism, to resign.
The parties of assassinated Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and former premier Nawaz Sharif won a majority of the seats in the new parliament and are expected to form a coalition government. But they fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to impeach Musharraf.
Biden urged a huge boost in U.S. spending on reconstructing Afghanistan, putting a single person in charge of reconstruction and focusing on arresting drug kingpins there.
"We have spent on Afghanistan's reconstruction in six years what we spend every three weeks on military operations in Iraq," he said. "How do you spell hope in Dari and Pashtu? A-S-P-H-A-L-T."
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If Afghanistan fails, Pakistan could follow: Biden
By Michelle Nichols Mon Feb 25, 5:55 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States must focus on securing and rebuilding Afghanistan because if it fails then neighboring Pakistan could follow, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden said on Monday after returning from a tour of both countries.
Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said more troops are needed in Afghanistan and called for greater focus on basics like roads and power plus giving the military cash for quick projects like digging wells.
He also urged a rebuilding plan similar to the Marshall Plan under which the United States aided Europe's shattered economies after World War Two.
"Afghanistan's fate and Pakistan's future are joined and America's security is tied to both," Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations. "If Afghanistan fails, Pakistan could follow, because extremists will set their sights on the bigger prize to the east."
Frustration is rising among many ordinary people in Afghanistan over the perceived lack of development and security Western leaders promised before the Taliban were driven from power in 2001.
U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban's government after it refused to hand over al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, whom Washington says is the architect of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
The militants have made a comeback in the past two years and violence is at its worst since the Taliban's fall.
More than 50,000 foreign troops led by NATO and the U.S. military are in Afghanistan battling Islamist militants who have found refuge in lawless border areas with Pakistan.
"We have spent on Afghanistan's reconstruction in six years what we spend every three weeks on military operations in Iraq," Biden, a Democrat who withdrew from the presidential race last month, said.
Biden, Democrat Sen. John Kerry and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel visited Pakistan, India, Turkey and Afghanistan.
Biden said that if the United States makes Afghanistan its priority, then so will its allies.
"It seems time for NATO to realize that they must get fully in the fight. If Afghanistan falls, I am not sure how far behind NATO will be," he said. "If America does more, so will our allies."
Biden said Pakistan's cooperation in the fight against extremism was also critical to the success of Afghanistan but had so far been "sporadic at best," adding that Washington had to move from a policy focused on a personality -- Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf -- to one focused on the country.
He said the United States needed to triple its nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan and sustain it for a decade focusing on schools, roads and clinics, give the government a "democracy dividend" above this to jump-start progress, help Islamabad develop the country's northwest provinces and demand transparency and accountability in the military aid provided.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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Afghan Farmers Turn to Cannabis as Cash Crop
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson NPR
All Things Considered, February 25, 2008 · Frustrated by government attacks on their opium poppy crops, a growing number of farmers in Afghanistan are turning to a lucrative alternative that is just as illegal: cannabis, the source of marijuana and hashish.
In southern Kandahar province, farmers in nearly three-quarters of the villages recently surveyed by the United Nations said they would plant cannabis this spring.
Jan Mohammad, a tenant farmer outside Kandahar City, spends nine hours a day filtering cannabis leaves and then kneading the residue into clumps of hashish.
He earns $30 a day — five times as much as he earns from harvesting wheat.
Mohammad's landlord, Ateegh — the nephew of a top Kandahari government official — sells the clumps of hashish to Pakistani smugglers who cross the border a 90-minute drive away.
Ateegh says this year he plans to double his cannabis crop, while cutting back on opium poppies.
He says that's because it's cheaper to grow cannabis — plus, demand for the drug in nearby Iran and neighboring Pakistan is increasing.
And his brother-in-law Mukthar notes that Afghan eradication teams didn't touch Ateegh's cannabis crops last year, while they did destroy more than half of his poppy fields.
"The foreigners don't complain about cannabis like they do about poppies. So the government doesn't do anything about it," Mukthar says.
Such thinking has led to a boom in cannabis cultivation in the country. In a report earlier this month, the United Nations declared Afghanistan not only the top opium supplier in the world, but one of the biggest cannabis suppliers as well.
Most of the cannabis that authorities are aware of is being grown in the north and east, where poppy cultivation has largely stopped.
The exception is Kandahar, where both poppy and cannabis growth is expected to increase this year.
"It may even be that this country is turning into the No. 1 in terms of cannabis as well, which is not an honorable position to be in," says Christina Oguz, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan.
Last year, Oguz says, Afghan police seized three times more cannabis than the year before.
But with world attention so focused on opium, little is really known about cannabis cultivation in Afghanistan, she adds.
Both drugs are banned under Islam. But unlike opium, hashish is more or less socially acceptable here and widely used by Afghan men. "Cigarette-tees" — as hashish cigarettes are called — are for sale at many shops.
Oguz says the cannabis plant is also much easier to grow than opium poppies. Plus, Taliban fighters and corrupt government officials don't appear to be skimming off cannabis growers' profits the way they do with poppy farmers.
But Kandahar Gov. Assadullah Khalid says landowners like Ateegh are mistaken if they think their cannabis crops will be spared. It's illegal to grow cannabis, and Khalid says the government will take action. Still, he says, poppy crops were the first priority.
That's what Ateegh's tenant farmer, Jan Mohammed, is banking on.
He believes that as long as there are poppies, the government won't have time to go after cannabis. Khalid's eradication teams destroyed 20,000 acres of poppies last year.
The farmer says that by the time authorities do get around to it years from now, he will have found another lucrative crop to grow.
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Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq top index of weak states
By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Somalia, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq are the four weakest states in the world, according to an index of fragile nations released by two U.S. think tanks on Tuesday.
The Brookings Institution and the Center for Global Development ranked 141 developing countries according to their performance in four core areas -- economic, political, security and social welfare.
Using those indicators, Somalia, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo headed the list and were designated as "failed states." They were followed by Iraq, Burundi, Sudan, Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Liberia and Ivory Coast.
"Given the role that weak states can play as incubators and breeding grounds for transnational security threats, building state capacity ... should be a higher priority for U.S. policy," said the report.
A weak state is defined as one lacking the capacity to establish and maintain political institutions, secure the population from violent conflict and control their territories or to meet the basic needs of the population.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States, studies indicated weak states threatened world security and the Bush administration said dealing with those fragile nations was a national priority.
But the Brookings Institution's Susan Rice, who co-authored the index, said there had not been a big enough focus, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where most critically weak states were located.
"For all of our newfound rhetoric after 9/11, the U.S. government has yet to generate any kind of coherent approach to strengthening the capacity of weak states," Rice, who is also an adviser to Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, told Reuters.
A White House spokesman disagreed.
"This report ignores the substantial commitment by President Bush to help countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, recover from years of violence and instability," said White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
"While there is of course more work to be done, countries like Liberia, where the president recently visited, are clearly headed in the right direction and grateful for the help provided by President Bush and the American people," he said.
The report also included a "watch list" of countries that should be monitored by policymakers because of their significant weakness.
Those included Syria, Algeria, the Philippines, Cuba and Paraguay, but also Russia, which ranked 65 on the overall list as well as India at 67 and China at 74.
"We have to get out of the habit of assuming that states we have come to believe are rising powers -- China, Russia and India -- are all strong states," said Rice.
The report said there was a direct link between low income and a state's weakness. Developed nations should make anti-poverty programs a higher priority.
"Poverty fuels and perpetuates civil conflict which swiftly and dramatically reduces state capacity. Yet still lacking from the George W. Bush administration are any comprehensive strategies to address poverty in the world's most challenging institutional environments," said the report.
It also urged that aid should be better targeted in failed and weak states with an emphasis on improving security.
For example, in Iraq and Afghanistan where the United States is most deeply involved, the report said U.S. troop levels were inadequate to stabilize both nations.
(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria, editing by Alan Elsner)
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Ariana Afghan Airlines Resumes Flights To Europe From Kabul
Tuesday February 26, 04:20 PM
KABUL, Feb 26 Asia Pulse - Following a two-year break Ariana Afghan Airline Company on Monday resumed its flights to Germany, officials said Monday.
An Ariana Airbus aircraft, rented from Turkey, left capital Kabul Monday with 60 passengers for Frankfurt, Germany.
Addressing a press conference here, Zabihullah Esmati head of the state-owned Ariana Afghan Airlines, said two years back Ariana flights were banned in European countries for having old aircraft.
The return ticket to Frankfurt was 850 afghanis, he added, flights schedule would later be announced. He assured the flights would not be delayed.
Esmati called on President Hamid Karzai and other authorities to support the government owned company to effectively undertake activities and maintain the former position the company had amongst airline companies.
Esmati, who had also warned he would resign unless the government supported the company, complained a number of high officials were trying to break down the company in an effort to encourage the government to hand over the company to the private sector.
The 50-year old company has four aircraft that are engaged in domestic and regional flights, he concluded.
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AFGHANISTAN: Domestic violence against children widespread - study
26 Feb 2008 14:09:56 GMT
KABUL, 26 February 2008 (IRIN) - Corporal punishment of children by their parents is widely practiced across Afghanistan and is commonly accepted as a form of discipline, says a new study by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), a Kabul-based think-tank.
"Violence towards children in the family is accepted as a normal part of parent-child relationships with little social judgment made toward the perpetrators," says the study based on interviews conducted in Bamyan, Herat, Kabul and Nangarhar provinces.
The report, Love, Fear and Discipline: Everyday Violence toward Children in Afghan Families, said many Afghan families perceived corporal punishment as a good way to bring up their children.
Some parents lashed out at their children due to stress, frustration and economic insecurity, it said.
"Slapping, ear-pulling, verbal abuse, kicking, punching, beating with sticks or electricity cables or shoes," are the most commonly practiced forms of domestic violence directed against children, says the study released on 24 February in Kabul.
Awareness raising
AREU's findings also indicate that many parents recognised the physical and psychological harm caused by violence to children and that corporal punishment was not always the best way to discipline their children.
Some parents have said they were keen to adopt non-violent ways of bringing up their children, but they "have very little knowledge" about it.
"Any programme working to tackle violence toward children must first recognise that there is a general awareness in the communities of the negative consequences of violence to children… sensitisation campaigns should therefore focus on informing people about alternative parenting skills," the study recommends.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Education (MoE) welcomed the study and said its findings would help the government and other non-government organisations tackle domestic violence against children through different programmes.
"We will establish an independent educational TV channel in the near future through which we will boost public awareness about the negative impacts of violence towards children and the effectiveness of non-violent behaviour with them," said Safiullah Zeer, director of Educational Radio and TV at the MoE, in Kabul.
Child labour
The AREU study also said that besides being exposed to domestic violence, some children had been taken out of school in order to work full-time and support their families.
"Significant numbers of families find survival difficult without the contributions of children's labour," the study found.
The study said both male and female children had paid and unpaid responsibilities at home and outside.
Female children mostly undertake domestic work such as sweeping, washing and cooking, both to assist their mothers and as training for their future roles as wives and mothers, it said.
Boys typically engaged in outside activities such as collecting water or wood, running errands or taking care of animals.
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US plans special centres on the Afghan side near border
By Our Correspondent Dawn (Pakistan)
NEW YORK, Feb 25: US officials are quietly planning to expand their presence in and around the tribal areas of Pakistan by creating special coordination centres on the Afghan side of the border where US, Afghan, and Pakistani officials can share intelligence about Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, the Boston Globe reported on Monday, citing State Department and Pentagon officials.
The Bush administration, the Globe says, is also seeking to expand its influence in the tribal areas through a new economic support initiative that would initially focus on school and road construction projects. Officials recently asked Congress for $453 million to launch the effort — a higher request for economic support funds than for any country except Afghanistan.
The expansion of US efforts in the tribal areas — made possible, in part, by rising Pakistani anger at a string of suicide attacks by militants from the region — also includes the deployment of about 30 US counter-insurgency trainers to train an elite Pakistani force to fight Al Qaeda and indigenous extremists.
The CIA was also pushing to enhance its surveillance capabilities and intelligence cooperation with the Pakistani services at a covert location in the tribal areas, the newspaper said quoting to a Pakistani official in the tribal areas who asked not to be identified.
“In order to get a window on what’s happening on the ground, US forces need to be more present, whether they are physically there, or virtually there, monitoring,” Daniel Markey, a Pakistan specialist on the State Department’s policy planning staff from 2003 until his retirement last year told the newspaper.
To get a better picture of the complex insurgency that has grown in the tribal areas over the past five years, US officials are constructing two new coordination centres on the Afghan side of the border at Torkham and at a second position north of Torkham. Four more posts are under consideration, the newspaper said quoting a senior Defence Department official.
According to the plans, the official told the Globe, about 15 Afghan, Pakistani, and American officials would meet daily at each centre to share intelligence about militant activities on both sides of the porous, mountainous border, which extends about 1,560 miles between Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas.
“The purpose of the centres is to share intelligence, ensure that all (parties) have a common operational picture of the area, coordinate operations that might be occurring on both sides of the border at the same time, and (settle conflicts) when necessary,” said the Defence Department official.
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Pakistan's extremism starts at the top
By Chietigj Bajpaee Feb 27, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
Pakistan's election results have challenged the misplaced fear in the international community that Pakistan could fall under the control of Islamic extremists. However, this does not rule out the possibility of Pakistan's descent into an abyss of instability.
Islamic extremism in Pakistan is not a grass-roots phenomenon as it has been in many states in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Pakistan's founding fathers, led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, preceded by the Indian sub-continent's British colonial rulers and India's Mughal rulers, laid the foundation for Pakistan to be led by the rule of law and moderate Islam.
Nonetheless, successive civilian and military-led governments, the military and intelligence agencies have employed Islamic extremism as a tool of their policies. As such, extremist Islam has emerged as a top-down phenomena.
As demonstrated by the poor performance of Pakistan's Islamic parties in last week's parliamentary elections, Pakistan is far from ripe for an Iranian-style Islamic revolution.
The six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, which secured over 50 seats in the last Parliament with a strong showing in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan, secured less than 10 seats in the National Assembly in this election and lost its lead in tribal provinces to sub-national secular parties such as the Awami National Party and the Balochistan National Party (Awami).
Coupled with the strong showing of the secular Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz at the national level, the election illustrates that secular Islam is alive and kicking in Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan's last parliamentary elections in 2002 were the only time in the country's 60-year history - it has had 10 parliamentary elections - when Islamist parties had a strong showing. This was fueled by the government marginalizing the secular parties, as well as a backlash to the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the ousting of the Taliban from Kabul.
In reality, Islamist groups have only gained ground in Pakistan when the government has employed them as a tool of their policies. During the 1980s, president Zia ul-Haq, backed by the United States, used Islamic extremism to fan the mujahideen against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
During the 1990s, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and successive governments employed Islamic extremism to challenge the Indian claim to Kashmir by undermining India's conventional military superiority with asymmetrical attacks on soft and symbolic targets in Kashmir.
The ISI also attempted to gain "strategic depth" with regard to India by creating an arc of influence from Central Asia to Afghanistan. While Pakistan's military establishment is regarded as professional and secular (with the exception of Zia, who attempted to bring Islam into the political and military sphere), it has not hesitated in using Islamic extremism to battle its enemies. This was seen in Pakistan's support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan until September 11, 2001, and support for Islamic extremist groups in Kashmir.
Under President Pervez Musharraf, Islamic extremists entered Pakistan's mainstream political sphere as Musharraf empowered extremists in order to marginalize Pakistan's secular opposition parties while using the growth of Islamic extremism to justify his non-democratic rule.
Core dilemmas unaddressed
While the victory of Pakistan's secular opposition parties will relieve some concern over the "Talibanization" of Pakistan, the threat will not dissipate as long as Islamic extremism continues to be employed as a tool by Pakistan's political parties, the military and the ISI.
In doing so, the government is playing with fire and has occasionally got burned in the process, as seen by the numerous assassination attempts on Musharraf, the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto last December and the death of over 1,000 Pakistani soldiers in operations against extremist elements in Pakistan's tribal regions.
International terrorist and extremist groups have become increasingly localized, as seen by the rise of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law), led by pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah in the Swat Valley in NWFP and the Tehrek-e-Taliban-Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban) based in the South Waziristan tribal area of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, led by Baitullah Meshud. Meshud has been accused by the government of masterminding the assassination of Bhutto.
To quell the rise of Islamic extremism, Pakistan must address fundamental problems plaguing its existence - namely strengthening institutions, reforming the education system and stabilizing Pakistan's periphery.
Empowering Pakistan's institutions and addressing its neglected education system are pivotal to combating Islamic extremism, although Musharraf's pledges in these areas have been unfulfilled.
First, he has undermined the institutions he hoped to strengthen by manipulating the political and legal process to prolong his rule since taking power in a coup in 1999. Second, his military government devoted too few resources to promoting secular education while simultaneously strengthening the military industrial complex and empowering Islamist parties to keep secular opposition parties weak.
The return of a secular civilian government may change this, but given the lack of progress in achieving these goals during a decade of civilian rule by Bhutto and Sharif, significant change is not expected. The fact that Bhutto's inexperienced 19-year-old son, Bilawal, and husband, Asif Ali-Zardari, who faces allegations of corruption, have been appointed as the heads of the PPP ahead of more experienced party members illustrates the continued dominance of feudal patronage over policy platforms in Pakistani politics.
Pakistan's internal stability also remains closely intertwined with its international relations. Although tensions between India and Pakistan have been shelved for the time being, a major terrorist attack on Indian soil or an escalation in terrorist infiltration across the Line of Control that separates the Pakistani and Indian-administered areas of Kashmir, could increase hostility.
The dialogue that was initiated between both states in 2004 is presently in abeyance as the Indian government has apparently decided to take a wait-and-see attitude to the process of political transition in Pakistan. Confidence-building measures must be complemented by a concrete solution to the issue of Kashmir, which remains a thorn in bilateral relations. In the end, rapprochement in India-Pakistan relations will be necessary to justify the Pakistani military's withdrawal from the political sphere.
On Pakistan's western front, addressing the "Pashtun problem" is pivotal to stabilizing relations with Afghanistan. Pashtun nationalism and the disputed status of the Durand Line between the two countries are core issues within Afghan-Pakistan relations.
They were addressed in a "Joint Pakistan-Afghanistan Peace Jirga" (tribal assembly) in Kabul last year, which will be followed by a series of jirgagai or smaller jirgas. However, these initiatives are likely to make slow progress, given the continued level of mistrust between Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the lack of recognition for Pakistani sovereignty over tribal affiliations in the area and the Pakistani side pushing for Afghanistan and the United States to reach rapprochement with "reformed" Taliban.
Following in the footsteps of a foe
The recent discussion of Pakistan's "fragmentation" goes back to debates by political pundits during the first decades of neighboring India's independence (1947) that it would also undergo balkanization.
However, a state far more ethnically, religiously and geographically diverse than Pakistan has survived for 60 years and the fear-mongers have been silenced as India has emerged as a darling of foreign investors.
The essential issue that needs to be addressed in Pakistan is one of identity. How does Pakistan see itself? The Nehruvian and Gandhian view of India as a secular democratic state allowed it to reconcile its vast diversity, despite sporadic and ongoing pressures on India to take Pakistan's path based on a narrow religious identity.
Pakistan's Islamic identity has not been sufficient to quell strains between its major ethnic groups and accusations that the national government's policies are dictated by the interests of Punjab province.
India's federalist structure of government, which devolved power to the states, also facilitated in undermining separatist tendencies. A similar empowerment of Pakistan's ethnic and religious minorities would weaken separatist tendencies in Balochistan, NWFP and the tribal areas and help to quell sectarian and ethnic violence on the streets of Pakistan's major cities.
Chietigj Bajpaee is a research analyst for Asia in the Country Intelligence Group at Global Insight. He has been a research associate for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, a research assistant for the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and risk analyst for a New York-based risk management company. The views here are his own. He can be reached at cbajpaee@hotmail.com.
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U.S. works to build Afghan army
Tuesday, February 26, 2008 By JIM LANDERS / The Dallas Morning News
KABUL MILITARY TRAINING CENTER, Afghanistan – When new recruits arrive at this boot camp, Afghan drill sergeants make sure to mix them with soldiers from other parts of the country.
"They break them down ethnically and tribally, and diversify the companies," said U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Chris Price of Lubbock. "It used to be tribe first, then locale."
Afghanistan is a mix of tribes and Islamic sects, a country of mostly illiterate peasants and a small urban elite, a land of several languages, all separated by mountains and deserts, all bled by 30 years of war.
For the military trainers here from the U.S. and other countries, overcoming ethnic and tribal divides is the key to building a national army.
And building a national army is the key to building a nation out of a failed state.
Brig. Gen. Muhammad Amin Wardak, commanding officer of this boot camp for the Afghan National Army (ANA), points to a sign over the main gate: "Unity Starts Here."
"The ANA is a national army. For us, the ethnic problem is solved," he said. "You can see them together in one squad – Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaris."
Afghanistan's failure as a nation gave al-Qaeda space to grow and plot the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And while the Bush administration and the U.S. Army were loath to take the job, there is now a consensus among policymakers and U.S. allies that building a nation out of the Afghan rubble is crucial to keeping al-Qaeda from returning.
Building the Afghan army into a force able to handle the Taliban and al-Qaeda will also help determine how long U.S. and NATO troops stay on here in a fighting role.
"The sooner we build the capacity, the sooner the need for a heavy international presence will be relieved," said Afghanistan's ambassador to Washington, Said Tayeb Jawad.
Recruits come to the Kabul Military Training Center from across Afghanistan, often with a letter of reference from the village mullah saying that they are not criminals or Taliban guerrillas. They don camouflage uniforms and boots. They learn to march with a goose step. They eat rice, bread and beef stew in a mess hall. They sleep with heads facing toes, so coughing soldiers don't face healthy soldiers lying in the next bunk, and they slog through the snow, mud and ice fog.
Maj. Robert Dingle of Marion, S.C., who mentors artillery officers here, said the effort to forge an Afghan national army reminds him of how neighboring Pakistan found a semblance of unity through its army.
"You start like Pakistan did with a national army, and you build the nation on the army," he said.
The Afghan National Army is a small but rapidly growing force of 45,000. Every two weeks, the Kabul Military Training Center graduates 1,100 more soldiers. The army is trying to reach a target of 80,000.
U.S. officers say the army is already good at fighting. It hasn't lost a fight with the Taliban in almost a year.
"As far as being a capable force, they're there," said Maj. Gabe Barton, an operations officer in Ghazni Province with the 82nd Airborne Division. "And the ANA is almost universally accepted as a good, loyal force by the Afghan people."
Here in boot camp, drill sergeants from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas teach the recruits how to shoot, strip and rebuild an M-16 rifle. They teach Afghan drill sergeants how to discipline soldiers with physical exercise rather than beatings.
U.S. Air Force teams teach Afghan medics how to vaccinate and give eye exams.
South Carolina National Guardsmen teach both American and Afghan troops the history of black U.S. soldiers in a lesson on how diversity can strengthen an army. They also teach Afghan cooks how to run a kitchen for 7,000 recruits on bottled gas rather than firewood.
British, French, Romanian and Australian troops mentor Afghan officers. Nepalese Gurkhas follow Afghan recruits and noncommissioned officers through their final exams. Bosnians supervise Afghan mechanics in the motor pool.
Stormy history
The Afghan army's modern history tells a sad story. A communist clique within the officer corps staged a coup in 1978. A year later, feuds among army factions threatened the communist grip on power and prompted a Soviet invasion.
Tribes from all parts of Afghanistan, whether Sunni or Shiite, called for jihad and formed guerrilla armies of mujahedeen, or holy warriors. The Soviets, meanwhile, built an Afghan army with brutal, Russian-style discipline and a large KGB-style police force called the KHAD.
After driving out the Soviets in 1989, the mujahedeen thought they would quickly vanquish the Soviet-trained Afghan army. But ethnic and religious differences kept them divided and ineffective. The Afghan communist regime, propped up by the army and massive amounts of Soviet aid, survived for three years.
When the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991, the Afghan army lost its lifeline of food, fuel and arms. Thousands of tanks, armored personnel carriers and combat aircraft began falling apart in vast junkyards. Huge chunks of the army deserted. The mujahedeen , meanwhile, went to war against each other.
Afghanistan became a land of warlords, criminal syndicates running a global opium business, and religious extremists. In 1996, the extremists – Sunni fundamentalists of the Pashtun tribe who called themselves seekers or students (Taliban in the Pashto language) – prevailed.
The Taliban came out of religious schools and refugee camps in Pakistan. They got military training and weapons from Pakistan's army. (Many Afghans say they still do.) They had no use for the remnants of the Afghan army and instead relied on fellow Pashtun zealots to maintain control.
After 9/11, attacks by U.S. and British commandos and Tajik, Hazari and Uzbek guerrillas drove the Taliban and al-Qaeda down to the Pakistan frontier. U.S. Special Forces came to the Kabul Military Training Center early in 2002 to start building the Afghan army again.
Today, more than 6,300 U.S. and allied troops are training and mentoring the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. The U.S. government has put $13.7 billion so far into the training effort.
U.S. troops say the army is now in pretty good shape, while the police have a long way to go.
"It's becoming a national army, but they have some of the same recruiting problems we have. You get a lot of soldiers from certain areas and not so many from others, like the south," where the Pashtun are dominant, said Staff Sgt. Mason West of Dallas.
Corruption
U.S. soldiers remain wary of corruption within the Afghan army. Maj. Greg Teisan of St. Augustine, Fla., helps oversee training in the mess hall at the Kabul Military Training Center.
"The supply chain is very corrupt. It's one of the last pieces the U.S. is reluctant to hand off to the Afghanis," he said. "Stoves, gas, food, even the Clorox and trash bags have value on the black market."
First Sgt. Chris Wilson of Round Rock has been trying to help battalion-size units of the Afghan National Army untangle supply issues. He dropped in unannounced on Capt. Abdul Wahib recently to see if the logistics officer had repaired rifles and obtained stores of ammunition for shooting practice. The captain said he was working on the matter and asked Sgt. Wilson for 100 copies of the battalion's daily roster, since his battalion headquarters was refusing to send him a toner cartridge for his printer.
"I can maybe give you 20," Sgt. Wilson said.
'They'll be back'
The roster illustrated some of the unique circumstances of the Afghan army. In a 993-man battalion, 134 were absent without leave (AWOL). The men were paid a few days earlier, however, so a 10 to 15 percent AWOL count was not considered out of the ordinary.
"Most just went to take their pay home, and they'll be back in about a week," Sgt. Wilson said. "They don't have bank accounts where they can transfer the money to their wives. Some don't even think women should go into a bank."
Even religious fundamentalists in the ranks of recruits get a taste of a more modern way of life. Civilian women teach them courses in Afghan culture and history.
"They don't have any objections," said Gen. Wardak. "The younger generation like development and progress. They like to send their daughters and sisters to school."
Gen. Wardak said girls' education and other civilian facets of nation building should move in step with building a national army.
Still, the army has to do its job for the rest to happen.
"Whenever you have a strong army, you have stability and security," Gen. Wardak said. "That change makes it easier for improving life in all directions."
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Afghanistan: Journalist On Death Row Gives First Interview
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
RFE/RL's - A 23-year-old Afghan journalism student -- sentenced to death for printing and handing out an Internet article that questioned interpretations of the role of women in Islam -- says he was not allowed to have a lawyer nor to speak in his own defense during his four-minute trial.
Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh made the remarks from prison in Mazar-e Sharif in an interview with the British daily "The Independent" on February 25 -- his first interview since being jailed four months ago.
Kambakhsh told the newspaper that local judges in the northern province of Balkh had already decided the case before the trial had begun.
Kambakhsh told "The Independent: "The way [the judges] talked to me, looked at me, was the way they look at a condemned man. I wanted to say: 'This is wrong. Please listen to me.' But I was not given a chance to explain."
Balk Province Attorney-General Qazi Hafizullah Khaliqyar denies the claims by Kambakhsh that he did not receive a fair trial, saying Afghan law is being followed and that the journalism student had chosen not to have an attorney represent him in court.
"Of course we didn't intend to violate any rights of journalists. The media law clearly prohibits insulting religious values and beliefs. [Journalists] can't violate the values of Islam and they have to keep that in mind," Khaliqyar says. Kambakhsh "has been referred to an Islamic court and would be dealt with according to Shari'a law. He has been asked if he wanted any lawyer, but he rejected the opportunity and preferred to defend himself."
Local judges in the case ruled that the article published by Kambakhsh was blasphemous because it questioned some basic tenets of Islam -- including those related to the role of women in an Islamic society.
Kambakhsh says he did not write the article that led to the charges. Rather, he says he printed it out from the Internet and distributed it among his fellow students in order to stimulate debate about women's rights in Afghanistan.
RFE/RL has confirmed that the author of the article is an Iranian expatriate who lives in Germany.
The court informed Kambakhsh during his trial that other Afghan journalism students had accused him of writing the article. Kambakhsh says he was never told the names of those accusers nor given an opportunity to cross-examine them.
One chief judge from northern Afghanistan also has said that Kambakhsh had confessed, and that only President Hamid Karzai can pardon him.
Legal Debate
Meanwhile, legal experts continue to debate the merits of the case.
Abdullah Attaei, an Afghan expert in Shari'a law, says the question of whether Kambakhsh penned the article himself is a vital issue.
"If the convicted person doesn't admit that he wrote the article, and if he denies being quoted, then no court can judge his faith [according to Islamic Shari'a law]. When he denies that he wrote the article, then no one has the right to arrest or investigate him or even to try to prove him guilty," Attaei says.
Kambakhsh says he was entitled under the Afghan Constitution to have a laywer and to speak in his own defense. He says that if he is allowed to put over his point of view to an appeals court, the judges will see that he has done nothing wrong.
He told "The Independent" that he was "totally shocked" by the death sentence. He also said he hopes his appeal will be heard by a court in Kabul because he thinks he has a better chance to get a fair trial in the Afghan capital.
Kambakhsh says he has heard that President Karzai has taken an interest in the case. He says that even if the conviction is upheld, he hopes Karzai will issue a reprieve. But he says he does not know what kind of political pressure Karzai faces over the case.
Outcry
The death sentence has raised an outcry from international and Afghan media rights groups as well as the United Nations and several foreign governments.
Karzai has suggested that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband are among the foreign officials who have raised the issue of a possible presidential reprieve.
"Both the [U.S.] secretary of state and the [British] foreign secretary spoke to me about this. This is an issue that our judicial system is handling. But I can assure you that [in the end], justice will be done in the right way," Karzai says.
But Kambakhsh's fate remains an issue of heated debate within Afghanistan, where some fundamentalists are still calling for his execution.
A key ally of Karzai and head of the Afghan Senate, Sibghatullkah Mojeddeid, issued a statement supporting the death sentence against Kambakhsh. But that statement was withdrawn after domestic and international protests.
(RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan and Radio Farda contributed to this report.)
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Boy escapes from Taliban's captivity
Pajhwak News Agency 02/25/2008 Sher Ahmad Haider
GHAZNI CITY - A young boy Friday succeeded in running away from the captivity of militants where he was instigated to execute suicide attack on troops in the Chenar village of restive Ander district in the southern Ghazni province, an official said.
Allah Muhammad, 11 told Pajhwok Afghan News that he along his friend was kidnapped by five unidentified militants and was being persuaded for executing suicide attack at district headquarters.
The boy said the militants took them to a mosque and were convincing that there were non-believers in the district.
"When we denied from carrying out an explosion then militants fastened our hands and ordered for explosive waistcoats in 15 minutes for us," he went on "When miscreants left mosque so I ran away but my friend Hameedullah did not."
District chief Abdur Rahim Daisewal confirming the incident said that they would try to release the friend of Allah Muhammad from the militants hold.
However, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman for southern zones, denounced the incident and termed it just to defame Taliban. "It is the conspiracy of Afghan intelligence officials only to disrepute the name of the Taliban among the local people," he concluded.
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NATO Confronts Surprisingly Fierce Taliban
Militia Undermines Rebuilding Efforts in Southern Province of Uruzgan
By Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, February 26, 2008; A01
TARIN KOT, Afghanistan -- Lt. Col. Wilfred Rietdijk, a 6-foot-7 blond Dutchman, took command of his military's reconstruction team in the southern Afghan district of Deh Rawood in September. Tranquil and welcoming, it seemed like the perfect place for the Netherlands' mission to help rebuild this country.
Intelligence reports indicated that the district was free of the Taliban, allowing the soldiers greater freedom of movement than elsewhere in Uruzgan province.
"We could go out on foot," Rietdijk said.
Reconstruction teams, escorted by a platoon of soldiers, fanned across the fertile countryside, building bridges over streams and canals, repairing irrigation systems, and distributing books and pens to local schools.
But the day after Rietdijk arrived in Afghanistan, his field officers reported hundreds of villagers suddenly fleeing parts of Deh Rawood. "Within a few weeks, everybody was gone," Rietdijk said. "We didn't understand why."
Now the Dutch say they realize what happened. Even as the soldiers believed they had won the support of the local population, the Taliban had secretly returned to reclaim Deh Rawood, home district of the group's revered leader, Mohammad Omar. It took only a few months for the Taliban to undermine nearly six years of intelligence work by U.S. forces and almost two years of goodwill efforts by Dutch soldiers.
In the year and a half since NATO took over southern Afghanistan from U.S. forces, its mission has changed dramatically. Dispatched to the region to maintain newly restored order and help local Afghans reconstruct their shattered communities, Dutch and other troops from the alliance now find themselves on the front lines of a renewed fight with a more cunning and aggressive Taliban.
More foreign soldiers and Afghan civilians died in Taliban-related fighting last year than in any year since U.S. and coalition forces ousted the extremist Islamic militia, which ruled most of the country, in 2001. Military officials here expect the coming year to be just as deadly, if not more so, as the Taliban becomes more adept militarily and more formidable in its deployment of suicide bombers and roadside explosives.
The Taliban's growing strength, which surprised Dutch forces here, helps explain why NATO members are reluctant to send more troops to an increasingly dangerous battlefield and have instead adopted a strategy based less on military force.
In his recent criticism of NATO's refusal to deploy more forces, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates accused the alliance of being ill-prepared for counterinsurgency operations. NATO countries, however, while not opposed to the war effort in Afghanistan, have always viewed the key to success as one that relied on giving Afghans new schools, health clinics and other elements of a sturdy civil society.
Taliban fighters began arriving in the heart of Deh Rawood -- a triangle-shaped district about seven miles long and seven miles wide -- late last summer. They came one by one, or in groups of twos and threes. They rented mud houses, befriended neighbors with gifts of cellphones and motorcycles and appealed to villagers on the grounds that the Taliban was fighting for the cause of Islam.
By autumn, for reasons even some villagers didn't understand, the Taliban turned on them, driving them out of their houses and ripping up the new NATO-built bridges. The Dutch have since pushed Taliban fighters out of the district, but have decided not to push them beyond the surrounding territory.
They have learned difficult lessons already.
"Nobody saw it coming," Rietdijk said, referring to the Taliban offensive. "They were there before anybody knew it. I keep asking myself: 'Did we miss something? Was there someone to blame it on?' "
'Intelligence Was Wrong'
In late November, a new commander arrived in Uruzgan to take charge of Dutch combat forces in the region. Lt. Col. Tjerk Hogeveen had a grip of steel and a passion for paragliding off mountaintops.
Just as his reconstruction counterpart, Rietdijk, had been briefed on his arrival, Hogeveen had been told to expect little or no trouble from the Taliban in his sector of Deh Rawood.
Although Taliban fighters had routed villagers from their homes, they had made no major effort to attack coalition forces. Rietdijk's troops halted most of their reconstruction work and concentrated on providing food, blankets and other humanitarian aid to the hundreds of refugees who had descended on impoverished friends and relatives south of the Tarin River.
"The Americans told us there were no Taliban on the east bank," Hogeveen said. "Everyone told us it was safe -- no Taliban."
But the Taliban had good reason to want to reclaim Deh Rawood. As the district surrounding Omar's home town of the same name, it held symbolic importance to the Islamic militia. It held strategic importance, too: The district sits at the confluence of the Helmand and Tarin rivers on the most important drug- and arms-trafficking route in rugged Uruzgan province, connecting it to Iran to the west and Pakistan to the south.
As Hogeveen was settling into his armor-plated metal bunker at the main Dutch base, Camp Holland, near the provincial capital of Tarin Kot, Taliban fighters were evicting local police from three of Deh Rawood's most strategic checkpoints. They bribed officers to abandon one post, kidnapped the son of a policeman at a second checkpoint and attacked the third, sending officers fleeing. They turned a local school into their headquarters and stocked it with weapons and ammunition, Hogeveen said he learned later.
Then they lay in wait and ambushed the first unsuspecting Dutch convoy they spotted.
"They were better prepared than anyone led us to believe," Hogeveen said.
Hogeveen's troops and the Taliban skirmished almost daily.
In mid-December, fighters yanked a 60-year-old woman and her 7-year-old grandson off a bus in Deh Rawood. They interrogated the pair and, after finding a U.S. dollar bill in the boy's pocket, accused the two of spying and executed them in front of the other passengers and bystanders, according to accounts by Afghan human rights groups, news services and Dutch officers.
Meanwhile, on the advice of U.S. and Dutch intelligence officers, Hogeveen prepared a battle plan for routing the Taliban: "The intelligence guys said, 'If you go in with large forces, they will leave,' " Hogeveen recalled in an interview.
He sent larger contingents of heavily armored troops into the heart of the Taliban stronghold in northern Deh Rawood, a jumble of mud houses connected by mazes of narrow lanes.
"Everyone thought the Taliban would not fight," Hogeveen said. "The intelligence was wrong."
Taking up defensive positions in the warrens of mud compounds, the Taliban fighters didn't need large numbers to put up a strong fight against Hogeveen's men. In the darkness and chaos of the unexpectedly strong Taliban defenses, Hogeveen lost two soldiers. Two Afghan army troops also died in the fighting. The Dutch military is now investigating whether all four may have been killed by "friendly fire."
Today, after 2 1/2 months of often intense combat, Dutch troops have reclaimed some of the villages of Deh Rawood and are helping villagers repair the damage caused by weeks of fighting between NATO forces and the Taliban. They have also started many new projects and are working more closely with tribal leaders, the Afghan army and local police to provide better security for the residents.
Even so, the Dutch say, the Taliban forces have merely relocated to the fringes of the district, and thousands of villagers remain too frightened to return to their homes.
The resilience of the Taliban, a shortage of NATO forces and the Dutch philosophy that the Afghan people need to take charge of their own lives have prompted the Dutch to adopt a precarious strategy for Uruzgan: evict the Taliban from small enclaves while ceding the surrounding territory to them in hopes that neighboring communities will oust them on their own.
"We still don't have the full view of what happened below the radar in Deh Rawood," said Col. Richard van Harskamp, commander of all Dutch forces in Uruzgan.
"There are no quick wins in Afghanistan," he added. "People who want to have quick wins better know how to deal with disappointments."
'He Is Afraid'
The Dutch have confronted obstacles off the battlefield as well.
On one of the coldest days yet in an usually brutal winter, Rietdijk, the Dutch reconstruction chief, met with Uruzgan Gov. Assadullah Hamdam in his ramshackle compound in Tarin Kot. The men responsible for the security of Uruzgan sat around a wood stove: the police chief, the general of the local contingent of the Afghan army, the chief of the highway patrol.
Rietdijk asked the governor to help him find an influential tribal leader to help coordinate new construction projects in his district.
"I have met with him twice," Hamdam said quietly. "He will not help you. He is afraid."
Rietdijk persisted, taking a sip of steaming green tea the governor had poured into a glass mug.
"He is not the man," Hamdam said more firmly. "He is afraid."
The subject turned to the three new police substations and four new police checkpoints planned for Deh Rawood. The police chief urged the Dutch to provide supplies and better accommodations while the new facilities are being built.
"We don't have tents, we don't have food, we don't have transportation," complained the chief, Juma Gul, a hefty man with the jowls of a bulldog.
"We need to get out there with police and make sure the region is safe," Rietdijk said. "We can't wait for a checkpoint. We have to go out. I don't think we can wait."
"A checkpoint is important," pressed the police chief.
"I can't give birth to a checkpoint tomorrow," Rietdijk said, a bit testily.
Gul later turned to another problem with his officers. "Some of my men don't want to go back to Deh Rawood," the chief warned. "They're possibly going to leave without permission."
Half a dozen times during the meeting, Gul pleaded with Dutch representatives for more money to run his department.
"I need money for food for my men, this is not for my own pocket," the police chief said. "Do you know the price of bread in Tarin Kot these days?"
"I know all the problems," an exasperated Rietdijk said. "I've heard them 30 times."
Rietdijk said that despite the constant nagging, he respects Gul.
But after about five months on the job, Gul is ready to quit, according to Uruzgan's governor.
"He wanted to quit. The job is too much," said Hamdam, whose wife and children live in London. "I told him, 'It's going to take patience.' "
Gul complained that he was sending recruits with only two weeks' training to the front lines to fight the Taliban. Their salaries were weeks late because the money had to be hand-carried from Kabul to Tarin Kot and winter snows had canceled many flights. There is no functioning bank in all of Uruzgan. The Interior Ministry in Kabul will not even tell the governor or the police chief how much money they have to run their department, Hamdam said.
Hamdam paused, then sighed. On this day, the heater was not working in his ice-cold office. He has heard the Dutch say dozens of times that it is up to him and his security team to provide security for his people.
He shook his head. He knows the Dutch are committed to remain in Afghanistan only another 2 1/2 years. He now has just over 1,300 police officers; his police chief says they need 3,000.
"There's not enough force," Hamdam said. "The police are not strong enough, and we can't depend on the Afghan army. The police can't go alone without the coalition forces.
"If they were not here," he said, "who knows what would happen."
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'Afghanistan can govern itself soon'
Press TV (Iran) / Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:20:16
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Spanta who has started a visit of Nordic capitals says his country will govern itself "in a few years."
Afghanistan should manage to stand on its own feet "when we can (further) the building and rebuilding of the Afghan national army, when we can give better training and equip" troops, police and border guards, Spanta told reporters on Monday.
"I think we will have success in a few years," he said after meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in Oslo.
On the first leg of a Nordic visit Spanta added that Kabul was prepared to talk with 'all parties' that respect the Afghan constitution. In mid-January, Stoere survived a bomb attack on the Hotel Serena in Kabul where seven people died, including a Norwegian newspaper reporter.
Oslo has said it would allocate 138 million dollars to civilian programs in Afghanistan this year. Norway has some 500 soldiers in Afghanistan, including a rapid reaction force that will be replaced by German troops on July 1.
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General: Obama's Story Is Believable
By ANNE FLAHERTY The Associated Press Tuesday, February 26, 2008; 1:41 PM
WASHINGTON -- Gen. George Casey, the Army's chief of staff, said Tuesday he has no reason to doubt Barack Obama's recent account by an Army captain that a rifle platoon in Afghanistan didn't have enough soldiers or weapons.
But he questioned the assertion that the shortages prevented the troops from doing their job.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Casey said the incident would have occurred in 2003 and 2004 following the Iraq invasion. He said he remembers it as a "difficult time" trying to rush armor and other equipment to the troops.
"I have no reason to doubt what it is the captain said," Casey said. "This was 2003 and 2004, almost four and a half years ago. We acknowledge and all worked together to correct the deficiencies that we saw in that period, not only in Afghanistan but in Iraq. It was a period that we worked our way through."
During a Democratic debate last week, Obama said an Army captain remembered leading a platoon in Afghanistan that was short on men, ammunition and humvees.
"They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief," Obama said.
Obama's account prompted denials from the Pentagon. In a letter to Obama, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., demanded the name and whereabouts of the captain so he could investigate the matter.
Obama campaign has declined to release the name of the captain, citing the soldier's privacy.
"I find that account pretty hard to imagine," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman after the debate.
Casey said the Army has purposefully not tried to seek out the captain individually. But he did contact the platoon's brigade commander, which belonged to the 10th Mountain Division, and reviewed the division's readiness reports.
Casey said the brigade was manned at 100 percent during its entire deployment, but that it is possible a particular platoon within the brigade was not manned at the desired level.
"There may have been some spot shortages in spare parts and ammunition," he said. "But the commander said that there were never a shortage of ammunition that impacted the units ability to accomplish its mission."
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Afghanistan: America Wrong, Europe Right
Washington Post, United States By William M. Arkin February 25, 2008
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is again beating up on Europeans for not doing more in Afghanistan, a now familiar theme in his blame-anybody-but-us strategy.
With 3,200 more Marines being deployed to the country to stem the Taliban resurgence and with a new military focus on Pakistan -- and with the Iraq war seemingly put in the "pause" box -- Gates has found religion in the other war against terrorism. Speaking to NATO two weeks ago, he questioned why some were "ready to fight and die in order to protect people's security and others ... are not." In Australia this weekend, he lauded our Pacific ally's contribution, warning that military failure in Afghanistan could lead to more terrorism in Europe.
Complaining about the Europeans is old sport for the Cold Warrior. From decades-old bitching about "burden sharing" to 1990's frustrations with NATO's fighting spirit in the former Yugoslavia, to the era of freedom fries after 9/11, conventional wisdom is that rules of engagement and strategies authored in Paris and Berlin are to blame for American loss. Afghanistan is just the latest refrain, and the normally judicious Gates has taken on an almost Rumsfeldian tone in calling the Europeans weak.
Jump on the bandwagon if you like. I'm sure all three presidential candidates could happily articulate some version of Gates' lament on Afghanistan as diversion therapy. But the truth is that hesitant Europeans are right. More firepower isn't going to "win" the war in Afghanistan. It's not just because of the Pakistan back door, or because special operations and airpower -- not more boots on the ground -- are the keys to success. It's because what is really needed in the country is more non-military operations. In other words, hooray for the reluctant shooters.
Speaking in Australia, Gates warned that a return of the Taliban will result in new terrorist attacks on European soil. Gates is in Australia for his first set of meetings with the new Labor government, sounding his now frequent call for the Europeans to increase their military commitments. It is crucial to persuade the Europeans "that their security is tied directly to developments in Afghanistan," he said.
"The most important short-term point for Afghanistan, which we've made very strongly, is we think there needs to be a much stronger international commitment to the military effort in Afghanistan, and that particularly needs to come from NATO," the Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said in a joint appearance with Gates.
The Europeans have certainly gotten the message that they need to throw more bodies at the problem. Germany recently committed to almost doubling its police trainers (and called for the European Union to do the same), and others are looking for other functions that they could take on. Gates argues though that more troops are needed to "hold" areas that have been clear, a clear code for transposing the Iraq counter-insurgency strategy and surge to the Afghan problem.
But is Afghanistan just like Iraq? Mountainous and vast (with that impossible Pakistan border), impoverished and low in natural resources, Afghanistan not only has a long tradition of local warlordism, but it also faces a true "guerrilla" movement, that is, an armed opposition -- the Taliban -- that actually has support in large portions of the country. From its base north of Bagram, the United States national command (Regional Command East) focuses on the toughest fight and the border area. NATO headquarters in Kandahar in the south certainly makes a fighting contribution, but the European contribution has centrally allowed the growth of provincial reconstruction teams and other non-lethal missions, of which even more is needed.
One might argue that in an alliance it is certainly unbalanced and unfair that Americans are shouldering the fighting and dying while many Europeans take the softer jobs. But the public image that Gates has created is not only that the European contributions are weak and worthless, but that if there were more shooters from Europe, somehow the war would be going better. This is a false proposition: The Afghanistan war may require a renewal, and it may even demand greater resources. But the notion that we can just ship the Iraq surge strategy to the country and win is thoughtless, and the non-lethal European approach, as slow and excruciating as it might be to the Bush administration, is ultimately the right approach.
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Winter and eradication could curb Afghan drug crop
Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:44am EST By Jon Hemming
KABUL (Reuters) - A particularly harsh winter that killed poppy seedlings and efforts underway to eradicate the plants as they sprout could curb Afghanistan's record-breaking opium crop, the acting anti-drugs minister said on Tuesday.
Last year, Afghanistan produced 93 percent of the world's opium and in 2008 the crop will at best be only slightly lower, the United Nations predicted this month, funding Taliban insurgents and further destabilizing a country struggling to emerge from nearly 30 years of war.
But a campaign to dissuade farmers from planting poppy this year has shown some success and security forces have begun to destroy poppy fields in the warmer south where the flowers appear first, said acting Counter Narcotics Minister General Khodaidad.
"I'm optimistic this year. The pre-planting campaign has gone very well. Now we are in the first two weeks of eradication ... we are doing better than last year and will have more poppy-free provinces this year," Khodaidad told Reuters in an interview.
In the southern province of Helmand, which alone produced nearly half the world's opium last year, police had destroyed 1,015 hectares of poppy fields in the last two weeks, he said.
While small compared to the 102,000 hectares grown in Helmand last year, only 77 hectares had been eradicated in the province by the end of February, 2007, according to U.N. figures. To have any real effect though, the effort needs to be maintained.
WINTER HITS OPIUM CROP
The worst winter in living memory has killed more than 900 people in Afghanistan, but also wiped out seedlings in parts of the south where farmers plant sooner than the colder north.
"The farmers had already planted and the cold weather came and eliminated the crop. Now, in some parts of those provinces, the farmers are looking to legal crops," said the former army general who is expected to be confirmed as counter narcotics minister in parliament on Wednesday.
In the six years since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban, Afghanistan's opium crop has mushroomed, especially in the south where the Islamist insurgency to oust foreign troops and the pro-Western Afghan government is most virulent.
"I kept saying for the last six or seven years, but the international community never used to listen to us: narcotics is stronger than terrorism, stronger than al Qaeda because it is fuelling the drug traffickers, the Taliban and terrorism," Khodaidad said.
The opium crop was worth $4 billion to the Afghan economy last year, the U.N. estimates. The crop funds the insurgency and fuels official corruption, both of which weaken state control over parts of the country and allow more drugs to be produced.
"When there is a good governor, a good police chief and law and order, there is no poppy and where there is violence, the drug dealers are operating and there is corruption," Khodaidad said.
Despite sustained pressure from the international community, the Afghan government has been slow to tackle high-level officials involved in the drugs trade, diplomats say, but Khodaidad said law enforcement agencies were working on collecting evidence to launch prosecutions.
He also denied media reports that a cut of subsidies for salaries at the ministry by the British government had led to a brain drain among senior officials.
"It does not have any effect on our ministry. It's a free market. If someone finds a job in another place with good money, he will go there," he said. "We lost some people, but still we have good people and good people keep on coming."
(Editing by Bill Tarrant)
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AFGHANISTAN: Ousted By Iran, Afghan Refugees Languish At Home
By Anand Gopal
KABUL, Feb 26 (IPS) - Thousands of Afghan refugees, forcibly repatriated by Iran, have been living in makeshift camps across Afghanistan.
Many of the displaced, who fled the Soviet invasion and subsequent civil war, have returned to their home country to find a dearth of jobs, shelter and government programmes to help them reintegrate.
Hoden Makhtab, 40, a mother and deportee from Tehran, says: "We had lived in a house, but we left everything we owned when the (Iranian) government returned us here. There are eight people in my family. We came back here six months ago but the Afghan government has not given us any help. They haven't even visited us."
Makhtab speaks to IPS while standing next to her new home, a small cloth tent supported by wooden stays that shudder in the wind. She lives with close to 400 other families in between the construction projects of the Chamany Babrak section of Kabul, where a clutch of tents sit in an ankle-deep mud pit. There is no running water or electricity here, only dirt-dappled adults and half-naked children.
The sprawling camp is home to refugees from neighboring countries and other cities in Afghanistan. Some claim to have been deported from Pakistan, where they lived and worked during the war years. There are even some Pakistani refugees here, fleeing inclement weather and civil strife in their home country.
But the lion’s share is from Iran, where authorities have expelled thousands of Afghans in the recent months. Most of the residents here arrived from Iran and erected tents just six months ago, mirroring a process occurring in other major Afghan cities. Aid agencies say that there are hundreds of camps like Chamanay Babrak sprouting all over Afghanistan, housing thousands of deportees and pointing to the possibility of a burgeoning humanitarian crisis.
A shivering Sadaf Ismat, deportee from Iran six months ago, tells IPS, "My son-in-law was killed in an earthquake in Iran. We thought the government would help us, but instead they forced us to come here."
"I am sick and cannot eat," she says, as she shows visitors her tongue, discoloured from an untreated infection. "We have a big family but I don't know what will happen to us. There is no work for anyone and I am so sick I cannot even beg."
In a country struggling to overcome decades of war and insurgency, jobs are scarce. While some residents here are able to find wage work for a day, most are forced to beg. The returned refugees lack wood to protect against the bitter Kabul winter -- causing widespread sickness -- and rising food costs has meant that many go to sleep hungry.
Both the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Afghan government have programmes in place to help displaced persons who are voluntarily repatriating, but none for those expelled from other countries.
Like Makhtab, others here accuse the Iranian government of forcibly evicting them. "I went to Sheraz, Iran, 20 years ago," Fazel Ghrias tells IPS, as he furnishes a Tehran-issued refugee ID card. "We lived in tents in Iran, but the government helped us. Then one day (six months ago) they said 'your country has freedom now, you can go back’." Ghrias claims that Iranian soldiers forced the refugees to board trucks at gunpoint, and then ransacked the tents, taking all the money they could find.
"The soldiers told us," he continues, that "'if you don't go back to Afghanistan, we will kill you.' Then they burned the houses of those who refused to leave."
UNHCR estimates that close to one million Afghans have returned from Iran since 2001 and that in the last year Iran deported 360,000. According to the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Returnees Affairs (MRRA), in the first two months of this year already 17,000 Afghans have been expelled, despite an agreement between Kabul and Tehran to curtail deportations during the winter months.
UNHCR and the Iranian government both claim that those expelled were unregistered Afghans in the country illegally seeking work and should be considered economic migrants, not refugees. However, in the camps of Chamany Babrak most tenants are able to produce Tehran-issued refugee ID cards, indicating registered status.
In addition, some NGO reports suggest that Iranian soldiers often evict refugee settlements wholesale, without checking for registration status.
Camp resident Muzafar Khoram, 54, deported six months ago from Sheraz, says: "I was working near my house one day when the (Iranian) soldiers came, without warning. We had ID cards but the government didn't pay any attention to this. We didn't want to return, but they forced us, screaming 'get out of Iran!' They would not even let us collect our belongings. They forced us on to trucks, first the men and later the women and children."
UNHCR spokesperson Ahmed Nader Farhad says that his agency only considers those who voluntarily repatriate as refugees. Those expelled, therefore, fall outside of the UNHCR mandate and go without any significant aid.
"They are not Iran's and not our government's responsibility," Abdul Qader Zazai, chief advisor to Mohammed Etibari, the MRRA minister, tells IPS. Etibari said recently in a statement that the Afghan government does not have the ability or resources to absorb the thousands of deported and is asking the Iranian authorities to stem the tide of expulsions.
This appears to offer little consolation to the Chamany Babrak camp dwellers. "We are so poor and we need help -- that is our main problem," says Khoram. As he speaks a water tanker trundles through the thick mud -- the residents pool together their daily earnings to buy water -- as young children scatter from its path. "We need food and wood," he continues. "Especially in winter, we don't have what we need. We haven't received oil, flour or bread. There are 10 people in my house. We are all sick. I don't know what to do."
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Shabana's story of hope against the odds
By Dawood Azami BBC News, Rome Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Shabana, a three-year-old Afghan girl, was born with a potentially deadly facial tumour.
But as part of a pioneering project, she has been flown from Kabul to Rome where she is being operated on by a team of Western surgeons.
Shabana suffers from a particular form of skin disorder in which tumours develop along nerves, causing severe damage and premature death if left untreated.
The disease, called neurofibromatosis, is common in Afghanistan. But due to lack of medical expertise and modern equipment, it is claiming the lives of many children across the country.
Shabana arrived with her father, Janat Gul, from Kabul to Rome following a campaign by Italian photojournalist, Kash Gabriele Torsello.
Mr Torsello, 37, first met Shabana by chance in 2005 while photographing in Kabul.
He organised Shabana's first operation in the city when she was aged just nine-months-old and suffering from a severe facial abscess on her face.
Mr Torsello has visited Afghanistan several times.
While documenting the everyday life of "ordinary" Afghans, he was kidnapped in Helmand province in October 2006.
Following negotiations by the Italian foreign ministry and Afghan authorities, he was released after 23 days.
Since his release, Mr Torsello has been working to develop a programme of medical and cultural exchanges between Afghanistan and Europe.
Cultural dialogue
"Shabana's operation marks the beginning of direct collaborations between Italian and Afghan hospitals," said Mr Torsello.
"The little girl's surgical operation offered an important opportunity for European and Afghan hospitals to come together and collaborate with each other."
Shabana is the youngest of Janat Gul's four children.
This is the first time that Shabana and her 37-year-old father have travelled outside Afghanistan.
"It is a blessing in disguise. When God wants to help you, He provides all the means," said Janat Gul, who works loading and unloading trucks in Kabul.
"I am a poor person and I couldn't dream of this happening to us. I wish we had all these facilities in our own country."
It is hoped that Shabana's operation will prove a milestone in a series of medical exchanges between Afghanistan and Italy, eventually enabling Afghanistan's own doctors to treat patients with similar conditions.
This is the objective of Mr Torsello's campaign.
"We try to help Afghans help themselves and achieve independence in an effort that can be much quicker and cheaper," he said.
The photographer's ongoing picture exhibition in Italy is part of a project focusing on comprehension, acceptance and respect for different cultures and people.
Mr Torsello has worked in other Muslim countries where he embraced local cultures and accepted Islam.
"Our aim is to encourage Europe and Afghanistan to erase socio-political and cultural barriers and come closer," he said.
Afghanistan and Italy established formal links during the rule of the reformist Afghan King, Amanullah Khan (1919-1929), who visited the country in 1924 and later lived there his exile.
Muhammad Zaher Shah, another Afghan King, received Italian medical treatment in 1973, and remained in Rome for 30 years before returning to Afghanistan in 2002.
Medical equipment
Shabana's operation was carried out by an expert medical team under the direction of surgeon Fabio Abenavoli, president of the charity Smile Train Italia.
"We work closely with Afghan doctors and try to share our expertise with them," said Dr Abenavoli.
"The ultimate aim is to enable Afghan doctors to cure many other Shabanas in Afghanistan."
The 1979 Soviet invasion, followed by a civil war, destroyed much of Afghanistan's infrastructure, including its health care system.
Since the fall of the Taleban regime six years ago, health care provision has improved in some areas, largely thanks to the aid given by the international community.
But hospitals and clinics still lack much-needed modern medical equipment and a big number of local doctors are not well trained or qualified to deal with complex medical conditions.
Those Afghans who can afford the costs go to neighbouring countries, especially Pakistan and India, for medical treatment.
But many others still suffer and die from common curable diseases.
In a country where the infant and child mortality rate is among the highest in the world, Shabana's trip to Italy is a rare event.
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Women's lives worse than ever
By Terri Judd The Independent (UK) Monday, 25 February 2008
Grinding poverty and the escalating war is driving an increasing number of Afghan families to sell their daughters into forced marriages.
Girls as young as six are being married into a life of slavery and rape, often by multiple members of their new relatives. Banned from seeing their own parents or siblings, they are also prohibited from going to school. With little recognition of the illegality of the situation or any effective recourse, many of the victims are driven to self-immolation – burning themselves to death – or severe self-harm.
Six years after the US and Britain "freed" Afghan women from the oppressive Taliban regime, a new report proves that life is just as bad for most, and worse in some cases.
Projects started in the optimistic days of 2002 have begun to wane as the UK and its Nato allies fail to treat women's rights as a priority, workers in the country insist.
The statistics in the report from Womankind, Afghan Women and Girls Seven Years On, make shocking reading. Violent attacks against females, usually domestic, are at epidemic proportions with 87 per cent of females complaining of such abuse – half of it sexual. More than 60 per cent of marriages are forced.
Despite a new law banning the practice, 57 per cent of brides are under the age of 16. The illiteracy rate among women is 88 per cent with just 5 per cent of girls attending secondary school.
Maternal mortality rates – one in nine women dies in childbirth – are the highest in the world alongside Sierra Leone. And 30 years of conflict have left more than one million widows with no enforceable rights, left to beg on the streets alongside an increasing number of orphans. Afghanistan is the only country in the world with a higher suicide rate among women than men.
Campaigners say these are nationwide figures but in war-torn provinces, such as Helmand, the British area of responsibility, oppression is often worse, though the dangers make it impossible for them to monitor it accurately.
The banned practice of offering money for a girl is still rampant – along with exchanging her as restitution for crime, debt or dispute. With the going price for a child bride at £800 to £2,000 – as much as three years salary for a labourer – many grooms are forced to take loans or swap their sisters instead, explained Partawmina Hashemee, the director of the Afghan Women Resource Centre.
Mrs Hashemee, who has fought for the rights of her fellow Afghan women, initially for refugees in Pakistan, for almost 20 years, said: "For me the issue that breaks my heart is the forced marriages because of poverty – even girls as young as eight. They don't get to go to school or to go out. They are told 'you are not allowed to visit your family, we paid, now you have to work'."
In 2007 a law was passed banning marriage under 16, but Mrs Hashemee said: "The majority of people are not even aware of it. Early age marriages are increasing."
The vast majority of international aid goes directly to the Afghan government rather than non-governmental organisations. Activists are calling on the British to ring-fence some of the funding for human rights issues – such as gender-based projects – and to ensure the money reaches appropriate beneficiaries.
Mrs Hashemee said, in Kabul at least, there had been greater recognition of women's rights over the past seven years as well as major civil and political gains since the fall of the Taliban. But it remains a dangerous environment and female MPs, activists and journalists still live under constant threat of death.
Womankind is calling for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which says women in conflict zones should be offered protection and recognition of their role in the peace process as well as their human rights. Across Afghanistan women's organisations, such as Mrs Hashemee's, are now turning their attention from providing basic needs to empowering females, teaching them their rights and urging them to vote.
Often illiterate women are instructed on how Islam views women as equal. Training is offered to young men in why sexual abuse is wrong. Communities are being "mobilised" to fight for and monitor women's rights – encouraging mullahs to promote the equality that the Koran teaches.
But there are no women's rights associations in Helmand. The closest is one courageous group working in another southern province, Kandahar. Yet Mrs Hashemee is positive. She said: "I don't want to be disappointed. We will struggle on and hopefully the government and international community will help."
In a report this month the chairman of the International Development Committee, Malcolm Bruce MP, said: "There is a dangerous tendency to accept in Afghanistan practices which would not be countenanced elsewhere, because of 'cultural' differences and local traditions.
"We believe that the rights of women should be upheld equally in all countries. The government of Afghanistan has a vital role to play in this by ensuring that the international human rights commitments which it has made are fully honoured and given greater priority."
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Pakistan arrests militant linked to Bhutto attack: minister
ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistani security forces have arrested a militant with links to Osama bin Laden in connection with an October assassination attempt on Benazir Bhutto, the interior minister said Tuesday.
Qari Saifullah Akhtar, who was accused by Bhutto of plotting against her in her posthumously published memoirs, was seized on Monday, interior minister Hamid Nawaz told AFP.
"Most probably he is involved in the attack in Karsaz on Benazir Bhutto's rally. He is a big character," Nawaz said, referring to an attack on Bhutto's homecoming parade in Karachi's Karsaz district on October 18 that killed 139 people.
Opposition leader Bhutto survived the attack but was killed in a suicide blast in an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27. Her party went on to win the most seats in parliamentary elections last week.
"The book which Benazir Bhutto has written, his name is written in that," Nawaz said.
Bhutto's book, "Reconciliation", was published earlier this month and said Akhtar was involved in preparing the double suicide attack on her in October.
Akhtar, the one-time head of Harkat Jihad-e-Islami, the main Pakistan support group for Afghanistan's Taliban regime, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in August 2004 and later extradited to Pakistan.
Having known links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence service, he was released under still unclear circumstances about a year ago.
Nawaz said he was aware Akhtar had been arrested previously and "somehow got released". He did not give any further details.
Akhtar was recently engaged in a brawl with a rival jihadi group over the occupation of a shrine in the town of Sheikhupura in Punjab province and was meeting people openly, a provincial official said.
The official linked his arrest to the dispute over possession of the shrine, not the attack on Bhutto.
Akhthar spent the most of his time before 2004 living in Afghanistan where he met bin Laden several times before the hardline regime was deposed.
At the time, officials said he was wanted in connection with two deadly attempts to assassinate Musharraf in December 2003. Officials said he was later cleared of involvement.
One of the key operatives of his group, British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was convicted and sentenced to death for plotting the abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in early 2002.
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